It's called a destructive format, you morons

You reformat, fill every every byte with 255, then 0 or the reverse, or an even more rigorous procedure.
UGH !

Computer hard drive sold on eBay 'had details of top secret U.S. missile defence system'

Highly sensitive details of a US military missile air defence system were found on a second-hand hard drive bought on eBay.

The test launch procedures were found on a hard disk for the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) ground to air missile defence system, used to shoot down Scud missiles in Iraq.

The disk also contained security policies, blueprints of facilities and personal information on employees including social security numbers, belonging to technology company Lockheed Martin - who designed and built the system.

A missile launch in California: Details of the ground-to-air defence system were found on a computer hard drive

British researchers found the data while studying more than 300 hard disks bought at computer auctions, computer fairs and eBay.

The experts also uncovered other sensitive information including bank account details, medical records, confidential business plans, financial company data, personal id numbers, and job descriptions.

The drives were bought from the UK, America, Germany, France and Australia by BT's Security Research Centre in collaboration with the University of Glamorgan in Wales, Edith Cowan University in Australia and Longwood University in the US.

A spokesman for BT said they found 34 per cent of the hard disks scrutinised contained 'information of either personal data that could be identified to an individual or commercial data identifying a company or organisation.'

And researchers said a 'surprisingly large range and quantity of information that could have a potentially commercially damaging impact or pose a threat to the identity and privacy of the individuals involved was recovered as a result of the survey.'

Two disks appear to have been formerly used by Lanarkshire NHS Trust to hold information from the Monklands and Hairmyres hospitals including patient medical records, images of x-rays, medical staff shifts and sensitive and confidential staff letters.

In Australia, one disk came from a nursing home and contained pictures of patients and their wounds.

Confidential material including network data and security logs from the German Embassy in Paris were also discovered on a disk from France.

And the trading performances and budgets of a UK-based fashion company, corporate data from a major motor manufacturing company were discovered along with details of a proposed 50 billion currency exchange through Spain involving a US-based consultant.

Dr Andy Jones, head of information security research at BT, who led the survey, said: 'This is the fourth time we have carried out this research and it is clear that a majority of organisations and private individuals still have no idea about the potential volume and type of information that is stored on computer hard disks.

'For a very large proportion of the disks we looked at we found enough information to expose both individuals and companies to a range of potential crimes such as fraud, blackmail and identity theft.

'Businesses also need to be aware that they could also be acting illegally by not disposing of this kind of data properly.'

Dr Iain Sutherland of the University of Glamorgan said: 'Of significant concern is the number of large organisations that are still not disposing of confidential information in a secure manner. In the current financial climate they risk losing highly valuable propriety data.'

A spokesman for Lockheed Martin, who make the THADD launch system, said: 'Lockheed Martin is not aware of any compromise of data related to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence programme.

'Until Lockheed Martin can evaluate the hard drive in question, it is not possible to comment further on its potential contents or source.'

A spokesman for NHS Lanarkshire said: 'This study refers to hard disks which were disposed of in 2006. At that time NHS Lanarkshire had a contractual agreement with an external company for the disposal of computer equipment.

'In this instance the hard drives had been subjected to a basic level of data removal by the company and had then been disposed of inappropriately. This was clearly in breach of contract and was wholly unacceptable.'

The spokesman said the trust now destroy equipment containing data on the premises, so no longer use external companies to dispose of IT equipment.

Offend Someone Online - Go To Prison

This from your friendly neighborhood Leftist fascist. Why isn't Rep Snachez shouted down for this kind of crap?

Oh, that's right. She's from California. Link here.

At a time when freedom of speech is already under attack like never before, a shocking new bill in the U.S. House of Representatives would make it a felony to offend someone online.

A felony.

Under this new law you would not just be slapped on the wrist and have to pay a fine.

You would go to big boy prison.

While most free speech activists have been watching the recent "hate crimes" bill, this much more insidious piece of legislation has received almost no notice whatsoever.

Just take a look at what H.R. 1966 actually says.....

Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Whoa.

So if you offend someone on Facebook you could go to federal prison for two years?

Yup.

If your blog insults someone and causes them to feel bad you could go to prison for two years?

Yeppers.

If you are in a bad mood one day and you send fire off an angry tweet on Twitter that you maybe should not have you could go to prison for two years over it?

Yes indeed.

Are you starting to get the picture yet?

Talk about an attempt to chill free speech.

So if someone reads something that you have written and it makes them feel bad they can take it to the feds and have them come get you?

That is a very, very frightening thought.

The reality is that the government is increasingly trying to control even the very small details of our lives. They are even increasingly trying to control what we say and what we think.

Freedom of speech is one of the cornerstones of a free society. If we are not free to express ourselves without the fear that someone will be offended, then what freedom will we really have left?

The reality is that if we do not stand up to this, the United States of America will quickly become overrun with politically-correct "commissars" who are eager to throw anyone who disagrees with them in jail for "hate crimes" and "thought crimes".

Things are already out of control in the United Kingdom. Did you know that there are actually undercover officers in some areas of the U.K. that sit in bars and restaurants listening for anyone who might say something offensive or racist?

You may laugh, but the United States is quickly heading down that road.

We are a nation which chose to NOT define our individuality by bloodline. A nation of ideas, not blood inheritance

So wrote Pastorius.

Mr. Thomas Paine was a bit less succinct in Common Sense.

Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession

MANKIND being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance: the distinctions of rich and poor may in a great measure be accounted for, and that without having recourse to the harsh ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice. Oppression is often the CONSEQUENCE, but seldom or never the MEANS of riches; and tho' avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.

But there is another and great distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of Heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.

In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology there were no kings; the consequence of which was, there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion. Holland, without a king hath enjoyed more peace for this last century than any of the monarchical governments in Europe. Antiquity favours the same remark; for the quiet and rural lives of the first Patriarchs have a snappy something in them, which vanishes when we come to the history of Jewish royalty.

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honours to their deceased kings, and the Christian World hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred Majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!

As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of
nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty as declared by Gideon, and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by Kings.
All anti-monarchical parts of scripture have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchical governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their governments yet to form. "Render unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's" is the scripture doctrine of courts, yet it is no support of monarchical government, for the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a state of vassalage to the Romans.

Near three thousand years passed away, from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews under a national delusion requested a king. Till then their form of government (except in extraordinary cases where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of Republic, administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts. And when a man seriously reflects on the idolatrous homage which is paid to the persons of kings, he need not wonder that the Almighty, ever jealous of his honour, should disapprove a form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative of Heaven.

Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of that transaction is worth attending to.

The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched against them with a small army, and victory thro' the divine interposition decided in his favour. The Jews, elate with success, and attributing it to the generalship of Gideon, proposed making him a king, saying, "Rule thou over us, thou and thy son, and thy son's son." Here was temptation in its fullest extent; not a kingdom only, but an hereditary one; but Gideon in the piety of his soul replied, "I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you. THE LORD SHALL RULE OVER YOU." Words need not be more explicit: Gideon doth not decline the honour, but denieth their right to give it; neither doth he compliment them with invented declarations of his thanks, but in the positive style of a prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper Sovereign, the King of Heaven.

About one hundred and thirty years after this, they fell again into the same error. The hankering which the Jews had for the idolatrous customs of the Heathens, is something exceedingly unaccountable; but so it was, that laying hold of the misconduct of Samuel's two sons, who were intrusted with some secular concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamorous manner to Samuel, saying, "Behold thou art old, and they sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a king to judge us like all the other nations." And here we cannot observe but that their motives were bad, viz. that they might be LIKE unto other nations, i. e. the Heathens, whereas their true glory lay in being as much UNLIKE them as possible. "But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a King to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto Samuel, hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other Gods: so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit, protest solemnly unto them and show them the manner of the King that shall reign over them," i.e. not of any particular King, but the general manner of the Kings of the earth whom Israel was so eagerly copying after. And notwithstanding the great distance of time and difference of manners, the character is still in fashion. "And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people, that asked of him a King. And he said, This shall be the manner of the King that shall reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his chariots and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots" (this description agrees with the present mode of impressing men) "and he will appoint him captains over thousands and captains over fifties, will set them to clear his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots, And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers" (this describes the expense and luxury as well as the oppression of Kings) "and he will take your fields and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers and to his servants" (by which we see that bribery, corruption, and favouritism, are the standing vices of Kings) "and he will take the tenth of your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work: and he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants, and ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shell have chosen, AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN THAT DAY." This accounts for the continuation of Monarchy; neither do the characters of the few good kings which have lived since, either sanctify the title, or blot out the sinfulness of the origin; the high encomium of David takes no notice of him OFFICIALLY AS A KING, but only as a MAN after God's own heart. "Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles." Samuel continued to reason with them but to no purpose; he set before them their ingratitude, but all would not avail; and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out, "I will call unto the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain" (which was then a punishment, being in the time of wheat harvest) "that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, IN ASKING YOU A KING. So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for WE HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A KING." These portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe that there is as much of kingcraft as priestcraft in withholding the scripture from the public in popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the popery of government.

To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and tho' himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in Kings, is that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule, by giving mankind an ASS FOR A LION.

Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honors than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honors could have no power to give away the right of posterity, and though they might say "We choose you for our head," they could not without manifest injustice to their children say "that your children and your children's children shall reign over ours forever." Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most wise men in their private sentiments have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils which when once established is not easily removed: many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.

This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an honorable origin: whereas it is more than probable, that, could we take off the dark covering of antiquity and trace them to their first rise, we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners of pre-eminence in subtilty obtained him the title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing in power and extending his depredations, overawed the quiet and defenseless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions. Yet his electors could have no idea of giving hereditary right to his descendants, because such a perpetual exclusion of themselves was incompatible with the free and restrained principles they professed to live by. Wherefore, hereditary succession in the early ages of monarchy could not take place as a matter of claim, but as something casual or complemental; but as few or no records were extant in those days, the traditionary history stuff'd with fables, it was very easy, after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale conveniently timed, Mahomet-like, to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar. Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed to threaten, on the decease of a leader and the choice of a new one (for elections among ruffians could not be very orderly) induced many at first to favour hereditary pretensions; by which means it happened, as it hath happened since, that what at first was submitted to as a convenience was afterwards claimed as a right.

England since the conquest hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones: yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honourable one. A French bastard landing with an armed Banditti and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in it. However it is needless to spend much time in exposing the folly of hereditary right; if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them promiscuously worship the Ass and the Lion, and welcome. I shall neither copy their humility, nor disturb their devotion.

Yet I should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at first? The question admits but of three answers, viz. either by lot, by election, or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a precedent for the next, which excludes hereditary succession. Saul was by lot, yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear from that transaction that there was any intention it ever should. If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next; for to say, that the right of all future generations is taken away, by the act of the first electors, in their choice not only of a king but of a family of kings for ever, hath no parallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of original sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam; and from such comparison, and it will admit of no other, hereditary succession can derive no glory. for as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all men obeyed; as in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other to sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in the first, and our authority in the last; and as both disable us from re-assuming some former state and privilege, it unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary succession are parallels. Dishonourable rank! inglorious connection! yet the most subtle sophist cannot produce a juster simile.

As to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it; and that William the Conqueror was an usurper is a fact not to be contradicted. The plain truth is, that the antiquity of English monarchy will not bear looking into.

But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which concerns mankind. Did it ensure a race of good and wise men it would have the seal of divine authority, but as it opens a door to the FOOLISH, the WICKED, and the IMPROPER, it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent. Selected from the rest of mankind, their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed in the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.

Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the throne is subject to be possessed by a minor at any age; all which time the regency acting under the cover of a king have every opportunity and inducement to betray their trust. The same national misfortune happens when a king worn out with age and infirmity enters the last stage of human weakness. In both these cases the public becomes a prey to every miscreant who can tamper successfully with the follies either of age or infancy.

The most plausible plea which hath ever been offered in favor of hereditary succession is, that it preserves a nation from civil wars; and were this true, it would be weighty; whereas it is the most bare-faced falsity ever imposed upon mankind. The whole history of England disowns the fact. Thirty kings and two minors have reigned in that distracted kingdom since the conquest, in which time there has been (including the revolution) no less than eight civil wars and nineteen Rebellions. Wherefore instead of making for peace, it makes against it, and destroys the very foundation it seems to stand upon.

The contest for monarchy and succession, between the houses of York and Lancaster, laid England in a scene of blood for many years. Twelve pitched battles besides skirmishes and sieges were fought between Henry and Edward. Twice was Henry prisoner to Edward, who in his turn was prisoner to Henry. And so uncertain is the fate of war and the temper of a nation, when nothing but personal matters are the ground of a quarrel, that Henry was taken in triumph from a prison to a palace, and Edward obliged to fly from a palace to a foreign land; yet, as sudden transitions of temper are seldom lasting, Henry in his turn was driven from the throne, and Edward re-called to succeed him. The parliament always following the strongest side.

This contest began in the reign of Henry the Sixth, and was not entirely extinguished till Henry the Seventh, in whom the families were united. Including a period of 67 years, viz. from 1422 to 1489.

In short, monarchy and succession have laid (not this or that kingdom only) but the world in blood and ashes. 'Tis a form of government which the word of God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it.

If we enquire into the business of a King, we shall find that in some countries they may have none; and after sauntering away their lives without pleasure to themselves or advantage to the nation, withdraw from the scene, and leave their successors to tread the same idle round. In absolute monarchies the whole weight of business civil and military lies on the King; the children of Israel in their request for a king urged this plea, "that he may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles." But in countries where he is neither a Judge nor a General, as in England, a man would be puzzled to know what IS his business.

The nearer any government approaches to a Republic, the less business there is for a King. It is somewhat difficult to find a proper name for the government of England. Sir William Meredith calls it a Republic; but in its present state it is unworthy of the name, because the corrupt influence of the Crown, by having all the places in its disposal, hath so effectually swallowed up the power, and eaten out the virtue of the House of Commons (the Republican part in the constitution) that the government of England is nearly as monarchical as that of France or Spain.
Men fall out with names without understanding them. For 'tis the Republican and not the Monarchical part of the Constitution of England which Englishmen glory in, viz. the liberty of choosing an House of Commons from out of their own body — and it is easy to see that when Republican virtues fail, slavery ensues. Why is the constitution of England sickly, but because monarchy hath poisoned the Republic; the Crown hath engrossed the Commons.

In England a King hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which, in plain terms, is to empoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshipped into the bargain! Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned
ruffians that ever lived.

Why attacking Iran may be morally and militarily necessary

Whaddaya mean May Be ?

American Thinker:

Why attacking Iran may be morally and militarily necessary
By James Lewis

The decision to go to war is always a profound moral question, for any sane and civilized country. It is also a military and political question, and in the case of Iran, situated as it is at the head of the Persian-Arab Gulf, a major economic question. All the ducks have to be in a row for the decision to be made.

SecDef Gates argued in public testimony last week that knocking out Iran's nuclear installations would make little sense, because it would only slow down the mullahs' rush to nukes, and not bring them to a screeching halt. But in a crisis like this one, no public statement can be believed; disinformation is at least as common as truth-telling. Some people have argued that Gates took the military option off the table, thereby Jimmy-Carterizing Obama good and proper. In this view, Obama is committing public self-castration for the cause of peace.

I don't believe it, because Gates is a pretty good player of the info/disinfo game. Obama must know that he, too, could become Carterized if the ayatollahs make the US look helpless long enough. Gates' argument also contradicts a careful recently published study on Iran's nuclear vulnerabilities. There are industrial choke-points in nuclear and missile production that are centralized, and which afford tempting targets. Even area weapons like conventional EMP could be employed. And Iran has other vulnerabilities, like its limited oil-refining capacity, that could be threatened to control any threats of revenge.

The most important military argument for striking Iran's nuke facilities is the fast development of anti-missile defenses in all the surrounding countries of the Gulf. For half a century of the nuclear age there were no effective defenses. That is now changing very rapidly. A strike on Iran's nuclear weapons of aggression could slow down its offensive capabilities and give time for defensive weapons to be perfected and deployed in all countries that are threatened by rogue nukes.

With Obama prancing and preening our new-found weakness, our allies are taking matters into their own hands. Australia just announced a new military doctrine on the assumption that the US would fail to support Pax Americana in the Pacific. Australia therefore needs to rapidly beef up its military capabilities. India is seeing the same handwriting on the wall. Japan has been acquiring US antimissile defenses, and developing its own in collaboration with the US.

We don't know what's happening in secret around the industrialized world, but when the cop on the beat gets drunk, it's not just the criminals who reach for their guns. Solid citizens do, too.

Israel has demonstrated time and again that with its back to the wall, it will strike enemies with very great effect. Saddam Hussein was developing a nuclear power plant in 1981, and under Prime Minister Menachem Begin the IAF destroyed it in a matter of minutes. France, which was building the reactor, secretly cooperated in the Israeli strike and withdrew its engineers from the Osirak plant so that none were harmed. But even in 1981 peaceniks no doubt argued that knocking down the Saddam's Osirak plant would only make Saddam stronger, and cause him to disperse his weapons and personnel. We know what happened.

This time Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States may well cooperate in secret with a powerful series of strikes on Iranian nuke facilities. They have been signaling their concerns about the mullahs like mad, because Ahmadinejad is constantly, openly threatening them. A'jad has only one string on his fiddle: It's the bald threat. He works by spreading fear and direct intimidation. The Arabs do not appreciate that; after all, they have fought the Iranians since the Persian Empire three thousand years ago. Islam's earliest victories were against the Persian Empire. A few weeks ago Egypt discovered a Hezb'allah (i.e., Iranian) plot against them, and have been ranting up a public storm against Tehran.

The real question is whether to wait a year, to allow more and better defenses, or whether to strike now that oil prices are low, and a strike will not harm economies around the world. The moral case for pinpoint strikes against Iranian world-threatening nuclear sites is irrefutable, except for those who are in denial and have therefore fled from reason. They are not in the game; they may preen and posture, but only the suckers fall for that. When the time comes the real moralists will step forward.

This matter is slipping out of US hands. None of our allies are going to let themselves be raped by such as Iran, or in the case of Eastern Europe, by Putin's Russia. India is much more powerful and has much better intelligence about Pakistan and the Taliban than it normally reveals in public. China can't be thrilled with an out-of-control North Korea, where it may not be able to influence the succession to Kim-Jong Il. Everywhere in the world where rogue powers are developing nukes, surrounding sane nations are preparing their defenses.

In the case of Israel, a little-noticed fact about the recent Gaza War -- which was really a punitive strike -- is that Hamas was able to fire its still-primitive rockets close to the nuclear complex at Dimona. That is an unbreachable red line for Israel. If Iran smuggles more effective missiles to Gaza, with more powerful warheads, the container vessel of the Dimona nuclear plant could be damaged or destroyed. That is unacceptable.

As always, Israel is playing this one very close to the vest. They will strike when the world understands it has no other option. That may be in the next 12 months. What is known in public about Israel's strike capabilities is likely to be only a fraction of what it really has in its armamentarium. The IDF has had three decades of Khomeini-type threats to Israel's existence to prepare for this.

At the same time an Israeli strike is likely to be swift and time-limited. If the US is circumvented -- something that is quite possible with the secret cooperation of Saudi Arabia, for example -- the Obama administration will have the unpalatable choice of actually fighting a faithful ally, allowing the strike(s) to proceed, or playing defense against Iranian retaliation in order to protect Arab countries and Israel if and when a strike occurs. Since the survival of Iran's neighbors is directly threatened, we are not in a realistic position to oppose rational actions taken by them in self-defense.

That's what you get when you quit being the cop: Others take over the job of policing their neighborhoods.

Rahm Emmanuel (with the obvious permission of Obama) has been threatening to keep aid against Iran hostage to Israeli concessions in Jerusalem and the West Bank. But that is no longer an option. America made such a move during the Six Day War, by blocking military supplies to Israel to stop the IDF advance into Egypt. In the last thirty years the Israelis have worked consistently to insulate themselves from such pressure by building their own weapon systems. They don't want to do that, but they can if they have to.

To be sure, the Israelis want American cooperation in any action against Iranian nukes. If they fail to get it, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Eastern Europe and the Arab countries will instantly draw their own conclusions: Pax Americana is no more. But it's their necks on the line. Israel cannot stand by and watch nuclear Armageddon come closer every day.

At some point the White House will get that, even if it hasn't so far. It's hard to tell with these people. My guess is that when push comes to shove -- as may be happening in Pakistan today -- Obama will turn into George Bush III. If not, he will be defeated in 2012 by a disillusioned American public.

Bottom line: The military option is not off the table vis-a-vis Iran. After three decades of preparation for this moment, the IDF is well-prepared to take effective action. The United States will not have much of a choice if and when that happens. I don't expect a major military strike until the last rational moment before Iran gets working nukes and delivery systems.
Obama will be given time to let his public gestures turn the stony hearts of A'jad and his Twelver Cult change toward love and peace. But when the sands run out, expect a series of very effective strikes on the nuclear choke points of Iran's WMD program.

The Genocide Mechanism

ACT:

The Genocide Mechanism

Jerusalem Post
April 26, 2009
The Genocide Mechanism
by Itamar Marcus

Survivors of the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur spoke in Geneva this week at the parallel conference on human rights to counter the UN Durban II event. Listening to them describe how they were systematically demonized by the killers made it clear that genocide does not happen in a vacuum. The hate condition of a population willing and anxious to commit genocide needs nurturing. Genocide must be framed positively to get the necessary broad public support.

Common to the framing of all genocide is a very specific kind of demonization. In Rwanda, the Hutus taught that the Tutsis were cockroaches and snakes. Tutsi women were portrayed as cunning seductresses who used beauty and sexual power to conquer the Hutus. In Bosnia, a fictitious news report said Muslims were feeding Serb children to animals at the Sarajevo zoo. Radio Rwanda repeatedly broadcast a warning that Hutus were about to be attacked by Tutsis, to convince the Hutus that they needed to attack first to protect themselves. This demonization included two specific components. First, the victims had to be perceived as a clear and present threat, so that the killers were convinced they were acting in self-defense. Second, the victims were dehumanized, so that the killers convinced themselves that they were not destroying real human beings.

A decent person will not join in a murder of innocents, but a decent person might join in the killing of a subhuman who is threatening his very existence. Framing genocide as self-defense can turn decent people into killers. Protection of children and family can turn a calm neighbor into a passionate murderer, because self-defense is always justified.

In Darfur and Rwanda, all that was necessary to turn a society of ordinary people into killers was to convince them that they were in danger, and that the people endangering them were less than human.

LOOKING BACK on Jewish history, it is clear that the method used to foment violence against Jews has always involved the same framing of “self-defense,” with only the details changed.

So when Jews were falsely accused of poisoning wells in the Middle Ages, causing thousands of deaths, even decent people joined in the killings. They did not perceive themselves as murderers because they were defending themselves and their families.

When Jews were believed to be using blood of children for Passover matzot, even decent people felt comfortable massacring Jews, as they were defending their children from horrific torture.

Even Hitler used this argument of self-defense in Mein Kampf: “In this case [given the Jews’ threat to the German people] the only salvation remaining was war, war with all the weapons the human spirit, reason, and will could muster… If the Jew… is victorious over the peoples of this world, then his crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity… Thus I believe today that I am acting according to the will of the almighty creator: When I defend myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”Hitler, too, packaged his genocide as legitimate self-defense. The details may change in each society, but the framing is always the same.

EXAMINING PALESTINIAN hate promotion today, it is especially striking and disconcerting that these components of the past genocides against Jews are prominent elements of the hate promotion of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas against Jews and Israelis.

Two items on Hamas TV earlier this month clearly document this.

Hamas TV broadcast a skit featuring actors playing a Jewish father and son, in traditional hassidic garb, discussing the hatred of Muslims that their Jewish religion mandates. The father even revives the age-old libel that Jews drink the blood of Muslims: “Shimon, look, my son, I want to teach you a few things. You have to hate the Muslims… we want to kill the Muslims, we Jews want to drink the blood of Muslims.” He later criticizes his son for washing his hands in water before prayer: “We have to wash our hands with the blood of Muslims” (Al-Aqsa TV, April 3). Ironically, the Hamas accusation that Jews drink Muslim blood came the week before Passover, the anniversary of many horrific blood libels.That same day, a Hamas religious leader ended his sermon with the promise of eventual genocide of the Jews. But to frame it properly, he opened with a depiction of Jews as the enemies of humanity: The Jews are inherently evil, seek to rule the world and are a threat to Muslims and all of humanity.

This is how Ziad Abu Alhaj framed it: “Hatred for Muhammad and Islam is in their [Jews’] souls, they are naturally disposed to it… Israel is a cancer that wants to rule the world.” He concluded that the Jews are destined to be annihilated: “The time will come, by Allah’s will, when their property will be destroyed and their children will be exterminated, and no Jew or Zionist will be left on the face of this earth” (Al-Aqsa TV, April 3).

THIS DEMONIZATION and dehumanization of Jews is not limited to Hamas. Although hesitant to call for explicit murdering of Jews while seeking Western money, the PA continues its unrelenting framing of genocide as self-defense and for the common good.

In the PA-Fatah media today, Jews and Israelis are demonized through malicious libels, including such lies as the assertion that Israel intentionally spreads AIDS and drugs, conducts Nazi-like medical experiments on Palestinian prisoners and is planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Says the Palestinian chief religious justice, Tayseer al-Tamimi: “The AIDS issue needs to receive due attention… since we neighbor a society [Israel] where the disease is widespread and which acts to transmit [AIDS] to Palestinian society. The occupying authorities, especially in Jerusalem, are working to spread drugs and drug addiction, without a doubt” (PA radio, February 17, 2008).

And this from Dr. Mutawakil Taha, head of the Palestinian Writers’ Union and former PA deputy minister: “We saw how they [Zionists] stab bellies of pregnant women, slaughter infants and eat life in cold blood. They targeted children and the wombs of women so this people won’t reproduce” (PA TV, March 4, 2008).

A July 2008 article in Al-Ayyam accused Israeli settlers of releasing rats in Jerusalem’s Old City “to turn the [Arab] residents’ life into a living hell, forcing then to leave…” (July 17, 2008). A PA TV video clip juxtaposes scenes of a real Israeli tank with fictitious scenes of a child actor being shot, creating the fiction that Israelis deliberately target and shoot Palestinian children (PATV, May 15, 2008).

Just as the Tutsis were described as cockroaches and snakes, both Hamas and the PA have described Jews as loathsome and dangerous animals, including cockroaches, spiders, scorpions and alligators.

While each libel is somewhat different, their essence is the same: The Israelis and the Jews are dangerous, they are not human, we need to defend ourselves from them and we are clearly justified in doing so.

It is tragic that this framing of genocide as necessary self-defense has been so chillingly successful.

A poll after last year’s murders of eight teenage yeshiva students found that “84 percent of Palestinians support the terror attack killing eight young students in a Jerusalem yeshiva on March 6, 2008″ (Poll by Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, The New York Times, March 19, 2008). How can an entire Palestinian society support the murder of children? Clearly, the framing of Jews and Israelis as mortally dangerous to Palestinians has been totally successful.

Israel now faces a society that is very possibly past the stage of genocide framing and at the point of seeing the killing of Israelis, even teens, as justified. All that would be necessary for the population to go along with the final script, detailed so many times by its leaders, would be the means.

'Great rage, and great fear' in Pakistan

from the Washington Post at MSNBC:

'Great rage, and great fear' in Pakistan

Refugees fleeing Swat Valley tell of Taliban crimes, abuses

By Pamela Constable and Haq Nawaz Khan
The Washington Post
updated 3:21 a.m. ET, Thurs., May 7, 2009

GOLRA, Pakistan - Hajji Karim and his extended family of 70 were camped in a dirt-floor stable 10 miles outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. It was as far as they could get from the Swat Valley, where thousands of people are fleeing from the ravages of the Taliban and the imminent prospect of war with government forces.

When Taliban fighters first entered Karim's village last month, he recounted, they said they had come to bring peace and Islamic law, or sharia, to Swat. But the next day, two of the fighters dragged a policeman out of his truck and tried to slit his throat. Horrified, a crowd rushed over, shouting and trying to shield the officer. The fighters let him go, but the incident confirmed the villagers' worst suspicions.

"We all said to each other, what sort of people have come here? And what kind of sharia is this? Cutting off people's heads has nothing to do with Islam," recounted Karim, 55, a bus driver. "The people were filled with great rage, and great fear."

Authorities in North-West Frontier Province said that with the conflict intensifying, they expect half a million people to flee the once-bucolic Swat region near the Afghan border, much of which is now occupied by heavily armed militants. Officials announced Tuesday that they plan to open six refugee camps in the safer nearby districts of Swabi and Mardan, but until then, many who leave home to escape the violence are facing the arduous task of finding their own shelter.

Refugees confused and trappedAs the refugees begin streaming out of Swat and the neighboring Buner district in northwest Pakistan, they carry with them memories of the indignities and horrors inflicted by occupying Taliban forces -- locking women inside their homes, setting donkeys on fire -- as they tried to force residents to accept a radical version of Islam.

The government has not helped, refugees said, with its erratic, seesawing efforts to appease and fight the militants. Some said they felt confused and trapped, unsure whether to trust the peace deal forged by the government and Taliban leaders last month, or to flee in anticipation of the fighting that has begun as the peace accord collapses.

Sher Mohammed, a property dealer from Mingora, the main town in Swat, was one of the first people to reach a new refugee camp in the Mardan district with his wife and children Tuesday night. On Wednesday, he kicked the dirt outside their tent despondently, saying that after enduring two years of fighting and Taliban abuses, he had had enough.

"I feel like I have lost my mind," he said. "I work hard to make a respectable life and educate my children. Now we are living in a camp, and my sons are talking of guns."

Mohammed said he did not understand why the country's powerful army had not been able to defeat the militants before they took over the valley. Even now, after a week of sporadic fighting, military officials have not announced an offensive against the militants who occupy much of Swat and Buner. The Taliban has repeatedly rejected government overtures to salvage the peace deal, in which the militants agreed to disarm if sharia courts were made the exclusive form of justice in Swat.

Army officials said 35 militants and three soldiers were killed Wednesday in Swat in sporadic fighting, including a shootout near several emerald mines that Taliban forces are using as hideouts. They said militants looted three banks and occupied police and civil administration buildings in Mingora. The military reported that an additional 50 militants had been killed in Buner.

Not enough helpThe United Nations humanitarian office in Islamabad said it has already registered more than 2,200 families in new camps, "many of them arriving with little more than the clothes they are wearing." In a statement, the office said it would also increase assistance to help about 6,000 additional families in existing camps for Afghan refugees.

One private relief agency based in Swat said that it has been relocating hundreds of families at scattered sites in the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi but that no local government or international agency had offered to help. Its officials said they were concerned that Taliban fighters would try to recruit displaced people relocated in large camps.

"People in Swat are angry and confused, because the government is reaching out to the Taliban and fighting them at the same time," said Mohammed Riatullah, a relief agency official. "There are huge numbers of people with nowhere to go. We are trying to provide them with decent shelter and support, but we need more help so they won't fall into Taliban hands."

Fears of camp infiltrationPakistan has hosted millions of refugees from conflicts in Afghanistan during the past two decades, with networks of camps in the northwest and in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. There have been frequent accusations that militant groups infiltrate the camps to use them as sanctuaries and recruiting pools. Military analysts say they suspect that the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan uses refugee camps in Baluchistan for these purposes.

Since militants began staging attacks and occupying territory inside Pakistan several years ago, thousands of inhabitants of the northwest tribal region have been displaced by fighting and have relocated to camps around Peshawar.

In Buner, army forces have been battling Taliban fighters for the past week, and the army said Wednesday that the operations were going smoothly. But several people who have fled from Buner to the provincial capital of Peshawar, or who were reached in Buner by cellphone, said that the situation was dire and that Taliban forces were still occupying many homes.

They said Buneris were especially vulnerable to Taliban attacks for several reasons. The district is famous for its Sufi shrines, where people practice a mystical form of Islam that is anathema to the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban. In addition, residents formed militias to resist the Taliban last year, and one village paid dearly for its defiance when voting stations were bombed in December, killing 42 people.

"When the militants entered our area, the people held a jirga to discuss what to do. They said they would never accept them and vowed to fight to the death," said Sirmir Khan, director of an educational charity in Buner who fled to Peshawar last week after Taliban forces occupied his offices. "They are not Muslims, they are criminals who are defaming our religion, and the people of Buner are not their friends."

Afsar Khan, the mayor of a town in Buner who had also fled to Peshawar recently, said that the militants had burned many houses and fields in his area and that last year he had joined an armed posse that attempted to drive them out. "We only had about 100 men, and the militants were coming down from the mountains," Khan recounted. "They fired on us from 5 p.m. to midnight and we were running out of ammunition. We called for help, and the officials kept telling us helicopter gunships were coming, but they never did. Finally we told all the farmworkers to run away, because we could not protect them, and we had to give up."

'Everyone was very afraid'In a relief agency office in Islamabad on Wednesday, two teenage sisters from Buner huddled on a flour sack next to a few cooking pots, covering their faces with veils. They said they had fled their village four days ago after their father, a farm laborer, was warned by his landlord that the Taliban was coming.

"I don't know what the Taliban are, but everyone was very afraid," said one of the girls, who gave her name as Abzanan. "I am very worried because my father went back to get my brothers, and we don't know what happened to him."

Khan reported from Mardan.
© 2009 The Washington Post Company

Pakistan on the Brink

Front Page Mag:

Pakistan on the Brink
By: Steve Schippert
FrontPageMagazine.com
Wednesday, May 06, 2009

The White House revealed last week that General David Petraeus had given a stark and urgent warning about Pakistan. The embattled and torn nation now finally finds itself upon the precipice and the next two weeks, the General assured, are critical for the very survival of Pakistan. And if the nuclear power fails to meet the challenge laid before it by al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the dire consequences require little elaboration: Terrorists with direct or indirect control over nuclear weapons.

The situation is critical and the consequences both dire and realistic enough to command the American public’s greater attention. It is therefore important for us to understand the coming news cycles before they get here rather than being left to the mercy of a dizzying flurry of information when time is critical.

Pakistan has spent the better part of the past eight years denying the necessity to confront and eliminate the extremist elements within its borders and, especially in the case of its intelligence services, within its institutions.

The more moderate and democratic among Pakistanis have deferred the conflict sought actively by the Taliban and al-Qaeda by instead identifying the United States and former president Pervez Musharraf as the greater threats to a peaceful and democratic Pakistan. Pakistan’s military, which must do the dirty work of actually fighting the violent terrorists who have designs on the Pakistani state, has likewise deferred direct conflict by projecting greater ire and suspicion onto India. Unfortunately for this thinking of convenience, neither the United States nor India has designs of conquest within Pakistan. Such cannot be said of the Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance, which is now barely 60 miles from Islamabad.

With the Pakistani surrender in February, where the Taliban and al-Qaeda were ceded the Swat district and permitted to enforce their strict Sharia law there, the terrorists were not eased by the Pakistani relenting nor impressed with favorable negotiations. They were, as terrorists in conquest are, emboldened by the clear display of fear and weakness. And instead of laying down their arms as the terms of the co-signed ‘peace’ agreement called for, they raised them and stormed into the neighboring Buner district and took it, too, by force.

This seems to have woken some in Pakistan from their fearful slumber of procrastination. Pakistan has fought back to re-take Buner. But thus far, the manner of its fight still leaves much room for doubt about their commitment to defeating the terrorists among them. Rather than employ its most professional military forces in what must now be recognized as a fight for its very survival, Pakistan has chosen instead to again rely on less capable paramilitary forces and imprecise area weapons such as field artillery barrages fired from miles away and helicopter gunships.

They have made gains, but the reluctance to fully employ its professional military is cause for concern. This is why General David Petraeus has said that the next two weeks are critical for Pakistan’s very survival. It is in a fight for its life, yet the military remains reluctant to commit fully while the fractured and divided civilian government teeters ever closer to outright collapse as the assault from the terrorists exacerbates internal chasms between the two leading political forces inside Pakistan.

The United States has confidence in the Pakistani military as an institution, with little doubt it could survive a Pakistani political collapse. It is the one institution within Pakistan that has remained relatively strong through all of Pakistan’s internal trials over the decades. While the military is divided into two camps, the religious and the secular, the decade under Musharraf has assured that the secular generals have ascended to many important positions of power. And it is lead by Chief of Army Staff, General Kiyani, who is an American-trained general. This is critical because America’s top priority is not the democratic functioning of Pakistan, but rather the security of its nuclear arsenal.

But while American officials are confident that the Pakistani military can survive an internal political collapse, the Pakistani generals are not confident it can survive an all-out putsch against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In fact, top Pakistani military officials stated last week that pushing the Army to forcefully into conflict with the Pakistani Taliban would likely lead to the disintegration of the military.

And there lies the rub. It appears that Pakistan seems doomed; damned if they do, damned if they don’t. If the Taliban are not confronted and defeated, they will succeed in bringing about the collapse of the Pakistani government and likely assume the reigns of control, directly or indirectly, over the government that – on paper – oversees the military tasked with the security of the nuclear arsenal. And, according to Pakistani top brass, if they do confront the Taliban in a headlong fight, the military itself will disintegrate with parts siding with the Taliban, parts remaining loyal and others just melting away with no stomach for the fight either way.

President Zardari is hapless and useless. He is president simply because his wife, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated by the Taliban and al-Qaeda during her campaign. He doesn’t even command the support of his entire party, with half of it despising him and supporting Bhutto’s son rather than her widower. His political opposition, Nawaz Sharif, comes with all the blessings and financial of Saudi Arabia and the support of many of the powerful lawyers. But he is a political snake and commands absolutely zero loyalty from – nor ascribes any to – the Pakistani military establishment. This is essentially the state of (and prospects for) the Pakistani civilian government.

In short, no one has confidence in the Pakistani civilian government as it regularly feeds and grows its own divisions. The Taliban have political assets in place to capitalize on a political vacuum should it collapse. The United States has confidence in the stability of the Pakistani military establishment and knows that it can provide security for the nuclear arsenal, which is priority #1. But it does not want to risk its possible direction to any extent under a government in whole or in part controlled by the Taliban. The Pakistani military lacks the confidence that it can survive a full-frontal assault on the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas or the North West Frontier Province.

That’s quite a stew. What seems to be brewing, considering all of these factors? If, with an American nod of approval, Kiyani can lead a coup and reinstall an at least stable and strong military atop the Pakistani government, the United States and the rest of the West can be assured of the security of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. All other immediate priorities pale in comparison. Such a coup would pre-empt the natural collapse of the Pakistani civilian government, thus preventing a Taliban usurping.

This does not mean that the military will defeat the Taliban in the short term. In fact, for the military, it may mean that they can entertain procrastination for a bit longer, putting off the inevitable. Nor does it mean that the threat posed by the Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance will be abated or that the Pakistani people will react favorably. But it will mean that the nightmare scenario of terrorist access to and/or control of a nuclear arsenal will be at least forestalled for another day.

Welcome to Pakistan.

This Week On The Gathering Storm

Listen to The Gathering Storm Radio Show, which WC and I cohost. The show broadcasts live every Friday beginning at noon, Pacific Time.

The call-in number is (646) 915-9870.

Callers welcome!

Our guest today at the bottom of the hour is Tracy of No Compromise When You're Right! Tracy also has a cutting-edge radio show on Blog Talk Radio and is the head of the Seattle chapter of Act! For America.

Listen to the May 8, 2009 edition of The Gathering Storm Radio Show, live or later, by CLICKING HERE.

UPCOMING SHOWS:
May 15: Frank Salvato
May 22: John Kenneth Press and Midnight Rider
May 29: Koran debate

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: "Lily-livered Europe Has Surrendered To Islam"

Via Jihad Watch:

...Today, in the name of Islam, synagogues are vandalised. There are open denials of the Holocaust. There is an active network of Muslim organisations lobbying to curtail or even get rid of Israel. There are incidents of Jews being harassed, beaten, even killed. All this is met with grim silence and rationalisations that it's not really anti-Semitic but anti-Israel. Can you imagine anything like this happening today in America to black people and it being met with silence?

[...]

In reality, if Europe falls, it's not because of Islam. It is because the Europeans of today - unlike their forbears in the Second World War - will not die to defend the values or the future of Europe. Even if they were asked to make the final sacrifice, many a post-modern lily-livered European would escape into an obscure mesh of conscientious objection. All that Islam has to do is walk into the vacuum.

Read the entire essay HERE. Worth your time.

Culturist Perspective: Islam Day

The resolution to make September 24th, ‘Islam Day’ in Hawaii is culturist blashphemy. The Senate is multiculturalist. That means they do not believe the West has a core traditional culture to promote. They think our land is a blank slate without history where random cultures meet. And, for the sake of equal representation, we must celebrate Islam for a day. Herein is the irony. Multiculturalists do not believe that cultural diversity exists. They think it is all about food, fashion and festivals. They have never heard of Jihad.

Shockingly, Hawaii’s Senate has no basic historical knowledge. The West and Islam have been at war for the vast majority of our 1400 year co-existence. After Islam was born it spread like an imperialist plague. It took a larger chunk of the world in 100 years than Rome did in eight hundred. Why did we have the Crusades? Islam had taken over the Middle East and what is now Israel. We had to fight to re-establish access to the Holy City. That is basic knowledge. Islam nearly toppled the West via the Eastern Europe. We only repelled them in the 1683, September 11th, battle of Vienna. Muslim’s who know basic history know significance of that date. But the Hawaiian Senate doesn’t know any history. If they did, they would not sing the praises of those who nearly destroyed our civilization.

Culturism knows about history and diversity. It knows that history has not ended and that struggles for survival are going on. Islam is expanding. The world is not getting more diverse. The West is getting more diverse. Not China. Not the Middle East. The West: European based nations. Culturism says we must choose immigrants based on what they bring the West and be aware that some cultures are odious to our customs and others are hostile to our survival. Multiculturalism does not want to look at real practice or history. Polygamy and honor killings exist. Acknowledging the importance of culture is not racist, it is culturist. Not all cultures celebrate ‘human rights.’ There is not global community. We have no right to move to Saudi Arabia or China. Only the West supports the idea of western rights. We must protect the West. Celebrating those who oppose our very values does not help.

We have to reassert that we have a specific culture to protect. Since we are a western nation with western values, we should only officially support western holidays. That sends a message concerning values. It tells the world that we have a specific culture. We believe in free speech, the relative separation of church and state, individual rights, female rights, and democracy.. China and Iran do not accept these values. Diversity exists. We have a past to celebrate. We have a triumph over the forces of darkness in our past. And, if we do not stand for this we will fall for anything. To celebrate Islam is to mock those who have died to protect us. It makes a mockery of both September 11ths. It belittles our freedoms to say that other cultures are just as free. We should commemorate 9-11 with a holiday. We should have a holiday for the original Martin Luther. We should have Pope day. But we should not celebrate things outside of our tradition. We should not have Islam Day.

www.culturism.us

Aloha, It's Islam Day

"Islam Day" in Hawaii.

(via Patterico)

It's noteworthy that the one faction of people that the 9/11 hijackers impressed the most with their act of power and murder are socialists. "Islam" has really enthralled socialists.

Congressional Report Warns U.S. Underestimating Iran's Nuclear Progress

No Shit Dick Tracy. Hell, we've been saying this for years. Now imagine, though, had the previous administration said this. "Fear mongering" "Scare Tactics"

What I can't figure out is if Obama is going to use this in negotiations, or use it to walk away from the table. Damn politicians are all alike and none of them worth a damn thing.

from Fox News:

Congressional Report Warns U.S. Underestimating Iran's Nuclear Progress

WASHINGTON -- Congressional investigators say some foreign intelligence analysts believe U.S. intelligence is underestimating Iran's progress toward designing a nuclear warhead before Tehran halted its program in 2003.

The foreign analysts believe that Iran ended its work because it had made sufficient progress, not because of international pressure, as the 2007 U.S. national intelligence assessment concluded.

The report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not identify its sources, referring only to "intelligence analysts and nuclear experts working for foreign governments." It says some research was conducted in Israel, which has been publicly critical of the 2007 U.S. assessment.

The foreign analysts believe "intelligence indicates Iran had produced a suitable design, manufactured some components and conducted enough successful explosives tests to put the project on the shelf until it manufactured the fissile material required for several weapons," the report says.

The revelations by the committee, headed by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., come as President Barack Obama is promising direct engagement with Iran and seeking diplomatic openings. The report backs the Obama administration's approach but recommends balancing new openings with continued pressure.

In an introduction to the report, Kerry wrote that a major obstacle the administration will have to negotiate "is the suspicion surrounding Iran's nuclear program." (Waffles wrote that?!?!?!)

The report also provides new details on Iran's nuclear program and its attempts to thwart U.N. inspectors. Citing an unidentified official at the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, it says that Iran reneged at the last minute on an agreement last summer to allow inspectors to visit suspected nuclear workshops.

"Unclassified U.S. intelligence assessments and staff interviews with government officials and diplomats in Washington and foreign countries leave little doubt that Iran has the technological and industrial capacity to eventually develop an atomic bomb," the report concludes.

The report examines material provided to the IAEA by U.S. intelligence from a laptop computer that reportedly was smuggled out of Iran. In 2005, U.S. intelligence assessed that information as indicating that Tehran had been working on details of nuclear weapons, including missile trajectories and ideal altitudes for exploding warheads.

The material on the laptop also included videos of what intelligence officials believe were secret nuclear laboratories in Iran.

Iran has accused the United States of fabricating the material. The report says that U.N. and non-U.S. intelligence officials told committee investigators that they could not rule out an intelligence ruse, but they say other documents corroborate some of the information from the laptop.

The report says that officials the committee talked to concluded the documents "appear to be authentic, right down to the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the workshops."
Iran insists that its nuclear program is purely to provide electric power, not weapons.

The report also reveals that Iran agreed to allow the IAEA to inspect the workshops last August. After a senior IAEA official arrived in Tehran, however, the agency was told that the government had changed its mind.

The report concludes that Iran continues to use front companies to look for important components on the black market. It says that it is particularly eager to obtain carbon fibers and specialized metals for use in advanced centrifuges.

Humpday Blues

The PROPER way this song should be done

Big Mama Thornton

Hound Dog

Elvis WHO???

No Freedom of Religion for Grandma Obama

Radio Vatikan reports today:

The Muslim grandmother of the US-american President Barack Obama, Sarah Obama, intends to convert to the Christian faith. This was maintained by a pastor of the Seventh-Day-Adventist Free Church in Kisumu, Kenia. Sarah Obama assured him that she intends to be baptised this very month. His congregation, he says, is prepared for the ceremony.

According to the news agency Apic, the local Muslim congregation deplores this approach of the Adventists. The Christian-Muslim relationships are under strain now because of the speculations about Sarah Obama's conversion.

Awmegawd! "Christian-Muslim relationships under strain"! Call the Police! Alert the media! But seriously, so what else is new? Everything but the self-disbandment of the Christian faith will put "Christian-Muslim relationships under strain". The real question is: Can Sarah become First Grandmother now?

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

In which our synagogue hosts muslims praying in the rabbi's office???

Lately immigration has been a warmer subject to this blog, and the the other blog where I write. I have extolled the value to America of immigration of those who WISH to be Americans.

In another of the series of talks we have had which has had it's highs and lows - frank recognition of the difficulties engendered by a religious founding doc which must be regarded as the perfect uncreated word, and recommendations for us to read intros to Islam by utterly dhimmified fools, last night we had a discussion of the experience of Muslims in America.

I am going to lay it out dispassionately.

The word CAIR was never mentioned.

There are some aspects and suggestions in the objective data (all from Pew) that at this point Muslims in the USA, 2/3 of whom, are 1st generation immigrants that we may be seeing just what was present in other 1st generation groups.

Consider this.

Of the 35% native born muslims, the vast majority, converts to Islam are actually the folks who used to be the Nation of Islam but were brought into the maintream of Sunni Islam by the son of Elijah Muhammad.

One huge difference between those who came here as muslims and earlier waves (though the numbers are too small to call this a wave, this prof estimated about 1.5 million) is education level. Here in a america, among measured religious groups only jews have a higher college graduate percentage.

71% of Muslim Americans agree that most people who
want to get ahead in the U.S. can make it if they are willing to work hard.

78% are happy or very happy with their lives.

In the mid 40%'s they would tell other muslims coming to assimilate, in the mid 20%'s they would say, don't.
(I canot find numbers like this for the early 20th century groupings)

Here is a VERY INTERESTING ITEM.... look at the first line and then the last. In a first generation group of immigrants I wonder if any of the southern europeans, or jews would have polled much differently.

Or maybe we should all be alarmed that very low numbers think of themselves as american first.

Of those muslims who thought of themselves as americans first, a two thirds hardly go to mosque, a few days a year ... in other words the equivalent of Easter-Xmas or Jewish High Holidays.

Of those who think of themselves as muslims first, 74% go never to a few times.

????????

Since we had an open discussion which had been announced we had one muslima (covered) and 4 gusy show up from U Maine.

They seemd quite relaxed and had some questions and did not seem reticent to ask and take part.

Of course the subject of Israel never came up in discussion except to say that an astonishing 61% of muslims here believe that peace can be reached there. I said nothing.
Data for Europe is very dismal compared to the USA. There is little assimilation or hope for it. Earnings data shows them pitifully behind. I remarked as how across 1900 years assimilation for jews in europe did not go too well either.

After the occasion we hade tea, dessert, and soda. The crowd mixed easily. This congregation is essentially professional people, either professors at the university, or medical and legal people. The muslims who came along were right in that milieu.

Perhaps that explains the vast majority of muslims here more than anything else.

While we were in discussions with some I notice others, praying in the rabbi's office. They asked only for a place. I saw the door close so I got it, but it was a truly remarkable moment, if incongruous.

Soon I hope to have Dr. Bostom up here, and bring a crow like dose of reality to some of this. While we are far from the center of things, CAIR is real, the Muslim Brotherhood is real, and we all know that movements are created with a small number of actors who have broad unstated support. But it is just as important to be sure we also know it is not all HAMAS and Qaradawi, and recognize that we may skirt by some problems because the big party known as America is just too pretty to resist, ALL the time.

Maybe.

The data give one warning, but it is one true across all religions in america right now .. younger people take religion much more seriously. I am one who has differentiated Islam because of the Quran being mandatorily taken as the perfect word of a perfect being, so HERE is something to mull about the attitude of americans who happen to be muslim.

Obama’s “Blood-Tax”

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

I have emphasized in the past why the Republicans and conservatives are becoming irrelevant, chiefly because they dare not challenge the political philosophy and political agenda of the Democrats, for the philosophy and agenda are fundamentally their own, as well, but in watered-down form. In morality, it is altruism; in politics, collectivism. The Democrats brazenly advocate socialism (under the euphemism of “progressivism”), fascism in various newly-instituted government-business “partnerships,” and involuntary servitude, and rush through Congress bailouts, more controls, and expropriating legislation. The Republicans clamor that such tactics will not work and will lead to collapse and disaster. Their solution, under the cloak of moderation, is to creep up on the same things using different labels, and then they will work.

The Democrats, being consistent pragmatists, claim neither omnipotence nor omniscience; they simply hope their policies and actions will work. They have often said so. They are the “brave” pragmatists. The Republicans and conservatives do not challenge the Democrats on that score; instead, they protest the policies of the Democrats on the issues of speed and scale. They are the “moderate” pragmatists. Individual rights, capitalism, freedom of speech -- these issues do not exist in either camp.

In his May 2 article “National Service: Now Bigger than Ever,” Carl Horowitz questions, for example, the speed and scale of the AmeriCorps volunteer service legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama on April 21. He does not question the idea that young Americans ought to serve.

“Who could argue with so noble an idea as ’national service’? On the surface, the idea is irresistible.”

Who could? Individuals who value their freedom would find the idea not only iniquitous, but ignoble, and condemn it as slavery. Horowitz, however, questions only the cost and scope of the bill and suspects that Obama and the Democrats are preparing the way for compulsory national service, with which he is uncomfortable.

Underlying such noble intentions…is the reality that the track record of service programs has been less than stellar. And more problematic, ‘voluntary’ service, as supporters themselves have admitted over the years in unguarded moments, contains more than a whiff of compulsion. That’s why, if fully realized, national service programs would capture an enormous portion of the entry-level labor market and, worse, militarize our national identity.

Yes, that might happen. He does not understand that, to the Obamacrats and their allies in and out of Congress, the term “compulsion” is synonymous with “obligation” vis-à-vis “giving back,” the latter being their preferred term. The mental gymnastics of collectivists does not view paying a “debt” to society as a matter of force or extortion. “Society” is the master unit, the individual its indebted but often ungrateful servant. After all, runs the patter, if it were not for the existence of society, where would the individual be? Society makes his life tolerable and comfortable; it is only fair that he “give back” something.

The bill signed by Obama is the Senate version, called the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. The House version was called the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act (GIVE). I leave to the reader to decide which name is more objectionable.

…The law would more than triple the number of available AmeriCorps volunteerslots from the current 75,000 to 250,000 by fiscal year 2017, with 50 percent or more of these positions eventually being full time. The measure would also tie college tuition aid to demonstrated favorable community impacts….

Horowitz discusses throughout his article the history of “volunteerism” and asserts that the trend towards federally mandated compulsion is impractical, and cites the “volunteerism” possible through private programs as being more effective and practical. He concludes:

…The line between service and servility is often blurred. The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act would blur it further.

He does not see that the blurring is intentional. People drilled all throughout their lives that “service” is their natural duty will not regard it as servitude. The advocates of compulsory service understand this, if he does not.

There was the War on Poverty, followed by wars on smoking, obesity, salt-consumption, ability, ageism, sexism, homophobia, and “harmful“ speech and whatever else the social engineers frowned upon. In the course of reprising the political history of “volunteerism” in this country, including the Peace Corps, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and the role of the Clinton-inspired Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), Horowitz at least credits the intellectual inspiration for these fascist programs: American philosopher William James (1842-1910) and his seminal essay, published in 1910, “The Moral Equivalent of War” (adapted from his 1906 address at Stanford University).

James, a pragmatist with strong subjectivist, religious and deterministic elements in his world view, argues that, lacking a cause, such as war, that would unify a nation and instill it with altruist vigor, a policy of civilian conscription should be implemented. Without such a program, he argues, a nation cannot help but grow soft, degenerate, and distracted by materialism. James could be deemed the father of American fascism.

The Britannica Concise Encyclopedia offers a general description of National Socialism, or Nazism.

It had its roots in the tradition of Prussian militarism and discipline and German Romanticism, which celebrated a mythic past and proclaimed the rights of the exceptional individual over all rules and laws. Its ideology was shaped by Hitler’s beliefs in German superiority and the dangers of communism and need for
an enemy.*

James advocated compulsory servitude -- but to oppose what enemy? He also claimed that the nation needed an enemy to rouse its citizens from the spiritual laxness of industrial civilization. Men, he said, had a natural instinct for war. James was a pacifist and abhorred war. But at the same time he asserted that the fear of being conquered could unite citizens as nothing else could in terms of being imbued with the spirit of a “peaceful” common cause. If making war was in man’s nature, he asked, why not direct that instinct to more constructive purposes?

If now -- and this is my idea -- there were, instead of military conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature, the injustice would tend to be evened out, and numerous other goods to the commonwealth would remain blind as the luxurious classes now are blind, to man’s relations to the globe he lives on, and to the permanently sour and hard foundations of his higher life. To coal and iron mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in December, to dishwashing, clothes washing, and window washing, to road-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and stoke-holes, and to the frames of skyscrapers, would our gilded youths be drafted off, according to their choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas. They would have paid their blood-tax….

What injustices would be “evened out”? James mentions that the rich are rich through no credit of their own, and the poor are poor for no fault of their own. A nationalistic spirit would level everything out; the rich would not mind paying taxes to defeat an enemy; the poor would find a better purpose in life. James conceded, even in the early twentieth century, before the income tax and central banking were legislated in this country, that the country was on a path to socialism. What might help make it work would be to instill a militaristic, self-sacrificing ethic in Americans.

All the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs him. If proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourishing such pride; but it has to be confessed that the only sentiment which the image of pacific cosmopolitan industrialism is capable of arousing in countless worthy breasts is shame at the idea of belonging to such a collectivity. It is obvious that the United States of America as they exist today impress a mind…as so much human blubber. Where is the sharpness and precipitousness, the contempt for life, whether one’s own or another’s? Where is the savage ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ the unconditional duty? Where is the conscription? Where is the blood-tax? Where is anything that one feels honored by belonging to?

Substitute “race“ for “collectivity” and “Germany” for “the United States,” and one would discern little difference between James’s rhetoric and any one of Hitler’s public harangues to a rally of the Nazi converted. Remember that James uttered these words in 1906, when Hitler was just a “troubled teen“ and Mussolini was a twenty-something feeling his socialist oats. Indeed, as Leonard Peikoff points out, Mussolini credited James with much of his corporatist/fascist ideology. (The ultimate credit, as Peikoff points out in The Ominous Parallels, goes to Immanuel Kant and G.F. Hegel.) James wrote glowingly of what he considered to be adult sobriety:

Martial virtues must be the enduring cement; intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command, must still remain the rock upon which states are built….

These are some of the “healthier sympathies” and “soberer ideas” already being taught in American schools and absorbed by countless children, who have always been treated as the “rock” upon which statism is built.

James’s proposal is as far from the animating ideas of the Founders as one can go without falling off the edge of comprehension. And his notion of waging war against “nature” has been substituted with waging war against man himself. As Jon Roland of the Constitution Society notes in his introduction to James’s essay:

This concept is regarded by some as the origin of the idea of organized national service. The line of descent can be traced directly from this address to the depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, to the Peace Corps, VISTA, and AmeriCorps. Though some phrases grate upon modern ears, particularly the assumption that only males can perform such service, several racially-biased comments, and the now discredited notion that ‘nature’ should be treated as an enemy, it still sounds a rallying cry for services in the interests of the individual and the nation….The solution to the problem remains an open question, now that ‘nature’ is not to be regarded as an ‘enemy.’ The real ‘enemy’ is our own darker human nature….

The “green revolution” and the anti-industrial movement have supplanted James’s “warfare against nature,” which means warfare against man. To the pragmatist open to the vociferous moral proposals of others (so long as they “work“), reason and reality can be dismissed as the subjectivist leanings of others and disregarded. Man is destroying the planet, those others claim, so something must be done about it, even if that means compulsion. For example, the Democrats would rather not hear the testimony of Britain’s Lord Christopher Monckton which would have shredded former Vice President Al Gore’s assertions about man-caused climate change in his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and retracted the invitation to Monckton to appear with Gore before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee.

This was more than just politicians wishing to save Gore the “climate authority” the humiliation of being trounced in a debate about climate change by a genuine scientist and consequently creating doubt about the efficacy of environmentalist legislation. If they do not hear the truth, then it can’t be real and can be ignored. (Recall Mr. Thompson’s first response after hearing Galt’s speech in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged -- “It wasn’t real, was it?”) Monckton has his assertions, the politicians have theirs, they think, but the politicians’ assertions carry more weight because they have the power and the guns and dubious opinion polls and a pliable news media, and all that comprises the “truth.” Reality is what the political elite make it. They are willing to bet the lives, fortunes and property of Americans on it.

While he is only the latest in a line of presidents and politicians who have advocated national service, Barack Obama wants to enact his own version of a “blood-tax.”

…We need to create opportunities to serve. I’ll ask more young people to serve in uniform and expand the size of our military. And I’ll increase AmeriCorps -- our network of local, state and national service programs -- from 75,000 slots to 250,000.…That service should be directed toward pressing national challenges. We need more Americans to teach and an Energy Corps to help develop renewable and efficient energy….We need to invest in grass-roots ideas, because the ‘next great innovation’ usually doesn’t come from government [Never, in fact, but from unconquered minds and the freedom to act]. So I’ll create a Social Investment Fund Network and bring together faith-based organizations and foundations to expand successful programs across the country….We need to integrate service into education. We should help schools develop service programs outside the classroom….

So, instead of being sent to coal and iron mines and the frames of skyscrapers, young Americans will be sent to assemble solar panels and windmills and hybrid plug-in cars, in addition to mentoring children of the poor and cleaning up public spaces and keeping the elderly company -- many of them lured by the carrot of college tuition, others by the prospect of wielding the stick themselves. Instead of adopting James’s bombastic “manly virtues,” Americans will be expected to become humble servants of society and believers in causes “higher than themselves,” especially the one that demands that restitution and reparations be paid to a despoiled planet. And if not enough Americans “volunteer” to serve, they can be made to. Obama’s and the Democrats’ “blood-tax” can take two forms: direct conscription, or a special tax on the recalcitrant and the non-volunteers to fund the $5.7 billion national service price tag of the bill Obama signed.

This also means drafting business and industry into the “army” by, among other measures, restricting CEO pay, taxing “unpatriotic“ offshore wealth, strong-arming solvent banks into participating in inflationary and risky “recovery” programs, and regulating industries and power companies to reduce “greenhouse” emissions. William James would be impressed. A whole nation has been put on a war footing -- to commit suicide.

Commenting on why Americans fell for the pragmatists’ assurances that they offered a way to live on earth, Leonard Peikoff observed that:

…Americans…believed that they were joining a battle to advance their essential view of reality and of life. They did not know that they were being marched in the opposite direction, that the battle had been calculated for a diametrically opposite purpose, or that the enemy they were being pushed to destroy was: themselves.**

The task before the advocates of reason and individual rights is to inform Americans and our political leaders in no uncertain terms that a volte-face is needed, beginning with the repeal of the administration’s blood-tax, before the destruction is too advanced to stop.


*See Chapter 3: Hitler’s War Against Reason, and Chapter 6: Kant Versus America, in Leonard Peikoff’s The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America (Stein & Day, 1982) for a more thorough discussion of James’s contribution to the philosophical and political underpinnings of American statism.

**Op. cit. Chapter 6: Kant Versus America, pp. 137-138.

Crossposted at The Dougout