Saturday, July 31, 2010

New York Times on Ground Zero Mosque: Condemnation By The ADL, Which Has Always Treated Islam With Kid Gloves, May Be A Turning Point

Yes, it might be.

From the New York Times:

An influential Jewish organization on Friday announced its opposition to a proposed Islamic center and mosque two blocks north of ground zero in Lower Manhattan, intensifying a fierce national debate about the limits of religious freedom and the meaning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The decision by the group, the Anti-Defamation League, touched off angry reactions from a range of religious groups, which argued that the country would show its tolerance and values by welcoming the center near the site where radical Muslims killed about 2,750 people.

But the unexpected move by the ADL, a mainstream group that has denounced what it saw as bigoted attacks on plans for the Muslim center, could well be a turning point in the battle over the project.
In New York, where ground zero has slowly blended back into the fabric of the city, government officials appear poised to approve plans for the sprawling complex, which would have as many as 15 stories and would house a prayer space, a performing arts center, a pool and a restaurant. 

Gingrich Aide: “Building a Mosque at Ground Zero Like Putting a Statue of Mussolini or Marx at Arlington National Cemetery”


A better analogy would be Hitler or Hirohito, but point well made…

Click on the title to read the whole story.

Bin Laden Family Funding Ground Zero Mosque - Is There An Al Qaeda Link?

From Campus Watch via Atlas:

The Attorney General must examine and investigate the alleged ties and funding by Xenel Corporation and Imam Rauf and Daisy Khan. Who is Xenel? They fund the Imam and .....
The website lists Xenel Industries Ltd. as a primary donor to the Al-Falah Program. Xenel, a Saudi owned conglomerate, "provides development, manufacturing, investment, trading and services throughout a wide range of areas of interest" ranging from healthcare and infrastructure to oil and real estate, according to the company's website (www.xenel.com).
On December 10, 2002, the Orlando Sentinel published an article describing the research of a local trade union regarding Xenel, who had just been awarded a $100 million contract to build the city of Orlando a new state-of the-art convention center. The article reveals that Xenel CEO Abdullah Alireza sits on the executive board of Dar al-Maal al-Islami (DMI), a bank based in Switzerland. Haydar Mohamed bin Laden, half brother of Osama bin Laden, also sits on the twelve member executive board.
According to State Department records and the August 2002 brief filed by the families of 9/11 victims, DMI is involved in "al Qaeda financing through several of its subsidiaries, including […] Faisal Islamic Bank and Al Shamal Islamic Bank." During the 2001 trial of those suspected in the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa, Faisal Islamic Bank was implicated directly in terrorist activities by former al Qaeda operatives: Ahmed al-Fadl, a finance manager for al Qaeda, testified that al Qaeda accounts in Khartoum were held at Faisal Islamic Bank.
Xenel also funds The Cordoba Initiative and Faisal and Khan's ASMA supremacist group as well. This, according to the World Economic Forum
The Xenel Corporation, and others... endorsed projects: (hat tip to Lawrence)
1. ASMA Society: Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow
American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA)’s Cordoba Initiative proposed to convene young Muslim leaders from the US and the broader Muslim world to expand its network of Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow (MLT). The mission of the MLT is to foster a unified, uniquely American voice of Islam capable of accelerating the development of a healthy Islamic identity that is both western and closely connected to Muslim communities worldwide. MLT will act as a platform and network of emerging young Muslim leaders who are committed to this mission and have the capacity to act as change agents.
911 Imam Faisal's "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow"  fundamentalist jihadis  like Yasir Qadhi
a favorite speaker at conferences of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), among others (more here.)
This connection between Xenel and al Qaeda, according to the Orlando Sentinel, was persuasive enough that the city of Orlando decided to cancel the contract it had previously awarded to Xenel. The involvement Bin Laden-tied Xenel led to the cancellation of a different 100 million dollar project in Florida. If such ties would cancel a convention center, why not a 100 million dollar Islamic supremacist mega mosque at the site of largest attack on American soil by these same players?
- Plans for a $100 million, 250,000-square-foot convention center in the Kissimmee-St. Cloud area near Orlando have been scrapped over claims that the developer has links to terrorism.

The Osceola county commission voted to abandon a proposed partnership with Xentury City Development Co. Officials of Local 362 of the Employees Union alleged that the CEO of Xentury's Saudi-owned parent firm may have ties to a bank that reportedly funds terrorist activities.
Current CEO Kahlid Alireza of Xenel  is mentioned in the "Golden Chain" list.
The "Golden Chain" or a list purported sponsors of al Qaeda that was seized in March 2002 raid by Bosnian police authorities of the premises of the Benevolence International Foundation in Sarajevo. The list includes at least 20 top Saudi and Gulf State financial sponsors including bankers, businessmen, and former ministers. Part of the list included computer file titles "Tarekh Osama" or "Osama History", but the appellation "Golden Chain" itself is due to al Qaeda defector Jamal al-Fadl, who vouched for its authenticity; the FBI later also pronounced the document as genuine

Looking for a bin Laden link?  Orlando Business Journal Union questions come as talks over 'labor peace' appear to stall
KISSIMMEE — Osceola County's attorney will examine union claims of alleged ties between the owners of Xentury City Development Co. and the family of Osama Bin Laden.
"We aren't alleging anything," says Neal Kwatra, a Washington-based senior research analyst for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International. "We don't want to characterize this. We are just providing reproductions of publicly available facts."
[....] Xentury City is the company selected to build the $100 million Osceola County Convention Center. Its parent corporation is Saudi Arabia-based Xenel Industries.
[...] Shipley describes a 90-page packet of information that appears to indirectly tie Xentury's parent company [Xenel]  to "less than desirable individuals, businesses and organizations."
Shipley says the union officials would not leave their information packet with him, "on the advice of their attorney."
The commissioner says he invited the union leaders to present the information at the commission meeting.
Morty Miller, president of Local 362, and Kwatra declined. Both men say they feel the information needs to be presented in its entirety in a calm, dispassionate way. "We wanted to sit with the county attorney and walk her through all the information," says Kwatra. "We didn't want a 'he said, she said,' circus-like atmosphere. We were discreet; we didn't take this to the media."
The union research in question reportedly describes a "close working relationship" in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, between two wealthy families: the Alireza family and the bin Laden family.
Although the bin Laden family name is now forever tied to Osama bin Laden, it is also known in Saudi Arabia as a $5 billion global construction enterprise launched by Mohammed bin Laden, an illiterate masonry worker and the father of 54 children, including Osama.
The bin Laden family link to Xentury City [Xenel]  as reportedly outlined by the union goes through several connections:
• One major shareholder in the Al Shamal bank founded by Osama bin Laden and others is the Faisal Bank.
• A trust holds an ownership interest in the Faisal bank.
• One member of the board of supervisors of the trust is Abdullah Alireza.
• Alireza is also the managing partner and a major shareholder of Xenel Industries, the parent company of Xentury City.

The Multiplying Mysteries of Creating an Islamic Center Near Ground Zero

From PJM:

You’ve read about the plans of a small foundation called the Cordoba Initiative to build a  whopping $100 million Islamic center near Ground Zero. There are many reasons to question whether this project for a “Cordoba House” should go forward. Some involve the symbolism of the plan, and the aims of the imam carrying the standard for this project, Feisal Abdul Rauf — Imam Feisal, to his followers — a man of Egyptian descent, born in Kuwait, with offices in New York and Malaysia.

For a good rundown on why New York authorities might want to rethink their approval of this project, here’s a recent article by my colleague, Andrew McCarthy, former prosecutor in the case of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Andy writes on “Rauf’s Dawa from the World Trade Center Rubble,” including a look at a “special non-commercial” version of Rauf’s book on America and Islam, with Muslim Brotherhood connections that Rauf probably did not advertise to the Manhattan community board that approved his Cordoba House project.

New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come out in favor of building this Islamic center (well, the Cordoba Initiative is describing it as an Islamic center with “prayer space”; some are describing it as a mosque with a lot of amenities attached). But it’s not clear that Bloomberg has done his homework. For questions Hizzoner really ought to get answers to, another of my colleagues, Cliff May, has written a column framed as an open letter to Bloomberg — it’s summarized and linked on Powerline. There’s plenty more that makes interesting reading, including a Pajamas Media piece posted in March by Alyssa A. Lappen, on “The Ground Zero Mosque Developer: Muslim Brotherhood Roots, Radical Dreams.”

I’m a latecomer among reporters looking into this story, but I recently took a closer look at the amounts of money involved, and the media reports that Rauf keeps stonewalling questions about his funding. On Thursday morning, I called Rauf’s New York office, at the Cordoba Initiative, and was told that until at least the end of August he was “traveling,” that he was “out of the country,” that he was “unavailable,” and that he was “not feeling well.”

I asked for a phone number, and was told that Imam Feisal simply could not be reached — which, in an era of global mobile phones, seemed a pretty neat trick.

So, on a hunch about the erstwhile ailing, traveling, unavailable imam, I picked up the phone Thursday night — morning in Malaysia — and called his office in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. Not to leave you in suspense, but if you want to read more about it, here’s my column on “Where in the World is Imam Feisal?” One thing’s for sure. The more one looks, the more the questions just keep multiplying.

The Crisis that Wasn’t: Where’s All the Oil?

The BP spill had media, politicians, and environmentalists once again pitching a worst-case scenario rather than objective analysis. 
 
From PJM:
After two years of near-daily crises, most of them either created or worsened by the federal government, we’ve entered a period of relative calm. It won’t last. Pelosi and crew will make sure of that. But during this lull it’s a good time to consider the crisis that didn’t occur: the wrecking of the Gulf from the BP oil spill.
Several news reports are showing that the expected devastation of the waters and shoreline of the Gulf simply hasn’t happened. Early (and historical) evidence suggests that it never will. The oil slicks expected to last for months have failed to cooperate with the government’s desire to use the crisis to pass cap and tax. (Congress is moving ahead with a smaller bill for now, but that’s another article.)

Despite Obama’s dour cautioning that we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves, efforts to cap the well were finally a great success. Progress toward completing the relief well continues with only minor interruptions from severe seasonal storms.

Naturally, the New York Times isn’t about to surrender their Chicken Little membership card without a struggle. Give them credit where it’s due, though: for once they were honest enough to report that the problem is now less than anticipated. Reporters flying over the area Sunday spotted only a few patches of sheen and an occasional streak of thicker oil, and radar images taken since then suggest that these few remaining patches are quickly breaking down in the warm surface waters of the Gulf.

Evaporation, storms, and natural dispersion effects (and human cleanup efforts) are doing what they’ve done in the past: reducing the concentration of the oil, sometimes to microscopic size, where it’s consumed as food by microbes. So, once again, the sky hasn’t fallen.

Yet CBS, the New York Times, and other major media outlets are doing what they can to keep us terrified. (They never let a crisis go to waste, either.) They’re using the well-practiced environmentalist tactic: warning of possible impending doom by relying on uncertainty:
The effect on sea life of the large amounts of oil that dissolved below the surface is still a mystery. Two preliminary government reports on that issue have found concentrations of toxic compounds in the deep sea to be low, but the reports left many questions, especially regarding an apparent decline in oxygen levels in the water.
So, despite the absence of knowledge of harmful effects (“a mystery”) and two official reports stating low concentrations of toxins, we should still be anxious. Why? Because, well, because environmentalism says so. Never mind facts, we’ve got a theory!

That theory, to use an overgenerous term given its woeful lack of empirical support, implies that human activities always lead to grievous harm greater than the Earth (or we) can handle. The potential harm is so substantial (and so likely), advocates claim, that only the mighty power of legislation has any hope of mitigating it.

The federal government has powers the seas don’t possess, apparently.

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Charlene Downes: Allegedly Pimped, Raped, Murdered by Islamic Pedophile Gang then minced into burgers and fed to kuffars




This story is about six months old, but I hadn't seen it before, so I think it's important that it gets posted.

Abduction and rape of young 'kuffar' (non-Muslim) children by Islamic Pedophile gangs is commonplace in areas near Muslim ghettoes in Britain.

Many of these children simply dissappear never to be seen again. Police investigations are met with a wall of silence from the Muslim community. However the gruesome fate of Charlene Downes sheds some light on this aspect of Islamic cultural enrichment.

The story was hushed up by the MSM, but the basic outline is as follows:


Girl’s body ‘put in mincing machine’


- Russell Jenkins
The mother of a 14-year-old girl wept in court as a kebab shop owner was heard on tape allegedly telling how he had chopped up her daughter and placed her body, “bones and all”, in a mincing machine.

Karen Downes broke down in the public gallery as the gruesome conversation between the fast-food shop owner and another worker in Blackpool was played at the murder trial of Iyad Albattikhi.

Mrs Downes’s daughter, Charlene, “vanished off the face of the earth” three years ago after kissing her mother goodbye, Preston Crown Court was told.

No trace of her has been found since, the jury heard, leading police and her family to the “inescapable conclusion” that she is dead.

Charlene was known to have been among a number of young white girls who congregated around a district of Asian fast-food shops in the Lancashire seaside town.

The prosecution claims that Charlene was killed by Mr Albattikhi, 29, the owner of the Funny Boyz kebab shop, and that he had boasted of having sex with the teenager.

The tape recording, the prosecution suggests, is of a conversation between Mr Albattikhi and his business partner and co-accused, Mohammed Reveshi, 50, about how the girl’s body was disposed of after her murder.

On one tape, it is claimed, Mr Reveshi said: “Her big bones went into the machine as well, you know that, don’t you?” Mr Albattikhi replied: “Her bones? Did you . . . inside the machine?” “Yes,” Mr Reveshi said.
More than 52 tape recordings were captured by covert surveillance of Mr Reveshi’s home and car between February and March 2004 by the police inquiry team set up after Charlene disappeared in November 2003.
The jury was told that in one conversation Mr Reveshi had said to his partner: “Well, hopefully I [done] it properly you know . . . he thought he saw me cutting her body up.

“Do you remember she was bleeding to death?” “Yes,” replied Mr Albattikhi. “So that she made a mess,” Mr Reveshi allegedly added. Later in the transcript Mr Reveshi allegedly says: “The last one then, it was the last deep one and then it was the [heart] . . . that finally killed her.”

At one point Mr Reveshi said: “I’m so worried and you was the one who killed her.”

In his opening address to the jury last month, Tim Holroyde, for the prosecution, claimed that a witness had heard Jorda-nian-born Mr Albattikhi joke with fellow takeaway employees about how the teenager had been chopped up, and how her body “had gone into the kebabs”. Mr Albattikhi, of Blackpool, denies murdering Charlene while Mr Reveshi, also of Blackpool, denies disposing of her body."
Here's another version of the story from the Telegraph.

Here it is from the London Times.

A Second American Revolution?

From this editorial in Investor's Business Daily:
Will Washington's Failures Lead To Second American Revolution?

The Internet is a large-scale version of the "Committees of Correspondence" that led to the first American Revolution — and with Washington's failings now so obvious and awful, it may lead to another.

[...]

Opinion polls suggest that in the November mid-term elections, voters will replace the present Democratic majority in Congress with opposition Republicans — but that will not necessarily stop Obama.

A President Obama intent on achieving his transformative goals despite the disagreement of the American people has powerful weapons within reach. In one hand, he will have a veto pen to stop a new Republican Congress from repealing ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank takeover of banks.

In the other, he will have a fistful of executive orders, regulations and Obama-made fiats that have the force of law.

[...]

A wounded rampaging president can do much damage — and, like Caesar, the evil he does will live long after he leaves office, whenever that may be.

The overgrown, un-pruned power of the presidency to reward, punish and intimidate may now be so overwhelming that his re-election in 2012 is already assured — Chicago-style.
Read the whole depressing article.

If the first paragraph's assessment about the Internet is correct, Obama will have to shut us up.

But here's what really gets to me....Even if the Internet isn't shut up, BHO has a lot of damage he can wreak - never mind that we're typing our fingers off in protest.

So is there too much govt if there's a new law dictating how you take a crap?

Or a shower?
Did anyone notice? From the Weekly Standard:luxury shower.jpg
the federally mandated toilet which, in compliance with the Energy Policy Act (1992), flushes--or attempts to fl ush--its meager supply of 1.6 gallons
of water. And in the shower, it is possible (although statistically unlikely) that you are one of those lucky Americans who has recently installed a "luxury" shower fixture that features a wide head and multiple nozzles that spray and squirt and otherwise bathe you in a therapeutic avalanche of H2O.

rainmaker.jpg
If so, you might want to consult your lawyer. For the U.S. Department of Energy, in its newfound zeal to persuade citizens to conserve water, is enforcing the provision of the aforementioned Energy Policy and Conservation Act which requires that a showerhead deliver no more than 2.5 gallons of water per minute at a fl owing water pressure of 80 ounds per square inch. Got that?

Until recently, manufacturers understood "showerhead" to mean a device that showers water onto a bather, and each nozzle was considered to be a
separate component in compliance with the 2.5-gallon requirement.

Universal-Shower-Diffuser-Saver.jpg
But the Obama Energy Department, and its general counsel, Scott Blake Harris, have decided otherwise, and are levying substantial civil penalties
on manufacturers of "luxury" showerheads.

So far, the heavy hand of the DOE has fallen on manufacturers only.

But just as it is a violation of federal law for a homeowner to install a 3.5-gallon, pre-Al Gore toilet in the bathroom of his private home, THE SCRAPBOOK assumes that the Obama administration will soon require citizens to bathe in compliance with its mandatory showerhead regulations.

Or face prosecution. "Did Congress limit consumer choice?" asks Mr. Harris in the Wall Street Journal. "Absolutely. When you waste water, you waste energy."

Get ready for Sheryl Crowe mandates on toilet paper. Fo the public good, you see.


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The Band
Ophelia


Hamas TV: Muslims Should Wage Jihad to Liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Filth of the Jews, the Brothers of Apes and Pigs



From Memri via Weasel Zippers:

Preacher: “Dearly beloved, the Al-Aqsa Mosque is subjected to a vicious campaign of Judaization and defilement, at the hands of the filthiest creatures made by Allah – the Jews. 

“Today, we see the brothers of apes and pigs destroying homes with their occupants still in them, uprooting trees from their land, and killing women, children, and the elderly.

“A levy of blood will be paid for the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Our people will never relinquish the Al-Aqsa Mosque or Palestine. We will redeem it with our souls, with our blood, with our sons, with what is most dear to us – regardless of the sacrifices we will have to make – until it is liberated, with the grace of Allah, and until this holy land is purified from the filth of the Jews.

All you need to know about the anti-Israel "Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions" movement


Pedophilia Epidemic in Muslim Pakistan.........and Britain

From the Opinionator:

An article you likely won't find featured in the Western mainstream media exposes the rampant child molestation problem in Pakistan, particularly the Punjab region (see article below).  Islam is the religion of 90% Punjab residents. 

There is no doubt that many of these paedophiles are being imported into the UK, primarily England, due the government encouraged explosion in muslim immigration thus placing our children at higher risk of being molested and raped. 

Below are some of the instances of muslim pedophila that I have written about. These are only the ones that make it into the mainstream media......noting that the much of the media are just as complicit, as the police, in  keeping muslim crime out of public purview.  

When the media does decide to expose muslim "bad behaviours" they are often stymied.  Channel 4 wanted to air a television documentary that exposed the huge numbers of Pakistani muslim men involved in a pedophilia ring - police stopped the airing twice-due to fears it would "incite racial violence". 

The documentary was eventually televised. Soothing muslim sensitivities appears to be far more important, to the police, than warning about and likely preventing the rape of a child.

Interesting to note -- just like in Punjab, British children aged 11 to 15 are amongst the most likely to be molested/raped by muslim men.

Click on the title to see the long list of news stories compiled by the Opinionator.

Israeli rabbis clamp down on burka

“They imitated the nations around them although the LORD had ordered them, ‘Do not do as they do’” II Kings 17:15

If some people in Israel, a nation that sees the reality of Islam on a daily basis, don’t understand the threat of Islam then I don’t see how the left in the West will ever get it.

Israeli rabbis are to clamp down on the growing number of devout Jewish women wearing the burka by declaring the garment an item of sexual deviancy.

Telegraph:

By Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem
Published: 6:40PM BST 30 Jul 2010

Israeli rabbis clamp down on burka

The move was prompted by the husbands of some burka-wearing women Photo: Tim Whitby / Alamy

At the insistence of the husbands of some burka-wearing women, a leading rabbinical authority is to issue an edict declaring burka wearing a sexual fetish that is as promiscuous as wearing too little.

A small group of ultra-orthodox Jews in the town of Beit Shemesh chose to don the burka, usually associated with women in repressive Islamist regimes, three years ago in a bid to protect their modesty.

Since then, the habit has spread to five other Israeli towns causing alarm among ultra-orthodox religious leaders who once saw it as a relatively harmless eccentricity – even though the number of Jewish burka wearers is not thought to be more than a few hundred.

“There is a real danger that by exaggerating, you are doing the opposite of what is intended [resulting in] severe transgressions in sexual matters,” Shlomo Pappenheim, a member of the rabbinical authority preparing to make the edict, was quoted as saying.

Ultra-Orthodox women are required to dress conservatively and keep their heads covered with a scarf, hat or wig when in public.

But even that was not enough for some, who insisted that only by covering their faces and wearing multiple layers of clothes to hide the shape of their bodies can they really be chaste.

"At first, I just wore a wig," one burka-wearing woman told the Haaretz newspaper. "Now when I see a woman with a wig, I pray to God to forgive her for wearing that thing on her head."

Since donning the burka, the woman said she had been taunted by neighbours who called her a "smelly Arab" and that Israeli soldiers had asked to see her identification papers to prove she was not a Muslim. They backed down, she said, when she showed them that her children were clearly Jewish.

The trend has also caused tensions in family life. One man went to a rabbinical court in an attempt to get a ruling to force his wife to stop wearing the burka.

The plan backfired, however. The court ruled that that woman's behaviour was so "extreme" that it ordered the couple to undergo an immediate religious divorce.

Jimmy Smith
Midnight Special


Friday, July 30, 2010

From Jihad Watch:

One would think that murdering thirteen Americans in the name of Islamic jihad would at least get you suspended without pay, but no such luck. "Banks won't take Fort Hood shooting suspect's paychecks, by Jeremy Schwartz for the American-Statesman, July 29 (thanks to Roger):
As he sits in the Bell County Jail, accused of the Nov. 5 Fort Hood shooting that left 13 dead, Maj. Nidal Hasan continues to receive his monthly U.S. Army paycheck, which based on his rank and experience is probably more than $6,000. That's standard procedure for soldiers who are confined before military trial, according to Army officials.
But Hasan, charged with a shooting spree that shocked the country, is not a standard defendant. And he's having a hard time finding a bank to take his money.
According to his civilian attorney John Galligan , Bank of America notified Hasan last month that it was closing his account and no area bank so far has agreed to open an account for the Army psychiatrist. Military regulations require soldiers to be paid through direct deposit, making a bank account indispensable.
"I think it's just another example of the prejudice that he's been exposed to," Galligan said. "It's money that he's entitled to, that he has a right to."...
A right to? For reporting his patients for war crimes? For murdering Americans? For jihad?
Django Reinhardt New York City Festival
Dark Eyes

How do you cure poverty?

MAKE THINGS
MAKE IT POSSIBLE AND
FACILE
TO
MAKE
THINGS

China Becomes Second Biggest World Economy

China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest economy, the fruit of three decades of rapid growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

Yuan
Altrendo Images | Getty Images

Depending on how fast its exchange rate rises, China is on course to overtake the United States and vault into the No.1 spot sometime around 2025, according to projections by the World Bank, Goldman Sachs and others.

China came close to surpassing Japan in 2009 and the disclosure by a senior official that it had now done so comes as no surprise. Indeed, Yi Gang, China's chief currency regulator, mentioned the milestone in passing in remarks published on Friday.

"China, in fact, is now already the world's second-largest economy," he said in an interview with China Reform magazine posted on the website of his agency, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Cruising past Japan might give China bragging rights, but its per-capita income of about $3,800 a year is a fraction of Japan's or America's. (Check the latest US GDP report here)

"China is still a developing country, and we should be wise enough to know ourselves," Yi said, when asked whether the time was ripe for the yuan to become an international currency.

Can It Be Sustained?

China's economy expanded 11.1 percent in the first half of 2010, from a year earlier, and is likely to log growth of more than 9 percent for the whole year, according to Yi.

China has averaged more than 9.5 percent growth annually since it embarked on market reforms in 1978. But that pace was bound to slow over time as a matter of arithmetic, Yi said.

It should be painfully obvious to the American govt that there is no substitution for making things at a profit in order to benefit the most people in the best ways.

It should be painfully obvious to the American govt that if american workers demand higher wages, then some other costs associated with operating a business must decrease in order to keep on making things here FOR A PROFIT

It should be painfully obvious to the American govt that no amount of appeals to patriotism, or legal remedies, or union leverage in the voting booth, or promises to SEIU or the UAW, can alter the course of the force of nature known as capital.

Capital has no conscience. Capital will enforce destitute Indonesians to live in cardboard boxes to make Nikes cheap enough to outsell New Balance because it is better than what they had, even though it SUCKS to us, and it is orders of magnitude in the hundreds less than a worker in North Carolina will cost. If the Nike executive has an attack of conscience, HE WILL BE REPLACED OR NIKE WILL GO UNDER. An if you seek another system such as communism or enforced social justice thru democratic socialism, the entire system will eventually fail while trying to trap this force of nature, and bring down EVERYTHING. That is the REALITY of the world. Only by MAKING THINGS for a profit will workers living in cardboard boxes conceive of organizing to better their existence more forcefully. Only by MAKING THINGS for a profit will ruthless competition force prices to increase as slowly as possible or decrease benefiting consumers.

It's time for the American people to recognize these hard realities if the elected govt cannot or will not and get rid of self destructive incompetents OR WORSE who will act to get the money from the unions or any other business source, to buy the TV time to make lies convincing enough to get just enough votes to go on in this way.

We CANNOT alter the fabric of reality .... YET.

That is not for us. But we must RECOGNIZE what is and hope that our descendants can better themselves enough to take the next steps, if they can imagine a better way.

What we are doing here in the USA today, will destroy what IS, and leave to a more ruthless way of ruling, the future of our children.

Or we will deserve what happens next.

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Obama's Mean Streak

With thanks to Will:


Barack Obama seems to have a pattern of using ceremonial or stately events as opportunities to ambush and humiliate people. This behavior is unpresidential and reveals a vindictive streak that makes Richard Nixon look like Mister Rogers.
A few examples of Obama's taking pleasure in administering public pain to others:

During the State of the Union Address, he chose to direct his ire at the justices of the Supreme Court, located in the front rows. After the Supreme Court issued a ruling in favor of the First Amendment regarding political speech, Barack Obama famously chose to dress down the black-clad justices before the entire nation -- miscomprehending the law and the ruling in a fit of (un)presidential petulance. The embarrassing spectacle was prompted by a view that the court's ruling may make it easier for opponents of the president and Democrats to make their views known to the public.

Regardless of Obama's pique, it was wrong on so many levels that it earned a rebuke from the Supreme Court historian, who had enthusiastically voted for him. The noted historian said it "was really unusual in my mind to see the President going after the Supreme Court in such a forum." That is change for you. He predicted that justices may refuse to attend in the future because "you don't go to be insulted. I can't see the Justices wanting to be there and be insulted by the President."

Their appearance was a mark of respect for the government of the United States, broken into three branches but united in the goal of helping fellow Americans. Barack Obama did not reciprocate the respect -- and demeaned himself (though his narcissism and his cheering section entourage would shield him from such self-reflection) and the dignity of the office by needlessly ambushing the most august institution of the land.

He seems to have a penchant for ambushing financial executives, too -- or people he calls "fat cats" -- after he cashes their campaign checks. But he does like to tag people with labels.

While purportedly holding a meeting to work with financial executives to help stabilize financial markets, Barack Obama could not resist taunting them with the threat that "I'm the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks." That was not why they came to a meeting supposedly called to work together to resolve problems in the financial sector.

He did the same with doctors, though. He co-opted the American Medical Association to get them on board for ObamaCare and then blasted doctors for, among other sins, taking kids' tonsils out because doctors are greedy.

While meeting with a Democrat wavering on casting a yes vote on ObamaCare, he chose not to engage him with reasons, but instead belittled him in front of others by telling him, "Don't think we're not keeping score, brother." Was this form of public emasculation really necessary? No...but Obama has the itch, and it must be scratched.

He chose to snub a variety of foreign leaders, including then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, with whom he denied a diplomatic meeting during a visit (a snub that may have hurt Brown politically at home). Also, Obama walked out of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to have dinner with his family -- and refused a photo-op, joint news conference, or proper welcome, to boot. Both were democratic leaders, yet Obama bows to dictators such as the Saudi King and has a hug for the thug from Caracas. The ambushing of Netanyahu may have had a goal of also hurting him with voters in Israel, who treasure their relationship with America. The ambush did not work. Israelis don't like being ambushed -- they have had plenty of experience with such treatment. The public rallied to Netanyahu after the disgraceful treatment meted out to him by Barack Obama.

You Don't Own Me

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

Just as the country that sent those 4.7 million young men off to the Great War disrupted or ended those young lives for a larger purpose, today, the country that is America must decide whether it is prepared to disrupt or end young lives for another, greater, purpose.
No, that was not President Barack Obama reading from the Progressivism hymnal to underscore his collectivist agenda. It was Tony Blankley, prominent conservative columnist, pleading for the return of the military draft.

In November of 2003, Nick Provenzo, host of the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism and Rule of Reason, argued in a hard-hitting article that the draft was an anathema to human liberty. He was answering a Washington Times column by Blankley, who claimed that because the country was now at war with the “scourge of terrorism,” and that it was likely our volunteer forces would be stretched to the limit to fight it, it was incumbent on President George W. Bush to “substantially increase the size of our military” by calling for the reintroduction of the military draft.

Blankley and Provenzo were writing after the initial invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003.

In January of the same year, New York congressman Charles Rangel introduced a bill in the House to reinstate the military draft. Those who could not serve in the military because of a physical or mental disability, would be required to perform “community service.”

Noting in the beginning that, as of the time of his writing, only forty-four doughboys were alive of the 4.7 million sent to fight in Europe during World War I, Blankley ended his paean to self-sacrifice and duty with:

Several decades from now, when our children's generation is all dust, save 44 old men, will their grandchildren think as kindly on us as we do on those surviving 44 Doughboys (and their millions of comrades) who left us a richer clay from which to be born?
Nick Provenzo addresses the question of why many conservatives, who even today claim they are for liberty, free enterprise, freedom of speech, and other liberties, are in agreement with their alleged political rivals, the liberal/leftists, that Americans should “give back” to the country that bestowed those liberties on them.

If the war against militant Islam is the preeminent crisis of our day, why call on the draft to fight it? Why frame the issue as question of whether America is willing to disrupt or end the lives of its young people?

If militant Islamists threaten our lives, freedom and prosperity, defending against them is not a sacrifice for the "greater good." What good could be greater than defending one's own life and happiness? Why does Tony Blankley ignore one's selfish interest in defending one's freedom?

Why? Because Mr. Blankley, like many conservatives, considers selflessness and not selfish interest to be the moral ideal. Even though America is a nation dedicated to protecting the life, liberty and happiness of the individual, conservatives are forever conflicted by the problem of the "greater good" and how best to sacrifice the inalienable rights of the individual to it.
Fast forward to July, 2010. It is nearly amusing that Charles Rangel, who has introduced his draft bill in the House repeatedly since 2003, and has again this year, has been charged by the House Ethics Committee with ethics violations and may stand House trial in September. The charges range from his not declaring assets of nearly $1 million on his Congressional disclosure form, to using his Congressional letterhead to promote a private center at the City College of New York that would bear his name, to taking corporate lobbyist-paid junkets to the Caribbean.

The longtime Democratic congressman from Harlem has failed to report at least $75,000 in rental income from a luxury beachfront villa he owns in the Dominican Republic. Evidently this is because Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and the chief tax writer for the United States, doesn't know that money derived from an asset is called “income.”
The byzantine and wholly arbitrary strictures and definitions, and the confiscatory nature of the U.S. tax code, are not the subject here. If Congress had any sense of value of individual rights, this kind of issue would never arise. Someone like Rangel would be charged instead with advocating the usurpation of the Constitution and the violation of individual rights, and with violating his oath of office.

But Congress could hardly throw the first stone at Rangel or anyone else charged with violation of House or Senate ethics rules, when both chambers and the White House regard the private sector -- the only realm that gives value to anything -- as their private preserve to loot, game, and control. Obamacare, the nationalization of the car industry, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the financial reform legislation -- all the socialist/fascist law that has ever passed and been signed in the Oval Office -- originated in the House, and were approved with pointlessly finicky amendments by the Senate, often with Republication abetting.

While the notion of compulsory military and civilian service is repugnant to the American sense of freedom, no matter who proposes it, what sets Rangel’s apart is that it is founded on the ugly phenomenon of envy and “class hatred.” This is in character with the Obama agenda of leveling everything with the demolition ball of expropriatory legislation, of wealth and of liberty. When he first introduced his bill, Rangel made sure that its purpose was not primarily to swell the ranks of the military, but to collar the offspring of the rich and wealthy.

"I truly believe that those who make the decision and those who support the United States going into war would feel more readily the pain that's involved, the sacrifice that's involved, if they thought that the fighting force would include the affluent and those who historically have avoided this great responsibility," Rangel said.

"Those who love this country have a patriotic obligation to defend this country," Rangel said. "For those who say the poor fight better, I say give the rich a chance." According to Rangel's office, minorities comprise more than 30 percent of the nation's military.

Under his bill, the draft would apply to men and women ages 18 to 26; exemptions would be granted to allow people to graduate from high school, but college students would have to serve.
In November of 2006, Rangel again introduced his bill, amending it to include a big proportion of the working population, upping the service age to 42. And again, his Marxist malice was transparent.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said Sunday he sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars.

“There’s no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm’s way,” Rangel said.

Rangel, the next chairman of the House tax-writing committee, said he worried the military was being strained by its overseas commitments.

“If we’re going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can’t do that without a draft,” Rangel said. He said having a draft would not necessarily mean everyone called to duty would have to serve. Instead, “young people (would) commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it’s our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals,” with a promise of educational benefits at the end of service.
We haven’t challenged Iran, North Korea thumbs its nose at us, and the principal combat venue has switched from Iraq to Afghanistan. These are all excuses, however, which Rangel and his supporters use to argue for a permanent, peacetime draft that would expropriate the lives of millions of Americans to serve what Blankley claimed in 2003 and very likely would still claim is a “another, greater purpose.”

Now, in 2010, Rangel still harps on the alleged class inequities of fighting a war.

"What troubles me most about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is the total indifference to the suffering and loss of life among our brave young soldiers on the battlefield," Congressman Rangel said. "The reason is that so few families have a stake in the war which is being fought by other people's children.

"The test for Congress, particularly for those members who support the war, is to require all who enjoy the benefits of our democracy to contribute to the defense of the country. All of America's children should share the risk of being placed in harm's way. "In other words, if you support the war, you should support a compulsory military draft," Congressman Rangel said.
Briefly, Rangel subscribes to the collectivist notion that Americans should “give back” to the country that has provided them the “benefits” of living in a (semi-free) country. What “benefits” are those? Blank out. Is it a “republic,” as he described it in 2006, or a “democracy,” as he called it on July 15? It is doubtful he or anyone else in Congress knows the difference, but we can let that pass for the moment. Mandatory national service would, of course, certainly realize the political dream of “full employment.”

Aside from the evil of claiming the lives of Americans to serve a purpose “greater” than living their own lives -- the emphasis here on the fact that individuals literally own their lives, not the government or “democratic” mob that is alleged to bestow “benefits” on them -- there is in the bill a dangerous provision that grants the president certain discretionary, arguably tyrannical powers.

1(3) The term ‘national service’ means military service or service in a civilian capacity that, as determined by the President, promotes the national defense, including national or community service and service related to homeland security.
And, if not in a military capacity, Americans would be ordered to serve

(2) in a civilian capacity that, as determined by the President, promotes the national defense, including national or community service and service related to homeland security.
And,

[c]….When the induction of persons for military service is authorized by subsection (b), the President shall determine the number of persons described in section 102(a) whose national service obligation is to be satisfied through military service….
Section 105 of Rangel’s bill, “Implementation by the President,” gives the president virtually unlimited powers over American lives. At his “discretion,” he may declare a “national emergency” at any time for any reason he chooses. One can imagine Barack Obama and his ilk in Congress and in the various “czardoms” drooling at the prospect of “remaking” America as a virtual, “full employment” penal colony.

To effectively combat the idea of “national service,” Americans must grasp two critical points: that as individuals, they do indeed own their lives; and that their lives, liberties, property, and their pursuits of happiness are inviolate and integral in their nature and existence as individuals, and are not “benefits” or “privileges” or “stewardships” granted them by a supernatural deity or by “society.” They must muster the courage and pride to tell the Obamas, the Rangels, the Pelosis, and all their ilk in and out of government: “You don’t own me!”

As beings of volitional consciousnesses, Americans can choose to take one political path or another: the one leading to glorious freedom, or the one to ignominious servitude. Time will tell which path they will ultimately take.

The Tea Party movement and the general disgust with government and the Democrats are heartening. But, to paraphrase an Army recruiting slogan, it is not all that it can be.

Crossposted at The Dougout

A SIMPLE CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY

Fiqh Council of North America member Salah Soltan spews Jewish blood libels at interfaith conference in the Netherlands, is former resident scholar at Rifqa Bary's Ohio mosque


From Jawa Report:

When it concerns the Religion of Peace, ironies and contradictions abound. Take for instance the following video of Fiqh Council of North America member Salah Sultan, who showed up at an interfaith event in the Netherlands a few weeks ago. In addition, he's the president of the American Center for Islamic Research and is the former resident scholar of the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, the mosque attended by Rifqa Bary's family. Here's the video set up:
The FION announced that by organizing this conference it hoped to initiate a intercultural dialogue about the position of Islam and the muslims in the Netherlands. The conference was meant to attribute to the establishlishment a peaceful society, free from mutual suspicion. At the conference Salah Soltan held a speech about "the relationship between the Muslim and the other between the prophetic model and its implantation in societies".
Soltan is well known since MEMRI published a video clip at the internet. The MEMRI clip showed Soltan, who is also president of the American Centre for Islamic Research, telling a classic blood libel on Hamas TV. In that interview he argued that Jews slaughter non-Jews in order to use their blood for knead matzos for Passover.
A well known Dutch pro-Israeli activist interviewed Soltan at the conference. In the interview Soltan repeated the blood libel.
Only after the interviewer expressed his shock and asked some probing questions Soltan announced that in stead of Jews he was sure Zionists were keeping ther practice to slaughter Christians for Passover. At that moment El Forhani interfered and ended the interview.
The interview starts about 1:26 into the video:

Iranian official says Jews smuggled cigarettes into Iran which have been tainted with pig blood and nuclear material

From Eye on the World:
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian official says cigarettes smuggled into Iran have been tainted with pig blood and nuclear material as part of a Western conspiracy.

The semiofficial Mehr news agency quotes Mohammad Reza Madani from the Society for Fighting Smoking as saying contraband Marlboros have been contaminated with pig hemoglobin and unspecified nuclear material.

Madani claims Philip Morris International, which sells Marlboro outside the U.S., is "led by Zionists" and deliberately exports tainted cigarettes.

He provided no evidence or information about the confiscated cigarettes. Friday's report also gave no details on how the contamination was discovered.

Tehran, which often alleges Western conspiracies, says 20 billion cigarettes are smuggled into Iran every year.

It wasn't the Jews.


I confess. The truth is, it was Midnight Rider and I, here at the Infidel Bloggers Alliance, who hatched up and carried out this dastardly deed.

Rush: "Anti-women's rights is a cause of the left. That's who's pushing Sharia in this country: The left. It's the left that wants a mosque at Ground Zero."

Rush on a roll. Freedom.
Let's take, at face value, the template that the partisan political hacks spew at me. I am, according to them, anti-women's rights. Equal rights for women is no concern of mine, right? I'm the guy that came up with the name "feminazi." I'm not a friend of women's rights, they say. If that were true, I would be pushing for the mosque at Ground Zero. If I were anti-women's rights, I would be all for Sharia law. Sharia law is a not-so-stealth way to undermine women's rights in this country. It would be a perfect cause if I was who they say I am. 
Anti-women's rights is a cause of the left. That's who's pushing Sharia in this country: The left. It's the left that wants a mosque at Ground Zero. It's left who thinks "America's chickensssss came home to roost" on 9/11. It's the American left that thinks we got what we deserved on 9/11. It's the American left that wants the mosque at Ground Zero. No one can be pro-women's rights and remain silent about the metastasizing cancer that Sharia law is on women's rights.

Revolution Muslim Threatens Pamela Geller With Death

Zach Chesser aka Abu Talhah Amrikee Follower? "Make Dua For Pamela Geller To Be Executed"?
:
Islamic geller

Obama's "Mongrel" Comment

I cringed when I first saw this video as what I heard hearkens back to something I never want to see or hear again:



Donald Douglas of American Power makes the following interesting point about Obama's term "mongrel," and the point made explains why I, one born in the South before the Civil Rights Movement, cringed when I heard Obama refer to "mongrel":
D.W. Griffith’s 1915 motion picture The Birth of a Nation — originally titled The Clansman — a film which presented a re-writing of the actual history of post Civil War Reconstruction by the same Confederate traitors aginst whom the war had to be fought. It portrayed African-Americans in the post-Civil War South as depraved, lascivious beasts whose rampant lawlessness and alleged domination of the South — through military force and control of the state legislatures — threatened to destroy “Southern civilization” and “mongrelize the races”. The film asserts that this could only be stopped by the glorified lynchings and reign of terror carried out by the “honorable” new, secret order of the “chivalrous” Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

<…>

In most of the Northern cities where the The Birth of a Nation was scheduled to be shown, political fights exploded, and some small riots did occur in Philadelphia and elsewhere where the film was shown. The NAACP and others attempted to seek either a banning of the film completely, or to force the editing-out of the most egregious racist scenes. For the most part, those attempts were futile. Endless hearings were held before mayors, state legislatures, city councils, and state and city censorship boards across the country. The Illinois legislature voted 111-2 to ban the showing in that state, but eventually lost on judicial appeals filed by the film’s promoters.

Those hearings became platforms for the pro-Griffith lobby to pronounce the alleged virtues of eugenics. In New York City, Griffith’s lawyer Martin W. Littleton told Mayor Mitchell that the film was a protest against the mongrel mixture of black and white.”
Donald Douglas of American Power comments:
It is disgusting and putrid that a President of the United States bring this kind of filth language into the public discourse when our nation has moved so far past it. Laura Ingraham is correct, Obama is not “post-racial” — he is the most racial and divisive President we have ever had.
Is Obama deliberately trying to divide America along racial lines?

From Chris Matthews?

From I Hate The Media, from the post entitled "Blind sow finds acorn: Chris Matthews is correct on an issue":

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy



Money quote:
Let me finish tonight with this federal injunction against the new Arizona immigration law. First of all, it is a killer issue politically for the Democrats this fall and a huge windfall for the Right. It will anger even those people who believe the Arizona law went too far. It will dramatize the main case raised by the Tea Party people, that the federal government in Washington has become too powerful, that the rights of states have been terribly abridged. That is the political consequence and it will be felt mightily this November.
A conundrum: surely, Obama knew the political possibilities at the voting booth this November before filing law suit against Arizona. Why did he, then, go ahead with that law suit?
Not what I've come to expect from Time

click the picture for story

more pictures here

Democratic Congressman Hands File To Media Accusing Opponent of Taking "A Lot Of Jewish Money"

What the hell? Are we living in the 1930's?

Can you imagine if a Congressman said, "My client takes a lot of Black Money"?

From the New York Observer:
(NYO)- Mike Grimm, a G.O.P challenger for Mike McMahon’s Congressional seat, took in over $200,000 in his last filing.

But in an effort to show that Grimm lacks support among voters in the district, which covers Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, the McMahon campaign compiled a list of Jewish donors to Grimm and provided it to The Politicker.

The file, labeled “Grimm Jewish Money Q2,” for the second quarter fundraising period, shows a list of over 80 names, a half-dozen of which in fact do hail from Staten Island, and a handful of others that list Brooklyn as home.

“Where is Grimm’s money coming from,” said Jennifer Nelson, McMahon’s campaign spokeman. “There is a lot of Jewish money, a lot of money from people in Florida and Manhattan, retirees.”

As a point of comparison, the campaign also provided in-district and out-of-district fundraising totals from McMahon and Grimm’s G.O.P primary opponent, Michael Allegretti. However, they did not provide an out-of-district campaign filing from Grimm, but only a file of Jewish donors to him.
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester
Boccherini
La Musica Notturna delle strade di Madrid


Poll: 54% of Canadians Say Burqa Should be Banned



From Weasel Zippers:

OTTAWA Canada should ban burkas in public, according to more than half of the people polled exclusively for QMI Agency.

The Leger Marketing online poll found 54% of people surveyed said the government should follow France’s lead and not allow women to wear burkas in public for safety and transparency reasons.
Only 20% of respondents said Canada shouldn’t consider a ban because it’s an issue of freedom of religion and freedom of expression, and 15% said it didn’t affect them either way.


Older Canadians were more likely to agree with a ban, with 71% of those 65 years and older choosing that option. Only 40% of Canadians 18-34 years old said burkas should be banned.

Leger Marketing vice-president Dave Scholz said the poll surprised staff at the research firm.
“This is Canada — we don’t ban anything,” he said.

Sentiment was particularly strong in Quebec, where the debate over reasonable accommodation for new Canadians has been raging, with 73% of respondents saying they want a ban.

Morton Weinfeld, a sociology professor at McGill University, said the strong response in Quebec could be a result of spending 50 years cutting down the place of Catholicism in the province.

“Why should they fill that void with Islam?” he said.

Homeland Security Memo Shows Obama Regime Considering Ways to Grant Amnesty Without Going Through Congress


God only knows the depths this Administration would go to in order to impose their agenda on the American people.

Click on the title to read the whole story.
Oscar Peterson & Stephane Grappelli
Someone to Watch Over Me