For anyone who's so inclined to keep up with my work at Jihad Watch (and elsewhere), I invite that handful of folks to cut and paste these two URLs into their browsers:
http://frontpagemag.com/author/the-anti-jihadist/
or
http://www.deathtoislam.org/author/the-anti-jihadist/
Both are updated continuously.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
"Help! I'm Being Enslaved By My Husband"
A woman in a Burqa goes up to a Rabbi and starts yelling at him:
"Allah allah allah ulululul".
Rabbi says, "What is it with you people? Is that all you have to say for yourselves?"
So, the woman takes her head covering off, looks fiercely at the Rabbi, and screams,
"I SAID, "HELP!!! I'M BEING ENSLAVED BY MY HUSBAND. I SEEK ASYLUM!""
"Allah allah allah ulululul".
Rabbi says, "What is it with you people? Is that all you have to say for yourselves?"
So, the woman takes her head covering off, looks fiercely at the Rabbi, and screams,
"I SAID, "HELP!!! I'M BEING ENSLAVED BY MY HUSBAND. I SEEK ASYLUM!""
Tea Party AreTerrorists
Sam Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine
Say what you will about us. I say we're in good company.
The tea party's terrorist tactics
By: William Yeomans
July 29, 2011 08:22 AM EDT
It has become commonplace to call the tea party faction in the House “hostage takers.” But they have now become full-blown terrorists.
Say what you will about us. I say we're in good company.
The tea party's terrorist tactics
By: William Yeomans
July 29, 2011 08:22 AM EDT
It has become commonplace to call the tea party faction in the House “hostage takers.” But they have now become full-blown terrorists.
They have joined the villains of American history who have been sufficiently craven to inflict massive harm on innocent victims to achieve their political goals. A strong America has always stood firm in the face of terrorism. That tradition is in jeopardy, as Congress and President Barack careen toward an uncertain outcome in the tea party- manufactured debt crisis.
As we stumble closer to Aug. 2, it has become clear that many in the tea party are willing to inflict massive harm on the American people to obtain their political objective of a severely shrunken federal government. Their persistence in rejecting compromise, even as the economic effects of the phony crisis they have created mount, has taken their radicalism beyond tough negotiating, beyond even hostage-taking.
As markets fall in anticipation that there may not be a timely resolution; as credit agencies issue dire warnings that the U.S. political system has become so dysfunctional that a credit downgrade may be inevitable, and as America looks weakened in the eyes of the world, the tea party’s hostage-taking has evolved into the intentional infliction of harm on innocent Americans to achieve a political objective – terrorism.
Terrorism is a tough term, but, unfortunately, it describes tea party tactics precisely. Their first step was to vow not to vote to raise the debt ceiling.
Here, as in many radical factions, there was a split between the purists and the pragmatists. Pragmatists vowed not to raise the ceiling unless draconian cuts were made in the federal government.
Purists didn’t bother with an “unless.” They, including presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachman (R-Minn.), were willing to let the entire edifice come crashing down — hiding behind magical thinking that allowed them to deny that anything horrible would happen if the ceiling were not raised.
Out of this vow grew the phony linkage between raising the debt ceiling and addressing the deficit. Raising the debt ceiling, of course, has nothing to do with addressing the deficit. It simply allows the federal government to pay debts that have already been incurred, based on expenditures that Congress has already authorized.
It lets the federal government pay its bills – an act of basic responsibility that every American — conservative and liberal — should embrace. Raising the ceiling is a pro forma act that Congress has performed repeatedly through Republican and Democratic administrations. Every president – from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton – has labeled failure to raise it unthinkable, because to do so would be to intentionally inflict harm on America.
The harm is, in part, unknowable because we have always resisted any temptation to run the experiment of failing to raise the ceiling. Even if the federal government could avoid default on its loan obligations for an uncertain time, the harm would be immense. The president would have to prioritize federal expenditures, choosing whether to send Social Security checks, pay federal employees ranging from FBI agents to food inspectors to troops in the field, make Medicare payments, provide for veterans, collect taxes and on and on.
Even in the absence of default, credit agencies would almost surely downgrade our credit worthiness, producing increases in interest rates that would slow the economy, increase unemployment and force families into foreclosure and bankruptcy.
As the markets dropped, families would watch their retirement and education savings and their dreams disappear.
Rather than reject the unthinkable, the tea party harnessed this potential harm as its weapon of mass destruction.
For pragmatists, it allowed a hostage-taking. The pragmatists threatened to defeat a raise in the debt ceiling unless Congress and President Barack Obama rejected taxes on the wealthy and accepted budget cuts that would move the country toward the tea party’s idealized vision of an America. Their dream is an alternate version of the United States — before the New Deal, the Great Society and civil rights laws alleviated massive inequality and injustice — and extended American opportunity.
The tea party faction could not achieve these goals through straight up democratic means because of their unpopularity. So it resorted to its threat of mass destruction. They were able to do so because they formed a disciplined bloc that gave them leverage over the House leadership and because of the threat that members who did not go along would face primary challenges from the right.
Hard-core tea party members were empowered by their oft-repeated disdain for reelection. They were liberated to pursue their radical course because they were freed from the traditional constraint on members of Congress, imposed by the need to face the voters.
Their goals were also served by the Republican Party’s success in selling the notion that the country faces an urgent debt crisis. Nearly every economist agrees that we face a long-term debt problem, but there is no reason it must be addressed by Aug. 2.
The concern that our credit may be downgraded if we don’t enact an immediate debt reduction plan is driven almost entirely by the loss of credibility in our political system — engendered by the phony frenzy surrounding the debt ceiling legislation.
While most economists agree that we need to address long-term debt issues, many recognize that our immediate crisis is high unemployment and economic stagnation, conditions that will most likely be exacerbated by sucking hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy in the short-term.
The challenge for America is to stand firm in the face of terrorism, no matter the source.
Tea party members must reassess their distorted vision of patriotism and join true patriots in Congress in raising the debt ceiling promptly until 2013, without inflicting further economic harm on already struggling Americans.
The president should insist on a clean debt ceiling bill, Congress should get it to him — as it has dozens of times in the past — and the president should sign it promptly. So the nation can get on with addressing the truly significant problems that it faces.
Breivik Was a Fan of Neo-Eugenics
From Jihad Watch:
That Breivik’s mixed bag of writings reflects, explicitly and conspicuously, the thought of a distinguished Princeton University professor, Lee Silver, has so far gone almost totally unacknowledged.
Not totally because my Discovery Institute colleague John West picked it up and has written about it searchingly. Who is Lee Silver? He’s the evolutionary biologist and fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science who invented the term and concept of “reprogenetics,” a new spin on the old idea of eugenics as a means to perfect the human race. In his manifesto, Breivik goes on about this idea, citing Silver by name along with his book Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning Will Transform the American Family, copying passages from Wikipedia that elaborate on Silver’s proposed scheme.
Breivik likes that in contrast to the old pseudoscience of eugenics ...
...what of the sinister scientism to which Breivik, in fact, subscribed and that he wrote about in detail? He expounds on the importance of government funding for science, that feeding the poor must not take precedence over science, that feeding the Third World poor is in fact a bad idea, that the size of the human population needs to be halved (through voluntary means!), that “social Darwinism” got a bum rap, that “[t]he never-ending collective pursuit for scientific evolution and perfection should become the benchmark and essence of our existence.”
From the self-interview section of Breivik’s manifesto:
“Q: What should be our civilizational objectives, how do you envision a perfect Europe?
“A: ‘Logic’ and rationalist thought (a certain degree of national Darwinism) should be the fundament of our societies.” This dark vision is not his invention. It’s a spin-off of what he aptly calls “National Darwinism,” which got its start in the writing of Charles Darwin. While a gentle soul in person and wishing no harm to anyone, Darwin envisioned a picture of the world that equates “extermination” (a favorite word of Darwin’s) with biological advancement. I’ve written elsewhere about the historical, moral consequences of Darwinism, quite apart from any explanatory value of natural selection in biology.
Last year, Abdo condemned the Fort Hood jihad massacre: "Abdo's words in court were a sharp contrast to an essay he wrote last year as the first anniversary of the Fort Hood shootings approached and as he petitioned for conscientious objector status. In the essay, obtained by The Associated Press, Abdo said the attacks ran against his beliefs as a Muslim and were 'an act of aggression by a man and not by Islam.'"
"Naser Abdo, AWOL soldier, charged in Fort Hood bomb plot," by Peter Finn and and Jason Ukman for the Washington Post,
A U.S. soldier who is accused of planning to attack troops near Fort Hood, Tex., shouted out “Nidal Hasan Fort Hood 2009” as he left a federal courtroom in Waco on Friday.
Click on the title to read the whole story at Jihad Watch.
"Naser Abdo, AWOL soldier, charged in Fort Hood bomb plot," by Peter Finn and and Jason Ukman for the Washington Post,
A U.S. soldier who is accused of planning to attack troops near Fort Hood, Tex., shouted out “Nidal Hasan Fort Hood 2009” as he left a federal courtroom in Waco on Friday.
Click on the title to read the whole story at Jihad Watch.
27 Terrorists deemed to Hold Aviation Licenses
From Will at The Other News:
(NYTimes).WASHINGTON — The Transportation Security Administration cannot determine the real identities of thousands of the people to whom the Federal Aviation Administration has issued licenses as pilots and aircraft mechanics, but has located an additional 27 who should not have held them because of terrorist connections, according to an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security.
The report was requested two years ago by four senators after a private data analysis company in New York determined that the man convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 still held an F.A.A. license, as did a man caught trying to smuggle military equipment to Hezbollah in Lebanon, a man convicted of trying to make an airborne poison in his basement and a self-described eco-terrorist who fled the country after he was indicted on a charge of arson.
The F.A.A. and the Department of Homeland Security were supposed to scour the list of licensed pilots, mechanics and flight dispatchers for terrorists under a law approved by Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but they have had difficulties doing so despite having access to much more information than the private company.
The new report, by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, found that the F.A.A. had Social Security numbers of only about 750,000 people out of the 1.3 million names in its Airmen Registry, and that among those for whom it had numbers, more than 15,000 of them did not match the Social Security database for name, sex or date of birth.
By law, the F.A.A. cannot require a Social Security number, the report noted, and as a result, “T.S.A. may not identify U.S. citizens who have provided false biographic information to receive an airman certificate.” Not all of the discrepancies represent a potential security threat; the report said that more extensive study over the past few years found that 8,000 of the license holders were dead.
The report offers no details about the 27 individuals whose certificates were canceled, but does indicate the poor state of federal records, almost a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks.
An initial computer scan found about 29,000 certificates that matched names on the government’s Terrorist Screening Database, but further study found that 28,500 of the matches were invalid; 506 were turned over for closer scrutiny, yielding the 27 names.
The report does not mention any technique other than matching names. The New York company, Safe Banking Systems in Mineola, found some of the suspect individuals by matching names. But it contends that names are a poor identifier; they can be misspelled or, if they originate in a non-Roman alphabet, they can be spelled inconsistently when rendered in English.
The Libyan convicted in the Lockerbie bombing was listed in F.A.A. records as Abdelbaset Elmegrahi; on the F.B.I.’s 10 Most Wanted list, he was Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi. Safe Banking Systems, using only publicly available data, found some suspect individuals by matching addresses or other data.
John D. Rockefeller IV, one of the senators who requested the investigation, said Thursday that the report “shows that almost 10 years after the 9/11 attacks, the F.A.A. is still not doing enough to verify the identity of airman’s certificate holders and that some certificate holders have connections to terrorism.”
Mr. Rockefeller, who is a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of an aviation subcommittee, said that the F.A.A. and Homeland Security were making progress, but that “issuing certificates to people who pose a threat to our aviation system is simply unacceptable.”
Fasten your seatbelts, landing at Destiny?
Read the full story here.
From Will at The Other News:
(NYTimes).WASHINGTON — The Transportation Security Administration cannot determine the real identities of thousands of the people to whom the Federal Aviation Administration has issued licenses as pilots and aircraft mechanics, but has located an additional 27 who should not have held them because of terrorist connections, according to an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security.
The report was requested two years ago by four senators after a private data analysis company in New York determined that the man convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 still held an F.A.A. license, as did a man caught trying to smuggle military equipment to Hezbollah in Lebanon, a man convicted of trying to make an airborne poison in his basement and a self-described eco-terrorist who fled the country after he was indicted on a charge of arson.
The F.A.A. and the Department of Homeland Security were supposed to scour the list of licensed pilots, mechanics and flight dispatchers for terrorists under a law approved by Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but they have had difficulties doing so despite having access to much more information than the private company.
The new report, by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, found that the F.A.A. had Social Security numbers of only about 750,000 people out of the 1.3 million names in its Airmen Registry, and that among those for whom it had numbers, more than 15,000 of them did not match the Social Security database for name, sex or date of birth.
By law, the F.A.A. cannot require a Social Security number, the report noted, and as a result, “T.S.A. may not identify U.S. citizens who have provided false biographic information to receive an airman certificate.” Not all of the discrepancies represent a potential security threat; the report said that more extensive study over the past few years found that 8,000 of the license holders were dead.
The report offers no details about the 27 individuals whose certificates were canceled, but does indicate the poor state of federal records, almost a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks.
An initial computer scan found about 29,000 certificates that matched names on the government’s Terrorist Screening Database, but further study found that 28,500 of the matches were invalid; 506 were turned over for closer scrutiny, yielding the 27 names.
The report does not mention any technique other than matching names. The New York company, Safe Banking Systems in Mineola, found some of the suspect individuals by matching names. But it contends that names are a poor identifier; they can be misspelled or, if they originate in a non-Roman alphabet, they can be spelled inconsistently when rendered in English.
The Libyan convicted in the Lockerbie bombing was listed in F.A.A. records as Abdelbaset Elmegrahi; on the F.B.I.’s 10 Most Wanted list, he was Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi. Safe Banking Systems, using only publicly available data, found some suspect individuals by matching addresses or other data.
John D. Rockefeller IV, one of the senators who requested the investigation, said Thursday that the report “shows that almost 10 years after the 9/11 attacks, the F.A.A. is still not doing enough to verify the identity of airman’s certificate holders and that some certificate holders have connections to terrorism.”
Mr. Rockefeller, who is a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of an aviation subcommittee, said that the F.A.A. and Homeland Security were making progress, but that “issuing certificates to people who pose a threat to our aviation system is simply unacceptable.”
Fasten your seatbelts, landing at Destiny?
Read the full story here.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Governor Kasich: We Reduced The Biggest Deficit In State History To Zero and Lowered Taxes For Everyone
From Ace
Go read the whole thing.Kasich is one of the more unpopular governors in the country, with a 35% approval rate, and 50% disapproving.
But he just balanced the budget -- having inherited an $8 billion deficit, the largest in the history of Ohio -- so maybe this will help some. (Video below the fold, or at that link.)
Ohio leans Republican. It shows the magnitude of the political problem we face when even a Republican-leaning state gets all crankypants about actual cuts, which they claim they want.
But he's put fiscal discipline into practice and has only been in office since January. Assuming this creates a better condition for job creation, he just might see those numbers reversing.
I. Give. Up.
PASTORIUS CUTS IN:
WHAT? SUDDENLY THEY DON'T WANT AZTLAN BACK?
MIDNIGHT RIDER RESUME - As a member of the 9.4% I am just flabbergasted. I have absolutely nothing to say about the absurdity, the irony, the frustration, of all this.
The Sacramento Bee:
Improving Mexican economy draws undocumented immigrants home from California
By Stephen Magagnini
There are fewer undocumented immigrants in California – and the Sacramento region – because many are now finding the American dream south of the border.
Mexico's unemployment rate is now 4.9 percent, compared with 9.4 percent joblessness in the United States.
An estimated 300,000 undocumented immigrants have left California since 2008, though the remaining 2.6 million still make up 7 percent of the population and 9 percent of the labor force, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Among metropolitan areas with more than 1 million residents, Sacramento County ranks among the lowest, with an unauthorized population of 4.6 percent of its 1.4 million residents in 2008, according to Laura Hill, a demographer with the PPIC.
The Sacramento region, suffering from 12.3 percent unemployment and the construction bust, may have triggered a large exodus of undocumented immigrants, González Gutiérrez said.
The best-paid jobs for undocumented migrants are in the building industry, "and because of the severe crisis in the construction business here, their first response has been to move into the service industry," González Gutiérrez said. "But that has its limits. Then, they move to other areas in the U.S. to find better jobs – or back to Mexico."
Hill said it's hard to know whether the benefit of having fewer undocumented migrants outweighs the cost to employers and taxpayers.
California may have to provide less free education to the children of undocumented immigrants and less emergency medical care, she said, but it will also get less tax revenue.
In 2008, at least 836,100 undocumented immigrants filed U.S. tax returns in California using individual tax identification numbers known as ITINS, said Hill, who conducted the tax survey.
Based on those tax returns, the study found there were 65,000 undocumented immigrants in Sacramento County that year, far fewer than in many other big counties.
Sacramento's undocumented population ranked 10th in the state that year, behind Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Santa Clara, San Bernardino, Riverside, Alameda, Contra Costa and Ventura.
There were an estimated 12,000 undocumented immigrants in Yolo County; 9,000 in the Sutter-Yuba area; and 8,000 in Placer County.
An analysis of local ZIP codes showed that Sacramento (95815, 95823, 95824), West Sacramento (95605), Clarksburg (95612), Esparto (95627), Guinda (95637), Knights Landing (95645), Winters (95694) and Woodland (95776) each had an undocumented population of 10 percent to 15 percent.
Yolo County relies heavily on migrant workers to grow and harvest crops.
"People in construction are now turning to agriculture; it's the start of the tomato season so the harvesters will be jump-started pretty soon," said Woodland Mayor Art Pimentel, whose 55,000 residents are 48 percent Latino, some of them undocumented.
Some aren't sticking around for the upcoming tomato harvest, said Sylvina Frausto, secretary of Holy Rosary Church in Woodland. "Some have a small parcel in Mexico. They own their own home there, so instead of renting here they go back to their small business there."
Many raise animals, run grocery stores or sell fruits and goods on street corners.
"They're going back home because they can't get medical help or government assistance anymore," Frausto said, "And when it's getting so difficult for them to find a job without proper documentation, it's pushing them away."
Anita Barnes, director of La Familia Counseling Center on Franklin Boulevard in Sacramento, said she recently spoke to a high school graduate who had lost his job in a restaurant and was thinking of going back to Mexico.
"He came over with his mom, who was in the process of losing her restaurant job," Barnes said. "It's frightening, especially for the children. They feel this is their country, they don't know anything else, and they find they can't get driver's licenses or jobs."
As its economy rebounds, Mexico "is becoming a better option than it was in the past, but you still have to find a job and reconnect," Barnes said.
While the weakened U.S. economy, rising deportations and tougher border enforcement have led to fewer undocumented migrants, changes in Mexico are playing a significant role, González Gutiérrez said.
Mexico's average standard of living – including health, education and per capita income – is now higher than those in Russia, China and India, according to the United Nations.
Mexico's growing middle class "reduces the appetites to come because there are simply many more options" at home, González Gutiérrez said. "Most people who decided to migrate already have a job in Mexico and tend to be the most ambitious and attracted to the income gap between the U.S. and Mexico."
Mexico's economy is growing at 4 percent to 5 percent, benefiting from low inflation, exports and a strong banking system, the consul said.
Mexico's birthrate is also declining sharply. "As a natural consequence of us transforming from a rural to an urban society, we are running out of Mexicans to export," González Gutiérrez said. "Our society's growing at a rate of 2.1 children per woman – in the 1970s it was more than five."
Once the U.S. economy recovers, the flow of migrants moving north "may go up again, although most likely they will not reach the peak levels we saw in the first half of the decade," González Gutiérrez said.
WHAT? SUDDENLY THEY DON'T WANT AZTLAN BACK?
MIDNIGHT RIDER RESUME - As a member of the 9.4% I am just flabbergasted. I have absolutely nothing to say about the absurdity, the irony, the frustration, of all this.
The Sacramento Bee:
Improving Mexican economy draws undocumented immigrants home from California
By Stephen Magagnini
There are fewer undocumented immigrants in California – and the Sacramento region – because many are now finding the American dream south of the border.
Mexico's unemployment rate is now 4.9 percent, compared with 9.4 percent joblessness in the United States.
An estimated 300,000 undocumented immigrants have left California since 2008, though the remaining 2.6 million still make up 7 percent of the population and 9 percent of the labor force, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Among metropolitan areas with more than 1 million residents, Sacramento County ranks among the lowest, with an unauthorized population of 4.6 percent of its 1.4 million residents in 2008, according to Laura Hill, a demographer with the PPIC.
The Sacramento region, suffering from 12.3 percent unemployment and the construction bust, may have triggered a large exodus of undocumented immigrants, González Gutiérrez said.
The best-paid jobs for undocumented migrants are in the building industry, "and because of the severe crisis in the construction business here, their first response has been to move into the service industry," González Gutiérrez said. "But that has its limits. Then, they move to other areas in the U.S. to find better jobs – or back to Mexico."
Hill said it's hard to know whether the benefit of having fewer undocumented migrants outweighs the cost to employers and taxpayers.
California may have to provide less free education to the children of undocumented immigrants and less emergency medical care, she said, but it will also get less tax revenue.
In 2008, at least 836,100 undocumented immigrants filed U.S. tax returns in California using individual tax identification numbers known as ITINS, said Hill, who conducted the tax survey.
Based on those tax returns, the study found there were 65,000 undocumented immigrants in Sacramento County that year, far fewer than in many other big counties.
Sacramento's undocumented population ranked 10th in the state that year, behind Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Santa Clara, San Bernardino, Riverside, Alameda, Contra Costa and Ventura.
There were an estimated 12,000 undocumented immigrants in Yolo County; 9,000 in the Sutter-Yuba area; and 8,000 in Placer County.
An analysis of local ZIP codes showed that Sacramento (95815, 95823, 95824), West Sacramento (95605), Clarksburg (95612), Esparto (95627), Guinda (95637), Knights Landing (95645), Winters (95694) and Woodland (95776) each had an undocumented population of 10 percent to 15 percent.
Yolo County relies heavily on migrant workers to grow and harvest crops.
"People in construction are now turning to agriculture; it's the start of the tomato season so the harvesters will be jump-started pretty soon," said Woodland Mayor Art Pimentel, whose 55,000 residents are 48 percent Latino, some of them undocumented.
Some aren't sticking around for the upcoming tomato harvest, said Sylvina Frausto, secretary of Holy Rosary Church in Woodland. "Some have a small parcel in Mexico. They own their own home there, so instead of renting here they go back to their small business there."
Many raise animals, run grocery stores or sell fruits and goods on street corners.
"They're going back home because they can't get medical help or government assistance anymore," Frausto said, "And when it's getting so difficult for them to find a job without proper documentation, it's pushing them away."
Anita Barnes, director of La Familia Counseling Center on Franklin Boulevard in Sacramento, said she recently spoke to a high school graduate who had lost his job in a restaurant and was thinking of going back to Mexico.
"He came over with his mom, who was in the process of losing her restaurant job," Barnes said. "It's frightening, especially for the children. They feel this is their country, they don't know anything else, and they find they can't get driver's licenses or jobs."
As its economy rebounds, Mexico "is becoming a better option than it was in the past, but you still have to find a job and reconnect," Barnes said.
While the weakened U.S. economy, rising deportations and tougher border enforcement have led to fewer undocumented migrants, changes in Mexico are playing a significant role, González Gutiérrez said.
Mexico's average standard of living – including health, education and per capita income – is now higher than those in Russia, China and India, according to the United Nations.
Mexico's growing middle class "reduces the appetites to come because there are simply many more options" at home, González Gutiérrez said. "Most people who decided to migrate already have a job in Mexico and tend to be the most ambitious and attracted to the income gap between the U.S. and Mexico."
Mexico's economy is growing at 4 percent to 5 percent, benefiting from low inflation, exports and a strong banking system, the consul said.
Mexico's birthrate is also declining sharply. "As a natural consequence of us transforming from a rural to an urban society, we are running out of Mexicans to export," González Gutiérrez said. "Our society's growing at a rate of 2.1 children per woman – in the 1970s it was more than five."
Once the U.S. economy recovers, the flow of migrants moving north "may go up again, although most likely they will not reach the peak levels we saw in the first half of the decade," González Gutiérrez said.
International Business Times:
Top Four Military Chiefs in Turkey Resign
July 29, 2011 1:21 PM EDT
The chiefs of Turkey’s armed forces, army, navy and air force have all resigned en masse, according to the Anatolia news agency.
The Anatolia news service said Kosaner was quitting "as he saw it as necessary.” He was appointed to that post only one year ago.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s Supreme Military Council, which makes decisions on promotions for officers, is scheduled to meet next week. Reportedly, Ankara was incensed that some senior officers who are imprisoned or facing trial for plotting to overthrow the government was slated for promotions.
Top Four Military Chiefs in Turkey Resign
July 29, 2011 1:21 PM EDT
The chiefs of Turkey’s armed forces, army, navy and air force have all resigned en masse, according to the Anatolia news agency.
While the motivation for such an unusual and sudden wave of resignations is not yet known, the tension between the ruling government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the secular military has festered for years. The government has prosecuted hundreds of military officers on charges of seeking to overthrow the Ankara government.
The chief of general staff, the top military commander in Turkey, Gen. Işık Koşaner, reportedly conferred with Erdogan on numerous occasions recently.The Anatolia news service said Kosaner was quitting "as he saw it as necessary.” He was appointed to that post only one year ago.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s Supreme Military Council, which makes decisions on promotions for officers, is scheduled to meet next week. Reportedly, Ankara was incensed that some senior officers who are imprisoned or facing trial for plotting to overthrow the government was slated for promotions.
The Turkish military is viewed as a bastion of secularism against any signs of religious ferment in the state government. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has long been accused of having a pro-Islamic agenda – something it has repeatedly denied.
BBC:
Egypt uprising: Islamists lead Tahrir Square rally
Jon Leyne at the protest: "It seems the Islamists and the military rulers have a shared interest in maintaining the old order"
Tens of thousands of people have packed Cairo's Tahrir Square, after the first call by Islamist leaders for nationwide demonstrations since President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February.
Many protesters - dominated by Muslim Brotherhood supporters - are calling for an Islamic state and Sharia law.
Correspondents say the rallies will be a worrying development for secularists.
The Brotherhood is the most organised political force in Egypt, although it was not prominent in the revolution.
Tensions have been running high between Egypt's Islamist and secular groups, who are at odds over the transition to democracy in the Arab world's most populated country.
Turning point?
Liberal groups first want guarantees of a constitution that will protect religious freedom and personal rights, whereas Islamists want speedy elections and a recognition of Islam - in one form or another - in the new Egyptian state.
Now, the Islamists want their voice to be heard and are showing their muscle for the first time since Mr Mubarak stepped down on 11 February, says the BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo.
Although the Muslim Brotherhood can turn out huge crowds by rallying its supporters at mosques, it does not necessarily represent the majority of Egyptians and is predicted to win around 20% of the vote in an election, our correspondent says.
There was little sign of any secular groups at Friday's rally, he says, adding that it will be interesting to see how they re-group after today's events.
Since early July, the mainly secular protesters had camped out in Tahrir Square - the epicentre of protests that toppled Mr Mubarak - to denounce the ruling military council over the slow pace of reform.
Islamist groups had for the most part stayed away from the sit-in. Last week, they held their own demonstration and accused the Tahrir protesters of going against the country's "Islamic identity", the AFP news agency reports.
But with Islamists and the more conservative Salafist groups now filling Tahrir Square, it could mark a turning point in Egypt's post-revolution period, our correspondent says.
video at the link
Egypt uprising: Islamists lead Tahrir Square rally
Jon Leyne at the protest: "It seems the Islamists and the military rulers have a shared interest in maintaining the old order"
Tens of thousands of people have packed Cairo's Tahrir Square, after the first call by Islamist leaders for nationwide demonstrations since President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February.
Many protesters - dominated by Muslim Brotherhood supporters - are calling for an Islamic state and Sharia law.
Correspondents say the rallies will be a worrying development for secularists.
The Brotherhood is the most organised political force in Egypt, although it was not prominent in the revolution.
Tensions have been running high between Egypt's Islamist and secular groups, who are at odds over the transition to democracy in the Arab world's most populated country.
Turning point?
Liberal groups first want guarantees of a constitution that will protect religious freedom and personal rights, whereas Islamists want speedy elections and a recognition of Islam - in one form or another - in the new Egyptian state.
Now, the Islamists want their voice to be heard and are showing their muscle for the first time since Mr Mubarak stepped down on 11 February, says the BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo.
Although the Muslim Brotherhood can turn out huge crowds by rallying its supporters at mosques, it does not necessarily represent the majority of Egyptians and is predicted to win around 20% of the vote in an election, our correspondent says.
There was little sign of any secular groups at Friday's rally, he says, adding that it will be interesting to see how they re-group after today's events.
Since early July, the mainly secular protesters had camped out in Tahrir Square - the epicentre of protests that toppled Mr Mubarak - to denounce the ruling military council over the slow pace of reform.
Islamist groups had for the most part stayed away from the sit-in. Last week, they held their own demonstration and accused the Tahrir protesters of going against the country's "Islamic identity", the AFP news agency reports.
But with Islamists and the more conservative Salafist groups now filling Tahrir Square, it could mark a turning point in Egypt's post-revolution period, our correspondent says.
video at the link
WTF ?
Google Translate :-
Al-Manar: Israeli warplanes landing in Qatar
Jouhina New Confirmed - well-informed sources told Al-Manar that Israeli warplanes had landed late last week in a military air bases in the occupied country.
The sources revealed that this dangerous development came after a meeting of the strategic American-Israeli crew , which was held early the same week in Tel Aviv.
It is noteworthy that there are strong ties between Qatar and Israel and that the security coordination between the two countries reached an advanced stage and constantly reinforced, and held meetings and the meetings continued at all levels of political, military, security and economic relations between Doha and Tel Aviv.
http://goo.gl/L98Gm
Thanks to Alexander Munch.
The Totalitarian Impulse
Caroline Glick calmly sums up what should be common sense:
That is, leftist writers whose works have been admired by terrorists have not been held accountable for the acts of terrorism conducted by their readers.Glick reviews the histories of "totalitarian democracies" going back to Rousseau. She exposes the hypocrisy of the left in its excuse-making for jihadi terror and "understanding" of eco-terror. The left's exploitation of Breivik to shut down all discussion of immigration, Islam, and patriotism will undermine the discussion that a liberal order requires:
Nor should they have been. And to understand why this sort of guilt-by-readership is wrong, it is worth considering what separates liberal democracies from what the great Israeli historian Jacob Talmon referred to as totalitarian democracies. Liberal democracies are founded on the notion that it is not simply acceptable for citizens to participate in debates about the issues facing their societies. It is admirable for citizens in democracies to participate in debates - even heated ones -- about their government's policies as well as their societies' cultural and moral direction. A citizenry unengaged is a citizenry that is in danger of losing its freedom.
One of the reasons that argument and debate are the foundations of a liberal democratic order is because the more engaged citizens feel in the life of their societies, the less likely they will be to reject the rules governing their society and turn to violence to get their way. As a rule, liberal democracies reject the resort to violence as a means of winning an argument. This is why, for liberal democracies, terrorism in all forms is absolutely unacceptable.
Whether or not one agrees with the ideological self-justifications of a terrorist, as a member of a liberal democratic society, one is expected to abhor his act of terrorism. Because by resorting to violence to achieve his aims, the terrorist is acting in a manner that fundamentally undermines the liberal democratic order.
Liberal democracies are always works in progress. Their citizens do not expect for a day to come when the debaters fall silent because everyone agrees with one another as all are convinced of the rightness of one side. This is because liberal democracies are not founded on messianic aspirations to create a perfect society.
In contrast, totalitarian democracies - and totalitarian democrats -- do have a messianic temperament and a utopian mission to create a perfect society. And so its members do have hopes of ending debate and argument once and for all.
And it is this tendency that most endangers the future of liberal democracies. If the Left is ever successful in its bid to criminalize ideological opponents and justify acts of terrorism against their opponents, their victory will destroy the liberal democratic foundations of Western civilization.I'd add to the above that this is what Breivik wants. They are playing right into his hands.
This week we saw GE move it's X-Ray division to China... NOW BOSTON SCIENTIFIC>>SHENZEN SCIENTIFIC
If people don’t understand the consequences of too much govt, costing too much overhead, there is nothing more to say. China overcomes this with ridiculousness in slav-bour costs.
Boston Scientific to lay off 1,200-plus
Company mum on effect in Mass.
The company would not say how many jobs will be lost in Massachusetts, where fewer than 2,000 of its 25,000 employees are based. In February 2010, Boston Scientific said it would pare 1,300 jobs worldwide, but similarly did not say where.
Yesterday’s move, a day after Boston Scientific disclosed it was investing $150 million and hiring 1,000 people in China
If American workers expect to work for american wages, and free trade reamins as it is, then the american govt has to almost REMOVE ITSELF as a cost on free enterprise to make businesses here competitive.
Otherwise it is over.
OVER
PHYSICS.
- Boston Scientific to cut up to 1,400 jobs (boston.com)
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