Sunday, May 30, 2010

Calling All Angels

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Ask Knee-Jerk Environmentalists Why BP Is Drilling at 5,000 Feet




Charles Krauthammer has asked a question that's not being discussed, but should be:

Why are we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place?

I've been thinking about that one myself, considering that, for decades, Alaska has been begging for a go-ahead to place small high-tech wells on perfectly dry land in ANWR. Ask the liberal's pariah, Sarah Palin, whose state has made as much as $10 billion in a single year in revenues from royalty payments made to the state by oil companies like BP. Alaska's residents don't pay state taxes; instead, they receive about $1,200 a year from their state government in revenues made from oil. Alaskans want to drill, and the technology to drill on dry land has been around for a long time.

It goes without saying that stopping an oil leak on dry land, like anything else, is enormously easier than stopping one 5,000 feet under the Gulf. And Alaska has plenty of natural gas that it would like to pipe to the lower 48 states.

Said Krauthammer:
As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we go deep (1,000 feet and more) and ultra deep (5,000 feet and more), in part because environmentalists have succeeded in rendering the Pacific and nearly all the Atlantic coast off-limits to oil production. (President Obama's tentative, selective opening of some Atlantic and offshore Alaska sites is now dead.)

And of course, in the safest of all places, on land, we've had a 30-year ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

So we go deep, ultradeep — to such a technological frontier that no precedent exists for the April 20 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

There will always be catastrophic oil spills. You make them as rare as humanly possible, but where would you rather have one: in the Gulf of Mexico, upon which thousands depend for their livelihood, or in the Arctic, where there are practically no people?

Our natural environment is not protected by knee-jerk responses to environmental fads but by good judgment. The response to the Gulf of Mexico disaster is not to stopping drilling for oil--thereby abandoning any control over protection of the environment and leaving it to other countries--but to drill in the right places, where we can exercise maximum precautions and are in the best position to deal with accidents.
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Friday, May 28, 2010

John Brennan: What's Wrong with Jihad?

Just as I thought I'd better take a break from fulminating about the heartbreaking plan for a Ground Zero mega-mosque, I discovered that the Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, just defended jihad as a "legitimate tenet of Islam." This begs the question: Is Brennan advising Obama, or is Obama advising Brennan? Of course, the obvious answer is that this stuff rolls downhill, and no doubt has been splashing around the governmental corridors of New York City since Obama was elected. Read about it if you can stand to. I think the jihadists already know.

Cartoonist Stilton Jarlsberg had this response:


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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

NYC Community Board Okays Ground Zero Mosque Plans




"I don't want a mosque on the grave of my son and on the grave of everybody else who was murdered on that day," Rosemary Cain said. Rosemary's son George was a 35-year old NYC firefighter.

My deepest condolences, Rosemary. I grieve for you. American grieves for you.

But Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, his Muslim backers in the U.S. and in Muslim nations, think they know better.

And now NYC's Community Board No. 1 agrees that they do.

The board have put their stamp of approval (29 to 1, with 10 abstaining) on the Ground Zero mosque, which somehow is supposed to show "resident support" of the project, despite an overflow crowd of hurt and angry people who came to their meeting last night to oppose the mosque.
 
It's all supposedly about tolerance, but no tolerance for the beliefs of Rosemary and the other mourners of 9/11, whose bodies were never recovered from Ground Zero.

In her own country.

"I'm asking you to let this be a place of understanding where we can learn about each other," supporter Asim Rehman said.

Thanks a lot, Asim. Just what we need. Another forced "opportunity" to learn about Muslims, while the very act of building this mosque at Ground Zero demonstrates perfectly that you have no interest whatever in the feelings of non-Muslims, or even of Muslims who recognize with their hearts the injury caused by this proposed mosque.

Islamic "tolerance" in action.

Message received.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said in a statement that by supporting the multi-faith community and cultural center, the board "sent a clear message that our city is one that promotes diversity and tolerance."

Leftie liberal approval noted.

UPDATE:

Video from the meeting (Hat tip, Michelle Malkin). This is what the Board approved:



UPDATE:

From a report by Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch via Atlas Shrugs:
Immediately after the vote the press was given a written statement from Stringer congratulating the Board for voting as they did, which indicates that he knew all along the way the vote was going to go.

But that doesn't mean that the 9/11 Mosque is a fait accompli. Oh, no. The people in that room tonight who knew that they were being lied to and sold a bill of goods are not going to take this lying down. This is why it is all the more crucial for you, if you possibly can, to attend our June 6 rally at noon at Zucotti Park in lower Manhattan. This is our last chance to make our voices heard. And we will be heard.
Londoners were able to stop their mega-mosque, and NYC can do it too.
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Related posts:

    Tuesday, May 25, 2010

    Ground Zero Mosque Community Board Meeting Tonight, 5/25/10




    From 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America (via Teresamerica and Patriot's Corner):
    [The] mosque, located on the top floor of the 15-story building, would have a commanding view of the entire Ground Zero neighborhood. 
    I'm trying to imagine what kind of "moderate" Muslims think this is an inspiring view, the site of:
    the worst terrorist attack by extremist Muslims in America’s history; following the attack, 20,000 body parts were recovered in a nine-month operation to remove 1.8 million tons of rubble from Lower Manhattan.
    So inspiring, in fact, that someone was willing to put down almost $5 million in cash to secure the building, even though it is still under consideration for protection as an historical site.

    As we are reminded at Patriot's Corner, 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America view the plan outlined by the Ground Zero imam to
    “leverage” the mosque’s proximity to Ground Zero to engage in proselytizing and to “grow the Muslim community,” as shockingly insensitive to the history of the site . . .
    Maybe that's why the rest of the $100 million the mosque is expected to cost will be coming not only from Muslims in the United States, but also from overseas:
    Imam Abdul Rauf … told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Islamic center will be financed through contributions from Muslims in the US, as well as by donations from Arab and Islamic countries. . . .
    From Atlas Shrugs:
    Last week, the finance committee, composed of 12 people, voted unanimously in support of the mosque, after Imam Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan was made. No one knew about it, no announcement was made. The matter will now go to the full committee (more than 40 people). The full committee will be meeting on May 25. WE NEED YOU ALL TO ATTEND TO VOICE YOUR OPPOSITION. [emphasis mine]

    CB1 has no legal authority. Their "approval" or disapproval is in no way binding on the matter, but the media will be there, and we need to send a message to Rauf, Khan and Mayor Bloomberg: This is wrong.  This will do terrible harm to the 9/11 family community and non- Muslims around the world.  
    5/25    CB #1 Monthly Meeting - 6:00 PM
    Location:      Three Legged Dog Art and Technology Center
                         80 Greenwich Street (at Rector Street)
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    Related posts:

    Sunday, May 23, 2010

    Nothing is going to happen to me, man -- I'm a Mexican drunk driver!




    A vehicle being driven by Massachusetts state rep, Michael J. Moran, was rear ended at 60 miles an hour by an unlicensed drunk driver who left the scene of the accident. Moran is reported to be "okay," but an unnamed passenger in the vehicle being driven by the suspect, Isaias Naranjo, was hospitalized with life threatening injuries.

    When state police apprehended Naranjo and warned him that he would be facing serious charges, he laughed and replied, “I’m going to go back to my country, Mexico. Nothing is going to happen to me, man!”

    No wonder.  
    Massachusetts Attorney General and Worst Senate Candidate Ever Martha Coakley made news earlier this week by bragging that "technically, it's not illegal to be illegal in Massachusetts."
    Naranjo's statement that his country is Mexico, plus the Mexican costume he was wearing at the time of the accident, might have caused state police officers to "profile" him as a possible illegal alien, but they couldn't investigate that possibility.

    It seems that, three years ago, Massachusetts' governor, Democrat Deval Patrick, revoked an order by the state's previous governor, Republican Mitt Romney, that gave the state police power to investigate immigration violations.

    Representative Moran, a Democrat who represents part of Boston, is similarly on record as opposing legislation that would require recipients of tax-supported state benefits to show ID  proving that they are in Massachusetts legally.

    After all, what's a few "life-threatening injuries" when it comes to collecting potential votes from people whose allegiance belongs to another country?

    Addendum:

    Below, Lt. Col. Allen West offers some facts and opinions about illegal immigration. Inspiring. (Thanks to Peddling Fast.)



    Hat tip: American Power via Nice Deb.
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    "Sweet Holy Spirit" by the Isaacs

    Saturday, May 22, 2010

    Thank You For Signing the Petition to Stop the 911 Mega Mosque at Ground Zero




    My personal thanks to the many people who have used this site as a jumping-off spot to sign the petition to Stop the 911 Mega Mosque at Ground Zero or to write to New York City's Mayor Bloomberg. A number of people have spread the word with tweets, too. Your support means very much, very much indeed. It's all helping.

    I've written quite a few posts about the Ground Zero Mosque, most of which I've "torn up," as far as one can tear up an arrangement of electrons sitting on a capacitor somewhere. There are a great many words that I can't bring myself to publish.

    That "sensitive," soft-spoken, Muslim imam guy who just happened to have more than $4 million in cash to plunk down on land on which to build a 9/11 Ground Zero memorial mosque, complete with recreational facilities for devout Muslims, including a theater and swimming pool (Ground Zero being such a fun place and all) is telling anyone who will listen that the mosque is all about being "part of the solution." A lot of people are listening, including (or is that especially?) politicians in New York, like Mayor Bloomberg, who endorses the project and isn't lifting a finger except in the general direction of supporting the building of the mega mosque.

    I judge the sincerity of the imam's claim by the amount of pain caused by his announcement of the building of the mosque. Pain that the imam is quick to label as "bigotry."

    If Americans dare to express that they feel pain at the site of the torturous murder of their loved ones by Islamic terrorists at Ground Zero, they're quickly dismissed as "bigots" by the sensitive imam. He's not alone. The sensitive president of New York's Community Board No. 1, Julie Menin, thoroughly agrees, interestingly using the identical word: "There's been a tremendous amount of bigotry associated with this." You'd almost think they were reading from the same page, written at the same committee meeting.

    According to these self-stylized standard bearers of what America is supposed to be thinking and feeling, not only are Americans supposed to bear the pain, they're supposed to shut up about the pain, and now they're supposed to salute Muslims for having a good ol' time at the place of their pain. All in the interests of "solution."

    Because, well, you know, Americans are not supposed to be "bigots." And it goes without saying that it would be bigoted to ask exactly whose problem will be "solved" by building a mosque at Ground Zero, and the value of that solution measured against the pain it will cause. Bigotry, bigotry, bigotry.

    Every time there's a new terrorist attack, more people develop a few new memories that won't be part of the "solution." Those memories will be part of 3:00 a.m. Sooner or later, as terrorist attacks continue, just about everyone in this country will have developed a trunk full of memories of personal experiences with Islamic terrorism. Friends and relatives that never returned, etc. Indelible images in their minds of why these people never returned. What their loved ones suffered in the act of never returning. What life would be like if they had returned, dear God. And so on. There are already thousands upon thousands of people like that living in the New York/New Jersey area, and many more in DC. Not to mention Fort Hood.

    Those people are  just going to love walking by those Muslim cultural centers, filled with all those bleeding-heart-type Muslims so sensitive to America's pain, eating in their culturally correct restaurants, working out in their culturally correct exercise centers, and enjoying their culturally correct theatrical events and lectures (we can only imagine). In the bigger picture, though, the pain of Americans who haven't yet begun to recover from exposure to Islamic terrorists won't matter much. They'll only be "bigots."

    Oh, about that swimming pool in the Muslim Cultural Center. Just one swimming pool? Where will the women swim?

    Oh, stupid question. Bigoted too, for all I know.

    ----------

    If you don't like the idea of a mega mosque being build on Ground Zero (with a grand opening on September 11, 2011), here's a petition to sign. Mayor Bloomberg loves the idea: his email address. Here are links to contact the distinctly non-"bigoted" Financial District Committee who approved this plan and also the proudly non-"bigoted" Community Board No. 1 who gave them authority to do so. You are wisely being asked to be polite in your communications by the fearless Pamela Geller of the human rights group, Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). SIOA is hosting a rally at Ground Zero on June 6 at noon to protest the construction of this mosque.

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    Related posts:

    Friday, May 21, 2010

    About that Imam from the Ground Zero Mosque . . .




    Just what America needs, Muslim law ruling American Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and everybody else, or so says the imam who is planning to start with a mosque built in the Ground Zero kill zone.

    Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and Debra Burlingame of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America on Hannity last night:



    For the transcript of this interview, go here.

    Have something to say about a mosque on Ground Zero? Here's a petition to sign, Mayor Bloomberg's email address, and links to the Financial District Committee who approved this plan and Community Board No. 1 who gave them authority to do so. You are asked to be polite in your communications by Pamela Geller of the human rights group, Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), which is hosting a rally at Ground Zero on June 6 at noon to protest the construction of this mosque.

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    Related Post: Petition to Stop the Ground Zero Mega-Mosque: Sign It Now!

    Thursday, May 20, 2010

    Will the Real Mohammed Please Stand Up?

    I didn't want to let Everybody Draw Mohammed Day go by without participation. A number of bloggers have expressed distaste for the idea, but my view is that a little solidarity is a good thing, especially when it comes to standing up against bullies.

    Yeah, Everybody Draw Mohammed Day is not the pinnacle of spiritually enlightened activities, but only the delusional haven't noticed that Mohammed is a name that pops up a lot when large numbers of innocent people minding their own business suddenly find themselves in the middle of a bloody nightmare.

    I'm not going out of my way to respect that.

    I've been reading Mark Steyn's book, America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It (Regnery, 2008). It's every bit the example of insight and clarity you'd expect from him, and here's a little piece of it (pp. 63-64). I added illustrations I found on the Web until I ran out of stomach:
    Not long after September 11, I said, just as an aside, that these days whenever something goofy turns up on the news chances are it involves some fellow called Mohammed. It was a throwaway line, but if you want to compile chapter and verse, you can add to the list every week.


    A plane flies into the World Trade Center? Mohammed Atta.
    A sniper starts killing gas station customers around Washington, D.C.? John Allen Muhammed.
    A gunman shoots up the El Al counter at Los Angeles airport? Hesham Mohamed Hedayet.


    A terrorist slaughters dozens in Bali? Noordin Mohamed.
    A British subject self-detonates in a Tel Aviv bar? Asif Mohammed Hanif.
    A terrorist cell bombs the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania? Ali Mohamed. [No photo; substituted photo of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, 9/11 mastermind.]

    A gang rapist preys on the women of Sydney? Mohammad Skaf.
    A group of Dearborn, Michigan, men charged with cigarette racketeering in order to fund Hezbollah? Fadi Mohamad-Musbah Hammoud, Mohammed Fawzi Zeidan, and Imad Mohamad-Musbah Hammoud. [No photos; substituted photo of Mohammed al Modadi, the Qatari diplomat who caused two jet fighters from Buckley Air Force Base to be scrambled after he locked himself in a passenger jet restroom and told air marshalls he was "lighting his shoes on fire."]
    A Canadian terror cell is arrested for plotting to bomb Ottawa and behead the prime minister? Mohammed Diri, Amin Mohamed Durrani [shown], and Yasim Abdi Mohamed.
    These last three represent a "broad strata" of Canadian society, according to Mike McDonnell, assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a man who must have aced Sensitivity Training class. To the casual observer, the broad strata would seem to be a very singular stratum: in their first appearance in court, all twelve men arrested in that Ontario plot requested the Koran.
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    Wednesday, May 19, 2010

    Petition to Stop the Ground Zero Mega-Mosque: Sign It Now!




    Alert citizens of England, where there is a large and powerful population of Muslims, were able to end the construction of a mega-mosque in East London, so Americans better get moving to put a stop to the planned Ground Zero mega-mosque which its developers would like to open on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

    For years, an Islamist group in England actively worked toward the construction of a mega-mosque capable of holding 70,000 people next door to another project, the 2012 London Olympics stadium. (Which, for some reason, brings to my mind that an Islamist group, Black September, slaughtered a group of innocent Israeli athletes and their coaches at the Munich Summer Olympics in 1972.) But "determined, sustained, and intelligent opposition" halted this "Islamist project."

    No need to explain why Islamists would be wanting to open a mega-mosque at Ground Zero on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Nevertheless, the project's spokesperson, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, has been going around acting like building a mega-mosque in a building damaged during the 9/11 attack is the most normal, most patriotic, and most conciliatory act imaginable, and that coming up with the 4.85 million in cash that records show the imam paid for the land is no big deal. The reality:
    Ground Zero mosque imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has blamed the West, rather than Islamic jihadists, for terrorism on several occasions. He has said, according to Australia's Sun-Herald, that "the U.S. and the West must acknowledge the harm they have done to Muslims before terrorism can end." On another occasion he said that "Western active involvement in shaping the internal affairs of Islamic societies have contributed to the creation of terrorism done in the name of Islam."

    Abdul Rauf has also called Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' endorsement of the implementation of Sharia courts in Britain "forward thinking" - despite Sharia's denial of basic freedoms including the freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and equality of rights of all people before the law.
    Interested New Yorkers will no doubt want to examine the activities of the developers of the mosque to make sure that the concerned parties have applied each and every jot and tittle precisely where it was supposed to be placed, in the prescribed time frames, and that no legal procedures by any of the developers, mystery funders, or municipal authorities or staff members have been overlooked. Red tape can be hell to get through when all kinds of interested bystanders are looking over everyone's shoulders 24/7. And in this case . . . .

    Pamela Geller has provided a petition for signing, as well as contact information to let the numbskulls who allowed this project get this far know what you think (well, not exactly what you think, since she asks that you BE POLITE):
    Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, City Hall. Write him every day:

    PHONE 311 (or 212-NEW-YORK outside NYC)
    FAX (212) 788-8123
    E-MAIL: http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html

    The 12-member Financial District Committee who unanimously approved this abomination: GO HERE, BE POLITE.

    And Community Board 1 Members who gave them the authority to do so: GO HERE, BE POLITE.
    Email: man01@cb.nyc.gov
    Telephone:
    Fax: (212) 442-5055
    Address:
    49-51 Chambers Street Room 715
    New York, NY 10007-1209
    Staff
    Noah Pfefferblit, District Manager
    Michael Levine, Director of Planning and Land Use
    Yume Kitasei, Community Liaison
    Lucy Acevedo, Community Coordinator
    The human rights group Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) will be hosting a rally at Ground Zero on June 6 at noon to protest construction of the mosque. You can join SIOA's Facebook page here.
    We chose June 6 as the rally date," Geller explained, "because it's D-Day. In 1944, Americans acted against the evil of Nazism. Now it is time for Americans to stand up against the evil of Islamic jihad terrorism and Islamic supremacism.
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    Tuesday, May 18, 2010

    Janet Napolitano Hasn't Read The AZ Immigration Bill Either: Why Bother?




    Another paragraph in the continuing saga of the Obama administration's disdain for the American people.

    From Real Clear Politics:
    Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano admits she hasn't read the Arizona immigration law, but passed judgment on it anyway. "That's not the kind of law I would have signed," she declared.

    "I believe it's a bad law enforcement law. I believe it mandates and requires local enforcement and puts them in a position many do not want to be placed in," Napolitano said.

    "When I was dealing with laws of that ilk, most of the law enforcement agencies in Arizona at that time were opposed to such legislation," she claimed.
    Video here (quote starts about :51).

    You can understand why Obama's administration doesn't want the American people to think they actually read our laws. We might get the mistaken notion that the administration is considering upholding those laws.

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    Sunday, May 16, 2010

    Latest Jihadi Legal Defense: We Take It All Back




    Look at the smiles on the faces of three of the young men in shackles who were picked up in Pakistan after being reported for asking around for the nearest terrorist camp. When this photo was taken, in December of 2009 or early January of 2010, it was good times heading for Madrassa U for these five wanna-be terrorists from the DC area: Pakistani Americans Umer Farooq and Waqar Hussain; Ethiopian Americans Aman Yamar and Ahmed Abdullah Mimi; and Egyptian American Ramy Zamzam, all under the age of 26.

    During Thanksgiving break, the group had jetted away to Pakistan, leaving behind a "goodbye" video "showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended." Their worried parents soon enlisted the aid of the FBI in getting their sons back. Too late. When the men asked to be directed to the nearest terrorist camp but didn't have the correct "references" and didn't even speak the preferred language (Urdu), locals turned them in to the Pakistani police, whom Ramy Zamzam (smiling prisoner second from the right) assured there was nothing to worry about: "We are jihadists, and jihad is not terrorism."

    Unimpressed, Pakistani authorities wanted to know why guys from a suburb of Alexandria were traipsing around Pakistan with a map of the Chashma Barrage [shown],  a reservoir complex located near nuclear power facilities.

    After a few weeks of eating a culturally correct diet and experiencing local customs in a high security Pakistani prison, the youths were throwing Help-Us-We're-Being-Tortured notes out the window of the bus transporting them to their hearings. Pakistani authorities charged Umer, Waqar, Aman, Ahmed, and Ramy with attempting to (a) target important installations in Pakistan, (b) fight in Afghanistan, and (c) embrace martyrdom.

    The five now can't figure out why anyone would confuse them with jihadists. In fact, they claim, their "noble" intentions "in traveling secretly to Pakistan" were motivated by a desire to help Muslim orphans in Afghanistan, mixed in with a desire for some just plain "fun." A little too late, Aman Yamar (the doubtful looking prisoner second from the left) has come to the conclusion that "It doesn't make any sense that I would leave my family, friends, education and comfortable, happy life to live in a small cave."

    It seems that embracing martyrdom isn't all it's cracked up to be.

    Hat tip: Jihad Watch.

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    Related Posts:

    Noam Chomsky Denied Entry into Israel




    Imagine that.

    From Haaretz:
    Left-wing American linguist Professor Noam Chomsky was denied entry into Israel on Sunday, for reasons that were not immediately clear.

    Chomsky, who was scheduled to deliver a lecture at Bir Zeit University near Jerusalem, told the Right to Enter activist group by telephone that inspectors had stamped the words "denied entry" onto his passport when he tried to cross from Jordan over Allenby Bridge.

    When he asked an Israeli inspector why he had not received permission, he was told that an explanation would be sent in writing to the American embassy.
    Birzeit University is the first institution of higher education established in the Palestinian territories. Classes are taught in Arabic and English. Chomsky's lecture was to take place in the university's main auditorium, Kamal Naser Hall. Kamal Naser, shown with Nasar Arafat and others, was once editor of a PLO newspaper and also a member of the PLO executive committee. In 1967, he was expelled from the West Bank by Israel. In 1973, following the PLO's murder of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes at the 1972 Munich games, an Israel Defense Force team assassinated Kamal Naser and two other terrorists in a PLO hideout in Lebanon.

    Chomsky has lectured at Birziet University in the past.
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    Lamb of God




    Agnus Dei, Gregorian Chant.



    From Wiki:

    Based upon John the Baptist's reference in John 1:29 to Jesus ("Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world"), the text in Latin is:

    Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
    Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
    Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

    which means:

    Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
    Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
    Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

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    Saturday, May 15, 2010

    How Did They Ever Get Their Hands on Barry Soetoro's Barack Obama's Secret Scrapbook?






    Is there anything quite like a trip down memory lane with a history-making, genius-level orator?

    Great! 59 New Cap-and-Trade Boondoggles from Big Nanny




    There's no doubt that Americans don't feel that our national security is being overly protected as we watch videos of the Attorney General squirming and dodging when asked by a member of the House Judiciary Committee to draw a possible connection between the term "radical Islam" and the Times Square bomber, a Pakistani who trained with and was funded by the Taliban.

    What is Big Nanny protecting us from?  Dietary salt. Adipose tissue in our children's pudgy little cheeks. Accidental exposure to the sight of an 8-foot cross tucked away in 1.5 million acre desert.

    How about Muslim wack-jobs trying to blow up American children while they watch a play on Times Square? There we're on our own.

    Back in 2006, Mark Steyn pointed out that Big Government is a national security threat:
    The state has gradually annexed all the responsibilities of adulthood--health care, child care, care of the elderly--to the point where it's effectively severed its citizens from humanity's primal instincts, not least the survival instinct. In the American context, the federal "deficit" isn't the problem; it's the government programs that cause the deficit. These programs would be wrong even if Bill Gates wrote a check to cover them each month. They corrode the citizen's sense of self-reliance to a potentially fatal degree. Big government is a national security threat; it increases your vulnerability to threats like Islamism, and makes it less likely you'll be able to summon the will to rebuff it. We should have learned that lesson on September 11, 2001, when big government flopped big-time and the only good news of the day came from the ad hoc citizen militia of Flight 93. (America Alone, prologue to 2008 edition)
    Enter a new and extensive set of 59 carbon-tracking and taxing government bureaucracies designed to infantilize us even more. If you'd like a closer look at this list (courtesy of Investors Business Daily and Mark Morano of Climate Depot), click on the image to open it, then click on it again to zoom.

    My personal favorite on the list is #60, which is not a government bureaucracy per se. Item #60 merely gives the EPA authority to establish additional "climate change" programs when the previous 59 new bureaucracies prove insufficient. These agencies, now merely gleams in Big Nanny's eye, include agencies affecting "climate change" and water management, fire protection, and coastal watersheds. We wouldn't want to let any opportunities for new tax-supported government bureaucracies to slip away. You still might have some money left under one of your sofa cushions.
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    Thursday, May 13, 2010

    Terrorists a Few Miles from Harvard University? Now That Would Be a Problem





    The Other McCain and DaTechGuy have been on top of this. 

    From NECN:
    BOSTON (AP) - A top Massachusetts law enforcement official says two men who have been taken into custody in connection with the failed Times Square car bomb are considered to have had a "direct connection" to the suspect, Faisal Shahzad.
        
    The official says the men are believed to have provided money to Shahzad, but investigators are not sure whether they were witting accomplices or simply moving funds as is common between Middle Eastern and Central Asian nationals who live in the U.S. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
         
    The official says "these people might be completely innocent and now know what they were providing money for, but it's clear there's a connection.
    At least one of the men lives at 39 Waverly Avenue in Watertown, Massachusetts, up river from Harvard University, which might ring some alarms in the White House and among the Obama elite that not every terrorist is an essentially harmless lone amateur nut job. Also, a stomach-churner for parents everywhere from The Other McCain:
    12:52 p.m. ET: In his latest update via telephone from scene, Da Tech Guy reports that the 2-story boarding house at 39 Waverly Ave. is located two doors down and across the street from Watertown Middle School (68 Waverly Ave.). 
    FBI agents were also on the scene at a gas station in Brookline, Massachusetts, and sites in New Jersey and Long Island, N.Y.

    So far today, three men have been arrested in connection with the attempted Times Square bombing.

    Update: Two of the men were picked up in Massachusetts and one in Maine. All three are from Pakistan.
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    Everybody Needs To Watch This Video




    If you've watched it on another site, it wouldn't hurt to watch it again. It might be a good idea to remember its contents the next time someone encourages you to respect the "cultural differences" of Islam.


    Looks like this Muslimah didn't really think she'd be arrested for expressing her enthusiasm for genocide.

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    Wednesday, May 12, 2010

    American Ingenuity: Green and Simple Oil Spill Cleanup




    Using hay to absorb oil, demonstrated by two employees of a contractor in Florida, CW Roberts. According to a post in Free Republic, "they have just received a contract to to do their hay idea for all the 26 miles of Walton County, Florida beaches including Sandestin. They start off shore with tug boats and barges spreading or blowing the hay over the oil."



    Hat tip: BackyardConservative.
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    Tuesday, May 11, 2010

    Supreme Court Unable to Save Mojave Desert Memorial Cross from Desecration




    Less than two weeks ago, on April 28th, five members of the Supreme Court decided to let an 8-foot war memorial cross stand in the middle of the Mojave Desert despite the objections of an Oregon man distressed by the possibility that he might someday drive through the Mojave Desert and, from the road, view that memorial cross, which had been erected in 1934 by members of the local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

    Against the possibility that the eyes of someone driving through the Mojave Desert might momentarily rest on an object he considers offensive, the cross has been covered with plywood for the last 10 years as the ACLU worked to have it removed from a desert preserve owned by the U.S. government. Over the weekend, "vandals" took it upon themselves to finally remove the plywood covering from the cross. A few hours later, on Sunday, when workers were sent to replace the plywood covering, they found that the problem of having a memorial cross exposed to public view had been solved, not by plywood, but by "by thieves who cut the metal bolts that attached the symbol to a rock in the sprawling desert preserve."

    Authorities are suggesting that the cross was removed by "scrap metal scavengers."

    Uh huh.

    As reported by The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, California, the president of the Liberty Institute, one of the law firms representing the veteran caretakers of the Mojave desert cross, had this to say:
    This is an outrage, akin to desecrating people's graves. It's a disgraceful attack on the selfless sacrifice of our veterans. We will not rest until this memorial is re-installed.
    The VFW also promised that the memorial will be rebuilt:
    "This was a legal fight that a vandal just made personal to 50 million veterans, military personnel and their families," National Commander Thomas J. Tradewell said.
    The cross had been sitting on land controlled by the National Park Service until a transfer of the section of land on which the memorial cross stood could be transferred to the VFW in a land exchange ordered by Congress. That was a compromise that the plaintiff and the ACLU refused to accept. They adamantly fought to have the cross torn down before the land was transferred, which was the demand that brought the case to the Supreme Court. After hearing oral arguments, the court said:
    The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm. . . . 
    Of course, some people will never quite understand the protections afforded to society when the majority of its members honor such simple rules of conduct as "Thou shalt not steal."

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    Related posts:

    Monday, May 10, 2010

    Elena Kagan: No significant paper trail. Where have we heard that before?





    Hope versus evidence.

    It worked before for Barack Obama, and it will work again, this time to place in the Supreme Court his choice for a justice who likely will be a force in American history for the next 25 to 35 years or more.

    Elena Kagan, Obama's Supreme Court Nominee, is now set to replace Justice John Paul Stevens upon her confirmation.

    If you'd like to know what's in store for America under Kagan's legal guardianship, get out your Ouija board. Kagan has never been a sitting judge, and she has only a modest stack of publications by which to ascertain her judicial leanings.

    In my book, the most compelling piece of evidence of her judicial philosophy is the fact that Obama nominated Kagan to serve as his first Solicitor General. (She was confirmed in 2009 by a vote of 61-31.)

    The job of the Solicitor General is to "assist the Attorney General in the performance of his duties," "to conduct all litigation on behalf of the United States in the Supreme Court, and to supervise the handling of litigation in the federal appellate courts."

    Kagan's most recent experience has been to assist Eric Holder in his less than masterful job as attorney general, and she has been so loyal to Holder and Obama that they want her to continue to support their agenda for the next few decades, even without any experience as a real live judge.
     
    For a live media roundup on the Kagan nomination, go to SCOTUSblog.

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    Sunday, May 9, 2010

    Happy Mothers Day, Patriot Moms!


    Time to smell the posies!

    Saturday, May 8, 2010

    Cumberland River Blues: Time to Help








    At least 20 people were killed by floodwaters in Tennessee alone, and at least 13 others in Kentucky and Missisippi. The damage is at least $1 billion.

    Common Cents has provided the list you are looking for:
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    Friday, May 7, 2010

    Clash of the Titans: Endangered Tortoises vs. Solar Power Developers




    I know, I know, it's not funny. But I'm still laughing. From the LA Times, via There's My Two Cents:
    On a strip of California's Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions between wilderness conservation and the nation's quest for cleaner power.
    Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy has been pushing for more than two years for permission to erect 400,000 mirrors on the site to gather the sun's energy. It could become the first project of its kind on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property, leaving a footprint for others to follow on vast stretches of public land across the West.
    The construction would come with a cost: Government scientists have concluded that more than 6 square miles of habitat for the federally threatened desert tortoise would be permanently lost.
    The Sierra Club and other environmentalists want the complex relocated to preserve what they call a near-pristine home for rare plants and wildlife, including the protected tortoise, the Western burrowing owl and bighorn sheep.
    "It's actually a good project. It's just located in the wrong place," said Ileene Anderson of the Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson, Ariz.-based environmental group.
    The dispute is likely to echo for years as more companies seek to develop solar, wind and geothermal plants on land treasured by environmentalists who also support the growth of alternative energy. In an area of stark beauty, the question will be what is worth preserving and at what cost as California pushes to generate one-third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
    Aside from the entertainment value of observing environmentalists being hoisted with their own petard, a more sobering aspect of the solar project in question is that it is part of a larger planned "solar farm" the size of Rhode Island. How's that for a small footprint? And the term "solar farm" deceptively sounds very Earth-friendly,  though it doesn't at all represent the fact of thousands of square miles covered by nothing but solar panels.

    The image of an actual "solar farm" shown above gives us a better idea of why desert dwellers of any and every species might object to having their neighborhood turned into one. The particular section of the "solar farm" under discussion would have "seven 459-foot metal towers, a natural gas pipeline, water tanks, steam turbine generators, boilers and buildings for administration and maintenance," all "surrounded by 8-foot steel fencing."

    California politicians have been scrambling to gain political points on the matter. On the side of the desert tortoises is Senator Dianne Feinstein. On the side of the solar energy developers is the Governator. From Yale Environment 360:
    When Feinstein, a California Democrat, first indicated she favored walling off a large swath of the desert from renewable energy development, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger growled, “If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert, I don’t know where the hell we can put it.”
    There are a lot of possible answers to that question, depending on who you ask.
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    Related Post: Birds and Bees Get to Sue Obama? Green Energy's Fifth Column

    Thursday, May 6, 2010

    Times Square Bomber Dropped from Terrorist Watch List

    Published reports indicate that the Times Square car bomber was dropped from the terrorist watch list shortly before he got his citizenship in 2009--at just about the same time that surveillance of the Fort Hood shooter and the Christmas Day bomber also stopped. This sickening revelation comes via AJ at The Strata-Sphere, who has been connecting the dots on the Obama administration's reduction of Clinton and Bush era surveillance of suspicious behavior by potential terrorists.
    As I posted yesterday, there was a disturbing blurb in a NY Times article that indicated Faisal Shahzad, the now infamous Times Square Bomber, was under surveillance as a potential terrorist during the Bush administration.
    George LaMonica, a 35-year-old computer consultant, said he bought his two-bedroom condominium in Norwalk, Conn., from Mr. Shahzad for $261,000 in May 2004. A fewweeks after he moved in, Mr. LaMonica said, investigators from the national Joint Terrorism Task Force [JTTF] interviewed him, asking for details of the transaction and for information about Mr. Shahzad. It struck Mr. LaMonica as unusual, but he said detectives told him they were simply “checking everything out.”
    JTTF’s typically surveillance an individual – especially a US Citizen – under the FIS Court authorization. These authorizations have to be renewed every 90 days or so by the US Attorney General. As has been noted before (see herehere and here for details) the Obama administration began shutting down Bush-era terrorists investigations last year as they debated how to reduce our nation’s surveillance of terrorists threats. The person who killed 14 people at Ft Hood last fall was one such suspect whose JTTF investigation was suspiciously shut down around this time last year.

    There is more evidence which seems to point at changes made by the Obama administration in terms of their monitoring Mr. Shahzad. For example, after being on the terrorist watch list for almost a decade, Shahzad was removed from that list sometime after 2008, according to CBS News:
    Sources tell CBS News that would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad appeared on a Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list – Traveler Enforcement Compliance System (TECS) – between 1999 and 2008 because he brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash instruments into the United States.
    Now there is another damning tidbit out that confirms that Federal Investigators may have been blinded and hamstrung by the lack of FIS Court authorization to fully monitor this threat:
    Taking great pains to explain how Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad was able to make it to JFK airport and board an Emirates airliner before being nabbed, authorities today said that they were following Mr. Shahzad, “but only on Twitter.”
    [snip]

    The fact is someone was trying to keep and eye on Shahzad, but possibly without the full authority of the JTTF and FIS Court. Someone was trying to monitor this guy. Someone who may have disagreed with the decision to pull back from the Bush era level of concern.
    And, I will add, some people cared enough to catch him, even though they had to scramble at the last minute.
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    Tuesday, May 4, 2010

    Pakistani Tries to Car-Bomb Americans; Therefore Americans Are Racists

    From MSNBC via How's That Obama Vote Working Out For You???:



    And then there's NYC Mayor Bloomberg with his latest "fret":
    Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the arrest should not be as used as an excuse for anti-Muslim actions. "We will not tolerate any bias or backlash against Pakistani or Muslim New Yorkers," he said. 
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    Related posts:

    Here's His Mug (UPDATED)

    Faisal Shahzad, the (alleged) terrorist who drove a car bomb into Times Square around dinner time on Saturday evening, was already on board a flight to Dubai when he was arrested by federal agents and police detectives last night just before midnight. Destination? Pakistan, his native country before he became a naturalized U.S. citizen last year and where he had recently spent five months.

    New York City's Mayor Bloomberg was happy enough, saying that law enforcement's "swift efforts led to this arrest after only 48 hours of around-the-clock investigation.” Good thing New York's finest didn't follow the leadership of their commander in chief too carefully. Only yesterday he was all too willing to point the finger at a "homegrown" terrorist.
    "If I had to guess, twenty five cents, this would be exactly that," Bloomberg said. "Homegrown maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything."
    That was after the Pakistani Taliban took credit for the attempted bombing.

    The MSM is reporting that Shahzad, who has been living in Sheldon, Connecticut, will be arraigned today in Manhattan federal court.

    Update (2:25 p.m. Eastern): Snarky Basterd had a few observations about this visage:
    Just look at this guy.

    He's obviously white, over 40, and must own a lot of guns. His favorite movie probably is Deliverance. I'll bet he can render the "Squeal like a pig!" line with conviction. Why even his name screams racist mobster from some southern flyover red state: Faisal Shahzad.
    Read the rest. You deserve a break today.
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    Related post: Car Bomb in Times Square (UPDATED)

    Monday, May 3, 2010

    Sponsored by the Taxpayers of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania


    I feel so much more secure now, don't you?

    Bet you can't wait to start paying for ObamaCare and that bailout for Greece (not kidding about that).

    Hat tip: Riehl World View.

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    15 Million Americans Moving to Canada?

    It's always good to look at a situation through another lens, just to see what you come up with. Michael Filozof at American Thinker has an interesting--and informative--view of illegal immigration from the southern border.

    Suppose for a moment that 15 million Americans -- the population of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut combined -- sneaked across the border into Quebec. Suppose that these illegal immigrants refused to learn to speak French, that they applied for Canadian welfare, that they reproduced at a rate higher than Quebec's residents, and that they bankrupted Canada's socialized medical system. Suppose that they sent their children to Canadian schools in such large numbers that Quebec's school system had to teach "French as a Second Language" courses.

    Suppose that the 15 million illegal American aliens included large numbers of criminals, drug dealers from Vermont, and arms traffickers, causing Quebec's crime rate to soar; that they comprised 20% to 30% of Quebec's prison inmates; and that they routinely evaded capture by Canadian authorities by sneaking back across the border, where they engaged in gang warfare.

    Under such circumstances, can't you just see American liberals having an enormous MSM-led pity party for the poor invaded French Canadians? Especially if there were a few hundred new departments in French colonial culture to be instituted in American universities, and an eager new constituency of ethnic French-Americans to mine for votes. The progressives would be clamoring for a state-of-the-art wall on the U.S. Northern border to protect Canada from Americans--and they would get it.

    That's the idea, isn't it? To protect the rest of the world from us.

    Read the rest here.

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    Sunday, May 2, 2010

    Car Bomb in Times Square (UPDATED)

    Last night around 7 p.m. (from the the NY Daily News, via Jihad Watch):
    Three heroic cops and a quick-thinking street vendor stopped a madman from detonating a car bomb in the heart of Times Square Saturday night, law enforcement officials told the Daily News.
    The T-shirt vendor - a Vietnam vet - told Officer Wayne Rhatigan there was smoke coming from a Nissan SUV on the southwest corner of 45th St. and Broadway about 7 p.m., sources said.
    Rhatigan approached the car, saw the smoke, and sprang into action.
    "I did a lap around the vehicle. The inside was smoking," Rhatigan told the Daily News Saturday night. "I smelled gunpowder and knew it might blow. I thought it might blow any second."
    He grabbed two rookie female cops patrolling the area. Together, they pushed hundreds of people away from the scene as they called for backup, he said.
    The Fire Department and bomb squad rushed to the scene.
    [snip]

    "It looks as if the perp was trying to light it up, and was interrupted by the cops, panicked and took off," a law enforcement source said.
    [snip]
    The man seen fumbling with the device vanished into the crowd and had not been found as of early this morning.
    Had the car bomb exploded, it "could have created a 'big fireball' and spewed out 'a lot of shrapnel' killing and maiming many. 

    A closed-circuit video recording showed that the vehicle was driven onto West 45th Street from Broadway around 6:28 yesterday evening. The SUV carried Connecticut license plates that they did not match the vehicle, and the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) had been obliterated.

    According to Newsweek, the bomb design apparently depended on an timing device triggering commercially made fireworks, which would then ignite containers of gasoline, detonating propane tanks.
    The bomb design appears to be at least loosely similar to two car bombs which failed to go off during an attempted London attack in June 2007. Somewhat eerily, those bombs were planted near Piccadilly Circus--the heart of a theater and entertainment district, the closest thing London has to Times Square. An Iraqi doctor was later convicted for that attack; he was arrested after he and an accomplice tried to drive a car bomb into Glasgow airport the day after the failed London attacks. The accomplice was killed in the airport-bombing attempt.
    Jihad Watch is reporting something that the U.S. MSM is not: 
    [O]ne clue comes from Jihad Watch reader Michael M.: "the vehicle was parked on 45th Street between 7th and 8th avenues in New York City. This is the location of VIACOM, Inc. offices. VIACOM owns Comedy Central. Comedy Central as we all know is the home of 'South Park'. This information is omitted from every article I've come across so far." 
    However, as Jihad Watch reported:
    The Telegraph has noticed: "The location is also adjacent to the Viacom building, fuelling speculation that it might be linked to the company's controversial South Park cartoon which recently depicted Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit." 
    Note the now-universal mainstream media reference to "Prophet Muhammad," as if we're all Muslims now. 
    Back home, according to Newsweek,
    Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that there is currently no evidence that the bomb was "anything other than a one-off." But on another show, she said the event was being handled as a "potential terrorist attack ... We're taking this very seriously."
    UPDATE (3:30 p.m.): From The Long War Journal, via Blackfive, via Fuzislippers commenting at Potluck:
    A top Pakistani Taliban commander took credit for yesterday's failed car bomb attack in New York City.
    qari-hussain.JPG
    Qari Hussain Mehsud, [image from a Pakistani Army wanted poster], the top bomb maker for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, said he takes "fully responsibility for the recent attack in the USA." Qari Hussain made the claim on an audiotape accompanied by images that was released on a YouTube website that calls itself the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel.

    The tape has yet to be verified, but US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal believe it is legitimate. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel on YouTube was created on April 30. Officials believe it was created to announce the Times Square attack, and Qari Hussain’s statement was pre-recorded.

    All indications are the tape is legitimate. YouTube has pulled the video and shut down the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan News Channel since this article was published.
    A comment from Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive:
    The fact that the website and tape were prepared before the attempted bombing lends credence to the idea that the bastards claiming it are responsible. That is a particularly unwelcome development.

    [snip]

    It is also telling that this attack may have come from the Taliban and not al Qaeda. If they have decided to move their fight out of the Hindu Kush it completely changes the calculus of our war against them.
    [snip] 

    Since our PC government and officials here will do just about anything to avoid saying that our enemies are Muslim, it is left to the Telegraph in the UK to point out that the vehicle was parked in front of the offices of Viacom. Hmmm aren't those the same gutless weasels who failed to even show the likeness of Mohammed on South Park. Wouldn't that be ironic if even failure to do this resulted in a fatwa and a bomb? May 20th is Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, don't forget.
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