Thursday, March 26, 2009

WJC blasts UNHRC religious criticism resolution

"'The World Jewish Congress, long a leader in the effort to champion human rights and freedom of religion, has for many years defended the rights of the members of all faiths, including the Muslim faith,' said WJC President Ronald S. Lauder. 'However, we strongly oppose the issue of "defamation of religions" being cast as a human rights violation at the United Nations. We see it as weakening the rights of individuals to express their views and criticize other religions, and, in the case of this specific resolution, particularly Islam.'

"Lauder went on to say that the resolution was an attempt to bring blasphemy laws prevalent in some Muslim countries to the UN, stressing that in accordance with human rights laws, the rights of individuals to express their views should be protected and not restricted or punished by the state."

Constitution, Schmonstitution — What Gov’t Wants it Takes Law or No

"No, I am not saying that the country is like a slack-jawed southerner, but is instead like an inbred, uneducated fool. I am not talking about genetic inbreeding here, either. I am saying this country has become like a dumbed-down, socially and historically illiterate, inbred, incurious, fool, one that understands one thing and one thing only: entertainment. We can thank our putrefying 'education' establishment for this as well as the coarsening culture about us.

"The reason I am drawn to this sad conclusion is the complete ignorance of the people of this country to the rule of law. Not just the ignorance evinced by the self-empowering politicians and the activist judges, but the bulk of the population. The Constitution has at last become a document that has no meaning to the largest number of Americans."

Speaking of doom, what if Obama only makes it worse?

"U.S. financial analyst Martin Weiss, in a white paper he released last week, believes that a second Great Depression is already under way. If his and similar analyses are correct, then the Obama administration is doing everything wrong. Throwing billions at trying to remove and resell the toxic assets that banks accumulated is a waste of time, because those assets are worthless and should be written off.

"Worse, according to some, Mr. Obama's $3.6-trillion budget, with its emphasis on health care, education and energy reform, wastes money that is needed to combat the coming depression. It robs the economy of future growth by piling on debt. And it depletes the President's political capital."

Daniel Hannan MEP: The devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government

PETA Kills More Animals Than Ever

"In the past, PETA has been exposed for killing animals transferred from shelters to its headquarters in Norfolk. Some, perhaps many, of these euthanasia deaths may well have been necessary due to the poor condition of the animals. But the number of kills versus adoptions may indicate something else is at work, particularly since its kill to adopt ratio is widening."

Poverty is the Answer: Radical Environmentalism Leading Us to a New Form of Human Sacrifice

"The environmental benefits of economic decline, though real, are fragile, because they are vulnerable to intervention by governments, which, understandably, want to put people back to work and get them buying non-necessities again--through programs intended to revive ordinary consumer spending (which has a big carbon footprint), and through public-investment projects to build new roads and airports (ditto)."

First decriminalization, then plural marriages

"If plural marriage is decriminalized by court decision, polygamists will be in the same legal vacuum as gays were after legislative change in 1969. Polygamy will no longer be a criminal offence, but no legal category of plural marriage will exist. Polygamy will simply be a voluntary social practice. But that won't last long, because common-law relationships are now virtually equivalent to marriage in Canadian law.

"Small-scale legal issues will immediately present themselves. Will polygamous immigrants be able to get Canadian divorces from a marriage performed in countries, such as Saudi Arabia, that recognize plural marriages? Will a polygamous man be able to include all his wives and their children as beneficiaries in his employment benefit plans? What happens to his pension after his death? Does it go only to the woman with whom he has been legally married in Canada, or must it be divided among his other common-law wives? These real-world questions cannot be avoided as the numbers of polygamists grow after decriminalization.

"Given the impact on dependent children, it will not be long until plural marriage is fully legalized, either by statute or by the cumulative weight of court decisions dealing with the practical issues arising from polygamy. It took almost four decades to move from the decriminalization of homosexuality to the legalization of same-sex marriage. I doubt it would take a decade for polygamy to follow the same path."

Making war on the African child

"Will Nigeria be the first country to be bought with Obama’s funding for abortion groups?"

Obama Used ‘Invest’ or ‘Investment’ 18 Times in Press Conference to Describe Government Deficit Spending

"In his prime-time Tuesday press conference, however, President Barack Obama used the words 'invest' or 'investment' 18 different times to describe the deficit spending he wants the federal government to undertake in pursuit of his budget plan.

"When the government engages in deficit spending it has to borrow money—part of it from foreign sources—and then charge future taxpayers to pay the interest on the borrowed money. As long as the government’s loans are not paid off, the taxpayers must continue paying interest on the debt year after year—just as an individual citizen would need to pay interest year after year on a credit card whose principal is never paid down.

"The money that goes each year to pay the growing interest on the federal government’s credit card cannot be 'invested' by private citizens and businesses to create jobs and grow the economy."

Imagine if Lucy Ricardo told Ricky she wanted to "invest" in a new hat.

With a budget proposal, Obama's governing philosophy comes fully into view

"Though all of this is readily seen in the budget's revenue and spending figures, the Obama administration nonetheless tried to couch it in the soothing language of fiscal conservatism. In his speech before Congress, the president said his team had found '$2 trillion in savings' over ten years with their sharp, budget-cutting pencils. But, even before the budget's official release just two days later, it was clear that this claim was a mirage. The 'savings' stemmed mainly from the assumption that, in a status quo scenario, war-fighting costs in Iraq would remain at essentially 'surge' levels in perpetuity, which no one has ever thought would be the case. That false assumption alone added $1.4 trillion to the 'baseline' against which the Obama team measured itself.

"But it didn't matter anyway. This budgetary sleight of hand couldn't disguise what even the mainstream press recognized: The Obama budget, if adopted, would run up the nation's debt at an unprecedented pace -- some $7 trillion between 2009 and 2019. No matter what baseline it's measured against, that's a lot of borrowing. At the end of 2008, before the full force of the financial crisis had hit government tax collections, the entire debt, accumulated over more than two centuries, stood at only $5.8 trillion. In 2007, at the end of the government expansion that marked much of the Bush era, the federal budget deficit fell to a comparatively insignificant $161 billion, or just 1.2 percent of GDP. By contrast, the lowest annual budget deficit in the Obama plan would be $533 billion in 2013, or 3 percent of GDP.

"This massive run-up of debt cannot be explained away with a continuing weak economy. In the run-up to the passage of the so-called stimulus bill, the president spoke incessantly of the financial crisis and the likely economic troubles that lie ahead. We won't dig ourselves out of the problem easily or quickly, he warned. But the budget he submitted to Congress now predicts otherwise. Robust economic growth is expected to resume in 2010 for good. Indeed, in 2012, the administration projects real GDP will increase an astonishing 4.6 percent, three years into a recovery.

"If anemic growth isn't to blame for the Obama deficits, what is? It's simple: spending. For all the talk of combing through the budget for savings, President Obama is planning an unprecedented expansion of government, with just about every agency and program in line for a major bump-up in funding. In 2008, total federal spending was $3 trillion. In 2013, after the financial crisis is expected to have subsided and economic growth to be in full swing, the president's budget, including his health-care plan, forecasts spending of about $4 trillion -- a $1 trillion, or 33 percent, increase in the size of government in just five years.

"And the spending is pretty much for anything and everything. Child-nutrition programs, Pell Grants (an 80 percent increase by 2014), national-service scholarships, state welfare grants, job training, disease prevention, research, agency overhead, and on and on. The State Department (and related international funding) would nearly double in size in five years; the Education Department would grow by more than 60 percent. Overall, annual appropriations spending would increase by $780 billion over the coming decade. "

The ethics of allowing babies to die

"The committee might also have considered the precedent withholding life-sustaining treatment from a disabled baby would mean for other disabled people.

"Phebe's case is likely to deliver very important messages about the ethical and legal rights of disabled babies and disabled people, in general, to medical treatment and to the 'necessities of life,' hydration and nutrition."

MISSOURI SCRAPS M.I.A.C. REPORT

"Let me review the events of the last few weeks so as to help readers familiarize themselves with this historic--and I do mean historic--episode.

"On February 20, 2009, the State of Missouri, via its Department of Public Safety, issued what was called 'MIAC Strategic Report: The Modern Militia Movement.' In this report, people who supported Presidential candidates Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and yours truly were referenced as being connected to potentially dangerous 'militia members.' But the inference did not stop there. People of conservative ideology were also identified in the State Police report as being potentially dangerous. People who held political opinions opposing abortion, illegal immigration, the New World Order, the North American Union, the Income Tax, the U.N., etc., were profiled in the MIAC report.

"Interestingly enough, no left-leaning political ideologies were identified. No Islamic extremists. No environmental extremists. Only people holding 'conservative' or 'right-wing' philosophies were identified in the MIAC report.

"The MIAC report was categorized as 'Unclassified/Law Enforcement Sensitive,' meaning the report was intended for law enforcement personnel only. Fortunately, an unidentified (for obvious reasons) Missouri law enforcement officer, who was extremely disturbed by this report, sent a copy to nationally syndicated radio talk show host Alex Jones. Of course, Jones immediately 'blew the whistle' on the story. This was on March 11.

"On March 14, the Columbia (Missouri) Daily Tribune ran a story on the subject, and on March 17, I wrote my first column about it. From that point, the story went viral.

"Internet sites, radio talk show hosts, and bloggers all over America picked up the story, and thousands of outraged citizens began bombarding the appropriate officials in Missouri with protests. Even Fox News Channel talk show host Glenn Beck ran a feature on the story on Friday, March 20, and again on Monday, March 23. The Constitution Party issued a 'Travel Advisory' for the State of Missouri, warning tourists and residents about the possibility of being profiled by State Police for such things as having bumper stickers with political statements on their vehicles, etc. All of this commotion was not lost on several Missouri State legislators and executive officers, either.

"Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder called on Governor Jay Nixon (who had previously stood by and defended the MIAC report) to place Department of Public Safety Director John Britt on administrative leave pending an investigation into the report. In addition, several Missouri State legislators said they would introduce an amendment to the Department of Public Safety's budget barring the agency from using 'state or federal funds for political profiling.'

"On March 23, DPS Director John Britt sent an apology letter to Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and me stating, 'I have ordered that the offending report be edited so as to excise all reference to Ron Paul, Bob Barr or Chuck Baldwin and to any third-party political organizations.'

"While Ron, Bob, and I appreciated the apology and retraction from Mr. Britt, the overriding offense of the report still lingered: namely, the report, with a very broad brush, linked people holding conservative political opinions to dangerous and violence-prone 'militias,' which Missouri law enforcement personnel were instructed to be on guard against. Therefore, public outcry against the MIAC report continued, Mr. Britt's apology notwithstanding.

"Then, on Wednesday, March 25, the head of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Col. James F. Keathley, ordered the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) to 'permanently cease distribution' of this abysmal report. Keathley said that neither he nor Britt had read the report before it was distributed.

"Keathley also noted that the report was filled with numerous spelling and grammatical errors and did not cite any sources for its broad statements about 'right-wing' militias. He further said that his department would now review how the MIAC distributes intelligence reports to police officers. He said the process 'needs improvement.'"

Appalachian Coalminers To Lose Jobs Thanks To Obama

"President Obama has stated that he is going to save or create up to 4 million jobs, but it seems to me that more and more jobs are being lost. IBM announced yesterday that they would be laying off 5,000 people. And now, thanks to the climate change freaks and President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency, 77,000 Appalachian coalminers are in danger of losing their jobs. Expressing 'serious concerns' about our environment, the EPA announced it was putting mountaintop mining permits on hold. The National Mining Association (NMA) has said that this action may eliminate high-paying jobs in what is already a relatively poor area of the country.

Despite Obama's Vow, Combat Brigades Will Stay in Iraq

"Despite President Barack Obama's statement at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina Feb. 27 that he had 'chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months,' a number of Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs), which have been the basic U.S. Army combat unit in Iraq for six years, will remain in Iraq after that date under a new non-combat label.

"A spokesman for Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates, Lt. Col. Patrick S. Ryder, told IPS Tuesday that 'several advisory and assistance brigades' would be part of a U.S. command in Iraq that will be 're-designated' as a 'transition force headquarters' after August 2010."

Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe


Is there anyway the Republicans can be blamed for the sun acting that way?

I knew this would happen: Gordon Brown is frustrated by 'Psycho' in No 10


"Alas, when the PM settled down to begin watching them the other night, he found there was a problem.

"The films only worked in DVD players made in North America and the words "wrong region" came up on his screen. Although he mournfully had to put the popcorn away, he is unlikely to jeopardise the special relationship – or "special partnership", as we are now supposed to call it – by registering a complaint."

If he or any of his team could get it right on DVD's or even proper gifts to foreign dignitaries, how confident can I be about how Obama handles foreign policy? I'm not a diplomat, nor a college graduate. Yet I knew about North American DVD's not working in European players.


Obama Warns North Korea



I wonder what they said after they got up from the floor from dying with laughter.

Obama and his Binky

My Obama Update : Obamaconomy

Paul Ryan: Dems' budget worse than what Europe allows