THE WEEK THAT WAS: DANIEL GREENFIELD
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/
IF YOU NEEDED A REASON TO BE HOPEFUL ABOUT SYRIA…
Obama is inviting Sheikh Mouaz Alkhatib of the Muslim Brotherhood, current head of the Syrian rebels, to Washington, who has expressed pro-Israel opinions in the past, such as writing that one of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s positive legacies was “terrifying the Jews.”
Sheikh Mouaz Akkhatib got his invite a few days after the Sheikh defended Al Qaeda. Because defending Al Qaeda is what it takes to get a Washington invite these days.
“We’ve made a decision that the Syrian Opposition Coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population, that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in opposition to the Assad regime,” said Obama.
But it’s not inclusive enough for Sheikh Mouaz Alkhatib who thinks Obama is a spoilsport for not recognizing Al Qaeda.
“The logic under which we consider one of the parts that fights against the Assad regime as a terrorist organization is a logic one must reconsider,” Al-Khatib told reporters in Marrakesh, Morocco.
What could possibly go wrong? If the Syrian rebels don’t win, it will be a real tragedy. For the ghost of Osama bin Laden, currently haunting a Holiday Inn in Marrakesh.
CATHOLICPHOBIA SWEEPING THE NATION
The FBI’s hate crimes statistics actually show a slight decrease in Anti-Muslim hate crimes, but a significant increase in Anti-Catholic hate crimes which jumped from 4.2 percent to 5.2 percent.
Anti-Protestant hate crimes rose from 3.3 percent to 3.7 percent. Hate crimes targeting atheists fell from 0.5 to 0.3.
I wonder what this increase in anti-Catholic attacks could be attributed to? Paging Sandra Fluke.
DICTATORS ALL THE WAY DOWN
On a cold winter’s day, two years later, Obama celebrated the fall of Mubarak by proclaiming that “the people of Egypt have spoken, their voices have been heard, and Egypt will never be the same.” Now one year later, in the teeth of another winter, an Islamist winter, Egypt seems very much the same.
Obama pledged to create a new beginning by ending, in the name of democracy, the old policy of supporting dictators, only to inaugurate a brand new policy of supporting dictators in the name of democracy. The ritual democratic elections led to the same place that they did in Iraq and the Palestinian Authority. And now Obama is forced to support a dictatorship in order to support democracy.
The world may not rest on turtles or infinite universes, but the Middle East does rest on dictators and no amount of new beginnings has changed that. Pull back one dictator and another pops up in his place. Hold elections, plan regime change, send in your activists or your warplanes, and when the dust settles and all the democracy dreamers are congratulating themselves on having pulled off a successful election, the new dictator steps out from behind the curtain to give his acceptance speech, impose martial law and begin rounding up dissidents.
…from my article “It’s Dictators All The Way Down”
SECOND TERM JAM
Rice has gone down, triangulated by Republicans and Clintonists. Rice got her job by betraying Hillary. Now she lost her dream job because she betrayed Hillary. In D.C. what goes around comes around and with Hillary being tipped for 2016, Rice’s career odometer is looking really bad.
But the Rice withdrawal is also beginning to make the second term blues come out early. Second terms is usually when administrations at any executive level begin to jam up and come apart. And there are small signs that Obama Inc. is headed for the second term blahs.
IF IT’S GOOD FOR DETROIT, IT’S GOOD FOR AMERICA
Some public school teachers in the City of Detroit and around the state of Michigan are reportedly taking a vacation or a sick day today to protest right-to-work legislation likely to be approved by the state legislature.
Detroit public-school eighth graders do even worse in math than they do in reading, according to the Department of Education. While only 7 percent scored highly enough on the department’s National Assessment of Educational Progress test in 2011 to be rated “proficient” or better in reading, only 4 percent scored highly enough to be rated “proficient” or better in math.
But come on, that doesn’t mean that Detroit teachers should lose their tiny pitiful paychecks, just because only 4 percent of their students can count and only 7 percent of their students can read.
Does it?
So what do Detroit teachers get paid in exchange for a 4 percent and 7 percent success rate?
The Detroit metropolitan area has the highest average public school teacher pay among metropolitan areas for which data are available, at $47.28 per hour, followed by the San Francisco metropolitan area at $46.70 per hour, and the New York metropolitan area at $45.79 per hour.
Poor bankrupt Detroit pays teachers more than San Fran and NYC, cities that have actual money. The average teacher’s salary in Detroit is $71,031.
Sadly though Detroit has more teachers than students because there is uh a mass exodus underway.
Detroit Public Schools had 5,029 full-time teachers and 88,774 students in 2009-10, according to the Michigan Department of Education. But DPS officials estimate that there will be 58,517 students enrolled in 2014.
Good news everybody. One day Detroit will finally achieve a one student to one teacher ratio. And if that doesn’t get the scores up to 7 and 5 percent, I don’t know what will.
MILITANT ISLAMIST LEADER ABANDONS TERRORISM, FOCUSES ON CONSTRUCTION
“Anti-Soviet warrior puts his army on the road to peace: The Saudi businessman who recruited mujahedin now uses them for large-scale building projects in Sudan.
Outside Sudan, Mr Bin Laden is not regarded with quite such high esteem. The Egyptian press claims he brought hundreds of former Arab fighters back to Sudan from Afghanistan, while the Western embassy circuit in Khartoum has suggested that some of the ‘Afghans’ whom this Saudi entrepreneur flew to Sudan are now busy training for further jihad wars in Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt.
Mr Bin Laden is well aware of this. ‘The rubbish of the media and the embassies,’ he calls it. ‘I am a construction engineer and an agriculturalist. If I had training camps here in Sudan, I couldn’t possibly do this job.’
That was from 1993. I wonder how many news stories from 2023 will boggle our minds with their complete willful denial of reality.
LIVING THE LIFE OF MOHAMMAD
Mohammad Safi is a lucky man. Graduate of a medical school in Afghanistan, Safi took in $822,302, or five times more than Governor Jerry Brown, working at a mental hospital.
As California’s top public employee, Mohammad Safi logged so many hours that all the clocks melted, Dali style. In 2006, Safi was making a mere $90,682 starting salary, but not long after he was taking home more than $503,000 in on-call pay for every hour he spent hanging around in a motel somewhere near the hospital.
But we really need to crack down on obscene CEO compensation at taxpayer expense. And Mo isn’t a unique overachiever. California is full of dedicated public employees collecting so much overtime that prosperity is just another tax hike and bankruptcy away.
California may be sliding toward bankruptcy, but its state employees have been raking in the gold with nearly 1 billion in overtime.
In Micronesia, Somalia and the British Virgin Islands, 1 billion dollars is their entire GDP. But in California, 1 billion dollars is overtime.
But fortunately there’s a solution in sight.
Legislation introduced Tuesday would give about 400,000 undocumented immigrants in California the same rights as citizens to unemployment benefits and various other government services.
Hello Mega-Quake? I think it’s time now..
FORGET AL QAEDA, BEWARE OF CHRISTIAN AND BUDDHIST TERRORISTS
The song remains the same. In the year 2030, Islamic terrorism will be over and we’ll all be fighting raging armies of Christians and Hindus.
The National Intelligence Council answers to the Director of National Intelligence who was the bright fellow who edited Al Qaeda out of the CIA Benghazi talking points. So it’s no wonder that he’s also managed to edit Islamic terrorism out of the world in 2030. The pen truly is mightier than the sword.
But with Muslim terrorism gone by 2030, the NIC is on top of the next big terror threat.
“Taking a global perspective, future terrorists could come from many different religions, including Christianity and Hinduism. Right-wing and left-wing ideological groups – some of the oldest users of terrorist tactics – also will pose threats.”
Forget Muslim terrorists, it’s time to focus on those Christian and Hindu terrorists. And then the Buddhist and Amish death squads.
Folks, we’re looking at a trend of Chassidic Jewish suicide bombers, Jainists ramming planes into London Bridge and Bahai states working to develop nuclear weapons.
Unitarian bus bombers are a real possibility and we can’t rule out 7th Day Adventist snipers on every roof in Baltimore. And when the Secular Humanist junta takes over Bali and begins implementing secular law, then no woman will be safe.
These are the real threats we need to focus on, instead of wasting time worrying about the mythical problem of Muslim terrorism.
I even hear Osama bin Laden is abandoning terrorism and turning to construction.
IT’S OBAMA’S WORLD, WE JUST LIVE IN IT
Head of Obama Jobs Council: “Communism Works”
UN Official Arrested for Aiding Al Qaeda
Muslim Brotherhood Propoganda Event in New York Explodes into Violence
Morsi Coming to Visit Obama in 2013
73% of New Jobs in Last 5 Months are in Government
Food Stamp Use 50% Higher Under Obama Than Under Bush
Obama Training Syrian Rebels to Secure Syrian WMDs
High School Principal Claims Indians Were Scalped at Thanksgiving
“We must very, very, very, very understanding to our Native Americans, who lost and sacrificed because of the scalping that took place on Thanksgiving. They were invited to a dinner, and then their lives were taken from them.”
Egypt’s Top Judge Wants to Chop Off the Hands of Thieves
The judges have a burning desire to instate shari’a laws regarding Islamic hudud punishments… When shari’a laws are implemented, they leave no room for bargaining. Any country that refrains from implementing these punishments is lacking in many ways.
Muslim Country With 25% Slave Population Elected VP of UN Human Rights Council
Obama Promises Terrorists That He Will Stop Israeli House Construction
Jordanian King Abdullah II conveyed U.S. assurances to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that Washington will not allow a new Israeli settlement plan to pass, a Palestinian official said Thursday.
How the EPA is Making it Harder for You to Afford a Burger
Obama Backed Muslim Takeover of Cote d’Ivoire Leads to Campaign of Violence Against Gays
Victims said they immediately noticed a difference under Ouattara compared to the Gbagbo years, when such abuses were not nearly as extreme or widespread.
Ouattara signed a decree creating the FRCI in March 2011, and it was composed primarily of members of the New Forces rebel group, which used to control Côte d’Ivoire’s predominantly Muslim north.
Victims almost uniformly attribute the attacks to the fact that many soldiers in the new army are Muslim.
During one attack in Abidjan’s Zone 4 district in July, Raissa said a soldier invoked the Quran in justifying the violence.
“He said, “in the Qur’an it says that when you kill a homosexual you go to heaven,’” she recalled.
There are just so many ways for Muslims to go to heaven. But if Muslims ever do succeed in killing all non-Muslims, how will they ever get to heaven?
UNDER THE BOXTHORN TREE
For Muslims the boxthorn tree is their botanical metaphor for the Jews, but for Israelis their own self-chosen botanical metaphor is the prickly pear. Both are thorny plants at home in the desert and more than capable of protecting themselves in that harsh environment. For Muslims the Jew is a tree that must be torn out of the soil, but the Jew in Israel sees his people becoming trees whose roots hold fast to the soil of a revived land.
AND SPEAKING OF BOOKS
…here’s an excerpt from Edward Cline’s new novel. Cline is the author of the Sparrowhawk series and here in “We Three Kings” he takes us to an entirely different milieu where “the “three” kings are Fury, the hero; Sheik Quamisi, and Wade Lambert, a NYPD homicide detective taken hostage by the sheik.”
Quamisi frowned. “You are not a man of God, Mr. Fury?”
Fury smiled. “I don’t even worship the false ones.”
“That makes you the universal infidel,” said Quamisi, who then laughed. He smiled generously at Fury. “Truly a man of the world, with no eye on the next one. And he knows this world.” A distant, speculative look came to the sheik’s face. “A formidable man,” he added. “I must thank you for accepting the invitation, Mr. Fury. You have been the sole bright note in what has been a tedious evening.”
“I didn’t come here to celebrate,” said Fury.
“I imagine not. But it is difficult to fit you into the familiar categories. I confess I am at a loss.”
“Stephen Crenshaw,” Fury said. “Queen Una and the Hall of the Firmament.”
“Yes,” said Quamisi tentatively. “I understand from Mr. Dean that you do not wish to sell the coin in question for any figure. I am certain now that your words are not mere sales strategy. I would make you an extremely high offer for it, but I feel that it would simply be adding zeroes to zeroes.”
“Mr. Dean’s been dirtying his hands lately,” remarked Fury.
Delight spread over Quamisi’s face. “You know something of our attitudes, Mr. Fury! What a pleasant surprise!”
“The dirt on Mr. Dean’s hands is not the usual kind, gotten through honest work.”
“Truly cosmopolitan!” exclaimed Quamisi. “Tell me: What is your view on the state of the world today?”
Fury sighed. “I don’t do soliloquies on the obvious.”
“Poor Mr. Crenshaw,” said Quamisi.
“Not so poor,” replied Fury.
Quamisi shrugged and permitted himself a smirk. “If one man owns a handful of marbles, and another the quarry from which they came before being encased in glass, I will not quibble over the issues of scale.”
AND THE ROUNDUP
Director Blue has the union numbers rounded down to the penny. Here’s a tidbit.
Financial Information
Annual Dues Paid to Unions: $8,209,113,955
Total Union Assets: $8,775,962,626
Total Spending
Representational Activities: $4,074,510,945
Political Activities: $582,248,875
External Contributions: $333,982,197
Overhead: $3,914,513,501
Unions that fail to pass Department of Labor audits: 92%
Someone has to defend the “middle class”.
IT’S ALL IN THE NUMBERS
….from a comment on American Digest
They’ll keep track of how often you help them. The compliant ones, who respond to their pleas, will soon start getting bennies. And who the heck is paying for all this? Shoot, no one had the courage to sue them when they were laundering millions in illegal foreign money during both elections. The Courts and the constitutional lawyers mewled that “nobody has standing to sue”. Now that they are beyond the reach of election law, the money just magically appears. None dare call it treason.
Like a pusher or a pimp, they’ll next try to get you to graduate to the “hard stuff”: direct action. Please, they’ll say, we really need your help, show up at this time and place to help the Usurper. They’ll loan you a t-shirt to wear (and ask you to buy it). The leaders will have special shirts, and campaign-style buttons, and perhaps cute little hats. And you’ll go where you’re told, and do what you’re asked to. They’ll bus you there and give you a stipend. You’re One of Them now.
And if you keep answering their call, you go higher on the “One of Us” list, and qualify for more bennies. Free phones, debt forgiveness, extra ration cards. Chevy Volts at an unheard of discount.
Watch for it.
The turning point is when the purple T-shirts disappear, and it becomes button-down shirts with epaulets. Uniforms. Insignia. The hats aren’t so cute anymore. You’ll be part of the team now, the core of the Usurper’s civilian national security force. And you’ll go where you’re told, and you’ll do what you’re told, because the bennies keep coming, and you’re in for a penny, in for a pound.
IT’S OBAMA’S PARTY AND HE’LL ACCIDENTALLY ARM ASSAD IF HE WANTS TO
Meanwhile, actual Iranian tankers are shutting off their automated reporting systems as they approach Libya, and leaving them off until they have departed Libyan ports. Peripheral evidence of this has been noted by journalists like Claudia Rosett (I wrote about it here), but the analysis reported by Reuters on 7 December provides the first specific confirmation that Iranian ships are shutting their Automated Information Systems (AIS) off to avoid being tracked into and out of Libyan ports.
The likelihood that arms have been shipped from Libya to Syria by this method is high enough to be considered a certainty – and, of course, the arms would have gone to Bashar al-Assad. He is Iran’s protégé, and Iranian solicitude for Syrian shipping is devoted to bolstering his chances. The irony here is obvious, as there have also been plenty of reports of arms shipments from Libya to the Syrian rebels, some of which may have been facilitated by the US mission in Benghazi. The possibility that arms for Libya also got packed off to Assad himself cannot be discounted.
…from J.E. Dyer at Optimistic Conservative
THE PLANET, IT ISN’T MELTING
Breaking news from the US – h/t Watts Up With That? – where a leaked draft of the IPCC’s latest report AR5 admits what some of us have suspected for a very long time: that the case for man-made global warming is looking weaker by the day and that the sun plays a much more significant role in “climate change” than the scientific “consensus” has previously been prepared to concede.
Here’s the killer admission:
Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties.
That’s a rather fancy way of saying… it was the sun. Now all that the environmentalists have to do is fulfill man’s greatest dream by putting out the sun.
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