Displaying posts published in

2013

DAVID BAKER: WHY WE SHOULD NOT SEND ARMS TO SYRIA

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3817/why_we_shouldn_t_send_arms_to_syria David Baker worked as a daily newspaper journalist focusing on political reporting before becoming a Church of England minister. He currently serves three churches in Sussex Syria is not a matter of black and white, of tyranny against liberty, of “good guys against bad guys”. It is messy, complex, and multi-layered. The conflict in […]

THOMAS LIFSON: NEW DOCUMENTARY ALLEGES TWA 800 COVERUP….SEE NOTE PLEASE

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/06/new_documentary_alleges_twa_800_cover-up.html

AT THAT TIME FBI INVESTIGATOR JAMES KALLSTROM, A SERIOUS MAN WITH IMPECCABLE CREDENTIALS HEADED THE CRIMINAL PROBE AFTER THE CRASH. HE CALLS THIS DOCUMENTARY ” A BUNCH OF BULL CRAP”..

READ:http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/19/former-fbi-official-new-theory-on-flight-twa-800-is-a-bunch-of-bull-crap/

American Thinker has long taken a skeptical attitude toward the official account of the TWA 800 disaster. Jack Cashill, who also wrote a book on the subject, has an impressive body of work on the subject, some of it published on these pages. Co-founder Richard Baehr took up the subject. Now comes news of a new documentary film that says it has proof of a cover-up. Via Fox News:

A group of whistle-blowers, including a number of aviation experts, have come forward in a new documentary to claim that the official explanation for the crash of TWA Flight 800 was wrong and a gas tank explosion did not bring down the flight off the coast of Long Island 17 years ago.

However, the six whistle-blowers, all part of the original investigation team, stopped short of saying the plane was shot down.

Flight 800, a Boeing 747, had just taken off from JFK airport with 230 people aboard on July 17, 1996, en route to Paris when it exploded and crashed off the coast of nearby East Moriches, Long Island, killing everyone on the plane.

“..This team of investigators who actually handled the wreckage and victims’ bodies, prove that the officially proposed fuel-air explosion did not cause the crash,” reads a statement by the producers of the film, which will debut on cable network EPIX next month. “They also provide radar and forensic evidence proving that one or more ordnance explosions outside the aircraft caused the crash.” However, the statement said they did not speculate about the source or sources of any ordnance explosions.

News of this is not making a huge splash beyond Fox News, and I fully expect a media cofferdam to be erected, confining concern about a huge government cover-up to the 30% or so of the population reached by the conservative media. The CBS website features coverage that raises questions:

David Rivkin and Elizabeth Foley: An ObamaCare Board Answerable to No One ****

The ‘death panel’ is a new beast, with god-like powers. Congress should repeal it or test its constitutionality. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324634304578539823614996636.html?mod=opinion_newsreel Signs of ObamaCare’s failings mount daily, including soaring insurance costs, looming provider shortages and inadequate insurance exchanges. Yet the law’s most disturbing feature may be the Independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB, sometimes called a “death […]

OBAMA IN GERMANY….SAME OLD PLATITUDES BUT THE LOVE IS GONE

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324577904578555721164926386.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopBucket

Speaking in Berlin on Wednesday, Barack Obama looked and sounded more like a dreary American technocrat than a citizen of the world.

Freddy Gray, writing at the Spectator magazine’s Coffee House blog on Wednesday:

Obama-love is not what it was. The man who just spoke against nuclear proliferation at the Brandenburg Gate today is quite obviously not the avatar of progress who appeared before adoring crowds near the same spot in 2008. . . .

And yet and yet, Obama still tries to present himself as a 21st century Camelot. His rhetoric has been toned down: today he looked and sounded more like a dreary American technocrat than a citizen of the world. But he continues to pose as a global dove and utters lofty phrases about creating a “world of peace with justice.” It’s just he sounds like he doesn’t believe it anymore—and, increasingly, neither do we.

MIRIAM SHAVIV: JUSTIN WELBY THE NEW ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY HEADS TO ISRAEL…..WHAT A BIO MUST READ

Justin Welby’s grandfather fled from Germany; his father bootlegged alcohol, knew JFK and was engaged to Vanessa Redgrave; he worked in the oil industry before feeling a call to God after his daughter’s death in a car crash
http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-first-jewish-archbishop-of-canterbury-heads-to-israel/

ONDON – The father of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, kept many secrets. Gavin Welby never told his son that he had an estranged older sister, or a first wife. He never told him his real birthdate, or the name under which he was born. And, it has emerged, he never told him that he was born a Jew.

“He told lots of stories but one was never really sure what was true and what wasn’t,” Archbishop Justin told The Daily Telegraph, which broke the news to him just days after he was appointed head of the Church of England in November 2012. “He drank quite heavily and, you know, he would say things sometimes when he had been drinking and you did not know what was true or not.

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“He wouldn’t talk about his family at all,” he said.

Naturally, the bombshell that the leader of 80 million Anglicans worldwide is a half-Jew has captured the imagination of Britain’s Jewish community. The Anglican Church, by contrast, has so far reacted apathetically, perhaps inured by previous examples of Jewish-Christian clerics such as Giles Fraser, until 2011 Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, who had a Jewish father; and Hugh Montefiore, a well-known bishop in the 1970s and ‘80s, who converted from Judaism in his teens.

But beyond the gossip element lie serious questions. Will Archbishop Justin be able to improve Jewish-Anglican relations, which have gone through a rocky patch over the last few months? And how will the revelations about his heritage affect his attitudes and worldviews?

With little track record to go on, observers are reluctant jump to any conclusions: “It’s very early days,” says Rev. David Gifford, CEO of the Council of Christians and Jews, noting that Welby was only installed in March.

Archbishop Welby, whose decade-long rise in the church is considered meteoric, has had limited experience working with Jewish groups, but activists speak positively of his relations with Jews in his former parishes and in the interfaith world.

They point to two hopeful early signs. The first is that the archbishop has chosen to visit Israel next week, which is considered very early in his tenure (he will also be visiting Egypt, the Palestinian territories and, briefly, Jordan). A visit to Yad Vashem may be particularly poignant as he recently discovered that he has relatives who perished in the Shoah. He will also engage with as-yet-unnamed “communities and leaders” and pay his respects to the patriarchs of the Jerusalem churches, in particular Jerusalem’s Anglican bishop, Suheil Duwani.
The Prince of Wales speaks with the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Reverend Justin Welby following his Enthronement at Canterbury Cathedral. (photo credit: AP Photo/Chris Ison, Pool)

The Prince of Wales speaks with the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Reverend Justin Welby following his Enthronement at Canterbury Cathedral. (photo credit: AP Photo/Chris Ison, Pool)

The other is that, completely regardless of his Jewish background, he appears to have long had an affinity for, and interest in, Jewish issues and in Israel.

According to the philo-Semitic Canon Andrew White, “Israel has no fear with him, nor does the Jewish community. He’s a friend, not an enemy.”

EARTH COOLS BUT IN BERLIN OBAMA IS HOT UNDER THE COLLAR ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/06/19/obama-in-berlin-vows-us-will-do-more-before-it-is-too-late
Obama in Berlin vows U.S. ‘will do more…before it is too late’ to battle climate change: Warns of ‘more severe storms, more famine & floods, new waves of refugees, coastlines that vanish, oceans that rise’

Meanwhile: Earth undergoing global COOLING since 2002!

DE NIRO LIKES “TOUGH ISRAEL”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/tough-guy-de-niro-likes-tough-israel/
Tough guy De Niro likes tough Israel
American actor says Israelis need to be aggressive in their situation; visits Western Wall

American actor Robert De Niro praised Israeli aggressiveness during a talk at the President’s Conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

“I always enjoy coming to Israel. Israelis are warm, they’re energetic people. Forthright. Very smart. I always like smart people. They’re nice people, you know. Aggressive, and I respect that aggressiveness because you need it in their situation,” he said.

The statement was akin to praise from Caesar, coming from the man who has made a career out of playing aggressive tough guys in movies from “Taxi Driver” to “Meet the Fockers.”

De Niro, 69, is one of several high-profile guests who came to Israel this week to celebrate President Shimon Peres’s 90th birthday and participate in his annual Facing Tomorrow conference. He flew back to New York late Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, De Niro visited the Western Wall with his son Julian, 17, putting a note in the Jewish holy site. He also visited the Western Wall Tunnels.

Taliban Pulls a Fast One in Doha, Claiming Rebirth of Califate, Humiliating Karzai: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

The first official effort of the US to begin peace talks with the Taliban ended in disaster when the Taliban proclaimed itself a sovereign nation, enraging Karzai, who then called off bilateral security talks with the US.

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/taliban-pulls-a-fast-one-in-doha-claiming-rebirth-of-califate-humiliating-karzai/2013/06/20/

The Taliban surprised and angered the US and Afghanistan with a poster proclaiming its new office in Doha was for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, rather than a political office for peace talks. The move may have scuttled the talks.

Day One, dealing with the Taliban as if it is just another player on the world stage.

Whoops.

On Tuesday, June 18, the Taliban and the United States were set to engage in historic peace talks in Doha, Qatar, the goal of which is to begin to wind down the war that has been dragging on in Afghanistan. The U.S. is on the threshold of withdrawing from the region. The goal is to have Afghanistan and the Taliban work things out nicely together.

But the ceremonial opening of the office in Doha by the Taliban, was to have announced “the political office of the Taliban in Doha,” as had been agreed – or so the U.S. and Afghanistan had understood. Instead, it featured a large poster reading “the opening of the political office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in Doha.”

The difference is huge – the name on the poster is what the Taliban called Afghanistan during the era it was in control, between 1996 and 2001, and was popularly understood by al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists to have been the nascent rebirth of the Global Califate.

In the State Department’s daily press briefing on Wednesday, this was the first item discussed by the Spokesperson, Jen Psaki. She explained that Secretary of State John Kerry had spoken with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who had immediately denounced the Taliban’s move as a deliberate provocation.

The Qatari government issued a statement clarifying that the name of the office is the Political Office of the Afghan Taliban and had the sign with the incorrect name in front of the door taken down.

Extremism Overpowering Indonesia by Mohshin Habib

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3768/indonesia-extremism Nations are falling like ten pins: not only Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and nations throughout the Gulf, but also Turkey, Bangladesh, Tunisia and Egypt. Now bigotry is overwhelming the most populous but formerly moderate Muslim nation, Indonesia. Nations are falling like ten pins: not only Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and nations throughout the Gulf, […]

The Arabs of Israel by Khaled Abu Toameh

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3778/arabs-of-israel The Arab citizens of Israel are not fighting for political rights, which they already enjoy — or there would not be so many Arab political parities or Arab Members of Parliament in the Knesset. Many Israeli Arabs, however, have lost faith in their representatives, particularly those who are trying to incite them against Israel. […]