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2016

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Can Our Colleges Be Saved? By Victor Davis Hanson —

By on March 10th, 2016

The public is steadily losing confidence in undergraduate education, given that we hear constantly about how poorly educated are today’s graduates and how few well-paying jobs await them.

The cost of college is a national scandal. Collective student-loan debt in America is about $1.2 trillion. Campus political correctness is now daily news.

How could higher education be held accountable and thereby be reformed?

Just as expensive new roofs are not supposed to leak, $100,000 educations should not leave students unprepared for the real world upon graduation. Rain and snow calibrate the effectiveness of a roofer’s work, but how does society know whether students’ expensive investments in their professors and courses have led to any quantifiable knowledge?

SAT and ACT examinations originated in the 1920s and 1960s, respectively, as meritocratic ways to allow applicants from less prestigious high schools and from minority groups to be assessed on their aptitude for college — without the old-boy, establishment prejudices of class, gender, and race. Would such blind exams also work in reverse as national college exit tests? Could bachelor’s degrees be predicated on certifying that graduates possess a minimum level of common knowledge?

Lawyers with degrees can only practice after passing bar exams. Doctors cannot practice medicine upon the completion of M.D. degrees unless they are board certified. Why can’t undergraduate degrees likewise be certified? One can certainly imagine the ensuing hysteria.

What would happen if some students from less prestigious state schools graduated from college with higher exit-test scores than the majority of Harvard and Yale graduates? What if students still did not test any higher in analytics and vocabulary after thousands of dollars and several years of lectures and classroom hours?

Would schools then cut back on “studies” courses, the number of administrators, or lavish recreational facilities to help ensure that students first and foremost mastered a classical body of common knowledge? Would administrators be forced to acknowledge that their campuses had price-gouged students but imparted to them little in return?

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Fantasy Islam (Kafir Edition): Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, Part II Who is “reforming” who? Dr. Stephen M. Kirby

By on March 10th, 2016

Fantasy Islam (Kafir Edition): A game in which an audience of non-Muslims wish with all their hearts that Islam was a “Religion of Peace,” and a Kafir (non-Muslim) strives to fulfill that wish by presenting a version of Islam that has little foundation in Islamic Doctrine.

In 2015 the Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota produced a 61 page booklet titled My Neighbor is Muslim, Exploring the Muslim Faith. The purpose of the booklet was to enable Lutherans to learn about Islam in order to better understand their “new neighbors” who were arriving as refugees. The booklet includes discussion questions after each chapter.

In my first article about this booklet, I looked at the interesting background of the imam who endorsed the booklet. The focus of this article is on how the booklet presents Islam.

Statements Supported by Vague Terms

There was only one footnote in this booklet; it was on p. 48 and simply pointed out other names for the jihadist group ISIS. Throughout the booklet assertions about Islam and Islamic Doctrine were made, with only the occasional use of vague terms such as “mainstream Islamic tradition,” “most Muslims,” or “many scholars” to support these assertions. The booklet does have a suggested reading list of ten books by modern authors, but there is no indication where among those ten books one could go for further reading about any particular statement made about Islam.

Islam’s Jesus – the Rest of the Story

The booklet has a chapter titled “What Does the Qur’an Say about Jesus?” This chapter pointed out similarities and differences “between the Qur’an’s presentation of Jesus and traditional Christian understandings of Jesus.” There were three differences the booklet found worth of considering: 1) Jesus Is Not the Son of God; 2) Jesus Is Not a Savior; and 3) Jesus Was Not Crucified. On p. 17 we find that these differences are not “insurmountable”:

While the differences between the Muslim and Christian Jesus are significant, they are not insurmountable hurdles for interfaith dialogue. The reverence and respect Muslims have for Jesus is considerable. If Christians can develop an appreciation for the prominent role that Jesus has in Islam, they may discover Jesus is more of an opportunity than an obstacle for developing interfaith relationships with their Muslim sisters and brothers.

But to really understand “the prominent role that Jesus has in Islam,” we must turn to the teachings of Muhammad (the hadiths). Here is what Muhammad said would happen when Jesus returned to earth:

He [Jesus] will descend…He will break the cross, kill the pig, and banish the Jizyah and will call the people to Islam. During his time, Allah will destroy all religions except Islam…[i]

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Fantasy Islam (Kafir Edition): Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota Playing or being played? Part 1Dr. Stephen M. Kirby

By on March 10th, 2016

Fantasy Islam (Kafir Edition): A game in which an audience of non-Muslims wish with all their hearts that Islam was a “Religion of Peace,” and a Kafir (non-Muslim) strives to fulfill that wish by presenting a version of Islam that has little foundation in Islamic Doctrine.

In 2015 the Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota produced a 61 page booklet titled My Neighbor is Muslim, Exploring the Muslim Faith. The purpose of the booklet was to enable Lutherans to learn about Islam in order to better understand their “new neighbors” who were arriving as refugees.

On p. 3 of the booklet we find an endorsement by, and a picture of, Imam Hassan Ali Mohamud, the founder, Imam, and Director of the Minnesota Da’wah Institute. A brief biography of Mohamud can be found at the Institute’s site. But there are a few additional items in Mohamud’s background that are of particular interest and make him a curious choice as the endorser of a book welcoming Muslims into non-Muslim communities.

Hassan Ali Mohamud praised Hamas

The United States government declared Hamas a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997. On March 22, 2004, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (Yaasin), the founder of Hamas, was killed in an Israeli airstrike. On March 26, 2004, Mohamud wrote an article in Somalitalk – Minneapolis expressing his condolences for Yassin’s death. The article was titled Hambalyo Shahiid Sh. Ahmed Yaasin, (Congratulations to Sheikh Ahmed Yaasin, the Shahiid). Shahiid is the term used for those who achieve martyrdom by being killed in the cause of Allah.

Mohamud noted that Yassin had founded Hamas and referred to the Hamas mujahidin (mujaahidiinta), who were fighting for the liberation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and of Palestine (mujahidin are those fighting in the Cause of Allah). Mohamud hoped that Allah would consider Yassin a martyr, and he referred to Yassin as the Sheikh of the Mujahidin (Sheikhul

Mujaahidiin). Mohamud referred to the Israelis as terrorists.

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More Anti-Israel Hate at Connecticut College Faculty speak out. Noah Beck

By on March 10th, 2016

Reprinted from InvestigativeProject.org

A Connecticut College professor has told colleagues that his school has grown so hostile toward Jews that he can no longer recommend Jewish students or professors come to the college.

“In my opinion, this harassment of Jews on campus in the name of fighting for social justice should end; immediately,” wrote Spencer J. Pack, an economics professor, in a faculty-wide email.

His comments were triggered by the smear campaign that pro-Palestinian students successfully waged against a pro-Israel professor, resulting in his indefinite leave from campus, and a more recent push to malign Birthright (a program enabling student travel to Israel) by plastering the campus with posters. The posters reportedly intimidated Jewish and pro-Israel members of the Connecticut College community, while attempting to poison the minds of uninformed students and faculty with vicious falsehoods about Israel. The posters were put up by Conn Students in Solidarity with Palestine (CSSP), whose faculty advisor, Eileen Kane, runs the school’s Global Islamic Studies program.

Kane’s Global Islamic Studies program also invited Palestinian-American poet Remi Kanazi to speak at Connecticut College on April 12. Kanazi, who is scheduled to give a “poetry performance,” is on the organizing committee of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and listed among its endorsers. His strategy has been to connect anti-Israel politics with popular urban struggles.

Making matters worse, Jasbir K. Puar was also invited to speak at Connecticut College. At a Feb. 3talk at Vassar College, Puar unleashed a torrent of vicious anti-Israel lies and blood libels, including outrageous accusations about Israel harvesting Palestinian organs and conducting scientific experiments in “stunting” the growth of Palestinian bodies. Her Connecticut College appearance was scrapped, but Kane has ignored repeated questions about the invitation.

Hatred of Israel and overall hostility towards Jews at Vassar has been amply detailed. More generally, campus hate against Israel and Jews has become an increasingly frequent and widespread problem thanks to the “Boycott, Divest, Sanction” (BDS) movement. Even Palestinians who aren’t sufficiently critical of Israel are targeted by BDS. Bassem Eid, founder of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, was directly threatened by anti-Israel protesters while lecturing at the University of Chicago on Feb. 18. More recently, the New York Post reported on the hateful harassment of Jews at four City University of New York campuses.

Connecticut College seems to be moving in the same direction. Last spring, Connecticut College Professor Andrew Pessin was libeled and silenced in a campaign led by Students for Justice in Palestine activist Lamiya Khandaker. That campaign included condemnation of Pessin by scores of Connecticut College departments and affiliates, including the Global Islamic Studies program. The administration nevertheless gave Khandaker the “Scholar Activist Award.” Then came the Birthright smear last December, the Puar invitation, and the scheduled talk by anti-Israel activist Kanazi, sponsored by the Global Islamic Studies program.

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YouTube Suspends Account of Palestinian Media Watchdog What happens when you expose Palestinian Jew hatred. Ari Lieberman

By on March 10th, 2016

Palestinian leaders are notorious for speaking with forked tongues. Duplicitous officials often talk of peaceful dialogue and two-state solutions when addressing Western audiences but it’s an entirely different affair when they’re behind closed doors, addressing their fellow kinsmen. In such a familiar and comfortable setting, they let their guard down and spew the vilest calumnies and conspiracy theories that more often than not, involve the Jews. They’re also not shy about what they intend to do to Israel if they ever achieve statehood. One “moderate” Palestinian leader even suggested the use of nuclear weapons against the Jewish State.

In every forum and venue, Palestinian political and religious leaders, academics, educators and journalists incite the Palestinian masses to violence. Jews are routinely referred to as apes, monkeys and pigs or alternatively, the “vilest of creatures.” Ancient blood libels, involving Jews kidnapping Muslim (or Christian) children and using their blood as a key ingredient in Passover matzah, are regurgitated with banal regularity. Palestinian children are spoon-fed hate from birth and children’s programs, mimicking the Sesame Street genre are laced with references to murder of Jews and martyrdom. Often, this programming is financed, either directly or indirectly, by the EU and the United States State Department, making these governments complicit in the violence that results therefrom.

Western audiences are rarely exposed to such obscenities. They’re accustomed to viewing polished and often sympathetic Muslim characters who speak of the importance of peace and their desire for democracy and freedom. Of course, what it said behind closed doors, in Arabic to Arabic audiences, remains behind closed doors.

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Stopping the ISIS Chemical Weapons Program Saddam’s chemical weapons scientists find a new home. Joseph Klein

By on March 10th, 2016

ISIS continues to threaten the homeland. “Paris isn’t far from you – we will by Allah’s permission do to your country what we did to Paris. We will kill, slaughter and burn your people. Inshallah, we will attack you very soon,” warned an ISIS narrator in a recent video.

ISIS is not limiting itself to the kind of mass shootings that Paris experienced last year. Indeed, ISIS has made it clear that it will stop at nothing to kill as many Americans as possible. Either we destroy ISIS wherever they operate or they will cause mass casualties here at home, possibly with the use of weapons of mass destruction, which they are beginning to get their hands on.

ISIS is putting its considerable resources into developing chemical weapons. And they are leveraging the expertise of former Saddam Hussein regime scientists who have joined the ISIS jihadists.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has reportedly confirmed that ISIS fighters have already used chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria, perhaps obtained from stockpiles they took control over in those countries. “It raises the major question of where the sulphur mustard came from,” an OPCW source was quoted by Reuters as saying. “Either they (IS) gained the ability to make it themselves, or it may have come from an undeclared stockpile overtaken by IS. Both are worrying options.”

In an important counter-strike to thwart ISIS’s ability to develop chemical weapons, U.S. Special Operation Forces have reportedly captured a top man in ISIS’s chemical weapons development program. The capture took place last month in northern Iraq, according to two senior Iraqi intelligence officials cited by the Associated Press. U.S. officials have refused to identify the ISIS leader, but the Iraqi officials claimed he was formerly involved in Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons program. Based on information learned from interrogation, unnamed U.S. officials told CNN, the U.S. was able to conduct strikes against ISIS chemical weapons facilities in Iraq.

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Is Love for Trump Blind? By Sally Zelikovsky

By on March 10th, 2016

I am a conservative, a Republican, a Tea Partier, and a political commentator who has fought in the trenches with the GOP and on the streets of San Francisco with the Tea Party. Like many of you, I have been furious with the GOP and the politicians we elected. Long before this primary, I wrote about the dangers to the GOP and this country if party elites continue to ignore the base. Clearly such pleas have fallen on deaf ears, and we are now paying for it with a brouhaha of a primary process, a “known unknown” stealing the show, and the devastating prospects of another progressive Democrat victory.

I have been disgusted with the entire process, and judging from the chatter, I am in good company with many of the 60-70% of potential voters in the Republican primary not supporting The Donald – whose numbers have dawdled in the 30+% range with the exception of outliers Massachusetts at 50%, Louisiana at 41%, Alabama at 43%, and Nevada at 46%. His acolytes may be enthralled, but the bulk of voters do not share in that enthusiasm, as evidenced by the failure of votes to shift to Trump as his competitors have dropped out.

I know this is a delegate game, but thus far, Trump’s popular vote average has been 34.8%. While he is admittedly the frontrunner, this hardly reflects the will of Republican primary voters. If anything, that will is splattered all over the conservative spectrum while consensus remains elusive.

Even though conservatives of all stripes are dismayed by the debates and the discourse, the Democrat-Media Complex claims we are all in the tank for Trump – we are racist idiots, thrashing at the red meat tossed our way by our racist-idiot-red-meat-eater-in-chief Donald Trump. And the only Republicans not supporting The Don are members of the “establishment.”

Yet primary results tell us that 60-70% of Republican primary voters are supporting Anyone but Donald, and those voters are not all “establishment.” The recent victories of Ted Cruz (40%) and Marco Rubio (30%) at CPAC – the go-to place for Tea Party conservatives and the strong conservative Republican base – further solidify that point.

The conservative press and punditry aren’t much better, with Ed Rollins recently telling Fox’s Uma Pemmaraju that the Tea Party is throwing in with Trump because of its anti-establishment leanings. This is just ivory-tower don’t-wanna-get-too-close-to-Tea-Party-types claptrap. Party elites, pundits, and journalists have no idea what the average Tea Partier is thinking, let alone what he or she has been doing for the last eight years – one reason we are in this mess. The Tea Party message was anti-big government, Ed, not anti-establishment – a world of difference.

While some Tea Partiers might support Trump, the ones I have been in touch with mostly favor Cruz. If given no other choice, they will vote for a Trump nominee – at a minimum, they see an alignment on the broad issues of making American great again, rebuilding our economic and foreign policy might, securing our borders, and creating jobs. But they do not care for his demeanor or nastiness and fully acknowledge that he is pretty much Pablum Don – all fluff, no stuff. While his conservative street cred is at best dubious, they are willing to risk the future of this country on the devil they don’t know (the “known unknown” of Trump) vs. the devil they know (the “known known” of HRC). They understand that his will be a shoot-from-the-hip presidency – not quite what Tea Partiers have been fighting for the last eight years, but marginally better than Hill or Bern.

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Cuba to Obama: Who said we’re changing? By Silvio Canto, Jr.

By on March 10th, 2016

What a week so far for President Obama’s foreign policy.

First, Iran tests two missiles and threatens to get out of the nuclear deal. Hello VP Biden, and enjoy your visit to Israel.

Second, the Cuban state media put out an editorial ahead of President Obama’s visit. Here it goes:

In a long editorial on Wednesday in Communist Party newspaper Granma and other official media, Cuba demanded Washington cease meddling in its internal affairs and said Obama could do more to change U.S. policy.

The March 20-22 visit from Obama comes 15 months after he and Cuban President Raul Castro agreed to end more than five decades of Cold War-era animosity and try to normalize relations.

They have restored diplomatic ties, and Obama has relaxed a series of trade sanctions and travel restrictions, leading Republican opponents and even some of the president’s fellow Democrats to question whether Washington was offering too much without any reciprocation from Havana.

But the editorial made it clear that Cuba still has a long list of grievances with the United States, starting with the comprehensive trade embargo. Obama wants to rescind the embargo but Republican leadership in Congress has blocked the move.

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Donald Trump and China: Read This before You Vote By Kerry Jacoby

By on March 10th, 2016

“in a Playboy interview, here is what Donald Trump said of the Chinese government’s handling of the Tiananmen Square massacre:

“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak … as being spit on by the rest of the world –”

In the late summer of 1989, I was a doctoral student in American studies. Strangely, there were often many people majoring in American studies from other countries. I had friends from all over the world – France, India, South Korea, Iceland, Austria…and China.

My Chinese friend, Q (not his real name), went home that summer.

I was in my office when he returned, watching the small black-and-white Goodwill-bought television (ask your parents, kids) I had brought in to make the place I spent most of my time more like the place I wanted to spend most of my time. The boxes I hauled up the four flights of stairs (no, we didn’t have an elevator; it was an old building) also contained a 60-cup percolator, a refrigerator box we turned into a closet, a microwave oven, a hot pot (again, kids, ask your parents), and a pull-out cot. We kept family-size jars of peanut butter and jelly, loaves of bread, and Costco-sized boxes of Ramen noodles.

We spent a lot of time there. The people on our floor became very close.

Since it was summer, there were a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a while, and Q was one of them.

I didn’t even have a chance to say hello as he came through my door before he threw a stack of photos on my desk.

“Here,” he said, tersely. “This is what they won’t show you. This is what happened there.”

I had been vaguely aware of recent unrest in China; I’d been busy working on a grant proposal I hoped would fund the rest of my dissertation work. The TV received three stations (sometimes), and I rarely made time for news.

I looked at the pictures. And then I looked again. And then I picked them up, and went through them, one by one.

“Tanks,” he said.

I stared at him. “But these can’t be –”

“People,” he said.

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Iran’s Moderates Go Ballistic More missile tests in violation of their nuclear commitments.

By on March 10th, 2016

Advocates of the nuclear deal with Iran were heartened last month by reports that moderates close to President Hasan Rouhani had done well in elections to the country’s Parliament and the more influential Assembly of Experts. It soon became clear that the moderates hadn’t done as well as advertised—and that moderation, Iranian-style, is relative.
That much was clear from the message printed this week along the length of an Iranian ballistic missile, which said—in Hebrew as well as Farsi, lest anything be lost in translation—that “Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth.” On Wednesday Iran test-fired two such missiles with a reported range of 1,250 miles from a mountain base, hitting targets 850 miles away in southwestern Iran. The Jewish state is about 600 miles from the Islamic Republic at the nearest point.

Tehran’s show of force—it also tested missiles on Tuesday—are not the work of the usual “hardline” suspects. Iran tested ballistic missiles last fall in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution, and in January Mr. Rouhani publicly ordered his defense minister to speed up missile testing and production. The Obama Administration later sanctioned a handful of Iranian individuals and companies for the violations, but to little effect. The tests appear to be timed to coincide with Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel.

“Our main enemies, the Americans, who mutter about plans, have activated new missile sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran and are seeking to weaken the country’s missile capability,” said one Iranian general. “The Guards and other armed forces are defenders of the revolution and the country will not pay a toll to anyone.”
So much for the nuclear deal producing a new era of Iranian accommodation to the world. Part of the problem is that Secretary of State John Kerry bowed to Iranian demands during the nuclear negotiations not to include ballistic missiles as part of the final deal, though missiles are an essential component of any nuclear program. CONTINUE AT SITE

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