BRUCE BAWER: TIME AFTER TIME

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-bawer/time-after-time/ It is a widely acknowledged fact that what goes by the name of reporting nowadays, in the mainstream media, is often shamelessly slanted – and that the slant is almost invariably leftward. But it is also true that some reporters are a good deal more shameless – to the point of being incontrovertibly mendacious […]

DER SPIEGEL: ON INTERVENTION IN SYRIA

‘Humanitarian Wars Are Also Wars’

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/german-pundits-weigh-pros-and-cons-of-syria-intervention-a-918849-druck.html

The US, the UK and France have laid the rhetorical groundwork for a military strike against Syria. Germany too looks as though it will not remain on the sidelines this time. But will it happen? German commentators warn that escalation may only make things worse.

Preparations for a possible US strike on Syria are underway. According to a report in the Greek daily Kathimerini on Tuesday, Washington has made a formal request to Athens for permission to use two military bases in the country, one on the island of Crete and another on the Peloponnese Peninsula. Citing sources in the Greek Defense Ministry, the paper also reports that increased activity in the country’s airspace has been registered. The US has four destroyers in the waters of the eastern Mediterranean according to separate media reports.

The news comes just one day after US Secretary of State John Kerry delivered an impassioned statement in Washington condemning the apparent use of chemical weapons in Syria last week, saying it was a “moral obscenity” and that it “is undeniable.” White House spokesman Jay Carney said over the weekend that “there is very little doubt in our mind that the Syrian regime is culpable.”

The rhetoric would seem to indicate that a military strike on Syrian forces is imminent. US President Barack Obama has spent days consulting with military leaders in Washington and allies overseas on just such a strike.

RUTHIE BLUM: GAS MASKS ARE NOT THE ISSUE

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=5507 After last Wednesday’s poison gas attacks in Syria that caused an estimated 1,300 civilians to die in excruciating pain, the United States finally decided to appear as if it was about to take action. Though “assessing” whether it is Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces or his opponents who are responsible for the dastardly deed, […]

Mideast Nuclear Holocaust By Raymond Ibrahim….A Review of “The Last Israelis” by Noah Beck

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/raymond-ibrahim/mideast-nuclear-holocaust/ After constant exposure to critically important news, it begins to lose all meaning and sense of urgency.  Hearing the same warnings over and over again—especially when the status quo seems static—can cause a certain desensitization, a resigned apathy that ignores the warnings in the wishful hope that they won’t materialize.  This hope becomes more […]

CLIMATE REDUCTION AD ABSURDUM: ALAN CARUBA

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/climate-reductio-ad-absurdum?f=puball Recently, three researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, had a study published that claimed that a “substantial” correlation between violence and climate change could be made. They cited sixty studies from around the world that, according to a BBC World Service article, demonstrated that “even small changes in temperature or rainfall correlated with […]

RITA KRAMER: THE BRAVE AND THE BLOWHARDS

http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/the-brave-and-the-blow-hards-rita-kramer.html

What does it mean to be brave? In what does courage consist? These are questions that come to mind thinking about men and women who have stood up against tyranny, put their freedom and even their lives at risk by taking a stand and comparing them with activists and protestors in our country today. Movie stars, film makers, and other celebrities famous for being famous preen and pose and pretend that they are standing up against powerful forces when they make political statements in public. The only real threat they face is exposing their ignorance of complicated issues.

The left-leading media loves them and headlines the names and faces and pronouncements of such as Michael Moore and Oliver Stone, Barbra Streisand and Jane Fonda, Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon, Matt Damon and Harry Belafonte–directors, actors, entertainers all drawn from the world of Hollywood where fantasy substitutes for knowledge and the uneducated pass as gurus, hailed for their presumed willingness to stand up against threatening conspiratorial powers.

How little these Hollywood celebrities risk, how little they stand to lose becomes glaringly clear when they are compared with men and women of undeniable courage whose words–and actions–put them at real risk of losing their freedom and finally their lives. From time to time we are reminded of such figures and of what it means to take a stand against real tyranny, to enter the fight against undeniable evil.

A recent book tells the story of one such man, a Capuchin priest who repeatedly risked his life to help rescue thousands of Jews in France and Italy during the dark days of Nazi occupation. His story is told by Susan Zuccotti in Pere Marie-Benoit and Jewish Rescue. Zuccotti is the author of earlier books on France and Italy during the Holocaust and brings impressive background knowledge and practiced research skills to this latest account.

A Devastating Affirmative-Action Failure By Heather Mac Donald

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/356718/print The Los Angeles Times recently published a devastating case study in the malign effects of academic racial preferences. The University of California, Berkeley, followed the diversocrat playbook to the letter in admitting Kashawn Campbell, a South Central Los Angeles high-school senior, in 2012: It disregarded his level of academic preparation, parked him in the […]

DANIEL GREENFIELD: EGYPT IS WHERE HISTORY GOES TO DIE

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ One of the biggest differences between conservatives and liberals is that while conservatives believe that history is an expression of human nature, liberals don’t believe in history, they believe in historical processes. The shortage of conservatives explains why so many politicians and pundits glowingly endorsed the Arab Spring as the “end of history” because […]

MYRA ADAMS: WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE OVER THE OBAMANATION FLAG????

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/08/26/where-is-the-outrage-over-obamanation-flag/ While thousands gathered at the Lincoln Memorial this past weekend to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, an American flag was waved with President Obama’s image in place of the 50 stars. Photos of the “Obama flag” were included in the galleries of numerous prominent web sites such as […]

BARRY RUBIN: THE TRUTH ABOUT SYRIA

http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2013/08/26/the-truth-about-syria/?print=1 “It is my pleasure to meet with you in the new Middle East,” said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to the Syrian Journalists’ Union on August 15, 2006. But Bashar’s new Middle East was neither the one hoped for by many since Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s 1991 defeat in Kuwait, nor the one expected when […]