RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Human Zoo Posted By Richard Fernandez

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2012/01/11/the-human-zoo/

The Agence France Presse news agency reports [1] that human rights activists are outraged at a video showing tribal people putting on a show for tourists in exchange for food:

Rights campaigners and politicians Wednesday condemned a video showing women from a protected and primitive tribe dancing for tourists reportedly in exchange for food on India’s Andaman Islands.

British newspaper “The Observer” released the undated video showing Jarawa tribal women — some of them naked — being lured to dance and sing after a bribe was allegedly paid to a policeman to produce them.

Under Indian laws designed to protect ancient tribal groups susceptible to outside influence and disease, photographing or coming into contact with the Jarawa and some of the Andaman aborigines is banned.

It’s a wonderful kind of altruism which protects people from the dangers of literacy, computers, antibiotics, cars, indoor plumbing, and food preservation technology. But the Indian authorities are probably not alone in their desire to keep people in a museum state for the benefit of the curators. Recently, a campaign was launched in Sydney reminding its residents that 4 out of 5 aboriginal children in certain places did not know how to read or write.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204542404577157082322721886.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
Where’s John Yoo when President Obama needs him? The famous Bush Administration legal official was much maligned for issuing opinions supporting Presidential power, and he surely would have come up with something better than the junk law issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel yesterday.

The 23-page memorandum (dated January 6) by Assistant Attorney General Virginia Seitz is meant to justify Mr. Obama’s recess appointments last week of Richard Cordray at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three new members of the National Labor Relations Board—even though the Senate was not in recess but was holding pro forma sessions. The House also did not consent to the Senate’s adjournment, as required by the Constitution’s Article I, section 5, clause 4.

Ms. Seitz concedes that “The question is a novel one, and the substantial arguments on each side create some litigation risk for such appointments,” and little wonder. Most of the opinion is an off-point digression on the constitutionality of recess appointments between Senate sessions, which no one disputes. But on that “novel” question, Ms. Seitz’s legal reasoning is remarkably weak.

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2012/01/bdsers-count-their-winnings.html

WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE? HEBRON IS THE ANCIENT CRADLE OF JUDAISM …IS THE NEXT PLANNED EXPULSION OF JEWS TAKING PLACE IN THE HEART OF ISRAEL?….RSK

Report: Third National BDS Conference, Hebron, December 17
| Palestinian BDS National Committee

On 17 December 2011, Palestinians gathered in the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank for the Third National Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Conference. The event took place against the backdrop of continuous Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, and a growing resistance against injustice worldwide as demonstrated by the Arab revolutions and the occupy movements. Just minutes away from the conference venue, 500 Jewish settlers live under escort of the Israeli military in a colonial enclave in the middle of old Hebron, terrorizing local Palestinian residents on a daily basis, with the stated intent of driving them from their homes. Hebron is also an important commercial center in Palestine, and thus was a fitting venue to hold the national BDS conference, after it was held in Nablus and Ramallah in previous years.

The day started early with about 500 Palestinians from all corners of the West Bank, as well as 48 Palestinians representing a diverse sector of civil society including trade unions, student and women groups, academics, cultural workers and NGOs, all uniting under the banner of BDS.

Don’t Be Fooled by the BDS Movement’s Hidden Agenda

http://www.romirowsky.com/11012/bds-movement-hidden-agenda

With this year’s National Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Conference set to take place at the University of Pennsylvania in early February, it’s important to understand what the BDS movement is all about and what its ultimate goals are.

The movement’s focus is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it specifically demonizes Israel while propagating the notion of Palestinian victimhood in order to gain global sympathy. Those behind the movement believe that if universities, companies and even countries pursue BDS, it will pressure the Israeli government to change what the movement sees as Israel’s hard-nosed policies toward the Palestinians and give up land they perceive as “stolen” land.

In 2010, we saw an illustration of this when the Philly BDS chapter put out a flash dance YouTube campaign against Sabra hummus being sold at a local grocer. The group contended that the corporate parent of the brand subsidizes Israeli human rights abuses by supporting the Israeli Defense Forces and its infrastructure in the West Bank. The group hoped that other university communities would follow suit. In fact, the issue triggered a big debate at Princeton University, with the student body ultimately voting to reject a proposed boycott of the hummus product on campus.

http://sarahhonig.com/2012/01/12/another-tack-losing-proportions/

How reassuring: Jerusalem Police commissioner Nisso Shaham has sanctimoniously added his two cents’ worth to the synthetic hullabaloo that gripped specified Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh neighborhoods – the sort to which I and my sort never go. Yet my non-Jerusalemite sort is the loudest in kicking up a righteous fuss about oddities that barely impact our daily lives.

Those of us who remember this country a little further back than the day before yesterday know that given anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox elements habitually sought to stoke the fires of contention. Their counterparts on the leftist fringes of our political patchwork were equally eager to fan the flames. For the latter, it’s politically expedient to ignite culture wars and lump the entire complex gamut of Israel’s observant Jews under the single, all-inclusive epithet of haredim (God-fearing).

The religious zealot who called a female soldier “pritzeh” (Yiddish for a woman of loose morals) was turned into a sectarian martyr when the prosecution – generally renowned for its languor and lenient plea bargains – charged him with no less than sexual harassment. The outsized photo of the secularist heroine in khaki, posing with self-important indignation, became the obligatory front-page feature for all tabloids.

http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/18952-Understanding-The-Wuterich-Haditha-Court-Martial.html
Understanding The Wuterich Haditha Court Martial

The reporting of the court martial of Frank Wuterich’s actions in 2005 at Haditha fails to adequately explain the background of the specific charges and, also, the standards of evidence that must be met. Without that crucial information, the reader of daily news reports is likely justifiably confused. The news reports are being more circumspect than previously in parroting accusations of willful massacre. But, major media reports are mostly cherry-picking comments from prosecution witnesses, briefly passing over defense cross-examination, and most importantly not presenting the crucial context of the testimony and examinations.

The core issues in the court martial are whether beyond a reasonable doubt Frank Wuterich acted (1) with dereliction of duty to not obey rules of engagement, (2) leading to his own actions and command culpability for negligent homicide in the deaths at Haditha that otherwise would have been avoided. These are reductions of charges from the original charges of murder against Frank Wuterich. Several other charges were thrown out in opening motions at the court martial.

http://dotsub.com/media/b5ee5ada-5b37-4b0b-9916-e0896337ec4b/e/m

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/01/pepsi_suffers_31_million_shakedown_for_discriminatory_hiring_policies.html

Pepsi Beverages Co. has agreed to a $3.1 million settlement to end federal charges of racial discrimination over its hiring practices – but this wasn’t the sort of discrimination that once existed in the Jim Crow South. Pepsi was guilty of racial discrimination as defined by government bullies at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Increasingly, the EEOC has used the battering ram of discrimination, as it loosely defines it, to promote “diversity” at all cost. And no matter if this means sacrificing the concept of meritocracy (critical to free-markets and democracy) for the sake of their ideological agenda.

So what was Pepsi’s sin as defined by EEOC bureaucrats and their liberal cheerleaders? Pepsi had administered the same pre-employment screening to all job applicants regardless of their race, color, or creed. Specifically, Pepsi used criminal background checks to screen job seekers — something it presumably did to measure the content of every job applicant’s character. Applicants with arrest records (though not necessarily convictions) were disqualified, and Pepsi also turned away applicants convicted of minor offenses.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/12/americorps-ig-loses-funding-after-obama-fired-previous-chief-during-investigations-into-admin-corruption/?print=1
Scandal-plagued Americorps loses inspector general funding

THE FIRING OF INSPECTORE GENERAL GERALD WALPIN WITHOUT CAUSE WAS THE FIRST SALVO IN CORRUPTION BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION…..READ ABOUT IT:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2009/06/gerald-walpin-speaks-inside-story-americorps-firing
“The White House’s decision to fire AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin came amid politically-charged tensions inside the Corporation for National and Community Service, the organization that runs AmeriCorps. Top executives at the Corporation, Walpin explained in an hour-long interview Saturday, were unhappy with his investigation into the misuse of AmeriCorps funds by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, California and a prominent supporter of President Obama. Walpin’s investigation also sparked conflict with the acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento amid fears that the probe — which could have resulted in Johnson being barred from ever winning another federal grant — might stand in the way of the city receiving its part of billions of dollars in federal stimulus money. After weeks of standoff, Walpin, whose position as inspector general is supposed to be protected from influence by political appointees and the White House, was fired.”

The inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) got hit with a nearly 50 percent budget cut for 2012, a move that, unless immediately remedied, will stifle the office’s ability to investigate a controversial branch of the Obama administration.

CNCS, and specifically its Americorps division, has been plagued with scandals. Americorps is a federally-funded community service program.

The previous CNCS inspector general, Gerald Walpin, was fired after investigating Sacramento, Calif. Mayor Kevin Johnson — a former NBA star and a Democrat with ties to Obama — over allegations that he misused an $850,000 grant Americorps gave his community group, St. Hope.

Johnson was accused of inappropriately touching young girls, and is alleged to have offered at least one of them $1,000 per month to stay quiet about it and stay at St. Hope.

Other allegations Johnson faced, according to a 2009 congressional report prepared by now House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley, include Americorps volunteers running errands for Johnson, washing his car and conducting political activities all while on the clock — meaning taxpayers paid the bill.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/Rutherford_temple_wants_to_combat_ignorance_after_attack.html?page=all BY MONSY ALVARADO, DEON J. HAMPTON AND MARLENE NAANES County and federal law enforcement continued to investigate a firebombing at a Rutherford Jewish temple Thursday, while borough religious leaders planned to show their solidarity against hate crimes at a Saturday interreligious service. “We certainly expect a good turnout from the synagogue’s members and they […]