Are you tired of high gas prices?  They will go even higher.  Bookworm linked to a very good article by Gerry Charlotte Phelps:

Exxon-Mobile is a tiny oil company (even though it is the biggest of the U.S. oil companies.)  At 18th in the world, it ranks way down in the scales.  The other 17 companies are the real oil giants.  They are all government-owned oil companies.  Saudia Arabia.  Kuwait. Venezuela.  Pemex in Mexico.  It is a very different picture from what you may have been thinking, or hearing.

You want to go after the "oil giants"?  Good!  Then look somewhere else.  None of them are U.S. oil companies, which have shrunk and shrunk over the years, under environmentalist attack in the U.S., and through being shut out of foreign oil by the governments who own all the oil in their countries. 

You really want to go after the "oil giants?"  (Remember now, all of them are oil giants owned by the governments of other countries.)  Then drill here!  Drill now!  What is happening to our energy is going to hurt everyone in the U.S. and in the world.

Read it all.  Then click here and sign that petition to drill here and now.  You can see the icon linking to it on my sidebar as well.

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Is Obama qualified to be President, according to US Constitution?  Bookworm posted a link to the discussion on the subject at the National Review Campaign Spot and also had an interesting discussion in the comments to her post.  Check it out!  I don’t think anybody will dare to disqualify Obama from running, although I would not be surprised if it is brought up at the Democratic Convention by Hillary’s supporters.  But it sure is interesting.

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Here is another article mentioned by Dennis Prager, this one about negotiating without preconditions:

May 22, 2008

Op-Ed Contributors

Kennedy Talked, Khrushchev Triumphed

By NATHAN THRALL and JESSE JAMES WILKINS

…………………………………………………………………………….

Senior American statesmen like George Kennan advised Kennedy not to rush into a high-level meeting, arguing that Khrushchev had engaged in anti-American propaganda and that the issues at hand could as well be addressed by lower-level diplomats. Kennedy’s own secretary of state, Dean Rusk, had argued much the same in a Foreign Affairs article the previous year: “Is it wise to gamble so heavily? Are not these two men who should be kept apart until others have found a sure meeting ground of accommodation between them?”

But Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, cautioned America against supporting “old, moribund, reactionary regimes” and asserted that the United States, which had valiantly risen against the British, now stood “against other peoples following its suit.” Khrushchev used the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting to warn Kennedy that his country could not be intimidated and that it was “very unwise” for the United States to surround the Soviet Union with military bases.

Kennedy’s aides convinced the press at the time that behind closed doors the president was performing well, but American diplomats in attendance, including the ambassador to the Soviet Union, later said they were shocked that Kennedy had taken so much abuse. Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was “just a disaster.” Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.” The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.

Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.”

A little more than two months later, Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to begin erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Kennedy had resigned himself to it, telling his aides in private that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” The following spring, Khrushchev made plans to “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants”: nuclear missiles in Cuba. And while there were many factors that led to the missile crisis, it is no exaggeration to say that the impression Khrushchev formed at Vienna — of Kennedy as ineffective — was among them.

Read it all.

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… who needs enemies?  Dennis Prager mentioned this story from Spiegel in his radio show:

NOT LICENSED TO KILL

German Special Forces in Afghanistan Let Taliban Commander Escape

By Susanne Koelbl and Alexander Szandar

German special forces had an important Taliban commander in their sights in Afghanistan. But he escaped — because the Germans were not authorized to use lethal force. The German government’s hands-tied approach to the war is causing friction with its NATO allies.

The wheat is lush and green in the fields of northern Afghanistan this spring. A river winding its way through the broad valley dotted with walled houses completes the picturesque scene. Behind one of these walls, not far from the town of Pol-e-Khomri, sits a man whose enemies, having named him a "target," would like to see dead. He is the Baghlan bomber.

The Taliban commander is regarded as a brutal extremist with excellent connections to terror cells across the border in Pakistan. Security officials consider him to be one of the most dangerous players in the region, which is under German command as part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan. The military accuses him of laying roadside bombs and of sheltering suicide attackers prior to their bloody missions.

He is also thought to be behind one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan’s history, the Nov. 6, 2007 attack on a sugar factory in the northwest province of Baghlan. The attack killed 79 people, including dozens of children and many parliamentarians and other politicians, as they celebrated the factory’s reopening.

Germany’s KSK special forces have been charged with capturing the terrorist, in cooperation with the Afghan secret service organization NDS and the Afghan army. The German elite soldiers were able to uncover the Taliban commander’s location. They spent weeks studying his behavior and habits: when he left his house and with whom, how many men he had around him and what weapons they carried, the color of his turban and what vehicles he drove.

At the end of March, they decided to act to seize the commander. Under the protection of darkness, the KSK, together with Afghan forces, advanced toward their target. Wearing black and equipped with night-vision goggles, the team came within just a few hundred meters of their target before they were discovered by Taliban forces.

The dangerous terrorist escaped. It would, however, have been possible for the Germans to kill him — but the KSK were not authorized to do so.

Go ahead and read the whole thing.  Is there anyone who even played a soldier as a kid, who does not find this story ridiculously pathetic?  Don’t get me wrong: the German Special Forces soldiers are likely very good and professional, but their superiors are another matter.  Dennis Prager often says that the Germans learned the wrong lesson after World War 2: instead of learning of necessity to combat evil even in their own midst they learned that it is always wrong to fight.  I could not agree more.

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This blog was started from the article "Reclaiming the Terms" that I wrote and ever since keep shoving into people’s faces.  In my article I insist that true Liberals are found on the Right of the political spectrum.  But it turns out that sometimes you have to go even further.  So, at the risk of flattering Bookworm again, I am presenting here another of her brilliant articles, in which she renames the illiberal Left into Statists and liberal Right into Individualists:

Renaming the paradigm *UPDATED*

Bookworm on May 13 2008 at 9:07 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized

I’ve decided it’s time to jettison entirely the words “Left” and “Right” when used with reference to political ideologies. I came to this conclusion after a very interesting discussion with my mother. While we were talking about the military Junta in Burma, she let drop the fact that she believes that all tyrannies come from the political Right.

I was taken aback, especially when my mother explained to me that the Soviets, Nazis and Italian Fascists were all tyrannies from the Right. I could understand her confusion about the Nazis and the Italian Fascists — after all, Jonah Goldberg wrote a whole book trying to educate people out of their confusion on this subject — but her statement about the Soviets perplexed me.

…………………………………………………………………………….

Conservatives want to contract the power of the Federal government, not expand it, because they have recognized that tyrannies, regardless of the political ideology that powers them, are Statist. Republicans, I said, are Individualists. Given the opportunity to shape this country’s politics, they are the ones who are least likely ones to lead America into the tyrannical, militaristic regime she fears.

It was quite an amazing conversation because, by the end, she really grasped the difference between Left and Right. Right is not Nazis and Fascists and failed Communist states. In America, Right is about individual rights, and Left is about Statism — and it is Statism that, when it runs amok, is dangerous.

Anyway, because of the fact that this type of confusion has poisoned the meaning of these commonly used political terms, I think it’s more accurate to describe the two American ideologies as Statist and Individualist — and I know on which side of the political aisle I want to reside.

As before, excerpts don’t do justice to Bookworm’s article, so read the whole thing.  And, as Bookworm, I know exactly on which side of the political aisle I am - on the side of individual liberty.

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Obama recently gave an interview to Jeff Goldberg of The Atlantic.  After this interview many commentators on my side were quick to point out that Obama called Israel a "constant wound… a constant sore…" on our foreign policy.  But here is exactly what he said:

JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable. I am absolutely convinced of that, and some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I’m not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that’s the safest ground politically.

From reading his exact response it is clear that he did not mean that Israel is a "constant sore", but the conflict is.  To accuse him of calling Israel a "constant sore" is to use a favorite trick of the Left: taking his words out of context.  However, this does not mean that his interview is not full of crap.  The Republican Jewish Coalition in its press release called Obama’s statement what it really is, in its proper context: excusing the inexcusable, or, in other words, another of the Left’s favorite things - moral equivalency:

RJC: Obama Excuses the Inexcusable

Contact: Press Secretary Suzanne Kurtz
Monday, May 12, 2008

Washington, D.C. (May 12, 2008 ) — In response to Sen. Barack Obama’s interview in the most recent issue of The Atlantic, the Republican Jewish Coalition released the following statement today:

"Once again, Senator Obama demonstrates his questionable grasp of America’s foreign policy. Senator Obama manages to excuse the inexcusable actions of anti-American militant jihadists by putting the blame for their actions on America’s foreign policy. America stands with Israel because it is one of our strongest allies and the only democracy in the Middle East. Senator Obama naively believes that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will solve the global scourge of radical Islamic extremism. Yet Senator Obama never says how he will rein in Hamas’ daily onslaught on Israel or Iran’s scurrilous condemnations of Israel. Is it any wonder Hamas has endorsed him for president?"

In his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, Sen. Obama described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as ‘this constant wound.’ Sen. Obama said ‘that this constant sore, does infect all of [America's] foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions.’

RJC is fair and absolutely correct.  And Obama is still full of crap.  And, in related news, linked from LGF to Jim Geraghty:

Palestinians in Gaza Are Phonebanking for Barack Obama

Phil Klein calls our attention to an al-Jazeera news report that sounds like a parody, but is genuine: A report on Palestinians in Gaza who are phonebanking in support of Barack Obama’s campaign.

I transcribed the most jaw-dropping parts:

REPORTER: It may be hard to believe, but working in this tiny Internet cafe in Gaza City may just be one of Barack Obama’s biggest fans.

Before every U.S. primary, 23-year-old Ibrahim Abu Jayyab gathers 17 of his friends to try and rally support for Obama’s campaign in the U.S.

So why does a young Palestinian living in Gaza spend so much of his time and money on an election thousands of miles away?

ABU JAYYAB: [translated] It all started at the time of the U.S. primaries. After studying Obama’s electoral campaign manifesto, I thought, ‘this is a man that is capable of change inside America.’ As for potential change in the Middle East, he can also do that. I think he can bring peace to the area, or at least this is what we hope.

REPORTER: And the game plan? Ibrahim and his friends call random numbers in the U.S. before every primary to deliver one simple message:

ABU JAYYAB: [in English] Elect Senator Obama. I will change. I will achieve… the justice in the Middle East.

I am guessing, this must be illegal, if Obama’s Campaign is actually involved in this.  Read it all.  Here is another link.

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… of not trying to alleviate poverty in the world, you might want to point to this news item:

A Gulf in Giving: Oil-Rich States Starve the World Food Program

Friday , May 09, 2008

By George Russell

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his top lieutenants on Monday are convening the first meeting of the U.N.’s Task Force on the Global Food Crisis. Ban says it will “study the root causes of the crisis,” and propose solutions for “coordinated global action” at a summit of world leaders in June.

…………………………………………………………………………….

Donor listings on WFP’s website show that this year, as in every year since 1999, the U.S. is far and away the biggest aid provider to WFP. Since 2001, U.S. donations to the food agency have averaged more than $1.16 billion annually — or more than five times as much as the next biggest donor, the European Commission.

…………………………………………………………………………….

And while Canada, Australia, Western Europe and Japan have hastened to pony up an additional $260 million in aid since WFP’s latest appeal, the world organization told FOX News, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the international oil cartel, tossed in a grand total of $1.5 million in addition to the $50,000 it had previously donated.

The OPEC total amounts to roughly one minute and 10 seconds worth of the organization’s estimated $674 billion in annual oil revenues in 2007 — revenues that will be vastly exceeded in 2008 with the continuing spiral in world oil prices.

The only other major oil exporter who made the WFP list of 2008 donors was the United Arab Emirates, which kicked in $50,000. UAE oil revenues in 2007 were $63 billion.

By contrast, the poverty-stricken African republic of Burkina Faso is listed as donating more than $600,000, and Bangladesh, perennial home of many of the world’s hungriest people, is listed as donating nearly $5.8 million.

And those people talk about honor?

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They probably all do to some extent.  So, whenever I would point out to someone, even someone who agrees with me, some outrageous lie by a leftist politician, the response I often get is: "Yes, but they all lie".  I often found myself at a loss for words after that.  Well, maybe I don’t have to be in such position any longer.  Bookworm has brilliantly explained in her post that

All lies are not created equal

…………………………………………………………………………….

We also are willing to give favored politician some latitude on broken promises. Thus, the question in the voters’ collective mind when a politician breaks an promise is, “Did s/he, at the time s/he made that promise, have any intention of keeping it?” If people believe the answer is “yes,” they’ll listen with some respect to the politician’s excuses for failing to keep that promise. If the answer is “no,” or if it is apparent that no person of reasonable intelligence should have made such a promise in the first place, then voters will be much less forgiving.

And then there are the lies that Hillary and Obama tell, likes that hark back to the toddler years: They get caught doing something bad, and they simply lie about. Hillary confines herself to denials and accusations. In the face of her intransigent denials, when the truth finally emerges, she tends to look awful. Obama is more clever. His first instinct is to deny, and then he starts leaking out the ugly truth. And by leaking it out slowly, he defuses the impact of the fact that, yes, he did engage in wrongdoing or, yes, he did associate (fairly closely) with terrorists or, yes, he did know all along that his preacher is an anti-American racist kind of guy.

The excerpts truly don’t do justice to Bookworm’s article.  Go read the whole thing.  I will have to remember her arguments the next time someone tells me that all politicians lie.

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My previous post dealt with the problem.  This one has to do with the solution: Muslim Reform Movement.  The fact is that we all can talk about violence inherent in Islam till we blue in the face, and we will still have a problem.  Even if we defeat the the jihadis militarily now, they will come back later because the ideological basis for them will remain intact.  So, they will have to be defeated ideologically as well.  The only one way to do it in my opinion is to re-interpret Koran, de-emphasizing violence in it.  So, we need to promote the genuine reformers of Islam, people who seek to re-interpret the religious doctrine of Islam.  One of such organizations, Muslims Against Sharia, left a comment on this blog recently, and I am thankful for that.  There are others:

Dr. Tawfik Hamid;

American-Islamic Forum for Democracy.

I am adding these links to my sidebar.  There are probably others.  We need to scream as loud as we can, so that the media listens to these people, rather than CAIR.  Front Page recently conducted a symposium of Muslim reformers.  There is hope.  Finally, it seems that Turkish Government got involved in the Muslim Reform effort:

Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion.

The country’s powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.

…………………………………………………………………………….

…………………………………………………………………………….

According to Fadi Hakura, an expert on Turkey from Chatham House in London, Turkey is doing nothing less than recreating Islam - changing it from a religion whose rules must be obeyed, to one designed to serve the needs of people in a modern secular democracy.

He says that to achieve it, the state is fashioning a new Islam.

"This is kind of akin to the Christian Reformation," he says.

"Not exactly the same, but if you think, it’s changing the theological foundations of [the] religion. "

Fadi Hakura believes that until now secularist Turkey has been intent on creating a new politics for Islam.

Now, he says, "they are trying to fashion a new Islam."

Significantly, the "Ankara School" of theologians working on the new Hadith have been using Western critical techniques and philosophy.

They have also taken an even bolder step - rejecting a long-established rule of Muslim scholars that later (and often more conservative) texts override earlier ones.

"You have to see them as a whole," says Fadi Hakura.

"You can’t say, for example, that the verses of violence override the verses of peace. This is used a lot in the Middle East, this kind of ideology.

"I cannot impress enough how fundamental [this change] is."

Read the whole article.  Generally conservatives like myself are skeptical about government involvement in anything.  But in this particular case, placing government resources behind the project might be a good thing.

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We often hear that the majority of Muslims are not terrorists, but just normal peaceful people going about their daily lives.  That is definitely true for one simple reason: day-to-day activities tend to preoccupy people.  But how big is that violent minority?  Well, consider this post by Elder of Zion:

That "tiny percentage of radical Muslims" again

Read his complete analysis in order to understand the problem.

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Being sick has its rewards: I have a little bit more time for blogging when I am not miserable.  So, when a friend alerted me to an interesting article, I decided to post about it:

Amerabia

By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
The Washington Times | Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Even Americans knowledgeable about Europe’s growing accommodation to the totalitarian ideology known alternatively as Islamism, jihadism or Islamofascism tend smugly to believe the same thing can’t happen here. Think again.

Every day, new evidence appears of similar acts of submission — the Islamists call it "dhimmitude" — on the part of the U.S. government, judges, the press and leading corporations. Eurabia, meet the United States of Amerabia.

On May 4, an ominous alarm was sounded in a Pajamas Media column by Youssef Ibrahim, a former New York Times reporter. Mr. Ibrahim is an astute critic of the Islamists’ steady, tireless and increasingly effective efforts to impose — on Muslims and non-Muslims alike — the repressive theo-political-legal agenda they call Shariah law. He warned that "In the very real war on terror, a noisy squabble over ‘fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here’ clouds a simple truth: namely, that ‘they’ are here already. Indeed, Islamists are busy constructing a wing of jihad in America’s backyard."

Among the most worrisome of the "they" now operating inside the U.S. are various front organizations systematically established by the Islamist organization known as the Ikhwan, or Muslim Brotherhood. During last year’s federal trial of the Holy Land Foundation on terrorism-financing charges, the government introduced into evidence the names of many scores of such Ikhwan fronts. Identified also as unindicted co-conspirators were virtually every one of the most prominent Muslim-American organizations, including notably the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).

Read it and be scared.  Here is the Yossef Ibrahim’s article that Frank Gaffney mentions:

Islamist Chickens Roosting in America’s Backyard

May 4, 2008 - by Youssef M. Ibrahim

Again, read it all.  And while you are thinking that those people have their 1st Amendment right to broadcast all this stuff which amounts to enemy propaganda, ask yourself this: "Can you imagine German American Bund operating its own radio station during World War 2?"

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Here are some quick links without my comments.  Just read them.

My cousin Karlchen.

Melani Phillips: Happy 60th birthday, Israel — well done for surviving.

WHAT I LEARNED AT ‘ANTI-JIHAD U’ by Judith Miller.

Getting to Know John McCain by Karl Rove. (via Bookworm).

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I got this e-mail from Judith A. Klinghoffer:

…Obama must have trusted the media NOT to read Dreams from my Father p.99-100. In it he specifically contrasts his views from those of a bi-racial woman named Joyce  who refused to be categorized: (the italicization in the text is Obama’s)

 One day I asked her if she was going to the Black Students’ Association meeting. She looked at me funny, then started shaking her head like a baby who doesn’t want what it sees on the spoon.

“I’m not black,” Joyce said, “I’m multiracial.” Then she started telling me about her father, who happened to be Italian and was the sweetest man in the world; and her mother, who happened to be part African and part Native American and part something else. “Why should I have to choose between them?” she asked me. Her voice cracked, and I thought she was going to cry. “It’s not white people who are making me choose. Maybe it used to be that way, but now they’re willing to treat me like a person. No- it’s black people who always have to make everything racial. They’re the ones making me choose. They’re the ones who are telling me that I can’t be who I am . . . . “

In other words Joyce is the person Obama tries to convince us that he is. But she is the person he rejected as a “sellout” in favor of an all out Blackness, the kind which will naturally lead him to Rev. Wright and to Michelle. For this is how he goes on –

 The truth was that I understood her, her and all the other black kids who felt the way she did. In their mannerism, their speech, their mixed-up hearts, I kept recognizing pieces of myself. And that’s exactly what scared me. . . . I needed to put distance between them and myself, to convince myself that I wasn’t compromised - that I was indeed still awake.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk rock performance poets. . . . At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy.”

He goes on to explain that changing his name from Barry to Barack was part of the choice.

Read it all.  Obama is no different than his crazy pastor.

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Little Green Footballs linked to this article by Amir Taheri:

WHY DOES AHMADINEJAD WANT RUSSIAN TROOPS IN IRAN?
by Amir Taheri
Asharq Alawsat
April 25, 2008

…………………………………………………………………………….

Why is an administration that pretends it has a mission from the "Hidden Imam" to liberate the whole world keen to give Russia a licence to land troops in Iran?

Obviously, only Ahmadinejad and his associates know the full answer. However, one could speculate that the Khomeinist president has decided that a war with the United States is inevitable. In such a war, the Americans may well seize Iran’s oilfields, an easy target for a surprise attack and a difficult asset for defenders to protect. Once that happens Russia could land troops in northern Iran and then go to the United Nations to ask for a generalized ceasefire and the fixing of a timetable for the withdrawal of "all foreign troops from all Iranian territory." The US would come under global pressure to cooperate with Russia in ending the conflict and paving the way for the departure of foreign troops and the restoration of Iranian sovereignty.

Do read it all.  Amir Taheri always provides good analysis.  I can add that it looks like the Iranians are trying to pit the Russian troops against Americans.  Once again the jihadis are attempting to use the super-power rivalry for their own purposes.  And once again they might succeed.

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Well, ACLU is a leftist organization and does not care about real civil liberties.  They only get involved in the leftist causes.  The same is true for ADL.  This is from Jewish Russian Telegraph:

Mark Nystedt, Christian, indefatigable pro-Israel, pro-Jewish activist, was arrested last Wenesday the 30th. He is circulating his story, here in full:

On April 30 2008, I was in front of the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul. Obviously, someone in Bishop Shaw’s office called the Boston Police with a complaint about me. An Episcopal Diocese NAG (National Association of Gals) employee was hovering to observe the anticipated events. A Boston Police paddy wagon arrived about 2:30. The officer warned me that protesters had to be mobile/walking and not seated and that if I remained seated that I would be arrested. There is no city ordinance that requires protesters to be mobile and this arbitrary requirement by the Boston Police Department denies me constitutional right to free speech.

On June 11 2007, I was in a similar situation. Then I chose to leave. See my on-line unpublished letter to the Jewish Advocate about the ACLU declining to help resolve this matter (google ‘ACLU anti-Semitism Nystedt‘). The ADL also declined to help as they have programming with the Episcopal Church.

So, when I returned to this location on April 30th, I was fully prepared to suffer the consequence of sitting. I sat and I was arrested for disturbing the peace.

Handcuffed, paddy wagon, booked, and overnight in Precinct 1 cell 7. 5×7 with a metal shelf for a bed. It reminded me of Christ’s tomb except that it had a combo toilet/sink an its walls were made of steal. Fortunately, I wore work boots, one of which doubled as a pillow. Didn’t some ancient Israel prophet sleep with a rock as a pillow? Being in this drum amplified my snoring which great annoyed the lockup’s other guests. I woke up at 2:30AM with the sound of the other lockup guests pounding on their walls. I told the arresting officer that I suffer from sleep apnea and need a CPAP machine. No allowance was made for that medical need. Obviously, I considered guilty upon arrest in violation of the the US Constitution. I was released at 3AM, now May 1st, with a summons to appear at the Boston Municipal Court (Edward Brooke Building, 24 New Chardon Street, West End) at 8:30AM, which I did.

The court got started about 9AM with 200+ cases to be heard. About one-third, with non-Anglo names, were no shows and issued warrants for arrest. A few were continued until lawyers could sort things out. The rest were either bailed or held without bail. My lockup buddies showed up wearing hand and ankle cuffs. About 1PM, my case was called. After 30 seconds of reading my file, the (Assistant?) District Attorney recommended that my case be dismissed. The Judge said "Case dismissed," I said "Thank you," and I left. The few dozen defendants still in court were taken aback.

Now, I am looking for a lawyer to sue the City of Boston, the Massachusetts Episcopal Diocese, and the individuals involved for denying me my constitutional right to free speech, harassment, etc, whatever. Any suggestions, except the ACLU and ADL, would be appreciated.

Thank you for listening/reading. Its been therapeutic writing this.

Mark Nystedt. Haverhill Massachusetts.

Please send ideas on how to help Mr. Nystedt.

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This is via LGF:

N.C. congresswoman releases 10-point list to tackle radical Islam threats

Lisa Zagaroli

April 18, 2008 6:45 PM

McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT)

WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick wants America to ”wake up” and stop allowing terrorism to proliferate - and if that means revoking the passport of a former U.S. president or examining the preaching of prison chaplains, that’s what she’s prepared to do.

…………………………………………………………………………….

Here is Myrick’s 10-point plan to tackle threats posed by radical elements of Islam:

1. Investigate all military chaplains endorsed by Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was imprisoned for funding a terrorist organization.

2. Investigate all prison chaplains endorsed by Alamoudi.

3. Investigate the selection process of Arabic translators working for the Pentagon and the FBI.

4. Examine the non-profit status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

5. Make it an act of sedition or solicitation of treason to preach or publish materials that call for the deaths of Americans.

6. Audit sovereign wealth funds in the United States.

7. Cancel scholarship student visa program with Saudi Arabia until they reform their text books, which she claims preach hatred and violence against non-Muslims.

8. Restrict religious visas for imams who come from countries that don’t allow reciprocal visits by non-Muslim clergy.

9. Cancel contracts to train Saudi police and security in U.S. counterterrorism tactics.

10. Block the sale of sensitive military munitions to Saudi Arabia.

Read it all.  And also be sure to read Robert Spencer’s article on the subject.

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My older daughter takes figure skating lessons.  She’s been a bit lazy lately (she is only 7), so in order to prop up her enthusiasm her coach suggested that she should prepare a short program with music.  Her program would have to be only about a minute long, so any musical piece would have to be shortened.  In trying to pick music for her I discovered that there is a song that I can listen to over and over, without getting tired of it.  I am fascinated by the World War 2 history, so it is not a surprise that this song is from that era.  The song is "Bei Mir Bist Du Shein", with lyrics originally written in Yiddish and then translated into English.  In English it became a tremendous hit when it was performed by The Andrews Sisters.  Of all the versions of this song I think that the Andrews Sisters is the best.  Enjoy:

Here is Benny Goodman’s version:

I actually still undecided, whether the Andrews Sisters or Benny Goodman’s version is the best.  And here is Al Bowlly’s version, with lyrics addressed, properly, to a girl:

Here is the original Yiddish version:

Which one do you like best?

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Just like the charge of racism, the charge of anti-Semitism is often leveled falsely against people on the Right.  To be sure, there are many anti-Semites on the Right and on the Left, although the anti-Semitism is more prevalent on the Left these days.  But such accusations should not be leveled lightly because there is no easy way to disprove them (and it is hard to prove a negative).  So, the false accusation of anti-Semitism is just as bad as the false accusation of racism.  As a Jew, I have a special responsibility to defend people falsely accused of anti-Semitism, not only because people’s good name should not be smeared, but also because such false accusations prevent the real thing from being taken seriously.

So, here is an article restoring Walt Disney’s good name (via LGF):

Disney was not an antisemite

24 January 2008

By Daniel Finkelstein

It happened again the other day. It’s always happening. And I think it is time I said something.

Here’s what goes on. I make a joke to a Jewish friend about that Iranian lecturer who thinks that Tom and Jerry is a Zionist conspiracy thought up by the Jewish Disney corporation. And they reply: “That’s ironic. Walt Disney was an antisemite.”

It is remarkable how many Jews think this.

…………………………………………………………………………….

First, Disney hired Jews, lots of Jews. Disney was not himself Jewish, of course, but the success of his business owed a great deal to a Jew. The bedrock of Disney was Walt’s merchandising partner, the Jewish Kay Kamen, the man who helped make Mickey Mouse into a cult and who once remarked that Disney had more Jews in it than the Book of Leviticus. This was not an accident, occurring against Walt’s wishes. When Harry Tytle joined the studio as a production manager and told Walt that he was half-Jewish, Disney replied: “It would be better if you were all Jewish.”

Second, the supposed antisemite was a frequent contributor to Jewish charities — the Yeshiva College and the Jewish Home for the Aged among them. And in 1955, he was made Man of the Year by the Beverly Hills Lodge of B’nai B’rith.

Third, and most important, is what there isn’t. There just isn’t any serious evidence of antisemitism. And this is not a charge that can be waved about without proof. Jews can enjoy Walt Disney. He was an inspiration.

Read it all.  And a message to my fellow Jews: be very careful with leveling the charge of anti-Semitism.  There are plenty of real anti-Semite, some of them genocidal.  We don’t need the false ones.

P. S.  I don’t think I have accused Ron Paul or Barack Obama of anti-Semitism, although both enjoy support of anti-Semites.  But I think I was very careful not to level such charges against these men themselves without any evidence, precisely for the reasons laid out in the beginning of this post and in the article I linked to.

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Poland was often called "The First Ally" by the British historian Norman Davies in his book "Rising ‘44" about Warsaw Uprising in August of 1944.  The Poles stay true to this history of theirs (via Gateway Pundit):

Polish MEPs demand from EU to regard Hezbollah as terrorist organization. It will be easier to invigilate them and monitor their financial transfers in EU – says Konrad Szymański (PiS), on of campaign initiators.

Hezbollach is listed as terrorist organization in US, UK and Israel. Brussels objected such decision so far. Some other organizations, as Council of Europe is against any terrorist lists at all, because people being charged for relations with terrorism do not have possibility to defend themselves. On the other hand experts say that Hezbollah gathers money in EU member states. Last days, Bulgarian parliamentary committee revealed that Bulgarian mafia bosses financed Hezbollah.

Szymanski states, that Hezbollah’s activity destabilizes situation not only in Lebanon or Israel, but also at the whole Middle East. First step of campaign will be debate on forum of European Parliament. Such proposal, signed by 40 MEPs should be filed in coming days.

Dzenkue, pan Szymanski (thank you, Mr. Szymanski).

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That is the title of the article from the Middle East Forum:

David Wurmser is a specialist on the Middle East and served as an advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney until recently. His prior positions included special assistant to John R. Bolton at the Department of State and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Wurmser is the author of numerous influential papers and three books, including Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein (AEI Press, 1999). In 2000, he contributed to the Middle East Forum’s Lebanon Study Group report, "Ending Syria’s Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role," which condemned Syria’s occupation of Lebanon. He received a Ph.D. in international relations from Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Wurmser addressed the Middle East Forum on March 6, 2008 in New York City.

"Iran’s Stake in the Levant"

Mr. Wurmser calls Lebanon a "key battleground between the West as a whole and the forces that seek to drag the Middle East down." The situation in Lebanon must be viewed in the context of the larger conflict in the region, which is becoming far more dangerous. Two years after the Cedar Revolution in March 2005, which was brought on by the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese are still living through a tragedy. The inability to install a new president today is indicative of the situation. It is because of the size and success of the popular demonstrations by the Lebanese, however, that Lebanon has become the focal point of the enemies of the West, namely Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah.

Mr. Wurmser focused on the Iranian strategy toward Lebanon, arguing that Iran is undergoing a transformation, not in the direction of reform as the West hopes, but from a pure theocracy toward a "theofascist state on the edge of an even more aggressive foreign policy." This transformation in Iranian politics, according to Mr. Wurmser, is being played out in Lebanon and in Gaza.

Top American officials have made statements to the effect that U.S. and U.N. sanctions have hurt the Iranian regime, and that the support for former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and other figures deemed "moderate" in the December 2006 elections indicated the weakening of the Iranian regime. Mr. Wurmser asserts that this perception is false because it ignores the real indicators. Rather, a new power structure is emerging in Iran that is closely aligned with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. For example, Ahmadinejad fired many government officials and replaced them with a group of hard-core members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Mr. Wurmser singled out Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejehei, whom Ahmadinejad placed in control of Intelligence, who espouses an aggressive anti-Western foreign policy and supports terrorism; and Saeed Jalili, whom Ahmadinejad appointed as head nuclear negotiator for Iran, is a veteran of the IRGC who was mutilated in the Iran-Iraq war.

Mr. Wurmser traced several of Ahmadinejad’s actions to Jalili’s 1990 book, Foreign Policy of the Prophet, arguing that Jalili’s writings, though they describe the time of Muhammad, are a blueprint for Iran today. Jalili cites an episode in which Muhammad told his followers to proselytize, not negotiate. In this spirit, Ahmedinejad has fired ambassadors and replaced them with more proselytizing ones. Jalili wrote about how Muhammad and his successors sent letters out to other tribes telling them to "convert or you will face the sword," as well as to major powers in Byzantium and Persia. Mr. Wurmser linked this to Ahmedinejad’s sending similar letters to President Bush. He pointed out how the "language is lifted straight out of Jalili’s book, and that, in fact, "Jalili is the mind behind Ahmedinejad."

Read it all.  It’s important.

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…does it take to convince American Jews to stop voting for Democrats?  The answer is not known: it hasn’t been done yet.  But here is an interesting link via Atlas Shrugs:

A Threat To Jews Who Would Abandon Obama

April 7, 2008

I hope Jews Against Obama will forgive for posting this post in its entirety here: there is nothing to excerpt.  And I am linking to that site anyway.  As for the Jews who vote for Democrats, at least they should know who they are voting for.  Although, I suspect that they would vote for a candidate named Adolf Hitler if he had (D) next to his name.

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I think I got this from Bookworm, but I am not sure:

Back in 1996 and 1997, before John McCain was a presidential candidate or object of media fascination, Michael Lewis followed the Arizona senator around as he campaigned for Bob Dole and worked to reform campaign-finance laws. Lewis’ pieces for the New Republic and the New York Times Magazine portrayed McCain as a passionate, cantankerous, astonishingly honest political character who frequently acted in ways that brought him no political gain. In the recent back-and-forth over whether McCain is a regular politician or a true outlier, we remembered a wonderful moment from Lewis’ 1997 New York Times Magazine profile of McCain, "The Subversive." The passage below comes at the very end of Lewis’ article.

By 7:30 we were on the road, and McCain was reminiscing about his early political career. When he was elected to the House in 1982, he said, he was "a freshman right-wing Nazi." But his visceral hostility toward Democrats generally was quickly tempered by his tendency to see people as individuals and judge them that way. He was taken in hand by Morris Udall, the Arizona congressman who was the liberal conscience of the Congress and a leading voice for reform. (Most famously—and disastrously for his own career—Udall took aim at the seniority system that kept young talent in its place at the end of the dais. "The longer you’re here, the more you’ll like it," he used to joke to incoming freshmen.)

"Mo reached out to me in 50 different ways," McCain recalled. "Right from the start, he’d say: ‘I’m going to hold a press conference out in Phoenix. Why don’t you join me?’ All these journalists would show up to hear what Mo had to say. In the middle of it all, Mo would point to me and say, ‘I’d like to hear John’s views.’ Well, hell, I didn’t have any views. But I got up and learned and was introduced to the state." Four years later, when McCain ran for and won Barry Goldwater’s Senate seat, he said he felt his greatest debt of gratitude not to Goldwater—who had shunned him—but to Udall. "There’s no way Mo could have been more wonderful," he says, "and there was no reason for him to be that way."

For the past few years, Udall has lain ill with Parkinson’s disease in a veterans hospital in Northeast Washington, which is where we were heading. Every few weeks, McCain drives over to pay his respects. These days the trip is a ceremony, like going to church, only less pleasant. Udall is seldom conscious, and even then he shows no sign of recognition. McCain brings with him a stack of newspaper clips on Udall’s favorite subjects: local politics in Arizona, environmental legislation, Native American land disputes, subjects in which McCain initially had no particular interest himself. Now, when the Republican senator from Arizona takes the floor on behalf of Native Americans, or when he writes an op-ed piece arguing that the Republican Party embrace environmentalism, or when the polls show once again that he is Arizona’s most popular politician, he remains aware of his debt to Arizona’s most influential Democrat.

Read it all.  Character does matter.  This is why I respect and admire John McCain.  This is also why I voted for him in 2000 Primary.  And this is why I will vote for him in November with absolutely no hesitation, despite whatever political disagreements I might have with the man.

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Little Green Footballs linked to Doug Ross, who linked to this great article by Vladimir Bukovsky:

The USSR was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. What is the European Union? Quite recently, before the elections in Italy and Austria, it was almost a union of Socialist Republics. The Soviet Union was always very eager to keep its own model of socialism in place and if anyone tried to deviate, they were either invaded or put under enormous pressure. That method was called the Brezhnev doctrine. Now exactly the same has happened in Europe. When Austria deviated from the course of socialism it was ostracised. Milosevic’s socialism was somewhat different from the people in Brussels, so his country was bombed.

How was the Soviet Union governed? It was governed by fifteen unelected people who appointed each other and who were not accountable to anyone. How is the European Union governed? By two dozen people who appoint each other and are not accountable to anyone, and whom we cannot sack. How was the Soviet Union created? By coercion or very often with the military occupation of the Red Army. How is the European Union created? Admittedly not by armed force, but by coercion and bullying, making it impossible for any other country to live outside it economically. It is like a shot-gun marriage. The Soviet Union had in its constitution the right of secession for the constituent republics. It existed for propaganda purposes, particularly as there was no actual procedure and even to talk about it was considered a crime against the territoriality of the Soviet Union. I was amazed to discover that more or less the same situation exists in the European Union. You can enter it but you can’t quit. No one said so far you cannot quit but a procedure is not in place. That seems to be very similar to what I used to know.

The Soviet Union was a very aggressive country; it couldn’t exist unless it spread its own model of socialism further and further. The moment it stopped spreading, it started collapsing and I suspect that the same thing is true of the European Union. Although economically it makes no sense for them to attract more new countries, they impose enormous pressure on the half-developed Eastern European countries and some other European countries like Switzerland to join the union. It seems to be ideological. They used to be told in the Soviet Union that the purpose of its function was to create a new historic entity, the Soviet people. We were supposed to forget our nationalities, our ethnic traditions and customs. Growing up in Russia, you couldn’t tell a Ukrainian from a Russian; it was not supposed to be mentioned, for we were supposed to be one entity. The same seems to be true of the European Union. They don’t want you to be British or French. They want you all to be a new historic entity - European. One of the grand purposes of socialism was always the destruction of the national state. The old belief was that the state would wither away - with some help from them. And that’s exactly what we observe in Europe. The purpose of this agglomeration from Brussels is to absorb nation states, so that they should cease to exist.

Some might say my comparison is not accurate because the Soviet Union was an ideological state and the European Union is a practical, pragmatic arrangement. In reality the European Union today is based on a very firm ideology. It’s a statist ideology involving the preservation of socialism for ever but also the ideology of political correctness, which has become the rule. One might say that the Soviet Union had a gulag, and as long as a country doesn’t have a gulag it cannot be compared with the Soviet Union. I think we already have the beginning of a gulag in the European Union. At least we have an intellectual gulag. When anyone tries to speak his own mind on questions of race or gender, if their views differ from those approved, they will be ostracised, might not be able to occupy a professional job or to publish a book. This is the beginning of the gulag. The Home Secretary has tried to introduce a bill making ‘hate’ speech a punishable offence, something completely contrary to the common law of this country. The Treaty of Nice includes provisions for creating a European Police force which will have enormous privileges, including diplomatic immunity. Can you imagine, a policeman coming to you, beating you, taking whatever he wants, and you can’t even sue him because of his diplomatic immunity ? If you introduce some kind of subversive hate speech into a computer in one country, you might be extradited from your own country without any prior hearings and without any of your rights being defended by local law. I have seen myself how easy it is to lose your freedom and how difficult it is to get it back.

Again, read the whole thing.

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I am talking about Obama’s book.  No, I have not read it, and not going to: I know everything I need to know about his positions to not vote for him, even if he did not have racist views.  But here is Ann Coulter’s review:

Has anybody read this book? Inasmuch as the book reveals Obama to be a flabbergasting lunatic, I gather the answer is no. Obama is about to be our next president: You might want to take a peek. If only people had read "Mein Kampf" …

Nearly every page — save the ones dedicated to cataloguing the mundane details of his life — is bristling with anger at some imputed racist incident. The last time I heard this much race-baiting invective I was … in my usual front-row pew, as I am every Sunday morning, at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Obama tells a story about taking two white friends from the high school basketball team to a "black party." Despite their deep-seated, unconscious hatred of blacks, the friends readily accepted. At the party, they managed not to scream the N-word, but instead "made some small talk, took a couple of the girls out on the dance floor."

But with his racial hair-trigger, Obama sensed the whites were not comfortable because "they kept smiling a lot." And then, in an incident reminiscent of the darkest days of the Jim Crow South … they asked to leave after spending only about an hour at the party! It was practically an etiquette lynching!

So either they hated black people with the hot, hot hate of a thousand suns, or they were athletes who had come to a party late, after a Saturday night basketball game.

In the car on the way home, one of the friends empathizes with Obama, saying: "You know, man, that really taught me something. I mean, I can see how it must be tough for you and Ray sometimes, at school parties … being the only black guys and all."

And thus Obama felt the cruel lash of racism! He actually writes that his response to his friend’s perfectly lovely remark was: "A part of me wanted to punch him right there."

Do read it all.  And in case someone is quick to dismiss Ann Coulter as a Right Wing firebrand, one of my co-workers actually did read the book.  It appears that everything Ann is saying is true.

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When the Pentagon report on Saddams Hussein’s links to terrorism came out not too long ago, the main stream media eagerly reported that Saddam did not have any links to anti-American terrorism in general, and to Al-Qaeda in particular.  Well, guess what?  MSM lied:

Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that an investigation into over 600,000 documents captured at the end of the invasion of Iraq showed no operational links to al-Qaeda — or at least, that’s how the media reported it. After a strange few days in which the Pentagon delayed the report, it finally hit the internet last night — and it’s clear that the analysis done by the media was superficial at best. If no operational “smoking gun” could be found, the report still shows that Saddam Hussein had plenty of ties to all sorts of terrorist groups, including radical Islamist jihadis.

For instance, how about their support for The Army of Muhammad, a known al-Qaeda subsidiary operating in Bahrain? On pages 34-35 of the report, we find communications between their Bahrain agent and IIS headquarters confirming Army of Mohammad’s loyalty to Osama bin Laden. What is the response from Baghdad?

The agent reports (Extract 25) that The Army of Muhammad is working with Osama bin Laden. …

A later memorandum from the same collection to the Director of the IIS reports that the Army of Muhammad is endeavoring to receive assistance [from Iraq] to implement its objectives, and that the local IIS station has been told to deal with them in accordance with priorities previously established. The IIS agent goes on to inform the Director that “this organization is an offshoot of bin Laden, but that their objectives are similar but with different names that can be a way of camouflaging the organization.”

AoM had ambitious plans — including attacks on American interests. On page 35, the Iraqis list their aims as attacking Jewish and American interests anywhere in the world, attacking American embassies, disrupting American oil supplies and tankers, and attacking the American military bases in the Middle East. The Iraqi support for AoM may not be an operational link, but it’s certainly a financial link that goes right to Osama bin Laden. The Iraqis certainly understood that much, and hoped to keep it quiet.

Read it all on Hot Air.  And then spend some time and read the source itself.  Note that it’s in PDF format.  If this link to report stops working, let me know, and I will upload the whole report: I saved it on my computer.  But basically this is the same as with the 9/11 Commission Report.  The Commission found the links, and then the media reported that they did not, hoping that nobody will bother to read the thing.  Why they keep doing it is beyond me.

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Here is an article by Senator McGovern:

Nearly 16 years ago in these very pages, I wrote that "’one-size-fits all’ rules for business ignore the reality of the market place." Today I’m watching some broad rules evolve on individual decisions that are even worse.

Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior. Much paternalist scrutiny has recently centered on personal economics, including calls to regulate subprime mortgages.

With liberalized credit rules, many people with limited income could access a mortgage and choose, for the first time, if they wanted to own a home. And most of those who chose to do so are hanging on to their mortgages. According to the national delinquency survey released yesterday, the vast majority of subprime, adjustable-rate mortgages are in good condition,their holders neither delinquent nor in default.

There’s no question, however, that delinquency and default rates are far too high. But some of this is due to bad investment decisions by real-estate speculators. These losses are not unlike the risks taken every day in the stock market.

The real question for policy makers is how to protect those worthy borrowers who are struggling, without throwing out a system that works fine for the majority of its users (all of whom have freely chosen to use it). If the tub is more baby than bathwater, we should think twice about dumping everything out.

Health-care paternalism creates another problem that’s rarely mentioned: Many people can’t afford the gold-plated health plans that are the only options available in their states.

Read the whole thing.  And remember that Senator George McGovern is a member of the Greatest Generation.  All the political disagreements aside, he most definitely deserves our thanks, respect and admiration.

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There are many Conservatives who plan to sit out the election in November.  Even now, when it is very likely that the Democratic nominee will be the Socialist Defeatocrat Obama, with all his racist and anti-American ties, rather than pragmatic leftist Hillary Clinton, even now those people are willing to risk handing the Presidency to the Democrats.  The damage that Obama’s Presidency will do to this country, even if it is only 4 years, will be so huge that Jimmy Carter will look like Reagan Republican in comparison to this guy.  But those purists on the Right keep hoping that after all the damage a new Reagan will come along and somehow will rescue us all.  But we still live with