Sunday, April 27, 2008

My favorite song

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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Sunday, April 20, 2008

In poor taste

Russ Vaugn sent me this Old War Dogs link:



TIME Magazine, that bastion of objective news reporting, where journalistic ethics are disappearing even faster than their readers (circulation rates down 17.5% in 2007 from the previous year according to Wikipedia) has trashed an American patriotic icon with its latest cover:


http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=293411344350742


The cover is insulting to all American warriors but constitutes absolute sacrilege to one particular branch of American fighting men. TIME’s clueless, liberal editors may have endeared themselves to Al Gore and his Green Lemmings but they have surely incurred the wrath of a far more formidable green organization, the entire present and past United States Marine Corps, the lean, mean Green Machine.

In this confrontation between boneheads and Jarheads, all I can say is Semper Fi!



There was nothing to excerpt from Russ's Old War Dogs article, so I just repeated it here.  But do go to the original Old War Dogs post because it has more links on this subject.  Also, read the whole Investor's Business Daily article.  Just to give you an idea of what I call "in poor taste", here the idiotic picture from the Time Magazine:



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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Debunking some false accusations

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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Sunday, April 13, 2008

Another reason to thank Poland

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 SzymaƄski (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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What's at Stake for the West in Lebanon?

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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How many anti-Semites...

...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




Hat tip Cyberella


Here’s a “gem” from a blog on the Barack Obama web site.


This person has it all backwards. It was the Jews who stuck out their necks for the blacks in the civil rights movement. Two of them got killed for it. And what do we get? We get Jesse Jackson with his Hymietown comment. We have Al Sharpton, who incited mobs to kill the Jewish owners of Freddie’s Fashion Mart in Harlem, and the “diamond dealing” Jews of Crown Heights. We have Louis Farrakhan who called Judaism a gutter religion, and who called Hitler a “great man.” And most recently, we have B. Hussein’s beloved pastor whose church published a Hamas screed.



OBAMANISM IS THE CURE FOR CLINTONITIS AND MIDDLE EAST STRIFE.


Obamanism is the cure for Clintonitis that has devastated America and I hope Jews all over US rally around Obama and support him to win both the nomination and the Presidency because after he wins, he would help the Jews and Israel as well as settle the Middle East problems.


However, if Jews betray Obama and he loses, Africans worldwide would consider it a betrayal to the whole African people and will never forgive world Jewry.


In retaliation, (eye for eye, remember!) Africa would consider expelling all Jews from Africa who have been mining African Gold and Diamond and enriching themselves for many centuries.


It was African gold and diamond that built international finance, trade and banking that the Jews (Rothschild, Warbug, Rockefeller and others) dominate.


It was African gold and diamond that built Jewish banks and wealth worldwide.


Thousands of years ago, when Jews were starving and nearly perished in Palestine, they took refuge in Egypt, Africa.


If Egypt and Africa did not feed the Jews, perhaps there would be no Jews today.


Jews also took all Egyptian and African science, technology and religious knowledge that have helped them to develop themselves and to get to where they are today: on top of most of the industries and corporations all over the world.


Jews owe Africa and Africans everything they have today because if Africa did not shelter them when they were homeless and starving, they would not be here today.


If Africa did not give them their religion, Judaism and science and technology of the ancient astronaut Anunnaki’s gods, they probably would have not prospered.


If Jews betray Africans by betraying Obama, there would be grave consequences that would shake the foundation of Earth.


Let Jews remember who their best friend is!


Hundreds of years ago during the Inquisition in Europe, the Catholic Church slaughtered Jews in Spain and all over Europe and forced most of them to convert to Christianity to stay alive.


Moreover, during World war 2, Hitler and his Nazi regime gassed and slaughtered them too.


When they escaped to America, they met opposition and discrimination everywhere.


They had to hustle to survive.


Again, Africa helped them by allowing them to continue mining all their gold and diamond.


African gold and diamond are the foundation of the wealth of world Jewry.


Abraham Foxman, we hope you remember that!


The only people who have been nice to Jews have been Africans.


It is now payback time and Africans hope you would not bite the hands that fed you and made you rich and the envy of the world today.






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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Character matters

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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Engineers - into politics!

Back in the 1930s there was a slogan in the Stalin's Soviet Union: "Komsomol members!  Man your airplanes!"  So now, similarly to that one, I decided to issue my own: "Engineers - into politics!"  Admittedly, this call is not the one I would myself heed.  Nor would many of my fellow engineers be likely to do it.  Because, although there many problems that need to be solved, and engineers are usually good at solving problems, there is much more to politics than just problem solving:



SAN FRANCISCO — Engineers elsewhere apply their talents to the political sphere, but those in the United States, unfortunately, don't--and there are no signs the situation will change anytime soon. The overwhelming majority of American engineers choose industry and business, not government or policy, as their rightful place, even as their counterparts around the globe see no conflict between politics and their profession.


…………………………………………………………………………….


Engineers in China are acknowledged as key players in the country's rapid economic rise. They're overrepresented in the Chinese Politburo and among government ministers, said William Wulf, president emeritus of the National Academy of Engineering and a professor at the University of Virginia.


Their role on the political stage is a reason for the country's success. "That's a real part of why China is doing so well," Wulf said. Lawyers predominate in American government, and while their solutions often address the immediate problems, they don't give much thought to future implications, he said.


The engineering mindset tends to focus on the long term. When you build a bridge that will be there for 100 years, you have to think about its impact, and its ability to absorb future traffic growth and adapt to new kinds of transport. "A lot of what we're seeing in China's astounding growth is that sort of long-term thinking," Wulf said.


There was a time when engineers played a greater role in U.S. public policy. NASA program directors--technocrats in the broadest sense--worked to get funding for the U.S. space program at its inception in the late 1950s. But even that effort doesn't match the role engineers are playing in other countries, according to Wulf.


"Maybe they were program directors in NASA, but they weren't in Congress, and you wouldn't have heard them opining about the economy," he said. If not politically inclined, then what are engineers? In their own words, they're logical, detail oriented and methodical. The profession attracts those who don't mind working on their own and who are confident--maybe overconfident--about their own abilities, said Vivek Wadhwa, a Harvard University fellow and professor at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering.


"Common traits of engineers are that they tend to be introverts, they tend to be arrogant, they tend to be proud. That's the stereotypical engineer," said Wadhwa, a former tech entrepreneur who started his career as a programmer.


Their primary characteristics are a love of detail and the ability to work independently, he said. "You start your career writing code or doing other types of design work. For the first few years, you're really on your own. It's not a social profession," Wadhwa said.


…………………………………………………………………………….


In Islamic and developing countries, engineering and medicine are the proven paths to success. Subjects such as social science, psychology or business are considered luxuries, Sahimi said. Drastically different social conditions mean the equation isn't the same here. The United States has a large middle class, a democratic society and a developed economy.


"In the U.S., people who study engineering have the same characteristics [as engineers in the developing world], but they may not go into politics precisely because of the conditions the U.S. has," Sahimi said.


The view of the profession as a respected path toward success is shared by U.S. immigrants, according to Natalie Forood, a software manager at Ruckus Wireless in Silicon Valley. Forood, who emigrated from Ukraine at age seven, is the daughter and niece of engineers.


Having seen successful women engineers in Ukraine, and with encouragement to do well in math from her EE father, Forood felt confident she could grasp technical concepts. It wasn't easy, though. Engineers need perseverance, she said. "An important trait in order to succeed in this field is to be persistent, and to work really hard at understanding concepts," she said.


A logical mind and the ability to think ahead are critical. It's like a chess game, where you have to figure out what you're going to do based on what your opponent is going to do, Forood said. The abilities to cope with pressure, to focus and to work hard are common personality traits in the profession, she added.


Forood disputed a common criticism made of engineers--that they think in black-and-white and narrowly focus on one solution. On the contrary, engineers collaborate, she said. "What I've observed is that people discuss several approaches and come up with the best one," she said.


The stereotype of engineers as more conservative than other professionals is based in reality, though, according to Forood. "By nature, I think most engineers are more reserved and cautious than people in other professions," she said. You don't see many engineers doing extreme sports, for example, Forood said. They're aware of the risks and aren't willing to take them.


Nevertheless, being cautious or introverted shouldn't stop engineers from playing a role on the larger stage of government, according to NEA president emeritus Wulf. The United States would be better off if they did, he said.


Only been two U.S. presidents, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter, were engineers, Wulf pointed out. The typical engineering attitude to a public-policy issue is, "Oh, that's not a technical problem, so I have nothing to contribute," he said.


But in Wulf's view, engineers have expertise in other matters, whether they acknowledge it or not. In one nontechnical area in particular--immigration and visas--engineers have plenty to contribute, he said.


"They have been essentially mute," Wulf said. "The contribution of foreign-born engineers has been profound. Somehow, legal and illegal immigration have been conflated in some people's minds, and I think it's just shooting ourselves in the foot."


Other countries benefit from engineers' brainpower at the public-policy level and the United States could, too, he said. "In reality, they often have a lot to contribute. And in places like China, France and much of Latin America, they do contribute," Wulf said.



Now, at least one of the examples of US Presidents who were engineers suggests that perhaps it would be best if engineers stayed out of politics.  And no, I am not talking about Hoover.  But then, my grandpa often quoted one of his teachers who would always tell those students who failed a test: "You will never become a good engineer.  You might become a Chief Engineer."  So, maybe Jimmy Carter falls into that category of engineers.  Or maybe he simply did not understand that there are things beyond his control, and there are people who are not rational.  Anyway, do read the article.


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Sunday, April 6, 2008

EUSSR

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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Another book the Left hopes nobody will read

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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The lies media tells us

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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Honest leftist

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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Clowns of terror

That is the title of an article about Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang.  And it applies perfectly to those leftist idiot of the 1970s:



...Hopelessly incompetent, these terrorists were products of the Left-wing counter-culture of the Sixties, a group who railed against the Establishment and had bonded around casual sex, rock music and the ingestion of massive quantities of illegal drugs.


But despite their inadequacies, they left a trail of destruction and dead bodies in their struggle against the 'capitalist exploitation' of workers.


What is most shocking, though, is the support they attracted from the liberal-Left not just in Germany but throughout the western world.


The Baader-Meinhof story is a chilling lesson in the appeasement of terrorism by a Left-wing consensus so blinded by ideology that it glosses over horrendous crimes in support of its cause.


These terrorists were the lethal face of the radical generation who went on to occupy the heights of the liberal establishment across the western world.


In Britain, the Left-leaning universities, the arts, the BBC, and many more institutions are still dominated by survivors of an era whose ideologies - a disrespect for authority, contempt for the family unit, an emphasis on human rights not responsibilities - permeate every facet of our lives 40 years on.



Read it all.  And remember them when you see young idiots of today wearing black bandanas over their faces at the leftist demonstrations.


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Conservative purists

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 Carter's damage (Iran).  And what about Reagan himself?  About a month ago there was this great article by Burt Prelutsky on World Net Daily, that only now I got around to posting about:



...But we don't live in a perfect world so, several months ago, I came out in favor of Rudy Giuliani. My main reason for doing so was that I trusted him to deal in a serious way with our Islamic enemies. Unlike, say, George Bush, who couldn't say enough nice things about Muhammad's religion, Rudy didn't seem to think he had to pussyfoot around the subject for fear of being politically incorrect. In other words, Giuliani made it clear that he was running to become president of the United States, and not the mayor of Dearborn, Mich. Perhaps he made it too clear.

I would have voted for him if he hadn't bowed out, but that doesn't mean that if Huckabee or John McCain gets the nomination, I plan to stay home and sulk on Election Day.

I happen to think that people who support Clinton or Obama have a screw loose, but they strike me as being far more rational than my fellow Republicans who are threatening to boycott the election. I can't tell you how many people have written to me insisting that they're sick and tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. I understand that they're trying to convey their frustration, but I can't help sniffing the undeniable stench of self-righteousness.


It's as if they're unaware that politicians are human beings, and not God. They're people just like the rest of us, I point out, comprised in part of ambition, greed, arrogance and vanity, not to mention, on occasion, integrity, courage and even altruism. Let's face the facts, ladies and gentlemen – even those politicians we agree with also want to ride in well-guarded limousines and fly on Air Force One, have everybody stand up when they enter a room, be able to give tongue-lashings to senators and congressmen, have "Hail to the Chief" as their theme song, and never ever have to press one for English.
If there's a single thread that runs through the e-mails I receive from peevish Republicans, it's that none of the current candidates possesses the conservative purity of Ronald Reagan. One could almost get the idea that Dutch was betrayed by Pontius Pilate and crucified on Calvary. But that wasn't exactly the case. The fact of the matter is that Gov. Reagan gave Gov. Jerry Brown a run for his money – or should I say our money? – when it came to raising taxes here in California. But, in spite of the additional revenue, he was responsible in large part for the streets of our cities being turned into public latrines by the unwashed, the unwanted and the insane when, to save a few bucks, he oversaw the closing of California's mental hospitals. He also signed the nation's most liberal abortion bill. Although he had a change of heart a scant six months later, one never hears him condemned for flip-flopping on the issue.
And, lest we forget, as president, he opened the floodgates to illegal aliens by signing an amnesty bill in the mid-'80s and, for good measure, appointed Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, neither of whom was the answer to a conservative's prayer. Frankly, as admirable as Reagan was in so many ways, I suspect that if he were seeking the GOP nomination this year, he'd be dismissed as a RINO by many of the party's zealots.


…………………………………………………………………………….


These are the nine men and women who have the final word on everything from abortion to eminent domain, and you're going to let some left-winger make the call because you don't like John McCain as much as you do Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee as much as Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul or Duncan Hunter? If so, you really ought to be ashamed of yourselves.


The way I see it, before boycotting the general election, you owe it to your country just to suit up, play your heart out and win this one for the Gipper.



Read it all.  I happen to agree with Mr. Prelutsky 100%.


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