Saturday, February 28, 2009

How Do You CHANGE Obama's Mind?

It really doesn't take much to get President Obama to change his mind these days. Just a letter writing campaign, hundreds of blog postings, a few media hacks shouting and a couple of career diplomats complaining about it.

That is all it took to make Obama realize that going to the Durban II Conference would not be a good idea.
The United States has decided not to participate in a UN conference on racism in April unless the final document is changed to drop all references to Israel and the defamation of religion, a senior US official said Friday.

The conference is a follow-up to the contentious 2001 conference in the South African city of Durban which was dominated by clashes over the Middle East and the legacy of slavery. The US and Israel walked out midway through that eight-day meeting over a draft resolution that singled out Israel for criticism and likened Zionism to racism.

Israel and Canada have already announced that they will boycott the upcoming World Conference Against Racism in Geneva from April 20-25, known as Durban II, but US President Barack Obama's administration decided to assess the negotiations before making a decision on US participation.

Last week, the State Department sent two US representatives to Geneva, where the final document to be issued by conference participants at the end of the conference is being negotiated, the US officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because an official announcement has not yet been made.

The Obama administration would reconsider its position if the document improves in a number of areas including dropping references to any specific country, references to defamation of religion which the US views as a free speech issue, and language on reparations for slavery. It also wants a shorter text and does not want the final document for Durban II to reaffirm the final document from the 2001 Durban conference, the US official said.
Poor President Obama. He held out his hand in an olive branch to the Muslim world, ant they bit it. He has been trying to be a unifier and forge a new beginning with the Muslim world, and all they want is the total destruction of Israel and for the domination of Islam through out the world as the only religion allowed in any nation.

So now three nations will not attend Durban II. They are Israel, Canada, and the United States. It is time for the nations of Europe who cry that they love freedom and free speech, to join the boycott.

What are they waiting for? What are they scared of? Being called a racist for not supporting a conference that condemns Israel for every evil in the world and ignores all the evils and wrongs done by the majority nations? There is a word for that: It is called integrity. And it is time the nations of Europe learn it.


The War On Toilet Paper!


I have to wonder what some people have to do with their time. There are just some individuals that are so obsessed that someone somewhere might be enjoying them self. That they try to run everybody's lives. These are the food police, the pc police and now the toilet police. These self appointed guardians of our lives are trying to take out the simplist pleasures from it. Take this little ditty:
That super-soft toilet paper you're fond of using? It's an ecological disaster, environmentalists say.

Millions of trees are harvested throughout the Americas – including rare old-growth forests in Canada – to sustain the United States’ obsession with quilted, ultra-soft, multi-ply toilet paper, the New York Times reported.

Although toilet paper manufacturers could produce products from recycled materials at a similar cost, the newspaper reported, the fiber taken from standing trees are necessary to help give the tissue its fluffy feel.

“No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council told the Times.

Their Suggested Toilet Paper.
We could all go back to using corn cobs instead you know. It is ecologically sound, works well and would help save the trees.
The United States is the largest market for toilet paper in the world, the newspaper reported, but tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands. People from other countries throughout Europe and Latin America are far less picky about what they use to wipe.
I'm sure they are. Have they even experienced the wonderful softness of American toilet paper? The pleasure it gives one as they wipe? And if they ever did, would they willingly go back to the old sandpaper they were using? I think not!
“This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous,” Hershkowitz told the Guardian newspaper, which cited the chemicals used in pulp manufacturing and process of cutting down forests.

“Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age," Hershkowitz said. "Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution.”
Not quite. One can plant trees, one cannot plant a Hummer. If you plant a tree, you will help to clean the air. If you plant a Hummer, you only get rust. For every tree that is cut down, how about planting 3 in return. That would help wouldn't it?
However, hope is on the horizon, if Hollywood is any indicator. The Times reported the Academy Awards ceremony last weekend used 100 percent recycled toilet paper at the Kodak Theater’s restrooms.
That explains the upsurge in lotion sales after the award ceremony. And I thought it was due to something else. My mistake!

If this Moonbat thinks that Americans are going to buy a product that is triple in price than its non-environmentally sound competitor, that has the look and feel of sandpaper, and is not what they are used to? He is in for a rude awakening. There are many things Americans will switch for, but rough sandpaper toilet paper is not going to be one of them.

Ultra-white and soft, the way American toilet paper is suppose to be!

So now prepare. A war on what you will use on your bottom has begun. I would suggest stocking up on tons of the stuff now. For in a few years, it will be illegal to buy, sell or use the wonderfully soft kind.

They always get the idiots in State Houses to do stupid things like that.


Friday, February 27, 2009

Flight 93: Mother of Flight 93 hero calls for “a full and transparent review” of the crescent-shaped memorial

Mother of Flight 93 hero calls for “a full and transparent review” of the crescent-shaped memorial

Blogburst logo, petition

For two years, Tom Burnett Sr. has been speaking out against the crescent-shaped memorial to Flight 93. This week Beverly Burnett (mother of Flight 93 hero Tom Burnett Jr.) stepped into the public eye to support her husband, and to make her own appeal for a full investigation:
Today, I am adding my voice for a full and transparent review of the National Park Service and Flight 93 design selection process that produced Crescent of Embrace. Does it have Islamic symbols or doesn’t it? Let's settle this once and for all.

Why do you think Tom Sr. opposed this design? It is pretty simple; Tom Sr. saw the Islamic symbols and knew those symbols did not belong at the crash site of Flight 93.

Tom Burnett Sr. traveled to Pennsylvania last August to attend the Task Force Meeting to voice his opposition to the memorial design. A Family Board member as well as a commissioner accused Tom Sr. being “just like the Islamic terrorists” that killed our son.

Why didn’t someone speak up and defend Tom Sr.’s right to voice his opinion?
Thanks to The Somerset Daily American for publishing Mrs. Burnett’s complete statement, which she also entered into the record of the most recent Memorial Project meeting. Read the whole thing.

Two other mentions of the memorial controversy in the local PA press this week

In a letter to the editor, a local woman echoed Mrs. Burnett’s sentiment in favor of preserving the site as it is, instead of demolishing the highly regarded Temporary Memorial and radically transforming the landscape, as the Memorial Project intends.

At present the Temporary Memorial looks down over the “field of honor.” Because this temporary memorial is located roughly in the center of the planned half-mile wide crescent, it will be eliminated. Visitors who stand at the location of the Temporary Memorial will no longer look out over the original landscape, but will instead see the crash-site framed between the pincer tips of the giant Islamic-shaped crescent.

They call the crescent a broken circle now, but the unbroken part of the circle, what symbolically remains standing in the wake of 9/11 (originally called the Crescent of Embrace) remains completely unchanged.

Nice words from a local columnist, but no fact-checking

In the area’s second local paper, The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, columnist Ralph Couey offers a very nice tribute to the heroes of Flight 93 in which he mentions Mr. Burnett’s opposition to the planned memorial. Unfortunately, Mr. Couey goes on to describes Mr. Burnett’s opposition as “hopeless intransigence,” and expresses his optimism that it can be gotten past.

Given that newspapers are supposed to get to the truth, one would hope that those who gain the privilege of this public platform would bother to check the facts. If Mr. Burnett is correct in his warnings about Islamic symbolism, then finding a way to get past these objections is like finding a way to sneak a hijacker past gate security. It is a bad thing, not a good thing.

The petition that Mr. Burnett sponsored along with our blogburst group lists four damning facts about the approved design that can all be verified in a matter of minutes. Can Mr. Couey check just one: that a person standing between the tips of the giant crescent and facing into the center of the crescent will be facing within 2° of Mecca ?

QiblaOverlaidOnCrescent,400px

The Muslim prayer direction in this animation (qibla) is from the Mecca-direction calculator at Islam.com. (If you have trouble getting their calculator to work--your Java has to be configured correctly--there is another Mecca direction calculator at QiblaLocator.com.)

This Mecca-orientation makes the giant crescent a mihrab, the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built. Does Mr. Couey really want to see the world’s largest mosque planted on the Flight 93 crash site? It is fine to speak highly of the heroes of Flight 93, but it would be a lot more meaningful if he would honor the Burnett’s urgent appeal for fact-checking by stepping over to a globe and checking this one simple factual claim.

Mr. Couey is not the only one who wants the crescent controversy to go away without caring to know the truth. Sorry, but that is insufficient. Planting a giant Mecca-oriented crescent on the crash-site will dishonor the heroes of Flight 93, and it fails to follow their example. They didn’t just have good intentions. They got the job done, and we have to get the job done too. We can’t be asleep at the wheel while an al Qaeda sympathizing architect hijacks our memorial.

What? Is it just too outlandish to think that the enemy might try to hijack one of our memorials? The same way that it is just too outlandish to think that the enemy might dare to hijack our commercial airliners? Do these people even know what they are memorializing?

But they CAN wake up. All they have to do is actually check the facts. Then they will know. So please Mr. Couey, take the time to check a few facts, then write a second column, reporting your findings. Somebody out there in Somerset needs to start telling the truth. It might as well be you.

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Thursday, February 26, 2009

Golda Meir and Keith Ellison

From the Sderot Media Center.

A strange mixture of a headline. A former Prime Minister of Israel and an avowed Muslim Congressman.

First the Congressman:

US Congressmen Brian Baird and Keith Ellison Visit Gaza and Sderot
by Anav Silverman

Following a day tour in Gaza, members of Congress, Brian Baird (D-Washington) and Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) spent an hour in Sderot touring the city with Sderot Media Center director, Noam Bedein and staff on Friday, February 20.

In Sderot, the Congressmen met with the Amar family whose home was destroyed in a Palestinian rocket attack in December 2007. Both US President Obama and Senator John McCain had visited the Amars during their tour of Sderot last year.

Congressman Ellison in Sderot

The Congressmen asked many questions during the visit and showed interest in understanding the full impact of rocket fire on Israeli civilians-- including children-- living in Sderot.

Dr. Adrianna Katz of the Sderot Mental Health Center spoke with the Congressmen at the Sderot Police Station, where hundreds of exploded rockets have been stored away. Representative Baird, a licensed clinical psychologist, was particularly interested in the psychological impact of the rocket fire. Dr. Katz explained that there is a ‘Qassam generation’ of Sderot children who have been born into the rocket fire.

“These kids, who experienced rocket attacks since 2001, know no other reality other than exploding rockets and ‘Tzeva Adom’ (Color Red) alert sirens. Their sense of peace and security has been shattered,” said Dr. Katz.

View the video of Ellison's visit here.

“The rocket fire has impacted the economic situation, family relationships-- all aspects of life here in Sderot. People live in constant fear and terror that a rocket may strike at any moment. Over 5,000 residents have been forced to leave and relocate elsewhere.”

“Israelis living in Ashkelon, Be’er Sheva and Ashdod are now experiencing that same terror for the first time, ” added Dr. Katz.

Accompanying the Congressmen on their visit, were Dr. Nick Palarino and Dr. Catherine Salsman.

Holding a Hamas-fired rocket at the Sderot Police Station, US Representative Ellison, the first Muslim elected to US Congress, commented on its heaviness. “A rocket explosion can impact up to 300 feet,” explained SMC director, Noam Bedein. “The models become more sophisticated and pack more explosives with each passing year."

Bedein also pointed out that the Grad-model Katyusha rockets come directly from Iran. "Iran supplies Hamas with the rockets that target major Israeli cities. The rockets were smuggled through the tunnels dug between the Egyptian-Gaza border or by ship, during the last ceasefire." During the war, the Grad rockets were able to target one million Israelis who still remain under Palestinian missile threat.

Both US representatives asked Dr. Katz her view on potential peace with the Palestinians. "Is the hatred towards the Palestinians deep-seeded on the Israeli side? asked Congressman Baird. "There is no hatred for the Palestinian people," replied Dr. Katz. "Israelis here know that there is an underlying difference between the Hamas government and the average Palestinian citizen."

The two US representatives filmed the tour on their camera phones to share with relevant persons back in the US.

Congressman Ellison, who represents Minnesota, and Congressman Baird, who represents Washington state, had visited Gaza the day previously. It was the first time that anyone from the US government had entered the Gaza Strip since Hamas took power. Their visit to Gaza, according to Representative Brian Baird’s website, was not officially sanctioned by Obama Administration. However, US President Obama has stated in the past that he intends to improve ties with the Muslim world.

Indeed in a joint press release available on Congressman Baird's official government website, Congressmen Ellison and Baird spoke primarily of their visit to Gaza and their impressions of the situation there.


And now the Prime Minister:

by Jacob Shrybman

Moments after another “Tzeva Adom” warning siren rang out in Sderot I walked around the Sderot Media Center office wondering why it is that the Jewish nation must continually justify their actions for survival. No matter the measure taken to protect its people from rockets, missiles, bombs, guns, or heavier attack Israel comes under a barrage of condemnations and negative political pressure. It is nearing the 61st year since its establishment, so when will the Jewish state no longer have to defend its existence?

If the reason for these condemnations is because of numbers of casualties from Israel’s vital operations then where was the uproar when Arafat claimed that 10,000-20,000 were massacred in eleven days by the Jordanian army in September of 1970? These numbers, as well as other world conflict casualty statistics, overshadow the inflated number of 1,300 people that Hamas claims were killed by Israel during the three-week Operation Cast Lead.

A playground tube in Sderot.

Nonetheless, I resent the fact that the Jewish people and Israel need to constantly prove to the world that we have a right to defend ourselves and that we are not blood-thirsty monsters like often portrayed. More so I resent the fact that in order to bolster my case for Israel’s legitimacy I have to research and compare numbers of people killed by other nations versus numbers killed by the Jewish nation. Could the world truly think that Israel likes having to send its country’s youth into an extremely hostile urban combat setting where around every corner could be a booby-trapped explosive or kidnapping trap? Could the world truly think Israel’s self-centered politicians like suspending their election campaigns to handle the emergencies that come along with a military operation?

The world must understand that Israel cannot have 1 million of its citizens under the daily immediate threat of rockets.

Last week while guiding an afternoon tour of Sderot for American students Sderot resident and mother Shula Sasson showed the group of 18 year-olds how her family’s mattresses were leaning against the wall behind their couch in the first floor living room because her family hasn’t slept or lived on the second floor of their house for years because it is simply too far from their sheltered room.

When one of the students asked Shula if she was optimistic about the since there is currently a ceasefire with Hamas, she calmly but sternly replied, “Do not believe it (ceasefire).” She then emphasized to the students that their visit to Sderot was more important than a meaningless ceasefire so they can convey the situation to their schools and communities. Shula wished the students goodbye saying, “You will be the ones to save us. Not a ceasefire.

Over the past eight years, since the rocket fire began in January 2001, Israel has attempted various methods to bring an end to these terrorist attacks in order to put off a major military operation. Even when Israel is forced to carry out the difficult task of thwarting terrorists embedded in one of the most densely populated areas in the world, it goes to unprecedented lengths to prevent loss of civilian life. It is unheard of other militaries around the world to call and text message civilians warning them of the imminent military attack.

But yet the Tzeva Adoms continue and I am sitting in Sderot agitated and on edge; in the only region in the world where civilians are consistently targeted by rockets, less than a mile a way to a territory controlled by a terrorist organization committed to the destruction of the Jewish State. So, I resent the fact that I have to defend Israel’s legitimacy for existence when it is forced to target terrorists that the world knows are using families’ home and hiding behind human shields.

As former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said after the Six Day War, “When peace comes we can forgive the Arabs for killing our children but we cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill theirs.
Two different stories, one dealing with the anger that Israelis feel in having to justify their existence. The other about a couple of US Congressmen. They looked and listened to the stories of Sderot, but the words fell upon deaf ears.

Normally at this point I would ask you my reader to donate to the Sderot Media Center, sign up for the Code Red Alerts, and of course pray for the people of Sderot. This time I don't urge you to do that. Instead, send the people of Sderot a message of support. It is free, takes only a few minutes of your time and is easy to do:

by Sderot Media Center

In light of the war on southern Israel, Sderot Media Center has now opened a special page for Sderot supporters. Please share your thoughts, comments, and words of support for Sderot residents. Thereafter, your comments will be published in local Sderot newspapers and will be shared with the Sderot community.

Please mention your name and location!

Thank you.
To send a message click here.




Mitzpeh Ilan

Road sign to Mitzpeh Ilan

On February 1, 2003 the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas, while attempting to land back in Florida. All 7 members of the crew were killed.

On board was Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon. To honor his memory, Israel has named a new town after him.
The Supreme Court has removed what is apparently the last obstacle on the rocky road towards the establishment of a new Jewish town just south of the Galilee. The community is named Mitzpeh Ilan (Ilan Outlook), in memory of fallen Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon.

The Court ruled on Tuesday against the Society for the Preservation of Nature in Israel (SPNI), which had asked that criminal proceedings be initiated against the families living there. The SPNI claimed that the families had built in and populated the area before official approval was given.

Mitzpeh Ilan is located between Harish and Katzir, in the Nachal I’ron (Wadi Ara) area of pre-1967 Israel, adjacent to the northern Shomron. It began, as nearly 80 other towns in Israel have begun, as a Nachal army outpost. Though the initial core group is religious, the families hope that Mitzpeh Ilan will be a mixed community of close to 350 families.

Nachal is an acronym for Pioneering Combat Youth, an IDF unit engaged mostly in settling new areas in the Land of Israel and preparing them to become civilian towns. New towns have been established in this manner in the Negev, Galilee, and Aravah, and after 1967, also in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Golan and the Sinai.

The decision to turn the I’ron Valley outpost into a regular town was made by the Defense Ministry in 2005, and nearly 40 families, with 100 children, began to move in shortly afterwards.

Mitzpeh Ilan Entrance

During the Supreme Court sessions, some judges raised their eyebrows at the “great interest” shown by the SPNI in prosecuting the pioneers. The judges advised the SPNI to concentrate on its original objectives, namely, the preservation of nature and environment.

SPNI has also been leading the legal struggle against the plans to build new towns for the expelled residents of Gush Katif in the relatively unpopulated area between Kiryat Gat and southern Judea.



Ilan Ramon, for whom the new town is named, was killed in February 2003, together with six other astronauts, when their Columbia spacecraft exploded during its re-entry orbit after a 16-day trip. He and the other astronauts had been asked to make a list of personal items they would like to take into space. Ramon, who was not a religious Jew, chose the following, as Arutz-7's Kobi Finkler reported at the time:

"Because his mother was a Holocaust survivor, he took along a drawing of Earth as it might look from the moon, drawn by a boy who died in Auschwitz shortly before the end of the war. As a representative of the State of Israel, he took along a Presidential pennant, as well as flags of the Israel Air Force, the two cities in which he lived - Be'er Sheva and Ramat Gan - and the high school in which he studied. He hung a mezuzah on one of the doors in the spacecraft; he took a silver 'hand' used for reading from the Torah; the world saw him proudly wave his Kiddush cup used on the Sabbath; and in his bag was a Book of Psalms. At every press conference he would proudly say, 'I am an emissary of Zionism and the Jewish People.'"
I hope that this new town prospers and grows. A fitting memorial to one who gave so much to his nation.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Lesson At The Dome


He ascended to the Dome of the Capital, dressed in the holy suit and tie.
Upon arrival the assembled chapter of the Congress, the Holy Justices of the land, the members of the anointed Cabinet and guests from near and far, the Anointed One, Wearer of the Mantle of Power, spoke:
I speak not to the assemblage here, but to the nation as a whole,
I know of your pain, I have heard your cries of anguish,
The child whose college dreams are shattered,
The business that is going under,
The job that is gone.
I will fix that all.

This Recession is not My fault, it was the doing of others,
It was others that destroyed our Health Care, Schools and Jobs.
But I have heard your cries, and I will repair the damage.
We will have less, work more, and struggle harder,
But we will prevail.

I have foreseen all this.
The law that I just created was a start, there will be many more like it.
There will be jobs, I promise you that.
There will be more money in your hand,
This 1st of April, on that.

I will bring to all the blessings of Health with no cost to you,
I will bring to all the blessings of college, that wonderful place, to your children, with no cost to you,
I will bring to you the blessings of Wealth, with no cost to you,

Through Me we will cure all the problems that we face.
I know where the answers lie,
Not in the former wizards of the past,
but in the new wizards of technology that will be green and good.
New wizards that will banish the foreign oil demon back to the gates of Hell,
New wizards who when given the right amount of funds, will solve all of our energy needs and clean the environment too.

But we cannot wait, we must forge ahead,
We must spread the wealth around to all young and old.
I will even balance the budget, by 2015, so it is told.

I will sit with our enemies and listen to them,
Will make the radicals of Islam kneel before all,
I will bring peace to the Israelis, Palestinians too,
Have sent My envoy Mitchell to bring them the truth too.

I have signed the order,
We torture no more,
And the prison of Gitmo will be gone for ever more.
We will deal with the prisoners like the criminals they are,
In Our courts and with juries, and I know they will walk.

For through Me, All things are possible.
For through Me, All things will be made whole.
For through Me, Our economy will recover.
For I am the Hope and the Change.
I will bring us all to the Land of Plenty.
All through the speech, Pelosi the Loud, kept rising in joy like a yo-yo. She guided the assembled in their cheers.

After the speech the media hacks, gushed glowing terms over each word the Anointed One spoke.
They called it brilliant, enlightened and bold.
They clamored over each other, trying to be the first to praise Him.
That is until a small voice said:
Wait just a minute!
He tells you that He will do all these things.
Balancing the budget, Health Care, Education, Jobs and Wealth.
And without tax increases, just spend more He said.
And if that doesn't work, we will just spend more again.

You cannot keep spending like there is no tomorrow.
Sooner or later the money will run out.
You have to raise taxes, to cover your expenses.

This Emperor we have, is telling us lies.
We cannot do all this, yet He will try.
He will spend so much money, that there will be none left,
For the daily running of this nations defense.
The hacks looked around to see who had spoke, in tones that weren't glowing of their Anointed One.
They saw to their horror a brave man in the corner.
It was none other than the Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal the Prophet.

Jindal the prophet, spoke to them of responsibility,
Of how this nation needs to start producing its own goods again.
Of how this nation needs to spend less and save more.
Of how this nation didn't negotiate with our foes.

The hacks just smiled and shooed The Prophet away.
Then they returned to the glow of the Anointed One.

But many in the nation heard the words of Jindal the Prophet.
They looked to each other and nodded in agreement.
Just wait Anointed One, in just 4 years.
This prophet will be singing our praises.

For the Anointed One's star is starting to descend.
From ratings of 80% now to just 59%.
He may not last at this high rate. Especially if the economy tanks.

Hope may come to the land,
Not without hardship.
Change will come, just let it be soon.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

That Long Empty Road: America and the Great Depression



A note from Radarsite: In our current increasingly frightening financial crises, we are it seems being continuously bombarded with references and analogies to the Great Depression. But how much do we really know about this great American tragedy? Most of us are aware of those old familiar images of veterans selling apples on the street corners of our great cities, the bread lines and the soup kitchens, the catastrophic devastations of the Dust Bowl. But many of us would perhaps be surprised, as I was, to learn of some of the more drastic repercussions of this monstrous economic meltdown. Many of us would perhaps be shocked to learn just how close we came to losing it all. If, as some pundits dramatically proclaim, we are indeed at the threshold of yet another Great Depression, it would be in our interest to take a closer look at that original disaster.

In an earlier Radarsite article Hollywood and the Jews, we examined the origins of Hollywood's historic 'left turn', the role of Hollywood's Jews, and the ever-present specter of anti-semitism. Here, we move beyond that glittering fantasy world of Hollywood to the cities and farmlands of America in an attempt to better understand this grave and critical period in our American history, which we refer to as the Great Depression. - rg

------------------------------------------------

Hollywood’s traditional political position — leftist (mostly Democratic) opposition to Capitalist (mostly but not always Republican) governments, though temporarily suspended during the astounding Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1938, can be traced back to at least the early 1930s when active far-left pro-Communist groups and guilds flourished under the protective umbrella of the seemingly benign “Popular Fronts.” However, to better understand the origins of Hollywood’s significant “left-turn”, we must go back a little further.

Just two short years after Al Jolson’s wildly popular (but by today’s standards, monstrously politically incorrect) “blackface” minstrel Jazz Singer (1927- D: Alan Crosland) launched us into the exciting -- and for some major Hollywood silent film stars, career-ending -- era of the “talkies,”* the skies over America, and most of the rest of the world, began to darken. On October 28, 1929, “Black Friday,” the U.S. Stock Exchange in New York City collapsed, plunging the world into an era of unprecedented financial chaos and political turmoil. To a stunned American public it seemed that, without any warning, in just a matter of days the unthinkable had happened—our eminently successful system of Capitalism had simply failed.

Of course nothing in history is simple. Beneath the purported gaiety of the “Roaring Twenties” and the fun-loving, self-indulgent escapism of the “Jazz Age,” there was another darker but equally valid tale of the twenties. In 1929, well before the onset of the Great Depression, more than half of all Americans were living below a minimum subsistence level. Throughout the 1920s, rural America—where more than half of all Americans lived—had been in a long, downward spiral. While the annual per capita income was only $750, farm people earned a mere $273, making the farm worker’s life one of unrelenting hardship and privation. In 1930, 95% of the rural population was still living without electricity.* Between 1920 and 1930, prices for crops fell by 40 to 60%, while the value of farmland fell 30 to 40%.

As bad as it was for the farmers, the cities were hit even harder—especially those that relied on heavy industry. From 1932 to 1933 (the worst years of the Great Depression), auto manufacturing fell from 5.3 million manufactured in 1929 to 1.3 million in 1932, helping to make Detroit the worst hit city of the Depression. Industrial stocks lost 80% of their value since 1930, while banks lost $2 billion in deposits since 1929. In other areas, construction was down by two billion dollars since 1926, and construction “new starts” fell to 10% of the norm. This precipitous downturn resulted in the loss of two million high paying jobs in the construction industry. To add insult to injury, in what was then termed “technological unemployment,” an estimated 200,000 workers per year were being replaced by automatic or semi-automatic machinery.

Although almost every class of American society was affected in some way, those with the least were hurt the most—90% of the poorest communities in the country were affected by the Depression. Thirteen million Americans had lost their jobs since 1929. Only one quarter of the unemployed were receiving relief. Thirty million Americans were without any income at all. By 1933, unemployment had reached its record high of 24.9%.

The word “hobo” entered our lexicon, as two million mostly young men roamed the country desperately looking for work. As men lost their ability to earn wages, they soon lost their sense of identity and self-esteem and the number of desertions (“poor man’s divorces”) increased. Families were torn asunder. For the first time in 300 years, America’s population rates actually decreased. There were an estimated 200,000 vagrant children on the road (one in five of our nation’s 21 million children were going to bed hungry, while the number of children placed in orphanages rose by 50%). We had, indeed, entered a “Dark Valley”* of apparent hopelessness and despair.

As though things weren’t bad enough, Nature herself seemed complicit in our national tragedy. Some thirty years before the First World War, homesteaders settled in the southern parts of the Great Plains—large sections of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado—planting wheat, row crops, and raising cattle on land that had originally been hardy grass plains. Soon the soil was exhausted and left exposed to the traditional droughts, torrential rains, and winds. Then, beginning in the early 1930s, the region experienced an unusually severe and long-lasting drought and the soil began to blow away. The results were devastating. Thousands of families, near penniless, their farms ruined, hoping to start a new life in the legendary promised land of California, left what had now come to be known as the “Dustbowl” and began their painful, and often humiliating, migrations westward (earning along the way the deprecating nickname “Okies” and providing the inspiration for John Steinbeck’s “Joad” family in his epic, previously mentioned, masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath).

Across the Atlantic, on hearing of the New York Stock Market Crash, our envious ideological rivals, Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin, chortled with satisfaction and uttered their self-congratulatory “I told you so” having (they said) long ago foretold the inevitable demise of corrupt American/Jewish Capitalism. Their glee was, however, short lived as the gigantic, unstoppable tsunami wave of the Great American Depression was already rolling towards their unprotected shores.

For a while America seemed to be teetering on the brink of anarchy. As the Depression deepened, there was a growing sense of anger and resentment; there was talk of civil war and rebellion. And not just talk. In 1933, the so-called “Business Plot” came to light, when one of our most respected military figures, Marine Corps General Smedley Butler, came before a Congressional committee and testified that he had been approached by a group of several wealthy, well-known East Coast businessmen (allegedly including the DuPont family) to become part of a plot to overthrow Roosevelt in a fascist military coup. --“We need a fascist government in this country to save the Nation from the Communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built in America,” ranted the groups purported leader, New York businessman Gerald C. MacGuire. “The only men who have the patriotism to do it are the soldiers, and Smedley Butler is the ideal leader. He could organize one million men overnight.” -- Thanks almost entirely to General Butler’s timely testimony, the proposed right-wing coup was foiled. Although a full Congressional investigation ensued, no one was ever charged in the case and it eventually disappeared from the headlines (causing endless speculation among liberal conspiracy-theorists of a right-wing cover-up).

However, this was just one threat among many. After the apparent failure of Capitalism, for the first time in our Nation’s history there was a distinct possibility that one of the three dark isms—Communism, Socialism, or Fascism—would creep out of the shadows to claim what was left of our broken American Dream. In the 1932 elections the Communist Party’s William Z. Foster won 103,000 votes; while the Socialist Party under Norman Thomas received 881,000 votes. Dozens of loony left-wing and right-wing movements crawled out of woodwork. The popular liberal “Utopian socialist” author Upton Sinclair advocated the creation of a “network of workers villages, model factories and rural colonies where production-for-use would replace production-for-profit”. In 1932, Howard Smith founded the “Technocracy Movement” which sought to “abolish the ownership and price system [and] give power to a technological elite.”

Although their coup had never materialized, the DuPont family, together with the Pew family (Sun Oil) and the Rockefeller Associates never relented in their vicious propaganda attacks against Roosevelt and his New Deal -- which they characterized as “Jewish Communism”. To “save the Republic” and to further their anti-Semitic, anti-Communist causes, they provided major support for the fledgling American Liberty League, which in turn spawned a whole new series of extreme right-wing groups and paramilitary bands, such as the Sentinels of the Republic, the Minutemen and Minutewomen, and—picking up on the Nazi Party’s apparent love of “shirt movements” (the Brownshirts and the Blackshirts)—they formed their own Silver Shirt Squad of the American Storm Troopers. These were followed in New York City with General Art Smith’s Khaki Shirts (who wanted to abolish Congress altogether and form “the largest Army in the world”); then, yet another Silver Shirt movement organized by North Carolina’s William Kelley, whose members were described as the “cream of Protestant Christian manhood,” and whose rather broad mandate was to fight against the “Jewish Conspiracy.”

Father Charles Coughlin, the immensely popular and controversial “radio priest of Detroit,” who began broadcasting his weekly sermons in 1926, was by 1931 reaching an astonishing 40 million listeners (one-third of the U.S. population). Considered “the most prominent Catholic spokesman on political and financial issues,” he endorsed FDR in the 1932 elections and was initially a strong supporter of the New Deal reforms. In 1934, however, he dramatically changed course and began denouncing Roosevelt as a “tool of Wall Street.” Virulently anti-Communist and anti-Semitic, by 1936, he was increasingly expressing sympathy with Hitler and Mussolini, blaming the Depression on (what else?) an “international conspiracy of Jewish bankers.” In a speech on November 20, 1938, just two weeks after Germany’s infamous Kristallnacht, where innocent Jews across Germany were savagely attacked and killed and Jewish businesses and homes burned, Coughlin blamed the Jewish victims, claiming that, “Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted.” By 1938 he was allied with the German-American Bund in a Christian Front against “Jews, unions, and Communists.” Finally, the new NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) code of 1939 forced radio stations to cancel Coughlin’s broadcasts and with the onset of the war his newspaper was subsequently banned from the mail under the Espionage Act for being pro-Nazi.

---------------------------------------

Postscript:
According to one prescient observer, we are now entering an "Axial Age". We are facing a great crossroads. Which direction will we take? Right, left, or straight off the precipice? God grant us the wisdom to make the right choices.

* For further reading on this subject Radarsite highly recommends The Dark Valley by Piers Brendon (Knopf)

This article is drawn from my yet-to-be-completed The Secret of Samson's Hair

Judenfrei!


Is a term to designate an area free of Jews. Saudi Arabia is one such nation. Nazi Germany was becoming such a nation. And now Yemen can proudly boast that they will soon become Judenfrei!
AMRAN, YEMEN - Jewish community members in Amran who have been living in fear following a wave of threats and hate attacks have stepped up their efforts to migrate to Israel.

“We are all fed up. All of the Jews are willing now to migrate to Israel but some prefer not to speak up their desire,” said Yahia bin Yaish, the rabbi of the Jewish community in the northern governorate of Amran, about 60km north of the capital Sana’a.

“We have faced intimidation, attacks and threats. Some have even faced hand-grenade attacks. I myself have received SMS threats on my mobile.

“We are no longer secured. We are afraid to go to the market and even at home. We have reported this to the local authorities but they are lenient with the people behind the threats,” said Mr bin Yaish.

Last week, a Jewish Yemeni family was taken to Israel in a secret airlift organised by the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency for Israel.

Said bin Yisrael, the head of the Jewish community in Rydah, and his eight children and wife arrived at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv last Thursday following attacks and death threats.

“Said went crazy after an attack on his house with a hand grenade last December,” a Jewish Yemeni, who is believed to have orchestrated Mr bin Yisrael’s migration, said on condition of anonymity.

“He was scared for his family. He will be back for his father and brothers who are still here.”

Mr bin Yaish said his family did not want to leave Yemen.

“This is our home and we prefer to live here, even on mountains if there is security. Life here is better because we can make sure that our kids are brought up well in line with our religious teachings.”

Amran bin Yahia, a Yemeni Jew, said he had a bad experience emigrating to Israel and had left his wife and children there to return to Yemen, where he remarried.

“I went to Jerusalem 10 years ago with my wife and children. They have been influenced by the life there. But I felt isolated. I left them behind and came back home,” he said, adding that he could not go back to Israel despite the dangers of staying in Yemen.

But for those who do want to leave, Mr bin Yaish said about 150 of their passport applications have been held up in Sana’a for over two months.

“Whenever we go to them, they keep telling us the computers are not working,” he said.

Moshe Yaish al Nahari, a Jewish teacher and father of nine, was shot in Rydah’s market in Amran in December.

Abdulaziz Hamud al Abdi, a former military pilot whose family claims he is mentally ill, admitted in a hearing in December that he killed al Nahari following a warning that Jews should either leave the area or convert to Islam.

Attacks and threats against Yemeni Jews in Amran governorate flared up again following Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.

“The offensive was in Gaza and we were be blamed. Some used to threaten me, telling me to stop the war. These attacks are meant to force us to leave our houses which tribesmen want for themselves,” Mr bin Yaish said.

After al Nahari’s murder, Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president, discussed with Jewish community leaders a plan to relocate Jews from Amran to Sana’a, where each Jewish family would receive a plot of land.

The Jewish community, however, said the government has taken no action.

“The president is not to be blamed. He gave clear directives. But, his government officials wanted to relocate us to a bad place where a big family is expected to be housed in a small flat that is liable to attack,” Mr bin Yaish said, adding that the community has asked to be moved to a safer area with better housing conditions.

Government officials declined to comment.

Mahmud Taha, an Amran-based journalist who has been following the issue of Yemeni Jews, said the migration of the Jewish family to Israel was not unexpected.

“There is no option for the Yemeni Jews but to migrate. The local authorities have failed to protect them and the promises of relocation have not been serious. The Jews are fed up and have reached intolerable situation,” Taha said.

As recently as the early 1950s Yemen was home to about 50,000 Jews, but most have since migrated to Israel and less than 500 remain. They had gained a reputation for intricate jewellery work and their decorative swords and knives. Fewer than 500 remain.

Taha said the verdict against al Abdi, which the court has set for March 2, will likely absolve the defendant on mental health grounds.

“This will drive the Jews crazy and will be a driving force for their migration,” he said.
Under the Dhimmitude a Jew who pays the Jizya is suppose to be protected. What that actually means is that the State can take away their goods, homes, wives, daughters and place them in a sealed ghetto for "their own protection". The Juzya is nothing more than protection money, and most of the time the "protection" never comes.

It is time for the Jews of Yemen to come home. Yemen has made it very clear that they do not want you there. It is practically open season on killing Jews. And you need not pay the Jizya any more. It is time the last 500 of the community come home to Israel. Jerusalem is calling you home.

Preparing to throw Israel under the bus.

During the Presidential campaign, then candidate Obama wooed Jewish voters with a pledge to support Israel. In the true fashion of one who is beginning to follow the lead of Robert Mugabe, he is not actually living up to his promises.

First it is the small issue of the Durban II conference, and now it is this coming from Congressional Democrats:
A US congressman plans to brief fellow members of Congress and the Obama administration about his recent trip to Gaza, saying the US should pressure Israel regarding border closures and reassess its military support for the Jewish state.

Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington state, visited Gaza last week with fellow Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and was struck by "the level of destruction, the scope of it, specifically the civilian targets - schools, hospitals, industry."

Baird also said Israel had "apparently willfully destroyed any capacity of the Palestinians to rebuild their own infrastructure."

The trip to Gaza by Baird and Ellison coincided with a separate visit there by John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Their presence marked the first time members of Congress had visited Gaza since US personnel were killed in a roadside bomb in 2003.

Baird maintained that his fellow congressmen would benefit from his first-hand account of the situation in Gaza, as well as from photos and video footage he took. In addition to pictures of physical devastation in Gaza and families living in make-shift shelter there, Baird also has photos of damage from rocket fire on Sderot, which he condemned and planned to share as well. He also indicated he would like to bring in aid and medical workers from Gaza to share their stories.

He also said he was troubled by the American origin of so much of the IDF weaponry used in Gaza, and suggested that the US should reconsider the military aid it provides and the weapons it sells to Israel.

"We need to use every pressure available to make these needed changes happen," he said.

Baird said the Congressional briefing could come as early as next week, with administration briefings being more tentative. He has also talked to Ellison about penning op-eds and otherwise raising awareness of the issue.

Ellison's office had not responded to queries from The Jerusalem Post by press time.

Pro-Israel organizations were chagrined at the message Baird was preparing to deliver to his colleagues but said they weren't concerned that many minds would be changed.

"By and large, we continue to see support for Israel and understand why it was necessary for Israel's leaders to do what they did," one official said about Congress, speaking anonymously. "I'm not afraid of these members coming back and giving a briefing."

A representative from a dovish Israeli group welcomed Baird's efforts to publicize his experience in Gaza, noting that it was unusual to hold Congressional briefings presenting this perfect, but also didn't expect members' attitudes towards Israel to change.

"To expect that that would bring about a sharp change in Congress's attitude toward Israel is a reach," he said.

Meanwhile, the State Department said Monday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would pledge a "substantial" amount of aid for Gaza and the Palestinian Authority at a donors' meeting in Egypt next week.

Read more here.
First of all I am amazed that they would mention industry in Gaza. Outside of tunnel and rocket building, what industry did Gaza ever have.

A fine example of industry in Gaza.

And of course they refuse to visit Israel. To see cities and towns that have been attacked by Hamas on a daily basis for the past 8 years. Towns like Sderot. You know. The one that is attacked daily. The small town with rooms filled with the rockets that have rained down on it. Maybe Congressman Baird's family would like to move there. Or better yet. Someone could start shooting rockets into their home on a daily basis. Let the authorities do nothing to stop it, and give a 15 second warning to the family when it happens. How would he like that.


Just a few of the thousands of examples of Gaza industries collected in Sderot.

But of course this is to be expected from the only member of the Religion of Peace in the Congress, Keith Ellison. If it is Muslim it is good, if it is Jewish it is bad. That is how he was raised and votes.

The next push is coming from our dear Sec. of State Hillary (won't give Bill a BJ) Clinton. She and her hubby have been bought by the Saudis, so what ever they want, they will get.
The United States will likely donate more than $900 million for the reconstruction of Gaza, a US official said Monday, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepared to attend a donors conference for the war-ravaged territory next week.

She provided no other details, but a US official in the United States said Monday that the Obama administration's donation will likely top $900 million in humanitarian and rebuilding aid to the Palestinian Authority to help Gaza recover from Israel's offensive against Hamas last month.

The Israeli officials, meanwhile, said Clinton will arrive in Israel on March 2 for meetings with the country's top leaders. Israel is currently ruled by a caretaker government as Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu cobbles together a new coalition.

The Israeli officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the visit had not been announced by the State Department, which has not released Clinton's schedule for next week.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said Clinton also would visit the West Bank during her stay.

Read it all here.
A billion dollars of US taxpayer's money to a gang of thieves. I can actually make book that there will be no rebuilding, no infrastructure, nothing done in Gaza with that money. Correction. It will buy weapons galore for Hamas. Hamas who helped Obama win last November with donations and by working phone banks for him.

Obama has chosen his allies. And is preparing to throw Israel under the bus to please them. Only this time I don't believe he will be able to.

Bill Clinton: Bought and Paid For

Is it no wonder that Bill Clinton is starting to sound more and more like Dhimmi Carter. After all $10 million does wonders for your outlook, especially if it comes from the Saudi Royal Family.

Bethlehem – Ma’an – Former US President Bill Clinton said on Tuesday that he is hopeful about peace between Israel and Palestine.

Speaking with the US-based Cable News Network (CNN), Clinton said the appointment of US Senator George Mitchell was a step forward in the prospects for a two-state solution.

Asked by interviewer Larry King about “any chance of the Mideast having peace,” Clinton responded that Mitchell will have to “fill in the blanks” in negotiations between both sides, “however the Israeli government is constituted.”

Clinton also warned that Israel is running out of time it wants to remain a Jewish state.

“Palestinians are having more babies than the Israelis. The Israelis have to decide whether they want to share the future in a positive way with a constructive Palestinian state,” Clinton said.

“And if they [Israel] don't, then they'll have to disenfranchise the Palestinians living outside of old Israel, pre-'67 Israel, and they won't be a democracy anymore. Or they will let everybody vote and they won't be a Jewish state anymore. That hasn't changed,” he said.

“The other thing that has happened that's really better now is the external environment is so much better," he insisted.

"The king of Saudi Arabia and I think more than 20 other Muslim countries in the whole Arab Middle East, with the exception of Syria, has been out there strongly supporting a peace process,” he noted.

“[The Arab League] will urge the Palestinians to sign it. [They] will help them succeed economically. [They] will relocate them,” Clinton said of the Arab Peace Initiative, which was first presented by Saudi Arabia in Beirut during 2002.

“Now, therefore, I think there's hope, and I don't see what the alternative is,” the former US president added.
How convienent for the Arabs. They don't have to solve their own problem. They are the cause of the so-called Palestinian refugee problem, they didn't even want to solve it 60 years ago when they should have, and now they force it on the Jews.

Not this time. Not now. Not ever. NO LAW OF RETURN! NO 2-STATE SOLUTION! Nothing! They offer nothing to Israel. A false promise of peace. When will the Palestinians give up terror? Never. They have never renounced terror once in the last 100 years. Why should they? Obama will try and force a settlement on the Israelis.

My advise to Israel is simple. They scream genocide every time you strike back, next time wipe them off the face of the Earth. Then they really will have something to scream about.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Durban II draft document getting worse.


I told you so President Obama. The second Durban Conference on bigotry and racism will be worse than the first.

Not only is Israel the only nation singled out for attack, but the idea of Free Speech will be destroyed too when they meet in April and force the world to accept as International Law that any criticism of Islam is a crime.
The draft document for the United Nations anti-racism conference, dubbed Durban II, is problematic both for Israel and western democracies in general, Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva Roni Leshno Yaar told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Besides issues relating to Israel, the draft has problematic paragraphs regarding free speech, defamation of religion and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, he said.

"At this stage it is not possible to say what in the text would improve, if at all. In fact I expect the text to get only worse on all issues which are important for western democracy," Leshno Yaar said in a telephone interview from Geneva.

He spoke as representatives from 190 nations have been meeting in Geneva to debate the language for a document in which Israel is alluded to as a "racist" and "apartheid" power.

The final draft will be presented at an April meeting in Geneva, which is the follow-up to the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which took place in Durban, South Africa.

Israel and the United States walked out of the 2001 conference to protest its disintegration into an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate-fest. Israel and Canada have already announced they do not intend to participate in this April's conference in Geneva.

On Friday, the State Department stated that it had gone to the preparatory meetings in Geneva "to work with countries that want to achieve a successful review conference" and added that the United States had "strong reservations about the direction of the conference, as the draft document singles out Israel for criticism, places unacceptable restrictions on freedom of expression under the guise of defaming religion, and calls for payment of reparations for slavery."

While in Geneva, US representatives met with 30 national delegations to outline their concerns.

The Americans were present but did not appear to have made improvement in the document, which he said "is getting worse every day."

Irwin Cotler, a Canadian MP and former justice minister, told the Post that the conference had been initially designed to speak about global issues relating to racism without singling out any country or group.

Israel was the only country that was alluded to in this way, he said.

Read the full story here.
Sorry followers of the Great Pedophile. But it will come down to which system of government is better. The backward 7th Century ramblings of a lunatic who hated everyone or the enlightened men of Philadelphia who foresaw this and placed the Freedom of Speech as 1st in the American Constitution.

What will the President do? Support those who follow a 7th Century madman, those who reject everything this nation stands for? Or finally listen to reason and reject not only the Durban II Conference, but anything that comes from it?

President Obama swore to uphold and defend the Constitution on Jan. 20th. Will he now do that? Or to please the Muslim world will he ignore our laws and impose the UN's on us?