Why the ‘Angry Mob’ Is Angry
By Wendi Lynn G, AT
I, like many, have had those heart-pounding dreams where I’m battling evil. When trying to cry out, I cannot utter a sound. I try to get away, but my legs won’t move. At the height of fear, I wake up, relieved that it was only a dream. I wake up every day realizing that the America in which I am currently living is this nightmare, and I wish it were only a bad dream. Instead, the real-life heart-pounding is leading me to post-traumatic stress syndrome. I pray to get to the “post” part already because my heart cannot endure the present part of living in ObamAmerica much longer. I’m not alone, as a recent Rasmussen poll revealed that 71% of Americans are angry with our government and 61% oppose ObamaCare.
Yes, yes, call us names like “astroturfer,” “teabagger,” and “angry mob.” Such is the motif of our accusers in government who seem to think that we’re angry because “our party” isn’t in power, all the while neglecting the log within their own eyes that blocks their view of the truth. This hypocrisy and ignorance exemplify the reality behind why we’re angry. Using the Saul Alinsky tactic of badgering serves only to pour gasoline upon the very fires of anger that they ignited. And this fire has only begun to burn. The Santa Ana winds are not far off over the mountains.
[...]
Chris Matthews Calls Saul Alinsky One Of His Heroes
By Noel Sheppard
Chris Matthews on Tuesday called “Rules for Radicals” author Saul Alinsky one of his heroes.
This admission came only five days after the “Hardball” host proudly admitted on the air that he was a liberal.
“I always try to remind myself of Saul Alinsky when I get confused,” Matthews told “Hardball” guest Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont).
Such was revealed as the pair discussed the fate of healthcare reform (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Story Balloon):
[...]
‘Lawfare’ in Londonistan
Melanie Phillips:
I see that Hamas have boasted that they have been helping masterminding the attempts to arrest Israeli leaders visiting /London for ‘war crimes’. Diya al-Din Madhoun, who heads the Hamas committee set up to coordinate the campaign, said:
‘We have provided a group of independent lawyers in Britain with documents, information and evidence’.
No surprise that Britain is the country Hamas uses for its strategy of ‘lawfare’. As Alexander Hitchens writes on Standpoint’s blog, the UK is the hub of Hamas’s European operation. But who are these ‘independent’ British lawyers who are thus being used by a terrorist group bent upon genocide to arrest their putative victims – and helping them use the legal instruments of democracy in their war to destroy it?
[...]
Palin: I told you so!
by Ed Morrissey:
It didn’t take long for Jim DeMint’s outrage over highly unusual language protecting a care-rationing board to generate a response from Sarah Palin. This came just days after Politifact called her statement about “death panels” the “lie of the year,” but the attempt to rule any Congressional motion that changes the rulings of the Independent Medical Advisory Board out of order in perpetuity has highlighted once again this rationing board and its potential impact in a government-run system. And that, Palin writes at her Facebook page, was her point all along:
[...]
Matthew, Marx, Luke and John
Lorne Gunter, National Post:
There’s an old church joke about the perils of moral relativism that goes, “God called them the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions.”
Well, for Reverend Tim Jones of St. Lawrence Church in York, England, even Ten Suggestions seems a little too judgmental, too stern and rigid. He seems to look on them more as Ten Opinions. You know, take ‘em or leave ‘em. Don’t feel any pressure. Make of them what you will. Or make up your own.
Rev. Jones has set off a minor controversy by sermonizing that it is acceptable for poor parishioners to shoplift — to steal — provided they do so only from big chain stores. He insists his preaching does not violate the commandment “Thou shall not steal” because God’s love for the poor is more important than the property rights of the rich.
Really? Does the good reverend truly believe that God is a two-tiered divinity, with one set of values for his middle-class and wealthy creations and another, more flexible set for his poor ones?
[...]
How to insult faith of miliions
EXCLUSIVE: Transvestites, Mao And Obama Ornaments Decorate White House Christmas Tree
Religious Climate Rage
by Mark D. Tooley, FrontPage:
The international Religious Left is grieving over the Copenhagen climate summit’s failure to mandate sweeping restrictions on capitalism and massive global redistribution of wealth.
“With a lack of transparency, the agreement reached this past week by some countries was negotiated without consensus but rather in secret among the powerful nations of the world,” bewailed the World Council of Churches’s climate change spokesman. He further denounced the summit as a “strong strike against multilateralism and the democratic principles in the U.N. system.”
Hopes among the numerous religious activists in Copenhagen had been feverishly high. Global Warming alarmism combines so many of the Religious Left’s favored fetishes, hopes and fears: hostility to free markets and economic growth; cravings for wealth redistribution; Western guilt; veneration for the earth at the expense of humanity; and aspirations for global governance.
Most prominent among the religious prelates in Copenhagen were Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who solemnly told religious activists at a rally that an unidentified 300,000 people were “dying as a result of the poverty caused by all of the emissions coming from the rich countries.” Lest anyone misunderstand his target, Tutu pleaded: “Hello, rich people. Hello there, hello America.” Tutu did not mention how many hundreds of millions of people are alive and living with greater health and wealth because of Western industry.
[...]
These ‘ religious activists’ are political ideologues who are ignorant and dangerous. What an embarrassment to the Christian faith.
Obama’s Boss Gets Permanent Death Panels
By Joy Tiz, CFP:
As republican senators at last get a chance to read the health crimes bill being rammed through by the politburo, Obama’s boss, unrepentant Nazi collaborator, George Soros is poised to celebrate a major triumph in the advancement of his euthanasia agenda.
[...]
Mr. Obama: Tear Down Your Wall of Secrecy
By Monte Kuligowski, AT:
Everyone has gotten the memo by this point: Do not question Barack Obama. Even conservatives have been warned by other conservatives about mentioning the secrecy issue: It’s pointless and can only harm conservatism.
Recently, Rusty Humphries broke the rule and asked Sarah Palin if she would make the “birth certificate an issue” if she runs for office. In her answer, she noted that people “still want answers” and “it’s a fair question.” Her enemies pounced quickly, casting her as a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist.
The real issue, however, is not about birthers or theories or racism or whatever else you want to add. The real issue is about the secrecy of Barack Obama, and it involves more than the release of his complete birth records. Hospital records; high school, college and law school records; transcripts; writings; and passport info have been requested, and all are being withheld by Obama.
Mr. Obama is presented as the smartest man in the country, yet we have not seen his college course list or grades. Hmm, hmm, hmm.
A normative democratic society cannot allow a president to continue to speak disingenuously about transparency while withholding basic information.
[...]
In Pursuit of Death
By Joe Herring, AT:
Americans are hopeful and forward-thinking, ever-eager for what lies beyond the next bend in the road. Given that we are a bright and enthusiastic lot, isn’t it odd that a fascination with death has become fashionable in our politics and culture to the extent of informing policy?
Over the last two decades, activists in the news media and popular culture have managed to mainstream radical environmentalism, leading to a “green veto” over the use of natural resources, as well as land and development policy for the nation. Major projects are routinely halted over dubious claims of damage to habitats or endangered species. The costs of EPA-mandated impact studies alone are daunting enough to nix needed projects before they begin. Environmentalism is no longer just a collection of disaffected youth, misguided conservationists, and touchy-feely, back-to-nature types; this once-harmless eccentricity has unveiled a dark side.
[...]
Enviro nuts blow smoke
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN:
Congratulations to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Environment Minister Jim Prentice for receiving both the “Colossal Fossil” award and the most “Fossil of the Day” awards from the enviro nuts at the now-concluded Copenhagen climate summit.
This means Harper and Prentice remembered their duty in Copenhagen was to represent Canadian taxpayers, not radicals who would happily destroy our economy, primarily for ideological reasons.
As Harper and Prentice noted, Canada achieved some success in Copenhagen.
[...]
White House blocks testimony by former top aide to First Lady
By: Byron York:
The White House counsel’s office has barred congressional investigators from interviewing Jackie Norris, former chief of staff for First Lady Michelle Obama, about events leading to the firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin. Republican investigators from the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform have wanted to question Norris since they learned earlier this month that she met with Alan Solomont, chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the organization that oversees AmeriCorps, on June 9, the day before Walpin was summarily fired. Solomont was heavily involved in the Walpin dismissal.
[...]
Well, I guess you need x-ray glasses for the ‘new transparency.’
ACORN Qualifies for Funding in Senate Health Care Bill
Posted by John McCormack, WSJ
Senator Roland Burris is claiming credit for a provision in Harry Reid’s “manager’s amendment,” unveiled Saturday morning, that could funnel money to ACORN through the health care bill.
[...]Earlier this year, Congress passed and the president signed into law a ban on federal funding for ACORN, but a judge ruled that that law was unconstitutional. If a higher court reverses that ruling, ACORN may be prohibited from receiving funds through the Office of Minority Health earmark. But according to the Senate legislative aide, ACORN would still “absolutely” qualify for federal funding through the provision in the underlying Reid bill because the anti-ACORN appropriations amendment would not apply to funds provided through the health care exchanges.
[...]
Canadian Panel to Study Euthanasia Stacked with Pro-Euthanasia Academics
LifeSiteNews.com
The Royal Society of Canada, an association of scientists and scholars “dedicated to encouraging education and the advancement of knowledge in the natural and social sciences and the humanities” has established a panel of “experts” to “assess the pros and cons of permitting physician-assisted death” in Canada.
The society has appointed a six-member “Expert Panel on End-of-Life Decision Making,” chaired by Dr. Udo Schuklenk, professor of philosophy and Ontario research chair in bioethics at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.
Four of the six panel members are already well known for their pro-euthanasia position, having published works in support of the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide.
[...]
America’s Survival Is At Stake
by Roger Chapin, Townhall:
Never before in our history has an American president, deliberately and by design, risked our very survival to a maniacal enemy power sworn to remove America from the world. Yet from all appearances, this is exactly what Obama is doing by failing to vigorously oppose Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. But in spite of the fact that over 60% of the public favors militarily destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities, there’s nary a word of protest from the Republicans in opposition. They’re so paranoid about being labeled warmongers, they have shamefully abdicated their own national security responsibilities, just as John McCain did during his presidential run.
Obama is weakening rather than strengthening our missile defenses. That’s how seriously this Administration takes the Iranian threat.
The reality is that the fanatical, messianically driven radical Iranian zealots will pay any price, including Iran’s virtual obliteration, in order to render the U.S. and its major allies non-players on the world scene. The mullahs expect to emerge from the ruins no longer hindered by the “Great Satan,” free to use their huge oil and gas reserves to fund the imposition of their tyranny throughout the Middle East and beyond.
[...]
Unknowable numbers
David Warren:
That there is some large number, I do not doubt, for I’m on various Christian mission “e-lists,” which tell me every day of Christians massacred somewhere in the “Third World.” Glancing at my inbox just now: two reports from Egypt, two from Pakistan, and one from Nepal.
But as non-Christian media take no interest whatever in these reports (which would anyway be dangerous to confirm) — and as the reports will be categorically denied by officials in most of the countries in question — I have generally avoided writing about them. For I have found it is counter-productive to tell people things they do not know already.
Christians are, of course, not the only persecuted in this world. In proportion to their numbers, Jews have suffered worse, and depending on the country, other minorities. In Iran, for instance, native Parsees and Bahai have been all but eliminated, along with the Jews and many of the Christians. Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists are mostly gone from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Buddhists are under attack in southern Thailand; Christians in the southern Philippines. Animists, Hindus, Buddhists, and the Chinese generally, have often shared the fate of Christians in the remoter parts of Indonesia. And there is no telling what has happened in innumerable African locations, along a vague line from about Senegal to about Kenya, that corresponds to the Christian-Muslim frontier.
Christians have also been under persecution from Hindu nationalists in India, in that case along with Muslims, Buddhists and other minorities.
[...]
Climategate: The Perils of Global Warming Models
by John Droz, Jr., PJ Media:
Everyone readily admits that things aren’t always what they seem. But are we really applying this knowledge in our daily dealings? Are we consciously ferreting out the illusory from the reality? I think not.
For instance, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we aren’t really being run by pandering politicians, self-serving lobbyists, fanatical environmentalists, and greedy Wall Street manipulators. They are the illusion.
There is another even more powerful (but much less visible) agent behind all of these puppets.
The person behind the screen is the computer programmer. And, just like in the Wizard of OZ, they do not want you to look at this real controller.
I’ll probably have to turn in my membership card, but as a computer programmer (and physicist and environmental activist) I’m here to spill the beans about the Wiz.
The first hint of trouble is spelled out in Wikipedia’s explanation about computer programmers:
The discipline differs from many other technical professions in that programmers generally do not need to be licensed or pass any standardized (or governmentally regulated) certification tests in order to call themselves “programmers” or even “software engineers.”
Hmmm.
My layperson explanation is that computer programming is all about making assumptions, and then converting these into mathematical equations.
The big picture question is this: Is it really possible to accurately convert complex real-world situations into ones and zeros? Hal may think so, but higher processing brains say no. Yet this is continuously attempted, with very limited success. Let’s pull the screen back a bit more.
We’ll start with an example about how such a model makes assumptions.
[...]
“Honor” Horror In England
by Stephen Brown on Dec 21st, 2009 and filed under FrontPage:
“Mum, don’t untie me. I want to die.”
These heart-rending words from beyond the grave helped last week to convict Britain’s latest “honor” murderer, Mehmet Goren, 49. The father of four brutally killed his 15-year-old daughter, Tulay, ten years ago for having fallen in love.
“You did all this simply because you regarded it as unacceptable that she, rather than you, should choose the man she wanted to marry,” the judge told the murderer, whom he described as having an “enigmatic smile.”
Instead of experiencing a schoolgirl’s joy for life, shortly before her death a bound and helpless Tulay was lying face down on her bedroom floor, her hands and feet having turned a black and blue color from the clothesline restraints her father had tied her with. It was in this terrible state of pain and suffering that Tulay addressed these pitiful words to her mother, Hanim Goren, who wanted to free her but was prevented by her husband.
[...]
How 40,000 home day care providers in Michigan were forced to start paying union dues
by Patrick J. Wright and Michael D. Jahr,
The barren economy of this rustbelt state is weakening the labor movement, but well-connected unions continue to shape Michigan’s politics. So it’s not surprising that some are willing to take extraordinary measures to help repopulate union ranks–even to the extent of making the state an accessory to a scheme to shanghai more than 40,000 home-based day care entrepreneurs and providers into a government-employee union.
This development was first brought to the attention of the Mackinac -Center for Public Policy, where we work, in early 2009, when the center was approached by Sherry Loar, owner of Baby Steps Childcare Center in Petoskey. She told us that though she operated the business in her home, the Michigan Department of Human Services was forcing her to pay “dues” to a government-employee union she had never heard of.
Loar’s story seemed outrageous.
[...]
They couldn’t do it without antisemites’ acquiescence
Hamas admits masterminding arrest warrants of Israelis abroad
Communist agents pass for run-of-the-mill liberals in our elite institutions
By Carol Iannone, NRO:
We’ve had Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames. Now another case of spying has emerged from the halls of our government institutions. And this one may raise a sardonic chuckle over how casual liberal sympathies and knee-jerk Bush bashing made a Communist agent seem normal among the elites in academia and our nation’s capital.
Kendall Myers, who worked for the State Department for some 30 years starting in 1977, eventually earning Top Secret / Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) clearance, pled guilty and was convicted last month of spying for Cuban intelligence for virtually all that time. He has been sentenced to life imprisonment. His wife, Gwendolyn, was not employed by the State Department, but pled guilty as his accomplice and received a sentence of six to seven and a half years.
In addition to his top-secret State Department work — and along with sending radio dispatches to Havana, and dropping envelopes full of government intelligence in shopping carts, and voyaging through Latin America to convey classified information to his handlers, and using false documents to travel to Cuba to spend an entire evening with Fidel, and staying in shape in case he had to sail his yacht “home” to the island paradise — Mr. Myers kept busy teaching part-time at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, where he had earned his Ph.D.
[...]
The ‘Global Imbalances’ Myth
By ZACHARY KARABELL, WSJ:
As the economic crisis has eased in recent months, a questionable international consensus has emerged: The global economy needs to be rebalanced. “We cannot follow the same policies that led to such imbalanced growth,” President Barack Obama said during his Asia trip last month. European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet declared in September that “imbalances have been at the roots of the present difficulties. If we don’t correct them, we’ll have the recipe for the next major crisis.”
These global “imbalances” supposedly include excessive American consumption, too much trade flowing from Asia to the West and not enough from the U.S. to Asia, and too much saving combined with insufficient spending by Chinese consumers. But what if the whole notion of global imbalances is a myth, and that policies to reverse them only make things worse?
The blunt fact is that at no point in the past century has there been anything resembling a global economic equilibrium.
[...]
Jews Who Won’t Support Their Allies
By Pamela Geller, AT:
Why don’t Jews support those who support them? Last week, on December 13, Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) held a protest rally in what can be described only as an Islamic fortress in the heart of Harrow, England. I strongly urged Jews to attend. Islamic anti-Semitism is more poisonous and more dangerous than even Nazism was to the Jews. The promise of Jewish genocide is made “sacred” by Islamic texts such as the one in which Muhammad says that the end times will not come until the Muslims kill the Jews — and the Jews hide behind trees, which then cry out, “O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.”
[...]
Eurabia vs. Israel on Jerusalem
by P. David Hornik, FrontPage:
The recent Swiss vote to ban minarets was seen by many as a further indication that European populations are waking up to the threat of Europe’s Islamization and the need to stop the trend. If so, the European Union—the centralized bureaucracy that, as documented in Bat Ye’or’s important book Eurabia, went “over the heads” of European publics to meld the European and Arab/Muslim civilizations in the first place—still hasn’t caught up and remains locked in a pro-Arab/Muslim disposition.
[...]
A Political Earthquake
Rick Richman, Commentary:
In today’s Rasmussen presidential poll, only 26 percent of the nation’s voters strongly approve of Barack Obama’s performance as president, while 43 percent strongly disapprove — giving him a Presidential Approval Index rating, a sum calculated by subtracting the number of strong disapprovals from the number of strong approvals, of negative 17. His overall disapproval rating is 53 percent (it has been 50 percent or more for over a month). But it is the extraordinarily high proportion of those who strongly disapprove that bears noting.
In January, George W. Bush left office with a “Strongly Disapprove” rating of … 43 percent. It took Bush eight years to achieve that level of strong disapproval, despite how the mainstream media pummeled him for years. Obama has reached that level in 11 months, despite a media that for months could not use his name in a sentence without also adding “Lincoln” and “FDR.”
To appreciate the magnitude of Obama’s ratings fall, consider that after his first full day in office, his presidential index was positive 30. Today’s index of negative 17 reflects a swing of 47 points in less than a year.
[...]
Ten reasons to leave the EU
By Daniel Hannan, Telegraph [UK]:
1. Since we joined the EEC in 1973, we have been in surplus with every continent in the world except Europe. Over those 27 years, we have run a trade deficit with the other member states that averages out at £30 million per day.
2. In 2010 our gross contribution to the EU budget will be £14 billion. To put this figure in context, all the reductions announced by George Osborne at the Conservative Party Conference would, collectively, save £7 billion a year across the whole of government spending.
3. On the European Commission’s own figures, the annual costs of EU regulation outweigh the advantages of the single market by €600 to €180 billion.
4. The Common Agricultural Policy costs every family £1200 a year in higher food bills.
5. Outside the Common Fisheries Policy, Britain could reassert control over its waters out to 200 miles or the median line, which would take in around 65 per cent of North Sea stocks.
6. Successive British governments have refused to say what proportion of domestic laws come from Brussels, but a thorough analysis by the German Federal Justice Ministry showed that 84 per cent of the legislation in that country came from the EU.
7. Outside the EU, Britain would be free to negotiate much more liberal trade agreements with third countries than is possible under the Common External Tariff.
8. The countries with the highest GDP per capita in Europe are Norway and Switzerland. Both export more, proportionately, to the EU, than Britain does.
9. Outside the EU, Britain could be a deregulated, competitive, offshore haven.
10. Oh, and we’d be a democracy again.
[...]
The hypocrisy of doctor-assisted suicide
Peter Stockland, NP:
Think of it as internal coherence: How could a civilized society put up fences on its high bridges to prevent suicide, yet lower the bed railings of its hospitals to permit the same act? Suicide is suicide, whether it’s the assisted or do-it-yourself variety. Euthanasia is a euphemism. Both actions are the forced (emotionally, if not outright physically) and premature ending of a human life. All argument to the contrary is dangerous misdirection.
If we go in the direction of making our hospitals and medical centres charnel houses of self-destruction, how soon before we begin debating whether the moral, social or even existential difference between a private jab and a public jump is merely a matter of time, place and taste?
The question isn’t slippery slopeism. It’s recognition of the incoherence of differentiating between private and public suicide. It’s asserting that the tormented logic driving us toward acceptance of private, and inevitably public, suicide makes a chimera of all the purported safeguards touted by euthanasia and assisted-suicide advocates.
For example, the Bloc Québécois’ private member’s bill awaiting second reading by the Commons in January would legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, but impose supposed strict conditions:.There would be minimum age limits; “qualified” patients would have to make two written requests 10 days apart before doctors could help them end their lives; there would be certified, clinical oversight of each legally inflicted death.
Yet the age limits would almost certainly be unconstitutional.
[...]
It’s murder.Dressing it up in transparently disingenuous euphemisms does not change this fact.
Canada’s democratically elected, non-dictatorial, parliamentary dictatorship
Jonathon Narvey, NP:
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is accused of acting like a dictator. The real issue is why an experienced editorialist can’t act like a professional.
It is a well-understood principle in most editorial and blogging circles that when you compare your opponent to Hitler, you’ve automatically lost the argument. Reductio ad Hitlerum arguments say far more about the one making the accusation than the target of the attack.
This rule also applies to an only slightly lesser extent when one compares their opponent to a dictator, particularly in a country like Canada. Let’s face it, when you use the word “dictator”, the face that most often comes to mind is Austria’s most nefarious firebrand. Unless you’re talking about Kim Jong Il, Robert Mugabe or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, labeling someone a dictator, or more cautiously using the phrase “acting like a dictator”, is not just wrong — it’s stupid.
So it’s disappointing when I see this sort of accusation leveled against our Prime Minister in a publication like the Toronto Star. Haroon Siddiqui’s clownish piece, Harper acting like an elected dictator, is a perfect example of the genre.
Not to delve too deeply into this muck, but one would at least expect such an outlandish assertion to be backed up by some sort of, well, evidence.
[...]
Radicals and the weak minded of every stripe read that rag so what should we expect?
Horowitz Q&A
WATCH ALL HERE
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