The Trust Thing
By David Warren:
Polls, at least in the U.S., show “trust in the media” to be a waste of their time, and in particular, will not seek news from sources they believe to be tainted. The exclamation mark is affixed, when the mainstream media sweep the JournoList controversy under the rug — at a moment when their audience is free to read all these appalling e-mails on the Internet.
As I insist, the most damaging thing for a purveyor of news is not bias, per se, but an apparent lack of candour. People want to know “what really happened,” and if it is obvious that Agent A will not tell them, they will turn to Agent B. To my mind, that is exactly why my profession is in big trouble.
It is moreover the reason why every agency in society, which governs itself by strictures of “political correctness,” is in big trouble. People — quite simple, uneducated people, among others — may not have the means to analyse their distrust, but they can sure smell a rat. They may not be able to detect a lie, but they will eventually sense that a writer or speaker has no category for the truth.
[...]
The Multiplying Mysteries of Creating an Islamic Center Near Ground Zero
by Claudia Rosett:
You’ve read about the plans of a small foundation called the Cordoba Initiative to build a whopping $100 million Islamic center near Ground Zero. There are many reasons to question whether this project for a “Cordoba House” should go forward. Some involve the symbolism of the plan, and the aims of the imam carrying the standard for this project, Feisal Abdul Rauf — Imam Feisal, to his followers — a man of Egyptian descent, born in Kuwait, with offices in New York and Malaysia.
For a good rundown on why New York authorities might want to rethink their approval of this project, here’s a recent article by my colleague, Andrew McCarthy, former prosecutor in the case of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Andy writes on “Rauf’s Dawa from the World Trade Center Rubble,” including a look at a “special non-commercial” version of Rauf’s book on America and Islam, with Muslim Brotherhood connections that Rauf probably did not advertise to the Manhattan community board that approved his Cordoba House project.[...]
NoCharter protection of free speech
Is one woman’s 16-year protest a case of harassment or free speech?
See no evil
By CAROLINE B. GLICK:
It’s springtime for Jew-haters. This week Oscar winning conspiracy theorist Oliver Stone joined Helen Thomas and Mel Gibson in the swelling ranks of out-of-the-closet celebrity Jew-haters. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Stone said that Adolf Hitler had been given a bum rap and that through “Jewish domination of the media,” the Jews have inflated the importance of the Holocaust and wrecked US foreign policy.
[...]
Leftist “Historian” Howard Zinn Lied About Red Ties
By Cliff Kincaid:
The prominent “progressive” historian Howard Zinn, whose books are force-fed to young people on many college campuses, was not only a member of the Moscow-controlled and Soviet-funded Communist Party USA (CPUSA) but lied about it, according to an FBI file released on Friday.
The file, consisting of three sections totaling 423 pages, was made available on the FBI’s website and released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from this writer.
[...]
Pakistan: 5 Christians shot to death coming out of church following threats from “banned” jihadist groups
Jihad Watch:
Of course, given Pakistan’s ongoing double game, there is always the question of whether the groups are banned as in “banned,” or banned as in “just lay low for a bit or consider changing your name.”
“Suspected Islamists Shoot Five Christians to Death in Pakistan,” from Compass Direct News, July 29 (thanks to Twostellas):
SUKKUR, Pakistan, July 29 (CDN) — A dozen masked men shot five Christians to death as they came out of their church building here on July 15, two months after a banned Islamic extremist group sent church leaders a threatening letter, relatives said.
[...]
Clinton comptroller blasts government workers’ accrual of benefits at expense of private sector workers
By Jon Ward, The Daily Caller:
America’s recession is exposing societal fault lines, as various groups fight over increasingly smaller pieces of the pie. Tensions are particularly flaring between government workers and employees of private businesses.
David Walker, the U.S. comptroller appointed by President Bill Clinton who continued in the role under George Bush, on Friday gave a bracing indictment of the pension and salary benefits being rewarded to government workers at the federal, state and local level. Walker said that public sector workers are growing prosperous on the back of private sector workers.
[...]
Poodle in a mirror?
Melanie Phillips:
Another crucial point about Turkey further underlines the sheer amoral perversity of David Cameron’s gushing endorsement of that country, analysed below. As Martin Packard, a former UN mediating officer in Cyprus points out in a letter to the Times (£) today, for the past 36 years Turkey has been illegally occupying part of Cyprus:
[...]
Why is it that the vast plurality of western politicians and political leaders are so incredibly STUPID?
RELATED:
WaPo buries Dem fundraiser’s fraud, highlights GOP fundraising scandal
By: Michael Barone:
Our friends at the Washington Post gave front-page treatment this morning to SEC charges that Texas billionaires Sam Wyly and Charles Wyly gained $550 million in fraudulent stock trades.
It also noted prominently that they are big contributors to Republican politicians. “SEC Charges Billionaire Texas Brothers Who Donate to GOP With Fraud,” the headline declared, and in case the reader didn’t get the point the first words of the article read, “Sam and Charles Wyly, billionaire Texas brothers who gained prominence spending millions of dollars on conservative causes.”
[...]
This intensive treatment led me to wondering how the Post handled the conviction and sentencing to 12 years in jail earlier this month of Democratic fundraiser Hassan Nemazee for defrauding banks of $292 million? Answer: It ran as part of a three-item story labeled CRIMINAL JUSTICE on page A3, a five-paragraph Associated Press story headlined “Former Democratic Fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, Kerry Gets 12 Years for Fraud.”
[...]
Blow WikiLeaks Off The Internet
IBD:
Now that the Taliban are scouring WikiLeaks for names of allies to kill from a trove of stolen U.S. documents, the White House is begging the site not to publish more. It should make WikiLeaks an enemy target.
[...]
Evaluating Nature’s 2009 “15 Evolutionary Gems” Darwin-Evangelism Kit
ENV:
Last year, during the bicentennial anniversary of Darwin’s birth, Nature released a free online packet titled “15 Evolutionary Gems.” Its subtitle was “A resource from Nature for those wishing to spread awareness of evidence for evolution by natural selection.” It might have been better subtitled ‘A evangelism packet for those wishing to spread the good news about Darwinism.’ After all, when Nature announced the packet, they said they were heeding a prior call which “urged scientists and their institutions to ‘spread the word’” about evolution and “highlight reasons why scientists can treat evolution by natural selection as, in effect, an established fact.” The packet is to be used not just in schools, but also in home evangelism or relationship evangelism. At least, that’s basically what Nature said:
[...]
Daaarwiiiin, Daaarwiiiin, Daaarwiiiin…
Deceit and Denial upon Our Ramparts
By Greg Easley:
Americans are literally dumbstruck by the level of deceit and the magnitude of denial emanating from our White House and Congress. How many laws can one man break! How far must America fall before Republicans escape their denial and find their honor?
For those of you who still labor under the hallucinogenic cloud of denial that Obama is “a nice” man, we say this: “Get Over It”! He is a deliberate liar, a Marxist by birth, by creed and by indoctrination, a corrupted emotional mal-content and indisputably the most dangerous man in recent American history.
Pundits and talking heads keep saying that Obama and his administration just don’t get it, can’t learn from their mistakes, aren’t listening or don’t understand the average American citizen. Nothing could be further from the truth. Obama is listening, he does understand us and he gets it. He just hates what we stand for. It’s the Republicans that aren’t listening, don’t get it and don’t understand that we get it, we understand and we will do something about it. We are tired of being collateral damage to a deceitful, disdaining administration run by ideologues with no practical experience at any level and by politicians who lie, cheat and steal from every living human on this planet by virtue of their supposed elitist entitlement as members of a “ruling class”.
Obama is not incompetent either. He knows precisely what he is doing.
[...]
The Truths We Dare Not Speak About Illegal Immigration
by Victor Davis Hanson:
In the last 48 hours almost everything that can be said about illegal immigration has been said. But I am more interested in a few truths that are never quite spoken.[...]
Conclusion? The federal government and federal courts prefer to ignore laws that violate their own, but void those that copy them.We are in revolutionary times when the law is a malleable thing, its validity predicated only on its perceived social utility at any given moment.
This is how nations are lost.
The Post-American Presidency
by Jamie Glazov, FrontPage:
FP: Pamela Geller, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Tell us about your new book and what you have discovered about Obama’s war on America.
Geller: Thanks Jamie.
The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War On America is the product of three years of research I’ve done on Barack Obama: his socialist internationalism, his ties to America-haters and anti-Semites, his race-baiting, and more. As president, Obama is presiding over America’s decline, and is in many important ways the apostle of that decline. He is betraying Israel; warring against free speech; refusing to take real steps to stop Iran’s nuclear program, despite the many genocidal statements Ahmadinejad has made against Israel, and the open contempt the mullahs have shown for his efforts to reach out to them.
Obama is turning allies into enemies and enemies into allies; submitting the U.S. to international law; bankrupting us with socialist schemes both domestically and internationally; bypassing the democratic process and the system of checks and balances by governing through a proliferation of “czars”; and using global warming as a pretext to redistribute wealth from the First World to the Third World.
He has appointed numerous proponents of the primacy of international law over U.S. law, including Harold Koh, legal adviser for the State Department; Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and now Elena Kagan; John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) – that is, the science czar; Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change – that is, the global-warming czar; and Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, or Regulatory Czar.
Obama has never demonstrated any respect for the freedom of speech, the fundamental protection the Bill of Rights gives us against tyranny. He has appointed a proliferation of officials who have in various ways advocated restrictions on the freedom of speech: Kagan, Sunstein, Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission; and Attorney General Eric Holder.
Obama comes from a Muslim background, as detailed in the book, and has numerous friends and associates who are inveterate foes of Israel. Not just Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan, but also Samantha Power, the National Security Council’s Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights; Robert Malley and Zbigniew Brzezinski, two key foreign policy advisers; Rosa Brooks, advisor to the undersecretary of Defense for policy; and Chuck Hagel, co-chair of the Intelligence Advisory Board.
The book details all this and much more, including Obama’s betrayal of the freedom movement in Iran and of the democratic forces in Honduras, and his attempts to use climate change to destroy American sovereignty. Everything flows from his core beliefs, which were shaped by some of his earliest experiences and confirmed by his later associations.
The book also makes some shocking new revelations, including details of how Obama took campaign money from Gaza, in violation of federal law; how ACORN, with which Barack Obama has been deeply involved for years, destroyed Republican voter registrations; the full truth about how making America safe for Sharia is not incidental, but is a cornerstone of Obama’s presidential program; and about how Obama is consistently, not just occasionally, anti-democratic and favors authoritarian regimes and measures.
[...]
Obama’s Mean Streak
By Ed Lasky:
Barack Obama seems to have a pattern of using ceremonial or stately events as opportunities to ambush and humiliate people. This behavior is unpresidential and reveals a vindictive streak that makes Richard Nixon look like Mister Rogers.
A few examples of Obama’s taking pleasure in administering public pain to others
[...]
Philistine Temple Ruins Uncovered in Goliath’s Hometown
INN:
Bar Ilan University archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of a Philistine temple in the ancient city of Gath, home of the Biblical Goliath, buried in one of the largest tels (ancient ruin mounds) in Israel.
The temple and a number of ritual items dating back to the 10th century BCE were discovered at Tel Tsafit (Tell es-Safit/Gath) by Professor Aren Maeir of BIU’s Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology and his international team. The tel is located about halfway between Ashkelon and Jerusalem, near Kiryat Gat along the southern coastal plain.
“Interestingly, the architectural design of this temple, with its two central pillars, is reminiscent of the architectural image that is described in the well-known Biblical story of Samson and the Philistines,” Maeir said. He added that the discovery could indicate that the story of Samson reflects a type of temple that was in use in Philistia at the time.
He also said that his team had found impressive evidence of an earthquake in the 8th century BCE, reminiscent of the earthquake mentioned in the Book of Amos 1:1. The team uncovered walls that were moved from their place and collapsed like a deck of cards as a result of the powerful earthquake – assessed at a magnitude of 8 on the Richter scale.
In addition, Maeir said, the summer’s excavations have uncovered further evidence of the destruction of the city by Hazael, King of Aram Damascus, around 830 BCE, as mentioned in Kings II 12:18, as well as evidence of the first Philistine settlement in Canaan (around 1200 BCE).
[...]
The New Journalism
Jonah Goldberg:
‘The high standards and wise judgments of people like Walter Cronkite once acted as a national immune system, zapping scandal mongers and quashing wild rumors,” wrote former “green jobs czar” Van Jones in Sunday’s New York Times.
This may be one of the most unintentionally hilarious lines in recent memory. Jones, you may recall, left the White House when his background — not just as an alleged 9/11 truther but as a self-confessed Communist and revolutionary — became grist for the Fox News mill. Mainstream publications mostly ignored the controversy until after he was fired, and then focused on the fact that he directed an expletive at Republicans in a YouTube video.
Now Jones, with billets at Princeton and the Center for American Progress, casts himself as yet another victim, just like Shirley Sherrod, the Department of Agriculture employee fired after Andrew Breitbart released a misleadingly edited video of her. (Breitbart, a friend of mine, insists to me that he did not edit the video himself.)
[...]
Putin’s War on Israel
by Natalya Hmelik, FrontPage:
Now that another Middle East war seems imminent, concerns are growing about the new powerful weapons that are available to Palestinian terrorists. It appears to be virtually unknown that these weapons are being steadily supplied by Putin’s Russia. In the present atmosphere of the everlasting “reset” of relations between the U.S. and Russia, it is not difficult for the Kremlin to camouflage its arming of terrorists. Indeed, the world is willing to turn a blind eye.
This month, for instance, Russia announced it was making another gift to the “Palestinian security forces” on the West Bank: 50 armored vehicles. According to Russia’s Foreign Ministry earlier this month, the gift was already in Jordan and about to be passed on to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). It was President Medvedev who made this decision which, the Kremlin says, will help the development of a Palestinian statehood.
The Russian spokesmen made much of the fact that the actual weapons had been removed from the vehicles. However, this does not make them as harmless as Moscow hoped to suggest.
[...]
The Persecution & Prayer Alert
The Persecution & Prayer Alert
The Voice of the Martyrs, Canada
http://www.persecution.net
Thursday, July 29, 2010
A weekly news and prayer digest on the Persecuted Church.
Check out The Voice of the Martyrs on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/vomcanada
.
***********************************
In this week’s edition: reports from Pakistan, Ethiopia and Vietnam,
with an update from China.
***********************************
1. Christian nursing student brutally assaulted in Pakistan
Magdalene Ashraf, a 22-year-old Christian nurse trainee, was brutally
attacked on July 13 by several Muslim men who raped her and threw her
from the fourth-floor window of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center
in Karachi, Pakistan. A fellow nurse tricked Magdalene into visiting
the office of a Muslim doctor by telling her that he wanted to talk to
her about a class assignment. The doctor, Abdul Jabbar Memon,
reportedly has a history of sexually abusing Christian nurses in the
hospital. Once she was inside the room with the nurse, Dr. Jabbar and
at least two other men then attacked her. Describing the assault,
Magdalene said: “When I resisted and tried to escape, nurse Fatima
slapped both my cheeks and pushed me into Dr. Jabbar. I cried out but
no one arrived there to rescue me. They not only gang-raped me, they
also tortured me physically and ruthlessly beat me.” After several
torturous hours, Magdalene was thrown out the window by the men. At
last report, she was hospitalized in an intensive care unit. Her
family members have reportedly continued to receive threats from Dr.
Jabbar, though he has been arrested. (Source: Compass Direct, Sharing
Life Ministries Pakistan).
Ask God to give Magdalene healing from the emotional and physical
scars of her assault. Pray that her attackers will be brought to
justice. Pray that she and her family will trust in the Lord as their
protector and guide. Pray for justice for Christian nurses facing
similar abuse in Pakistan, where such rape cases frequently go
unreported or are ignored by officials. You can post a prayer of
solidarity with Magdalene by visiting our Persecuted Church Prayer
Wall at http://www.persecution.net/prayerwall
.
For more on the persecution of Pakistani Christians, visit
http://www.persecution.net/pakistan.htm
.
***********************************
2. Somali Muslims assault Christian in Ethiopia
On July 16, five Somali Muslim men assaulted and seriously injured a
Christian man in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for reading a book critical of
the Prophet Muhammad. Mike Abdul Falahow, a Christian convert from
Islam, was reading “The Great Deception: How Muhammad Tried to Win
Christians for Islam” when two Somali Muslims demanded that he hand
over the book, saying that it was offensive and attacked the honour of
the Prophet Muhammad. Mike refused to surrender the book and argued
that they were living in Ethiopia and not in Somalia, and therefore
had religious freedom. One of the Muslim men then attempted to seize
the book from Mike’s grasp. When he failed to grab it, he proceeded to
punch and kick him. Four other Muslim men joined in the violence,
beating Mike mercilessly. He suffered injuries that included a broken
leg and cuts to his face. At last report, he was recovering in a safe
house provided by the Somali Christian community in Addis Ababa. A
Somali church leader described the attack as “a brutal attempt to
subdue the growing Somali Christian community in Addis Ababa.”
(Source: International Christian Concern)
Ask God to equip Mike by His Holy Spirit to remain strong in his faith
and maintain a bold witness. Pray that he and other Christians in this
community will continue to give themselves fully to the work of the
Lord (1 Corinthians 15:50-58). Pray for an end to violence against
Christians in Ethiopia.
To learn more about the ongoing opposition of believers in Ethiopia,
go to http://www.persecution.net/ethiopia.htm
.
***********************************
3. House church attacked in Vietnam
A house church building in Xi Thoai village, Phu Yen Province, Vietnam
was attacked and damaged by a gang of youths on July 18. The building,
which was also intended to be the home of Christian evangelist Mang
Vuong, was in the process of being constructed in order to serve the
ethnic Hroi community as the nearby church had reached full capacity.
Vuong belongs to the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (South), the
country’s largest government-registered denomination.
The same youths, spurred on by local authorities, earlier broke into
Vuong’s home on June 10 and stole 60 million dong (approximately
$3,250 CAD) — money borrowed to pay the contractor of his new house.
Household items including furnishings and books were also destroyed.
Since the attack in June, police from local and provincial levels came
to the area several times to “investigate.” However, local Christians
believe authorities were only attempting to identify the Christians in
the village. In the following weeks, authorities did nothing to
address the crime and failed to stop the daytime raid in July. “There
was no other reason for this — it is religious persecution, pure and
simple, incited and allowed by local government officials,” a
prominent church leader said. “The inaction of higher officials casts
into doubt our country’s claim to uphold religious freedom.” (Source:
Compass Direct)
Pray that believers in Xi Thoai village will not lose heart but will
trust the Lord in all things. Pray for wisdom for area church leaders
during this time. Pray that authorities in Vietnam will respect
religious freedom.
Go to http://www.persecution.net/vietnam.htm
to learn more about the plight of Vietnamese Christians. For
testimonies of others who have endured persecution in Vietnam, sign up
to receive the August edition of The Voice of the Martyrs newsletter.
Visit http://www.persecution.net/newsletter
to receive your free copy today.
***********************************
4. Update: Imprisoned Christian refused further visits in China
Imprisoned Uyghur house church pastor Alimujiang Yimiti, who was
finally allowed to visit with his family in recent months (see
http://www.persecution.net/cn-2010-05-13.htm
for more information), has been prevented further visits.
Alimujiang’s mother, wife and children were able to meet with him for
the first time in two years in April. In May, they were permitted a
second meeting for 20 minutes. However, authorities have since
demanded that a letter stamped by the local police verifying
Alimujiang’s relationship with his wife and mother be brought to each
meeting. The local police, meanwhile, claim the letter is unnecessary
and refuse to cooperate. Alimujiang’s lawyers have not been permitted
to meet with him since he was moved into prison.
Although Alimujiang’s wife, Gulinuer, mails a letter to him every
week, she only knows of two letters that have reached her husband. She
has yet to receive a reply. One letter mailed to Alimujiang from the
United States was returned to the sender with the word “deceased”
written across the envelope. Sources have been unable to confirm the
validity of the message. (Source: ChinaAid)
Pray for health and strength for Alimujiang and his family. Pray that
authorities will allow him to resume visits with his loved ones. Pray
that the charges against him will be dropped and he will be free to
return home. Pray that his love for Christ will draw others closer to
the Lord.
To learn more about persecution in China, go to
http://www.persecution.net/china.htm
. We encourage you to visit http://www.FreeAlim.com
to sign a petition demanding the release of Alimujiang. Please
consider sharing this petition with your friends and family so they
too can raise a voice for this suffering family.
***********************************
The Persecution & Prayer Alert is a ministry of The Voice of the
Martyrs, Canada. (Mailing address: P.O. Box 608, Streetsville,
Ontario, L5M 2C1)
Tel. (905) 670.9721. Website: http://www.persecution.net
Contacts: Adele Konyndyk & Erin Vandenberg
WaPo sees only Israel sending mixed signals
Leo Rennert
The Washington Post, in its July 28 editions, runs an article by Jerusalem correspondent Janine Zacharia, with a four column headline that reads: “From Israel, mixed signals on peace effort.”
So what are those mixed signals and by whom are they sent? Zacharia points mostly at Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his firm support of West Bank Jewish settlements — versus Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who’s more dovish.
Fair enough. I would have no problem with the Post running this kind of a story, if it were equally avid in allotting as big a spread to an article about mixed signals about the peace process emanating from the Palestinian Authority. That kind of complementary perspective, however, is totally lacking at the Post. The result: completely unbalanced coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
[...]
Sun Could Set Suddenly on Superpower as Debt Bites
By Niall Ferguson:
We have been raised to think of the historical process as an essentially cyclical one.
We naturally tend to assume that in our own time, too, history will move cyclically, and slowly.
Yet what if history is not cyclical and slow-moving but arhythmic, at times almost stationary, but also capable of accelerating suddenly, like a sports car? What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes suddenly, like a thief in the night?
Great powers and empires are complex systems, which means their construction more resembles a termite hill than an Egyptian pyramid. They operate somewhere between order and disorder, on “the edge of chaos”, in the phrase of the computer scientist Christopher Langton.
Such systems can appear to operate quite stably for some time; they seem to be in equilibrium but are, in fact, constantly adapting.
But there comes a moment when complex systems “go critical”. A very small trigger can set off a phase transition from a benign equilibrium to a crisis.
[...]
An old argument revisited
POWERLINE:
Reading the scholarly work of Woodrow Wilson is an educational experience. It is shocking to read the expressions of his disaffection for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. As R.J. Pestritto has demonstrated, the intellectual roots of modern liberalism lie in an assault on the ideas of natural rights and limited government. They eventuate in an administrative state and rule by supposed experts. Obamacare represents something like the full flowering of modern liberalism.
Wilson’s expressions of disapproval are the precursor to Barack Obama’s disdain for the Constitution and the Warren Court. Obama perfectly reflected Wilson’s views in his 2001 comments on the civil rights movement and the Supreme Court. In the course of the famous radio interview Obama gave to WBEZ in Chicago, Obama observed that the Warren Court had not broken “free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties.” To achieve “redistributive change,” the limitations of the Constitution would have to be overcome by the Court or by Congress.
[...]
The ‘Hijra’ in Tibet
By Janet Levy:
On a recent trip to Chinese-occupied Tibet, I discovered striking parallels between Chinese Communist methodology and goals and the Hijra — an Islamic expansionistic strategy to suppress and supplant non-Muslim societies and pave the way for complete submission, or Islamization. Chinese Communism and the Hijra involve expansionism, policies of cultural engineering and abrogation. Both represent a threat to the ideals of freedom and democracy.
[...]
The Two Faces of the Ground Zero Mosque
by Raymond Ibrahim:
Depending on whether Islamists address Americans or fellow Muslims, the same exact words they use often relay diametrically opposed meanings. One example: when Americans hear Muslims evoke “justice,” the former envision Western-style justice, whereas Muslims naturally have Sharia law justice in mind.
Islamists obviously use this to their advantage: when addressing the West, Osama bin Laden bemoans the “justice of our causes, particularly Palestine”; yet, when addressing Muslims, his notion of justice far transcends territorial disputes and becomes unintelligible from a Western perspective: “Battle, animosity, and hatred — directed from the Muslim to the infidel — is the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them. The West perceives fighting, enmity, and hatred all for the sake of the religion [i.e., Islam] as unjust, hostile, and evil. But who’s understanding is right — our notions of justice and righteousness, or theirs?” (Al Qaeda Reader, p. 43).
Of course, that Osama bin Laden — slayer of 3,000 Americans and avowed enemy to the rest — exhibits two faces, one to Americans another to Muslims, is not surprising. Yet the reader may well be surprised to discover that the controversial Cordoba Initiative, which plans on manifesting itself as the largest American mosque, situated atop Ground Zero — that is, atop the carnage caused by none other than bin Laden — also has two faces, conveying one thing to Americans, quite another to Muslims.
[...]
The IPCC, Climate Change and Solar Sophistry
By Dr. Tim Ball:
There are a multitude of other astrophysical relationships causing cycles related to climate not considered by the IPCC.
Finally, there’s the relationship between sunspot and global temperature. The IPCC consistently ignore the relationship though there’s extensive literature beginning with Galileo’s observations of sunspots in 1610. Initially they said there was no explanatory mechanism. This is not a valid reason if you are doing a complete summary of climate science. Svensmark’s plausible Cosmic Theory appeared in embryonic form in 1991 and more completely in 1996. The 2001 Report mentioned it briefly, but it’s omitted in the 2007 Report. Now there is further confirmation of the theory. Eigil Friis-Christensen, director of the Danish National Space Institute, DTU, and co-author with Svensmark in 1996 said, “The evidence has piled up, first for the link between cosmic rays and low-level clouds and then, by experiment and observation, for the mechanism involving aerosols. All these consistent scientific results illustrate that the current climate models used to predict future climate are lacking important parts of the physics”
Of course they do, because they were designed to prove CO2 was the cause and therefore the problem.
[...]
Obama’s Lack of Disclosure
by Michelle Malkin, FrontPage:
You know when a politician starts a sentence with “frankly,” he’s about to lie to your face. The same principle applies to campaign finance legislation dubbed the “DISCLOSE Act.” The voter’s instinctive reaction should be: What are they trying to hide now? Drafted out of public view with left-wing lobbyists and rammed through Congress after bypassing committee hearings, this bum bill would have been better named the CLOSEDDOOR Act.
[...]
Europe’s Jewish Problem
By Moshe Dann
Antipathy for Israel among Europeans is alarmingly increasing as campaigns of delegitimization and vilification spread across the world, fueled by Muslim propaganda and money, whetted by the hunger for oil. Even once-friendly European countries, those that helped establish the State of Israel and tried to assist Jews during the Holocaust, have become more hostile towards Israel. Europe’s brief love affair with Israel seems over. Why?
In an important essay, Yoram Hazony, director of Jerusalem’s Shalem Center and author of The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel’s Soul, offers a compelling perspective:
[...]
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