I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Help your friends and relatives stay informed by passing the digest on. In some cases I post things sent to me by readers I might not have posted on my own, to get ideas circulating.
Steyn on The Twilight of the West. Mark Hemingway, The Weekly Standard.
Excerpt: If you haven't already, go ahead and add Mark Steyn's latest column to your weekend reading assignments. This might be the un-Steyn column in that the effervescent and witty prose makes the message that we are well and truly doomed palatable; it explains European politics in a concise and understandable way to us geographically isolated Yanks; and Steyn is yet again hammering home the message that culture is the source of the West's economic and political woes:
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Worth Reading: Twilight of the West: The developed world is all playing the same recessional. By Mark Steyn
Excerpt: One of the bizarre aspects of media coverage since 2008 is the complacent assumption that what’s happening is “cyclical” — a downturn that will eventually correct itself — rather than profoundly structural. Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, found herself skewered like souvlaki on a Thessaloniki grill for suggesting the other day that the Greeks are a race of tax evaders. She’s right.
Class Warfare's Losing Record. By Salena Zito, Real Clear Politics.
Excerpt: What the Obama campaign misses is that the working class – white, middle-income, blue-collar Democrats – deeply resents the dependency class and will not respond positively to such rhetoric. Successful populists such as Republican Teddy Roosevelt and Democrat Franklin Roosevelt did not allow their championing of “the little guy” to devolve into class warfare. They realized that Americans tend to view the United States as a land of opportunity and do not begrudge anyone for becoming wealthy.
VIDEO: Win Dinner With Barack Obama And...By Jazz Shaw, HotAir.com
Excerpt: Without much fanfare, Team Obama rolled out a new ad which will be running tonight during the MTV Movie Awards. It offers the opportunity for two lucky people to have dinner with not only the President and the First Lady, but with two of the people I’m sure we’d all like to spend time with. One is Sarah Jessica Parker.
Revealed: How U.S. and U.K. forces rescue four hostages from Afghan jihadis. Daily Mail Online.
Excerpt: [27-year-old] Miss Johnston is recovering from her kidnap ordeal, which came to dramatic end on Friday when David Cameron sent SAS troops to free her after her captors demanded a £7 million ransom. The British soldiers – backed by US Delta Force, American Navy Seals and Afghan troops – rescued Miss Johnston and three other hostages from a cave in the north eastern province.
Florida Tells Holder To Blow It Out His Ass
Excerpt: Florida state officials will continue their quest to purge purportedly ineligible people from voter-registration rolls, a representative of Secretary of State Ken Detzner said Saturday, in defiance of objections from the U.S. Justice Department and county officials who say the policy violates two federal voting laws. (I admire the action if not the headline. ~Bob)
The Horror of Female Genital Mutilation. Siobhan Courtney, Aljazeera
Excerpt: An estimated 66,000 girls have been illegally mutilated in the UK, but no one has yet been prosecuted for this practice. "After the pain, it was the screaming that I'll never forget. It wasn't just mine and my sister's screams, there were so many other girls there - all being cut. I've never heard screams like that again and I don't think I ever will." (Well, tough on the kids, but doing something about it might get you accused of being racist or Islamophobic, thus hurting your multicultural street cred, so too bad for them. ~Bob.)
Marine opens up about Cody Green
Excerpt: Sergeant Mark Dolfini heard of Cody Green's situation through his co-worker, and got in contact with Cody's parents. When the call came that Cody was passing, he took action.
George Will on NYC Soda Ban: 'The essence of contemporary liberalism, 'preposterous,' 'sinister'
Excerpt: “Let me read what Michael Bloomberg said, because in one sentence he’s got the essence of contemporary liberalism — that is something preposterous and something sinister,” Will said. “Listen to this: ‘We’re not taking away anyone’s right to do things.’ Could have fooled me. “We’re simply forcing you to understand.’ Now, that’s modern liberalism — the like of bossing people around, the kind of irritable gesture.”
Decision to Cut Afghan War Funds in Automatic Cuts Riles GOP. Jeremy Herb, The Hill.
Excerpt: I am disappointed the president has made this choice, since there is no clear mandate for it in the law,” House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said in a statement. “Of course now, more than ever it is the troops on the front lines in Afghanistan who will bear the brunt of sequestration,” McKeon said. “If our forces on the front line are truly going to have to do with less body armor, fewer medevacs, and less ammunition he owes it to them to offer a credible way out of the pending disaster.”
'Napalm Girl Photo' from Vietnam War Turns 40. Margie Mason, Huffington Post.
Excerpt: After four decades, Phuc, now a mother of two sons, can finally look at the picture of herself running naked and understand why it remains so powerful. It had saved her, tested her and ultimately freed her. "Most of the people, they know my picture but there's very few that know about my life," she said.
Secret Cooperation Israel Deploys Nuclear Weapons on German-Built Submarines
Excerpt: A German shipyard has already built three submarines for Israel, and three more are planned. Now SPIEGEL has learned that Israel is arming the submarines with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. The German government has known about Israel's nuclear weapons program for decades, despite its official denials.
Walker Challenger Runs From Obama. Breitbart.com.
Excerpt: While Barrett has been reluctant to bring national figures to Wisconsin, thanks in all likelihood to the unpopularity of the president, Walker’s campaign has hosted South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
Dreaming of a Superhero. By Maureen Dowd
Excerpt: ON Friday night, the nation’s capital was under a tornado watch. And that was the best thing that happened to the White House all week. As the president was being slapped by Mitt Romney for being too weak on national security, he was being rapped by a Times editorial for being too aggressive on national security. A Times article by Jo Becker and Scott Shane revealed that the liberal law professor who campaigned against torture and the Iraq war now personally makes the final decisions on the “kill list,” targets for drone strikes.
What honor looks like: The flash mob at Gate 38 of Reagan National Airport. By Chris Muller
Excerpt: Honor is a hard term to describe. It doesn’t have a color or weight or shape. If someone were to ask me what honor looked like, I’d probably struggle with what to say. But something happened on May 23, 2012 at 9:31 a.m. at Gate 38 of Reagan National Airport that might change that.
Suicide blast kills 15 in Bauchi church
Excerpt: A suicide bomber who tried to drive an explosives-packed car into a church in Bauchi on Sunday killed at least 15 , 40 injured after suicide blast at Nigeria church: rescue agency people, including himself, and injured 40, officials said.
Latest US drone strike kills 10 'militants' in South Waziristan. By Bill Roggio
Excerpt: US drones targeted a group of local Taliban fighters and "foreigners" who were gathering to mourn the death of a commander who was killed in another strike in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of South Waziristan just one day ago. The strike is the seventh in the past two weeks. The remotely piloted and CIA-operated Predators or the more deadly Reapers fired four missiles at a group of Taliban fighters loyal to Mullah Nazir who gathered in the village of Mana Raghzai in South Waziristan, according to The Associated Press.
'Flee to Allah' - Preaching Hatred to Children in London. English Defence League.
Excerpt: Amongst the speakers advertised in a promotional YouTube video are: Haitham al-Haddad, who was a tutor to the Nigerian underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, supports the terrorist organisation Hamas and, in a talk at the infamous East London Mosque in January 2011, said that “the conflict between Islam and the enemies of Islam is an ongoing conflict… we should pay the price of this victory from our blood, and Muslims are ready to do so.” He is banned from speaking at the London School of Economics for calling the Jews “the enemies of God, and the descendants of apes and pigs.”
Crackdown on Anniversary of Tiananmen Square Protest. Rick Moran, American Thinker.
Excerpt: Police in China beat and detained political activists marking the 23rd anniversary of the brutal crackdown on the Tiananmen Square democracy protests on Sunday, rights campaigners said. Officers used violence against activists in the southeast province of Fujian and detained them, while more than 30 people who came to Beijing "to petition" were held and forced to return to their home province, the activists reported.
Is Anti-Catholicism on the Rise? Stephen Kokx, American Thinker.
Excerpt: Sandi Villarreal, associate web editor for the left-leaning Christian website Sojourners, thinks Christians should simply turn the other cheek when others mock the Church. I don't disagree with her sentiments entirely; religious Americans should be lighthearted about certain issues. But there is a difference between self-deprecation and allowing oneself to be persecuted. When Catholics let others make fun of what they believe on a regular basis, they act as enablers and become complicit in the culture's acceptance of values antithetical to the ones preached by Jesus Christ.
Let's (Not) Get Physicals. Elizabeth Rosenthal, New York Times
Excerpt: In 1979, a Canadian government task force officially recommended giving up the standard head-to-toe annual physical based on studies showing it to be “nonspecific,” “inefficient” and “potentially harmful,” replacing it instead with a small number of periodic screening tests, which depend in part on a patient’s risk factors for illness. Faced with such evidence, I have not gotten an annual physical since around the time I finished my medical training in 1989.
The Truth about Salt. By Gary Taubes, New York Times.
Excerpt: Those trials have been followed by a slew of studies suggesting that reducing sodium to anything like what government policy refers to as a “safe upper limit” is likely to do more harm than good. These covered some 100,000 people in more than 30 countries and showed that salt consumption is remarkably stable among populations over time. In the United States, for instance, it has remained constant for the last 50 years, despite 40 years of the eat-less-salt message.
Obama Economic Plan: Go Buy A Thingamajig
Harsh Foreclosure Critic Elizabeth Warren Reportedly Made a Fortune…‘Flipping’ Foreclosed Homes
Excerpt: Elizabeth Warren, who has railed against predatory banks and heartless foreclosures, took part in about a dozen Oklahoma real estate deals that netted her and her family hefty profits through maneuvers such as “flipping” properties, records show. A Herald review has found that the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate rapidly bought and sold homes herself, loaned money at high interest rates to relatives and purchased foreclosed properties at bargain prices.
Arab Like Me--Arab hatred of Israel is driven by envy and fear.
Excerpt: There are two kinds of Arabs in this world. Those who hate Jews, and those who don’t. And in my life, I have met more of the former than the latter. I am not proud to say that. Arabs will not like me for admitting it. But it is true. And it is something I wish the Obama administration understood. It is something Americans should know as the “Arab Spring” enters its second year.
Excerpt: "I always look at what is in the United States’ interest first and foremost, and this would hurt the United States’ interests,” Senator Leahy stated firmly. It is of course difficult to find as compelling a national interest as the UNRWA, a refugee agency created exclusively for the benefit of five million Arabs, approximately 30,000 of whom are actual refugees, but all of whom hate the United States. (Well said, Mr. Greenfield. I should add to your observations that the clamor for a Palestinian state is anachronistic nonsense. Although funded by the US and others (but not their Arab brethren), they already have their states, if self-determination and self-governance is the yardstick. In terms of what they lack, it is borders and border control. This they could have in a one hour negotiation if that was their true intention. But we know that 100% irredentism is their objective and that UNWRA and other such ruses are their weapons. Cordially, Larry Greenberg.)
Cpl. Joe's long journey home
Excerpt: He squatted down in front of them, smiled and handed out the treats. The photograph of a young Marine and a smiling Iraqi girl and boy was published in newspapers all over the United States and the world. ... McCarthy was on his second deployment when he was killed.
5 bodies found in burned vehicle in Pinal County
Excerpt: Sheriff Paul Babeu told reporters Saturday afternoon that the incident may be drug-related. (Mexico Cartel Violence IS HERE. --DH)
MA Democrats: No Entry to Convention Without Photo ID. By Mike Flynn
Excerpt: Wait, what? Democrats tell us that photo ID requirements disenfranchise minority voters, who, inexplicably, have limited access to photo IDs. Yet, at their own convention, they insist that all delegates provide a photo ID to even have access to the convention floor. When their own party is at state, it seems their priorities are somewhat different that their rhetoric suggests.
Farmer Panic! Crops Die As Gov't Blocks Wells--Big Brother refuses to allow citizens to rescue harvest
Excerpt: Farmers in Colorado are watching their fields dry up amid one of the worst droughts in the state’s history. But just a few feet beneath them, the water is so plentiful it’s flooding basements and causing septic systems to overflow. Yet the government will not permit farmers to pump the water to save their crops.
Where Will You Be When the Lights Go Out? By Marita Noon
Excerpt: We each know where we were when President Kennedy was shot, when the Berlin Wall came down, and on the morning of 9-11. If we continue on the current course, you’ll be telling your grandchildren where you were the night the lights went out in America. America’s energy policy is being dominated by environmentalists’ priorities—regardless of the impact to the American economy, individual communities, or economically-challenged citizens
Another congressman joins Fast and Furious charge against Holder as contempt proceedings loom on horizon
Excerpt: California Republican Rep. Tom McClintock has joined scores of his House colleagues in pushing for Attorney General Eric Holder to be held accountable for his role in Operation Fast and Furious.
Muslim Brotherhood invades Tampa to re-elect President Obama!
(Certainly makes you wonder about Obama's relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, and the decision to give them $1.5 billion dollars. What is the specific purpose of this money? Just another danger to our way of life! --GBH)
The Week That Was: 2012-06-02 (June 2, 2012)
Excerpt: "The number of those who reason well in difficult matters is much smaller than the number of those who reason badly. If reasoning were like carrying burdens, where several horses will carry more sacks of grain than one alone, I should agree that several reasoners would avail more than a single one; but reasoning is like running and not like carrying, and one Arab steed will outrun a hundred pack horses." ~Galileo Galilei, 1618. (The quotation is for any who still think science should be determined by consensus/counting noses. For most people this needs no saying; for others, it will bear no wisdom because they won’t accept it or will believe it doesn’t apply to them or their cause (just like hitting an inside straight is easier when your name is ____). The excerpt is taken from the weekly summary by Ken Haapala. I urge you to read the fourth and fifth paragraphs of the summary for still more confirmation AGW is over-hyped. The second, third and fifth numbered articles are important with potential impacts upon our energy, economic, and political futures (as though they could be divided! Hah!), and all are republished in full at the end of the PDF. There are so many other good articles I’ll probably send some as separate posts, just to give them a better chance to be seen and read. Ron P.)
Report: Pro-Walker Marine Arrested At WI Dem Rally
Excerpt: Franklin Center: Watch this video of a Gov. Scott Walker-supporting marine getting in the mix at today’s Bill Clinton rally for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in Wisconsin, days before the recall vote. And then watch the exclusive video of his arrest for civil unrest. (When did they make "civil Unrest" a crime in Wisconsin? All the SEIU should be in jail, then. ~Bob.)
Paul Ryan Coming to Utah to Raise Money for Mia Love
Excerpt: Want more evidence that Republicans consider Mia Love’s race against Jim Matheson an extremely high priority? One of the party’s heavy hitters is coming to Utah to raise money for her. Republican sources tell Utah Policy that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan plans to visit Utah later this year to hold a fundraiser for Love.
The Dead Baby Media. Sultan Knish, a blog by Daniel Greenfield.
Excerpt: Anyone who has spent time in the Middle East knows quite well that parading around dead bodies is part of the Muslim ceremony of rallying for the next attack. These aren't funerals, these are corpse parades and the corpses are often of unknown provenance, accompanied by calls for vengeance. Sometimes the bodies are actually of those killed in an attack. Just as often they died of natural causes or are freshly dug up. Go to any Muslim conflict and you'll find both sides brandishing bodies and sometimes even pieces of them.
Dems Abandoning Obama and Joining GOP
Excerpt: Barack Obama has served as President of the United States for just over three and third years. In that time, he has done more damage to the United States than any president in the history of the nation. He has placed the country on the verge of a financial collapse that will make the Great Depression seem like a minor economical hiccup. He has stripped more constitutional rights than any president in history.
Trouble for Obama
Excerpt: If you think of politics as a tennis game, each candidate is holding his serve nicely. Obama won the support of 88 percent of Democrats in both the front and back halves of the six weeks of tracking; Romney won just 7 percent of Democrats in the front and 8 percent in the back. Among Republicans, Romney won 89 percent in the front half and 90 percent in the back half. Obama pulled 7 percent of Republicans in both three-week periods.
The disasters of grossly optimistic thinking and financing
Along with the famous Solyndra collapse, several other "Green" companies that got lots of support under the rush to give money away are now coming under investigation. They are Abengoa Solar, BrightSource Energy, First Solar, Nevada Geothermal, NextEra Energy Resources, and SolarReserve. At least some of them are in deep trouble already, despite billions in loans from the taxpayers. The pattern of total optimism and lack of detailed checking for Green companies in the federal giveaway programs has become pretty clear by the results we can see now. Meanwhile, conventional companies looking for loans underwent a tremendously more lengthy and stringent examination, and got fewer and smaller loans. This is just poor judgment on the part of the people in charge of the stimulus. That many hundreds of billions have been delivered into the economy yet we aren't seeing anything like the desired results tells us this was just not well done. While Mr. Obama didn't personally make all those decisions, the people he put in charge did, and they made decisions more on what they wanted to believe than on good business principles. Environmental idealism is a good thing in general, as a chemist and technical person I am very concerned about the environment. But idealism has to be tempered with pragmatism, and that certainly did not take place. Obsessive drives towards what are perceived as wonderful ideas "for the good of the planet" with no thought of some balance in the decision making process have proven both here and all over Europe to be counterproductive. The simple dictum of "Look before you leap" has been ignored in way too much of what's gone on during Mr. Obama's time in office. And the really amazing thing is that neither he nor any of his team have learned anything from these huge mistakes. Back to that combination of arrogance, ignorance, and self-justification that has typified them from Day One. --Del
Robin Hoods Don't Smash Shop Windows: Shouldn't supposedly selfish conservatives—not idealistic liberals—be producing nasty mobs? By John Agresto
Excerpt: The myth persists that the left—while it might often be naive and unrealistic—still has its heart in the right place. Those who want to redistribute income are the gallant Robin Hoods of contemporary life. "Occupiers" and socialists clearly have real concern for the downtrodden and poor. Those who demand social justice are more sincere, more compassionate, more spiritual, and surely more Christian than the rest of us.
A ‘blowing smoke’ re-election strategy
Excerpt: ‘Axelrod is endeavoring not to panic.” So reads a sentence in John Heilemann’s exhaustive article on Barack Obama’s campaign in this week’s New York magazine. While Heilemann‘s sympathies are undoubtedly with Obama, he does a fine job of summarizing the arguments and tactics of both sides.
O’s assassinations-- If W had done it ...
Excerpt: The New York Times and Newsweek both ran long, largely admiring articles on how President Obama selects individual terrorists to terminate with extreme prejudice. The administration’s “smart power” isn’t working out so well, but smart killing is a smash success.
'Beware a rerun of the Great Panic of 2008': Head of World Bank warns Europe is heading for 'danger zone' as world markets suffer bleakest day of the year so far
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2153324/Markets-facing-rerun-Great-Panic-2008-Head-World-Bank-warns-Europe-heading-danger-zone-bleakest-day-global-economy-year.html#ixzz1wmcQ9fLl
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2153324/Markets-facing-rerun-Great-Panic-2008-Head-World-Bank-warns-Europe-heading-danger-zone-bleakest-day-global-economy-year.html#ixzz1wmcQ9fLl
Excerpt: The head of the World Bank yesterday warned that financial markets face a rerun of the Great Panic of 2008. On the bleakest day for the global economy this year, Robert Zoellick said crisis-torn Europe was heading for the ‘danger zone’. (More economic bad news, but expected. Key to the US is the election of Romney in November. Perhaps industry fears will end and recovery will begin. The US does not have the money to help bail out Europe, but why would any Nation want to waste money on entitlement countries like Greece...too late for them! They will not help themselves. --GBH)
Small businesses feel hit of state (CA) unfriendliness
Excerpt: California, well-known for not being the friendliest state for businesses, was ranked the worst in the country for friendliness to small business, according to a report released this week, and the Imperial County area had one of the worst of the worst ranks.
LA Top Cops Partner With Islamists
Excerpt: Few local law-enforcement officials in the United States have proven themselves more Islamist-friendly than Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, whose department has been dogged by allegations of malfeasance in office, and the Los Angeles Police Department's top deputy handling counterterrorism issues, Michael Downing. Downing has expressed a benign view of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian-based fundamentalist movement which seeks a global Islamic Caliphate as its ultimate objective. During a May 2011 town hall meeting, he acknowledged the group is operating in the United States, but his biggest concern was "not to demonize the Brotherhood here."
Nancy Pelosi: ObamaCare Ironclad because “I Know the Constitution”
Excerpt: When asked why she is so confident the Supreme Court will uphold the health care law, Pelosi says, “Because I know the Constitution.” “This bill is ironclad,” she continued.
Another shoe to drop for the US dollar
Excerpt: This week saw yet another move from the Chinese government to internationalize its currency and eventually overtake the dollar.
The latest? Direct foreign exchange between the Chinese renminbi and the Japanese yen.
766,000 More Women Unemployed Today Than When Obama Took Office
Excerpt: The number of American women who are unemployed was 766,000 individuals greater in May 2012 than in January 2009, when President Barack Obama took office, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Obama's War on Women. ~Bob.)
Team Romney Uses Obama's Media Pals To Hit Him With Solyndra
Excerpt: The effective aggressiveness of the Romney campaign has been on full display this week, starting with Romney's very wise decision not to jump in the media trap of repudiating Donald Trump all the way to yesterday, when Romney out-community organized Team Obama by giving them a taste of their own heckle-medicine. The ad below, released yesterday by the RNC, is standalone brilliant, hitting and defining Obama with Solyndra. But there's something larger at work that's also worth mentioning. Have a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GrHAApqp8Cw
DOJ sues Las Vegas casino for screening non-citizen workers
Excerpt: While proponents of immigration enforcement have been told that the federal government monitors the hiring of illegal aliens by the private sector, including adherence to the federal employment verification (I-9) program, Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department appears to have made a decision to penalize organizations that zealously comply.
10 Reasons Obama Must Disclose His College Records
Excerpt: An objective press corps ought to be curious. But it has by and large refused to pursue the issue, even though it hectored George W. Bush to release his college transcripts.
Jealous God Obama Attacks Rival Religions. By Stella Paul
Excerpt: Thou shall have no other gods before Obama. For Obama is a jealous god who demands total obeisance. In 2008, Americans voted to deify a unique man of history. Obama is much more than the first president to be raised by a transsexual nanny in Indonesia. He's also the very first commander-in-chief to thank his drug dealer in his high school yearbook, instead of his mom.
Excerpt: Today’s jobs number are so weak that financial-market participants are beginning to see another abyss in our future. One big factor is the extent to which the European economies are beginning to crater in a manner that is depressingly familiar.
Sybil Hussein Obama?
Excerpt: The man who apparently believes he is "The First Jewish President" has revealed yet another persona meant to wow a particular demographic. But by adding one more element to the amalgamation of the composite individual running the country, who evolves faster than Charles Darwin could say "natural selection," Obama is proving that he actually knows less about everything other than race-baiting and class warfare than any other president, because he learned about those things.
Obama’s Insult to American Jews, the Same Day as His ‘Gaffe’ on Poland
Excerpt: The president’s Poland gaffe at the Medal of Freedom award ceremony has got the most attention, but one must also look at what transpired later the same day. After the president finished awarding the Medal of Freedom on Tuesday to various recipients, many of them Jewish, he met privately with a group of Conservative Jewish rabbis and Jewish community leaders. … If anyone accused Obama of being “a puppet of the Israel lobby,” it was the same left-wing friends and black nationalists who supported him when they assumed once he got in office he would be an advocate for the Palestinians….
Ten game changers that could decide the race between Obama and Romney
Excerpt: Ten potential game changers loom over the presidential race and could determine whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney wins in November, according to political experts. Both campaigns and their networks of allies have plotted strategy for months but as the military adage holds, no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.
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Robert A. Hall
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