Egyptian guards slaughtered in attack on Israel border
Excerpt: Gunmen killed at least 15 Egyptian border guards before smashing through the country's border with Israel in stolen armoured vehicles, Egyptian and Israeli officials said. The Israeli military said the gunmen crossed into Israel near the Kerem Shalom (Karm Abu Salem) crossing after killing the guards on the Egyptian side of the border.
Mission Failure: Afghanistan. By Tom Engelhardt
Excerpt: Imagine for a moment that almost once a week for the last six months somebody somewhere in this country had burst, well-armed, into a movie theater showing a superhero film and fired into the audience. ... Well, the equivalent has happened in Afghanistan (minus, of course, the superhero movies).
Gunman kills 6 at Wisconsin Sikh temple before being fatally shot by police; motive unknown
Excerpt: An unidentified gunman killed six people at a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee on Sunday in a rampage that left terrified congregants hiding in closets and others texting friends outside for help. The suspect was killed outside the temple in a shootout with police officers. (Likely Sikh on Sikh violence, though Muslims don't like Sikhs much. Americans often think Sikhs are Muslims because of the turban. ~Bob.)
Excerpt: In what is becoming an increasingly common event, a gunfight erupted between two local Taliban groups in northern Balkh province, leaving three "key insurgent commanders" dead and 10 other militants wounded, according to local Afghan police officials who spoke with Pajhwok Afghan News. The clash erupted following a disagreement between Taliban militants belonging to the Mullah Naqibullah Mahaz (or Mullah Naqibullah Front) and those associated with the Mullah Toofan Mahaz in the Gala Joy area of Chahar Bolak district on Saturday night. (I'm Bob Hall and I approve this outcome.)
Excerpt: The Coalition confirmed that al Qaeda's leader for Kunar province and his deputy were killed in Friday's airstrike in the Watahpur district. Both al Qaeda leaders were Pakistani citizens, the International Security Assistance Force told The Long War Journal. Additionally, an al Qaeda facilitator who ran IED training camps was killed in a separate strike in Watahpur on the same day. . (I'm Bob Hall and I approve this outcome too.)
Excerpt: The US killed five al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters in a drone airstrike in eastern Yemen. The strike is the first in Yemen in more than a month.
The unmanned Predators or Reapers fired a pair of missiles at a vehicle in Al Qotn in Hadramout province earlier today, AFP reported. Five AQAP fighters were killed in the strike. (This one too. Good weekend. ~Bob.)
The State Mess Is A-Coming
Excerpt: The WSJ’s OpEd page has once again highlighted the State fiscal mess — and it’s time for we as citizens, with an election coming up, to demand answers: The slow-motion collapse of the government status quo across the Western world is obvious, but the reality is the opposite of what Twain said about Wagner’s music—it’s worse than it sounds. That’s the message of a recent report from Richard Ravitch and Paul Volcker that deserves far more attention than it has received. (There is a separate chapter in The Coming Collapse of the American Republic highlighting state and local fiscal problems. Nothing since publication has gotten better. ~Bob.)
Countdown to 'Taxmageddon': What's Next?
Excerpt: Mark your calendars: Jan. 1, 2013, could be one of the biggest tax disaster days in recent memory. Or not. That's the day when current tax rates, compliments of the Bush tax cuts, are slated to expire. That's also when the employee payroll tax rate, now 4.2 percent, is scheduled to go back up to 6.2 percent. More estates will face higher taxes in 2013. And don't forget about the 70-plus temporary tax breaks known as extenders that haven't yet been renewed for 2012 or 2013.
Editorials (San Diego Union)» Romney in a landslide
Excerpt: Most polls see the presidential race as a dead heat. But several pundits, such as Dick Morris, say that Barack Obama should be well ahead some 90 days out if the incumbent is to win. Morris points out that historically, 75 percent of undecided voters ultimately fall to the challenger. If that were to happen, Mitt Romney will become the next president of the United States in a landslide. The U-T believes there will be a landslide win for Romney, largely due to the failure of the Obama economic policies and repudiation of his attempt to move the country toward European socialism. (I don't think these chickens have been hatched. ~Bob.)
Israel: Obama's Wedge Issue. By Caroline Glick
Excerpt: Less than 100 days before the US presidential elections, the Obama administration is openly denying Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem. Can this be a vote-getter? Last week, the Emergency Committee for Israel released an ad titled, "O, Jerusalem." The commercial showed administration officials squirming when asked to name the capital of Israel, and highlighted the recent refusals of White House and State Department spokespeople to acknowledge that Jerusalem is Israel's capital city.
Fantastic example of PC in the government
Excerpt Here we have a Congressman questioning a high federal official about who and what it is who has attacked us, and who we are fighting. The question asked is simple- is "violent Islamist extremism" our enemy? Watch as the fed dodges the question left, right, sideways and upside down to avoid answering it. He is NOT going to acknowledge "violent Islamist extremism" (which is the simplest and most accurate way to describe Al Queda, the Taliban, and other violent groups like those engaged in genocide in Sudan, etc, ) no matter what! Al Queda is "murderers" (OK, but what is their basic motivation?), and we are "not involved in war with Islam" (not an answer to the question that was asked), etc, etc. Just watch this for 3-4 minutes (or until your head is about to explode). This goes on and on, and is just truly surreal. But that's what happens when PC thinking and enslavement to the narrative of PC thought take hold. This guy is a highly paid public servant, but he is not serving us at all in his mania to avoid acknowledging the truth anyone with a brain sees in the events of the past years. The phrase "violent Islamist extremism" carefully avoids the great mass of Muslim, and even the fraction of the fundamentalists who are not violent. All of the Muslim groups and individuals who have and are engaging in serious violence against Westerners, Christians, other non-Muslims, and even other Muslims do fit in that simple description. But for whatever crazy, illogical, and arbitrary reasons, the PC position is that we cannot admit it. It'd be like saying we weren't fighting Nazis in WW2, just some fraction of the Germans who were murderers. --Del
Late Sen. Byrd’s FBI files reveal CIA leak uproar
Excerpt: Byrd, who died in June 2010 at age 92, had sought the FBI intelligence while suspecting that communists and subversives were guiding the civil rights cause, the records show. Decades before he became history’s longest-serving member of Congress, or gained the title “King of Pork” for sending federal funds to West Virginia, the Democrat had stalled and voted against major civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s. He also belonged to the Ku Klux Klan while a young man in the 1940s, and the FBI cited that membership while weighing his requests for classified information, the records show.
Romney: Obama lawsuit targeting military voting law an ‘outrage’
excerpt: The Romney camp on Saturday moved quickly to cast the Obama campaign’s voting rights lawsuit in Ohio as anti-military. The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee this week filed a lawsuit to block a new Ohio law that expands early voting rights for service members, allowing military members to vote up until the Monday before the election — three days longer than is allowed for the rest of the public. (You'd think if an illegal immigrant is allowed to vote five or six times in an election because he doesn't have to show an ID, a member of our military would be allowed to vote once. ~Bob.)
Frightening Historical Quote from Author Tom Kratman, LtCol, USA (Ret.)
Still, the central thing about the whole Corcyraean civil war is one line, "First of all words had to lose their ordinary meaning and take on the meanings now assigned to them." If you think about the modern attempts to manipulate the language for political ends - PC speak but also other one off attempts - you will see that Thucydides is discussing something monstrous that is monstrous in our present day lives too. --TK. (We exchanged e-mails about the Peloponnesian War, or, rather, my ignorance thereof. I will try to rectify that. ~Bob)
Shooter who aided officer gives his account of Peach House RV Park incident
Excerpt: Vic Stacy, the resident of Peach House RV Park who came to the aid of Early Police Sgt. Steven Means Sunday after two people were killed by Charles Ronald Conner, insists he's not a hero — he just did what had to be done.
Lack Of Tax Transparency: Members of Congress quick to criticize secrecy but refuse to release own returns. By Kevin G. Hall and David Lightmanhttp://reason.com/blog/2012/07/19/hey-congress-where-are-your-tax-returns
Excerpt: Rep. Nancy Pelosi was emphatic. Mitt Romney’s refusal to release more than two years of his personal tax returns, she said, makes him unfit to win confirmation as a member of the president’s Cabinet, let alone to hold the high office himself. Sen. Harry Reid went further: Romney’s refusal to make public more of his tax records makes him unfit to be a dogcatcher. They do not, however, think that standard of transparency should apply to them. (A propos our discussion about Romney being provoked to revealing his financial history in excruciating detail as fodder for his political enemies, I thought you would appreciate this review, a version of which appeared in the Tribune this week. As we agreed, no one, not even Warren Buffett who has shilled for Obama's redistributionist ideas, volunteers to pay more than he owes according to the tax rules in force at the time of filing. If an aggressive (if not politicized) IRS has not come after you as a tax cheat, you ought to be given a pass as an honest citizen. If, on the other hand, political enemies in Congress want to criticize Romney for taking advantage of loopholes they enacted, they should be held to the same standards of openness. In fact, no once has accused Romney of a conflict of interest, just for being rich and taking advantage of the tax code. As this article reports, they are hypocrites not only because they enacted the very loopholes they and their benefactors (collusionist cronies) may benefit from, they have expressly excused themselves from even a basic level of financial scrutiny lest they be exposed to conflict of interest criticism. Aren't the Democrats all about fairness? Cordially, Larry Greenberg)
Hunter, IEDs and campaign contributions
Excerpt: Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, has been pushing for the Army to take seriously requests from the field from service members who want to use bomb-prediction software from Palo Alto-based Palantir Technologies. So how much has the company given to Hunter? None, according to records and Hunter’s office. In fact, many of Hunter’s top contributors are members of a consortium that makes the software currently used by the Army.
DOJ suspiciously dismissed human trafficking case, says watchdog group
Excerpt: The U.S. Justice Department once again failed to fulfill its mandate to prosecute criminal activity to the fullest extent of the law, a public-interest group dedicated to weeding out government corruption, fraud and waste noted on Friday. While the story received scant mention in the national news media, its shocking display of ineptitude by Attorney General Eric Holder and his staff should give pause to any clear-thinking American citizen, said political strategist and attorney Joseph Pankowsky.
Why the IOC will never memorialize the '72 Munich massacre
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/27/why-ioc-will-never-memorialize-72-munich-massacre/
Excerpt: Recently, new information about the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games was released by German police as a result of pressure from German investigative reporters. It was reported that the “Black September” terrorists were helped by a Nazi group in Germany to get fake IDs, weapons and access to the Olympic Village.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/27/why-ioc-will-never-memorialize-72-munich-massacre/
Excerpt: Recently, new information about the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games was released by German police as a result of pressure from German investigative reporters. It was reported that the “Black September” terrorists were helped by a Nazi group in Germany to get fake IDs, weapons and access to the Olympic Village.
Nostalgia for the Front - Teilhard de Chardin
http://www.vlib.us/wwi/resources/teilharddechardin.html
Excerpt from Introduction: Dr. Annette Becker, in her book War and Faith, confirmed that Nostalgie shocked his later admirers; they failed to find here the scholar's mind open to challenging thought, (2) meaning that they found that their idol displayed feet of clay in his portrayal of his experience in war as something transcendent, even at times glorious, in a terrific sort of way. Disapproval resulted, despite the fact that, as Dr Becker also notes, 'an exalted vision of the war, with its beneficent aspects, even including death, was shared by many long-term [my italics] combatants!.'(3)
http://www.vlib.us/wwi/resources/teilharddechardin.html
Excerpt from Introduction: Dr. Annette Becker, in her book War and Faith, confirmed that Nostalgie shocked his later admirers; they failed to find here the scholar's mind open to challenging thought, (2) meaning that they found that their idol displayed feet of clay in his portrayal of his experience in war as something transcendent, even at times glorious, in a terrific sort of way. Disapproval resulted, despite the fact that, as Dr Becker also notes, 'an exalted vision of the war, with its beneficent aspects, even including death, was shared by many long-term [my italics] combatants!.'(3)
Costs, conflicts arise in Reid push for green power
Excerpt: Say this about U.S. Sen. Harry Reid: He really believes in renewable energy. ... Now Reid is pushing for a Chinese company he played a key role in recruiting to Nevada, ENN Mojave Energy LLC. The company plans a billion-dollar solar energy manufacturing and generating plant near Laughlin, but an ambitious development schedule is being threatened by a lack of green power customers.
Iftikhar Ahmed, 52, and wife Farzana, 49, of Warrington, Cheshire, suffocated the 17-year-old with a plastic bag
Excerpt: For nearly a decade, Mr Ahmed and second wife Farzana kept up the sham that they were grieving parents whose beautiful daughter had been kidnapped.
In reality they were killers who murdered 17-year-old Shafilea because she wanted to embrace Western culture - as her father had done in younger years – and then terrorised the rest of their family into a sickening nine-year cover-up.
Excerpt: The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan has announced that its emir, Abu Usman Adil, has died, and named Uthman Ghazi as the new leader of the al Qaeda-linked terror group. (You can't say there's no chance for advancement in these groups. ~Bob.)
Biden Warns Trial Lawyers: 'Imagine the Supreme Court After Four Years of Romney'
Excerpt: Vice President Joe Biden, speaking to a group of trial lawyers this afternoon in Chicago, delivered a stern warning. "Imagine the Supreme Court after four years of Romney," said Biden, according to the pool report. "This is not scare tactics, just what he said. If you’re frightened it’s because you should be. (Yes, imagine a Romney Presidency being bad for trial lawyers, you know, the guys who become super rich running class action suits that we all pay for or the specious malpractice suits that make doctors run tons of unnecessary tests to cover their butts? There's a group of people for whom all us regular citizens have nothing but great affection, right? Trust Joe to get something right that actually is bad for his side! --Del. Trial lawyers are among the biggest Dem contributors. ~Bob.)
Soros Election-Rigging Scheme Collapses
Excerpt: A George Soros-backed scheme that paved the way for Al Franken’s 2008 theft of a U.S. Senate seat has collapsed months ahead of the critical November elections.
Rumors of the death of the Secretary of State Project had been circulating for months. Michael Kieschnick, co-founder of the Secretary of State Project, confirmed that his group has shut down in an interview at the recent “Take Back the American Dream” conference in Washington, D.C. (T his is really important, it hobbles the Leftists from manipulating elections as they succeeded in doing in the past. --Del)
China’s production of Rare Earth Elements. By Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh
Excerpt: How rare are these rare earth elements? It turns out, the 15 elements called lanthanides are not so rare after all, some more abundant than copper, lead, gold, and platinum. They are just difficult to extract and release radioactive byproducts during mining that must be carefully disposed of and stored. The rare earth oxides and metals are used in catalysts, glass, polishing, metal alloys, magnets, phosphors, ceramics, medicine, batteries, engines, and defense
Spain's Green Disaster a Lesson for America
Excerpt: One the nations he held up as an example for America's green technology effort was Spain. However, President Obama may like Spain's green technology program, but the Spanish -- not so much. One study has declared it a colossal failure.
9 billion in Obama economic stimulus to create 910 jobs . . . $9.89 million per job? The Obama administration has closed 75 percent of previously available oil shale resources.
Excerpt: This is in sharp contrast to the Obama Administration’s canceling lease sales for oil shale deposits in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah early in the President’s term and significantly downsizing development plans for those resources since then. The United States has the largest shale oil deposits in the world, totaling 2.6 trillion barrels, but access to our natural resources is being deliberately restricted by the administration policy.
Crime way up after stop-&-frisk drop
Excerpt: Major crimes spiked by more than 12 percent after the number of stop-and-frisks conducted by the NYPD dropped dramatically earlier this year, The Post has learned. Figures show there were 24,751 major crimes committed between Jan. 1 and March 31, a period when cops stopped 203,500 individuals and recovered 881 guns, according to sources.
Robert A. Hall
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