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Thursday, February 14, 2013

Another One Leaves The Nest

Like rats leaving a sinking ship, Karen Mills of the Small Business Administration is the latest Obama staff person to leave the cabinet. Although it is normal for a certain percentage of cabinet members to leave after an election, however, we seem to have an extensive number leaving including the big three, State, Defense and CIA.

The remarkable change in steady experienced hands (Hillary, Peneta) to inexperienced political hacks (Kerry, Brennen and Hagel) shows how the Administration is moving to the left from their already socialistic leanings. It also shows  Obama's real beliefs as expressed by those who he has picked to follow his orders.

This next four years (or more) will change America from the leader of the West and the "light on the hill" to a second or third rate despotic dictatorship.  How quickly we will fall.

Conservative Tom



AND YET ANOTHER CABINET MEMBER EXITS THE WHITE HOUSE

And Yet Another Cabinet Member Exits the White House
Karen Mills arrives to testify during a House Small Business Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, June 27, 2012. (Getty Images).
The head of President Obama’s Small Business Administration on Monday announced that she will not stay on for a second term.
“After four years as Administrator of the SBA, I have let President Obama know that I will not be staying for a second term. I will stay on until my successor is confirmed to ensure a smooth and seamless transition,” said Karen Mills in a statement posted to the agency’s website.
For those of you unfamiliar with the agency, the SBA arranges loans, loan guarantees and other assistance to small businesses. Most recently, the SBA stepped in to assist businesses hurt by Superstorm Sandy, approving more than $1.1 billion in disaster loans to residents and businesses in states affected by the storm.
In a statement Monday, Obama applauded Mills for “making it easier for small businesses to interact with the federal government”:
I want to thank Administrator Mills for her outstanding work on behalf of America’s small business owners and entrepreneurs. I asked Karen to lead the Small Business Administration because I knew she had the skills and experience to help America’s small businesses recover from the worst economic crisis in generations — and that’s exactly what she’s done.
Over the last four years, Karen has made it easier for small businesses to interact with the federal government by reducing paperwork and cutting through red tape. She has played a leading role in my Administration’s efforts to support start-ups and entrepreneurs.
And she was instrumental in the passage of the Small Business Jobs Act.
Because of Karen’s hard work and dedication, our small businesses are better positioned to create jobs and our entire economy is stronger. I want to thank Karen and am grateful for her service.
Mills is the latest executive branch official to leave at the beginning of the president’s second term.
She joins Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, and Energy Secretary Steve Chu in saying “no thanks” to a second term with President Barack Obama.
Mills has served as SBA administrator since 2009.

Muslim Brotherhood's US Plans

Anyone who thinks that the Muslim Brotherhood is benign, the following posting illustrates the real story.  They are far from a mild mannered knitting circle and their plans do not involve tea and crumpets. 

Why the US administration thinks they can work with an organization that intends to take over America clearly shows how out of touch and naive our leaders are. We also think it is very dangerous to avoid the obvious.

Conservative Tom

Muslim Brotherhood Memo Circa 1991: How To Take Over America Without Anyone Even Noticing

Unknown - ibloga.blogspot.com,  September 16th, 2007

The Holy Land Foundation Trial in Texas is turning over some very big rocks, and we get to see what slimy creatures are crawling around beneath.
For instance, the Muslim Brotherhood outlined their goal to take over America through non-violent means in a memo which was revealed just within the past few days.
“Our strategy is this,” President Bush said last month. “We will fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America.”
He was talking about jihadists, of course. And Mr. Bush is behind the curve. The president apparently missed the smoking-gun 1991 document his own Justice Department introduced into evidence at the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas. The FBI captured it in a raid on a Muslim suspect’s home in Virginia.
This “explanatory memorandum,” as it’s titled, outlines the “strategic goal” for the North American operation of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan). Here’s the key paragraph:
The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a “Civilization-Jihadist” process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack.
The entire 18-page platform outlines a plan for the long haul. It prescribes the Muslim Brotherhood’s comprehensive plan to set down roots in civil society. It begins by both founding and taking control of American Muslim organizations, for the sake of unifying and educating the U.S. Muslim community – this to prepare it for the establishment of a global Islamic state governed by sharia.
It sounds like a conspiracy theory out of a bad Hollywood movie – but it’s real. Husain Haqqani, head of Boston University’s Center for International Relations and a former Islamic radical, confirms that the Brotherhood “has run most significant Muslim organizations in the U.S.” as part of the plan outlined in the strategy paper.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Birthday Party Changes--No More Candles


NO MORE BLOWING OUT CANDLES ON BIRTHDAY CAKES! — DO WE HAVE A NEW NANNY STATE CHAMPION?

Australia Declares Kids Should No Longer Blow Out Candles on Birthday Cakes
(shutterstock.com)
Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has just declared that children should no longer be allowed to blow out candles on birthday cakes at parties. The official guidelines state:
‘To prevent the spread of germs when the child blows out the candles, parents should either provide a separate cupcake, with a candle if they wish, for the birthday child.’
Australian news organizations are reporting that doctors are speaking out against the candle ban, saying that it goes too far. Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton addressed the new rule:
“If somebody sneezes on a cake, I probably don’t want to eat it either — but if you’re blowing out candles, how many organisms are transferred to a communal cake, for goodness sake?”
Aussie Health Minister Tanya Plibersek, categorically rejects the outcry that the new guidelines go too far. The minister told ABC radio:
“They are not rules and we’re not policing them. These are suggestions for childcare workers if they want to reduce the spread of infections…”
If the new directive for birthday cakes sounds like it’s going a bit too far, wait until you learn about the other instructions from the NHMRC. Children playing in sandboxes are now expected to wash their hands with sanitizer, before and after digging in the sand.
The possible overuse of hand sanitizer has been the subject of much discussion in the medical community. Lisa Adams, a certified Nurse Practitioner at Paoli Hospital in Philadelphia addressed the question, “Could I be using hand sanitizer too frequently?”
By over-cleaning your hands and protecting yourself too much, you could actually be increasing your chances of getting sick by not allowing your body the opportunity to be exposed to bacteria or germs. A little sniffling and sneezing now and then can actually be good for you.
The news of Australia’s “birthday cake ban” (it’s not really a ban, more of a strong guideline) caught fire on Twitter and seems to have forced one of the country’s health minsters to respond in the social media world. Witness the tweet from Kate Ellis, Minister for Early Childhood and Childcare.
Australia Declares Kids Should No Longer Blow Out Candles on Birthday Cakes
Image: Twitter
Where do you stand on the idea of stopping kids from blowing out candles on birthday cakes? Take our Blaze Poll.

BIRTHDAY CAKES & CANDLES

Should kids be banned from blowing out candles on birthday cake?
  • No! No! No! Stop the nanny state!
    82%
  • Yes - Most kids tend to slobber all over the frosting - gross!
    11%
  • I'm not sure - The tradition is nice, but. . 

Indonesia Being Taken Over By Sharia Law

Creeping Sharia comes to the most populace "modern" Indonesia. It will mean that the role of women will decline perceptively.   Is that the future of the rest of the world?  Where are the women's groups? Asleep at the switch!

Conservative Tom


Sharia Law Swallowing Indonesia

Mohshin Habib - Gatestone Institute,  February 7th, 2013

Indonesia, once a country of diversity, is now becoming a place for one-way Islam.
Although Indonesia, “the world's largest Muslim country” with an 87% Muslim population, was once considered a moderate Muslim country, day by day it has been leaning more and more towards conservative Islam and Sharia laws. Initiated in 2009, bylaws in the light of Sharia rulings were implemented that conflict with the values of human rights, and are creating a difficult land for minorities to live in.
Indonesian Aceh province authorities recently launched an initiative, despite opposition from human rights activists, to ban women from straddling motorcycles when riding behind a man. Suaidi Yahia, mayor of Lhokseumawe, the second largest city of the province, said to the Associated Press, “It is improper for women to sit astride. We implement Islamic law here.” He later said, “women sitting on motorbikes must not sit astride: it will provoke the male drivers.” Instead, they allow women to sit sidesaddle, which is dangerous on a motorcycle.
The objectives of the local authorities were apparently to prevent “showing a woman's curves;” it is against Islamic teachings, Yahia went on to say, unless it is an emergency. In a notice distributed to the government offices and villages of northern Aceh, they added that women are not allowed to hold onto the driver.
Last year, the mayor of Tasikmalaya in West Java proposed to veil all women, including non-Muslims. Mayor Syarif Hidayat vowed to implement Sharia law, to repay Muslim leaders who backed his election victory. The President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is serving his second term, also relies on the support of Muslim political parties.
Sharia law is spreading throughout all of the provinces of Indonesia; citizens are enacting their own variations of Islamic laws, and applying then to non-Muslims as well.
Although Western leaders have praised Indonesia as a model of “Muslim democracy,” as Muslims become more intolerant of its Christian minority, the increased Islamization of Indonesia renders these Christians more vulnerable. A few days ago, six Catholic schools in East Java finally gave in to a local ordinance that requires all Muslim students to be able to read and write Koranic verses, and said it will provide Islamic lessons for their Muslim students.
The head of the Ministry Office of Religious Affairs, Imam Mukhlis, told the Jakarta Post that the six schools had finally agreed to provide Islamic teachers for their Muslim students. Earlier the Blitar City Administration of East Java threatened to close down the six Catholic schools for their refusal to provide Islamic lessons to their Muslim students. In 2006, President Susilo tightened criteria for building a house of worship. More than 400 churches have been closed since he took office in 2004. The notorious Bali terrorist attack, as well as restrictions on hotels, bars, embassies, have all derived from these decade-long efforts of Islamization. By 2010, Indonesia had over 150 religiously motivated regulations restricting minorities' rights.
It is not only governmental initiatives that are disrupting the lives of Christians, Shiite Muslims, Bahais, Ahmadiyyans, Sufis and atheists. Individuals and groups have been engaging in terroristic attacks against non-Sunni Muslims. In August 2011, Muslim militants burned down three Christian churches on Sumatra. In an attack, in west Java in February 2011, three Ahmadiyyans were killed. A cameraman recorded the scene, posted on YouTube. In September 2010, Islamist militants burned down two churches, and stabbed an elderly Christian as he tried to defend the third site.
Western leaders need to understand that Indonesia, under its current government, can no longer be labeled a Muslim country that is risk-free for religious minorities. Even though, after exceptional international pressure, Indonesia's government cracked down on an the Al Qaeda affiliated group Jemaah Islamiyah, it has not yet even tried to apprehend other Islamist militants committing crimes against religious minorities. Indonesia, once a country of diversity, is now becoming a place for one-way Islam.

The Wild West in LA--Police SOP

One can only wonder who taught the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) how to do policing.  It is obvious from the following post by Bob Livingston, that they have not learned police procedure nor weapons use. If these officers are only one half as bad as the ones in the story, they all should be fired.

However, that is only part of the story. Should gun confiscation be instituted (as we believe Obama would love to do) these are the type of guys that are going to be collecting the weapons from you, the average law abiding citizen. Seems to us they will fire first and ask for your gun later! Of course, based on their marksmanship they have shown in the Dorner story, you probably are safest with them shooting at you!

One can only wonder what other city's police forces are like.  Are cops in Chicago, Washington D.C., New York and other cities around the country as wild, careless and undisciplined?  Why should the LAPD be an outlier? We doubt is an exception and that scares us even more.

Another random thought about the LAPD.  Evidently Chris Dorner had a problem (we are assuming that he reached his reward in the cabin at Big Bear, California last night), however, one can only wonder if these cops who acted so unprofessionally in trying to capture him, made his life a living hell. Maybe his complaints have merit.  We would never suggest that taking the law into your own hands is a rational thing to do, but when one reaches the end of their rope, who knows. We will never know as LAPD is in full cover up mode and anything that would back up Dorner's case has been shredded.

The right to own a gun is important and when we read stories like this, it makes us double down on the Second Amendment. Ragtag, unprofessional policemen/women are the last ones that we should need to depend upon in an emergency. We need to be able to defend ourselves.  LA has shown us, we are more endangered by the police than the bad guys.

Be Scared, Be Very Scared!

Conservative Tom








LA Cops On Wild Shooting Spree

February 13, 2013 by  
LA Cops On Wild Shooting Spree
SPECIAL
In Calfornia, black men and pickup drivershave begun — in an act of desperate self-preservation — to don shirts and signs emblazoned with the words ”Not Chris Dorner; Please Do Not Shoot.”
It’s a wise move, considering that Los Angeles LEOs (legally entitled to oppress) have not once but twice opened fire on pickups that only remotely looked like the gray Nissan Titan that rogue police officer Chris Dorner reportedly owned. By remotely, I mean that the trucks all had four wheels.
In the first instance, no fewer than seven police officers shot into the blue Toyota Tacoma occupied by two Hispanic women delivering newspapers. The women apparently did nothing more suspicious than follow their daily routine of driving slowly down a Torrance street while delivering their papers. The officers, under no immediate threat from the women and seemingly without giving them a chance to surrender or even identify themselves, blasted away.
According to news reports, not only was the women’s truck pockmarked with dozens of bullet holes, but houses, trees and adjacent cars had multiple bullet holes, meaning that officers of the LAPD are no more disciplined than the gangsters who shoot up LA neighborhoods. Despite the hail of bullets, the two women survived — further demonstrating the incompetence of the Los Angeles Police Department.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck immediately went into government functionary cover-up mode and declined to say how many officers were involved, what kind of weapons they used, how many bullets were fired and, perhaps most important, what kind of verbal warnings — if any — were given to the women before the shooting began, the Los Angeles Times reported.
According to the women’s lawyer, no warning was given. This means the LEOs in LA have become an execution squad.
“They still have to give the guy an opportunity to surrender. You can’t just execute him,” attorney Glen Jonas said. “It’s in these high-stress situations where you follow your training and they violated every piece of training they ever received.”
Not to be outdone by their incompetent brothers in blue, later that same morning across town police officers rammed their cruiser into a truck being driven by David Perdue, a white man out for a morning surf who had been stopped and questioned by police only moments earlier. After wrecking Purdue, officers fired numerous shots into the truck — again a different make and color from Dorner’s and without first ascertaining whether the person they were trying to kill even resembled the man they were looking for. (Hint: He didn’t.) The LA Times reported: “Perdue looks nothing like Dorner: He’s several inches shorter and about a hundred pounds lighter. And Perdue is white; Dorner is black.”
And again, officers were so incompetent that despite the barrage of bullets fired at almost point-blank range, Perdue was, thankfully, unhit, though he did suffer a concussion and wrenched shoulder.
“I don’t want to use the word buffoonery but it really is unbridled police lawlessness,” Robert Sheahen, Perdue’s attorney, told the LA Times. “These people need training and they need restraint.”
But why not use a term that fits? Buffoonery certainly works. Or even better perhaps, unbridled lawlessness.
Dorner went rogue, if you believe his online manifesto, to clear his name from the tarnish heaped on it and him by a corrupt LAPD. Dorner claims his firing stemmed from his efforts to report police abuses and malfeasance.
If even half of Dorner’s claims are true, the LAPD remains as corrupt and broken as it was in 1991 when Rodney King was beaten to within an inch of his life. And it’s understandable for LAPD officers to be on edge in light of Dorner’s threats. Dorner has killed three of the six people he shot at, and LAPD are now 0 for 3 despite their greater manpower and firepower.
This “shoot first and clean up the mess later” mindset is pervasive among the totalitarian class and demonstrates why so many of them support and continue to use no-knock warrants that have led to the deaths of dozens of people, many of them innocent and not even the target of a police search.
Where once it was “To protect and serve,” the motto for police has become “We shoot first to protect ourselves and don’t care about collateral damage.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Editor’s note: Several hours after I wrote this article, California law enforce officers announced that Dorner had perished while holed up in a cabin that caught fire after police fired tear gas into it.–BL

Israel Is The Victim of Wild Stories


David Horowitz: Why Israel is the Victim

David Horowitz (book), Daniel Greenfield (Foreword) - Israpundit,  February 12th, 2013

In “Why Israel is the Victim” David Horowitz tells the ugly tale of the war against Israel, laying bare the sordid hypocrisies and deceits behind its campaign of violence. No volume can contain the full story of Islamic terrorism or the courageous ways in which the ordinary Israeli confronts it in the streets of his cities. What this essay does tell is the story of the lies behind that terror.
Propaganda precedes war; it digs the graves and waits for them to be filled. The war against the Jews has never been limited to bullets and swords; it has always, first and foremost, been a war of words. When bombs explode on buses and rockets rain down on Israel homes, when mobs chant “Death to the Jews” and Iran races toward the construction of its genocidal bomb; the propaganda lies to cover up these crimes must be bold enough to contain not only the murders of individuals, but the prospective massacre of millions.
The lie big enough to fill a million graves is that Israel has no right to exist, that the Jewish State is an illegitimate entity, an occupier, a warmonger and a conqueror. The big lie is that Israel has sought out the wars that have given it no peace and that the outcomes of those wars make the atrocities of its enemies understandable and even justifiable. That is the big lie that David Horowitz confronts in “Why Israel is the Victim”.
From the latest outburst of violence to its earliest antecedents under the Palestine Mandate, “Why Israel is the Victim” exposes the true nature of the war and wipes away the lies used by the killers and their collaborators to lend moral authority to their crimes. It shows not only why Israel must exist, but also why its existence has been besieged by war and terror.
In “Why Israel is the Victim” David Horowitz tells the ugly tale of the war against Israel, laying bare the sordid hypocrisies and deceits behind its campaign of violence. No volume can contain the full story of Islamic terrorism or the courageous ways in which the ordinary Israeli confronts it in the streets of his cities. What this essay does tell is the story of the lies behind that terror.
Propaganda precedes war; it digs the graves and waits for them to be filled. The war against the Jews has never been limited to bullets and swords; it has always, first and foremost, been a war of words. When bombs explode on buses and rockets rain down on Israel homes, when mobs chant “Death to the Jews” and Iran races toward the construction of its genocidal bomb; the propaganda lies to cover up these crimes must be bold enough to contain not only the murders of individuals, but the prospective massacre of millions.
The lie big enough to fill a million graves is that Israel has no right to exist, that the Jewish State is an illegitimate entity, an occupier, a warmonger and a conqueror. The big lie is that Israel has sought out the wars that have given it no peace and that the outcomes of those wars make the atrocities of its enemies understandable and even justifiable. That is the big lie that David Horowitz confronts in “Why Israel is the Victim”.
From the latest outburst of violence to its earliest antecedents under the Palestine Mandate, “Why Israel is the Victim” exposes the true nature of the war and wipes away the lies used by the killers and their collaborators to lend moral authority to their crimes. It shows not only why Israel must exist, but also why its existence has been besieged by war and terror.
“Why Israel is the Victim” tells us why we should reject the “Blame Israel First” narrative that has so thoroughly saturated the mainstream media. It challenges the false hope of the Two State Solution in sections such as “Self-Determination Is Not the Agenda” and “Refugees: Jewish and Arab”. It confronts the myth of Palestinian victimhood in “The Policy of Resentment and Hate” and delivers a rousing restatement of the true history of the hate that led us to all this in “The Jewish Problem and Its ‘Solution’”.
Recent history shows us that it was not an Israeli refusal to grant the Palestinian Arabs the right of self-determination that led to their campaigns of terror, but that Palestinian self-determination empowered a people steeped in the hatred of Jews to engage in terrorism.
With the peace process each new level of Palestinian self-determination led to an intensified wave of terror against Israel, as chronicled in this pamphlet. In 2006 when the Palestinian Arabs were able to vote in a legislative election for the first time in ten years, they chose Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that drew its popularity from its unwillingness to even entertain the thought of peace with the Jewish State.
The 2006 election showed once again that the root cause of terrorism lay in a culture where political popularity came from killing Jews, not from bringing peace.
Hamas’ ability to carry out more spectacular terrorist attacks, employing motivated Islamist suicide bombers, gave it the inside track in the election. Where Western political parties might compete for popularity by offering voters peace and prosperity, Palestinian factions competed over who could kill more Jews. And Hamas won based on its killing sprees and its unwillingness to water down its platform of destroying Israel.
Hamas’ victory cannot be viewed as an isolated response to Israeli actions. Hamas leaders have stated that they were the vanguard of the Arab Spring, and the 2006 elections foreshadowed the regional downfall of Arab Socialists and the rise of the Islamists. The outcome of the elections in Egypt could have been foreseen from across the border in Gaza.
The defining test of any political philosophy in the Middle East is its ability to defeat foreign powers and drive out foreign influences. Israel has been the target of repeated efforts by both Arab Socialists and Islamists to destroy it because it is the nearest non-Arab and non-Muslim country in the region, but the regional ascendance of Islamists in the Arab Spring forces us to recognize that this phenomenon is not limited to Israel.
War is the force that gives Islamists meaning. During the last Gaza conflict, Hamas’ Al Aqsa TV broadcast the message, “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah.” Palestinian Arabs who define themselves through conflict, constructing a conflict-based national identity, were destined to become the vanguard of regional Islamization.
The ascendance of Hamas has made it clearer than ever that Palestinian terrorism is not the resistance of helpless people who only want autonomy and territory, but the calculated choice of determined aggressors.
If occupation were the issue, then the less territory Israel “occupied”, the more peace there would be. But the real world results of the peace experiment have led to the exact opposite outcome.
Israel’s withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon did not lead to peace, they led to greater instability as Hamas and Hezbollah exploited the power vacuum to take over Gaza and Lebanon, and used that newfound power to escalate the conflict with Israel. The less territory Israel has occupied, the more violence there has been directed against her.
The goal of the terrorists has never been an Israeli withdrawal and a separate peace, but the perpetuation of the conflict, and the elimination of the Jewish state.
Half a year after Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas swept the Palestinian legislative elections. Another half a year after that, a Hamas raid netted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit as a hostage. Barely a year after Israel had withdrawn from Gaza; Hamas had found a way to bring Israeli soldiers back into Gaza for a renewal of the conflict.
Cut off from attacking Israel directly by a blockade, Hamas deepened its investment in long-range weapons systems, even while complaining that its people were going hungry. After its takeover of Gaza, it significantly improved its weapons capabilities. In 2004, it had achieved its first Kassam fatality killing a 4-year-old boy on his way to a Sderot nursery school, but by 2006, its capabilities had so dramatically improved that it was able to launch its first Katyusha rocket at Ashkelon, the third largest city in Israel’s south with a population of over 100,000.
As the volume and range of Hamas’ rockets increased, Israel was forced to take action. In 2004, Israel suffered 281 rocket attacks. By 2006, that number had increased to over 1,700. In 2008, the number of rocket and mortar attacks approached 4,000 triggering Operation Cast Lead, also known as the Gaza War.
Operation Cast Lead destroyed enough of Hamas’ stockpiles and capabilities to reduce rocket attacks down to the 2004 and 2005 levels, but another dramatic increase in attacks in 2012, with over 2,000 rockets fired into Israel, combined with the smuggling of Fajr 5 rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, forced Israel to carry out a series of strikes against Hamas in Operation Pillar of Defense.
Both times Israel did not choose a conflict of opportunity, but reacted to a disturbing level of Hamas violence, and had nothing to gain from the conflict except for a temporary reduction of violence.
War is a choice. Hamas has chosen war over and over again and the Palestinian Arabs have chosen Hamas. After six years of fighting, in a recent poll 9 out of 10 Palestinian Arabs agreed with the tactics of Hamas proving that their violence is not a reflexive response to occupation, but a choice. The violence does not spring from the occupation. The occupation springs from their violence.
By choosing Hamas in 2006 and today, the Palestinian Arabs were not rejecting peace, for they had never chosen peace. The difference between Hamas and Arafat’s Fatah lay not in a choice between war and peace, but between overt war and covert war. Both Hamas and Fatah had dedicated themselves to the destruction of the Jewish State. The practical difference between them is that Hamas refuses to even pretend to recognize Israel’s right to exist for the sake of extracting strategic territory through negotiations.
By choosing Hamas, the Palestinian Arabs were sending the message that they felt confident enough to be able to dispense with Fatah’s dissembling and strong enough to no longer need to lie to Israel and America about wanting peace.
The ascendance of Hamas is the logical progression of the entire history of the conflict that you will read about in this pamphlet. It is the inevitable outcome of a war of destruction based on race and religion. It contains within it the inescapable truth that peace is farthest away when the terrorist groups who would destroy Israel are strongest.
Israel’s attempt to make peace with the Palestinians has not ushered in an era of peace; instead it has served as a microcosm of the first fifty years of the conflict chronicled in “Why Israel is the Victim.” A slow bloody recapitulation of the unfortunate truth that the Israeli-Arab conflict is not a war of land, but a war of blood, that is not being fought to settle the ownership of a few hills or a few miles, but to exterminate the nearly 6 million Jews living among those miles and hills.
Looking down on the earth from space, Israel appears as only a tiny strip of land wedged at an angle between Africa, Europe and the Middle East against the Mediterranean Sea. From up here there is little to distinguish the otherwise indistinct land and no way to conceive of the terrible life and death struggle taking place in the hills, deserts and cities below.
The Jewish State, like the Jewish People, is small in size but great in presence. The scattered people that half the world has tried to destroy have formed into a nation that half the world is trying to destroy again. Only four years separated the Nazi gas chambers of 1944 from the invading Arab armies of 1948, who, along with the Nazi-funded Muslim Brotherhood, were bent on wiping out the indigenous Jewish population along with the Holocaust survivors who had made their way to the ports and shoals of the rebuilt Jewish State.
Before 1948, the Jews of Israel lived in a state of constant victimization at the hands of Islamic leaders such as Haj Amin al-Husseini, Hitler’s Mufti, and Izz ad-Din al-Qassam of The Black Hand gang, after whom Hamas’ Qassam rockets are named. After 1948 they were forced to live in a state of constant vigilance against the invasions of armies and the bombs, bullets and shells of terrorists.
Once Israel had won its independence hardly a single decade passed without another war of aggression against her. From 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 to 1982, the coming of each new decade meant a new war. Nor was there peace between these wars. When Gaza and the West Bank were in Egyptian and Jordanian hands, Fedayeen terrorists used them as bases to invade Israel and carry out attacks within the 1948 borders. When Israel turned these territories over to the Palestinian Authority, they once again became bases of terror.
At no point in time, regardless of the date, the prime minister or the policy, did Israel enjoy peace. Whether Israel was led by the right or by the left, whether it made war or peace, the violence of its enemies remained unchanged. No matter how often Israel changed, how it was transformed by waves of immigration, by political and religious movements, by peace programs and technological booms, its enemies remained unwaveringly bent on its destruction.
As a nation of wandering exiles, Jews had lived with the knowledge that they had no rights that could not be taken away at a whim and no certainty of safety that would endure beyond the next explosion of violence. That is still how Israel lives today, no longer as a wandering people, but as a nation alone.
The way that a majority treats a minority is a test of its character. Nazi Germany showed what it intended for Europe with its treatment of the Jews. As did the Soviet Union. The Muslim world has likewise shown its intentions toward the rest of the world with its treatment of Israel; the only non-Muslim country in the region.
Europe’s apathy toward Hitler’s depredations in the 1930s foreshadowed its unwillingness to halt Nazi territorial expansionism. The apathy of the international community toward the war against Israel warns us of a similar apathy in a conflict that will extend as far beyond the borders of the Jewish State, as Nazi atrocities extended beyond the broken windows of the synagogues of Berlin.
Within the pages of this pamphlet you will find the story of this new war against the Jews, as a people, and against Israel, as a Jewish State.
The old saying, “A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on,” is truer than ever in the age of the Internet when the speed of lies has become instantaneous. The pamphlet that you are about to read represents an equally instantaneous response to those lies with the best possible weapon; the truth.
Arm yourself with it.
Daniel Greenfield, Shillman Fellow.

Top Innovative Companies in Israel


The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Israel

Nadav Shemer - fastcompany.com,  February 11th, 2013

1.  SodaStream
For providing an alternative to bottles. Virtually unknown until a few years ago, SodaStream is now the world’s largest manufacturer and distributor of DIY home carbonation systems, selling its brands in more than 60,000 retail outlets in 45 countries. How much of a threat does it pose to traditional soda sellers? In February, CBS axed an ad created by SodaStream, presumably because it showed bottles by two of its regular advertising partners–Coke and Pepsi–vanishing into thin air.
2.  Xsight Systems
For keeping airport runways safe. Foreign Object Debris costs the aviation industry around $13 billion per year and famously downed an Air France Concord supersonic aircraft in 2000. Xsight’s FAA-approved FODetect system has emerged as one of the leading solutions, using hybrid radar and electro-optical technology to detect junk on runways. Boston’s Logan Airport was the first to test it in 2009, and Paris Charles De Gaulle and Bangkok Suvarnabhumi installed it in 2012.
3.  Waze Mobile
For crowdsourcing GPS navigation. Waze gathers map data and user-submitted information from its nearly 30 million app users, and provides recommended routes, traffic updates and even fuel prices in real time. In October, 2012, the company also rolled out more personalized features: If friends are all meeting up at one spot, the app gives real-time updates on everyone’s travels, or can map a route for how one person can reach another.
4.  Galil Software
For bringing tech jobs to Arab communities. Israel’s large Arab minority is underrepresented in the local workforce, particularly in the tech industry. But that is changing thanks to companies like Galil Software, a Nazareth-based leader in onshore outsourcing of R&D and software services. It employs about 150 Arab engineers and last year won the Prime Minister’s Prize for Initiative and Innovation, for “providing an example for young Arabs who aspire to careers in the high-tech industry.”
5.  Agricultural Knowledge Online
For modernizing Chinese agriculture. China’s Anhui province has begun using AKOL’s Agro Cloud solution to quantify total food production. The computerized technology, which was developed in conjunction with IBM, enables local officials to monitor fruit, vegetable, dairy, poultry and meat production. A pilot program ran through 2012, and should it prove successful, the Agro Cloud will likely be adopted on a national scale.
6.  TaKaDu
For saving water on a global scale. TaKaDu’s system provides water utilities around the world with real-time detection of water leaks, bursts, zone breaches, faults, errors and inefficiencies, using existing data and its own algorithms. The company’s largest client is London’s Thames Water, which serves 9 million people, but last year saw an important expansion into Latin America, Australia, and other parts of Europe.
7.  Kaltura
For democratizing web video. The tech firm’s open-source HTML5 video platform is used by more than 150,000 web publishers, media outlets, and education services, and last year scored its biggest a coup: Wikipedia adopted it for a massive roll-out, enabling video on hundreds of millions of entries.
8.  InSightec
For developing new, non-invasive treatments. The company (partially owned by GE) combines MRI and ultrasound technologies in exciting, Star Trek-like ways–curing patients without ever having to operate. It is already used to locate, heat, and destroy some tumors inside the body, and the company continues to receive important FDA approvals on new non-invasive uses. In October, the agency blessed InSightec’s use of the tech as therapy to treat pain from bone metastases in patients that can’t undergo radiation treatment.
9.  Pythagoras Solar
For creating solar windows. Israel’s solar energy industry is active, and one of its most exciting players is this venture-backed creator of the world’s first transparent photovoltaic glass unit. Its first installation was last year. Windows deliver solar power, while producing their own natural light to eliminate the need for artificial lighting during the day.
10.  Better Place
For making electric vehicles accessible. Better Place began delivering its Renault Fluence Zero Emission EVs to Israeli customers this year, complemented by its nationwide network of battery switch stations. The company expects to support up to 10,000 vehicles in Israel and Denmark by the end of this year, before turning its attention to larger markets in an attempt to achieve CEO Shai Agassi’s objective of ending global oil dependence by 2020.
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Hagel Unfortunately Passes First Hurdle

We told you he would become our Pentagon chief and he has passed the first hurdle. Now it is onto the full Senate where if the Armed Services Committee is any indication, he will  approved along party lines. 

So much for the Democrats really examining his record!

Conservative Tom

Senate panel endorses Hagel for Pentagon in rare party-line vote

Unknown - FoxNews.com,  February 12th, 2013

Jan. 31, 2013: Republican Chuck Hagel testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill. (AP)
A Senate panel narrowly endorsed Chuck Hagel to lead the Pentagon Tuesday, in a rare party-line vote that underscored intense Republican opposition to his nomination while nevertheless advancing Hagel to the floor for a final verdict.
The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 14-11 to advance Hagel's nomination.
All Republicans present voted against Hagel, himself a Republican and former Nebraska senator. Supporters lauded his service in the Vietnam War, and claimed the nominee had been forthcoming throughout his confirmation process.
But critics pointed to Hagel's history of controversial votes and statements regarding Iran, Israel, terror groups, the Iraq war and other issues.
Further, they panned what was widely regarded as a rocky performance by Hagel during his recent confirmation hearing. It is rare for the Senate to be this divided on a Cabinet nomination of this magnitude.
“His performance before this committee was the worst that I have seen for any nominee for office,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said, before voting against Hagel.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., another senator opposing Hagel, said “there are very few people who have been this wrong about so many things.”
Saying the next secretary of Defense will deal with “a world on fire,” Graham said Hagel's testimony was “not reassuring.”
Republican lawmakers had various reasons for opposing Hagel or trying to hold up his nomination. Some wanted him to provide more financial background information. Others voiced interest in holding up the nomination until the administration provides more information about the Benghazi terror attack, while voicing concerns about Hagel's background as well.
Democratic Chairman Carl Levin, though, pushed forward on a vote just hours before President Obama was set to deliver his State of the Union address.
“The time has come for the committee to act on this nomination,” Levin said.
Obama tapped Hagel, 66, a former Republican senator and twice-wounded Vietnam War combat veteran to succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who is stepping down after four years as CIA director and Pentagon chief.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, is pressing for a full Senate vote later this week, most likely on Thursday.
McCain cited Hagel's opposition to an increase in U.S. forces in Iraq that McCain backed in 2007, as well as Hagel's halting performance at his confirmation hearing.
During the final committee meeting Tuesday, a dispute broke out between Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Democrats over complaints Cruz had about Hagel not revealing certain personal compensation — Cruz questioned whether Hagel had gotten paid at any point by radical groups.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said Cruz had “gone over the line” and “impugned the patriotism” of Hagel, a claim Cruz denied.
Committee Republicans had forced a delay in the expected vote last week when they pressed Hagel for further data on his personal finances.
Levin said the Republican demands were beyond the scope of those traditionally asked of previous nominees, Republican and Democrat — a point echoed by McCain.
Hagel now faces Republican delaying tactics in the full Senate, with the panel's top Republican, Sen. Jim Inhofe, insisting that any confirmation be based on 60 votes rather than a majority of the 100-member Senate.
But that effort has divided Republicans, with several longtime members opposed to the unprecedented step of stalling, or filibustering, a president's Cabinet nominee for Defense secretary.
Late Monday, McCain met privately with several committee Republicans and urged them not to filibuster the Hagel nomination, pointing out that the roles could be reversed someday with a Republican president and Republican-controlled Senate.
“I'm encouraging my colleagues if they want to vote against Sen. Hagel that's one thing and that's a principled stand,” McCain told a group of reporters. “We do not want to filibuster. We have not filibustered a Cabinet appointee in the past and I believe that we should move forward with his nomination, bring it to the floor and vote up or down.”
All 55 Democrats are expected to back Hagel, and two Republicans — Sens. Thad Cochran and Mike Johanns — have said they will vote for the nominee. At least five Republicans, including McCain, have said they oppose a filibuster despite their reservations or opposition toward the nominee.
More than a dozen Republicans have said they will oppose their former colleague, and several others have indicated they are likely to vote no. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican member of the Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday she would vote against the nominee, citing his performance at his confirmation hearing.
Hagel seemed ill-prepared under withering cross-examination from committee Republicans in nearly eight hours of testimony on Jan. 31. He was repeatedly pressed about past statements and votes on Israel, Iran and nuclear weapons, with Republican lawmakers suggesting he wasn't sufficiently supportive of Israel or anti-Iran.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Hagel Nomination Meant To Weaken US Military


Caroline Glick in the following post nails the reasons for the Hagel appointment and it is not about Israel  but rather the goal to hollow out the US military and make it ineffective and third rate.  We have seen this done before and the result always is the same. We are attacked and have to rebuild to make sure that we can defend ourselves.  So, why don't we learn? We forget the lesson.

Those "smart people" do not believe that history is a good teacher. They believe that they are brighter than those who preceded them and that they will not fall into the same traps. However, that never occurs as the past can help us understand conditions and people's reactions. When one country destroys its own military, other leaders who will view this an an opportunity for more global influence or even to take other territory knowing full well that the first country cannot respond effectively. It might bluster and bring charges but that is about all it can do since its military is effectively gone.

We are in this position today. Obama and his minions want the US military to be gutted. Therefore, they have no problem with the sequester's effect on the defense department. They want to damage the esprit d' corps by imposing women into all units. They fail to give proper medical and mental aid to those returning troops hoping that some of them will go off the deep end and prove their philosophy that they are a problem. They treat the troops like used Kleenex to be disposed of when their service is done.

The Hagel appointment combined with Brennan and Kerry shows us the direction this country is taking. It is not pretty and it will effect every American and most of the world. The ramifications will be beyond anything that most of us can imagine.

Be Scared, Be Very Scared.

Conservative Tom

Classic Hagel

Caroline Glick - Family Security Matters,  February 12th, 2013

I think it is pretty amazing that AIPAC is keeping mum on the fact that Obama has nominated a Jew hater and Israel basher to serve as the next Defense Secretary. As I've said before, Hagel's appointment is a far greater threat to the US military than it is to Israel. But still, it is pretty obscene that Obama is getting away with appointing this character to serve as the Pentagon chief.
Today, the estimable Adam Kredo at the Washington Free Beacon reported another classic Hagelian anti-Israel slur and libel. Back in 2003 he gave an interview to his hometown paper saying that Israel “keep[s] the Palestinians caged up like animals.”
And of course, this is only one of countless examples of Hagel's animus towards the Jewish state and its Jewish supporters in the US. But AIPAC is silent.
As I wrote before, I understand that AIPAC doesn't want to fight a fight it can't win. But what fights will it be able to win with a president so hostile to Israel that he appointed the most outspoken anti-Israel senator since Chuck Percy to serve as Defense Secretary? What do they think they will be able to get? A cut-off in aid to the PLO? A cut-off in F-16 and M1A1 Abrams tanks transfers to Egypt? Further ineffective sanctions against Iran? More military assistance to the IDF?
Israel is better off expanding its own defense industries than depending on Hagel for spare parts.
As to the US military, as David Horowitz wrote back in 1992, the movement to assign women to frontline combat unit is not about advancing women. It is about destroying the US military. The fact that Obama didn't even need for Hagel to enter office before taking his first swipe at the military shows just how grandiose his plans for gutting US military capabilities in his second term are.
To be clear, as a woman who served as an officer in the IDF for 5 and a half years, and worked as an embedded reporter with an all male US infantry unit in Iraq, I have to say that I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with women serving in combat. But the purpose of last week's decision wasn't about permitting women to fight on the battlefield. They already do. It was about social engineering and weakening the esprit d'corps of the US military. As Saul Alinsky taught his followers the goal is never what you say it is. The goal is always the revolution.
Delegitimizing and weakening Israel is only one part of the “revolution.” Israel will survive Obama and Hagel and Kerry and Brennan.
But that doesn't mean we and our supporters in the US should keep silent about their hostility just because we know we can't block their appointments. By pointing out their radicalism, we are at a minimum sending out the necessary warning about what their future plans will likely involve. And that is important, because the more they are criticized the weaker they will feel.