http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444860104577558723207171952.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion ObamaCare’s Phony Deficit Reduction Lost in the fuzzy budgetary math is a simple truth: Repealing the law means lower taxes and spending. Defenders of President Obama’s health law are flaunting a Congressional Budget Office claim that overturning the law would worsen the federal deficit. Repeal, said a CBO report late last month, would cancel […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444405804577561123857056872.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Congress might be on recess and business slow, but this month always has its disproportionate share of world-historical events.
What is it about the month of August? Why should we still persist in regarding it as a quiet time—with Congress in recess, business slowed down, and people on holiday—when so many world-historical events take place in this month? You can ignore the Ides of March, but history shows that it’s in the dog days of August that great events take place.
Ever since the Roman Senate proclaimed in A.D. 8 that the eighth month of every year be named after the Emperor Augustus (63 B.C.-A.D. 14), nephew and adopted heir of Julius Caesar, the month has seen a disproportionate share of cataclysmic events.
In the last century alone, World War I broke out on Aug. 4, 1914, and Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland on the night of Aug. 31, 1939. World War II was only won with the dropping of two atomic bombs in August 1945. Other 20th-century conflicts sparked in August: the Vietnam War, with the Gulf of Tonkin incident of August 1964; the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968; and the Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
August was also the month when German President Paul von Hindenburg died in 1934, paving the way for Hitler to become fuhrer; when the U.S. passed the Social Security Act in 1935; when Germany mobilized during the Sudetenland crisis of 1938; when the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed the next year; when British rule in India ended in 1947; when the USSR broke off diplomatic relations with the U.S. in 1948; when the Berlin Wall was built in 1961; when Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962; and when China’s Cultural Revolution began in 1966.
Across the 1970s, this supposedly quiet month saw Richard Nixon’s resignation from the presidency (1974), the signing of the Helsinki Final Act by the Soviet Union and Western nations (1975), and the beginning of South Africa’s Soweto Riots (1976). Over the next decade, August saw fascist terrorists kill 82 people at Bologna railways (1980), the founding of the Solidarity trade union in Poland (also 1980), the assassination of Filipino opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino (1983), and the beginning of the Iran-Contra scandal (1985).
Might there be a reason why this month keeps cropping up when great men and great events collide? In Europe and America, August is usually the hottest month of the year.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
2012.08.07 (Paghman, Afghanistan) – Hardline Islamists blow up a civilian minibus, sending nine souls to Allah.
2012.08.06 (Okene, Nigeria) – Sharia proponents enter a church and open up on members with machine-guns, slaughtering at least nineteen, including the pastor.
2012.08.06 (al-Haswa, Iraq) – Jihadi car bombers take out three Iraqis.
2012.08.05 (Maiduguri, Nigeria) – Four people are shot to death in their homes by Boko Haram Islamists.
2012.08.05 (Maguindanao, Philippines) – At least one woman is killed when Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement members overrun a Catholic village.
2012.08.05 (Gilgit, Pakistan) – Two passengers bleed out from splinter injuries after Islamic militants toss a grenade into a bus.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/08/07/will-apple-prevent-hezbollah-terrorists-from-appearing-on-your-child-s-iphone
Apple has removed an app that would have allowed users to watch the Hezbollah channel Al-Manar TV on their iPod, iPhone, or iPad, and that’s good news; the channel is a mouthpiece for anti-Israel, anti-West, and anti-American propaganda that is violent in nature.
The bad news is that Apple has not yet removed an app called ATN Live TV that would allow users to access Al-Manar TV. After 9/11, President Bush listed Al-Manar TV in Executive Order 13224 as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). U.S. regulations prohibit U.S. persons from entering into certain transactions with SDGTs, including the making or receiving of any contribution of funds, goods, or services to an SDGT. Hezbollah itself is listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the State Department. Thus Apple providing access for Al-Manar to be disseminated possibly violates the regulation, and Apple may be violating the federal statute that bars providing material and technological support and services to an FTO.
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1491/ambassador_gould_s_comments_on_israel_s_popularity_show_a_lack_of_clear_thinking
OH THE IRONY…THE WAGS WERE WORRIED THAT THIS OAF WOULD HAVE “DUAL LOYALTY’….RSK
Matthew Gould’s comments reveal an institutional catatonia at the FCO. One that will ensure Britain’s role in the Middle East declines in perpetuity.When Matthew Gould was appointed as the British Ambassador to Israel, Labour Member of Parliament Paul Flynn caused quite a stir in questioning Gould’s ‘loyalty’ to the United Kingdom.Because Ambassador Gould is Jewish, it was implied that he would suffer from an affliction known as ‘dual loyalty’ and be therefore unable to carry out the tasks set to him by his paymasters at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). Even the usually carping Owen Jones made sense of this issue in the New Statesman at the time.
But Flynn must now be eating his words, as not only has Gould proved the offensive comments to be incorrect, he actually, at times, seems to be batting for the ‘other team’. And you’d expect no less from a British diplomat.
If it is to be believed that Gould is a staunch FCO bod (he is), then his comments this week regarding Israel’s popularity are simply an extension of an ever wrong-headed FCO narrative, effectively propagandising against the Jewish state.Gould remarked that “Support for Israel is starting to erode and that’s not about these people on the fringe who are shouting loudly and calling for boycotts and all the rest of it”.He went on to describe Israel as ‘Goliath’ and the Palestinians as ‘David’ – in an attempt to reflect British public opinion – a claim that rests on little evidence. But when did the FCO ever care about facts, eh?
Sure, Israel has a public relations problem – one that is needlessly inflated by off piste FCO comments such as these. Far from having a ‘dual loyalty’, Gould has recently shown that he is all too delighted to trot out the unnuanced FCO line.
The British Foreign Office is complicit in ensuring that Israel becomes defined by its inability to unilaterally solve the conflict in the Middle East, much to the chagrin of many Israeli leaders who offered the Palestinians better and better deals – only to be rejected in perpetuity.
Britain’s role in the Middle East conflict is becoming less that of an external mediating party who has something positive to bring to the table, and more that of an antagonist. At best, we seem to be the less than subtle cousin at the dinner table. At its worst, the drunken uncle slumped in the corner shouting irrelevant facts in the face of heated discussions.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/rogue-afghan-soldier-gets-heros-welcome-from-taliban-after-he-killed-an-american-soldier-in-cold-blood?f=puball
http://news.yahoo.com/video-taliban-welcomes-rogue-afghan-shot-us-soldiers-122918421–abc-news-topstories.html
HELLO? IS THERE ANYONE STILL STANDING THAT CALLS PETRAEUS A GREAT GENERAL?….RSK
A new online video shows a rogue Afghan soldier receiving a hero’s welcome from Taliban commanders, after returning from a mission where he killed an American soldier in cold blood.
The video, released by the Taliban’s media propaganda wing, shows the soldier returning to a Taliban village in Ghaziabad in Kunar province, with dozens of Taliban men lined up to greet him. The soldier, wearing an Afghan Army uniform, identifies himself as Ghazi Mahmood, or “Warrior Mahmood.”
Men with white Taliban flags, some with their faces covered, others carrying rocket propelled grenade launchers, throng around him, parading him through the village as insurgents shower him with flower garlands and chant “Long Live Mahmood.”
“I opened fire on three Americans who were sitting together,” the man explains calmly in the video. “The reason I killed them is because they have occupied our country. They are enemies of our religion and they kill our innocent people.”
In another scene, the rogue soldier is seated outside a wooden structure, surrounded by armed insurgents, some of whose faces are blurred. Standing in a row in front are dozens of young madrassa students, who pump their fists into the air cheering “Jihad, Jihad” and “Long Live the warrior.”
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/panetta-shoots-for-islamic-brownie-points
There is one operative word in Andy McCarthy’s illuminating examination of some of the facts obscured by the weird and racuous apotheosis of Huma Abedin currently enlivening the hysterical demonization of Rep. Michele Bachmann by the media and John McCain, a grotesque and shameful display triggered by a question — one question — Bachmann and four other House Republicans have raised about Abedin’s close family connections to the rapacious Islamic supremacist group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
That word is “adults.”
Having outlined these connections, which are not, the former federal prosecutor writes, “contrived or weightless,” McCarthy notes it’s not “a crime to have close relatives who are either members of, or associated with members of such an organization. Again, however,” he patiently explains, “no one is accusing Huma Abedin of a crime.”
He continues:
The five House conservatives instead are asking questions that adults responsible for national security should feel obliged to ask: In light of Ms. Abedin’s family history, is she someone who ought to have a security clearance, particularly one that would give her access to top-secret information about the Brotherhood? Is she, furthermore, someone who may be sympathetic to aspects of the Brotherhood’s agenda, such that Americans ought to be concerned that she is helping shape American foreign policy?
These are rational questions. The fact that such questions now require a painstaking defense is a measure of how berserk — how subverted — our reasoning powers have become. The fact that such questions are only now being asked by just five House members is a measure of how very few adults hold positions of authority in our government. (NB: It is this same subversion of reasoning powers that led me to write my new book, American Betrayal, which became a “prequel” of sorts to The Death of the Grown-Up.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/colbert-king-irans-anti-semitism-makes-it-the-greatest-threat-to-jews/2012/08/03/75126d28-dcfa-11e1-af1d-753c613ff6d8_story.html “Iran violates national sovereignty in order to kill Jews.The fingerprints of Iran were found in attacks on Jews in Bulgaria, India, Thailand and Georgia. Contending that Iran’s threat is mainly to Israel is to ignore reality, unpleasant and challenging though it may be.If we are to honor the pledge of “never again,” will we […]
http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2012/08/boxing-clever-when-non-jewish-athletes.html
Boxing Clever: When Non-Jewish Athletes Pretended To Be Jews
As a nod towards the Olympics, here’s a snippet from the archives. Entitled “When it Pays to be a Jew: Gentile Athletes Hebraise Their Names” and “From a Correspondent in New York,” it appeared in the Jewish Chronicle (29 March 1929):
‘A good boxer with a proud Jewish name is assured of a great following. A Jewish name in athletics helps one in much the same way as an Italian name used to be in the field of music or a Russian still does in the field of dancing.
This is especially true in America, where in spite of the melting pot legend, national feelings run very high sometimes. The professional promoter who gets hold of a Jewish boxer will, therefore, at once placard the Jewish origin of his champion all over the place. A Jewish boxer is acclaimed and cheered by the crowd, and Jew and Gentile alike will pin faith in him. Such is the firmly established tradition that the Jew is victorious in the ring. So it is that many boxers of pure Arian [sic] or Nordic stock choose to adorn themselves with unmistakeably Jewish sounding names. Only recently the sports pages of the press carried the disclosure that Gus Sonnenberg, the new world’s champion wrestler, is no Jew at all.
The predominance and success of Jewish boxers has naturally already produced a jealousy not undiluted by anti-Semitism, and the assertion that “the Jews have captured the ring”. The only consolation is that the Jewish boxers do not remain long in the profession. After they reach prominence they retire to some quiet but lucrative business. And there again they are accused of “lack of sportsmanship”. Papers announce that hardly a week goes by without the retirement of some Jewish boxer. Thus have retired Bat Levinsky and Joey Kaufman. And now Joey Sangor of Milwaukee, the famous lightweight, quits at twenty, announcing that he is dissatisfied with his 1929 showing in the ring.’
http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/4698/features/inventing-pluralist-america/?print
With the United States of 2012 more culturally diverse than ever, it is tempting to think that the country’s social pluralism was foreordained. After all, aren’t we a nation of immigrants?
In fact, however, a tolerant pluralism was not the only possibility for America. It emerged as the dominant view of how our society should be organized only after a bitter debate that began with the wave of Eastern European immigration at the end of the 19th century and finally dissipated only in the crucible of World War II. One of the chief theorists of American pluralism—indeed, the man who coined the term “cultural pluralism”—was a German-born American Jew named Horace Meyer Kallen. This coming Saturday will mark the 130th anniversary of his birth. It is a date worth celebrating.
About a century ago, Kallen was at the height of his fame. He had just edited the last book by his late teacher, the Harvard philosopher William James; he was about to publish an extraordinary comparative study of James and the French philosopher Henri Bergson; and he was at the center of a heated debate about America’s future.
The wave of immigration from Eastern and Central Europe at the beginning of the 20th century was being met by aggressive anti-immigrant sentiment from the WASP elite. Theodore Roosevelt, for one, inveighed against “hyphenated Americans.” Others were less subtle. Sociologist Edward A. Ross warned in his 1914 book, The Old World in the New, that “the blood now injected into the veins of our people is ‘subcommon.’”
Kallen, who had emigrated with his family from Germany at the age of four, felt that those sentiments betrayed the ideals of the United States and needed to be refuted. He was an advocate of James’s philosophical pluralism and undertook to apply this concept to social, political, and religious problems.
In his famous essay, “Democracy vs. the Melting Pot,” Kallen argued that the United States was a commonwealth based on an idea, not on blood or territory. The idea was that people are different, and that this difference was good; the equality postulated in the Declaration of Independence didn’t mean sameness but equal rights for individuals fundamentally different from each other.
Kallen’s pluralism, therefore, was descriptive as well as prescriptive. His starting point was the idea that each individual had a unique perspective on the world, which was influenced by one’s geographical situation and cultural, religious, and political environment. The individual could then contribute this perspective to a more comprehensive understanding of the world. Although for Kallen there was no preferred point of view as such, he did recognize the importance of providing a common ground from which the differences could grow and flourish. That common ground was democracy, which protected the individual’s “right to be different,” as Kallen would come to call it in the 1930s, and enabled a pluralist society.
Relatedly, Kallen was cognizant of the dangers posed to pluralism by totalitarianism and intolerance. Following his travels through Fascist Italy and Soviet Russia at the end of the 1920s, he became a vocal critic of totalitarianism, long before other progressives and liberals did so. The same was true for religions: Though Kallen acknowledged their importance for shaping identities, he was appalled by their history of coercion and violence, and especially opposed those which were obstructing scientific development or which acted intolerantly toward other religious groups.
Kallen’s hostility toward religious groups also applied to his own. He exchanged harsh words with Reform Rabbis Samuel Schulman and Abba Hillel Silver for their exclusively religious definition of Judaism; he was equally critical of some Orthodox Jews for their religious intolerance; and he was no less outspoken against zealous anti-Zionists from all Jewish camps.
