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December 2012

Rebuilding in Haiti Lags After Billions in Post-Quake Aid: Deborah Sontag….read the note from an e-pal

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/world/americas/in-aiding-quake-battered-haiti-lofty-hopes-and-hard-truths.xml?single=1&f=20

This remark is from an astute e-pal…could not have said it better myself…..rsk

“The dispiriting article is reminiscent of the aid results to most of Africa, the Arab Middle East, Muslim Asia etc..An orgy of self-congratulatory, self-indulgent, paternalistic, inefficient, wasteful, ‘liberal-leftist’ outpouring into a failed, socialist state in Haiti. A fainter facsimile happens in the US with our failing social services, the continuing poor, the failed government education etc despite many billions ladled in by a leftist-leaning philosophy of ‘social democracy’ ie diluted socialism. Obamacare will worsen it… In all instances, an unfettered, free market system — with government and amateur-heavy NGO’s out of the way — would quickly do a better job, once the immediate charitable response to a disaster is over …..”

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A few days after the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake, Reginald Boulos opened the gates of his destroyed car dealership to some 14,000 displaced people who settled on the expansive property. Seven months later, eager to rebuild his business, he paid the families $400 each to leave Camp Boulos and return to their devastated neighborhoods.

At the time, Dr. Boulos, a physician and business magnate, was much maligned for what was portrayed as bribing the homeless to participate in their own eviction. But eventually, desperate to rid public plazas of squalid camps, the Haitian government and the international authorities adopted his approach themselves: “return cash grants” have become the primary resettlement tool.

This represents a marked deflation of the lofty ambitions that followed the disaster, when the world aspired not only to repair Haiti but to remake it completely. The new pragmatism signals an acknowledgment that despite billions of dollars spent – and billions more allocated for Haiti but unspent – rebuilding has barely begun and 357,785 Haitians still languish in 496 tent camps.

“When you look at things, you say, ‘Hell, almost three years later, where is the reconstruction?’ ” said Michèle Pierre-Louis, a former prime minister of Haiti. “If you ask what went right and what went wrong, the answer is, most everything went wrong. There needs to be some accountability for all that money.”

An analysis of all that money – at least $7.5 billion disbursed so far – helps explain why such a seeming bounty is not more palpable here in the eviscerated capital city, where the world’s chief accomplishment is to have finally cleared away most of the rubble.

JED BABBIN: THE POLITICS OF GUN CONTROL

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/12/24/the-politics-of-gun-control Or how the Republicans have become the New York Jets of political Washington. The Newtown, Connecticut massacre of children has changed the gun control debate to an extent no other event has in decades. One of the reasons it has had such an effect is that it came at the time when liberals are […]

Lawless at Sea A Case Study in the Dangers of the Law of the Sea Treaty

Click here: Review & Outlook: Lawless at Sea – WSJ.com#printMode Lawless at Sea A case study in the dangers of the Law of the Sea Treaty. The curious case of the U.S. hedge fund, the Argentine ship and Ghana is getting curiouser, and now it has taken a turn against national sovereignty. That’s the only […]

ANDREW BOSTOM: WHY IS AMERICA MIDWIVING A MUSLIM RULED SYRIA?

http://pjmedia.com/blog/why-is-america-midwiving-a-muslim-brotherhood-ruled-syria/?singlepage=true

Following significant military [1] successes [2] and diplomatic [3] gains by Syria’s anti-Bashar Assad Sunni Muslim insurgency over recent weeks, Moscow, a key Assad regime ally, announced [2] Tuesday 12/18/12 its preparations for an evacuation of Russian citizens living in Syria.

While the Assad regime’s ruling Alawite minority sect retained a firm hold [2] on their indigenous base in the coastal Syrian provinces, the predominantly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels have seized [2] the northern and eastern border zones, near Turkey and Iraq, respectively, and dominate [2] wide swathes of rural Syria. The continued rebel assault is even advancing on Assad’s seat of power, Damascus, near the western frontier of Lebanon, having just seized [2] the pro-Assad Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, on the southern edge of the Syrian capital.

By Wednesday, the rebels had reportedly [4] captured at least six towns in the central Hama governorate (Latamneh, Helfaya, Kfar Naboudah, Hasraya, Tibat al-Imn, and Kfar Zita), with skirmishes erupting in the city of Hama itself. As of Friday, the Sunni insurgents were besieging [5] Morek, an Alawite stronghold in Hama governorate, a province which contains dozens of Alawite and Christian villages among Sunni towns, igniting fears [5] of increased sectarian violence.

During an interview with Barbara Walters on December 11, President Obama announced [6] the U.S. would formally recognize the recently established Syrian National Coalition of Revolution and Opposition Forces (SNCROF), an umbrella group seeking to depose Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Obama extolled [6] the SNCROF for its inclusiveness, allegedly being open to various ethnic and religious groups, and bonds to local councils participating in the fight against Assad’s security forces. He opined:

JOHN STEELE GORDON: WHEN THE SIXTIES BEGAN ****

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324461604578193260691545452.html?mod=opinion_newsreel No sooner had the Voting Rights Act of 1965 been signed into law than Watts exploded in riots. What a difference a year makes. When Lyndon Johnson lit the national Christmas tree on Dec. 18, 1964, he declared, “These are the most hopeful times in all the years since Christ was born in Bethlehem.” […]

JOHN KERRY’S RECORD IN LATIN AMERICA: MARY ANASTASIA O’GRADY ****

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324461604578194040827752694.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

With Susan Rice withdrawing her name for U.S. secretary of state, President Obama last week nominated Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry for the job. Don’t expect applause from beleaguered democrats south of the border.Mr. Kerry’s record of promoting American values abroad is dismal. It isn’t that he opposes U.S. intervention—far from it. The trouble is that he has a habit of intervening on behalf of bad guys. A left-wing world view and an earnest conviction that it is his destiny to impose it on others may make him a perfect fit in the Obama cabinet. But it won’t be good for poor countries or for U.S. interests.

RYAN MAURO: SHARIA IS NOW EGYPT’S LAW OF THE LAND

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ryan-mauro/sharia-now-egypts-law-of-the-land/ Sharia is now Egypt’s law of the land. The Islamist-written draft constitution was approved by about 64% of voters. The Muslim Brotherhood believes its time has come. At long last, it has overtaken the land where the group was founded in 1928. For them, this is a blessing from Allah for their years of […]

THE LOST VERSES OF THE KORAN: THEODORE SHOEBAT

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/theodore-shoebat/the-lost-verses-of-the-quran/print/ Is the Quran of today, the same as it was when it was first written? Muslims says that it is. But there is evidence to suggest that the reality is otherwise. In old books on Islam that I have acquired, I have found references to verses in the Quran which cannot be found in […]

JOHN KERRY: STILL WRONG BY DANIEL GREENFIELD

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/john-kerry-still-wrong-after-all-these-years/ A year and a half before Osama bin Laden was found living in a compound at the heart of Pakistan’s military establishment, Senator John Kerry was celebrating the passage of the “Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act,” also known as the Kerry-Lugar Pakistan Bill. Under either name, Kerry was offering a rather sizable giveaway to […]

MY SAY: TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the House

Not a conservative was stirring, not even a mouse;
The pols had left with a harrumph and a grouse
Reid, and Boehner and the cowards in the House
The lame ducks were home tucked in their bed
Hillary tossed with the polls in her head

I woke up with a START from a terrible DREAM
When heard a clatter and saw a silver stream.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
I peered through the window and put on my glasses
It was a miniature sleigh with eight tiny jackasses
With a spry old driver, so lively and chipper
I knew in a flash twas the ghost of the Gipper
He scolded and shouted and gave them their work
“Sweep the tax hikes, the earmarks, and toss out the pork.!!!”
A bundle of bags he had flung on his back,

And he laughed out loud while opening his pack.
With a smile and knowing and friendly look
He gave every pol a Cliff Notes book
Another election may we all live to fight
Merry Christmas to All and to all a good night!!

Happy Holidays to all of you!!!

Ruth King