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December 2015

King Canute Sets the Global Thermostat by Mark Steyn

I started the day today on the radio north and south of the border – first with Bill Bennett across the fruited plain of this great republic, and then with John Oakley in Her Majesty’s frosty Dominion. You can hear the Bill Bennett interview here – I show up about two-thirds of the way through, but the whole show is, as always with Bill, well worth a listen.

The subject, of course, was last night’s Republican debate. My main point is that in the Cruz/Rubio showdown Marco Rubio’s weakness is more disqualifying than Ted Cruz’s weakness. Rubio accuses Cruz of being bad on national security. But there is a genuine difference of opinion in the base about the precise balance between security and liberty, between (in its extreme manifestations) the Lindsey Graham position and the Rand Paul position. People might be better disposed to suffer the attentions of the Big Security State if we were pulverizing our enemies, but there’s little to be said for surrendering individual freedom in the cause of unwon wars waged ineffectively and interminably. So there’s a real dispute about that.

But there’s very little dispute about Rubio’s Achilles’ heel: the Gang of Eight deal which betrays a sentimentalized view of mass immigration to which the base is overwhelmingly hostile. As I said to Bill, even when he talks tough, he kind of misses the point: Rubio rejected the plan to bring in 10,000 Syrian refugees because, he said, even if 9,999 of them were okay, we can’t take the risk that the 10,000th would be a terrorist. That’s not where the base is: GOP voters increasingly take the view that, even if that 9,999 never build a single pipe bomb in their garage, large numbers and perhaps even a majority are incompatible with a developed First World society in a more basic, cultural sense, and provide the comfort zone in which the terrorists can move with ease. That’s why Trump’s “gaffe” has sent his poll numbers up into the thirties and beyond. Rubio sounded tough, but he still isn’t where primary voters are.

~After Bill, I joined Toronto’s Number One morning man John Oakley on AM640, for a little more Trump, some thoughts on Jeb!, and some reflections on the big climate beano in Paris, starting with this absurd line from CNN:

The accord achieved one major goal. It limits average global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures.

This is the hubris of fools. King Canute gave his demonstration at the water’s edge to teach his courtiers the limits of kingly power. King Barack, Queen Angela, Prince Justin and the rest have neither the irony nor humility to understand the stupidity of an agreement to set the planet’s temperature.

Public School Students Told to Practice Calligraphy by Writing ‘There is No God but Allah’

Students at Riverheads High School in Greenville, Virginia, were told to practice calligraphy by writing out the statement “There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” The assignment was given by classroom teacher Cheri Laporte.

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That statement is known as the Muslim statement of faith or the shahada. The school district defended the assignment last week when it met with outraged parents.

“Neither these lessons, nor any other lesson in the world geography course, are an attempt at indoctrination to Islam or any other religion, or a request for students to renounce their own faith or profess any belief,” the district said in a statement provided to Fox News.

Parents told The Schilling Show that their children were not given the translation of what they were writing.

Riverheads High School Principal, Max Lowe, did not directly acknowledge an inquiry requesting confirmation of the incident, clarification of policy, and disciplinary measures, if any, taken against Ms. Laporte.

The school district defended the assignment.

“The statement presented as an example of the calligraphy was not translated for students, nor were students asked to translate it, recite it or otherwise adopt or pronounce it as a personal belief,” the district stated. “They were simply asked to attempt to artistically render written Arabic in order to understand its artistic complexity.”

Further, the district said the assignment was “consistent with the Virginia Department of Education Standards of Learning and the requirements for content instruction on world monotheistic religions.”

Homeland Terror’s Weak Point? The Human Smuggling Networks By Todd Bensman

In military conflict, bridges figure large. Retreating armies want to blow them up to slow advancing armies; advancing armies want to capture and preserve bridges to aid forward progress. They even bring along their own.

The metaphor of bridges in warfare is one way to contemplate the homeland security problem of how to retard the advancing flow of illegal migrants from the Islamic world to America’s land borders. This human traffic — the sort that camouflaged at least three ISIS terrorists as they traversed to their attack on Paris — is primarily made possible by long-haul human smuggling networks, which bridge distant countries.

These smuggling networks provide the exceptionally long bridges that for years have made it possible for “special interest aliens,” or SIAs — the term for Syrians, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Somalis, Afghanis, Iraqis, Iranians, and the citizens of two dozen other countries where Islamic terrorism organizations exist — to reach the U.S. southwestern border. Given the vast distances to be covered and the necessary stolen passports, ill-gotten visas, fake identity documents, and corrupt airport customs officers who require bribes, ISIS terrorists would be hard-pressed to make the journey without the SIA smugglers.

A Tale of Three Navies By Stephen Green

China and Russia rattle nuclear sabers at sea, while the US Navy’s newest ship breaks down.

For what appears to be the first time, Beijing has sent one of its nuclear missile subs on an actual deterrence patrol:

China has advanced its nuclear deterrent capabilities by sending a Type 094 (‘Jin’-class) nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) out on its first deterrent patrol and by conducting a fifth reported test of its mobile, solid-fuel, multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV)-capable DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), according to US officials.

Although China’s first second-generation Type 094 was launched in 2004, according to IHS Jane’s Fighting Ships , US officials have not acknowledged that its premier deterrent patrol had occurred until this month.

“Given China’s known capabilities and their efforts to develop a sea-based deterrent, in absence of indicators to the contrary it is prudent to assume that patrols are occurring,” said US Strategic Command spokesperson US Navy captain Pamela Kunzein in a statement to The Washington Times published on 10 December.

Finland Growing Restive Over Muslim ‘Migrants’ By Michael Walsh

Finland, a country sandwiched between Sweden and Russia, and which basically wants nothing more than to be left alone, is not happy to find itself suddenly on the front lines of Merkel’s Folly:

There is a sense of tension in the pretty, snow-covered Finnish town — an underlying fear which makes parents hold their children a little closer, and angry resentment towards the group of young men who arrived just a month ago. Kempele, almost 400 miles north of Helsinki, is usually a place where 17,000 unassuming townfolk while away the hours playing ice hockey. But that peaceful existence has been ripped apart by the rape of a 14-year-old girl as she walked home on a Monday night a fortnight ago.

The alleged culprit is one of the young men living at a migrant centre, which locals did not want in the first place.

But far from being an anomaly, Kempele – which saw hundreds take to the streets in an anti-immigration march last weekend — has become a snapshot of a country where people patrol the streets in vigilante mobs, block people crossing the border and even dress as the Ku Klux Klan at angry protests against the influx of refugees.

DHS Whistleblower: Obama More Concerned with Protecting the Rights of Islamists Than Protecting the American People By Debra Heine

Philip Haney, the Homeland Security whistleblower whose investigation into Islamic infiltration of the U.S. might have prevented the San Bernardino attack, has written an important op-ed for The Hill, warning of President Obama’s misplaced priorities when it comes to national security. In brief, says Haney, “the Obama administration is more concerned with the rights of non-citizens in known Islamist groups than with the safety and security of the American people.”

There are terrorists in our midst and they arrived here using legal means right under the noses of the federal law enforcement agencies whose mission is to stop them. That is not due to malfeasance or lack of effort on the part of these officers; it is due to the restrictions placed on them by the Obama administration.

Not only did the Obama administration shut down an important investigation that could have connected enough dots to prevent the San Bernardino terrorist attack, they went back and erased the dots Haney was “diligently connecting.” Worse yet, when he complained to the DHS inspector general, the DHS and the Department of Justice subjected him “to a series of investigations and adverse actions, including one by that same inspector general.”

Ted Cruz Is Right to Attack the ‘Neocons’ By David P. Goldman

Hillary Clinton has no record to run on. Family income is lower and the world is more dangerous. Donald Trump nailed it when he told Chris Wallace, “Hillary calls me ‘dangerous’? She’s killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity.” Trump was referring to the Obama administration’s campaign to overthrow Arab dictators like Libya’s Qaddafi and Egypt’s Mubarak, which contributed to the chaos in the Middle East after the so-called “Arab Spring.” Marco Rubio can’t attack Hillary’s disastrous foreign policy record because–as Ted Cruz observes–Rubio supported all the same stupid policies. Picture a Cruz-Clinton presidential debate: Cruz denounces Hillary’s incompetence in promoting chaos in the Middle East. Hillary remonstrates, “But most Republicans supported me!” Cruz counters: “That’s right–I’m running against you and against the Establishment in my own party.” Game, set, match.

Here’s a word of consolation for my neocon friends: It’s not personal, just business. I’m a neocon too, an ex-lefty who went rightward with Reagan and carried my spear in the final phase of the Cold War. I was chief economist at Jude Wanniski’s supply-side consulting firm Polyconomics, which is as neocon as you can get, and I give the neocons all the credit for Reaganomics. I’ve published in Commentary Magazine and Irving Kristol’s Public Interest. I traveled the world promoting the Reagan model between 1988 and 1993–Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, and most of all Russia–and learned firsthand how Quixotic was the conceit that our model could be exported.

Still Just One Christian: 275 of 276 Syrian Refugees Admitted Since Paris Attacks Are Muslims By Patrick Goodenough

Since the Paris terrorist attacks on November 13, the State Department has admitted 276 Syrian refugees into the United States – 270 Sunni Muslims (97.8 percent), five (1.8 percent) described merely as “Moslem,” and one Christian (0.3 percent), according to data from the State Department Refugee Processing Center.

The Christian, a Greek Orthodox, is the only non-Muslim among the 276 Syrian refugees admitted since the deadly attacks just over a month ago.

Of the 276, 140 are male, 136 are female; 71 (25.7 percent) are men between the ages of 14 and 50, while 64 (23.1 percent) are women across that age group.

Another 127 (46 percent) are children aged under 14, of whom 63 are boys and 64 are girls.

The attack in Paris, which was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL), stoked fresh fears that terrorists may be entering Western nations posing as refugees – as occurred in the case of at least two of the Paris terrorists, according to police investigators.

That prompted a contentious debate over the admission of Syrian refugees into the U.S., where President Obama plans to resettle 10,000 during fiscal year 2016.

More Lies from Abbas about The “Intifada” by Bassam Tawil

We still have not encountered one case — ever — where a terrorist complained about the absence of a two-state solution. Also, contrary to Abbas’s claim, none of the terrorists has ever complained about checkpoints or settlements. This latest wave of terrorism is not about “despair,” unemployment, poor living conditions or freedom of movement. Instead, it is another attempt by Palestinian “youths” to eliminate Israel, by again using the false excuse that Jew are “desecrating” and “destroying” Islamic holy sites.

A review of the Facebook accounts of most of the terrorists shows that their main intention was to murder as many Jews as possible in order to become “martyrs” — to impose a reign of terror Jews, to force them to leave Israel.

Abbas is well aware that the “youths” are not complaining about the “occupation.” The “occupation” these ” youths” have a problem with is the one that began with the creation of Israel in 1948.

A new generation of Palestinians has once again been deceived into believing that the Jews are plotting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In the “Al-Aqsa Intifada” (2000-2005), the Palestinians knew — they saw — that the Jews had not destroyed the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas now wants us to believe that the Palestinian “youths,” who are sent out to murder Jewish soldiers and civilians, are acting out of “despair.” He wants us to believe that these “youths” decided to murder Jews because their dream of a two-state solution has not been realized. Abbas is also trying to convince us that these “youths” are upset about the Israeli checkpoints, continued construction in the settlements, and visits by Jews to the Noble Sanctuary (Temple Mount).

Ridding the Campus of the Social Justice Pox By Robert Weissberg

All across American universities the Social Justice Warriors (SJW) are on the march demanding increased black faculty, more black undergraduates, various buildings re-named, more public lectures on race, class and gender, the immediate firing of those who give offense plus various Stalinist measures to purge campuses of anything antithetical to their anti-intellectual agenda (for example, see here). And these lists grow longer by the day and, sad to say, university administrators can’t wait to surrender

Can we rid the campus of these misguided fools? Are we condemned to an academic life where free and open discussion is subordinated to creating “safe spaces,” trigger warnings, and formal channel to report professors who accidently hurt somebody’s feelings?

The situation initially appears bleak. Forget about stiffening the administrative spines — these apparatchiki were chosen by virtue of their cowardice and lack any incentive to expel, let alone arrest, disruptors. Similarly useless is reasoning with these fools. That a non-negotiable demand is impractical, too expensive or illegal hardly settles the matter in this quest for a Utopian fantasy.