RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/why-moderate-islam-is-an-oxymoron/print/

Reprinted from CBN News.

At a time when terrorism committed in the name of Islam is rampant, we are continuously being assured—especially by three major institutions that play a dominant role in forming the Western mindset, namely, mainstream media, academia, and government—that the sort of Islam embraced by “radicals,” “jihadis,” and so forth, has nothing to do with “real” Islam.

“True” Islam, so the narrative goes, is intrinsically free of anything “bad.” It’s the nut-jobs who hijack it for their own agenda that are to blame.

More specifically, we are told that there exists a “moderate” Islam and an “extremist” Islam—the former good and true, embraced by a Muslim majority, the latter a perverse sacrilege practiced by an exploitative minority.

But what do these dual adjectives—“moderate” and “extremist”—ultimately mean in the context of Islam? Are they both equal and viable alternatives insofar as to how Islam is understood? Are they both theologically legitimate? This last question is particularly important, since Islam is first and foremost a religious way of life centered around the words of a deity (Allah) and his prophet (Muhammad)—the significance of which is admittedly unappreciated by secular societies.

Both terms—“moderate” and “extremist”—have to do with degree, or less mathematically, zeal: how much, or to what extent, a thing is practiced or implemented. As Webster’s puts it, “moderate” means “observing reasonable limits”; “extremist” means “going to great or exaggerated lengths.”

It’s a question, then, of doing either too much or too little.

The problem, however, is that mainstream Islam offers a crystal-clear way of life, based on the teachings of the Koran and Hadith—the former, containing what purport to be the sacred words of Allah, the latter, the example (or sunna, hence “Sunnis”) of his prophet, also known as the most “perfect man” (al-insan al-kamil). Indeed, based on these two primary sources and according to normative Islamic teaching, all human actions fall into five categories: forbidden actions, discouraged actions, neutral actions recommended actions, and obligatory actions.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/the-race-hacks-defend-their-industry/print/

The race-hack usual subjects recently attacked Congressman Paul Ryan for stating that the problems plaguing the poor––incarceration, fatherless children, drug abuse, rampant violence, and welfare-dependence–– are a consequence of a dysfunctional culture that scorns marriage, parenthood, education, work, and virtues like self-control. Given that blacks are overrepresented among the underclass, these unexceptional observations––regularly made by others, including Barack Obama––called down a firestorm of racialist invective on Ryan. The abuse ranged from the usual clichés about “blaming the victim” and racist “dog-whistles,” to a New York Times columnist accusing Ryan of being as callous as the Brits were about the 19th century Irish famine. Such ad hominem calumny suggests that somebody’s ox is being gored and doesn’t like it.

The overfed “ox,” of course, is the race industry and its enablers in the federal Leviathan. It’s understandable why these grievance-mongers want to deflect attention away from Ryan’s message. Since the rise of identity politics and anti-poverty programs in the 60s, the plight of the black underclass has worsened, even as the self-selected race tribunes––professors, “activists,” lobbyists, government employees, celebrities, politicians––have flourished. Given that the moral capital financing the race industry comes from the misery and suffering of underclass blacks, race-grievance entrepreneurs must ward off solutions to those problems that challenge the narrative justifying their own power.

That narrative is simple: white racism explains the epidemic of black-on-black murder, children without fathers, lack of education, and dependence on the government dole. Since Klan-style racist violence and Jim Crow legal racism have disappeared, “racism” has to be redefined in ever more subtle manifestations like “institutional racism.” The best example of this scam is the “disparate impact” standard for identifying racism, a favorite of the current Department of Justice. By this metric, a mere statistical imbalance in minority participation in car loans or home mortgages is a sign of racism even if no intent can be proven or even identified. This kind of thinking led to the federal regulations pressuring lenders to lower qualifying standards for home loans, which was a major factor in the housing bubble and the ensuing Great Recession of 2008. The hysteria over “profiling” is another example of this racialist voodoo. Even if a group is overrepresented among perpetrators of a crime, identifying suspects from that group when such a crime occurs is automatically racist.

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Watching Mr. Obama, at Tuesday’s news conference in Brussels, as he characterized Russia as a “regional” power, one could not help wonder: Was the dig aimed at Mr. Putin, Mitt Romney, or at the American people, to assure them they have nothing to fear from the Russian bear? More important, though, was it accurate?

In terms of acreage, Russia is the largest country in the world, with almost twice the square miles of the next three largest countries – the U.S., Canada and China. But using other measures, Russia seems less formidable. With 144 million people, it ranks 9th in population, behind countries like Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh. Its economy is the 8th largest, just behind Brazil’s. Russia’s army, with about a million men and women on active duty, ranks 5th in the world, behind China, the U.S., India and North Korea. Russia’s numbers, however, exclude reserves of approximately two million.

In some respects, Mr. Obama was right; Russia is a regional power and a weak one at that. The country is plagued with high unemployment, a weak economy and a life expectancy for men that is twenty-years less than ours. On the other hand, Russia’s territory is massive; it stretches from Vladivostok, less than 500 miles from the west coast of Japan to St. Petersburg, a few miles east of the Finnish border, a distance of 4070 miles. The Country encompasses nine time zones. Their southern border touches both China and North Korea, homes to the world’s largest and fourth largest armies. When Rudyard Kipling wrote “The Ballad of East and West,” he could not have been thinking of Russia; for there, in fact, the “twain” does meet; though not always peacefully.

As history instructs, military effectiveness is not just numbers, but the willingness to use the military one has. In acting like a 19th Century wannabe empire builder, Mr. Putin has shown no interest in abiding by the rules of Mr. Obama’s “globalized 21st Century.” What Mr. Obama may have missed in charm school is that it makes no difference in what century we live, bullies have always responded most aggressively to those who sweet-talk them. They respect strength, not coddling. It is the display of might – carriers, fighter planes and tanks – that gets their attention. A hundred years ago, in the first few years of the 20th Century, there were many who saw that age as a time that would usher in a golden, global period of prosperity and civility. For a few short years, it seemed that might be so. But the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 thrust the world into war, which lasted, with a brief but tenuous interlude, for thirty years and cost at least 100 million lives.

http://americanthinker.com/assets/3rd_party/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/03/the_october_surprise_that_could_cripple_the_practice_of_medicine.htm
You won’t read about the International Classification of Disease (ICD) on TMZ or hear it discussed on The View, but it has the potential to be an unpleasant October surprise in the health care world. It is a list of codes that physicians and hospitals use when billing insurance companies. These codes cover all manner of medical diagnoses for diseases, conditions, and injuries.

The first version of the ICD appeared in 1946, with periodic revisions since. Six months from now, on October 1, the latest version, the ICD-10, will be implemented in the U.S. We are late to the party, with other countries having implemented this over the past 15 years. The ICD-10 has already been delayed for a year, but the administration promises no further delays.

The ICD-10 is not the fault of ObamaCare, nor is it Bush’s fault. The classification preceded even Bill Clinton. So this is not a partisan issue. Instead, it is an issue of complexity, arriving in the wake of the largest health care overhaul in history, with its attendant chaos and confusion.

The current version, the ICD-9, uses a 4- or 5-digit number to code for a particular disease, such as 540.9 for appendicitis. The ICD-10 will have up to 7 alphanumeric characters to specify a condition, such as S52.521A for “torus fracture of lower end of right radius, initial encounter for closed fracture.” And there are now over five times as many codes for doctors and hospitals to choose from.

http://americanthinker.com/assets/3rd_party/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/03/harry_reid_used_campaign_funds_to_give_granddaughter_17000.html

In a repeat of the same crime that sent Jesse Jackson Jr to prison, Harry Reid’s campaign used $17,000 of campaign funds as a gift to his granddaughter, and covered it up in a mandatory disclosure document by omitting her last name (Reid). Karoun Demirjian of the Las Vegas Sun reports:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has reimbursed his campaign nearly $17,000 paid to his granddaughter for “holiday gifts” in late 2013, after the Federal Election Commission insisted that his campaign clarify why the money was spent.

The FEC sent the treasurer for Friends of Harry Reid a letter insisting that he “must include a brief statement or description … to clarify the following description: ‘holiday gifts.’”

Reid’s campaign operation listed that description on its year-end report for two separate disbursements to Ryan Elisabeth of Berkley, Calif., on Oct. 23 — one for $5,416.93, the other for $11,370.00.

“Ryan Elisabeth” is actually Ryan Elisabeth Reid, the majority leader’s granddaughter, a spokeswoman for Reid confirmed Tuesday.

“I thought it would be nice to give supporters and staff thank-you gifts that had a personal connection and a Searchlight connection,” Reid said in a prepared statement. “But I have decided to reimburse the campaign for the amount of the expenditure.”

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/03/27/obama-meets-pope-francis-gives-him-a-box-of-seeds/

President Obama met Pope Francis this morning at the Vatican in a meeting that lasted a little under an hour and featured Obama giving the pontiff a box of seeds.

Obama brought along Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, press secretary Jay Carney and deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.

The pope greeted Obama outside the Papal Library with a friendly handshake. Obama “nodded his head slightly,” according to the White House pool report. “Wonderful meeting you,” the president said. “Thank you sir, thank you.”

“It is a great honor. I’m a great admirer. Thank you so much for receiving me,” Obama continued. “I bring greetings from my family. The last time I came here to meet your predecessor I was able to bring my wife and children.”

Michelle Obama departed China yesterday after a weeklong trip with her daughters and mother.

The pool reporters could not hear the pope’s responses to Obama as they sat across a desk from each other, each with an interpreter. Pope Francis’s native language is Spanish but he also speaks Italian, Portuguese, French, German, Ukrainian, Piedmontese and Latin, according to the Vatican.

Article printed from The Rosett Report: http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett

On Thursday the United Nations General Assembly weighed in on Russia’s seizure of Crimea, inspiring headlines to the effect that Russia is becoming a pariah at the UN. For instance, the New York Times reported: “Vote by U.N. General Assembly Isolates Russia.” [1]

If only it were that straightforward. But if you look at the actual resolution, and the vote, it’s more like the UN General Assembly has sort-of-maybe-somewhat semi-isolated Russia. The point being that, unfortunately, the UN is no place to go for any solution to Russia’s territorial grabs.

The UN body that should really be objecting to Russia’s seizure of Ukraine is the UN Security Council. But with Russia holding one of the Permanent Five veto-wielding seats, the Security Council is even more impotent than usual. So Ukraine had to take its case to the General Assembly, where the resolutions can carry a certain heft as a reflection of general opinion, but have no binding force.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14751#.UzVPdYWCUtV

Those of us in America who stay awake nights worrying about Israel sometimes imagine that the rest of the country is similarly obsessed. This is a serious mistake. America has other business. Even worse is when Israel makes foolish and tragic concessions in order to “make America happy.” But America is happy enough watching “Dancing with the Stars.”

Back when I was editor for KYW all-news radio (a million listeners during my Morning Drive shift) I ran Israel as the top story day after day. I gave people what I thought they wanted. Turned out, from a scientific survey, that people wanted weather and traffic. News about the rest of the country was a distant third and news about the rest of the world was down at the bottom at about zero.

The other day I asked some people I know what they thought of Bibi. “Bibi who?” was the consensus.

“Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” I said.

“Oh,” said one wise man. “He’s the prime minister of Iran, right?”

Make no mistake. Americans are not stupid. They just don’t care. If it’s not happening here, it’s not happening anywhere.

America’s heartbeat is in its ballparks.

The most recent Gevalt moment was when Bibi was dragged to Washington kicking and screaming. We worried. What is he going to give up today? How much territory will Israel lose and how many more murderers will be released? Israeli prime ministers, according to ritual, are invited to the White House once a year to get themselves slapped around.

http://sarahhonig.com/2014/03/28/another-tack-some-are-more-equal/

Speaking the truth can be a dangerous undertaking. It can expose the speaker to all sort of chastisement. This isn’t only so in any given country’s domestic affairs but very much so in relations between states.

Ours, after all, is a globalized reality. This fact can induce and intensify inordinate hubris in some leaders with pretensions to hold sway over more than their own specified domain. White House occupant and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barak Obama, for instance, often conducts himself as if the American electorate and the Nobel committee had put him in charge of the whole earth.

Had Obama been an unqualified success, his conceit may be suffered but his isn’t and he doesn’t like to hear that he isn’t.

Despite his resplendent liberal credentials, Obama’s concept of liberty is a tad constricted. Everyone – everywhere on the face of this planet and beyond – is perfectly free to go into raptures over him but it’s a whole different opera when not-so-flattering opinions are sounded.

Obama, his appointed sidekicks and salaried mouthpieces resent criticism. Plain and simple.

Quite clearly, the US president and secretary of state don’t subscribe to George Orwell’s ever-relevant observation that “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

*Therefore, woe to the Quixotic sorts – both on America’s home turf and abroad – who insist on telling Obama and crew precisely what they’re loath to hear. Woe all the more to the recidivists who persist in upsetting the Obama administration’s omniscient ones.

Very obviously Israel’s defense minister Moshe Ya’alon is among the least stomached recidivists, even if he speaks his mind at closed meetings or in private conversations.

Ya’alon must come to grips with the fact that freedom of speech isn’t universally countenanced in our Obamaesque existence. Someone can be counted upon to leak or record uncomplimentary evaluations of the dear leader and then woe to him who dared tell it like he sees it.

The only way to avoid Obama’s self-righteous censure is to obsequiously shut up. Not to do so is imprudent in the extreme.

Nonetheless, Ya’alon keeps breaching the gag order that has been imposed on Israeli statesmen by Obama’s eminently ultra-liberal administration. Its honchos detest unfavorable analyses, which amounts to not wanting them voiced – not even behind closed doors.

Actually it’s not merely what is said but who says it. Restrictions on free speech especially apply to notable absentees from Obama’s list of favorites. Ya’alon most certainly is not featured on that list but a host of Iranian ayatollahs who harbor no inhibitions to stridently denounce America as the “Big Satan” are among the favorites who must never be called to order, no matter what.

Ramallah figurehead Mahmoud Abbas (now in his tenth year of office as “president,” despite having supposedly been elected in 2005 to only a four-year term) can also rant as he pleases. No amount of mind-blowing mendacity, outright incitement, rampant terror-glorification, extraordinary distortion or in-your-face extortion will ever land this perpetual favorite in hot water.

Yet whatever bespectacled soft-spoken Ya’alon says is guaranteed to get him into scalding disfavor, even if he dares talk in camera. He presumably should curb his tongue even in the privacy of his bedroom, as is advisable for anyone of whom the White House so indignantly disapproves.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/27/mandel-a-fatal-flaw-in-the-palestinian-peace-proce/?page=all#pagebreak

Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state has assumed center stage in recent days. The Palestinians have repeatedly refused, insisting that their official recognition of Israel without reference to the Jewish character of the state is sufficient.

Although the Obama administration is aggressively pursuing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has thrown it not even a bone: In Washington on March 20, he told President Obama to his face that the Palestinians will not accept Israel as a Jewish state. The Arab League echoed that rejection this week.

Mr. Abbas also told Mr. Obama that there could be no compromise on what Palestinians call the “right of return” — the repatriation to Israel, rather than to a Palestinian state, of the Palestinian refugees of the 1948-49 war and their millions of descendants. He also repudiated the idea that a signed peace settlement with Israel would mark an end to further claims and conflict.

This result was only to be expected. American pressure on the Palestinian Authority has never been tried, even though the Obama administration was thought to be in accord with Israel on the necessity of such recognition and seeking Palestinian agreement behind the scenes. It turned out recently that this, too, is absent.