RUTHFULLY YOURS

“The Duffel Blog,” the best source for military satire these days, headlined a story on Groundhog Day reporting that Punxatawney Phil had seen his shadow and thus predicted ten more years of war.

In Easter Europe, the Middle East and in too many other places, that prediction is going to come true thanks to people such as Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Spring will soon come to Europe. In anticipation of it the “little green men” – Russian troops disguised as insurgents – have renewed Vladimir Putin’s campaign to conquer the rest of Ukraine.

Putin’s so-called “hybrid war” is not a new strategy or even a new tactic. As Sun Tzu wrote about 2300 years ago, deception is always a part of war and disguising troops as civilians, rebels or otherwise is as old as warfare. Whether it’s Russian troops whose insignia have been torn from their uniforms or terrorists wearing civilian clothes, aggressors’ intentions are the same.

Arrogant statism of global warming fanatics Global warming may well be real. But climate alarmists, and especially those who follow their agenda, are filled with arrogance and hubris and they have immense power to cause damage

I’m a firm believer in climate change. Heck, there have been several ice ages and warming periods, so it’s obvious that temperatures shift over time.

And while I’m not particularly qualified to assess such matters, I’m also willing to believe that human activity has an effect on climate.

Moreover, even though I much prefer warm weather, I’m also open to the idea that global warming might be a bad thing that requires some action.

But here’s the catch. I don’t trust radical environmentalists. Simply stated, too many of these people are nuts.
• Environmentalists assert that you’re racist if you oppose their agenda.
• Some environmentalists don’t believe in bathing.
• How about the environmentalists who sterilize themselves to avoid carbon-producing children?
• Or consider the environmentalists who produce/use hand-cranked vibrators to reduce their carbon footprint.
• There are also environmentalist who claim that climate change causes AIDS.
• And environmentalists put together a ranking implying that Cuba is better than the United States.

Early on Tuesday, apropos their exclusive tongue-bath of the President, one of the Obama pajama boys over at Vox.com Tweeted :

11K words from Obama on his worldview and all DC can talk about is an obviously accidental micro-gaffe. This is why everyone hates DC press.

The “obviously accidental micro-gaffe” was the President’s off-the-cuff observations about the alleged “over-playing” of terrorism when it’s just a low-level law-enforcement question about how to deal with “a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris”.

Well, we can all say carelessly formulated things when we’re off the prompter, particularly when lulled by a sycophantic interviewer. So I suppose it was just about possible that this was indeed “an obviously accidental micro-gaffe” by Obama. Except that, as The Washington Free Beacon pointed out, the Government of the United States spent much of the day insisting that the President meant every word he said. From Josh Earnest’s White House press conference:

Obama’s new tactic to silence criticism of Islam.
This week, President Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he proceeded to inform an audience of Christians that they ought not judge radical Muslims currently engaged in beheading journalists, defenestrating gays, crucifying children, and engaging in mass rape of women. Why, pray tell, should Christians remain silent? Because, Obama informed them with Ivy League pride, “Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. So it is not unique to one group or one religion.”

At some point in our collective history, our ancestors engaged in tribal warfare and cannibalized their fallen enemies. So shut up about the Nazis, you hypocrites.

The one glaring fact concerning the persecution of approximately 100 million Christians around the world today is that the overwhelming majority of it is being committed by Muslims of all races, nationalities, languages, and socio-political circumstances: Muslims from among America’s allies (Saudi Arabia) and from its enemies (Iran); Muslims from economically rich nations (Qatar) and from poor nations (Somalia and Yemen); Muslims from “Islamic republic” nations (Afghanistan) and from “moderate” nations (Malaysia and Indonesia); Muslims from nations rescued by America (Kuwait) and Muslims from nations claiming “grievances” against the U.S. (fill in the blank __).

This fact is underscored in Open Doors’ recent 2015 World Watch List—a report that highlights and ranks the 50 worst nations persecuting Christians. It finds that “Islamic extremism” is the main source of persecution in 40 of the top 50 countries—that is, 80 percent of the nations where Christians are persecuted are Muslim. As for the top ten worst countries persecuting Christians, nine of them are Muslim-majority—that is, 90 percent of nations where Christians experience “extreme persecution” are Muslim.

In a completely unsurprising development, one of the two Republican Commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has made it clear the Obama administration’s effort to regulate the Internet is nothing more than another government power grab. “President Obama’s plan marks a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet,” said a statement released by commissioner Ajit Pai. “It gives the FCC the power to micromanage virtually every aspect of how the Internet works. The plan explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband… These new taxes will mean higher prices for consumers and more hidden fees that they have to pay.”

Pai continued:

The plan saddles small, independent businesses and entrepreneurs with heavy-handed regulations that will push them out of the market. As a result, Americans will have fewer broadband choices. This is no accident. Title II was designed to regulate a monopoly. If we impose that model on a vibrant broadband marketplace, a highly regulated monopoly is what we’ll get.

Former security chief Amos Yadlin’s plan is so preposterous that it must be excoriated publicly.

As Amos Yadlin excoriated PM Netanyahu for causing relations with the United States to sink to “an all-time low,” he hinted that only he could achieve an “intimate relationship” with President Obama. If Labor wins, Yadlin is Labor’s pre-designated Defense Minister. To Yadlin, Netanyahu is a benighted clod who doesn’t know how to properly woo Obama into “intimate relations” and only a military genius like Yadlin knows how to give that “secret handshake,” that special “look in the eye” that will melt Obama’s hardened-heart. In fact, Yadlin is so convinced of his own prowess that he published his secret strategy for wooing Obama in May 2014: If the Palestinians don’t agree, unilaterally retreat from 85% of the “West Bank”!

A recent poll shows that Britons regard Israel less favorably than any other country besides North Korea. The results came as a shock to Israelis and supporters of Israel, but they shouldn’t have. After all, British supporters of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement are widespread, blood libels about the Palestinian ‘genocide’ and Israeli organ harvesting are heard from members of the peerage, and Israel remains one of the few countries the British royal family hasn’t visited.

True, Jews are deeply integrated into British society and have felt secure for decades. But incidents of antisemitic violence have been escalating and even notables like the Jewish director of television of the BBC have expressed fear about the future of Jews in the country. Antisemitism, interwoven and often indistinguishable from anti-Zionism, has reemerged full force. New statistics on antisemitic incidents prove that the British climate is changing for the worse.

Surrounded by fans and protected from criticism, it’s no wonder Brian Williams became a serial fabulist.

By now everyone knows about his transgressions. If even only some of the reports are true, Brian Williams is a serial embellisher, a self-aggrandizing fabulist.

No doubt everyone knows somebody like this, and if you don’t it’s probably because you’re that guy. But Williams’ case is special. This isn’t some sad Willy Loman at the end of the bar who needs to invent impressive stories about himself. If anything, he needed to not tell such stories, given that he reportedly makes more than $10 million a year to be a trusted name in news.

Yet he couldn’t stop himself.

“To walk down a street with an anchor is to be stunned both by how many people recognize them and how many viewers call out to them about specific stories,” writes Ken Auletta, The New Yorker’s media critic. “There’s a respectful familiarity different from the awe displayed to Hollywood celebrities. The anchor is treated as the citizen’s trusted guide to the news. As a result, they can feel expected to dominate discussions, to tell war stories, to play God.”

A sharia court in Texas? What could possibly go wrong? Well, I can think of a few things…

In this segment of Glenn’s interview with the imams, Taher El-Badawi claims that cutting off heads is not just something they do in Islam, but it’s practiced everywhere, including the U.S. (!!!), and that cutting off hands for theft in America would be economical:

Taher : We are ready for any point to discuss with, but the main point here, the reason we are here to discuss this issue what kind of cases Islamic tribunal handle, and you start with the sharia. Why the people afraid from sharia? I’m sorry to say it, one point related to this, cut head is not just in sharia law, just in Islamic law. It’s everywhere. Who said that just in Islamic law? That’s even another sharia, in Jewish sharia, in Christian sharia, in American here, we cut we cut head for some reason.