London Riots

That didn’t take long:

 

Jihad Cosmo

How would you begin a news article about a women’s magazine published by Al-Queda — what one might call “Jihad Cosmo”?  The Daily Mail opens with one of the most striking sentences in the history of journalism:

Al-Qaeda has launched a women’s magazine that mixes beauty and fashion tips with advice on suicide bombings.

Apparently, the magazine is full of timely advice for the complete woman:

Al-Shamikha magazine – meaning The Majestic Woman – has advice for singletons on ‘marrying a mujahideen’.

Readers are told it is their duty to raise children to be mujahideen ready for jihad.

And the ‘beauty column’ instructs women to stay indoors with their faces covered to keep a ‘clear complexion’.

After all, nobody likes a leather-skinned suicide bomber.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365806/Glossy-Jihad-Cosmo-combines-beauty-tips-suicide-bombing-advice.html#ixzz1Gb8CtQrg

 

One Good Sign that the Bubble Has Burst

Describing the Irish financial collapse:

A few months after the spell was broken, the short-term parking-lot attendants at Dublin Airport noticed that their daily take had fallen. The lot appeared full; they couldn’t understand it. Then they noticed the cars never changed. They phoned the Dublin police, who in turn traced the cars to Polish construction workers, who had bought them with money borrowed from Irish banks. The migrant workers had ditched the cars and gone home.

Read More http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/03/michael-lewis-ireland-201103?printable=true#ixzz1DIDnntsH

 

Genius

Voters who are frustrated with California’s recurring multi-billion dollar budget deficits are going to be apoplectic when they realize the even greater problem of unfunded state pension liabilities.

Linked below is a great video parody of the state pensions: Genius.

 

Leadership: throw somebody under the bus

 

 

Politico had an interesting pre-election summary of top Democrats’ reactions to the anticipated 2010 election losses.  Toward the end of the article, what the authors describe as  “Democratic source close to the White House” analyzing Pres. Obama’s likely reaction, makes a very telling point:

He’s shown a willingness [after past crises] to take responsibility and throw somebody under the bus.”

Take responsibility and throw somebody under the bus! If this is what leadership has come to in America, it’s no wonder we’re in such a mess.

via Spin cycle: What will top Dems say? – Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin – POLITICO.com.

 

A lot of work to be done!



Today is the 25th anniversary of Leon Klinghoffer’s murder by Palestinian terrorists.

Klinghoffer and his wife Marilyn were celebrating their 36th wedding anniversary with a Mediterranean cruise on the liner Achille Lauro.  Palestinians seized the ship, murdered Mr. Klinghoffer, an American Jew, as he sat in his wheelchair, then forced the crew to shove his  body into the sea.  His corpse eventually washed up on the Syrian coast.

The Foreign Secretary of the PLO initially claimed that Mrs. Klinghoffer had killed her husband for the insurance money, but the PLO eventually had to admit responsibility in the face of so many witnesses to the shooting.

Last year, the leader of the terrorists gained early release from an Italian prison “for good behavior.”

Mrs. Klinghoffer, who died of colon cancer a few months after her husband’s murder, must have had incredible strength of spirit.  Her call to her daughters from the Achille Lauro included the admonition,

Do your crying now. We have a lot of work when I come home.”

She did not want her husband’s death to be in vain.  And the Klinghoffers’ daughters, Lisa and Ilsa, still work to keep their father’s memory alive.

Sadly, terrorism is still an accepted tactic in much of the world.  So this 25th anniversary is a reminder that all of us still have a lot of work to do.

Links:  Article on Klinghoffer family

Article on terrorist’s early release

 

 

 

Whoops! Neo-Nazi Couple Learn They’re Jewish

How do you say “irony” in Polish?

Two Polish neo-Nazis who were childhood sweethearts and later became skinheads have discovered what for them is a shocking family secret: They’re actually Jewish.

Pawel and Ola, identified only by their first names, are the subject of a CNN documentary about Poles rediscovering their Jewish roots generations after their ancestors hid their religious identities to escape persecution during World War II.

A few years ago, Ola found out from Warsaw’s Jewish Historical Institute that both she and her husband are technically Jews. “It was unbelievable — it turned out that we had Jewish roots. It was a shock,” she said.

At the time, she and Pawel were active in Warsaw’s neo-Nazi movement. “I was a nationalist 100 percent. Back then when we were skinheads it was all about white power… that Jews were the biggest plague and the worst evil of this world,” Pawel said.

Both 33, they’ve now embraced their Jewish identity and are active in their local orthodox synagogue.

via Neo-Nazi Couple Find Out They’re Jewish.

 

Dismissal of Black Panther Case a ‘Travesty of Justice’

This is explosive.  So watch the mainstream media ignore or downplay it.

Background: the Dept. of Justice had substantively won a civil rights case for voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party.  Nonetheless, the Obama DOJ suddenly dismissed the case,  to the consternation of the judge and several career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division of DOJ.

Now, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is investigating whether the DOJ refuses to prosecute violations of voting rights if the victims are white.

The Justice Department is ignoring civil rights cases that involve white victims and wrongly abandoned a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party last year, a top department official testified Friday. He called the department’s conduct a “travesty of justice.”

Christopher Coates, former voting chief for the department’s Civil Rights Division, spoke under oath Friday morning before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, in a long-awaited appearance that had been stonewalled by the Justice Department for nearly a year.

Coates discussed in depth the DOJ’s decision to dismiss intimidation charges against New Black Panther members who were videotaped outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 dressed in military-style uniforms — one was brandishing a nightstick — and allegedly hurling racial slurs.

The case has drifted in and out of the limelight over the past year as the commission has struggled to investigate it. Former Justice official J. Christian Adams fueled the controversy when he testified in July and accused his former employer of showing “hostility” toward cases that involved white victims and black defendants. Nearly three months later, Coates backed up Adams’ claims. In lengthy and detailed testimony, he said the department cultivates a “hostile atmosphere” against “race-neutral enforcement” of the Voting Rights Act.

In general, I think a Republican take-over of the House and/or Senate could help Mr. Obama’s 2012 reelection prospects, due to the potential for triangulation that it would offer him.

However, Republicans in control of either house could hold hearings to investigate matters such as DOJ’s alleged refusal to protect the civil rights of white victims.  Those hearings would be political dynamite.

via FOXNews.com – Voting Rights Official Calls Dismissal of Black Panther Case a ‘Travesty of Justice’.

 

New Jersey: Manhattan’s Provence

From today’s Wall Street Journal:

I’m going out on a limb, to predict that this is the only time this century that New Jersey will be favorably compared to Provence.

However, before the pollution, government corruption, and organized crime, large areas of New Jersey probably would have been nice places to live.

Perhaps fortunately, California is so busy imitating Greece, that it doesn’t have time to copy New Jersey.  But I’m sure that we can get there.

 

Paralysed by love!

This may be the oddest story I’ve ever read, and I’d be very skeptical if this were April 1:

Matt Frerking, 39, from Portland, Oregon, is left immobile if he even has a romantic thought or sees others showing displays of affection.

The affliction has been diagnosed as a combination of the chronic sleeping disorder narcolepsy with cataplexy, a sudden weakening of the muscles which renders the person temporarily immobile but still aware of their surroundings and able to hear.

For Mr Frerking the feeling that sparks an attack is love and being around his family can send him into a state of physical paralysis.

He is unable to put his arm around Trish, his wife of 13 years, and suffers attacks on anniversaries. He can suffer attacks several times a day.

“Holding hands in public is something that we can do for a few seconds at most, and that’s about it,” Mr Frerking said.

“Putting my arm around her is something that I don’t do unless we’re sitting down and I know that it won’t matter that much if I just flop over. I have to limit those things very carefully.” During an interview with ABC News, he described having to avoid “warm and fuzzy” feelings before passing out after looking at photos in his wedding album.

Attacks are also triggered by trailers for romantic films and Mr Frerking said he tries to stave them off by thinking about scientific research.

Adding to the surreality: Mr. Frerking is a neuroscientist.

via The neuroscientist paralysed by love – Telegraph.

 

Fascinating Story of Love, Politics, and Betrayal

The love story of Nikolai Bukharin and Anna Larina, and what Stalin did to them and their infant son.

One of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever heard, with the author, Paul Gregory, at: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/07/gregory_on_poli.html

Same day, I ordered the book.

 

Honor Killing in America

These are the Said sisters, Amina and Sarah — two pretty Texas teens who were brutally murdered on New Year’s Day 2008. The main suspect: their father, Yaser. Their crime: dating non-Muslim boys. Their penalty: honor killings.

Tonight (Friday, August 6) at 10 p.m. eastern, Fox News will broadcast Bill Hemmer’s one-hour special investigating the case, and the risk Muslim girls face at the hands of their male relatives if they act too . . . American.

via Honor Killing in America – The Corner – National Review Online.

 

Addicts Inject Selves with Others’ Blood

A new low in highs:

Desperate heroin users in a few African cities have begun engaging in a practice that is so dangerous it is almost unthinkable: they deliberately inject themselves with another addict’s blood, researchers say, in an effort to share the high or stave off the pangs of withdrawal.

The practice, called flashblood or sometimes flushblood, is not common, but has been reported in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the island of Zanzibar and in Mombasa, Kenya.

It puts users at the highest possible risk of contracting AIDS and hepatitis.

via Desperate Addicts Inject Others’ Blood – NYTimes.com.