Don Singleton: 2008-02-10

Friday, February 15, 2008

I did not realize Gaza had a YMCA Library

BBC NEWS reported Gunmen have attacked the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Gaza City and blown up its library, burning thousands of books, its director says.

I did not realize Gaza had a YMCA Library

Eissa Saba said 14 men overpowered the centre's two security guards before placing bombs in the library and main office. The latter did not explode.

You can't even buy good bombs now days

The guards said the gunmen had asked them why they worked for "infidels".

Aren't we all "People of the Book" (or ahl al Kitâb) Surat Al 'Imran, 64 (Qur'an 3:64) says "O People of the Book! Let us rally to a common formula to be binding on both us and you: That we worship none but God; that we associate no partners with Him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, Lords and patrons other than God."

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It’s Not Easy

The Ventilators sing “Superdelegate (It’s Not Easy)”

Hat tip to Hot Air

Bribing Superdelegates

You Decide 08! reported Campaign committees controlled by Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have donated at least $890,000 to the campaigns of superdelegates, according to a report by a group that tracks money in politics.

Buying their votes, so that regardless of how the people in their district voted, they will support the candidate that paid them the most.

Obama donated the largest amount, about $694,000, to those campaigns in the past three years, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Clinton donated $195,500. Both campaigns are furiously lobbying for support

Lobby means attempts to influence lawmakers through personal interviews and persuasion, this is bribery.

among the Democratic Party’s nearly 800 superdelegates, who will be free to support whomever they choose at the convention, regardless of the outcome of the primaries. Superdelegates include all Democratic members of Congress, Democratic governors and other party officials.

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Thursday, February 14, 2008

Fuel From Air

New York Times reported Scientists there say they have developed a way to produce truly carbon-neutral fuel and useful organic chemicals at large scale using water and carbon dioxide removed from the air as raw materials.... This plan has a minor hurdle, too; the electricity for driving the chemical processes, according to a white paper describing the overarching concept, would come from nuclear power.

I support nuclear power even without this finding; it just makes it more attractive.

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Knocked Off Balance

New York Times reported The Texas and Ohio presidential primaries, on March 4, have become must-win contests for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, her advisers say. So why is she just opening campaign field offices across those states?

Because someone told her there are voters there that may vote for Obama. She just assumed they knew she was "inevitable" and that they wuld automatically vote for her.

The primary in Pennsylvania, on April 22, is also a crucial battleground. So why is her campaign telling its most prominent supporter there, Gov. Edward G. Rendell, that there is not enough money now for his proposed piece of direct mail to voters?

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In solidarity with the Danish newspapers

Captain's Quarters blogged Danish newspapers have demonstrated solidarity with Kurt Westergaard and Jyllands-Posten today. After the arrests of conspirators determined to assassinate the editorial cartoonist, the other newspapers in Denmark today have reprinted the cartoon that aroused the ire of Muslims in the first place. They want to make the point that no one can intimidate them into silence.... The move comes amid some serious soul-searching in Europe. The incident has clarified issues regarding Islamic aggressiveness in intimidating people into silence. CNN notes that the arrests have made it clear to Europeans that Islamists intend on suppressing speech in order to keep criticism of their actions to a minimum.

Unfortunately, American newspapers and media outlets do not appear interested in expressing the same solidarity. CNN doesn't include the image in its report, and so far, I haven't seen any newspaper cover it yet, although they may tomorrow. Only the New York Times gave any coverage to the arrests in today's editions.

In solidarity with the Danish newspapers, here's the cartoon that has assassins targeting Westergaard:

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Nobody Prepared

New York Observer reported “What’s gone wrong is very simple,” said Hassan Nemazee, a national finance chair for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “If we had won Iowa and New Hampshire, as we had anticipated, projected, et cetera,

Since we were entitled to the nomination.

you would not have been in a situation in which you are losing all of these small states—because we didn’t put any resources in those small states,” he said.

We figured they were too stupid not to vote for Queen Hillary.

“Obama, on the other hand, put resources in these small states.”

And when did you figure that out?

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Thrill going up my leg

NewsBusters reported During MSNBC's live coverage of Tuesday's presidential primary elections, after the speeches of Barack Obama and John McCain had aired, Chris Matthews expressed his latest over the top admiration for Obama's speaking skills

I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. Me, I felt this thrill going up my leg.
Maybe Chris has a bladder control problem, and it was something warm going down his leg.
I mean, I don't have that too often. No, seriously. It's a dramatic event. He speaks about America in a way that has nothing to do with politics.
He is a con man.
It has to do with the feeling we have about our country. And that is an objective assessment.
Of course it is. Everythin you liberals do is "objective", at least in your own minds.

Afghans from Mexico

deepikaglobal reported Three Afghan nationals were arrested at the Nedumbaserry International Airport, near here, today for travelling on fake Mexican passports, Immigration officials said.

I guess they heard how many Mexicans get into the US, and thought they would try it.

The three were earlier in the day deported from Kuwait after authorities there doubted their claim to be Mexican nationals.... However, the emigration officials at Kuwait had found them to be suspects as they reportedly could not understand any Spanish.

That is a good clue.

They also suspected the passports to be forged.

Really?????

What People Eat

This is really interesting: What People Eat Around The World shows A great collection of pics, from the book Hungry Planet by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio, illustrating what people eat in a week and, most importantly, how much it costs in contrasting places around the world, including UK - $253 a week, Ecuador - $31.55 a week, Darfur - $1.23 a week, Germany - $500 a week, etc.

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Illiterate Teacher

KGTV San Diego reported John Corcoran graduated from college and taught high school for 17 years without being able to read, write or spell.

Is there any wonder why our public school system is as bad as it is?

... For 17 years Corcoran taught high school for the Oceanside School District. Relying on teacher's assistants for help and oral lesson plans, he said he did a great job at teaching his students.

I bet the teacher's union helped him cover it up.

"What I did was I created an oral and visual environment. There wasn't the written word in there. I always had two or three teacher's assistants in each class to do board work or read the bulletin," said Corcoran.

It must have been a rich school district to be able to afford so many teacher's assistants.

In retrospect, Corcoran said, his deceit took him a long time to accept.

Think how his students, and their parents feel.

"As a teacher it really made me sick to think that I was a teacher who couldn't read. It is embarrassing for me, and it's embarrassing for this nation and it's embarrassing for schools that we're failing to teach our children how to read, write and spell!"

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Clinton Says Nothing About Losses

Washington Post reported As news of her triple defeat in the Potomac Primary sank in, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did what has become a specialty in recent weeks: She headed someplace else.

What do you expect her to do? Cry in her beer? They make fun of her when she cries.

After flying from Virginia to Texas for a rally on Tuesday night, Clinton did not publicly acknowledge, even in passing, that three significant primaries had taken place that day

Because she got beaten, bad, by a man in an empty suit.

and her campaign had not issued a statement hours after results were announced. Clinton has made a habit of ignoring contests she loses.

What fo you do when you lose, especially that badly?

On Monday, she cited Louisiana's large African American population in explaining her defeat there. At other times, her campaign has suggested the results of caucuses in general should be discounted.

Because they are made up of activists, and only Clinton activists matter to Clinton.

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The Democrat to Beat McCain

Mark Penn wrote Why Hillary, Not Obama, is the Democrat to Beat McCain But is she the Democrat to beat Obama, and if she is, what damage will she do to the Democratic Party to get the chance?

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Monday, February 11, 2008

Failure

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said twice Sunday that Iraq “is a failure”

Here (pdf file) is the diary of one of al-Qaeda's leaders in Anbar province who once had almost 600 fighters whining he was now down to 20 or less.

Who do you believe?

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Mullah accidently blows up self, sons

NEWS.com.au reported A landmine blew up in the home of a religious cleric in southern Afghanistan, killing the mullah, two of his sons and two other men who had been preparing an attack, police said today.

How many virgins do you get when you just kill yourself and other Muslims, and don't take out a single infidel?

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I'm surprised they have not thought of this before now

Jerusalem Post reported A new Facebook group is urging Sderot residents to use the Internet to learn how to build crude rockets, much like the Kassams launched at them from the Gaza Strip, and fire them back at the Palestinians. The group, which currently has 45 members, posts material from the Internet on how to manufacture rockets.... The group's creators, Shai and Batya Messenberg from Petah Tikva, posted a description that reads: "It cannot be so difficult: If those retards from the Gaza Strip can do it then so can you."

I don't think it would work because I suspect the Israeli government would stop it, but I'm surprised they have not thought of this before now.

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The illusion of change

Betsy Newmark, an AP history and government teacher in Raleigh, NC. has an excellent post The illusion of change that I urge everyone to read. She uses her experience in history and government to show They know that presidential candidates have been promising to change the nation's capital as long as they can remember. In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower swept to power promising to clean up the mess created by Harry Truman. Eight years later, in his speech accepting the Democratic Party nomination, John F. Kennedy made essentially the same promise to transform Eisenhower's Washington. "Dry rot, beginning in Washington, is seeping into every corner of America," he said. "It's time for a change." Jimmy Carter promised to sweep Washington clean after Nixon-Ford; Ronald Reagan promised to fix things after Jimmy Carter … and so it has gone in almost every election cycle before and since. Voters are almost invariably disappointed by candidates promising to straighten out the mess in Washington. Presidents come and go; lobbyists and special-interest groups, it seems, are forever.

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Sunday, February 10, 2008

Inbred

Times Online reported A government minister has warned that inbreeding among immigrants is causing a surge in birth defects - comments likely to spark a new row over the place of Muslims in British society.

Just what they need after the row over Sharia.

Phil Woolas, an environment minister, said the culture of arranged marriages between first cousins was the “elephant in the room”. Woolas, a former race relations minister, said: “If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there’ll be a genetic problem.”

As I recall this used to be a problem with the royal families in several European countries.

The minister, whose views were supported by medical experts this weekend, said: “The issue we need to debate is first cousin marriages, whereby a lot of arranged marriages are with first cousins, and that produces lots of genetic problems in terms of disability [in children].”

They still have a future as suicide bombers.

Woolas emphasised the practice did not extend to all Muslim communities but was confined mainly to families originating from rural Pakistan. However, up to half of all marriages within these communities are estimated to involve first cousins.

But is inbreeding the reason Muslims can't seem to get people to understand why they should not be in control of everything? Are we just being mean, depriving them of the supremacy they think Allah has promised them? It is because the real God treats everyone equally, so everyone has an equal chance of being smarter than average, or more talented than average, but Muslims believe the male Muslim has all of the power, with the female Muslim subservient to him, and that any Jews are Christians in the country are second class Dhimmis, who also have no power, so any talent or skills God gives to Muslim women, or Dhimmi men or women, is just wasted. And since they are incapable of accepting a woman or a Dhimmi with any authority or in any position of power, they are relegating themselves to a powerless position.

The problem is that the Quran, as they interpret it, forces them to think that way. But the answer is not in the Quean, it is in the Bible. And the Qur'an told people to also read the Bible and Torah (10:94, 16:43, 5:44, 2:213, 29:46, 6:4390), it confirmed the validity of the Bible ( 5:46, 2:40, 2:41, 12:111, 4:47, 6:92, 3:3, 35:31, 2:91, 3:113, 2:121, 2:41, 3:81), and it did NOT annul the Bible ( 2:40, 2:41, 2:91, 2:121, 2:213, 3:3, 3:81, 3:113, 4:47, 5:47, 6:90, 6:92, 6:154, 6:156), to the contrary (5:18, 2:136, 2:89).

Assassinated

Nobel winner Doris Lessing said If Barack Obama becomes the next US president he will surely be assassinated, British Nobel literature laureate Doris Lessing predicted in a newspaper interview published here Saturday. Obama, who is vying to become the first black president in US history, "would certainly not last long, a black man in the position of president. They would murder him," Lessing, 88, told the Dagens Nyheter daily.

I don't know why being black wold make it more likely for him to be assassinated. It looks like racism is still a significant thing in South Africa. If the Muslims buy into the idea that he used to be a Muslim, and is therefore an apostate, I can see that they might wish his death, but then they would have loved to take out George Bush for Afganistan and Iraq, and the Secret Service has done a good job protecting him.

Lessing, who won the 2007 Nobel Literature Prize, said it might be better if Obama's Democratic rival Hillary Clinton were to succeed in her bid to become the first woman president of the United States.

I suspect that Doris just wants another woman to win.

"The best thing would be if they (Clinton and Obama) were to run together. Hillary is a very sharp lady. It might be calmer if she were to win, and not Obama," she said.

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Frank Rich opines

Frank Rich opines in New York Times Less than two weeks ago she was airlifted into her own, less effective version of “Mission Accomplished.” Instead of declaring faux victory in Iraq, she starred in a made-for-television rally declaring faux victory in a Florida primary that was held in defiance of party rules, involved no campaigning and awarded no delegates.... The Clintons, unlike Mr. Obama, have not released their income-tax returns. The campaign’s other most potent form of currency remains its thick deck of race cards.... But in the entire televised hour, there was not a single African-American questioner, whether to toss a softball or ask about the Clintons’ own recent misadventures in racial politics.... But the wholesale substitution of Hispanics for blacks on the Hallmark show is tainted by a creepy racial back story. Last month a Hispanic pollster employed by the Clinton campaign pitted the two groups against each other by telling The New Yorker that Hispanic voters have “not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.” Mrs. Clinton then seconded the motion by telling Tim Russert in a debate that her pollster was “making a historical statement.” It wasn’t an accurate statement, historical or otherwise. It was a lie, and a bigoted lie at that, given that it branded Hispanics, a group as heterogeneous as any other, as monolithic racists.... The real point of the Clinton campaign’s decision to sow misinformation and racial division, Mr. Rodriguez concluded, was to “undermine one of Obama’s central selling points, that he can build bridges and unite Americans of all types.”.... The question now is how much more racial friction the Clinton campaign will gin up if its Hispanic support starts to erode in Texas, whose March 4 vote it sees as its latest firewall. Clearly it will stop at little. That’s why you now hear Clinton operatives talk ever more brazenly about trying to reverse party rulings so that they can hijack 366 ghost delegates from Florida and the other rogue primary, Michigan, where Mr. Obama wasn’t even on the ballot.... But does anyone seriously believe that Howard Dean can deter a Clinton combine so ruthless that it risked shredding three decades of mutual affection with black America to win a primary?

I'm just guessing here, but it does not look like Rich is supporting Hillary.

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Treatment of Christians in Egypt

An appalling look at what life is like for Coptic Christians under Muslim rule in Egypt.

Hat tip lgf

There are two more parts to the show:
Part Two.
Part Three.
Sharia at work

Convincing Wins

New York Times reported Senator Barack Obama won decisive victories over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington, Louisiana and Nebraska on Saturday, giving him an impressive sweep going into a month when the Democratic nominating contests are expected to favor him.

This is not going to scare Hillary away, but hopefully her campaign will get desperate enough to show even more Democrats what Conservatives already know, how evil she can really be.

The successes come just as Mr. Obama is building a strong advantage over Mrs. Clinton in raising money, providing important fuel for the nominating contests ahead. Still, the results were expected to do little to settle the muddle in the delegate race that resulted after the wave of contests last Tuesday in which the two candidates split up states from coast to coast.

Gaius blogged The Clinton campaign is actually whining that Obama outspent Clinton in advertising. Poor dears. The fact is that Obama won by absolutely devastating margins, regardless of how he did it. At least McCain stayed close in Washington amid the low turnout there.

Telegraph reported Hillary Clinton's most senior advisers are in a state of "panic" about her presidential prospects and are plotting to enlist Democrat leaders in Congress to thwart her rival Barack Obama's ambitions.... Mr Obama has begun calling those "super delegates" - 795 congressmen and senior party officials who could break a dead heat - who are committed to Mrs Clinton, asking them to change their minds and help him wrap up the nomination.... "He's saying: 'Hey, I won your state and I won your congressional district, why are you supporting her?'" a Democrat strategist revealed.

And wat are the black voters going to think when they decide to support the white woman over Obama.

The Clinton camp hopes to stop the Obama bandwagon by winning Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4, after which Mrs Clinton is planning to call on party grandees including Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Harry Reid, the party's leader in the Senate, to persuade Mr Obama to stand down.

That may result in efforts to persuade Pelosi and Reid to step down.

With sharia it's all or nothing

Charles Moore writes in Telegraph "Sharia," says Dr Williams, "is not intrinsically to do with any demand for Muslim domination over non-Muslims." Actually, under sharia, Jews and Christians have only what is called "dhimmi" status, a sort of protected, but second-class citizenship.

But in a way, he is right. Sharia does not "demand" domination; it assumes it. The law of Islam is radically different from the law of Judaism, which is the law of a minority that accepts the authority of the majority, non-Jewish state. Islam, like Christianity, is a religion of conversion. Its sharia, unlike the teachings of Christianity, is a programme of law to be turned into a political reality, if possible everywhere.

Except in Christian countries, other faiths are respected. In Muslim countries, other faiths are tolerated in a second class status, and then only some other faiths.

Poor, dear Dr Williams mutters into his beard about a "market element" of taking a bit of sharia, and a bit of this and a bit of that, as if these things were herbs to spice our multicultural soup. People who want sharia do not see it like that. For them, it must be the only dish on the table.

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Honour????

Independent.co.uk reported Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to "honour" related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs. And official figures on forced marriages are the tip of the iceberg, says the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). It warns that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding the "honour" of their family is up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest.

What exactly is "honorable" about forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives?

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What he wishes on us is an abomination

A Muslim woman (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown) wrote in Independent.co.uk What Rowan Williams wishes upon us is an abomination and I write here as a modern Muslim woman. He lectures the nation on the benefits of sharia law – made by bearded men, for men – and wants the alternative legal system to be accommodated within our democracy in the spirit of inclusion and cohesion. Pray tell me sir, how do separate and impenetrable courts and schools and extreme female segregation promote commonalities and deep bonds between citizens of these small isles?

And if they wanted to live under those conditions, why would they have come to Britain?

What he did on Thursday was to convince other Britons, white, black and brown, that Muslims want not equality but exceptionalism and their own domains.

See, even the Muslims realize that.

Enlightened British Muslims quail. Friends like this churchman do us more harm than our many enemies. He passes round what he believes to be the benign libation of tolerance. It is laced with arsenic.

Which is true of many things the Left wants.

He would not want his own girls and women, I am sure, to "choose" to be governed by these laws he breezily endorses. And he is naive to the point of folly if he imagines it is possible to pick and choose the bits that are relatively nice to the girls or ones that seem to dictate honourable financial transactions. Look around the Islamic world where sharia rules and, in every single country, these ordinances reduce our human value to less than half that is accorded a male; homosexuals are imprisoned or killed, children have no free voice or autonomy, authoritarianism rules and infantilises populations.

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Superdelegates

Hillary and Obama are very close. There is speculation that the Super Delegates may decide the election, and they may go with a candidate other than the one that got the most votes and delegates in the primaries and caucuses.

Chris Bowers said If the institution that exists to resolve disputes within the American center-left does not operate according to democratic principles, then I see no reason to continue participating within that institution. If that institution fails to respect democratic principles in its most important internal contest of all--nominating an individual for President of the United States--then I will quit the Democratic Party.

Donna Brazile feels the same way

"If 795 of my colleagues decide this election, I will quit the Democratic Party. I feel very strongly about this," Donna Brazile told CNN this week. Brazile, who managed Al Gore's presidential campaign in 2000, is herself a super delegate.

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