08/17/13

Mark Levin brings the Constitution to life

Hat Tip: BB

08/17/13

The Sky’s the Limit

I grew up being told the human mind is capable of anything, that the sky’s the limit. Maybe that’s why Sci-fi novels became so popular, the sky’s the limit; only with Sci-fi there are no limits, none.

While listening to music via Pandora an advertisement caught my attention, a product called Livescribe was on sale just in time for the back to school rush for the latest gadgets and gizmos. It sounded like something Robert Heilein might have had in, The Past Through Tomorrow – Future History Stories.

It’s nice to have the internet where almost any question can be answered; what’s Wikipedia got to say?

“A Livescribe smartpen is about the size and weight of a large pen (5/8″ x 6 1/8″), and is equipped with a removable ball-point ink cartridge, a microphone to record audio, a speaker for playback, a small OLED display, an infra-red camera, and internal flash memory that captures handwritten notes, audio and drawings.”

The more I read the more I knew how little I knew about our brave new world.

“Livescribe’s special paper that allows the recording of notes uses a patented dot-positioning system licensed from Anoto.”

{…}

“As with all Anoto pattern-based pens, the smartpen can only determine its position on the page when used with paper pre-printed with the dot pattern. Livescribe sells notebooks in several styles, and users can also print their own dot paper with a color laser printer capable of at least 600 dpi.”

I knew I was in over my head with that lead in, “As with all Anoto pattern-based pens”; what the heck is an Anoto pattern-based pen, like it was common knowledge.

Not too many years ago I enjoyed the movie K-Pax about a fellow named prot (uncapitalized and rhyming with “goat”) who claims to have travelled to Earth on a beam of light from the planet K-Pax. Naturally, his sanity was questioned and he quickly ended up under the care of the State; being placed in a mental institution, ostensibly to save him from himself.

While under the care of clinical psychologists, being analyzed and questioned regarding his claims, the answers he comes up seem to support his far fetched alternative reality. He’s permitted an opportunity to meet with the top scientist in the field of astronomy at a planetarium where the night sky comes to life on the overhead viewing dome.

He’s asked to use the light pad to produce the orbital patterns of K-Pax along with the binary star system from whence he came. The main character, prot, immediately sets to task, plotting the information as requested to such an extent that when his drawing is superimposed on the data collected from the Hubble telescope it matched up almost perfectly.

One of the scientists asked, “How could you know this?”

Then prot answered, “Common knowledge, just like every child on Earth knows that your planet revolves around the Sun, common knowledge.”

So you see, the idea of having a magic writing instrument, one which is capable of plotting and recording information electronically isn’t Sci-fi at all, it’s been around for quite some time.

Will students of this generation appreciate the efforts taken by the ancients, those who took a sharp knife to fashion a crude writing instrument and pen words of inspiration which have lasted hundreds of years? Perhaps, then again isn’t the information recorded more important than the means by which it was recorded?

Shouldn’t we honor the founding principles, the ink dried on parchment for all the world to see? How much easier it would have been for Thomas Jefferson to whip out his Livescribe tablet and touch it with a Sky instrument, each word immediately played back when establishing our independence and the formation of our most basic principles:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Our nation was founded on great ideas, something along the lines, ‘the sky’s the limit’. Isn’t it time we lived up to the promise and more especially, we hold our elected officials feet to the fire whenever they think they can get around constitutional restraints, constitutional restraints that preserve us a nation?

08/17/13

Boycott halal

Hat Tip: BB

08/17/13

The World’s End Official Trailer #1 (2013)

08/17/13

Some say Oprah helping ‘The Butler’ attendance. No one asked how much Jane Fonda’s role kept people away.

By: Nelson Abdullah
Conscience of a Conservative

Preliminary box-office results reported by Deadline.com say Oprah Winfrey’s role in the movie ‘The Butler’ was a drawing point for Friday night attendance. But the movie still doesn’t look like the blockbuster is was promoted to be.

Also interesting to note is that 72% of Fandango’s The Butler ticket-buyers who were surveyed claimed that co-star Oprah Winfrey’s involvement increased their interest in seeing the film. Love her or hate her, Oprah in her first movie role in 15 years is helping The Butler‘s box office right now.

Much to the disgust of conservative Republicans, when word came out that ‘Hanoi’ Jane Fonda was given the role of Nancy Reagan, it appeared a backlash may develop in protest. Whether the protest is successful or not will be seen in coming days or weeks but one thing is sure and that is no one polled anyone on what negative affect ‘Hanoi’ Jane’s role would have.

Now, in a story published on The US Report, in a story about the casting of ‘Hanoi’ Jane the director acknowledges his political activism and admitted the insult was intentional.

As boycott proceeds, ‘The Butler’ director acknowledges political activism

Lee Daniels, director and producer of the film The Butler did a Q&A with Politico’s Patrick Gavin.

The film has already become a target for Vietnam-era veterans and their supporters because Jane Fonda was cast as First Lady Nancy Reagan.

Fonda’s activism against the Vietnam War and her vitriolic attacks on U.S. troops as well as her praise for repressive government systems made her quite possibly the worst choice in the universe to play President Ronald Reagan’s wife.

Was Fonda deliberately cast in the role as an insult?

If an actress stands for most of what Reagan was against, Fonda is the poster femme.

Daniels acknowledged there was a political slant, not only in the choice of actors, but in the spirit of the film.

The group Boycott Hanoi Jane Playing Nancy Reagan has grown to more than 26,000 supporters on Facebook. Many supporters of the boycott remember Fonda’s behavior at a time similar to today, when there was bitter division among the people and weak leadership in Washington.

The US Report urges all conservatives, Republicans and others who admire the Reagan legacy and who respect the U.S. military to boycott the film and click ‘Like’ on the Facebook page.

America’s enemy confirmed years after the war that Fonda and other celebrities were a valuable asset in their fight against the U.S. on behalf of communism.

Read more here: http://www.theusreport.com/the-us-report/2013/8/14/as-boycott-proceeds-the-butler-director-acknowledges-politic.html

08/17/13

Former Marine on Police State Build-Up: Government Fears Its Own People

Hat Tip: BB

It Also Explains How We’ve Been Crapped On…

Hat Tip: The Radio Patriot

08/17/13

The Day Of Rage Comes With A Pricetag

Blasted Fools

As I write, the number of dead – 800, and injured in Egypt due to the military’s response to civil unrest is growing by the hour. Reports coming from the legacy media, are attributing the deaths to what they characterize as a brutal military crackdown.

This has prompted some journalists to put forward the proposition that secularists and liberals have a share in the responsibility for encouraging the Egyptian military to oust erstwhile President Morsi and that somehow democracy has been thwarted – the result being the police and army’s attacks on Morsi supporters. Incidentally, when you see the phrase ‘Morsi supporters’, translate that to the Muslim Brotherhood and their first cousins, the Salafists.

Normally, and almost universally, I tend to sympathize with what I believe to be unarmed protesters being cut down in the streets by government forces. I say normally, because it is a matter of principal and it’s one that is not hard to argue or defend. There’s more going on in the uprisings in Egypt, however, than meets the casual eye. First, the general reputation of the protesters has to be taken into consideration. Are these Morsi supporters something that could be compared to the more benign elements of the Occupy protests, or Tea Party people rallying to send a message of dissent to lawmakers? The history of the Muslim Brotherhood and the hard line Salafists, says no.

In order to really grasp the motives behind the Egyptian army’s gloves off approach to dealing with the political Islamists in Egypt – you have to look beyond the recent public relations positioning of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928. It is “the mother of all Islamist movements,” says Shadi Hamid, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center. It was not many years later that its leadership allied itself with Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany. The Muslim Brotherhood began a propaganda campaign against Jews, circulating copies of Mein Kampf and the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ in Arabic. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a hateful forgery and has been extremely poisonous wherever it has been distributed, leading to vicious persecutions and deaths of Jews worldwide. Mein Kampf, the ferment of a psychopathic mind – needs no introduction to students of history.

The Muslim Brotherhood, has throughout its existence, been relentlessly involved in efforts to destabilize Egypt through political intrigue and violence – carrying out assassinations, attacks on public officials, destruction of public property and coup attempts. Because of this, it has always been viewed with distrust by Egypt’s leaders, from Nassar through Sadat and Mubarek. Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) writer, Zachary Laub, notes that one of the early leaders of the Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb, jailed on suspicion of plotting to kill President Nasser, was the chief architect of the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda to employ Jihad in order to usher in Sharia and Islamic rule in Egypt and beyond.

Laub describes Qutb’s writings, particularly his 1964 manifesto Milestones, as providing “the intellectual and theological underpinnings for numerous militant Sunni Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda and Hamas.” Laub also says that extremist leaders often channel Qutb, who was hanged in 1966, to argue that governments not ruled by sharia are apostate, and therefore legitimate targets of jihad.

Many journalists and academics have been seduced by the seemingly moderate public rhetoric of the Muslim Brotherhood. These analysts say the group has undergone a gradual transformation, moderating its earlier ambitions and demonstrating a willingness to participate in society along democratic lines. Carrie Wickham of Emory University was one of the professorial class that was taken in by the Brotherhood’s clever tactical shift over the last 30 years. “Although the Brotherhood entered the political system in order to change it, it ended up being changed by the system.” She notes that interactions with politicians and members of civil society outside the Islamist camp have moderated some of the Brotherhood’s political positions.

The mask has been taken off since last year’s demonstrations in Tahrir Square and the election and subsequent removal of Morsi. Circumstances peeling the first layer of this thin veneer of populism and good will, revealed a deep well of intolerance and neanderthalism. Despite their earlier promises of not seeking to dominate the new government formed by elections following Mubarek’s ouster – they did that very thing indeed.

Middle East scholar Robin Wright describes Morsi’s governing style as ‘majoritarianism’—”autocratic rule by the largest party.” That in reality, is what informed the process of the creation of Egypt’s constitution – which predictably met with wide disapproval in the country. Wael Nawara, an activist and visiting fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, proposed that “the Muslim Brotherhood’s assault on Egyptian identity, culture, and way of life, was the “core cause of protests.”

That takes us forward to this week’s violence. Hamza Hendawi and Maggie Michael of the Associated Press report that much of the violence has been precipitated by the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi protesters and they cite as an example, an incident in which protesters trapped a police Humvee on an overpass near the Nasr City camp and pushed it off, according to images posted on social networking sites that showed an injured policeman on the ground below, near a pool of blood and the overturned vehicle.

52 policemen have been killed by the protesters, as noted in a Reuters report, but that you likely haven’t heard in reports from the legacy media here in America. As Tom Perry and Alexander Dziadosz write for Reuters,

“Shocking scenes, including television footage of unarmed protesters dropping to the ground as security forces opened fire, have been seen around the world, but many Egyptians support the crackdown and resent international criticism of the army.”

“What happened was the only logical way to end their sit-ins, which did have weapons and … violent people,” said Ismail Khaled, 31-year-old manager in a private company. “Thank God the police ended them. I wish they had done so sooner.”

Egypt’s ambassador to Britain rejects the characterization of excessive force on the part of the government. Speaking at the Egyptian embassy in London, Ashraf El Kholy said the camps set up by Morsi loyalists were “not as peaceful and innocent” as protesters claimed.
“I think with these number of deaths and this amount of violence, (the protesters) got what they wanted,” he said.

It appears what they wanted was a bloody confrontation and the results speak for themselves. Remember, these protesters are deeply immersed in the mentality of Jihad and its possible consequences which they have been taught to accept as martyrdom. This is routinely displayed everywhere that Islam is projecting its violent struggle for ascendance over secular society. A good example is the Intifada campaigns of the P.L.O. and its successors, Hamas, in Gaza and the West Bank.

It should also be born in mind, that there is no tradition of democracy in the Middle East, so it is fruitless to try to look at the events that have unfolded and the types of measures the government has found necessary to resort to in Egypt, through the lens of representative government and the deliberative processes of American or Western European civics.

There’s another element in the events of the last week that are being reported by the international media, but given short shrift on this side of the Atlantic, and that is the bloodlust of the Muslim-Brotherhood and its ideological bunkmates, the Salafists, against Christians in Egypt.

Mina Thabet, an activist with Christian rights group the Maspero Youth Union, says there’s a “retaliation war” against the religious minority, which makes up around 10 percent of Egypt’s population, and told Al Jazeera on Friday that at least 32 churches had been “completely destroyed, burned or looted” in eight different governorates over the previous two days. The group also recorded dozens of other attacks on Christian-owned shops, businesses and schools around the country. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), an Egyptian NGO, says attackers targeted Christian schools, shops and homes across all 27 provinces.

“The Egyptian defense minister ordered the engineering department of the armed forces to swiftly repair all the affected churches, in recognition of the historical and national role played by our Coptic brothers,” read a statement that aired on Egyptian television. Bishop Mousa thanked Sisi for his efforts to repair the damaged churches. “We thank Col. Gen.Sisi for commissioning the brave Egyptian armed forces to rebuild the places of worship damaged during the recent events,” Bishop Mousa said on Twitter.

As is typical with the paranoid and hate infested adherents of radical Islam, they are falsely accusing Christians of having a significant role in the Army’s removal of Morsi and the Brotherhood. This is the justification they are trotting out to the media for their attacks on Christians. The fact of the matter is that over the course of Egypt’s modern history, the Salafists and their allies within the Brotherhood have never needed justification to commit atrocities against the Coptic minority population.

No one should marvel at the fact that a religious minority under siege by such as the most virulent of the adherents of Wahhabism, will naturally seek to maintain close and positive relations with the only entity in Egypt that is capable of protecting them from a total holocaust – the Army.

For those who think that the actions of the interim government against the Islamists are unprovoked and unanticipated, I ask you to examine the following list of aggressions inflicted on Christians and churches throughout Egypt. I’m of the belief that the Religion of Hate has called down wrath and bloodshed upon its own head.

Churches

Alexandria:

1. Father Maximus Church

Arish:

1. St George Church | Burned |

Assiut:

Beni Suef:

1. The Nuns School |
2. St George Church | al-Wasta

Cairo:

Fayoum:

Gharbiya:

1. Diocese of St Paul | Burned |

Giza:

1. Father Antonios
2. Atfeeh Bishopric

Minya:

Qena:

1. St Mary’s Church | Attempted Burning

Sohag:

Suez:

1. St Saviours Anglican Church |
2. Franciscan Church and School | Street 23 | Burned
3. Holy Shepherd Monastery and Hospital |
4. Good Shepherd Church (molotov cocktail thrown)- Relationship with Holy Shepherd Monastery unknown.
5. Greek Orthodox Church | Christian Institutions

Other targets:

List courtesy of Amira Mikhail

08/17/13

‘The Enemies Within’ Launches Aug 20th in Washington DC

by: Editor
Pacific Freedom Foundation

Join us as Trevor Loudon launches his new book, “The Enemies Within” at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. Aug 20th

Join Trevor as he begins his 2013 National Book Tour for “The Enemies Within: Communists, Progressives and Socialists in the U.S. Congress,” in the heart of the city where the book focuses: The Enemies in the U.S. Congress. Hear all about it and find out what you can do to fight the real threat to our freedoms and our American way of life. Trevor will be part of a day-long event hosted by Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kinkaid (aim.org). Admission to the event is free of charge, but reservations are requested by calling and leaving your name, affiliation, and telephone number.

The National Press Club
529 Fourteenth Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20045
Tuesday, August 20th, 2013
(443) 964-8028

Contact: [email protected]