Daily Archives: October 10, 2013

10/10/13

Pride

Arlene from Israel

Before speaking about that pride, I simply wanted to alert my readers to a slowdown in my postings that will be taking place for the next 10-14 days. I am well, but focused on both a personal family situation and on a major project — about which you will hear in due course. Please, unless it is important, refrain from writing to me during this time.

~~~~~~~~~~

Two Israeli professors have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, sharing it with an Austrian Jewish American, Prof. Martin Karplus, who fled to the US before the Holocaust.

The two Israelis are Prof. Arieh Warshel, currently living in CA, and Michael Levitt, a native of South Africa with Israeli citizenship who splits his time between Israel and the US. Warshel and Levitt are the 11th and 12th Israelis to win the Nobel Prize.

Warshel Credit: news.usc

Levitt Credit:midco

The prize is for “development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.” As Warshel — whose breakthrough came in 1975, when he was teaching at the Weizmann Institute here in Rehovot, Israel — explains:
“We developed how a computer can take the structure of a protein, and can understand how it does exactly what it does — for example digesting food. You want to understand how it is happening, and then you can use it to design drugs, or in my case, to satisfy your curiosity.”

A spokesman at Weizmann clarified further:

“The work of the three laureates is a breakthrough because they have managed to settle the contradictions between classical physics and quantum physics, which is significantly different.”

This represents the fourth and fifth times since 2004 that an Israeli scientist won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Not bad for a little country only 65 years old, huh?

~~~~~~~~~~

I have already written about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan speech and provided links to it. Here you have another link, this one put out by BESA. It provides the video in Hebrew, with English subtitles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=205m86or7aw&feature=youtu.be

~~~~~~~~~~

One of Netanyahu’s major themes was the fact that the failure of the Palestinian Arabs to recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people was a major stumbling block to peace. There would be no peace, he said, without that recognition.

Now Yasser Abed Rabbo – secretary of the PLO – has stepped forward to provide proof-positive of the veracity of Netanyahu’s charge that the PA/PLO is intransigent with regard to this issue. On Palestinian radio he called Netanyahu a “racist” and “the number one extremist in Israel” because of his demand that Israel be recognized as the Jewish state.

The Palestinian Arab leadership, declared Abed Rabbo, refuses to recognize “historic Palestine” as the “homeland of the Jewish people.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/top-plo-official-dubs-netanyahu-number-one-extremist/

Perhaps we should thank Abed Rabbo for making the case so perfectly.

~~~~~~~~~~

With regard to the charge that Netanyahu is a “racist,” Abed Rabbo is attempting to present Israel as an exclusively Jewish. But this is not at all the case: 20% of Israel’s population is Arab and has full individual civil and human rights in the country. What the Arabs do not have are national rights, as a people, for then Israel would no longer be the Jewish state. This distinction, which is often distorted, is significant.

In contrast, this past July, putative PA president Mahmoud Abbas declared:

“In a final [peace negotiation] resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-says-there-will-be-no-israelis-in-palestine/

Who’s the racist here?

~~~~~~~~~~

What is more — and we should never overlook this — Abed Rabbo is presenting the Palestinian Arab narrative, built on fiction, which claims the land of Israel as “historic Palestine.” What he is implying is that “Palestine” was the ancient homeland of the present day Palestinian Arabs, rather than of the Jews. Hokum. The present day “Palestinians” self-identified this way only in recent times. Historically there were no Palestinian Arabs, as a people. In fact, before the founding of modern Israel, Jews in Palestine identified as “Palestinians.” Palestinian Jews.

~~~~~~~~~~

The response of the Arab League to a tentative proposal by the Czech president puts the lie to what is claimed to be the Arab position. The Czech president’s suggestion was that his country’s embassy in Israel be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The League called this a violation of Palestinian rights.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/arab-league-furious-at-czech-presidents-call-to-move-countrys-embassy-to-contested-jerusalem/2013/10/09/3eaf6fd0-30f8-11e3-ad00-ec4c6b31cbed_story.html?

But wait… the Palestinian Arabs are forever calling — in English for Western consumption — for eastern Jerusalem to be their capital. You know, everything over the ’67 line. Never mind that there are no Palestinian “rights” to any of Jerusalem, if this were a genuine demand there would be no objections to Israel’s continued sovereignty over western Jerusalem. And yet, the Arabs protest the presence of international embassies to Israel in the west of Jerusalem as well.

They want it all, folks. Have no doubt about this.

~~~~~~~~~~

As time and energy allow in the coming days, I want to look again at the abysmal situation with Iran. Today I will simply mention this:

The Israel Air Force has been holding an extensive drill to test its capacity to fly remote destinations. Declared the IDF website:

“When we say, ‘all options are on the table’, we’re talking about military options as well. The Air Force, the longest reaching arm of the IDF, is responsible for realizing that option if it is so required. In the force, we’re enforcing a range of abilities, including long-term flights. In this field the Air Force is required to develop all relevant ability, from a pinpointed activity to a wide-range action.”

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4439261,00.html

According to YNet,

“In one of the highlights of the drill, where the Air Force cooperated with a foreign army, fighter jets were fueled midair.”

Credit: IDF

I will note here that, as I understand it, Israel also possesses fighter planes that could reach Iran without mid-air refueling.

I find this story enormously reassuring. First because we are providing the only credible military threat to Iran, and thus causing Iran to sit back and take notice. And then because it is imperative that we be prepared to do what we may yet need to do, with regard to actually hitting Iran.

10/10/13

Don’t Be Fooled by Libya—This is a Failed State

By: James Stafford of Oilprice.com

Gunmen today seized Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan from a hotel in central Tripoli, releasing him shortly afterwards, but making it clear that post-Gaddafi Libya is a failed state and that the government is incapable of taking full control over its oilfields and export terminals.

While the markets have been responding lately with unfounded optimism over Libya, anyone who has been privy to the intelligence briefings and executive reports from Oil & Energy Insider would know that announcements of progress emanating from the capital Tripoli are hot air. There are too many roving militias who want their piece of Libya’s fossil fuels largesse—and the government is impotent.

Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the seizure of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan on 10 October from the Corinthia hotel in central Tripoli.

More to the point, the prime minister was apparently seized by militias linked to Libya’s Interior and Defense Ministries, which makes one ask whether he was kidnapped or arrested, or indeed whether it is even worth getting into the semantics.

His arrest was not about oil, specifically, it was in retaliation for the US special forces capture of a Libyan al-Qaeda suspect in Tripoli over the weekend. Militant groups—many of whom control various branches of the impotent government—were angered at the US capture of Abu Anas al-Libi, wanted for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in which more than 220 people were killed.

Look no further than Libya’s National Congress, which was adamant that the US return the captor, which it labeled as a kidnapping and a violation of Libya’s national sovereignty.

Upon his release, Prime Minister Zeidan took to the international media, calling on Western powers to step in—again. In an interview with BBC Newsnight, Zeidan said the country was being used as a base to export weapons across the Sahel and that “the movement of these weapons endangers neighboring countries too, so there must be international cooperation to stop it.”

Regardless, the situation should be clear even for those Libyan enthusiasts who are under the impression that this is a functioning state. Ali Zeidan’s days are numbered without another direct Western intervention.

This is the same reason the oil cannot flow as planned.

At we noted in a September executive report on Libya in Oil & Energy Insider, the crisis began two years ago with the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi, but in August things took a definitive turn for the worse, with armed groups seizing major oil export terminals and demanding autonomy for the eastern region. Now the crisis has reached the west where other militant formations ominously charged with guarding the country’s pipelines and oil fields are seeking to profit on the momentum of the strikers and protesters in the east.

The interim government cannot manage this crisis. It’s already been forced to compromise, agreeing earlier in September to a 20% wage hike across the board for civil servants, and including oil security forces in this mix. At the same time, the government has issued warrants for the arrest of strike organizers in the east.

While the government will not be able to enforce these warrants, the blowback for this still will be severe and will result in a violent upheaval unlike anything else in the past two years. This will reverberate throughout the already volatile Sahel region, threatening security in Tunisia and Algeria most immediately. It is also leading to a tightening of world oil supplies.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Africa/Dont-Be-Fooled-by-LibyaThis-is-a-Failed-State.html

By: James Stafford of Oilprice.com

10/10/13

Some Thoughts On The Allegory of Good and Bad Government

By: Chris Knowles
Aeneas Lavinium

The Allegory of Good and Bad Government: Part of a fresco by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Palazzo Pubblico in Sienna.

I first became aware of this remarkable series of frescoes on the cover of a book that I was reading called A History of Western Political Thought by J S McClelland. I was so struck first by the vivid colours and then by the content of the work that I sought to do some research about it and ultimately view them for myself in Sienna. They are by far my favourite frescoes from any period! They are unique in the sense that they represent a secular theme in a religious age.

At a time when the very competence of Government across the Western World is increasingly brought into question, it is useful to reflect on Government in the past. This is not fashionable at the moment, history is not taught effectively in schools, history is being rewritten for political reasons to reflect the needs of the powerful, and education is dominated by an inclination to tell pupils what to think rather than teach them how to think. It could be argued that policy making these days is done as part of a programme of bad government!

In Sienna between the years 1338 and 1339 a series of frescoes were painted by the artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti that are generally known by the title The Allegory of Good and Bad Government. I would like to talk about these frescoes and about Government in the present day. I will examine the frescoes in from the perspective of a person living in the United Kingdom in 2013.

There are two broad themes that run through the frescoes – justice and tyranny. As a person who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s I have seen the transition from good to bad government with my own eyes. In my time I have seen that the powerful have become less accountable and the rest of us less free. Justice has declined and tyranny has risen and continues to rise unabated.

In the fresco representing good government:

“There are many shops, indicating good commerce and economic conditions. The traffic moves peacefully, guild members work at their trades, a wedding procession takes place, and maidens can be seen dancing gracefully…. This fresco shows that if government is virtuous and rules justly, then the city thrives and prospers.” (1)

The post war period was one of general prosperity, many of us remember the economic boom on the 1980’s but look where we are now! We have a fraction of our previous industrial capacity, we have fewer tangible resources, we have no self-confidence as an ancient culture, and we are hamstrung with debt and dependency. Margaret Thatcher decimated our industry, Tony Blair drove the corrosive concept of political correctness to new heights, and Gordon Brown sold most of our gold at rock bottom prices. Decline did not just happen, it was caused… by bad government. I can barely remember when government could be described as ‘virtuous’.

In the fresco representing bad government the viewer is:

“…confronted with a devious looking figure adorned with horns and fangs, and appearing to be cross-eyed. This figure is identified as TYRAMMIDES (Tyranny). He sits enthroned, resting his feet upon a goat (symbolic of luxury), and in his hand he sinisterly holds a dagger.

Below the tyrant the captive figure of Justice lays bound, while the figures of Cruelty, Deceit, Fraud, Fury, Division, and War flank him, and above him float the figures of Avarice, Pride, and Vainglory.” (2)

Perhaps the discipline of the Cold War previously allowed our government cling to health because the end of the Cold War was when the rot really began to accelerate. The cockiness of western leaders was palpable and it could be this hubris finally finished off the last vestiges of good government in the Western world. Today we find ourselves in the midst of economic catastrophe, endless war bolstered by “Dodgy Dossiers”, and sleazy politics. We have a deliberately divided society, a dysfunctional press, and a deficit of democracy. Bad government envelops the UK and the Western world and the people are not happy.

We have witnessed the sleaze that afflicted the last years of the Major Government, we have seen the MP’s expenses scandal and the outrageous behaviour of the press that led to the Leveson inquiry. We have a British Broadcasting Corporation that does not seem to understand the concept of political impartiality and a media that is an instrument of the powerful rather than something used to hold them to account. We see David Cameron prior to been in government promising a referendum about the European Union and then denying one once ensconced in Number 10 Downing Street. We now see him promising another referendum – I wonder if he is familiar with the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf?

Our political system has been captured by a political triad (Liberal Democrats, Labour, Conservatives) who take turns at ruling but in effect represent a single set of establishment interests and are really a single party in all but name. Rule by Parliament has been replaced by rule by treaty. The unelected tyrants of the EU Politburo also known as the unelected and anti-democratic European Commission have more power than the MPs that we elected to represent us.

Britain was once a force for freedom and an example of good government to the rest of the world. This good government was based on the continuity of ancient institutions, the rule of law, and equality before the law. These all now lay in ruins! Central pillars of the Common Law like Double Jeopardy have been destroyed and Trial by Jury looks to be going the same way! We have lost our right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and freedom of movement look increasingly less secure.

Tyranny has finally replaced justice and bad government is bringing a thousand years of history and a thousand years of progress to an ignominious end!

—

The following video from the Khan Academy give an analysis of the frescoes.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Allegory_of_Good_and_Bad_Government

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Allegory_of_Good_and_Bad_Government

10/10/13

October 13, 2013: America’s Showdown Veterans March on DC and Truckers Roll

By: James Simpson
Right Side News

On October 13, 2013, American veterans and other patriots are going to launch a major protest. President Obama has been using the government shutdown as an excuse to commit a string of almost unbelievable public outrages against Americans everywhere. These include the following unbelievable eye-poppers:

Denying treatments for children suffering from cancer.

Denying death benefit payments to families of fallen soldiers, while keeping the Andrews Air Base golf course open so Obama can continue to play.

Ordering the Park Service to hold elderly Yellowstone Park visitors in their hotel rooms under armed guard, then ordering them out of the park on busses and denying even a bathroom stop on the 2.5 hour drive out.

Forcing people out of their own homes, including the elderly, when situated on park land.

Closing access to all national parks, monuments and park land, and beefing up patrols to keep people out. Trying to prevent people from even looking at Mount Rushmore.

All military memorials, including the D-Day memorial and 23 other overseas memorials.

Forcing veterans at the Vietnam War memorial to leave.

Breitbart has included a complete compendium, here.

Three things to note: 1. none of the 17 prior shutdowns closed any of these activities; 2. virtually all of these activities are either costless or “essential,” like medicines for the kids with cancer; many are privately funded; 3. enforcing these extreme measures has cost more than they spent before the shutdown.

All of these outrages can be laid directly at Obama’s feet. The only reason he is getting away with it is because the media continues to largely give him a pass. The media needs to know how angry we are about their shameless cheerleading!

But people are really fed up. Acts of defiance have sprouted up all over the country

North Carolina innkeeper Bruce O’Connell tried to reopen the Pisgah Inn, a scenic spot on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Now he is taking his case to court

Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources, under Republican Governor Scott Walker, has ignored a federal directive to close seven state park properties that get federal funding

An estimated 1,000 hikers and bikers entered Acadia National Park in Maine on Monday, bypassing barricades and signs declaring the park and its roads closed

Dozens of fishing guides in Florida’s Everglades planned to gather on the outskirts of the national park on Wednesday to protest its closing; who ever heard of closing bodies of water?

These small acts of defiance, while encouraging, are only a prelude to what is coming.

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty. Thomas Jefferson

Million Vet March on the Memorials

Million Vet March This Sunday, October 13, 2013, the Million Vets March is descending on Washington, DC. Here is what the organizer has to say:

I want you to circle the date of Sunday, October 13, 2013.

And then I want you to help “circle the wagons” on that day to help protect and defend our brave veterans who risked their lives for our freedom – and now are being barred from visiting the memorials erected to honor their deeds.

In a mean-spirited fit of selfish anger, Barack Obama has shut down our nation’s war memorials. And he has declared open war on our honored veterans!

The World War II memorial … the Vietnam Veterans Memorial … the Korean War Veterans Memorial – Obama has shut them all down to force his will on the House of Representatives and frankly, to get revenge on the American people who oppose Obamacare and his other naked power grabs.

Let’s put it plainly: Barack Obama is behaving like a vicious tyrant. And if he succeeds in this assault on the democratic system, the Republic we love is at mortal risk. It’s just that simple.

You can support this effort in numerous ways:
Sign the petition, HERE.
Donate to the cause, HERE.
Circle the date: October 13, 2013, and show up!

Truckers for the Constitution

Beginning Friday, October 11, 2013, independent long haul truckers are going on a nationwide strike. They will not haul freight anywhere. Instead, coming from all across the nation, truckers will clog the Washington, DC beltway for the first day of their three-day Ride for the Constitution. The truckers are asking Americans nationwide to participate, either by joining them on the road, joining the DC vets march, or in spirit by spreading the word:

Like them on Facebook, now having 119,000 likes
Keep abreast of news with their hashtag #T2SDA
Go to their website, www.ridefortheconstitution.org for regular updates

Is Obama Planning to Collapse the Economy?

We are all fed up with Obama’s shutdown showdown antics. What is not generally known is that Obama may also be setting America up to default on its debt. That could set off a financial markets crisis that would dwarf 2008. He is hoping to blame republicans and help Democrats take back the House in 2014. That is how corrupt he and the Democrats are.

This could lead to the collapse of the dollar, which suggests the hidden hand of George Soros, who has destroyed the currencies of countless countries, including Great Britain, and has said that America must stop resisting “the orderly decline of the dollar.” An examination of his recent investments, as well as those of Obama and his other cronies, would reveal if they plan to capitalize on this evil plan. They are certainly not above it.

James Simpson is an economist, businessman and investigative journalist. His articles have been published at American Thinker, Accuracy in Media, Breitbart, PJ Media, Washington Times, WorldNetDaily and others. His regular column is DC Independent Examiner. Follow Jim on Twitter & Facebook.

10/10/13

Go Truckers! RidefortheConstitution.org – @T2SDA – #T2SDA

By: Arlen Williams
Gulag Bound

God bless our patriot truckers!

RidefortheConstitution.org

@T2SDA

#T2SDA

facebook.com/ridefortheconstitution

T2SDA

This should not need to be said, but Gulag Bound does not endorse all the opinions of all the individuals and groups related in some way to this effort, nor is it possible for anyone to do that.