Friday, June 4. 2010
Don't be fooled by Obama's incompetence. It's a feature, not a bug.
Hizbollah, Iran’s tool in Lebanon, is in virtual control of its government, armed with thousands of missiles from Iran directly and via Iran’s Syria conduit, the missiles able to reach all of Israel.
As US Secretary Of Defense Robert Gates said last month:
"Syria and Iran are providing Hezbollah with rockets and missiles of ever-increasing capability," he said at a joint news conference with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak.
"And we're at a point now, where Hizbollah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world, and this is obviously destabilizing for the whole region and we're watching it very carefully."
Hizbollah is encouraged by the hamstringing of Israel by the Obama administration and Israel’s allowing it in dealing with the Gaza blockade runners, coupled with the hypocritical outcry of international abettors and appeasers of Hamas.
If Israel has its way and does what’s necessary, Hizbollah should think twice before attacking Israel, unless Washington again tries to hobble Israel and Israel allows it.
Israel is focused on dealing a severe blow to Hizbollah. Defense News, a leading authoritative US publication on military matters, reports “Israel’s New Hard Line on Hizbollah.” Letting Lebanon, Hizbollah and the world know what’s in store is called deterrence, or stand-by-for-an-ass-whipping.
The last time war broke out along the Lebanese border, Israel acted clumsily and lost its aura of invincibility. If there is a next time, Israel's military brass vows, things will be different.
Under a strategy honed since the 2006 Lebanon war and rehearsed in microcosm in the late-2008 Gaza incursion, a new fight against Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hizbollah would see an all-out assault on the party's arsenals, command centers, commercial assets and strongholds throughout the country.
But it also would include attacks on national infrastructure; a total maritime blockade; and interdiction strikes on bridges, highways and other smuggling routes along the Syrian border with Syria. Meanwhile, land forces would execute a ferocious land grab well beyond the Litani River that Israeli brigades belatedly hobbled toward yet failed to reach in the last war….
In a May 23 interview, Gantz [IDF General Staff] warned that it could take repeated rounds of high-intensity wars to remove the Iranian-trained and financed threat from the north. The aim, he said, is to prolong the periods of relative quiet between war fighting.
"Israel cannot exist with protracted peaks of warfare," he said. "Therefore, we have to reduce them to reasonable levels - similar to the way we drove down terror in the aftermath of Defensive Shield [the IDF's 2002 operation in the West Bank]. That way, we allow our people to live reasonably under a protracted emergency situation until we fix it, and then we go back to square one.
"I doubt there will be peace afterwards, but at least we'll be able to extend the time between peaks ... Through strategic attrition - one round and then another round - we'll create a situation where each new round brings worse results than the last. And that, in and of itself, brings a formidable deterrent."
Here’s a video of tank defense technology that Israel is rapidly implementing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62jzAupr044
Hereabouts, it's time to yank out the Spring pansies. Many people have the nurseries fill their planters right about now, but people like Mrs. BD like to do them herself.
She says all you need to know is that a planter needs one thriller, a few spillers, and filler - with interesting foliage contrast and compatible color. It's a form of flower arranging. In a couple of weeks, these pots will be looking good:
Here's Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's letter to NY Senator Chuck Schumer about illegal immigration. Summary: Get real Chuckie.
Or, read it all. It's a real "straight talk express."
God's air-conditioning, last Saturday, at our place in the California mountains:
 Photo: An overly-distracting employee. I agree: you cannot have people looking like that working with guys. Biology is just too strong.
The real two Americas: government employees and regular people
No external effort can help Haiti, but this kind of BS is worse than help. Haiti needs jobs, then all else will follow. But it's so corrupt, nobody will place a factory there. And forget tourism to this hell-hole - unlike neighboring Dominican.
The next generation of home buyers has too much college debt. h/t Insty
Where to start in building utopia? I suggest nationalizing all the profits of greedy TV and Hollywood stars, for starters. Then we can take over the summer homes of university profs - for the greater good. Maybe then give those homes to the homeless victims of Capitalism.
Win a soccer game by more than five points and you lose, Ottawa league says. Life is all about self-esteem, you know. Or is it self-love? This is a sickness.
Barone: Obama's 'Chicago Way' plunders the private sector
Providing health care will get you investigated. h/t, Dr Helen
White House political team stumbles, bumbles
On his first real job, the O avoids real work. Wonder whether he has ever read a management text.
Related, here's a winning issue: Broken Record Obama Lashes Out at GOP on Economy – Pushes for Tax Increase
Auster:
All sides - the "critics" of Israel, her supporters, and everyone in between--agree that the "peace flotilla" affair is a disaster for Israel. I disagree. I say it is a victory for Israel, for truth, and for civilization in its eternal war against barbarism. The affair has not discredited Israel, but its "critics." It has made it plain beyond a shadow of doubt that the "critics" are in reality remorseless enemies who deny Israel the right to exist, as shown by the fact that they have portrayed Israel's perfectly legitimate and necessary act of self-defense as a crime against humanity. The "critics" have thus uncovered the truth about themselves and can no longer credibly deny it: that they are not high-minded humanitarians but allies of Hamas in its jihadist war of extermination against the Jewish state.
I like to see all kids working at crappy jobs like I did. This does not bode well for America's future:
Thursday, June 3. 2010
The US pressured Israel for, in effect, a cover-up demanded by Turkey of exactly who are all the blockade runners. No one even knows the names or the affiliations of many of the passengers on the ships that tried to run the blockade of Gaza. All, except a few Israeli-Arabs, have been released by Israel.
Why? The US persuaded Israel to release all quickly, to appease Turkey.
Gerald Seib writes in the Wall Street Journal on US “mediation” between Israeli and Turkish officials:
Ultimately, the mediation succeeded in ending what had emerged as the most immediate cause of rising tensions: the detention in Israel of hundreds of Turkish citizens who formed the bulk of the pro-Palestinian activists removed from the ships….
Meantime, Mr. Obama also called an angry Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The conversation showed that the Israeli-Turkish relationship was in bad shape, but also that the burning issue for Turkey was winning the rapid release of several hundred Turkish citizens who had been taken off the ships by Israeli soldiers. "The immediate tourniquet that could be put on this arterial bleed, if you want, had to do with getting the Turkish citizens home," Gen. Jones said….
Mr. Netanyahu's government agreed to quickly clear an internal legal hurdle that was standing in the way of an immediate release: It persuaded the country's supreme court to deny appeals by some Israeli groups calling for charges to be pressed against those taken off the ships.
The result:
UAE TV reports of those sent to Jordan: “…126 international activists arrived in Jordan….The International activists received an official and public welcome….”
Deutche Welle reports:
Three planes carrying nearly 500 activists from the Gaza aid flotilla arrived in Istanbul early on Thursday, and were welcomed by a crowd of supporters, many of whom waved Palestinian flags and shouted anti-Israel slogans....
Most of the activists were Turkish, but participants from at least 38 different nations were also involved, including Israelis, Palestinians and more than 100 Europeans….Turkey's deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc [says] "Israel will be asked within the framework of laws to pay for the murders it has committed," [and] Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for Israel to be punished for what he called "state terrorism."
That’s the thanks Israel gets for acceding to Washington.
BTW, no not really by the way but central to understanding the whys of the snafu at sea, I’m still waiting for journalists or insiders to reveal, those who care enough and have the integrity to know and report, about the “explosive question” to find out exactly what the Obama administration told Israel "through multiple channels, many times" before the raid on the ships about being restrained, as the US State Department spokesman admitted to the Washington Post, and what exactly those in the Netanyahu administration did about it, that may have contributed to the snafu at sea.
There's shame deserved in Washingtom and Jerusalem for expecting thanks or constructive results for self-hobbling. Make the facts public. If citizens of Israel are expected to die in defense of their country, or be killed for just being in Israel, and if the US is expected to be useful for peace instead of a useful tool for enemies of the US and Israel, we all deserve to know, now.
PowerLine links to my earlier post, "EXPLOSIVE Question" (link to it above). There are now two instances known of Obama administration pressure on Israel to, in effect, commit "suicide." When will the major media start demanding to know all the facts, in Washington and in Jerusalem, of these and other instances and when will some brave soul come clean?
Turkey Hash: The Turkish Prime Minister says, “I do not think that Hamas is a terrorist organization." He also says "the Ten Commandments prohibits Jews from killing." Actually, it says "murder." Perhaps he should talk to his Hamas buddies, eh?
No More Identity Politics; Palin Proves Old School Feminism is Dead. A quote from Lori Ziganto's piece (h/t, Linkiest):
The reason I’m happy that Palin and the “mama grizzlies” are in the forefront isn’t because they have girl parts. It is because of what they believe. It is because of the kind of people they are. It is that they are coming forward now, as freedom fighters. It is because, like it or not, it just so happens to be the women of the GOP who have the will and the fighting spirit at this time. That is what we need: leaders with spines, regardless of having breasts or not.
You see, while “Feminists/Femisogynists” were busily pant suiting themselves and trying to become men, other women were out there annihilating the glass ceiling, by raising their families and learning through actual living and perseverance. We didn’t learn by trying to be something we are not, but rather we learned by living. Most often in our wonderful small towns, none of which, in my experience are bitter.
We don’t rely on a victim mentality; we rely on ourselves and the love of our families.
George Will on Voegli's new book, Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State. A quote:
Wilsonian progressives believe that History is a proper noun, an autonomous thing. It, rather than nature, defines government's ever-evolving and unlimited purposes. Government exists to dispense an ever-expanding menu of rights -- entitlements that serve an open-ended understanding of material and even spiritual well-being.
Yes, Lyndon Johnson himself said he wanted government to supply spiritual well-being to every American. A god in every pot?
Jeff Jarvis in the NYPost: How not to save news - Bad government ideas for journalism. He begins:
The Federal Trade Commission says it wants to save journalism. I'm not sure who asked it to.
So far, 54 theaters around the country have signed up to show "The Lottery", and more are signing up daily. Take a moment to see if "The Lottery" is playing in a theater near you and buy tickets by clicking http://www.screenvision.com/s/showing/TheLottery/.
The Lottery" will be playing for some single showings and week-long runs: In New York for one night, June 3, a free showing at the Apollo Theater followed by a reception, 253 W 125th St., in New York from June 11-18 at the Big Theater, 239 East 59th Street (near 2nd Avenue). In Los Angeles from June 18-25 at Laemmle's Music Hall 3, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. Additional runs in Denver and other cities are being planned.
Recent reviews:
An already heated national debate over charter schools gets a few degrees hotter tonight with the premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival of "The Lottery," a powerful documentary about the Harlem Success Academy charters launched by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz. The film is designed to knock ambivalent people off the fence when it comes to the benefits of charter schools, and it does. In the same way that "An Inconvenient Truth" mobilized a vast constituency to take action on climate change, "The Lottery" will create and energize charter supporters by the thousands.
- New York Daily News
For this lottery, the stakes couldn't be higher. The nerve-racking bid by parents to land their 5-year-old kid a coveted seat in a high-performing Harlem charter school is detailed in a documentary set to screen tomorrow at the Tribeca Film Festival.
- New York Post
 Photo: Why there was no looting in Nashville during the flood (it's an old photo, but you get the idea) h/t Theo
We're happier in our 80s.
Royal Society to Re-evaluate Position on Global Warming. Says Sir Alan
“One of the reasons people like myself are willing to put our heads above the parapet is that our careers are not at risk from being labelled a denier or flat-Earther because we say the science is not settled. The bullying of people into silence has unfortunately been effective.”
With demographic details: Obama down to 46% in Gallup weekly poll. Sounds high to me. Also, historic low for Dems
Morris: Obama doesn’t have a clue
Geitner clone in the UK: Danny Alexander
Surprise: Dems Citizens United Disclosure Law Has Different Rules for Corporations and Unions
York: Gibbs raises the Sestak stonewall
Data Used to Justify Health Savings Can Be Shaky
Item #2: New York (Waste of) Times Cheers on Deadbeats
Obama’s National Security Doctrine: Naive — Frighteningly So
Berwick: The $1 trillion health care disaster in waiting
Tuvalu and many other South Pacific Islands are not sinking, claims they are due to global warming driven sea level rise are opportunistic
The Grand Jihad: A word from the author Andy McCarthy
Lowlife claims affair with Nikki to torpedo her candidacy. It's a lie. It's not working. If it were true, she'd be a goner.
Anti-Israel sharks sniff O's weakness. No kidding.
Danish report from Gaza: "Where's the humanitarian crisis?"
Glenn:
JENIN REDUX: As Reality Unfolds About Flotilla, World Media Continues with Fictional Narrative. This is why people chiding Israel for poor PR miss the point. It doesn’t really matter what they do, since the press will just lie about it. That seems an argument for much less restraint, rather than more. . . .
From Had Enough Therapy? (h/t, Vanderleun):
In the past few weeks, this European democratic socialist worker's paradise has been revealed to be a fraud, a sleight of hand, a pipe dream, an exercise in rank denial and living beyond your means.
And when you deny reality, by pretending that you can live beyond your means forever and a day, then reality is going to come back to bite you.
Everyone knows that the great European social democratic experiment has failed.
Help needed! Oil spill damage to Louisiana wildlife:
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"U.S. urged Israel to use caution and restraint with aid boats heading to Gaza" reports the Washington Post's Scott Wilson and Glenn Kessler:
"We communicated with Israel through multiple channels many times regarding the flotilla," P.J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman, said in a statement issued in response to a question from The Washington Post. "We emphasized caution and restraint given the anticipated presence of civilians, including American citizens."
One wonders whether the Washington Post reporters followed up for details or, if not, why not. This may be an explosive key to why the snafu at sea.
Israeli investigations of itself are notable for their comprehensiveness, self-criticism, and transparency. What exactly did the Obama administration say to Israel, and what exactly did Israel do in response?
Israelis and analysts friendly toward Israel are aghast and confounded the Israeli commandos were lowered one at a time into an armed, violent gang, on board to physically attack Israelis, and the commandos were instructed to use paintball guns to disperse attackers.
The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, traveling in Israel, had this encounter:
I just met with the son of a friend who serves in an elite Israeli army unit, one very much similiar to Flotilla 13, the Naval commando unit deployed so disastrously against the anti-Israel flotilla, and he explained the shame this way: "These soldiers are the best we have. We are Israel's deterrent. People in the Middle East need to think we are the best, and we are the best, except that when we're sent into situations without any intelligence, without any direction, with paintball guns instead of sufficient weapons, with no understanding of who we're fighting.
Israelis, Americans, the world deserves an answer to whether and, if so, to what extent Obama administration admonitions created the conditions that allowed thugs afloat to damage Israel and encourage Hamas’ ruthless terror of Gazans and of Israelis.
As Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said on Wednesday, "This was not a 'Love Boat', it was a hate boat." Another question to be answered: Was he influenced by the Obama administration admonitions and, if so, specifically how?
P.S.: Paul Mirengoff at PowerLine notices this in "More bad advice from the U.S. to Israel." Still waiting for politicians, major media, and blogs to ask the big questions.
P.P.S.: I emailed the Washington Post reporters Scott Wilson and Glenn Kesler, via the Washington Post email link to them (click on each's name), to ask, simply, whether they or the Washington Post were following up to find out the details. As yet, no reply. Hopefully that's because they are hot on the trail, as should all real journalists.
Welcome PowerLine readers. See "That's the thanks Israel gets for acceding to Washington" for another instance of US pressure on Israel, to please unpleasable, hostile Turkey.
Mercenaries Identified: June 4, why not before?
The IDF identified a group of about 50 men – of the 700 on board – who were well-trained and were stationed throughout the ship, mostly on the upper deck, where they laid an ambush for the IDF soldiers who rappelled onto the deck from helicopters.
The members of this violent group were not carrying identity cards or passports. Instead, each of them had an envelope in his pocket with about $10,000 in cash. The defense establishment suspects the funding for the mercenaries may have come from elements within the Turkish government.
According to sources within the defense establishment, one member of the group, who appears to have been the ringleader, traveled to the city of Bursa in northwest Turkey and allegedly recruited mercenaries for the flotilla there.
In videos from the Marmara released this week by the IDF, this group of men can be seen preparing to confront IDF commandos. The videos, taken by the ship’s security cameras, show the group of activists brandishing metal bars, slingshots, and other assorted weaponry.
The group was split up into smaller squads that were distributed throughout the deck and communicated with one another with handheld communication devices. The men wore bulletproof vests and gas masks.
One video clearly shows a member of the group throwing a stun grenade onto the IDF commando vessel that pulled up alongside the Marmara. Another video shows how groups of at least four or five men swarmed each commando that landed on the top deck, beating them with metal bars, and in one case throwing a soldier off the third deck.
Soldiers testified that in at least two instances their sidearms were taken from them, as were their helmets and vests. Two soldiers jumped off the ship into the water to save themselves from being lynched.
On Wednesday, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i told a Knesset hearing that all nine men killed on the Marmara were “involved in the fighting.”
“There were no innocents among the dead,” Vilna’i said.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Media Watch reported Thursday that three of the four Turks killed on ship sought a martyr’s death.
Wednesday, June 2. 2010
Stay to the end to witness the ignorance that is the fertile ground in which hate is planted.
Regular people living in the real world never bought the Leftist narrative that criminals are victims. Neither did shrinks, who know how much character matters. Criminality knows no socio-economic or ethnic boundaries.
This is right on the money: Were Liberals Wrong on Crime? It's a sad day when honest, hard-working people who are willing to work two tough jobs to pay their bills and support their families are made to feel like chumps, or worse.
Such good folks are the salt of the earth and the backbone of America, whatever the Manhattan radical chic set thinks of them.
How do Americans spend their leisure time? Paul Bloom begins:
The answer might surprise you. The most common voluntary activity is not eating, drinking alcohol, or taking drugs. It is not socializing with friends, participating in sports, or relaxing with the family. While people sometimes describe sex as their most pleasurable act, time-management studies find that the average American adult devotes just four minutes per day to sex.
Our main leisure activity is, by a long shot, participating in experiences that we know are not real.
Fascinating article. However, that 4 mins per day seems dubious on many counts.
Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist. She is a passionate defender of the United States and Israel and an indefatigable fighter against anti-Semitism. All these despite being ideologically from the left. Read it all.
Her conclusion:
I am not Jewish. Ideologically I am left and by profession a journalist. Why am I not as anti Israeli as my colleagues? Because as a non-Jew I have the historical responsibility to fight against Jewish hatred and currently against the hatred for their historic homeland, Israel. To fight against anti-Semitism is not the duty of the Jews, it is the duty of the non-Jews.
As a journalist it is my duty to search for the truth beyond prejudice, lies and manipulations. The truth about Israel is not told. As a person from the left who loves progress, I am obligated to defend liberty, culture, civic education for children, coexistence and the laws that the Tablets of the Covenant made into universal principles. Principles that Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. That is to say that as a non-Jew, journalist and lefty I have a triple moral duty with Israel, because if Israel is destroyed, liberty, modernity and culture will be destroyed too.
The struggle of Israel, even if the world doesn’t want to accept it, is the struggle of the world.
We have a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Congress controlled by the Democrats, uncaring about its impacts on our health, finances, or national security. The Congressional Democrats are deserving of repeal in November.
Don’t bother to ask what is really within the thousands of pages of ObamaCare, and tell Americans lies. -- The Director of the Congressional Budget Office does tell, despite the assurances that ObamaCare would somehow reduce health care costs and government spending on healthcare:
In CBO’s judgment, the health legislation enacted earlier this year does not substantially diminish that pressure. In fact, CBO estimated that the health legislation will increase the federal budgetary commitment to health care (which CBO defines as the sum of net federal outlays for health programs and tax preferences for health care) by nearly $400 billion during the 2010-2019 period….
[I]t is not clear what specific policies the federal government can adopt to generate fundamental changes in the health system; that is, it is not clear what specific policies would translate the potential for significant cost savings into reality. Moreover, efforts to reduce costs substantially would increase the risk that people would not get some health care they need or would like to receive.
Don’t bother to find out how the military could adjust to openly gay enlistees or the effects on recruitment and retention, readiness, or military families (half of the military are married). Tell the members of the Joint Chiefs, responsible for military personnel, and the military that their views don’t count.
Democrats ignored those pleas and voted anyway. Their concern was that if they waited until the Gates study is complete, after the November elections, Republicans could pick up enough seats to block repeal in 2011.
Perhaps the biggest affront was the fact that the White House, Mr. Gates, Adm. Mullen and Democrats settled on a compromise without allowing the four service chiefs to see it or comment.
Don't ask how we get out of the mess if you don't tell in November, and before in letters, meetings, and contributions to and participation in campaigns.
Do DSM psychiatric diagnoses have any validity? Or are they superficial descriptors on the order of "Patient has a fever" or "Patient is dehydrated," but with pseudo-scientific-sounding specificity?
What’s in a name? Genetic overlap between major psychiatric disorders
Readers know that I view a DSM diagnosis as just a little bit more than an insurance form entry item, most of the time. As a highly experienced colleague says, "I've read the DSM, and I have never found a patient of mine in there."
I plan to bore our readers by reposting my series on Psychiatric Diagnosis during vacation this summer.
Warbler migration season has reached its end, but our readers need a tougher challenge. Here 'tis. It is cheating to go to the link (I'll thank him with a link for the photo later today).
Hint: It's a female. Another wonderfully charming female below the fold, mostly safe for work -
Continue reading "Who am I?"
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs gathered senior Israeli generals to outline the basics of Israeli defense issues and policy, "Israel's Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace."
The link has several illuminating videos as well as the reports. I won’t use up bandwidth or delay it loading on your end by presenting the videos or reports. If any are interested in the hard facts, please go to the site and see for yourself, including why much of the commentary and suggestions offered by armchair generals and ignorant politicians are dangerous illusions and hogwash, indeed further the aims of Israel and the West's enemies. Security is the object of diplomacy, not to be compromised or sacrificed for "process" or photo-ops that avoid the core issues.
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