SUE OF A FLY: November 2009

November 30, 2009

WHAT WE KNOW AND WHAT WE KNOW WE DONT KNOW - ABOUT OBAMA

An empty suit.
A man with no birth certificate.
A man who was deserted in childhood by his biological father.
A man whose birth records, both in the United States and Kenya, are sealed by government order.
A man whose childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, spied on U.S. military installations in Hawaii for the Soviet Union, edited a communist newspaper, authored pornographic novels, and wrote poetry in praise of Joseph Stalin.
A man mentored by and still supported by radical Muslims.
A man who promised transparency in government, but has spent over a million dollars in legal fees hiding information that would determine his eligibility to be President.
A former drug user.
A man whose academic records are sealed from kindergarten through law school.
A man who arrived in New York in June of 1981 without enough money to get a hotel room, but one month later flew to Indonesia and Pakistan.
Why did he go?
Who paid his expenses?
A man who traveled to Pakistan when it was illegal for U.S. citizens to do so. So what country’s passport did he use?
A man whose Law School Admission Test scores and grades at Columbia University are known to have been mediocre, but was admitted to Harvard Law School through the intervention of a Saudi named Khalid al-Mansour.
A law review editor who never published an article in any law review.
A lawyer with no significant accomplishments in the law and no reputation in the legal community.
A former State and U.S. Senator, who never authored a piece of legislation.
A disciple of the Marxist Saul Alinsky.
A product of the Chicago political machine—the most corrupt political organization in America.
A man who selects Marxists, corrupt politicians, and criminals as his close political associates and personal friends.
A man whose presidential candidacy was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, the Socialist International, and the Workers International League.
A man lauded for the literary brilliance of two memoirs, both of which were ghostwritten by others.
A so-called Christian who says that knowing when human life begins is “above his pay-grade,” but somehow knows that abortion is permissible at any stage.
A man who thinks “waterboarding” is immoral, but that partial-birth abortion is moral.
A man who publicly laments slavery in America—which was abolished 150 years ago—but praises Islam, which still practices both slavery and the sexual mutilation of young girls.
A man who speaks endlessly about helping the less fortunate, but gives almost none of his sizeable income to charity—not even to his half-brother, who is living in squalor in Kenya.
A man who had the most left-wing voting record in the United State Senate, but was predicted by the press to “govern from the middle.”
A man who has never created a job, met a payroll, or even operated a lemonade stand, but wants to tell Detroit how to make cars.
A President who has never before served as an executive in either the private or the public sector.
A Commander-in-Chief who doesn’t know how to shoot a rifle, throw a hand-grenade, drive a tank, fly a plane, or con a ship.
A Commander-in-Chief who has publicly divulged some of our nation’s most important intelligence secrets.
A man who has been put in charge of the largest economic engine that ever existed, but has never invested in the stock market and admits total ignorance of it.
A President who says that science will guide his administration, but has no education in the sciences.
A man who is proficient in reading what is written for him on a teleprompter, but jerks and stammers his way through any off-the-cuff speaking.
A man whose health records are sealed from childhood to the present day.
A man whose educational records are sealed from childhood through law school.
A man who spent 20 years in a church whose pastor espouses Marxist Liberation Theology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Semitism, but claims he never heard his pastor utter anti-American, and anti-Semitic statements.
A man who added more to the National Debt in 100 days than all other Presidents did in the past 220 years, yet feels qualified to lecture Americans about “fiscal responsibility”.
A man who publicly expressed disdain for the U.S. Constitution on a Chicago radio station because it limited the government’s ability to “redistribute wealth.”
The first American President to bow before a foreign head of state—a Muslim dictator.
A man who sits and listens submissively while his country is castigated by Daniel Ortega—a Communist thug whose own daughter accused him of raping her.
A narcissist who gave the Queen of England a present from the United States—an iPod containing recordings of his own speeches.
A so-called Christian who officially declared “Pride Month” for a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.
A man who wanted Americans to ignore his Muslim name during his election campaign, yet boasts of his Muslim name when he travels to Muslim countries.
A man who can name hundreds of America’s shortcomings, yet none of its great accomplishments.
A President who claims the moral high ground by closing Gitmo yet supports the transfer of terror suspects to countries where horrific torture is certain.
A President who scoffed at being called a socialist yet acted to nationalize the auto industry, the banking industry, and the insurance industry . . . and now seeks to nationalize the healthcare industry.
A President who violates private property rights, the sanctity of contracts, and the rule of law—three essential principles that go back over a thousand years in the Common Law tradition.
A man who promised 95% of all Americans a tax cut, but is increasing taxes on 100% of the population through inflation—the cruelest tax of all.
A lawyer who represented ACORN—an organization now indicted in several states for voter fraud—whose stated goal is to get as many people on welfare as possible in order to destroy our financial system.
A President who cheated GM’s bondholders by giving their property to the UAW in a political payoff.
An American President who frequently criticizes his own country when speaking in foreign countries, but never praises America’s generosity, goodness or greatness.
A President whose Secretary of the Treasury cheated on his taxes—as did several other appointees and advisors.
A President who, despite the current federal debt of 100 trillion dollars, wants to add the greatest debt ever by nationalizing healthcare.
A President who scoffs at being called a socialist, yet has appointed 28 “Czars” to circumvent constitutional government, including:
A “Science Czar” who has advocated compulsory abortions for American women and the “surrender of sovereignty” to a “comprehensive Planetary Regime.”
A self-professed communist as his “Green Jobs Czar”.
A “Pay Czar” to regulate the pay of corporate executives.
A President who swore an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic,” yet has nominated a domestic enemy of the Constitution to the Supreme Court.
A President whose Homeland Security Chief classified pro-lifers, veterans, and supporters of traditional marriage as terrorists.
A President who stood silent while the Iranian government hacked unarmed protestors to death with axes, because it was an internal matter, but freely offers his opinions about the internal affairs of Israel and Honduras.
A President who decreed that true acts of terrorism must now be described as “man-made disasters.”
A President who cracks hurtful jokes about Special Olympians.
A President who refused to intercept or inspect a North Korean ship virtually certain to be carrying Weapons of Mass Destruction toBurma.
A President who wants to cancel all missile defenses while rogue nations are developing long-range ballistic missiles.
An American President who blames the violence in Mexico on America.
A Commander in Chief who claims to have been unaware that Air Force One was taken on a terrifying, low-level photo-op over Manhattan.
A President who berates American CEO’s for flying in private planes at private expense on company business, but whose wife spends hundreds of thousands tax payer dollars flying to Paris for a shopping spree.
A President who promised a transparent administration, but requires all questions be screened before “impromptu” appearances.
A man who freely admitted that his energy policies are designed to bankrupt the American coal industry.
A President who has presided over the loss of 14.7 million jobs and whose “energy policy” will cause the loss of another 1 million jobs.
A President whose “energy policy” will increase the average American’s utility bills by over $2,000 a year in the middle of the Great Recession.
A man about whom liberal journalist Tom Brokaw said, “There’s a lot about him we don’t know.” . . .just one week before the election.

OBAMA IS THE BIGGEST THREAT THE FREE WORLD FACES.

THE MOMBASA KID

THE MOMBASA KID?

FOLLOWING THE SWISS VICTORY, CONSERVATIVES IN DENMARK AND HOLLAND TO ASK FOR REFERENDUM TO BAN MINARETS

THE COUNTERPATTACK AGAINST THE ISLAMIZATION OF EUROPE HAS BEGUN.

WSJ: MIT PHD: AGW = BS

THE PHD WRITING IN THE WSJ IS RICHARD LINDZEN - THE SLOAN PROFESSOR OF METEOROLOGY AND THE WORLD'S FOREMOST CLIMATOLOGIST.

AND A SKEPTIC.

READ HIS OP-ED.

HE DEVASTATES THE AGW ARGUMENTS.

LINDZEN IS NO CRACKPOT:

Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
Professor Lindzen is a dynamical meteorologist with interests in the broad topics of climate, planetary waves, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres, and hydrodynamic instability. His research involves studies of the role of the tropics in mid-latitude weather and global heat transport, the moisture budget and its role in global change, the origins of ice ages, seasonal effects in atmospheric transport, stratospheric waves, and the observational determination of climate sensitivity. He has made major contributions to the development of the current theory for the Hadley Circulation, which dominates the atmospheric transport of heat and momentum from the tropics to higher latitudes, and has advanced the understanding of the role of small scale gravity waves in producing the reversal of global temperature gradients at the mesopause, and provided accepted explanations for atmospheric tides and the quasi-biennial oscillation of the tropical stratosphere. He pioneered the study of how ozone photochemistry, radiative transfer and dynamics interact with each other. He is currently studying what determines the pole to equator temperature difference, the nonlinear equilibration of baroclinic instability and the contribution of such instabilities to global heat transport. He has also been developing a new approach to air-sea interaction in the tropics, and is actively involved in parameterizing the role of cumulus convection in heating and drying the atmosphere and in generating upper level cirrus clouds. He has developed models for the Earth's climate with specific concern for the stability of the ice caps, the sensitivity to increases in CO₂, the origin of the 100,000 year cycle in glaciation, and the maintenance of regional variations in climate. Prof. Lindzen is a recipient of the AMS's Meisinger, and Charney Awards, the AGU's Macelwane Medal, and the Leo Huss Walin Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society. He is a corresponding member of the NAS Committee on Human Rights, and has been a member of the NRC Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate and the Council of the AMS. He has also been a consultant to the Global Modeling and Simulation Group at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (Ph.D., '64, S.M., '61, A.B., '60, Harvard University)
CV

VIA WUWT.

Switzerland's Stand

So, it's come to that. The surface neutralization of the appearance of a Muslim minority representing 6% of the population in Switzerland. Symbolic, the move, nothing but. Putting that 6% of the population on notice. They are there, on sufferance. The majority have their suspicions. They resent the dilution of their society, their traditions, their values.

Formerly immigrants have seen it in their best interests to absorb themselves into the general social community. On the other hand, immigrants have always sought solace and reassurance in the familiarity of enclaves of their own. Which needn't have led to total parochialism and separation from the majority society. And, in some countries, to a sense of unacceptable entitlement.

Where, for example, in England, Muslim clerics clamored for Sharia law. A parallel system of law meant to settle strictly-Muslim problems under the letter of Islamic interpretations of a law specific to Muslims. And where many of those same clerics openly agitate for the eventual Islamification of the entirety of Great Britain, a most tolerant country, up until now. That tolerance slipped a notch with the reality of home-grown jihadi cells.

There are estimated to exist 130 to 160 Islamic cultural and prayer centres in Switzerland. Of those, four mosques bear minarets. Traditionally, in Muslim countries, the call to prayer has issued from minarets. In Switzerland that tradition has been banned. The tradition of a muezzin or a recording being played loudly at prayer times throughout the day and night even in majority-Muslim countries has been altered. In non-Muslim-majority countries they are considered a social irritant.

The Swiss, under the encouragement of their right-wing Swiss People's Party, have expressed the level of their discontent, their disgruntlement, their disfavour of the presence of a sizeable minority of immigrants whose customs and traditions may have seemed tolerably quaint originally, but now seem irritatingly intrusive and abusive of their own traditions by voting out the symbolic presence of what they term Muslim visual militancy. They have, as a result, voted what amounts to an insulting slap at Swiss Muslims; no minarets.

A perceived blow that has had the result of reflecting Swiss fears onto their Swiss Muslim population. Who feel insulted, discouraged and humiliated. As only second-class citizens can be made to feel. And if anyone looks for which of the cultures should be blamed, they will have a hard time doing it. People have an ingrained tendency to wish to protect what they value, and what could be more valuable to any society than its national mores, traditions, culture and values.

When a steady infiltration of what amounts to a foreign element has lost its appeal as uniquely harmless and becomes threatening, transforming of the norm, resistance rears its head. This is human nature. East is east and West is west and they mix like oil and water, despite our most resolute intentions otherwise. The truth is there must be a sense of received trust that the 'other' will accommodate himself to the reality of the majority.

In a country like Israel, there is a move before the Knesset to outlaw the 4 .a.m. call to prayer as an irritant to non-Muslims, as it "wreaks havoc in Jerusalem", and in other towns and cities in the country where Muslims reside. It is pointed out that this does not occur in Turkey and Egypt as well as other majority-Muslim countries where a "silent radio station awakens" Muslims every day with a call to prayer.

Muslims are not totally innocent in the fomenting of suspicion and fear among a welcoming population in the West. There are many, if not most Muslim countries whose populations viscerally hate Jews; hatred for Jews is deeply entrenched in the culture, and can also be state-sanctioned. They bring this pathology with them and spread it in countries where they emigrate. Countries that celebrate their pluralism, discover that their new citizens do not.

There are fences of accommodation to be mended on both sides. But it is more stringently incumbent on people who migrate to other countries - to attain a better quality of life for themselves than what obtained in their countries of origin - to engage in introspection about the inappropriateness of some of their cultural traditions. To make themselves knowledgeable of the social mores acceptable where they now live.

And adjust themselves accordingly.

As they would be done, they must do unto others.

Labels: Human Relations, Realities, Religion, World News

TAKING A CUE FROM OBAMA, CHAVEZ STARTS TO SEIZE BANKS

FT:

Venezuela's socialist government has closed two private banks, a day after Hugo Chávez, president, said he would have "no problem" nationalising banks that failed to lend to the poor.

... The owner of the four banks, Ricardo Fernandez Barrueco, who is believed to have amassed one of the largest fortunes in the oil-rich country in recent years, once enjoyed close relations with the government. But he is in police detention charged with breaking banking laws. The Venezuelan attorney-general also barred 16 of the banks' executives from leaving the country.

... "You want me to nationalise the banks?" asked Venezuela's populist leader during his weekly television show on Sunday. "I have no problem with that because the banks don't want to extend credit to the poor."

SINCE 1976, THE CRA AND FANNIE MAE - WITH ACORN AS A DE FACTO ENFORCER - DID IN THE USA WHAT CHAVEZ IS DOING DOWN IN VENEZUELA: FORCE THE BANKS TO MAKE BAD LOANS.

IT'S SOCIALISM.

IT'S BAD BUSINESS.

ITS CREATES BUBBLES.

IT'S WHAT INFLATED THE HOUSING BUBBLE HERE - AND LEFT US TAXPAYERS HOLDING THE BAG.

WITH OBAMA DOING THIS KIND OF CRAP UP HERE; THE USA CAN HARDLY ATTACK CHAVEZ FOR DOING IT THERE.

THE ONLY BENEFIT IS THAT MORE PEOPLE WILL SEE OBAMA FOR WHAT HE IS: ANOTHER CHAVEZ.

18TH CENTURY PROPHECY: THIRD TEMPLE COMING 3/16/2010

HAARETZ:

If the 18th-century rabbinic authority the Vilna Gaon was right, on March 16, 2010, construction will begin on the third Temple. His projection states that the auspicious day will coincide with the third completion of the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter.

The great day is at hand: On March 15, the reconstructed Hurva Synagogue, considered the most important house of prayer in Jerusalem will be rededicated. It was last destroyed in the War of Independence.

IT WAS DESTROYED BY JORDAN. LIKE THE LEBANESE WHO DESTOYED JOSEPH'S TOMB. MUSLIMS HAVE NO RESPECT FOR THE HOLY PLACES OF NON-MUSLIMS.

MORE ON THE SYNAGOGUE HERE; EXCERPT:

1864–1948: The golden years
Construction work progressed slowly for lack of funds and it took a further eight years, till 1864, for the building to be completed. The new synagogue was dedicated by Baron Alphonse James de Rothschild, brother of Edmond James de Rothschild, who dedicated much of his life supporting the Jews of Palestine. It was officially named "Beis Yaakov" — House of Jacob — in memory of their father James (Yaakov) Rothschild. The locals however, continued to call it the Hurva.^[24] As a token of gratitude to the British government for their involvement, The British consul, James Finn, was invited to the dedication ceremony which included a thanksgiving service. He describes the “beautiful chants and anthems in Hebrew”, the subsequent refreshments provided and the playing of Russian and Austrian music.^[5]

For the next 84 years, the building was considered the most beautiful and most important synagogue in the Land of Israel. It also housed part of the Etz Chaim Yeshiva, the largest yeshiva in Jerusalem. It was a focal point of Jewish spiritual life in the city and was the site of the installation of the Ashkenazi chief rabbis of both Palestine and Jerusalem.^[22]

AND HERE.

OLDEST BURIALS WITH GOLD OBJECTS WERE IN... EUROPE

1500 YEARS BEFORE MESOPOTAMIA OR EGYPT... THERE WAS CIVILIZATION IN ANCIENT EUROPE LIVING IN THE WORLD'S LARGEST CITIES, MANUFACTURING COPPER AND TRADING FAR & WIDE.

(I WONDER IF THIS LOST CIVILIZATION IS RELATED TO THIS MYSTERIOUS PLACE. MORE HERE)

THE IPCC'S BIGGEST PROBLEM: GLOBAL WARMING STOPPED IN 1998

VIA "HOFT AIR":

DR. B. CARTER/TELEGRAPH:

Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
... warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.
... Marketed under the imprimatur of the IPCC, the bladder-trembling and now infamous hockey-stick diagram that shows accelerating warming during the 20th century - a statistical construct by scientist Michael Mann and co-workers from mostly tree ring records - has been a seminal image of the climate scaremongering campaign. Thanks to the work of a Canadian statistician, Stephen McIntyre, and others, this graph is now known to be deeply flawed.
... Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90 per cent of the last two million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is far more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.

ONE OF THE MAJOR REASONS THE LEFT IS SO DESPERATE TO PASS A CO2 TAX SCHEME RIGHT AWAY IS THAT THEY KNOW IT HASN'T WARMED FOR A DECADE AND THAT IT'S ABOUT TO GET REALLY COLD.

IOW: WITHIN A YEAR, THE JIG IS UP.

ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS DELAY THEM UNTIL THE ELECTION OF 2010.

AND THEN WE CAN VOTE THE SCHEMERS OUT OF OFFICE.

CHIEF UN AGW ALARMIST IS A FREAKING HYPOCRITE OF MASSIVE PROPORTIONS

STEYN SLAUGHTERS THE GUY.

FROM A COMMENTER: ANY RELATION TO GOAT BOY?

CRITICS OF THE SWISS MINARET BAN ALL MISS THE POINT

NYTIMES:

“I am a bit shocked by this decision,” France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said in an interview with RTL radio, calling it “an expression of intolerance.” He added: “I hope the Swiss come back on this decision.”

Sweden’s foreign minister, Carl Bildt, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, described the vote as “an expression of quite a bit of prejudice and maybe even fear.”

Muslim communities within Switzerland reacted cautiously. “We were a bit shocked, we hadn’t expected this result,” Abdel Majri, the president of the League of Swiss Muslims, said in an interview. “This is another step toward Islamophobia in Switzerland and Europe in general.”

The government and most Swiss political parties had opposed the motion, he noted, attributing the size of the majority in favor of the ban to the right wing parties’ campaign that played on popular fears and misconceptions. “We are looking at how we can repair the situation,” he added.

WELL, ER .. UM: MAYBE THE SWISS JUST WANT TO REMAIN SWISS?

IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG OR EVIL ABOUT BEING SWISS?

ESPECIALLY FOR SWISS PEOPLE, I THINK NOT.

AND ER UM... MAYBE SWISS WOMEN DON'T WANT TO SEE A RELIGION WHICH ENSHRINES MISOGYNY - GAIN A STRONGER HOLD WITHIN THEIR COMMUNITIES?

THESE CONCERNS AND DESIRES ARE NOT IRRATIONAL.

ALLOWING ISLAM TO GROW UNIMPEDED IS.

IRRATIONAL AND - FOR THE WEST - SUICIDAL.

THE WEST'S FIFTH COLUMN AND HOW IT GOT THAT WAY

THE USSR DIED, BUT IT INFECTED THE WEST WITH A SUICIDAL MEME: POSTMODERN LEFTISM.

PO-MO LEFTOSM WAS ORGINALLY INVENTED AND DEPLOYED TO WEAKEN THE USA DURING THE COLD WAR.

THE USA IS NOW RUN BY PEOPLE WHO HAVE SWALLOWED THE KGB'S GRAMSCIAN IDEOLOGY HOK, LINE AND SINKER:

EXCERPTS: Gramscian damage

Americans have never really understood ideological warfare. Our gut-level assumption is that everybody in the world really wants the same comfortable material success we have. We use “extremist” as a negative epithet. Even the few fanatics and revolutionary idealists we have, whatever their political flavor, expect everybody else to behave like a bourgeois.

We don’t expect ideas to matter — or, when they do, we expect them to matter only because people have been flipped into a vulnerable mode by repression or poverty. Thus all our divagation about the “root causes” of Islamic terrorism, as if the terrorists’ very clear and very ideological account of their own theory and motivations is somehow not to be believed.

By contrast, ideological and memetic warfare has been a favored tactic for all of America’s three great adversaries of the last hundred years — Nazis, Communists, and Islamists. All three put substantial effort into cultivating American proxies to influence U.S. domestic policy and foreign policy in favorable directions. Yes, the Nazis did this, through organizations like the “German-American Bund” that was outlawed when World War II went hot. Today, the Islamists are having some success at manipulating our politics through fairly transparent front organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

But it was the Soviet Union, in its day, that was the master of this game. They made dezinformatsiya (disinformation) a central weapon of their war against “the main adversary”, the U.S. They conducted memetic subversion against the U.S. on many levels at a scale that is only now becoming clear as historians burrow through their archives and ex-KGB officers sell their memoirs.

... the Soviet espionage apparat actually ran two different kinds of network: one of spies, and one of agents of influence. The agents of influence had the minor function of recruiting spies (as, for example, when Kim Philby was brought in by one of his tutors at Cambridge), but their major function was to spread dezinformatsiya, to launch memetic weapons that would damage and weaken the West.

In a previous post on Suicidalism, I identified some of the most important of the Soviet Union’s memetic weapons. Here is that list again:

There is no truth, only competing agendas.
All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism.
There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)
For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But ‘oppressed’ people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.
As I previously observed, if you trace any of these back far enough, you’ll find a Stalinist intellectual at the bottom. (The last two items on the list, for example, came to us courtesy of Frantz Fanon. The fourth item is the Baran-Wallerstein “world system” thesis.) Most were staples of Soviet propaganda at the same time they were being promoted by “progressives” (read: Marxists and the dupes of Marxists) within the Western intelligentsia.

The Soviets consciously followed the Gramscian prescription; they pursued a war of position, subverting the “leading elements” of society through their agents of influence. (See, for example, Stephen Koch’s Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals; summary by Koch here) This worked exactly as expected; their memes seeped into Western popular culture and are repeated endlessly in (for example) the products of Hollywood.

Indeed, the index of Soviet success is that most of us no longer think of these memes as Communist propaganda.

... The reduction of Western politics to a bitter war for government favor between ascriptive identity groups is exactly the outcome the Soviets wanted and worked hard to arrange.
Call it what you will — various other commentators have favored ‘volk-Marxism’ or ‘postmodern leftism’. I’ve called it suicidalism. It was designed to paralyze the West against one enemy, but it’s now being used against us by another. It is no accident that Osama bin Laden so often sounds like he’s reading from back issues of Z magazine, and no accident that both constantly echo the hoariest old cliches of Soviet propaganda in the 1930s and ’40s.

Another consequence of Stalin’s meme war is that today’s left-wing antiwar demonstrators wear kaffiyehs without any sense of how grotesque it is for ostensible Marxists to cuddle up to religious absolutists who want to restore the power relations of the 7th century CE.

In Stalin’s hands, even Marxism itself was hollowed out to serve as a memetic weapon — it became increasingly nihilist, hatred-focused and destructive. The postmodern left is now defined not by what it’s for but by what it’s against: classical-liberal individualism, free markets, dead white males, America, and the idea of objective reality itself.

... I think there is still an excellent chance that the West can recover from suicidalism without going through a fevered fascist episode and waging a genocidal war. But to do so, we have to do more than recognize Stalin’s memes; we have to reject them. We have to eject postmodern leftism from our universities, transnational progressivism from our politics, and volk-Marxism from our media.

The process won’t be pretty. But I fear that if the rest of us don’t hound the po-mo Left and its useful idiots out of public life with attack and ridicule and shunning, the hard Right will sooner or later get the power to do it by means that include a lot of killing. I don’t want to live in that future, and I don’t think any of my readers do, either. If we want to save a liberal, tolerant civilization for our children, we’d better get to work.

RTWT. AND USE THE LINKS!

THE CLIMATEGATE EMAILS ACTUALLY ESTABLISH A MOTIVE‏ TO COMMIT FRAUD

Phil Jones, Director of the Climate Research Unit ... weighs in. Does he welcome the idea that, contrary to his own predictions, there may be little or no warming in coming decades? No!

Tim, Chris,

I hope you're not right about the lack of warming lasting till about 2020.

I'd rather hoped to see the earlier Met Office press release with Doug's paper that said something like - half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on record, 1998!

Still a way to go before 2014.

I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying where's the warming gone.

I know the warming is on the decadal scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away.

JONES IS ACTUALLY ROOTING FOR IT TO GET WARMER.

IS THIS A DISPASSIONATE SCIENTIST JUST FOLLOWING THE FACTS WHEREVER THEY LEAD?

NOPE.

IS THIS A MAN DEEPLY COMMITTED - PERHAPS VERY OVER-COMMITTED - TO A PARTICULAR HYPOTHESIS?

YES.

SO COMMITTED TO THAT HYPOTHESIS, THAT THEY WOULD LIE AND CHEAT TO PROTECT IT.

THIS PROVES WHAT THEY DID WAS NOT DISPASSIONATE SCIENCE.

AND IT PROVIDES THE MOTIVE FOR ALL THEIR OTHER SHENANIGANS.

IT MAY HAVE ALL STARTED INNOCENTLY ENOUGH:

THE GREENIES AT THE CRU BELIEVED THAT CO2 WAS DRIVING WARMING - AND FELT THEY COULD PROVE IT.

BUT THEY HAD A HARD TIME PROVING IT SO THEY FUDGED IT A LITTLE, CERTAIN THAT ENSUING INFO WOULD BACK THEM UP AND PROVE THEM RIGHT AND ALL WOULD - IN THE VAST SCHEME OF THINGS - BE FORGIVEN.

BUT THE ENSUING DATA DID NOT BACK THEM UP; IT ACTUALLY MADE IT WORSE.

BUT BY THEN - LIKE MADOFF'S PONZI SCHEME - THE LIES, THE TRICKS AND THE CHARADE HAD ALREADY GROWN AND GROWN AND GROWN AND HAS ALREADY TAKEN ON A LIFE OF ITS OWN, BECOMING A MONSTER THEY HAD TO KEEP ALIVE LEST ALL THEIR EARLIER AND SMALLER LIES AND TWEAKS AND BACK-STABBINGS BECOME KNOWN.

I THINK THEY SHOULD ALL JUST CONFESS AND APOLOGIZE.

AND THEN SPEND THE REST OF THEIR LIVES IN JAIL.

IN A VERY HOT CELL.

IF THEY BEHAVE THEMSELVES, THEN THEY MIGHT GET JOBS IN THE PRISON GREENHOUSE. FILLED WITH CO2 TO ENHANCE GROWTH.

ED OF HOT AIR:

A brutal assessment of the significance of Climategate from Clive Crook, writing at, of all places, the Atlantic:
The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is surprising even to me. The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering. And, as Christopher Booker argues, this scandal is not at the margins of the politicised IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] process. It is not tangential to the policy prescriptions emanating from what David Henderson called the environmental policy milieu [subscription required]. It goes to the core of that process…

I’m also surprised by the IPCC’s response. Amid the self-justification, I had hoped for a word of apology, or even of censure. (George Monbiot called for Phil Jones to resign, for crying out loud.) At any rate I had expected no more than ordinary evasion.
The declaration from Rajendra Pachauri that the emails confirm all is as it should be is stunning. Science at its best. Science as it should be. Good lord. This is pure George Orwell. And these guys call the other side “deniers”.

ANYONE WHO STILL BELIEVES IN AGW IS EITHER A LIAR OR A DUPE.

ESTHER'S ROUND UP FROM THE EUSSR/EURABIA

New Polish law equates Communist and Nazi symbols

Europe has long been condemning the communist regime, but none of the countries has gone as far as Poland, where a law was signed allowing people to be fined or imprisoned for keeping and buying communist symbols.

Twenty years after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the Polish government are about to completely erase memories of the Cold War past and make everything from the hammer and sickle and red flag to trendy Che Guevara t-shirts and posters illegal.

Counter-intelligence service confirms it averted Iraq planned attack in 2003

Security experts and the public alike were left reeling on Sunday after a Czech TV station revealed that Iraqi intelligence agents working for Saddam Hussein plotted an attack on the Prague headquarters of Radio Free Europe. Spokesman Jan Šubert of the Czech intelligence service told TV Nova that the agents planned a machine gun and rocket propelled grenade attack on the building in a plot ordered by Saddam Hussein.

FROM: Islam In Europe - The premier source for news about the Muslim community in Europe.

CHELSEA CLINTON/MEZVINSKY ANNOUNCE NUPTIALS: A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN .. ER UM WELL... MADE SOMEWHERE‏

CHELSEA/MEZVINSKY AMATCH MADE IN HEAVEN .. ER UM WELL... MAYBE SOMEHWHERE‏ ELSE:

Clinton Daughter Chelsea Engaged to Be Married

Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton has become engaged to her longtime boyfriend. Matt McKenna, a spokesman for former President Bill Clinton, confirmed that 29-year old Chelsea and investment banker Marc Mezvinsky got engaged on Thanksgiving and announced it in an e-mail to friends.

FITTING MATCH: GROOM'S LATE POP:

Edward "Ed" Mezvinsky (born January 17, 1937) is a former congressman who was later sentenced to 80 months in prison for a series of white-collar crimes involving fraud. As a Democrat he represented Iowa's 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives for two terms, from 1973 to 1977.

HIS OLD MAN WAS A SLIMEBALL JUST LIKE HERS.

AND THE GROOM IS - ACCORDING TO THE LEFT - AN "EVIL INVESTMENT BANKER."

HOW SWEET.

I DO WISH THEM THE BEST: MAY THEY NOT GROW UP TO BE LOKE THEIR DADDIES.

EXIT QUESTION: WILL BJ CLINTON HAND OUT CIGARS AT THE WEDDING?

EVERYONE IS WATCHING TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS TO RIFQA BARY

Front Page Magazine interviews Pamela Gellar of Atlas Shrugs about the continuing crisis apostate Rifqa Bary is going through in Ohio (Hat tip: Jihad Watch):

Everyone is watching to see what happens to Rifqa. She has become a test case for everyone. The Muslims, the Islamic supremacists, want to prove that a young girl cannot break free, cannot break out of their web, even in America. More importantly, it is a case being watched by every subjugated Muslim dying to break free of the shackles of Islam. If Rifqa can do it and is protected, so can they. This is why it is so critical that she be broken by the Islamic machine.

It's a test case for free people, and for America also. Will American courts knuckle under to Islamic intimidation and implement Sharia provisions for the isolation of female apostates? Will we stand up and defend religious freedom? Do Muslim girls in the same situation as Rifqa have any hope? Rifqa's case will show the answer.

Again, remember to attend the next coming rally in Columbus on December 22!

LEGAL APPEAL MADE AGAINST CONSTRUCTION FREEZE

Here's some more on the efforts now being made to prevent a construction freeze in Israel:

(IsraelNN.com) The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the construction freeze in Judea and Samaria (Yesha). The appellants say the mini-security Cabinet has no right to enforce a blanket freeze on construction without receiving a full Cabinet decision.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu hurriedly convened his 15-member security cabinet last week, and rushed through an 11-1 vote in favor of the 10-month freeze. The two Shas ministers, opposing the decision, refused to take part in the vote – they walked out and did not vote against – and Minister Silvan Shalom, who later strongly opposed the decision, was abroad at the time. Only Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau voted against.

[...]

The Legal Forum says the decision has no standing without full Cabinet approval. Netanyahu did not bring the matter to a vote at the this week's Cabinet session Sunday, nor does he intend to – unless the Supreme Court forces him.

“A non-security related decision that involves such a grave blow at the property rights of so many people may not be made so secretly with no prior warning and with no possibility for Cabinet members to appeal it,” Attorney Yossi Fuchs of the Forum explained. “The mini-Cabinet did not even claim that this was a security decision, but rather stated vaguely that its purpose is to encourage the renewal of talks with the PA…”

Fuchs also noted that, despite objections by Cabinet ministers, the matter was not brought before the full government. It was noted that Minister Landau announced that he would work to force the Cabinet to discuss the matter, and that Minister Shalom had strong criticism of the decision.

The Forum demands that the construction freeze be itself frozen: “Residents of Yesha have been harmed as of the moment that the decree was signed, but the government will lose nothing if it simply waits until after a government decision before proceeding with the freeze.

I'm glad they've taken the time to point this part out. If there's anything this construction freeze cannot be allowed to harm, it's the rights of private land owners and builders who're working on private projects and paying out of their own pockets. Worst, it would be doing just what Obama's administration is trying to do: erect big government.