A Lesson In Obamanomics In Less Than 2 Minutes- Visualizing Obama's Budget Cuts

Matthias Shapiro from the blog Political Math visually shows us how pitiful Obama's budget cuts really are. Check out his other videos on YouTube at his 10000Pennies channel.

The Crisis In Egypt- A Path To Democracy or a Path To Destruction

It's not surprising that the situation in Egypt has escalated into violence. The whole region is volatile, and given the anger and resentment that so many Middle Easterners (particularly the disenfranchised youth) harbor towards everything from poverty and lack of jobs, to the West and the Palestinian/Israeli issue - did anyone really expect this to resolve itself peacefully? Factor in a president cum dictator who has ruled the country for 30 plus years doing what he needed to retain power, and Egypt was a disaster waiting to happen. Simply criticizing President Hosni Mubarak could land you in jail. Kareem Amer spent 3 plus years in prison for insulting President Hosni Mubarak along with some anti-religious commentary he posted on his blog.

Although he ranked in Parade Magazine's Top Ten Worst Dictators in 2009 he also happens to be a U.S. ally, pro-West, is one of the few friends Israel has in that region and has managed to keep Egypt as secular as one can get in that neck of the woods. Therein lies the problem.

Who will fill the void when Mubarak steps down, which is inevitable? The Muslim Brotherhood, although banned in Egypt, is still the largest opposition group in the country, and people are still ignorant enough to be drawn towards a group that will be itching to get into power once Mubarak is gone, and will also do anything to ensure that happens.  Will they then replace authoritarianism for islamism?

I fear for Egypt, and even more so for Israel if the Egyptians make the wrong choice.

Diversity Lane's: Islamoterrorist Politics - A Visual Guide

Latest from Zack over at DiversityLane! He has a new book now too that you can order, signed or unsigned. Get ye over there.

Martin Luther King Was A Republican

I had always been under the (obviously false) impression that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a member of the Democratic Party.

I had absolutely no idea that he was actually a Republican until a few years ago when I was driving down a certain street, in a certain town, and came upon the above billboard. As I drove past, I had to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me, so I made a u-turn, parked across the street and took the photo. There in red, white and blue was a statement claiming Dr. King was a Republican. Could it be true? So as soon as I arrived back at my apartment, I checked out the National Black Republican Association (NBRA) and discovered a wealth of information that isn't readily made available anywhere else.

Democrats, either through ignorance or a willful effort to deceive, refuse to acknowledge that one of the greatest orators of our time, a man who almost singlehandedly helped advance the civil rights movement, was a Republican not a Democrat.

An inspiration to many, he was taken from us way too soon.

Watch the whole "I Have A Dream" speech below.

Spain Sponsors Palestinian "Boycott Israeli Goods" TV Ad

The Palestinians have started airing a TV ad promoting the boycotting of Israeli goods. With their flare for the over dramatic, the ad shows a couple of men (one of them a shopkeeper) discussing the boycott. They both agree Israeli products are, for the most part, better than Palestinian goods and that this is what the Palestinians demand. A young boy, who has been listening to the conversation, opts to buy the Israeli potato chips, until he hears gun fire (obviously evil Israeli soldiers). In response, he drops his chips on the floor and asks for Palestinian chips instead. It ends with the words:

"Don't prolong the occupation's life upon our land".

Now, it's not really surprising that the Palestinians would produce and subsequently air an ad endorsing the boycott of Israeli goods, in spite of the fact that Palestinian products obviously stink. After all, they're not the only ones calling for a boycott of everything Israeli. This is something that has been going on for years. What was surprising, however, was the fact that the Spanish government and a Spanish NGO sponsored the ad. Prominently displayed at the end of the video are their logos, in case anyone has any doubts.

I suppose I'm really not surprised, but rather disgusted that a foreign government would sponsor a boycott of another democratic country. And where do the Palestinians expect to get their supplies from? They'll soon be pissing and moaning about not having enough goods.

Now go out and buy some Israeli goods!



The transcript of the TV ad as published on the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) wesbite:

A boy enters a store and overhears a conversation.
Customer to shopkeeper: "Do you see them? They're plastering the city with advertisements about boycotting Israeli goods."
Shopkeeper: "I can't not bring in [Israeli products], because people ask for them."
Customer: "Israeli products are better than the local products."
Shopkeeper to the boy: "What do you want?"
Boy, after looking at Israeli products: "I want Israeli chips."
He takes the chips, walks to the door, and hears gunfire. He looks around, drops the chips on the floor, returns to the shopkeeper and says: "I don't want the Israeli product, I want the Palestinian product."

The advertisement ends by displaying the text: "Don't prolong the occupation's life upon our land," with the logo of the Palestinian NGO Health Work Committees, followed by the logos of the ad's sponsors:
The Spanish government,
the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
AECID (Spanish governmental humanitarian aid development),
ACSUR (a Spanish non-profit organization),
Canaan Joint Development Project for Jerusalem (Palestinian).

2011 Pro-Israel Blog-off at Israellycool.com

Aussie blogger over at Israellycool.com is having a Pro-Israel Blog-Off. You can win an I-Pad. Check out the rules at his blog.

Bloggers are invited to submit one ”pro-Israel” entry, whether it be a blog post, podcast, or video no older than 1 month. Then each week, I will pit submissions against each other. The winner, decided by a combination of reader votes and panel-determined score, moves to the next round, where they will submit a new entry to compete against another first round winner. The process continues until we get to two finalists competing for an Apple iPad.

You have until January 18th!

Pelosi Passes the Gavel to Boehner

This surely was John Boehner's subtext when Pelosi passed him the gavel. :-) Some very swift and clever editing here. From Jay Leno's show.

Saudis "Arrest" Israeli Vulture As Zionist Spy

Zionists are behind every major intrigue or catastrophe in the world, at least that's what many mostly Arab and anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists would have us believe. And some of those theories are pretty darn laughable. Take the latest out of Saudi Arabia where a tagged vulture from an Israeli university research project was 'arrested' by Saudi authorities after it flew off course and wound up in neighbouring Saudi Arabia. Yes, those savvy Saudis seem to think that the evil Zionist Jews trained this vulture as a Mossad spy and sent it on its way to gather what--- roadkill?

It was obviously part of a scientific experiment, but the locals were convinced the vulture was there to spy on them.

The bird was found in a rural area of the country wearing a transmitter and a leg bracelet bearing the words 'Tel Aviv University', according to the reports, which surfaced first in the Israeli daily Ma'ariv.

Although these tags indicate that the bird was part of a long-term research project into migration patterns, residents and local reporters told Saudi Arabia's Al-Weeam newspaper that the matter seemed to be a 'Zionist plot.'

But it wasn't just the local yokels that believed this vulture was some avian version of Mata Hari, the story took flight and wound up an Internet sensation.

The accusations went viral, with hundreds of posts on Arabic-language websites and forums claiming that the 'Zionists' had trained these birds for espionage.

I'm not sure if anyone came up with any theories as to what kind of intelligence gathering a vulture might obtain, but the poor, ugly creature was detained, and one has to wonder what kind of punishment it's in for if found guilty. 200 lashes? Its wings clipped? Deprived of dead animals for 6 months?

And it's not the first time that Israelis have been blamed for something uber bizarre. Last month it was a shark attack:

The Sinai regional governor last month suggested that a shark that killed and maimed tourists on its Red Sea port may have been intentionally released by Israeli agents in order to sabotage the country's tourist industry.

'What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark in the sea to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question. But it needs time to confirm,' Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha said, according to the Sun.

What next?

The Devil Made Him Do It- Claims Saudi Serial Rapist

Apparently Saudi Arabia, the throne of Islamic fundamentalism (Wahhabism) and home to the holiest of holy sites in Islam (Mecca) has serial rapists. Apparently a man who happens to work at a school (and what better place to find your victims) systematically raped 17 young girls including a 13-year-old. Not that her age would make it any more heinous a crime, considering they marry them off younger than that over there. But rather than own up to his pedophilic perversion, he blamed it on the devil. Yes, I guess Westerners aren't the only ones to cop to the whole "the devil made me do it' plea.

According to Anbakuk newspaper

The unnamed man, a school employee, had used his religious treatment and dream interpretation skills to seduce the girls to his house, where he “had sex with them and tore their virginity."

The poor 13-year-old apparently begged the deviant to “heal her virginity.” And he didn't just target Arab women, he also had a penchant for Indonesians, as well.

“Police also found texts and phone numbers of many other women in his mobile phone…the victims included Arab and Indonesian girls.”

His excuse:

“The man told the court in Riyadh that he had been seduced and commanded by the devil to commit such acts…the court will soon sentence him.”

I guess there are perverts in Islam too.

Source: emirates247.com

A New Year- Reflections On The Islamist Violence In 2010 And What The New Year Might Bring

I always have hope that with the ringing in of a New Year things might change - hopefully for the better. I know it's just another day, but for some reason the fact that we start back at January 1st, once again, signals a kind of shift- a renewed energy and excitement about the many possibilities a new year might bring.

2010 was not so great both on a personal and global level, with all the natural disasters and economic woes. But what concerns me more than my petty challenges in life are the worsening global conditions, specifically the ever increasing, never-ending violence around the world, mostly in the name of one specific religion. And sadly, I don't think a new year is likely to change the course of those events. The ranks of those hell bent on establishing a third caliphate are increasing exponentially. We saw evidence of this in all the incredible violence across the planet in 2010- all the thwarted terrorist attempts, and actual acts of terrorism. Yes, there was some violence perpetrated by lunatic anarchists, but the bulk of the death and destruction last year was in the name of Allah.

And while Muslims in the West increased their demands for special treatment and other ( sometimes major) concessions through threats and lawsuits, and attempted to muzzle criticism of their religion through howls of racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia (successfully at times), non-Muslims in Muslim-majority countries experienced an increase in violence and intolerance. Christians (and other minority religions) continued to be killed and persecuted in most if not all of those countries. And to cap that intolerant mind-set, on Friday, December 31st Pakistan came to a standstill when a mass strike by Pakistanis (instigated by Sunni Muslim clerics) occurred in response to reports that the government was considering doing away with the Blasphemy Laws. Those oh-so humane laws which can arbitrarily condemn a man or woman to death for insulting Islam or Mohammad, and on mere hear-say, mind you. I suppose it was a fitting end to the year.

And my pollyanna-ish hopes that things might change this coming year came to a crashing halt when I read today, the first day of 2011, that a suicide bomber blew up a Coptic Christian Church in Egypt. At least 21 were killed.

No, nothing is going to change until Islam joins us in the 21st century.