Moreno describes ‘miracle’ escape from Hamas attacker

BEN HARTMAN AND KHALED ABU TOAMEH
09/03/2010 02:13
Couple wounded in West Bank shooting saved by terrorist's rifle malfunction which allowed them to hide in roadside ditch.
A husband and wife who were wounded in a shooting attack on Wednesday night in the West Bank escaped death when one of the attackers’ guns jammed and they were able to hide in a nearby ditch.
Ma’aleh Efrayim resident Moshe Moreno told Army Radio on Thursday that he and his wife, Shira, were driving on Route 60 when a car pulled up behind them and began “riding his bumper.” Moreno said he waved to the driver, signaling him to pass, and “then we took a turn and the car passed us and opened fire.”
The terrorists sprayed the car with automatic rifle fire and the vehicle spun out of control, overturning on the side of the road.
The attackers approached the car when suddenly, amid the hail of gunfire, one of their rifles malfunctioned, and the Morenos were able to escape.
“One of the guns jammed and we took the chance to roll out of the car and take cover,” Moshe said.
The Morenos hid in a ditch and called police, who rushed to the scene to search for the assailants.
Moreno added that he and his wife, who was lightly wounded, were lucky that the shooting took place as they were driving on an incline, saying that if the gunmen had attacked as they were heading downhill they would probably have plunged off the road to their deaths.
Speaking from his hospital bed, where he was being treated for a gunshot wound to the shoulder, Moreno told Channel 2 that as the gunmen passed his car they “opened fire from, at most, one meter away. Luckily, I was only hit in the shoulder.”
The incident was the second in two days in the West Bank, both claimed by Hamas. In a terror attack outside Kiryat Arba on Tuesday night, gunmen riddled a car with bullets, killing four residents of the settlement of Beit Hagai.
Moments after that shooting, paramedics rushed to the scene, including Zaka rescue and recovery organization volunteer Maimon Even-Haim, whose wife, Kochava, was among the four victims.
Even-Haim’s friends in the rescue unit tried to keep him from reaching the car where his wife lay mortally wounded, but he could not be swayed.
Speaking to Channel 2 on Wednesday, Even-Haim said, “She looked so beautiful, so pure. I kept telling her, I’m here, I’m here, but she didn’t move.”
Even-Haim said his colleagues told him his wife died instantly, but when he arrived he could tell that “she didn’t. I saw her face and could tell she didn’t die right away.”
A Palestinian Authority security source said on Thursday that its men had seized the car used in the Beit Hagai attack.
The source said that the car was found in Hebron and that the PA security forces were now questioning several suspects linked to the vehicle.
The source refused to comment on reports that the PA has arrested two men suspected of involvement in the attack.
The PA security forces have arrested more than 300 Palestinians from different parts of the West Bank since the attack.
The crackdown has been described as the largest security operation by the PA since its inception.
Hamas, however, announced that the number of those arrested by the PA in the past 48 hours had reached 550. It said another 1,500 Palestinians suspected of affiliation with Hamas had been summoned for interrogation by the various branches of the PA’s security services.
Hamas said that the detainees included prominent political figures, physicians, engineers, university students, former security prisoners who were released from Israeli jails, and relatives and friends of Hamas legislators living in the West Bank.
Eyewitnesses told The Jerusalem Post that the Fatah-dominated security forces also rounded up dozens of worshipers as they emerged from mosques following evening prayers in many cities and villages.

via docstalk.blogspot.com

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Mullah vs. Mullah

One almost feels for these guys. One of the things I am getting from this is that A'jad compared to the others is a moderate. Politics is bizarre. I spent eight years thinking that America was Right wing... only to realize that actually Bush was kind of a Leftist in reality. The reputation of these guys is bullshit. I'm not saying A'jad is a good guy... I'm just saying we really don't understand him. A'jad is a "Socialist" who is not a "Nationalist". He views the world through a Universalist glass of the Shi'a. A'jad dislikes ethnocentrism and would love to see America and Israel adopt his world view.

Ryan Mauro
The in-fighting inside the Iranian regime has become so intense that Ayatollah Khamenei has been forced to give a “serious warning” to the competing factions that they must reconcile. His intervention shows that the regime is now divided against itself and the Supreme Leader has become genuinely worried. It is encouraging to see the regime’s foundations shake, but Iran may now lash out in the hopes of solidifying its ranks against a common enemy. A series of internal rifts have compelled Ayatollah Khamenei to publicly discipline his government. The latest dispute surrounds a man named Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, whose daughter is married to Ahmadinejad’s son. Mashaie was chosen by the President to become Vice President but he was fired by Khamenei last summer. His appointment had caused outrage among hardliners disgusted that he once said that Iran’s conflict with Israel is limited to their government and that the country is a “friend” to the people. Ahmadinejad publicly defended Mashaie and then chose him as his chief of staff.
On August 6, Mashaie got into more trouble after he made comments that appeared to put Iranian nationalism above Shiite Islam. Prominent officials condemned him for allegedly harming the security of the country, essentially calling him a traitor. Two hundred members of parliament signed a letter demanding that he be fired. Ahmadinejad refused to back down and upped the stakes by appointing Mashaie as the special envoy for Middle Eastern affairs.
This follows another clash between Ali Larijani, the Speaker of the Majiles (parliament) and Ahmadinejad. The two have been at odds over domestic policy for some time, with Larijani going so far as to say the country is being ruled by “extremism and delusion.” Their battle escalated when Ahmadinejad’s camp tried to take control of the privately-owned Azad University that is tied to Larijani’s camp, Ayatollah Rafsanjani and other opponents. During the public fight, Larijani called Ahmadinejad and his supporters “vicious, illogical and loudmouths” and Basiji members threatened to set the parliament on fire. Ultimately, the Majiles sided with Larijani.
Amil Imani, an Iranian dissident, told FrontPage that Larijani and other Iranian officials are sensing the rising anger against Ahmadinejad and are positioning themselves to gain politically.
“Ali Larijani and his older brother Mohammed Jawad have moved across the Iranian political spectrum… [they] were considered pillars of the moderate wing in the political spectrum, and the ease with which they changed sides and moved to the conservative bloc was perceived as a case of blatant political opportunism,” Imani said.
The pressure over human rights abuses is also causing a division. The parliament has reported that Saeed Mortazavi, the Prosecutor-General of Tehran during the summer 2009 uprising, was responsible for ordering the torture of at least 147 political prisoners and holding them in inhumane conditions. He and two other officials were blamed for the deaths of at least three specific protestors and were suspended. One of the victim’s attorneys argues that the report opens up the door for Mortazavi to be prosecuted, although it is unlikely Ahmadinejad and Khamenei would allow anything serious to happen to such a loyal servant. Already, Ahmadinejad has named him as the director of an anti-smuggling body.

via docstalk.blogspot.com

my head hurts... and I feel strange. Next post... Spring Time for Hitler

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As Abbas meets with Netanyahu - PLO Ambassador to Teheran says hopes to see complete eradication of Israel

Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: Salah Zawawi is the official ambassador of the
PLO to Teheran

"With reliance upon Grace of Almighty God and through solidarity of world
Muslims, we hope to witness complete eradication of the fabricated regime in
due course," Zawawi said.

Zawawi: Relentless struggle will continue to liberate Holy Qods
www.irna.ir/NewsShow.aspx?NID=253385

Tehran, Sept 2, IRNA(Iran news agency) -- Palestine's Ambassador to Tehran
Salah Zawawi said on Thursday that relentless struggle with the Zionist
occupiers will continue until liberation of Holy Qods.

Speaking to IRNA, he said Qods international day was initiated by the late
Imam Khomeini.

Late Imam Khomeini put the issue of Palestine on the agenda of Islamic Ummah
which this left an undeniable impact on the resistance of Palestinian nation
to occupation, he said.

'Late Imam Khomeini expelled the representatives of the Zionist regime from
Iran, cut export of oil to the (then) apartheid regime of South Africa and
established the first-ever Palestine Embassy on ruins of Israeli embassy in
Tehran.'

The ambassador said that the Zionist regime will be annihilated if it fails
to win support of big powers.

He said that the Zionist regime was established by western powers to harm
unity of the Arab nations and the world Muslims to help materialize their
sinister goals.

'As our struggles with the Zionists will get tougher in the future, we hope
more support from the Islamic Ummah,' he said.

On Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, he said the Western countries have
toughen sanctions against Iran but have ignored the Zionist regime which
possesses over 200 warheads and advanced military apparatus such as F-35.

"With reliance upon Grace of Almighty God and through solidarity of world
Muslims, we hope to witness complete eradication of the fabricated regime in
due course," Zawawi said.

via docstalk.blogspot.com

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Spain Cozies Up To Cuba: But "Are They Emptying Cuban Prisons Just to Fill Them Again?"

Six Cuban political prisoners arrived in Spain in August, joining 20 others who came to the country in July after being released from prison by the dictatorship of Cuban President Raúl Castro. They form part of a July 7 deal struck between communist Cuba and the Roman Catholic Church, brokered by the Socialist government in Spain, in which the Castro regime agreed to free 52 of 75 dissidents sentenced in 2003 to prison terms of up to 28 years.
Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero hopes the prisoner releases will help him to achieve a long-term political goal: to persuade other European Union countries to relax sanctions on Cuba. The EU's Common Position on Cuba, which dates back to 1996, links any improvement in relations to progress on democracy and human rights.
Cuban dissidents, however, say that even after the release of the 52, another 115 political prisoners will still be languishing behind bars in Cuba. One of the released prisoners, Regis Iglesias, told reporters in Madrid that by agreeing to release the dissidents, Havana is merely seeking to "clean up its image." He said Cuba will only change when there is "a transparent process of dialogue involving all the Cuban people, all ideological trends, both within the island and outside."
Immediately upon their arrival at the airport in Madrid, the former prisoners accused the Castro regime of using the release of the dissidents to hide the "criminal repression" of its opponents. They also issued a petition asking the EU to maintain its sanctions.
In a statement, the dissidents declared: "We, the Cuban prisoners of conscience exiled to Spain in recent days, aware of the manifest willingness of some European countries to modify the EU's 'Common Position' regarding Cuba, declare our disagreement with an approval of this measure, as we understand that the Cuban government has not taken steps that evidence a clear decision to advance toward the democratization of our country. Our departure for Spain must not be considered a good-will gesture, but a desperate action on the regime's part in its urgent quest for credits of every type. It is for that reason that we ask the countries of the European Union not to again soften their exigencies intended to achieve changes toward democracy in Cuba and to secure for all Cubans the same rights that European citizens enjoy."
The declaration has angered the Zapatero government, which rejects the idea that dictators should be isolated and views the normalization of EU relations with Cuba as a key foreign policy priority. After meeting Castro in Havana in July, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos proclaimed the opening of "a new phase in Cuba" and insisted that "there is no longer any reason to maintain the [EU's] Common Position" on Cuba.
But efforts by the Zapatero government to de-link political dialogue with Cuba from the issue of human rights on the island have failed due to strong resistance from other EU members — notably former communist countries like Poland and the Czech Republic, which insist that the EU should not fully normalize its ties with Cuba until civil and political freedoms are granted to all citizens.
Another former prisoner, Efren Fernández, said that "these releases do not mean that the regime is opening up; what they have is a strategy to buy time. It has been shown in recent days that there is criminal repression against dissidents in Cuba." He was referring to a new wave of arrests of dissidents, many of whom have been held for a few hours and then released.
Echoing concerns that the Castro regime has no intention of allowing political change on the island, the human rights group Amnesty International on August 17 called on Cuban authorities to end what it described as the "harassment" of the mother of dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died on February 23 after an 85-day hunger strike in prison. Amnesty said Reina Luisa Tamayo told the organization that she has been harassed repeatedly by authorities and government supporters during regular marches in memory of her son.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church has been forced to defend itself against criticism from Cuban opposition activists who have complained that church officials left them out of their negotiations with the Castro government. In an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI that has been circulating in Spain, 165 top Cuban political activists, community organizers and dissidents said the Church and Castro ignored the needs of the country's political opposition in reaching the July 7 agreement. In their letter to the pope, the dissidents wrote, "a correct mediation on this topic should have included hearing the complaints of both sides and reconciling them. … We do not agree with the position taken by the Cuban religious hierarchy on behalf of political prisoners. It is lamentable and even embarrassing."
The letter also says that pressure on those who publicly oppose Cuba's communist system intensified after Castro said in a televised address on August 1 that, despite his government's agreement with the Catholic Church, "there will not be impunity for the enemies of the homeland." The letter says: "repression, hostility and arbitrary detentions have increased in recent days, after the threats of President Raúl Castro on August 1. It raises the question: Are they emptying the prisons just to fill them again?"
For its part, the Zapatero government has been working overtime to push back against all the negative press. In an effort to stop the media from reporting on conditions inside Cuba, Moratinos recently tried to prevent US Representative Lincoln Díaz-Balart (R-FL) from meeting with the former Cuban prisoners and their families in Madrid.
An account of a message that Moratinos sent to Díaz-Balart has been published by Emilio Ichikawa, a columnist for the Miami-based El Nuevo Herald. It says: "The night before my planned meeting with the ex-political prisoners in Madrid, Minister Moratinos sent me a message through the US State Department. His message said that the Spanish government was worried over my physical safety if the meeting with the ex-political prisoners were made public—in other words, if the press was present. (If anyone is interested in the 'message' Moratinos sent me'[Diaz-Balart said], which he obviously now denies sending, my office in Washington will gladly provide it to you.)
"Of course we went ahead and with pleasure had the press attend the meeting with the ex-political prisoners I had invited. But the actions on the part of Moratinos constitute a grotesque intent to threaten in order to hinder the presence of the press at the meeting with the ex-political prisoners. His actions demonstrate his clear attempt to censor in a dictatorial fashion. As my uncle Waldo Díaz-Balart once told me, "these people, if they could, would act just like Fidel Castro; it's just that they can't."

via hudson-ny.org

noahdavidsimon's posterous

The left wins…rhetorically

Someone I met recently posed what I thought was an interesting question.
Like me, he had read and admired the moving interview in last Sunday’s Observer with the Israeli novelist David Grossman, whose son Uri was killed when his IDF tank was hit by a rocket in the final hours of the aborted war with Hizbollah in 2006.
Grossman, whose new novel apparently owes much to that terrible experience, talked simply and poignantly about its effect on him. One does not have to agree with his politics to be touched by his refusal to give in to despair and even to find ways to grow from such a tragedy.
My acquaintance, however, asked why it was that the most articulate voices tended to be found on the left. Why was there no equivalent to the soaring voice of David Grossman on the right?
One possible reason is that the left and the intelligentsia are more or less synonymous: or as the left so offensively puts it, that the ‘right’ — ie everyone who is not the left — is stupid.
On that basis, the left seems to have a monopoly of eloquence simply because of its dominance of the chattering classes.
But there may be another reason. I think it boils down to a matter of perception; and perception, as so often, is influenced by ideology.
What, after all, does eloquence do? It moves us. It provokes an emotional identification and sympathy with the speaker or author.
Today’s left privileges emotion over reason, in direct contrast to the non- or anti-left which champions objectivity over subjectivity. And emotion and eloquence go together.
Prose that gives expression to personal grief or yearning for peace is thus almost inevitably bound to soar far more eloquently than stolid attempts to present objective factual evidence and arguments for law and morality against their antithesis.
Yet there are those, not on the left, whose rhetoric nevertheless does soar. It can also be very emotional. But because it rests upon reason and truth, it is regarded by those who subscribe to a subjective approach to the world not as eloquence but extremism.
This is graphically illustrated in The Prime Ministers, the surprisingly un-putdownable book by Yehuda Avner, former Israeli ambassador to the UK and English speechwriter to four Israeli premiers — Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin and Menachem Begin.
In a wonderfully vivid book replete with riveting and entertaining insider descriptions of politics and diplomacy in Jerusalem, Washington and London, the most affectionate and admiring portrait Avner paints is of Begin.
What leaps from these pages is the intelligence, erudition and astonishing eloquence of the man who was widely reviled and thus dismissed as a fanatical terrorist.
In response to world leaders who only wanted to know when he would start dismantling the settlements, he treated them to dazzling lectures on history and religion to prove that the conflict was about far more existential and deadly issues.
In the atavistic, reason-defying bear-pit of the Knesset, meanwhile, Begin’s eloquence was hurled at him as an insult — proof to his opponents of his utter unworldliness and uselessness.
Yet this was the man who made peace with the Egyptian Prime Minister Sadat, whose widow wrote with unbearable poignancy to Begin — after the death of his beloved wife Aliza — as the dear friend of her murdered husband and fellow-visionary of an end to the terrible conflict between Arab and Jew.
No, eloquence is not monopolised by the left — and neither, most definitely, is peace.

via melaniephillips.com

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Before Allah closes our eyes for the last time you will see Islam move from being the second largest religion in America—that’s where we are now—to being the first religion in America

Apparently our tax dollars are funding foreign propoganda in public television... no not PBS. This is something new. You can see these programs online anyway. Why are our tax dollars funding this?

US public TV hijacked by Islamic propagandists

Australian Conservative
WASHINGTON: Imagine the shock that some viewers must have felt when they first clicked on their public TV station’s new digital sub-channels expecting to see more shows like Big Bird or Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, only to find programming more attuned to the views of Osama bin Laden and Vladimir Putin.
About 30 non-commercial TV stations around the U.S. are airing “MHz Network Worldview,” which includes programs from Al Jazeera English, the Kremlin’s “Russia Today” and other foreign state-controlled instruments of propaganda. MHz Worldview is also available in the Washington, D.C. area.
MHz Networks’ slogan is “Many voices. One world.” A non-profit entity, it is designed for “globally-minded people.”
One of the controversial programs broadcast on MHz1 WNVC-DT every Sunday is titled, “Living Islam in America,” described as “a thirty minute discussion-magazine formatted television series with a primary goal of educating the general population about the faith & culture of Islam and the burgeoning Muslim communities throughout America.”
The host, Johari Abdul Malik, is described by his supporters as an advocate of non-violence. However, the Investigative Project on Terrorism says that he supports radical and political Islamic causes. It reports, “At a 2001 conference hosted by the Islamic Association of Palestine, a now defunct propaganda branch of the Specially Designated Terrorist organization Hamas, he called for attacks against Israeli infrastructure to show Muslim displeasure with Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.”

Abdul-Malik said, “I am gonna teach you now. You can blow up bridges, but you cannot kill people who are innocent on their way to work. You can blow up power supplies… the water supply, you can do all forms of sabotage and let the world know that we are doing it like this because they have a respect for the lives of innocent people.”
Abdul-Malik has also been quoted as saying, “before Allah closes our eyes for the last time you will see Islam move from being the second largest religion in America—that’s where we are now—to being the first religion in America.”
American taxpayers are helping to put this material on the air whether they watch it or not.
This odd-couple arrangement with some tax-supported TV stations (not to be confused with the PBS network) has been a windfall for many foreign-propaganda machines. After years of struggling to obtain carriage on American TV outlets, some foreign governments not only get multiple hours of free national broadcast airtime each week, but as a bonus, they get a few dangerously naive souls, mostly from academia (who own many of these stations) insisting that foreign governments actually have a First Amendment right to free carriage on tax-supported public TV. Their spokespeople imply that to remove the programs would go against their affiliate agreements, constitute censorship and even violate the lofty principles of academic freedom.
I do agree that MHz Network Worldview is educational TV because the very first day that I watched it I learned that: (1) The U.S. spends too much money on intelligence gathering; (2) The U.S. is a fascist country; and (3) Harry Truman was a war criminal. Gosh, I didn’t know that!
These are examples of the propaganda being disseminated through the foreign networks carried by MHz.
One would think that the oil-rich Emir of Qatar, who bankrolled Al Jazeera, would already have enough of our petrodollars in his pockets to buy his own doggone airtime just like Rupert Murdoch did when he started Fox News Channel. If the Emir can’t find a commercial station stupid enough to air his twisted version of the world, he could always lease access on cable, just like the other infomercial kings do. That would satisfy any First Amendment concerns without forcing our great grandchildren to borrow even more money to buy airtime for him.
One station that I spoke with said that while they may not like some of MHz Networks programs, they cannot pre-empt them even if they want to.
They cite their affiliation agreement which reads: “The Station shall distribute the Program Service in full as delivered to the Station by the Network and during the time periods provided for herein, without any additions, insertions, alterations or deletions of any kind not otherwise covered in this agreement.” Some might interpret that as an “unauthorized transfer of control” of a station.
In effect, foreign propagandists have hijacked public television stations made possible by the American taxpayers.
I always thought that public TV stations adhered to production standards that put a substantial emphasis on accuracy in content. But obviously something has changed.
This has come about because the digital transition has given stations a lot more air time to fill. They find themselves with many more channels to program but unfortunately only the same paltry amount of creativity, initiative and common sense with which to do so. So, being desperately in need of filler, they turn to almost anyone with a satellite uplink and a program feed. I call it state-of-the-art technology in the service of medieval ideology.
It seems that some bureaucrat-broadcasters are willing to air almost anything knowing that no matter how misleading, irresponsible or reprehensible it may be, they can always justify it in the name of improved global understanding, academic freedom or free speech. Take your pick. That is, if they are even aware that they are airing it at all.
The very first MHz affiliate program manager that I contacted was at WDSC-TV in Daytona Beach, Florida. She appeared not to have known for nearly seven months that her station was even airing Al Jazeera English (AJE). She found out only after she received a complaint from a soldier. Apparently, they don’t even watch their own channels. After she finally did watch one episode of AJE, she concluded that it was “innocuous.”
Maybe it was the multi-million dollar studio in Washington, D.C. with anchors wearing designer suits and having proper British accents that brought her to that conclusion. Everyone knows that Jihadist propaganda can only emanate from a dusty cave somewhere in the Middle East decorated with war maps and AK-47s.
The bottom line is this: U.S. taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the distribution in the U.S. of another country’s propaganda. Period.
With regard to censorship, there is however, one country’s state-sponsored programming that is censored by federal law. That country is the good ole US of A.
Yes, domestic broadcasting of the Voice of America’s foreign programs has been prohibited by the Smith-Mundt Act since the 1940’s. I haven’t heard MHz Networks or any of its affiliates make any effort to UNcensor VOA. Go figure.
Nine years ago, fanatical Jihadists used civilian airliners as missiles in waging their war on our form of government. Military experts call it “Asymmetric Warfare” when one foe with far fewer military resources than the other must resort to strategies that exploit the other side’s weakness and if possible use the other side’s resources against him.
Any serious warrior also knows the value of wartime propaganda and its ability to manipulate a foe’s attitude toward the war in general with the ultimate goal of lowering the other side’s will to fight.
Let’s make sure that tax-supported public TV isn’t being hijacked, too, for use as a propaganda machine.
From The AIM Report. Jerry Kenney is an independent television producer from Daytona Beach Florida, a graduate of Daytona State College, and a volunteer pilot for charity medical flights. He can be contacted at gkenney@kenneytv.com.

via sheikyermami.com

isn't that wonderful?

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Tony Blair smacks his bitches up [UPDATED]

Blair:

"Diana was easier to get along with, an “extraordinarily captivating” woman. Blair says he warned her he had a bad feeling about her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed. “Dodi Fayed was a problem,” he says, though he admits he was at a loss to say exactly why. “I felt uneasy.”"

Diana and Dodi were killed in a Paris car crash in August 1997. Blair’s memorial speech, calling her the “people’s princess,” caught the public mood perfectly and helped cement his popularity at the time.

Elsewhere, Blair speaks of his relationship with alcohol, saying he drank a whisky or a gin and tonic before dinner, and a “couple of glasses of wine or even half a bottle with it.”

“I had a limit,” he says.” But I was aware it had become a prop” — though, on balance, he thinks booze did him more good than harm.

via vosizneias.com

Photo: The Telegraph
The former prime minister’s memoir describes Mr Brown as "maddening" and blames him for allowing the Tories into power by deviating from his predecessor's New Labour strategy.
Mr Blair disclosed that his former chancellor put “relentless personal pressure” on him during his time in Number 10.
He admitted that he repeatedly considered sacking Mr Brown but failed to identify anyone who could replace him and eventually concluded that he was better “inside and constrained” than “outside and let loose”.
He also accuses his Chancellor of effectively trying to blackmail him into backing down over a pensions reform.
Mr Blair said Mr Brown lacked political instinct "at the human gut level", according to The Guardian.
He wrote: "Political calculation, yes. Political feelings, no. Analytical intelligence, absolutely. Emotional intelligence, zero."
He described Mr Brown as a “maddening figure” who was not capable of being a “normal bloke” sort of politician, but conceded that he possessed an acute “analytical intelligence” which stood him in good stead as chancellor.
In his long-awaited memoir, A Journey, Mr Blair wrote: “My failure to [remove him] was not a lack of courage…It was because I believed, despite it all, despite my own feelings at times, that he was the best chancellor for the country.”

via librabunda.blogspot.com

the gloves just came off. let us see if Mr Emotional IQ at zero wants to play

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Winston Churchill 'Ordered Assassination of Mussolini to Protect Compromising Letters’

THE TELEGRAPH: Winston Churchill ordered the assassination of Benito Mussolini as part of a plot to destroy potentially compromising secret letters he had sent the Italian dictator, a leading French historian has suggested.

Pierre Milza, an expert on fascist Italy, theorizes that the wartime prime minister may have wanted Mussolini dead to prevent the letters, in which Churchill expressed his admiration for his Italian counterpart before the outbreak of the Second World War, coming to light.

“There is no doubt, judging by his public declarations back in the 1920s and early 1930s, that Churchill was a fan of Mussolini. Roosevelt too,” Mr Milza said.

“Churchill even once said: 'Fascism has rendered a service to the entire world... If I were Italian, I am sure I would have been with you entirely’.

“But that was understandable in 1927, as then a fascist did not mean a friend of Hitler and accomplice to genocide. But when you are head of state and legitimate war hero of the British people, you don’t really want all that put up in lights.”

via librabunda.blogspot.com

...so now we know how Bush felt about Saddam

noahdavidsimon's posterous

USA Cheerleaders Wear Pants for Sharia

Just so we're all clear on the issue, THIS IS THE WAY A CHEERLEADER IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK: There’s been a lot of hype about the USA National Basketball Team playing Iran in the World Basketball Championship.  Tuesday, Team USA beat Iran, but with the PC pandering of “our” team, it’s as if we lost. Sadly, Team USA Coach Mike Krzyzewski and players were all too dhimmi-esque regarding Iran.  Barf.  Then, the cheerleaders had to wear long pants to respect Islam and Iran.  Double barf.

Coach K, Team USA, & Dancers
Dhimmi Up for Iran, Islam
via debbieschlussel.com
and ibloga.blogspot.com

I don't even like basketball. The Cheerleaders were all I had.
noahdavidsimon's posterous

To Letterman Irritation, Trump Denounces Ground Zero Mosque

LETTERMAN: The notion -- does this suggest that we are in fact officially at war with Muslims? Is that what this suggests?
TRUMP: Well, somebody knocked down the World Trade Center.

via mrc.org

I'm not sure why I'm reposting this... I guess it is because it is a cultural event and such.... but these guys are both morons. Trump is right. The Mosque is wrong... but he is afraid to come out and say the truth.... which is Islam did it because that is what Islam does. It is not a religion. It is an enemy government with delusions of a world view like a religion just like Marxism. Just because it is old doesn't mean it is different then any other violent ideology.
sorry to kill your brain cells. I really blog these things for my own use.

noahdavidsimon's posterous

PA threatens Arabs who want real peace

Ami Isseroff has, pretty much single-handedly, written an encyclopedia of everything related to Israel and the Middle East conflict and put it on-line, along with news, a blog, and who knows what else. Although the sites are difficult to navigate, there is an enormous trove of information an reference material there.
Isseroff is a centrist. He wants a two-state solution. He desperately wants peace. He is in contact with the Palestinian Arab "peace camp."
Which is why his latest post is worth reading:

It hurts me to admit this. As a Zionist, I really wish that the much hoped-for peace was really just around the corner. I wish that Israel could give up a few square meters of real estate and obtain peace. I know it will not happen. I am compelled to admit that by every indication, the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that begin this week will be a farcical charade. They cannot be saved by any amount of Israeli concessions. ...
One certain indication that the peace talks must fail is the flood of mail that I have gotten of late from Palestinian peace and dialog groups, and from every Palestinian or other Arab who ever spoke out for peace or sanity. They beg me to remove this or that article or section from a Web site where they are quoted as advocating peace with Israel or coexistence. They say - not for publication - that they are subject to a reign of terror: Emails; Hints; Phone calls in the night; Officials of the '"clean-as-a-whistle" "moderate" "not-like-Arafat" Palestinian National Authority telling them they had better toe the line - or it will be bad for their organization or their personal health.
My Palestinian and Arab friends and others who have asked me to remove their Web pages and demanded that I be silent about it, can be thankful that I do not follow their wishes: Speaking out is the only way to expose state terror. My advice to all those who are threatened is to speak out, loud and clear. But it is their decision. I will not name names. I can only decide what is right for myself.
Everyone who is in any way active in peace and dialog has to have heard echoes of the whisper campaign. The Palestinian youth orchestra that was dismantled because it played for Israeli Holocaust survivors, the One Voice event that was canceled because of death threats, are public manifestations of the same terror. All this happened not in Hamas - ruled Gaza, but, embarrassingly, in the West Bank, ruled by the "moderate" Fatah and the Palestinian National Authority, Israel's "peace partners." The people who are terrorized into begging me to remove their names, their articles and their organizations from any Web site that has the remotest connection with Israel, all are from the West Bank, the land of the Palestinian National Authority, not Gaza. Think about what this means.

This is one of the most under-reported stories out there. The PA is not close to moderate by any objective measure - in fact, they are far more intransigent than any Israeli government in history. Yet the media chooses to highlight how "moderate" they are  in order to fulfill what they believe is a greater good of promoting a mythical "peace." The result is that stories like these are ignored or minimized, and the PA is presented as a moderate government in opposition to the right-wing, hard-line Likud.
Centrist Zionists know the facts, and they yearn for a two-state solution anyway. Yet they are not willing to give up anything close to what the PA is demanding, knowing that on the ground, such concessions would lead to disaster. These simple facts are not reported at all.
Peace - real peace - cannot be built on lies and obfuscation. The ugly reality of the so-called "moderates" of Fatah and the PA needs to be exposed. When the media doesn't do its job, it is not serving the cause of peace - it is instead endangering many, many lives.

via elderofziyon.blogspot.com

I just tried to friend this guy on facebook. I feared before that he was in cloud nine. Obviously he is coming to a reality that those of us who are less educated understood the whole time. The only Moderates are Jews.

noahdavidsimon's posterous

al-Zahar says terrorism unrelated to negotiations

Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, trying to publicly distance the Hamas Gaza leadership and the al-Qassam Brigades, bizarrely claimed that the two terror attacks this week in the West Bank were not related to the resumption of negotiations in Washington this week.
This despite the fact that the al Qassam Brigades made that exact link.
Zahar said that Hamas has no interest in stopping the negotiations, although it is skeptical about the results and will not accept any compromise with Israel.
He stopped short of saying that the attacks were a coincidence; just that the Al Qassam Brigades happened to take the opportunity to kill Jews when it presented itself. He also claimed that it was a reflection of the "pressure" that Palestinian Arabs suffer in the West Bank, as if things have not been improving steadily there for the past few years.
The article seems to imply that Zahar is trying to forestall any Israeli retaliation in Gaza itself. Or maybe he's just trying to make sure that he is not personally targeted by a drone missile.
Arab leaders have proven time and time again their ability to lie effortlessly. The question is, why does the media still take anything they say at face value?

via elderofziyon.blogspot.com

we have an Arafat among Hamas apparently

noahdavidsimon's posterous