Cuba to lay off 500,000 in 6 months, allow private jobs

 

just a thought if I may:

with America's unemployment around in reality about 17% in the U.S. or actual stats just under double digits after floating in double digits all year.... it just dawned on me....

it is great that Cuba is now going to stop their social engineering experiment with people and are going to de-Socialize their state, but it could not of come at a worse time.  half a million Cubans will all end up in Miami selling Coke.

I have always felt that Communism is a revolting horrible thing, but dismantling a large state system is a messy thing.

Does anyone remember the first few years of the Reagan administration as he attempted to un-Socialize America itself?

...and it was hell on earth when Russia did it.

The celebration for this historic event will be short lived.

...and America goes in the opposite direction... via cnn.com

NJ Transit Worker Fired for Burning Koran Pages

No doubt the ACLU and other free speech groups will be rushing to this man's defense, no? And since when do newspapers label someone a radical in such circumstances?

A radical who burned pages from the Koran outside a planned mosque near Ground Zero was fired from his job at NJ Transit, sources and authorities confirmed.
Derek Fenton, an 11-year employee at NJ Transit, was fired Monday, the agency said in a statement, two days after he was photographed burning the Koran.

Who knew public employees were kept on such a short leash? Heck, teacher's union goons wished death upon Governor Christie and they still all have jobs.

Fenton's hate-filled display occurred during a protest against the mosque on the ninth anniversary of Sept. 11.

When someone burns an American flag are they hate-filled radicals or just people exercising free speech?
When SEIU thugs storm people's houses and they beat up tea partiers they all get to keep their jobs. Why such selective justice in this case?

via jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com

Hamas Campfire Roast

YAAKOV KATZ
09/14/2010
Participants undergo anti-Israel indoctrination; UNRWA run simultaneous camps for a further 250,000 children.
Hamas summer camps continued to gain strength this past summer as about 100,000 children underwent radical anti-Israel indoctrination by the terror group which also attacked United Nations camps, its main competition, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. According to the report, more than 100,000 children and teenagers participated in the Hamas camps which included paramilitary training and military parades. The Islamic Jihad terrorist organization also opened 51 different summer camps for over 10,000 children.
In contrast to the Hamas summer camps, the United Nations has been running summer games throughout the Gaza Strip for 250,000 children. These games, run by UNRWA, are being held at over 150 locations in Gaza. The participants are mostly between the ages of 6 and 15 and engage in sports, arts and crafts, swimming and other cultural activities.
On several occasions though during the summer, groups of masked men, believed to be affiliated with Hamas, ransacked a number of UNRWA camps and in one case burned down the facility and all of its contents.

According to the report, Hamas feels threatened by UNRWA which it perceives as its main competition in educating Palestinian youth in the Gaza Strip. Last year, for example, Hamas launched a campaign against UNRWA and accused the organization of distributing drugs to Palestinian youth and of mixed male-female dancing. The accusations were rejected by the UN body.
At the Hamas camps, based on pictures obtained by the center, the children learned about the Turkish flotilla which was stopped by Israel as it tried breaking the sea blockade over the Gaza Strip in late May. In one picture, children are seen training in hand-to-hand combat in front of a Turkish and Palestinian flag. In another picture, the children are seen holding a poster which they drew as a sign of solidarity with the flotilla and Turkey.

via docstalk.blogspot.com

put another marshmallow on the fire

noahdavidsimon's posterous

How Goldstone Is Making Peace More Difficult

The question remains how can Obama and the UN take peace seriously if it goes to all the trouble to make it impossible for Israel to defend itself against terrorists that hide among civilians?

When President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas try to make peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the 600 pound gorilla in the room will be Richard Goldstone. Although he was not invited to the meetings, his presence will be felt. It will send the following message to the Israeli government: If you end your military occupation of the West Bank, and the Palestinians use their new territory to launch rockets and other attacks against Israel, you will not be able to defend yourself, without Goldstone and the colleagues condemning you for taking actions in self defense.

This is a realistic threat, as evidenced by what happened after Israel ended its military occupation of the Gaza Strip. Hamas took over by military force and used the newly liberated lands not to build a civil society but to attack Israel. They fired nearly 1,000 rockets at Israeli civilians and made life impossible for nearly a million Israelis living in the south of Israel. After enduring these rockets for years, and futily seeking help from the international community, the Israelis did what any democracy would do: they defended their civilians against the war crimes being perpetrated by Hamas. But Hamas poses a difficult military target since it deliberately hides its fighters among civilians and fires its rockets from schoolyards, hospitals and mosques. Considering these difficulties, Israel did a commendable job at stopping most of the rockets while minimizing civilian casualties. As Former British Army Colonel Richard Kemp said:

"I don't think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when an army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza."

Nonetheless, Richard Goldstone issued a blood libel against Israel, accusing its leaders of deliberately setting out to maximize civilian deaths. It also exculpated Hamas from the war crime of using civilians as human shields. The Palestinian Authority--yes the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas--filed formal charges against Israel in the International Criminal Court. This, despite the fact that President Abbas and his subordinates urged Israel to be even more aggressive against Hamas in Gaza so that the Palestinian Authority could regain its lawful power. Enemies of Israel throughout the world have used the notorious Goldstone report in an effort to delegitimize the Jewish state.

When I was recently in Israel for a month, I spoke to all of its political and military leaders. The Goldstone report was very much on their minds as they contemplated the possibility of withdrawal from the West Bank. I also discussed the Goldstone report with the Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who acknowledged to me that by demanding that criminal charges be brought against Israel in the International Criminal Court he was simply, "playing a card." Well, if there is to be an end of Israel's occupation of the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority will have to stop playing the delegetimation card. It will have to work together with Israel to prevent a repeat in the West Bank of what happened in Gaza. The recent claim of responsibility by Hamas for the murder of four Israelis in the West Bank does not bode well for the peace process. It demonstrates that the Palestinian Authority has only limited control over Hamas, and that Hamas can play its "violence card" any time it chooses.

via hudson-ny.org

...I wouldn't assume that Goldstone is working for peace or respects the concept of a Jewish state

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Guardian UK and Print Media: Anti-Semitism for profit

A disturbing trend has been developing over the past few years. One in which vile anti-Semitic rhetoric can be found coursing through the comments section of articles on Israel or Jewish subjects in almost any mainstream media publication.
I first noticed the trend in the blog section of the British publication the Guardian UK. There the Guardian seems to have made it one of its main objectives to delegitimize the existence of Israel, and subsequently demonizes anybody that dares to support Israel. Its modus operandi is the application of the new anti-Semitism, which can be identified by two primary factors:

1. It projects traditional anti-Semitic tropes onto Israel (the Jew of the world), that insinuate that they magically control the media or politicians (in Israel’s case, control the American government), portray them as Nazis, or as being driven solely by greed or their hunger for money
2. The coverage and criticism of Israel is extremely disproportionate to that of other nations in similar situations or just as newsworthy for other reasons

For a separate blog post on this subject, see Israel, Europe and the New Anti-Semitism
For the most part, the Guardian was the only mainstream publication that took such bold steps to use the new anti-Semitism in mainstream blogs. It did not, however, allow its journalists to use it in regular articles, thereby being able to claim that the opinions expressed in the blog section known as Comment is Free were not necessarily their own, while still being able to promote their political agenda. The comments section of these blogs are a cesspool of barely veiled anti-Semitic sentiment. And the Guardian does little to discourage this discourse. It was so bad that a group of activists set up a monitoring website to document the anti-Semitic comments and the Guardian’s lack of actions to stop it, known as CiF Watch.
Over the course of the past two years, the phenomenon of anti-Semitic discourse in the comments sections of articles in mainstream publications has grown dramatically. All of the sudden one can find them in places like the New York Times, CNN, even the Wall Street Journal. Another location which this phenomenon has become particularly notable is the Huffington Post. It got so bad there that another activist setup a website to expose this activity in the blog The Brothers of Judea. Previously known as The Huffington Post Monitor. [Editor's note: the new site is actually called Huffington Post Monitor, not the other way around]
One of the driving questions has been why would all of these seemingly respectable mainstream publications tolerate openly anti-Semitic dialogue in their comments section. They all too often seem willing to allow it to take place unmoderated. I personally experienced this on numerous occasions in the Huffington Post. One in which the word “Zionist” was used by one of the moderators as an insult. Which is discussed in a piece I wrote titled Zionist as a Racial Slur.
There are a few theories which try to explain why respectable publications allow this dialogue to take place. One popular view has it that it has to do with profitability. It’s no secret that the international media is in crisis mode, with no small number of publications struggling for their existence. It seems that the international press has not managed to transition into a profitable online model and find it difficult to make money. The business model of online advertising works on the basis of what is known as click-through rates (CTR). The more traffic (clicks) a publication can get on their website, the more money (or advertisers) they can draw. If you can show advertisers that you have traffic, they’ll pay money to advertise on your website.
And while articles on Israel are a magnet for traffic (it’s a subject everybody seems to want to read about, otherwise the media wouldn’t write about it so much), it seems that anti-Semitic discourse is what keeps them clicking. Whether due to anti-Israel activists (including 1 billion Muslims worldwide) who delight in Israel bashing, Israelis or Jews looking to defend Israel, good peace-loving folk that have somehow been convinced that Israel is the source of all evil in the world, or just regular passers-by that have a penchant for the gruesome, much like the gapers delay that builds up after an accident on the highway. Online publications seem to have decided that it is in their interest to let this discourse take place, rarely if ever interfering. Because in the end its profitable, and they’ve experienced no backlash from this practice.
Indeed, the mainstream media is all too aware of the offensive comments, and enable this offensive, even racist dialog take place because it brings traffic.

via cifwatch.com

Iranian Gang tried to sell girls virginity to wealthy Arabs for £150,000

Gang: Fatima Hagnegat and Mahrookh Jamali face jail after they attempted to sell the virginity of young girls to wealthy Arab businessmen for up to £150,000

It read: 'I have 12 girls ready from the age 14-20 years, who are living all over the UK, I have spent money on the preparation of this event such as a rented house for the girls and also all expenses needed.'

Worried staff immediately alerted police who traced the car and telephone number given in the letter to an address in Wigan where Fatima Hagnegat, 24, lived with her husband, Rassoul Gholampour.

Inquires revealed that another similar letter had been delivered to the hotel on an earlier date.

Detectives then exchanged messages with the gang under the guise of potential clients. One undercover officer, known as 'Cameron', telephoned the mobile number provided in the letter to ask about hiring girls on behalf of a client.

Rasoul Gholampour was part of the gang

He spoke to Hagnegat's aunt, Marohkh Jamali, 41, who told him that she could arrange a party for four to five people that night if required. She stated that she could provide girls from Iran, England and Eastern Europe aged 14 and 20.

The officer arranged to meet Jamali who told him some of her girls were virgins and could be 'broken' by his client. She emailed him photographs of a number of girls and said she would bring up to five girls to London, including two 13-year-olds, and would expect £50,000 to £150,000 for each.

The next day Jamali went to a different London hotel, in Bayswater, accompanied by Hagnegat and six girls, two of whom were aged 14 and 17.

The other four were 18 or older. Off icers swooped and arrested Jamali and Hagnegat.

The six victims, who had all been brought to London from the North-West of England and cannot be identified for legal reasons, were taken to a victims' centre.

They later described how they had travelled from Wigan with the defendants on the understanding that they would be able to earn some money 'dancing' for a party of rich men.

It was only later, on their arrival in London, that they were told they may be asked to have sex with the men.

The gang members, all jobless and Iranian, pleaded guilty to trafficking and prostitution offences at Harrow Crown Court yesterday.

via dailymail.co.uk

Doing what Mohammad did. Aisha was broken too. This isn't a religion... this is hate.

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Ground Zero mosque is a Rabat, which is built for Muslim Raiders

Ghazis is the Arabic for Raiders. No wonder the Imam kept on using U.S. football strategies when describing his actions. Sorry Rauf. New York already had the Giants and the Jets.

Should there be a mosque near Ground Zero? In fact, what is pro posed is not a mosque -- nor even an "Islamic cultural center."
In Islam, every structure linked to the faith and its rituals has a precise function and character. A mosque is a one-story gallery built around an atrium with a mihrab (a niche pointing to Mecca) and one, or in the case of Shiites two, minarets.
Other Islamic structures, such as harams, zawiyyahs, husseinyiahs and takiyahs, also obey strict architectural rules. Yet the building used for spreading the faith is known as Dar al-Tabligh, or House of Proselytizing.

AP

TOWER: The Ground Zero project doesn't fit the traditional minaret.

via nypost.com

This 13-story multifunctional structure couldn't be any of the above. The groups fighting for the project know this; this is why they sometimes call it an Islamic cultural center. But there is no such thing as an Islamic culture. Islam is a religion, not a culture. Each of the 57 Muslim-majority nations has its own distinct culture -- and the Bengali culture has little in common with the Nigerian. Then, too, most of those countries have their own cultural offices in the US, especially in New York. Islam is an ingredient in dozens of cultures, not a culture on its own. In theory, at least, the culture of American Muslims should be American. Of course, this being America, each ethnic community has its distinct cultural memories -- the Iranians in Los Angeles are different from the Arabs in Dearborn. In fact, the proposed structure is known in Islamic history as a rabat -- literally a connector. The first rabat appeared at the time of the Prophet. The Prophet imposed his rule on parts of Arabia through a series of ghazvas, or razzias (the origin of the English word "raid"). The ghazva was designed to terrorize the infidels, convince them that their civilization was doomed and force them to submit to Islamic rule. Those who participated in the ghazva were known as the ghazis, or raiders. After each ghazva, the Prophet ordered the creation of a rabat -- or a point of contact at the heart of the infidel territory raided. The rabat consisted of an area for prayer, a section for the raiders to eat and rest and facilities to train and prepare for future razzias. Later Muslim rulers used the tactic of ghazva to conquer territory in the Persian and Byzantine empires. After each raid, they built a rabat to prepare for the next razzia. It is no coincidence that Islamists routinely use the term ghazva to describe the 9/11 attacks against New York and Washington. The terrorists who carried out the attack are referred to as ghazis or shahids (martyrs). Thus, building a rabat close to Ground Zero would be in accordance with a tradition started by the Prophet. To all those who believe and hope that the 9/11 ghazva would lead to the destruction of the American "Great Satan," this would be of great symbolic value. Faced with the anger of New Yorkers, the promoters of the project have started calling it the Cordoba House, echoing President Obama's assertion that it would be used to propagate "moderate" Islam. The argument is that Cordoba, in southern Spain, was a city where followers of Islam, Christianity and Judaism lived together in peace and produced literature and philosophy. In fact, Cordoba's history is full of stories of oppression and massacre, prompted by religious fanaticism. It is true that the Muslim rulers of Cordoba didn't force their Christian and Jewish subjects to accept Islam. However, non-Muslims could keep their faith and enjoy state protection only as dhimmis (bonded ones) by paying a poll tax in a system of religious apartheid. If whatever peace and harmony that is supposed to have existed in Cordoba were the fruit of "Muslim rule," the subtext is that the United States would enjoy similar peace and harmony under Islamic rule. A rabat in the heart of Manhattan would be of great symbolic value to those who want a high-profile, "in your face" projection of Islam in the infidel West. This thirst for visibility is translated into increasingly provocative forms of hijab, notably the niqab (mask) and the burqa. The same quest mobilized hundreds of Muslims in Paris the other day to close a whole street so that they could have a Ramadan prayer in the middle of the rush hour. One of those taking part in the demonstration told French radio that the aim was to "show we are here." "You used to be in our capitals for centuries," he said. "Now, it is our turn to be in the heart of your cities." Before deciding whether to support or oppose the "Cordoba" project, New Yorkers should consider what it is that they would be buying.
Bloomberg when you play Quarterback you are not supposed to sack yourself

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Bulldozer Bullshit at Border

A patrol from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) soon arrived on the scene and stopped the bulldozer's activity.
Contacts are underway to determine the full details behind the incident.

YNet gives a little perspective.

The Lebanese news agency reported that the Lebanese Army has raised its alertness in south Lebanon's western front near al-Mahmoudia after an IDF bulldozer entered the area in order to dig a water canal.
A UNIFIL patrol stopped the bulldozer and initiated negotiations between the parties. The IDF Spokesman's Unit said in response that the force was engaged in routine activity and did not cross the border.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

Osama Bin Aborted Twins

A surrogate mother carrying twins of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has lost the twins, after she was attacked on her way home from a cafe in Syria, a media report said.

According to The Sun, Osama’s 29-year-old son Omar hired 24-year-old Louise Pollard from Bristol to have the kids for him and his estranged British wife Zaina. But Pollard, who was ten weeks pregnant, lost the twins after she was attacked by two men on her way home from a cafe in Syria. The former pole dancer went to hospital where she was told the babies had died, the report said.

Some reports stated that Pollard was ambushed by two men while walking to her apartment from a cafe. They knocked her to the ground without saying anything. Pollard then went home before being taken to the hospital where tests revealed she had lost both the babies conceived by IVF.

She said there was no clear motive for the attack but she had been recognised in the UK and abroad as the woman carrying the grandchildren of al-Qaeda terror chief Osama, the British tabloid said.

via indianexpress.com

@Israel bought by Israel on twitter

This confirms that a social media profile can be sold. I was wondering about that. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe a page on facebook could not be sold, but it is interesting that twitter is allowing this type of property exchange.

MADRID — Israel has acquired the user name @israel on Twitter, the microblogging Internet service, from the Spanish owner of a pornographic Web site, in an unusual transaction intended to help Israel exercise more influence over its image.

The owner of the user name, Israel Meléndez, got it in 2007, when Twitter was in its infancy. He struggled to use his account, however, because every posting prompted a flood of anti-Semitic or anti-Israel comments from Twitter users, in a case of mistaken identity.
“My account was basically unused because I was getting dozens of replies every day from people who thought the account belonged to the state of Israel,” Mr. Meléndez said.
Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, confirmed the purchase. He declined to say how much Israel paid, but he said that “it was not pro bono.”
“We thought we could put it to better use than he did,” Mr. Palmor said, adding that the purchase was in line with Israel’s recent efforts to expand into social media.
Mr. Meléndez, who is Spanish but lives in Miami, said that an agreement had been reached last month in a telephone negotiation that he conducted from the Israeli consulate in Miami. Mr. Meléndez described the sale price as “adequate.”
Israel then took over his Twitter account after first closing down the original version.
The transaction was first reported this month in Público, a Spanish newspaper.
Israel has been busy lately trying to improve its global image. Among other things, it added a military channel on YouTube, and it used the channel to defend an assault by Israeli Navy commando troops on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May.

Raphael Minder reported from Madrid, and Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem.

via nytimes.com

I'm shocked that Israel's oil rich enemies didn't offer to pay more then the Israeli government was offering

Saudi Gay Refugee

Babylon and Beyond has a post about about Gay diplomat in Los Angeles may have a case, but little support in the Arab world

The story of Ali Ahmed Aseeri's plea for protection was originally broken on Saturday by NBC, which quoted e-mails from Aseeri as well as a letter he allegedly posted on an unnamed Saudi website in which he described his country as "backwards" and claimed his life was in danger.

Aseeri, who is secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, also threatened to disclose sensitive information about the Saudi Royal family to the U.S. media.

via daledamos.blogspot.com