Romney calls for cutting aid to 'Palestinians' and UN

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, one of the frontrunners for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, has called for cutting funding to the 'Palestinians' and the United Nations if the UN recognizes a 'Palestinian state' later this week. And that's not all - no, that's not all.

Mitt Romney would like to see the U.S. “cut foreign assistance to the Palestinians, as well as re-evaluate its funding of U.N. programs and its relationship with any nation voting in favor of recognition” if the U.N. opts to grant Palestine statehood. (MORE)

Thank you Mitt. And I say sincerely that I am sorry I have insulted your religion on this blog in the past. I really was trying to understand it. I still don't believe in your view, but I no longer think Mormons are racist... in fact your text is meant to be just the opposite, but that is really why I can never be Mormon... because I think if G-d really did write a book it would be more clear. Bless you anyway... and I will support your presidency.

Italy’s sovereign debt rating cut by S&P on growth fear

Another country gets downgraded. Who is going well? That is the question. The country that does well has to sell to the country who is broke!

Italy has had its sovereign debt rating cut by Standard & Poor’s, the latest move in a deepening and continuing European debt crisis.

S&P cut its rating on Italy’s long- and short-term sovereign debt rating to A/A-1 from A+/A-1+, adding that the outlook for the country was “negative”.
It cited fears over Italy’s ability to cut state spending and bring its finances in order.
Italy is currently trying to push through an austerity budget.
“We believe the reduced pace of Italy’s economic activity to date will make the government’s revised fiscal targets difficult to achieve,” S&P said in a statement.
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(Seeker 401) like the old picture of silvio?
they are the 6th european nation to get downgraded on their debt..more to come...

Global Energy Use to Jump 53%

TRANSFORM!

Global energy use is expected to jump 53% by 2035, largely driven by strong demand from places like India and China, according to a report Monday.
Combined, developing nations currently use slightly more energy than those in the developed world, according to the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration. By 2035, they are expected to use double.
“Concerns about fiscal sustainability and financial turbulence suggest that economic recovery in the [developed] countries will not be accompanied by the higher growth rates associated with past recoveries,” the report said. “In contrast, growth remains high in many emerging economies, in part driven by strong capital inflows and high commodity prices.”
The 53% rise is slightly more than the 49% increase the agency predicted in last year’s report.
Accompanying the surge in energy use is a correspondingly large jump in greenhouse gas emissions. EIA sees energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rising 43% by 2035.
The projections, in the agency’s 2011 International Energy Outlook, are based on current policies. They could change substantially if countries like the United States and China passed stronger laws restricting carbon dioxide emissions.
Higher or lower energy price projections can also influence the report’s findings.
EIA assumed slightly lower oil prices in calculating this year’s report. The agency predicts oil prices to reach $108 per barrel in 2020 and $125 per barrel in 2035.
Last year EIA thought oil would be at $133 a barrel by 2035. EIA’s numbers do not include price increases attributed to the normal rise in inflation.
Fossil fuels will continue to be the dominant fuel choice in 2035, the agency predicts, with renewables constituting just 14% to the world’s overall energy consumption.
But that’s a substantial jump from renewable energy consumption in 2008, which stood at 10%. That growth rate makes renewables the fastest growing of all the energy sources, the report said.
The agency noted that most future renewable energy supply will continue to come from wind and hydropower. It did not include biofuels like ethanol as part of its renewable catalog, instead lumping it in with liquid fuels like oil.
EIA does not expect solar power to become a significant energy source by 2035. That runs counter to the opinion of solar power supporters who foresee rapidly declining prices for solar panels in the coming years.
The agency predicts nuclear power will go from about 5% of overall energy consumption in 2008 to about 7% in 2035. The vast majority of new nuclear plants are expected to be built in China. EIA did not factor in how last year’s nuclear disaster in Japan might impact nuclear power plant construction.
Natural gas continues to make up nearly a quarter of the world’s energy consumption, driven by increasing development of shale gas.
EIA projections for natural gas use by 2035 are 8% higher in this year’s report compared to last year’s, largely due to shale gas development.
Natural gas from shale, which is found in a different type of rock than most previous natural gas developments, has grown rapidly in recent years thanks to new drilling and extracting technology.
The technology involves cracking the shale rock with pressurized, water, sand and chemicals — a process knows as hydraulic fracturing, for “fracking” for short.
But the process has many people concerned over its effects on the groundwater, and shale gas development has been put on hold or stopped in some locations.
Despite the concerns, EIA predicts shale gas and other unconventional forms of natural gas will make up three quarters of U.S. natural gas production by 2035, up from about half today. Similar patterns are expected in China and Canada.
{CNN Money/Matzav.com }

Funding the enemy

Like quiting smoking. You know it is bad for you, but you can't stop spending money on it There is a lot of social pressure to keep your former lethal habit going and you may not survive kicking the vice. I have a lot of empathy. I'd like to go to Israel, but I'm afraid I'm not ready... and I'm not sure Israel is ready to protect me either... or if I could protect myself from some of the leftist Israelis that I met in NYC or online.Sorry to make this personal.

(Caroline Glick) Cong. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is a true friend of Israel. Her bill calling for a cutoff of US aid to the PA and a massive decrease of US aid to the UN in the event the UN upgrades the Palestinians' diplomatic status is one of the most important pieces of pro-Israel legislation to be introduced in the US Congress in a generation. By announcing it opposes an aid cutoff, Israel undermined Ros-Lehtinen's position. It betrayed its good friend. No doubt Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman were under great pressure from the IDF and from the Obama administration to call for continued international funding of the PA. But the public didn't elect them with the expectation that they would abandon Israel's national interest and harm its friends just because they feel the heat. (MORE)

Religious soldiers or female singers?

(Israel Matzav) The IDF does stupid things like this and then they wonder why so many religious families in Israel are desperate to keep their sons out of the IDF.

...At a national commemoration ceremony at Mount Herzl... Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar was sitting in the first row. Suddenly, without advance warning, a female in uniform walked up to the microphone and started to sing. All eyes were on the rabbi – will he be stepping out now? Yet the honorable rabbi remained seated. He looked down, and that’s it.
This was very noble of the rabbi, and he was the only person to act nobly there. Ceremony organizers behaved foolishly by failing to spare him this embarrassment. They should have decided ahead of time what to give up: The female singer or the chief rabbi’s presence.
In the abovementioned case of the cadets and the female singer, there is no question who we should give up. The IDF requires combat soldiers more than it requires female singers. In the next war, the army will be sending Golani to the front, not a military band. And Golani today comprises numerous religious soldiers.

The army and secular Israelis may not like it, but it's prohibited for religious men to hear women singing. Yes, some people are lenient if it's 'only' with a microphone and/or it's not live. But what the IDF pulled on Rabbi Amar - and what it pulled on a group of cadets who were then expelled from their unit for walking out - is absolutely prohibited under Jewish law. And the IDF knows it.
So why do they do things like this? Why do they try to rub religious soldiers' faces in religious prohibitions when - as author Haggai Segal points out - they so desperately need religious soldiers? Read here, here and here. Here too.
Then read the whole thing. The cultural war of the secular on the religious could yet bring the country down, God forbid.

I'd be annoyed as a non orthodox Jew. Actually I didn't know this was one of the rules. Every day goes by and I wonder why I'm fighting the urge. I hate to be told what to do and when to do it... that is probably what stops me. I need the freedom to be creative. I don't know where I stand yet, but I sure don't like listening to "performances" in Reform shules.

The “Day of Rage” at Wall Street

The New York Times reports that the months-in-planning “Day of Rage” that the hacker group Anonymous sponsored in New York City in the financial district kind of sputtered out when protesters discovered their access to parts of Wall Street was denied by police officers who beat them to the area; By 10 a.m., metal barricades manned by police officers ringed the blocks of Wall Street between Broadway and William Street to the east. (In a statement, Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman said, “A protest area was established on Broad Street at Exchange Street, next to the stock exchange, but protesters elected not to use it.”) Organizers, promoters and supporters called the day, which had been widely discussed on Twitter and other social media sites, simply September 17. Some referred to it as the United States Day of Rage, an apparent reference to a series of disruptive protests against the Vietnam War held in Chicago in 1969. The idea, according to some organizers, was to camp out for weeks or even months to replicate the kind, if not the scale, of protests that erupted earlier this year in places as varied as Egypt, Spain and Israel.(MORE HELL?)  NYC WallStreet Protests and Another Day of Rage

Islamization

“Since the creation of the world there has been only one religion and that is the religion of Islam. So if anybody says, for example, that there is a place connected with Solomon and that’s the place where Solomon’s Temple stood, a true Muslim would tell you: ‘Yes, you’re absolutely right, but don’t forget that Solomon was a Muslim.’”

Mohammed died in 632 AD. At the time, Jerusalem was a Christian city. It was captured by Khalif Omar six years after Mohammed’s death. Prior to the capture, the Church of Saint Mary of Justinian stood on the Temple Mount. There was no mosque in the entire city. The Dome of the Rock was built in 691. Twenty years later, the Church of Saint Mary was converted into a mosque with the familiar dome on top. It was named Al Aqsa, so it would sound like the “furthest mosque” mentioned in the Koran. That’s the basis of the Islamic claim to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

Why Palestinian Arabs Shouldn't Use Israeli Servers

(Daled Amos) I'm sure the Turkish hackers were very proud of themselves when they hacked into 70 sites on an Israeli server--but they were all sites being run by Palestinian Arabs:
Turkish hackers attacked dozens of Israeli websites over the weekend, only to find out that the sites belonged to Palestinians.
The confusion was caused due to the fact that the Palestinian sites, which have a .ps web suffix, use Israeli web servers.

"The hackers left anti-Israel messages on 70 Palestinian sites," said Shai Blitzblau, the head of Maglan-Computer Warfare and Network Intelligence Labs. "Most of them discovered it when it was already too late. Only after they broke in and sabotaged the websites did they find out these were Palestinian sites."
The message, which featured an image of an Israeli soldier washing blood off of his hands, read: "Because you voted on behalf of Israel on Blue (Mavi) Marmara report… We suspended this site. You will apologize Netanyahu, you will apologize Israel."

It's not clear why the site being in Arabic instead of Hebrew would not be a tipoff.

German Political Pirates ARRR!

The Moral Debasement of Berlin (Islam vs Europe)

(Shiek Yer Mami) says Counterjihad parties got nowhere. Pro Deutschland got 1.3% and Die Freiheit (affiliated with Geert Wilders) got 1%. This means they won’t have any representatives as they didn’t pass the 5% barrier. Even an ethnic turkish party (BIG), set up by the ruling AKP party in Turkey, got 0.7%, almost as much as the Counterjihad parties. The NPD, a sort of BNP equivalent, got 2.2%. The ridiculous Pirate Party, however, which campaigns for free internet downloads (and free public transport for unemployable rabble among other things like voting rights for children),got 9%, and will have 15 deputies. It’s a sign of serious moral debasement when people will vote for such frivolous causes while their city is being eaten alive by Mohammedans.The only halfway-serious party in the Berlin parliament will be the mainstream centre-right CDU with 39 seats. The SPD (Labour party equivalent) will have 47 seats, the Greens 29, the Left (rebadged communists) 19 and the Pirates 15!

Turkey threatens to freeze EU out too

(Simply Jews) The Turkish international activities are reaching a state of frenzy. First Turkey became mad at Syria. Then they decimated their relationship with Israel. Following up with pissing off a good part of Egyptians. Erdogan now goes for a package deal:

EU-candidate Turkey will freeze relations with the European Union if Cyprus is given the EU presidency in 2012, Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay was quoted as saying by state-run news agency Anatolian late on Saturday.