Recommendation: Shut down 'leftist' department

(Docs Talk) Council for Higher Education committee says Ben Gurion University's Politics Department politically biased.

Professor: Some committee members extreme rightists

Tamar Trabelsi-Hadad
In an unprecedented move, an international committee appointed by the Council for Higher Education has recommended that the Politics and Government Department at Ben Gurion University be shut down unless it addresses some of the problems pointed out by the committee.

According to the Yedioth Ahronoth daily, several of the department's researchers are considered to be radical leftists. Some of them have even called for an economic, political and cultural boycott on Israel due to its "apartheid regime."

The committee, which is headed by Professor Thomas Risse from the Free University in Berlin, expressed its concern that the department's political inclinations may be resulting in what it referred to as an imbalance between the opinions of the faculty members and the curriculum.

"The political science professors must note that the opinions they are expressing are personal...so that the students will be exposed to alternative viewpoints," the reported stated.

The committee said it was also concerned that the "strong emphasis on political activism may undermine the research of politics as a scientific field." The report noted that there is a consensus among the students that the courses offered to them are politically biased.

It should be noted that Committee member Galia Golan, a professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, said the demand for a more "balanced" study program is in direct contrast with the principle of academic freedom, which she called a pillar of higher education.

The committee mentioned additional administrative problems within the department, and recommended that Ben Gurion University consider shutting it down unless necessary changes are implemented.

Professor Dani Filc, who heads the department, said "most of the report's claims are based on empirical mistakes," adding that the report was part of a "campaign aimed at hurting the most popular department in Israel."
Filc said the department would accept the committee's recommendation to hire more faculty members.
Another senior professor at the department attacked the report, saying "the committee is external, and some of its members have extreme right-wing political opinions. It published a false report which is part of a campaign launched by extremist entities to hurt the department."
In response to the report, Ben Gurion University President Rivka Carmi said the department is "well-known throughout the world and claimed it had been "put under a magnifying glass." She called the report "much ado about nothing."
Addressing the report's claims, Carmi said some students believe the department is politically biased, while others say it taught them to think for themselves.

Belgian Jews in Shock over Beating of 13-Year-old Girl

(Vlad Tepes) Five Muslim Moroccan girls in Belgium beat a 13-year-old classmate, called her a “dirty Jew” and told her to “return to your country.”
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
First Publish: 11/23/2011, 12:08 PM
Anti-Semitic graffiti in Europe

Israel news photo: Wikimedia Commons

Five Muslim Moroccan girls in Belgium beat a 13-year-old classmate, called her a “dirty Jew” and told her to “return to your country.”
The girl, Oceane Sluijzer, has filed a complaint with police after the anti-Semitic attack at a sports training center. The attackers were identified and questioned by police.
Jewish legislator Viviane Teitelbaum of Brussels denounced the “silence” of political leaders and most of media after this attack.
Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organizations of Belgium (CCOJB), the umbrella group of Jewish organizations in Belgium, expressed “shock” at the attack and asked that the investigation be conducted without delay. The Jewish group added it is considering filing a civil suit and said the Jewish community is “exasperated” by repeated attacks on Jews in Belgium, whose Jewish population is 40,000.
It also told the Belgian French community’s Education Minister he should “introduce appropriate educational programs in schools to prevent unjustified tensions between communities,” the European Jewish Press reported.
The Jewish Consistory, the representative body of Jewish religious congregations in the country, also appealed to authorities to take action.

"Pinkwashing:" Visceral hate for Israel in a NYT op-ed

(Elder of Ziyon) (h/t Docs Talk) The New York Times has an op-ed by Sarah Schulman, a professor of humanities at CUNY, that can only be described as pure, visceral hate for Israel under the veneer of fake liberalism.

In 2005, with help from American marketing executives, the Israeli government began a marketing campaign, “Brand Israel,” aimed at men ages 18 to 34. The campaign, as reported by The Jewish Daily Forward, sought to depict Israel as “relevant and modern.” The government later expanded the marketing plan by harnessing the gay community to reposition its global image.

Last year, the Israeli news site Ynet reported that the Tel Aviv tourism board had begun a campaign of around $90 million to brand the city as “an international gay vacation destination.” The promotion, which received support from the Tourism Ministry and Israel’s overseas consulates, includes depictions of young same-sex couples and financing for pro-Israeli movie screenings at lesbian and gay film festivals in the United States....
This message is being articulated at the highest levels. In May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Congress that the Middle East was “a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted.”
The growing global gay movement against the Israeli occupation has named these tactics “pinkwashing”: a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life. Aeyal Gross, a professor of law at Tel Aviv University, argues that “gay rights have essentially become a public-relations tool,” even though “conservative and especially religious politicians remain fiercely homophobic.”
Yes, a professor at a prestigious university is arguing that every positive Israeli action is not positive, but an immoral attempt to whitewash Israeli crimes.
We've seen this same kind of thinking before, when Israel set up field hospitals in Japan and Haiti after natural disasters. Critics charge that the doctors and other volunteers who spend countless hours helping ordinary victims far away from Israel are really doing propaganda for the evil state of Israel, and their efforts are a transparent effort to distract the world from Israeli crimes.
In both these cases, we have a pure manifestation of psychological projection at play.
Strident critics of Israel look at the state through a single lens: one that shows Israel to be a purely evil entity whose entire raison d'etre is the subjugation and oppression of innocent Arabs. There are no shades of grey, no other issues at play - everything Israel does is somehow connected to its inherently evil nature. (Shulman's "proof" is that homophobia still exists in Israel, as if there is anywhere on the planet that it has been eradicated.)
Since the critics define Israel this way, they assume that Israel defines itself this way as well. If Israel exhibits any whiff of charity, or liberalism, or kindness - it is nothing more than a smokescreen to cover for its genocidal, racist ways. The idea that Israel has both good and bad parts, or that different Israelis (outside the enlightened anti-Zionist variety) can ever do something different or orthogonal to their real goal of oppressing Arabs, is simply not possible. If some Israelis start a charitable organization it is not because they actually want to help people, but because they want to cover up their constant crimes. Kindness and morality are not possible, so any examples must really be sophisticated manifestations of Israel's inherent evil.
To these sick people, it is literally impossible for Israel or Israelis to do anything admirable outside the context of the conflict. The conflict is everything. To them, Israel itself is defined by its own desire to rid itself of Arabs. Any counter-proof is readily dismissed as nothing more than PR. The concept that most Israelis are just trying to live their lives like everyone else, and that they might even be nice, normal, relatable people, must be combated. If Israelis are perceived by the world as human beings, their message of Israeli criminality gets diluted - and that must be fought. Anything that could blunt the demonization of the Jewish state is by definition as evil as the Jewish state itself is.
This is hate, pure and simple. It is the exact opposite of the liberalism these haters profess. It is the bigoted stereotyping of an entire people and their democratically elected government in order to twist reality to reflect their own visceral loathing.
And just as the bullying Israeli Jews cannot possibly do anything positive for gays, the eternal victims in "Palestine" cannot do anything wrong:
Pinkwashing not only manipulates the hard-won gains of Israel’s gay community, but it also ignores the existence of Palestinian gay-rights organizations. Homosexuality has been decriminalized in the West Bank since the 1950s, when anti-sodomy laws imposed under British colonial influence were removed from the Jordanian penal code, which Palestinians follow. More important is the emerging Palestinian gay movement with three major organizations: Aswat, Al Qaws and Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

So not only is Israel incomparably evil, but Palestinian Arabs are incomparably tolerant and liberal, according to this faux crusader for gay rights.
A quick look through the websites of the three Palestinian Arab gay-rights groups she mentions reveals something interesting: it is nearly impossible to find the names of any of their members or leaders.
And the reason is explained at the Awsat site:
Most of Aswat members are "closeted" to some extent. Consequently, only one or two members can go public and identify themselves as Aswat members in our activities involving a certain amount of exposure i.e., advocacy & outreach, education etc. The 'closet' is an outcome of a homophobic and patriarchal society which has an undeniable impact on Aswat activities. Yet, group members develop different strategies in order to participate in various activities. For example, some members use nicknames when presenting themselves or reaching out to other community members, while others choose to promote activities which allow a reasonable degree of anonymity such as translations, Committee meetings, virtual support to others, information gathering, fundraising tasks etc. Thus, due to personal safety considerations, Aswat members have requested their names not to be disclosed.
The cognitive dissonance that runs through Sarah Schulman's head must be overwhelming. According to their own activists, Palestinian Arab gays live under the constant fear of being physically harmed - a fear that the evil Israeli gay community simply does not have. Schulman is trying to give the impression that it is Israel that has the problems with gays, and Palestinian Arabs are the tolerant ones, even as this is shown to be a lie by the Palestinian Arab gay community itself!

The only way to explain this self-contradictory thought process is that logic and simple facts fly out the window when you are dealing with a hater. Their hate is all-encompassing. They are consumed by it, and their brains are infected by it.

We've seen the same hate and concomitant lack of rational thinking in the absurd ramblings all over the Internet from the KKK, from neo-Nazis, from Islamists, from the far-right as well as the far-left. This same laughable "logic" has been used to justify hate against Jews, blacks, gays and women. They also have only one lens through which they look at the world. Pure, unbridled hate is no more moral when it is against members of a nation than when it is against any other group.
Being a professor does not inoculate one against infection with this virus of hate.

Sarah Schulman is just another hater.

And this op-ed proves it.

The scourge of clientitis

(Caroline Glick) For many years, observers of the US State Department on both sides of the American political spectrum have agreed that State Department officials suffer from a malady referred to as "clientitis." Clientitis is generally defined as a state of mind in which representatives of an organization confuse their roles.
Rather than advance the cause of their organization to outside organizations, they represent the interests of outside organizations to their own organizations. In some cases, diplomats are simply corrupted by their host governments. For generations US diplomats to Saudi Arabia have received lucrative post-government service jobs at Saudi-owned or controlled companies, public relations firms and other institutions.
Often, the problem is myopia rather than corruption.
Diplomats who speak to foreign government officials on a daily basis often simply ignore the context in which these foreigners operate. They become friends with their interlocutors and forget that the latter are also agents of their governments tasked with promoting foreign interests in their dealings with US diplomats.
In Israel the situation is similar. Here, too, Foreign Ministry officials have a tendency to give preference to the positions of the governments or institutions to which they are assigned over the interests and positions of the Israeli government that sent them to their posts.
For instance, in September 2008, shortly after the UN allowed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to use his speech at the UN General Assembly to accuse the Jews of controlling the world in a bid to poison and destroy it, then-Israeli ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev gave an interview to Army Radio in which she said her primary duty is "correcting the UN's image in the eyes of the people of Israel."
Since the scourge of clientitis among diplomats is widely recognized, governments are often able to consider its impact on diplomats when they weigh the credibility or wisdom of recommendations presented by their professional diplomats.
LESS WELL recognized and therefore largely unconsidered is how clientitis has negatively impacted the positions of military commanders.
Clientitis first became prevalent in the US Armed Forces and the IDF in the 1990s. In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the Clinton administration began transforming in earnest the US armed forces' role from war fighting to nation building. In Israel, with the onset of the peace process with the PLO in 1993, the IDF was ordered to change its operating guidelines. From then on, peacemaking was to take priority over war fighting and defeating terrorists.
Since September 11, 2011, the US military has vastly expanded its nation building roles around the world.US military commanders are promoted more for prowess in acting as diplomats-in-uniform than for their capacity to train and employ soldiers to kill and defeat the enemy. Commanders deployed to train the al-Qaida-infested Yemeni or Afghan militaries; liaise with the Hizbullah-dominated Lebanese Armed Forces; or train the Iranian-penetrated Iraqi military have little personal incentive to warn against these missions.
So, too, in working with their local counterparts on a daily basis, like their State Department colleagues, these US military officers have a marked tendency to ignore the broader context in which their local colleagues operate. And so, like their civilian colleagues at the US embassies in these countries, military commanders have a tendency to become the representatives of their foreign counterparts to the Pentagon and to Congress.
In the case of the IDF, in 1993 the entire General Staff was encouraged to embrace clientitis. Then prime minister and defense minister Yitzhak Rabin's decision in 1993 to appoint IDF commanders to lead negotiations with the PLO politicized the IDF to an unprecedented degree. Only generals who completely supported the peace process and forced their underlings to completely support it could expect promotion.
This political corruption of the IDF survived the destruction of the peace process in 2000. Due to successive governments' decisions to continue negotiating with the Palestinian Authority despite its refusal to make peace with Israel and its sponsorship of terrorism, the IDF has continued to participate in negotiations with the PA and lead liaison efforts with the Palestinian security forces.
As a consequence, whether due to the political views of officers on the ground, to institutional corrosion, or to officers' inability to view the statements of their Palestinian counterparts in the broader context of Palestinian and regional power politics, these IDF "peacemakers" act as the PA security services chief lobbyists to both the Israeli and US governments.
IN RECENT conversations with senior sources on Capitol Hill, it became apparent that American military trainers who work with the Lebanese Armed Forces were highly influential in convincing Congress to end its opposition to renewed US military assistance to the LAF.
Congress put a temporary hold on US military assistance to Lebanon in August 2010 after a Lebanese army sniper murdered IDF Lt.-Col. Dov Harari and critically wounded Capt. Ezra Lakia. Both officers were stationed on the Israeli side of the border.
In April, when Hizbullah gained control over the new Lebanese government, the Obama administration again temporarily froze military assistance to the LAF.
In September Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Hizbullah-controlled Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati that the US would renew its assistance. In October, the Pentagon hosted Lebanese Army Commander General Jean Kahwagi on an official visit.
According to Congressional sources, Congress has permitted continued military assistance to Lebanon, despite Hizbullah's control over both the government and the armed forces, because of the outspoken support of the US military for the military assistance program.
So too, according to Congressional sources. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros- Lehtinen's decision to end her committee's block on US military assistance to the PA's security forces owed to IDF pressure to renew the assistance. That assistance was cut off in September following the PA's bid to achieve statehood at the UN.
Following the aid cut-off Palestinian commanders warned that if the US did not renew its financial support for the US trained Palestinian security services, its soldiers would seek funding from elsewhere - including from terror sponsoring governments like Iran and Syria, and from Hamas, and Hizbullah.
Obviously these warnings were nothing more than acts of extortion. And despite outcries from the Obama administration, Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen held firm.
However, according to senior Congressional sources, Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen was unable to brush off entreaties by IDF commanders asking that the US renew its funding of these forces. Two weeks ago - just as the PA renewed its unity talks with Hamas - she lifted her committee's block on military assistance to the PA.
THE IDEA that governments gain leverage over other governments by assisting them is not a new one. And it is certainly true. However, in all cases, the leverage gained by assisting foreign governments owes entirely to the other governments' understanding that such assistance can and will be ended if they fail to meet certain benchmarks of behavior that are dictated from the outset.
Once a government's threat of aid cut-off to another government is removed or is no longer credible, then the leverage the provision of aid afforded that government is lost. So long as the Palestinians believe that Israel will never cut off its support for Fatah and the PA security services, they will continue to sponsor terror and collaborate with Hamas and other terror groups without fear.
So long as LAF officers and soldiers believe that Hizbullah's threat to attack the LAF is more credible than the US's stated willingness to end its support for the Lebanese military, the LAF will continue to openly support war against Israel and collaborate with Hizbullah.
Proof that a state's ability to leverage its foreign aid owes entirely to the credibility of a threat to cut off that aid came earlier this month in the aftermath of UNESCO's decision to grant full state membership to "Palestine." Due to US law, the Obama administration had no choice but to cut off all US funding to UNESCO in response to the move. As a consequence, the PLO's bid to gain full membership in other UN institutions has floundered.
Not wishing to suffer UNESCO's fate, no other UN institutions are willing to repeat UNESCO's action And so the Palestinians' great victory at UNESCO has become a Pyrrhic one.
The Obama administration never sought this outcome. As his representatives have made abundantly clear, if US President Barack Obama had the power to maintain US budgetary support for UNESCO despite its conferral of membership on "Palestine," he would have done so.
But because the law is not subject to interpretation, US leverage over the UN actually increased in the aftermath of the UNESCO vote. Recognizing that actions have consequences, other UN agencies have buried plans of granting membership to "Palestine."
Governments must give due consideration to the positions of their professional diplomats and military commanders as well as to those of allied countries when they weigh various policy options. But while doing so, legislators and policymakers must also take into account the built-in biases influencing the judgment of these professionals. Clientitis is a serious impediment to good judgment. And it is found wherever professionals are charged with building relationships, rather than achieving concrete goals.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Israel sent Heron drones back to Turkey (Ontime after being humiliated by Erdogan)

Stay Classy Erdogan

(h/t Israel Matzav) YNet reports that Israel has repaired and returned to Turkey the Heron unmanned aerial vehicles that Turkey bought from Israel and has been using to attack its Kurdish population.

About two months ago Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of failing to meet its obligations in defense deals, adding to tensions with Israel which have escalated since an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla killed nine people last year.
Erdogan accused the Jewish state of not returning drones that Turkey had bought from Israel and sent back for maintenance.
They are not loyal to agreements between us in the defense industry," Erdogan said. "There might be problems, you may not be speaking to each other, but you have to fulfill your responsibility under international agreements."
According to Wednesday's report in Zaman, the drones have been returned to Turkey. The report further claimed that after a long period in which Israeli technicians refrained from visiting Turkey for security reasons, Israel sent technicians employed by Aeronautics, the company which manufactures the drones, to work on drones at a Turkish army base.
In a conversation with Ynet, a Israeli security official confirmed that the drones had recently been returned to Turkey, but denied any delay in the shipment. "The company returned all of the drones on schedule," he said.

Whoever made this decision has a masochistic streak. Why should we be giving Turkey anything?

Turkey headed for civil war?

(h/t Israel Matzav) Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has largely defeated his secular, Kemalist opponents. Many of the military's leaders are in jail, as are more journalists than any other country in the world. While this development is negative for Turkish democracy, it also may turn out to be negative for Erdogan himself.

Yet, while Erdoğan may appear to be at the pinnacle of power, it is his government’s “Gülenist” allies who have grown increasingly powerful. Members of the transnational Gülen movement – inspired by followers of Fethullah Gülen, a Pennsylvania-based Muslim theologian – are staffing Turkey’s police, judiciary, bureaucracy, and universities. The Gülenist media now set the country’s new ideological tone, producing a steady stream of disinformation in their vocal support of the country’s show trials.
These trials are, in fact, often staged to serve Gülenist ends specifically. Prominent detainees, such as the journalist Nedim Sener and police commissioner Hanefi Avci, landed in jail after exposing the wrongdoings of Gülenist police and prosecutors. Editorials in Zaman, the Gülen network’s Turkish-language daily newspaper, no longer mince words: a new Turkey is being created; those who stand in the way are getting what they deserve.
Erdoğan has benefited greatly from Gülenist support, yet he detests sharing power and remains suspicious of the movement. Early on, he successfully exploited the Gülenist-supported political trials in order to demonize the opposition. But, as the charges have increased in scope and implausibility, the trials have complicated his relationships with the military, domestic liberals, and outsiders such as foreign media and the European Union. Moreover, individuals close to him and his administration have recently become entangled in the net of judicial manipulation, which suggests that he may be losing control over the police and the special courts.
Given that the fight against the common enemy, the secularist old guard, has been decisively won, an eventual break between Erdoğan and the Gülenists is perhaps inevitable. Unfortunately, regardless of which side emerges victorious, the outcome will not be good news for Turkish democracy.

Read the whole thing

KAHLILI: Iran already has nuclear weapons

The pressure the United States and the West is bringing to bear on Iran to keep it from acquiring nuclear weapons is all for naught. Not only does the Islamic Republic already have nuclear weapons from the old Soviet Union, but it has enough enriched uranium for more. What’s worse, it has a delivery system.
The West for nearly a decade has worried about Iran’s uranium enhancement, believing Iran is working on a nuclear bomb, though the government maintains its uranium is only for peaceful purposes.
When Iran began its nuclear program in the mid-1980s, I was working as a spy for the CIA within the Revolutionary Guards. The Guards‘ intelligence at that time had learned of Saddam Hussein’s attempt to buy a nuclear bomb for Iraq. Guard commanders concluded that they needed a nuclear bomb because if Saddam were to get his own, he would use it against Iran. At that time, the two countries were at war.
Mohsen Rezaei, then-chief commander of the Guards, received permission from the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to start a covert program to obtain nuclear weapons, so the Guards contacted Pakistani generals and Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist.
Commander Ali Shamkhani traveled to Pakistan, offering billions of dollars for a bomb, but ended up with a blueprint and centrifuges instead. The first centrifuge was transferred to Iran on Khomeini’s personal plane.
In a second but parallel attempt to amass nuclear weapons, Iran turned to the former Soviet republics. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1990, Iran coveted thousands of tactical nuclear warheads that had been dispersed in the former republics.
In the early 1990s, the CIA asked me to find an Iranian scientist who would testify that Iran had the bomb. The CIA had learned that Iranian intelligence agents were visiting nuclear installations throughout the former Soviet Union, with particular interest in Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan, which had a significant portion of the Soviet arsenal and is predominately Muslim, was courted by Muslim Iran with offers of hundreds of millions of dollars for the bomb. Reports soon surfaced that three nuclear warheads were missing. This was corroborated by Russian Gen. Victor Samoilov, who handled the disarmament issues for the general staff. He admitted that the three were missing from Kazakhstan.
Meanwhile, Paul Muenstermann, then vice president of the German Federal Intelligence Service, said Iran had received two of the three nuclear warheads and medium-range nuclear delivery systems from Kazakhstan. It also was reported that Iran had purchased four 152 mm nuclear shells from the former Soviet Union, which were reportedly stolen and sold by former Red Army officers.

To make matters worse, several years later, Russian officials stated that when comparing documents in transferring nuclear weapons from Ukraine to Russia, there was a discrepancy of 250 nuclear weapons.
Last week, Mathew Nasuti, a former U.S. Air Force captain who was at one point hired by the State Department as an adviser to one of its provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq, said that in March 2008, during a briefing on Iran at the State Department, the department’s Middle East expert told the group that it was “common knowledge” that Iran had acquired tactical nuclear weapons from one or more of the former Soviet republics.
Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, an experienced intelligence officer and recipient of a Bronze Star, told me that his sources say Iran has two workable nuclear warheads.
An editorial in Kayhan, the Iranian newspaper directly under the supervision of the Office of the Supreme Leader, last year warned that if Iran were attacked, there would be nuclear blasts in American cities.
Despite knowing that Iranian leaders were seeking nuclear weapons, Western leaders chose to negotiate and appease with the hope of reaching a solution with Iran. Nearly three years into President Obama’s administration, we must acknowledge that the policies of first a carrot of good will and then a stick of sanctions have neither stopped the Iranians with their nuclear program nor have they deterred their aggressive posture. The Iranian leaders today, despite four sets of United Nations sanctions, continue with their missile and nuclear enrichment program, and they have enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs, according to the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report.
The Revolutionary Guards now have more than 1,000 ballistic missiles, many pointed at U.S. military bases in the Middle East and Europe. The Guards also have made great strides in their intercontinental missile delivery system under the guise of their space program. As I revealed earlier, nuclear weapons-capable warheads have been delivered to the Guards, and Iran’s supreme leader has ordered the Guards to arm their missiles with nuclear payloads. Iran’s navy also has armed its vessels with long-range surface-to-surface missiles and soon will expand its mission into the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
“History suggests that we may already be too late to stop Iran’s nuclear bomb. Why do we suppose Iran cannot accomplish in 20 years of trying - with access to vast amounts of unclassified data on nuclear-weapons design and equipped with 21st-century technology - what the U.S. accomplished in three years during the 1940s with the Manhattan Project?” asks nuclear weapons expert Peter Vincent Pry, who served in the CIA and on the EMP Commission, and is now president of EMPact America.
Mr. Pry concludes that Iran only needs a single nuclear weapon to destroy the United States. A nuclear EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack could collapse the national electric grid and other critical infrastructures that sustain the lives of 310 million Americans.
Are we ready to finally realize what the goals and the ideology of the jihadists in Tehran are and take appropriate action against them? The Iranian people themselves, who oppose the dictatorial mullahs, for years have asked us to do so. Thousands of them have lost their lives to show us the true nature of this regime. We must act before it’s too late.
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA spy who is a fellow with EMPact America and the author of “A Time to Betray,” about his double life in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, 2010).

via washingtontimes.com

Western intelligence has known it for years

Jimmy Fallon Apologizes For Show's Controversial Musical Message To Michele Bachmann

I'd say she got the last laugh the next night when she won the debate. I never liked Fallon. He was never funny... he comes across as the kind of guy who just gets by. He's like a lump. I understand that some of the women thought he had sex appeal, but I doubt they will think that way now. He's a F'n scum bag. Can anyone think of anything Fallon has ever done that is funny? He has never... ever made me laugh. I don't know why he's made it. He's obviously a kiss ass. Sometimes I think I hate him because maybe I'm jealous or something, but now I realize my gut feelings about Fallon are right on. He's a slippery scumbag that makes the people around him the but of a joke without ever really being goofy or making fun of himself. It's rare that I really dislike an entertainer... even if I despise their politics.

(Fox News) Jimmy Fallon, the host of NBC's "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," issued an apology Tuesday night to Republican Presidential contender Michele Bachmann after a snippet of a controversial song was performed by the show's band as she took the stage.
"I'm honored that @MicheleBachmann was on our show yesterday and I'm so sorry about the intro mess. I really hope she comes back," a Twitter message from Fallon's account said.
As Bachmann strode on to the NBC stage for Fallon's late-night show, the program's band, led by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, played a snippet of a 1985 Fishbone song called "Lyin' Ass Bitch."
The song begins with a distinctive "la la la la la la la la la" refrain -- the only words that were audible before Bachmann, smiling and waving to the audience, sat down for her interview.
The song itself, about a relationship gone wrong, isn't political, but it repeats the refrain "Lyin' Ass Bitch" about a dozen times.
Bachmann's campaign had no immediate comment, but the snub had some women criticizing the "Late Night" song choice.
Congresswoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said in a statement that she shares little in common with Bachmann politically, but called the song "insulting" and "inappropriate."
"I do not share Michele Bachmann's politics, but she deserves to be treated with respect," the statement read. "No female politician - and no woman - should be subjected to sexist and offensive innuendo like she was last night."
Feministing editor Chloe Angyal agreed, adding that the language is unacceptable.
“It's never acceptable to call a woman a bitch. Period,” Angyal told Fox411. “Challenge Bachmann on the issues all you want, fact check her, call her out on her dishonesty. Do not call her, or anyone else, a bitch."
This isn’t the first time that Bachmann has been attacked along gender lines. Back in January, things grew heated between Bachmann and the Democratic Senator Arlen Spector on a local Philadelphia radio station.
"I'm going to treat you like a lady," Mr. Specter parried. "Now act like one."


Bachmann replied, "I am a lady."

While appearing on Fallon’s program, where she was promoting her book “Core of Conviction,” Bachmann was less veiled than the bandleader with her own jabs.
When asked the one word that immediately came to mind when she heard fellow Republican contender Rick Perry’s name, Bachmann joked: “That’s not one word, I gotta do three: Governor. Texas. I can’t remember, oops.”
Before the show, bandleader Thompson tweeted hints as to his band's plans for Bachmann's entrance music.
"aight late night walkon song devotees: you love it when we snark: this next one takes the cake. ask around cause i aint tweeting title," he wrote on his Twitter account.
Apparently worried his original tweet might be too obtuse, Thompson tweeted again:
"take a guess. buy the record anyway. its classic and should be in your vocabulary," he wrote with a link to a Fishbone album containing the song.
Fallon joked on Twitter after the show that Thompson was grounded.
The show itself didn't have any comment.
The Roots frequently make obscure song choices as Fallon's guests are introduced, but they don't usually call guests derogatory names.
For example, when Fox Business Network's Lou Dobbs came out, they played part of Genesis' "Illegal Alien," a reference to Dobbs' frequent commentaries on the topic. Kathie Lee Gifford was saluted with UB40's "Red Red Wine," a reference to the drink she often shares on-air with "Today" co-host Hoda Kotb.
- The Associated Press contributed to this report.

P.S.: I know I published the hot dog pic myself on this blog, but it was news. I actually really like Bachmann.

Kmart Girl Xpress Undies say I ♥ rich boys

(smh.com.au) The retail chain Kmart has been forced to withdraw a line of underwear for young girls that carries slogans such as "call me" and "I ♥ rich boys" after the store was accused of sexualising teenagers.

classy!

OWS finally gets it's Kent State Moment: Pregnant Woman Miscarries After Being Sprayed With Pepper Spray

"I was standing in the middle of the crowd when the police started moving in," she says. "I was screaming, 'I am pregnant, I am pregnant. Let me through. I am trying to get out.'"
At that point, a Seattle police officer lifted his foot and it hit her in the stomach, and another officer pushed his bicycle into the crowd, again hitting Fox in the stomach. "Right before I turned, both cops lifted their pepper spray and sprayed me. My eyes puffed up and my eyes swelled shut," she says.
She was fine for a couple days, until she started feeling sick.
Jennifer went to the doctor and found out her baby had no heartbeat. "They said the damage was from the kick and that the pepper spray got to it [the fetus], too."

Seattle's The Stranger newspaper is currently waiting for Jennifer's medical records to confirm the miscarriage. Source: slog.thestranger.com 2. This is video of Jennifer shortly after being attacked by the police: via buzzfeed.com

...and no... I'm not happy about it. But it was inevitable. No... I'm not heartless, but she should not of been out there doing that.

(thegatewaypundit.com) Jennifer Fox has a habit of exaggerating and Seattle police are investigating the incident. Jennifer never even told her family she was pregnant like she claimed in an earlier report.
Yahoo reported:

Seattle police have launched an internal investigation after a 19-year-old woman says she suffered a miscarriage after being pepper sprayed at an Occupy Seattle protest.
Jennifer M. Fox says police kicked her and hit her in the stomach with a bicycle Nov. 15 and also doused her with pepper spray. She says she was three months pregnant.
The Seattle Times says Fox has declined to provide medical records supporting her claim that she had a miscarriage five days after being hit.
Seattle police spokesman Mark Jamieson says the department is looking into the situation because of the seriousness of the allegations.
The Times reports that Fox’s family doubts her story.
Her former foster mother, Lark Stebbins, says Fox has a history of exaggerating and never mentioned she was pregnant when they spoke recently.