MLK - An Eloquent Man I greatly Admired!

Just back from Los Angeles. While there visited two fabulous museums - Getty and Norton Simon. Getty is a magnificent Campus and beautifully sited but cannot beat the quality of Norton Simon's art and user accessibility. While there I bought Norton Simon's biography. A fascinating industrialist and art collector. He amassed the finest collection of quality art in the 20th Century and all after he turned forty.
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Most of the press and media sank to new lows several weeks ago as The August New York Times led off with Paul Krugman's nonsense about blaming the Far Right for causing a nut case to shoot innocent Arizonans.

Then we heard from a bunch of Democrat hacks seeking to pin the tail on the Tea Party folks when in fact Obama had recently been running around during the campaign entertaining his audience with his own inflaming inanities about Republicans 'should go to the back of the bus 'and 'if they bring their knives to the table we will bring our guns' ad nauseum.

Anyone voicing an opposite view that Obama's policies are wrong headed, destructive and burdening our nation with unbearable debt have been told their views are inflammatory.

All of this nonsense is meant to still the voice of opposition, to erode free speech because in so doing the Far Left can more easily control the populace.

Sad indeed that hysteria has come to this but this is the consequence of those whose failed policies leave them naked and exposed.

What we need is more rhetoric not less. What we need is more questioning not less. What we need is more open and informed debate not less. What we need, but are unlikely to get, is a responsible press and media leaving their pre-ordained bias on the cutting floor and more objective reporting.

However, don't hold your breath. They have too much invested in their self-importance as the final arbiter of what we should think and say.

When your ideas are rejected the next best thing is silence the rejecters.

As James Poulos states, had the press and media acknowledged the shooter was a nut case, the story would have been over so they had to keep it going with their outrageous reporting and blame laying. Click on PJTV.Com (Report: The Left's Shooting Strategy: Pin the Blame on Tea Party

James Poulos joins Danika Quinn and Brandi Milloy to discuss the Left's attempt to link the Arizona shooting to the Tea Party. Plus Tony Katz and Stephen Kruiser on the Beltway reaction; and Lionel Chetwynd on "The King's Speech.")
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I will not comment on Obama's Tuscon speech except to say yesterday we celebrated the life of a great, eloquent Black American I greatly admired who needed no teleprompter because he spoke from his heart and gut - MLK!

We now have two Obamas. The one who inflames and the one who tries to throw water on the troubled flames he helped cause. The latter is running for a second term and saw his agenda blown out of the water and thus, realizes he must change his tone. The former, I suspect, is the real deal.
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Response to my comment about food inflation from a dear friend and fellow memo reader who also keeps kosher: "One of the main reasons for food prices soaring is the amount of corn going into the production of ethanol. One doesn't have been in the
grocery business all their life (as I was) to figure out how the price of corn affects many of the foods we eat,the milk we drink,the steaks we devour,etc.The only benefit is THE MONEY THAT GOES TO THE CORN FARMER IN
IOWA.

Besides which,ethanol is terrible for gas mileage,and it doesn't do your
car's engine any good either.

I love these Ivy League genius' in Washington who knew a year ago that
there would be no inflation for the next two years.They managed a cola
for congress and the hard working parasites working(?) for the
government. However,the folks on Social Security could get along just
fine on their monthly check

By the way,if you think these food prices are high,try keeping Kosher."(See 1 below.)
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This is a supposed letter sent to Harry Reid. Whether authentic or not it frames the legitimate concerns of many - do we want to pass our cancer to our children?. (See 2below.)
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The Muslim Brotherhood is a growing threat, is spreading its influence and, one day, may take control of Egypt. (I posted this without copying the pictures.) (See 3 below.)
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Oh well and some more humor! It would appear we are led and entertained by a lot of dumb clucks. Perhaps it says something about us chickens! (See 4, 4a and 4b below.)
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A courageous Member of Britain's Parliament makes some extraordinary comments regarding Israel that are unique. They are in sharp contrast with those of the former French Amb. to Britain who, at a private dinner party, referred to Israel as that "...shitty little country."

The French Ambassador's comments fly in the face of facts.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor of the Hariri Assassination will soon reveal the results of his investigation and should be naming those allegedly involved. The question becomes will Iran unleash Hamas and Hezballah to attack Israel in order to take attention off their own problems and nuclear program. (See 5 and 5a below.)

Then, click on PJTV.Com (Front Page: Crisis in Lebanon: Will Government Collapse Lead to Hezbollah Takeover?

James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation joins the Front Page team to discuss recent events in Lebanon -- will Hezbollahs' collapse of the government lead to a new civil war and possible take over by the Iran-backed Hezbollah?)
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Finally, back to the future! (See 6 below.)
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Dick
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1)Inflation Growing in Emerging Markets
By Greg Brown

Emerging-market stocks are slumping into the New Year as food and energy inflation hit hard, especially in frothy Southeast Asia.

India’s benchmark has fallen 6.2 percent. Indonesian share are down about 7 percent. Philippine stocks are off 4 percent and riots erupted in Bangladesh after stocks there fell sharply, now down 20 percent for the year, reports The Wall Street Journal.

In comparison, the S&P 500 Index, while volatile, has put on 2 percent since the year began. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up about 1.5 percent.


Volatility isn't surprising in emerging markets, and some of the factors at play here are the same as 20 years ago, when foreign stocks first caught the attention of deep-pocketed global investors.

"Hot” money-flows in and out of smaller-country exchanges have prompted capital-control regimes in Chile and Malaysia in the past. Brazil recently instituted a tax on certain foreign investments to slow the movement of speculative money and protect the real from appreciating too quickly, which hurts its export economy.

One major factor, however, is new: Massive dollar printing by the United States — the vaunted quantitative easing promoted by the Federal Reserve — is pushing inflation higher in poor countries. The only real defense small countries have against a rising tide of wandering dollars is to raise domestic interest rates in hopes of slowing growth.

Fear of higher rates is thus prompting the stock sell-off.

"You can't have erosion of purchasing power and hope growth will remain. The two are pretty inconsistent," Sanjay Mathur, an economist for Royal Bank of Scotland in Singapore, told the Journal. Indian wholesale inflation hit 18.3 percent in late December, according to the newspaper.

Part of the reason for investor flight, too, is that emerging stocks have ridden so high, so fast, as U.S. dollars seek a return. Irked by low Treasury yields and volatility at home, American and European investors have pushed billions into tiny stock markets across the Far East.

Fed officials have given conflicting signals about the future of the easing program, scheduled to total up to $600 billion (and possibly as much $900 billion) through June.

The easy ride may be over for now, but it begs the question: Where does all the investor cash head next?

Europe is on the ropes, which normally would be inviting to investors seeking beaten-down stocks. But the question marks over the euro there might be one too many.

Harvard University economist Niall Ferguson says that the danger of a total bust-up of the eurozone is all too real. The monetary union’s rescue facility of $973 billion isn’t enough to save the latest basket case, Portugal, while Greece and Ireland are still hobbled, Ferguson noted.

“Without some kind of much bigger step in the direction of fiscal federalism, we just get one expedient after another and it’s never enough,” Ferguson told Bloomberg Television in an interview. “In that case, a disintegration becomes a real possibility.”

In a separate interview, Nobel Prize-winning economist Christopher Pissarides said that a collapse in Spain, one of the eurozone’s larger economies, would spell the end of what has been so far the only serious paper alternative to the U.S. dollar.

“If Spain collapses the way Greece has collapsed I don’t think the European Union has the resources to rescue it,” Pissarides told Bloomberg News.

Meanwhile, despite massive tax increases in Illinois and unheard-of budget cutting on the table in California, no clear path for reducing the U.S. federal deficit has surfaced since the Obama deficit commission failed to bring its plan to Congress before Christmas.

Despite it all, U.S. investment banks, with few exceptions, see a bull run continuing at home and tame U.S. inflation.

“We see a number of potential risks for the economy and the markets in the year ahead, including sovereign-debt issues, emerging-markets inflation and the possibility of higher tax rates, but we remain positive on the overall environment. Inflation should remain low throughout 2011,” says Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at money-management firm BlackRock, in a note to investors.

U.S. indicators have continued to improve, suggesting that unemployment could finally turn around, says Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

“It will remain in 2011 a long way from where it ideally should be, but at least it will now be moving in the right direction. A number of quarters of 3 percent to 4 percent or more real GDP growth are likely in the next couple of years,” O’Neill wrote in the Financial Times.

For investors, that outcome would mean “modest” inflation at home, a decline for government bonds, a resurgent dollar, at least against other paper currencies (except probably China’s yuan) and, O’Neill predicts, “another powerful leg of the global equity-market rally that commenced in spring 2009.”
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2) The Honorable Harry Reid
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Mr. Leader,

I'm writing in response to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's appeal to you to raise the debt ceiling.

I understand that you didn't ask for my opinion. And with no political positions on my curriculum vitae, you may not even recognize my name. But I have co-authored two books warning about the United States' fiscal situation, starting with Financial Reckoning Day in 2003 and followed by Empire of Debt in 2005. I mailed copies of the latter to you and the other members of Congress free of charge. While it may not be sitting on your nightstand, I trust that you’re at least aware of the book.

After we published the book, I wrote and produced a documentary, I.O.U.S.A., which was screened in competition at the Sundance Film Festival, nominated for a Critics Choice award and shortlisted for an Academy Award. The film attempts to present the fiscal crisis facing the United States in a way that the average American could understand. The film took two years to produce and premiered on Aug. 22, 2008 — almost a month before Lehman Bros. declared bankruptcy, kicking off the Panic of '08.

So after a decade of attempting to bring the root causes of our economic woes to light, I humbly suggest that the shortsighted tone of Mr. Geithner's appeal is itself part of the problem. It is, in fact, no different than Secretary of Treasury Hank Paulson’s frantic three-page proposal that kicked off the bailouts in September 2008.

Sir, in short, by raising the debt ceiling, we're delaying the day of reckoning yet again. Instead of paying for our excessive spending today, we'll pass that burden on to our children and grandchildren. I have three young children. And I, like many Americans, already find it a challenge to educate them and provide for their health care. Now I must also worry about what their future is going to look like... what opportunities will they find when it's their turn to join the work force or start businesses?


Mr. Geithner shares his fears of a default in his letter to you. But his request simply means my children — everyone’s children — will have to deal with that default on their own.

Do we really want our children burdened by higher taxes, excessive government regulation, higher mortgage rates, reduced incentives to start their own businesses and, as things are going, the end of the freedoms that you, Mr. Geithner, the rest of the American public and I cherish?

Freedom is the very promise that America bestows on history. But now, through our own malfeasance, we are in a position of telling the world, "We cannot afford to offer you the opportunity to enjoy that freedom anymore."

How did it come to this? And why perpetuate the very malfeasance that threatens our future prosperity?

For most of America, understanding the fiscal condition of the nation is no easy task. For that, they place their trust in you. No doubt, it’s easier to do exactly what our Treasury secretary is asking you to do — ignore the problem and continue to kick the can down the road. But I’m asking you, on behalf of future generations, to think deeper about the problem and begin addressing it today.

To help you with your decision, here are some images you can use to illustrate the magnitude of the national burden.

As Mr. Geithner stated in his letter to you, “In February of 2010, Congress passed legislation to increase the debt limit to $14.29 trillion.” To grasp that staggering figure, imagine stacking $100 bills on top of one another. To reach $14.29 trillion, your stack would soar 9,721 miles into the sky!

Said a different way, that’s like 1,767 mountains of $100 bills the size of Mount Everest piled on top of each other.

Of course, the current debt wouldn’t be a problem if tax revenue were exceeding our spending and therefore reducing the debt. But we both know that is not happening. Even if we taxed all Americans 100% of their income for an entire year, we still wouldn’t be able to pay off our $14.29 trillion hole

What's more, the interest we’re paying on the current debt is forcing us deeper and deeper into the hole. According to the TreasuryDirect.gov website, the interest payment on our debt was a massive $1.13 billion per day — for a total of $413 billion — in 2010.

The interest payment alone amounts to record-breaking deficits hit during the Bush administration just a few short years ago. If you agree to raise the ceiling, you effectively agree to drive up the interest payments until they exceed tax revenue — creating a situation in which we’ll be forced to default, eventually. And the longer it takes to happen, the worse it will be for our children.

The Treasury secretary outlines how catastrophic a default would be for the financial system and the integrity of the United States:

Default would effectively impose a significant and long-lasting tax on all Americans and all American businesses and could lead to the loss of millions of American jobs.

When, I ask you, do we begin addressing the root problem? When do we admit that we're spending beyond our means and begin to address the problem in earnest? "We can live beyond our means for a very long time," to paraphrase a leading financier from I.O.U.S.A., "and we can do it on a very large scale — but we cannot do it forever."

The United States is like a private company suffering from a pension burden it did not plan for and that is losing market share because its products are no longer competitive. And it is as if the management has decided to take an extended vacation, rather than hold a meeting to find a way out of the hole.

In Congress, you don't address the real problems. You talk around them, play politics with them and then make frantic appeals at the 11th hour to borrow more money to paper over the problems again for yet another year.

At this pace, how do you honestly believe the government will ever balance its books again? In the era of uncertainty created by mayhem in Washington and ever-increasing global competition, how do you expect the economy to get back on track?

Let's put the numbers aside for a second. I'd like to ask you a simple question:

Imagine for a moment that you’ve chosen to smoke cigarettes all your life. You’ve ignored the warnings about them that appear all around you. Then, eventually, and unfortunately, you get diagnosed with lung cancer.

Luckily, you’ve caught the disease in its very early stages. The doctor presents you with two choices.

First, you can enter chemotherapy. The road to recovery, the doctor tells you, will be harsh. You’ll suffer extreme nausea. You’ll hardly be able to swallow from the ulcers you develop in your mouth. In short, you’ll go through hell in an attempt to beat the disease. But because you caught the disease after the first symptoms appeared, you have a high chance at a full recovery.

The doctor also offers a second alternative. He’s worked out a deal that allows you to rid yourself of the disease instantly. No pain. No suffering. No hell. All you have to do is agree to give the disease to your 2-year-old grandson.

Would you make that deal, Mr. Leader?

I trust you'll make the right decision about our nation’s fiscal health. At the very least, there needs to be an honest debate over raising the debt ceiling. If you provide the rubber stamp Mr. Geithner is asking for, you will be as guilty as he of passing the buck. Each time the buck gets passed, the stakes get higher. The default Mr. Geithner fears only looms more ominous in our future.

The newly elected speaker of the House, John Boehner, has gone on record saying he'll agree to increase the debt limit because we have to be "adults" about addressing the fiscal crisis the nation faces.

What, may I ask, is "adult" about failing to address this issue altogether?


Sincerely,

Addison Wiggin
Executive publisher, Agora Financial
Co-author, Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt
Executive producer, writer, I.O.U.S.A.
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3)Why the Muslim Brotherhood Matters to You
BY Claire Berlinski

I've proposed here that I believe Americans' lack of familiarity with the Muslim Brotherhood, its aims and its reach is a national security emergency. Without understanding exactly what the Brotherhood is and which figures and groups are associated with it, American citizens can't properly read between the lines of many significant news stories. They can't recognize what certain events--bland perhaps on the surface--signify, and cannot properly appreciate the ramifications of what are now major debates in US foreign policy, such as whether the Muslim Brotherhood should be "engaged" in Syria, or "brought into the political process" in Egypt.

They don't grasp what it means that groups associated with the Brotherhood in Europe and America have come to define the parameters of the West's debate about its relationship with Islam, that Brotherhood groups advise the White House and the media about "What Muslims think" and what we in turn must think of Muslims, while Muslims of diametrically different views--who are horrified by the Muslim Brotherhood--have been marginalized from this debate to the point that many doubt their very existence.

Without understanding the history of the Brotherhood and the ideology of its seminal thinkers, it is too easy to dismiss as wingnut paranoids those who are properly near-hysterical about the prominent role of politicians and lobbyists with Muslim Brotherhood connections in America--as, for example, Andrew Sullivan does here.

The idea of a sinister Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy sounds on the face of it to Americans, who don't know this history, like delusional babbling about fluoride in the water. Except, as I hope I've demonstrated to your satisfaction, it isn't. This really is a powerful, radical political movement that seeks to bring into being throughout the globe a kind of society none of us would wish to live in, and which has had, particularly thanks to a firehose of Saudi financial support, success in doing so beyond its founders' wildest hopes.

I've made the case that the spiritual leader of the Brotherhood, Qaradawi, is a particularly vile figure. What I've noted about him should be well-known by every American of voting age, just as it is well-known by every American that Osama bin Laden is a vile figure. Qaradawi is not the whole of the story, but he's enough of the story that his name should be politically radioactive. His name and face should be instantly recognizable--part of our pop-culture discourse, synonymous
with "something creepy, dangerous and repulsive." He should be the subject of jokes on late-night comedy shows. If photos turn up in the news showing one of our allies or political advisors with his arm around Qaradawi, it should have the psychological effect of seeing the subject of that photo in full Nazi regalia. Yet how many Americans would even recognize his face? Not many, I suspect.

Herewith a Qaradawi photo gallery. Forward these around, and draw your own conclusions about men who shake his hand, embrace him, share a podium with him, and give him awards.

Exhibit A: a little love-fest between Qaradawi and one of the West's favorite moderates, Anwar Ibrahim. Ibrahim co-founded the IIIT, a Brotherhood front organization in the United States. I don't read Malay, but I'm handy with Google Translate. Anwar seems to have found this meeting with Qaradawi most engaging:

Assertiveness he emitted when talking about the greedy policies of President Bush to attack and conquer weaker nations. He also voiced the call for a new administration led by President Obama to focus on combating poverty and providing education.

However Sheikh Yusuf explains the establishment of Ittihad Ulama '(Association of Scholars' World), which he led on the administration of President Obama to ensure the availability of a dialogue with American conditions to stop the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as justice of the Palestinian people.

He continued to encourage me to continue efforts to strengthen international collaboration and the establishment of the firm explains.

I doubt much is getting lost in translation. "We are convinced," write prominent fools Paul Wolfowitz and Al Gore, that Anwar "is committed to the values of pluralism, tolerance and freedom that are needed for Malaysia to flourish." If I am dubious, I shall, predictably, be charged with Islamophobia--a word invented by the IIIT to meet just such a contingency.

Here we have the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and Qaradawi in a moist embrace. Very much in love, those two! Such a photo should mean eternal social ostracism for Livingstone among his crowd, shouldn't it? That's a proud man of the Left, there, with his tongue practically down the throat of a man who would see homosexuals stoned.

How does this add up? How did we get here?

There is an answer to that question. It's not rhetorical. We got here through the Brotherhood and its associated organizations. Here are the names of a few groups that should ring everyone's Qaradawi-bells: He's the head of them all, or a trustee, or somehow closely associated with them:

President—The European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), Dublin, Ireland
President—Union of Good (an umbrella group of charities that includes Turkey's IHH)
Founder and President—IslamOnline.com (perhaps the most popular Islamist web site on the Internet, and goodness--they've got a branch in Washington DC, in the National Press Building! Right next to the National Press Club!)

Chairman (in absentia)—Board of Trustees of Islamic American University
Faculty member—Islamic American University (IAU)
Founder and president—International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS), Dublin, Ireland
Trustee/Teacher—Muslim American Society (MAS)
Trustee/Teacher—Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)
Board of Advisors—Institute for Islamic Political Thought in the UK
Dean—Islamic Department at the Faculties of Shariah and Education in Qatar
Chairman—Islamic Scientific Councils of Algerian Universities and Institutions Affiliations with Shariah Finance
Chairman—Shariah Advisory board of Bank Al-Taqwa, a Nassau- Bahamas registered Islamic bank which was declared a designated terrorist entity by the US Department of the Treasury in 2001 and closed down
Chairman—Shariah Advisory Board, Qatar Islamic Bank
Chairman—Shariah Advisory Board, Qatar International Islamic Bank
Member—Shariah Advisory Board, First Islamic Investment Bank of Bahrain.


Oh, it goes on, and on, and on, it's too tiring to list them all. It just goes on and on. It's not some crazy conspiracy theory--it's a reality that no one concerned is even trying much to hide. These are groups associated--proudly, openly, demonstrably, not in fantasy--with the Muslim Brotherhood. Should such groups be advising the White House, invited to it at all, ever, or given implied authority by journalists to speak on behalf of the rest of America's Muslims?

To the right, Qaradawi with Barrie Osborne, the producer of the Matrix. They're working together to make a movie about Islam, financed lavishly by the Qataris.


Wouldn't you think right-thinking men and women in Hollywood would wish to run from this association? To worry about their reputations if their association with Qaradawi was made public? No! Because no one knows who Qaradawi is and no one, apparently, cares.

Does Hollywood realize what Qaradawi thinks of them? Can't anyone there read? Surely they know how to watch a video, if nothing else?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPXmNXLbuxY&feature=player_embedded#!
It's almost funny, isn't it? Maybe that's what they think, over there in Hollywood--that this is a hilarious parody. That this Qaradawi fellow is a comic genius.

Barrie Osborne, please, believe me: You are the dangerous purveyor of filth he's talking about. That's not comedy. He's serious. He is deadly, deadly serious
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4)His request approved, the CNN News photographer quickly used a cell phone to call the local airport to charter a flight.

He was told a twin-engine plane would be waiting for him at the airport.

Arriving at the airfield, he spotted a plane warming up outside a hanger.

He jumped in with his bag, slammed the door shut, and shouted, 'Let's go'.

The pilot taxied out, swung the plane into the wind and took off.

Once in the air, the photographer instructed the pilot, 'Fly over the valley and make low passes so I can take pictures of the fires on the hillsides.'

'Why?' asked the pilot.

'Because I'm a photographer for CNN News,' he responded, 'and I need to get some close up shots.'

The pilot was strangely silent for a moment, finally he stammered, 'So, what you're telling me, is . . . You're NOT my flight instructor?'

4a)Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight! (Phyllis diller)

4b)Why did the chicken cross the road?

SARAH PALIN: The chicken crossed the road because, gosh-darn it,
she's a maverick!

BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for
change! The chicken wanted change!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because she
recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all
the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that
little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely
qualified to ensure right from Day One that every chicken in this country
gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't
about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the
road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or
not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?

COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see
the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with that chicken.

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I
am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about
the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens white? We need some black
chickens.

DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't
realize that she must first deal with the problem on this side of the road
before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need
to do is help her realize how stupid she's acting by not taking on her current
problems before adding new problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems,
which is why she wants to cross this road so badly. So instead of having the
chicken learn from her mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm
going to give this chicken a NEW CAR so that she can just drive across the
road and not live her life like the rest of the chickens.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken,
but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the
road.

NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because she's guilty! You
can see it in her eyes and the way she walks.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken
was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs
when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any
insider information.

DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did she cross it with a
toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed, I've not
been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain, alone.

JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see
the plain truth? That's why they call it the 'other side.' Yes, my friends,
That chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay
too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that
the Liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like 'the
other side.' That chicken should not be crossing the road. It's as plain and
as simple as that.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road.
Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will
be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heartwarming
story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to
accomplish it's lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads
together, in peace.

BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2010, which will not only
cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance
your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken2010.
This new platform is much more stable and will never reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the
road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?
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5) From the British House of Commons...
By Andrew Roberts, Member Parliament

I would like to speak to you today as an historian, because it seems to me that the State of Israel has packed more history into her 62 years on the planet than many other nations have in six hundred. There are many surprising things about this tiny, feisty, brave nation the size of Wales , but the most astonishing is that she has survived at all. The very day after the UN declared Israel a country in 1948, five Arab countries attacked, and she has been struggling for her right to life ever since. And that is what we are here for today, to reiterate Israel 's right to self-defense, inherent in all legitimate countries.

From Morocco to Afghanistan, from the Caspian Sea to Aden, the 5.25 million square miles of territory belonging to members of the Arab League is home to over 330 million people, whereas Israel covers only eight thousand square miles, and is home to seven million citizens, one-fifth of whom are Arabs. The Jews of the Holy Land are thus surrounded by hostile states 650 times their size in territory and sixty times their population, yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution, the State of Israel has somehow survived. When during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Medal for bravery; today Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long.

Jerusalem is the site of the Temple of Solomon and Herod. The stones of a palace erected by King David himself are even now being unearthed just outside the walls of Jerusalem . Everything that makes a nation state legitimate-- bloodshed, soil tilled, two millennia of continuous residence, international agreements ,argues for Israel 's right to exist, yet that is still denied by the Arab League. For many of their governments, which are rich enough to have economically solved the Palestinian refugee problem decades ago, it is useful to have Israel as a scapegoat to divert attention from the tyranny, failure and corruption of their own regimes.
The tragic truth is that it suits Arab states very well to have the Palestinians endure permanent refugee status, and wheneverIsrael puts forward workable solutions they have been stymied by those whose interests put the destruction of Israel before the genuine well being of the Palestinians. Both King Abdullah I of Jordan and Anwar Sadat of Egypt were assassinated when they attempted to come to some kind of accommodation with a country that most sane people now accept is not going away.

"We owe to the Jews," wrote Winston Churchill in 1920, "a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all wisdom and learning put together. The Jewish contribution to finance, science, the arts, academia, commerce and industry, literature, philanthropy and politics has been astonishing relative to their tiny numbers. Although they make up less than half of one percent of the world population, between 1901 and 1950 Jews won 14% of all the Nobel Prizes awarded for Literature and Science, and between 1951 and 2000 Jews won 32% of the Nobel Prizes for Medicine, 32% for Physics, 39% for Economics and 29% for Science. This, despite so many of their greatest intellects dying in the gas chambers.”

Civilization owes Judaism a debt it can never repay, and support for the right of a Jewish homeland to exist is the bare minimum we can provide. Yet we tend to treat Israel like a leper on the international scene, merely for defending herself, and threatening her with academic boycotts if she builds a separation wall that has so far reduced suicide bombings by 95% over three years.

It is a disgrace that no senior member of the Royal Family has ever undertaken an official visit to Israel , as though the country is still in quarantine after more than six decades. Her Majesty the Queen has been on the throne for 57 years and in that time has undertaken 250 official visits to 129 countries, yet has not yet set foot in Israel . She has visited 14 Arab countries, so it cannot have been that she wasn't in the region. Although Prince Philip's mother, Princess Alice, is buried on the Mount of Olives because of her status as Righteous Among Gentiles, the Foreign Office ordained that his visit to his mother's grave in 1994 had to be in a private capacity only. Royal visits are one of the ways legitimacy is conferred on nations, and the Coalition Government should end the Foreign Office's de- facto boycott. After the Holocaust, the Jewish people recognized that they must have their own state, a homeland where they could forever be safe from a repetition of such horrors. Putting their trust in Western Civilization was never again going to be enough. Since then, Israel has had to fight no fewer than five major wars for her very existence.

She has been on the front line in the War against Terror and has been fighting the West's battles for it, decades before 9/11 or 7/7 ever happened. Radical Islam is never going to accept the concept of an Israeli State, so the struggle is likely to continue for another sixty years, but the Jews know that that is less dangerous than entrusting their security to anyone else.

Very often in Britain , especially when faced with the overwhelmingly anti-Israeli bias that is endemic in our liberal media and the BBC, we fail to ask ourselves what we would have done placed in their position? The population of the United Kingdom of 63 million is nine times that of Israel . In July 2006, to take one example at random, Hezbollah crossed the border of Lebanoninto Israel and killed eight patrolmen and kidnapped two others, and that summer fired four thousand Katyusha rockets intoIsrael which killed a further forty-three civilians.

Now, if we multiply those numbers by nine to get the British equivalent, just imagine what we would do if a terrorist organization based as close as Calais were to fire thirty-six thousand rockets into Sussex and Kent, killing 87 British civilians, after killing seventy-two British servicemen in an ambush and capturing eighteen. There is absolutely no lengths to which our Government would not go to protect British subjects under those circumstances, and quite right too. Why should Israel be expected to behave any differently?

In the course of researching my latest book on the Second World War, I recently visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. Walking along a line of huts and the railway siding where their forebears had been worked and starved and beaten and frozen and gassed to death, were a group of Jewish schoolchildren, one of whom was carrying over his shoulder the Israeli flag, a blue star of David on white background. It was a profoundly moving sight, for it was the sovereign independence represented by that flag which guarantees that the obscenity of genocide which killed six million people in Auschwitz and camps like it -- will never again befall the Jewish people, to whom the rest of civilization owes so much.

I said at the start that I was speaking to you as an historian, and so I say: No people in History have needed the right to self-defense and legitimacy more than the Jews of Israel, and that is what we in the Friends of Israel Initiative demand here today.

5a)MIND-BOGLING FACTS ABOUT ISRAEL ...!!! Did you know??

Geography:
Israel is only 1/6 of 1% of the land mass of the Middle East.
Israel is roughly half the size of Lake Michigan.
The Sea of Galilee, at 695 ft. Below sea level, is the lowest freshwater lake in the world.
The Dead Sea is the lowest surface point on earth, at about 1,373 feet below sea level.
Israel is the only nation in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees.
Jericho is the oldest continuously inhabited town in the world.
The Mount of Olives in Jerusalem is the oldest, continually used cemetery in the world.

Demographics:
Israel 's population is half the size of Metro New York City.
Israel has only 2% of the population of the Middle East .
Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees per capita in the world.
Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation in the world - by a large margin.
Israel has the highest number of scientists and technicians per capita in the world - by a large margin.
Israel has the highest number of engineers per capita in the world.
Israel has the highest number of PhD's per capita in the world.
Israel has the highest number of physicians per capita in the world.
Israel has the largest percentage of its workforce employed in technical professions in the world.
Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation in the world, per capita.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christian population has grown over the last 50 years.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Christians, Muslims and Jews are all free to vote.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East where women enjoy full political rights.

Economics:
Israel has the largest number of startup companies per capita in the world.
Israel is the world's largest wholesale diamond center, finally surpassing Antwerp in the 1970s.
Most of the cut & polished diamonds in the world come from Israel.
Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies outside of the US and Canada.
Israel was the first country to have a free trade agreement with the United States.
Apart from the Silicon Valley, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world.

Electronics:
The cell phone was developed in Israel at Motorola's largest development center.
The Voice Mail technology was developed in Israel.
In the early 1980s, IBM chose an Israeli-designed computer chip as the brains for its first personal computers.
The first anti-virus software for computers was developed in Israel in 1979.
Most of the Windows NT and XP operating systems were developed in Israel.

Microsoft:
Both the Pentium-4 and Centrino processors were entirely designed, developed and produced in Israel .
The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel.
Israel has the highest number of home computers per capita in the world.
The technology for the AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ was developed in 1996 by 4 young Israelis.
Israel was the first Middle Eastern country to launch a satellite, the Ofek 1, on September 19, 1988.

Culture:
Hebrew is the only case of a dead national language being revived in all of world history.
Hebrew had not been spoken as a native tongue by anyone for centuries.
Today it is the native tongue of millions of people.
Israel has more museums per capita than any other nation in the world.
Israel has more orchestras per capita than any other nation in the world.
Israel publishes more books per capita than any other nation in the world.
Israel publishes more books translated from other languages than any other nation in the world.
Israel reads more books per capita than any other nation in the world.
The most independent and free Arabic press in the Middle East is in Israel.

Military/Security:
Israel has the largest fleet of F-16 aircraft outside of the US.
Israel has the world's most impenetrable airline security.
Israel spends more money per capita on its own protection than any country in the world.

Other:
Israel's dairy cows are the most productive dairy cows in the world.
They average 25,432 pounds of milk per cow per year, compared to just 18,747 pounds from American cows;
17,085 from Canadian cows; 13,778 from European Union cows; 10,207 from Australian cows; and 6,600 from
Chinese cows.
Israel has more in-vitro fertilization per capita than anywhere in the world, and it's free.
Israelis, per capita, are the world's biggest consumers of fruits and vegetables.
Of the 175 UN Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
Of the 690 UN General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel
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6)Thaksgiving 2022!

"Winston, come into the dining room, it's time to eat," Julia yelled to her husband. "In a minute, honey, it's a tie score," he answered. Actually Winston wasn't very interested in the traditional holiday football game between Detroit and Washington.


Ever since the government passed the Civility in Sports Statute of 2017, outlawing tackle football for its "unseemly violence" and the "bad example it sets for the rest of the world," Winston was far less of a football fan than he used to be. Two-hand touch wasn't nearly as exciting.


Yet it wasn't the game that Winston was uninterested in. It was more the thought of eating another TofuTurkey. Even though it was the best type of VeggieMeat available after the government revised the American Anti-Obesity Act of 2018, adding fowl to the list of federally-forbidden foods, (which already included potatoes, cranberry sauce and mince-meat pie), it wasn't anything like real turkey. And ever since the government officially changed the name of "Thanksgiving Day" to "A National Day of Atonement" in 2020 to officially acknowledge the Pilgrims' historically brutal treatment of Native Americans, the holiday had lost a lot of its luster.


Eating in the dining room was also a bit daunting. The unearthly gleam of government-mandated fluorescent light bulbs made the TofuTurkey look even weirder than it actually was, and the room was always cold. Ever since Congress passed the Power Conservation Act of 2016, mandating all thermostats-which were monitored and controlled by the electric company-be kept at 68 degrees, every room on the north side of the house was barely tolerable throughout the entire winter.


Still, it was good getting together with family. Or at least most of the family. Winston missed his mother, who passed on in October, when she had used up her legal allotment of live-saving medical treatment. He had had many heated conversations with the Regional Health Consortium, spawned when the private insurance market finally went bankrupt, and everyone was forced into the government health care program. And though he demanded she be kept on her treatment, it was a futile effort. "The RHC's resources are limited," explained the government bureaucrat Winston spoke with on the phone. "Your mother received all the benefits to which she was entitled. I'm sorry for your loss."


Ed couldn't make it either. He had forgotten to plug in his electric car last night, the only kind available after the Anti-Fossil Fuel Bill of 2021 outlawed the use of the combustion engines-for everyone but government officials. The fifty mile round trip was about ten miles too far, and Ed didn't want to spend a frosty night on the road somewhere between here and there.


Thankfully, Winston's brother, John, and his wife were flying in. Winston made sure that the dining room chairs had extra cushions for the occasion. No one complained more than John about the pain of sitting down so soon after the government-mandated cavity searches at airports, which severely aggravated his hemorrhoids. Ever since a terrorist successfully smuggled a cavity bomb onto a jetliner, the TSA told Americans the added "inconvenience" was an "absolute necessity" in order to stay "one step ahead of the terrorists." Winston's own body had grown accustomed to such probing ever since the government expanded their scope to just about anywhere a crowd gathered, via Anti-Profiling Act of 2022. That law made it a crime to single out any group or individual for "unequal scrutiny," even when probable cause was involved. Thus, cavity searches at malls, train stations, bus depots, etc., etc., had become almost routine. Almost.


The Supreme Court is reviewing the statute, but most Americans expect a Court composed of six progressives and three conservatives to leave the law intact. "A living Constitution is extremely flexible," said the Court's eldest member, Elena Kagan. " Europe has had laws like this one for years. We should learn from their example," she added.


Winston's thoughts turned to his own children. He got along fairly well with his 12-year-old daughter, Brittany, mostly because she ignored him. Winston had long ago surrendered to the idea that she could text anyone at any time, even during Atonement Dinner. Their only real confrontation had occurred when he limited her to 50,000 texts a month, explaining that was all he could afford. She whined for a week, but got over it.


His 16-year-old son, Jason, was another matter altogether. Perhaps it was the constant bombarding he got in public school that global warming, the bird flu, terrorism or any of a number of other calamities were "just around the corner," but Jason had developed a kind of nihilistic attitude that ranged between simmering surliness and outright hostility. It didn't help that Jason had reported his father to the police for smoking a cigarette in the house, an act made criminal by the Smoking Control Statute of 2018, which outlawed smoking anywhere within 500 feet of another human being. Winston paid the $5,000 fine, which might have been considered excessive before the American dollar became virtually worthless as a result of QE13. The latest round of quantitative easing the federal government initiated was, once again, to "spur economic growth." This time they promised to push unemployment below its years-long rate of 18%, but Winston was not particularly hopeful.


Yet the family had a lot for which to be thankful, Winston thought, before remembering it was a Day of Atonement. At least he had his memories. He felt a twinge of sadness when he realized his children would never know what life was like in the Good Old Days, long before government promises to make life "fair for everyone" realized their full potential. Winston, like so many of his fellow Americans, never realized how much things could change when they didn't happen all at once, but little by little, so people could get used to them.


He wondered what might have happened if the public had stood up while there was still time, maybe back around 2010, when all the real nonsense began. "Maybe we wouldn't be where we are today if we'd just said 'enough is enough' when we had the chance," he thought.


Maybe so, Winston. Maybe so.
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