Is 'PNF/F' going to be being tested? (See 1 below.)
---
Six dirty secrets? (See 2 below.)
---
Does disparity in wealth involve a disparity to create wealth and is this an overlooked fact this president would have us ignore? Tom Sowell confronts us with his logic once again. (See 3 below.)
---
Does Sec. Clinton need to reset the reset button with Russia? (See 4 below.)
---
On your own economics? (See 5 below.)
---
Propaganda that tells more about the Palestinians than they intended. (See 6 below.)
---
Dick
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1)Iran's Al Qods cells for Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait to hit oil and US targets
Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Al Qods commander
Intelligence and counterterrorism sources say the information relayed to Washington was more detailed and specific than the customary tip-off.
Tuesday, Jan. 17, a US spokesman accused Tehran of deepening its involvement in the Syrian conflict. For the second time in a week, Washington disclosed that Al Qods commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani had visited Damascus recently, confirming Iranian arms shipments for ensuring President Bashar Assad's victory over the uprising against him.
Another part of Soleimani's Damascus mission was to synchronize the Al Qods cells' strikes across the Middle East – in Turkey, Lebanon, Gaza and Sinai – with the tempo of Assad's crackdown on protest. He also dealt with setting up terrorist attacks against Israeli targets.
A US spokesman said: “We are confident that he was received at the highest levels of the Syrian government, including by President Assad.”
Four months ago, in October 2011, the US accused Soleimani of a hatching a conspiracy to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.
Tuesday night, the Turkish Security General Directorate-EGM put all the country's 81 districts on guard for the expected arrival of Al Qods operatives to stir up mass unrest against the Erdogan government and attack the US embassy and provincial consulates-general.
Their arrival, said the EGM notice, would be coordinated with the infiltration of Hizballah terrorist teams to Turkey.
Ankara believes Tehran is kicking off its first round of Middle East terrorist operations in Turkey as punishment for consenting to the installation of a US radar station on its soil for the NATO shield against incoming Iranian missile attacks, in defiance of Iran's warnings. The Erdogan government is also being penalized for actively supporting Syrian resistance to the Assad regime, especially the Free Syrian Army-SFA.
When Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani visited Ankara Jan. 12, he delivered a last warning to the Turkish government to desist from both steps, although the visit was officially billed as focusing on the resumption of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the five powers plus Germany. Larijani's talks clearly ended in disagreement, judging by his parting shot: “We've got our ways of doing things.”
A senior counterterrorism source revealed on Wednesday, Jan. 18, Iranians are setting Turkey up as an example to show the US and their Middle East antagonists what they can expect when Tehran lets the Al Qods Brigades loose against them.
According to the information relayed to Washington by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Al Qods has been placed on the ready for action, such as blowing up oil fields, oil pipelines and oil export terminals. Some of its cells are already present among the two countries' Shiite populations in the guise of longtime Saudi and Kuwaiti nationals of Iranian descent; others to be dropped by sea on the Saudi and Kuwaiti coasts.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)The Six Dirty Secrets of Presidential Politics in 2012
By John Ziegler
It is amazing to me how many political opinions/predictions from seemingly intelligent people are so clearly wrong and how little it seems to matter to them or anyone else in the punditsphere when this is inevitably proven to be true.
The reasons why this is the case are many, but at the core of this phenomenon is the fact that there are several basic realities of presidential politics that appear to have somehow failed to pierce the bubble/echo chamber of the media elites. These are, if you will, the "dirty little secrets" of presidential elections in general and 2012 in particular.
You simply can't properly evaluate what will happen this November without first understanding that:
Ignorant votes rule
No matter how politically incorrect it may to say out loud, there is absolutely no doubt that the voters who determine who wins our presidential elections are frighteningly lacking in even basic knowledge of the issues or the candidates.
While this has probably always been the case, the evidence is overwhelming that, for a variety of reasons (most notably the fragmentation and "fluff-ification" of our celebrity-driven media), this problem is getting worse every cycle. In 2008, I commissioned two scientific polls as part of my documentary of the media coverage of the election which proved just how incredibly ignorant of fundamental facts the voters of each candidate were.
It is quite clear that the country is basically split politically into thirds. One third is known in overly polite circles as "independent" or "casual" voters. In truth, these are people who don't pay attention and don't really care about current events. Unfortunately, because the other two thirds of "partisans" tend to balance each other out, it is these voters (yes, regrettably, they do indeed vote) who usually decide the winner in presidential elections.
Because the media has by far the greatest influence over this group (because they get their political "news" almost entirely from headlines, comedians, and friends), they went for Obama in a huge way in 2008 and, to a lesser extent, probably will again this time.
Issues/Ideology Mean Very Little
Thanks to "dirty little secret" number one, I find it almost hilarious that so many political commentators still desperately hang on to the delusion that voters (at least the ones who matter) make their decisions the same way that said commentators do. This reminds of me of the identical fallacy which occurs when a woman interprets the actions of a man based on the erroneous belief that his brain works like hers does.
These ignorant voters don't delve deeply into the candidates' record/positions to decide which one is closest to their views. They have no real ideology. Instead, they make their choices based mostly on feeling, and often that doesn't even mean a sense about each of the candidates.
Instead, these people tend to vote based on which decision will make them feel better about themselves. Ironically, that usually means which side will make these "stupid" people feel as if the have made the "smart" selection.
A glance at recent history proves this point. In 2008, there was no doubt that the media had convinced the "middle third" that Obama was the "wise" choice. In 2004, despite the media's best efforts, the middle third felt like Bush 43 would keep us safer in a post-9/11 world. In 2000, there was no real sense as to which candidate was the "wise" option, and it basically ended in a tie. In 1996, thanks to the economy being good, they deemed Bill Clinton worthy of a second term. In 1992, thanks to a misperception of the economy, they simply felt like three straight Republican terms was enough.
Now, if one candidate is perceived as being ideologically outside the mainstream (which, thanks to a media-created matrix, can really happen only to Republicans), then that perception will very likely impact the way that the "middle third" decides which candidate is the "wise" pick. But this usually won't be because of the candidate's actual views, but instead because of the narrative that his or her ideology creates (for instance, Rick Santorum would get crushed not because most people disagree with him about gay rights, but rather because his misunderstood views on the issue would create the impression that he was outside the mainstream and therefore not the "wise" alternative).
The bottom line as this relates to 2012 is that the notion that Mitt Romney would be at a disadvantage against President Obama because he is supposedly a "right-leaning moderate" going up against a "left-leaning moderate" is just silly. As long as there is no conservative third-party candidate, Obama himself will single-handily produce a near-100% conservative voter turnout for Romney, regardless of how his ideology is perceived.
This is also why Newt Gingrich is so unelectable, especially against Obama. All these voters would ever really know about him is that he is a fat, old, angry white male, with two ex-wives, who resigned as speaker of the House because he got Clinton impeached while he himself was having an affair. Game, set, match.
The 2010 Midterms Are Largely Irrelevant
The biggest political misunderstanding that most hardcore conservative voters have is that presidential elections are pretty much the same as the midterm variety. This is like comparing the NFL's Super Bowl with the Pro Bowl. Even though they are both football games, it would be difficult for them to be more unlike each other.
Midterms are local and state elections with almost no national media narrative/impact or principal individuals and where the turnout is usually pretty light. Presidential elections are 50 separate state elections with a distinct national narrative set by the media where there are two much-focused-on individuals and where turnout out is much higher than normal.
In short, midterms are based largely on ideology/party affiliation, while presidential matchups are about mostly about the feelings of people who don't follow politics.
This misconception has caused a huge problem for conservatives in this cycle because the Tea Party people seem to think that, based on the relative success of the 2010 campaign, beating Obama should be rather easy. This, in turn, has caused them to consider a number of candidates who have no shot at winning and who would ordinarily never even be considered for the task of trying to bring down the Obama monster.
In the end, it is likely to create enormous disappointment when Romney wins the nomination based mostly on the idea that he is the most (only) electable alternative. I also fear that, should Romney lose, the incredibly false lesson that will be "learned" (much like with John McCain in 2008) will be that we lost because we nominated a "moderate."
The Liberal Media's Influence Is Increasing
The popular perception among most commentators is that the media's general influence is on the decline and that, therefore, liberals are slowly losing one of their most powerful political weapons. I have devoted most of the last four years of my life to proving that this premise is patently false.
The counterargument to mine goes something like this: because of fragmentation, the audience sizes of the traditional liberal news outlets is shrinking, and thanks to Fox News, talk radio, and the internet, we are able to get our message out around the old gatekeepers.
This might very well be the most dangerous fallacy in the conservative movement today.
There is no doubt that fragmentation has dramatically altered the entire media landscape for the worse (except for the Golf and History Channels) and that audiences for individual outlets are indeed getting smaller. The problem is that numerous factors (including having largely gotten away with singehandedly electing Obama in 2008) have freed up these same liberal outlets to allow their true selves to really come pouring out without a hint of self-restraint.
After what they so overtly did for Obama and against Sarah Palin in 2008, why would they ever go back to just the relatively tame "bias" of the Nixon and Reagan years? The referees have gone from putting a finger on the scales of justice to flat out sitting on them, and yet there have been almost no repercussions. Even though they don't have nearly the same weight/power that they used to, they are happy to simply use a much greater percentage of what they still possess in order to get the job done.
Conversely, it is a myth that Fox News, talk radio, and the internet allow conservatives to get our truth out. In reality, at best, these outlets allow the previously converted to feel better about what they already believe. At worst, they provoke the other side into justifying a more overt bias in order to "balance" things out.
The ultimate example of this comes in the way the cable news networks have positioned themselves. MSNBC is far more left than FNC is to the right, and now, significantly left CNN is somehow allowed to be perceived to be in the "middle."
It is important to note here that the definition of "media outlets" which influence presidential elections now goes far beyond the "news" variety. You can actually argue that entertainment media has even more control these days than news divisions do (assuming you can even tell the difference between them anymore).
Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Bill Maher, Saturday Night Live, and other "entertainment" outlets all have incredible power to create the narrative of a presidential election (just ask Palin), and they are highly unlikely to do so in a way that would ever harm Obama.
One of the many reasons why Romney is the only Republican candidate with a chance is because he is the only one who would be the target of mostly harmless jokes (teasing about how rich, straight-laced, and boring he is won't be nearly as devastating what they would easily come up with for Gingrich, Santorum, Paul, or Perry). Interestingly, this past week's attempt by SNL to parody Romney in exactly that way bombed dramatically.
The 2000 election provided an important lesson in this area. Interviews since then indicate that SNL staff thought that they were destroying Bush 43 by making him seem stupid. Instead, they actually helped his candidacy by making him seem way cooler and more likable than Al Gore, whom they portrayed as incredibly annoying.
The media testified on behalf of Obama in 2008. They are simply not going to let him be a one-term disaster if they can possibly help it.
Which leads directly to the next "secret"...
Obama Will Be Much Tougher to Beat Than Perceived
Even if the economy doesn't improve (or at least provide enough data for the media to manipulate into making it seem as if it is), Obama has at least a 50% chance at reelection. This assessment may be shocking to many conservatives, but it is based on sound analysis.
Incredibly, even now, both Obama and Romney are almost exactly even when it comes to net approval ratings, with the only difference being that a few more people have made up their minds about Obama than have with Romney. The head-to-head polling data also indicates that they are approximately tied.
Taking out an incumbent is always difficult (even Bush 43 improved on his 2000 vote with an unpopular war and a partisan press working against him), but especially given two elements that seem to have been forgotten by overly optimistic conservatives.
The first is that the number-one argument (at least as approved by the cowardly McCain campaign) against Obama in 2008 was that he lacked any executive experience. Well, he now has essentially served four years in the most difficult executive position in the world. To the "middle third" voters, this weakness has now become a strength (as has, by the way, his lack of a foreign policy resume, which now boasts the killing of Osama bin Laden on it).
Second, "middle third" voters hate one party controlling all the levers of power, especially now, when trust in politicians and Congress is at all-time lows.
Republicans currently control the House and seem very likely to take over the Senate. This is a reality, I am quite certain, of which (unlike 2008, when my polls indicated that most Obama voters wrongly thought that Republicans were in control) the media will make very sure every "casual" voter is made painfully aware. The fact that they would be able to claim that a Romney victory would allow the "crazy" (and increasingly unpopular) Tea Party coalition to "take over" will only exacerbate the negative impact this will have on undecided voters.
The only reason why Romney has any real chance at all is because he is uniquely positioned to win in New Hampshire, Nevada, and Michigan, all of which are critical to Obama's various paths to 270 Electoral College votes.
But this all assumes that the economy stays basically where it is between now and November. If it is perceived as really getting better, then Romney will almost certainly lose barring some sort of significant scandal, which, given the incredibly high standards the media would use to judge any possible indiscretions, would seem to be highly unlikely.
The reason why Romney is indeed the most electable Republican left is because he makes the race more of a pure referendum on Obama than any of the others (though not as much as a Tim Pawlenty would have). This means that, to a large degree, his destiny is not in his own hands, and his candidacy is at the mercy of largely ignorant voters' feelings about the economy.
The only other plausible scenario here is that Iran, Iraq, and Syria explode to the point where foreign policy becomes a much bigger issue than anyone currently expects. This, of course, does not play into Romney's strengths, and unless he took the bold/risky step of picking Condoleezza Rice as his VP (and she surprisingly accepted), it would be hard to see how he could fully take advantage of this shift in the campaign's narrative.
The Conservative Media Has an Incentive for Obama to Win
The "dirtiest" little secret on my list is one that, because it is so obvious, I am astonished has not been mentioned in any significant way.
In my experience, the most universal misconception that conservatives have about politics is that most of those in the "conservative media" or those who are "activists" are motivated primarily because they believe in the cause. Unfortunately, for many reasons too numerous to get into in this space, this is simply not the case. The vast majority of the decisions made in the conservative media and by activists are decided by business considerations rather than by what is best for the cause.
In other words, it is ratings, traffic, and, ultimately, revenue/job security which dictate a huge portion (not all) of the content produced by Fox News, the Drudge Report, and talk radio, and it is donations which determine how most activists react. This is why Sarah Palin's irrelevant presidential tease and Herman Cain's always-doomed campaign were given so much more attention than they deserved. It is also a significant part of why the "Tea Party movement" evolved as it did.
It is also why there is a very good chance that many people in both groups will effectively lay down their arms in the battle to unseat Obama.
The reasoning behind this controversial declaration is quite simple. Those entities have absolutely no financial incentive for Obama to lose and, if fact, have a profound disincentive against facilitating his defeat.
The Obama presidency has been a financial windfall for all of them. Fox's ratings have never been higher, Drudge's traffic has never been better (which is rather "ironic," given how blatantly he protected Obama during the 2008 primaries), talk radio has been at least temporarily saved, and dozens of "Tea Party" groups have raised millions of dollars with which to line the pockets of their organizers and consultant friends. If Obama loses, not only does all of that stop, but the prospect of possibly eight long years of being "obligated" to support a rather boring Mitt Romney with no "boogieman" to attack must scare the daylights out of them.
To be clear, there will be no overt conspiracy. There is no need for there to be one. These are all people who live their daily lives based on pursuing their own interests, and many of them will have no problem coming to the conclusion that an Obama loss would be a terrible thing for their personal "cause" all on their own.
For those skeptical of my rather cynical hypothesis, I offer two quick examples.
If those I speak of really were primarily devoted to the cause of beating Obama, every conservative in the country would have been activated to support Pennsylvania's proposal to alter the way that it allocates its Electoral College votes because it would have made Obama's reelection almost impossible. Instead, the proposal got almost no attention, and the idea was unceremoniously dropped.
Similarly, some have compared the attacks on Romney's Bain record to what happened regarding Obama's "Rev. Wright" issue during his successful primary run. The big difference (other than the Wright issue being far more legitimate), of course, is that Hillary Clinton did not take up the attacks on the Wright connection, while Newt Gingrich has led the charge on the Bain issue.
While Gingrich has been criticized by many conservatives for his actions here, there has not been nearly the universality of ferocity of condemnation on the right as there would have been on the left had Hillary done the same to Obama (which is probably why she never dared to go there).
The primary reason for this is that the conservative elite are simply not as willing to go to the mat for Romney as their counterparts on the left were (and still will be) for Obama.
In a bizarre way, I am coming to see the coming Romney candidacy much as I view the Iraq War. It was a good idea; was based on seemingly sound, though ultimately flawed, assumptions; and was executed well under very difficult circumstances, but it ended up being doomed in public perception largely because too many weak-kneed conservatives weren't willing to pay the price to achieve ultimate victory.
In other words, if every conservative power broker sincerely wanted to defeat Obama as they claim they do and acted based on that as their primary priority, then, with any luck, Romney would win. Unfortunately, based on my extensive knowledge of these people, I have zero faith that most of them will be there for the cause when it really counts.
Therefore, the most likely scenario is that Obama gets re-elected, the country is harmed, and many so-called "conservatives" will smile.
3)An Ignored 'Disparity'
By Thomas SowellWith all the talk about "disparities" in innumerable contexts, there is one very important disparity that gets remarkably little attention -- disparities in the ability to create wealth. People who are preoccupied, or even obsessed, with disparities in income are seldom interested much, or at all, in the disparities in the ability to create wealth, which are often the reasons for the disparities in income.
In a market economy, people pay us for benefiting them in some way -- whether we are sweeping their floors, selling them diamonds or anything in between. Disparities in our ability to create benefits for which others will pay us are huge, and the skills required can develop early -- or sometimes not at all.
A recent national competition among high school students who create their own technological advances turned up an especially high share of such students winning recognition in the San Francisco Bay Area. A closer look showed that the great majority of these Bay Area students had Asian names.
Asian Americans are a substantial presence in this region but they are by no means a majority, much less such an overwhelming majority as they are among those winning high tech awards.
This pattern of disproportionate representation of particular groups among those with special skills and achievements is not confined to Asian Americans or even to the United States.
It is a phenomenon among particular racial, ethnic or other groups in countries around the world -- the Ibos in Nigeria, the Parsees in India, the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Germans in Brazil, Chinese in Malaysia, Lebanese in West Africa, Tamils in Sri Lanka. The list goes on and on.
Gross inequalities in skills and achievements have been the rule, not the exception, on every inhabited continent and for centuries on end. Yet our laws and government policies act as if any significant statistical difference between racial or ethnic groups in employment or income can only be a result of their being treated differently by others.
Nor is this simply an opinion. Businesses have been sued by the government when the representation of different groups among their employees differs substantially from their proportions in the population at large. But, no matter how the human race is broken down into its components -- whether by race, sex, geographic region or whatever -- glaring disparities in achievements have been the rule, not the exception.
Anyone who watches professional basketball games knows that the star players are by no means a representative sample of the population at large. The book "Human Accomplishment" by Charles Murray is a huge compendium of the top achievements around the world in the arts and sciences, as well as in sports and other fields.
Nowhere have these achievements been random or representative of the demographic proportions of the population of a country or of the world. Nor have they been the same from one century to the next. China was once far more advanced technologically than any country in Europe, but then it fell behind and more recently is gaining ground.
Most professional golfers who participate in PGA tournaments have never won a single tournament, but Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have each won dozens of tournaments.
Yet these and numerous other disparities in achievement are resolutely ignored by those whose shrill voices denounce disparities in rewards, as if these disparities are somehow suspicious at best and sinister at worst.
Higher achieving groups -- whether classes, races or whatever -- are often blamed for the failure of other groups to achieve. Politicians and intellectuals, especially, tend to conceive of social questions in terms that allow them to take on the role of being on the side of the angels against the forces of evil.
This can be a huge disservice to those individuals and groups who are lagging behind, for it leads them to focus on a sense of grievance and victimhood, rather than on how they can lift themselves up instead of trying to pull other people down.
Again, this is a worldwide phenomenon -- a sad commentary on the down side of the brotherhood of man.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)'Western sanctions against Iran stifling'
Russian FM Lavrov warns further sanctions against Tehran may destabilize entire Middle East; says Moscow won't allow military op against Syria, either
A military attack on Iran would destabilize the region while new sanctions against Tehran would "stifle" the Iranian economy and hurt its population, Russia's foreign minister said Wednesday.
Sergey Lavrov said that Russia is seriously worried about the prospect of a military action against Iran and is doing all it can to prevent it.
"The consequences will be extremely grave," he said. "It's not going to be an easy walk. It will trigger a chain reaction, and I don't know where it will stop."
Lavrov also warned that sanctions on oil exports considered by the European Union could stymie efforts to solve the Iranian nuclear standoff through talks.
"It has nothing to do with a desire to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation," Lavrov said at a news conference. "It's aimed at stifling the Iranian economy and the population in an apparent hope to provoke discontent."
Russia has walked a fine line on the Iranian nuclear crisis, mixing careful criticism of Iran, an important trading partner, with praise for some of its moves and calls for more talks.
The EU is weighing whether to impose sanctions on buying Iranian oil, which is the source of more than 80 percent of Tehran's foreign revenue. The US has already imposed new sanctions targeting Iran's central bank and, by extension, refiners' ability to buy and pay for crude.
Lavrov with Iranian President Ahmadinejad (Archives: AFP)
Russia believes that "all thinkable sanctions already have been applied" and that new penalties could derail hopes for continuing six-way negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, provoking Iranian intransigence, Lavrov said.
He noted that the EU's consideration of new sanctions comes as Iran plans to host a delegation from the UN nuclear watchdog. "We believe that there is every chance to resume talks between the six powers and Iran, and we are concerned about obstacles being put to them," he said. "The sanctions could hardly help make the talks productive."
'No need for military op in Syria'
Also on Wednesday, Russia warned against military action in Syria, as Lavrov said that Russia will block any attempt by the West to secure UN support for the use of force against Syria.
Lavrov said Russia's draft of a UN Security Council resolution on the violence in Syria was aimed at making it explicitly clear that nothing could justify a foreign military interference.
Western diplomats said it fell short of their demand for strong condemnation of Syria's President Bashar Assad's crackdown on civilians, that has left more than 5,000 people dead.
The Security Council has been unable to agree on a resolution since the violence began in March because a strong opposition from Russia and China. In October, they vetoed a West European draft resolution, backed by the US, that condemned Assad's attacks and threatened sanctions.
"If some intend to use force at all cost ... we can hardly prevent that from happening," he said. "But let them do it at their own initiative on their own conscience, they won't get any authorization from the UN Security Council."
Lavrov also said that Russia doesn't consider it necessary to offer an explanation or excuses over suspicions that a Russian ship had delivered munitions to Syria despite an EU arms embargo.
Lavrov told a news conference that Russia was acting in full respect of the international law and wouldn't be guided by unilateral sanctions imposed by other nations.
"We haven't violated any international agreements or the UN Security Councilresolutions," he said. "We are only trading with Syria in items, which aren't banned by the international law."
Lavrov accused the West of turning a blind eye to attacks by opposition militants and supplies of weapons to the Syrian opposition from abroad.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)Presidential Nonsense
President Obama's vision was shared by our Pilgrim Fathers of the Plymouth Colony in modern-day Massachusetts. They established a communist system. They all farmed together, and whatever they produced was put in a common storehouse. A certain amount of food was rationed to each person regardless of his contribution to the work. Many Pilgrims complained that they were too weak from hunger to do their share of the work. As deeply religious as the Pilgrims were, they took to stealing from one another. Gov. William Bradford, writing his history of the colony in "Of Plymouth Plantation," said, "So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue, the next year also if not some way prevented."
In 1623, after much debate, a new system was set up, in which every family was assigned a parcel of land, and whatever they produced belonged to the family. Gov. Bradford then observed, "The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression." After Gov. Bradford's establishment of what Obama calls "you're-on-your-own economics," harvests were so bountiful that Bradford is credited with establishing what we now call Thanksgiving.
There are several seemingly immutable, hard-wired characteristics about humans that socialists, liberals and progressives find difficult to deal with and would like to change. People tend to work harder and produce more when they own what they produce. Property is better cared for when it is privately owned. People love to exchange, what Adam Smith called a "propensity to truck (and) barter." To suppress these characteristics requires brute force.
President Obama also told the Washington Hilton crowd that "we are not a country that was built on the idea of survival of the fittest." Obama is not by himself, but "survival of the fittest" is one of the greatest misunderstandings of Charles Darwin's pathbreaking work "On the Origin of Species." When Obama and most other people use the expression "survival of the fittest," they suggest that a bunch of people or animals are competing with one another and the strongest, smartest or cleverest survives. That's not what Darwin and evolutionary biologists have in mind. Instead, what they have in mind is that those who survive have characteristics that make them better-equipped to survive and hence reproduce themselves in a particular environment. They are not laying waste to their competitors.
Let's try a few survival of the fittest questions. Which companies do you think should survive and expand, those that can meet the changing wants of their customers in a least-cost fashion or those that cannot do so? If the means of communication become cheaper through fax machines, the Internet and telephones, should subsidies be expended to help the U.S. Postal Service survive? Years ago, typing was done on a mechanical typewriter; milk was delivered to doorsteps via horse and wagon; slide rules were used to make calculations. Should any of these products and practices have survived, or was it OK for natural selection to consign them to the dustbin of history?
Try cornering the president or his supporters, and ask them whether they believe government should ensure that the unfit survive and rather than "you're-on-your-own economics" there should be "you're-on-somebody-else economics."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6)Palestinian Media Watch is an organization whose stated mission is to monitor, translate and disseminate all forms of media broadcast by the Palestinian Authority. These translations, videos and transcriptions showcase a steady stream of virulent anti-Semitic and anti-Western sentiment, often with direct calls for physical violence.
Many believe PMW offers a valuable service as it provides key insights into the way the PA thinks and operates. Now, however, for at least the second time, PMW's YouTube service has been disrupted after the watchdog group uploaded a vitriolic Fatah video in which Jewish people are referred to as "descendants of apes and pigs" and the PA Mufti Muhammad Hussein calls on Palestinians to "kill the Jews" no matter what "rock or tree" they "hide" behind.
Of course, the hate speech and calls for violence do not come directly from PMW. PMW merely translates and disseminates what was already produced and broadcast by the PA.
YouTube administrators have deemed the most recent upload as "innaproriate," and have subsequently removed the video from its site and frozen PMW's user account. This is not the fist timeYouTube has taken such actions against PMW and the exact reasons are unclear. Some critics say YouTube has bowed to pressure from Islamic special interest groups.
An article published on the PMW website explains:
In response to yesterday's PMW video-bulletin which showed the PA Mufti's speech that Muslims' destiny is to kill Jews, YouTube has frozen PMW's account. All PMW videos are working except this one but the account is frozen and PMW cannot upload new videos for the next two weeks.We have uploaded the video to a different server and it can now again be viewed from PMW's website.
The video that YouTube is calling "inappropriate" exposed the Palestinian Authority Mufti citing the Islamic tradition (Hadith) that anticipates Muslims' killing Jews as a precursor to the Hour of Resurrection. The Jews are also called the "descendants of the apes and pigs" by a Fatah moderator at the event.
The Blaze, through PMW, has obtained the video depicting the PA Mufti's call for murder which aired on PA TV (Fatah), January 9, 2012. The translation follows below:
Moderator at Fatah ceremony:
"Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs (i.e., Jews)
is a war of religion and faith.
Long Live Fatah! [I invite you,] our honorable Sheikh."
PA Mufti Muhammad Hussein:
"47 years ago the [Fatah] revolution started. Which revolution? The modern revolution of the Palestinian people's history. In fact, Palestine in its entirety is a revolution, since [Caliph] Umar came [to conquer Jerusalem, 637 CE], and continuing today, and until the End of Days. The reliable Hadith (tradition attributed to Muhammad), [found] in the two reliable collections, Bukhari and Muslim, says:
"The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews.
The Jew will hide behind stones or trees.
Then the stones or trees will call:
'Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'
Except the Gharqad tree [which will keep silent]."
Therefore it is no wonder that you see Gharqad [trees]
surrounding the [Israeli] settlements and colonies.."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment