The Government Union Right to Viagra is Bankrupting You

The Government Union Right to Viagra is Bankrupting You: "

According to the liberal version of events, the ongoing fight in Wisconsin between Gov. Scott Walker (R) and government unions centered on the unions’ “right” to collective bargain for wages and benefits. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, there simply is no “right” to collective bargaining. And just what are the “benefits” that government unions use their collective bargaining privileges to take from taxpayers? Today, The Washington Post reports on Montgomery County, Maryland’s very similar budget troubles:

At a time when public employees unions are fighting for their lives elsewhere in the United States, the munificence of Montgomery’s benefits package was captured in an e-mail this month notifying workers, in the understated prose of a Q&A fact sheet, that “the County will no longer cover the cost of purchasing medications used to treat erectile dysfunction (ED).” …  Officials said ending the ED benefit for county government employees, retirees and their families would save $400,000 a year.

Forcing taxpayers to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for government union Viagra is not unique to Montgomery County. In fact, the very same government unions that were demanding their “right” to collective bargaining in Wisconsin have repeatedly fought for their “right” to Viagra as well:

In 2002, through collective bargaining, Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association won the inclusion of Viagra in its members’ health plans, and by 2004, 10% of union membership (which isn’t a male-dominated set) was subscribing to the benefit — at a cost of more than $200,000 per year to the Milwaukee school district. Not until 2005 was the school district finally able to convince an arbitrator to drop the coverage.

Last year, while the school district faced a $10 million budget shortfall, the MTEA decided it was time to revisit those drug benefits and filed a lawsuit demanding their reintroduction to union health plans—at a projected cost of $786,000 in 2010.

It may look like the union trying to raise costs for taxpayers, but MTEA spokeswoman Kristin Collett insists that it’s really a matter of fundamental rights: “this is an issue of discrimination, of equal rights for all our members.”

Of course, there is no “right” to Viagra, just as there is no “right” to collective bargaining. All Americans do have a First Amendment right of freedom of association. But that does not mean that unions have any right to force their government employers to sign exclusive contracts benefiting their members at the cost of taxpayers. And those costs are real. Government unions are so powerful in Montgomery County that politicians give campaign contributions to the union, not the other way around. The result? Montgomery Country faces a $608 million deficit this year and structural deficits looking far into the future. And what is the driving force of Montgomery County’s structural deficits? Government union benefits like Viagra. According to the Montgomery County Office of Legislative Oversight:

Between FY02 and FY11, the primary driver behind higher personnel costs was not an increase in the size of the workforce but rather the increase in average costs per employee. Across the four agencies, employee salaries grew by 50% in the aggregate and by higher amounts (up to 80%) for individual employees, while the costs of health and retirement/pension benefits increased upwards of 120%. In FY11, the combined agency cost of employee benefits is almost $740 million, or 22% of all spending.

And remember, that 22% of all spending is just for employee benefits. According to the same report, 82% of all tax supported Montgomery County spending goes to employee compensation.

"

Home of the Free

Home of the Free: "

land of the bussed

[/The right to freedom of assembly]

Marin County, the affluent Bay Area community outside of San Francisco, is too white, says the Feds. …

The draft report, released Wednesday, came in response to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s determination that Marin had “failed to comply” with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and two other anti-discrimination statutes.

Marin’s Community Development Agency recommended amending zoning regulations to ease the construction of new apartments, passing new laws requiring new developments to offer housing at below-market rates, and stepping up programs to combat discrimination by landlords and realtors.

…Marin County resident, Nancy Reed, says that something is wrong with the racial make-up of Marin County. “I pick up my grand son, I take him to school. I see maybe four Latino children there, and one African American–two maybe…that’s–something’s wrong…why they’re [the county officials] not doing more? Now they have to be forced to do more.”

I’m confused. Are they talking about poor people or people of other races? OR are they implying [raaaacist] that all people of color are, by definition, poor?

The suit [by GA's Legislative Black Caucus] seeks to dissolve Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, Milton, Chattahoochee Hills and Johns Creek. The caucus said state lawmakers broke the 1965 Voting Rights Act to create super-majority white voting areas.

wait… Isn’t the Legislative Black Caucus a super-majority black outfit?

"

Charlie Sheen Gives Washington a Lesson in Fiscal Responsibility

Charlie Sheen Gives Washington a Lesson in Fiscal Responsibility: "

Maybe the lawmakers in Congress can pick up tips from the Rockstar from Mars. Charlie Sheen doesn’t exactly epitomize responsibility, but even he knows how to live within his means.

Sheen earned about $30 million last year and spent just around half that sum, according to a new video by Bankrupting America. Congress, by comparison, brought in $2.3 trillion in taxes — but spent $3.6 trillion, one and a half times the amount received.

Thanks to the government’s virtually nonstop spending, the nation has a debt burden of $14 trillion — or $130,000 per household. With that money, American families could buy eight years’ worth of housing, 17 years of transportation or 20 years of food.

That doesn’t even begin to address interest costs. This year, the United States will pay $200 billion in interest alone. By the time Justin Bieber is old enough to rent a car, the government will pay $1 trillion in interest every year. Over the next 10 years, interest will cost the country about $50,000 per household.

Clearly, to borrow a term from Charlie Sheen, no one is “winning” in this scenario. And the biggest losers are younger Americans — the Debt-Paying Generation, which stands to suffer the most from Washington’s reckless spending spree. The 115 million Americans between the ages of 5 and 30 will marry later, have fewer children, poorer health and lower incomes — all because of the trillions in debt from government spending and entitlement programs.

"

madness, insanity, live in profanity

madness, insanity, live in profanity: "

There is much truth to the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Warning: what you will see below is not safe…for anyone. But it explains a great many things, and is therefore important to share.

Finish your assignment! »

On the right? That’s Kathy Griffin. Topless. I took the liberty of censoring it, I hope you won’t mind.

On the left? Well, that’s collateral damage.

Agent Bedhead

"

Online retail 'speed sale' is stressful as hell

Online retail 'speed sale' is stressful as hell: "

Here's a peculiar sales tactic—stress out your customers by giving them just seconds to decide on discounted items, or they lose the price forever. DDB Stockholm designed just such a 'speed sale' for Swedish online retailer Papercut (the same agency-client tandem that brought you the bus-stop ad with the penis). Click through to SpeedSale.se to see it in action. Items fly onto the screen, one after the other. For each one, you have four seconds to decide whether you want to buy it—as insane music pumps up your blood pressure further. If you fail to act, the item is swept away, and the price is gone forever. DDB is under no illusions that anyone will actually enjoy this experience. 'Forget about time-limited offers of the golden days. Welcome to the Papercut Speed Shopping STRESS Hell,' the creative director says in an email to us. Enjoyable or not, the gaming aspect is pretty cool and will surely be a hit among a certain segment. Imagine if Amazon.com did this. It would be a runaway success, if only for the novelty factor.

"

Iran’s End Times Documentary

Iran’s End Times Documentary: "

The Iranian government has produced a bone-chilling documentary that claims that Ayatollah Khamenei, President Ahmadinejad, and Hassan Nasrallah are talked about in Islamic prophecy as leaders who will wage war to bring about the arrival of the Hidden Imam, which the film says is “very close” to happening.

Reza Kahlili, a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who spied for the CIA and authored A Time to Betray last year, procured the entire film and says it was created by close associates of Ahmadinejad and was shown to top clerics two weeks ago. His chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, is said to have played a role in its creation. Kahlili allowed FrontPage to view a shortened version of the film over the weekend, which he says the Iranian regime intends to distribute to mosques and Islamic centers throughout the region with an Arabic translation and is currently being shown to members of the Revolutionary Guards and Basiji.

The purpose of the film is to make the case that Iran is prophetically destined to lead the war against Islam’s enemies, which is as a prelude to the appearance of the Hidden Imam, also called the Mahdi, who brings the final victory for Islam and reigns over the whole world. It uses current events to argue that “the final chapter has begun” and the Mahdi’s arrival is imminent. Most disturbingly, it teaches that Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah are the individuals prophesied to make this happen.

The documentary claims that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is the Seyed Khorasani talked about in the Hadith that leads a nation in the East (Iran) as “the preparer” for the Mahdi’s intervention. In July 2010, a senior Iranian cleric revealed that Khamenei had told close associates that he had privately met with the Mahdi and was told that he’d arrive before his time as Supreme Leader ends. Khamenei is 71 years old and widely understood to be in poor health, so the grand jihad that Khamenei believes he must command must come soon.

President Ahmadinejad is an End Times character named Shoeib-Ebne Saleh, the film states. He is appointed as the commander-in-chief by Seyed Khorasani (Ayatollah Khamenei).  The speaker in the film says that this individual will “move” 72 months prior to the arrival of the Mahdi and will lead the recapturing of Jerusalem on “the threshold of the Coming.” It is unclear if “move” means a physical action by Ahmadinejad or if it means his coming to power in 2005. If it is the latter, then the regime believes the Mahdi is to appear by the end of this year.

Also mentioned is military commander called Yamani, who is to form the army of the Mahdi that will march to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. The film teaches that this is the leader of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. These three prophesied Islamic leaders are to wage a war against the “Antichrist” and “the imposters,” which are said to be the United States, Israel and their allies, including Arab leaders. The current uprisings in the Arab world are viewed as the fulfillment of prophecy and confirmation that they are to wage this final war against the enemies of Islam.

"

Time Lapse Auroras Over Norway

Time Lapse Auroras Over Norway: "

Sometimes, after your eyes adapt to the dark, a spectacular sky appears.

"

Milky Way Cake

Milky Way Cake: "I have had this recipe for over 30 years. It was given to me  at my wedding shower by a dear, sweet little old lady with the warning: “Never cut a piece of this cake without saying a prayer first…to ask the good Lord for restraint” ! She was a very wise woman.   So, remember than [...]"

“Drill, Brazil, Drill,” Obama Says

“Drill, Brazil, Drill,” Obama Says: "

It took them a week and a half, but The Washington Post editorial board has finally noted the absurdity of President Barack Obama’s support for oil drilling … in other countries. From today’s paper:

When was the last time an American president stood before an audience in a foreign country and announced that he looked forward to importing more of its oil? Answer: Just over a week ago, when President Obama joined political and business leaders in Brasilia in hailing the fact that their newly discovered offshore petroleum reserves might be twice as large as those in the United States. Americans “want to help with technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers,” Mr. Obama said.

…

As for offshore drilling, Mr. Obama’s enthusiasm for punching holes in the ocean floor off Brazil is hard to reconcile with his decision, announced Dec. 1, to keep the waters off the East and West coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico off-limits to exploration indefinitely. His policy was a reversal of an earlier decision he had made to open some of those areas. We can understand that reversal, after the massive oil spill in the western Gulf last year. And, demonstrating a measure of flexibility even after the disaster, the administration has announced five deep-water drilling permits in the western Gulf since the spill.

Heritage analysts Nicolas Loris and John Ligon have detailed just how much energy President Obama is leaving undeveloped here in the United States:

* Access onshore and offshore: At least 19 billion barrels of easily recoverable oil lie off the currently restricted Pacific and Atlantic coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Another 19 billion barrels estimated to be in the Chukchi Sea off the Alaskan coast are inaccessible because of onerous regulations, such as acquiring air-quality permits. The U.S. Environmental Appeals Board invalidated the Environmental Protection Agency’s permit approval for that area after appeals from environmental groups. Another obvious and senseless restriction is in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil lie beneath a few thousand acres that can be accessed with minimal environmental impact. Those 10 billion barrels are equivalent to 16 years’ worth of imports from Saudi Arabia at the current rate.

* Access to oil shale: According to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management, there are 800 billion barrels (a moderate estimate) of recoverable oil from oil shale in the Green River Formation, which goes through Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. This is three times greater than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. While the technology is still developing and environmental considerations need to be taken into account, the Administration should not create onerous restrictions stifling commercial investment in research and technology that would make the process economically viable and safe for the environment.

"

Morning Bell: What Would Democrats Cut?

Morning Bell: What Would Democrats Cut?: "

As a third temporary spending bill expires next week, the attention of Capitol Hill will once again be focused on producing a permanent spending bill to keep the federal government open and operating. The threat of a government shutdown would not exist had the Democratically controlled 111th Congress passed a budget for this fiscal year. In fact, not only did they fail to pass a budget, but for the for the first time in the history of the budget-making process, last year’s Congress failed to even vote on a budget. And now, even as the consequences of their failure are just days a way, the Democrats have still failed to agree on a plan that cuts spending.

Thirty-eight days ago, on February 19, the House of Representatives passed a budget that would keep the federal government open for the rest of this fiscal year. Responding to the overwhelming mandate from the American people delivered last November to cut federal spending, that House budget cut $61 billion in spending from 2010 levels. The Democrats then produced a plan that they said “cut spending,” but even The Washington Post Fact Checker found no real cuts.

And they will not even go on record identifying which cuts in the House’s bill they are willing to accept. The Post explains why: “Such a move would force Democrats to go on record defending programs that Republicans had identified as wasteful.”

It is understandable why the Senate is so afraid to offer its own spending plan. When the President offered his own budget for next year, he claimed that it would produce only a $7.2 trillion deficit over the next 10 years. At the time, we predicted that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) would produce vastly different numbers, since the President’s proposal included audaciously hopeful economic forecasts and fake spending cuts. Sure enough, on March 18 the CBO scored the President’s budget as causing $9.5 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years. That is more debt than the federal government accumulated from 1789 to 2010 combined. Heritage analyst Brian Riedl surveys the damage:

These large deficits will persist because the President’s steep tax hikes cannot keep up with his runaway spending. Relative to the historical averages (which were also pre-recession levels), President Obama would raise taxes by 1.3 percent of GDP yet increase spending by 4 percent of GDP. The main drivers of runaway spending—surging Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs—would not be reformed at all. Accordingly, the annual cost of interest on the national debt would quadruple.

…

Under President Obama’s budget proposal, taxpayers would see large tax increases, bigger government, and slower economic growth. The President who declared that “I didn’t come here to pass our problems on to the next President or the next generation—I’m here to solve them” would, over the next decade, drop an additional $80,000 per household in debt onto the laps of our children and grandchildren.

The White House spent all of 2010 deflecting criticism about its deficit spending by pointing to the President’s debt commission. Then when the commission finally produced a report that included actual spending cuts, the White House couldn’t run from it fast enough. Congressional Democrats have no plan to cut government this year, next year, or any year. Conservatives should hold firm to their $61 billion in cuts and force Democrats to produce their own spending cut plan.

Quick Hits:

• Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that Libya did not pose a threat to the United States before the U.S. began its military campaign and was not a vital national interest.


• President Obama’s war in Libya could continue for months, Obama Administration officials admitted yesterday.


• Libyan rebel commander Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi has admitted that his fighters have al-Qaeda links and fought against allied troops in Iraq.


• Last week, Obama Administration officials locked a designated pool reporter in a closet, preventing him from covering a $500-a-head fundraiser featuring Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bill Nelson (D–FL).


• Billions in secret earmarks remain tucked into the funding measure that would keep the federal government running for the remainder of the fiscal year.

"

feel good story of the day week month

feel good story of the day week month: "

Courtesy of the perpetually awesome Soylent Green, a story to warm the cockles of your coal-black hearts. Eco-hippies get a little too big for their britches and decide to invade a Scottish coal mine, and, well…hilarity ensues:

Fiona Reed who was at Mainshill said: “We were attacked from the minute we entered the site. At no point were we confrontational or threatening, we just wanted to do the action safely so that no one got hurt. First of all huge dump trucks were deliberately driven at us and tried to box us in, then the excavator driver swung the machine’s bucket at us, blatantly disregarding all health and safety rules. Most deaths and accidents that occur on opencasts are because of how dangerous these dump trucks are. A lot of people’s lives were put at risk. We were then pounced on by workers and site security who punched us in the head repeatedly, threw us to the ground and kicked us in the back. They also stole our video camera.”

Jim Slater, another activist at the site said: “We were all threatened with being stabbed by a worker, and the people on the machine were told by an operations manager that as soon as the support had gone they were going to get beaten up. The site manager Steve Griffiths watched all this happen and was totally indifferent to it. Security has no right whatsoever to act like that.”

The real world is populated by real men and doesn’t give a tin damn about your butthurt, kid.

Scotsmen, takin’ care of business.

"

so much for the First Amendment

so much for the First Amendment: "

Do not, repeat: NOT raise your fist to the American people

unless you can live with a bloody stump.

Media Media Matters to Launch Campaign of ‘Guerrilla Warfare and Sabotage’ Against Fox News

“The strategy that we had had toward Fox was basically a strategy of containment,” said David Brock, the founder of Media Matters. Now the strategy of the liberal group has changed. The new strategy is “war on Fox.”

Politico reports that Brock’s guerilla war against Fox is almost assuming the strategy of grassroots political activism:

The group, launched as a more traditional media critic, has all but abandoned its monitoring of newspapers and other television networks and is narrowing its focus to Fox and a handful of conservative websites, which its leaders view as political organizations and the “nerve center” of the conservative movement. The shift reflects the centrality of the cable channel to the contemporary conservative movement, as well as the loathing it inspires among liberals — not least among the donors who fund Media Matters’ staff of about 90, who are arrayed in neat rows in a giant war room above Massachusetts Avenue.

Brock plans to hire an opposition research team in its campaign against Fox News, showing that Media Matters is shifting its focus from media criticism to political activism, as Politico’s Ben Smith notes. [more]

This is an act of repression, pure and simple, Gestapoism, brown/black-shirtery, Red-Guardism, naked suppression of dissent, a betrayal of American liberty.

If Soros can be shown to be behind it, he needs to be hanged as the revolutionary, seditionist, and traitor he is.

If Obama allows this outrage to continue with his party’s funding and participation, he will have dropped any pretense of loyalty to the US Constitution, America, or its citizens. He will have become the enemy of us whom he has called his “enemies.” He will have officially become a tyrant worthy of impeachment, our only recourse according to the Constitution.

Barry, don’t make us consider the Constitution merely a “living document” to be interpreted at will. Without that honest and faithful contract that millions of us have sworn a sacred oath to uphold, your government is illegitimate, and free men will fall back on the authority of the Declaration … and of Nature’s law.

Remember, Barry, the Rubicon was only a stream.



We’ve come to Barry Caesar, not to praise him.

Don’t turn the Tea Party into a Toga Party.

"

Word of Wisdom and a Sports Analogy

Word of Wisdom and a Sports Analogy: "In a very realistic dream last night, I was with a missionary who was teaching a highly educated couple about the Word of Wisdom. They sincerely asked how God could be unhappy with them for drinking coffee. It's a fair question, especially with scientific evidence that coffee might have a variety of positive health effects (jury is always out on the impact of any one food or drink: positive effects in one area might be outweighed by harms in others, and much remains to be understood). It reminded me of an investigator I had in Switzerland who loved the Church but loved her coffee just a wee bit more, and stuck with this rhetorical question: 'Why would the Lord reject me over a cup of coffee?'

The answer, of course (IF the Word of Wisdom really was given by revelation), is why would we let our love for coffee come before the Lord? Why would we reject Him for such a trivial thing? It's a matter of faith, of course, that depends on recognizing Joseph Smith as a prophet. Once we suspect that may be the case, it's still fair or at least natural to ask about some of the details of the Word of Wisdom. Most of it is now understood to be very wise. But for all we know, the ban on coffee and tea in the LDS Word of Wisdom could be an arbitrary test of faith. Perhaps it could have been toast and jam, deep-fried fish. or ice cream and chocolate (heaven forbid!). An inconvenient and unpopular dietary restriction as a test of faith, perhaps?

In the dream, I tried to find a way to help the couple understand the role of the Word of Wisdom. There were two disconnected concepts that followed. One was the image of people with a chain hanging from their wrist. It looked like a symbol of slavery, as many may view our dietary restrictions. Then a group of people with the chains stood in a circle and started spinning around, the loose end of the chain extending outward. The chains now were weapons that kept enemies away from the group. Kind of weird, but I guess that's a fair to look at the Word of Wisdom, especially the restrictions on alcohol, tobacco, and harmful drugs, and the emphasis on a healthy diet.

The other concept in the dream, or in a waking moment after it, was that of a coach training his team. There are all sorts of rules that a coach may impose on team members, from 'give me 50 push-ups now!' to numerous details of daily diet and exercise. Some of what he asks may be arbitrary and not all that helpful, but the journey of obedience and discipline is a valuable one aimed at taking his team to a higher level of success. If the Lord is our coach, we don't have to insist that He provide scientific evidence backing each aspect of His recommended dietary regimen. The discipline itself is part of the journey to excellence, not to mention obedience.

Someday we may understand the Word of Wisdom with more clarity. For now, though, it's such a minor thing we're asked to do--what a pity if we let that stand between us and the Lord.

Did either of these concepts help in teaching that couple? I'll let you know after the next installment in my dream series, if the sequel gets played.

"

Schumer to Boehner: Dump the tea party

Schumer to Boehner: Dump the tea party: "

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has issued an unlikely challenge to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio): Drop the tea party.



Prominent tea-party-aligned lawmakers, including Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) and House Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), have come out against a short-term spending bill proposed by Boehner and other House GOP leaders.



And Schumer, who oversees the messaging shop for Senate Democrats, says those lawmakers are standing in the way of a long-term bipartisan compromise on the budget.



“These Republicans’ decision to abandon the three-week proposal negotiated by their own party’s leadership suggests that tea party lawmakers are unwilling to accept anything short of the extreme cuts in the House budget, even if it risks a shutdown,” Schumer said in a statement.



“It is becoming clear that the path to a bipartisan budget deal may not go through the tea party at all,” he added. “In order to avert a shutdown, Speaker Boehner should consider leaving the tea party behind and instead seek a consensus in the House among moderate Republicans and a group of Democrats.”

"

Isaac and Ishmael: How Muslims Think about Israel, in a Nutshell

Isaac and Ishmael: How Muslims Think about Israel, in a Nutshell: "

OnIslam, which is a breakaway website from Islam Online, has a fatwa section where someone recently asked this:

Can you answer the question why the Palestinians and the Israelis have been fighting for so long? What is it all about? Why do they seem to hate each other so much? Is it related to the Catholic/Protestant faith, Judaism and Islam?

The answer given is very illuminating.

It illustrates why real peace is impossible: because the other side doesn’t even know the basic facts about Judaism, Zionism and Israel. It is simply not possible to reach an agreement when one side’s entire conception of the others is, simply, filled with lies.

Here is the first part of the answer:

In the Bible, in the Book of Genesis there is a verse which reads:

“And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” (Gen. 17:8)

You can read this verse in the Jewish Book called Torah also. Here Jehovah is addressing Abraham, the Patriarch. Because Jehovah (God) was pleased with Abraham, He wishes to give the children (“seed”) of Abraham the Land of Canaan as an everlasting possession.

It is the present Palestine that is meant by the Land of Canaan. The Jews interpret the expression “thy seed” to mean the people who later came to be known as the Children of Israel.

Israel was the second son of Isaac; and Isaac was the second son of Abraham. Jews argue that they are the people to whom God or Jehovah gave Palestine as an everlasting possession, that is because they claim to be the Children of Abraham through Isaac.

But here they ignore Ishmael, the first son of Abraham, and his children. (The Arabs are the Children of Ishmael). They deny the right of Ishmael saying that he was the son of a slave woman Hajar, whereas Isaac was the son of a free woman, Sarah.

In fact, in the Torah itself it is clearly stated that the firstborn should get double portion of his father’s share, even when his mother has a lower status. Read the verse in the Book of Deuteronomy of the Old Testament of the Bible and the Torah:

“If a man has two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: but he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.” (Deut. 21: 15 to 17)

You find here two rules:

1. Of the wealth of the father, the eldest son should get double portion;

2. If the eldest son happens to be the son of a hated woman (hated for some reason such as her lower status), his double share should not be refused to him, on that account.

This simple rule of the Torah is ignored by the Jews here, when they argue that Ishmael should not get his right.

What I mean here is that even if we appeal to the Torah, the Jewish religious book, the Jews have no exclusive right to the Land of Palestine. The fun of the matter is that the Christians of the world, with the exception of the Palestinian Christians, have accepted the claims of the Jews, even when their own Bible is against it.

And all the modern secular states of the so-called civilized world accept the claims made by Israel on the basis of a book at least 2,000 years old, in order to deny the birthright of a people who have no other land but Palestine.

Don’t you love when Muslims tell Jews how to interpret the Torah?

The “scholar” answering the question obviously ignores what God said a mere ten verses later:

And Abraham said unto God: ‘Oh that Ishmael might live before Thee!’ And God said: ‘Nay, but Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son; and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee; behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But My covenant will I establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.’

This is all besides the many sections where God promises the Land to Isaac, Jacob, and the Children of Israel. By cherry-picking one verse, and mis-characterizing an irrelevant biblical section later, the writer is simply lying about what the Torah says. (And even according to him, Jews should have one-third of the land from the Nile to the Euphrates–so Israel better start picking up more land!)

Then he goes on to say:

We must also understand that the present day Israelis are mostly European Jews who have migrated to Palestine. They have settled there ousting the original people, massacring them, or making them refugees in their own land.

Probably about half of Israelis are descended from ancestors who lives in Arab lands. No one counts, because it really doesn’t matter, except to racists.

You know that the Jews were a tribe of hunted people in the whole of the Christian world; because they were considered to be the murderers of Jesus. In all European cities, they were confined to the dirty areas in the suburbs, called the ghetto.

The Jews were treated like animals and they were not allowed any rights by the Christian countries. In fact the Jews were given the freedom to live as citizens only in the Arab Islamic world. It is here that you can see the most horrible instance of ingratitude, in the way the present day Jews reward the Muslims for the consideration they used to get.

The persecution of Jews in Christendom reached a terrible level during the Second World War in Germany. Hitler and his Nazi Party killed thousands of Jews in Concentration Camps.

Thousands? Well, let him explain:

This incident in the history of the world is usually called the Holocaust. (The Jews of today have made the Holocaust look far more terrible than it really was; just to get the sympathy of the world so that they will be excused for the Palestinian Holocaust. But there is nobody to call the plight of the Palestinians a Holocaust, even though the conditions are comparable).

Ah, I see. A few thousand Jews were killed by the Nazis–fewer than the number of Palestinian Arabs killed by Jews!

At the end of the Second World War, Britain promised the Jews a state in Palestine, because they wanted to rid Europe of the curse of the Jews for one thing and they wanted to keep a promise they had given to the Jews while fighting the Nazis.

Balfour just disappeared into thin air!

The whole project of Israel was the scheme of a group of (chiefly European) Jews called Zionists.

In the World War II, Germans were fighting against the Allies (i.e. Great Britain, the US, France, etc.). Since the Jews were the most persecuted people in Germany, they (i.e. the European Jews) helped the Allies in the war.

By this time Jews had started their Zionist movement. Zionists demanded a reward from the Allies for their role in the fight against Hitler; and the Allies offered the Arab land of Palestine to the Jews for their state. Towards the end of the WW II, Jews from Europe started coming openly and secretly to Palestine which was under the British rule.

There are more lies here than I can count. European Jews were a little too busy trying to avoid being slaughtered to be able to help much in the Allied war effort, but guess who did?

Zionist Jews from Palestine! You know, the ones who weren’t there before WWII ended.

In 1947, there were about 1.3 million Arabs in all of Palestine. By 1949, about 750,000 Palestinian Arabs were living in squalid refugee camps, set up virtually overnight in territories adjacent to Israel’s borders.

About 300,000 lived in the Gaza Strip… Another 450,000 became unwelcome residents of the West Bank of the Jordan. There were many Arabs living in Israel as citizens. But the new state was bent on facilitating the growth of the Jewish nation at the expense of Arab rights.

OK, let’s think about this. According to this article, there were 750,000 Palestinian Arabs who ended up in….the West Bank and Gaza, which is in– Palestine!

So why didn’t they make their state then? Why were they considered unwelcome in Jordan when Jordan is the only state that gave them citizenship?

You can read the whole thing to see how false this “history” is. But as bizarre as it is, it points to the fundamental problem: you cannot negotiate with people who are so far removed from the truth, and who are so willing to lie, brazenly and without fear.

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Let’s Drag This Out In the Sunshine

Let’s Drag This Out In the Sunshine: "

srsly. gives me pause.

Original TheBlaze post”

[Steve Lerner, formerly of SEIU] And so there are actually extraordinary things that we could do right now that would start to de, destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement.

…And so the question would be, what would happen if we organized homeowners in mass to do a mortgage strike. Just say if we get, and, and, if we get half a million people to agree, we’ll all not, we’ll agree we won’t pay our mortgages, it would literally cause a new financial crisis.

…The folks that control this country care about one thing: how the stock market does; how the bond market does; and what their bonus is. So I think we weed out a very simple strategy: how do we bring down the stock market, how do we bring down their bonuses, how do we interfere with their ability to, to be rich. And if we don’t do, and that means you have to politically isolate them, economically isolate them and disrupt them.

…Yes. …connect three ideas – that we’re not broke, there’s plenty of money; they have the money, we need to get it back; and that they’re using Bloomberg and other people in government as the vehicle to try to destroy us. And so that we need to take on those folks at the same time and that will start here.

Original BusinessInsider post:

The plan is designed to destroy JP Morgan, nuke the stock market, and weaken Wall Street’s grip on power, thus creating the conditions necessary for a redistribution of wealth and a change in government.

Video here

letter sent from Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting investigation here

Ezra Klein’s take

Whatcha think? Any economic insights? Any viable alternative plans for those holding vulnerable assets in their 401K, etc… Any pools as to the over/under on Holder investigating this as “economic terrorism?” At all?

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The ARTHUR Awkward Wedding Contest

The ARTHUR Awkward Wedding Contest: "

It’s “the big one”– the day we commit to spending the rest of our lives with that special someone. Well, with that kind of pressure comes lot of awkward moments and fortunately, the wedding photographer is there to capture them all. In honor of the new comedy Arthur, in theaters April 8th, we are proud to announce the “Awkward Wedding Photo Contest.” That’s right– we want to see the most uncomfortable pics from your engagement or wedding day.

Mind Blowing Fantasy Wallpapers by Korogan

Mind Blowing Fantasy Wallpapers by Korogan: "

Every so often, we feature an artist here at PresidiaCreative, and today, we’ve decided to feature korogan, an amazing digital manipulator and wallpaper artist.

Here are 22 mind blowing fantasy wallpapers from korogan.

Enjoy!

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