Off To Alaska...

Faithful readers (if you like) can take some time to review missed posts. If you click on any "Label" under a post, you will go to all posts so labeled.

Will return early June.

Obama Is No Moses

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He's no Charlton Heston either.




Thanks to Michael Ramirez.

San Remo Resolution: Israel's "Magna Carta"

Surely not too many people are familiar with the 1920 San Remo Resolution, in which the world powers, after Wold War I, transferred exclusive legal rights to the Land of Israel to the Jewish people. If you're one of those people, please watch this short video from a conference last year in San Remo marking the 90th anniversary of the original San Remo Conference. The video was posted today by Caroline Glick on her website.

The legal borders of Israel under international law

If you have any Arab friends, neighbors, or acquaintances, please forward this post to them.

Thomas Sowell: Economic Facts and Fallacies, Parts 4 & 5

About Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell has studied and taught economics, intellectual history, and social policy at institutions that include Cornell, UCLA, and Amherst. Now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Sowell has published more than a dozen books. His most recent book is a revised and expanded second edition of Economic Facts and Fallacies.


Here are parts 4 & 5 of his interview with Peter Robinson of The Hoover Institution about the second edition of his best selling book: Economic Facts and Fallacies.

Part 4

http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=NzdlNjA3YjU0Mjg1Y2RhYzUwYjAxYzQ0ZDRmYzk3ZDU=

Part 5

http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MTk0ZTNhMTljYTJhMTBmNDY2Yjc0N2JlYTg5ODRkMWM=

Sundays are for Beauty: Tine Thing Helseth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMWM9xoRRT0

That's Tine Thing Helseth from Norway playing the Neruda Trumpet Concerto, composed by Johann Baptist Georg Neruda.

Tine has been featured on this Blog before playing the Haydn Trumpet Concerto and the Hummel Trumpet Concerto.


Have a Beautiful Sunday.

Vortex: The Eschaton

Dear Friend in Christ,

At the end of our time .. each of us will be in Heaven or Hell. That's it .. pure fact. HOW MANY will be saved has been a question for a long time. Please watch this episode of The Vortex and pass it along to as many friends and family as possible.

http://www.youtube.com/user/RealCatholicTV?feature=mhee#p/u/0/GCf8C1Xcpds

GOD Bless you and your loved ones,

Michael Voris
~senior executive producer, RealCatholicTV.com

A History Lesson for BHO From Bibi

Daniel Halper of The Weekly Standard Blog just posted a video of the remarks of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the White House today, commenting on yesterday's speech by President Obama during which he called for Israel to return to the 1967 borders. Sorry, Mr. President, that's a non-starter - and here's why (watch the video):

Israeli PM Netanyahu Responds to Obama | The Weekly Standard

Thomas Sowell: Economic Facts and Fallacies, Part 3

http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MGZmMTIwYzY2OWQxNjhhNGY1NGQ5NzRjZDFkYTc4YmM=


About Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell has studied and taught economics, intellectual history, and social policy at institutions that include Cornell, UCLA, and Amherst. Now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Sowell has published more than a dozen books. His most recent book is a revised and expanded second edition of Economic Facts and Fallacies.

Caroline Glick: Obama's Abandonment of America

Caroline Glick is having none of the fancy rhetoric spewed forth from the POTUS teleprompter yesterday. Obama's speech helped her recover quickly from being sick enough to miss her regular column for The Jerusalem Post. It's a wonder it didn't make her a lot sicker.

Here's a small clip, but please read the whole article; it's not long.

Obama went on to say that the Arabs have good reason to hate the US and that it is up to the US to put its national interests aside in the interest of making them like America. As he put it, "a failure to change our approach threatens a deepening spiral of division between the United States and Muslim communities."

And you know what that means. If the US doesn't end the "spiral of division," (sounds sort of like "spiral of violence" doesn't it?), then the Muslims will come after America. So the US better straighten up and fly right.

And how does it do that? Well, by courting the Muslim Brotherhood which spawned Al Qaeda, Hamas, Jamma Islamiya and a number of other terror groups and is allies with Hezbollah.


http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/05/obamas-abandonment-of-america.php

Diversity vs Assimilation

That's Bruce S. Thornton. He's a professor in the classical studies program at California State University Fresno. His latest book is The Wages of Appeasement: Ancient Athens, Munich, and Obama’s America.

In a recent article (below) he wrote for City Journal, he shows how the lack of assimilation (a by-product of multiculturalism) has wrecked the state of California where he is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Classics and Humanities at California State University Fresno. Of course California is not the only state that has been hurt badly by a lack of assimilation encouraged by those among us who rank "diversity" above performance. Remember Army Chief of Staff George Casey after the Ft. Hood massacre during which a lone radical Muslim Army Major (Nidal Malik Hasan) killed 12 and wounded 31? "Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse." One wonders whether General Casey ever considered the possibility that had "our diversity" become a "casualty" prior to November 5, 2009, the 43 casualties that actually took place that day at Ft. Hood might have been averted.

Imagine if we had a department of education (which we did not) when this country was being built by immigrants who were coming here for a better life from all points of the globe. By now we would make the Balkans look like Mister Rogers' neighborhood in comparison. Fortunately for us, those early immigrants counted themselves lucky to be able to assimilate, and the first order of priority for them was to learn our language while they worked hard to provide a better life for their progeny, and the government, rather than assist them in maintaining their "cultural identity," encouraged them to assimilate as quickly as possible.

In Professor Thornton's article, he relates how his own family's ancestors assimilated into the American culture (yes, we do have one), and how difficult it was for them at times:

The choice was hard, at times even brutal. Racism, ethnocentrism, and prejudice could make the work of becoming American notoriously difficult. But people understood that to have a nation composed of immigrants, there had to be a unifying common culture in the public sphere. Transmitting that common culture was the job of the schools. My mother’s mother came from Maschito, an Albanian village in southern Italy. Many Maschitans settled in Fresno, where every year they celebrated the feast of their ancestral village’s patron saint, Santa Elia. But I never heard a word about any of this in school. We were busy learning about George Washington and the Constitution, Valley Forge and the Gettysburg Address, the nation’s history and heroes, its virtues and ideals—and, crucially, those core American principles. It was at school that the immigrant learned American history and celebrated the leaders who had created the country, fought in its defense, and embodied its most cherished values. In short, he learned how to be what he or his parents had freely chosen to become: American.


Click on the link below to read the whole article.
How Assimilation Works by Bruce S. Thornton - City Journal

Thomas Sowell: Economic Facts and Fallacies, Part 2

I'm certainly not alone when thinking that had Thomas Sowell been my Economics 101 professor the subject would have become my Major. Dr. Sowell learned his profession from Milton Friedman and others who preceded the Nobel Laureate, and he, better than anyone, has that special talent that allows him to make an otherwise dry and boring topic not only understandable, but even interesting.

This is part 2 of a five part interview with Peter Robinson about the second edition of his newest book: Economic Facts and Fallacies.

http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MzkxZDE1NjM3NjU1YzZmMWIxNzY2MmI1YWRmNTNkZmE=

Michael Ramirez on Obama "Emulating" George W. Bush

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Boeing vs Big Labor & "Gangster Government"

Danika Quinn of PJTV, with help from Steve Green and Scott Ott of Trifecta, talks about the battle between Boeing and the National Labor Relations Board over the Board's stance that Boeing cannot move the production of their new 787 Dreamliner airplane from the state of Washington to South Carolina. Even if Boeing wins in court, the attempt by the federal government to tell a major business where they can or cannot operate should be a major topic in the 2012 presidential election. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has spoken out loudly and clearly on this blatant attempt by the federal government to prevent the creation of over 3,000 new good paying (non-union) jobs in her state, and she's promised to stay engaged.

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=356&load=5442

Vortex: The Pope and Civilization

Dear Friend in Christ,

Pope Benedict knows exactly what's going on in the Church AND the World and he's doing everything he can to fix each of them. Please watch this episode of The Vortex and pass it along to as many friends and family as possible.

http://www.youtube.com/user/RealCatholicTV?feature=mhee#p/u/0/-IZxQ08hHGI

GOD Bless you and your loved ones,

Michael Voris
~senior executive producer, RealCatholicTV.com

Michael Ramirez on Political Blindness

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Thomas Sowell: Economic Facts and Fallacies, Part 1

I'm certainly not alone when thinking that had Thomas Sowell been my Economics 101 professor the subject would have become my Major. Dr. Sowell learned his profession from Milton Friedman and others who preceded the Nobel Laureate, and he, better than anyone, has that special talent that allows him to make an otherwise dry and boring topic not only understandable, but even interesting.

This is part 1 of a five part interview with Peter Robinson about the second edition of his newest book: Economic Facts and Fallacies.

http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=NDU5ZDVjNDExZWIwNGM4ODA5YjI1YWYyZjgxNjQyMjM=

Firewall: Memebusters & Gutsy Calls

Not that any of us need reminding, but the media uses different memes for reporting the actions of different presidents from different political parties.

Bill Whittle, in the below edition of "Firewall," provides us with a number of examples of recent vintage to make the point, and also defines, clearly, exactly what makes a call "gutsy.".

http://declarationentertainment.com/firewall-memebusters-osama-bin-laden-edition

Sundays are for Beauty: Alison Krauss

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEusOoPpkEE

Have a Beautiful Sunday.

H/T: rmck1

Michael Ramirez on The 5,000 Pound Elephant

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Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" Excerpts II

An Unsustainable Path

The recent sovereign debt crises in Greece and other highly-indebted European countries provide a cautionary tale of the rough justice of the marketplace – lenders cannot and will not finance unsustainable deficits forever, and when they cut up the credit cards of profligate countries, severe economic turmoil ensues.

Over the past few years, Americans have seen just how quickly a severe financial crisis can create widespread pain and chaos. But the last crisis was foreseen only by a small number of perceptive individuals who recognized the implications of unwise decisions being made in Washington and on Wall Street.

By contrast, nearly every fiscal expert and advisor in Washington has warned that a major debt crisis is inevitable if the U.S. government remains on its current unsustainable path. The government’s failure to prevent this completely preventable crisis would rank among history’s most infamous episodes of political malpractice.

Nearing a Debt Crisis

Like a household or business, a nation’s indebtedness is best understood in terms of how much it owes relative to how much it makes. By that measure, debt held by the public – money that the U.S. government owes to others – will reach nearly 70 percent of the entire U.S. economy this year.

If this were merely a temporary rise in the debt, it would not be so alarming. However, the spending spree of the last two years, combined with the coming retirement of nearly 80 million baby boomers, threaten to turn these recent deficit spikes into a permanent plunge into debt.

Debt in excess of 60 percent of the economy is not sustainable for an extended period of time. That is bad news for the United States. According to the non-partisan CBO, the President’s budget would keep the debt climbing as a share of the economy in the decade ahead, from nearly 70 percent this year to over 87 percent of the U.S. economy by 2021. University of Maryland economist Carmen Reinhart testified before the House Budget Committee that 90 percent is often a trigger point for economic decline.

How a Debt Crisis Would Unfold

Spiraling interest rates

The first sign that a debt crisis has arrived is that bond investors lose confidence in a government’s ability to pay its debts – and by that point, it is usually too late to avoid severe disruption and economic pain. Right now, the U.S. government is able to borrow at historically low rates, partly because of the Fed’s interventions in the market, but also because the bonds of most foreign countries are looking even riskier. Neither of these conditions is going to last.

Interest rates – and the burden of paying interest on the debt – have nowhere to go but up. Interest payments are already consuming around 10 cents of every tax dollar. But as interest rates rise from their current historically low levels and debt continues to mount, interest payments are projected to consume over 20 percent of all tax revenue by 2020. That means that one in five tax dollars will be dedicated to making interest payments by the end of the decade – and that’s according to optimistic projections about interest rates. If interest rates increase by a higher-than- expected amount in future – which appears to be more likely – then the nation’s interest payments could cost trillions of dollars more.

Blessed John Paul II and Our Lady of Fatima

Thirty years ago today, Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish assassin, shot four bullets into the body of Pope John Paul II from point-blank range. One bullet missed the Pope's main abdominal artery by a fraction of an inch.

Ninety-four years ago today, The Blessed Mother appeared to three children in Fatima, Portugal. She asked the children to: “Pray the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world!”

The Holy Father was well aware on the day he was shot that it was the anniversary of Our Lady's appearance in Fatima, and credited her with re-directing the bullets fired by his would-be assassin and saving his life.

Brian Burch of CatholicVote.org sent this Email today to remind us of these two amazing events that occurred on this date in 1917 and 1981.

Is Iran Imploding? Say a Prayer!

From the website Radicalislam.org:

"The recent dispute between Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and Iranian President Ahmadinejad has led to increased tensions between supporters of each party. Violent clashes erupted between the two groups, and several people were injured.

Many believe that if this conflict leads to a separation between Iran’s leader and president, it may lead to the fall of the entire current regime, a regime that has been murdering and oppressing its citizens for the past 30 years."

The below video was posted on their website yesterday.

http://mim.io/39c711?fe=1&pact=3620992185

For earlier posts on Iranium, type "Iranium" in the "Search this Blog" box on the right, under the flags.

Paul Ryan's "Path To Prosperity" Excerpts

One of the controversial parts of Congressman Paul Ryan's Budget Proposal, aptly called "The Path to Prosperity," addresses the burgeoning federal bureaucracy (especially burgeoning since Barack Obama became president).

This will not find much support among federal employees or the unions purporting to represent them, but it should get the attention of those tax payers who, although their futures are not as bright, continue to pay the salaries and exorbitant pensions of those federal employees.

Here's the section dealing with the topic (emphasis added):

Slowing the bureaucracy’s explosive growth

The federal government has added 155,000 new workers since the President took office. It is no coincidence that private-sector employment continues to recover only sluggishly while the government grows at breakneck speeds. To fuel the public sector’s growth, Washington must either tax the private sector or issue debt (i.e. impose a deferred tax upon the private sector).

The federal government’s responsibilities are dependent on a strong federal workforce. Federal workers deserve to be compensated for their important work, but pay levels, pay increases and benefit packages need to be reformed to be in line with the private sector.

Salaries for federal workers continue to outpace pay for their private-sector counterparts. Average wages in the federal civilian workforce ($74,311 in 2010) far eclipse the $49,777 median wages in private industry. When generous benefit packages are included, the advantages enjoyed by government workers are even more pronounced. The roughly 2 million federal civilian workers received average compensation packages of $101,628 in 2010, far in excess of their private-sector counterparts. Immune from the effects of the recession, federal workers have received regular salary bumps and cost-of-living-adjustments, regardless of productivity or economic realities.

The reforms called for in this budget aim to slow the federal government’s unsustainable growth, and reflect the growing frustration of workers across the country at the different set of rules enjoyed by government employees. It reduces the public-sector bureaucracy, not through layoffs, but via a gradual, sensible attrition policy, permitting the federal government to hire only one new employee for every three federal workers who retire. By 2014, this reform would result in a 10 percent reduction in the federal workforce.

Additionally, it freezes federal pay through 2015. And it reduces taxpayers’ disproportionate share of the financing for the Federal Employee Pension Plan by requiring federal employees to pay for half of the defined benefit they receive at retirement, an increase from their current contribution of 0.8 percent of payroll. This proposal takes its cue directly from the Fiscal Commission.14 When combined, these proposals will save taxpayers approximately $375 billion over ten years.

Vortex: Being Catholic is Smart

Dear Friend in Christ,

Seems like everyone who is coming to the Catholic Church these days is pretty smart. They have "figured it out" as the saying goes. Please watch this episode of The Vortex and pass it on to as many friends and family as possible.

http://www.youtube.com/user/RealCatholicTV?feature=mhum#p/u/0/yvDakAIWCyU

GOD Bless you and your loved ones,

Michael Voris
~senior executive producer, RealCatholicTV.com

Tom Donilon is our National Security Advisor. Can We Survive?

In case you missed Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, you have to watch this clip from the interview with Tom Donilon, our estimable National Security Advisor.



In case you're wondering about the requisite background and experience for this high ranking position, you're not alone.