A man, who Fox News has identified as Troy Stanley, strapped a bomb to his chest and has two people hostage at Hillary Clinton’s campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire. The latest development is that he is still holed up in the office, the swat team and sharp shooters are on site, and authorities are attempting to communicate with him. He is also believed to be a conspiracy theorist.
The cabinet is concerned about a ‘provocative’ film about the Koran by anti-immigration party PVV leader Geert Wilders which he expects to be shown on tv at the end of January.
The justice, foreign and home affairs ministers, who are worried about a backlash from Islamic countries, have warned Wilders about the risks of screening such a film.
Justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin stressed that while Wilders is free to express his views about the Koran, he also has a responsibility towards society in general. ‘Think about the what the repercussions could be,’ he said.
If the film is hard-hitting, it could evoke hard-hitting reactions against himself and others,’ says the minister. Those who want a free debate must show respect for all religions and for things that are sacrosanct for others, he said.
Wilders says it is not the aim of his film to insult people but if they are insulted, that is ‘a pity but not my problem’. He says he wants Muslims to realise that the Koran is a ‘terrible and fascist’ book which inspires people to commit ‘terrible’ deeds.
The last Dutchman who tried this wound up murdered in the street like an animal. But I’m sure that was just a coincidence. After all, Islam promotes peace….
We seriously have to question the sanity of certain Muslims. Before anybody jumps down my throat at my first statement, I understand that there are Muslims who are perfectly sane, however, the recent events pertaining to the case involving Gillian Gibbons show that there are many within the Muslim community who really are nuts.
For those who are not aware of the case, here is a synopsis:
Gillian Gibbons is a Brit who teaches in the Sudan. She had some sort of class project involving a Teddy Bear whereas she allowed the class to name the Teddy Bear Muhammed. She was then arrested because Islam does not allow objects to be named after the Prophet Muhammad and it is viewed as insulting Islam.
Islams’ punishment for this offense varies; in this case Gibbons could have received forty lashes, six months in prison, and a monetary fine; however she was convicted of a lesser charge and has received fifteen days in prison and deportation back to Britain.
However ridiculous I find this to be, this should be the end of it, but it isn’t. This morning comes the news that thousands of Muslims carrying knives, sticks and axes took to the streets of Khartoum and are demanding that Gibbons be put to death, chanting “No tolerance: Execution,” and “Kill her, kill her by firing squad.”
It is this specific behavior that makes people question Muslims. I am sure that what I write could be viewed as an insult Islam. Am I trying to insult Islam? No, I am trying to reach out to Muslims and others so that they may condemn this crazy behavior.
It is absolutely insane to call for the death of a person because she named a classroom Teddy Bear Muhammed and the free world needs to get together and stop the insanity.
As a side note, if I were Gibbons I would welcome the deportation and get the hell out of the Sudan as fast as I could and not look back. She should teach the children of Britain, and mainly teach them how important freedom is which undoubtedly she has a new found appreciation for.
We are all very sad to have heard the news regarding Henry Hyde’s death. He was a remarkable man. I think our friend Teri O’Brien summed it best:
As you know, he understood that a government that fails to protect the most vulnerable in society, the innocent, the helpless and the voiceless, is no government at all, but rather a worthless, greedy bureaucracy. He reminded us of one of the most important values: the preciousness of every individual human life.
We will all Miss Congressman Hyde very much. Our hearts and deepest sympathy go out to his family and friends.
I’ve got a few news stories to throw out at you, all of which, in my mind, are related. At the end, I’ve got a couple of questions for you. First, the news stories, many of which are just from the last couple of days:
Under the Labour Government, England has had an overwhelming influx of immigrants, which is balanced out by the almost equally high number of native Britons leaving the country. In a few decades, immigrants will be in the majority. The country’s social services are crumbling under the strain.
Although the media is playing coy, reading between the lines we understand that Arab and African immigrants are running riot in France, again.
These last two headlines can easily be classified as racist or, at least, religion-ist. Nimby-ism in its nastiest sense. But I think that’s a bit too simplistic.
What people are seeing, both here and abroad, is that their governments have failed to control immigration, whether by having open border policies or by allowing unchecked illegal immigration. They’re also seeing that their governments, having failed to stop immigrants at the borders, are either encouraging further illegal immigrants or destroying their economies handing out benefits to immigrants, both legal and illegal.
These government policies would be fine if the people actually agreed with them — but they don’t. Americans, for example, are overwhelmingly opposed to illegal immigrants and to extending benefits to illegal immigrants. (See here and here for examples of poll results.) Native Europeans are also disturbed by the enormous influx of immigrants. None of the polls, incidentally, indicates overwhelming xenophobia, with immigrants being castigated as evil. Instead, people are mad at their respective governments for losing control over a situation that is desirable under limited circumstances. After all, immigration, especially in America, is a very healthy antidote to societal stagnation. In other words, immigration, like medicine, can be wonderful in small doses and toxic in large doses.
So what I think those last two stories show isn’t racism or religion-ism. I think they show an exasperated population trying, without violence or overt face-offs, to step in and act in the vacuum their governments have created. Heck, it’s not even a vacuum. All of these governments, whether deliberately or through inaction, are flouting the will of the people. If governments would control their borders and stop handing out benefits like candy, local populations wouldn’t feel obligated to exert some minimal control over their own environments.
Do you agree or disagree? Alternatively, do you have a whole different theory I didn’t even think of?
UPDATE: As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve got a real bee in my bonnet about dishonestly presenting actual facts. The sin of omission especially gets me, because the author of a particular report self-righteously points to the accuracy of what he did say, without having acknowledging the inaccuracy created by what he didn’t say. Into that category falls a new study out of UCLA that announces that illegal immigrants are under-utilizing the free services offered to them at American emergency rooms. Below, you can read the headline and the first few paragraphs in the LA Times version of the story:
Study finds immigrants’ use of healthcare system lower than expected
UCLA researchers find that Latinos in the U.S. illegally are 50% less likely to visit emergency rooms.
By Mary Engel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 27, 2007
Illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries are 50% less likely than U.S.-born Latinos to use hospital emergency rooms in California, according to a study published Monday in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
The cost of providing healthcare and other government services to illegal immigrants looms large in the national debate over immigration.
In Los Angeles County, much of the focus of that debate has been on hospital emergency rooms. Ten have closed in the last five years, citing losses from treating the uninsured, and those that remain open are notorious for backlogs.
By federal law, hospitals must treat every emergency, regardless of a person’s insurance — or immigration — status. Illegal immigrants, who often work at jobs that don’t offer health insurance, are commonly seen as driving both the closures and the crowding.
But the study found that while illegal immigrants are indeed less likely to be insured, they are also less likely to visit a doctor, clinic or emergency room.
“The current policy discourse that undocumented immigrants are a burden on the public because they overuse public resources is not borne out with data, for either primary care or emergency department care,” said Alexander N. Ortega, an associate professor at UCLA’s School of Public Health and the study’s lead author. “In fact, they seem to be underutilizing the system, given their health needs.”
Reading that headline, sub-headline, and packet of six paragraphs, you are of course meant to understand that the illegal immigrants are not, in fact, a burden on health care, and that it is racist, classist, imperialist, capitalist, and any other -ist you can think of for the anti-illegal immigration crowd to base its arguments on our overburdened health care system.
But did you figure out what’s missing from the story? The question isn’t whether the illegals are under-using the system relative to their own health care needs. From the point of view of the American tax payer, the only question is whether they are over-using the health care system compared to their contribution to the system. And only in paragraph seven of the story does Mary Engel touch upon that pivotal point:
Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that lobbies for tougher immigration controls, said that usage rates are just one measure of illegal immigrants’ effect on healthcare. The other factor, he said, is the cost to taxpayers, which Ortega’s study did not examine.
Cost estimates vary widely. A Rand Corp. study published last year in the journal Health Affairs put the cost of healthcare for illegal immigrants nationwide at $1.1 billion a year, excluding care for those younger than 18 and older than 64.
FAIR called the Rand number a “low-ball” estimate. Its own study of healthcare costs of illegal immigrants and their dependents, including U.S.-born children, estimated California’s portion alone to be about $1.5 billion a year.
Mehlman said $1.5 billion “is still a significant amount of money, unless you’re Bill Gates.”
Having made an intellectually honest women of herself, Engel goes right back to her dominant point, which is that the immigrants are sacrificing their health so that we don’t have to bear their burden. Really, it brings tears to my eyes — NOT.
By the way, if you’re wondering why I included this story in this post, it’s because it’s kind of part of the package of stories I included at the top of this post, regarding the enormous stresses illegal immigration places on American society, and it can be analogized to the enormous stresses legal immigration places on the social welfare societies of Europe.
UPDATE III - CNN Admits That Keith Kerr is an Activist Member of Clinton for President LGBT Steering Committee - Another cheap Clinton trick? CNN uses member of “LGBT Americans for Hillary” to pose question to Republicans in debate.
UPDATE: Bill Bennet on CNN says that the openly gay Brigadier General Keith Kerr was on Hillary Clinton’s gay steering committee. Anderson Cooper admits that the General is an activist.
What bullshit, not because of the question or the topic. The crappy part of the CNN Republican You Tube Debate is that neither CNN nor any other MSM outlet would let an audience member debate or rebut Democrat candidates from the audience. In case you missed it CNN rolled out an openly gay retired Army Brigadier General who served for 43 years. “I want to know why you think that American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians?” Anderson Cooper handed the question back to the you tube presenter after the candidates answered his question (the person just happened to be in the audience). “Did they answer the question sufficiently for you?” Cooper asked. Of course he answered no and proceeded to put on an act. Knowing that he works for Hillary Clinton puts some more perspective on the ruse. It appears that he may have been a plant. It’s pretty clear that he somehow magically made his way to the front line at CNN. Of course CNN will play stupid (which of course is closer to the truth than they will admit).
“I want to know why you think that American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians?”
First of all it’s a leading question. This isn’t a question of being “professional” enough, it’s a question of conduct, morale and management. The military is hard enough to manage and you don’t need to add an openly gay policy to make it that much harder. A majority of the personnel in the military as well as American society are non-gay. Sorry. It’s not prejudicial, this is just a fact. What are we asking here? What does openly gay mean? Does it mean sex in the barracks, should we have a gay barracks, do we allow holding hands in formation or just flirting with another soldier in boot camp? None of that behavior would be acceptable for heterosexual people and it isn’t acceptable for gays in the military, bottom line. It’s a two way street of course. The military is a place to serve and protect. Forcing the liberal concept of sexual discrimination down the throats of people who are more concerned with staying alive than the political machinations of Democrats and the media who want to use it as a wedge issue should simply be brushed aside.
As far as the gay general goes I note that he managed to have a very long and lucrative career despite “don’t ask don’t tell” as well as policies that came before that. Thumbs down to Romney for avoiding the question on his flip flop, thumbs up to Huckabee and Hunter for trying to answer the loaded question. Unfortunately thumbs down to the answers themselves which were too weak. Why can’t Duncan Hunter say gay? Homo-sex-u-al just sounds stupid in this context. Try it. Gay. And what’s up with the stock cohesion answer? Say it like it is. It’s not a matter of discrimination or cohesion. It’s a matter of managing the troops in the way the military sees fit in a way that minimizes distraction. Pretty simple.
The other aspect of just how crappy CNN is as a media outlet can be seen in the choice of questions. Not that they are different than any other media outlet, but have you noticed that victims presented to Democrats in these debates are uniquely in the position to be helped by Democrats (at least in the imagination of weak minded liberals) and victims presented to Republicans in these debates are uniquely self identified as victims of Republican policies? Just for once I’d like to have a candidate say “eat me”. That would get my vote. Stand up to these idiots. Don’t be afraid of them.
Thumbs way up to Republicans for walking into unfriendly waters while Democrats cower from Fox News and its conservative audience.
Bill Clinton asserted that he was opposed to the war in Iraq from the very beginning though his remarks at the time were much more tempered and did not portray a person who was absolutely opposed to the action. He indicated that it would not have been proper for him to have more open statements at the time because he was not the president. He did however, have no problem with expressing that the weapons inspectors should be given more time. Fourteen years of folly was not enough for Clinton.
I believe that Clinton now expresses that he was absolutely opposed because Obama, his wife’s opponent, is the only candidate who can say he was against the war from the beginning and not have to prove it. The others have their pesky votes to show what they actually did. John Edwards says he was wrong to vote that way and Hillary stated she was misled by President Bush. Once again, it is someone else’s fault. If this is the smartest woman in the world and she was misled by President bush, a man many on the left believe to be an idiot, how was she so easily misled?
Clinton was on the campaign trail trying to raise support for his wife who has seen her numbers drop over the past few weeks. He mentioned himself more times than he mentioned her but that might be the point because he is more liked than she is so people get the impression that he is the one they are electing. He also told the audience how Hillary has experience and has not forgotten what it is like to «be like you.» Read this as even though she is rich she has not forgotten what it is like to be one of the little people. Of course, she failed to give a tip at a diner. I am not saying that it was deliberate but wouldn’t one of «us» remember to so that?
Clinton also played this phony concern for the military while lying about tax cuts. He was lamenting the Republican tax cut for the rich and how he, as a rich guy, is not paying money that could go tot he troops. First of all tax cuts were not «for the rich» they were for everyone. They have helped the middle class and poor (those who ACTUALLY pay any taxes) and they have helped produce a strong economy. The rich still pay a higher marginal tax rate than anyone else and they also pay most of the taxes in this country. Of course they will get more money back because they pay a hell of a lot more in. Secondly, the treasury will take donations to the government and I am sure Bill is aware of this. if he is so concerned that he is not paying his fair share then he is certainly free to donate money to the treasury.
Obviously, this is more of the Clinton feel good talk and double speak. A lot of people will believe him when he says he wants to pay more but few will know that he could if he wanted to. They will assume this poor schmuck is just dying to give more money back if only those mean Republicans would take it.
Mr. Clinton, I call on you to either make a donation to the treasury for what you think you should be paying or shut your mouth about the issue. People deserve better than to be misled by a snake oil salesman.
Fact 1: We pay too much in taxes even after tax cuts.
Fact 2: The government takes in huge sums of money. The real problem is uncontrolled spending.
Fact 3: We could take even more in tax cuts if the Congress would stop spending BILLIONS in pork projects.
I’ve been thinking lately about self-perpetuation. Although I can’t remember the source of their outrage, Mr. Bookworm told me that Greenpeace is outraged by something. Hearing that, the thought popped into my mind that, well, if they’re not outraged about something, they may as well disband.
I read somewhere, and I can’t remember where, that some bureaucracy is loudly and expensively sticking its nose into something irrelevant to its original mission and, again, I suddenly realized that, if the bureaucracy doesn’t make work for itself, it may be stricken from the federal budget.
I’m having this thought more and more often as I read of outrage and interference: it’s artificially manufactured to justify the existence of an institution or ideology that is no longer (or feels as if it is no longer) relevant.
MADONNA has horrified animal activists after dyeing her sheep blue, pink, yellow and green for a Vogue spread at their English country estate, in Wiltshire.
Madonna, 49, and husband Guy Ritchie, 39, insisted the dye used was temporary and did not harm the animals but an online report on music-news.com has said that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) stated that even though the dye may be safe for the animals those who copy this stunt might not be so careful.
An RSPCA spokesperson said: “Why is it necessary and what are they trying to prove? It is an irresponsible publicity stunt. It sends out the wrong message about how to use animals.”
I’m so not a fan of Madonna, but to me, this is just a group “being outraged” for no purpose but to claim relevancy where none exists. There’s no allegation that the sheep were hurt in any way, including being emotionally humiliated (if such is possible for sheep).
As a reader, I can only ask in bewilderment what “wrong message about how to use animals” is being sent out? These are sheep, for goodness sake. There are millions of them in England and they stand around like white fluffy things eating grass. That’s what they do. And then they are shorn, and the white fluffy stuff is dyed and sold to people. Sometimes they are also slaughtered and eaten with mint sauce. I doubt that they care about Technicolor spray paint.
Okay, I admit it. For years I’ve thought of Fabio as a joke. The bulging muscles, the overly squared jaw, the flowing locks — to me he looked like a caricature of a man, rather than a man. I’m now doing mea culpas for having been guilty of that kind of look-ism. It turns out that Fabio isn’t just another rather bizarrely pretty face, he’s a thinker — and, despite an unnecessary number of obscenities, he’s thinking the kind of thoughts I like:
“The Israeli people have been the sacrificial lamb of history,” Fabio declares. It’s mid-August, and the bombs are dropping in Lebanon as we stand in the kitchen of his sprawling Spanish-style mansion in Los Angeles (his publicist asked that we keep the neighborhood a secret to deter stalkers). The so-called Harlequin heartthrob, a diehard news junkie, has had a lot on his mind lately, particularly when it comes to Middle East policy and the Iraq war.
“It’s about f*****g time,” he says, as Fox News reports on Israel’s attempt to push Hezbollah out of Southern Lebanon. “[The Jews] have been getting killed for 5,000 years. Enough is enough. The rest of the world does not give a shit, except America, because the Israelis have no oil. Everyone sticks with those Arabs—because they have the oil.”
Oil is a big issue for Fabio. Despite being an avid dirt-bike aficionado, he’d like to see America wean itself off fossil fuels. “We should f*****g get alternative energy and tell all the Arabs and the rest of the world to stick it up their a**,” he says. “F**k them and the oil!”
Bless his heart, he’s not just my kind of guy when it comes to foreign politics and the right reason, as opposed to the loony reason, to go green, he also genuinely likes his adopted country. That is, he doesn’t come here, benefit from American freedoms, and still go around badmouthing the place:
Fabio has a deep respect for the United States, which he credits with helping him achieve his incredible success. He has traveled the world, and says he has no doubt that America is by far the best country out there.
Fabio isn’t a mere Republican sycophant, though. He is clear that he’s not a Republican, and he thinks that going into Iraq was a big mistake. However, with the logic of someone who was in the military, he’s totally clear on the fact that, if you’re going to wage war, you wage war, you don’t just mess around with delicacy:
He’s also critical of how the war has been waged. “We went in too fast,” he says. “To me, shock and awe should not be a light touch. Where’s the shock, you know?” The model, who served the once-mandatory 18 months in the Italian military after high school, nods a lot when he speaks. He’s so damn friendly, even when calling for mass carnage, that I find myself nodding along with him.
“Bomb them for a few years,” he suggests, “And when they start coming out with the white flag … bomb them a little bit more. Then you go in with our soldiers.”
Clearly, Fabio will not be the type of model who goes off and cavorts with loathsome dictators. I feel like running out and buying a romance novel with him on the cover just to make a statement and to apologize for underestimating his capacity for rational thinking solely because of his looks.
Someone, my brother-in-law to be exact, showed my daughter Happy Feet over Thanksgiving and since then, I’ve heard nothing but “feet! feet! feet!” from her. So, not having seen the film myself but trusting my family’s judgment, my husband went and bought the dvd for the little one. I sat down to watch it with her the other day. Now, I must preface this and tell you that I had heard from Rush how liberal Happy Feet is, BUT, he said he bought it for his nephews and nieces to watch at his house because they love it so much. So I figured, if the Maha Rushie allows it on his TV, how bad can it be?
Unbelievably bad. What assaulted my senses was a barrage of overt sexuality, wacko environmentalism, pro-illegal immigration propaganda and plenty of Christian-bashing sprinkled on top.
The very first number is a Prince song! Imagine penguins gyrating to these lyrics:
“Don’t have to be beautiful to turn me on. I just need your body baby, from dusk till dawn…give it to me!”
My thoughts: uh….WHAT?
Then, one rapping penguin breaks out into “Lets talk about X baby, let’s talk about you and me!” But of course we all know the lyrics are “let’s talk about sex baby” not X. Later on, there are penguins juking (for those of you oldies out there, juking, according to the urban dictionary means “dancing with a girl’s butt on a boy’s crotch area”) complete with butt-slapping. This is the result of the sexual education over-kill regime. Hollywood is now getting into the game of educating preschoolers about sexual behavior with gyrating, gesticulating penguins.
Moving on to the environmental angle, one of the penguins gets his neck stuck in a six pack plastic holder. This leads the penguins to discuss the elusive “aliens” that could be responsible for the garbage and for a fish shortage. The elder penguins, however, believe it is because the penguins have displeased God. They berate the younger penguins for doing outrageous dance moves and tell them to pray harder. These elder penguins are always calling the lead penguin a “backslider” and eventually they kick him out of the fold. It is juvenile in it’s transparency. I’m surprised the elders weren’t named Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson.
Then there’s the South American penguins that the elders don’t want. They speak with thick Mexican accents and are very short. (Why the Hispanic community isn’t suing, I have no idea.) The elders talk about them as though they are a blight on the penguin community while the rest of us can clearly see that they are fun and funny and a delight to have around. But since the elders are intolerant and blinded by hatred, they kick out the illegal immigrant penguins with the juking backslider.
They then embark on a journey to find the “aliens” to reason with them about the fish shortage. On a non-political note, the movie at this point just becomes very depressing. For a children’s film, there’s way too much suffering. The journey is so hard and so long, and the weather is terrible and when they get to where they’re going they’re attacked by killer whales, then one of the penguins is captured and put in a zoo where he goes insane with loneliness and the list goes on. There is nothing “happy” about Happy Feet.
I won’t go on and describe the entire movie. I think you get the point. Happy Feet is a liberal fairytale where humans are aliens who don’t belong on the planet, Christians are old and tired and should be dismissed, and everyone should get their juke on whenever they feel like it with whomever they feel like it.
Hillary Clinton, New Hampshire, conspiracy
Sphere: Related Content
We seriously have to question the sanity of certain Muslims. Before anybody jumps down my throat at my first statement, I understand that there are Muslims who are perfectly sane, however, the recent events pertaining to the case involving 
We are all very sad to have heard the news regarding Henry Hyde’s death. He was a remarkable man. I think our friend 
I’ve been thinking lately about self-perpetuation. Although I can’t remember the source of their outrage, Mr. Bookworm told me that Greenpeace is outraged by something. Hearing that, the thought popped into my mind that, well, if they’re not outraged about something, they may as well disband.
Okay, I admit it. For years I’ve thought of Fabio as a joke. The bulging muscles, the overly squared jaw, the flowing locks — to me he looked like a caricature of a man, rather than a man. I’m now doing mea culpas for having been guilty of that kind of look-ism. It turns out that Fabio isn’t just another rather bizarrely pretty face, he’s a thinker — and, despite an unnecessary number of obscenities, 
Someone, my brother-in-law to be exact, showed my daughter Happy Feet over Thanksgiving and since then, I’ve heard nothing but “feet! feet! feet!” from her. So, not having seen the film myself but trusting my family’s judgment, my husband went and bought the dvd for the little one. I sat down to watch it with her the other day. Now, I must preface this and tell you that I had heard from Rush how liberal Happy Feet is, BUT, he said he bought it for his nephews and nieces to watch at his house because they love it so much. So I figured, if the Maha Rushie allows it on his TV, how bad can it be?