Monday, August 20, 2007
Pap Smears
anti-Semite lecturer Ilan Pappe, including those alleging Israel conducted
"ethnic cleansing" of Arabs, should be known as PAP SMEAR!
The latest Pap Smear is discussed here:
2. Nice web site:
http://www.israelwhitepaper.org/
3. So many pogromchiks. So few gallows:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557478631&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
4. The sinking of the Reform movement:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3439155,00.html
5. Cowardice begets cowardice:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3436550,00.html
6. San Francisco State University has been leading the jihad in the
Bay Area. Now this:
7.
August 20, 2007
COMMENTARY
Our Religious Destiny
By ARTHUR C. BROOKS
August 20, 2007; Page A11
Recently the presidential campaigns have been turning to talk of the
candidates' religious faith. Barack Obama proclaims a "personal
relationship" with Jesus Christ. Democratic candidate John Edwards is on
the religious offensive, speaking for Jesus himself when he tells an
interviewer he thinks Christ "would be appalled" by our current policies
regarding poverty and the war. Even the candidate who is arguably the
least religious of the frontrunners -- Rudy Giuliani -- feels compelled to
defend himself publicly on questions of whether he is "Catholic enough."
The salience of religion in our presidential politics perplexes Europeans,
who generally see religion as a weird relic from the pre-scientific past.
If Angela Merkel or Nicolas Sarkozy had made public statements during
their campaigns about their personal relationship with Jesus Christ, it
probably would have ended their political aspirations right then and
there. As the head of a French think tank put it, "The biblical references
in politics, the division of the world between good and evil, these are
things that [Europeans] simply don't get. In a number of areas, it seems
to me that we are no longer part of the same civilization."
This is now hyperbole. According to data from the 2002 International
Social Survey Programme, an American is four times likelier than a
Frenchman to attend a house of worship regularly, and eight times likelier
than a Norwegian. Europeans are more likely to disdain faith openly: In
1998, the average Dane was seven times likelier than an American to agree
that, "Religions bring more conflict than peace."
Many secular Americans envy the nonreligious Europeans and look
expectantly to the day our presidential candidates finally abandon once
and for all tortured religious rhetoric and focus on the earthbound
business of human politics. This is not just evident from the lawsuits
challenging the constitutionality of public manifestations of religiosity.
The free market reveals it as well -- witness the best selling success of
recent books that make the case for atheism and rail against religion in
public life, such as Richard Dawkins's "The God Delusion" and Christopher
Hitchens's "God is not Great."
Markets don't lie: Lots of Americans are obviously sympathetic. Yet in all
likelihood religion will grow as a social force in American culture and
politics over the coming decades. The reason: A secular nation needs
secular citizens. And nonreligious Americans are outstandingly weak when
it comes to the most efficacious way to achieve this: by having kids.
If you picked 100 adults out of the population who attended their house of
worship nearly every week or more often, they would have 223 children
among them, on average, according to the 2006 General Social Survey. Among
100 people who attended less than once per year or never, you would find
just 158 kids. This 41% fertility gap between religious and secular people
is especially meaningful because people tend to worship more or less like
their parents. According to data collected in 1999 by Gallup, 60% of
adults who were taken to church at least once per month as children grew
up to attend at least this often; only 15% stopped attending as adults.
The demographic implications are even more profound for the political
left, where a disproportionate number of secularists are located.
Religious people who call themselves politically "conservative" or "very
conservative" are having, on average, an astounding 78% more kids than
secular liberals. Studies show that people are even more likely to vote
like their parents than they are to worship like them. The secular left,
therefore, has to rely on the tough slog of bringing people from the
political and religious middle over to their views. The religious right
simply has to keep having lots of babies.
In short, unlike Europe, there is no indication that the competitive
market for souls will shrivel any time soon. And candidates likely will be
demonstrating their religious credentials for many elections to come.
Mr. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Public
Affairs and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is
the author of "Who Really Cares" (Basic Books, 2006).
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118757440909802546.html
7. Muzzle Watch is one of the most anti-Semitic web sites around. It
is pro-terror, and Israel, and is run by the ultras from the "Jewish
Voices for Peace," a group of supposed Jews speaking up in favor of war
against Israel. Its raison d'etre is to promote the anti-Semitic libel
that Jews control the media and "muzzle" criticism of Israel. Sure they
do. That is why one cannot find any anti-Israel articles at all in the
media or on the web.
Having said this, nevertheless it is interesting to note that in the
United States the extremist moonbat Left sometimes defends freedom of
speech for non-leftists, unless the Far Left in Israel. There are several
recent examples of this. On the Muzzlewatch web site this week is a piece
defending Prof. Hillel Weiss from being prosecuted and harassed for
cussing out an army officer: http://www.muzzlewatch.com/?p=225
As a second example consider Peter Kirstein, an ultra-leftist anti-Semitic
anti-American history prof at St. Xavier's University in Chicago. He is
so extreme that he is buddies with David Irving and regularly denounces
the US on Iranian radio and TV. He whored for Norman Finkelstein and led
the campaign to try to bully DePaul into giving Finkelstein tenure on the
basis of Finkelstein's hate propaganda.
Yet this very same Kirstein had the surprising decency to defend MY
freedom of speech and to denounce Neve Gordon and his anti-democratic team
(and anti-democratic Arab woman judge) for attempting to suppress MY right
to denounce Gordon's anti-Israel hate-spewing articles and political
activities (http://english.sxu.edu/sites/kirstein/?p=785 ). None of that
changes my opinion of Kirstein and his lack of qualifications to be
serving as an academic. But let us note that not a single leftist in
Israel has denounced Gordon for his fascist attempt to use the courts to
suppress freedom of speech (via venue shopping into a court that would be
hostile to freedom of speech no less) nor to defend my right to denounce
the politics of seditious leftists.
8. Speaking of leftwing law profs:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/blog/Read.aspx?guid=14658206-a6fc-4f7e-aa5f-d5aa7036aa55
9. American public hostile to tenure for moonbats and frauds:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/09/poll (unlike leftist
professors who support it)
10. Prof paints Yom Kippur:
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i50/50b01401.htm
11. Down goes another fascist SLAPP suit:
Yale Press Prevails In Suit
by Paul Bass | August 15, 2007 2:33 PM
New Haven Independent
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2007/08/yale_press_wins.php
book%20cover%20hamas.jpg
Yale Press fought back against a SLAPP by an alleged terror front group --
and won.
A group called KinderUSA had sued the Press for a book that accuses the
group of being a front to raise money for the terrorist group Hamas in
order to skirt U.S. laws.
KinderUSA filed suit against the Press in L.A. on April 26 over the
publication of Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of
Jihad. The suit also targeted the book's author, Matthew Levitt; and the
Washington Institute for Near East Studies, where Levitt works. The suit
claimed that Levitt fabricated facts about the charity's role in funding
money to terrorist groups abroad.
Yale Press struck back, filing a so-called anti-"SLAPP" motion. SLAPP
stands for "anti-SLAPP "Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation."
The term refers to a tactic, often employed by corporations, to muzzle
public criticism by filing libel or slander suits against critics that
have no legal basis, but that can cost thousands or tens of thousands of
dollars to defend. California has an anti-SLAPP law designed to counter
such lawsuits. Click here to read a summary of the law; it enables targets
of SLAPP suits to file motions to require SLAPPers to prove they have a
viable case. If not, the SLAPPers have to pay the target's legal costs.
Yale Press -- along with Levitt and his foundation -- filed such a motion
in this case. And they hired a top-tier First Amendment lawyer, Floyd
Abrams, signaling their intention to fight back.
After that motion was filed, Kinder withdrew its suit.
Click here to read Yale's press release about its victory in the case.
KinderUSA's suit focused on pages 151-2 "and the respective footnotes" in
Levitt's book. The section of the book describes how the U.S. shut down
American-based charities accused of funneling funds to terrorist groups
like Hamas and al-Qaeda, charities such as the Holy Land Foundation.
The complaint quoted from the pages in question: "Even after the closure
of the Holy Land Foundation in 2001, other U.S.-based charities continued
to fund Hamas. One of the organizations that has appeared to rise out of
the ashes of the HLFRD is KinderUSA." The group claims that the accusation
is false.
In the book, in a subsequent part not mentioned in the lawsuit, Levitt
states that two leaders of KinderUSA were also involved with HLFRD:
KinderUSA Executive Director Dalell Mohmed served as a project director at
the previous organization, and KinderUSA founder Riad Abdelkarim as a
governing board member. Both people were deported from Israel on
suspicions of ties to Hamas, Levitt's book reports.
ff_levitt_matthew2.jpg
Levitt (pictured) writes and speaks widely, including on national TV,
about terrorism and front groups for organizations that carry out suicide
attacks, like Hamas and al-Qaed. A former U.S. Treasury official, he
worked on shutting down American funding pipelines to foreign groups
identified by the government as sponsors of terrorism.
The KinderUSA complaint also deemed as false Levitt's statement that "the
formation of KinderUSA highlights an increasingly common trend: banned
charities continuing to operate by incorporating under new names in
response to designation as terrorist entities or in an effort to evade
attention. This trend is also seen with groups raising money for
al-Qaeda." The complaint charges that a related footnote falsely ties two
KinderUSA officers to a discussion of al-Qaeda "without informing the
reader that there is no allegation that KinderUSA is tied to al-Qaeda."
Click here to read the original complaint filed by the group's attorney.
KinderUSA describes itself on its website as "a group of physicians and
humanitarian relief workers... believing that all children are born with
fundamental freedoms and are entitled to the rights of survival, health,
and education. KinderUSA puts into action programs to ensure these rights
are not forgotten." The site cites relief work with children in Lebanon,
the West Bank and Gaza.
In a press release, KINDER Board Chairwoman Laila Al-Marayati claimed the
book "will take food out of the mouths of hungry children in Palestine
that so urgently need our help."
Her group's complaint sought $500,000 in compensatory damages, plus
unspecific punitive damages and legal expenses.
It also claimed that "Yale University Press did not conduct any
fact-checking" in connection with the book.
"Of course, the book was vetted," Yale Press chief John Donatich responded
at the time the suit was filed. "We took it through peer review, as with
all our books."
