Bloodthirsty Liberal

He was against the “apes and pigs” before he was for them!

Following are excerpts from archival interviews with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, which were posted on the Internet in 2010:

September 23, 2010

This [Palestinian] Authority was created by the Zionist and American enemies for the sole purpose of opposing the will of the Palestinian people and its interests.

[...]

No reasonable person can expect any progress on this track. Either [you accept] the Zionists and everything they want, or else it is war. This is what these occupiers of the land of Palestine know – these blood-suckers, who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.

[...]

We should employ all forms of resistance against them. There should be military resistance within the land of Palestine against those criminal Zionists, who attack Palestine and the Palestinians. There should also be political resistance and economic resistance through a boycott, as well as by supporting the resistance fighters. This should be the practice of the Muslims and the Arabs outside Palestine. They should support the resistance fighters and besiege the Zionist wherever they are. None of the Arab or Muslim peoples and regimes should have dealings with them. Pressure should be exerted upon them. They must not be given any opportunity, and must not stand on any Arab or Islamic land. They must be driven out of our countries.

[...]

Therefore, these negotiations must stop once and for all. Everybody must turn to the support of the resistance, which is the option chosen by the Palestinians and by us all – the Arabs and the Muslims, Palestinians and others. We must all realize that resistance is the only way to liberate the land of Palestine.

[...]

Al-Quds TV (Lebanon) March 20, 2010, via the Internet

The Zionists have no right to the land of Palestine. There is no place for them on the land of Palestine. What they took before 1947-8 constitutes plundering, and what they are doing now is a continuation of this plundering. By no means do we recognize their Green Line. The land of Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, not to the Zionists.

[...]

We must confront this Zionist entity. All ties of all kinds must be severed with this plundering criminal entity, which is supported by America and its weapons, as well as by its own nuclear weapons, the existence of which is well known. It will bring about their own destruction. The peoples must boycott this entity and avoid normalization of relations with it. All products from countries supporting this entity – from the U.S. and others – must be boycotted.

[...]

We want a country for the Palestinians on the entire land of Palestine, on the basis of [Palestinian] citizenship. All the talk about a two-state solution and about peace is nothing but an illusion, which the Arabs have been chasing for a long time now. They will not get from the Zionists anything but this illusion.

[...]

They have been fanning the flames of civil strife wherever they were throughout history. They are hostile by nature.

[...]

The Zionists understood nothing but the language of force.

Maybe so, Mohamed, but that is but one language Israelis speak. Besides Hebrew, many also speak English, Russian, Polish, French, Amharic—well, you get the idea. They also speak Yiddish. To those people, Mohamed, you are a putznasher.

Even a blind hamster finds food pellet once in a while:

The economy added 155,000 jobs in December, bringing the total number of jobs added in 2012 to 1.84 million, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.8%.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected the report to show that 150,000 jobs were created last month and the unemployment rate remained unchanged.

The workforce participation rate also remain unchanged at a nearly-historic low of 63.6%.

Say it with me: whoop-di-do.

Have others successfully reached Gaza?

Egyptian security forces in the Sinai Peninsula intercepted a shipment of American-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles destined for the Gaza Strip, Palestinian news agency Ma’an and Egyptian media reported on Friday.

After receiving intelligence on the weapons shipment, the Egyptian Interior Ministry raided the location south of El-Arish, Ma’an reported.

According to the report, security forces discovered six US-manufactured missiles being prepared for smuggling into the Palestinian coastal strip. The missiles were 75cm long, with a 40cm diameter and a range of two kilometers, Ma’an reported.

Although not explicitly mentioned in the Israel-Hamas cease-fire agreement that ended hostilities between the two late last year, statements by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu indicated that arrangements were being made with Egypt and the US to stymie the smuggling of materiel into Gaza.

Late last month, Egyptian armed forces foiled an attempt to smuggle 17 French-made TDI model rockets into the Gaza Strip, the Egypt Independent quoted an anonymous military source as saying.

According to the report, Egyptian military forces, in cooperation with local Bedouins, stopped the smuggling attempt in northern Sinai. The rockets intercepted were caliber 68 mm, which have a range of three kilometers.

- Aggie

Politicians and pundits agree with BTL

He is a uniquely polarizing figure. A moderate U.S. senator said the other day: “One thing not said enough is he is the most divisive president in modern history. He doesn’t just divide the Congress, he divides the country.” The senator thinks Mr. Obama has “two whisperers in his head.” “The political whisperer says ‘Don’t compromise a bit, make Republicans look weak and bad.’ Another whisperer is not political, it’s, ‘Let’s do the right thing, work together and begin to right the ship.’” The president doesn’t listen much to the second whisperer.

Maybe he thinks bipartisan progress raises the Republicans almost to his level, and he doesn’t want to do that. They’re partisan hacks, they’re not big like him. Let them flail.

This, however, is true: The great presidents are always in the end uniters, not dividers. They keep it together and keep it going. And people remember them fondly for that.

There’s much more at the link, all of it true, but why is this news in 2013? This was obvious in 2008, during the first campaign. If you had, say, 30 years of life experience, you could easily perceive it. Why discuss this now, when it is much too late?

- Aggie

That’s big if we’re talking about electric chairs.

For car sales, however, it’s barely a D battery.

Chevy Volt sales are cranking up. General Motors sold three times as many Chevrolet Volts in 2012 as it did in 2011, which was the car’s first full year on the market.

Woo hoo! Go Volt! (About 38 miles on a charge if you’re lucky.)

GM sold 23,461 Volts in 2012 compared with just 7,671 in 2011. While it’s an impressive jump, the Volt is still one of Chevy’s lowest-selling cars. However, the Volt greatly outdid the Corvette, for instance, of which only 14,000 were sold last year.

…

“More than half of all Volt sales are in California,” said Alec Guitierrez, an analyst with Kelley Blue Book. The car has also been catching on in other markets, however, including Michigan and in the Chicago area, according to GM.

Besides the carpool lane stickers, the Volt has also been helped by aggressive leasing incentives offered in 2012. Last year, GM was offering the car for $289 a month with a $2,800 down payment. That was far less than a car with the Volt’s nearly $40,000 purchase price would ordinarily lease for, even factoring in a $7,500 plug-in car tax credit.

“The math on the Volt starts to make sense to the masses at those prices,” said Jesse Toprak, an analyst with the auto pricing Web site Truecar.com.

Chevy Volt owners routinely report getting triple-digit gas mileage, according to the Web site Voltstats.net.

While even those fuel savings might not make up the car’s relatively high cost at full sticker price, the low lease rates made the Volt’s price more comparable to ordinary fully-gasoline-powered cars.

Following a full charge, the Volt can drive about 38 miles on plug-in electric power, according to EPA estimates, before a gasoline engine switches on to generate power for further driving.

So, with absurd sales gimmicks and government arm twisting, an electric vehicle can compete with the gas guzzlers.

Or not:

Regardless of the good news, Libby said, it still bears remembering that sales of the Volt, which is now the best-selling plug-in car in America, are still miniscule compared to most other cars. In 2012, Chevrolet dealers sold almost exactly 10 times as many of the Chevrolet Cruze, the gasoline powered car on which the Volt is based.

And the Toyota Camry outsold it by more than 17 times if we’re counting—neither of which come close to touching truck sales:

With sales of 645,316, its F-series pickup was the best-selling vehicle of any type in America last year.

The F-series easily outsold the Chevrolet Silverado, which with sales of 418,312 was the second-best-selling truck. Toss in the GMC Sierra, which is essentially the same vehicle as the Silverado but with fancier trim, and the Ford F-series was still ahead by about 70,000 units.

But that’s okay, Volt owners: the drive of a thousand miles begins with a singe charge (followed by 25 others).

Right. Now he’s done.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is signaling that at least one thing will change about his leadership during the 113th Congress: he’s telling Republicans he is done with private, one-on-one negotiations with President Obama.
During both 2011 and 2012, the Speaker spent weeks shuttling between the Capitol and the White House for meetings with the president in hope of striking a grand bargain on the deficit.

Those efforts ended in failure, leaving Boehner feeling burned by Obama and, at times, isolated within his conference.

He has disappointed everybody, even himself.

- Aggie

Black Americans haven’t had it worse economically since the end of Jim Crow, yet this jerk sees fit to demonize a pro-growth Republican

Appearing on CNN Wednesday, the president of the NAACP slammed incoming black Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) as being a Republican who does not “believe in civil rights.”

When asked to evaluate the incoming class of congresspeople, including a diverse group of women, Hispanics, blacks, and Asians, Ben Jealous took the opportunity to bring up that Sen. Scott has an “F” score with the NAACP’s annual report card.

…

“We have Republicans who believe in civil rights — unfortunately he is not one of them. And unfortunately his party, as you know, has really gone after so-called RINOs, as they call them, these Republicans who believe in civil rights, again and again.”

Jealous hopes that the Republicans can return to the “party of Arlen Specter”. Oh, dear God, I’d rather it be the party of Phil Spector.

As Jesse Jackson said of Barack Obama… well, let him say it:

Unexpectedly, this week’s numbers are hidden from public view

But your intrepid reporter, Aggie, dug them out from the bottom of a cheery story about increasing private sector hiring – during December.

A separate report also released Thursday showed 372,000 people filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits last week, up 10,000 from the previous week.
The weekly initial claims data is known for being especially choppy during holiday weeks. To smooth out the volatility, economists prefer to look at a four-week moving average instead.
That number was 360,000 last week, barely changed from a week earlier.
Meanwhile, 3.2 million people continued to file for a second week or more of unemployment benefits in the week ending December 22, up by 44,000 from a week earlier.

Meanwhile, eh? The last sentence of the report about just how rosy our economy is? Is that a joke?

The hamsters refuse to even participate. They insist that the numbers are bogus and they won’t awaken from their post-holiday slumber to even throw up a hamster nibble. I think that we live in a banana republic and we’ll never have a sense of the real numbers. So maybe some of our readers have an opinion?

- Aggie

The thermometer outside my kitchen window showed below zero this morning (Fahrenheit, you metric system Communists—a man’s temperature).

So, I hope the Obama’s don’t mind if I tag along, at least vicariously, on their Hawaiian vacation.

Wave! Wave, everybody! I think I see Sasha on the beach. Or is it Malia?

Let’s go in for a closer look:

Oops. No closer than this, I suppose.

I guess we’ll have to rely on publicly available PR.

Step from a secure entry and motor court into beachfront luxury that whispers old Hawaii, yet offers all of the latest amenities and technologies of a modern masterpiece.

The center courtyard features a lagoon-style pool pavilion including tropical waterfalls and a lavish island spa. The ocean lanai and garden lanai showcase ornate landscaping and stunning views. Expansive living quarters command attention amid the artisan touch of etched windows, stained glass, natural stone tiling and African mahogany carvings.

Wake to spectacular Kailua Beach sunrises from the master suite and bath which features a soothing therapy tub. The most up-to-date technologies include: CAT 5 cabling, telephone, cable TV, and wireless high speed internet. Central air conditioning, a zoned alarm system and multiple zone cameras provide a sophisticated level of comfort and security.

And don’t forget the autopen!

President Barack Obama has signed into law a bill to avert the fiscal cliff, a day after the House and Senate approved the much-debated legislation.

Obama, who returned to his family vacation in Hawaii after Tuesday’s House vote, signed the bill via autopen on Wednesday.

This is the so-called Plantation Estate. Given the unfortunate resonance of that name (not that Hawaii had that kind of plantation) and the president’s personal story, I would have thought he’d prefer the Balinese Estate.

But what does he care? His snot doesn’t freeze when he goes outside to get the paper. It’s that cold here.

You can’t even trust your doctor these days.

Being overweight can extend life rather than shorten it, according to a major new study that runs counter to widespread medical assumptions and years of warnings about the fatal implications of Britain’s expanding waistlines.

It sounds too good to be true, coming at the end of the season of excess, but after one of the largest reviews of research ever conducted, doctors say that carrying a few extra pounds may actually reduce the risk of premature death. Experts have repeatedly warned that obesity would soon exact a greater toll than smoking and the current generation could be the first to die before their parents.

Only yesterday, the Royal College of Physicians called for more to be done to tackle the UK’s obesity epidemic, criticising the NHS’s “patchy” services and inadequate leadership on the issue. However, the new study shows that people who are modestly overweight have a 6 per cent lower rate of premature death from all causes than people of ideal, “healthy” weight, while even those who are mildly obese have no increased risk. Overweight is defined as a body mass index above 25 but below 30. For a man of 5ft 9in, that is between 12 stone 4lb and 14 stone 6lb, or for a woman of 5ft 6in, it is between 11 stone 3 lb and 13 stone 4lb. Ideal, healthy weight is defined as a BMI between 18.5 and 25.

Mild obesity (those with a BMI between 30 and 34.9) brings a 5 per cent lower premature death rate, according to the study. Although this was not statistically significant, it suggests there is no increased risk of premature death attached to that weight range.

The news will seem heaven sent to those contemplating a new year diet, and contradicts the received wisdom that being fat reduces life expectancy. It is the second time that research studies led by Katherine Flegal, a distinguished epidemiologist from the National Centre for Health Statistics at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Maryland, US, have studied the link between obesity and mortality.

In 2007 the same group caused consternation among public health professionals when they published the results of a similar analysis that also showed being fat does not shorten life. Walter Willett, professor of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, dismissed the finding as “rubbish”.

Dr Flegal told The Independent she had decided to conduct a second, larger, study on the same theme to counter the sceptics. She and her team examined results from 100 studies from around the world, involving three million people and 270,000 deaths.

The results are published in the respected Journal of the American Medical Association, which also published the earlier study. They show only the severely obese, with a body mass index above 35, have a significantly increased mortality, up by 29 per cent. Otherwise, extra weight appears to be protective. Underweight people, meanwhile, have a 10 per cent higher rate of premature death than those of normal size, according to earlier research. “There is already a lot of literature showing that overweight is linked with lower mortality,” said Dr Flegal. “It is not an unusual finding. But authors tend to shy away from it. They tend to underplay it or try to explain it away.”

That’s really funny. I wonder what will happen to gym membership participation if the public every finds out about this?

PS: The NY Times has an article about this too.

- Aggie

Oh, come on, Asians. Why you no think this funny? You rack sense of humol?

The maker of a Google app thinks it’s fun to make yourself look Asian by changing the shape of your eyes and wearing a Fu Manchu mustache and rice paddy hat.

Another app – “Make Me Indian” – makes you a Native American with brown skin, war paint and a feather headband.

“This is just a fun app (that) lets you indulge you and your friends,” says the description of the “Make Me Asian” app created by user KimberyDeiss and available on Google Play.

“You can for a few seconds to make (yourself) a Chinese, Japanese, Korean or any other Asians,” the description says.

Not amusing or cute, say Asian-American organizations that launched a petition to get Google to remove both apps.

…

“These racist and offensive portrayals of Asians and Native Americans perpetuate damaging racial stereotypes and should not be distributed on the Google play store,” said the campaign, which has an online petition to remove the apps.

Again I say, what’s the big deal? I’m sure if they made a “Make Me Black” app (complete with drumstick and 40 ounces of malt liquor), or a “Make Me Hispanic” app (a fake driver’s license and a .23 reading on a breathalyzer), no one would have a problem.

Just to prove there’s nothing wrong with this app, I submit my own visage for reinterpretation.

That’s not funny!

I demand Google withdraw this racist and offensive portrayal!

PS: You know me. I can’t resist this one:

Peace of [bleep] doesn’t even work. That ain’t no Indian.

Promises to be a lot like the first three.

Aggie reported the other day that FISA warrantless wiretapping would continue for another five years—to the sound of deafening silence from the Democrat-Media Complex.

But that’s child’s play next to rendition:

The three European men with Somali roots were arrested on a murky pretext in August as they passed through the small African country of Djibouti. But the reason soon became clear when they were visited in their jail cells by a succession of American interrogators.

U.S. agents accused the men — two of them Swedes, the other a longtime resident of Britain — of supporting al-Shabab, an Islamist militia in Somalia that Washington considers a terrorist group. Two months after their arrest, the prisoners were secretly indicted by a federal grand jury in New York, then clandestinely taken into custody by the FBI and flown to the United States to face trial.

The secret arrests and detentions came to light Dec. 21 when the suspects made a brief appearance in a Brooklyn courtroom.

The men are the latest example of how the Obama administration has embraced rendition — the practice of holding and interrogating terrorism suspects in other countries without due process — despite widespread condemnation of the tactic in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

…

“In a way, rendition has become even more important than before,” said Clara Gutteridge, director of the London-based Equal Justice Forum, a human rights group that investigates national security cases and that opposes the practice.

Hey, I know! Let’s make a movie about the abhorrent practice! Call it “Rendition”.

Well then, how about a sequel? Call it “Extraordinary Rendition”.

Anyhow, not to worry. This ain’t your grandpappy’s rendition:

Because of the secrecy involved, it is not known how many renditions have taken place during Obama’s first term. But his administration has not disavowed the practice. In 2009, a White House task force on interrogation and detainee transfers recommended that the government be allowed to continue using renditions, but with greater oversight, so that suspects were not subject to harsh interrogation techniques, as some were during the George W. Bush administration.

“Greater oversight”. Like putting government on C-Span, right President Obama?

What about it, Libs? Don’t make me unleash my crickets!