Noah David Simon

Another lie exposed

2013-05-19T14:01:00.000-05:00

Israel Matzav: It's official: Government inquiry finds al-Dura 'killing' was a hoax

Ducks [Flickr]

2013-05-17T17:38:44-07:00

#Nakba

2013-05-17T14:49:00.003-05:00

The truth about the Naqba: This ought to be daily required reading for every 'Palestinian.' You know, like Chinese water torture. This is the truth about the 'naqba' - the truth that they cannot face (Hat Tip: Cheryl H).
The Nakba commemorations are only possible in a culture with no sense of responsibility. A religion which has killed more people and wiped out more cultures than Stalin and Hitler combined, still remains convinced that it is the victim. A victim of their own failed genocidal war. The Nakba is really the Nakbacide. A dream of mass murder that was frustrated when their victims fought back

Had the Israeli War of Independence been fought between local Jews and Arabs, the Nakba circus might not be as bankrupt as it is. But it was actually a war fought between local Jews and the armies of seven Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Syria, overseen by two British commanders. Despite all this, the Arab Muslim invaders still failed to do more than seize half of Jerusalem, and Gaza, Judea and Samaria. And that's what really gnaws at them.

The ugly truth of the Nakba is that it blunted the nationalistic ambitions of Arab Muslims who were dreaming of replacing the Ottoman and British empires. Losing a war to a European world power wouldn't have hurt as much as losing a war to a despised regional minority. A people whose name is an insult in the mouth of every Arab. Yahood. Lower than a dog. Yahood. Transformed into apes and pigs in the Koran. Yahood. Second class citizens in every Muslim country. Who somehow beat back seven Muslim armies and took back their lands that had been conquered by the Caliphs.

But in Muslim culture time never passes. The words, "You Lost a War, Get Over It", have no meaning. Arab Muslims still think Spain is theirs. Every time they see a European army, they mutter about the Crusades. Jews are greeted with chants of "Khaybar ya Yahood" recalling Mohammed's massacre of the Jews, a historical event that is much closer to what the Nakba only claims to be. Nothing is ever forgotten. Old hatreds are nurtured into violent rages that cannot be calmed by any treaty. The purpose of hate is hate. The purpose of Nakba is Nakba.

History is a dead word. The Muslim world has no history. It has pervasive myths that feed the Arab Muslim need for self-glorification and victimization. Muslim history is one long cry of "Mine, Mine, Mine" and "Give it Back". Millions of Arab Muslims believe that they discovered America, that European science was stolen from them, that the entire world used to be Muslim, that the Holocaust was made up, that Neil Armstrong heard the Islamic call to prayer on the moon, that Jacques Cousteau converted to Islam and that the Koran invented light bulbs. The Nakba makes as much sense as any of these.

...

Their fictional Palestinian identity, with its imagined roots in a country they hardly ever lived in, has turned millions of people into the militias of the Arab world. Their flags and chants about statehood hiding the fact that they are nothing more than proxies of countries which deny them citizenship because it makes them into better weapons, not just against Israel, but against each other. When an Arab country wants some thugs to smash in the heads of protesters, some cheap labor or even cheaper reason to get their people all worked up, they bring in the faux Palestinians, with their keffiyahs, their Arab-Socialist tricolor flags and their chronic unemployment.

The historical irony, is that it is the very gullibility of these Arab-Muslims, their willingness to accept a Palestinian identity, that keeps them displaced in the countries they live in. Had they demanded the right to be citizens of Jordan, Syria or Lebanon-- international pressure would have given them a new life. Instead by embracing the dubious honor of continuing the Jihad against the Jews, they trapped themselves in a no man's land of their own making. As long as they remain willing to be killers, sacrificing their own children to the fiery moloch of the bomb vest, then they will be forever pariahs in their own countries.
Read it all.

Crony Obamacare gives bonuses to hit jobs. They should hire the New Orleans Saints

2013-05-17T14:42:00.001-05:00

IRS tax exemption/Obamacare exec got $103,390 in bonuses; Did Obama OK them?

Long before the Internal Revenue Service revealed it had improperly targeted conservative 501(c)(4) groups, a group of Democratic senators led by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer urged the IRS to do just that.

2013-05-17T14:32:00.000-05:00

(Infidel) The IRS’s admission last Friday that it had singled out tea party and other groups for extra audits and delays has raised concerns that President Barack Obama’s administration quietly attempted to stymy opponents through intimidation. But many prominent Democrats — including Montana Sen. Max Baucus, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the New York Times editorial board — had been publicly calling for tighter restrictions on 501(c)(4) groups affiliated with the tea party and conservatives.

Last year, Schumer, along with Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, Jeanne Shaheen and Al Franken, penned a letter calling on the agency to cap the amount of the political spending by groups masquerading as “social welfare organizations.”

A press release from Schumer’s office dated March 12, 2012 laid out the terms of the letter:

The senators said the lack of clarity in the IRS rules has allowed political groups to improperly claim 501(c)4 status and may even be allowing donors to these groups to wrongly claim tax deductions for their contributions. The senators promised legislation if the IRS failed to act to fix these problems.
“We urge the IRS to take these steps immediately to prevent abuse of the tax code by political groups focused on federal election activities. But if the IRS is unable to issue administrative guidance in this area then we plan to introduce legislation to accomplish these important changes,” the senators wrote.The letter cited a March 7, 2012 New York Times article by Jonathan Weisman that suggested donations to groups like American Crossroads and Priorities USA could be tax deductible, which was a primary concern of those senators at the time.

A number of those senators participated in a press conference about their efforts on March 21, 2012, and Franken spoke out about what he called lack of oversight of 501(c)(4) status.

“I think that there hasn’t been enforcement by the FEC and the IRS, and so there are entities that are taking a 501(c)4 status, and under that they’re supposed to have more than half of their activity be non-political,” Franken said. “That’s pretty hinky. I mean, they really aren’t doing that, and that I think there needs to be a look at that — that even under the laws that already exist, there are people who should be disclosing who aren’t. And I think that is where we’re seeing the effect of — lack of effective enforcement and just oversight.”

Benghazi Narrative Shift Was Perfectly Clintonian

2013-05-17T11:07:00.000-05:00

the night before the Boston bombing (that we now know Obama was warned by the Russians about)... we saw a CNN video about the Oklahoma City Bombing.... why would the media be interested in pushing this narrative the night before the Boston bombing?
Oklahoma City, April 19, 1995: Twenty minutes before the blast that leveled the Murrah Federal building in downtown Oklahoma City employees at a tire store spotted Timothy McVeigh and a short Middle Eastern-looking man in a Ryder truck and gave the pair directions.
Five minutes before the blast, printing operator Jerry Nance noticed an unusual car in the downtown Oklahoma City parking lot. It was a dilapidated yellow Mercury Marquis. Behind the wheel was a dark-skinned, Middle Eastern-looking man in a ball cap.
When Nance walked back towards the car to get some stuff from his own car, the Mercury Marquis almost ran him over. Now, however, the Middle Eastern man was sitting in the passenger seat, and a tall white man was driving the car out of the parking lot, recklessly at that.
Two minutes later, the Murrah building blew up. Nance informed the FBI of this incident and the car before anyone knew McVeigh had been apprehended in a yellow Mercury Marquis.
Another eyewitness, Daina Bradley, cried out to the rescuers who were trying to extricate her after the blast. "It was a Ryder truck. It pulled up, a foreign looking man got out, and then before long, everything went black."
A week later, the FBI quoted Nance and the tire store employees in its request before a federal judge to hold McVeigh over for trial. The Washington Post of April 28 confirmed the same:

The magistrate, Ronald L. Howland, ordered McVeigh to be held without bail after listening to four hours of testimony from FBI special agent John Hersley in which he described eyewitness accounts of a yellow Mercury with McVeigh and another maninside speeding away from a parking lot near the federal building. (italics mine)

For the next six weeks, John Doe #2 was the most hunted man in the world until, without explanation, he just kind of went away. The narrative had shifted. The White House only needed the two white right-wingers, Terry Nichols and McVeigh. With them as poster children, the media buried Gingrich's "Republican Revolution" in the rubble of the Murrah building. (MORE)

UNRWA quietly admits Jordanians sexually abuse Palestinian children

2013-05-17T04:48:00.000-05:00

(EOZ) UNRWA published a booklet talking about how your sizable donations to that agency can help "Palestine refugees."

Here is one of their suggestions:

$318,000 rehabilitates one school and provide its students with a safe learning environment

UNRWA aims to ensure that education services meet national and international standards and provide Palestine refugee children with a safe learning environment. The rehabilitation of schools premises, built in the 1960’s, is a top priority for UNRWA in Jordan.

Current safety hazards are weakened structures due to dilapidated columns, risk of falling debris, loose plaster in the ceiling, decaying lintels and seismic risk from earthquakes. An additional risk is the sexual harassment and abuse of both male and female children in school toilets, because of their location outside the main building.

Changes to infrastructure include the relocation of toilets inside school buildings and extension of the height of the boundary walls.

UNRWA schools in Jordan need to be better protected from...Jordanians? Jordanians who like to sexually abuse little Palestinian boys and girls?

Why isn't UNRWA complaining loudly about this outrage? Why aren't they insisting that these children be protected by Jordanian authorities? Practically all of Palestinian Arab "refugees" in Jordan have held Jordanian citizenship since 1950, how can such abuse be buried? No doubt the schools need better security, but how come UNRWA isn't publicly insisting that Jordan protect her own citizens? (WHY?)

Obama and the "Official Truth"

2013-05-17T04:38:00.002-05:00

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula has been sitting in a US federal prison in Texas since his photographed midnight arrest by half a dozen deputy sheriffs at his home in California for violating the terms of his parole. As many reporters have noted, the parole violation in question would not generally lead to anything more than a court hearing.
But in Nakoula's case, it led to a year in a federal penitentiary. Because he wasn't really arrested for violating the terms of his parole.
Nakoula was arrested for producing an anti- Islam film that the Obama administration was falsely blaming for the al-Qaida assault on the US Consulate in Benghazi and the brutal murder of US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans on September 11, 2012. Obama and his associates falsely blamed Nakoula's film - and scapegoated Nakoula - for inciting the al-Qaida attack in Benghazi because they needed a fall guy to pin their cover-up of the actual circumstances of the premeditated, eminently foreseeable attack, which took place at the height of the presidential election campaign.
With the flood of scandals now inundating the White House, many are wondering if there is a connection between the cover-up of Benghazi, the IRS's prejudicial treatment of non-leftist nonprofit organizations and political donors, the Environmental Protection Agency's prejudicial treatment of non-liberal organizations, and the Justice Department's subpoenaing of phone records of up to a hundred reporters and editors from the Associated Press.t

(On the surface, they seem like unrelated events.)

@WarpedMirrorPMB: From Al Jazeera to ColumbiaUniversity: Joseph Massad’s obsession with Israel

2013-05-16T21:07:00.003-05:00

(by Petra Marquardt-Bigman) Columbia University professor Joseph Massad has been at it for years, but for some reason, his latest op-ed for Al Jazeera finally made many people sit up and pay attention to Massad’s relentless efforts to taint Israel and Zionism with preposterous Nazi-comparisons and claims of Nazi-collaboration.

Popular columnist Jeffrey Goldberg tweeted sarcastically: “Congratulations, al Jazeera: You've just posted one of the most anti-Jewish screeds in recent memory.”

While a lot of people agreed with Goldberg and either retweeted him or posted similar tweets, it is debatable if Massad’s latest Al Jazeera column was really so much worse than the many others that reflect his obsession with Israel. As I have documented only recently, Massad’s writings on Israel can easily be confused with material from the neo-Nazi “White Pride World Wide” hate site Stormfront – and at least in one case, he actually did write a passage that closely resembles a Stormfront post that is taken from David Duke’s notorious “minor league Mein Kampf.”

It was therefore arguably long overdue that people finally noticed that Massad was using his Al Jazeera columns to spread his vicious views on Israel and Zionism. In his latest lengthy and rather incoherent screed, Massad tries once again to resurrect the “Zionism is racism”-equation with the added twist of insisting that Zionism is really Nazi-like racism. This brings Massad to the utterly ridiculous conclusion that

“Israel and the Western powers want to elevate anti-Semitism to an international principle around which they seek to establish full consensus. They insist that for there to be peace in the Middle East, Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims must become, like the West, anti-Semites by espousing Zionism and recognising Israel’s anti-Semitic claims [i.e. Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state].”

Furthermore, according to Massad,

“the Palestinian people and the few surviving anti-Zionist Jews […] are […] the heirs of the pre-WWII Jewish and Palestinian struggles against anti-Semitism and its Zionist colonial manifestation. It is their resistance that stands in the way of a complete victory for European anti-Semitism in the Middle East and the world at large.”

It is almost amusing that Massad insists that “the Palestinian Authority and its cronies” are not part of this oh-so-noble tradition of opposing the kind of antisemitic Zionism that is the product of his fevered imagination. But of course, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Columbia University professor Joseph Massad clearly share a fondness for the “historical narishkayt” that there was some sort of cozy “relationship between Zionism and Nazism before World War II.”

Indeed, Massad – who works at Columbia University as an expert on “modern Arab politics and intellectual history” – faithfully reflects the antisemitic demonization of Israel that is so commonplace in the Arab media and that keeps poisoning Arab politics.

In reaction to Massad’s latest screed, many on Twitter dismissed his vicious views as proof of his ignorance, and a widely recommended post by Liam Hoare opened with the verdict that “Joseph Massad’s op-ed, ‘The Last of the Semites’, demonstrates above all that the Columbia professor knows very little about not a lot.”

But while Hoare does a good job demonstrating that Massad’s views amount to “a total perversion of Jewish history and what Herzl actually thought and wrote,” it’s safe to assume that Professor Massad thinks of himself as a foremost expert on Zionism and Israel. Indeed, his Al Jazeera columns on these subjects usually include a reference to his book on “The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians,” and it turns out that this spring semester, Massad is also teaching a course that covers some of the very subjects he knows so “very little about.”

Unfortunately, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Massad’s students are likely to learn how to present Zionism as “a total perversion of Jewish history and what Herzl actually thought and wrote.”

Whether the resulting ideas are articulated in a Columbia University classroom or on Al Jazeera or Stormfront makes little difference as far as their substance is concerned. I tried to illustrate this point in my recent post on Massad with some quotes (I have added here two more) that are either from Massad or from Stormfront – see if you can tell them apart:

1) “Nazism was a boon to Zionism throughout the 1930s.”

2) “For all intents and purposes, the National Socialist government was the best thing to happen to Zionism in its history.”

3) “In Germany, the average Jews were victims of the Zionist elite who worked hand in hand with the Nazis.”

4) “Hitler could have just confiscated all the Jewish wealth. Instead he used the ‘Haavara Program’ to help establish the State of Israel.”

5) “Between 1933 and 1939, 60 percent of all capital invested in Jewish Palestine came from German Jewish money through the Transfer Agreement.”

6) “In fact, contra all other German Jews (and everyone else inside and outside Germany) who recognised Nazism as the Jews’ bitterest enemy, Zionism saw an opportunity to strengthen its colonisation of Palestine.”

7) “Zionists welcomed the Nazis’ anti-Semitic policies. Like the Nazis, they believed in race-based national character and destiny. Like the Nazis, they believed Jews had no future in Germany."

8) “the Zionist Federation of Germany […] supported the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, as they agreed with the Nazis that Jews and Aryans were separate and separable races. This was not a tactical support but one based on ideological similitude."

9) “Zionism […] developed the idea of the first racially separatist planned community for the exclusive use of Ashkenazi Jews, namely the Kibbutz.”

10) “The Zionists were afraid that the ‘Jewish race’ was disappearing through assimilation.”

Needless to say, Massad and his admirers who enthusiastically endorsed his recent column – among them Max Blumenthal of Mondoweiss, Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada, and the “Angry Arab” Professor As’ad AbuKhalil – would all insist, just as Massad claims in his Al Jazeera piece, that their staunch anti-Zionism means quasi by definition that they can’t be antisemitic, even if they propagate the same perverted tropes that are popular on Stormfront.

Swim Dog [Flickr]

2013-05-16T15:49:58-07:00

simonstudionyc posted a video:

US Treasury Inspector General: 'No evidence' IRS discriminated against pro-Israel groups

2013-05-16T16:30:00.000-05:00

The United States Treasury's Inspector General is claiming that there is 'no evidence' that the IRS discriminated against pro-Israel organizations.

In the Treasury inspector general's report out this week, there was no finding that 'pro-Israel' or 'Jewish' were classifications that were specifically targeted for political purposes. In other words, no evidence has thus far been discovered that an organization like Z Street would have been singled out because of its allegiance to Israel or because of specific Israeli government policies.

Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told The Jerusalem Post that he has neither seen nor heard of any evidence to the contrary, though he admits that, if a group represented by the conference were being audited, he might not be the first to know.

The Politico piece cites one sole source from the IRS whose comments indicate the possibility of a connection to the scandal: Jon Waddell, manager of the Exempt Organizations Determinations Group at the IRS.

"Israel is one of many Middle Eastern countries that have a ‘higher risk of terrorism,’” wrote Waddell concerning legal action from Z Street. “A referral to TAG is appropriate whenever an application mentions providing resources to organizations in a country with a higher risk of terrorism."

But a look at the IRS code on tax exemption procedures clarifies what Waddell means by 'higher risk of terrorism.' Procedure requires Waddell and his team take into account the activities of an organization that are deemed to put resources in danger; this includes activities or grants in foreign countries flagged by the State Department as having "trends" in terrorism. Those flags automatically prompt perfectly legal procedures, such as further questioning through further paperwork.

Whether Israel should still be on that list is a separate question. But whether the IRS was targeting pro-Israeli groups to investigate possible conservative ties is, at the moment, pure speculation.

(Carl) If you follow these links you will see that there is a lot more evidence against the IRS than is cited in the JPost article excerpted above.

KFC chicken smuggled through Gaza tunnels

2013-05-16T05:38:00.003-05:00

A local Egyptian delivery company has been smuggling KFC meals through the underground tunnels across the Egypt-Gaza border, the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) reported Wednesday. The al-Yamama company has advertised its fast-food smuggling service on Facebook. According to the CSM, the company gets tens of orders a week for KFC meals. Their Facebook page is filled with thanks and recommendations from satisfied Gazan customers, as well as advertisements for potential smugglers looking for delivery work. The price of a KFC family meal is about 80 Egyptian pounds (about 11 US dollars) at el-Arish KFC restaurant, but getting it in Gaza costs as much as 100 Israeli Shekels (30 dollars), with the company seemingly tripling the price of KFC to cover cover transportation and smuggling fees. The deliveries go from the fryers at the neighboring Egyptian city of Al-Arish's KFC joint 35 miles away to customers' doorsteps in about three hours, according to CSM. Mohammed Al-Madani, an accountant at Al-Yamama company, said they started their new business by chance, Xinhua reported. "We ordered and arranged to bring some meals for us and they arrive after four hours," Xinhua quoted him as saying. Then they posted a picture for the fast food on their company's website, and soon got more orders from the people in Gaza." Since late last month, they have made four deliveries of KFC food to Palestinians in Gaza, with every delivery including about two dozens of combos, according to Xinhua.

British gov funding BDS

2013-05-16T04:52:00.003-05:00

Britain (THE WORST)

The news, which has surfaced following an investigation by the Jerusalem Post, shows that the British Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is providing funding to an organisation which promotes anti-Israel speakers and encourages the boycott movement around the world.

The Post reports that a British-funded institute in Jerusalem has come under fire for hosting an event supporting the BDS campaign against Israel, alongside proof that a United Nations (UN) staff member circulated its details in an official email to co-workers.

In March, the Kenyon Institute, also known as the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, hosted an event titled “The emergence of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement” – a campaign led by radical anti-Israel activists – at its East Jerusalem headquarters.

The institute is funded by the British Academy, an organisation which boasts of its support from the British government department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The department provides 91 percent of the Academy's income - a total of £27m ($41m) in 2011/12.

The Post report highlights the event at which Suzanne Morrison of the London School of Economics was due to discuss the BDS movement. Morrison has said that an academic boycott of Israel is a “top priority in the BDS movement.”

Morrison's supervisor at the LSE is none other than Dr. John Chalcraft, treasurer of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine which recently successfully lobbied Professor Stephen Hawkings to boycott the State of Israel.

The Commentator can also exclusively reveal that in a recent e-mail exchange with BRICUP staff, a response came via e-mail not from a BRICUP e-mail account, but from an official London School of Economics e-mail address belonging to Mr. Mike Cushman, listed as Research Fellow and Information and Communication Manager, from an e-mail account named 'supporters@lse.ac.uk'.

Read the whole thing.

Will the IRS finally get its day in court?

2013-05-15T22:09:00.002-05:00

Lori Lowenthal Marcus, the founder of Z Street who filed a lawsuit against the IRS, notes that “the very first hearing in Z STREET v IRS was recently scheduled for the afternoon of Tuesday, July 2, [2013] in the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia.” If Marcus were not a lawyer herself and very persistent, there would be no appeal for Z Street. And need I point out that justice delayed is justice denied?

I don’t know what official reasons were given by the IRS to Tea-Party related organizations — as well, ironically, as those with the word ‘patriot’ in their names — for holding up their applications, but Z Street’s lawsuit claims that

21. [IRS] Agent [Diane] Gentry also informed Z STREET’s counsel that the IRS is carefully scrutinizing organizations that are in any way connected with Israel.
22. Agent Gentry further stated to counsel for Z STREET: “these cases are being sent to a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.”

Could the violation of the First Amendment be more clear? An affadavit from the IRS official in charge of the “special unit” referred to was even more Orwellian:

a. The application indicated that Z Street could be providing resources to organizations within Israel or facilitating the provision of resources to organizations within the state of Israel;
b. Israel is one of many Middle Eastern countries that have a “higher risk of terrorism.” (LR.M. 7.20.6.7.5.2(1). See also http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2008/122433.htm); and
c. A referral to TAG is appropriate whenever an application mentions providing resources to organizations in a country with a higher risk of terrorism.

This is like saying that we shouldn’t support the Boston Marathon, because terrorism happens there! And it is reminiscent of the US refusal to give refuge to Jewish victims of the Nazis because, as Germans, they were enemy nationals.

Marcus notes that the Z Street charter specifically condemns terrorism, and that Z Street has never provided funds or ‘resources’ to anyone in Israel or anywhere else. And she adds that Z Street is not the only Jewish organization to receive ‘special treatment’ from the IRS:

And at least one purely religious Jewish organization, one not focused on Israel, was the recipient of bizarre and highly inappropriate questions about Israel. Those questions also came from the same non-profit division of the IRS at issue for inappropriately targeting politically conservative groups. The IRS required that Jewish organization to state “whether [it] supports the existence of the land of Israel,” and also demanded the organization “[d]escribe [its] religious belief system toward the land of Israel.”

Three years ago, long before this week's scandal broke, (Carl) reported that the IRS was holding up the registration of the pro-Israel group Z Street as a tax-exempt organization. Z Street sued the IRS, and in court it introduced a letter from the IRS asking whether it supported Israel. The next court date in that case is July 2, but in the meantime the IRS is facing a much larger scandal in which pro-Israel organizations may only be a small part (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

In a conference call with reporters last week, the IRS official responsible for granting tax-exempt status said that it was a mistake to subject Tea Party groups to additional scrutiny based solely on the organization's name. But she said ideology played no part in the process.
"The selection of these cases where they used the names was not a partisan selection," said Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations. She said progressive groups were also selected for greater scrutiny based on their names, but did not provide details. "I don't have them off the top of my head," she said.

The IRS did not respond to follow-up questions Tuesday.

Congressional critics say the IRS's actions suggest a political motives: "This administration seems to have a culture of politics above all else," said Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas. "A lot of the actions they take have a political side first, and put government second."

Flores complained to the IRS last year after the Waco Tea Party's tax-exempt application was mired in red tape. The IRS asked the group for information that was "overreaching and impossible to comply with," Flores said: Transcripts of radio interviews, copies of social media posts and details on "close relationships" with political candidates.

When Flores complained last year -- asking pointed questions about the IRS treatment of Tea Party groups -- the IRS response didn't acknowledge that it had treated conservative groups differently. "They did more than sidestep the issue," he said. "They flipped me the finger."

Before the IRS started separating out Tea Party applications, getting tax-exempt status was routine -- even for conservative groups. The Champaign Tea Party's treasurer, Karen Olsen, said the process was smooth, with no follow-up questions from the IRS.

Politico suggests that pro-Israel groups were also targeted.

The same Internal Revenue Service office that singled out Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny also challenged Israel-related organizations, at least one of which filed suit over the agency’s handling of its application for tax-exempt status.

The trouble for the Israel-focused groups seems to have had different origins than that experienced by conservative groups, but at times the effort seems to have been equally ham-handed.

...

Legal filings show that the problems for Z Street — and apparently for other Israel-related groups — stemmed from an obscure unit in the Cincinnati IRS office: the “Touch and Go Group.” One of the so-called TAG Group’s duties was to weed out applications that might be coming from organizations which might be used to fund terrorism.

In response to Z Street’s lawsuit, an IRS manager acknowledged that applications mentioning Israel were getting special attention.

“Israel is one of many Middle Eastern countries that have a ‘higher risk of terrorism,’” wrote Jon Waddell, manager of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Determinations Group. “A referral to TAG is appropriate whenever an application mentions providing resources to organizations in a country with a higher risk of terrorism.”

However, Z Street and other groups reported getting unusual inquiries from the IRS. A Z Street lawyer was contacted by a Jewish religious group, which detailed inquiries from the IRS that the group’s leaders thought had treaded too far.

“Does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel? Describe your organization’s religious belief system towards the land of Israel,” the IRS asked in a letter sent to the religious group, which asked not to be named.

“If they’re asking that of that group, what else are they asking?” Lowenthal Marcus asked.
She said basing the review for terrorism on where an organization did business was strange and ineffective.

“If their policy was to look at any organization that had anything to do with a country where terrorism exists, I don’t see how that limits anything,” Lowenthal Marcus said. “There’s been terrorism in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in Canada, in Malaysia….and in Boston. Is that now going to be on the list?”

In court filings in the Z Street case, the Obama administration has denied that the IRS is discriminating against groups that disagree with Obama administration policies.

In court papers, the IRS denied that its personnel ever told Z Street that there was a special review for groups that might be at odds with Obama administration policy. The tax agency contended that the issue was whether the groups might violate “public policy” — a legal term of art for the notion that the government shouldn’t bestow a benefit on an individual or organization engaged in illegal activity like terrorism, or in an officially disfavored activity such as racial discrimination.

“The application was not transferred to TAG because of an ‘Israel special policy’ or because Z Street’s views on Israel contradict the Obama administration’s views on Israel,” the Justice Department wrote in a brief seeking dismissal of Z Street’s lawsuit.

TAG was originally set up by the Bush administration in 2005 to target terror funding. The Obama administration vowed to change TAG in 2009, but of course, Muslim groups are still claiming that it targets them as well.

How many #feminists does it take to force fuck a gay diplomat?

2013-05-15T21:19:00.000-05:00

Answer: At the very least one feminist Secretary of State (BENGHAZI EMAILS)

This afternoon the White House released 100 pages of emails that trace the development of the talking points about Benghazi that Susan Rice eventually used on her notorious tour of the Sunday morning news shows, and that formed the basis for much of what the Obama administration said about the attacks for weeks afterward. This is the original version of the talking points that came out of the CIA, with slight revisions. Note that this initial version is ambiguous, reflecting what was probably genuine uncertainty on the part of the drafters. Note, too, that there is no reference to any YouTube video:

The CIA said that “[t]he currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the US consulate and subsequently its annex.” On the other hand, it also says, “we do know that Islamic extremists participated in the violent demonstrations,” and refers to “numerous” prior warnings by the CIA and prior attacks carried out by “extremists linked to al Qaeda” in Benghazi and eastern Libya. Further, it notes reports that Ansar al-Sharia was involved. What happened over the ensuing 24 hours or so is that this initial summary was watered down to the point where it was virtually devoid of content.

Several significant points emerge from the emails. First, as has been widely reported, it was the State Department that drove the dumbing down of the talking points. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland–”Toria” to her friends, evidently–represented the department in the negotiations over Benghazi. She was particularly concerned that the public not get the impression that the Obama administration had been warned about the potential for violence in Benghazi:

Democratic Party political operative David Adams weighed in on Ms. Nuland’s side:

This email refers to the State Department’s “deep concerns about mentioning the warnings.” We certainly wouldn’t want it to get out that the Obama administration had been repeatedly warned of the potential for terrorist violence in Benghazi!

The emails make another key point crystal clear: the administration molded the talking points for the specific purpose of counteracting the news, which was already starting to get traction, that what happened in Benghazi was a planned terrorist attack:

In Congress, “they all think it was premeditated,” so we need to “correct the record.” In fact, though, it was premeditated, as everyone now knows. Furthermore, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was already well aware, based on her famous 2 a.m. conversation with Greg Hicks, that the attack was premeditated; that there was no demonstration; that armed terrorists assaulted the Benghazi compound and overran it. Yet Hillary Clinton did not participate in the email communications, and she apparently never communicated what she learned from Hicks to anyone involved in the messaging process.

Not only that, the emails show that the FBI had already concluded that al Qaeda (not just al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) was involved. Yet this information never saw the light of day:

In Hillary’s absence, who ran the show? Another striking fact about the emails is that the process was driven entirely by political operatives. The show was run by Ben Rhodes, an Obama speechwriter; Tommy Vietor, who started out driving a van for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign; and David Adams. Even David Petraeus was a mere flunky; he said that he would rather not use the watered-down talking points, but the Obama administration was not interested in his opinion:

As the talking points finally emerged from the administration’s political process, they lacked any reference to the many warnings the CIA had given about the potential for terrorist attacks in Benghazi, or the actual attacks that had already taken place there. They didn’t mention Ansar al-Sharia. But they didn’t refer to any YouTube videos, either:

Which brings us to the penultimate significant point: the email threads manifest a strong concern with what Susan Rice would say on the Sunday morning news shows. That drove the rush to get the talking points finalized. Yet, what Rice actually said bore little relation to anything that went before. Her harping on the YouTube video had no support in any version of the talking points, and her insistence that there was no evidence a planned attack was flatly contradicted by the original version of the talking points, and only tenuously supported by the final version.

So the final question is: where was Hillary Clinton in this process? Based on her conversation with Greg Hicks, she knew that the assault was planned, and that it was carried out by terrorists armed with RPGs and mortars. She knew that there was no demonstration over a video, or anything else. And yet she allowed her colleague Susan Rice to spin a web of lies to mislead the American people. Is Hillary Clinton an absent, inept manager who has little to do with what happens in the department she ostensibly runs? Or is Benghazi just one more example of an administration that cares nothing about policy, and everything about politics–an administration that is endlessly willing to subvert the truth for political ends? My own judgment is: certainly the latter, perhaps the former.

MEDIA MATTERS DISTRIBUTES TALKING POINTS TO DEFEND DOJ SPYING ON AP REPORTERS.

2013-05-15T21:10:00.002-05:00

Media Matters Talking Points?????? ".....How should the Justice Department strike the balance between respecting our free press and investigating damaging leaks that jeopardize counter-terrorism operations?" huh... Counter-terrorism in the Obama admin? There is none to balance. That is why Benghazi is upsetting. It isn't that mistakes were made and covered up... it is that no one in the Whitehouse has clarified what changes are going to be made concerning Islamic threats both in the United States and abroad... as well as in Israel. The Obama administration's behavior before and after Benghazi are exactly like how Obama treated the Israelis dealing with "Peace Activists" on the flotilla.

Lauren Booth is a #SLUT!

2013-05-15T20:39:00.001-05:00

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's sister-in-law, Lauren Booth, has married a Muslim man who already had another wife.

Faiza Ahmed has fled her home in Stockport, Greater Manchester, and taken her three children to her brother’s house in Texas to recover from the collapse of her 16-year marriage.

The 37-year-old childminder and bilingual teaching assistant claims that Ms Booth – the half-sister of Cherie Blair – has betrayed her newly acquired Muslim faith.

She accuses her of openly flirting with Sohale in front of her, spending the family celebrations of Ramadan and Eid with him, and marrying him in secret.

Speaking from the house in a gated community where she has taken refuge, Mrs Ahmed said:

‘Lauren destroyed my home. You can’t just put on a hijab and say you are a good Muslim woman – it’s about having boundaries with men, and love and respect for women.

‘She came into my house as my and my husband’s guest and did this under my nose. Her behaviour appals me, and other Muslim women – the very people she professes to support – must now judge her.’

Her words are a major rebuke to Ms Booth, 45, whose Facebook announcement of her marriage was revealed by The Mail on Sunday last week.

It followed a jokey advert placed on the social networking site last year saying she was hunting for a husband, and that ‘Mossad agents, secret drinkers, CIA stooges, men who don’t pray and men who don’t pay’ need not apply.

Read the whole thing.

Seven Foreigners (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore) Arrested After Trespassing At Massachusetts Reservoir

2013-05-15T10:19:00.003-05:00

CBS Local:

Shortly after midnight Tuesday, seven people were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir.

State Police say the five men and two women are from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, and “cited their education and career interests” for being in the area. The men told police they were chemical engineers and recent college graduates.

The Quabbin, in Belchertown, is one of the country’s largest man-made public water supplies. Boston’s drinking water comes from the Quabbin and the Wachusett Reservoirs.

State Police say there were no warrants or advisories on any of the individuals and “there was no evidence that the seven were committing any crime beyond the trespassing.”

All seven were allowed to leave and will be summonsed to court for trespassing.

Fwd: Message from President Cohon

2013-05-14T20:52:00.001-05:00

http:simonstudio.com/ark

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Carnegie Mellon University" <tseidel@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: May 10, 2013 1:22 PM
Subject: Message from President Cohon
To: "simonstudio.com@gmail.com" <simonstudio.com@gmail.com>
Cc:

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	To the Carnegie Mellon Community: Last week, I wrote to you about the university's process for dealing with the incidents of student nudity during the College of Fine Arts' Anti-Gravity Downhill Derby on Carnival Weekend. I promised to write to you once the internal process had been completed. In this message I describe how the matter has been resolved and the rationale for the outcome. Let me begin by quoting the university's freedom of expression policy which can be found in its entirety at http://www.cmu.edu/policies/documents/FreeSpeech.html: "Carnegie Mellon University values the freedoms of speech, thought, expression and assembly—in themselves and as part of our core educational and intellectual mission. The university must be a place where all ideas may be expressed freely and where no alternative is withheld from consideration. The only limits on these freedoms are those dictated by law and those necessary to protect the rights of other members of the university community and to ensure the normal functioning of the university." Our policy makes it clear that Carnegie Mellon is committed to the rights of its students to express controversial views, while recognizing some key restrictions on that expression—including those dictated by law. This policy was revised six years ago in a widely consultative process with input from all parts of campus including faculty, students, staff, the administrative leadership and the Board of Trustees. We relied on this policy to frame our decision making in this matter. In this situation, the issue is public nudity by two students, one woman and one man, at an open event which members of the public historically have attended, without warning to or protection of anyone who might unwittingly be witness to that exposure. This is a violation of Pennsylvania law. Carnegie Mellon's Campus Police, who are commissioned by the state to enforce the law, have filed misdemeanor charges for indecent exposure against the two students. Final disposition of these charges will occur through the Allegheny County justice system, not through university channels. There will be no separate disciplinary action pursued through the university's internal process. The students took part in a campus art event and, in the case of the student who portrayed herself as the Pope, made an artistic statement which proved to be controversial. While I recognize that many found the students' activities deeply offensive, the university upholds their right to create works of art and express their ideas. But, public nudity is a violation of the law and subject to appropriate action. I understand that this resolution may not be supported by those who believe that there can be no limits on the freedom of artistic expression. Others who were particularly offended by the incident may be distressed that more severe action is not being taken. There are competing values at issue here: Carnegie Mellon aims to be a place where ideas can be expressed and debated openly, but also where people of all backgrounds, faiths, and beliefs feel welcomed and supported. Unavoidably, the expression of some views will offend some people; that is the price of this freedom. However, if in the expression of these views, people in our community come to feel that the campus is intolerant, then the other of our cherished values is challenged. In such a situation, the institution may find it necessary to reassure those offended of its commitment to tolerance and inclusion. In doing so, I do not believe that the institution is compromising freedom of expression. Similarly, it is reasonable to expect individuals to consider the impact on others in expressing their views and how they choose to express them. This is responsibility, not censorship, and something that our students, especially, should learn while they are members of our community. It is our practice in controversial situations such as this one to provide opportunities for discussion, where all sides have a chance to express their views. This has already begun on the campus. Members of our community are asking themselves the difficult questions about what happened here, and embracing their responsibility to create a context in which events like these can continue to be held in a manner which is consistent with the full range of our values. These values include, certainly, freedom of expression, but also the cultivation of an inclusive, mutually respectful environment, and respect for the law. Being aware of and acting on those values is my responsibility as your President, and, in this circumstance, the School of Art, the College of Fine Arts, and the Office of Student Affairs. Our students, and the faculty who advise them, must have a clear understanding of the complexity of these issues. Our investigation of this incident revealed that our freedom of expression policy is not as well understood today as it was when it was adopted six years ago—especially by students, faculty, and staff who have come to the university since then. We will do a better job of making all members of our community aware of their rights to free speech and their responsibilities to the community. I hope that, in that spirit, this incident will inspire thoughtful discussions at Carnegie Mellon and beyond, and affirm our beliefs in the freedom and the responsibility that are essential to the life of the university. Jared L. Cohon President Carnegie Mellon University

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Gilad Atzmon: You Know, Jews May Have Used Christian Blood to Make Their Bread

2013-05-09T19:36:00.001-05:00

(Roseanne Barr: Let Me Defend My Good Friend Gilad Atzmon From These Scurrilous Charges He's Anti-Semetic)

#PoisonOak [Flickr]

2013-05-07T16:11:01-07:00

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Two new studies: Gun crime has dropped dramatically over last 20 years — and most Americans have no idea

2013-05-07T16:33:00.000-05:00

Behold the power of this fully armed and operational propaganda machine. First, from the Bureau of Justice Statistics: (Hot Air)

Firearm-related homicides declined 39 percent and nonfatal firearm crimes declined 69 percent from 1993 to 2011, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. Firearm-related homicides dropped from 18,253 homicides in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011, and nonfatal firearm crimes dropped from 1.5 million victimizations in 1993 to 467,300 in 2011.

For both fatal and nonfatal firearm victimizations, the majority of the decline occurred during the 10-year period from 1993 to 2002. The number of firearm homicides declined from 1993 to 1999, rose through 2006 and then declined through 2011. Nonfatal firearm violence declined from 1993 through 2004 before fluctuating in the mid- to late 2000s…

In 2004 (the most recent year of data available), among state prison inmates who possessed a gun at the time of the offense, fewer than two percent bought their firearm at a flea market or gun show. About 10 percent of state prison inmates said they purchased it from a retail store or pawnshop, 37 percent obtained it from family or friends, and another 40 percent obtained it from an illegal source.

Bear that two percent figure in mind the next time Obama or Biden starts wheezing about the gun-show loophole. Now, from Pew, the kicker:

Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation’s population grew. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993. Violent non-fatal crime victimization overall (with or without a firearm) also is down markedly (72%) over two decades…

Despite national attention to the issue of firearm violence, most Americans are unaware that gun crime is lower today than it was two decades ago. According to a new Pew Research Center survey, today 56% of Americans believe gun crime is higher than 20 years ago and only 12% think it is lower.

You can’t appreciate the magnitude of the decline without seeing it in graph form. Click here and make your way through Pew’s interactive table. In virtually every demographic, gun homicides and violent firearm crime are either lower or way, way lower than they were 20 years ago — and this despite the fact that, as Charles Cooke notes, gun laws were liberalized during that period. Remember stern warnings from the media in 2004 that if the assault-weapons ban were allowed to lapse, all the gains that had been made in reducing gun violence in the late 90s and early 00s would disappear. Have a look at Pew’s table. In fact, per the BJS numbers above, gun homicides actually rose during the second half of the AWB’s 10-year tenure before declining again a few years after the ban lapsed. After wading through the BJS data, J.D. Tuccille of Reason dug up another interesting data point:

“[M]ilitary-style semiautomatic or fully automatic” firearms, of the sort targeted by Sen. Feinstein at the federal level, and by new laws in Colorado, Connecticut and New York, make up a whopping 3.2 percent of the weapons possessed by federal inmates, and 2 percent of the weapons possessed by state inmates, at the time of their offense.

And yet, per Pew, just 12 percent of the public has any clue about the dramatic decline in gun crime. On the contrary, a clear majority thinks it’s gone up — despite dutiful news reports whenever the FBI releases its crime data, despite endless (and justified) coverage of the “broken windows” theory and NYC’s celebrated turnaround in crime under Giuliani and Bill Bratton. Partly that might be due to a general default assumption among the public that social problems tend to get worse, not better. Society seems to get coarser all the time, ergo there must be more violence. Wrong, although you can understand how that conclusion is drawn. It’s probably also partly due to the saturation coverage of horrendous mass shootings. Columbine, Virginia Tech, Newtown — it feels like gun violence is exploding, especially at schools, even though it’s much reduced nationwide. (Per Tuccille, the BJS data shows fewer homicides at schools annually now than 20 years ago.) And of course, partly the false perception is owing to the sense of crisis/opportunity inculcated by Obama and his media allies after Sandy Hook to push their broader gun-control agenda even though the measures they proposed would have done zip to stop Adam Lanza. If you’re a low-information voter watching Obama’s various pressers over the last five months, why wouldn’t you assume that gun crime is spiralling ever upward? Rhetorically, at least, he’s spent more time on gun control than he has on any other issue — more than unemployment, North Korea and Syria, immigration, you name it. The problem must be getting worse to justify making it his tippy top public priority; otherwise, one might be forced to conclude that he’s demagoging it simply as a handy bludgeon to try to use against the GOP in the midterms. And that can’t be true. Can it?

SOURCE: ONLY PRESIDENT COULD HAVE MADE 'STAND DOWN' CALL ON BENGHAZI

2013-05-07T14:54:00.004-05:00

From (Infidel/Breitbart): A source with intimate information about the events that happened on the ground in Benghazi the night the U.S. Consulate and the CIA annex was attacked by terrorists told Breitbart News that, ultimately, only the President of the United States, or someone acting on his authority, could have prevented Special Forces either on the ground or nearby from helping those Americans who were under deadly assault.

According to the source, when the attack on the Consulate occurred, a specific chain of command to gain verbal permission to move special-forces in must have occurred. SOCAFRICA commander Lieutenant Col. Gibson would have contacted a desk officer at the time, asking for that permission.

That desk officer would have called Marine Corps Col. George Bristol, then in command of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara. From there, Bristol would have made contact with Rear Admiral Brian Losey, then Commander of Special Operations Command Africa. Losey would have contacted four-star General Carter Ham, commander of U.S. AFRICOM at the time.

“Ham answers directly to the President of the United States,” said the source. It wasn’t a low-level bureaucrat making the call, the source adamantly added.

Tehran: Three Explosions Heard Near Missile Facility’

2013-05-07T09:59:00.004-05:00

J-POST: BBC PERSIAN REPORTS RESIDENTS HEAR BLASTS IN IRANIAN CAPITAL. Three explosions were heard in western Tehran on Tuesday, in an area where Iran carries out missile research and storage, BBC Persian reported. It was not immediately clear if there were injuries or damage in the incident.
Tuesday’s report of explosions came days after Israel allegedly carried out two air strikes in Syria over the weekend, targeting Iranian-supplied Fateh-110 surface-to-surface missiles destined for Hezbollah. Click to continue.

"Pigs Fly Moment" - Arab World Precedent: Bahrain Adds Hizbullah To List Of Terrorist Organizations.

2013-05-07T09:49:00.000-05:00

HT: Memri.By: R. Goldberg, (Other) On April 7, 2013, the Bahraini government approved a proposal by parliament to compile a list of terrorist organizations and to enter Hizbullah onto it, and ordered the interior and foreign ministries to take steps to implement this resolution. This is an unprecedented move in the Arab world, which comes after the exposure of terrorist cells and attacks in Bahrain that are attributed to this Lebanese Shi'ite organization, and following Shi'ite protests in the kingdom that began in February 2011, which the Bahraini government claimed had been guided and funded by Iran and Hizbullah. The Bahraini authorities' fear of involvement in the country by Hizbullah and Iran stems from their fear that Iran could use Bahrain's largely Shi'ite population to take over the country and make it an "Iranian province." In this context, it should be mentioned that a July 2007 article published by the editor of the Iranian daily Kayhan, Hossein Shariatmadari, stated, among other things, that "Bahrain is part of Iran's soil, having been separated from it through an illegal conspiracy [spawned] by... Shah [Pahlavi, in conjunction with] the American and British governments. The principal demand of the Bahraini people today is to return this province, which was separated from Iran, to its mother, Islamic Iran..."[1]The Bahraini government press praised Hizbullah's inclusion in the list of terrorist organizations and saw it as "the fulfillment of a popular demand;" conversely, the Shi'ite opposition, led by the Al-Wefaq movement, condemned the move, claiming that the Bahraini regime is the one that uses terrorism against the Bahraini people and against those demanding reforms. It should be mentioned that Iran also condemned the Bahraini move, but Hizbullah itself has yet to comment.
Following the Bahraini decision, voices were heard calling for the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to take a similar step, and the Bahraini parliament speaker disclosed that such a move is, in fact, being considered. ....and Europe still thinks Hezbolls is a charity organization.(MORE)

Sex superbug, Could Be 'Worse Than AIDS'

2013-05-06T14:44:00.001-05:00

The 'superbug' was first discovered in Japan
and some health officials have said it could rival AIDS

Sex superbug,Health officials are warning that two cases of a so-called 'sex superbug' have been confirmed in Hawaii.
Hawaii News Now reports that the 'sex superbug' is a resistant strain of gonorrhea. The 'sex superbug' called H041 was first discovered in Japan in 2011. It spread to Hawaii, and has now surfaced in California and Norway.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked Congress for $50 million to find a new antibiotic to treat the drug-resistant strain of the disease. The first case in the nation was identified in a young woman in Hawaii in May 2011.
Peter Whiticir with the State Department of Health says advisories have been sent to physicians and health care providers around Hawaii to be on the lookout for the resistant strain of gonorrhea.
Doctors are warning that an antibiotic-resistant strain of gonorrhoea, now considered a superbug, has the potential to be as deadly as the AIDS virus.
Gonorrhea is the second most commonly reported sexually transmitted infection in North America.
‘This might be a lot worse than AIDS in the short run because the bacteria is more aggressive and will affect more people quickly,’ Alan Christianson, a doctor of naturopathic medicine told CNBC.
Nearly 30 million people have died from AIDS related causes worldwide, but Christianson believes the effect of the gonorrhea bacteria is more direct.
‘Getting gonorrhea from this strain might put someone into septic shock and death in a matter of days,’ Christianson said. ‘This is very dangerous.’
In a briefing on Capitol Hill last week, William Smith, executive director of the National Coalition for STD Directors, urged Congress to target nearly $54 million in immediate funding to help find an antibiotic for HO41 and to conduct an education and public awareness campaign.
Although no deaths from HO41 have been reported as yet, experts say avoiding the disease completely is the best course of action.
‘People need to practice safe sex, like always,’ Christianson said. ‘Anyone beginning a new relationship should get tested along with their partner.
'The way gonorrhea works, not everyone knows they have it. And with this new strain it's even more important than ever to find out.’
Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease that has been known since medieval times. Sometimes known as ‘the clap,’ the infection can result in painful sores and genital discharge, and is associated with ectopic pregnancies and sterility in both men and women.
Left untreated, gonorrhea can lead to a host of complications including pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, and blood stream infections.
It also raises the risk for HIV because the lesions permit the AIDS-causing virus easier access to the bloodstream.
Gonorrhea is especially common among people between the ages of 15 and 24.
The disease became curable in the 1940s when penicillin and otherantibiotics were introduced. Since then, the medical world has created more new drugs that killed the ever-mutating gonorrhea bacteria.
On a state-by-state basis, pockets of the U.S. are seeing giant spikes in the disease. Utah saw a 74 percent rise in gonorrhea cases in 2012, with the trend continuing into the first few months of this year.
In Minnesota, cases rose 35 percent in 2012, according to the state's department of health, and according to the latest statistics from the CDC, ‘During 2010–2011, 61% (31/51) of states, plus the District of Columbia, reported an increase in gonorrhea rates.’
Cephalosporin, the last available class of antibiotics recommended for the treatment of gonorrhea, has been failing worldwide and there is the very real prospect that all types of gonorrhea will soon become untreatable.
Professor Cathy Ison, head of the National Reference Laboratory for Gonorrhoea in the U.K. told the BBC last week: ‘There is a possibility that if we don't do something then it could become untreatable by 2015.’

Sex superbug news Via dailymail

#panopticons [Flickr]

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#yum [Flickr]

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Grapes in Spring [Flickr]

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More Heresy from The Economist: Time to Scrap Affirmative Action

2013-04-28T11:46:00.001-05:00

As noted a few weeks ago, The Economist has gone off the reservation on climate change, and in the current issue it has done so again on the issue of affirmation action and race-conscious policy. The issue is featured on the cover, which means it is the subject of the first “leader” (house editorial), “Time to Scrap Affirmative Action,” as well as the focus of a long feature news story. In particular The Economist takes note of the important original research on the “mismatch hypothesis” by Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor.

Time to Scrap Affirmative Action: In 1997 Thomas Espenshade of Princeton analysed the scores on SATs, a widely used test for college admissions, that different races needed in order to get into private universities. He found that Asian-Americans’ SAT scores had to exceed those of whites by 140 points out of 1,600, those of Hispanics by 270 points and those of blacks by 450 points. A study by Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, found that black students with average grades and test scores were almost three times more likely than Asians with similarly average qualifications to get into medical school.
Not mentioned here is that the proportion of Asians declined simultaneously and converged at almost the identical percentage at most of our leading universities, almost as if admissions directors colluded on the outcome. Seems like an ideal subject for an investigation by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights or the Justice Department. Don’t hold your breath. More likely the Justice Department will investigate The Economist to find out why it has suddenly become so politically incorrect.

Did Jews rule #Jerusalem in 614 CE?

2013-04-28T11:26:00.001-05:00

One of the reasons given for today's Lag B'Omer celebrations is to commemorate the Bar Kochba revolt of 132-136 CE. Most Jews believe that this was the last time of Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel before the 1948 War of Independence.
However, there may have been another brief period of Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, many centuries later.
In "A History of the Jewish People" by Haim Hillel be-Sasson, we learn:

In the last days of Byzantine rule over the Land of Israel the Jews made an attempt to exploit the rivalry between the powers ruling the orient - Persia, Byzantium and Rome - in order to regain their political independence. For hundreds of years they had repeatedly hoped that the redemption of the Jewish people would come with the conquest of Palestine by Persia; and now the time seemed to have arrived. At the beginning of the seventh century, the Persians set out on their conquests in the East, and in the year 614 they reached the borders of Palestine. Their approach set off a powerful messianic fermentation, which is reflected in several works written at the time whose theme is the Redemption. The Armenian historian Sebeos reported (Chapter XXIV): 'As the Persians approached Palestine, the remnants of the Jewish nation rose against the Christians, joined the Persians and made common cause with them.' The Jews assisted the invaders materially in their conquest of Galilee. From there the invading army turned to Caesarea and continued its conquests down to Apollonia, then eastwards to Lydda and from there to Jerusalem, which was captured in May 614. Jewish forces also took part in the conquest of Jerusalem. Sophronius, a contemporary monk who lived near Bethlehem, wrote in a poem: 'God-seeking strangers and citizens of the city [Jerusalem]; . When they faced the Persians and their Hebrew friends/Hastened to close the city gates.'
The Persians handed Jerusalem over to Jewish settlers, who proceeded with the expulsion of the Christians and the removal of their churches. At the head of Jerusalem stood a leader whom we know only by his messianic name: Nehemiah ben Hushiel ben Ephraim ben Joseph. The sacrificial cult may even have been resumed. Jewish rule in Jerusalem lasted three years. In 617 there was a reversal of Persian policy. For reasons that are not sufficiently clear, the Persians made peace with the Christians. The Jews, on the other hand, did not, and the Persian authorities were forced to fight them: 'And they waged war against the saints and brought down many of them. and Shiroi [the king of Persia] stabbed Nehemiah ben Hushiel. and sixteen of the just were killed together with him (Book of Zerubabel, page 101).
There are other accounts of this episode as well.

The Jews saw another opportunity to take back Jerusalem in the early seventh century, just before the rise of Islam. The Persians conquered what had been Judea from the Byzantine Empire, capturing Jerusalem in 614 CE. The Armenian historian Sebeos described the Jews' reaction to the Persian campaign: "As the Persians approached Palestine, the remnants of the Jewish nation rose against the Christians, joined the Persians and made common cause with them." The Persians even installed a Jew, Nehemiah ben Hushiel ben Ephraim ben Joseph, to rule the city.
But this regime was short-lived. Hoping to accommodate their Roman Christian subjects, the Persians apparently withdrew their support for any Jewish self-government. Moreover, in 629 CE the Byzantine emperor Heraclius reconquered Jerusalem, where the former anti-Jewish edicts were again renewed. The city's new rulers banned public recital of Judaism's core prayer, the Shema, and executed many Jews or evicted them to neighboring countries. Five years later, the Byzantines required all the empire's Jews to become baptized. This harsh regime did not last long, however, for in 638 CE Muslim armies from Arabia conquered Jerusalem, thus opening a whole new chapter in the Holy City's history.
Thirteen hundred years would pass between the last Jewish self-government in Jerusalem in 614 and the establishment of a Jewish national home under the British that would later become the State of Israel. During that time, Jerusalem would remain the center of Jewish national aspirations as well as religious ritual. But the quest to return to Jerusalem was not left as an eschatological task for the distant future. Jews returned to Jerusalem whenever the bans on Jewish settlement were lifted; thus many Jews came back to the Holy City after the second caliph of Islam defeated the Byzantines, establishing a new Jewish Quarter that was populated until the First Crusade. Jerusalem's main Jewish synagogue in the first decades of Islamic rule, known as "the Cave," was located under the Temple Mount, at the point along the Western MA closest to the Holy of Holies.
The Jewish Encyclopedia does not mention this, however.

via elderofziyon.blogspot.com

#Hysteria [Flickr]

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Roger Hendricks Simon by Donald Simon

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