The link is here.
Hanson leaves out one extra detail: Turkey still occupies north Cyprus, with Israel left Gaza entirely to the Palestinians a decade ago.
I normally consider stories that beat up on a President for his time off to be partisan hack jobs, but the situation now is becoming absolutely ridiculous.
There there’s this satire, which imagines the kind of story we all know would have been written if Romney had won the election and had been doing exactly what Obama is doing today.
Working for the Democratic Party: Required by a judge to explain in detail in 30 days the destruction of its emails, the IRS has instead provided nothing more than shallow platitudes.
The author of the article above is very confident that, based on his past history, the judge will come down very hard on the IRS for its stonewalling. I pray that he is right.
Good news: Groups from across the political spectrum are expressing their opposition to Michael Mann’s court suit against his critics.
On Monday, The Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press — along with 26 other groups including The Washington Post, Bloomberg and Fox News — filed an “amici curiae,” or “friend of the court,” brief with the D.C. Court of Appeals. An amici curiae is a brief submitted to a court to raise additional points of view to sway a court’s decision.
“While Mann essentially claims that he can silence critics because he is ‘right,’ the judicial system should not be the arbiter of either scientific truth or correct public policy,” the brief states, adding that “a participant in the ‘rough-and-tumble’ of public debate should not be able to use a lawsuit like this to silence his critics, regardless of whether one agrees with Mann or defendants.”
Just as Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg said it, I will say it also: Michael Mann is a fraud. He has no idea what it means to be a scientist, and should have been fired by his university after his climategate emails were uncovered. Instead, his university’s investigation was a whitewash and as much a fraud as Mann is.
Why did ULA’s CEO step down, and did SpaceX or the Atlas 5’s dependence on Russian engines play a part?
Very worthwhile reading, as it suggests that not only is the competition from SpaceX a major factor, so was ULA’s effort to monopolize the military launch industry as well as monopolize its access to the Russian engines, denying their use by Orbital Sciences.
And to this I say, thank god for competition. It always shakes things up in a good way.
Since I think it useful to have a rough geographical understanding of the situation, I have been digging around to find some maps that will outline the territories controlled by the both the Kurds and the Islamic State (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS]), including the areas of dispute. This link provides the best selection I’ve found so far.
Based on these maps, I wonder when ISIS will start moving into next door Iran, as its western regions are adjacent to their present holdings.
NASA’s bureaucracy marches on: The staff at NASA headquarters today voted to unionize.
“This successful vote will allow us to work with management to improve working conditions for NASA support and administrative staff here at NASA headquarters, thereby improving operations, saving money, and retaining an engaged and professional workforce,” said Tifarah Thomas, a program specialist within NASA’s Office of the Chief Health & Medical Officer. Professional support specialists at NASA headquarters include budget analysts, policy analysts, administrative specialists, secretaries, and others.
NHPA currently represents nearly 200 engineers and scientists at NASA in Washington. The combined unit, including the professional support specialists who voted today for IFPTE representation, will now represent more than 500 workers at the headquarters of America’s space agency. IFPTE also represents engineers and scientists at NASA labs and research facilities from coast-to-coast.
Anyone with the slightest objectivity knows that the working conditions for federal employees in Washington is glorious, with pay about double what everyone else in the country makes and benefits far exceeding even the best private packages. In addition, the hours are great and just slightly longer than what my generation would have called bankers’ hours. Moreover, if I can be blunt, these engineers are mostly paper pushers. They are not the one’s designing and building anything that might fly in space. Their only reason to unionize now is because they see a threat to their cushy jobs with the advent of private space and are organizing to secure their unneeded positions.
As wrong as the rioting in Ferguson might be, the militarization of the police there can do no good, and likely will make it worse.
More here: A massive SWAT team demands that peaceful protesters go home.
The second story includes details about the arrest of two reporters for reporting the events.
This story is a hoax. I am usually very good at spotting these hoaxes and not providing links to them, but this time they got me. Thanks to Caryl and Wodun for letting me know.
Horrible: A baby is killed by a NYPD cop because he didn’t want her mother to breastfeed.
The bigoted religion of peace: An Christian Iraqi refugee describes how the Muslims in Mosel celebrated the arrival of ISIS and the expulsion of Christians.
An Iraqi Christian who fled for his life from Mosul says that his Muslim neighbors welcomed the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) and told him “this land belongs to Islam.”
“We left Mosul because ISIS came to the city. The (Sunni) people of Mosul embraced ISIS, and drove the Christians out of the city,” the unnamed Christian refugee, who reportedly fled from Mosul to Lebanon, told Lebanese LBC/LDC TV in a July 30 interview translated by Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
And then there’s this: A mob of Muslims on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem force the closure of that site to Jews.
Watch the video below the fold and tell me who you think is bigoted and expressing hatred. As one of the Jews notes with humor near the beginnin of the video, “Look, three Jews, how many Arabs; they are calling to G-d, they are praying to G-d because of us, it’s wonderful. You see what we did?”
Things get more and more heated, beginning around 9:00, as they begin to approach the Temple Mount itself. Note that all these guys are doing is trying to take a tour of the site.
» Read more
The article is a good summary of the issue of smart gun technology, its pros and cons, as well as the effort to misuse it by many political liberals to impose gun control by sleight of hand.
It isn’t just Congress that is having trouble getting documents from the Obama administration or the bureaucracies involved in administering Obamacare.
The article describes illegal stonewalling by state Obamacare agencies in Nevada, California, Hawaii, Vermont, and New Mexico, in order to cover-up the hiring of convicted criminals within their Obamacare bureaucracy.
We’ve only just begun: Because of a typo in a family’s Obamacare healthplan, their insurance company is refusing to pay more than a million dollars in claims in connection with the premature birth of their daughter.
[T]he Review-Journal reports that the Anthem Blue Cross insurance they got through the Nevada Health Link — an ObamaCare exchange — is not paying claims. The payments are being denied, reportedly because the mother’s birth year is incorrectly listed on the insurance card. It should be 1979, but is listed as 1978. The newspaper reports the family is also struggling to get their baby daughter Kinsley added to the insurance. They are facing $1.2 million in medical bills.
They have been unable to get the bureaucracy to fix this simple little problem, which is typical of bureaucracies. Expect a lot more of this in the coming years as the government apparachiks who run Obamacare tighten their grip on our lives.
Corruption: More than twenty Obama officials have lost or destroyed emails after learning that Congress wanted to see them.
[I]n each case, the loss wasn’t disclosed to the National Archives or Congress for months or years, in violation of federal law,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-California) said of [the] lost e-mails. “It defies logic that so many senior Administration officials were found to have ignored federal record-keeping requirements only after Congress asked to see their e-mails.”
Actually, it doesn’t defy logic. It is perfectly logical. This administration is corrupt, has broken the law numerous times, and is now aggressively destroying evidence to cover-up its corruption.
Ever get a feeling of deja-vu? The official in charge of the rollout of the failed Obamacare website regularly deleted her emails and will thus not be able to comply completely with House investigation subpoenas.
First, this is a lie. Just because she deleted them on her computer does not destroy the emails. Every IT guy in the world is probably laughing his head off at the blatant dishonesty being illustrated here. Second, isn’t it interesting how these Democratic Party politicos think it is their right to ignore the law. Third, isn’t this also typical of the Obama administration itself, the supposedly most transparent administration in history that has probably produced more scandals and coverups per man hour than any administration since Emperor Nero.
The religion of peace strikes again! Hundreds of thousands of Christians flee northern Iraq as Islamic State take over the region and jihadists tear down churches and destroy Christian manuscripts.
This analysis of the situation now in northern Iraq asks some pointed questions of President Barack Obama, who withdraw American troops from that country far sooner than any military or local expert advised.
This analysis explains why President Barack Obama seems so unconcerned about the fate of these Christian refugees. To use his words, this kind of violence and terrorism and genocide is just an example of these groups acting with “extraordinarily irresponsibly”.
I ask: When are the American people going to finally get tired of electing children to office and have the courage to elect an adult?
It’s good work if you can get it: Homeland Security is spending almost a half a million dollars to provide free gym memberships to bureaucrats in Washington.
TSA also announced more gym memberships for its employees in Phoenix.
What this tells us is that the Washington elite still consider the federal budget a blank check designed to make their lives wonderful, even as the rest of the general public struggles to make ends meet and federal government and the general economy goes bankrupt.
More peace from the religion of peace: The Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) is exterminating the entire population of religious Yezidis.
Let me count the ways: VA officials have lied to Congress repeatedly in connection with multiple different investigations in a variety of different states and administrations.
The most egregious example for was the last item of the story above, where VA officials repeatedly told Congress that the employees who had falsified records to cover up long patient wait times had been fired, when in truth no one had been fired at all.
As I like to say, the VA is a perfect example of what government healthcare will be like. And it is coming soon to a hospital and doctor near you!
Israel has captured the man who was in charge of the operation that kidnapped and then murdered three Israeli teenagers, who also admits that (surprise!) he is a squad commander for Hamas in Gaza.
So, let’s get this straight. Hamas organizes the killing of Israeli children. Hamas launches rockets from schools so that Arab children are endangered. Hamas also prevents Gaza citizens and their families from seeking safety during war. And Hamas also calls for the genocide of all Jews, women and children included.
But Israel is the one condemned for committing war crimes? As Thomas Sowell recently noted, “In an age when scientists are creating artificial intelligence, too many of our educational institutions seem to be creating artificial stupidity.”
Even the most superficial but honest observer of the Gaza War would have conclude that Hamas is just one step removed from a child abuser. And since when do we as civilized people lend aid and comfort to child abusers?
Finding out what’s in it: New polls show that the more the public becomes familiar with Obamacare, the more they hate it.
Hey, what’s not to like? Obamacare gives you higher premiums, less availability of doctors, less insurance coverage, more bureaucracy, more paperwork, and — best of all! — increased government interference in your life.
Modern debate: The British medical journal, The Lancet, has banned Israeli academics from responding to any anti-Israeli papers that it publishes.
You’d think these Israelis were skeptics of climate change or something.
More about the Lancet’s antisemitic attack here.
Fascism in America: A shopping mall in Georgia has outlawed all prayer, even for those about to eat in their food court.
Government-run transportation: An Amtrak high-speed train left New York City this weekend without its passengers, who were instead waiting to board on a different platform where railroad employees had sent them.
“They literally sent us to the wrong platform, and the conductor took off without any passengers,” Damien Miano, a stranded passenger told The Daily News. “The right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. It’s just so bizarre.”
Amtrak might make believe that it is a private company, but it has been a government entity for decades. Like the post office, it has no real incentive to make a profit and operate efficiently since all losses get covered by the federal government.
Coming soon to a hospital near you!
At the start of the Gaza war four weeks ago Hamas released a propaganda music video calling for the destruction of Israel and for Palestinians to “exterminate the roaches.”
The problem was that the video was in Hebrew, not Arabic, and Israelis have found it hilarious and have made it a summer music sensation!
Surprisingly, though, Israelis found the tune of “Attack! Carry Out Terror Strikes” extremely catchy. Making it even more fun was the flowery Hebrew, dotted with nonexistent words sung in a heavy Arab accent, all of which led to the song’s becoming a summer hit. It has since spawned numerous covers and tributes.
Videos at the link. I especially like the Smurf version.
Fascism in New Jersey: A Philadelphia mom with a permit and legal gun makes the mistake of taking it into New Jersey and now faces 3 to 5 years in prison.
If Chris Christie wants to seriously run for president, he should be commuting every single one of these cases as they appear in the press.
Victory for free speech: The University of Arkansas has backed down from its attempt to ban a news research team because it was using that research to publish articles critical of Hillary Clinton.
The University of Arkansas library has backed down from its decision to block the Washington Free Beacon from accessing its special collections archives following a month-long public uproar. The library suspended the Free Beacon’s research privileges in June after the outlet published a story based on audiotapes from university archives that included Hillary Clinton discussing her 1975 defense of a child rapist.
The article clearly documents that the university was working on behalf of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, trying to impose the ban for political reasons.
Free speech in modern America: A news crew filming was temporarily detained and threatened with arrest on July 24 for filming at a national park.
Watch the video below the fold. The arrogance and ignorance of the Constitution by these officers is appalling.
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It appears that several U.S. scientists have been forced to cancel their appearances at science conferences in Russia because of the increased tension between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine.
The disruptions seem to be almost random and are not being applied across the board, as the story also notes that many other programs are not being affected at all.
