DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

We have seen the future, and it sucks.

Archive for June, 2016

Thought for the Day

27th June 2016

Biggest Risk To Happiness  - Dilbert by Scott Adams

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Brits Opt Out

27th June 2016

Joel Kotkin connects the dots.

Brexit also represents a shot across the bow to all the elites, not only in Brussels, but also in Westminster, both left and right, much as the Sen. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump campaigns have been here in the U.S. The EU pushed policies aimed at the mundane pleasures of the middle class, such as affordable electricity, cheap air travel, cars and single-family housing. Those who opposed the edicts were often excoriated as unenlightened and even racist. The “betters” behind the “Remain” campaign waged a kind of class struggle against the British grassroots – and lost in shocking fashion.

Posted in Think about it. | 1 Comment »

International Reaction to Brexit? Clueless

27th June 2016

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Worldwide, liberals are convinced that conservatives are poor and uneducated. Here in the U.S., any survey will tell you that on average, Republicans are better educated and have higher incomes than Democrats, and can answer more questions about public policy issues correctly. It doesn’t matter: ask a liberal, and he will tell you that conservatives are poor and uneducated.

In Europe, anyone with reservations about mass immigration is “far right.” This attempt to rule debate about immigration out of bounds has been a serious mistake. Note, too, that liberals will never admit that conservatives have arguments against unrestricted mass immigration. It is always a matter of “fear.”

Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | 1 Comment »

Dems Who Sat Out the Sit-In Offer Array of Reasons

26th June 2016

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Why did some Democrats skip this week’s sit-in on the chamber floor? The reasons run the gamut.

While the Democrats were overwhelmingly united in their remarkable 25-hour protest of congressional inaction on gun reform, not everyone participated. And the no-shows were absent for a range of reasons, only a handful of which were related to either the protest itself or the legislation it was designed to move. They included illness, family tragedy, travel and legal trouble.

This ability to act in unison is why Democrats keep winning and Republicans keep losing, no matter what the voting strength each might have.

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HAPPY DANCE SUNDAY

26th June 2016

Hot Hot Hot

Hey, it’s Texas in the summertime.

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Brexit Butcher Begins to Sell Meat Using Imperial System

26th June 2016

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A butcher has begun selling meat using the imperial system, following the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.

It was because of an EU law that the UK formally adopted the metric system.

But Gratton’s Butchers in Barnstable, Devon, is now giving customers the choice of pounds and ounces or grams and kilograms.

The move has been popular among his customers who voted for Brexit: “All the customers wanted it back in pounds,” Mr Gratton said.

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Thought for the Day

25th June 2016

Gorilla Shoots Aligator copy

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Electronic Ankle Tag Put On Man’s Fake Leg in Deadly Mistake

25th June 2016

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A slip-up made by a technician fitting an electronic tracking bracelet on a man with a long-standing criminal record has ended in tragedy.

The GPS device was mistakenly applied to the ankle of Washington DC man Quincy Green’s fake leg in April, while he was on house arrest for a gun charge.

Mr Green, 34, then removed his prosthetic leg with the electronic tracker attached, before allegedly shooting and killing Dana Hamilton, 44, in the American capital in the early hours of 19 May.

If there is some way to screw something up, a government employee will find it.

And they want to put such people in charge of our health care….

 

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Report: Clinton’s State Dept. Calendar Hid Meetings With Big Donors

25th June 2016

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AP has identified at least 75 meetings that Hillary Clinton had with longtime political donors, Clinton Foundation contributors, and corporate and other outside interests that were not recorded (or not properly recorded) on her State Department calendar. AP identified the meetings by comparing her calendar with separate planning schedules supplied to Clinton by aides in advance of each day’s events.

In many cases, Clinton’s State Department calendar simply excluded the meeting altogether. On other occasions, the names of those with whom she met were omitted.

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USEFUL STUFF SATURDAY

25th June 2016

CaraBoat – A Trailerable Houseboat.

Sweepovac.

PizzaDome.

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The Navy Is Going to Test a Big Laser Soon

24th June 2016

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Damage done by laser weapons is a function of power and time. The longer a laser can stay on a target, like a drone or an incoming missile, the more damage it can do. The more powerful that laser is, the less time it needs to spend burning its target. The U.S. Navy already has a 30-kilowatt laser mounted on a ship. Yesterday, at a summit on directed energy weapons in Washington, D.C., the Navy announced it plans to go bigger: 150 kilowatts.

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‘Basically, Brexit Was a Tantrum — What Should We Do About It?’

24th June 2016

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Do not be fooled by the title of this publication, ‘Business Insider’ — they have very little to do with business. What they are Inside is the Crust, and they are one of the most reliable Voices of the Crust on the Internet. (Such publications love to adopt titles that suggest that they are businesspeople talking to businesspeople, whereas they are actually ‘progressives’ talking to their base.)

This sort of headline, from the Peter Jennings school of ‘journalism’, is meant to suggest that voters are too stupid to know what to do, which is why the Crust needs to provide some ‘adult supervision’ and save them from themselves. It usually isn’t quite this blatant, but these occasional flashes of honesty lets you peer behind the curtain and see the guy working the dials and levers that make all of the noise and smoke.

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Pregnant Woman Stabbed by Boyfriend Was ‘Saved by Her Breast Implants’

24th June 2016

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That’s a headline you don’t see every day.

Babur Raja grabbed Ms Queiroz, who had been on the way to meet him at the bank, from behind and stabbed her repeatedly in the chest and stomach, cut her wrists and attempted to slit her throat.

Yeah, immigration has really been a boon to Britain.

Raja’s barrister said the attack was the result of family problems and that his conservative mother had “literally driven him mad”.

Yeah, that’s the ticket. Blame it on Mum.

She added: “His mother had not been happy he was in a relationship with a white woman, and told him he must leave her or she would not be in contact.”

Oh, Mum’s a racist, too. But racism against ‘white women’ is okay, so she gets a pass.

“This man of impeccable character is driven literally to distraction, forced by his own mother to choose between her and his chosen partner and their unborn baby.”

I guess getting your girlfriend pregnant with no apparent intention to marry qualifies as ‘impeccable character’ in the New Britain.

“As far as myself, our families and all our friends are concerned, Bobby and I had an exceptionally happy and loving relationship, living together and looking forward to the birth of our daughter – his first child – a child he very much wanted right from the start of the relationship.

“The attack he committed on me was completely unprovoked and totally unexpected.”

Girl, you need to get a clue.

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Democrats: We Will Overcome the Constitution

24th June 2016

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Nothing stirs the passions of Democrats these days quite like the prospect of gutting the Constitution. In an unprecedented act of pretend political bravery, House members held a catered sit-in, demanding that Republicans allow a vote to strip away protections of Second, Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution. It was quite the scene.

There were the selfie-happy Democrats singing “We Shall Overcome” while demanding passage of a bill that those right-wing nutjobs over at the American Civil Liberties Union have “strongly” argued would undermine civil liberties. As of this writing, no participant has been beaten down by the cops or thrown into a dank cell, although iPhones were probably getting perilously low on juice for those who’d forgotten their chargers.

On its surface this sounds ridiculous, and to any rational impartial observer it is — invoking classic tactics and tropes of the Civil Rights movement in support of measures attempting to infringe Constitutional rights. But Democrats can’t be fazed by the cart being in front of the horse; they don’t even see it. Modern Democrats are ‘progressives’, and ‘progressives’ MUST have change, because without change there is no progress; hence the Constitution, which stands in the way of change, must be eroded until it is gone, gone, gone.

Civil rights-era heroes like Rep. John Lewis, who lent his considerable legacy to this vacuous grandstanding, was once on the terror watch list himself. He didn’t know how he got on it. He didn’t know how to get off of it. Yet, today he believes this Kafkaesque system is a sound way to deny his fellow citizens their rights.

I am perfectly comfortable with Congressman Lewis being on a terrorist watch list, considering some of the idiotic initiatives to which he has lent his support since he started coasting to fame and fortune on his Civil Rights record. That doesn’t mean that he ought to lose his right to keep and bear arms.

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Progressivism and Freedom

24th June 2016

Real freedom includes the freedom not to change if you don’t want to.

That is a freedom that ‘progressives’ cannot permit.

Since, in their view, progress is inevitable, and progress requires change, any resistance to change is a choice against progress, and people who resist change are both Evil and Stupid.

As with Islam, progressivism is an oppressive totalitarian ideology with which no co-existence is possible.

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Three Tricks Islamists Use to Conceal the Truth About Orlando

24th June 2016

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Hours after 49 innocent people were brutally killed during the Pulse massacre in Orlando, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamist groups were already deploying time-tested tactics to divert attention from the obvious cause of this massacre, a radical form of Islam much like their own. Three bear highlighting: diversion, claiming the terrorist attack had nothing to do with Islam, and publicly smearing Muslim reformers.

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California’s Skyrocketing Housing Costs, Taxes Prompt Exodus of Residents

24th June 2016

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During the 12 months ending June 30, the number of people leaving California for another state exceeded by 61,100 the number who moved here from elsewhere in the U.S., according to state Finance Department statistics. The so-called “net outward migration” was the largest since 2011, when 63,300 more people fled California than entered.

 

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Lileks on Brexit

24th June 2016

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In case you’re wondering, I would have voted to Leave, based on a superficial analysis from the other side of the globe. It’s the idea of being a nation that answers to itself. I can understand wanting to join a common economic community. But when people you didn’t elect pass a law affecting the strength of your hairdryer to lessen energy consumption and prevent the planet from having a mean temperature of 156 degrees C by 3047, and there’s nothing you can do, people get peeved. Of course nationalism has its excesses. But the excesses of transnationalism are accumulated incrementally and smother all differences, and for people who are constantly droning on about diversity they seem dreadfully keen to impose a bland uniformity of laws. Culture survives for a while, but eventually the laws are your culture.

This same relationship is what caused the American Civil War, and poisons relations with the Federal government even today.

How you regard the Brexit as an American might say something about how you view the role of government, and the efficacy and desirability of international organizations. There’s a certain Star-Trekky well of course attitude towards international organizations, as though they are insulated from the poisons of tribalism and hence rational, wise bodies that make proper decisions based on The Good of the Many. But it depends on what they believe, and what they want, no? The idea that a transnational organization is superior in its nature to a government that arose organically from a thousand years of culture and reflects the national will and character is wishful thinking, and there’s one big example that comes to mind: the USSR. No, the EU is not the USSR, but given their druthers they’d love the scope of control the USSR had. Over the proper things. For the Good of the Many, of course.

I think it pretty obvious that this is Obama’s attitude, and Hillary’s.

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Entire Islands Disappear as Violent Gangs Steal Sand Amid Global Shortage

23rd June 2016

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Lock your doors!

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Clinton IT Aide Answered Zero Questions in Deposition

23rd June 2016

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A former IT expert who was previously responsible for Hillary Clinton’s private email server answered virtually no questions during a roughly 90-minute deposition as part of an open records lawsuit this week.

Aside from stating his name and saying three times that he understood procedural rules of the sworn-oath interview, Bryan Pagliano declined to say a single word other than to plead his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

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Professor Rejects Marxism After Traveling the Globe: ‘Socialism Doesn’t Work’

23rd June 2016

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University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Professor Jack Stauder says his political and ideological conversion away from socialism and Marxism occurred when he actually witnessed these systems in action.

After traveling to more than 110 countries to pursue various forms of research, notably cultural anthropology, Stauder described his conversion from Marxism as a process of disillusionment.

“I gradually became disenchanted with Marxism by visiting many of the countries that had tried to shape their societies to conform to its doctrines. I was disillusioned by the realities I saw in … socialist countries – the USSR, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, etc,” Stauder told The College Fix via email.

“I came to recognize that socialism doesn’t work, and that its ‘revolutionary’ imposition inevitably leads to cruelty, injustice and the loss of freedom,” the professor continued.

The designation is not confused, he’s a professor of UMass at Dartmouth, Massachusetts, apparently a local campus.

Posted in Think about it. | 1 Comment »

Professors Investigated for Presenting Opposing Viewpoints

23rd June 2016

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Two professors at the University of Northern Colorado were investigated after students complained that they were forced to hear opposing viewpoints.

The complaints were made to Northern Colorado’s “Bias Response Team,” an Orwellian office on campus that asks students to report their peers and professors for anything that upsets or offends them. When the news outlet Heat Street made an open records request for some of the complaints, it discovered that two students had become so upset about having to hear an opinion they disagreed with they filed reports with school administrators.

And rather than telling the students to buck up because they might hear those opinions outside of college or on the news or in the media, the schools told the professors to stop teaching that there’s an alternate viewpoint.

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | 1 Comment »

First Picture of China’s Secretive New Submarine, the Type 093B

23rd June 2016

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The Type 093B “Shang” nuclear attack submarine is quiet, fast and the first Chinese combat submarine to be able to fire vertically launched cruise missiles. The United States Defense Department believes that three Type 093B SSNs were launched in 2015, and may enter service later this year. The original two Type 093 SSNs, launched nearly 15 years ago, were plagued by noisy reactors and propulsion systems, especially at high speeds, which limited their combat utility by making them highly detectable to enemy anti-submarine efforts. The Type 093B, in contrast, uses advances in Chinese metallurgy and reactor design to make a more quiet submarine. Experts place its stealthiness between that of the USN Los Angeles Flight I and Flight III SSNs.

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Lamborghini Is Forging Ahead With Forged Carbon Fiber; We Visit Their U.S.-Based Lab

23rd June 2016

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Thirty-five years ago, McLaren revolutionized both motorsports and the car world at large. Drawing on lessons learned from aerospace, McLaren introduced the first Formula 1 racer with a carbon-fiber-composite (CFC) tub in place of a bonded and riveted sheet-aluminum structure. The success of that venture in turn enabled the aptly named McLaren F1 sports car, which had a molded CFC monocoque serving as its passenger cabin and structural core.

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Counter-Terrorism: Where The Bad Boys Come From

23rd June 2016

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In 2007 Pakistan announced a plan to register and regulate the 13,000 madrassas (religious schools) operating within its borders. Most agreed to be registered but the 500 or so that resisted contained most of those that were heavily into training Islamic radicals and terrorists. Religious schools are popular because they are free, and most teach secular subjects as well. Only about half of Pakistanis are literate, and most parents realize that education is a way out of poverty. The government quietly dropped the 2007 registration program because of political pressure from Islamic conservative political parties and more ominous threats from the ISI (Pakistani CIA).

The registration plan was announced by a military government because even the generals were appalled at the growing threat from Islamic terrorists based in Pakistan. This was the result of realization that the main source of Pakistani Islamic terrorists was from these religious schools, or at least some of them.

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Brickbat: A Thorn Tree in the Garden

23rd June 2016

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For 17 years, Tom Carroll and Hermine Ricketts grew a vegetable garden in the front yard of their Miami Shores, Florida home, and no one ever complained. Then, the City Council passed a law requiring front lawns be covered with only with grass, sod or “living ground cover,” and city officials threatened them with a $50 a day fine if they planted that garden again. The couple are now in court fighting for their right to plant their garden.

What business is it of a City Council what sort of plants people grow in their own yards? This is iniquitous.

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Die-versity: 64% of Last 25 Mass Shooters Were Ethnically Diverse

23rd June 2016

Steve Sailer gives us the numbers.

Kamikaze killers are aptly named, in that they are largely committed by foreign or non-traditional Americans.

In the last ten years, there have been 16 mass shootings/bombings by non-whites, primarily immigrants and/or muslims — most of which targeted whites. There were 9 mass shooting by whites, only two of which were racially motivated. Contrary to the current narrative, whites are significantly overrepresented as *victims* and underrepresented as perpetrators.

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Thought for the Day

23rd June 2016

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Donald Trump Book Club

22nd June 2016

Today’s Book: It Takes a Village (to Raise a Child).

A decade ago, then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton chronicled her quest — both deeply personal and, in the truest sense, public — to help make our society into the kind of village that enables children to become smart, able, resilient adults. It Takes a Village is “a textbook for caring…. Filled with truths that are worth a read, and a reread” (The Dallas Morning News).

Your assignment: Identify the village in which Chelsea Clinton was raised.

Update: No, Sidwell Friends School (annual tuition $37,750) is not a village.

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Euro 2016: Republic of Ireland Fans Fix a Dented Car After Wedging Money in the Door to Pay for Damage

22nd June 2016

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Having serenaded a woman as she walked by and cleaning up litter ahead of previous matches, the Irish have now gone one step further.

One fan managed to dent a cars roof after standing on it to try and gain a better view of the street celebrations that were taking place in Lille ahead of Wednesday’s match against Italy that will decide their Euro 2016 fate. While the act of standing on someone’s car is not to be applauded, it was their reaction that made it another moment to remember.

A number of fans began to wedge money in the door of the car in the hope that they would cover the cost of the damage, but others decided that they would “fix the car for the boys in green”.

They began to hit the roof of the car around the area that had formed a large dent, and as any good panel basher knows, if you hit it in the right spot, the dent should pop out. That’s exactly what happened, sparking wild celebrations and more chanting – and amid all the cheering there was probably more dents too.

A quote from a bar owner in Paris praised the spirits of both sets of Irish fans, commenting: “Paris has been morose since the attacks [in November]. It does us good to see such happy people.”

For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.

–G.K. Chesterton

Posted in Think about it. | 1 Comment »

Brown Bears Use ‘Human Shield’ to Protect Their Cubs

22nd June 2016

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It’s in National Geographic so it must be true.

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Random Thoughts on the Orlando Jihad

22nd June 2016

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When we have an episode of lunatics with guns:

  • One side wants to control the guns.
  • The other side wants to control the lunatics.

Say… wait a minute… What if we got together and…?

Nah, that’ll never happen.

If lunatics are deprived of guns, we would need worry only about their car bombs, suicide vests, hijacked airliners, and retail knife attacks. Or perhaps simply cars driven at high speed into crowds of pedestrians.

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US Election 2016: Why Isn’t the Assassination Attempt on Donald Trump Bigger News?

22nd June 2016

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Perhaps because the ‘journalists’ in the Drive-By Media all think it’s a good idea?

‘Dog Bites Man’ is never news.

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Sharia Courts May Have Helped Bring Down the Ottoman Empire

22nd June 2016

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An American economist looked at rulings handed out between 1602 and 1799 and noticed the judges’ efforts to help people “considered worthy of support” had a significant “unintended consequence”.

Because Ottoman elites could rely on support from the courts during contract disputes, they had to pay significantly higher rates of interest on loans than women, non-Muslims and the poor, who were less likely to default because they would face legal punishment.

This, Professor Timur Kuran argued in a paper in the Economic Journal, had a stifling effect on investment at a time when the Industrial Revolution was taking off in Europe.

Plus that whole ‘no charging interest’ thing put a bit of a drag on the economy.

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Operation Badr — Beware the 17th of Ramadan — June 23, 2016

22nd June 2016

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If ever there was a date to be remembered and commemorated in Islam, it’s the 17th of Ramadan. This year it falls on Thursday, June 23rd, beginning Wednesday evening at sundown — same day as Brexit.

This date holds great military and spiritual significance within Islam, as it was on this day that the greatest and most significant battle in Islamic history took place: the Battle and Victory of Badr in 624 AD (about 150 miles south of Medina), in which 313 Muslims defeated 1,000 non-Muslims from the Koresh tribe of Mecca who just wanted to return home safely from Syria with their trade caravans.

This battle marked the first significant military victory for Islam, which solidified Mohammed’s position as ruler of the first Islamic State in Medina.

It was a spiritual victory as well. The Koran (8:11-18) discusses how Allah sent blessings to guide and purify his Muslim warriors in preparation for battle. However, Allah also sent thousands of angels to help his warriors win by making their hearts more firm to Allah’s command to kill unbelievers, and by removing all uncertainty and fear within them. It was also the time when Mohammed mandated the killing of captives in battle.

Dates are significant for jihadists. The 17th of Ramadan is a date that Westerners should become familiar with, and take heed. Jihadists are ramping up attacks against the West during the Islamic military month of Ramadan, especially now that the caliphate has been re-established.

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Fear Stalks Minnesota Muslims?

22nd June 2016

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On the Left, it is widely held that the biggest problem with Islamic terrorism is that it might give rise to “Islamophobia.” That mentality was on display today in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Fear stalks Minnesota Muslims as anti-Islam feeling builds.”

The latest FBI data were published in 2015 and relate to 2014, so they don’t tell us anything about the alleged current spike in anti-Muslim sentiment. What they do tell us is that in 2014, there were 154 hate crimes recorded against Muslims. By way of comparison, there were 89 directed against Christians and 609 directed against Jews, a large majority of those by Muslims. Muslims perpetrate far more hate crimes than they suffer. Are Minnesota’s Jews stalked by fear?

Muslims carried out multiple coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015. On December 2, Muslims perpetrated the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California. Shockingly, there was evidence of increased anti-Muslim sentiment in December–more than when the “presidential election season began.” Whose fault was that? Donald Trump’s!

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Texan Finds Creative Way to Clear Highway Fast Lane

22nd June 2016

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He was attempting to pass a slow-moving bobtail Peterbilt tractor when he got hung up by a white Ford Econoline squatting in the passing lane. On his YouTube page, Machine stated that the van, which apparently belonged to a plumbing company, was traveling along between 60 and 70 miles per hour along a stretch of highway with a stated speed limit of 70 mph. Confronted with the slow-moving van blocking the left lane, and traffic in the right lane, Machine called the number on the back of the Econoline and politely asked him to get out of the way.

In the Econoline, the passenger picked up and was momentarily confused as Machine asked him to ask his driver to move out of the lane and let traffic pass. The van sped up, passed a tractor-trailer, and got out of the way, much to the relief of the traffic behind him.

We have the technology.

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Michael Sandford: Everything We Know About the British Man Who ‘Tried to Assassinate Donald Trump’

21st June 2016

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How much noise would there be if it had been Hillary?

He was living out of his car, did not have a job and was in the country illegally after overstaying a visa.

Trump will undoubtedly have the good grace not to say ‘Told you so’.

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Some Thoughts About Lewandowski, Campaign Funding, and Safety

21st June 2016

Scott Adams continues his masterly analysis.

A very-rich entrepreneur recently told me that the secret of hiring a good team of people is being ruthless in firing your mistakes. Lewandowski was the right guy for the primaries – evidently – but perhaps not a good fit for the general. If Trump can fire a close advisor and personal friend in this situation, do you worry that he can do it while President?

Hmm.

Jeb Bush’s campaign funding didn’t help him against Trump. So we have one data point telling us that political ads don’t work in 2016, at least against Trump. One data point isn’t a trend, and primaries aren’t the general election. But if television ads are persuasive in 2016, would we have GOP nominee Trump? It seems unlikely to me.

The Clinton team is fighting the war of 2008, using the tools of that era. Trump is dominating social media and gobbling up free TV time. Those are the tools of 2016.

Do you know why you didn’t realize TV ads are less effective these days? Because the only people who could tell you that rely on political ads for their profits. You won’t hear anyone on CNN or FOX tell you that ad dollars are less useful than they were in the past.

Saw that coming.

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At UNC Chapel Hill, 16 Departments Have Zero Registered Republican Professors, Analysis Finds

21st June 2016

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Professors registered as Democrats outnumber those registered as Republicans by a ratio of roughly 12 to one at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill – and in 15 departments zero registered Republican professors can be found – according to educators’ registered party affiliations.

My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Asked by The College Fix to comment on the results, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill spokesman Jim Gregory said via email that the university “does not hire faculty based upon their political affiliation, but instead upon academic merit.”

And if you believe that one, he’ll tell you another one.

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Apple refuses to back GOP convention because of Trump politics

21st June 2016

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If they had done the same to, say, the Democrat convention because of Hillary Clinton, there would be a firestorm in the press and immediate calls for some sort of legislation to punish this sort of ‘anti-free-speech activity’. You know there would.

It’s all about the Narrative, Larry.

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What Will Gun Controllers Do When Americans Ignore an ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban?

21st June 2016

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Prohibition was kneecapped by Americans’ widespread refusal to stop producing, selling, and drinking booze. Millions of Americans smoked marijuana decades before majority sentiment creeped toward legalizing the stuff. Gays and lesbians not only surreptitiously lived and loved when they were targeted by the law—they also famously (and righteously) stomped cops who raided the Stonewall Inn, ultimately precipitating liberalization. And restrictions on exporting encryption were eased only after cryptographers illegally exported code—even printing it on T-shirts as an act of civil disobedience.

Those who have a touchingly naive faith in the power of government cling to the conviction that Passing A Law will solve a problem, automagically. If that were true, then there wouldn’t be a War on Drugs.

“Those who defend the easy accessibility of assault weapons should meet these families and explain why that makes sense,” President Obama tut-tutted last week. But the moralizer-in-chief failed to make sense himself, calling for the outlawing of a category of devices that doesn’t really exist.

The failure of Obama to actually connect with reality is almost universal.

That gun owners mean what they say in the “assault weapons” context can be inferred from the 5 percent compliance rate achieved by New York’s recent registration requirement for such firearms. Or from the 15 percent compliance rate in neighboring Connecticut.

When New Jersey went a step further and banned the sale and possession of “assault weapons,” 947 people registered their rifles as sporting guns for target shooting, 888 rendered them inoperable, and four surrendered them to the police. That’s out of an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 firearms affected by the law. The New York Times concluded, a bit drily, “More than a year after New Jersey imposed the toughest assault-weapons law in the country, the law is proving difficult if not impossible to enforce.”

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Counter-Terrorism: Ignoring The Obvious

21st June 2016

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In the aftermath of the June 12 th Islamic terror attack in Orlando Florida by an American Moslem there have been calls for new security measures to prevent repeat attacks. Demands that gun ownership be more strictly regulated ignores the fact that this has not prevented earlier similar Islamic terrors attacks in the United States, Europe and other areas with strict gun controls. The one method that has been proven to work is dismissed in the United States because it involves adopting the Israeli system of profiling. This means Moslems get more attention and those displaying pro-terrorist attitudes are regularly prevented from carrying out attacks. It works for Israeli airports, government facilities and places that have dancing and alcohol, something Islamic terrorists regularly attack even in majority Moslem countries. Another problem in the United States and the West is that profiling is either not allowed or not used in screening those applying for security jobs or joining the military. Thus the Moslem man who carried out the Orlando attack was subsequently found to have passed screening for an airport security job and recent warnings (to the FBI) from gun shop owners who noted his suspicious behavior were not acted on. This refusal to recognize the obvious continues in the United States, despite repeated attacks that could have been prevented if methods that work in the rest of the world were used.

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The Mosques Are Our Barracks — And Our Armories

21st June 2016

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Anyone who has studied the Great Jihad in depth knows that mosques in infidel lands are often used as storehouses for weapons. The situation has become so ominous in North Rhine-Westphalia that the official responsible for security made public statements at a press conference about the caches of weapons that have been uncovered in or near mosques.

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Why Trump’s Temporary Muslim Ban Makes Sense

21st June 2016

Ying Ma speaks truth to power.

In the aftermath of the horrific mass shooting in Orlando, President Barack Obama, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and House Speaker Paul Ryan found themselves united in outrage. Unequivocally, they issued their condemnations: “Dangerous,” “shameful,” and “pathological.”

Their target, however, was not the radical Islamic ideology that inspired the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. No, the politicians were referring to GOP presumptive presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and his proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States. It was yet another example of elevating self-righteousness over reality and delusions over solutions.

A lot of that going around.

Instead of reiterating by rote that Islam is a religion of peace, as Washington politicians do, Trump is raising tough questions about why numerous Islamic governments and Muslim believers are decidedly not peaceful. Thus far, Trump haters have made no honest attempt to offer viable answers.

Nor will they ever.

What career politicians refuse to recognize and what Trump intuitively grasps is that the lines between radical Islam and regular Islam are blurrier than they appear. Of course, peaceful and patriotic Muslims have helped built America just like every other immigrant group, but outspoken, moderate Muslims in the West who openly stand up against the dark side of their faith are few and far between. Indeed, polling shows that a majority of Muslims living in the United States wish to have the choice of being governed by sharia law and judged by sharia courts. More disturbing, nearly a quarter of Muslims in America believe it is legitimate to use violence to punish those who give offense to Islam.

Meanwhile, just because some Muslims are portrayed as moderate and patriotic does not make them so. For example, President George W. Bush stood with supposedly peace-loving Muslim Americans after 9/11, but one of those individuals was actually the executive director of the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR), a U.S. Muslim group that federal prosecutors in subsequent years would name as an unindicted coconspirator in a criminal conspiracy to funnel financing to foreign terrorists.

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Chemists Were Wrong About Splenda

20th June 2016

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Makes you wonder what else they might be wrong about.

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US Election 2016: Man ‘Tried to Shoot Donald Trump’ in Las Vegas, Authorities Say

20th June 2016

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And, of course, it will be portrayed as somehow Trump’s fault. If somebody were to try to shoot Hillary, would they say it was her fault?

Funny how everybody keeps calling Trump a fascist but all of the violence is coming from people who don’t like him.

 

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If the FBI Had to Describe 20th Century Enormities

20th June 2016

Rich Lowry draws some parallels.

The FBI has now reversed course, but this is how its absurd redacting might have rendered enormities of the 20th century:

“The kamikaze pilot launched his attack on the U.S. aircraft carrier after proclaiming his loyalty to the Great Empire of [omitted] and its Emperor [omitted].”

“The S.S. division was utterly committed to [omitted] Germany and its leader [in German], the author of My Struggle [in German].”

“The cadres rampaged through China during the Cultural Revolution at the best of the Chairman of the [omitted], who urged them to [omitted], one of the sayings collected in his Little [omitted] Book.”

Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on If the FBI Had to Describe 20th Century Enormities

Academic Brownshirts March Again

20th June 2016

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Over the last few weeks we’ve offered various academic absurdities, drawn from the fine work of the Twitter account of RealPeerReview. The anonymous person behind this Twitter account posted abstracts from publicly available academic journals. And that was precisely the problem: the mere exposure of the mediocre and politicized “scholarship” that emerges from the campus dens of identity politics is all that is necessary for the wider world to see how preposterous it is.

Apparently even the academic crusaders against the neo-liberal cis-patriarchy don’t actually want people reading their junk either, because, as the Daily Caller reports, the RealPeerReview Twitter feed has been shut down amidst threats to expose the identity of the person behind it (who is apparently an academic social scientist).

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Greenpeace Co-Founder Pens Treatise on the Positive Effects of CO2 – Says There Is No Crisis

20th June 2016

Read it.

 

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