Lie to Me - Islam

A friend who got a master's degree in Arabic studies told me that lying is fundamental to Islam. That Allah is better than you at everything - even lying. Allah is the Supreme Deceiver. The following column builds the same case. Lying is fundamental to Islam

WORLD Magazine | Mindy Belz

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes hash out reality, he isn't only perfecting one of the wiles of a dictator. He's practicing his religion.

WikiIslam defines taqiyya as "sanctified hypocrisy." That's generous. At least a half dozen verses of the Quran instruct Muslims to practice deception, or to lie, when it serves the purposes of Islam. Taqiyya means "guard," as in guarding oneself against unbelievers, which can include lying to them or deceiving them. "We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them," according to authority Abu Al-Darda. In one passage (Sura 16: 106) Allah allows Muslims to go so far as to deny their faith when under "compulsion," as long their heart remains "firm in Faith."

The practice is so deeply embedded in Arab culture and the Muslim world that one has to wonder how Western leaders can negotiate with leaders like Ahmadinejad, steeped in taqiyya. "You go quickly to the bottom line, or the heart of the matter, or you ask for my gut reaction," a Pakistani friend once told me, "while we prefer to beat around the bush, to talk in circles, to redirect."

Daniel Shayesteh recently told me, "A Muslim cannot be a real Muslim if he does not use taqiyya." Shayesteh knows: Born in Iran, by age 9 he could recite the entire Quran in Arabic (Iranians speak Farsi, and just a fraction outside the clerics know Arabic).

That's a sample. Read more.

Dumbest moments in business 2009 - the SEC

There are many others, but this is tops for me.

Six months after Bernie Madoff confessed to his ponzi scheme that took, he claimed, $50 billion from thousands of people, including his own sister, he was banned from the securities business by the SEC. Six months later? 

There are nine more at the link. Tax cheat Timothy Geithner is well represented; he earned it.

Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance:

SEC Bars Madoff...Just in Time!

All hail the Securities and Exchange Commission, the newest inductee in the Fat-Lot-of-Good-That-Does-Us Hall of Fame.

A mere nine years after SEC staffers started getting hit over the head with red flags about Bernard Madoff's fishy finances, the commission finally got around to taking decisive action: In mid-June, the commission barred the Ponzi-schemer from the securities business.

Of course, this investor protection came only after Madoff stole more than $13 billion, pleaded guilty to multiple felonies and went to jail. With regulators like that, who needs regulators?

The image: Bonnie and Clyde have more direct methods now.

A slugger for Minnesota

Minnesota gets what they want. They want a buffoon and elected him. They want a man who cannot control himself? In a disagreement with Laura Ingraham's producer at a national party convention in 2004 Al Franken slugged the producer. It wasn't a fight, just a slug by an uncontrolled person. He can't control himself.

The talk radio hosts, despite differences of opinion, elected him Talker of the Year a year or two ago for his show on that bankrupt liberal radio network. He got up at the banquet and spewed poison at them to show his thanks. He may have been in control, but full of hatred.

Minnesota, you want him. Hatred. Out of control. OK, you have him.

Watch out, US Senate, now he is coming at you. Treat him with the respect he deserves and practice how to protect your body against physical attack.

Speak for yourself Congressman Reichert

If Rep. Reichert did the right thing voting for the ridiculous Cap and Tax bill Friday, why won't he explain his vote?

Kirby Wilbur's show got calls from two leaders of the Republicans in Congress offering to explain Reichert's vote. Why can't Reichert speak for himself?

The bill was 1200 pages and got a 300-page pack of amendments at 3 am the day of the vote. Did Reichert read the bill? Did Reichert read the amendments?

00240203650: Reichert sent Rep. Pence (I think) to speak for him on David Boze's radio show on KTTH Tuesday. Rep. Pence basically said Reichert is a fool. He said Reichert was hoping the sponsors would put what he wanted in the bill. So he voted for it? Fool. You hold your vote until they put your pork in the bill.

Maybe Reichert should speak for himself.

See also Michelle Malkin on the GOP cap and tax eight.

Access-to-care problems are resurfacing in Mass.

There is no free lunch. Massachusetts required health care insurance. Easy. Costs the state nothing.

Didn't make things better.

AMNews: June 29, 2009. Access-to-care problems are resurfacing in Mass. ... American Medical News:

Massachusetts' Commonwealth Connector health reforms have reduced the state's uninsured population to less than 3% of residents, the lowest among all states. But a recent survey found an uptick last fall in adults reporting difficulty accessing certain types of care.

The outcome of the Massachusetts health system reforms has national implications. Democrats in Congress have offered or are drafting health reform bills based on many of the state-adopted principles, including a health insurance exchange, subsidized private health insurance for low-and moderate-income residents, a requirement for individuals to have health insurance, and a mandate for employers to offer health insurance to their employees or else contribute to a health care fund.

...

But not all care access gains have held, the report found. The percentage of non-elderly adults who reported that they did not get needed care from specialists in the last 12 months dipped from 7.1% in fall 2006 to 4% in fall 2007, but then bounced back up to 7% in fall 2008. The survey revealed less significant but similar trends for those having access problems for physician care, medical tests and follow-up care.

The recent uptick in access issues may be due to increased demand for follow-up care from the newly insured that is not being matched by available doctors, according to the article's authors. Most of those surveyed who reported problems said they were told by physicians they were not accepting new patients or patients with their type of coverage.

Some initial gains in affordability also appear to have eroded. Lower-income residents and those with public coverage reported more access difficulties than higher-income people, which may be due to lower payment rates or the more limited physician networks of the four health plans serving Medicaid enrollees, the authors wrote.

The state's reforms also have not produced a decrease in emergency department visits for non-emergency conditions, the article found. Of all the non-elderly adults in the state who said in fall 2008 that they had visited an ED in the last year, the percentage who said the visit was for a condition that could have been treated in a physician's office was just over 15%, roughly the same as in 2006.

ED usage can be reduced over time, said Georgia Maheras, private markets policy manager for the patient advocacy organization Health Care For All. "Suddenly giving someone that piece of plastic isn't going to change their behavior right away."

Hardly noticed the Tea Party rally in Olympia - just Time Eyman

The Seattle Times couldn't avoid mentioning "an anti-tax rally" in its short hit piece on Tim Eyman's appearance Saturday at the Tea Party in Olympia. I call it a hit piece because two words "Professional activist" are intended to delegitimize him.

The way his Initiative 1033 lowers property taxes is novel. This isn't just a limit on the growth in property taxes. That, after many trials, is in place with Initiative 747 and stays. When state state revenue grows for whatever reason above the limit the next year the state portion of your property taxes will be lower. Lower for just that one year, but LOWER!

The Seattle Times doesn't want you to go to the Initiative 1033 web site and gather signatures. And read Liberty Belle's description of the event.

Local News | Seattle Times Newspaper:

Professional activist Tim Eyman spoke to a crowd of several hundred people at an anti-tax rally at Olympia and said he still needs the requisite signatures in a petition drive to put Initiative 1033 on the ballot.

Eyman is sponsor of Initiative 1033, which would reduce property taxes by limiting the growth of certain state, county and city revenue to annual inflation and population growth excluding voter-approved revenue increases.

Eyman said as of last Monday, supporters of the initiative had 270,055 signatures about 20,000 short of the 292,000 valid signatures required to put it on the ballot in November.

The deadline for collecting signatures is July 3.

Eyman said other TEA Party rallies this year have been instrumental in collecting signatures for the petition. TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already

O'Grady: Honduras Defends Its Democracy - WSJ.com

The removal of the president of Honduras was not a military overthrow, as many are saying. It was the military carrying out an order by the Supreme Court, because President Zelaya had violated his constitutional duties.

Mary Anastasias O'Grady - WSJ.com:
... That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya's next move will be. It's not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

Global warming watch - Missing at cherry festival: Michigan-grown cherries

It's too cold in Michigan.

Has Algore been in northern Michigan - not upper, but the northern part of lower Michigan - this month? There is a long record of snow storms accompanying Albert Gore, Jr.'s, events. See Gore Effect.

The Detroit News:

Traverse City, Michigan -- One thing missing from this year's National Cherry Festival in Traverse City will be locally grown cherries.

Farmers say the area's cherry crop will still be on the trees during the festival, which runs Independence Day through July 11.

That leaves organizers, stores and markets with the need to import cherries from elsewhere.

Lingering cool weather slowed cherry growth in the northwestern Lower Peninsula.

Dennis Hoxsie grows sweet and tart cherries at his farm in Grand Traverse County's Acme Township and runs a farm market. He tells the Traverse City Record-Eagle it will be 1 1/2 to two weeks before his crop starts coming in, so he's bringing in cherries from southwestern Michigan.

Health tax to favor unions

The Senate Democrats have a large tax increase planned to pay for their health-care takeover. They intend to hit "gold-plated" benefits. But not for their union friends. The difference is not according to the higher benefit. No. Just if you are in a union.

You say, "That's different." Yes, another pay back.

Senator Max Baucus has his defense ready. He claims he is just protecting legal contracts - union contracts. He just doesn't want his law to violate the laws that uphold those contracts. Nonsense. Obama has run all over legal contracts. He stole Chrysler from those who held its senior debt and gave it to the UAW union. If Baucus intends to uphold contracts he can first go and remove ownership from the UAW and restore those debt holders. He will do that first if he is serious. Not!

Bloomberg

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, the chief congressional advocate of taxing some employer-provided benefits to help pay for an overhaul of the U.S. health system, says any change should exempt perks secured in existing collective- bargaining agreements, which can be in place for as long as five years.

The exception, which could make the proposal more politically palatable to Democrats from heavily unionized states such as Michigan, is adding controversy to an already contentious debate. It would shield the 12.4 percent of American workers who belong to unions from being taxed while exposing some other middle-income workers to the levy.

"I can't think of any other aspect of the individual income tax that treats benefits of different people differently because of who they work for," said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington research group that often criticizes Democrats' economic proposals. Edwards said the carve-out "smacks of political favoritism."

Via American Thinker Blog: Union health plans may avoid special tax:

Also: Union workers would be exempt from Dem health care tax | Washington Examiner :

The American Principles Project :: Winning on Principle

Professor Robert George of Princeton University is leading an effort to enable Americans to reaffirm the principles our country was founded on:

The American Principles Project

The United States of America does not need new principles. It needs renewed fidelity to the principles set forth in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These are timeless principles: truths that we hold, in Jefferson's immortal words, to be, "self-evident." They are, moreover, universal principles, not the historically contingent beliefs or customs of a particular sect or clan or tribe. They are rooted in the nature of man as a being who, by virtue of his God-given dignity and rationality, owns the right to participate in the great project of self-government as a free and equal citizen. Whatever others may say, we at the American Principles Project and all who join with us reaffirm the truth

that each and every member of the human family is, "created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

If these timeless principles are to be restored and our national commitment to them renewed, then a new voice is needed in American politics, a voice that is unafraid to stand up for what is right and speak out against what is wrong. Indeed, that "voice" must be nothing less than millions of American voices raised in unison in defense of political liberty and economic freedom, the sanctity of human life and the integrity of marriage and the family, and the sovereignty and security of our nation.

That "voice" must be an informed voice. We must speak from an ever deeper understanding and appreciation of the blessings of freedom and the moral and political responsibilities that freedom entails. The American Principles Project has been created to help every citizen who truly wishes to be part of what our founding fathers called this great, "experiment in ordered liberty," to be an informed citizen, and thus someone empowered to make a difference.

Are we conservatives? You bet we are, if by a "conservative" one means a believer in the rule of law, democracy, limited government and respect for civil liberties, private property and the free market, equality of opportunity, the sanctity of human life, the protection of marriage and the family, and the defense of our nation's sovereignty and security. For us, these convictions are not platitudes. We are convinced that the renewal of our nation and the flourishing of our people vitally depend on making these historic ideals and commitments once again operative in the laws and policies by which we govern ourselves.

Our ancestors came from Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America . . . and from all over the globe. We practice many different religions. But we are united as Americans in our commitment to the wisdom and goodness of the principles upon which the United States of America was founded and in our willingness to act on these principles and defend them in the public square. We believe that the way forward, economically, politically, and morally, is to rededicate ourselves to those timeless self-evident truths.

Go to their web site and join in.

Kona councilman tells Obama: Send Guantanamo detainees to us

Go to Kona and play with the Guantanamo Bay criminals. You can help their healing and forgiveness. OK, it's risky. They were captured as illegal combatants.

Did Kona accept Japanese soldiers during World War II so they could forgive them? It's the Aloha spirit, after all.
I have made three week-long trips to the Big Island of Hawaii, plus two day trips. I don't want to play with men captured in battles against US servicemen. Do you?

The Honolulu Advertiser:

North Kona Councilman Kelly Greenwell recently sent a letter to President Barack Obama, asking the Hawaii-born commander-in-chief to consider sending prisoners to be released from the prison at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay to the Big Island.

The idea isn't to incarcerate the prisoners here, the councilman said, but to release them and begin a process of healing and forgiveness.

"We have forgiven the people who bombed Pearl Harbor," Greenwell said, adding that Americans also forgave Germans after World War II. "I think if we want to be known as a place of love and aloha, this is a place to express it."

In a letter to Mayor Billy Kenoi, explaining his proposal, Greenwell admits that the idea "may sound insane."

But, the councilman continued, collaboration with the president could reap the mayor big benefits.

"It places you in the position of helping our president out of a critical predicament, and it wouldn't hurt if you were his best friend," Greenwell wrote.

The councilman described the result as "a new stew," a place where various cultures can meet and learn to get along.

Further, Greenwell said, the detainees at Guantanamo are "no more than suspects."

He acknowledged that some Americans might be unhappy with his offer to accept the detainees, but said that he anticipated negative reactions to be only about 10 percent of the total responses.

Where do I register my complaint against this fool, Kelly Greenwell.

Tilting at Green Windmills

RealClearPolitics - George Will
The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating "green jobs" in "alternative energy" even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1 percent -- more than double the European Union average -- partly because of spending on such jobs?

Calzada, 36, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has produced a report which, if true, is inconvenient for the Obama administration's green agenda, and for some budget assumptions that are dependent upon it.

Calzada says Spain's torrential spending -- no other nation has so aggressively supported production of electricity from renewable sources -- on wind farms and other forms of alternative energy has indeed created jobs. But Calzada's report concludes that they often are temporary and have received $752,000 to $800,000 each in subsidies -- wind industry jobs cost even more, $1.4 million each. And each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation -- sub-optimum in terms of economic efficiency -- of capital.

Cap and Trade bill is based on new CCSP Report that reverses what sources say

The US Congress's big rush to pass Cap and Trade legislation HR 2454 this week is based on a foundation of sand. Roger Peilke, Jr. shows how one of the foundation reports from Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) misuses research including his own, even to the point of reversing what he found.

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: [quote]

Imagine if an industry-funded government contractor had a hand in writing a major federal report on climate change. And imagine if that person used his position to misrepresent the science, to cite his own non-peer reviewed work, and to ignore relevant work in the peer-reviewed literature. There would be an outrage, surely . . .

The Obama Administration has re-released a report (PDF) first issued in draft form by the Bush Administration last July ...

Here is the relevant paragraph of the CCSP report, found on p. 105:

Sentence #1:

While economic and demographic factors have no doubt contributed to observed increases in losses,346 these factors do not fully explain the upward trend in costs or numbers of events.344,347

Reference 346 is to a paper I co-authored:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., Gratz, J., Landsea, C. W., Collins, D., Saunders, M., and Musulin, R., 2008. Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1900-2005. Natural Hazards Review, Volume 9, Issue 1, pp. 29-42. (PDF)

In that paper we did indeed conclude that economic and demographic factors have contributed to losses related to hurricanes. In fact, we concluded that these factors accounted for all of the increase in hurricane losses over the period of record:

The lack of trend in twentieth century normalized hurricane losses is consistent with what one would expect to find given the lack of trends in hurricane frequency or intensity at landfall.

The CCSP report however, says the opposite, that these factors do not explain the upward trend in costs or numbers of events. To support this claim they provide two citations. Lets consider each in turn, first #344:

Mills, E., 2005: Insurance in a climate of change. Science, 309(5737), 1040-1044.

If you go to Mills, and I have, you will find that it is a commentary that does not offer any new research. ...

But more problematically, why is a report characterized by Science Advisor John Holdren as being the "most up-to-date, authoritative, and comprehensive" analysis relying on a secondary, non-peer source citing another non-peer reviewed source from 2000 to support a claim that a large amount of uncited and more recent peer reviewed literature says the opposite about?
[end quote]

Via TierneyLab at New York Times

Illegal Arab settlements in Jerusalem. Yes, Arab

Frontpage Magazine

Freedman had just returned from one of her frequent trips to Israel. This time, what amazed her most were “all the illegal Arab settlements” which had grown exponentially “all over Jerusalem.”

Illegal Arab settlements?

This information is well documented in journalist Aaron Klein’s important new book: The Late, Great State of Israel. How Enemies Within and Without Threaten The Jewish Nation’s Survival. Klein’s book illuminates, infuriates, saddens, and cries out to both heaven and humanity.
According to Klein, he chose his book’s shocking title “with a heavy heart,” in order to “awaken people to this very real possibility,” to “prod the world into pondering the unthinkable; and to shed light on the scope of the calamitous threats facing the Jewish state.”

... According to Klein, who has been WorldNetDaily’s Jerusalem bureau chief for four years: The city of Jerusalem, like so many European cities, now has its own “no go” areas. “Israeli police units stay off the streets” of certain “densely populated Arab neighborhoods” which, in effect, constitute a “significant terrorist apparatus (which is) now based in eastern Jerusalem. The clear aim is to keep up a steady stream of attacks on western Jerusalem neighborhoods in order to pressure Israel into ceding eastern Jerusalem.”

Over the years, Israelis have allowed more than “100,000 Palestinian Arabs to occupy tens of thousands of illegally constructed housing units in eastern and northern Jerusalem.” Criminals, mercenaries, soldiers dressed as civilians, human bombs and their terrorist handlers, may all live among them. This other illegal occupation or settlement activity began long after 1967, when Israel won a third war of self-defense launched against it by the major Arab powers. These Palestinian Arab immigrants were not living in these places before 1948 or before 1967. Indeed, Klein documents that under Jordanian rule, one of these Jerusalem neighborhoods, Shoafat, was actually a forest.

These crowded Palestinian Arab housing complexes, schools, villas, palaces, (my friend Helen Freedman just saw a Saudi-built Polo Club! somewhere nearby), are now filled with weapons and fighters. Worse still: According to Klein, these Palestinian Arabs have built their illegal settlements on land owned by the Jewish National Fund, (JNF), which was entrusted to buy land for Jews in the Holy Land.