Tag Archives: PJMedia

Free Boroujerdi!

Posted on July 21, 2013 | 4 comments

It’s good to know there’s at least one Muslim cleric who advocates tolerance of non-Muslims. Unfortunately Ayatollah Hossein Kazemeini  Boroujerdi has been imprisoned in Tehran since 2009, tortured and denied medical care, and now he is dying, presumably of heart disease.

“Ayatollah Boroujerdi threatens the regime for two reasons:  he advocates toleration of all religious (and non-religious) beliefs, and, in keeping with Shi’ite tradition, opposes the involvement of religious leaders in politics.  Years ago, he said ‘the regime is adamant that either people adhere to political Islam or be jailed, exiled or killed.

“In 2010 he sent Hanukkah greetings to the Jews of the world, saying “any religious belief that brings us closer to the Source (God) is the truth. This force will lead humanity towards enlightenment. On this great day, we celebrate the unity among the believers of God’s light.”

A White House plea for Boroujerdi’s freedom, so he can at least die at home among family and friends, might work, as might a similar call by our U.N. rep Samantha Powers. It’s hard to imagine either happening, unfortunately, but it would be wonderful if they did.

Via Faster Please.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Obamalot, The War

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Did NSA surveillance start with Bush?

Posted on July 11, 2013 | Comments Off on Did NSA surveillance start with Bush?

In a way, yes. But not in the main way, according to Charlie Martin at PJMedia. Martin, a government intelligence consultant in his day job, says:

“Everything we know about the program under Bush says they needed suspicion about an individual, and then collected information about that individual’s calls only. If they saw a connection, they had to make a separate request for that person’s metadata.

“In the Obama administration program, they just collect all the data from everybody in case they want to look at it later.”

So the American surveillance state really is a Leftist creation. No surprise. Who else tries constantly to control what we buy, say, drive and so forth? Martin’s primer on what the NSA is doing—which is here—is worth a read.

UPDATE:  Meanwhile, Wormtongue’s education bureaucracy is snooping on kindergartners, gathering info about their families, supposedly to target the kiddies (like Amazon or Google) for more effective education (i.e. sales) but which could also be used to punish their parents for political transgressions.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, Science/Engineering, The War

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Rebuild the Temple? Lord I hope not

Posted on June 11, 2013 | Comments Off on Rebuild the Temple? Lord I hope not

British historian Paul Johnson’s 2009 book A History of The Jews is as good as advertised by Roger L. Simon who called it “a fantastic book I had promised myself [to read] for years.”

I’ve read so many histories of the Jews that I wondered if I could possibly learn anything new. Well, I have and I’m only up to Herod The Great. But the bit on Herod led me to something I’ve pondered ever since the first time I visited the Kotel, or Western Wall of the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem. And I think Johnson has given me the answer: Please Lord, don’t ever let them rebuild the Temple.

And not because it would outrage the goat lovers. What doesn’t? No, the worst possible consequence would be the return of the animal sacrifices. Here’s Johnson, using multiple sources to convey what it was like 2,000-plus years ago:

“The sacrifice rituals struck visitors as exotic, even barbarous, for most strangers came at feast times when the quantities of sacrifices were enormous. At such times the inner Temple was an awesome place—the screams and bellows of terrified cattle, blending with ritual cries and chants and tremendous blasts of horn and trumpet, and blood everywhere.

“The author of the Letter of Aristeas, an Alexandrine Jew who attended as a pilgrim, says he saw 700 priests performing the sacrifices, working in silence but handling the heavy carcasses with professional skill and putting them on exactly the right part of the altar.

“Because of the huge number of animals, the slaughter, bloodying and carving up of the carcasses had to be done quickly; and to get rid of the copious quantities of blood, the platform was not solid but hollow, a gigantic cleansing system.”

It’s nice to learn they could collect and wash away all that blood “in the twinkling of an eye,” as Aristeas put it with a phrase that shows how really old some cliches can be. But it sounds ghastly. If Israel is unfairly battered by the UN now, and it certainly is, just imagine what condemnations resuming animal sacrifices would bring. In addition to the godawful mess and the smell.

Not to worry. It will never happen. Rabbinic and synagogue Judaism long ago replaced animal sacrifice (with the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E.) and that’s a very, very good thing.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Library

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Lady Macbeth and her blood-soaked hands

Posted on May 23, 2013 | Comments Off on Lady Macbeth and her blood-soaked hands

Yeah the IRS thing is scary. But as Reason TV reports, the IRS has been used for political retribution by at least four other presidents, starting with Franklin Roosevelt. The rest were Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. Three Democrats and one Republican.

If we had an honest federal government (you wish) we would not have an IRS in the first place nor a complicated annual income tax form with so many strokes and sticks. We’d have a flat tax for everyone. But that would eliminate a lot of jobs for the Democrats to fill and a favorite weapon against their political enemies as well as innumerable opportunities to shake down the lobby for more bribes.

Benghazi is far more important than the IRS scandal and not only because four Americans died. It demonstrates better than anything else how inept and venal the leader of the Choom Gang and his probable successor the Hildabeast are when it comes to foreign policy and genuine national security.

An American ambassador seems to have been used as an errand boy, to clean up Hellary’s mess: trying to buy back shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles she ordered given to Islamists fighting to overthrow Gaddafi after she realized (duh) they could be turned on civilian airliners.

Denying readily-available forces to protect the ambassador when he came under attack (and lying about it repeatedly afterwards) seems to have been done to avoid uncovering the missile operation. In other words, the ambassador (and two Navy SEALS) had to die to save Obozo’s dwindling credibility and Shillary’s political future.

Having political enemies audited is one thing. Turning your back on Americans under attack is Vietnam all over again. Or, more recently, Barry’s betrayal of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

All we can do is hope that the otherwise-feckless Republicans don’t drop the ball on the Benghazi cover up. Or we’re very likely to get Lady Macbeth and her blood-soaked hands as the next occupant of the White House and much worse to come than selling guns to Mexican drug lords, harassment of the Tea Party and spying on the snooze media.

UPDATE: It’s been conventional wisdom for a long time that Nixon used the IRS on his enemies, but his biographers say he only tried to use the IRS. Being a hiring hall for the Democrat Party, the IRS refused to cooperate with a Republican president. Its retribution is for sale, certainly, but only for Democrats.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, The War, Troops

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The Hildabeast: author of the Benghazi coverup

Posted on May 7, 2013 | Comments Off on The Hildabeast: author of the Benghazi coverup

President Pinocchio just went along for the ride, since it suited his purposes, too. Indeed, so far the evidence shows that it was Hillary’s coverup from beginning to end. Remember her incredible remark to inquisitive Republican senators:  “What difference does it make?”

If she was a Republican, it would make all the difference. She’d be finished in politics. The Democrat media would see to that, like they did with Nixon, and nobody died in his coverup of a third-rate burglary. Much less an ambassador.

But, of course, the Hildabeast is covered six ways from Sunday by the alphabet media, all of the major newspapers, and her faithless husband Slick Willie and his cronies. They badly want a second shot at the big bucks that come with the presidency in our increasingly dictatorial and corrupt federal government.

And, as Instapundit reminds us, the filmmaker Hillary and Barry chose to be their fall guy, the author of that Islamic video no one ever saw, is still in jail.

UPDATE: She even lied at the ambassador’s funeral service. How craven can you get?

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, The War

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Have You Seen Paperman?

Posted on February 5, 2013 | Comments Off on Have You Seen Paperman?

Click here and you, too, can join the viral ‘Net phenom for this cool bit of animated story telling. Love story telling.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Library, Scribbles

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Your House Is On Fire, Your Children All Gone

Posted on January 29, 2013 | Comments Off on Your House Is On Fire, Your Children All Gone

Scott at The Fat Guy recently asked me for some book recomendations. He was more interested in scifi than anything else, and I gave him a bunch of those, but this small-town horror tale by Stefan Kiesbye also is a winner.

I picked up on it from PJMedia’s Andrew Klaven and decided to give it a try through the Kindle sample at Amazon. I was immediately hooked by the seemingly-effortless writing style and the surprise of a character literally peeing on a grave after a funeral.

It’s a coming-of-age tale about a post-WWII German village’s adolescents whose parents and peers brutalize each other so casually that none of it rings false. Sounds awful? All of that sneaks up on you, actually, and by the time it makes its appearance you’re already invested in the story and the characters. It is far less violent than many other novels these days, thanks to Kiesbye’s clever choice of words.

It helps if you know German so you realize the English meaning of some of the place names, but it’s not strictly necessary. Haunting, Klaven calls it, and I agree. I’m still thinking about it, three books later.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Library, Obsessions

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