And also, always, kill Jews 237
Dennis Prager has an excellent column at Townhall on the murder of the Jews in Mumbai. It is all worth reading. Here is an extract:
No one seems to find it odd that that Pakistani Muslim terrorists who hate India and want it to give up control of Indian Kashmir would send two of its 10 terrorists to kill perhaps the only rabbi in Mumbai. As Newsweek reported during the siege, Given that Orthodox Jews were being held at gunpoint by mujahideen (sic), it seemed unlikely there would be survivors. Newsweek, like just about everyone else, simply assumes Islamists will murder Jews whenever and wherever possible.
They are right.
For years I have warned that great evils often begin with the murder of Jews, and therefore non-Jews who dismiss Jew-hatred (aka anti-Semitism, aka anti-Zionism), will learn too late that Jew- and Israel-haters only begin with Jews but never end with them. When Israeli Jews were almost the only targets of Muslim terrorists, the world dismissed it as a Jewish or Israeli problem. Then it became an American and European and Filipino and Thai and Indonesian and Hindu problem…
It is exquisitely fitting that the same week the murders in Mumbai were taking place, the United Nations General Assembly passed six more anti-Israel resolutions. As it has for decades, the U.N. has again sanctioned hatred for a good and decent country as small on the map of the world as the Chabad House is on the map of Mumbai.
Obama a centrist? 141
I just wonder what some of the people now rushing to applaud Obama as a centrist will say if and when he tries to: implement nationalized health care; drastically disarm our nuclear capacity – unilaterally; sign into law card-check legislation, which would permit unions to undo secret balloting; appoint very left-wing activist judges; close Gitmo and relax our tough interrogation techniques; further open our borders to illegals; inaugurate a gargantuan "new" New Deal upward of $1 trillion in forced government spending, euphemized as a stimulus package; impose Draconian measures against our economy and liberties under the pretense of ameliorating man-made global warming; or radically alter the tax code to punish the "wealthy."
The left against freedom 206
Thomas Sowell writes with his usual clarity on Freedom.
In part (but read it all):
One of the most innocent-sounding examples of the left’s many impositions of its vision on others is the widespread requirement by schools and by college admissions committees that students do "community service."
There are high schools across the country from which you cannot graduate, and colleges where your application for admission will not be accepted, unless you have engaged in activities arbitrarily defined as "community service."
The arrogance of commandeering young people’s time, instead of leaving them and their parents free to decide for themselves how to use that time, is exceeded only by the arrogance of imposing your own notions as to what is or is not a service to the community.
Working in a homeless shelter is widely regarded as "community service"– as if aiding and abetting vagrancy is necessarily a service, rather than a disservice, to the community.
Is a community better off with more people not working, hanging out on the streets, aggressively panhandling people on the sidewalks, urinating in the street, leaving narcotics needles in the parks where children play?
This is just one of the ways in which handing out various kinds of benefits to people who have not worked for them breaks the connection between productivity and reward, as far as they are concerned.
But that connection remains as unbreakable as ever for society as a whole. You can make anything an "entitlement" for individuals and groups but nothing is an entitlement for society as a whole, not even food or shelter, both of which have to be produced by somebody’s work or they will not exist.
Now nuclear war? 219
The surviving member of the jihadi terrorists who attacked in Mumbai, Ajmal Amir Kasab, has told the police that part of their training was given them by the Pakistan Navy. Also that Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency was involved in the planning.
If this is true, the attack was an invasion, and could mean war between India and Pakistan, both of which possess nuclear arms.
(Kasab also revealed that scouts for the jihadis enjoyed the hospitality of the Lubavitcher Jews who ran Nariman House, so were able to guide the attackers who captured, tortured and murdered their hosts.)
Corrupt beyond question 118
Tom Fitton at Front Page Magazine lists just some of the ‘reprehensible acts’ (we’d say vile, immoral acts) of Hillary Clinton over the last 15 years, and goes on to say:
With specific relevance to her new job as Secretary of State, there are also the serious conflicts of interest involving Bill Clinton, who has become something of an international sensation since leaving the White House, brokering international business deals and reaping huge fees for foreign speaking engagements. Even the liberal CNN reported that Bill Clinton’s “complicated global business interests could present future conflicts of interest that result in unneeded headaches for the incoming commander-in-chief.”
The question is what promises will Bill Clinton make to his international business associates with respect to U.S. State Department Policy that his wife will have to keep?
Hillary Clinton is ethically challenged. Her husband is ethically challenged. Has any other Secretary of State nominee been the subject of a grand jury criminal investigation? From their days in the White House to the present day, they have consistently abused their public office for personal and political gain. Hillary and Bill (not to mention their siblings) are scandals waiting to happen. She has neither the temperament nor ethics to be in such a sensitive office.
I believe Obama made a deal with the devil to avoid a floor flight at the convention. It may have served him politically, but the public shouldn’t suffer the consequences. If the Senate is serious about ethics in government, Hillary’s nomination would be rejected. In putting forward Hillary, Obama now owns the Clinton scandals. Her nomination is another weak personnel decision that will harm his presidency.
Will the Obama administration exercise due diligence and keep a watchful eye on the Clintons? My guess is that if Obama is willing to hire Hillary given her dismal record, he’ll be willing to turn a blind eye to her likely corrupt behavior at the State Department.
The vetting of Hillary seems to have been run by John Podesta (her husband’s former Chief of Staff) and Cheryl Mills (the ethically-challenged lawyer who served as Clinton White House lawyer). Surprise, surprise. She passed.
Will the names of those at home and abroad who gave the Clinton machine millions over the years be released?
Jews in Mumbai tied up and tortured 142
According to this report even the doctors were shocked at what they found:
Doctors working in a hospital where all the bodies, including that of the terrorists, were taken said they had not seen anything like this in their lives.
"Bombay has a long history of terror. I have seen bodies of riot victims, gang war and previous terror attacks like bomb blasts. But this was entirely different. It was shocking and disturbing," a doctor said.
Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: "It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim’s body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words," he said.
Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: "It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood," one doctor said.
The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said.
Corroborating the doctors’ claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. "During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis," an IB source said.
It is also said that the Israeli hostages were killed on the first day as keeping them hostage for too long would have focused too much international attention. "They also might have feared the chances of Israeli security agencies taking over the operations at the Nariman House," he reasoned.
When incompetence kills 38
We learn this from a private source in India:
When the commandos, sent from Delhi, arrived at Mumbai airport to deal forcefully with the massive terrorist onslaught, there was no one to meet them and no transport to take them into Mumbai. They had to wait an hour for a rickety municipal bus to show up.
Civilization must wake up and defend itself.