Beverly Hills Hotel Boycott: Hollywood's Leftists Need a Conscience !

The Beverly Hills Hotel complex, swank watering hole of Hollywood's elite, and owned by the Sultan of Brunei, is a ghost town! 

The sultan recently imposed Sharia law on the citizens of this small country in southeast Asia with a population of less than 500,000. The law includes the punishment of death for any who engages in homosexuality or adultery. Jay Leno, one of the many celebrities attending a rally in front of the hotel, said, ''It's people being stoned to death. Hello!''

Meanwhile, Bill Maher, another member of the almost-all-Hollywood left, discussed the kidnapping of mostly Christian Nigerian schoolgirls by a radical Muslim group. Having a decided grip on reality, something most of his celebrity bedfellows seemed oblivious to, stated, ''There's no mention here of connecting this to the religion (of Islam), which is what I am seeking to do because I think that's the elephant in the room.''  Maher, unlike the Hollywood lefties protesting at the hotel, insists Islam itself, not merely Shariah, is the issue. He added expressively, ''I'd like to stick to those jihadist bastards !''

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born critic of Islam. She is one of today's most admired authors and controversial political figures and the author of the book, ''INFIDEL: My Life''. She, too, argues from first-hand experience, that Islam itself mandates a second-class status for women. She reserves her objection not only to Sharia law but also Islam itself, in all its Dark Ages baggage. She thinks reform may be possible, but receives death threats and is the subject of a fatwa - a religious decree that commends that she be killed, so she shouldn't be holding her breath.

Hirsi Ali was recently invited to speak a Brandeis University, where she would receive an honorary degree. But after Hirsi Ali received the invitation, the Council of Arab Islamic (filth) Relations sent Brandeis a list of ''offensive'' things Hirsi Ali said about Islam. Brandeis, instead of ''sticking-it-back'' to this ratbag organization listing the offensive things Islam does, retracted her invitation. The university called some of Hirsi Ali's opinions ''inconsistent with Brandeis University's core values'' Ass-kissing must be on the top of the list.

Brandeis had no problem bestowing an honorary degree on playwright Tony Kushner, who admits he has ''a problem with the idea of a Jewish state.''  And Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke at Brandeis despite having characterized Israel as an ''apartheid state.'' Brandeis' tolerance of a variety of opinion, apparently, doesn't apply to those critical of Islam; the world's greatest threat to Western education.

Robert Spencer, author of ''Onward Muslim Soldiers,'' ''The Infidel's Guide to the Koren'',  ''The Political Incorrect Guide to Islam'' and ''The Truth About Mohammad" and who also runs the website Jihad Watch ought not wait for an invitation to speak at Brandeis either. He, too, argues that Islam itself IS the issue: ''There are millions of peaceful Muslims....but the fact is that radical Muslims are using core texts of Islam that are deeply rooted in theology, tradition, history and law to justify their actions, and those radical Muslims are able to recruit and motivate terrorists around the world by appealing to these core Islamic texts. As far as these radical, violent elements of the religion go, they are very deeply rooted and we are naïve in the extreme if we don't recognize that and try to get moderate Muslims to acknowledge it so that real reform can take place.''

Hollywood's reluctance to raise questions about Islam amazes me because of the large majority of Jewish people working in that industry. This kow-towing to Islam and it's treatment of women is really about money $$$, or more specifically to use of Arab oil money to help finance films. Matt Damon's anti-fracking movie, ''Promised Land'', was wholly financed by Image Nation Abu Dhabi, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Media, the state media company owned by the United Arab Emirates with the objective to protect America's Arab oil dependence. Thankful, Matt's movie Bombed !

The Way I See It.....the phrase that ''jihad is a peaceful struggle'' - it really means ''struggle'' - literally it means to bring the soul into line with the teachings of the Koren and the will of the law. But it's not the only meaning of jihad or even the principal meaning. Throughout Islamic history, and Islamic theology and law, you have violent jihad being the primary understanding of what it means - this collective responsibility of the Islamic community to wage war against non-Muslims until they either convert or submit as second-class citizens under Islamic rule.

Those of you who have been following my blog posts will remember that I wrote a two-part series in early April, last month, entitled ''Is Moderate Islam an Oxymoron ?'' describing the dilemma many Muslims are in by following the Koran and hadith strictly.

How long can Hollywood's Jews ignore the gutless injustice Brandeis displayed toward the brave Ayaan Hirsi Ali? How long can the Hollywood left avoid the broader and more profound issue of the suppression and subjugation of Muslim ad Arab women?  The moral relativists of Hollywood may have to make a moral judgement about culture and values to finally clear their consciences.

Why is there Silence on the Evil that is Boko Haram ?

Here's the British Guardian's Nick Cohen on the ''fear of describing Boko Haram as it really is.''

Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekan

Terrorists from a religious nut-cult so reactionary you don't have to stretch the language very far too describe it as a fascistic attack at a school last week. The assault on a civilian target, filled with non-combatant children, has a grotesque logic behind it. They call themselves ''Boko Haram'', translates as ''western education is forbidden.''  This group, founded in 2009, regards learning as an oppression. They will stop all teaching that conflicts with a holy book from the 7th century and accounts of doubtful provenance on the life and saying of their Hitler-like prophet written hundreds of years after he died.

A desire for sexual supremacy accompanies their loathing of knowledge. They are best described as a bunch of ignorant dickheads that can only think with their male member. So, they take 223 schoolgirls as slaves and force them to convert to their sick version of Islam. They either rape them or sell them on for 10 Pnds or so to new masters. The girls are the victims of slavery, child abuse and forced marriage.  As you can see, English does not lack plain words to describe the foulness of the crimes in Nigeria, and no doubt they would be used in the highly improbable event of western soldiers seizing and selling women.

Yet, read parts of the lame-stream press and you enter a world of euphemism. They have not been enslaved but  ''abducted'' or ''kidnapped'', as if they would be released unharmed when the parties have negotiated a mutually acceptable ransom. Writers are typing with one eye over their shoulder; watching their backs to make sure that no one can accuse them of ''demonising that other religion.'' Turn from today's papers to the theoretical pages of left-wing journals and you will find that the grounds for understanding Boko Haram more and condemning it less were prepared last year.

Without fully endorsing Boko Haram, of course, socialist explained that it finds ''resonance in the hearts of many poor and dispossessed people'', who are revolted by ''the corruption and flamboyant lifestyle of the elites''.  Islam is foolishly recast as a rational reaction to local corruption and the global oppression of ''neoliberalism'', one of those conveniently vague labels that can mean just about anything...

''The mechanical denunciation of the West,'' wrote the French political theorist Pascal Bruckner in 2010, ''forbids the western bloc, which is eternally guilty, to judge or combat other systems, other states, and other religions. Our pas crimes command us to keep our mouths closed.'' He might have been writing today, so persistent is the belief that the West is the root cause of the only oppression worth mentioning. If Occidentalism was absurd in the past, it's preposterous now. Boko Haram is not reacting to western interventionism in Nigeria, for there is none.

Meanwhile, we are moving faster than anyone expected to a new age in which China will be the world's largest economy. For the first time since the 18th century, the dominant power will not allow internal opposition or the Chinese equivalent of the campaigns on behalf of the victims of its foreign policy that we saw in Britain, France and the US in the last 200 years. We have not begun to understand the turn for the worse the cause of global human rights is taking as empires shift.

The enslavement of so many girls - girls who were simply seeking an education - has finally stirred some interest in the Politically Correct West But the murder of schoolboys couldn't:
           In February, Boko Haram militants murdered 59 Christian schoolboys. They separated the boys from the girls, telling the girls to abandon school and get married before sending them home, and then slaughtered the boys. That killing spree was just one dozens of attacks on schools, houses of worship and random civilians.

The Way I See It......Corruption, cowardice, incompetence, betrayal - a disgusting failure of governance has given Nigeria a government unable to defend schoolgirls from evil.

Another evil is the fact that it was just last year that Obama pushes funds for Islamists which in turn use it to intimidate and murder their Christian victims. Obama's Democrats make up the ''Islamist Apologist Choir'' described by Cinnamon Stillwell, an American political blogger, who don't sing solely on behalf of Chenhnya, Yemin or the Brotherhood's Muslims. Some of that choir's most dreadful caterwauling is in support of Nigeria's yet-undesignated terrorists, you guessed it, Boko Haram. The choir stalls are located in the U.S. State Department, which not only refuses to designate this jihadist filth as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, but maligns and defames Boko Haram's Christian victims, as well.

7 Most Disgusting Ingredients Used to make Vaccines !

This was posted on the internet during the Christmas holidays (2013) by the renowned health website The Daily Healthpost and has created a lot of interest in many affected circles. Here it is in it's unadulterated form:

Parents have the right to understand what is being put into their child's body. The production of vaccines uses many disgusting ingredients. Additionally, the components used during the manufacturing process may violate your personal, religious, or ethical beliefs.

Lastly, remember that whatever colourful language is used by the scientific community (using such words as ''purified''), using such substances can come at enormous cost. As read this list understand cell lines and vaccines do become contaminated. This is often hidden under the term ''adventitious agents.''

Disgusting Ingredient #1: Cells From Aborted Foetuses

Aborted fetal cells, listed on vaccine package inserts as ''Human Fetal Diploid Cells.'' Two aborted fetal cell lines, WI-38 and MRC-5, have been grown under laboratory conditions since the 1960s. The cells are used to grow viruses used which are then collected from the cell cultures and processed further to produce the vaccine itself.
----Terms to investigate:  PERC6, MRC5, WI-38, HEK-293
Which Vaccines Involved ?  Adenovirus vaccine, DTaP vaccine, Hep A vaccine, Hep B vaccine, MMR vaccine, Rabies vaccine, Varicella (Chicken Pox) vaccine.

Disgusting Ingredient #2:  Serum From Aborted Calf Fetus Blood

One of the more grotesque methods involved in vaccine manufacturing is the collection of fetal bovine serum. The purpose for serum is providing a nutrient broth for viruses to grow in cells. How is the blood collected?  According to the Humane Research Australia website:
     ''After slaughter and bleeding of the cow at an abattoir, the mother's uterus containing the calf fetus is removed and transferred to the blood collection room. A needle is the inserted between the foetus's ribs directly into its heart and the blood is vacuumed into a sterile collection bag. Once collected, the blood is allowed to clot at room temperature and the serum separated through a process known as 'refridgrated centrifugation'.''
Which Vaccines Involved ?  Adenovirus vaccine, MMR vaccine, Rotavirus vaccine, Varicella (Chicken Pox) vaccine.

Disgusting Ingredient #3:  Cells From Armyworms

The FDA approved the Flublok vaccine on January 16, 2013. This new technology is being touted as the wave of the future. It utilizes an insect cell line (expressSF+) that is derived from cels of the armyworm,  Spodoptera frugiperda.

The vaccine package insert for Flublok mentions: ''Each 0.5 ml dose of Flublok may also contain residual amounts of baculovirus and host cell proteins (28.5 mcg), baculovirus and cellular DNA (10 ng)....'' 
Which Vaccine Involved ?   Influenza vaccine

Disgusting Ingredient #4:  Cells From Monkey Kidneys



Bernice Eddy

Monkey kidney tissue is used to support the growth of certain viruses used in vaccine production. There remains a huge controversy over using these cells and their role contaminating the polio vaccine in the 1950s to millions of children with the spector of latent cancer involvement. It was only through the efforts of courageous scientist, Bernice Eddy, in 1954, as a polio control officer when she voiced her concern that she found live virus in supposedly killed polio vaccine that was able to breed causing her test monkey's to subsequently to become paralylzed! She immediately tried to delay vaccines' release but was told not to report it because Dr Salk's vaccine was completely ''inactivated'' with formaldehyde (NOT). A few months later she was relieved of her duties and her staff dispersed and her laboratory closed. In 1955

The next and only serious vaccine crisis occurred in 1961 with the realization that a monkey virus was shown to cause tumours in hamsters was contaminating both polio and adenovirus vaccines. Even when this contaminating virus was found to be oncogenic (cancer causing) in those hamsters, the Division of Biologics Standards and its expert advisory committee decided to leave existing stocks on the market rather than risk eroding public confidence by  recall. (Now that's criminal!)
Which Vaccines Involved ?  DTaP vaccine, Japanese Encephalitis vaccine, Polio vaccine, Rotovirus vaccine and Vaccina vaccine.

Disgusting Ingredients #5:  Cells From Dog Kidneys

On November 20, 2012, the FDA approved the seasonal influenza vaccine, Flucevax, produced by Novartis. This vaccine is mass-produced using the continuous cell line Madin Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) as the vaccine cell substrate.
Which Vaccine Involved ?  Influenza vaccine (and don't forget that bit of Mercury as a preservative!


Disgusting Ingredient #6:   Mouse Brain

Viral vaccines prepared in tissue cultured mouse brain have been used in many Asian countries. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website, the inactivated mouse brain-derived JE vaccine used in the United States since 1992 is no longer available. Of course, with any vaccine, the adverse reactions are rarely tracked and downplayed by medical authorities. However, the injuries from vaccines can be quite serious.
----Terms to Investigate: Inactivated mouse brain (IMB), Suckling mouse brain, JE virus (Beijing-1).
Which Vaccines Involved ?   Japanese encephalitis vaccine, Rabies vaccine

Disgusting Ingredient # 7:   Chicken Embryos

Chickens and their embryos have long been used in the production of vaccines. These methods were popularized in the 1920s and 1930s by Thomas Rivers an others at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.
----Terms to Investigate:  Chick embryo
Which Vaccines Involved ?  Influenza vaccine, Rabies vaccine, Yellow Fever vaccine

Al-Qaeda versus Hizballah !

''The world's most fearsome terrorist groups are facing off in Syria. That's bad news for everyone.''  Robin Wright, Journalist for Time Magazine

The battle for the soul of Syria has taken an even deadlier turn over the past 3 months. The strategic center of the Middle East is also now a battle ground between Hizballah [photo](who support President Bashar Assad) and al-Qaeda (the ratbags that want to make Syria the centre of a new Caliphate), the region's toughest extremist movements. The groups, both with roots outside Syria, represent rival versions of jihadism. Both use the same repugnantly violent  tactics and advocate rigid Islamic rule; they're just from different sects: Shiítes and Sunnis..

This war within the war carries new dangers for the Middle East, for Islam an the outside (civilised) world. The regionalization of of the conflict was reflected when Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah announced his Lebanese militia would ''bear the responsibilities and the sacrifices. This battle is ours, and I promise you victory!'' Within weeks Hizballah fighters helped the Syrian army recapture the city of al-Qusayr, a rebel hub for the past year. The victory was a huge military and psychological break for President Assad -- and particular forceful way for Hizballah to assert its presence.

Hizballah and al-Qaeda are also now redefining the Syrian conflict in sectarian terms, pitting Shiítes against Sunnis and inflaming passions that date back to Islam's greatest split 1,400 years ago, when two factions of the Prophet Muhammad's followers quarrelled over who was his rightful heir. As a result, the conflict is no longer just about man-made ideology or temporal politics or an autocratic dynasty. It's also about interpreting God's will. This stupidity manifests itself in each groups recent targets. The al-Qaeda side claimed last year to have dug up the remains of 7th century Shiíte martyr Hojr Ibn Oday after allegedly destroying his shrine outside Damascus. In turn, Sunni mosques have come under increasing attack.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi

The sectarian furies spilling across Syria's borders have implications for countries from Morocco to Iran. Attacks have already erupted inside Lebanon with tit-for-tat car bombings. Sunni clerics -- most notably popular Egypt-born, Al Jazeera televangelist, Yusuf al-Qaradawi -- have responded to Hizballah's intervention by exhorting followers to mobilize against the Syrian regime. ''I call on Muslims everywhere to help their brothers to be victorious. Everyone who has the ability and has the training to kill....is required to go.''   His fiery rhetoric may fan the flames of hatred and mistrust even after the war ends. As history repeatedly shows, sectarian wars are often harder to resolve than political conflicts.

The role of both groups' followers in Syria increases the danger that Hizballah or al-Qaeda could gain a long term political or physical foothold  in one of the most important countries in the Middle East. That sort of influence would represent the exact opposite of the democratic dream envisioned by many in Syria when the initial protests erupted in March 2011, triggered by the arrest of teenagers who had spray painted antigovernment graffiti on the walls in the Syrian town of Dara'a.

The Way I See It.....the presence of Hizballah and al-Qaeda in Syria will almost certainly complicate diplomatic efforts to find any form of political compromise as U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry has found out. Neither group has ever shown much interest in negotiating. Even Obama's generous funding and arms to the rebels, without any oversight where and who this largesse going to, doesn't broker any positive influence on compromise.

The biggest losers from the emergence of this new fault line are the uprising's early heroes -- the peaceful dissidents and defectors who later took up arms to protect themselves against Assad's military. Their brave struggle seems increasingly marginal as Syria becomes a battle ground for the region's extremist filth.

Public not Buying a Climate Apocalypse !

Here's an enlightening article published 2 weeks ago in the Australian HERALD SUN newspaper by well-known and respected journalist Terry McCrann

THE good sense and informed self-interest — the wisdom of (Aussie) crowds — shines through in a scientific poll from Galaxy Research on attitudes to Global Warming (sic).

The poll result can be captured in two conclusions. We don’t believe it’s necessarily happening — to coin a phrase; we are mostly climate sceptics now. And therefore, we sure as hell ain’t prepared to pay real dollars to ‘stop it’.

Sorry, I should have written that Galaxy polled attitudes to ‘Climate Change (in the absence of Global Warming)’.

That’s of course, the missing Global Warming that was predicted as undeniably certain by all the science-is-certain experts — who are now all united in scouring the planet to find where the hell it’s gone.

They seem to have settled on the deep oceans — a theory which, conveniently, can’t be checked, because there’s no historical data.

We don’t know deep ocean temperatures even 50 far less 200 or more years ago. Captain James Cook might have roamed the globe, but he unaccountably forgot to take the temperature thousands of feet below his Endeavour, along the way.

The Galaxy Poll was commissioned by the Institute of Public Affairs ‘think tank’. That will immediately have the grasping-at straws warmists dismissing it as denialist propaganda.

But the poll was done by Galaxy, not the IPA. It scientifically and rigorously assesses attitudes. Indeed, if anything the questions should favour the warmist opinion.

The easiest thing in the world is for someone to demonstrate they are ‘right thinking’ by endorsing ‘Climate Change ne Global Warming’.

The second easiest thing is to tell a pollster that of course they would be prepared to spend money to save the planet by stopping it; as opposed to having to hand over real cash right then.

Yet the poll which has been conducted since 2010 has shown very little change; and provides very little joy to the warmist cause, despite its ratcheting up of its ‘end of the world’ and ‘climate change is already here in your street and inside your house and it’s nasty’ rhetoric.

We are getting another dose of that rhetoric right now with the release yesterday of the UN IPCC’s final draft of its fifth report.

We’ve been getting warm-ups of the ‘end is nigher’ in the pages of Climate Central Australia — The Age. This included yesterday a spread across p2-3, warning of catastrophic devastation to be wreaked on your favourite cup of coffee.

No doubt today’s Age will be effectively an edition of the Climate Apocalypse Daily, plus some briefs on the real news.

Yet despite all this relentless (climate) fear and (carbon) loathing, pumped out not just by the Fairfax dailys, their ABC, and indeed also the NewsCorp papers, despite their supposed denalism, the Australian public remained stolidly unmoved.

In 2010, the Galaxy poll showed 35 per cent endorsement of the proposition that “the world is warming and man’s emissions are to blame”. The latest poll showed it had edged up only to 37 per cent.

Yes, this was significantly higher than those endorsing the proposition that “the variation in global temperature is just part of the natural cycle of nature”; which had dipped from 26 per cent in 2010 to 24 per cent now. The really significant number was the unchanged 38 per cent endorsing the proposition “there is conflicting evidence and I’m not sure what the truth is”.

By any objective — as opposed to theologically warmist — assessment, this is the rational attitude. Both in response to the reality of the highly, at least, conflicted evidence; and the huge costs of doing something to stop a problem that might not exist.

And in the specific Australian case, we could not stop anyway. Cut our emissions by 100 per cent; that is to say, close the country down; and we would cut global and indeed Australian warming — sorry, ‘Climate Change’ — by effectively zero.

So the poll shows a clear majority of 62 per cent of Australians are either sceptical or denialist. As a consequence, we are increasingly unwilling to throw money at ‘the problem (sic)’.

In 2010 some 15 per cent of poll respondents were prepared to pay $1000 or more a year in higher taxes and utility charges to fight global warming. Now only 11 per cent are.

There is a very, very clear plurality of 41 per cent that are willing to pay nothing, zero, zip — who, my comment, presumably want the carbon tax to go; and that it should be followed quick smart out the door by the expensive rort of wind and solar power.

This is up from 35 per cent in 2010.

Now true, about a similar number — 43 per cent — were prepared to pay between $100 and $500 a year. But that was down from 48 per cent.

And 25 per cent were in the clearly token category of being willing to pay $300 or less. That’s to say, they would be prepared to give up just one coffee a week to avert the very climate catastrophe that, among other things, The Age has warned us, will wreak such havoc on their coffee drinking.

Is The Age surprised by the lack of public enthusiasm? It shouldn’t be, on its ‘don’t mention the war’ approach to the symbolic pointlessness of the latest “Earth Hour,” of which it and its Sydney sibling used to be so enthusiastic about.

The IPA poll was conducted over the weekend. It was also the weekend of ‘Earth Hour’. Yet there wasn’t a single mention of it in either The Age or the SMH yesterday. Not even in one of the other global warming stories.

The Age had room for a largish pic of naked bike riders aimed at, well, showing a bunch of exhibitionists — and indeed, a portfolio of pics online.

But it couldn’t find room to celebrate and encourage those prepared to go without light for one whole hour on a Saturday night of all nights, to save the planet.

The Way I See It......well that's what happens when you leave Australia's top warmist fanatic, Tim Flannery in charge of something. When Labor minister, Greg Combet put Flannery to head the Climate Commission, he said it would ''build the consensus required to move to a clean energy future.''  But it hasn't quite worked out that way. The results released above, taken from an IPA commissioned poll shows Australian's attitude to climate change proves that's another $5 million of taxpayers' money down the drain.

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Obama vs. Putin: The Mismatch !

''The United States does not view Europe as a battleground between East and West, nor do we see the situation in Ukraine as a zero-sum game. That's the kind of thinking that should have ended with the Cold War.''  -- Barack Obama, March 24

Lovely sentiment. As lovely as what Obama said five years ago to the United Nations; No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.''  That's the kind of sentiment you expect from a Miss Ameri9ca contestant asked to name her fondest wish, not from the leader of the free world explaining his foreign policy.

The East Europeans know they inhabit the battleground between the West and a Russia that wants to return them to its sphere of influence. Ukrainians see tens of thousands of Russian troops across their border and know they are looking down the barrel of quite a zero-sum game. Obama thinks otherwise. He says that Vladimir Putin's kind of neo-imperialist thinking is a relic of the past -- and advises Putin to transcend the Cold War.

GOOD GOD! Putin hasn't transcended the Russian revolution. Did no one give Obama a copy of Putin's speech three weeks ago upon the annexation of Crimea?  Putin railed not only at Russia's loss of empire in the 1990s, he went back to the 1920s: ''After the revolution, the Bolsheviks...may God judge them, added large sections of the historical South of Russia to the Republic of Ukraine.'' Putin was referring not to Crimea (which came two sentences later) but to his next potential target: Kharkiv and Donetsk and the rest of southeastern Ukraine. Where right now he has his agents in those areas stirring up the Russia-leaning sympathizers.

Putin's irredentist grievances go very deep. Obama seems unable to fathom them. Asked whether he'd misjudged Russia, whether it really is America's greatest geopolitical for (as Romney stated in one of his pre-election debates), he disdainfully replied that Russia is nothing but  ''a regional power''  acting ''out of weakness.'' 

Where does one begin? Hitler's Germany and Tojo's Japan were also regional powers, yet managed to leave behind at least 50 million dead. And yes, Russia should be no match for the American superpower. Yet under this president, Russia has run rings around America, from the attempted ingratiation of the ''reset'' to America's empty threats of ''consequences'' were Russia to annex Crimea. Annex Crimea it did. For which the ''consequences'' have been risible. Numberless 19th and 20th-century European soldiers died for Crimea. Putin conquered it in a swift and stealthy campaign that took three weeks and cost his forces not a sprained ankle. That's ''weakness'' ?

Indeed, Obama's dismissal of Russia as a regional power makes his own leadership of the one superpower all the more embarrassing. For seven decades since the Japanese surrender, our role under 11 presidents had been as offshore balancer protecting smaller allies from potential regional hegemons. What are Americas' allies thinking now?  Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and other Pacific Rim friends are wondering where this new ''warm and fuzzy'' America will be as China expands its reach and claims. The Gulf states are near panic as they see the United States playacting nuclear negotiations with Iran that, at best, will leave their mortal Shiite enemy just weeks away from the bomb.

Admittedly, America never sought the role that history gave it after World War ll to bear unbidden burdens ''to assure the survival and the success of liberty,'' as moving described by John Kennedy.
American citizens have an appropriate aversion to the stark fact that the alternative to U.S. leadership is either global chaos or dominance by the likes of China, Russia and Iran.

The Way I See It.....Obama doesn't even seem to recognize this truth. In his major address in Brussels, which happened to be the very day that Russia seized the last Ukrainian naval vessl in Crimea, Obama made vague references to further measures should Russia march deeper into Ukraine, while still emphasizing the centrality of international law, international norms and international institutions such as the United Nations. Such fanciful thinking will leave our allies with two cghoices: bend a knee -- or arm to the teeth. Ether acquiesce to the regional bully or gird your loins, i.e., go nuclear. As surely will the Gulf states. As will, in time, Japan and South Korea.

Even the Ukrainians are expressing regret at having given up their nukes in return for paper guarantees of territorial integrity. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum was ahead of its time -- the perfect example of the kind of advanced 21st century thinking so cherished by Barack Obama. Perhaps the captain of that last Ukrainian naval vessel should have waved the document at the Russian fleet when they came to take his ship.

UPDATE:  Yesterday, the United States, Ukraine and the European Union reached an agreement that called for armed pro-Russian bands in eastern Ukraine to surrender the government buildings they have seized. Hours before the Geneva agreement it was announced that Pro-Russian militants tried to storm a military base in Mariupol, prompting a firefight that left three of the activists dead, 13 wounded and 63 captured. But neither President Obama nor Vladimir Putin signalled that the crisis was over, especially since Putin asserted historic claims over Ukrainian territory and the right to send in Russian troops on television before the agreement was announced. All Obama could say afterwards was the talks offered ''a glimmer of hope,'' but ''we're not going to count on it,'' and added that the U.S. would take more punitive action if Russians didn't abide by the terms.

Is ''Moderate Islam'' an Oxymoron ? Part 1

At a time when terrorism committed in the name of Islam is rampant, we are continuously being assured -- especially by three major institutions that play a dominant  role in forming the Western mindset, namely, mainstream media, academia, and government -- that the sort of Isla embraced by ''radicals, ''jihadists'', and so forth has nothing to do with ''real'' Islam. ''True'' Islam, so the narrative goes, is intrinsically free of anything ''bad.'' It's the nut-jobs who hijack it for their own agenda that are to blame.

More specifically, we are told that there exists a ''moderate'' Islam and an ''extremist'' Islam - the former good and true, embraced by a Muslim majority, the latter a perverse sacrilege practiced by an exploitive minority. Bu what do these duel adjectives - ''moderate'' and ''extremist'' - ultimately mean in the context of Islam? Are they both equal and viable alternatives insofar as to how Islam is understood? This last question is particularly important, since Islam is first and foremost a religious way of life centered around the words of a deity (Allah) and his prophet (Muhammad) - the significance of which is admittedly unappreciated by secular societies.

Both terms - ''moderate'' and ''extremist'' - have to do with degree, or less mathematically, zeal: how much, or to what extent, a thing is practiced or implemented. As Webster's puts it, ''moderate'' means ''observing reasonable limits''; ''extremist'' means ''going to great or exaggerated lengths.'' It's a question, then of doing either too much or too little.

The problem, however, is that mainstream Islam offers a crystal-clear way of life, albeit, a 700 AD way of life, based on the teachings of the Koran and Hadith - the former, containing what purports to be the sacred words of Allah, the latter, the example (or sunna, hence ''Sunnis'') of his prophet, also known as the most ''perfect man'' (al-insan al-kamil).  Indeed, based on these two primary sources and according to normative Islamic teaching, all human actions fall into five categories: forbidden actions, discouraged actions, neutral actions, recommended actions, and obligatory actions.

In this context, how does a believer go about ''moderating'' what the deity (the Angel Gabrielle actually) and his spokesman have commanded?  One can either try to observe Islam's commandments or ignore them: and more or less is not Islam - a word which means ''submit'' (to the laws, or Sharia, of Allah). The REAL question, then, is what do Allah and his prophet command Muslims to do?  Are radicals ''exaggerating'' their orders? Or are moderate Muslims simply ''observing reasonable limits'' - a euphemism for negligence - when it comes to fulfilling their commandments?

In our highly secularized era, where we are told that religious truths are flexible or simply non-existent, and that any and all interpretations are valid, the all-important question of ''What does Islam command?'' loses all relance. Hence why the modern West is incapable of understanding Islam. Indeed, only recently, a Kenyan mosque leader said that the Westgate massacre, where Islamic  scumbags slaughtered some 67 people, ''was justified as per the Koran, as per the religion of Islam, Westgate was 100% justified.'' Then he made it crystal clear, when he said: ''Radical Islam is a creation of people who do not believe in Islam. We don't have radical Islam, we don't have moderates, we don't have extremists. Islam is one religion following the Koran and the Sunna.''

Going by this insightful revelation and having read the mish-mash of chapters and verses in the Koran twice, I have been warning, through my blog postings for the past 4 years, that Islam is not a faith based on any Judeo-Christian love and forgiveness principle. It's hateful! Consider this one example: Allah commands Muslims to ''Fight (not Love) those among the People of the Book (meaning Jews and Christians) who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and his Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth (i.e. Islam), until they pay the jizya (tribute) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.'' [Koran 9:29].

The Way I See It.....how can one interpret this verse to mean anything other than what it plainly says? Wherein lies the ambiguity, the room for interpretation?  Of course there are other teachings and allusions in the Koran that by necessity lend themselves over to the fine arts of interpretation, or ijtihad. But surely the commands of Koran 9:29 are completely straightforward.....be afraid my Western brothers and sisters, be very afraid!