Re: Proof and Documentation Refuting "The White House Jihadist, Obama, Stands by Muslim Brotherhood Endorsement"

MJ,

It is paraphrased from the Declaration of Independence........."Nature's God".... 

He (Jefferson) stated this belief explicitly in a letter to John Adams in which he wrote that the moral code of Jesus was "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man."[8] Jefferson even made a collection of Jesus' moral teachings from the Bible which seemed to be in their original simplicity. He used this collection as an ethical guide to his own life."

 In another letter to John Adams, Jefferson wrote that he believed in God because of the argument from design:

I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in it's [sic] parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of it's [sic] composition. . . it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is . . . a fabricator of all things.[13]
After applying his faculty of reason, in which he placed much faith, Jefferson found that he had to believe in a creator.

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."

I found it self explicative.... But here are the cites in the authors own words and definitions.

On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 12:16 PM, MJ <michaelj@america.net> wrote:

Whenever any Government stops listening to the people (majority) and
the will of the Christian God they have the right and duty to change
or destroy it by any means possible.......

What does 'majority' or 'Christian God' have to do with it?

Regard$,
--MJ

"It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression...[when] governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve" --Henry George

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The Egypt protests have exposed the hypocrisy of mealy-mouthed Western commentators

The Egypt protests have exposed the hypocrisy of mealy-mouthed Western commentators
By Brendan O'Neill World Last updated: February 4th, 2011



An opposition supporter walks to Tahrir Square in Cairo (Photo: Reuters)

The last time I was on the Moral Maze I was hauled over the coals for saying that political violence – as part of a radical protest, say – is sometimes justifiable. Yet on this week's Moral Maze, some of the guests had a calm, polite discussion about the possibility of enacting a far more massive form of political violence against the freedom-hungry people of Egypt. One of the guests, Professor David Cesarani, floated the idea of there being a Tiananmen Square-style massacre in Egypt as a way of quelling potential post-Mubarak anarchy. And there has been no outrage. No Twitterstorm, no blog-based apoplexy, no heated radio phone-ins. Perhaps talking about the massacre of Egyptians is normal these days.

Professor Cesarani was asked by Michael Portillo about the "moral dilemma" of how to deal with what comes after Mubarak. What if it's worse than Mubarak? Should it be crushed? Professor Cesarani said that if one takes the "wholly pragmatic view", then "the outcome of a Tiananmen Square-style crackdown is desirable and is predictable". Because, he said, "if you allow this popular democratic movement to run on unchecked, you cannot predict what's going to happen. But you can predict probably that after a short, sharp, massive clampdown at huge human cost, there will be a sullen stability."

Portillo was startled. "Quite a lot of people would be quite shocked to hear what you said – that a Tiananmen-style outcome would be desirable." Cesarani responded that "the West is no longer weeping that much over Tiananmen Square because we're doing a lot of business with China. So, many business interests would say, quietly, that, perhaps, well the way in which the Chinese managed their transition was preferable." Another panellist, Matthew Taylor, former adviser to Tony Blair and now chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, later described Cesarani's comments on Tiananmen Square as "incredibly brave" and said: "In a way, I can see his argument."

There you have it. Faced with a mass uprising for democracy in the Middle East, the instinctive reaction of some sections of polite society in Britain is to panic, to fret about anarchy, about "another Iran", and to hint that maybe a violent crackdown will be required. Variations on this theme have appeared across the sphere of political commentary, including amongst those who supported the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan on the (entirely mad) basis that these invasions would "deliver democracy" to the Middle East and Central Asia. Now that real people in the Middle East are agitating for democracy, and might actually win it, suddenly "democracy" has become a dirty word. It's too "unchecked", too unpredictable, too chaotic, and not such a good idea for those strange brown people after all. Maybe a strongman will have to intervene and impose order.

This is one of the brilliant things about the inspiring uprising in Egypt: it has not only exposed the illegitimacy of the Mubarak regime, but also the BS behind recent Western campaigns to "deliver democracy" to the Middle East. Because the very same politicians and commentators who talked about "democratising" Iraq now stare in horror, mouths agape, at the Egyptian masses demanding their democratic rights. That's because these fear-wracked observers don't understand what real democracy is. And when they see it, in all its noisiness and rowdiness and unpredictability, it terrifies them.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100074767/the-egypt-protests-have-exposed-the-hypocrisy-of-mealy-mouthed-western-commentators/

Yellow in Black and White

Yellow in Black and White
by Brian Wilson

What happened in The Blade Jan. 8 (and counting) is called Yellow Journalism. There are multiple definitions, even a history for the term, but the best and most appropriate is found at Wikipedia:

"Yellow journalism [is] a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism. By extension, 'Yellow Journalism' is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion."

This concisely describes The Blade's concerted attempt to pass off as "news," first on its website, sometimes splashing above-the-fold-complete-with-color-picture headlines such as "WSPD host compares TPS students, monkeys; Wilson denies racism." The Blade has printed more than 4,500 words to incite civil rights leaders, community leaders and readers into believing I made racist comments, that I compared TPS students to monkeys. It never happened; I never said it. Amazingly unnoticed, unreported and unremarked is that "race" was never any component of my commentary. Race only became an "issue" when inserted via the jaundiced opinions of Blade political writer Tom Troy and the editors of The Blade. They did it purposefully, with malice.

The only complete, objective and accurate account can be found in Toledo Free Press Editor in Chief Michael S. Miller's Jan. 16 column, " Monkey Business."

As the "story" unraveled, TFP readers and WSPD listeners learned The Blade's yellow print had zero to do with TPS students, monkeys or racism. More noteworthy were the Herculean efforts by Troy, some other scribbling wannabes and their co-conspiring editors to blatantly finesse members of the African-American community, including Mayor Mike Bell, into providing "substance" for their pre-written headline blaring "community outrage." Manipulating the opinion of readers is standard with every issue of The Blade.

But there is a greater scandal and bigger problem for Toledoans than The Blade's reporters, columnists, editors and Pittsburgh-based publisher's serial raping of facts and sodomizing of truth. It is the Pavlovian reaction of too many citizens – some in so-called "leadership roles" – to swallow whole the mistruths, half-truths and outright lies regularly featured in the daily paper.

As revealed by TFP reporting, none of those who had their "outrage" quoted by The Blade had actually heard my comments in real time, only the 14 second outtake Troy schlepped around town, trolling for indignity and insult. Quoting Miller: "So unless you heard the comment live (which apparently none of the quoted leaders did), or caught it overnight during the Web streaming repeat of the broadcast, your only source for the content was The Blade's race-baiting reporting." (Italics added). Not to be overemphasized is the fact WSPD received no complaints from any source as a result of my comments – until The Blade's manufactured "news."

How could these people – especially "community leaders" – not know the perpetual motives of The Blade and its Myrmidons and its rich history of abusing the First Amendment to carry out vendettas against those who dare challenge its decades of control and influence over Toledo and its citizens?

Since the quoted parties knee-jerked in unison responding to The Blade's race-baiting, is it a scandal of ignorance or a scandal of fear? Could these "community leaders" really be that functionally illiterate – like too many TPS graduates – to not suspect an ulterior motive when presented with a sensational "quote" supplied by a reporter for a paper with such a notorious reputation? Or just as malignant, do they live in fear of not providing a juicy quote, possibly incurring the wrath of The Blade's well-known retribution? Either way, the best interests of Toledo citizens – and students – were not served by their comments. Some were offended, yes – because they allowed themselves to be manipulated by the mis- and dis-information manufactured by The Blade.

And here lies the problem: On cue, everyone bought the snake oil Troy was selling and promptly provided their predictable reactions. More embarrassing for the community, even when presented with the facts by the TFP, TPS Superintendent Jerome Pecko, TPS Board President Bob Vasquez, TPS Board Vice President Lisa Sobecki and past president of TPS Parent Congress Chris Varwig adamantly preferred The Blade's distortion to truth.

What message of objectivity does this send to parents and students? All are part of the TPS problem that has been the focus of WSPD programming, which has diligently – and accurately – exposed years of scholastic failure of Toledo public schools, the fiscal irresponsibility of the Board, the financial millstone of TFT Union contracts, the adolescent infighting of its members and the shoddy treatment of parents and public. Could it be their breathless indignation served as a convenient smokescreen to their culpability surrounding the real issue of administrative malfeasance at TPS? Is incompetence how elected leaders "lead by example?"

To date, after also being presented with the full text and content of my comments, TPS board member Larry Sykes and NAACP President Rev. Kevin Bedford have not publicly clarified their position.

Sadly for Toledo, these are your "leaders," drum majors for Ineptitude On Parade, charged with administering public education for Toledo, hiding behind a man-made smoke screen of lies and deceit. With these examples, only the willfully obtuse could not understand why "dysfunctional" modifies "TPS" so well.

As reported in TFP, Bell, Greater Toledo Urban League's John Jones and others who initially demanded apologies, my termination, even FCC sanctions, subsequently acknowledged they had reacted only to an edit provided by Troy.

Jennifer Sorgenfrei, public information officer for the City of Toledo, told TFP, "[The mayor's] statement was in direct response to the portion of audio he was provided by The Blade." That "portion of audio" was the 14 seconds Troy surgically removed to rile his "reliable" stable of respondents.


Troy is 'proud'

The latest milk-spitting episode is the recent arrival of a Jan. 23 letter to TFP's Miller from the perpetrator himself. Alternating between "irrational" and "fallacious", Troy makes a limp eight-point attempt to parse Miller's critical "Monkey Business" column, selectively objecting to the damning evidence. Around No. 5, Troy revs up:

"Brian Wilson is the one that threw out the monkey reference. He's a professional. He knows what the word connotes when he's talking about how to teach students in Toledo Public Schools."

Troy demonstrates he is deaf, delusional or both with his selective listening techniques. When exposed in print, they reveal The Blade's witch-hunt mentality. Fact: the "monkey-student" connection, generated exclusively by Troy, lives on in the dank recesses of his prejudice. In my on-air discussion with Jones (podcast at WSPD.com), he and others had no problem making the distinction contrary to Troy's ugly fantasy.

Then, Troy achieves liftoff: "Anyway, it was a bad analogy. Monkeys don't need to be taught to peel bananas. They do it instinctively, like swinging on vines. It's not a parlor trick. Teaching dogs to walk on their hind legs or dolphins to balance a beach ball on their noses would be parlor tricks, and would have made Wilson's point without the egregious offensiveness – or at least less offensively. But no, we have to go with monkeys."

"We?" With a keen sense for the obvious, again Troy (un)wittingly shares his condescending elitist mentality alongside his dearth of "reporter's objectivity." He anoints himself judge and jury of good/bad analogies, lecturing on animal instincts and what constitutes his personal preferences for "less offensive" point making.

"Finally, I am very proud of The Blade's handling of this story and of my own part in it," Troy wrote.

Wow. Are you ready to renew your Blade subscription?

My friend Thomas Sowell wrote: "The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best."

Who do you want to decide? You – or Tom Troy and the bigoted Blade?


The takeaway

So what's the "takeaway?" Since this originally only concerned the efficacy of TPS teaching standards, has The Blade's systemic lying, intentional smearing and flat-out unapologetic admission taught us anything?

For one, there is an obvious prejudicial "rush to judgment" imbedded in Toledo, its politicians and what passes for "journalists" at the local daily and certain area TV news departments. Coupled with that is a daunting paucity of intellectual curiosity about most anything that remotely challenges the stultifying ignorance of too many area "leaders." Those revealed in this latest Blade fiction should remember the words of another friend, author James Bovard: "A surplus of lies naturally produces a deficit of trust."

Is this what you want for Toledo?


Positive note

On a positive note, more and more Toledoans are to be congratulated for learning the lessons about The Blade as it shrinks in size, content and relevance. They've discovered a multitude of better sources for their news needs along the "Information Highway." As evidenced by this sordid event, there is the Toledo Free Press and, dare I say, 1370 AM WSPD; both have news departments devoted to factual accuracy, adherence to the principles of journalism and a shared concern for improving the quality of life in the Toledo metropolitan area.

The "presentation" may occasionally rankle – but facts are not altered or comments "yanked" out of context.

And, by the way, they're both free.

Reprinted with permission from the Toledo Free Press.

63 MPG on the Highway... Just Not Our Highways

63 MPG on the Highway... Just Not Our Highways
by Eric Peters
EricPetersAutos.com

The just-launched Mini Cooper Countryman can get 63 MPGs highway – just not on our highways.

Like so many other diesel-powered vehicles, it's not available in the United States. Instead we get gas-electric hybrids like the Toyota Prius – which maxes out at 48 MPGs on the highway.

It's very strange.

Our government (well, maybe calling it "our" government is a stretch) has been browbeating the car industry to produce more "fuel efficient" cars for decades, yet at the same time, for decades, made it very hard to sell high-efficiency diesel-powered passenger cars. VW, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Land Rover and other European brands have been selling their cars here for a long time – just not their diesel-powered cars. In Europe, diesel cars constitute about half the new cars sold; over here, less than 5 percent – chiefly because only a handful of diesel-powered passenger cars are even available.

For two reasons, mainly.

First, for years, we had not-so-great (for emissions reasons) diesel fuel that was fine for big rigs (which until recently could pollute to their hearts content, legally) but wreaked havoc with the finely tuned pollution control equipment fitted to modern passenger car diesel engines.

This, in turn, set up the potential not just for lots of warranty-related expenses and hassles for potential diesel-car buyers but also for even greater hassles and expenses for the car companies that sold them, when the government went after them for selling "dirty" diesels.

So we don't get diesels like the Mini Countryman D.

No 63 MPGs, either.

Even though our diesel is now "clean" diesel – and the warranty/pollution control issues have been dealt with.

The European car companies are still super leery of bringing to market vehicles that could lead to problems for them with the EPA politburo. Their diesel-powered cars may be "cleaner" (in terms of tailpipe emissions) than a nun's conscience but there's still the endless pedantry of slightly different American vs. European regulatory codes. And not just federal codes, but also the different state codes, notably "California" codes that are both different and stricter than "49 state" codes. Some Northeastern states have also adopted "California" codes – which makes achieving compliance with all the varying codes – essential to being able to profitably sell a given car, nationwide – very difficult and very expensive.

Rather than spend beaucoups bucks on lawyers and other forms of paper-pushing to make the EPA happy, the European car companies cut their losses and (mostly) keep their diesels to themselves, selling a few token models here.

You'd think the government (federal and state) would make it a priority to ease the regulatory chokehold a little, to get these high-mileage diesels into mass circulation. Think what a difference a 10-15 MPG average uptick in the fuel economy of the typical passenger car would mean – not just in terms of reducing the aggregate fuel consumption of the nation but also in terms of placating the great god of global warming. Less fuel burned means less greenhouse gasses emitted – and a 10-15 MPG uptick in fuel efficiency spread out across say 20-30 percent of the passenger car fleet would mean a huge reduction in "greenhouse gasses." And it could be done without elaborate technology (hybrids) or another round of government edicts (CAFE) that just make new cars more and more expensive to achieve minimal, incremental upticks in their average "fleet" economy numbers.

Diesels deliver. They make sense. They work. People would love 'em if only they had a chance to drive 'em.

But they don't – because they do (make sense).

Maybe things will change. I don't expect them to.

Our government is run by lawyers, not engineers. Talkers, not doers. I doubt one out of 100 of them even knows how a diesel engine differs from a gasoline engine (other than the fuel it uses). So I'm not surprised by the government's inability to see how much it would help – everything from "the environment" to the economy – by knocking down the stupid regulatory roadblocks that are keeping diesel cars on the other side of the pond.

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Americans Are Oppressed, Too

When We Gonna Wake Up ...
Americans Are Oppressed, Too
by Paul Craig Roberts

Police in the US now rival criminals, and exceed terrorists, as the greatest threat to the American public. Rogelio Serrato is the latest case to be in the news of an innocent person murdered by the police. Serrato was the wrong man, but the Monterey County, California, SWAT team killed the 31-year-old father of four and left the family home a charred ruin.

The fact that SWAT teams often go to the wrong door shows the carelessness with which excessive force is used. In one instance the police even confused the town's mayor with a drug dealer, broke into his home, shot dead the family's pet dogs, and held the mayor and his wife and children at gun point. But most cases of police brutality never make the news.

Most who suffer abuse from the police don't bother to complain. They know that to make an enemy of the police brings a lifetime of troubles. Those who do file complaints find that police departments tend to be self-protective and that the naive and gullible public tends to side with the police.

However, you can find plenty of examples of police brutality on youtube, more than you can watch in a lifetime. I have just searched google for "youtube police brutality" and the result is: "497,000 results." There's everything from police shooting a guy in a wheelchair to body slamming a befuddled 89-year-old great grandmother to tasering kids and mothers with small children. The fat goon cops love to beat up on women, kids, and old people.

The 497,000 google results may contain duplicates as more than one person might have posted a video of the same event, and the incidents occurred over more than one year. However, probably only a small percentage of incidents are captured on video by onlookers, and many incidents of police brutality have no witnesses. What the videos reveal is that a large percentage of police move with alacrity to assault the public. The number of incidences could be very high. One million annually would not be an exaggeration.

In contrast, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, in 2009 (the most recent year for which data is compiled), there were 806,000 aggravated assaults (not including assaults by police against the public) by criminals against the public, of which 216,814 were committed by hands and feet and not by weapons. (In the U.S. if you merely push a person or grab his arm, you have committed assault. "Freedom and democracy" America uses any excuse to multiply the number of felons.)

Considering the data, one might conclude that the police are a greater danger to the public than are criminals.

Indeed, the trauma from police assault can be worse than from assault by criminals. The public thinks the police are there to protect them. Thus, the emotional and psychological shock from assault by police is greater than the trauma from being mugged because you stupidly wandered into the wrong part of town.

Why are the police so aggressive toward the public?

In part because their ranks attract bullies, sociopaths and psychopaths. Even normal cops are proud of their authority and expect deference. Even cops who are not primed to be set off can turn nasty in a heartbeat.

In part because police are not accountable. The effort decades ago to have civilian police review boards was beat back by "law and order" conservatives.

In part because the police have been militarized by the federal government, equipped with military weapons, and trained to view the public as the enemy.

In part because the Bush/Cheney/Obama regimes have made every American a suspect. The only civil liberty that has any force in the U.S. today is the law against racial discrimination. This law requires that every American citizen be treated as if he were a Muslim terrorist. The Transportation Security Administration rigorously enforces the refusal to discriminate between terrorist and citizen at airports and is now taking its gestapo violations of privacy into every form of travel and congregation: trucking, bus and train travel, sports events, and, without doubt, shopping centers and automobile traffic.

This despite the fact that there have been no terrorist incidents that could be used to justify such an expansive intrusion into privacy and freedom of movement.

The TSA has not caught a single terrorist. However, it has abused and inconvenienced several hundred thousand innocent American citizens.

The abuse happens, because people with authority are dying to use the authority. The absence of terrorists means that the TSA turns innocent Americans into terrorists. There have been so many absurd cases. One woman traveling with her ill and dying mother, who required special food, had contacted the TSA prior to the flight, explained the situation, and was given permission to take the special food onboard. But when she went through "security," the food was taken away, and when she protested she was arrested and hauled off, leaving the elderly mother in a wheelchair deserted.

Others have been arrested because a member of the household used a suitcase or carry bag to take guns and ammunition to the gun club or on a hunting trip and forgot to remove all the ammo, or the explosives test detected gunpowder residuals. Boy Scouts forgot to remove pocket knives from backpacks that they took on camping trips. Lactating mothers forced to give up breast milk. And so on.

These are the "great dangers" that the TSA protect the american sheeple from, and the sheeple submit, even servilely thanking their oppressors for protecting them.

Submission is what the government and the police want. Anyone who argues with TSA or the police will be abused. An American who stands up for his rights is likely to be beaten to a pulp. TSA has announced that such Americans are "suspects" and will be held in indefinite detention.

And "our" government assures us that we have "freedom and democracy." We have a police state, and everyone who forgets it is in deep trouble.

The Amerikan police state is closely allied with police states all over the world -- Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel in the Middle East and former constituent parts of the Soviet Empire in Central Asia. The U.S. government never lifts a finger in behalf of democracy anywhere. In fact, the U.S. government quickly moves to overthrow democracy wherever it rears its head, as the U.S. recently did in Honduras. Before Honduras it was Palestine where the U.S. overturned the election that brought Hamas to power. Now Washington is targeting Lebanon where Hisbollah has gained.

Everywhere on earth the U.S.government prefers an autocracy that it can purchase to free elections that bring to power candidates unwilling to serve as American puppets.

The U.S. government is the most determined foe of democracy in the world. Yet, Washington lectures China, which has more civil liberties than Bush/Cheney/Obama permit Americans.

If Americans ever find the emotional strength to acknowledge the oppression under which they live, they, too, will be in the streets.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02042011.html