Fresh Tasty Ideas

I know that one of the big buzz-phrases these days is “renewable resources.” In other words, you shouldn’t be taking (harvesting, chopping down, consuming) more than you are producing. Eventually, it will catch up to you when there’s no fish in the ocean, or trees on the mountains, or oil inside the earth. Usually, the proponents of ensuring that our energy in America comes from renewable resources are liberals. But they make a good point, even if they are over-zealous about it sometimes. We don’t want to mortgage our future for a more posh-present.

So why is the whole concept of taking out more than you’re putting in lost on liberals when it comes to economics? The French socialist system, which continues to entrance pie-in-the-sky lefties like Paul Krugman, is fast draining the cash-reserve of that nation. Something’s gotta give, either the French system will not be sustained, or a whole lot less people will be enjoying a 32-hour work week with unlimited free medical care courtesy of their government. Similarly, our Social Security system is way over-strainedcompared to when it was first created. Originally designed to support one retired person with the taxes from forty people, the system has spiraled downward to a ratio of only 3:1.

So where is the outrage for these unsustainable liberal socialist programs? Shouldn’t we have renewable economic resources as well?

renewable resources, economics, environment, liberals, Krugman, France

Instead of addressing the issues raised in Undercover Mosque, a documentary of shocking teachings and messages within England’s supposedly more moderate mosques, the leader of one of the mosques in question has lashed out at the filmmakers and the public:

The mosques, of course, are in heavy damage-control mode. A press release at the Green Lane mosque website complains that “it is extremely disappointing but not at all surprising that ‘Dispatches’ has chosen to portray Muslims in the worst possible light. ‘Dispatches’ has opted for sensationalism over substance with total disregard for peaceful community relations.” And not only that: “This so-called ‘undercover’ investigation merely panders to age-old anti-Muslim prejudices by employing the time-honoured tradition of cherry picking statements and presenting them in the most inflammatory manner.”

Notice that the press release does not:

1. Apologize for the misogynistic and altogether hateful messages that were documented on by Dispatches
2. Promise to investigate the matter with the intent of firing imams caught on the documentary
3. Explain how messages such as hitting women, or Allah creating women as deficient could be “cherry-picked” and taken out of a more positive context

This is what the list does do:

1. Accuse the filmmakers of stirring up anti-Muslim prejudice
2. Remind everyone of the good relations between the Greenlane mosque and the community
3. Issue a vague condemnation of “terrorism” and “extremism”

This imam refers to the “time-honoured tradition of cherry picking statements.” Well, the imam is resorting to the time-honored tradition of accusing the public of anti-Muslim sentiment instead of examining the issues which are likely to cause anti-Muslim sentiment in the first place. Meanwhile, in America, no one is talking about this documentary, other than a few people in largely conservative circles. It’s pathetic, the level of intelligent dialogue in this country.

Robert Spencer, author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam” and a personal hero of mine, has more.

Robert Spencer, Green Lane, Dispatches, Britain, Islam, Undercover Mosque

How ironic, that after decades of screwing the Cuban people up the butt, Castro is deathly ill with a colon infection. And the world-class doctors from Cuba’s top-notch public health care system were unable, after three operations, to cure his condition. In fact, the revolutionary’s doctors made a fairly elementary mistake:

“It sounds like they tried to spare him the colostomy, which would have been the safer and more conservative approach, and what they did was to try to establish continuity of the bowel by sewing the colon to the rectum, and for one reason or another it sounds like that didn’t work. And now there are troubles,” said Solny.

And then this cracked me up:

“It’s not a good story. Too bad they didn’t send him to Miami for surgery,” said Dr. Charles Gerson, a clinical professor of medicine in the gastroenterology division of New York’s Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.

Is something wrong with the medical care in the communist paradise of Cuba? It was my understanding that although Cubans are starving and out of work, they have an outstanding public health care system. Well, it seems that isn’t entirely true. While all Cubans may have access to health care, it doesn’t seem to be all that advanced. Score another victory for economics.

communism, Cuba, health care, Castro

Britain has got a serious, serious problem with Islam. This provocative documentary shows how even so-called moderate mosques are rife with Islamic “extremism.” Watch the three-part series right here:

Islam is not compatible with Western democratic societies.

terrorism, Islam, Britain, Green Lane, UK Islamic Mission, Jamaat Islami, Darul Uloom

I got this email from my uncle the other day. Apparently Keith Ellison, the first Muslim Congressman, swore in on Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Koran. That inspired Ted Sampley to do a little research on just what would-be president Jefferson thought about Islam. It’s worth a read.

Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.

Capitol Hill staff said Ellison’s swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.

The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America’s founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library.

Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson’s Quran because it showed that “a visionary like Jefferson” believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.

There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be “gleaned” from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic “Barbary” states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli.

Ellison’s use of Jefferson’s Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic “Barbary” states.

Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.

The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the “non-Muslim” older men and women as possible so the preferred “booty” of only young women and children could be collected.

Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.

Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created “eunuch stations” along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.

When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the “Dey of Algiers”–an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.

Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations.

Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.

Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled “through the medium of war.” He proposed a league of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.

In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the “Dey of Algiers” ambassador to Britain.

The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress’ vote to appease.

During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey’s ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.

In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam “was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.

Not long after Jefferson’s inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress.

Declaring that America was going to spend “millions for defense but not one cent for tribute,” Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America’s best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.

The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.

In 1805, American Marines marched across the dessert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.

During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.

Jefferson’s victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we will fight our country’s battles on the land as on the sea.”

It wasn’t until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.

Jefferson had been right. The “medium of war” was the only way to put and end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a “visionary” wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim book of jihad.

The emphasis was mine. The text is available here as well. Isn’t it amazing that throughout history, Muslim leaders remind us that their prophet called them to wage war against the unbelievers? Why are we so surprised that Islam continues to inspire war and misogyny to this very day? And why are Muslims advocating this violence labeled “extremists?”

Jefferson, Islam, Koran, Barbary

That was fast: HD DVD has been cracked and is now available over BitTorrent.

Sony’s Blu-Ray Disc is now the only commercially available video format which has yet to be cracked. Given the movie industry’s voracity for digital rights management, this should be a huge advantage for Sony. Every day that passes while Blu-Ray remains uncompromised should be a dagger in the heart for HD DVD. As of January 2007, the format war is too close to call, but the HD DVD crack should be a tipping point.

And dammit, of course I went with the Blu-Ray player (it is a superior technology at the physical layer). Guess I’ll be waiting a little longer before I can do any “backing up” of Blu-Ray discs.

Blu-Ray, HD DVD, Sony, doom9, crack

Reading an article about Hugo Chavez’s swearing-in ceremony, I came across this quote:

“I swear on Christ, the greatest socialist in history; I swear on all this; I swear on all grief; I swear on all love; I swear on all hopes,” Mr Chavez said.

I think this is one today’s biggest misunderstandings about Jesus. Jesus was not a socialist. Unfortunately, this misconception is gaining popularity, even among Christians in America.

Socialism is a form of government. More specifically, socialism is a form of government in which a central government plans the nation’s economy, and the means of production and distribution are collectively owned. Where in the Bible do we see Jesus endorsing an economy structured in such a way? Did Jesus speak in parables about the inherent evil of private property? No. Did Jesus recommend government as the solution to man’s problems? No. So where is this idea of a socialist Jesus coming from?

People see a form of government that allegedly takes from the rich and gives to the poor as Christ-like. After all, Jesus fed and cared for the poor didn’t he? But there are important differences. Chief among these differences is the distinction between compulsory taxation and earnest charity. Jesus never demanded that the Caesars raise taxes to care for the poor. Why? Because he expected the people to do that. Jesus expected our love for Him to show through when we care for “the least of our brethren.”

The real problem stems from the decline of Christianity. In older times, the Church would play a vital role in the care of the sick and poor. Gradually, over time, our belief in God and thus our expression of this love towards our neighbor has waned. Since the Church no longer plays a prominent role in our society, the government assumes its former position. But instead of honest charity originating from Christian hearts, the government is a cold redistributer of wealth. There is no morality in this mechanical act. In fact, it stands to reason that if people are forced into giving to provide for society’s less fortunate, they are more likely to refuse any voluntary charity. In essence then, the government severs the natural connection that Christ wanted to establish among his people.

Socialism, in my eyes, is a bastardization of what Christ intended for His people. The very fact that people consider socialism to be needed speaks volumes about how far we have come from what Jesus taught us. If we are looking to socialism to solve our problems, that means that we aren’t fulfilling our role as Christians.

socialism, Jesus, poor, Chavez

It’s true what you hear – our personal freedoms in America are in danger. Each day, in the name of safety and public well-being, our liberties are chipped away at, one by one.

Now, I’m not talking about the war on terror here. In America, Big Brother will not come to power through terrorist surveillance programs or a war in Iraq. Big Brother will sneak in the door when our politicians try to legislate health in America.
The signs are everywhere – New York has banned trans-fat in restaurants, and now Los Angeles is considering such a ban. These laws indicate a significant shift from the original purpose of government to the newer, all-encompassing State.

The notion of government being a tyrant (but necessary to some extent) was fresh in the minds of those creating America. They knew that the smaller the government the better. How correct they were, because, as time progresses, government – any government – tends to acquire power rather than relinquish it. Their idea of a proper government was one that protects people from each other, rather than from themselves. People should be free to pursue their own hopes and dreams, so long as it does not impinge upon the rights and liberties of their neighbors.

Flash-forward to America in the 21st century, and what do you see? The new laws and regulations are aimed at preventing people from injuring themselves. Clearly, it doesn’t hurt my neighbor if I eat at McDonald’s three times a day, seven days a week, etc. So why are cities mulling the possibility of a “junk food tax?”

To me, the answer is rather simple. I think Americans have so long enjoyed a country with (relatively speaking) minimal government, they don’t understand the pitfall of empowering government to monitor an ever-increasing portion of their lives. For instance, most people, including me, hate breathing cigarette smoke in public. They don’t see any harm in a public smoking ban, in fact, it’s literally a breath of fresh air. And one could argue that breathing second-hand smoke in public is impinging on my right to enjoy myself in a non-private area. That’s a valid argument, but ask yourself: will those who sponsor anti-public smoking bills be content with the ban? History tells us no, and we’re seeing it too. A town in Maine has banned smoking in cars when children are present. Is the legislation well-meaning? Yes, but it represents yet another step towards the erosion of personal liberty in America.

In a way, with the inevitable leftward shift of American politics, these health legislations are also inevitable. Simply put, if the government is going to foot the bill for everyone’s health care, the government (to control costs) must increasingly restrict and prohibit certain behaviors. Smoking invariably leads to myriad health problems (and worsens existing health conditions), so it is a no-brainer that smoking will be the first activity to be completely banned. But junk food wreaks destruction on the arteries of poor people (they are far more likely to be obese), and since the poor cannot afford their own health care, the government will soon be forced to restrict their consumption of fatty, high-cholesterol foods. And so forth, until the government has an inordinate amount of control over our personal lives.

Is it hard to imagine a scenario in the near future when the government restricts certain people from breeding, due to their genetic predisposition to cancer or other problems? If their children will cost the government too much to care for, won’t they seek to prohibit them from having children at all?

I am scared at the direction America is heading. Well-meaning people continually hand over more power to the government in the name of public health. I don’t see any end to it, until the government controls every aspect of our lives. Why can’t we work to eliminate the government from our lives when it comes to protecting ourselves? We need to work for an America which keeps me from harming you, but is indifferent to people who want to dig their own graves. Warning labels are one thing, higher “sin taxes” and bans are another thing altogether. It’s our freedom, will we keep it?

freedom, liberty, socialism, Big Brother, America, libertarian

Ok so we were like watching the Boise State game against Oklahoma and we were like way in front at the start of the game. Then the Sooners scored a touchdown with only less than 2 mintues to play!!! We needed a touchdown and it was 4th and 18 with only 23 secondz to play! OMG we caught a pass then lateraled it and wE scored to tie and get overtime!

Then we were down in overtime by a touchdown on a 4th down and Zabransky the QB goes INTO MOTION! The backup QB tosses a touchdown!!!!!!!!!! Then instead of tryin to tie the game, we GO FTW!!!!11! Zabransky faked like he was throwing to his right then handed off to Ian Johnson who ran it in for TWOS and BOISE STATE WINz by a pOInt in OVRE TIME Z when THy lsmost loses in reuglaer tim e z ze; omg w ref ljf dslaj;; a;d;sk f;1!!!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

boise state