Without support from the United States and other Western countries, Iranian opposition groups will likely stop demonstrations against the Iranian regime and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's declared victory in Friday's presidential elections, senior Israeli defense officials said Sunday.continue
Here is an assignment I did not know my daughter had, but it was definitely a good assignment. Her eighth grade language arts teacher asked her students to write a letter to themselves. Four years later, she mailed the letters to the students at the end of their senior year in high school. This was definitely a creative idea by Raeann's language arts teacher Mrs. Sisneros. I liked the letter so much I thought I would post it (as written grammatical errors and all).
June 3, 2005
Dear Raeann,
I think high school is going to be fun but hard, and, and there's probably going to be a lot of drama. My best friends right now are Kiki, Jennie and a lot of other people. Kiki and me always hangout now, we say were cousins.
I don't really have any favorite teachers but I really like my lang. Arts teacher, Mrs Sisneros.
I mostly get As and Bs, but sometimes I mess up, and get lower grades that that L.
Me and my friends like to walk around a lot, we don't really have a certain spot, we hang out at.
I don't usually get allowance, but when I do get money, I spend it on clothes J
I used to do gymnastics and sport aerobics, but not anymore cuz I quit.
I wear Hollister clothes, or whatever is cute!
I listen to 89.3 94.9 and Mariah Carey, Usher, 50 cent, Frontline, Frankie J and a lot more.
Three guys liked me but I didn't really like them back except for one [Steven].
My favorite foods are tacos and macaroni & cheese, for drinks I like, smoothies, and anything that's good. My favorite color is pink! I like watching MTV, Degrassi, Blind Date. I hate action movies. I like chick flics. The kind of car I Hope to have is similar to my brothers car. Im not sure what to expect though.
My relationship with my parents is good, but sometimes we argue and then they say I get an attitude, but hey its not my fault. They have strict rules, and I don't like the rules they give. My brother and I used to fight, but starting this year we don't anymore, [wonder why?] Maybe he's finally growing up.
Love Raeann
And there you have it – four years later, Raeann is a graduate from high school.
"The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain" Professor Higgins so deftly teaches Eliza Doolittle in the musical "My Fair Lady." But, Sunday, it did not rain in Spain, it poured as the left as we would say in America, "Got its proverbial butt kicked." Barack Obama, are you paying attention?
The Spanish newspaper, ABC after Sunday's parliamentary elections read, "Zapatero, the absent leader." The Prime Minister of Spain went into hiding realizing that Sunday's election was to be a big win for the right. Sunday's election in Spain was a stunning defeat for the left, El Partido Socialista Obrera Española, (PSOE). The Partido Popular, (PP), the party of the right picked up 23 seats led by its leader, Mariano Rajoy.
Zapatero has been a disaster for the Spanish economy. He was elected in 2004 after the Madrid bombings by Al-Queda when the then President José Aznar tried to cover up and blame the bombings on ETA, (a Basque separatist group.) If you want to know about Stimulus plans, look no further than Spain. Like Obama, Zapatero is a big believer in Keynesian economics and that the government is the answer to society's ills. Zapatero's stimulus package was 8 billion euros or 11 billion dollars. For a country slightly bigger than the state of Oregon, that is a lot of money. Spain doesn't have a Bush to blame for its economic woes like Obama does. 
The success of Zapatero's stimulus plan can be found in its unemployment number. Spain boasts the highest unemployment rate in the European Union recently reaching an astounding 20%, double that of any other country in the Union. Spain's unemployment is a frequent topic of Informe Semanal, Spain's 60 minutes. The unemployment graph looks like one of Al Gore's graphs on global warming. According to the Economist, Spain's real GDP is forecasted to decline by 4.9% in 2009. In a previous debate and in a last ditch effort to woo support for his fledgling party, Zapatero offered laptops for every schoolchild at a cost of $2,800 per pupil, tax-breaks for new car buyers, and other populist ideas. Of course, like Obama, he had no idea where the money would come from. Sunday, the voters of Spain showed its displeasure by voting back in the PP. I am going to venture a guess that in 2012, Spain's leftist party, El Partido Socialista Obrera Española, (PSOE) will lose Spain's general elections.
Spain, however, was not the only country where the left was defeated. European discontent with leftist policies has been growing throughout Europe. Sunday was the culmination of four days of elections throughout the continent. Most Americans are asleep when it comes to politics in the European Union, but the left in the United States should take notice. The entire continent of Europe was given a wake-up call after four days of elections. Europeans are fed up with company bailouts, fiscal stimulus, and other policies promoted by the left. During the Bush administration, center-right candidates were already being elected across the continent; France - Nicolas Sarkozy, Germany – Angela Merkel, Italy – Silvio Berlusconi and Sweden Fredrik Reinfeldt. Not since World War 2, has the left been so battered and bruised in Europe. The British Labor party suffered its worst defeat since 1918. Europe's parliamentary elections were a repudiation of these leftist policies.
The European Union's 27 countries are mired in onerous taxes, burdensome labor laws, high unemployment, and immigration problems. The European electorate believed that the EU has been headed down the wrong path. This was also reflected in the low turnout. Only 43% of the electorate voted; the lowest turnout in the EU's 30 year history. France, Germany, Spain and Italy were the biggest winners for the right. The elections strengthened the incumbent parties of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. One of the trends has also been a noticeable rejection of further European integration into the European Union. This is why Barack Obama was completely out of touch with the EU when he suggested that Turkey be part of the European Union, and French President Sarkozy told him to butt out of EU's affairs.
While Europe is moving to the right, the United States continues full speed ahead on its pathway to the left. In the latest move, Democrats are now trying to push through a bill that will pay $3,500 to people who junk old cars to buy so-called energy efficient new cars ordered by the new Chrysler CEO Barack Obama. Who comes up with these hair-brain schemes? When you can't get consumers to buy, you try and get the government to create the demand. Since when has government ever been able to create a sustainable demand? It can't. This idea will hurt the poor more than anyone else. Demand is created by the private sector not the government. Time and time again, policies such as these have proven to be ineffective, but we still continue to enact them. Let's say I have a brain tumor that I needed removed. I am transported to the operating room and I have in front of me a brain surgeon and a nurse. An argument ensues between the brain surgeon and me. Because of the argument I opt to forego the brain surgeon, and I ask the nurse to do the operation instead. That is what we have done. We have the nurse in charge of the country, not the brain surgeon. Sooner or later, the electorate wakes from its slumber after realizing who they elected. Europe is beginning to wake up. How long will it take us to realize that we have a cadre of "boobs" running this country? How long will it take for us to wake up? Only time will tell.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown faces a grilling from opposition leader David Cameron in the wake of woeful results in local and European elections.
This was Brown's first appearance in the House of Commons since the ruling Labour Party's disastrous showing in European and local elections.
Brown faced tough criticism from the Conservative Party leader Cameron who claimed the Prime Minister is "a man with no democratic legitimacy" having succeeded Tony Blair as PM without a general election.
Brown responded saying that Cameron has "no plans for government and he doesn't deserve to be in government".
The Prime Minister has faced repeated calls for an early general election, in the wake of a parliament-wide scandal over expenses, and the resignations of several cabinet ministers.
Last weekend, the Labour Party plunged to its worst result in a century, polling under 16 percent in national elections to European Parliament.
Brown must call an election before mid-2010.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Much has been made of President Obama's "on the other hand" transition, in his speech yesterday, from the Holocaust to the travails of the Palestinians. Some thought that he implied a kind of equivalence. But the appalling Tom Brokaw reminded us that it could have been worse when he asked Obama about his visit to Buchenwald on the Today Show this morning:
BROKAW: What can the Israelis learn from your visit to Buchenwald? And what should they be thinking about their treatment of Palestinians?
Unbelievable. Obama, to his credit, squelched the analogy:
OBAMA: Well, look, there's no equivalency here.
The President’s ratings have slipped since General Motors filed for bankruptcy to initiate a new government bailout and takeover. Just 26% of Americans believe the GM bailout was a good idea and nearly as many support a boycott of GM products. It remains to be seen whether the dip in the President’s numbers is a temporary reaction to recent news or something more substantive.continue reading here.
Obama continued his trek across the great nations of the world, this time to tell the Muslims of the world that we are nice people. I listened to the entire speech from Cairo University to hear any pearls of great wisdom that might have come forth from the messiah. Some of the speech was good as when Barack Obama spoke of the contributions of Islam to the world. I would probably give him a C- on content. His speech was very similar to many of the same empty platitudes in many of Bush's speeches when he spoke of the Middle East. After Barack Obama failed in his attempt to cajole Europe into cooperation with the U.S., and after he failed with Latin America, he was now off to appease the likes of Hamas. I sincerely believe that Obama wants to change the course of foreign relations with the Islamic world through public policy and suasion, but first he would have to change the mindset of a culture that still believes in vengeance from the 15th century when the Spanish kicked the Moors out of Spain. President after president has tried to establish peace in the region all with no success – why would Obama be any different? I initially thought that because of Obama's Islamic roots, he would be able to reach out to the Islamic world in a way no other leader in the Western world has, but his speech was filled with the same naiveté that has been the essence of every president before him.
This is the first time Obama stressed his middle name Hussein. The inflection in his voice went higher as he pronounced his middle name Barack Hussein Obama. It is somewhat ironic that there was so much ado about using his middle name during the presidential campaign. During the campaign, there were emails floating around (much of it false) about Barack Obama's Muslim roots. There were people claiming that Barack was a Muslim while the campaign denied it. Most conservatives said they did not use Obama's middle name because he was Muslim but because it was his middle name. I disagree. I do believe Republicans used his middle name in the hope of causing a reaction among the electorate about his Muslim roots. But, so what! I would have stated the reason I used his middle name. I did not want anyone elected who had any Muslim ties as our president. That would be like electing a person of Japanese or German descent during World War 2. It was undeniable before the election and it is undeniable now that Barack's Islamic ties go way back. He may call himself a Christian, but to the Muslim world he will always be a Muslim since he was a Muslim at birth. In fact, Islam considers a Christian who was born a Muslim an apostate worthy of death. Barack Obama has already demonstrated that he goes out of his way to appease Islam to the detriment of Israel. He did not even visit Israel on this trip. This was a snub to our greatest ally in the region. But, I digress.
As Obama begins his speech, he says that he will speak the truth by quoting the Koran, "As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth." In fact, the Koran teaches Muslims not to tell the truth if it advances the cause of Islam. The principle of taqiyya allows lying for the purpose of spreading the cause of Islam. In Islam, there is no lie about America or Israel that is too great. Some examples of taqiyya include:
Taqiyya pervades Islamic life so much so that lying is a part of the culture. This is why Muslims in the Islamic world believed that Jews in the twin towers were informed by Israel before the attack so they could make a quick exit. It is why the Islamic world was so surprised that the United States took down Sadaam Hussein so quickly when the Iraqi information minister Mohammad Saeed said Iraq was winning and America was losing. In December 13, 2004, the Iranian Sahar 1, a TV station broadcasted a series entitled, "Zahara's Blue Eyes." This series asserts that Israelis steal the organs of a Palestinian girl and transplant them in an Israeli girl. (1) This is the typical propaganda that is disseminated throughout the entire Islamic world. This is no different than the Nazi propaganda like the film Triumph of the will by Leni Riefenstahl exhibiting the Germans as the superior Aryan race and other NAZI propaganda pieces that showed Jews as vermin. How do you fight that? You don't fight it by denying the reality of it.
Obama continues the myth that only a few are the extremists wanting to engage war on the West. As I have shown above, the majority of the Islamic world is anti-Semitic. While most may not engage in the suicide bombings or slamming airplanes into buildings, most are sympathetic to the cause. This is why after 9/11 thousands were seen cheering in the streets in Islamic countries. This is why there were virtually no Islamic leaders condemning the attacks. Most Germans during World War 2 did not participate in the killing of Jews, but anti-Semitism was ubiquitous throughout the Third Reich and most participated in the evil treatment of the Jews.
Obama's flowery rhetoric begins with all the contributions of Islam. He ends the portion of the speech by stating, "Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality." What religion was he talking about? It couldn't be Islam.
The Mutawa (Saudi religious police) broke into homes and smashed hi-fis. If they found alcohol, they hauled men off to jail and beat them there. They prohibited the sale of children's dolls – dolls became contraband, like whiskey, because they were human images. Suddenly, the only dolls for sale were shapeless figures with no faces, like the one owned by Aisha, the Prophet Mohammed's child wife, in the seventh century but this was 1979. Inside the Kingdom – Carmen Bin Ladin (2)
Women are second class citizens if that, but yet somehow Obama believes Islam offers equality. Islam believes that Israelis are infidels, and Israel does not have the right to exist, yet Obama believes Islam offers religious tolerance. Does Obama really believe this or is he just practicing taqiyya.
And what about that time-honored tradition of "Honor Killings"?
Even some on the left were not exactly impressed with Obama's speech. Peter Daou from the Huffington Post writes:
With women being stoned, raped, abused, battered, mutilated, and slaughtered on a daily basis across the globe, violence that is so often perpetrated in the name of religion, the most our president can speak about is protecting their right to wear the hijab? I would have been much more heartened if the preponderance of the speech had been about how in the 21st century, we CANNOT tolerate the pervasive abuse of our mothers and sisters and daughters
The most disturbing part of Obama's speech was when he said,
On education, we will expand exchange programs, and increase scholarships, like the one that brought my father to America, while encouraging more Americans to study in Muslim communities. And we will match promising Muslim students with internships in America; invest in on-line learning for teachers and children around the world; and create a new online network, so a teenager in Kansas can communicate instantly with a teenager in Cairo
First, what right minded American is going to want to travel to an Islamic country knowing that many Islamic fundamentalists will attempt to kidnap him, kill him by suicide bombers or behead him only for the video later to be shown on Youtube? It sounds like a safe atmosphere to me. Because Obama says it is safe, does not make it so. Then we will bring Muslim students to the United States to learn our technology, return to their country, and use this technology against us. Of course, there is no war on terror, it is the overseas contingency operation, and in his speech there is no terror, it is violent extremism. I guess anything is possible.
I know there are many - Muslim and non-Muslim - who question whether we can forge this new beginning. Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn't worth the effort - that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur.
Yeah – I guess the skepticism comes in when every other president has failed in the peace process, and Hamas has in its charter the destruction of Israel, yet Obama still wants to dialogue. So what does this charter of Hamas actually state? The following are just a few of the articles of the charter:
Barack Obama talked of the unbreakable bond between Israel and the United States, and the horrors of the holocaust – all true. It is well known that Ahmadinejad denies the holocaust, but this denial is commonplace in the Islamic world. This is part of the propaganda that is disseminated throughout the Islamic world, and the belief that the Holocaust never happened is what the average Muslim on the street believes. The two anti-Semitic books The Protocols of Zion and Hitler's Mein Kampf continue to be bestsellers in the Muslim World. The grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseni was known as the "Führer of the Arab world" who fomented violence in the Middle East during World War 2, and he ingratiated himself with Adolf Hitler and became an 'honorary Aryan." He was the most influential Arab in Palestine of his time and committed to the killing of the Jews. (4) Nothing has changed. The anti-Semitism in the Islamic world continues today as it did during the period of Nazi Germany.
In spite of all this, Obama continues to insist on a two-state solution. The Jerusalem post stated the following:
Obama didn't really need to tell Israelis to acknowledge "Palestine's" right to exist since every government since Yitzhak Rabin's has been explicit that the Jewish state does not want to rule over another people. The real question is whether a violently fragmented Palestinian polity is capable of making the necessary compromises required to close a deal.
The fact remains that Palestine has been offered a separate state previously but has rejected the two state solution because Palestine did not believe in the right of Israel to exist.
Once again, Obama continues to give the impression to the world that the United States has tortured – this to a culture that beheads.
When I heard this part in the speech, I said to myself, "I don't know what it is, but it doesn't ring true" – I was right. Here is what Obama said,
Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims." … And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers – Thomas Jefferson – kept in his personal library Click here for the truth.
Prior to the speech, a video was released by an Al-Queda recruiter authenticated by U.S. counterterrorism officials warning of Al-Queda operatives who intend to bring biological weapon via tunnels under the Mexican border. Will we close the Mexican borders? Heck no, but we will bring over Muslims on student exchange programs. Any bets that Al-Queda operatives will become exchange students? Just keep repeating "There is no war on terror." Maybe if we say it long enough, it will become true. It reminds me of Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek, Next Generation fame. When something had to get done, Jean-Luc Picard would say, "Make it so." So, maybe if Obama waves his magic wand and utters the words, "Make it so" there will be no war on terror.
Obama could have spoken of the greatness of America, or the aid we have given to the Islamic world but he did not. What will ring truer to the Muslim world - the just released video from Al-Queda or Barack Obama's speech to the Middle East? My guess is the video. The speech was no different than the myriad of speeches Bush has given albeit not in the Islamic world. To please Islam, we would have to bow to its demands, the first of which would be to stop any and all support to Israel. Instead of trying to promote an impossible peace in the Middle East, the United States should be protecting our borders, strengthening our military, and using all means at our disposal to make sure we are not attacked again. But, Barack Obama will not do this. He believes like all the other misguided presidents that peace between Israel and the Islamic world is an actual possibility. The reality is that this enmity between these two people is basic sibling rivalry that dates back to the time of Abraham, and nothing Obama does will change that.
Side note: Notice the way Obama rolls his r as he says the word Koran.
Sources:
President Barack Obama suggested that Iran may have some right to nuclear energy _ provided it proves by the end of the year that its aspirations are peaceful.
In a BBC interview broadcast Tuesday, he also restated plans to pursue direct diplomacy with Tehran to encourage it set aside any ambitions for nuclear weapons it might harbor.
Iran has insisted its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity. But the U.S. and other Western governments accuse Tehran of seeking atomic weapons.
“What I do believe is that Iran has legitimate energy concerns, legitimate aspirations,” Obama said, adding that the international community also “has a very real interest” in preventing a nuclear arms race.
The president has indicated a willingness to seek deeper international sanctions against Tehran if it does not respond positively to U.S. attempts to open negotiations on its nuclear program. Obama has said Tehran has until the end of the year to show it wants to engage with Washington.
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