Theo Spark

Tuesday, 11 March 2014

Tuesday Totty.................

False Alarm: "Demographic Time Bomb" Bombs...................from Dan Friedman

[Doing what comes naturally. Yet another canard created to scare Israelis into abandoning Judea and Samaria bites the dust. df]

Via Israpundit

New Study Claims Arab Population in Israel is Shrinking

2013 sees record number of Jewish births in Israel

Smokin' Alexandra Daddario in Enhanced Technicolor Shots from 'True Detective'

I love the subtitle at that piece, "How Do Her Funbags Match Up to Emily Ratajkowski?"

Very well, I must admit.

See, "Hot Alexandra Daddario Topless in 'True Detective'."

Monday, 10 March 2014

Bedtime Totty...................

Vlad the geopolitical derailer....................by Mischa Popoff

I’ll bet everyone thought I was going to come out this week with both barrels a’ blazing about what a bully Vladimir Putin is being. Wrong!

You won’t get such facile nineteenth-century thinking from me. No way!

I’ll bet you thought I was going to condemn the Ukrainian military for following Putin’s orders and sending snipers out to shoot protesters through the chest, neck and head. Nope. Or that I was going to condemn Putin for sending Russian attack helicopters and armed soldiers into Ukraine as a threat to the Ukrainian people so they’d shut up and accept their fate as an Eastern Bloc country, just like their parents and grandparents had to do during the good ol’ days under Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. Nope!

I have turned over a new leaf. To say such things would merely perpetuate simplistic, right-wing stereotypes about good and evil in this world. And there’s no such thing as good and evil. Right President Obama? Ukrainians should just forget about living in a free-market economy like ours. Why you ask? Well, for their own good, silly.

Putin, like all those other “colorful” historical figures: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and Idi Amin, is simply formulating a calculated response to Western aggression. What aggression you ask?

Well, you know how Western companies always set up shop in countries with stable economies and make stuff to sell to its citizens? Can’t have that. It’s American imperialism. And it must be countered lest the whole world resemble America someday. You know… democratic, egalitarian, wealthy, and all the rest of the horrible stuff the poor people of Ukraine fail to realize is nothing but a front for Western Manifest Destiny. Case closed you war monger!

So now, if you would please all stop listening to that tired old battle axe, that narrow-minded white Republican John McCain who thinks we should stand up to the “bad guys” of this world, who believes that 100,000 civilians slaughtered in Syria was reason for the president to take action instead of just talking, who believes (get this) that America is some sort of “beacon to the world” for God’s sake (literally), then we can all get back to the bargaining table and continue talking for the next year or two.

Why go inflicting American exceptionalism onto the rest of the world? Yeesh!

Everyone knows that when Obama says something like, “No country has the right to invade another country,” he’s referring to white Republican president George “W.” Bush who (get this) invaded Iraq just because Saddam Hussein had thwarted 17 United Nations Security Council resolutions (and who’s counting, right?) while murdering innocent civilians inside and outside his borders.

Now aren’t you glad that stoopid cowboy isn’t in the White House anymore, flexing American muscle all over the world like President Reagan did when he scared the Mullah’s in Iran into releasing those 50 American hostages within a half hour of taking the Presidency from Jimmy Carter?

So no, I’m not going to call for the freezing of bank accounts of Putin’s top brass so they can’t wine and dine their harlot mistresses on those weekend “business trips” to Prague. Nor will I call for Obama to reverse his decision to back down on Bush’s commitment to put a missile-defense system in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Calling for such things will only aggravate Putin and force his hand even further! And then the next thing you know he might try to reform the old Soviet empire. And it would be our fault!

Of course, he might try reforming the old Soviet empire no matter what we do. But isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?

Mischa Popoff has a degree in the history of science and is a Policy Advisor for The Heartland Institute.

H/T DJ Elliott

Yosemite HD II.................

A 200+ mile backpacking experience through Yosemite National Park captured by Colin Delehanty and Sheldon Neill. This project was filmed over the course of 10 months.

Teatime Totty........................

Pic Dump....................

Blue Angels Fat Albert And Silent Drill Platoon......................

Video/Photo by Staff Sgt. Oscar L Olive IV "The Commandant's Own," The United States Marine Drum & Bugle Corps
The Blue Angels, Marine Corps' C-130 Hercules, affectionately known as "Fat Albert," flies over the Silent Drill Platoon at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz

News.................

Abbas Cannot Make Concessions on Any Core Issue

Iran's Two-faced Regime Exposed Again, but is Anyone Paying Attention?

Always wanted a life-size wax figure of President Lincoln? Gettysburg museum is selling its figures

Israeli Government Says Missile Defense Needs More Funding

Shadow War: Inside the long-running operation to seize Iranian weapons

Geography, History, and the Crimean Crisis

Ukraine – A Case for Chinese Involvement

Russia's oligarchs throw their weight behind Kiev's revolutionary rulers

Afghanistan election front-runner: 'Sacrifices of British troops have led Afghanistan from dark ages’

UK economy to hit pre-recession peak by summer, BCC says

Backhanding the Military....Again!" - Wild Bill

Hurting America's finest men and women in uniform is getting to be a despicable habit of the left....Bill calls them out on it!

Spring Forward, Fall Over

Beware Tyrant on the Loose...............

Is Vladimir Putin the new Stalin? Not now the USSR has fallen apart

Ed's Note: I knocked up the pic in Nov '07. Didn't think he would still be around.

Monday Mopsies..................

Sunday, 9 March 2014

Democrat Climate Caucus Reveals Its Stupidity

By Alan Caruba

The nation seems to be passing through a period in which too many U.S. Senators have been elected without so much as a high school level understanding of what drives the Earth’s climate and it isn’t the 0.038% of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.

On Monday, March 10, some twenty of them will stay up overnight on the Senate floor, according to The Hill, “to bring attention to the impacts of climate change.” You don’t get more idiotic than that. Climate, measured in decades and centuries, is always in a state of change. Meanwhile, the weather anywhere in the nation, determined by the changing seasons and responsive only to short-range forecasts, has turned colder thanks to a cooling cycle that is now into its 17^th year.

Giving speeches all night in the Senate will not change that, but Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has partnered with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to announce a new “climate change caucus” when you can ask any of the million unemployed Americans what the Senate’s real priority should be.

Sen. Whitehouse seems to think that a winter storm that causes “little summer cottages (be) washed into the sea” makes the non-existent issue of climate change “a bit personal.” Does this moron take rain or snow storms personally? When the sun rises in the morning, does he think it does so just for him?

Democrats are so afraid of the political fallout from the devastation of Obamacare and the lies told to support it that they are desperate to divert voter’s attention to anything else and climate change rates higher than having to discuss why we are still in a major recession after one full term by President Obama and the first year of his second. So, between now and the midterm elections in November, they will engage in all manner of theatrics to stay in office.

Thank goodness we have men like Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in office. For a long time now he has been on record calling climate change—formerly called global warming—“a hoax.” When he takes a head count, he finds “fewer and fewer members of the United States Senate that are sympathetic to this whole cause.”

Behind the climate change “cause” falsehoods is the intention to impose fees on all aspects of American business and industry that emit carbon dioxide. Sen. Whitehouse wants to force up the cost of energy by making the larger emitters pay for doing what volcanoes do—emit CO2. In addition, all of the Earth’s living creatures do that as well. Congress has defeated 692 similar bills.

Sen. Whitehouse and his climate caucus are depending heavily on the 30% or so voters who still think that global warming is real. To some extent you can’t blame them. They were taught that in school and college. They read and hear that it is real in the news media every day. As of today, however, not one high school graduate has lived in a period of global warming.

And what is the rest of the world supposed to think when both British Royal Society and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences have just released a report, “Climate Change: Evidence & Causes” that is a rejection and abandonment of the most fundamental values of science. The report asserts that “Continued emissions of these gases (CO2) and other greenhouse gases will cause further climate change, including substantial increases in global average surface temperatures and important changes in regional climate.”

Tom Harris, the executive director of the International Climate Science Coalition, responded saying the report “does a serious disservice to science and society.” And that is an understatement. “This is not the language of science…it is appalling that two of the world’s foremost science bodies should engage in such unconditional rhetoric.” Not to mention that it is an outright lie.

So, while the twenty or so desperate Democrats gather all night, keep in mind that (1) there has been no global warming since 1997, (2) more than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition saying humans are not causing global warming, (3) Arctic ice is up 50% since 2012, and (4) every one of the climate computer models predicting warmth has been wrong over and over again.

Find out if one of those Senators is from your State and is up for reelection in November. Then vote him or her out of office and replace them with a candidate who wants smaller government, less spending, and demonstrates a devotion to both the truth and the U.S. Constitution.

We are in 'good' hands...............

H/T Shelly

Bedtime Totty.................

Late News.................

Scientists: Test West Coast for Fukushima radiation

Incredible Images of Plane Ripping Through Skydiver’s Parachute Strings — Just the Opening Act of Harrowing Freak Accident

Concealed-gun ruling widens debate in California

USA's winter weather damage at $5 billion so far

White House pushes back on GOP assault on Obama on Crimea

CNN "Death Row Stories": How Bad Can A Network Be?

Wings of Freedom: Legendary combat pilots' endless mission

Rob Johnson: Marines seek Navy pullup plan

Rod Duren: Are energy drinks good for military pilots?

Hate Preacher Drives 'Al Qaeda van' Through London Street

While Crimea Burns, Obama Golfs

Worldwide probe to identify two mystery passengers aboard missing Malaysian airliner

Jeremy Paxman: why we would not fight the Great War now

North Koreans vote in election with only one candidate

Italy tells US gun firm to remove Michelangelo's David from advert

Guns to Butter................

H/T Shelly

Iran's Intercepted Weapons Shipment Unloaded in Israel

On March 9, 2014, the IDF completed the unloading and inspection of the weapons containers uncovered onboard the Klos-C. This concluded Operation Full Disclosure, aimed at preventing the smuggling of advanced weaponry from Iran to terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.

H/T Paul B

Teatime Totty....................

Pic Dump...................

Some Very Good News about Americans (for a Change)

By Alan Caruba

We are all besieged daily by bad news. It is easy to become depressed about the present state of the nation, but there is some very good news as well.

This is not to say there aren’t legitimate problems and concerns. The last two elections put a President in office that lies all the time. The nation’s economy has been so awful that 100 million Americans are either out of work or have ceased looking for work. Democrat political leaders are actually telling Americans that being unemployed is a good thing because it leaves them free to pursue their hobbies.

The President has been pursuing a campaign to make Americans believe that there is massive income inequality when, in fact, there is relatively little. There has always been a very wealthy class and a very poor one. What there is, however, is a loss of wealth primarily in the Middle Class. As for poverty, America has long provided income mobility to those who wish to study and work hard to improve their status.

What is rarely addressed is the seething power of American entrepreneurship which, at present, is trapped by a largely socialist federal government imposing a mountain of regulations that thwart growth and take money from the private sector that would otherwise be invested in the creation or expansion of business and industry nationwide.

Americans have repeatedly suffered, survived, and overcome financial crises to come back to build the greatest economy in the world. Part of the reason for this are the long established values that Americans of every description embrace.

That is why Wayne Baker’s new book, “United America: The Surprising truth about American values, American identity and the 10 beliefs that a large majority of Americans hold dear” is a welcome review that the author’s extensive research confirms.

The beliefs are:

Respect for others

Symbolic patriotism
Freedom
Security
Self-Reliance& Individualism
Equal Opportunity
Getting ahead
Pursuit of happiness
Justice& fairness
Critical patriotism

A journalist, David Crumm provides an introduction to Baker’s book. “Dr. Baker defines a Core American Value (as one) that is strongly held by a large majority of Americans, stable over time, and shared across diverse demographic, religious and political lines…Here a core value represents an area of deep and broad consensus among American people, not disagreement and division. A core value is not a prescription of what Americans ought to believe, but what Americans actually do believe.”

The research supporting Dr. Baker’s book was conducted over two years by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and was funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Institute. The data was analyzed with a battery of statistical techniques to ensure the validity and reliability of the results.

Touching on a few of the values addressed in the book, Dr. Baker starts with respect for others which he describes as “so important that it actually characterizes what it means to be an American…More than 90 percent of Americans in the national surveys I conducted said that respect for people of different racial and ethnic groups is important to them.”

“Respect is given to people who do what they say, who live according to what they believe, who are persons of integrity. A position or title doesn’t necessarily garner respect, but integrity does” says Dr. Baker and that is bad news for those identified as “leaders” or “experts” who do not display integrity. Telling lies undermines everything they say and do.

“We have what appears to be a contradictory situation,” says Dr. Baker. “Politicians, political elites, and party activists are increasingly polarized, moving further apart from one another. Yet public opinion polls clearly show that Americans loathe the divisiveness. And the values of Americans are not polarized.”

“There is widespread agreement among Americans when it comes to core values. Which means our polarizing politicians are becoming less and less representative or our actual views.”

A review of those core values show that Americans love their symbolic patriotism such as our flag and our national anthem. “Love of country is especially strong in America” says Dr. Baker.

“Americans hold tenaciously to the principles of liberty and freedom,” says Dr. Baker. “A 2013 poll by the Pew Research Center shows that 53 percent of Americans see the federal government as a threat to personal rights and freedoms. This is the first time since Pew started asking about this issue in 1995 that a majority felt this way.”

Little wonder when one recalls the assault on the Second Amendment that was launched by the Obama administration and one that failed significantly. Recent news of the Federal Communications Commission’s plans to “monitor” radio and television news judgments evoked a comparable response.

Freedom to participate in politics and elections evoked a response in which 98 percent of Americans agree with this definition of freedom and it stands in stark contrast to the Obama administration’s corruption of the Internal Revenue Service to deny Tea Party and patriot groups non-profit status routinely granted to other groups.

As one reads Dr. Baker’s book, one comes away with a renewed confidence in the judgment of Americans, confirming that their core values are those that have made America a beacon of freedom in the world.

And that’s the very good news!