Swiss stun the markets...from TPC

The Swiss National Bank, in a surprise overnight move, ended its 1.20 Swiss franc peg to the euro. Market turmoil quickly ensued but, after all the dust settles, what might it mean to you, me and the markets?

This Q&A provides some explanation at HAS here.

Yummy Mummy! Duchess of Cambridge Looks Hot in Sleek £450 Embroidered Navy Dress by Maternity Brand Madderson

Call me old-fashioned, but I just love this lady.

She's way hotter than Lady Di was, IMHO.

Great photos, especially of the Duchess's lovely legs. Shoot, she's just pretty all around.

Here: "Oozing Sexiness, Hot Princess Catherine Arrives at Barlby Primary School in London's Ladbroke Grove."

Heidi Klum Strips Down to Racy Lingerie in New Campaign Replacing Elle Macpherson's Sextastic Underwear Line

Heidi Klum continues to dominate the fashion/pop culture milieu.

And she looks fabulous: "Heidi Klum Strips Down in Racy New Underwear Campaign Replacing Elle Macpherson's Intimates."

My respect has grown for Ms. Klum in light of those topless vacation photos from December. She's a little thin, but not so thin that you'd kick her out of the sack, heh.

Click through at the link for the luscious pics.

The Last March Of The Hypocrites - But Where's Obama?.............From Daniel Thomas

Apart from being the biggest gathering of hypocrites ever assembled in the same place at any one time, the recent misnamed Unity March in Paris will be notable for three things in particular:

i) Apart from Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu who has to deal with Muslim terrorism every day, it was nothing more than a photo opportunity for the Premiers of Europe who will do absolutely nothing to change the disastrous course that has led to the rise of jihadis in their respective countries.

ii) The march will not stop the attempts by these same political leaders to muzzle the press, to limit freedom of expression and to close down debate on contentious issues which questions the unpopular agenda's they are imposing upon their citizens.

iii) The unsurprising absence of the so called leader of the free world or any other senior official from the now 'fundamentally transformed' United States of America.

This will be the last March of the Hypocrites the world will witness. The peoples of Europe, if not the civilised world as a whole, have woken up to the dangers of the Muslim fifth columns in their midst together with the cynical use of this community by an agenda driven political class as a battering ram to impose so called 'multi-cultural societies'.

Anyone with a modicum of decency will have watched the stomach churning hypocrisy of the political elite as they milked the mass outrage for all its worth. They participated in this charade with the intention of fooling the world that they actually sympathise with the freedom of expression as exercised by the murdered Charlie Hebdo staff, or that they oppose radical Islam.

France's socialist President Francois Hollande can barely disguise his personal hatred of Jews along with his support for pro-Palestinian terrorist organisations. With no effective preventative action from Hollande, anti-semitism in France has reached Vichy levels with the Jewish community fleeing for their lives in ever increasing numbers.

Hollande's hatred for Netanyahu and the Jewish people manifested itself with his ban on the Israeli Prime Minister attending the march. In a calculated insult to every murdered Jew, Hollande invited Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of one of the world's most blood drenched terrorist organisations, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), after Netanyahu signalled his intention to attend regardless of Hollande's ban.

British Prime Minister David Cameron's contribution to a free press was to set up the Leveson inquiry into Press ethics. Ostensibly this was to deal with phone hacking but in reality it was to instigate government controlled regulation on behalf of political operators and celebrities who wanted to keep their dodgy shenanigans secret.

His cynical manipulation of "Je Suis Charlie" for self publicity reasons becomes apparent with his proposed 'Snooper's Charter' legislation. This will give the government unfettered access to British citizens' private phone calls, emails and social media activity.

If this isn't authoritarian enough Cameron wants to end the peoples ability to communicate privately by banning any form of encrypted communication while attempting to regulate Bloggers with a requirement that political commentators register with the Electoral Commission.

Cameron's use of Muslims to downgrade and eventually erase Great Britain's Judeo-Christian heritage in order to impose multi-culturalism on the people is now the stuff of legend. Apart from ignoring the preachers of hate while they radicalise young people, and by indulging every Muslim demand he is using rigidly policed political correctness to harass and silence any dissenting voices.

His assertion that there are too many white Christian faces in civic society, the establishment and British institutions is incontrovertible proof of Cameron's commitment to the cultural replacement agenda.

No matter what atrocities  are committed by radical Muslims, David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are committed to using their Muslim populations to impose 'multi-culturalism' on their citizens without their consent. The German people are rising up against the spread of semi-autonomous Muslim ghettos and are taking to the streets in ever increasing numbers to voice their opposition.

Danish socialist Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt is presiding over a country that has succumbed to Islamification and Muslim violence but she takes no action. Cultural replacement using imposed multi-culturalism takes precedent over the safety and well being of the indigenous Danish population.

The same is true for Sweden, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France etc.

Cameron, Merkel and every other European leader who participated in the "Je Suis Charlie" choreographed photo-opportunity are taking no effective action to stem the tide of immigration from backward Muslim countries like Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan etc. despite the widespread knowledge that these people hate the west, reject western values and will not integrate.

They are taking no effective action to dismantle the infrastructure of mosques, madrassas and hate preachers that are radicalising Muslims thereby ensuring an endless supply of hate filled, motivated jihadis ready and willing to commit murder and mayhem in the name of Allah.

Western and European governments are still arming these jihadis with passports allowing them legitimate travel between their 'home' countries and the killing fields of the Middle East and Africa, This act promises to be one of the most potent weapons for bringing the Muslim jihad to the west and one has to wonder whether it's an act of jaw dropping stupidity or deliberate policy.

Anyone with an ounce of sense knows it's coming so whether it is stupidity or deliberate policy, no amount of Unity Marches or "Je Suis Charlie" campaigns is going to absolve these politicians from blame when terrorists strike and shed innocent blood in the heart of their respective countries.

Finally, where was President Obama, the so called leader of the free world? It's not like him to miss a photo opportunity. The sad fact is that by their words and actions Obama and his administration have revealed that they are consumed with hatred for western civilisation, especially America.

Unity Marches in Europe are a distraction from his more critical agenda. This is not only to disengage from the developed world but to down grade or 'fundamentally transform'  America from the Judeo-Christian culture of liberty and free enterprise that made it one of the greatest countries in all of history into something resembling the third world.

To Obama and his acolytes the American dream of hard work with eventual success and prosperity for all is offensive to their socialist sensibilities. A disarmed, dependent population addicted to 'free stuff' is much more to their liking.

     

The EPA's Methane Madness

 

The EPA thinks cow flatulence is a serious problem

By Alan Caruba

The Obama administration’s attack on America’s energy sector is insane. They might as well tell us what to eat. Oh, wait, Michelle Obama is doing that. Or that the Islamic State is not Islamic. Oh, wait, Barack Obama said that.

Or that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is about protecting the environment. It used to be decades ago, but not these days.

There was a time when the EPA was devoted to cleaning up the nation’s air and water. It did a very good job and we now all breathe cleaner air and have cleaner water. At some point, though, it went from a science-based government agency to one for which science is whatever they say it is and its agenda is the single minded reduction of all sources of energy, coal, oil and natural gas, by telling huge lies, citing junk science, and generating a torrent of regulation.

Americans have been so blitzed with global warming and climate change propaganda for so long one can understand why many just assume that these pose a hazard even though there hasn’t been any warming for 19 years and climate change is something that has been going on for 4.5 billion years. When the EPA says that it’s protecting everyone’s health, one can understand why that is an assumption many automatically accept.

The problem is that the so-called “science” behind virtually all of the EPA pronouncements and regulations cannot even be accessed by the public that paid for it. The problem is so bad that, in November 2014, Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) introduced a bill, HR 4012, the Secret Science Reform Act, to address it. It would force the EPA to disclose all scientific and technical information before proposing or finalizing any regulation.

As often as not, those conducting taxpayer funded science studies refuse to release the raw data they obtained and the methods they used to interpret it. Moreover, agency “science” isn’t always about empirical data collection, but as Ron Arnold of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, noted in 2013, it is “a ‘literature search’ with researchers in a library selecting papers and reports by others that merely summarize results and give opinions of the actual scientists. These agency researchers never even see the underlying data, much less collect it in the field.”

The syndicated columnist, Larry Bell, recently noted that “Such misleading and downright deceptive practices openly violate the Information Quality Act, Executive Order 12688, and related Office of Management and Budget guidelines requiring that regulatory agencies provide for full, independent, peer review of all ‘influential scientific information.’” It isn’t that there are laws to protect us from the use of junk science. It’s more like they are not enforced.

These days the EPA is on a tear to regulate mercury and methane. It claims that its mercury air and toxics rule would produce $53 billion to $140 billion in annual health and environmental benefits. That is so absurd it defies the imagination. It is based on the EPA’s estimated benefits from reducing particulates that are—wait for it—already covered by existing regulations!

Regarding the methane reduction crusade the EPA has launched, Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, says “EPA’s methane regulation is redundant, costly, and unnecessary. Energy producers are already reducing methane emissions because methane is a valuable commodity. It would be like issuing regulations forcing ice cream makers to spill less ice cream.”

“The Obama administration’s latest attack on American energy,” said Pyle, “reaffirms that their agenda is not about the climate at all—it’s about driving up the cost of producing and using natural gas, oil, and coal in America. The proof is the EPA’s own research on methane which shows that this rule will have no discernible impact on the climate.”

S. Fred Singer, founder and Director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project as well as a Senior Fellow with The Heartland Institute says “Contrary to radical environmentalists’ claims, methane is NOT an important greenhouse gas; it has a totally negligible impact on climate. Attempts to control methane emissions make little sense. A Heartland colleague, Research Fellow H. Sterling Burnett, says “Obama is again avoiding Congress, relying on regulations to effectively create new laws he couldn’t legally pass.”

As Larry Bell noted, even by the EPA’s own calculations and estimates, the methane emissions limits, along with other limits on so called greenhouse gases “will prevent less than two-hundredths of a degree Celsius of warming by the end of this century.”

That’s a high price to pay for the loss of countless plants that generate the electricity on which the entire nation depends for its existence. That is where the EPA is taking us.

Nothing the government does can have any effect on the climate. You don’t need a PhD in meteorology or climatology to know that.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

Should They Stay? Jew-Hating Islamists May Be Chasing Jews from France

For the first time since World War II, the number of Jews emigrating from France to Israel exceeded those coming from the U.S. to the Jewish State. Anti-semitic incidents were on the rise well before the world heard of hostages in a Kosher grocery during the three days of terror around the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu invites French Jews to flee to France, but some Jews say that just gives the Islamist radicals what they want. Do Jews in the diaspora have an obligation to stand and fight this new wave of Jew-hatred, or is it starting to look enough like 1930s Germany that they should pack their bags and go up to Jerusalem? Scott Ott, Stephen Green and Stephen Kruiser consider the options.

Cartoon Round Up....

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

Four Secret Service officials reassigned in shakeup

How China's reaction differs from the West after Charlie Hebdo attacks

Duke University to Sound Muslim Call to Prayer

Asteroid notice: There is a giant rock hurtling toward Earth … should I worry?

A suite the size of a house? This ship will have one

After Westgate, Interpol Chief Ponders 'Armed Citizenry'

Dog Loves Taking Herself to Park, Just Rides the Bus

Delta Flight Takes Off With Just 2 Aboard

Working Too Hard May Make You Hit the Bottle Harder

Saudi Cleric: Snowmen Are Sinful

Condemnation swift in Muslim nations over 'Hebdo' cover

Bait & Switch: "Economic Development" in the States

Diversity: Koom. Bah. Humbug

‘If It Floats, It Fights': Navy Seeks ‘Distributed Lethality’

Europe’s Leading Rabbi: Jews Must Begin Carrying Guns

China and the Lethal Drone Option

Revealed: Saudi Arabia's 'Great Wall' to keep out Isil

Japan approves largest-ever defence budget as Hiroshima mayor calls for peace

American children armed with soup cans to fight off a school shooter

Iraqi govt feels US, allies not doing enough to fight ISIS

Pegida: The New German Revolution

Turkey's Staggering "Shoeboxgate"

Open Letter to the French President

Obama Administration Undermines Muslim Reformers with Excuses for Radical Islam

An Islamic Extremism primer for an apparently clueless President!...from TPC

Given the  President's apparent ignorance of the global problem termed 'Islamic Extremism' by all besides himself and the administration puppets, I have a reading recommendation that should bring them all up to speed!

Read at The Political Commentator here.

Free Fire Zone- A Strategy to defeat Global Jihad

Islamists are attacking all over the world. Obama may not have a strategy, but the Center for Security Policy does

E Pluribus Unum: Multiculturalism Caused the Paris Attacks | Afterburner w/Bill Whittle

Fresh Air Blows Down From Canada.............from Dan Friedman

[After six years of Obama we are all to be forgiven if we forgot what a real leader of a democracy sounds like. To jog your memory, have a look at this video and listen to a short statement from Canadian PM Stephen Harper reacting to the murdering Jihadists of Paris. We’re going to learn a lot about the future of our own country during the next two years, and the key will be the performance of the Republicans who are now the majority in both houses. If they are unwilling or unable to repair the damage caused by Obama’s serious assaults on the Constitution, and put a true American leader back into the White House in 2016, the picture will be very bleak and only heaven knows what will redeem us. df]

Thursday Totty..............

Watch: Sky News Cuts Away from Charlie Hebdo Writer as She Tries to Show Muhammed Cover

Watch it to the end.

The cowardly fools at Sky News are completely terrified.

Here, "Sky News Cuts Away as Charlie Hebdo Writer Holds Up Muhammad Magazine Cover (VIDEO)."

CONTENT WARNING: New Islamic State Video Shows 'Child Soldier' Executing 'Russian Spies'

Once again: strong graphic warning.

This is the real thing. All other outlets have censored this video. But we owe it to the dead to bear truth to the terror. Self-censorship sanitizes evil, and it protects those in power, like the craven leaders of the "free world," Barack Obama, David Cameron, and Francois Hollande. They're all caving to terrorism as we speak.

Here, "WATCH: Unedited Video Shows Islamic State 'Child Soldier' Executing Two Suspected Russian Spies (GRAPHIC)."

Men Want to Have More Fun with Blondes!

The results are in!

Hey, I love smokin' blonde babes, heh.

Here: "America's Men Describe Their 'Perfect Woman' as Blonde with Blue Eyes."

In a perfect world the blonde hottie of your dreams would be a non-smoking social drinker with a graduate degree.

But careful there guys. Don't want your tastes to essentially price you out of the market!

Just go for the hottest blondes you can find. Blonde and big bazongas, heh! That's the ticket!

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

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

This Exists: 59-Item, 8K-Calorie Breakfast

China’s lunar plan revealed – strip mine the moon for rare minerals

Scientists stunned to find carnivorous pitcher plant “out-thinks” insects

Oxford University Press Bans Sausages and Pigs from Children's Books to Avoid Offending Muslims

Speaker Boehner Quotes All 22 Times Obama Has Said He Could Not Do Exec. Amnesty

Open Letter to the French President

White House Rejects 'Radical Islam' Label for Terrorists

NASA live stream cuts out after alien UFO sighting, claims blogger

FDA rejects female sexual arousal drugs … enter pot-infused sex lube for women

The Real Scandals of the Paris March

Friends of the Earth are the Enemies of Mankind

Back to the past with Friends of the Earth

By Alan Caruba

It’s such a benign sounding name, Friends of the Earth. This multi-million dollar international organization is a network of environmental organizations in 74 countries. If its agenda was adopted and enacted much of mankind would lose access to the energy sources that define and enhance modernity or the beneficial chemicals that protect food crops from insect predators and weeds.

I am on FOE’s mailing list and the most recent email informed me and the thousands of others who received it that “the oil lobby and the Republican leadership in Congress are plotting a full frontal assault on our environmental protections…” I bet you didn’t know that the Republican Party was an enemy of the environment. That’s curious because it was a Republican, Richard M. Nixon, who created the Environmental Protection Agency with an executive order!

FOE was upset by the $1.01 trillion bill to fund the U.S. government for the coming year through to September. “What’s more, in a surprise giveaway to the super-rich, the bill raised the maximum contribution limit from individuals to political parties—opening the door for billionaires like the Koch Brothers to purchase even more seats in government.”

The sheer hypocrisy of FOE defies the imagination. No mention was made of the secretive “billionaires club” that was revealed in August in a report by Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It was titled “The Chain of Environmental Command: How as Club of Billionaires and Their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obama’s EPA.”  Didn’t read about it in the mainstream press? That’s because it was hushed up.

You may, however, have heard of San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer who in February pledged to spend up to $100 million, half his own money and half from other billionaire donors, to get candidates who promised to pass anti-global warming legislation elected in the midterm elections. Steyer has been a leading opponent of the Keystone XL pipeline, but for sheer hypocrisy, Steyer made his fortune by investing in fossil fuel companies!

As far as FOE is concerned, only conservative billionaires are evil.

“At Friends of the Earth, we’re working to protect people and the planet from Big Oil and its profits.” Translation: We don’t want oil companies to provide the source of energy that fuels our cars, trucks, and other devices that improve our lives. We don’t like profits because they are the result of capitalism.”

For good measure, FOE tells its supporters the “future would be great for companies like Dow, Syngenta, and Monsanto -- but terrible for bees, butterflies, and people like us. Take away pesticides and all you have left are the pest insects that spread disease and harm food crops.

According to Wikipedia, “Originally based largely in North America and Europe, its membership is now heavily weighted toward groups in the developing world.” It’s the developing world that has been the focus of the United Nations greatest hoax, global warming, now called climate change, as a means to transfer money from wealthy nations to those less well governed, often because there is a despot or larcenous group in charge.

It is little wonder that FOE is upset by the decision of millions of American voters to elect candidates who want to rein in the excesses of the Environmental Protection Agency and take steps to improve the economy. Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is denounced as “a climate denier with close ties to the coal industry.”  He has made it clear that getting the Keystone XL pipeline approved by Congress will be a priority.

FOE’s email even named the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as “a policy group that helps develop anti-environmental state laws across the country. Right now they’re focused on plans to erode the President’s Clean Power Plan and EPA’s ability to carry out its mission.”

What FOE’s email decrying Big Oil and Republicans doesn’t mention is that, among the elements of the 1,603 pages of the omnibus appropriations bill, is a reduction in the funding of the Environmental Protection Agency which received $60 million less than last year. At $8.1 billion, the EPA is operating on its smallest budget since 1989.

I would like to see the EPA eliminated as a federal agency and that funding go as grants to the individual state environmental protection agencies to address problems closer to those responsible to do so. As it was, the omnibus bill put a variety of limits on EPA “greenhouse gas” programs, some of which verge on the totally idiotic such as permits for gas emissions—methane from cows!

The bill also disallowed President Obama’s promise to give $3 billion to the United Nations Climate Fund, a means to take our money and give it to nations for “environmental” programs that are more likely to end up being something else entirely.

With its anti-energy, anti-capitalism agenda, Friends of the Earth are in fact enemies of mankind. They would happily return the planet to the Dark Ages. That’s why people like me shine a very bright light on them so you will not be duped in the way far too many others are.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

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

Wow, A Politician That Gets It? Yes, They Do Exist!

Are you convinced that no one in Washington cares about the voters who sent them there? Well, I have found evidence that at least one member of the Senate understands who sent him there and what they expect him to do. Looking like a bull elephant standing in a herd of rhinos, Sen. Jeff Sessions has written a 26 page Immigration Handbook For The New Republican Majority which outlines a plan for the GOP to move forward on immigration reform. I know most people would fall asleep reading any 26 page document put together by member of Congress, but I think many people would actually be excited by reading this one. If nothing else, every voter in America should read the introduction, and then make some phone calls to your Congressmen.    (continue reading)

Video: Andrew Klavan very clearly explains multiculturalism and assimilation!...from TPC

And, in addition, he explains how a Middle East comprised only of Israel would benefit all of the citizens living in what are now not particularly the most free nations in the world!

Watch at The Political Commentator here.

Cartoon Round Up....

Je Suis Jimmy

An American Not in Paris: Where Was the Civil Rights Icon of Our Age?

Barack Obama, the avatar of civil rights for our generation, could not break his empty Sunday schedule to attend the “Je Suis Charlie” rally in Paris, which drew 40 world leaders and more than a million people, to stand up for free speech and religious liberty. The White House now says he should have sent someone with more heft than his former campaign bundler, the French ambassador. Is this another Obama blunder, or is he smarter than all of us — or at least smarter than Stephen Green, Scott Ott and Stephen Kruiser?

Wednesday Wenches................

Je Suis Charlie - Photo From Paris..................

H/T Shelly

H/T Paul B

Horny Thai Elephant Goes on Mating Season Rampage, Crushes Tourist Car in Khao Yai National Park (VIDEO)

Heh, not something you see every day.

Here: "Wild Elephant Crushes Tourist Car in Thailand National Park (VIDEO)."

Dramatic New Video of Chérif and Saïd Kouachi Opening Fire on Police During #CharlieHebdo Attacks

When confronted, the police put it in reverse like lickety-split!

It's pretty sad, actually. Law enforcement backing away after the biggest attack in France since the 1960s. That's leftist law enforcement, mind you. Perhaps some of that will change --- and not just in France.

Watch: "#Paris Attacks: New Footage of Charlie Hebdo Jihadists Firing on Police (VIDEO)."

Breathtaking Sienna Miller in Sidesplit and Cutaway Gowns at the Golden Globes

Ms. Miller stars in "American Sniper," which is out to general release on Friday.

What a handsome babe.

Here: "Spectacular Sienna Miller in Sidesplit and Cutaway Gowns at the Golden Globes."

Those cutaway gowns don't leave much to the imagination, heh.

And phenomenal bonus babe shots at the click-through.

Steven Crowder: 2nd Amendment: The Liberal Version

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

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

Dems change tune after mocking GOP for 'drill, baby, drill'

Protesters Gather at Clinton Foundation to Complain of 'Missing Money' from Haiti Recovery

Is the White House a 'Sleeper Cell'?

Saudi Cleric: Snowmen Are Sinful

Summit on Violent Extremism—Laugh or Cry? by VDH

Texas lawmaker apologizes for offensive Obama-Hitler tweet

NASA rockets to explore the northern lights

Honda's Uni-Cub is a bar stool on wheels

Fuel prices fall, yet airline surcharges remain

Glorified Bastards by VDH

Don't mess with Jamie Lynn Spears and her knife

Muslim mayor of Rotterdam tells Islamists to 'f**k off' on live TV

Obama Tries to Co-opt the Charlie moment

White House Stands By Earlier Criticism of Charlie Hebdo

Russia to strengthen military capabilities in Crimea, Kaliningrad, Arctic

It's Isil, not America, that should be worried

China bans burqa in capital of Muslim region of Xinjiang

In America “Je suis Charlie” devolving to “Stand with the Prophet”

H/T Paul B

ZoNation || Liberals' Love Hate Relationship with Science

Liberals love to parade 'science' around as their replacement for God. They love science! Except they don't like drug companies...hmmm...

Non-Profit Matches Veterans With Therapy Dogs For Life Changing Support................

K9s For Warriors is dedicated to providing service dogs to warriors suffering from post-traumatic stress and/or traumatic brain injury as a result of their military service (post 9/11). Their goal is to give a new "leash" on life to both rescue dogs and to military vets who were injured – helping them live with independence and dignity. In this video, we meet two heroes who have graduated from the program and their dogs to find out what life was like before and how the program has made a difference in their lives.

Palestinians Are Running Out of Friends Again

 

Palestinians salute Hamas

By Alan Caruba

The news of the day is former President Jimmy Carter who placed the blame for the Paris jihadist massacre on—you guessed it—Israel. That reflects the surreal world in which anti-Semites live.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians, both Fatah and Hamas, are running out of friends. For reasons that defy any logic and which have no basis in fact, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is seeking recognition of the Palestinian state from the United Nations. He’s also applied for membership in the International Criminal Court.

The Palestinians who have refused every opportunity to become an independent state when it was offered by the UN or Israel now insist that they should be recognized as one. The problem is that they have never functioned as a state.

For example, who founded it? Answer, no one. It has no founder unless one regards Yassir Arafat as one, but Arafat ran Palestine entirely by himself. Then there’s the question of its borders. Where are they? You can find Israel’s on a map, but they do not exist for Palestine. What is the capital city of Palestine? It has none. It doesn’t have its own currency.

 

There is no Palestinian state.

What exists are people who are identified as Palestinians by other Arab nations who have used them as pawns since they lost their wars with Israel. Instead, they reside in “refugee” camps from the days of Israel’s independence in 1948 or in areas the Israelis have designated in the West Bank and Gaza. Last year, after Hamas had shelled Israel with rockets for months, the residents of Gaza had to pay a high price when the Israelis finally retaliated.

The Palestinians and their supporters call it a war crime when the Israelis defend themselves.

Abbas insists that they be allowed to “return” to a Palestine that was never a nation-state, but rather a name applied to the area that has for more than 3,000 years been called Israel. At this point, two generations after Israel’s independence, few “Palestinians” have ever lived in Israel and the Arabs that do live there enjoy full rights as Israeli citizens and have no wish to be anything other than Israelis.

As noted by the Middle East Forum, “Under the 1994 Paris Protocol, adopted as one of the Oslo Accords, Israel collects customs taxes on good shipped to the Palestinian areas, the Value Added Tax for goods and services sold in Israel and intended for PA consumption, and petroleum excises, and well as small amounts of income tax from PA residents working in Israel. Under these clearance revenues are transferred monthly directly from Israel to the PA Finance Ministry, and they are the PA’s largest source of funds.”

Israel has cut off these funds eight times in the past, usually in response to terrorist activity in the West Bank and Gaza or to protest Palestinian diplomatic efforts such as its current effort at the UN. On January 2, 2015, Israel decided to once again withhold the funds in response to the PA’s hostile activity at the International Criminal Court where it wants to have Israel tried for what it calls “war crimes” and the rest of the world calls self-defense.

In the January 5 edition of The Wall Street Journal, columnist Bret Stephens who had spent some years working in Jerusalem and had the opportunity to see Abbas up close, wrote of his “serial fiascos over the decade, culminating in his failed bid last week to force a vote in the Security Council over Palestinian statehood.”

Stephens noted that “In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, leaving Mr. Abbas in charge and giving him a chance to make something of the territory. Gaza dissolved into a civil war within months. In 2008, Israel offered Mr. Abbas a state covering 94% of the West Bank, along with a compensatory 6% of Israeli territory and a land bridge to Gaza. Mr. Abbas never took up the offer.”

Indeed, neither Arafat nor his successor, Abbas, has ever taken up any offer of statehood, so why now? Stephens says that, from the point of view of Abbas, “such a state is infinitely more trivial than a Palestinian struggle. Becoming is better than being. So long as ‘Palestine’ is in the process of becoming, it matters. Once it exists, it all but doesn’t.”

On January 6, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a bill that would withhold U.S. aid to the Palestinians until their leadership withdraws its controversial bid to join the International Criminal Court. The bill would freeze $400 million in aid that is annually sent to the Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas, a terrorist organization, at this point.

In 2011, David B. Rivkin Jr and Lee A Casey, lawyers who had served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, spelled out why this latest effort to get the UN to declare Palestine a state is invalid. “The Palestinian Authority, by contrast, does not meet the basic characteristics of a state necessary for such recognition. These requirements have been refined through centuries of custom and practice, and were authoritatively articulated in the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States.”

“As that treaty provides, to be a state an entity must have (1) a permanent population, (2) a defined territory, (3) a government, and (4) the capacity to enter into relations with other states.” The Palestinian Authority does not meet any of those requirements since it is, essentially, Abbas and his staff. Abbas, who was elected to a four-year term is now in his tenth year in office without the bother of calling any other elections.

Even if a UN vote were taken, the United States would veto it in the Security Council. So all of this is just one more bizarre and stupid charade that Abbas and the Palestinians engage in from time to time.

© Alan Caruba, 2015

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

NewsBusted 01/13/15...............

Plunging Crude Oil...The Darker Side...from TPC

For the consumer who is now paying a fraction of last years prices at the pump, we know that the reduced cost in oil has been a financial boost to our wallets!

But, in the overall scheme of the US economy, do the dangers of collapsing crude oil prices outweigh the financial benefit?

This article looks at some of the potential fallout.

Read at LinkedIn here.

Cartoon Round Up....

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

Multicultural Suicide by VDH

ALLEN WEST: “We must find the enemy, kill them and pursue them to the gates of hell”

Actually, The Future SHOULD Belong To Those Who ‘Slander’ Muhammad! by Steven Crowder

'Femsteering,' the disability endangering our roads

Time Stands Still For No Man (what about woman?)

ISIS, al-Qaeda and Why It Doesn’t Matter to Would-Be Jihadists

Refugee crisis: an effective policy response

It's nothing to do with Islam. There. I said it.

Obama Tries to Co-opt the Charlie moment

Christians Slaughtered in Post 'Arab Spring' Libya

China Prepares for War

Confirmed: Obama watched NFL playoffs instead of going to Paris

Western Sleepwalkers and the Paris Massacre

Biden Has Other, Very Important Work To Do

Should Central Asia Be Worried About Russia’s Fallout?

As we all proclaim 'Je Suis Charlie' - what about the victims Twitter forgot?

US, South Korean navies kick off anti-submarine warfare drill

‘Corpses all over the place’: Baghdad blamed for inaction as Yazidis retake villages from ISIS

Prying into Pegida: Where Did Germany's Islamophobes Come From?

Pope Francis blames Paris attacks on ‘deviant forms of religion’ amid new worries he may be ISIS target

Boko Haram push across border to attack Cameroon army

Germany Bracing for Islamic Terror

How Turkey Fights Extremism: "Do Not Keep Pet Dogs at Home!"

ISIS kills Iranian elite al Qods unit commander in Iraq, claims deaths of 555 Iranian officers

The Death of the Jews of France

U.S. Official: America Paying Salaries of Afghan Cops That Don’t Exist

France’s Jews Prepare for the Worst................

The recent conflict between Israel and Palestine incited a slew of global protests, many of them condemning Israel for its attacks on the Gaza Strip. Violent demonstrations in and outside Paris caught the world's attention. Pro-Palestinian protesters turned from peacefully chanting, to hurling stones and bottles at riot police and throwing smoke bombs in the streets. People shouting "Death to Jews" targeted Jewish-owned shops and places of worship, attacking one synagogue and setting a kosher grocery store ablaze.

These acts of aggression against Jews in France appear to be part of a growing trend—rather than something sparked specifically by Israel's ecent incursion. According to the French Interior Ministry, anti-Semitic incidents have increased 40 percent during the first three months of 2014. And in a country where a whopping 37 percent of the population harbors anti-Semitic attitudes, one Jewish youth group, Betar France, has started to fight back.



H/T Lenmar

Setting The Record Straight On France And The Jews..................from Dan Friedman

[Chasing down the deluge of canards aimed at the Jews is a tedious full-time job. But it has an upside too. No one will ever get canned because there’s not enough work to do. df]

 

nysun.com, January 12, 2015

 

‘Je Suis Juif’: A Reply To Prime Minister Valls’ Whitewash of History

 

By IRA STOLL

 

The prime minister of France, Manuel Valls, is rewriting French history inaccurately in an effort to make his country sound more tolerant of Jews than it actually is.

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

How To Get Banned From Speaking at Brandeis..............from Dan Friedman

[Look back on the recent act of censorship imposed by the administration of Brandeis to shut down a talk by human rights advocate Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Then read this story. It makes it clear what the ultra-Liberals who run Brandeis fear in the first place. I believe it’s something called the truth. df]

 

 

townhall.com, 1/12/2015

 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Charlie Hebdo Attack: We Are Seeing an Islamist, Evil Terrorist Ideology

By Katie Pavlich

Kate Hudson Plunging White Gown at the Golden Globes

Man. I'd hit on that faster than the California bullet train. She wouldn't know what hit her!

Smokin'!

See: "Queen of Hollywood: Kate Hudson Rocks a Plunging White Gown at the Weinstein and Netflix Golden Globes After-Party."

Her beautiful figure is about to pop out of that plunging gown. Dang.

No Air Conditioning at Golden Globes So Sweat Was Beading Moistly on Katherine Heigl's Magnificent Breasts

Seriously, she's wearing a low-cut gown that accentuates her lovely tits.

And she's hot and bothered. The event organizers denied the air conditioning had failed. But Ms. Heigl's breasts were glowing.

Here: "So, No Air Conditioning at the Golden Globes?"

Click through for that magnificent rack.

A Warning From the #ParisAttacks

A don't-miss essay, from David Horowitz, "Obama’s stubborn denial of the terror threat endangers Americans."