Saturday Night Roundup - No Green but on the Flag of the Prophet

First an opening from the Nobel Laureate poet Joseph Brodsky's "Flight from Byzantium".

"The waste and horror of the East. The East is a catastrophe of dust. Green is found only on the banners of the prophet. Nothing grows here, except mustaches. Black-eyed, wild and by the evening a three-day beard's worth of growth. Coal fires extinguished with urine. That smell! With a mixture of degraded tobacco and sweaty soap. Dirty underwear wrapped around their nether regions like a turban. And everywhere, even in the city, sand that flies into your face-- driving the world around you out of your eyes, for which you can only be grateful. Concrete everywhere, the consistency of pressed dung and the color of a freshly dug grave.

The locals, in a state of complete stupor, sitting in cheap eateries, heads tilted back, as if in reverse prayer, to the television set where someone is always beating someone else. Or they switch to cards, their only method of concentration. Misanthropy? Desperation? But can you expect from a post-linear apotheosis principle; from the man who has nowhere to go but back.

I do not want to generalize, but the East is primarily a tradition of subordination, hierarchy, trade, adaptation; a tradition that is largely alien to absolute moral principles, whose role is filled by an intensity of feeling directed toward their family and lineage. I anticipate the objections, and will even agree to accept them in whole or in part. But into whatever extreme we may fallen into in the idealization of the East, there is no semblance of democratic tradition that can be ascribed to it."

Speaking of East and West, Obama has brought on board another Saudi stooge, this time from Human Rights Watch, which became rather notorious for soliciting Saudi oil money on the promise that they would use it bash Israel.

If you were hiring a lawyer to help protect Americans from terrorists, you likely wouldn't choose a left-wing activist who's been a champion of the killers held at Guantanamo Bay.

Then again, you're not President Obama. His Justice Department has raised eyebrows by tapping Jennifer Daskal, formerly "senior counterterrorism counsel" at Human Rights Watch, to work as counsel in its National Security Division and to serve on a task force deciding the future of Guantanamo and its detainees.

A former public defender, Daskal has no prosecutorial experience -- let alone a background in national security. So how did she land an important job at Justice -- one of only four political appointments at the National Security Division?

Of course the reason you would want to put a terrorist lawyer in a key place to tell American security agencies what they can't do to terrorists is fairly obvious. The goal is to protect the terrorists. Who by no particular coincidence often tend to be Saudi.

Meanwhile Roseanne, who posed in Hitler costume in a magazine named after an anti-semitic slur, backs ObamaCare and offers her own insanely Nazi health care solution

old people need to start dying earlier!

we cannot take care of millions of rich white people on their second hearts and third livers living until after one hundred years of age! that is the reason there is global warming and every single lack on this earth! Rich white men with cyborg parts running goldman sachs! when someone is aged sixty and gets sick, they need to not go to heroic measures, they need to die and leave some food for hungry children!!

Of course despite being headed toward 60 herself, Roseanne won't be included in this bit of killing. After all she's not a rich white male. But it's another symptom of how the proponents for limiting care for others, never actually include themselves.

Former New York City Mayor David Dinkins is complaining that he won't be remembered for keeping the libraries open 6 days a week, but for his tolerance of the Crown Heights rioters. Of course Dinkins disingenuously blames the police, when in fact it was his office that allowed three days of rioting to proceed, while Dinkins himself used the excuse of watching the U.S. Open as cover for the blank check that he gave to Al Sharpton.

Allahpundit at HotAir is worried that 58 percent of Republicans have very little confidence in Obama's Certificate of Live Birth. Without even addressing the details of the controversy itself, I have to wonder why "mainstream" Republicans are so worried about anyone in their party believing that there are serious questions about Obama's birth certificates.

The derogatory label "Birthers" conflates people who question Obama's birth certificate with 9/11 Deniers who give Al Queda a pass, and blame the US instead. A conflation that any rational person should find obscene. Agree or disagree with the people who think there are legitimate questions about Obama's birth certificates, but associating them with people who basically support terrorists and mock the dead on 9/11 is deeply wrong. Far more wrong than it would be to raise questions about Obama's place of birth, if it was completely legitimate.

The Republican party has much more important priorities than trying to pick internal fights out of some misguided fear that questioning the birth certificate will make the Republican party look terribly bad. If the Democratic party hasn't been hurt in the least by obsessing over whether Sarah Palin had a child or not, I doubt the birth certificate issue will do any damage if it's wrong, and can only potentially pay off, if it's right. Keeping the issue alive cannot hurt Republicans, it can only hurt Obama.

Israel Matzav meanwhile has the story on the UK funding left wing anti-Israel groups in Israel. This is of course only the tip of the iceberg. Peace Now has refused to disclose its funding source for some time. It chose to settle at least one lawsuit rather than reveal its sources. Much of Israel's left wing is funded by big money from abroad.

And this is not the only country the UK has done this too. For that matter the UK was doing this back during the late 30's and 40's under the guidance of the Roosevelt administration. Decades later, similar tactics would sabotage entire countries.

At IsraPundit meanwhile has the story on the Israeli reaction which might tackle some of the foreign NGO's for the first time.

Recent revelations about foreign government funding for local NGOs involved in political activity have triggered discussions by senior Israeli officials about the possibility of making such aid illegal, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The senior officials are looking into whether it might be possible to ban donations from foreign governments to political NGOs, just as it is forbidden for foreign residents, let alone governments, to contribute to Israeli political parties.

One of the questions that will have to be addressed, according to an official involved in the discussions, is what constitutes a political NGO

Ron Dermer, chief of policy planning in the Prime Minister’s Office, decried the funding of political NGOs by foreign governments as a “blatant and unacceptable” intervention into Israel’s internal affairs.

“Just as it would be unacceptable for European governments to support anti-war NGOs in the US, it is unacceptable for the Europeans to support local NGOs opposed to the policies of Israel’s democratically-elected government,” he said.

Moreover, Dermer said, what makes it worse is that some of the NGOs are not merely opposed to specific policies, but “are working to delegitimize the Jewish state.”

Read more at Israpundit

Keep in mind that this is a snapshot of how the 2008 Presidential election in America was lost. And while Soros played his part, he was certainly not the only one to fund and spawn a network of organizations. He was only the loudest and the most willing to take responsibility for it.

As a sideline, PowerLine has a mention that the website of the US Consulate in Jerusalem as being all Palestine all the time. I've written about this in some detail before, and unfortunately it did not begin with this administration.

Long before any negotiations have occurred, the US Consulate General has already declared itself as Palestinian territory. In piece after piece Israel isn't even mentioned, as if it had been wiped off the planet as thoroughly as Saudi Arabia and the US State Department wished it had been.

The US Consul General Jacob Walles is listed as sending Eid al-adha greetings to the Palestinians and Bush's Eid al-Fitr greetings are listed. no similar greetings are listed for any Jewish holidays. The website has an Arabic language section. It does not have a Hebrew section, despite being in a Hebrew speaking country.

Walles commemorated Independence Day by inviting Salam Fayyad, so-called Prime Minister of PLO's PA. No mention is made of any Israeli officials.

Meanwhile in some of the best of Islamic health care, dropping babies off the roof of a mosque. I guess those honor killings have to start early.



But naturally the whole thing turned out to be a misguided cry for access to health services

"It is also a reflection of the lack of access to health services, that forces people to behave in this irrational manner," Kumari told the AP.

Clearly. The Muslim parents dropping their kids off a roof mosque would no doubt stop if they just had more pediatric visits. Just like the genital mutilation and honor killings have.

Eric at Tygrrr Express has a post on Liberal Jews and battered housewives.

Atlas has the Shot of the Day that tells the story

Lemon Lime Moon has an alternative version of Obama's inauguration speech

A Jew with a View has her weekly Obama watch

Obama’s bias towards the Muslim world, and against Israel, is increasingly, painfully clear. He rants and raves when the Israelis dare to plan a new apartment block in Jerusalem – but fumbles and mumbles when it comes to speaking out against Iranian vote rigging and the way the mad Mullahs are treating Iranians desperate for change.

Hence this new feature which will appear every week.

And to kick things off, let’s note that Obama has ordered the State department to actually create a new appointment: U.S. Special Representative for Muslim (Ummah) Outreach.

In other words, a great big Dhimmi who will be a direct route via which Muslim leaders can reach the American president.Well, isn’t that just grand?

Er, will we also be seeing special envoys to Christianity…?How about Judaism? Hinduism ?No…?

At Family Security Matters, a message for Congress, "Reading Legislation is Your Job"

Gates of Vienna reports that Ireland's multicultural madness has hit a new low with Blasphemy Laws

Ireland has just adopted a new blasphemy law intended to prevent the Irish from offending the sentiments of religious people in writing and in speech. From now on it can cost you up to 190,000 kroner (approximately $35,000 to $40,000) if you insult or criticise the religions of the world. And that’s not all: The Irish police are now legally allowed to break into people’s homes and confiscate books which contain blasphemous elements.

As I recall the Irish Free State also banned Chaplin's The Great Dictator as it might offend the Nazis. Now they're working just as hard to avoid offending the new Nazis.

Meanwhile Putin seems set for another invasion of Georgia. Russian media has circulated an official warning about "Georgian provocations", which is usually the Russian preamble to an invasion. Similarly the Russians warned about Finnish and Polish provocations prior to their invasions of both countries.

With no one in the White House, Putin is likely to think that he can finish what he had to abort under Bush.