Bydio

The Onion asks, Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

FrontPageMagazine.com
 
11/12/2008
 
CAIR’s Disappearing Leadership Act

By Joe Kaufman

Within the last year and a half, the staff of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has dwindled tremendously. The latest casualty is that of CAIR-Miami’s Communications Director and Hamas-defender, Omer Subhani. The causes for the drop-off, including that of scandal, vary as much as the excuses given.

On November 4th, in an article concerning Omer Subhani’s refusal to acknowledge Hamas, Hezbollah and the PLO as terrorist organizations, this author reported that Subhani had recently removed references to CAIR from his blog. It was a matter of interest, as he was one of the top staffers out of CAIR-Florida’s main office.

Aaron went shopping on AutoTrader and saw a BMW he liked sold by International Motor Productions. The lady over the phone, Brigette Brown, told him everything about the car was perfect. He put down a $500 deposit and flew down from Chicago to check it out with his friend Nathan. There he discovered the body panels didn’t line up and the tires were mismatched and worn. When he took it for a test drive, it pulled under acceleration and made horrible noises. He took it to a reputable dealer who inspected the car and assessed it had been in an accident and had frame damage. When he took it back to International Motor Productions and asked for his deposit back…

…Brigette refused and also refused to let anyone else test drive the car.

Aaron is now pursuing complaints against the company with the BBB and the State’s Attorney General. Deposit, hotel, rental and airfare, Aaron and his friend are out $2,000. A check of their online profile turns up a number of very severe complaints against the company, mixed in with a number of glowing reviews.

Our request for comment from International Motor Productions was not returned.

“I am also curious as to where they get cars that have clean titles, but have obviously been wrecked. (*cough* chop shop *cough*)”, said Nathan.

AutoTrader doesn’t let customers post dealership reviews. Before putting down a deposit and flying to get your dream car, make sure to always check out a dealership’s reputation elsewhere, like cardealercheck.com, their BBB report and Yahoo! Local reviews. You can also investigate a car’s history on CarFax.com. If you were to check out a dealership’s rep, where would you look first?

It’s Dangerous To Elect A Rock Star
Tuesday night, I had dinner with two old friends, one of whom came to the U.S. from Cuba at the age of 14. There’s somebody who understands the dangers of getting behind a leader as a personality, for the nebulous hope of having “hope.” He said people were behind Castro like they are Obama, dancing in the streets. He then said the thing that separates us from all those places where they cheer the ruler is not the man but “the system” — meaning, I think, democracy, The Constitution, the stuff that puts checks on the rock star thing.

The EU terror-chief agrees. Meanwhile, the US government is nervous about using words such as mujahid, umma, and caliphate.

“Political correctness ‘hampering battle against extremism,’” by Matthew Moore for the Telegraph, November 13 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Attempts to turn young people away from Islamic extremism are being hampered by politically-correct language, according to a new report.

Ministers last year directed councils to use the terms “anti-Islamic activity” and “community resilience” instead of terrorism and extremism, as part of a drive to win over the Muslim community.

But the rebranding has spread confusion and is preventing local authorities and public bodies from talking openly about the radicalisation of young people.

A report for the Home Office and Department for Communities and Local Government found that public services were not communicating policies “for fear that using more direct language may exacerbate community tensions.”

It quoted an unnamed council director as saying: “Switching language from ‘extremism’ to ‘community resilience’ causes confusion.

“The key thing is about who the words come from – if they come from a respected religious or community member they will have more impact than if it comes from a government minister.”

A council chief executive interviewed in the report said: “People are worried about saying the wrong thing and being labelled as racist.”

The Audit Commission and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) report urged the Government to consult local leaders before issuing further directions about how anti-extremism policies should to be communicated.

The report also found that councils and police given more than £6 million to stop young people turning to violent extremism “lacked intelligence” about where to focus resources.

Some 70 councils in England will receive a further £45 million by 2011 as part of the “Prevent” agenda.

The programme is aimed at encouraging Muslims to identify themselves as part of British society, reject extremist ideology and activities, and encourage others to do the same.

The report, Preventing Violent Extremism: Learning And Development, found some police and local authority partnerships “lacked knowledge” about how Prevent schemes should work, and had no means of measuring success or failure.

The Department of Communities said new instructions have been issued to local authorities on improving terror prevention.

Vitaliy N. Katsenelson writes:

I’ve said for a long time that one should not trust economic statistics data coming from the Chinese Government as it has the incentives (and power) to interrogate the data until it confesses to what it wants to see. Today we learned that industrial production in China rose 8.2% in October, a slowdown from 11.4% growth in September, and falling below expectations of 10.8%.  So even though industrial production growth was not great, it was still growth and a fairly decent growth by the “developed” world standard.  But there was another bit of news (in the same article) that really bothered me - volume of electricity generation dropped 4% in October - yes, it was a drop.  So which number would  you trust?

Maybe it is the pessimist in me, or maybe I’ve written so many “China will slowdown articles” that I am looking for data confirming my view (the confirmation bias) - that is possible, I am human after all.  Or maybe I have a hard time imagining industrial production rising in high single digits while electricity generated declined during the same time period.

China may have some country specific innuendos that I may be missing being thousands of miles away, but unless proven otherwise I’d believe in decline not growth in the Chinese economy, especially when all the other numbers show decline as well: car inventories are at four year highs, real estate market (both commercial and residential) are overbuilt, government is coming up with a $600 billion stimulus package, unemployment is rising, demand from the developed world has slowed down etc…

~~~

Vitaliy N. Katsenelson, CFA, is director of research at Investment Management Associates in Denver, Colo., and he teaches a graduate investment class at the University of Colorado at Denver. He is the author of “Active Value Investing: Making Money in Range-Bound Markets” (Wiley 2007).

Oh Furry Furry clownish, Furry Furry D,
You really should be an ass kickee,
With hand gesture annoying, a wannabe O.G,
And smug punchable douche face, I fart at thee.

Oh Pouty Brunette with pokey pale Cleavite,
And an awkward best friend, with a slight overbite,
I’d buy you a lemon drop, and listen to your plight,
And then rub talcum powder on your kneecaps in a soft, yet awkward, counter-clockwise motion.

Democrats urge federal stake in big auto companies - Yahoo! News

ABC News – Automakers in the Hole

WASHINGTON – Congressional Democrats are pushing legislation to send $25 billion in emergency loans to the beleaguered auto industry in exchange for a government ownership stake in the Big Three car companies.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., hope for quick passage of the auto bailout during a postelection session that begins Monday.

What can we call this move? Well, how about:

socialism definition | Dictionary.com

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
so·cial·ism (sō’shə-lĭz’əm) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

I’m not sure that selling cars made by government workers is going to do a great deal - or even a new deal - for the American auto industry. It will probably be great for their new government pensions, though.

Democrats urge federal stake in big auto companies - Yahoo! News

ABC News – Automakers in the Hole

WASHINGTON – Congressional Democrats are pushing legislation to send $25 billion in emergency loans to the beleaguered auto industry in exchange for a government ownership stake in the Big Three car companies.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., hope for quick passage of the auto bailout during a postelection session that begins Monday.

What can we call this move? Well, how about:

socialism definition | Dictionary.com

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
so·cial·ism (sō’shə-lĭz’əm) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

I’m not sure that selling cars made by government workers is going to do a great deal - or even a new deal - for the American auto industry. It will probably be great for their new government pensions, though.

The recent re-opening of the Ohel Yitzchak synagogue near the Temple Mount has again ignited protests from Arabs who claim that Jews are trying to “Judaize” the Old City of Jerusalem.

What most people don’t realize is that Jews have lived throughout the Old City, not just in the so-called “Jewish Quarter.”

A description of Jewish places throughout Jerusalem was written by the late Rabbi Yaakov Goldman in 1975, and it is a fascinating and important article with many photographs. Here are some excerpts:

Many say to us Jews that, even in the best of days before the establishment of the State, Jews only lived in one section of the Old City, called the Jewish Quarter, and, since there are four quarters, and we have had only one, what claim do we have to sovereignty over the whole of the Old City? Unfortunately, I find that not only non-Jews, but even Jews seem to accept this apparently reasonable ‘fact.’ We Jews also speak of the “Jewish” Quarter. Even the Israeli government has laid down special regulations about the Jewish Quarter, regarding settlement of Jews, which do not equally apply to the other quarters. I see in this a false assumption, and a great danger if we accept such a way of thinking. For, in actuality, the entire Old City, all four quarters, has been inhabited by Jews for at least the last few centuries. And Jewish population has been, if not a majority, a substantial minority in these quarters, at various points in history.

The ‘Moslem’ Quarter

The Moslem Quarter is described in detail by one of the great rabbis of Jerusalem, who died ten years ago, Ben-Zion Yadler. Rabbi Yadler would go to the Kotel on Tisha B’av at midnight, when he would begin teaching Midrash. Up till twelve o’clock he wouldn’t appear - there were too many ‘Zionists’ who used to come. But at twelve we would all gather together and he would tell us about Jerusalem. I remember once that Arabs began throwing stones at us. He said to us in Yiddish, “Don’t be upset. You wanted them to give you back Palestine; they’re giving it to you stone by stone.”

He writes a full description of what is today called the Moslem Quarter, and says as follows: Not only did the majority of Jews of Jerusalem live in the so-called ‘Moslem’ Quarter, but, also the more important Jews lived there, rather than in other sections of the city. And he goes on to describe twenty-two synagogues (I’ve been able to locate practically all of them), many mikvaot and yeshivot, among them, the biggest yeshiva in that part of the city - which is fortunately still standing - Torat Chaim. As you come from Damascus Gate, it’s on the left side of El Wad Road. Very strange: it is right on the Via Dolorosa part of the street. (The Via Dolorosa curves at one point, and part of it is on El Wad Road.)

Then you have another big yeshiva, Chaye Olam, with a Talmud Torah of twenty-two classrooms — each classroom today is an Arab home. (A Talmud Torah consists of eight grades, and here there were three parallel classes.) Part of the building is now unused. That part was never finished because the Arabs brought a case against it in 1927 when the yeshiva wanted to start a new wing. They weren’t able to finish it, so they just have the walls up. The yeshiva is close to what is the holiest part of Jerusalem for Jews.

There is another building, very close to the golden-domed mosque, which a Hungarian Jew, who arrived here about a hundred years ago, put up. In that building were two yeshivot called Mishmarot (Watches) because twenty-four hours a day Torah was studied there. Rabbi Yadler described how at midnight one group would come from the farthest corners of Jerusalem and another group would go home at that late hour to a place called Bab-el-Hota, close to the Lions Gate. I was still able to find one or two Jews who lived there in their youth. A synagogue was there, but it’s been abandoned for over forty years. You can still see the building near two Turkish baths. One is on the corner of the Bab-el-Katunin, and is called Hamam-el-en; and closer to the Temple Mount, very close, is the second bathhouse. Both of these bath-houses had good mikvaot under the supervision of rabbis. The Arab owners didn’t want to lose Jewish trade, and they made special arrangements for mikvaot.

The article also describes many of the Christian holy places in the Moslem quarter and other Jewish sites in the Armenian and Christian quarters. And it has this pertinent observation:

Control

Once again, people are reviving the issue of international control of Jerusalem. Even such an authority as Dr. Kissinger has said that Jerusalem is holy to the three religions. There is a very great distinction. However, for the Christians and Moslems there are holy places in Jerusalem. But the city, as a whole, is not holy to them. However, to Jews the city itself is holy. We have the regulations in the Mishna: “The whole world is holy to Jews; Eretz Yisrael is holier, Jerusalem is still holier, the Temple Mount is holiest.” There is a special sanctity that pervades Jerusalem as a city (irrespective of whether there happens to be there synagogues or other holy sites) which is not the same for Islam or Christianity.

Read the whole thing to learn things about Jerusalem that you will not find anywhere else.