All Cultures Are Not The Same

USA Today posted a story today about the young girls in Nigeria who were kidnapped by Boko Haram. Boko Haram is translated as “western education is a sin.” The group is a militant Islamic group that operates in Nigeria.

The article reports:

In the video, Shekau described the girls as slaves and said, “By Allah, I will sell them in the marketplace.”

Unconfirmed reports last week said the girls were being sold as brides for $12 each.

The goal of Boko Haram is to”destroy the secular Nigerian state” and replace it with an Islamic state, said John Campbell, former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria.

The mass abduction isn’t the first time Boko Haram has targeted students. In February, the group shot or burned to death nearly 60 boys in northeast Nigeria.

There is no prohibition of slavery in Islam. The girls were taken by men posing as Nigerian military who said they wanted to take the girls to safety.

Yesterday ABC News reported:

The students were studying for final exams at their local school when the abduction happened. One girl told the New Yorker that militants dressed in Nigerian military uniforms came into their dorms and told the girls they were being taken to a safe space. They were placed in trucks and on motorcycles and driven away as the militants shouted “Allahu akbar,” which means God is great. Some managed to escape by jumping off the caravans and running away.

…The Northern States Christian and Elders Forum, a group of elders in the state where the girls were taken, released a list of 180 names that were confirmed to be among the missing and said that a majority of them are Christian.

Under Sharia Law, girls are not supposed to be educated, and Christians can be sold as slaves. The concept of equal rights for women is not part of Islamic law.

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Upside Down Logic At Work

On Wednesday Bill Bennett and Christopher Beach posted an article at Politico about the legalization of marijuana. The article points out the contradiction of a liberal philosophy that wants to legalize marijuana while banning large sodas, sugary foods, trans fat, smoking tobacco, etc.

The article points out:

In his recent New Yorker interview, President Obama remarked, “I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life.” But then he added, “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.” Of the legalization in Colorado and Washington—never mind the unresolved conflict between state and federal law—he said, “it’s important for it to go forward.”

Got that? The same president who signed into law a tough federal anti-cigarette smoking bill in 2009 now supports marijuana legalization.

The article concludes:

What explains this obvious paradox? Do these liberals think that marijuana is somehow less harmful than a Big Gulp soda or a bucket of fried chicken? It’s hard to believe that’s the case, given the vast amount of social data and medical science on the dangers of marijuana.

Marijuana is destructive, particularly when used by teenagers. Does the people who want to make it legal believe teenagers will not be able to get it and smoke it? That hasn’t worked real well with either cigarettes or alcohol. Most of us probably know a teenager who used pot and paid a price later on–either in his ability to learn, moving on to other drugs, or side effects from some of the things added to the marijuana. Are we willing to make this drug easier for teenagers to obtain? This sounds like a bunch of 60’s hippies who are finally in control wanting to mainstream their counterculture. This is not good for our children, and it is not good for our society.

 

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If You Are Going To Set A Really Bad Example, At Least Get Your Facts Right

Today’s Washington Times posted a story about President Obama’s latest claims about marijuana. The President recently stated that marijuana is no worse than cigarettes or alcohol. His statement is in direct contradiction to statements by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The article reports:

And as reported by the government’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, adolescent use of marijuana does something that alcohol does not; it causes permanent brain damage, including lowering of I.Q.

Taxpayers have spent billions of dollars warning about drugs, often about marijuana, but these efforts were dramatically undercut by the president’s comments.

As President, President Obama has a responsibility to set an example. After hearing his statement, one wonders how he would react if he caught his daughters smoking marijuana.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. There were a number of statements regarding marijuana in the interview President Obama gave to the New Yorker magazine that simply are not true. The misinformation in the article could prove to be damaging to America‘s youth. How many lives will be ruined by the belief that there is no danger in smoking marijuana?Enhanced by Zemanta

Let Little Kids Be Little Kids

Human Events posted this picture of the upcoming issue of The New Yorker magazine. The implication on the cover is that Burt and Ernie are gay. What in the world is our culture doing to young children?

new yorker

Human Events quotes The New Yorker magazine in the article:

“It’s amazing to witness how attitudes on gay rights have evolved in my lifetime,” said Jack Hunter, the artist behind the cover.  “This is great for our kids, a moment we can all celebrate.”

Little children do not have to understand all that is meant by gay rights. They need time to play with their toys and their friends and enjoy being little children. This is ridiculous.

Sesame Street has already gone on the record on this matter, stating:

Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics…they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.”

Let’s just enjoy the relationship between Burt and Ernie without worrying about the details. There is such a thing as too much information!

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Keeping The War On The Media Secret

On Friday, Ryan Lizza posted an article in “The New Yorker” entitled,  “How Prosecutors Fought to Keep Rosen’s Warrant Secret.” In order to keep the warrant secret, they had to call Rosen a co-conspirator to the crime of espionage.

Ronald C. Machen, Jr., the U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a former State Department adviser who allegedly leaked classified information to Rosen, wrote “some investigations are continued for many years because, while the evidence is not yet sufficient to bring charges, it is sufficient to have identified criminal subjects and/or criminal activity serious enough to justify continuation of the investigation.”

I am not a lawyer, but let me see if I understand this. There is not enough evidence to bring charges, so we will keep snooping through Rosen’s e-mail until we find something we can nail him with. With any luck at all, we might find an affair as we did with General Petraeus, and we can use that against him to get him under our control.

The article reports:

The new documents show that two judges separately declared that the Justice Department was required to notify Rosen of the search warrant, even if the notification came after a delay. Otherwise: “The subscriber therefore will never know, by being provided a copy of the warrant, for example, that the government secured a warrant and searched the contents of her e-mail account,” Judge John M. Facciola wrote in an opinion rejecting the Obama Administration’s argument.

Machen appealed that decision, and in September, 2010, Royce C. Lamberth, the chief judge in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, granted Machen’s request to overturn the order of the two judges.

Rosen was not indicted in the case. Kim was indicted for making unauthorized disclosures of national defense information and for making false statements to F.B.I. agents about his contacts with Rosen.

The article in the New Yorker includes pictures of all the relevant court documents. Please follow the link above to follow the events.

Attorney General Holder has been asked by President Obama to review the Justice Department’s policies concerning investigations of the media. That is really interesting since Attorney General Holder was the one who personally approved the warrant to search James Rosen’s email. Obviously, the investigation will prove that everyone in the administration was totally blameless.

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Rules For Thee, But Not For Me

National Review‘s The Corner posted an article yesterday about Gawker Media, a website that has been very free with its criticism of Mitt Romney‘s financial dealings.

The article reports:

The gossip site also has released some 950 pages of material related to Mitt Romney’s investments, mostly having to do with Bain Capital. In Gawker’s own words: “Together, they reveal the mind-numbing, maze-like, and deeply opaque complexity with which Romney has handled his $250 million fortune.”

There was nothing illegal (or even interesting) in the material released, but there is more to the story.

In December 2010, the New Yorker reported:

Gawker is organized like an international money-laundering operation. Much of its international revenues are directed through Hungary, where Denton’s mother hails from, and where some of the firm’s techies are located. But that is only part of it. Recently, Salmon reports, the various Gawker operations—Gawker Media LLC, Gawker Entertainment LLC, Gawker Technology LLC, Gawker Sales LLC—have been restructured to bring them under control of a shell company based in the Cayman Islands, Gawker Media Group Inc.

Why would a relatively small media outfit based in Soho choose to incorporate itself in a Caribbean locale long favored by insider dealers, drug cartels, hedge funds, and other entities with lots of cash they don’t want to advertise? The question virtually answers itself, but for those unversed in the intricacies of international tax avoidance Salmon spells it out: “The result is a company where 130 U.S. employees eat up the lion’s share of the the U.S. revenues, resulting in little if any taxable income, while the international income, the franchise value of the brands, and the value of the technology all stays permanently overseas, untouched by the I.R.S.”

Maybe the real villain in this story is the IRS.
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Rest In Peace, Christopher Hitchens

Christoper Hitchens died last night. Christopher Buckley at The New Yorker posted an article today remembering Mr. Hitchens. The article is a wonderful chronicle of Christopher Buckley’s relationship with Christopher Hitchens over the years. I strongly recommend following the link above and reading the whole thing. Rest in peace, Christopher.

 

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