Saturday, August 26, 2006

NYT MORE ANTI-ISRAEL THAN AL JAZEERA!

First some hypocrisy from the usual suspects that should surprise no-one:

Here are two stories about the Middle East conflict: Rights organizations accuse Israel of war crimes: "Amnesty International Wednesday published findings that point to an Israeli policy of deliberate destruction of Lebanese civilian infrastructure, which included war crimes, during the recent conflict".

and:

Annan deeply concerned about Israeli violations of ceasefire: "United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan was in touch with top Israeli and Lebanese officials Saturday following an Israeli raid in eastern Lebanon which he warned endangers the fragile calm that has generally held in the region since Monday".

Neither story shows that the United Nations or Amnesty International concerned about the use of civilians as shields by the Hezbollah to rocket Israeli civilians. Or the murder of opponents of Hezbollah--or the refusal of Hezbollah to give it its weapons, as per the UN agreement. Again, more reason to believe that Annan and company are really fronting for the terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah--why pay any attention to these apologists for murders. World War II had Quisling, the War on Terrorism has Kofi Annan.

Via Steven Frank

But note the comment below from Taranto

The anti-Israel group Amnesty International has issued a report accusing the Jewish state of "war crimes." Blogger David Bernstein does a good job taking apart the report, noting, for example, that Amnesty International faults Israel for hitting military targets, such as bridges, roads, seaports and Beirut's international airport. This news report offers another important counterbalance:

"During the four week war Hezbollah fired 3,900 rockets at Israeli towns and cities with the aim of inflicting maximum civilian casualties. The Israeli government says that 44 Israeli civilians were killed in the bombardments and 1,400 wounded. AI has not issued a report accusing Hezbollah of war crimes.


The New York Times account, by contrast, quotes an Israeli official as rejecting the Amnesty International allegations, but it makes no mention of Hezbollah's unquestioned war crimes. In this sense, at least, the Times is more anti-Israel than the organization that produced the other news report-- which, by the way, is al-Jazeera.

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FORGET THE WAR: THE U.S. LEFT IS NOW CAMPAIGNING AGAINST WAL-MART!



Leftist hatred of success completely overwhelms their thinking: ""Imagine a private group that pays billions in taxes, creates millions of jobs and sells things at ultra-low prices. Too good to be true? It's called Wal-Mart-and Democrats, for some reason, want to kill it off... This is all part of a recent trend among Democratic politicians using Wal-Mart as a foil to ingratiate themselves with middle-class voters. This may be good politics. We don't know. But those who participate in such Wal-Mart-bashing reveal themselves to be economic illiterates of the most dangerous sort... A study by economic consultant Global Insight found that, from 1985 to 2004, Wal-Mart slashed food-at-home prices by 9.1%, goods prices by 4.2% and overall consumer prices by 3.1%. If those cuts don't sound huge, consider that, all told, they saved mostly poor and middle-class consumers $263 billion-or $895 per person and $2,329 per household. By now, of course, it's become obvious that Democrats aren't so much anti-Wal-Mart as they are pro-organized labor... Yet despite unions' widely disseminated claims, the wages that Wal-Mart pays its employees are competitive. In 2004, Global Insight found that the average wage nationwide for jobs equivalent to Wal-Mart's was $8.46 an hour. Wal-Mart paid $9.17. Put bluntly, the war against Wal-Mart Stores is a war against the poor, and it's shocking to watch a major political party carry it out... A Zogby Poll...found that 85% of frequent Wal-Mart shoppers pulled the lever for President Bush in 2004, and that 88% of people who never shop there voted for John Kerry. Maybe the split in this country isn't so much red state versus blue, but Wal-Mart vs. non-Wal-Mart. And since 20% of Americans are Wal-Mart shoppers, Democrats might think twice before alienating them any more than they have so far."

Another reason why the Left hate a store that is good for the poor: "What is behind all the furor, and what exactly are Democratic candidates hoping to gain by jumping on the anti-Wal-Mart bandwagon? It's about unions, or the lack thereof, in Wal-Mart's employee ranks. A review of the major anti-Wal-Mart organizations campaigning against the company reveals that they are all union-funded".

Even the L.A. Times thinks it is absurd to campaign against Wal-Mart: "The gusto with which even moderate Democrats are bashing Wal-Mart is bound to backfire. Not only does it take the party back to the pre-Clinton era, when Democrats were perceived as reflexively anti-business, it manages to make Democrats seem like out-of-touch elitists to the millions of Americans who work and shop at Wal-Mart. One reason the Democrats may have a tin ear on this subject is demographic. Certainly most of the party's urban liberal activists are far removed from the Wal-Mart phenomenon. The retailer has thrived mainly in small towns and exurbs, which is one reason a Zogby poll found that three-quarters of weekly Wal-Mart shoppers voted for President Bush in 2004, and why 8 out of 10 people who have never shopped at Wal-Mart voted for John Kerry. Denouncing the retailer may make sense if the goal is to woo primary activists, but it's a disastrous way to reach out to the general electorate. Or to govern, for that matter."

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ELSEWHERE

Mark Steyn on Iraq: "To begin something and be unable to stick with it to the finish is far more damaging to your reputation than if you'd never begun it in the first place. Nitwit Democrats think anything that can be passed off as a failure in Iraq will somehow diminish only Bush and the neocons. In reality -- a concept with which Democrats seem only dimly acquainted -- it would diminish the nation, and all but certainly end the American moment."

Profiling: "The fact remains that young Middle Eastern males have committed a disproportionate amount of violent terror attacks in recent years. Accordingly, it is simply a waste of resources to subject all airline passengers, from grandmothers to toddlers, to equal scrutiny, while refusing to spend more time investigating passengers who come from the group from which most terrorists spring nowadays."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here). Other backups here

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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