UN Opens with Festivities; Circus Comes to Town

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Wednesday September 23, 2009 · 9:43 PM PDT

2009/09/23 · 21:43

There's a wild party going on down in New York City tonight, and you're footing the bill.

The United Nations, including its various "peacekeeping" and "anti-poverty" agencies spend upwards of $27 billion per year. I do not think that peace has broken out in the world since 1945; quite the contrary. We get treated to the spectacle of leaders from around the world coming in and making grand and not-so-grand speeches. Huge amounts of money pour in from U.S., Japanese, British and Canadian taxpayers for what purpose?; to listen to Ahmenejad's diatribes.

If non-Western dictators hate us, let them rant elsewhere, and at their own (not mine or their peoples') expense.

The party must be grand; they've shut down the FDR and lots of other roads for it. Someone's having a good time. And politicians (excerps below, including such luminaries as Obama and Ahmejenejad) bloviate.

jbgatkinkos

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Sunday June 14, 2009 · 8:04 PM PDT

2009/06/14 · 20:04

No one doubts that the Democrats earned their majority, fair and square, in the N.Y. Senate, breaking 42 years of G.O.P. domination. Last week, the G.O.P. tried to steal it back (link to article). Excerpt below:

June 14, 2009

Senate Coup Exposes Albany’s Lack of Order

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

ALBANY — As New York’s governor, David A. Paterson might be expected to act as the leader of his party. But when two renegade Democrats handed control of the State Senate to the Republicans, he said there was little he could do but vent.

"I have no way to actually dictate the process, other than to use this forum to express my feelings about it," Mr. Paterson, a Democrat, said at a news conference on Monday.

The governor was not the only one flailing.

jbgatkinkos

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Saturday May 09, 2009 · 9:28 PM PDT

2009/05/09 · 21:28

Quote from article (link) that is definite food for thought:

The President Who Hates His Country

In the last century, the impassioned words and actions of patriots like Winston Churchill – along with America’s heroic help and sacrifice – saved Europe. The eloquence and actions of "I’ve been to the mountaintop" Martin Luther King Jr. brought America to an unprecedented level of social justice.

jbgatkinkos

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Tuesday November 04, 2008 · 10:29 PM PST

2008/11/04 · 22:29

I will start this diary, which I hope will be read for what it is and not immediately ridiculed. I voted for McCain. I remain, notwithstanding a result I did not want, profoundly hopeful for our land, and eagerly anticipating the next four to eight years.

jbgatkinkos

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Saturday November 24, 2007 · 2:14 PM PST

2007/11/24 · 14:14

This morning, I chaperoned a field trip of my older son's Grade 6 Class to New York City's Museum of Jewish Heritage (often incorrectly called the "Holocaust Museum"). Because of the age of the children, we did not visit the Holocaust section. That did not preserve me from breaking down and sobbing in the museum's displays.

jbgatkinkos

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Friday November 23, 2007 · 1:06 PM PST

2007/11/23 · 13:06

Jihad is the Koranic codification and justification of desert raiding. Mass media, the UN, certain posters on many boards, and certain former officials of France, among others, would have people believe that the Arabs were thrust into a bellicose role towards the world by Israeli aggression and intransigence. This school of thought blames Muslim-generated strife throughout the world on the "sense of hopelessness" engendered by Israel. This is not close to being true.

Early on, the Hebrews differentiated themselves from their neighbors by being more civilized. G-d stopped child sacrifice among the Jews, leading Abraham to the edge of killing his son, Isaac and then pulling back. The lesson learned by the Hebrews is that we don't do that, even though the surrounding tribes did. One wonders if the "surrounding tribes" have changed much, given their proclivity to send impressionable children as walking bombs onto Israeli buses and into jammed public facilities. And don't forget 911 either in this regard.

jbgatkinkos

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Monday October 29, 2007 · 12:50 PM PDT

2007/10/29 · 12:50

The United Nations was founded out of the ashes of World War II for the noble purpose of ensuring that the earth would never know war or genocide again. The embers of the Nazi gas chambers were still hot. The barely alive, near corpses of Holocaust survivors staggered in the camps of Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Dachau, Bergen Belsen, Treblinka and other such place. The Nazis had finished slaughtering millions of people for no other reason than that they didn't fit the definition of "Aryan" (as if Hitler was blonde and blue-eyed).

Japanese had just concluded an epic slaughter of Chinese. Numerous Japanese were cremated in the fires of Tokyo, and died in the mushroom clouds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The world literally stank of slaughter and death.

The "solution" to the problems starting WW I hadn't worked. The French, Brits and US levied an oppressive "peace" on the Germans, which meant there was no peace. The Middle East went from feudal satrapy under the Ottomans to a tinder box under the League of Nations mandates. Thus, progressives throughout the world united to form the UN out of the ashes of WW II.

jbgatkinkos

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Saturday September 22, 2007 · 1:08 PM PDT

2007/09/22 · 13:08

The Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, and my observance of the dignified, reflective nature of the observance, inspired the writing of this diary. Since I went to services last night, this is a diary in the true sense of the word; designed to record thoughts as they occur.

The temple I went to had approximately 1000 people worshiping, in first shift services, and another thousand were due for second shift. The people came and went peacefully, in a civil and orderly manner. The Rabbi gave a cerebral "sermon" on the hazards of atheism as popularized in recent best-sellers. I am sure that not everyone agreed with the sermon, but the discussion about it was civilized and respectful.

When one opens the news, it is rife with displays of "playing the victim card", where the "victims" are more or less helpless before greater forces. More often than not, their response involves varying degrees of dysfunctionality and even violence.

jbgatkinkos

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Tuesday September 11, 2007 · 5:10 PM PDT

2007/09/11 · 17:10

This is the sixth anniversary of the senseless slaughter of civilian perpetrated on citizens of the United States, Great Britain, Canada and other countries, in the name of religious and political fanaticism, by rabid followers of a false G-d. The attacks came on a brilliantly clear day, and had the force and directness of a clean, harsh and hot wind from the Arabian deserts; our way of life could not stand, because of the softness, decadence and freedom it afforded. The West’s way of life, providing for material prosperity, relative freedom for all citizens, regardless of race or religion, and unfettered speech is not consistent with the needs of a religion based on submission by most of their citizens, and dhimmitude for "other peoples of the book".

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UN Opens with Festivities; Circus Comes to Town

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True Meaning of Jihad, and its Reactionary Origins

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