Some sense from the NY Times

Thank Hashem for small miracles:

. . . there is no sane reason to think Lashkar-e-Taiba would shut down if the situation in Kashmir improved. Its literature is much concerned with establishing a caliphate in Central Asia, and murdering those who insult the Prophet. Its leader, Hafiz Saeed, who lives on a large estate outside Lahore bought with Saudi Money, goes about his business with minimal interference from the Pakistani government.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is part of the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders (the Qaeda franchise). Mr. Saeed’s hatreds are catholic — his bugbears include Hindus, Shiites and women who wear bikinis. He regards democracy as "a Jewish and Christian import from Europe," and considers suicide attacks to be in accordance with Islam. He has a wider strategy: "At this time our contest is Kashmir. Let’s see when the time comes. Our struggle with the Jews is always there." As he told his followers in Karachi at a rally in 2000: "There can’t be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them — cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy." In short, he has an explicit political desire to create a state of war between the religious communities in India and beyond, and bring on the endgame.

Yaacov Lozowick writes that this illustrates that "you don't have to be a right-winger to see what's happening in the world." It helps, of course.

Tags: terror, Mumbai, Lashkar-e-Taiba

IRNA: "Jewish shrine in Iran registered as national work"

This article combines two common Iranian propaganda themes. One is that Jews are well-treated and religiously free in Iran. The other is that the current regime values and cares for the country's pre-Islamic cultural heritage.

Head of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Office in Hamedan province said the old and valuable place of Esther and Mordecai tomb has been registered in country's national works list.

Asadollah Bayat told IRNA on Monday, Esther and Mordecai tomb is one of the historically important buildings in Hamedan as well as an important shrine for the Jews and one of the most ancient places in Iran.

He added the mausoleum built by stone and bricks and located in the central part of Hamedan city.

The provincial official continued, "In the main hall there is a Hebrew inscription up on the plaster work of the wall."

There are two exquisite wooden-tomb boxes one of which is from an earlier date and bears an inscription in Hebrew.

Bayat stressed, "Jews gather here in the middle of March every year, pray, fast and make a ceremony which is called "Yodim Ceremony".

Esther was an Achaemenian Queen and wife of King Xeroxes. Mordecai was her uncle.

Purim and Shushan Purim, Adar 14 and 15, correspond to March 10 and 11 this year. I don't know what the phrase "Yodim ceremony" refers to. See here for more on whether the site mentioned is, in fact, the tomb of Mordechai and Esther.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Tags: Iran, Judaism, Purim

Help the Ayatollah find the right word

Irangrish!

Provisional Friday Prayers leader of Tehran said here Friday in his second sermon US administrations and power circles are unfortunately under supportive umbrella of Israel, which is highly previous for both.

According to IRNA Political Desk reporter, addressing thousands of Tehrani worshipers at central campus of Tehran University, Ayatollah Emami Kashani focused on recent global developments, adding, "As some analysts advise, regarding the United States we need to wait till the new government would take charge."
He added, "Some observers argue that the American people's vote for Mr. Obama had the message that they are fed up with the policies pursued by Bush and the Republicans and have taken refuge in the camp of the Democrats."

Ayatollah Emami Kashani said, "Electing of a black president was opening a new chapter in the history of America, since from among the black folks that had once no value in the United States there comes the first man of that country, which is the result of the wrong policies pursued by Bush both inside America and around the world." Member of the Leadership Experts Assembly posed the question whether the turning of this chapter in the political history of the United States would also lead to turning a new chapter in the mentality and spirit of America, or not, reiterating, "In order to find the correct answer to that question we need to wait and see." Addressing the majority of Americans who have with their votes ended the rule of the Republicans, Emami Kashani said, "You should demand your new government to abandon pursing the previous policies." This week's Friday preacher of Tehran added, "According to news dispatches, a group of US elites have sent a letter to President Elect Obama, asking him to heed certain points, including trying to create balance in the Middle East and to accept the fact that the only main player in the region is Iran."

He said, "The US administration has to believe that Iran is great and that it is necessary to end the outdated policies of threatening and trying to intimidate us."
Emami Kashani expressed hope that the American people would alertly wear off the ominous shadow that is spread over their skies and domineering over the decision making of the US policy makers so that the United States would not be humiliated more than it already has been in the world.

Member of the Expediency Council then focused on Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear program and the IAEA reports on it, reiterating, "The world has come up with the conclusion that Iran is not after taking military advantage of its nuclear program and the point was mentioned in agency's 14th report, stressing that no deviation has been traced to date in Iran's activities."

"Keeping that and the foreign developments in mind, how should we act inside our own country", asked Ayatollah Kashani, adding, "We need to remain alert and this alertness, national unity, and leadership of the Supreme Leader are signs of the divine leadership of the 12th Imam, may God hasten his reappearance, and I hope such blessings would remain intact till his reappearance and the establishment of a blessed global government."

Addressing the world and the Western countries, Ayatollah Emami Kashani reiterated, "The unity existing here is very grand and you should not feel glad observing differences of opinion."

Referring to the recent gathering at the Islamic Parliament, Majlis, on the 30th anniversary of its establishment, he said, "People with various tendencies were present at that gathering, and they were all united, with a single voice, which should have a message for the world."

He added, "All the parties, groups and tendencies have their personal preferences and internal approaches, but when the system's interests and the final goal is in question, they realize they are all in the same boat, and that is very valuable, so the world had better realize that such tools as sanctions, threats, and intimidation are totally outdated today."

Update: Bloggers alertly wear off the ominous shadow that is spread over their skies in two recent blog carnivals: Haveil Havalim and Shiny happy dhimmi.

Tags: Iran, Irangrish, Kashani, nukes, J-blogs, blog-carnivals

Anti-Israel X-mas Carols

Inevitable really:

Leading members of Britain’s Jewish and Christian communities have condemned a prominent Anglican church for holding a service where traditional carols were rewritten to attack Israel.

The Rector of St James’s Piccadilly, the Rev Charles Hedley, said that he would think twice before allowing the service to take place in his church again after he received dozens of complaints.

The offices of Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Carey of Clifton, his predecessor, are among those who have criticised the service. The event was organised by anti-Israel campaigners, including one Jewish group, and featured carols that had been rewritten by an unnamed Jewish parody writer.

The Twelve Days of Christmas was sung as: "Twelve assassinations/ Eleven homes demolished/ Ten wells obstructed/ Nine sniper towers/ Eight gunships firing/ Seven checkpoints blocking/ Six tanks a-rolling/ Five settlement rings/ Four falling bombs/ Three trench guns/ Two trampled doves/ And an uprooted olive tree.”

The event, "Bethlehem Now: Nine Alternative Lessons and Carols", was organised by the group Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and the Palestinian group Open Bethlehem.

Those taking part included Ang Swee Chai, the author and orthopaedic surgeon, Baroness Tonge, who was sacked from the Liberal Democrats’ front bench in 2004 after saying that she would consider becoming a suicide bomber if she were Palestinian, and Jocelyn Hurndall, the mother of Tim Hurndall, the peace campaigner who died after he was shot by an Israeli soldier.

Might I suggest this, this, this, this, and this?

Tags: Moonbats, Hyper-Moonbats, song-parodies

It's that Mental Power

From time to time, in our more Songun and Juche-oriented posts, we visit the subject of "mental power":

Believing in people as in Heaven serves as a fundamental idea of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) in the nation-building, a basis of all its line and policies and a starting point of state activities.

Rodong Sinmun Wednesday says this in a signed article.

It goes on:

The DPRK advancing under the leadership of the great Party regards the popular masses as the most valuable and mighty beings in the world, deems it as a fundamental principle governing the state activities to faithfully serve the people and solves all the issues arising in socialist construction in reliance on the popular masses.

The country, the army and the security organ and monumental edifices and various honorable titles in the DPRK go by the word of people. This clearly proves how dear the DPRK holds the people.

As in People's Commissar for Crushing the People's Will, Second Class.

The DPRK lays down any line and policy, placing the people's interests above anything else, and builds any structure in such a manner as to enable the people to substantially benefit from it.

The people in the country are given an ample opportunity of learning, keeping themselves in good health and leading a cultural and emotional life full of revolutionary spirit and optimism thanks to the systems of free education and free medical care and various popular policies enforced by the state.

The WPK built the DPRK's indestructible ideological position by achieving single-minded unity with the popular masses, consolidated the invulnerable military position by dint of the mental power of all the servicepersons and people and reinforced the economic and cultural positions by enlisting the inexhaustible strength of the popular masses.

The Korean people have performed epoch-making miracles in every period of the revolution and construction and at their each phase true to the leadership of the Party and the leaders up to this date when they are building a great prosperous powerful socialist nation since the period of laying the foundation for founding the state and the early period of nation-building. They are highly proud of this.

They have grown strong enough to successfully undertake any difficult task for building a great prosperous powerful socialist nation under the care of the great Party. There are neither difficulties insurmountable nor fortress unconquerable for them as long as they remain united as firm as a rock around the great Party.

They tell me that the cheese dip is the key to a great party.

Tags: North Korea, Juche-coupes

MPAC-UK justifies the Mumbai massacre

The point of view from which this is written can't conceive that Muslims themselves have anything to do with the lack of democracy in Muslim countries or that Muslims are anything but victims in situations where Muslims are largely being killed by other Muslims. From this point of view, all Muslim death, suffering, and dysfunction is a Western crime. Not everyone who thinks like this is going to personally become a terrorist, and the author makes the usual disclaimers that Mumbai was a "terrible and tragic event," but communities that think like this are undoubtedly going to be fertile recruiting grounds for terrorism. Behold a large part of the problem:

[...] Thus Muslim young men are taking up terrorism in the face of state terrorism. It’s terrorism to fight terrorism; an evil reaction to an even more evil action.

Our analysis is sombre. It will not get better; it will get worse. ‘Global jihad’ is growing for many reasons, most of all because the governing elites will never change their barbaric policy towards the Muslims. This in turn will keep the anger burning and spreading, as young Muslims fear of the West turns to anger and a loss of fear.

The Media who are currently siding with the Governing elites too are playing more a propaganda role rather than being a truly free media. Thus neither their citizens nor most Muslims know why this is occurring. Keeping the masses ignorant and in fear seems to be the policy. No one in power wants to face up to the facts. Too much is at stake in the shadowy corridors of power to change direction now.

Of course young Muslim men have been given no other option or route to bring about the freedom of their people. Western, pro-Israeli foreign policy has ensured dictators rule them, starving their democracies. So there are two roads in the Muslim world for a young Muslim man who wants to stand up against the terrorism against his people – surrender (pre-occupy himself with pseudo-religious excuses) or fight. [...]

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Tags: Islam, terror, Mumbai, MPAC-UK

Arab News: "Oil may fall to single digit, warns economist"

Do tell:

The steep fall in oil prices due to the ongoing economic crisis could result in drastically low oil prices ranging between $15-$20 per barrel or even a single-digit per barrel.

The worst-case scenario will remind us of the situation of the 1990s Asian crisis, a senior economist warned yesterday. Simon Williams, chief economist, Gulf markets at HSBC, in a briefing titled “Shelter from the Storm,” held yesterday at the Ritz-Carlton, Bahrain, said oil was the bedrock of the regional economies.

"The Gulf is still digesting the oil price shock as the shift to a new oil price equilibrium has fundamentally changed the Gulf as an economic story. Here everything is directly or indirectly linked to the hydrocarbon industry, and if falling oil prices touched its lowest then everything will be at a grinding halt.

"The GCC as a region has immense hydrocarbon resources heavily dependent on oil income which constitutes half of the gross domestic product of these six nations," Williams added. The economist, who was joined by David Bloom, global head of foreign exchange strategy, HSBC, during a joint presentation on Global Markets Outlook ‘09, said the ongoing economic turmoil had already hit hard GCC markets which lost about 50-60 percent of its total value in the last 10 months. [...]

So what will prices at the pump look like?

Illusions alive and well

"What died in Mumbai," according to Arthur Herman writing in the National Review Online, "were certain illusions about the war on terror, and how to deal with terrorists." He explains:

. . . India’s record on counterterrorism is abysmal, almost deliberately so. The government in New Delhi steadfastly maintains a wall of separation between law-enforcement agencies like the one that used to separate the FBI and CIA before the Patriot Act, and keeps counterterrorist units underfunded and undermanned. It has repeatedly given way to the demands of Islamic radical groups and fundamentalist lobbyists in the name of "cultural sensitivity." India was the first non-Islamic country to ban Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses back in 1988.

India has no preventive detention laws; no laws to protect the identity of anti-terrorist witnesses; and no laws to allow domestic wiretapping without court order. In 2004, the new Congress Party government revoked India’s version of the Patriot Act, even as the Indian media was loudly condemning the U.S. for “torture” at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.

In short, the Indian government has waged the war on terror in much the same way that liberals and many Democrats have been urging the U.S. to carry it out. The result is that more than 4,000 Indians have died in attacks since 2004 — more than any other nation in the war on terror besides Iraq.

The article is a must-read, but the author is probably over-optimistic about those illusions. Juan Cole frets that "Bush and Cheney" did more than breach holes in security that the terrorists had already exploited:

The 9/11 hijackings exploited three simple flaws in airline security of a procedural sort. Cockpit doors were not thought to need strengthening. It was assumed that hijackers could not fly planes. And no one expected hijackers to kill themselves. Once those assumptions are no longer made, security is already much better. Likewise, the Mumbai terrorists exploited flaws in coastal, urban and hotel security, which need to be addressed.

But Bush and Cheney hardly contented themselves with counter-terrorism measures. They dropped a thousand-page "p.a.t.r.i.o.t. act" on Congress one night and insisted they vote on it the next day. They created outlaw spaces like Guantanamo and engaged in torture (or encouraged allies to torture for them). They railroaded innocent people. They deeply damaged American democracy.

Herman concludes: "Britain and the United States have learned how to deal effectively with terrorism the hard way. Maybe this time Indians will, as well." We are about to have the man Juan Cole voted for in the Oval Office. Besides whatever happens in India, I hope the U.S. doesn't unlearn how to deal with terrorism.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Tags: Mumbai, terrorism

"U.S. War Maniacs' Attempt at Igniting War against DPRK under Fire"

Welcome to the insane asylum. I bet you didn't know that "U. S. war maniacs" are plotting to "unleash a new war, a nuclear war, on the Korean Peninsula."

The U.S. war maniacs are contemplating equipping its forces present in south Korea with latest war hardware. It is evidently dangerous arms buildup to unleash a new war, a nuclear war, on the Korean Peninsula, Minju Joson today observes this in a by-lined commentary.

It goes on:

What is noteworthy is that the U.S. is reinforcing its forces with main focus put on its navy and air force.

Clear is a sinister aim sought by the U.S. by replacing the structure of its armed forces centering on the ground force by the one centering on the navy and air force.

The U.S. war-like forces are greatly fearful that they may sustain retaliatory strike from the Korean People's Army in case they ignite a war of aggression against the DPRK. In other words, they scheme to let the south Korean puppet army engage in ground warfare and their forces play main roles in the sea and sky in fighting the war of aggression on the DPRK to be launched by them in a bid to minimize their casualties.

If the U.S. forces stationed in south Korea are reorganized as the forces centering on the navy and air force, the danger of the outbreak of the war will increase on the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. forces centering on the naval and air forces can mount a preemptive strike at the DPRK any moment. The combined landing drill of the south Korean marine corps and the U.S. marines and the taking off and landing exercise on runway for an emergency use staged recently within the framework of the Hoguk exercises are a clear proof of it.

Should the U.S. war-like forces ignite a war at any cost they will sustain more miserable defeat than what they suffered in the Korean war in the 50s of the last century, the commentary warned, saying that the U.S. had better stop dangerous arms buildup for provoking a war of aggression on the DPRK and pull its forces out of south Korea at once.

And then Korea can re-unify under the loving care of the Dear Leader.

Tags: North Korea, Juche-coupes

That's a relief

"Can al-Qaeda be Defeated?" asks a recent opinion piece on the attacks in Mumbai. On the ideological level, according to this author, things are looking up:

A more fundamental question is whether al-Qaeda can be defeated. On one level, the answer is yes. The puritanical vision of a unified Islamic theocracy at permanent war with nonMuslims no longer appeals even to alienated young Muslims. Not only is its anachronistic conception of a new caliphate unfeasible; in Bradford as well as Baghdad, Muslims find the carnage orchestrated from caves on the Afghan border an insult to their faith.

Except for the ones that volunteered for the operation that occasioned this article, of course.

Tags: Mumbai, terror

Ahmadinejad: "Iran ready to help in drawing up justice-based economic system"

Iran, the OPEC nation that instituted gas-rationing last year, wants to help "all-governments" establish an economic system based on "rights of human beings and nations and friendship and serving masses":

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that the Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to cooperate with all governments to devise a justice-based economic system.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to cooperate with all governments and institutions that care for justice and welfare of nations, in draw up a fair economic system," President Ahmadinejad said in an address to the four-day UN Conference on Financing for Development.

President Ahmadinejad said it is necessary to assess the consequences of the ongoing "unprecedented" economic crisis hitting the capitalist block.

"Evidently, identification of root causes and factors (behind the crisis) is the best way of tackling the problem," he added.

He enumerated the main causes of the current crisis as follows:
I. Nature of the capitalist economy
II. Unfair and dictated approaches
III. Development planning;
IV. Global monetary, financial and banking systems
V. Aggressions, conflicts and interventions
President Ahmadinejad proposed having an economic system in which there will be no room for lies, deception, harming others' economy and domination.

He said all governments and thinkers should think of an economic system that is based on justice, rights of human beings and nations and friendship and serving masses.

He added that there should be an economic system on the basis of ethics, honesty and respect for others, aiming to establish a society based on justice and public welfare and not based on unlimited and excessive profit making.

He said that especially, an independent and new monetary, financial and banking mechanism should be designed and implemented.

A progressive planning system should be based on indigenous and inward looking models and on justice and real contribution of all, he added.

"It is incumbent upon all of us to resist dictation and ambitions of capitalist world and invite them (the capitalist states) to justice, friendship and abandoning discrimination," he added.

Golly, Mr. Mahmoud. I guess you're right. We're going to stop being capitalist and start basing our economic system on friendship and serving masses.

Update: The latest Haveil Havalim is not based on unlimited and excessive profit making. Another blog carnival based on indigenous and inward looking models and on justice and real contribution of all is Shiny happy dhimmi.

"Three-revolution standard-bearers of the Taehongdan Potato Processing Factory" brave fire to save "eternal revolutionary relics"

Nothing compared to this, but somewhat in the same vein:

They who have grown to be ardent fighters defending the leader at the cost of their lives, the people strong in idea and faith in the course of the Three-Revolution Red Flag Movement are making uninterrupted innovations and feats, surmounting manifold difficulties and trails through the vigorous three revolutions.

When a fire broke out unexpectedly near the revolutionary site, the three-revolution standard-bearers of the Taehongdan Potato Processing Factory made no scruple to plunge themselves into the flames to save the eternal revolutionary relics. Their deed showed the people what is the worthwhile life.

In a way.

Tags: North Korea, Juche-coupes

Pal Press: "Hamas militias abduct several girl students from 'Al Aqsa' university in Khan Yunis"

Just some news:

Hamas militias abducted today several young girl students from "Al Aqsa" university in Khan Yunis southern of Gaza Strip.

The students were wounded inside the university campus after being attacked by Hamas militia men.

Reliable sources said that Hamas militias raided "Al Amal city" hospital affiliated to the Palestinian Red Crescent, a number of injured students were nabbed from inside the hospital.

Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis which is under the control of Hamas rejected to receive students who were wounded by Hamas militias.

The ones "nabbed" in the previous paragraph?

Tags: Hamas, Palestinians

eHarmony displays unexpected enthusiasm for new mission

eHarmony, the matchmaking service founded by an evangelical Christian, recently announced, as a settlement in a lawsuit, that it would expand its service to cater to people seeking same-sex partners. Despite the fact that the new developments stem from litigation, the company seems to be warming to its new clientele. Explained company spokesman, Fred Shadchan, "Suppose you had an unshakable commitment to traditional morality. It isn't like you'd object to having a bunch of gay people put their prospects for successful long-term relationships into your hands." Shadchan admits that eHarmony's famed match-making algorithms need some fine-tuning when it comes to men-seeking-men and women-seeking-women. "So far the couples we have tried to match have done nothing but fight around the clock," admitted Shadchan. "Some of those people are really physically fit, too. They inflict damage when they're riled."

Tags: eHarmony, litigation

Middle Climate trashed

George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian, offers some metaphors about our President:

George Bush is behaving like a furious defaulter whose home is about to be repossessed. Smashing the porcelain, ripping the doors off their hinges, he is determined that there will be nothing worth owning by the time the bastards kick him out. His midnight regulations, opening America's wilderness to logging and mining, trashing pollution controls, tearing up conservation laws, will do almost as much damage in the last 60 days of his presidency as he achieved in the foregoing 3,000.

His backers - among them the nastiest pollutocrats in America - are calling in their favours. But this last binge of vandalism is also the Bush presidency reduced to its essentials. Destruction is not an accidental product of its ideology. Destruction is the ideology. Neoconservatism is power expressed by showing that you can reduce any part of the world to rubble.

If it is too late to prevent runaway climate change, the Bush team must carry much of the blame. His wilful trashing of the Middle Climate - the interlude of benign temperatures which allowed human civilisation to flourish - makes the mass murder he engineered in Iraq only the second of his crimes against humanity. [...]

That rhetoric suggests that the buzzards are already circling around the Middle Climate--those Iraqis aren't coming back from the dead, after all. Later he concludes "Can we do it? Search me. Reviewing the new evidence, I have to admit that we might have left it too late." He goes on, of course, to affirm that we must try, but I think he fails to appreciate that we are approaching a policy consensus. Global Warming skeptics don't feel we need to do anything. Global Warming true-believers have grave doubts that anything can be done. So let's not do anything. We'll still have a motivation to develop alternate energy sources just to keep the world's wealth out of the hands of the Saudis, and most of the envisioned alternate energy sources involve less carbon emissions anyway. So let's concentrate on the economy.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Tags: global warming, global melt-down

Vodka bargains on the horizon?

Interesting. I wonder if there is any news from Scotland?

With retailers struggling to find credit and ordinary Russians being forced to change their spending, a vast lake of undrunk vodka is accumulating in distilleries across Russia.

Official statistics indicate a collapse in demand for vodka over the past two months. November inventories of unsold vodka stock have risen to 82 million litres, a 600 per cent increase from 2007, according to the National Alcohol Association.

The vodka lake has grown even as desperate producers have slashed output, which fell by 15 per cent in October according to industry estimates. [...]

Lechaim!

Tags: vodka, mashke, lechaim

IRIB: "Peruvian people call Bush fascist"

IRIB stands for "Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting." Mullahs love Moonbats. The article translates the slogan about "Hambre"--"hunger"--and "Desempleo"--"unemployment." "Fuera Bush" means "Get out, Bush"? And who is that on the poster on the left? Che Guevara is on the right, of course.

Hundreds of people rallied Saturday in Peru outside of the US ambassador's residence to denounce visiting President George W. Bush, blaming him for poverty and human rights abuses.

"Fascist Bush, you are the terrorist!" hundreds of people chanted as they marched through the streets of the capital of Peru.

It was the second straight day of peaceful demonstrations against Bush on the final foreign trip of his presidency. Bush is
attending a summit of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) body focused on the ailing global economy.

The protesters marched to the ambassador's residence denouncing Bush and the summit. One sign read, "APEC means hunger and unemployment."

"The neo-liberalism practiced by this bloc has plunged Latin American people into misery while the rich are getting richer," AFP quoted a student organizer as saying.

Some of the students dressed in orange jumpsuits and white masks to denounce the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba for "war on terror" suspects.

"This is to show the inhumane situation in which Arabs accused of terrorism are being imprisoned," the organizer said.

If only Che were here. He'd know what to do.

Tags: Iran, Peru, moonbats

"Imperialists' Despicable Scheme to Lead DPRK to 'Reform' and 'Opening' Flailed"

Don't hold it in, say what's on your mind:

"Reform" and "opening" touted by the imperialists are a reactionary plot to block social progress and stem the trend of history and a sinister move to destabilize and undermine other countries under the signboard of "globalization" in a bid to attain their hegemonic purpose, says Rodong Sinmun Friday in a signed article.

The article says: The imperialists are using "reform" and "opening" as pretexts for political pressure, economic sanctions and blockade, while putting them up as preconditions. They have gone the lengths of crying out for "reform" and "opening" when dealing with humanitarian issues in a bid to make humanitarianism a plaything for their political bargaining.

What should not be overlooked is the pressure put by them upon the DPRK to accept "reform" and "opening" despite its firm adherence to the socialist principle.

They are groundlessly accusing the DPRK of opting for "isolation" and "closure", not "reform" and "opening". This is nothing but sheer sophism which can be uttered by those who distort reality and make profound confusion of right and wrong.

As far as reform is concerned, the DPRK transformed the old social system in a revolutionary manner decades ago and it has carried on a steady renovation drive to get rid of everything old and backward and create everything new.

So the whole concept of reform doesn't apply.

As for opening, the DPRK has always kept its door open. The DPRK has boosted foreign relations since it identified independence, peace and friendship with the avowed basic idea of its foreign policy.

The imperialists are unilaterally admonishing and pressurizing other countries to opt for "reform" and "opening" while not transforming their outdated social system and unpopular system though they are vociferous about "reform" and "opening". What a brigandish behavior.

Hey, we're implementing hope and change.

The ulterior aim sought by the imperialists and their followers in pressurizing the DPRK to opt for "reform" and "opening" is to bring down its socialist system and restore the capitalist system in it.

Their moves to destabilize and undermine Korean-style socialism centering on the popular masses through "reform" and "opening" will never work on the DPRK but are bound to go bust.

The people of all countries aspiring after independence should clearly see through the reactionary and dangerous nature of the imperialists' scenario to lead them to "reform" and "opening" and react to them with vigilance.

Blog carnivals aspiring after independence and reacting to Imperialists with vigilance include Haveil Havalim, KCC, and Shiny happy dhimmi.

Tags: North Korea, Juche-coupes, blog carnivals

Obama's stimulus plan to destroy jobs

Does the following sound good to you?

President-elect Barack Obama signaled on Saturday that he would pursue a far more ambitious plan of spending and tax cuts than anything he outlined on the campaign trail, setting the tone for a recovery effort that could absorb and define much of his term.

In the Democrats’ weekly radio address, Mr. Obama said he would direct his economic team to craft a two-year stimulus plan with the goal of saving or creating 2.5 million jobs.

You might want to read this on HRDC (Human Resources Development Canada):

A basic understanding of economics, however, is necessary to grasp that there is no free lunch. For every job "created" by government, an unidentifiable job will, tit-for-tat, be destroyed in the private sector.

The images of earnest men and women put to work allegedly by HRDC flood the propagandist Canadian national broadcaster, the CBC. The multitudes thrown out of work because private economic activity have been crowded out by taxing or borrowing to finance job programs remain invisible. So, too, does the destruction of jobs and reduction in investments, purchasing and overall wealth that ensues when money is taxed away from Canadians and funneled to the HRDC's patronage playground. Investors suffer the same fate and are much less likely to take employment-generating risks with their capital. Government borrowing simply serves to reduce capital available to the private sector. A further diminution of assets occurs when government expands the money supply and causes inflation in order to finance job creation schemes. [...]

The reason government job programs destroy jobs also lies in the fact that much of the money extracted from taxpayers does not go to the wages of job recipients, but to the elaborate bureaucracy of consultants and planners who administer the programs . . .

Perhaps Obama should emulate Bill Clinton.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Tags: Obama, Clinton, economics, job destruction

Pirates face Islamists, high overhead

Business seems to be booming, but is there a piracy melt-down on the horizon? From Reuters:

Dozens of Somali Islamist insurgents stormed a port on Friday hunting the pirates behind the seizure of a Saudi supertanker that was the world's biggest hijack, a local elder said. [...]

The Sirius Star -- a Saudi vessel with a $100 million oil cargo and 25-man crew from the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Croatia, Poland and Britain -- is believed anchored offshore near Haradheere, about half-way up Somalia's long coastline.

"Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country and hijacking its ship is a bigger crime than other ships," Sheikh Abdirahim Isse Adow, an Islamist spokesman, told Reuters. "Haradheere is under our control and we shall do something about that ship." [...]

A pirate identifying himself as Jamii Adam told the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that negotiations were taking place with the ship's owners, saying the ransom demanded was not excessive but declining to give a figure.

He said it had cost the pirates $500,000 to seize the vessel. "We bore many costs to hijack it," he said. [...]

Maybe they could use some bailout money to retool and go green.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Tags: Somalia, Piracy, Islamism, bailouts