Garbanzo Toons

Oh, Now I Get It

It took me a while, but thanks to Sarah Schulman, writing in the New York Times, I finally figured it out.

Israel has become a world leader in technology, agriculture, including drip irrigation and desalinization of water, medicine, including advances in battling heart disease and cancer, environmental quality, renewable energy, and defense; ten Israelis have so far won Nobel Prizes. (To compare, Muslims, accounting for 20 percent of the world's population, have won 8) It's the destination of choice for Sudanese refugees who survive the life-threatening trek through Egypt. it's the only country in the Middle East that allows equal rights for all of its citizens regardless of race, gender, ethnic origin, religion, or sexual orientation; Muslims (especially female Muslims) in Israel have more rights than they do in any of the Islamic nations.

Israel opened the first field hospital in Haiti after their devastating earthquake, they assisted the Japanese after their recent earthquake and tsunami; Israel has sent humanitarian aid to more than 140 countries and authorities. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been treated in Israeli hospitals, including children suffering from life-threatening diseases who would die if not for Israeli resources. Also bringing better health to the children of the world is the Israeli-based charity, Save a Child's Heart, an organization that brings children suffering from heart ailments to Israel from 42 countries where adequate medical care in unavailable.

All of this, I now know thanks to Sarah Shulman, is done to cover up Israeli oppression of the Palestinians.

Oh, those crafty Zionists!

Labels: human rights, humanitarian aid, Israel, Nobel Prize, Sarah Schulman, Sudan, Zionism

posted by Harry @ 2:47 PM 2 comments

Krugman's Alternative Universe

I've got some very liberal friends. Paul Krugman is their economist of choice. He is the darling of the left, especially when he skewers some conservative pundit. I've read some of his columns and seen a bit of his - um - skewering on Youtube, and I have to say that I think he's put his politics ahead of his thinking. Yes, I know he's a Nobel laureate and all, but I think he needs to reexamine some of his economic beliefs. Well actually, according to this piece by James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal, linked by way of House of Eratosthenes, maybe he unknowingly has. Either that, or he assumes that his uncritical, adoring fans will blindly accept anything he says as received wisdom, so it really doesn't matter what he says or if it has any basis in reality. Reading some of his NY Time columns and watching pieces of his TV appearances, he's probably right - about his sycophants, that is, but dead wrong about a lot of things that matter.

Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman takes note in his New York Times column of what he calls "the incredible gap that has opened up between the parties":

Today, Democrats and Republicans live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.

"What Democrats believe," he says "is what textbook economics says":

But that's not how Republicans see it. Here's what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning's position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work."

Krugman scoffs: "To me, that's a bizarre point of view--but then, I don't live in Mr. Kyl's universe."

What does textbook economics have to say about this question? Here is a passage from a textbook called "Macroeconomics":

Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker's incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of "Eurosclerosis," the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries.

So it turns out that what Krugman calls Sen. Kyl's "bizarre point of view" is, in fact, textbook economics. The authors of that textbook are Paul Krugman and Robin Wells. Miss Wells is also known as Mrs. Paul Krugman.

It seems Krugman himself lives in two different universes--the universe of the academic economist and the universe of the bitter partisan columnist. Or maybe this is like that episode of "Star Trek" in which crewmen from the Enterprise switched places with their counterparts from a universe in which everyone was the same, only evil.

Like Spock, the evil Krugman is the one with the beard.

Kind of funny, ain't it? What is also humorous is that this bit of inconsistency will be ignored by the NY Times and all of Krugman's followers.

Labels: economics, New York Times, Nobel Prize, Paul Krugman

posted by Harry @ 5:36 PM 1 comments

Obama's Nobel Prize and Islam

First of all, there have been worse choices for the Nobel Peace Prize. A certain keffiyeh-sporting Palestinian terrorist comes to mind. And then there's Jimmy Carter. And no, I'm not comparing Obama to Yassir Arafat. I'm paying him a (very) back-handed compliment. I actually wasn't going to comment at all. But then I read this article in the Detroit Free Press, and I couldn't keep my keyboard quiet. In fact, I wanted to start screaming at my newspaper.

Muslims around metro Detroit who have witnessed President Barack Obama's outreach efforts applauded the announcement of his Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

I believe what Obama is doing with the Muslim world is pandering. I'm sure it's insane and it will bring no good to our country. Remember, Bush too, stupidly reached out to the Muslim world. And what did he get in return? The same thing Obama will get, complaints that he isn't doing enough to pander to - uh - I mean reach out to Muslims.

"Obama has made a point to reach out to the Muslim world," said Tarek Baydoun, 25, of Dearborn. "It serves America to have someone so in touch with the faith of over a billion people around the world."

One of the reasons given by the Nobel committee for awarding Obama was his overtures to the Muslim world -- an effort repeatedly seen this year in metro Detroit.

Several department heads in the Obama administration have met with Muslims and Arab Americans in Dearborn, most recently U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, who spoke Wednesday at the Lebanese American Heritage Club in Dearborn.

And last month, CIA Director Leon Panetta met with Muslims and Arab Americans in Dearborn for a Ramadan dinner. Panetta and Locke said in their talks that Muslims and Arab Americans are vital parts of the United States.

The outreach to Dearborn is part of an effort by Obama that he laid out in a speech he gave to Muslims in June in Cairo, Egypt, in which he called for a "new beginning between the United States and Muslims."

The Commerce Department cited that speech in explaining why Locke visited Dearborn this week.

And what kind of new beginning can we expect? One where Muslims give us the same respect that they expect to receive from us infidels? Don't count on it. Will there be fewer terrorist plots? Fewer demands that we abandon Israel to the tender mercies of the surrounding terrorists states to prove that Obama really wants to force the United States to submit to the status of dhimmi? Sorry, Barack. Some of us will not submit.

"The outreach to the Muslim world was long warranted," said Victor Begg of Bloomfield Hills, who attended the Dearborn dinner with Panetta and heads the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan.

See? Mr. Begg has forgotten all about Bush, the previous panderer-in-chief. Since only power and brute force are respected in the Muslim world, Bush, who in the American tradition of consensual government, stepped down from the presidency when his term was up, is of concern to the Muslim world no longer. There is a new dhimmi in town, and his name is Obama.

Richard Nodel, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Metropolitan Detroit, said Friday in a statement that he was pleased that Obama said in his remarks after winning the prize that he has an "unwavering commitment ... to the rights of all Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security in nations of their own."

I have one question for Richard Nodel: Are you stupid?

What is it with these Jews who still worship Obama? They don't seem to understand that Israelis and Palestinians have had numerous chances to live in peace and security, but the Palestinians refuse to implement that peace. Haven't they noticed that whenever peace gets too near, they begin an intifada? Or an all out war? Palestinians have been refusing to live in peace with Jews since the 1920s. Will Richard Nodel join Obama in his condemnation of Israelis building homes for Jews in Israel's capital city, Jerusalem, while at the same time ignoring or excusing the violence perpetrated by the Palestinians? If so, he won't be the first Jew to do so.

So maybe what it comes down to is that: Bush didn't get it. Obama doesn't get it. 78% of the Jewish community doesn't get it. The Muslim community gets it. And we will get it in the end . . . from the Muslim community.

Labels: Detroit Free Press, Dumb Jews, islam, Israel, Nobel Prize, Obama, Palestinians

posted by Harry @ 5:32 PM 10 comments

Revealed at Last - the Reason for so Many Jewish and so Few Muslim Nobel Prize Winners

According to an Iraqi "Researcher" there is an insidious reason so many Jews and so few Muslims have been awarded Nobel prizes.

Samir 'Ubeid: I don’t call it the Nobel prize – I call it the "Hubal" [idol] prize.

Interviewer: Hubal?

Samir 'Ubeid: Yes, because it often encourages heresy. It encourages attacks against the heritage, and encourages those who scorn their people and their culture. The proof is that it was awarded recently to Pamuk, who had encouraged civil strife, which might preoccupy Turkey and the Muslims in general. He held Turkey responsible for what the Ottoman state did, when he referred to the massacre of the Armenians.

[...]

Interviewer: In other words, if you are a traitor to your country, you deserve this prize.

Samir 'Ubeid: If you are a traitor to your country, and a heretic, who curses his Prophet, you deserve a Nobel Prize.

[...]

Why has the prize been awarded to 167 Jews, and to only four Arabs out of 380 million Arabs – and all four are considered traitors? For example, Al-Sadat got the prize during the normalization process, and as a price for Camp David, together with Begin, who carried out the Deir Yassin massacre, and who was in the "Hagana" gangs. Later, the prize was awarded to [Ahmad] Al-Zewail, in order to buy his invention, and Al-Zewail has disappeared since.

Interviewer: You mean the Egyptian Ahmad Al-Zewail?

Samir 'Ubeid: Yes, the Egyptian chemist. The prize was also awarded to Mohamed ElBaradei, and in this case, it is soaked in the blood of the Iraqi children and people.

[...]

Mother Teresa was brought, along with a group of people like her…

Interviewer: Some say the prize was awarded to her for her missionary activity in Africa, India, and so on...

Samir 'Ubeid: Let’s assume she was righteous, according to the logic of the media, which is now controlled by the Jews and Hollywood. When they awarded the prize to Teresa, they were trying to award an "artificial hymen" or "artificial honor" to this prize. My colleague said that there is democracy. What democracy is there, if out of 1.5 billion Chinese, only two or three were awarded the Nobel? If you examine the Russian scientists and writers, who shook the world with their literature and their knowledge... What about Sakharov, what about Tolstoy? In addition...

Interviewer: But Sakharov was awarded the Nobel prize.

Samir 'Ubeid: I meant Chekhov. Chekhov! Chekhov!

[...]

Are we Arabs not included in the transfer of the scientific genetic code? We, the descendants of Al-Khawarizmi, Al-Jahez, Al-Razi, Avicenna, and Ibn Al-Haytham – are we all born idiots? Is there not a single scientist among us? Are we not included in the genetic code? Is intelligence not transferred down among us Arabs?

Interviewer: Scientific creativity occurs in freedom and democracy, brother.

Samir 'Ubeid: Democracy does not explain how it was awarded to 167 Jews, from among those 15 million scattered around the world, while abandoning 1.5 billion Chinese, a billion Indians, and 380 million Arabs. This is racism.

[...]

The [Grameen] bank for the poor won the prize because some of its shareholders are giants like Haliburton and others.

[...]

They infiltrated this bank, which became in the pocket of the Freemasons. This prize stems from the core of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The video of this idiot can be seen here. Scroll down to number 1313.

The frightening aspect of all of this is that no matter what kind of obvious anti-semitic idiocy sprouts from these Islamic "researchers" and "scholars"(all scare quotes are mine, H.) there is still a large segment of the population who puts the onus on the Jews to defend themselves from these libels rather than dismissing it all as the Jew-hatred that it is.

Labels: islam, Jews, Nobel Prize

posted by Harry @ 6:33 PM 0 comments