Honduras Outraged by Obama-Chavez Alliance



(The sign says: "Honduras is an example to the world: we do not have oil or dollars. But we have balls")

I continue to receive messages from Honduran citizens upset at the international media for their distorted coverage of the situation in the Central American country. The people support the ouster of Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, who is considered a puppet of Venezuelan Communist ruler Hugo Chavez. They are mystified that an American president would want to return this Chavez puppet to power in Honduras.

One Honduran wrote: "The recent action taken by our Congress is highly supported by several organizations in support of peace and democracy: the State General Attorney, the Supreme Court, the Armed Forces, the private organizations and especially many young people. Mr. Zelaya broke the law on several occasions even after the Supreme Court stated that it was illegal. He had no respect for our laws and our Constitution.

"It's not a new fact to the international media what are Chavez intentions over Central and South America. And we in Honduras don't want that. We don't want to go back to socialism or communism. We still believe very strongly in our democracy and very strongly in our freedom...We should be an example to Central American countries as well as South American countries who have not yet been influenced by Chavez.

"May God bless our small but courageous country. And I hope the international media investigate very deeply. Send your people here and interview people from Congress and Supreme Court. Thank you again for reading our side of the story. We want a democracy, peace, freedom, and a president who doesn't believe he is above the law.

"Many people don't know where Honduras is, but after this, they shall remember that Honduras said no to socialism and communism.

More HERE

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Dumbing down the naval academy

Bruce Fleming, a tenured professor of English at the Naval Academy, is accusing his school of "dumbing down the Naval Academy" and "dumbing down the officer corps" through the use of an admissions policy that favors minority candidates. Fleming's claim appears to have merit.

According to the Washington Post, the Academy has proclaimed as a top priority the building of a student body that reflects the racial madeup of the Navy and of the nation. Consistent with this goal, its newly admitted group of plebes includes 435 minority group members in a class of 1,230. This is the most racially diverse class in the academy's 164-year history.

While the Academy claims that these numbers have been attained "with no loss of scholarship," that claim is inconsistent with the data. According to Fleming, 22 percent of this year's plebes scored less than 600 on the math SAT. Last year, only 12 percent of the plebes failed to hit 600.

Against this evidence, the Naval Academy can boast that 76 percent of the class of 2013 came from the top 20 percent of their high school classes, the same proportion as a decade ago. But the test score data are more probative than the class rank data. For if, as appears, the Academy is now filling its ranks with top students from high schools with lower achieving students than before, the Academy is, indeed, being dumbed down, as Professor Fleming says.

Oh well, it's only our nation's security that's at stake.

SOURCE

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Putin on Bush and Obama

Putin Praises Bush

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin praised the hospitality and openness of U.S. former President George W. Bush in a telegramme sent hours before meeting his successor Barack Obama.

"During the last years we have been working on strengthening Russia-U.S. cooperation. Although there were differences between our countries, I always valued your openness and sincerity," Putin said, congratulating Bush on his 63rd birthday on July 6.

"With special warmth I recall your hospitality in the Crawford ranch and your family estate in Kennebunkport," Putin wrote, referring to their 2007 meeting at the Bush family vacation home when the two leaders went fishing and ate lobster.

Putin rebukes Obama

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday rejected U.S. President Barack Obama's charge that he was mired in Cold War thinking, setting the scene for a stormy first meeting at a Moscow summit next week.

In a pre-trip interview, the U.S. leader told the Associated Press that Putin needed to "understand that the Cold War approach to U.S.-Russian relationship is outdated" and that Putin had "one foot in the old ways of doing business."

Putin -- who once described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geo-political catastrophe of the century" -- hit back, saying Russians were standing firmly on both feet.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE



Strange "Rightists" in Sweden these days: Yesterday the main Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat (News of Helsinki) writes about Sweden's awakening to Leftist violence. In the article there are interviewed both a researcher of the Swedish secret police (Säpo) and the minister of immigration (with a non-Swedish name) Nyamko Sabuni. The police representative first says that the extreme left is JUST AS violent in their actions as the extreme "right". The minister goes ahead and ADMITS that both the media and the politicians have tolerated the violence of the Leftists due to "historic facts" and labelled the acts as "the riots of the youth". The most visible proof of this willful misunderstanding is the picture attached to the news. The text below the picture states: "The Swedish extreme right usually demonstrates its power on the Swedish National day June the sixth". At you can see in the picture, the "extreme right" members wear the abbreviation NSF on their shirts, which is short for "National Socialist Front". What kind of right wing supporters would carry the word "Socialism" in the name of their group? It's Hitler all over again: Only "Rightist" from the viewpoint of Marxism/Leninism.

Obama: US has “absolutely not” okayed Israeli strike on Iran : “President Obama, issuing an unusual clarification of his vice president’s words, said Tuesday that his administration had ‘absolutely not’ given its blessing for an Israeli attack on Iran. Obama said that although Israel had the right to defend itself, U.S. officials had emphasized the need to avoid ‘major conflict in the Middle East.’ Vice President Joe Biden created a stir Sunday by suggesting the U.S. would stand aside if Israel wanted to attack.”

Great! Ward "Eichmann" Churchill loses bid to reclaim job : “A judge refused Tuesday to reinstate a University of Colorado professor who was fired on plagiarism charges after he likened some Sept. 11 terrorist attack victims to a Nazi leader. If it stands, the ruling means Ward Churchill cannot return to the classroom even though he won a lawsuit in April arguing that his firing was politically motivated. … A jury ruled Churchill shouldn’t have been fired, but the decision on whether to reinstate him was left up to the judge, Larry J. Naves of Denver District Court. Naves ruled Tuesday that the decision by the university’s governing Board of Regents ‘occurred with sufficient procedural protections.’ He also noted that jurors awarded Churchill only $1 in damages. He said the low figure meant that the jury concluded Churchill did not incur any damages.”

US lurching towards “debt explosion”: “The US economy is lurching towards crisis with long-term interest rates on course to double, crippling the country’s ability to pay its debts and potentially plunging it into another recession, according to a study by the US’s own central bank. In a 2003 paper, Thomas Laubach, the US Federal Reserve’s senior economist, calculated the impact on long-term interest rates of rising fiscal deficits and soaring national debt. Applying his assumptions to the recent spike in the US fiscal deficit and national debt, long-term interests rates will double from their current 3.5pc. The impact would be devastating by making it punitively expensive to finance national borrowings and leading to what Tim Congdon, founder of Lombard Street Research, called a “debt explosion”.

The triumph of crony capitalism: “First President Bush, then President Obama poured billions into General Motors and Chrysler to keep the companies alive but barely breathing. That was just for starters. Next came Obama’s creation of an Auto Task Force to oversee the auto companies. To head the task force, the president picked Steve Rattner, a Wall Street investor with no experience in automaking but lots in raising campaign money for Obama and Democrats. GM and Chrysler were quickly restructured, mostly to the benefit of the United Auto Workers, the union which spent millions in 2008 to elect Obama and Democrats. The UAW now owns 17.5 percent of GM and 55 percent of Chrysler — quite a return on an investment of zero dollars. Obama said all parties should ’sacrifice,’ but only bondholders did. They got a fraction of what they were legally entitled to receive. UAW retirees, in contrast, got a gift of $9.5 billion at GM and $14.2 billion at Chrysler. There’s an epilogue. Delphi, the auto parts manufacturer once owned by GM and still its biggest supplier, has been in bankruptcy for four years. To acquire its assets and run the company, Delphi and Obama’s Auto Task Force picked an affiliate of the private equity firm Platinum Equity. There was no auction or competitive bidding, though Platinum stands to make millions in the deal. Why Platinum? The UAW favored it, sources said. There’s a name for all this: crony capitalism.”

Christian car repair in Missouri: "American motorists afraid that repairing the family car might break their budget are increasingly turning to Christian repair garages that offer honesty and charity as well as mechanical expertise. Christian Brothers Automotive, founded in Texas in the early 1980s, has just opened its 59th franchise in the recession-hit suburbs of St Louis, Missouri as part of its plans to have 120 outlets across the United States. Most are currently based in the South’s Bible Belt but the company is now expanding north. Nearly 80 per cent of Americans describe themselves as Christians so the company’s philosophy of ministering to its customers and treating them like family while fixing only what needs to be fixed is turning out to be good business during the recession."

Activists left and right spotlight a broken federal government: “Millions of Americans perceive that the federal government is broken and might not be fixable. They view centralized power as heavy-handed, intrusive — and yet useless when it’s called upon for help, as in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Right or wrong, like them or not, state sovereignty activists say, ‘We have a solution.’ Their solution is radical local activism to restore power to citizens at the state level. They aim to make state laws that counteract federal ones. They hope to preserve local or regional cultures against homogenization. They’re all aiming for their idea of freedom — although often their concepts of freedom are diverse, to say the least. Watch them: They may be the vanguard of a much larger movement of frustrated citizens who feel helpless to achieve their aims at the federal level but who aren’t willing to accept the status quo.”

Federal web sites knocked out by cyber-attack : “A widespread and unusually resilient computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of several government agencies, including some that are responsible for fighting cyber crime …. The Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the holiday weekend and into this week, according to officials inside and outside the government. Some of the sites were still experiencing problems Tuesday evening. Cyber attacks on South Korea government and private sites also may be linked. … U.S. officials refused to publicly discuss any details of the cyber attack, and would only generally acknowledge that it occurred. It was not clear whether other government sites also were attacked.”

Royalties deal lets Internet radio play on: “An agreement has been reached to help ensure the future of internet radio by warding off potentially devastating copyright-royalty rate hikes. The deal is between SoundExchange, a nonprofit royalty collection and distribution organization associated with the Recording Industry Association of America, and three small internet-radio webcasters: radioIO, Digitally Imported, and AccuRadio.”



East Germany: Homesick for dictatorship : “Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an ‘illegitimate state.’ In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR. … Today, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, 57 percent, or an absolute majority, of eastern Germans defend the former East Germany. ‘The GDR had more good sides than bad sides. There were some problems, but life was good there,’ say 49 percent of those polled. Eight percent of eastern Germans flatly oppose all criticism of their former home and agree with the statement: ‘The GDR had, for the most part, good sides. Life there was happier and better than in reunified Germany today.’” [Young people draped in the East German flag above]

The tough job of bossing us around: “White House officials are so busy wielding vast government power that they barely have time to see their kids! That’s the gist of a New York Times human-interest piece, that portrays Obama administration apparatchiks as overburdened by the demands of their ambitious agenda, to the point that their home lives are somewhat neglected. Let me suggest that the bunch of them should punch out and let the policy wish-list gather a bit of dust. It’s OK; we’ll survive.”

UK: Kindness not enough to cut the queues : “Cheers all round as the Human Tissues Authority announce that the number of people donating kidneys to strangers has increased by 50 per cent. The only problem, alas, is that the increase is from ten people to fifteen. And three of those have yet to undergo surgery. In a country where 7,000 people are in need of a kidney, an increase of two donors is hardly a cause for celebration. Fortunately there is a long-ignored solution: compensating organ donors.”

I have put up a fair bit up on my Paralipomena blog recently, for what it is worth.

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray in full). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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