Obama aims to 'reboot US image' in the Muslim world

• Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
• The Guardian, Thursday December 11 2008

Barack Obama cast his presidency as a moment to rebuild America's relations with the Muslim world yesterday, confirming that he would take the oath of office using his middle name Hussein and that he planned to set the tone with a major speech in a Muslim capital early in his presidency.

"I think we've got a unique opportunity to reboot America's image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular," Obama told his hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune.

Obama said that in choosing to use his middle name he would merely be following custom. "I think the tradition is they use all three names, and I will follow tradition," he told the Tribune. "I'm not trying to make a statement one way or another. I'll do what everybody else does."

Several recent American presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, omitted their middle name when taking the oath.

The symbolism of the moment when Obama pronounces all three of his names is undeniable. During the campaign he contended with a constant swirl of internet rumours that he was a secret Muslim who had been educated in a madrasa in Indonesia.

His denials and attempts to highlight his Christian faith rankled with some Muslims. Campaign workers barred two Muslim women wearing headscarves from sitting behind Obama at an event in Detroit last June, claiming their presence would be hurtful to the candidate.

As president though, one of Obama's missions will be to repair America's image in the world, and to assuage anger over the US invasion of Iraq and US support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians.

The Obama camp appears to be looking at ways to put relations back on track. Campaign aides said last week that Obama would make a trip to the Middle East to deliver that speech within his first 100 days in the White House.

There were also reports that Cairo was a likely venue for the appearance. Obama has also signalled his commitment to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but has faced scepticism about a real change in US policy towards the Middle East.

The planning committee yesterday released new details of the four days of celebration surrounding Obama's inauguration on January 20, under the theme Renewing America's Promise.

"At this moment of great challenge and great change, renewing the promise of America begins with renewing the idea that in America we rise or fall as one nation and one people," Obama said in a statement.

"That sense of unity and shared purpose is what this inauguration will reflect."

Should Jews be allowed to preside as judges when they inflict Jewish inability to forgive crimes against Jews?

O.J. Simpson sentenced to long prison term

Ex-NFL star apologizes to judge moments before his sentencing

He choked back tears as he told her: “I didn’t want to steal anything from anyone. ... I’m sorry, sorry.”

The judge said several times that her sentence in the Las Vegas case had nothing to do with Simpson’s 1995 acquittal in the slaying of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

“I’m not here to try and cause any retribution or any payback for anything else,” Glass said.

'We are thrilled'
But Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman, and sister, Kim, said they were delighted with the sentence.

“We are thrilled, and it’s a bittersweet moment,” Fred Goldman said. “It was satisfying seeing him in shackles like he belongs.”

Simpson said he and five other men were simply trying to retrieve sports memorabilia and other mementos when he stormed a Las Vegas hotel room occupied by two dealers on Sept. 13, 2007. He insisted the items, which included his first wife’s wedding ring, had been stolen from him.

But the judge emphasized that it was a violent confrontation in which at least one gun was drawn, and she said someone could have been shot. She said the evidence was overwhelming, with the planning, the confrontation itself and the aftermath all recorded on audio or videotape.

Series of sentences
Glass, a no-nonsense judge known for tough sentences, imposed such a complex series of consecutive and concurrent sentences that even many lawyers watching the case were confused as to how much time Simpson got.

Simpson could serve up to 33 years, according to Elana Roberto, the judge’s clerk.

In state prison, he will remain in his own cell protected from the general prison population because of his celebrity.

Simpson’s lawyer suggested again that his client was a victim of payback for his acquittal in Los Angeles.

“It really made us all aware that despite our best efforts, it’s very difficult to separate the California case from the Nevada case,” attorney Yale Galanter said.

Some people who followed the case said justice had finally caught up with Simpson.

“You do things and you’ve got to expect karma to come around,” said Greg Wheatley, 32, of Los Angeles."

Judge Jackie Glass is Jewish. So are the Goldmans. The sentence O.J. Simpson received is unbelievably draconian and I won't be at all surprised it her sentencing of O.J. Simpson is tossed out for the judge's obvious Jewish bias.

The inability to forgive is highly prevalent in Jewish religion and life. The only ethnic group in the world who has experienced a holocaust that has made Gentiles pay with prison sentences for even doubting a statistical number of Jewish dead people. There was great reason why God brought Jesus into the Jewish line in order to destroy this pathologically ill religion that touts itself as being so morally superior to everyone else's and replace it with true forgiveness of sins, without which people are bound into the vicious cycle of endless revenge.

The case against Progressives' anti-big box agenda: Study: Poverty dramatically affects children's brains

By Greg Toppo,
USA TODAY
A new study finds that certain brain functions of some low-income 9- and 10-year-olds pale in comparison with those of wealthy children and that the difference is almost equivalent to the damage from a stroke.

"It is a similar pattern to what's seen in patients with strokes that have led to lesions in their prefrontal cortex," which controls higher-order thinking and problem solving, says lead researcher Mark Kishiyama, a cognitive psychologist at the University of California-Berkeley. "It suggests that in these kids, prefrontal function is reduced or disrupted in some way."

BETTER LIFE: Kids cut, embed metal in their bodies

The study adds to a growing body of evidence that shows how poverty afflicts children's brains. Researchers have long pointed to the ravages of malnutrition, stress, illiteracy and toxic environments in low-income children's lives. Research has shown that the neural systems of poor children develop differently from those of middle-class children, affecting language development and "executive function," or the ability to plan, remember details and pay attention in school.

Such deficiencies are reversible through intensive intervention such as focused lessons and games that encourage children to think out loud or use executive function.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: University of Michigan | University of Pennsylvania | University of California-Berkeley | Martha Farah

"It's really important for neuroscientists to start to think about the effects of people's experiences on their brain function, and specifically about the effect of people's socioeconomic status," says Martha Farah, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania.

Among the most studied: differences in language acquisition between low- and middle-income children. The most famous study, from 1995, transcribed conversation between parents and children and found that by age 3, middle-class children had working vocabularies roughly twice the size of poor children's.

For the new study, researchers used an electroencephalograph (EEG) to measure brain function of 26 children while they watched images flashing on a computer. The children pressed a button when a tilted triangle appeared.

The researchers found a huge difference in the low-income children's ability to detect the tilted triangles and block out distractions — a key function of the prefrontal cortex.

"It's just not functioning as efficiently as it could be, or as it should be," Kishiyama says.

Though the effects of poverty are reversible, children need "incredibly intensive interventions to overcome this kind of difficulty," says Susan Neuman, an education professor at the University of Michigan.

The study appears online in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience and will be published early next year.'

* * *

Think about Humboldt County poor kids. Think about Progressive activists promoting local retailers charging twice the price for the same item as poor people can buy in big box stores. A $10 beginner's paint set at Michael's will cost you over $20 at Old Town Art as I found out looking for presents for my grandkids. This is how the Progressive elitists are helping to keep the brains of poor kids from developing as well as middle-class and richer kids. A genetic war of the priviledged fought against the poor under the guise of "liberal" politics.

Israeli Troops Drag Jewish Settlers from Hebron Building

Sebastian Scheiner/Associated Press

An Israeli police officer dragged two Jewish settlers during the evacuation of a disputed house in the West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday.

By ETHAN BRONNER
Published: December 4, 2008

HEBRON, West Bank — Israeli troops forcibly evicted about 200 hard-line Jewish settlers from a contested building in this volatile biblical city on Thursday, the first serious clash in what seems to be a spiraling confrontation between the government and defiant settlers.

The operation, carried out by 600 soldiers and policemen with stealth and efficiency, took half an hour with just two dozen relatively light injuries. But events did not end there. Young settlers then rampaged through Palestinian fields and neighborhoods, setting olive trees ablaze and trashing houses.

Maj. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli army spokeswoman, said the southern part of the

West Bank, known in Israel as Judea, was now designated as a closed military area — meaning only those who live here may enter, an effort to prevent outside settlers from causing further trouble. Within an hour of the order, huge car lines were backed up at at new military roadblocks.

The contested building, which occupants had dubbed “The House of Peace,” is on the road to the Cave of the Patriarchs, where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their wives are said to be buried, a site Muslims and Jews have coveted and fought over for centuries.

As the sun descended, the area around the building looked like a war zone. Evacuees were still being dragged about, four police per person, rocks were strewn on the road ways, plumes of black smoke were rising from the olive groves, and hundreds of helmeted troops in riot gear confronted a crowd of infuriated settlers.

The men in the crowd wore beards and sidecurls, women had long skirts and covered heads, members of the religiously observant Jewish population in and around Hebron, several thousand among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. As Palestinians watched from rooftops and windows, some settlers shouted at the troops, calling them Nazis. A few had sewn yellow stars on their shirts, like Jews had been obliged to under Hitler. On a wall near the confrontation, Hebrew graffiti declared: “There will be a war over the House of Peace.”

Much is at stake for both sides in this confrontation since the Israeli government says it wants to facilitate the building of a Palestinian state in most of the West Bank, whereas the settlers and their backers say they will do all in their power to prevent such a state. They are focusing partly on increasing their numbers in Hebron, second only to Jerusalem in its historic and religious significance to them.

The four-story building in question was built and owned by a Palestinian who agreed to sell it. He said he had beenunaware the buyers were Jews and that he had been tricked, and that he had backed out of the deal. The settlers say he knew very well what he was doing but threats against him had made him claim otherwise.

The Israeli government ordered the settlers out. They challenged the order. Three weeks ago, the Supreme Court took the government’s side in a 3-0 ruling and gave it 30 days to make good on the order. In the past week or two, settlers had grown more rebellious, throwing rocks at soldiers and defacing Palestinian buildings and graves. It was clearly only a matter of time before the army would step in.

The official who made the call for the evacuation Thursday was Ehud Barak, the defense minister and head of the Labor party, who said at a news conference later that “what was tested today was the ability of the state to enforce its laws and its essence upon its citizens.”

Mr. Barak had met with settler leaders on Thursday morning to find a way out of the confrontation. The settlers emerged from the meeting believing there was still negotiation to be done but Mr. Barak clearly thought otherwise.

Since elections are scheduled for February and Mr. Barak is his party leader, opponents of the evacuation accused him of seeking political advantage through his decision.

“Barak sent the army and police as part of the left wing’s election campaign and the blood of the casualties is on his hands,” declared Arieh Eldad of the National Religious Party.

Settler leaders were indignant, saying Mr. Barak had tricked them after talking soothingly to them in the morning. They said there was nothing more scandalous in the land of Israel than for Jews to evict Jews from their homes.

In a separate development, the Israeli government agreed for the first time in four weeks on Thursday to allow journalists and foreign aid workers to enter Gaza. The area, ruled by the militant Hamas group, is under a closure led by Israel that severely limits goods and people from going in and out. But only recently did the closure include foreign journalists who had appealed to the government and Supreme Court for renewed permission to enter.
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End the Starvation and Seige of Gaza

Dear friends:

It is only in an Orwellian "might makes right" world that 1.5 million people are kept in a concentration camp literally being starved to death while much of the world governments stand idly watching or occasionally issuing a useless statement or collaborating with the collective punishment (as in the case of Governments of Egypt and the US). 1.5 million are not numbers, they are people like you and me and 60% are children!! Terrorism is defined as punishing civilians to force a change in politics. As such this is the biggest act of terrorism since the end of WWII. It is also a war crime and a crime against humanity (as defined by International Law).

Below is an action alert from the US Campaign to End the Occupation on this abominable situation. Please take some time to act and especially write to Obama and tell him and Demand real change instead of appointments of people whom AIPAC approves http://change.gov/page/s/contact

The tragedy does not stop there: the European Parliament (EP) has recently announced that a vote will be held tomorrow (December 4) to enter into force the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which will enable far greater Israeli participation in European Community programs. Follow the link below to see how you can contact your MEP (if you are in Europe) to demand that they vote against the agreement.

http://www.fosis.org.uk/actaware/index.php/alerts/1-global/93-eu-israel-action-plan--conta ct-your-mep-now

And forward this widely to all people you know who may act on reminders of their conscience!

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

Bethlehem University, Occupied Palestine

End the Starvation and Seige of Gaza; Rally Outside White House Tomorrow Take Action With Gazans already impoverished and struggling to survive, on November 5, Israel completely sealed Gaza's border crossings. This followed an unprovoked Israeli attack on Gaza that killed six Palestinians, despite a ceasefire, and Palestinian rocket fire in response. As a result of Israel's closure, the United Nations has been forced to stop food distribution to 750,000 needy people, and 70% of Gaza is now without powerdue to a lack of fuel. According to reports, even candles are now in short supply. "Let's see this for what it is." said UN spokesman Chris Gunness. "Fifty-six percent of the Gaza Strip are children. Let us not cause suffering of innocent children." Blocking witnesses, on November 13, Israel denied the entry to Gaza of 20 senior EU diplomats. Israel also has refused to allow foreign journalists to enter Gaza. Foreign Press Association chairman Steven Gutnik called the ban "a serious violation of freedom of the press" and said "it is essential that journalists be allowed to enter the Gaza Strip since it is the foreign media that serves as the world's window into Gaza. Israel allowed a trickle of aid to enter Gaza today. Gaza has 1.5 million residents, the large majority of whom are displaced refugees from 1948. In response to calls from Gaza, we urge you to take one or more of the following actions: 1) Contact Your Political Representatives: Contact your congressional representatives (http://capwiz.com/fconl/directory/leadership_list.tt ) and demand that the US government pressure Israel to stop starving Gazans, end the siege, and respect basic Palestinian rights. Tell this directly to the U.S. Mission to the UN: Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad Phone: (212) 415-4053 2) Organize a Protest: Organize public protests and educational events calling for an end of Israel's abuse of Palestinian rights in Gaza. 3) Boycott the Occupier, Not the Occupied: Take action for long-term change and join the growing international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. Organize a BDS campaign in your community, in response to the call by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations, until Israel ends its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands, dismantles the Wall, recognizes the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and implements the right of return for Palestinian refugees as stipulated in UN resolution 194. Impacts of Israeli Actions The latest measures are the culmination of a long-term Israeli policy and strategy of displacement and oppression that started in 1948, when Israel expelled Gaza's current refugees from their original villages. According to Oxfam, CARE and Save the Children, "The rise of poverty in Gaza relates to the crippling impact of the Israeli blockade within the broader context of a long-term pattern of economic degradation in Gaza stemming from Israeli-imposed closures since the early 1990s and, more recently, the eighteen-month international aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority that was in place until June 2007." According to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health in Gaza, 257 Palestinians have died in Gaza in the last year because they have been unable to leave for necessary advanced care. Israel's Obligations Israel's claim that it no longer occupies the Gaza Strip has been rejected by the international community andrights organizations because "it still maintains effective control over the territory via its control of Gaza's land borders, airspace, territorial waters, tax collection, and population registry." Because Israel is occupying the Gaza Strip, it is morally and legally responsible for protecting the human rights of Gaza's citizens. Yet Israel's siege violates international law and basic human rights like the rights to healthcare, education, freedom of movement, and employment, as well as broader rights like the right to self-determination. Israel's siege also violates its most basic obligations as an Occupying Power under the Fourth Geneva Convention, including the "duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population," and the prohibition against collective punishment. Thank you for taking action and please spread the word. Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (www.adalahny.org) Network of Arab-American Professionals of NY (www.naaponline.org/ny) Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee of NY (www.adcnewyork.org) Brooklyn For Peace (www.brooklynpeace.org) US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (www.endtheoccupation.org)

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

SoHum Parlance II= Zionist propaganda blog

Eric Kirk is an intellectual fraud and another blogging coward in Humboldt County who resorts to censorship of those who's political views oppose his own and his adopted religion of Zionist Judaism.

I will be posting Eric's deletions here so you all can judge for yourselves why my comments are not welcome by our local Zionist promoter.

Deleted SoHum Parlance II posts:


"Praising a raised fist is saluting Frank’s gentleness? I don’t think so, not unless you can erase all the needless violence that came from people who used that icon to do some pretty foul deeds and I’m talking real deaths and not just protest actions. Many of us counterculture refugees living here in Humboldt County were involved in the ’60’s protests. My own being going the conscientious objector route when the government asked me to kill Vietnamese in their civil war. But that war ended, not do to the power of the raised fist icon but to the power of the Peace Symbol which does represent gentleness and inherently social justice without which peace is impossible.

It will be the Peace Symbol and not the raised fist which will be the icon of lasting social justice in the world. Frank painted many fine paintings of people and places without a shred of political overtones in his work and that is the artist’s work I will remember.

What terrible irony it will be if Eric removes my posts while allowing the praise of Free Speech movement posts to remain. Only in Humboldt County where moral schizophrenia rules the progressive political mindset."


"The people who need to hide their beliefs behind censorship of opposing views are intellectual cowards or fascists or both. It is telling that Zionists are the only ones censoring religious and political views in Humboldt County as well as the worst of the libelous slanderers on local blogs, the only ones I’ve seen posting wishes for the deaths by cancer for anti-Zionists.

The people who support Zionist censorship are as morally corrupt as the Zionist blog-owners. Inability to face criticism is the mark of those with ideas they cannot allow loose in public for fear of shame or ridicule.

Eric. I am a recognized man of God, recognized by religious leaders with far more moral depth than you will ever achieve as a political addict and closet Zionist. You are trying to stop a man of God from telling the truth that is causing so much unnecessary violence in our world. Good luck with your delusion of grandeur. Your actions only show to people who think that you are another one of the closet fascists who will use Machiavellian tactics starting with censorship of ideas against what you perceive as ideological opponents. Rushing to defend your fellow religious fascists in their endeavors you seek to stop truth from being discovered, e.g. my pointing out to your blog readers how you focused on Your (adopted) People while ignoring the sufferings of others not part of that special group. Do you actually believe the Jewish victims in Mumbai were not part of Muslim hatred of Jewish European imperial colonialism that stems from 1948? Or Muslim hatred of British imperial colonial rulers breaking India in two, one side for Hindus and the other for Muslims, the same British who paved the way for 1948?

Can you not face these questions without running away, counselor?"

"No, Eric, we’re talking about the owners of the Federal Reserve Banks as members of one minority religion which puts the Separation of Church and State at odds and all of us not members of these particular religious group of bank owners at risk lest we offend those with the gelt."


"This is NOT from any Nazi group, Eric, but from Ron Paul’s campaign website:

“The Federal Reserve System is divided into two parts: the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, located in Washington DC, and the Federal Reserve District Banks, located throughout the United States. Here is the official website of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors:

If you examine this page, you will see that there are five members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. You will also see that all five(5) of the board members are Jewish. This is a numerical representation of 100%. Why is this important? It’s important because Jews only constitute about 2% of the United States population*. So the odds that all five members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors would be Jewish are infinitesimally small. Here are the five members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors:

Benjamin S. Bernanke - Jewish
Donald L. Kohn - Jewish
Kevin M. Warsh - Jewish
Randall S. Kroszner - Jewish
Frederic S. Mishkin - Jewish

Now, if you examine the presidents of the twelve Federal Reserve District Banks, you will discover a similar pattern of Jewish over-representation. Here is the section of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors’ website that lists the twelve Federal Reserve District Banks and their respective presidents:

If you examine this section, you will see that there are twelve Federal Reserve Bank presidents. You will also see that nine(9) of the twelve presidents are Jewish. This is a numerical representation of 75%. Again, this is important because Jews only comprise about 2% of the United States population*, so the chances that nine of the twelve Federal Reserve Bank presidents would be Jewish are incredibly miniscule. Here are the twelve presidents of the Federal Reserve District Banks:

FRB of Boston: Eric S. Rosengren - Jewish
FRB of New York: Timothy F. Geithner - Jewish
FRB of Philadelphia: Charles I. Plosser - Jewish
FRB of Richmond: Jeffrey M. Lacker - Jewish
FRB of St. Louis: James B. Bullard - Jewish
FRB of Minneapolis: Gary H. Stern - Jewish
FRB of Kansas City: Thomas M. Hoenig - Jewish
FRB of Dallas: Richard W. Fisher - Jewish
FRB of San Francisco: Janet L. Yellen - Jewish
FRB of Cleveland: Sandra Pianalto - gentile
FRB of Atlanta: Dennis P. Lockhart - gentile
FRB of Chicago: Charles L. Evans - gentile

This extreme numerical over-representation of Jews among the members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve District Bank presidents cannot be explained away as a coincidence or as the result of mere random chance. You must ask yourself how such an incredibly small and extremely unrepresentative minority ethnic group that only represents about 2% of the American population could so completely dominate the highest levels of the United States Federal Reserve System.
Holy shit!”

"Now do those of you who still can think understand why we must be particularly on guard about America’s foreign policy when our whole money system is held in Jewish hands? You understand why Bush, and Hillary and Bill and Obama cave in to support for the Jewish cause every time? Our country is being blackmailed by one minority religious group into supporting political war against the Muslim enemies of this minority religion abroad and a political war here using character assassination against anyone who dares publicly criticize the minority religious group and their Middle East project that has become the root cause of most all anti-American, anti-Westerner hatred now loose in the world because over a billion members of a warrior religion can’t take it anymore and are striking back with terror, the only weapon available to the Muslim masses without the money or industrial capacity to wage any other kind of war. Sure, they are wrong as can be to use atrocity as weaponry but this situation will not end until we Americans stand up to the root cause of so much Muslim anger directed at us and those countries which support our system–India being America’s outsourcing capitol making both countries richer and therefore targets of those oppressed by rich Western nations."