How to make people targets of opprobrium.

'war on obesity,' skeptics warn of stigma

The images are striking: Overweight boys and girls staring somberly from billboards and online videos, real-life embodiments of the blunt messages alongside.

The images are striking: Overweight boys and girls staring somberly from billboards and online videos, real-life embodiments of the blunt messages alongside.

"Chubby kids may not outlive their parents," for example. Or: "Big bones didn't make me this way. Big meals did."

The ads - part of a new "Stop Child Obesity" campaign in Georgia - won some enthusiastic praise for their attention-grabbing tactics. But they also have outraged parents, activists and academics who feel the result is more stigma for an already beleaguered and bullied group of children.

"Billboards depicting fat kids are extraordinarily harmful to the very kids they are supposedly trying to help," said the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, which called for the billboards' removal.

The Georgia Children's Health Alliance, which created the ads, said they were necessary to jar parents of obese kids out of a state of denial that their children had a problem.

The furor reflects a broader nationwide phenomenon as states, cities and the White House itself - led by first lady Michelle Obama - expand efforts to curb obesity. For all the public support of these efforts, there's also a vocal and passionate corps of skeptics and critics worried that widespread discrimination toward the overweight and obese will only increase.

"Stigma is not an effective motivator," said Rebecca Puhl, a Yale University psychologist who is a leading expert on weight discrimination. "Whether children or adults, if they are teased or stigmatized, they're much more likely to engage in unhealthy eating and avoidance of physical activity."

Research by Puhl and her colleagues at Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity suggests that weight discrimination is pervasive - at schools, in the workplace, in the media, among health care providers. Yet efforts to combat it frequently founder: Only one state, Michigan, outlaws weight discrimination, and the anti-bullying policies proliferating in schools often lack specific content related to teasing of overweight children.

The spotlight on obesity intensified last year when Michelle Obama unveiled her national public awareness campaign, "Let's Move." Its goal, she said, was to eliminate childhood obesity within a generation by helping parents make better food choices, serving healthier food in schools, and encouraging children to exercise more.

Many aspects of "Let's Move" won near-universal praise. But activists in the fat-acceptance movement and experts who espouse a "health at every size" approach were upset that the campaign encouraged the monitoring of children's body mass index, or BMI, and thus might contribute to stigmatization of heavier kids.

"The idea of a BMI report card is horrible," said Paul Ernsberger a professor in the nutrition department at Case Western Reserve University's School of Medicine in Cleveland.

"To declare we're going to eliminate childhood obesity - that's actually a very stigmatizing thing to say," Ernsberger said. "The overweight child hears that and thinks, `They wish I wasn't here.'"

Linda Bacon, a nutrition professor at City College of San Francisco, is the author of "Health At Every Size" - a manifesto for a movement stressing a healthy lifestyle rather than weight control. She said the focus by "Let's Move" on BMI was of dubious medical value and posed potential problems for kids at all weight levels.

"It's done much more damage than good," Bacon said. "The larger kids feel bad about themselves, and the thinner kids feel it doesn't matter whether they exercise or eat well."

Deb Lemire, president of the Association for Size Diversity and Health, credited Michelle Obama with good intentions and commended various nutrition-related aspects of "Let's Move." But she said the emphasis on weight risked worsening the problems of teasing and bullying.

"The message that gets to the kids is, `There really is something wrong with me,'" said Lemire, of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. "We're saying we love you, we want you to have wonderful lives and be successful, but right now you're just not good enough."

The first lady's press office declined to respond in detail to the criticism, but defended "Let's Move."

"There will always be critics, but our approach is comprehensive, nurturing and working, with success already seen across the country," the office said in an e-mail.

There's no question that "Let's Move" has broad, high-powered backing, from groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics. Its supporters note that one in three American children are overweight or obese, putting them at higher risk of serious health problems while billions of dollars are spent yearly treating obesity-related conditions.

Dr. Sandra Hassink, who chairs the pediatrics academy's obesity work group, said she witnesses the toll of weight-based bullying on a daily basis at her clinic at the A.I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del.

However, she defended the use of BMI as a screening mechanism.

"We know that elevated BMI places you at elevated risk of health problems," she said. "It's a screening tool to start a conversation with a child and family about health behavior that will reduce that risk."

Weight loss doesn't necessarily need to be the overriding goal in every case, she suggested, but it can be a vital part of countering diabetes, liver disease, sleep apnea and other obesity-related problems.

Critics of "Let's Move" say it could have struck a more positive tone about the diversity of body sizes and the possibility of being both large and healthy simultaneously.

"Regardless of her intentions, the first lady is making things worse," said San Francisco attorney Sondra Solovay, who teaches and writes about weight-based discrimination.

"I invite her to talk to fat adults who have experienced the hatred and discrimination firsthand," Solovay said, "and ask them how this program would have impacted them as kids."

Several local and state anti-obesity initiatives also have drawn fire from weight-discrimination watchdogs - notably Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's recent proposal to levy a $50 fee on state Medicaid recipients who are obese and don't follow a doctor-supervised slimming regimen.

"This proposal does nothing to improve public health, and only perpetuates further stigma toward thousands of individuals whose quality of life is already reduced because of prejudice," Puhl wrote in her blog on Medscape.com.

One form of such prejudice is harassment at school. Peggy Howell, spokeswoman for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, protested when members of Congress recently introduced a bill that addressed bullying based on race, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation and religion, but made no mention of body size.

"Why are weight and height missing?" Howell asked. "Multiple studies indicate that fat children are the group being most bullied."

Puhl says too little attention is paid to such bullying.

"Youth who are obese cannot conceal their weight - their stigma is very visible," she said. "And yet their voices are not being heard. They are so vulnerable to victimization, with such devastating consequences."

Indeed, weight-related bullying is being cited by family members as a possible factor in the decision of two 14-year-old Minnesota girls to commit suicide together on April 16.

Puhl, who has studied weight discrimination for more than a decade, was lead author of a 2007 study of overweight children that concluded their quality of life, due to stigmatization by peers, was comparable to that of people with cancer.

She also has examined how obese people are portrayed in ads, news reports, movies and TV shows. Too often, says Puhl, they are depicted in needlessly negative ways - slouching on a sofa, eating junk food.

"We need to be sure we are fighting obesity, not obese people," she says.

Among other initiatives, the Rudd Center has compiled a gallery of photographs portraying obese individuals "in ways that are positive and non-stereotypical" - strolling outdoors, shopping for fresh produce.

Puhl says her research indicates Americans would support legislation to prohibit weight discrimination, particularly in the workplace. Yet only Michigan and a handful of cities, including San Francisco and Santa Cruz, Calif., have such laws in place.

There's been little serious discussion in Congress or most legislatures about following Michigan's example by outlawing weight discrimination at the federal or state level. A bill introduced several times in Massachusetts has failed to advance; a similar proposal died in Nevada's legislature this year after employers objected.

Michigan's law, enacted in 1976, has resulted in only a handful of weight-related complaints each year, according to Michigan State University human resources professor Mark Roehling. He says many overweight workers may be hesitant to pursue legal remedies even if they do feel discriminated against.

One of the few high-profile lawsuits in Michigan involves two former waitresses who claim Hooters fired them in 2009 because they weren't sufficiently slim. Hooters officials say the state law shouldn't apply because the appearance of their waitresses was a legitimate concern. The case remains unresolved.

Meanwhile, fat-acceptance activists continue to struggle against what they perceive as bias - on matters such as airline seating and seatbelt standards that don't account for extra-large people.

Marilyn Wann, San Francisco-based author of the book "FAT!SO?," says she's proud to call herself fat, and objects to the terms "overweight" and "obese."

She became an activist partly because she was unable to buy affordable health insurance, and is grateful that the Obama-backed health care overhaul now enables her to get coverage. But she wishes the White House would do more to counter weight bias.

"I had a painful childhood, and it would be worse now because weight stigma has increased," she said. "It would be amazing if federal government took a stand against weight discrimination."

Hassink, the Delaware pediatrician, said obesity and weight discrimination should both be combatted firmly and compassionately.

"The environment is pretty tough for people struggling with their weight," Hassink said. "But we need to have the conversation. We're all in this together."

Enough double standard against Israel

Now Can We Stop Condemning Israel for Targeted Assassinations?

The American team that killed Bin Laden should be congratulated. They have served justice and reminded terrorists that even in an age of national security dementia, they may run, they may hide, but that they won’t be forgotten. Americans are right to celebrate the demise of this mass murderer who is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and others.

Much is made in the Middle East of double standards. It doesn’t matter whether the terrorist is Al Qaeda targeting Americans, Europeans, and moderate Arabs, PKK targeting Turks, or Mujahedin al-Khalq targeting Iranians. No terrorist deserves diplomatic immunity or legitimacy’s embrace. All terrorists deserve death. Perhaps it is time for Americans, Europeans, and their media elite to reexamine their most glaring double standards: If Americans can kill a master terrorist targeting civilians then Israel too should be able to target Hamas leaders in Gaza, Damascus, Oslo, or Dubai, wherever they may be.

The benefits of class warfare

Jerry Della Femina, the "Mad Men" Ad Man, Has Shrugged

Jerry Della Femina, the legendary advertizing visionary, restaurant owner, and alleged inspiration for the popular AMC television show,Mad Men, has shrugged. As he wrote recently in The Independent (East Hampton), in 2008 he “decided that this country was falling in love with an attractive, great-speechmaking hustler/socialist”, and due to the country’s further lurch towards statism, Della Femina has decided to drop out on the way to selling “my houses, my advertizing business, my newspaper and my restaurant.”

Ayn Rand purists will say Della Femina hasn’t exactly shrugged in theAtlas Shrugged sense given his plans to sell his holdings. In Rand’s essential novel, the heroic individuals of commerce simply disappeared, leaving their assets to worthless looters lacking business skills. But that’s nitpicking, and only in fiction would the productive give up all that’s rightfully theirs.

Della Femina has by any rational measure shrugged, and his decision to do so tells us what happens when society’s achievers are fleeced so that the activities of the failed and indolent can be subsidized. Some, as Della Femina plans to do, depart, and we’re all worse off as a result.

Though Della Femina has not said he’s leaving the U.S. altogether, it’s as though he is. This is one of the problems with excessive taxation on the successful.

Whereas light taxation ensures that the greatest number of achievers will participate in the marketplace with the greatest frequency, high levels of taxation mean that some, on the margin, disappear. Individuals with substantial wealth like Della Femina can continue to live in luxury, and they can do so without taking part in the economic activity that moves society forward.

So with Della Femina checking out due to an overbearing, greedy government, those who might want to work for a proven winner will no longer have that opportunity. For those eager to transact with a proven restaurant operator, that option is now closed. And for the companies interested in accessing Della Femina’s Midas touch when it comes to branding the products of others, he’s moving on.

In short, taxes on the rich as my Forbes colleague Charles Kadlec likes to point out, are nothing more than tariffs placed on the rest of us that make it more difficult to have dealings with outsized successes like Della Femina. Della Femina’s departure is all of our loss.

As Della Femina put it, “I’m just not ready to have my wealth redistributed. I’m not ready to pay more tax money than the next guy because I provide jobs and because I work a 60-hour week and I earn more than $250,000 a year.” Traditional commentators would say that Della Femina is greedy, but what is greedy about providing for one’s own needs? Isn’t true greed producing nothing under the expectation that the productive will give us the fruits of their labor so that we don’t have to work hard ourselves? Is it not both criminal and greedy to use the force of government to spend the hard-earned money of others?

Lest we forget, no one was forced at gunpoint into Della Femina’s eponymous restaurant, and similarly it wasn’t coercion that led Isuzu, Pan Am and Beck’s Beer into his advertizing agencies. Instead, Della Femina worked extraordinarily hard, gave individuals and businesses what they wanted, and for doing so, he grew rich.

Della Femina’s reward? A president who says the rich are merely fortunate, and that they should hand over even more of their money so that the “compassionate” in Washington who’ve mostly never met a payroll, never built a business and never had their productivity measured by the marketplace can hand over their earnings to others. Some would call this theft, and that’s probably not a harsh enough description.

Of course Della Femina’s unfortunate story doesn’t end there. A man of means, he no longer trusts the direction of the United States, nor the dollar that we use to exchange our production. Of the belief that we’re headed for further difficulties, Della Femina is “going into gold and silver.”

To put it simply, we’re not just losing Della Femina’s brilliant work effort. Long on capital, he’s shrugging as an investor too.

With President Obama eager to tax the productive activity of the effective, and with his Treasury aggressively seeking (and succeeding) to devalue the dollar, Della Femina is removing his growth capital from the marketplace and investing it in two sinks of wealth with very limited economic purpose that are most useful as a hedge against the monetary mismanagement of government. Not only are we losing his skills, we’re losing the companies and jobs that in saner times his wealth would help produce.

Class warriors such as President Obama embrace the classic fallacy of loving jobs while hating job creators, and in fostering an environment that penalizes the productive and the investment capital that funds their activities, Obama is unwittingly directing his cruel egalitarianism at those who aren’t as skillful, and who don’t work as hard as Della Femina. Lest we forget, in growing rich Della Femina created a lot of jobs for those lacking his skills, courage and drive, and his investments doubtless created more.

But thanks to a tax, spend and devalue government, grand business successes like Jerry Della Femina are moving on. Copycats are sure to follow, and this bears remembering the next time we lament a lack of well-paid jobs. The penalties laid down on the creators of such things were too much, and they departed, or more appropriately, shrugged.

The tribal mentality of the Democrats.

chicagotribune.com

16 state workers laid off for politics will get $422,000

Illinois agrees to compensate Republicans fired under Blagojevich administration

By Todd Wilson, Tribune Reporter

SPRINGFIELD

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— The state has agreed to pay a total of $422,000 to 16 state transportation workers who a federal jury determined were fired because they were Republicans during the Democratic administration of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, officials said Friday.

The 16 were laid off from jobs at the Illinois Department of Transportation in July 2004, the second year of Blagojevich's reign. They sued the agency for wrongful termination, and a federal jury agreed last month that they had been "fired for their political affiliations," said Donald Craven, an attorney for the workers.

Individual settlements were reached between the state and the workers rather than leaving it to the courts to award damages.

Nine workers already are back on the payroll, some with substantial pay increases. Some of the workers have declined offers to return.

The highest cash settlement from the state went to Jason Yoakum for $100,000 to be paid out over five years. Yoakum also was rehired as a financial services manager at $3,814 per month, the same amount he made when fired, according to the comptroller's office. The state is not making back payments to Yoakum's pension plan but is for others in the case.

The largest pay increase for rehired employees was 61 percent to Lori Coonen, who went from a monthly salary of $3,737 when she was fired to $6,020 currently, officials said. The state also is paying pension benefits she lost over the years and a $20,000 cash settlement, invoices showed.

Craven said the verdicts and settlements should send a message to state officials looking to play illegal partisan games.

"The message should be, 'Don't do that,'" Craven said.

Just imagine how they will distribute health care. The other day I posted about government contractors having to list their political contributions on their proposals. How do you think that will work out with this administration in control?

Why indeed. So, we can transfer more American money to others more deserving of it.

Sen. Vitter asks why the U.S. is sending money to Brazil for oil

Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter reinvigorated his pursuit Friday for the reasons behind why the administration is providing South American countries money to produce oil.

“U.S. domestic energy policy cannot be based on crippling access, stifling permitting, and increasing taxes on production – as President Obama has recently proposed – while at the same time loaning billions to foreign government-owned entities to produce abroad,” Vitter said. “These loans may well create numerous jobs domestically for U.S. businesses to sell product overseas. However, there is no doubt that domestic production creates domestic jobs that cannot be shipped overseas.”

The Export-Import Bank of the United States (ExIm) has loaned Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, and Columbia’s national oil company, Ecopetrol, $2 billion and nearly $1 billion respectively.

In a letter released Friday to the president of the ExIm, Fred Hochberg, Vitter asked what the United States can hope to get in return for these investments.

“I would appreciate a full accounting of the return on these ‘investments’ ExIm has been making as we develop domestic energy policy in a period when gas prices are above $4/gallon and American families and businesses suffer,” he wrote in the letter. “These loans may well create numerous jobs domestically for U.S. businesses to sell product overseas. However, there is no doubt that domestic production creates domestic jobs that cannot be shipped overseas.”

Friday’s letter comes as a follow-up to a letter Vitter sent the agency in March and to which he never received a reply.

“Louisianians are frustrated with the ongoing de facto moratorium, and I would appreciate a full accounting for the return on investment the American taxpayer has received, and is anticipated to receive on the $2 billion loan to this Brazilian petroleum company,” Vitter said back in March. “I want to understand why permitting domestically is nearly stalled, and if there is at least a return on this investment over the last year and a half for supporting production offshore Brazil.”

When did the rule of law become optional? When the left wants it so.

Calif may let locals opt out of immigration checks

California lawmakers are the latest to weigh joining efforts in other states to gain control over a controversial national program that automatically checks the immigration status of arrestees.

The Golden State accounts for more than a third of the deportations under the Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, and some local officials are saying they were misled by the federal government about the program's extent.

Illinois lawmakers are also considering a measure to let communities retreat from the program. Washington state has deferred to local governments on whether they want to join the so-called "Secure Communities" program, which links up the FBI's criminal database and the Department of Homeland Security's records so that every time someone is arrested their immigration status is automatically, electronically checked.

But their efforts could be thwarted as federal officials argue that states have no control over what information is shared among federal agencies.

The tug-of-war over the ICE program highlights the tension between states and the federal government in the absence of a legislative fix on immigration. In the last four years, states have passed a flurry of bills and resolutions on issues ranging from employer verification to access to driver's licenses, most notably Arizona's tough local immigration enforcement law.

Immigrant advocates have lambasted ICE's fingerprint sharing program for sweeping up crime victims and witnesses who are arrested during an investigation in addition to those accused of committing a crime. About 29 percent of the 102,000 immigrants deported under the program since it began in 2008 have no criminal conviction, according to federal government statistics.

On Tuesday, the California Assembly's public safety committee voted to advance the bill that would only let local communities participate in the program if they choose to do so through resolution.

The measure is being met with applause from immigrant advocates, and from some in law enforcement, including San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey, who has long pushed to withdraw from a program he fears will make immigrants afraid to report crime and erode their trust in law enforcement.

"It clearly is not the worst of the worst (being caught) and we're simply using it as a de facto immigration policy," said Quintin Mecke, a spokesman for Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, the bill's sponsor.

However, the bill faces criticism from the California State Sheriffs' Association, which says the electronic checks overseen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are cost effective and eliminating them would place a burden on their agencies.

Republican Assemblyman Curt Hagman, who opposes the bill, also said the country can't have a state-by-state immigration policy and that California has to play by the federal government's rules on a federal issue.

"They shouldn't be able to pick and choose what laws are valid and what ones aren't," Hagman said, adding that the bill's extensive reporting requirements for communities that want to remain in Secure Communities make it too onerous to do so.

The debate over the ICE program is playing out across the country as federal authorities aim to achieve nationwide coverage in 2013. It currently is in effect in more than 1,200 jurisdictions in 42 states. The controversy heightened after The Associated Press reported in February that the program initially billed as voluntary by federal officials is now mandatory and that cities must turn over the fingerprint data to ICE.

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren has said she believes some of the statements made by Homeland Security and ICE officials about the program were intentionally false and misleading and has asked the department's inspector general to investigate.

Fingerprints of criminal suspects collected by local law enforcement officers have always been sent to the FBI to check against its criminal histories and fingerprint database. Under the ICE program, the fingerprints also are run through the Department of Homeland Security's database, and federal authorities can determine the suspect's immigration status and begin deportation proceedings if necessary.

Immigration officials say the goal is to ensure illegal immigrants who commit crimes are flagged and deported. Nationwide, about 26 percent of those deported under program have been convicted of major drug offenses or violent crimes.

Some communities have welcomed the program as a cost savings measure and a way to ensure illegal immigrants who commit crimes are not released back into their neighborhoods. In Colorado, for example, lawmakers were considering a measure to withhold funding from localities that refused to participate, but it failed.

But officials in jurisdictions including Providence, R.I., Chicago and San Francisco have challenged the program, which they say undermines trust that it has taken local law enforcement years to build in immigrant communities.

Between October 2008 and March 2011, more than 7 million people who have been arrested have had their fingerprints run through the ICE program. Roughly 197,000 were identified as suspected illegal immigrants, and nearly 40 percent of those were in California, according to statistics provided by ICE.

Even if legislation were to pass, it is not clear a California law would take precedence over the program.

ICE officials declined to comment on the pending legislation but said the program is not voluntary.

Rather, it is ultimately about sharing information between federal agencies and "as a result, state and local jurisdictions cannot prohibit the information sharing between the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security upon which the Secure Communities program rests," ICE director John Morton wrote in a letter to Lofgren dated Thursday.

Immigrant advocates, however, believe states do have a say, noting that federal immigration officials have crisscrossed the country to sign agreements with different states.

In California, a memorandum of agreement was signed with ICE in 2009.

"That's the crux of this debate: can you force local law enforcement to conduct civil immigration enforcement? I think the answer is no," said Angela Chan, staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, adding that she does not believe federal immigration officials legally have the right to access fingerprint data taken by local agencies.

The California bill now heads to the appropriation committee for a price tag. Proponents don't expect there to be major costs and hope to see the measure debated by the Assembly in June.

Under the measure, local governments that want to continue with the ICE program would need to maintain data on arrests and the number of immigrants referred to federal authorities. The program could only be applied to immigrants convicted of crimes, not those who are merely arrested.

Communities that want to opt out, like San Francisco, would be free of the program entirely, should the law pass and then be sustainable.

"We were told initially by ICE we could opt out, then ... it has gone back and forth like a ping pong ball," Hennessey said during the Assembly committee hearing in Sacramento. "I think that ICE has not been particularly cooperative with us in San Francisco in law enforcement, and it has been a very frustrating experience."

Sharia law is a threat to the Constition

Dearborn, Michigan: America's First Sharia-Compliant Muslim Enclave?

remember Obama was going to do it "smarter"

Gaddafi's son's killing puts Nato in line of fire

Russia and Venezuela join Libyan regime in accusing Nato of attempting to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi

The left loves deceivers

Three Cups of Snake-Oil

By Mark Steyn

Following the recent exposé of Greg Mortensen and his Three Cups of Tea, Bruce Bawer is merciless:

Mortenson’s shameless self-celebration in Three Cups of Tea left me speechless. As Oscar Wilde observed of Little Nell’s death in The Old Curiosity Shop, how could any sensitive reader react to such nonsense with anything but derisive laughter? Yet untold numbers of people took every word of Mortenson’s self-hagiography as gospel. Not until Kraft and Krakauer came along, however, did I understand just how widely revered this fourflusher was. Not until they came along did I learn that while the Central Asia Institute — which is registered as a 501(c)3 non-profit — footed the bill for splashy ads for Mortenson’s books, paid for private jets to fly him from lecture to lecture, and purchased the copies of his books that were sold or handed out at his lectures, Mortenson pocketed his lecture fees as well as the income from book sales. (One striking detail was that the CAI did not avail itself of Mortenson’s author’s discount when buying his books, thereby inflating his sales figures and allowing him to receive royalties for these purchases.) Out of the millions Mortenson made from his books, moreover, he contributed a relatively tiny sum to the CAI, the overwhelming majority of whose income came from public donations.

Indeed, it turns out that the CAI has spent far more money subsidizing Mortenson’s lavish lifestyle than it has on schools in Afghanistan. Practically speaking, then, the whole dog-and-pony show wasn’t really about Afghani children; it was about Mortenson and his book.

At one level, Mortenson’s is merely the latest fake memoir to which sentimentalist rubes are prone. But it’s a more ambitious scheme than most: As Bawer tells it, the principal purpose of this 501(c)3 is to facilitate Mortenson’s jetset lifestyle and inflate his book royalties. To that end, “Pennies for Peace” – a moniker so obviously bogus it’s “the 2009 recipient of the Mom’s Choice Award!” – has insinuated its way into zillions of American grade schools, including, I regret to say, my own kids’. In the very same year that the Mom’s Choice saps honored the “program”, US schoolchildren donated $1.7 million to Mortenson’s 501(c)3. In return, the 501(c)3 spent $612,000 on its ostensible purpose – Afghan school supplies, teachers’ salaries, etc. The remaining $1.1 million raised by American children went toward the $1.4 million spent flying Mortenson around from one speaking engagement to another on private jets.

Oh, well. Oprah-watchers are suckers, our schoolhouses are gullible. But what’s the Pentagon’s excuse?

By 2009, Mr. Mortenson had become an unofficial adviser to the United States military in Afghanistan. That summer, Colonel Kolenda has recalled, Mr. Mortenson was in meetings in Kabul with him, village elders and at times Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, then President Obama’s top commander in the country.

A self-enriching huckster is embedded at the heart of the United States military’s “hearts-and-minds” strategy in Afghanistan. How’s that working out? Great! Maybe Nato and the Taliban can share the 2012 Mom’s Choice Award.

Bruce Bawer concludes his piece by linking Mortenson to a certain other flimflam peddler with a “compelling personal narrative” – President Obama. It’s striking that, in seeking words to expose the tea salesman’s racket, Bawer quotes dead fiction guys – Wilde, Hemingway, etc – to illuminate reality. We live in an age where most folks prefer things the other way round, and so large numbers of people seek real-life “heroes” who conform to the tritest of formulaic fairytales. When they’re doing it at the Pentagon, you’re in serious trouble.

The Birth Certificate

I haven't posted anything about the Obama birth certificate issue, thinking it mostly interesting as a further example of how little we know about the life of the current POTUS, the most unqualified person ever elected, with almost no history except that provided by his own autobiography (possibly combined with the filled-in fantasies of Bill Ayers). While it might have disqualified him from running (although I've seen differing arguments, some saying he's naturalized because his mother was a citizen, and others arguing that because of his mother's age she didn't meet the 5 years of residency after the age of 14), it is now mostly moot. He would need to be impeached now, the chance of which is next to nil.

All of this is just rambling introduction to my point. This has been an issue that I have only peripherally paid attention to, except that now that the 'real' birth certificate has been released I've now started to become suspicious of what, exactly, he has to hide about his past.

James Corsi, who wrote a book about the birth certificate, has compared the official Obama certificate with those of twins born the day after and has pointed out numerous discrepencies. While he doesn't mention it here, other bloggers have noted the registrar's signature of "U K L Lee", which is like one of those joke authors (Yellow Rivers by I.P. Daily...Hawaiian Dreams by U.K.L.Lee), its like a thumb in the eye, not only did we fake a birth certificate but we are putting in jokes.

And Bill Quick reminds us of the chronology of lies:

July 25, 2009: (The original birth certificate no longer exists)

CNN chief addresses Obama birth controversy - Los Angeles Times

That appeared to be a step back from the stance Klein took in his e-mail Thursday, in which he wrote that CNN researchers had determined that Hawaiian officials discarded paper documents in 2001. Because of that, Obama’s long-form birth certificate no longer exists and a shorter certificate of live birth that has been made public is the official record, they reported.

“It seems to definitively answer the question,” Klein wrote in the e-mail, first reported by the website TVNewser.

July 27, 2009: (The original birth certificate exists)

CNN wrong once again – birth record not destroyed

Directly contradicting CNN chief Jon Klein – who ordered host Lou Dobbs to quit discussing President Obama’s birth certificate – the Hawaii Department of Health affirmed that no paper birth certificates were destroyed when the department moved to electronic record-keeping.

“I am not aware of any birth certificate records that have been destroyed by the department,” Janice Okubo, public information officer for the Hawaii DOH, told WND. “When the department went electronic in 2001, vital records, whether in paper form or any other form, [were] maintained. We don’t destroy records.”

July 31, 2009: (The original birth certificate never existed)

National Review Online: Suborned In the U.S.A. : NPR

The fundamental fiction is that Obama has refused to release his “real” birth certificate. This is untrue. The document that Obama has made available is the document that Hawaiian authorities issue when they are asked for a birth certificate. There is no secondary document cloaked in darkness, only the state records that are used to generate birth certificates when they are requested.

January 20, 2011: (Oops, it doesn’t exist any more)

Hawaii governor says Obama’s birth record ‘exists’ but can’t produce it
Mail Online

Abercrombie said on Tuesday that an investigation had unearthed papers proving Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.

He told Honolulu’s Star-Advertiser: ‘It actually exists in the archives, written down,’ he said.

But it became apparent that what had been discovered was an unspecified listing or notation of Obama’s birth that someone had made in the state archives and not a birth certificate.

And in the same interview Abercrombie suggested that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Barack Obama may not exist within the vital records maintained by the Hawaii Department of Health.

January 22, 2011: (We can find it, but can’t release it without Obama’s permission)

Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii governor drops mission to dispel birthers, prove Obama was born in state - New York Daily News

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie is giving up on efforts to squash claims that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in his state — but it’s not for lack of trying.

State Attorney General David Louie told the governor that it’s against state law to release private documents, including an individual’s birth documentation without the person’s consent

April 11, 2011: (No, even Obama can’t get of copy of the original birth certificate that either exists, never existed, or once existed but was either lost or destroyed)

Here’s Why President Obama Can’t Show His Birth Certificate

With all the new Birther atten­tion drummed up by Don­ald Trump, one would be wise to ask the obvi­ous ques­tion; why wouldn’t Pres­i­dent Obama just hand over his birth cer­tifi­cate and stop all this nonsense.

Well, although that may well be the best thing to do, it seems that even the pres­i­dent of the United States doesn’t have the author­ity to get a copy of his own birth record. The law in Hawaii pro­hibits any vital records from being trans­ferred or even pho­to­copied. This report com­ple­ments of MSNBC.

Joshua Wisch, the spokesman for the attor­ney general’s office, said state law does not in fact per­mit the release of “vital records,” includ­ing an orig­i­nal “record of live birth” — even to the indi­vid­ual whose birth it records.

“It’s a Depart­ment of Health record and it can’t be released to any­body,” he said. Nor do state laws have any pro­vi­sion that autho­rizes such records to be pho­to­copied, Wisch said. If Obama wanted to per­son­ally visit the state health depart­ment, he would be per­mit­ted to inspect his birth record, Wisch said.

But if he or any­body else wanted a copy of their birth records, they would be told to fill out the appro­pri­ate state form and receive back the same com­puter gen­er­ated “cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of live birth” form that every­body else gets — which is exactly what Obama did four years ago.

So although the best way to stop this bogus con­spir­acy by the Birthers would be to get a copy of the president’s birth cer­tifi­cate, he will be break­ing the law if he tries.

You see what I’m getting at here?
The clouds of evasion, distortion, obfuscation, and downright lies issued by Obama supporters, allies, political compatriots, minions, and even Obama himself have been endless, contradictory, and reeking of suspicion.

Over and over again, I asked, “Why doesn’t he just release the birth certificate?”

Sniffily, I and those like me, who simply wanted to see it, were told, “Because he doesn’t have to.” I was told this by people who should know better - by people like the stalwarts at NRO, by Mark Levin, by the monotonous loudmouth John Gibson, by Ed Morrissey, by Allahpundit, by all kinds of people who couldn’t come up with any sensible answer to the question, and instead settled for supercilious sneers.

But, in fact, that certificate did exist, and as Obama just demonstrated, he was apparently easily able to release it.

So why didn’t he?

And don’t tell me “because he didn’t have to.”

If that is the case, when would a President or presidential candidate “have to?”

In fact, Obama didn’t release it because he or his people thought he was able to get some political mileage for himself out of not releasing it. Donald Trump apparently changed that calculus, and so he decided he had more to gain by releasing it. It was a cold political calculation from start to finish, and he chumped all those folks like Morrissey and Allahpundit and all the rest who thought there was even a shred of sincerity to his actions, denials, evasions, and outright lies.

That’s right, chumped. He turned them into chumps, and they were thrilled to bend over for it.

And these are the brilliant bozos who sneer at the rest of us.

And additional comments from Karl Denninger:

Obama's Birth Certificate: The "copy" the White House released is not a copy. It is manufactured. This video goes through the proof, and it's much more than the Illustrator "breadcrumbs" that others have found and talked about.

You've been had America, and the White House was dumb enough to stick proof of it on their own web server.

Follow the link for more.

A cautionary tale in historical perspective

The West’s Misguided Victory in Kosovo

Serbia and Israel – Two Nations under Islamic Duress

Redacted from article by Victor Sharpe

See video at end of article:

James Jatras: Muslim Extermination Of Kosovo Christians

The Battle of Kosovo, 1389, on the “Field of Blackbirds.”
 
In the 14th century, the Byzantine Empire began to crumble, finally falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. But in 1389, the Ottoman Turkish sultan, Murad 1, began to lead his forces against the armies of the Serbian prince Lazar. The Serbian prince had already been active in resisting increasing Muslim raids against Christian lands in the Balkans and had called his barons, knights and warriors together to ask them if they should fight or become slaves, dhimmis, to the Muslims. The decision was made to fight although their forces would number some 35,000 against a Turkish Muslim host of 100,000. But better to fight than to be enslaved.
 
The place chosen to make a stand against the Muslim Turks was at Kosovo Polje (the Field of Blackbirds) in Kosovo — the heartland of the Serbian nation. It was in June, 1389, on St. Vitus Day (Vidovdan), that the rival forces met.

The battle began at first light with Serbian successes and the great Serbian hero, Milos Obilic, killed the Turkish Muslim sultan, Murad. For a while the Turks were in disarray but they managed to recover and by their sheer weight of numbers ground down and defeated the Serbian army.


It was not a mere military defeat, but the end of Serbian independence and the beginning of 500 years of Christian suffering under the Muslim yoke. But worse still, the Serbian heartland of Kosovo was lost. For the Serbian people, the blood shed at the Battle of Kosovo in the Field of Blackbirds marks Kosovo as eternally Serbian
.


Another year in history that haunts the memory of a different people, who also suffered the loss of their eternal capital city, is the year 70 AD. It was in that terrible year that the Roman general, Titus, finally came with overwhelming force against the Jewish capital city, Jerusalem. Jerusalem was finally destroyed after a frightful siege in which hundreds of thousands died of disease and hunger.

Centuries pass but history has an almost supernatural way of repeating itself. Fast forward to the twentieth and twenty first centuries and both Serbia and the Jewish homeland are linked by eerie circumstances. Both are falsely demonized in the mainstream press as aggressors when, in fact, they are the victims, and both are under relentless aggression from Islam.

But let us consider the new gold of our times and how it shapes politics and war: Oil, which greases the machinery of geo-politics and lubricates the revenge and envy that nation states harbor towards each other.
 
The need for oil makes and destroys states and peoples and too often befouls humanity.

It is still a necessary evil, but much of this black gold happens by fate to lie under the sands of the Arab Middle East and the Islamic Republic of Iran and thus morphs into a terrible weapon wielded by Arab despots and Islamo-fascist fanatics.
 


The late 20th century’s insane rush to create Kosovo as yet another Muslim autonomous region in the heart of the Balkans, was a testament to the curse of oil. Ever ready to enrich their economies, the Europeans and, sadly, the Clinton Administration combined to appease and placate the Arab and Muslim kings, emirs, imams and assorted dictators. And it was in Europe that Arab oil drove the creation of a Muslim statelet, Kosovo, that is rapidly becoming a radical Islamist Balkan beachhead, filled with jihadists from around the Islamic world, ready to threaten what is left of Christian Europe. In time it will inevitably become a springboard for terror into both the United States and Russia.



And we must realize that Israel, too, is threatened by the same evil created by Arab oil. The Arabs who call themselves Palestinians demand Judaism’s eternal holy city of Jerusalem and the Jewish heartland of Judea and Samaria (known by the erroneous Arab name, the West Bank). In this, the baleful influence of President Barack Hussein Obama looms large, just as the Serbian people’s heartland of Kosovo was stolen from them with the connivance and brute force of President Clinton and his diplomats, Richard Holbrooke and Madeleine Albright.



Under relentless U.S State Department pressure, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Netanyahu is enduring the same attempt at the dismemberment of its biblical, ancestral, aboriginal, spiritual and physical Jewish heartland as the brave and ill served Serbian people suffered with the loss of their beloved Kosovo.
 


The lesson for Israel is that foreign powers have conspired to strip the expendable Serbs of their ancestral heartland and give it to the Muslims. These same western powers believe that by placating and ingratiating themselves with the oil rich Arab and Muslim world they enrich their own economies.

Caroline Glick, wrote in the Feb 23, 2008 Jerusalem Post: 



“… the lessons of Kosovo are clear. Not only should Israel join Russia, Canada, China, Spain, Romania and many others in refusing to recognize Kosovo. It should also state that as a consequence of Kosovo’s independence, Israel rejects the deployment of any international forces to Gaza or Judea and Samaria, and refuses to cede its legal right to sovereignty in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Jerusalem to international arbitration.”…
 

 


FamilySecurityMatters.org
Contributing Editor Victor Sharpe

Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman on April 27, 2011.

UN

UN council issues tepid rebuke of Syria. Does it want to avoid another Libya?

The UN Human Rights Council barely backed a watered-down condemnation of Syria for its attacks on civilian protesters. The pushback suggests some nations worry that the West overstepped its bounds in pressing for strong action against Libya – and want to avoid a repeat.

The United Nations’ top human-rights body on Friday split over how to respond to Syria’s state-ordered violence against civilians – even as Syrians defied the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and turned out in protests across the country.

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The UN Human Rights Council approved a watered-down statement sponsored by the United States that condemns the military-on-civilian violence that has killed as many as 500 people, according to reports from Syrian rights organizations. The statement also calls on the UN’s top human-rights official to undertake an immediate investigation of the violence for violations of international law.

But the statement had to overcome a barrage of opposition from China, Russia, and some African countries that made it clear they were balking at following the same path the international community has taken against the regime of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. The statement squeaked by with 26 votes in favor from the 47-member body.

RELATED: Syria 101: 4 attributes of Assad's authoritarian regime

Nine countries – including China and Russia – voted against the measure, while 11 either abstained or were not present.

The council’s split suggests that the long-lived divide over human rights between Western and developed democracies on one side and developing, often autocratic regimes on the other is alive and well.

Declarations at Friday’s council session from Russia, China, and some other members suggest that a number of countries now feel Western countries have overstepped their bounds in using international condemnation of Libya to enter the conflict there, and they don’t want the same to occur in Syria.

The cautious international response took place as Friday protests in Syria reportedly erupted even in the heart of Damascus, where little public dissent had occurred over the past week of bloody demonstrations elsewhere. Reports from inside the country, difficult to confirm because foreign journalists are being kept out, claimed that perhaps “dozens” of people were killed Friday.

The council’s action in Geneva was followed in Washington by the US government’s first new sanctions on Syria since this year’s popular upheaval across the Middle East began pitting governments against their populations.

President Obama on Friday signed an executive order imposing sanctions on three Syrian officials and two organizations – Syria’s intelligence agency and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–Qods Force – in connection with the government’s violent actions.

The Syrian officials, including two relatives of President Assad, are not thought to have many assets in the US, so the action freezing all US-based assets is unlikely to have much real impact. But US officials say the idea is primarily to send a message to Syria, including to Assad himself, that sticking to the course of violent repression will lead to additional – and stronger – action.

The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said after the vote in Geneva that the council was acting “against attempts to silence dissent with the use of gratuitous violence, which is not the act of a responsible government.” She called the statement “an important precedent,” adding that it marks “a strong step forward for this world body at a critical time.”

She did not mention the compromises the US had to accept to get to a bare majority in favor of the statement. Among other things, the US stripped out a call for an official commission of inquiry to investigate the Syrian violence – the step approved by the council in the case of Libya – in favor of a lower-level mission led by the UN’s high commissioner for human rights.

In addition, a reference in the statement to Syria’s candidacy to the Human Rights Council – and a line calling on UN members to consider Syrian official violence when voting for new council members – was eliminated. Nevertheless, Ambasssador Rice insisted the statement as approved speaks against Syria’s campaign for a council seat.

The statement “underscores the incongruity of Syria’s current candidacy” for the council, she said. “Meeting legitimate calls for reform with tanks and bullets is unacceptable behavior by any government, least of all an aspiring member of the Council.”

The organization Human Rights Watch said after the Geneva vote that electing Syria to the Human Rights Council now, when an investigation of the violence has been approved, would be “like inviting the accused to sit in with the jury."

The New York-based group said it is time for the Arab League and other countries that have endorsed Syria’s candidacy to reverse course and back other candidates.

There is just never enough money or taxes for a Democrat

Gas Tax Hike May Be Proposed In Special Session

Will Maryland ever stop voting Democrat?

What happened to the Federal money we were told we going into shovel ready road work? How many times will the Democrats go to the same we're gong to fix the roads excuse inly to use the money for something else. How come when you try to cut bureaucrats in government the Democrats scream it will hurt the economy and add to unemployment but when taxes are to be raised there are no economic consequences.