|
Home
News & Views
Comments
Health & fitness
Contact Us
An economics professor at a
local college made a statement that he had never failed a single
student before but had once failed an entire class.
That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that
no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great
equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this
class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and
everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and
no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got
a B.
The students who studied hard were upset and the students who
studied little were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who studied
little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard
decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling
all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the
benefit of anyone else.
All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them
that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the
reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when
government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to
succeed.
Could not be any simpler than that.
|
|
|
|
AN OPEN LETTER TO MUSLIMS ONLY
Dear
Muslim Brothers and Sisters,
God
forbid if any one of our near one and dear one is
killed then the killer is evil, a beast and what not
and should get penalty but if one among us kills
anybody then he is not evil and we start lying,
denying or even justifying the killing.... double
standards?
Being
Muslims, many of our brothers and sisters are not
working for peace. They are misguided, mistaken and
spreading the virus of hatred and revenge through
telling deliberate lies, disinformation and false
accusations, which is resulting in death and
miseries for number of innocent people living around
the world at the hands of merciless KILLER MUSLIMS
and also bringing bad name to Mohammed (PBUH) who
never killed anyone in his life time.
Instead
of teaching about Good & Evil, certain Radical
Muslim Clerics are only "Trading in Religion". They
teach us about accusing, abusing and killing the
non-Muslims. They try to hypnotize us to Hate and
Kill the non-Muslims and brethren of other sects or
be killed and without using any common sense, we
readily believe in whatever is being said by these
Hate Mongers. Actually, they are "Agents of
Satan" who is paying them heavily and in return they
are cutting at the very roots of the Ummah. Instead
of "Mourning"
most of
the Muslims are rejoicing on the brutal killings of
the non-combatant innocent civilians and "The
Murderers" have always been "Our Great Heroes".
Before
it is too late and the Curse Of God falls upon us,
we should use common sense, find out the TRUTH and
must change ourselves to save Muslims from
becoming the most "Hated, Isolated, Discredited and
Suspicious"
people
in the world. We must start working for promoting
"Sectarian Harmony and Religious Tolerance"
in the
society and should prove to the WORLD through our
deeds that Islam is not a religion of Zero Tolerance
and Mohammed (PBUH) teaches "Love & Peace"
and not
Gangsterism, Terrorism, Barbarism, Extremism,
Sectarianism, Cruelty, Inhumanity and "Hatred &
Killing" of the innocent civilians.
Islam is
a religion of peace. Islam teaches respect and love
for all even the animals. But many narrow-minded
Muslims have so far failed to learn anything good
from the teachings of Mohammed (PBUH) who preaches
love for the peoples of all religions. We are far
away from the basic principle of Islam i.e.
"Enjoining the people to do Good and forbidding them
from Doing Evil" and thus, possess no quality of the
civilized society. Unfortunately, many of us show
Zero Tolerance towards others and have wrongly
learnt few thing to be called as good Muslims and
those are "hate" the non-Muslims and "Accusing,
Abusing and Cursing" the non-Muslims. ...act
of madness?
The
killing of others in the name of religion is a Sin.
Can a FATHER ever teach his Children to be the
permanent Enemies of each other?
The time
has come for us to stop readily believing in
whatever is being said, read and written by the
LIARS / Hate Mongers. Unfortunately, some
misguided-Muslims believe that the Holy Koran and
Holy Prophet (PBUH) both have instructed Muslims
that the opponents be KILLED and that they are
simply following the orders.
We
should use our own common sense and only believe
which is logical, convincing and in the best
interest of the humanity.
Why do
we hate others so much, may be they are better
humans then what we are. My feeling is that the
Muslims should unite to discredit and deactivate the
fringe mullahs (Preachers of Hate) who promise a
quick trip to paradise to people who have little and
sacrifice themselves with bombs strapped to their
bodies. If the mullahs (THE LIARS) thought that it
really was a way to paradise they would be strapping
bombs to themselves! Their followers are kept too
ignorant to see this for themselves and enlightened
Muslims should educate them. We must promote
understanding and peace. We are all watched by the
same God and need to help one another, not Hate and
Hurt.
Our
contention is that the WORLD should resolve the
conflicts facing the Muslim World to stop the
terrorism. Unfortunately, all the disputes facing
the Muslim World are our self created. The root
causes of all the disputes are based on the Muslim
Philosophy of Hate against the non-Muslims. The
Muslim literature, teachings and preaching are
spreading and injecting this hatred in hearts and
minds of the Muslims. Our intolerant behavior is
further proved by the root causes of all the pending
conflicts that we (Muslims) cannot live side by side
in peace with the non-Muslims. All the disputes
facing Muslim World can be resolved easily, only if
we (the Muslims) are able to condemn the "Philosophy
of Hate" created in us by our past and present
elders who have divided the peoples of the world in
the name of "Religion, Cast and Creed".
Fellow
Muslims! if God is one and he loves mankind, we
should value each others life and strive to protect
each other than thinking that if we kill we shall
have reward. God looks at human beings not as
belonging to different religions, that is why the
rain falls to all, the sun shines to all and we all
breathe the air freely. We are all created or given
life in the very same way- whether Muslim,
Christian, Hindu, Jew etc.
Let us
learn to love each other sincerely.
The
change of heart and mind is possible to achieve if
we keep up our relentless efforts for a violence
free and peaceful world. We need to preach love,
kindness and humanity with extremist devotion and
mission. The mullahs (THE LIARS) and the preachers
of HATE must be excommunicated at every level and we
should stop giving them donations as it is our money
which is being used by them to spread HATRED for
killing of the innocents.
We must
also stop dividing the World into Muslim and
non-Muslim blocks. Our political leaders and
religious teachers must offer positive ideas.
Without the ability to imagine a better world, we
cannot build anything together. Tolerance of the
beliefs of other peoples in the world, warmth and
friendship across racial cultures MUST be the
objective of all peace loving people worldwide. What
is being offered today through religion is "Death,
Destruction and Sufferings".
MY
PRAYER FOR PEACE:
Merciful
God, please give to peoples of the world, the
required wisdom and determination, to Forgive and
Forget the bitterness of the past and learn to live
in peace like brothers and sisters, by condemning
the divisions and hatreds created in us by our past
and present elders.
(Amen)
Please
Read And Circulate this Message For Peace.
Thank
you.
S.A.Rehman
Peace
Activist
PAKISTAN
|
|
madrassas,
the Islamic schools in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan
viewed with concern by the U.S. as a breeding ground for
terrorists. Yet government funding in these countries for
basic services such as schools is severely limited, leaving
madrassas as the only viable option for many of the poorer
citizens, and providing an opportunity for terrorist groups
to gain credibility vis-à-vis the government by providing
such necessities as school, food, and clothing:

"American national security strategists remained deeply
concerned over the fact that the madrassas were actually
growing in number. In the autumn of 2003, Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld penned a memo in which he confessed
that 'we lack the metrics to know if we are winning or
losing the global war on terror.' Rumsfeld added, 'Are we
capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more
terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical
clerics are recruiting, training, and deploying against us?'
At the time, I was interning at the Center for Emerging
Threats and Opportunities, a think tank in Quantico,
Virginia, conducting research on religion and violence
around the world. Frankly, I didn't know much on the
subject, though Rumsfeld's memo piqued my curiosity. Why
were the madrassas growing in number? And were terrorists,
like the ones involved in the 9/11 plot, prone to plan a
sophisticated attack inside one of these backcountry
schools?
"Soon after arriving in Pakistan I embarked on a journey
around the country to observe an array of madrassas - and to
find out what compelled students to go there, and whether
they showed any signs of the reforms Musharraf had promised
to enact. I found that, in many cases, economic factors and
the state's collapsed education system - rather than some
obsession with radical ideology - offered a better
explanation for why parents sent their students to madrassas.
At the public schools teachers didn't show up for work,
schools laid in disrepair, and the nation's literacy rate
hovered around 50 percent. For parents, especially in the
more desperate households, opting to pull their children out
of public schools and put them in madrassas was an easy
choice. In a 2004 essay, Dr. Tariq Rahman, author of
Denizens of Alien Worlds: A Study of Education, Inequality,
and Polarization in Pakistan, wrote that, of the
madrassa students he surveyed in his research, '76.6 percent
belonged to the poorer sections of society.'
"To serve the most destitute families, some madrassas even
offered scholarships, according to Amir Rana, a terrorism
analyst in Lahore. 'For each child they send to a madrassa,
a family could make another eight or ten dollars a month,'
he said. 'A poor family with no chances for work could send
five or six kids to madrassas, and use the money they get to
feed the rest of the family.' Plus, those who attended the
madrassa received three meals a day, clean clothes, and a
place to sleep. In the absence of a welfare state, or even a
well-functioning state, madrassas performed the double role
of being a school and an NGO (nongovernmental organization
[which are typically involved in providing charitable
services to the very poor]).
" 'In the U.S., they say madrassas are a big problem in
Pakistan. That's not our problem,' Dr. Ata-ur-Rahman, a
sharp, impressive leader of Jamaat-i-Islami, former member
of parliament, and a principal of a madrassa in the
North-West Frontier Province, told me. 'Our problem in
Pakistan is not madrassas. Our problem is clean drinking
water. Our problem is sanitation. Our problem is health
care. These are our problems that you should highlight
somewhere.'"
Nicholas Schmidle, To Live or To Perish Forever,
Henry Holt, Copyright 2009 by Nicholas Schmidle, pp. 61-62.
|
| |
| |
Your Taxes
Explained
Suppose that every day, ten men go
out for beer and the bill for all
ten
comes to £100. If they
paid their bill the way we pay our
taxes, it would go
something like this:
The first four men (the poorest)
would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay £1.
The sixth would pay £3.
The seventh would pay £7.
The eighth would pay £12.
The ninth would pay £18.
The tenth man (the richest) would
pay £59.
So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every
day and seemed quite happy with the
arrangement, until one
day, the owner threw them a curve.
'Since you are all
such good customers,'
he said, 'I'm going to reduce the
cost of your daily
beer by £20.' Drinks
for the ten now cost just £80.
The group still wanted to pay their
bill the way we pay our taxes so the
first four men were
unaffected. They would still drink
for free. But what
about the other six men - the paying
customers? How could they divide the
£20 windfall so that
everyone would get his 'fair share?'
They realized that £20 divided by
six is £3.33. But if they subtracted
that
from everyone's share,
then the fifth man and the sixth man
would each end
up being paid to drink
his beer. So, the bar owner
suggested that it would
be fair to reduce each
man's bill by roughly the same
amount,
and he
proceeded to work out
the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four,
now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid £2 instead of £3
(33%savings).
The seventh now pay £5 instead of £7
(28%savings).
The eighth now paid £9 instead of
£12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid £14 instead of
£18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid £49 instead of
£59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than
before. And the first four continued
to
drink for free. But
once outside the restaurant, the men
began to compare
their savings.
'I only got a pound out of the £20,'
declared the sixth man. He pointed
to
the tenth man, 'but he
got £10!'
'Yes, that's right,' exclaimed the
fifth man. 'I only saved a pound,
too.
It's unfair that he
got ten times more than I did'
'That's true!!' shouted the seventh
man. 'Why should he get £10 back
when I
got only two? The
wealthy get all the breaks'
'Wait a minute,' yelled the first
four men in unison. 'We didn't get
anything at all. The
system exploits the poor'
The nine men surrounded the tenth
and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't
show up for drinks, so the nine sat
down
and had beers without him. But when
it came time to pay the bill, they
discovered something
important. They didn't have enough
money between all of
them for even half of
the bill.
And that, ladies and gentlemen,
journalists and college professors,
is how
our tax system works.
The people who pay the highest taxes
get the most
benefit from a tax
reduction. Tax them too much, attack
them for being
wealthy, and they just
may not show up anymore. In fact,
they might start
drinking overseas
where the atmosphere is somewhat
friendlier

|
Osama Bin Laden,
in spite of early and persistent rumors that he was a centimillionaire,
lost much of his inheritance shortly after receiving it:

"Of all the myths that would come to swirl around Al Qaeda, none was
greater than the fable of Osama Bin Laden's wealth. His followers
romanticized every aspect of his leadership, but they particularly
exaggerated his personal fortune. The unrestrained, poetic language
employed by Islamist propogandists to celebrate Osama's battlefield
achievements in Afghanistan soon extended to the subject of his bank
account. To some extent, their exaggerations are explained by Osama's
fundraising achievements; [which] made him appear wealthier to his
comrades in Pakistan than he actually was. Still, the prosaic truth
about his personal finances mattered greatly--because of misreporting
about Osama's wealth, his adversaries, particularly those in the
United States, would repeatedly misunderstand him. ...
"Investigators for the 9/11 Commission, drawing upon classified
documents later provided to the Treasury Department by the Bin Laden
family and its lawyers, estimated that Osama received a total of about
$24 million between 1970 and 1993 or 1994;
this figure would have included his annual allowance and dividends,
and the $8 million distribution of 1989, but probably not the value of
his shareholdings. ... Osama was wealthy, but not grotesquely so;
after [his brother] Salem's death he received a particularly large sum
of cash, just as Al Qaeda was born; and following his receipt of this
cash distribution ... he remained a partner in good standing in the
most important Bin Laden [family] businesses. ...
"[In and around 1995], Osama's experience as a businessman in Sudan
was [such that] his grandiose business schemes did not pan out. His
mentors took advantage of him. His employees misappropriated tens of
thousands of dollars, money he could no longer afford to lose--Jamal
Al-Fadl, for example, took Osama for $110,000 in a series of
manipulated land and commodity deals. ... As early as 1994 or 1995,
'We had a crisis in Al Qaeda,' recalled L'Hossaine Kherchtou, one of
his adherents. 'Osama Bin Laden himslef said to us that he had lost
all his money, and he reduced the salary of his people.' He was forced
to lay off as many as two thousand workers at his sunflower farm
during 1995. It was an extraordinarily fast downturn--Osama had blown
through his lump-sum inheritance, his dividends, and his charitable
funds in just four or five years, a total of perhaps $15 million or
more. In his essays, he denounced the Saudi royal family for
corruption and financial malfeasance, but he had managed his own funds
with all the prudence of a self-infatuated Hollywood celebrity."
Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens, Penguin, Copyright 2008 by Steve
Coll, pp. 347-352, 413.
|
TThe
Columbine massacre,
at which 13 students were murdered and many more injured. As reported by
Dave Cullen, local law
enforcement had a large amount of incriminating evidence on Eric Harris,
the leader of the massacre, months and years before April 20, 1999, the
tragic day--including a felony arrest, evidence of multiple hate crimes,
a venomous web site, and the urgent complaints of other parents.
However, they not only failed to follow up diligently on these, they
denied their existence for years following the tragedy:
"Jeffco [Jefferson County law enforcement] had a problem. Before Eric
[Harris] and Dylan [Klebold] shot themselves, officers had discovered
files on the boys. The cops had twelve pages from Eric's web site,
spewing hate and threatening to kill. For detectives, a written
confession, discovered before the killers were captured, was a big
break. It certainly simplified the search warrant. But for commanders, a
public confession, which they had sat on since 1997--that could be a PR
disaster.
"The Web pages had come from Randy and Judy Brown [parent's of Eric's
classmate Brooks Brown] . They had warned the sheriff's department
repeatedly about Eric, for more than a year and a half. Sometime around
noon, April 20, the file was shuttled to the command center in a trailer
set up in Clement Park. Jeffco officials quoted Eric's site extensively
in the search warrants executed that afternoon, but then denied ever
seeing it. (They would spend several years repeating those denials. They
suppressed the damning warrants as well.) Then Sheriff Stone fingered
[the innocent] Brooks as a suspect on The Today Show.
"It was a rough time for the Brown family. The public got two
conflicting stories: Randy and Judy Brown had either labored to prevent
Columbine or raised one of its conspirators. Or both.
"To the Browns it looked like retribution. Yes, their son had been close
to the killers--close enough to see it coming. The Browns had blown the
whistle on Eric Harris over a year earlier, and the cops had done
nothing. After Eric went through with his threats, the Browns were
fingered as accomplices instead of heroes. They couldn't believe it.
They told The New York Times they had contacted the sheriff's
department about Eric fifteen times. Jeffco officials would insist for
years that the Browns never met with an investigator--despite holding a
report indicating they had.
"The officers knew they had a problem, and it was much worse than the
Browns realized. Thirteen months before the massacre, Sheriff's
Investigators John Hicks and Mike Guerra had investigated one of the
Browns' complaints. They'd discovered substantial evidence that Eric was
building pipe bombs. Guerra had considered it serious enough to draft an
affidavit for a search warrant against the Harris home. For some reason,
the warrant was never taken before a judge. Guerra's affidavit was
convincing. It spelled out all the key components: motive, means, and
opportunity. A few days after the massacre, about a dozen local
officials slipped away from the Feds and gathered clandestinely in an
innocuous office in the county Open Space Department building. It would
come to be known as the Open Space meeting. The purpose was to discuss
the affidavit for a search warrant. How bad was it? What should they
tell the public?
"Guerra was driven to the meeting, and told never to discuss it outside
that group. He complied. The meeting was kept secret, too. That held for
five years. ... He described it as 'one of those cover-your- ass
meetings.' ...
"At a notorious press conference ten days after the murders, Jeffco
officials suppressed the affidavit and boldly lied about what they had
known. They said they could not find Eric's Web pages, they found no
evidence of pipe bombs matching Eric's descriptions, and had no record
of the Brown's meeting with Hicks. Guerra's affidavit plainly
contradicted all three claims. Officials had just spent days reviewing
it. They would repeat the lies for years."
Dave Cullen, Columbine, Hachette Book Group.
Compelling reading
.
|
How the
Government is Causing the Global Food Crisis
|

Thirty countries
have already experienced food riots this year. Tens of
millions of people are being pushed into abject poverty and
starvation. And to a large degree, this crisis is man-made --
the result of misguided energy and farm policies.
Perhaps the most
wrongheaded policies are the tangle of subsidies, mandates and
tariffs that encourage the production of biofuels from crops
in the United States and the European Union. According to the
World Bank, almost all of the growth in global corn production
from 2004 to 2007 was devoted to American ethanol production.
This increased corn and animal feed prices, and prompted
farmers to switch from other crops to corn.
Long-standing farm subsidies in the
industrialized world have also contributed, ruining farmers in
poor countries and depressing agricultural investment.
But the industrialized nations are not
the only culprit. At least 30 developing countries have
imposed restrictions or bans on the export of foodstuffs,
taking more food from global markets, reducing farmers’
profits, and discouraging them from investing in more
production.
So far there is no sign that world
leaders are ready to do what is needed. The United States and
Europe have refused to curtail their bio-fuel subsidies or
their lavish farm subsidies. They are also falling far short
of their aid commitments to the developing world.
|
|
|
|
|