Author Archives: Dana Pico

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There’s only one way to win: Israel must stop worrying about the hostages #Hamas hold Hamas, the 'Palestinians,' and the Arabs in general are not part of Western civilization, and we shouldn't be fooled into thinking that they think or act or respond as those of us in the civilized world do.

There’s a line somewhere in Herman Wouk’s “The Winds of War,” in which one of the Henry family, Victor or Byron, responds to demands on Germany as, ‘Isn’t that pretty arrogant, demanding that Germany accept a defeat no one has actually inflicted on them?’ I may have been slightly imprecise with the quote, but I did get the sentiment correct.

And so we come to Hamas and the ‘Palestinian’ Arabs. From London’s The Telegraph:

Hamas leader says hostage deal is ‘all or nothing’

Yahya Sinwar has reportedly insisted on a lasting ceasefire and the release of all Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile figures

by Nataliya Vasilyeva • 21 December 2023 • 7:33 PM

Jerusalem — Hamas’s de-facto leader has said he will only agree to a new truce if it guarantees the release of all Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails, according to reports.

Al Arabi Al Jadidi, a Qatari newspaper, on Thursday quoted an unnamed Egyptian official saying the “leadership of Hamas” had rejected Israel’s offer of a temporary truce in exchange for the release of several dozen Israeli hostages.

Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, insisted on a lasting ceasefire and all Palestinian prisoners being released, including several high-profile figures, the newspaper reported.

Simply put, the distinguished Mr Sinwar is demanding that Israel accept a defeat that no one has inflicted on them. Good luck with that!

Sinwar also reportedly demanded that Israel halt its combat operations in Gaza before the deal goes into effect.

Hamas later on Thursday said it would reject any deals to free more hostages until Israel stops bombing Gaza.

“If Israel wants its prisoners alive, then it has no other options but to stop the aggression and the war,” said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’s military wing.

Let’s tell the truth here: Hamas are directly threatening to kill the remaining hostages if the Israel Defence Force does not halt operations and let Hamas survive. As the #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading left keep whining that the IDF are committing “genocide,” one wonders if it has penetrated their thick skulls that Hamas are threatening the war crime of killing prisoners?

Oh, that’s different, somehow.

There comes a point at which Israel, at which any nation which has some of its citizens held hostage, to force that nation to do something against its own national interests, has to decide that the hostages are simply the unfortunate casualties of war.

The United States learned a hard lesson on this in the 1980s. President Reagan, nice guy that he was, thought that he could win the freedom of American hostages held by the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, through a convoluted arms deal with the terrorists’ sponsor, Iran. And it worked: we got our hostages back.

But we also established a value for taking hostages, and while President Reagan got those captured people back, Hezbollah simply turned around and seized new hostages.

So it is for Israel. Perhaps there could be some sort of cease-fire agreement, and Hamas release all of the hostages they’ve seized, but at the cost of allowing Hamas to survive, and get its top terrorists back. And the next time Hamas tries something — and there will always be a next time with these savages — Hamas will know: there’s real value in seizing civilian hostages.

According to The New York Times, Israel counts 129 people as still being held hostage, though they believe that 21 of them are already dead.

It would have to be a cold-blooded, and horrible, decision to have to take, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ‘war cabinet’ have to decide that these people should all be counted as dead, and not only continue but intensify their attack on Hamas. Israel needs to just plain kill every Hamas leader they can find, regardless of where they are — Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar — and take the actions necessary. Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and all of the top Hamas people need to assume room temperature, to let those younger men who believe they can rise to the top of Hamas that, if they do, they’ll go to meet their 72 virgins.

Israel is a Western democracy, and as conservative as the government are, they are still constrained by the cultural morés of their culture. But Hamas, the ‘Palestinians,’ and the Arabs in general are not part of Western civilization, and we shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that they think or act or respond as those of us in the civilized world do.

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues. By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.
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St Greta of Thunberg must be appalled! I am wryly amused

Former Democratic presidential nominees Al Gore and John Kerry are surely weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth at the news, but the sensible among us see this as great! From CNN:

The United States is producing more oil than any country in history

By Matt Egan | Updated 5:00 PM EST | Tuesday, December 19, 2023

As the world grapples with the existential crisis of climate change, environmental activists want President Joe Biden to phase out the oil industry, and Republicans argue he’s already doing that. Meanwhile, the surprising reality is the United States is pumping oil at a blistering pace and is on track to produce more oil than any country has in history.

“The existential crisis of climate change”? So many reporters keep using that word; I do not think it means what they think it means. We may have some issues with which to deal with global warming climate change, but we’re not all going to die.

Remember: human beings are the most adaptable creatures on earth, and we live everywhere, from arctic wastelands to steaming jungles to bone dry deserts, and we have done so even prior to our modern, industrialized society.

The United States is set to produce a global record of 13.3 million barrels per day of crude and condensate during the fourth quarter of this year, according to a report published Tuesday by S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Last month, weekly US oil production hit 13.2 million barrels per day, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That’s just above the Donald Trump-era record of 13.1 million set in early 2020 just before the Covid-19 crisis sent output and prices crashing.

Also read: William Teach, “Gore Effect: Maine Forced To Postpone Vote On Forced EVs Due To Power Outage“

As the world’s largest oil producer, that means more American dollars stay in the United States rather than going to Saudi Arabia or Venezuela, and some money from foreign countries comes to the United States. This enriches American companies and American workers, and that ought to be seen as a good thing for the American people.

The US is exporting roughly the same amounts of crude oil, refined fuels and liquid natural gas as Saudi Arabia and Russia. With the Saudi and Russian collusion, on which we have previously reported, to reduce OPEC’s production to raise prices, American production has helped keep those prices down.

“It’s a reminder that the US is endowed with enormous oil reserves. Our industry should never be underestimated,” said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group.

Record-shattering US production is helping to offset aggressive supply cuts meant to support high prices by OPEC+, mainly Saudi Arabia and Russia. Other non-OPEC oil producers including Canada and Brazil are also pumping more oil than ever before. (Brazil is set to join OPEC+ next year.)

Think about what this means. Russia’s economy is dependent upon oil and natural gas exports, and Vladimir Putin wanted to use western Europe’s dependence upon Russia oil and, especially, natural gas as a weapon against NATO countries which are supporting Ukraine with money and military equipment. Without Russian natural gas, a lot of western Europe countries, much of which are at latitudes higher than our lower 48-state border with Canada, the Europeans would have gotten awfully cold during the past two winters, but American production has prevented Russia from being able to effectively utilize their energy weapon.

The climate activists want us to cease oil production, thinking that that will somehow save the world, and perhaps we can eventually develop energy systems which can truly replace oil for energy production, but, right now, that day has not come. And the United States, with its oil, natural gas, and seriously underused coal reserves, has natural resources which can make Americans in general wealthier. The activists just don’t get it: doing what they want would make Americans poorer.

Then again, if liberals actually understood economics, they wouldn’t be liberals anymore.

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Journolism: The credentialed media don’t exactly lie, but they conceal politically incorrect facts

This site frequently references “journolism, the spelling ‘journolism’, or ‘journolist,’ as the case may be, which comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias, and there are, with this posting, 148 stories tagged #Journolism. And here the credentialed media, or as Robert Stacy McCain sometimes refer to them as “Democrats with bylines,” go again!

Kentucky teacher fired after alleged inappropriate communications with students

by Beth Musgrave | Wednesday, December 20, 2023 | 4:58 PM EST | Updated: 6:10 PM EST

A Bullitt Central High School band teacher was fired after an investigation by school officials found he had inappropriate communications with students, according to a release from Bullitt County Public Schools.

Bullitt County is immediately south of Jefferson County, in which the city of Louisville is located.

School officials were first contacted in May 2023 by a former student who raised concerns about Rodney Stults.

That information was turned over to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the Shepherdsville Police Department.

An internal school investigation substantiated allegations Stults had violated the school policies regarding communications with students. Continue reading →

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Killadelphia: The City of Brotherly Love has been under one murder per day for the last three months

Well, it took a long time, but the City of Brotherly Love hit 400 homicides for the fourth year in a row. Still, it’s progress, because Philadelphia will be well under 500, a number hit the previous two years, and there’s good reason to suspect that the total topped 500 three years ago as well.

The news is even better than expected: as recently as October 1st, the mat worked out to a projected 439.60 homicides. Now, it works out to 412.43, using a daily average of 1.2994 homicides per day. But, using the figures only since October 1st, 70 homicides in 80 days, 0.875 killings per day, and 11 days left in 2023, that works out to 9.625 more murders in the city, for a total of 409 or 410 for the year. There were 12 murders in the last 11 days of 2022.

The most interesting part of that math is that there have been fewer than one homicide per day for almost the last three months!

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What The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t tell us, tells us a lot How can you have a long report on the Philadelphia public schools without telling us how they are doing as far as actually educating students?

We have frequently mentioned the Edward T Steel Elementary School in Philadelphia, since then-mayoral candidate Helen Gym Flaherty used the school as a backdrop for telling voters how she ‘saved’ the school from ‘going charter,’ and kept it a public school.  In the still public Steel Elementary, which is ranked 1,205th out of 1,607 Pennsylvania elementary schools, 1% of students scored at or above the proficient level for math, and 8% scored at or above that level for reading. Maybe keeping it public didn’t work all that well? Continue reading →

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Crazy People Are Dangerous If you have one mental illness, does that make a second mental illness more probable?

Those of my (too few) readers who also read Robert Stacy McCain’s website, The Other McCain, will be familiar with his frequently used article title, Crazy People Ara Dangerous, but it seems very appropriate in this case. The euphemistically-described “LGBTQ+” Philadelphia activist Kendall Stephens has been charged with rape, involuntary assault, unlawful contact with minors, and indecent assault against people less than 13 years old, among other offenses:

Prominent trans LGBTQ+ activist charged with rape of minors in Philadelphia

By Olivia Land | Tuesday, December 19, 2023 | 11:02 AM EST

Kendall Stephens, mugshot by Philadelphia Police Department, via WPVI-TV.

A prominent LGBTQ+ activist in Philadelphia has been charged with allegedly raping two minors.Kendall Stephens, 37, was arrested Monday and charged with rape, involuntary assault, unlawful contact with minors, and indecent assault against people less than 13 years old, among other offenses, court documents revealed.

The exact details of the allegations against Stephens were not immediately available.

Stephens — who is a trans woman — had a preliminary arraignment in Philadelphia municipal court Monday evening, the court records showed.

She is due back before Judge Vincent W. Furlong on Dec. 29.

When I checked The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website for Kendall Stephens at 2:42 PM EST, there was still no story on this arrest or the charges against Mr Stephens. I do not know if the newspaper’s diligent reporters are digging for more information, or they are looking for the most politically correct way to word it. 🙂 I’m going to write the rest of this story below the fold. Continue reading →

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“No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.” We need our elected representatives to work closer to their homes and constituents

“No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session,” is a quote attributed to both Mark Twain and Gideon Tucker, but it seems that the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer don’t believe it, to judge by the OpEd space they gave to this gem:

Pa. House Dems are not voting for months due to a leaky roof. That’s unacceptable.

Our elected officials can’t let obstacles — including leaky roofs — stop them from doing the people’s work. While the Capitol is under renovation, there are many places where they could meet instead.

by Matthew J. Brouillette, For The Inquirer | Tuesday, December 19, 2023 | 6:00 AM EST Continue reading →

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Our oh-so-noble left simply cannot comprehend what’s happening in the Levant The Palestinians have a culture with values and motives that are simply outside of the ability of the 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' supporting left to comprehend.

The reports concerning the condition of the Israeli hostages taken on October 7th come from Jewish doctors, so naturally, the Usual Suspects and other pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas people — “people” being a term I am using loosely here — won’t believe them and will dismiss them.

Doctor who treated freed Hamas hostages describes physical, sexual and psychological abuse

By Leslie Stahl and David Morgan | Third Sunday of Advent, December 17, 2023 | 9:30 AM EST

Dr Itai Pessach. Photo via CBS News.

About 100 Israeli hostages, kidnapped during the deadly Hamas raid on Israel, have been released after more than 50 days in captivity. Dr. Itai Pessach (director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital at Sheba Medical Center outside Tel Aviv), whose team interviewed and examined many of them, told “CBS News Sunday Morning” the freed hostages were brought to the medical center whether they wanted to come or not.“We thought they would need a buffer from that time in captivity, underground, in the dark, with very little food, with a lot of psychological stress,” he said. “We have to remember that these people have not been around since October 7.” Continue reading →

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Philadelphia: nickel-and-diming people

After fifteen years in the Keystone State, my wife and I retired back to our home in Kentucky. Pennsylvania has an individual income tax rate of 3.07%, which is a fairly low rate among those states which have income taxes. Kentucky had an individual income tax rate of 5.0%, but this has been lowered to 4.5% for tax year 2023, and again to 4.0% for 2024.

But, unlike Pennsylvania, the Bluegrass State doesn’t try to nickel-and-dime people to death for every little thing. And thus we come to this, in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

A paper bag fee, new protections for building workers, and a send-off for Council President Darrell L. Clarke | Council roundup

The final meeting of Council’s four-year term included a flurry of legislation and speeches praising outgoing Council President Darrell L. Clarke.

by Sean Collins Walsh | Thursday, December 14, 2023 | 3:42 PM EST

Philadelphia City Council on Thursday approved a new 15-cent fee for consumers who need paper bags at retail stores.

Continue reading →