By Andrew L. Jaffee

Did the blind contractor’s bridge even make it across the river? If so, how would he have known — for sure, not second-hand? The blind leading the blind? Idiots leading the blind or vice versa? How could a blind man update a draftsman’s blueprint? I guess this is what you get when billionaire communist/capitalists bid work out to private contractors (would Marx even understand this sentence?). From Reuters:

A Chinese court has jailed two officials after they let a blind contractor build a bridge which collapsed during construction and injured 12 people, the official Xinhua news agency said Monday. …

“After the blind contractor changed the blueprint, he carried out the work only using a roughly drawn draft of the plan, which caused the bridge to collapse,” the report said.

Xinhua did not explain how the contractor was able to run the project considering his inability to see.

Ah… yeah…

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By Nimrod Raphaeli

INTRODUCTION

Syria’s economy, which is predominantly state-controlled, has been characterized by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a “stable but stagnant economy.”[1] This characterization reflects, on the one hand, political stability and the absence of major external shocks and, on the other hand, the failure of the narrowly-based political establishment to implement extensive economic reforms to move the country into the direction of the global market. In the words of Dr. Nabil Sukkar, one of Syria’s leading economists and a former World Bank economist, the decision makers in Syria are “scared of taking the plunge.” Syria’s introduction into the global economy would mean that the small ruling elite “could loosen its grip on power and threaten its privileges.”[2] Under 50 years of Ba’th Party rule, the Syrian economy has remained an old-fashioned, inefficient, and heavily regulated socialist command economy–presided over by a quasi-totalitarian regime characterized by political repression and by large scale corruption at the highest levels of government.

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To: Abraham Foxman, Anti-Defamation League
From: Bill Levinson

We received ADL’s 2007 Annual Appeal, which says “ADL teaches people to say ‘no’ to bigotry.” Although we can always use free address labels, we will not be using the ones you sent because we do not wish to associate our name with the organization that used its prestige and Jewish identity to whitewash MoveOn.org’s anti-Semitic and other forms of hate speech last year:

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Interview with Barry Rubin, by Michael J. Totten

Michael Totten has conducted an interview on his blog with Barry Rubin regarding his new book, The Truth about Syria, which is a detailed examination of that extremely important country in the news, including being America’s main Arab state opponent in the Middle East. The interview, it is at: http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001458.html. Following is the full text:

Question 1: Your new book is called The Truth about Syria. For those who haven’t yet read your book, tell us, what’s the truth about Syria? Give us the short version.

To begin with, to understand Syria–like other regional forces–one must first examine the nature of the regime and its real interests. The way to do this is not to cite the latest interview or op-eds by Syrian leaders or propagandists in the Western media or what one of them told some naïve Western “useful idiot” who traveled to Damascus but rather to look at what the Syrian rulers say among themselves, what they do, how they structure the regime and perceive of their interests.

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By Dr. Steve Carol

In recent days there has been a flurry of articles dealing with the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War – both factual and revisionist. Many of these articles speak of the Arab states and state there are “22″ or even “23″ Arab states. Just today, I was asked, yet again, how many Arab States are there? And why the confusion?

To set the record straight, below please find my chart of the League of Arab States. News media (who should know better) and pundits have not done their “homework.” The confusion comes from two sources.

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To: Barack Obama Walk for Change volunteers
Subject: Things you need to know for Saturday

by Bill Levinson

BarackObama.com recently sent out some information, including a training video, about this Saturday’s Walk for Change event. The Obama campaign, however, omitted some very important things that you may need to know to deal with negative perceptions from many of the people with whom you will be speaking. It is important that you have answers to these questions before you set out on Saturday morning.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Those of us who support legal immigration won a small victory today, but the battle is just beginning. “A fragile bipartisan compromise that would legalize millions of unlawful immigrants suffered a setback Thursday when it failed a test vote in the Senate, leaving its prospects uncertain…” But “the measure…got a reprieve when Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would give it more time before yanking the bill and moving on to other matters.” This “compromise” is President Bush’s pet, and would open the floodgates to illegal immigration. The President is really looking to ensure a cheap supply of labor, even tough he cloaks his aims in other language (sophistry). His plan is basically an amnesty that rewards people who have illegally entered the U.S. What we really need is legal and sustainable immigration, not an illegal tidal wave.

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By Zionist.com

Israel this week marked 40 years since its stunning victory over vastly superior Arab forces in the 1967 Six Day War. The rest of the world remembered the event by unleashing a flood of criticism over Israel’s continued “occupation” of Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights.

When Israel’s detractors speak of the “illegal occupation” they are basing their position on UN Security Council Resolution 242.

However, an honest examination of the resolution and the subsequent events of of the past four decades reveals that Israel’s control of these territories in fact constitutes a legal occupation.

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by Dr. Steve Carol

Last September (2006), Senator Russell Feingold (D-Wis), a contender for the 2008 presidential nomination, called on President Bush to stop using the term “Islamic fascism” as it harmed the war on terrorism. Specifically Feingold stated: “I call on the president to immediately stop using the phrase ‘Islamic fascism,’ a label that doesn’t make any sense, and certainly doesn’t help our effort to fight terrorism.” That he told this to a delegation of the Arab American Institute, may just be coincidental.

What is of greater concern is that a presidential contender seems not to understand the definition of fascism and its modern variant, Islamofascism (or Islamic fascism). This is not a recent term. It was introduced by French writer Maxine Rodinson to describe the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79.

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Will Al Sharpton’s followers burn our stores if we don’t elect his friend Obama?

by Bill Levinson

We previously described how Barack Obama (along with Hillary Clinton and John Edwards) appeared at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network: a racist and anti-Semitic hate organization and, given its conduct prior to the arson of Freddy’s Fashion Mart in 2005, arguably a violent hate group. Now it seems as though Obama advocates or at least excuses racial violence himself, since he blames the Los Angeles riots on the acquittal of white police officers in the Rodney King beating case. There is NO place in a civilized society for ANYONE who advocates lynch mob justice–the kind that the Ku Klux Klan often applied to African-Americans who were acquitted by the jury system–or the mass murder of innocent people because someone didn’t like the outcome of a trial. It is now easily understandable why Obama appeared at an organization that shouted racial and anti-Semitic epithets, along with threats to burn a Jewish-owned store in Harlem, before one of its adherents made good on the threat and killed seven people in the bargain.

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by Kamal Said Qadir*

Many Western commentators say Iraqi Kurdistan is a beacon of democracy in an otherwise uncertain Iraq.[1] As much of the rest of Iraq descends into violence if not civil war, it is tempting for U.S. officials to point to the placidity of northern Iraq as a rare success. In many ways, Iraqi Kurdistan’s progress since 1991 is remarkable. But while Kurdish officials and their growing coterie of U.S. consultants praise the region’s progress, an increasing culture of corruption, nepotism, and abuse-of-power has both eroded democracy and, increasingly, stability.

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Newest Data Shows Latin American Immigrants Make Heavy Use of Welfare

By Mark Krikorian

WASHINGTON (June 6, 2007) — As they debate legalization for illegal immigrants, Senators would do well to keep in mind the most recent data on welfare use by the people in question. According to the Department of Homeland Security, nearly 60% of illegal aliens are from Mexico and 80% of the total are from Latin America as a whole. A new Center for Immigration Studies analysis of 2006 Census Bureau data, which includes legal and illegal immigrants, shows use of welfare by households headed by Mexican and Latin American immigrants is more than double that of native households. Among the findings:

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Congress’s “Cold Cash” William Jefferson was indicted Monday. Who is playing the race card? Was the Tom Delay scandal about race? The Black Caucus has stood by Jefferson, making his scandal a race issue, even though his freezer was chock-full of $90,000.00 in cash. Lettuce? Bipartisan? From the Houston Chronicle:

U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., indicted on 16 counts of felony corruption, reminds Americans that unethical behavior in Congress is a bipartisan affair. The courts must presume Jefferson innocent until proved guilty, but the public need not hesitate to deplore the unexplained $90,000 in cold cash the FBI found in Jefferson’s freezer. …

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By Barry Rubin

Almost daily nowadays–I’m tempted to write, “almost hourly”–one sees atrocities in deeds and shamefulness in words. Friends, colleagues, and readers often tell me how depressing it is to live in these times.

I could give lots of examples but will let you choose your own. Caught between the big mistakes of one’s own leaders, extremist ideologies and movements in large parts of the world, irresponsibility of too much of the media, and the abandonment of Enlightenment standards in intellectual discourse, it is easy to feel down.

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A personal, historical vignette

By Cainnech Ó Sullibhain

Every day in our lives we hear of the men who fight battles for their country and become heroes, but we never hear of the unsung heroes that are never even mentioned in the news media. They are of course both men and women who are put into a position where their loyalty and bravery go well beyond that of a soldier on the battlefield. This story is one that no one ever got wind of. I speak as one of those who risked his life, maybe out of loyalty or common sense, who partook in such an operation.

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