Firefighter’s Pensions Burn California Taxpayers

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Lavish public safety pensions often add billions of dollars of taxpayer debt to local districts. It’s important that voters pay close attention to the down ticket candidates and find out where they stand on compensation and pensions. Far too often unions are able to influence elections and get their handpicked candidates into office. And taxpayers are getting burned in the process.

Jewish Liberation Is Far From Complete

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Hamas terror boss Fathi Hamad is a notable figure. Hamad is both the director of Hamas’s al-Aksa television station and the terror group’s “minister” of the interior and national security. His double portfolio is a clear expression of the much ignored fact that for terrorists, propaganda is inseparable from violence.
Hamad’s key posts make him a man worth listening to. His statements necessarily indicate Hamas’s general direction.
On March 23, Hamad was interviewed by Egypt’s Al Hekma television station. The interview was translated by MEMRI.
Hamad made two central points. First, he claimed that the Palestinian war against Israel is the keystone of the global jihad. Second, he said the Palestinians are not a distinct people, but transplanted Egyptians and Saudis.
In his words, “At al-Aksa and on the land of Palestine, all the conspiracies, throughout history, have been shattered – the conspiracies of the Crusaders, and the conspiracies of the Tatars. At al- Aksa and on the land of Palestine, the Battle of Hattin was waged. The [West] does not want this noble history to repeat itself, because the Jews and their allies would be annihilated – the Zionists, the Americans and the imperialists.
“Thus, the conspiracy is very clear. Al-Aksa and the land of Palestine represent the spearhead for Islam and for the Muslims. Therefore, when we seek the help of our Arab brothers, we are not seeking their help in order to eat, to live, to drink, to dress, or to live a life of luxury. No. When we seek their help, it is in order to continue to wage Jihad.”
Hamad next explained, “Brothers, half of the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other half are Saudis. Who are the Palestinians? We have many families called Al-Masri, [Egyptians] whose roots are Egyptian. Egyptian! They may be from Alexandria, from Cairo, from Dumietta, from the North, from Aswan, from Upper Egypt. We are Egyptians.”
What Hamad’s interview tells us is that today Hamas – the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood – is more interested in unity with Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Egypt than with Fatah. Whereas in the past it joined Fatah in obscuring the direct link between the jihad against the Jews and the jihad against the non-Muslim world, today it seeks to emphasize the connection. To this end, Hamas is willing to abandon the myth of Palestinian nativism and acknowledge that the Palestinians are an artificial people, invented for the purpose of advancing the global jihad in the key battlefield of Israel.
Hamad’s statements underscore a widespread sentiment among Israelis about the revolutions now tearing apart the Arab world. That sentiment is that while the results of these revolutions will be catastrophic in the medium and long term, in the short term they bring respite to Israel. With Arab regimes – new and old – struggling to consolidate power, they have little time or energy to devote to their war against Israel.
In this situation, the thinking goes, Israel should be able to devote its attention to attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Unfortunately for Israel, while the Arab world is increasingly uninterested in the Palestinian war against Israel, Europe and the American Left are more than happy to pick up the slack.
Consider two recent events. First, two weeks ago the UN Human Rights Council voted to launch a commission whose goal is to criminalize Israel for the existence of Israeli communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines.
The council’s decision to form a new kangaroo court to criminalize Israel was not the result of the Arab diplomatic war against Israel. It is the consequence of the European diplomatic war against Israel. It is Europe, not the Arabs that has barred Israel from caucusing with its UN regional group – the Western European and Others Group. By barring Israel from the caucus, the Europeans have denied Israel the ability to make its case to other UN member nations.
For its part, the Obama administration pays lip service to the need to end the Human Rights Council’s obsessive war against Israel. But at the same time, it has effectively joined that war by legitimizing the anti-Israel council both by joining it, and by refusing to use its membership as leverage to coerce the council into abandoning its campaign against Israel.
Following the council’s vote to form a new Goldstone-style commission to attack Israel, the State Department issued a statement in which it claimed that due in part to US membership in the council, the council had been spurred to “action on a series of important human rights situations around the world.”
Then there was last Friday’s Global March to Jerusalem, in which a consortium of protesters organized by Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran and the international Left intended to storm Israel’s borders and fill the state with hostile foreigners.
As Ribhi Halloum, the coordinator of the march said last year, the goal of the GMJ was “to move the right of return possessed by Palestinian refugees from theory to practice.”
In a press conference in Amman days ahead of the operation, Halloum said that organizers expected for two million people to mass at Israel’s borders and attempt to breach them.
In the end, the GMJ failed to mount its planned invasion. The sum total of the day’s events amounted to several violent local demonstrations by Palestinians in Judea and Samaria joined by foreign and Israeli leftists. Israel’s borders were not breached.
The GMJ’s failure to achieve its aims owed to the same pan-Arab distraction that Hamad tried to address in his interview with Egyptian television.
But while the Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians and Lebanese have more urgent business to attend to, the international Left has intensified its own campaign against Israel.
Leading anti-Israel, (and anti-Jewish) leftists including George Galloway, Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire, Noam Chomsky, Jeremiah Wright, Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin served as members of the GMJ’s various organizing committees. These self-proclaimed human rights activists had no problem with the fact that the Iranian regime took a central role in organizing the operation or that the clear goal of the campaign’s Muslim organizers is the destruction of Israel.
To the contrary, this goal is now openly shared by growing numbers of Western leftists. In an op-ed on the Guardian’s online opinion forum, Sarah Colborne, a member of the GMJ’s organizing committees and its national coordinator for the UK as well as the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in the UK wrote, “The struggle for Palestinian rights is at the core of the global movement for social and economic justice.”
Judith Butler, one of Colborne’s American counterparts, has opined that “understanding Hamas, Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the Left, that are part of a global Left, is extremely important.”
So just as Hamas’s Hamad claims that the jihad on Israel is the key campaign of the global jihad, Hamad’s Western partners claim that destroying Israel is the key to the Left’s campaign for socialism.
Disturbingly, the international Left is receiving indirect support for its goal of destroying Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem, (and through it, destroying Israel), from the US government. Just days before the GMJ failed to unravel Israel’s physical control over Jerusalem, in a jaw-dropping exchange between State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland and AP reporter Matthew Lee, Nuland refused to say that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
The US has always been deeply hostile to Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem. Beginning in 1950 the State Department directed US diplomats to discourage other governments from establishing their embassies in Jerusalem. But while the US has always undermined its own alliance with Israel by aligning its policy on Jerusalem with Israel’s worst enemies, under President Barack Obama, the US’s willingness to express this hostility has been unprecedented.
This hostility has been demonstrated most famously by Obama’s demand that the government stop respecting Jewish property rights in the city.
It has also been given graphic expression by the administration’s decision to move the Consular Section of the US Consulate in Jerusalem from an Arab neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem to the site that Israel allocated for a new US embassy.
The site is located in the Jewish Arnona neighborhood in western Jerusalem.
Israel allocated the land to a future US Embassy after Congress passed the US Embassy Act in 1995 which obligated the US government to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The site was chosen, among other reasons, because its location in western Jerusalem put it outside the dispute regarding whether or not Israel will retain sovereignty over eastern, southern and northern Jerusalem in a hypothetical peace treaty with the Palestinians. The US government uses the non-resolution of the Palestinian conflict with Israel as its justification for refusing to accept Jewish property rights in those areas of the city.
The US Consulate in Jerusalem is not subordinate to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv. It presents itself as the unofficial US embassy to the non-existent state of Palestine. By utilizing the site in western Jerusalem allocated for a future embassy as an extension office of the consulate, the Obama administration made clear its rejection of Israel’s right to sovereignty over all of Jerusalem. And in light of the US law that recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and orders the government to relocate the embassy to Jerusalem, the Obama administration not only indirectly legitimized the cause of those who seek the destruction of Israel.
It did so in contempt of US law.
****
In truth, there is nothing new about the West’s rejection of Israel’s right to sovereignty or even to its support and sponsorship for the Arab war for the destruction of Israel. Such animosity predates not only the 1967 Six Day War. It predates the establishment of Israel.
British Col. Richard Meinertzhagen, who served as an intelligence officer in wartime and post-World War I Mandatory Palestine, made this point clearly in his memoir Middle East Diary.
Meinertzhagen wrote that the first Arab terror assaults on Jews under the British military government were instigated by the British military. Just before Easter in 1920, British military authorities contacted future Nazi agent Haj Amin el Husseini and encouraged him to attack the Jews of Jerusalem.
They told him, “He had a great opportunity at Easter to show the world that the Arabs of Palestine would not tolerate Jewish domination in Palestine… and if disturbances of sufficient violence occurred in Jerusalem at Easter, [the British High Commanders] would advocate the abandonment of the Jewish home.”
Today, the Jewish people begin their week-long celebration of Passover, the Jewish festival of freedom. This evening we will read in the Haggada that our fight for freedom is an eternal struggle.
When we assess the global nature of the current assault on Jewish freedom and sovereignty in our country, we see the truth of that message.
While our present circumstances give us much to celebrate, the work of Jewish liberation is far from over.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

(Caroline Glick is deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post. A former officer in the Israel Defense Forces, she was a core member of Israel’s negotiating team with the Palestinians and later served as an assistant policy advisor to the prime minister. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the widely-published Glick was an embedded journalist with the U.S. Army’s Third Infantry Division. She was awarded a distinguished civilian service award from the U.S. Secretary of the Army for her battlefield reporting.)

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Senator Dean Heller is Focused on Helping Small Businesses Across the Silver State

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In Nevada, KTVN-TV in Reno reports that Senator Dean Heller is focused on helping small businesses across the Silver State.  Senator Dean Heller spent the day talking to small businesses about what they think the federal government should do to help create jobs, as our recovery continues. Nevada’s unemployment rate remains at 12.3% and the economy is expected to be a huge topic as we head to the polls. That’s why Heller met with management and employees of these businesses.  “These are enthusiastic, local people that work hard, that are part of the community, that’s good to be a part of and spend some time with and get a better understanding of what they do and the impact it has on the country,” Heller said.

The battle for the U.S. Senate

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From The Week:

Is the Senate up for grabs?

Many Republicans think it is, and are quietly arguing that their odds of success there are higher than in defeating the incumbent president, Barack Obama. As a result, they’re urging party operatives to focus their energies on the attainable goal of winning a Senate majority, rather than focus too heavily on the presidential race. Democrats currently have only a slim, 53–47 majority in the Senate, and of the 33 seats being contested this year, 10 are currently held by Republicans and 23 by Democrats. Ten sitting senators are retiring, the highest number since 1996, and seven of them are Democrats. Even if Obama is re-elected, some Republicans argue, Republican majorities in both houses of Congress could block the president’s initiatives, stop him from appointing liberal judges or other officials, and exert real influence over the national agenda. “I think this election is more about the Senate than the presidency,” said Sen. Jim DeMint (R–S.C.). “If we don’t have a majority with a strong conservative voice in the Senate and a majority in the House, then it doesn’t matter what we have in the White House.”

How could the Republicans win a majority?

The party needs to pick up a net total of four seats, and its likeliest gains are seats now held by Democratic senators in traditionally red states. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Kent Conrad of North Dakota are retiring this year, and the GOP has good chances in open elections in these conservative states. In Ohio, Democrat Sherrod Brown is considered vulnerable to Tea Party–endorsed Josh Mandel, and in Florida, Bill Nelson faces a popular opponent in Rep. Connie Mack. Republicans are also targeting seats in Virginia, New Mexico, and Hawaii, where Democratic senators are retiring. Of these, Republicans have the best odds in Virginia, where former Republican Gov. George Allen is running neck-and-neck with former Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine.

Could the GOP retain all 10 of its contested seats?

That’s unlikely. Democrats see some opportunities of their own in November. Republicans face a tough challenge in trying to hold onto the Maine Senate seat of retiring moderate Olympia Snowe; the race’s current front-runner, independent Angus King, is likely to caucus with the Democrats. And while polls currently give Sen. Scott Brown (R–Mass.) a healthy lead in a tough re-election battle against Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren, she has a formidable fund-raising advantage as a nationally known consumer advocate and opponent of big banks. In Nevada, the Republican incumbent, Dean Heller, appointed after scandal-plagued John Ensign resigned last year, faces a close race against Rep. Shelley Berkley. But with so few GOP seats in play, the Democrats have to retain most of the contested seats they now hold to remain in the majority.

How hard will that be?

The Democrats are vulnerable in several of these races. They had high hopes in Nebraska last month after Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic governor and senator, announced that he would seek Ben Nelson’s seat. But polls show Kerrey, a Vietnam veteran who has lived in New York for years, trailing Republican Jon Bruning, the state’s attorney general, by a 17-point margin. Democrats think they have a better chance in North Dakota, where former state Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp is running against Republican Rep. Rick Berg. Heitkamp has sought to tie Berg to the deeply unpopular House of Representatives. In fact, many of the new Republican candidates for Senate are current or recently departed members of Congress, and that could help Democrats. “Approval ratings right now are so abysmally bad, it has to rub off on members seeking higher office,” said political analyst Stuart Rothenberg.

Report: Reid loses budget ruling

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From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

This may be a bit wonky, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has lost a procedural ruling issued by the Senate parliamentarian that Politico reports this morning could have political ripples through the spring and beyond.

Despite pressure from Republicans, Reid has been saying the agreement that Congress passed last summer allowing more government borrowing on the debt also contained caps on spending that make it unnecessary for the Senate to form a separate budget for fiscal 2013.

But newly appointed parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has decided the deal does not preclude the Senate from considering other budgets.

“The written opinion, shared late last week with a handful of Democratic and GOP senators, gives Republicans significantly more leverage to push for votes on budgets of their choosing,” Politico reported.

Republicans charge that Reid is refusing to advance a Democratic budget because he is unwilling to expose Dem senators to awkward votes in an election year, including expected GOP bids to repeal health care reform.

Hitachi GST lays 4TB Easter egg – Highest capacity enterprise drive

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MRhgst_7k4000

Hitachi GST has laid a nice Easter egg: a 4TB enterprise disk drive and a first at this capacity level. It’s HGST’s second 4TB product.

This 3.5-inch drive technology first surfaced in September when Hitachi GST launched its 4TB G-Drive external Thunderbolt product. Now it has updated its Ultrastar line, jumping from the 3TB 7K3000 to this 7K4000 product.

Like the 7K3000, it spins at 7,200RPM, and has five platters each with a 800GB capacity and a 466Gbits/in2 areal density. There is a 64MB cache and a 6Gbit/s SATA interface. The sequential transfer rate is up to 171MB/sec.

Seagate and HGST parent Western Digital are still at the 3TB level with their internal drives, although Seagate has a 4TB GoFlex external drive and we suspect a 4TB Barracuda internal drive will spring up like an Easter bunny any day now. Toshiba and Samsung are at the 2TB level with their 3.5in technology.          More

 

Mac Flashback Trojan: Find Out If You’re One of the 600,000 Infected

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MRflashback

There’s a new Mac trojan that’s been floating around, and it’s terrifying everyone. It’s written in an unknown language, doesn’t even need your password to compromise you, and now it’s apparently infected 600,000 users. Here’s how to use Terminal to check if you’re one of the unlucky many.

The instructions come from F-Secure, which also details how you can remove the trojan if your Mac is, in fact affected. But let’s not put the cart before the virus; here’s how to see if you’re clean.

First, open Terminal from your Utilities folder. If you’ve never ever done that before, don’t be scared! It’s a nice way to turn your Mac into a computer you actually have some control over.

Then, once you’re in, follow these easy steps to detection>>>>>>