Did We Hitch Our Wagon to a (Death) Star?
Vittorio Arrigoni, who had devoted several years of his life to the Palestinian cause, is dead -- murdered by those he thought he was helping.
An Italian pro-Palestinian activist was killed by Palestinian Islamic extremists who had kidnapped him in Gaza on Thursday.Gaza police on Friday found the hanged body of Vittorio Arrigoni when they stormed an apartment in Gaza City where he was being held.Hours earlier, his kidnappers, a group inspired by Al Qaida calling itself "Monotheism and Holy War," had posted a video showing Arrigoni, 36, blindfolded and with cuts on his face.His head was held up in front of the camera by a hand gripping his hair.[snip]Arrigoni had lived in Gaza for several years working with the International Solidarity Movement.The ISM's web site describes the group as a "Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli apartheid in Palestine by using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles."

"Angelo Frammartino, an Italian, was killed by stabbing in eastern Jerusalem in August 2006 by someone affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Juliano Mer-Khamis, who appears to have been an Israeli citizen, killed in early April 2011 in Jenin by persons unknown."
"We're not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterize whatever proposals are put out there as, ‘Well, you know, that's -- the other party's being irresponsible. The other party is trying to hurt our senior citizens. That the other party is doing X, Y, Z."President Obama today:"One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party's presidential candidates...This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone's grandparents who wouldn't be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down's syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we'd be telling to fend for themselves." [/quote]
The whole speech was like that, a litany of brain-dead slapdash rhetorical questions that for sentient beings are no longer rhetorical: My fellow Americans, do we want an America where our most lethargic and mediocre youth are denied a leisurely half-decade acquiring a fraudulent six-figure credential in some worthless pseudo-discipline simply because we can't afford it?Well, it'd be a start.
I think Cost has a point but I'd go further. Obama is an "inexperienced faker" without even the possibility of growing into the office.
Under the Obama tax plan, the Bush rates would be repealed for the top brackets. Yet the "cost" of extending all the Bush rates in 2011 over 10 years was about $3.7 trillion. Some $3 trillion of that was for everything but the top brackets -- and Mr. Obama says he wants to extend those rates forever. According to Internal Revenue Service data, the entire taxable income of everyone earning over $100,000 in 2008 was about $1.582 trillion. Even if all these Americans -- most of whom are far from wealthy -- were taxed at 100%, it wouldn't cover Mr. Obama's deficit for this year.Mr. Obama sought more tax-hike cover under his deficit commission, seeming to embrace its proposal to limit tax deductions and other loopholes. But the commission wanted to do so in order to lower rates for a more efficient and competitive code with a broader base. Mr. Obama wants to pocket the tax increase and devote the revenues to deficit reduction and therefore more spending. So that's three significant tax increases -- via higher top brackets, the tax hikes in ObamaCare and fewer tax deductions.Lastly, Mr. Obama came out for a debt "failsafe," which will require the White House and Congress to hash out a deal if by 2014 projected debt is not declining as a share of the economy. But under his plan any deal must exclude Social Security, Medicare or low-income programs. So that means more tax increases or else "making government smarter, leaner and more effective." Which, now that he mentioned it, sounds a lot like cutting "waste and abuse."Mr. Obama ludicrously claimed that Mr. Ryan favors "a fundamentally different America than the one we've known throughout most of our history." Nothing is likelier to bring that future about than the President's political indifference in the midst of a fiscal crisis.
Vice President Biden slept through the big address.