Dang Chain Emails

We all get them, and they're usually very inflammatory. But they're almost always NOT TRUE. Sometimes there's a grain of partial truth in them.

Like this one:

◼ Store Honors Islamic Martyr

Claim: Photograph shows a Houston store closed on September 11 to honor one of the 9/11 hijackers....

THE CLAIM IS FALSE.

Origins: The above-displayed sign on a Perfume Planet store at the Harwin Central Mart in Houston, Texas, caused a great deal of consternation (and outrage) among Americans in mid-September 2009, the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. Many viewers took the sign's statement that the store would be closed on September 11 "to commemorate to the martyrdom of the Imam Ali" as a mean-spirited insult, interpreting it to mean that the proprietors were shutting down to honor one of the terrorists killed in the perpetration of the 9/11 attacks.

Although the sign was real, its common interpretation was erroneous: None of the 9/11 hijackers was named "Ali," and the word "Imam" is not a name but rather a title that refers to a Muslim religious leader. The Imam Ali was not a modern day terrorist; he was a 7th century religious figure, the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, whom Shi'a Muslims regard as the first Imam....

Store manager Imran Chunawala was stunned [by the reaction] because the holiday had nothing to do with 9/11.

Then he realized what happened. Imam Ali died on the 21st day of Ramadan in the year 661 AD. It's a somber and significant holy day for Muslims. This year it coincidentally fell on September 11.

"We did not explain enough in the sign because that is the same sign we put up every year on this particular day for this particular reason," said Chunawala.

He apologized for the confusion and put up a new sign thoroughly explaining the martyr they were honoring died in 661 AD.

(T)he store's proprietors remained the targets of hostile criticism over the misunderstanding... the calls keep coming, usually dying down only to pick up when someone starts a new e-mail chain letter.
__________________Put these in your internet toolkit
★ INTERNET RUMORS & HOAXES ★◼ urbanlegends Verify the accuracy of rumors and email/internet claims
◼ hoax-slayer
◼ snopes

Don't know how they did this, but it's pretty cool:

◼ MAP SHOWS THE PATH OF MORE THAN 150 YEARS OF HURRICANES COLOR-CODED BY INTENSITY - IDV User Experience

◼ ‘HOT SPOTS’: MORE THAN A DECADE OF MAJOR U.S. FIRES ON ONE MAP - The Blaze via IDV User Experience

◼ HERE’S WHAT 56 YEARS OF TORNADO TRACKS ACROSS THE U.S. LOOKS LIKE ON ONE MAP - IDV User Experience

◼ HERE’S WHAT A MAP OF 114 YEARS OF EARTHQUAKE EPICENTERS LOOKS LIKE - The Blaze ◼ Via IDV User Experience

Lightning strikes... twice

There's a disturbance in the force.

I find myself quoting The Daily Beast TWICE in one week. And the tone is distinctly different than it has been for quite some time.

◼ The vice president’s outrageous remarks about race are proof of a double standard in American politics. Matt Latimer on what would happen to a Republican who talked about putting 'y’all back in chains.' - The Daily Beast

Joe Biden must step down as Vice President of the United States. That is the rule, isn’t it, whenever a public figure makes a bone-headed, addle-brained, one-drink-too-many-at-a-wedding comment regarding race? Actually, no that isn’t the rule. Unless of course Joe Biden was a Republican.

And then this:

◼ Niall Ferguson: “Hit the Road, Barack,” President Obama has proven that he‘s an economic illiterate and that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan’s “path to prosperity is our only hope.”

The voters now face a stark choice. They can let Barack Obama’s rambling, solipsistic narrative continue until they find themselves living in some American version of Europe, with low growth, high unemployment, even higher debt—and real geopolitical decline.

Or they can opt for real change: the kind of change that will end four years of economic underperformance, stop the terrifying accumulation of debt, and reestablish a secure fiscal foundation for American national security.

No. This is not a joke.

Drudge's headlines always tell a story

◼ Romney heads to church...
◼ So does Obama...

Harvest Time!

Well, the summer is almost over, and that means it's harvest time.  My hops are almost ready now, and in a few days I'll be stocked with fresh hops for the brewing season.  Yield was low the first year as expected, and some varieties produced almost no cones, but the plants look perfectly healthy so they should be loaded next year.  I can't wait to see how they taste ...

This is the type of plant I like to grow ... a perennial that grows easily and has practical applications...

It's Friday

Free Bradley Manning protest, Occupiers in Oakland took over Obama campaign office

◼ It begins

3 things every voter needs to know about Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan — in 100 words

◼ The Paul Ryan veep pick — and the truth about his Medicare reform plan

1. No one over the age of 55 would be affected in any way.

2. Traditional Medicare fee-for-service would remain available for all. “Premium support”—that is, government funding of private insurance plans chosen by individuals—is an option for those who choose it. No senior would be forced out of the traditional Medicare program against his will.

3. Overall funding for Medicare under the Ryan-Wyden plan is scheduled to grow at the same rate as under President Obama’s proposals. Is this “gutting Medicare” and “ending Medicare as we know it”? In reality, it’s the market giving seniors cheaper, higher quality choices they can take if they wish, with the traditional program remaining an option.

Blind Mice Given Sight After Device Cracks Retinal Code - may be adopted for human use within a year or two

◼ Blind mice had their vision restored with a device that helped diseased retinas send signals to the brain, according to a study that may lead to new prosthetic technology for millions of sight-impaired people. - Bloomberg

The technology moves prosthetics beyond bright light and high-contrast recognition and may be adopted for human use within a year or two, said Sheila Nirenberg, a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and the study’s lead author.

“What this shows is that we have the essential ingredients to make a very effective prosthetic,” Nirenberg said. Researchers haven’t yet tested the approach on humans, though have assembled the code for monkeys, she said.

Once the researchers determined the code the mouse retina used to communicate with the brain, they were able to mimic it with electric-signal sending glasses, Nirenberg said. Previous prosthetics have used less-specific stimulation and proved inherently limited as a result, she said....

No foreseeable barriers should stop the movement into humans now that the technology has been created, Oliva said. Nirenberg said that if researchers can come up with adequate cash to fund clinical trials, she hopes to soon adapt the technology.

Photo of the Day: Man Carries Arthritis-Ridden Dog Into Lake in Nightly Ritual

◼ For those of you who didn’t log in to Facebook yesterday, you may have missed this heartmelting photo of Wisconsin resident John Unger and his 19-year-old rescue dog, Schoep. The photo shows Unger holding the dog, who is riddled with arthritis, as he wades in Lake Superior. Unger apparently discovered that this was the one and only action that seemed to lull the dog to sleep and ease his aching muscles. Now, it has become a nightly ritual. - FOX

Obama camp acknowledges knowing Soptic's story

◼ Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki acknowledged Thursday that the campaign was no longer pleading ignorance about the story of a man who has appeared in both a super PAC ad and a campaign ad. - Politico

UPDATE: Amanda Henneberg, a spokesperson for the Romney campaign, said this in a statement: "President Obama’s campaign has been caught lying about its knowledge concerning a vicious smear run by his Super PAC. And now, they have doubled down with another dishonorable and dishonest attack. In 2008, candidate Obama said ‘you make a big election about small things’ when you don’t have a record to run on. Since President Obama can’t run on record unemployment, falling incomes, and massive debt, he has decided to run a dirty campaign that is an affront to everything he claims to stand for."



◼ Obama’s Campaign Goes Stupid - Larry Johnson/No Quarter

It is one thing to produce a hard hitting ad that presents factual information in an unflattering light. That is hard ball politics. It is an entirely different cat to lie your ass off and then get caught lying and not have the smarts to concede you overstepped. That summarizes the state of the Obama campaign.

You know you have screwed the pooch when your own cheerleaders start giving you the raspberry.

◼ Part I: The scurrilous ad defaming Mitt Romney - Bronwyn's Harbor/NoQuarter
◼ Part II: The Scurrilous Ad Defaming Mitt Romney - Bronwyn's Harbor/NoQuarter

◼ Michelle Malkin to Romney: Nail Obama team for illegal coordination - Ed Morrissey/Michelle Malkin



◼ Obama Campaign Admits Knowing Story Behind Man in Super PAC Ad - Mary Bruce/ABC News @marykbruce

In response, the Romney campaign said the president’s campaign had been caught lying.

“The Obama campaign acknowledged today that it ran a television ad and hosted a conference call that promoted the same despicable attack that was used in a discredited ad run by President Obama’s Super PAC,” Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said. “The Obama campaign has now admitted that it lied to the media and the American people in a disgraceful attempt to conceal their connection to this shameful smear. Americans deserve better – they deserve a president who’s willing to run an honest campaign and be honest about his own record.”

◼ Sununu: Obama Camp 'Caught With Pants Down' on Cancer Ad - Todd Beamon and Kathleen Walter/Newsmax

“This is a perfect sign of how desperate the president is to avoid talking about issues,” the former GOP New Hampshire governor and White House Chief of Staff said. “Actually, the new low was reached in denying that they knew anything about this ad — and then getting caught having had a discussion of exactly the same topic, with exactly the same individual that’s in the ad, in a telephone news conference with the press last May.”

“They got caught lying,” Sununu told Newsmax. “They got caught with their pants down. They got caught with a despicable ad. They got caught fulfilling the strategy they enunciated a year ago: That all they were going to do in this campaign is to try and destroy Mitt Romney.

“The public should begin to understand that there’s nothing that comes out of this campaign, or this Obama White House, that they can believe. It truly is all misrepresentation and deception.”

The trouble with freedom

Why don't we ban and abolish Skinhead, Nazi and White Supremacist groups?

We've certainly seen the evil they are capable of. On a massive scale in Nazi Germany, and on a smaller scale this past week in the attacks on innocent Sikhs.

We don't abolish them because we believe that it is better to have them operate in full public view, with sunlight, rather than festering in dark basements, breeding ever more toxic and dangerous intentions.

Allowed, and exposed for what they are, their power is dissipated, the capacity to harm on a large scale vastly diminished.

Lone deranged sociopaths exist, and their capacity to harm innocents remains. Jared Loughner. James Holmes. Wade Michael Page. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

We know they exist. And we know that in the current environment, the left looks for proof of their hatred of 'right-wingers,' gearing up the blame and hate machine with every incident, even ginning up the hate machine against a newly-termed 'white hispanic' - and each and every time, it has not been a 'right-winger' at all. Til this latest one. And so, they finally have a chance to smear the right by association.

But they're wrong. So very, very, wrong.

Because the right does not accept, endorse or tolerate neo-Nazis or white-supremacy. To assert so is a fallacy.

But that won't stop the smear machine. Will it?

So this shame is projected out in rage and, yes, loathing toward you, me, Mitt Romney, and anyone else who might deign to disagree with them. We are accused racists, homophobes, sexists, classists, any refugee of sixties group speak that might stick for ten minutes, even though they themselves are more likely to be those things. It is, after all, projection. Ideology is but a pretentious cover for rage.

◼ Fear and Shame on the Campaign Trail - Roger L. Simon/PJM

...a large portion of the American public has effectively been brainwashed. And the brainwashers are the Democratic Party and the mainstream media. The former is quite understandable since political parties cling to power by virtually any means when threatened. But for the media it’s another matter. Why do these people persist in their views in a situation where, objectively, almost any corporation or business would have been looking for new leadership long ago? Why are they so destructive to our society and ultimately to themselves? Don’t they have children and grandchildren?...

Despite what many may choose to think, journalists are not stupid. They are at least relatively educated. They have seen the same things we all have and know that the economy (the very heart of America) is failing. And they know deep down that they are responsible for some of it, because they bought and promoted Barack Obama as if he were a messiah without the slightest bit of vetting. Obama was anointed, not elected. To this day no one knows who he is, possibly even Obama himself.

And deep down these journos are embarrassed by this (who wouldn’t be?) but they can never never admit it. To do so would injure their self-image and self-respect to the level of personality disintegration....

Congratulations NASA....

My heart swelled with pride when Curiosity touched down last night.  It's difficult to grasp the technological difficulty of safely delivering something like this to a planet millions of miles away, and we did it without a hitch.  Assuming it performs as designed, we should learn a great deal about Mars, and perhaps even gain some insight into how we came to inhabit this planet.  I can't wait until the color images and data begin arriving.

Hey Mr. President ... yes, we DID build this, and we did it DESPITE your funding cuts and crappy attitude toward American exceptionalism.  Muslim outreach program my ass.....