HALF-FULL REPORT 01/09/15

Since I discussed yesterday the Moslem Massacre in Paris in Time to End the Insanity, we’ll start with what happened on Capitol Hill this week.  The rage directed at John Boehner, while fully justified, nonetheless, calls for a step back into perspective.

Let’s have a 19^th century American poet from Vermont provide it, John Godrey Saxe (1816-1887). 

There is a famous quote often attributed to either British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) or German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898): "There are two things which the public should never be allowed to see how they are made:  sausage and the law." 

Neither one of them said it.  The actual quote is Saxe’s, published in 1869:  "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made."

The proportion of how much we know about how laws are made and politics are conducted is so vastly greater in our Internet Age than 146 years ago, that it is little wonder how outrageous we find the whole process. 

Yet the fact to focus on is that the process was just as unprincipled in 19^th century America as it is in the 21^st.  This alone may help to calm some of us down.  ‘Twas ever thus.

Saxe, however, is famous not for the quote (hence the misattributions) but for his poem, The Blind Men and the Elephant.  You can read Saxe’s "Hindoo fable" in a about a minute via the link – and then understand why a lot of Congressistas who voted for Boehner will be glad you did.

One of them was Mia Love – the link is to her explanation.  There are others but the best is by Rick Mulvaney.  He’s the one you need to read:  "This was an effort driven as much by talk radio as by a thoughtful and principled effort to make a change. It was poorly considered and poorly executed… and bound to fail."

You knew it would fail, by the way, when Trey Gowdy turned down pleas to run against Boehner, and the main guy challenging him, Dan Webster, has a 56% conservative voting record.  

The real problem in the House GOP is far scarier than Boehner:  it’s that there is no real conservative alternative to him – a fact the WaPo was delighted to point out.

There is no equivalent of Ted Cruz among House Republicans.  This is the disillusioning reverse of Saxe’s Blind Men, who all think the elephant is something different – a wall, a snake, a tree, etc. 

Conservative Blind Men insist on finding something that isn’t there, a conservative creature being chained by a Rino elite, and get very angry when they can’t find it.

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That said, such an explosion of anger is very useful.  Flood of Anti-Boehner Calls Rattles Leadership was the headline after the vote.  The Rino Elite got so rattled that Boehner quickly backed down on this threat to punish those who voted against him with lousy committee assignments. 

Exposing how effective the angry calls were, Boehner whined yesterday (1/08) that it hurt his feelings to be called "spineless" and a "squish," and actually made the forehead-slapping delusional claim that "I’m the most anti-establishment speaker we’ve ever had." 

Either he’s nuts, or he knows what a low bar his predecessors set (shades of Saxe’s sausages!).

Well, keep those calls coming, folks!  Now that we can get under his squishy skin, let’s dig ourselves in until he actually does get a spine.

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As this is being written, the news from Paris is that the two Charlie Hebdo Moslem butchers have been killed along with another Moslem hostage taker elsewhere in the city.  They said they wanted to "die as martyrs." 

They should have been told they would be killed with bullets dipped in pig grease and buried in a grave of pig entrails by women – anything to assure them they wouldn’t go to Moslem Whorehouse Heaven.

This is a crisis totally of France’s own making.  Some 10% of France’s 58 million are Moslem, mostly Arab immigrants, who live in "banlieues" – strings of Moslem slums surrounding major cities where police are afraid to go.  Over half of the schoolchildren in cities like Marseilles and Montpelier are now Moslem.

The only real solution is mass deportation of those who aren’t fully legal French citizens back to their country of origin.  What are the odds of that?

Meanwhile, in California… the building of the Santa-Barbara News-Press was vandalized late Wednesday night (1/07) after the editors refused demands they stop referring to illegal aliens as "illegal."  "The border is illegal, not the people who cross it" was spray-painted in red on the building.

The editors issued a statement in response, refusing to back down:  "It is an appropriate term in describing someone as ‘illegal’ if they are in this country illegally."  Their readers certainly support them.  So does the HFR!

For now, the pro-illegal thugs are armed with spray cans, not AK-47s.  But many will now ask, in the wake of Charlie Hebdo and the growing threat of Mexican Nazis – for how much longer?

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Eight years ago (December 2006), I wrote Opening the Doors of Islam.  It argued that the last thing Islam needs is a Reformation which in Christendom led to the slaughter of millions for well over a century (1520-1648).  Rather it needs an Enlightenment.

There is a term in Arabic for enlightenment, for analysis and interpretation through reason, that has an honorable tradition in Islamic jurisprudence and thought.  Get to know the word, for it is the salvation of Islam:  Ijtihad.  The door of Islam was closed to reason in the 11^th century (the article tells the story), and has never recovered since.  Until maybe now.

On New Year’s Day at the world center for Islamic scholars, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for a "religious revolution in Islam" replacing violent Jihad with "a more enlightened perspective."  He called for ijtihad by name.

It’s important to provide the key excerpts of his speech, for it is truly historical.  Note that the "ideology" he refers to is what "closed the door of Islam" to ijtihad  in Islamic thought almost a thousand years ago (again see the linked article above).

We must take a long, hard look at the situation we are in. It is inconceivable that the ideology we sanctify should make our entire nation a source of concern, danger, killing, and destruction all over the world.

It is inconceivable that this ideology… I am referring not to "religion," but to "ideology" – the body of ideas and texts that we have sanctified in the course of centuries, to the point that challenging them has become very difficult.

It has reached the point that this ideology is hostile to the entire world. I say these things here, at Al-Azhar, before religious clerics and scholars. May Allah bear witness on Judgment Day to the truth of your intentions, regarding what I say to you today.

You cannot see things clearly when you are locked in this ideology. You must emerge from it and look from outside, in order to get closer to a truly enlightened ideology.

You must oppose it with resolve. Let me say it again: We need to revolutionize our religion.

Honorable Imam (the Grand Sheik of Al-Azhar), you bear responsibility before Allah.  All imams (prayer leaders) are responsible before Allah. 

The entire world-I say it again, the entire world-is waiting for your next move because this umma (the Muslim world) is being torn apart, it is being destroyed, it is being lost-and it is being lost by our own hands.

In a word, what Al-Sisi has done is astounding.  He sees where Islam is heading – and the events in Paris a week later proved him right. He actually called for "opening the doors of Islam" to ijtihad, to reason and enlightenment, an end to intolerance and jihad.

Equally astounding, he followed this up on Tuesday (1/06) by attending a Coptic Christian Christmas Mass at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo!

There should be no doubt, for this is truly historic.  President al-Sisi of Egypt is the HFR Hero of the Week.

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There was some juicy fun stuff this week.   A sex scandal involving pedophile Democrat billionaire Jeffrey Epstein exploded this week because Epstein was connected to a British Royal, Prince Andrew (Charles’ younger brother) and, haha, Little Willie.

Her Hillaryness is just oh-so-mad.  Mad because it’s a diversion from her PIAPS Path to the Presidency.

And isn’t it such a lovely relief that the Senate’s Wicked Witch of the West, Barbara Boxer, won’t run for reelection in 2016?

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Want some good news?

Texas’ new (on Jan 20) Governor Greg Abbott wants to end all the stupid liberal bans on plastic bags, fracking, tree cutting on private property et al enacted by libtard city councils that are "Californianizing" Texas.  This guy is great.

How’s this for a cool headline?  Republicans in State Governments Plan Juggernaut of Conservative Legislation.  Common Core, EPA regs, public unions, abortion mills, homofascism and more are their targets.  2015 might be shaping up.

Finally, the hacker group "Anonymous" decides to do something actually useful: Declare Cyberwar on Moslem Jihadis.  The HFR has been waiting for them to take down the IRS, but no such luck.  This will have to do in the meantime.

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OK, time for the HFR Note on Health & Fitness, a feature we introduced last week.

The older we get, the more we get various aches, pains, and constrictions.  About 10 years ago, my shoulders got so stiff that I couldn’t reach up to get something off a top kitchen shelf.  I couldn’t even put on a belt as I couldn’t reach the belt loops in the back.

I started taking a supplement called NAC – N-Acetyl-Cysteine.  I’ve been ache, pain, and constriction free ever since.  I’m 71 now and haven’t a pain in my body (knock on wood – meaning my thick skull!). 

It’s cheap — $15 for 60 caps at any GNC.  I take one 600mg cap with breakfast and another with dinner, a total of 1200mg a day.  Ever so often over the years I’ve run out, and sure enough, little pains and stiffness return.  Once back on NAC, they’re gone again.  So I make sure I have a supply with me wherever I go. 

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We’ll close with really good news.  Rush is saying "Scott Walker Looks Like He’s Going For It."

We desperately, vitally need a solidly conservative president with solid executive gubernatorial experience.  That’s Scott.  The only question regards his position on amnesty, which makes my buddy Larry Pratt who runs Gun Owners of America edgy.  We’ll work that out.  Scott could be the guy.

As an aside, regarding Ted Cruz of whom there’s been a discussion of on the Forum – I think Cruz is fabulous.  My only pause with him is certainly not his style nor his "hardline" conservatism both of which I admire to the hilt – it’s his lack of executive experience, either in business, the military, or in politics.

The presidency is an executive position, and we’ve seen the disaster of someone without that experience in Zero.   Cruz would make an infinitely better president than Zero, and if he ended up the nominee I would be totally all up/all in for him. 

But if I had my druthers, the Dream Tag Team would be a President Walker and Senate Majority Leader Cruz. 

Then all we’d need is Cruz’s equivalent to replace Boehner. 

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Guess I can’t resist this.  Last Saturday (1/03), the London Daily Mail ran this hilariously stupid story expressing "outrage" at gorgeous big game hunter Kendall Jones holding a "Hottest Hunter" contest.

She got 3,000 entries from guys all over the world – and a ton of hate mail by professed animal lovers who have no idea what it is like for an animal to die and be eaten by predators or scavengers in the wild.  Or that trophy hunters collect only big old males way past their prime who have repeatedly replicated their DNA serving their evolutionary purpose.

Kendall gets orders of magnitude more fan mail than hate mail so she just shrugs at the latter.  Her Facebook page, after all, has 779,000 Likes.

Anyway, just for the hell of it, I thought I’d make a submission.  Granted, this was over a half-century ago when I was 17, but still… think I should?

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