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Monday, February 16, 2015 A Revisionist Muslim History of America Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blogTurkish President Erdogan’s claim that Columbus encountered a mosque in Cuba (the explorer actually saw a rock whose shape he compared to the dome of a mosque) and a Saudi Imam claiming that Columbus had sailed to America to attack Muslims are typical of an emerging genre of Muslim revisionist history that lays claim to America based on an imaginary earlier Muslim presence here. While these examples may be laughable, Muslim historical revisionism has taken root in academia. It can be found...

http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/economics/2007/12/17/Why-Oil-Prices-Will-Drop

A new HIV strain in some patients in Cuba appears to be much more aggressive and can develop into AIDS within three years of infection. Researchers said the progression happens so fast that treatment with antiretroviral drugs may come too late. Without treatment, HIV infection usually takes 5 to 10 years to turn into AIDS, according to Anne-Mieke Vandamme, a medical professor at Belgium's University of Leuvan. According to the study, published in the journal EBioMedicine, Vandamme was alerted to the new aggressive strain of HIV by Cuban health officials who wanted to find out what was happening.

Senator Ted Cruz, the boat-rocking limited government constitutional conservative Senator from Texas, provided another one of his patented cross examinations of a smoke-blowing government official at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Cruz, the son of legal immigrants from Cuba, asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about border security measures – the so-called “triggers” – contained in the “Gang of Eight's” immigration bill. Specifically, Senator Cruz asked, “If there are no objective metrics, if it is simply the subjective assessment of a host of factors, how can we have any confidence that the border will be secured and that any...

They have the heft of an ax, a blade nearly as long as a sword, and the intimidation power to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Cheap and easily bought, machetes in America have commonly been reserved for underbrush and sugar-cane cutting. But now, in a spreading trend that so far has drawn little national attention, criminals are using machetes as weapons, striking fear in cities and towns across the country. Witness these recent incidents: In the heartland Indiana city of Evansville in February, a robber pulled a machete on a convenience-store cashier, who put...

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has proposed to Cuba the construction of a mosque on the Caribbean island during a visit to Havana, pushing ahead with a plan apparently inspired by his belief that Muslims discovered the Americas. After talks with Cuban President Raul Castro, Erdogan said on Wednesday he had sought approval for Turkey to build the place of worship in Havana that would be based on the model of a mosque in the Ortakoy district on the European shore of the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul. Erdogan also told reporters the Cuban government had agreed with Saudi Arabia on a...

It’s always a pleasure returning to the beautiful Lone Star State. This week I’m in Houston speaking with the industrious men and women of America’s oil patch at the North American Prospect Expo. These are the unsung heroes of our nation’s energy renaissance. In the brutal economic environment of the last six years, one sector had good news to report, and it came straight out of America’s oil patch. From 2007 to 2012, employment in the energy industry rose a dramatic 31.6 percent while employment nationwide fell 2.7 percent. U.S. oil production increased from 6.5 million barrels per day in...

Governor Palin wrote a great article for the Houston Tribune today loaded with a lot of good facts on energy.  She also notes an interesting flip flop from our president on the matter. It’s always a pleasure returning to the beautiful Lone Star State. This week I’m in Houston speaking with the industrious men and women of America’s oil patch at the North American Prospect Expo. These are the unsung heroes of our nation’s energy renaissance.In the brutal economic environment of the last six years, one sector had good news to report, and it came straight out of America’s oil patch. From...

U.S. officials consider removing Castro regime from terror listU.S. officials are considering removing Cuba from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, even as Cuban allies continue to launch military attacks and trade for weapons. As part of President Barack Obama’s announcement in December that he would normalize relations with Cuba, Obama instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to review Cuba’s terror designation and issue a report in six months. While reports indicate that the administration is leaning toward removing Cuba from the terror list, such an action would conflict with the Cuban regime’s support for Colombian militants, Iran, and...

Susan Rice pushed back on critics of President Obama's foreign policy Friday as she unveiled the White House’s new national security strategy. Rice, the White House's national security adviser, said in a speech at the Brookings Institution that the nation is “stronger than we have been in a very long time” despite the bitter debates raging in Washington. “Too often, what's missing here in Washington is a sense of perspective. Yes, there is a lot going on. Still, while the dangers we face may be more numerous and varied, they are not of the existential nature we confronted during World...

President Barack Obama’s eagerness to cut deals with Cuba at almost any cost could yield a “strategic disaster” in which the Russian military winds up controlling Guantanamo Bay, Cuba scholar Jaime Suchlicki told “MidPoint” host Ed Berliner on Newsmax TV. The historic re-start of diplomatic and economic ties with Cuba ordered by Obama does not alter the fact that the communist nation’s rulers neither want nor feel they need improved relations with the United States, said Suchlicki, director of the Cuban Institute at the University of Miami. Just look at all the demands issued by Cuban leader Raul Castro, said...

Two distinct but ultimately inextricable controversies have swirled around U.S. foreign policy in recent days, both more or less involving Cuba. The normalizing of relations with Havana, which had slipped from the headlines, has returned with a vengeance thanks to Raúl Castro's ever-growing list of demands, which may eventually grow to include Pres. Obama's confession that it was actually he who ordered Navy Seals to assassinate José Martí in 1895. Specifically, Cuba's demand for the return of Guantánamo has enraged many on both the U.S. right and in Democratic circles. More importantly, Cuba's demand coincided with the onset of coverage...

The government says Nisman's allegations and his death were linked to a power struggle at Argentina's intelligence agency and agents who had recently been fired. One of those fired in a December shake-up was Antonio Stiusso, a senior spy who had helped Nisman with his investigation of the 1994 bombing that killed 85. The government has said Stiusso misled Nisman. Citing sources close to the investigation into Nisman's death, Argentine news agency DyN said that Stiusso had been called to testify at 11 a.m. (1400 GMT) in Buenos Aires. The lead investigator into the case, Viviana Fein, called upon him...

Cuba wants Guantánamo Bay back. And if President Obama wanted to, he could just give it to them. The White House has lately been pushing for normalizing relations with Cuba, which have been suspended since the 1959 communist revolution. President Raúl Castro said that one precondition for normalizing ties with the United States would be returning the 45 square mile U.S.-controlled territory at Guantánamo Bay. Though most noted for its terrorist detainee facility, the U.S. has maintained a naval station there for over 100 years. Last week, White House spokesman Josh Earnest rejected Castro’s demand, saying that while President Obama...

PUNTA BRITO, Nicaragua — One of the largest engineering projects in history would start here, on this desolate and pristine crescent of dark-sand Pacific beach. From in front of the hammock-swinging shrimpers on the porches of their tin-and-wood shanties, the trench would run east in sinuous curves up through the mangroves and banana fields until it reaches the shores of Central America’s largest freshwater lake, then cut across the Caribbean highlands and through indigenous territory, ending its journey 172 miles away on the beaches of the Atlantic. They call it the Grand Inter-Oceanic Canal: an audacious $50 billion plan by an...

In 2008, then-candidate Obama made a promise to close Guantánamo Bay, which could be chalked up to political talk. However, every time the State of the Union speech comes around, he continues to talk of closing Gitmo. Using the same narrative numerous times, he has not come to grips with the error of his ways. What the president seems to be ignoring is the rate of recidivism. Liz Cheney noted that the Bush administration probably released more detainees than this administration. However, an important point she makes is that the Obama administration should look upon this as a cautionary tale....

Saying that President Obama’s apology for 50 years of aggression, discrimination, and abuse of his country by the United States government “was a good start,” current Cuban dictator Raul Castro demanded further concessions as the price for normalizing relations between Cuba and the US. First on Castro’s list was compensation for the economic damage done to Cuba by the US trade embargo. “Prior to this embargo Cubans had the highest standard of living in Latin America,” Castro pointed out. “Now, Cubans are worse off than any country in the western hemisphere.” Castro called upon President Obama to “use his executive...

U.S.-Cuba talks are getting more and more interesting. The Castro regime wants Guantanamo back, essentially the naval base, since the city of Guantanamo has always been part of Cuba, compensation for the U.S. embargo, and the cancellation of Radio & TV Marti. It won't happen. Another unresolved issue is the status of U.S. nationals living in Cuba, i.e. fugitives of U.S. law. We've all heard about Joanne Chesimard, who killed a police officer in New Jersey and was granted asylum in the island. However, there are others, and apparently we don't have a clue or didn't bother to ask the...

The construction of Cuba's first Roman Catholic Church since 1959 is set to begin in the village of Sandino in the province of Pinar del Rio. Cuba has recently experienced warming ties both with the U.S. and the Vatican. "There is money to begin, building materials to begin, and we have the permissions to start, so everything is ready," said Jorge Enrique Serpa Pérez, the bishop of Pinar del Río, according to Breitbart News. It is a significant development in the largely Catholic country, which had exiled and jailed a number of priests belonging to the Vatican following the 1959...