It’s National Cheesecake Day

How come I find out about this now? Geesh, I have got to keep track of these days. And of course, no cheesecake here to salute the day with. Wife said no, we are not going out just to buy a cheesecake!

It turns out to be easier to find out when and where the original Olympic Games were held (776 BC, in Olympia, Greece) than to nail down the story behind National Cheesecake Day.

Yes, in case it had passed you by, today is National Cheesecake Day.

Here at The Salt, we first learned about it last Tuesday, when a large, chilled, many-layered cheesecake turned up at our HQ in Washington, D.C. We couldn’t resist doing a bit of research (or eating for that matter) and a little web browsing soon revealed that National Cheesecake Day is listed as a Food Holiday on several web calendars, and does, indeed, fall on July 30.

But trawling these calendars also reveals that someone, somewhere has designated just about every single day, week and month of the year as a national food holiday of some kind. There’s National Crabmeat Day (March 9), National Pineapple Upside-down Cake Day (April 20) and National Deviled Egg Day (Nov. 2).

In fact, there are so many food holidays that they often have to double up. National Pickle Day ( Nov. 14), for example, coincides with National Spicy Guacamole Day; and May is not only National Barbecue Month, but also National Chocolate Custard Month.

Now, a few of these food holidays are, indeed, as “official” as, say Thanksgiving. Back in 1982, for example, Congress requested the President designate July as National Peach Month. “In recognition of the role peaches play in our food supply and our economy,” Ronald Reagan was to ask the people of the United States “to incorporate this nutritious fruit into their diets, and call upon interested groups to celebrate this month with appropriate programs and activities.”

But most of these so called national food holidays turn out to be the invention of industry and other interest groups as a way to promote their products. Thanks to The National Hot Dog & Sausage Council, July is National Hot Dog Month, and you just missed National Hot Dog Day, July 23.

Read MORE.

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CIA sees Israel as ‘genuine counterintelligence threat’: sources

The Near East Division of the Central Intelligence Agency, America’s primary intelligence organization, views Israel as the most serious threat to its secrets, according to an exposé published yesterday by the Associated Press. Citing interviews with at least five current and former US intelligence officials, the news agency said the CIA views the Israeli spy community as “a genuine counterintelligence threat” to US interests. The intelligence officials, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said the CIA believes US national secrets are less safe in the hands of Israel than in those of other governments in the region, such as Turkey, Jordan, or Lebanon. The Associated Press exposé will not surprise regular readers of intelNews, as this blog has regularly covered various aspects of the complex US-Israeli intelligence relationship. Indeed, seasoned readers of this blog may recall that a 2010 survey among officers in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service showed that they considered Israeli intelligence agencies to be the world’s least friendly and most uncooperative with their US counterparts. The survey also showed that officers in the NCS (the CIA division that includes actual operatives on the ground), also considered Israeli spy services as the world’s third most aggressive in their operations on American soil. This new report by the Associated Press seems to confirm the NCS survey results, while adding a partial explanation as to why the intelligence services of one of America’s closest geopolitical allies would be considered a threat by the CIA. It is widely thought that Israel’s intelligence agencies can often match —and sometimes surpass— their American counterparts in terms of their analytical and operational capabilities. These skills, coupled with Israel’s unique access to the inner sanctums of the American national security establishment, place the Jewish state in an unparalleled position to acquire and compromise US government secrets. The Associated Press report details several incidents of intrusions of homes belonging to CIA personnel operating in Israel in recent years, including the case of an unnamed Agency officer who “came home to find the food in the refrigerator had been rearranged”. The article mentions a far more serious case of a Syrian scientist and CIA spy, who was the Agency’s sole mole inside the Syrian weapons of mass destruction program during the years of the George W. Bush administration. The scientist disappeared after the Israeli government seemingly leaked information to the media about a CIA mole operating inside the Syrian WMD program, in an effort to pressure Damascus to abandon it. Lior Weintraub, Chief of Staff at the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, called the Associated Press article “baseless and contrary to the spirit and practice of the security cooperation between our two countries”. The CIA declined comment.

From HERE>

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Lech Walesa effectively backs Romney

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FBI Agents Raid Homes in Search of “Anarchist Literature”

When FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force agents raided multiple activist homes in the Northwest last week, they were in search of “anti-government or anarchist literature.”

The raids were part of a multi-state operation that targeted activists in Portland, Olympia, and Seattle. Five people were served subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury on August 2nd in Seattle.

In addition to anarchist literature, the warrants also authorize agents to seize flags, flag-making material, cell phones, hard drives, address books, and black clothing.

The listing of black clothing and flags, along with comments made by police, indicates that the FBI may ostensibly be investigating “black bloc” tactics used during May Day protests in Seattle, which destroyed corporate property.

If that is true, how are books and literature evidence of criminal activity?

Source: antigovernmentextremist

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I am also noticing this on a few blogs.

This was taken from iOwnTheWorld. Do read his blog daily.

Creeping Silence – How the Elite Right-Wing Blogosphere is Selling You Out

UPDATE:

I’m told that the dead links on Weasel Zippers are due to hacking. But I’ve also received confirmation, independent of Atlas Shrugs, that the site being discussed below is Weasel Zippers.

I’m also receiving messages from other sources that seem eager to share with me that this is not paranoia and is indeed a coordinated effort to stunt Atlas Shrugs. An editor of a brand new highly trafficked site informed a confidant of mine that Atlas Shrugs will not be linked. This made my eye go all twitchy.

Question: What will be gained by making Pamela Geller go away?

UPDATE 2: I’ve just read the comments and I can understand the protective attitude towards Weasel Zippers, and I fully understand I’m not making any friends by posting this. But I don’t blog to make friends. I don’t blog to intentionally make enemies. I blog primarily to test the limits of the first amendment, and that includes not self-censoring about Islam. Many are pointing out that WZ blogs about jihad, true. But the ex-employee points out that WZ has replaced or removed completely his editorializing, like when Slave Garb was replaced with Head Gear.

What’s happening is a slow retreat from “antagonizing.” He’s posting stories straight down the line and letting the comments do the dirty work, which is not the way things were done in the past. This is his right, of course, and it’s not what I have a problem with. Perhaps even a behind close doors coordinated effort to not link to a colleague’s site is their right too, but I do believe it deserves an explanation. Atlas Shrugs is a monumental force which continually tests whether the coming wave of Islam is constitutionally compliant, and  she has shown that it is not. What exactly is the problem with Atlas? Her accent? Her lipstick?

Just asking questions here.

Atlas Shrugs has published a story that I consider a bombshell. I was going to characterize it as inside baseball, but it’s not. This should concern everyone equally.

The post is about the slow, steady march towards the whitewashing of jihad- Creeping Silence, if you will, and as Atlas points out, silence is sanctioning.

Michelle Malkin is named at the top of the article as someone who is not as vociferous as she once was on the topic of counter jihad. She used to link regularly to Robert Spencer’s “Blogging the Quran” series when she was at the helm of Hot Air, then it was abruptly pulled. Atlas speculates that this decision coincided with Malkin’s rise as a television fixture at Fox News. The inference is clear, do you want a career or do you want to be a shunned “Islamophobe?”

Is this a stretch? Ask Erick Erickson of Red State, whose comment about Judge Souter being a “goat fu**ing child molester” was trotted out by the left in an attempt to block him from movin’ on up to the deluxe CNN contributor slot in the sky.

What’s the message received? If you want to move up in the caste system you better clean up your act, and that, you’ll see, includes any uncomfortable remarks about Islam.

Atlas:

It irked me that the party of constitutional rights and individual rights would adhere to the blasphemy laws under the sharia (do not criticize or offend Islam).

Which is worse: the left’s vocal support of the sharia or the right’s silence? The silence is more insidious. At least you know where you stand with the left. The following email came from a new blogger who was communicating with me on an unrelated issue. He used to blog at a very well known, well-trafficked right wing blog, one of the biggest. When I made a passing remark about the blogger’s negative behavior toward me, the new blogger responded [names redacted]:

Wow. I didn’t know you were aware of XXXX’s attitude towards you. He is nasty. He hides it well but if you displease him he’ll lash out at you.  He got pissed at me when I posted an article that made Rick Perry look bad.  He changed my headline and comment.

I posted a link to one of your blog posts in early 2011. Another blogger on the site pulled the link to you and sent me an email saying stay away from posting links to Atlas. He said XXXX [the owner of the blog] would get mad.

I think it also had to do with the fact that XXXX  changed the blog’s policy towards Islamic issues. I used to post uncensored stuff about Islam. Pictures with insults to Allah, swastikas on muslim terrorists, cartoons I made saying “Heil Allah!”

In December 2010, XXXX decided to tone down XXXX and make it more like a Hot Air style site. He told me to stop insulting Islam because he wanted to attract advertising and make a living from doing XXXX. I complied with his wishes and toned down not only Islam stuff but other subjects as well. I gradually became disenchanted with posting at XXXX My daily output became less and less.

While reading this I immediately had 2 bloggers in mind that would fit this description. The first was Ace of Spades. Ace was a Perryite who famously published a public attack towards Pamela Geller. He’s  also shown that he’s willing to modify his act, and the reader’s behavior.

My second pick was Weasel Zippers. I thought of them because Weasel did not participatie in Everyone Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day, the name Brett Kimberlin and Weasel Zippers do not appear together in a Google search, nor does the term SWATing or Swatting. Using the search feature on his blog doesn’t produce any matches for either entry either.

That sounds like a guy interested in making a career from blogging. No need for his blog to get on a serial litigator’s radar, letting all the other schmucks do that story.

Atlas continues:

By Sept. 2011, I was not posting much at all. Then I made the mistake of posting a couple of items XXXX thought were insulting to muslims. I wrote a headline for an article about a muslima weightlifter who wanted to wear hijab in competition. It said: “Muslima Weightlifter Demands Right To Wear Slave Garb In Competition.” He pulled it within minutes and wrote a new headline saying, “wear head gear.”  Then he censored a comment I made on another Islam related post. The last straw came when I posted another “insult to islam.” It was a humorous post not nasty at all, but he pulled my comment and picture.

That was the end for me. He sent me an email saying thanks for your contribution to XXXX. Have a nice day. That was it after all I did to help build XXXX traffic for over a year. When I joined the traffic was at a certain level for a long time. I introduced humorous pictures, comments and articles and upgraded the graphics quality on my posts and his. Traffic went up at a steady pace. The audience grew tremendously. He talked to me more like a partner than just a contributor.

That’s what upset me most, but it’s OK because I was unhappy there anyway. I couldn’t express myself the way I wanted to so it’s better that I moved on. I’m doing what I want on my own blog.

And here is a second email from the same writer:

I remembered another thing about Islam related censorship at XXX. After I left, I checked my old posts for reference for a wordpress blog I set up at HUB. When I looked at the Islam stuff I found XXXX had gone back and deleted any pictures and commentary I wrote that might be offensive. What he does now is, he covers muslim related issues but without saying anything offensive. His headlines are just descriptions of what a muslim jihadist did, without saying something critical. Instead of using an insulting term, he’ll say “Muslim Terrorists Burn Churches.” His comments under the pictures say “Christians must express outrage at this kind of attack.” He will not say something attacking Islam in any way. He leaves the nasty comments to his fans in the comments section. They say “Islam must be destroyed!” He never gets his hands dirty. Here are some examples of old XXXX posts of mine that XXXX censored/scrubbed from his site:

“8-Year-Old Boy Is Hanged by the Taliban…”

XXXX deleted my one word comment which was: “Barbarians.” It’s offensive to Muslims to call Taliban barbarians.

“Obama Remembers Muslim Victims of 9/11 at White House Ramadan Dinner…”

He deleted my picture of Obama at a White House dinner holding up a glass to toast someone. Obama had an evil look on his face. Offensive to Muslims?The last post I did on XXXX was a story about Muslim day at Great Adventure Park. I put up a picture of a muslim man and burka wearing woman riding on a Ferris wheel. The caption was: “Allahu Akbarf!” It was just a lame joke about people getting sick on amusement park rides, but XXXX saw it and pulled the caption within minutes after I posted it. The next day he got rid of me. There are many others but I guess you can get an idea of what he did to hide his past as an “Islamophobe.” LOL!

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this unnamed ex-blogger worked for Weasel Zippers.

It would have been very easy to confirm my suspicion if it were not for the very fortuitous timing of Weasel Zippers new redesign. None of their old links work, they merely link you to the front page.

I guess you can call this a new beginning for them, where they will toe the line from this point forward. Isn’t this exciting? We have a new site getting their marching orders from the other corporate sites above them in the caste system, the system that tells you not to link to certain sites if you “wanna make a living in this blogging woild, know what I mean, kid?”

Good luck Zippers, sleep well. Maybe Islam will cut your head off last.

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Obama regime says Jerusalem is NOT the capital of Israel.

CNSNews.com:

In what marks a decisive difference in the presidential campaign, one day after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called Jerusalem the capital of Israel, the White House asserted that Romney’s position was different from that of the Obama administration.

“Our view is that that is a different position than this administration holds. It’s the view of this administration that the capital should be determined in final status negotiations between parties,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Monday.

“I would remind you that that is the position that has been held by previous administrations both Democratic and Republican. So, if Mr. Romney disagrees with that position, he is also disagreeing with positions taken by previous presidents like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan,” Earnest added.

On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney struggled during the afternoon press briefing to answer what the capital of Israel was, insisting reporters already knew the administration’s policy and that the policy was not changed. Hours later he issued a written answer, stating it will be negotiated between Israel and Palestine.

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Must piss holder and obama off!

Washington Examiner:

A federal court in Washington, DC, held today that political appointees appointed by President Obama did interfere with the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the New Black Panther Party.

The ruling came as part of a motion by the conservative legal watch dog group Judicial Watch, who had sued the DOJ in federal court to enforce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to the the New Black Panthers case. Judicial Watch had secured many previously unavailable documents through their suit against DOJ and were now suing for attorneys’ fees.

Obama’s DOJ had claimed Judicial Watch was not entitled to attorney’s fees since “none of the records produced in this litigation evidenced any political interference whatsoever in” how the DOJ handled the New Black Panther Party case. But United States District Court Judge Reggie Walton disagreed.

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