I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article.
Feds sue to block Arizona illegal immigrant law
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/06/AR2010070602115.html?hpid=topnews
People who support this should vote Democrat in the fall. People who support Arizona should vote Republican. If the administration wins, states should cite the decision and save money by refusing to help enforce ANY federal law. Simple. Excerpt: The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Arizona's new law targeting illegal immigrants, setting the stage for a clash between the federal government and the state over the nation's toughest immigration crackdown.
Will Michael Steele stay or go?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/1-2-the-west-virginia.html?wprss=thefix
Excerpt: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele's most recent gaffe -- this one about the war in Afghanistan -- has effectively eliminated any chance he might have had to return to his post after the 2010 election, according to a number of individuals close to the committee. However, those same sources insisted that Steele is likely to survive until the election. "If you believe in death by 1,000 cuts, he is around 896," said one Republican operative who keeps a close eye on the RNC's inner workings. Another high-level Republican strategist said there had been a series of calls over the weekend about possibly naming a placeholder chairman through the election. But the strategist acknowledged that scenario is very unlikely for three reasons. First, Steele remains relatively popular with the 168 Republican national committeemen and committeewomen who ultimately decide his fate. Second, the source said, "the prevailing sentiment is that it's not worth the commotion with four months to the midterm [elections] and six months until a new chairman." Third, no Republican incumbent has directly called on Steele to resign, although he was scolded by Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) on the Sunday talk shows. The next major moment for Steele -- barring another gaffe -- is early next month at the RNC summer meeting in Kansas City, Mo. At that gathering, Steele's commitment to overhaul (or at least to adjust) the 2012 presidential nominating contest will be up for vote.
New Federal Subsidies Marred by Marriage Penalty
http://www.heartland.org/healthpolicy-news.org/article/27901/New_Federal_Subsidies_Marred_by_Marriage_Penalty.html
Excerpt: Analysis of President Obama’s health care overhaul reveals its system of federal subsidies is structured in ways that reward cohabitation and discourage people from getting married. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC, says the effect will be felt most acutely by the poorest Americans. “What's problematic is the interaction of the health affordability credits with the poverty line,” said Furchtgott-Roth. “If you have one person in the family, the poverty line right now is $10,830. With two people in the family, the poverty line is $14,570.” According to the Department of Health and Human Services 2009 guidelines, the poverty line for a family increases at a rate of $3,740 with each additional member of a household. Furchtgott-Roth uses an example of two people living together, each with income at the poverty line of $10,850, to illustrate the problem. “If they decide to get married, their income would be around $22,000. They would be counted as being in a two-person household and would be considered well above the poverty line, despite not having any more income,” Furchtgott-Roth said. “They would immediately lose the affordability credits if they got married. And given that the tax credits under this legislation are computed by where you stand on the poverty line, and that these tax credits are going to get more valuable as health insurance becomes more expensive, the costs of getting married will only increase.”
The EU's response to global warming is a costly mistake
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/7867422/The-EUs-response-to-global-warming-is-a-costly-mistake.html
Excerpt: New research shows that the EU's "20/20/20" policy, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 (and ensure 20 per cent renewable energy), will cost hundreds of billions of euros but yield only tiny benefits. The UK alone will be hit to the tune of an annual 35 billion euros (£28 billion). As a cost-benefit analysis by the climate-change economist Richard Tol shows, any single regional carbon-reduction scheme will have a very small effect on emissions and temperature rises across the globe. That's not an argument against ever implementing one: but it means that it's crucial that the numbers stack up. The EU recently stated that it would cost £39 billion a year to meet its emissions target. That figure is implausibly optimistic. Averaging out the best-regarded economic models shows that, even if politicians got their policies exactly right, the cost would come to at least £90 billion a year. And Europe has not got it exactly right. Instead, it has made things worse, by introducing additional red tape, complication and constraints – in particular, that 20 per cent renewable-energy target. This is expensive because popular "green" energy sources such as wind and solar power cost more than replacing coal with gas. As a result, the real cost of EU policy is likely to be as much as £170 billion.
Back To the Drawing Board for Climate Modellers. Alarmist Scenarios Unrealistic
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/
Excerpt: The Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany has just put out a press release in English on a new study on the role of terrestrial ecosystems in the global carbon cycle: A new balance for the global carbon balance. If anything, the report shows there remains lots of uncertainty in the science that many like to call “settled”. In climate science the only certainty is uncertainty. Well worth reading. ALSO, A FOLLOW-UP STORY DIRECTLY BELOW THE ORIGINAL POST, PERFECT EXAMPLE OF SELECTIVE REPORTING BY BIASED MEDIA. The left of centre German online Sueddeutsche Zeitung had, for a very short time, a quite inconvenient piece up today called, in English: News On Nature’s Respiration, which reported on findings just out from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemicals in Jena, Germany, on the earth’s CO2 cycle and possible future impacts. Mysteriously, the SZ suddenly ripped it down from its website! [Update: 6 July - The SZ has reposted its story]
Public workers are straining state budgets and ought to accept cuts
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0610/jkelly061410.php3
Since the public employee unions are major Democrat donors and campaign muscle, this, too, won’t be fixed until the collapse. Excerpt: In 2009, state and local government employees had total compensation packages which averaged $39.66 per hour, 45 percent more than the $27.42 per hour earned by workers in the private sector, according to a study by the Cato Institute. Several states and many municipalities are on the verge of bankruptcy, chiefly because of the vast sums they are paying in salary and benefits to public employees. Government employees make more in part because they have more education than do workers in the private sector. But it's mostly because of the strength of public employee unions and the willingness of political leaders to give them taxpayer money in exchange for votes and campaign contributions.
Iran Takes the Scissors to Western Hairstyles
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/iran-cracks-down-on-western-style-haircuts-for-its-men/19542851
Excerpt: Worried that Western ideas might be seeping into -- and onto -- the heads of their nation's young men, Iran's religious leaders have issued a catalog of acceptable "Islamic" male haircuts. Ponytails, spikes, mullets and Mohawks are now forbidden, but Elvis-style locks, floppy fringes and Simon Cowell-esque flattops get the ayatollahs' seal of approval. The entire selection of state-sanctioned styles will be revealed later this month at Tehran's Modesty and Veil Festival, whose organizers -- with help from Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance -- designed the hair guide. "The proposed styles are inspired by Iranians' complexion, culture, religion and Islamic law," Jaleh Khodayar, the fair's female organizer, told Agence France-Presse. "We are happy that the Islamic republic of Iran's government has backed us in designing these hairstyles." (...) But well-groomed men aren't the only group facing increased scrutiny this summer. The growing number of wealthy Iranians who keep dogs -- viewed as "unclean" by the mullahs -- could also face a crackdown. Last month, a senior Shiite cleric placed a fatwa on the pets and called for such displays of hound-human companionship to be outlawed.
A Nobody Angling for a Knockout
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/george-will/2010/07/04/a-nobody-angling-for-a-knockout/
Excerpt: Sometimes provocative people become that way because they were provoked. Sharron Angle, 60, could be enjoying the 10 grandchildren she loves even more than her .44 magnum. Instead, she is the Republican nominee against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's quest for a fifth term. Her campaign began, in a sense, three decades ago, when a judge annoyed her. When her son was depressed about having to repeat kindergarten -- "He was a 6-year-old dropout" -- she decided on home schooling, which Nevada law permitted. But a judge construed the law to require that parents who home school must live at least 50 miles from a public school. She and many kindred spirits descended on Carson City to get the Legislature to correct this. One legislator, irritated by such grass-roots impertinence, said, "If I'd known there would be 500 people here instead of 50 and it would take five hours instead of 30 minutes, I would have thrown it (the legislation) in my drawer and it would never have seen the light of day." Angle asked a cowboy standing next to her, "Can he do that?" The cowboy said yep. She has been politically incandescent ever since.
Is Elena Kagan Morally Blind?
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/is_elena_kagan_morally_blind.html
Excerpt: Elena Kagan has now admitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that as a Clinton lawyer in 1997, she fraudulently revised an official medical opinion by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The medical society was going to publicly reveal that "its panel of experts found no circumstances in which the (partial birth abortion) procedure was the only option for saving the life of the woman." In a secret internal memo, she wrote that "This, of course, would be a disaster[.]" Kagan therefore secretly revised the language so the final statement in 1997 claimed that the partial-birth abortion "may be the best and most appropriate procedure in particular circumstances to save the life or preserve the health of the woman." That was a pernicious lie. The medical panel originally said that was false. Kagan substituted her own judgment for a medical consensus. No wonder eight hundred Jewish rabbis have publicly stated that in their opinion, Elena Kagan is not morally qualified to be on the Supreme Court. Her fraudulent actions in 1997 legally authorized the killing of approximately two thousand newborns or almost-newborns each year, according to the pro-abortion Gutmacher Institute.
Lack of jobs increasingly blamed on uncertainty created by Obama’s policies
http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/06/lack-of-jobs-increasingly-blamed-on-uncertainty-created-by-obamas-policies/#ixzz0subJh530
Excerpt: Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh said in a recent speech in Atlanta: “Owing to a less-than-assured economic outlook and broad uncertainty about public policy, employers appear quite reluctant to add to payrolls.” Roberton Williams, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, said in an interview, “The whole tax situation is very much in flux, very uncertain. It makes it hard to plan. It’s clear that firms are not yet hiring. A lot of them are sitting on big bundles of cash,” Williams said, citing the examples of Google and Apple, which are both hoarding about $30 billion in cash instead of investing it or using it to expand. Seidenberg’s comments last month were a significant political moment. The Verizon CEO has been one of President Obama’s strongest allies in the business community, and as president of the 170-member Business Roundtable, he had tried to cooperate with the Obama administration on its trademark agenda items – health care, financial reform and energy legislation. But, Seidenberg said he was “troubled” by Obama’s agenda, so much so that he had “reached a point where the negative effects of these policies are simply too significant to ignore.” Seidenberg was not the last major business leader and Obama ally to turn on the president in recent days. Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, said in Italy late last week that Obama and the business community did not like one another and are not getting along with each other. Immelt said the U.S. is “a pathetic exporter,” according to the Financial Times. “We have to become an industrial powerhouse again but you don’t do this when government and entrepreneurs are not in synch,” Immelt was quoted as saying.
TSA to Block "Controversial Opinion" on the Web
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20009642-10391695.html
Government employees shouldn’t waste time reading about politics. They should be surfing for porn like the SEC lawyers do! Excerpt: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is blocking certain websites from the federal agency's computers, including halting access by staffers to any Internet pages that contain a "controversial opinion," according to an internal email obtained by CBS News.
Obama Decried, Then Used, Some Bush Drilling Policies
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704699604575342843359124882.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us_business
Excerpt: Less than four months after President Barack Obama took office, his new administration received a forceful warning about the dangers of offshore oil drilling. The alarm was rung by a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., which found that the government was unprepared for a major spill at sea, relying on an "irrational" environmental analysis of the risks of offshore drilling. The April 2009 ruling stunned both the administration and the oil industry, and threatened to delay or cancel dozens of offshore projects in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. Despite its pro-environment pledges, the Obama administration urged the court to revisit the decision. Politically, it needed to push ahead with conventional oil production while it expanded support for renewable energy. Another reason: money. In its arguments to the court, the government said that the loss of royalties on the oil, estimated at almost $10 billion, "may have significant financial consequences for the federal government." The U.S. Court of Appeals reversed its decision and allowed drilling in the Gulf to proceed—including on BP PLC's now-infamous Macondo well, 50 miles off the Louisiana coast. The Obama administration's actions in the court case exemplify the dilemma the White House faced in developing its energy policy. In his presidential campaign, President Obama criticized the Bush administration for being too soft on the oil industry and vowed to support greener energy forms. But, once in office, President Obama ended up backing offshore drilling, bowing to political and fiscal realties, even as his administration's own scientists and Democratic lawmakers warned about its risks.
Illegal Immigration Costs U.S. $113 Billion a Year, Study Finds
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/02/immigration-costs-fair-amnesty-educations-costs-reform/
Excerpt: The cost of harboring illegal immigrants in the United States is a staggering $113 billion a year -- an average of $1,117 for every “native-headed” household in America -- according to a study conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
Calling O's deficit bluff
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/calling_deficit_bluff_96ybZ4dqYG5PL0k1gXz4IJ
Excerpt: Catching flak from our European allies at last month's G-20 Summit over our failure to rein in spending, President Obama once again pointed his now-familiar finger elsewhere. "Next year, when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country," he asserted, "I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step up -- because I'm calling their bluff." Coming from a president who two years ago captured the minds and imaginations of millions by promising to unite the country, this divisive rhetoric is self-defeating. It's also profoundly ironic. Since the president was sworn into office, America has run up red ink at an astounding rate of $4.9 billion a day. Yet the president continues to kick the can down the road -- and there's not much road left. The president could have come clean to the American people about the serious nature of Washington's spending problem, could have discussed the need to build consensus around some tough but reasonable spending cuts. Instead, he ducked any debate on spending by promising to "call the bluff" of a straw man of his own creation.
High Noon in Pahrump, Nev.: Sheriff Arrests the District Attorney
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704103904575336661401293070.html?mod=djemITP_h
Excerpt: Like a scene from a Western movie, the two top lawmen here are settling their scores in public. In May, a Nye County sheriff's deputy arrested the district attorney. The sheriff, Tony De Meo, alleges that the D.A., Robert Beckett, was misusing public funds. According to Mr. De Meo, public money had gone to supporting the local cheerleading squad, led by the D.A.'s wife, and to make a family friend's car payments. No charges have been filed, in part because Mr. Beckett, the D.A., refuses to charge himself.
IDF increases, enhances its urban warfare training centers
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=180447
Excerpt: Recognizing that the next battles with Hizbullah and Hamas will be fought in densely populated areas, the IDF is significantly increasing the number of urban warfare centers it has to train troops for future complex operations. The Ground Forces Command recently approved plans to increase the number of urban warfare training centers by 50 percent by the end of 2011. Currently, there are about 15 different training centers scattered throughout the country, the largest of which is located near the Tze’elim Base in the Negev. Two of the new centers will be built with underground sections so IDF troops can simulate the type of combined urban-tunnel warfare they would encounter in a future war in southern Lebanon against Hizbullah or in the Gaza Strip against Hamas.
Headmaster Beheaded In Afghanistan By Taliban
http://sify.com/news/headmaster-beheaded-schools-torched-in-afghanistan-news-crime-kg1rEDhabjd.html
Didn’t get the “Islam is a religion of peace” memo. Excerpt: Suspected Taliban militants beheaded a headmaster and torched two schools in southern Afghanistan, officials said on Sunday. Sakandar Shah Mohammadi, head of Al Berooni School in Qara Bagh district of Ghazni province was beheaded on Saturday, the education ministry said in a statement. On the same day, dozens of militants, riding on motorbikes, came to Zardalo area of the district and torched two elementary schools, Muhibullah Khepilwak, district governor, said. One of the schools was a girls' school and the other for boys.
Santa and Frank by Thomas Sowell
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/07/06/santa_and_frank
Excerpt: People who remember the old comic strip "Peanuts" will recall an often repeated situation where Lucy offers to hold a football for Charlie Brown to kick. Then, as Charlie coming running up to kick it, Lucy snatches away the ball and Charlie Brown loses his balance and goes crashing on his backside. The reason this same scene remained funny, despite how often it was repeated, is that in the later repetitions Charlie Brown would express suspicion at Lucy, recalling how she had tricked him before. She would then come up with some claim that she wasn't going to do that any more-- and of course she did. There is a similar routine that has been repeated many times in Washington, over the years, with the Democrats playing Lucy and Republicans playing Charlie Brown. It goes like this: Democrats start spending money wildly, handing out goodies to a wide range of people who they want to vote for them, while Republicans complain about deficits and the national debt. Then, when the public becomes alarmed about the debts that are piling up, the Democrats get the Republicans to vote for higher taxes to deal with the debt crisis, in the name of "fiscal responsibility." Sometimes the deal is sweetened by the Democrats promising to make spending cuts if the Republicans vote for higher taxes, so that there can be one of those "bipartisan" solutions so beloved by the media. But, after the Republicans vote for the tax increases, and come running up to find the spending cuts, the Democrats snatch away the spending cuts and the Republicans fall right on their backsides, just like Charlie Brown. This old trick is now being unveiled by the Obama administration, like so many other old political tricks used in this "change" administration….. When the Obama administration said that it could provide health insurance to millions of additional people without increasing the national debt, shouldn't common sense have told you that somebody was just insulting your intelligence? When the two thousand page bill was rushed through Congress too fast for anybody to read it, shouldn't that have made you realize that you were being played for a sucker? When this bill that was passed with lightning speed was scheduled to take effect only after the 2012 election, didn't that suggest that they didn't want you to find out how it works in practice in time to turn against Obama when he is up for reelection?
Video: ObamaCare’s impact on doctors
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/05/video-obamacares-impact-on-doctors/
Excerpt: Because many doctors double as small businessmen, they face the reality of meeting a bottom line in addition to treating patients. Boone figured she had three options: lay off her office manager, drop patients who rely on Medicare or relocate her office. She didn’t like her options, but didn’t have much of a choice. After months of agonizing over the decision, Boone this month moved her practice to a less expensive office in an older building. It was hardly the ideal outcome, but it allowed her to keep her staff intact and continue treating her Medicare patients. “I feel a sense of shame; I feel failure because, on some level, I want to provide the very best for my patients and for my employees,” Boone said.
Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html
Excerpt: Just before sunset on April 10, 2006, a DC-9 jet landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City. As soldiers on the ground approached the plane, the crew tried to shoo them away, saying there was a dangerous oil leak. So the troops grew suspicious and searched the jet. They found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million. The stash was supposed to have been delivered from Caracas to drug traffickers in Toluca, near Mexico City, Mexican prosecutors later found. Law enforcement officials also discovered something else. The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August 2010 issue. This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers -- including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.
How Europeans Invented the Modern World
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/how_europeans_invented_the_mod.html
Excerpt: Both Greece and Rome made significant contributions to Western civilization. Greek knowledge was ascendant in philosophy, physics, chemistry, medicine, and mathematics for nearly two thousand years. The Romans did not have the Greek temperament for philosophy and science, but they had a genius for law and civil administration. The Romans were also great engineers and builders. They invented concrete, perfected the arch, and constructed roads and bridges that remain in use today. But neither the Greeks nor the Romans had much appreciation for technology. As documented in my book, Science and Technology in World History, Vol. 2, the technological society that transformed the world was conceived by Europeans during the Middle Ages. Greeks and Romans were notorious in their disdain for technology. Aristotle noted that to be engaged in the mechanical arts was "illiberal and irksome." Seneca infamously characterized invention as something fit only for "the meanest slaves." The Roman Emperor Vespasian rejected technological innovation for fear that it would lead to unemployment. Greek and Roman economies were built on slavery. Strabo described the slave market at Delos as capable of handling the sale of 10,000 slaves a day. With an abundant supply of manual labor, the Romans had little incentive to develop artificial or mechanical power sources. Technical occupations such as blacksmithing came to be associated with the lower classes.
A Hero’s Welcome Home
http://www.floppingaces.net/2010/07/04/a-heros-welcome-home/#more-39978
Excerpt: I had glanced over at the Memorial site for one last look and noticed a little girl hugging the statue of the young, returning vet. I got choked up. I reached over for my camera, but she had already moved on and was now hugging the parents. I did capture that:
Why aren’t businesses hiring?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/why-arent-businesses-hiring-97808964.html
Excerpt: That’s a question a lot of people have been asking, including Hale “Bonddad” Stewart at liberal Democrat Nate Silver’s highly informative fivethirtyeight.com blog. Stewart’s answers are plausible: there’s lot of unusued capacity and productivity increases indicate that employers are getting more production out of current employees. Then a simple final paragraph, which could have come from a Wall Street Journal or Washington Examiner editorial: “Uncertainty: there has been a tremendous amount of change over the last 12 months. Businesses are still trying to figure out what that means for their own bottom line. Until there are firm answers, they will freeze hiring.” Hmmm. What kind of change over the last 12 months? Who’s been producing that change? Stewart doesn’t say, but it’s not too hard to figure out. This is as pungent and concise an indictment of the Obama Democrats’ vast expansion of the size and reach of government as I’ve seen anywhere. I just didn’t expect to see it on Nate Silver’s blog.
The Talking Feds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCOz-ShZwTs
Political humor.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Political Digest July 6, 2010
I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Nor that I disagree with them, of course.
Deficits under Republican and Democrat Congresses
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/graph_of_the_day_for_april_8_2.html
People think the president controls spending. Under our Constitution, it’s Congress that controls spending and taxes. This chart is interesting. Pass it on.
Another interesting chart on deficits
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/graph_of_the_day_for_april_10.html
Worth sharing.
Chart of Federal Debt held by the public
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/09/graph_of_the_day_for_september_8.html
'Climategate' was 'a game-changer' in science reporting, say climatologists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/04/climatechange-hacked-emails-muir-russell
Excerpt: Critics say the emails reveal evasion of freedom of information law, secret deals done during the writing of reports for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a cover-up of uncertainties in key research findings and the misuse of scientific peer review to silence critics. But whatever Sir Muir Russell, the chairman of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland, concludes on these charges, senior climate scientists say their world has been dramatically changed by the affair. "The release of the emails was a turning point, a game-changer," said Mike Hulme, professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia. "The community has been brought up short by the row over their science. Already there is a new tone. Researchers are more upfront, open and explicit about their uncertainties, for instance." And there will be other changes, said Hulme. The emails made him reflect how "astonishing" it was that it had been left to individual researchers to police access to the archive of global temperature data collected over the past 160 years. "The primary data should have been properly curated as an archive open to all." He believes that will now happen. Bob Watson, a former chair of the IPCC and now chief environment scientist for the British government, agreed. "It is clear that the scientific community will have to respond by being more open and transparent in allowing access to raw data in order that their scientific findings can be checked." In addition, Bob Ward, policy director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, said: "Researchers have to accept that it won't just be their science that is judged but also their motives, professionalism, integrity and all those other qualities that are considered important in public life." (From the left-leaning Manchester Guardian. Especially note the last two sentences of the last graph. Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit (blog) was originally invited to a "summit" planned by the Guardian later this month, but they "dis-invited" him because they "didn't have enough money to cover his expenses" (in their defense, they did post an operating loss of about 90 million pounds last year, so this could be legit) That was about 9:30AM this morning. By 2:00PM, he'd had enough voluntary contributions from blog readers to cover his airfare from US West coast to London and several offers of lodging. Guardian says he will be welcome at the summit. [Do you think you can get enough donations to take us to OctoberFest? Or, maybe Joe's Tavern in Des Plaines?] –Ron P. Alas, donation-wide, my blog has been, as Jimmy Carter once said about the failed rescue mission, “an incomplete success.”)
New Chinese study in GRL disputes the hockey stick conclusions
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/04/new-chinese-study-in-grl-disputes-the-hockey-stick-conclusions/#more-21377
Excerpt: While Mann claims his hockey stick science to be “vindicated”, we have this from World Climate Report, a new peer reviewed study that illustrates that the current warm period we live in is neither unique nor unprecedented. They also manage to point out the key issue, the uncertainty of proxies such as used by Mann et al. – Anthony [Watts] --------We constantly hear that the warmest years on record have all occurred in the most recent decades, and of course, we are led to believe this must be a result of the ongoing buildup of greenhouse gases. In most places, we have approximately 100 years of reliable temperature records, and we wonder if the warmth of the most recent decades is unusual, part of some cyclical behavior of the climate system, or a warm-up on the heels of a cold period at the beginning of the record. A recent article in Geophysical Research Letters has an intriguing title suggesting a 2,000 year temperature record now exists for China – we definitely wanted to see these results of this one. The article was authored by six scientists with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, the State University of New York at Albany, and Germany’s Justus-Liebig University in Giessen; the research was funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the United States Department of Energy. In their abstract, Ge et al. tell us “The analysis also indicates that the warming during the 10–14th centuries in some regions might be comparable in magnitude to the warming of the last few decades of the 20th century.” From the outset, we knew we would welcome the results from any long-term reconstruction of regional temperatures. (Additional indication of the Little Ice Age (about 1000ACE to 1300ACE) RGP)
Spotting the Solar Regime Shifts Driving Earth’s Climate
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/05/spotting-the-solar-regime-shifts-driving-earths-climate/#more-21407
Excerpt: Some people cite scientists saying there is a “CO2 control knob” for Earth. No doubt there is, but due to the logarithmic effect of CO2, I think of it like a fine tuning knob, not the main station tuner. That said, a new data picture is emerging of an even bigger knob and lever; a nice bright yellow one. A few months back, I found a website from NOAA that provides an algorithm and downloadable program for spotting regime shifts in time series data. It was designed by Sergei Rodionov of the NOAA Bering Climate and Ecosystem Center for the purpose of detecting shifts in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. "Regime shifts are defined as rapid reorganizations of ecosystems from one relatively stable state to another. In the marine environment, regimes may last for several decades and shifts often appear to be associated with changes in the climate system. In the North Pacific, climate regimes are typically described using the concept of Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Regime shifts were also found in many other variables as demonstrated in the Data section of this website (select a variable and then click Recent trends)." But data is data, and the program doesn’t care if it is ecosystem data, temperature data, population data, or solar data. It just looks for and identifies abrupt changes that stabilize at a new level. For example, a useful application of the program is to look for shifts in weather data, such as that caused by the PDO. Another useful application is to use it to identify station moves that result in a temperature shift. It might also be applied to proxy data, such as ice core Oxygen 18 isotope data. But the program was developed around the PDO. What drives the PDO? Many say the sun, though there are other factors too. It follows to reason then that we might be able to look for solar regime shifts in PDO driven temperature data. Alan of AppInSys found the same application and has done just that, and the results are quite interesting. The correlation is well aligned, and it demonstrates the solar to PDO connection quite well.
How Can Climate Change Advocates Equate My Skepticism to Holocaust Denial?
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/how-can-climate-change-advocates-equate-my-skepticism-to-holocaust-denial/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Scientists say the sun is getter hotter and brighter. That’s something that’s been going on throughout its life and will continue until it enters its red giant phase in about 5 billion years. In about 1 billion years, it’s estimated the Earth will be too hot for liquid water. If you want my advice — and I’m telling you right now that you do — we should have a plan in place to get the human race off of the planet within 500 million years. And I’d recommend we get a better central power source for our new ecosystem than a star; natural fusion is just sketchy and unreliable. There are a lot of people, though, saying we have to worry about the greenhouse effect making things too hot on Earth in like the next hundred years or something. That seems like complete and utter nonsense on the surface; I mean, the sun is already destined to try and kill us, so why are we worried about carbon? Still, a lot of people are like, really sure about it and say the ice caps are going to melt and then … bad things. If you really want to know about it, ask Al Gore, and he’ll be happy to show you some slides on the subject. It would be nice of you to act interested, because he’s going through a lot and could really use a friend right now. Anyway, so a lot of scientists — and especially politicians, actors, and musicians — are really, really super certain we have to do something about this “global climate warming change,” as they call it, but seem unable to convince the average man it’s not a bunch of mumbo jumbo — especially to the extent that everyone is going to agree to economy-massacring policies. That seems perfectly rational to me; if I’m wrong, and we’re destined for doom but the only way to live is to be a bunch of hippies, I’d rather be dead. Also, new, cleaner technologies seem unlikely to emerge in markets stifled by socialism and controlled by the meddling morons who usually populate government. So I’m happy to punt this possible crisis down the road and worry about the more concrete and better understood problem that the sun is eventually going to kill us all. Which apparently makes me like someone who denies the murders of millions of Jews in the Holocaust.
Afghanistan Can Be Won
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/afghanistan-can-be-won
Excerpt: A bottom-up approach like that exercised by Marines in southern Helmand could build a sustainable foundation for success. One year ago today, approximately 2,000 Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade loaded into dozens of U.S. Army helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division or manned guns in a ground convoy vehicle to begin “Operation Khanjari,” moving into the heart of insurgent-controlled territory in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Intended to surprise, overwhelm, and disrupt insurgents in the Nawa and Garmsir districts who had previously operated with near impunity and little resistance from a small contingent of British and Afghan soldiers, the operation marked the beginning of a successful counterinsurgency operation. With all the difficulties in Afghanistan, and especially in light of the grim fact that June has been the deadliest month since the beginning of the war, it is understandable that some paint a picture of a bleak and hopeless future for Afghanistan and our efforts there. But places like Nawa and Garmsir are an example of our prospects for success and demonstrate that our objectives in Afghanistan can be achieved. In Nawa, on the morning of July 3, as temperatures quickly rose to nearly 115 degrees, the Marines who hours before had landed under the cover of darkness discovered a scene that in many ways could have been the setting for a creepy Scooby Doo adventure. Any Marine taking part in a foot patrol was almost guaranteed a small arms engagement with our adversaries, some lasting several hours. The nearby local nationals who weren’t shooting at them regarded the Marines with cautious reserve and even mistrust. (But to do this would mean a real change in approach, and a lot more boots on the ground, soon. How likely is that with the current Administration? –Del)
U.K.: Most jihadists are "British-born, under the age of 30, educated and likely to be employed"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/uk-most-jihadists-are-are-british-born-under-the-age-of-30-educated-and-likely-to-be-employed.html
Excerpt: Another blow for the "poverty-causes-jihadist-terrorism" theory. Quite to the contrary, this study demonstrates that, even with all the advantages of one of the most prosperous and highly developed nations on the planet, Muslims born in the U.K. still find a reason to wage jihad. So, there must be something else than poverty and lack of opportunity. (Could it be some fairly common interpretations of Islam? Nah, that’s a “religion of peace”!)
Islamist leader Burhan Hanif tells Aussie Muslims to 'shun democracy'
http://www.news.com.au/national/islamist-leader-burhan-hanif-tells-aussie-muslims-told-to-shun-democracy/story-e6frfkvr-1225887784755
Boy, some days that “tiny minority of extremists” who has “hijacked” Islam seems to be pretty large. Excerpt: LEADERS of the global Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir have called on Australian Muslims to spurn secular democracy and Western notions of moderate Islam and join the struggle for a transnational Islamic state. British Hizb ut-Tahrir leader Burhan Hanif told participants at a conference in western Sydney yesterday that democracy is "haram" (forbidden) for Muslims, whose political engagement should be based purely on Islamic law. "We must adhere to Islam and Islam alone," Mr Hanif told about 500 participants attending the convention in Lidcombe. "We should not be conned or succumb to the disingenuous and flawed narrative that the only way to engage politically is through the secular democratic process. It is prohibited and haram." He said democracy was incompatible with Islam because the Koran insisted Allah was the sole lawmaker, and Muslim political involvement could not be based on "secular and erroneous concepts such as democracy and freedom".
Dying Lockerbie bomber 'could survive for 10 years or more'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/7871234/Dying-Lockerbie-bomber-could-survive-for-10-years-or-more.html
Excerpt: Professor Karol Sikora, who assessed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi for the Libyan authorities almost a year ago, told The Sunday Times it was "embarrassing" the bomber had outlived his three-month prognosis. Megrahi, 58, is the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing of a US Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, which left 270 dead. The Scottish government provoked outrage from the United States when it released him from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds because he dying of metastatic prostate cancer. In Scotland, prisoners are eligible for release on compassionate grounds if they have fewer than three months to live. A report in the Sunday Times said Libyan authorities, keen to secure Megrahi’s release, asked several experts to put a three-month estimate on the bomber’s life but Professor Sikora was the only one to agree. Professor Sikora, the dean of medicine at Buckingham University and medical director of CancerPartnersUK in London, was paid for his medical assessment of Megrahi at Greenock prison on July last year. He told the newspaper: “There was always a chance he could live for 10 years, 20 years ... But it's very unusual.”It was clear that three months was what they were aiming for. Three months was the critical point. "On the balance of probabilities, I felt I could sort of justify [that]." He denied he came any under pressure, but admitted: "It is embarrassing that he's gone on for so long."
Jihadi's chopped hands of Malayalam Professor - 'Crusaders' get the taste of 'Jihad'
http://haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx?PageID=11484&SKIN=K
Wonder what the question was? Have to be careful. These adherents of the Religion of Peace can be a tad touchy. Excerpt: Christians in Kerala now started getting the true taste of Jihad. Five Jihadi fanatics today chopped of the hands of Malayalam Professor. A Malayalam professor T J Joseph of the Newman College, who is under suspension for preparing a defamatory question for an exam paper, was attacked by a gang of five men at Muvatupuzha when he was coming back from church. His crime - A question prepared by the professor for a Exam was offensive to Jihadis.
University of Virginia course on conservatism aims to confront left-wing bias
http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/03/university-of-virginia-course-on-conservatism-aims-to-confront-left-wing-bias-across-the-country/
Expect harassment of the professor and the students who sign up. The American University is tolerant of every diversity except diversity of thought. Excerpt: An accredited course on conservatism at the University of Virginia debuting this fall could set a trend on campuses across the country, organizers say. The 11-week course, referred to as Conservatism 101, aims to inform students of all political persuasions about the figures and thinkers who have built modern conservatism and to dispel stereotypes. Unlike many courses, it will be taught by several lecturers over the course of the fall semester to give students a host of different perspectives. Topics include whether or not the Founding Fathers were liberal or conservative, libertarian philosophy, and Ronald Reagan, among others. It has proven so popular that a second section of the class might be needed. “It’s a perspective people need to hear that really gets left out,” said Wes Siler, a former leader of the university’s Burke Society, the campus conservative group responsible for enacting the course.
Teachers’ Union Shuns Obama Aides at Convention
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/education/05teachers.html?_r=1&adxnnlx=1278284446-M4U4E5keAyUh6Qb78YKquw&pagewanted=print
Excerpt: For two years as a presidential candidate, Barack Obama addressed educators gathered for the summer conventions of the two national teachers’ unions, and last year both groups rolled out the welcome mat for Education Secretary Arne Duncan. But in a sign of the Obama administration’s strained relations with two of its most powerful political allies, no federal official was scheduled to speak at either convention this month, partly because union officials feared that administration speakers would face heckling. The largest union’s meeting opened here on Saturday to a drumbeat of heated rhetoric, with several speakers calling for Mr. Duncan’s resignation, hooting delegates voting for a resolution criticizing federal programs for “undermining public education,” and the union’s president summing up 18 months of Obama education policies by saying, “This is not the change I hoped for.” “Today our members face the most anti-educator, anti-union, anti-student environment I have ever experienced,” Dennis Van Roekel, president of the union, the National Education Association, told thousands of members gathered at the convention center here.
Jaywalking on American History
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/03/video-leno-demonstrates-effectiveness-of-american-education-on-history/
Funny but sickening. These people vote.
Democrats hope Obama 2008 model will help stem midterm losses
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/04/AR2010070403988.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
Excerpt: To become the nation's first black president, Barack Obama not only won heavy percentages of the black and Hispanic vote but also managed to trim the Democratic Party's traditional deficit among white voters. Four years after Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) lost the white vote by 17 percentage points, Obama lost it by 12, according to exit polls. While the 2008 gains were generally attributed to Obama's strength with young voters -- he won by 10 points among whites 18 to 29 years old -- he managed to improve on Kerry's showing with white voters across every age demographic. Fast-forward to today. With the November midterm elections less than four months away, Obama's standing among white voters has sunk -- leading some party strategists to fret that the president's erosion -- and the party's -- could adversely affect Democrats' chances of holding on to their House and Senate majorities. "Since in the past House elections white voters tended to represent the independent vote, [the midterms] will surely be devastating for Democrats running in an election that will be a referendum on the Obama agenda," predicted one senior Democratic operative who closely tracks House races. In Washington Post-ABC polling, Obama's approval rating among white voters has dropped from better than 60 percent to just above 40 percent. In a June poll, 46 percent of white voters under age 40 approved of how Obama was doing, compared with just 39 percent of whites 65 and older.
The Ayn Rand table at the Madison, WI, Farmers Market
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=16371
“The United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.” ~Ayn Rand
Deficits under Republican and Democrat Congresses
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/graph_of_the_day_for_april_8_2.html
People think the president controls spending. Under our Constitution, it’s Congress that controls spending and taxes. This chart is interesting. Pass it on.
Another interesting chart on deficits
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/graph_of_the_day_for_april_10.html
Worth sharing.
Chart of Federal Debt held by the public
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/09/graph_of_the_day_for_september_8.html
'Climategate' was 'a game-changer' in science reporting, say climatologists
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/04/climatechange-hacked-emails-muir-russell
Excerpt: Critics say the emails reveal evasion of freedom of information law, secret deals done during the writing of reports for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a cover-up of uncertainties in key research findings and the misuse of scientific peer review to silence critics. But whatever Sir Muir Russell, the chairman of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland, concludes on these charges, senior climate scientists say their world has been dramatically changed by the affair. "The release of the emails was a turning point, a game-changer," said Mike Hulme, professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia. "The community has been brought up short by the row over their science. Already there is a new tone. Researchers are more upfront, open and explicit about their uncertainties, for instance." And there will be other changes, said Hulme. The emails made him reflect how "astonishing" it was that it had been left to individual researchers to police access to the archive of global temperature data collected over the past 160 years. "The primary data should have been properly curated as an archive open to all." He believes that will now happen. Bob Watson, a former chair of the IPCC and now chief environment scientist for the British government, agreed. "It is clear that the scientific community will have to respond by being more open and transparent in allowing access to raw data in order that their scientific findings can be checked." In addition, Bob Ward, policy director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, said: "Researchers have to accept that it won't just be their science that is judged but also their motives, professionalism, integrity and all those other qualities that are considered important in public life." (From the left-leaning Manchester Guardian. Especially note the last two sentences of the last graph. Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit (blog) was originally invited to a "summit" planned by the Guardian later this month, but they "dis-invited" him because they "didn't have enough money to cover his expenses" (in their defense, they did post an operating loss of about 90 million pounds last year, so this could be legit) That was about 9:30AM this morning. By 2:00PM, he'd had enough voluntary contributions from blog readers to cover his airfare from US West coast to London and several offers of lodging. Guardian says he will be welcome at the summit. [Do you think you can get enough donations to take us to OctoberFest? Or, maybe Joe's Tavern in Des Plaines?] –Ron P. Alas, donation-wide, my blog has been, as Jimmy Carter once said about the failed rescue mission, “an incomplete success.”)
New Chinese study in GRL disputes the hockey stick conclusions
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/04/new-chinese-study-in-grl-disputes-the-hockey-stick-conclusions/#more-21377
Excerpt: While Mann claims his hockey stick science to be “vindicated”, we have this from World Climate Report, a new peer reviewed study that illustrates that the current warm period we live in is neither unique nor unprecedented. They also manage to point out the key issue, the uncertainty of proxies such as used by Mann et al. – Anthony [Watts] --------We constantly hear that the warmest years on record have all occurred in the most recent decades, and of course, we are led to believe this must be a result of the ongoing buildup of greenhouse gases. In most places, we have approximately 100 years of reliable temperature records, and we wonder if the warmth of the most recent decades is unusual, part of some cyclical behavior of the climate system, or a warm-up on the heels of a cold period at the beginning of the record. A recent article in Geophysical Research Letters has an intriguing title suggesting a 2,000 year temperature record now exists for China – we definitely wanted to see these results of this one. The article was authored by six scientists with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, the State University of New York at Albany, and Germany’s Justus-Liebig University in Giessen; the research was funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the United States Department of Energy. In their abstract, Ge et al. tell us “The analysis also indicates that the warming during the 10–14th centuries in some regions might be comparable in magnitude to the warming of the last few decades of the 20th century.” From the outset, we knew we would welcome the results from any long-term reconstruction of regional temperatures. (Additional indication of the Little Ice Age (about 1000ACE to 1300ACE) RGP)
Spotting the Solar Regime Shifts Driving Earth’s Climate
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/05/spotting-the-solar-regime-shifts-driving-earths-climate/#more-21407
Excerpt: Some people cite scientists saying there is a “CO2 control knob” for Earth. No doubt there is, but due to the logarithmic effect of CO2, I think of it like a fine tuning knob, not the main station tuner. That said, a new data picture is emerging of an even bigger knob and lever; a nice bright yellow one. A few months back, I found a website from NOAA that provides an algorithm and downloadable program for spotting regime shifts in time series data. It was designed by Sergei Rodionov of the NOAA Bering Climate and Ecosystem Center for the purpose of detecting shifts in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. "Regime shifts are defined as rapid reorganizations of ecosystems from one relatively stable state to another. In the marine environment, regimes may last for several decades and shifts often appear to be associated with changes in the climate system. In the North Pacific, climate regimes are typically described using the concept of Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Regime shifts were also found in many other variables as demonstrated in the Data section of this website (select a variable and then click Recent trends)." But data is data, and the program doesn’t care if it is ecosystem data, temperature data, population data, or solar data. It just looks for and identifies abrupt changes that stabilize at a new level. For example, a useful application of the program is to look for shifts in weather data, such as that caused by the PDO. Another useful application is to use it to identify station moves that result in a temperature shift. It might also be applied to proxy data, such as ice core Oxygen 18 isotope data. But the program was developed around the PDO. What drives the PDO? Many say the sun, though there are other factors too. It follows to reason then that we might be able to look for solar regime shifts in PDO driven temperature data. Alan of AppInSys found the same application and has done just that, and the results are quite interesting. The correlation is well aligned, and it demonstrates the solar to PDO connection quite well.
How Can Climate Change Advocates Equate My Skepticism to Holocaust Denial?
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/how-can-climate-change-advocates-equate-my-skepticism-to-holocaust-denial/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Scientists say the sun is getter hotter and brighter. That’s something that’s been going on throughout its life and will continue until it enters its red giant phase in about 5 billion years. In about 1 billion years, it’s estimated the Earth will be too hot for liquid water. If you want my advice — and I’m telling you right now that you do — we should have a plan in place to get the human race off of the planet within 500 million years. And I’d recommend we get a better central power source for our new ecosystem than a star; natural fusion is just sketchy and unreliable. There are a lot of people, though, saying we have to worry about the greenhouse effect making things too hot on Earth in like the next hundred years or something. That seems like complete and utter nonsense on the surface; I mean, the sun is already destined to try and kill us, so why are we worried about carbon? Still, a lot of people are like, really sure about it and say the ice caps are going to melt and then … bad things. If you really want to know about it, ask Al Gore, and he’ll be happy to show you some slides on the subject. It would be nice of you to act interested, because he’s going through a lot and could really use a friend right now. Anyway, so a lot of scientists — and especially politicians, actors, and musicians — are really, really super certain we have to do something about this “global climate warming change,” as they call it, but seem unable to convince the average man it’s not a bunch of mumbo jumbo — especially to the extent that everyone is going to agree to economy-massacring policies. That seems perfectly rational to me; if I’m wrong, and we’re destined for doom but the only way to live is to be a bunch of hippies, I’d rather be dead. Also, new, cleaner technologies seem unlikely to emerge in markets stifled by socialism and controlled by the meddling morons who usually populate government. So I’m happy to punt this possible crisis down the road and worry about the more concrete and better understood problem that the sun is eventually going to kill us all. Which apparently makes me like someone who denies the murders of millions of Jews in the Holocaust.
Afghanistan Can Be Won
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/afghanistan-can-be-won
Excerpt: A bottom-up approach like that exercised by Marines in southern Helmand could build a sustainable foundation for success. One year ago today, approximately 2,000 Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade loaded into dozens of U.S. Army helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division or manned guns in a ground convoy vehicle to begin “Operation Khanjari,” moving into the heart of insurgent-controlled territory in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Intended to surprise, overwhelm, and disrupt insurgents in the Nawa and Garmsir districts who had previously operated with near impunity and little resistance from a small contingent of British and Afghan soldiers, the operation marked the beginning of a successful counterinsurgency operation. With all the difficulties in Afghanistan, and especially in light of the grim fact that June has been the deadliest month since the beginning of the war, it is understandable that some paint a picture of a bleak and hopeless future for Afghanistan and our efforts there. But places like Nawa and Garmsir are an example of our prospects for success and demonstrate that our objectives in Afghanistan can be achieved. In Nawa, on the morning of July 3, as temperatures quickly rose to nearly 115 degrees, the Marines who hours before had landed under the cover of darkness discovered a scene that in many ways could have been the setting for a creepy Scooby Doo adventure. Any Marine taking part in a foot patrol was almost guaranteed a small arms engagement with our adversaries, some lasting several hours. The nearby local nationals who weren’t shooting at them regarded the Marines with cautious reserve and even mistrust. (But to do this would mean a real change in approach, and a lot more boots on the ground, soon. How likely is that with the current Administration? –Del)
U.K.: Most jihadists are "British-born, under the age of 30, educated and likely to be employed"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/uk-most-jihadists-are-are-british-born-under-the-age-of-30-educated-and-likely-to-be-employed.html
Excerpt: Another blow for the "poverty-causes-jihadist-terrorism" theory. Quite to the contrary, this study demonstrates that, even with all the advantages of one of the most prosperous and highly developed nations on the planet, Muslims born in the U.K. still find a reason to wage jihad. So, there must be something else than poverty and lack of opportunity. (Could it be some fairly common interpretations of Islam? Nah, that’s a “religion of peace”!)
Islamist leader Burhan Hanif tells Aussie Muslims to 'shun democracy'
http://www.news.com.au/national/islamist-leader-burhan-hanif-tells-aussie-muslims-told-to-shun-democracy/story-e6frfkvr-1225887784755
Boy, some days that “tiny minority of extremists” who has “hijacked” Islam seems to be pretty large. Excerpt: LEADERS of the global Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir have called on Australian Muslims to spurn secular democracy and Western notions of moderate Islam and join the struggle for a transnational Islamic state. British Hizb ut-Tahrir leader Burhan Hanif told participants at a conference in western Sydney yesterday that democracy is "haram" (forbidden) for Muslims, whose political engagement should be based purely on Islamic law. "We must adhere to Islam and Islam alone," Mr Hanif told about 500 participants attending the convention in Lidcombe. "We should not be conned or succumb to the disingenuous and flawed narrative that the only way to engage politically is through the secular democratic process. It is prohibited and haram." He said democracy was incompatible with Islam because the Koran insisted Allah was the sole lawmaker, and Muslim political involvement could not be based on "secular and erroneous concepts such as democracy and freedom".
Dying Lockerbie bomber 'could survive for 10 years or more'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/7871234/Dying-Lockerbie-bomber-could-survive-for-10-years-or-more.html
Excerpt: Professor Karol Sikora, who assessed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi for the Libyan authorities almost a year ago, told The Sunday Times it was "embarrassing" the bomber had outlived his three-month prognosis. Megrahi, 58, is the only person convicted of the 1988 bombing of a US Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, which left 270 dead. The Scottish government provoked outrage from the United States when it released him from prison in August 2009 on compassionate grounds because he dying of metastatic prostate cancer. In Scotland, prisoners are eligible for release on compassionate grounds if they have fewer than three months to live. A report in the Sunday Times said Libyan authorities, keen to secure Megrahi’s release, asked several experts to put a three-month estimate on the bomber’s life but Professor Sikora was the only one to agree. Professor Sikora, the dean of medicine at Buckingham University and medical director of CancerPartnersUK in London, was paid for his medical assessment of Megrahi at Greenock prison on July last year. He told the newspaper: “There was always a chance he could live for 10 years, 20 years ... But it's very unusual.”It was clear that three months was what they were aiming for. Three months was the critical point. "On the balance of probabilities, I felt I could sort of justify [that]." He denied he came any under pressure, but admitted: "It is embarrassing that he's gone on for so long."
Jihadi's chopped hands of Malayalam Professor - 'Crusaders' get the taste of 'Jihad'
http://haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx?PageID=11484&SKIN=K
Wonder what the question was? Have to be careful. These adherents of the Religion of Peace can be a tad touchy. Excerpt: Christians in Kerala now started getting the true taste of Jihad. Five Jihadi fanatics today chopped of the hands of Malayalam Professor. A Malayalam professor T J Joseph of the Newman College, who is under suspension for preparing a defamatory question for an exam paper, was attacked by a gang of five men at Muvatupuzha when he was coming back from church. His crime - A question prepared by the professor for a Exam was offensive to Jihadis.
University of Virginia course on conservatism aims to confront left-wing bias
http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/03/university-of-virginia-course-on-conservatism-aims-to-confront-left-wing-bias-across-the-country/
Expect harassment of the professor and the students who sign up. The American University is tolerant of every diversity except diversity of thought. Excerpt: An accredited course on conservatism at the University of Virginia debuting this fall could set a trend on campuses across the country, organizers say. The 11-week course, referred to as Conservatism 101, aims to inform students of all political persuasions about the figures and thinkers who have built modern conservatism and to dispel stereotypes. Unlike many courses, it will be taught by several lecturers over the course of the fall semester to give students a host of different perspectives. Topics include whether or not the Founding Fathers were liberal or conservative, libertarian philosophy, and Ronald Reagan, among others. It has proven so popular that a second section of the class might be needed. “It’s a perspective people need to hear that really gets left out,” said Wes Siler, a former leader of the university’s Burke Society, the campus conservative group responsible for enacting the course.
Teachers’ Union Shuns Obama Aides at Convention
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/education/05teachers.html?_r=1&adxnnlx=1278284446-M4U4E5keAyUh6Qb78YKquw&pagewanted=print
Excerpt: For two years as a presidential candidate, Barack Obama addressed educators gathered for the summer conventions of the two national teachers’ unions, and last year both groups rolled out the welcome mat for Education Secretary Arne Duncan. But in a sign of the Obama administration’s strained relations with two of its most powerful political allies, no federal official was scheduled to speak at either convention this month, partly because union officials feared that administration speakers would face heckling. The largest union’s meeting opened here on Saturday to a drumbeat of heated rhetoric, with several speakers calling for Mr. Duncan’s resignation, hooting delegates voting for a resolution criticizing federal programs for “undermining public education,” and the union’s president summing up 18 months of Obama education policies by saying, “This is not the change I hoped for.” “Today our members face the most anti-educator, anti-union, anti-student environment I have ever experienced,” Dennis Van Roekel, president of the union, the National Education Association, told thousands of members gathered at the convention center here.
Jaywalking on American History
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/03/video-leno-demonstrates-effectiveness-of-american-education-on-history/
Funny but sickening. These people vote.
Democrats hope Obama 2008 model will help stem midterm losses
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/04/AR2010070403988.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
Excerpt: To become the nation's first black president, Barack Obama not only won heavy percentages of the black and Hispanic vote but also managed to trim the Democratic Party's traditional deficit among white voters. Four years after Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) lost the white vote by 17 percentage points, Obama lost it by 12, according to exit polls. While the 2008 gains were generally attributed to Obama's strength with young voters -- he won by 10 points among whites 18 to 29 years old -- he managed to improve on Kerry's showing with white voters across every age demographic. Fast-forward to today. With the November midterm elections less than four months away, Obama's standing among white voters has sunk -- leading some party strategists to fret that the president's erosion -- and the party's -- could adversely affect Democrats' chances of holding on to their House and Senate majorities. "Since in the past House elections white voters tended to represent the independent vote, [the midterms] will surely be devastating for Democrats running in an election that will be a referendum on the Obama agenda," predicted one senior Democratic operative who closely tracks House races. In Washington Post-ABC polling, Obama's approval rating among white voters has dropped from better than 60 percent to just above 40 percent. In a June poll, 46 percent of white voters under age 40 approved of how Obama was doing, compared with just 39 percent of whites 65 and older.
The Ayn Rand table at the Madison, WI, Farmers Market
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=16371
“The United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.” ~Ayn Rand
Monday, July 5, 2010
Locks of Love
On July 3rd, My bride, Bonnie, Granddaughter Britnye and Step-daughter Julie had their hair cut and donated it to Locks of Love, which provides wigs for kids with medical hair loss.
I had a trim, too, but they didn't think anyone would want my gray clippings and just swept them up.
Political Digest July 5, 2010
I post articles because I believe they will be of interest, not because I agree with every—or even any—opinion in them.
Great Article: Winston Churchill’s July 4 Message to America
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/winston-churchill%E2%80%99s-july-4-message-america
Excerpt: Here was Churchill’s moral realism on display. Most everyone expected a German invasion of Britain at any moment, a trial whose outcome was uncertain, but which certainly would cause unspeakable suffering and destruction. Nevertheless, with a keen sense of the transcendent meaning of the moment, Churchill summoned his nation to find the courage required for survival. “This is no time for doubt or weakness,” he said. “It is the supreme hour to which we have been called.” As Churchill described the attack against Britain’s former ally, the House listened quietly, stunned and enthralled. Churchill was overcome with emotion. So were members of Parliament: They burst into cheers, relieved not only that French warships would not be used against Great Britain, but that they had a prime minister who would not allow their island nation to perish without a fight. The country overwhelmingly supported the decision. Churchill’s daring action sent shock waves throughout the American foreign policy establishment, particularly among the appeasers in the White House and State Department. Liberal delusions about the limited nature of the Nazi threat, the wisdom of isolationism, and the impotence of British democracy were beginning to unravel. Two months later, Roosevelt sent Churchill the warships.
'1000s' of Russian spies in U.S., surpassing Cold War record http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/record_mole_russia_cold_surpass_K6S6j9QENZeRCOSEvhvYtO#ixzz0sjWWq0es
The results of institutionalizing weakness as a policy. Excerpt: The Russians are coming? The Russians are here. America is infested with more Russian spies than at any point in history, say former intelligence agents who spoke with The Post. "I would say there are a few thousand here," said Boris Korczak, a former double agent who worked for the CIA, spying on the KGB from 1973-1980. That's because each mole is a long shot, and the Russians want to maximize their odds. "Out of 1,000 spies, one or two will perform, will get access to our nuclear secrets," Korczak said.
The Spy Who Loved Chavez
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-02/russia-spy-suspect-vicky-pelaez-journalist-who-loved-chavez/full/
Excerpt: Pelaez, who along with her husband was among the 11 people arrested this week as part of the Russian spy ring, would be something of a late ’60s museum piece, if her beliefs didn’t now give urgent new meaning to the term “conviction journalism.” I spoke to her one-time editor and current columnist at El Diario, Gerson Borrero, who described her as “a pain in the ass” and “not my favorite colleague over the past 20 years” but said her arrest came as “a complete surprise. If you had told me that she’d been spying for Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, or China, I might have believed it, but Russia? I never heard her talk about Russia or the Soviet Union. Ever.” Since Pelaez’s arrest, the emails have been pouring into El Diario. “Fifty percent of our readers are saying that they knew she was a communist,” Borrero said. “The other 50 percent say that she’s being set up by the U.S. government to silence her.” I called the Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., to get some perspective from its in-house historian, Mark Stout. “Most of the major intelligence agencies have a history, at least in the past, of having used journalistic cover,” he said.
Narco sub is no rumor, authorities discover
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/7093154.html
Excerpt: It has long been the stuff of drug-trafficking legend, but federal authorities announced on Saturday that they have helped seize the first known and fully operational submarine built by drug traffickers to smuggle tons of cocaine from South America toward the United States. The diesel-electric powered submarine was captured in an Ecuadorian jungle waterway leading to the Pacific Ocean, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The sub, which is about 100 feet long and equipped with a periscope, was seized before its maiden voyage by Ecuadorian authorities armed with DEA intelligence. The discovery is seen by authorities as a game-changer in terms of the challenge it poses not only to fighting drugs but to national security as well. "The submarine's nautical range, payload capacity, and quantum leap in stealth have raised the stakes for the counter-drug forces and the national security community alike," said DEA Andean Regional Director Jay Bergman. It is unclear how far the camouflage-painted submarine could have traveled, but it is believed to be sophisticated enough to cover thousands of miles — and certainly to make it to the North American coast. "There is a sense of urgency for naval engineers and submariners to take a look at this thing and dissect it and take it apart and figure out what its real capabilities were," Bergman said. "The police have seized this structure, but the people that need to get on there are naval engineers." (Imagine this thing, armed with a torpedo or two, sitting quietly in San Diego Harbor, or maybe near an oil drilling platform. Here's a free win-win-win-win: The Democrats want more government control and taxes; Republicans want more law enforcement and a balanced budget; conservatives want a secure border and a strong national defense; liberals want enhanced freedoms that someone else pays for; Libertarians want to be left alone to do as they damn well please. Therefore, let's legalize most of the recreational drugs and tax the hell out of them. Without the profit margin provided by being an illegal product, the Narco bosses will have to re-invest in normal businesses (subject to taxes AND growing the economies of several countries), we eliminate the need to catch, try, convict, and then house 85% or so of the druggies (which saves a bundle), we generate a vast sum in taxes (to pay down the debt), and it requires a vast new bureaucracy to administer (employing more government workers AND extending government control of private pursuits), and there is no longer a profitable market for submarine travel to the US (so any sub found is CLEARLY an enemy and can be blown up). Everybody would be happy except the nannies, and they are already unhappy. The more I think about this, the more I find I'm only half kidding. --Ron P. Politically unpopular, but the only real solution. And it would free up funds for drug treatment. Currently, the only way to support a serious drug habit is to sell drugs, sell your body or steal. Having been victimized by someone close to me, I’d kill all drug dealers if I could. I can’t. so I’d support eliminating their profits. ~Bob)
Illinois Stops Paying Its Bills, but Can’t Stop Digging Hole
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/business/economy/03illinois.html?_r=1
“We gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do.” Excerpt: Even by the standards of this deficit-ridden state, Illinois’s comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, faces an ugly balance sheet. Precisely how ugly becomes clear when he beckons you into his office to examine his daily briefing memo. Payback Time He picks the papers off his desk and points to a figure in red: $5.01 billion. “This is what the state owes right now to schools, rehabilitation centers, child care, the state university — and it’s getting worse every single day,” he says in his downtown office. Mr. Hynes shakes his head. “This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely essential services,” he says. “That is obscene.” For the last few years, California stood more or less unchallenged as a symbol of the fiscal collapse of states during the recession. Now Illinois has shouldered to the fore, as its dysfunctional political class refuses to pay the state’s bills and refuses to take the painful steps — cuts and tax increases — to close a deficit of at least $12 billion, equal to nearly half the state’s budget. Then there is the spectacularly mismanaged pension system, which is at least 50 percent underfunded and, analysts warn, could push Illinois into insolvency if the economy fails to pick up. States cannot go bankrupt, technically, but signs of fiscal crackup are easy to see. Legislators left the capital this month without deciding how to pay 26 percent of the state budget. The governor proposes to borrow $3.5 billion to cover a year’s worth of pension payments, a step that would cost about $1 billion in interest. And every major rating agency has downgraded the state; Illinois now pays millions of dollars more to insure its debt than any other state in the nation.
Saudi king: "Two states in region do not deserve to exist: Israel and Iran"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/saudi-king-two-states-in-region-do-not-deserve-to-exist-israel-and-iran.html
Excerpt: This, of course, comes after reports that Saudi Arabia granted Israel permission to use its airspace to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. Taken together, the two stories make clear that the Saudis' purported willingness to cooperate with the Israelis against a common enemy does not mean Israel is any safer in the Saudi vision for the region in the longer run -- even after Israel were to assume all the risks (including jihadist retaliation) for thwarting Iran's nuclear ambitions
Radical Muslims threaten to kill Christian man in Bekasi
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Radical-Muslims-threaten-to-kill-Christian-man-in-Bekasi-18839.html
Didn’t get the “Islam is a religion of peace” memo. Excerpt: A banner depicting a Christian with a noose around his neck is hung outside a mosque with these words: “This man deserves the death penalty!” Andreas Sanau, together with Henry Sutanto, is accused of organising mass baptisms. “The government must protect all citizens from anarchist action as mandated by the constitution,” says secretary of the Communion of Indonesian Churches.
Police: 8 killed in Thailand's restive south
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100702/ap_on_re_as/as_thailand_southern_violence
Didn’t get the memo. Excerpt: Suspected Muslim insurgents detonated roadside bombs that killed eight people, including one civilian, in two separate attacks in Thailand's restive south, police said Friday. A bomb explosion in Yala province on Friday killed three soldiers in a pickup truck who were sent to fix a water pipe in a village in Yaha district, said police Col. Sawas Tiawirat. On Thursday evening, suspected insurgents detonated a bomb and then shot at security forces on a patrol in Narathiwat province, killing a soldier, two security rangers, a village security guard and a village official, said police Capt. Pairat Kiatcharoensiri.
Member Of UN Commission On The Status Of Women Set To Stone Woman To Death!
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=16332
Iran, a member in good standing at the UN Commission On The Status Of Women, is getting ready to stone a woman to death. A 43-year-old Iranian woman is facing death by stoning unless an international campaign launched by her children forces the authorities to quash what her lawyer calls a bogus conviction. In a case that highlights the growing use of the death penalty in a country that has already executed more than 100 people this year, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was convicted in May 2006 of conducting an “illicit relationship outside marriage.”
Pakistanis blame US after shrine attack kills 42
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100702/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan
Muslims murder Muslims? Blame America…and the Jews. Excerpt: Even those who blamed others saw an American hand in the attacks. Arifa Moen, 32, a teacher in Multan, said Washington "is encouraging Indians and Jews to carry out attacks" in Pakistan.
Liberty and American Exceptionalism
http://townhall.com/columnists/KenBlackwell/2010/07/04/liberty_and_american_exceptionalism
The law of unintended consequences. Obama’s fostering the rise of excellent conservative black writers and thinkers like Blackwell, Williams and Sowell, proving that not all blacks say “Yessir Massa,” when the left speaks, may go far to help Americans judge people as individuals, not as groups. Excerpt: On the Fourth of July, we don’t only celebrate the birth of our nation. We celebrate American exceptionalism—everything that makes the United States the greatest nation on earth. In celebrating this, we reject President Obama’s blueprint for the kind of country he seeks to make us. On July 4, 1776, fifty-six dedicated patriots resolved to risk everything in the hope of a new beginning. Elected to represent colonists from across the thirteen British colonies on the American continent, they decided to embark upon a grand experiment, to form a self-governing democratic republic. They were risking their lives. Had they failed, they would have been hanged as traitors, their lands confiscated by the Crown, their fortunes forfeited, and their families left disgraced and destitute. Yet they succeeded, and the freest, safest, and prosperous nation in the world was born. We don’t just celebrate the historical fact of America’s birth. When we celebrate Independence Day, we celebrate everything for which the United States stands.
Why Cloward-Piven Will Eat Itself
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/why_clowardpiven_will_eat_itse.html
Excerpt: Long considered a tool for fomenting socialist revolution in America, the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" was a sociopolitical theory developed by left-wing ivory tower-dwellers Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. I'm sure the foil hat-wearing adherents of this line of thinking will complain here about my oversimplification of the plan and general lack of nuance, but basically, it seeks to undermine the (American) government by overloading said government with dependents needing welfare. Apparently, this will force the government into recognizing that there are a lot of dependents out there (artificially created, no doubt), which would inevitably lead to the United States' government establishing a guaranteed national income or some such poppycock. You see, folks? This is what happens when you let sociologists from the Ivy League be taken seriously. Sadly, many in the Democratic Party have adopted this strategy as a way to build their base and solidify their political power, believing that Cloward and Piven knew what the hell they were talking about and that, by some miracle, crashing the national economy by using welfare and other government payout programs as a tool would bring about even larger government. This seems a clear-cut case of throwing the logical conclusion to the four breezes so we can focus on our much-wanted outcome: a socialist fantasy-land for all the little boys and girls everywhere across the land. Now, I may not be an Ivy League professor or even a lowly graduate, but it seems to me that bloating government and overloading already burdened bureaucracies would totally crash them. As in: they're over. Kaput. No existen más.
White House Enacts Rules Inhibiting Media From Covering Oil Spill
http://newsbusters.org/node/39839/print
Can’t be true. After all, this is “the most transparent administration in history.” Excerpt: The White House Thursday enacted stronger rules to prevent the media from showing what's happening with the oil spill in the Gulf Coast. CNN's Anderson Cooper reported that evening, "The Coast Guard today announced new rules keeping photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches -- 65 feet." He elaborated, "Now, in order to get closer, you have to get direct permission from the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans. You have to call up the guy. What this means is that oil-soaked birds on islands surrounded by boom, you can't get close enough to take that picture." As the segment continued, Cooper expressed disgust with this rule repeating several times, "We are not the enemy here" .... This time, however, we're not talking about BP. We're talking about the government, a new a rule announced today backed by the force of law and the threat of fines and felony charges, a rule that will prevent reporters and photographers and anyone else from getting anywhere close to booms and oil-soaked wildlife and just about any place we need to be. By now, you're probably familiar with cleanup crews stiff-arming the media, private security blocking cameras, ordinary workers clamming up, some not even saying who they're working for because they're afraid of losing their jobs. BP has said again and again that's not their policy. Yet, again and again, it has happened. And we have seen it. ... Violators could face a fine of $40,000 and Class D felony charges.
Solar Influences
http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/1179-solar-influences.html
Excerpt: It is certainly striking that since the later part of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century there has been a general increase in the Earth’s global average temperature at the same time that the strength of the solar cycle was increasing in intensity as measured by the number of sunspots. In the last half of the 20th century four out of the five most intense solar cycles occurred (the second largest cycle was around 1780) including the strongest ever which was in the 1950’s. Christensen linked these two together in what appeared to be a pleasing way. However, a few years after the work was published others found flaws in the way the final four (out of 24) data points were plotted. In Christensen’s paper the length of the solar cycle decreased between 1950 – 1990 with the last data point showing that the cycle length shortened at the same time that the recent global warming period started (post 1980). When this was corrected the concordance between the solar cycle length and the earth’s rising temperature broke down as it became apparent that the length of the solar cycle showed no trend as the earth’s temperature rose post-1980.
Liberal PBS donor tries to squelch Iraq troop surge documentary from airing
http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/02/liberal-pbs-donor-tries-to-squelch-iraq-troop-surge-documentary-from-airing/#ixzz0seuaC4YI
Confusion on the left. Excerpt: The film, produced by the Institute for the Study of War, takes a look at the Iraq War from a unique perspective and has received a number of favorable reviews. The documentary’s website summarizes, “The Surge: the Untold Story is the only documentary of its kind offering audiences a look into the real story of the Surge in Iraq, as told by top U.S. military commanders. These never-before-seen interviews move beyond Washington politics to tell the ground truth of a failing mission transformed into one of the most successful military operations in a generation of war fighting. This documentary honors the sacrifice, courage and ingenuity of military members in nearly impossible circumstances.” Originally WHYY planned to feature a televised panel discussion along with the initial airing of the film. Marilyn Ware, a noted philanthropist and former ambassador to Finland, was set to host the panel composed of such influential people as Kimberly Kagan, Elizabeth Cheney, Ret. General Jack Keane, Ret. Lieutenant General James Dubik, New York Times reporter Michael Gordon, and Colonel David Sutherland. After protest from Curtis Thomsen, a loud liberal donor, and a reportedly slim RSVP list, WHYY has scrapped the panel discussion but will still be airing the film. WHYY spokesman, Art Ellis, told The Daily Caller that the station might consider hosting a panel again later in the year. “It is basically a situation where PBS is doing the right thing by airing the show but missing the point by canceling the panel,” said the documentary’s writer and director Jason Meath. “WHYY’s intentions are good, the results just are not all the way there.” The mover of this chain of events, former psychology professor Curtis Thomsen, has been sending myriad emails and requests to WHYY demanding they stop the program from airing. “All the members of that panel were from the Institute for the Study of War,” Thomsen told The Daily Caller. “Even though they say they are nonpartisan it is a very right wing organization.” Thomsen is certain that Republicans are in the process of infiltrating WHYY and influencing the network’s content.
Climate legislation aims to reduce pollution, but may also shrink your wallet
http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/03/climate-legislation-aims-to-reduce-pollution-but-may-also-shrink-your-wallet/#ixzz0ses9tJoc
Excerpt: Let’s face it, “going green” is trendy. One stroll through Whole Foods is proof enough that eco-friendliness has become a stylish way to shop without guilt. Amateur environmentalists can even order a sustainable sangria or green margarita at some bars. On Tuesday, Obama and 23 senators met to discuss climate legislation originally proposed in 2007. As a result of the bipartisan meeting, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) offered to weaken the bill by toying with different versions of cap-and-trade. The goal of the Climate and Energy Bill is to reduce pollution that causes global warming – specifically greenhouse gases – and to invest in renewable sources. The bill says this be aided by cap-and-trade. So, what in the polluted world is cap-and-trade? The cap: Major pollution sources (i.e. power plants, factories) would have to limit the amount of harmful gases emitted. If pollution is taxed, companies would be more likely to look for an environmentally-friendly alternative. The trade: Free but limited permits would be issued to some of these large companies. If a company has more pollution than their allotted permits allow, they can either buy or trade permits, or find a way to create clean energy. The cost of converting to alternative energy could come with a jaw-dropping price tag. Some Republicans fear that once companies are forced to buy pollution permits, they will pass this cost to consumers and it will in effect create a national energy tax. According to a study on the bill’s effects, the American Council for Capital Formation and the National Association of Manufacturers speculate the bill will cause a $739 to $2,927 income loss to households by 2020. The study also approximates this loss would rise to $4,022 to $6,752 by 2030.
Governor Brewer activates new food stamp fraud prevention unit
http://www.kvoa.com/news/governor-brewer-activates-new-food-stamp-fraud-prevention-unit/
Excerpt: Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona Department of Economic Security set in motion a new anti-fraud unit effective July 1. The new DES Trafficking Detection Unit will ensure that people obtaining food stamps are not using these benefits illegally. "We have an obligation to taxpayers," said Governor Brewer. "These benefits can only be used by people who are eligible and need help. The State of Arizona will not tolerate any abuse of government benefits. The Nutrition Assistance Program is a necessary part of the safety net, particularly in these difficult times, but these benefits must be used to purchase food. Anything else is illegal." DES denied payments of approximately $9.4 million in Nutrition and Cash Assistance benefits to ineligible clients as a result of investigations conducted by the DES Office of Special Investigations in 2008 and 2009. The TDU, which becomes operational today, will ensure that recipients of nutrition assistance are not trying to convert these benefits into cash, in violation of state and federal law.
Down with Doom: How the World Keeps Defying the Predictions of Pessimists
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-ridley/down-with-doom-how-the-wo_b_630792.html
Excerpt: By then I had begun to notice that this terrible future was not all that bad. In fact every single one of the dooms I had been threatened with had proved either false or exaggerated. The population explosion was slowing down, famine had largely been conquered (except in war-torn tyrannies), India was exporting food, cancer rates were falling not rising (adjusted for age), the Sahel was greening, the climate was warming, oil was abundant, air pollution was falling fast, nuclear disarmament was proceeding apace, forests were thriving, sperm counts had not fallen. And above all, prosperity and freedom were advancing at the expense of poverty and tyranny. I began to pay attention and a few years ago I started to research a book on the subject. I was astounded by what I discovered. Global per capita income, corrected for inflation, had trebled in my lifetime, life expectancy had increased by one third, child mortality had fallen by two-thirds, the population growth rate had halved. More people had got out of poverty than in all of human history before. When I was born, 36% of Americans had air conditioning. Today 79% of Americans below the poverty line had air conditioning. The emissions of pollutants from a car were down by 98%. The time you had to work on the average wage to buy an hour of artificial light to read by was down from 8 seconds to half a second. Not only are human beings wealthier, they are also healthier, wiser, happier, more tolerant, less violent, more equal. Check it out - the data is clear. Yet if anything the pessimists had only grown more certain, shrill and apocalyptic. We were facing the `end of nature', the `coming anarchy', a `stolen future', our `final century' and a climate catastrophe. Why, I began to wonder did the failure of previous predictions have so little impact on this litany? (....) I now see at firsthand how I avoided hearing any good news when I was young. Where are the pressure groups that have an interest in telling the good news? They do not exist. By contrast, the behemoths of bad news, such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and WWF, spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year and doom is their best fund-raiser. (I’m on the doom side, but think that it will be caused by the statist like the groups raising funds off of things like global cooling/warming. See:
The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/03/essay-coming-collapse-of-american.html)
US officials: Al-Qaida operative tied to NY plot
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gT-Kwm3eHQPp5qw5B5yzpuy07XuwD9GLUMK80
Excerpt: U.S. counterterrorism officials have linked one of the nation's most wanted terrorists to last year's thwarted plot to bomb the New York City subway system, authorities said Wednesday. Current and former counterterrorism officials said top al-Qaida operative Adnan Shukrijumah met with one of the would-be suicide bombers in a plot that Attorney General Eric Holder called one of the most dangerous since the 9/11 terror attacks. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have named Shukrijumah in a draft terrorism indictment but on Wednesday the Justice Department was still discussing whether to cite his role. Some officials feared that the extra attention might hinder efforts to capture him. Shukrijumah's involvement shows how important the subway bombing plot was to al-Qaida's senior leadership. Intelligence officials believe Shukrijumah is one of the top candidates to become al-Qaida's next head of external operations, the man in charge of planning attacks worldwide. Current and former counterterrorism officials discussed the case on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it. Shukrijumah, 34, has eluded the FBI for years. The Saudi-born terrorist studied at a community college in Florida, but when the FBI showed up to arrest him as a material witness to a terrorism case in 2003, he already had left the country. The U.S. is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.
What is the Tea Party? A growing state of mind
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2010-07-01-tea-party_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
Excerpt: The portrait that emerges fits a traditional conservative group. The ranks of the Tea Party include somewhat more men than women, and they are more likely to be married and a bit older than the nation as a whole. Residents of the South and West are the most likely to endorse the Tea Party, but it is unmistakably a nationwide movement: 28% in the Midwest and 27% in the East call themselves backers. They are overwhelmingly white and Anglo, although a scattering of Hispanics, Asian Americans and African Americans combine to make up almost one-fourth of their ranks. What unites Tea Party supporters is less their geography or demography than their policy views: a firm conviction that the federal government has gotten too big and too powerful and a fear that the nation faces great peril. Nine in 10 are unhappy with the country's direction and see the federal debt as an ominous threat to its future. Almost as many say neither President Obama nor most members of Congress deserve re-election.
The Pearce “Inquiry”
http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/01/the-pearce-inquiry/#more-11312
Excerpt: One inquiry into Climategate by a non-skeptic is not a total whitewash. Fred Pearce actually read the emails and makes some important findings. Fred Pearce’s book on Climategate and the events leading up to it (The Climate Files) has just been published. (Pearce kindly sent me a copy.) Pearce has been involved in environmental reporting for the past 15 or so years and, like George Monbiot, is a strong supporter of climate policy. On many points, Pearce (in my opinion, far too readily) accepts Team excuses for their conduct and untrue Team characterizations of scientific issues. Nonetheless, even with this too-ready acceptance of Team rationales, Pearce, like Monbiot, has harsh words for their conduct. Pearce: "The evidence of scientists cutting corners, playing down uncertainties in their calculations and then covering their tracks by being secretive with data and suppressing dissent suggests a systemic problem of scientific sloppiness, collusion and endemic conflicts of interest, but not of outright fraud. (p. 241)" As some (but not enough) readers realize, the hurdle to show “outright fraud” is much higher than to show “cutting corners, playing down uncertainties in their calculations and then covering their tracks by being secretive with data and suppressing dissent suggests a systemic problem of scientific sloppiness, collusion and endemic conflicts of interest” – all of which are issues that the Oxburgh “inquiry” and Penn State “inquiry” should have addressed. Pearce also renders an opinion on the important issue of violation of IPCC rules through the surreptitious exchange between Wahl and Briffa in summer 2006 that led to Wahl inserting language favorable to them that had never sent to external reviewers – the exchanges that were the subject of the “delete all emails” request that Mann told Jones that he would pass on to Wahl.
The Russian Spy We Didn't Catch
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-02/russian-spy-rings-roots-talking-with-a-soviet-agent/
Excerpt: I’m sitting in a very spacious apartment, maybe 3,000 square feet, high above Moscow, with expansive views of the city from its large windows. It’s 1992, and I’m being offered chai and cake by Vladimir Lenin’s niece, Olga Ulyanova, who was once the playmate of Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana. She is a revered figure in the Soviet Union. Now 70 and still a member of the Union of Journalists, she has agreed to see me, my translator says, because I’m working on a project with Norman Mailer, a writer admired in her country for his outspokenness against his own. I’m here tracking details about Lee Harvey Oswald’s years in the Soviet Union (1959-1962) and I’m hoping that Olga can give me insight into what the Soviets must have made of Oswald when he defected. In response to one of my questions about Soviet spies, Olga shrugs. All she knows about espionage, she tells me, is that her neighbors are among the most decorated spies. Their story is quite something, she says. Why, they managed to live deep undercover in the United States for 15 years without giving themselves away! I must meet them! In fact, they’re going to stop by later. They’re out at the moment, but she’s left a note under their door. While we wait, she starts to tell me their story. After World War II, the KGB recruited men and women who spoke European languages besides Russian and whose demeanor would allow them to pass in the West. Her neighbors were among them. Originally from the area around Minsk, this couple was married, had a child, and spoke excellent German. During the last years of the 1940s, they were activated, she says. Their child was sent to live with his grandmother. One parent was dispatched into Austria, the other into West Germany. There, they were to begin new lives.
CNN: The Sickness We Face
http://www.shoebat.com/videos/childBombers.php
Stimulus Money Being Used to Subsidize & Bus Mexican Students Across Border for Free Education
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/07/new-mexico-us-taxpayers-subsidize-bus-mexican-students-across-border-for-free-education/
Undocumented students. Excerpt: In 1996, The Albuquerque Journal noted that students residing in Mexico have been educated in the United States for free for over 40 years. Judicial Watch investigated this matter of “free” education. For school year 2008-2009, 506 students were transported from the Port of Entry to Deming Public Schools (and this number has been increasing for the past three years). Typically, the students cross the border where a public school bus waits for them and then transports them 30 miles to the schools in Deming. The source of funding for theses students is part of the district allotment which is based on services (busing, English as a second language, etc). Based on an average district enrollment of 5447, total operational cost of $36,254,672, and 460 students bused from the port of entry in 2007-2008, on average $3,061,712.71 was spent on students picked up at the Port of Entry. The law firm handling the request specifically notes that “funding is based on total services for all the students in the district and is not calculated on a child by child method. Therefore, we do not have the information of the funding by any specific child.” In essence, if the school is already providing such services, then the additional students may not be costing anything extra; but here’s the catch, 460 students is necessarily going to result in a need for more services like additional teachers, additional meals, transportation, special instruction, etc. The amount of additional money is not insignificant especially given that New Mexico will receive $537,047,803 from President Obama’s stimulus plan to “lay the foundation for a generation of education reform and help save thousands of teaching jobs at risk due to state and local budget cuts.” That’s right, the stimulus money will indirectly be funding education for students whose families do not pay taxes.
Assimilation and the Founding Fathers
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2010/07/02/assimilation_and_the_founding_fathers#
Excerpt: In his immigration speech on Thursday, President Obama heralded America as a "nation of immigrants" defined not by blood or birth, but by "fidelity to the shared values that we all hold so dear." If only it were so. Left-wing academics and activists spurned assimilation as a common goal long ago. Their fidelity lies with bilingualism (a euphemism for native language maintenance over English-first instruction), identity politics, ethnic militancy and a borderless continent. Obama blames "politics" for the intractable immigration debate. Whose politics? The amnesty mob has taken to ambushing congressional offices this week to scream at lawmakers to choose "reform" (giving a blanket path to citizenship to millions of illegal aliens) or "racism" (their description of any and every legislative measure to stiffen sanctions for and deter the acts of border-jumping, visa-overstaying and deportation-evading). Is there no middle ground for all sides to agree that clearing naturalization application backlogs should take priority over expanding illegal alien benefits, or that tracking and deporting violent illegal alien criminals should take precedence over handing out driver's licenses to illegal aliens, or that streamlining the employee citizenship verification process for businesses (E-verify) and fixing outdated visa tracking databases should come before indiscriminately expanding temporary visa and guest worker programs? Must every response to even the most modest of immigration enforcement measures be "RAAAAACIST"? Further, as I've noted many times over the years when debating both Democrats and Republicans who fall back on empty phrases to justify putting the amnesty cart before the enforcement horse, we are not a "nation of immigrants." This is both a factual error and a warm-and-fuzzy non sequitur. Eighty-five percent of the residents currently in the United States were born here. Yes, we are almost all descendants of immigrants. But we are not a "nation of immigrants." (And the politically correct president certainly wouldn't argue that Native American Indians, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians and descendants of black slaves "immigrated" here in any common sense of the word, would he?)
Newt on Obama's Job-Killing Policies
http://www.newt.org/video/newt-obamas-job-killing-policies
'The Most Brilliant Commander': Ngo Quang Truong
http://www.historynet.com/the-most-brilliant-commander-ngo-quang-truong.htm
Excerpt: Ngo Quang Truong died of cancer on January 22, 2007, in Fairfax, Virginia. Shortly after his death, the Virginia Legislature passed a Joint Resolution "Celebrating the Life of Ngo Quang Truong." This singular honor for a man who came to this country in 1975 was clearly justified by the sacrifices that Truong made in defense of his South Vietnamese homeland and the exemplary life that he lived both before and after coming to his adopted country. He was considered one of the most honest and capable generals of the South Vietnamese army during the long war in Southeast Asia. General Bruce Palmer described him in his book The 25-Year War as a "tough, seasoned, fighting leader" and "probably the best field commander in South Vietnam." General Creighton Abrams, who commanded American military operations in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972, told subordinates that he thought General Truong was capable of commanding an American division.
No community organizers in Fred’s time, I guess
If I wished to punish a province, I would have it governed by philosophers. --Frederick The Great
Great Article: Winston Churchill’s July 4 Message to America
http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/winston-churchill%E2%80%99s-july-4-message-america
Excerpt: Here was Churchill’s moral realism on display. Most everyone expected a German invasion of Britain at any moment, a trial whose outcome was uncertain, but which certainly would cause unspeakable suffering and destruction. Nevertheless, with a keen sense of the transcendent meaning of the moment, Churchill summoned his nation to find the courage required for survival. “This is no time for doubt or weakness,” he said. “It is the supreme hour to which we have been called.” As Churchill described the attack against Britain’s former ally, the House listened quietly, stunned and enthralled. Churchill was overcome with emotion. So were members of Parliament: They burst into cheers, relieved not only that French warships would not be used against Great Britain, but that they had a prime minister who would not allow their island nation to perish without a fight. The country overwhelmingly supported the decision. Churchill’s daring action sent shock waves throughout the American foreign policy establishment, particularly among the appeasers in the White House and State Department. Liberal delusions about the limited nature of the Nazi threat, the wisdom of isolationism, and the impotence of British democracy were beginning to unravel. Two months later, Roosevelt sent Churchill the warships.
'1000s' of Russian spies in U.S., surpassing Cold War record http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/record_mole_russia_cold_surpass_K6S6j9QENZeRCOSEvhvYtO#ixzz0sjWWq0es
The results of institutionalizing weakness as a policy. Excerpt: The Russians are coming? The Russians are here. America is infested with more Russian spies than at any point in history, say former intelligence agents who spoke with The Post. "I would say there are a few thousand here," said Boris Korczak, a former double agent who worked for the CIA, spying on the KGB from 1973-1980. That's because each mole is a long shot, and the Russians want to maximize their odds. "Out of 1,000 spies, one or two will perform, will get access to our nuclear secrets," Korczak said.
The Spy Who Loved Chavez
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-02/russia-spy-suspect-vicky-pelaez-journalist-who-loved-chavez/full/
Excerpt: Pelaez, who along with her husband was among the 11 people arrested this week as part of the Russian spy ring, would be something of a late ’60s museum piece, if her beliefs didn’t now give urgent new meaning to the term “conviction journalism.” I spoke to her one-time editor and current columnist at El Diario, Gerson Borrero, who described her as “a pain in the ass” and “not my favorite colleague over the past 20 years” but said her arrest came as “a complete surprise. If you had told me that she’d been spying for Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, or China, I might have believed it, but Russia? I never heard her talk about Russia or the Soviet Union. Ever.” Since Pelaez’s arrest, the emails have been pouring into El Diario. “Fifty percent of our readers are saying that they knew she was a communist,” Borrero said. “The other 50 percent say that she’s being set up by the U.S. government to silence her.” I called the Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., to get some perspective from its in-house historian, Mark Stout. “Most of the major intelligence agencies have a history, at least in the past, of having used journalistic cover,” he said.
Narco sub is no rumor, authorities discover
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/7093154.html
Excerpt: It has long been the stuff of drug-trafficking legend, but federal authorities announced on Saturday that they have helped seize the first known and fully operational submarine built by drug traffickers to smuggle tons of cocaine from South America toward the United States. The diesel-electric powered submarine was captured in an Ecuadorian jungle waterway leading to the Pacific Ocean, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The sub, which is about 100 feet long and equipped with a periscope, was seized before its maiden voyage by Ecuadorian authorities armed with DEA intelligence. The discovery is seen by authorities as a game-changer in terms of the challenge it poses not only to fighting drugs but to national security as well. "The submarine's nautical range, payload capacity, and quantum leap in stealth have raised the stakes for the counter-drug forces and the national security community alike," said DEA Andean Regional Director Jay Bergman. It is unclear how far the camouflage-painted submarine could have traveled, but it is believed to be sophisticated enough to cover thousands of miles — and certainly to make it to the North American coast. "There is a sense of urgency for naval engineers and submariners to take a look at this thing and dissect it and take it apart and figure out what its real capabilities were," Bergman said. "The police have seized this structure, but the people that need to get on there are naval engineers." (Imagine this thing, armed with a torpedo or two, sitting quietly in San Diego Harbor, or maybe near an oil drilling platform. Here's a free win-win-win-win: The Democrats want more government control and taxes; Republicans want more law enforcement and a balanced budget; conservatives want a secure border and a strong national defense; liberals want enhanced freedoms that someone else pays for; Libertarians want to be left alone to do as they damn well please. Therefore, let's legalize most of the recreational drugs and tax the hell out of them. Without the profit margin provided by being an illegal product, the Narco bosses will have to re-invest in normal businesses (subject to taxes AND growing the economies of several countries), we eliminate the need to catch, try, convict, and then house 85% or so of the druggies (which saves a bundle), we generate a vast sum in taxes (to pay down the debt), and it requires a vast new bureaucracy to administer (employing more government workers AND extending government control of private pursuits), and there is no longer a profitable market for submarine travel to the US (so any sub found is CLEARLY an enemy and can be blown up). Everybody would be happy except the nannies, and they are already unhappy. The more I think about this, the more I find I'm only half kidding. --Ron P. Politically unpopular, but the only real solution. And it would free up funds for drug treatment. Currently, the only way to support a serious drug habit is to sell drugs, sell your body or steal. Having been victimized by someone close to me, I’d kill all drug dealers if I could. I can’t. so I’d support eliminating their profits. ~Bob)
Illinois Stops Paying Its Bills, but Can’t Stop Digging Hole
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/business/economy/03illinois.html?_r=1
“We gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do.” Excerpt: Even by the standards of this deficit-ridden state, Illinois’s comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, faces an ugly balance sheet. Precisely how ugly becomes clear when he beckons you into his office to examine his daily briefing memo. Payback Time He picks the papers off his desk and points to a figure in red: $5.01 billion. “This is what the state owes right now to schools, rehabilitation centers, child care, the state university — and it’s getting worse every single day,” he says in his downtown office. Mr. Hynes shakes his head. “This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely essential services,” he says. “That is obscene.” For the last few years, California stood more or less unchallenged as a symbol of the fiscal collapse of states during the recession. Now Illinois has shouldered to the fore, as its dysfunctional political class refuses to pay the state’s bills and refuses to take the painful steps — cuts and tax increases — to close a deficit of at least $12 billion, equal to nearly half the state’s budget. Then there is the spectacularly mismanaged pension system, which is at least 50 percent underfunded and, analysts warn, could push Illinois into insolvency if the economy fails to pick up. States cannot go bankrupt, technically, but signs of fiscal crackup are easy to see. Legislators left the capital this month without deciding how to pay 26 percent of the state budget. The governor proposes to borrow $3.5 billion to cover a year’s worth of pension payments, a step that would cost about $1 billion in interest. And every major rating agency has downgraded the state; Illinois now pays millions of dollars more to insure its debt than any other state in the nation.
Saudi king: "Two states in region do not deserve to exist: Israel and Iran"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/saudi-king-two-states-in-region-do-not-deserve-to-exist-israel-and-iran.html
Excerpt: This, of course, comes after reports that Saudi Arabia granted Israel permission to use its airspace to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. Taken together, the two stories make clear that the Saudis' purported willingness to cooperate with the Israelis against a common enemy does not mean Israel is any safer in the Saudi vision for the region in the longer run -- even after Israel were to assume all the risks (including jihadist retaliation) for thwarting Iran's nuclear ambitions
Radical Muslims threaten to kill Christian man in Bekasi
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Radical-Muslims-threaten-to-kill-Christian-man-in-Bekasi-18839.html
Didn’t get the “Islam is a religion of peace” memo. Excerpt: A banner depicting a Christian with a noose around his neck is hung outside a mosque with these words: “This man deserves the death penalty!” Andreas Sanau, together with Henry Sutanto, is accused of organising mass baptisms. “The government must protect all citizens from anarchist action as mandated by the constitution,” says secretary of the Communion of Indonesian Churches.
Police: 8 killed in Thailand's restive south
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100702/ap_on_re_as/as_thailand_southern_violence
Didn’t get the memo. Excerpt: Suspected Muslim insurgents detonated roadside bombs that killed eight people, including one civilian, in two separate attacks in Thailand's restive south, police said Friday. A bomb explosion in Yala province on Friday killed three soldiers in a pickup truck who were sent to fix a water pipe in a village in Yaha district, said police Col. Sawas Tiawirat. On Thursday evening, suspected insurgents detonated a bomb and then shot at security forces on a patrol in Narathiwat province, killing a soldier, two security rangers, a village security guard and a village official, said police Capt. Pairat Kiatcharoensiri.
Member Of UN Commission On The Status Of Women Set To Stone Woman To Death!
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=16332
Iran, a member in good standing at the UN Commission On The Status Of Women, is getting ready to stone a woman to death. A 43-year-old Iranian woman is facing death by stoning unless an international campaign launched by her children forces the authorities to quash what her lawyer calls a bogus conviction. In a case that highlights the growing use of the death penalty in a country that has already executed more than 100 people this year, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was convicted in May 2006 of conducting an “illicit relationship outside marriage.”
Pakistanis blame US after shrine attack kills 42
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100702/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan
Muslims murder Muslims? Blame America…and the Jews. Excerpt: Even those who blamed others saw an American hand in the attacks. Arifa Moen, 32, a teacher in Multan, said Washington "is encouraging Indians and Jews to carry out attacks" in Pakistan.
Liberty and American Exceptionalism
http://townhall.com/columnists/KenBlackwell/2010/07/04/liberty_and_american_exceptionalism
The law of unintended consequences. Obama’s fostering the rise of excellent conservative black writers and thinkers like Blackwell, Williams and Sowell, proving that not all blacks say “Yessir Massa,” when the left speaks, may go far to help Americans judge people as individuals, not as groups. Excerpt: On the Fourth of July, we don’t only celebrate the birth of our nation. We celebrate American exceptionalism—everything that makes the United States the greatest nation on earth. In celebrating this, we reject President Obama’s blueprint for the kind of country he seeks to make us. On July 4, 1776, fifty-six dedicated patriots resolved to risk everything in the hope of a new beginning. Elected to represent colonists from across the thirteen British colonies on the American continent, they decided to embark upon a grand experiment, to form a self-governing democratic republic. They were risking their lives. Had they failed, they would have been hanged as traitors, their lands confiscated by the Crown, their fortunes forfeited, and their families left disgraced and destitute. Yet they succeeded, and the freest, safest, and prosperous nation in the world was born. We don’t just celebrate the historical fact of America’s birth. When we celebrate Independence Day, we celebrate everything for which the United States stands.
Why Cloward-Piven Will Eat Itself
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/why_clowardpiven_will_eat_itse.html
Excerpt: Long considered a tool for fomenting socialist revolution in America, the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" was a sociopolitical theory developed by left-wing ivory tower-dwellers Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. I'm sure the foil hat-wearing adherents of this line of thinking will complain here about my oversimplification of the plan and general lack of nuance, but basically, it seeks to undermine the (American) government by overloading said government with dependents needing welfare. Apparently, this will force the government into recognizing that there are a lot of dependents out there (artificially created, no doubt), which would inevitably lead to the United States' government establishing a guaranteed national income or some such poppycock. You see, folks? This is what happens when you let sociologists from the Ivy League be taken seriously. Sadly, many in the Democratic Party have adopted this strategy as a way to build their base and solidify their political power, believing that Cloward and Piven knew what the hell they were talking about and that, by some miracle, crashing the national economy by using welfare and other government payout programs as a tool would bring about even larger government. This seems a clear-cut case of throwing the logical conclusion to the four breezes so we can focus on our much-wanted outcome: a socialist fantasy-land for all the little boys and girls everywhere across the land. Now, I may not be an Ivy League professor or even a lowly graduate, but it seems to me that bloating government and overloading already burdened bureaucracies would totally crash them. As in: they're over. Kaput. No existen más.
White House Enacts Rules Inhibiting Media From Covering Oil Spill
http://newsbusters.org/node/39839/print
Can’t be true. After all, this is “the most transparent administration in history.” Excerpt: The White House Thursday enacted stronger rules to prevent the media from showing what's happening with the oil spill in the Gulf Coast. CNN's Anderson Cooper reported that evening, "The Coast Guard today announced new rules keeping photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches -- 65 feet." He elaborated, "Now, in order to get closer, you have to get direct permission from the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans. You have to call up the guy. What this means is that oil-soaked birds on islands surrounded by boom, you can't get close enough to take that picture." As the segment continued, Cooper expressed disgust with this rule repeating several times, "We are not the enemy here" .... This time, however, we're not talking about BP. We're talking about the government, a new a rule announced today backed by the force of law and the threat of fines and felony charges, a rule that will prevent reporters and photographers and anyone else from getting anywhere close to booms and oil-soaked wildlife and just about any place we need to be. By now, you're probably familiar with cleanup crews stiff-arming the media, private security blocking cameras, ordinary workers clamming up, some not even saying who they're working for because they're afraid of losing their jobs. BP has said again and again that's not their policy. Yet, again and again, it has happened. And we have seen it. ... Violators could face a fine of $40,000 and Class D felony charges.
Solar Influences
http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/1179-solar-influences.html
Excerpt: It is certainly striking that since the later part of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century there has been a general increase in the Earth’s global average temperature at the same time that the strength of the solar cycle was increasing in intensity as measured by the number of sunspots. In the last half of the 20th century four out of the five most intense solar cycles occurred (the second largest cycle was around 1780) including the strongest ever which was in the 1950’s. Christensen linked these two together in what appeared to be a pleasing way. However, a few years after the work was published others found flaws in the way the final four (out of 24) data points were plotted. In Christensen’s paper the length of the solar cycle decreased between 1950 – 1990 with the last data point showing that the cycle length shortened at the same time that the recent global warming period started (post 1980). When this was corrected the concordance between the solar cycle length and the earth’s rising temperature broke down as it became apparent that the length of the solar cycle showed no trend as the earth’s temperature rose post-1980.
Liberal PBS donor tries to squelch Iraq troop surge documentary from airing
http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/02/liberal-pbs-donor-tries-to-squelch-iraq-troop-surge-documentary-from-airing/#ixzz0seuaC4YI
Confusion on the left. Excerpt: The film, produced by the Institute for the Study of War, takes a look at the Iraq War from a unique perspective and has received a number of favorable reviews. The documentary’s website summarizes, “The Surge: the Untold Story is the only documentary of its kind offering audiences a look into the real story of the Surge in Iraq, as told by top U.S. military commanders. These never-before-seen interviews move beyond Washington politics to tell the ground truth of a failing mission transformed into one of the most successful military operations in a generation of war fighting. This documentary honors the sacrifice, courage and ingenuity of military members in nearly impossible circumstances.” Originally WHYY planned to feature a televised panel discussion along with the initial airing of the film. Marilyn Ware, a noted philanthropist and former ambassador to Finland, was set to host the panel composed of such influential people as Kimberly Kagan, Elizabeth Cheney, Ret. General Jack Keane, Ret. Lieutenant General James Dubik, New York Times reporter Michael Gordon, and Colonel David Sutherland. After protest from Curtis Thomsen, a loud liberal donor, and a reportedly slim RSVP list, WHYY has scrapped the panel discussion but will still be airing the film. WHYY spokesman, Art Ellis, told The Daily Caller that the station might consider hosting a panel again later in the year. “It is basically a situation where PBS is doing the right thing by airing the show but missing the point by canceling the panel,” said the documentary’s writer and director Jason Meath. “WHYY’s intentions are good, the results just are not all the way there.” The mover of this chain of events, former psychology professor Curtis Thomsen, has been sending myriad emails and requests to WHYY demanding they stop the program from airing. “All the members of that panel were from the Institute for the Study of War,” Thomsen told The Daily Caller. “Even though they say they are nonpartisan it is a very right wing organization.” Thomsen is certain that Republicans are in the process of infiltrating WHYY and influencing the network’s content.
Climate legislation aims to reduce pollution, but may also shrink your wallet
http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/03/climate-legislation-aims-to-reduce-pollution-but-may-also-shrink-your-wallet/#ixzz0ses9tJoc
Excerpt: Let’s face it, “going green” is trendy. One stroll through Whole Foods is proof enough that eco-friendliness has become a stylish way to shop without guilt. Amateur environmentalists can even order a sustainable sangria or green margarita at some bars. On Tuesday, Obama and 23 senators met to discuss climate legislation originally proposed in 2007. As a result of the bipartisan meeting, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) offered to weaken the bill by toying with different versions of cap-and-trade. The goal of the Climate and Energy Bill is to reduce pollution that causes global warming – specifically greenhouse gases – and to invest in renewable sources. The bill says this be aided by cap-and-trade. So, what in the polluted world is cap-and-trade? The cap: Major pollution sources (i.e. power plants, factories) would have to limit the amount of harmful gases emitted. If pollution is taxed, companies would be more likely to look for an environmentally-friendly alternative. The trade: Free but limited permits would be issued to some of these large companies. If a company has more pollution than their allotted permits allow, they can either buy or trade permits, or find a way to create clean energy. The cost of converting to alternative energy could come with a jaw-dropping price tag. Some Republicans fear that once companies are forced to buy pollution permits, they will pass this cost to consumers and it will in effect create a national energy tax. According to a study on the bill’s effects, the American Council for Capital Formation and the National Association of Manufacturers speculate the bill will cause a $739 to $2,927 income loss to households by 2020. The study also approximates this loss would rise to $4,022 to $6,752 by 2030.
Governor Brewer activates new food stamp fraud prevention unit
http://www.kvoa.com/news/governor-brewer-activates-new-food-stamp-fraud-prevention-unit/
Excerpt: Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona Department of Economic Security set in motion a new anti-fraud unit effective July 1. The new DES Trafficking Detection Unit will ensure that people obtaining food stamps are not using these benefits illegally. "We have an obligation to taxpayers," said Governor Brewer. "These benefits can only be used by people who are eligible and need help. The State of Arizona will not tolerate any abuse of government benefits. The Nutrition Assistance Program is a necessary part of the safety net, particularly in these difficult times, but these benefits must be used to purchase food. Anything else is illegal." DES denied payments of approximately $9.4 million in Nutrition and Cash Assistance benefits to ineligible clients as a result of investigations conducted by the DES Office of Special Investigations in 2008 and 2009. The TDU, which becomes operational today, will ensure that recipients of nutrition assistance are not trying to convert these benefits into cash, in violation of state and federal law.
Down with Doom: How the World Keeps Defying the Predictions of Pessimists
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-ridley/down-with-doom-how-the-wo_b_630792.html
Excerpt: By then I had begun to notice that this terrible future was not all that bad. In fact every single one of the dooms I had been threatened with had proved either false or exaggerated. The population explosion was slowing down, famine had largely been conquered (except in war-torn tyrannies), India was exporting food, cancer rates were falling not rising (adjusted for age), the Sahel was greening, the climate was warming, oil was abundant, air pollution was falling fast, nuclear disarmament was proceeding apace, forests were thriving, sperm counts had not fallen. And above all, prosperity and freedom were advancing at the expense of poverty and tyranny. I began to pay attention and a few years ago I started to research a book on the subject. I was astounded by what I discovered. Global per capita income, corrected for inflation, had trebled in my lifetime, life expectancy had increased by one third, child mortality had fallen by two-thirds, the population growth rate had halved. More people had got out of poverty than in all of human history before. When I was born, 36% of Americans had air conditioning. Today 79% of Americans below the poverty line had air conditioning. The emissions of pollutants from a car were down by 98%. The time you had to work on the average wage to buy an hour of artificial light to read by was down from 8 seconds to half a second. Not only are human beings wealthier, they are also healthier, wiser, happier, more tolerant, less violent, more equal. Check it out - the data is clear. Yet if anything the pessimists had only grown more certain, shrill and apocalyptic. We were facing the `end of nature', the `coming anarchy', a `stolen future', our `final century' and a climate catastrophe. Why, I began to wonder did the failure of previous predictions have so little impact on this litany? (....) I now see at firsthand how I avoided hearing any good news when I was young. Where are the pressure groups that have an interest in telling the good news? They do not exist. By contrast, the behemoths of bad news, such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and WWF, spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year and doom is their best fund-raiser. (I’m on the doom side, but think that it will be caused by the statist like the groups raising funds off of things like global cooling/warming. See:
The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/03/essay-coming-collapse-of-american.html)
US officials: Al-Qaida operative tied to NY plot
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gT-Kwm3eHQPp5qw5B5yzpuy07XuwD9GLUMK80
Excerpt: U.S. counterterrorism officials have linked one of the nation's most wanted terrorists to last year's thwarted plot to bomb the New York City subway system, authorities said Wednesday. Current and former counterterrorism officials said top al-Qaida operative Adnan Shukrijumah met with one of the would-be suicide bombers in a plot that Attorney General Eric Holder called one of the most dangerous since the 9/11 terror attacks. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have named Shukrijumah in a draft terrorism indictment but on Wednesday the Justice Department was still discussing whether to cite his role. Some officials feared that the extra attention might hinder efforts to capture him. Shukrijumah's involvement shows how important the subway bombing plot was to al-Qaida's senior leadership. Intelligence officials believe Shukrijumah is one of the top candidates to become al-Qaida's next head of external operations, the man in charge of planning attacks worldwide. Current and former counterterrorism officials discussed the case on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it. Shukrijumah, 34, has eluded the FBI for years. The Saudi-born terrorist studied at a community college in Florida, but when the FBI showed up to arrest him as a material witness to a terrorism case in 2003, he already had left the country. The U.S. is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.
What is the Tea Party? A growing state of mind
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2010-07-01-tea-party_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
Excerpt: The portrait that emerges fits a traditional conservative group. The ranks of the Tea Party include somewhat more men than women, and they are more likely to be married and a bit older than the nation as a whole. Residents of the South and West are the most likely to endorse the Tea Party, but it is unmistakably a nationwide movement: 28% in the Midwest and 27% in the East call themselves backers. They are overwhelmingly white and Anglo, although a scattering of Hispanics, Asian Americans and African Americans combine to make up almost one-fourth of their ranks. What unites Tea Party supporters is less their geography or demography than their policy views: a firm conviction that the federal government has gotten too big and too powerful and a fear that the nation faces great peril. Nine in 10 are unhappy with the country's direction and see the federal debt as an ominous threat to its future. Almost as many say neither President Obama nor most members of Congress deserve re-election.
The Pearce “Inquiry”
http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/01/the-pearce-inquiry/#more-11312
Excerpt: One inquiry into Climategate by a non-skeptic is not a total whitewash. Fred Pearce actually read the emails and makes some important findings. Fred Pearce’s book on Climategate and the events leading up to it (The Climate Files) has just been published. (Pearce kindly sent me a copy.) Pearce has been involved in environmental reporting for the past 15 or so years and, like George Monbiot, is a strong supporter of climate policy. On many points, Pearce (in my opinion, far too readily) accepts Team excuses for their conduct and untrue Team characterizations of scientific issues. Nonetheless, even with this too-ready acceptance of Team rationales, Pearce, like Monbiot, has harsh words for their conduct. Pearce: "The evidence of scientists cutting corners, playing down uncertainties in their calculations and then covering their tracks by being secretive with data and suppressing dissent suggests a systemic problem of scientific sloppiness, collusion and endemic conflicts of interest, but not of outright fraud. (p. 241)" As some (but not enough) readers realize, the hurdle to show “outright fraud” is much higher than to show “cutting corners, playing down uncertainties in their calculations and then covering their tracks by being secretive with data and suppressing dissent suggests a systemic problem of scientific sloppiness, collusion and endemic conflicts of interest” – all of which are issues that the Oxburgh “inquiry” and Penn State “inquiry” should have addressed. Pearce also renders an opinion on the important issue of violation of IPCC rules through the surreptitious exchange between Wahl and Briffa in summer 2006 that led to Wahl inserting language favorable to them that had never sent to external reviewers – the exchanges that were the subject of the “delete all emails” request that Mann told Jones that he would pass on to Wahl.
The Russian Spy We Didn't Catch
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-02/russian-spy-rings-roots-talking-with-a-soviet-agent/
Excerpt: I’m sitting in a very spacious apartment, maybe 3,000 square feet, high above Moscow, with expansive views of the city from its large windows. It’s 1992, and I’m being offered chai and cake by Vladimir Lenin’s niece, Olga Ulyanova, who was once the playmate of Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana. She is a revered figure in the Soviet Union. Now 70 and still a member of the Union of Journalists, she has agreed to see me, my translator says, because I’m working on a project with Norman Mailer, a writer admired in her country for his outspokenness against his own. I’m here tracking details about Lee Harvey Oswald’s years in the Soviet Union (1959-1962) and I’m hoping that Olga can give me insight into what the Soviets must have made of Oswald when he defected. In response to one of my questions about Soviet spies, Olga shrugs. All she knows about espionage, she tells me, is that her neighbors are among the most decorated spies. Their story is quite something, she says. Why, they managed to live deep undercover in the United States for 15 years without giving themselves away! I must meet them! In fact, they’re going to stop by later. They’re out at the moment, but she’s left a note under their door. While we wait, she starts to tell me their story. After World War II, the KGB recruited men and women who spoke European languages besides Russian and whose demeanor would allow them to pass in the West. Her neighbors were among them. Originally from the area around Minsk, this couple was married, had a child, and spoke excellent German. During the last years of the 1940s, they were activated, she says. Their child was sent to live with his grandmother. One parent was dispatched into Austria, the other into West Germany. There, they were to begin new lives.
CNN: The Sickness We Face
http://www.shoebat.com/videos/childBombers.php
Stimulus Money Being Used to Subsidize & Bus Mexican Students Across Border for Free Education
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/07/new-mexico-us-taxpayers-subsidize-bus-mexican-students-across-border-for-free-education/
Undocumented students. Excerpt: In 1996, The Albuquerque Journal noted that students residing in Mexico have been educated in the United States for free for over 40 years. Judicial Watch investigated this matter of “free” education. For school year 2008-2009, 506 students were transported from the Port of Entry to Deming Public Schools (and this number has been increasing for the past three years). Typically, the students cross the border where a public school bus waits for them and then transports them 30 miles to the schools in Deming. The source of funding for theses students is part of the district allotment which is based on services (busing, English as a second language, etc). Based on an average district enrollment of 5447, total operational cost of $36,254,672, and 460 students bused from the port of entry in 2007-2008, on average $3,061,712.71 was spent on students picked up at the Port of Entry. The law firm handling the request specifically notes that “funding is based on total services for all the students in the district and is not calculated on a child by child method. Therefore, we do not have the information of the funding by any specific child.” In essence, if the school is already providing such services, then the additional students may not be costing anything extra; but here’s the catch, 460 students is necessarily going to result in a need for more services like additional teachers, additional meals, transportation, special instruction, etc. The amount of additional money is not insignificant especially given that New Mexico will receive $537,047,803 from President Obama’s stimulus plan to “lay the foundation for a generation of education reform and help save thousands of teaching jobs at risk due to state and local budget cuts.” That’s right, the stimulus money will indirectly be funding education for students whose families do not pay taxes.
Assimilation and the Founding Fathers
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2010/07/02/assimilation_and_the_founding_fathers#
Excerpt: In his immigration speech on Thursday, President Obama heralded America as a "nation of immigrants" defined not by blood or birth, but by "fidelity to the shared values that we all hold so dear." If only it were so. Left-wing academics and activists spurned assimilation as a common goal long ago. Their fidelity lies with bilingualism (a euphemism for native language maintenance over English-first instruction), identity politics, ethnic militancy and a borderless continent. Obama blames "politics" for the intractable immigration debate. Whose politics? The amnesty mob has taken to ambushing congressional offices this week to scream at lawmakers to choose "reform" (giving a blanket path to citizenship to millions of illegal aliens) or "racism" (their description of any and every legislative measure to stiffen sanctions for and deter the acts of border-jumping, visa-overstaying and deportation-evading). Is there no middle ground for all sides to agree that clearing naturalization application backlogs should take priority over expanding illegal alien benefits, or that tracking and deporting violent illegal alien criminals should take precedence over handing out driver's licenses to illegal aliens, or that streamlining the employee citizenship verification process for businesses (E-verify) and fixing outdated visa tracking databases should come before indiscriminately expanding temporary visa and guest worker programs? Must every response to even the most modest of immigration enforcement measures be "RAAAAACIST"? Further, as I've noted many times over the years when debating both Democrats and Republicans who fall back on empty phrases to justify putting the amnesty cart before the enforcement horse, we are not a "nation of immigrants." This is both a factual error and a warm-and-fuzzy non sequitur. Eighty-five percent of the residents currently in the United States were born here. Yes, we are almost all descendants of immigrants. But we are not a "nation of immigrants." (And the politically correct president certainly wouldn't argue that Native American Indians, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians and descendants of black slaves "immigrated" here in any common sense of the word, would he?)
Newt on Obama's Job-Killing Policies
http://www.newt.org/video/newt-obamas-job-killing-policies
'The Most Brilliant Commander': Ngo Quang Truong
http://www.historynet.com/the-most-brilliant-commander-ngo-quang-truong.htm
Excerpt: Ngo Quang Truong died of cancer on January 22, 2007, in Fairfax, Virginia. Shortly after his death, the Virginia Legislature passed a Joint Resolution "Celebrating the Life of Ngo Quang Truong." This singular honor for a man who came to this country in 1975 was clearly justified by the sacrifices that Truong made in defense of his South Vietnamese homeland and the exemplary life that he lived both before and after coming to his adopted country. He was considered one of the most honest and capable generals of the South Vietnamese army during the long war in Southeast Asia. General Bruce Palmer described him in his book The 25-Year War as a "tough, seasoned, fighting leader" and "probably the best field commander in South Vietnam." General Creighton Abrams, who commanded American military operations in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972, told subordinates that he thought General Truong was capable of commanding an American division.
No community organizers in Fred’s time, I guess
If I wished to punish a province, I would have it governed by philosophers. --Frederick The Great
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
