Friday, May 30, 2008
World praises progress in Iraq
STOCKHOLM — World leaders, including UN chief Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on Thursday hailed Baghdad's progress in combatting violence and stabilising Iraq. A declaration adopted by 100 delegations at a Stockholm conference said the participants "recognised the important efforts made by the (Iraqi) government to improve security and public order and combat terrorism and sectarian violence across Iraq."
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Al-Qaeda's vision of a America after nuclear attack
The computer-generated image below was posted on an Islamic extremists' website yesterday.
Washington is laid to waste. The Capitol is a blackened, smoking ruin. The White House has been razed. Countless thousands are dead.
This is the apocalyptic scene terrorists hope to create if they ever get their hands on a nuclear bomb. [snip]
Al Sahab puts out more than 80 'officially sanctioned' videos a year to keep up the propaganda on the West. And the Internet shows how easy it is to stir up militancy. One message with the Washington picture said: 'The next strike's in the heart of America. When? When? When? And How?'
Last night FBI sources said Al Qaeda was desperate to get its hands on a weapon of mass destruction, be it nuclear, chemical, or biological. So far that is only a dream... or, as this picture suggests, a nightmare.
[Scare mongering? : the consequence of a WMD attack on this nation are hard to overestimate, and we've every right to aggressively defend ourselves against such monstrous threats. Our best chance of preventing such an attack is a) using every intelligence means possible to monitor and interdict them, and b) staying on offense and denying them a stable base of operations from which to organize and project themselves - such as we'd be handing them if we abandoned Iraq]
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Exclusive: Iran in Secret Talks With al Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say
Senior U.S. officials tell ABC News that in recent months there have been secret contacts between the Iranian government and the leadership of al Qaeda. It's a development that has caught the attention of top officials in the White House, the Pentagon and the intelligence community. (Snip) the contacts are on the status of high-level al Qaeda operatives, including two of Osama Bin Laden's sons, who have been under house arrest in Iran since 2003.
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What’s behind the “appeasement” kefluffel?
Democrats outraged by the remarks of President George W. Bush “appeasement” when he said, “America stands with you in breaking up terrorist networks and denying the extremists sanctuary. And America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world’s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world’s deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations... [snip]
Obama wants talks with Iran without preconditions and Bush/McCain are totally against such talks. But in point of fact, Bush is already talking to Iran at a lower level. The real issue is not whether to talk but whether to appease...
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Sharia-compliant financing must stop
Turn your clock back 70 years. Imagine that Wall Street banks and brokerages sold Nuremberg-compliant bonds and stock funds in 1938. American Nazi sympathizers bought financial instruments certified by Berlin-based advisors as free of "Jewish profits" from, say, Salomon Brothers and Bloomingdale's. In turn, a percentage of such funds' gains underwrote pro-Nazi charities, like the German-American Bund, and similar organizations in the Fatherland, like the Hitler Youth.
Seventy years hence, an analogous outrage grows on Wall Street, only this time for real.
Sharia-compliant finance (SCF) is expanding among banks and securities houses eager to absorb the hundreds of billions of petrodollars cascading into the Middle East, thanks to $100-per-barrel oil. To lure this cash, financial companies increasingly offer vehicles that don't involve or benefit from anything considered "haram" or "un-kosher" in Islam - and SCF is not limited to the bond market. SCF also goes far beyond 'marketing' to Muslims and Middle Easterners. IIFM lists "wider sharia acceptance" among its goals..
Selling sharia-compliant investments legitimizes a barbaric theocratic orthodoxy that should be defeated, not promoted.
[Recommended]
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Sarkozy says EU should cap sales tax on fuel
Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, responded to growing public anger over surging oil prices by proposing to use windfall tax receipts generated by higher energy prices to subsidise the worst-hit people. As in other countries, high oil prices are a hot political issue in France as household budgets and businesses have been squeezed.
["windfall tax receipts" - priceless]
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A Bleak Future
Imagine an America where the government decides what profits are acceptable. Imagine our country with the oil industry nationalized. Impossible? Not with Democrats in control of Washington. One California Democrat, saying out loud what many on her side of the aisle have been thinking for some time, has threatened to seize the oil industry....
[for anyone who missed it, Ms. Waters faux pas during the oil inquisition where she state that "this liberal intends to socialize --- ", and then froze and took the better part of a minute trying to reword he Freudian slip was laugh-out-loud funny - except for her word's meaning...]
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DOCTORS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
The cost of cutting greenhouse gas emissions would certainly have a serious negative effect on human health, says the Fraser Institute's Philip Stevens. A new global treaty that claims would stabilize the climate at today's temperatures would cost a total of $18-20 trillion (U.S.) -- or 45 percent of the world's current annual economic output.
Such a treaty would create a massive drag on economic growth, which brings with it the resources that can be used to tackle the most significant causes of death in developing countries - all a direct result of poverty. The elimination of malaria in European and North America was a clear by-product of increasing prosperity:
• Exposure to mosquitoes decreased once people could afford windows for their houses and separate barns for cattle.Mandatory caps on carbon emissions would be a betrayal of the sick in the world's poorest regions because such regulations would undermine the one mechanism -- economic growth -- which allows people to move beyond the primitive living conditions that encourage the spread of such diseases. Restraining economic growth with the hope of staving off hypothetical threats to humanity will almost certainly reduce our ability to deal with today's genuine health problems.
• Farmers adopted practices such as tillage and field drainage which deprived the mosquitoes of feeding and breeding opportunities.
• In other wealthy countries such as the United States, public authorities were able to combine this with the mass spraying of the pesticide DDT to effectively eradicate the disease.
• It is no coincidence that malaria is currently confined to the poorest parts of the world, because these areas are the least able to afford such changes.
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Durable goods dip but many sectors show strength
Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods fell by a smaller-than-anticipated amount in April with many sectors outside of transportation showing unexpected strength. The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that orders for durable goods dropped 0.5 percent, dragged down by big declines in demand for commercial aircraft and autos [you know, the energy users]
The decline, however, was just one-third of what experts expected. Take out the volatile transportation sector and orders rose 2.5 percent, the largest gain in nine months. This reflected strength in areas ranging from heavy machinery and primary metals such as steel, and to a record surge in demand for electrical equipment and appliances.
Economists said this indicated the economy was entering the April-through-June period with some momentum...
[few things are more frustrating than an unreliable recession]
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Democrats Unaware of US Warning About Border Violence
Three Democratic lawmakers who spoke Wednesday about alleged anti-immigrant coverage by conservative media outlets were not aware of a recent State Department travel alert warning Americans about military-like ''combat'' along the southern U.S. border in Mexico, where Americans are being kidnapped and murdered. (Snip) When asked about the alert after the briefing, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) told Cybercast News Service: ''I haven't heard about the report specifically,''
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The Blitzkrieg in the Kulturkampf Western Civilization Faces
At Michigan State University, I served on student government until a horde of leftist students organized a successful recall election. On the very same day that I took part in a public debate over the issue of affirmative action with a candidate for state representative, the vote was held in which I was recalled by approximately 93 percent to 7 percent (225 voted to recall while 18 voted to allow me to remain).
Why was I recalled? Because I proposed, among other things, that a United States flag be displayed in every room and lecture hall on campus, and that since black students, Muslim students, international students, and homosexual students get automatic representation on student government, it would only be fair if white students, Christian students, nationalist students, and heterosexual students get automatic representation as well. This did not bode well with my leftist peers, so they removed me from the low-level elected position that I held.
The leftists will allow no threat to their ideology to materialize. The seeds of discontent cannot be allowed to grow...
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Newsweek Poll Creates 'Racial Resentment Index' for Whites Not Blacks
In an attempt to explain how race will impact Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama's run for the White House, Newsweek has created a "Racial Resentment Index" exclusively for white people without measuring such biases of non-whites.
Apparently, it's only important to Newsweek to identify if racism is a factor in why whites prefer Republican presidential candidate John McCain and not if racism is a factor in why blacks support Obama.
Such can be read between the lines in the article published Friday entitled "The White Stuff: A new NEWSWEEK Poll underscores Obama's racial challenge" (emphasis added, picture courtesy Getty Images): [snip]
[meanwhile, Obama enjoys a ninety-percent support rate of black Americans with nary a word in the press...]
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[addendum]
Will Voters Go for the One Like Them?
For whom do voters vote? What motivates them? The ethnic group to which they belong, and the one to which the candidate belongs are factors, no doubt. A voter generally looks for one of his own, or at least someone from the neighborhood. It appears that 95 percent of African-American voters will vote for Barack Obama...
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Reality check re: American 'racism','xenophobia'
To the Left, America is irredeemably racist, and those who want our border protected are xenophobes. The insanity of these claims is evidenced by what real racism and xenophobia look like. In black-led South Africa, a country that is held to be the embodiment of the triumph of a victory over racism, no less.
We have already covered the horrific racial violence (black on black) directed toward South African immigrants, but after almost two weeks running, it is spreading, according to this report from AFP:
[8 paragraphs of violence][snip]
That is what real xenophobia and racism look like. Demands for protection of our sovereign borders are not xenophobia. America actually gives racial preferences to minorities and welfare payments to immigrants, for better or worse.
Time to ash-can the defamation of America as a racist country, and go counsel Nelson Mandela about the racism of blacks in his country. Any leftists who denounces America as a racist country only demonstrates his hatred of America.
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Thursday, May 29, 2008
The caption reads:
"Pearl Harbor survivor Houston James of Dallas embraces Marine Staff Sgt. Mark Graunke during a Veterans Day commemoration in Dallas yesterday.
Graunke lost a hand, a leg and an eye when he defused a bomb in Iraq last year.
This week's images of U.S. troops in combat in Fallujah deepened the day's significance for many who attended tributes held in San Diego and across the nation."
Associated Press
'It opened my eyes' -- Tuberville touched by troops' commitment
Tommy Tuber ville didn't expect a weeklong goodwill trip through the Mid dle East to affect him like it did -- profoundly.
Tuberville discovered an un paralleled commitment by American soldiers, many barely out of their teens, and even those severely wounded in bat tle.
"It opened my eyes. I thought people went over there, dreaded going over there and couldn't wait to get back," ... "The leaders over there, this is their fourth or fifth or sixth..."The emotional peak for Tub erville came at a hospital when he and Weis approached a sol dier with severe injuries to both legs. Tuberville anticipated bit terness.
The soldier was anything but bitter...
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When Success Is the Orphan
[Recommended]
Recent studies showing a decline in global incidents of Islamic terror have been interpreted as solely a Middle-East intramural affair. Sometimes the good news is said to be a naturally occurring phenomenon. We are supposed to believe that American policies of counter-terrorism at home have been of little value, if not McCarthyesque. Beefed-up security, the fight against the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the cultural creation of a repugnance — and penalty — for jihadism (as in contrast to the 1990s), have likewise supposedly played no role.
But surely the catalyst for the decline in terrorist incidents worldwide was the radically different response of the U.S. to terrorism and 9/11 that finally brought jihadism into an open-shooting war against the West (e.g., cf. the Left’s “creating terrorists”), in which the terrorists are losing the battle-space, along with the hearts and minds of those in the Middle East — as their own websites and cries of anguish attest. [snip]
By the same token, the rise of governments that are sympathetic to the U.S. in France, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe is never associated with a shared and growing worry over Islamic radicalism — or a grudging, often private acknowledgment of the U.S. role abroad in beating back jihadism. How surreal to see a constitutional government in Iraq, with broad popular support, fighting and defeating terrorists and insurgents of both the Wahhabi and Iranian brand — at a time when the charge is that Iraq only made terrorism much worse. As we’ve seen from recent events, there are many governments abroad that deserve criticism, whether in China, the Sudan, or Burma -- but Iraq is not one of them.
So these are upside-down times when facts and events on the ground simply do not support the general pessimism of the Western media, the serial publication of gloomy he-did-it,-not-me memoirs about the post-9/11 supposed failures, and the shrill rhetoric of the Democratic primaries. [snip]
We have not won the war on terror, but we are starting to see how the combination of domestic security, international cooperation, military action, cultural ostracism of those who condone terrorism, and promotion of constitutional government in the Middle East can, and will, marginalize and eventually defeat the jihadists...
[Recommended > ]
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The Palestinians' Self-Made Naqba
It’s become fashionable [in the media] to match celebration of Israel ’s founding (though part of the media can’t even admit Israelis are celebrating) with Palestinian marking of their 1948 “nakba” catastrophe. Yet whose fault is it that they didn’t use those six decades constructively? And who killed the independent Palestinian state alongside Israel that was part of the partition plan? Answer: The Arab states and Palestinian leadership themselves...
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China's All-Seeing Eye
With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export.
Many of the big American players have set up shop in Shenzhen, but they look singularly unimpressive next to their Chinese competitors. The research complex for China's telecom giant Huawei, for instance, is so large that it has its own highway exit, while its workers ride home on their own bus line. Pressed up against Shenzhen's disco shopping centers, Wal-Mart superstores — of which there are nine in the city — look like dreary corner stores. (China almost seems to be mocking us: "You call that a superstore?") McDonald's and KFC appear every few blocks, but they seem almost retro next to the Real Kung Fu fast-food chain, whose mascot is a stylized Bruce Lee.
American commentators like CNN's Jack Cafferty dismiss the Chinese as "the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years." But nobody told the people of Shenzhen, who are busily putting on a 24-hour-a-day show called "America" — a pirated version of the original, only with flashier design, higher profits and less complaining. This has not happened by accident. China today, epitomized by Shenzhen's transition from mud to megacity in 30 years, represents a new way to organize society. Sometimes called "market Stalinism," it is a potent hybrid of the most powerful political tools of authoritarian communism — central planning, merciless repression, constant surveillance — harnessed to advance the goals of global capitalism...
[as a fellow politico told me over a year ago: "China is something new" in its mixing of capitalism with totalitarianism - not a good thing. Not only does it stand to eat our lunch given our current rapid retreat from capitalism ourselves, but its successful model is rapidly being adopted by other nations - all of 'em despots, most notably Russia]
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Georgia demands Russian compensation for shot-down reconnaissance drone
Tbilisi, Georgia - Georgia demanded Tuesday that Russia pay for a reconnaissance airplane that U.N. observers say was shot down by a Russian fighter jet. Russia criticized a U.N. report, expressing doubt about the video footage that was a prominent piece of evidence. (Snip) ''Russia initiates military actions against the country where it pretends to be a peacekeeper,'' Saakashvili told a government session.
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IAEA Takes Iran to the Woodshed over Nuke Program
Note to Iran apologists: Even the United Nations nuclear watchdog - a notoriously anti-American group and obsessively non-confrontational - isn't satisfied with Iranian explanations about its nuclear enrichment activities:
The International Atomic Energy Agency, in an unusually blunt and detailed report, said Monday that Iran's suspected research into the development of nuclear weapons remained "a matter of serious concern" and that Iran continued to owe the agency "substantial explanations." [snip]Why would the military have "played a role" in "parts of their nuclear program?" They're kidding, right?
"There are certain parts of their nuclear program where the military seems to have played a role," said one senior official close to the agency, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic constraints. He added, "We want to understand why."
Sadly, no. This clueless group of bureaucrats is so concerned about telling the United Nations that Iran may be trying to build nukes that they usually praise the Iranians for their "cooperation" rather than confront them over technologies and hardware that have "dual use" capabilities.
The head of the IAEA Moahammed Elbaradei has even said he doesn't want to be responsible for starting a war between Iran and the US so he usually tempers his reports with so many caveats they are useless. As a document upon which the UN will take action, the report is a non-starter. There may be another round of watered down sanctions but that's it as far as the UN is concerned. Unless China and Russia suddenly change their minds, meaningful sanctions are out of the question.
Somewhere in Israel and probably in Washington, a clock is ticking and a countdown has begun. The world is running out of time to stop Iran from developing the capability to build nuclear weapons. Within a matter of months, they will have industrialized their enrichment capabilities. From there, it is another matter of months before they could enrich uranium to high enough levels to build a bomb.
Israel and America have said they will not allow that to happen. What the world will do to help still isn't clear.
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Western Climate Initiative: Stakeholders discuss cap-and-trade plan
You can buy and sell world currencies on a trading floor. And you can pick up produce at a neighborhood marketplace. But how do you construct a market for climate change pollution? (Snip) The latest public meeting of the Western Climate Initiative brought government together with the companies, students, labor unions, industry groups and environmental organizations eager to have a hand in shaping a cap-and-trade market for the West.
[read the paragraph again, re: who was 'brought together'. Excepting the student (being young they're supposed to be foolish), we're talking special interests front-to-back. The article speaks of capital-financiers and marketing pros and assuring all have 'a seat at the table'. Subject matter scientists are never mentioned. This is a boondoggle - what's being served 'at the table' is the American taxpayer]
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Russians snub offer to help cut emissions
The Russian owners of the Norilsk Nickel plant on the Kola Peninsula earned huge profits last year but haven't made any efforts to cut the plant's emissions. Nor have they taken up a Norwegian offer to fund a clean-up.
The metals plant [photo at left] is the largest source of sulphur dioxide emissions in Europe. It annually emits around 100,000 tons into the atmosphere, 4.2 times higher than Norway's total emissions. Never before has it released such high emissions, and never before has it earned so much money. Forbes Magazine estimated their wealth at about USD 45 billion.
Norway, which shares a border with Russia that adjoins the Kola Peninsula, has long been concerned about the plant's emissions. The Norwegian government has for years pledged NOK 270 million (USD 54 million) to help the plant cut emissions, but so far, nothing has happened...
[tell me again what our trillions spent on Kyoto would buy us? Russia and China aren't having any of it - but will make the occassional noise to see if the rest of us are foolish enough to cut our own economic throats with it]
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China emissions to swamp Kyoto reductions by 2010
Within two years, Chinese emissions of greenhouse gases will have vastly outstripped the reductions achieved by all the countries that have signed up to the Kyoto protocol combined. Using data provided by the Chinese government, researchers at the University of California have calculated that China's emissions by 2010 will be at least 600 million metric tonnes greater than they were in 2000. But the most likely outcome will be emissions of twice that figure.
[but we've florescent light bulbs forced upon us]
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Group will sue to list walrus as threatened
[meanwhile, in America...]
A conservation group gave notice Tuesday that it will sue to force federal action on a petition to list the Pacific walrus as a threatened species because of threats from global warming and offshore petroleum development. The deadline was May 8 for an initial 90-day review of the petition by the U.S. Department of the Interior, according to Center for Biological Diversity attorney Brendan Cummings.
[yes, these are the polar bear people, who have already stated that they intend to go right down the list of any & all potentially effected species with the goal of stopping all energy resource retrieval. The country does indeed need 'change']
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Americans Get The Judiciary We Pay For
We have Alexander Hamilton's assurances, from Federalist 78, that the judiciary is "the least dangerous" branch of government. Having "neither force nor will, but merely judgment," it "has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever."
Few passages from the Federalist seem as anachronistic today. Almost all social controversies seem to lead to the judiciary, and often up to the Supreme Court. So Roberts' report on the condition of the judiciary should interest a country selecting its next president, who, if he or she serves two terms, will fill about half the 875 seats on the federal bench. Now more than ever, but probably less today than tomorrow, the judicial branch is central to governance...
[the country needs 'change' indeed]
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Texas town's immigrant-renting rule is struck down
A Dallas suburb's ban on apartment rentals to illegal immigrants, an ordinance passed by city leaders and later endorsed in a vote by its residents, is unconstitutional, a federal judge found Wednesday.
Only the federal government can regulate immigration, U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay concluded in his decision.
The city didn't defer to the federal government on the matter, violating the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which allows for the federal government to pre-empt local laws, Lindsay said.
[ok, ignoring the abysmal job the feds are doing, there's some logic there. So, what will be done about the 'sanctuary cities' violating the supremacy clause in the other direction?]
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Man jailed after daughter fails exam
A father who was ordered by a judge to keep a close eye on his daughter's education has been jailed for six months after she failed a maths exam. Brian Gegner, of Fairfield, Ohio, was sentenced to 180 days in prison for "contributing to the delinquency of a minor". His daughter, Brittany, now 18, had a history of school truancy and a judge warned her father to make sure she passed her General Educational Development tests.
[sounds like a lousy father, but is this right? Are we ceeding to the state the right to subsume parentship based on arbitrary criteria? in attempting to prevent all harm of bad parents we're turning the government into ours]
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good news
Retirement-Fund Suits Allowed by U.S. Supreme Court
Participants in 401(k) and other retirement plans can file lawsuits claiming their individual accounts were mishandled, the U.S. Supreme Court said in a decision that bolsters the legal rights of 70 million people.
The court today unanimously allowed a suit by a man who says he lost almost $100,000 because his employer didn't make investment changes he requested. The court rejected business contentions that participants can sue only to enforce the rights of the entire plan, not to recover losses incurred by a single account.
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lite
Bloggers 'Nitwits Who Think They're Part of the News Media'
You pathetic little people of the blogosphere. You're nothing more than "nitwits at home with [your] computers" who've deluded yourselves into imagining you're "part of the news media." Just ask Mike Barnicle. The former Boston Globe columnist broke the tough truth to us on today's Morning Joe. WaPo editorial writer Jonathan Capehart was "so glad" to agree.
[typical: the 'professional' journo begins his piece with a blatant error: find a blogger that would claim any association with the media. they're really having trouble coping with the loss of their monopoly. aren't there 12-step programs for that kind of thing?]
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Wednesday, May 28, 2008
NASA Hits Mars Bullseye
In a jaw dropping feat of engineering and technical wizardry, NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander touched down on the surface of the Red Planet at 7:53 EDT last night after a journey of 9 months and more than 440 million miles:
The accuracy of landing exactly where they expected and wanted to is unreal. It was explained as firing an arrow from the pitchers mound at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles and hitting home plate at Wrigley Field in Chicago. But the course was so accurate that the scientists didn't need to make a last course correction that was scheduled for yesterday morning.
I wrote a background piece on the mission here.
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'Terror On Wane,' 'Al-Qaida On Run' And Other Headlines You Won't See
From the deserts of Iraq to the villages of Spain to the jungles of Colombia, these victories against terrorist groups are all linked. They are the result of using proven tactics, holding together resolutely, cooperating with other nations to share and deliver intelligence, and forming united fronts. When this happens, terrorists cannot flourish. Recent successes show that these wars are winnable.
They are winning against all odds, overcoming not just terrorists, but other obstacles such as a lumbering Pentagon bureaucracy and weak-kneed Western intelligentsia whose media toadies trump every military error and harp on every isolated bad deed.
Now proven wrong, these same critics retaliate by ignoring what is a very big story...
[Recommended > ]
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How Defense Research Is Making Troops More Effective in Wartime
When Army patrol leaders in Iraq prepare to go out on missions in Baghdad, their last stop at headquarters is a computerized map on which they outline the area where they will operate. Then they watch as icons emerge, showing, in grim detail, the lurking dangers. By clicking on those, they can bring up not only sites of past hostile action but also photos and background on local leaders -- some to see and others to avoid -- videos of hostile and safe places, and reports from previous patrols..
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The Rebellion Within: An Al Qaeda mastermind questions terrorism
Enormous consequences in store as the idea of renunciation of terrorism takes hold.
... Fadl’s fax confirmed rumors that imprisoned leaders of Al Jihad were part of a trend in which former terrorists renounced violence. His defection posed a terrible threat to the radical Islamists, because he directly challenged their authority. “There is a form of obedience that is greater than the obedience accorded to any leader, namely, obedience to God and His Messenger,” Fadl wrote, claiming that hundreds of Egyptian jihadists from various factions had endorsed his position. [snip]
Although the debate between Fadl and Zawahiri was esoteric and bitterly personal, its ramifications for the West were potentially enormous. Other Islamist organizations had gone through violent phases before deciding that such actions led to a dead end. Was this happening to Al Jihad? Could it happen even to Al Qaeda?
[again: contrary to media know-nothings, time is not on the side of extremists - provided they don't acquire WMD...]
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One Step Closer . . .
Since Iran’s nuclear program was exposed in August 2002, Tehran has protested its innocence and claimed its nuclear program has only civilian purposes. The IAEA has just produced its latest report and it is not expressing confidence in Iran’s version of the facts. The IAEA pressing Iran on a number of findings about clandestine military activities–a diagram for an underground testing arrangement, the testing of explosive bridgewire detonators normally used for nuclear weapons, and documents about modifying the Iranian Shahab-3 missile...
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Europe Shall Bleed, Once Again
Civilized peoples’ idea of the “other” is the exact opposite of that of Muslims. All over Europe, for one, people have been singing the praises of multiculturalism; the idea that everybody should bend over backwards to accommodate the different in society. However, the different in this case are the hordes of invasive Muslims, with their rigid medieval ideas about every aspect of private and public life.
Me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother, and my cousin against the other. This is an old Muslim saying and Muslims live by this motto. To be sure the people of the "religion of peace" find the world full of “other,” to oppress and kill, both within as well as without the Islamic Ummah.
To [fundamentalist] Muslims, anyone who doesn’t toe the line of Islam, as each sect defines it, is the “other” and fair game as kafir (blasphemous; unbeliever in Allah). The “other” covers a broad spectrum: the six billion or so people of the world who are not Muslims, including the Jews and Christians who are considered Dhimmis. Every one of the numerous sects and sub-sects of Islam consider every other sect and sub-sect as “other” to be punished and even eliminated... [snip]
Here are some of the statistics:
Marseilles – 25% (200,000 of 800,000)
Malmö - ~25% (67,000 of 270,000
Amsterdam – 24% (180,000 of 750,000)
Stockholm – 20% (>155,000 of 771,038)
Brussels - ~20% (some say 33%)
Moscow - 16-20% (2 million of 10-12 million)
London – 17% (1.3 million of 7.5 million)
Luton - 14.6% (26,963)
Birmingham 14.3% (139,771)
The Hague - 14.2% (67,896 of 475,580)
Utrecht - 13.2% (38,300 of 289,000)
Rotterdam – 13% (80,000 of 600,000)
Copenhagen - 12.6% (63,000 of 500,000)
Leicester – 11% (>30,000 of 280,000)
Aarhus - ~10%
Zaan district (Netherlands) - 8.8 percent
Paris - 7.38% (155,000 of 2.1 million)
Antwerp- 6.7% (>30,000 of >450,000)
Hamburg - 6.4% (>110,000 of 1.73 million)
Berlin - 5.9% (~200,000 of 3.40 million)
In the West, an unholy coalition of mentally-deranged suicidal-liberals; together with self-selling Islamic apologists; are doing their level best to assist the Islamists in the destruction of the existing order of freedom and liberty. [snip] Many affluent Europeans who see the handwriting on the wall are packing and moving to North America, Australia, and other seemingly safe lands...
[this is the perennial blindness of the West - Recommended > ]
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Tutu asks Hamas to halt rocket fire
Gaza City - Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu urged a senior Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip overnight to put an end to rocket attacks by militant groups against Israel. Archbishop Tutu, who leads a UN fact-finding mission to Hamas-run Gaza, also said he was moved to tears by the ''unacceptable'' situation in the Palestinian territory that is under a tight Israeli blockade[?]. (Snip) The former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town was in Gaza on a UN fact-finding mission into the killing of 19 Palestinian civilians in a 2006 Israeli artillery attack.
[ 'asks' Hamas to stop the daily firing of rockets at civilians? -- Correction: Israel isn't blockading Gaza, but defending it's own borders from suicide TRUCKS loaded with TONS of explosives; Gaza is free to import all the assistance it chooses from Egypt -- if their fellow Arabs chose to help them, but they decline: there wouldn't be a "unacceptable situation" for the UN to complain about if the vast, rich, Arab nations pooled resources to help their 'brothers'. Q: when is there going to be a UN 'fact finding mission' into Palestinians' daily assault on Israel? UNsalvagable - worse than useless - this is how the situation has festered for over 70 years...]
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UN’s IPCC preying on people’s ignorance
In previous parts of this series (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), I identified the deliberate process by which climate science was hijacked to establish a political agenda of undermining developed industrialized nations.
Maurice Strong and then others used UN agencies to control the science and the politics by proving the byproduct of those nation’s industries, specifically CO2, was causing catastrophic global warming and climate change. The urgent need throughout was not to understand climate but to find a clear human signal in the scientific data.
While the political and propaganda campaigns were successful, the science continued to prove defiant. But that wasn’t a concern for the cabal functioning through the IPCC because they knew the public didn’t understand the science. Now the exploitation of lack of knowledge could proceed...
[ DAVE T.: you wanted a 'concise-comprehensive' (cute) primer on global warming, this serves nicely in total (i.e., other 7 parts linked at bottom of article cover the full gambit of the issue. Recommended > ]
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Putin Cuts Taxes To Boost Oil Industry
Russia’s government took its first steps on Monday towards $4bn of tax cuts to boost investment in the oil industry. Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, told a cabinet session the proposed cuts to the mineral extraction tax would be fast-tracked for parliamentary review this week in order to increase oil production and boost refining. [snip]
Industry executives have blamed Russia’s tax regime for putting the brakes on investment just as fields in western Siberia start to peter out and additional funds are needed to tap more remote regions.
Mr Weafer said a second phase of tax cuts toadjust for inflation and the rouble’s appreciation was in the pipeline and could free up as much as $20bn for the industry, while a further $5bn to $10bn could come from changes to export tariffs.
Analysts said the further cuts were being discussed by the government and the oil lobby and could be forwarded to parliament in late June, in time to amend next year’s budget.
With oil prices at record levels of up to $130, Russia’s government could afford to give money back to the oil industry, Mr Weafer said. An average oil price of $110 per barrel this year would, he estimated, give the government $60bn to $70bn more than the revenues it was currently projecting.
[everyone the world over - but us]
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DANGEROUS TRADE GAMES
By killing "fast track" procedures that guarantee a yes-or-no vote on trade agreements within 90 days, Democratic lawmakers in Washington have destroyed the credibility of the United States as a reliable trading partner, says C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. [snip]
• The United States has been effectively removed from any significant international trade negotiations for the foreseeable future.Peterson Institute studies show that the U.S. economy is $1 trillion per year richer as a result of trade liberalization, and that America would gain another $500 billion per year if the world could move to totally free trade.
• Current and former chief trade officials of three of the world's largest trading entities have indicated that, since the House action, the U.S. has lost all credibility.
The European Union, and the large and dynamic economies of Asia, will now strike trade compacts among themselves that discriminate against America rather than attempt deals with her. The United States will lose billions of dollars worth of exports and the associated high-paying jobs -- just at a time when improvements in our trade balance, fortified by continuing growth abroad and a highly competitive dollar, are cushioning our slowdown.
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'Sharing' Social Security Numbers w/ 'Undocumented Workers'
Identity theft, defrauding the federal government, and illegal immigration are serious criminal matters.
But if you're the Web editor for MSNBC.com, stolen Social Security numbers are merely "shared" with "undocumented workers" stuck in a web of "federal employment laws."
From the subheadline for the front page tease to the May 27 edition of "Red Tape Chronicles" (see screencap above at right):
Millions of Americans find themselves sharing Social Security identies with others, mostly undocumented workers looking to get around federal employment laws.Of course, you're lucky if just one person is "sharing" your Social Security Number (SSN). MSNBC.com blogger Bob Sullivan noted one Chicago woman who had 37 other people fraudulently claiming her number. Yet at no point in his 33-paragraph post did Sullivan describe the claiming of other people's SSNs as "fraud." What's more [you knew it was coming], Sullivan turned to an "immigration rights advocate" who painted the illegal immigrant fraudsters themselves as victims: [...]
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All Wet: P.C. in the heartland.
It’s springtime, and political correctness is blooming in Iowa. It takes the form of new Core Curriculum “standards” proposed by the Iowa Department of Education which misinform and manipulate kids. Standard course requirements for schools are not intrinsically bad... (Snip) A more egregious example is Application B on the same page, which instructs students to use what they’ve been taught “and other research, [to] write a letter to your legislator arguing against the sale of DDT to Third World countries when it is banned in the U.S.”
[not arguing the student's position pro or con, but the school's predetermined stance. how does 'indoctrination' not apply?]
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Little Annie to rescue, in a big way
LAKE OSWEGO -- Pam Fischer usually wags a finger and says "hush" when her little dachshund, Annie, starts barking. But now, she's glad her 91/2-pound friend has such a big mouth.
Around 1 a.m. Tuesday, police responded to a complaint about a barking dog waking residents in the Lake Grove neighborhood. Sgt. John Brent expected to find a giant, frothing canine. Instead, he was confronted by a very small, very agitated dachshund that was so aggressive it blocked Brent's patrol car.
At first Brent, who heads Lake Oswego's police canine unit, tried to catch Annie -- formally named Annabelle -- but that only made things worse. Not only did the dog keep barking with unwavering ferocity, she wouldn't let Brent pass and stopped him when he tried to leave in the other direction.
That's when the officer heard a faint cry for help...
[good doggie]
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Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Why is it so hard for Americans to learn about the successes of our war on terror? In the wake of the killing of the leader of the FARC guerillas and the success of our Iraq policies in marginalizing Al Qaeda (all without much press notice), Investor's Business Daily points to the lessons Colombia can teach us about fighting a guerilla war.
As support flags for the Iraq War even in the face of victory, it may help to look to south to Colombia, where the public still supports its military and celebrates victories. The fighting spirit helps to win. [...]
You see, in Colombia, they understand terrorists thrive on propaganda machines of their own. To win, you must get ahead of them.
[snip]
The U.S. can learn from this. If we're to win our war on terror, we must do more than just send our troops into harm's way. We must celebrate them - and the victory they're bringing us.
There may be little we can do about the inclinations of the press and the elites in our country, but more vigorous communication from the top would have been helpful. In war we need a great communicator, it seems.
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Face of Defense: Soldier Fights to Deploy Despite Medical Condition
... Still more visits to more doctors led him to a neurologist. Late in September 2005, he was diagnosed with multifocal motor neuropathy. [snip]
Once again, the doctors said no. A chain of e-mails revealed one medical professional after another who believed he had no business deploying. They cited the risk for contamination, with possible secondary effects of anaphylaxis or renal failure. They said his understanding of the condition was “oversimplified.”
In his response, he said he outlined his own research -- discussing the shelf life of the medication and the plan that he and squadron surgeon Maj. (Dr.) Sean Hollonbeck, had come up with to administer the treatments.
“The Army is attempting and perfecting new things in the theater of operation every day,” he wrote. “Why not this? -- Army doctrine is to train in times of peace and to win at war,” Smith said. “I see a lot of value in what I did as a rear detachment soldier, but if the Army’s at war, I want to go."
After a successful month at Fort Irwin, Calif., at the National Training Center, during which an enlisted combat medic administered the treatment, the Army finally relented. Smith deployed to Multinational Division Baghdad as part of Task Force 12 in November 2007.
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Commander Charts Progress in Baghdad, Diyala
– A mix of force, good governance and economic stimuli has resulted in a turnaround for an area in Iraq that once was a hotbed of Sunni and Shiite insurgents. [snip]
“In our time here, murders have declined by greater than 50 percent, from 631 in '06 to 253 in '07,” [context: many US cities average between 700-1100 murders/year] Grigsby said in a video hook-up from Baghdad. “Shop owners are selling their goods in revitalized markets, and we are now down to maybe one attack every other day.” [snip]
“We did bloody the nose of the enemy, and the enemy does fear us, both coalition forces and Iraqi security forces. We never forgot what a U.S. Army heavy brigade combat team is built to do: to close with and destroy the enemy."
The unit’s soldiers head back to Fort Benning, Ga., knowing they have made a difference, Grigsby said.
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Olbermann Names General Petraeus "Worser" Person in the World
Last night on the MSNBC program "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," the host gave the runner up position to his daily segment "World's Worst Persons in the World" to General David Petraeus. View video here.
"Tonight‘s runner-up, General David Petraeus. It turns out his role as a press flack for President Bush began long before his embarrassing testimony to Congress last September. "After the negative reaction the smear ad from MoveOn.org received last year it should be well-known by now that name calling Gen. Petraeus is not the way to go. Apparently Mr. Olbermann didn't get the memo. Hat tip: Greg Pollowitz.
Partial transcript here: [...]
[I watched much of the General's testimony last fall; he was chief among the minority {all in uniform} in the room who didn't embarrass themselves. incredible {literally}]
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Palestinian suicide bomber attacks Gaza crossing
Gaza City, Gaza Strip - A Palestinian suicide bomber detonated a truck loaded with tons of explosives early Thursday in an attempt to ram a crucial crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, militants said.
[but why oh why does Israel have all those checkpoints at their borders? They make it hard for Palestinians to get to work]
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How Iran is changing the balance of power in the Middle East?
Lebanon fell in the lap of the Iranian regime in less than two days. Lebanon is now unofficially a colony of Iran. The illusions are over now. Those who thought that Iran has abandoned Hezbollah and occupation of Lebanon through Hezbollah were proved to be wrong. Iran designed a strategy of deception for some time to arm, equip and train Hezbollah to the highest level on one hand and to give false assurances to the Arab governments that it has no bad intentions in Lebanon. During this time, the Shia regime of Iran prepared Hezbollah so well and so much that it took over Beirout in less than two days... [snip]
The poor Sunnis, who have been disappointed completely in different aspects of life, now convert to Shiism and they get some substantial financial rewards for so doing. Every Sunni that converts to Shiism becomes a new agent of Iran and will join an organization that is supported and financed by Iran. The stakes are high. Iran has numerous and very powerful leverages in Arab countries and can create any change she wants. The Arab countries are helpless. They have become the victims of their self- complacent attitude and policies. While Iran can interfere in their policies when ever she wants, the Arab countries cannot do anything inside Iran as they do not have any viable allies among the Suuni and Shia Iranians.
Iran is changing the balance of power in the Broader Middle East.
[and the West signs more energy deals with Iran {Switzerland}. A permanent base in Iraq is our only hope of mitigating Iran's march to dominate the region - a region our economy literally cannot do without]
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South Korea, Arab States Move to Improve Relations
SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea and a group of governments from the Middle East and Africa agreed to launch a cooperative organization Monday aimed at enhancing political, cultural and economic ties, officials said. [snip]
The resource-poor country is heavily dependent on oil imports and has been intensifying what it calls energy diplomacy to secure stable supplies amid a scramble by Asian neighbors China, India and Japan to so the same amid rising prices.
[the implications to America's political refusal to compete in the field of energy are legion - we're handing energy exporters such as Russia and the middle east enormous influence, none of whom are our friends {i.e., brilliant}]
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Planting the Seeds of a Demographic Winter
Did you know that planting a tree won’t save the earth?
A two-person household is responsible for releasing 41,500 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. To offset that, each household would have to plant 483 trees and let them grow for 10 years.
We know this because the Washington Post Home section on May 8 featured a cover story encouraging folks to plant trees while sternly warning them that this won’t help much because people are a cancer on the planet.
If a two-person household is that bad, what does that make families with children? Environmental criminals? Earth wreckers?
[a lever for massive social engineering - paid for in the coin of liberties]
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Democrats' Energy Plan: Tax, Sue, and Investigate
More than two years ago, now-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues promised what they called a “common sense” energy plan to bring down prices at the gas pump.
Today, 744 days later, congressional Democrats finally unveiled their grand proposal to the American people.
To most Americans, addressing rising energy prices might include at least a bow to the law of supply and demand. It might contain some true common sense ideas such as stepped-up exploration, added domestic refinery capacity, or other measures to increase U.S. energy and reduce dependence on foreign supplies.
But Democrats made clear they have other priorities. They want to tax, sue and investigate their way out of this problem...
[you should read it, seeing as you're going to pay for it > ]
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House action targets OPEC
Washington - The House voted Tuesday to let the Justice Department pursue energy antitrust and price fixing cases against members of the OPEC oil cartel, although critics said such attempts would likely be fruitless and could prompt a backlash from oil producers. The bill, approved 324-84, also would create a special Justice Department task force to investigate energy markets to root out manipulation and unwarranted speculation. Similar measures are part of a package of Democratic energy proposals being considered in the Senate.
[but we won't drill our own wells]
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What We're Buying at College
At Colorado College in Colorado Springs, a couple of insouciant students circulated a flyer that parodied one distributed by the Feminist and Gender Studies program. The FGS flyer called itself the "Monthly Rag" (charming) and reportedly advertised a lecture on "feminist porn" and carried an approving mention of "castration." The student parody flyer, the "Monthly Bag," referred to "tough guy wisdom," the range of a sniper rifle and "chainsaw etiquette."
The students responsible for the parody were at first threatened with expulsion, which was later reduced to a violation of the college's student conduct policy on (get ready for it) "violence." Dean of Students Michael Edmonds acknowledged that the flyer was a satire, but "in the climate in which we find ourselves today, violence -- or implied violence -- of any kind cannot be tolerated."
Translation: If someone uses words you find offensive, he has committed an act of violence. This does violence to the English language, apart from the assault on free speech and free thought. The offenders will be forced to attend a forum to discuss the issues raised (read: reeducation seminar) and will have a disciplinary note placed in their student files...
[parents: choose your child's college carefully]
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Friday, May 23, 2008
Petraeus: Troops in Iraq help blunt Iran threat
WASHINGTON - Army Gen. David Petraeus, who is to assume control of U.S. forces in the Middle East, says that a continued U.S. presence in Iraq is more likely to blunt, rather than inflame, Iran's growing influence in the region. In a 46-page question-and-answer document submitted in advance of his confirmation hearing on Thursday, Petraeus says the U.S. must work on developing more leverage - primarily diplomatic or economic - to pressure Tehran to abandon its nuclear program. But, he notes, the U.S. must retain military strike options...
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Gates Again Asks Congress to Pass Emergency Funding Act
WASHINGTON, May 20, 2008 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates asked Congress today to act quickly to approve the president’s $102.5 billion fiscal 2008 supplemental war budget request.
Gates told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee that the delay in passing the emergency legislation means the department is now using fourth-quarter funds from the department’s base budget to cover current war costs.
If Congress doesn’t act soon, Gates said, two critical accounts will run dry, starting with Army military personnel.
“After June 15, we will run out of funds in this account to pay soldiers, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Gates said.
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From Detainee to Detonatee
"A Kuwaiti man released from the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay in 2005 has carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq, his cousin told Al Arabiya television on Thursday," Reuters reports from Dubai.[snip]
Over at The Volokh Conspiracy, blogger and law professor Jonathan Adler makes a manful effort at evenhandedness: [snip]
According to Adler, both sides agree that the detainees at Guantanamo are terrorists, differing only over how they became terrorists. The real distinction is that one side favors keeping the terrorists at Guantanamo so as to prevent terrorism, whereas the other side wants to release the terrorists so that they can murder more Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere...
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Twofer...
.
U.S. and UK say Hezbollah weaker after Beirut fighting
The United States and Britain said on Thursday they believed Hezbollah had been weakened by this month's fighting in Beirut despite the greater influence the militant group gained in Lebanon's Cabinet. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Foreign Secretary David Miliband rejected the view that the show of force by Hezbollah had increased its power. "Hezbollah lost something very important, which is any argument that it is somehow a resistance movement on behalf of the Lebanese people," Rice told reporters...
[their additional seats now allow them to veto any legislation they disagree with. So, are we going to act on their weakened state - while it lasts - to wipe them out? Of course not? Then they won.]
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Sharia law part of deal to stop attacks
Islamabad - A Pakistani Government deal to bring peace to the conflict-ravaged Swat valley will introduce Sharia law in return for an end to Taliban suicide bombings, attempts to stop girls going to school and attacks on barbers who shave beards. The peace deal was signed on Wednesday by the newly elected Government of North West Frontier Province and representatives of the cleric Maulvi Fazlullah, whose fighters battled the army last year.
[translation: they won]
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A Talk in Tehran
The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reports that two organizations at Tehran University will host a May 26th conference on “Israel’s End” in order to coincide with “the sad 60th anniversary of Palestine’s occupation by the Zionists.” Here’s the IRNA:
The guests of the conference that would be attended by Iranian and foreign students of universities in Tehran will be intellectuals and university professors from Egypt, Venezuela, Morocco, Lebanon, Indonesia, the United States, Pakistan, Argentina, India, Iraq, Syria, Chile, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, France, Tunisia, and a number of other countries.In March, the Justice-Seeking Student Movement, one of groups organizing the upcoming confab, offered a bounty of more than $1 million for the assassination of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Mossad director Meir Dagan, and military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin.
What kind of student activist group has a cool million laying around in a mercenary fund?
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The United States and U.N. Security Resolution 1325
The House Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight held a hearing last week to discuss House Resolution 146 which concerns the United States’ 'responsibility' regarding the United Nations Security Resolution 1325.
The introduction to the resolution states: “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States should take action to meet its obligations, and to ensure that all other member states of the United Nations meet their obligations, as agreed to in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325..." [snip]
The problem is that the United States has not agreed to the obligations of the UN Security Resolution 1325. That UN Resolution refers to numerous UN treaties. The United States has made no commitments to those treaties. For instance, we have withdrawn from the International Criminal Court to which it refers. [snip]
It is important to note exactly WHY the United States has chosen NOT to make these commitments.
The issue in regard to the U.N. treaties is a matter of national sovereignty, a matter of quotas and a matter of the specific provisions of the various treaties that would challenge the laws and culture of the United States...
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German universities bow to public pressure over GM crop
Scientists have decried the decision by two German universities to pull the plug on field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops, calling it a “disgraceful” interference with scientists' freedom to research. “Unfortunately, we were no longer able to deal with the massive opposition from politicians and the general public. The university has a reputation in the region that we cannot risk losing.”
[truly amazing: there's food riots erupting all over the planet, but because of the euro-enviro's long standing hysteria over genetically modified crops they're actually succeeding in banning the single most promising solution to world hunger. What's next, refusing to develop energy because the Earth has a fever?]
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Blessed are the sceptics
IN 1633 Galileo Galilei was hauled before the religious authorities of his day, the Inquisition, for daring to concur with Copernicus that the Earth was not the centre of the universe and also that it orbited the sun rather than the other way around.
For his pains, he was placed under house arrest and forced to recant. Giordano Bruno failed to recant and suffered a crueller fate.
Today we are faced with a newer religion known as environmental activism which has insinuated itself into some aspects of science. It shares some of the intolerance to new or challenging ideas with the old. Immolation at the stake is no longer fashionable but it has been replaced by pillory in the media.
The new faith makes it apostasy to question the proposition that our river systems are dying and that nothing like this has ever happened before. And it is the blackest heresy to suggest that the beatification of StAl and the Goronites may be a little premature.
The symbols and practices of the new and the old faiths are remarkably similar...
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Governor says Alaska will challenge polar bear listing
Anchorage, Alaska -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says the state will sue to challenge the listing of polar bears as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Palin on Wednesday said there is insufficient evidence to support the decision U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne made last week. Palin says polar bears are well managed and that their numbers have dramatically increased over 30 years...
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To give America freedom
What do the following recent events have in common? c The president of the United States has prostrated himself for the second time in five months before the king of Saudi Arabia, pleading for more oil.
Despite George Bush's inducements — an array of advanced, offensive arms; the promise of nuclear technology with which the Saudis can expect (like the North Koreans, Iranians, Pakistanis, etc.) to acquire the ultimate weapons; and U.S. help securing Saudi Arabia's borders (something the president has declined to do at home) — the American plea was spurned. The contempt felt by the House of Saud was captured in its oil minister's quip, "If you want more oil, buy it." [snip]
• The Senate rejected, by a vote of 56-42, an initiative offered by Republicans that called for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska and some offshore waters now closed to exploration and exploitation of their substantial oil reserves.It seems that, if we want more oil, we will have to buy it at ever increasing prices from the Saudis and others even more unfriendly to this country's national security and economic interests — like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez or Russia's Vladimir Putin, perhaps even Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. [more, snip]
• In addition, that chamber's appropriations committee refused by a similar party-line vote to lift its moratorium on oil-shale production in Colorado.
These actions — given soaring energy prices and the attendant hemorrhage of U.S. petrodollars to, among others, people who wish us ill — represent the sort of behavior in which only a nation utterly unserious about energy security could indulge.
In truth, no matter what we do, we will need oil for the foreseeable future. As a result, we should do our utmost to find and exploit it in places either under our control (for example, near where the Cubans and Chinese are getting it off the coast of Florida) or at least friendly to us (notably, Canada, Mexico and Brazil)...
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Appeals court rules state had no right to seize sect kids
SAN ANGELO — A state appellate court ruled today that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law...
[object lesson: let's see who gets fired over this {like the judge who allowed it}. My bet; no one - it's government]
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Kansas Voters Could Change the Way Judges Are Selected
Kansas will have a proposition on the November ballot that could send shock waves into the tenure of state court judges. The voters in Kansas' Johnson County will vote on the right to elect their 10th judicial district court judges instead of having them chosen by the lawyers.
We hear a lot in the media about bringing democracy to the world. Citizens in this suburban Kansas City county are asking for more democracy in the middle of the United States...
[We've activist judges (galore) because they're largely unaccountable to the American people. "Independent Judiciary" was meant to mean independent from the other branches of government only - never the people - we need remind the black robe society on who's sufferance their jobs rightly depend. Recommended > ]
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Preferences for Everybody!
Would white voters be more inclined to support so-called affirmative action if it discriminated only in favor of blacks, rather than, as it does now, in favor of women and all "persons of color"--which is to say, against white men? Maybe.
Then again, blacks-only racial preferences would have been untenable, for both political and legal reasons. Politically, it would have been difficult to sustain support for a program of discrimination that benefited only about an eighth of the population. But when you add in every minority under the sun plus a whole sex, you give a large majority of the population an interest in preserving the system...
[ironic that the only legal minority in the US is white men. Will we ever be honest enough to admit that AA is nothing more than state sponsored discrimination against them?]
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ACLU
.
ACLU: Police Enforcing Immigration Laws 'Terrorize' America
State and local police who help enforce federal immigration laws are targeting Latinos and ''terrorizing'' people across the United States, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said at a briefing on Capitol Hill on Monday.
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ACLU's War On U.S. Immigration Law
Prof. Nicholas Stix
While President George W. Bush, ICE, and Congress act as if the U.S. had no immigration laws and no borders, some heroic local officials and private organizations have nevertheless sought, against all odds, to enforce and uphold immigration law. And every time they have done so, the ACLU has been there to fight them, on behalf of those who are flouting our laws.
A study of the tactics of local ACLU chapters across the country and the national ACLU reveals a distinct, coordinated strategy of six components...
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"The ACLU set a course to destroy America - her freedom and her values - right from the start."~Jax Hawk
Little Annie to rescue, in a big way
LAKE OSWEGO -- Pam Fischer usually wags a finger and says "hush" when her little dachshund, Annie, starts barking. But now, she's glad her 91/2-pound friend has such a big mouth.
Around 1 a.m. Tuesday, police responded to a complaint about a barking dog waking residents in the Lake Grove neighborhood. Sgt. John Brent expected to find a giant, frothing canine. Instead, he was confronted by a very small, very agitated dachshund that was so aggressive it blocked Brent's patrol car.
At first Brent, who heads Lake Oswego's police canine unit, tried to catch Annie -- formally named Annabelle -- but that only made things worse. Not only did the dog keep barking with unwavering ferocity, she wouldn't let Brent pass and stopped him when he tried to leave in the other direction.
That's when the officer heard a faint cry for help...
[good doggie]
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Thursday, May 22, 2008
Iraqi forces on brink of controlling Sadr City
Iraqi forces aim to be in complete control of Sadr City within 24 hours after some 10,000 troops, backed by tanks, pushed deep into the Baghdad Shia slum in an unprecedented operation.
Militiamen who have clashed with US and Iraqi soldiers over the past few weeks melted away as the Iraqi Army took control of the streets in the impoverished slum for the first time since the 2003 invasion.
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