[he's applying for a job with us as his boss. Isn't he?]

Naval Academy Graduates: They Signed Up to Serve

Whether headed to the Marine Corps, to flight school or to the fleet to serve as surface warriors, submariners or in other capacities, today’s graduates said they brought a common drive to the Naval Academy: a desire to serve their country.

As they gathered inside the fence line at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in preparation for today’s graduation and commissioning ceremony, the midshipmen reflected on why they chose to serve and on the leadership qualities they hope to bring to the calling...

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U.S. trains Iraqi women to find female suicide bombers

YUSUFIYA, Iraq - Female suicide bombers, who often slip through security checkpoints untouched because of cultural norms, are taking a more deadly toll than ever across Iraq. But the U.S. Army has created a solution with "Daughters of Iraq," a program that trains Iraqi women to find female suicide bombers.

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More Americans to be Killed

The Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling last week means that terrorism detainees captured overseas have the same rights as U.S. citizens facing shoplifting trials at home. This unprecedented expansion of habeas was not a victory over the President. It was a judicial nullification of procedures carefully crafted by both elected branches of Government of procedures carefully tailored to allow review of detentions while remaining mindful of the terrorist threat.

The smallest of majorities is disregarding judicial history and pretending we live in a world where captured deadly enemies can be granted an advantage, without it affecting the likelihood of victory. The Court invalidated the law because it found:

"…no credible arguments that the military mission would be compromised if habeas courts had jurisdiction to hear detainees' claims."

It is difficult to fault Scalia's riposte:

"What competence does the Court have to second-guess the judgment of Congress and President on such a point?"

Scalia detailed how prisoners released from Guantanamo had returned to murder Americans and our allies. Scalia is foreseeably correct in concluding that the decision"will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

The Court is basing its decision -- disregarding two centuries of decisions holding that habeas is unavailable to aliens captured abroad -- on the fact that Gitmo is "functionally" under U.S. control. But so are U.S. bases in Afghanistan and Iraq... [snip]

If you do not comprehend that the ACLU and its fellow revelers are preparing petitions in blank -- on behalf of every terrorist captured overseas -- to compel the Government immediately to disclose its evidence, then you understand nothing.

Chief Justice Roberts pointed out in his dissent what the Court is opening the door to:

"free access to classified information ignores the risk the prisoner may convey what he learns to parties hostile to this country, with deadly consequences for those who helped apprehend the detainee."

Roberts noted that our troops are not equipped to handle subpoenas on the battlefield. Information given to defense lawyers in the first World Trade Towers trial on a restricted basis quickly appeared on al-Jazeera... [snip]

"If the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the Bill of Rights into a suicide pact."

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Countrywide Story ‘Has Everything,’ but Networks Ignore It

"This story has everything," Menefee said. "It has a former presidential candidate, Chris Dodd. It has two senators who are getting, like you said, sweetheart loans. It has Kent Conrad, another senator, who called the CEO of the lender to get his loan, which is not what we normally do, and then said, ‘Oh, I didn't get any preferential treatment and I didn't do anything wrong, but I'm going to give a charitable donation to remedy the fact that I didn't do anything wrong.'"

Menefee said it was "very sad" that the networks failed to report the scandal - not just because they refused to go after two Democrats, but because they missed an opportunity to expose the bailout plan Dodd has been defending.

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Columbia University MidEast Studies professor blames West for gays in Muslim lands

[HT:PG]
Columbia University professor Joseph Massad numbers one more mark against the West. This professor hails from the same department that hosted Edward Said and now hosts, in the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies chair, Barack Obama friend and fierce critic of Israel Rashid Khalidi.

Jamie Sneider of the Weekly Standard captures the madness:

...Massad belongs on a psychiatrist's couch, not behind a podium. In Desiring Arabs, Massad asserts that the West "produces homosexuals as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist." But for colonialism, Massad contends, there would be no gay people in the Middle East for the tyrannical governments of Egypt and Iran to persecute. Although Massad says he opposes hanging gay people, he shifts the blame from the hooded executioners to the United States.

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Columbia last fall and made a similar claim ("In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country."), students laughed and booed. They recently, however, elected to award Massad the Lionel Trilling Book Award for making the nearly identical claim.

[this isn't just another nut case - he's a nut case with the captive audience of our children]

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Iran Could Make Nuke In 6 Months

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei spoke on Al-Arabiya television on June 20, discussing Iran's nuclear program, and the potential for the Middle Eastern country to produce a nuclear weapon.

"If Iran wants to turn to the production of nuclear weapons, it would need at least, considering the number of centrifuges and the quantity of uranium Iran has...It would need at least six months to one year,"

ElBaradei also warned that he will resign as chief of the UN nuclear agency if Iran is attacked by any country.

The reports this week of Israeli military maneuvers, which took place in early June, provoked the IAEA warning, said CBS News Foreign Affairs Pamela Falk, who is based at the UN.

Ironically [predictably], Israel felt compelled to action by the last IAEA report, which concluded that there are unanswered questions about Iran's ability to eventually develop nuclear weapons - so it is elBaradei himself who produced the report that is making Israel nervous.

Meanwhile, Iran is reiterating its decision to continue enriching uranium...

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UNRWA: Barrier to Peace

The United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) was created under the jurisdiction of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with the unique responsibility of solely aiding the Palestinians. Due to this special status, the UNRWA perpetuates, rather than resolves, the Palestinian refugee issue, and therefore serves as a major obstacle toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Like no other UN body, UNRWA's definition of refugees includes not only the refugees themselves, but also their descendents. Moreover, refugees keep their status even if they have gained citizenship. UNRWA employs teachers affiliated with Hamas and allows the dissemination of Hamas messages in its schools. The Hamas coup in Gaza of July 2007 has resulted in a Hamas takeover of UNRWA facilities there.

Therefore, UNRWA should be dissolved and its services transferred to more appropriate administering organizations...

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GLOBAL WARMING -- FROG DECLINE LINK IS DISPROVEN

A new study in the peer-reviewed PLoS Biology, a journal of the Public Library of Science, has disproven sensationalist media reports of global warming causing a mass die-off of tropical frogs.

In January 2006, a Nature magazine article argued global warming was behind the spread of a fungus, amphibian chytridiomycosis, in Central America that was decimating tree frog populations. Ignoring the researchers' clear bias and predisposition toward finding global warming as the cause, many prominent media outlets including MSNBC, BBC, the Washington Post and the New York Times were quick to cover the Nature report and point the finger at global warming.

However, this new study by a team of scientists specializing in zoology and animal health provides strong counterevidence to disprove the Nature magazine article, According to the study: [snip] The scientists also found that the preliminary Nature study used flawed methodology and overlooked very basic real-world information. [snip]

"This is just one more example of how alarmists, including scientists on a mission, jump the gun, touting any environmental harm as being caused by 'global warming', regardless of the counterevidence," said Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow for the National Center for Policy Analysis. "Thankfully, more thoughtful and honest researchers have debunked the myth that 'global warming' is behind the frogs' unfortunate demise."

[as go them all, one after the other, when credible science is applied]

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Heating, Electricity Rates Rising As Prices For Natural Gas Surge

Consumers struggling with $4 gasoline face ballooning costs for another energy source: natural gas. Natural gas futures have vaulted 154% since Aug. 27 to $13.203 per million British thermal units on Monday. The run-up has outpaced the rise in crude oil, which has doubled. Consumers may not feel the full impact immediately, but continued high prices will push up monthly utility bills, if they haven't already done so. Americans often use natural gas for heating stove tops and water, but they see a bigger hit when they fire up gas furnaces...

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Gas could fall to $2 if Congress acts, analysts say

WASHINGTON - The price of retail gasoline would fall by half, to around $2 a gallon, within 30 days of passage of a law to limit speculation in energy futures markets, four energy analysts told Congress on Monday. Testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management said the price of crude oil would quickly drop closer to its marginal cost of around $65 to $75 a barrel, about half the current $135.

[perhaps short term - it would retard the speculation aspect which, ironically, is based predominantly on Congress' continued obstinacy re: supply. But I think the larger point is that demand will not only continue to increase vis-a-vis China & India, but that increase is accelerating - we need begin developing greater supply now to forestall double-digit fuel costs in the not too distant future - by one estimate, 15$ a gallon in 7 years if supply isn't meaningfully increased.]

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Obama To Hammer McCain On Offshore Drilling "Gimmick"

LAS VEGAS - Offshore drilling continues to be a major sticking point between Barack Obama and John McCain, and the two candidates are still jabbing at each other’s position for the second week.

Obama, who has argued that drilling will not immediately lower gas prices, is expected today to condemn McCain’s recent comments about the “psychological” benefits of offshore drilling. (Snip)

Obama, who wants to keep a moratorium on offshore drilling, will argue that McCain is offering a “gimmick”...

[the 'psychological' benefits, Mr. Senator, have to do with how OPEC {and some speculators} interpret our intentions - as they have every other time we've moved toward reduced reliance...]

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What the NHS considers 'fair'

The United Kingdom's government-run health care system faces a terrible dilemma: how to balance the freedom of the individual wanting to do everything possible to prolong life against a system which has to set limits on behalf of everyone in order the preserve the principle of free care for all irrespective of their ability to pay, says the Guardian. Under the current system:

• The National Health Service (NHS) will withdraw a sick person's free care merely because they chose to fund an additional element, such as a special drug, of their treatment themselves. [i.e., buy any supplemental care and you're out of the system {forget the taxes you've been paying into it forever}]

Although many currently believe that allowing top-ups would be a good thing, the UK's publicly funded health system must determine whether it can allow some patients to top up their treatment without seriously damaging the equity of the current system...

[i.e., it's government]

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Making Government the Biggest Insurer

The bipartisan possibilities of allowing health insurance to be purchased across state lines appear to be growing more unlikely, says U.S. News and World Report. John McCain and Barack Obama have offered very different proposals to reform the health insurance industry:

• Obama would allow the national sale of only private insurance plans that go through his "National Health Insurance Exchange," which means that the insurance plans would have to accept federal government controls on what to cover and how much to charge.

• McCain says he would allow the nationwide sale of private health insurance without that kind of government oversight.

Obama's plan for a National Health Insurance Exchange means less competition. Paul Edattel, healthcare policy analyst for Shadegg, says if you undercut private insurers and place price controls on them, government is going to become the biggest insurance company in the country...

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Economy on brink of recession, Greenspan says

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned on Tuesday the U.S. economy was on the brink of a recession, with the chances of that happening at more than 50 percent

"The problem that you have here is that ... significant pressures are coming from oil and food, but they are none the less real. The price increases are real and unless the central bank leans against them ... you will get a highly unstable inflation environment..."

[i.e., it's the energy, stupid. By doing nothing about it we should be officially in recession by, say, November...]

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San Francisco to vote on George W Bush sewage works
Los Angeles - San Francisco is to hold a vote on whether to rename one of its largest sewage treatment facilities after George W. Bush, in what supporters describe as “a fitting monument to the President’s work”.
[so proud]
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U.S. Charitable Giving Hits Record Despite Slowing Growth
Mounting economic worries haven't stopped Americans from donating to charities. Charitable giving hit a record in 2007, topping $300 billion...
[actually I believe US private philanthropy has topped 300B$ several times before now, per an article by Thomas Brewton I've noted from Feb. this year (but can't find - apologies), and approached 500B$ after the global tsunami a few years ago. Point: when [it's coming, again] some mealy mouthed European spouts off about American selfishness, remember: they're talking about government charity - and that's not our model.]
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