McCain Not First to Compare Obama to Paris Hilton

The uproar of the media, serving as adjunct PR firms in defense of their beloved Sen. Barack Obama in response to Sen. John McCain's video comparing the Illinois Senator to Paris Hilton, was deafening. The ad was described as "nasty", "childish" and "juvenile", a "strange" "nuclear attack" for having dared to compare their anointed one to the brainless celebutant hotel heiress.

Would all of this overwrought press hysteria be rendered even sillier were it to turn out that Sen. McCain was in actuality quoting Sen. Obama? You'd like to think so...

A February 24, 2005, Washington Post article begins:

"There's nothing exotic or complicated about how phenoms are made in Washington, and, more to the point, how they are broken.

"Andy Warhol said we all get our 15 minutes of fame," says Barack Obama. "I've already had an hour and a half. I mean, I'm so overexposed, I'm making Paris Hilton look like a recluse."

It's just another example of the elite media not liking a Liberal's own words being used against him in the court of public opinion.

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Iran Says No to Diplomacy

The deadline for an Iranian response to the opulent package of incentives the regime was offered two weeks ago passed on Saturday, and was accompanied by three answers:

1. Iran will not give up “a single iota of its nuclear rights.” That is, Iran will never voluntarily abandon the pursuit of nuclear weapons.

2. Iran says it tested a new anti-ship missile, and the head of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said that “Enemies know that we are easily able to block the Straits of Hormuz for unlimited period.” (I am highly skeptical of both claims.)

3. According to the AP, Ahmadinejad yesterday said that “diplomacy is the only way out of his country’s standoff with the West over its disputed nuclear program and insisted he was serious about negotiations.”

So who is still working under the fantasy that fruitful “engagement” is still possible? One such person is the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, who was on the phone today with Iran’s nuclear “negotiator,” Saeed Jalili. What is the extent of Solana’s desire to keep the West in suspended animation? It appears unlimited:

Iranian state-run television reported that in the telephone conversation, “both sides agreed to continue talks.”

‘They also emphasised that preserving this path (talks) needs a positive and constructive atmosphere,’ the television report said without elaborating.

This is unsurprising. Javier Solana has always had only one weapon in his arsenal — phone calls — and his interlocutors know it. It has also long been evident that Solana’s actual goal in his talks is not the prevention of Iranian nuclear weapons, but the prevention of the cessation of talks about Iranian nuclear weapons. This is tautological diplomacy at its finest, in which the maintenance of talks has itself become the purpose of diplomacy.

[meanwhile the centrifuges spin, and Israel prepares...]

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Networks Ignore Successful Missile Test

[HT:CW]
I know that missile defense is hardly a major political issue right now, but successes in the program are worth at least passing mention in broadcast media, particularly given tensions with Iran and the utility of missile defenses for our military forces should conflict ensue with the nuclear weapon-pursuing theocratic state.

Unfortunately, according to Nexis, no such stories were filed on either ABC or CBS programming following the latest test. This despite the fact that the test involved a not one but two complicating twists to the testing scheme. Reported the Honolulu Advertiser's Diana Leone ...

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NYT Howler of the Day: Obama Makes 'Few Rhetorical Stumbles'

Is reporter Michael Powell at the New York Times auditioning for Comic Relief?

At next year's event, Powell's headline at his August 2 story (HT Weapons of Mass Discussion) about Obama's repeated hypocritical invocations and charges relating to race (of course, that's not how he sees it), along with his report's first 10 words, would bring the house down:

With Genie Out of Bottle, Obama Is Careful on Race

Senator Barack Obama is a man of few rhetorical stumbles .....

An official GOP web site, barackgaffes.com, has been compiling a comprehensive list of gaffes ever since it became clear that the presumptive Democratic nominee is perhaps the most mistake-prone nominee of any party in American history. [snip]

That the Times's Powell would open an article analyzing the presidential race with such an obvious gaffe of his own demonstrates just how out of touch those in the world of the Old Gray Lady have become.

[inflate our way out of the energy crisis?]

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Homosexuality – punishable by death?

The Norwegian Islamic Council is still waiting for a reply from the European Fatwa Council before it decides whether or not it is in favour of the death penalty for homosexuality. ''Unacceptable,'' says lesbian Sara Asmeh Rasmussen. (Snip)

''It's wrong of the Islamic Council to wait for the 'verdict' from the fatwa council in such an important case. By not saying 'no' to death penalties for gays, it shows attitudes that conflict with both democratic and humanitarian values,'' says Sara Azmeh Rasmussen...

[she sounds surprised]

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Fear Stalks Muslim Apostates in the West

Persuading Western Muslim leaders to repudiate Shari'a-sanctioned violence against apostates can be a frustrating exercise, as Prince Charles discovered in 2004. Troubled by the treatment of Muslims who convert to Christianity in Islamic nations, the prince convened a summit of senior figures from both religious communities.

It ended in disappointment. The Islamic representatives failed to issue a declaration condemning the practice, which the Christians had requested; they also cautioned non-Muslims not to discuss such matters in public... [snip]

Their views are grounded in Shari'a law. All major schools of Islamic jurisprudence stipulate that a sane adult male must be put to death for abandoning Islam. Many Islamic states outlaw apostasy and seven list it as a capital offense. However, freelancers such as angry relatives present the greatest danger to ex-Muslims, as Shari'a empowers individuals to punish converts. This tradition has followed Muslims to the Western world... [snip]

How our societies respond to this challenge will help set the parameters of freedom in the twenty-first century by determining whether fundamental rights truly are guaranteed for all.

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China fails to meet Olympic promises it made to win games

BEIJING — With four days left before the start of the 2008 Summer Games, Chinese officials have not lived up to key promises they made to win the right to host the Olympics, including widening press freedoms, cleaning up their capital city's polluted air and respecting human rights. The failures were evident Monday...

[China has broken every deal it ever made with anyone - and they think our naivety about promises amusing. We really ought teach history in this country]

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Climate hysterics v heretics in an age of unreason

[HT:PD]
IT has been a tough year for the high priests of global warming in the US. First, NASA had to correct its earlier claim that the hottest year on record in the contiguous US had been 1998, which seemed to prove that global warming was on the march. It was actually 1934. Then it turned out the world's oceans have been growing steadily cooler, not hotter, since 2003. Meanwhile, the winter of 2007 was the coldest in the US in decades, after Al Gore warned us that we were about to see the end of winter as we know it.

In a May issue of Nature, evidence about falling global temperatures forced German climatologists to conclude that the transformation of our planet into a permanent sauna is taking a decade-long hiatus, at least. Then this month came former greenhouse gas alarmist David Evans's article in The Australian, stating that since 1999 evidence has been accumulating that man-made carbon emissions can't be the cause of global warming. By now that evidence, Evans said, has become pretty conclusive.

Yet believers in man-made global warming demand more and more money to combat climate change and still more drastic changes in our economic output and lifestyle. The reason is that precisely that they are believers, not scientists. No amount of empirical evidence will overturn what has become not a scientific theory but a form of religion... [snip]

Politicians everywhere should be forced to take an oath similar to the Hippocratic oath taken by doctors: above all else, do no harm. Before they make decisions that could trim Australia's gross domestic product by several percentage points a year and impose heavy penalties on Australians' lifestyle, Labour and Liberal alike need to re-examine the superstition of global warming.

Otherwise, the only thing it will melt away is everyone's civil liberty

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Overfill your bin and you’ll be treated worse than a shoplifter

[UK]
Families who overfill rubbish bins are to face bigger fines than those imposed on drunks or shoplifters, the government has told local authorities.

Although the government has previously claimed that it leaves local councils to decide on the level of fines, the Fly-capture Enforcement manual, produced by the Department for Environment, stipulates that fixed penalties for offencesinvolving “waste receptacles” must range from £75 to £110.

The offences for which householders can be fined include leaving ajar the lid of a wheelie bin, putting out a bin the evening before collection or leaving the bin in the wrong place...

[the inevitable path of government involvement {there's no consumer choice to check its eventual excesses}. Health care anyone?]

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[won't happen here? update:]

San Francisco plan to inspect residents' garbage

SAN FRANCISCO (Map) - San Francisco residents could be fined up to $1000 and lose their garbage service if they don't sort their trash properly under a proposal by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

The plan would direct city garbage collectors to inspect residents trash to make sure various types of waste are placed in correct bins for recycling, composting and trash.

The proposed legislation by the city's Department of the Environment would be the nation's first mandatory recycling and composting law...

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[Q: what happens when you allow the creation of a Department of the Environment? A: state determined conscious - by force. just the tip of the iceberg folks...]

WIND VERSUS GAS

Congress seems ready to spend billions on a new "Manhattan Project" for green energy, or at least the political class really, really likes talking about one. But maybe we should look at what our energy subsidy dollars are buying now, says the Wall Street Journal.

For example:

• The total taxpayer bill was $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA),
• That's double in real dollars from eight years earlier, as you'd expect given all the money Congress is throwing at "renewables"; even more subsidies are set to pass this year.

An even better way to tell the story is by how much taxpayer money is dispensed per unit of energy, so the costs are standardized, says the Journal:

• For electricity generation, the EIA concludes that solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and "clean coal" $29.81.
• By contrast, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59.

All of this shows that there is a reason fossil fuels continue to dominate American energy production: They are extremely cost-effective. That's a reality to keep in mind the next time you hear a politician talk about creating millions of "green jobs."

Those jobs won't come cheap, and you'll be paying for them.

[consider the detrimental effects that fuel's recent 30-40% increase has caused and look at the above numbers again. Does anyone really believe the nation can survive a 2500% increases?]

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CNN Gives Pass to Democrats on Anti-Drilling Vote Maneuvers

From CNN correspondent Kate Bolduan's perspective, the political differences on energy policy are little more than a "partisan standoff" between Democrats and Republicans.

"The main battle comes down to whether to allow new offshore drilling," Bolduan said. "Republicans say yes, Democratic leaders say no. The dispute has deteriorated into competing press conferences, dueling poster boards and partisan jabs,"

However, this "standoff" would be eliminated if the Senate, controlled by the Democratic majority, would allow a vote on drilling - a detail lacking from Bolduan's report.

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Poll finds most Florida voters are in favor of offshore drilling

Democrats vilified Republican presidential candidate John McCain when he came out in support of offshore drilling in June. And when Gov. Charlie Crist backed away from his long-standing opposition, critics accused him of sacrificing Florida's interests to curry favor with McCain. A new poll shows most Florida voters think McCain and Crist are right on the issue.

[so? public opinion only counts in democracies]

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No Excuses For Not Drilling

An open letter to U.S. Sens. Christopher J. Dodd and Joseph I. Lieberman and U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney. About 700 billion U.S. dollars flow out of this country every year for foreign oil and gas. Instead of this obscene transfer of our wealth and standard of living out of the United States, why don't you let the “Big Evil Oil Companies” invest their obscene, windfall profits right here in the United States and then the let the taxpayers' dollars for energy stay here too?

[was reminded by a talk show Saturday that we're also talking tens of thousands of high paying jobs that would be created if Pelosi changed her mind about domestic drilling. Evidently only some causes of off-shoring are seen as 'evil' ]

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[meanwhile...]