Ceremony marks 9-11 crash in Pennsylvania

A steel beam from the World Trade Center will be unveiled in Shanksville, Pa., today during a memorial service where Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001. Hundreds of current and retired New York City firefighters traveled to from Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field on Saturday.The 2-ton, 14-foot long beam will eventually sit on a base shaped like the Pentagon.

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Mourning French lose appetite for war

Paris - President Nicolas Sarkozy's resolve to remain steadfast in Afghanistan was tested at the weekend as a poll indicated a majority of voters want him to pull troops out after the deaths of 10 soldiers in a Taliban ambush.

The findings of the poll in Le Parisien came amid growing debate over France's role in the NATO force in Afghanistan, with Mr Sarkozy accused of getting his country into an unwinnable war...

[three points:
a) it's France.
2) didn't we just go through this 'unwinnable' nonsense?
d) even with Sarkozy, it's still France. ]

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Who Lied About Iraq?

As we head into a Presidential election we should not allow the false story promoted by the lefist media to go unchallenged... [snip]

The False Story

"The United States invaded Iraq based on false premises. The administration orchestrated a public relations drive to prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and connections to the 9/11 terrorists - both proved false." USA Today

While these two sentences came from USA Today, they describe the words behind the music of the "Bush lied, people died" meme echoing throughout the media chambers since at least 2004. The lies in just these two sentences are almost Shakespearian in their layered texture. The statement even lays out a false premise in accusing the Bush administration of using false premises. If lying is an art, our media have mastered it... [snip]

The True Story

The Bush administration did not lie. Saddam's Iraq was a threat to the US that demanded the use of military force. That was not just Bush's "cowboy" opinion; that was the written law, passed by huge and bipartisan margins in both houses of Congress. That opinion was supported by both pre-war intelligence and post-war intelligence.

The invasion of Iraq was arguably the most justified case of military action the US has ever taken in its history, based on national defense, validated intelligence and legal authority, not to mention morality.

Articles of impeachment would have made more sense if Bush had not invaded...

[long but Highly Recommended > ]

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Passport to evil

THE News of the World has exposed a gang working inside MOSQUES to sell fake passports to potential terrorists. [snip]

“Because Bulgaria’s in the European community you have full rights in this country. You can live here legally, take advantage of the free NHS, everything. And no one can stop you travelling.”

Across the city at the Central Mosque in Regent’s Park another crew of henchman was peddling the same service. [snip]

The cocky crooks were convinced they were untouchable, knowing police raids could 'inflame racial tension'...

[and indeed, it wasn't any law enforcement entity that busted this ring but a newspaper...]

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The Syrian Gambit

A month ago President Assad of Syria was being fêted in Paris. His country was close to normalising relations with Lebanon and engaged in talks with Israel. A peace treaty seemed possible, and with it an end to Syria's longstanding isolation.

Today, Mr Assad will meet his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, in Sochi. By way of preparation he has enthusiastically backed Moscow's invasion of Georgia, signed up for a major new package of Russian defence hardware and ridiculed the failure of Israeli weapons and advisers to prevent the Georgian Army's humiliation. [snip]

Strategically, the Russian Navy gains the prospect of access to two Syrian warm-water ports just as Ukraine attempts to rewrite its rules for Russian use of bases in Crimea. Moscow has also been able to announce the dispatch of Russian air defence systems to Syria on the very day that the US signed a missile defence pact with Poland.

Diplomatically, it sends a signal to Nato that containing the new Russia will take more than merely co-opting its neighbours...

[the ramifications of NATO's failure to react/contain Russia's misbehavior are near infinite - from Syria to China and all the thugs in between...]

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The Future of Nato

The crisis in the Caucasus shows that the North Atlantic alliance needs to evolve faster to protect its members

Russia's Ambassador to Nato, Dmitry Rogozin, wrote last month that “with the demise of communism, reasons for the West and Russia to be in confrontation vanished”.

He would be hard put to stand by his remark when Nato meets tomorrow for an emergency summit forced on its members by Russia's invasion of Georgia, especially given its troops' continued presence there despite two ceasefire deals, its extraordinary [nuclear] threat to Poland last Friday, and reports that it is considering arming its Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads for the first time since the Cold War.

In Europe, polls taken before the August 8 invasion of Georgia found that decreasing numbers of taxpayers thought Nato vital for security. In Brussels, Nato officials are as undecided as their EU counterparts on whether to help work towards an enhanced EU defence capability, and if so how. [snip]

Brussels must address not just the immediate crisis in the Caucasus but the need to streamline NATO command and control systems in conflict zones. Only then will guarantees of territorial integrity for new members serve their ultimate purpose of deterring aggression.

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Think Wikipedia Is Biased? Do Something About It

The liberal bias at Wikipedia isn't like bias at ABC or CBS. These institutions are dominated by liberals, true, but their systematic structure is such that the ability for people on the right to push for fairness is severely limited.

That is not the case with Wikipedia, a participatory medium in which those who are most active enjoy the most influence. It's time for the right to dust off its hands and engage in some old-fashioned activism.

Go out there and make a difference. If you find bias, we'll be more than happy to spread the word.

[well, semi-true: yes anyone can submit post to counter any other - the it's the editing staff at Wiki that's the most egregious offender, and they're 24/7. Conservatives would need 'storms' of posts to have any staying power before they're eventually deleted by wikistaff...

too bad, I was a fan. Luckily, there's



http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page ...

Wikipropaganda

Spinning green

Ever wonder how Al Gore, the United Nations, and company continue to get away with their claim of a “scientific consensus” confirming their doomsday view of global warming? Look no farther than Wikipedia for a stunning example of how the global-warming propaganda machine works. [snip]

In theory Wikipedia is a “people’s encyclopedia” written and edited by the people who read it — anyone with an Internet connection. So on controversial topics, one might expect to see a broad range of opinion.

Not on global warming... [snip]

I checked with Peiser, who said he had done no such thing. I then corrected the Wikipedia entry, and advised Peiser that I had done so. Peiser wrote back saying he couldn’t see my corrections on the Wikipedia page.

I made the changes again, and this time confirmed that the changes had been saved. But then, in a twinkle, they were gone again. I made other changes. And others. They all disappeared shortly after they were made...

[Recommended > ]

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IS GREEN U.S. MASS TRANSIT A BIG MYTH?

Mass transit is not a greener form of transportation. Some transit systems take twice as much energy per passenger than private cars do, according to studies from the Department of Energy (DoE).

But how can this be? A full bus or trainload of people is more efficient than private cars, sometimes quite a bit more so, says Brad Templeton, founder of ClariNet Communication Corporation. However:

• Transit systems never consist of full vehicles, but in order to encourage riders, systems offer frequent service which results in emptier vehicles outside of rush hour.

• Transit vehicles tend to stop and start a lot, which eats a lot of energy, even with regenerative braking.

U.S. Transit Energy in Passenger Miles per Gallon

Moreover, transit infrastructure is paid for by state or federal money, while drivers and fuel are paid from local city budgets. This pushes local city transit agencies to get bigger vehicles and fewer drivers...

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Sorry, no more babies. Eco-doctor's orders...

Doctors have called time on big families. A recent editorial in the British Medical Journal talked of discouraging patients, on environmental grounds, from having too many children. The more people, the bigger the drain on global resources.

The editorial advised GPs not to put pressure on patients, but “by providing information on the population and the environment, and appropriate contraception for everyone...doctors should help to bring family size into the arena of environmental ethics, analogous to avoiding patio heaters and high-carbon cars”.

[when you allow government into health care...]

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'Foolish Five' Economic Policies

... According to Shlaes, "perverse monetary policy was the greatest cause of the Great Depression." But there were five other mistakes in the 1930s that some politicians today seem ready to repeat.

1. Giving in to protectionism
2. Blaming the messenger
3. Increasing taxes in a downturn
4. Assuming bigger government will bring back growth
5. Ignoring the cost of inconsistency

"The proximate danger today is a repeat of the 1970s, not the 1930s. But if lawmakers don't remember the old missteps, they might find that their new recovery legislation imperils our recovery," said Shlaes.

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Which Way to Prosperity?

The central question in this election is, Which candidate can most improve our wobbly economy? Here, the McCain-Obama contrast could not be sharper.

Obama has proposed increases in every major federal tax. He has proposed to increase individual income taxes, with the top rate to rise to almost 40 percent. He has proposed to increase the top capital-gains tax rate by 33 percent. He has proposed the same for the top tax rate on dividends. He has proposed to increase payroll taxes, with a rate increase of 16 percent to 32 percent a year. He has proposed to reinstate the death tax (estate tax), at a rate of 45 percent. He has proposed several increases in corporate taxes, including a so-called windfall-profits tax on oil.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Mundell has written that if such tax increases are adopted, the U.S. economy will suffer “a deep recession, a nosedive,” and the dollar will decline further. Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, claims Obama has proposed the exact same policy mix that led to the depression of the 1930s.

During the primaries, Obama railed against free trade, proposing even to renegotiate free-trade agreements with our top two trading partners, Canada and Mexico. He has opposed the Columbian Free Trade Agreement, even though it primarily removes tariffs on American exports to that country, with barriers to Columbian exports to America already almost all removed under the Andean Trade Preferences Act.

In sharp contrast, McCain has promised tax cuts to promote economic growth and strengthen the U.S. dollar. The federal corporate tax rate today is 35 percent, and McCain suggests cutting it to 25 percent. This would mirror rates elsewhere: The average corporate tax rate in the European Union was slashed from 38 percent in 1996 to 24 percent by 2007. The rates in India and China are lower as well. American companies are not going to produce more jobs and higher wages with this crippling competitive disadvantage.

McCain also proposes immediate expensing for capital investment, which means that capital costs can be deducted in the year they are incurred, like all other business expenses,.. Except for the badly confused cap and trade plan, which he shares with Obama, McCain’s economic program of cutting taxes, restraining spending, balancing the budget, promoting free trade, and increasing energy production, seems to be exactly what our economy needs right now...

[Highly Recommended > ]

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Dots...

Economic Gloom a Big Hurdle for McCain

It really is the economy, stupid! Economic models that have correctly predicted the winner of almost all post-war U.S. presidential elections say recession fears will secure a victory for Barack Obama in November.

If U.S. economic growth continues at a tepid pace, John McCain will likely attract less than 50 percent of the vote in November, according to analysts. [snip]

He finds that U.S. presidential elections are well-predicted by just two fundamental forces: the weighted average per capita growth of real disposable income and the number of U.S. military deaths in foreign combat...

[the media's emphasis on the former and comparable ignoring of the latter is just coincidence]

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ABC: Treats Rise in Consumer Confidence as Bad News

When is an increase in consumer confidence bad news? When ABC reports it.

Network anchor George Stephanopoulos led off the news cast with this gloom-and-doom teaser: "Terrible Tuesday. Inflation surges. Stocks dive. And consumer confidence nears a record low."

But Stephanopoulos left out a key detail: consumer confidence increased according to the network's own measure. "U.S. overall consumer confidence rose last week, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Tuesday," the August 19 Dow Jones Newswires reported.

ABC never mentioned that in its report.

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TREATING MEXICAN NATIONALS AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE

El Paso's Thomason Hospital is the only hospital within a 280-mile radius to offer state-of-the-art trauma care. Consequently, Thomason has become an unwilling treatment center for law enforcement officials and others wounded in Mexico's drug turf battles, says the Los Angeles Times.

Thomason has treated 28 people wounded in Mexico, spending an estimated $1 million, according to hospital administrators. Thomason administrators expect that most of its costs will have to be borne by the state and federal government.

El Paso leaders are frustrated and angry at the cost and risks brought about by their unexpected 'guests' but have no choice under federal law. About half -- including the Nuevo Casas Grandes police chief, who had only a hand wound -- did not need the Level 1 trauma assistance provided.

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MSM Ignores Democrat Lawsuit Against Obama

Imagine if a prominent Mitt Romney supporter who was a former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania as well as former Republican Party chair in Montgomery County in that state had filed a lawsuit against John McCain questioning his eligibility to become president. How many milliseconds after the filing of that lawsuit do you think it would take for that news to be prominently featured on the New York Times website as well as the many other MSM websites?

Well, something very much like that has happened only instead of a Republican suing McCain it was Democrat Philip J. Berg, a Hillary Clinton supporter and former Deputy Attorney General as well as former Democrat Party chair for Montgomery county, who filed a lawsuit yesterday against Barack Obama to keep the DNC from nominating him because Berg claims he is ineligible to become president. So far there has been a collective yawn from the MSM to this news.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to cover this lawsuit story but if you want the latest information as it breaks, check out the updates HERE.

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Australians Freeze Carrying Global Warming Relay Torch

Who says that Mother Nature doesn't have a sense of humor? First we have an August 14 report from the Lithgow Mercury in Australia announcing a Climate Torch relay to draw attention to the importance of global warming: [snip]

So how effective was this relay in stressing the importance of global warming? You can get an idea of how it turned out by reading the August 19 headline of the same Lithgow Mercury:

"Too cold for global warming relay."

Here is their report on actual relay field conditions as written by Len Ashworth:[snip]

It is unknown if Al Gore was one of those carrying the global warming relay torch in the freezing weather.

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