Monday, September 15, 2008
Charlie Gibson's Gaffe
"At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.' "-- New York Times, Sept. 12
Informed her? Rubbish.
The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.
I know something about the subject because I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism," [snip]
There is no single meaning of the Bush Doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration -- and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.
He asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?"
She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?"
Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is by it's moniker. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted.
In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.
[Highly Recommended > ]
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Lost on the Rude-Tube
ABC News anchor Charles Gibson may have thought he was giving a fair but “tough” interview to Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, in the first press contact with the new vice-presidential candidate.
But ABC did itself no favors. Viewers watching the dagger-and-sheath interview — aired on national television last night and endlessly replayed on “YouTube” — could easily draw a different conclusion.
Unconsciously or not, Gibson’s manner and language fairly dripped with condescension and disbelief.
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In 2007 Interview, ABC’s Gibson Greeted Obama With Softballs
Nearly two years ago, when the inexperienced presidential candidate Barack Obama sat for his first interview with Charles Gibson, the ABC anchor did not try and expose any gaps in Obama’s foreign policy knowledge or press him about his readiness for the job he was seeking.
Instead Gibson emphasized Obama’s personal story, about how his parents met, how Obama met his wife, etc. ...
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Security forces control virtually all Iraq: Petraeus
BAGHDAD - Iraqi and U.S. forces now control virtually all of Iraq and Baghdad's troops might be able to take on security responsibility for the whole country by the end of 2009, the senior U.S. general in Iraq said on Monday. General David Petraeus told Reuters in an interview that progress in Iraq in the past year had been "very dramatic" but he said suicide bombers would still slip through security nets.
[truly remarkable turn around]
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General: US forces to up Afghan winter offensives
American troops in Afghanistan will step up offensive operations this winter because insurgents are increasingly staying in the country to prepare for spring attacks.
Maj. Gen. Jeffery J. Schloesser said a 40 percent surge in violence in April and May was fueled in part by militants preparing stores of weapons during the winter:
"If we don't do anything over the winter the enemy will more and more try to seek safe haven in Afghanistan rather than going back to Pakistan,"
U.S. and NATO officials say militants cross into Afghanistan from Pakistan, where they rest, train and resupply in tribal areas along the frontier where the Pakistani government has little sway.
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France holds five terror suspects
Five men have been arrested in Rennes in France in connection with a suspected Islamist attack plot, authorities say. They are all French, of North African origin, a source told the AFP agency. The arrests came as the interior minister warned, on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the US, that the threat in France remained high. Michele Alliot Marie also warned that Islamic radicals were using French prisons as recruitment bases.
[GWOT]
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Islamic bigotry is still bigotry
[UK]
In January 2007, Channel 4 broadcast Undercover Mosque, an investigation into what was being preached in mainstream mosques in Britain. The results were shocking: imams were shown praising the murder of British soldiers, attacking democracy, and condemning attempts to integrate Muslims into British society.
The reaction to that programme proved the widespread reluctance to accept the reality of what takes place under the blanket of religion:
Undercover Mosque was condemned for "damaging community relations" by West Midlands Police, who wanted to prosecute the programme makers and Channel 4 under racial hatred laws.
On being told they could not do so, they referred the matter to the Broadcasting Standards Commission. The programme was eventually wholly vindicated. West Midlands Police had to pay Channel 4 more than £100,000 for defaming it.
As we report today, the follow-up to Undercover Mosque is to be broadcast tomorrow.
It shows that - despite all the promises that the books condoning terrorism would be removed, as would the preachers advocating the rigid enforcement of the narrowest interpretration of sharia law and the overthrow of our liberal democracy - violent, intolerant prejudice continues to be preached, this time by women, in centres of "moderate Islam"...
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Threefer...
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Russian submarines to test-fire missiles in Pacific
Moscow - Russian submarines armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles will test-fire their rockets in the Pacific Ocean between September 15 and 20, a military official was quoted as saying today. ''Some missile launches will be carried out in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea'' and will hit targets on the Kamchatka peninsula in eastern Russia
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Russian bombers stage Caribbean drill
Two Russian Tu-160 bombers sent for training exercises to Venezuela have carried out maneuvers over the Atlantic and the Caribbean. According to the Deputy Commander of the Russian Long-Range Air Force, Alexander Afinogentov, foreign fighters did not approach the Tu-160s, there were no excesses and the equipment worked well.
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Feinstein ‘Not Concerned’ About Russian Bombers in Venezuela
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told CNSNews.com Thursday that she is not concerned about Russia’s announcement on Wednesday that it had moved two long-range bombers to a base in Venezuela, a South American country just over a thousand miles from Florida. Other senators, however, both Republican and Democrat, were less optimistic about Russia’s action...
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Climate change heroes' sham case
[HT:HM]
ONE commonly repeated argument for doing something about climate change sounds compelling, but turns out to be almost fraudulent. It is based on comparing the cost of action with the cost of inaction, and almost every major politician in the world uses it.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, for example, used this argument when he presented the European Union's proposal to tackle climate change earlier this year. The EU promised to cut its CO2 emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, at a cost the EC's own estimates put at about 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product, or roughly $100 billion - per year.
But Barroso's punchline was that "the cost is low compared to the high price of inaction". In fact, he forecast the price of doing nothing "could even approach 20 per cent of GDP". (Never mind that this cost estimate is probably wildly overestimated).
This sounds eminently sensible, until you realise that Barroso is comparing two entirely different issues.
The 0.5-per-cent-of-GDP expense will reduce emissions ever so slightly (if everyone in the EU actually fulfills their requirements for the rest of the century, global emissions will fall by about 4 per cent). This would reduce the temperature increase expected by the end of the century by just 0.05C. Thus, the EU's immensely ambitious program will not stop or even have a significant impact on global warming.
In other words, if Barroso fears costs of 20 per cent of GDP in the year 2100, the 0.5 per cent payment every year of this century will do virtually nothing to change that cost. We would still have to pay by the end of the century, only now we would also have made ourselves poorer in the 90 years preceding it...
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WIND FUELS GAS
Many Europeans think that a major part of their future energy security might come from wind turbines. But this renewable push is probably just a very clever short-term business strategy that will not improve Europe's geopolitical situation.
Wind turbines generate electricity irregularly, because the wind is inconsistent. Therefore, wind turbines always need backup power from fossil fuels to keep the electricity grid in balance, and gas turbines are the best way to do this:
- The peak load of the Spanish power grid is in the summer when there usually isn't much wind, so more and more gas turbines are being installed.
- Natural gas is still the main source of electricity with 99.8 percent of it imported.
- Germany's gas consumption for power generation more than doubled between 1990 and 2007, with the country importing 83 percent of its supply.
- However, part of the wind power backup is still done by coal-fired plants.
In fact, it is increasing the dependence of imported natural gas - and that's not energy security, says the Journal.
['forced to subsidized', hence the 'clever business strategy'. Translation: another scam on the public.]
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ABC Misrepresents Palin Quote in ‘Holy War’ Question
Millions of TV viewers who watched ABC News’ interview with Sarah Palin Thursday night never saw her take issue with a key question in which she was asked if she believes that the U.S. military effort in Iraq is “a task that is from God.”
The exchange between Palin and ABC’s Charlie Gibson, in which she questioned the accuracy of the quote attributed to her, was edited out of the television broadcast but included in official, unedited transcripts posted on ABC’s Web site, as well as in video posted on the Internet
But in the version shown on television, a video clip of her original statement was inserted in place of her objection, giving a different impression of how Palin views the Iraq war.
“Governor Palin’s full statement was VERY different” from the way Gibson characterized it,
"Gibson cut the quote — where she was clearly asking for the church TO PRAY THAT IT IS a task from God, not asserting that it is a task from God -
"Palin’s statement is an incredibly humble statement, a statement that this campaign stands by 100 percent, and a sentiment that any religious American will share"
In the rest of the segment that aired, Palin told Gibson that she was referencing Abraham’s Lincoln’s words on how one should never presume to know God’s will. She said she does not presume to know God’s will and that she was only asking the audience to “pray that we are on God’s side.”
A promo posted on Yahoo! News Friday continued to misrepresent the exchange. It displays Palin’s image next to the words, “Iraq war a ‘holy war?’” implying that Palin — not Gibson — had called the War on Terror a holy war.
ABC News did not respond to requests for comment from FOXNews.com
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WHY OUR ELITES FEAR FAITH
NOTHING in recent memory has driven home the divide between our self-appointed aristocracy and "commoners" as sharply as the intelligentsia's rush to mock Gov. Sarah Palin's religious faith.
While the attacks and insults are backfiring on the mortified elites, the double standard applied to "Sarah America" is a disgrace that can't be excused as "just politics."
Certainly, much of the left-wing fury over Palin stems from the Democratic Party's assumption that it "owned" the exclusive right to nominate women to the executive branch (despite the crushing of Hillary Clinton's candidacy). How dare the Republicans advance a woman? How dare they change this year's election script?
But the root of the left's dread of this happily married mother of five seems to be that she actually believes in God: How could anyone be that stupid?
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BART study considers charging more in rush hour
California
Bay Area Rapid Transit officials are looking at charging more to use trains during peak hours to get riders to travel at other times. BART has initiated a study that also considers increasing fees for parking in BART lots and using certain stations during rush hour to reduce congestion.
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Bad voter applications found
Several municipal clerks across the state are reporting fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications, most of them from a nationwide community activist group working to help low- and moderate-income families. The majority of the problem applications are coming from the group ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
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[sounds familiar... oh, now I remember: they're one of Gyorgy Schwartz's outfits >
FLASHBACK: NNBrief 10/9/2008:
The Evolving Agenda of George Soros’s Democracy Alliance
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Consumer mood hits 8-month high in September: survey
NEW YORK - Consumer confidence soared unexpectedly to an eight-month high in September as lower fuel prices soothed inflation fears and made Americans more hopeful about the economy, a survey showed on Friday. The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its preliminary index of confidence jumped to 73.1 in September -- the highest since January 2008 --
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Outside Edge: Nanny state has gone to pot
This morning, you can still walk into a “coffee shop” in Amsterdam and smoke a huge joint of cannabis for breakfast. You just will not be able to mix any tobacco with your cannabis. That is because the new Dutch ban on smoking tobacco in bars affects even that most Dutch of institutions: the “coffee shop” that legally serves cannabis. Pot is still permitted but cigarettes are out...
[when you cede personal choice to government, you cede it to governmental 'logic']
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