Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Did Iraq lead to Iran?
[an insightful look at the obvious]
Which brings me to a question that I think deserves to be asked: Did the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, and the subsequent holding of competitive elections in which many rival Iraqi Shiite parties took part, have any germinal influence on the astonishing events in Iran?
Certainly when I interviewed Sayeed Khomeini in Qum some years ago, where he spoke openly about "the liberation of Iraq," he seemed to hope and believe that the example would spread.
One swallow does not make a summer. But consider this: Many Iranians go as religious pilgrims to the holy sites of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq. They have seen the way in which national and local elections have been held, more or less fairly and openly, with different Iraqi Shiite parties having to bid for votes (and with those parties aligned with Iran's regime doing less and less well).
They have seen an often turbulent Iraqi Parliament holding genuine debates that are reported with reasonable fairness in the Iraqi media. Meanwhile, an Iranian mullah caste that classifies its own people as children who are mere wards of the state puts on a "let's pretend" election and even then tries to fix the outcome.
Iranians by no means like to take their tune from Arabs—perhaps least of all from Iraqis—but watching something like the real thing next door may well have increased the appetite for the genuine article in Iran itself...
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UN to discuss N Korean missiles
The UN Security Council is to meet to discuss North Korea's latest test-launch of ballistic missiles. The council is meeting at Japan's request later on Monday after seven missiles were fired off North Korea's eastern coast on Saturday.
North Korea is banned from all ballistic missile-related activities under UN sanctions.
North Korea is now banned from exporting all weapons...
[Thank God - we're safe now.]
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Hail Colombia
President Obama, who withheld his support for a free-trade agreement with Colombia when he was a senator, recently sounded a more positive note on the issue. At a joint news conference this week with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Obama commended him for the progress his country has made in addressing human rights violations.
In particular, he remarked on the more hospitable environment in Colombia today for labor organizers...
[I.e., unions. Our treatment ('our' meaning the Democrat controlled Congress) continues to be shameful - we've no better ally in the region and Uribe has repeatedly proven he's a good many, it's past time we stop our unions' blackmail of his embattled country (reminder: we've much to lose in the region should he fall)...]
FLASHBACKs >
- Cuba, FARC may be training guerrillas at Venezuelan camp
- FARC's 'Human Rights' Friends
- Colombian police: FARC responsible for most U.S. cocaine
- Mullen Says Colombia Making Progress Against Narcoterrorists
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Then >
"PASS THE COLUMBIA FREE TRADE ACT NOW"
Whitehouse: mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
Public Policy That Makes Test Subjects of Us All
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Suppose you wanted to test the effects of halving the amount of salt in people’s diets. If you were an academic researcher, you’d have to persuade your institutional review board that you had considered the risks and obtained informed consent from the participants.
But if you are the mayor of New York, no such constraints apply. You can simply announce, as Michael Bloomberg did, that the city is starting a “nationwide initiative” to pressure the food industry and restaurant chains to cut salt intake by half over the next decade. Why bother with consent forms when you can automatically enroll everyone in the experiment?
And why bother with a control group when you already know the experiment’s outcome? The city’s health commissioner, Thomas R. Frieden, has enumerated the results. If the food industry follows the city’s wishes, the health department’s Web site announces, “that action will lower health care costs and prevent 150,000 premature deaths every year.” [snip]
After reviewing the literature for the Cochrane Collaboration in 2003, researchers from Copenhagen University concluded that “there is little evidence for long-term benefit from reducing salt intake.”
A similar conclusion was reached in 2006 by Norman K. Hollenberg of Harvard Medical School. While it might make sense for some individuals to change their diets, he wrote, “the available evidence shows that the influence of salt intake is too inconsistent and generally too small to mandate policy decisions at the community level.”
In the past year, researchers led by Salvatore Paterna of the University of Palermo have reported one of the most rigorous experiments so far: a randomized clinical trial of heart patients who were put on different diets. Those on a low-sodium diet were more likely to be rehospitalized and to die, results that prompted the researchers to ask, “Is sodium an old enemy or a new friend?” [snip]
At the time, it seemed extraordinary for a city to be forbidding its diners to order a legal food product, particularly given the scientific uncertainties about trans fats and the possible harms resulting from the ban (see TierneyLab at nytimes.com/tierneylab).
But that local restaurant policy now seems fairly modest by comparison with Mr. Bloomberg’s and Dr. Frieden’s plans for salt. Soon, wherever you live, wherever you eat, you could be part of their experiment.
[I.e., arrogance run amok - a.k.a. 'government'. And the nanny state is accelerating... ]
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Progress or broken promise?
(CNNMoney.com) -- Nearly five months after President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), a still-worsening economy has many wondering if stimulus is a bunch of baloney.
In February, the stimulus bill was passed with the promise that funds would be paid out quickly to save or create 750,000 jobs by early August. Without it, the Obama administration said, unemployment could rise to 9% in 2010.
With August quickly approaching, $56.3 billion, or 10% of stimulus funds have been paid out, and the unemployment rate has already risen to 9.5%.
As a result, there's debate about whether stimulus has put the economy on a path to recovery or is merely a broken promise...
[A: Neither. These 'stimuli' have nothing to do with helping the economy and everything to do with expanding the power of government. Remember all the 'strings' and government requirements that the press briefly reported on when some Governors where refusing the funds on that basis?
Well, the strings are still in there...]
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A MISERABLE FAILURE
That's the Obama administration's "stimulus" plan, which mainly stimulated Democratic constituencies with great gobs of pork. The web site Innocent Bystanders has done a service by plotting the actual unemployment rate against the Obama administration's prediction of what would happen with and without the "stimulus." Here is the latest, updated through June:
The administration's forecast provides a benchmark against which we can judge the success or failure of the $700 billion porkapalooza. The result is obvious: it was a failure. The best thing Congress could do is to cancel the rest of the program--the large majority that remains unspent--and let the economy recover without being hampered by government-imposed inefficiencies.
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Cantor says Biden misread stimulus, not economy
House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., Monday declared the $787 billion stimulus bill to be an ineffective waste of money and said if President Obama is weighing another round of federal help, it should be focused on small businesses and working families...
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Dem Senator: Second Stimulus ‘Probably Needed’
As job losses mount, Democrats are growing impatient about the impact of the massive stimulus package passed earlier this year, with talk beginning on Capitol Hill about a possible second stimulus bill.
Today on ABCNews.com’s ''Top Line,'' Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said a second stimulus is ''probably needed,'' and predicted that Congress is likely to act before the end of the year to inject even more federal dollars into the economy.
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POLL: Sixty percent oppose second stimulus
Sixty percent (60%) of U.S. voters now oppose the passage of a second economic stimulus plan this year, a five-point increase in opposition since the issue was first raised in March.
While voters nationwide strongly oppose another stimulus plan this year, 57% of the Political Class think it’s a good idea.
That helps to explain why 68% of voters believe it is at least somewhat likely that President Obama and Congress will try to pass another economic stimulus plan this year. One-out-of-three voters (34%) say it is very likely to happen.
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New climate strategy: track the world's wealthiest
As it stands now, under the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol, rich countries shoulder most of the burden for cutting the emissions that spur global warming, while developing countries -- including fast-growing economies China and India -- are not required to curb greenhouse pollution.
The study suggests setting a uniform international cap on how much carbon dioxide each person could emit in order to limit global emissions; since rich people emit more, they are the ones likely to reach or exceed this cap, whether they live in a rich country or a poor one.
For example, if world leaders agree to keep carbon emissions in 2030 at the same level they are now, no one person's emissions could exceed 11 tons of carbon each year. That means there would be about a billion "high emitters" in 2030 out of a projected world population of 8.1 billion...
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[From catastrophic to horrific: can you think of a worse big-brother totalitarian scheme? And make no mistake, by any world definition of 'rich', virtually all Americans will qualify {consider, our current yearly average CO2 'emissions' {according to them} is ~20 tons, so we'd be expected to cut our energy use roughly in half -- or pay the price. All to accomplish nothing against nothing.
Now ask yourself how will they determine who owes what for their lifestyle? A: They'll need invade your private life to a degree that will make the IRS seem benign by comparison.
Demand rejection of this concept now or pay the price later, so..."OPPOSE ALL CO2 RESTRICTION,
Domestic AND International"
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
.REMINDER: This is a TWOFER deal: not only is our national Cap & Tax bill 'in' the Senate for approval, it's the Senate which must 'ratify' international agreements/treaties - I.e., the above monstrosity - so let 'em have it...]
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Democrats Admit That Their Cap and Trade Bill Is a Job Killer
In her remarks bringing the debate over the climate bill to a close, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California urged her colleagues to vote in favor of the cap and trade bill, saying the measure was about four things: "jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs."
She was right—the House-passed version of cap and trade is all about jobs: jobs lost, jobs never created, jobs sent overseas, and, unbelievably, jobs people will be paid for doing long after they cease to exist.
According to Friday's Washington Times, the legislation includes language that provides, should it become law, that people who lose their jobs because of it "could get a weekly paycheck for up to three years, subsidies to find new work and other generous benefits—courtesy of Uncle Sam."
How generous are these benefits? Well, according to the Times, "Adversely affected employees in oil, coal and other fossil-fuel sector jobs would qualify for a weekly check worth 70 percent of their current salary for up to three years, at an estimated cost to the taxpayer of $4.2 billion from 2011 to 2019.
Instead of being a the source of millions of new jobs of "green jobs"—as House Democrats are fond of saying over and over again—the provision is a hidden admission that their effort is not only a massive new tax on energy but a job killer... [snip]
Wouldn't it be better to leave the jobs alone in the first place? It would certainly be cheaper.
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'PEAK' OIL SHORTAGE IS POLITICAL FICTION, NOT REALITY
One anti-drilling argument often invoked by environmentalists is that either America or the world is running out of oil. Neither assertion is true. For example, in the 1970s, the Club of Rome guaranteed that we'd run out of oil by now. Yet the amount of available oil has expanded greatly since then:
- According to U.S. Geological Survey estimates, we've got just shy of 6 trillion barrels of oil or its equivalent.
- Ronald Bailey, Reason magazine's science correspondent, writes that this means 82 percent of the world's already tapped endowment of oil and gas remain to be used.
- Bailey, who did a thorough survey of the "peak oil" debate, found that most of the world's leading analysts and agencies simply do not think we are running out of oil.
- In 1995 the USGS said that the Bakken formation, in North Dakota and Montana, had a modest amount of oil; it now believes there are 3 to 4 billion barrels there -- 25 times the 1995 estimate.
- The Minerals Management Service (MMS) insisted in 1987 that there were a "mere" 9 billion barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico; 20 years later that estimate is up to 45 billion.
- Prudhoe Bay in Alaska has already generated 15 billion barrels of oil and natural-gas liquids even though the government insisted the needle would hit empty at 9 billion; right now, the MMS conservatively guesses that the Atlantic and Pacific Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) has 14.3 billion barrels of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
[Again: the history of oil use has been one of constantly expanding excess reserves discovered above and beyond consumption. The claim of 'peak oil' is a canard completely contrary to all empirical facts. Despite our every increasing appetite for oil & gas are discovery of new reserves - when we bother to look {currently illegal in most of the US} - has consistently outstripped demand and resulted in an ever expanding surplus of reserves.
Our {non} 'Energy' policy is insane and costing us more than a retarded economy, it's literally funding our enimies (Russia, S. American tyrants, middle east} and threatens to strip our children of thier liberties wholesale behind the global-warming canard.
It's past time we demand real change in this area.]
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Chevron Refinery Expansion Halted; 1,000 Jobs To Be Lost
[nonetheless...]
RICHMOND, Calif. -- The Chevron refinery in Richmond released 100 workers Thursday following a Contra Costa County Superior Court judge's ruling Wednesday ordering the refinery to stop construction of its Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project, Chevron spokesman Brent Tippen said.
Tippen estimated that the ruling would result in a loss of about 1 million labor hours and approximately $50 million to $75 million in income to the workforce in Richmond and the county within the next year. The city will also lose $61 million in various community benefits... [snip]
The project, which broke ground in September after a permitting process that took more than three years, included replacing the refinery's 1960s-era hydrogen plant and its 1930s-era power plant.
But Judge Barbara Zuniga's ordered construction halted as she considered an environmental impact report on the project to have failed to disclose whether it would enable the refinery to process heavier crude oil, an ability refinery officials said would increase the refinery's flexibility to process a wider variety of crude oil and improve the plant's energy efficiency and reliability.
Plaintiffs from Communities for a Better Environment, Asian Pacific Environmental Network and the West County Toxics Coalition said that the upgrade would enable the refinery to process heavier crude oil, which would lead to increased pollution and increased risk of 'upset'...[snip]
Tippen said that Chevron was disappointed with the court's ruling and believe the project had been properly analyzed and permitted.
"Ironically, putting the project on hold means delaying demonstrable environmental benefits including improved refinery energy efficiency and reduced overall emissions,"
[Ironic or predictable. Even if we ever do get sane energy policy in place politically (2012 at the soonest), it likely won't mean much until we seriously overhaul our judicial system which is being used as a weapon for all things 'progressive']
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Obamacare failed in Europe
President Barack Obama's proposed "public insurance option" for universal health coverage seems logical: A large public insurance fund will provide quality coverage for the uninsured and force competing insurers to lower costs.
In practice, though, one needs only look at what decades of government health care have done to ramp up the financial and quality problems endured by Britain and France...
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Reality check: Canada's government health care system
Kingston, Ontario - For Shona Holmes, simple pleasures such as playing with her dog or walking in her plush garden are a gift. After suffering from crushing headaches and vision problems, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor four years ago. She was told if it wasn't removed, she could go blind or even die.
Holmes is Canadian, but the "they" she refers to are doctors at the Mayo Clinic in the United States...
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CANADA SEES BOOM IN PRIVATE HEALTH CARE BUSINESS
Facing long waits and substandard care, private clinics are proving that Canadians are willing to pay for treatment. Critics lament the shortage of doctors as patients flood the system, resulting in long waits for some treatment. Health care delivery in Canada falls largely under provincial jurisdiction, complicating matters:
- Private for-profit clinics are permitted in some provinces and not allowed in others.
- Under the Canada Health Act, privately run facilities cannot charge citizens for services covered by government insurance.
- But a 2005 Supreme Court ruling in Quebec opened the door for patients facing unreasonable wait times to pay-out-of-pocket for private treatment.
"I think there is a fundamental shift in different parts of the country that's beginning to happen. I think people are beginning to realize that they should have a choice,"
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Welcome to Obamacare Theater
The White House sure likes to put on a show. Fresh off its joint stage production with ABC News, the Obama administration broadcast another health care propaganda play this week under the guise of a citizen “town hall.
The denials of pre-planning and stacked decks deserve nothing but derisive mockery. Obama’s town hall was filled with backroom players and a supporting cast of socialized medicine activists and ideologues...
[But it'll work]
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ABC: Is Sheriff 'Concerned' People Have 'Guns Right by the Side'
ABC’s Diane Sawyer acted more concerned than the reporter on the scene on Monday’s Good Morning America over a small town in South Carolina arming itself against a serial killer. She asked the local sheriff,
“The community has apparently been arming up and we’re reading that ammunition is selling out at some of the stores. How concerned are you that people are standing at their doorways with guns right by the side?”
It would be hard to guess that the reason for the story was a string of five murders apparently perpetrated by the same suspect over the course of a week during late June/early July in South Carolina.
Evidently law abiding citizens having the ability to defend themselves is a greater cause for fear...
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Barbara Boxer (a rare good report)
[Public Service Announcement kind of thing for Californians from DT]
I sent a letter to both Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein and I received responses from both (see Boxer response below). I am amazed, but Barbara Boxer is a sponsor and co-sponsor of two important bills (see attachment). Diane Feinstein is not a sponsor on either one. Also Jerry McNerney and Tom McClintock are sponsers of important bills in the House of Reps.
Check out this website: http://thomas.loc.gov
It provides all the bills in the HR and Senate and who are the sponsors and co-sponsors. Very interesting.
Dr. DT
Voight: Turned Conservative After 'Marxist' Left Caused & Ignored Vietnam/Cambodia Slaughter
[History]
And then I saw the end of the war. I saw us pull out, and then I saw the communists move in and slaughter 2 1/2 million people in South Vietnam and Cambodia. And I saw the left that had precipitated this turn away, just walk away from it. ...
They didn't take seriously the blood that they had been directly causing.
And I didn't – but I must say programming is very, very deep. And I didn't really pull out of it for quite a while afterward. But that's where the dime dropped and things started to happen. And then I , you know, then 9/11, of course.
Below is a complete transcript of the interview from the Wednesday, June 10, Beck show on FNC:
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Merit Isn’t What It Used to Be at Annapolis
A Naval Academy professor and former admissions official has blown the whistle on the Navy’s diversity admissions program. He contends there is one set of academic standards for white applicants and another one for minorities.“First of all, we’re dumbing down the Naval Academy. . . Second of all, we’re dumbing down the officer corps.”
And he’s got the data on his side...
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Blind man has sight restored by having tooth implanted in his eye
Martin Jones, 42, a builder, had been blind for 12 years after a tub of white hot aluminium exploded in his face as he worked at a scrapyard. He married his wife Gill, 50, four years ago but had not seen her until after the delicate eight-hour operation to return the gift of sight.
The procedure began when one of Mr Jones' canine teeth was removed and converted into a holder for a special optical lens by drilling a hole in it. The tooth was then inserted into his cheek for three months to enable it to grow new tissue and blood vessels.
Then finally came the delicate operation to insert the tooth, complete with the fitted lens into Mr Jones' right eyeball. Within two weeks of the final operation to implant the tooth in his eyeball his sight returned and he was told he had almost perfect vision in his right eye.
"When I first heard about the technique I couldn't believe it. I don't think many people can. ... "My friends just don't believe me. They think I'm pulling their leg or have just made it up. But when I take my glasses off they say "oh my God" Because my eye looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. They're just amazed at it,"
[About time - I've long wondered why they didn't stick teeth in peoples' eyes to restore vision. Seriously; an example of our medical experts, of whom I'm frequently critical, truly earning the moniker of 'miracle workers'.
BTW:] "The first car I saw when my sight was restored was a Smart car and I couldn't stop laughing – I'd never seen one before and I thought it had been chopped in half."
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Vegetarian diet 'weakens bones'
SYDNEY – People who live on vegetarian diets have slightly weaker bones than their meat-eating counterparts, Australian researchers said Thursday.
A joint Australian-Vietnamese study of links between the bones and diet of more than 2,700 people found that vegetarians had bones five percent less dense than meat-eaters, said lead researcher Tuan Nguyen.
The condition was most pronounced in vegans...
[But did the study sufficiently exclude other potential causative factors, such as vegans having softer craniums, also skeletal tissue, to begin with? {just advocating for good scientific method...}]
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