Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Sabi the army dog returns home after 14 months lost in Afghanistan
Subject: txt heroes gdd gwot -
An Australian special forces explosives detection dog has been found after going missing in action in Afghanistan 14 months ago. Sabi, a four-year-old black labrador, was returned to the Australian base at Tarin Kowt after an American soldier found her wandering in a remote area of the southern province of Oruzgan last week. The US soldier, named only as John, knew that his Australian counterparts had lost their canine companion during a gun battle in Afghanistan 14 months ago.
After more than a year of eluding the Taleban and living off her wits, Sabi received a celebrity welcome from General Stanley McChrystal, head of Nato troops, and Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, who saw the dog during an overnight trip to visit his country’s servicemen.
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Afghan officials fear talk of exit strategy
Subject: txt gwot -
Kabul - Afghan officials hope President Barack Obama's address on Afghanistan won't be weighted too heavily on an exit strategy - even though that's the message many Americans and Democrats in Congress want to hear.
If he talks extensively in his speech Tuesday night about winding down the war, Afghans fear the Taliban will simply bide their time until the Americans abandon the country much as they did after the Soviets left 20 years ago...
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An Incoherent Strategy?
Subject: txt gwot nsec -
An anonymous administration source gives the New York Times a glimpse of Obama's coming Afghanistan strategy speech. Some signs are troubling.
The Taliban and al-Qaeda are almost certainly licking their long-view chops.
"Ride the storm. The Americans want out more than they want to win..."
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The Wrong Message - Again
[HT:DG]Subject: txt gwot nsec -
If it seems as though the world is moving faster than ever before, maybe that's just because the White House is moving so slowly.
To take an example at random, on Sept. 20, 2001, President Bush gave an address to a joint session of Congress about the war on terror. On Nov. 13, 54 days later, allied troops liberated Kabul.
On Sept. 9, 2009, President Obama gave an address to a joint session of Congress in which he pointedly mentioned Afghanistan only as part of an illogical argument for massively higher domestic spending.
Tomorrow, 83 days later, Obama will give another speech...
... in which we're told he will say that, after months of indecision, he has finally resolved to be irresolute...
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'Muslim Mafia' author ordered to remove documents from Web
Subject: txt islm lbrty bbro - e
WASHINGTON — A federal judge has taken the rare step of ordering self-described anti-terrorism investigator Paul David Gaubatz to remove from his Web site some of the 12,000 documents that his son allegedly stole from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly also ordered Gaubatz to return documents used in his book,
"Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Seeking to Islamize America,"
[GWOT]
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1993 WTC 'plotter' and Mike meet
Subject: txt gwto islm libs -
A controversial imam who was an 'unindicted co-conspirator' in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was among a group of Muslim leaders invited yesterday to a meeting with Mayor Bloomberg at City Hall.
Siraj Wahhaj has defended the convicted WTC bomb plotters, called the FBI and CIA the ''real terrorists,'' and said he hopes all Americans eventually become Muslim.
Bloomberg invited him to the roundtable and shook his hand when he entered the meeting room, which was closed to reporters.
"I think that if the mayor had any discomfort he would not have invited me,"
said Wahhaj, an imam at Masjid Al-Taqwa in Brooklyn.
Wahhaj's name was omitted from a guest list given to the press after photographers were invited in to take pictures.
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POLL: 63% Say Political Correctness Kept Military From Preventing Ford Hood Massacre
Subject: txt gwot islm nsec - 
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 16% disagree and do not believe political correctness kept military authorities from possibly stopping the killing of 13 people and the wounding of many others in the November 5 incident. Twenty-one percent (21%) are not sure.
Older Americans are more suspicious of political correctness than voters under 40. Whites were more likely than African-Americans to think political correctness kept the military from responding to warning signs from Hasan.
Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major political party overwhelmingly believe political correctness held the military back. That view is shared by 49% of Democrats while 23% of those in the president’s party disagree.
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The Honduran Elections: True Lies and Home Truths
Subject: txt intl -
A sprawling piece of graffiti at a school in a poor Tegucigalpa neighborhood warned: “Your Life is Not Worth a Vote!” The intent of the message was to scare voters away from the November 29 national elections in Honduras.
In general, the media-induced sense of crisis contrasted starkly with the reality of a pro-American nation anxious to put Manuel Zelaya and his Hugo Chavez–like antics behind it...
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Congratulations to the Little Country That Could
Subject: txt 1st intl sclm - 
Throughout the Honduran “crisis” — the removal of the Honduran president by order of a unanimous Honduran Supreme Court, supported by the virtually unanimous approval of the Honduran Congress — many noted there was an easy remedy for the alleged “coup”: hold the already scheduled election between the already selected candidates and install an undeniably democratic government.
Instead, President Obama labeled what had happened a “military coup,” cut off aid to one of the poorest states in the hemisphere, revoked the visas of the entire Honduran Supreme Court, and resisted for months the obvious solution to the “crisis.”
On Friday, the State Department finally endorsed the election, describing it in terms that would have made Simon Bolivar blush:
The electoral process — launched well before June 28 and involving legitimate candidates representing parties with longstanding democratic traditions from a broad ideological spectrum — is conducted under the stewardship of the multi-party and autonomous Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which was also selected before the coup. The electoral renewal of presidential, congressional and mayoral mandates, enshrined in the Honduran constitution, is an inalienable expression of the sovereign will of the citizens of Honduras.
Honduras now holds the Guinness record for shortest Latin American “coup” ever. Yesterday, the election officials announced that more than 61.5 percent of registered Hondurans went to the polls, a historic record turnout:The announcement from the TSE [Tribunal Supremo Electoral] received a standing ovation from the attentive room of official observers and spectators.
The TSE stated they would welcome any international audit of the results.
The Obama administration finally recognized that its misguided policy had reached a dead end and reversing course before it was too late. It is a lesson the administration could profitably apply in other foreign-policy areas as well.
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GPs 'should offer climate change advice to patients'
Subject: txt grn hcare bdd sclm bbro -
The Climate and Health Council, a collaboration of worldwide health organisations including the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Society of Medicine, believes there is a direct link between climate change and better health. Their controversial plan would see GPs and nurses give out 'advice' to their patients on how to lower their carbon footprint...
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Most Americans Want Congress to Vote Against Obama Health Plan
Subject: txt hcare - Nearly Half of all 
Most Americans want their members of Congress to vote ‘no’ on President Barack Obama’s government-led restructuring of the health-care system, according to a Gallup survey. The report, released Monday, shows that only self-identified Democrats support the plan, with strong majorities of both Republicans and Independents opposing the president. Originally, Gallup asked respondents which way they wanted their
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Democrats expect U.S. healthcare overhaul to pass
Subject: txt hcare -
Washington - Leading Democrats on Sunday said they expect Congress to pass a major healthcare reform backed by President Barack Obama...
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[They're going to pass it - have you and your friends told them what you think of it?
and pass it on...
.
The Media Aren't Talking About Health Care's Lost Jobs and Crushing Taxes
Subject: txt hcare mny -
What’s hidden in health care reform that you haven’t heard about? Plenty. Without a news media interested in questioning the contents of the legislation, how could you know about the punitive taxes and job-killing provisions lurking in it? [Well, a particular blog comes to mind - but I digress...]
My clients in the restaurant industry alerted me to several of the House bill’s mandates that may seem “healthy” on their face, until you consider the costs, the legal liability incurred and the competitive disadvantage foisted on small businesses within a health care reform bill being used as means of creating new and expansive regulatory activity and interference in our lives... [snip]
Incidentally, should you happen to own 20 restaurants, I advise shuttering the least productive one or ones and putting the staff on the unemployment rolls immediately. If you were thinking of investing in opening another restaurant and creating jobs, don’t....
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Damn the Deficit: Full Speed Ahead on Obamacare
Subject: txt hcare - sclm mny bbro -
That suggests that, at least for some Democrats, huge looming budget deficits are not a bug but a feature. Just as Ronald Reagan hoped that cutting taxes would force politicians to cut spending, these Democrats hope that increasing spending will force politicians to increase taxes to levels common in Western Europe. Never mind that those economies have proved more sluggish and less creative than ours over the long haul.
The instrument they may have in mind is the value added tax, which operates as an invisible sales tax on goods and services.
Back in May, Budget Director Peter Orszag's spokesman mentioned the VAT as a "credible idea" that he did not want to rule out. In June, House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel suggested a VAT as "a point of discussion." In September, John Podesta, head of the Obama transition team, spoke of how a VAT would "create a balance" with other economies, and White House adviser Paul Volcker cited a carbon tax and a VAT as ways to raise lots of revenue. In October, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "Somewhere along the way, a value-added tax plays into this."
These statements are noteworthy, since American politicians are ordinarily skittish about saying we should imitate Europe's high-tax and high-spending policies. These policies seem more unpopular than ever 10 months into the Obama presidency. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that 53 percent of voters worry that the federal government will do too much in response to economic problems, while only 37 percent worry it will do too little.
That mirrors voters' current opposition to Democratic health care bills. Democratic leaders nonetheless want to jam one through before their current majorities are eroded, as they seem likely to be, in the 2010 elections. This is politically risky, but makes sense if your [real] goal is to expand government.
So the battle over health care is not just about health care. It's about whether government will permanently gobble up more of the private-sector economy -- and slow it down in the process...
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[et tu?
"OPPOSE ANY/ALL GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE"
Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
The Ghost of Lysenko
The imaginary science of man-made global warning can now be entered into the infamous history of politicized science
The imaginary science of man-made global warning can now be entered into the infamous history of politicized science, the results of which have threads in our lives today.
Consider the residue of such frauds as Rachel Carson, Alfred Kinsey, and Margaret Mead. Carson's invented findings and unscientific methods led to the banning of DDT, which in turn cost the lives of tens of millions of children in undeveloped nations... [snip]
Perhaps the most egregious ghost is Trofim Lysenko, the man who ruled the life sciences of Soviet Russia from the late 1920s until the early 1960s. He had a theory which fit Marxism perfectly: acquired characteristics can be inherited. This is not true, of course, but Lysenko had the Politburo and Stalin behind him. It was science that fit the political needs of the Bolsheviks, and so it was science backed by the awful power of the party and the state.
Lysenko's experiments were heralded, although the experiments were never replicated. The Soviet Union was full of botanists, biologists, geneticists, and other life scientists, and it was obvious to anyone with a free mind that Lysenko was propounding nonsense. But it was not until 1962 that the Soviet government allowed a real critique of his cartoon science. Why? ... [snip]
The ghosts spawned by Lysenko still haunt us today. The "science" of a modern Lysenko -- Albert Gore, Jr. -- is totalitarian nonsense.
The only question is this: How many good men must be consigned to the gulag before the dulled consciences of the administrators of academic "learning" smell Lysenko's stench?
[Recommended > ]
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The Green Mask Is Being Peeled Away From The CO²mmunists
Subject: txt grn intl owg - –
Now that we are learning prominent leaders of the global warming movement destroyed the data they claim to have used to construct their climate models, and only the most rabid environmental fraud deniers still cling to the authenticity of their “science”, a serious moment of truth is fast approaching.
That moment is Copenhagen, which has always been about much more than so called “man-made global warming”...
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IPCC chairman's sublime ignorance surreal
This is pretty incredible. For cluelessness, I have to give it a 9.5. And if its deliberate ignorance, let's go all the way and give it a perfect "10."
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the UN had this to say about Climategate, according to the left wing Guardian's James Randerson:
There is "virtually no possibility" of a few scientists biasing the advice given to governments by the UN's top global warming body, its chair said today.
The guy really doesn't get it, does he.
The whole point of Mann and Jones' efforts were to keep papers from being peer reviewed IN THE FIRST PLACE. So of course there were no "peer reviewed" papers that were left out due to skepticism because there weren't any skeptic papers that anyone offered to include to begin with.
Several instances of putting pressure on journals to turn down papers that disagreed with the CRU scientist's conclusions are staring this guy in the face and he either doesn't realize the significance of the emails, or has deliberately ignored them to create his own comfortable little global warming reality. Not only that, clear interference in the process was also evident as the CRU frauds got editors of two journals fired for publishing papers that questioned their work.
The IPCC chairman's sublime ignorance is surreal in the face of the evidence. Expect more of this incredible disconnect at the Copenhagen conference next week...
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When the Establishment Hates a Right Wing Candidate
Subject: txt 2010 msm bias crpt bdd -
Approximately once every four years, the media establishment and certain "moderates" in the Republican Party decide to destroy a conservative candidate. They sharpen their blades and their tongues and they go into action, armed with the conviction that the vitriol of their pens will wither away the candidate's reputation and potential.
Very often, it works.
After all, what would you think of a candidate the Baltimore Sun calls a symptom of "the right, the radical right, which cherishes notions that often are too simple, too negative and too risky"? What would you believe about a candidate one liberal columnist calls "patently ridiculous … frivolous"? What would you say about a candidate one writer says is incapable of "accuracy or depth"? A candidate who "cater[s] to the fears and anxieties of the great middle class"? Would you back a candidate one New York Times columnist calls "primitive"? That The New Republic calls an "ignoramus"? That The Nation labels "the most dangerous person ever to come this close to the presidency"? Would you support a candidate even moderate Republicans despise? A candidate whose simple legitimization by the party constitutes a "political dance macabre … the dance of death for the Republican Party"? A candidate described by a moderate competitor as plagued with a "penchant for offering simplistic solutions to hideously complex problems"?
Could you ever support such a candidate?
Yes. You did. In 1976, 1980 and 1984. Because the candidate described in each of the above quotes is not the much-maligned current media punching bag Sarah Palin. It's Ronald Wilson Reagan. Reagan was seen as a rube, a throwback to a nostalgically nonexistent past, an empty vessel spouting radical propaganda. He was stupid, incompetent, dangerous. Katie Couric would have torn him apart on primetime television. "Saturday Night Live" would have had a field day. And he won. He won big.
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