Although readers are strongly encouraged to review the entire piece, here are some of the highlights:
• You have vigorously embraced the Global Warming predictions of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and are using the warning of uncontrollable warming and a resulting environmental calamity to campaign for elimination of fossil fuels. Your environmentally conscious friends in politics and in the media have united with you to create a barrage of news reports, documentaries, TV feature reports, movies, books, concerts and protest events to build support for your goals. The war against fossil fuels has become a massive scare campaign that is giving children nightmares
• The science behind your global warming scare is bad and no anthropogenic global warming is happening. Dissenting scientists have now produced convincing evidence that the cornerstone of your scientific argument, increased atmospheric carbon dioxide forcing a rapid, irreversible rise in temperature, is invalid. All of the various "signs of global warming" you have so widely publicized have been proven wrong. They are normal variations in climate that result mostly from the cycles of the Sun. As the Sun cycle has changed in the last three or four years, they have reversed themselves.
• Campaign for your environmental goals on the basis of their own merit. Let go of the global warming frenzy before it leaves you discredited and embarrassed. Stop screaming, "The sky is falling." It is not.
[Full letter > http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/12661711.html ]
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Weather Channel Founder's Letter to Environmentalists Re: Global Warming
Gore: Deadly Cyclone a 'Consequence of Global Warming
It was bound to happen eventually - someone from the global warming movement tying the recent Myanmar cyclone to the so-called climate change phenomenon. Former Vice President Al Gore in an interview on NPR's May 6 "Fresh Air" broadcast did just that. He was interviewed by "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross (Snip) Gore claimed global warming is forcing ocean temperatures to rise, which is causing storms, including cyclones and hurricanes, to intensify - despite the fact meteorologists have explained otherwise...
[but were the scientists on NPR? No.]
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Health provider predicts big loss
Cambridge Health Alliance, a key part of the Boston area's healthcare network, is facing a potentially ''catastrophic'' loss this year and is looking to eliminate up to 300 jobs, or about 9 percent of its workforce, in an effort to stabilize finances. The alliance, which includes Cambridge Hospital, Somerville Hospital, and Whidden Hospital in Everett, says it is being hit hard by the state's new healthcare reform law, which has left it responsible for providing free care for those without insurance...
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WHAT NAFTA TRADE DEFICIT?
Some presidential candidates seem to believe that a substantial part of the three million manufacturing jobs lost since 2000 resulted from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and that outsourcing to Mexico and Canada resulted in a huge trade deficit.
Too bad they don't know that the growth in the deficit isn't due to manufactured goods, but to oil and gas imports, says John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers.
There is no question that the imbalance of trade within NAFTA has grown since 2000, but almost all of the increase in our NAFTA deficit since 2000 has been in increased U.S. imports of energy from Canada and Mexico:
In fact, $58 billion of the $62 billion increase in our NAFTA deficit has been in energy imports.
That's 95 percent of the total increase.
Except for energy, our trade deficit within NAFTA has hardly grown at all -- only $3.5 billion from 2000-2007. Our agricultural and manufactured goods sales to NAFTA countries have just about kept pace with our imports. That's a lot more than one can say about the rest of our foreign trade.
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US service economy expands in April
Data showing an unexpected expansion in the service sector in April raised hopes that the U.S. economy will be spared a sharp downturn. Some analysts saw the report, coupled with Friday's better-than-expected job-loss numbers, as a sign the economy could muddle along, neither growing or declining dramatically.
[no bread lines?]
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Fence fiasco: Or Feliz ano nuevo
... recently, we learned that Congress — that hallmark of American integrity — had pulled a fast one on the voting public by undermining the border fence which it had so ostentatiously supported before the 2006 midterm elections.[snip]
“Nothing in this paragraph shall require the Secretary of Homeland Security to install fencing, physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors in a particular location along an international border of the United States, if the Secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control over the international border at such location.”[snip]
In other words, it leaves total discretion for whether to build the fence or not to the administration that opposed the fence in the first place. Way to go, Congress, and feliz ano nuevo.
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The world's most dangerous gang
But among the hard-working families lurks a darker shadow. Vicious street gangs, committed to violence, have spread throughout the Americas and are now a significant threat in the US...
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"Bad Dads" a Bad Idea
"Bad Dads," redundant in these male-bashing times, is the name of a new reality show Fox is considering... [snip]
More to the point, "Bad Dads" reinforces a stereotype that is neither accurate nor fair. [snip] The more accurate picture of a deadbeat dad is an unemployed or underemployed bloke who sees more jail cells than golf courses. A common sequence of events for the poorest deadbeat dads goes something like this: Fall behind in child support, get arrested and put in jail, lose your job, fall further behind in child support... [snip]
"Bad Dads" is just the latest insult to men and especially fathers who feel, appropriately, that they've been maligned and minimized through television programming and advertising. In sitcoms, men are typically buffoons. And fathers, if they exist, are inept and unreliable, while Mom is a paragon of virtue and competence. Television executives and advertisers may profit from such "entertainment," but who's having fun? Apparently, women are. Four out of five network sitcom viewers are female.
[and the beat goes on...]
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Newspapers likely to be free in the future: survey
LONDON - Newspapers seeking to compete with the Internet are likely to become free and place greater emphasis on comment and opinion in the future, a survey of the world's editors showed on Tuesday.
[still overpriced]
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We're (Still) No. 1
Newsweek thinks the U.S. is fading in a "post-American world." We beg to differ. As in earlier times, reports of our impending demise are greatly exaggerated. The Soviets were going to bury us, remember? We buried them.
OK, maybe we no longer have 'the world's largest shopping mall' or 'the world's largest Ferris wheel' {Newsweek's indicators}, but that's not what the millions who sail past Lady Liberty are looking for.
They are looking for freedom, the freedom to live out their lives and dreams as they, not their governments or feudal masters, see fit. They seek better lives for their children knowing that hard work and ambition in this new land will be rewarded.
Newsweek notes the world's largest refinery is being built in India. The nation that put men on the moon hasn't built one in more than three decades. Government and environmentalism run amok have made us afraid of our own shadow. That can change and must.
Newsweek says "the facts on the ground — unemployment numbers, foreclosure rates, deaths from terror attacks — are simply not dire enough to explain the present atmosphere of malaise" in which [it says] most Americans are stuck.
Perhaps it's the constant barrage of cover stories such as Newsweek's that explain it.
[Recommended]
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Tuesday, May 6, 2008
NOAA: Climate Change Actually Decreases Hurricanes
The study by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Miami Lab and the University of Miami postulated that global warming may actually decrease the number of hurricanes that strike the United States. Warming waters may increase vertical wind speed, or wind shear, cutting into a hurricane's strength. The study focused on observations rather than computer models, which often form the backbone of global warming studies, and on the records of hurricanes over the past century...
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Why the Sky is Not Falling
[for those of you with children]
Holly Fretwell, an economist by training, has done her best to bring some needed critical thinking to the global-warming debate by writing “The Sky’s Not Falling! Aimed at 8- to 12-year-olds and their parents, it is a good, reasoned, 115-page antidote to the Chicken Little hysteria and propaganda found in the mainstream media and in places like Laurie David’s kids book “The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming.” Fretwell is a research fellow who focuses on natural-resource issues and public-lands management at the free-market Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Mont.[snip]
But as any scientist can tell you, correlation is not causation. If you actually go back and look at the data that shows CO2 levels and temperature changes over the last 650,000 years, what we find is that temperature actually changes first and CO2 in the atmosphere follows that temperature change. Maybe I should say that again: Temperature changes first. CO2 lags the temperature change. We know that humans are emitting CO2; the point being, however, there is no reason to believe that CO2 is causing temperature change when it is following temperature rises over the history of the data we have.
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America Should Be 'Oil' For More Drilling
The United States and the global economy will need a great deal more energy in the decades to come. It is said that within the next two decades we'll need about 40 percent more energy than we used in 2005. No one disputes this, and that figure is probably wildly underestimated... [snip]
It probably comes as a shock to most people that the United States is the world's third-largest oil producer (Saudi Arabia and Russia hold the top two spots). We produce a lot of oil and can produce much more. But we have hamstrung our oil industry by forbidding further drilling in Alaska, (where the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge could possibly provide for as much as 5 percent of our current oil needs) or in offshore oil fields in the Atlantic, Pacific and the Gulf where vast resources are believed to exist.
But instead of focusing on how can we increase oil and gas supplies, the Democrats in Congress, sounding increasingly like Hugo Chavez, have been working to reduce supply in the face of constantly rising demand. To wit: they've said no to more exploration, and have been pushing for higher taxes on oil companies to recoup what they call "excess profits." Such policies make us more dependent on foreign oil while throttling supply, which in turn has contributed to high prices at the pump... [snip]
Meanwhile, America is being taken to the cleaners by needlessly high oil and gas prices caused by congressional ignorance and inability to come to grips with the only viable solution: Start boosting energy supplies and the cost to consumers will come down.
[again: the US has the greatest identified-recoverable energy reserves on the planet - but is the only country to refuse to develop its own resources. The Saudis are laughing their asses off]
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U.S. stocks fall as oil surges to $120 a barrel
New York - U.S. stocks fell on Monday as a surge in oil prices to a record over $120 a barrel. In the stock market the higher oil prices, on weakness in the dollar and supply concerns from OPEC members Nigeria and Iran, overshadowed a report that showed the service sector defied expectations to post its first monthly gain this year.
[there is no faster way to scuttle an economy than energy prices]
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Groups sue to stop Chukchi [oil] exploration
A lawsuit filed by Alaska environmental groups seeks to stop seismic exploration by oil companies this summer in Arctic waters. The plaintiffs are challenging federal permits that allow energy giants Shell Oil and BP to search for oil and gas (Snip) The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Alaska, names the Minerals Management Service and National Marine Fisheries Service among the defendants.
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THEY MEANT WELL [, the socialists.]
When governments get involved in projects that can be done by private enterprise, the results are almost certain to be bad. Even if they hit upon a potentially worthwhile venture, they will approach it in a very inefficient manner. Politicians and bureaucrats are not spending their own money and do not stand to lose if they are wrong.
In "They Meant Well," D. R. Myddelton, a Cranfield University professor, examines government project disasters in Great Britain. Both Conservative and Labor governments presided over those fiascos, writes Myddelton, and the results range from almost comical to utterly tragic:
• A grand 30 year experiment in socialized nuclear energy beginning in 1955 cost taxpayers around $63 billion, until Margret Thatcher moved power generation out of being a government monopoly and into the world of free market completion
• About $17.9 billion was lost on the development a supersonic jet that no private airlines would buy.
• Most recently the disappointing Millennium Dome project netted the government a loss of 1.9 billion from 1994 to 2000. [snip]
The common thread among these projects is that the politicians overestimated benefits, underestimated costs, did not know when to stop, and stuck the public with a big tab...
[the yellow book philosophy: if you can find it in the yellow pages, government should stay out.]
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AN UNSTABLE SYSTEM
Government health care as it is currently structured in Canada is not financially sustainable, according to "Paying More, Getting Less," an annual report from the Fraser Institute. Fraser found that even in provinces benefiting from inflated energy costs such as resource rich Alberta, growth in health care spending still has out paced growth in GDP and total available provincial revenue.
An increase in demand for health services without an equivalent increase in the ability to pay will inevitably leads to government rationing, says Fraser.
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THE STIMULUS DEFICIT
If you want to know the real cost of Washington's economic stimulus, look no further than yesterday's Fiscal 2009 White House budget. The federal deficit is taking a giant leap backward, thanks in substantial part to the $150 billion in "temporary" tax cuts, says the Wall Street Journal.
This non-stimulating stimulus will largely take the form of tax rebates and credits that will do little to change economic incentives. Thus they will result in a nearly dollar-for-dollar revenue loss to the Treasury, expanding a deficit that was already going to climb to $219 billion thanks to slower economic growth and faster spending.
Yet President Bush's 2003 reductions on capital gains, dividend and marginal income-tax rates are precisely the kind of tax cuts that provide incentives to work and invest and thus recoup at least some of the revenue lost due to lower rates, as is evidenced by the unsung part of the budget story that overall revenue growth remains relatively healthy:
- The White House budget office says fiscal 2007 revenue rose by 6 percent, and the main reason they're estimated to fall modestly this year is the "stimulus" tax rebates.
- Taxes as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) are now 18.5 percent, slightly higher than the 40-year modern historical average.
Judges Getting the Message About Illegal Immigrants
In December, a federal judge in Oklahoma upheld an Oklahoma law requiring state contractors to determine and verify the immigration status of new hires. U.S. District Judge James H. Payne threw out a legal challenge to the law.
In January, U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber emphatically ruled against illegal immigrants who had sued to overturn a similar ordinance enacted by Valley Park, Mo., a town near St. Louis. The court upheld the ordinance, which was directed at employers who were hiring illegal immigrants.
In February U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake rejected each and every argument challenging a new Arizona law that imposes penalties on businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. He dismissed the claim that federal law somehow ties the hands of state and local governments seeking to protect their own citizens.
These three decisions in three different parts of the country included both Republican- and Democratic-appointed judges. In the term loved by the mainstream media, there is now bipartisan judicial support for state and local legislation against illegal immigrants.
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VALUE OF COLLEGE TUITION IS CALLED INTO QUESTION
Students are a growing source of revenue for colleges, but little of that money is going into classroom instruction, says the report by the Delta Cost Project, a Washington-based non-profit. The study also finds that the percentage of students who complete a degree hasn't kept pace with increases in enrollments, revenue and total spending. Consider:
• The United States spends more per student than any other industrialized nation, yet it ranks at the bottom in degree completion (54 percent), says the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
• The organization average is 71 percent; the high is 91 percent in Japan.
Source: Mary Beth Marklein, "Value of College Education is Called into Question," USA Today, May 1, 2008.
[we need an internet based curricula to compete with colleges and break their cartel-like hold on education - they're diminishing our future competitiveness as a nation
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Writer Stephen King: If You Can't Read, You'll End Up in the Army or Iraq
Remember shortly before Election Day 2006 when Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) suggested that if you don't get a good education, "you get stuck in Iraq"? Well, last month, famed horror auther Stephen King was speaking in front of a group of high school students at the Library of Congress, and he virtually made the exact same statement.For those that can bear it, what follows is another in a long line of liberal media members bashing the military...
[after several years of monitoring our service men's daily sacrifice and valor I've come to believe that the 'demographic' they represent is the single most flattering to our nation - their character and integrity and selflessness is beyond compare: as a group they represent the best among us]
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Governor's budget plan grows green staff
California
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's near-and-dear fight to make the state greener is adding a lot of new jobs to the state's already-in-the-red payroll. The governor's latest budget proposal calls for no fewer than 211 greenhouse-gas busters to be sprinkled throughout state government, at an annual cost of $55.4 million. That's 77 more greenies than are on the payroll this year...
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Get ready for 'plant rights.'
You just knew it was coming: At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the "dignity" of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called "plant rights" is being seriously debated. A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms."
[again: political correctness doesn't stop until stopped]
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Chris Matthews the Most Powerful Commentator in the US?
According to new rankings by the Telegraph newspaper, Chris Matthews is the second most influential pundit in the United States.
Bill O'Reilly's 2.3 million viewers earned him the 12th spot, just ahead of Keith Olberman's 700,000 to 900,000.
Of course, a mild amount of research on the part of the Telegraph would have revealed that Rush Limbaugh brings brings in excess of 13.5 million. [not a fan, but link = fascinating Annenberg study quantifying his influence]
Yet Chris Matthews' 530,000 viewers trumped all of these people, making him the second most influential person in the United States? This is a laughable assertion at best. Am I the only one wondering if the Brits are trying to promote Matthews's Senate campaign?
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Monday, May 5, 2008
Soldiers Visit to Help Afghan Children Begin School
The soldiers showed their support for the school, teachers and students by providing notebooks, pens, pencils and other school supplies to the students. About 120 students arrived for the first day of classes at the Oshay school in the Shahidi Hasas district of Afghanistan’s Oruzgan province.“All of the children seemed extremely happy to be there and excited to learn,” a coalition soldier said.
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Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, California University Professor Emeritus, Regarding the Nomination of General David Patraeus to Centcom Commander:
“Petraeus’ recent nomination to Centcom commander suggests that, like the growing influence of Gens. U.S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman in 1863, or of George Marshall when he reconfigured the Army in 1940, we at last are beginning to get the right officers in the right places at the right time.[the point: time is not on their side, it's on ours - provided we persevere]
“The despairing enemy seems to sense this as well. The more al-Qaida mouthpiece Ayman al-Zawahiri threatens the West, the more he sounds like Hitler's shrill propagandist Joseph Goebbels in his bunker as the Third Reich was crumbling.
“In his latest desperate rant, a suddenly ‘green’ Zawahiri was reduced to appealing to environmentally conscious Muslims to fault the United States for our supposed culpability for global warming! No wonder polls across the Middle East show a sharp decline in support for his boss, Osama bin Laden.”
The 100 Year Lie
Asked at a New Hampshire campaign stop about possibly staying in Iraq 50 years, John McCain interrupted -- "Make it a hundred" -- then offered a precise analogy to what he envisioned:
"We've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so."And lest anyone persist in thinking he was talking about war-fighting, he told his questioner:
"It's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world."There is another analogy to the kind of benign and strategically advantageous "presence" McCain was suggesting for postwar Iraq: Kuwait. The U.S. (with allies) occupied Kuwait in 1991 and has remained there with a major military presence for 17 years. We debate dozens of foreign policy issues in this country.
I've yet to hear any serious person of either party call for a pullout from Kuwait.
Why? Because our presence projects power and provides stability for the entire Gulf and for vulnerable U.S. allies that line its shores.
But a serious argument is not what Democrats are seeking. They want the killer sound bite, the silver bullet to take down McCain. According to Politico, they have found it: "Dems to hammer McCain for '100 years.'"
-- "He (McCain) says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq" (Barack Obama, Feb. 19)."It's a rank falsehood for the DNC to accuse McCain of wanting to wage 'endless war' based on his support for a presence in Iraq something like the U.S. role in South Korea."
-- "We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another 100 years" (Obama, Feb. 26).
The Democrats are undeterred. "It's seldom you get such a clean shot," a senior Obama adviser told Politico.
It's seldom that you see such a dirty lie.
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US found date-stamped Iranian weapons in Iraq: report
The US military says it has found Iranian-made mortars, rockets and explosives in Iraq bearing recent date stamps, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. "You can see the manufacturing dates right on the armaments themselves," a senior commander in Baghdad was quoted as saying. "These are very clearly weapons that were made in the last month or so."
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University 'an agent of extreme Islam'
A judge has likened Griffith University to hardline Islamic ''madrassas'' in Pakistan - notorious for breeding radicals - and accused the Queensland institution of promoting a Muslim ideology espoused by Osama bin Laden. Queensland District Court judge Clive Wall also accused Griffith of becoming an ''agent'' through which the Saudi Arabian embassy was propagating extreme Islam.
[G.W.O.T.]
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Pelosi Kills Colombian Free Trade Agreement
That much was made clear when Speaker Nancy Pelosi changed the rules of the House to avoid being forced to bring the Colombian Free Trade Agreement to a vote:
The fact is, Democrats killed this agreement because they want to roll back free trade agreements across the board. Quite simply, this is madness. For every job they "save" (a dubious proposition), 3 jobs will be lost as a result of reduced exports and imports as nations bump up tarrifs and protectionism becomes the norm.
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Colombian police: FARC responsible for most U.S. cocaine
BOGOTA, -- Most of the cocaine that enters the United States is manufactured by FARC, Alvaro Caro, head of Colombia's drug enforcement police, said Monday. "The southern guerillas send their cocaine via the Pacific and the northern ones via the Atlantic, but all are equally committed to growing illegal crops and harvesting them for export," he said.
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U.N. sees world climate change deal in 2009
The world can reach a significant new climate change pact by the end of 2009 if current talks keep up their momentum, the head of the United Nations climate panel said on Sunday. The United Nations began negotiations on a sweeping new pact in March after governments agreed last year to work out a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol by the end of next year...
[I.e., they're in a rush to inact some kind of binding something before the ruse is up. - Silence will be interpreted as consent...]
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The rise of the new energy world order
A steady migration of power and wealth from energy-deficit to energy-surplus nations: There are few countries - perhaps a dozen altogether - with enough oil, gas, coal and uranium to meet their own energy needs and provide significant surpluses for export. Not surprisingly, such states will be able to extract increasingly beneficial terms from the much wider pool of energy-deficit nations dependent on them for vital supplies of energy. These terms, primarily of a financial nature, will result in growing mountains of petrodollars being accumulated by the leading oil producers, but will also include political and military concessions.
The transfer of wealth alone is already mind-boggling. The oil-exporting countries collected an estimated $970 billion from the importing countries in 2006, and the take for 2007, when finally calculated, is expected to be far higher. A substantial fraction of these dollars, yen and euros have been deposited in sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), giant investment accounts owned by the oil states and deployed for the acquisition of valuable assets around the world.
In recent months, the Persian Gulf SWFs have been taking advantage of the financial crisis in the United States to purchase large stakes in strategic sectors of its economy....
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Quote of the Week
Robert Samuelson, Newsweek and Washington Post Contributing Editor, Regarding Congressional Complicity in the Rising Costs of Fuel:
"It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25-30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).
"What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity."
.
Investment Group Puts Millions in Green Companies Gore Has Stake In
Some more pieces of the "How Al Gore is Going to Become Amazingly Wealthy by Selling Climate Hysteria" puzzle came together Friday when the Silicon Valley venture capital firm he's now a part of announced a $500 million investment in green technologies.
Making matters more delicious, the firm already has investments in many of the same companies Gore admitted in March he has a stake in.
To begin untangling this web, let's first take a gander at what was reported Friday by the San Francisco Chronicle (emphasis added): ...
[that's why I prefer 'scam' to 'hoax' - it's the money...]
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Stop Apologizing for Being an American
A couple of days ago, I had the misfortune of being on a BBC radio show with an American college professor who sounded like he had read one too many Noam Chomsky books.
Let me give you a short impression of the guy: "Blah, blah, blah, racists! Blah, blah, blah, of course Jeremiah Wright was right when he said...blah, blah, blah. No wonder people are angry at America!"
Not to disagree with Professor Crabby McCommiePuss, but there is no nation in the world that has more to be proud of and less to apologize for than the United States of America...
[a little perspective...]
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Friday, May 2, 2008
It started on the radio...
Customer Relations: 1-877-TELLREGAL or 1-877-835-5734
Email (form): http://www.regmovies.com/corporate/contactus.aspx
convenience text {for the typing-averse among you}:
Please give "Indoctrination U" by Evan Coyne Maloney the same theater distribution you recently gave Ben Stien's "Expelled".
Mr. Maloney's movies is receiving rave reviews for its humor as well as the importance of its subject matter - my friends and I are looking forward to seeing it.
.
Mofaz: Iran could go nuclear in a year
Iran has taken command of its nuclear technology and could have an atomic bomb in a year, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz was quoted as saying Wednesday, according to Channel 10. Mofaz made the comments during talks with US officials in Washington where he leading an Israeli delegation holding meetings within the framework (Snip) "Teheran leads the axis of evil, poses a threat to the entire world, is up to its neck in the Middle East and is even trying to get a foothold in the West Bank," he said.
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Muslim call to adopt Mecca time
Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth. Mecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers. The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.
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BLOOD BARRELS
The world is far more peaceful today than it was 15 years ago, says Michael L. Ross, a Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. There were 17 major civil wars in the late 1980s; by 2006, there were just five. During that period, the number of smaller conflicts also fell, from 33 to 27. Despite this trend, there has been no drop in the number of wars in countries that produce oil, says Ross:
• Today, with violence falling in general, oil-producing states make up a growing fraction of the world's conflict-ridden countries.
• They now host about a third of the world's civil wars, both large and small, up from one-fifth in 1992.
• The main reason is that oil wealth often wreaks havoc on a country's economy and politics, makes it easier for insurgents to fund their rebellions, and aggravates ethnic grievances.
The number of oil-producer-based conflicts is likely to grow in the future as stratospheric prices of crude oil push more countries in the developing world to produce oil and gas, says Ross.
[but let's not develop our own oil reserves]
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Gore Used Fictional Video to Illustrate ‘Inconvenient Truth’
It goes without saying that climate realists around the world believe Nobel Laureate Al Gore used false information throughout his schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" in order to generate global warming hysteria. On Friday, it was revealed by ABC News that one of the famous shots of supposed Antarctic ice shelves in the film was actually a computer-generated image from the 2004 science fiction blockbuster "The Day After Tomorrow"...
["climate realists" -- works for me]
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PELOSI-GREENGRICH - Extreme green activism
We have the makings of a crisis, it's immediate, and it's more than theory. The United Nation's top humanitarian official warns that continuing food shortages and escalating prices may result in sustained worldwide political unrest and social instability. Never in the lifetimes of most living Americans has the mere availability of food been so in doubt. And never in the history of America has "going green" been so en vogue.
There's a connection here.
If we're putting the 'interest' of earth above the interests of humanity, then it's hard to justify drilling for oil in pristine areas of Alaska, or anywhere else for that matter. Perhaps Earth doesn't want to be stuck with a drill. As a result, foreigners who wish us dead mostly control our oil supply. Less oil = higher oil prices = higher cost to get food to market = higher food prices.
But it doesn't stop there. The Sierra Club wants to shut down coal-fired electric plants, which will eliminate a major source of energy. At the same time, the Natural Resources Defense Council rails against nuclear power plants, which we'll need in order to replace coal.
With much of the world rioting for food, and middle class Americans racing to warehouses for rice, perhaps it's time to reconsider the ill-conceived religious mantra that says we should always put "Earth first." Perhaps we should consider a return to those days when humans put humanity first, a time when starving children gleaned more concern than ill-conceived global temperature theories.
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Border Fence Fiasco
This past week, Customs and Border Protection officials reported that two months after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff approved a $20 million virtual fence along a 28-mile stretch in Arizona (called Project 28), the fence was scrapped as impractical and ineffective.
Is anyone really shocked by this security fence fiasco? Another government solution bites the dust. [snip]
Our government has failed to produce a suitable resolution to the illegal immigrant crisis. Amnesty is not the answer. And immigration laws aren't effective if we continue to dodge or ignore them. Furthermore, globalization efforts have only confused security matters, further endangering our borders, as well as our national identity -- our sovereignty. How is it that we can overthrow a government such as Iraq militarily, yet we can't keep illegalities from crossing our borders?
As Mike Huckabee still says, "If the government can't track illegals, then let's outsource the job to UPS or FedEx."
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The Taxpayer Frog In the IRS Pot
You know the story. Put a frog in hot water and he'll jump out, but put him in cooler water and slowly raise the heat and he'll stay in even as he boils to death... [snip]
Federal spending. In 1900 federal spending was $0.5B. In 2000 it was $1,789B . Those amounts translated to 2.5% of GDP in 1900 and 21% in 2000. Government spending at all levels in the U.S. was 36.5% of GDP in 2006. That 2.5% of GDP that could sustain the entire federal government in 1900 is not even enough to cover the Medicare program today.
The Medicare program, by the way, did not exist in 1900; it was established in 1965 [snip]
Are we frogs starting to boil in government stew?
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ABC News: Mexican Drug Violence U.S. Constitution's Fault
True to the liberal penchant for blaming every ill in the world on the USA, ABC News has produced a "report" claiming that the increasing number of guns and drug cartel violence in Mexico is all the fault of... the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That's right, it isn't the drug dealers and killers in Mexico that are at fault, it's James Madison and the Founding Father's fault.
Before anyone imagines that we're employing hyperbole in our introduction, just look at the title of their piece: "U.S. Guns Arming Mexican Drug Gangs; Second Amendment to Blame?"
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Toll lanes set for freeways by 2010's end
California
Days of free [? thought our taxes paid for these] and open roads are dimming in Los Angeles after the federal government offered $213.6 million to launch a one-year toll road pilot program by the end of 2010 in an effort to boost speeds on three sluggish freeways. With a promise to keep traffic flowing no slower than 50 mph in car-pool lanes converted to express lanes, toll lanes will straddle freeways through Pasadena and between downtown Los Angeles and east Los Angeles County...
[they're not even discussing adding more lanes, or removing all HOV lanes to maximize use. Guess there's no profit in that. Wake up CA, and tell you government to build more lane-miles or they'll be replaced. If you don't, they won't]
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A look beyond the handgun ban
Chicago's gun laws are among the toughest in the country. And yet, in Chicago, gunfire is a routine feature of the city's dominant criminal dynamic, a deeply-entrenched, multi-generational gang system with, authorities estimate, close to 70,000 members citywide. [snip]
Bans? "That's what people do when they don't understand the problem," says Juan Johnson – or "Big Juan," as he's fairly known in the hardscrabble neighbourhoods on Chicago's gang-infested west side. [snip]
"The regular citizen in Chicago cannot go anywhere and buy firearms," says Williams, eyebrows raised. "And yet, in one year, in the 1990s, we had more than 19,000 weapons recovered. In one year. We've been averaging 10,000 weapons recovered every year for the last 10 or 12 or 14 years. And that's with a ban."
[gun bans only remove guns from the hands of law abiding citizens - leaving criminals unopposed ]
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-- Jonah Goldberg
[Canada's not a state?!]
.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
RAF forced to borrow planes
The RAF is being forced to borrow American spy planes and paint roundels on them to replace its fleet of Nimrod R1 signals intelligence aircraft. The crews of the US Rivet Joint spy planes masquerading as RAF aircraft will not even be totally British with US personnel expected to take control on some missions. The move, forced by a Ministry of Defense (MoD) cash crisis that rules out the money for a replacement aircraft for the Nimrod R1, has provoked outrage among RAF air crew who say it will mean a major loss of capability.
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Calls grow for 'spy plane' inspections
Politicians and human rights groups want to go on board US-registered planes that are believed to be carrying terror suspects when they land in Norway for refueling. Planes believed to be chartered by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have landed at the Sola Airport outside Stavanger as many as 15 times since 2003 (Snip) The latest landing occurred earlier this month, and it once again set off protests because the flights are believed to be carrying terror suspects...
[our 'allies']
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Russia warned over Georgia move
Nato has warned Russia that its recent troop build-up in Georgia's two breakaway regions undermines its neighbour's territorial integrity. Russia's moves in Abkhazia and South Ossetia were raising tensions in the area, a Nato spokesman said. Moscow has accused Georgia of preparing to invade Abkhazia, and says it is also boosting Russian peacekeeping forces there and in South Ossetia. Tbilisi has described the Russian move as "irresponsible".
[slowly: When NATO members refused to send troops to, or prohibited them from combat in, Afghanistan, it lost all credibility - hence Putin will do what he pleases. When you act weak, thugs are encouraged.]
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NATO Must Step up in Afghanistan
It's spring in Afghanistan and time for the annual Taliban offensive. This year, with the new Pakistan government making noises about negotiating with the tribes backing the Taliban, the enemy may be emboldened to strike even harder at the peace and security of Afghani villagers.
[snip]
Just a "few thousand more troops" would help enormously. France just promised an additional 1000 men for the war effort but that is the extent of any additional help that has been forthcoming. For the Germans, who have a sizable contingent in Afghanistan but refuse to put them in harms way, this attitude is breeding resentment among those nations who are doing the bulk of the fighting...
For NATO as an organization, this may be the most serious crisis in its entire existence.
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UN 'Peacekeepers' Vandalizing Ancient Art -- Where is MSM Reporting?
We are told over and over again that the United Nations is the answer to all the world's ills. It is often claimed that without the UN things would be so much worse in troubled spots around the world. But, when we look at the pernicious effect the UN has where ever it goes, it's awfully hard to reconcile the claims with the hard truth. We've seen the UN responsible for turning indigenous teens into prostitutes for UN workers in Cambodia, Africa, and Bosnia. [three: that's not an instance, it's a pattern]
Well, now we can add vandalism of sacred, ancient wall-art to the ever growing list of evils perpetrated by UN operatives. Today the Times online give us the story of UN peacekeepers defacing 6,000 year-old art in the Western Saharan rocks of Africa. UN vandals spray graffiti on Sahara’s prehistoric art
But, where is the media to report this outrage against human history and sacred religious relics and sites? About the same place they were when underplaying the reports of UN peacekeepers and employees forcing young women into prostitution the world over... absent from the scene.
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Global warming? Next decade cooler, says study
Global warming could take a break in the next decade thanks to a natural shift in ocean circulations, although Earth's temperature will rise as previously expected over the longer term, according to a study published on Thursday in the British journal Nature...
[this is damage control and subterfuge: the earth is likely cooling but, like the infamous Mann 'hockey stick', 'studies' like this one can now claim that the observed cooling doesn't mean anything - the catastrophic models are still right. The only 'responsible' thing to do is to start spending trillions now-right-now and legislate universal compliance...]
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Lawmakers being forced to give up gas-guzzling cars
Rep. Elton Gallegly of Simi Valley likes his taxpayer-funded Ford Expedition. He isn't worried that it's not the most fuel-efficient car. It's reliable, suits his mountainous district and is cheaper to lease than many other vehicles.''It's not a Cadillac. It's not a Lincoln. It's a Ford,'' the Republican congressman said with exasperation.
(Snip) a little-noticed amendment to last year's energy bill has hit especially close to home. It requires House members who lease vehicles through their office budgets to drive cars that emit low levels of greenhouse gases...
[it starts with them... but is a means to the government controlling all activity]
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Ethanol Mandates Cause Rising Food Prices
Food prices are rising worldwide. Some nations, such as Egypt and Cameroon, are facing riots as the prices for basic food stuffs rise. Other countries from India to Cambodia have banned food exports to try and keep prices low and reduce voter anger.
Corn has experienced the most phenomenal rise. Corn, which averaged around $2 a bushel from 2002 to 2006, rose to over $4 per bushel in 2007 and is now over $6 per bushel.
The U.S. has long been a major exporter of grains, but the quantity going to ethanol are enormous. We are expected this year to convert 3.53 billion bushels of corn into ethanol. There are about 280 medium length ears of corn in a bushel. To put it differently, just the corn used to produce ethanol this year could provide 104 million people with 2,000 calories every day for a year.
The irony is that ethanol also produces much less energy than gasoline. A car that gets 30 miles per gallon on gas would get only 20 miles per gallon on ethanol. Without the subsidies and the mandates, ethanol would have to be less than two thirds the price of gas before it would pay for people to use.
Environmental regulations are bad enough when they simply do nothing more than waste Americans’ money. But we live in a world economy and using massive amounts of corn and grain to make ethanol means that poor people from Africa to Bangladesh have less to eat.
[again: whatch how long it takes government to correct its obvious error]
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Shell Oil president: To cut price, produce more gasoline in U.S.
I say we need more gas to be produced in this country. I've been saying that for three years, ever since I took this position [as president of Shell]
I think the president brings up a good point in that we could, we have the available domestic supplies off the coast of Alaska as well as [the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge]. Shell has won $2 billion worth of high bids for the Chukchi Sea -- that's a few years off before we could begin production.
But let's remember there's more than 100 billion barrels of untouched oil and gas in this country that is subject to a 30-year moratorium. Now, there's only one body in this country that can set a 30-year moratorium, and that's the U.S. government... [snip]
If the U.S. set a goal to produce 2 to 3 million barrels more a day in this country, we would send a shock around the world that would immediately say to the speculators, hey, the U.S. is serious...
[are we? Have you told your representatives? signed a petition? made a phone call?]
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Fear of ideas
One of the greatest blessings of living in America is our First Amendment, which protects the right of all of us to speak out without facing government persecution. People in other countries, even strong Western democracies, are not as fortunate.
The French government, for instance, is prosecuting 73-year-old former film goddess Bridget Bardot for criticizing the ritual slaughter of sheep in a 2004 letter to Nicholas Sarkozy, now France’s president.
Ms. Bardot, an animal-rights activist, complained about the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha, alluding to those running it as “this population that leads us around by the nose, [and] which destroys our country.” In the Orwellian eyes of French prosecutors, that qualified as “inciting racial hatred,” and they are seeking to punish her with a $22,000 fine and two months in jail...
[we're on the same path]
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HEALTH SAVINGS SABOTAGE
This week, the House passed legislation that included a provision to require every Health Savings Account transaction be reviewed and verified as a legitimate medical expense. It adds a layer of bureaucracy that could sharply reduce the appeal and cost savings of HSAs, says the Wall Street Journal.
This is health insurance many Americans can afford, and it doesn't force those who have better use for their scarce dollars to buy gold-plated insurance with special-interest mandates that Democrats want to force on everyone. Consider:
• Since HSAs were created in December 2003, 3.2 million HSA accounts have been opened, covering 4.5 million Americans.Isn't this what good progressives claim to want? Apparently not if it means a free market in health insurance.
• Nearly a third of new HSA users previously had no insurance and bought coverage on their own.
• Thirty-three percent are small businesses that had not previously offered coverage to their employees.
The new scheme purports to ensure that money saved tax-free in an HSA is actually used for health expenses. But any withdrawal from an HSA is already subject to a federal tax audit, just as individual tax returns are.
Having lost the policy argument when HSAs were created, Democrats are now trying to kill them with regulatory subterfuge.
[what's that about knowing good ideas by their enemies?]
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HELP NOT WANTED
When it comes to immigration, America's politicians are trying their best to keep the world's best and brightest from darkening America's doors, says the Economist. Consider the annual April Fool's joke played on applicants for H1B visas, which allow companies to sponsor highly-educated foreigners to work in America for three years or so:
• The powers-that-be have set the number of visas so low -- at 85,000 -- that the annual allotment is taken up as soon as applications open on April 1st.
• America then deals with the mismatch between supply and demand in the worst possible way, allocating the visas by lottery.
• The result is that hundreds of thousands of highly qualified people -- entrepreneurs, doctors and scientists are kept waiting on the spin of a roulette wheel.
• Bill Gates calculates, and respectable economists agree, that every foreigner who is given an H1B visa creates jobs for five Americans.
This is a policy of national self-sabotage, says the Economist...
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CA deficit estimate rises to $20 billion
California
Schwarzenegger has been all over the map in his deficit estimates this month. But after offering vague explanations for the governor's previous calculations, his aides on Tuesday decided to embrace his latest figure: as high as $20.2 billion starting July 1. But Schwarzenegger's rhetorical flourishes aside, one thing is certain: The budget problem is getting far worse – nearly twice the problem he described in January... [snip]
The worsening deficit, McLear said, is "why we need to start working on this now, because every day that goes by that we don't work on this budget, it gets worse"
[it's the spending, stupids. The question is; will we re-elect most of them again?]
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A little good news...
Appeals court dismisses NY suit vs. gun industry
A U.S. federal appeals court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by New York City against gun makers the city targeted in a bid to stop the flow of illegal weapons. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the city's claims against the manufacturers and wholesale sellers of firearms, ruling a federal law granted them immunity...
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Face of Defense: Real Estate Agent Chooses to Serve
A little more than two years ago, Juliana Rizzo was a real estate agent living in Long Island, N.Y., with her two children, Angelo and Amanda, when she decided it was time to fulfill her childhood dream. That dream was to join the United States Army.
“As a little girl, I always wanted to join the Army, because my father and grandfather spent several years in the military and served their country proudly,”
“When we were in (Hohenfels, Germany) going through ‘Iron Warrior’ training, she went up to the Iraqi role players and started talking to them in their own language,” said Army Command Sgt. Maj. Chad Cuomo, “Nobody knew that she spoke Arabic, and it especially shocked the role players; she was definitely the hero of the battle out there.”
Rizzo was promoted to specialist shortly after arriving in Iraq and went to the sergeant’s promotion board four months later.
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The Men in Black vanish and Basra Comes to Life
Basra - Young women are daring to wear jeans, soldiers listen to pop music on their mobile phones and bands are performing at wedding parties again. All across Iraq’s second city life is improving, a month after Iraqi troops began a surprise crackdown on the black-clad gangs who were allowed to flourish under the British military. The gunmen’s reign had enforced a strict set of religious codes. (Snip) “All these men in black [who imposed the laws] just vanished from the university after this operation,” said Ms Ahmed.
Raids are continuing in a few remaining strongholds but the Iraqi commander in charge of the unprecedented operation is confident that his forces will soon achieve something that the British military could not – a city free from rogue gunmen...
['stepping up' happens a step at a time. Here's one.]
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Iran upping support for militants in Iraq, top US officer says
Washington - Iran has been increasing its support for militants in Iraq and terrorism throughout the Middle East, the top US military officer said Friday. Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon that Tehran has failed to live up to previous commitments to stop supporting Shiite militants responsible for attacks against coalition and Iraqi forces. (Snip) Iran's elite al-Quds force has continued providing weapons to militants and trains Iraqis on Iranian soil to fight and kill US and Iraqi soldiers...
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The Director of National Intelligence Speaks
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell gave his annual national security threat assessment to the Senate Intelligence Committee last week.
--
Al Qaeda is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S.: the identification, training, and positioning of operatives for an attack in the Homeland. We assess that al Qaeda's Homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population.
--
... al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are attempting to acquire chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and materials (CBRN). We assess al Qaeda will continue to try to acquire and employ these weapons and materials -- some chemical and radiological materials and crude weapons designs are easily accessible, in our judgment.
[and that's the kicker, so 'distasteful' nobody wants to talk about it: the bad guys are right now working on acquiring WMD, and they'll use them when they get them, and as suicide bombers can't be deterred - they'll need to be be interdicted. To do that, our intelligence communities must be doing anything and everything to that end. I.e., progressive attempts to ham string their efforts technically or in the courts is literally placing many American lives at risk.]
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House Passes Diluted Terror Surveillance Package, Does Not Grant Immunity to Telcos
[reminder]
The House on Friday [March 14] approved a Democratic bill that would set rules for the government's eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails inside the United States.The bill, approved as lawmakers departed for a two-week break, faces a veto threat from President Bush. The margin of House approval was 213-197, largely along party lines. Because of the promised veto, "this vote has no impact at all," said Republican Whip Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri.
[incorrect: it delayed, once again, reimplementation of this authorization which is currently expired ...]
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Police have foiled 15 terror plots in Britain since the 7/7
Fifteen planned terrorist attacks in Britain have been foiled since the 2005 London bombings, Met chiefs said today. The revelation came as Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair warned that the country was being threatened by dangerous extremists who were emerging from "left field" to attempt terrorist attacks. Sir Ian added that some suspects were moving "very fast" to carry out their plots, forcing police to make pre-emptive arrests to protect the public...
['preemptive', as in learning of it before hand and acting. interdiction, via intelligence. fifteen ]
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Brown's Global Ideals Threaten U.S. Sovereignty
It's a good thing that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's U.S. visit was upstaged by the dramatic reception Americans gave Pope Benedict XVI. Brown might have been booed if he hadn't delivered what aides called his "signature" speech within the cloistered walls of Harvard's Kennedy Center. Brown's tedious, hour-long speech impudently demanded that we issue a "Declaration of Interdependence" in order to submit to global governance. That's another way of calling on the United States to repeal the Declaration of Independence.
The redundancy of Brown's outrageous semantics was oppressive. His speech used the word global 69 times, globalization 7 times, and interdependence 13 times. Brown rejected the traditional concept of national sovereignty, which means an independent nation not subservient to outside control, telling Americans to replace it with "responsible sovereignty," which he defined as accepting what he calls our global "obligations." Hold on to your pocketbook... [snip]
Brown even slipped in an attempt at thought control: "Americans must learn to think inter-continentally." He declaimed, "We are all internationalists now." Using the rhetorical device of inevitability, Brown warned Americans that his vision of the globalist future is "irreversible transformation." He wants to "transcend states" and "transcend borders" as he builds the "architecture of a global society."
Brown wants to increase the power of the United Nations to become the source of "an international stand-by capacity of trained civilian experts, ready to go anywhere at any time," and even be able to exercise "military force." Americans do not intend to cede such authority to the corrupt United Nations... [snip]
No thanks for the advice, Mr. Brown. Brave Americans rose up and rejected Britain's royalist rule in 1776, and we've gotten along mighty well without trans-Atlantic interference in our government for more than two centuries. We certainly don't want to reinstate any foreign supervision today.
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