Madrid - A Spanish court charged 11 Islamists today with offences related to suicide bombings which it said they had been planning in Barcelona and Germany. A High Court document said 10 of the men had been on the brink of carrying out suicide bombings on public transport in Barcelona when they were arrested in Spain's second-largest city in January.
[G.W.O.T.]
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Thursday, June 12, 2008
Islamists charged over plots
Chinese hack computers at congressman's office
WASHINGTON — A Virginia congressman said today the FBI has found that four of his government computers have been hacked by sources working out of China. In remarks prepared for delivery this afternoon, Rep. Frank Wolf says he has been told by the FBI that four computers in his personal office were compromised. The Virginia Republican says that similar incidents — also originating from China — have taken place on computers of other members of Congress and at least one House committee...
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For the Record: The U.N. Partners With Terror
Two English language Arab news outlets reported this week that the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has partnered with the Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). [snip]
"The IIRO-PHL is a source of funding for the al Qaida-affiliated ASG. IIRO-PHL has served as a liaison for the ASG with other Islamic extremist groups. A former ASG member in the Philippines familiar with IIRO operations in the country reported that a limited amount of foreign IIRO funding goes to legitimate projects and the rest is directed to terrorist operations. These terrorist groups are also on the United Nations 1267 Committee's consolidated list of individuals and entities associated with the Taliban, al Qaida and/or Usama Bin Ladin."IPT readers should recall that stateside, the self-proclaimed prominent Islamic "civil rights" group, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), also has a history of "partnering" with IIRO, receiving close to $30,000 from the terrorist-linked entity.
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NYT 1993: ' Study of Greenland Ice Finds Rapid Change in Past Climate'
Written by Walter Sullivan, "Study of Greenland Ice Finds Rapid Change in Past Climate" addressed findings that suggest "the period of stable climate in which human civilization has flourished might be unusual, and that the current climate may get either warmer or colder much more quickly than had been believed -- in spans of decades or even less."
Doesn't sound like today's hysterical press claims concerning global warming, does it? Neither does this:
The new studies found that the average global temperature can change as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit in a couple of decades during interglacial periods, [Dr. J. W. C. White of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research of the University of Colorado] said. The current average global temperature is 59 degrees Fahrenheit.You mean natural forces -- i.e. unrelated to anything done by man -- can create temperature swings of 18 degrees in a couple of decades? And folks like Nobel Laureate Al Gore, along with most in the media and an overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress are advocating economically destabilizing legislation all because temperatures have risen about one degree in the past 150 years?
But there was more...
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Energy
.
Free the offshore drillers
Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) has introduced an amendment to s spending bill that would free up offshore drilling more than 50 miles off our coast, enabling American companies to drill in waters already being exploited by the Chinese, among others.
"For 27 years, Congress has deliberately locked up vast offshore oil and natural gas reserves," Peterson said, according to USA Today. "With the price at the pump increasing daily - with no end in sight - and the cost of natural gas trading at record levels, Congress needs to unlock these reserves."Let us watch very carefully for those who vote to restrict oil supplies (and thereby continue raising prices). We have an election coming up and gasoline prices are an issue, in case you haven't noticed.
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House Subcommittee Rejects Plan to Open U.S. Waters to More Oil Exploration
Washington - A House subcommittee has rejected a Republican-led effort to open up more U.S. coastal waters to oil exploration. Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., spearheaded the effort. His proposal would open up U.S. waters between 50 and 200 miles off shore for drilling. The first 50 miles off shore would be left alone. But the plan failed Wednesday on a 9-6, party-line vote...
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[meanwhile...]
China's Drilling for Oil in America's Backyard
House Republicans want the American people to know that right now -- around 60 miles off the coast of Key West, Fla. -- China is drilling for oil, thanks to a lease issued by Cuba. But 1,200 miles north of Key West, Democrats in Washington are blocking the United States from conducting its own environmentally-safe oil and gas exploration in similar U.S. coastal areas (Snip)
"Do congressional Democrats actually believe China has more ingenuity and more concern for the environment than the United States?"READ MORE
CBS Blames Gas Prices In GM Closures, Disregards Expensive Union Labor
High gas prices strike again, says the "CBS Evening News."
The "Evening News" blamed surging gas prices and General Motors reluctance to produce "more fuel-efficient vehicles" for closure of several plants, including one in Janesville, Wisc.
But Bowers omitted one detail: GM (NYSE:GM), Ford (NYSE:F) and Chrysler all have ties to the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which forces those manufacturers into collective bargaining agreements with very expensive labor costs.
And, the foreign automakers that sell "more fuel-efficient vehicles" - which include Toyota (NYSE:TM) (opening a plant in Tupelo, Miss.), Honda (NYSE:HMC) (Greensburg, Ind.), Volkswagen (FRA:VOW) (tAlabama) and KIA (SEO:000270) (West Point, Ga.) - are building their new plants in places where the UAW doesn't have a presence and won't make them less competitive by raising overhead costs.
As an August 2007 Investor's Business Daily editorial pointed out, unions are a principal reason many Americans have lost jobs. "[I]t's hard to fathom how a middle class could be created by an institution that has ... forced many Americans out of the labor force because of the high wages it has compelled businesses, through the power of its government protection, to pay," the editorial said.
[the only arena labor unions don't spell the death of organizations is where there's no competition - say, like government]
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Newsweek shills for Obama
Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain granted an interview to Newsweek’s Jon Meacham and Holly Bailey, and in the first sign of a long, uphill campaign with the media, McCain was asked how he could defeat such a "hugely gifted politician"?
[what bias?]
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MSNBC: 'Old-Fashioned' McCain vs. 'Centrist' Obama 'Helping People'
Mitchell cast the battle of the candidates' tax plans as McCain's "old-fashioned" [?] supply-side economics [ah, I believe it's Keynsian economics that's considered old, which supply-side has displaced - close though Andria] versus Obama's [ironically, Keynsian] "mainstream [?], centrist"[??] plans that "do help people" while responsibly "paying for everything."[??? !][layer upon layer...]
View video here.
[View new MSNBC logo here:
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.
Chicago Daily Herald: Vote for Obama or You're a Racist
The Daily Herald, a Chicago area paper, waxed triumphant over the ascendancy of Barack Obama to the assumed position as the Democratic Party nominee for the presidency today. (Snip) Of course, the Herald's piece is centered on America's past as a pretext to say that Obama might somehow deserve to become president because of our past history of oppression.
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La. governor stirs GOP imaginations
Give Bobby Jindal some dap.
Asked what color he is he says, "Red, white and blue."
[anyone unfamiliar, note the name - you'll be hearing it in the future]
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Personal carbon credits: the trick
[UK]
Get out your gas masks and tin hats. We are under attack from a noxious army of doom-troopers demanding that we treat climate change as a rerun of the Second World War. In the latest move to militarise everyday life, the Environmental Audit Committee of MPs has seriously proposed energy rationing, aka “personal carbon credits”. What next? Little (green) Hitlers patrolling the streets yelling “Put that high-energy light out!”?
[yes]
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Wednesday, June 11, 2008
San Francisco Schools' Special Salute
California
Wonder why San Francisco has a reputation as the American left's most intolerant city?
Consider the fact that concerned San Francisco citizens are now gathering signatures for a ballot measure to get the school board to overturn a 2006 vote which shut down the 90-year-old Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. ['ROTC', snip]
When the board was preparing to vote to kill the program, Yu told me, "I thought, no way is the board going to do that." There were 1,600 students enrolled -- in a program supported by parents and educators, in part because it has provided strong role models for minority teens. When the board turned a deaf ear to the pleas of the many people who turned up at public meetings to save the program, Yu said, it "galvanized me." [snip]
You see, the San Francisco school board only recognizes the right to expression with which it agrees. Disagree, and the board will shut you down. If students suffer -- well, that's politics...
[as usual, that city just makes your proud-all-over to be a Californian]
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There Is a Military Solution to Terror
Sadr City in Baghdad, the northeastern districts of Sri Lanka and the Guaviare province of Colombia have little in common culturally, historically or politically. But they are crucial reference points on a global map in which long-running insurgencies suddenly find themselves on the verge of defeat.
For the week of May 16-23, there were 300 "violent incidents" in Iraq. That's down from 1,600 last June and the lowest recorded since March 2004. Al Qaeda has been crushed by a combination of U.S. arms and Sunni tribal resistance. On the Shiite side, Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army was routed by Iraqi troops in Basra and later crumbled in its Sadr City stronghold.
In Colombia, the 44-year-old FARC guerrilla movement is now at its lowest ebb. Three of its top commanders died in March, and the number of FARC attacks is down by more than two-thirds since 2002. In the face of a stepped-up campaign by the Colombian military (funded, equipped and trained by the U.S.), the group is now experiencing mass desertions. Former FARC leaders describe a movement that is losing any semblance of ideological coherence and operational effectiveness.
In Sri Lanka, a military offensive by the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has wrested control of seven of the nine districts previously held by the rebel group LTTE, better known as the Tamil Tigers. Mr. Rajapaksa now promises victory by the end of the year, even as the Tigers continue to launch high-profile terrorist attacks.
All this is good news in its own right. Better yet, it explodes the mindless shibboleth that there is "no military solution" when it comes to dealing with insurgencies. On the contrary, it turns out that the best way to end an insurgency is, quite simply, to beat it.
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Cocky Ignorance
Now that Senator Barack Obama has become the Democrats' nominee for President of the United States, to the cheers of the media at home and abroad, he has written a letter to the Secretary of Defense, in a tone as if he is already President, addressing one of his subordinates. The letter ends: "I look forward to your swift response."
With wars going on in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a Secretary of Defense might have some other things to look after, before making a "swift response" to a political candidate. Because of the widely publicized statistic that suicide rates among American troops have gone up, Senator Obama says he wants the Secretary of Defense to tell him, swiftly:
"What changes will you make... [snip]
"What training has the Pentagon provided... [snip]
"What assistance are you providing... [snip]
"What programs has the Pentagon implemented... [snip]
What has been widely publicized in the media is that suicides among American troops have gone up. What has not been widely publicized is that this higher suicide rate is still not as high as the suicide rate among demographically comparable U.S. civilians...
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[Barry might want to receive this blog - could have saved a stamp;
FLASHBACK 5/30/08:
Army Deploys Prevention Programs to Combat Soldier Suicides
WASHINGTON, May 29, 2008 - The Army is deploying a multitude of prevention programs as part of efforts to stop soldiers from taking their own lives, senior Army officials said
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[quick points on this topic, as it's getting wide MSM coverage reporting the 108-115 suicides (reports have varied) in '07 without any accompanying context whatsoever. Unimportantly (but interesting) is that Russia's military suicides numbered 341 for '07.
Importantly, our military's current level is below its peace-time average. And critically, the service member suicide rate is consistently below that of the 'general' US population for the same age group. None of which makes any rate acceptable - but does put the lie to the epidemic-because-we're-at-war subtext the much of the old media has been trying to imply.]
US: Iranian warhead blueprint 'alarming'
A ranking International Atomic Energy Agency official called Teheran's possession of a drawing showing how to make part of an atomic warhead "alarming" Thursday and said the onus is on Iran to prove it had not tried to develop nuclear arms, said diplomats attending a closed briefing. The US said the evidence detailed by IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen increased concerns that Teheran had tried to make such weapons...
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Networks That Hyped Haditha 'Massacre' Now Ignore Acquittal
The same network newscasts that hyped the 2005 "alleged massacre" by U.S. soldiers in Haditha are so far ignoring the acquittal on all charges of Lieutenant Andrew Grayson on Thursday. Grayson was accused of attempting to cover up details of the events surrounding a raid that lead to the death of 15 Iraqis. However, Grayson's acquittal was skipped by ABC's "Good Morning America," CBS's "Early Show" and NBC's "Today" show...
[this was the case the Murtha used to charge our Marines has 'murdered in cold blood'. I assume he'll be publishing a public apology any day now...]
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China experts warn of expanding space arms race
The United States and other Western nations have criticized China's efforts to build a presence in space, especially a test in January 2007 when it shot down one of its own aged satellites.
But in a book issued by the state-run China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, two People's Liberation Army experts said;
"Strategic confrontation in outer space is difficult to avoid. The development of outer space forces shows signs that a space arms race to seize the commanding heights is emerging," ... "We can say that weaponization of outer space ... is already unstoppable."
Chinese diplomats have repeatedly said they want stronger international rules to avoid an expensive and destabilizing arms race in space.
[of course they do: China doesn't honor any of its international agreement - it's the usual ploy to get the US to disarm itself, which will have many backers within this country...]
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WHO WILL WATCH THE WATCHMEN?
Organizations that send peacekeepers and aid workers to dangerous places are now facing a new concern: how to ensure the moral integrity of people who are supposed to be helping others. A report this week by the British branch of Save the Children underlines the problem:
• In a study carried out last year in southern Sudan, Haiti and Cote d'Ivoire, Save the Children found widespread sexual abuse of children, some as young as six, by aid workers -- particularly by UN peacekeepers.The UN has an unfortunate history of sex scandals, says the Economist:
• More than half the 250 boys and girls aged 10-17 they interviewed said they knew of such cases.
• The abuse remained widely underreported because most children were too frightened to come forward.
• After a series of shocking rapes by Nepalese peacekeepers in Congo in 2003, then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan set up a committee to investigate.The UN is in a difficult situation, because it has no legal jurisdiction over the alleged culprits; it can only dismiss alleged culprits and recommend their repatriation to their home country...
• Following the Congo scandal, there have been serious incidents of alleged rape of civilians by UN peacekeepers each year: in Burundi (2004), Sudan (2005), Haiti (2006), Liberia (2006), and Cote d'Ivoire (2007).
• Last year the UN received 748 allegations of misconduct by its peacekeepers, 127 of which involved sexual exploitation and abuse.
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Climate Debate Rejects Science For Ideology
I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I'm a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can't be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats.
Predictions of catastrophe depend on models. Models depend on assumptions about complex planetary systems — from ocean currents to cloud formation — that no one fully understands.
Which is why the models are inherently flawed and forever changing. The doomsday scenarios posit a cascade of events, each with a certain probability. The multiple improbability of their simultaneous occurrence renders all such predictions entirely speculative.
Yet on the basis of this speculation, environmental activists, attended by compliant scientists and opportunistic politicians, are advocating radical economic and social regulation...
[as usual re: Dr. K, Recommended > ]
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Could Global Warming Obsessed Media Ever Consider CO2's Benefits?
With summer looming, and the nation experiencing its first heatwave of 2008, it certainly isn't surprising our global warming obsessed media have resumed the spread of climate hysteria as reported by my colleague Jeff Poor just a few hours ago.
Yet, given their willingness the past few months to discuss ethanol's connection to higher food prices, is it too much to ask for these same press outlets to offer a little balance by presenting the benefits of rising carbon dioxide levels along with the mythical costs?
Take for example Lawrence Solomon's truly astounding article published at Canada's Financial Post Saturday entitled "In Praise of CO2" :
Planet Earth is on a roll! GPP is way up. NPP is way up. To the surprise of those who have been bearish on the planet, the data shows global production has been steadily climbing to record levels, ones not seen since these measurements began.Hadn't heard about this? Well, why would you, for the other side of the supposedly horrific greenhouse aspect of increasing carbon dioxide levels is how plants are just loving it...
GPP is Gross Primary Production, a measure of the daily output of the global biosphere -- the amount of new plant matter on land. NPP is Net Primary Production, an annual tally of the globe's production. Biomass is booming. The planet is the greenest it's been in decades, perhaps in centuries.
[a major component of the self-leveling aspect to the cycles of climate - Recommended > ]
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Gore Invests In Carbon Credit Company, Will Media Care?
On Wednesday, despite claims by one of Gore's representatives two months ago, it was revealed that his Generation Investment Management private equity fund has taken a 9.5 percent stake in a company that has one of the largest carbon credit portfolios in the world.
I'm sure every media outlet will be all over this development in the next 24 hours...
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An ominous warning that the rapid rise in oil prices has only just begun
The chief executive of the world's largest energy company has issued the most dire warning yet about the soaring the price of oil, predicting that it will hit $250 per barrel "in the foreseeable future". The forecast from Alexey Miller, the head of the Kremlin-owned gas giant Gazprom, would herald the arrival of £2-per-litre petrol and send shockwaves through the economy.
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Congress, Get Off Your Gas, and Drill
Look at the energy chaos that our government has allowed. While we remain at the mercy of oil companies, cartels and OPEC, our government has tied the hands of states and citizens to tap even temporary energy relief from our own land. Here are a few key vistas on the oil and energy landscape:-- Though we have more oil in the shale of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming than there is in the Middle East (800 billion barrels), liberals and environmentalists have made it illegal to touch it.
It's time to drill here and drill now. The petition is simple. It states, "We, therefore, the undersigned citizens of the United States, petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries."
-- It's illegal to drill in northern Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or off the coasts of Florida or California.
-- It's illegal to explore the Atlantic Ocean for oil.
-- It's illegal to explore the Pacific Ocean for oil.
-- We're not receiving leases anymore to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, while China, Venezuela and Cuba are.
-- We haven't built an oil refinery in more than 30 years and have reduced in half those we have.
-- American airlines are in danger of going out of business.
-- American truckers are being stranded on the sides of roads.
-- American commuters are going bankrupt trying to travel back and forth to work and are being forced to work locally for lower wages.
-- There's enough natural gas beneath America (406 trillion cubic feet) to heat every home in America for the next 150 years, but we can't tap it all.
-- We have the largest supply of coal in the world, but it's Germany who is planning to build 27 coal-fired power plants by 2020.
-- Etc.!
[petition - there's several around, sign 'em all... ] > www.AmericanSolutions.com
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Federal contractors to check legal status of employees
-- President Bush has signed an executive order requiring contractors and others who do business with the federal government to make sure their employees can legally work in the U.S.
The federal government has had some embarrassing moments when illegal workers have been discovered to be working for contractors they've hired, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a news conference. For that reason it's trying to get its own house in order, Chertoff said.
"The federal government should lead by example and not merely by exhortation," he said.
The order says federal departments and agencies must require contractors to use an electronic system to verify that the workers are eligible to work in the U.S.
[the systems have existed for years - they've just been ignored]
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Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Iraqis Reopen Bridge Linking Baghdad Districts
"We didn't have a direct role in this,” he said. “It was Iraqi-led, Iraqi-designed, and there were very few coalition members there."
“The terrorists tried to send a message: 'We would like to cut the communication lines between these two main groups in Iraq.' But luckily, they didn't manage to do that. And [the local people] sent the message back: 'Here we are, and we are together.'"
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NBC Nightly News Spikes News About Fewest Troop Deaths of War
But not to NBC. Anchor Brian Williams on Monday led with worries that “because it's been underfunded [?] for decades, mass transit may not be ready for all the Americans leaving their cars behind,” and ran his short update, on the Medal of Honor going to Army Private First Class Ross McGinnis, without anything about the decline in troops killed.
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Terrorist waiting to deal with next president
Brig. General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the terror group the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is biding his time, afraid to stoke terror while President Bush is in his waning days in the Oval Office. Instead, says Washington Post columnist David Ignatius who interviewed him, he "prefers to run out the clock on the Bush Administration, hoping the next administration will be more favorable to Iran's interest."
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Hamas Un-'Endorses' Obama
Sen. Barack Obama's speech to AIPAC has convinced Hamas that he and Sen. John McCain are interchangeable. If the group had its druthers, neither one would win.
[don't sweat it: there's still Bob Barr and the Libertarians, you'll love them...]
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Iran's Supreme Leader Predicts Terrorists Will Get Nukes
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who as Iran's supreme leader is commander in chief of the Iranian military, predicted last week that terrorists would acquire nuclear weapons and ''take away security from all the tyrants of the world.'' In his speech at the tomb of his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Khamenei made it clear that he understood America to be the leader among ''the tyrants of the world.'' (Snip) While predicting that terrorists would obtain nuclear weapons, Khamenei claimed Iran was not interested in obtaining nuclear weapons itself...
[must we wait until after the nuke goes off?]
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The Bush Method
[HT:JC]
One of the prisms through which those of a certain age view the Middle East is the events of June 7, 1981, when a squadron of Israeli F-16 warplanes wheeled out of the afternoon skies over Baghdad and destroyed the atomic-bomb-making facility at Osirak. The event is widely remembered for Israel’s daring and skill, for removing the threat of a nuclear-armed Iraq from the world stage -
- and for the howls of diplomatic outrage that greeted the event, egged on by an editorial in the New York Times that derided Prime Minister Begin for making a “sneak attack” and called the raid “an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression... [snip]
For those who came up during this period, it has been extraordinarily satisfying to watch the adroitness with which President Bush has dealt with Israel’s decision to send a new generation of warplanes to destroy a new enemy reactor under construction, this time one that was being constructed with North Korean help in Syria...
[Recommended]
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Stunning news from Hugo Chavez
The Marxist president of Venezuela has ytold the FARC guerillas in neighboring Colombia to give up their struggle to overthrow the US ally: (via BBC)In his weekly television and radio programme on Sunday, Mr Chavez urged the Farc's new leader, Alfonso Cano, to "let all these people go".
"The guerrilla war is history," he said. "At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place."
Only a few months ago Chavez was a funder and public defender of the FARC narco-terrorists. What changed?
The first thing that leaps to mind is the capture of a FARC laptop computer by Colombian forces, containing files that incriminated Chavez. (The BBC provides helpful background information toward the end of this article.)
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World Health Organization Admits No Threat of Global AIDS Epidemic
The head of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department has officially admitted for the first time that there will be no global epidemic of the disease among the heterosexual population outside Africa.
Kevin de Cock said global prevention strategies to address AIDS as a risk to all populations, among the WHO and major AIDS organizations, may have been misdirected. It is now recognized that, with the exception of sub-Saharan African, it is confined to high-risk groups.
These groups include men who have sex with other men, drug users who inject with needles, and sex workers and their clients.
Some AIDS organizations, including the WHO, U.N. AIDS and the Global Fund have been blasted for inflating estimates of the number of people infected, taking much-needed funds from other diseases like malaria.
One result of the WHO’s admission may be that the vast sums of money spent on AIDS education for people who are not at risk may now be concentrated on high-risk groups.
[pay attention: the majority of pieces I've seen on this story spin it to be one of 'AIDS rates declining' and 'pandemic over' - and not that they were over reported in the first place, which is the case]
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[FLASHBACK , 5/30/07:
United Nations' AIDS programme under fire
Two new books are forcing the United Nations' AIDS programme to defend itself against claims that politics have distorted its mission. That way, Chin says, the agency can claim credit when actual infection rates are lower than the projections. In one, Berkeley epidemiologist James Chin argues that the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has overestimated the potential size of the AIDS pandemic.
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Congress Fiddled With Warming While Earth Cooled
Last week Democrats tried to kill the economy in the name of solving a problem that doesn't exist. Republicans should hang this bill around their necks in every district where an incumbent voted for the woefully misnamed and deservedly DOA Climate Security Act, technically S.3036.
Asking Americans to pony up even more at the pump with already record gasoline prices creeping higher almost daily seems offensive enough. But compelling such burden under the guise of moral imperative to curb global warming at a time when the planet is actually cooling rings downright obscene. [snip]
It's no secret how much liberals covet European models for just about everything. Yet, Europe's even less intrusive attempts at cap-and-trade have failed miserably, wreaking havoc upon economies with no significant decrease in atmospheric carbon levels. Britain's efforts to legislate carbon limits have sparked trucker and taxi-driver strikes and protests and even threaten Labor's majority. In fact, climate legislation across the pond has failed so miserably that a new poll found "more than seven in 10 voters insist that they would not be willing to pay higher taxes in order to fund projects to combat climate change."
Yet, despite all the consumer misery endured, CO2 levels in Great Britain still increased by 3.39% between Kyoto ratification in 1997 and 2004. The United States, whose refusal to ratify allowed continued economic growth, managed a mere 6.57% increase. Compare that to other Kyoto signers like Japan (10.61%), Russia (15.61%) or Italy (15.53%). In fact, lib-beloved France, with all its Carbon pontification, barely beat the US (6.21%), despite deriving the majority of its electricity from carbon-neutral nuclear plants.
That's without even considering that there's no proof whatsoever that the actions of mankind can influence global temperatures even one degree Celsius in either direction. [snip]
S.3036 ostensibly gambled on non-existent technology to accomplish essentially nothing at inescapably catastrophic costs.
[it's their ticket to trillions of dollars - it will be back...]
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ENERGY AND THE EXECUTIVE
From 1980 to 2006 America's annual energy usage increased from 78 to 100 quadrillion British thermal units, and the figure is estimated to grow to 118 quadrillion BTUs by 2030. If our regressive energy production policies continue when the next administration takes office, our economy and the personal lives of Americans will be severely affected [snip]
• Domestic oil production has declined, to 1.9 billion in 2007 from 3.1 billion barrels in 1980.One reason for the imports is that our public policy has forbidden offshore oil drilling:
• Meanwhile imports increased to 3.7 billion barrels from 1.9 billion.
• We are now importing about 60 percent of the oil we use.
• There is an estimated 85 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (an 18-year supply) contained within the Outer Continental Shelf and another 10 billion barrels of oil in Alaska.America remains the only nation in the world that has curtailed access to its own energy supplies. Meanwhile, China will soon begin drilling for oil off Cuba and in Venezuela.
• Together they could replace America's imported oil for about 25 years, but the first President Bush issued a directive forbidding access to a significant portion of the Outer Continental Shelf.
• President Clinton extended the restriction through 2012 and vetoed legislation that would have allowed drilling in Alaska.
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SPARE THE ROD, SAY SOME
The Council of Europe, a 47-country body, has recently launched a campaign to abolish physical punishment, says The Economist. Throughout the world, the movement to end corporal punishment is gaining ground:
• Some 23 countries (18 of them European) have banned corporal punishment completely.Regardless of the law, social changes are making parents in rich countries much more reluctant to use spanking, says the Economist.
• There are 106 countries -- including many places where it was common only a generation ago -- that have put a stop to corporal punishment in schools.
• In 1979, Sweden became the first country to outlaw all violence by adults on children.
[one world government? it will be modeled on these yahoos]
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State Supreme Court: Spanking kids isn’t illegal
-
Spanking children isn’t illegal in Minnesota, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday in a 2005 case. The court’s decision affirmed the Court of Appeals ruling that Gerard and Caleb Fraser didn’t need protection from their parents.
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Burglar makes the mistake of choosing 22-stone mastiff's home
Of all the gardens in all the world, the thief had the bad luck to break into the one where Cromwell was peacefully gnawing on his bone. The three-year-old English mastiff is a gentle pet. But his breed are also born guard dogs - and big ones at that. Only the thief and Cromwell know exactly what happened next. But it can't have been friendly, as the dog's owner heard a 'scream, a roar and a commotion' from the back garden...
[that's a 308 lb. pooch]
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Monday, June 9, 2008
Why Obama Must Go to Iraq
Earlier this year, I spent five days in Iraq, walking the same streets in Baghdad where I had served two years earlier as an infantry platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division.
The visit reinforced for me not only the immense complexity of the war – so often lost in our domestic political debate – but also the importance of taking the time to visit Iraq to talk with the soldiers and Marines serving on the front lines in order to grasp the changing dynamics of a fluid battlefield. [snip]
America is longing for an informed and principled debate about the future of Iraq. However, such a debate seems unlikely if the Democratic nominee for president won't take the time to truly understand the dynamics on the ground, let alone meet with commanders.
The time for talking points is over. Too much is at stake. When will Mr. Obama finally return to Iraq and see the situation for himself.
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Iraqi, Coalition Forces Continue Securing Northern Iraq
Many areas in the region -- which stretches from Baghdad to Iraq’s border with Syria and Turkey -- continue to show signs of a return to normal life for the people who live there. In Iraq’s Diyala province, for example, very little enemy activity has been going on for more than 45 days. [snip]
Hertling said he’s encouraged by the successes in Mosul and the degree to which the credit belongs to Iraq’s own troops. “The Iraqi security forces are doing independent operations, and we’re supporting them,” he said, noting that their knowledge of the area and its people are a key element in their success. Having seen the earliest days of today’s Iraqi military, Hertling said, he’s impressed by how far they’ve come.
“The capability of the Iraqi army, especially since the last time I was here, since 2003-2004 when they were first standing up, has been significantly improved,” he said. “They are gradually improving their capability and their effectiveness.”
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L.A. Times on Terror Financing: Misses Key Reasons Why It's So Hard to Track
The Los Angeles Times runs a story today about the difficulties that the US is having in tracking and shutting down terrorist financial operations. The story leads with a number of factors impeding both our domestic and international efforts:
[Bush administration is 'undermined', the terrorists are smarter than the feds and have found work-arounds, Bush administration 'stumbling' with interagency fighting, and of course no other nation trusts the US anymore so cooperation is imperfect. etc...]Can anyone spot what's missing? Anyone?
Apparently the Times doesn't think that the media's disclosure of the nature, procedures, and targets of those programs could have a deleterious effect on their effectiveness and foreign cooperation. Moreover, the Times doesn't think that the House Democrats' refusal to grant immunity to telecom companies who helped the government with foreign intelligence gathering could be interpreted by foreign banks and governments as a warning of might be in store for them if they, too, make the mistake of assisting the US is tracking down terrorist transactions.
And certainly, the House Democrats' refusal to renew the Patriot Act couldn't have any effect on our ability to locate and track new targets for investigation. No, certainly not. But we wouldn't want to question their patriotism.
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The Cluster Behind the Cluster Munitions Ban
Which brings us to the cluster munitions treaty announced in Ireland on May 30. Hosannaed by "the international community" and hailed by anti-Americans, the treaty is another attempt to politically cleanse warfare.
The anti-Americanism exploited by many treaty advocates is both disgusting and sclerotic. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's May 31 report opens with
"Negotiators of a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs predicted the pact will make it too politically painful for the United States ever to use the weapons again."China, Russia, India, Pakistan and Israel reject the treaty, but America is the big rhetorical target. This is a legacy of the Cold War, when unilateral disarmers largely focused on the United States -- kicking America cost them zip politically, and they had no influence over Communist totalitarians.
The United States, its critics to the contrary, remains the most benign global power that has ever existed, so piquant displays of self-righteousness by activists still have no downside...
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The War on Zionism
[HT:JD]
Post Annapolis, the Palestinian Authority made it crystal clear that it will never recognize Israel as a "Jewish state". Furthermore, it made it crystal clear that it will not compromise on Jerusalem by making it a capital offense to do so. Yet negotiations continue. [?] Either Olmert doesn't believe the PA or what is more likely, he will still cut a deal where Israel is denied that recognition and will divide Jerusalem according to Arab demands.
Do not think for a moment that these entrenched Arab positions are negotiable. They aren't and never have been...
[i.e., any plan for peace requires parties - plural - who desire it. As long as victimhood is profitable {to the tune of 7B$ pledged this year}, there'll only be one; Israel]
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Georgia Is Warned by Russia Against Plans to Join NATO
Russia - President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia warned the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, on Friday that Georgia’s joining NATO would deepen the conflict between the former Soviet states.
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Chinese parents fight forced abortions
QIAN'AN, China - Yang Zhongchen, a small-town businessman, wined and dined three government officials for permission to become a father. But the Peking duck and liquor weren't enough. One night, a couple of weeks before her date for giving birth, Yang's wife was dragged from her bed in a north China town and taken to a clinic, where, she says, her baby was killed by injection while still inside her.
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G8, Asia urge oil production hike as prices soar
Japan — Eleven nations that guzzle nearly two-thirds of the world's energy called Sunday for an urgent hike in global oil production as host Japan warned the world could plunge into recession. Energy ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) industrial powers were meeting in the northern Japanese city of Aomori with officials from China, India and South Korea in the wake of a record spike in oil prices.
The 11 nations represented here voiced "serious concerns" over the level of oil prices and said there was an "urgent need for increased and timely investment in the energy sector."
In a joint statement, they called for boosts to their own production and asked major oil producers "to increase investment to keep markets well supplied in response to rising world demand."
The first meeting is to be held this year. The 11-nation talks came after oil prices on Friday posted their highest ever one-day gain of nearly 11 dollars, hitting a new record of 138.54 dollars a barrel in New York trade. "If we leave this situation as it is, it could lead to a recession of the world economy," Japan's energy minister Akira Amari said as he opened the meeting.
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'Sixth Sense' Creator to Release Global Warming Horror Movie in June
For several months, NewsBusters has been reporting the new horror movie genre "Global Warming's Gonna Kill You!"
Entering the fray is M. Night Shyamalan, the writer/director of 1999's smash hit "The Sixth Sense."
Set to open coincidentally on Friday, June 13, "The Happening" is Shyamalan's move "to milk global warming for all the terror and despair it's worth."
So say USA Today's "Weather Guys" (emphasis added, trailer embedded right): ...
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Baltimore Looks to Ban Cheap Cigars
Hoping to curb the increase in the number of people who smoke small, inexpensive cigars, Baltimore plans to bar shops from the common practice of breaking open packages to sell them individually...
[government?]
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WHO STOLE THE AMERICAN SPIRIT?
There is no denying that the current financial morass is deep and painful. But, looking back over the past century, it would be a stretch to rank the current problems as especially notable or dramatic:
• Right now we have an unemployment rate of 5 percent and headline inflation topping 4 percent.These are hardly statistics to celebrate, but they are a far cry from the crises of the 20th century, says Karabell:
• We have economic growth of 0.6 percent, extremely low consumer confidence and weakening consumer spending, small business optimism at a 28-year low, and a housing market that is showing declines in excess of 20 percent.
• The unemployment rate in 1933 was 24.9 percent; seven years later, after the intensive efforts of the New Deal, it stood at 14.6 percent.The alternative to grime-encrusted lenses isn't rose-tinted glasses, but more equanimity about our weaknesses and our strengths would surely help us navigate.
• The unemployment rate went from 4.9 percent in 1973 to 8.5 percent in 1977, and then nearly broke 10 percent in 1982.
• While the recent collapse of Bear Stearns shocked Wall Street, in 1933 alone 4,000 banks failed, and millions not only lost their homes but were rendered homeless.
Unfortunately, the problem with downward spirals is, well, that they spiral downward...
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Border peril prompts Amado school meeting
[HT: DG]
The U.S. Border Patrol will host a meeting tonight at an Amado elementary school that was forced into lockdowns on two occasions recently due to dangerous border-related activity nearby. In late April and early May, Sopori Elementary was put on lockdown twice.
In the morning of May 7, a man with blood coming from his head was found by Border Patrol agents lying in the road at the entrance to the school. The man, who was flown to University Medical Center with with life-threatening injuries, had been thrown from or jumped out of a pickup truck carrying marijuana that agents had tried to pull over.
On April 28, the school went on lockdown after agents tracked footprints of drug smugglers to a nearby house. Agents contacted the school principal and decided to put students on lockdown in case the drug runners had weapons.
Agents found nine people inside the house and 200 pounds of marijuana...
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Assembly Speaker proposes $6.4 billion in taxes
Sacramento, CA - Assembly Speaker Karen Bass is proposing to raise $6.4 billion in taxes to balance the state budget. She declined to say which taxes Assembly Democrats want to raise. The state is facing a $15.2 billion deficit in the next fiscal year as tax revenues in the slowing economy fall short of state spending increases...
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Karen Bass: 926-319-2047 http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/a47/AD47MailForm.aspx (CA Governor:
http://gov.ca.gov/interactCA State Legislature = http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html
Iraq Vets for Congress
To help counter the alliance of the Democratic leadership with the antiwar Left, abetted by a compliant news media, I recently formed Iraq Vets for Congress, a group of thirteen Republican Iraq veterans who are seeking office in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008. I believe that the formation of IVC, and the group's goals, warrant the attention of all Americans who want to restore leadership and honor in Washington...
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Olbermann Declares McClellan Book a 'Primary Document in American History'
Edward Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Winston Churchill’s “Second World War.” “What Happened” by Scott McClellan. One of these things is not like the other.
Unless you’re Keith Olbermann...
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Friday, June 6, 2008
CAP AND SPEND
As the Senate opens debate on its mammoth carbon regulation program this week, the phrase of the hour is "cap and trade." This sounds innocuous enough, however, anyone who looks at the legislative details will quickly see that a better description is cap and spend. This is easily the largest income redistribution scheme since the income tax, says the Wall Street Journal. For example:
• Some $802 billion would go for "relief" for low-income taxpayers, to offset the higher cost of lighting homes or driving cars.
• There's also $190 billion to fund training for "green-collar jobs," which are supposed to replace the jobs that will be lost in carbon-emitting industries.
• Some $342 billion would be spent on international aid, $171 billion for mass transit, and untold billions for 'alternative energy'
• The revenue handouts reach an astonishing total of more than $6.7 trillion.
• Even the cap-and-trade friendly Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the bill would reduce GDP between $1 trillion and $2.8 trillion..
All of this helps explain why so many in Congress are so enamored of "doing something" about global warming. They would lay claim to a vast new chunk of the private economy and enhance their own political power, says the Journal.
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Senate Bill 2191: "America's Climate Security Act"
President Bush: president@whitehouse.gov Barbara Boxer: http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/email/policy.cfm?CFID=9716973&CFTOKEN=89336911 Dianne Feinstein:http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.EmailMe
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.
Iraqi Security Forces Approach Full Manning
Iraq’s security forces should be manned to near capacity by the end of the year, a senior coalition official said yesterday.
“Force generation has been the focus of our efforts and still really remains the focus of our efforts up to now,” British army Brigadier Johnny Torrens-Spence, deputy commander of Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq, said in a teleconference with online journalists and bloggers.
“We’ve been very happy with the way [the force generation] has gone in general terms,” he said.
The Iraqi army had 100,000 soldiers in January 2007, Torrens-Spence said. By the end of 2008, officials expect the Iraqi army will have grown to more than 200,000 soldiers, he said. The Iraqi army will have grown by 220 percent in two years, he added. Growth rates in the Iraqi police, navy, and air force have been equivalent to that of the army, Torrens-Spence said.
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Worthwhile advice
Fouad Ajami is always worth reading and his article in the Wall Street Journal is no exception. He reminds us why we went to war in Iraq:
"It is not easy to tell people of threats and dangers they have been spared. The war put on notice regimes and conspirators who had harbored dark thoughts about America and who, in the course of the 1990s, were led to believe that terrible deeds against America would go unpunished. A different lesson was taught in Iraq. Nowadays, the burden of the war, in blood and treasure, is easy to see, while the gains, subtle and real, are harder to demonstrate. Last month, American casualties in Iraq were at their lowest since 2003. The Sunnis also have broken with al Qaeda, and the Shiite-led government has taken the war to the Mahdi Army: Is it any wonder that the critics have returned to the origins of the war?*"In the end, how we leave and what we leave behind will be more important than how we came."
Five months from now, the American public will vote on this war, in the most dramatic and definitive of ways. There will be people who heed Ambassador Crocker's admonition*. And there will be others keen on retelling how we made our way to Iraq."
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Time to Curb “Code Pink”
Finally, a member of Congress has announced a laudable plan to do something about the abusive behavior of demonstrators of the anti-war left. (Snip) The First Amendment protects vitriolic insults to military personnel, but anti-war anarchy goes beyond constitutional rights of free speech. In trying to muscle the Marines, the Berkeley City Council and Code Pink demonstrators went too far. Rep. Akin’s “Freedom to Serve” bill would help to protect the all-volunteer force, and his efforts deserve support. [snip]
The work of military recruiters is essential to maintain the volunteer force. To protect them, Rep. Akin has introduced The Freedom to Serve Act of 2008 (FSA). Rep. Akin’s legislation, HR 6023, would make it a federal crime to undermine or prevent military recruiting through vandalism and acts of violence or intimidation...
READ MORE" HR 6023 Freedom to Serve Act of 2008 (FSA)"
YOUR Congressman https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
You can't preach the Bible here, this is a Muslim area
[UK][HT:MS]
Two Christian preachers were stopped from handing out Bible extracts by police because they were in a Muslim area, it was claimed yesterday. They say they were told by a Muslim police community support officer that they could not preach there and that attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity was a hate crime.
The community officer is also said to have told the two men: 'You have been warned. If you come back here and get beat up, well, you have been warned.' A police constable who was present during the incident in the Alum Rock area of Birmingham is also alleged to have told the preachers not to return to the district. [snip]
According to a complaint by the men's lawyers, Mr Naguthney summoned two other officers in support, one of whom, a full constable, is said to have told the men not to return to the area. [snip]
It comes amid growing concern over the development of Islamic 'no-go areas'...
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Dots...
.
Venezuela, US clash at OAS General Assembly
Medellin, Colombia - Venezuela and the United States clashed strongly Tuesday at the annual meeting of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) in the Colombian city of Medellin. Both countries accused each other of harbouring terrorists, and Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro called US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte a 'petty official with a criminal record.' Maduro accused Negroponte of being 'responsible for disappearances, for tortures and for deaths in Central America...
[well, since these two gentlemen have equal credibility I guess we'll just call it a draw and move on {works every time}]
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[then again...]
How Hugo Chavez Courted FARC
They called him ''Angel.'' He was the highest-ranking outside contact for the Colombian guerilla organization FARC. More and more details are now emerging that demonstrate the close relationship between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the jungle terrorists. (Snip) ''Angel'' was FARC's code name for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and ''J.E.'' was Manuel Marulanda, a.k.a. ''Tirofijo'' (''Sure Shot''), the legendary leader of Latin America's oldest guerilla organization.
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Former Sandinista UN President
New York - The United States on Wednesday warned a former Sandinista foreign minister from Nicaragua, who was just elected the next UN General assembly president, to remain within his responsibility as a UN official.
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, a Roman Catholic priest, was elected without a vote by the 192-nation assembly to preside over the body when it opens its 63rd session in September. He said in an acceptance speech that the UN should end all wars and called the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan 'acts of aggression.'
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Painting by numbers: NASA's peculiar thermometer
The story is that the world is heating up - fast. Prominent people at NASA warn us that unless we change our carbon producing ways, civilisation as we know it will come to an end. At the same time, there are new scientific studies showing that the earth is in a 20 year long cooling period. Which view is correct? Temperature data should be simple enough to record and analyze. We all know how to read a thermometer - it is not rocket science. [snip]
Previously we looked at how US temperature data sets have been adjusted - with more recent versions of historical data sets showing a steeper rise in temperature than they used to. Here, we'll be looking at current NASA data and why their temperature maps appear hot-red, even when others are cool-blue. [graph at site - it trends up {surprise}]
We observe that the data has been consistently adjusted towards a bias of greater warming. The years prior to the 1970s have again been adjusted to lower temperatures, and recent years have been adjusted towards higher temperatures.
[two temprature maps, at site, basically showing...]
Prior to any adjustments, more than half the US shows declining temperatures over the 20th century - blue and green colors - i.e. the US is cooling down. However, subsequent to the adjustments the country goes dominantly warmer (red and yellow)... [snip]
So how does NASA's data compare with other temperature sources? As we explained in our earlier article, NASA data is derived from a grid of ground-based thermometers. During the last thirty years, we also have the benefit of more sophisticated technology - satellites which can indirectly record temperatures across most of the planet. The satellite data is from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) [the money graph]:
Dr. James Hansen at GISS is the person in charge of the NASA temperature data. He is also the world's leading advocate of the idea of catastrophic global warming, and is Al Gore's primary climate advisor. The discrepancies between NASA and other data sources can't help but make us consider Einstein's advice:
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."
[ much more data carefully deconstructing the assertions by demonstrating how NASA's data was the product of compiling layer upon layer of questionable science upon equally questionable asumptions - longish, but Highly Recommended for anyone not aware/disbelieving of how this game is being played > ]
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Dumb or Ill-Informed
What assumptions do congressmen make about the American people? Do they assume that we're dumb or ill-informed about the energy problems we are experiencing?
Every time there has been a huge spike in gasoline prices, Congress hauls oil company executives before their committees to accuse them of greed, obscene profits and price-fixing. One federal investigation after another of supposed oil company misconduct turns up nothing to substantiate congressional allegations. Unfortunately, the congressional hearings make front page news and lead the evening television news, but the results of federal investigations that follow are only casually mentioned deep in the body of newspapers and get little or no time on the evening television news. If news media people had an ounce of integrity, they would highlight the federal investigation findings that undermine congressional charges of oil company misconduct and they would question the congressmen who made those charges... [snip]
The true villain in our having to cough up $60, $70 or $80 to fill our gas tanks is the U.S. Congress caught in the grip of environmental extremists. But if reality is too difficult to swallow, we can continue to blame and support the congressional attack on oil executives, turn food into oil and think of other crackpot "solutions."
[this is the 8th 'investigation' of the oil companies. none have found anything]
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Proposal May Open Austin Homes to Disabled
The bathroom door may need to be a bit wider and the light switches a little lower. The Austin City Council is considering an ordinance today that incorporates those accessibility requirements and others into all new homes and duplexes. The "visitability" ordinance, sponsored by Council Member Betty Dunkerley, aims to make it easier for people with disabilities to visit private homes, which can pose challenges to people who use wheelchairs or other devices to get around. (Snip) But home builders say the ordinance would increase costs and infringe...
[now your home must be made handicap-friendly - even if you're not - in case one might visit. PC: it won't stop 'progressing' until we elect those who believe in smaller government]
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Club for Growth scores in GOP primaries
California
McClintock won by a comfortable 15-point margin, 54 percent to 39 percent, despite facing a $4 million barrage of attack ads from Ose.
McClintock is a well-known icon throughout the state, and while in the Legislature, he has been a vocal opponent of tax increases and wasteful government spending.
“This election has been watched across the country as a bellwether over the future direction of our party — and ultimately of our nation,” McClintock said in his victory remarks. “Let the word go forth from the 4th Congressional District of California that, tonight, voters spoke unmistakably: They want to restore our traditional principles of constitutional government.”
[good news, Tom's a good man {voted for him for governor - but 'the-governator' you know...]
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Wednesday, June 4, 2008
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