.
The following is a plot of actual temperature observations with their trend line (purple) set against the predictions for temperatures over the same period made by IPCC (orange line). The result is not surprising because the IPCC models are programmed to assume that an increase in CO2 will result in an increase in temperature.
This is pre-determined because the computer model is programmed to have an increase in temperature if CO2 increases. By their own definitive statements, temperatures cannot go down as long as CO2 increases. Trouble is CO2 has continued to increase but temperatures have declined and many scientists expect them to go lower until at least 2030.
It didn’t take long for nature to show the IPCC was wrong....
[straight and to the point - Recommended > ]
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Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The inconvenient lies of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
ABC's Gibson Attempts Guilt Trip on Exxon CEO
.
Maybe it was a stab by Charles Gibson to provide a national group therapy session, but the ABC "World News" anchor aggressively questioned ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson on the August 14 broadcast for "obscene" profits and asked him to "justify" the company's success.
But Tillerson explained to Gibson it was the nature of a large business that performs an incredible amount of transactions:
"Everything we do, the numbers are very large," Tillerson replied. "I saw someone characterize our profits the other day, in terms of $1,400 in profit per second. Well, they also need to understand we paid $4,000 a second in taxes. And we spent $15,000 a second in costs. We spend $1 billion a day just running our business. So, this is a business where large numbers are just characteristic of it."
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Giant solar project in California rivals coal plant
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- SunPower Corp. shares rallied 18% Friday after the solar-panel maker announced its participation in a giant 800-megawatt, photovoltaic project from Pacific Gas & Electric Corp., hailed by industry insiders as the first major utility-scale endeavor of its kind in the United States. Analysts cheered the project's news as a positive move for the solar stocks, hit by concerns tied to a slowing economy and oversupply, as well as uncertainty over federal tax $ub$idies for alternative energy...
[Pop Quiz: can anyone spot what makes this 'technology' so green...?]
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Let go of the past and allow offshore oil drilling
.
Like a lot of Californians, however, when the drilling platform fouled our beaches, I became a NIMBY. Get those leaking monstrosities out of our waters. No more drilling.
That was nearly 40 years ago.
At that point, America was importing only 24% of its oil. Today, it's up to nearly 70% and rising, a ludicrous transfer of American wealth to other countries - many not our friends... [snip]
California is the nation's biggest consumer of gasoline -- 45 million gallons a day, plus 10 million gallons of diesel. That makes us the third-biggest petroleum-consuming entity in the world, behind only the United States and China
So there's a gusher of hypocrisy here: The state that is the biggest consumer of gasoline in the nation is opposed to drilling for more oil off its shores. We're slackers not pulling our weight
Anyway, the important thing is to produce the fuel ourselves, not be shaping our foreign policy to assure a steady supply from shifty overseas sellers.
It's time to let go of the past -- the past 40 years -- and allow offshore drilling. It's about the principle as much as the production...
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Texas school district lets teachers, staff pack pistols
To deter and protect against school shootings, trustees have altered district policy to allow employees to carry concealed weapons if they have a state permit and permission from the administration."When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that’s when all of these shootings started," Thweatt said. "Why would you put it out there that a group of people can’t defend themselves? That’s like saying 'sic ’em’ to a dog.
Superintendent David Thweatt said a main concern was that the small community is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff’s office, leaving students and teachers without protection."The naysayers think [a shooting] won’t happen here," he said. "If something were to happen here, I’d much rather be calling a parent to tell them that their child is OK because we were able to protect them."
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Aussie mayor urges unattractive women to move into town
The mayor of an Australian outback mining town has come under fire for urging unattractive women to move in, assuring them they will find a man because there is a shortage of women. John Moloney, mayor of Mount Isa in northwestern Queensland, told a newspaper his town was a place for "ugly ducklings to flourish into beautiful swans" and called on the "beauty-disadvantaged" to flock there.
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Monday, August 18, 2008
Report from the Georgian Front
As we continue to follow the war in Georgia, and make no mistake, the war is still on; our exclusive sources on the ground have been filling in some of the gaps. A team went out on reconnaissance last night to assess the damage and came back with stories you won’t see on the news [snip]
No simple answers will suffice in this very public show of force. But force against democratic society requires a forceful response, one which we have not given. Just as Georgians stood beside America in Iraq, we must now stand beside them in this grave hour of their imminent demise. Weak statements of support no longer suffice. They will make us all vulnerable in the face of power-hungry opponents, which Putin has now declared Russia to be...
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Russia began Georgia aggression three years ago...
A trove of evidence strongly suggests that Russia was preparing the logistics for war well before August 7. As long as three years ago, diplomats, officials and analysts say, Moscow started waging a multi-pronged propaganda, military and economic campaign against its tiny neighbour as it moved hurriedly and provocatively into the Western sphere - and possibly even into NATO, Russia's Cold War nemesis, itself.
"The political decision was made in April," said Pavel Felgenhauer, a military analyst in Moscow. "It was final. Preparations were being in place for a year beforehand."Propelled to power in 2004 after the so-called Rose Revolution, Mr Saakashvili immediately began to push his country headlong toward the West, purging the Soviet-era bureaucracy, liberalising the economy and cosying up to the US by sending 2000 troops to Iraq. Many observers say the Georgians, with the US in their corner, became overly confident of their capabilities.
"These are the most romantic people in the world. They're very gallant, in the stupid sense,"... "Do they really listen? They're very much the charge of the light brigade people. It has a lot to do with personal honour."[snip] Russia also started issuing passports to residents of South Ossetia. In March, Moscow rejected sanctions on separatists in the breakaway Georgian republic of Abkhazia proposed by the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose confederation of former Soviet republics. Instead, the Russian Parliament passed a resolution recognizing the demands of South Ossetian and Abkhaz separatists...
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Russia 'distributing passports in the Crimea'
Ukraine is investigating claims that Russia has been distributing passports in the port of Sevastopol, raising fears that the Kremlin could be stoking separatist sentiment in the Crimea as a prelude to possible military intervention.
The allegation has prompted accusations that Russia is using the same tactics employed in the Georgian breakaway regions of Abhkazia and South Ossetia in order to create a pretext for a war...
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NATO Now
Russia’s adventurism in Georgia was meant to send the bluntest of signals to its neighbors: “Don’t get too cozy with the West, because we rule this region.” The fossilized communists and other Kremlin toadies all too willingly obey. But such a subservient response will only take Ukraine backwards.
To the contrary, the solution is for Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military alliance. Ukraine will have a better fate with NATO, a grouping of 26 democratic European and North American countries, rather than with Kremlin autocrats.
“NATO now!” should be the new rallying cry for all politicians in Ukraine. But as we have seen, the desire of France and Germany not to irritate Russia, which supplies a quarter of Europe’s natural gas, is blamed for the April decision at the NATO summit in Bucharest to delay the membership applications of Ukraine and Georgia... [snip]
Western leaders, meanwhile, should recognize that their ambivalence to Ukraine and Georgia is encouraging Russia to menace and threaten beyond the Caucasus and Black Sea...
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Nato divided on American call to punish Moscow
Russia’s military walkover in Georgia has deepened Nato divisions as it prepares to find a new way next week of handling the resurgent former superpower.
Washington has called a meeting on Tuesday of Nato foreign ministers, essentially to punish Moscow for what the United States, Britain and, especially, East European countries see as a brutal invasion that reverted to Cold War methods.
Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, said: “There need to be consequences for Moscow’s behaviour.” Relations with Russia, which has had a “partnership” with Nato for more than a decade, would not be the same for years to come, he said.
The trouble is that several big European states — notably France, Germany and Italy — do not see the Russian offensive that way. They partly blame Georgia, a would-be Nato member and a protégé of the United States. As Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, told The Times:
“Russia is a great nation. Look how we have been treating it.”[cowards all. Recommended, if you haven't indigestion and for some reason desire it...]
SOURCE
After Russia's invasion of Georgia, what now for the West?
Russia’s invasion across an internationally recognised border, its thrashing of the Georgian military, and its smug satisfaction in humbling one of its former fiefdoms represents only the visible damage.
As bad as the bloodying of Georgia is, the broader consequences are worse. The United States fiddled while Georgia burned, not even reaching the right rhetorical level in its public statements until three days after the Russian invasion began...
[untrue: McCain immediately replied precisely the unambiguous language history proves is the only such heard by aggressors. Unfortunately, European and Russian media aren't quoting McCain - they're overwhelmingly quoting Obama... [snip]]
The European Union took the lead in diplomacy, with results approaching Neville Chamberlain’s moment in the spotlight at Munich: a ceasefire that failed to mention Georgia’s territorial integrity, and that all but gave Russia permission to continue its military operations as a “peacekeeping” force anywhere in Georgia.
More troubling, over the long term, was that the EU saw its task as being mediator – its favourite role in the world – between Georgia and Russia, rather than an advocate for the victim of aggression...
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THE GEORGIA TEST
The phone may not have rung at 3 a.m., but when word came of Russia's brutal invasion of neighboring Georgia, one of the two presidential candidates instinctively understood the adventure's long-range implications.
And one did not.
Indeed, the crisis in the Caucasus is giving voters real insight into how John McCain and Barack Obama might handle a foreign-policy emergency.
In his first public reaction, Obama merely called on "Georgia and Russia to show restraint" - a reflexive exercise in what Sen. Joe Lieberman rightly labeled "moral neutrality."
Then Obama called for a UN Security Council resolution condemning Russia - apparently unaware that Moscow, a permanent Security Council member, can veto any such resolution.
He also suggested sending an international force under "an appropriate UN mandate" to South Ossetia. (See above, Security Council veto.)
Obama's initial reaction was that only Georgia's territorial sovereignty was at stake - and that the way to resolve that issue was to negotiate.
But McCain immediately understood that the real issue wasn't just a Georgian territory violation, but Vladimir Putin's premeditated effort to let Eastern Europe know that Russia intends thoroughly to dominate what it terms its "near abroad"...
[Recommended > ]
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Propagandists turn to Dick Cheney plot
RUSSIANS were told over breakfast yesterday what really happened in Georgia: the conflict in South Ossetia was part of a plot by US Vice-President Dick Cheney to stop Barack Obama being elected president of the US.
The line came on the main news of Vesti FM, a state radio station that -- like the Government and much of Russia's media -- has reverted to the old habits of Soviet years, inwhich a sinister US hand washeld to lie behind every conflict, especially those embarrassing to Moscow.
The Obama angle is getting wide play. It was aired on Wednesday by Sergei Markov, a senior political scientist who is close to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. "George Bush's administration is promoting interests of candidate John McCain," Dr Markov said.
"Defeated by Barack Obama on all fronts, McCain has one last card to play yet -- the creation of a virtual Cold War with Russia."A classic of Soviet-speak also came from Vasili Lickhachev, a former Russian ambassador to the EU.
"The West has spent a lot of time, energy and money to teach Georgia the tricks of the trade ... to make the country look like a democracy, We and many other nations see through this deceit."Modern Russia may be plugged into the internet and the global marketplace but in the battle for world opinion the Kremlin is replaying the old black and white movie...
[we must remember that Putin assumed control of Russia's media years ago...]
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America Focused on Iraq, Could Have "Avoided" Georgia Violence
[meanwhile, in America...]
ABC News' Ayana Harry Reports: Former Senate Majority Leader Democrat Tom Daschle S.D. represented the Obama campaign discussing the Russia-Georgia conflict on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos. " In a debate with Republican Mitt Romney, Daschle maintained
"If we would have preemptively worked with Russia, with Georgia, making sure that NATO had the kind of ability and the presence and the engagement, we could have perhaps avoided this."
[yes, we all assumed it was ultimately America's fault]
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Basketball's Kobe Bryant on Patriotism
The reason this story is making waves is that first, it was unexpected and second, Bryant was obviously sincere when he said it.
NBC's Chris Collingwsorth, former pro football player, was interviewing basketball superstar Kobe Bryant and asked him about the first time he put on the "USA" uniform:
Kobe: "Well I had goosebumps and I actually just looked at it for awhile. I just held it there and I laid it across my bed and I just stared at it for a few minutes; just because as a kid growing up this is the ultimate, ultimate in basketball."
He asked where Byrant's patriotism comes from.
Kobe: "Well, you know it's just our country, it's... we believe is the greatest country in the world. It has given us so many great opportunities, and it's just a sense of pride that you have; that you say "You know what? Our country is the best!"
Collinsworth: "Is that a ‘cool' thing to say, in this day and age? That you love your country, and that you're fighting for the red, white and blue? It seems sort of like a day gone by(?)"
Kobe: "No, it's a cool thing for me to say. I feel great about it, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I mean, this is a tremendous honor."
Bryant's attitude was refreshing coming from a star athlete. You can watch the video here courtesy of Ms. Underestimated.
[Kobe: cool]
[NBC putz: not so much]
Friday, August 15, 2008
Russia 'destroying' towns before withdrawal
Explosions rocked the Russian-controlled Georgian town of Gori on Wednesday, posing a fresh threat to a fragile truce between the enemy neighbours.
Georgia and the United States accused Russian forces of destroying installations in several towns as they withdrew.
Under the ceasefire, Russian and Georgian forces were to return to positions held before Georgia launched its offensive against South Ossetia.
One clause, however, allowed Russian forces to "implement additional security measures" pending agreement on an international peace mechanism.
A senior Russian military official, General Vyacheslav Borissov, said it would take two days for all Russian troops to leave Gori...
[the French brokered cease-fire, and subsequent 'negotions', have handed Russia the EU legitimization to control the area for years to come]
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Russia complains of media bias
[HT:VS]
"When war is declared, truth is the first casualty." So goes the old saw about how problematic it can be to discern the truth when a war starts. Now, predictably, Russia is complaining that its invasion of Georgia is being unfairly portrayed in the news media -- an accusation mainstream media executives deny, according to an article in Variety.
Writer Nick Holdsworth notes at one point that piecing together information from the Internet may be the best way to figure out what's going on in Georgia...
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Georgia/Russian War: Predictable, Preventable
Georgia’s president Mikheil Saakashvili has been watching the American elections closely. Like the rest of the world, what he sees is a man who presents and even weaker foreign policy stance than the feminized policies of Bill Clinton in the form of Barack Obama, the leading favorite to step into the White House in 2009.
President Saakashvili understands that an Obama presidency will be a nod to the Russians that absolutely anything they do will be met with hot air and nothing else, effectively giving the expansionist Russians the green light to do what ever they want to do with no fear of reprisal.
The Georgian president is on a timer. Once Obama gets in office, the world knows that the USA will likely not come to the assistance of any democratic nation striving to survive. Once Obama gets into the White House bad actors the world over understand that they will be on the rise. And Mikheil Saakashvili understands this and made his move accordingly... [snip]
[overstated? ask:] Can anyone imagine that a president Obama would even have used American assets to help Georgian soldiers to get from the Middle East to their war zone at home as Bush did this week?
[Highly Recommended > ]
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US stays the course in Iraq while media loses
AND now for some news from the front. Iraq says it's ready to stand on its own two feet, and the United States is planning a gradual pullout. War over. Sorry, I should have prepared you for this. I can see you're shocked.
You never saw this coming, did you? No wonder. The way the media has reported Iraq has been like reporting every Allied setback in World War II - from Dunkirk to the Battle of the Bulge - without mentioning the fact that the Nazis were still, ahem, beaten.
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The Troops Mobilize...
MSNBC Freaked Out by 'Dishonest' Swift Boaters Attacking Obama
On Wednesday's "Hardball," substitute host David Shuster previewed a new book targeting Barack Obama by issuing the following warning to viewers at the top of the show:
It was right around this time four years ago that the dishonest and highly effective Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry began. Now the man who started it all, with a book about Kerry, has one out attacking Obama. Can the Swift Boaters repeat their success, or does Obama know how to fight back?[again, a very sad example of the media's ability to propagate an untruth and create a pejorative where none should exist: 237 ex-veterans said Kerry lied. Kerry said 237 ex-veterans lied. Naturally, the 237 are the liars, and now 'Swift Boating', a case of private citizens speaking up when they heard untruths, is affixed in our lexicon as a pejorative. wonderful]
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CNN Concerned Anti-Obama Book 'Might Catch on With Some Voters'Never Again! Not the Holocaust. We're talking about the MSM's determination not to let Barack Obama be "Swiftboated." In successive segments today, CNN provided a perfect example of the phenomenon.
First, a one-sided trashing of Obama Nation, the anti-Barack book by Jerome Corsi, who co-authored Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.
In the succeeding segment, anchor Suzanne Malveaux worried out loud to Paul Begala that Barack Obama might not be responding fast enough to attacks against him, thereby "falling into the same trap as John Kerry."
[see above - or better: set up a debate with the author. unlikely; I've heard him speak and none of Ob's brave defenders are going to go near him: the man has done a credible work]
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Fearful Publisher Drops Novel About Mohammed's Wife
Self-censorship toward radical Muslims continues to be a problem in corporate America. The latest casualty: a book by author Sherry Jones about Aisha, the favored wife of Islam's founder Mohammed, whom he is said to have betrothed when she was less than ten years old.
Writing in today's Wall Street Journal [You Still Can't Write About Muhammad] , Asra Q. Nomani tells how the book, "The Jewel of Medina," got canceled by would-be publisher Random House:
In an interview about Ms. Jones's novel, Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said that it "disturbs us that we feel we cannot publish it right now." He said that after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received "from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment."Of course, Christianity is constantly ridiculed in books, film, and song. Ah but Christians aren't known for going around making bomb threats--at least outside the mind of Rosie O'Donnell.
Put this down as yet another incident that gives lie to the ridiculous liberal phrase about how courageous they are about "speaking truth to power."
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Countering Islamism
America is in a unique position to avoid making the same mistakes the UK and continental Europe have made in trying to solve the tension between having an open, democratic society of religious tolerance, and halting the efforts of Islamists who use such privileges as cover to advance an anti-democratic, intolerant and even violent agenda. [snip]
The error both of these extremes foster is the failure to recognize that two genuine views of Islam exist today: The Islamic view and the Islamist view. The primary difference between the two is that Islamic adherents reject the idea that Islam mandates a global superstructure built on Shari'ah law.
For Islamists, or those who adhere to the ideology of Islamism, the ultimate end is the establishment of a global political superstructure called the Caliphate where Allah's law reigns supreme. Islamists advocate comprehensive Jihad to achieve this worldwide Islamic State, with violence as only one means of achieving the goal. [snip]
One of the most visible extensions of the MB [Muslim Brotherhood] is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) which Baran testified "was created by MB to influence the US government, Congress, and NGOs, along with academic and media groups."... [snip]
The British and Europeans are awash in a wave of Islamism that for decades has been crashing over their culture. To avert the same destiny, deliberate and specific efforts to counter the ideology of Islamism must be engaged. Failure to do so will only embolden the Islamists and hasten their efforts...
[and we're failing to do so. Recommended > ]
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BioLunacy [no, it doesn't mean seeing the light]
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Report Blames Biofuels for Food Crisis
LONDON - Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75 percent -- far more than previously estimated -- according to a confidential World Bank report published in a British newspaper on Friday. The assessment is based on a detailed analysis by Don Mitchell, an internationally respected economist at the Washington-based global financial body, the Guardian said.
[again, an object lesson: few ideas have so quickly been proven so disastrously wrong - yet watch how long it takes government to react {i.e.,, remove all biofuel subsidies}. Health Care anyone?]
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Britain says to slow introduction of biofuels
LONDON - The British government said on Monday it would slow the introduction of biofuels to address concerns that switching the use of land could push up food prices. (Snip) Critics say diverting land from food crops to produce biofuels has helped push up global food prices and in some cases has led to the destruction of rain forests.
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TEXAS IS FED UP WITH CORN ETHANOL
In 2005, Congress imposed a Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mandate requiring the addition of biofuel in gasoline; in 2008, nine billion gallons of ethanol were required to be blended in, and even more will be required in 2009. As a precautionary measure, Congress gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the power to waive the new mandates if they turn out to have unforeseen, negative consequences.
• In 2004, the cost of corn hovered around $2 per bushel; now it is close to $8.But in August 2008, the EPA decided to deny the request. The EPA claims that the mandates are not causing sufficient damage to warrant action.
• In April 2008, Perry asked the EPA to cut the grain-based ethanol mandate in half for one year.
• In response, the agency opened a comment period and received more than 15,000 comments, most of which supported the request.
If forcing Texas ranchers to close their doors because they can no longer feed their livestock is not sufficient damage to warrant action, than what is?The United States should follow Texas's lead and begin developing technology that makes use of nonfood energy sources.
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Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes
WASHINGTON - Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said. The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.
[1) businesses never pay taxes, they only collect them from customers.
2) finding write offs that exceed tax liability for business, with capital investment and/or loss deductions, in one of 7 years, is hardly news - so how did 'professional' journalists come up with that headline? {better question: why}]
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THE QUOTAS THAT WILL NOT DIE
California
Race- and gender-based government contracting has become endemic in the US. From the U.S. State Department to city garbage collection, contracts at all levels of government employ race and gender 'preferences'. Race-based contracting practices are an enormous burden on taxpayers, according to a study by Justin Marion of the University of California at Santa Cruz:
• Road construction projects in California cost 6 percent less after the overturning of affirmative action by Proposition 209 in 1996.Several factors account for the tenacity of preferential-contracting programs, despite two Supreme Court rulings against them:
• In the two years after racial preferences were eliminated, the state saved an estimated $64 million.
• First, aggrieved non-DBE-eligible companies are reluctant to sue the government and offend a hand that may feed them in the future.On the political front, neither party takes seriously the concept of colorblind government. Unless the public loudly demands a colorblind government, we will continue with the existing system that is guided by the notion that the government is entitled to discriminate among its citizens.
• They also fear offending well-organized civil rights activists who have the potential to organize pickets, demonstrations, and sophisticated public relations campaigns against a firm. [you know: extortion]
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Cavuto Rejects ABC's Economic Pessimism
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Sawyer dourly observed that consumer confidence was at “almost a 22-year low.” But Cavuto rejected Sawyer’s pessimism:If people have a feeling that things are so miserable, why are they buying $300, $400 IPhones with very expensive contracts. Why are they spending so much at the movie theaters? Why are they still going out in record numbers to restaurants?...When people are surveyed Diane on this stuff, it's very important to distinguish between someone saying we think things are lousy but when they're asked about how are you doing, they say, well, you know, not that bad, not that bad. There is a difference...
[there is: they know their own situation, but are reliant on the media for all other perceptions of the economy]
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
Russia rejects west's call to recognise Georgian sovereignty
The US and the Europe today demanded that any settlement of the conflict in Georgia had to be based on recognition of the small Black Sea country's territorial integrity. But after overrunning Georgia in five days with troops, tanks, and bombers, Russia rejected the terms.
The EU unveiled a blueprint for ending the bloodshed in Georgia following several days of French-led shuttle diplomacy between Moscow and Tbilisi that resulted in a six-point plan underpinning a fragile ceasefire.
But Russia refused to accept those terms, declined to acknowledge Georgian sovereignty over all of its recognised territory, and refused to have any reference to it in the six-point peace plan mediated by the French and agreed by both Moscow and Tbilisi... [snip]
At Russian insistence, Georgian forces have to return to bases while Russian "peacekeepers" in the contested northern province of South Ossetia are allowed to stage security patrols "and additional security measures" until an "international mechanism" is agreed.
"That gives the Russians undefined security rights in undefined territory in Georgia. That's an invitation to further problems," the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, told the Guardian.
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Russia Blames the Victim
[from the NYT(?)]
Russia, not Georgia, has been stoking tensions in South Ossetia and another of Georgia’s breakaway areas, Abkhazia. After NATO held a summit in Bucharest, Romania, in April — at which Georgia and Ukraine received positive signs of potential membership — then-President Vladimir Putin of Russia signed a decree effectively treating Abkhazia and South Ossetia as parts of the Russian Federation.
It came after years of growing Russian efforts to assert control over these regions, for example, by distributing Russian passports to citizens and arranging the appointment of Russians to the territories’ governments. Mr. Putin oversaw a build-up of Russian “peacekeeping” forces in Abkhazia, which was clearly intended to provoke Georgia into a military response.
Yet Georgia showed restraint — in large part because Mr. Saakashvili understood that military adventurism would harm his NATO prospects. Moscow, in turn, transferred its efforts to South Ossetia, where pro-Russian rebels carried out attacks on Georgian forces and villages, finally provoking the response that Moscow had sought as a pretext to intervene.
Now Moscow has sent out the Black Sea fleet to Georgia’s coast and broadened the war into Abkhazia and Georgia proper, showing that Moscow’s war is not just about South Ossetia. In any case, Moscow’s own treatment of separatism — killing tens of thousands of Chechens over the past decade — says volumes about its claims that it is just trying to protect a minority population...
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Russia: US must choose Moscow or "project Georgia"
[HT:TP]
MEIENDORF CASTLE, Russia - Russia's foreign minister said on Wednesday the United States had to choose between partnership with Moscow and the Georgian leadership which he described as a "virtual project".
"We understand that this current Georgian leadership is a special project of the United States, but one day the United States will have to choose between defending its prestige over a virtual project or real partnership which requires joint action"...Georgia repeatedly accused Russia of breaking a ceasefire in their six-day-old conflict on Wednesday by pushing troops into the Georgian town of Gori, a claim denied by Moscow.
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Russia's actions could hurt US space presence
The Russian Soyuz vehicle will be the only option available for NASA to send crew and cargo to the space station until the shuttle's replacement becomes available for manned missions in 2015. Nelson fears deteriorating U.S.-Russia politics may result in "Russia denying us rides or charging exorbitant amounts for them".
NASA's agreement to purchase rides on the Soyuz came about from a waiver Congress granted the agency from the Iran-Syria Non-Proliferation Act. The law prohibits the United States from buying space-related goods and services from Russia while that nation exports nuclear technology to Iran.
Nelson blamed the Bush administration for making the nation so reliant on Russia by failing to devote more money to the space program.
[5 year gap between the retirement of the shuttle and its replacement comes on-line. What do we do about our many satellites? Space is the modern day high ground - what were our 'leaders' thinking? And if Obama's elected...]
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[FLASHBACK: NNBrief 5/15/2008:
The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five [more] years...READ BRIEF
NYT Goes on Attack Against Anti-Obama Book
Yet when a wildly successful book [debuted at #1] appears that attacks the Times's favored candidate, Democrat nominee Barack Obama, the paper unloads a front-page attack against... a book.
The Times certainly never deployed such aggressive opinionating to the anti-Bush screeds that have come over the transom - indeed, the paper blessed them with favorable reviews. If the Times does lower itself to actually review the Corsi book, expect the review to be brazenly hostile.
This isn't a new pattern: In the month before the 2004 election, the Times gave "Unfit for Command," the famous book outlining the case against Kerry by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a 100% negative review, while at the same time praised "The Family," a trashy Kitty Kelley biography of the Bush political dynasty.
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Israel warns Russia: We'll neutralize S-300 sold to Iran
If Russia goes through with the sale of its most advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Iran, Israel will use an electronic warfare device now under development to neutralize it and as a result present Russia as vulnerable to air infiltrations, a top defense official has told The Jerusalem Post. The Russian system, called the S-300, is one of the most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft-missile systems in the world today .....
[and they're selling it to Iran - they who also sit on the UN 'security council']
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A festival of grovelling to terrorists
Have you heard about the first novel by a young American woman that has become the “new Satanic Verses”, sparking terrorist attacks on the publishers and riots by Islamic militants that make the protests against Salman Rushdie's book look like an English tea party?
No, you probably won't have, since there is no book for anybody to riot about. The US publishers Random House pulled The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones, due out today, on the ground that it “might be offensive to some in the Muslim community” and “could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment".
There had been no acts of violence or terrorism, nor even threats or protests.
All that happened was that one non-Muslim associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas, who was sent a proof copy, apparently cautioned that the book would be seen as “a declaration of war... explosive stuff... a national security issue” and more offensive than The Satanic Verses. There swiftly followed a riot of retreating publishers... [snip]
It looks like another example of a quiet wave of self-censorship and cultural cowardice sweeping Western art circles...
[Home of the Brave: they only scream about free speech when it's against those who are civilized and safe...]
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Massive Cheating by China at the Olympics
There is absolutely no doubt - none, zero, zilch - that the Chinese ''women's'' gymnastics team featured several little girls no older than 14 years of age - two years younger than the international federation allows for competition. Online registrations of these girls list one age, their passports list another. This is blatant cheating ...
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Krugman's Wager
Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman weighs in with an argument to DO SOMETHING!!!! about global warming:
It's true that scientists don't know exactly how much world temperatures will rise if we persist with business as usual. While there's a chance that we'll act against global warming only to find that the danger was overstated, there's also a chance that we'll fail to act only to find that the results of inaction were catastrophic. Which risk would you rather run?It wasn't so long ago that global warmists were acting as if their alarming forecasts had already come true, even likening skeptics to Holocaust deniers. Now they are reduced to saying we really don't know if global warmism is true or not, but since the consequences are so dire if it is, we'd better just assume that it is and act accordingly.
If this sounds familiar, perhaps you've heard of Pascal's Wager. Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century French theologian who argued that faith was a good bet, in that the payoff is "an infinity of an infinitely happy life." If the probability of God's existing is anything greater than zero the rational thing to do is bet on God. [snip]
One difference between Pascal's Wager and Krugman's is that whereas Pascal was making a case for individuals to embrace faith, Krugman is arguing for collective action--which is to say, he wishes to use the power of government to impose his beliefs on others....
[at great cost - and I'm not talking the trillions of dollars but millions of lives likely to be lost as a direct result of retarding the progress of 3rd world nations. all to make politicians more powerful and corporations more money]
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Limo Shortage For Denver Dems
Limousine liberals may be forced to take the bus at the Democratic National Convention this month because Denver simply does not have enough limos and black cars to go around. "We just don't have the cars - Denver just isn't really big on chauffeurs," said Barbara Curtis, of Two Step Limousine. "I am totally booked, and have been for six weeks."
[but the planet, the fever, the inhumanity... {the hypocrisy}]
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Windfall taxing big oil: how to make the gas crisis worse
... So theory tells us that excess profits attract the competition that wipes them out... and do so by lowering the prices of those things which were in short supply. So confiscating those extra profits will mean that first, no one making them has the money left to look for more and, secondly, no one is going to dive into the industry if they think that they won't be allowed to keep the profits they might make.
So, umm, a windfall tax on profits means that, umm, gas prices will stay higher in the future than they would have been without the tax. Which, if I've understood this thing properly, isn't in fact what the general public is baying out for.
I'm left with only one important question: who are the fools here?
Is it that those politicians, with their groups of extremely expensive and presumably highly intelligent advisors, are not intelligent enough to see that their plans are entirely counter-productive? Or is it that they know they are, but think that we the voters are too stupid to understand it ourselves?
[we should know this - because it's the chief (of many) poison pills Pelosi plans to put in any bill she allows to be voted on - Recommended > ]
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FCC Commissioner Warns Fairness Doctrine Might Involve Control of Web
[HT:RT]
FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell raised that possibility after talking with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. on August 12. McDowell spoke about a recent FCC 3-2 vote to bar Comcast from engaging in certain Internet practices - expanding the federal agency's oversight of Internet networks.[snip]
"Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,' which won't be called that - it'll be called something else," McDowell said. "So, will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?"McDowell, a 2006 Bush appointee, also told BMI the Fairness Doctrine isn't currently on the FCC's radar. But a new administration and Congress elected in 2008 might renew Fairness Doctrine efforts, but under another name...
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OBAMA’S LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE
While Barack Obama's own children enjoy the best education money can buy, he wants to deny inner-city children the option of school choice, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD). Obama has been completely silent about the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program:
• The D.C. School Choice Act of 2003 established the federally funded voucher program that provides vouchers of up to $7,500 for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.But it was funded only through the 2008-09 school year. Democrats such as D.C.'s delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, want to kill the successful program, which shows that money is not the root of a good education:
• It lets students attend one of 60 participating nonpublic schools.
• Norton and Obama seem oblivious to the fact that District school spending is at $13,400 per student -- third-highest in the nation.Norton is leading the charge to block a mere $18 million in funding for the 2009-10 school year. This demonstration program serves some 1,900 students. A recent Education Department report found that nearly 90 percent of Opportunity scholarship students had higher reading scores than peers who didn't receive a scholarship. Not surprisingly, there are five applicants for every opening.
• Yet in 2007, D.C. public schools ranked last in math scores and second-to-last in reading scores for all urban public school systems in the United States, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
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EMBRACING PRIVATE SCHOOLS
Schools run by private enterprise? Free iPods and laptop computers to attract students? It may sound out of place in Sweden, that paragon of taxpayer-funded cradle-to-grave welfare. But a sweeping reform of the school system has survived the critics and, 16 years later, is spreading and attracting interest abroad.
Since the change was introduced in 1992 by a center-right government that briefly replaced the long-governing Social Democrats, the numbers have shot up:
• In 1992, 1.7 percent of high schoolers and 1 percent of elementary schoolchildren were privately educated.But while the percentage of children in U.S. private schools has dropped slightly in recent years, the trend in Sweden is growing:
• Now the figures are 17 percent and 9 percent.
• Before the reform, most families depended on state-run schools following a uniform national curriculum.Some Swedes say the private system drains funds from public education, but officials say independent schools have forced public schools to raise their own standards and improve efficiency.
• Now they can turn to the "friskolor," or independent schools, which choose their own teaching methods and staff, and manage their own buildings.
• They remain completely government-financed and are not allowed to charge tuition.
• The difference is that their government funding goes to private companies, which then try to run the schools more cost-effectively and keep whatever taxpayer money they save.
"Today, I think we have at least as good quality if not better than some independent schools because we have really joined the battle and use our money in a much better way," said Eva-Lotta Kastenholm, who is in charge of public schools in Sollentuna, a suburb of Stockholm.
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Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Soviet Reunion
Russia's attack on neighboring Georgia over two tiny separatist provinces is really about something much bigger — Russian leader Vladimir Putin's desire to restore the former USSR's might.
Russia's ill intentions clearly are on display in Georgia. In a fit of nationalist fury, it wants to teach Georgia and other former satellite countries that once made up the Soviet Bloc that its pro-Western rapprochement days are over
What better way than to invade a former republic, humiliate its leaders and then taunt the West for failing to come to its aid?
As if that wasn't enough, Russia immediately began threatening its other neighbors. A top Russian diplomat ominously warned Monday that Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland would "pay" for criticizing Russia's "imperialist" policy toward Georgia...
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Russia: Baltics, Poland To Pay For Georgia Stance
[HT:LW]
RIGA, Latvia - Russia's ambassador to Latvia Monday warned the Baltic states and Poland that they would pay for their criticism of the Kremlin over the conflict in Georgia, the Baltic news agency BNS reported. "One must not hurry on such serious issues, as serious mistakes can be made that have to be paid for a long time afterwards," Alexander Veshnyakov was quoted as saying by BNS.
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McCain, not Obama, was right about Georgia
John McCain had visited the Caucasian nation three times in a dozen years. When fighting erupted, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate got on the phone to gather details and issued a statement Friday summarizing the situation, tagging Russia as the aggressor and demanding it withdraw its forces from the sovereign territory of Georgia.
It took first-term Sen. Barack Obama three tries to get it right. The presumed Democratic candidate for commander in chief issued an even-handed statement, urging restraint by both sides. Later Friday, he again called for mutual restraint but blamed Russia for the fighting. The next day his language finally caught up with toughness of McCain's.
Making matters worse, Obama's staff focused on a McCain aide who had served as a lobbyist for Georgia, charging it showed McCain was "ensconced in a lobbyist culture." Obama's campaign came off as injecting petty partisan politics into an international crisis. This was not a serious response on behalf a man who aspires to be the leader of the Free World.
After all, what's so bad about representing a small former Soviet republic struggling to remake itself as a Western-style democracy?
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Tanks darken the grey atmosphere
A FLEET of armored personnel carriers with camouflaged 40-millimeter guns quickly surrounded the Olympic venues amid stepped-up security yesterday morning - and suddenly the tone of the Beijing Games took a nasty turn.
The president of the Australian Olympic Committee, John Coates, said he was unsure why the tanks had been placed outside the media center and noted the less-than-euphoric mood.
The vice-president of the Beijing organizing committee, Wang Wei, said yesterday he did not know why the tanks had been put in place...
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Plame Lawsuit Against Cheney Dismissed, Will Media Care?
[HT:GP]
Valerie Plame was dealt another setback Tuesday when a U.S. court of appeals upheld a federal judge's decision to dismiss her lawsuit against members of the Bush administration.Given the media's fascination with this former CIA operative who has claimed for years she was illegally outed by the White House for political reasons, it will be interesting to see just how much attention this ruling gets in the next 48 hours.
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Arabs Not Honoring Financial Pledges to Palestinians
Despite billions of dollars pledged to it late last year, the Palestinian Authority is caught in a serious financial crunch, mainly due to the failure of Arab countries to fulfill their commitments, reports said on Tuesday. Economic growth and stability is seen as crucial to the Palestinian Authority’s ability to maintain control in the West Bank and to make peace with Israel. [ah, no money, no peace. right]
P.A. Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad was quoted as saying that the P.A. could be in trouble financially if donor countries, especially the Arab states, don’t transfer the funds that they pledged at the donor conference in Paris. Prof. Mordechai Kedar, Arabic expert from the BESA Center for Strategic near Tel Aviv, said the Arab States have in the past made pledges at conferences and not fulfilled them because they don’t trust the Palestinians.
It took Europe years to realize that the money it was sending to the P.A. was being funneled into private foreign accounts by P.A. officials. But the Arabs knew it right away. “The system that they run is costly – probably not the most efficient,” said Sadan who was formerly involved in attempts to help the Palestinians build their economy. “They have a state-like organization but they don’t have any revenues..."
Kedar noted that the Palestinians have received more aid over the years than Europe had received at the end of World War II. Between 1999 and 2005, the P.A. received more than $6 billion in foreign aid. The U.S. has been the largest single donor.
[why no revenues? Because their only industry is violence and victimhood. 70 years and counting... {6 billion in graft - who needs an economy?}]
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Alarmists use weather to promote global warming scam
Claims that recent severe weather and flooding in the US are proof of human CO2 impacts on global climate are scientific nonsense. They are part of a pattern of keeping weather and climate issues in the public mind.
My grandmother admonished me with, “Your sins will find you out.” It is a maxim that should now befall proponents of the false theory that human CO2 is causing global warming or climate change. Exposure rarely emerges from the original event, but as Watergate showed it's the coverup that bares the truth...
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Journo Review: Dissent When We Tell You
[HT:CB]
One of the worst side effects of the media's ideological diversity problem is their often flagrant double standards.
Over at Slate, Ron Rosenbaum looks at how Columbia Journalism Review urges journalists to be more willing to cover unpopular views but later in the very same issue article patronizingly lectures reporters to stop letting global warming skeptics trick the public.
Things are made worse by the fact that in the magazine's dissent editorial, CJR puts forward Jeremiah Wright as a figure who should not be shunted to the sidelines. In other words, Jeremiah Wright and his brand of smarmy pseudo-Marxist racial diatribes are more legitimate than disspasionate scientists who are urging us to be cautious about jumping to conclusions that humans can effect the entire world's temperature. Astonishing.
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Media’s Global Warming Obsession Doesn’t Phase America
In spite of the media's near-constant nagging on global warming, only 25 percent of Americans view climate change as the world's biggest environmental threat, according to a new ABC News poll. Fewer than half - 47 percent - viewed global warming as "extremely" or "very" important to them.
Sixty-three percent said there is "a lot of disagreement among scientists" on the causes of global warming. Only 33 percent of respondents said they think "things people do" are mostly responsible for climate change, down from 41 percent in April 2007. And even with the media ignoring the debate, 62 percent of Americans realize scientists disagree on how serious a threat climate change actually poses.
The media tend to run to the government for fixes to global warming problems, but Americans seem have more faith in markets. Forty-three percent said the government would do a better job reducing warming, while 45 percent said businesses are better equipped to address the problem through market-based competition.
The poll results suggested the media have some work to do to build their own credibility. Only 38 percent of respondents said "most" of written and broadcast news is accurate.
[given that legitimate science is insultingly absent from the alarmists mantras, I'd say the media's propaganda is working all too well: the 'believers' should be in the low single digits. I.e., the battle rages - there's too much money on the line for embarrassment to push them off their course...]
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Patients 'should not expect NHS to save their life if it costs too much'
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Guidelines (Nice) has ruled for the first time that saving a life cannot be justified at any cost, in a review of its guidelines. It rejected the so-called "rule of rescue" which stipulates that people facing death should be treated regardless of the costs. The rule is based on the natural impulse to aid individuals in trouble.
The ruling contradicts the advice of Nice's Citizens Council, which offers advice from a representative sample of the general public, and said that a rule of rescue was an essential mark of a humane society. The report said that where individuals are in "desperate and exceptional circumstances" they should sometimes receive greater help than can be justified by a "purely utilitarian approach".
Nice defended its ruling last night saying that the Citizens Council provided useful input to its decisions but that the organisation's role was to determine how best to allocate the health service's limited resources...
[the inevitable result of government run health care, where 'general public' does not mean customer]
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From Crayons to Condoms
We are seeing a dramatic shift in education from “effective” education, meaning concrete academics, to “affective” education, meaning the teaching of attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviors. Our schools have become laboratories for social engineering and are no longer places where knowledge is transmitted. Whole language, death education, New Math, cooperative learning, inventive spelling and many other fads that have little to do with education.
Under the guise of “tolerance” and reducing “hate crimes,” students are often indoctrinated with the idea that there is no difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality even though what is being taught may violate the personal or religious beliefs of many of the students and their families. Homosexual, bi-sexual, and transgendered 'panels' are often brought in to discuss their lifestyles. However, heterosexuals are not usually a part of any discussion.
Certainly no student should ever be bullied, harassed, or ridiculed. However, classes are not needed for that; any student who harms or bullies another child for any reason should be disciplined. If we really want to address tolerance then we need to respect – and yes, tolerate -- differences of opinion. Unfortunately, that is not being done in many classrooms across America. Far too often, students who voice any opinion different than that being taught are labeled “intolerant"...
[heard these folks on the radio a month ago - this is just the tip of the iceberg - Recommended > ]
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U.S. Productivity Increases 2.2%, Labor Costs Cool
``Productivity still looks pretty good,'' said Michael Feroli, an economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. ``It's encouraging on the inflation front. We are seeing good cost control from businesses. It's good news for the Fed.''
``Historically, productivity growth has tended to suffer during periods of energy-price shocks,'' David Greenlaw, chief U.S. fixed-income economist at Morgan Stanley in New York, said in a note to clients. ``The current year-over-year growth rate of just a shade under 3 percent demonstrates an impressive degree of resilience.''
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BusinessWeek 'Recession in America' Blog Goes Belly-up
However, activity on the blog has been scarce of late. Nearly three months later, there are just 22 posts. Meanwhile, the nation's Gross Domestic Product grew at a 1.9 percent pace for the second quarter of 2008, according to government estimates announced July 31.
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Mexican soldiers enter U.S., hold agent
TUCSON, Arizona — Four Mexican soldiers crossed into a remote area of Arizona and briefly held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint before realizing where they were and returning to Mexico, U.S. authorities said.
Border Patrol spokeswoman Dove Crawford said the incident early Sunday on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, about 85 miles (140 kilometers) southwest of Tucson, was in an area where the border likely was marked only with barbed wire...
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S.B. County seeks accountability from San Francisco on probationers
California
San Francisco was criticized again Tuesday by the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors for failing to provide a 12-month tally of the juvenile offenders placed in the county's group homes. County authorities said they still hope San Francisco will cooperate but have decided to petition the state attorney general for assistance.
(Snip) The five originally were from Honduras and are believed to be undocumented immigrants.
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Keep the kids in school
That was big of Sen./ Rev. James Meeks to dare someone to arrest the kids he's leading out of the city's public schools in an ill-conceived protest, when he's the guy who should be pinched.
As for the students, truant officers ought to round them up and take them back to school where they belong. Of course, no one will do any of that because they don't want to appear mean, racist or elitist. And that's exactly the point of Meeks' plan to haul Chicago students out of the first week of school - to protest, at downtown offices and at Winnetka's New Trier Township High School, the "inequities" of the state education funding formula.
"I dare the business community [?] to arrest our children and send them to jail [?] because all they want is a quality education," Meeks said.
But if resource inequities account for the poor performance, why don't their white male, Hispanic and black female counterparts do as badly? After all, they are going to the same public schools in Chicago...
[we need independant, universal vouchers]
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EDUCATION FOR PROFIT
By many measures, the University of Phoenix is the most successful institution for higher education in American history, says Katherine Mangu-Ward, an associate editor at Reason. For example:
• The University of Phoenix has more than 325,000 students -- 22 times the number at the University of Chicago.In recent years, says Mangu-Ward, the University of Phoenix has become the poster child for everything the mainstream academic establishment thinks is wrong about for-profit higher education. But much of what academic traditionalists see as problems, Phoenix advertises proudly as solutions: The university aims to meet under-served demand for post-secondary education, tailor-made to fit the individual demands of busy adults...
• On campuses scattered across 39 states, and online as well, it offers everything from associate's degrees in sports management to a Spanish-language MBA.
• The University of Phoenix is now an educational and commercial powerhouse listed on NASDAQ with a market capitalization of $7.4 billion.
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