Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Global Warming? Bring it On!

The argument propounded by the dubious United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Anthropogenic (human-induced) Global Warming (AGW) is willfully fraudulent. The report has been vigorously and critically undermined, scientifically denounced and found wanting from both notable scientists here and abroad.

"There is no significant man made global warming. There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankind's activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces."

"Well, it is simply not happening. Worldwide there was a significant natural warming trend in the 1980's and 1990's as a Solar cycle peaked with lots of sunspots and solar flares. That ended in 1998 and now the Sun has gone quiet with fewer and fewer Sun spots, and the global temperatures have gone into decline. Earth has cooled for almost ten straight years. So, I ask Al Gore, where's the global warming?"
In spite of this fact, it is likely that the new U.S. Democratic Congress and Administration will once again proclaim that they know better than we do about such things. Get ready for them to move surreptitiously under the guise of Global Climate Control in an effort to enhance their own legacies and pocketbooks. To be sure, the Left hears nothing but their own incestuous voices, despite the voices of clarity and reason that abound around them. And there are many, many credible 'dissenters' against the charade of AGW.

Indeed, arrayed against the arcane burlesque of the United Nations IPCC with its politically selected 2500 Scientists, of which a core group of 600 exists, and a relatively small number of mediocre "scientists" here and there across the American landscape who have suddenly found notoriety or grant money in the global warming cause, are over 31,000 legitimate scientists (of which I am one) who signed the American Petition Project declaring the Global Warming Hypothesis bogus found here, here and here.
We openly refute the UN's conclusions...

"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
Let me assure you that we're not in good humor, nor take it kindly to be slurred and ridiculed by taking the other side in this debate. And our numbers are still growing. Indeed, we're angry that the vast majority of American Scientists will not be heard by the media. We're dismayed over the fact that the Global Warming fiasco has become politically popular and expedient to those left-wing politicians and power-brokers whose sole aim is to literally tax everything with a carbon footprint and give them control over all life, hidden within their PC guileful pretence to save the planet. They wish to save no one but themselves...

[longish but the rest is mostly a concise listing of facts that remove all doubt - and demonstrate why alarmists must shut down all factual debate and rely on fear mongering: if science and logic are applied there's really no contest. - Highly Recommended > ]

[and please pass on - our new Congress will only be stopped when convinced the jig is up]

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Giant Sucking Sound

[HT:BL, toons = 'staff']
Mr. Obama's one deeply false note during the campaign was his harping on "deregulation" as if that were the source of current troubles. His real problem is the crack-up of the world FDR built.

Fannie Mae was a New Deal creation, subsidizing the securitization of mortgage debt. FDR's successors piled on the subsidies for housing debt and incentives directed at low-income borrowers. Kaboom.



Then there's the UAW, born in 1935. For decades the UAW steadily traded away domestic auto market-share to imports and transplants to keep its aging membership toiling away toward their golden pensions and collecting wages and benefits twice those of their competitors. Kaboom.



Mr. Obama must be looking around and beginning to suspect he will be pouring his political capital, along with considerable taxpayer capital, down bottomless holes for the next four years.

He won't be building a legacy as the new FDR, but cleaning up after the last one...
[one hopes]




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PELOSI SERVES UP COLOMBIA TO EUROPE

The European Union will sign off on a free-trade agreement with Colombia and its neighbor Peru by June 2009. It's a strong opportunity, because 10 years ago Colombia was a drug-trafficking hellhole with 30,000 murders a year. It's now transformed into a safe country that values rule of law and has attractive emerging markets opening up.

The change didn't come out of nowhere:

  • According to the Center for International Policy's Just the Facts database, the United States spent $5.8 billion on military, police, economic and social aid to Colombia from 1996 through 2009.
  • Washington trained 37,000 soldiers to become a professional fighting force; the United States lost at least 11 service members in that effort.
How much did Europe contribute? Next to nothing... [snip]

But Europe will now grab our existing markets there, because U.S. companies export virtually the same products to Colombia as Europe: $9 billion in chemicals, auto parts, industrial equipment and capital goods. Europe's goods will sail in duty-free. America's will be saddled with 35 percent tariffs.

[because Pelosi's Unions are hiding behind the sham of 'worker rights' to block competition - again]

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University Of Toledo Sued For Firing Christian Official

The Thomas More Law Center, a public interest law firm that defends and promotes the religious freedom of Christians, filed a lawsuit yesterday against the University of Toledo for firing one of its officers for expressing an opinion against homosexuality.

Crystal Dixon, an official at the University of Toledo, was fired in May by the university because she wrote a newspaper [public - not the university's] commentary [response, to an equally frank opposing view] expressing her personal Christian views regarding homosexuality.

[think this through - you can now lose your livelihood for politically incorrect opinions expressed outside the workplace. Is this America?]

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Carnage persists; weekend toll is 34

The decapitated bodies of three police officers were found alongside six other beheaded corpses yesterday in a weekend of violence in which 34 people were slain in different sections of Tijuana. (snip) The deaths bring to more than 360 the number killed since late September, when the violence between rival drug gangs first began to soar in a turf battle targeting each other and law enforcement officials.

[good thing it's happening on the other side of our secure border {i.e., how clairvoyant must we be to know what's coming? And must we wait for tragedy before acting?}]

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A 'rather successful' president with some serious achievements under his belt

A cataract of sniggering and brickbats may safely be expected as serious analysis of the presidency of George W. Bush begins, but it will not last: The historical standing of departing presidents tends to rise as emotionalism subsides.

The U.S. annual economic growth rate has been 2.2% through this presidency [which included the severe hit of 9/11], the highest of any advanced country, and the economy expanded 19% in this time, well ahead of other large economies. The same pattern was replicated in per-capita income and spending, investment of all kinds and unemployment, which ran at half a percent below the average of the Clinton years and three full points below the Eurozone.

Until the last three months of his eight-year presidency, Bush avoided a recession. [snip]

Bush’s treaty with India, creating an alliance with that country, is one of the most important diplomatic initiatives in the world since Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. [apologies, you're probably sick to death of hearing about the ramifications of this critical initiative from the MSM - but I'd be remiss not to mention it given its importance] [snip]

But the chief preoccupation of the Bush administration has been the conflict with terrorists and terrorism-promoting states. Ironically, the issue that will mainly determine the historical ranking of the Bush presidency, the fate of Iraq, lies largely in the hands of Barack Obama.

As long as the West imports large quantities of oil, it is extremely dangerous to have both major Persian Gulf countries, Iran and Iraq, in hands hostile to the West...

[if only we had our own resources we could develop]

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Florida university bans Christmas decor

FORT MYERS, Fla., -- A Florida university has annoyed many of its employees and students by ordering a complete ban on Christmas decorations in public areas. That means Florida Gulf Coast University is not holding its greeting card contest this year, the Fort Myers News-Press reported. The giving tree in one building will be a "giving garden."

[any doubts as to if our culture is under attack?]

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Council Bans Staff From Saying Singing From the Same Hymnsheet In Case It Offends

A council is to launch a probe to find out how it banned its staff from using the phrase "singing from the same hymn sheet" because it could offend atheists. Salisbury District Council instructed officials to stop using the centuries-old saying to avoid upsetting non-believers.

[now? It doesn't stop until stopped.]

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Vivian Schiller Leaves NYT; Joins NPR As New CEO

[same difference]

.

Drunk driver runs over himself

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico, November 26, 2008 (NBC) -- New Mexico State Police captured a suspected drunk driver after he fell out of his car and the car ran over him! A dashboard camera caught on tape what several people called the state's "drunk busters" hotline to complain about...

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[HT:GC]

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Homeland Security Nominee No Border Hawk

Far from being a border hawk, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano frequently blocked efforts to curb illegal immigration, say enforcement advocates concerned about her expected nomination to be the Homeland Security secretary under President Barack Obama. [Snip]

But Napolitano opposes a border fence, supports expanding a controversial technology visa program and favors a ''stringent pathway to citizenship.''

[that's grand.]

READ MORELink

A Quick Backgrounder on Lashkar-e-Taiba

There is a lot of talk about Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group that is strongly suspected of being behind last week's terror assault in Mumbai, India. (Snip) There are a lot of people out there twisting themselves in knots to disassociate Lashkar-e-Taiba from al Qaeda. They are wrong to do so. Lashkar-e-Taiba has an extensive network in southern and Southeast Asia. A senior US military intelligence official described the group as "al Qaeda junior,"

[the real point: the franchise of terrorism is growing, because our actions are encouraging it...]

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Off the Table

[HT:WH]
Islam was born as a religion spread through violence. There is a direct line from the prophet Muhammad to today’s Islamic terrorists, whose latest deadly attacks wreaked havoc in Mumbai, India. The ongoing effort in the United Nations and the politically correct media to disassociate Islam from terrorism is a sham.

Just days before the Mumbai attack, a United Nations Committee passed a resolution entitled “Combating Defamation of Religions”, which will be going to the General Assembly for approval in mid-December. It is one in a series of such resolutions pushed by the Organization of Islamic Conference. While ostensibly applying to all religions, it refers only to Islam by name. The text “expresses deep concern … that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.”

The New York Times’ lead news stories in the aftermath of the Mumbai massacre played right into the Organization of Islamic Conference’s campaign of obfuscation. It omitted the central fact that the terrorists who murdered more than 170 innocent people were fanatical Islamists. The Times referred to them simply in generic terms as “gunmen”, “attackers”, and “militants'... [snip]

The truth makes no difference to the politically correct crowd at the New York Times and other left-wing media in the West, not to mention at the United Nations. They refuse to acknowledge the centrality of Islamic religious dogma to the scourge of terrorism we are witnessing all over the world. We will continue to reap the tragedies that they are sowing so long as we are lulled by their propagandists and the obliging left-wing media into whitewashing the truth about the core terrorist nature of Islam...

[hence 'GWOT']

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Muslim cemetary in Mumbai refuses to bury gunmen
[credit where due]

Mumbai, India — A Muslim graveyard has refused to bury nine gunmen who terrorized Mumbai over three days last week, leaving at least 172 people dead and wreaking havoc at some of its most famous landmarks.

The men are not true followers of the Islamic faith, according to the influential Muslim Jama Masjid Trust, which runs the 7.5-acre Badakabrastan graveyard in downtown Mumbai.

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Girl strangled slowly for family's honour

A JORDANIAN man slowly strangled his 16-year-old married sister, using wire and the girl's scarf, after she visited a female friend because he had to "cleanse family honour". After jailing the unidentified 20-year-old man for seven years, Judge Hassan Amayreh said: "It took him 30 minutes to strangle his sister to death with a metal wire and her own scarf."

[our enemy]

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Situating Honorcide


When 16 year-old Aqsa Parvez of Mississauga, Ontario was strangled by her father for refusing to wear the hijab, Shahina Siddiqui, president of the Islamic Social Services Association, dissembled the murder as “the result of domestic violence, a problem that cuts across Canadian society and is blind to colour and creed” (National Post, December 12, 2007).

For Sheikh Yusuf Badat, Imam of the Islamic Foundation of Toronto, “It wasn’t about Islam” but merely a question “of parenting and anger management”; and Mohammed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, whitewashed the killing as a “teenage issue.” Mohhamad Al-Navdi of the Canadian Council of Imams, while regretting the slaying of the young girl, responded by stressing “the duty [of parents] to convince their kids that this [the hijab] is part of their culture.”

The real crime, apparently, was not the actual killing, but the “failure” of the parents to inculcate the proper religious ordinances and to control the adolescent tendency to domestic revolt. Sheikh Alaa Elsayed of the Islamic Society of North America Canada agreed: parents should teach their daughters “to do the right thing” (National Post, December 14, 2007). [snip]

Let us make no mistake about this. Pluralism and formulaic tolerance notwithstanding, to deny what is so vividly obvious is to lie outright...

[Recommended > ]


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'Defamation’ of Islam Resolution Set to Pass in UN

– A United Nations committee has passed a controversial “defamation of religions”.

The measure, which calls on all countries to ensure their legal systems provide protection against “acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions,” passed in the Third Committee by a 85-50 vote, with 42 countries abstaining.

This year the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has the support of two non-Muslim allies – Venezuela and Belarus – in co-sponsoring the resolution. Although the OIC says the campaign is aimed at protecting all faiths, once again only Islam is cited by name.

Flag of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the 57-member bloc of Islamic nations.



‘Importing anti-blasphemy prohibitions into human rights law’

Critics say Islamic states are trying to put Islam, and some of the more controversial practices associated with it, beyond censure.

“It is sad that once again the United Nations has endorsed an anti-blasphemy resolution, designed to curtail any criticism of Islam,” Becket Fund for Religious Liberty spokesman Tom Carter said Monday. [snip]

Third Committee secretary Moncef Khane said late Monday that the plenum vote generally closely follows the pattern of the final committee vote.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time the result does not change,” he explained, saying those occasions on which the final tally does differ it is usually because some delegations may have been out of the room during a draft resolution vote.

Khane said the [full] assembly would probably vote on the resolution between Dec. 18-22...

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then >

"Oppose UN defamation of Islam resolution"
US President mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Obama transition http://www.change.gov/page/s/contact
Your Congressman https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
Your Senator http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

The Climate-Change Reformation

The truth, alas, has proved too inconvenient to ignore. Among non-partisan researchers, there is now little doubt that human-generated carbon dioxide makes only an insignificant contribution to climate change. More importantly, there is agreement among virtually all climatologists that the planet is experiencing the beginnings of a cold spell, expected to last as long as 30 years, due to a decrease in solar activity. Most significantly, however, the tangible financial crisis has displaced concerns over the invisible climatological one. With the mercury plunging alongside the Dow Jones, the Gore age is on the way out.

In an op-ed in today’s New York Times, Gore dispenses with the elastic “findings” of various environmentalists, and simply tells climate-change skeptics to “wake up.” While he lays out a five-part “plan that would simultaneously move us toward solutions to the climate crisis and the economic crisis - and create millions of new jobs that cannot be outsourced,” he only gets down to proper CO2 fear-mongering in the last of his five points... [snip]

We’ll never know if Al Gore finally understands that he fell for an enormous and costly political scam. But he clearly realizes no one is throwing money into cooling the planet during a chilly recession. And he must sense that the collective American consciousness can only accommodate one overarching fiction at a time - costly Rube Goldberg energy schemes will be abandoned for broader drilling and revamped nuclear power initiatives.

[I'd like to think so, but many of us thought this scam thoroughly exposed in '06 - but the greennik's political-media rally in '07 proved they're weren't going to give up all that power and revenue without a fight. We'll need see Barack's influence - and likely remain vigilant...]

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Climate change juggernaut on the horizon, UN talks told

Poznan, Poland - War, hunger, poverty and sickness will stalk humanity if the world fails to tackle climate change, a 12-day UN conference on global warming heard on Monday. A volley of grim warnings sounded out at the start of the marathon talks, a step to a new worldwide treaty to reduce greenhouse gases and help countries exposed to the wrath of an altered climate...

[step one: control the language]

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The Global Warming Goons Want Your Little Ones

I bet Jim Jones is tooling around hell right now green with envy over the mind manipulation the global warming greenies are wielding upon our culture.

We’ve got green jobs, green cars, green dogs, green houses, green toilet paper and environmentally friendly green condoms. Everything now must become green or it is gone.

Because of the sick amount of cash involved, both sides of the political aisle have drunk so much of the Global Warming Kool-Aid that they are peeing green, and if we the sheeple don’t lock step to these unhinged fascist demands then we’re the devil...

There are several things that get me heated up over the global warmers’ hyperventilated horse smack. It’s stuff like:

- The specious science the global warblers put forth which establishes truth not by facts but through non-stop repetition.

- How the taxpayer dollar is floating this flotsam to the tune of $6 billion - a year. That’s more than we send to the National Cancer Institute and to AIDS research.

- The Gestapoesque censorship of “dissenters” and “deniers” of the global warming “facts” by the greenies. God help you if you don’t parrot their apocalyptic projections.


But worst of all: Congress is currently deliberating whether or not they should make “environment literacy training” a required course for your kids before they get to graduate.

Which brings me to the main point of this column and that which really ticks me off about the green freaks: namely, how they’re after our kids with their gospel of green...

["know thy enemy {'s tactics}" - Highly Recommended > ]

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TEXAS ENJOYS $11 BILLION SURPLUS

As most states scramble to patch holes in their budgets, Texas glides along unscathed. While California, New York, Florida, Michigan and Ohio make painful choices -- higher taxes, spending cuts, Texas has a surplus topping $11 billion. Why? Because the state doesn't have an income tax:

  • States with income taxes have seen revenue plummet, especially in the Northeast and in Midwestern states.
  • Texas is among several energy-producing states reporting no budget gap; others include Alaska, Louisiana, North Dakota and Wyoming. [but not California]
  • Moreover, Gov. Rick Perry (R) has said Texas' economy is strong and continues to create jobs because of low taxes and conservative policies, and state leaders remain upbeat as the next legislative session approaches.
Overall, the state is in pretty good shape. Sales tax receipts have remained strong. And Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the state Senate, recently said that "because of conservative fiscal decisions ... our state's economy remains stronger than virtually every other state in the nation."

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WHY PERMANENT TAX CUTS ARE THE BEST STIMULUS

The incoming Obama administration and congressional Democrats are considering a second fiscal stimulus package, estimated at more than $500 billion, to follow the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. As they do, much can be learned by examining the first... [snip]

The major part of the first stimulus package was the $115 billion, temporary rebate payment program targeted to individuals and families that phased out as income rose. Most of the rebate checks were mailed or directly deposited during May, June and July. The argument for these temporary payments was that they would increase consumption, stimulate demand and get the economic growing again. Yet, they did absolutely nothing.



So what can Congress and the incoming Obama administration do to give the economy a real boost? Below are a few fairly bipartisan measures worth considering:

  • Keep all income-tax rates were they are now, effectively making current tax rates permanent.
  • Enact a worker's tax credit equal to 6.2 percent of wages up to $8,000, and make it permanent.
  • Construct a government spending plan that meets long-term objectives, puts the economy on a path to budget balance and is expedited to the degree possible without causing waste and inefficiency.
Source: John B. Taylor, "Why Permanent Tax Cuts Are the Best Stimulus," Wall Street Journal, November 25, 2008. For text:

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Media Fail to Connect Dots on Bailout

Have you noticed that the media largely fail to connect the dots between related events?

In all the reporting on the auto industry’s ills, little is said about the government as the chief cause. Politicians holler at auto executives in hearings and beat their chests in interviews, but never mention Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) mileage standards. Just like unaffordable union contracts (mentioned incredibly often by the same politicians who now wish to give the unions expanded), unchecked power wreaks the same destruction in other industries via the Employee Free Choice Act (which steals away free choice).

In all their reporting of how the sub-prime mortgage meltdown purportedly triggered the financial industry collapse (as a child’s sneeze might topple a meticulously constructed, floor to ceiling house of cards), they uttered hardly a word about Barney Frank and Gang’s push for financial institutions to provide mortgages to the woefully unqualified.

Nobody mentioned the the Clinton Administration’s push for home ownership as a God-given right to be facilitated at any cost, let alone the years of criminal conspiracy and obscene executive compensation at Fannie and Freddie...

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Barack Obama and the FDR-Great Depression Myth

The cover of Time magazine has Barack Obama photoshopped into Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous convertible, complete with oval-shaped glasses and cigarette holder held between the teeth. “The NEW New Deal,” The cover reads. Surely many who voted for Obama saw him as potentially the new FDR, the man to lead us out of hard economic times. But they’ve been misled, for even FDR wasn’t FDR. He is a quasi-mythical creature who not only didn’t end the Great Depression but probably greatly prolonged the nation’s economic agony with his New Deal programs and a menagerie of other foolish measures. Just look at the numbers... [click to enlarge]


Other economists, including Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas Jr. and the late Leonard Rapping concluded that the steady expansion of the money supply, but for FDR’s influence, should have ended the Depression in 1935. Even FDR Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau admitted the New Deal had failed.

“We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work,” he declared in 1939. “We have never made good on our promises...I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started...And an enormous debt to boot!”
Yet Obama apparently either doesn’t know his history or doesn’t care. He’s just proposed what one news outlet called “a monster new 'new deal,'” supposedly a two-year plan aiming to create or protect 2.5 million jobs with massive deficit spending...

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PUTTING PATIENTS FIRST

Canada has a health care system where everything revolves around the system.

When Medicare was introduced it was supposed to be a floor, meaning no one would suffer because they didn't have access to necessary healthcare. What it has evolved into is a ceiling where no one is allowed better health care than what the government will give them, says Dr. Brian Day, an orthopedic surgeon and ex-president of the Canadian Medical Association.

Instead, patients need to be put at the center of this universe and everything else should revolve around them. According to Day, under a system of patient-centered care:

  • The patient would, first of all, be looked at as the consumer of healthcare; when you go to any institution, you need to be looked upon as a valued asset, and that's what is missing from the way patients are treated now.
  • Hospitals would switch from block-funding to money-follows-the-patient funding; thus, creating competition between private and public companies and competition between the different public hospitals.
Further, when we call for a patient-centered system, we are really calling for a system that exposes itself to more market influences. It empowers the patient, empowers the public and will move Canada forward, says Day.

[the inevitable evolution of government run health care]

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BOYZ N THE BOOK

A Rip Van Winkle waking up from a 30-year nap on a college campus today would notice a strange change in the student body. Most of the students walking past him would be women. [snip]

  • A generation ago, women made up less than half the student body.
  • But in 2005 they made up 57 percent of total fall enrollments, and the Department of Education estimates the gender discrepancies will increase every year in the foreseeable future.
Also, once they are in college, women are more likely to finish:

  • In 2005-06, graduation rates favored women by 26 percent in terms of earning bachelor's degrees, and 33 percent in master's degrees.
Source: Mary Grabar, "Boyz n the Book; Johnny can read, but won't, and who can blame him?" Weekly Standard, Vol. 14, Issue 7, October 27, 2008.

[imagine the media coverage if such trend lines were detrimental to women - they're not, so nothing to worry about evidently]

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The true school scandal

It's no scandal when politicians chooses a private school. The scandal is the toleration of the abattoir called a public school.

According to data compiled by the Washington Post in 2007, of the 100 largest school districts in the country, D.C. ranks third in spending for each student, around $13,000 a pupil, but last in spending on instruction. More than half of every dollar of education spending goes to the salaries of administrators. Test scores are abysmal; the campuses are often unsafe.

The main reason politicians adopt a policy of malign neglect: teachers unions, arguably the single worst mainstream institution in our country today. No group has a stronger or better organized stranglehold on a political party than they do. No group is more committed to putting ideological blather and self-interest before the public good.

The Democratic Party continues to tolerate this sort of thing because public school teachers continue to be reliably liberal voters. And their unions cut big checks...

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Daschle lobby ties bump Obama vow

Barack Obama’s expected pick of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to be secretary of health and human services bumps up against the president-elect’s pledge to rid the White House of special interests.

The former Democratic senator from South Dakota is a special policy adviser for the lobbying law firm Alston & Bird. And in his three years there, the firm has earned more than $16 million representing some of the health care industry’s most powerful interests before the department he’s in line to lead...

[I.e., DHHS {Dept. of Health and Human Safety} is the department which contains the agency that regulates food and drugs - aka; FDA. no conflict of interest here - move along...]

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NOW CNN Warns That we 'Barely Know' Obama?

CNN is warning Americans that already making Barack Obama into one of America's greatest "heroes" may not be a good idea. Despite the fact that Barack Obama has yet to take office, despite that he has yet to really do anything to earn that status, CNN is saying that "already, he's being compared to the most remarkable leaders."

It might make one amazed that now, after cheerleading for him for the last four years, CNN suddenly finds that calling Obama a hero is not necessarily the best idea.

"The Americans who are comparing him to those remarkable predecessors," CNN warns, "are putting a lot of faith in a man they barely know."

And why do we "barely know" Barack Obama, CNN? [after 22 months of campaigning?]

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[HT:GC]

Have you seen this man?

Monday, December 1, 2008

Both of the above

[Mark Steyn]
Andy wrote yesterday about our confused thinking re events in Bombay:

The obsession over whether al Qaeda or its endless jumble of affiliates pulled off the operation is a misguided attempt to mimimize the challenge. The bin Laden network is not unimportant, but it is tapping into something that is much bigger than itself.
We're reluctant to address that "bigger than itself" elephant. All jihad is local: If rockets are fired at Israel, it's a failure to settle the Palestinian question. If an NHS doctor drives a flaming Cherokee into the check-in desk at Glasgow Airport, it must be Tony Blair's foreign policy. The Jerusalem Post's headline writer poses the question:
Homegrown Terror Or International Jihad?
False choice. The answer is: Homegrown terror in the service of international jihad. Clearly, India has had a Muslim problem to one degree or another in the 60 years since partition, but increasingly those locally driven grievances have been absorbed within the global pan-Islamic ideology. What strikes you, as the dust clears in Bombay, is that one assault provided an umbrella for manifestations of almost every strain of Muslim grievance.

To pose the question as that Jerusalem Post headline is to miss the point.

Moreover, the global ideologues correctly see our determination to attribute every attack to purely local phenomena unconnected to any bigger picture as a sign of weakness...
[we continue to {publicly, and public policy} deny that the global clash of societies occurring is between the extremists of one religion - islam - and everyone else. By doing so we're sending the message that they can win, and so embolden their continued bad behavior. Step one: see your enemy...]

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Tolerating intolerance

[HT:PL]
THE involvement of Britons among the terrorists responsible for the murders of more than 150 people in Mumbai last week signals another milestone in the march of multiculturalism and the failure of Western and democratised nations to deal with Islamists. In the mosques of London, leaders like Anjem Choudary, right-hand man to the hate-filled cleric Omar Bakri, were praising the killers... [snip]

In the UK, as in many European nations and in Australia, governments have permitted Muslim migrants to create their own enclaves and ghettos and preach their own interpretations of their religion, unhindered by the cultures of their host nations and often in contempt of the laws of the society of their host country.

Aided by the powerful civil rights lobbies and squadrons of lawyers, Islamists are waging a successful war to prevent further assimilation of Muslims into Western society, forcing women to wear traditional Islamic garb to emphasise their separateness, urging the introduction of Islamic sharia law into local courts.

From the shores of Somalia to the cells of Guantanamo, the West is in confused retreat, its politicians too concerned about appearing to be in breach of international civil rights covenants than they are about the safety of their citizens....

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Israeli hawks ready to fly on Iran

Prepare for war. Last week I met the Boogie Man, the former head of the Israeli Defence Forces, General Moshe "Boogie" Ya'alon, who is preparing the political groundwork for a military attack on Iran's key nuclear facilities. "We have to confront the Iranian revolution immediately," he told me. "There is no way to stabilise the Middle East today without defeating the Iranian regime. The Iranian nuclear program must be stopped."

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[and the UN?]

[yet more] U.N. Follies

This week, the United Nations observed “Palestine Day,” dedicating a whole day to chastising Israel for its unforgivable sin of existing and deeply regretting the UN’s role in the creation of the Jewish state.

This brings to mind the UN’s most recent efforts at ending a shooting war in the Middle East: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 on the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War in Lebanon.

That conflict flared up when Hezbollah invaded Israel from Lebanon and kidnaped two Israeli soldiers (Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev — you won’t find those names mentioned very often) and killed another three in the attack. The plan was to trade the prisoners for convicted terrorist and child-murderer Samir Al-Quntar.

In retaliation, Israel attacked Hezbollah throughout southern Lebanon and invaded, triggering 33 days of the fiercest fighting seen outside Iraq. The fighting was ended when the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1701.

And how’s that working out? As usual — a dismal failure... [snip]

... And the only “interference” they made was in making sure there were plenty of (often staged or faked) photos showing just how much the people of southern Lebanon had suffered under Israel’s ...

... UNIFIL has covered itself in glory like when they skillfully avoided a previous shooting war when they actively covered up (if not actually participated) in a prior kidnapping invasion of Israel by Hezbollah, who used UNIFIL-marked vehicles ...

... Rather than being disarmed, Hezbollah is now far, far better armed than ever. Rather than being isolated, it is now an integral part of the Lebanese government, holding veto power over actions of that government ...

Amid its rank failure to enforce the resolution it passed ending the Israel-Hezbollah conflict (and laying the groundwork for Hezbollah to launch another, far more brutal conflict any time it wishes), the UN still has time to decide that Israel is responsible for about 83% of the world’s human-rights violations and condemn them for it.

At what point do we realize that the United Nations causes (or, at least, tolerates and foments) far more trouble in the world than it prevents? When do we work on a new international body, composed of actual democracies genuinely interested in human rights and freedom?

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[he forgot the part where our tax dollars pay for it all]


..

Obama climate pledge "very positive"-UN official

ALGIERS - Barack Obama's pledge to work to reduce emissions sharply by 2020 is a "huge signal" of encouragement to countries negotiating a new climate pact, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said on Wednesday.

The U.S. president-elect said on Tuesday the United States would engage vigorously in climate change talks when he is president, and he pledged to work to reduce emissions sharply by 2020, despite the financial crisis.

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ALARMISTS STILL HEATED EVEN AS WORLD COOLS

As the British House of Commons debated a climate change bill that pledged the United Kingdom to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by 2050, London was hit by its first October snow since 1922. Apparently Mother Nature wasn't paying attention.

The British people, however, are; a poll found that 60 percent of them doubt the claims that global warming is man-made and urgent. Moreover, there is evidence of our cooling world everywhere:

  • In October, the Swiss lowlands received the most snow for any October since records began; Zurich got 20 centimeters, breaking the record of 14 centimeters set in 1939.
  • In the United States, Ocala, Florida, experienced its second-lowest October temperature since 1850, October temperatures fell to record lows in Oregon and Boise, Idaho, got the earliest snow in its history.
  • In the Southern Hemisphere, Durban, South Africa, had its coldest September night in history in the middle of the month, and New Zealand's Mount Ruapehu had its largest snow base ever.
  • The International Arctic Research Center reported in October that there was 29 percent more Arctic sea ice this year than last.
None of this matters, of course, to the warming zealots. It doesn't matter if it's too dry or too wet, too hot or too cold. All of it is caused by global warming.

However, according to reputable scientists, the warming and cooling of the Earth is a natural phenomenon dictated by forces beyond our control, from ocean currents to solar activity.

Our Earth is just experiencing what it has experienced for millions of years. In fact, the latest warming trend appears to have ended in 1998.

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New land-use law's message: build near transit

California
Many California planning and environmental groups are heralding the passage of legislation designed to address global warming by curbing suburban sprawl as a watershed moment, perhaps the state's most important land-use law in more than 30 years.

"It's a sea change in the way we're planning and funding growth and development," said Stephanie Reyes, senior policy advocate with San Francisco's Greenbelt Alliance. "The winds are shifting, and this is the time to get on board."

Essentially the law, which will take years to implement, uses incentives and punishments to 'encourage' local governments and builders to 'concentrate' growth in urban areas close to public transportation hubs in an effort to reduce Californians' use of cars and lower their greenhouse gas emissions... [snip]

On the other hand, not all of the projected growth in California can be accommodated in multifamily urban properties, nor do all consumers want to live in such homes. There are clear downsides for those builders pursuing projects that don't reflect the model envisioned by the government...

[Ignore why Americans found the suburbs so appealing when compared to the high density life style it replaced (think: The Honeymooners), or that the automobile is one of the greatest single liberating inventions of our history - government knows best, and we've given them the means to veto our desires in the name of its new religion; Green. The sad joke is that the 'green' they're thinking of has nothing to do with environments...]

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[if global cooling were hyped like the warming scam...]

US Fed announces $800bn stimulus

The Federal Reserve is to inject another $800bn (£526.8bn) into the US economy in a further effort to stabilise the financial system. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the stimulus package aimed to make more lending available to consumers. About $600bn will be used to buy up mortgage-backed securities while $200bn is being targeted at unfreezing the consumer credit market.

[let me see if I got this: Paulson was given 700B$ to buy up mortgage-backed securities, he chose to give it to the banks instead, so we gave him another 800B$ to do what he didn't do the first time.

Well ok; as long as we're not rewarding failure with it...]


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RECKLESS RESCUEPALOOZA

The federal government's Rescuepalooza has brought us to this: We are now pledging American tax dollars to bailout or beef up not just American banks, banks' customers, automakers, insurance companies, homeowners who can't pay their mortgages, and quasi-governmental mortgage firms. We are now rescuing other countries...

The Federal Reserve last week announced it would commit up to $30 billion each to Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and Singapore so they can more easily swap their currencies for dollars. That came in a week that saw the Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announce (singly or in combination) an astonishing amount of new spending, including:

  • Allocating money to accept up to $600 billion in liabilities on three million troubled home loans.
  • Possibly using taxpayers' money to buy shares of U.S. automakers to funnel them another $25 billion, each.
  • Another $21 billion for American International Group (AIG), on top of $38 billion last month, which came on top of $85 billion the government loaned it just a few weeks before that.
  • A cut in the Fed's benchmark interest rate to 1 percent, continuing the easy-money policies that helped cause the housing bubble that sparked the financial crisis.
All of this has sent the projected federal budget for the new fiscal year to $1 trillion and skyrocketed the national debt to $11 trillion, up from about $7 trillion when Bush took office. This will be repaid through taxes and probably higher inflation that will reduce our standard of living...

[and sends the unambiguous signal to large-cap corporate American that reckless is ok - the taxpayers will bail you out]


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Report: Immigration Officials Freed Criminal Aliens

HOUSTON — Federal immigration officials let thousands of inmates in the nation's third-most populous county walk out of jail despite the suspects admitting they were in the U.S. illegally, a newspaper investigation found.

More than 3,500 inmates told Harris County jailers they were in the country illegally over an eight-month period starting in June 2007, but records show Immigration and Customs Enforcement filed paperwork to detain only about a quarter of them.

In a story published Sunday, The Houston Chronicle found that most illegal immigrants released from jail were accused of minor crimes. But others included convicted child molesters, rapists and those ordered to be deported decades ago.

ICE officials said they are doing the best they can with their resources.

[idea: lets us the 25B$ that GM, Ford and Chrysler are asking for (each) and apply it to securing our borders and providing 'sufficient resources' to ICE.]


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Why Tulsa Today went dark

Monday morning Tulsa Today posted an analysis by veteran New York journalist and the recipient of seven Long Island Press Awards, Joan Swirsky, titled, “The Great Birth Certificate Scandal/Cover-Up of ‘08” questioning the missing Barack Obama birth certificate and his eligibility to serve as President of the United States.

Two hours and 10,000 page views later, our local Internet Service Provider and domain hosting service, Tulsa Connect locked us off the Internet.

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The consequences of Waxman ousting Dingell

Losing Rep. Dingell as the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee does not bode well for American industries, but there is another ominous reason to fear Henry Waxman's ascent to the Chairmanship. Dingell was generally a steadfast pro-Second Amendment voice during his long tenure in the House, where he helped defeat several gun control laws proposed by his more liberal colleagues.

The firearms owners and hunters in Michigan and the rest of the US have lost a strong pro-gun voice in Congressman Dingell. As bad as Waxman and others are for the future of American businesses, his selection for the chairmanship sets the stage for a new round of restrictive gun control legislation, more than likely centered on the business tax/trade fee paradigm.

Michael Barone gives us a nice summary ...

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The media must not allow government to proscribe free speech

The so-called Fairness Doctrine, the enforcement of the doctrine that any broadcast medium, voicing one political opinion must voice another, dissenting opinion will be the beginning of the end of free speech.

Here's why: Who is to say what is political opinion? The line between political opinion and reportage is so blurred now as to be almost indistinct...

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Bush in rearview mirror, Obama may switch plates

Advocates for Washington voting rights are lobbying President-elect Barack Obama to put “Taxation Without Representation” license plates on the presidential limousine. President Clinton had the plates on his limo, but President Bush, who opposes giving D.C.’s representative in Congress a vote, replaced them, in one of his first acts as president, with D.C. plates that do not include the taxation slogan.

[given that nearly half of all Americans now pay no federal income tax but can still cast votes, wouldn't it be more apropos to say "representation without taxation"? ]

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The ugly backlash over Proposition 8

California [HT:SN]
A supporter of Proposition 8, fed up with what he believed was the gay community's and "liberal media's" refusal to accept the voters' verdict, fired off a letter to the editor.

"Please show respect for democracy," he wrote, in a letter we published.
What he encountered instead was an utter lack of respect for free speech.

Within hours, the intimidation game was on. Because his real name and city were listed - a condition for publication of letters to The Chronicle - opponents of Prop. 8 used Internet search engines to find the letter writer's small business, his Web site (which included the names of his children and dog), his phone number and his clients. And they posted that information in the "Comments" section of SFGate.com - urging, in ugly language, retribution against the author's business and its identified clients... [snip]

"They're intimidating people that don't have the same beliefs as they do ... so they'll be silenced," ... "It doesn't bode well for the free-speech process. People are going to have to be pretty damn courageous to speak up about anything. Why would anyone want to go through this?"

[A: for the sake of our children, and the country they inherit. We must insist that 'tolerance' of ideas - even those we disagree with - remain inviolate. Not trying to be the drama queen here, but I fear we're rapidly approaching an era of serious threats to our civil liberties - freedom of speech chief among them, it's not a given - we'll need defend it.]

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Obamas Are 'Fabulously Fit' Follow-up: Press Treated Bush Fitness As 'Creepy' and an 'Obsession'


In Old Medialand, all it takes for a personal habit -- in this case, exercise -- to go from vice to an overhyped virtue is a change in the party affiliation of the White House occupant.

Yesterday, NB's Tim Graham commented on a puff piece about the Obamas' exercise routines by Associated Press groupie -- er, reporter -- Deanna Bellandi, who characterized the couple as "fabulously fit."

More to the point, during the Bush presidency, the press treated the current White House occupant's exercise routine quite differently, characterizing it as "creepy," an "obsession," and an "indulgence," even in supposedly objective wire service reports...

[what bias?]

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French appeals court says Sarkozy Voodoo doll should not be stabbed

Paris - A French appeals court says Voodoo dolls of President Nicolas Sarkozy may remain on sale, but must carry a notice saying that pricking them harms the president's dignity...

[the French bar exam must be something to behold]

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Tuesday, November 25, 2008



Dear Patriotic American,

This Thanksgiving thousands of severely burned, blinded or paralyzed troops will be struggling to put food on the table.

By clicking here you can make a tax-deductible donation to the "Thanksgiving Thank You" meals project, sponsored by the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes. Our "Thanksgiving Thank You" project was created to provide meals for our wounded heroes and their families over Thanksgiving weekend.

As long as we receive your donation by midnight on Tuesday, we'll be able to use it to help a severely wounded G.I. over Thanksgiving weekend.

And by clicking here you can send a special Thanksgiving THANK YOU and GET WELL card to a disabled serviceman or woman. A THANK YOU and GET WELL card from you can help in their healing and let them know you're thankful for the sacrifices they've made. (You can even type in a personal greeting if you like!)



[ and Thank You for your support ]

U.S. troop surge for Afghanistan to start January

Cornwallis, N.S. -- The United States will send about 20,000 more soldiers into Afghanistan next year in a bid to make the country secure enough for elections expected there in the fall, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Friday following a meeting with Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay and other allied governments. The troop surge -- one of the largest single reinforcements of coalition armies since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 -- has already begun...

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China rejects sending troops to Afghanistan

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told New York's Council on Foreign Relations on Friday that China should send troops because there was a global consensus that Afghanistan is [now, due to the success in Iraq] the ''the front line'' in the battle against terrorism.

China said Tuesday it would not send any troops to Afghanistan.

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ElBaradei clashes with US over Syria's bid for nuclear power


Vienna, Austria - The chief UN nuclear inspector said Monday that Syria had a right to his agency's help in planning a power-producing atomic reactor, in what diplomats described as a rejection of US-led efforts to block the aid.

The clash reflected tensions between Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN nuclear agency, and key Western nations over whether Syria should be given potentially sensitive nuclear guidance...

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[FLASHBACKS re: this imbecile:







[context: nowhere in the article does the AP remind readers that this is the person who seriously called for the West to destroy all in nukes as an example to others - and we're supposed to listen to his definitions of 'madness'?]
"Many countries in the Mideast have expressed interest in developing peaceful atomic energy programs in response to rising domestic energy consumption and possibly to counter Iran's nuclear activities. "

["and possibly to counter Iran's nuclear activities. " - nobody's talking about peaceful uses - we're being insulted by the suggestion]
re: Syria:

"Moscow announced the Syrian port of Tartus would be renovated to provide Russia with its first Mediterranean naval base. Sources interpret Friday’s events as indicating that Russia’s leaders have determined to open a second anti-Western front in the Middle East..."
]

The Great Global Warming Swindle

[HT:JK]
CO2 is a very small gas in the atmosphere. It is vital of course – without it we wouldn’t be here. But it’s small. It’s not at all the most important greenhouse gas, and greenhouse gases themselves, and the ‘greenhouse effect’, form only one small part of the earth’s climate system (and not a very well understood part either). There is no correlation between CO2 and temperature on any significant timescale, except where you find, in ice core data, CO2 levels being influenced by temperature levels (there’s a time lag between the two phenomena). Even global warmers admit that, for CO2 to make any difference, there would need to be some mechanism to amplify its effect in the atmosphere. No such amplifier has been shown to exist. They haven’t even been able to demonstrate how one might work in theory (the trouble is the only conceivable amplifier would be water vapour, and water vapour makes clouds, which are rather famous for their cooling effect – at least the low level ones).

So what are we left with? Temperature has risen, slightly, falteringly and gradually for about 150 years or so (even ‘warmer’ scientists can’t claim that this started because of us). The period before this rise has long been known as a ‘Little Ice Age’, from which we are evidently making a welcome recovery. We only started pumping out CO2 properly in the postwar boom, but what did temperatures do? In the postwar period they fell, till about the mid-70s. Then they went up again (just like they did at the beginning of the 20th Century, and then for the past ten years they’ve more or less flat-lined, decreasing slightly.

Where is the evidence that humans are changing the climate? This is nothing but prejudice. It is not serious science.

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Green market risk

To the layers of confusion that now exist in our financial markets we are about to add another, as opaque and volatile as the others, and as unhinged from the real world — a carbon currency. President-elect Barack Obama wants it, Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants it and their European counterparts, to some extent, already have it.

Europe’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) is the world’s largest trading exchange for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. If ambitious Kyoto-style plans come to fruition, ETS will morph to account for, among other things, the carbon content of all industrial and biological processes, and the carbon carrying capacity of all the real estate on our planet.

Because carbon is a building block of life, and because we live in a carbon-based planet, carbon prices will become more ubiquitous than the U.S. dollar. It would become, in effect, a globally traded currency tied to gaseous commodities that until recently were nowhere traded.

Carbon offsets, credits, allowances sinks and other instruments attempt to create pricing for something that no one wants, can’t be seen, is entirely a creature of government and that may prove to benefit rather than harm the environment. They are obscure and opaque, instruments both green and toxic.

[so? it's a mechanism to government power and revenue - who's going to stop them - you?]

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NO CONFIDENCE IN CONGRESS

... How can we tell if Congress understands its role in causing the problem and what it must do to help solve it? Here are some signs:

  • If Congress passes a stimulus package that simply gives people money, they don't get it; rebates will not stimulate the economy and will not solve the underlying problem.
  • If Congress tries to "help" the people who cannot afford the house they are in, be assured that we are wasting money and delaying the recovery; Banks can decide better whether to foreclose or make a deal far better than any governmental entity.
  • If Congress forces the Treasury to provide cheap equity to companies which are solvent, or to automobile companies because of the debt owed unions in a politically important state, or if it continues with politically motivated spending, all of us will suffer a long and deep recession.
  • If Congress raises marginal tax rates and erects trade barriers, and makes it easier for unions to organize without secret ballot through "card check" legislation, then the recession will be even longer and deeper.
Source: Harvey Golub, "I Vote No Confidence in Congress," Wall Street Journal, November 5, 2008.

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Colombia warns on US trade deal

Colombia's ties with the US could be severely damaged if Congress does not approve a planned free trade deal, the country's vice-president has warned. Francisco Santos-Calderon told the BBC that a US failure to sign the pact would be a "slap in the face" to a strong ally.

[it is, our congress is embarrassing us {ok, not exactly 'news' - but we've got to get off the dime here, like everyone else...}]

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Colombia’s Uribe, Canada’s Harper to Sign Free Trade Agreement

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will sign a free trade accord today on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Lima, Uribe’s office said in a statement.

The accord, which eases access to markets for C$1.14 billion ($890 million) in annual bilateral trade, was announced in June after less than a year of negotiations.

President George W. Bush, who arrives to Lima today, has also made approving a free trade agreement with Colombia, a top ally in the fight against drugs, a priority before leaving office in January. U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, echoing concerns about Colombia’s human-rights record raised by labor unions, opposed the agreement during his campaign for president.

“This is another example of the hemisphere moving ahead without us,” Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the New York- based Council of the Americas, said in an interview in Lima.

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Mein Kampus

... The professor's written instructions harangue students to rely upon facts, not political opinions, in writing the paper and to use at least fifteen different sources. All sources, however, were not equal. Three of those fifteen sources were required to come out of the New York Times; five of those sources were required to come out of the Washington Post; two of those sources had to be the Guardian. Ten of the fifteen mandatory sources, in other words, had to come from periodicals rabidly hostile to President Bush. Three of the citations had to come from articles by Dana Priest of the Washington Post. But that was not all. No credit at all would be given for using sources that "have a reputation within the news industry for distributing their own political views at the expense of the facts, e.g. Fox News."

The shocking thing about all this is that no one reading it is probably shocked at all. The creeping Leftist totalitarianism in academia is so ubiquitous and so mundane that when it appears in a discipline not thought to be overflowing with nutty Leftists, like Criminal Justice, we yawn. We students are told to do a "research paper" which explicitly directs them to sources that they must use and sources that they must not use, we shrug in indifferent despair. [snip]

Is Mein Kampus a more descriptive term for many colleges in America today? Once politically correct thinking was limited to those disciplines which deal directly with politics. Today biologists must have politically correct views on Darwinism, geologists must have politically correct views on global warming, and criminal justice professors must have politically correct views on President Bush...

[we need an internet alternative to the indoctrination centers most of our colleges have become - Recommended > ]

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[see also:



Indoctrinate U is one of the most important documentaries of the year. But it might also be the most important documentary you aren't able to see this year...

See the trailer at their website:
.

OK To Be Patriotic. Now.



For years, little would upset liberals more than the suggestion they were less patriotic than other Americans. The crowd spewing "Bush- Hitler- Genghis- Khan- baby-killers- AmeriKKKa- Ho-Ho-Ho-Chi-Minh"? Great patriots, all. Bill Ayers trampling a flag? Dissent is patriotic, dude.

But now that Barack Obama has been elected, comes an admission, unintended as it may be. Yeah, maybe we weren't so much before, but it's cool to be patriotic. Now. Such can be seen in Derrick Z. Jackson's Boston Globe column of today, "It's OK to be an American now." From Jackson's opening paragraph [emphasis added]:

Before Obama's victory speech in Chicago, the crowd of 125,000 people said the Pledge of Allegiance. In my 53 years I have never heard such a multicultural throng recite the pledge with such determined enunciation, expelling it from the heart in a treble soaring to the skies and a bass drumming through the soil to vibrate my feet.
Jackson cites a University of Washington professor [what were the odds] who gave the columnist his headline, telling him "I guess it's OK to be an American now." So it wasn't before, apparently.

Are these folks inspired by patriotism, or are they akin to fans of the winning football team chanting "We Are The Champions"? If you only really love your country when your side is in power, what are you?

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