Turning Iraq Into Vietnam

London Calling. The Times Online has an article by the author of "Sideshow", William Shawcross, about how Iraq could turn out like Vietnam. (Bolding by your ed.)

At the end of 1975 I went to the Thai-Cambodian border to talk to refugees. Their horrific stories of people with glasses being killed as “intellectuals” and of “bourgeois” babies being beaten to death against trees were being dismissed as CIA propaganda by the anti-American Western Left, but it seemed obvious to me that they were true. I wanted to discover how the Khmer Rouge had grown and come to power; I wrote a book called Sideshow, which was very critical of the way in which the United States had brought war to Cambodia while trying to extricate itself from Vietnam.

But horror had engulfed all of Indo-China as a result of the US defeat in 1975. In Vietnam and Laos there was no vast mass murder but the communists created cruel gulags and, from Vietnam in particular, millions of people fled, mostly by boat and mostly to the US. Given the catastrophe of the communist victories, I have always thought that those like myself who were opposed to the American efforts in Indochina should be very humble. I also think it wrong to dismiss the US efforts there as sheer disaster. Lee Kuan Yew, the former longtime Prime Minister of Singapore, has a subtler view. He argues that, although America lost in IndoChina in 1975, the fact that it was there so long meant that other SouthEast Asian countries had time to build up their economies to relieve the poverty of their peasants and thus resist communist encroachment — which they probably could not have done had IndoChina gone communist in the 1960s.

That long view seems to me to be the one that has to be applied to Iraq. I still believe the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was the correct thing to do — and it was something only the United States could have done. For all the horrors that extremist Sunnis and Shias are inflicting on each other today, the US rid the world of the Pol Pot of the Middle East. So long as the vile Saddam family regime remained in power there was no hope of progress in the region. There is still hope — if we do not abandon the Iraqi people.

That is pretty much the key.

We must not abandon the Iraqi people the way we abandoned the people of South East Asia. I supported the abandonment at the time because I believed John Kerry, the Communists, and their American supporters. So I get the humble bit. In fact it is a stain on my soul. The best I can do now is never forget.

H/T Powerline via Instapundit

And for my e-mail buddy linearthinker who thinks this is very important. It is. It may be that the Revisionism of Vietnam is finally going to get revised. About time.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

JAPAN'S PRIME MINISTER DENIES THEIR WAR CRIMES, GETS SLAMMED FOR IT

Japan is still in denial over their crimes from WW2, as their PM's recent actions show, and even in Canada, there's been plenty of anger:

TOKYO–Anyone who doubts the Japanese army forced Asian women into sexual slavery in World War II should "face the truth," South Korea's foreign minister said yesterday as outrage grew over comments by Japan's prime minister that there was no evidence of the enslavement.

Women's rights activists in the Philippines and a group of politicians in South Korea denounced the remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday that there was no proof so-called "comfort women" were forced into prostitution during the war. Chinese-Canadian politicians and community leaders also called on Ottawa to publicly condemn the comments. But one of the harshest reactions came from 81-year-old Hilaria Bustamante of Manila, who said she was kept as a sex slave in a Japanese garrison for a year in 1942 as a 16-year-old. "What (Abe) said has angered me," she said. "They think we are just like toilet paper that they can throw away after being used.''

Historians say some 200,000 women – mostly from Korea and China – served in Japanese military brothels throughout Asia in the 1930s and 1940s. Witnesses, victims and even some former Japanese soldiers say many of the women were kidnapped or otherwise forced into brothels, where they could be raped by scores of soldiers a day.

Abe on Thursday said there is no proof the women were forced into prostitution: "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion."

His statement contradicted evidence in Japanese documents unearthed in 1992 that historians said showed military authorities had a direct role in working with contractors to forcibly procure women for the brothels, known as "comfort stations." The remark also cast doubt on a 1993 Japanese government apology to the sex slaves.

"We should speak out and issue a condemnation," NDP MP Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina) said in Ottawa yesterday. Conservative MP Inky Mark (Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette) said he was shocked when he read Abe's words and said he wants Prime Minister Stephen Harper to condemn the comments. "It's along the same lines of denying the Holocaust. It was a war crime against humanity."

Yes it is. Shinzo Abe should be ashamed of himself and would do best to resign.

Update: Abe now says that Japan won't apologize for their war crimes, even if the US Congress passes a resolution demanding it. He's really embarrassing his country.

PRODI MIGHT NOT STAY IN OFFICE MUCH LONGER

It looks like my discovery that Romano Prodi's time as Italy's prime minister was done was a little premature. He's managed to win a confidence vote for now, but with the way he lucked out recently, chances are that he still may not be able to survive much longer.

Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the media tycoon who narrowly lost last year's election, has forecast Prodi will not last long in power. A poll this week showed 40 per cent of Italians agreed, predicting his government would last just a few more months.

I think that's right, and there'll be quite a few issues that his coalition won't agree with him upon. So, it's possible that pretty soon, he'll be out of office altogether.

Blood In My Eyes

I love this song. It is a recent work by Bob Dylan, off the album Modern Times. I have to say, while I don't usually care about videos, this one has a transcendant quality. It consists primarily of Dylan walking down the street and signing autographs for people, and greeting and talking to fans and passersby.

Watch it, I think you will see what I mean. Observe the look on Dylan's face when he sings the words, "I've got blood in my eyes for you."

Now, here's the thing, I think the subject of the video is what it is to be broken of affectation. Dylan seems to me a man who has had every illusion about himself, and about life, shattered, obliterated. Some people never really get to that point in their life, but some do.

Our affectations spring from our vanity, our illusions about ourselves, and about life. To live without illusions is painful and sad, but of course, it is freeing in some ways.

Many words have been written by theologians, religious thinkers, and mystics on the subject of getting past illusions, but I don't think many of those words have been very realistic. I think the person who gets past his or her illusions usually gets there through great pain, not through deep meditation. Of course, the pain can cause one to meditate, but it is usually not the act of the human that brings a person to such a place, instead it is the action of God and Life working on the human.

God Bless Bob Dylan.

IRAN SUPPLYING TERRORISTS IN IRAQ

A confirmation comes to what Iran's part is in terrorism and its funding:

Attention has been focused on the porous, 900-mile border because U.S. military officials allege that Iranian weapons, including advanced roadside bombs, are being smuggled to Shiite extremists here. Iran has denied the allegation, but U.S. officials insist they have compelling evidence that components for "explosively formed projectiles" were manufactured in Iran.

And there we have it, a leading reason why Iran has to be brought down and freed from the grip of Ahmedinejad.

COULTER IS RIGHT: EDWARDS IS A FAGGOT

Many men are effeminate and prissy - "faggots" (according to one usage of the term), just like John Edwards... a man who recently had a mole above his lip removed so he could look even prettier. NEED PROOF: here's a video.

Ann's comment is doubly hilarious because it also pointedly and aggressively targeted the PC word police. BRAVO ANN! Two birds with one stone!

As long as Lefties can call "BusHitler", and the Patriot Act "the worst affront on civil liberties in our nation's history", and "Iraq the biggest foreign policy blunder", and killed US troops "wasted lives", (etc.), then Ann Coulter can call Edwards what he is.

UPDATE: HOWARD DEAN wants all GOP'ers to demand Coulter apologize! (Via Drudge.) We'll demand that when asshole Lefties like Bill Maher stop calling for the assassination of Bush and Cheney - AND WHEN DEAN CONDEMNS THAT KIND OF TALK - TALK WHICH IS MUCH MORE DANGEROUS THAN CALLING AN EFFEMINATE MAN LIKE EDWARDS A FAGGOT!

THE ARAB-ISRAEL DIFFERENCES

Excerpts from SCA:

Israel has built some of the finest educational institutions in the world. Her neighbors have some of the worst. Israel has built a self sustaining, first world economy. The Arab world's singular notable achievement has been in achieving almost universal hatred of Jews. Mein Kampf remains an Arab best seller and the desire to `finish what Hitler started,' is more essential to the Arab world than and the study of physics.

Israelis celebrate humanitarians, scientists and artists. In the Arab world, terrorists and terror leaders are hailed as heroes. Schools are named after suicide bombers that target innocents. In Syria, the `Lion' leader, Hafez al Assad is an object of veneration. The reality that 20,000 to 30,000 were slaughtered in Hama, is of little consequence, at least publicly. Assad hated Israel and Jews- that was enough. The Syrian regime was relieved of it's obligation to her citizens.

The Arab world believes that Europe is supportive of their delusions and dysfunction. They are wrong. Europe finds the Arab cause as temporarily useful, and no more. Why? Because for the time being, anti Americanism and anti Semitism are once more, politically acceptable and au courrant, in Europe. Europe will not trade cowboy hats for keffiyas. To believe otherwise, even for a moment, is absurd. The Arab world does not understand that they are no more than this generations `useful idiots' for the fickle Europeans. The nations of Europe will be no more loyal to the Arab world than they were to each other. History tells that tale.

In rhetoric and deed, Arab world leaders have more in common with Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin than Washington, Jefferson or Winston Churchill. In following their leaders, the Arab world reveals more about itself than they might care to admit.

Societies and cultures are measured by what they build and not by what they destroy. They are also measured by how they compare with each other, no matter how much political correctness abhors that truth. The character of a nation can be determined by the institutions that nations enshrines. That is no less true in the Middle East.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, DISSECTING LEFTISM, . My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

"Disarmed" Britain

Two recent articles -- excerpts:

Disarmed UK sees bigger rise in violent crime:

"Regarding Tom Teepen's rant last month against the National Rifle Association: ... Yes, as Teepen says, the NRA has lobbyists with a lot of political clout. And yes, it is concerned about the Democratic majority because Democrats have historically been anti-Second Amendment. But rather than describing the NRA reaction as 'hysteria,' why don't we show a little honesty and let statistics speak for themselves: ... between 1997-2001, violent crime in the United Kingdom increased by 26 percent (no doubt one of Teepen's 'putatively civilized' countries with 'common-sense gun control'), while the gun-mad U.S. saw a 12 percent increase. The increase for 2000-2001 was 11 percent in the U.K. and 1 percent here."

Guns in Britain:

"Illegally held guns are flooding Britain’s inner cities and a spate of fatal shootings in London has highlighted gun culture’s allure to disaffected youth. This comes despite the best efforts of the law and its enforcers to restrict the supply of guns. Yet, any man, woman or street urchin could own a gun in Victorian Britain — at least until 1870 when a licence fee was charged if they wanted to carry the weapon outside their home. And, surprisingly, there was very little gun crime. The right to own firearms was enshrined in the 1689 Bill of Rights (the Americans had to get their ideas from somewhere) and as late as 1900 the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, was happy to declare how much he would “laud the day when there was a rifle in every cottage in England”. There were a quarter of a million registered firearms in private hands before the First World War and the true figure was almost certainly far higher. In those years the average number of crimes involving firearms in London was 45. In 2006 it was 3,350."

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, DISSECTING LEFTISM, and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

No Free Speech for Loony Ideas?

There is a young Chinese writer in New York who is undoubtedly full of hate. He wrote columns condemning whites and condemning Asians that are quite nutty. See here and here. They were so nutty that there were only minor protests about them. But then he did the unforgiveable! He wrote another nutty column about blacks. So we read the predictable:

""The 22-year-old author of a column titled Why I Hate Blacks in the regional newspaper AsianWeek has been dismissed, and the paper's editors said Wednesday that they suffered 'a serious lapse in editorial judgment' when they published his column"

See also here for more backgound. The paper's apology and lots of comments are here.

It seems to me that treating blacks as a class especially protected from any negative mention is clearly racist and that underlying that racism is the thoroughly racist view that the problems with blacks are so insoluble that not mentioning them is all you can do about them -- the "bigotry of low expectations", as President Bush has called it.

Doesn't anybody think it is odd that you can aim the most swingeing criticisms at conservatives and Christians but not at blacks? Those who criticize Christians and conservatives would appear to think that they can put the people concerned on the right path by their criticisms. Do the same people think that nothing you could say would improve the behavior of blacks? It would seem so. And they accuse conservatives of racism! The fact of the matter is that Leftists have ALWAYS made sweeping judgements of people on the basis of their race.

And banning loony ideas generally seems a bad move to me. I can think of two scientific ideas offhand -- continental drift and a bacterial cause for stomach ulcers -- that were once almost universally dismissed by all the good and the great as loony -- but which were eventually proved right-- the latter quite recently.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

AUTONOME ANARCHIST ACTIVISTS ARE AS VIOLENT AS NAZI'S!

Day 2 of the street battles (link to BBC) in Copenhagen has passed with another 200 arrested.

Many of the activists in the streets have come from other countries to support their anarchist brothers.

What do these seasoned streetfighters from previous anti-globalisation riots do to express themselves? Start bonfires (what about global warming?), destroy the property of innocent 3rd parties - and they invade a High School to destroy computers, multimedia equipment and BURN BOOKS! Yeah they burn books - like Nazi's!

They also set fire to a nursery school in Norrebro. And attacked another in Christianshavn. (Why target these institutions? It's City Property!)

Many of these foreign activists are being housed in the alternative collectives throughout the city, for example the community of Christiania - on the other side of the City about 6 kilometers from Ungdomshuset - the focus of the Riots. Christiania - a former military area squatted upon by activists some 30 years ago - was Copenhagen's second biggest tourist attraction and until last year also home to an open hash market. It still is home to hippie holdovers from the 70's and other people who are unable or unwilling to fit in to "society-at-large". The Government has been making moves to normalize the situation in Christiania, and is salivating over the prospect of developing the prime real estate there. If the situation does not calm down do not be surprised if the Government makes use of the present situation to 'clean up' Christiania.

UPDATE: The police have preemptively raided some of the houses that have been harboring the imported thugs. BRAVO!

PS: Listen to the arguments laid forth by the defenders of these vandals:

1. the government gave them no choice but to resort to violence

2. society must have room for people who want to live according to alternative lifestyles

If you accept that BS you might as well step forward and start defending the rights of pedophiles to be free to live according to their 'special lifestyle', even if it is "against the law".

After 2 days of this anti-social behavior I do conclude that these activists are no better than Nazi's or Pedophiles!

Rapid Social Change

I was doing my daily read of LGF and came across an interesting item on the Burka Band. An all girl band from Afghanistan. The music is kind of a bland techno, but the words of social commentary are in english and the visuals are interesting.

So I went looking in the comments of LGF to see if I could find out more. Commenter Peacekeeper gave a link to this site: Girl band in burka.

Here is the most interesting quote from the article.

The Burka Band has never performed in Afghanistan and at the moment the band is not active. During the Taliban regime music was totally forbidden, and women were not allowed to work. To sing in public could carry a death sentence. Today the country is still very conservative, and there is no market in Afghanistan for the Burka Band's music. The band members have to wait for a European or American record label to help them if they are to make a whole album one day.

- I'd like to play again, but right now it is not possible. Last year there was a big bomb at a concert here in Kabul , and lots of people are still against female singers because the religous leaders condemn it. It will probably take 10 years before we will have real girl bands here in Afghanistan , says Nargiz, who now works in an international organisation in Kabul.

From no music allowed to all girl bands in 10 or even 15 years is amazingly fast progress for a culture.

Given that this song was popular in Germany in 2003 it means that Afghanistan is well on the way to becoming at least a semi-modern country. It also points out the irresistability of Western and especially American culture. The old ways are dying.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

MULTICULTURALISM HAS MADE BRITAIN A MAJOR EXPORTER OF TERRORISTS

Excerpt:

"In August 2005, the Independent published a story with the headline: 'Intelligence Chiefs Warn Blair of Home-Grown Insurgency.' Raymond Whitaker and Frances Elliott wrote in this report that 'there were more than 100,000 people in Britain from "completely militarized" regions, including Somalia. and Afghanistan. Every one of them knows how to use an AK-47. About 10 per cent can strip and reassemble such a weapon blindfolded, and probably a similar proportion have some knowledge of how to use military explosives.'

"The Sunday Times wrote on June 4, 2006 that between 120 and 150 radical Islamists had traveled to Iraq to join the 'British Jihad Brigade,' in answer to Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi's appeal. The paper cited a senior security source as saying that the 'foreign legion,' which is comprised entirely of Westerners, was set up to fight alongside the Iraqi insurgency.

"The British journalist Melanie Phillips. cited British government appraisals from one year before the London attacks, to the effect that 16,000 British Muslims were either directly involved in or supported terrorist activities. Three thousand had attended Al-Qaeda training camps abroad, and a few hundred of them were prepared to carry out attacks in the U.K. itself. There were also other British Muslims who traveled abroad to take part in terrorist attacks.

"On December 22, 2001, the British-born Muslim Richard Reid was arrested after raising a din on a flight from Paris to Miami. "Reid, who is known as 'the shoe-bomber,' attempted to blow up the plane with explosives hidden in his shoe. In his confession at his trial he said: 'I admit to what I did. I will not apologize for it. I am at war with your country.' In January 2003 he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

"On January 23, 2002, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl disappeared in Pakistan while preparing a report on extremist groups. On February 21, 2002, the U.S. State Department officially announced his death. A videotape showed masked terrorists slaughtering him; it later became known that these were the British-born Ahmed Said Sheikh and three of his assistants.

"In 2002, the Egyptian authorities arrested 26 members of Hizb Al-Tahrir Al-Islami. Among them were three British citizens who had resolved to carry out terrorist attacks. The group was convicted in March, 2004, and the British citizens were condemned to five years' imprisonment.

"In the recent fighting in Somalia, in which the government forces, with military support from Ethiopia, defeated the forces of the extremist Union of Islamic Courts, there were British Islamists who fought alongside the Islamic Courts. Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi revealed, in a January 9 press conference, that his country's forces had arrested seven British fighters as they tried to escape Mogadishu together with the Islamist militias. They were arrested together with a number of Canadians and other Westerners, whom he described as 'the international faction'. The news reported that many of them had been killed in battle.

"The British Islamists had joined the forces of the Union of Islamic Courts in answer to the call issued by Al-Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, in early January. He had called on Al-Qaeda's supporters in the West to join in the suicide-bombing campaign and guerilla war in Somalia. "The aid coming from Britain to the Islamic Courts was not limited just to fighters, but also included funding. A report issued by a U.N. supervision agency last November stated that 'in recent months Somalis in the U.K. had raised more than $1 million in donations. These funds were sent to the Islamic Courts.' The report added that London had become the primary channel through which monetary aid was passed on to the Islamic Courts.

"Last but not least, Britain's Channel 4 broadcast, on Monday, January 13, 2007, a documentary film that was surreptitiously shot in a number of British mosques, the most important of which was the Birmingham Mosque. The results were alarming. The sermons were hostile to 'infidels,' Jews, and Christians, and called for the killing of homosexuals, among others. In addition, they offered Islamic legal justifications for marrying off girls who were still minors to elderly men. "Some of the British mosques offered a live satellite videoconference with the Mufti of Saudi Arabia, who answered the questions and inquiries of those present at the mosque. Some of the mosques carried live Friday sermons and prayers from mosques in Saudi Arabia.

More here

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

GORE HAS POTTY MOUTH

APROPOS OF THE RECENT SPATE OF POTTY MOUTH POSTS AND GORE'S INCESSANT RANTING; (HE IS SUCH AN ASS!): A HILARIOUS GIF. (NOT TOTALLY SFW.)

I GUESS GLOBAL WARMING PRODUCES BLIZZARDS

CNN/AP:

Heavy, wet snow and blizzard conditions hit the Plains and Midwest on Thursday, shutting down hundreds of miles of interstate. Schools closed in several states, and hundreds of flights were canceled. Two people were killed when their car overturned on a slick road in North Dakota, and snowplows were pulled off the roads in western Minnesota because of strong wind and unrelenting snow.

The storm moved into Iowa with rain and sleet but changed to snow around dawn. The western part of the state was hit with a blizzard that dropped visibility to a quarter-mile or less for at least three hours. By midday, as much as a foot of snow covered the town of Atlantic.

A blizzard also hit eastern Nebraska, with a foot of snow in the Omaha area and up to 15 inches of snow expected in some areas before it dies off Friday. Interstate 80 was closed for nearly 200 miles from York, Nebraska, to Des Moines; I-35 was shut down for 115 miles from Ames, Iowa, to Albert Lea, Minnesota; and I-90 was closed from Albert Lea to the South Dakota line, about 150 miles to the west.

What does all this prove? Just that AL GORE IS A FREAKIN' MORON WHO SHOULD STFU. And anyone who's been brainwashed to believe in AGW should wake up and start thinking for themselves!

THE BUSH ECONOMY: INCOMES AND SPENDING SHOW BIG GAINS

FOX/REUTERS:

U.S. incomes rose much more sharply than expected in January, while spending and core consumer price growth also outpaced forecasts, a government report showed on Thursday. Incomes rose 1.0 percent in January, marking their biggest gain in a year and doubling an unrevised 0.5 percent gain for December, while January consumer spending rose 0.5 percent after a 0.7 percent increase in December, the Commerce Department reported. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected personal income to rise just 0.3 percent, and personal consumption expenditures to rise 0.4 percent.

GLOBE AND MAIL/AP:

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that personal incomes rose by 1 per cent in January while consumer spending was up by 0.5 per cent. The income advance was the largest since a 1.3 per cent jump in January, 2006, and both the income and spending gains were bigger than had been expected.

I BLAME BUSH. SO... WHY ARE MARKETS SO JITTERY!? IT'S THAT BLABBERMOUTH GREENSPAN'S FAULT - SAITH ME & KUDLOW:

Why is Alan Greenspan ignoring all this evidence? Why is he second-guessing Ben Bernanke? Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker never second-guessed Greenspan when he was replaced in 1987. Why Greenspan is doing all this is beyond me.

It seems like lucrative speech-fee troublemaking to me.

Or is Greenspan promoting his book due out in September? Maybe he's trying to match Bill Clinton's $40 million in speaking fees? Perhaps he's playing the Jimmy Carter game, where the former peanut farmer tirelessly attacks Republican President George W. Bush, and who before that, constantly criticized Papa Bush and Ronald Reagan?

All this stuff from Greenspan, Clinton, and Carter is a new low in bad manners. It is totally unseemly.

HEY GREENSPAN: STFU.

Alan Dershowitz Challenges Feminists

Alan has a few words about the use of rape as a weapon of war. He is refering to Arab gang rapist recently caught in Israel.

The gang of serial rapists, comprising at least six Palestinians, raped a thirteen-year-old girl, a sixteen-year-old girl, a nineteen-year-old woman, and several others. The victims have reported that the rapists have stated that the rapes are acts of terrorism and done in revenge for Israel’s military actions.

This is not the first time Palestinian terrorists have used rape as a tool in their terrorist campaign against Israel. There have been reports of incidents in which Palestinian terrorists have raped Palestinian women and threatened to kill them in “honor killings” unless they agree to restore their family honor by becoming suicide terrorists.

So now you see how the Palestinians get the bearers of life, women, to kill themselves and others. Ugly is not the half of it.

Alan then issues this challenge:

And so I issue the following challenge to radical feminist opponents of Israel: renounce clearly the use of rape as a terrorist weapon, and while you’re at it, renounce all terrorism directed against women, children, and innocent civilians. Just do it without falsely trying to create some moral equivalence between terrorists who rape children and democracies like Israel that try to prevent terrorism and occasionally and unintentionally kill the innocent. Let’s hear it directly and unequivocally and let’s hear it now. No more excuses!

No more excuses.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: GLOBAL WARMING - ON MARS AND EARTH - IS NATURAL, NOT MAN-MADE

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: News Front Page > Environment

Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says

Kate Ravilious for National Geographic News - February 28, 2007

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.

In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

"The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said. [UMPH ADDED.]

NOW WILL ALL THE ECO-NUTSIES PLEASE STFU. WE DON'T HAVE TO RAISE TAXES OR BUY CARBON CREDITS OR DRIVE SMALL CARS. WE JUST HAVE TO GET THE LEFT-WING ECO-NUTSIES TO STFU. (Hat tip NEWSBUSTERS. Complete round up at MEMEORANDUM.)

UFO SCIENCE KEY TO HALTING CLIMATE CHANGE

Global Warming Hysteria Story Of The Day for March 1, 2007

This is so awesome:

OTTAWA (AFP) - A former Canadian defense minister is demanding governments worldwide disclose and use secret alien technologies obtained in alleged UFO crashes to stem climate change, a local paper said Wednesday.

"I would like to see what (alien) technology there might be that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels within a generation ... that could be a way to save our planet," Paul Hellyer, 83, told the Ottawa Citizen.

Alien spacecrafts would have traveled vast distances to reach Earth, and so must be equipped with advanced propulsion systems or used exceptional fuels, he told the newspaper.

Such alien technologies could offer humanity alternatives to fossil fuels, he said, pointing to the enigmatic 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico -- which has become a shrine for UFO believers -- as an example of alien contact.

"We need to persuade governments to come clean on what they know. Some of us suspect they know quite a lot, and it might be enough to save our planet if applied quickly enough," he said.

Man-made Global Warming and secret alien technology. They do seem to go hand in hand, don't they?

UPDATE: National Geographic reports: "The current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun."

MORE MADNESS: Al Gore at the Media Ethics Summit II (Now there's a concept!):

"I believe that is one of the principal reasons why political leaders around the world have not yet taken action," Gore said. "There are many reasons, but one of the principal reasons in my view is more than half of the mainstream media have rejected the scientific consensus implicitly — and I say 'rejected,' perhaps it's the wrong word. They have failed to report that it is the consensus and instead have chosen … balance as bias.

"I don't think that any of the editors or reporters responsible for one of these stories saying, 'It may be real, it may not be real,' is unethical. But I think they made the wrong choice, and I think the consequences are severe.

"I think if it is important to look at the pressures that made it more likely than not that mainstream journalists in the United States would convey a wholly inaccurate conclusion about the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced."

Gore would not answer any questions from the media after the event.

This man is dangerous.

Immigration and crime -- disastrous new study

Just a quick debunking of a recent research report that has been widely misrepresented in the press. The study is:

Debunking the Myth of Immigrant Criminality: Imprisonment Among First- and Second-Generation Young Men by Ruben G. Rumbaut, Roberto G. Gonzales, Golnaz Komaie, and Charlie V. Morgan, University of California, Irvine

The take-home message of the article is that Hispanics in the USA have a LOW rate of criminality. That is however, not at all what the article shows. Have a look at their Table 1 and you will see what most people know already -- that Hispanics lie in between blacks and whites in crime-rate.

The only novelty of the article is this: It points out that it is the CHILDREN of the illegals who are the problem. The illegals themselves are too busy earning money to be much involved with crime.

This is of course VERY bad news -- as it is conventionally assumed that the children of immigrants will adopt the characteristics of the host society.

The ECONOMIC advantages of immigration must therefore be balanced against the SOCIAL disadvantages of allowing in on a permanent basis such a troublesome group.

The study is being hailed as good news for the pro-immigrant camp. It is very much the reverse.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

SOCIALIZED MEDICINE AT "WORK"

Britain as an island of fear. Excerpt from Prof. Brignell below:

The climate among ordinary people in Britain seems to be evolving from resentment to fear. You sense it in conversations in the streets, pubs and clubs. The state is out of control, but firmly in control. Stress and anxiety abound.

Suddenly, falling ill has been transformed from a misfortune to a disaster, especially if it happens out of office hours. Your bending author's family recently had an experience like this [ambulance very slow to arrive], without the blood but with a genuine threat to life.

The unremitting reorganisation of the NHS over the last decade, with drastic and often circular changes, has brought it almost to a standstill: note, by the way, how accurately the law of targets has been followed. Bureaucrats like big; so small effective local hospitals are forced to close. If you double the distance to the nearest hospital (as is now a common experience) you quadruple the time for the round trip by the ambulance, even it there is one available.

It appears that everyone who dials the emergency number is now routinely told "We are very busy at the moment." It seems to take about eight hours from someone falling seriously ill to their being received in an emergency ward: more if they are inconsiderate enough to do it out of office hours.

When they arrive at the hospital, they are placed in a filthy mixed ward, where dedicated but demoralised staff struggle to heal them, first of their primary illness and then (for the unlucky ones) of the hospital-borne infection.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Illegal to Burn a Book?

Sounds like the Koran has rivals as a book requiring maxed-out respect:

"Seven far-right Germans in their 20s who flung a copy of Anne Frank's Diary into a bonfire amid cheers from beer-drinking neo-Nazis went on trial for sedition Monday. The Summer Solstice Party last year in the small town of Pretzien, 130 kilometres west of Berlin, caused uproar in Germany last year after it was revealed that the town mayor and police were also present and saw nothing wrong in the book and a US flag being burned.

Frank, a Jewish girl who died of typhus in 1945 at the age of 15 in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, is a figure of hatred to Holocaust deniers because of her compelling story of life in hiding in Amsterdam before her capture by the Nazis...

They have not been charged in connection with the burning of the US flag"

Source

Apparently the action is being categorized as "Holocaust denial". That seems a rather large assumption to me. It is a warning, however, about how broadly any "hate speech" laws could be applied. You could be guilty of "hate speech" without saying a word, by the look of it.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

ISRAEL HAS DRUZE PRESIDENT: THIS IS NOT "APARTHEID"

The acting President of the State of Israel is a Druze MK from Beit Jann, Majallie Whbee. He is a Kadima list member. The Jerusalem Post reports:

Unlike most other Arab citizens, Druse serve in the Israeli military. Whbee, 53, attained the rank of lieutenant colonel before retiring. He holds a master's degree in Middle East history from Haifa University, according to the Knesset's Web site.

Whbee hoped his temporary ascension to the presidency would symbolize a push for equality for Arab citizens. "Where there is still a lack of equality, we are fighting," he said, "but the fact is that I have all the authorities of the president of the state of Israel."

Whbee, a member of Itzik's and Prime Minster Ehud Olmert's Kadima Party, said he would carry out the normal functions of the presidency, meeting with diplomats and laying a wreath at a ceremony Thursday in honor of a pre-state Zionist fighter, Yosef Trumpeldor.

This is not "apartheid." Israel is a democratic multi-cultural State, like India and the United States, and like Lebanon could be. Quite unlike Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Iran . . .

COPENHAGEN BRACED FOR RIOTS

Well - actually the riots have already begun - and the streets are once again littered with cobblestones. Todays events started early this morning when the Police exercised a court order from December 2006 to empty the Youth House so the new owners could take possession of their property. At approximately 7 AM a helicopter dropped 10 policemen on the roof of the building. This was necessary to prevent the occupiers of the building from throwing stones and molotov cocktails on the street below. The police also used a crane to break barricades and place containers up against Jagtvej 69 - which could function as protected pathways to enter the building. Initial reports say the 4 anarchists in the building we literally caught in bed. The police entered the building and foamed the interior - and removed the occupiers - including one German citizen who is now in hospital with a head injury. Intitial reports were that 10 - 15 "activists" were arrested (this includes arrests on the outside the building). The occupiers of the Youth House promised a battle - and it seems they have taken it to the streets. And they promise it will be violent - i.e. there will be a price to pay.

While initial reports were that only 4 activists were in the building it appears that the police are removing groups of 12- presumably under arrest- out the back door to waitng paddy wagons.

IMHO the behaviour of these anarchists forfeits their right to a special Youth House - which is sad because there are a lot of good reasons to create a space for young people to be responsible...

Background: The Youth House was given to the activists by the Socialist-controlled Copenhagen City, and it was later sold by the Socialist-controlled Copenhagen City to a religious group. That sale was challenged by the occupiers of the Youth House. The youth activists lost - also on appeal. A Fund offered about 2 million dollars to the activists to purchase another location - the activists demurred. The Mayor of Copenhagen, Ritt Bjergaard, came with a whole series of unrealistic offers (some illegal, others without authority) which saved the face of the Socialist Party but which also did not lead to a resolution of the conflict. ( just be thankful Ritt doesn't know where you live - she might have offered them your house!)

Stay Tuned!

China Has Problems

A. Jacksonian says China Has Problems. He gives a long and detailed look at China's current situation (bad) and its future outlook (worse).

* He looks at economic problems - non-performing loans in the 30 - 60% of GDP range.

* Demographic problems - an aging population and too many men

* Ecological problems - rising lung cancer rates from pollution

* Lack of business accumen - drug dealers in America could do better

* Internet and cell phones breaking government control of information

* The break down of social cohesion

The short version: get your money out of China while it is worth something.

Note: Slight correction to non-perfoming loans bullet (GDP added)

PUTIN'S RUSSIA SIDES WITH IRAN: ATTACKS US MILITARY BUILD UP IN PERSIAN GULF

JPOST:

Sergey Lavrov said Russia was worried by recent comments by US Vice President Dick Cheney in which he reaffirmed that "all options are on the table" to prevent Teheran from becoming a nuclear power. "We are concerned about the possibility of a military scenario," Lavrov was quoted as saying in government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta. "We are observing a US military buildup in the Persian Gulf. Such a buildup of forces always threatens to trigger a military conflict, even by accident."

Russia has repeatedly spoken out against resorting to force to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear program, and has warned that overly harsh sanctions would be counterproductive.

WHICH LEAVES WHAT, EXACTLY!? A HARSHLY WORDED LETTER!? WEAK SANCTIONS!? IF WE TAKE THE MILITARY OPTION OFF THE TABLE, WHAT CHANCE IS THERE FOR THE UNSC TO ORDER MEANINGFUL SANCTIONS!? NONE.

IOW: THE INCREASED PRESENCE OF US MILITARY IN THE GULF SENDS TWO MESSAGES: ONE TO IRAN, AND ANOTHER TO RUSSIA AND CHINA AND FRANCE; THE MESSAGE: WE MEAN BUSINESS.

EITHER THEY VOTE HARSH SANCTIONS OR WE ATTACK. AND SOON.

BOTTOM-LINE: PUTIN IS NOT OUR ALLY. WE SHOULD TREAT HIM AS THE FOE HE IS.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

ONE OF THESE MEN IS A MISUNDERSTOOD MONSTER WITH A HEART OF GOLD.

THE OTHER IS AN ANTI-SEMITIC FORMER PRESIDENT WHOSE ONE TERM IN OFFICE WAS A HORRIBLE, MONSTROUS FAILURE.

AP STILL CALLS THEM "MILITANTS"

Good news is marred by bad description:

JENIN, West Bank - Israeli troops shot and killed three Palestinian militants in the West Bank town of Jenin on Wednesday and raided the nearby city of Nablus for the second time this week, placing tens of thousands of people under curfew. The army said the Islamic Jihad militants who were shot in Jenin had planned a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that was thwarted last week. The dead included Ashraf Saadi, a spokesman for the group.

Good riddance, but I think it'd also be good if use of the word "militants" were rid of as well and the right word, "terrorists", were placed upon those thugs' heads instead. Clearly, the AP is seething and vengeful, aren't they?

MORE INFO ON OLMERT'S BRIBERY TACTICS

Israel's Channel 10 News presented an important document exposing more of Ehud Olmert's bribery and corruption career:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced new allegations of corruption on Wednesday evening when Channel 10 exposed a document containing 115 names of Likud Central Committee members and activists whom the prime minister allegedly helped illegally when he served as industry, trade and labor minister.

Allegedly, Olmert used his position as head of the investment department - which had authority over small businesses, the employment industry, the authorization of foreign workers, the broadcasting authority, Bezek and other communications companies - for the benefit of Likud members.

Among the alleged misdemeanors, Olmert supposedly helped prevent the dismissal of a Likud member from the postal service, helped another Likud activist get a job, illegally helped obtain a telephone number from a cellular phone company and arranged permits for foreign workers for two Likud members.

According to Channel 10, the document contains the following words: "Pini Sabah, a Central Committee member from Ashkelon - 21 foreign workers for his close associate," and, " Central Committee member and Nesher Chairman Fredi Malik - nurse for his mother."

Some of these people may have even abandoned the Likud for Kadima in the past year. If so, they should not be welcomed back.

Tuberculosis and illegal immigration

The article below is from a nationalist site but makes a good point. Why is London a world headquarters of TB? The demographics give a clear answer: Immigrants are only a small proportion of the overall British population but are a massive proportion of the TB sufferers. And since the immigrants concerned undoubtedly live at close quarters with others of similar ethnic origins, that some of those others become infected in no way detracts from the immigrant origin of the problem. Many of the "British born" TB sufferers mentioned would no doubt be relatives of immigrants. The fact that many sufferers lived in Britain for 2 years before presenting to a doctor is also of course meaningless, given the slow progress of TB. I presume that Britain, like any other advanced country, has some health screening for legal immigrants so the problem undoubtedly is a direct consequence of Britain's large illegal immigration problem

"Lazy hacks at the Labour supporting Daily Mirror have made some very strange claims concerning TB (Tuberculosis)!

Apparently, despite all the reports from various health agencies and trusts, TB has little to do with immigration and everything to do with poverty! That's why, presumably, it is at sky-high levels in places such as Leicester, Slough, Bradford, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney - but not in Liverpool, Newcastle, Swansea and Plymouth!

Daily Mirror claim: "Half of all TB diagnosed is in British People that were born in the UK!" and "It's a disease of the poor rather than a disease of immigrants"

Government's Health Protection Agency says: "As in previous years the London region accounted for a substantial proportion of cases in 2005 (43%) and had the highest rate of disease (46.3 per 100,000). Most tuberculosis cases continue to occur in young adults (61% were aged 15-44 years) and in the non-UK born population (72%)."

Daily Mirror claim: "Most immigrants with TB tend to have already lived here for two years and contract it due to stress and poor living conditions".

NHS says: "It is true that over half of the people diagnosed with TB in this country were born abroad but immigration alone does not explain the recent rise in TB cases. Around 40% of people born overseas who develop TB in this country have lived here for more than 10 years (but - presumably - have maintained physical contact with their home countries and with people from those countries - Ed.)

Source

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Beware the "S-word"

We read:

"Ruby Bernal wasn't self-conscious about her American Indian heritage until her adolescence, when a band of teenage boys called her "squaw" during a drive-by heckling.

"It's like saying the 'N-word' to a black person," says Bernal, a member of the Shoshone-Bannock, one of five tribes with reservations in Idaho.

"To me, it's a slap in the face. It belittles me and it belittles all Indian women." ....

Now one of the Northwest's most influential American Indian tribes is campaigning to wipe the word off the names of 11 creeks, bluffs and canyons in Idaho.

Source

An earlier (2001!) episode in this "controversy" is recorded here (scroll down). I suspect that the term is only derogatory if you think it is.

There is a derogatory term for an ignorant and uncultured Australian: "ocker". Most Australians accused of being an ocker, however, would do little more than laugh. "Too right, mate" (a form of good-humored agreement) would be the most likely reply. (I guess the word is much like "redneck" in the USA). Rather sad that so much of the world lacks the maturity to respond that way.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Gang Rape of Israeli Girls by Arabs

I couldn't blog this myself. Too horrible.

Carl in Jerusalem

MAKING AN IMPACT ON YOUR CULTURE

My 3 older kids and I are headed to Missouri's Capitol Thursday night. On Friday my kids and I are going to attend the one-day Teenpact class for 8-12 yr. olds. We have been busy getting them ready for the class.

We have been reading the book Real Citizenship by Tim Echols who is the founder of Teenpact. It is good, although Echols is definitely a little more rigid and strict than I am but the kids and I are learning and being reminded of some good stuff. On the cover, after the title it says, "Practical Steps for Making an Impact on Your Culture". I want my kids to learn early how to make a positive difference in their culture instead of the other way around.

Their homework before the class includes:

1) Reading the book Real Citizenship
2) Memorizing I Timothy 2:1-3
3) Learn their State Rep & State Senator's name and district
4) Pray for and send a letter to them
5) Write a one-page bill

My kids sent an email to our State Senator LuAnn Ridgeway and she responded and said we could stop by her office after the class. My oldest daughter wants to write a bill outlawing abortion and my son wants to have his bill say you can't get married till you are 18 (not sure where that came from :-)). My youngest daughter is still deciding.

The class is going to last from 9-3 and we are also going to have a tour of the capitol building. I'm looking forward to it and excited that my kids are going to be learning how to make a difference.

SHANGHAI STOCKMARKET REBOUNDS

IHT:

Chinese regulators shifted into damage control, denying rumors of plans for a 20 percent capital gains tax on stock investments as share prices recovered modestly Wednesday following their worst plunge in a decade.

About an hour after trading began, the Shanghai Composite Index was up 1.2 percent to 2,804.28 after opening down 1.3 percent. On Tuesday, it tumbled 8.8 percent, its largest decline since Feb. 18, 1997.

Concerns about slowdowns in the Chinese and U.S. economies sparked Wall Street's worst drop since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 3.3 percent.

THESE CONCERNS WERE SET OFF BY GREENSPAN - THE RETIRED FED CHIEF, WHO OPENED HIS BIG FAT UGLY OLD SMELLY OLD MOUTH THE OTHER DAY AND EXPRESSED "CONCERN" THAT THE USA MIGHT BE HEADED FOR A RECESSION -- WHICH IS IDIOTIC IN AND OF ITSELF, AND ONLY MORE IDIOTIC FOR GREENSPAN TO UTTER THIS IDIOTIC CONCERN OUT LOUD.

HE CAUSED THE STAMPEDE. MAYBE WE SHOULD CUT OUT HIS TONGUE? FOR THE COMMON GOOD, OF COURSE! HEH.

BTW: the NYSE plunged to the lowest it's been in.... two months. YAWN. (Hat tip ACE.)

UPDATE: SHANGHAI CLOSED UP!

FACTS: THE GLOBE AIN'T WARMING MUCH; IT AIN'T CAUSED BY CO2; AND THEREFORE, IT AIN'T ANTHROPGENIC

FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS. VIA DOUG ROSS.

FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE SUV. THEN THE BIG MAC...

LONDON EVENING STANDARD:

Prince Charles today said banning McDonald's fast food was the key to a healthy lifestyle.

His comments came as he attended the launch of a public health awareness campaign. Charles, a strong advocate of organic food, was touring the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre in Abu Dhabi with the Duchess of Cornwall.

He asked nutritionist Nadine Tayara: "Have you got anywhere with McDonald's, have you tried getting it banned? That's the key."

I SAY: IF YOU DON'T LIKE BIG MACS, THEN DON'T BUY THEM.

BUT DON'T EVEN THINK OF TRYING TO STOP ME FROM BUYING ONE.


LEFTIST ARE LEFTISTS BECAUSE THEY'RE BOSSY PEOPLE WHO WANT US TO LEAD OUR LIVES THE WAY THEY THINK WE SHOULD.

YOU KNOW WHAT I SAY TO THEM: STFU.

PRINCE CHARLES IS AN ECO-NUTSIE - LIKE AL GORE.

AND PROBABLY A MUSLIM, TOO.

RUSSIA - LIKE FRANCE - NOW SUPPORTS HAMAS

JPOST:

At the beginning of the meeting, Lavrov said Russia favored the Mecca agreement between Hamas and Fatah because it showed "wisdom, reason and responsibility before the Palestinian people."

"We are pushing for all members of the international community to support this process and make it irreversible, including efforts to lift the blockade," Lavrov added.

RUSSIA IA NOT AN ALLY IN WW4. THEY ARE ON THE OTHER SIDE. WE SHOULD TREAT THEM THAT WAY.

HAMAS HAS REFUSED TO RECOGNIZE ISRAEL. THEREFORE THE "MECCA AGREEMENT" IS A NON-STARTER. CHIRAC SAID THE SAME THING AS LAVROV, LAST WEEK. RUSSIA-FRANCE: THE SAME "AXIS OF WEASELS" WHICH PROTECTED SADDAM - FOR AS LONG AS THEY COULD, ARE NOW PROTECTING IRAN AND SYRIA AND HAMAS AND HIZBALLAH.

WE SHOULD ENACT TRADE SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA AND FRANCE - (AS WELL AS AUSTRIA - FOR SELLING GUNS TO IRAN WHICH END UP IN IRAQ KILLING US TROOPS).

GORE'S HYPOCRISY EXPOSES LEFTIST'S TRUE AGENDA

EVERYONE IS RIGHTFULLY ALL OVER AL GORE FOR BEING A HYPOCRITE. (More HERE; complete round up HERE. UPDATE: PHOTOS HERE.)

But his hypocrisy does more than expose his personal phoniness; it exposes Leftism and its "ecological evangelicalism" as the dirty, lying, thieving, selfish, bossy, covetous ideology it truly is.

Gore would pass laws and raise taxes to reduce CO2 output, but they'd be easily circumvented by rich folks like himself. Rich people could just purchase what the Leftist doublespeakers call "carbon offsets" - which are nothing more than modern versions of "indulgences."

While working folks pay HIGHER GAS TAXES, and higher taxes on everything that uses energy - AND THAT'S EVERYTHING! - Gore and his rich Leftist comrades, the limousine liberals and the gullible "Gulfstream do-gooders" can just go on living LARGE and leaving a large "carbon footprint" as long as they send some money to a Leftist approved "green cause."

(They do this as if the people in Africa and China and South America would be better off without the industrial development which lifted the people of the West out of abject poverty and lengthened our years and improved the quality of our lives. What the Third World needs are dozens of nuke power plants to generate energy for factories which can make them decent clothing, food and shelter. They do not need "green credits.")

The elitists of the Left CLAIM that their regimen of higher taxes and freedom restricting rules & regulations are "for the common good" - or BETTER YET: to "save life on earth!"

That is pure BS. Their taxes and regulations are merely the expression of intrinsically bossy people who think they know better, and want you to live life according to RULES THEY THEMSELVES NEVER OBEY.

Like Leonid Brezhnev in the old USSR, Gore is a Leftist who would live the high life, as he made everyone else suffer. FOR OUR OWN GOOD.

CLIMATE HOLOCAUST: AMERICA'S FAULT OR THE HORSE AND BUGGY?

Global Warming Hysteria Story Of The Day for February 27, 2007

Indian Magazine "Frontline": If all the people of the world had the same living style as the average American, the holocaust would have already visited us.

That's what it's all about folks...America and its lifestyle.

Meanwhile, an economics professor at the University of Georgia has this radical statement: (Hat tip: NewsBusters)

"The motto of all environmentalists should be 'Thank goodness for the internal combustion engine.'"

Sound crazy? Read on:

Based on a recent study by the Food and Agricultural Organization, The Independent reports that "livestock are responsible for 18 percent of the greenhouse gases that cause global arming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together."

Long before global warming became an environmental concern, however, the move from the power provided by animals to that provided by gasoline had greatly improved the environment. The emissions that came out of the tailpipes of horses were much more lethal pollutants that those now coming out of the tailpipes of cars. Horse emissions did more than make our town and cities stink; they spread fly-borne diseases and polluted water supplies that killed people at a far greater rate than the pollution from cars and trucks ever have.

Your move, Al.

Reliapundit adds: To the left is a great New Yorker cartoon - one which I always think of when I hear Lefties whine about how bad/evil/dirty Western industrialism is.

And then there's this from that article too: Cars improved the air ... that's no bull

... "the internal combustion engine is less polluting than what it replaced..."

Photochemical smog is clearly a health risk, but not nearly the health risk of cholera, diphtheria and tetanus that have been largely eliminated with the help of gasoline powered transportation.

Before the internal combustion engine it wasn't just cows, sheep and pigs emitting pollution down on the farm. Tractors and other types of gas-powered farm machinery eliminated the horses, mules and oxen that had provided most of the power necessary to grow and harvest our food and fiber. This not only reduced the problem that still exists from animal waste that environmentalists, with justification, still complain about.

The internal combustion engine also eliminated the need to produce food to fuel millions upon millions of agricultural beasts of burden. It has been estimated that in 1900 it took about 93 million acres of land to grow the food for the farm animals that were replaced by current farm machinery. Most of that land has now gone back to woodlands, greatly increasing the number of trees that are reducing the problem of global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide.

MY MY MY. Just more proof that industrialization has been GREAT for humanity and the environment. And if folks like Gore don't like it they should move into Ted Kaczynski's cabin! Unlike Gore and his Hollywood comrades, the UNABOMBER lived according to his whacked out "values!"

US Christians win one, lose one

Free Speech for Christians Upheld in Ohio

There have been quite a few cases of Christians being harassed by police when they publicly proclaim messages against abortion, homosexuality etc. See e.g. here. One hopes that police nationwide will be a bit less likely to do that after a recent case in Ohio upheld the right of anti-abortion campaigners to display images of aborted babies:

" Today, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, Ohio, unanimously ruled that a three-hour police detention of law-abiding, pro-life demonstrators presented valid constitutional claims under the First and Fourth Amendments. The Court reversed a lower court's decision in favor of the law enforcement officers.

Robert Muise, the Thomas More Law Center Trial Counsel handling the case, successfully argued that the lengthy detention - so that the FBI could "gather intelligence" on the pro-life demonstrators - violated the demonstrators' Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable police searches and seizures. He further succeeded in showing that the police violated the demonstrators' First Amendment rights by targeting them for disfavored treatment because they were "anti-abortion."

Source

Peaceful Street Preaching not Protected?

Both freedom to exercise religion and free speech protection were ignored by this judge:

"A new federal court decision in the case of the Philadelphia Eleven could send Christians' free speech rights another step towards extinction, according to group members who have been told police officers had a right to silence their biblical messages at a public homosexual festival.

The decision came in a civil rights lawsuit brought by members of that team, including Repent America director Michael Marcavage, who sued the city and a homosexual-festival sponsor after group members were cleared of criminal charges for their actions at the 2004 "Gay Pride" public street festival in the downtown area.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel dismissed their civil rights claim, concluding that a "permit" granted by the city to the homosexuals allowed police to silence the Christian activists' message on public streets.

Source

A municipal permit trumps the constitution??

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, DISSECTING LEFTISM. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Latest Medal of Honor Recipient

The latest Medal of Honor recipient was a chopper pilot in 'Nam at the Battle of Ia Drang. President Bush awarded him the Medal. Let me quote a little from the President:

On the morning of November 14, 1965, Major Crandall's unit was transporting a battalion of soldiers to a remote spot in the Ia Drang Valley, to a landing zone called X-Ray. After several routine lifts into the area, the men on the ground came under a massive attack from the North Vietnamese army. On Major Crandall's next flight, three soldiers on his helicopter were killed, three more were wounded. But instead of lifting off to safety, Major Crandall kept his chopper on the ground — in the direct line of enemy fire — so that four wounded soldiers could be loaded aboard.

Major Crandall flew the men back to base, where the injuries could be treated. At that point, he had fulfilled his mission. But he knew that soldiers on the ground were outnumbered and low on ammunition. So Major Crandall decided to fly back into X-Ray. He asked for a volunteer to join him. Captain Ed Freeman stepped forward. In their unarmed choppers, they flew through a cloud of smoke and a wave of bullets. They delivered desperately needed supplies. They carried out more of the wounded, even though medical evacuation was really not their mission.

There is more to the Citation. You can read the rest at Medal of Honor.

I want to add that Lieutenant Rick Rescorla was involved in this battle. Rescorla was later to die on 9/11 rescuing people from the World Trade Center Towers.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

GENERAL PACE: MILITARY CAPABILITY ERODING

WASHINGTON - Strained by the demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan there is a significant risk that the U.S. military won't be able to quickly and fully respond to yet another crisis, according to a new report to Congress.

The assessment, done by the nation's top military officer, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, represents a worsening from a year ago, when that risk was rated as moderate.

The report is classified, but on Monday senior defense officials, speaking on condition on anonymity, confirmed the decline in overall military readiness. And a report that accompanied Pace's review concluded that while the Pentagon is working to improve its warfighting abilities, it "may take several years to reduce risk to acceptable levels."

Pace's report comes as the U.S. is increasing its forces in Iraq to quell escalating violence in Baghdad. And top military officials have consistently acknowledged that the repeated and lengthy deployments are straining the Army, Marine Corps and reserve forces and taking a heavy toll on critical warfighting equipment.

Now then, what does this really tell us? As I've said many times, when you see a report about some classified military document leaked by "senior officials" you have to ask two very important questions: who leaked the information and what is the motive?

There are several possibilities. It could be aimed at our enemies (i.e. Iran) as a sort of red herring or it could be that certain generals are doing what they can to sabotage any possible escalation of the war on terror. You know, the Colin Powell types who love to build up a big army but hate to get it dirty.

Beware the leakers who wish to control popular opinion.

WILL BILL HURT HILLARY'S CAMPAIGN?

To me the obvious answer to that question is duh!! I don't know how Bill doesn't inevitably cause some kind of scandal for Hillary. Whether its past, present or future indiscretions, Bill is sure to create some kind of negative press. I think the recent criticism by uber-liberal Geffen has taken the Clintons off guard though. They expect attacks by all of us right wing extremists but to be eaten by one of their own so early has them a little off kilter.

This article points out how Hillary isn't even open to discussing how Bill could negatively affect her campaign. You can smell the fear! Wouldn't you love to hear the threats by Hillary if Bill embarrasses her for the umpteenth time? She may get the sympathy, victim nod from people while being the first lady but not as a candidate for president. If she sticks by Bill after the 300th indiscretion she either looks weak or like a woman who will sacrifice every shred of human decency to gain power. The latter is definitely true but the new voters just now coming of age haven't been made aware of that yet.

In all honesty, I want Hillary to get the Dem nomination. I think almost anyone else would be a bigger threat for Republicans. That said, I am going to break out the popcorn and enjoy the view while we watch Obama and other naive Dems walk into the Lion's Den, also known as the Clinton Hit Machine. Obama held his own in round 1, I am eager to see round 2. I am also eager to watch how Slick Willie avoids stepping in it during these next 2 years. As Kevin Bacon said in A Few Good Men, "...its going to be entertaining."