Propaganda alert: the UN's Global Climate Astrologers become positively Hysterical

Steve Gilbert has some timely suggestions for the politicized quacks over at the UN's IPCC panel, which have more in common with a lynch mob or a kangaroo court than with anything resembling real science

What a laughable attempt to panic the great unwashed.

The IPCC seems to think that the louder they scream the more believable they are. Science doesn’t work like that. Or at least it’s not supposed to. But maybe these days it does, which is the real danger here.

Hey, if global warming is “irreversible,” why get so exercised about it? Oh, wait, it’s almost irreversible. Well, that is convenient, isn’t it?

Mind you, this self-same United Nations doesn’t think that Ahmadinejad developing nuclear weapons is a threat to the world.

Instead, they think that a (highly questionable) increase in world temperature of perhaps a degree or two over the next century will bring about the end of the world. Of course the folks at the UN really don’t think any such thing. Or even care to find out the truth about such matters.

Rather, they see the global warming scam as just the latest way to redistribute some of the wealth in the world in a more just and equitable fashion. And they plan to skim off their cut — just as they always do.

Meanwhile, maybe the UN will do its part to cut carbon emissions by turning off the electricity, the heating and cooling at the UN building. They should also prohibit their members and employees from having cars.

Better still, the UN should simply prohibit anyone from using airplanes or using any other such harmful transportation.

In fact, they should make all of their delegates and their bloated staffs stay home in their mud huts and sit in the dark and the cold.

And to those suggestions I would add this question: why are we still giving these charlatans and anti-American hysteria mongers at the UN billions of our hard-earned tax dollars every single year? It's a moral disgrace to spend so much of our money to support an organization which does far more harm to our world than it does good.

BRITISH WOMAN DEEMED TOO FAT FOR OPERATION, GOES ABROAD AND PAYS

CHANNEL 4/UK: Woman 'too fat' for op goes abroad

A British woman branded too fat for surgery on the NHS has undergone a second hip replacement operation in Malta.

Frances Kinley-Manton needed the operation due to arthritis pain in her hips, which kept her in a wheelchair for two years.

But NHS doctors told the 15-stone woman she would have to lose about two stone before she could be considered for surgery.

Mrs Kinley-Manton, from Palnackie near Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway, was not able to lose weight through dieting and was forced to travel abroad for treatment. She took out a mortgage on her house to pay around £7,000 for a private left-hip replacement operation at a hospital in Malta in July.

She has now gone under the knife again at St James Hospital in Sliema on Malta to have the other hip replaced.

She said: "I had no alternative. NHS said they wouldn't operate on me because I'm overweight, but I think they were just trying to keep their costs down. They wouldn't even put me on a waiting list. It goes against my principles to have come to Malta, but I didn't think the surgery was ever going to happen in the UK."

The first operation was a success and she was walking more and less dependent on her wheelchair. The treatment made such a difference that she decided to go ahead with an operation to replace her right hip, which was also painful.

• IN A WHEELCHAIR.
• IN PAIN FOR TWO YEARS.
• BUT TOO FAT TO OPERATE ON.
• AHHHH: THE BEAUTY OF SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!

OF COURSE THEY GOVERNMENT WANTED TO SAVE MONEY.

• AND ANOTHER THING: WHEN THEY DENY PROCEDURES AND LET PATIENTS DIE, THEY REAP A DOUBLE SAVINGS: THEY SAVE ON THE HEALTHCARE, AND ON THE PENSION BENEFITS.

• ALL THIS IS WHY NOBODY SHOULD EVER WANT A NATIONALIZED HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.

• IF IT DOESN'T WORK THERE, IT WILL NOT WORK HERE.

DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE DEMS.

DEMS IN CONGRESS ATTACK ANOTHER AMERICAN ALLY: ETHIOPIA

The Democrats in Congress continue to seek new fronts in which to aid America's enemies. Having failed to defeat America in Iraq, and after their second-place Presidential aspirant threatened to bomb American ally Pakistan, the Dems are now turning against Ethiopia, a critical ally on the front lines of the jihad in the strategically critical Horn of Africa.

As described in an op-ed by two former chiefs-of-mission at the American Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the New Duranty Times:

Sadly, Congress is poised to fuel the march toward war by passing a bill that threatens to cut off technical assistance to Ethiopia, one of our closest allies, if it does not, among other things, release political prisoners, ensure that the judiciary operates independently and permit the news media to operate freely. Ethiopia has already freed opposition leaders, reformed parliamentary rules to give opposition parties greater legislative responsibility and approved a new media law that meets international standards. By singling out Ethiopia for public embarrassment, the bill puts Congress unwittingly on the side of Islamic jihadists and insurgents.

Well said, as far as it goes. But after we have seen the Democrats repeatedly attempt to torpedo the war against the jihadi terrorists in Iraq by attempting time and again to cut off funding to our frontline troops, and repeatedly attempt to defeat the counter-terrorism measures the Bush administration has employed in the United States, and repeatedly attempt to undermine the administration diplomatically by privately treating with our enemies in Syria and Iran, and repeatedly act to snub and humiliate American allies as they did with Colombia and Turkey, you have to wonder just why anyone would think they are "unwittingly on the side of Islamic jihadists and insurgents."

I think the Democrats know what they are doing. They are trying to defeat President Bush every which way but loose, and in the blind madness of their partisanship and Bush-hatred, they don't realize that they are working to defeat America. And they know very well that they are doing everything they can to establish a socialist nanny-state in America and carry out Gramsci's program of undermining the social and cultural foundations of our republican democracy.

You and I are on the front lines of this momentous cultural struggle. The lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world depend on our ability to defeat the left in America. If America falls to the left, there will be nothing to hold back the tide of tyranny. I mean this with the utmost seriousness. There is no rear echelon in the war against jihadi terror. We are all on the front lines, one way or another.

THE WHOLE WORLD IS GETING WARMER - EXCEPT FOR THE PLACES THAT AREN'T

GATEWAY HAS THE WEATHER ALMANAC FOR SOUTH AMERICA - WHERE THEY JUST HAD ONE THE THE COLDEST WINTERS ON RECORD. EXCERPT:

So, "por qué no te callas Al Gore ?"

Or, in English, "Why don't you shut up, Al Gore?"

I THINK IT WOULD BE EASIER TO COOL THE ENTIRE GLOBE THAN TO HAVE HIS GORENESS STFU.

MASSIVE EXPLOSION AT IRANIAN MISSILE SITE

That's what they get for manufacturing weapons of death:

On Tuesday, a series of explosions rocked the Parchin military complex, 30 km. south of Tehran, where missiles, including cruise missiles, are manufactured. The report, which came from an Iranian resistance website, said that several military personnel at the site were injured. The explosions reportedly started in the missile industries section of the complex. Shrapnel from the explosions hit other sections, and eight warehouses were engulfed in flames.

That's good news, as those death builders are asking for it, but this doesn't mean that danger has been averted. The military facility where these were being built may not be the only place where missile manufacturing is done, and they could very easily stand even the destroyed parts erect again. That's exactly why an assault needs to be carried out.

DIRE WARNING: IF GLOBAL WARMING CONTINUES THE WOOLY MAMMOTHS WILL BECOME EXTINCT

HURRY: RAISE TAXES! WE CAN'T ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN!

The Petraeus Surge: too late or right on time? (AND WHY ANNAPOLIS IS A STUPID DISTRACTION)

The Petraeus Surge is working.

No greater proof of this is the fact that the MSM has virtually stopped reporting on the war there because almost all the military news is good.

The question remains for some critics: did it come too late, and why didn't it come earlier - as if Bush could gave done so in 2004 or 2005 or 2006.

I think it came as soon as it could have, and could not have come earlier.

The surge also had to come after the Iraqi election and after the Iraqis had formed a government - WHICH WAS LONG AFTER THIS ELECTION, (like MONTHS - LIKE AS LONG AS IT IS TAKING BELGIUM!)!

It was during the time between the US presidential 2004 election and Iraqi Election a few months later, and the parliamentary election at the end of 2005 - (two elections which the US Left and the Dems pooh-poohed - and wanted delayed), that al Qaeda moved in, that the so-called insurgency took-off.

Al Qaeda was taking advantage of the timing, hoping that a SURGE OF TERROR would elect the enemy-appeasing Kerry in 2004 and then in 2006 they wanted Pelosi and Reid to take over the Congress. Al Qaeda did better in 2006 than in 2004.

And this is why al Qaeda attacked the Golden Mosque in 2/06, starting the sectarian strife which killed thousands of Iraqis and made democratic resolution within the elected Parliament more difficult. This bombing occurred a few months after Iraq's Parliamentary elections, in early 2006.

Al Qaeda's strategy almost worked.

But as soon as it was possible, Bush initiated the Surge and now al Qaeda is defeated and the Sunni tribes on our side.

NOW TIME IS ON OUR SIDE, TOO.

AS LONG AS IRAQ'S PARLIAMENT MAKES A UNITY DEAL ON ALL OUTSTANDING ISSUES SOON.

Like... before the end of the year. THIS IS CRITICAL FOR OUR MISSION IN IRAQ AND THE ENTIRE GWOT.

Which is why Bush and Condi should be spending more time and effort on this than Annapolis.

Before 9/11. Bin Laden could have had European jets heading for Asia hijacked and crashed into Israel. He chose to attack US to strike fear into us and make us less likely to do what we'd have to do to defeat them.

We won't defeat the enemy by having Israel make ANOTHER deal with Abbas which won't be fulfilled.

We need to MILITARILY defeat the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan and Waziristan and Iran and Syria and Lebanon.

Anything and everything less than that is Chamberlainesque BS.

MANFRED GERSTENFELD'S BAD NEWS PROJECT

Dr. Madfred Gerstenfeld of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs was interviewed recently by Israel Insider and talks about how, in his view, Holland, and even a couple of other countries, are much darker than they seem. To do this, he began a blog called Bad News from the Netherlands. And since he began it, a few other, similar projects began, including Bad News from Britain, Bad News from Mexico, Bad News from Finland, and Bad News from Norway.

Now what does he tell about Holland for starters:

Q. What motivated you to start this blog?

A. For many years I had seen how many foreign journalists distort news about Israel in various ways. They take matters out of context, leave out essential information and blacken Israel. The same goes for other types of media and many Western politicians. As I am writing a book about the Netherlands, the Jews and Israel, the Dutch examples particularly struck me.

Q. Can you give some examples?

A. One concerns Conny Mus, the former chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Israel. In April of 2007, he was the first western TV journalist to interview Ismael Haniyah of the Hamas, who was then Prime Minister of the short-lived Hamas-Fatah government. Mus said on TV that he could ask whatever he wanted, yet he didn't raise the most relevant question: What about killing all the Jews as stated in the Hamas Charter?

Another example is Dutch Development Cooperation Minister Bert Koenders. In a recent press release on 3 million dollar emergency help for the Palestinians in Gaza, he blamed the area's economic problems on the closure of its border by Israel. He also lamented the wilting of flowers in Gaza which should have been exported to the Netherlands. Koenders' press release did not even mention the Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza.

Now I see just what's wrong with the Netherlands, and why they may on their way to disaster as well: when you discriminate against one country, it only makes sense that this discrimination will end up affecting your own country as well.

See all those blogs, with the one about Norway possibly being the most important, to see what they have.

8 MINUTE DOCUMENTARY WITH RACHEL EHRENFELD

In a special short documentary recording called The Libel Tourist from the Motion Picture Institute (via Hot Air), she talks about her fight against libel tourism.

NEWS FROM EURABIA: ANTI-SEMITIC CRIMES CONTINUE TO RISE

HAARETZ: Jewish group says Anti-Semitic incidents in Holland up by 64%

Anti-Semitic incidents in the Netherlands have leapt by 64 percent last year, according a report by a veteran Jewish non-profit organization.

In its report, released on Thursday, the Hague-based Center for Information and Documentation on Israel lists 261 cases of non-physical anti-Semitic attacks - compared to 159 in 2005.

The report, which covers all of 2006 and the first four months of 2007, listed eight cases of violent anti-Semitic attacks and seven cases of "violent behavior." The organization's director, Dr. Ronny Naftaniel, told Haaretz yesterday that most of the incidents recorded occurred on the streets of Amsterdam.

• THIS IS THE PLACE WHERE THEY MURDERED THEO VAN GOGH. THIS WAS ONCE THE HOME OF AYAAN HIRSI ALI.

• HIS MURDER; HER EXILE, AND THESE CRIMES HAVE TWO SOURCES: JIHADISM AND THE LEFTIST/DHIMMI ENABLERS.

• IT'S GETTING WORSE IN EUROPE, NOT BETTER. AND IT WON'T GET BETTER UNTIL WE DEFEAT THE LEFT.
  

• MERKEL, RASMUSSEN, SARKO AND PB16 HAD BETTER GET THEORS ASSES IN GEAR OR IT'S GONNA BE ALL OVER SOON.

PRINCE CHARLES: ANTI-SEMITE (AND PERHAPS A MUSLIM CONVERT?)

HAARETZ:

E-mail snub to Israel by Prince Charles' aides sparks furor

By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondent

Senior aides to Britain's Prince Charles said there is "no chance" the prince would ever visit Israel as such a visit would boost Israel's international image.

The aides wrote the comments, in August E-mails, after outgoing Israeli ambassador to Britain Zvi Heifetz extended an invitation to the prince via principal private secretary Sir Michael Peat and deputy private secretary Clive Alderton.

In E-mails published Thursday in London by The Jewish Chronicle, Peat politely thanked Heifetz and said the prince "would love to come."

However, in a later E-mail Alderton sent to Peat, he complained that he was "being pursued."

Alderton asked is it "safe to assume there is no chance of this visit ever actually happening?" Alderton noted, "Acceptance would make it hard to avoid the many ways in which Israel would want HRH [Prince Charles] to help burnish its international image. In which case, let's agree a way to lower its expectations."

• PRINCE CHARLES IS AN ANTI-SEMITIC TURD.

• HIS BROTHER EDWARD IS OKAY.

WHY THE DIFFERENCE? PERHAPS CHUCKIE IS A FOLLOWER OF MOHAMMED.


BTW: EMIR CHUCK HAS AN ARABIC-STYLE GARDENS AT HIS HOME IN GLOCESTERSHIRE.

IT MIGHT BE A PRETTY PLACE FOR HIM TO READ HIS KORAN.

MUGABE PROVES HOW WELL SOCIALISM WORKS: EVERYONE IS A MILLIONAIRE!

ALL AFRICA: $1 Million Note On the Way As Cash Crisis Worsens

Zimbabwe Independent (Harare) -

CASH shortages worsened this week amid speculation that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe was working on plans to introduce higher denominations of bearers' cheques.

Businessdigest understands that the central bank is finalising the introduction of $500 000 and $1 million notes.

The new bearer's cheque notes are likely to be introduced early next month. The denominations below $10 000 will be scrapped, sources said.

NO WONDER CHAVEZ WANTS TO TRY IT IN VENZUELA!

YES: IRAN IS A SOCIALIST NATION TOO.

SO WAS SADDAM'S IRAQ.

AND SO IS ASSAD'S SYRIA.

WELCOME HOT AIR READERS! WHY NOT CHECK OUT THE REST OF THE BLOG!

CHINA'S ECONOMY ACTUALLY 40% SMALLER THAN PREVIOUS ESTIMATES

YAHOO/AFP:

China's economy is 40 percent smaller than most recent estimates, a US economist said Wednesday, citing data from the Asian Development Bank and guidelines from the World Bank.

Albert Keidel, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former US Treasury official and World Bank economist, made the comments in a report published by the US think tank and in a commentary in the Financial Times.

Keidel told AFP he made the calculations based on a recent ADB report that made its first analysis of China's economy based on so-called purchasing power parity (PPP), which strips out the impact of exchange rates.

"The results tell us that when the World Bank announces its expected PPP data revisions later this year, China's economy will turn out to be 40 percent smaller than previously stated," Keidel wrote.

"This more accurate picture of China clarifies why Beijing concentrates so heavily on domestic priorities such as growth, public investment, pollution control and poverty reduction."

The ADB data was the first using purchasing power analysis, according to Keidel.

Based on this new analysis, he said "the number of people in China living below the World Bank's dollar-a-day poverty line is 300 million -- three times larger than currently estimated."

Keidel told AFP that under these calculations, China's gross domestic product (GDP) would have been roughly five trillion dollars in 2005, compared to some 12 trillion for the United States on the same basis.

This would still mean China's economy is moving ahead of Japan as the world's second largest economy, but might not overtake the United States until around 2030.

"These calculations are not just esoteric academic tweaks," Keidel wrote.

"Based on the old estimates, the US Government Accountability Office reported this year that China's economy in PPP terms would be larger than the US by as early as 2012. Such reports raise alarms in security circles about China's ability to build a defense establishment to challenge America's," he said.

The use of PPP began in the 1950s in an effort to compare economies without the distortion of exchange rates that could be influenced by trade or investment flows.

Keidel said his analysis has little meaning for the debate on whether China's yuan is undervalued, as many economists say.

"The PPP shouldn't be used to check whether the commercial exchange rate is valid," said Keidel, who has argued that it is not clear whether the yuan is vastly undervalued.

But he said the data helps explain why Chinese authorities are paying little heed to calls by Washington and Europe to boost the yuan.

"Our focus in the US on trade and exchange rates is secondary or tertiary in their view," he said.

Keidel said the US Congress and administration officials "should recognize the limitations and opportunities revealed by these more accurate data."

"For example, risks to its impoverished rural hinterland from a sudden large revaluation of its currency loom larger in Beijing's eyes than in Washington's," he added.

Keidel had been deputy director for the Office of East Asian Nations at the US Treasury and was previously a senior economist in the World Bank office in Beijing.

CHINA IS A POTENTIAL THREAT AND AN EMERGING POWER, BUT STILL A THIRD WORLD NATION.

WE SHOULD PRESSURE THEM MORE AND MORE ON THEIR LACK OF LIBERTY AND SHODDY IF NOT NON-EXISTENT MANUFACTURING STANDARDS.

THE WEAK DOLLAR HELPS OUR CASE HERE: THE CHINESE WOULD PREFER IT TO REMAIN STRONGER - AS WOULD THE SAUDIS.

MUSHARRAF ABOUT TO STRIKE JIHADIST STRONGHOLD

FOX/AP:

The army said Saturday that it has massed 15,000 troops for a major assault on Islamic militants in a scenic northern valley, whose fall has raised concern about Pakistan's ability to withstand rising extremism.

Security forces have been fighting in the Swat Valley, a former tourist destination just 100 miles from the capital, since July, when a bloody army raid on a radical mosque in Islamabad sparked a wave of militant violence.

Foreign fighters allegedly have joined the armed followers of Maulana Fazlullah, a pro-Taliban cleric in the valley, amplifying Western fears that swaths of Pakistan near the Afghan border offer an increasingly safe haven for Al Qaeda.

... The army said Saturday that troops backed by helicopter gunships and artillery were attacking militants to push them back into the mountains overlooking the Karakoram Highway, Pakistan's vital overland route to China.

... Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha said militants from Afghanistan as well as the lawless Pakistani border regions of Waziristan and Bajur had reinforced the followers of Fazlullah in Swat.

Pasha, director general of military operations, said the army had assembled about 15,000 troops in Mingora, the valley's main town and would launch its main offensive within days.

He said they planned to push the militants back into the rugged Piochar side valley where they had established bases.

"We will bottle up as many of them as possible and then eliminate them," Pasha said. "This is our killing ground."

THERE HAVE BEEN REPORTS RECENTLY PUTTING BIN LADEN IN THIS AREA. PERHAPS MUSHARRAF WILL GET HIM SOON? I HOPE SO.

WARNING: IF WE ELECT A DEMOCRAT OUR NATION WILL BE RULED BY THE UN'S IPCC

HYSTERICAL PROPAGANDA FROM THE TRANSNATIONAL LEFTIES:

AP: Panel: Earth Is Rapidly Getting Warmer

The Earth is hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace, a Nobel-winning U.N. scientific panel said in a landmark report released Saturday, warning of inevitable human suffering and the threat of extinction for some species.

After five days of sometimes tense negotiations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change adopted its fourth and final report this year, along with a summary, on the science of climate change and the effects of human-produced greenhouse gases.

It lays out blueprints for avoiding the worst catastrophes - and various possible outcomes, depending on how quickly and decisively action is taken.

The document says recent research has heightened concern that the poor and the elderly will suffer most from climate change; that hunger and disease will be more common; that droughts, floods and heat waves will afflict the world's poorest regions; and that more animal and plant species will vanish.

Welcoming the report, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said climate change imperils "the most precious treasures of our planet."

The potential impact of global warming is "so severe and so sweeping that only urgent, global action will do," Ban told the IPCC after it issued the report.

The Summary for Policymakers, and a longer version called the synthesis report, distill thousands of pages of data and computer models resulting from six years of research compiled by the IPCC.

It will be a how-to guide for policy makers meeting in Bali, Indonesia, next month to discuss an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. [KYOTO: A TREATY WHICH SET CONSITIONS WHICH NO COUNTRY MET!]

The report is important because it is adopted by consensus, meaning countries accept the underlying science and cannot disavow its conclusions. While it does not commit governments to a specific course of action, it provides a common scientific baseline for the political talks.

U.N. experts say a new global plan must be in place by 2009 to ensure a smooth transition after the expiration of the Kyoto terms, which require 36 industrial countries to radically reduce their carbon emissions by 2012.

"There are real and affordable ways to deal with climate change," Ban said. He said a new agreement should provide funding to help poor countries adopt clean energy and to adapt to changing climates.

Opening with a sweeping statement directed at climate change skeptics, the summary declares that climate systems have already begun to change.

Unless action is taken, human activity could lead to "abrupt and irreversible changes" that would make the planet unrecognizable.

Advocacy groups hailed the report as indispensable for the 10,000 delegates expected at Bali [FLYING TO THE CONFERENCE - IN CO2 EMITTING JETS, AND THEN STAYING IN A LUXURY RESORT FOR 20 DAYS AND MIGHTS].

Yet differences remain stark on how to control carbon emissions.

While the European Union has taken the lead in enforcing the carbon emission targets outlined in Kyoto [BUT FAILED TO MEET THE FOALS SET OUT IN THE TREATY!], the United States opted out of the 1997 accord.

IF THE USA ELECTS A DEMOCRAT, THEIR ADMINISTRATION WILL SURELY FOLLOW THE DICTATES OF THE TRANSNATIONAL ECO-NUTSIES.

• TAXES WILL RISE; UNEMPLOYMENT WILL RISE; ENERGY COSTS WILL RISE - AND S WILL "MAN-MADE" CO2, IF THE EU'S RESULTS SO FAR ARE ANY INDICATION!

• THIS WHOLE ENTIRE SCARE-EFFORT BY THE ECO-NUTSIES IS BEING ENGINEERED BY THE LEFT IN ORDER TO ACCOMPLISH THEIR LONG-HELD LONG-TERM GOALS: RAISING TAXES ON INDUSTRY AND THE FREE-MARKET AND REDISTRIBUTING THE REVENUES TO THEIR PET CAUSES.

DON'T FALL FOR IT! AGW IS BS. TOTAL UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT:

• CLIMATE CHANGE IS NATURAL. THE DEGREE OF CHANGE NOW IS TOTALLY WITHIN RANGE OF CHANGES OF THE PAST - BEFORE THERE WAS ANY MAN-MADE CO2.

• CO2 MAKES UP LESS THAN 1% OF THE ATMOSPHERE AND IS A POOR CONDUCTOR WHICH IS NON-TOXIC.

• CO2 INCREASES ARE A LAGGING INDICATOR AND NOT A CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING.

• WATER VAPOR MAKES UP A MUCH HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF THE ATMOSPHERE AND WATER IS A MUCH MORE EFFICIENT CONDUCTOR.

THE ANTI-CO2 EFFORT IS A COMPLETE HOAX.

IT CANNOT CHANGE THE CLIMATE. IT IS A WASTE OF TIME - EXCEPT FOR TRANSNATIONAL LEFTISTS SEEKING POWER OVER YOUR LIFE.

MORE ECO-NUTSIE HYSTERIA HERE.

AND HERE.

Michael Yon: Come Home

This generation's Ernie Pyle is Michael Yon. He describes a stunning scene in Baghdad that you will never, ever, ever see reported in today's mainstream media.

St. John's Church -- located in the heart of Baghdad -- celebrated Mass.

Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq."

If you don't start to tear up reading his report, well, I'm not sure you're human.

Go to Michael's site and give him a couple of bucks. He has absolutely no support from the mainstream media, so it's up to you and I to fund his incredible reporting.

CANDID CAMERA

Sort of, but not for humor's sake.

Article from the November 17, 2007 edition of the Washington Post:

A dispute among OPEC ministers during a closed-door session Friday spilled into the open when a camera was inadvertently left on, broadcasting into the nearby press room a quarrel over whether to stop pricing crude oil in dollars.

According to reporters who watched the broadcast for half an hour before Saudi officials pulled the plug, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki urged the group to price oil in another currency or a basket of currencies, a perennial issue that has drawn greater attention recently because of the sinking value of the dollar.

"We're backing this Iranian proposal," Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said in Spanish, according to Bloomberg News.

But Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal rejected the idea, suggesting that the group refer the question to the finance ministers from member countries of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. But he said the group should not announce that its finance ministers would look at the issue because that might drive the dollar down even further.

"There will be journalists who will seize on this point, and we don't want the dollar to collapse instead of doing something good for OPEC," Faisal told the ministers.

The weak dollar has hurt oil exporters who use oil revenue to buy goods priced in euros or yen. That has added inflation pressures in oil exporting countries. On the other hand, many wealthy exporters, including Saudi Arabia, hold huge dollar-denominated assets.

The United States has imposed sanctions on Iran's biggest banks and pressured other banks to stop dealing with Iran. Tehran is already selling oil in euros and yen, but those transactions mostly translate the current dollar price, oil traders said.

Apparently, Saudi's protectio of its own interests could work in favor of U.S. interests. For now.

Meanwhile, next year, Saudi is planning to pump out more high-quality oil. From this article in the November 17, 2007 edition of the Washington Post:

...Next year, Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, plans to boost production by 250,000 barrels a day, one step in an effort to expand the kingdom's oil-production capacity to 12.5 million barrels a day from the 11.3 million barrels. The new production is part of a strategy that could ease market tension and is designed to preserve Saudi Arabia's ability to produce 1.5 million to 2 million barrels a day more than its actual output in the face of rising world oil demand, said a senior Saudi Oil Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Tell me of any other country that's made commitments this broad on its own," Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the deputy minister of petroleum and natural resources, said during preparations for this weekend's summit of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. "We are the only country with a policy of maintaining excess capacity."

[...]

This week, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi reiterated pledges that Saudi Arabia would eventually deliver 1 million barrels of oil a day to China and keep the world well supplied.

Some analysts said that could be difficult because many of Saudi Arabia's oil fields are old and in decline. The rate of natural decline in Saudi fields was slightly faster than anticipated this year, according to a Saudi strategist who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly on the subject. From 2005 to 2009, output from existing Saudi fields is expected to decline by 800,000 barrels a day. But Saudi Arabia's output capacity is about the same as it was 30 years ago.

If the amount of oil the Saudis can produce is open to question, the cost of production is not. Naimi estimated that it costs Saudi Arabia about $2 to produce a barrel of oil. Developing new fields is also cheap, he said, running about a quarter or less of exploration and development costs elsewhere. Asked whether Saudi Arabia would be interested in investing in Canadian tar sands, which require more than $40 per barrel in investment, Naimi said there would be no point....

Oh, goody, goody! Let's clap our hands in gratitude for the Saudis and their generous promise to pump more oi. But remember that any surplus of oil from Saudi will occur after the heating season is over here in the States.

Here's a picture of those in control:


No wonder their facial expressions are so smug!

HUGO'S "GOOD NEIGHBOR" POLICY: ATTACK FIRST, ASK QUESTIONS LATER

BBC: Venezuela 'attacked Guyana boats'

Venezuela has denied destroying two gold-mining dredges on Guyanese territory following a strong protest from Guyana's government.

Guyana says 36 Venezuelan soldiers used helicopters and Compostion-4 (C-4), a type of plastic explosive, to blow up the two dredges on Thursday.

It has summoned Venezuela's ambassador to explain the incident.

Venezuela denies using force and said the army was removing illegal miners inside its own territory.

Territorial dispute

The dredges were in a disputed border region that has seen a number of recent incidents.

GEE, I WONDER WHAT SEAN PENN THINKS OF THIS?

THEN AGAIN, MAYBE WE SHOULD USE THE SAME FORCE ON OUR BORDER WITH MEXICO!

UPDATE: THE NYTIMES - WHICH DID A PAEAN TO A SOVIET SPY EARLIER THIS WEEK - IS PAYING TRIBUTE TO CHAVEZ TODAY (THEY LOVE HIM MORE THAN SEAN PENN, IT SEEMS!):

Chávez’s Vision Shares Wealth and Centers Power
By SIMON ROMERO

CARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 16 — In two weeks, Venezuela seems likely to start an extraordinary experiment in centralized, oil-fueled socialism.

By law, the workday would be cut to six hours. Street vendors, homemakers and maids would have state-mandated pensions. And President Hugo Chávez would have significantly enhanced powers and be eligible for re-election for the rest of his life.

A sweeping revision of the Constitution, expected to be approved by referendum on Dec. 2, is both bolstering Mr. Chávez’s popularity here among people who would benefit and stirring contempt from economists who declare it demagogy. Signaling new instability here, dissent is also emerging among his former lieutenants, one of whom says the president is carrying out a populist coup.

“There is a perverse subversion of our existing Constitution under way,” said Gen. Raúl Isaías Baduel, a retired defense minister and former confidant of Mr. Chávez who broke with him in a stunning defection this month to the political opposition. “This is not a reform,” General Baduel said in an interview here this week. “I categorize it as a coup d’état.”

Chávez loyalists already control the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, almost every state government, the entire federal bureaucracy and newly nationalized companies in the telephone, electricity and oil industries. Soon they could control even more.

But this is an upheaval that would be carried out with the approval of the voters. While opinion polls in Venezuela are often tainted by partisanship, they suggest that the referendum could be Mr. Chávez’s closest electoral test since his presidency began in 1999, but one he may well win.

“We are witnessing a seizure and redirection of power through legitimate means,” said Alberto Barrera Tyszka, co-author of a best-selling biography of Mr. Chávez. “This is not a dictatorship but something more complex: the tyranny of popularity.”

One of the 69 amendments allows Mr. Chávez to create new administrative regions, governed by vice presidents chosen by him. Critics say the reforms would also shift funds from states and cities, where a handful of elected officials still oppose him, to communal councils, new local governing entities that are predominantly pro-Chávez.

Interviews this week on the streets here and in Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second largest city, offer a window into the strength of Mr. Chávez’s followers and the challenges of his critics. His supporters, many of whom are public servants in a bureaucracy that has recently ballooned, have flooded poor districts to campaign for the overhaul.

“The comandante should have more power because he is the force behind our revolution,” said Egda Vilchez, 51, a pro-Chávez activist, as she campaigned in favor of the new charter this week at a busy intersection in Cacique Mara, an area of slums in eastern Maracaibo.

Such statements may sound dogmatic, but they are voiced with a fervor in organized campaigning that is unmatched in richer areas of Venezuela’s largest cities, from which much of the opposition to Mr. Chávez is drawn.

THIS IS A PHONY WAY TO LOOK AT CHAVEZ. WHY? BECAUSE THE POLICIES CHAVEZ PROMOTES HAVE NEVER WORKED ANYWHERE AT ANYTIME.

IN FACT, THE SHORTAGES HAVE ALREADY BEGUN.

THIS IS A BLACK AND WHITE ISSUE: SOVIETIZING VENEZUELA IS A HORRIFYING THING, AND EVERYBODY SHOULD OPPOSE IT. EVEN THE NYTIMES.

Some laws don't apply to blacks?

A gang of blacks invades the home of a white family and beats them up and it is the authorities who are racist for prosecuting them to the full extent of the law? The Jena case seems to be setting an evil precedent

Three young black men break into a white man's home in rural Northern California. The homeowner shoots two of them to death - but it's the surviving black man who is charged with murder. In a case that has brought cries of racism from civil rights groups, Renato Hughes Jr., 22, was charged by prosecutors in this overwhelmingly white county under a rarely invoked legal doctrine that could make him responsible for the bloodshed. "It was pandemonium" inside the house that night, District Attorney Jon Hopkins said. Hughes was responsible for "setting the whole thing in motion by his actions and the actions of his accomplices."

The NAACP complained that prosecutors came down too hard on Hughes, who also faces robbery, burglary and assault charges. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. The Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP and pastor at Hughes' church, said the case demonstrates the legal system is racist in remote Lake County, aspiring wine country 100 miles north of San Francisco. The sparsely populated county of 13,000 people is 91 percent white and 2 percent black. Brown and other NAACP officials are asking why the homeowner is walking free...

The district attorney said that race played no part in the charges against Hughes and that the homeowner was spared prosecution because of evidence he was defending himself and his family, who were asleep when the assailants barged in at 4 a.m.

Edmonds' stepson, Dale Lafferty, suffered brain damage from the baseball bat beating he took during the melee. The 19-year-old lives in a rehabilitation center and can no longer feed himself. "I didn't do anything wrong. All I did was defend my family and my children's lives," said Edmonds, 33. "I'm sad the kids are dead, I didn't mean to kill them." He added: "Race has nothing to do with it other than this was a gang of black people who thought they were going to beat up this white family."

More here


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

Truthless in Gaza

Post below excerpted from AWOL Civilization. See the original for links

Western journalists have a long record of collaboration with the Arab propaganda machine. Let me point to just one example with which I am familiar from personal experience. After the signing of the infamous Oslo Accords in 1993, the Western media was suppressing any news that would make the nascent Palestinian Authority look bad. This included a blackout on Arafat's belligerent posturing to the Arab world, in Arabic. Despite the peace treaty signed on the White House lawn, Arafat and his lieutenants continued to speak to their people as if the war against Israel was at its peak. One would never know this, however, from reading Le Monde or watching ABC news. (Unfortunately, this was before the advent of the blogosphere.)

I was in Israel some time later, working as a freelance journalist. I picked up a rather unusual assignment. A team of film technicians and translators had made videos of some of Arafat's Nazi-style, jihadesque speeches to the masses in Gaza. These chilling spectacles, which could make even the most hardened Arafat-watcher's hair stand on end, were translated into Hebrew and English. The team was looking for a native English speaker to present the videos to the Western media. I accepted the offer. At the outset, I was concerned that my personal safety might be endangered when the films were shown to a wide audience.

My fears were for naught. For several days, I visited with virtually the entire Western press corps in Israel: the New York Times, the BBC, Reuters, you name it. All of them courteously listened to my pitch. All of them tried to keep a poker face as they watched the video, but signs of shock expressed themselves in a rogue muscle twitch or bead of sweat. All of them responded at the end with some mumbo-jumbo such as "oh, that's just what Arafat's saying to his people; he has to do that to maintain credibility."

Sure, I said to myself. That's certainly what these journalists would say if I had shown them translations of Yitzhak Rabin making speeches in Hebrew calling for the Palestinian Arabs to be driven into the sea. Not a single one of those media outlets ran the story. The silence was deafening. Little did I realize, at the time, that this entire affair-just like al-Dura-was one more link in the long chain of media promotion of all that is anti-Western.

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

Did CNN Jury Rig the Debate to favor Hillary Clinton?

It's a wild charge, to be sure. But it is getting more and more traction on Democrat blogs, according to Dan Riehl:

Actually, there are suggestions at some prominent Democrat sites that CNN didn't just plant questions, but perhaps in the administration of the debate, they created a situation where Hillary Clinton had a decided advantage. It's mentioned at DailyKos but the best information is here. Admittedly, it comes from an Obama fan. But if you think about the logistics, it's hard to imagine Hillary wouldn't have a home crowd.

I want to comment on a couple of issues relating to the Debate because I feel it is important to speak out about it. I have had some inside information about how this debate was conducted and I think that CNN and those who organized this debate have a responsiblity to answer for the way it was conducted.

Of particular note, if accurate, is that of 1,000 tickets given to UNLV, only a hundred made it into the hands of students. Both Edwards and Obama do better among younger Democrats. And as for dissemination of tickets by the Nevada Democrats, Jill Derby the Democrat Chair is a moderate with some friends close to Hillary. Does the name Begala ring a bell?

Derby has had numerous supporters. CNN political anaylst, as the Reno Gazette-Journal reported, Paul Begala, who helped engineer Bill Clinton's 1992 win, said he was encouraged by U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to “stump” for Derby.

UPDATE: More here.

SOCIALISM AT WORK: ALL THAT OIL MONEY AND CHAVEZ CAN'T STOCK HIS NATION'S SUPERMARKETS

VENEZUELA NEWS & VIEWS - (VIA GLENN - WHO HAS MORE):

Christmas shelves in Venezuela: something is missing It is common knowledge around the world that some food items have left Venezuela's shelves. Plenty of excuses have been offered to account for the absence of milk, sugar, beans, noodles and more.

For example, conveniently, the world prices of milk and wheat have been going up. That might be but these items are not any scarcer in the shelves of, say, Colombia than they were a few months ago.

Another good excuse advanced by chavismo is that the poor in Venezuela have such a great income that they are snatching milk from the shelves faster than any rich person can do. Of course, all of these are just that, excuses, and any serious economist laughs at them.

IF SOCIALISM WORKED THEN WE'D ALL BE DRIVING YUGOS.

Martha Washington for President!

MARTHA WASHINGTON FOR PRESIDENT!

WHAT, YOU DON'T THINK SHE'S QUALIFIED!?

But: Martha was not only First Lady for two terms, she was the wife of the general who led the United States to victory over the British!

Still think she's not qualified!? YOU ARE RIGHT! And... HILLARY IS NO MORE QUALIFIED THAN MARTHA.

Had she not been First Lady she would have NEVER EVER been elected to the Senate - FROM ANY STATE!

And as Senator, she has done ZERO. Except lead the Dem pack in PORK ($530MILLION!!!)!

John Kerry was UNFIT FOR COMMAND, and Hillary is less qualified than Kerry.

HILLARY IS A LYING, PHONY, DEMAGOGUING LEFTIST - WHICH MAKES HER THE PERFECT STANDARD BEARER FOR THE DEMS!

WEEKEND WITH THE ARTS: THE GENIUS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARTISTS

There's more to life than war, taxes and politics - and a lot of it's more fun, too! That's why every WEEKEND, here at THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, we post some of the cultural things we're into, things we think you might also find entertaining, enriching, and stimulating. After all, the arts - ALL ARTS, not just fine arts - are a big part of what our liberty is for, and what we're fighting to defend!

THIS WEEK: A SMALL SAMPLING OF THE GENIUS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN ARTISTS

• NOTE: THE LATE GREAT AMERICAN JURIST - AND INSTAPUNDIT HERO - CHARLES BLACK, WAS A TEXAN WHO, AS A YOUNG MAN, HAD HIS CONDESCENDING ATTITUDE ABOUT BLACKS ERASED ON THE DAY HE WITNESSED THE INCREDIBLE GENIUS OF LOUIS ARMSTRONG.
  

• WHATEVER IQ MEASURES - AND WHATEVER ITS DEMOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION MEANS - IT CANNOT DIMINISH THE GENIUS OF ARTISTS SUCH AS THESE. WITHOUT THEM AMERICAN CULTURE WOULD BE COMPARATIVELY POOR AND, WELL ER UM... MORE STUPID.

THESE ARE JUST A FEW OF MY FAVORITES. A COMPLETE LIST IS NEARLY ENDLESS.

• I'M PRETTY SURE THAT IQ TESTS DON'T MEASURE THE GENIUS AND TALENT OF THESE ARTISTS.

• IF I HAD 1/10TH THE TALENT - THE GENIUS - OF ANY ONE OF THESE ARTISTS, THEN I'D CONSIDER MYSELF BLESSED.

WE ARE ALL BLESSED BECAUSE THESE FINE INDIVIDUALS SHARED THEIR INCREDIBLE TALENT AND GENIUS WITH US.

MORE PROOF THAT PUTIN'S RUSSIA IS MARCHING BACK TOWARD TYRANNY

NYTIMES:

Western election observers on Friday pulled out of a mission to monitor Russia’s Dec. 2 parliamentary vote, citing restrictions imposed by the Kremlin on their work.

The cancellation by the election-monitoring arm of the 56-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe means the elections being held by President Vladimir V. Putin’s government may not be seen as legitimate by Western Europe and the United States.

The group’s decision to withdraw from the monitoring mission was the first such occurrence in Russia since the country undertook to hold free and fair elections and to allow access for observers to monitor them in 1990, as the Soviet Union was disintegrating. It will probably be seen as another breach between the government of Mr. Putin and the West.

The group, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, or O.D.I.H.R., cited what it called unacceptable Russian demands to limit the mission’s size, making it impossible to determine whether the elections are marred by fraud.

NO ONE FROM THE KGB SHOULD EVER BE TRUSTED:

• THE KGB CREATED ARAFAT - (MORE HERE). STEERED THE VIETNAM ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT - (MORE HERE), AND SPREAD THE TERROR WHICH ENABLED THE POLITBURO TO TYRANNIZE RUSSIA AND IT'S SATELLITES AND THE CAPTIVES OF EASTERN EUROPE.

• AS LONG AS PUTIN AND HIS KGB GANG IS IN CONTROL, RUSSIA IS A MAJOR THREAT. THEY'RE BAD PEOPLE WHO CELEBRATE DECEIT, MISCHIEF AND TERROR.

• UNLESS WE GET TOUGHER, THESE THUGS WILL CONTINUE TO AID IRAN, SYRIA AND THE FOES OF DEMOCRACY. AND TO ASSASSINATE THOSE WHO SEEK TO STOP IT.

• TO DIMINISH THE POWER OF RUSSIA - AND OUR OTHER ENEMIES, WE SHOULD BE OIL-DRILLING OFF OUR COASTS AND IN ALASKA - INCLUDING ANWR, AND BUILDING COAL-BURNING AND NUCLEAR POWER-PLANTS.

• THE LEFT HERE IN THE USA IS PREVENTING THESE POLICIES -AND THEREBY STRENGTHENING THE RUSSIAN TYRANTS.

• WHICH IS A VERY FAMILIAR ROLE FOR THEM.

WHICH IS WHY I HAVE LONG ARGUED THAT WE MUST DEFEAT THE LEFT AT HOME IOF WE WANT TO DEFEAT THE ENEMY ABROAD.

• TODAY, THE ENEMIES OF DEMOCRACY AND FREE ENTERPRISE ARE THE SOCIALISTS AND THE JIHADISTS.

• TO DEFEND DEMOCRACY AND FREE ENTERPRISE FOR GENERATIONS TO COME, WE MUST STOP THEM BOTH. EVERYWHERE.

NOW.

It's time to close the Congressional Favor Factory

It's time to close the Congressional Favor Factory. That starts with eliminating wasteful earmarks that cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars every year and undermine their faith in Congress.



I support Senator Jim DeMint's fight for commonsense earmark reform.

LIMITING THE RIGHT TO VOTE

One of my favorite hobbies is entertaining seemingly crazy ideas.

Nietzsche said that certain worthless notions become so ingrained in the conscious of a society that they become like the idols of old. He spoke of wanting to rap on the surface of the societal idols to hear if they were, indeed, empty inside.

So, let us rap on this idol; the notion that the right to vote is a sacred covenant of Democracy.

Should all adults be allowed to vote? What about criminals? What about the mentally ill?

Ought a person be allowed to vote if they can not read? Or, what about those who don't bother to read, or even consume any media at all? What if a person does not know the names of the candidates?

Or, what if the person is a WOMAN?

This is from Laurence Auster:

Here then is a proposal suggested by a friend recently, the basic principle and
outline of which make a great deal of sense to me. I am not embracing the
specific details, since a variety of means to obtain the same ends are possible.
But to me the basic idea seems compelling.

The franchise, my friend said, should be limited to married men with children who are net tax payers.

This means that the vote, and the ability to serve in political office, would be limited to men who are responsible contributors to society. Men who are not married, or who do not have children born in wedlock, or who are not net tax payers, do not have a sufficient material stake in the society as an ongoing enterprise to be counted on to play a responsible role in its direction. Therefore they should not have a direct voice--as voters and office holders--in its direction. Women, generally speaking, are too much guided by emotion and personal considerations to have a direct voice--as voters and office holders--in the direction of society. Look at the ridiculous things political parties today must do to appeal to women. The entire three day minority dog-and-pony show at the 2000 Republican Convention was basically for the purpose of convincing "soccer moms" that the GOP is "nice" to minorities. No serious politics is possible under such conditions. Married women are naturally represented in politics by their husbands, and can exert political influence through the influence they have with their husbands, but the husband is ultimately the one who votes for both of them. Unmarried women as a whole inevitably look to the state to be their provider, and therefore they should not have a direct voice in the government. Also, unmarried women under this proposal are barred from voting for the same reason that unmarried men are, which is that they do not have a sufficient material stake in the society to be counted on to play a responsible role in its direction.

Let us also note the positive changes in behavior and morals that such a change in our laws would encourage. There would be a stronger incentive for men to marry and have children, since they would not possess political rights in the absence of having their own family and being self-supporting.

The change in the franchise would also help restore men to their proper role as the head of the family and as responsible citizens and leaders of society. Today's belief, that women need to be leaders and heroes in order to fulfil themselves, is false. Women do not need those things, they do not suffer from their lack, and society does not suffer from the absence of women firefighters and generals. But males, and society as a whole, most certainly do suffer from the denigration of boys and men that is the leading note of today's feminist culture as enforced in the schools, in the
universities, in the popular culture, and in sex relations.

I think I'll withold comment for now. Can't wait to hear what others have to say about this.

SENATE BLOCKS IRAQ WAR FUNDING? - AP LIES IN HEADLINE - TELLS TRUTH IN ARTICLE

Yes, the headline to this article is "Senate blocks Iraq war funding." But, it isn't really the case. Were the average reader to scan only the headline, he would come away with the idea that the Senate had voted to put a stop to the Iraq War.

They have done no such thing. Read on:

WASHINGTON - The Senate on Friday blocked a Democratic proposal that would have paid for the Iraq war but required that troops start coming home.

The 53-45 vote was seven votes short of the 60 needed to advance. It came minutes
after the Senate rejected a Republican proposal to pay for the Iraq war with no
strings attached.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the only way to get troops the money was to approve the restrictions outlined by Democrats.

EUROPEANS NEED TO START NEW POLITICAL PARTIES TO FIGHT THE JIHAD

Europeans, who love their countries, and the Western tradition, have a hell of a problem on their hands. The Jihadis want to enact Sharia law, which calls for death to all apostates, adulterers, and homosexuals. Many Europeans, quite reasonably, are opposed to such a form of law.

They ought to be. It stands against what the West stands for; that being Freedom of conscience, and Freedom of the individual to pursue his own happiness.

Sadly, rather than fight against the Jihadis, many Europeans seem to have developed a cultural death wish:

UK Secretary of State: EU Should Include the Middle East...

Eurabia inching a little closer to reality.....

Foreign Secretary David Miliband [ostensibly a "new leftist" whose father was a very famous OLD Leftist] has suggested the European Union should work towards including Russia, Middle Eastern and North African countries.

He said enlargement was "our most powerful tool" for extending stability.

In his first major speech on the UK's relationship with Europe [ergo he thinks this is one of the most important things to do!], he said the EU would not become a "superpower" but should be a "role model" for the world.

It could be a "model power of regional co-operation" dedicated to free trade, the environment and tackling extremism.

He said the EU must "keep our promises to Turkey", adding: "If we fail.... it will signal a deep and dangerous divide between east and west.

Reliapundit says this proves that many Europeans do have a death wish. On that, he and I do agree. However, with the following, which Reliapundit asked me to post, I do not agree:

YES: SOME DO (have a death wish): THE LEFT: THE POSTMODERN LEFT. And as Eurabia inches closer and closer, policies like this from the electable Left are why so many Europeans are drifting to more extreme xenophobic fringe groups: THEY HAVE NO CHOICE.

If NO "mainstream" party will promote policies which DEFEND European culture and identity, then people love European/Western/Judeo-Christian
Civilization/tradition/culture will HAVE to drift to the somewhat more extreme and xenophobic fringe.

In Denmark and France Sarkozy and Rasmussen have proven that mainstream parties can take a harder stand and defend Europe's INDIGENOUS culture without becoming a fringe party. IN FACT THEY PROVE THIS IS A WINNING FORMULA!

I say: Those who disagree with their governments, AND with the racists, SHOULD FORM THEIR OWN EFFING POLITICAL PARTIES.

The Republican party was formed in 1854. By 1860, they had won the Presidency. By 1865, they had vanquished their enemy.

Why is it that Europeans can not be expected to do the same?

Remember, my Euro friends, there is this thing called work. Get to it! Your future is your responsibility.

Sorry if I sound harsh, but I'm sick of my counter-Jihadi friends making excuses for your lazy-assed behvavior. Get up off your asses and save yourselves. If it requires that you overthrow your own governments (as it appears will have to be the case in Belgium) then DO IT.

That's how we make and change history.

Meanwhile, Reliapundit also asked me to post the following. Apparently, many Europeans are choosing to flee, rather than fight for their countries and their traditions:

Britain is experiencing unprecedented levels of immigration with more than
half a million foreigners arriving to live here in a single year, new figures
show. Last year, 510,000 foreign migrants came to the UK to stay for at least 12
months, according to the Office for National Statistics. At the same time
400,000 people, more than half of whom were British, emigrated. An exodus on
this scale - amounting to one British citizen leaving the country every three
minutes - has not been seen in the UK for almost 50 years...

Since Labour came to power in 1997, nearly four million foreign nationals
have come to Britain and 1.6 million have left. Over the same period, 1.8
million Britons have left, but only 979,000 have returned.

Reliapundit sees this as further proof that the mainstream parties of Europe are failing, and that in the face of Europe's calcified Leftist ECONOMIC policies and its burgeoning Leftist DHIMMI policies, those who want their children to live in a free-enterprise society and with Western/Judeo-Christian values ARE LEAVING BY THE DROVES.

He is right. Isn't that pathetic?

BUT: I hope we aren't allowing those pussies into our country, for God's sake. Lord knows we already have enough of them here.

G*ogle Censoring Criticism of Islam again

We read:

"The video content site YouTube has flagged a new campaign ad by Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, warning of its content and requiring viewers to verify they are 18 or older. The 30-second spot airing on Iowa cable stations this week links the country's illegal immigration problem to terrorism, depicting an attack on an American mall.

"There are consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who have come to take our jobs," the narrator says. "Islamic terrorists now freely roam U.S. soil. Jihadists, who froth with hate, here to do what they have in London, Spain, and Russia." ...

YouTube is trying to make sure young viewers don't have access to the ad. "This video or group may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube's user community," says its warning. "To view this video or group, please verify you are 18 or older by logging in or signing up."

Source

Jihadi propaganda like this is OK, of course.

G*ogle is getting so political that the time must surely come soon when conservatives stop using it for searches. There are plenty of alternatives: Live.com, yahoo.com etc.


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

DISRAELI

It is one of the better-established findings in psychological research that the relationship between attitudes and behaviour is not at all straightforward. That is particularly true when it comes to predicting behaviour from a person's racial attitudes and beliefs. For instance, Left-influenced psychologists long thought that a person who was very attached to his own group (race, nation etc.) would thereby automatically be hostile to outgroups (minorities etc.). It is however now well established that there is very little relationship between the two at all. One of my own papers on the subject is here and a review of the academic literature is here.

So you can get "racists" who are hostile to other races and "racists" who are benevolent to other races. Hitler is an obvious real-life example of the former and the 19th century British empire -- with its conception of duty as embodied in Kipling's poem "The white man's burden" -- is a notable example of the latter.

History is generally taught with such a Leftist bias these days however that it takes a lot to undermine the demonized conception of the British empire that people have in their heads. To make it clear how different the Conservative "racists" of the 19th (and earlier) century British empire were from the socialist racists of Nazi Germany, therefore, I often mention the case of Benjamin Disraeli, a Jew who was installed as Prime Minister of Great Britain by the British Conservative party and subsequently by the British voters. He was hugely influential and died among great expressions of national loss in 1881.

British Conservatives who believed that the English were a superior race made a Jew their Prime Minister. German socialists who believed that Germans were a superior race murdered Jews by the millions. Is THAT contrast stark enough? Does THAT show that racism is not monolithic? Racism per se need not be destructive at all. But when it is combined with the hatreds of Leftism, it certainly is.

Leftists however sometimes quibble with my history lesson by saying that Disraeli was not in fact a Jew. They have obviously not read Disraeli. The very name "Disraeli" (d' Israeli, meaning "of Israel") might have alerted them to something but there are none so blind as those who will not see.

The tiny hook upon which Leftists hang their quibble is that British law of the day said that a Jew could not enter parliament. So Disraeli's father wisely had young Benjamin Christened as an Anglican at age 13. Everybody understood this as largely a formality however and Anglicanism then, as now, asked little of its adherents. So how did his "conversion" affect Disraeli? Very little. He in fact often flaunted his Jewishness. He was not so unwise as to speak ill of Anglicanism -- he was a great lover of all things British in fact -- but he often pointed to his Jewish origins and Jewish traditions as major influences on his thinking and on what he was. He was notorious for NOT "fitting in" with English ways of the day, in fact. He would have fried in Nazi Germany.

Perhaps the most telling indication of how Disraeli was perceived at the time can be found in Bismarck's famous admiring comment about Disraeli. Did Bismarck refer to Disraeli as "The old Englishman" or as "the old Anglican"? No. What Bismarck said was: "Der alte Jude, das ist der Mann" (The old Jew. THAT is the man). Everybody knew what Disraeli really was and it was simply not held against him. Though it would blow the mind of any Leftist to think such a thought, racists can in fact be very tolerant.

Footnote: This is strictly irrelevant to what I have written above but the historian in me impels me to note that, given Bismarck's own coruscating political brilliance, his tribute to Dizzy's political brilliance that I have noted above shows just how outstanding Dizzy was. And even though he was not one of them, British Conservatives had the good sense and flexibility to recognize and accept Dizzy for what he was as an individual.

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

BOLTON IS RIGHT: ANNAPOLIS WILL ONLY BE A SETBACK

John Bolton addresses the subject of the Annapolis conference and does it well:

A former Bush administration stalwart who has become a vocal critic told The Jerusalem Post this week that the planned meeting in Annapolis later this month to push for Israeli-Palestinian peace is "a mistake."

John Bolton, a leading neoconservative who served as the US ambassador to the UN before leaving the administration last winter, spoke to the Post following a lecture Tuesday night on his new book, which takes issue with aspects of American policy toward Iran, North Korea and Lebanon, among others.

"It's a mistake to push ahead with the Annapolis peace conference in November or December," he said, noting that the date hasn't been finalized.

"I just don't see this as the moment to make progress on Israeli-Palestinian matters. And I don't think that a failed conference will simply leave us at the status quo. I think it will set us back, so I think the effort is perhaps well-intentioned but misconceived."

TOTALLY misconceived at that. It's no more than just negotiations with a criminal terrorist outfit that will only continue with their ways and allow more terrorist attacks to come from Hamas as well.

According to this NFC item in Hebrew, the US is considering postponing the conference. It should be cancelled altogether.

"A WHOLE NEW ERA OF JUDICIAL REVIEW": THE ECO-SOCIALIST NIGHTMARE HAS ARRIVED: "ECO-JUDGES"

NYTIMES:

Patrick A. Parenteau, an environmental law professor at Vermont Law School. ..“Climate change has ushered in a whole new era of judicial review.”

THE LEFT IS HAPPY ABOUT THIS.

MORE:

A federal appeals court here rejected the Bush administration’s year-old fuel-economy standards for light trucks and sport utility vehicles on Thursday, saying that they were not tough enough because regulators had failed to thoroughly assess the economic impact of tailpipe emissions that contribute to climate change.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco, voided the new regulations for 2008-2011 model year vehicles and told the Transportation Department to produce new rules taking into account the value of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The court, siding with 4 environmental groups and 13 states and cities, also asked the government to explain why it still treated light trucks — which include pickups, sport utility vehicles and minivans — more mildly than passenger cars.

Under the rejected rule, the average fuel economy of light trucks was to rise to 23.5 miles a gallon in 2010, up from the current standard of 22.5 m.p.g., but still well below the current standard for passenger cars of 27.5 m.p.g.

The ruling, which is likely to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, represents a major setback for both the auto industry and the White House at a time of growing public concern over the rising price of gasoline and the issue of climate change.

... It was the third federal court ruling in seven months pressing regulators to take the risk of climate change into consideration as they set standards for industries that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases produced when oil, coal and natural gas are burned to produce energy.

• LEFTISTS LOVE IT WHEN JUDGES MAKE POLICY.

• IT'S NOTHING MORE THAN JUDICIAL TYRANNY.

• OUR ELECTED LEADERS SHOULD MAKE LAW, NOT JUDGES.

• THIS PARTICULARLY SICKENING BECAUSE CO2 HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CLIMATE CHANGE OR GLOBAL WARMING.

• THE LEFT HAS PROPAGANDIZED THE CONNECTION PRECISELY TO GET THIS KIND OF RESULT.

• IT'S THE BEGINNINGS OF A SOCIALIST TYRANNY.