THE BAD NEWS KEEPS POURING IN ABOUT THE HUCKSTER

Will the Huckster be able to pass the "smell test"? The bad news just keeps rolling in about him as he seems to be gaining some traction.

--Is the Huckster the Republican's Jimmy Carter? I actually thought this exact thing when a caller was talking about him to Rush the other day.

--Mom: 'Carol Sue Would Be Alive Today' If Not for Huckabee

--The Huckster This excerpt from one of the articles was particularly disturbing to me:

Huckabee is very convincing at expressing regret. That's why he is doing so well in the polls: Because he is so good at sounding good, no matter whether what he says holds water or not.
[but]
What he says is an outright lie. Here is the big whopper: "Nobody, not me, not Jim Guy Tucker, not Bill Clinton, not that parole board, could ever imagine what might have transpired.. " This is, to put it kindly, a crock of manure. The whole point of the Murray Waas story out today is that Huckabee was warned repeatedly and convincingly EXACTLY what was likely to transpire if DuMond were to be released, and he ignored all those warnings. Meanwhile, the evidence presented is absolutely overwhelming that he strongly intervened with the parole board to secure DuMond's release -- and he seems to have lied about that too. Just like he lied about whether or not he was "ordered" by his state's courts to impose a particular tax hike, and just like several other now-documented misrepresentations he has made about the circumstances of his tax hikes. (To be fair, I think that at the state and local level there can indeed be reasonable times, although not many of them, to raise certain taxes for particular purposes. That said, Huck's record is in every way that of a fairly profligate taxer and spender.)

But back to DuMond: We can believe Huckabee's denials, or we can believe the overwhelmingly documented evidence. There was a time when Republicans were empiricists, meaning that we actually pay attention to evidence, to facts. The evidence here is clear. Huckabee has no good answer for it, no matter how sincerely he regrets the ultimate, deadly result of his horrendous decision -- a decision whose horrendous results were eminently predictable.

This man simply cannot be our nominee. As Reliapundit so eloquently said, "He is McCain-Lite."

WHICH RELIGION HAS GOOGLE NEVER ACKNOWLEDGED WITH A HOLIDAY LOGO?

• GOOGLE SOMETIMES DOES A SPECIAL LOGO FOR A HOLIDAY.

• THEY'VE DONE A FEW CHRISTIAN HOLIDAYS, AND CHINESE AND EVEN HINDU.

• NOT ONCE HAS A JEWISH HOLIDAY BEEN SO "HONORED".

JUST SAYING.

OH AND.... HAPPY HANUKKAH.

FROM CHINA: EVIDENCE THAT BIRD FLU IS BECOMING H2H?

BBC: 'Human-to-human' bird flu fears

The father of a Chinese man who died of bird flu has also been infected with the virus, raising fear of human-to-human transmission. [H2H.]

The World Health Organization said it could not rule out the possibility that the H5N1 virus had spread from the son to the father.

For the most part, humans have caught the virus from sick birds.

Scientists fear if the virus gains the ability to pass easily between humans, tens of millions of people could die.

• IT'S ONLY A MATTER OF WHEN. LOW ESTIMATES ARE 150 MILLION.
  

AS WE RELATED YESTERDAY, BIRD FLU IS NOW PRESENT IN 60 COUNTRIES AROUND THE GLOBE, AND HAS LED TO MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF BIRDS BEING KILLED AND CULLED ALL OVER THE WORLD.

*******UPDATE: 24HRS LATER AND GLENN REYNOLDS FINDS THE STORY. WE BEAT HIM AGAIN.

BALI STAKED OUT BY HEDGE FUNDS AND CARBON-TRADERS

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS - JUST FOLLOW THE BENJAMINS:

REUTERS:

NUSA DUA, Indonesia – Traders are already betting on a new global climate deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, as talks in Bali on Friday inched towards a two-year negotiating agenda for an expanded global climate pact.

Financiers are buying rights to emit planet-warming greenhouses gases after present Kyoto commitments expire in 2012, hoping that countries will agree new, tougher emissions limits – and drive demand for such permits.

“It's a great bet,” said one trader attending the talks on the tropical Indonesian island. The new, more speculative offsets came at a substantial discount, the trader, who declined to be named, added.

The Kyoto Protocol allows 36 rich countries to meet limits from 2008-12 on their production of greenhouse gases by buying emissions rights from developing nations.

About 190 countries attending the Dec. 3-14 meeting in Bali are edging towards launching negotiations on a successor deal to Kyoto, which is deemed too weak to win the battle against climate change.

Delegates were expected to draft on Saturday the first details of a negotiating agenda.

“You're seeing the hedge funds come in and say this is a great gamble,” said Odin Knudsen, managing director of environmental products at JPMorgan Chase and former head of the World Bank's carbon finance unit, which pioneered carbon trading under Kyoto.

• AGW CAUSED BY CO2 IS A HOAX PERPETUATED BY MISGUIDED LEFTISTS AND UNSCRUPULOUS HEDGE-FUND MANAGERS AND CARBON TRADERS.

DON'T FALL FOR IT.

DEMOCRAT HEALTHCARE PLAN: MEDICARE/MEDICAID FOR EVERYONE!

YUP: THE DEMOCRAT HEALTHCARE PLAN JUST TO GIVE MEDICARE/MEDICAID TO EVERYONE!

Essentially, that's all they really want to do. A step at a time.

Well, if MEDICARE and MEDICAID are so damn good, then why don't the Senators and Representative of Congress all switch to it first!?

If they do that FIRST, then I'll think about it.

Until then: IT'S ALL A LOT OF BS!

No different then their AGW/CO2 BS - which they also talk about a lot, while they jet all over the world and keep up two, three or four BIG HOUSES and several CARS.

Lefties are nothing more than hypocrites - they want to force us do things they'd never do themselves.

DEFENDING MARK STEYN (AND OURSELVES) FROM TYRANNY

I hope that Stanley Kurtz and Mark Steyn will forgive me for reproducing here their comments at The Corner, but Mark Steyn is one of my favorite authors and pundits and this really got under my craw.

Steyn's commentary is sharp but also funny, and his intuitive grasp of the problems we face--and how to articulate them perfectly--is rare indeed. So when Steyn (and the rest of us who wish to speak freely in a country where we are guaranteed that right) are under attack from Islamists for daring to exercise his free speech in his superb bestseller America Alone, we need to step up and insist that his rights (and ours) are vigorously defended. Especially in a society where Stalinist "PC-ism" is quickly becoming a pandemic.

I will let Kurtz explain the particular circumstances at play, rather than to try and recreate in my own words (emphases are mine, however):

Late yesterday I stumbled across an article about a "human rights complaint" filed by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) against Maclean’s, Canada’s most widely-read news magazine, for running a "flagrantly Islamophobic" excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone. At least two Canadian Human Rights Commissions have agreed to hear these complaints. Only then did I find Steyn’s too-easily-missed late-night post from Wednesday on the controversy.

This is a big deal. The blogosphere has so far largely missed it, but this attack on Mark Steyn is very much our business. There may be an impulse to dismiss this assault on Steyn, on the assumption that it will fail, that Steyn is a big boy and can take care of himself, and that in any case this is crazy Canada, where political correctness rules, rather than the land of the free. That would be a mistake. The Canadian Islamic Congress’s war on Mark Steyn and Maclean’s is an attack on all of us. I’ll say more in a moment about how a Canadian case can reach into America, but let’s first take a look at the goings on up north.

The complaints against Maclean’s for publishing an excerpt from America Alone have been filed by several Canadian law students and by Faisal Joseph, a former crown attorney. Maclean’s published a total of 27 letters over two issues in response to Steyn’s piece–more responses than any Maclean’s cover story received over the past year. Yet when the law student’s demanded a longer response, Maclean’s was willing to consider it. The students then insisted that Maclean’s run a five-page article, written by an author of their choice, with no editing by the magazine. They also demanded that the reply to Steyn be a cover story, with art controlled by them, rather than the magazine. At this point, Editor-in-Chief Kenneth Whyte showed them the door, saying he would rather let Maclean’s go bankrupt than permit someone outside of operations dictate the magazine’s content. have been filed by several Canadian

The tiff over the excerpt from America Alone is only the tip of the iceberg. The Canadian Islamic Congress has actually accused several Canadian news outlets of Islamophobia. CIC issued a report entitled "Maclean’s Magazine: A Case Study of Media-Propogated Islamophobia," in which at least 18 articles were said to show anti-Muslim bias. Canada’s National Post has been similarly attacked. Here, journalist Andrew Coyne explains how he was accused of endangering Muslims merely for having penned the phrase: "...the massive backlash against innocent Muslims that failed to materialize..."

Although the more liberal Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) has criticized CIC and defended Maclean’s, it’s worth noting that CIC has managed to successfully intimidate MCC in the past. Coyne notes that a spokesman for MCC resigned his post last year when the president of the CIC accused him of "smearing Islam." The charge of de facto apostasy left the MCC spokesman fearing for his safety.

What about the article in question–the actual excerpt from America Alone published in Maclean’s? Read it and you’ll see that Steyn is an equal opportunity savager. Enervated Europeans come in for every bit as much criticism as jihadi terrorists–more, really. The closer to home, the tougher Steyn gets. Of all European’s, Steyn is hardest on culturally "dead" Belgians, the country where Steyn’s mother and grandparents came from. The only really vicious insult in the piece is hurled at Steyn himself.

This piece by Ali Eteraz in the Guardian commendably repudiates CIC’s attack on free speech. Even so, none of Eteraz’s points against the actual substance of Steyn’s piece hold water. Steyn does not say that "all" Muslims are radicals. If anything, Steyn goes out of his way to say that matters are not so simple. For example, he notes that the radicalization of South Asian Muslims is recent, and explains that it’s the watery weakness of Europe’s own multicultural ideology that forces Muslim’s back onto radicalism for a sense of cultural coherence. If anything, the anti-free-speech attacks on Steyn and Maclean’s, by Western-trained lawyers, no less, show that Steyn’s concerns about poorly assimilated Western values are more than justified.

Ugly as this affair may be, can we assume that Steyn and Maclean’s will ultimately emerge unscathed–and that America, at least, is safe from this sort of crazy Canadian multiculturalism? No we cannot. However they’re resolved, these high profile cases take a toll on all concerned. More important, they send a chill over smaller fish.

Americans need to recognize the pattern here, and we also need to realize that it has already invaded the United States. American readers depend on international outlets. We often read our Steyn in Canadian publications. So an attack on Steyn in Canada is an attack on America. And recall the ongoing battle over "libel tourism," which resulted in attempts to use British law to pull Alms for Jihad from American library shelves. (Here’s the latest update on the libel tourism battle, and how it threatens free speech in America.) And take a look at this list of Muslim libel cases in America. (Be sure to read the end of that account for an understanding of how enervating and intimidating these cases can be–especially for targets less well-placed than Steyn or Maclean’s.)

Then consider my post from yesterday on the spread of "bias reporting systems" to American college campuses. As in Canada, these systems may begin in response to alleged "homophobia," (see the link to the article on Georgetown in my post), but they also open up opportunities for accusations of "Islamophobia." (The term itself shows the echo effect.) Making use of "bias reporting" to attack Georgetown’s Catholic culture will surely play into the hands of Georgetown’s Saudi-funded programs to promote "Muslim-Christian understanding." These programs are positive connoisseurs of "Islamophobia." Give them a bias reporting system–especially an anonymous one–and they could easily go to town. And for more on the influence of Saudi money on American education, sure to open the field to CIC-like attacks on "Islamophobia," see "Saudi in the Classroom."

Connect the dots and you will see that the attack on Mark Steyn in Canada is part and parcel of a world-wide assault on free speech that has already reached well into America. This is our battle. It is essential that there be widespread public condemnation of the attack on Mark Steyn. Not only does this "human rights" complaint have to fail, it has to fail miserably and with embarrassment. Otherwise, whatever the formal result, the chilling effect will be one more victory for the forces trying to destroy our rights.

Spot on. This morning Steyn posted this, also at The Corner (emphasis still mine):

One of the critical differences between America and the rest of the west is that America has a First Amendment and the rest don't. And a lot of them are far too comfortable with the notion that in free societies it is right and proper for the state to regulate speech. The response of the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security to the Danish cartoons was to propose a press charter that would oblige newspapers to exercise "prudence" on, ah, certain controversial subjects. The response of Tony Blair's ministry to the problems of "Londonistan" was to propose a sweeping law dramatically constraining free discussion of religion. At the end of her life, Oriana Fallaci was being sued in France, Italy, Switzerland and sundry other jurisdictions by groups who believed her opinions were not merely disagreeable but criminal. In France, Michel Houellebecq was sued by Muslim and other "anti-racist" groups who believed opinions held by a fictional character in one of his novels were not merely disagreeable but criminal.

Up north, the Canadian Islamic Congress announced the other day that at least two of Canada’s “Human Rights Commissions” – one federal, one provincial – had agreed to hear their complaints that their “human rights” had been breached by this “flagrantly Islamophobic” excerpt from my book, as published in the country’s bestselling news magazine, Maclean’s. Several readers and various Canadian media outlets have enquired what my defense to the charges is. Here’s my answer:

I can defend myself if I have to. But I shouldn’t have to.

If the Canadian Islamic Congress wants to disagree with my book, fine. Join the club. But, if they want to criminalize it, nuts. That way lies madness. America Alone was a bestseller in Canada, made all the literary Top Ten hit parades, Number One at Amazon Canada, Number One on The National Post’s national bestseller list, Number One on various local sales charts from statist Quebec to cowboy Alberta, etc. I find it difficult to imagine that a Canadian “human rights” tribunal would rule that all those Canadians who bought the book were wrong and that it is beyond the bounds of acceptable (and legal) discourse in Canada.

As I say, I find it difficult to imagine. But not impossible. These "human rights" censors started with small fry - obscure websites, "homophobes" who made the mistake of writing letters to local newspapers or quoting the more robust chunks of Leviticus - and, because they got away with it, it now seems entirely reasonable for a Canadian pseudo-court to sit in judgment on the content of a mainstream magazine and put a big old "libel chill" over critical areas of public debate. The "progressive" left has grown accustomed to the regulation of speech, thinking it just a useful way of sticking it to Christian fundamentalists, right-wing columnists, and other despised groups. They don’t know they’re riding a tiger that in the end will devour them, too.

Follow the links in the quoted pieces above, they lead to gold. Also there is more here, and here.

Kurtz is right: this is every bit as much an attack on us all. If we do not stand up with Mark Steyn against this type of Stalinist bullying, who will?

UPDATE: Speaking of Steyn, what Wretcherd said:

Mark Steyn, quoting the Australian, notices that feminist Germaine Greer finds it "too tricky" to denounce 'honor killings' in Darfur.

Pamela Bone to Germaine Greer in Melbourne last week:

I then asked why it was that Western feminists seemed so reluctant to speak out against things such as honour killings.

Greer: "It's very tricky. I am constantly being asked to go to Darfur to interview rape victims. I can talk to rape victims here. Why should I go to Darfur to talk to rape victims?"

Questioner (me): "Because it's so much worse there."

Greer: "Who says it is?"

Questioner: "I do, because I've been there."

Greer: "Well, it is just very tricky to try to change another culture. We let down the victims of rape here. We haven't got it right in our own courts. What good would it do for me to go over there and try to tell them what to do? I am just part of decadent Western culture and they think we're all going to hell fast and maybe we are all going to hell fast."

The left is too deeply invested in the narrative of self-hatred to ever hear danger approaching from without. They're stuck in an ultimate conflict of interest between their ideology and the survival of their ideology; between their freedom to destroy their culture and the freedoms that culture guarantees. That's why in Europe it is often only people like the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, who can take up the cudgels for women being hunted down like animals in through the green fields of England by their Islamic relatives, even though theoretically a British Imam's daughter condemned for having converted to Christianity could have gone to Greer, not to Nazi-Ali, for help. Dr. Nazir-Ali doesn't have to protect a circle of leftist supporters nor a public record of foolish utterance from the danger of sudden common sense.

If the Left wants to be free to think again, it must first of all divest itself, in the way it encourages everyone to divest itself from Israel, of its own fascist ideology. Oops. I repeat myself. I already observed they're stuck in an ultimate conflict of interest between their ideology and the survival of their ideology. Reboot and try again.

"CLIMATE CHANGE" WEATHER REPORT: BALI IS WARM; EUROPE AND USA SNOWY

While the UN eco-nutsies are in balmy Bali soaking up the Sun and the HEAT, the rest of us - us oil-guzzling, CO2 emitting, climate-ruining idiots are freezing our butts off.

NEED PROOF?! Here are the current weather reports.

BALI:

Detailed Local Forecast

* Today: Isolated thunderstorms this morning, becoming sunny during the afternoon hours. High 87F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
* Tonight: Cloudy intervals. Low 79F. Winds light and variable.
* Tomorrow: A few clouds from time to time. High 87F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
* Tomorrow night: Partly cloudy. Low 79F. Winds light and variable.
* Monday: Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the upper 70s.
* Tuesday: A few clouds. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the upper 70s.
* Wednesday: Sunny. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the upper 70s.

USA: More ice and snow coming

An upper level low moving southward along the California coast tonight takes up residence over the Southwest into early next week. This pattern keeps moisture flowing northward through the Southwest, the Rocky Mountains and into the Plains and Midwest. At the same time bitter cold arctic air will keep oozing southward from Canada. The combination of the arctic air and moisture produces a wide swath of wintry precipitation into early next week from the Rockies to the Northeast.

Initially the snow, sleet and ice should be on the light side Saturday and Saturday night from Kansas and Nebraska eastward to the Ohio Valley. Snow accumulations should run 1 to 4 inches across Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and southern Minnesota Saturday. A second, stronger wave of moisture invades the Plains and Midwest Sunday with heavier ice accumulations.

At this time it appears the ice should fall from the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles through southern Kansas, central and northern Missouri, central and northern Illinois, northern Indiana and northern Ohio. A narrow band of light snow and sleet is expected along the northern edge of the precipitation shield from Nebraska through Michigan. South of the wintry precipitation a band of moderate rain falls along the Ohio Valley and southern Missouri.

The second wave should end Monday morning with a third wave anticipated for Monday night and Tuesday. Skiers get an early season lift with several feet of snow expected through Monday across the Rockies from Wyoming south to Arizona and New Mexico. Accumulating snow should fall in Salt Lake City and Denver through the weekend as well. Salt Lake City will have some enhancement from the lake with amounts ranging from 4 to 8 inches by Saturday afternoon. Moisture from the western storm flies into the Northeast Sunday.

Light sleet, freezing rain and rain streaks into western Pennsylvania and western New York by midday Sunday and races to the New England coast by midnight Sunday night. There could be significant ice accumulation across southern New York state and interior New England by Monday morning. A chilly rain should fall south of the icy area for New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.

EUROPE: All white now as snow arrives

The latest snow reports

Heavy snowfall across Europe this week has helped ease concerns that a third of Europe's ski resorts may not exist by 2050.

The lack of snow in the Alps last season led to numerous British skiers opting for the better conditions of North America. Many European chalets, hotels and restaurants are relying on a good winter this year to remain in operation.
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Last year's poor snow cover, along with reports of glaciers melting this summer, prompted the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to predict that the 670 top ski resorts in Europe now would have reduced to 400 by 2050, a result of low-lying slopes succumbing to a rising snow line and warmer temperatures.

But holidaymakers have been buoyed by heavy snowfall across the Alps this week. Val Thorens and Sestriere are the pick of the resorts, with 70-80cm (28-31in) of snow on the lower runs. St Moritz and Obergurgl are already enjoying around 1.5m (5ft) of snow on their upper slopes, while Zermatt has 2m (6ft 6in) on its higher runs, after 40cm (16in) of fresh snow this week.

MORE EUROPE:

The Internet site snow-forecast.com notes that "Austria in particular has got off to a good start this season" and it predicts that the effects of tropical storm Noel will be responsible for more snowfall in Scandinavia and the Alps.

There was a cooler than normal summer and snow fell early, helping maintain the Alpine permafrost. Kitzbuehel had a record early opening, Nov. 2, six weeks ahead of schedule. Schladming's ski runs opened a full month early.

• AGW IS BS.

• A HOAX THE LEFT IS TRYING TO EXPLOIT TOP PASS THEIR LONG HELD POLICIES OF HIGHER TAXES AND MORE REGULATIONS.

DON'T FALL FOR IT.

YOU WANT CLIMATE CHANGE? THEN GET ON A JET IN THE USA OR EUROPE AND FLY TO BALI.

IMAGINE THERE'S NO LEFTISM

SC&A (VIA MOM) - (AN OLDIE BUT GOODIE - ESPECIALLY NOW WITH ROMNEY AND FAITH BACK IN THE NEWS, AND WITH HITCHENS' RECENT ATTACK ON JUDAISM):

Advocate the desecration of the Bible, and it’s art.

Advocate the desecration of the Quran and it’s racism.

Talk about the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and it’s symptomatic of the ‘rot within.’

Talk about the (many, many times) larger sexual abuse of women and children in Islamic countries and we need to sensitize ourselves to ‘cultural differences.’

Talk about FGM, well, no one cares. Indeed, if Amnesty International really cared (see this and this), the outrage over FGM would drown out every other conversation. Apparently, 100 million mutilated women and children aren’t important enough for Amnesty- or anyone else, for that matter. Then again, maybe it’s because caring about FGM won’t get you on TV or quoted in the NYT.

Imagine there is no Heaven.

Imagine a world in which religious people finally ’saw the light’ and abandoned their beliefs and behaved in the same manner as their non religious neighbors.

Do you think a secular Mother Teresa would have existed, doing her work for decades, before garnering public attention?

Do you imagine private hospitals might have been founded by groups that weren’t religious, would have lasted for decades, depending on the largesse of non religious contributors rather than government aid?

Where are they? Of course there are non religious people who do wonderful and outstanding work, day in and day out, and that is a wonderful thing. And for every one of them, there are a hundred people of faith that do the same.

Here’s another truth. Religious groups of all stripes feed millions of people a day, all over the world because if they didn’t, people would die. The choice has been made- government funded productions of the Vagina Monologues or feeding the poor. Good thing religious institutions are there to pick up the slack.

• WHEN THE LEFT ATTACKS RELIGION, ESSENTIALLY THEY'RE ADMITTING THAT THEY PREFER THE DISPROVED IDEOLOGIES OF THE LAST CENTURY (FREUD, MARX, GRAMSCI, MARCUSE, LEVI-STRAUSS, LACAN) OVER THE ETERNAL TRUTHS AND VALUES OF THE PREVIOUS 30 CENTURIES.

AND THESE ATHEISTIC LEFTISTS HAVE THE AUDACITY TO THINK THIS MAKES THEM APPEAR WISER! SHEESH.

I SAY: IMAGINE THERE'S NO LEFTISM! NOW THAT'S A HAPPY THOUGHT!

• REMEMBER: LEFTISM - AND ATHEISTS - KILLED MORE PEOPLE IN THE LAST CENTURY THAN JUDEO-CHRISTIANITY DID IN THE PREVIOUS THIRTY.

• IN OUR OWN NATION, BELIEVERS - PEOPLE OF FAITH - GAVE US THE DECLARATION, THE CONSTITUTION, ENDED SLAVERY AND SEGREGATION.

• I'LL STACK THAT UP AGAINST THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF ATHEISTS WORLDWIDE - AND FOR ALL TIME.

IOWA DOESN'T MATTER: CAUCUS HAS MOSTLY PICKED LOSERS

• OF THE LAST 4 IOWA GOP CAUCUSES, ONLY 1 WINNER WENT ON TO WIN THE PRESIDENCY: GEORGE W. BUSH.

• THE STATE MOSTLY PICKS LOSERS.

NO WONDER HUCKABEE IS LEADING.

PUTIN*S PLAN TO STAY IN POWER!!!!

According to Radio Ekko, rumors are swirling around the Kremlin that Putin is planning to sign a treaty with White Russia to create a superstate with Putin at the helm. Perhaps it was wishful thinking to believe that Putin would quietly exit the halls of power. Stay tuned...

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Islam’s Silent Moderates

AYAAN HIRSI ALI:

I wish there were more Islamic moderates.

... But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image.

We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up.

... When a “moderate” Muslim’s sense of compassion and conscience collides with matters prescribed by Allah, he should choose compassion. Unless that happens much more widely, a moderate Islam will remain wishful thinking.

• ISLAM IS NOT THE RELIGION OF PEACE.

• ISLAM IS THE RELIGION OF INTIMIDATION - SUBMISSION UNDER THE THREAT OF CRUEL VIOLENCE. ALWAYS HAS BEEN.
  

• MODERATE PEOPLE WHO HAPPEN TO BE ISLAMIC ARE INTIMIDATED BY THE MORE DEVOUT.

UNTIL THIS CHANGES - SOMEHOW, WW4 WILL CONTINUE....

EITHER WE DEFEAT THE JIHADO-THUGS, OR WE SUBMIT... LOSE.

Wikipedia Promotes Nazism??

More Leftist attention-seeking behavior:

"A left-wing German politician has filed charges against online encyclopaedia Wikipedia for promoting the use of banned Nazi symbols in Germany. Katina Schubert, a deputy leader of the Left party, said she had filed the charge with Berlin police on the grounds that Wikipedia's German language site contained too much Nazi symbolism, particularly an article on the Hitler Youth movement. "The extent and frequency of the symbols on it goes beyond what is needed for documentation and political education, in my view," she told Reuters. "This isn't about restricting freedom of opinion, it's about examining what the limits are."

Source

Its about limits on speech but not restricting freedom of speech? Limits aren't restrictions? Typical Leftist doublethink.

(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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Differences in female abilities

Post below excerpted from Taranto. See the original for links

From the New York Times:

Girls won top honors for the first time in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, one of the nation's most coveted student science awards, which were announced yesterday at New York University.

Janelle Schlossberger and Amanda Marinoff, both 17 and seniors at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School on Long Island, split the first prize--a $100,000 scholarship--in the team category for creating a molecule that helps block the reproduction of drug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria.

Isha Himani Jain, 16, a senior at Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pa., placed first in the individual category for her studies of bone growth in zebra fish, whose tail fins grow in spurts, similar to the way children's bones do. She will get a $100,000 scholarship.

The three girls' victories is "wonderful news, but I can't honestly say it's shocking," said Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Hopkins helped start a national discussion about girls and science two years ago when she walked out of a talk by Harvard University's president, Lawrence H. Summers, after he suggested that innate differences between men and women might be one reason that fewer women than men succeed in math and science careers. Dr. Summers apologized during the ensuing furor; he announced his resignation as Harvard's president 13 months later.

How pathetic is it that the Times can't report on these young ladies' accomplishments without using it as an opportunity to take potshots at Larry Summers for failing to adhere to feminist orthodoxy? But since they brought it up, we feel obliged to point out that this in no way disproves anything Summers said. He did not claim that no women succeed in math and science, only that fewer women than men do. That it is newsworthy when girls win a science contest only serves to underscore Summers's point.

Moreover, as intelligence expert Charles Murray noted in a 2005 Commentary essay, the differences between men and women are more pronounced in more abstract fields such as mathematics and theoretical physics than in less abstract ones like biology and medicine, the areas in which the girls won the prize:

In the humanities, the most abstract field is philosophy--and no woman has been a significant original thinker in any of the world's great philosophical traditions. In the sciences, the most abstract field is mathematics, where the number of great female mathematicians is approximately two (Emmy Noether definitely, Sonya Kovalevskaya maybe). In the other hard sciences, the contributions of great women have usually been empirical rather than theoretical, with leading cases in point being Henrietta Leavitt, Dorothy Hodgkin, Lise Meitner, IrSne Joliot-Curie and Marie Curie.

None of this is to disparage the accomplishments of the Siemens Competition winners. They have already accomplished more in science than any but a handful of women or men ever will, and we wish them all the success in the world if they choose a career in science (or, for that matter, if they don't). But is it really necessary for Hopkins and the Times to superimpose upon these young people's achievement a political agenda based on assumptions that cannot withstand honest scrutiny?

(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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

ELLEN AND JENNA BUSH CALL THE PRESIDENT

Video Hat tip: Patrick

JR posted about this yesterday. I thought it would be nice for the readers to see the actual video. I am not a fan of the Ellen show but I thought this whole scene was neat. It really shows what a class act the President is, and why some of us still love him.

WHAT WILL HUGO CHAVEZ DO IN 2013?

BBC: Chavez 'will step down in 2013'

Hugo Chavez Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he will step down when his current term expires in 2013, following the defeat of his reform proposals.

Last weekend, Venezuelans narrowly rejected the president's plans to reform the constitution.

They included a proposal to allow him to run for re-election indefinitely.

Mr Chavez has said the country voted no because it was blackmailed by violence threats and on Wednesday said he would try again to push through his reforms.

Venezuelans voted 51% to 49% against the proposals in Sunday's national referendum.

The result was a blow to Mr Chavez, who had previously secured convincing victories in elections and referendums, including his triumph last December in the presidential poll with 63% of the vote.

In his first public statement that he would step down as planned, Mr Chavez said: "The reforms did not get passed, so I will have to leave power in 2013.

I will work around the clock; until the very last day I have left here, I will work relentlessly."

• MAYBE AL GORE CAN GET HIM A LUCRATIVE JOB TRADING CARBON INDULGENCES?

• OR HE CAN GO ON PEACE MISSIONS WITH JIMMY CARTER?

• OR HOLD LOVE-INS WITH MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD?

• OR SOCIALISM-IN-ACTION TRAINING SEMINARS WITH MUGABE AND FIDEL?

• OR HE CAN CO-STAR IN A MOVIE STARRING SEAN PENN, DANNY GLOVER, HARRY BELAFONTE AND ROSIE O'DONNELL - DIRECTED BY MICHAEL MOORE?

• OR HE CAN BE VOTED IN AS UN SECRETARY GENERAL?

• OR HE CAN GO TO HELL.

I LIKE THE LATTER. BUT WHY WAIT FOR 2013?

TOM CRUISE - AGW SKEPTIC: TOMKAT ENJOYING SNOWY ALPS!

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are on a SKIING holiday in the Italian Alps:

• Don't they know that there's no snow there because of MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMENING!?

• What if Al Gore and Michael Moore and Rob Reiner and Ahnold find out!?

• MAYBE TOMKAT DON'T BELIEVE IN MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING!?

• THEN AGAIN... MAYBE TOM CRUISE IS AN AGW SKEPTIC? I MEAN, HE'S EVEN ALLOWED HIMSELF TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED ON A FREAKIN' GAS-GUZZLING CO2-EMITTING SNOWMOBILE!
  

• OR MAYBE HE'S A JUST A HYPOCRITE - LIKE MOST OF THE OTHER ECO-NUTSIES WHO JET AROUND THE GLOBE WHILE TELLING US TO USE LESS ENERGY!

• MAYBE THE UN'S TRANSNATIONAL AGW BUREAUCRATS WOULD BE LESS APOCALYPTICALLY HYSTERICAL IF THEY HELD THEIR CONFERENCE IN THE COLD AND SNOWY DOLOMITES INSTEAD OF THE BALMY BEACHES OF BALI?

YA THINK!?

THIS STORY IS ALSO A REMINDER: THERE'S PLENTY OF SNOW IN THE ALPS!

BIRD FLU NOW IN 60 COUNTRIES GLOBALLY

AP: Bird flu spreads to 60 countries, pandemic risk still high: UN

Bird flu in poultry and wild birds spread to 60 countries but is entrenched only in six because of improved and faster responses, experts said.

Despite those strides, the risk of a worldwide human-to-human pandemic remains as great today as it was when the hard-to-treat H5N1 flu strain first gained intense attention in mid-2005, said a new report by Dr. David Nabarro, the UN official co-ordinating the global fight against avian influenza, and World Bank officials.

"We think it will happen sometime but we don't know when or where," Nabarro said Thursday.

Three years ago, H5N1 was found in poultry and wild birds in nine countries, the UN bird flu chief said. The increase is thought to have resulted more from trade in infected live birds than by transmission through wild birds, whose migrations change with weather.

... Sporadic human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 strain has been reported in Hong Kong, Vietnam and Indonesia but none of the cases has been proven and officials determined there was no epidemiological significance because the spread was not sustained.

• FROM 9 TO 60 COUNTRIES.

• MILLIONS OF INFECTED BIRDS CULLED THIS YEAR.

IT'S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME...

WHAT RUSSIAN ROULETTE TELLS US ABOUT THE NIE

• SOMEBODY ELSE BLOGGED THIS FIRST BUT I CAN'T FIND THE LINK:

• WHAT IF... YOU WERE PLAYING RUSSIAN ROULETTE, AND YOU WERE TOLD THAT THERE WAS A MODERATE-TO-HIGH CHANCE THAT THE NEXT CHAMBER DID NOT HAVE A BULLET IN IT.

• WOULD YOU PULL THE TRIGGER?

I WOULDN'T.

THAT'S WHY I THINK WE MUST NOT RELAX AND LEARN TO LOVE THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM.

HOW THE GOP CAN UN-MIFF THE MORMONS AND SEND A POWERFUL PRO-FAITH/PRO-PLURALISM MESSAGE

Jonah Goldberg wrote a post at The Corner called MIFFED MORMONS - and he followed it up with some comments from email - sample:

...after having seen how Romney is treated in many GOP circles, there are lot of Mormons who are feeling more than a little put out with our own party.

Here's the real answer (from an earlier post):

All the GOP candidates should go to Salt Lake City one Sunday before Iowa and attend a Mormon Mass with Mitt; (UPDATE - in a Chapel as is their custom, not a Temple).


Update: Dr. Shackelford likes the idea and in his inimitable style CRANKS IT UP A NOTCH making it a direct challenge to Huckabee. CHECK IT OUT.

NIE SAYS IRAN HAS THE KEY TO A NUKE - SO, WHY ARE WE NOT WORRIED?

From Frank Warner:

Thomas Fingar, one of the three principal authors of the new and controversial
National Intelligence Estimate, makes my point for me -- or at least he made the
point in 2001.

The most difficult thing a trouble-maker has to do to make an atomic bomb, he said six and a half years ago, is obtain the highly enriched uranium (or plutonium) for the weapon.

Yet Fingar concludes in the new NIE report that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. He reaches this conclusion despite knowing that Iran today is obtaining highly enriched uranium by producing it IN PLAIN SIGHT.

‘Difficult ... to produce.’ Fingar, deputy director for analysis to the U.S. Director of
National Intelligence, testified Feb. 13, 2001, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

“[A]lthough the basic understanding of nuclear weapons physics is widespread, nuclear weapons are, fortunately, the most difficult kind to produce or acquire. Access to fissile material is a critical impediment.”

The “critical impediment” is finding the highly enriched uranium, which a nuclear device can split with devastating effect. At this moment, Iran’s theocracy has at least 3,000 centrifuges enriching uranium, producing a bomb’s critical ingredient.

Of, course, the mullahs say the enriched uranium is for nuclear reactors to make electricity. But considering how Fingar and the others contributing to the NIE agree that Iran did have a nuclear weapons program before 2003, what makes them think with “high confidence” or even “moderate confidence” that Iran’s regime truly has halted the program?

Just four months ago, Fingar told the House Armed Services Committee:

“We assess that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons -- despite its international obligations and international pressure. This is a grave concern to the other countries in the region whose security would be threatened should Iran acquire nuclear weapons.”

What happened between then -- July 11 -- and three days ago, when the NIE declared the Iranian regime probably stopped the weapons program four years ago?

Short of mental telepathy, how can our intelligence community conclude that the Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, isn’t pursuing a nuclear weapon?

There is some evidence supporting the NIE. Apparently, in August of this year, intelligence services obtained the minutes of conversations and deliberations of Iranian military officials. The “military notes” indicate these military officials were angry that their superiors cut off work on fitting a nuclear warhead onto an Iranian missile.

Exactly how long does it take to draw up and build a shell capable of carrying an atomic bomb atop a missile? Iran already has launched conventional warheads on its missiles. If Iran has the nuclear bomb design -- and most in the intelligence community assume Iran does have it -- cradling it in a nose-cone is the least of the ayatollah’s problems.

Something doesn't add up here. Enrichment is the key "critical impediment." And, we know Iran has been enriching uranium, right? Additionally, we know they have admitted [BRAGGED!] to have an array of 3000 centrifuges.

One has to wonder why we are so confident.

Do we, perhaps, know of deep technical problems Iran might be having? And, if so, might it be that we know of these problems because we planted them somehow? Information sabotage, perhaps?

*******UPDATE (Reliapundit): HERE'S A LINK ON THE SABOTAGE ANGLE - FROM OUR OWN JON JAY RAY; EXCERPT:

CBS helps Iranian nuke program: "How do you say, "Thank you, CBS!" in Farsi?

The Jerusalem Post notes that CBS has alerted the Mullahs and their nuclear scientists to an intelligence black op that might have set back their nuclear program.

Intelligence operatives in the US and its allied nations have sold Iran flawed technological components in an attempt to sabotage the country's nuclear enrichment program, CBS News revealed Wednesday evening.

In January 2007, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, Vice-President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, said after an explosion at the Natanz nuclear facility (the first Iranian plant to attempt enrichment) that some of the equipment had been "manipulated."

The explosion destroyed 50 of the plant's centrifuges.

Other evidence has indicated that sabotage was the reason for some of the technical problems Iran has encountered in its enrichment enterprise.

Sources told CBS intelligence agencies have altered technical data, making it "useless."

Reliapundit adds: Maybe Bush has stopped worrying and has learned to love the Iranian bomb? There another possibility: This is a head-fake by the USA to gain the element of SURPRISE when we DO ATTACK.

(I'D PREFER KNOWING WE SABOTAGED THEIR ENRICHMENT ARRAY.)

TERRORIST BOMB DELIVERY IN FRANCE MURDERS SECRETARY

A bomb was delivered to president Sarkozy's former law office building, which also houses a Holocaust research center:

PARIS (AP) - A parcel bomb exploded at a lawyer's office in central Paris on Thursday, killing one person and seriously injuring another, officials said.

The Interior Ministry said several other people were suffering from shock.

"Someone came to the office and left a package. The secretary who opened it in fact opened a parcel bomb. The parcel bomb killed her," said Christian Charriere-Bournazel, the incoming president of the Paris bar.

He said the injured person was a lawyer and that the woman who was killed was his secretary.

In the same building as the lawyer's office that was targeted is a foundation that does research on the Holocaust and a law firm that Nicolas Sarkozy, now the French president, used to work with. Sarkozy trained as a lawyer.

Officials stressed, however, that the motive for the attack was unclear.

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said the bombed lawyer's office was on the same floor - the 4th - as the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, created in 2000 with an endowment from recovered funds that were confiscated from French Jews during World War II. It supports research and education about the Holocaust and Jewish culture.

Another Paris official, Francoise de Panafieu, said the secretary who died opened the package in the presence of the lawyer, who was injured. Police told her the man was being treated for his wounds. Most of the other people injured had light injuries and shock, she said, without specifying the exact number of injured.

The law office in the building opened by Sarkozy and two other lawyers was not answering phones Thursday afternoon. It was opened in 1987, according to the company's Web site. The practice changed its name from Arnaud Claude-Nicolas Sarkozy after Sarkozy's election in May, and is now called Arnaud Claude and Associates.

My guess is that the Muslim entity that doubtlessly resents Sarkozy's serious response to the riots last week must have sent that bomb as a threat, and also to target the Holocaust research foundation that works there as well. I hope they'll be caught, and that an investigation is underway.

Meet the neo-cons' neo-con

Occasionally you recognise that you are in the presence of human greatness. I had that experience this week in Jerusalem when I went to interview Natan Sharansky. Sharansky was one of the most famous dissidents and refuseniks of the Soviet Union. Refuseniks were Russian Jews who wanted to live as Jews and migrate to Israel. They were prevented from doing either of these things by the harsh, totalitarian Soviet system.

Sharansky spent nearly 10 years in Soviet prisons and labour camps, frequently on hunger strike, always defiant, insanely brave. Many people across the world campaigned for the refuseniks' freedom and, of course, Americans were critical. But Australians also played a distinguished role in this campaign, especially Bob Hawke and Jewish leader Isi Leibler. Then, on one incredible day in 1986, Sharansky went from a KGB prison in the morning to a plane to Germany in the afternoon, then on another plane to Jerusalem in the evening. "I went straight from hell to paradise," he recalls. "The rulers of Iran can only imagine such a journey. I went from hatred to love, from the darkness of prison to the bright sun. Of course, if you go straight to heaven, you can only go down from there. I still live in paradise, but paradise needs a few repairs."

He seems a man very much at ease in his own skin. He smiles frequently. A satirical cartoon of himself adorns one wall, across from a picture of another great Soviet dissident, Andrei Sakharov. I seek enlightenment from Sharansky on two questions: why does Israel get such a bad press in the West, far worse than it deserves, and can democracy work in Arab societies? Sharansky agrees that Israel consistently gets a far worse press than it deserves. He accepts that there are many reasons for this, from the power, money and influence that flow from Arab oil to the recrudescent anti-Semitism of recent years.

But he also nominates, especially in the case of European hostility to Israel, a particular ideological factor. He says: "Israel is at the centre of the struggle between the totalitarian and the ideological, between the fundamentalist and the unfaithful. It is an assertive nation-state at a time when the leading ideology in Europe is post-nationalism and multiculturalism, especially in respect of the EU, and building post-state institutions. So the Europeans see Israel as nationalist and the last outpost of colonialism.

"But Europe now is in a much more difficult situation ideologically than Israel. They tried to build their new society only on human rights. They believe the nation-state has human rights but no commitment to identity. They find a minority (part of the Muslim population) which has a strong identity and no commitment to human rights. "Europeans find themselves helpless in the face of this and I believe that Europe will have to go back to national identity. "Democracy must have a connection with identity. There must be a national, democratic state. Israel can only survive in this region as a democratic, Jewish state. This is anathema to Europe."

The same syndrome of disdain for religion and civic-national identity informs much European hostility to the US as well, Sharansky believes. Because the French Revolution was against religion, Europeans have mistakenly come to the view that religion is the enemy of democracy. But the US and Israel were both founded with strong religious identities and have become thriving democracies. "America is a country tolerant to both faith and identity," Sharansky says. "Muslims come to America and accept the rules of democracy. They come to Europe and don't accept the rules of democracy because it was never demanded of them."

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

A real father. Is this the evil Fascist the Left obsess about?

Unlike Hillary's interviews, this did not have to be scripted



US first daughter Jenna Bush appeared nervous when Ellen DeGeneres asked her to call her parents during a taping of DeGeneres's talk show on Tuesday. The show aired on Wednesday. "They're going to kill me," the 26-year-old daughter of President George Bush told DeGeneres. "I'm going to be in so much trouble."

All was well, though, when she reached her parents on speakerphone. "I'm just sitting here with daddy," Laura Bush told her daughter, to which DeGeneres chimed in: "Oh hey! It's Ellen. I wanted to say hi to daddy." So the president got on the line: "How's my little girl doing?"

"Oh, she's great. She's scared she's going to get in trouble because I just said, 'Is it easy to just pick up the phone and call your dad anytime'?" DeGeneres said. "And now she's scared she's not going to get any Christmas presents."

Bush said he was not angry. "I do want to say Merry Christmas to your audience and I want to tell my little girl I love her," the president said. "I love you too, Dad," Jenna responded.

Source

(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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Britain: The Wonders of Islam

A British muslim woman converted to Christianity, now her family want to see her dead kill her:

The daughter of a British imam is under police protection after she received death threats from her family for converting to Christianity.

The woman, aged 32, whose father is a Muslim imam in Lancashire, has moved house 45 times to escape detection by her family since she became a Christian 15 years ago.

Hannah, who uses a pseudonym to hide her identity, told The Times that she became a Christian after she ran away from home at 16 to escape an arranged marriage. The threats against her became more serious a month ago, prompting police to offer her protection in case of an attempt on her life.

...

Hannah, who gives talks to churches on Islam, has been in hiding since her home was attacked by a group of men armed with knives, axes and hammers, in 1994.

In a civilized world your brother would defend you, but not when he follows the Koran:

The latest threat was a text message from one of her brothers, warning that he could not be responsible for his actions if she did not return to Islam.

“I know the Koran says that anyone who goes away from Islam should be killed as an apostate so in some ways my family are following the Koran. They are following Islam to the word. But I do not think every Muslim would actually act on that,” she said.

"Oh", you think, "it must be a tiny, tiny minority.":

Earlier this year, a Policy Exchange study found that 36 per cent of British Muslims aged between 16 and 24 believed those who converted to another religion should be punished by death.

Poor girl.

But I am sure the feminists are all over the case.

Cross-posted

The NIE: a purposefully mismatched headline

Atlas points us to the single most important analysis of the NIE that I've yet seen. Robert Tracinski, writing at The Intellectual Activist (subscription required), strips away the fantasy around the NIE and leaves only cold, irreducible facts.

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is a surprisingly short and thin document that offers nothing substantively new. It does not reveal any major new evidence about Iran's nuclear program or its intentions, nor does it even refer to the existence of such evidence...

It does not deny, for example, that Iran has obtained blueprints and technical guidance on how to build the core of a nuclear weapon and on how to mount nuclear bombs on a missile. These facts have already been admitted by Iran and acknowledged by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. The NIE does not deny that Iran is enriching uranium on an industrial scale, because that is also public knowledge, loudly and boastfully announced by Ahmadinejad.

...All that the new NIE does is to add a prominent statement that Iran suspended its covert enrichment program—which Iran then exchanged for an open, ostensibly civilian enrichment program. But this makes little difference; uranium enriched by a civilian program can still be diverted to make a bomb. And then the NIE adds its opinion that this relatively minor change was in response to "international pressure."

...The NIE acknowledges, for example, that it has no evidence that Iran has actually halted its entire nuclear weapons program... In other words, Iran devoted two decades and billions of dollars to developing nuclear weapons, which it needs if it's going to thwart the Great Satan—so why should it stop trying?

...The full picture of Iran's activity over the past four years is that of a dangerous power seeking to assert regional dominance and to spread its ideology of radical Islam by encouraging the aggression of an "Islamist Axis" of terrorist militias [insurgencies, the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah] across the greater Middle East. Yet all of this is completely evaded in the NIE's benevolent assessment of Iran's intentions.

...[The NIE] is an exercise in writing pro-Iran headlines over text that doesn't support it.

Maybe Iran's mullahs were just kidding about destroying America, the U.K. and Israel. But I wouldn't count on it.

Atlas has Tracinski's entire piece. Read it all.

Cros-posted at Doug Ross @ Journal

WHAT THE GOP SHOULD DO ABOUT MITT'S RELIGION

A JACKSONIAN HAS A GREAT POST ON THE MITT THING.

HE POINTS OUT THAT WE'VE HAD NON-PROTESTANT PRESIDENT'S SINCE THE GET GO (LONG BEFORE JFK), AND RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY, TOO; (PARAPHRASING FOLLOWS - GO TO THE POST AND READ THE WHOLE LINK-FILLED THING!):

• TAFT WAS ONE SUCH CANDIDATE. HE WAS TARGETED BECAUSE HE WAS... A UNITARIAN.

• TO HELP PUT DOWN THIS BIGOTRY, TEDDY ROOSEVELT WENT TO CHURCH WITH TAFT.

• TAFT WAS ELECTED.

• OH... AND TAFT WAS GOP.

• THE CURRENT CROP OF GOP CANDIDATES SHOULD RALLY AROUND MITT - AND THE CAUSE OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN OUR NATION.
  

• THEY SHOULD ALL FLY TO SALT LAKE AND ATTEND CHURCH TOGETHER - A MORMON CHURCH.

THAT WILL END THAT.

TO THE PARTY'S BETTERMENT.

AND THE NATION'S.

8pm - 12/06/07 Update: Welcome JAWA readers - Rusty likes the idea and has taken it up a notch by making it a challenge to Huckabee.

WHAT DOES CNN STAND FOR?

Clinton News Network?

Communist News Network?

Corrupt News Network?--This even coming from the liberal LA Times.

You decide!! The debate last week said much more about CNN than it did about the candidates.

WHAT IF... One nuclear weapon. One missile. One motivated maniac.

• WHAT IF... THE MOST RECENT NIE'S MODERATE-TO-HIGH CONFIDENCE THAT IRAN HAS STOPPED THEIR NUKE PROGRAM IS MISPLACED?

• WHAT IF THEY ALREADY HAVE A BOMB - AND A PLAN TO USE IT - JUST ONE BOMB - IN A DEVASTATING ATTACK ON THE USA?

IT'S POSSIBLE.

CLIMATE CHANGE: "IT'S THE SUN, STUPID!"

BELFAST TELEGRAPH:

Something is happening to our Sun. It has to do with sunspots, or rather the activity cycle their coming and going signifies. After a period of exceptionally high activity in the 20th century, our Sun has suddenly gone exceptionally quiet. Months have passed with no spots visible on its disc.

We are at the end of one cycle of activity and astronomers are waiting for the sunspots to return and mark the start of the next, the so-called cycle 24. They have been waiting for a while now with no sign it's on its way any time soon.

Sunspots – dark magnetic blotches on the Sun's surface – come and go in a roughly 11-year cycle of activity first noticed in 1843. It's related to the motion of super-hot, electrically charged gas inside the Sun – a kind of internal conveyor belt where vast sub-surface rivers of gas take 40 years to circulate from the equator to the poles and back. Somehow, in a way not very well understood, this circulation produces the sunspot cycle in which every 11 years there is a sunspot maximum followed by a minimum.

But recently the Sun's internal circulation has been failing. In May 2006 this conveyor belt had slowed to a crawl – a record low. Nasa scientist David Hathaway said: "It's off the bottom of the charts... this has important repercussions for future solar activity."

What's more, it's not the only indicator that the Sun is up to something.

... Ever since the sunspot cycle was discovered, researchers have looked for its rhythm superimposed on the Earth's climate. In some cases it's there but usually at low levels.

But there was something strange about the time when the sunspots disappeared that left scientists to ponder if the sun's unusual behaviour could have something to do with the fact that the 17th century was also a time when the Earth's northern hemisphere chilled with devastating consequences.

Scientists call that event the "Little Ice Age" and it affected Europe at just the wrong time. In response to the more benign climate of the earlier Medieval Warm Period, Europe's population may have doubled. But in the mid-17th century demographic growth stopped and in some areas fell, in part due to the reduced crop yields caused by climate change. Bread prices doubled and then quintupled and hunger weakened the population. The Italian historian Majolino Bisaccioni suggested that the wave of bad weather and revolutions might be due to the influence of the stars. But the Jesuit astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli speculated that fluctuations in the number of sunspots might be to blame, for he had noticed they were absent.

Looking back through sunspot records reveals many periods when the Sun's activity was high and low and in general they are related to warm and cool climatic periods.

As well as the Little Ice Age, there was the weak Sun and the cold Iron Age, the active sun and the warm Bronze Age.

Scientists cannot readily explain how the Sun's activity affects the Earth but it is an observational correlation that the Sun's moods have a climatic effect on the Earth.

Today's climate change consensus is that man-made greenhouse gases are warming the world and that we must act to curb them to reduce the projected temperature increase estimated at probably between 1.8C and 4.0C by the century's end.

But throughout the 20th century, solar cycles had been increasing in strength.

Almost everyone agrees that throughout most of the last century the solar influence was significant. Studies show that by the end of the 20th century the Sun's activity may have been at its highest for more than 8,000 years.

Other solar parameters have been changing as well, such as the magnetic field the Sun sheds, which has almost doubled in the past century. But then things turned. In only the past decade or so the Sun has started a decline in activity, and the lateness of cycle 24 is an indicator.

... The first indications that the Sun is emerging from its current sunspot minimum will be the appearance of small spots at high latitude. They usually occur some 12-20 months before the start of a new cycle. These spots haven't appeared yet so cycle 24 will probably not begin to take place until 2009 at the earliest. The longer we have to wait for cycle 24, the weaker it is likely to be. Such behaviour is usually followed by cooler temperatures on Earth.

The past decade has been warmer than previous ones. It is the result of a rapid increase in global temperature between 1978 and 1998.

Since then average temperatures have held at a high, though steady, level.

Many computer climate projections suggest that the global temperatures will start to rise again in a few years.

But those projections do not take into account the change in the Sun's behaviour.

The tardiness of cycle 24 indicates that we might be entering a period of low solar activity that may counteract man-made greenhouse temperature increases.

Some members of the Russian Academy of Sciences say we may be at the start of a period like that seen between 1790 and 1820, a minor decline in solar activity called the Dalton Minimum.

They estimate that the Sun's reduced activity may cause a global temperature drop of 1.5C by 2020. This is larger than most sensible predictions of man-made global warming over this period.

... Perhaps the lateness of cycle 24 might even be the start of another Little Ice Age.

If so, then our Sun might come to our rescue over climate change, mitigating mankind's influence and allowing us more time to act. It might even be the case that the Earth's response to low solar activity will overturn many of our assumptions about man's influence on climate change.

We don't know.

We must keep watching the sun.

Dr David Whitehouse is an astronomer and the author of 'The Sun: A Biography' (John Wiley, 2004)

... Seasons of the Sun

Modern Solar Minimum

(2000-?)

Modern Climate Optimum

(1890–2000) – the world is getting warmer. Concentrations of greenhouse gas increase. Solar activity increases.

Dalton Solar Minimum

(1790–1820) – global temperatures are lower than average.

Maunder Solar Minimum

(1645–1715) – coincident with the 'Little Ice Age'.

Spörer Solar Minimum

(1420-1530) – discovered by the analysis of radioactive carbon in tree rings that correlate with solar activity – colder weather. Greenland settlements abandoned.

Wolf Solar Minimum

(1280–1340) – climate deterioration begins. Life gets harder in Greenland.

Medieval Solar Maximum

(1075–1240) – coincides with Medieval Warm Period. Vikings from Norway and Iceland found settlements in Greenland and North America.

Oort Solar Minimum

(1010-1050) – temperature on Earth is colder than average.

There seem to have been 18 sunspot minima periods in the last 8,000 years; studies indicate that the Sun currently spends up to a quarter of its time i n these minima.

http://www.solarcycle24.com/

Great Frost of 1683: http://www.londononline.co.uk/history/thames/4/

• THE LEFT HAS SEIZED UPON THE MAN-MADE VERSION MERELY IN ORDER TO PASS THEIR LONG HELD POLICIES: HIGHER TAXES AND MORE REGULATION.

DON'T FALL FOR IT.