CAUSES OF GLOBAL WARMING: DIRTY AIR OR CLEAN?

Two new studies confirm that CLEANER air contribute to global warming (hat-tip MICHELE MALKIN). Cleaner air - with less smog, less dark particulates that SHADED THE EARTH FROM RADIANT WARMING - means that the Earth absorbs more heat, warms up more.

Increased sunlight is powerful; this increased local sunlight (from lack of cloud cover) - and NOT GLOBAL/MAN-MADE CO2 is what's causing the Kilimanjaro Glacier to melt (see previous post HERE).

The MORE SMOG we have; the LESS HOT the Earth gets. SMOG/POLLUTION DECREASES global warming.

It seems to me, therefore, that the Leftie "GLOBAL WARMING FREAKS" - who up until now have militantly supported KYOTO - should instead be pro-pollution and demanding a repeal of KYOTO and the CLEAN AIR-CLEAN WATER ACT. Heh.

SERIOUSLY: I think these studies show just how COMPLEX global atmospherics really are. And why we shouldn't just rush into ALARMIST treaties (like KYOTO) which will hamstring economic growth and thereby impair the First World's ability to improve Third World living standards. IMHO: the greatest contribution advanced ecomonies can make to improving Third World living standards would occur if the Global community would ABANDON KYOTO and just spend more money on water treatment and malaria control in the Third World.

SOCIALISTS IN GERMANY: THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...

The SOCIALISTS're at it again in Germany: blaming external/non-German leeches for their domestic economic woes (which is what SOCIALIST Hitler did the last time UNEMPLOYMENT was as high as it is now). It didn't do them - or the world - any good the last time the socialists tried this strategy; it won;t so anybody any good now, either. (THEY REALLY NEED A GERMAN THATCHER AND THEY NEED HER NOW!)

I link; you decide.

SOUTH AMERICAN SOCIALISTS REVEAL THEIR PRIORITIES

NYTIMES/WORLD BRIEFINGS:

BRAZIL: U.S. TERMS FOR AIDS HELP SPURNED - The Ministry of Health has turned down a $40 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development [that's USAID - the LEAD agency for TSUNAMI RELIEF, among other things] - to help fight AIDS rather than accept a Bush administration policy that would have required it to condemn prostitution.

So, let's get this straight: the Brazilians would rather NOT condemn prostitution, and let their prized whores go on infecting people with STD'S - which INCLUDES HIV - than take direct aid from the USA.

Then, they deserve socialism and AIDS.

IN GOD WE TRUST

The WSJ had TWO fascinating MUST READ OP-EDS on the separation of church and state. One, in favor of religion's influence on the state, by James Taranto - of BOTW fame; the other by renowned atheist former socialist and pro-Bush Hawk - the brilliant Chris Hitchens.

I think Hitchens - and the religiophobic Left - miss the point ENTIRELY: Hitch makes a decent argument for why the state must NEVER become sectarian, but he is completely blind to why the PEOPLE (from whom the state derives all of its just and limited powers) are better off if their core beliefs are religiously informed - AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SECTARIANISM.

The great positive value of religiousness TRANSCENDS SECTARIANISM, and this is evidenced by the fact that so many of the Founding Fathers were Deists. Having a deep belief in transcendent UNIVERSAL VALUES based on eternal truths that are beyond and above human perspective has been an extremely valuable and positive influence on human behavior and on government in a PLURALISTIC republican democratic system.

We should NEVER have a state where one SECT has secular power over ANYONE, AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT OUR CONSTITUTION SAYS! The Constitution does NOT REPEAT DOES NOT say that there must be a wall of separation between religion and state (to use Hitchens expression); the Constitution merely says that the State shall NOT ESTABLISH an official religion - which meant that the governement shall not tax everyone and give the money to a sect, or put one sect above the others.

Hitchens and the Left CONFUSE AND CONFLATE these two ideas, and that another reason that they are so religiophiobic. (For other reasons click HERE and HERE.)

Being a people whose majority still recognizes transcendent UNIVERSAL values means we have BEDROCK UNCHANGING VALUES to use as a compass as temporal things shift year to year, and it keeps our state from becoming a mere majoritarian tool relativistic trends: just because a majority of voters wanna do something doesn't mean it's RIGHT in a transcendent UNIVERSAL sense; that why we have a Constitution, and its why our DECLARATION declares that we are ENDOWED RIGHTS BY OUR CREATOR (and not the King, or a Prime Minister, or a Parliament or anything or anybody else! And NO MAJORITY can EVER take these ENDOWED RIGHTS away from us).

Contrary to what the Left feels, people of faith are not idiotarian podunks with torches hunting witches; people of faith ended slavery, and founded ALL the great Ivy League universities in this country. And NON-SECTARIAN religiousness made Washington and Lincoln and FDR universalists who defended and promoted the UNIVERSAL VALUES which are the underlying reason for democracy for each and every human.

We must never allow any sect - INLCUDING THE TINY SECT OF ATHEISM - to have control of our government. But we should allow the NON-SECTARIAN UNIVERSALISM and TRANSCENDENCE of religion to inform EVERYTHING WE DO, EVERYDAY - including our laws, and our government.

Our lives and our liberty and our happiness are much improved when they are tempered by faith in a power and in values and in laws which are beyond our reach as individuals and our reach as a people and beyond the reach of any politician. These are the RELIGIOUS YET NON-SECTARIAN values - perhaps best described as NATURAL LAW - which are embedded the bedrock of our nation: The Declaration and The Constitution.

History shows that when "Do what thou wilt" is the whole of the law, or that when people "Do what is right in their own eyes" that evil and chaos and mayhem result.

WHY IS THIS SO? Well, when we cast the non-sectarian universal values over-the-side than our ship of state can only drift with the trendy winds (or be led by the strongest strong-arm who manages to get control of the tiller) until it crashes into the reef of moral relativism and sinks into the sea of regrets.

The UNIVERSAL, TRANSCENDENT AND ETERNAL VALUES WHICH ONLY RELIGION PROVIDES are the map and the compass and the North Star. With them we won't get lost or sink into the sea.

UPDATE: David Brooks has interesting things to say on the issue HERE. I think he - like Hitchens - is too timid of non-sectarian influence; I think this BIAS AGAINST RELIGION is a result of the fact that the Academy is dominated by ATHEISTIC Leftists who have more-or-less brain-washed a few generations of Americans into believing that religion is bad. In fact, SOCIALISM killed more people in the 20th Century than religion did in that century or IN THE PRECEDING 20!

Atheism, and religiophobia are the "opiates" of the Left; socialism is the syringe. The Left-wing professors who dominate the Academy are the dope-pushers. The Left-wingers who dominate the MSM and Hollywood are their apologists.

SENATE TO ISSUE SUBPOENAS IN OIL FOR FOOD SCANDAL

FOX NEWS: NEW YORK —

Sen. Norm Coleman is preparing subpoenas in order to force two former Oil-for-Food investigators to testify, FOX News has learned.The Republican chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations could issue the direct challenge as early as Wednesday to Paul Volcker, head of the Independent Inquiry Committee probing corruption in the $64 billion U.N. program. The subpoenas would be the latest salvo in a brewing fight over access to possibly incriminating testimony and diplomatic immunity.

[...]

After the release of the second report, Parton and Duncan resigned as investigators, objecting to the committee's handling of Annan's dealings with Swiss company Cotecna, which was contracted under the program and that once employed Kojo Annan. "Contrary to recent published reports, I resigned my position as senior investigative counsel for the IIC not because my work was complete but on principle," Parton told The Associated Press in a statement.

Congressional sources told FOX News last week that they believe Volcker is terrified of the damage the investigators' testimony could do to his credibility. U.N. experts said the showdown between Volcker and Congress would be critical. “It's also being pointed out that if Mr. Volcker is asserting that his team has U.N. diplomatic immunity, then he is admitting that his committee is not in fact independent but a part of the very organization it is supposed to be objectively investigating,” said Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation.

The MSM has virtually ignored this HUGE story - and Volker's own conflict if interest. Thank God for Claudia Rossett and Fox and Roger L. Simon. Watch them - and Austin Bay - talk about it on Kudlow & Co, courtesy of Trey Jackson. And God Bless Norm Coleman.

YOM HASHOAH

Yom Hashoah - which begins this evening - commemorates The Holocaust. The Holocaust was but one instance of genocide against the Jewish People. It was an awful one, on a scale that still sickens the soul and boggles the mind of any sane person. The Holocaust murdered ONE THIRD of the Jewish People. But it did not wipe us out. Nothing has. Ever.

Genesis 12:2-3 :

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

How could these two sentences in The Bible be true if history reflects that in age after age, tyrant after tyrant has attacked the Jews? Because, the Jews survived each genocidal attack, while their attackers have vanished: the Pharoah and his ilk are GONE; the Assyrian Kingdom and its creed - GONE; the Roman Empire and its pantheon is GONE; the NAZIS, Hitler and his 1000 year Reich - dead, and their modern, nihilistic ideology - GONE. And so on.

What is it that makes the Jews able to persist while these "great" empires have vanished? The word of the Lord.

My extended family lost nearly two dozen in The Holocaust. My people lost a third of our brethren. But what has Europe lost?

Perhaps the Europeans too will vanish - just as Byzantium vanished into Turkey, and just as Constantinople - the seat of the Empire - became Istanbul. Perhaps modern Europe - which is fading from political relevance TODAY - will vanish as an outpost of Western Civilization in the near future, as a result of: demographic entropy; their surrender to non-Western non-assimiliating immigrant culture; and their adherence to chic post-war/post-modern versions of nihilistic moral relativism. Europe is fast becoming Eurabia, and when that transformation is complete, then Europe as we have known her for the last two thousand years, will have vanished.

Or, perhaps Pope Benedict 16 -- a German and a Gentile who is a friend to the Jewish People, who has avowed that The Scripture is true, the Mosaic Covenant still valid, and the Jewish People practising an authentic faith of God -- will be able to save Europe. He has said that this is his major mission; it's even why he chose the name he did. The Pope knows exactly who his enemy is: nihilistic moral relativism. If he can undo Europe's nihilistic moral relativism - and get the Europeans to truly repent, to truly turn away from their anti-Semitism and their anti-Zionism - in their streets, and in their homes, and in their Parliaments (which nearly all favor the enemies of Israel), then perhaps Europe will be saved. And Scripture - in this case Genesis 12: 2-3 - once again fulfilled. Either way: Scripture will be fulfilled...

MEXICO: FROM THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FLAME?

The next president of Mexico - succeeding the inept illegal immigration booster Vincente Fox (see earlier posts HERE and HERE), - is likely going to be a flaming LEFTIST. And he will probably be as bad a tyrant as Chavez and Fidel. Here is is IN HIS OWN WORDS (from the NYTIMES):

Mayor López Obrador did not disagree. "There is the impression that I am authoritarian," he said. "But social movements require strong leadership."

That's just what Stalin said! The NYTIMES adds:

"... his left-leaning, hard-charging political style has many in the ruling elite and analysts abroad worried that Mexico could go the way of Venezuela, which is embroiled in a class war as President Hugo Chávez rides a wave of anti-American sentiment. It is a wave that has swept leftist politicians into power across Latin America. And like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Tabaré Vásquez of Uruguay, Mr. López Obrador personifies the angry disappointment with Washington-backed promarket economic policies that have stabilized the economy for the rich but failed to lift up the poor."

These Leftie populist demogogues south of the Rio Grande are setting back their nations another 100 years - while we have our eye on problems on East, Central, South and Southeast Asia. I hope that ib his new job as head of the World Bank that WOLFOWITZ can exert some pressure and get some sensible reform down there. I am doubtful. I PREDICT (that - just as Arafat's death and Harriri's murder helped trigger events in the Middle East): that real reform in Latin America will only occur AFTER Castro's death - may it come soon.

LEFT-WING GREENIES FORM CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD

FOXNEWS - CHICAGO:

A plan to provide an alternative form of energy in Wisconsin is pitting two sets of environmentalists against each other. Some favor cleaner air, others want to protect nearby wildlife. [...] A Chicago-based energy company wants to build 133 wind turbines ... that could produce enough energy to power 100,000 homes near the city of Fond du Lac. [...] But wildlife enthusiasts oppose the project. The reason? Birds. The turbines may be as close as a mile and a half from the Horicon Marsh, a federally protected wildlife preserve. [...] A state environmental impact report has concluded that not enough evidence is available to say what kind of impact wind turbines could have on bird populations.

This is merely another case of NIMBY - "Not In My Back Yard" - and proves that the Left is really composed of UNREALISTIC UTOPIANISTS. Lefties on Nantucket - like Heinz-Kerry and Cronkite - similarly opposed a wind farm off their coast, because it would spoil their view - NIMBY strikes again, or (IOW): "extra rights for me, but it for thee."

I think it's GREAT and HIGH-LARIOUS that one tyrannical utopianist sect ("save the owl"/PETA-types) is bumping heads with another (the global warming gas-heads). It kind of reminds me of when other Leftists bumped heads: Stalin and Trotsky; and then Hitler and Stalin. It's inevitable of course: in a utopianist world, there's only room for one "god," and it's his way or the highway - or the gulag, or the eastern front.

Both of these tyrannical Greenie Groups have insane basic tenets: one feels that extinction is unnatural and should be repealed, and the other that climate change is unnatural (and man-made) and can be stopped. These Greenie types are IDIOTS: extinction and climate change are as natural and as old as the Earth itself. They can no more be banished from existence than we can banish idiots like them.

UPDATE: MORE GREENIE HYPOCRISY HERE! (Hat tip JJ at POLIPUNDIT.)

AIDAN DELGADO : THE IRAQ WAR :: JOHN KERRY : THE VIETNAM WAR

Delgado and Kerry: Two liars who smeared and slandered and libeled the US Military. More at POWERLINE. And at Polipundit, too - and Lorie Byrd has LOADS OF LINKS. And as ALWAYS: MALKIN!

RIDLEY SCOTT : TRUTH ABOUT THE CRUSADES :: MICHAEL MOORE : TRUTH ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR

The title of this post reads: "Ridley Scott is to truth about the Crusades, as Michael Moore is to truth about the Iraq War."

Or the Left-wing anti-America/Anti-West/anti-tradition propagandists of Hollywood strike again! Anti-West propaganda - like F451 and Kingdom of Heaven - has no respect for the truth; (that's not terribly surprising, "sophisticated" haute culture post-modernist Leftists like Moore and Scott feel that objective truth doesn't really exist!).

REVIEWS HERE AND HERE AND HERE AND HERE.

UPDATE: MORE HERE FROM DIRTY HARRY OF JACKSON'S JUNCTION.

ALSO THERE'S THIS: The son of legendary NYTIMES columnist James "Scotty" Reston claims the movie plagiarizes his book.

AND BY THE WAY: most of the critics think the movie sucks.

UPDATE: Welcome AMERICAN THINKER readers! Thomas Lifson of A.T. suggests: "For those who want to learn the true history behind the Crusades, see part one of Dr. Andrew Bostom's definitive article on the subject."

MAN WAKES UP FROM 10 YEAR "COMA" - Terry Schiavo might've too...

FOX/AP:

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — A firefighter brain-damaged in a 1995 roof collapse had an "amazing" weekend, recognizing and speaking with his four sons and other family and friends for the first time in years, a family spokesman said Monday. "I want to talk to my wife," Donald Herbert said out of the blue Saturday at the skilled nursing facility here he has lived for more than seven years. Staff members put Linda Herbert on the telephone. It was the first of many conversations he had during a 14-hour stretch, Herbert's uncle, Simon Manka said. "How long have I been away?" Herbert asked. "We told him almost 10 years," the uncle said. "He thought it was only three months." Herbert was fighting a house fire Dec. 29, 1995, when the roof collapsed, burying him under debris. He was 37. After going without air for several minutes, Herbert was comatose for 2½ months and has undergone therapy ever since.

News accounts in the days and years after his injury describe Herbert as blind and with little, if any, memory. Video shows him receiving physical therapy but apparently unable to communicate and with little awareness of his surroundings. [Sounds like Terry Schiavo, to me - reliapundit...] The word of the day was `amazing,"' he said. Dr. Rose Lynn Sherr of New York University Medical Center said when patients recover from brain injuries, they usually do so within two or three years. "It's almost unheard of after 10 years," she said, "but sometimes things do happen and people suddenly improve and we don't understand why."

Maybe he recovered because he got therapy for the last ten years - MORE THAN MICHAEL SCHIAVO DID FOR HIS "WIFE" TERRY -- AND EXACTLY WHAT HER PARENTS AND SIBLINGS PLEADED FOR! MAYBE HE RECOVERED BECAUSE NO COURT CAME IN AN APPROVED MURDERING HIM BY REMOVING HIS FEEDING TUBE!

LEFT-WING GREENIES CENSOR THE TRUTH

UK TELEGRAPH (hat-tip VIKINGPUNDIT):

Two of the world's leading scientific journals have come under fire from researchers for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global warming. A British authority on natural catastrophes who disputed whether climatologists really agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, says his work was rejected by the American publication, Science, on the flimsiest of grounds. The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it. Dr Oreskes's study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser.

However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line. They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly. Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication - but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been "widely dispersed on the internet".

Dr Peiser insists that he has kept his findings strictly confidential. "It is simply not true that they have appeared elsewhere already," he said. [...] Dr Peiser is not the only academic to have had work turned down which criticises the findings of Dr Oreskes's study. Prof Dennis Bray, of the GKSS National Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany, submitted results from an international study showing hat fewer than one in 10 climate scientists believed that climate change is principally caused by human activity.

As with Dr Peiser's study, Science refused to publish his rebuttal. Prof Bray told The Telegraph: "They said it didn't fit with what they were intending to publish." [...] Prof Roy Spencer, at the University of Alabama, a leading authority on satellite measurements of global temperatures, told The Telegraph: "It's pretty clear that the editorial board of Science is more interested in promoting papers that are pro-global warming. It's the news value that is most important." He said that after his own team produced research casting doubt on man-made global warming, they were no longer sent papers by Nature and Science for review - despite being acknowledged as world leaders in the field. As a result, says Prof Spencer, flawed research is finding its way into the leading journals, while attempts to get rebuttals published fail. "Other scientists have had the same experience", he said. "The journals have a small set of reviewers who are pro-global warming."

Concern about bias within climate research has spread to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose findings are widely cited by those calling for drastic action on global warming. In January, Dr Chris Landsea, an expert on hurricanes with the United States National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, resigned from the IPCC, claiming that it was "motivated by pre-conceived agendas" and was "scientifically unsound".

The MSM/Old Media is as UNBIASED about "global warming' as they are about Bush, Terry Schiavo, Israel's right to self-defense, and Kerry's lies about going to Cambodia; IOW: their Left-wing bias informs and distrorts EVERYTHING they do and ANYONE who depends on them for news is apt to have faulty opinions and propose stupid policies that can't possibly work.

The MSM/Old media distorts reality because it is still dominated by the Left - and the Left is more interested in promoting their statist utopianism than they are the truth - which is why they still deny: that Truman was right to drop nuclear bombs on Japan; that Vietnam was a noble cause (and that it was wrong for Congress to pull the plug on our allies inn Saigon in 1975); that Reagan won the Cold War; and that Bush is spear-heading the greatest spread of democracy since the collpase of the USSR. Without their lies and their willful distortions of reality - (and their anti-Semitic/anti-American/Ant-West hate-speech: "BUSHITLER"/"ASHKKROFT"/"human shields") - the Left wouldn't be able to maintain their denial that their ideology has been and remains an utter and total and complete failure - and one which led DIRECTLY to the slaughter of 100 MILLION people in the last century.

ABBAS FAILS TO REIGN IN NEOJIHADI TERRORISTS

BBC:

The Palestinian Authority has released a Hamas militant who was arrested in Gaza overnight following a gun battle. The arrest sparked tension between the Palestinian security forces and Hamas, and Egyptian officials were called in to mediate a solution, Hamas said. The PA said its forces exchanged fire with three Hamas men suspected of trying to fire missiles at a Jewish settlement or a nearby Israeli town. Hamas denied preparing an attack and called for protests over the arrest. The message for Hamas supporters to take to the streets was broadcast from mosques' loudspeakers. Risk of unrest The BBC's Alan Johnston in Gaza says the events on Monday night show that any attempt by the PA to enforce the ceasefire by confronting the powerful, well-armed Hamas movement risks sparking serious unrest. Hamas has not endorsed the truce, but it has agreed to rein itself in.

Yeah, sure. LOOKIT: if the Palestinian Authority - as neo-governors of their territory - cannot establish the rule of law, and a single miliotary fiorce then they DO NOT HAVE THE CAPACITY TO RUN A STATE, and do NOT DESERVE ONE, AND ... IT WOULD INSANE FOR ISRAEL TO ALLOW THEM TO HAVE ONE! Even socialist Left-wing Dove Shimon Peres gets this; he once said (PARAPHRASING]: "... in Israel, Labor and Likud do NOT have their own paramilitary; there is only ther IDF. The Palsestinians must disarm all other paramiltaries in ordere to have an effective state." Disarmament of the neojihadis is as CENTRAL to peace in Israel as disarmament is central to peace in Northern Ireland.

Sharon is of courxse watching all this, and we know he is prepared to do WHATEVER it takes to guarantee Israeli defenses. BBC:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has told two senior US politicians visiting Israel that Mr Abbas was not taking significant steps to tackle hardline groups. "Instead of disbanding the terrorist organisations, he is acting to strengthen them. He is not willing to fight them and is similarly unwilling to disband their infrastructures," Mr Sharon said.

I predict that if the unilateral Gaza withdrawal (which is literall the self-inflicted ethnic cleansing of Gaza) does not yield BETTER security, that Sharon will announce UNILATERAL moves in the West Bank - which will PROBABLY include annexing relatively large areas around Jerusalem - INCLUDING Bethlehem. he will also out the anti-terrorist fece/wall wherever it needs to be be put for security.

BOTTOM-LINE: "NO SECURITY.... THEN NO STATE," and no negotiated deal!

THE DIVINE DIVIDE

The American Revolution did not recognize the divine rule of the King of England, but did recognize the Divine. As the Declaration said, we are EACH "endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights and that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." The Creator made each of us - each and every person - sovereign over himself, and the nation only derives its LIMITED power from the consent of the people; the government's rights and power and authority are proscribed, and it is not permitted to cross certian boundaries - which are outlined in the Bill of Rights.

The French Revolution was against divinity itself; it was atheistic and it even included an anti-clerical phase (in which hundreds of priests were killed and hundreds more thrown in jail). The Russian Revolution, and other socialist revolutions were also atheistic.

These revolutions were not democratic revolutions; they were COUPS D'ETAT; they merely substituted one form of tyranny for another - instead of a dictatotrial king they had a dictatorial Committee for Public Safety, or a dictatorial Politburo. Marx and Lenin even referred to their utopia as a DICATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT - which proves that it has more in common with feudalism and tryanny than democracy.

In the 21st century we are still witnessing the very same division: between atheistic/socialistic Continental Europe, whose politics is still dominated by radical secular humanism - which is at best dismissive of religion (for instance in France, they are shutting down Church after Church) and more often than not is hostile to religion - (take France for example: anti-Semitism is rampant, AND the government recently banned Muslim headscarves in schools!).

The Anglo-American world was founded on and still basically accepts Natural Law. Here in the US, nearly all of our presidents - especially the great ones (Washington; Lincoln - even FDR and Truman and Ike and JFK) - mentioned God and providence ALL THE TIME because FAITH in the Divine is so fundamental to our Amerian worldview.

And I think this divide - THE DIVINE DIVIDE - best explains the Left/Right Divide in the US: the Left feels there is no such thing as the divine, or the eternal, or universals or absolutes; the Left says: "we may do whatever we can do;" of course, this underlies the Counter-Culture's hedonism. The Right believes there are universal and trascendent laws which we should not ever violate - "maybe we shouldn't do all we can do." The Left thinks there is no place for faith in politics; the Right says that faith always always has and always will shape the moral and ethical issues which underlie all politics.

This DIVINE DIVIDE is also why the Right tends to be more HAWKISH than the Left: we of the Right have values we think are worth fighting for - even dying for, and killing to defend. The Left has nothing transcendent or eternal worth fighting for; they're merely relativists who just want to be LEFT alone to do whatever they - AS CONSENTING ADULTS - want to do in the privacy of their own bedroom/home/nation. (This is perhaps the best reason they should be alled LEFT - they just want to be left home alone!) They're doves because hedonism is hardly worth fighting for.

But to the Right, liberty and justice and democracy ARE worth fighting for - and NOT JUST FOR US, FOR EVERYONE, FOR ALL HUMANS EVERYWHERE because we are ALL equal in the eye of our DIVINE Creator.

FLORIDA PASSES JESSICA'S LAW

One down, 49 to go - because EVERY state in the union should have this law on the book (hat-tip Michele Malkin)- AP:

Spurred by the kidnapping and murder of a 9-year-old girl, Gov. Jeb Bush signed legislation Monday that strengthens punishment and monitoring of child sex abusers. The Jessica Lunsford Act sets a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life in prison for people convicted of molesting children under 12. If offenders serve less than life, they would be required to wear a global positioning system device after their release so authorities can monitor their whereabouts. [...] The proposal sped through the legislative process, pushed by outraged lawmakers - many of whom said it was hard to temper their anger and not go for something even harsher. It passed both the Senate and House unanimously and was sent to Bush on April 22. [...] The House had passed the bill unanimously April 19, two days after another sex offender was charged in the abduction and murder of 13-year-old Sarah Lunde of Ruskin.[...] Advocates for satellite monitoring of offenders say that in addition to warning authorities when a sex offender is someplace he shouldn't be - such as near a school - it also will allow for quick pinpointing of suspects if a child is abducted. The tracking requirement only affects people convicted in the future, but current sex offenders who violate their probation would be ordered back to jail or be placed under GPS monitoring.

On March 20th - right after Jessica's vicious murder - I started a blog devoted to this law - here's the link: JESSICA'S LAW.

PROTEST BABE ALERT: Nepal

PubliusPundit has the details - and a few snapshots...

It seems to me that the entire southern and western tiers of nations which have borders that are contiguous with the Old Evil Empire (USSR) are now being almost entirely reinvigorated by Pro-West, populist democracy movements.

When added to the democracy movements now sweeping through the Arab nations, this means that another fourth of humanity will soon be free - and then soon after, enjoy the prosperity which ONLY freedom creates.

Only a few other oddball tyrants are left (or Left, if you know what I mean!): the Mullahs of Iran, Mugabe, Castro, Kim Jong Il, Chavez, and a few others.

AND THEN THERE'S CHINA AND RUSSIA: Russia, certainly seems to be slipping back into authoritarianism; and China just continues to wallow deep in totalitarianism. My feeling is that these two unliberated Goliaths will not be transformed into real democracies until the rest of the world is. WHY!? Because their size (economically and militarliy) makes them less susceptible to concerted (yet oblique) efforts by the libertarian governments of the West (led by the Bush Administration) to foment the types of populist movements we saw take hold in Georgia, Ukraine, and Lebanon.

To put more pressure China and Russia we need to strengthen India, Japan and New Europe - and strenghthen our TIES to these democracies, too. This can be done bilaterally (in the case of economic and military ties to India and the new democracies of "eastern" Europe), and also by getting Japan and India on to the UNSC. [ASIDE: We should also insist that the EU be reduced to one, "rotating seat" or shared-seat on the UNSC; this will reduce their interference. WHY?! Well, either Europe is a single united polity or it is several independent states; in my opinion, right now they are "having their cake and eating it too" - like the old USSR, which had its own seat on the UNSC, and also had UN memersahip for each of its captive/satellite "states." Either that, or have each of the 50 US staes ap[ply for membership!]

The only pitfall in strengthening our relationship with India is that we risk, somewhat, our "relationship" with Pakistan - who (like Saudi Arabia) - is both a key ally in the "GWOT" and also a nation which has KEY elements of our dangerous adversaries. In my opinion, it is well worth the risk - and may, in the end, be just what we need to force REAL cooperation from Pakistan, and finally get them to establish the rule of law in their tribal regions, and to stop the spread of fanaticism in their HUGE domestic network of madrassas. These are two largely UNFULFILLED promises of Musharraf, and we need to make the Pakistanis live up to their committments on these fronts.

FOX NEWS: the REAL mainstream

DRUDGE FLASH:

"FOXNEWS CHANNEL LEADS CABLE BUSH PRESS CONFERENCE IN TOTAL VIEWERS : FNC -- 2,722,000 (final) CNN -- 896,000 (final) MSNBC -- 569,000 (final)"

Let's see... that means that Fox got more than THREE TIMES what CNN got, and TWICE what CNN and MSNBC got ... C-O-M-B-I-N-E-D!!!

And the anti-Fox folks would want you to believe that Fox has built its business by catering to only a segment of the potential audience: angry whte men. FOOEY! You don't the BIGGEST cable news channel by NARROWCASTING! Rather it is CNN and MSNBC who have - with their blatant anti-American/anti-Bush bias - painted themselves into a corner!

USA TODAY: "Speaking at a media breakfast last week, Ailes at first said he couldn't think of a single thing that No. 2-rated CNN does better than Fox — except get better press. CNN chief "Jonathan Klein is getting 50 great stories about what they are doing there, one of which is he thinks that there are not enough liberals in the newsroom ... 'need more progressives.' God, I hope he believes that," Ailes said.

(What Klein told PBS' Charlie Rose on March 23 was that a "progressive" cable channel would not appeal to Fox's audience, which he described as "mostly angry white men ... who tend to like to have their points of view reinforced."

Klein continued: "And a, quote-unquote, 'progressive' or 'liberal' network [like CNN] probably couldn't reach the same sort of an audience, because liberals tend to like to sample a lot of opinions," Mr. Klein continues. "They pride themselves on that. And you know, they don't get too worked up about anything. And they're pretty morally relativistic. And so, you know, they allow for a lot of that stuff. You know, Fox is very appealing to people who like to get worked up over things."

The numbers prove that Fox has a MUCH bigger audience, and I say this is because Fox is more appealing to more people and more types of people than CNN and MSNBC COMBINED - just like Bush and the GOP are more appealing to more people than Kerry and the Democrats. Klein is deluded - just like the liberal Democrats are - when he asserts that he and CNN represent mainstream Americans. Fox represents the REAL political mainstream, and not the narrow Left-wing attitudes of Old Media elites.

ASIA'S AND SOUTH ASIA'S TWO BIGGEST DEMOCRACIES GET CLOSER

BBC:

Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi has met his Indian counterpart in Delhi, with both supporting each other's claim for a permanent UN Security Council seat. Mr Koizumi and Manmohan Singh signed a joint statement with an eight-point agenda for improved relations. Apart from the UN issue, it called for a high-level strategic dialogue and measures to improve economic ties. [...] The joint statement said India and Japan would "strive to develop closer dialogue and collaboration to secure peace, stability and prosperity in Asia". It said the nations' navies would increase cooperation in Asian waters and the countries would hold annual prime minister-level meetings. It also said the nations vowed to bolster bilateral trade, which has been around $4bn a year for several years.

Ties between the two countries have warmed considerably since India's nuclear tests in May 1998, which led to Japanese sanctions on India. The sanctions were lifted in 2001. Since then India has become the largest recipient of development loans from Japan, outranking Indonesia and China.

This is VERY goods news for us - as this helps us counter China and Pakistan. Previous posts on the HUGE strategic value of India (to the USA) versus the undependability of Pakistan and the increasingly hefty hegemony of totalitarian China HERE and HERE.

What the Third World needs now is... MORE FACTORIES, MORE REFINERIES AND MORE INDUSTRIALIZATION!

J. Bradford Delong - Department of Economics, U.C. Berkeley, and Chair of Berkeley's Political Economy of Industrial Societies major - (with whom I have disagreed about many things in the past) has published some fascinating statistics and graphs and charts recently.

They show that between 500 BCE to 1800 CE economic growth, and population growth is meager.

And they show that after 1800 CE, world economic growth is clatogenic - EXPLOSIVE, by comparison - nearly doubling every few decades.

This growth in wealth and LIVING STANDARDS occurred even as HUMAN POPULATION SOARED, and as LIFE EXPECTANCIES GREW, TOO.

And still: PER CAPITA GDP and WORLD GROSS GDP SOARED! SO... the POPULATION EXPLOSION did NOT put a HUGE UNBEARABLE BURDEN on the planet, or cause greater POVERTY - NO, QUITE THE OPPOSITE OCCURRED.

WHY IS THIS?

Industrialization. And GLOBALIZATION. In fact, the more industrialized and globalized an economy is... the richer and healthier and longer lived are its citizens.

Therefore, what the Third World needs is more INDUSTRIALIZATION, NOT LESS. More factories and refineries and trade, and MORE GLOBALIZATION. As TOM BARNETT has shown, the countries which are unconnected to the First World are where all the problems are: poverty, disease, tyranny and dangerous domestic social unrest which also threatens their neighbors and their regions.

The Third World needs less attention paid to the failed and ill-conceived ideas and policies of affluent do-gooders on the Upperwestside and their internationalist fellow-travellers in Turtle Bay. The Third World needs to IGNORE the Left's currently favored concepts like "sustainability" "third-way socialism" "welfare" and "green-friendly" if they EVER want to lift themselves out of poverty and ignorance - (just as India and China did when they rejected protectionism and socialism and command economies).

NEED MORE PROOF?! Well, the world was free of industrialization in 500 BCE - YEA: THE ENVIRONMENT WAS "PRISTINE" - and most people died young and poor.

CHECK-POINT ON TRUTH: THE SGRENA AFFAIR AND THE CALIPARI REPORTS

According to the BBC:

The United States and Italy say they disagree on the conclusions from a joint investigation into the killing of an Italian agent in Iraq by US troops. Nicola Calipari died trying to protect a freed Italian hostage - journalist Giuliana Sgrena - as their car came under US fire near Baghdad airport. US investigators are reported to have found the soldiers "not culpable". [...] The joint statement released on Friday said: "Investigators did not arrive at shared final conclusions even though, after examining jointly the evidence, they did agree on facts, findings and recommendations on numerous issues." [...] The US military said the car in which Mr Calipari and Ms Sgrena were travelling was speeding as it approached a temporary checkpoint and failed to heed warning signals to stop. Ms Sgrena, who was hurt in the shooting, said the car had not been speeding and that there had been no warning before the troops opened fire.

UPDATE - 9:22PM: LGF reports that US Spy Satellite info PROVES Sgrena's car was SPEEDING! "WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US satellite reportedly recorded a checkpoint shooting in Iraq last month, enabling investigators to reconstruct how fast a car carrying a top Italian intelligence official and a freed hostage was traveling when US troops opened fire. The report, which aired Thursday on CBS News, said US investigators concluded from the recording that the car was traveling at a speed of more than 60 miles (96 km) per hour." THERE'S MUCH MORE; GO TO LGF AND RTWT!

I think we should ALSO keep in mind what independent an un-embedded American journalist Bartle Breese Bull had to say on the matter of checkpoints in Baghdad - in the WASHPOST last month:

As an unembedded freelance journalist in Iraq, I have safely driven through scores of American roadblocks all over this country. I have also spent many hours with U.S. troops as they set up and operate these checkpoints. At the same time, like other reporters here who don't travel with armies of their own -- and like the millions of Iraqis who either have some money or are brave enough to participate in their country's reconstruction -- I live constantly with the fear of being kidnapped.

We see every day the damage done with the millions of dollars that Iraq's Baathist and Wahhabist insurgencies make from that appalling business. So as investigators try to sort out how U.S. troops could have fired on a car carrying newly freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, wounding her and killing the man who secured her release, I'm thinking about how checkpoints save lives. We don't know exactly what happened at the checkpoint on the way to the Baghdad airport. But I've seen how checkpoints work, and the American soldiers who man them are anything but trigger-happy. They know the consequences of making a mistake.

If the uproar over the shooting leads the Americans to further tighten rules of engagement, that will increase the danger to our troops and make commanders on the ground more reluctant to perform these dangerous operations. As a result, more foreigners and Iraqis will be running the risk of being kidnapped or blown up by suicide bombs. Traffic checkpoints are an essential tactic in the disruption of terrorism here in Iraq, since car bombers and kidnappers have to use the roads to conduct their criminal business. Apart from certain fixed locations, such as the entrances to the Green Zone or the Baghdad airport, most checkpoints aren't permanent, and they can be set up almost anywhere, in all sorts of situations.

The details of Sgrena's release and wounding are still in official dispute, but on the street here there's nearly universal certainty that Nicola Calipari, the Italian government agent who died at the checkpoint, bought her freedom with a large ransom. Some Italian officials have intimated as much, though Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told an Italian newspaper that no money changed hands. It's also believed that the Italians ransomed two aid workers last fall. If so, this would mean that the Italian government is giving the terrorists money to conduct more violence even as 2,700 young Italians in uniform are helping rebuild this country.

The word here is that although Calipari had briefed the Americans about his mission, he withheld the details, partly because the Americans disapprove of paying off kidnappers, but more importantly because of the essential factor that foreign media coverage of Iraq usually ignores: the Iraqis. If the Italians paid a ransom, Calipari committed a serious crime in a sovereign state fighting desperately to establish the rule of law and defeat internal terrorism. Long before the Italian incident, orders had come down that deadly force was to be used only as a last resort -- after the failure of obstacles, then flares or smoke bombs or "star clusters," then warning shots, and finally efforts to take out the oncoming vehicle's engine block. These procedures are real. I have seen our soldiers' reluctance to use force and felt the fear it brings. Car bombs cause 30 percent of military casualties.

The checkpoint procedures, which the military calls "fire discipline" and "escalation of force," are designed to prevent soldiers from killing innocent Iraqis who somehow lack the information or common sense to slow down when they approach. Over the period of Sgrena's incarceration, I stood with American troops at various checkpoints between Fallujah and Ramadi in the Sunni heartland of Iraq's Wild West, an area that receives more than 10 times the national average of attacks on American forces. As I finished writing the previous sentence I heard the announcement over the base radio that two members of the combat team I was with had been killed -- by a suicide bomber driving up to a checkpoint. I didn't see that explosion, but I heard it; I had spent much of the day at another U.S. checkpoint not far away.

"Sitting ducks, that's all we are," a 20-year-old combat medic from Texas said to me as we watched Iraqi vehicles thread past the "Alert" sign and through the orange cones and concertina wire of a checkpoint last week. Later, when I asked the sergeant in charge of the platoon if he was enjoying himself, he responded, "Just hanging around waiting to get blown up." This unit has suffered very high casualties, most from car bombs. If any soldiers in Iraq could be expected to be jumpy and trigger-happy, it is the grunts of central Anbar province. But as I watched them run their checkpoint, both before and after the Sgrena incident, they were thoroughly professional.

Driving around this country with Iraqis, including people with quite a lot to hide, I've encountered scores of American checkpoints. Just about everyone knows what to do: You do a slow U-turn and go the other way, you find a route around, or you drive through slowly and wave at the polite 20-year-old from Nashville. In a very small number of cases, one side makes a mistake and something truly tragic happens.

I think that the Calipari shooting was a sad tragedy, and that it was likely the result of Italian secrecy and stupidly speeding at the wrong time in order to maintain that scerecy.

I believe this because this because of the last bit BARTLE BREESE BULL writes - I'll repeat it: "Driving around this country with Iraqis, including people with quite a lot to hide, I've encountered scores of American checkpoints. Just about everyone knows what to do: You do a slow U-turn and go the other way, you find a route around, or you drive through slowly and wave at the polite 20-year-old from Nashville." Calipari did NOT do that.

There's MUCH MORE IN THE BARTLE BREESE BULL ARTICLE; READ THE WHOLE THING.

Lessons From the Fall of Saigon

On the 30th Anniversary of The Fall Of Saigon - a date of rare American failure and dishonor - Stephan J. Morris has penned the MUST READ ARTICLE. (Morris is a fellow at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.)

This article PROVES that VIETNAM WAS A NOBLE WAR WHICH OUR ALLIES WERE WINNING, and that they ONLY LOST WHEN THE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS IMMORALLY PULLED THE PLUG ON FINANCING THE South Vietnamese Government and their defense forces.

Here are a FEW extended excerpts; (READ THE WHOLE THING!):

Thirty years after the fall of Saigon the received wisdom among large sections of Western academia and journalism is little changed. The successive U.S. administrations that intervened in the Vietnam War are widely portrayed as foolish or immoral, while the activist opponents of the war are seen as wise and morally courageous. This simple picture is transposed to the Iraq war by many of today's antiwar generation. Yet the widely held image of the two sides is a crude misrepresentation. The Vietnam War provides few analogies for the Middle East, except as a demonstration of how so many in the West are willing to champion the cause of totalitarian states and movements that the U.S. opposes. [...]

Tragically for the South Vietnamese people, and for the South Vietnamese and U.S. soldiers who had fought so bravely, the Johnson administration's failed policies also generated a cynicism among the American public that imposed severe constraints on the foreign-policy options available to President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Yet, despite the difficult hand they were dealt, Messrs. Nixon and Kissinger did well. Their counterinsurgency policies were sufficiently successful that by 1972 the guerrilla insurgency had been defeated. Moreover, after years of training, the South Vietnamese army became responsible for all ground combat, and was able to defeat a massive North Vietnamese conventional offensive in 1972 with U.S. air and logistical support. The end of the draft and removal of American combat troops from Vietnam drastically reduced public opposition to administration policies. [...]

Lacking mass public support for their goals, but encouraged by weakening of the White House by the emerging Watergate scandal, the antiwar left took their battle from the streets to the corridors of the U.S. Congress. Guided by leaders lobbying in Washington, the small force of some 6,000 antiwar activists in major states, were able to pressure substantial number of congressmen into legislating against the military options available to the U.S. Inflamed with a hatred of American foreign policy, and a romantic infatuation with America's communist enemy, young activists like John Kerry spoke of systematic atrocities being conducted everywhere by U.S. forces, actress Jane Fonda warned of U.S. bombing North Vietnamese dikes to drown hundreds of thousands of civilians, while New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug spoke of hundreds of thousands of political prisoners in South Vietnam.

These tales were false and the reverse of reality: systematic atrocities were being conducted by the communists, and hundreds of thousands of political prisoners were rotting in the North Vietnamese gulag. But in the radicalized atmosphere of the times, many academics, journalists and congressmen inhabited a fantasy world. Many, like Sen. George McGovern, believed that the South Vietnamese government was the enemy of peace, while the North Vietnamese were merely victimized advocates of peace. Legislation to cut back U.S. aid to South Vietnam soon followed. This took place in a time of world-wide inflation, which meant that the South Vietnamese army that had repelled the Soviet supplied North Vietnamese army in 1972, was in need of more aid not less. But after the massive U.S. aid cutbacks of 1974, the South Vietnamese military could not defend its territory. Defeat in 1975 was thereby ensured. [...]

During the 1980s the cause of Third World totalitarian revolutions was transposed from Vietnam to El Salvador and Nicaragua. The congressional lobbying tactics learned during the Vietnam War were reapplied by the American left, to try to ensure communist victories in Central America. But greater world events conspired to defeat the "Sandalistas." The collapse of the Soviet Union pulled the military and economic rug out from under their friends. Democracy prevailed and the communists lost freely contested elections they wished to avoid. [...]

In the Middle East the task for the Left of finding a political cause to serve has been made more difficult by the weakness of communism and the ostensibly religious nature of so much anti-American politics. Radical Leftists prefer their utopian and messianic totalitarian movements to have a secular cast. Prosperous and democratic Israel today is the main enemy, as it was even before the expansionist settlement movement evolved. That is why the cause of some Palestinian factions has been embraced. But the bottom line for the radical Left everywhere is the undermining of American global power, and undermining rule by America's friends. If local people have to live under repressive movements or regimes as a consequence, such as the Baathists tyrannies in Iraq or Syria, this can always be rationalized or justified.

From such people policy-makers can expect no wisdom on how to pursue the war against Islamic terrorists, nor how to encourage political orders compatible with human freedom. Thirty years after the Left celebrated the American retreat from Southeast Asia, this much is clear.

More views HERE and HERE and HERE. UPDATE 5/1: AND A MUST READ HERE.

HOW TO CUT SOCIAL SECURITY COSTS WITHOUT CUTTING BENEFITS TO ANY RECIPIENTS

KJ Lopez of NRO's THE CORNER linked to this intriguing idea at Buttle's World:

"... allow people of retirement age the option of continuing to work as long as they want, but tax-free. Since they are working, they would receive no Social Security benefits. Obviously this would not apply to any funds in a private account. Since they weren't going to be paying taxes anyway, there's no negative impact on revenues. Employers gain experienced help at a bargain. Seasoned Citizens get a whopping raise. And even if only a few percent take advantage for a few years, it could go a long way toward offsetting the shortfall. I'm not qualified to analyze the proposal in detail, but it intuits well. So I'm askin' ya: What do you think?

I think it's a GREAT idea. And I wonder: HOW SOON CAN WE LOWER THE RETIREMENT AGE!? Heh.

Seriously: we can EASILY give people over 65 an income tax cut and/or a cut in their FICA. And I think this should be part of any overhaul which includes personal accounts. And, we can MEANS TEST PERSONAL ACCOUNTS, making it most available to lower income workers.