BUSH UN APPOINTMENTS: Danforth versus Bolton, and why Bolton is the RIGHT MAN for the job

I think we should all look at the recent historical context of the Bolton nomination: After Negroponte, Bush appointed John Danforth to the UN Ambassadorship. Bolton was nominated to replace Danforth. The men could NOT be more different in their styles.

WHY WOULD BUSH DO THIS? Here's what I surmise...

Danforth is an extremely TEMPORATE man with a lot of GRAVITAS. Danforth's first Ambassadorship was to the Sudan - as a Special Presidential Envoy to the Sudan, an appointment made BEFORE 9/11 and before the Sudan was on the radar-screen of the world.

Danforth didn't last long as UN Ambassador, and he left in large measure because he felt the body was hopelessly bogged down in corruption and bureaucratic BS and utterly failing to meet its own mission. He said so in a speech. Here's an excerpt -from PBS/NEWSHOUR:

According to The Washington Post, Danforth had recently expressed frustration over the effectiveness of the United Nations, particularly the U.N. Security Council, in dealing with world problems. "While the U.N. is an important part of multilateralism, which is essential to U.S. foreign policy, it's very difficult to get strong resolutions passed," Danforth told the Post in a recent interview. "It's built for compromise, and it's built for wordsmithing. It's difficult to create real policies because of the ornate structure of multilateralism, at least the U.N.'s version of it."

The New York Times reported that Danforth had publicly expressed impatience with the U.N. General Assembly in late November after a resolution to denounce human rights violations in Sudan was blocked.

"One wonders about the utility of the General Assembly on days like this," Danforth said. "One wonders if there can't be a clear and direct statement on matters of basic principle, why have this building? What is it all about?"

Danforth OBVIOUSLY did not have the stomach to lead the effort reform the UN; he resigned. So what did Bush do? He took his time - many months - and then nominated a person who WOULD HAVE THE STOMACH FOR THE JOB: JOHN BOLTON.

The Senate MUST confirm Bush's nominee and then Bush and Rice and Bolton must bear the onus - or fruits of their efforts. We'll all be watching.

UPDATE: Maybe I shoulda titled this post "BOLTON'S STOMACH"??? In lieu of the shabby treatment he's gotten at the hands of many disgruntled State bureaucrats and by the obstructionist Dems, and also because AFTER HE IS CONFIRMED, he'll need an iron-plated stomach to work at the UN!

UPDATE #2: Welcome BETSY'S PAGE readers! Please check out a few other posts while you're here --- THEY'RE STILL WARM!

FRIEDMAN WRONG AGAIN: THE WORLD AIN'T FLAT - OR EVEN GETTING FLATTER!

From the book - THE WORLD IS FLAT:

Columbus reported to his king and queen that the world was round, and he went down in history as the man who first made this discovery. I returned home and shared my discovery only with my wife, and only in a whisper. “Honey,” I confided, “I think the world is flat.”

Tommy Friedman has written another bestseller - THE WORLD IS FLAT. The title is clever - BUT IS DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED TO THE THEME OF THE BOOK!

In addition, the theme is hardly new, at all; in fact it is old, quite trite, even banal: that there's no more "there" anymore, that everywhere is "here" is a truism that's more than two decades old; we live in a global village which has SHRUNK (in aprt due to technology) in the forty-three (43) years since McLuhan coined that phrase.

1 - THE MISTAKEN METAPHOR:

Historically a "flat world" is one in which "YOU CANNOT GET THERE FROM HERE!" Everyone told Columbus that he was going to fall off the edge of the Earth if he sailed west to get to the east because they BELIEVED that the Earth was flat. Columbus proved them wrong; he proved that the Earth was NOT FLAT, but a GLOBE --- he was the first GLOBALIST, and his discovery CREATED GLOBALISM, and ended the false "flat-world" myth. And need I remind you that GLOBES are all ROUND!

The GLOBE has gotten SMALLER - NOT FLATTER. If the world was flatter - as Friedman suggest - then it would have become less easy to ignore location as a factor in trade. In a flat-world, getting form the place on the left of the map to the place on the rioght of the map means you have to cross the entire middle of the map - as if, in a map with Great Britian on the left-edge and the east coast of the USA on the right-edge you'd have to transverse all of Europe and Asia and the Pacific and the USA to go from London to NY. This was DISPROVED by Columbus, and it's also why a flat-world metaphor is entirely wrong for Freidman's book. (It is "catchy" though. I guess that is valued more than truth and aptness by the MSM.)

UPDATE: the FLAT world metaphor Friedman uses is a perversion of the LEVEL-PLAYING FIELD metaphor. Friedman was told that techonology and education has made the playing field more level (a Chinese genius has just as good a chance as a genius from anywhere else because technology and education and free trade). Friedamn conflates FLATNESS with LEVELNESS - a stupid mistake.

2 - THE MISPLACED EMPHASIS ON TECHNOLOGY:

From Zakaria's review of the book int The NYTIMES -

The metaphor of a flat world, used by Friedman to describe the next phase of globalization, is ingenious. It came to him after hearing an Indian software executive explain how the world's economic playing field was being leveled. For a variety of reasons, what economists call ''barriers to entry'' are being destroyed; today an individual or company anywhere can collaborate or compete globally. Bill Gates explains the meaning of this transformation best. Thirty years ago, he tells Friedman, if you had to choose between being born a genius in Mumbai or Shanghai and an average person in Poughkeepsie, you would have chosen Poughkeepsie because your chances of living a prosperous and fulfilled life were much greater there. ''Now,'' Gates says, ''I would rather be a genius born in China than an average guy born in Poughkeepsie.''

The reason why China and India are better places NOW than BEFORE is because of free markets and GLOBALISM, and NOT BECAUSE OF TECHNOLOGY. Technology is merely a facilitator, a tool, an exploitable product or service. Technology may crank-up opportunities, but it is FREEDOM - free people doing what they want - which CREATES THEM. The true ENGINE OF OPPORTUNITY AND GROWTH AND POTENTIAL IS FREEDOM - AND FREE MARKETS - not silicon chips or computer programming or teleconferencing. Can anyone deny that if China were still under "pre-Deng Xiao Peng Maoism" that they'd be just as poor now as 1949-1980?! That imaginary genius wouldn't have a chance under Maoism; he has a chance now because of free markets and free trade, not IBM or APPLE.

The MSM's failure to see the inaptness of Friedman's title and his incorrect emphasis on technology reveals their bias, and their proneness to see NO FLAWS in their "little darlings" and imaginary flaws in their enemies: To them, Friedman is a genius who coins new phrases and enlightgens us with new insights; and Bush is a theocratic, war-monerging, dumbass unilateralist.

NOT!

BUSH, YALTA AND THE LEFT - or - THE LEFT : BUSH :: FRANCE : AMERICA

JYB has a GREAT post on YALTA and TPM. IT'S A MUST READ (hat-tip PEJ).

JYB catches JMM of TPM in a BLATANTLY SHAMELESS HYPOCRITICAL ATTACK ON BUSH:

Two years ago Marshall believed [and blogged that... (reliapundit)] that the US decision to leave eastern Europe in the USSR's hands was a "great betrayal," and that it was "shameful." "Inevitable," yes, but still a great betrayal.

Today he calls President Bush's remarks on Yalta--remarks that more or less agree with Marshall's own line from two years ago--"cheap posturing or folly."

There is indeed some cheap posturing and folly going on. You'll find it every day at Talking Points Memo. Oh, there is one point of consistency to Marshall's remarks from two years ago and now: He uses all events available in space and time to smear Republicans, or President Bush, or both.

OUCH! Actually, this sorta HIGHpocrisy is reflexive for the Left. Here's another recent example: They used be for INDEXING of Social Security payments, but now that "BUSHitler" is for it… they’re agin it!

Why are they like this? The Left are partisans/comrades first and ideologues second. That their ideology has been PROVEN to be an ABSOLUTE FAILURE matters not one whit to the Left; (YES: P-R-O-V-E-N - just look at the Korean peninsula or Cuba versus P.R., or China and India pre’n post market-reform). How did they become this way?! SInce the collapse of the USSR, Leftism has devolved into an AD HOC, morally relativistic Oppositionism - the Left exists only to obstruct reform, and they seem only to support that which is anti-West, anti-traditional, anti-bourgeois. Which means anti-GOP and anti-Bush.

The Left is to Bush what France is to America.

UPDATE: a compendium of more "Leftie Yalta hypocrisy" from Matt Welch (hat-tip Glenn) HERE.

OUR "IFFY" ALLY PAKISTAN IS AIDING CHINESE HEGEMONY

WASHTIMES/UPI (hat-tip FJORDMAN):

To the dismay of the U.S. Bush administration, Pakistan and China have agreed to co-produce a new JF-17 fighter aircraft.

This is a destabilizing and aggressive move: it hurts Taiwan and Japan - our two BEST allies in the region (along with South Korea). As I have blogged many times before (HERE and HERE and HERE), this China-Pakistani ARMS DEAL emphasizes that we NEED to get MUCH closer to INDIA - to counter-balance China and Pakistan.

Without Musharraf would Pakistan be an ally at all!? Even WITH Musharraf, they're an ally only as good as Saudi Arabia is: a necessary ally for the time being - but one who (in a more perfect world - one free of neojihadism) we could jettison.

EVEN LBJ DIDN'T TRUST THE STATE DEPARTMENT

I just read the NYTIMES BOOK REVIEW of book analyzing LBJ'S tapes.

Here's something from the review that I thought was VERY interesting:

In some ways, Johnson's preoccupations as revealed on these tapes seem remarkably up-to-date. Johnson, like his successors, was obsessed with stopping leaks to the press. The State Department ''leaks everything they got,'' Johnson complained to his assistant Ralph Dungan. ''I've got about as much confidence in them as I have in a Soviet spy.''

LBJ said this in the late 1960's - which, if you THINK about it, was only 20 years after Yalta -- that's JUST ONE GENERATION. We are FORTY YEARS -- or TWO GENERATIONS from LBJ.

And at Yalta - with the help of one Soviet agent/sympathizer: ALGER HISS - Unlce Joe Stalin got the USA to give him half of Europe for commie slavery. Twenty-years later, LBJ still didn't trust the State Department - WITH GOOD REASON.

Do you think that the State Department is spy/mole free? I don't. I KNOW that if the USSR could successfully infiltrate the FBI and CIA - (remember Hannsen and Ames?) - then they, and other ENEMIES of the USA, could EASILY get to and buy a few key SYMAPTHETIC lifetime bureaucrats at State.

I think this is IMPORTANT now for two reasons: (1) the Bolton nomination is being attacked by left-wingers in the Democrat Party and by a few BUREAUCRATS in the State Department. Bureaucrats who are - like the military - are SUPPOSED to serve the ELECTED DECISION-MAKERS, AND NOT FOLLOW THEIR OWN AGENDAS. And (2), in the "GWOT" State has NOT always acted in synch' with our elected Commander in Chief; Powell never cleaned house; I hope Rice will. And a longtime "home" of MANY of the States Department's WORST, most LEFTIST bureaucrats has ALWAYS been.... the UN. This is another reason why Bolton is PERFECT for the job: he will clean up the UN; he will NOT suffer the UN's malfeasance lightly.

THERE'S A SIMPLE AND PROPER WAY FOR THE DEMOCRATS TO CONTROL WHO GETS ON THE FEDERAL BENCH:

If the Dems want to BLOCK Bush's picks, then they can do so CONSTITUTIONALLY: all they need to do is get a MAJORITY in the Senate.

If the Dems want to SELECT NOMINEES that's easy too: all they need to do is WIN THE WHITE HOUSE.

Every other gimmick they've used has been unconstitutional and dishonorable; the Dems behave like sore-sports.

ELECTIONS MATTER.

LEFTIES LIE ABOUT BLAIR'S VICTORY

The Left is trying to spin Blair's HISTORIC victory into a defeat for him and the Iraq War.

IT'S PURE BULL!

Blair won 36% of the vote this time; last time he won 40% of the vote. So Blair ONLY lost 4% of the general vote, and his party only polled 10% less this time than last time.

The voters Blair lost went to the Liberal-Democrats - who are in may ways TO THE LEFT of Blair - especially on the Iraq War.

Blair's party won 367 seats. the next nearest party was the Conservative Party which won 197 seats. The Lib-Dems won 62 seats. Other parties won a total of 30 seats. If the Consevatives and the Lib-Dems formed a coaliton then they would fail to overturn any labor policy or a loss of a confidence vote in Parliament. It is EXTREMELY UNLIKEY that the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems would ever be able to unite on anything, anyway, or to unite with the 30 MP's from any of the other parties. Blair's lead over the Conservatives is 170 - THAT'S ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY SEATS! And Blair's lead over the next biggest party is a WHOPPING 305 - THAT'S THREE-HUNDRED AND EFFING-FIVE!

Therefore, Blair's Labor Party still enjoys a HUGE real advantage over each of his opposing parties, and it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that either the Conservatives or the Lib-Dems will be able to unseat the Labor Party - EVEN AT THE NEXT ELECTION!

As to the effect of the Iraq War... it had NO MEANINGFUL EFFECT. NONE. The Lib-Dems rans an anti-Iraq War dove and got 62 seats - not enough to be meaningful threat to Labor. And the Conservative Party supported the War. Therefore, if the Labor Party were to be led by a dove next time, they'd probably LOSE to a Conservative Party leader. History shows that the Labor Paryt did not (and couldn't've) become "NEW Labor" until AFTER they had convinced the broad center of the electorate that they could be trusted on the economy and on defense. If they backslide on either then they IN EFFECT revert to OLD Labor, and they'd probably get the commensurate electoral results: LOSE, LOSE, LOSE.

SO... when the Lefties tell you that Blair's support of Bush and the Iraq War hurt him, say: "okay, a little, but NOT in any significant way.

"THE BOOMERANG EFFECT" - another idiotic Left-wing fantasy

The Left-wing commonly accuses Bush and his adminsitration of exacerbating the GWOT - and tensions between the USA and Iran and the USA and North Korea - by going on the offensive, and by BEING offensive (at least using inflammatory/offensive speech).

Famous among these charges is the constant refrain from the Left that Bush's "AXIS OF EVIL" speech has a BOOMERANG EFFECT because they claim it incited Iran and North Korea to BECOME INCREASINGLY enemical to the USA and to start and speed-up their ILLEGAL and surreptitious nuclear weapons programs. The Left also charges that Bush's "IRAQ/OIL WAR" has had a BOOMERANG EFFECT and has increased terror and decreased stability.

This attack by the Left on Bush reveals a few SALIENT things about the Left: (1) they prize stability over any tumult even if the tumult may be the only weay to get positive change; (2) they would use appeasement to avoid any tumult or temporary instability; (3) they believe our self-confessed enemies (like the neojihadists and Iran and North Korea) have agendas and strategies which are only REACTIVE, and that these self-avowed enemies have no PROACTIVE agenda or strategy to use terror, force, and "nuclear blackmail," (etc.) in order to advance their aims.

I think that reality proves that these Left-wing assumptions or presuppositions are flatly wrong:

(A) North Korea was cheating on "Clinton watch" (byu enriching uranium) in order to make bombs. This cheating occurred BEFORE the "Axis of Evil" speech. (B) Iran has LONG been a state sponsor of international neojihadist terrorists - who have attacked the USA repeatedly, INCLUDING DURING THE REAGAN ADMINSTRATION. (C) And Saddam OPENLY sponsored neojihadist terror by neojihadist Arabs against Israel; now that Saddam is in jail - (awaiting trial for GENOCIDE, among other things) - Iraq sponsors NO TERRORISM and has instead becoma a battlegorund which itself ATTRACTS neojihadists (MOST of whom are murdering fellow Muslims); since the LAW OF PHYSICS says that a person cannot be in two places at the same time, EVERYONE of the neojihadist terrorists in Iraq is one fewer neojihadist terrorist that can attack the West in Israel, Europe or the USA. And (D), though the tumultuous transition to democracy in Iraq is deadly, it is still a lesser target of neojihadist terror than India and Kashmir - where neojihadists are killing Hindus and other Muslims who have nothing to do with either Bush or Israel or the Likud or Neoconservatism or Oil or Skull & Bones!

The forward-leaning/assertive/aggressive/militaristic startegy of the Bush Administration is an abrupt change from the preceding policy - of appeasement and containment (vis avis the USSR and neojihadism). This abrupt changes was necessitated by 9/11; this is something that Bush fully and openly explicated in numerous speaches and addresses including at West Point, in his "SOTU's" and Congressional addresses since 9/22/2001 and at the UN in 2001, 2002, 2003. (GOOGLE'EM YOUSELF IF YOU DOUBT ME!)

And Bush has reiterated - this week in Latvia - that the USA will NOT REPEAT THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST: as when we gave away eastern Europe to 50 years of Stalinist tyranny. That was appeasement; that was a cop-out; that was morally wrong; that was a HUGE strategic error.

Evil should be confronted - and fought - everywhere. Our enemies should be attacked, and counter-attacked - EVERYWHERE. And complaining that we are less safe now because we are COUNTER-ATTACKING as repellant to VERYONE now as it would have been in 1944 if someone complainied that "US casualties were higher in 1944 than 1943 and higher then than in 1942 and that this was higher than in 1941 - SO we shouldn't have gone to war against the Axis."

Our safety ultimately depends on our VICTORY becuase our enemies have motivations which are independent of us and our counter-measures. Making our enemies less numerous and less threratening over tinme REQUIRES that we kill or capture and bring to justice as many of them as we can WHEREVER they are, and that OVER TIME we reduce theior ability to recruit by dealiong with the UNDELYING ISSUES: lack of democracy in the Muslim world. Promiting democracy in the Muslim world will take years - if not decades and generations, therefore - since there are thosuands of neojihadists who want to kill us and blackmail us and make us subservient to them NOW, we must counter-attack with FORCE.

The "BOOMERANG EFFECT" argument fails to take into account the fact that the neojiahdists (and Kim Jiong Il) have self-interests and aims which are independent of ANY ACTIONS we take.

IN FACT, if we followed the Left-wing lunacy of appeasement and gave into the neojiadists and Iran and North Korea "peacefully" and buy short-term "peace" it would only reward there terror and illegal attemopts to gainm nuclear weapons with which to blackmail us - and therefore incite more neojiahdist terror. IN OTHER WORDS: the Left's policies - the failed polcies of the past, and not Bush's policies - would be the ones that would REALLY cause a BOOMERANG EFFECT.

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.