Interesting war review

Excerpts below:

In a wider sense, the war is as most wars: an evolution from blunders to wisdom, the side that makes the fewest and learns from them the most eventually winning. Al Qaeda and the insurgents in 2004-6 developed the means, both tactical and strategic, to thwart the reconstruction, but we, not they, have since learned the more and evolved.

As in the Civil War, WWI, and WWII, the present American military - which has committed far less mistakes than past American forces - has shifted tactics, redefined strategy, and found the right field commanders. We forget that the U.S. Army and Marines, far from being broken, now have the most experienced and wizened officers in the world. Like Summer 1864, Summer 1918, and in the Pacific 1944-5, the key is the support of a weary public for an ever improving military that must nevertheless endure a final storm before breaking the enemy.

The irony is that should President Bush endure the hysteria and furor and prove able to give the gifted Gen. Petraeus the necessary time - and I think he will - his presidency could still turn out to be Trumanesque, once we digest the changes in Europe, the progress on North Korea, the end of both the Taliban and Saddam, and the prevention of another 9/11 attack. How odd that all the insider advice to triangulate - big spending, new programs, uninspired appointments, liberal immigration reform - have nearly wrecked the administration, and what were once considered its liabilities - foreign policy, the war on terror and Iraq - may still save it.

Source. Note also below:

Honest reporting at last: "On Monday this week Rush Limbaugh talked about all the members of the mainstream media who are now coming to the conclusion that the surge is working. I think Burns and his fellow Times correspondent Michael Gordon have done more than anyone to change those attitudes and they did not do any of it as partisans. It is especially ironic that these two men of integrity work for the paper that has done its worse to insure defeat." [See also here]

The Left are afraid of success in Iraq: "As I predicted earlier in the day, the left wing blogosphere has turned on the Brookings scholars who went to Iraq and noted the results of the surge. Glenn Greenwald, a.k.a. “The Lion of Jalalabad”, penned a characteristically windy attempt at character assassination. Thankfully, Matthew Yglesias showed more brevity. Characteristically, both pieces didn’t take issue with what Brookings-men Kenneth Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon reported seeing in Iraq but instead attacked them personally. If you’ve studied the moonbats in their native habitats as I have the past several years, this comes as no surprise. After all, what is the chickenhawk meme but an attempt to win an argument by attacking your opponent rather than engaging his ideas? Has anyone come back from Iraq recently and not seen progress? Wouldn’t an effective rebuttal of O’Hanlon’s and Pollack’s article sought out such friendly sources?

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

VIDEO: POTTS SINGING "CARUSO" - A SONG ON HIS NEW CD. (AND HE HAS NEW TEETH!)

WOW. Great feeling here - as in all his performances.

BTW: I know this song well; it's by my second favorite singer - Lucio Dalla; (my first is the Chairman of the Board).

Here's Lucio singing it with the greatest tenor of out era, Pavarotti.



I think Paul Potts does it well- even in comparison; his voice has a sad softness and sublime pathos to it which neither Luciano or Lucio have. Dalla's singing is brilliant and brutally honest and daring and unfettered, and oh so very human; Pavarotti's stunning for it's pureness and perfection.

There's room in this life for all three. Thanks to God we have these three, and don't have to choose just one. We get to enjoy them all. Including Potts.

BTW: here's a link to Pott's with his NEW SMILE, (new teeth). Before and after photos.

BRITISH ARMY LEAVES NORTHERN IRELAND - 38 YEARS LATER

NYTIMES/REUTERS:

The army watchtowers have gone and British soldiers no longer search homes looking for wanted men but for many in Northern Ireland's border towns the trauma of conflict still burns.

The British army ends on Tuesday its 38-year role supporting police in Northern Ireland, its longest ever military operation.

They stayed for as long as it took.

We did the same elsewhere - and are still on the watch in in Germany and Japan and South Korea. And it's a good thing considering that Putin is threatening trouble for Europe and Kim is making trouble for South Korea and Japan.

Staying until the JOB IS DONE. It's the RIGHT thing to do.

The Brit's did. We've done it before. And are still doing it.

Which is why we mustn't bug out of Iraq. It would be the WRONG thing to do.

Liberal Slogans

Since I'm an optimist I normally don't like to post negative things but these posters from Demotivators are hilarious. Since they are so pessimistic I thought labeling them liberal slogans would be very appropriate.

Check out the rest of them, here! My other favorites besides the Defeat one are, Cluelessness, Idiocy, Mistakes and Wishes.

WHEN AMERICANS ARE WINNING THE WAR, IT'S A PROBLEM FOR THE DEMS

This has got to top it all. A frank admission from the third-ranking Democrat in the United States House of Representatives that he is worried Al Qaeda just isn't delivering Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi the results they need to overthrow Chimpy Bushhitler McHalliburton:

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Monday that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war.

And it's even worse than that:

Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. Clyburn said that would be "a real big problem for us."

"Generally positive" results from the surge in Iraq would be "a real big problem for us." The Democrats in the House want America to lose the war.

Traitors. That's all they are. Traitors. A vote for any Democratic Party candidate in any election in this country is a vote for treason.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn asks:

In how many wars fought by democratic countries has the majority party in the legislature announced that its political interests require national defeat?

O tempora! O mores!

UPDATE: Thomas Sowell notes:

Senator Reid feared that the surge would turn out not to be a failure — and the Democrats had bet everything, including their chances in the 2008 elections, on an American defeat in Iraq.

And he continues:

Victory is not inevitable, any more than victory was inevitable when American and British troops landed at Normandy in 1945.

The Punditarian would add that victory is not inevitable, but it is achievable, and it does not seem too much to ask that the Democrats in Congress would advocate American victory rather than American defeat. The mask is off.

Using Correct English is Racist??

We read:

"What is a nerd? Mary Bucholtz, a linguist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been working on the question for the last 12 years. She has gone to high schools and colleges, mainly in California, and asked students from different crowds to think about the idea of nerdiness and who among their peers should be considered a nerd; students have also "reported" themselves. Nerdiness, she has concluded, is largely a matter of racially tinged behavior. People who are considered nerds tend to act in ways that are, as she puts it, "hyperwhite."

As a linguist, Bucholtz understands nerdiness first and foremost as a way of using language. In a 2001 paper, "The Whiteness of Nerds: Superstandard English and Racial Markedness," and other works, including a book in progress .... the nerds she has interviewed, mostly white kids, punctiliously adhere to Standard English. They often favor Greco-Latinate words over Germanic ones ("it's my observation" instead of "I think"), a preference that lends an air of scientific detachment. They're aware they speak distinctively, and they use language as a badge of membership in their cliques. One nerd girl Bucholtz observed performed a typically nerdy feat when asked to discuss "blood" as a slang term; she replied: "B-L-O-O-D. The word is blood," evoking the format of a spelling bee. She went on, "That's the stuff which is inside of your veins," humorously using a literal definition."

Source

All the Asian nerds around the place will be amazed to hear that they are "hyper-white"!

The nerdy Jerome Schmitt suspects that Ms Bucholtz hasn't actually met many nerds. He says that an ability to handle mathematics is the main characteristic of nerds. My son teaches mathematics at our major university here so I suppose there is no hope for him!

My reference to "correct" English in the heading on this post will be a red rag to Leftists. "There is no such thing as right and wrong", you see. There is, though. See here


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

A failed study of academic ideology

A study published late last year by sociologists John F. Zipp and Rudy Fenwick under the heading "Is the Academy a Liberal Hegemony? The Political Orientations and Educational Values of Professors" has got a fair bit of attention. It is a rather desperate attempt to deny the obvious -- that American university and college teachers are overwhelmingly Leftist.

They concede that party identification runs 7 to 1 in favour of Democrats among professors but argue that this does not adequately reflect ideology. Conservatives would certainly agree with that -- seeing professors as much more extreme Leftists than most Democrat voters are. That is the WRONG conclusion, however, according to the zippy one. He and his friend in fact argue that a lot of those academic Democrats are really centrists!

The study has been thoroughly shot down on a number of grounds by others (e.g. here and here) but I thought I should have a look at it nonetheless. I spent 20 years or so trying to measure people's political attitudes as precisely as possible and have over 100 academic journal articles in print reporting on the results of that. So the research concerned really is in my line of country. I thought I might be able to see defects that others have missed.

And I sure did! The attitude surveys from which they derived their data had only a 50% response rate! For many purposes that may not matter. That is actually a fairly good response rate compared to attitude surveys and opinion polls in general. But there is ONE occasion where a low response rate does matter a great deal. And that is the sort of occasion we have in the present case: Where one's sample includes a large number of political extremists. I tried for many years to get Communists and Nazis to complete my attitude surveys. I used every trick in the book to persuade them to do the task -- including getting recommendations of the task from their own authorities. But the comrades just would NOT do the task. They obviously felt -- probably rightly --that the results could be used to "get at" them in some way. And, as we all know, academe is now the only place where Marxism still has a strong following. I taught in a Sociology Department at a major university myself for many years so I can vouch for the popularity of Marx in such places. And what is true of Marxists as far as paranoia is concerned is probably also true of the fruitier versions of Leftism that also infest academe.

So Zipp and friend based their research on data from which the real Leftists were self-excluded! No wonder they found that the Leftists they did have were rather moderate! Rather hilarious, really.


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

THE ART WORLD IN NY IS AS CORRUPT AS POLITICS IN DC

THERE'S A REVOLVING DOOR BETWEEN COLLECTORS, GALLERIES, AUCTION HOUSES AND MUSEUMS.

AND THE BIG COLLECTORS ARE ON THE BOARDS OF DIRECTORS OF THE MUSEUMS.

CURATORS BECOME DEALERS.

ONE HAND WASHES THE OTHER.

HERE'S A RECENT EXAMPLE.

WANT MORE? GOOGLE "ART WORLD" AND "INCESTUOUS."

RUSSIA WILL SHUN HAMAS

FINALLY, A LITTLE GOOD NEWS FROM PUTIN: Russia announces intentions to downgrade ties with Hamas

Russia intends to downgrade its ties to Hamas, and no high-level contacts are planned for the near future, Russia's deputy foreign minister said Tuesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told visiting Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday that he is the legitimate leader of all Palestinians, Russian news agencies reported.

"I want to assure you that Russia will support you as the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people. I am convinced that you will do everything to restore the unity of the Palestinian people," Putin was quoted by ITAR-Tass and Interfax as telling Abbas during his visit to Moscow.

WE MUST REMAIN GRATEFUL FOR LITTLE THINGS.

MARK LEVIN: WHY DO THE DEMS SUPPORT HILLARY, SHE SUCKED AT BEING FIRST LADY

THE GREAT ONE (PARAPHRASING):

SHE WAS A LOUSY FIRST LADY.

AND HILLARYCARE COST THE DEMS THE CONGRESS FOR OVER A DECADE.

SO WHAT DO THEY SAY?

"LET'S GIVE HER THE NOMINATION."

THEY'RE NUTS.

HE'S RIGHT.

NYTIMES: IF YOU ARE AMERICAN AND FAT, THEN THAT'S BAD. IF YOU ARE CUBAN AND FAT, THEN THAT'S COOL. GEE, I WONDER WHY?

OBESITY IN AMERICA IS A CRISIS, RIGHT!?!?

I MEAN, IT MUST BE; AFTER ALL, IT'S ANOTHER REASON LEFTIES WANT TO RESTRICT FREE SPEECH.

AND TO RESTRICT RESTAURANTS FROM USING COMMON INGREDIENTS.

THINK AGAIN: MORE HYPOCRISY FROM THE NYTIMES:

The prima ballerina of the Danza Voluminosa troupe weighs 286 pounds, and as she thumps gracefully across the floor, she gives new meaning to the words stage presence.

Her body is a riotous celebration of weight — of ample belly and breasts, of thick legs and arms, of the crushing reality of gravity.

... this company of obese dancers has become a cultural phenomenon in Cuba, breaking stereotypes here of dance, redefining the aesthetics of beauty and, along the way, raising the self-esteem of heavyset people.

NO SURPRISE HERE: IN THE 1930'S THEY COVERED UP STALIN'S GENOCIDE; IN THE 1960'S THEY SWEPT CHE'S PURGES UNDER THE RUG. THEY - AND THE REST OF THE MSM - CONSTANTLY KISS FIDEL'S BIG FAT OLD TYRANNICAL ASS.

BOTTOM-LINE: IF YOU'RE AN ANTI-AMERICAN COMMIE THEN THE NYTIMES WILL FORGIVE YOU OF ANYTHING - EVEN BEING FAT!

VEGANSEXUAL?

NEWS.COM (AU): ' Vegansexuals' shun sex with meaties

A GROUP of vegans in New Zealand - vegansexuals - are shunning sex with meat-eaters because their bodies are made up of animal carcases.

"When you are vegan or vegetarian, you are very aware that when people eat a meaty diet, they are kind of a graveyard for animals," vegan Nichola Kriek said in the Christchurch daily The Press.

Another said: "I would not want to be intimate with someone whose body is literally made up from the bodies of others who have died for their sustenance."

Annie Potts, co-director of the New Zealand Centre for Human and Animal Studies at Canterbury University, identified the people she called "vegansexuals" in her research study, Cruelty-Free Consumption in New Zealand: A National Report on the Perspectives and Experiences of Vegetarians and other Ethical Consumers.

MORE ON THESE INSANE NUTS HERE.

VERY FUNNY STUFF HERE. EXCERPT: "Interestingly she does not mention the disgust many meat eaters may feel at the thought of having sex with a compost heap."

I THINK THE MEAT ABOVE LOOKS VERY APPETIZING, AND THE OMNIVOROUS MEAL BELOW SIMPLY DELICIOUS. AS JULIA USED TO SAY: BON APPETIT!

TERRORISTS ARE RAISED NOT BORN: Child Abuse and Jihado-terror

FRONTPAGE:

The physician and researcher Daphne Burdman, writing in the Jewish Political Studies Review, says the Palestinians’ ongoing aggression toward Israel and Jews results from Koranic and Hadith teachings, the PA’s own brand of systematic indoctrination and incitement, and “psychological processes arising from Arab childrearing practices.” The first two factors are more familiar than the third, which requires much more attention from people concerned about this conflict.

In the West, Burdman notes, “the connection between child abuse and the eventual criminal, often violent adult is. . .well documented,” and she quotes “‘a consistent finding in the childhoods of extremely violent criminal recidivists . . . of severe abuse.’”

But what if there was a society where the violent and sexual abuse of children did not just occur in isolated cases but was, instead, the norm? Such societies do exist—in the Arab world, and the Palestinian Authority is a particularly virulent case where the pathological patterns are fused with especially intense inculcation of Jew-hatred.

In Arab childrearing, Burdman points out, “the incidence and severity of corporal punishment are much greater than in the Western world.” A noted psychohistorian says this “extends to whipping, thrashing, and worse.” Meanwhile “a recent survey of Palestinian society indicated child sexual abuse to involve 50 percent of boys and 31 percent of girls aged six to twelve, in a study involving 184 subjects. The author [noted] the unusual predominance of boys among the victims. . . .”

RTWT.

WE HAVE ALSO ARGUED THAT ISLAMO-MISOGYNY, POLYGAMY, AND ENDOGAMY PREDISPOSE THE ARAB MALE TO XENOPHOBIA AND GENOCIDE:

IF YOUNG MEN ARE RAISED TO BELIEVE THAT MURDERING THEIR OWN SISTERS AND DAUGHTERS CAN RESTORE HONOR TO THEIR FAMILIES, THEN OF COURSE THEY WILL BE CAPABLE OF GENOCIDE AGAINST INFIDELS.

NAACP: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF CRIMINAL PEOPLE?

HERE. EXCERPT:

In stark contrast to its position on last year's Duke non-rape case, the NAACP has urged the public not to judge Michael Vick before he has his day in court.

In a news conference early this morning, Atlanta NAACP President R.L. White charged that the Atlanta Falcons star quarterback's suspension and sponsor desertion amounted to premature punishment, adding that,

"If Mr. Vick is guilty, he should pay for his crime, but to treat him as he is being treated now is also a crime. Be restrained in your premature judgment until the legal process is completed."

And, while one can't deny the merits of avoiding yet another trial by media, neither can one deny the duplicitous nature of White's "premature judgment" words.

I DON'T KNOW IF IT IS DUPLICITOUS.

AFTER ALL, IN BOTH SITUATIONS THE NAACP IS DEFENDING THE PERP.

THE TRUE PERP IN THE DUKE CASE WAS THE WOMAN WHO MADE FALSE ACCUSATIONS.

THE PERP IN THE VICK CASE APPEARS TO BE VICK.

THE NAACP SEEMS TO HAVE BECOME AS WORTHLESS AS THE ACLU.

NAH. NOT WORTHLESS: HARMFUL.

REMEMBER: SC*MB*G JULIAN BOND VIRTUALLY CALLED BUSH HITLER.
(MORE HERE.)

GOOD STUFF HERE.

STARE DECISIS: IS THE US CONSTITUTION "WRITTEN IN STONE" OR "A LIVING DOCUMENT"

The answer depends on a few factors; chiefly it depends on what issue is before trhe court, and whether you ask the question of a leftist or a conservative.

Leftist - like Schumer and Leahy - selectively apply the term, albeit with some consistency: The US Constitution is "a living document" when the issue before it is whether a conservative principle should be UPHELD; in these cases they argue we must OVERTURN the past, AND BE PROGRESSIVE.

When the issue is before the Court is whether a LEFTIST decision should be overturned, then the answer is "NO; IT IS WRITTEN IN STONE."

This is another example proving how UNPRINCIPLED the Left - the Democrats - have become. (others HERE; scroll down.)

The Left's current witch-hunt against Bush appointees is discussed HERE at THE AMERICAN THINKER; Clarice Feldman has links to more than a dozen decisions and opinions by Justice Breyer which shed light on this issue.

The Home Gun Smitth

The Home Gunsmith.com Has some very neat plans for a home shop built SMG (submachine gun). Here is what the site owner has to say about gun control:

My own view is that the gun not only belongs in the hands of the agents of the state (they can never be disarmed) but in the hands of the people as a whole. This is the surest way of maintaining the correct balance of power between state and citizen. The mad rush of government to create a 'gun free' Utopia will not, of course, have any effect on the crime rate. The criminal, by definition, does not obey the law and is therefore unaffected by any anti firearms legislation. Gun control will, however, create more and more victims of violent crime as long as we allow ourselves to be disarmed behind the smokescreen of 'Crime control'. This is the unpalatable truth you will never read in the media or hear from any politically correct politician.

Unfortunately, while we continue to allow the media anti gun propaganda mills to churn out their lies, myths and misinformation we will continue to see the destruction of the ancient liberties and freedoms once securely enshrined under the "Common laws of England".

When any government deprives a citizen of his freedom or property, the individual must take action to publicise his grievances. To this end, I hope to illustrate in the following pages, the futility of gun control, and that no amount of arbitrary legislation can ever prevent those wanting firearms from owning them. The individual who has the ability to construct his own homemade gun can never be permanently disarmed by any level of gun control legislation.

So as to allow you to get a 'feel' for the subject of homemade guns, the following pages illustrate how a reasonably light weight and portable homemade Machine gun was assembled from readily available 'Off the shelf' materials and components. No lathe or milling machine was required or used.

The firearm that can truthfully be described as "a homemade gun" should be one built using the type of hand tools and materials that the average individual could easily acquire.

The barrel is unrifled so this device will not produce a tight pattern. Where spray and pray is an appropriate tactic this could be an excellent weapon. Spare parts should be easy to come by. Until pipe fittings are made illegal. Don't laugh. Cold medicine is now a behind the counter medicine in the hopes of reducing meth manufacture. As a government tactic this seems to have worked. Now much of our illegal meth is imported. Nice to see our government supporting international trade. This policy also has the advantage of making those with colds suffer if they need more than the government approved cold medicine allowance. The perfect government policy. The War On Some Drugs was always a prototype for the War On Guns. If American gun owners really took this to heart the Drug War would be over in America in short order.

H/T Commenter PRCalDude at Hot Air

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

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PEW POLL RESULTS: Democrat Malaise and Pessimism, and their love of Leftist Policies

POWER LINE - on Barone and the recent global Pew Poll/"Attitudes Survey":

... what is striking is how much optimism is reflected in the survey, world-wide. Global economic growth has sparked a high level of confidence in the future, even in Africa. The United States, however, is an exception:

Most strikingly, only 25 percent of Americans are positive about the direction of the nation, down from 41 percent in 2002. In only a handful of the 47 nations are there declines of similar magnitude -- Uganda, the Czech Republic, France, Canada and Italy. ***

[B]y a two-to-one margin Americans say their children will be worse off than we are. There's a similar response in Canada, Britain and Brazil. The even more negative verdicts in Western Europe and Japan can be explained as a cool assessment of the combination of low birthrates and overgenerous welfare states.

But what basis do Americans have to suppose that, for the first time in history, a younger generation will be worse off than their parents? Perhaps it's just a feeling that things cannot possibly get any better. In any case, we seem to be in a pronounced national funk.

Barone concludes by suggesting that Americans should snap out of it. Good advice; but I think what we are seeing is partly faux pessimism. As Barone notes:

It's partly a partisan response: Almost all Democrats are negative about the nation's future.

RELIAPUNDIT: I think the decidedly MORE PESSIMISTIC attitude by Democrats in the USA is because - as Leftists - they are temperamentally more pessimistic, and have been for a LONG TIME. And they are MORE LIKELY to see reality through a partisan lens than right-wingers.

[ASIDE: This was proved by a poll in the book FAILING TO WIN: A poll in the book had results which proved that right-wingers were more principled than Democrats and applied core principles to issues; whereas leftists/Democrats selectively applied principles depending on the partisan slant of the question in the poll.

The particular poll in the book was about Iraq: when the situation wa expressed abstractly using hypotheticals and fictitious president and fictitious foreign land, then the Democrats supported Bush's policies in iraq2. But when the question was posed using REAL names and places, then the Democrats OPPOSED them. The Republicans who answered the poll answered the same regardless of whether the places were real or fictitious/hypothetical.]

Remember Carter's Malaise speech? Carter blamed America for its miserable state and wanted more sacrifices. lowered expectations and more statist interventions. Carter:

we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next 5 years will be worse than the past 5 years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.

CARTER DID NOT SEE THAT LEFTISM WAS THE PROBLEM, AND NOT THE PEOPLE. Carter suggested we needed (1) QUOTAS on foreign oil, (2) mandated limits on oil use by PRIVATE utilities, (3) a NEW HUGE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY, and (4) RATIONING.

FUNNY: He saw the energy crisis much like toady's Dems see the "healthcare crisis": as something which can only be solved by MORE GOVERNMENT AND GOVERNMENT RATIONING. GEE: I WONDER WHY?!

What saved America in the 1980's was not the smörgåsbord of leftist policy carter suggested; it was Reagan and his right-wing approach: lower taxes, smaller government and more faith in free people and free markets.

FAITH IN FREE PEOPLE AND FREE MARKETS: THAT IS TRUE OPTIMISM.

Leftists are people who have no faith in free markets or the people, and that's why they FEEL they NEED to have BIG Government - in order to intervene on behalf of particular people (victims) and particular issues THEY favor.

BOTTOM-LINE:

Democrats/Leftists NEED to feel bad and pessimistic in order to JUSTIFY their GRANDIOSE/BIG GOVERNMENT policies.

FOR EXAMPLE:

They NEED to say that global-warming is man-made AND that it will "destroy life as we know it" in order to make the GOVERNMENT BIGGER AND MORE POWERFUL AND IN ORDER TO ENACT FAR-REACHING CHANGES IN OUR LIVES.

Little crises just can't motivate or justify their colossal UTOPIANISTIC and "revolutionary" policies.

Don't become a victim of their pessimism. Don't fall for their prescriptions: they're worse than the disease.

NBA ROBBERIES AND NBA REF BETTING SCANDAL: ARE THEY RELATED?

JUST ASKING. BECAUSE OF THIS:

Police Seek Link in NBA Player Robberies

Two hulking NBA stars were bound with duct tape and robbed of cash and jewelry by masked gunmen in separate holdups that have Chicago-area detectives wondering whether someone is targeting professional athletes.

New York Knicks forward Eddy Curry 6-foot-11, 285 pounds was tied up along with his wife and an employee at his mansion in suburban Burr Ridge on Saturday.

Miami Heat forward Antoine Walker, who is 6-foot-9, 245 pounds, was similarly robbed along with a relative at his $4 million townhouse in Chicago's exclusive River North section on July 10.

No one was injured in either case.

"Our guys are talking to Chicago to determine if it's just a copycat or a coincidence or if there is a relationship there," Burr Ridge police Cpl. Tim Vaclav said.

MAYBE THESE ROBBERIES ARE PAYBACK, OR A WAY FOR PEOPLE TO COVER THEIR GAMBLING LOSSES?

THE NEW YORK TIMES SAYS WE'RE WINNING IN IRAQ!

I am left speechless (From the New York Times via U.S.S. Neverdock):


"Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with."

... As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began."

And the Iraqis are stepping up to the plate.

"We traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul. This is an ethnically rich area, with large numbers of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside. A local mayor told us his greatest fear was an overly rapid American departure from Iraq."

Tell that to the Democrats who want to cut and run.

"In war, sometimes it’s important to pick the right adversary, and in Iraq we seem to have done so. A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army."


Go read the whole thing.

A sane moonbat?

A good email from a British reader below:

I thought you'd like to take a look at these two articles. The first, by George "moonbat" Monbiot in The Guardian acknowledges that the recent floods in England cannot be attributed to global warming.

The second in The Daily Telegraph by Charles Clover asserts that the floods are evidence of global warming.

To be honest, I can't be bothered to read them in full. It does make me wonder though, that if the science is settled and climate catastrophe is almost upon us, why aren't the warm-mongers singing from the same hymn sheet?

There's something else that puzzles me. If, when it's hot it's global warming (the heatwave in France a few summers ago) and when it's cold it's global warming (Peru this year) and to prevent global warming we've to cut CO2 emissions, how will anyone know that the measures taken have had the desired effect?

Philosopher Keith Burgess Jackson makes a similar point to the above





Weatherman John Kettley isn't surprised by the current British floods

This year's apparently extraordinary weather is no more sinister than a typical British summer of old and a reminder of why Mediterranean holidays first became so attractive to us more than 40 years ago. Because, while we are being drenched, a heatwave has brought temperatures of 40C (104F) or more across other parts of Europe. To many people the disparity may seem to indicate some seismic and sinister shift in our climate.

In fact, temperatures are exceptional only in eastern Europe, where a band of air has been moving westwards from Asia Minor. Central Europe is experiencing temperatures of 30-35C (85-95F) - just what you'd expect for this time of year, along with the blue skies and light winds.

The weather patterns across Europe are all linked in such a way that the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean never enjoy, or suffer, the same weather at the same time. And now we are feeling the full force of two extreme fronts from the West and East that are usually modified by a third from the South.

While central Europe feels the heat from the East, we have always been influenced by weather systems generated over the Atlantic, picking up energy from this huge pool of water.

We also feel the power of the strong ribbon of winds known as the Gulf Stream - a highly energetic jet, fluctuating several miles above our heads and hugely important in determining our weather. As the summer evolves, the jetstream and rainbands above us are normally gradually pushed to the north-west of Scotland by a third weather system, a milder pocket of high pressure blowing up from the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. Ultimately, this more friendly system plants itself across the rest of the country.

But this year that modifying weather pattern has yet to arrive. So the cold of the West has collided with the intense heat of the East. The result is flash floods and torrential downpours.

There is no particular reason for the sluggish movement of the Azores front. It's just one of those things. But a similar situation worked in reverse in 1976 when we enjoyed a fantastic hot summer and it was cool and wet in central Europe - such are the mechanisms of our complex weather machine....

In my view, none of the severe weather we have experienced is proof of 'climate change.' It is just a poor summer - nothing more, nothing less - something that was the norm throughout most of the Sixties and has been repeated on several occasions more recently. Going further back, history also shows that 1912 was an atrocious summer. It was so bad, in fact, that we are still some way short of the torrential downpours that happened that year. It seemed particularly bad at the time because 1911 had been such an exceptionally good summer.

So, taking a long view, there is a pattern of warming and cooling. The Edwardians were experiencing a period of significant warming (much like now) following a cold Victorian spell. There was a period of warming from the Twenties through to the end of the Fifties and, after a cooler period, there has been a further significant warming over the past 20 years.

In the final analysis, this summer may be just such a 'blip' in the charts. But we still have plenty of summer to go and it takes only one slight shift in the jetstream to change rain into sun and bring a late renaissance for holidaymakers here in Britain.

More here

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

HILLARY'S YOUTHFUL LETTERS

The NYT has some (no doubt carefully selected) excerpts from letters written by Hillary during her college years. The excerpts below give some idea of the pathologies that drive her: Inauthenticity, misanthropy and narcissism

"Since Xmas vacation, I've gone through three and a half metamorphoses and am beginning to feel as though there is a smorgasbord of personalities spread before me," Ms. Rodham wrote to Mr. Peavoy in April 1967. "So far, I've used alienated academic, involved pseudo-hippie, educational and social reformer and one-half of withdrawn simplicity." ....

"Can you be a misanthrope and still love or enjoy some individuals?" Ms. Rodham wrote in an April 1967 letter....

Her letters at times betray a kind of innocent narcissism over "my lost youth," as she described it in a letter shortly after her 19th birthday. She wrote of being a little girl and believing that she was the only person in the universe. She had a sense that if she turned around quickly, "everyone else would disappear. "I'd play out in the patch of sunlight that broke the density of the elms in front of our house and pretend there were heavenly movie cameras watching my every move," she says. She yearns for all the excitement and discoveries of life without losing "the little girl in the sunlight."

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