"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Saturday, May 12, 2007

1,000,000 ROMANS IN PRO-FAMILY MARCH!

BBC:
Hundreds of thousands of "pro-family" protesters have gathered in the Italian capital to protest against laws giving more rights to homosexual couples.

The proposed law would allow all unmarried couples greater rights in areas such as inheritance, but stops short of legalising gay marriage. ...

Reports say between 500,000 and 1.5 million protesters turned out.

The demonstration had the backing of the Vatican and Italy's Catholic bishops, although neither was involved in organising the protest.
THE LEFTIST COALITION LED BY THE SOCIALIST PRODI FAVORS GIVNG GAY COUPLES RIGHTS AS MARRIED COUPLES. IT'S THEIR GRAMSCIAN AGENDA.

THANK GOD PEOPLE ARE FIGHTING BACK.

GORDON BROWN: SOCIALIST PIG

BBC:
Gordon Brown is due to pledge five new "eco towns" in a bid to help thousands of people onto the property ladder, as he continues his leadership campaign.

The chancellor is expected to announce the construction of up to 100,000 sustainable homes across the country. ...The proposed five "eco towns" could each contain up to 20,000 homes, funded with a mixture of public and private finance.
IF PEOPLE WANTED TO BUY "ECO-HOMES" THEN BUILDERS AND DEVELOPERS WOULD BUILD THEM.

THESE "ECO-HOMES" ARE PROBABLY MORE EXPENSIVE TO BUILD THAN NORMAL HOMES - HENCE THE DESIRE TO HAVE TAX-PAYERS SUBSIDIZE THEM.

TYPICAL SOCIALIST BOONDOGGLE: THEY REALLY DO THING THEY KNOW HOW TO SPEND YOUR MONEY BETTER THAN YOU DO!

SERBIA WINS 2007 EUROVISON SONG CONTEST

SERBIA won the Eurovision Song Contest last night at a ceremony in Helsinki which saw the UK's entry come joint second-last.

Marija Serifovic beat 23 competitors to clinch victory in a three-hour televised mishmash of power ballads, ethnic rhythms, and bubble-gum pop.

Serifovic scored 268 points from telephone voters in 42 countries with her potent but simply-staged ballad "Molitva", or "Prayer".
SHE'S GOOD. I WAS MOVED BY HER PERFORMANCE AND TALENT, AND THE MUSIC OF THE SONG. THE LYRICS ARE GOOD, TOO. WATCH IT. (Lyrics and translation in comments section.)

MUSLIMS, LIBERALS, AND LIBERAL MUSLIMS DENOUNCING EXTREMISM?

Here are three examples from just the past few days.

Ali Eteraz writes at the Huffington Post that Chomsky's "theory of dissent" needs to be expanded to include Islamic extremism.

Liberal blogger James Tiberius, of the New York Crank, scolds for "blowing up every election" they don't like, saying that if that is the way they will behave, "it's not a Jihad, it is a putsch."

And finally, Charles at LGF brings the news that "The leaders of a south New Jersey mosque where four of the Fort Dix terror suspects worshipped have come out with a strong statement denouncing extremism ..."

Hopefully, we are seeing the beginnings of a new movement on the left.

What do you think?

SNOOZY SHIMON LOSES LABOR SUPPORT FOR PRESIDENCY

Shimon Peres is showing signs of age in sleepiness, and has also lost Labor's support for him as a presidential candidate:
Vice Premier Shimon Peres is by all accounts active for his age, but time may be gaining on the octogenarian.

According to the Jerusalem Post, the Labor Party's executive committee voted nearly unanimously to endorse Colette Avital rather than Peres as its choice for Israel's next president. [...]

The Vice Premier, who bolted to the Kadima party after losing to Amir Peretz in the race to lead Labor, was not pleased when Channel Ten screened a clip of him falling asleep during a TV interviewer's question about Iran. [...]

The interviewer, evidently from an Arab television station, asks Peres whether Israel should see development of nuclear capability in Iran as an "existential threat." The Vice Premier mumbles in response that Iran should feel threatened, and that they would in ten years see the investment in nuclear weapons as a mistake. But by the time the interviewer asks him about the Iranian President's threat to wipe Israel off the map, Peres has dozed off completely.

The disconcerted interviewer repeats the question, and Peres opens his eyes. He is rescued by his aide's offer to fetch some coffee.

In response to the broadcast of the clip Thursday, Peres' consultant explained that he had just returned on a long flight. The interview reportedly took place several months ago.

The embarrassing clip is not likely to help his campaign to reassure the public that an 83 year old can stand up to the demanding challenges of public office.
He's not the only one. Even Ehud Olmert himself has been filmed dozing off at public meetings. There are questions being raised about whether he's in any good shape to be in his position either.

Blasphemy at Tufts

There has recently been a big upheaval at Tufts University in Massachusetts over some material in the student newspaper about Islam. In response to an "Islamic awareness week" that presented Islam in a favourable light only, some students ran a strictly factual article in the newspaper listing some of the more unsavory quotations from the Koran etc. The idea was to balance the story about Islam.

But that produced a huge outcry and the students have been condemned by the university for it. Truth is no defence at Tufts, it seems.

There is such a lot going on that I will not try to summarize it further. The Volokhs are all over it and the latest on their site at the time of writing is here. FIRE reproduces what the students wrote.

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

I THINK I OWE THE GREENIES AN APOLOGY

Ever since I first started doing research into environmentalism over 30 years ago, it has seemed obvious to me that they are simply a revival of mankind's most primitive religion -- nature worship. Awe before nature is in fact probably so primitive and goes back so far that it has to an extent been hardwired into us.

But many religions are extremely destructive of human welfare -- with Islam being a rather obvious example -- and the plainly misanthropic (people-hating) nature of environmentalism was obviously always going to be a big problem. That problem was for many years obvious in only minor ways. An outright people-hating message was obviously never going to gain much traction so Greenies had to present their demands for change under the old Leftist label: "It is for your own good". And convincing people that something is for your own good when it is actually bad for you is a hard sell. As a result, the nature-worshippers DID inadvertently do us some good in that some of the things they pushed for -- such as cleaner air and water -- really were good for us.

Of late, however, Greenies have really hit the jackpot. They have finally found something that is REALLY bad for us that they can push to the credulous as being good for them. I refer, of course to the global warming craze. It has for some time seemed to me that the vast economic destruction that this craze has already got underway establishes environmentalism as a really evil religion.

But, while there is no doubt that environmentalism is a misanthropic religion, I have come to doubt that that the environmentalists are really most to blame for their excesses. I think there is another force at work which is doing most of the damage. And it is the same force that underlies most Leftism: Excess ego. But it is not ego in politics that is the problem. It is ego in science. It is dishonest science that gives the global warming scare its legs. The average Greenie is just part of a Greek chorus in the background.

But am I not being absurd? How can I say that scientists are on a large scale ego-filled to the point of dishonesty? And how does ego come into science?

Let me initially make clear what I am saying: I am saying that scientists pump up the global warming scare not because they are subscribers to the Greenie religion (though they may well be) but because it inflates their egos. And the clearest proof that ego inflation is a hugely distorting influence on science comes from an area of science that has very little to do with environmentalism and which is arguably the most respected area of scientific research: The medical literature.

So am I now REALLY descending into absurdity? I wish I was. If we cannot trust the academic literature of medicine for an objective view of reality, whom can we trust? I will not attempt to answer that question but I do want to point out that it is crystal clear that we CANNOT trust the academic medical literature. Anyone who knows anything about that literature will know how subject to fashion it is and how what is proclaimed as bad for you in one era is in a later era proclaimed as good for you (e.g. alcohol).

There is more than fashion at work, however. As I document daily on my Food & Health Skeptic blog, there is a constant flood of absurdities appearing in the medical literature. There needs to be more than fashion behind that. And what is behind it is simply attention-seeking. Every scientist wants to be seen as someone who has "discovered" something. But real discoveries are rare so the slightest hint that a scientist has observed something going on will be trumpeted worldwide. And because real discoveries are rare, any purported discovery will be piled onto by lots of other scientists who want to be in on the glory of having made a contribution to the elucidation of this new phenomenon.

The clearest example of this is the cholesterol and polyunsaturated fats obsession. To cut a long story short, there is NO evidence that a low cholesterol diet lowers the amount of cholesterol in your blood nor is there any evidence that saturated fats in your diet are bad for you. In fact, some studies have shown that people on a diet low in saturated fats die SOONER. I have a research review up on today's issue of my Food & Health Skeptic blog that sets out in detail the evidence concerned. Yet we are still bombarded with messages about the desirability of a diet low in cholesterol and low in saturated fats. Our supermarkets are full of products that prominently and proudly proclaim that they are "low" in those constituents.

So why have the research findings not got through to the general public? Because scientists themselves ignore research that does not suit them. Let me tell you why:

The "easy" area of medical research is epidemiology: Take a large group of patients. Get reports from them on where they stand on a variety of attributes (e.g. how fat they are or how much fat they eat) and then wait to see who dies. Once you have got a large enough group of dead patients you then look through your files to see if there is something that the dead patients tend to have more of. Very often you find something, as you would on chance alone. Real scientists refer to such a procedure as "data dredging" and discount it but real scientists are a rare breed. Attention-seeking scientists are far more common and it is their reports of such rubbish findings that fill the medical literature.

But such rubbish findings are a godsend to other scientists. They can then put in for big funding to study this new finding. There is a new bandwagon that they can leap onto. But the only really conclusive way of verifying or falsifying the new "finding" is a longditudinal double-blind study -- i.e. you have to get a large and representative group of people and get half of them to change their ways in some respect (e.g. eat less fat). You then wait for years and see which group dies soonest. And at the end of that time what do you find? You typically find that the epidemiological hypothesis is not confirmed. The intervention (change) you have done to people's habits is just as likely to have done harm as good but most often it has done nothing at all. And that is where the cholesterol and saturated fat research has arrived at after all the years during which the "evil fat" gospel has been rammed down people's throats.

So where do you go from there? Do you admit that the theory you have built your career on (and which has delivered to you a cornucopia of research dollars) was all wrong? I think you can guess the answer to that. What you say is: "More research is needed" -- and carry on as before. And the poor old mug taxpayer coughs up more dollars to keep the nonsense alive.

And much the same applies to global warming theory. It initially looked good but, as more and more evidence accumulates, the holes in it get bigger and bigger. You can see that in the IPCC reports. They have progressively scaled down their predictions of what sea-level rise we are to expect. But there is NO WAY that they can admit that the whole thing is a crock so, as the evidence turns against them, they ratchet up the hysteria to keep those research dollars flowing. And it works. "More research is needed" has become the mantra of many politicians too.

But it leaves the average person totally betrayed. Attention-seeking medical scientists have led him towards useless lifestyle changes that may even harm him and attention-seeking climate scientists have led him to support political programs that will certainly impoverish him. So dishonest science is in fact a far greater evil than the rather wacky tribe of kneejerk nature-lovers.

Clinging to disproven theories is also rampant in my own field of academic specialization -- psychology -- but, fortunately, nobody takes much notice of psychologists.

For more on the poor track record of epidemiological "findings", see the sad caution from a medical researcher that I reproduced as part of my post about the latest vitamin D nonsense. Note also another review article on cholesterol and fat myths that I have linked to before.

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

Societies are not killed, they commit suicide

And here's the evidence from the Netherlands, c/o NIS News:

"The government has been enabling the terrorist murderer of Theo van Gogh to read books in his prison cell that endorse his ultra violent interpretation of Islam. The murderer himself said so on Friday before the appeal court of The Hague.

On Friday, as on Wednesday, Mohammed Bouyeri appeared before the judges to testify in the trial of seven alleged members of his terrorist group Hofstad. The judges asked him how he believes a Muslim should respond to somebody who offends the Islam faith. Bouyeri's reply: "Off with his head. Slaughter him."

As the 29-year-old Amsterdam-born Moroccan sees it, the Justice Ministry encourages his ideologies. According to Bouyeri, it is obligatory to behead everybody who offends the prophet Mohammed, "and I am confirmed in this conviction by the books I get" in prison".

The Solar Conveyor Has Slowed

Reliapundit left a comment at my blog about this story which I think covers my theory of why we are seeing a big push for global warming taxes. [Emphasis added]

the political schmucks running agw crowd are NOT dumb.

they KNOW we are near the end of this warming cycle, and that's EXACTLY why they are pushing so dang FURIOUSLY HARD to get agw taxes and regulations in place ASAP ASAP ASAP - because in a few years it will be cooling --- they want to hamper capitalism/free markets / industrialization/globalization --- it's always been the left's long term goal - and they KNOW that it's NOW OR NEVER!


And now the rest of the story:

NASA says the solar conveyor has slowed. The solar conveyor speed predicts the sunspot level two cycles in advance, about 20 years.
"Normally, the conveyor belt moves about 1 meter per second—walking pace," says Hathaway. "That's how it has been since the late 19th century." In recent years, however, the belt has decelerated to 0.75 m/s in the north and 0.35 m/s in the south. "We've never seen speeds so low."

According to theory and observation, the speed of the belt foretells the intensity of sunspot activity ~20 years in the future. A slow belt means lower solar activity; a fast belt means stronger activity. The reasons for this are explained in the Science@NASA story Solar Storm Warning.

"The slowdown we see now means that Solar Cycle 25, peaking around the year 2022, could be one of the weakest in centuries," says Hathaway.
What does all this have to do with the climate on earth? Let us look at the climate when sunspot levels were low:
...the Sporer, Maunder, and Dalton minima coincide with the colder periods of the Little Ice Age, which lasted from about 1450 to 1820. More recently it was discovered that the sunspot number during 1861-1989 shows a remarkable parallelism with the simultaneous variation in northern hemisphere mean temperatures (2). There is an even better correlation with the length of the solar cycle, between years of the highest numbers of sunspots. For example, the temperature anomaly was - 0.4 K in 1890 when the cycle was 11.7 years, but + 0.25 K in 1989 when the cycle was 9.8 years. Some critics of the theory of man-induced global warming have seized on this discovery to criticize the greenhouse gas theory.

All this evokes the important question of how sunspots affect the Earth's climate. To answer this question, we need to know how total solar irradiance received by the Earth is affected by sunspot activity.

Intuitively one may assume the that total solar irradiance would decrease as the number of (optically dark) sunspots increased. However direct satellite measurements of irradiance have shown just the opposite to be the case. This means that more sunspots deliver more energy to the atmosphere, so that global temperatures should rise.
If sunspots are going to decline in the near future the global warming era may be over. Especially if the sun's effect on Clouds turns out to be affected by solar activity as some scientists have experimentally proved.

So are things warming up now?
1. Since about 2002 there has been NO statistically significant global average warming in the lower and middle troposphere,

and

2. Since about 1995 there has been NO statistically significant cooling in the stratosphere.

The IPCC SPM conclusion that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” is wrong as it ignores the lack of such warming in recent years by these other metrics of climate system heat changes...
Well what do you know? In addition global temperatures have been on the decline for the last few years. We had a spike in 2004 I believe, but otherwise temperatures have been declining since about 2000 or so.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Friday, May 11, 2007

WHY WE MUST FIGHT ISLAMO-MISOGYNY



NAZANIN AFSHIN JAM.

Via Gateway.

DO YOU WANT THAT FUTURE, OR THIS ONE:

MUST SEE TV: THE CLIMATE OF FEAR

CNN'S DOCUMENTARY WHICH ENTIRELY DEBUNKS THE LIES AND EXAGGERATIONS AND DISTORTIONS AND PROPAGANDA OF AL GORE AND THE ECO-NUTSIES.

EACH SEGMENT IS ONLY ABOUT 7 MINUTES. WATCH IT WITH SOMEONE WHO AGREES WITH GORE, AND WATCH THEM MELT!




PART 1



PART 2



PART 3



PART 4



PART 5



PART 6

DEFEAT OF THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN WEST IS THE GOAL OF THE LEFT AND THEY'RE FIGHTING ON TWO FRONTS

THE LEFT'S GRAMSCIAN AGENDA ATTACKS TRADITIONAL CULTURE AND TRADITIONAL FAMILIES. THEY WANT TO DESTROY THE SOCIETY BASED ON OUR CULTURE AND REPLACE IT WITH A SOCIALIST STATE (RUN BY A VERY PERMISSIVE NANNY).
READ A LITTLE ABOUT IT HERE. AND HERE. AND HERE. AND HERE.
THERE IS ALSO AN ANTI-DEFENSE/ANTI-MILITARY, AND ANTI-ARMAMENT AGENDA.
READ ALL ABOUT THEIR LATEST ATTACK AGAINST OUR ABILITY TO DEFEND OURSELVES AGAINST PUTINISM AND JIHADISM IT HERE.
NOTE: BOTH OF THESE EFFORTS AID THE JIHADISTS: BY WEAKENING OUR ABILITY TO RESPOND WITH KINETIC FORCE, AND BY DESTROYING THE WILL TO DO SO.

THE LEFT WANTS TRADITIONAL WESTERN CIVILIZATION DEFEATED ALMOST AS MUCH AS THE JIHADIS DO.

[
REALLY THEY DO! THEY BLAME THE WEST FOR THIRD WORLD POVERTY (FALSE!), GLOBAL WARMING (FALSE!) AND MOST OF HISTORY'S GENOCIDE, (FALSE, AGAIN!).

THEY ALSO BLAME IT FOR SEXUAL REPRESSION, AND GENERALLY LOW LIVING STANDARDS AND LIFE-SPANS. ALL FALSE.

YET MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF WESTERN KIDS HAVE BEEN RAISED TO BELIEVE THIS CRAP - BY AN ACADEMY AND AN MSM WHICH IS OVERWHELMINGLY RUN BY FOLKS WHO ARE OF THE POSTMODERN LEFT.


AS BUSH'S CURRENT BUDGET BATTLE WITH THE DEFEATOCRATS NOW PROVES, WE WILL NEVER EVER BE ABLE TO DEFEAT THE JIHADIST ENEMY UNTIL WE FIRST DEFEAT THE LEFTIST ENEMY HERE AT HOME.]

OLMERT TRIES TO BORROW MORE TIME, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME TURNING ON LIVNI

He wants to appear before the Lebanon war commission again:
JERUSALEM (AP) - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wants to appear again before the Lebanon war commission, after testimony released by the body showed he blamed the army for shortcomings but acknowledged he ignored warnings that Israeli forces were unprepared for the conflict last summer.

Olmert's office said late Thursday that he wants to counter a statement to the commission from his foreign minister and political rival, Tzipi Livni, that she recommended a diplomatic solution instead of a large-scale military operation the day after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two soldiers and killed three in a cross-border raid. Olmert said there was no such recommendation.

Olmert's appearance before the panel failed to stave off its severe censure of his wartime performance. Last week's publication of the commission's first report triggered a wave of calls for his resignation.

The war ended without Israeli forces fulfilling Olmert's two stated goals - crushing Hezbollah and returning the captured soldiers. Instead, Hezbollah rained almost 4,000 rockets on Israel during the 34-day conflict.
I think Olmert is just stalling for more time, while simultaneously, we see how the political crooks are turning on one another. I'm not impressed with his attempt to seek an "appeal", and look at this next part here:
"Something in the conception of how they operated the forces, something in the conception of their control over the forces, something wasn't what we expected, unfortunately, and that no doubt led to the disparity between what we are capable of doing and what we actually achieved," he said.
Translation: he's blaming the army commanders. It's everyone else's fault but his.

WORLD BANK BLAMES ISRAEL FOR PALESTINIAN POVERTY. SOON AFTERWARDS, PALESTINIANS SHOOT AT EACH OTHER IN REACTION TO NEW SECURITY PLAN

The World Bank has been pulling this stunt for years, so there's nothing particularly insightful about this post (or rather, even less than usual). But it's always elegant to see the juxtapositions. On Tuesday the World Bank published a report blaming - wonder of all wonders - the Israelis for the fact that Palestinians can't be bothered to stop trying to infiltrate Israel and kill Jews:
The World Bank report on restrictions imposed by Israel on the freedom of movement of Palestinians is full of errors and imbalanced, said Deputy Defense Minister Efraim Sneh yesterday, responding to news of the report published in Haaretz on Tuesday. Sneh told Haaretz that the report uses mistaken data. Sneh points out several areas in the West Bank where passage for the transfer of goods and people has been eased, but complains "the World Bank is ignoring a much more basic fact: What is making the life of Palestinians in the West Bank difficult is terrorism, not Israel. From Jenin to Nablus there are daily attempts to carry out attacks on Israel and the World Bank has forgotten that uncontrolled lifting of roadblocks could lead to the loss of lives. If the World Bank knows how to do it better, let it tell us."
That's a fair point. Lifting roadblocks is astonishingly well-correlated with getting Israeli civilians dead. But that's just one of the many, many reasons why this World Bank stinks of hypocrisy. We're not experts on political economy, but it can't be easy to develop robust infrastructure or agile industries when the armed forces of the current government are in gunfights with the armed forces from the last government.

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]

IRONY IS DEAD AND ASSAD KILLED IT

We don't ask for much from Assad. Just the tiniest bit of self-awareness. A minimal recognition of the rhetorical and political position that he's speaking from. No such luck:
Syrian President Bashar Assad said Thursday that the Israeli government was too weak to make peace with Syria, stressing that negotiations must resume from the point they had last reached in 2000... Assad said, addressing the first session of the parliament's 9th legislative four-year term. He warned [about] "weak governments in Israel"
In fairness to Israel, it's much harder to have a "strong government" when you're not enforcing ideology by rounding up dissidents. But then again, we can't all inherit police states from daddy.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

TONY BLAIR RESIGNS

A decade after he was first elected to office, Blair has now announced his resignation. I wish I could credit him more than I can, but unfortunately, there's a few little things on his record that simply cannot be ignored, such as how just a few months ago, as reported by Melanie Phillips:
Last February, Tony Blair suggested that the British government might be prepared to do business with ‘the more sensible elements of Hamas’ in order to restore negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. This was about as rational as suggesting in 1942, say, that one might do business with the more sensible elements of the SS. But hey — this is Britain. It does appeasement. Produce a sect of fanatics who are totally beyond reason and bent on wiping out every last Jew and American, defeating the west and taking over the world and Britain will be beating a path to their door, cap in hand. This is because, in its unsurpassed cynicism, Britain believes there is no-one on the planet who is not basically turnable, susceptible to bribes or threats or flattery or what have you because everyone is out for their own self-interest.

I am told that shortly after making this remark about talking to the ‘more sensible elements of Hamas’, Blair was rudely disabused of such fantasies, not by Israel or America but by two somewhat unexpected sources. The first was Mahmoud Abbas, the front end of the Palestinian pantomime horse. The second was King Abdullah of Jordan. Both told Blair with great force that there were no sensible elements of Hamas, and talking to anyone inside that murderous organisation would be a total disaster because it would merely strengthen it.

Both men, of course, fear with very good reason that Hamas will destroy them. Britain does not. Sometimes, self-interest calls the bluff of even the most profound cynic. But how appalling — and how terrifying — that given half a chance the British government would feed Israel to the Hamas monster, while pretending to itself all the while that it was a pussycat. How little Britain has learned, even now, about the Middle East.
And how little Blair himself seems to have learned that you cannot lead a convincing war on terrorism if you're going to separate between specific elements. I really can't feel sorry to see him depart.

It looks like Gordon Brown is set to replace him as prime minister of Britain now, and given how crummy he is, that's exactly why I'm so glad that Nicholas Sarkozy was elected president of France. Without Sarkozy, Israel could find itself without any real friends in Europe.

Sign The Fusion Petition

There is a petition started on 20 Nov 2006 calling for Congress to support the Bussard Fusion Reactor.

The short version: Dr. Bussard has a Navy contract that is unfunded.

Also please write your Government to urge them to fund the Navy contract:

House of Representatives
The Senate
The President

Dr Bussard was on The Space Show last night. You can hear the audio here.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

The Ongoing Censorship By CPB/PBS Of "Islam v. Islamists"

From Hugh Hewitt:

"The Corporation for Public Broadcasting continues to enable PBS' censorship of the film "Islam v. The Islamists." After the revelations concerning the Fort Dix Six , it is simply incredible that CPB/PBS is censoring this film. The U.S. audience needs more information on the struggle within Islam, not less, and it doesn't need politically correct censors at CPB/PBS to babysit that information flow.

Background on the film here

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

Muslims must assimilate, says Australian PM

Would any American political leader be straight enough to say the same? He would probably be called a "racist" if he did

PRIME Minister John Howard said today he unapologetically used the word "assimilate" when it came to absorbing Muslim citizens into the community. Mr Howard said assimilating new citizens into the wider community helped tackle radicalism among a minority of Muslims. In Tuesday's Budget, Treasurer Peter Costello allocated $461,000 to programs that help Muslim communities integrate.

"I think it's in the interests of everybody," Mr Howard said on Southern Cross radio. "There's every reason to try and assimilate - and I unapologetically use that word 'assimilate' - a section of the community, a tiny minority of whose members have caused concern. "After all, once somebody's become a citizen of this country the best thing we can do is to absorb them in the mainstream."

But he denied the measure was about trying to assimilate people's religious beliefs. "The reason that religion is used as a descriptor is it's a small category of radical Muslims that have adopted attitudes that we think are bad for the country and the most sensible thing to do is try and change those attitudes."


Source

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

THE JIHAD MOUSE IS STILL ON THE AIR

Some may have heard about the Hamas' Mickey Mouse ripoff that they launched on Gazan TV stations as part of their teaching of jihad. Although it was said that the Fatah told them to yank it off the air, as LGF reports, it's still on. (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin). No surprise there.

As Allahpundit at Hot Air says:
The only reason this is on the media’s radar screen now is because Hamas is using an iconic American symbol of innocence to tacitly justify suicide bombings. Take away Mickey and the illicit thrill that comes with seeing him turned to the dark side and it’s a non-story. As usual.
Which wouldn't be surprising either.

Update: here's another article about this from Der Spiegel (via the Newsarama blog). As they explain, "farfur" means butterfly in Arabic, but the character and his intentions are the complete opposite of what butterflies are like.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

SARKOZY WILL OPPOSE ISLAMO-MISOGYNY

We've posted quite a lot about the centrality of Women's Lib to demolishing jihadism. Perhaps Sarko agrees.

VOLOKH/KOPEL (VIA DR. SANITY):
Sarkozy: In English:
"I want to launch a call to all those in the world who believe in the values of tolerance, of liberty, of democacy and of humanism, to all those who are persecuted by the tyrannies and by the dictators, to all the children and to all the martyrized women in the world to say to them that the pride, the duty of France will at their sides, that they can count on her."
(The italicized words were in the speech as delivered, but not in the prepared text.) Pretty good so far. Then, Sarkozy delivered a paragraph which did not appear in the prepared text ...
"France will be at the sides of the Libyan nurses locked up for eight years; France will not abandon Ingrid Betancourt; France will not abandon the women who are condemned to the burqa; France will not abandon the women who do not have liberty. France will be by the side of the oppressed of the world. This is the message of France; this is the identity of France; this is the history of France."
BRAVO!

SARKOZY READYING ANOTHER ELECTORAL VICTORY

UK INDEPENDENT:
The French centrist politician François Bayrou split with the majority of his own members of parliament yesterday and launched a new political party, the Mouvement Démocrate.

M. Bayrou, 55, who had once seemed capable of springing a surprise in the presidential election, said that he was creating a "new, independent political force" of "free men and women".

By a show of hands at a conference in Paris, grass-roots members voted overwhelmingly to dissolve M. Bayrou's old party, the Union pour la Démocratie Francaise (UDF).

However, 21 out of the 29 UDF deputies in the national assembly repudiated M. Bayrou. They have bowed to pressure from France's president-elect, Nicolas Sarkozy, and agreed to join a "centrist" section of his centre-right party, the Union Pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP).
As I posted three days ago, Sarko needs a compromise-proof majority in the National Assembly to govern effectively and institute the necessary reforms. AND AS I FURTHER POSTED, the first crucial step for him would be to consolidate voters from Bayrou.

I think this news-item proves that he's taken the steps necessary to do just that.

Pelosi Pal Continues Crackdown Against REAL Democrats

BBC:
A Syrian court has reportedly sentenced a leading dissident to 12 years in jail for undermining national security after he visited the US. Kamal Labwani was arrested in 2005 when he returned to Damascus after meeting US officials in Washington.

The White House and State Department have called on Syria to release Labwani and stop harassing reform advocates. The verdict follows the jailing of human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni, signalling a continued crackdown. ... The verdict was announced as President Bashar al-Assad was addressing the Syrian parliament.

He said Damascus would not co-operate with a UN-backed tribunal to try suspects in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri if it would undermine Syrian sovereignty.
ASIDE: THE FIRST FOREIGN DIGNITARY TO MEET WITH SARKOZY (HE WAS WITH CHIRIC)... SAAD HARIRI, RAFIL'S SON. INTERESTING, NO!?

MAYBE WE WILL CRACKDOWN ON ASSAD.... BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.

CNN: AFGHAN WOMEN TERRORIZED BY ISLAMO-MISOGYNY

CNN:
Although strides have been made for women's rights in the post-Taliban era, many women are still made to feel like second-class citizens. (Watch the brutal reality of life for Afghan women Video)

Afghan laws stipulate that men and women have equal rights, these experts say, but they are just not recognized.

"There is a thinking of men in my country that women are not real, not complete humans," said Homa Sultani, an Afghan woman and human rights activist.

"That is why they think that if they are not complete humans, then they do not have the right to go to the doctor or the other rights, to get education."

The culture allows Afghan men to go even further, she said.

"Men think that they have the right to kill their wives because they think that when they get married, their wives, or maybe their daughters, [become] their private property and ... you can do anything -- you can throw them away, you can demolish them."
FIRST OF ALL, WE NEED TO LIBERATE THESE WOMEN, MUSLIM WOMEN EVERYWHERE - FROM ISLAMO-MISOGYNY BECAUSE THESE WOMEN -- OUR SISTERS - ARE HUMANS WHO DESERVE THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS AS MUCH AS OUR WOMEN DO.

SECOND OF ALL, TO DRAIN THE SWAMP, WE NEED TO ERADICATE ISLAMO-MISOGYNY.

AS LONG AS MUSLIMS RAISE CHILDREN IN HOMES WHICH CELEBRATE HONOR-KILLING OF THEIR OWN FLESH AND BLOOD, THEY WILL CERTAINLY ALSO BE RAISING CHILDREN WHO WILL COMMIT GENOCIDE AGAINST INFIDELS.

RTWT.

VIDEO OF IRANIAN ISLAMO-MISOGYNY HERE.

BBC: NHS FAILING ON MIXED SEX WARDS

BBC:
The NHS is failing to ensure all non-emergency hospital patients are kept in single-sex accommodation, the government has admitted. Campaigners say mixed-sex accommodation denies patients the chance of treatment with "privacy, respect and dignity".

Ministers were insisting as recently as November that 99% of patients were being seen in single-sex wards. But the government has now announced that 28 NHS trusts - 15% of the total - need more help achieving this.

The promise to end mixed-sex accommodation was first made in the 1997 general election manifesto after Tony Blair attacked the Conservatives for failing to have "the wit" to end the practice.
TEN YEARS LATER AND IT'S STILL A PROBLEM. NOTHING THE NHS DOES, DOES IT DO WELL.

IF IT DOESN'T WORK THERE, THEN WHY SHOULD WE DO IT HERE? IT MAKES NO SENSE.

YET THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT EVERY DEMOCRAT CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT WANTS TO DO: NATIONALIZE THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY. THEY MAKE IT SOUND LIKE THEY CAN GIVE YOU SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.

IF THE BRITS CANNOT MAKE IT WORK AFTER FIFTY YEARS OF TRYING, AND TEN YEARS OF LABOUR CONTROL - THEN THE DEMOCRATS CANNOT MAKE IT WORK HERE, EITHER.

DON'T FALL FOR IT.

Agitators get what they aimed for

In a deliberately provoked riot situation, police cannot be expected to behave as judiciously as if they were in a court of law. So Leftists use that in an attempt to get the police to go easy on future street takeovers by thugs



A senior policeman in Los Angeles has been demoted and his deputy and about 60 other officers have been reassigned after an inquiry into May Day clashes. Last week protesters and journalists were injured when police fired some 140 rubber bullets to break up the crowd. The rally had been peaceful until the clashes, which the police department said were prompted by agitators throwing rocks and bottles at officers. But TV footage showed a police officer pushing people who were walking away.

Widespread outrage over the pictures of the incident prompted the city's mayor to cut short an overseas visit and return to the city. News footage showed a police officer pushing a TV camerawoman to the ground and shoving people who were walking away from the officers. Officials have denied the police deliberately targeted immigrants or civil rights activists.

But police chief William Bratton has acknowledged that an order for protesters to disperse may not have been understood because it was issued in English when most of those attending the rally spoke only Spanish.

Nonetheless, the highest-ranking officer at the scene of the rally has been demoted and placed on house leave pending the outcome of an internal inquiry. His second-in-charge, a veteran of almost 40 years on the force, has been demoted and about 60 highly-trained riot control officers who were involved in the clashes have been reassigned.


Source


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

More evidence of media bias

Excerpt:

Bernard Goldberg, renowned author and commentator on media bias (based on his 20+ years as a journalist) once wrote:

"Bias in the media isn't just about what they cover; it's also about what they don't cover. Sherlock Holmes once solved a particularly thorny crime using as his key piece of evidence the dog that didn't bark. It's the same with the news media. What they don't make noise about also tells us a lot about their preconceived notions and their biases."

Well surely Bernie must be feeling vindicated this day. For if there is ever a perfect example of the silence of the media dogs it is in the story of Tina Richards. I recently wrote here about the mother of a Marine and her efforts to meet with Democrats to urge them to end the war. Her tactics were not unlike Cindy Sheehan but instead aimed at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi whereas Sheehan focused her PR effort on President Bush. I wrote that first article as much to bench mark media reporting as to provide the content. I wanted all to note that Pelosi has her own Sheehan and let's see were the media goes with it by way of comparison.

The result of my little experiment surprised even me, with my calloused eye towards the state of American journalism. Here is what is going on. It appears Tina Richards has been released from the big-house after being arrested for her sit-in at the Speaker's office and is continuing her activism. If you follow the desperately scant media reports on her you can find Richards' own website.

There she posts her thoughts in writing and video. Currently, Richards is organizing a political action called "Swarm on Congress". It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out that this is basically an assault on the mechanisms of government to call attention to her cause. You might think a planned congressional sit-in by an aggrieved military mother might qualify as news as it did in Sheehan's case. How wrong you are!


Source

There is also a well documented article here on how the media covers up for Obama's gaffes. Any Republican who got treatment like that would think he was in Heaven.


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

KUDOS TO JEFF RUBY

Jeff Ruby, owner of several upscale steakhouses, kicked OJ Simpson out of his Louisville restaurant the night before the Kentucky Derby. He said he was "sickened by the attention that Simpson still attracts." Here are the details:
"I didn't want to serve him because of my convictions of what he's done to those families," Jeff Ruby said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "The way he continues to torture the lives of those families ... with his behavior, attitude and conduct."

Simpson, an NFL Hall of Famer and Heisman Trophy winner, was found innocent in 1995 of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman but was found liable in a civil trial that followed.

Ruby — who owns restaurants in Cincinnati, Louisville and Belterra, Ind. — said Simpson, who was in town for the Derby on Saturday, came in with a group of about 12 Friday night and was seated at a table in the back. A customer came up to Ruby and was "giddy" about seeing Simpson, Ruby said.

"I didn't want that experience in my restaurant," Ruby said, later adding that seeing Simpson get so much attention "makes me sick to my stomach."

He said he went to Simpson's table and said, "I'm not serving you." Ruby said when Simpson didn't respond, he repeated himself and left the room.

Of course, Simpson's lawyer is screaming racism but I have to say I applaud Ruby for taking such a strong stand. I'm not the only one because many in the restaurant also applauded Ruby right after Simpson left and Ruby says he's gotten around 100 positive emails since the incident.

To this day I am still sickened at how OJ Simpson clearly got away with murder and still seems to enjoy a certain "celebrity status". Its nice to see that not everyone forgets the great harm he has caused.

KNESSET FORCES OLMERT TO EXPLAIN HIMSELF

The MKs want Ehud Olmert to explain why he refuses to resign:
MKs from both opposition and coalition parties submitted a petition to Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik on Tuesday demanding the plenum hold a special debate with the participation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to discuss "the prime minister's refusal to resign following the Winograd report."

46 MKs signed the petition, including six from the Labor Party. The signatures of only 40 MKs are legally required in order to force the prime minister to participate.

[...] "We only turned to the clause in the Basic Law: The Government that forces the prime minister to participate in the discussion after Olmert, who refuses to take responsibility, evaded appearing before the Knesset plenum," [Gideon] Sa'ar said.

To date, Olmert has refrained from addressing the report before the plenum. [...]

"The prime minister cannot continue avoiding to deal with the report and its severe findings," [Ami] Ayalon said. "If he does not understand himself that he must provide the Knesset and the public with clear answers, the Knesset will require him to."
Olmert would do well to step up to the podium and start giving some clear answers as to why he's still staying put when the time has come for him to pack his bags.

EHUD BARAK SEEMS TO BE DOUBLE-TALKING

In his call for Ehud Olmert to resign, Ehud Barak may be sending a double-message:
Former prime minister Ehud Barak on Monday called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign in the wake of the Winograd Committee's scathing report on the Second Lebanon War, in his first public comments since the report's release.

At a news conference in Sdot Yam, Barak said that "the [former] chief of staff has reached personal conclusions, and the defense minister has reached personal conclusions in his own way. I believe that the prime minister will find the appropriate way to reach personal conclusions, but to date this hasn't happened."

"The Winograd Report is a harsh report, the conclusions of which justify personal conclusions," added Barak.

When asked by reporters if by "personal conclusions" he means the prime minister must resign, Barak answered in the affirmative.
What they don't seem to mention here is that Barak himself was cited in the Winograd report as being one of those responsible for enabling the Hezbollah to arm itself and build up its influence in Lebanon.

And Barak even sent out a two-sided message:
"Only a leadership that enjoys the deep faith of the public can lead Israel in this current crisis," he added.

However, should Olmert resign, that would "pave the way for Labor to remain in the government," Barak said.

The former prime minister said he would be "willing to contribute, based on my experience, as defense minister" during a potential transition period until the formation of a new government or early elections.

Barak added that, for this purpose, the continued presence of Labor ministers in the government is "very important."
What this may not mention was that Barak said that he'd be willing to serve as a defense minister in Olmert's government during a transition period, which actually is shown in the article, but not Olmert's own name. If he did, then that's hinting at how dishonest he really is.

SHIMON PERES, AT HIS AGE, IS NOT SUITED TO BE PRIME MINISTER

He never was to begin with, of course. But MK David Tal seemed to think otherwise:
Vice Premier Shimon Peres told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday evening that he does not see himself as a candidate to replace Olmert in the prime minister's office.

The two agreed, however, to work together to promote Peres' bid for the presidency.

Peres' comments came hours after Kadima MK David Tal said he was suited to be prime minister, in the wake of calls by senior Kadima members for the party to begin preparations to replace Olmert.
That's interesting to see that Peres doesn't see himself as being fit to be prime minister. As for Tal, he was one of these party defects who jumped from party to party at least twice, from Shas to a small party once formed by Amir Peretz called One Nation, and then to Kadima, because he really didn't have much loyalty to begin with to any party or its platform.

MUST READ "GOLDEN OLDIE": GOLDBERG'S JUNE 25, 2000 NYTIMES MAGAZINE ARTICLE ON PAKISTAN'S MADRASSAS

IT WAS ALL THERE FOR ALL TO SEE. JUNE 25, 2000 - 5 MONTHS BEFORE THE ATTACK ON THE USS COLE; 15 MONTHS BEFORE 9/11.

HE CALLED THEM "JIHAD MACHINES."

AND BY JIHAD HE MEANT WAR AGAINST THE WEST. GLOBAL WAR.

IT WAS THERE FOR ALL TO SEE... FIFTEEN MONTHS BEFORE 9/11.

I REMEMBER READING IT THEN. I REALIZED IT WAS VERY SERIOUS STUFF - THE BEGINNINGS OF THE NEXT WORLD WAR.

I REMEMBER BECAUSE I HAS JUST MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A BEAUTIFUL PAKISTANI WOMAN, AND THIS WAS AN ISSUE FOR US AT THE TIME.

SHE WAS A BRIGHT, BEAUTIFUL AND INDEPENDENT WOMAN.

AT THE PARTY WHERE WE MET, SHE WAS ACCOSTED BY A MUSLIM MAN WHO CALLED HER A WHORE FOR THE WAY SHE DRESSED AND BECAUSE SHE WAS TALKING TO NON-MUSLIMS. SHE GAVE IT BACK TO HIM IN SPADES.

MY DEEP SKEPTICISM ABOUT ISLAM'S COMPATIBILITY WITH MODERNISM WAS, NEEDLESS TO SAY, A BARRIER. I SENT HER THE ARTICLE TO TRY TO PROVE THAT THE MINOR THUGGERY SHE RAN INTO THAT NIGHT (AND OTHER NIGHTS ACCORDING TO HER) WERE PART OF A RESURGENT JIHADISM WHICH WAS WAS A GLOBAL PROBLEM.

SHE DIDN'T THINK SO.

ONE YEAR LATER - IN JULY - ON A DOUBLE-DATE WITH A DIFFERENT WOMAN, AT A CAFE IN SOHO, I WAS ASKED WHAT I FELT WAS "THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN THE WORLD TODAY?"

I SAID JIHADISM. I MENTIONED THINGS LIKE THE ACID-IN-THE-FACE OF NON-BURKA-WEARING WOMEN INCIDENTS, AND THE BUDDHAS OF BAMIYAN.

MY DINNER GUESTS THOUGHT I WAS A LITTLE NUTS.

BUT ONLY FOR A FEW MONTHS.

RTWT. THE GOLDBERG ARTICLE.


IT WAS ALL THERE.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

INSTAPUNDIT AND "THE SCHIAVO EFFECT" ON THE GOP

Glenn posted on the Rudy Planned Parenthood donation flap on the Right.

Glenn says that to him, it's no big deal; he's given to Planned Parenthood, too. (But then Glenn is explicitly pro-"choice". Glenn continues:
I understand that the pro-life people, and the social-cons generally, are unhappy with this. But hey, a lot of gun-rights people thought that Bush was squishy on the gun issue -- and he has been. Nonetheless, he's been a lot better than Kerry or Gore would have been had they been elected; his support for the assault weapons ban, for example, was extremely limp.

Likewise, the social-cons are crazy if they let this sort of thing keep them home on election day in 2008.

And I think that the Republicans' troubles started -- as I pointed out at the time -- when the social-cons overplayed their hand during the Terri Schiavo affair.
I think Glenn is WAY WAY WAY OF BASE here.
1 - Jeb Bush left office with INCREDIBLY HIGH approval ratings; he was staunchly pro-Terri and the issue didn't harm him one bit.

2 - I'd bet if you polled the voting public that 70% wouldn't know who Schiavo was. It is years ago, and that is ANCIENT history - in politics.
Glenn arguing that this was when the GOP troubles began is revisionist nonsense - like the Democrats NOW claiming that the mid-terms were a referendum on Iraq - and that the result gave them a MANDATE to retreat ASAP!

The FACT is, without Foleygate and Maccacagate and Abramoff/Conrad Burns the GOP would have HELD both bodies of Congress. There as no "Iraq Retreat" mandate as the Dems dishonestly claim. Claiming it was an Iraq Retreat Mandate is lower than propagandistic revisionism. IT IS A LIE.

Glenn is as wrong about "The Schiavo Effect" (there was NONE!) as the Dems are about "The We're losing in Iraq Mandate."

REPEAT: Schiavo has had ZERO effect on any race. As little or less than embryonic stem cells.

I only agree with Glenn to this limited extent: Republicans should not become a single issue party; nor should they have an abortion litmus test.

The polls show they are not, and do not.

Guess Who's Going to Paris?

Sadly, not me: ANN COULTER! RTWT.

Excerpts:
As I understand it, the center of the supposedly America-hating world is France. But now it turns out even the French don't hate America as much as liberals do.

... In celebration of France's spectacular return to Western civilization, I bought a Herve Leger dress on Monday, and we're having croissants for breakfast every day this week. This delicate French pastry, by the way, is in the shape of a crescent to commemorate the Crusaders' victory over Islam. Aren't the French just peachy?

"Sarkozy the American," as he is known in France, called Muslim rioters "scum." Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

He explained his position on Muslim immigrants in France, saying: "Nobody has to, I repeat, live in France. But when you live in France, you respect its rules. That is to say that you are not a polygamist. ... One doesn't practice female genital mutilation on one's daughters, one doesn't slit the throat of the sheep, and one respects the republican rules."

Sarko never issued an apology or entered rehab.
She's GRRRREAT!

BILL RICHARDSON: THE ONLY SERIOUS DEMOCRAT CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT

If I had to break bread with one of the Democrats running for president, it would be Bill Richardson.

He has a stellar resume full of domestic and international experience. He's no conservative, but he's more moderate than he is liberal for the most-part.

I not saying that I would vote for him or that he's "all that," (Giuliani/Thompson '08!) but he's at least a Democrat that one could sit and have an intelligent discussion about the issues that matter most: terrorism, immigration, taxes, etc.

Richardson has produced a couple of campaign ads - [LINKED TO BELOW BY RELIAPUNDIT - WHO ALSO CALLS RICHRDSON THE ONLY QUALIFIED DEM IN THE RACE] - in which he is in a "job interview" for president. They're really good ads and he comes across really well.

What's going to be interesting (and a real measuring stick for just have far over the edge the Democrat Party has gone) is how well Richardson does in the Democratic primaries.

Obviously, he's not going to get the money or press that Hillary and Obama get, but should he get respectable numbers it would be a glimmer of hope for party. However, I very much doubt he'll ever get beyond single digits.

This party that once housed giants like FDR, Truman and JFK has become something those three men would scarcely recognize today. In a political party that is determined to see America on its knees, Richardson is as rare as a sober Irishman. (I'm part Irish, I can say that, so don't bother emailing me).

RELIAPUNDIT ADDS: I AGREE THAT HIS RESUME IS VERY IMPRESSIVE. HOWEVER, HIS IRAQ PLAN SUCKS BIGTIME. HE IS NO HAWK. AND IN WARTIME, WE NEED HAWKS CALLING THE SHOTS, NOT DOVES AND APPEASERS.

CATE BLANCHETT: DID SHE LOSE THE WEIGHT FOR A ROLE?

MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT THE SCARY NEW ULTRA-THIN LOOK OF ACTRESS CATE BLANCHETT. [PHOTO AT LEFT - TAKEN A FEW DAYS AGO IN NYC.]

SOME HAVE WONDERED IF SHE WAS SICK. DYING. OR IF SHE HAS AN EATING DISORDER.

HERE'S ANOTHER THEORY:
MAYBE SHE LOST THE WEIGHT BECAUSE SHE'S SHOOTING/RE-SHOOTING SCENES FOR THE DYLAN BIOPIC IN WHICH SHE PLAYS BOB DYLAN.


PERHAPS IN SOME OF THE EARLIER SCENES SHE'S ALREADY SHOT SHE LOOKS TOO... FLESHY AND GIRLY.

[PHOTO AT LEFT - THAT'S HER IN THE CENTER OF THE SET.]

ACTORS HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO DO THIS SORT OF THING. DENIRO PUT ON 50 POUNDS TO PLAY JAKE IN THE RAGING BULL.

JUST A GUESS.

BUT IT ALSO EXPLAINS THE BRUISES SHE HAD ABOVE HER BREASTS: MAYBE THEY WERE FROM WEARING TOO-TIGHT ACE-BANDAGES TO MAKE HER LOOK FLAT-CHESTED.

JUST A GUESS.



MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN LATELY ABOUT THE FEMININIZATION OF THE WEST.

MAYBE WOMEN HAVE BEEN MASCULATED TOO MUCH LATELY, TOO.

PERHAPS THEY ARE BOTH PART OF THE SAME GRAMSCIAN AGENDA - TO TEAR DOWN THE TRADITIONAL MODES AND MORES... GBLT STUDIES, GAY MARRIAGE, ETC.... ALL PART OF THE POSTMODERN LEFT'S CULTURE WAR AGAINST TRADITIONAL JUDEO-CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

REGARDLESS: I MUCH PREFER THE OLD-FASHIONED, MORE ZAFTIG AND TRADITIONALLY FEMININE CATE TO THE EDGY/WAIF-ISH ONE.

PREDICTION: Leftists will call Sarkozy Bush's new "lapdog"

If Sarko turns out to be as pro-USA and as pro-globalization as he says he'll be, then the Leftists will have a new target for their inane attacks:
"Goodbye Tony, hello French poodle Nicholas!"

The Astute Bloggers Scoops Powerline

What's in POWER LINE today, was here YESTERDAY.

Regular readers know we scoop the big bloggers regularly.

SPREAD THE WORD!
BLOGROLL US!

WHO MIGHT BECOME OBAMA'S VEEP?

They ask the question over at HOT AIR. They suggest Hagel - which is NUTS.

Like Bush, Obama'd seek an elder statesman-type, a Washington Insider.

Therefore, the two best Veeps for Obama would be GORE, or... CARTER! (YUP: Carter is eligible.)














OBAMA-GORE.
OR, OBAMA-CARTER.

(I really think it's gonna be GORE-OBAMA.)

BTW: Watch the two Richardson commercials. They're very good. Of all the Dems, he is BY FAR the most qualified to be POTUS.

BBC: MORE PROOF THAT NATIONALIZED HEALTHCARE IS SUB-STANDARD, AT BEST

BBC:
A third of stroke patients are still not treated in a specialist unit despite improvements in access, a national audit has shown.

And fewer than half of patients receive brain imaging within 24 hours, a figure experts said was "unacceptably low". ... Patients who receive care in a specialist unit have a 50% reduced risk of death and better long-term recovery.
AND THE CARE-LEVEL VARIES FROM REGION TO REGION. FROM BAD, TO WORSE... AND WORSE. OVERALL: THEY HAVE BAD CARE.

IF SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE DOESN'T WORK THERE, WHY ON THE HECK WOULD ANYONE WANT TO DO IT HERE IN THE USA?

IT MAKES NO SENSE.

YET EVERY SINGLE DEMOCRAT CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT WANTS TO HAVE "UNIVERSAL" CARE AND PAY FOR IT WITH TAX DOLLARS - JUST LIKE MERRY-OL' UK. WHERE THE RESULTS SUCK.

DON'T FALL FOR IT!

SNOWE-BAYH BILL IS IDIOTIC DOUBLESPEAK

THE CORNER/NRO:
Under the Snowe-Bayh bill, General Petraeus would have to report on progress toward the benchmarks 120 days after the bill's enactment. The Government Accountability Office would then assess Iraqi progress. If any the Iraqis failed to meet any one of the milestones, Petraeus would then have to submit a plan to withdraw most troops, excluding those for force protection, counter insurgency, and support and training of Iraqi forces.
ER UM... SOMEBODY TELL THESE TWO IDIOTS THAT IF YOU ONLY KEEP THE US FORCES IN IRAQ WHO ARE THERE FOR "FORCE PROTECTION, COUNTER-INSURGENCY, AND SUPPORT AND TRAINING" THAT YOU ARE GOING BACK TO THE PRE-SURGE TROOP LEVELS AND "THE RUMSFELD STRATEGY", AND KEEPING 80% OF THE TROOPS THERE.

WHY DO THIS WHEN BY ALL ACCOUNTS THE SURGE IS WORKING!?!?

IT MAKES NO SENSE.

WE SHOULD BE CRANKING UP OUR KINETIC ATTACKS ON THE ENEMY, NOT OUR BS ATTACKS ON OUR ALLIES!

PELOSI: AN IDIOT WHO CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHY BUSH WILL VETO THE DEFEATOCRAT FUNDING BILL

NRO/THE CORNER:

Pelosi vs. Bush [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Here's a new Pelosi statement in response to the president :

"With this latest veto threat, the President has once again chosen confrontation over cooperation. For four years, the President has refused to pay for this war responsibly, and it is his veto of the Iraq Accountability Act - which gave him more than he asked for - that brings us to this point today. [UMPH ADDED.]

"Even as the Congress addresses some of the White House's concerns, the President waves his veto pen at any proposal that does not give him a blank check for a war without end in Iraq.

"The President refuses to listen to the American people who want this war to end. [FALSE: THEY WANT TO WIN; NOT RETREAT.] Instead, what they're getting from the President is further escalation of the war: maintaining an additional 35,000 troops, lengthened deployments, and expanded troop levels until at least April 2008.

"Our bill will fully fund the troops, honor our commitment to our veterans, hold the Iraqi government accountable and end the war. The President's only response to our good faith efforts is another veto threat."

UH DUH! AS PELOSI SAID, THE BILL " gave him more than he asked for". WELL THEN NANCY, WHY NOT JUST GIVE HIM WHAT HE WANTS!?

NO MORE. NO LESS.

FRENCH STUDENTS STRIKE AGAINST THEIR OWN SELF-INTEREST

Who would ever think of staging a strike against a service which someone else is giving you (at least in part) for free?

Why, French socialists, that's who.

Students in France are striking against their own university:


... hundreds of students at Paris university staged a strike to protest at Sarkozy's plans to reform France's higher education system.

Around 500 students voted to support the strike action and protesters immediately blocked access to the Tolbiac annexe of the Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne university.

"There were no courses and pickets have been set up after the vote," said a spokesperson for the student union.

Isn't It Ironic?




Isn't it ironic to see that the Democrats are against democracy in Iraq?

I have provided some ironic music to properly set the mood.

For those Democrats and others who don't wish to be so ironic there is the I Support Democracy In Iraq support group.





Cross Posted at Classical Values

Giving Up Religious Supremacism

Winds of Change is discussing a post by Ali Eteraz. His thesis is that we need to give up partisanship. That no political philosophy is better than another. Split the differences.

Ali says:
I cannot in clean conscience engage against religious supremacism and exclusion if I engage in ideological supremacism and exclusion.
Sure you can.

For the most part it is impossible to tell whether belief in God A or God B or God Ba has more merit.

However, one can measure the results of one ideology over another. Capitalism vs. Communism for instance. Or Self Government vs. Despotism.

Modern man has advanced through differentiation. You know reason. Occam's Razor and all that. We have rules for judging differences. In size. In weight. Even in opinion.

I'd hate to give all that up just so you can feel good about giving up religious supremacism.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

Man says word cost him a job. (He called a Mexican a Mexican)

We read:

"Pipe welder Bill Hendeley Jr. said he was fired from his job Wednesday for using the word "Mexican" in describing a person from Mexico at a group safety meeting.

Hendeley said he has worked for Fagen Inc., an engineering and construction company based in Granite Falls, Minn., off and on for the past 10 years. The company is building an addition to the Big River Resources ethanol production plant in West Burlington. Hendeley, who recently moved to Burlington, said he has never been fired, has never even been reprimanded for making inappropriate comments, and co-workers describe him as a model employee.

At a group safety meeting Wednesday, however, Hendeley singled out supervisors and a Hispanic worker for smoking in inappropriate places. Smoking is only allowed in a designated area across the road from the plant. "I guess if you're a supervisor or a Mexican, you can smoke anywhere you like," Hendeley reportedly told an Hispanic safety supervisor.

Several days earlier, a Caucasian worker was suspended by a Hispanic supervisor for smoking in the parking lot of the plant, said Jeff Kokemiller, a Fagen employee. Following the suspension, Hendeley and his co-workers said they observed supervisors and a Hispanic woman smoking in trailers near the plant.

Hendeley said he simply was pointing out discrepancies in policy enforcement. After the safety meeting, Hendeley was called to a private meeting with the safety supervisor and two other managers to discuss his comments, and was fired shortly after, he said.

Source


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

What a whiner!

By the names mentioned, the guy originates from a Muslim country -- Pakistan. Why am I not surprised? Story from Australia:



A REAL estate agent who was denied entry to a trendy bar claims the refusal left him psychologically damaged, and lost him clients because he can no longer socialise. Waise Yusofzai, 38, says he felt "half a person" when security staff refused him entry to the Establishment bar in George St because there were too many males inside the venue at the time. He eventually gained access when a female friend exited the bar and escorted him inside on her arm.

But since the incident in November 2005, Mr Yusofzai claims his "confidence is shot to pieces". "Since this event I really don't feel like going to bars anymore," Mr Yusofzai told the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal yesterday. "I feel very uncomfortable walking in."

Mr Yusofzai is suing the Establishment bar - owned by businessman Justin Hemmes. He is claiming $20,000 for psychological injury and $30,000 in lost income from clients....


Source

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

NO MONEY FOR TREASONISTS

With this new law being drafted, Azmi Bishara won't get any more:
(IsraelNN.com) A Knesset committee Wednesday approved accelerating action to pass a bill intended to prevent Knesset Members from receiving benefits if they are convicted of criminal offenses.

The proposed law was brought to the Knesset following revelations that Azmi Bishara, before his recent resignation as an MK, is suspected of treason by receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hizbullah in return for supplying the terrorist organization with sensitive information during last summer's war.
Those who serve the enemy deserve no extra pay.

NY TIMES' CONFESSION?

Stunningly, the NY Times discloses how coordinated the whacko anti-war groups are with the Democrat leadership in Congress. Here are some excerpts from an article they published:
Every morning, representatives from a cluster of anti-war groups gather for a conference call with Democratic leadership staff members in the House and the Senate.

Shortly after, in a cramped Washington meeting room, they convene for a call with organizers across the country. They hash out plans for rallies. They sketch out talking points for "rapid response" news conferences. They discuss polls they have conducted in several dozen crucial congressional districts and states across the country.

But there are tensions in the relationship between the groups, which banded together this year as Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, and the Democratic leadership. The fissures could be magnified soon as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., form a strategy after President Bush's veto of the $124 billion Iraq spending bill that had a withdrawal timetable.

On Thursday, leaders of the liberal group MoveOn.org sent a harshly worded warning to Democratic leaders.

"In the past few days, we have seen what appear to be trial balloons signaling a significant weakening of the Democratic position," the letter read. "On this, we want to be perfectly clear: if Democrats appear to capitulate to Bush - passing a bill without measures to end the war - the unity Democrats have enjoyed ... will immediately disappear."

Rush pointed out yesterday that Republicans are the ones accused of having collaborated talking points but its obvious that liberals are actually the ones who are engaging in this, by their own admission.

Since Democrats don't have enough votes to override the President's veto it will be interesting to see if moveon.org will truly abandon them for not insisting on a deadline for withdrawal. The liberals are so beholden to the anti-war whackos, no wonder they can't see clearly what is best for the security of our country.

WHO EXACTLY IS THE "DIVISIVE" SARKOZY DIVIDING

TAB has been covering the reactions to Sarkozy's election coming from some of the more violent segments of the French population (e.g. here and here) . We'd like to be more specific than that, but we only know what we read in the press - and although they've been very insistent that Sarkozy is "divisive", they've been a little less forthcoming on precisely where those divisions lie. Because that description seems a little weird to us, given how he drew support from across almost all sectors of French society:
Nicolas Sarkozy won the women's vote and fared well among blue-collar workers, even though his rival for the French presidency was a woman and a Socialist. It was one of the surprising subplots in Sarkozy's resounding election victory over Segolene Royal — and shows his vision of pro-market reforms and scaling back immigration appeals to a wide audience. Sarkozy's ability to attract votes from a broad spectrum of the public is an early indication he may be able to overcome his image as a polarizing force and achieve crucial popular support for pushing through his ambitious program of overhauling France's welfare system.
Well, almost all sectors. AP got the number of burned cars wrong by an entire order of magnitude, did they? And that's compared to the undoubtedly lowballed numbers provided by the French press, is it? We refuse to believe it.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]