YAWN: ALAN GREENSPAN AGREES WITH JIMMY CARTER: GULF OIL CRUCIAL TO NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE PROSPERITY OF THE FREE WORLD

LGF LINKS TO A STORY DRUDGE IS BLARING IN RED AS IF IT'S NEWS:

"Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil."

Here's part of the blurb LGF cited:

AMERICA’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil ... it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

THIS IS NOT NEWS.

REPEAT: THIS IS NOT NEWS.

WHAT GREENSPAN HAS SAID IS NOT EVEN CONTROVERSIAL. PERSIAN GULF OIL IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT TO THE FREE WORLD, AND MUST BE DEFENDED.


Jimmy Carter first enunciated the FACT that Gulf oil was crucial to the USA and the West in his final SOTU in 1980. Here's a snippet (link and snippet courtesy of THE CARTER LIBRARY!):

"Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

YES, THAT WAS SAID BY THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER AND DARLING OF THE BDS-AFFLICTED, "ANTI-WAR" LEFT. REPEAT:

• "Let our position be absolutely clear:

• An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region

• will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America,

• and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary,

• including military force."

The RELEVANCY of the Carter Doctrine to the 2003 Iraq War is not new and not some hastily thought up way to rationalize Greenspan's comment. I FIRST BLOGGED ON THE CARTER DOCTRINE HERE - IN 2004!

Is there any doubt that al Qaeda and the Iranian tyrants would LOVE LOVE LOVE to gain control of Iraq's oil, and THAT IT WOULD BE A DISASTER FOR THE FREE WORLD!?

I hope not.


That's why we HAD to intervene in 1991 - when Saddam tried to seize Kuwait and its oil, and in 2003 (when we went back to finish the job - because Saddam hadn't fulfilled the terms of the relevant 1991 UNSCR's which were the de facto armistice).




NOW LISTEN UP FOLKS:

• There's a HUGE difference between saying we have a vital interest in the region because of its oil, and arguing that we that went to war against Saddam so USA's "BIG OIL" could make big profits of the region's oil.

• The former is OFFICIAL US POLICY AND HAS BEEN SINCE 1980.

• The latter is left-wing moonbat territory.

Greenspan is merely articulating what EVERYONE KNOWS: the region is important because of its oil.

It's important to al Qaeda for its oil and to the West.

AND I SAY "WEST" ADVISEDLY: the EU and Japan get a lot more of their oil from the region than we do. They benfit more than we do from protecting it.

AND THE ONES WHO BENEFIT THE MOST ARE THE ARAB/MUSLIM GULF STATES: They are threatened by Iran and al Qaeda, and they need us to protect them.

The ONLY people NOT benefiting from our war there are al Qaeda and Iran and their stooges.

This alone proves we are doing the right thing.

(More on Greenspan here at Memeorandum.)

NEW SOUTH AFRICAN LAWS FORCING WHITES TO BEG THE STREETS

Is the continent of Africa a microcosm for the current milieu with regards to the sudden reversal of fortunes for the white/Caucasian peoples of the world?

In South Africa, a man-made, politically-induced crisis has emerged in which a million hardworking, educated Afrikaners are being forced into huge ghetto like areas and into begging for food in many cases and all due to the new laws in place in the country.

NEW VIDEO OF OBL SPEAKING ENGLISH!

HEH.

Lebanese troops captured the spokesman for Fatah Islam

UK GUARDIAN/AP:

Lebanese troops captured the spokesman for Fatah Islam and three other militants early Saturday, about two weeks after the army crushed the al-Qaida-inspired group in a northern Palestinian refugee camp, a military spokesman said.

Since defeating the movement after a three-month-long siege, Lebanese troops have combed areas around the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp for militants who may have escaped during the final desperate breakout attempt on Sept. 2, in which more than 50 militants were killed and two dozen detained.

The spokesman, Abu Salim Taha, was captured in Jabal Terbol, countryside outside Nahr el-Bared and near another Palestinian camp, Beddawi.

A military spokesman, who requested anonymity until an official statement was issued, said Taha was a Palestinian-Syrian from the refugee camp of Yarmouk in Syria, and that three other militants were captured with him.

An army statement later added that the other three men were from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Tunisia and that ``an investigation is under way.''

A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of intelligence information, said some escaped militants were trying to reach and seek refugee in the southern Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh.

Fatah Islam set up base in Nahr el-Bared late last year. Its leader, Shaker al-Absi, is a Palestinian linked to the late leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Authorities say Fatah Islam is made up of Muslim militants of various nationalities.

THIS IS MORE PROOF THAT TRANS-NATIONAL JIHADISTS - SUPPORTED BY AL QAEDA AND IRAN AND FACILITATED BY THEIR STOOGES IN HIZBALLAH AND SYRIA - ARE A THREAT TO ALL DEMOCRACIES THROUGHOUT THE GLOBE, EVEN ARAB AND MUSLIM ONES - AND THAT THESE JIHADISTS NEED TO BE CHALLENGED, CAUGHT AND KILLED EVERYWHERE, AND THEY CAN BE!

EVERYWHERE INCLUDES LEBANON AND IRAQ.

AND THE PEOPLE FIGHTING THEM EVERYWHERE NEED OUT HELP -INCLUDING THE LEBANESE AND THE IRAQIS.

RIGHT NOW, TH IRAQIS NEED OUR HELP THE MOST.

LET'S KEEP HELPING THEM.

WE MUSTN'T LET THE DEMOCRATS FORCE US TO ABANDON THEM.

Che Is Dead

From: The Victory Caucus - A Gathering of Eagles. The url on the poster leads you to The People's Cube. A most amusing site.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

9-11, ISRAEL AND AMERICA

Patrick Barron writes in the Bulletin about how the terrorist attacks 9-11 gave America a taste of the crisis facing Israel each day, and how, even if American doesn't have bloodthirsty neighbors like Israel does, it still has trojan horses whose danger should be taken seriously.

GREENSPAN BOOK ATTACKS GOP PORK

FORGET THE SENSATIONALIST NYTIMES HEADLINE: "GREENSPAN ATTACKS BUSH..."

THE BOOK - AS THE ARTICLE POINTS OUT, (ONCE YOU GET PAST THE BUSH-BASHING HEADLINE) - IS REALLY CRITICAL OF PORK-BARREL SPENDING BY THE GOP CONGRESS AND BUSH'S UNWILLINGNESS TO VETO ANY SPENDING - IN ORDER TO KEEP THE CONGRESSIONAL GOP HAPPY.

DUH.

Round up at MEMEORANDUM.

I like it: Jane Fonda to Blame for Global Warming

In their regular "Freakanomics" column which will appear in this Sunday's edition of The New York Times Magazine, Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, pose this question: "If you were asked to name the biggest global warming villains of the past 30 years, here's one name that probably wouldn't spring to mind: Jane Fonda. But should it?"

The authors observe that Fonda's antinuclear thriller "The China Syndrome," which opened just 12 days before the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, helped stoke "a widespread panic." Fonda became a high-profile anti-nuke activist in an already-strong movement. The nuclear industry halted plans for expansion. "And so," they continue, "instead of becoming a nation with clean and cheap nuclear energy, as once seemed inevitable, the United States kept building power plants that burned coal and other fossil fuels. Today such plants account for 40 percent of the country's energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions.

"Anyone hunting for a global-warming villain can't help blaming those power plants -- and can't help wondering too about the unintended consequences of Jane Fonda."

Of course, there were many other factors in the nuclear industry decline, including cost over-runs, disposal of nuclear waste, the threat of terrorism and numerous other accidents beyond TMI. Then there was, ahem, Chernobyl. But the columnists cite the "big news" that with global warming fears mounting, "nuclear power may be making a comeback in the United States," with plans for two dozen reactors on the drawing boards.

Will they get built? The authors conclude that "it may all depend on what kind of thrillers Hollywood has in the pipeline."

Source

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

DAVID BROOKS ON IQ

David Brooks is one of the better columnists in the NYT (not of itself a great compliment). He does show respect for the facts most of the time. And his latest article on IQ is no exception (See also here). He does mention most of the salient findings from IQ research. Following his paper's real motto, however -- "all the news that's fit to slant" -- he exaggerates the uncertainties in that research. In so doing, he is following a long Leftist tradition that emerged in the '60s -- playing down the importance of IQ. There are few things more determinative of your success at achieving your goals in life than your IQ but that offends against the Leftist dogma that we are all equal and that we can all be "moulded" into whatever Leftists want us to be. And the fact that blacks have in general very low IQs (with some notable exceptions, of course) is "racist".

So a few comments on what he says: Firstly, he repeats the old saw that we don't really know what IQ is and that IQ is simply what IQ tests measure. Psychologists themselves sometimes say that but they do so mainly for PR reasons. It is perfectly plain what IQ tests measure: General problem solving ability -- or 'g', as it is mostly referred to in the academic literature. That the ability to solve one problem generalizes strongly (but not perfectly) to ability to solve many different sorts of problem is the basic finding underlying all IQ research.

Brooks also says: "A meta-analysis by Bernie Devlin of the University of Pittsburgh found that genes account for about 48 percent of the differences in I.Q. scores". I suppose one should be glad that the role of genetics in IQ gets a mention at all but Brooks seems to have picked the lowest estimate there is. An estimate of around 65% would be more representative of the findings over the last 100 years. I am not familiar with the Devlin study but the claim that it is a meta-analysis immediately induces cynicism in me. A meta-analyis is supposed to summarize ALL the available evidence on a question. In Leftist hands, however, a meta-analysis can summarize only that evidence which suits Leftists. See e.g. here.

Brooks then mentions the Flynn effect: That average IQs rose throughout the 20th centuary. This did puzzle psychologists for a while and it seems likely that many aspects of modernization played some role. Nutrition improved in most places over that period and nutrition can account for about 5 IQ points. Perinatal care improved (wider use of obstetricians etc.), thus avoiding damage to the fetal and newborn brain. But there is now fairly widespread agreement that improved test sophistication was the major factor. The 20th century saw a huge rise in the number of years that kids spent in the educational system and the educational system has generally featured a lot of testing. So good test-taking strategies were fostered and that helped with doing IQ tests too. But the rise in IQ scores now seems to have peaked in most Western countries so most of the barriers to people realizing their full genetic potential would now seem to have been removed and average levels of IQ should be fairly stable from now on. Interestingly, black IQ improved at roughly the same rate as white IQ but the black/white gap remains the same -- though there is some suggestion that it may have widened.

Brooks then goes on to mention the Turkheimer studies -- which found reduced heritability for IQ among poor U.S. blacks. The same result is not found in Britain but it would seem to show that genetic potential may be poorly realized under the very adverse environmental conditions that prevail in some black U.S. single-parent families. Brooks says that the Turkheimer studies show that "I.Q. can also be powerfully affected by environment". Indeed it can -- if the environment is adverse enough -- but it still remains that for most of us, it is our genetics that make us what we are.

Brooks then mentions the "multiple intelligences" theory. This is in fact a theory that goes back to the origins of IQ research about 100 years ago. And the finding then, as now, is that intelligence can indeed be divided into separate subject areas (mechanical ability, verbal ability, mathematical ability etc) but those "inteligences" still correlate highly. There are many cases where it is not so, of course, but people who are good in (say) verbal ability will also in general tend to do fairly well in mechanical ability. My skills, for instance, are predominantly verbal but I used to do my own mechanical repairs in my youth and I have taught statistics at university level. I actually rather hate anything mathematical but my general abilities got me where I needed to go in statistics. Interestingly enough, my son is a mathematician! The genetics were obviously there.

There are some psychologists, such as Gardner who claim to find a variety of different "intelligences" which do not correlate well with one-another. There is a very clear and simple demolition of the whole Gardner theory here -- which points out that the Gardner theory not only ignores the data but that its criteria for calling something "an intelligence" are so loose that sense of humour, sense of smell, musical ability, athletic ability etc could all be called "intelligences". By adopting similar rules I could say that all cats, dogs and horses are birds -- but that would still not make them so. See also my previous comments on the similar Sternberg theory.

Brooks concludes that scientists these days talk mostly about specific abilities rather than general ability and he is quite right about that. He forgets to mention, however, the fact that the vast political incorrectness of the IQ concept is the main reason behind that.

Finally, here is just one recent example of how widely helpful a high IQ can be. A toddler who has been reading since age 3 certainly has a very high IQ.

(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.)

GATHERING OF EAGLES III

Join Skye and thousands of other patriots today in D.C. for the Gathering of Eagles event!!


Watch Michelle Malkin's video above, she too plans on being there today. She has already started photo blogging the event.

Stay tuned and check Skye's and Michelle's blogs for details on more about what transpires at the event!!

IF HILLARY IS ELECTED PRESIDENT...

WILL SHE LET BILL HIRE AN INTERN?

Just asking.

OLBERMANN WRONG: JIHADO-TERROR WORSE THAN KKK AND FOX

KEITH OLBERMANN SAID FOX WAS A BIGGER THREAT TO THE USA THAN THE JIHADISTS; NEWSBUSTERS:

As part of an interview published in Playboy magazine's October issue, Olbermann actually said, "Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda."

I kid you not.

The entire disgraceful quote, offered as a teaser for the full interview at Playboy's website (be advised that pictures of scantily clad women exist on the page as well), was as follows (h/t Inside Cable News via Johnny Dollar):

Al Qaeda really hurt us, but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the case of Fox News. Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda - worse for our society. It's as dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan ever was.

LET'S LOOK AT THE FACTS:

Let's look at Jihado-terror:

More than 3000 Americans have been killed by Jihadists since 1979 - when Jimmy Carter allowed the jihadists to overthrow the Shah of Iran. (Nearly 3000 died on 9/11 ALONE!)

There have been nearly 10,000 jihadist attacks since REPEAT SINCE 9/11 - WORLDWIDE.

3000 Thais - mostly BUDDHISTS - have been murdered by jihadists since 9/11. Less than SEVEN YEARS.

JIHADISTS IN IRAQ (BOTH SUNNI/AL QAEDA AND SHIA) HAVE KILLED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF IRAQIS SINCE 2005. LESS THAN TWO YEARS.

THE ARE THE FACTS. (See HERE for links to all the above facts.) Thousands of attacks WORLDWIDE, and tens of thousands of dead - often brutally murdered, tortured and disfigured. Thousands of AMERICANS murdered on 9/11 ALONE.

Now let's look at KKK TERROR:

From the US Civil War to 1950 the KKK lynched 4730 Americans, 3437 black and the balance white. (YES: THEY WERE NOT ALL BLACK.)

That's over more than seven decades - more than 70 years.

So, Olbermann is wrong on the facts. Jihado-terror is worse than KKK terror.

His attack on Fox insults Fox, and ALL THE VICTIMS OF JIHADO-TERROR WORLDWIDE.

Olberman is SCUM. Lying left-wing SCUM.

More on this lying left-wing sack of spit HERE - with video.

ZIMBABWE: SLAUGHTERING PETS FOR THE MEAT

CNN/AP:

Pets are being slaughtered for meat in shortage-stricken Zimbabwe and record numbers of animals have been surrendered to shelters or abandoned by owners no longer able to feed them, animal welfare activists say.

A man feeds scraps to his dogs in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Thursday. People are barely able to feed their pets.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said it could not feed surrendered animals or find them new homes and was being forced to kill them and destroy the corpses.

Animals, like people, are being hard hit by Zimbabwe's economic meltdown, with official inflation of more than 7,600 percent, the highest in the world. Independent estimates put real inflation closer to 25,000 percent and the International Monetary Fund has forecast it will reach 100,000 percent by the end of the year.

THIS IS JUST MORE PROOF THAT SOCIALISM IS THE ROAD TO SERFDOM.

WHY ARE 90% OF THE WORLD'S MOST POLLUTED PLACES IN SOCIALIST COUNTRIES?

BECAUSE SOCIALISM IS A HOAX AND IT SUCKS.

BBC:

A list of the world's most polluted places has been published by a US-based independent environmental group.

The Blacksmith Institute's top 10 towns and cities included sites in ex-Soviet republics, Russia, China and India. Peru and Zambia were also listed.

The report said an estimated 12 million people were affected by the severe pollution, which was mainly caused by chemical, metal and mining industries.

Chronic illness and premature deaths were listed as possible side-effects.

The annual review, which debuted in 2006, is listed alphabetically, and the sites are unranked "given the wide range of location sizes, populations and pollution dynamics".

WORST POLLUTED

* Sumgayit, Azerbaijan; Potentially 275,000 affected
* Linfen, China; Potentially 3m affected
* Tianying, China; Potentially 140,000 affected
* Sukinda, India; Potentially 2.6m affected
* Vapi, India; Potentially 71,000 affected
* La Oroya, Peru; Potentially 35,000 affected
* Dzerzhinsk, Russia; Potentially 300,000 affected
* Norilsk, Russia; Potentially 134,000 affected
* Chernobyl, Ukraine; Potentially 5.5m affected
* Kabwe, Zambia; Potentially 255,000 affected
* Data: Blacksmith Institute


Among the new sites listed in 2007 were Tianying in China, where potentially 140,000 people were at risk from lead poisoning from a massive lead production base there.

The report also said that in the Indian town of Sukinda there were 12 mines operating without environmental controls, leaching dangerous chemicals into water supplies.

REMEMBER: LEFTISTS DID THIS.

WHAT OLSON AND CHEMERINSKY SAY ABOUT PARTISANSHIP IN THE USA TODAY

The ENTIRE Right has virtually come out in favor of Cherminsky. (Here's one example. VDH agrees.)

Only one on the Left - Lanny Davis - has come out for Olson. And he has been attacked by the rest of the Left for this.

This says everything.

MORE HERE AND HERE.

Nazi Porn In Hebrew

That's right. There is Nazi S&M porn in Hebrew. Written by Jews. In lurid comic book style.

Read under the table by a generation of pubescent Israelis, often the children of survivors, the Stalags were named for the World War II prisoner-of-war camps in which they were set. The books told perverse tales of captured American or British pilots being abused by sadistic female SS officers outfitted with whips and boots. The plot usually ended with the male protagonists taking revenge, by raping and killing their tormentors.

The most famous Stalag, “I Was Colonel Schultz’s Private Bitch,” was deemed to have crossed all the lines of acceptability, prompting the police to try to hunt every copy down.

Some nice pictures of the cover art at the above site. If you are into that sort of thing. For research purposes. Heh.

In America we tend to do popular culture S&M in True Detective type pulp fiction. A matter of taste and culture I suppose.

Here are some nice pictures of Israeli women who may have qualified with heavy weapons. From Maxim NSFW. It is only tangentially related to to the subject at hand. But you know. I. Just. Couldn't. Resist.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

Brawl Over Islam on Facebook

Some corporate dithering but free speech wins in the end:

"The latest concern centers on a group with a crude title denouncing Islam [F**k Islam] that had more than 750 members at last count. While the group takes pains to say it has nothing against Muslims, who "can be and usually are peaceful and respectful," it asserts at the start: "The Quran contains many lies and threats. Islam is false, no god exists, and someone should say that loud and clear."

In the month or so since the group was created, the reaction has been building across Facebook. As of the weekend, more than 58,000 Facebook members had joined a group that said that unless the anti-Islam group was removed, "we're quitting Facebook."

Facebook declined to comment on Friday on the subject of hate speech or on what steps had been taken. What is clear is that for a day or so last week, the site was made inaccessible. The organizer of the anti-Islam site, a man who said in an e-mail message that his legal name is Variable, wrote, "Facebook briefly deleted my account, and I assumed they did so because of the group, but they reinstated the account and told me that it was a mistake of some sort."

He said he disagreed that his site was trafficking in hate speech. "The custom of protecting freedom of speech allows people to address belief systems in the harshest of terms," he wrote, adding that his group's sentiment is "a peaceful one; atheism is a belief system that few will die for, because there is no reward."

Source

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

More on those "death-fearing" conservatives

I have received the following report from a reader. It gives us some more of that pesky general population data -- the sort of data that almost all psychologists avoid like the plague. Students are SO much better at giving responses that accord with Leftist stereotypes:

Reading John Ray's September 4, 2007 critique of the Pyszczynski et al. claim that fear of death is behind conservatism, I couldn't help but analyze data from the NORC General Social Survey, one of the most respected databases of U.S. public opinion in existence, to further explore the matter. In fact, the GSS data completely support Dr. Ray's conclusion that there are no meaningful differences whatsoever in how liberals and conservatives view death. Again, the received "wisdom" concerning the psychology of conservatism espoused by Pyszczynski and academic social science in general, is shown to be speculative and fails to survive even moderate scrutiny.

Method:

For decades, the GSS has asked respondents about their political orientations under the variable name POLVIEWS and whether they believe in life after death under the variable name POSTLIFE. I recoded the variable POLVIEWS into the following categories:

* Extremely liberal/Liberal =1,
* Slightly Liberal = 2,
* Moderate/Middle of the Road = 3,
* Slightly Conservative = 4, and
* and Conservative/Extremely Conservative = 5.

POSTLIFE was recoded into the following categories:

* Believe in life after death =1,
* Unsure = 2, and
* Don=t believe in life after death = 3.

Results:

Conservatives were much more likely than liberals to believe in life after death, with approximately 80% of conservatives/extreme conservatives reporting that they believe in life after death and only 66% of liberals/extremely liberals reporting the same. (All percentages are rounded upwards.) While a person's belief in life after death is not necessarily predictive of whether he fears death, the results are suggestive and weaken Pyszczynski's paradigm. The Pyszczynski et al theories would seem to imply that belief in life after death is a cognitive defensive mechanism but a sizable proportion of individuals with liberal orientations clearly exhibit the same phenomenon, so it is as least not a peculiarly conservative defence mechanism. And in any event, the number of people who absolutely reject the possibility of an afterlife is very small, only about 9% in this database.

To further explore whether conservatives might harbor more fear than liberals regarding death, I analyzed how respondents answered an additional set of questions asked between 1983-1987. Each respondent who reported a belief in life after death was asked a further series of questions, prefaced as follows:

Of course, no one knows exactly what life after death would be like, but here are some ideas people have had. How likely do you feel each possibility is? Very likely, somewhat likely, not too likely, or not likely at all?

Among the various alternatives were the following descriptions of an afterlife: (1) A life of peace and tranquility (POSTLF1) and (2) A life like the one here on earth, only better (POSTLF3). There was very little meaningful difference between liberals and conservatives regarding their views on the matter. With respect to the first variable, POSTLF1, eighty-five percent of liberals/extreme liberals thought it somewhat or very likely that an afterlife would be a life of peace and tranquility, while an even greater 95% of conservatives/extreme conservatives held similarly positive views of life after death. Regarding the second variable, POSTLF3, 57% of liberals/extreme liberals thought it somewhat or very likely that an afterlife would be better than life on earth, and 59% of conservatives/extreme conservatives reported it somewhat or very likely that an afterlife would be better than life on earth. Again, all percentages are rounded.

Insofar as there is a discernable difference between liberals and conservatives in how they view death, if anything conservatives might appear to face the prospect with less fear and anxiety than those who lean leftward politically. Note that similar results are obtained when comparing respondents who are slightly liberal versus those who are slightly conservative.

If in fact conservatives have a more positive view of existence after death than that held by liberals, perhaps it explains why they seem to be at least as happy and as satisfied with life as liberals. The GSS asks respondents, "Taken all together, how would you say things are these days: Would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?" (HAPPY). Eighty-eight percent of liberals/extreme liberals reported being very happy or pretty happy, and approximately 90% of conservatives/extreme conservatives reported being very happy or pretty happy. Again, the same trend is found when comparing slightly liberal respondents with slightly conservative respondents.

And on the prospects of future generations, conservatives appear to be at least as optimistic, if not more so, than liberals. The GSS asks respondents whether they agree or disagree with the following statement: "It's hardly fair to bring a child into the world with the way things look for the future." Forty percent (40%) of liberals/extreme liberals and 34% of slightly liberal respondents agreed with the statement, while 36% of conservatives/extreme conservatives and 33% of slightly conservative respondents agreed with the statement.

These findings represent yet another piece of evidence that conservatives suffer from no greater existential anxiety or dread than do liberals. The claims of a relationship between psychological maladjustment and social/political conservatism, posited by classical authoritarianism theory, are simply inaccurate.

(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.)

GUNS? HIDDEN IN A PALESTINIAN MOSQUE? NO WAY

How'd that get in there?

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian security forces seized three assault rifles in a local mosque. The intelligence chief in Nablus, Abu Jihad Kmeil, accused Hamas of using mosques for illegal activity. Hamas denied the claim, saying the weapons had been planted in the mosque by security officials.

This follows the well-known pattern of only Muslims being allowed to get the weapons that other Muslims have hidden in mosques (money line from the Lebanese imam in that video: "even if they enter mosques, destroy these mosques over their heads because they deserve it"). If Israel went into a mosque to get guns being used to kill Israelis, cries of righteous indignation would echo for months through the halls of the UN and the streets of the Muslim world. Which is exactly why the Palestinians use mosques and hospitals as military installations.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

CAPTURE OF SHALIT KIDNAPPER "LIKE A SCENE OUT OF A HOLLYWOOD ACTION MOVIE"

TAB tries to keep a relatively close watch on how many of Gilad Shalit's kidnappers have been brought to justice. But we've never had the opportunity to post about one who was arrested in a way so objectively full of awesome:

It sounds almost like a scene out of a Hollywood action movie. Soldiers disguised as Hamas militiamen abduct a senior Hamas terrorist who stops in the middle of a road in southern Gaza after an "old man" leaning on a cane collapses in front of his car. If the Palestinian reports are true, then elite Israeli forces penetrated deep into the heart of Rafah late Friday night to nab Mohawah al-Qadi, a senior member of Hamas's armed wing and a commander in the Executive Force believed to be connected to last year's kidnapping of Cpl. Gilad Schalit. According to the Palestinian reports, Qadi was abducted by Israeli forces and then taken to the abandoned Dahiniye Airport, where he was picked up by an IAF helicopter and transported into Israel.

You're not going to want to hear this - but Barak has gotten a pretty good start on restoring the IDF's credibility. He'll be genuinely put to the test over the next few weeks as Hezbollah and Syria attempt to take advantage of what will almost certainly be an IDF ground operation in the Gaza Strip. If he handles the next month well, he'll post a legitimate electoral threat to Netanyahu and the Likud.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

USA ANNOUNCES A 15 TON BUNKER-BUSTING, MULLAH-MAULING MEGA BOMB IS READY FOR ACTION

RIA NOVOSTI:

The U.S. has a 14-ton super bomb more destructive than the vacuum bomb just tested by Russia, a U.S. general said Wednesday.

The statement was made by retired Lt. General McInerney, chairman of the Iran Policy Committee, and former Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

McInerney said the U.S. has "a new massive ordnance penetrator that's 30,000 pounds, that really penetrates ... Ahmadinejad has nothing in Iran that we can't penetrate."

... On Tuesday, the Fox News television channel said: "A recent decision by German officials to withhold support for any new sanctions against Iran has pushed a broad spectrum of officials in Washington to develop potential scenarios for a military attack on the Islamic regime.".

Commenting on the report, McInerney said: "Since Germany has backed out of helping economically, we do not have any other choice. ... They've forced us into the military option."

TICK...TICK... TICK...

THE PROPAGANDA WAR: HOW THE ENEMY WANTS US TO LOOKS AT IRAQ, AND WHY

The jihadists and the leftists BOTH use the Iraq War for propaganda purposes.

Here's how each of them see the Iraq War:

AL QAEDA wants the world to see Iraq like this -

AFGHANISTAN:USSR :: IRAQ:USA.

The DEMOCRAT LEFT wants the electorate to see Iraq like this -

VIETNAM : LBJ :: IRAQ : BUSH.

Al Qaeda and Iran want to establish jihadist hegemony (domestic life and foreign policy dominated by sharia) by over the Middle East, and the Islamic world.

Just as the mullahs have tyrannized their own people, they and their jihadist comrades seek to tyrannize one billion Muslims - from Morocco to the Philippines.

Such a dominion would effectively "talibanize" life for nearly one billion people - in other words, turn daily life into one bereft of freedom, liberty and prosperity. This caliphate - (a Union of Sharia States and Republics, or USSR!) - would be a horrendous step back for humanity and a grave threat to Free World.

DESPITE THIS.... the Left is so committed to hurting and defeating Bush and the GOP and conservatism that they are willing to hand al Qaeda and Iran an unbelievably huge win, and put their Caliphate, their USSR one step closer to reality. THE LEFT THINKS THAT THEY CAN TURN IRAQ INTO BUSH'S PERSONAL WATERLOO WITHOUT IT EFFECTING NATIONAL SECURITY. AND THEY ARE WRONG.

IT WOULD BE A NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CATASTROPHE.

A NIGHTMARE.

All that would remain would be for this nightmare to be complete would be for al Qaeda and/or Iran to get nukes.

A world in which Bin laden and Ahmadinejad have nukes would be worse than the world was when Stalin and Mao had nukes.

That's why we mustn't allow the Left - THE DEMS - to hand Iraq to al Qaeda and Iran.

THE ONLY WAY TO GUARANTEE THAT IS TO DEFEAT THE DEMOCRATS EVERY CHANCE YOU GET.

SEPTEMBER 11TH IN IRAQ

A friend of mine is a contractor in Iraq at Camp Victory, Baghdad. He gave a neat description of what their September 11th Remembrance ceremony was like there.

AL QAEDA MURDERS OUR ANBAR ALLY

BBC:

A key Sunni ally of the US and Iraqi governments has been killed in a bomb attack in the Iraqi city of Ramadi.

Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, 37, led what was known as the "Anbar Awakening", an alliance of Sunni Arab tribes that rose up against al-Qaeda in Iraq.

US President George Bush met and endorsed the sheikh last week in Iraq. The White House, which has held up the movement in Anbar province as an example for the rest of Iraq, condemned his assassination as "an outrage".

... Abu Risha was killed, along with two bodyguards, by a roadside bomb planted near his home in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's western Anbar province. "The sheikh's car was totally destroyed by the explosion," Ramadi police officer Ahmed Mahmoud al-Alwani told Reuters.

It has been reported that he was the number one target of al-Qaeda in Iraq, that several attempts had previously been made on his life, and that his father and at least one of his brothers were killed by insurgents.

Several top sheikhs in the same movement were killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad in June.

• OUR ENEMY - THE JIHADIST SCUM WHO MURDERED THIS SHEIKH - HAVE MURDERED MORE MUSLIMS THAN "CRUSADER ZIONISTS."
• THE DEMOCRAT PARTY TALK OF RETREAT EMPOWERS THE JIHADISTS WHO DID THIS BY GIVING THEM HOPE.
• I'D LIKE TO SEE THE MOVEON MOORE-SHEEHAN-DE PLAMA-OBAMA CROWD CONDEMN THEM AND JOIN IN OUR EFFORTS TO DEFEAT THEM - EVERYWHERE. INCLUDING IRAQ.
• THE SOONER THEY DO, THE SOONER WE WIN.

COMPLETE ROUND UP AT MEMEORANDUM.

Shana Tova!

NC High School Bans American Flag

We read:

"On the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, students at one high school were not allowed to wear clothes with an American flag. Under a new school rule, students at Hobbton High School are not allowed to wear items with flags, from any country, including the United States. The new rule stems from a controversy over students wearing shirts bearing flags of other countries.

Gayle Langston said her daughter, Jessica, was told to remove her Stars and Stripes t-shirt. "Today she wanted to wear her shirt, and I had to tell her no", said Langston. "She didn't like it at all because I knew it would get her in trouble. Of all days, 9/11, she could not wear her American Flag shirt"

The superintendent of schools in Sampson County calls the situation unfortunate, but says educators didn't want to be forced to pick and choose which flags should be permissible.

Source

So there is nothing special to America about the American flag??

Under great pressure, the school has now lifted the ban but is being threatened by the ACLU if they do not allow Mexican and other flags as well. What the basis of the ACLU threat might be remains unclear. Is it "racist" to display the American flag in America?


(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.)

SOME INCONVENIENT RECENT HISTORY: INCONVENIENT TO HILLARY

An email from David Horowitz below about the refusal to release on DVD a remarkable TV presentation

"The Path to 9/11": $40 Million to Produce ... Five hours over two nights drawing a primetime audience of 25 million viewers - Seven Emmy nominations. So why won't Disney put this historic spectacular on sale as we mark the sixth anniversary of September 11, 2001? Two words: The Clintons.

There were over 20 different DVDs slated for nationwide release yesterday, on September 11 - yet one of the absolute best, The Path to 9/11, the unvarnished, critically praised docudrama dealing with the years leading up to that horrific day wasn't among them. Why? Well one high level Disney executive secretly told 9/11's award winning writer and producer, Cyrus Nowrasteh, Path has been locked away because it would embarrass Hillary Clinton as she campaigns for president.

The simple truth is that the Clintons and their cronies have put unprecedented pressure on Disney to keep this remarkable miniseries from ever being aired again! It's an extortive power play, to be sure. It's also censorship at its worst. ...

Of course, there is far more to this than just the Clintons and their Hollywood friends pressuring Disney not to release The Path on DVD. As a result of the detailed screenplay Cyrus wrote and his work to produce this exacting account, an account that underscores how the Clinton Administration repeatedly turned a blind eye to the repeated threats of Islamic radicals... Cyrus has received death threats. When these people want to silence their critics they mean business.

With The Path to 9/11, Cyrus put together a fearless, straight-forward docudrama that tens of millions of Americans watched, that critics praised, and that drew seven nominations for television's highest award, the Emmy.

Now, six years since the barbarism of 9/11, the callous threats against Cyrus' life coupled with the shameless pandering of Disney studios to appease the Clintons seem woeful tributes to those who died and to those who courageously seek keep ours the land of the free and home of the brave.

(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.)

IN HONOR OF THE LATE JOE ZAWINUL

MY FAVORITE ZAWINUL BAND: the Cannonball Adderley sextet circa 1962 - Julian "Cannonball Adderley" as, Nat Adderley tp, Yusef Lateef reeds, Joe Zawinul (of later Weather Report fame) p, Sam Jones d, Louis Hayes:

THE BEGINNING OF THE ENDGAME: BRITS MOVE BASRA TROOPS TO BORDER WITH IRAN

UK INDEPENDENT:

British forces have been sent from Basra to the volatile border with Iran amid warnings from the senior US commander in Iraq that Tehran is fomenting a "proxy war".

In signs of a fast-developing confrontation, the Iranians have threatened military action in response to attacks launched from Iraqi territory while the Pentagon has announced the building of a US base and fortified checkpoints at the frontier.

The UK operation, in which up to 350 troops are involved, has come at the request of the Americans, who say that elements close to the Iranian regime have stepped up supplies of weapons to Shia militias in recent weeks in preparation for attacks inside Iraq.

• SURROUNDING IRAN - BY HAVING TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAN - AND BASES TO THEIR NORTH - WERE OUR OPENING MOVES.
• MOVING OUR NAVAL ASSETS TO THE ARABIAN GULF AS WE CRANKED UP MULTILATERAL DIPLOMATIC PRESSURE WERE OUR MID-GAME MOVES.
• TWO WEEKS FROM NOW THE HARIRI TRIBUNAL OPENS; ISRAEL JETS SURGICALLY ATTACK SYRIA - FURTHER ISOLATING IRAN FROM ITS KEY REGIONAL ALLY.
• ANNOUNCING WE HAVE PROOF OF THEIR COMPLICITY IN DESTABILIZING IRAN AND MOVING TROOPS TO THEIR BORDER IS ACTUALLY THE BEGINNING OF THE ENDGAME.

FRANCE MAY REJOIN NATO'S MILITARY WING

UK INDEPENDENT:

President Nicolas Sarkozy, a self-proclaimed Gaullist, may be ready to reverse one of the most celebrated actions sanctioned by Charles de Gaulle – France's abrupt exit from the military wing of Nato in 1966.

After a hint dropped by M. Sarkozy last month, the country's Defence Minister, Hervé Morin, has raised the possibility of France rejoining the integrated, military structure of the alliance [France participates in non-military NATO afairs.].

In return, he suggested, France would want the US to lift its objections to the development of a European Union defence policy linked to Nato. Paris would also want Nato to rethink its overall strategy and structures.

The idea, put forward by M. Morin during a defence summer school at the University of Toulouse, is part of a drive by the President to repair relations between France and the US.

It is also a recognition that the European Union defence policy, launched by President Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair at St Malo in December 1998, cannot go far without Washington's blessing.

THIS IS NOT JUST THE NEW PRO-AMERICANISM OF SARKOZY.

IT IS A NEW REALISM.

JIHADISTS TRY TO DESTROY AN ANCIENT ZIONIST STATUE IN PAKISTAN

ER UM, I MEAN BUDDHIST STATUE.

Huh. I don't get it!?!? Was Buddha a crusading-zionist-neocon-hegemoinst-co2 polluter?

No? Then why did they attack his statue?

COULD IT BE GLOBAL JIHAD!?

YES.

HILLARY IS WORSE THAN KERRY

BELDAR (HAT TIP EVIL GLENN):

Although Berger's disgraceful criminal conviction for an intentional abuse of the public trust was sufficient to shame John Kerry into disassociating himself from Berger in 2004, it is obviously insufficient to similarly shame front-running 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY). And beating John Kerry in shamelessness is an impressive accomplishment.

SHE IS LESS FIT TO COMMAND THEN KERRY - AND HE WAS UNFIT FOR COMMAND.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I wish everyone a happy and healthy and SWEET New Year!

APPEAL IN AL-DURAH CASE TO BE HEARD TODAY

Melanie Phillips reports that today, the appeal of Phillipe Karsenty in the Mohammed al-Durah case is going to be heard. Here's the recording at Second Draft that shows how Charles Endelin's falsification is just that. Pay attention to this, because Enderlin cannot and should not be allowed to get away with his acts of evil this time. He should be held to account for falsifying and inciting against Israel by collaborating with evil entities.

Australians to be paid to lose weight?

Many Australians who have recently been through what now passes for an Australian education will probably be unaware that the quote in the above cartoon is from a much-loved Australian poem by A.B. Paterson, called "The Man from Snowy River". Zeg appears to think that money might get results

TAXPAYERS should subsidise 12-week weight loss programs for overweight Australians, a leading doctors group says. The Australian General Practice Network also wants $40 million spent on a national program to teach good parenting techniques. And it is pushing for general practice nurses to visit nursing homes and carry out home visits to check on elderly and frail patients.

The network is calling on major parties to commit in this year's election to pay 75 per cent of the cost of a 12-week weight loss program, such as Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig. The $170 subsidy would be triggered by a doctor's referral. Doctors would get feedback about a patient's progress six weeks into the program.

Subsidising weight-loss courses would cost taxpayers $27 million a year. The GP Network says evidence shows obesity is linked to low-income status. "Effective weight management programs do exist but access to them can be difficult," it says. "Fees to attend can be prohibitively high."

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.)

Australian case could smother web chat

Must not warn others of problem products and services:

"The founder of one of the nation's most popular online discussion forums says a lawsuit brought by a software company threatens freedom of speech on the net. Whirlpool forums founder Simon Wright, who is being sued by accounting software maker 2Clix Australia for publishing comments the company alleges are "false and malicious", says the legal action affects all online discussion and even film reviews.

"Whirlpool's forum operates on the basis that users post their comments without prior approval. "We treat all complaints about posts seriously."

2Clix Australia is suing Mr Wright for damages after two forum discussions about its products on the Whirlpool site. According to a statement on the site, purportedly from 2Clix, the action was based on comments criticising its software and postings encouraging other Whirlpool members to avoid purchasing their products.

Source

I hope this is the sort of publicity that 2Clix wants. They are clearly not the sharpest knives in the drawer.


(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.)

AWWW... TURKEY'S SO PISSED OFF AT ISRAEL THAT THEY MIGHT NOT HELP ISRAEL GIVE SYRIA BACK THE GOLAN

Although it may look like we don't care on the outside, on the inside we're actually crying:

The three-way diplomatic liaison that binds Ankara, Damascus and Jerusalem is a very sensitive matter indeed. Last week's alleged aerial incursion by Israeli warplanes that reportedly penetrated into Syria through Turkish airspace just served to make things more complicated. Moreover, the incident heightened all the preexisting tensions among all three partners... while Ankara's relationship with Israel is subject to increasing tensions, the Turks and Syrians are undergoing a gradual rapprochement... Turkey has recently been reported mediating between Syria in Israel in an attempt to jump-start negotiations between Jerusalem and Damascus.

Turkey has traditionally been the go-to mediator for any Israeli Prime Minister who wants to give territory back to Syria, one of the worst and least trustworthy regimes on the planet. So we're sure you can imagine how heartbroken we are about this. And don't worry about the broader context of Israeli-Turkish relations. The Turkish army has a very firm answer for Turkish politicians who genuinely seek to undermine relations between the secular Turkish army and the IDF: absolutely not. Turkey's army enjoys extremely warm relations with Israel. But if you did want to start getting a little paranoid about the degree to which the Turkish army is actually on Israel's side, there's this...

One way or another, this will become a problem in a generation or two. By then a massive number of Turks will have adopted the peculiar interpretation of the Religion of Peace that embraces killing people. But until then, Turkey's concern about Israeli bombing raids on weapons meant for Hezbollah is less than dramatic.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

IHT PUBLISHES REPUGNANT SOPHISTICATED EXCUSES FOR LEGALLY MANDATED IRANIAN SEXISM

One of the most emailed stories on the IHT website today is this little bit of propaganda about Iran:

The instructor held up an unfurled green condom as she lectured a dozen Iranian brides-to-be on details of family planning. But birth control was only one aspect of the class, provided by the government and mandatory for all couples before marriage. The other was about sex, and the message from the state was that women should enjoy themselves as much as men and that men needed to be patient, because women need more time to become aroused. This is not the picture of Iran that filters out across the world

Sophistication-mania! If you're intelligent and liberal enough, you too can tell all your cocktail party friends about how wrong, misguided, and just plain unfair the Likudnik AIPAC neo-con characterization of Iran is. Sure, they have a legal system where prepubescent girls are sold and raped under Iran's temporary marriage laws, but they also tell men to take their time. So at least we know that the enslaved prepubescent girls are are enjoying themselves. Except they're not because, you know, they're prepubescent girls who are getting sold and raped. But if it wasn't for that!

And then there's that whole inconvenient "they kill gay people for being gay" thing. You have to wonder why - of all the things that a journalist could choose to write about - someone would make it their business to make the Iranian regime look good to the outside world. "They're just telling the truth" is not a defense - there are literally an infinite number of true things that anyone can write about anything world, and at least a couple dozen of those are interesting. Michael Slackman and the IHT choose to propagandize for the Iranian regime - to present a different "picture of Iran" than the more accurate one of enslaved women and murdered gay teenagers.

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

LIBERAL CAUSE CELEBRE COLLIDES WITH SCIENCE: HYSTERICAL CLAIMS OF "BIOPIRACY" GET RENOWNED SCIENTIST, TIME "HERO FOR THE PLANET" 16 YEARS IN PRISON

For decades academics and human rights activists have screamed about biopiracy, which is what they labeled virtually any intrusion by Western scientists into the sanctified environ of the Third World. Defenders of measured biotechnological research were screamed down as "racists". Now this happened:

Marc van Roosmalen is a world-renowned primatologist whose research in the Amazon has led to the discovery of five species of monkeys and a new primate genus. But precisely because of that work, van Roosmalen was this year sentenced to nearly 16 years in prison and jailed in Manaus, Brazil. Last month, his lawyers managed to get him freed on bail while they appeal his conviction on charges stemming from an investigation into alleged biopiracy. But scientists in Brazil and across the world are outraged, and describe the case as the most glaring example of laws and government policies they say are stifling scientific inquiry.

To understand the sheer scope of this disaster, you should realize that this description of his honors - which include the phrase "one of the most accomplished field biologists of our time" are underselling his achievements. Tetrapod Zoology recently did a four-post series about new mammals that van Roosmalen has discovered. This is a total outrage.

This style of the activism - the smug self-righteousness of the activists, the hysterical ad homs against anyone who tries to steer a middle course, etc - creates an environment ripe for abuse. This is how global warming research became an anti-scientific endeavor where data is withheld from dissidents until they reverse engineer flawed algorithms, it's how absolutist claims about scientific practice have recently been used to shut down open source science journals, etc.

A more measured model of scientific progress - one that recognizes the sociology of scientific communities while refusing to cede ground to the cultural left on the question of science's privileged relationship to truth - would go a long way to avoiding these pitfalls. But that would lack something in the way of smug sophistication, and where would that leave the soft anti-intellectualism of international human rights activism?

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

SDEROT MEDIA CENTER: DOCUMENTING AND HELPING CHILDREN COPE WITH PALESTINIAN WAR CRIMES

The Sderot Media Center is the only group working to bring the reality faced by Sderot residents - the constant Palestinian Qassam attacks aimed indiscriminately at civilians - to the world. Their founder and director, Noam Bedein, was in the US last week to help raise awareness about this travesty.

If you see a video of 6 year olds running from their sandboxes at the sound of a Red Alert, that's because one of Bedein's teams recorded it. These kids are playing, then they hear the siren, then you watch them have 15 seconds to run for shelter. And then you see how little kids have been taught to count down from 10 and yell in song so that they don't have to hear the rockets exploding. And that's before the footage of mothers screaming and children breaking down as they try to find each other in the aftermath of a full on bombing. And they're slowly starting to get results. One of their more dramatic videos - children at a group therapy session that's interrupted by a Red Alert and falling Qassams - recently made the jump into the MSM. A lot of people think that the new shelters announced for Sderot are the result of pressure brought to bear on the government by the SMC's work.

In between documenting the effects of Palestinian terrorism and war crimes, they also do what they can to make life a little more bearable, from directly assisting families to putting on events to providing therapy for children.

When Israel finally invades the Gaza Strip to stop the Qassams - as any other country would have done months if not years ago - the world will invent an Israeli "atrocity" to scream about for a month. Then that "atrocity" will go from 40 "murdered" to 1 dead - as it did in Lebanon - or from "hundreds of civilian casualties" to dozens of dead fighters - as it did in Jenin. All that's inevitable. But in between, there will probably be a few hundred people who will see the SMC's videos and suddenly understand why Israel had to go into Gaza and be genuinely impressed by the care that the IDF takes to maintain its status as the most moral army in the world. And in the meantime, the group is doing what it can to promote public dialogue outside of Sderot and help the families and children inside the besieged town. The SMC's page for making tax deductible donations is here.

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

A LOOK AT WHO IS QUESTIONING PETRAEUS

• OBAMA: CORRUPT SCUM. (REZKOGATE.)

• MENENDEZ: CORRUPT SCUM. (LICAUSIGATE.)

• HILLARY: CORRUPT SCUM. (PAULGATE AND HSUGATE.)

YEAH: CORRUPT SCUM.
DON'T LIKE IT?
TOUGH: FACTS IS FACTS. (JUST USE THE LINKS, AND THE LINKS WITHIN THE LINKS!)

THESE THREE CORRUPT TRAITORS HAVE NO BUSINESS BEING IN THE SAME ROOM AS PETRAEUS, LET ALONE QUESTION HIM.

AND YES, THEY ARE TRAITORS:

• THEY UNDERMINE HIS LEADERSHIP - BY QUESTIONING HIS VERACITY;
• THEY UNDERMINE OUR TROOPS MORALE - BY SAYING WE ARE LOSING AND CANNOT WIN;
• AND THIS GIVES SUCCOR TO THE ENEMY.

THIS MAKES THEM TRAITOROUS CORRUPT SCUM.

(I'm not giving them hell; I'm just telling the TRUTH ; they just think it's HELL.
AND YES: I OFTEN DO IT IN CAPS. Get used to it.)

UPDATE: More on Obama's and Hillary's CORRUPTION PROBLEMS here - from TONIGHT'S NYTIMES!

LIKE STALINSTS GOING AFTER TROTSKYITES: THE DEMS OF THE LOONY LEFT EAT THEIR OWN

THE HILL:

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) is encouraging anti-war activists to find challengers to centrist Democrats, with the aim of moving the party to the left and ramping up opposition to the war in Iraq, to the chagrin of top Democratic aides.

“You folks should go after the Democrats,” Woolsey said in response to a suggestion from an activist during a conference call last month organized by the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

“I’d hate to lose the majority, but I’m telling you, if we don’t stand up to our responsibility, maybe that’s the lesson to be learned.”

HOW BAD IS WOOLSEY? Last week she demanded we STOP training Iraqis to takeover their own security.

She typifies the Left: deranged. The pity is: they dominate the Dems.

A vote for a Dem is a vote for the Left - and Bin Laden. Who is of the Left, too.

FOX REPORTS ON THE LIKELY TIMING OF A PREEMPTIVE ATTACK AGAINST IRAN - and it's exactly what I predicted

FOX:

... according to a well-placed Bush administration source, "everyone in town" is now participating in a broad discussion about the costs and benefits of military action against Iran, with the likely timeframe for any such course of action being over the next eight to 10 months, after the presidential primaries have probably been decided, but well before the November 2008 elections.

HERE'S EXACTLY WHAT I POSTED AT THE BEGINNING OF LAST WEEK, (9/2/07):

IMHO: MAY - 5/5/07 - IS THE LIKELIEST [DATE FOR AN ATTACK] - IT COMES AFTER THE TWO MAJOR PARTIES WOULD MOST LIKELY HAVE ALL BUT SELECTED THEIR NOMINEES, BUT BEFORE THE ACTUAL CONVENTIONS.

This is not merely a case of TAB scooping the entire MSM and the blogosphere - by more than a week; this is a case of TAB EXACTLY AND CORECTLY analyzing and articulating the impending timing of perhaps the most important counter-attack against genocidal tyranny since Hiroshima. And doing so independently - in advance of ANY such analysis by anyone anywhere..

HOW GOOD IS TAB?

WE SAID WHEN AND WE SAID WHY AND WE WERE RIGHT.

BUT YOU KNOW THAT.

SPREAD THE WORD. BLOGROLL US.

(AND REMEMBER: WE SAID IT WITH EVEN GREATER EXACTITUDE; WE SAID 5/5/08.

I stand by that prediction today.)

THE BIG QUESTION: WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT A JIHADIST NUKE?

A jihadist nuke might come about in a number of different ways:

• It could be bought by them - from Russia or North Korea or Pakistan.
• It could be made by them - in Iran.
• Or it could "fall into their hands" should they lead a successful coup in Pakistan.

ALL of these are real VERY REAL possibilities.

What should we do about this? DO we have contingency plans in place?

PROBABLY.

Here's what I think THE PUBLIC has got to come to grips with:

• THAT WE CANNOT ALLOW ANY JIHADISTS OR JIHADIST STATE TO ACQUIRE - IN ANY MANNER - ANY NUKES.
• AND THAT TO PREVENT THIS, WE MUST BE WILLING TO PREEMPTIVELY ATTACK AND DESTROY THE NUKES AND/OR NUKE ASSETS OF THE JIHADIST STATES.

Which means that we have to be ready, willing and able to attack Iran - sooner rather than later.

And it means we must make it VERY clear to Pakistan that a jihadist coup there will AUTOMATICALLY TRIGGER a "thorough" kinetic counter-response from us.

AND... we have to account for all of North Korea's and Russia's nukes.

I think this is an existential issue.

I'd like to know EXACTLY where each and every candidate stands on this:

• Are they willing to accept a nuclear Iran or a jihadist Pakistan?
• And, what are they willing to do to stop either from happening?

Any candidate who takes preemptive action off the table is unfit for command.

UPDATE: It now appears CERTAIN that Bush will do what needs to be done so that the next president will only have to deal with the aftermath - and s/he can: "BLAME BUSH!"

(More here on the timing of an attack on Iran.)

BIN LADEN'S OCTET OFFENSIVE AND THE BATTLEFIELD OF PUBLIC OPINION

The most decisive PROPAGANDA victory the North Vietnamese communists ever won was one they actually lost on the battlefield - the Tet Offensive.

They lost it on the battlefield but won it in the battlefield of public opinion, in the MSM. After Tet, Cronkite basically said the war was "unwinnable" and LBJ said if he'd lost Cronkite, then he'd lost the nation.

That was then.

Now, is not so different. The enemy is losing on the battlefield, but winning in the MSM - and as a result most Americans don't feel like we're winning. Americans are simply not getting enough good news about the surge to convince them the war in Iraq is winnable.

Winning in the battlefield of public opinion is the entire strategy of al Qaeda (it's the entire strategy behind terror) - and the MSM and the Democrat party are their willing collaborators; IN FACT AL QAEDA PROPAGANDA WOULD NOT BE EFFECTIVE WITHOUT THEM.

In fact, all eight of the Democrat candidates for the presidency are more than just merely collaborating with the enemy: they are personally vested in our defeat in Iraq - what they call Bush's War. They can only succeed if Bin Laden succeeds. They might as well be rooting for him, and he for them.

The additional fact that so many of them serve on the committees which Petraeus and Crocker faced this week really drove this fact home.

How sickening that Bin Laden could depend on these EIGHT COLLABORATORS.

These eight who aid an abet al Qaeda propaganda by arguing that we are not winning and we cannot defeat al Qaeda in Iraq, and should DO EXACTLY WHAT BIN LADEN WANT US TO DO: give up.

Cede Iraq to the enemy.

These eight who would have us all believe we must retreat, er um "WITHDRAW", and lose - ER UM I MEAN "END" THE WAR.

These eight:

Bin Laden's Octet Offensive.

In this respect the 2008 election will be between the GOP and al Qaeda.

WHO DO YOU WANT TO WIN?