Saturday, May 31, 2008

OBAMA: NO COURAGE; NO GUTS; NO PRINCIPLES - AND NO CHANCE AT BECOMING OUR NEXT PRESIDENT


THE CORNER:
It’s been just over two months since Obama’s Philadelphia speech on race — the one that was compared by the historian Garry Wills to Lincoln’s Cooper Union address. In that speech Obama famously said he could not more disown the Reverend Jeremiah Wright than he could disown the black community or his own grandmother and spoke about how Trinity United “embodies the black community in its entirely.”

Since that speech Wright has been tossed under the bus — and now, so has Trinity United.
THERE'S A PATTERN HERE:
  • WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, OBAMA RETREATS. AND THROWS FORMER ALLIES UNDER THE BUS.
  • IN IRAQ, AND FROM HIS OWN CHURCH.
  • OBAMA HASN'T GOT WHAT IT TAKES TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT - OR TO SERVE.
  • EVEN THE LEFTIES RUNNING THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HAVE GOT TO SEE THAT NOW.
LIKE CARVILLE SAID: "IF HILLARY GAVE OBAMA ONE OF HER COJONES, THEN THEY'D BOTH HAVE TWO."

WHY WON'T OBAMA JOIN A NEW CHURCH UNTIL EARLY NEXT YEAR???

NYTIMES/REUTERS:
The decision to quit the church appeared to be a sign that Obama wants to put the issue behind him before the general election.

Obama said he and his family would find another church, although he said they would not likely settle on one until early next year.

Whoever wins in November will be inaugurated in January to succeed President George W. Bush.
HE'S GONNA WAIT... NOT GO TO CHURCH BETWEEN NOW AND THE ELECTION... HMM...
GOD FORBID!

OBAMA FINISHED; NEW CANDIDATES STEP FORWARD TO LEAD "PROGRESSIVES"...


















ALTERNATE TITLES (LEFT TO RIGHT): "DEMOCRACY, SEXY, WHISKEY"

I THINK HILLARY FINALLY GOT A BREAK - AND WINNING PLATFORM!

THE AUDACITY OF RETREAT
























THE SUN HAS SET ON THE OBAMA JUGGERNAUT.

WHY?!

SIMPLE: Not even Obama can toss a whole church under a bus.

I mean... If this church was always this bad (and it was - I mean... NOBODY INSIDE THE CHURCH OBJECTED TO PFLEGER OR WRIGHT AT THE TIME; AT THE TIME, THEY HOOTED SUPPORT!) - then how could he have EVER belonged.

He must have "believed" - and his "campaign conversion" is merely an attempt to save face, and white votes.

A blatant attempt.

And therefore, a failed attempt.

UPDATE: FROM FLOPPING ACES:

This lefty laments at his flip-flopping:

So in an attempt to turn manufactured right-wing ammo into blanks, Obama has completely separated himself from his minister and his church. What worries me is this: Can we expect a President Obama to cave in to the whims and will of the right on policies and issues he knows are important, if this nation is to move forward in a progressive and compassionate manner? Can we expect him to genuflect to negative reports by an uninformed, misinformed or ill-willed media?

I love it. Manufactured. “US of KKK!” “The chickens…have come home….to roost!” “God damn America!”….yup. Manufactured.

THE LEFT IS ALREADY SEEING OBAMA FOR WHAT HE IS.

IT'S OVER.

A NATIONAL NIGHTMARE AVERTED.

UPDATE#2: STOP THE ACLU AGREES:

20 years too late, but political pressure finally cracks him. It will probably actually cost him votes now, in my opinion.
RTWT.

UPDATE #3: GREAT COMMENT THREAD AT ACE'S PLACE...

OBAMA RESIGNS FROM CHURCH. WHAT'S NEXT... RESIGNING FROM THE DEMOCRAT PARTY!?!?

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE.

Obama cannot erase two decades of belonging to racist church just by tossing the church you were baptized in under the bus when the heat gets turned up.

If he thinks the heat of a campaign is too tough, then he has no right to claim he can be president.

What did Truman say... "if you can't stand the heat then get out of the kitchen."

Obama can't stand the heat of a campaign without tossing aside his grandma, then his pastor, and now HIS WHOLE FREAKIN' CHURCH. One he'd been defending until NOW. One many leftists defended.

What a low life.

Unfit for the office.

Kerry had more class. At least he pretended to be honorable.

I think - with this final act of cowardice - the leftist base of the Democrat Party should begin to see him for what he is: a dangerously shallow opportunist.

More here.

And here, and here.

UPDATE: FROM FLOPPING ACES:

This lefty laments at his flip-flopping:

So in an attempt to turn manufactured right-wing ammo into blanks, Obama has completely separated himself from his minister and his church. What worries me is this: Can we expect a President Obama to cave in to the whims and will of the right on policies and issues he knows are important, if this nation is to move forward in a progressive and compassionate manner? Can we expect him to genuflect to negative reports by an uninformed, misinformed or ill-willed media?

I love it. Manufactured. “US of KKK!” “The chickens…have come home….to roost!” “God damn America!”….yup. Manufactured.

THE LEFT IS ALREADY SEEING OBAMA FOR WHAT HE IS.

IT'S OVER.

A NATIONAL NIGHTMARE AVERTED.

THE OBAMA REVOLUTION: CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE!



















THE LEFT: MORE THEY CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME...

THE AXIS OF MALO: FARC AND ETA - AND JIHAD!

AFP:
Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels sought to forge an alliance with the Basque separatist group ETA to launch an attack in Spain on top Colombian officials, Vice President Francisco Santos charged Friday.

But the Anncol news agency, which is sympathetic to the FARC, said in an article on its website that the government mistook a reference to the town of Madrid in northern Colombia for a reference to the Spanish capital.

Santos said "the FARC's contacts with ETA and drug traffickers exporting cocaine to Europe are not new, and when they are secure in Colombia, they try to do harm overseas," which, he claimed, was the rebels' goal.

"In any case, the police and defense ministry continue to do intelligence analysis on the FARC's relationship with ETA but that (foreign operations) is one of the risks you have to take," Santos told RCN radio from Geneva.

TYPICALLY SPANISH:
Police in Venezuela are leading the investigation into lines of financing and joint training sessions in Colombia.

Despite the currently reported weakened state of the Basque terrorist group ETA, anti-terrorism officers are now investigating if they have managed to re-group their international contacts, and are interested in a possible link to the FARC guerrillas in Colombia.

It’s thought that international lines of financing could have been re-established as conditions at home have become more complicated.

El Mundo newspaper reports that police in Venezuela say they are investigating links between ETA and the FARC and think joint training sessions with arms and explosives have been taking place in the forest.
THESE GUYS HAVE TIES TO JIHADISTS, TOO:
FARC Joins the Jihad!
Posted in Homeland Security, Islamic Expansionism, Southern theater by Rob Taylor on June 9th, 2007

A Syrian arms dealer was caught providing Marxist insurgent group F.A.R.C. with military grade weaponry including RPGs and surface to air missiles. More ominously the deal included the promise of trainers from Lebanon who would travel to Columbia to train the Communist insurgents. The Syrians’ alliance with Hezbollah makes it obvious who these trainers would be.

Hezbollah is already active in neighboring Venezuela and HMJ from Western Hemisphere Policy Watch reports that the tactics of Islamist terror groups, specifically beheadings, have been observed in Mexico. As more and more Militant Islamic groups strengthen their operational capabilities in South America, often with the help of Latin American leftists, the United States becomes less and less secure.

  • I'D LIKE TO BRING BACK THE BUSH DOCTRINE:
  • THOSE WHO AID AND ABET TERRORISTS SHOULD BE TREATED AS TERRORISTS; EITHER YOU ARE WITH US - THE CIVILIZED WORLD, OR YOU ARE AGAINST US.
  • AND WE SHOULD GO AFTER IRAN, VENEZUELA AND ALL THE OTHER NATIONS WHO AID TERROR.

BTW: BUSH WAS AT ABOUT 90% POPULARITY WHEN HE SAID IT.

Father Pfleger Sings Mammy

The other day, Father Michael Phleger put on a minstrel show at Barack Obama's church. He might as well have donned blackface, and sang, "Mammy."

Instead of being offended, the congregation of Trinity United applauded the man.

Here is a video clip.





From Victor Davis Hanson:


The problem with Father Pfleger's racist and sexist rant about Hillary's tears and whiteness was not that he once had some tenuous relationship with Barack Obama and therefore is the candidate's eternal responsibility. Obama obviously is not responsible for all the dubious people that he has come across in the world of Chicago activism.

But there is a problem, and it really is far larger than Father Pfleger— namely the immediate reaction to the father's sick mimicry from both the congregation and the new pastor of Trinity.

The reception to Pfleger seemed enthusiastic, at least as it appeared on the video "snippet", and indeed after that racist harangue the pastor at Trinity praised Pfleger in the manner he had introduced him.

After the Wright National Press Club meltdown, Obama I think has made the case that Trinity and Wright were distinguishable; and thus while he could finally cut loose the latter, he could still in good conscious stay with the former.

But now? It seems the problem is not Wright per se, but the church itself and its generic pastors that are starting to voice, or at least tolerate, habitually racist themes. After the pastor's and congregation's response to the latest creepy sermon, it is surely past time for Obama now to gracefully leave the congregation that either cannot or will not distance itself from hate speech.

Surely the possible next president of the United States cannot formally belong to a church where Wright and Pfleger have habitually spread their venom, and where both were praised by Wright's successor and current pastor. Otherwise, we wouldn't be wrong to suspect that Wright did not create Trinity, but rather Trinity created Wright.

If the Obamas have already formally quit the Trinity Church disregard the above.



Yeah, I don't think they have. And, don't look for Trinity United to change its ways.

In fact, here's the next preacher scheduled for Trinity United this Sunday.





What is the difference between that, and Father Pfleger? The big difference is that Father Pfleger has sucked a gullible audience of black people into believing he is not parodying them. He probably does believe the things he is saying, or feels he needs to believe them. Nevertheless, his speech is a parody of black mannerisms, and of the stupidest of Black Nationalist tropes about white culture.


From Wikipedia:


Blackface in the narrow sense is a style of theatrical makeup that originated in the United States, used to take on the appearance of certain archetypes of American racism. Blackface in the broader sense includes similarly stereotyped performances even when they do not involve blackface makeup.

Electromagnetic Energy May Hold the Key to Climate Change

Here's an interesting article argues that increased sunspot activity and electromagnetism are the key.

It's by a "new age" type of writer, as far as I can tell...

It's good to see there are AGW skeptics from all quarters...

Is a war brewing in the Caucaucus?

NYTimes/Reuters:
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he approved of a plan to give Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia autonomy but not full independence.

But Georgia accused Moscow of trying to annex the impoverished Black Sea region after Russia sent unarmed troops on Saturday to rebuild a railway in Abkhazia.

Russia called the deployment "humanitarian aid." Georgia said on Friday it had stopped spy plane flights over Abkhazia to quell Western fears that tensions between Tbilisi and Moscow could degenerate into war.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has offered Abkhazia, which broke away in a war in the 1990s, a package that would return it to Georgian control but give it autonomy, the post of vice-president, free trade zones, and seats in parliament.

"I very much hope that the plan that Saakashvili proposed will gradually be introduced because overall it is the right plan," Putin said in an interview with France's Le Monde newspaper, given on a visit to Paris and attended by Reuters.

"It just needs the other side to agree to it. You need to conduct a dialogue," he said.

Putin's apparent support was surprising because Moscow backs the separatists. However, his condition that Abkhazia must agree to the plan is unlikely to be fulfilled: the separatists rejected the Georgian plan when it was first presented.
Stay tuned...

NEW ANTI-JIHAD EFFORT IN BRITAIN: WILL START VETTING ALL IMAMS WITH ACCESS TO PUPILS

APP:
Islamic Imams and other religious scholars granted access to school pupils will be vetted for radical Islamist views under the new British Government guidelines, reports ‘The Daily Telegraph.’

The daily said a package of measures, due to be published next week, will set out controversial moves to invite imams into the classroom to speak against violent extremism.

British-born Islamic scholars will teach citizenship in an effort to undermine any dangerous influences being exerted on youngsters elsewhere, it added.
DJ:
Recently, the British government has given a warning that school children are at risk of being manipulated by Islamic extremists.

Ed Balls, the British Secretary for Children, Schools and Families, gave a warning that school children were at risk of being exposed to Islamic extremism. He has brought up fears that these children could be new recruits for militant Islamic movements. Balls has urged teachers to attack the problem early by winning the “hearts and minds.”

The term “hearts and minds” is not new. Several months ago, the newest update to the US Army Manual added a section on winning the “hearts and minds” of the locals. This has been the newly adopted term for many initiatives across the globe.

The call towards an initiative comes forth after the restaurant bombing in Exeter last week. According to the police, the suspect was someone educated in Britain and then converted to Islam. They suspect that the person converted to radical Islam.

Balls warned that while the Islamic radicals are a small minority in Britain, they are still a dangerous minority. He also gave the realistic perspective that there are a few children that have already been converted. In short, Balls’ initiative is to ensure schools are well-equipped and well-prepared to tackle such a problem.
IT'S A GOOD START.

IMHO: ANYONE ADVOCATING SHARIA AND JIHAD SHOULD BE EITHER PERMANENTLY EXILED (IF THEY ARE NOT CITIZENS) OR JAILED FOR SEDITION (IF THEY ARE CITIZENS).

AUDACITY EXPLAINED: THE "POST-RACIAL CANDIDATE" OBAMA IS FULL OF SHIT

Obama is a full of shit, phony hypocrite; he's a half-white/half-black man who joined a black liberation theology church - WHOSE PREACHERS REGULARLY PREACH RACIST RANTS - and then HE had the AUDACITY to campaign as a post-racial candidate who would heal America.

NOW, THAT'S FREAKIN' AUDACITY.

What kind of freakin' idiotic morons would buy this kind of flagrantly hypocritical crap?

Democrat morons.

And there are millions of them.

Sheesh.

Seriously, how could such a hypocrite do so well?

Well, his opponents were morons, too. And his chief opponent the shrill Hillary. Heh.
  • WHAT MAKES IT WORSE ID THE FACT THAT THE ORIGINAL BASIS FOR RUNNING WAS HIS SINGULARLY GREAT JUDGMENT - AND AS PROOF OF THAT HE OFFERED UP THE FACT THAT HE OPPOSED THE IRAQ WAR FROM THE START.
  • A WAR WE HAVE WON.
  • AND HE ALSO OPPOSED THE SURGE WHICH SEALED THE DEAL.
  • PROVING THAT OBAMA HAS BAD JUDGMENT.
A HYPOCRITE WITH BAD JUDGMENT: THE PERFECT STANDARD BEARER FOR TODAY'S DEMOCRAT PARTY.

POLYGAMY IN ONTARIO

Via Dhimmi Watch and from this source:
It’s an issue the Liberal govenrment of Ontario, led by Premier Dalton McGuinty, doesn’t want to deal with — polygamy in the Muslim community. Last week the Toronto Star told the story of Safa Rigby, a 35-year-old mother of five children who recently learned her husband of 14 years had two other wives. Ms. Rigby’s life is in tatters. She followed her husband’s advice that she leave Toronto and live in Egypt for a year on the grounds that it would be better for their children to spend more time in a Muslim country. Now she knows it was a ruse. He used her time there to marry two other women.

Ms. Rigby does not support polygamy, which has been illegal in Canada for more than a century. But Toronto Imam Aly Hindy, who runs the Toronto Salahuddin Islamic Centre, does. He married Ms. Rigby’s husband knowing he already had a wife and counselled him to keep the marriage secret from Ms. Rigby for as long as possible. Hindy has by his own admission performed 30 ceremonies in which men were married who already had wives. When Ms. Rigby confronted Hindy his response was reportedly cold and unsympathetic: “You will have to stand beside him in these difficult times,” Hindy told her. “You should stop causing problems to (sic) him. You will not get anything by divorce except destroying your life” he went on to say.

For Hindy this is not about Ms. Rigby or her husband’s desire to marry another woman — but making a broader political point.

Hindy is using polygamy as a proxy for his fundamentalist version of Islam, something he wants to see legitimized in Canadian society as a whole.
Western nations have a decision to make: sticking by Western law and principles or bowing to shari'a law. Which will it be?

VIDEO PROOF THAT OBAMA HAS BAD JUDGMENT AND IS UNFIT TO BE COMMANDER IN CHIEF

Obama's whole raison d'etre for his campaign was his JUDGMENT. He argued that he alone - of all the candidates for the nomination - was opposed to the Iraq War from the start, and this proved he alone had the JUDGMENT to be president.

But now tha victory is almost completely assured, and al Qaeda is on the run - nearly completely destroyed, how good does THAT judgment seem!?

Piss poor.

Especially when one considers that he opposed the very change in strategy which turned things around: THE SURGE.

Obama said it wouldn't work.

VIDEO HERE AT HOT AIR.

Had Obama - (or Kerry, or nearly ANY Democrat, except for Lieberman!!!) - been the POTUS the last four years we WOULD HAVE LOST IRAQ AND HANDED AL QAEDA A HUGE VICTORY.

This is undeniable.

IF OBAMA IS ELECTED HE WOULD LIKELY DO THE SAME TYPE OF IDIOTIC, COWARDLY ENEMY-APPEASING THING AGAIN BECAUSE HE HAS BAD JUDGMENT.

OBAMA IS UNFIT TO BE COMMANDER IN CHIEF.

Australia: Traditional views about women are now a "disease"

A footballer as a hero of free speech: For readers not resident in the Australian State of Victoria, Sam Newman is a TV commentator on Australian Rules football. He is now in his 60s but was once a distinguished footballer himself. Comments below by Andrew Bolt




Don't like Sam Newman? Then argue back. Abuse him if you must. Take away your advertising, or - even better - just turn him off. Hell, Channel 9 can even sack him from The Footy Show if it figures his act is stale. But send him to a re-education camp? Which Maoists at the station thought of that particular "cure" for inconvenient opinions? That was Nine's executive director, Jeffrey Browne, actually.

With women switching off the boofy Footy Show and advertisers pulling ads to placate women offended by Newman's ways, the boss panicked. It's two months since Newman caused uproar by groping a half-dressed mannequin he doctored to look like Age football writer Caroline Wilson, but only now has Browne decided Newman did what he did because he is actually sick. But Browne doesn't just think Newman is sick in body, needing an indefinite break "to return to full health" after two big operations, one to remove his prostate. He seemingly also figures Newman is sick in the head, and has ordered "as a component of this rehabilitation" that he "undergo counselling to address, with professional assistance, the behaviour and issues that have attended what I now believe to be his premature return to the program". How offensive and absurd.

What is this "behaviour" that Newman must be counselled out of? It is not just the fondling of that mannequin, which was indeed plain nasty and boorish. It is that Newman genuinely holds - and has expressed - certain views that some influential people in particular do not like and think it a sin to hold. A sign of poor mental hygiene. One such opinion is that some women with powerful jobs in football were "liars and hypocrites" in their criticisms of him. Another opinion is that women in top football jobs have had little to contribute and, "for very little input they demand a lot of clout".

Such comments have made Browne as jumpy as a TV executive who's just learned he's lost his parking spot. "The Nine Network, in its entirety, is respectful of women," he protests.

And Newman will now be counselled - with that grim "professional assistance" - until his own thinking on women is "rehabilitated" to the standards Browne thinks healthy.

What makes this so offensive is that Newman is already in no doubt that a lot of people object to his views. After all, The Age has lashed him hysterically from its front page to its back, devoting to his alleged sins the kind of oh-my-god coverage it normally reserves for global warming.

Lawyers have sent him stiff letters demanding satisfaction, talkback jockeys have climbed on his back, co-host Garry Lyon has fronted him, his boss has disowned him, football executives have bounced him, and all in all it's been the most wonderful lynch party. So many professional denouncers have got their rocks off on Newman that you could build a pyramid over his body to rival Giza. That's called debate. And Newman, having gone through it, will either modify his opinions or stick to them, having considered the counter-arguments and rejected them.

His opinions may be right or, more likely, wrong - matters best left to each of us to decide for ourselves. But I am sure those opinions are sincerely held by an intelligent man, who should be allowed to hold them without now being deemed to be sick and in need of treatment. Bad opinions are best countered by arguments, not cures and counsellors.

But such is the militant temper of these group-think times that lawyers and men in white coats are called in by the powerful to do what their reasoning cannot. Some opinions must now be held by everyone - or else the treatment begins. What arrogance. What an abuse of power.

See how hard it is already for people to speak their frank mind, with so many cause-pushers so ready to denounce, abuse and sue, and so many battalions of thought-police ready to help them punish bad thinkers with fines or even jail - to win by force arguments they could not win by words.

To think we've even had Christian pastors dragged through months of hearings and mountains of legal bills for having simply quoted the Koran in ways that made some people laugh. Heavens, if I didn't have a rich boss behind me, paying lawyers, I'd probably have to shut up, too.

That's why Newman is still so loved even when so widely deplored. He reassures us there is still some freedom to say what the hell we think, and damn the consequences. But to be accurate: Newman reassures us most of that freedom when he is actually at his most outrageous - because he'd prove nothing by just baa-ing, would he?

Yet even Newman seems about to fall. Counter-arguments haven't swayed him, so it's off to the re-education camp. Excuse me, Mr Browne. Newman needs none of your "counselling" or "rehabilitation". He simply disagrees with his critics. If you don't like it, sack him. But pay him the respect of treating his views as the product of his reason, not as symptoms of bad "health". Or must I send some "counsellors" of my own around to "rehabilitate" your own unhealthy thoughts?

Source

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

McCain puts forward a good idea

If this gets going, the disgusting UN might simply fade away

Gaining ground this political season is a proposed League of Democracies designed to strengthen support for the next president's overseas agenda and ensure a global leadership role for the United States. John McCain, the virtually certain Republican presidential nominee, has endorsed the concept of a new global compact of more than 100 democratic countries to advance shared views and has discussed the idea with French and British leaders. "It could act where the U.N. fails to act," he said last month, and pressure tyrants "with or without Moscow's and Beijing's approval." McCain said the League might impose sanctions on Iran, relieve suffering in the Darfur region of Sudan and deal with environmental problems.

Barack Obama, who has a lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, has not taken a stand. But Anthony Lake, one of Obama's policy advisers, has spoken in favor of the idea.

Analysts at think tanks in Washington and elsewhere envision a league focused on maintaining peace and limiting U.S. military intervention, such as the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But missing so far are specific, proposed steps to turn the idea into reality, such as where to have a headquarters, who would finance the league and how its membership would be decided. "Cooperation is an absolute essential," Ivo Daalder, a national security expert at the Brookings Institution, said Thursday at a seminar.

An originator of the idea, Daalder said it would give democracies a better opportunity to reform the United Nations. "If there had been a dialogue on Iraq there would have been more rigorous containment of Saddam Hussein," possibly averting war, said Tod Lindberg, a Hoover Institution research fellow, at the seminar held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But not all foreign policy experts support the proposal. Thomas Carothers, vice president for studies at Carnegie, said "the world has no appetite for a U.S.-led league and many countries do not want the U.S. going around the U.N." In fact, Carothers said, the United States cooperates often with non-democracies in its foreign policy. China's help in trying to end North Korea's nuclear weapons program is just one example, he said.

President Bush's Iraq war policy was bitterly opposed by two leading democracies, France and Germany, among others. But Bush went ahead despite their strong objections. "It is wishful thinking" that a league of democracies would any more readily approve U.S. military intervention in support of another U.S. president, Carothers said. And while "some people like Senator McCain imagine it might become a replacement for the U.N., that is not the initial intention," Carothers said in a telephone interview after the seminar.

Source

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

Friday, May 30, 2008

THERE IS NO FREAKIN' CONSENSUS: 31,000 SCIENTISTS SIGN PETITION DENYING AGW

TELEGRAPH: Scientists sign petition denying man-made global warming
More than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition denying that man is responsible for global warming.

The academics, including 9,000 with PhDs, claim that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane are actually beneficial for the environment.

The petition was created in 1998 by an American physicist, the late Frederick Seitz, in response to the Kyoto Protocol a year earlier.

It urged the US government to reject the treaty and said: "The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind."

It added: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of ... greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the forseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments."

The petition was reissued last year by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, an independent research group, partly in response to Al Gore’s film on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth.

Its president, Arthur Robinson, said: "If this many American scientists will sign this petition, you certainly can’t continue to contend that there is a consensus on this subject."
NO CONSENSUS.
  • SOMEONE PLEASE TELL GORE TO STFU.
  • AND TELL MCCAIN TO WAKE UP.
SO, WHY DO SO MANY POLITICIANS SUPPORT THE IDEA?

SIMPLE: FOLLOW THE BENJAMINS:
The world market for carbon-dioxide emissions may be worth as much as $20 trillion a year within a decade, according to Richard Sandor, chairman of Climate Exchange Plc, owner of emissions markets in London and Chicago.

``There's 30 billion tons emitted worldwide,'' Sandor said in an interview. ``We're talking about a market that will be trillions and trillions of dollars, some estimate as much as $10 to $20 trillion in the next five to 10 years.''
EVERYBODY WANTS A PIECE OF THAT $20 TRILLION DOLLAR PIE.

IN COMPARISON, THE UN OIL-FOR-FOOD PROGRAM SMALL POTATOES.

Belgium: Deporting Muslims

Astonished shop-keepers and passers-by looked on last Saturday as soldiers rounded up Muslims in the Walloon-Brabant city of Nivelles. A protest against the treatment of Muslims in Europe, maybe?


In fact, the street show was an anti-Israel protest, in honor of Nakba Day (Israel's Independence Day as perceived by its enemies). Besides the shallowness and bias of portraying the Israelis as Nazis and the Muslims as the Jews, it seems to me that Belgium should not want to encourage importing foreign conflicts (see here, here and here).

More importantly, the show was put on just a day after Moroccans and football hooligans rioted in the Brussels suburb of Anderlecht, riots which are expected to continue (here and here). Police are facing accusations of racism in their treatment of the rioters. Given the tense situation in Europe at the moment and in Belgium in particular, is putting on street theater displaying the deportation of Muslims really a good idea? After all, shouldn't Belgium be more concerned about its own predicament?





Or is accusing Israel of colonial expansion a way of dealing with the guilt of the Belgian crimes of 60 years ago?

For more info see the European Jewish press (1, 2), and the Western Civilization and Culture blog.

See also: Belgium in the Middle East, Verviers: Hamas headquarters, Copenhagen: The new Palestinian authority , Copenhagen: Hamas conference

This article was cross-posted to Islam in Europe and to THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS

McCain Should Run Against Congress

Excerpt:

When House Minority Leader John Boehner is asked whether his party needs to distance itself from George W. Bush, he likes to point out the president isn't on the ticket this fall. True. Several hundred incumbent GOP members of Congress are, however, and don't think John McCain hasn't noticed.

With Congress's approval rating at record lows, the time is ripe for a slam campaign. Barack Obama won't do it, since his Democratic colleagues are running the joint. But it's a huge opportunity for Mr. McCain, who could play Congress's failings off his promises for reform. Even as Republicans sagely warn their nominee to distance himself from the president, they're beginning to see that his more productive option might just be to throw them - and Congressional Democrats - under the Straight Talk bus....

Today's Congress is ripe for a shredding. The GOP kicked off an era of public disgust with its corruption and loss of principle, a reputation it has yet to shake. Democrats have, impressively, managed to alienate voters further with inaction and broken promises. Congress has come to represent the institutional malaise that so frustrates voters. That distaste explains this year's appetite for "change."

Mr. McCain could play off that hunger, and in the process provide his campaign with the theme it still sorely needs. Mr. Obama has his "change" slogan, but as of yet no innovative policies to hang on it. Mr. McCain's problem is opposite: He's laid out smart ideas - an optional flat tax, health-care tax credits, a veto of all earmarks - but has yet to find a narrative to bring them together. One solution: Latch on to a subject that today occupies only a part of his speeches - the promise of "political reform" - and turn it into a full-fledged philosophy. Theme: "Your government has failed you, and here's how I plan to fix it."

Congress is the embodiment of that failure, and Mr. McCain could use it to draw distinctions. He could swivel the focus away from the Bush comparison, and toward Mr. Obama's kinship with today's all-talk Democratic Congress. He could tell voters that the party they feel is today failing them in the Capitol will also fail them in the White House.

As for bad-mouthing the GOP as part of this process, it isn't likely Mr. McCain would offend his conservative base. Most of it is already offended by Congress. His criticism of today's diminished GOP brand, and a promise to revive it, might even help him with the rank-and-file, and would certainly draw independents.

Mr. McCain has so far only flirted with this idea. He wrote an op-ed criticizing the farm bill, but it was largely an abstract complaint about policy. He might have instead made its focus the skewering of a Congress that relentlessly shovels subsidies to agribusiness, and then directly tied that naked vote-buying to today's high prices. A proponent of entitlement reform, he could flay Congress for its decades of inaction on Social Security. His earmark criticism might name names, including those in his party, whose pork addiction has sullied politics. If he's looking for suggestions, he could start with the Alaska delegation.

More here

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

Must not mention Christianity in Iraq

We read:


"The US military is investigating a marine accused of promoting Christianity in Iraq by giving coins to civilians with a Bible verse written on them in Arabic. "They have initiated an investigation into that and there is some evidence of an individual that was doing that," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. The marine has been accused of distributing the coins to Iraqis as they passed through a checkpoint in Falluja, US officials said. "Where will you spend eternity?" was written on one side of the coins, according to a report from McClatchy News Service.

On the other was a Bible verse written in Arabic referring to Jesus: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16."

If true, the marine would have violated US military rules that prohibit the promotion of any religion, faith or practice. "This has our full attention," Colonel James Welsh, the US commander in western Iraq, said. "We deeply value our relationship with the local citizens and share their concerns over this serious incident."

Source

He has now been transferred.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH

OIL BUBBLE CONTINUES TO LEAK...

NYTIMES:
The price of oil dropped below $126 due to a stronger dollar and after news of a regulatory probe into possible price manipulation added to trader caution. Oil's record-setting run this year has heightened concerns about inflation and consumer spending.

... Weaker oil helped European stocks gain ground on Friday, while Asian stocks rose, led by exporters in Japan, as fears of a deep U.S. recession receded.

"I think what's driving the market here are oil prices declining. Traders are unwinding this energy-commodity trade and beginning to put assets to work in other parts of the market, like technology and financials," said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vermont.

... Wall Street stocks rose on Thursday as a swift drop in oil soothed inflation fears, while an upward revision in a broad measure of U.S. economic growth suggested a recession may be avoided.
ALSO: THE NYMEX HAS INCREASED MARGIN REQUIREMENTS ON OIL TRADES - WHICH WILL TAMP DOWN SPECULATION.
  • THE BUBBLE IS OVER.
  • ALSO NOTE: EACH NEW "BOUNCE" UP FOR OIL IS LOWER THAN THE PREVIOUS DAYS HIGH. MEANING: OIL IS DEFINITELY SEE-SAWING DOWN.
  • TO ABOUT $80.
  • BY AUGUST 1ST.

ALL THIS IS BAD NEWS FOR THE DEMS - THEIR KEY ISSUES ARE COLLAPSING:

WITH IRAQ GOING WELL, AND THE ECONOMY IMPROVING AFTER A SHORT SLOW-DOWN, THE GOP WILL BE IN GOOD SHAPE THIS FALL.

THE ACLU ADVISES MOSLEMS

Not a surprise, of course.

Excerpt from this article in the LA Times:
May 29, 2008

A report that mosques in Los Angeles and San Diego are under federal surveillance has resurrected fears in the Muslim community about government monitoring and led two civil rights groups Wednesday to call for congressional hearings.

[...]

Corey Saylor, Washington spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the article in the San Diego Union-Tribune "has again raised concerns that our community is being watched."

[...]

ACLU lawyers regularly go to mosques to advise worshipers that they do not have to answer questions from FBI agents about how long they have been in the United States, how often they attend services and what they get out of the sermons...
How many jihadomaniacs are hiding behind the ACLU's lawyers?

OBAMA: NOTHING BUT A TYPICAL POLITICIAN WHO STEERS MONEY TO HIS CRONIES

VIA HOT AIR:

Houston, we have a problem.

New York Times from May 11:

Typical of Mr. Obama’s earmarks was a $100,000 grant for a youth center at a Catholic church run by the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a controversial priest who was one of the few South Side clergymen to back Mr. Obama against Mr. Rush.

Father Pfleger has long worked with South Side political leaders to reduce crime and improve the community. But he has drawn fire from some quarters for defending the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and inviting him to speak at his church. Father Pfleger, who did not return calls for comment, is one of the religious leaders whose “faith testimonials” Mr. Obama has posted on his presidential campaign Web site.

David Axelrod, the chief strategist for the Obama presidential campaign, said that Father Pfleger was “remaking the face” of Chicago’s South Side and that all of Mr. Obama’s earmarks went to worthy programs like his.

HEY: ALL YOU YOUNG IDEALISTS OUT THERE!! YOU GUYS WHO BELIEVE IN "CHANGE"!? DID YOU READ THAT!?

REMEMBER THESE FACTS:
  • OBAMA IS FROM THE CHICAGO MACHINE, AND HE'S JUST ANOTHER POLITICIAN, ONE LESS EXPERIENCED, LESS HONEST, AND LESS TRUSTWORTHY THAN MCCAIN.
  • MCCAIN HAS HAD ZERO EARMARKS AS A SENATOR.
  • ZERO.
  • MCCAIN IS THE TRUE POST-PARTISAN CANDIDATE; OBAMA IS A YOUNG, LOQUACIOUS HACK.
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.

THE MCCLELLAN/PLAME-WILSON/ARMITAGE CHALLENGE!

In his SOTU message in 2003 - given months after the Congress authorized the POTUS to attack Iraq, the president said these 18 words:
“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
Subsequently, Joe Wilson wrote an op-ed piece in the NYTIMES in which he argued that his CIA sponsored research in Niger proved that Bush deliberately misled the USA into war.

There are a few TEENSY-WEENSY problems with this argument:
  1. The president based his 16 words on BRITISH intelligence, NOT CIA/Joe Wilson "intelligence".
  2. The Brits did an investigation after the first phase of the Iraq War and found the British intel' which Bush used was still valid.
  3. FACT CHECK CONCURRED.
  4. Joe Wilson's ACTUAL report on his trip did NOT disprove the 16 words. Joe Wilson LIED about his report.
Nothing in that op-ed - and nothing since - has changed the TRUTH of those 16 words. Or when they were uttered.

AND DESPITE THIS, THE LEFT MAINTAINS THAT "BUSH LIED AND PEOPLE DIED."

Despite the FACT that those 16 words are true, and the FACT that they were uttered AFTER Congress had already authorized Bush to use force; in other words: BUSH DID NOT LIE, and even if he did, that lie could NOT have possibly misled the Congress into voting for authorization since it was uttered AFTER they had already voted.

What makes this whole thing WEIRDER is that Joe Wilson and Valerie Plane STILL maintain that she was outed by the White House in retribution for Joe's NYTIMES op-ed, despite the FACT that it was anti-Bush Powell aide Richard Armitage who outed her, and he outed her to BUILD UP Joe's credentials, not to expose her as an act of retribution:
[Novak:] “He [Armitage] made clear that he considered it especially suited for my column,” the writer said. Novak added, “He told me unequivocally that Ms. Wilson had worked in the C.I.A.'s Counterproliferation Division and that she had suggested her husband's mission.”
(Plame subsequently lied under oath about the FACT that she had recommended her husband.)
  • THE ABSOLUTE WEIRDEST THING YET IS THAT MCCLELLAN SEEMS TO BELIEVE JOE AND VALERIE, AND NOT THE FITZGERALD REPORT OR BRITISH INTELLIGENCE.
  • MCCLELLAN SEEMS TO BELIEVE THAT THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE - AND NOT ARMITAGE - WAS BEHIND THE LEAK.
Bizarre. McClellan sounds more like a member of Code Pink than the GOP.

WHY!? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

I think he did it for two reasons: to scapegoat his own failure and ineptness, and for the MONEY!

OK, HERE'S MY CHALLENGE:

I challenge anyone to prove those 16 words were lies, or that the White House was the source or the Novak leak, or that these 16 words misled any member in Congress to authorize the war.

If you can do that, then I will kiss your ass in Macy's window.

Since you cannot, why don't you please STFU.

And that means you too McClellan!
And all you lefties getting your panties in a knot...

ASIDE: McClellan always seemed like an understudy not ready for prime-time. The WH improved when he exited. His book offers more proof he is scum.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

OBAMARXIST: 12 YEARS AGO, OBAMA RAN FOR OFFICE AS AN OUT-AND-OUT MARXIST...


... Now he tries to hide it!

IS THIS RELEVANT?

YES: A DOZEN YEARS AGO HE WAS ALREADY A LONGTIME MEMBER OF WRIGHT'S BLACK RACIST CHURCH. DESPITE ALL WE'VE LEARNED, HE'S STILL A MEMBER OF TRINITY.

AND, HE'S STILL A COLLECTIVIST AT HEART.


FACTS FROM HYSCIENCE:

Barack HUSSEIN Obama's Old party was called the New Party. The party was a Marxist Political coalition. This was not a guilt by association thing. Senator Obama sought out their nomination. He was successful in obtaining that endorsement, and he used a number of New Party volunteers as campaign workers:
Co-founded in 1992 by Daniel Cantor (a former staffer for Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign) and Joel Rogers (a sociology and law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison), the New Party was a Marxist political coalition whose objective was to endorse and elect leftist public officials -- most often Democrats. The New Party's short-term objective was to move the Democratic Party leftward, thereby setting the stage for the eventual rise of new Marxist third party. (edit: As in today's Democratic Party?)
HYSCIENCE HAS MORE LINKS. RTWT.

MORE FROM JBLOG:
In 1996, three of the four candidates endorsed by the New Party won their electoral primaries. The three victors included Barack Obama (in the 13th State Senate District), Danny Davis (in the 7th Congressional District), and Patricia Martin, who won the race for Judge in the 7th Subcircuit Court. All four candidates attended an April 11, 1996 New Party membership meeting to express their gratitude for the party's support.

... In 1997 the New Party's influence declined precipitously after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that electoral fusion was not protected by the First Amendment's freedom of association clause. By 1998 the party was essentially defunct. Daniel Canto and other key party members went on to establish a new organization with similar ideals, the Working Families Party of New York
I know PERSONALLY some key people in the Working Families Party - they are Marxist anti-Americans. This is the same crowd who backs ACORN - more here from RICK MORAN. AND HERE TOO.
  • OBAMA IS THE MOST EXTREME LEFTIST EVER TO MAKE A SERIOUS RUN FOR THE WHITE HOUSE.
  • AND THE LEAST QUALIFIED MAN EVER TO RUN - OF ANY ILK.
  • HIS ELECTION WOULD BE A CATASTROPHE.
  • EVEN ELECTING MCCAIN WOULD BE BETTER.
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.

FDA: Time to pull the plug on a Bloated, Counterproductive Federal Swamp?

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds for this find (with apologies to John Lennon) Read the whole thing:

That we instinctively work to improve our own lot first is why progress for all happens so much faster in free, open marketplaces under the rule of law. There, everyone can trade to make themselves better off: specialization and comparative advantage means that trade benefits both sides. Trade is not zero-sum; we grow the whole pie by specializing and trading the results of our work. You go off and work to make the medicine I want, and many people like myself give some our our resources to purchase the end result. Both sides benefit, exchanging - what is for them - lesser value to receive greater value.

There is no open marketplace for medical technology in the developed world, however. Instead, we see a very different set of incentives dominating the state of research and development. Regulatory bodies like the FDA have every incentive to stop the release of new medicine: the government employees involved suffer far more from bad press for an approved medical technology than they do from the largely unexamined consequences of heavy regulation. These consequences go far beyond the obvious and announced disapproval of specific medical technologies: the far greater cost lies in all the research, innovation and development that was never undertaken because regulatory burdens ensure there would be no profit for the developer. Personal gain for the regulator is thus to destroy the gains of people they will never meet, the exact opposite of what occurs in an open marketplace.

An article that looks at one small part of the destruction caused by the FDA caught my attention, and particularly these snippets:

Since 2005 the FDA has approved 18 new cancer drugs, many of them breakthrough products. But the pipeline contains hundreds more that will never get to market because corporate developers aren't able, or willing, to come up with the money, time, and patients necessary to establish acceptable data. ...

The clinical trial process now is a three-part, years-long effort that effectively kills off all but a handful of once-promising drugs. ...

It would have been the first new drug for prostate cancer in 20 years

Twenty years! Just stop a moment and think about how far and fast biotechnology and medical science has moved in the past twenty years. Think about what the far less regulated computing industry has achieved in the same timeframe. We live in the early years of the biotechnology revolution, with something amazing and new demonstrated in laboratories every week. Yet the dominant regulatory body for one of the most advanced regions of the world has managed to stop the clock at 1988 for a major disease, the subject of research in a hundred laboratories worldwide.

This sitation exists in every field of medicine, and all participants labor under the crushing burdens imposed by regulators incentivized to stop progress from happening. The same will be true of the future of longevity medicine, unless we do something about it.

The insanity of this all is quite staggering - that people largely accept and defend the need for regulation that achieves this sort of result, that is. I have heard it said that the failure of libertarianism, of the urge to freedom and personal responsibility, is a failure of imagination on the part of those who have been brought up knowing nothing other than government and regulation on a massive scale. The majority cannot make the leap to see an unregulated marketplace for medical development that works in the same way as the unregulated marketplace for computers - enormous choice, low barriers to innovation, efficiency and low cost, competing review organizations, accountable sellers, rapid progress and responsiveness to customers driven by fierce competition, and so forth.

To this excellent point (and be sure and follow all those links...), I will add this from Mark Thornton today's Wall Street Journal; if any Republicans are going to be chased out of the Senate soon, the names Chuck Hagel and Charles Grassley certainly are near the top of my list. And Thornton has put together a very coherent case for lowering the boom on Mr. Grassley sooner rather than later (again, please read the whole thing):

Enter Mr. Grassley. It seems not a week goes by without him making a public accusation of evil doings within the drug industry or the FDA. Yes, Mr. Grassley did some good after the Vioxx episode, by focusing on the woeful manner in which postmarketing drug safety is managed and regulated by the FDA. But he and his staff should have kept their eyes on the ball. In the case of Avastin, the senator implied in his GAO request that something sinister occurred during the FDA's premarket deliberations, and that surrogate endpoints were the new bogeyman. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In February, the FDA approved Avastin despite a 5-4 vote by its Oncology Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) not to recommend approval. Meetings of this advisory committee address the most vexing issues that exist in cancer-drug development. The advice is usually helpful but never binding. Everyone who works at the FDA knows that the public only sees a fraction of what FDA insiders consider when they make their final decisions on products.

In the case of Avastin, additional data emerged late in the review process, after the ODAC meeting, that strongly supported accelerated approval. It became clear that Avastin had an enormous impact on the surrogate endpoint known as "progression-free survival." PFS is such a powerful measure that it is actually used as the basis for full approval in many cancer indications.

As part of the accelerated approval letter, the FDA also placed some of the most stringent postmarketing requirements in history for the drug's sponsor to gain full approval. No standards were lowered, and many women may now live much longer without their disease progressing.

The damage done by Mr. Grassley's decision to make an issue of this decision cannot be understated. Having served at the FDA during the Congressional hearings over the Imclone/Martha Stewart insider trading scandal, I can attest to how an action like this GAO inquiry will resonate within the halls of FDA. An extremely cautious and protective bureaucracy will respond to such intimidation by being even more protective.

The senator is demanding a full-scale review of each and every product ever approved, and is asking for a rejudgment by GAO "to ensure that drugs approved on surrogate endpoints are both safe and effective."

You can bet these bully tactics will have an effect. Look for greater demands by the FDA for cancer programs to not use the accelerated approval pathway. Just a few weeks ago, Medarex Inc. announced that the FDA will renege on a commitment to grant accelerated approval of a new product for skin cancer if its clinical trial showed benefit using the PFS endpoint. The FDA ordered a change toward the much stricter endpoint of overall survival, adding years to the time it will take to evaluate the drug's efficacy.

U.S. cancer-drug development stands on a precipice overlooking a new dark age in which each new product's development is longer and costlier than the last. Companies may decide it is not financially viable to even bother developing new drugs, and the pipeline for new products to treat cancer could slow even more. Mr. Grassley's legacy could be thousands of additional cancer deaths.

Advocates for all patients affected by Mr. Grassley's antidrug company demagoguery – including cancer patients, Alzheimer's patients, AIDS patients – must make their voices heard.

Milton Friedman always argued that the problem with Government solutions vs. private ones is that when private efforts fail, at least their inability to solve the problems they were created to address drives the market to discontinue their use. And when the inability of one private solution to solve a problem is coupled with the profit motive, other entitities and the innovation they bring invariably results in a solution that will solve the underlying problems faster and with less investment.

But killing a large bloated, entrenched government bureaucracy is nearly impossible--which is why creating these new agencies is almost always a horrible idea. Whether they achieve their purpose or not (and even if they do, the cost in invariably much more dear),we are stuck with them for life. No matter how altruistic the intent for creating them or how egregious their failure to achieve results, the special interests like the Public Employees Unions find a way to take root like kudzu in a rain forest. In Government, unlike private industry, failure only invites more money to be thrown at the problem (even if the problem is the mechanism of government itself), higher taxes to fund the "improvements", resulting in even larger and more intractable bureaucracies, and even bigger failures.

Remember Jimmy Carter's incredibly myopic and destructive Department of Energy, created to solve our "Energy Crisis"--remember the long gas lines caused by the "price fixing" and "gas rationing" of the 1970's DOE and its 20,000 paid (worthless) bureaucrats? And where has that agency gotten us today?

Like the Department of Energy (and Department of Education for that matter), the FDA too has long outlived its usefulness in a world where the pace of science far exceeds this bureaucratic anachronism's efforts to keep pace. If we need to scrutinize food, drugs, and other products on the public's behalf, better to let private companies--efficient ones--compete for that right. The market always gets to the real answer faster than any Government agency ever could, because it is efficient, and it is driven by can-do profit driven entrepreneurs, rather than dreary government bureaucrats looking for an excuse to crap on the efforts of companies to solve our most pressing health problems because of Brazil-style procedural hiccups.

What say we outsource this task (and educating our kids, while we're at it) it to people who are more driven by results and what is possible than by arcane processes and sticking to collectivist policies that virtually guarantee a poor result.

The patients have suffered for far too long: the FDA needs to be put to sleep, so that we "the family" can finally move on with drugs and solutions that will begin to finally ease the suffering and deaths caused by a bureaucracy that has long since outlived its usefulness.

WHAT OBAMA REALLY MEANS WHEN HE SAYS "CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN"

Obama means his followers shouldn't care that he always changes his opinions:

FROM: He could no more disown Wright, than his typical white grandmother...
TO: Disowning Wright.

FROM: He would talk to Ahmadinejad and Kim and Castro UNCONDITIONALLY...
TO: He would have preconditions.

FROM: He doesn't need to go back to Iraq...
TO: He might go back after he gets the nomination.

FROM: He won't run for POTUS in 2008 because he wouldn't be experienced enough...
TO: Declaring he's the right man because of his "judgment".

FROM: Being a daddy's boy at heart whose dreams he will fulfil...
TO: Being a mamma's boy. And a grandmamma's boy. WHITE mamma and grandmamma.

That's "change you can believe in" IF AND ONLY IF your a gullible dovish left-leaning moron.

Apparently, there are loads of them in the Democrat Party.

MORE PARANOIA FROM DEMOCRATS' DARLING CHAVEZ

ABC:
Venezuela said on Thursday it arrested a man who identified himself as a U.S. anti-drugs agent, which if confirmed could inflame tensions between the United States and one of its biggest oil suppliers.

President Hugo Chavez in 2005 ended cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), saying the agency was spying on him.
AP:
President Hugo Chavez is revamping his intelligence agencies to counter what he calls U.S. attempts to undermine his government.

Four new spy agencies will replace the current DISIP secret police and DIM military intelligence agency, Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin said Thursday.

A new law has established the General Intelligence Office and the General Counterintelligence Office, both overseen by the Interior Ministry, plus similar military intelligence and counterintelligence components, Rodriguez Chacin told reporters.

He did not say how they will differ from the current spy agencies or whether any top officials will be replaced.

Rodriquez Chacin announced the change the previous night, saying the new agencies are meant to confront U.S. attempts to meddle in Venezuela's internal affairs.

Chavez often accuses the United States of espionage against his leftist government. In 2006, he expelled a U.S. military attache he accused of spying.
CHAVEZ: LEFTIST NUTCASE. AND DARLING OF THE DEMOCRATS.

VOTE ACCORDINGLY.

HARVEY KORMAN HAS CROSSED OVER...

HARVEY KORMAN HAS DIED. HE WAS 81.

HE WAS A VERY FUNNY MAN AND PERFORMER.

HERE'S A SCENE HE DID IN BLAZING SADDLES WHICH RIVALS "300" CALL TO VICTORY:



HERE'S PART 1 OF A SERIOUS INTERVIEW HE DID.


THEY DON'T MAKE'EM LIKE HARVEY ANYMORE: HE AND HIS ILK DID EVERY WEEK WHAT OUR GENERATIONS BEST - MIKE MYERS AND ADAM SANDLER - DO ONCE IN A WHILE.

RIP.

NY'S UNELECTED GOVERNOR PATERSON TRIES TO IMPOSE SAME-SEX MARRIAGE BY FIAT

THE LEFT LOVES TO IMPOSE BY FIAT WHAT THEY CANNOT WIN AT THE BALLOT BOX: EVEN GORE TRIED IT!

HERE'S ANOTHER UN-DEMOCRATIC ATTEMPT BY THE LEFT TO LEGALIZE SAME-SEX MARRIAGE IN SPITE OF LEGISLATIVE AND POPULAR OPPOSITON:

Emperor of the Empire State [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Bill Duncan from the Marriage Law Foundation calls the Paterson move "outrageous":

The legislature has had the opportunity to act and has not; the state's highest court rejected any claim that the state constitution requires it and now the governor has made an end run around these decisions by broadcasting that New York couples can go to California and get married, then return home and have those marriages recognized. His opinion, however, can only effect executive branch agencies and there are still a couple of cases pending in New York courts on whether the court system will recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages and whether recognition is mandated by law. The first of the cases to get to the appellate level ruled in favor of recognition but it will probably still be a while before that becomes a settled matter.
Paterson and I both went to elementary and high school in New York State but we seemed to come away from it with two completely different understandings of the way government is supposed to work.
  • THIS IS DISGUSTING.
  • IT WILL NOT STAND.
  • BRUNO WILL SEE TO THAT:
    State Senate Republican Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who opposes gay marriage, questioned the constitutionality of Paterson's action, but said in a Thursday morning news conference that he hadn't yet seen the memo.

    Bruno said he was surprised when he read news reports about the memo and plans to speak to Paterson. Bruno also noted the state's highest court has found gay marriage isn't legal within the state. The high court hasn't yet taken up the issue of whether gay marriages performed legally out of state are valid in New York.

    "You have to understand that the court, the highest court here in New York state, made it very very clear that the only union that is legal in New York state, to perform a marriage ceremony, is between a man and a woman," Bruno said, citing a 2006 Court or Appeals ruling.
I HOPE DEMOCRACY AND TRADITION REIGNS - AND NOT POSTMODERN LEFTISM AND UNDEMOCRATIC USURPATION OF THE PEOPLE'S RIGHTS.

VEEP SLEEPER: WILLIAM COHEN

Pictured at a Senate reception around 1980, from left to right: Senator John Glenn, Navy Captain John McCain, Senator Bill Cohen and Senator Barry Goldwater.


art.cohens.cover.jpg

I don't favor him; he's too "centrist" - with a 48% rating from the ACU. But he has his electoral appeal/strengths. Maybe not as many as Tom Ridge - another "centrist" with great creds - and maybe more strength in Ohio and the Mid-West.

My fav' is Jim Demint, but he only strengthens McCain with the base. Pawlenty and Portman are good, but not as well known as Ridge.

If data shows Ridge helps us keep Ohio and win Pennsylvania and perhaps Michigan and Minnesota, then McCain must DO IT.

And we conservatives will have to don gas masks and vote GOP.

BUT I WAS PLANNING ON DOING SO ALREADY - JUST BECAUSE OF THE LIB MCCAIN!

NYMEX ACTS TO REDUCE THE SPECULATION ON OIL FUTURES

MORE PROOF THAT OBAMA WILL LOSE BIGTIME IN THE GENERAL ELECTION

BETSY'S PAGE:
In 2008, the 34 primaries [excluding MI & FL] have produced an average .8 percent vote-difference between Obama and Clinton. By contrast, the 13 caucuses have had a 28 percent vote-spread.

.... 35 Primaries with 33.8 million voters have Clinton leading in both votes and delegates.
Caucuses with 1.1 million voters gave Obama 300,000 more votes and 193 more delegates.

....After 47 state elections to date, Obama leads Clinton by 152 pledged delegates. 97% of the difference – 148 delegates – is directly attributable to lopsided victories in caucus contests.
These caucuses have had a strong disproportionate effect on the Democratic race and have determined Obama's position as the practically inevitable nominee.
Though voters in all 13 caucus states have cast only 3.2% of the total 33.5 million votes so far – those votes control 15.3% of the pledged delegates and 16.4% of the Super delegates sent to the DNC Convention – average 15.5% of the total delegates [626 caucus / 4047 total].
  • FACT: OBAMA DOESN'T EVEN REPRESENT THE MAJORITY OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY.
  • OBAMA WILL NOT WIN AS MANY INDEPENDENTS OR REPUBLICANS AS MCCAIN WILL WIN INDEPENDENTS AND DEMOCRATS.
  • THEREFORE: OBAMA WILL LOSE IN THE FALL BY A HUGE AMOUNT.
THANK GOD.

UPDATE: BAEHR AT THE AMERICAN THINKER AGREES - READ HIS THOUGHTFUL ESSAY - NOW.

JIMMY CARTER: HE MAY NOT HAVE STOPPED KHOMEINI, BUT HE SURE DID PUT A STOP TO SPLIT INFINITIVES IN SECURITY POLICY PAPERS

Jimmy Carter was very good at one thing as President of the United States, and that is the exacting and excruciating detailing of the methodology of his failure.

From Gabe Schoenfeld at Commentary:


George C. Edwards III, “Exclusive Interview: President Jimmy Carter,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 1.

GE:…You are known for your mastery of complex policy, and you are interested in the details of policy as a good policy analyst. Other presidents have been less interested in details. So let me ask you into how much detail should a president delve in making a decision?…

PRESIDENT CARTER: …Regarding the details, I am still an engineer by thought. You know, when I run my farm or when I run the Carter Center, I want to know what is going on. When I took on the personal responsibility, say for the Mideast peace process, I really believed that when we went to Camp David I knew more about the details than anybody there. I had mastered the psychological and historical analysis of Begin and Sadat. I knew everything they had done since they were born that was recorded, how they had reacted to crisis, how they dealt with pressure, who their allies were, and what their obligations were. So when we got to Camp David, I knew them, and I knew the map of the West Bank and Gaza.

…I did basically the same thing with the Alaska Lands bill. I knew the map of Alaska in great detail.

I read a lot. I would say I read an average of 300 pages a day. That is just something that I quantified years ago, so I am just not talking casually. I took a speed-reading course. I did, and about fifty other people did, from Evelyn Wood in the Cabinet Room within the first two months of my term. So I could read a lot….

GE: Another aspect of decision making, and another challenge for a president, is to get his advisors to tell him what he needs to hear as opposed to what they think he wants to hear. …How did you make sure that you heard the full range of options?…

PRESIDENT CARTER: …we had regular cabinet meetings…. We would go around the entire table, and I would encourage each secretary to tell me the most important things that affected their departments that we needed to discuss. …

If the issue was complex and they required more than two or three minutes of exposition, I encouraged them to put it in writing and submit it to me. Those papers always came to me, and I relished the concise nature of their presentation. It required them to get their thoughts in order, and I was very much a stickler for not splitting infinitives and so forth.

And all those papers are in the presidential library now. I think the scholars that have been over to the presidential library to look at my notes have been impressed, I started to say overwhelmed, with the meticulous detail with which I would answer sometimes each paragraph in a complex proposal — I approve this, I do not approve this, see me about this, or explain this, and so forth.

AN AFTERNOON IN THE PARK IN BAGHDAD


Another good title for this might be,

PEACE THROUGH SUPERIOR FIREPOWER

The British scene

Excerpt:

In the latest policy screw-up, Labour back-benchers are screaming about a planned 200 pound ($396) tax increase on any high-carbon-emitting vehicle registered in the past seven years. Even green-minded politicians realize that punishing citizens for their past purchases won't shrink Britain's carbon footprint today.

Lawmakers are also panning a prospective 2-pence-per-liter hike in the fuel tax just weeks after the Brown government had to abandon separate plans to effectively raise the lowest income-tax rate to 20% from 10%. The latter move, which would have raised taxes on millions of workers at the bottom of the pay scale, figured heavily in Labour's disastrous results in the May 1 local elections and last Thursday's loss of an ultrasafe parliamentary seat in a by-election.

Mr. Brown doesn't only soak the poor. There's also been tremendous blowback from the œ30,000-a-year levy he and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling want to slap on wealthy foreigners who live and work in Britain but claim residency - and keep most of their taxable assets - elsewhere. The government finally agreed to modify this new tax on "nondomiciled" residents. But it remains to be seen whether the tax drives away some of the very workers who have helped London become a financial powerhouse.

Some of Mr. Brown's policy problems are older than his premiership. Take the collapse of mortgage lender Northern Rock last autumn, a situation that the government promptly and repeatedly botched. It quickly became apparent that part of the blame lay in Mr. Brown's decision years earlier, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to divide banking supervision among three different departments. This unwieldy "tripartite" arrangement made it more difficult for regulators to spot banks in danger before it was too late and to respond to a snowballing crisis.

Mr. Brown's once-solid reputation as an able steward of the economy is fading. As in the U.S., British homeowners worry that their country's housing bubble will burst; consumers are struggling with soaring grocery and gasoline bills. One wonders whether Britain was simply riding the wave of world-wide growth in the past decade of Labour rule - and if it might have done even better had the Chancellor not increased public spending from 37% of GDP in 1999-2000 to more than 41% in each of the last four budgets.

More here

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH