Who Sank the Titanic?

Rosie O'Donnell believes that 9/11 was a plot and that the World Trade Centers were blown up.

But WHO DID IT? Rosie gets coy and won't let us in on her little secret.

Now there's proof that not only was the World Trade Center blown up, but the Titanic was not sunk by an iceberg. Of course, when you think about it, which is tougher: ice or steel?

Click on the link for the kind of proof that will convince Rosie of this nefarious plot.

UPDATE: An admission from someone who went to school with Rosie! THE PLOT THICKENS!

And Winds of Change makes a good comment. Giving Rosie the "kook of the month" award:

I'd make it "dishonest kook of the month," but really, once you're ceritifiable your honesty becomes pretty irrelevant anyway.

Why No Jefferson Indictment?

Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) is still not seated on the Homeland Security Committee. Jefferson is the Democrat whose freezer held $90,000 in cold hard cash. The person who gave it to him has been indicted, tried and jailed.

Many political insiders have been surprised that federal prosecutors have yet to indict Jefferson. The lawmaker has maintained his innocence throughout the well-publicized probe.

The FBI found $90,000 in cash in Jefferson’s freezer when it raided his home last year as part of an investigation into whether he accepted bribes related to a telecommunications deal in Africa.

This appears to be an open and shut case. Unless there is a reason to believe that the freezer is typical of where people keep their money, why is the DOJ not indicting William Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana?

Or maybe the answer is found in the party affiliation. He is, after all, a Democrat.

Want to Reach Rosie? Talk to the people that pay her huge salary.

From American Digest. The way to reach Rosie is to reach the people who pay for her to appear on The View.

I know through long experience in book and magazine publishing that "Letters to the Editor" are worth exactly zip, squat, nada -- except for giving the editors free copy to run ads against. Cutting into the advertising money, however, does something much more direct and immediately gets the attention of the producers and the network executives. It's fine to have some controversial Downs-method actor mouth 911 Conspiracy theories since it bumps up the ratings. But when ratings go up and revenues go down, that's another story.

When corporations hear from enough people that they will stop buying their products because of O'Donnell, they will -- trust me -- stop advertising. Corporations do not exist to piss off their customers in any way.

The advertisers:

All Detergent
BAM Power Cleaner
Best Foods Mayonnaise
Bush's Baked Beans
Claritin-D
Clorox
Cottonelle Toilet Tissue
Crest Whitening Rinse
Disney's "Meet the Robinsons"
Dove Ice Cream
Excedrin
Head & Shoulders Shampoo
Honey Bunches of Oats
Humira
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
Janome Sewing Machines
Loestrin 24
M&M's
Marshall's
Miracle-Gro
Pepto Bismol
Pier 1 Imports
Pillsbury Toaster Strudel
Reach One Ultimate Clean Toothbrush
Scrubbing Bubbles
Sears
Singulair
Stainmaster Carpet
Stanley Steemer
T.J. Maxx
Tide Laundry Detergent
Vaseline Intensive Rescue Body Lotion
Woolite
Zyrtec

Go to Google to find out the corporations and who the Cairman/CEO is. They are the ones who care if their ad dollars piss off their customers.

William F. Buckley on Global Warming

The heavy condemnatory breathing on the subject of global warming outdoes anything since high moments of the Inquisition. A respectable columnist (Thomas Friedman of The New York Times) opened his essay last week by writing, "Sometimes you read something about this administration that's just so shameful it takes your breath away."

What asphyxiated this critic was the discovery that a White House official had edited "government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming." The correspondent advises that the culprit had been an oil-industry lobbyist before joining the administration, and on leaving it he took a job with Exxon Mobil.

For those with addled reflexes, here is the story compressed: (1) Anyone who speaks discriminatingly about global warming is conspiring to belittle the threat. Such people end up (2) working for Exxon Mobil, a perpetrator of the great threat the malefactor sought to distract us from.

I'd guess that, in the current mood, I should enter the datum that my father was in the oil business. But having done that, I think it fair to ask: Are we invited to assume that anyone who works in a business that generates greenhouse gases (a) is complicit in the global-warming problem, and (b) should resign and seek work elsewhere? One recalls the plant in Nazi Germany that manufactured the toxic gas Zyklon B. The primary use of this gas was in the extermination camps, whose masters were looking for efficient ways to destroy human beings. Is the community engaged in oil production the contemporary equivalent of the makers of Zyklon B?
Critics are correct in insisting that human enterprises have an effect on climate. What they cannot at this point do is specify exactly how great the damage is, nor how much relief would be effected by specific acts of natural propitiation.

The whole business is eerily religious in feel. Back in the 15th century, the question was: Do you believe in Christ? It was required in Spain by the Inquisition that the answer should be affirmative, leaving to one side subsidiary specifications.

It is required today to believe that carbon-dioxide emissions threaten the basic ecological balance. The assumption then is that inasmuch as a large proportion of the damage is man-made, man-made solutions are necessary. But it is easy to see, right away, that there is a problem in devising appropriate solutions, and in allocating responsibility for them.
To speak in very general terms, the United States is easily the principal offender, given the size of our country and the intensity of our use of fossil-fuel energy. But even accepting the high per-capita rate of consumption in the United States, we face the terrible inadequacy of ameliorative resources. If the United States were (we are dealing in hypotheses) to eliminate the use of oil or gas for power, would that forfeiture be decisive?

Well, no. It would produce about 23 percent global relief, and at a devastating cost to our economy.

As a practical matter, what have modern states undertaken with a view to diminishing greenhouse gases? The answer is: Not very much. What is being done gives off a kind of satisfaction, of the kind felt back then when prayers were recited as apostates were led to the stake to be burned. If you levied a 100 percent surtax on gasoline in the United States, you would certainly reduce the use of it, but the arbiter is there to say: What is a complementary sacrifice we can then expect from India and China? China will soon overtake the United States in the production of greenhouse gases.

At Kyoto, an effort was made 10 years ago to allocate proportional reductions nation by nation. The United States almost uniquely declined to subscribe to the Kyoto protocols. Canada, Japan and the countries of Western Europe subscribed, but some have already fallen short of their goals, and all of them are skeptical about the prospect of making future scheduled reductions. It is estimated that if the United States had subscribed to Kyoto, it would have cost us $100 billion to $400 billion per year.

There is, now and then, offsetting good news. The next report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we have learned, will be less pessimistic than earlier reports. It will predict, e.g., a sea-level increase of up to 23 inches by the end of the century, substantially better than earlier IPCC predictions of 29 inches — and light-years away from the 20 feet predicted by former Vice President Al Gore.

Meanwhile, the Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg said something outside the hearing of the outraged columnist. He noted solemnly that any increase in heat-related deaths should be balanced against the corresponding decrease in cold-related deaths. ... We need hope, and self-confidence.

Global Warming Baloney: A CEO With a Spine

The New York Coal Trade Association, headquartered in New York City, recently held its 94th annual banquet and meeting at the New York Hilton. One of the guest speakers was Bob Murray, founder and CEO of Murray Energy Corporation and probably one of the few CEOs brave enough to challenge the militant climate control movement that threatens the future of America's economy. In his speech, he dared to say that he regards Al Gore as the shaman of global doom and gloom. He is not joking when he says, "He is more dangerous than his global warming."

Unlike many heads of corporations who are taking their companies on that long green mile and caving in to the demands of environmental militants, Mr. Murray is fighting tooth and nail for what he says is, "the little guy that nobody cares about."

"Some wealthy elitists in our country," he told the audience, "who cannot tell fact from fiction, can afford an Olympian detachment from the impacts of draconian climate change policy. For them, the jobs and dreams destroyed as a result will be nothing more than statistics and the cares of other people. These consequences are abstractions to them, but they are not to me, as I can name many of the thousands of the American citizens whose lives will be destroyed by these elitists' ill-conceived ‘global goofiness' campaigns."

DOROTHY RABINOWITZ: First They Came for the Jews

Dorothy Rabinowitz made a name for herself by exposing the horrible miscarriage of justice two decades ago during the pre-school witch trials which sent innocent people to jail for decades. The McMartin Day Pre-School and Fells Acres Day Care Center cases will go down in the annals of American jurisprudence as greater miscarriages of justice than OJ Simpson.

If this story is true, we may have another case of highly improper and selective prosecution.

Mr. Franklin's problem began when he was spotted lunching with Steve Rosen, for some time the object of FBI surveillance. The Iran specialist had first met with Messrs. Rosen and Weissman in February 2003, meetings repeated on at least three other occasions. The two AIPAC employees had reason to see in Mr. Franklin, a reserve Colonel in the U.S Air Force, a staunch patriot who held values and geopolitical views much like their own. Mr. Franklin's driving concern--the danger posed by a terrorist Iran, and the need for vigorous countermeasures by the U.S.--played no small role in their discussions. The centerpiece of the indictment to come concerned his disclosures to Steve Rosen about an internal policy document on Iran, which, the government alleged, was classified.

The sympathetic bond (characterized as a conspiracy in the government's indictment) between the Pentagon analyst and the AIPAC employees abruptly unraveled when FBI agents paid Mr. Franklin a home visit on June 30, 2004. Appealing to his patriotism, they persuaded him to cooperate, telling him that the two lobbyists were up to no good, and might be endangering American interests. Perhaps even more persuasive was the FBI's discovery in his house of 83 classified documents--material he had taken to work on at home, as he had done repeatedly despite warnings from his Pentagon supervisors that this was impermissible.





He was to enjoy nothing of the good fortune of Sandy Berger, former National Security Adviser for President Clinton, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to making off with highly classified documents related to that administration's policy on terrorism--papers he was observed stuffing into his pockets while sitting in the secure reading room of the National Archives. Mr. Berger was charged with a misdemeanor and paid a $10,000 fine. Former CIA director John Deutch, who also faced charges of mishandling government documents, was pardoned on Mr. Clinton's last day in office.
Anguished, his wife ill, and faced with loss of his job--now a likely possibility, as the FBI informed him--Mr. Franklin agreed to help gather evidence on Messrs. Rosen and Weissman.
...
The consequences of this spectacle--the indictment of two citizens for activities that go on every day in Washington, and that are clearly protected under the First Amendment--far exceed any other in the now long list of non-crimes from which government attorneys have constructed major cases, or more precisely, show trials. A category in which we can include the mad prosecutorial pursuit of Mr. Libby.

The government could succeed in this prosecution of two non-government professionals doing what they had every reason to view as their jobs--talking to government officials and reporters, and transmitting information and opinions. If such activities can be charged, successfully, as a "conspiracy," every professional, every business, every quarter of society--not to mention members of the press--will have reason to understand that this is a bell that tolls not just for two AIPAC lobbyists, but also for countless others to face trials in the future, for newly invented crimes unearthed by willing prosecutors.

I have been, for all of my life a staunch believer in the virtues and honesty of the people in the American judicial system. I now find my faith cracking based on the evidence I see of outright corruption (see the "Duke Rape" case), political revenge trials (see the Scooter Libby trial), selective prosecution (see the trial of the border patrol agents for shooting a drug smuggler), and wrist slaps for the rich and powerful (see the Sandy Berger case). I even see this sort of selective persecution in the prescription drug problems encountered by Rush Limbaugh.

I don't know whether the system is more corrupt, or if I'm seeing something I have never seen before. Perhaps it's the former. Before, we had virtually no way of seeing the "other side" of the legal thicket. Our opinions were pre-digested and handed to us via the dominant media.


I would prefer the faith I once had. But once faith slips away, it may not be possible to get it back.

Nancy Pelosi Shows The Subservience of Women In Syria

Noting, but nothing shows how "feminists" react when they are faced with anything but girly men:


From the New Editor
Feminist in the US, Subservient in Syria

What message is Nancy Pelosi trying to send? Are women equal to men, or not? Why is modesty foisted only upon women? That's the inconvenient truth for conservative Muslims, and for liberal Americans trying desperately (and unsuccessfully) to reconcile the desire for understanding between cultures, and those cultures' starkly illiberal practices.

This is the picture of the modern American politician.

Perhaps Nancy is sending the message that her hair will create unbridled lust in the hearts of Muslim men.

God what a piece of human debris.

Supreme Court Rules: Climate Change is Serious

That's the headline on Drudge. And the story via the AP is:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court rebuked the Bush administration Monday for its inaction on global warming in a decision that could lead to more fuel- efficient cars as early as next year.
The court, in a 5-4 ruling in its first case on climate change, declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

So now every time you exhale, you are warming the planet. This is ideocy on stilts and is another demonstration of the fact that the Supremes are a super-legislature in black robes.

UPDATE: the Wall Street Journal discusses the Jolly Green Justices.

The current Supreme Court is a talented group of jurists, but until yesterday we didn't think their expertise ran to climatology. The Justices would have done better in their big global warming decision if they'd stuck more closely to the law.

They showed no such modesty. In Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, a narrow majority managed to diminish the rules of judicial standing, rewrite the definition of "pollutant" under the Clean Air Act, and dramatically curtail the decision-making authority of the executive branch. And judging from Justice John Paul Stevens's 5-4 majority decision, they did so because the five Justices are personally anxious about rising temperatures. As Justice Antonin Scalia noted in dissent, the "Court's alarm over global warming" has led it to substitute "its own desired outcome" for the EPA's judgment.

[snip]

Perhaps most distressing is the way the majority made a hash of traditional "standing" doctrine, which determines when a plaintiff has a right to sue. To justify its global warming afflatus, the Justices simply asserted that the Massachusetts coastline faces imminent threat from rising seas. Not even Mr. Gore goes that far. But the Court cites climate models to suggest future harm in order to claim the threat of immediate injury, and thus standing by the Bay State.

"Aside from a single conclusory statement, there is nothing in petitioners' 43 standing declarations and accompanying exhibits to support an inference of actual loss of Massachusetts coastal land from 20th century global sea level increases," writes Chief Justice John Roberts in his dissent. "It is pure conjecture."

And done for the purpose of pure policy invention. Standing is one of the few self-restraints on the power of the federal courts, and it is a far too frequent habit of the current Supreme Court to view its own power as unlimited. By diluting the standards for standing, the High Court creates a highway by which judges can speed past the political branches and play an ever larger role in American public life.

Some Intersting Ruminations of the British Marines Abducted by the Iranians

It was a simple enough mistake to make. After all, it was the BBC in one of its first reports after the Iranian hostage-taking which referred to Commodore Nick Lambert as the captain of HMS Cornwall, the frigate on which the abducted boarding team had been based.

We fell in with the BBC – and many others – although we should have known better – the rank of Commodore is far too senior to command a mere frigate. Her captain is in fact Commander Jeremy Woods, who took command on 20th November 2006.

The distinction is, of course, rather important in the drama of the abduction because Commodore Lambert was using the ship as his flag ship, it providing him with a "command platform" from which he controlled the multinational task force in this area, of which he was the commanding officer.

Lambert assumed command on 7 March 2007 of what is known as Coalition Task Force 158 (CTF 158), a coalition force comprising up to 12 units from the US, UK, Australian and Iraqi navies, taking over from US Navy Commodore Jeffrey Harbeson (both pictured above).

Included in this line-up were significant US Navy assets, including USS Howard (DDG 83), USS Chinook (PC 9), USS Whirlwind (PC 11), USCGC Maui (WPB 1307), USCGC Monomoy (WPH 1326), as well as the Australian HMAS Warramunga (FFG 152) – over which Lambert had overall command.

The US patrol craft (PC) are particularly interesting, of which USS Chinook is a typical example (pictured right). It is the ninth of the Cyclone-class patrol coastal boats: length, 170 feet, displacement 331 tons and – all importantly – a draught of 7.5 feet (compared with the Cornwall's 20.7 feet). She has a maximum speed of 35 knots and is armed with two 25mm Mk38 machine guns, two .50 cal machine guns, two Mk19 automatic grenade launchers and six stinger missiles.

She also carries a rigid-hulled inflatable boat, launched and recovered from a stern ramp (pictured left) and a complement of eight special forces personnel to man it.

This, as you may imagine, puts an entirely different light on the additional detail that emerged yesterday, when the Scotsman on Sunday reported that the Cornwall's boarding crew "had even more protection nearby; an American military helicopter and patrol boat were within striking distance, ready - and willing - to help…".

Rather than wait until after the event, Lambert, had he so chosen, could have tasked any one of twelve vessels - including the USS Chinook or one of the other patrol boats – to carry out the freighter inspection, instead of despatching Cornwall's boats, from a distance of eight miles. Equally, he could have asked – no, ordered - any one of those vessels, to provide overwatch – and, clearly, the US Navy knows how to do it, as this illustration of one of its own boarding exercises shows, the gunner keeping a "sharp eye out" for the inflatable (centre frame).

Read the whole thing.

Teachers and Students in Public Schools

My daughter-in-law is an elementary school teacher. Second grade, I think. She comes home with stories like this:

My daughter in law teaches second grade. She is one of the strictest teachers in her elementary school and older, more experienced teachers regularly commend her on the behavior of her students. Yet she is forced to contend with behavior the editorial staff can't ever recall witnessing - even once - the entire time we were in grade school. She has had her students - these are second graders, mind you - choke other students, bite, hit, and throw screaming temper tantrums: all on a daily basis. And there is nothing she can do about it. She cannot eject these disruptive children from her classroom; that would be "depriving them of the opportunity to learn". What about the other students in the classroom? Don't they deserve a chance to learn?

No WMD in Iraq?

It seems that since General David Petraeus has taken command of the Coalition forces in Iraq, the official state of denial about Iraq's WMD from both MNF-I Headquarters and the Pentagon has been lifted concerning "insurgent" use of chemical weapons. In a report from the Army News Service, Gen. Petraeus issued a written statement blasting Al-Qaeda and its allied insurgents for the "barbaric actions against innocent Iraqi citizens." The attacks were carried out on crowded market places using conventional high-explosives and chlorine gas, resulting in the deaths of over 50 Iraqis and sickening hundreds, including 14 US Soldiers.

[snip]

Since the start of OIF, the Coalition and the Pentagon have ignored or sloughed off as inconsequential reports of US Soldiers and Marines finding WMDs and weapons labs containing huge quantities of precursors. These denials continued despite the fact that some of our service members and civilians became sick as a result of either finding chemical storage bunkers near weapons caches or chemical rounds wired as IEDs.

Teachers KILL Holocaust for fear of Muslims

In Britain:

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial

How is the Troop Surge Going? By the Numbers.

A track of casualties and who is doing what to whom.

And, by the way, why the MSM is mis-identifying the actors.

I sincerely hope the troop surge works, but al Qaeda has a strong hand to play. The more they bomb, the more the media misleadingly talks about "insurgents" and "militias" fighting a "civil war" (as if al Qaeda does not exist), and the more Americans savage their own president and start calling for withdrawal. As such, you can be sure that al Qaeda is lining up the suicide bombers in preparation for the troop surge.

McCain heckled by CNN reporter

Drudge Report

McCain heckled by CNN reporter
Sun Apr 01 2007 13:50:38 ET

**Exclusive**

During a live press conference in Bagdad, Senators McCain and Graham were heckled by CNN reporter Michael Ware. An official at the press conference called Ware’s conduct “outrageous,” saying, “here you have two United States Senators in Bagdad giving first-hand reports while Ware is laughing and mocking their comments. I’ve never witnessed such disrespect. This guy is an activist not a reporter.”

Senators McCain and Graham flew into Iraq and drove into Bagdad, making stops at an open market and a joint Iraq/American military security outpost before appearing at the press conference.

This is not the first time Michael Ware has taken issue with Senator McCain’s comments about early progress in Iraq. Last week, after Senator McCain told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he needed to catch up on the news coming out of Iraq, Michael Ware responded, saying:

“I don't know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about when he says we can go strolling in Baghdad.”

Michael Ware has also publicly expressed his views on the war last year in an interview with Bill Maher, saying, “I've been given a front-row ticket to watch this slow-motion train wreck … I try to stay as drunk for as long as possible while I'm here … In fact, I'm drinking now.”

Developing...

Dowd Bails On Bush

Captain's Quarters relects on Matthew Dowd.

Dowd engages in one long, petulant rant, consumed by his disappointment at Bush's failure to change when Dowd changed. I'm sorry for Dowd's disappointment, but this says much more about Dowd's emotionalism than it does about the Bush administration.

"Silence Woman"

Muslim Persecution of Christians in Iraq

From Little Green Footballs:

“When they cook a dish in the Middle East, it is traditional to put the meat on top of the rice when they serve it. They kidnapped a woman’s baby in Baghdad, a toddler, and because the mother was unable to pay the ransom, they returned her child – beheaded, roasted and served on a mound of rice.

“The infant’s crime was to be an Assyrian, but this story, reported by the Barnabus Fund, went unnoticed in the West, like so many other horrific accounts of Christian persecution in Iraq. Since the invasion of Iraq, Muslim militants have bombed 28 churches and murdered hundreds of Christians. Last October, Islamists beheaded a priest in Mosul in revenge for the Pope’s remarks about Islam at Regensburg.”

Belgium To Tax Antennas 4000 Euros.

From Belmont Club:

Olivier Maingain, the mayor of Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe, one of the 19 Brussels boroughs, is planning to tax all "antennas for the transmission of data". Each antenna will be taxed a staggering 4,000 euros per year. Such antennas are used for WiFi or WLAN, i.e. wireless internet or wireless networks over relatively short distances. ... Some Brussels boroughs are already taxing companies on the number of computer screens in their offices.

A liberal stands up to the Surrender Lobby

CAn we do this nation-wide? Let me know.

Spiritual Warfare Needed - Marine Corporal David Emery Jr.

Click on the link.