There are two reasons why this spectacle shocks some liberals. The first is that Blago, Burris, and Rush used this tactic on fellow Democrats. And since Democrats can’t be motivated by racism, any ploy like this must be cynical. When the same gambit is used on Republicans, it’s called “speaking truth to power.” Second, some honestly believed that Obama represented a real change of the racial landscape. So far, alas, these folks just look naive.
SAY WHAT YOU WILL ABOUT THE VOLOKH CONSPIRATORS, but I don’t really think they’re a bunch of crazed leftists.
The Volokh Conspirators and an interesting bunch of guys. It may not be their fault that they attract a bunch of nuts and Jacobins to their blog site.There is no question that I found the law professors who are the people who post the essays on Volokh to be interesting and reasonable. I referred to some of the people who commented on the articles they posted as “nuts and Jacobins.” And why did I characterize them that way?
The individual contributors are capable of making reasonable-sounding arguments as to why the detention of enemy combatants should not be held indefinitely at Guantanamo (assuming you view our war against Islamic radicals as a civil police action in which the US military got involved). But, as I said, their arguments usually avoid the foam flecked comments that follow these postings.
--Impeachment of Bush and Cheney. If necessary, after they leave office!I leave it to Glenn and others to determine if these are really rational recommendations for the way we want to handle administrative transitions in this country. Things like this have been done in other countries and at other times. As a student of history, it’s rather shocking that there are serious people in this country who are seriously suggesting that this is how we deal with national leaders after they leave office.
--Impeachment of a federal judge for writing a memo that enabled “torture”
--Local, State, and federal prosecutions such as the Brattleboro, Vermont, ordinance that calls for the arrest on sight of Bush and/or Cheney…
--Charge Bush and Cheney with murder of U.S. soldiers who have died in the Iraq and Afghanistan war under state law.
--Use of common law courts … as a means to turn revisionist international law theory by asserting international humanitarian and human rights law violations as common law in state courts prosecutions.
--Having citizens file charges with the police in various countries
--Foreign and International Prosecution of US officials.
--Complaints to licensing boards for professionals who assisted the government
On September 13-14, 2008, over two hundred people from the United States and abroad gathered in Andover. Massachusetts for the Justice Robert Jackson Conference on the Planning for Prosecution of High Level American War Criminals sponsored by the Massachusetts School of Law.
"He is a former drunk, was a serial failure in business who had to repeatedly be bailed out by daddy's friends and wanna-be-friends, was unable to speak articulately despite the finest education(s) that money and influence can buy, has a dislike of reading, so that 100-page memos have to be boiled down to one page for him, is heedless of facts and evidence, and appears not even to know the meaning of truth,"
# What international and domestic crimes were committed, which facts show crimes under which laws, and what punishments are possible.
# Which high level Executive officials -- and Federal judges and legislators as well, if any -- are chargeable with crimes.
# Which international tribunals, foreign tribunals and domestic tribunals (if any) can be used and how to begin cases and/or obtain prosecutions before them.
# The possibility of establishing a Chief Prosecutor’s Office such as the one at Nuremburg.
# An examination of cases already brought and their outcomes.
# Creating an umbrella Coordinating Committee with representatives from the increasing number of organizations involved in war crimes cases.
# Creating a Center to keep track of and organize compilations of relevant briefs, articles, books, opinions, and facts, etc., on war crimes and prosecutions of war criminals.
As I always say, the “oldest hatred” didn’t get that way without an ability to adapt: Once upon a time on the Continent, Jews were hated as rootless cosmopolitan figures who owed no national allegiance. So they became a conventional nation state, and now they’re hated for that. And, if Hamas get their way and destroy the Jewish state, the few who survive will be hated for something else. So it goes.
...the Palestinian people are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth. For the past sixty years they have been entrusted to the care of the United Nations, the Arab League, the PLO, Hamas and the “global community” — and the results are pretty much what you’d expect. You would have to be very hardhearted not to weep at the sight of dead Palestinian children, but you would also have to accord a measure of blame to the Hamas officials who choose to use grade schools as launch pads for Israeli-bound rockets, and to the UN refugee agency that turns a blind eye to it. And, even if you don’t deplore Fatah and Hamas for marinating their infants in a sick death cult in which martyrdom in the course of Jew-killing is the greatest goal to which a citizen can aspire, any fair-minded visitor to the West Bank or Gaza in the decade and a half in which the “Palestinian Authority” has exercised sovereign powers roughly equivalent to those of the nascent Irish Free State in 1922 would have to concede that the Palestinian “nationalist movement” has a profound shortage of nationalists interested in running a nation, or indeed capable of doing so. There is fault on both sides, of course, and Israel has few good long-term options. But, if this was a conventional ethno-nationalist dispute, it would have been over long ago.
It's funny how rarely someone mentions just how incredibly insulting the "What do you read?" question is. It is not a legitimate question. It doesn't deserve a response. This would never be a question asked of the other side. Ever.
I don't think I would answer a question like that either because it is nothing more than an insult diguised as a question.
SEATTLE (AP) -- Hearst Corp. put Seattle's oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, up for sale on Friday and said that if it can't find a buyer in the next 60 days the paper would likely close or continue to exist only online.
If it does become an Internet-only operation, the P-I, as the paper is known locally, would have a "greatly reduced staff," Hearst said in a statement. Hearst is a major media company that also owns TV stations, other newspapers and magazines including Cosmopolitan.
Many industry analysts expected the P-I, backed by Hearst's deep pockets, to outlast The Times, which is controlled by the Blethen family. The Times, like newspapers around the country, has had severe financial troubles of its own and has cut 500 positions in the past year.
Also Friday, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis ended talks with a union representing employees after being unable to agree on a request for concessions, setting the stage for a possible bankruptcy filing by Minnesota's largest newspaper.
funds provided by the Congress for projects or programs where the congressional direction (in bill or report language) circumvents Executive Branch merit-based or competitive allocation processes, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the Executive Branch to manage critical aspects of the funds allocation process.Generally, people outside of government define earmarks as items surreptitiously dropped into bills with no debate or review to pay for pet projects in a member’s district. The Pig Book sets the criteria for earmarks.
Ted Nugent, rock star and avid bow hunter from Michigan , was being interviewed by a French journalist and animal rights activist. The discussion came around to deer hunting.
The journalist asked, "What do you think is the last thought in the head of a deer before you shoot him? Is it, 'Are you my friend?' or is it 'Are you the one who killed my brother?' "
Nugent replied, "Deer aren't capable of that kind of thinking. All they care about is, 'What am I going to eat next, who am I going to screw next, and can I run fast enough to get away. They are very much like the French."
The interview ended at that point.
When the Obama family materialized, the media was seized by a mass psychosis that hadn't been witnessed since Beatlemania. OK! magazine raved that the Obamas "are such an all-American family that they almost make the Brady Bunch look dysfunctional." Yes, who can forget the madcap episode when the Bradys' wacky preacher tells them the government created AIDS to kill blacks!
Months before network anchors were interrogating vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the intricacies of foreign policy, here is how NBC's Brian Williams mercilessly grilled presidential candidate Barack Obama: "What was it like for you last night, the part we couldn't see, the flight to St. Paul with your wife, knowing what was awaiting?"
Twisting the knife he had just plunged into Obama, Williams followed up with what has come to be known as a "gotcha" question: "And you had to be thinking of your mother and your father." Sarah Palin was memorizing the last six kings of Swaziland for her media interviews, but Obama only needed to say something nice about his parents to be considered presidential material.
...
The claim that there's no such thing as a left wing press is a patent lie said to enrage conservatives. Newspapers read like the press under Kim Jung Il, which, outside of a police state, looks foolish. The prose is straight out of The Daily Worker, full of triumphal rhetoric with implicit exclamation points. Still, their chanted slogans fill your brain, like one of those bad songs you can't stop humming.
Palin Dodges Tough Questions About Existence of "Alaska"
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 3, 2008; A1
Media Bubble, Sept. 2 -- Embattled former beauty queen Sarah Palin* continued to wilt yesterday under the pressure of numerous fair, evenhanded media questions regarding the alleged state of "Alaska." Palin has claimed to be "governor" of the legendary northern land mass, which, while heretofore undiscovered by explorers, was once rumored to contain vast expanses rich with oil, gold, and "eski-mos."
Palin first made the "Alaska" claim during an Aug. 29 public appearance alongside elderly, mean-looking cancer victim John McCain. McCain, a white man with even whiter hair, has long publicly blocked efforts by Barack Obama, a youthful black man with a certain indefinable aura about him, to move into Obama's new house. Palin, also white-skinned, has been linked to the McCain offensive.
After four days of telling silence from the McCain camp, Palin finally deigned to reappear in public yesterday. In a followup press conference, Palin, who is a girl, lashed out at the media.
"Listen to me: Alaska. Is. A. State. Seriously. The 49th state, in fact. Way up north there. What, did somebody go around your newsrooms and hide all the maps underneath the ethics manuals? Or are you idiots just completely insane?"
Shaking her head in a transparent attempt to feign exasperation, Palin -- who is perhaps not as pretty as she thinks she is -- then left the podium without answering followup questions regarding her plagiarism of CBS's Northern Exposure.
Internet reaction to the unfit mother's unhinged rant was swift. Andrew Sullivan, right-wing blogger for The Atlantic, saw Palin's comments as a major misstep. "She's working the refs. This is what they do. Sure, blame the media. Is it their fault she's too chicken to back up these suspicious claims?
Allow me to propose a metric for evaluating whether a journalist is behaving responsibly or not: If he reports that Israel bombed a UN school and killed 30 civilians, he is irresponsible. If he reports that Hamas used a UN school as a weapons cache and base of operations for launching mortars at the IDF, and the IDF’s return fire killed the Hamas cell along, tragically, with a yet-unspecified number of civilians, then he is behaving responsibly. If he wishes to be particularly scrupulous, he might additionally note that Hamas had rigged the school with explosives which detonated after the IDF took out the mortar team, killing a large additional number of civilians. And he might add that you can go to the IDF’s Youtube channel to view footage from 2007 of Hamas using the very same school as a mortar-launching base.
Journalists who abjure reporting the vital details of this story should be called what they are — activists masquerading as reporters.
Two residents of the area near UN school that was shelled by the IDF on Tuesday said that they had seen a small group of terrorists firing mortar rounds from a street close to the school. The two spoke with The Associated Press by telephone on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
The school grounds were being used by terrorists to fire mortar shells at troops stationed nearby, and the soldiers responded by firing mortars back, the army said. According to the IDF, the dead included members of the Hamas rocket cell, including senior operatives Imad Abu Askhar and Hassan Abu Askhar.
Defense officials told The Associated Press that booby-trapped bombs in the school had triggered secondary explosions that killed additional Palestinians there.
Jay's round-up of politicized conductors, Boston Pops narrators, etc, tossing in dreary reflex Bush-bashing even in the middle of "Peter And The Wolf" should really be read in concert with Andrew Breitbart's plans for his new Hollywood website. They both address the same phenomenon: Liberalism is the default mode of the culture - to the point where the left-of-center position is so pervasive it's no longer a position at all, but rather something uncontentious, received wisdom, part of the air we breathe. In several of the examples Jay cites, I'll bet the musicians involved would be stunned to find that there was anyone in the room who would find the message remotely disagreeable.
In these conversations, one should distinguish between the activist types - the Sean Penns and whatnot - and the far bigger number of actors and musicians who don't think about politics terribly much and for whom a passive allegiance to the only recognized party of the entertainment state is just the easy option. Personally, I wouldn't want to live in a one-party state, and I'm slightly taken aback by the number of bigtime Hollywood stars who've said to me sotto voce in the last two years how much they agree with my book but please don't mention it to anyone. But Andrew Breitbart gets to what's really at stake:
If conservatives don't figure out popular culture soon, the movement will die a deserving death.
I think that's right. If the non-political sphere is permanently left-of-center - the movies, the pop songs, the plays, the sitcoms, the newspapers plus the churches, schools and much else - it's simply unreasonable to expect people to walk into a polling booth every other November and vote conservative. The culture is where the issues get framed and the boundaries set.
The chain reaction was something out of central casting. A medical journal starts it off by announcing a study comparing teens who take a pledge of virginity until marriage with those who don't. Lo and behold, when they crunch the numbers, they find not much difference between pledgers and nonpledgers: most do not make it to the marriage bed as virgins.
Like a pack of randy 15-year-old boys, the press dives right in.
"Virginity Pledges Don't Stop Teen Sex," screams CBS News. "Virginity pledges don't mean much," adds CNN. "Study questions virginity pledges," says the Chicago Tribune. "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds," heralds the Washington Post. "Virginity Pledges Fail to Trump Teen Lust in Look at Older Data," reports Bloomberg. And on it goes.
...
Here's the rub: It just isn't true.
In fact, the only way the study's author, Janet Elise Rosenbaum of Johns Hopkins University, could reach such results was by comparing teens who take a virginity pledge with a very small subset of other teens: those who are just as religious and conservative as the pledge-takers. The study is called "Patient Teenagers? A Comparison of the Sexual Behavior of Virginity Pledgers and Matched Nonpledgers," and it was published in the Jan. 1 edition of Pediatrics.
...
What Dr. Healy was getting at is that the pledge itself is not what distinguishes these kids from most other teenagers. The real difference is their more conservative and religious home and social environment. As she notes, when you compare both groups in this study with teens at large, the behavioral differences are striking. Here are just a few:
- These teens generally have less risky sex, i.e., fewer sexual partners.
- These teens are less likely to have a teenage pregnancy, or to have friends who use drugs.
- These teens have less premarital vaginal sex.
- When these teens lose their virginity they tend to do so at age 21 -- compared to 17 for the typical American teen.
- And very much overlooked, one out of four of these teens do in fact keep the pledge to remain chaste -- amid much cheap ridicule and just about zero support outside their homes or churches.
Get this: CNN put out a list of “falling from grace in 2008″ and put Governor Palin on the list with (get ready!!) this group of men:
Senator John Edwards who cheated on his wife but gave the excuse his wife was in remission from cancer (nice, huh?)…
Governor Elliott Spitzer cheating on his wife with a prostitute (and let’s not forget the black socks!)…
Senator Ted Stevens convicted of crimes….he said he didn’t use the $2000 plus gift chair in his house…that’s a good one!!
…or how about Detroit Mayor Kilpatrick? convicted of felonies!!!
and Governor Blago who is about to be indicted for alleging selling a Senate Seat that was occupied by our next President???
CNN thinks Governor Palin is like these guys? one of these guys? is that fair?
The nation's top selling conservative author has been banned from appearing on NBC, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.
"We are just not going to have her on any more, it's over," a top network source explains.
But a second top suit strongly denies there is any "Coulter ban".
"Look for a re-invite, as soon as Wednesday," said the news executive, who asked not to be named.
NBC's TODAY show abruptly cut Ann Coulter from its planned Tuesday broadcast, claiming the schedule was overbooked.
Executives at NBC TODAY replaced Coulter with showbiz reporter Perez Hilton, who recently offered $1,000 to anyone who would throw a pie at Ann Coulter. Hilton is also launching a new book this week, RED CARPET SUICIDE.
Coulter was set to unveil her new book, GUILTY.
One network insider claims it was the book's theme -- a brutal examination of liberal bias in the new era -- that got executives to dis-invite the controversialist.
"We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now," a TODAY insider reveals. "It's such a downer. It's just not the time, and it's not what our audience wants, either."
Others inside the peacock network strongly deny the book's theme is at issue.
For the book, Coulter reportedly received the most-lucrative advance ever paid to a conservative author.
The TODAY show eagerly invited the author months ago, for her first network interview on GUILTY.
The exclusive was to air during the show's 7 AM hour. The cut came Monday afternoon.
Coulter was also to appear on the TODAY's fourth hour. A host even teased the segment saying the 'conservative pit bull and bestselling author' would be a guest.
NBC's cable outlet, MSNBC, will also become a Coulter-free zone, insiders explain. Morning host Joe Scarborough is said to be concerned with the new ban. "He's working to overrule it," tips a source.
CTV.ca - Dec.15/08
When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.
Daily Tech - Jan.1/09;
Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.
Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.
The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regionsRelated! "
Birdwatchers' delight as Arctic snowy owl is spotted in freezing England for first time"...
Bill Richardson's sudden departure from President-elect Barack Obama's proposed Cabinet has raised questions about the severity of the federal investigation into possible "pay-to-play" schemes at the top levels of the New Mexico government.
Oh sure, Richardson is presumed innocent, and there is every expectation the facts will lead to that conclusion. The puzzle is how a veteran congressman, a former U.N. ambassador, a former energy secretary and sitting governor with credible presidential aspirations drew the eyes of federal investigators....Richardson's withdrawal stirs anger and frustration. A political talent on the injured-reserve list — and maybe lost to the team.
About two weeks after the announcement, newspapers reported that a federal grand jury was examining accusations that the Richardson administration had awarded the contracts because of the political contributions. Whether the Obama team learned of the grand jury inquiry through news reports, or perhaps from Mr. Richardson himself, was unclear on Sunday. Obama officials would not say.
But Robert Gibbs, the incoming White House press secretary, defended the vetting process. “The totality of our cabinet picks, it’s impressive and I think our vetters have done a good job,” he said.
At 61, Richardson has been described as a blend of East Coast establishment and Western individualism with a dash of Third World acumen. He combines a competitiveness and political savvy with a down-to-earth style that often disarms adversaries, associates say. They are traits that have served him well as a congressman, U.N. ambassador, energy secretary and governor.
When I heard that Bill Richardson was withdrawing as Secretary of Commerce-Designate, the first thing I thought was "Holy Frakking SPIT!" (or words to that effect.) Then, I wondered if this was stage 1 of a Tecumseh-style curse against the enemies of Hillary Clinton.
Where Thermometers Go To Die - How not to measure temperature, part 80
In my 30 years in meteorology, I never questioned how NOAA climate monitoring stations were setup. It wasn’t until I stumbled on the Marysville California fire station and its thermometer that that I began to notice just how badly sited these stations are. When I started looking further, I never expected to find USHCN climate monitoring stations placed at sewage treatment plants, next to burn barrels, or in parking lots of University Atmospheric Science Departments, or next to air conditioning heat exchangers. These were all huge surprises.
I didn’t think I’d be surprised anymore. I thought I’d seen the weirdest of the weird, and that I would not be surprised again with bad station placement examples.
Then I saw this station, submitted from Fort Scott, Kansas.
No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is an official NOAA USHCN climate monitoring station at a funeral home in downtown Fort Scott, KS
From a wider perspective, you can see all the things around it. Not only do we have a fountain (extra humidity), a nearby brick wall for heat retention at night, a large concrete driveway that curves around the station, a tree for shade in the late afternoon, a big brick building with a south facing brick wall, but we also have cobblestone streets and convenient nearby parking. The station is near the center of the city.
It seems that that station was moved into this location from the previous one about a block away on April 4th, 2002. ... Upon first examination. it appears that it “may” have been cooler at the previous location, once you get past the spike of the 1998 El Nino it seems the elevated step function remains. Though since the location was also downtown, about a block away, perhaps the UHI of the downtown has overwhelmed the station change.
From what I can tell of the towns history, most of the growth in buildings occurred during the first half of the 20th century. Many of the downtown buildings seem to date from that time. Certainly it appears cooler around 1900.
Of course, this GISS adjustment artificially increases the temperature trend of the last century. It appears to use the present as the hinge point. [graphs omitted for simplicity]
Yes it probably was cooler in Fort Scott’s past, when it looked like this, when it was founded:
“A beautifully undulating prairie”. “An almost precipitous decent of fifty feet”. “A flat spur of high prairie”. “A small clear-water creek”.
In 1852, Assistant Surgeon Joseph Barnes used all of these phrases to describe the landscape surrounding Fort Scott.
Here is a recent view of downtown
Where human morbidity and mortality issues are at stake, such as in the manufacture of pharmaceutical drugs, operation of hospital laboratories, blood product collection methodology, automobile manufacturing, bridge construction, etc., there are normally very rigid rules regarding “quality control.” The backbone of “quality control” includes calibration standards, correlation studies, uniform methodology, standardized instrumentation, reproducibility, and documentation. “Quality control” is normally expensive, time consuming, and requires constant monitoring.
In this regard, we have the concepts of global warming and climate change, about which we are constantly bombarded with warnings of rising oceans, famine, species extinction, disease outbreaks, etc. — primarily based upon future predictions from computer models centered upon historical temperature records — all of which (if true) have significant implications on future human morbidity and mortality. Yet the “science of climate change” involving computer models utilizing past records of surface temperatures, as well as current recordings of surface temperatures, appears to be completely devoid of “quality control” regarding the primary data records. (Buried in “quality control” is urban heat island effect, which would be eliminated with appropriate standard methodology requirements.) Not only are you amply demonstrating that “quality control” in surface temperature recording is completely absent with your project, there is a second issue of “manipulating” data obtained from methods devoid of “quality control” overview. How can one “manipulate” (adjust) historical data that one cannot verify as being accurate and reproducible? Such “manipulations” cannot correct for previous lack of “quality control” and may actually introduce more uncertainty. This is not science — it’s “data fakery.” How can any reputable science journal publish studies where the primary data sets are “highly suspect” for being unreliable? Please continue your work in exposing this fraudulent science, if it can be called a science.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Sunday announced that he was withdrawing his nomination to be President-elect Barack Obama's commerce secretary amid a grand jury investigation into how some of his political donors won a lucrative state contract
Comes fully equipped with seating for eight, weapons storage, flashing lights, sirens, and stylish UN decal package. Unfortunately not IAF proof, but does come with a small dead body for AP/Reuters photo ops when hit.
An interesting development after today's Chicago Sun-Times story in which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., suggests to Illinois Gov. Rod Blagoevich that he pick either Tammy Duckworth or Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan but not appoint either Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr. or Danny Davis, or state senate president Emil Jones, to President-elect Obama's former Senate seat. (Reid is reported to have worried none of the three could win reelection.)
Senate Republicans are now pointing out that Jackson, Davis and Jones are all African-American.
Hmmmm.
Via Jake Tapper at ABC News.
You are probably wondering whether President-elect Obama owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming. The answer is, not yet. There is one person, however, who does. You have probably guessed his name: Al Gore.
Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that "the science is in." Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.
RESIDENTS of a model housing estate bankrolled by Hollywood celebrities and hand-built by Jimmy Carter, the former US president, are complaining that it is falling apart.
Fairway Oaks was built on northern Florida wasteland by 10,000 volunteers, including Carter, in a record 17-day “blitz” organised by the charity Habitat for Humanity.
Eight years later it is better known for cockroaches, mildew and mysterious skin rashes.
...
April Charney, a lawyer representing many of the 85 homeowners in Fairway Oaks, said she had no problems taking on Habitat for Humanity, despite its status as a “darling of liberal social activists”. She said the charity should have told people that part of the estate had been built on a rubbish dump.
One man pulled up his floorboards to find rubbish 5ft deep under his kitchen. Other complaints include cracking walls and rotting door frames that let in rats and ants. Many residents have complained of mildew and mysterious skin rashes.
One resident said her children were suffering from skin complaints. “The intentions are good, but when the politicians and big-shot stars have left we’re stuck with the consequences. This house looks pretty but inside it either stinks or sweats,” she said.
There is something especially nauseating about the latest Middle East war — scenes of worldwide Islamic protests with photos of Jews as apes, protesters (in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida of all places!) screaming about nuking Israel and putting Jews in ovens, parades of children dressed up with suicide vests and fake rockets, near constant anti-Semitic vicious sloganeering, Gaza mosques stuffed with rockets to be used against civilians — all to be collated with creepy Hamas rhetoric about the annihilation of Israel. This is the world in which we now live.
Almost no other issue in recent memory has illustrated the moral bankruptcy of much of the international community.
...
Nothing could be more clear: either the fact that a constitutional republic was trying to avoid civilian casualties while a terrorist organization was intent on killing Jewish civilians as it used its own citizens as shields to protect mostly young male terrorists; or the world's craven reaction to all this.
Again all very creepy — the stuff of Tolkien's Mordor. It is now clear that the so-called and much praised "international community," the hallowed U.N., the revered EU, all pretty much are indifferent to the survival of a democratic Israel, or are actively supportive of its terrorist Hamas enemy. Only the U.S. (for now) stands by a constitutional state in its war against a murderous terrorist clique, with annhilation its aim and religous fascism its creed.
A PIONEERING climate change project in Africa run by Robin Birley, the socialite, has been accused by the European commission, its main donor, of making unsubstantiated claims about its environmental impact.
The project has received more than £1m in public grants and money from celebrities in the music and film business. They include Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones and Brad Pitt, the actor.
The project attempts to offset an individual’s carbon footprint by paying poor farmers in Mozambique to plant trees, which absorb CO2, and to protect existing forests.
The commission’s criticism comes amid increased concern about the worth of these fashionable but largely unregulated carbon offset schemes. Critics say it is almost impossible to guarantee that the trees will survive the length of time needed to offset any significant carbon emissions.
...
The Sunday Times has obtained a highly critical report from the European commission that says “the quality of the technical work … [is] far below what could reasonably be expected of a pilot project managed by a university”.
Written last May, just before the five-year funding period came to an end, the report noted that the project “continued to make positive claims about its impact that could not be substantiated”.
The commission also warned that the money flowing into the Gorongosa area had attracted hundreds of poor farmers who were now cutting down trees, contrary to the project’s intention.
An official source said: “We also asked for disclosure about carbon trades in the interest of transparency. None of this information was forthcoming. [Envirotrade] are selling products that are not delivering what was promised and the public needs to know.”
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan first addressed the question of a housing bubble in testimony before the Joint Economic Committee on April 17, 2002. He dismissed the idea--or, for that matter, any comparison to the stock market, which had recently gone through a high-tech bubble--on the grounds that housing was different because of substantial transaction costs and more limited opportunities for speculation.
Greenspan also argued that there really wasn't a single national market for housing, but rather a collection of many local markets. Even if a bubble emerged in one market, he said, there was no reason to think it would spill over into other markets.
Bruce,
You make it sound as if the collapse of the housing bubble was in and of itself the reason for the global economic problems. That’s a little too simple.
I knew there was a housing bubble because my son was shopping for a house a few years ago and prices were ridiculous. He bought a house with a conventional mortgage and 20% down and he’s fine.
If housing prices decline when buyers are forced to put 20% down, that would not lead to the current crisis.
If housing process decline and homebuyers have fixed rate mortgages that don’t go up even as values go down, that would not lead to the current crisis.
If housing prices decline when home buyers have adequate income to afford their fixed rate mortgages that would not lead to the current crisis.
If housing prices decline and defaults rates stay within historical limits, that would not lead to the current crisis.
If housing prices decline and large numbers of people walk away from their mortgages because they were not required to put any equity into their homes and their income is inadequate, then we have a problem because we don’t know what the value of those mortgages is worth. So we don’t know what the values of the mortgage backed securities are worth. And when we don’t know what something is worth, we are not going to be able to sell it if we need to raise cash. And when we have billions of dollars of securities on our books whose values won’t be known for years we have a global banking crisis.
So how did we get here? The housing bubble did not create itself; it was created as a byproduct of a policy that said that owning a house was good. And that not being able to afford a house should not be an impediment. And when the Feds decided that the banks had better be able to prove that they were lending a large percent of their mortgage money to poor people they got the response they were looking for: reduced standards. No money down, low teaser rates on adjustable rate mortgages, no confirmation of income, no confirmation of residence … in effect the liar’s mortgage.
And once we relax standards for some, we must relax standards for all. And that led to flippers and all sort of abuse where people bought multiple houses thinking that they could fix them up and sell them and make a fortune.
And all these mortgages could then be shoveled out the back door via Fannie and Freddie and sold to a gullible public reassured by the Godlike Greenspan, with Chris Dodd and Barney Frank running interference for Fannie and Freddie and Raines who testified that a leverage of 30 to 1 was too conservative; let’s shoot for 50 to 1.
But the collapse came on Bush’s watch so he’s the fall guy. The housing price decline led to a whole row of dominoes falling. The thing that frightens me is that we have the people who started this mess still in charge. And they want to do it again! Their latest scheme is to offer sub-prime auto loans so that people who can’t afford it will buy new cars. That is so stupid it makes my hair hurt. It seems the lesson was not learned.
are the uniform of choice for Islamofascists.
See this man?
He's preaching a message of violence and hate.
He's also doing something else: He's wearing a mask.
This kind of thing is socially acceptable in many Muslim circles, as evidenced by the fact that it's quite common. It happens all the time. Whenever there are protests in the Muslim world (or even Muslims protesting elsewhere; this gentleman was protesting in London) people wearing masks show up preaching messages of violence and hate.
Can you think of anyone else who would wear masks while preaching messages of violence and hate?
That's right. The Ku Klux Klan.
They did this kind of thing all the time: Go out in public and preach a message of violence and hate while wearing masks.
And eighty years ago that kind of thing was socially acceptable in many American circles (and not just in the South).
I've always wondered how Lyndon Johnson became a millionaire while earning for a lifetime a modest federal salary.
How did Nick Mavroules, who became a Congressman in 1978, avoid detection for so long? He pleaded guilty in 1993 to bribery and racketeering charges.
How come Rep. Charlie Rangel (NY) owns so much property in New York and an expensive villa in the Dominican Republic? -- all of this on a representative's salary.
And isn't that Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich (From Transylvania??), something else? It appears he's tried to, among other things, sell Obama's vacant senate seat for $250 thousand. Do you believe for a minute this is the first time this guy has reached for a shady buck?
You must have your own pet peeves about many politicians who after a lifetime of moderate income retire to a posh life style, or about locals who stuff bribes into their underwear. If so, join me in my hope, and support my plan for relief.
It's called the net worth test, an internal revenue gimmick invented to convict Al Capone, the famous prohibition gangster.
The feds wanted Al for many reasons, but all attempts to nab him failed -- he was cleverly cautious about his criminal dealings. But he lived big, much bigger than his reported income suggested he could afford.
So some bright guy invented the net worth test, and it became law. Under its provisions, agents could examine all aspects of Capone's lifestyle, compute the income needed to support it, and compare the answer with his reported income.
Bingo! They had big Al on income tax evasion and locked him up.
In 1993, near the height of America’s anger over out-of-control crime, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a seminal article for the American Scholar on “defining deviancy down.” Moynihan argued that crime had gotten so out of control, Americans responded by simply defining deviancy down until many crimes seemed normal.
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We learned a similar moral after 9/11. For years — starting around the time of Klinghoffer’s murder, as it happens — policymakers in both parties debated how to define terrorism. Is it a law-and-order issue or a military threat? If it’s a military threat, how do we define a “proportionate response” — this legalistic phrase entered the national-security lexicon back then, too. By the end of the 1990s, the best and the brightest of the Clinton administration found the answer in a lawerly kind of proportionality, blowing up empty office buildings as a way to “send a message” in response to attacks on America and her interests.
After 9/11, the gloves were off. The far left beseeched the government to retaliate with, at most, a proportionate response, but no one cared. We toppled the Taliban as a warm-up act. Terrorists weren’t criminals anymore, they were enemy combatants, ineligible for the Geneva Conventions. But the war in Iraq and reports of American zeal in the war on terror have left a sour taste in our mouths. That there have been no terrorist attacks on our soil only bolsters the sense that terrorism is manageable, even banal. Barack Obama leads a counteroffensive from a legal establishment that wants to treat terrorists like any other criminals. Terrorists in Mumbai or Jeddah are little more than the squeegee men of the New World Order.
This vain legalism will run its course for a good long while, I suspect. And we will hear and then forget a lot of names before we relearn some hard lessons.
ASPEN — A man who left bomb threats and homemade bombs around Aspen on New Year's Eve shot and killed himself in his car a few hours after his threats cleared much of the resort town, Aspen Police said.
Assistant Aspen Police Chief Bill Linn said James Chester Blanning, 72, walked into two Aspen banks Wednesday afternoon and left packages wrapped in holiday paper along with notes saying the boxes contained bombs. The notes threatened "mass death" and demanded $60,000 cash, along with criticisms of President George Bush, Linn said.
He gave no motive, but he wrote, "I was and am a good man."
Later, police found two similar packages in a downtown alley atop a black sled. All four boxes contained homemade bombs made of gasoline and cell phone components.
"We believe the suspect abandoned his plan halfway through," said Linn, who said Blanning's notes didn't say which other two banks he planned to target.
Aspen residents recalled Blanning as an eccentric who grew up fascinated by Aspen's past as a silver mining town. People who knew Blanning say he became disenchanted with his hometown as it turned into a holiday playground for the rich.
As 2008 ends, two things should not be forgotten.
First, it was the year that the war in Iraq became successful to the point where many started calling it victory. Perhaps cynics can dismiss writers like Zombietime or opinionated editorialists like those at Investors Business Daily as Pollyannas. But they have nowhere to run or hide when an observer on the ground like Michael Yon, who had the independence to tell us we were in danger of losing not all that long ago, comes out and says, “The Iraq War is over. … The civil war has completely ended.”
Second, this victory — or, if you must, “the end of the war with Iraqi and U.S. forces firmly in control” — is a major setback for those who worked tirelessly for defeat. At every opportunity, the defeatists employed or extended tactics that had ultimately “succeeded” in bringing about the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia’s killing fields — but which also led to Carter-era weakness, which finally caused enough disgusted Americans to elect Ronald Reagan.
But this time, they didn’t work. The U.S. has achieved a military victory in a long war against a persistent enemy. What’s more, unlike Vietnam — which was a military victory; Vietnam was lost when our military wasn’t there — this victory is being handed over to a successor administration of the other party.
The defeated defeatists include many senators, congressmen, and elitists in Washington. They include Harry Reid, who said, “I believe … that this war is lost,” in April 2007. They include many members of the incoming administration, up to the president-elect himself. Though the defeatists are in control, they know full well that if they allow Iraq to go the way of Vietnam, this time they will get the blame — and the blowback.
The defeated defeatists include the U.S. and worldwide news media, whose journalistic malpractice in this war could fill volumes of books, and hopefully someday will.
Deliciously, the most decisively defeated defeatists are radical leftists like Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin....
Old media — and old Medea — threw everything they had at George Bush and the military in their quest for failure. They can arguably be blamed for encouraging Iraq’s terrorists to keep fighting when they might otherwise have quit, extending the war, and costing us hundreds of billions of dollars. But ultimately and fortunately, it is they who failed, and the hated George Bush and the Iraqi people who prevailed.
That result deserves a hearty New Year’s Eve toast. Bottoms up.
Tom Trento is describing the intense demonstration against Israel that just took place. He made the video by quietly and bravely circulating among the pro-Palestine demonstrators so that we can easily hear their chants. At red-hot levels of screaming rage, about 200-300 demonstrators, many in kaffiyehs, wearing or holding the Palestinian flag, some wearing “Obama” baseball hats, many women in serious hijab and men in Islamic prayer clothing, chanted “Nuke Israel–there is no Israel,” “Occupation is a Crime,” “Go to Hell, Israel,” “Free Palestine.” One fully bearded African-American man in Islamic clothing proselytized. He said that Islam is wonderful, that it’s in our very natures, that we had best accept this.
After conducting a public evening prayer service with a megaphone, the mob became more fervent and rageful, broke loose, began verbally and physically confronting the 50 pro-Israeli demonstrators. The police did their job and no one was hurt.
But, as Trento says at the end of his video: “There is a lot of work to be done in 2009.”
Please pay attention to the level of orchestrated, almost brainwashed rage. It is a killing rage: fierce, almost orgasmic. This kind of demonstration can easily turn into a mob–and we have seen what civilians in mobs like this have done all over the Islamic world and in Europe.
NEDERLAND, Colo. – A gunman who broke into a staff meeting at a Colorado ski resort ranting about religion asked the manager what he believed and shot him twice when the victim responded he was Catholic, according to reports published today about the tragedy.For some reason, the killer found affirmation that Christians were acceptable targets of his rage. Where could he have learned that?
The Virginian Pilot has a … shall we say “interesting” view of ethics. Let us first get rid of the canard that journalism has ethical standards to which it scrupulously adheres. That’s a punch line for a joke, not a serious point for discussion.
In this editorial it demands that people who are opposed to abortion be required – by law – to violate their own ethical standards in order to keep a job.
The editorial begins with the obligatory Bush bashing.
…as Bush prepares to exit the White House, he's tossing a prize to anti-abortion activists and leaving the victims of sexual assault more vulnerable than ever.
Note the referral to “anti-abortion activists” rather than people who believe abortion is ethically wrong. Most people who fall into that category are not active in any way, they simply believe in the sanctity of life. The members of the Pilot editorial staff do not.
And how does the belief of people who are opposed to abortion leave victims of sexual assault “more vulnerable?” The editors never say. They simply repeat what abortion activists say.
New regulations … would reduce access to emergency contraceptives and counseling by declaring a "right of conscience" for health care workers who refuse to provide those services because of their religious or moral beliefs. Hospitals, clinics or government agencies that fail to accommodate their employees would lose federal funding.
Does accommodating people who believe that abortion is murder create in insuperable barrier to women getting an abortion? How many medical workers would this affect? The editorial does not say. How many hospitals would this effect? The editorial does not say. And note the scare quotes around the term "right of conscience."
The Pilot has rarely expressed any opposition to laws mandating accommodation to any group, the lame, the blind the insane and the criminal. But woe to those who would put even the slightest and most momentary pause in the destruction of babies (or “non-viable tissue mass” in the view of the Pilot’s editors) and the paper goes ballistic.
Doctors and nurses already have legal protections that prevent them from being fired if they refuse to participate in an abortion. The 127-page regulatory change now pending is an unjustified overreach that would permit health professionals to shrug off their duty to the patients who need help the most. Sadly, indigent women who depend on public health programs would be most affected.
Three points about this paragraph. First, it fails to state what the regulation requires, so we really don’t know what the “overreach” the editors refer to means. Second, the editors cheat when they refer to people who have ethical standards as “shrugging off their duty.” Who has a duty to do what they perceive as evil? Dr. Mengele's assistants? Third, the reference to “indigent women” brings to mind part of an article written by Jonah Goldberg which recalls Margaret Sanger, the founding patron of “family planning” who saw it as a tool to get rid of the undesirable underclass – which included Blacks. You can be sure that it’s no accident that the Pilot’s editors advocate aborting “indigent women(s)” children in view of the fact that Blacks make up a disproportionate percentage of aborted babies.
If taken within 72 hours of a rape or unprotected sex, emergency contraceptives can prevent pregnancy, thus reducing the need for many abortions.
Note the lies in this sentence? “Emergency contraceptives” is a contradiction in terms. What the editors are talking about is not contraception – something that prevents conception – but early stage abortion.
Bush's regulation tears at the heart of medical ethics and must be suspended before it does terrible harm.
Ah yes. “Medical ethics” like “journalistic ethics” are slippery things. In the view of the Pilot's editors, abortion is demanded by medical ethics.
I thought that the primary rule of medical ethics is “first, do no harm.” That ethical rule has been chucked into the basket of medical waste along with the discarded fetuses. Given a chance for some medical practitioners to reclaim some ethical standards, if only for themselves, we get a lecture on ethics from the one group in the nation that has ethical standards so low that they have become a national joke.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press.
Nicastro represents Connecticut's 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain.
That is because publisher Journal Register, in danger of being crushed under hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, says it cannot afford to keep them open anymore.
Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and petitioned the state government to do something about it. "The media is a vitally important part of America," he said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations.
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Relying on government help raises ethical questions for the press ...
Why not? They're bustin' their ass for Obama; shouldn't Obama put them on the
payroll?
Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie didn't quite care for Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken's comment that "it looks like we’re on track to win. ...
Said Ritchie, after I read him Franken's statement and asked him if it was premature, "No human being can predict the future ...
I read Mr. Ritchie part of an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that described him as having been "endorsed by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- Acorn -- a group under investigation in several states for suspected voter registration chicanery," and noting that Ritchie's "election campaign in 2006 was funded in part by something called 'The Secretary of State Project.' This latter group, founded by MoveOn.org's former grass-roots director, exists solely to install far-left candidates as secretaries of state in swing states."
What did Ritchie -- who talked a lot about the State Canvassing Board being non-partisan -- think of such a description?
"I haven't seen it," he said, "I never respond to personal attacks or that kind of, you know, shenanigans in newspapers like that ... I think people are very proud of the way we do elections in Minnesota and that pride and that trust is reflected in the fact that we are always number 1 voting in the nation and we're 5 percentage points above the state that is number 2. People trust our elections in Minnesota because they're run on a fair and non partisan basis and because they trust that they turn out and vote."
"The thing that's been unfortunate has been the kind of abuse that staff and especially local election officials have had to suffer," he said. "And when some editorial in, say, a national newspaper that comes out and makes a partisan kind of attack or makes a claim then we might get up to thousand emails from people all over the country or they generate death threats ...
