Tuesday, May 29, 2007

More like the Energizer Bunny

 
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) offers a transcript from a recent public speech by Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

With the grace of God, we have almost reached the end of the path where we can take complete advantage of all nuclear capabilities. We are very near the summit. The resistance of the enemies grows weaker every day

Now they are mustering all their power, in order to cause some commotion – some resolution, some pressure, some uproar... But let me tell you that with the help of God, they are done for. Like a battery about to run out, they muster the remainder of their power but Allah willing, nothing will happen. We've passed that. Wait one month, two months, three months... Allah willing, as soon as possible, we will pass that. Their situation is much worse than one can imagine. Their foundations are shaking. Nobody is with them.

Meanwhile, the director of the "Center for Doctrinal Strategic Studies" in Iran's Revolutionary Guards -- one Hasan Abbasi -- weighed in with a comprehensive set of analogies:

The new strategy in the standoff between Iran and the United States is the ‘chicken game.’ It is similar to the game of chicken that American youth play: two cars are heading toward each other at maximum speed, until one of them swerves. This kind of game has never persisted for more than a few months, but in this case, it began in the summer of 2005 and continues to this day, and is one of the lengthiest ones in memory – a 15 or 16 month- long period of tensions...

Right now... Mr. George W. Bush is driving the car and Mrs. Condoleeza Rice is telling him, go and crush the lemon that Ahmadinejad is driving, but Bush says, what if we hit the lemon and it is full of explosives? Thus these two cars are rapidly heading toward each other. During the period of this chicken game Iran undertook a new measure every three months: first it reopened the UCF facility in Isfahan; then it reopened the Natanz Facility and heavy water reactors in Arak; and finally it entered industrial-scale fuel production...

Not to be outdone, Al Qaeda spokesperson Adam Gadahn promised further destruction in the United States:

...Your failure to heed our demands ... means that you and your people will ... experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th, Afghanistan and Iraq and Virginia Tech...

But, don't worry about any of this stuff. According to the "progressives", George W. Bush's encounter with birds**t is this week's real headline story.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Gore: Volcanoes must purchase Carbon Offsets

 
Volcanoes are immense polluters of the environment and should be required to adhere to the same rules that will be levied upon humans, according to climatologist Albert Gore, Jr.

"Volcanoes -- which are responsible for releasing millions of tons of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere -- can no longer expect a 'free ride' when it comes to climate change," said Albert Gore, Jr. The author, moviemaker, meteorologist, and retired politician has extended his Carbon Offset advocacy to natural -- and not just man-made -- events.

According to the United States Geological Survey, active volcanoes release more than 130 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.

Several active volcanoes did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.

Ohio's Darwin Award Nominee

 
In Ohio, we read news of the latest Darwin Award nominee:

Police killed a man who had fired at two officers after they confronted him for allegedly stealing ice cream from a convenience store, Police Chief Tom Streicher said.

Four officers fired back at the unidentified man, Streicher said. The chief described it as a "running gunbattle" along several blocks of Queen City Avenue.

The man stole some ice cream from the United Dairy Farmers store at Quebec Road and Queen City Avenue, according to police. Police went to the scene to investigate the alleged theft when the man returned.

"He walked back into the store to get a spoon," Streicher said.

And the Great Spoon Shortage of '07 claims another victim. I blame Bush.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

"If it bleeds, it leads"... except when it comes to Al Qaeda

 
During a series of raids on Al-Qaeda safe houses in Iraq, U.S. military personnel discovered an official "Al-Qaeda Torture Manual" and various tools used for the express purpose of torture. Items recovered included meat cleavers, whips, and bolt-cutters. In addition, several victims -- still alive -- were discovered. The group, which included a boy, was reportedly beaten repeatedly with chains, cables, and hoses.

The Department of Defense has declassified the manual and photos of the AQ torture chambers.


Depicted above are excerpts from these items, with most of the graphic and disturbing images obscured or redacted. If you have the stomach for it, The Smoking Gun website has reprinted the entire document. Among the chapters: how to sever limbs; squeeze a victim's head in a vise; remove eyeballs; apply a blowtorch or a clothes iron to exposed flesh; and drill through hands.

* * *

Over the last several years, The New York Times has referenced the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal approximately 730 times. In fact, on May 22nd, in a Times book review of Al Gore's The Assault on Reason, Michiko Kakutani depicted the Abu Ghraib scandal in stark terms (emphasis mine):

[Gore] argues that the gruesome acts of torture committed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq “were a direct consequence of the culture of impunity — encouraged, authorized and instituted” by President Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The Times has also referenced the military prison at Guantánamo Bay around 750 times since 9/11/2001.


Columnist Maureen Dowd mentioned 'Abu Ghraib' at least 20 times, the military prison at 'Guantánamo' 7 times, and even used the phrase "the torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo."


But there are no mentions in the Times of real torture; no mentions of Al Qaeda's predilection for blow-torching, eye-gouging and hand-drilling. There are no references to the prisoners recovered from the Al Qaeda safe houses. Nor of the truly depraved treatment they and countless others -- most of whom did not survive captivity -- encountered at the hands of Al Qaeda.

Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters patiently awaited mainstream media coverage of the manual. It was not forthcoming. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit put the media blackout as succinctly as anyone has: "Silence is complicity, you know."

After several days of waiting, Don Surber's reaction was justifiably harsh:

Where did USA Today play the torture book story?

Not on Page One.

Where did the New York Times play it?

Not on Page One.

Where did the Washington Post play it?

Not on Page One. And yet such false stories as the "flushed Koran" got widespread play in the newspapers and on television.

...Whether intentional or not, the message is clear: The United States must be above even false reports of torture, while the enemy is allowed to promote eye removal, blowtorching skin and horrors I won't go into.

James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal also "checked the blogs of Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald, among the most hysterical accusers of America in the "torture" debate, and here is what they have had to say about the al Qaeda documents: ."


So, when it comes to Newsweek's fake Koran-flushing incident at Guantanamo; or the physical hazing incidents at Abu Ghraib, or water boarding (a technique so diabolical that it's been used on U.S. special forces in their training), the mainstream media is all for publicity then. In fact, veritable firestorms of publicity.


But when it comes to real torture and the genuine evil facing us, the mainstream media is AWOL. How many times has the media shown us the World Trade Center burning and collapsing since 9/11?

And the infamous watchword of the media -- "if it bleeds, it leads" -- only applies to certain parties.

I'm not sure what to conclude about our mainstream media. Whether it's ignorance, apathy, or complicity, one thing is certain: legacy media is dying... faster than we thought possible.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Al Gore at the Marin Civic Center

 
LGF operative Zombietime paid a surreptitious visit to San Rafael, California. The occasion: an Al Gore appearance at the Marin Civic Center. The Internet's inventor was there for a speech and to shill his new book. His talk -- to around 2,000 rapt global-warming cultists -- centered on the usual topics of climate change and the human causation thereof.

I wonder if anyone asked Al Gore's about his global warming junk bonds --er-- I mean, carbon offsets?

Or if anyone asked Gore why he isn't visiting China and Iran to complain about their emissions controls, since around a half million people die annually from pollution in those countries?

Zombie's photo essay also captured the parking lot, which featured a vast array of luxury SUVs, trucks, vans, and sedans.

Go green!

Zombie also held a contest called Al Gore's Secret Message; entrants modified the cover of Gore's book. My entry is above, but it appears that it arrived too late to make it into the final mix.

See: Al Gore at the Marin Civic Center.

Line o' the Day: Christianophobia?

 
The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto:

Saudi officials have arrested a man in Mecca for being a Christian, saying that the city, which Muslims consider to be holy, is off-limits to non-Muslims... Last week we noted that the Organization of the Islamic Conference was complaining about "Islamophobia." But we don't know of any city in the West that is off-limits to Muslims. When Christians, Jews and atheists are free to visit Mecca and Medina, we'll take "Islamophobia" seriously.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

John Edwards proves that there is no "War on Terror"

 
The so-called war on terror is a bumper sticker slogan!

It is not a war on terror... it is an ideological doctrine advanced by the Bush administration.

A "war" that Bush has used to justify everything from abuses at Abu Ghraib...

...to the invasion of Iraq.

By framing this as a "war", we have walked right into the trap...

...a trap the terrorists have set.

That we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam.

I do not believe there is a global war on terror.

As president, I pledge to use force only to pursue essential national security missions...

...to improve civilian-military relations ...and root out mismanagement at the Pentagon.

This administration has abandoned any claim to U.S. moral leadership in the world.

We need a post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq military. A military that is mission focused on protecting Americans from 21st century threats.

A military that is not misused for discredited ideological purposes.


Quotes and copy courtesy of Newsbusters, Breitbart, and USA Today

Sign the No Amnesty Petition

 
The message is clear. The vast majority of Americans favor sealing the border first, before Congress foists an enormous bureaucracy on an unsuspecting public.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

The brilliant Energy strategy of the Democrats

 

Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership oppose: legislation to ease the construction of new refineries; allowing energy exploration in any of the areas marked in red; and nuclear energy.

Act accordingly in 2008. Assuming gas isn't $12 a gallon by then and you can even afford to drive to the voting booth.

Asia spontaneously combusts

 

Six are dead in a massive explosion in Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the rush hour blast a "treacherous and brutal terrorist attack."


Meanwhile, in Lebanon, the low-grade civil war between Islamist terrorists and the Lebanese Army continues in and around one of the major refugee camps. According to the AP, unrest in other camps is an "ominous sign that the trouble could spread across Lebanon."


In Pakistan, state security forces continue to battle terrorists in North Waziristan.


In India's Kashmir province, five Islamic militants and an Indian soldier were killed in a series of gunbattles. The attacks come in the midst of a counter-insurgency campaign to suppress terrorist attacks.

* * *

You know, if only the beleaguered Palestinians could take possession of Israel... and NATO would leave Afghanistan... and the U.S. and the U.K. would leave Iraq... and the U.N. would stop bugging Iran about its nuclear program, all of this bloodshed would end!

Update: Nuke Gingrich has been working the calculator and the results ain't promising.

News flash: the Sun is a major cause of Global Warming

 
Science website Space.com highlights what many scientists have been saying for years (while being completely ignored by Al Gore and the mainstream media). That is, solar cycles are responsible for significant percentages of -- if not all -- measurable global warming activity.


Shhhh... no one tell the IPCC. This revelation might interfere with the UN's global warming bunko scam and Al Gore's burgeoning Carbon Offset business.

Hat tip: the Astute Bloggers

Immigration: Congress at the helm

 
I had a vision for a political cartoon but The Orange County Register's Mike Shelton beat me to it.


Congress: Seal the border - then we'll talk!

Monday, May 21, 2007

The Abominabill: Immigration and the Blogosphere

 
Is it really that hard for these simpletons in Congress to comprehend? Seal the border, then we'll talk. I've summarized the message from some of the blogosphere's luminaries. The message should be crystal clear even to the so-called Republicans who appear to be kowtowing to Ted Kennedy.

Ace of Spades: A Disaster for the Economy...
Dr. Robert Rector, Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, talks with Mark Levin about the costs of amnesty:

Take-away: Every low-income citizen added to the population collects, on average, $30,000 per year from the government in services -- schooling, hospitals, Social Security (including supplemental SS for low income people who haven't paid much into the system), Medicaid, etc.

Each low-income citizen pays about $10,000 per year in taxes, total.

Net: Each new low-income citizen added to the population costs the nation around $18,000 per year, to be borne by other taxpayers.

At retirement, it gets worse.

Total cost: $2.5 trillion (with a t) flowing out of Social Security and Medicaid at just about the time the system's already going bankrupt due to the end of the huge wave of Boomer retiring and collecting from the smaller post-Boomer age cohorts.


Macsmind: Slowing down the stampede to Immigration Reform...
As you know I’ve been saying we need to wait and see before prejudging the proposed immigration bill. Now that I’ve reviewed many of the main points of reference I have one thing to say. Wait a minute!

...The fact that McCain is losing it when asked the simplest question about it, and that there seems to this mad rush to passing it, I say - wait. In reading some of the tenants of the proposal I had far too many “What the??” moments to count. Far too many to simply “slide it through” for expediency.

Time for a prolonged debate.


John Hawkins: Project Payback: Google-Bombing Pro-Amnesty, Republican Senators Up For Election In 2008...
Since 2005, conservatives have been loudly saying, secure the border, build the fence, crack down on the people hiring illegal aliens, and no amnesty. Because those conservatives have put the interests of the American people above those of illegal aliens, they've been ignored, insulted, and talked down to -- not just by the Democrats, which is to be expected, but by Republican senators.

The latest amnesty bill, which was pushed through by Ted Kennedy without going through normal channels in the Senate, is as wildly unpopular as any bill in recent memory with conservatives. For example, on Friday I put up a poll here at Right Wing News that read, "What do you think of the illegal immigration bill the Senate is poised to pass?" 1552 people voted in that poll by the time this post was written and here are the results:

It sounds like a good bill. I support it. (4%)
It sounds like a bad bill. I oppose it. (96%) ...


Captain's Quarters: Cloture Means You Never Have To Say You're Sorry...
This bill has many complexities that have to be researched and analyzed before anyone can think about limiting debate. So far, I have not even heard that the legislation has been entered into the record -- so no one even has an official copy of the bill. That means that advocates want to press for approval before anyone reads it and has a chance to offer improvements. What exactly does that say about this legislation?

And what exactly is the rush? This proposal purports to solve a number of problems -- border security, the status of 12 million people illegally residing in our country, labor management for low-skilled jobs, and the creation of a vast bureaucracy to handle all of these projects. All address problems that have existed for 21 years. Can't we take a couple of weeks, at least, to peruse the bill to make sure it does it effectively?

And if not, why not?

This Congress has kept troops in combat waiting over 100 days for funding and supplies like the AMRAP armor that could save their lives. That's something that should have been completed in a week. It's beyond ridiculous to insist that Congress immediately pass something of this complexity with the barest of analysis, and it underscores the impression that we're being sold a bill of goods.


Hugh Hewitt: Necessary Amendments And An Argument For Discretion...

... Construction of at least half of the double-fencing prior to the issuance of a single probationary visa, and completion of all 800+ miles of the double fencing prior to the issuance of any 4 year Z visa or any Y visa.

... Acceleration of the six-year build-up in the authorized level of Border Patrol agents so that its number of agents reaches 25,000 within 3 years with the funding for their hiring in place. This should be another hard trigger.

... A detailed statement of how and by whom the millions of background checks and interviews called for by the act are to be done, with funding authorized and allocated to support such obligations. This should also be a trigger.


LGF: Immigration Bill Online...

N.Z. Bear has put the entire proposed Immigration Bill online in HTML form (all 326 pages), and also posted some notes on using it.

And now that we’ve had a few days worth of pundits, talk shows, and blogs sounding off on it, here’s another silly internet poll to see if LGF readers’ views have changed from the overwhelmingly negative response in the last one...


Powerline: "F*** you": The inside story...

Senator McCain has been largely missing from the Senate since late March, when it became apparent his fundraising operation was seriously lagging. Senator McCain hasn’t made a Senate vote in the past five weeks. But he wanted to be front and center when the immigration bargain was announced, and Kennedy and Specter did everything they could to accommodate him. They reserved the Senate press gallery room for 1:30 p.m. Thursday, just in time for Senator McCain to attend before heading out to New York for more fundraising.

A minor problem arose. Bush administration negotiators and a bipartisan Senate group had been meeting several days a week since February, often with glacial progress. (McCain rarely attended, though his staff was there.) As of Thursday morning, however, agreement hadn’t been reached. A final meeting started at 10 a.m. in hopes of finishing the deal. With a dozen Senators, two Cabinet members (Chertoff and Gutierrez) and perhaps 15 staffers in the room discussing an unpublished documents exceeding 300 pages in length, it was slow going. Senator Cornyn, tacitly supported by Sen. Jon Kyl, pushed hard to streamline legal procedures to allow prompt deportation of illegals. Senator Kennedy resisted.

As the clock moved closer to 1:30 p.m., Senator McCain suddenly lost it. "This is chickenshit," he told Senator Cornyn. "I think it would expedite things if you would just leave the room, Senator, so we can get along with finishing this up." Senator Cornyn responded: "Wait a minute. We’ve been meeting for three months on this in good faith, and now you parachute in here this morning and tell me to leave? I think you’re out of line."

Senator McCain responded: "F*** you! I know what is going on here. I know more about immigration than anybody in this room!” Other Senators moved in to calm things down, and the talks went on. Senator Cornyn’s provision was not included. At 1:30 p.m. sharp, the conferees (not including Senators Cornyn or Menendez and a few other negotiators) were in the press gallery, congratulating each other. Senator Kennedy recognized Senator McCain early to make his televised comments, then Senator McCain departed before the press conference was over for a flight to New York City. Later that afternoon, he missed yet another Senate vote -– this one on the Democrats' $2.9 trillion budget plan, an outline for the largest tax increase in U.S. history...

Detecting a trend yet?

A Texas-sized hat tip to Larwyn

Open Letter to all GOP Senators

 
Subject: Respectfully request you call a halt to this disastrous bill

Senator, as a longtime GOP supporter, I respectfully request that you and other Republican leaders call a halt to this disastrous immigration bill.

Conservatives and many centrists want enforcement of existing immigration laws first and foremost. What is proposed is instead an enormously complex amnesty program, which is certain to foist another tremendous bureaucracy on the public.

Furthermore, it will lead to permanent Democratic majorities and an outrageous tax burden on Americans. Please join with us in halting this abominable piece of legislation.

Sincerely,

Doug Ross

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Don Surber, Walter Williams tag-team Al Gore and Tom Teepen

 
Al Gore has gotten huge lately. And I don't mean just physically. Sure, he may in fact be visible from space, but more importantly, a grass-roots presidential campaign has emerged in recent months. The "Draft Gore 2008" campaign is a touch comical given his recent efforts to take commercial advantage of the publicity surrounding climate change.


The 'draft Gore' exertions highlight a certain blissful naivety (note: I restrained myself and didn't say "gullibility" this time) present in certain segments of the electorate.

Why do I consider these well-meaning citizens naive? First, consider that Gore's 10,000-square foot Nashville estate consumes roughly $2,400 a month in gas and electric bills, including $500 a month for the pool-house. Gore also has two additional homes including a 4,000 square foot Arlington, Virginia mansion. And, while promoting his recent movie, Gore traveled in private jets rather than on commercial flights. So, when it comes to personal sacrifice, Gore isn't exactly making himself an eco-martyr.


Then there are the facts behind global warming itself. In a recent op-ed, the brilliant Walter Williams shredded the "science" surrounding the human causation of climate change. Put simply, the assertion that we can control the Earth's temperature dials by suppressing industrial economies is the modern-day equivalent of alchemy, only without the intellectual rigor.

About 65 million years ago, the Earth experienced one of the most rapid and extreme global climate changes recorded in geologic history. The period has been named the "Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum." The ocean was 18 to 27 degrees hotter than it is today. Antarctica, which is today's coldest place on Earth, was home to temperate forests, beech trees and ferns. The Earth had no permanent polar ice caps.

In the past 65 million years, the Earth's temperature has increased and decreased with no help from mankind. My questions to the anti-climate change warriors are: Can mankind really stop climate change, and what is the "correct" Earth temperature? [Ed: emphasis mine]

Don Surber notes several little-publicized events in which scientists increasingly question Gore's eco-hysteria using -- who'd have thunk it? -- science, as opposed to YouTube videos of glaciers collapsing into the sea.

Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week... Man’s contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn’t change the climate if we tried, he maintained.

“We’re all going to survive this. It’s all going to be a joke in five years,” he said.


[...and...]

Major cuts in carbon emissions would hurt the nation’s economy and provide little or no environmental benefit, a top hurricane predictor said Friday... And there’s scant evidence that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases affect hurricane power or frequency, professor William Gray told an audience Friday, the final day of the Governor’s Hurricane Conference in Fort Lauderdale.

But Oscar-winning expert Al Gore said penguins are walking across the Sahara...

Augie Auer said carbon dioxide as a result of man’s activities was only 3.2% of that, hence only 0.12% of the greenhouse gases in total. Human-related methane, nitrogen dioxide and CFCs etc made similarly minuscule contributions to the effect: 0.066%, 0.047% and 0.046% respectively.

And we’re going to waste trillions of dollars worrying about that 0.12%? Especially when the actual cause of Earth’s temperature fluctations is the Sun’s own temperature fluctuations?

Never one to let the facts get in the way of a business opportunity, Al Gore continues to shill for shutting down industrial capacity and for increasing the size of the "carbon-offset" market.


Carbon offsets are, of course, the so-called 'currency' that allows polluters to make up for their emissions. What Gore isn't telling you is that a wide range of respected scientists, environmentalists, researchers, agriculturalists, and activists -- on the left, mind you -- believe that carbon offsets are a "scam", "fantasy", "fiction", "nonsense", "fraudulent" and worse. In fact, whenever I hear the term, I catch the distinct whiff of a junk-bond scheme, only updated for the era of eco-hysterics.


Of course, a little science never stopped Democratic party public relations hacks -- er, I mean op-ed columnists -- like Tom Teepen from slamming the GOP. In a series of columns, Teepen pilloried three GOP presidential non-contenders (Brownback, Huckabee, and Tancredo -- quick, name their home states!) for questioning Darwin's theory of evolution.

So far has the Republican Party fallen into a sink of anti-intellectualism. Indeed, into fantasy. One doesn't believe in or not believe in evolution, any more than one believes or not in physics...

Republicans, as a party, have moved a broad contempt for science toward the center of their vaunted "values..."

Teepen, Democratic party shill that he is, can't see the hypocrisy that oozes from every pore. Al Gore and his merry band of eco-marketers have used every tactic imaginable to silence the scientists who question his climate change campaign and carbon offset rhetoric.


Instead, Gore and his PR hacks have run rough-shod over any scientists who point to history and question the advisability of destroying the global economy to enrich the carbon offset marketeers. Don't look for a column on this topic any time soon from the likes of Teepen, Dowd, and Cohen.

Ted Kennedy, latter-day Nostradumass

 
The National Review introduces evidence of Ted Kennedy's formidable prognosticative powers (and, no, I don't care if it's a word or not).

1965: "The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."


Prepare to repel boarders!

1986: "This amnesty will give citizenship to only 1.1 to 1.3 million illegal aliens. We will secure the borders henceforth. We will never again bring forward another amnesty bill like this."

2007: "Now it is time for action. 2007 is the year we must fix our broken system."

Now, that's believable!

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

Hillary '08 Bumper Sticker


Available as (a) a biodegradable bumper sticker; (b) a fireproof flag; and (c) a plexiglass ornamental paperweight perfect for hurling through Republican campaign office windows.