The First Law

Sultan Knish has written yet another hard hitting article about the West's reaction to Islamic rage:

The first law of human affairs is force. Before all other laws, the ballot box and appeals to reason is that primal law that enforces submission through violence. Islam is a religion built on that first law, forcing everyone to choose whether they will be the oppressors or the oppressed, whether they will be a Muslim or a Dhimmi.

The organizing force of Islam can be seen in urban gangs which react in much the same way to being 'disrespected'. When your religion is little more than an entitlement to be a thug, to elevate your way of life over that of everyone else, violent outrage over even the most minute sign of disrespect is to be expected. And when your beliefs are little more than an excuse to hate, rioting over a slight is the  sacrament of your faith.

Islam did not expand through the persuasiveness of its illiterate child abusing founder, at least not beyond the initial persuasion that allowed him to gather bandit troops to raid, murder and enslave the multicultural peoples of the desert until there was nothing left but Muslims and their slaves. It expanded by force and it has gone on expanding by force. Faced with advanced civilizations, it has reacted with the violent petulant fury that is its spiritual heritage.

The first law is the only true law of Islam. That is the law being practiced by the Afghan rioters and murderers outraged over the burnings of already defaced Korans, as their counterparts have gone on similar rampages over cartoons of Mohammed, the Satanic Verses, Facebook postings and anything else which triggered their rage. This violence has the same goal of all Islamic terror, to maintain the privileged status of Muslims and enforce the submission of non-Muslims.

Harsh words, indeed, but the deaths of U.S. military members this past week underscore the difficulty of engaging with a culture that still remains wedded to uncivilized behaviors of the distant past.  If one had taken the 'first law' into account, it would have been intuitively obvious that U.S. apologies would lead to more deaths of our military.  In our initial reaction to 9/11, we demonstrated that we were the 'strong horse' and were willing to kill those who killed our citizens and allies. This resulted in the Taliban being driven from Afghanistan and Muammar Quadaffi voluntarily giving up his WMD programs.  Our constant apologies and drive to be perfect in warfare with no collateral damage or casualties have changed Islamic perception of our image to that of the 'weak horse.'  By constantly gifting Islamic rage with victim status, we continue to reinforce the behavior and further put off the day when Islam matures and reaches the 21st century.

In short, the murder of our military should have resulted in the immediate destruction of every known Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan and Pakistan--with no apologies.

Read the whole article here.

What Happens When You Actually Apply Science to "Global Warming, er, We Mean Climate Change"

Dr. Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently testified before the United Kingdom's House of Commons on the subject of climate change.  As Dr. Lindzen stated:

Stated briefly, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about. It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is. It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.

Dr. Lindzen goes on to talk about specific problems with the 'science' being relied upon by "Global Warming, er, We Mean Climate Change" alarmists:

Some current problems with science:

1. Questionable data. (Climategate and involvement of all three centers tracking global average temperature anomaly.) This is a complicated ethical issue for several reasons. Small temperature changes are not abnormal and even claimed changes are consistent with low climate sensitivity. However, the public has been mislead to believe that whether it is warming or cooling – no matter how little – is of vital importance. Tilting the record slightly is thus of little consequence to the science but of great importance to the public perception.

2. More sophisticated data is being analyzed with the aim of supporting rather than testing models (validation rather than testing). That certainly has been my experience during service with both the IPCC and the National Climate Assessment Program. It is also evident in the recent scandal concerning Himalayan glaciers.

3. Sensitivity is a crucial issue. This refers to how much warming one expects from a given change in CO2 (usually a doubling). It cannot be determined by assuming that one knows the cause of change. If the cause is not what one assumes, it yields infinite sensitivity. This problem infects most attempts to infer climate sensitivity from paleoclimate data.

4. Models cannot be tested by comparing models with models. Attribution cannot be based on the ability or lack thereof of faulty models to simulate a small portion of the record. Models are simply not basic physics.

All the above and more are, nonetheless, central to the IPCC reports that supposedly are ‘authoritative’ and have been endorsed by National Academies and numerous professional societies.

Dang! So does this mean we have to give up our new 'religion' of "Global Warming, er, we mean Climate Change?"

Given that this has become a quasi-religious issue, it is hard to tell. However, my personal hope is that we will return to normative science, and try to understand how the climate actually behaves. Our present approach of dealing with climate as completely specified by a single number, globally averaged surface temperature anomaly, that is forced by another single number, atmospheric CO2 levels, for example, clearly limits real understanding; so does the replacement of theory by model simulation. In point of fact, there has been progress along these lines and none of it demonstrates a prominent role for CO2. It has been possible to account for the cycle of ice ages simply with orbital variations (as was thought to be the case before global warming mania); tests of sensitivity independent of the assumption that warming is due to CO2 (a circular assumption) show sensitivities lower than models show; the resolution of the early faint sun paradox which could not be resolved by greenhouse gases, is readily resolved by clouds acting as negative feedbacks.

So, how does Dr. Lindzen sum up the impending catastrophe of "Global Warming, er, We Mean Climate Change" rushing down upon us like the 'Sweet Meteor of Death:'

Discussion of other progress in science can also be discussed if there is any interest. Our recent work on the early faint sun may prove particularly important. 2.5 billion years ago, when the sun was 20% less bright (compared to the 2% change in the radiative budget associated with doubling CO2), evidence suggests that the oceans were unfrozen and the temperature was not very different from today’s. No greenhouse gas solution has worked, but a negative cloud feedback does.

You now have some idea of why I think that there won’t be much warming due to CO2, and without significant global warming, it is impossible to tie catastrophes to such warming. Even with significant warming it would have been extremely difficult to make this connection.

Perhaps we should stop accepting the term, ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. Quite the contrary, the failure to improve the case over 20 years makes the case even less plausible as does the evidence from climategate and other instances of overt cheating.

In the meantime, while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age.

Thwack! That's going to leave a mark. Be sure to read all of Dr. Lindzen's testimony to see the supporting data and graphics. It will leave you with no doubt that the good doctor knows what he's talking about--and that we and our governments are being forced to change our laws and societies, and pay billions (and eventually trillions) of dollars/pounds/euros by people who don't know what the hell they're talking about (but remember, they are morally superior to the rest of us because they care so much more about the planet than we do).  Remember that the next time your Chevy Volt catches fire.

Hat tip: The telegraph.co.uk via Dinocrat

Toxic Islam

Amil Imani writes in the American Thinker about the need for Islam to get away from "toxic Islam:"

Detoxification is the physiological or psychological removal of toxic substances from a living organism. "Toxic Islam" is a type of dependence inducing "potion." In the same way that, let us say, alcohol is. Millions and perhaps billions of people imbibe alcohol. A great majority of these consumers qualify as moderate and social drinkers. Drinking alcohol may do them some psychological good but may also inflict some health problems and a monetary price. Yet, a vast number of human beings find enough "comfort" to put up with the monetary, health, relationships, and other costs of their drinking.

A certain number of these people are the heavy drinkers who are severely dependent and reliant on the drug. And there are those who are infrequent drinkers. They may have some wine at Christmas or on their birthday. And finally, there are those who are teetotalers. They never touch the stuff. So, you have what statisticians call a "bell curve" -- people distribute themselves along the drinking dimension as a bell-shaped function. Some are on one extreme, some on the other, with the great majority between the two extremes.

The same bell curve applies to Muslims. Islam is habit-forming. Just like alcohol. How strongly habit forming? It depends on the person and his circumstances. Is Islam "beneficial" to the person? For some it is. For others, toxic Islam is life itself, just like booze for the skid-row alcoholic.

 Read the whole article here.  I pray that Amil and his fellow Iranians succeed--for all of our sakes.

Setting Down The Legal (Sharia) Precedents For Destroying Israel

Andrew Bostom over at National Review Online has written a very chilling article on how Iran is setting the stage for destroying Israel:

Reza Khalili (pseudonym), a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has reported the latest restatement of the Iranian Shiite theocracy’s Jew-annihilationist jihadism:

Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove “this corrupting material. It is a ‘jurisprudential justification’ to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”

The article, written by Alireza Forghani, an analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei’s camp, now is being run on most state-owned sites, including the Revolutionary Guards’ Fars News Agency, showing that the regime endorses this doctrine.

As Andrew points out in his article, the Iranians have engaged in Jew hatred for hundreds of years.

The Persianophilic scholar E. G. Browne wrote those words in the 1920s about the entire pre-Pahlavi period of Shiite theocratic rule, from the ascension of the first Safavid shah, Ismail I, at the outset of the 16th century through Reza Shah Pahlavi’s installation in 1925, at the end of the Qajar dynasty. These Shiite clerics emphasized the notion of the ritual uncleanliness (najis) of Jews in particular, but also of Christians, Zoroastrians, and others, as the cornerstone of relations toward non-Muslims. The impact of this najis conception was already apparent to European visitors to Persia during the reign of Ismail I. The Portuguese traveler Tome Pires observed (between 1512 and 1515) that “Sheikh Ismail . . . never spares the life of any Jew,” while another European travelogue notes “the great hatred [Ismail I] bears against the Jews.”

The writings and career of Mohammad Baqer al-Majlisi elucidate the imposition of Islamic law (Sharia) on non-Muslims in Shiite Iran. Al-Majlisi (d. 1699) was perhaps the most influential cleric of the Safavid Shiite theocracy in Persia. For six years at the end of the 17th century, he functioned as the de facto ruler of Iran, making him the Ayatollah Khomeini of his era. By design, he wrote many works in Persian to disseminate key aspects of the Shia ethos among ordinary persons. In his Persian treatise “Lightning Bolts Against the Jews,” Al-Majlisi describes the standard humiliating requisites for non-Muslims living under sharia, first and foremost the blood-ransom jizya, or poll-tax, based on Koran 9:29.

 Read the whole article.  It does not bode well for the West. We are too used to thinking that our "hearts and minds" information operations campaigns will change centuries of cultural behavior (see LTC Daniel Davis' article in Armed Forces Journal regarding his recent observations in Afghanistan--and, having done so, ensured that he will never be promoted to COL Davis).

The Generational Wars

John J. Xenakis has a thought provoking article in bigpeace.com regarding inter-generational conflicts.

Throughout my lifetime, one historical question I’ve heard raised over and over again involved the Nazi Holocaust: How was it possible that ordinary Germans participated in the genocide of millions of perfect nice, loyal German citizens, simply because they were Jewish? One might attribute the attitude of Adolf Hitler himself to some kind of psychosis, but how is it conceivable that ordinary Germans apparently had no “moral compass,” and willingly proceeded in this genocide? More broadly, why is it that Jews in particular have been persecuted in many countries throughout history? Generational Dynamics theory provides a proposed explanation for all of these questions.

From the point of view of generational theory, there is a catastrophe in progress in the current time that is equivalent to the Holocaust: The financial crisis, caused by “financial engineers” in banks and other institutions around the world that purposely created highly complex but fraudulent synthetic securities, and then paid off peers at ratings agencies to give them AAA ratings. How could so many ordinary professionals, including lawyers, accountants and regulators, consistently abandon their professional ethics to create such a massive fraud that’s destroyed so many lives, with the worst yet to come?

The Holocaust is a uniquely violent event in human history, and no Gen-Xers have killed Boomers in the financial crisis. But the two events share the same kind of underlying generational behavior, differing only in degree.

His portrayal of Generation X versus Baby Boomers is very interesting and on its face explains a lot about what is happening today.

Read the whole article.

Hat tip: BigPeace.com

It Always Pays To Dig Deeper

President Obama's decision to kill the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada was not only a blow to our economy and energy independence, there are significant secondary effects:

North Dakota oil drillers increasingly will rely on trains to move barrels of crude to market after the Obama administration's decision to reject plans for a pipeline that would run from Canada to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico, state and industry officials say.

And what train system is used to move crude from North Dakota?  Why, that would be Burlington Northern Santa Fe.  And who owns Burlington Northern Santa Fe?  Why, that would be Berkshire Hathaway, of which BNSF is now a subsidiary.  And who owns Berkshire Hathaway? Why, that would be Warren Buffett, President Obama's financial adviser and Democrat Party supporter. 

So, not only does President Obama make his environmental voter base happy, he also does a huge financial favor for one of his supporters.  I believe that's called Crony Capitalism.  (And, even better, the President's latest re-election commercial claims that he has increased our energy independence. Wonder if that's a reference to the failed Chevy Volt...)

Amazing how these things work, eh?

Hat tip: Instapundit

Three Fundamental Mistakes In Dealing With Islam

Sultan Knish has a great article (same title as above) on our mistakes in dealing with Islam:

We made three fundamental mistakes in our dealings with Islam. First, we assumed that the only politically acceptable answer was also the right answer. This is the most common mistake that politicians make.

 Second, we established a construct of a moderate and extreme Islam that reflected how we saw it from the outside. This construct had no theological relationship to any actual belief or movement within Islam. Had we made the division into modern and fundamentalist, we would at least have been using words that meant something. Instead we used moderate and extreme in a military sense to mean hostile and friendly or neutral. But as a Vietnam era president and military command should have known, in a guerrilla war not everyone who isn't shooting at you is friendly or even neutral.

Our construct was black and white with few shades of gray. But the Muslim world is all shades of gray. The absolute choice we wanted them to make, "you're either with us or with the terrorists", was foreign to their culture and their way of life. Multiple layers of contradictory relationships and alliances are the norm in the region. You expect to betray and be betrayed, much as you expect to cheat and be cheated while bartering for a carpet at the souk. In a region where coalitions of Fascists, Communists and Islamists are doable, contradictions don't exist, all alliances are expedient and built on an expected betrayal. The rise of Islam itself was built on broken peace treaties. So it is no wonder then that in response to Bush's call, they chose both us and the terrorists. Appeasing America and the Islamists at the same time was their version of the politically safe middle ground, the path of least resistance and the only acceptable option.

And the more we prattled about the peacefulness of Islam, the more we looked like we could be easily appeased with a few gestures. And so it was the Islamists who were more threatening, who got the benefit of of their appeasement. We had asked Muslim countries for an alliance with no mixed allegiances, in a region where only kin could ask or count on such an arrangement. And we are not their kin, neither by blood and certainly not by religion. While we insisted that all people were the same, this was a statement of our belief, not theirs. And they did not believe that we believed it either.

Rather than learning what the Muslim world was, we had already decided what we wanted it to be. But our perspective was a foreign one. They might pander to it, but they would never dictate their own beliefs by it. We might talk of a moderate or extreme Islam, but that is our idea, not theirs. There is more than one form of Islam, they are not defined by their extremism or moderation. Nor by their approach toward violence. No more than we are.

Muslim theology is violent, because violence has always been a tool of its expansion. When we ask Muslims to disassociate themselves from violence, we are really asking them to disassociate themselves from Islam. And this they will not do. They will contextually condemn some acts of terror, depending on the identity of the perpetrators and the targets, and the impact of the acts on the nation and ideology of the Muslim or Muslims in question. But they will dub other acts of terrorist as valid resistance. The differences are not moral, but contextual.

 Read the whole article here.

This One's For Susanne

 

Hat tip: The Conservative Treehouse  via Doug Ross@Journal

No Matter How Much You Polish It...

... it's still a turd.

2012 Prediction: Pain

Daniel Greenfield (of the Sultan Knish blog) points out how 2011 has set us up for a very difficult 2012:

The news that the Obama Administration has brought in genocidal Muslim Brotherhood honcho Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to discuss terms of surrender for the transfer of Afghanistan to the Taliban caps a year in which the Brotherhood and the Salafists are looking up carve up Egypt, the Islamists won Tunisia's elections, Turkey's Islamist AKP Party purged the last bastions of the secular opposition and Libya's future as an Islamist state was secured by American, British and French jets and special forces.

Time Magazine declared that 2011 was the Year of the Protester, they might have more honestly called it the Year of the Islamist. In 2010 the Taliban were still hiding in caves. In 2012 they are set to be in power from Tunisia to Afghanistan and from Egypt to Yemen. They won't go by that name of course. Most of them will have elaborate names with the words "Justice" or "Community" in them, but they will for the most part be minor variations on the Muslim Brotherhood theme.

2011 will indeed be remembered, but not because of any Arab Spring or OWS nonsense. It will be a pivotal year in the rise of the next Caliphate. A rise disguised by angry protesters waving cell phones and flags. And clueless media coverage that treated Tahrir Square as the new fall of the Berlin Wall.

This was the year that Obama helped topple several regimes that served as the obstacles to Islamist takeovers. The biggest fish that Ibn Hussein speared out of the sea for Al-Qaradawi was Egypt, a prize that the Islamists had wanted for the longest time, but had never managed to catch. That is until the Caliph-in-Chief got it for them. Egyptian Democracy splits the take between the Brotherhood and the Salafists, whom the media is already quick to describe as moderates. First up against the wall are the Christians. Second up against the wall are the Jews. Third up is all that military equipment we provided to the Egyptian military which will shortly be finding its way to various "moderate militants" who want to discuss our foreign policy with us.

 Read the rest here.

Hat tip: The Gateway Pundit

Party Like It's 1932

Dominic Sandbrook of the UK's Daily Mail Online posted a chilling article comparing 2012 to 1932.

The dawn of a new year is usually a time of hope and ambition, of dreams for the future and thoughts of a better life. But it is a long time since many of us looked forward to the new year with such anxiety, even dread.

Here in Britain, many economists believe that by the end of 2012 we could well have slipped into a second devastating recession. The Coalition remains delicately poised; it would take only one or two resignations to provoke a wider schism and a general election.

But the real dangers lie overseas. In the Middle East, the excitement of the Arab Spring has long since curdled into sectarian tension and fears of Islamic fundamentalism. And with so many of the world’s oil supplies concentrated in the Persian Gulf, British families will be keeping an anxious eye on events in the Arab world.

Meanwhile, as the eurozone slides towards disaster, the prospects for Europe have rarely been bleaker. Already the European elite have installed compliant technocratic governments in Greece and Italy, and with the markets now putting pressure on France, few observers can be optimistic that the Continent can avoid a total meltdown.

As commentators often remark, the world picture has not been grimmer since the dark days of the mid-Seventies, when the OPEC oil shock, the rise of stagflation and the surge of nationalist terrorism cast a heavy shadow over the Western world.

For the most chilling parallel, though, we should look back exactly 80 years, to the cold wintry days when 1931 gave way to 1932.

 Read the whole article here.

Hat tip: Instapundit

A Marine's Christmas Song

This is for all my brothers and sisters in arms.  He may not have the voice of an American Idol contestant, but it's from the heart--and that's what's important.

Being overseas in some dung hole is hard, but it's harder on the families.  You know that you're okay, but your families wonder every moment that you're gone whether or not you're unharmed, and if you're going to come back home in one piece.

Those who raise their right hand and swear to defend our nation comprise less than one percent of our population. They are the thin line between those who would do us harm and our families.  They are the very best of us.  And in this Christmas season, God bless our troops is more than just a saying.It is a prayer that all of our warriors return home safely to their families, that someday we can beat our swords into plowshares, and not have to study war any more.

Merry Christmas, warriors.

Kim Jong-il Would Have Been So Proud...

U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree Pays Homage to Obama—But Not Jesus:

(CNSNews.com) - The 63-foot Sierra White Fir lighted at the U.S. Capitol Grounds on Dec. 6 as the official 2011 Capitol Christmas Tree includes a prominently displayed ornament paying homage to President Barack Obama, but includes no ornament readily visible to a person standing near the tree's base that uses the word “Christmas,” or includes an image of the Nativity, or bears the name or image of Jesus Christ.

From teaching small school children to sing songs praising him to Christmas trees adoring him, leftists and the Democrat Party (but I repeat myself) are doing their best to imitate the worst cult practices of tyrannical regimes around the world (see China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Iraq, etc.).

How sad.

A Sudden Flare-up In The Fires of Hell

Kim Jong-Il has finally snuffed it.  I'm sure the millions of North Koreans starved to death and murdered by his regime observed from Heaven that the fires of Hell surged mightily at his arrival.

Well, well, well, if it isn't KJI! We've been waiting a long time for you!

Hat tip: Long suffering humanity

The United States of Europe?

Europe is becoming more and more a warning sign for the U.S.:

There are all kinds of scenarios for how the crisis will play out, and none of them end well. Last week’s agreement may not see the light of day in its present form — several governments are consulting their parliaments and some, such as Ireland, have indicated that they may put the deal to a referendum. (This is flirting with danger: Greek Prime Minster George Papandreou was forced out by “Merkozy” and the technocrats for threatening to put the latest bailout plan for his country to the people. It’s enough to make one nostalgic for the days when Europe’s leaders at least allowed referendums to take place, and simply ignored the result if it didn’t go their way.) Governments and leaders are likely to fall, whether kicked out by their austerity-weary electorates or, as in Italy and Greece, led away by the men in white coats from Brussels.

 Whatever the outcome, millions of Europeans, particularly in the southern states, are being condemned to decades of high taxes and high unemployment, while having to work longer than they’d expected for reduced pensions and enduring swinging cuts to public services. But all the while the elites will keep pressing for ever-closer union — assuring their citizens that however bad things seem now, they’d be worse off outside the eurozone. British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s warning, made when he opposition leader back in 1998, that a European single currency area would become “a burning building with no exits,” has been thoroughly vindicated.

In the U.S., meanwhile, there’s growing concern both over the level of banks’ exposure to European debt, and the prospect of a default or another credit rating downgrade on the continent causing a new credit crunch and plunging the country back into recession. But whatever the immediate consequences, the crisis engulfing Europe might at least help to persuade Americans that they need to step back from the edge of the statist abyss to which President Obama has led them.  The crisis engulfing Europe is the supreme indictment of the centralized, big government, welfare state model.

And yet this is precisely the direction in which Barack Obama, should he win a second term, wants to take America (a bailout for California, anyone?). While looking to the U.S. as an approximate organizational model, the European elites would like their United States of Europe to have rather less democracy and accountability than currently prevails on the other side of the Atlantic. But if Obama gets his way, the U.S. of A. could in a few years be indistinguishable from the U.S. of E.  ~ Mike McNally

 Major hat tip to Doug Ross@Journal

Walken In A Winter Wonderland

 

He knows who's naughty or nice... he just doesn't give a rat's ass.

Hat tip: Stephanie Chambers

The Christmas (Noun)

Larry Correia continues his Christmas tradition: The Christmas Noun 3d The Gritty Reboot.  If you're not reading Larry's blog, you're missing a lot of fun.

Finishing the Job

President Obama told donors that he needs another term to 'finish the job.'

 

Really?  I think he's done enough, don't you?

Hat tip: The Gateway Pundit

Marxism - Another Name for 'Occupy Wall Street'

I find Marxism to be a vapid and ultimately, infantile, view of the world that has one sole interest – to invest a self-selected nomeklatura with the means to ideologically and morally justify the creation of a prison state. To stamp out individual volition and embrace the culture of the ant and the bee. To ensure that harmony is struck no matter what the human cost. Absent violence and mass privation, Marxism in the world of humanity simply does not ring true to both its ambitions and the fruit of its practice. Marxism is, at bottom, a death cult. ~ Bill Bupert

Hat tip: Doug Ross@Journal

1,821 Dead, 14,733 Wounded

Mullah Omar posted on the Taliban website this weekend that the impending U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is proof of our defeat:

For ten years now, our courageous Mujahideen have been engaging in Jihad against a cruel and incursive enemy for a noble cause and are presenting countless sacrifices in this path everyday. They have pushed the most materially advanced and arrogant power of the world to the verge of collapse with Allah’s Divine Help. Thousands of their troops have been killed and maimed while others face permanent disabilities and mental disorders, compelling their people to rise up in opposition and take to the streets. The American and Western people have no further taste for extending the Afghan war and seeing their soldiers return in coffins!!  It is only the Bounty and Grace of Allah Almighty that He chose us for the service of our country and Islam in this crucial and sensitive period and suppressed the greatest enemy of Islam with our hands. 

Mujahid Brothers! You know very well that our enemy is facing an unambiguous defeat. The ongoing Badre military operation tasked for the current year has quelled all of their conspiracies and designs. The enemy has suffered immense human and material losses in all parts of the country, including in the capital Kabul. In view of these prevailing sensitive conditions, all in authority and subjects should consolidate their unity because the enemy is now attempting to divide their ranks under various names. It is trying to attribute the perplexing and glorious operations, military advancements and achievements of Islamic Emirate to foreigners so to hide their shameful defeat and create artificial rationales for permanent presence in Afghanistan by falsely indicting the neighboring countries. But the enemy must realize that their purchased Jirgas and permanent bases have and will be strongly opposed by us and will on no account be permitted to materialize.

This is what the brilliant diplomacy of the current Administration has brought us.  It's no wonder that Hamid Karzai is sucking up to Iran and Pakistan.  All of the lives lost will have been for naught as the Taliban prepares to roll back into Afghanistan after we leave to fulfill a political campaign promise.

The lesson being taught to the world once again is that when you are in conflict with the United States, all you have to do is wait until the Democrat Party gains power in Washington.  Sadly, the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman demonstrates once again that since the 1960s the concept of victory in war is anathema to them--and that should permanently disqualify them from leading our nation.

Hat tip:  Ahmad Majidyar at National Review Online

History Is Important

The embedded video demonstrates how propaganda and the lack of an ethical mainstream media skews our understanding of important issues confronting our nation.  "Everyone knows" that the Republican Party is the party of rich white racists intent on keeping people down, while the Democratic Party is the party of the little guy and responsible for keeping evil racists in check.  Watch the video and decide for yourself.  And then ask yourself what other things that "everyone knows" that aren't what they seem (e.g., the Tea Party versus OccupyWallStreet), and why one side always seems to get hammered while the other always seems to skate.

Yet Another Indication That The United Nations Should Be Disbanded

In addition to spending most of their time wasting incredible sums of money propping up anti-Western regimes and providing a home for incompetent Third World bureaucrats, the UN lends its veneer of officialdom to blatant efforts to run the world the way fascist, anarchist, leftist, Marxist, feminist, enviro-Nazi activists (but I repeat myself) want it run.  Case in point: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.

IPCC reports on climate change have been constantly cited as the basis for those of us in the civilized world to give up modern energy sources and go back to living in huts because our actions are causing global warming... er, climate change.  Peter Foster of the Financial Post writes about Donna Laframboise’s book, The Delinquent Teenager Who was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert.

In her expose of the IPCC, Ms. Laframboise discovers that the IPCC reports are not even worth the paper they're printed on, much less for setting government and societal policies. As Mr. Foster writes:

In a meticulously referenced and deservedly praised page-turner, Ms. Laframboise, an accomplished journalist who turned to the skeptical blogosphere, demonstrates how the IPCC is a thoroughly political organization. Far from objectively weighing the best available science, it cherry-picks egregiously to support its main objective: to serve its government masters. Its lead authors are not the world’s leading scientists but frequently wet-behind-the-ears graduates, and/or ardent activists. They are also selected on the basis of gender and country “diversity” rather than expertise. The organization, Ms. Laframboise demonstrates, has also been thoroughly infiltrated by environmental NGOs, in particular the World Wildlife Fund.

The book elucidates how the panel’s much-vaunted “peer review” amounts to a “circular, incestuous process. Scientists make decisions as journal editors about what qualifies as peer-reviewed literature. They then cite the same papers they themselves played midwife to while serving as IPCC authors.” IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri’s claim that all the “Climate Bible’s” science is peer reviewed is, in any case, bunk. With a body of volunteers, Ms. Laframboise went through the 2007 report and found that more than 5,000 references — over a third — were from less-than-reliable sources. The most egregious such “grey” reference led to the claim that the Himalayan glaciers were to disappear by 2035. This terrifying assertion was traced back to the top of a non-expert’s head.

But, but... they're scientists, man!  How can such fraudulent activities occur?  Sadly, very easily, because our mainstream media is not about to call them out on it as it would (a) require work and research on their part, and (b) goes against the meme that global warming skeptics are evil conservatives against the planet because they hate polar bears and won't give up their guns, gas guzzling SUVs, and money.  Speaking of skeptics:

She introduces us to numerous well-credentialed skeptics, including Jason Johnston, an expert in environmental law, who set out to verify whether the ­IPCC reports in fact “conformed with the peer-reviewed climate science literature.” His conclusion: “on virtually every major issue in climate change science,” IPCC reports “systematically conceal or minimize what appear to be fundamental scientific uncertainties.”

The Delinquent Teenager reveals how inconvenient science has been buried and sums up: “The IPCC ignores the consensus among hurricane experts that there is no discernable link to global warning. It ignores the consensus among those who study natural disasters that there is no relationship between human greenhouse gas emissions and the rising cost of these disasters. It ignores the consensus among bona fide malaria experts that global warming has not caused malaria to spread. In each case the IPCC substitutes its own version of reality. In each case that version of reality makes global warming appear more frightening than genuine experts believe the available evidence indicates.”

 So, if you're busy hiding or ignoring science that disproves your positions, then there has to be other motivations.  You know, motivations like forcing the wealthy countries of the West to fork over all of their money and power to right thinking bureaucrats and activists to run the planet through treaties and other political bindings... because that's always worked so well in the past, right?

Hat tip: Doug Ross@Journal

Great Post at Powerline

A unified theory of left-wing causes

Steven Den Beste comments on Steve Hayward’s population bomb post:

Isn’t it interesting that no matter what the current global crisis is, according to leftists, the solution is always the same: a benevolent world dictatorship of the enlightened elite, and mass transfer of wealth from rich nations to poor nations.
That’s what they want to do about global warming. It’s what they wanted to do about overpopulation. It’s what they wanted to do about endangered species.

Yeah, I think Jonah Goldberg wrote a good book with this thesis.

JOHN adds: Bear in mind, too, that the remedy for global cooling, when that was feared during the 1970s, was the same as for global warming, overpopulation, etc.

Big ol' hat tip to Powerline

Why Do They Keep Lying? Because They're Scientists, Dammit!

Last week scientists from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project (BEST) at Berkeley, California (where else, of course), published their study claiming that once again the science was all settled--global warming is real, the planet has warmed one degree centigrade since 1950, and that warming is continuing. 

Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) claimed to have shown that the planet has warmed by almost a degree  centigrade since 1950 and is warming continually. Published last week ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa, next month, their work was cited around the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can save civilisation as we know it.

In other words, all of you unbelieving climate skeptics need to shut the hell up and get out of the way of right minded people trying to save the planet.

Of course, what they didn't mention is that one of the study's co-authors threw the bullshit flag and said that's not what the study showed.

Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no  scientific basis.  Prof Curry is a distinguished climate researcher with more than 30 years experience and the second named co-author of the BEST project’s four research papers.

It seems that Prof Muller published the studies before they were peer reviewed, and the graph he submitted with his press release was inaccurate, hiding the fact that global temperatures have not increased for 13 years despite rising CO2 levels.

Prof Muller defended his  behaviour yesterday, saying that all he was doing was ‘returning to traditional peer review’, issuing draft papers to give the whole ‘climate community’ a chance to comment.  As for the press release, he claimed he was ‘not seeking  publicity’, adding: ‘This is simply a way of getting the media to report this more accurately.’  He said his decision to publish was completely unrelated to the forthcoming United Nations  climate conference.  This, he said, was ‘irrelevant’, insisting that nothing could have been further from his mind than trying to influence it.

 Oh really? Nothing could have been further from your mind while you sabotaged the peer review process and published a misleading graph conveniently leaving out the halt in global warming?  Why should anyone complain--you were only emulating the lying con men at East Anglia University who conveniently lost all of the data behind their claims to keep others from duplicating their analysis because it was all for the morally superior crusade against man-caused global warming.  (And no one has yet to explain why global warming is a bad thing--think of all the new agricultural growing areas we'd gain in Siberia and Canada... maybe we could even grow grapes again in Greenland like they did several hundred years ago.)

Thank God there are still scientists out there with the integrity of Prof Curry.  The rest should be treated like the con men they are.

Hat tip: Small Dead Animals

Just As Successful As The Soviet Union...

As this chart from the Fed shows, all of the central planning efforts of the Obama Administration have made things much worse, not better.  You would think that three years of data such as the above would be enough to convince them that their methods/courses of action are wrong and that it's time to change.  To date, that has not happened--and thus one is compelled to wonder why.  For a potential explanation, click the link below.

Hat tip: Doug Ross@Journal

The Ultimate Game

 

Hat tip: xkcd

It's Confirmed -- The Universe Is Unfair!

Gleefully swiped from Ethan Siegel on Facebook.

Hat tip: The ever beautiful Bill the Viking, soldier of fortune at Ordo Aurum Malum

Remember, It's For The Children.... Naw, Just Kidding...It's For The Unions

Mark Steyn had yet another brilliant piece on NRO about the amount of money the U.S. spends on education as compared to other countries:

Since 1970, public-school employment has increased ten times faster than public-school enrollment. In 2008, the United States spent more per student on K–12 education than any other developed nation except Switzerland — and at least the Swiss have something to show for it. In 2008, York City School District spent $12,691 per pupil — or about a third more than the Swiss. Slovakia’s total per-student cost is less than York City’s current per-student deficit — and the Slovak kids beat the United States at mathematics, which may explain why their budget arithmetic still has a passing acquaintanceship with reality. As in so many other areas of American life, the problem is not the lack of money but the fact that so much of the money is utterly wasted.

But that’s no reason not to waste even more! So the president spent last week touring around in his weaponized Canadian bus telling Americans that Republicans were blocking plans to “put teachers back in the classroom.” Well, where are they now? Not every schoolmarm is down at the Occupy Wall Street drum circle, is she? No, indeed. And in that respect York City is a most instructive example: Five years ago (the most recent breakdown I have), the district had 440 teachers but 295 administrative and support staff. If you’re thinking that sounds a little out of whack, that just shows what a dummy you are: For every three teachers we “put back in the classroom,” we need to hire two bureaucrats to put back in the bureaucracy to fill in the paperwork to access the federal funds to put teachers back in the classroom. One day it will be three educrats for every two teachers, and the system will operate even more effectively.

That's the reason our taxes are going sky high to keep the education mafia going.  We don't dare say a word about it because the Marxist/Leninist Left, Democrat Party, teacher's unions, and mainstream media (but I repeat myself) will scream that we hate children--and that the only solution to our poor performance in education is to throw even more money at it (which, by the way, goes to the teacher unions who then spend it on buying politicians to keep feeding the education maw).

Sadly, all we are doing is paying for more administrators, union goons, and subsidizing curricula that have turned our children into uneducated idiots who feel really good about themselves.  Instead of being taught how to think and reason, our children are instead being fed pablum and Al Gore movies.  And now we see the full flowering of that indoctrination in the Occupy Wall Street/Wherever demonstrators demanding that we overturn the laws of economics and transform the U.S. into socialism/communism/anarchism because, even though it's failed in every other society in which it's been tried, they are so much smarter and can make it work here.

Well, welcome to the real world where the free market declared that your graduate degree in drumming just isn't worth the $100K you racked up in debt. And the fault for that can be laid directly at the feet of the 'professional' educators who refused to teach you how to reason because that's harder than having you cut out pictures of baby seals and learn all about evil corporations (and, if they taught you how to think and reason, you'd ask way to many embarrassing questions about the crap they've been feeding you all those years).

Arrogant, spoiled assclowns. And you want to spend even more of my tax money to cover your lack of judgement...

Hat tip: National Review Online

The Real 99%

 

 Hat tip: The Troglopundit

The Only Thing They Have To Fear Is... Freedom

Once again, adherents of Islam demonstrate that they have no faith in their faith.  'Extremists' in Somalia beheaded a 17 year old Christian boy.  If you get your news from the mainstream media, you wouldn't know of the continuing slaughter of non-Muslims by Muslims around the world--with the possible exception of the destruction of Christian Copts by our new buddies running Egypt (but that's mostly a by-product of them being there already covering the glorious 'Arab Spring'.)

How sad that Islamists are so uncertain of the durability of their faith that they resort to killing anyone who is not a Muslim--and especially killing anyone who leaves Islam for another religion.  No, rather than compete on the basis of ideas and concepts, they prefer to subjugate the world with the sword.

How insecure one must feel to have to kill anyone who doesn't follow their religion?  How insecure must they feel to keep females in slavery, treating them as property rather than human beings, murdering them at will for the concept of honor?  No wonder they struggle so hard to bring sharia to the West, for they need the shackles of the 14th Century to prevent Western culture and civilization from bringing Islam into the 21st century of tolerance and moderation.  For example, the Maldives passed the Protection of Religious Unity Act in 1994.

The Act outlaws promotion of anything that represents a religion other than Islam or any opinion that disagrees with Islamic scholars. It also prohibits use of any website, blog, newspaper, or magazine that contradicts Islam. Any violation under the Act is punishable by an imprisonment of between two and five years, banishment or house arrest. Foreigners who are found proselytizing are to be deported, it says.

But that's not enough for the current government, which published new regulations to ensure that Maldivans wouldn't be exposed to any new ideas.

The new set of regulations maintains a longtime ban on propagation, display and expression of any religion other than Islam. It also prohibits translation of books with such content into the local language, Dhivehi.

Islamists are scared 13-year-olds with weapons, demanding that we submit to their 'Lord of the Flies' reality.  They fear any competition based on ideals and ideas, because they subconsciously fear that they will lose.  Thus they murder their daughters and wives for the crime of wanting to be free.  Thus they slaughter followers of the 'Prince of Peace' because they obviously must believe that their 'Prophet of the Sword' cannot compete in the open market--and thus hide their fears behind cries of 'blasphemy.'  And their fear continues to burn the bridges between cultures and civilizations for all Muslims.

Islamic intolerance is building across the planet.  Pockets of sanity remain, but they are growing fewer and fewer.  If an Islamic Reformation, led from within by Muslims who want a better way for their faith and their families, does not happen, then I fear it will all come to a very bad end--for all of us.

Hat tip: Atlas Shrugs

And the Pattern Contined to Repeat Itself After the Election

Doug Ross has a great post about how the Obama campaign purposely enabled illegal contributions.  Of course, the mainstream media refused to cover this blatant disregard for U.S. law because it was their candidate doing it.  It also was the harbinger of future actions in which the law was ignored by the winners when it suited them (e.g., voter intimidation, Fast and Furious, vote fraud).

Read the whole piece and remember this is what it will look like in the political trenches of the 2012 election.  Get a helmet.

Occupy Wall Street - More Than Just Hippy Whining

Andrew Breitbart has been on the cutting edge of demonstrating why the mainstream media is no longer a purveyor of news but a provider of cover for the Left and the Democrat Party.  Don't believe me (or Andrew)? Then ask yourself why the MSM has refused to cover the Solyndra scandal in which half a billion taxpayer dollars were funneled to a failing 'green' company, or the 'Fast and Furious' scandal in which taxpayer money was used in at least one case to fund the purchase of arms and transfer to Mexican drug cartels--resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Mexicans and two U.S. federal agents (and yet the MSM has no interest in following up on Attorney General Holder's changing responses over time to the questions of what did he know and when did he know it).

It's no  different with the 'Occupy Wall Street' demonstrators.  Breitbart has come into the possession of thousands of emails and documents showing that the 'spontaneous' answer to the Tea Party from the Left was planned for some time.

Per the 8800+ pages of emails (3900+ emails), the Occupy movement has been in the works for some time. Its leaders apparently intend for it to broaden out and intertwine with the Days of Rage global initiative, which is set to begin on Saturday, October 15th. They also intend the demonstrations to continue indefinitely, as suggested in the following email, dated Monday, October 10:

Further, the purpose seems to be more than just bitching about student loans and how big business screws the people:

The true purpose of the Occupy movement appears to be further economic and governmental destabilization, at a time when the world is already facing major financial and political challenges. By embracing the Occupy movement, President Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, and their union allies may be supporting an effort to harm both the domestic and global economies; to create social unrest throughout the democratic world; and to embrace other radical causes, including the anti-Israel movement. Ironically, the emails suggest that the President and the Democrat Party may soon find their friends in the Occupy movement to be a political burden. The email below calls for the Occupy movement to begin “executing higher-risk actions, civil disobedience and arrests,” and suggests: “We must draw a line, disavow the Democrats explicitly, make our messaging a little uncomfortable.”

 Note how the organizers are already planning on distancing themselves from the Democrat Party so as not to damage them.

So here's your chance to do a little 'crowd sourcing.'  Follow this link to the email archive and see for yourself.  If the media and the Left (but I repeat myself) had no problem with crowd sourcing all of Sarah Palin's emails, then they shouldn't have a problem with you looking over theirs.

Hat Tip: Big Government

Liberate Wall Street - If Protest Signs Reflected Reality

 

Hat Tip:  The ever righteous The People's Cube

"Flea Party vs. Tea Party"

The Bear is off on vacation, so blogging has been the last thing on his mind; however, others are blogging away saying marvelous things.  Take, for example, Larry Correia, author of Monster Hunter International and other great books.

Larry has a great piece in his personal blog about the Occupy Whatever bunch and the Tea Party.

So Tea Party, doesn’t advocate violence, doesn’t make a mess, is polite, has a simple platform, and then goes back to work the next day = RACIST EXTREMIST VIOLENT NAZI WHACKJOBS!!!

Occupy Wall Street has thousands arrested, makes a mess, wants to guillotine rich folks, has a platform that reads like a less literate version of the Communist Manifesto, and camps out for weeks because they’ve not got anything better to do = REFRESHING VOICE FOR CHANGE.

Sure, nasty disease ridden hippie orgies are fun and all, but let’s take a look at what they’re protesting… For the first few weeks I thought it was that they were against “Greed”.  Wow.  That’s a bold statement. Take that Pro-Greed forces. Okay, specifically, they were against the bailouts. Cool. So was I. Funny, so was the Tea Party. You know what’s ironic though? You know who WASN’T against the bailouts? The guy I’m willing to bet most of the Occupiers voted for last time and will probably vote for again.

So the Tea Party and the Occupiers agree that government bailing out big corporations is bad. The difference between these two protestor groups (besides personal hygiene, coherence, the amount of taxes they’ve paid, and the ability to pass a drug screening) is their answer. The Tea Party wants to make the government smaller so they can’t do stuff like this. The Occupiers want to reward the guilty party and make it bigger and more powerful, because… Hell… I can’t figure it out.

The Tea Party answer goes back to Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. The Occupier’s answer reads like a bunch of Communist dogma, after its been eaten, digested, and then shat out by a unicorn tripping on hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Go read his whole entry.  You'll learn a lot (and that Larry is funny as hell as a political commentator as well as a fiction writer). Oh, and go buy and read all of his books--you'll thank me later.

Hat Tip: Monster Hunter Nation

Cookies!!!!!!!

Hat tip: Doug Ross@Journal

Yes, We Are That F*cking Stupid

You just can't make this up:

Since the inception of the war in Afghanistan, the United States has lost more than 1,500 lives and spent over $400 billion — much of which devoted to reconstruction, aid, and other forms of direct support.

So when the U.S. government announced last year that Afghanistan may have over $1 trillion in mineral wealth, one might have assumed that it would work with U.S. companies, and companies from other coalition countries, to help them participate in the development of these resources.

Not so. In the most recent installment of “we pay, China plays,” the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) will soon be awarded a 20-year lease on several oil fields in Northern Afghanistan. This follows the other major resource tender in Afghanistan, in 2007, in which the government of Afghanistan awarded a 30-year lease on the country’s largest copper mine to the China Metallurgical Group.

Amazingly, the process that will result in the award to CNPC has been designed and managed by a U.S. Defense Department task force, which is also footing the bill for the international lawyers and consultants who are advising the Afghan government on the tender. The task force set up the process to award the resource to the bidder offering the highest percentage of its revenues from operations to the Afghan government as a royalty — which skews the tender in favor of state-owned Chinese companies more concerned with capturing valuable resources than achieving an attractive return on their investment. The process failed to take into meaningful consideration the bidders’ respective track records on technology, the environment, and local employment, among others, all of which would have played to the strengths of Western companies.

So we spend American lives and treasure so others can profit from our sacrifice because to do otherwise wouldn't be 'fair.'

It makes you want to track down some of the moronic bureaucrats who devised this system and rip their lungs out with a rusty fork. Sigh.  Read the whole disgusting thing at the Corner on NRO.

Christ on a crutch.

Yoda Pie Chart

 

Hat tip: garr.posterous

"Why China Won't Conquer The World"

Ran across an interesting article about a former resident of China's view regarding whether or not China would become a world power.  

If China is to dominate the creative industries as it has manufacturing, it needs to borrow a line from Apple’s marketing department: “Think different”. Liu Jun, a businessman recently crowned one of the “50 most creative individuals in China”, says it’s an uphill struggle.
“The reason the Chinese don’t have global companies is that we don’t have a global vision,” he said recently. “Chinese designers only think about what pleasures them, not the customer. It’s a huge problem.” Chinese corporate structures remain very rigid, and, according to Daniel Altman, a consultant at Dalberg Global Development Advisors, original ideas “have to percolate through so many layers of hierarchy that most won’t survive to the top. China has a long way to go before it will be anything like the US in its ability to foster entrepreneurship.”

The challenges aren't limited to the lack of vision.

And what of the generation the one-child policy has spawned? Children from the biggest 40 cities are living in the three-screen world (television, computer and mobile), wearing global designer brands, travelling first class, and buying houses and cars for their one or two years’ study overseas. For these young “super-rich”, price has become no object, some even flying to and from Hong Kong for a day’s shopping.

 It’s hard to conceive of them becoming China’s next generation of entrepreneurs, when, unlike their parents and grandparents, many have never touched a cooker and barely know how to make their own beds. They may have had superior schooling but many critics believe China’s education system – with its obsession with test-taking and rote memorisation – stifles rather than encourages creativity. Indeed, today’s entry exam for China’s universities, the “gaokao”, has its origins in a recruitment test devised by the imperial government in the sixth century, and, according to Jiang Xueqin, a Yale-educated school administrator in Beijing, rewards “very strong memory; very strong logical and analytical ability; little imagination; little desire to question authority”. China could be seen as a brilliant imitator but a poor innovator – its talents for replicating anything the Western world has to offer evidenced by the recent uncovering of 22 fake Apple stores across Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in south-west China. So convincing were the stores that even staff members believed they were working for Apple. Genius, in a way. But misdirected genius.

We are at the point of seeing China the way we saw Japan back in the 1980s--a industrial and financial juggernaut that was in the process of becoming the dominant power.  And, as then, the truth is somewhat different than the "current wisdom."  People are too quick to downplay the ability of the United States to adapt, overcome, and persevere.  And beginning in November 2012, we will relight the fires of competitiveness again.

On The Road Again

Told you I was a traveling bear.  See you in a week or so.

Enough with the "CO2 Causes Global Warming" Bullshit!

I am so tired of leftists and environmentalists (but I repeat myself) doing their 'morally superior' dance about how they are so much more concerned about saving the planet from global warming, and that all we have to do is impoverish ourselves and go back to the good old days of living in mud huts in order to save the planet.  That the media continues to abdicate its responsibility to fact check these assclowns would seem to me to indicate that (a) they are too stupid or incapable of understanding the science involved, or (b) are leftists/socialists/environmentalists themselves who use the media to advance their fellow travelers' morally superior outlook.

Does no one do research anymore?

In the last 600 million years of Earth's history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.

 Or how about this gem?

The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm.

I do not give one polished turd what my carbon footprint is, or how much CO2 my car emits.  What I do care about is that extremist ideologues at the EPA are going to use the power of the government to change our lifestyles and nation because of their devotion to junk science. Texas is about to shut down two coal powered power plants and lose 500 jobs because of EPA devotion to unmitigated bullshit.

Hat tip: Powerline

The View From Our Neighbors to the North

Canadian commentator Rex Murphy notes in the National Post that the American media abandoned its responsibilities with regard to President Obama.

As a result, the press gave the great American republic an untried, unknown and, it is becoming more and more frighteningly clear, incompetent figure as President. Under Obama, America’s foreign policies are a mixture of confusion and costly impotence. It is increasingly bypassed or derided; the great approach to the Muslim world, symbolized by the Cairo speech, is in tatters. Its debt and deficits are a weight on the entire global economy. And the office of presidency is less and less a symbol of strength.

To the degree the press neglected its function as watchdog and turned cupbearer to a styrofoam demigod, it is a partner in the flaws and failures of what is turning out to be one of the most miserable performances in the modern history of the American presidency.

Read the full article--the media certainly won't.  In a normal business environment, their incompetence and outright bias would have driven them out of business long ago.  Fortunate for them, isn't it, that they monopolize the majority of the news coverage most Americans see (and don't see... NB: 'Fast and Furious,' Solyndra).  Unfortunately for us, as a consequence today's youth see mental midgets like Jon Stewart and Bill Maher as believable sources of information. Thus, they will be subject to direct and painful bitch slapping by life's reality.  Too bad the rest of us are being dragged along with them.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades

The Real Reason Behind 'Fast and Furious?'

According to the Los Angeles Times, the apparent goal of Operation Fast and Furious was:

"...to allow straw purchasers to illegally buy weapons in the U.S. so agents could learn the traffickers’ routes into Mexico. The agents were then supposed to intervene before the guns were sold to drug cartels. But agents lost track of roughly 1,700 weapons, and hundreds soon began showing up at homicide scenes in Mexico."

As many before me have pointed out, this goal really doesn't make sense, especially given how there was no formal effort to track the weapons after they left the sellers.  Perhaps Pajamas Media has come across the real reason: Cloward-Piven.

If the current Administration were trying to destabilize governments to the South in order to drive refugees into the United States, thereby overloading the social services within the U.S. to cause a breakdown, they could do a lot worse than 'Fast and Furious.'  From multiple failed stimulus packages to animosity towards our traditional allies to setting up our economy to fail, ideology seems to be the best answer for why facts fail to make a dent in the focus and trajectory of our leadership.

A Look Behind the Curtain

Why is nuclear proliferation difficult to deter?  Because that's where the money is.  Pakistan, our 'ally' in the war against terror, spent decades spreading nuclear technology and expertise for money.  And who were the beneficiaries of these deals?  Well, if you picked the usual suspects (China, North Korea, Iran, and Libya), you would be right.  You couldn't swing a dead jihadi around without hitting someone from one of these countries involved in rubbing the lamp containing the nuclear genie.  Thanks to A.Q. Kahn, we will be dealing with the second and third order effects of this proliferation for years to come.  If a portion of the United States goes up in nuclear fire, he will most likely have our blood on his hands.

Another Short Hiatus

Well, I'm a traveling bear again.  Will be out of the loop for about a week.  see you then.

Manmade Global Warming -- Just as Real As Malthus/DDT/Take Your Pick

  

What happens when you use the scientific method on the "science" of anthropomorphic global warming (i.e., it's all our fault!)?  Why, you discover that manmade global warming has just as much chance of being right as all the other scare stories of the past.  Remember how DDT was supposed to cause cancer and be harmful to animals, so we needed to ban it worldwide?  Well, Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring was based on ludicrous speculations with no scientific basis, and resulted in DDT being banned around the world.  To date, no studies have linked DDT to cancer, but on the bright side millions have died from malaria.

Scholars Kesten Green (International Graduate School of Business, University of South Australia) and J. Scott Armstrong (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) studied forecasts of human-caused environmental disasters (e.g., Malthus, timber famine, ozone hole, salmonella in eggs, etc.).  They found 26 forecasts analogous to today's manmade global warming hysteria, and concluded:

None of the 26 alarming forecasts that we examined was accurate. Based on analyses to date, 19 of the forecasts were categorically wrong (the direction of the effect was opposite to the alarming forecast), and the remaining 7 of the forecast effects were wrong in degree (no effect or only minor effects actually occurred).

Not only that, but:

For example, the Administrator of the EPA banned DDT in the U.S. in 1972. The U.N. and W.H.O. withheld financial aid from developing countries to force them to stop using DDT. There has been no evidence found of any link between DDT and cancer in people but—without DDT and with substitute insecticides being more toxic and less effective—insect-borne diseases have increased leading to millions of additional deaths and widespread sickness. Government policies have, as a consequence, been very expensive without any benefits accruing. Some restrictions and bans on DDT-use continue to this day (Persistence = 1). This description draws heavily on Edwards (2004).

The calls for action were followed by the implementation of government policies intended to address the alarm in 23 of the analogous situations. Among the analogous situations in which government action was taken, our initial assessment is that harm was caused by the government policies in 20 (as with DDT, the cost of the policies exceeded benefits) or policies were ineffective or the net effect was uncertain in 3. In none of the analogous situations were the policies clearly effective.

Both Green and Armstrong have begged for peer review of their work--thus far no takers. Wonder why that is?

The problem is, people want to save the world.  They want to feel like they are contributing something beyond their daily lives.  Unfortunately, too many of them are sanctimonious twits who think they know better than the rest of us how to run our lives and are morally superior to the rest of us because they're saving the planet!

If it's not DDT it's global warming, or it's being forced to use CFL lightbulbs instead of incandescent lights, or giving up oil as an energy source (or not using nuclear) because, damn it, they ARE morally superior to us proles and must use the power of government to force us to act the way THEY think we should.  So what does it matter that their idiotic crusades cost us billions in money and millions in lost lives, or that scientists fake their data or apply 'corrections' to get the results they want, or ignore scientific studies that prove the sun controls the Earth's climate and not man. It's the intent that's important.  After all, it's for the children, right?

Hat tip:  doubleplusundead