Author: papundits

When I first heard the news of the capture of the Afghan Taliban number 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the word capture was used and the captors were NATO forces. Within hours it morphed from a “capture” to an “arrest” … and instead of NATO it was credited to Pakistan.

Here’s an initial report out of China (it uses both “capture” and “arrested”) :

How important is Mullah Baradar’s capture?ISLAMABAD, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) — “The capture of the top Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Pakistan is not only considered as an important breakthrough in connection to the war on terror but also shows development in Pakistan-U.S. relations and regional solution to Afghan problems.

Pakistan army confirmed to Xinhua on Wednesday that Mullah Baradar has been arrested in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, but disclosed no more details due to security reasons. Mullah Baradar was described as ranking the second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, Taliban’s supreme commander in Afghanistan.

Pakistani analysts believed that Mullah Baradar’s catch and the information he provides could prove to be a blow to the Taliban in Afghanistan and tribal areas of Pakistan because he was holding important position and knew secrets of Taliban and their strategy.” -more

Read More Dry Bones by Yaakov Kirschen

Filed under: 111th Congress, Afghanistan, America (USA), Cartoons, Fanatics, Humor, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Middle East, Military, Politics, Propaganda, Satire, Taliban Tagged: Dry Bones, Political Humor, Political Satire, Taliban, Tony, War In Afghanistan

By Marc Scribner

Marc Scribner contributes posts at the Competitive Enterprise Institute at their Open Market.org site.

Read more Great Articles at cei.org

Filed under: America (USA), Blundering Bureaucrats, Climate Alarmists, Climate Change, Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Environment, Environmental activists, Fear-mongering, Global Warming, Humor, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Satire, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: Al Gore, CEI (Competitive Enterprise Institute), Climate Change Humor, Climate Change Religion, Global Warming Hype, Open Market, Political Humor, Political Satire, Tony

By Andrew Bolt

TonyfromOz …..

It would seem that Climate Change/Global Warming hype that made all the banner headlines is nowhere near as bad as made out at first. The trouble with short term predictions is that they have this way of biting you back, hence the recent predictions are all for a time way off into the future. It is becoming more and more transparent how these alarmists have resorted to long term spin.

From Tim Blair, who has the links and more:

The Guardian, February, 2009:

The world’s pre-eminent climate scientists produced a blunt assessment of the impact of global warming on the US yesterday, warning of droughts that could reduce the American south-west to a wasteland and heatwaves that could make life impossible even in northern cities.

In an update on the latest science on climate change, the US Congress was told that melting snow pack could lead to severe drought from California to Oklahoma. In the midwest, diminishing rains and shrinking rivers were lowering water levels in the Great Lakes, even to the extent where it could affect shipping.

“With severe drought from California to Oklahoma, a broad swath of the south-west is basically robbed of having a sustainable lifestyle,” said Christopher Field, of the Carnegie Institution for Science…

ABC News (US), February, 2010:

In the span of just a couple years, the U.S. has gone from very high drought conditions to the lowest amount of drought in the last 10 years, [Doug LeCompte of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association] says. “It’s only a few times, really, in the last century that we’ve had this little of the country in drought. That is unusual.”

Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.

Read more excellent articles from Andrew Bolt’s Blog

Filed under: America (USA), Climate Alarmists, Climate Change, Environment, Environmental activists, Fanatics, Fear-mongering, Fraud/Waste, Global Warming, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion Tagged: Andrew Bolt, Climate Change Hypocrisy, Climate Change Religion, Climate Change Scaremongering, Global Warming Alarmism, Global Warming Hype, Tony

By Mark Alexander

“A universal peace … is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts.” –James Madison

I spent much of the last week participating in a national security forum organized by the Air War College and hosted by the Twelfth Air Force and the 355th Fighter Wing at Davis-Monthan AFB.

Discussing the challenges of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and the surge for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan with command personnel makes for lively debate, but the best part of these forums is incidental — the opportunity to meet many enlisted airmen and those flying the planes they make ready.

I have been on military bases across the nation, and without fail I am most impressed by the young uniformed Patriots who are the foundation of our military might. Simply put, their dedication, talent and spirit are second to none.

In a nation where most young people are devoted, first and foremost, to themselves, our young airmen, sailors, soldiers, coast guardsmen and Marines serve a much higher calling, true to their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…” If only their civilian political leaders were true to the same.

Among other operations around the world, these young people, and those in their chain of command, have made enormous progress toward establishing a functional democracy in the heart of the Middle East, Iraq. And despite what Vice President Joe Biden may believe, this remarkable achievement is theirs, not his.

After launching military operations against Iraq in 2003, our enemies were greatly emboldened by traitors on the Left and their Leftmedia minions, especially those running cover stories such as Newsweek’s “We’re losing…” proclamation.

In a debate some years ago with a professor from MIT who had written many policy papers on why we should not have prosecuted OIF, I asked him how many papers he had written on the consequences had we not prosecuted OIF. That query returned a classic “deer in the headlights” gaze.

My point, of course, was that it’s easy to criticize anything past or under way. Hindsight can be 20/20, but military battle plans rarely withstand the first shots fired, which is to say that you start where your boots are, and fight on from there.

All those Leftist talking points notwithstanding, Iraq is now well on the way to restoring its once great Mesopotamian heritage.

To the east of Iraq, on the far side of another Islamic trouble spot, Iran, our military forces now face a daunting task in Afghanistan, a very different battlefront.

I was in the region shortly after the Soviets retreated in 1989, and I can tell you that this vast, desolate moonscape offers little more than a meager subsistence for even the most seasoned tribal people.

Consequently, Afghanistan has two — and only two — exports: heroin and terrorism, and not necessarily in that order.

Since we first launched strikes in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, our objective has been to kill or capture al-Qa’ida terrorists and dislodge their Taliban hosts. That mission was, and remains, quite different from our mission in Iraq, which is a mix of war-fighting, peacekeeping and nation building.

Most recently, U.S. and Afghan warriors, supported by other allies, launched Operation Moshtarak (a Dari word meaning “together”) in the center of Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province and the town of Marjah.

There is very little chance that a functioning democracy, or much else, can be established in Afghanistan. The internal regional conflicts, with or without the Taliban mixing things up, preclude such establishment.

Our objective is to prevent the Taliban from occupying uncontrolled regions there long enough for us to support and build up the Afghan military to a sustainable level. Once this is accomplished, the Afghan military will endeavor to rid the countryside of Taliban extremists, and keep them out, even if it invites eradication efforts across the southeastern border with Pakistan. (Pakistan is much more concerned with its neighbor, India, than its border with Afghanistan.)

Why prosecute the Taliban?

Because their presence in Afghanistan serves as a launch pad for jihadi attacks around the world.

On 10 September 2001, after eight years of Clinton administration national security malfeasance, and eight months of the newly installed Bush administration’s efforts to reorder national security priorities, most Americans were unaware that a deadly enemy had set up shop on our turf.

On 11 September, that enemy attacked us, leaving a hole in a Pennsylvania field and collapsing not only our World Trade Center towers and one fifth of the Pentagon, but also the U.S. economy, which was its ultimate objective. That attack was organized by Sheik Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, al-Qa’ida, from Taliban-occupied territory in Afghanistan.

Al-Qa’ida was, and remains, part of an increasingly unified and asymmetric Islamist terror network supported by nation states including Iran, Syria and extremist factions in Saudi Arabia, and previously by Iraq.

Unlike symmetric threats emanating from clearly defined nation states such as Russia and China — those with unambiguous political, economic and geographical interests — asymmetric enemies defy nation-state status, thus presenting new and daunting national-security challenges for the executive branch and U.S. military planners.

The strategy to-date in Afghanistan has been somewhat modeled after our strategy in Iraq. The operational blueprint has been “shape, clear, hold and build”: Shape the conditions to secure population centers; clear insurgents; hold the region so that insurgents can’t regain tactical advantage; and build, which includes the provision of humanitarian and reconstruction efforts until such control can be transferred to national authorities.

However, as noted, there remain serious questions about whether any such national authority can be established in Afghanistan, or if the best we can hope for is the development of a military authority, heavily underwritten by the U.S. and NATO, and sufficient to contain the Taliban and its terrorist campaigns against the West.

Afghanistan remains an ideal breeding ground for the active cadres of “Jihadistan,” a borderless nation of Islamic extremists comprising al-Qa’ida and other Muslim terrorist groups around the world.

A borderless nation, indeed. The “Islamic World” of the Quran recognizes no political borders. Though orthodox Muslims (those who subscribe to the teachings of the “pre-Medina” Quran) do not support acts of terrorism or mass murder, large, well-funded sects within the Islamic world subscribe to the “post-Mecca” Quran and Hadiths (Mohammed’s teachings). It is this latter group which calls for jihad, or “holy war,” against all “the enemies of God.”

For the record, these “enemies,” or infidels, are all non-Muslims.

Are you a non-Muslim?

Jihadists, then, are characterized by the toxic Wahhabism of Osama bin Laden and his heretical ilk — those who would remake the Muslim world in their own image of hatred, intolerance, death and destruction. In the words of bin Laden himself: “We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us.”

Does Barack Hussein Obama get the message?

Given his penchant for appeasement and for ill-advised withdrawal timelines from Iraq and Afghanistan, one would think not.

Moreover, the Obama administration’s newly released quadrennial outline for national and homeland defense makes no mention of “Islam,” “Islamic” or “Islamist,” preferring instead to reference “violent extremism.”

Obama’s “Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism,” John Brennan (a.k.a. “Terrorist Czar”), has deflected criticism of the quadrennial reports, and of Obama’s re-warming of the Clinton model for treating terrorists as “criminals” rather than “enemy combatants.”

“Politics should never get in the way of national security,” says Brennan, who insists that Obama’s detractors are “misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.” The thin-skinned Brennan has also charged that “politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qa’ida.”

Obama’s foreign policy is driven by nothing if not politics, and this includes his Afghanistan strategy. It’s a strategy necessitated by his phony bravado during the 2008 presidential campaign — a strategy with the ultimate aim of an easy political out.

Carnegie Endowment policy analyst Robert Kagan observes, “The new doctrine that seems to enjoy enormous cachet among the smart foreign policy set is: Fight wars until they get hard, then quit.”

I prefer John Stuart Mill’s assessment: “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. … A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

Read more great articles at The Patriot Post.US

Filed under: 111th Congress, Afghanistan, al Qaeda, America (USA), Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama), Democrats, Fanatics, jihad, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Middle East, Politics, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Taliban Tagged: Afghanistan Military Committment, Annie, Obama Afghanistan Policy, Taliban, The Patriot Post, U.S. National Security, War In Afghanistan

By Michelle Malkin

It’s bad enough that John Brennan, President Obama’s national security deputy, thinks Gitmo jihadi recidivism is “not that bad.” But in his talk last week with Islamic law students at New York University, Brennan made even more reckless comments about our counterterrorism programs while pandering to one of the worst Muslim grievance-mongers and sharia peddlers in America.

During the question-and-answer session, Brennan welcomed a question from Omar Shahin. He identified himself as the head of the “North American Imams Federation.” What he didn’t mention was his role as the chief ringleader of the infamous flying imams. You remember them: They were the six Muslim clerics whose suspicious behavior — provocatively shouting “Allahu Akbar!” before boarding the plane, fanning out in the cabin before take-off, refusing to sit in their assigned seats, requesting seat-belt extenders, which they placed on the floor — led to their removal by a U.S. Airways crew in 2006.

In coordination with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Shahin and his radical delegation attempted to shake down the airline with a discrimination lawsuit and bully the citizen “John Does” who flagged the imams’ security-undermining behavior. CAIR mouthpiece Ibrahim Hooper blasted “anti-Muslim hysteria” by those who saw something and said something about the imams’ in-flight shenanigans. Shahin ranted in a teleconference strategy session in 2007 that, indeed, he and his cohorts were spoiling for the incident and planning to engineer “many, many cases” to sabotage airline security efforts.

As head of the Islamic Center of Tucson in Arizona (home to past jihadi dry-run plotters), Shahin preached that his followers must put Islamic sharia law above Western laws. He told the Arizona Republic that he doubted Muslims were behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, concluding: “All of these, they make it up.” Brennan didn’t appear to know who Shahin was. Somebody around him should have briefed him. Shahin’s involvement in Hamas-linked charities and radical Wahhabi “youth groups” has earned the Jordanian-born naturalized citizen increased FBI scrutiny over the years.

Instead, Brennan treated him as just another innocent Muslim with “reasonable” concerns about the government. “We came to this country to enjoy freedom,” Shahin began with faux, flag-waving emotion. “We feel that since September 11, we aren’t enjoying these values anymore. … Also, we feel that there’s a big lack of trust between Muslims’ community and our government. … My question: Is there anything being done by our government to rebuild this trust?”

Instead of countering the narrative, exposing Shahin’s true intentions and vigorously defending America’s homeland security apparatus, Brennan dutifully genuflected to the gods of political correctness. Obama, he told the militant 9/11 inside-job theorist and jihad white-washer, is “determined to put America on a strong course.”

No, not a “strong course” that includes national security profiling of Islamic radicals pretending they care about our country’s best interests. By “strong course,” Brennan assured Shahin, he meant a course toward assuaging the civil rights groups who have objected to every security program at airports, borders, train stations and visa offices for the past nine years.

Brennan told Shahin that the post-9/11 response of the Bush administration was a “reaction some people might say was over the top in some areas” (insert indignant grievance-monger nodding and mmm-hmming here), and that “in an overabundance of caution, (we) implemented a number of security measures and activities that upon reflection now we look back, after the heat of the battle has died down a bit, we say they were excessive, OK.”

It gets worse: Brennan then went on to decry the “ignorant feelings” of Americans outraged at the jihadi attacks on American soil. And then he told Shahin and the audience of Muslim students that he “was very concerned after the attack in Fort Hood as well as the December 25 attack that all of sudden there were people who went back into this fearful position that lashed out not thinking through what was reasonable and appropriate.”

The Fort Hood jihadist slaughtered 14 innocent soldiers and an unborn baby after an Army career of openly threatening the lives of our soldiers, and Brennan is wringing his hands about the rest of us “lashing out” over government incompetence. He believes our true sin is not in the systemic underreacting by the military, homeland security, intel and White House officials in charge, but in the “overreacting” of the American public.

With clueless capitulationists like Brennan in charge of our safety, who needs enemies?

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies (Regnery 2009).

Read more excellent articles from Family Security Matters

Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Blundering Bureaucrats, Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: Airline Security, FSM (Michelle Malkin), Islamic Jihadists, National Security Deputy John Brennan, Tony

By Alan Caruba

You will not find much about “shovel ready” projects on the White House website, but there is an entire site, Recovery.gov, that extols the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that was signed into law a year ago.

I generally do not spend much time on federal government websites and especially on those that are the creation of those around President Obama. For example, the White House in November 2009 put out an announcement that Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood had “jumpstarted more than 10,000 transportation projects across America thanks to the swift allocation of Recovery Act dollars.” At the time of the announcement, “state agencies reported a total of 10,041 approved.”

As we have learned, news out of the White House has in the past involved state districts that don’t even exist, so I tend not to get too excited by such announcements. The projects mentioned included several stretches of new highway in Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. So far, good news.

The bad news in November was that, while more than $2 billion in federal highway funds had been allocated to California, only $837 million had been awarded for highway projects. “Even more surprising,” reported Eric A. Morris of The New York Times, “only $51 million, or about 2.5 percent of the total, had actually been disbursed.”

While Joe Biden and Ray LaHood were busy patting themselves on the back, Morris reported that “Overall, the U.S. Department of Transportation has managed to disburse only $5.5 billion to the states out of the $30.5 billion in available transportation funds.”

I don’t want to be too hard on the White House because, realistically speaking, major capital investments like highways require a lot of bureaucratic hurdles to jump before they ever begin. These are in place to ensure that the public doesn’t get ripped off and that those undertaking the projects meet fundamental industry standards.

Still, I recall President Obama telling Tom Brokaw on “Meet the Press” back in January 2009 that he had met with several governors “and all of them have projects that are shovel ready.”

Shovel ready became the instant buzzword of 2009 and it evoked visions of crews of newly employed workers drawing paychecks as opposed to the ten million or more (much more) unemployed workers in the nation a year later.

It turns out that a lot of the “stimulus” money went to states that were in serious trouble meeting pension, Medicaid, and other obligations. By October of last year, reportedly the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had received $33 billion, the Labor Department $28 billion, Education $21 billion and the Social Security Administration $13 billion. That accounted for 86% of the spending to that point.

So, in fact, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act essentially authorized the borrowing of more billions of dollars to largely fund various government agencies. If any money falls off the edge of the table and some states get the scraps, well that’s a bonus.

A year later, however, most people have figured out that programs like the Recovery Act and “Cash for Clunkers” are just so much White House smoke and mirrors.

They have figured out that the U.S. simply cannot go on borrowing and spending. And they have begun to suspect that a few tax cuts that would put money back in the hands of consumers and investors would have done a far better job of getting the economy on its feet again.

Alan Caruba writes a daily post at Warning Signs. A business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.

Read more thought provoking articles at Warning Signs

Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Blundering Bureaucrats, Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Infrastructure Problems, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Spine Donor Politicians, Vice President Joe Biden Tagged: Alan Caruba, Economic Stimulus Pork Package, Shovel Ready Jobs, Tony, Unemployment Concerns, Vice President Joe Biden, Warning Signs

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Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Humor, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Politics, Public Opinion, Satire Tagged: NewsBusted, NewsBusters, Political Comment, Political Humor, Political Satire, Tony

By William Warren

See more Cartoons by William Warren, and Great Articles at NetRight Nation Blog

Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama), Cartoons, Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Humor, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Satire, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: 2010 Mid Terms, Democrats, NetRight Nation Blog, Political Cartoons, Political Humor, Political Satire, President Obama, Retiring Democrats, Tony, William Warren

By Nick Loris

If the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change credibility has been taking hit after hit as several flaws were recently revealed in its 2007 report – the same report our politicians use to justify urgent action on climate change. The IPCC’s statement of principles reads, “IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, but its claims that the Himalayan glaciers would be melted by 2035 were admittedly based on political action. Dr Murari Lal, the lead author on the IPCC report’s chapter on Asia, said,

We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.”

But the problems go way beyond the IPCC report. In a new documentary, “Global Warming: The Other Side,” Weather Channel founder John Coleman not only debunks some of the common myths of global warming but also exposes more of the deception behind the manipulation of weather data.

In part 4 of the documentary, Coleman interviews computer programmer E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo and discusses how the National Climatic Data Center dropped thousands of data points from its climate data set – data points that were in cooler regions around the globe. The NCDC compares a baseline of 6,000 data points from 1950-1980 to about 1,500 points by 1990. Russians blamed the scandal-laden Climate Research Unit (CRU) for doing the same. But corporations and politicians have become so entrenched in this debate it might not matter says George Mason economist Walter Williams:

Vested economic and political interests have emerged where trillions of dollars and social control are at stake. Therefore, many people who recognize the scientific fraud underlying global warming claims are likely to defend it anyway. Automobile companies have invested billions in research and investment in producing “green cars.” General Electric and Phillips have spent millions lobbying Congress to outlaw incandescent bulbs so that they can force us to buy costly compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL). Farmers and ethanol manufacturers have gotten Congress to enact laws mandating greater use of their product, not to mention massive subsidies. Thousands of major corporations around the world have taken steps to reduce carbon emissions including giants like IBM, Nike, Coca-Cola and BP, the oil giant. Companies like Google, Yahoo and Dell have vowed to become “carbon neutral.”

Then there’s Chicago Climate Futures Exchange that plans to trade in billions of dollars of greenhouse gas emission allowances. Corporate America and labor unions, as well as their international counterparts have a huge multi-trillion dollar financial stake in the perpetuation of the global warming fraud. Federal, state and local agencies have spent billions of dollars and created millions of jobs to deal with one aspect or another of global warming. It’s deeper than just money. Schoolteachers have created polar-bear-dying lectures to frighten and indoctrinate our children when in fact there are more polar bears now than in 1950. They’ve taught children about melting glaciers.”

Now it seems large corporations are jumping ship. BP, ConocoPhillips and Caterpillar all left the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (US CAP), a coalition of business and environmentalists that support legislation to reduce greenhouse gases such as cap and trade. With trillions of dollars on the table and up for grabs, corporations worked hard for a seat at that table in search of corporate welfare at the expense of the consumer. It’s no surprise 2009 was a record year for lobbying on energy issues.

Heritage Senior Policy Analyst David Kreutzer has a solution that would benefit business and its consumers, “Stricter rules on lobbying can change the form the lobbying takes (indeed the numbers above only reflect official use of registered lobbyists), but reducing government control of the economy reduces the root cause of the lobbying and is the one solution to controlling the growth of rent-seekers and their mouthpieces on K Street.”

Contributing Author Nick Loris writes at The Heritage Foundation and he is a Research Assistant at The Heritage Foundation’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.

Read more informative articles at Heritage – The Foundry

Filed under: America (USA), Blundering Bureaucrats, Climate Alarmists, Climate Change, Environment, Environmental activists, Europe, Fanatics, Fear-mongering, Fraud/Waste, Global Warming, Great Britain, India, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, U.K. Tagged: Climate Change Fraud, Climate Change Religion, Climategate, Global Warming Alarmism, Global Warming Hype, Heritage – The Foundry, Tony, UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

The Patriot Post Chronicle

The Foundation

“Amplification is the vice of modern oratory.” –Thomas Jefferson

The Demo-gogues

The BIG Lie: “[Taxpayers have] gotten their money’s worth [out of the $787 billion stimulus].” –Vice President Joe Biden

Which administration? “I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration.” –Joe Biden

“Greatest achievement” equals mistake? “I don’t think the [Iraq] war was worth it, in the sense that we paid a horrible price, not only in loss of life, the way the war was mishandled from the outset, but we took our eye off the ball, putting us in a much different and more dangerous position in Afghanistan.” –Joe Biden

Breaking news from 2002: “The president of the United States said in the State of the Union, ‘We’re at war with al-Qa’ida.’ He stated this — and by the way, we’re pursuing that war with a vigor like it’s never been seen before.” –Joe Biden, who is just now tuning in   …  

Biden in 2002: “We have no choice but to eliminate the threat. [Saddam Hussein] is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world.”

Nanny state: “I don’t know if anybody noticed that, for the first time this year, you saw more people getting health care from government than you did from the private sector; not because of anything we did, but because more and more people are losing their health care from their employers. It’s becoming unaffordable.” –Barack Obama

He’s catching on: “[Obama] said, you know, I’m for clean coal, then he says it in speeches, but he doesn’t say it in here, and he doesn’t say it in the minds of my own people, and he’s beginning to be not believable to me.” –Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)

No Meal Left Behind: “There are kids who are obese in this state who are going to school hungry.” –Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado

On the climate change front, check out this montage of video of Democrats blaming the lack of snow on global warming. Where are they now?

Insight

“Virtue is harder to be got than a knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.” –English philosopher and political theorist John Locke (1632-1704)

“Politics is the best show in America. I love animals and I love politicians, and I like to watch both of ‘em play, either back home in their native state or after they’ve been captured and sent to a zoo — or Washington.” –American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

Editorial Exegesis

“Those unversed in the arcana of Congressional procedure should familiarize themselves with ‘reconciliation.’ It’s just another word for nothing left to lose — that is, it’s the tactic Democrats seem increasingly likely to use to bypass the ordinary legislative rules and railroad ObamaCare into law with a bare partisan majority of 50 Senators, plus Vice President Joe Biden. Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced … that Democrats ‘have set the stage’ for reconciliation. ‘It’s up to us to make sure the public knows that this is not extraordinary,’ she said. ‘It would be a reflection on us if we could not convince people that this is not an unusual place to go.’ Yet the reconciliation gambit really would be unprecedented for social legislation of this cost and scale. And as a matter of procedure, it would also be unusual, to say the least. As Mrs. Pelosi’s senior health adviser, Wendell Primus, explained … House Democrats would pass a series of ‘fixes’ to the Senate bill. The Senate would then pass the House reconciliation bill, sending amendments to President Obama to a bill that — strictly speaking — didn’t exist, because it hadn’t yet emerged from the House. The House would then retroactively pass the Senate bill as is. Democrats say this will all be kosher as long as Mr. Obama signs the Senate bill before he signs the reconciliation bill. ‘There’s a certain skill, there’s a trick,’ Mr. Primus conceded, ‘but I think we’ll get it done.’ So even as Democrats themselves acknowledge that one reason the public hates ObamaCare so much is the corrupt tactics they have used to advance it through Congress, they still plan to try to land this Pelosian triple-handspring-quadruple pole vault to passage.” –The Wall Street Journal

Upright

“Obamacare flunks the first test of any potential federal law: It is not constitutional.” –National Review’s Deroy Murdock

“It’s not a good idea for Republicans to accept President Barack Obama’s invitation to a ‘bipartisan’ health care summit, because it would not advance acceptable health care reform. The only thing it likely would advance would be Obama’s propaganda message — and, thus, his socialist agenda.” –columnist David Limbaugh

“It isn’t to evil dictators with a lust for power that Americans have been slowly surrendering their autonomy. It is to well-intentioned authorities who believe sincerely that our freedoms must be circumscribed for our own good. … First Lady Michelle Obama announced what The New York Times called ‘a sweeping initiative … aimed at revamping the way American children eat and play — reshaping school lunches, playgrounds, and even medical checkups — with the goal of eliminating childhood obesity.’ Nothing in the Constitution authorizes the federal government to take charge of ‘revamping the way American children eat and play.’ It is only our passivity that makes such an encroachment possible. This used to be the land of the free. Is it still?” –columnist Jeff Jacoby

“Only two things are infinite — the expanding universe and Democrats’ hostility to the District of Columbia’s school choice program. Killing this small program, which currently benefits 1,300 mostly poor and minority children, is odious and indicative. It is a small piece of something large — the Democrats’ dependency agenda, which aims to multiply the ways Americans are dependent on government. … The dependency agenda is progressive education for children of all ages, meaning all ages treated as children.” –columnist George Will

“In the Obama world view, KSM did not perpetrate an act of war but simply pulled off the equivalent of a liquor-store holdup with a somewhat higher body count: it’s not a war, it’s a law enforcement matter.” –columnist Mark Steyn

Dezinformatsia

Whose money is it? “[T]he Bush tax cuts are the single largest part of the black hole that is the federal budget deficit.” –Newsweak editor Fareed Zakaria

Obama’s national security theater: “Let us talk about Dick Cheney and the point that he seems to be trying to make … is that … the Obama administration, is not taking terrorism seriously enough. Is this theater or is there a real point to be made?” –CBS’s Harry Smith

Now they ask? “[D]on’t you think when the former vice president says America is weaker than it has been that [he is] giving aid and comfort to the enemy, that [he is] encouraging another attack?” –Fox’s Geraldo Rivera

Good riddance: “‘End of an era. The last Kennedy in Congress calling it quits.’ … It was 1946 when [Patrick’s] uncle John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected to the House. Then, his uncle, Senator Robert Kennedy, and then his father, Ted. There has always been a Kennedy in Washington.” –ABC’s Diane Sawyer

Alpha Jackass: “The whole of the anger-at-government movement is predicated on this: Times are tough, the future is confusing, the threat from those who would dismantle our way of life is real, as if we weren’t to some extent doing it for them now. And the president’s black. But you can’t come out and say that’s why you’re scared. … And so this is where the euphemisms come in. But taxes haven’t gone up, the budget deficit is from the last administration’s adventurous war, grandma is much more likely to be death-paneled by your insurance company, and a socialist president would be the one who tried to buy as many voters as possible with stupid tax cuts.” –MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann

The media have done their job: “While the president is showing signs of vulnerability on his handling of the economy — a majority say he has yet to offer a clear plan for creating jobs — Americans blame former President George W. Bush, Wall Street and Congress much more than they do Mr. Obama for the nation’s economic problems and the budget deficit, the poll found. They credit Mr. Obama more than Republicans with making an effort at bipartisanship, and they back the White House’s policies on a variety of disputed issues, from allowing gays to serve openly in the military to repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.” –New York Times’ political reporter Adam Nagourney

Newspulper Headlines:

‘Think, Mr. President — Where Were You When You Last Had It?’: “Obama Loses the Country” –Commentary Web site

Uh, the Earthquake?: “Haiti Gives Death Toll of 270,000; No Explanation” –Associated Press

Step 1: Don’t Lie: “Scientists Seek Better Way to Do Climate Report” –Associated Press

We Blame Global Warming: “To Succeed, Florida Must Be Cool Again, Economic Leaders Say” –Miami Herald

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Snow Shuts Down Federal Government, Life Goes On” –Associated Press

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Charges of Hypocrisy, Failure in Stimulus Spending” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch Web site

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Vigor or … whatever: “At the end of the day, wherever [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] is tried, in whatever forum, what we have to ensure is that it’s done as transparently as possible and with adherence to all the rules. If we do that, I’m not sure the location or even the forum is as important as what the world sees in that proceeding.” –Attorney General Eric Holder

What happened to “Dissent is patriotic”? “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qa’ida. … Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. … [P]olitics should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.” –Assistant to the president and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan

Nothing gets by her: “We see that the government of Iran — the supreme leader, the president, the parliament — is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship. You know, that is our view.” –Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sharp as a marble

They say the debate is over: “To deny what scientists or scientific evidence is showing, is inappropriate. And as I said earlier, to me … it’s unpatriotic.” –Bill Nye the Science Guy on global warming and blizzards

But on the other hand: “I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think [the debate is over]. This is not my view.” –Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the central figure in ClimateGate

“For the longest time, every Republican election has been based on some sentimental bulls–t: the flag, or the flag pin, or the Pledge, or the, ‘It’s morning in America.’ … Yes, yes, the love of our troops, the ultimate in fake patriotism. Are you kidding? The troops, we pay them like s–t, we f–k them and trick them on deployment, we nickel and dime them on medical care when they get home, not to mention the stupid wars that we send them to. Yeah, we love the troops the way Michael Vick loves dogs.” –HBO’s Bill Maher

Short Cuts

“How much time, do you suppose, has Eric Holder spent as attorney general of the United States explaining that he meant no harm by all the harm he’s done?” –columnist Paul Greenberg

“Our government can’t even resolve confusion about George Washington’s birthday. How could it possibly improve our health care system?” –columnist Tom Purcell

“The bottom line on Obama: He puts our money where his mouth is.” –CNS News editor Terence Jeffrey

“If global warming gets any worse I’m going to have to buy a snowmobile.” –political analyst Rich Galen

“The Weather Channel reported snow on the ground in forty-nine states Friday for the first time ever. It’s a winter nobody will forget. Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his book on global warming and now it’s up for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

Filed under: 111th Congress, Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama), Conniving Politicians, Demo-gogues, Democrats, Joe Biden, Liberals, Marxists, News and Views, Political Prostitutes, Politicians for the Destruction of America Tagged: Annie, Mark Steyn, The Patriot Post, Will Rogers

By Alan Caruba

The last Amendment to the Constitution took effect in 1992. The 27th said, “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”

I assume this means they cannot vote themselves a raise until a new group of Representatives has been seated (the House being the only chamber that can initiate financial bills.)

Big whoopee!

What is really needed is a 28th Amendment and a text has been suggested.

“Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.”

Amidst the debate over healthcare “reform” the one thing that Congress did not and does not want the public to know is that they exempted themselves from both the House and Senate versions.

Little wonder Congress regards itself as a special and elite class of citizens when you consider that lawmakers have a choice of ten healthcare plans. This is in sharp contrast to the 85% of private companies offering health coverage with one plan, take it or leave it. Anywhere from three-quarters to one-third of the cost of the plans available to those in Congress is subsidized by taxpayers.

In addition, lawmakers are entitled to special treatment at Washington’s federal medical facilities and, for a few hundred a month, access to their own pharmacy, as well as doctors, nurses and medical technicians in an office located between the House and Senate chambers.

Federal health coverage far surpasses the plans available in the private sector and, of course, the millions who are under-insured and at financial risk in the event of a major health problem. For federal employees there is no such thing as a pre-existing condition that keeps many from securing insurance.

In 2000, the National Taxpayers Union published a report on “Congressional Perks: How the Trappings of Office Trap Taxpayers.” It is well worth reading.

Briefly, Senators and Representatives receive “comfortable” salaries and they receive pension benefits that are “two to three times more generous than those offered in the private sector” for similarly salaried executives. Taxpayers “directly cover at least 80 percent of this costly plan.” The pensions, moreover, are inflation-protected, a feature that fewer than 1 in 10 private plans offer.

Most people are aware of the “junkets” that Senators and Representatives take for “fact finding” purposes. The cost of flying Speaker Pelosi and her fellow lawmakers to Copenhagen to attend the recent UN Climate Change Conference was set at more than one million dollars. A bit of research would not doubt reveal that millions of taxpayer dollars are spent to provide lawmakers with the equivalent of paid vacations.

Nor do lawmakers pick up the cost of postage to reply to their constituents as they have long enjoyed “franking” privileges to the tune of millions from the public coffer. They send out newsletters to inform constituents of all the money they have diverted to their district or state. It is regarded by many as an unfair electioneering tool. The public also pays for their office staffs.

There is a raft of exemptions and immunities from tax, pension, and other laws that burden private citizens. I would be remiss if I did not also point out that unionized federal and state workers enjoy 34% higher wages and 70% more benefits than private sector counterparts.

You can be sure that the Founding Fathers feared the growth of government and its blandishments as much as any other abuse of power.

In plain terms, it is an abuse of office and a raid on public funding. It is fundamentally un-American.

It is time for a new Amendment, though it is the least likely to ever be passed by the kindergartners presently running the nation into historical debt and possible collapse.

Alan Caruba writes a daily post at Warning Signs. A business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.

Read more thought provoking articles at Warning Signs

Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Blundering Bureaucrats, Conniving Politicians, Constitution, Democracy, Democrats, Laws, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Patriotism, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Spine Donor Politicians, US Government Tagged: Alan Caruba, Constitutional Amendments, Health Care Reform Bill, NTU – National Taxpayers Union, Tony, U.S. Constitution, Warning Signs

By William Warren

See more Cartoons by William Warren, and Great Articles at NetRight Nation Blog

Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama), Cartoons, Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Humor, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Satire, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, Figure Skating, NetRight Nation Blog, Political Cartoons, Political Humor, Political Satire, President Obama, Tony, William Warren, Winter Olympic Games

By Scooter Van Neuter

WASHINGTON (SR) – In a bizarre twist, the GOP is donating millions to President Obama’s “Save the Senate” tour, as the President heads west this week to campaign for two embattled Democrats trailing badly against Republican challengers – including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

GOP leader Michael Steele said his party will “do everything in our power” to facilitate President Obama’s efforts to campaign on behalf of Democrat Senators battling to keep their jobs, including paying all expenses, and coordinating “extensive” press coverage.

Reportedly several of the Senators Obama plans to visit have requested the President send money in lieu of personally appearing or speaking on their behalf.

Sen. Reid’s campaign issued a statement thanking the President for his concern, but asking Obama “not mention my name or come to my state.” Another Democrat Senator is said to be leaving on an “emergency vacation” to avoid being photographed with the President.

My comments: Oh jeez, like these douchebags aren’t going to have a hard enough time getting re-elected, here comes the one guy they’re trying to disassociate themselves from! Where do I donate to Barry’s rescue mission?

Read More Satire and Humorous Comments at Scooter’s Report

Filed under: 111th Congress, 2010 Elections, America (USA), Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama), Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Humor, Images, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Satire, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: Political Humor, Political Satire, President Obama, Scooter’s Report, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Tony

Reaction here in Israel to the announcement that President Obama is sending his Vice President to Israel is split.

Some of us believe that he’s coming to pressure us to not get too upset about the Iranian nuclear threat. Others figure that he’s coming to show solidarity with us.

A tiny minority of us are just eager for a chance to hear one of Biden’s famous mis-statement flubs while he’s here.

Obviously I’m in the third category.

Read More Dry Bones by Yaakov Kirschen

Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Cartoons, Democrats, Humor, Iran, Israel, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Middle East, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Satire, Spine Donor Politicians, Vice President Joe Biden Tagged: Dry Bones, Iran Nuclear Ambitions, Israel, Joe Biden Gaffes, Political Cartoons, Political Humor, Political Satire, Tony, Vice President Joe Biden

Darn, I really thought she was going to get the Gold!

She was 21 when she would have won the Gold at Turin, Italy but decided to show off and won the Silver instead.

At first I didn’t like Snow Boarding, because I didn’t like Skateboarding.To me these both are closely related. I do like downhill skiing, and I like Snowboarding better than the Moguls.

The image at the left is Lindsey’s USOC team portrait. The picture on the right is Lindsey Jacobellis of the USA in action during her 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games Ladies’ Snowboard Cross qualification run February 16 2010 in Cypress Mountain Upper Fork Course.   Both Images are “Content © 2010 ZumaPress  All rights reserved”

Rather than me repeating what others have already reported click here for more information: Lindsey Jacobellis disappointed in snowboard cross again

In the Medals Count Germany has 9, the United States 8, France 7, Canada 5, South Korea 4, Switzerland 4, China 3, etc. Australia has 1, New Zealand and Jamaica have less than one.  For the complete count, click here: 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games Overall Medal Count

Filed under: Images, News and Views Tagged: 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, Ed, Winter Sports

Heaviest Element Yet Known to Science Discovered

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has now identified with certainty the heaviest element known to science.

The new element, Pelosium (PL), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Pelosium is inert, and has no charge and no magnetism. Nevertheless, it can be detected because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Pelosium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Pelosium has a normal half-life of 2 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a biennial reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

Pelosium mass will increase over time, since each reorganization will promote many morons to become isodopes.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Pelosium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalyzed with money, Pelosium becomes Senatorium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Pelosium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

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Obama administration recognizes George W. Bush

We’ve just heard that the Obama Administration will be honoring the 43rd President of the United States by naming the gap between the tectonic plates beneath Haiti after him.

The area will now officially be referred to as “Bush’s Fault.”

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Chilean mint spells country’s name wrong on coins

“On the 2008 batch of 50 peso coins, which are worth about 6p, the country’s name was misspelt. If that wasn’t bad enough, no one noticed the spelling mistake until late 2009.” Read More…

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Motivation

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And now for a cartoon

More Cartoon Humor at Patriot Humor
Read more great articles at The Patriot Post.US

Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Cartoons, Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Humor, Images, Jokes, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Politics, Public Opinion, Satire Tagged: Patriot Humor, Political Cartoons, Political Humor, Political Satire, The Patriot Post, Tony

By Alan Caruba

While Americans celebrated Valentine’s Day with chocolates, flowers, and other expressions of love, others with long memories were thinking about February 14, 1977.

In his book, “A World of Trouble”, Patrick Tyler, noted that “On February 14, a heavily armed band of revolutionary guerrillas staged a full-scale assault on the American embassy compound” in Tehran, Iran.

“The young Iranians, some of them wearing the checkered kaffiyehs of the PLO, set up firing positions on the rooftops of neighboring buildings that overlooked the compound. At 10:30 a.m., they opened up with thirty-caliber machine guns, raking the embassy from two directions.”

That was an act of war. It was not, however, treated as such in that it did not provoke a military response until later and it was too little, too late, and so poorly executed it surely marked America as too weak to be taken seriously.

On that day, however, it only took two hours for the “students” to take 66 American diplomats and staff hostage. They would be held for 444 days and released, according to Tyler, only after a heavy ransom was paid.

“This episode would reverberate through the region for decades,” wrote Tyler, “suggesting to potential foes that America would not vigorously defend its interests in the Middle East.”

There are three young American hikers being held hostage as this is written. They accidentally strayed across the Iranian border last summer and currently face charges of espionage which is punishable by the death penalty in Iran. Hostage taking is the lowest form of criminal behavior and Iran thrives on it, whether it is these three or previously, a number of British sailors who were taken at gunpoint.

President Carter’s hopes for a second term were dashed by his tepid response to the hostage taking. At the time it occurred, he had been focused on getting a Camp David agreement between Anwar Sadat of Eqypt and Menachem Begin of Israel. The two received a Nobel Peace Prize, the Sinai was returned, and Carter had his singular achievement. By then, however, he had lost the confidence of most Americans.

The unanswered question about the embassy in Tehran was why it was not shut down in the wake of attacks a few days earlier on the British embassy in Tehran. In its wake, our embassies in Islamabad, Pakistan, and in Libya were attached and torched. When the Iranian revolution unfolded, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, many westerners and Iranians bailed out of Iran, seeing the writing on the wall.

Carter, however, could not conceive that Shah Reza Pahlavi was already in deep trouble in Iran. He had long been a trusted ally of the United States, but anti-Americanism had been on the rise in Iran for years as the result of our interference in that nation’s internal affairs. When Carter paid a state visit in 1977, he had toasted the shah saying that Iran under his leadership “was an island of stability in one of the most troubled regions of the world.”

The shah, however, would flee Iran and, already ill from cancer, suffer the indifference of the Carter administration, more intent on political correctness than compassion for the former ally who had spent billions on U.S. arms and other contracts.

As the Iranians celebrated the 31st anniversary of their revolution, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bragged that they were on the verge of becoming a nuclear state. Sanctions will not work against a nation that has already committed a serious act of war against the U.S. and for whom the U.N. is a mere echo chamber.

There is something embarrassing about the hope that little Israel will somehow rescue the whole of the West from the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. It is wishful thinking. It will require a preemptive attack with the full military capabilities of the United States.

It is highly unlikely that Barack Hussein Obama will authorize such an action. The Iranian leadership does not respect and does not fear Barack Obama, nor should they.

Alan Caruba writes a daily post at Warning Signs. A business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.

Read more thought provoking articles at Warning Signs

Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama), Blundering Bureaucrats, Conniving Politicians, Democrats, Fanatics, Fear-mongering, Iran, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Middle East, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: Alan Caruba, Iran Hostage Crisis, Iran Nuclear Ambitions, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President Jimmy Carter, Tony, Warning Signs

By Julia A Seymour.

TonyfromOz prefaces …..

Julia’s text starts below the video. This short video is a collection of the most current ‘dire’ warnings regarding Global Warming, which is a documented fact and cannot be denied, as the Earth has always gone through warming and cooling phases throughout it’s history, and will continue to warm and cool long into the future. However, contrary to what these people will attempt to tell you, Global Warming is not now, never has been, and never will be caused by the emissions of man made Carbon Dioxide from the surface of the Planet.

Back to back Washington, D.C. blizzards prompted conservatives to mock the global warming crowd last week.

Grandchildren of Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., built an igloo on the National Mall and christened it “Al Gore’s New Home.” Fox News anchor Glenn Beck employed his trademark sarcasm to make fun of the “disappearance” of warming priest Al Gore and devotee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. since the snowfall. Beck picked on Kennedy because of a 2008 op-ed lamenting that global warming had changed the D.C. climate leading to “anemic winters.”

Left-wingers online at place like Huffington Post and Daily Kos, as well as members of the national news media were furious that the “wingnuts” were using the blizzard to make fun of them. They rushed to defend their theory of man-made global warming (anthropogenic global warming or AGW) by claiming that the snowpocalypse was, in fact, caused by global warming.

“Science Guy” Bill Nye was so upset by it he attacked “unpatriotic” climate skeptics on Feb. 10 during the “Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC.

“To deny what scientists or scientific evidence is showing, is inappropriate. And as I said earlier, to me, when I get wound up, it’s unpatriotic,” Nye declared. But there are more questions than ever regarding the science. Prof. Phil Jones, formerly of the Climate Research Unit, admitted this week to losing track of climate change data used to support warming theory and that there hasn’t been “statistically significant” global warming since 1995.

Some of the critics lied about what most conservatives were arguing, accusing the right of saying the historic snowfall disproved global warming. That wasn’t the case, conservatives were merely turning the tables on the left: using mockery to show the absurdity of assigning a cause and effect relationship from weather events to climate change.

The fact is that the weather is not climate. Before the “snomageddon” (as many in D.C. called it), AGW believers constantly connected every weather event from heat waves killing thousands in Europe to Hurricane Katrina with global warming. It wasn’t until the weather started acting against them and conservatives suggested it might undermine their theories that they got touchy on the subject.

ABC’s Bill Blakemore admitted that weather is not climate on Jan. 8 in a feeble attempt to prevent critics from saying that a “cold snap” across the northern hemisphere disproves global warming. Blakemore has a long history of advocating for global warming alarmism on ABC.

Of course weather isn’t climate, but the global warming alarmists like Blakemore want it both ways. They want weather and natural disasters to be proof of warming, but never proof contradicting it.

But it’s not just weather. The media and the left have even more ridiculous assertions about climate change. Like the Kevin Bacon game they seem willing to connect everything to AGW.

Actor Danny Glover blamed global warming for the Haitian earthquake in January 2010. Leaving no tragedy unturned, Joseph Romm, a former Clinton official, actually wondered if the Minnesota bridge collapse in 2007 was a result of global warming.

In a blog post, Romm wrote: “some may object to even asking the question, ‘Did climate change contribute to the Minneapolis bridge collapse?’ My guess is those are the same people who deny that global warming is caused by humans or that it is a serious problem – the same people who inevitably say ‘we can adapt to whatever climate change there is.’”

A media outlet called GMANews.TV based in the Philippines was concerned that global warming was forcing poor women into prostitution. The Nov. 19, 2009 story said, “The effects of climate change have driven women in communities in coastal areas in poor countries like the Philippines into dangerous work, and sometimes even the flesh trade.”

Dr. John Brignell, a British engineering professor, has created a Web site linking to hundreds of media stories blaming AGW. In 2007, he had already posted more than 600 links with a number of unusual connections.

Contradictions like growth or shrinking of coral reefs, destruction or growth of bananas, and heavy or reduced snowfall were all on his list. A number of health ailments including allergies, asthma, cardiac arrest, cancer deaths in England, West Nile fever, cholera, malaria and yellow fever have also been linked.

Snowpocalypse Can’t Stop Faith in Warming

According to AGW believers in and out of the news media, weather can only ever support global warming theory. Not even back-to-back East Coast blizzards that dumped more than two feet of snow in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area can freeze their faith.

The “snowpocalypse” that shut down the federal government, schools and many businesses for several days became one more “extreme” weather phenomenon in a long list attributed to global warming. It joined heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, tropical storms, cyclones, tornadoes, ice shelf and glacial melt, dying polar bears and even lack of snowfall.

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan told viewers on Feb. 9, “Here’s the problem – these ‘snowpocalypses’ that have been going through D.C. and other extreme weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing and anticipating because of global warming.”

Ratigan and others have been upset by conservative mockery about global warming, given the record snowfall of the 2009-2010 winter. The MSNBC host criticized an ad by the Va. GOP designed to ridicule proposed climate change policies that could hurt the state’s job situation.

Talk about polar opposites. In 2010, Ratigan blamed blizzards on global warming. But just one year ago, NBC’s (MSNBC’s parent company) presidential historian Michael Beschloss claimed global warming could be responsible for the lack of Inauguration Day snow.

As the camera turned to President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and their two children walking to the reviewing box, Beschloss described the scene: “And this wooden path that they’re walking down actually dates to many previous inaugurations because a lot of them had snow. It may just be that because of global warming the last few have not.”

That was a frigid January day – 28 degrees at noon plus a severe wind chill – and the coldest inauguration since 1985. Still, according to the news media it was a sign of the destruction caused by fossil fuels, SUVs and other human activity.

But that’s just it. Logic doesn’t matter, according to alarmists the planet is warming, its mankind’s fault and so everything is a result of global warming.

Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Business & Media Institute that “global warming alarmism isn’t really a scientific theory as much as it’s a political program.” That becomes most obvious, Ebell said, when they “explain away the facts” such as more snowfall in the mid-Atlantic despite the IPCC prediction of less snow in the region due to global warming.

Even a tragic Air France plane crash was connected with global warming in Russia Today (RT) on June 4, 2009. Alexei Kokorin, a climatologist for the left-wing World Wildlife Fund’s Russia Climate Program, told RT “”A consequence of global warming is that the frequency and severity of such events (severe weather conditions) is higher. Unfortunately, the risk for airplanes, especially in tropical areas above water, will be higher. This could be difficult for pilots to understand.”

Another horrible disaster, Hurricane Katrina was also linked to manmade climate change. On May 23, 2006, “Good Morning America” featured two previews: one of the hurricane season and one of Al Gore’s global warming movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Gore has been criticized by some for his “very heavy-handed” use of Katrina footage in the film.

Diane Sawyer linked the two saying, “And of course, there are a lot of people who believe that global warming is in fact to blame, in part, for this surge in hurricanes. One of them, former Vice President Al Gore, who has re-emerged, leading a kind of call to action.” She wasn’t alone, CBS’s Hannah Storm and NBC’s Robert Bazell all tied hurricanes to global warming that year.

But there are scientific problems with that assertion that even television meteorologists have criticized. And in May 2008, National Geographic reported that a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study found global warming could actually decrease hurricane activity by about 18 percent.

Newsweek, a newsmagazine that had repeatedly attacked climate skeptics as “deniers,” has stated that there is “unequivocal” evidence of global warming and “90 percent certainty” that humans are responsible. In July 2007, the magazine called the 2003 European heat wave that killed thousands “a human fingerprint” of global warming. They didn’t consider any other factors such as the lack of air conditioning in much of Europe.

Citing a scorching U.S. heat wave in 2006, CBS’s Bob Orr declared: “Gulledge says there’s no longer any serious debate” on climate change. When it comes to the media there certainly isn’t “serious debate,” there isn’t a debate at all since skeptics are outnumbered 13-to-1 on the broadcast networks and often excluded or buried in other reports.

According to the media, everything is proof of warming, even if scientists – including CNN meteorologists – contradict them. Ebell offered one reason that for the media’s constant defense of AGW.

“I think part of it is that the media which from time to time portray itself as anti-establishment is actually an integral part of the establishment (the liberal establishment). So you can be a bomb-thrower if you’re going after Richard Nixon,” Ebell said. “but if they went after someone on their side” they would lose support. So whenever challenged on an issue like global warming, the media “circle the wagons and defend their own.”

Julia A. Seymour Contributes posts at the NewsBusters site where she is an Assistant Editor/Analyst for the Business & Media Institute of the Media Research Center.

See and Read more Quality Material at NewsBusters

Filed under: America (USA), Climate Alarmists, Climate Change, Environment, Environmental activists, Fanatics, Fear-mongering, Fraud/Waste, Global Warming, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Malicious Media, Media, Media Mind Manipulators, MSM (Main Stream Media) Liberal, Muddled Media, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Pseudo-Journalism, Public Opinion Tagged: Climate Change Fraud, Climate Change Religion, Global Warming Alarmism, Global Warming Hype, Left Media Misinformation, NewsBusters, Snowmageddon, Snowpocalypse, Tony

By Renee Taylor.

TonyfromOz prefaces …..

This is a long and considered post that I urge you all to take the time to read.  The scenario may indeed by hypothetical, but what it does do most effectively is to make you think what you might do if a situation similar to this may arise, be it man made, or naturally occurring.

The truck approached Chicago in the early morning light much like any of the thousands of big rigs that travel Interstate 80 on a daily basis. Hauling food, materials and life’s necessities and luxuries, it went unnoticed as it, and its load of potentially deadly chlorine, slowly headed into rush hour traffic.

The driver had his credentials in check when he picked up the load – he had gone through the hazardous materials training offered by the small company for which he drove. With no criminal record, he easily passed the Transportation Safety Administration’s background check to get the treasured “haz-mat” endorsement on his commercial driver’s license. His association with his local mosque was never disclosed; his real intent, a mission begun at the time of his application with the trucking company a year prior, known only to him. With unsuspecting commuters sat in the rush hour traffic going into the city and a quiet whisper of “Allahu Akbar,” the truck driver pushed the button on the detonator. The explosive rigged to the sleeper exploded in with a sharp, deafening roar, tearing open the back of the trailer. Fire raging, the chlorine spilled onto the roadway, toxic gas filling the air.

Hundreds die or are wounded from the initial blast and chlorine exposure. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, will succumb in the days ahead as clean up, investigation and quarantine begin. Hospitals are filled to capacity, unable to care for the sick and dying. Supplies to the survivors are slow to arrive, as the bureaucracy struggles to find answers, excuses and blame. With no clear plan in place, a population in the world’s wealthiest nation is sick, dying and struggling to obtain life’s basic necessities.

The above is a hypothetical, but very real, scenario. Across the nation, people are coping with blizzard conditions, their world frozen under ice and snow. Power, water and even such small daily activities like driving to the grocery store, necessities we take for granted, are gone. Trapped, they wait – wait for the power company to restore service. Long lines form at the local convenience store for the last few cans of Spam, as trucks are unable to trek across the icy roads to deliver goods.

Whether it is a terrorist attack, natural disaster or complete meltdown of our nation’s economy as money for the national debt is printed before the ink on the last batch of $100 bills is dry, the possibility of a “doomsday” scenario is not outside the realm of possibility. Can a people so reliant upon computer technology, public transportation, the vast trucking industry to bring the stores goods and food from far away cities, live for days, possibly weeks, survive?

We live in a house of cards with no clear foundation. We rely too much upon unfriendly foreign nations to provide oil to heat our homes and put gas in our cars. We rely upon other nations to provide produce and other food items that fill our grocery store – food that can easily be contaminated with e-coli and other deadly, infectious disease – food that would not be available in the event of even a partial collapse of the transportation sector. Basic skills such as sewing and cooking are lost upon a generation raised on convenience foods and cheap, “throw away” goods. Could you or your child sew a button on a coat or mend a sock if clothing became scarce? Could you prepare a meal with flour, milk, eggs and canned meat and/or vegetables, or would you stare at the ingredients, wishing for last week’s prepared, frozen dinner?

The federal government cannot, over eight years after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, even effectively handle one terrorist with a bomb in his BVDs. With federal, state and local governments continually intruding upon our lives, from what kind of light bulb we can use in our homes to making more and more citizens dependent upon that government check to pay for basic housing, food and clothing, when those who are directing our lives are in vast disarray as first responders are overwhelmed and real tragedy, far beyond the grasp of politicians who cannot purchase a ream of copy paper without a week’s debate and discussion are unable to make quick, needed decisions, it is up to each individual to take charge of their situation and ensure their family will make it through.

Bob Livingston, founder of Personal Liberty Alerts and editor of The Bob Livingston Letter, has provided, in his book How to Survive the Collapse of Civilization, a good, basic outline on what you can do as an individual to prepare for any situation. While the title of the book and the cover itself – showing an unknown city being destroyed by a nuclear bomb while a citizen looks on from his gas mask – may turn off many, it is a book that should grace the emergency preparedness box of all.

While Livingston gives a selection of scenarios that face a world filled with war, radical Islamic jihadists and natural disaster, this is not a book on the how and why such disasters occur, but a foundation to motivate the reader toward preparedness, a lesson in back-to-the-basics that seem lost in a world of convenience.

Many Americans live in a bubble, so to speak. They do not know how to get out of their own neighborhoods, much less the city, in the event of evacuation for any reason. As we have seen in past natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes, the marked evacuation routes are congested and dangerous. Not only does Livingston give suggestions on securing your home in the event of evacuation – such as turning off gas and water valves to your home – he also reminds the reader to obtain a map and have clear route marked out in the event major interstates and roadways are unsafe and unusable. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are a nice convenience, but there is no substitute for a good paper map for accuracy and reliability.

Build your emergency kit with such items as needed prescription medications, copies of those prescriptions, birth and marriage certificates – as well as other documentation that will be necessary to prove your identity and that of your dependents. Proof of home and vehicle ownership is a must and, I will add, a complete list of all legally owned firearms with serial numbers and detailed descriptions. Livingston further suggests the following: candles, matches, extra clothing and items such as extra ammunition for your firearms, for hunting and self-defense, as well as pepper spray.

Each geographical situation is different and will be in the event of a major disaster. Those living in the major cities will not have the advantage those in rural areas will have in the way of hunting and foraging for food – for which Livingston provides an excellent guide. The reality of food riots in major cities will not be unheard of if supplies dwindle. Crime and basic savagery will skyrocket, as people – whether motivated by fear or greed – revert to looting and theft. The ends – obtaining some treasure whether it be your big screen television or your last can of soup – will, to those people, justify the means: assault and possibly death. With first responders stretched to the limit and “humanitarian aid” tied up in red tape, it will be up to the individual to reasonably and responsibly protect himself, his family and his life.

From the very basics, such as water sterilization and how to store extra water and food to get you through even the briefest of disasters, to guides to surviving long-term in the case of nuclear or biological attack, Livingston’s book does not tell you how to survive, but provides a foundation to build upon to ensure you and your family are self-sufficient and secure. It is a book for the self-motivated individual who realizes that, in the event of an emergency, it will be up to you – not the Federal government or some other entity holding your hand and handing out rice and beans in a near-riotous food line – to protect your family and property.

How to Survive the Collapse of Civilization by Bob Livingston is available here.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Renee Taylor is a licensed private investigator with The Taylor Company, an investigations and research company based in Warren, Bradley County, Arkansas, as well as an Arkansas licensed bailbond agent for Bryce’s Bailbonding, Inc.

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Filed under: America (USA), Disaster, Fanatics, Fear-mongering, Infrastructure Problems, Public Opinion Tagged: FSM (Family Security Matters), FSM (Renee Taylor), man made disasters, Natural Disaster, Survival, Tony

By Andrew Bolt

TonyfromOz prefaces …..

This post from Andrew has a link to a long post from our friends at the ‘American Thinker’ site, and that link is well worth taking to read the full article. These white elephants are proving to be more of a problem than a boon.

Wind farms are dying in the United States as the taxpayer handouts dry out:

Some say that Ka Le is haunted—and it is. But it’s haunted not by Hawaii’s legendary night marchers. The mysterious sounds are “Na leo o Kamaoa”– the disembodied voices of 37 skeletal wind turbines abandoned to rust on the hundred-acre site of the former Kamaoa Wind Farm…

The ghosts of Kamaoa are not alone in warning us. Five other abandoned wind sites dot the Hawaiian Isles—but it is in California where the impact of past mandates and subsidies is felt most strongly. Thousands of abandoned wind turbines littered the landscape of wind energy’s California “big three” locations—Altamont Pass, Tehachapin (above right), and San Gorgonio—considered among the world’s best wind sites…

California’s wind farms—then comprising about 80% of the world’s wind generation capacity—ceased to generate much more quickly than Kamaoa.  In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned.  Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills…

Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.

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Filed under: 111th Congress, America (USA), Blundering Bureaucrats, Climate Alarmists, Climate Change, Conniving Politicians, Environment, Environmental activists, Fanatics, Fear-mongering, Fraud/Waste, Global Warming, Liberals, Lily-Livered Liberals, Limp-Wrist Liberals, Political Prostitutes, Politics, Power Hungry, Propaganda, Public Opinion, Spine Donor Politicians Tagged: Andrew Bolt, Climate Change Religion, Global Warming Hype, Tony, Wind Power Generation, Wind Power Problems