BarackBook

The GOP, never known for being particularly clever, have at least tried to appear hip with their newest effort: a spoof of Facebook called BarackBook. It questions Obama's judgment by listing details on a few of his more nefarious associates. Judging by the contemptuous reviews by Obama fans on BarackBook's actual Facebook page, it seems the parody may have struck a nerve. (h/t: Jonathan Leffingwell)

Still, if Team McCain hopes to pull out a victory in November, they're gonna have to shift gears away from negative campaigning and craft a coherent message of their own. Obama may be an empty suit, but he's chock full of rhetoric and platitudes that generate enthusiasm; something still sadly lacking on the right.

Busy Wednesday blogroll roundup

Today's been another busy one for me, so enjoy some bloggy goodness from these fine folks.

• Infidels Are Cool has a video clip of a very angry Muslim woman who attacks a street preacher after he talks about Mohammed's pedophilie marriage to 9-year-old Aisha


• Michelle Malkin calls on GOP scumbag Sen. Ted Stevens to step down due to his seven-count indictment on corruption charges


• Warner Todd Huston opines on Obama's most recent arrogance: "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions"


• Crush Liberalism links to an outrageous story in American Spectator calling for reparations to captured al-Qaeda terrorists in Gitmo


• Allahpundit lists sources who say McCain will pick Pawlenty for his VP

Rush Hour remix with Lando Calrissian and Nien Numb

I think this has been around for a little while but I just saw it today and the geek in me had to share it. This is audio from the movie Rush Hour with edited footage from The Return Of The Jedi. Never touch Lando's radio!

Midweek Peek 07.30.08

Kim Kardashian

X-Men Origins: Wolverine trailer debuts at Comic-Con

Wolverine, X-23, Gambit, Sabretooth, Deadpool, Blob... it looks pretty freakin' cool.

Religion of Peace update: Honor killing in America

Stop The ACLU has posted all five segments (this is just the first) of the special investigative report that aired this weekend about the brutal tradition of Islamic "honor killings" which is on the rise here in America.

Religion of Peace update: 1/3 of UK Muslim students back murder for religion

A recent poll reveals the sad results of Britain's yielding to the influx of radical Islamists.

Via TimesOnline: Almost a third of British Muslim students believe killing in the name of Islam can be justified, according to a poll. The study also found that two in five Muslims at university support the incorporation of Islamic sharia codes into British law.

The YouGov poll for the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) will raise concerns about the extent of campus radicalism. "Significant numbers appear to hold beliefs which contravene democratic values," said Han-nah Stuart, one of the report’s authors. "These results are deeply embarrassing for those who have said there is no extremism in British universities."

The report was criticised by the country's largest Muslim student body, Fosis, but Anthony Glees, professor of security and intelligence studies at Buckingham University, said: "The finding that a large number of students think it is okay to kill in the name of religion is alarming. ...

In addition to its poll of 1,400 Muslim and nonMuslim students, the centre visited more than 20 universities to interview students and listen to guest speakers. It found that extremist preachers regularly gave speeches that were inflammatory, homophobic or bordering on antisemitic.

If these numbers are correct, what will this portend for non-Muslims as these bloodthirsty students leave the ivory towers of academia and enter the mainstream of British culture and the world at large?

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." ~Winston Churchill

An Inconvenient Victory

Newsbusters has an excellent post detailing how the mainstream media has minimized or, in some cases, buried the AP's analysis of America's imminent victory in Iraq. The article in question omits the word "surge" and, of course, doesn't credit President Bush's resolve and steadfast support of our military.

• AP's decision to run the story on a Saturday greatly reduced its exposure. Though it can't be proven, it apears that the authors may have had what they needed to complete their work in time to send it over the wires on Friday morning US time. They indicated that they spoke to General Petraeus "this past week," and to US ambassador to Iraq Crocker on Thursday. They did provide a troop casualty figure as of Friday, but that figure could have been provided as of a couple of days earlier without affecting the analysis.


• The relatively few outlets carrying the story, and the headline dilutions done at some of them, probably mean that the 85% of Americans who don't closely follow the news are not going to be aware of what Burns and Reid wrote.

It's time to increase the pressure on the terrorists, as opposed to withdrawing and allowing al-Qaeda to declare victory. Are you listening, Mr. Obama?

I wonder if this might be how the surge's naysayers (MSM, anti-war/anti-military liberals, Obama, et al.) must be feeling right now about their craven, premature calls for retreat. (h/t: Two Dogs)


America's top military commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, wisely cautions against anticipatory withdrawal (or redeployment) of American troops.

During a Friday interview on CNN's "The Situation Room," Republican candidate John McCain, who had opposed setting a timeline, appeared to shift ground. McCain said that 16 months "is a pretty good timetable" but must be based on conditions on the ground.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has embraced "time horizons" as it negotiates with the Iraqi government a status of forces agreement over the future role of U.S. troops. Petraeus said any timetable must have "a heck of a lot more granularity than the kind of very short-hand statements that have been put out."

"We occasionally have commanders who have so many good weeks, (they think) it’s won. We’ve got this thing. Well we don’t. We’ve had so many good weeks. Right now, for example we’ve had two-and-a-half months of levels of violence not since March 2004," he said from his office at Camp Victory.

"Well that’s encouraging. It’s heartening. It’s very welcome. But let’s keep our powder dry. . . .Let’s not let our guard down."

Penn & Teller challenge environmental hysteria

Sorry, couldn't resist piling on a little bit. (h/t: LGF)

Penn & Teller use their caustic brand of humor to ridicule the excesses and exaggerations of the environmental movement. They even manage to get several ignorant people at a demonstration – including its leader – to sign a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide (H2O), which goes to show how easily duped many of these greenies can be.

This is the full episode so it's a little on the lengthy side (29 minutes) but within the first three minutes you'll see several interviews with well-meaning environmentalist idiots parroting their crisis propaganda. Which is exactly the kind of thing I rail against – scientific facts being misappropriated as anti-capitalist twaddle.

Denying the global warming "deniers"

I gotta get this out of my system, allow me this indulgence and then I promise to move on.

This week has been very eye-opening for me. And not just from the standpoint that a dispute caused me to investigate a subject more deeply. Although I do relish the opportunity to examine and learn, I don't have the time nor interest to waste in endless arguments.

After reading through and deciding to post a couple stories about Viscount Monckton's controversial article questioning anthropogenic global warming (i.e. how much mankind is contributing to the climate change), I was treated to many vitriolic comments which seemed to take offense at the mere mention of skepticism. Apparently, we plebes are not allowed to doubt His Holiness Al Gore nor the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) upon whose findings he based his error-laden shockumentary, An Inconvenient Truth. I have heard that scientists with dissenting opinions were regularly intimidated into silence by global warming's true believers, I just didn't expect to receive that kind of treatment myself because (news flash) I'm no scientist.

Turns out I'm not alone in incurring the ire of the alarmists. Brendan O’Neill has written a couple of articles about the disturbing nature of this very thing. From "Greens Are the Enemies of Liberty":

Environmentalists are innately hostile to freedom of speech. Last month James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate change scientists, said the CEOs of oil companies should be tried for crimes against humanity and nature. They have been "putting out misinformation", he said, and "I think that's a crime". This follows green writer Mark Lynas's insistence that there should be "international criminal tribunals" for climate change deniers, who will be "partially but directly responsible for millions of deaths". They will "have to answer for their crimes", he says. The American eco-magazine Grist recently published an article on deniers that called for "war crimes trials for these bastards… some sort of climate Nuremberg."

From "Global Warming: The Chilling Effect on Free Speech":

For all the talk of simply preserving the facts against climate change deniers, there is increasingly a pernicious moralism and authoritarianism in the attempts to silence certain individuals and groups. This is clear from the use of the term ‘climate change denier’, which, as Charles Jones argued, is an attempt to assign any ‘doubters’ with ‘the same moral repugnance one associates with Holocaust denial.’
...
There is something deeply repugnant in marshalling the Holocaust in this way, both to berate climate change deniers and also as a convenient snapshot of what is to come if the planet continues to get warmer. First, the evidence is irrefutable that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis; that is an historical event that has been thoroughly investigated, interrogated and proven beyond reasonable doubt... There is no such proof or evidence (how could there be?) that global warming will cause a similar calamity. Second, it is, yet again, a cynical attempt to close down debate. The H-word is uttered as a kind of moral absolute that no one could possibly question. We are all against what happened during the first Holocaust, so we will be against the ‘next Holocaust’, too, right? And if not – if you do not take seriously the coming ‘global warming Holocaust’ – then you are clearly wicked, the equivalent of the David Irvings of this world, someone who should possibly even be locked up or certainly tried at a future date. At least laws against Holocaust denial (which, as a supporter of free speech, I am opposed to) chastise individuals for lying about a known and proven event; by contrast, the turning of climate change denial into a taboo raps people on the knuckles for questioning events, or alleged events, that have not even occurred yet.
...
Effectively, campaigners and officials are using scientific facts – over which there is still disagreement – to shut down what ought to be a political debate about what humans need and want. This is the worst of it. Whatever side you take in the climate change clash of facts, this undermining of debate should be a cause of concern.

In his article, "The Green Inquisition", Björn Lomborg offers a more level-headed approach:

Because of climate panic, our attempts to mitigate climate change have provoked an unmitigated disaster. We will waste hundreds of billions of dollars, worsen global warming, and dramatically increase starvation. We have to stop being scared silly, stop pursuing stupid policies, and start investing in smart long-term R&D. Accusations of "crimes against humanity" must cease. Indeed, the real offense is the alarmism that closes minds to the best ways to respond to climate change.

Based on this week's contentious exchange in the comments section, let me see if I have it straight on what's "allowed" when it comes to debating global warming with its zealots.

• Only approved university or national science sites can be cited by skeptics (unless one agrees with the "consensus", in which case it's permissible to quote from leftist sites like The WE that push anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda as well as endorsing out-of-body experiences and astral projection, 'cause that's real science!)


• Never, EVER question Al Gore. He only uses alarmist rhetoric because that's what is necessary to break through the "muck and confusion" slung by people who don't agree with his agenda. (Nevermind that Gore's proposals are what cause skeptics to speak up and ask for temperance and patience in the first place)


• Discussion of natural variance, solar influence, or anything other than focusing on man's culpability in climate change = denial of global warming


• Input by skeptics is bad because it is "seriously confusing the general public & hindering policies which need to be implemented to deal with climate change." Intrusive governmental control is needed, and free speech must be silenced for the greater good. If you're not a scientist, or you don't agree with "the consensus," just shut up.

Snarky humor aside, it seriously concerns me that the global warming issue is considered off the table for discussion (for a look at what I've had to say on climate change, click here for a collections of posts I've made on the topic). Even among scientists with multiple degrees and decades of study in their various fields, there is substantial disagreement over the evidence. And when people call for heavy-handed seizure of power and subsequent abridgment of liberty by government based upon questionable conclusions, it should throw up red flags. Reasonable people ought to be free to voice skepticism and debate the various facts and conclusions without fear of an eco-witch hunt.

Liberal journalists donate to Democrats over Republicans 100 to 1

Ok, it's official. I don't want to hear ANY more complaints from Democrats about Republicans' preference for Fox News. Investor's Business Daily follows journalists' prejudice via their campaign contributions in a new editorial this week.

Putting Money Where Mouths Are: Media Donations Favor Dems 100-1

The New York Times' refusal to publish John McCain's rebuttal to Barack Obama's Iraq op-ed may be the most glaring example of liberal media bias this journalist has ever seen. But true proof of widespread media bias requires one to follow an old journalism maxim: Follow the money.

Even the Associated Press — no bastion of conservatism — has considered, at least superficially, the media's favoritism for Barack Obama. It's time to revisit media bias.

True to form, journalists are defending their bias by saying that one candidate, Obama, is more newsworthy than the other. In other words, there is no media bias. It is we, the hoi polloi, who reveal our bias by questioning the neutrality of these learned professionals in their ivory-towered newsrooms.

There's a lot more. But it's not too lengthy and it's pretty good (especially the part detailing some of Obama's hypocrisy regarding PAC money). Read the whole thing.

No wonder, as Jonathan Martin opines, the GOP is losing the new-media war.

But the left isn't simply promoting its own version of the news — it's also breaking it.

Deploying writers with backgrounds grounded in journalism rather than politics, The Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo, in particular, have already become a persistent problem for McCain's campaign, regularly posting negative opposition research and embarrassing videos in addition to advancing damaging story lines against the GOP nominee.

There is simply no equivalent on the right to these two liberal-leaning websites.
[...]
Add in the increasingly aggressive online efforts of liberal think tanks such as the Center for American Progress, and it leaves the right at a severe disadvantage in the high-stakes business of distributing information about favored candidates and the opposition.
[...]
"In the past 60 years, only one employee of the National Review, Weekly Standard or any conservative magazine has actually been hired as a reporter for a newspaper," says Brooks, who researched the question a few years ago.

At the same time, scores of young reporters from liberal-leaning journals such as The New Republic or The Washington Monthly have been called up to the journalistic big leagues by general interest newspapers and magazines.

"There is just no career line for a conservative reporter," observes Brooks.

Further, prominent conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin have prospered by seizing upon the sense of grievance conservatives have felt toward the mainstream media.

Liberals, on the other hand, responded to their own disenchantment with the media and the Bush era by channeling their anger into the creation of parallel reporting outlets geared toward doing what old-line news outlets purportedly weren't doing.

(Yeah, The New York Times is a regular paragon of objectivity.)

While there is no real national site, Erick Erickson, founder of the popular RedState, points out that there is some reporting taking place on conservative blogs in Minnesota and Colorado.
...
But for now, Erickson concedes that most potential angel funders are hesitant to bankroll a start-up, still gun-shy after many websites have flopped and skeptical that a right-wing version of HuffPo or TPM would be taken seriously by established media organs.

Gee, I can't imagine why conservative reporters are having a hard time gaining traction in established media outlets?

Thursday blogroll roundup

Just a few goodies, I'll add more to the list (and pen something of my own) this afternoon.

• Dr. Rusty Shackleford wrote one of the most interesting pieces I've read lately on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, entitled "Are Homosexuals Superhuman?"


• Blogmeister USA listens in on Obama's prayer


• Gateway Pundit has a story about nutroots stockpiling urine to throw on the police at the DNC convention


• Militant Ginger has a fascinating history of Noah Webster and the creation of his ubiquitous dictionary, and emphasizes the importance of the English language to American culture


• Moonbattery notes the deafening silence in the mainstream media regarding Obamessiah's VP wannabe John Edwards being caught red-handed visiting his mistress, Rielle Hunter (supposedly the mother of his illegitimate child)

The Left's tradition of spitting on soldiers continues

Here's a recent video of some anti-war protesters in Santa Barbara, CA, courtesy of Wolking's World. (h/t: Crush Liberalism)

• Flying the flag upside-down
• Fawning over poetry written by captured terrorists in prison
  
• Claiming that President Bush is "worse than Saddam" and should be hanged

And, of course...

• Spitting on an Iraq War veteran and calling him a fascist and a rapist

Modern "progressives" on the far left: hating the military, but don't question their patriotism.

Pickens: We are paying for both sides of the Iraqi war

There's a little bit of scaremongering in Pickens' testimony, but with gas prices doubling over the past two years, he might not be too far from wrong. As to the $700 billion per year that we're hemorrhaging, it's time to staunch the flow.

WASHINGTON — In T. Boone Pickens’ war on terror, the enemy is foreign oil.

Pickens, the Republican Texas oil mogul, testified Tuesday before a Senate panel to lay out his new, self-titled "Pickens Plan" to boost renewable energy sources, get the U.S. transportation sector off oil and cut U.S. use of foreign petroleum.

Pickens told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee that aside from getting away from foreign oil, he’s for just about anything, from electric cars — like those advocated by Al Gore — to offshore drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Recalling a conversation he recently had with Gore, Pickens told the panel: "I said, 'I'm for everything that's American.' … I only have one enemy, and that’s foreign oil. That's what I want to get rid of."

He added: "I am convinced we are paying for both sides of the Iraqi war."

Making the change is necessary, Pickens said, because continuing to rely on foreign oil will result in $300 per barrel price at America’s current consumption trends. He also said he believes U.S. national security is in dire straits with roughly $700 billion annually heading overseas to the Middle East and unfriendly countries like Venezuela in exchange for crude.

Pickens said installing wind farms, and later solar power facilities in the midsection of the United States, with government help, could produce 20 percent of electricity consumed domestically. That would alleviate the need to use natural gas to make electricity.

Under the Pickens Plan, natural gas along with biofuels would power all transportation, reducing foreign oil dependence — according to Pickens' numbers — by one-third.

Another panelist warned that Pickens' sketch is by no means flawless, although he agreed with the principle that America is far too dependent on foreign energy sources and should boost the use of renewable energy.

Let's hope it doesn't take $10/gallon gasoline (or the Democrats' proposed tax hike on gas) to wake us up.

Acing the Pew News IQ test

Yay me, I just took the Pew News IQ test and did pretty well. (h/t: Jenn of the Jungle)

You correctly answered 12 of the 12 possible questions along with approximately 3% of the public. You did better than 97% of the general public.

If you're like me and enjoy testing your knowledge from time to time, go check it out. It's fun and it's only a few simple questions on current events.

Midweek Peek 07.23.08

Bond girl (The World Is Not Enough) and MILF, Maria Grazia Cucinotta

Obama's syrupy Tour de Farce

Obama's tour overseas this week has been nothing short of nauseating. The pathetic sycophants in the media have lost all pretense of objectivity, practically masturbating all over themselves while breathlessly reporting the latest leg-thrills from their neophyte candidate of choice.



And in the midst of this shameless love-fest, or perhaps because of it, Obama remains obstinate about his erroneous position on the successful troop surge in Iraq.

ABC's TERRY MORAN: If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge?

OBAMA: No, because, keep in mind that-

MORAN: You wouldn't?

OBAMA: Well, no, keep in mind, these kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult. You know, hindsight is 20/20. But I think that, what I am absolutely convinced of is that at that time, we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with.

Apparently, victory is what Obama disagrees with, as evidenced by his repeated claims that he will "end" this war. Notice he never says he'll win it, just that he'll end it. On his own website, the page devoted to Iraq never once mentions defeating the terrorists, nor victory for our soldiers. Only a nescient promise of safety.

"So when I am Commander-in-Chief, I will set a new goal on day one: I will end this war. Not because politics compels it. Not because our troops cannot bear the burden- as heavy as it is. But because it is the right thing to do for our national security, and it will ultimately make us safer." —Barack Obama, Fayetteville, North Carolina, March 19, 2008

He believes that retreat will make us safer, surrender is the right thing to do. But don't expect assclowns like Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann to point that out, they're too busy lubing up for Obama's next big photo op.

“The quickest way to end a war is to lose it.” —George Orwell

Religion of Peace update: Muslims Kill Christian Teenager For Courting Muslim Girl

Just keep repeating, "there's no compulsion in Islam." (h/t: Infidels Are Cool)

LAHORE, PAKISTAN – The body of a Christian teenager has been hauled out of a canal in Pakistan's second largest city Lahore after he was beaten to death there for courting a Muslim girl, BosNewsLife learned Friday, July 18.

The 19-year-old boy, whose name was changed into Peter for security reasons, was murdered by the girl’s father and two uncles in what they described as an "honour killing", Christian family members and investigators said.

Peter and the 19-year-old girl apparently began their relationship through mobile phone chatting, an increasingly popular way of communicating among youngsters across Asia.

Interfaith contacts and marriages between Christians and Muslims are allowed under Islamic law, but such relationships are often opposed by Islamic clerics and hard-line Muslims, according to religious rights investigators.

The troubles for Peter apparently began when the girl's family forced her to call him and invite the boy to a secluded location. Peter reportedly immediately hired a motorbike to reach the area, but he would not find his girlfriend. Instead, her father and two uncles awaited the boy and allegedly beat him to death.

"They took Peter by force. They trussed him and tortured him for almost two days. Peter could not bear the severity of the torture and died eventually," said Joseph Francis, who leads rights group Center for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), which gives legal support to reportedly persecuted Christians in Pakistan. The Muslim family could not be reached for comment.

CLAAS lawyers say police have so far rejected to register the case as murder and are describing it as suicide. "The police were prejudiced, because it was a matter of religion,"

Yeah, I'll just bet that sneaky Christian tied himself up and tortured himself to death. That makes perfect sense.

Obama's eco-hypocrisy gets a new paint job

Al Gore may have set the standard for eco-hypocrisy, but Barack Obama is raising the bar by giving his chartered jet a shiny new paint job.

Barack Obama's campaign unveiled a sparkling makeover for his chartered plane on Sunday, ahead of the presumptive Democratic nominee's high-profile tour of the Middle East and Europe.

The remodelled Boeing 757 jet, dubbed "Obama One" is painted blue and white and sports the Illinois senator's distinctive rising sun logo on its tail and bears his slogan "Change We Can Believe In" along each side.

Apparently that "change" refers to the energy habits of regular Americans and isn't intended for the high and mighty.

After all, it was just a few months ago that the Obamessiah was lecturing all of us on our energy consumption.

Pitching his message to Oregon's environmentally-conscious voters, Obama called on the United States to "lead by example" on global warming...

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

"That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.

American Physical Society declares "global warming" unproven

* UPDATE * Since some readers missed my earlier update at the bottom of this post, and due to the inflammatory nature of questioning the theory of anthropogenic climate change (a.k.a. man-made global warming), I'm bumping this one to the top.

After Viscount Monckton published an article questioning the core calculation of the IPCC's greenhouse gas theory, the APS quickly issued a denial seemingly to quash debate:

"The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions."

The disclaimer at the top of the article now reads:

"The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review, since that is not normal procedure for American Physical Society newsletters. The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007: 'Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate.'"

UK's The Register details Monckton's reply to APS President Arthur Bienenstock:

"If the Council has not scientifically evaluated or formally considered my paper, may I ask with what credible scientific justification, and on whose authority, the offending text asserts primo, that the paper had not been scientifically reviewed when it had; secundo, that its conclusions disagree with what is said (on no evidence) to be the "overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community"; and, tertio, that "The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions"? Which of my conclusions does the Council disagree with, and on what scientific grounds (if any)?"

My initial post follows...
---
This is just too good. The American Physical Society is not only asserting that man-made global climate change is unproven, they're accusing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of intentionally distorting their evidence.

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming “incontrovertible.” …

The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity — the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause — has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.

Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton’s paper an “expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and “extensive errors”

In an email to DailyTech, Monckton says, “I was dismayed to discover that the IPCC’s 2001 and 2007 reports did not devote chapters to the central ‘climate sensitivity’ question, and did not explain in proper, systematic detail the methods by which they evaluated it. When I began to investigate, it seemed that the IPCC was deliberately concealing and obscuring its method.”

The Science and Public Policy Institute is saying basically the same thing.

Mathematical proof that there is no “climate crisis” appears today in a major, peer-reviewed paper in Physics and Society, a learned journal of the 10,000-strong American Physical Society, SPPI reports.

Christopher Monckton, who once advised Margaret Thatcher, demonstrates via 30 equations that computer models used by the UN’s climate panel (IPCC) were pre-programmed with overstated values for the three variables whose product is “climate sensitivity” (temperature increase in response to greenhouse-gas increase), resulting in a 500-2000% overstatement of CO2’s effect on temperature in the IPCC’s latest climate assessment report, published in 2007.

Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered demonstrates that later this century a doubling of the concentration of CO2 compared with pre-industrial levels will increase global mean surface temperature not by the 6 °F predicted by the IPCC but, harmlessly, by little more than 1 °F. …

Never one to let mere facts get in the way of his agenda, panic-meister Al Gore is now proposing a complete elimination of fossil fuels by 2018.

"Our dangerous reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all these problems – economic, environmental, national security," Gore said. "The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels."
[...]
He shied away from specifics during the speech, not mentioning the trillion-dollar price tag of ending carbon-based electricity. Instead, Gore urged the US to institute a carbon tax that could be offset by reducing the payroll tax on employers.

"We should tax what we burn, not what we earn," he said.

Underpinning Gore's remarks, however, was a finely tuned sense of the economic anxiety that dominates American life 13 weeks before the next presidential election.

Indeed, Gore's been relying on the apprehension borne of his fables to sell his "global warming" snake oil to the world for some time now, and he's been laughing all the way to the bank. I think these recent developments will be lost on Saint Chicken Little, much like the inconvenient results of those Florida recounts.

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." – H. L. Mencken

Global warming? Climate change? Tell him, Inigo.

---
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin is on top of this and posted the spin-control "clarification" issued by the APS as well as some tasty eco-hypocrisy being displayed today at Al Gore’s big energy sermon in Washington, D.C.

Religion of Peace update: Lebanon hails release of child-murdering jihadist

I'm shocked and disappointed to hear the news that Israel agreed to a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, releasing a brutal Lebanese terrorist in trade for the mutilated bodies of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

In its exchange with Hezbollah, Israel freed Samir Kantar, a Lebanese militant convicted of killing a father in front of his 4-year-old daughter, and then killing her by crushing her skull with a rifle butt.
[...]
The lopsided prisoner swap — trading Kantar and the others for bodies — raised questions in Israel about its policy of bringing back its soldiers, dead or alive, at any price.

My thoughts exactly. If Israel is willing to release live terrorists in trade for dead Israelis, what incentive do the terrorists have for keeping their captives alive? And why enable convicted killers to continue their slaughter against your citizens?

Furthermore, appeasing these savages only emboldens their culture of death. Kantar wasted no time in pledging to continue his jihad.

In Beirut, the five freed prisoners dressed in military fatigues walked a red carpet laid out for them to the grave of Imad Mughniyeh, a shadowy figure Israel and the West accused of masterminding terrorist bombings in the 1980s and 1990s. He was killed in a car bomb in neighboring Syria in February which Hezbollah blamed on Israel. Israel denied it.

"We swear by God ... to continue on your same path and not to retreat until we achieve the same stature that God bestowed on you," said Samir Kantar, who had been the longest-held Lebanese prisoner in Israel.

He referred to Mughniyeh's "martyrdom," saying, "This is our great wish. We envy you and we will achieve it, God willing."

Osama bin Laden once claimed, "...when the people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they naturally gravitate toward the strong horse." Israel's actions today portray them as weaklings to the Arab world, willing to concede to terrorist tactics.

Hamas officials said the swap with Hezbollah proved that Israel only understands the language of kidnapping and violence.

Meanwhile, Israel issued empty threats:

Israeli security officials warned on Thursday that Lebanese murderer Samir Kantar, who was freed in a prisoner swap after nearly three decades behind bars, should now fear for his own life.

"Every terrorist who committed an act of terror against Israel, especially someone like Kantar, who killed a little child and two other people, is a target," one of the officials told AFP.

"If there is a chance for Israel to close the file on Kantar, Israel won't hesitate," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

I call bullshit, as do the thousands of bloodthirsty Lebanese who greeted these jihadi psychopaths like rock stars. If Israel was serious about executing terrorists, they should have done so while they had Kantar in their grasp. This ill-advised prisoner exchange will only ensure more terrorist attacks and more dead Israelis in the near future.

Time For Some Campaignin'

The good folks at JibJab gleefully skewer Dems & Repubs alike to the tune of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'." My favorite part, of course, is the Obamessiah on a unicorn. Hi-yo Hope!

New "Terminator Salvation" teaser trailer

Friggin' sweet!

In the highly anticipated new installment of "The Terminator" film franchise, set in post-apocalyptic 2018, Christian Bale stars as John Connor, the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet's operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind.

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UPDATE: I've relinked it but just in case the trailer above doesn't work, click over here to watch it on Yahoo (seems they have a monopoly on the release for now).

Religion of Peace update: Saudi outrage over pedophile marriage

I'm a little confused over the sudden furor on this Saudi website. According to Saudi cleric Dr. Ahmad al-Mu’bi, this kind of thing is supposedly normal in Islamic cultures: Marriage at one year of age, sex at nine. This pedophile is just following his prophet's example, right?

Alarabia.net reported on Friday that a 60-year-old man in Hail Province would shortly marry a 10-year-old girl. This report comes on top of another stating that the Hail Province has the dubious distinction of being home to the youngest husband and wife in the world. There could, no doubt, be several unreported instances of old men taking minor girls for wives in other regions of the Kingdom.

While a Saudi newspaper, Shams, expressed outrage at the reported practice of “selling” brides, several people wanted the government to step in and stop the marriage. “Selling” in the context refers to the fact that a girl’s father would agree to marry her to an old man only if he offered an enormous amount of money to the father.

Such reports not only bring a bad name to the province but also tarnish the image of the country and the religion, not to say anything of a minor girl being traumatized by the horrors of a forced conjugal union.

An Arab, with his present cultural and religious background, may not accept that legitimate sexual life would mentally harm a girl between 15 and 17. But this does not mean that a minor’s sexual experience is beneficial, or harmless, to her. If the studies showed that even 17-year-old girls suffered mental illness after sex, what could be the state of a child who had to sleep with a man older than her own father.

Let's hope, for the child's sake, that common sense will beat out religiously-sanctioned pedophilia.

For Democrats, CHANGE means doing nothing

Now that President Bush has lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling, it's time for Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid to step up to the plate and listen to the overwhelming majority of American citizens who are in favor of additional oil production.

The poll of 920 adults taken last week shows that 73% think “fuel prices at the pump” are a bigger problem for the country than climate change, the new term for global warming. Only 23% say climate change is more important.

The sentiment prevails across the board — among men and women, old and young, rich and poor, and Republicans, independents and Democrats, two-thirds of whom say gas prices are more important.

Support for offshore drilling and oil shale development is also broad-based, with the former favored by 64% of respondents and the latter by 65%.

The results suggest President Bush has strong public support as he puts pressure on Congress to back more exploration for oil.

But don't expect the Worst Congress Ever to listen. Democrats would rather burn through our reserves and play politics while gas prices climb towards $5 a gallon.

Despite polls showing Americans in favor of drilling more oil from America's huge untapped supplies, Pelosi won't allow it. She just wants to empty our Strategic Petroleum Reserve for a short-term fix to get through Election Day.

It's an irresponsible suggestion, signaling not only an ignorance of how the economy works but also a willingness to place the nation at risk in the case of emergency.

Last Tuesday, Pelosi sent a letter to President Bush urging him to release a "small portion" of the nation's 706 million barrels of strategic-reserve oil to bring down prices. Regardless of how one feels about whether reserves should be held at all, two big problems stand out with Pelosi's tiny demand.

One, she's proposing a misappropriation of the reserves. The U.S. oil stockpile is a 58-day cushion for emergencies that today are all possible. If Israel attacks Iran, for example, and prices double again. Or if Hugo Chavez cuts off his supplies, as he threatened to do as recently as Sunday.

The reserve is there to cushion the blow of a market disruption; it's not an open-market mechanism to manipulate prices for political ends.

Two, Pelosi has finally admitted that supply matters, something that contrasts with her entire legislative record. We count 14 energy actions to suppress supply on her Web site just since 2005.

She has blocked efforts to open Alaska to drilling, denounced fossil fuels, blamed oil companies for high gasoline prices, voted for biotech boondoggles and condemned speculators.

"Our coasts need lasting protection from oil and gas drilling," she declared Dec. 6, 2006, after Democrats won control of Congress. Missing are any moves against petrotyrant regimes who drive prices skyward, or even lip service to the idea of ensuring supply through drilling.

Folks, voting Democrat in November won't bring "change." Unless, of course, you're looking to change things back to the rationing and gas lines we endured in the oil crises of 1973 and 1979.
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UPDATE: Required reading: "Drill, Coast Haste"

Midweek Peek 07.16.08

Catalina Cruz

Obama's Orwellian revision of his "failed surge" criticism

* bumped for content, scroll down for update *
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"He who controls the past, controls the future; and he who controls the present, controls the past."

This is the motto of the Ministry of Information in George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984, but it might just as easily be applied to the Barack Obama candidacy. I wonder if he'll once again dismiss his former inconvenient position as "inartful" or just say his website was "not the website I knew." (h/t: Crush Liberalism)

Barack Obama purges web site critique of surge in Iraq

Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq, the Daily News has learned.

The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a "problem" that had barely reduced violence.

"The surge is not working," Obama's old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.

The News reported Sunday that insurgent attacks have fallen to the fewest since March 2004.

Obama's campaign posted a new Iraq plan Sunday night, which cites an "improved security situation" paid for with the blood of U.S. troops since the surge began in February 2007.

It praises G.I.s' "hard work, improved counterinsurgency tactics and enormous sacrifice."

Campaign aide Wendy Morigi said Obama is "not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events."

GOP rival John McCain zinged Obama as a flip-flopper. "The major point here is that Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that he was wrong," said McCain, adding that Obama "refuses to acknowledge that it [the surge] is succeeding."

Maybe it's not simply the fact that Obama was just plain wrong on his position about the war and the surge. Maybe he's simply employed Orwell's protagonist as his webmaster?

Winston Smith is a bureaucrat in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, revising historical records to match The Party's contemporaneous, official version of the past. The revisionism is required so that the past reflect the shifts of the day in the Party's orthodoxy. Smith's job is perpetual; he re-writes the official record, re-touches official photographs, deleting people officially rendered as unpersons. The original or older document is dropped into a "memory hole" chute leading to an incinerator.

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UPDATE: Oops! Gateway Pundit does some digging and finds that Obama's whitewash crew missed a spot.

Barack Obama: Turning the Page on Iraq

click to enlarge

If that wasn't enough, G.P. rubs it in with a few salient facts.

Iraq has achieved 15 of 18 benchmarks and violent attacks are down by 90% over last year. The Iraqi government has passed more important pieces of legislation than the Democratic Congress this past year.

Oh snap!

Hispandering we can believe in

Barack Obama spoke to the Hispanic racist group La Raza today and clarified his position on illegal immigration: law enforcement equals terrorism.

"When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel, when all that is happening, the system just isn’t working, and we need to change it."

Wow. This appalling vilification of American law enforcement personnel reminds me of Sen. Dick Durbin's loathsome anti-military screed. Must be something in that Democrat Kool-Aid they've been passing around.
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UPDATE: Contrast Obama's comments with McCain's somewhat-improved stance on secure borders in his remarks to LaRaza today.

Shocker: AP continues to slant war reporting

This just chaps my ass.

Wouldn't it be nice if the AP would stop skewing their news stories to highlight American casualties and minimize American victories? They don't have to be America's cheerleader; I realize they are supposed to be objective, but they're definitely too far in the other direction. The entire feel of this article would be completely different if the content remained exactly the same but the headline read something like "American forces respond to suicide bombing, eliminate 40 terrorists." Also note the AP's continued use of the bland euphemism "militants" in place of the more accurate moniker "terrorists."

9 Americans killed in attack in Afghanistan

U.S. troops on Monday reinforced a remote military outpost after well-armed militants got inside and killed nine American soldiers in the deadliest assault on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in three years.

Sunday's assault has deepened doubts about the U.S. military's ability to contain Islamic militants. Attacks in Afghanistan are becoming more complex, intense and better coordinated than a year ago, U.S. officials say.

Militants with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacked the remote base in the village of Wanat in the mountainous northeastern province of Kunar at about 4:30 a.m. Sunday, with insurgents firing from homes and a mosque.

It was a "concerted attempt" to overrun the small base near the Pakistan border that was built only about three days ago, said an official with NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
[...]
NATO confirmed nine of its soldiers had been killed and 15 wounded. A Western official said the nine dead were Americans, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the troops' nationalities. Four Afghan soldiers also were wounded, NATO said.

The attack was the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since June 2005, when 16 American troops were killed — also in Kunar province — when their helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Also on Sunday, a suicide bomber targeting a police patrol killed 24 people, including 19 civilians, while U.S. coalition and Afghan soldiers killed 40 militants elsewhere in the south.

More than 2,300 people — mostly militants — have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally of official figures.

Also notice the reporter details the fact that his anonymous source was not authorized to release the nationality of the American casualties, but he went to press with it anyway and made that the lead on the headline. Agenda much?

Oilman T. Boone Pickens offers energy solution

Billionaire Texas oilman and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens has put together a plan for America's energy independence, intending to decrease America's expensive foreign oil habit by more than a third within 10 years. We currently import approximately 70 per cent of our crude at a cost of $700 billion per year. As expressed on his site PickensPlan.com, this is "the largest transfer of wealth in human history."

For a quick overview of the Pickens plan, read his article in this week's Wall Street Journal. His press release lists three primary solutions to this problem:

Step #1: Using the United States' wind corridor, private industry will fund the installation of thousands of wind turbines in the wind belt, generating enough power to provide 20 percent or more of our electricity supply

Step #2: Again funded by the private sector, electric power transmission lines will be built, connecting these wind power generating sites with power plants providing energy to the population centers in the Midwest, South, and Western regions of the country.

Step #3: With the energy from wind now available to operate power plants serving the large population centers in key areas of the country, the natural gas that was historically utilized to fuel these power plants can be redirected and used to replace imported gasoline and diesel as a fuel for thousands of vehicles in our transportation system.

I've spent a little time looking it over and have found a lot to like. Attempting to move wind from roughly 1% of the US electrical supply to 22% by 2020 is a bold but attainable goal. I do, however, think the portion of the Pickens Plan which relies on natural gas vehicles might be poorly considered.

But as Mr. Pickens himself says, "A fool with a plan is better than a genius with no plan, and we look like fools without a plan. That's the way that we've been operating for 40 years."

Damn straight.

I'm no expert on alternative energy sources (Future Pundit has a much better grasp on the situation), but I don't believe a large-scale switch to natural gas vehicles (NGVs) by consumers is ever going to happen. Check out this 2002 analysis of why NGVs hasn't caught on. Americans like their cars; they're not fond of driving underpowered vehicles. And private industry just isn't going to invest the billions required for infrastructure and new fueling stations as well as all the new vehicles needed for such a radical change. Besides, I've read numerous articles stating natural gas is more efficiently used for electricity generation than as a transport fuel. And running vehicles on natural gas doesn’t significantly reduce "greenhouse gas" emissions, either.

But a substantive plan to implement wind and solar to augment our current uses of fossil fuels, now there's a good idea. Pickens has already signed on to build a $2 billion wind farm in the Texas Panhandle and could reportedly spend $10 billion on the project.

I still believe that a comprehensive energy policy for America needs to include increased domestic drilling and nuclear power. But when a multi-billionaire oil tychoon is willing to put his money where his mouth is regarding alternative solutions, it might be prudent to at least hear him out.

NozzleRage video

This was too good not to share. (h/t: Power Line & Michelle Malkin)

Every American is getting hosed. Each time we fill up our cars, we are putting money into the hands of OPEC – the oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis and the other countries that make up that monopoly control most of the world’s reserves. Most of them pay just a couple of bucks per barrel to get oil out of the ground.

Yet, OPEC is limiting production and encouraging speculation that is costing us and other consumers hundreds of billions of dollars every year. It amounts to the largest artificially engineered transfer of wealth in history. OPEC is waging economic warfare, and it is bleeding our country dry.

Worse still, some of the oil money the Saudis, Iranians, Venezuelans and other OPEC members get from us is being used to support terrorism. We are literally paying people to try to kill us.

This is clearly a ridiculous – and unsustainable – situation. If not corrected, we are going to bleed out as we underwrite our destruction.

Enter NozzleRage. NozzleRage is a video campaign designed, through viral YouTube and Internet distribution, to make clear what is happening to this country and its drivers. Its goal is to channel the fury most Americans feel into effective action.

The first of a series of 30-second NozzleRage videos features an OPEC gas pump ripping off and then attacking an ordinary American consumer. Conceived, directed and produced by the fabled Hollywood team of David and Jerry Zucker, it directs viewers to the www.NozzleRage.com website where they can register to view upcoming videos and find out what they can do to end our suicidal vulnerability to OPEC’s oil cartel.

Religion of Peace update: Babies for Jihad

I wonder if this is some new movement from Planned Parenthood. No wait, my bad. They're not looking to murder their children in the womb like infidels do, these women just want their children to be slain for Allah after they're born.

Islamabad, Pakistan – About 2,000 Islamist women gathered at the radical Red Mosque in the Pakistani capital on Wednesday and vowed to raise their children for holy war, days after a suicide bomber killed 18 people after a similar rally.

Chanting slogans of "jihad is our way", burqa-clad women, some with babies, listened to fiery speeches from the daughter of the mosque's jailed cleric on the eve of the anniversary of a commando raid on the complex in which more than 100 people died.

"Our mujahideen (fighters) laid down their lives for the enforcement of the Islamic system in Pakistan. We are left behind to carry forward their mission," the daughter of cleric Abdul Aziz told the tightly guarded rally in the mosque compound.

Jesse Jackson on Obama: "I Wanna Cut His Nuts Off"

Cue the rhetorical question: How stupid does one have to be to make crude comments under one's breath when one is wearing a microphone and sitting in front of a camera?

Anyone? Anyone? Perhaps President Bush or Sen. Kerry could enlighten us with their experiences.

Stupid is as stupid does.
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Gateway Pundit delivers a snort-worthy punchline:

"You better look out, Jesse... There's a bus heading your way."

Fried food back on the table at Democrat convention

Looks like the DNC is taking its cues on flip-flopping from Barack Obama. Maybe this is what they mean by "change" we can believe in (in contrast to their earlier attempt to demagogue "unpatriotic" fried food).

Rest assured: Chicken tenders and doughnuts will make appearances at the Democratic National Convention.

In the midst of media mockery and embarrassment among national Democrats that Denver had declared fried foods a party foul and had ordered multihued entrees, the Denver host committee has softened an original document that called for caterers to be "lean and green."

National convention spokeswoman Natalie Wyeth was more blunt with the host group’s early efforts to be healthy. "I think putting rules in place regarding the colors of food . . . is a bit over the top," she said. "We’re offering a full range of choices . . . French fries, chicken tenders, and fish and chips."

The changes come too late for a bevy of caterers who have already spent dozens of hours crafting menus that fit with the host committee’s initial desires.

At a national media gathering Tuesday, public-affairs chief Jenni Engebret sen told reporters that there would be plenty of the unhealthy stuff to go around.

And when reporters entered the Pepsi Center, committee staffers were pushing Lamar's "fried" doughnuts.

Somewhere, Bill Clinton is breathing a big sign of relief.

Obama reverses himself on Iraq

This is what happens when someone with only 143 days of experience in the Senate thinks he's ready to be Commander-In-Chief.


American Thinker and Weekly Standard both have some good articles detailing Obama's ignorance and naivete related to matters of state.

Pelosi's results at lowering gas prices

Nancy Pelosi claimed Congress was responsible for gas prices when it was controlled by Republicans. So let's take a peek at 18 months of Democrat control, shall we? (h/t: see-dubya)

No wonder Congress' approval rating is now an all-time low at 9%.

Midweek Peek 07.09.08

Angelina Jolie

Approval of Dem-controlled Congress slips to 9%

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid's "most ethical Congress ever": EPIC FAIL.

The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category.

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UPDATE: Two Dogs has an enlightening post about how gas prices have risen while wages have decreased on the Democrats' watch, further proof of their excellent leadership and efficiency.

By the way, Bush’s most recent approval ratings are at 32%. HA ha!

National service or indentured servitude?

Barack Obama's got plans for you, bub.

Just last week, he took the occasion of Independence Day to highlight what he hopes to be a revival of JFK's "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" speech.

That’s why I won’t just ask for your vote as a candidate -- I will ask for your service and your active citizenship when I am President of the United States. This won’t be a call issued in one speech or one program -- this will be a central cause of my presidency. We will ask Americans to serve. We will create new opportunities for Americans to serve.

"New opportunities." That's doublespeak for new government "service" programs which will cost $3.5 billion per year in taxpayer dollars. But rather than simply encouraging Americans to volunteer as Kennedy did, the Obamessiah is gonna make sure you are forced to serve.

So when I'm President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you'll have done 17 weeks of service.

100 hours of mandatory community service was the penalty given to Sandy Berger for stealing and destroying highly classified documents from the National Archives! And that's what Obama plans to impose on America's youth every year. That, friends, is not a "call to service." It's indentured servitude; forced slavery to the federal government.

Sounds like Barack – a supposed Constitutional scholar – forgot that pesky 13th Amendment:

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

“My right to unlimited rights”

Sounds like the new Obama campaign slogan, but nope, it's the name of an excellent column by Mike S. Adams. (h/t: Crush Liberalism)

This trait of being more in love with consumption than production is one shared by most of my socialist colleagues in academia. They base their lives on the idea of taking “from each according to his ability” and giving “to each according to his need.” The problem is that they do a better job of articulating their needs than promoting their abilities. This is, of course, because socialists are generally short on abilities. They seek socialism because they think being guaranteed an average outcome is safer than trying to beat the average in a system based on merit, which is otherwise known as ability.

Winston Churchill had this pegged back in the day, when he said "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

Time to get out of Iraq?

Not because some smelly protesters demand it nor because some childish politicians demagogue it, but because the al-Malaki has declared victory over the terrorists and is now asking us to leave.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki raised the prospect on Monday of setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops as part of negotiations over a new security agreement with Washington.

It was the first time the U.S.-backed Shi'ite-led government has floated the idea of a timetable for the removal of American forces from Iraq. The Bush administration has always opposed such a move, saying it would give militant groups an advantage.

The security deal under negotiation will replace a U.N. mandate for the presence of U.S. troops that expires on December 31.

"Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty," Maliki told Arab ambassadors in blunt remarks during an official visit to Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.

"One of the two basic topics is either to have a memorandum of understanding for the departure of forces or a memorandum of understanding to set a timetable for the presence of the forces, so that we know (their presence) will end in a specific time."

Don't want us there anymore? That's fine. You're welcome. And best of luck to you.

Congratulations, American soldiers. Well done! And welcome home!

Scientists discover long duck dong

No no no, not that funny guy from the movie Sixteen Candles. Apparently scientists have discovered an aquatic waterfowl with a meter long dipstick. (h/t: Ace)

No more yanky my wanky, indeed!

Was Clinton's derogatory P.O.W. remark aimed at McCain?

Interesting question: Were ex-President Bill Clinton's P.O.W. comments this weekend intended to denigrate McCain's mental stability or was this simply a Freudian slip further revealing Clinton's contempt for military personnel?

Former President Bill Clinton spoke at the Aspen Ideas Festival where, in a conversation about global issues and philanthropy with Aspen Institute vice president Jane Wales, he made one comment that at least one attendee -- The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg -- took as a shot at presumptive GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
[...]
"Every living soul on the planet has some often highly justified anger. Everybody… If you know anybody who was a P.O.W. for any length of time, you will see, you go along for months or maybe even years and then something will happen and it will trigger all those bad dreams, and it will come back, it may not last 30 seconds…"

Jeffrey Goldberg opines:

"Not too subtle. Astonishingly, his interviewer, former Clinton Administration official Jane Wales, didn't follow-up. One subject Clinton didn't talk about at all: Barack Obama. He seemed to go out of his way, in fact, not to mention Obama's name. Which, when you think about, calls into question whether the P.O.W. shot was actually an intentional shot at all. On the other hand, I believe that Bill Clinton doesn't say things by accident."

An important sidenote: Nelson Mandela – about whom Clinton was supposedly speaking – was a political prisoner, not a prisoner of war. With that fact in mind, it tends to hint that Bubba was making a carefully calculated cheap shot. Shockeroo.
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UPDATE: McCain issues a classic rebuttal, aimed squarely at Clinton's draft-doging and lack of military service; "I don't know where he gets his expertise."

USA Today whines for illegal immigrants to get in-state tuition benefits

Illegal immigrants aren't being given in-state tuition like their American citizen counterparts? Cry me a freakin' river. The only sad thing about this article is that the USA Today columnist seems to be shilling on behalf of the the illegal aliens. (h/t: Michelle Malkin)

Illegal immigrants face threat of no college
Some states are making it harder for illegal immigrants to attend college by denying in-state tuition benefits or banning undocumented students.

In the past two years, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Oklahoma have refused in-state tuition benefits to students who entered the USA illegally with their parents but grew up and went to school in the state. That represents a reversal from earlier this decade, when 10 states passed laws allowing in-state rates for such students.

This summer, South Carolina became the first state to bar undocumented students from all public colleges and universities.

North Carolina's community colleges in May ordered its 58 campuses to stop enrolling undocumented students after the state attorney general said admitting them may violate federal law.

"The new trend is to kick illegal aliens out of college altogether," says William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee, which opposes taxpayer subsidies for undocumented immigrants.

Josh Bernstein of the National Immigration Law Center, an illegal-immigrants advocate, says sweeping anti-immigration bills are "a very serious threat" to the overall illegal population.

Georgia, which barred undocumented students from in-state tuition rates in 2006, enacted laws in May preventing them from receiving state scholarships and certain student loans.

This fall, the University of Arkansas will require students to submit Social Security numbers and proof of residency. In May, Arkansas Department of Higher Education Director Jim Purcell warned that students without documentation "will not be considered as legally enrolled students" when determining an institution's state funding.

Opponents say students shouldn't be penalized for their parents' actions. Helping them is "the right thing to do even if it's unpopular," says North Carolina state Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Democrat who introduced a bill that would prevent state institutions from asking about students' immigration status.

Helping illegal immigrants to benefit from their parents' illegal actions is NOT the right thing to do. Leave it to a Democrat to paint such blatant irresponsibility with counterfeit pathos.

Not only should these "undocumented" students not be given in-state tuition status, they should be deported along with their criminal parents whenever they are discovered. It's a true outrage when homeschooled American students find it harder to get into college than people who sneak across the border and demand preferred status.

Personally, I'm glad to see that some states are taking a stand to enforce residency requirements. When the gravy train for illegals dries up (whether it's government benefits or illegal employment), the lure of illegal immigration will diminish.

Obama now flips on genocide in Iraq

Crush Liberalism points out more "consistency" from the Obamessiah, this time on genocide in Iraq.

Happy Independence Day!

Ok, I totally suck.

Yeah, I can hear a lot of you agreeing with me. But I'm not referring to my views or writing style, I'm talking about the fact that I've been so busy this week and didn't make time to write about what is, to me, one of our most important holidays. Independence Day means a great deal to me. I can't listen to the Star Spangled Banner without tearing up. I'm tremendously grateful for this nation, founded by men of great courage, integrity, and wisdom. I hope you can spend today with friends or family and reflect on the great gift of freedom given to us by our forebears. The blessings of liberty, indeed.

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UPDATE: Unfortunately, not everyone feels the same way about July 4th. A few imbeciles took it upon themselves to harass President Bush during an Independence Day ceremony welcoming new citizens at Thomas Jefferson's home in Montecello.

As is the tradition each Fourth of July, a naturalization ceremony was held at Monticello in Charlottesville, Va. This year, 76 immigrants from 30 different countries came to take the oath of citizenship.

But Bush repeatedly was interrupted as he welcomed the guests.

"That man is a fascist!" one protester yelled. Another swore at him.

The protesters later were removed from the ceremony by law enforcement officials.

"To my fellow citizens to be — we believe in free speech in the United States of America," Bush said when the protesters started shouting.

To the din of more yelling, Bush discussed Jefferson’s legacy as he introduced the citizens.

"We honor Jefferson’s legacy by aiding the rise of liberty in lands that do not know the blessings of freedom, and on this Fourth of July we pay tribute to the brave men and women who wear the uniform of the United States of America," he said.

"We also honor Jefferson's legacy by welcoming newcomers to our land, and that is what we’re here to celebrate today."

But I'm also happy to see that many more Americans professed their love of country in an incredibly selfless way today.

More than 1,200 US troops serving in Iraq signed up for extended service in the military to mark America’s national day on Friday.

At least 1,215 troops re-enlisted for periods ranging from two to six years at the ceremony held at the spacious Al-Faw palace of executed dictator Saddam Hussein near Baghdad airport.

General David Petraeus, the head of US-led coalition forces in Iraq, said he was “proud of their decision to re-enlist and help the people of Iraq win their most important battle ... freedom.”

The US military has regularly re-enlisted service members in Iraq but Friday’s swearing-in was one of the largest, the military said.

New exclusive online trailer for The Dark Knight

Domino's Pizza sponsors this new exclusive online trailer, it's over 2:30 long and has some new footage!

Midweek Peek 07.02.08

TNA Wrestling's Karen Angle

Busy busy!

Good thing is, I've got a LOT of work this week. Bad news is, I don't have enough time to blog (and damn, I really wanted to lay into Gen. Wesley Clark's idiotic attack on John McCain). Oh well, maybe tonight...

If you wanna read something in the meantime, scroll down. I've blogged quite a bit over the past couple weeks and you might have missed something.