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If you can't figure out the reason why we're not going to invade SA because of their treatment of women, you're even stupider than I imagined
Give me one thing that's better.
How about no rape rooms for his sons amusement?
How about no chopping off of hands of his critics
How about holding free elections??
Amazing the logical pretzels the libs contort into to make sure they always criticize everything we do.
You can play your petty politics all you want, but to argue that the country would be better if SH were still in power is just plain stupid
Yep, and the trains ran on time when Mussolini was in power also
Dolt
Again, w/o them realizing that it was in their long term best interests ( ie the AQ influence fading, realizing that secular warfare was a bad idea ), the money utilized wouldn't have worked now- and especially not last year.
My point still stands
A quote from your article:
"And he rejected suggestions that Sheik Sabah or his backers would turn and embrace their former insurgent lifestyle. “Why would they? They couldn’t walk through their streets then.”
Makes my point concisely
Shows I can read ( and comprehend ) you oughta try it sometime
nobody doubted it
LMAO
How about Harry Reid and hte other dems who declared and many still declare the surge was a failure???
I'm sure I could find many of your posts that said the same if I wanted to waste time
Pathetically funny
If it were merely a question of money, don't you think it would have been done a long time ago???
That's easymoney class thinking
Please provide links/ stats that show that
TIA
WOW, even the pegbot has had to acknowledge the surge has worked
OF course there will always be disclaimers, but after 6 months of denial she finally acknowledges the reality
Given that the surge has worked and there is the breathing space for political stability, how can the libs STILL want troops removed immediately- causing a return to chaos????????????
Wouldn't that be irresponsible????????
The point all along has been to eventually reduce troop levels after progress has been made on the political front.
DO you think Bush really wants to keep troops there if they aren't needed.
We both don't know what happening on the political front and what progress has or hasn't been made.
Congratulations on finally acknowledging that the surge has worked in it's first objective. I hope you moonbat friends on the board don't' disown you
More bad news ( for the quagmire fans ) from the NYT:
MBaghdad Starts to Exhale as Security Improves
Joao Silva for The New York Times
LOVE PREVAILS A bride and groom, surrounded by friends and a band, dressed for their wedding photos last week in Baghdad. More Photos >
Today she is home again, cooking by a sunlit window, sleeping beneath her favorite wedding picture. And yet, she and her family are remarkably alone. The half-dozen other apartments in her building echo with emptiness and, on most days, Iraqi soldiers are the only neighbors she sees.
“I feel happy,” she said, standing in her bedroom, between a flowered bedspread and a bullet hole in the wall. “But my happiness is not complete. We need more people to come back. We need more people to feel safe.”
Mrs. Aasan, 45, a Shiite librarian with an easy laugh, is living at the far end of Baghdad’s tentative recovery. She is one of many Iraqis who in recent weeks have begun to test where they can go and what they can do when fear no longer controls their every move.
The security improvements in most neighborhoods are real. Days now pass without a car bomb, after a high of 44 in the city in February. The number of bodies appearing on Baghdad’s streets has plummeted to about 5 a day, from as many as 35 eight months ago, and suicide bombings across Iraq fell to 16 in October, half the number of last summer and down sharply from a recent peak of 59 in March, the American military says.
As a result, for the first time in nearly two years, people are moving with freedom around much of this city. In more than 50 interviews across Baghdad, it became clear that while there were still no-go zones, more Iraqis now drive between Sunni and Shiite areas for work, shopping or school, a few even after dark. In the most stable neighborhoods of Baghdad, some secular women are also dressing as they wish. Wedding bands are playing in public again, and at a handful of once shuttered liquor stores customers now line up outside in a collective rebuke to religious vigilantes from the Shiite Mahdi Army.
Iraqis are clearly surprised and relieved to see commerce and movement finally increase, five months after an extra 30,000 American troops arrived in the country. But the depth and sustainability of the changes remain open to question.
By one revealing measure of security — whether people who fled their home have returned — the gains are still limited. About 20,000 Iraqis have gone back to their Baghdad homes, a fraction of the more than 4 million who fled nationwide, and the 1.4 million people in Baghdad who are still internally displaced, according to a recent Iraqi Red Crescent Society survey.
Iraqis sound uncertain about the future, but defiantly optimistic. Many Baghdad residents seem to be willing themselves to normalcy, ignoring risks and suppressing fears to reclaim their lives. Pushing past boundaries of sect and neighborhood, they said they were often pleasantly surprised and kept going; in other instances, traumatic memories or a dark look from a stranger were enough to tug them back behind closed doors.
Mrs. Aasan’s experience, as a member of the brave minority of Iraqis who have returned home, shows both the extent of the improvements and their limits.
She works at an oasis of calm: a small library in eastern Baghdad, where on several recent afternoons, about a dozen children bounced through the rooms, reading, laughing, learning English and playing music on a Yamaha keyboard.
Brightly colored artwork hangs on the walls: images of gardens, green and lush; Iraqi soldiers smiling; and Arabs holding hands with Kurds.
It is all deliberately idyllic. Mrs. Aasan and the other two women at the library have banned violent images, guiding the children toward portraits of hope. The children are also not allowed to discuss the violence they have witnessed.
“Our aim is to fight terrorism,” Mrs. Aasan said. “We want them to overcome their personal experiences.”
The library closed last year because parents would not let their children out of sight. Now, most of the children walk on their own from homes nearby — another sign of the city’s improved ease of movement.
But there are scars in the voice of a ponytailed little girl who said she had less time for fun since her father was incapacitated by a bomb. (“We try to make him feel better and feel less pain,” she said.) And pain still lingers in the silence of Mrs. Aasan’s 10-year-old son, Abather, who accompanies her wherever she goes.ore bad news ( for the quagmire fans ) from the NYT:
One day five months ago, when they still lived in Dora, Mrs. Aasan sent Abather to get water from a tank below their apartment. Delaying as boys will do, he followed his soccer ball into the street, where he discovered two dead bodies with their eyeballs torn out. It was not the first corpse he had seen, but for Mrs. Aasan that was enough. “I grabbed him, we got in the car and we drove away,” she said.
After they heard on an Iraqi news program that her section of Dora had improved, she and her husband explored a potential return. They visited and found little damage, except for a bullet hole in their microwave.
Two weeks ago, they moved back to the neighborhood where they had lived since 2003.
“It’s just a rental,” Mrs. Aasan said, as if embarrassed at her connection to such a humble place. “But after all, it’s home.”
In interviews, she and her husband said they felt emboldened by the decline in violence citywide and the visible presence of Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint a few blocks away.
Still, it was a brave decision, one her immediate neighbors have not yet felt bold enough to make. Mrs. Aasan’s portion of Dora still looks as desolate as a condemned tenement. The trunk of a palm tree covers a section of road where Sunni gunmen once dumped a severed head, and about 200 yards to the right of her building concrete Jersey barriers block a section of homes believed to be booby-trapped with explosives.
“On this street,” she said, standing on her balcony, “many of my neighbors lost relatives.” Then she rushed inside.
Her husband, Fadhel A. Yassen, 49, explained that they had seen several friends killed while they sat outside in the past. He insisted that being back in the apartment was “a victory over fear, a victory over terrorism.”
Yet the achievement remains rare. Many Iraqis say they would still rather leave the country than go home. In Baghdad there are far more families like the Nidhals. The father, who would only identify himself as Abu Nebras (father of Nebras), is Sunni; Hanan, his wife, is a Shiite from Najaf, the center of Shiite religious learning in Iraq. They lived for 17 years in Ghazaliya in western Baghdad until four gunmen from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni extremist group that American intelligence agencies say is led by foreigners, showed up at his door last December.
“My sons were armed and they went away but after that, we knew we had only a few hours,” Abu Nebras said. “We were displaced because I was secular and Al Qaeda didn’t like that.”
They took refuge in the middle-class Palestine Street area in the northeastern part of Baghdad, a relatively stable enclave with an atmosphere of tolerance for their mixed marriage. Now with the situation improving across the city, the Nidhal family longs to return to their former home, but they have no idea when, or if, it will be possible.
Another family now lives in their house — the situation faced by about a third of all displaced Iraqis, according to the International Organization for Migration — and it is not clear whether the fragile peace will last. Abu Nebras tested the waters recently, going back to talk with neighbors on his old street for the first time.
He said the Shiites in the northern part of Ghazaliya had told him that the American military’s payments to local Sunni volunteers in the southern, Sunni part of the neighborhood amounted to arming one side.
The Americans describe the volunteers as heroes, part of a larger nationwide campaign known as the Sunni Awakening. But Abu Nebras said he did not trust them. “Some of the Awakening members are just Al Qaeda who have joined them,” he said. “I know them from before.”
With the additional American troops scheduled to depart, the Nidhal family said, Baghdad would be truly safe only when the Iraqi forces were mixed with Sunnis and Shiites operating checkpoints side by side — otherwise the city would remain a patchwork of Sunni and Shiite enclaves. “The police, the army, it has to be Sunni next to Shiite next to Sunni next to Shiite,” Abu Nebras said.
They and other Iraqis also said the government must aggressively help people return to their homes, perhaps by supervising returns block by block. The Nidhal family said they feared the displaced Sunnis in their neighborhood who were furious that Shiites chased them from their houses. “They are so angry, they will kill anyone,” Abu Nebras said.
For now, though, they are trying to enjoy what may be only a temporary respite from violence. One of their sons recently returned to his veterinary studies at a university in Baghdad, and their daughter will start college this winter.
Laughter is also more common now in the Nidhal household — even on once upsetting subjects. At midday, Hanan’s sister, who teaches in a local high school, came home and threw up her hands in exasperation. She had asked her Islamic studies class to bring in something that showed an aspect of Islamic culture. “Two boys told me, ‘I’m going to bring in a portrait of Moktada al-Sadr,’” she said.
She shook her head and chuckled. Mr. Sadr is an anti-American cleric whose militia, the Mahdi Army, has been accused of carrying out much of the displacement and killings of Sunnis in Baghdad. They can joke because they no longer fear that the violence will engulf them.
In longer interviews across Baghdad, the pattern was repeated. Iraqis acknowledged how far their country still needed to go before a return to normalcy, but they also expressed amazement at even the most embryonic signs of recovery.
Mrs. Aasan said she was thrilled and relieved just a few days ago, when her college-aged son got stuck at work after dark and his father managed to pick him up and drive home without being killed.
“Before, when we lived in Dora, after 4 p.m., I wouldn’t let anyone out of the house,” she said.
“They drove back to Dora at 8!” she added, glancing at her husband, who beamed, chest out, like a mountaineer who had scaled Mount Everest. “We really felt that it was a big difference.”
Baghdad by night -- juice bars, neon lights, bustling streets
Nov 18 06:51 PM US/Eastern
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The gaudy orange, green and purple electronic palm trees flashing in the dark alert you that you're getting close to one of Baghdad's bustling nightspots.
The palms, like a mirage, can be seen from way down the darkened streets, lighting up the night and giving a promise of normality in the otherwise bleak and deserted capital, ravaged by four years of insurgency and sectarian strife.
And then, suddenly, you've arrived and the mirage has become an oasis of generator-driven light; a colourful jumble of trendy juice bars, cosy restaurants, fruit shops, roadside eateries and fish vendors, where children play, families dine and lovers meet.
"Even two or three months ago we would have been afraid to come here at night," said 20-year-old Hussein Salah, an off-duty soldier, slurping a milkshake with his wife, Shihad, at the Mishmesha (apricot) juice bar in Baghdad's relatively safe Karrada suburb.
"Now we sometimes sit outside here till one or two in the morning. It is quite safe. The security situation is vastly improved," said Salah, the orange light from a nearby flashing palm alternatively brightening and dimming his clean-shaven face.
Declines in Iraqi civilian casualties and a sharp reduction in bomb and mortar attacks have sparked optimism that the capital is at last starting to revive.
US military commanders attribute the fall in violence to a "surge" of American troops on the ground, their decision to set up small military posts in neighbourhoods, and the increasing number of Iraqis joining US forces in anti-insurgent alliances.
Residents interviewed by AFP on the streets of Karrada were adamant, however, that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi army are entirely responsible for reining in sectarian bloodletting unleashed by the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006.
"We have the Iraqi government to thank for the peace in our neighbourhood," said fishmonger Muqdad Mohammed, 38, smoking "mazguf" (carp) -- a Baghdad delicacy -- netted in the Tigris river on an open fire at a street corner.
-- "Things are normal here" now --
"As you can see, things are normal here. It's after eight o'clock and the streets are still full," he added, pointing to the groups of people, families and even single women wearing headscarves strolling up and down the road.
"Six months ago we had to close up by 7 pm, now we stay open till 9 or even later," he said, as live carp flapped about in a tank inside his small stall plastered with pictures of Iraqi Shiite clerics.
In those days, Mohammed considered himself fortunate if he sold 10 fish daily. "Now we sell between 25 and 30 every day. Business is booming."
Up the road butcher Halim Sayed Ahmed, an Egyptian with a round face and hint of a moustache, is counting his lucky stars he didn't follow the rest of his family to Cairo when the conflict began ripping Baghdad apart two years ago.
"The butchery is thriving. Sales are up 80 percent compared to the beginning of the year" when violence was at its peak, he said between mounds of freshly cut chicken pieces, mincemeat and mutton.
"I have been here 30 years and I love Baghdad," he said. "Now that the security situation is improving, my family can return."
Seated on a stool manning the cash till at another juice bar further up the road, Aziz, who would give only one name, said he had just returned from a year in Syria, where he had fled to escape the violence.
"I was shocked when I returned to see how much things had changed," he said. "It's like a different city. Things are so good that I now think it would be possible for me to get married."
Haider Naja shuts up his small cluttered stationery shop around 11 most nights, not through lack of customers at that hour but because he needs time to run his real business -- importing leather goods from China.
The shop, he explains with a sly grin, is just a front so that militiamen and criminals won't think he has too much money and abduct him for ransom.
His real occupation, says the slender trader with slicked back hair, is his import business which nets him thousands of dollars a load.
"There is huge demand for my products -- especially shoes. Iraqis love any new styles, and they have the money to pay for them. An entire container arrived for me last Friday. By Saturday I had sold everything in my outlets at various Baghdad markets."
While some suburbs are even more lively than Karrada after dark, said Naja, others -- such as Al-Amiriya in the west and Al-Dora in the south -- are still haunted by militiamen and insurgents.
"There the shops close at 5 pm and everyone goes home and locks the doors. Here in Karrada it is different."
Leaving Karrada's brightly-lit enclave, which stretches more than a kilometre (mile), it's back once more into dark streets with bands of roaming dogs, long rows of ugly blast walls and endless police checkpoints.
Around a corner, the street is suddenly filled with a few dozen aggressive-looking youths, some running hard going on the attack, others taking up defensive positions.
It's after 10:30 pm. The streets are almost empty of traffic. Perfect time for a game of football.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071118225124.s5eysg5x&show_article=1
Chavez Tells OPEC to Use Politics, Curb `Imperialism' (Update1)
By Daniel Williams and Maher Chmaytelli
Enlarge Image/Details
Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez brought his revolutionary zeal to the cartel that controls 40 percent of the world's oil, urging fellow members at a weekend summit to fight against ``imperialism'' and ``exploitation.''
Chavez used the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to advance a struggle for the soul of the cartel. Countering him was the conference host, Saudi King Abdullah, who said the organization's goal was simply to produce prosperity.
Their contrasting visions elbowed aside the usual OPEC talk about production quotas and currency fluctuations. In the short term at least, Abdullah's vision is likely to prevail, said Ihsan Bu-Hulaiga, who runs a private business consulting firm in Riyadh and advises the Saudi government.
``OPEC has to do with oil; it cannot solve the world's problems with a political agenda,'' he said. ``It would be putting its bread and butter at risk.''
Support for Chavez came from President Rafael Vicente Correa of Ecuador and from Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose nation is the target of a U.S.-led campaign of sanctions and pressure over allegations that it is pursuing nuclear weapons and destabilizing the region.
Chavez, 53, and Correa, 44, stopped short of threatening an embargo in case of a U.S. attack on Iran. ``We don't want to speculate,'' Correa said in response to a question about whether a halt in oil sales to the U.S. should be employed in case of war.
Anti-Colonial Roots
Chavez said his call for geopolitical activism takes OPEC back to its anti-colonial roots. He likened OPEC to the Non- Aligned Movement, a group founded in the 1950s to stand outside the Soviet-U.S. rivalry.
Chavez also addressed OPEC's debate over whether to drop the U.S. dollar as its currency for pricing oil. ``The dollar is in a free fall and everyone should be worried about it. The fall of the dollar is not the fall of the dollar. It's the fall of the American empire,'' he told a cluster of reporters outside the OPEC meeting hall yesterday.
King Abdullah brushed off proposals from Chavez and Ahamdinejad to drop the dollar.
To counter Chavez's appeal, Bu-Hulaiga said, OPEC needs the U.S. to help ease tensions with Iran and to resolve the Israel- Palestinian conflict. ``It's not enough to ask Chavez to be quiet,'' he said in an interview. ``We need responsibility everywhere. The United States can help lower the tone.''
OPEC has used oil as a weapon before, when its Arab members stopped sales to countries that supported Israel in the 1973 Middle East war. The actions sent petroleum prices spiraling upward, created long lines at gas stations in the United States and Europe and produced high inflation across the globe.
$250 Barrel
Correa said a new war in the region could drive prices to $250 a barrel. Chavez, in his speech, predicted a figure of $200 ``if the United States is crazy enough to invade Iran.'' On Nov. 16 in New York, crude oil for December delivery closed at $95.10 a barrel.
Ahmadinejad, 51, played down the possibility of a U.S. attack, saying that President George W. Bush's administration lacks the ``economic, political and military'' means to carry one out. ``No war will break out in the region,'' he predicted during a news conference yesterday.
``Iran and Venezuela, because they have ideological differences with the U.S., are trying to drag the other OPEC members into the conflict, by appealing to solidarity against imperialism and aggression,'' said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Saudi British Bank in Riyadh and formerly a research fellow at Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
The era of OPEC political activism is over, the cartel's Secretary General Abdalla el-Badri told reporters last week. ``We are not using the oil we sell to the world as a political weapon,'' he said at a Nov. 14 press conference in Riyadh.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said OPEC wouldn't take a stand on a possible U.S. invasion of Iran. ``These are issues that can be raised in other forums, not in OPEC,'' he told a news conference yesterday.
To contact the reporters on this story: Daniel Williams in Riyadh at dwilliams41@bloomberg.net ; Maher Chmaytelli in Riyadh at mchmaytelli@bloomberg.net
And Ron Paul would be there to say he's completely justified
Given their situation, wouldn't it be irresponsible to NOT guard their oil resources?
Their economy is showing life because of the higher prices of oil.
They control who will get the contracts
How could even you suggest that their oil resources shouldn't be safeguarded?
Ron Paul is a Useful Man for Democrats
By Andrew Walden
The Ron Paul story never seems to end -- and yet never seems to quite make it into the mainstream media. That's because, in the political equivalent of a bank shot, Paul's fringe support helps bleach embarrassing stains from the Democrats.
First there is the revelation that Jim C Perry, the "Orthodox Jewish" head of "Jews for Paul" also calls himself a gay pagan Unitarian.
Now it turns out that Perry, Paul's point man in response to questions raised by the Jewish Telegraph Agency, is also accused of stealing money from the local New Hampshire branch of the Libertarian Party. What a great guy! It's only an accusation. And the "Libertarian" Perry was in 2006 running for New Hampshire Legislature as a Democrat.
Oh yes: Then the federal raids started.
It turns out that some folks actually buy-in to Ron Paul's blither about US dollars being "phony money". Here Paul is talking about "phony money" at a recent Ron Paul rally outside the Philadelphia Mint with a large crowd including -- surprise, surprise, -- some more white supremacists. (Who show they fully understand the New Orleans protocol.)
Some of Paul's gold bug supporters been trying to pass so-called "Liberty Dollars" off as real currency at stores nationwide. Sleepy clerks have given them change in US currency for purchases. Raids have been conducted in the last few days by the FBI and Secret Service at Liberty Dollar HQ in a strip mall office in Evansville, Indiana, (that's not where I would be keeping three pounds of gold, but I digress) as well as Asheville, NC (here the segregationist ‘Council of Conservative Citizens' is very concerned) and a private mint located in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Arrests were also made recently in Wisconsin (on their blogsite, these geniuses detail three places where the spent Liberty Dollars as if they were legal tender). In 2006 two arrests had been made in Buffalo, NY. The Evanston raid netted a huge load of "Ron Paul Dollars" apparently just delivered from Idaho and backed perhaps by the full faith and credit of... Ron Paul?
Ron Paul's Evanston supporters went to Liberty Dollar HQ to protest with Ron Paul-for-president signs. At the Evansville Ron Paul site one of their leaders explains the defense strategy:
"I sent an email to infowars.com, so with any luck we'll make it on prisonplanet.com and go viral. If nothing else should come of this, maybe the LD can get a case before the Supreme Court and settle once and for all and maybe Ron Paul's name will be on more people's minds and lips."
And, yes Ron Paul donor 9-11 "troother" Alex Jones did post it. And it did go ‘viral'. But no that doesn't mean the 9-11 "troothers" are integral to the Ron Paul campaign because ...uh...uh... (insert Paulite rationalization here).
Meanwhile over at Reason Magazine, they seem to have lost all of theirs. Writes Jeff Taylor:
"As such, accounts of the (Evansville) raid focused on the Ron Paul angle seem off-base, at least given the available facts."
Sure, just close your eyes and it will all go away. Let yourself get sucked down the toilet with the frauds, and scammers. Reason wants us to believe that Ron Paul has absolutely nothing to do with Ron Paul dollars. But Paul's "troother" supporters believe that George Bush and ‘the Jooos' personally crawled through the ductwork at the World Trade Center to wire the explosives for controlled detonation.
Apparently they didn't get the message at the Daily Paul. Their response to the raid:
"This is pretty scary stuff and reminiscent of a time in Germany...I wonder if the motivation was our wonderful $4.3M day?"
The Street writes;
"...if the raid results in the conviction of anyone involved, it is possible that the Paul campaign may have to return a cash donation made by Liberty Dollar....So far, Liberty Dollar has donated $2,300 to the Paul campaign, a fact confirmed by both Paul's office and Bernard von NotHaus, who runs Liberty Dollar."
No connection there?
No tough questions for Paul, but plenty of fluff. Rolling Stone writes: "Republican takes the lead against the war." This comes after Bill Maher physically chased "troothers" from his studio audience October 19 shouting "out, out, out" and Bill Clinton stared down troother hecklers October 24 with: "An inside job? How dare you?"
The Democrats and their media are using the Paul campaign to scrape six years of accumulated "toother" scum off the Democrat Party, deposit it into the Libertarian movement make a little mess for the GOP. With Obama, Hillary and Edwards all refusing to promise to withdraw troops from Iraq by 2013 Democrats dream of losing the "surrender monkey" tag.
Here is a Chicago Tribune fluff piece with this gem of verbal judo:
"to a growing, Internet-based pool of supporters, the silver-haired obstetrician turned politician is the sanest man at the Republican debates and perhaps in all of Congress. Paul attracts an unusual political potpourri of people of all ages and viewpoints, including a sprinkling of conspiracy theorists and other extremists whose views Paul's campaign disavows."
No anti-Semites, KKKers, or FBI raids in sight anywhere -- just ‘conspiracy theorists'--but all neatly "disavowed." Really? Was that when Jesse Benton -- Ron Paul's national communications director -- said "I cannot say that we will be rejecting Mr. Black's (Stormfront) contribution?"
Well actually Ron Paul appears to be disavowing some contributions: those given by bankers and Wall Streeters. Corporate money is too dirty for Ron Paul to accept but KKK money is not?
The Chicago Tribune also offers this nugget:
"Paul appears financially comfortable but not exceedingly wealthy, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Most of his holdings are in about two dozen gold and silver firms, many valued at less than $15,000 and none valued at more than $250,000."
Do those firms benefit from the sale of Ron Paul Dollars? Of course they do; someone has to bring in the wrong way crowd to buy gold and silver at the top of the commodities cycle.
Meanwhile the mainstream media is mostly ignoring the cesspool of neo-Nazis, Klanners, Holocaust deniers, and gold-bugs-with-the-FBI-pounding-on-their-door, surrounding Paul. Why? The Democrats can unload some of their whack-job fringe to the GOP via Ron Paul and in their dreams, hang these nut jobs around the GOP's neck like a dead albatross. At the same time they assist Hillary or Obama in trying to move to the center for the general election.
Timing is everything. Paul has staked $1.1 million on the NH primary. His big fundraising push November 5 and now December 16 come conveniently before the Jan 1 reporting deadline. That deadline is too close to the Iowa and NH votes for evidence about Paul's supporters to make a difference.
The hard work is done. The information about Paul is on line neatly organized for even the laziest reporter in America to confirm, write up and look like a genius.
Writes WaPo:
"As if Ron Paul's supporters needed any more motivation to storm the battlements and wreak havoc on the Republican presidential primary, now comes this: the feds are trying to take away their money."
Antonio Gramsci would be very proud.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/ron_paul_is_a_useful_man_for_d.html
And I guess you're incapable of seeing the irony in your position.
It's the surge that is responsible for the progress made in Iraq.
IF we had left when Reid and the other brain dead dems declared the surge a failure even before it started, the Iraqis would be paying the price.
What of the increased Iraqi casualties that would have occurred? I guess their lives don't factor in ,huh?
The "debate" was laughable- seeing them mouthing the same old tired "quagmire" lines- completely divorced form the changing reality
“Random” questioner at debate was Arkansas Democratic Party officer in 2003?
posted at 11:14 pm on November 16, 2007 by Allahpundit
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Sweet catch by Dan Riehl. I wanted to cut the video of her asking her question but CNN came back late from commercial and cut to Chris Dodd already beginning his answer. Here’s the transcript; Blitzer introduces her as an “undecided voter” and it sounds like the onscreen graphic mentioned something about her belonging to a church. And … that’s it. The question: Is this the same LaShannon Spencer who served as the Arkansas Democrats’ director of political affairs in 2003? Here’s a photo from four years ago. Annnnnd here’s a screencap from last night. The hair’s different but those glasses sure look familiar:
spencer.jpg
This isn’t the only questioner whose background CNN chose to omit, either. I can give them a pass on another one Dan dug up just because you can’t expect them to know everything about a questioner’s history. But how about a questioner who’s appeared on their own network previously in his official role as leader of an interest group? Think that might be worth a mention? Eric Scheie is all over it. If Fox News tried passing off a local community leader who’d been on the network before in a quasi-expert capacity as some “random” Joe Citizen pitching special-interest softballs at a Republican debate, the nutroots supernova would be visible from the Andromeda galaxy. As it is, they’ll very feebly feign ignorance as to why we should care.
Here’s the video of Khalid Khan — and yes, it’s the same guy. According to the woman who got stuck with the dopey “diamonds or pearls” question, the question about Yucca Mountain that she wanted to ask “was APPROVED by CNN days in advance.” If CNN knew “days in advance” what the questions would be — and more importantly, who the questioners were — why didn’t they do a cursory background check to see whether, oh, let’s say, any of them had worked for the Democratic Party before or had appeared on their own network as a spokesman for an interest group?
Update: Given the fact that most of the people there were Democrats and most of the viewers knew it, what’s the big deal about CNN not identifying Spencer’s work history? Well, after the revelation about Hillary using plants (which CNN helped expose), you’d think the network’s audience might want to know who among the questioners has had a paid, formal relationship with the party. At the very least, Spencer is less likely to ask a tough question than the average Democrat lest it burn any bridges for her professionally, and even in a format as moronic as this, where the same softballs are pitched that were pitched at the last debate and the one before, basic journalistic integrity should require flagging possible cases of compromised motives. Like I said in the comments, if some former GOP state party official was allowed, without being identified, to crap out a gimme question about the Second Amendment at a Republican debate sponsored by Fox, you’d never hear the end of it. Olbermann would devote whole episodes of “Countdown” to it.
I went back to the beginning of the debate to see how Blitzer introduced the format. Did he offer any details on who’d be doing the questioning? Why, yes. After mentioning that the debate was sponsored by the national party — something likely understood by most viewers as a mere formality — he described them as “ordinary people, undecided voters.” Note: not even “undecided Democrats.” Just undecided.
Update: Even Kos thinks CNN did a crappy job of identifying where people’s loyalties lied.
Progress, Progress And More Progress
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, November 16, 2007 4:20 PM PT
Winning: News from Iraq gets better by the day, but the media have done their best to downplay the turnaround and congressional Democrats have basically pulled the covers over their heads and pretended it doesn't exist.
Related Topics: Iraq
There's an eery silence out there about what's going on in Iraq. It's almost as if the silence is, well, intentional. Here are just a few examples of what we're talking about, pulled from last week's developments:
• In Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, British Major Gen. Graham Binns said that attacks against British and American forces have plunged 90% since the start of September.
• Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki reported that terrorist attacks of all kinds are down almost 80% from last year's peak — thanks directly to the U.S. surge of 30,000 new troops.
• Amid growing signs that even Iraq extremists have tired of terrorism and killing, a Sunni religious group closed down the high-profile Muslim Scholars Association because of its ties to terrorists.
• U.S. Major Gen. James Simmons, speaking in Baghdad, said Iran's pledges to stop sending weapons and explosives into Iraq "appear to be holding up." Roadside bombs, the leading killer of U.S. troops, have plunged 52% since March, he added.
• Perhaps most touching, according to a report from Michael Yon, who deserves to be the first blogger to win a Pulitzer Prize, Muslims are asking Iraqi Christians to return to help build Iraq.
Iraqi Muslims recently crammed into St. John's Catholic church in Baghdad to attend a Christian service. According to Yon, "Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. 'Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.' "
• Finally, there's this from Douglas Halaspaska, a reporter on the Web site U.S. Cavalry ON Point: "I came to Ramadi expecting a war and what I found was a city that has grown from the carnage, and all its inhabitants — both Iraqi and American — healing. I was not expecting what I found in Iraq . . . it was better than all of that."
Again, all this has taken place just in recent days, weeks and months. The positive news has become simply overwhelming.
Which makes it all the more curious why major newspapers and network TV news programs can lead with a barrage of news out of Iraq when things there go bad, but can't seem to find the space or time when things turn good. As the bad news dries up, their interest in the good remains nil.
It takes people like Yon, whose online webzine can be found at http://michaelyon-online.com, to tell us what's going on — not the highly paid prima donnas whose past reporting has made them so invested in defeat that they can no longer afford to tell us the truth.
Stranger still is the Democratic Party's response, as reflected in its recent actions in Congress.
We expected a certain amount of sheepishness on their part. After all, wasn't it just Sept. 11 that Hillary Clinton told Gen. David Petraeus his progress report on Iraq required "a willing suspension of disbelief"? What we didn't expect was all the self-delusion and denial that now seems to mark Congressional Democrats' efforts on Iraq.
The Democrats are denying our troops the funds they need to finish their job by playing games like Friday's, when they tried to tie $50 billion in funding to massive troop withdrawals, beginning almost immediately.
The measure failed in the Senate by seven votes. But the question remains: Why would they do such a thing in a war America is on the verge of winning?
Meanwhile, as if that vote wasn't enough, Democrats ripped Iraq's government — apparently oblivious to what's going on in Baghdad.
"Every place you go you hear about no progress being made in Iraq," Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday. "The government is stalemated today, as it was six months ago, as it was two years ago. It is not getting better; it is getting worse."
Virtually nothing in those three sentences is true — unless you replace "Iraq" with "Congress." Yet, Reid speaks for his party.
As Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said, "The days are over when the money is sent no questions asked, when the money is sent without a price."
Yes, "price." That last word is telling, for the "price" the Democrats are exacting by playing politics comes out of our troops hides — not Washington's. Our troops in Iraq need the resources to finish this war. By not funding them to the level needed to win, Congress will certainly endanger lives — and make victory a bit harder.
If the Democrats want to keep playing politics as Iraq turns, fine. But what do they do next year if, as now looks likely, the U.S. wins?
IBD
Just a few ordinary citizens?
Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that Dan Riehl identified one planted questioner from last night's debate. It turns out that Suzanne Jackson, (mother of a three term Iraq War veteran) is a fairly well known antiwar activist.
Activists have just as much right to ask questions as anyone else. It's just that when their activist backgrounds are known but not disclosed, the false impression is created that they might as well be ordinary Americans selected at random.
Why, they're just plain folks like you sitting at home!
Like the randomly-selected ordinary citizen questioner Khalid Khan.
From the CNN transcript:
MALVEAUX: Our next questions is -- Khalid Khan, if you would please stand for a moment. You and I spoke very briefly, and you said you have some concerns about racial profiling.
KHALID KHAN: Yes, I do. I am an American citizen and have been profiled all the time at the airport. Since 9/11, hundreds of thousands of Americans have been profiled. And, you know, it is like a harassment.
KHAN: My question is that -- our civil liberties have been taken away from us. What are you going to do to protect Americans from this kind of harassment?
MALVEAUX: Senator Edwards, we'd like you to take that. You obviously voted for the Patriot Act, which gives the government extended powers of surveillance. What do you say to people like Mr. Khan who say he's been abused by that power?
EDWARDS: I say he's right. He's right. This administration has done more than abuse the Patriot Act, and the Patriot Act needs to be dramatically changed, by the way.
(APPLAUSE)
OK, I have no way of knowing the extent to which Mr. Khan has been subjected to profiling. But he is not an ordinary citizen. For years he has been a prominent Muslim leader -- the president of the Islamic Society of Nevada, who has hosted conferences like this one (which included the controversial Muzzamil Siddiqi), and the first sentence in a piece in the LA Times described him as "a stalwart among Las Vegas Muslims."
Nor, as it turns out, is Khalid Khan a stranger to CNN. From the transcript of a show last year called "keeping the faith in Sin City -- a surprising look at how Muslims manage to live and work under the glitz, greed and sex in Las Vegas.":
ZAHN: Our special hour tonight continues with a "Top Story" out of Las Vegas, where Muslim prayer rugs and the Las Vegas Strip collide, and collide in a big way.
Islam forbids Vegas standbys, like gambling, alcohol and strip shows. Yet, 14,000 Muslims live and work in Vegas. So, how do they all get along?
Let's turn to Ted Rowlands, who joins us from Vegas tonight. And he has the latest details for us.
[...]
ROWLANDS: The president of the Islamic Society here estimates, there are 14,000 Muslims living in Las Vegas, trying to follow the stringent rules of Islam in Sin City.
KHALID KHAN, PRESIDENT, ISLAMIC SOCIETY: It is a challenge to them. It is a challenge, that they see all these temptation around them, and, still, they just ignore them.
Look, I have no problem with the president of any organization asking questions at a presidential debate. But shouldn't who he is be disclosed? There's just something about the same network putting the president of an important organization on one show as an authority on Islam -- only to later pass him off as an unknown random citizen at a presidential debate -- that I find more than a little annoying.
It makes me wonder what else CNN is not saying.
posted by Eric on 11.16.07 at 03:37 PM
Nice attempt to avoid the issue
The issue was your bleating about Bush being incapable of negotiating.
YOU then even speculate on a deal with IRan
Keep it up and you'll be in line for some serious reprogramming time
And you know they're not quietly talking to them how??
Just like you complained about them not talking to N Korea just before the agreement was reached on nukes
So Much Has Changed...Observations from Ramadi
11-14-2007, 10:16 AM • by ON Point
By Douglas Halaspaska, Special Correspondent
This was my first assignment to Iraq, and I had expected it to be both rough and dangerous. My editor had embedded in Ramadi during 2006 and 2007, and shared his improvised explosive device (IED) experience and some other stories with me before I departed, so I had strong concerns about embedding with the Marines. While I’m pleased to say that the living conditions of the Marines at the joint security stations are still rough – Marines wouldn’t have it any other way – the dangers related to being in Ramadi have virtually disappeared.
“As though waking from a nightmare and not being sure if the dream was real or not”, was the example a Marine used in describing the differences between being deployed to Ramadi during 2005 versus what he sees here every day. As a first-time observer, I look at the thriving and friendly Ramadi streets, and frankly cannot comprehend what these Marines experienced one and two years ago.
Today many of the Marines tell me that they would prefer to patrol without body armor and helmets, since they no longer feel endangered. They have requested to their chain of command that they be allowed to drop this gear, but have been told not quite yet.
Again and again the Marines of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion 7th Marines (3/7) would point out significant changes that they believe best demonstrated the Ramadi resurrection.
I asked Cpl Brett Prochaska, a member of a 10 man Marine Augmentation Team (A-team) assigned to Iraqi Police Station of Thaylat, about his present duties as an A-team member. As the intelligence section leader of his A-team, Prochaska lives with 100 plus Iraqi Police for 24 hours a day – 7 days a week and has done so for 7 months.
Prochaska was an infantryman in Ramadi during the worst of the fighting in 2005, so I asked him about his relationship with the Iraqis before becoming an Augmentation team member. What I heard surprised me, “My roommate was killed during that first deployment to Ramadi – I hated all Arabs, not just Iraqis.” “What are your feelings now after living with the Iraq police,” I asked. “They are my friends and I will miss them,” was Prochaska’s final comment on the topic.
Another experience was during a patrol through the Ramadi market when I was motioned to an Iraqi store by 1st Lt Mauro Mujica. “At the beginning of the deployment that store keeper would not sell to Marines,” stated Mujica. Minutes before his comment, I watched Cpl Alexander King walk into the same store and buy a pack of cigarettes. “What was his reason for refusing to sell to Marines?” I asked. “He lost a family member during the war and blamed the Marines,” said the Lt. But now he either forgave the Marines or simply felt it bad business to turn away steady customers, and I purchased a can of soda from the shopkeeper before pushing on with the patrol.
Later the same day came an event that demonstrated how the differences between the Ramadi citizens and Marines have come to an end.
As I was sitting atop a sand bag wall interviewing a sergeant, a Marine 1st Lieutenant approached me. He explained that he was going to confront an Iraqi Policeman (who we’ll call Mohammad to protect his true identity) who was suspected of being involved in the insurgency during 2005. The situation was all the more extraordinary since Mohammad and the lieutenant are friends. As the Lt. casually mentioned that I would be able to ask some questions, I jumped off the wall, quickly gathered my gear, and wondered about what I would be witnessing.
Sitting in a small room lined with cots and gear, the lieutenant talked to Mohammed through an Iraqi interpreter. “We know you were an insurgent during the fighting – you’re in no trouble – I just want you to tell me the truth.” Mohammad was now visibly shaking and appeared nervous before he quietly answered “yes.” “Did you ever fire on any Marines,” was the lieutenant’s first question. Mohammad was clearly concerned and replied with a long answer, but ultimately ended with a simple yes. “I was in Ramadi during the same time, so you could have possibly been shooting at me,” stated the lieutenant. “It’s okay Mohammad - if you were shooting at me then I was firing back at you,” joked the lieutenant. The rest of the session involved the lieutenant and Mohammad exchanging promises to never fight again, and to work together to protect the city of Ramadi. Furthermore, pledges were exchanged that this new understanding, between friends, would not affect their friendship.
It was beyond heartwarming to see these two former advisories – one a Marine, and the other an Iraqi Policeman – now working together as friends and comrades for a common cause. I came to Ramadi expecting a war and what I found was a city that has grown from the carnage, and all its inhabitants – both Iraqi and American – healing.
I was not expecting what I found in Iraq...it was better then all of that.
I agree- that is outrageous
Decision time for US over Iran threat
UN nuclear report heightens tension
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
Friday November 16, 2007
The Guardian
A construction worker assembles part of Iran's nuclear power plant in the southern port of Bushehr. Photograph: Mehr News Agency/EPA
A construction worker assembles part of Iran's nuclear power plant in the southern port of Bushehr. Photograph: Mehr News Agency/EPA
Iran has installed 3,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium - enough to begin industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel and build a warhead within a year, the UN's nuclear watchdog reported last night.
The report by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will intensify US and European pressure for tighter sanctions and increase speculation of a potential military conflict.
The installation of 3,000 fully-functioning centrifuges at Iran's enrichment plant at Natanz is a "red line" drawn by the US across which Washington had said it would not let Iran pass. When spinning at full speed they are capable of producing sufficient weapons-grade uranium (enriched to over 90% purity) for a nuclear weapon within a year.
Article continues
The IAEA says the uranium being produced is only fuel grade (enriched to 4%) but the confirmation that Iran has reached the 3,000 centrifuge benchmark brings closer a moment of truth for the Bush administration, when it will have to choose between taking military action or abandoning its red line, and accepting Iran's technical mastery of uranium enrichment.
US generals are reported to have warned the White House that military action would trigger a devastating Iranian backlash in the Middle East and beyond.
Russian officials yesterday called for patience, insisting Iran could still clinch a deal with the international community in the next few weeks. They pointed to other parts of the IAEA report showing Tehran had been cooperating with the agency's inspectors on other nuclear issues.
"We are most concerned to prevent Iran being cornered so that they walk out of the Non Proliferation Treaty, and break relations with the IAEA," one Russian source said. He said Chinese officials were stepping up diplomatic pressure on Iran, with Moscow, to avert a collision.
"They are on high alert that something has to be done quickly," the source said.
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also seized on positive parts of the IAEA report, noting increased Iranian cooperation with inspectors, as vindication for Tehran. He said: "The world will see that the Iranian nation has been right and the resistance of our nation has been correct."
Last night, a Foreign Office spokesman said: "If Iran wants to restore trust in its programme it must come clean on all outstanding issues without delay."
Gordon Brown has called for increased pressure on Tehran, including an international ban on investment in the Iranian oil and gas industry. But UK officials are nervous about pressure from the US vice president Dick Cheney and other hawks for military action against Iran before a new administration takes office in January 2009. They emphasise that Iranian scientists could be months if not years away from getting the 3,000 centrifuges to function properly, at top speed, for a sustained period, and insist there is no imminent pressure for military intervention.
However, they also point out that Israel's red lines for military action are unclear.
Against the fraught backdrop, a meeting of senior officials from the UN security council's five permanent members and Germany to decide on sanctions, planned for Monday, was put off after the Chinese delegation said it could not attend.
The critical meeting has been pushed back to later this month, giving time for the six-nation group's negotiator, Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, to hold last-ditch talks with Iranian officials.
The ElBaradei report gave a mixed account of Iran's cooperation with inspectors looking into Tehran's nuclear activity in the two decades before it declared its enrichment programme. "Iran has provided sufficient access to individuals and has responded in a timely manner to questions," it said, but added that "cooperation has been reactive rather than proactive".
David Albright, a former UN inspector and now an independent nuclear expert in Washington, said ElBaradei appeared to be trying to put "a happy face" on a worsening situation. "The main issue is that Iran now has 3,000 centrifuges," he said. "The report doesn't even judge the quality of the information being offered, but it's clear it is giving minimal answers."
The New Iraqi Debate
Now that the Democrats suspect that the U.S. is not only not losing Iraq, but may well “win”—victory being defined by stabilizing the country with a radical cessation of violence—expect the critique suddenly to morph as well.
We will soon hear that the war, while granted that it may be winnable, was not worth the commensurate cost, from liberal critics who have embraced much of the realist and neo-isolationist creed of the past (at least apart from Darfur). That is a legitimate debate—as long as opponents accept that it is a fallback position, and Harry Reid was mistaken when he announced the war “lost”.
Also expect Democrats to find ways to exaggerate the aggregate costs (like counting the rise from 20-100 dollars a barrel for oil entirely due to the Iraqi war without notice of the new Chinese/Indian demand, unrest in Africa, and declining production from the UK to the US), while Republicans will claim that Iraq is part of a larger existential war against Islamic extremism. How to resolve the dispute?
It depends on whether Iraq is stable—and the effect it has on Lebanon, Iran, Syria, the Palestinians, etc. I know such thinking is now dubbed “Neocon” warmongering and worse, but should the constitutional government in Iraq encourage reform in the region, then it would be impossible to compute all the multifarious ways in which that would contribute to world stability and US security. We’ll see, and 2008 for a variety of reasons will be interesting to say the least.
Iraqi Turn-about
I posted this thought the other day on NRO about the radical change in Iraq. There are three sub-texts rarely discussed—at least publicly—about the so-called Anbar awakening. First, oil is now $98 a barrel. Even with oil production still not quite at 2003 levels, the Iraqi government is raking in an enormous amount of cash—the equivalent of Iraq pumping about 7-8 million barrels per day at the 2002-3 price. Even if oil production were to stay flat (and some think it may climb to over 3 million b. a day by next year), Iraq might earn per annum well over $70 billion from oil alone at the present price. And for all the inefficiency and corruption, the money is starting to permeate Iraq, as any can attest from the storefronts stuffed with consumer goods and the astronomical climb in Iraqi demand for electricity. And Iraq is not the Saudi desert, but has the richest and best irrigated land in the Middle East, with an ideal commercially-strategic location, all suggesting that without Saddam’s wastrels, the country could very rapidly turn things around.
Second, the US military has eliminated a large number of terrorists, insurgents and general terrorists since 2003. Given the noxious fumes of Vietnam-era “body-counts” we don’t mention this. But many of the sheiks suffered horrendous losses among their tribes to the US in the past four years that led to some demoralization and the simple absence of their more skilled and veteran fighters. So, when they weighed the odds—increasing oil-generated wealth on the one hand versus being mowed down by the US on the other—the choice was to join us.
Third, for all the criticism of the Shiite government, it continued to function despite hourly threats and constant assassinations, both from Iranian-backed extremists and Sunni-backed Al-Qaedists. It has been a congressional pastime to trash the Iraqis, but few people in the world have so braved daily mayhem and still clung to a constitutional government process, however sometimes exasperating.
I’m not suggesting that the repugnance of al Qaeda, concern that the US pressure the Shiite government to help Sunnis, or machinations about the future did not play a role in bringing the Sunni tribes to our sides. But the notion that life could be pretty good with oil wealth and without US bullets—coupled with the acknowledgment that the elected government wasn’t going to quit or flee—played a large role in turning things around.
VDH
Gallup: Bad news for Democrats in Congress
Posted by: McQ
The latest Gallup Poll deals specifically with the attitudes of Americans to how Democrats in Congress have been doing. The results, as you will see, are hardly comforting:
The latest Gallup Panel survey, conducted Oct. 25-28, 2007, asked Americans to say whether they are "pleased," "neutral," "disappointed," or "angry" about the way the Democrats in Congress have been dealing with seven major issues confronting the nation.
Overall, relatively few Americans are pleased with the Democrats' performance on any of them. This ranges from 7% for the federal budget deficit to 17% for terrorism. Between 12% and 26% say they are angry about the issues. However, most Americans fall in between, with the plurality generally saying they are disappointed with congressional Democrats' performance on each.
You need to take a look at the whole poll, especially those of you who continue to discount immigration as a major issue in the '08 election. And look closely at the attitudes of independents for each of the issues polled.
Gore's Deceptive Rolling Stone Interview
By Marc Sheppard
In case any doubt remains as to who deserves the title of undisputed Globaloney Champion of the World, Al Gore's Rolling Stone interview should put the question to rest.
Interviewed in the magazine's third 40th Anniversary Issue of the year, self-proclaimed planet savior Al Gore warns that:
"It is a mistake to think of the Climate Crisis as one in a list of issues that will define our future. It is the issue. Everything else must be viewed through that lense."
That's right -- The issue. Not the all too real, ongoing struggle against radical Islamic madmen. Not nuclear proliferation. Not even the truly apocalyptic potential fusion of the two, a prospect which recent events in Pakistan have chillingly served to advance.
No - the issue, insists Gore, is his completely conjectural Climate Crisis.
As though to support such an absurd declaration, he then offered these keen observations:
"The north polar ice cap is melting, the fires are burning, the sea level is rising, living species are going extinct. These and many other manifestations, including half the U.S. being in drought last year, are visible to the naked eye. We have got to recognize that even though it's never happened before, it is happening right now." [my emphasis]
Now, virtually every claim in his first two sentences is technically truthful. Until, that is, augmented by the catastrophe-implying qualification of the third. And it is just that dishonest inference -- that these occurrences are without precedent -- that exposes the true measure of this man in oh so many ways.
So, with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, let me count the ways.
Yes, the northern polar ice cap is melting. For the most part, it's been alternately retreating and advancing in reaction to seasonal changes for as long as there have existed seasons. And, while it's true that its dimensions may now be at a record low, Gore somehow failed to mention that the southern polar ice cap recently reached ice levels higher than we've encountered in 30 years. If global warming is alleged, you have to look at the Southern Hemisphere too when talking about polar ice caps.
Nothing new here -- 1 down.
Next up -- fires are burning? Might the Goreacle be alluding to the recent arson, environmental-case-backlash- and Santa Ana wind-induced southern California blazes? Nice try, but wildfires have raged there for hundreds of years. Even the true believers at the LA Times reported that "global warming was not a factor" in the infernos, citing a Science journal study which found that the region suffered "no increase in the frequency of fire as temperatures rose."
Strike 2.
But sea levels are rising, cautions Gore. And that's quite accurate, although not by measures even remotely approaching the map-redrawing 20 feet by the year 2100 he repeatedly portends. Indeed, even his overly hysterical co-awardees at the IPCC have projected a far less catastrophic global mean sea level rise of between 0.09 and 0.88 meters from 1990 to 2100. And once again, it has happened before -- oceans have been ascending at varying rates since the end of the last ice age -- over 10,000 years ago.
That's 0 for 3.
And, what of these alleged extinctions? Are "living species" truly "going extinct," as Al maintains? Of course they are, just as they have throughout history. The cold truth is that The World Conservation Union lists 698 animal species extinctions since 1500 A.D. And, at Peter Maas's Extinction site, he lists 62 extinctions in the 19th century and 86 in the 20th which he attributes primarily to invasive alien species, habitat loss and overexploitation. Implying that this unfortunate yet essential component of natural selection is somehow unprecedented is nothing short of imbecilic. Surely Gore believes in evolution, of which natural selection is the driving force.
Four deeply deceptive assertions in a single sentence certainly do nothing to smooth Gore's reputation for exaggerating. Bu implying in the very next breath that last year's drought was an unparalleled prognosticator of doom verges on incitement to panic.
According to the National Climatic Data Center's U.S. National Percent Area Moderately to Extremely Dry and Moderately to Extremely Wet chart, nascent dryness is far from unprecedented. True - 2000, 2002, and 2006 each had at least one month with over 50% of the country experiencing drought conditions. But the same can be said of 1977, 1981, and 1988. And beginning in 1954 there were 4 such consecutive drought years.
Furthermore, the 1930's were a truly devastating period, enveloped in what the NCDC declares the "most widespread national drought in the last 300 years." For 5 of those years, over 50% of the country was hit, and for 5 months during 1934 that figure climbed to almost 80%. The misery these conditions brought to the Great Plains region -- parched for virtually the entire decade -- made refugees of large numbers of Americans, as chronicled in the classic American tale of dispossessed dust bowl migrants, The Grapes of Wrath.
Ironically, getting reacquainted with Steinbeck's patently pro-socialist masterpiece might afford the alarmist-in-chief a valuable perspective on demagoguery. Casy the Preacher man vowed never to sermonize again until he learned the truth himself: "Preachers gotta know [what they're preaching about]," he confided to Tom Joad, confessing that he did not.
Not a single one of Gore's five examples of what's "happening right now" has, as he persists, "never happened before."
Not one.
So in how many ways does Gore deceive?
Given five deceptions in three sentences in one paragraph in just one interview, who can possibly keep count?
Marc Sheppard is a technology consultant, software engineer, writer, and political and systems analyst. He is a regular contributor to American Thinker and welcomes your feedback.
I'm marking my calendar now
We actually agree on something
Even on a political level is so stupid, you have to question his judgement
Peaceful Nuclear Program, Right?
Iran has claimed for years that it only pursues nuclear technology for peaceful power generation, and that the West has no reason to suspect that they have any nefarious purposes in building centrifuges and reactors. Western critics of the Bush administration's tough policy on Iran insist that the entire issue may be manufactured entirely, and that Iran has the right to pursue nuclear power. They may have a more difficult time offering apologias for Teheran after today's release of plans for uranium warheads from the mullahcracy:
Iran has met a key demand of the U.N. nuclear agency, handing over long-sought blueprints showing how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads, diplomats said Tuesday.
Iran's decision to release the documents, which were seen by U.N. inspectors two years ago, was seen as a concession designed to head off the threat of new U.N. sanctions.
But the diplomats said Tehran has failed to meet other requests made by the International Atomic Energy Agency in its attempts to end nearly two decades of nuclear secrecy on the part of Iran. ...
Both the IAEA and other experts have categorized the instructions outlined in the blueprints as having no value outside of a nuclear weapons program.
Iran's explanation? Parents of teenagers will find some familiarity with this -- they have no idea how those blueprints got into their files. That somehow evades the important fact that Iran would not release those blueprints in the two years since IAEA inspectors "stumbled" upon them, as the AP puts it. They claim the plans must have come with the illegal equipment they purchased from the AQ Khan network, from which they used to create their own reverse-engineered equipment.
The IAEA still believes the Iranians have held back even more damning information and evidence. While they plan to report the cooperation in getting these documents, they will likely judge them as less than fully cooperative. That will give the West an opening for tightening the economic and diplomatic sanctions even further, and the Russians and Chinese an excuse to stall them again.
Coincidences seem rather unlikely in this case. If this was a filing mistake, the Iranians would have released these plans long ago. It's almost literally the smoking gun that shows their true intent for nuclear technology.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on November 13, 2007 4:16 PM |
Those wacky fun loving Iranians
They pose no nuclear threat, right dim witted libs?
A tale of two Palestines
Posted by: McQ
So is it a "civil war" yet?
Hamas says it has rounded up dozens of Fatah activists in Gaza, a day after a huge rally commemorating Yasser Arafat ended in gunfire killing seven people.
Witnesses say security forces opened fire on unarmed crowds after the rally turned into a protest against the Hamas movement's takeover of Gaza in June.
Hamas says its police came under attack from Fatah gunmen and returned fire.
Fatah party officials allege 400 of their supporters were arrested and dozens more summoned for questioning.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, compared the rival party's actions at the rally with "crimes of the Israeli occupier".
Of course there is no worse insult than to be compared with the "Israeli occupier". Speaking of Israel, I'm sure Israelis are watching in bemused silence while the Palestinians demonstrate what they've been saying for years. And a note to Abbas, no one from Israel is "occupying" the Gaza strip but Palestinians.
Any guess as to what the fate of the Fatah activists rounded up will be? Well if I know Hamas, it won't be pretty.
When Lions think they are Lambs
By Jeremy Sharon
Self-esteem, psychiatrists tell us, is one of the critical character traits required to becoming a well-adjusted, confident person. As with individuals, so too with society and nations as a whole.
In a few weeks the Annapolis "gathering" is scheduled to take place in which some type of framework may be proposed for bringing the Israel-Palestinian conflict to a denouement. This current push for peace is largely the initiative of Ehud Olmert and has, to a great extent, been motivated by his atrocious standing in opinion-polls following the publication in April of the preliminary findings of the Winograd Committee's report on government handling of the Second Lebanon War.
However, the Annapolis conference is also borne of a deep malaise, endemic to the current Israeli leadership, and Israeli society as a whole. That is namely an utter failure to recognise that Israel is strong and the Palestinians are weak. And this is indeed the reality. Israel has all the cards and the Palestinians have very little to offer, yet Israel persists in acting as the weaker party and continues to offer concessions and negotiations when there is very little need to do so.
Israel has de facto control over all the central issues of the Middle-East conflict. Israel controls the territory which is contested by both sides, Israel controls Jerusalem and Israel controls whether Palestinian "refugees" are allowed into the West Bank or sovereign Israeli territory itself.
Crucially, Israel has crushed Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank and created a situation in which it has become almost impossible for suicide-bombers to reach Israeli population centres and murder dozens of people, as was the case prior to 2003.
This has been achieved through a number of methods, principally the security barrier, checkpoints in the West Bank and daily IDF operations in the terrorist hubs such as Nablus and Jenin, combined with comprehensive intelligence gathering in the territories.
The importance of this cannot be emphasised enough, for this was the only thing the Palestinians had to offer; a cessation of violence in return for which they demanded a state. Now, however, they cannot even offer that since Israel has already achieved it.
Nevertheless, what is often heard these days is that if Israel should persist with a certain policy, for example targeted killings or arrest operations, it may well lead to the eruption of a "third intifada". Often the terrorist organisations themselves threaten such action. But have you noticed that this has never materialised? Well, it is not for want of trying.
According to the IDF, there were 71 suicide-bomb plots in 2006 which were prevented by the Israeli security services, and 45 people were stopped or arrested in the West Bank in possession of suicide-bomb belts. 279 people were arrested in direct connection to those plots. (Incidentally 126 of those arrested were from Fatah-affiliated organisations, such as the al-Aqsa Martyr brigades.) As mentioned, that these efforts have not resulted in carnage in Israeli cities is due to the ongoing military operations of the army and security services inside the West Bank towns and cities as well as the security barrier.
It is true that terrorists in Gaza are at present making life miserable for the residents of the western Negev region but this too, according to army chiefs such as IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Moshe Kaplinsky, could be alleviated with enough will-power, which would involve a wide-ranging operation against the terrorists there and the sealing of the Gaza's border with Egypt.
In light of this, one cannot help but be stupefied by Ehud Olmert's initiation and promotion of peace negotiations at this time. The upcoming Annapolis conference is almost entirely Olmert's initiative. What, however, is there to negotiate about? Ending the conflict through a negotiated settlement and the creation of a Palestinian state is probably in Israel's long term interests and perhaps even inevitable. However, negotiating when under constant threat of violence, when official Palestinian security services have no ability and no inclination to reign in terrorists, is worse than pointless. It merely encourages the terrorists to continue fighting.
As the Israeli National Infrastructure Minister, Binyamin Ben Eliezer said this week, if the withdrawal from Gaza has taught us anything, it is that if there is no agreement from the various Palestinian factions to cease violence (and even perhaps if there is), any concession made by Israel will simply be met with more violence.
What then is the solution? Israel must act according to its true strength. Israel and Israeli civilians are sitting pretty at the moment, safe from Palestinian suicide-bombers and terrorists thanks to the IDF. In 2002 there were over 60 suicide-bombings. To date in 2007, there has been just one.
In light of this position of military strength, Israeli leaders could simply state that there will be no negotiations under fire. What comes first is a unilateral ceasefire from Palestinian terrorists and if this takes five, ten or twenty years then so be it. Israeli security services are perfectly capable of managing the violence for twenty years as they have done for the past four years.
Once it has been inculcated into the Palestinians that violence will not succeed, and when the Palestinians themselves take action against the terrorists, only then should progress be made on their demands for a state. One course of action could be to grant them complete autonomy in the West Bank, roughly corresponding to the current Green Line, for a number of years as a precursor to full independence and the establishment of a state. If after, say five years, the Palestinians prove themselves capable of living in peace with Israel then full independence could be granted, which would also entail the signing of a peace-treaty with Israel and the permanent demilitarisation of the new Palestinian state.
These are terms which the Palestinians will never agree to at this point. But they are by any normal standards totally reasonable. Why should Israel discuss making any concessions, territorial or otherwise, when it knows for certain that those concessions will be used as a spring-board for more violence and more terrorism, as happened after the disengagement from Gaza in 2005 or from South Lebanon in 2000?
When a child demands something and kicks and screams in order to get it there are two options: you can give in for a quiet life and give it what it wants, though you know that the kicking and screaming will start again in short order; or you can show it some tough love, refuse to submit to its tantrums and teach it how to behave in a civilised manner, namely that rewards are dependent on good behaviour.
The parallel with the Palestinians is apt. In the past two years we have seen the withdrawal from Gaza, prisoner releases, amnesties for terrorists and even an Israeli election won by a candidate (Olmert) on a platform of unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank. The kidnap of Gilad Shalit and the war with Hizballah over the summer of 2006 mercifully buried the idea of unilateralism, but the notion of negotiations and further Israeli concessions in return for peace is still seen as a panacea by the political left in Israel.
This naiveté is extremely dangerous as the people of Sderot and the western Negev have found out. In 2005, whilst still Vice-Premier, Olmert said in a notorious speech "we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies". What Israel must understand is that it will get no rest until it shakes off this enervating lethargy. It is only when Israel recognises its true strength that the country will be able address the conflict on its own terms and provide for the long-term safety and security of its citizen
Yep, but he's buying dollar offsets, so he's really profit neutral
Lomborg addresses some of the Goracle’s more outlandish claims
Posted by: McQ
Interestingly, he does it with the IPCC report. For instance:
While Gore was creating alarm with his belief that a 20-foot-high wall of water would inundate low-lying cities, the IPCC showed us we should realistically prepare for a rise of one foot or so by the end of the century. Beyond the dramatic difference, it is also worth putting that one foot in perspective. Over the last 150 years, sea levels rose about one foot - yet, did we notice?
Not that I know of. More, this time about the Gulf Stream:
Most tellingly, while Gore was raising fears about the Gulf Stream halting and a new Ice Age starting, the scientists discounted the prospect entirely.
The Gulf Stream takes warm water from around Mexico and pushes it toward Europe. Around 8,000 years ago, a melting lake in the region of the present-day Canadian Great Lakes broke through and a massive torrent of cold, fresh water flooded into the North Atlantic, significantly slowing the Gulf Stream for around 400 years. Gore worries that Greenland's ice shelves could melt and do the same thing again.
Ice in Greenland is obviously melting. But over the next century, it'll spill 1,000 times less water into the ocean than occurred 8,000 years ago. It will have a negligible effect on the Gulf Stream.
But what if the unlikely happened and the Gulf Stream was shut down?
But what sort of nightmare would ensue if Gore were right? Siberia-like conditions in Europe? Actually, no. Europe would need to plunge by almost 13C to get that cold. Halting the Gulf Stream wouldn't achieve anything near that.
Gore and others have bought into a popular myth: that the Gulf Stream is the reason that western European winters are so much warmer than those of eastern North America. It is true the Gulf Stream provides a few degrees of extra heat to Europe, but it actually warms the west side of the North Atlantic almost as much. It's not the reason Europe is warmer than the US in winter; warm winds are.
In fact, says the IPCC:
"Catastrophic scenarios about the beginning of an ice age. are mere speculations, and no climate model has produced such an outcome. In fact, the processes leading to an ice age are sufficiently well understood and completely different from those discussed here, that we can confidently exclude this scenario."
Question: Will Al Gore now modify "An Inconvenient Truth" to reflect these findings? Or, as he has previously stated, should those voices which contradict his findings be ignored?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/11/11/do1102.xml
Mind Games of the Big Green Scare Machine
By Marc Sheppard
Lord, what fools these mortals be - Shakespeare
With each passing day, Americans are increasingly behaving as though Al Gore's mantra "the debate [over man-made global warming] is over" were true. Warming folklore is deserving of incredulity as the extreme left's latest armament in its ongoing battle against capitalism and globalization. But instead it has found insinuation into virtually every corner of our culture.
Not by any occasion of scientific merit. Certainly not by outcome of an imaginary debate whose time never came, let alone ever concluded. But rather by the actions of ideologues who have successfully gagged the opposing voice in that very discussion while widely dispensing the resultantly accepted tenets of their own.
And while the gags used held no corporal form, but were instead woven from a variety of longstanding reason-skewing techniques (aka logical fallacies), their effect was scarcely diminished.
Consider these recent events.
Frustrated by the Bush Administration's submissively proposed market-friendly voluntary measures, Congress is now earnestly considering elsewhere disastrous mandatory Carbon emissions abatement legislation and consumption-penalizing tax policies.
House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (D-MI), who believes the U.S should reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 60-80% by 2050, is looking to levy a 50 cent per gallon additional gasoline tax on an already pump-price-shocked America. For good measure, he'll further threaten the struggling airline industry by including jet fuel. On top of that, he'll require all energy companies to pay $50 per ton for carbon released by burning coal, petroleum or natural gas. He'll also phase out mortgage tax deductions for homes over 3,000 sq ft and eliminate them altogether for homes exceeding 4,200 sq feet.
On the Senate side, Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA) have introduced their own "pollution permit" bill, amusingly dubbed America's Climate Security Act [1], to "reduce global warming pollution." It proposes both carbon cap-and-trade and monetary transition assistance to current carbon slobs.
Never to be outdone, Democratic White House frontrunner Hillary Clinton -- no political dummy -- is promising she'd broker and sign a globally binding post Kyoto emissions treaty, a full 2 years before the current failed accord is set to expire.
And closer to people's homes, NBC dedicated last week to "green" programming which, amid its silly how to be a good little greenie tips, spotlighted both Democrats and Republicans vowing to save the planet from "global warming pollution." Automaker Ford wasn't alone in hysteria capitulation when it released a commercial wherein a little girl asks her dad to drop her off a block short of her destination to avoid the humiliation of being seen in a non-hybrid SUV.
It's becoming painfully apparent that the public is buying into this rubbish.
An October CNN/Research Corp. poll found 56% of respondents believing that "the phenomenon of global warming has been proven, and can be largely blamed on human endeavors, such as power plants and factories." And a Harris poll that same month revealed 71% believing that "increased carbon dioxide and other gases released into the atmosphere will, if unchecked, lead to global warming and an increase in average temperatures."
Mind you, while science attests that the planet is, indeed, at an apex of a historically natural vacillation of cold and warm phases, there exists absolutely no proven influence on climate by man-made CO2 emissions.
And yet, the Big Green Scare Machine (TBGSM), its MSM cogs, and Gorebot drones have managed to convince enough people otherwise to successfully engrain this nonsense into the very conscience of society, primarily by silencing dissent with ploys of flawed reason.
Clearing the Corridor to Clouded Correlation
We've all seen them present evidence of an undeniable upward cycle, then label anthropogenic global warming (AGW) skeptics as "warming deniers" who rebuff the proof right before their eyes. This dishonest little dodge is an inverted Straw man argument [2] as it blatantly misrepresents a position, proves its own distortion, and then concludes that the real position has been affirmed.
The upshot of this fraud is a population that largely believes skeptics doubt the warming trend itself, not its anthropogenic influence, and that thereby lies about the"debate." Moreover, this implied association blurs that distinction, leaving many with the very false yet very real impression that they have witnessed convincing evidence of both.
Pretty neat trick -- turning a skeptic questioning the impact of manmade greenhouse gases into a boogieman denying the planet is warming to imply all cynics are obviously wrong about both.
However, as with stage magic, logical illusions require audience receptivity preparation. Here, instilling an assumed connection is paramount.
In An Inconvenient Truth, Gore sermonized before a graph he claimed depicted both unprecedented modern temperatures and startling correlations between temperature and CO2 fluctuations over eons of time. In truth, even were the representations honest -- they were based upon the so-called "hockeystick" graph produced by Dr. Michael Mann which has been proven inaccurate, particularly in its record heat claims -- viewers had no way of discerning the key issue of whether temperature increases followed or preceded rises in CO2.
Of course, had the CO2 increases trailed those of temperature -- as many believe to be the case (solar and/or volcanically warmed oceans emit more CO2) -- then the entire GHG theory crumbles. Indeed, without such temporal reference, Gore is employing a common correlation versus causation confusion trick called Cum Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (with this, therefore because of this).
The absurdity of such illogic was cleverly lampooned by Bobby Henderson, who wrote in a May 2005 letter to the Kansas School Board:
"You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature."
Pirates and global warming
Gore's flamboyant overtures notwithstanding -- correlation does not imply causation.
Of course, nor does it disqualify it. Take, for instance the obvious correlation between global temperatures and sunspot cycles which is entirely ignored by the "solar deniers." From the Maunder Minimum's parallel to the Little Ice in the 17th century (chart) to today's Modern Maximum's place in perfect harmony with our higher temperatures, one would expect this, not hypothetical GHG theories, to have been declared the "debate ender."
Instead, through the chicanery of inverted arguments and the deliberate confusing of cause and effect, TBGSM has imposed the illusory assertion that skeptics deny rising temperatures while science has proven that man controls the thermostat.
This false Fait Accompli lends solace to an equally counterfeit disregard of remaining doubt.
Loaded Questions and Quack Quandaries
So what are we (or you) going to do to save the planet from manmade global warming?
The problem is posed ad nauseum in varying forms to politicians, talk show guests and audiences, students and climate change summit attendees. And most eagerly respond, despite having been asked something equally prejudicial to the classic law school conundrum "so, when did you stop beating your wife?"
Compelling anyone to address AGW remedies is likewise dishonest, as it implies concurrence with the unproven premise that mankind stands as guilty as the accused wife-beater.
This devious ploy of flawed reasoning is known as a Complex Question, as it deceitfully rests on an arguable assumption; any available answer would appear to endorse that assumption.
The complex question is actually a subtle form of False Dilemma, which is an alarmist staple, created by coercing someone to choose between 2 options when others are readily available. For instance, we either act now to reduce global warming or face untold cataclysm later. How often have you heard that nonsense?
And no wonder.
Before they might accept outlandish solutions, it is imperative that the public at large be terrified by AGW's primary false dilemma of action versus planetary calamity.
And once again, logical fallacies prove to be the stuff that green dreams are made of.
Fear and Loathing in the Troposphere
Without hyping the purported consequences of global warming, misrepresenting its cause would be of no particular political or economic value.
Fear refined yields a powerful motivational fuel, and without it, the public would quickly grow inured to doomsday scares and trendy liberal reflexive remedies. That's why, as an adjunct to baseless catastrophic projections, Misleading Vividness is so vital. You've seen the pictures of snow-barren mountaintops, blazing forests, reputedly doomed to extinction Polar bears ostensibly stranded on floating ice sheets (in fact, the species has evolved to swim between sheets) and huge chunks of ice falling to the water in Greenland (a normal summertime occurrence).
Alarmists are well aware that by flashing these visually striking images as backdrop to vividly descriptive exaggerations and lies, anecdotal evidence can be used as the basis for remarkably hasty generalizations. Indeed, audiences of such spectacle are apt to engage emotionally and, consequently, willing to suspend whatever skepticism their better judgment implies.
More despicable still, manufactured images of even greater horrific impact are routinely interspersed to further agitate the easily impressionable. Remember Gore's dreadful depictions of New York flooding and ground zero disappearing under water?
But surely there are those possessed of highly cognitive and expertly trained minds destined to ultimately save us from our own frailties of logic, aren't there?
Yes there are, but no, they won't.
We've previously revealed many of the myriad scientists who dare challenge the "settled science" of AGW, bravely risking ridicule, defunding, demotion and accusations of both lack of care about future generations (another straw man argument ) and being an "oil shill" (circumstantial ad hominem).
A Circumstantial Ad Hominem attacks a position by asserting that the person taking it is doing so simply out of self interest. While there's generally little or no proof proffered, weak-minded observers often disqualify the accused nonetheless.
At the 2007 Oscars, Gore smugly told the audience -- and an estimated 1 billion television viewers:
"that resolving the threat posed by a warming climate is ‘not a political issue, it's a moral issue.'"
In other words, if you don't agree with him, you're immoral.
It's not hard to surmise where the drones acquire their penchant for broad ad hominem attacks on heretics. Nor why it's considerably easier for those same skeptics to remain mum.
Tricks of the Tirade
actually devoid, alarmists compensate with a seemingly bottomless armory of fallacious arguments. Behold but a few more of their sleights-of-thought.
* Ad hominems are the falsely negative form of Genetic Fallacy, a logic flaw committed when an idea is evaluated on its source, rather than its merit. Conversely, similar mind trickery can be played to assert an idea which is falsely positive. We see this irrationality in Gorebots who lecture that if their hero says the planet has a fever and it's our fault and only he knows how to save it - it does and it is and he is.
* Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (after this therefore because of this) is a similar tactic to Cum Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, but here the implication is that if one event follows another, the first event therefore caused the second.
o "Temperatures have been rising since the start of the industrial age. Therefore companies like Exxon Mobil are melting the polar ice caps"
* Affirming the consequent is an asininity which asserts the "then" of a conditional (consequent) first, and concludes with the "if" (antecedent).
o "If GHG were making the Earth warmer then we'd have less snow. Therefore, if we have less snow then GHG are making the Earth warmer."
* Appeal to Consequences of a Belief is to suggest a belief to be true simply because if people didn't accept it there'd be negative consequences.
o "We must treat Anthropogenic Global Warming as real because if people refuse to embrace it there'll be no hope for our children"
* Argumentum ad ignorantiam (argument to ignorance) is a fallacy of assuming something is true simply because it has yet to be proven false.
o "Global warming is certainly caused by greenhouse gases because nobody has demonstrated conclusively that it is not"
* And the incessant "scientific consensus" claim is a combination of Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Popularity and, of course, Appeal to Bravo Sierra.
Further favorites include appeals to fear, to novelty (newness of an idea is somehow evidence of its truth), and of course, to popularity (an idea must be true simply because it is widely held). There's also The Relativist Fallacy, in which the arguer claims that while something might be true for others, he or she is exempt. Any ideas on this one (hint - think Limo Libs)?
The Debate is NOT Over When the Fat Man Sings
Given the cache of weapons TBGSM wields to shut-down debate, its obvious they've no misconceptions of prevailing should one accidentally break out. Indeed, Gore, himself, has recently refused to debate every AGW challenger tossing the gauntlet (Avery, Lord Monckton, Singer, Ball, etc).
But last week, Gore appeared on the Today Show and was asked about a WSJ op-ed penned by IPCC member and co-Nobel Prize winner John Christy which challenged Gore's dire analysis of global warming's impact and origins. The ensuing response was astounding. After calling Christy an "outlier" who's "way outside the scientific consensus" (Ad Hominem Tu Quoque), he chided journalism's provision of equal-time to opposing viewpoints on the subject:
"Part of the challenge the news media has had in covering this story is the old habit of taking the on the one hand, on the other hand approach. There are still people who believe that the Earth is flat... you don't search out for someone who still believes the Earth is flat and give them equal time"
Okay, so he didn't actually invent the internet, but he did manage to concoct his own logical fallacy -- The Flat Earther Argument -- X disagrees with Y. Y proclaims debate over. X therefore adheres to 600 year-old geological misconceptions and is to be shunned.
Now, the same alarmists who'll follow this charlatan debate-aphobe anywhere speak of an impending "tipping point," at which the Earth's destiny will be calcified. And, while they're dead wrong about the nemesis we face, their concerns are sound.
The Big Green Scare Machine has met no burden of proof whatsoever. To the contrary, they refuse and evade every opportunity to take on their dissenters in any open, objective and analytical forum.
And yet, by way of their fraudulent tactics, they're undeniably winning the clash for public opinion. Should this trend continue, rather than prepare for the consequences of naturally shifting climate patterns, we'll risk untold wealth, progress, resources, and yes -- capitalism itself, in a popular but fool's quest to tame an immutable force of nature.
The imperative to arrest this proliferating cognitive plague through unremitting rebuttal and steadfast refusal to assimilate with its foolish collective mindset or be diverted by its puerile mind games cannot be overstated.
Nearly 20,000 scientists have signed a petition disputing AGW and denouncing Kyoto. This must be loudly shouted at those sluggishly slipping into the green stupor to reinvigorate debate and assure that reasoned voices are heard over the irrational drone of this ultimately political machine.
Footnotes:
[1] Friends of the Earth abhor this bill. Rather than directing auction proceeds to wind, solar and other untenable "renewable" energy companies, it would subsidize the coal industry's efforts to develop carbon capture and storage mechanisms. Considering that base load electric requirements will likely be met by coal-fired plants indefinitely, this green objection to helping "clean them up" certainly speaks volumes to their actual motives.
[2] In her February 9th column, Ellen Goodman combined misleading vividness, blatant ad hominem and stunning ignorance when she wrote that "global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers." Ms. Goodman might be pleased to learn that most links used to clarify logical fallacies used by AGW alarmists herein launch The Nizkor Holocaust Educational Resource Project where they are described alongside other Techniques of Holocaust Denial
Marc Sheppard is a technology consultant, software engineer, writer, and political and systems analyst. He is a regular contributor to American Thinker and welcomes your feedback.
Iraq in the Balance: Will the Shia Prosecute Their Own?
Crime and Punishment , Iraq Matters
Hatched by Dafydd
A surprisingly balanced article from the New York Times on a surprisingly vital question that hasn't gotten anywhere near enough coverage:
An Iraqi judge has ruled that there is enough evidence to try two former Health Ministry officials, both Shiites, in the killing and kidnapping of hundreds of Sunnis, many of them snatched from hospitals by militias, according to American officials who are advising the Iraqi judicial system.
The case, which was referred last week to a three-man tribunal in Baghdad, is the first in which an Iraqi magistrate has recommended that such high-ranking Shiites be tried for sectarian violence. But any trial could still be derailed by the Health Ministry, making the case an important test of the government’s will to administer justice on a nonsectarian basis.
By a quirk of Iraqi law, ministries are allowed to block prosecution of their officials if they decree -- truthfully or not -- that those officials were "carrying out their official duties." Naturally, mass-murdering Iraqi Sunni is not one of the official duties of the Iraqi Health Ministry; but the Interior Ministry (the most powerful ministry in Iraq) has used this dodge in the past to prevent prosecution of rampaging police officials.
The consequences of this decision, no matter which way it falls, are so stark and existential that it's not unreasonable to say this opportunity will either make or break the new democratic Iraq:
* If Health decides to allow the prosecution to proceed against former Deputy Health Minister Hakim al-Zamili and Brig. Gen. Hamid al-Shammari (al-Shammari was head of the Health Ministry security force), then Sunni all across the country -- indeed, across the entire Middle East -- will finally come to the realization that the democratic revolution is for real, that it's not just "meet the new boss." Iraqi Sunni will flock to the polls for the next election, whenever that is scheduled; and they will participate in the Iraqi government wholeheartedly. Iraq will have shown the world that it's not just a new oppression, this time by the majority against the minority.
* But if the Health Ministry refuses to allow the case to proceed, then for all Sunni in the region (and mind that the Shia are only a majority in a minority of Moslem countries), the "Iraq experiment" will be proven a colossal failure. Overthrowing Saddam Hussein will still have had utility, but nothing like the effect if a fair and just democracy could arise in its place.
One tribe seizing control from another tribe -- Arabs have already seen and understood this. What was unique was the idea that the oppressors would be ousted in favor of free state that practiced justice and rule of law. That is what has never before been seen in the Arab or Persian Middle East.
The two accused Shiite officials are both Sadrites, and Muqtada Sadr personally secured them their positions; curiously, the government is only trying to prosecute them now because of a terrible fumble by the Mahdi Militia:
The case, which involves officials allied with the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia, would have been difficult for the Iraqi government to take on in the past because Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki received crucial support from Sadr supporters in Parliament.
Since the spring, however, when Sadr ministers withdrew from the government, Mr. Maliki has distanced himself from Mr. Sadr’s supporters, and he has allied himself with a rival Shiite group, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
Sachi has argued for some time that Sadr made a dreadful mistake by pulling out of the government and then fleeing to Iran; she noted that he was certain to lose control: In tribal countries like Iraq, propinquity is the lodestone of power. If you're not constantly looking down people's necks and breathing over their shoulders, they'll swiftly find some other master to serve.
The Times article recounts the fascinating (if repellant) history of the Mahdi Militia. Modeling itself after the Hezbollah of Iran and Syria (say, there's a shock), the militia began by building hospitals, infiltrating the Health Ministry -- and turning the health industry into a kidnapping, torture, and murder mill. The slaughter was carried out in an organized fashion, by order, and often targeting helpless Sunni already sick or wounded and in hospital... along with their loved ones, who were often kidnapped and butchered when they unwisely came to visit the patient. The two charged individuals together are thought to account for hundreds of these ritualistic human sacrifices.
We should definitely be holding our breath about this story. There are few events that can honestly be called "crisis points," where the fate of a nation balances on the knife-edge of uncertainty; but this qualifies.
So... keep watching the skies.
Right, one ridiculous anecdotal example trumps the documented studies showing that the MSM does indeed have a liberal bias
Typical deep thought from you
So, all the evidence to the contrary ( even the MSM has had to admit it ) that the security situation HAS improved significantly, you're still going with the quagmire meme??
Someone give her (?) a break and update her program a bit
Picture of the year:
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/thanks-and-praise.htm
YOu and the other pathetic limp wristed libs still in love w/ Chavez??
Venzuela: Now the killing begins
Posted by: mcq
I'm sure Sean Penn, Danny Glover and Cindy Sheehan will rush to Venezuela and side with, uh, wait a minute here - Hugo Chavez?
Gunmen opened fire on students, killing at least one, as they were returning from a march Wednesday at which 80,000 people denounced President Hugo Chavez's attempts to expand his power.
At least one person was killed and six were wounded, officials said.
Photographers for The Associated Press saw at least two gunmen — one wearing a ski mask and another covering his face with a T-shirt — firing handguns at the anti-Chavez crowd.
Terrified students ran through the campus as ambulances arrived.
National Guard troops gathered outside the Central University of Venezuela, the nation's largest and a center for opposition to Chavez's government. Venezuelan law bars state security forces from entering the campus, but Luis Acuna, the minister of higher education, said they could be called in if the university requests them.
The violence broke out after anti-Chavez demonstrators — led by university students — marched peacefully to the Supreme Court to protest constitutional changes that Venezuelans will consider in a December referendum.
Go to the article, check out the photo. The "thugocracy" is almost in place. I can't wait for the Chavez apologists to beam in and pass this off as the fault of the students.
Jihad and the American Left
By J.R. Dunn
A few weeks ago a meeting occurred between Iranian mullahs and assorted international left-wing figures in hopes of generating some sort of "revolutionary solidarity". The guests of honor were the children of Che Guevera, Aleida and Camilo. The attempt ended in unintentional comedy when one of the mullahs present began to praise Che for his hatred for the Soviet Union, his loathing of socialism and communism, and his "godliness".
When Aleida Guevara protested, the Iranians threw both her and her brother out, and the affair fell apart.
This isn't the first time the Iranians have attempted a hookup with the international left. Ahmadenijad has been visited recently by both Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega. The results were not all that more impressive than those of the conference, Chavez being a clown and Danny Ortega's glory days long behind him, despite his recent presidential victory. But it does clearly show how seriously the Iranians take the Western left, and how much they would value a relationship.
No Americans were present at the conference, no doubt due to ingrained Iranian hostility. But the question naturally arises: how open would the American left be to an alliance with the Iranian mullahs, and beyond them, the movement in which they play such a large role, Islamofascism?
At first glance, it might appear unlikely, the Jihadis being noted for such non-progressive activities as oppression of women, persecution of minorities, and the execution of homosexuals. But that kind of thing has never stopped the left before - their sole criterion has always been whether or not the other party is useful. It can safely be assumed that the mullahs feel the same way.
Up until now, the left has satisfied itself in responding to the War on Terror by attacking government actions, employing the Vietnam myth, and inciting as much domestic paranoia as humanly possible. But they're getting more frantic. Time has passed, and they have failed to generate anything like a mass movement, while recent successes in guarantee they never will. There's plenty of precedent for left-wing support of Islamic radicals, scattered and sporadic, but undeniable all the same. Recall Michael Moore's characterization of Al-Queda in Iraq as "Minutemen." Consider the left's defense of John Walker Lindh. Consider the self-styled "human shields" who raced to protect Saddam Hussein. Or the effort that has been put into undermining U.S. programs to combat the terrorist threat, such as rendition, wiretapping, and profiling.
How large a step does it take to get from where the left is now to where the Jihadis would like them to be? And would they dare take that step?
The Ugly History of Leftist Betrayal
They've certainly shown no hesitation in the past. Left-wing collaboration with movements hostile to the U.S. goes back to the early days of the Communist Party. In the 1930s, party members and sympathizers were often recruited by either the NKVD (ancestor to the KGB) or the GRU, Soviet military intelligence, who encouraged them to break overt ties with the party and establish themselves in positions of intelligence value. Alger Hiss joined the State Department, Harry Dexter White and Lauchlin Currie joined the Treasury Department, Owen Lattimore served in a number of positions where his Far Eastern expertise proved useful.
Hundreds of others joined them at all levels of the government, searching out valuable intelligence and influencing government policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. They were at length exposed by Walter Krivitsky (assassinated by Soviet agents in a Washington hotel in 1940), Igor Gouzenko, and Whittaker Chambers, among others. Those revelations were confirmed by the Venona decrypts, in which the U.S. Army obtained a Soviet code book and used it to decrypt thousands of coded messages going back to the 30s. Though American leftists succeeded in obscuring the issue for generations, release of the decrypts in the early 90s demonstrated that cooperation between American communists and the Soviets was both broad and deep.
Most disturbing was the period of the pact. In late August 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a Nonaggression Pact, clearing the way for Hitler to move into Poland. Stalin, for his part, got eastern Poland and the Baltic states. International communism, for years oriented toward resistance to fascism, made an instantaneous 180-degree turn. For two years, while Hitler chewed up Europe, threatened Britain, and made preparations for the Holocaust, communists across the world, including the U.S., offered direct support to the Third Reich. Not until Hitler turned against his late partner on June 22, 1941 did the left resume its anti-Nazi stance. It would be interesting to hear an explanation for these events in terms of the left's much-vaunted decency, humanity, and moral superiority, but echo answereth not.
The "New Left"
The New Left, born at Port Huron, Michigan in 1962, was supposed to be something totally different from the old communists. An American left, addressing American concerns, in no way beholden to foreign influences. While that may have been the plan, the record shows otherwise. During the Vietnam War the New Left acted in direct support of North Vietnam, a nation engaged in open hostilities with the United States. Tom Hayden, Mary McGrory, Joan Baez, and, most notoriously, Jane Fonda, traveled to North Vietnam to offer assistance to the communists while lacerating their own country. But it went deeper than that. Evidence exists that the New Leftists coordinated their activities -- demonstrations, speeches, student strikes -- with the North Vietnamese communists through contacts in Hanoi, Moscow, and, during the peace talks, in Paris. They may have even stooped lower. POWs from the infamous Hanoi Hilton tell of hearing American voices discussing their answers during interrogations. Men may well have died under communist boots and truncheons because of the actions of these people. As it stands today, we are unlikely ever to know for sure.
During the early 80s (for some unfathomable reason, events of this type seem to recur at two-decade intervals) the last major Cold War crisis centered on Europe. The Soviets had emplaced a new generation of nuclear missiles, the SS-20. The U.S. needed to replace its own weapons, designs twenty years old or more. The Pershing II and a new class of terrain-hugging cruise missile the Soviets could not match were due to be deployed by the mid-80s.
As these plans were being completed, a large-scale public movement arose "spontaneously" in both Europe and the U.S. -- the Nuclear Freeze, demanding that the number of weapons on all sides and in all regions be frozen at the current level as a first step toward disarmament. This was, needless to say, no coincidence.
The entire campaign was a KGB operation, directed from the Washington embassy, the New York consulate, and their equivalents across Europe. This was understood by many at the time, and widely published, including a major story in no less than the pre-Pinch New York Times. It made no difference; literally hundred s of thousands marched and protested, chanting slogans carefully drawn up by KGB propagandists.
But the protestors ran smack into an immoveable object -- more than one, as a matter of fact. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher refused to back down. They persuaded the NATO allies to hold true to their commitments. The missiles went in. The Soviets were caught in their own trap, confronting a NATO even stronger than before they began their machinations. (Along with the Strategic Defense Initiative, a missile-defense proposal artfully designed to undercut not only the USSR, but the protestors themselves.) They never did work their way out. By the end of the decade, the Soviet Union was one with the Romanovs.
There' s no lack of other examples. The Venceremos Brigade was made up of Americans who annually traveled to Castro's Cuba to assist in the sugar cane harvest and other revolutionary chores. None ever ventured to the Isle of Pines, the largest concentration camp in the Western hemisphere, holding over 10,000 "enemies of the people". The "Sandalistas" went to communist Nicaragua "to assist the revolution". Some of them fulfilled this promise by carrying Kalashnikovs with Sandinista patrols. Whether they assisted their hosts with various massacres against villages sympathetic to the Contras or the English-speaking Miskito Indians is unknown.
The record is clear, and can be read only one way. At almost every opportunity, the American hard left has sided with the men of blood. It's as if that was the only criteria, as if everything else, aims, beliefs, methods, or principles, was utterly beside the point. Dig up a mass ideological killer, and the Yankee rojo will be there to sign on that dotted line.
Can Leftists Cozy Up with Jihadis?
It will happen again. They will find their way. Hatred of women, the tormenting of homosexuals, the violation of all known human rights and everyday degradation of the human spirit -- none of that matters. It has never mattered before.
(Leftist persecution of homosexuals -- offered such wide-ranging leftist support in this country -- deserves a chapter of its own. In the mid-1930s Andre Gide, Nobel-winning novelist and one of the first homosexuals to live completely "out", was invited to the USSR, assured by his hosts that homosexuality was perfectly acceptable in the worker's paradise. A few conversations with others of his inclination revealed the horrifying truth, which included brutality, arrests, and disappearances into the Gulag. Gide returned to France and wrote a scathing polemic Le Retour de l' URSS, condemning the entire Soviet experiment.
In China, the Red Guards amused themselves by hunting down homosexuals and beating them to death. Romania attempted to annihilate its homosexual population through death by forced labor. On the Isle of Pines, Castro constructed special facilities in which homosexuals were subject to biological experimentation. The noted Cuban cinematographer, Nestor Almendros, filmed a documentary, Improper Conduct, which dealt in detail with these abuses. Though widely shown in the 80s, it is today utterly forgotten. If any left-wing protest against these crimes was ever made, no record of it exists. So much for leftist sympathy for gays.)
The sole possible drawback to a left-jihadi alliance would be, as occurred at the Tehran conference, friction between ideology and religion. Jihadis are religious fanatics. By definition, their ideology is bound up in their distorted interpretation of Islam. But leftist ideology is infinitely malleable. It can adapt to just about anything, as it adapted, for a short time, to the dogma it has always insisted was its polar opposite, German Nazism. As Arkady Schevchenko wrote in his memoirs Breaking With Moscow, "The dialectic can be used to justify any evil."
What form would such support take? The mind shies away from the possibility that leftists may adapt an active role, that they may choose to aid the Jihadis in carrying out actual terrorist actions. But we need only consider Lindh, or the "American Al-Queda", Adam Gadahn, to realize that the possibility exists. The left has always preyed on the disaffected, the alienated, and the disturbed. It takes little effort to turn such people against their own neighbors, as the record of the Communist Party, the new Left, and the Sandalistas clearly reveals.
Eventually, the Jihadis will realize -- if they haven't already -- that this reservoir exists and is ready for exploitation. When this occurs, we will have to deal with it. We'll have to do a more effective job than previously. The red scare scraped up far more in the way of dilettantes and damaged personalities than it did acting communists. (Most of them had been bagged already.) During the New Left period, next to nothing was done and the Yippies ran riot. Serious social damage resulted in both cases. We need a method of isolating the threat without dragging in bystanders and plain fools. This is more sophisticated epoch than even forty years ago. We can do better.
One thing we can be sure of. If the left does line up with the Jihadis, as they did with Castro and the Viet Cong, it will be the end. Leftism survived the purges, the Hitler-Stalin pact, the Freeze, it even survived the final collapse of the Soviet Union. It won't survive this.
Victory in the War on Terror may not only bring the end of Islamic medievalism, but the last of ideological leftism. That'll be something worth seeing.
Note: A curious historical precedent exists for a left/Jiahdi axis: the Anglo-Arabs, Britons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who were so enamored of the Arabs and their way of life that they abandoned Britain to live among them. These include of course, Lawrence of Arabia, Gertrude Bell, who acted as trusted diplomat to the Arab sheiks, and John Glubb Pasha, father of the Jordanian Army, but also St. John Philby, the leading Arabist of his day and the father of Kim Philby, probably the most effective traitor ever employed by the KGB.
J.R. Dunn is consulting editor of American Thinker.
You're probably not aware of sortaqueens repeated use of that phrase to describe about half of the people in this country
HE calls the "red" states "Dumbfuckistan"
Maybe you'd feel more at home in Britain??
Britain's Huge Problem, Getting Worse
Mon, Nov 5, 2007 at 8:10:36 pm PST
At City Journal, Melanie Phillips has a scary piece on Britain’s Anti-Semitic Turn.
Anti-Semitism is rife within Britain’s Muslim community. Islamic bookshops sell copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the notorious czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; as an undercover TV documentary revealed in January, imams routinely preach anti-Jewish sermons. Opinion polls show that nearly two-fifths of Britain’s Muslims believe that the Jewish community in Britain is a legitimate target “as part of the ongoing struggle for justice in the Middle East”; that more than half believe that British Jews have “too much influence over the direction of UK foreign policy”; and that no fewer than 46 percent think that the Jewish community is “in league with Freemasons to control the media and politics.”
But anti-Semitism has also become respectable in mainstream British society. “Anti-Jewish themes and remarks are gaining acceptability in some quarters in public and private discourse in Britain and there is a danger that this trend will become more and more mainstream,” reported a Parliamentary inquiry last year. “It is this phenomenon that has contributed to an atmosphere where Jews have become more anxious and more vulnerable to abuse and attack than at any other time for a generation or longer.”
At the heart of this ugly development is a new variety of anti-Semitism, aimed primarily not at the Jewish religion, and not at a purported Jewish race, but at the Jewish state. Zionism is now a dirty word in Britain, and opposition to Israel has become a fig leaf for a resurgence of the oldest hatred.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_anti-semitism.html