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Sortaqueen stuck in a time warp, reciting those lines that used to seem somewhat relevant in the 60's and 70's
Liberman, you pick one of the few dems with a right tilt to make what point exactly???
How many liberals are reps?
We weren't talking about anyone other than the MSM media.
Your refusal to acknowledge their left wing bias at this point is just plain stupid.
And what does the composition of the police force have to do with anything? another dumbwitted tangent. Does their bias affect their performance of their jobs? I'm sure you'll pop up with another 60's slogan there also. How about studies showing the same as there are studies documenting the left wing bias of the MSM?
How aobut the NYT's pronounced anti Israel slant- doesn't that give you a woody?
Oops, I forgot that medicare cut off your viagra quota
Lemme connect the dots as you seem unable to:
The White House PRess corps is over 90 % democratic ( by voter registration )
Don't you think their personal bias enters into how they slant stories or choose what stories to run?
What you think is immaterial- just look at the stock price of the NYT
People are fed up with slanted news are there are too many other sources to put up with their nonsense
IF you really think the NYT doesn't have a liberal bias you really are hopeless
I guess you don't recall their story about lost ammunition the day before the election in 2004, huh.
YOu give one anecdotal example and then ignore the careful studies that quantify how pervasive the bias is
A long article that is long on opinion and short on fact
A survey of voting records shows the bias
But study after study shows that Rather, Jennings and Brokaw are wrong: the newsrooms of major media outlets are not filled with non-ideological “common sense moderates,” nor do they reflect a diverse range of ideological viewpoints. Surveys over the past 25 years have consistently found journalists are much more liberal than rest of America. Their voting habits are disproportionately Democratic, their views on issues such as abortion and gay rights are well to the left of most Americans and they are less likely to attend church or synagogue.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/SpecialReports/2004/report063004_p1.asp
The Media Elite
In 1981, S. Robert Lichter, then with George Washington University, and Stanley Rothman of Smith College, released a groundbreaking survey of 240 journalists at the most influential national media outlets — including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS — on their political attitudes and voting patterns. Results of this study of the “media elite” were included in the October/November 1981 issue of Public Opinion, published by the American Enterprise Institute, in the article “Media and Business Elites.” The data demonstrated that journalists and broadcasters hold liberal positions on a wide range of social and political issues. This study, which was more elaborately presented in Lichter and Rothman’s subsequent book, The Media Elite, became the most widely quoted media study of the 1980s and remains a landmark today.
KEY FINDINGS:
* 81 percent of the journalists interviewed voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election between 1964 and 1976.
* In the Democratic landslide of 1964, 94 percent of the press surveyed voted for President Lyndon Johnson (D) over Senator Barry Goldwater (R).
* In 1968, 86 percent of the press surveyed voted for Democrat Senator Hubert Humphrey.
* In 1972, when 62 percent of the electorate chose President Richard Nixon, 81 percent of the media elite voted for liberal Democratic Senator George McGovern.
* In 1976, the Democratic nominee, Jimmy Carter, captured the allegiance of 81 percent of the reporters surveyed while a mere 19 percent cast their ballots for President Gerald Ford.
* Over the 16-year period, the Republican candidate always received less than 20 percent of the media elite’s vote.
* Lichter and Rothman’s survey of journalists discovered that “Fifty-four percent placed themselves to the left of center, compared to only 19 percent who chose the right side of the spectrum.”
* “Fifty-six percent said the people they worked with were mostly on the left, and only 8 percent on the right — a margin of seven-to-one.”
White House Reporters
In 1995, Kenneth Walsh, a reporter for U.S. News & World Report, polled 28 of his fellow White House correspondents from the four TV networks, the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Copley, Cox, Hearst, Knight-Ridder, plus Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report, about their presidential voting patterns for his 1996 book Feeding the Beast: The White House versus the Press. Walsh found that his colleagues strongly preferred Democrats, with the White House press corps admitting a total of 50 votes for Democratic candidates compared to just seven for Republicans.
KEY FINDINGS:
* In 1992, nine of the White House correspondents surveyed voted for Democrat Bill Clinton, two for Republican George H. W. Bush, and one for independent Ross Perot.
* In 1988, 12 voted for Democrat Michael Dukakis, one for Bush.
* In 1984, 10 voted for Democrat Walter Mondale, zero for Ronald Reagan.
* In 1980, eight voted for Democrat Jimmy Carter, four for liberal independent John Anderson, and two voted for Ronald Reagan.
* In 1976, 11 voted for Carter, two for Republican Gerald Ford.
* Walsh wrote of the White House press corps members he surveyed: “Even though the survey was anonymous, many journalists declined to reveal their party affiliations, whom they voted for in recent presidential elections, and other data they regarded as too personal — even though they regularly pressure Presidents and other officials to make such disclosures.”
* “Those who did reply seemed to be representative of the larger group. Seven said they were Democrats, eleven were unaffiliated with either major party, and not a single respondent said he or she was a registered Republican (although some might have been but were not willing to say so).”
Major Newspaper Reporters
In 1982, scholars at the California State University at Los Angeles asked reporters from the fifty largest U.S. newspapers for whom they voted in 1980. In that election, Republican Ronald Reagan won with 50 percent of the vote, compared with 41 percent for Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter and 8 percent for liberal Republican-turned-independent John Anderson.
KEY FINDING:
* 51 percent of big city reporters cast a ballot for Democratic President Jimmy Carter, 24 percent for liberal independent candidate John Anderson, and 25 percent for the Republican winner, Ronald Reagan.
U.S. Newspaper Journalists
In 1985, the Los Angeles Times conducted one of the most extensive surveys of journalists in history. Using the same questionnaire they had used to poll the public, the Times polled 2,700 journalists at 621 newspapers across the country. They found that by a margin of two-to-one, reporters had a negative view of then-President Ronald Reagan and voted, by the same margin, for Walter Mondale in 1984.
KEY FINDINGS:
* When asked how they voted in the 1984 election, more than twice as many newspaper journalists chose liberal Walter Mondale (58 percent) over the conservative incumbent Ronald Reagan (26 percent), even as the country picked Reagan in a 59 to 41 percent landslide.
* Times staff writer David Shaw expounded: “When asked ‘How would you describe your views on most matters having to do with politics?’ 55 percent of the newspaper journalists say they’re liberal (12 percent say ‘very liberal,’ and 43 percent say ‘somewhat liberal’), and only 23 percent of their readers say they’re liberal (five percent say ‘very liberal,’ and 18 percent say ‘somewhat liberal’).
* “Sometimes the readers and journalists take diametrically opposed positions — as on the question: ‘Are you in favor of the way Ronald Reagan is handling his job as President?’ Journalists say ‘No’ by a 2-1 margin; readers say ‘Yes’ by about the same margin.”
The Media Elite Revisited
In 1995, Stanley Rothman and Amy E. Black “partially replicated the earlier Rothman-Lichter” survey of the media elite described above. “The sample of journalists mirrors that from the earlier study, including reporters and editors at major national newspapers, news magazines and wire services,” the authors wrote in a Spring 2001 article for the journal Public Interest. When it came to voting habits and ideology, the authors found the media elite maintained their liberal bent, providing strong majority support for Democrats Michael Dukakis in 1988 and Bill Clinton in 1992.
KEY FINDINGS:
* More than three out of four “elite journalists,” 76 percent, reported voting for Michael Dukakis in 1988, compared to just 46 percent of the voting public.
* An even larger percentage of top journalists, 91 percent, cast ballots for Bill Clinton in 1992. That same year, only 43 percent of voters picked Clinton, who nevertheless won a three-way race.
Washington Bureau Chiefs and Correspondents
In April 1996, the Freedom Forum published a report by Chicago Tribune writer Elaine Povich titled, “Partners and Adversaries: The Contentious Connection Between Congress and the Media.” Buried in Appendix D was the real news for those concerned about media bias: Based on the 139 Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents who returned the Freedom Forum questionnaire, the Washington-based reporters — by an incredible margin of nine-to-one — overwhelmingly cast their presidential ballots in 1992 for Democrat Bill Clinton over Republican incumbent George Bush.
KEY FINDINGS:
* 89 percent of Washington-based reporters said they voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. Only seven percent voted for George Bush, with two percent choosing Ross Perot.
* Asked “How would you characterize your political orientation?” 61 percent said “liberal” or “liberal to moderate.” Only nine percent labeled themselves “conservative” or “moderate to conservative.”
* Fifty-nine percent dismissed the Republican’s 1994 Contract with America “an election-year campaign ploy.” Just three percent considered it “a serious reform proposal.”
Newspaper Editors
In January 1998, Editor & Publisher, the preeminent media trade magazine, conducted a poll of 167 newspaper editors across the country. Investor’s Business Daily reporter Matthew Robinson obtained complete poll results, highlights of which were featured in the MRC’s February 1998 MediaWatch.
KEY FINDINGS:
* In 1992, when just 43 percent of the public voted Democrat Bill Clinton for President, 58 percent of editors surveyed voted for him.
* In 1996, a minority (49 percent) of the American people voted to reelect Clinton, compared to a majority (57 percent) of the editors.
* When asked “How often do journalists’ opinions influence coverage?” a solid majority of the editors (57 percent) conceded it “sometimes” happens while another 14 percent said opinions “often” influence news coverage. In contrast, only one percent claim it “never” happens, and 26 percent say personal views “seldom” influence coverage.
Campaign Journalists
New York Times columnist John Tierney surveyed 153 campaign journalists at a press party at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Although it was not a scientific sampling, Tierney found a huge preference for Democratic Senator John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush, particular among journalists based in Washington, D.C. He found that journalists from outside Washington preferred Kerry by a three-to-one margin, while those who work inside the Beltway favored Kerry’s election by a 12-to-1 ratio.
KEY FINDINGS:
* Tierney found a strong preference for the liberal Kerry: “When asked who would be a better president, the journalists from outside the Beltway picked Mr. Kerry 3 to 1, and the ones from Washington favored him 12 to 1. Those results jibe with previous surveys over the past two decades showing that journalists tend to be Democrats, especially the ones based in Washington.”
* To see why journalists preferred Kerry, “we asked our respondents which administration they’d prefer to cover the next four years strictly from a journalistic standpoint.” More than half the journalists thought Bush was the better news subject: “The Washington respondents said they would rather cover Mr. Kerry, but by a fairly small amount, 27 to 21, and the other journalists picked Bush, 56 to 40....The overall result was 77 for Bush, 67 for Mr. Kerry.”
* “We tried to test for a likeability bias. With which presidential nominee, we asked, would you rather be stranded on a desert island? Mr. Kerry was the choice of both groups: 31 to 17 among the Washington journalists, and 51 to 39 among the others. ‘Bush's religious streak,’ one Florida correspondent said, ‘would drive me nuts on a desert island.’”
TV and Newspaper Journalists
In March and April 2005, the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy surveyed 300 journalists nationwide — 120 who worked in the television industry and 180 who worked at newspapers and asked for whom they voted in the 2004 presidential election. In a report released May 16, 2005, the researchers disclosed that the journalists they surveyed selected Democratic challenger John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush by a wide margin, 52 percent to 19 percent (with 1 percent choosing far-left independent candidate Ralph Nader). One out of five journalists (21 percent) refused to disclose their vote, while another six percent either didn’t vote or said they did not know for whom they voted.
KEY FINDINGS:
* More than half of the journalists surveyed (52%) said they voted for Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, while fewer than one-fifth (19%) said they voted for Republican George W. Bush. The public chose Bush, 51 to 48 percent.
* When asked “generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Democrat, Republican, an Independent, or something else?” more than three times as many journalists (33%) said they were Democrats than said they were Republicans (10%).
* While about half of the journalists said they were “moderate,” 28 percent said they thought of themselves as liberals, compared to just 10 percent who said they were conservative.
* One out of eight journalists (13%) said they considered themselves “strongly liberal,” compared to just three percent who reported being “strongly conservative,” a four-to-one disparity.
* When asked about the Bill of Rights, nearly all journalists deemed “essential” the right of a fair trial (97%), a free press (96%), freedom of religion (95%) and free speech (92%), and 80 percent called “essential” the judicially-derived “right to privacy.” But only 25 percent of the journalists termed the “right to own firearms” essential, while 42 percent called that right “important but not essential,” and 31 percent of journalists rejected the Second Amendment as “not important.”
Media Bias Basics Home • How the Media Vote • Journalists' Political Views • How the Public Views the Media • Admissions of Liberal Bias • Denials of Liberal Bias
http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp
WRONG YET AGAIN
No, in fact it's you who, once again are proving your stupidity.
The State Dept. is a separate identity w/ many career staffers who have an agenda that differs from whatever administration is in power.
Same thing exists in the CIA also
YOU truly are clueless
Look at a similar survey anytime between 2002 and 2005 and the figures are reversed.
Please provide a link
Thanks
There have been numerous studies that show the same thing
The MSM is overwhelmingly dem/liberal
Is it such a leap to think that would affect their "journalism"
Your wrong ( yet again ) about what the press chooses to cover.
The dint' choose topics by " fashion " it's about what creates a buzz. They choose to go with whatever sells papers/creates more web hits
The study also talked about the tone of coverage,- how hostile the coverage was, but I guess you must have missed that
Typical post showing the lack of comprehension skills
You post that and then dredge up a salacious post about reps- too funny
"Novak got his information from the WH."
No, actually, he got it from Armitage who worked at the State Department.
Even you must realize that's not the same thing
Even Harvard Finds The Media Biased
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, November 01, 2007 4:30 PM PT
Journalism: The debate is over. A consensus has been reached. On global warming? No, on how Democrats are favored on television, radio and in the newspapers.
Related Topics: Media & Culture
Just like so many reports before it, a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.
Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage. They get more coverage period. This is particularly evident on morning news shows, which "produced almost twice as many stories (51% to 27%) focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans."
The most flagrant bias, however, was found in newspapers. In reviewing front-page coverage in 11 newspapers, the study found the tone positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative.
Breaking it down by candidates, the survey found that Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the favorites. "Obama's front page coverage was 70% positive and 9% negative, and Clinton's was similarly 61% positive and 13% negative."
In stories about Republicans, on the other hand, the tone was positive in only a quarter of the stories; in four in 10 it was negative.
The study also discovered that newspaper stories "tended to be focused more on political matters and less on issues and ideas than the media overall. In all, 71% of newspaper stories concentrated on the 'game,' compared with 63% overall."
Television has a similar problem. Only 10% of TV stories were focused on issues, and here, too, Democrats get the better of it.
Reviewing 154 stories on evening network newscasts over the course of 109 weeknights, the survey found that Democrats were presented in a positive light more than twice as often as they were portrayed as negative. Positive tones for Republicans were detected in less than a fifth of stories while a negative tone was twice as common.
The gap between Democrats and Republicans narrows on cable TV, but it's there nonetheless. Stories about Democrats were positive in more than a third of the cases, while Republicans were portrayed favorably in fewer than 29%. Republican led in unfriendly stories 30.4% to 25.5%.
CNN was the most hostile toward Republicans, MSNBC, surprisingly, the most positive. MSNBC was also the most favorable toward Democrats (47.2%), Fox (36.8%) the most critical.
The anti-GOP attitude also lives on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." There, Democrats were approvingly covered more than a third as often as Republicans. Negative coverage of Democrats was a negligible 5.9%. It seemed to be reserved for Republicans, who were subject to one-fifth of the program's disparaging reports.
Even talk radio, generally considered a bastion of conservatism, has been relatively rough on the GOP. On conservative shows, Obama got more favorable treatment (27.8%) than Rudy Giuliani (25%). Sen. John McCain got a 50% favorability rating while Mitt Romney led the three GOP candidates with 66.7%.
The PEG-Shorenstein effort is only the latest to conclude that the mainstream media tilt left. Others include Stanley Rothman and Robert Lichter's groundbreaking 1986 book "The Media Elite"; "A Measure of Media Bias," a 2005 paper written by professors from UCLA and the University of Missouri; and Bernard Goldberg's two books, "Bias" and "Arrogance." All underscore the media's leftward leanings.
The media, of course, insist they are careful to keep personal opinions out of their coverage. But the facts tell another story — one that can't be edited or spiked.
So later this month, according to THIS INVITATION, the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, is holding a "Rural Americans for Hillary" lunch and campaign briefing at the end of this month….
..but she's holding it in Washington, DC….
…at a lobbying firm…
… and specifically, though it's not mentioned in the invitation, at the lobbying firm Troutman Sanders Public Affairs…
…which just so happens to lobby for the controversial multinational agri-biotech Monsanto.
Salt of the earth.
Al Qaeda's Taliban Troubles
By Ray Robison
The signs of al Qaeda's downward spiral are accumulating. If the media were as anxious to find signs of victory as signs of failure in our war with al Qaeda, the incipient crumbling of its support in South Asia would already be noted. But of course that would require giving credit to the Bush Administration's war policies.
Already beleaguered in Iraq, where tribal leaders have turned against it, al Qaeda faces a crumbling of its tribal alliances in the Afghanistan/Pakistan borderland regions. New reporting reaffirms my belief that substantial portions of the Taliban, a tribal entity which is under the influence of the Maulana Fazlur Rahman, have turned against al Qaeda. To be sure, not every Taliban leader is going to turn, but a significant portion of them will.
The Maulana is already a target of al Qaeda, and he is working against them.
President Mushareef finally showed the will to act against the Maulana and his jihadists with a raid on a mosque a few months back, letting him know there is pressure. In addition, Mushareef is now sending forces -- which have been getting trounced by Taliban and tribal forces so far -- into tribal lands.
Enter back into the Pakistani political mix former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazeer Bhutto. She worked closely with the Maulana when she was PM. He was then and is still the political leader of the militant Islamic faction in Pakistan. Bhutto will help bring him back into the inner circle. Though he will not act by proclamation and his changes will be covert, he will affect the Taliban by internal political maneuvering within his jihad-centric political parties.
Al Qaeda has targeted the Maulana. Undoubtedly the U.S. is applying more than a little bit of pressure on him, and his former foreign sponsors Saddam and Qaddafi are no longer pumping millions to his jihad groups. The new Bhutto/Mushareef alliance leaves him divided from the military and democratic political interests of Pakistan. He is increasingly isolated.
But Bhutto also gives the Maulana an escape valve; a chance to earn a powerful ally. The Maulana is no fool and he sees the weakness of al Qaeda and the end of the current incarnation of its international jihad just around the corner. Already his vitriol against the United States has lessened.
He is positioning the Taliban to start making peace agreements.
Faced with the looming conflict with the Maulana, Al Qaeda is concentrating its forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The New York Times describes a new influx of foreign fighters into Pakistan and Afghanistan. As always, the Times spins the hollowest analysis to portray defeat for the United States. But there are some questions the Times didn't bother to ask or answer, beyond the usual "the U.S. made them do it" tripe anyway. Chiefly, "why are they coming to Afghanistan"?
As the Times notes, many of these new foreign fighters in Afghanistan are being placed in leadership positions within the Taliban, usually under newer, younger Taliban commanders. The article even notes that this is a somewhat "new" vs. "old" battle for Taliban leadership. The Times fails to realize the obvious, that these are al Qaeda fighters, and instead refers to them as new Taliban recruits. But the timing of this "new phenomenon" makes the reality self-evident.
These fighters were meant for Iraq but the core al Qaeda leadership has realized that the war there is lost. They are no longer sending the new recruits in large numbers. In the current environment, only small teams can go unmolested in the Iraqi lands al Qaeda used to control. Since al Qaeda can no longer send large numbers of fighters to Iraq and since their Taliban support base is slipping away at home they have one option left to them.
Al Qaeda is attempting a hostile takeover of the Taliban.
And that signals the end of al Qaeda in Pakistan/Afghanistan just as it did in Iraq when they tried to take over from local chieftains.
Other tribal leaders are also reported to be turning against AQ. The Telegraph reports: [H/T Larwyn/Prairie Pundit]
The Daily Telegraph has learned that the Afghan government hopes to seal the deal this week with Mullah Abdul Salaam and his Alizai tribe, which has been fighting alongside the Taliban in Helmand province.
Diplomats confirmed yesterday that Mullah Salaam was expected to change sides within days. He is a former Taliban corps commander and governor of Herat province under the government that fell in 2001.
Military sources said British forces in the province are "observing with interest" the potential deal in north Helmand, which echoes the efforts of US commanders in Iraq's western province to split Sunni tribal leaders from their al-Qa'eda allies.
Older Taliban commanders are flipping to our side. In response, al Qaeda is seeking out young leaders to take over with the support of al Qaeda fighters. Now we know that UBL's latest statement was about more than just the split of his jihadists in Iraq. It is about the coming crumbling of the Taliban in Southern Asia.
You can bet that Taliban commanders like Mullah Salaam would not be making deals if they didn't have the support of the major players in Pakistan, namely Maulana Fazlur Rahman. If this "new" vs. "old" stew with al Qaeda stirring the pot comes to a boil, the fighting will resemble the Iraqi sectarian fighting, except this time is will be all Taliban and al Qaeda fighters killing each other in an all out war. And here is the bad news for The New York Times. When that happens, we win.
In fact, al Qaeda is now engaging in a propaganda effort to conceal its' Achilles heal of fractionalization. The Times of India is now reporting that a significant Taliban leader has just released a rare video reaffirming his commitment to al Qaeda:
A top Taliban commander has said his group maintains good relations and military cooperation with the Al-Qaida insurgents not only in Afghanistan but in Iraq as well.
"We have good and strong relations with Al-Qaida mujahideen in Iraq, provide them with our expertise and share with them military information," Taliban southern commander Dadullah Mansoor on Wednesday said in a video produced by Al-Qaida's media production wing, as-Sahab .
How very interesting that al Qaeda is so concerned about the jihadist split that it is running videos from sympathetic Taliban commanders to refute it.
Hold on to your seats, things are about to get messy in South Asia. A war is shaping up between New Taliban backed by al Qaeda on one side and Old Taliban backed by Fazlur Rahman/Mushareef/Bhutto on the other side. The first shot came with the bombing of Bhutto's motorcade, which killed over a hundred.
When these murders are fully targeting on each other instead of innocents they will kill thousands of their own fighters.
Ray Robison is proprietor of Ray Robison: Pointing out the Obvious to the Oblivious.
Recent Articles
Redefining "Do Nothing Congress"
Posted by: McQ
You know I was going to dress up tonight as a "Do Nothing Congress" but I have to admit my imagination failed me and so I'm simply going to go as old man instead.
But I think David Karki succeeds in succinctly stating why this present Congress is getting panned by both sides of the ideological spectrum:
Congress under Democratic leadership has reduced our legislative branch to little more than a philosophical question, so little has it accomplished in a year. They have passed none of the budget bills the federal government needs to operate, and wasted much time with multiple Iraq withdrawal and S-CHIP bills that they know will get vetoed, just to create issues for the 2008 elections and to curry favor with their lunatic base. They are on a pace to write the fewest new laws in 35 years, since the height of Watergate when President Nixon and a Democratic Congress were bitterly at odds.
As an official proponent of mixed government and gridlock, I, naturally give this Congress much higher marks than the ordinary Democratic or Republican citizen. Say an 11 at least, uh, out of 100. I mean, come on, even as a do-nothing Congress, they're pretty pathetic.
And as predicted:
They have also launched over 300 investigations of the Bush Administration, yet haven't managed to show a single incident of wrong-doing. Compare this to the Clinton Administration, where a single investigation may well show over 300 incidents of wrong-doing.
OK the last bit may be stretching it a little, but we are certainly in the middle of an investigation cycle from hell, that's for sure. Unfortunately, much like the legislation they promised to produce, Democrats have produced very little with their investigations. But that too was predicted. Disagreeing with someone doesn't necessarily mean they're doing illegal or immoral things.
And speaking of legislation, the current Democratic leadership seems to think activity equals accomplishment:
At the same time, the House has already set a record with 1,009 recorded votes this year. But only 107 of those have actually become law, with 58 involving such no-impact items as naming buildings and extensions of current law. Speaker Pelosi apparently thinks House members are to function like 435 hamsters on little wheels, running like mad and yet going absolutely nowhere.
Amazing. And apparently they're now so frustrated that they're ready to do what they claimed they'd never do - take away the minority's legislative rights.
Democrats Again Look to Change GOP Motions
After Defeats, Leaders Studying Ways to Neuter Republicans' Motions to Recommit
Exasperated over Republicans' continued efforts - and occasional success - in thwarting the House floor schedule, Democratic leaders acknowledged Tuesday they are reviewing the chamber's rules to determine how to curb the minority's ability to put up roadblocks at critical moments in the legislative process.
In case you're not familiar with the "motion to recommit", it is the minority's one, final chance to amend legislation before it is advanced out of the House. In the 110th Congress, 21 Republican motions to recommit have been adopted by the House this year. And thats even as Democrats have advanced more than double the number of bills under closed rules than Republicans did last Congress. Now they want to close the rules on all bills.
Check out the votes on the 21 amendments they passed:
3/7/07 - Water Quality Investment Act (Passed 425-0) - Prohibits the use of funds to lobby or retain a lobbyist.
3/8/07 - To amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to extend the pilot program for alternative water source projects (Passed 427-0) - Prohibits the use of funds to lobby or retain a lobbyist.
3/9/07 - Water Quality Financing Act (Passed 359-56) - Prohibits convicted felons from being issued transportation security card.
3/14/07 - Whistleblower Protection Act (Passed 426-0) - Protects federal employees from retaliation for the exercise and expression of religion in the workplace.
3/15/07 - Accountability in Contracting Act (Passed 309-114) - Bars federal agencies from awarding contracts to colleges and universities that prohibit on-campus military recruitment.
3/21/07 - Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act (Passed 249-176) - Prohibits public housing for individuals convicted of drug dealing, sex, domestic violence, or gang crimes and gives public housing priority to working individuals.
3/27/07 - Rail and Public Transportation Security Act (Passed 304-121) - Grants immunity from civil liability to persons that report potential threats to transportation security.
4/24/07 - To authorize science scholarships for educating mathematics and science teachers, and for other purposes (Passed 408-4) - Affirmed the authority of state and local school boards to determine curricula.
4/24/07 - Sowing the Seeds Through Science and Engineering Research Act (Passed 264-154) - Gives priority to grants to expand domestic energy use and production through coal-to-liquids and advanced nuclear reprocessing.
5/9/07 - Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act (Passed 264-160) - Establishes an automated system to screen persons entering or departing the U.S.
5/17/07 - National Defense Authorization Act (Passed 394-30) - Adds $205 million to the missile defense program budget.
5/24/07 - Lobbying Transparency Act (Passed 228-192) - Added PACs to the list of entities required to disclose their bundling.
5/24/07 - Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (Passed 346-71) - Bans state and local lobbying gifts, bundling, recusal for reverse revolving door, and disclosure of earmark lobbying.
6/6/07 - Afghanistan Freedom and Security Support Act (Passed 345-71) - Ensures that nothing in the act may limit U.S. response to an Iranian attack on the U.S. or Afghanistan in Afghanistan.
7/12/07 - Section 8 Voucher Reform Act (Passed 233-186) - Denied Section 8 voucher assistance to illegal immigrants.
9/26/07 - Making continuing appropriations for FY08 (Passed 341-79) - Honors General Petraeus and our Armed Forces and condemns Moveon.org's personal attacks impugning the integrity of General Petraeus.
10/3/07 - Improving Government Accountability Act (Passed 274-144) - Limits the size of the Federal government by ensuring that taxpayers' money is not being wasted on unnecessary programs.
10/4/07 - MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act (Passed 342-75) - Clarifies that nothing in the bill shall impact any currently permissible intelligence activities.
10/16/07 - Free Flow of Information Act (Passed 388-33) - Gives clearance to courts to consider potential harm from information disclosure on national security.
10/23/07 - Virginia Ridge and Valley Act (Passed 236-178) - Permits the use of motorized vehicles in wilderness lands for rescue personnel.
10/24/07 - Celebrating America's Heritage Act (Passed 344-71) - Solidifies states' rights to establish their own regulations on hunting and gun use in national heritage areas.
Seems, at least to me, that the vast majority of the members of Congress, if the votes are any indicator, found these amendments to have merit.
So you have to ask, given that fact, why, all of a sudden, the House leadership wants to restrict minority's ability to substantively amend legislation on the House floor through motions to recommit - rights have not been revised since 1822? Especially when Nancy Pelosi was so adamant about the maintenance of minority rights in the House and bi-partisanship.
Anyone?
Violence In Iraq Way Down In October, Peacefulness Confuses Journalists
By Rob on October 31, 2007 at 03:19 pm
22 Comments
Great news...
The number of Iraqi civilians killed fell from at least 1,023 in September to at least 875 in October, according to the AP count.
That’s the lowest monthly toll for civilian casualties in the past year, and is down sharply from the 1,216 recorded in October 2006. The numbers are based on daily reports from police, hospital officials, morgue workers and verifiable witness accounts. . . .
The drop in deaths among U.S. military personnel in Iraq was even more striking, according to AP’s records—down from 65 in September to at least 36 in October. The October figure is by far the lowest in the last year, and is sharply lower than the 106 deaths recorded in October 2006.
...except that the media isn’t quite sure what it all means yet:
...the meaning of these statistics is disputed, and experts generally agree that the struggle for security and stability is far from over. . . .
The relative period of calm—if that’s what it is—came during the Muslim fast of Ramadan, a time when militants have in the past escalated their attacks on U.S. forces.
The funny thing is that when violence in Iraq is escalating, the journalists always know what it is and the meaning is never disputed. When violence is escalating, they call it “civil war” and imply that it means the war in Iraq is a failure. Like this report from November 2006:
As the sectarian violence in Iraq escalates into what the US media is now calling a civil war, Mr Bush said he would press Mr Maliki to develop a strategy to stop the killings.
Escalating violence = civil war
Decreasing violence = confused journalists
But don’t you ever accuse these brave and courageous journalists of not being objective.
Stupid is as stupid does- this post being the latest example
What does that have to do with what was being discussed?
Run out of cartoons?
So, we should adjust what we think is the correct thing to do by how the islamists view it??
OBL gave as his view that the US having troops in Saudi Arabia was the root cause for his jihad.
We're gone now- has AQ stopped their jihad??
To tailor our behavior to their 13th century world views would be absurd.
I'm sure the role of women in our society offends them also. Should we make our women wear burkhas as well?
Israel is a democratic oasis in that part of the world- they are a natural ally
How many times can you repeat this conversation before you get bored.
LMAO
You don't know her very well, do you?
Robots aren't programmed to get bored
I said against the US- not necessarily meaning a nuke w/in our borders.
HE could have attacked out troops in Europe or the mid east.
Dirty bombs smuggled into the country here
I take it by your question you'd have no problem with him having nuclear capability??
Typical dim analysis
Or someone who is any where in the same zip code as a clue might say:
Has Israel declared that Syria should be wiped off the map?
Israel has had nuclear weapons for decades and has shown restraint by not using them. Their deterrent factor is duly noted by the surrounding Arab countries
The stupidity of the lib position is assuming moral equivalence between the countries
Do you feel the same about Iran's nuke program
How do you feel about the taking out of Iraq's program in the 80's? Were you against that also? I'm sure you would have been at the time. You would have been as wrong then as you are now
Riiight, just like the rest of the world is racist for preventing N Korea from getting nuclear weapons
The Arab world has done a great job all on it's own in continuing to adapt to modern society. Fundamental Islam is one major cause. Keeping women in the 13th century is just one glaring example
You can whine about the unfairness of it all, but Israel realizes that letting a neighboring country with avowed purpose of eliminating you should NOT have nuclear weapons.
Israel has had nuclear weapons for decades and has never used them. THe world wide monitoring efforts are a complete joke- Al Baradi is a clown
Please explain how allowing a nuclear weapons program in Syria is in the best interest of Israel?
Did you whine about the taking out of the Iraqi nuclear program also?
Are you stupid enough to still think that was a bad idea?
Are you stupid enough to think that if SH had nuclear capacity he would not have used it against Israel and the US?
Hard to collect evidence form a site that has been leveled
Luckily for the Isaeli people, they don't' care about the feelings of tools like you. Their mandate is the safety of their citizens and the continuing of the State.
You were probably doing the same whiny hand wringing after they took out the Iraqi reactor in the 80's.
It was the right thing to to them and it is the right thing to do now.
Who exactly are they supposed to present the claims to???????LOL
A UN security council meeting???? Get tied up in red tape for years while the facility is moved??
Hey, what's the latest on the Plame civil trial?
According to you it should be a slam dunk
The Environmentalist Fires
By John Berlau
Last week, CNN delayed for a few hours the scheduled Tuesday night broadcast debut of its much-hyped documentary series "Planet in Peril" due to live coverage of the tragic wildfires that have displaced more than 500,000 people in Southern California. But that didn't keep CNN "golden boy" reporter Anderson Cooper from using the tragedy to tout the program he starred in as much as he could.
Cooper constantly claimed during the week that the fires provided further confirmation of the documentary's prediction of an eco-catastrophe. Cooper said that higher temperature due to global warming may have been a factor. It was a "timely documentary," Cooper said last Tuesday on CNN's "Larry King Live", because "California certainly seems to be in peril."
But ironically, much of the reason California is in peril is due not to climate change, but to the very environmental policies championed by Cooper's documentary and our new Nobel laureate, Al Gore. While, in its statement praising Gore, the Nobel Committee said that global warming may "threaten the living conditions of much of mankind," the current wildfires show that the more immediate threat to man comes from the champions of the gnatcatcher, kangaroo rat, and the Delhi Sands Flower-Loving fly.
Environmental mandates have made fire safety for humans take a back seat to the well-being of the aforementioned California creatures, as well as that of every bug and rat lucky enough to be listed as an "endangered species" under federal and state law. For over a decade, environmentalists have hamstrung Californians in their efforts to clear the dry brush that is providing the fuel for this massive fire. If any of these endangered or even "threatened" species are found in shrubs or bushes on public or private property, it becomes very difficult to give this vegetation even the slightest haircut. This is true even if city codes require firebreaks to be built.
An example of the legal strait jacket that homewoners faced in the areas hit by the fires is the "brush management guide" on the City of San Diego web site. The confusing instructions state that vegetation within 100 feet of homes in canyon areas "must be thinned and pruned regularly." But then, the same sentence goes on to state that this must be achieved "without harming native plants, soil or habitats."
Then in fine print at the bottom of the page, the real kicker comes in:
"Brush management is not allowed in coastal sage scrub during the California gnatcatcher nesting season, from March 1st through August 15th. This small bird only lives in coastal sage scrub and is listed as a threatened species by the federal government. Any harm to this bird could result in fines and penalties."
Coastal sage scrub is a low plant ubiquitous near coastal California that grows like a weed under almost any condition. And since gnatcatcher nesting season lasts almost six months, there could be much buildup of sage scrub that becomes hard for homeowners to control. Especially since the maintenance rules severely restrict the use of mechanical brush-clearing devices even when gnat nesting season is over.
The tragedy is that this shows that not much has changed even after previous warnings from experts that environmental rules were on a collision course with fire safety in California and many other places, because they prevented the removal of "excess fuel" for fires from dense stands of trees and vegetation. Southern California homes were lost in 1993 after the federal Fish and Wildlife Service told homeowners that mechanical clearing of brush would likely violate the Endangered Species Act. The reason: it could alter the habitat of a newly-listed endangered species called the Stephens kangaroo rat.
Some exemptions were made, and clarifications were issued, but landowners still face the lingering risk that the simple act of building a firebreak can send them down the river if an endangered species is anywhere near their property. California's Blue Ribbon Fire Commission, which had been created after wildfires in 2003 by then-Governor Gray Davis and whose members included Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., as well as state legislators of both parties, concluded that "habitat preservation and environmental protection have often conflicted with sound fire safe planning."
But did this bipartisan finding or any of the documented harms to fire safety from environmental rules make it into CNN's exploration of possible causes of the current fires? Not a gnatcatcher's chance. Instead, climate "expert" Cooper told viewers Wednesday night that the wildfires were "symptoms of a planet in peril. Fire, drought, deforestation; it's all connected."
Yet the data show that temperature for areas hit by the fire was well within average ranges, and came nowhere near the record highs. On Monday the 23rd, for instance the high temperature in Escondido was 84 degrees, and the high in Santa Ana was 87 degrees. According to temperature statistics from the National Weather Service, the mean high in both cities for that date is 79 degrees. What's more, the record high for that date is 102 degrees in Escondido (in 1929) and 103 degrees in Santa Ana (in 1965). So tell us again, Anderson, how global warming is to blame, when the weather where the fires struck was not nearly as hot as it was more than 40 years ago and almost 80 years ago!
What about those harsh Santa Ana winds? Well, they are pretty strong. Here's one writer's description: "It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch."
Woooo! What a great description of the winds last week. Except that this passage wasn't written last week, last month, or last year. It was written by detective fiction master Raymond Chandler to describe the Santa Ana winds of about 70 years ago. It's in the opening paragraph of his famous short story "Red Wind," first published in 1938. So rough winds are nothing new under the California sun!
What's really changing the "climate" in Southern California is that there is more fuel for fires, since much less of the brush, as well as disease-infested trees, can be cleared, thanks to environmental mandates.
The problem is even worse on land owned by the federal and state governments. To satisfy the feds, San Diego has placed more than 170,000 acres off limit to development for the exclusive purpose, in the city's words, of "protect[ing] habitat for over 1,000 native and non-native plant species and more than 380 species of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals." Hugh Hewitt, the California radio talk show host and author who is also a real estate attorney, has noted in the Weekly Standard:
"The land that has passed into ‘conserved' status is at even greater risk of fire than private land that is home to a protected species because absolutely no one cares for its fire management policy. The scrum of planners, consultants and G-11s that put together these plans should be monitoring these areas closely. Instead, they regulate and move on to savage the property rights of the next region."
And enviro groups also get more and more land locked up by conveniently finding more species to petition the government to protect. In California, as in other places, it's often a case of creative subdividing of essentially the same species. First it was the Stephens kangaroo rat whose designation as endangered put much brush clearance off limits. Then, in 1998, the San Bernardino kangaroo rat got listed. Also under federal protection is the Fresno kangaroo rat. And so on and so on.
Across the country, fires have become more destructive as trees and shrubs gain "protected" status preventing them form being cleared. As Bill Croke noted last week in American Thinker, In the last two decades annual timber production on the national forests in the West has decreased from roughly 12 billion board feet to less than 3 billion today. This has resulted in brush-choked forests with large "fuel loads."
The ironic thing is that all this "protection" at the expense of humans doesn't necessarily work out for the gnatcatchers -- not to mention more majestic creatures -- anyway. According to the Associated Press, the fires struck close to the San Diego Wild Animal Park, threatening condors, a cheetah, and many other animals. The Blue Ribbon Fire Commission found that the 2003 wildfires resulted in "the loss of valuable watershed, wildlife, and critical environmental habitats."
Of course, saving species never really was the objective of many enviros. It's just a subterfuge for their main interest of controlling the human species.
Endangered Species Act abuses, including those that prevented fire breaks in Southern California, were an issue that helped get the GOP in power in 1994. But with some exceptions like former Rep. Richard Pombo of California, Republicans began to abandon this issue, lest they be branded as anti-green. It's time for the GOP, as well as truly moderate Democrats, to befriend again the threatened species known as the beleaguered property owner.
And if the Nobel Committee really wanted to give an award to folks preventing a hazard threatening mankind, they should rescind Al Gore's prize and hand it to the brave California firefighters whose jobs have been made so much harder by the nonsensical practices of the environmental movement.
John Berlau is the author of the Amazon best-selling book Eco-Freaks. He is director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Well, in this case he DID know about the video endorsement and about the money
Why would I be worried about something that has absolutely no chance of happening?
I guess you weren't aware that a Nazi site has a video out supporting him and that he refused to repudiate the group?
The same group has given him campaign contributions that he hasn't returned.
http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2007/10/ron-paul-endorsed-by-stormfront-radio.html
http://lonestartimes.com/2007/10/25/rpb1/
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=409220
http://adamholland.blogspot.com/2007/10/neo-nazi-support-for-ron-paul.html
The only crap here is your ignorance about your own candidate
He's also accepted money from a white supremacist group and hasn't returned it
Nice fairy tale
Wilson had a well known liberal bias. He was close with teh Clinton's ( he just endorsed Hillary for president- sur-prise, sur-prise )
And AGAIN, the famous 16 word quote was that SH had "tried to acquire" yellowcake, something that Wilson's "fact finding" trip actually provided evidence to support.
Gotta luv revisionist history
Bin Laden Admits Defeat in Iraq
October 27, 2007: On October 22nd, Osama bin Laden admitted that al Qaeda had lost its war in Iraq. In an audiotape speech titled "Message to the people of Iraq," bin Laden complains of disunity and poor use of resources. He admits that al Qaeda made mistakes, and that all Sunni Arabs must unite to defeat the foreigners and Shia Moslems. What bin Laden is most upset about is the large number of Sunni Arab terrorists who have switched sides in Iraq. This has actually been going on for a while. Tribal leaders and warlords in the west (Anbar province) have been turning on terrorist groups, especially al Qaeda, for several years. While bin Laden appeals for unity, he shows only a superficial appreciation of what is actually going on in Iraq.
Bin Laden doesn't discuss how the Americans defeated him. It was done with data. Years of collecting data on the bad guys paid off. Month by month, the picture of the enemy became clearer. This was literally the case, with some of the intelligence software that created visual representations of what was known of the enemy, and how reliable it was. The picture was clear enough to maneuver key enemy factions into positions that make them easier to run down.
Saddam's henchmen, the main enemy, were no dummies. They were smart enough, and resourceful enough, to build a police state apparatus that kept Saddam in power for over three decades. However, for the last three years, that talent has been applied to keeping the henchmen alive and out of jail. But three years of fighting has reduced the original 100,000 or so core Saddam thugs, to a few thousand diehards. Three years ago, there were hundreds of thousands of allies and supporters from the Sunni minority (then, about five million people, now, less than half that), who wanted to be back in charge. Now the remaining Sunni Arabs just want to be left in peace. Thus the Sunni nationalists of in the Baghdad suburbs are shooting at, and turning in, their old allies from Saddams Baath party and secret police. This isn't easy for some of these guys, but it's seen as a matter of survival. While the fighting in and around Baghdad is officially about rooting out al Qaeda, and hard core terrorists, it's also about taking down the Baath party bankers and organizers who have been sustaining the bombers with cash, information and encouragement.
Bin Laden can't openly talk about any of this, because that would be admitting he had made a deal with the devil back in 2004, when al Qaeda and the Iraqi Sunni Arab terrorists united. The Baath party has always been secular. Not exactly anti-religion, but not something al Qaeda could openly embrace. Many of the Iraqi Sunni Arab terrorists are religious, but not religious enough for the al Qaeda hard core. And it's the hard liners that usually set the agenda. That's a fatal flaw with groups that depend on terrorism to keep the fight going. Cracking down on the hard core requires more clout and muscle than al Qaeda possesses these days. And that's another unspoken reason by bin Laden is singing the blues.
Bin Laden's latest audio recording brought forth a furious reaction from many of his followers. The main complaint was that only excerpts of the message were being reported on by the Arab media, and that if the entire message were put out there, the excerpts would not appear so damaging. The excerpts concentrated on bin Laden admitting mistakes, criticizing al Qaeda operations in Iraq and urging Islamic radicals to get their act together.
Al Qaeda is under a lot of pressure of late. In addition to defeat in Iraq, the organization is being battered in North Africa, South East Asia, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Bin Laden has not got any good news to talk about, and that's what's really got his followers angry.
Next Latest News:
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htwin/articles/20071027.aspx
America Can't Win the "War On Fire"
An Editorial by Harvey
Posted by Harvey at 11:00 AM | 2 blog reactions | Comments (61)
After the all of endless days of the California fire quagmire, it's time for America to admit that it can't win this battle. We must immediately withdraw our forces and go home. But until our so-called "leaders" in Washington wise up to the folly of their current course, all we can do is ask ourselves, "why does fire hate us?".
The roots go deep.
"it's no wonder fire hates us. We've been demonizing it ever since the first cinematic Frankenstein monster said 'Fire bad!'."
In the 12th century, when Europe was suffering through it's Dark Ages, fire was the most enlightened thing on the planet. It provided warmth and illumination to those who were wise in its ways. Truly it was the engine of civilization.
Fire has never forgotten this, though apparently WE have, and our ingratitude to our betters galls them.
We think ourselves so sophisticated with our electricity and our central heating, but if fire hadn't paved the way for us, we'd be lost.
We offend fire by occupying the holy lands of burnable, burnable forests with our "fireless" nuclear power plants, claiming that we are "better than mere flames". We laugh at fire's "primitiveness" and "simplicity".
Well, apparently fire is stronger than we think, as it continues to prove itself unstoppable despite our recent surge of extinguishing agents. Water, and by extension America, is no match for such a primal force.
How foolish fighting fire is. And what a waste of resources in a country where there are children without health insurance.
And it's no wonder fire hates us. We've been demonizing it ever since the first cinematic Frankenstein monster said "Fire bad!". We tell our children not to play with matches or they'll wet the bed. We won't even allow lighters on airline flights! Even before the fire is made, it's assumed to be evil by its very nature. Plus we only allow fire the most menial of jobs in this country - barbecues, fireplaces, scented candles - is it any wonder that fire resents us so deeply?
I, for one, don't blame it. And I am ashamed to be an American.
Of course, even though I understand fire's anger, I certainly don't think violence is the answer. Naturally, like all decent people, I don't approve of fires raging through California. Still, I think we should at least consider containment as an option, rather than direct confrontation. Give fire a certain area of land to live as it pleases, and only react if it takes the initiative to cross borders. At that point, we should definitely consider economic sactions.
I believe in co-existence. I think we can get along peacably with fire if we just set our pride aside and give it some of what it wants.
After all, it's not called "the combustion of peace" for nothing.
---
Same clowns- different forum
Hurricane Season Disappoints Merchants of Doom
By Christopher Alleva
Like undertakers complaining that a predicted flu epidemic failed to generate any business, the drive-by media and the hurricane forecasters are kicking themselves over the big nothing the 2007 hurricane season turned out to be. They know full well without the pain and suffering from these weather events: budgets may get cut and ratings tank. The depravity of it all is simply stunning.
2007 is the second year in a row after Katrina that hurricane forecasts have been completely wrong. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center, National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Research Division, forecast a very high likelihood (85% chance) of an above normal Atlantic hurricane season.
The August update persisted with the wrong forecast, projecting an above average hurricane season.
NOAA based their prediction for an above-normal 2007 season on the combination of two main climate factors, what they describe generally as
"1.) the continuation of conditions that have been conducive to hurricanes since 1995 and
"2.) the continued La Niña-like pattern of tropical convection.
"In addition, temperatures in the western tropical Atlantic and Caribbean Sea remain well above average (0.56oC).
"This combination of conditions is known to produce high levels of Atlantic hurricane activity."
Now we know this combination of conditions sometimes produces high levels of hurricane activity and sometimes not. It appears that NOAA has no idea how to forecast the intensity of hurricane seasons months or even weeks ahead. In 2004 they predicted a 50% chance of above normal, 2005 70%. Not that much better than a coin flip.
NOAA's Atlantic Ocean Meteorological Laboratory has complied Accumulated Cyclone Energy indexes (ACE) since1851. ACE expresses the activity of Atlantic hurricane seasons. ACE is calculated using an approximation of the energy of a tropical system over its lifetime. Energy levels are taken every six-hour period. The ACE of a season is the sum of the ACEs for each storm and takes into account the number, strength, and duration of all the tropical activity in the season. It is the most useful measure of seasonal activity since it measures not only the number of storms but their intensity.
The graph below shows season ACE indexes for the last fifty years from 1947. While there has been wide variability, the linear trend line is nearly horizontal. As of October 24, the 2007 ACE index stood at 62. 2006 came in at 78 and 2005 at 248. From 1970 to 1994 the ACE index was below 100 in all but two years.
Hurricane ACE Index
Data Source: NOAA Atlantic Ocean Laboratory, Graph: The Author
While the season doesn't officially end for another few weeks, the graph below shows that tropical events decrease drastically through October making it unlikely that there will be a spate of hurricanes to redeem their forecasts.
ACE chart 2
Source: Ryan Maue, Florida State University, Department of Meteorology
After Katrina, we were bombarded with baseless assertions that global warming was causing increased hurricane activity. As Rush Limbaugh predicted, for the first time in history, the Democrats and their friends in the drive by media politicized a natural disaster, successfully blaming President Bush for Katrina. In spite of this spin campaign, the citizens of Louisiana knew exactly where the blame should be, with Democrat Governor Kathleen Blanco. That is why they elected Republican Bobby Jindal.
It is possible that politicization of natural disasters by the Democrats might be influencing the the recent hurricane season forecasts. How else can they explain their rationale for issuing above average hurricane season predictions in 2006 and 2007,while predictions for 2004 and 2005 were mere coin flips. These forecast are far to important to be tainted by petty partisan politics. The President should appoint a commission to investigate political influence of these predictions. He needs to get NOAA personnel under oath and ask them what factors they use to make these predictions.
The Democrats and the media should end their politicization of natural disasters. This is counter-productive and dangerous. Is this too much to ask?
Yep, the surge is dead meme obviously was a dismal failure, so the new talk is "well where's the political reconciliation"?
Like having stability won't aid in the reconciliation process.
Start preparing now for the new meme if the country emerges out of the quagmire of sectarian violence
But then, according to you everybody has been killed due to ethnic cleansing, so there is really no need for reconciliation anyway, right
Democrats’ K Street Project
October 24th, 2007 9:53 am
Now that Democrats are in power, what was once called “corruption” they now call “strategy”.
Remember when Democrats called Tom Delay’s K Street project a “rampant abuse of power“?
In his dealings with K Street lobbyists, DeLay explicitly stated he would operate by “the old adage of punish your enemies and reward your friends.”
[…]
Lost in the pay-to-play system is any concern for good governance.
[…]
RAMPANT ABUSE OF POWER: New York Times columnist David Brooks explained “the real problem wasn’t DeLay, it was DeLayism, the whole culture that merged K Street with the Hill, and held that raising money is the most important way to contribute to the team.” The culture permeated the entire congressional leadership; they were willing buyers of what lobbyists were selling.
Even Nancy Pelosi “pledged” to “kill the K Street project” among other things on her way to leading the “the effort to turn the most closed, corrupt Congress in history into the most open and honest Congress in history.”
That is why, with our Democratic Declaration of Honest Leadership and Open Government, we are pledging to enact and enforce legislation that will:
-Ban all gifts and travel from lobbyists. Period.
-Kill the K Street Project, the Republican plan that trades favors for lobbying jobs, and toughen public disclosure of lobbyist activity…
Nevermind.
When Republicans were in control, Ms. Pelosi and company denounced the “K Street Project,” run by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. They protested that corporate lobbyists were allowed to become a fourth branch of government–and in some cases their protests had merit, as Republicans curried favor with money interests.
Meanwhile, Democrats under Rep. Rahm Emanuel and Sen. Schumer have quietly erected their own K Street Project, and employ some of the same strong-arm tactics they once deplored. “I’ve never felt the squeeze that we’re under now to give to Democrats and to hire them,” says one telecom industry representative. “They’ve put out the word that if you have an issue on trade, taxes, or regulation, you’d better be a donor and you’d better not be part of any effort to run ads against our freshmen incumbents.”
It’s not an issue of ideology, it’s an issue of power and access. But for Democrats to have campaigned on it as an issue of corruption only to turn around and engage in it themselves once in power… it’s now an issue of hypocrisy, too.
Same as it ever was
Double-Reverse Chickendove
To paraphrase some Marine wag in Ramadi … Tom Friedman isn’t at war, the Marine Corps is at war. The Army is at war. Tom Friedman’s at Neiman Marcus:
Boy, am I glad we finally got out of Iraq. It was so painful waking up every morning and reading the news from there. It’s just such a relief to have it out of mind and behind us.
Huh? Say what? You say we’re still there? But how could that be — nobody in Washington is talking about it anymore?
I don’t know whether it was the sheer agony of the debate over Gen. David Petraeus’s testimony, or the fact that the surge really has dampened casualties, or the failure by Democrats to force an Iraq withdrawal through Congress, or the fact that all the leading Democratic presidential contenders have signaled that they will not precipitously withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, but the air has gone out of the Iraq debate.
That is too bad. Neglect is not benign when it comes to Iraq — because Iraq is not healthy. Iraq is like a cancer patient who was also running a high fever from an infection (Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia). The military surge has brought down the fever, but the patient still has cancer (civil war). And we still don’t know how to treat it. Surgery? Chemotherapy? Natural healers? Euthanasia?
Actually, Iraq is more like a tortured, politically traumatized nation of 25 million people desperate for a chance in life, after decades of being cynically abused by everyone from Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda to the Iranian mullahs, a plague of viruses that have infected the entire region. The cure? Determined, patient counter-insurgency in Iraq. Airstrikes targeting Iran’s capability to project trouble. A long war. Diplomacy with honest partners, when they emerge.
To the extent that the surge has worked militarily, it is largely because of what Iraqis have done by themselves for themselves — Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders rising up against pro-Qaeda Sunni elements, taking back control of their villages and towns, and aligning themselves with U.S. forces to do so. Some Shiites are now doing the same.
Now that’s supporting the troops. Apparently Friedman missed the part about the Iraqis recognizing the Americans aren’t leaving, that Americans can fight and won’t quit, that the Americans, as they have bled, are actually trying to help them, while al-Qaeda was just bleeding them. That the American “strong horse” represents their interests. That the Americans represent order and prosperity, and will leave when Iraq is on that path. That al-Qaeda represents chaos, death and violently enforced Sharia. Clearly the Americans had nothing to do with this uprising.
This is interesting. It dovetails with the line some in Washington and the news media have been pushing: Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a homegrown organization, all Iraqi anti-invader resistance, no links to bin Laden. The same people will tell you that al-Qaeda in Iraq, now that it’s on the ropes, never really was that big a deal. Not the enemy. That’s just Bush trying to hoodwink America with a new version of the old Saddam hearts al-Qaeda thing four years later.
Friedman bemoans the fact that Iraqi politicians have not yet followed their people. In fact, some have made moves in that direction, but they’ve turned out by and large to be every bit as self-interested, gutless, ineffective and divisive as … American politicans. Friedman bemoans that fact that Washington isn’t bickering about Iraq anymore. He observes that after a summer of squawking about it, a year spent doing everything they can to undermine it, the Democrats are spent. They failed, in the face of logic, hope, achievement. They and their candidates have had to recognize that America prefers to win and sees a chance to do that. He neglects to observe that it hasn’t stopped the House speaker from running a cynical campaign to derail supply lines into Iraq with an Armenian genocide resolution … a bid to unsupport the troops and usher in a new Iraqi genocide. And if Friedman is patient, he’ll get all the Iraq bickering he wants soon enough. Bush needs more money for his war.
The politics aside, there is something particularly loathsome about Friedman’s snide screed this morning.
I know that Friedman travels a lot, talks to a lot people. He’s visited war. Thirty years ago he spent some time in Beirut, and he’s been to Baghdad, met with the big players. But I’m not sure he’s travelled enough to make the arguments he’s making and crack wise about it. Correct me if I’m wrong. Has this guy spent any time in combat with American troops? If not, then he hasn’t met enough big players. Hasn’t sweated enough. Hasn’t counted his last hours and minutes enough. Hasn’t come under enough fire. Hasn’t seen enough bits of people lying around afterward.
People who talk up war without going get slapped with chickenhawk slurs. Clearly Friedman’s no chickenhawk, at least not anymore. Chickenhawk slurs are slapped on people who support war and haven’t gone. ”Chickenhawk” gets tossed around by people who don’t feel the need to lift a finger in support of the peace they profess to love. Not a human shield among them.
Friedman presents us with something different. The double-reverse chickendove. War supporter turned surrender enthusiast makes ironic funny about how painful this war has been for him. The terrible barrage of headlines, slogging through all those long, bitter thumbsuckers. News is hell. But apparently, he hasn’t been reading it.
Prior Friedman appreciations: Nation of Stupid, King Al the Green
Welcome Punditeers, Jawas, etal. So good to see you! Come on in. More NWoeT. Be all you can be … you can do it … as a U.S. detainee! I thought it was about national security. Wrong. It’s about her, herself and she. Guys, impress chicks with your knowledge of Nobel gases. Gals, wow the guys with your knowledge of math and geography: Quick, what’s six of one, half a dozen of the other on the Western Front?
The South Rises
By Ed Lasky
For generations, American elites from the North have treated the South as a benighted land of knaves, fools, and charlatans, a proper subject of scorn and satire and certainly not a region to be admired or emulated. They are comically wrong.
The South has long risen from the ashes of the Civil War, and by many measures it the most admirable region of our nation. It may well be on the verge of becoming America's dominant region, eclipsing the Eastern Seaboard that has reigned from our nation's birth, and sprinting past the ambitions of the West Coast challenge, as the reference point for where America is going and as the heart of American culture.
Northern bigotry
Can anyone recall any positive views of the South being articulated by political elites? Time is up. Instead, what comes to mind are the views of Democratic Party leader Howard Dean (Vermont) who considers the South the land of bigots with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. More recently, a Democrat suggested those visiting NASCAR races be inoculated from those Confederate cooties that are running rampant over the bodies of NASCAR fans.
Northern political gurus have even gone so far as to suggest, in a very popular book (Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South), that the Democratic Party dismiss the South and focus its efforts on the rest of the nation. For a party that prides itself on its morality, how immoral is it to tell millions of Southerners that they do not matter at all? Does it matter to this advocate of Northern chauvinism that five of our last seven Presidents have been Southerners? Does it matter that people are voting with their feet and are moving Southwards with such eagerness that the new electoral map will bolster Southern political representation?
Culture
Culturally, Hollywood and New York City have created a steady stream of dreary and predictable "entertainment" that ridicules Southerners. In an era that celebrates multiculturalism, has there been much enlightenment among our creative class between the years that produced Hee-Haw, Dukes of Hazard, Green Acres, and the Beverly Hillbillies and last year when Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby was filmed?
What entertainment have they fostered upon America? Hip-hop and rap music are a toxic brew of racism, violence and misogyny that springs from Northern ghettoes and that have had a massively destructive effect on the most vulnerable people in our nation; black youth. Gangsta culture is not black culture; it is a insult to black culture and it is a insult that has caused great pain to so many people for far too long -- engendering in our youth (black and white) a nihilism that is perilous to themselves and to others.
As the brilliant thinker Myron Magnet wrote, elite hypocrisy spreading from Northern centers of influence (not just New York City or Los Angeles recording studios, but also from elite universities) celebrate this abuse of black culture as an authentic expression of the black experience (balderdash!) and worsen the damage to a community sorely in need of better role models. Members of our African-American population have made far worthier contributions to America than hip-hop or rap culture. Stanley Crouch wrote of the propounding of such a gangsta culture as presenting "the most dehumanizing images of black people since the dawn of minstrelsy in the 19th century."
These elites have all but ignored the genres of blues, gospel, and country-western music that express longing and sadness, patriotism and pride, the sense of hope that shines through dark despair. The creative centers for these types of music are all found in the South (Nashville, Memphis and points South. One publicly held company, Gaylord Entertainment, focuses on "Southern" forms of entertainment and has prospered). When George Bush Senior wrote an article about how much he liked country music, the Washington Post reprinted it under the demeaning headline, "George and the Oval Office Do-Si-Do: Heck, a President Ain't Nothin' but Just Folks".
While Southern singers contemplate their loves and their losses and transform their stories into paeans that will resonate and enrich the lives of their listeners, Hollywood actors are caught in drug busts, captured on tape verbally abusing their wives and daughters, their names are found in the "black book" of Hollywood madams, and they are changing their wives and husbands as often as their servants change the oil in their Porsches and Maseratis. Of course, not every country-western, blues, or gospel star is an angel, but the overall track record of the Southern performers appears to be a level above the East and West Coast branches of the entertainment colossus.
Indeed, these elites' blindness towards humor considered "Southern" and "rural" has opened up opportunities for others who are less biased. The Blue Collar Comedy Tour features self-proclaimed "rednecks" such as Jeff Foxworthy, and has been an outstanding success on tour and on video. The talent manager behind the tour, J.P. Williams, credited the obtuseness of entertainment executives for opening a window for him and his crew to offer entertainment for a broad swath of America that has been all but ignored by them.
Anti-American movies that portray our leaders in the harshest possible light, that characterize our military volunteers who defend us as sadistic torturers, that label every corporation as a defiler of our laws -- this is what we have to feast on when we go out with our families on a Saturday night. Conversely, Hollywood seemingly cannot find the talent or the will to bring forth movies that convey religious themes. Perhaps our "creative community" see such films as too evangelical, too Southern in appeal (the South is the most religious region of our nation.) Movies such as The Spitfire Grill, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Passion of the Christ all were Christian allegories or based on Christian themes that proved to have wide appeal and were financial successes.
All had to be produced outside the Hollywood system. Despite the proven popularity of these movies, Hollywood would rather produce its never-ending stream of anti-American agitprop.
These movies have turned us into a nation of self-centered cynics. But the damage does not stop at our water's edge. Indeed, the image of America that is projected out of Hollywood has been shown to have had a horrible impact on the image of America held by foreigners. Thank you, Hollywood!
Religion
The South has been routinely derided as a hotbed of religious fundamentalism, the center of a conspiracy to impose theocracy upon America. Last year Howard Dean -- there he is again, the Park Avenue raised son of the Dean behind the investment bank Dean Witter -- warned about Christian extremism. Kevin Phillips wrote a best-selling book, American Theocracy and documentaries such as Jesus Camp and Friends of God: A Road Trip with Alexandra Pelosi [daughter of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California)] all portrayed America in the grip of a bunch of power hungry religious yahoos. These are the creative heirs of H.L. Mencken.
Their views offer a very distorted picture of evangelicals, particularly, Southern evangelicals. A more accurate portrayal can be found in a recent book from Oxford University Press: Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite by D. Michael Lindsay. That book offers a panoramic view of a community whose members have risen to the very pinnacle of success in academics, politics, business and many other fields. Do the critics of evangelicals give them fair play?
Their views are, of course, paranoid and disdainful. They are an expression of bias against the South, for there is no doubt that the South is the beating heart and exhaling lungs of the evangelical community. The South should wear such a designation as a badge of honor.
Southerners are more religious than the rest of America, and we should be thankful that they are, for the religious impulse has led to many good works around the world. The community dispenses a huge amount of foreign aid each year directed toward the poor and needy of the world. It offers drug counseling and marriage therapy in cities across America; theirs is a community whose churches teach literacy, feed the hungry and minister to the needy; they offer succor to the ill. A superb op-ed ran in the Washington Post last year "Let's Stop Stereotyping Evangelicals" provides a wonderful overview of all the good works the evangelical community is doing around the world.
Evangelicals who attend religious services weekly, when compared with average Americans, are less likely to cohabit as young adults (1% versus 10% of other young adults), to bear a child outside of wedlock (12% versus 33% of other moms), and to divorce (7% versus 9%) and are likelier to be happier. Frequent churchgoers have an average 9 percent higher income than those who do not attend church, are less likely to be on welfare, and live longer. Given that many of the social problems that beset our nation are directly related to the number of people who score poorly according to these measures, perhaps we should be less contemptuous of people of faith and seek to emulate them.
The evangelical outreach around the world has also generated a substantial amount of good will towards America. The number of Christians around the world has exploded as a result of missionary activity. As foreign policy expert and prize winning author Walter Russell Mead noted in a recent article,
"Since 1900, the number of Christians in Africa has exploded from less than ten million to almost 400 million, with most of this growth coming in the last 50 years. Since the 1950s, Christians have doubled as a percentage of the population in Nigeria, sub- Saharan Africa's most populous and most energy-rich country. A recent poll showed that a majority of Nigerian Christians support both the U.S.-led war on terrorism and the state of Israel. Overall, 51 percent of Nigerians--Christian and Muslim--told pollsters last summer that it was a good thing that American ideas and customs are spreading in Nigeria, and 75 percent saw the United States as an important source of democratic values. Although plagued by election fraud, Nigeria has just witnessed its first democratic change of power from one elected leader to another since independence."
Many of the millions of people converting to Christianity in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are closely tied to the American evangelical community and to the American values that are derived from this bond (one hopes that they can repair the damage caused to our image by Hollywood "entertainment"). They are our allies in the years to come. We should be thankful for the years of effort by religious Americans in some of the most difficult areas of the world. They have brought us millions of pro-American friends. Hallelujah!" Hallelujah!
Who is charitable? Who helps the disadvantaged?
Southerners are also the most generous people in America. The top 10 states in terms of generosity per capita are all Southern states. New Hampshire, Massachusetts (Kennedy -land), New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Connecticut are at the bottom of the barrel. A few years ago, author Jane Smiley characterized Red America as selfish and lacking in compassion-as "unteachably ignorant." Perhaps that is the pot calling the kettle black?
As journalist Don Feder noted, Smiley's views are symptomatic of the views of liberal elites:
"...liberals have concocted a fantasy version of America where all the nation's brainpower, productivity and generosity reside in the Blue States, while Red America is a land of trailer parks, country-music bars, and Klan rallies".
This is an inversion of the truth.
The South is the new engine of creativity and growth
The nation's growth engine is located in the South. Northerners, fed up with onerous taxes, growth restrictions, and anti-business rules and regulations, have fled to the South. Ambitious migrants have always flocked to areas of opportunity where their talents and ambitions can flower. These geese that could have laid their golden eggs in the North will be laying them in sunnier climates. While factories close in the North, they are opening up at a rapid clip in the South. Many of these factories use very advanced methods to produce high-tech goods.
The South, in fact, has been a hotbed of business innovation. FedEx (Memphis) was a revolutionary company that has transformed transportation and business logistics in America. Wal-Mart has been a pioneer in bringing low prices to the American consumer and has immeasurably benefited the lifestyles of Americans, especially lower income people; Tyson Foods, Sanderson Farms, Smithfield Foods, Cal-Maine Foods (the number one egg producer in the nation); innumerable soybean farmers are protein factories that have fed America and are feeding the world (and helping our balance of payments). America's largest bank, Bank of America, is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, New York City is rapidly losing its place as the world's leading financial center to London, Hong Kong, and other centers of finance. Trades are increasingly done off the floor of the exchanges and through the internet. One of the largest such "virtual" exchanges is located in Kansas City (in reality, the exchange resides on a shelf of computers). Boston, Greenwich and New York City are no longer the only places where hedge funds are located.
Home Depot was a pioneer in retailing and has helped to make homes and home improvements affordable for millions of people. Texas Instruments and Dell computer have created a technological corridor in Texas that will benefit the region for years to come. The Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle can hold its own against Silicon Valley and surpasses Route 128 in Massachusetts. More prosaically, Coke has been refreshing the world's billions for years.
While Texas and Oklahoma and the Southern states bordering the Gulf of Mexico supply our energy needs, many blue states (and Florida) forbid the development of their offshore oil reserves and prevent the rise of nuclear power, while the Kennedys lead efforts to stop a wind farm from spoiling their view off the coast of Cape Cod.
Contrary to stereotype, born-in-the South NASCAR draws the largest crowds of any American sporting events and commands the allegiance of more women than any other sport. More than 40 percent of its fans are women. NASCAR has been much maligned and unfairly stereotyped by many on the left as a sport not interested in diversity. The elite are wrong. NASCAR has spent millions of dollars not only expanding the fan base to women, but to all Americans. NASCAR's bountifully funded Drive for Diversity has sought to expand the number of African-American drivers and crewmembers. Civil rights groups across the spectrum have lauded NASCAR for its outreach.
The dynamic and innovative free enterprise that these corporations symbolize has enriched the coffers of Southern states for years and their governments have been investing this money wisely in order to let the "good times roll".
In what may come as a shock to Northern elites, their favorite pet program, state-funded early childhood education, has been in place throughout the South for years. The South, in fact, leads in early childhood education. Read it and weep, Massachusetttes.
Intellectual and moral leadership
While Ivy League universities still are highly regarded, their standing is jeopardized by excesses of political correctness. Southern universities are on the rise (some may exempt Duke, but the abuse inflicted upon the innocent lacrosse players should be, to a large extent, placed at the door of professors and school officials who were Northern transplants). The billions of dollars of wealth being created by companies based in the South are being directed toward their universities. The University of Texas has a huge endowment and also a large number of Nobel Prize winners on its faculty. Rice University may truly be the Harvard of the South or at least the old Harvard of high regard. So many Americans are going to universities in the South and not in the North that the "college map" is being redrawn. Many of the graduates of these schools will stay in the South and provide the intellectual manpower necessary for the South to continue its upward trajectory; in time, their donations will only bolster the endowments of their alma maters.
Race
Northerners view the South through a lens distorted by images of past generations. Bull Connor and church bombings are so seared into our collective memory that they may never fade.
Who is most qualified to judge the level of racism in the South? African-Americans.
What might they say if the liberal elites of the North would ever solicit their opinion? Well, they might just say three times as many of us are moving to the South as are leaving it. They might just say that every other region of America is losing its African-American population to the South. They might just say that more blacks hold elected office in the South than in the North. The South is home to only a slim majority of American blacks but is home to two-thirds of the nation's black elected officials.
Talented Southern black politicians such as Ron Kirk (Mayor of Dallas), Artur Davis (Alabama Congressman), civil rights pioneer John Lewis (Congressman from Georgia), Harold Ford from Tennessee (who came very close to becoming a Senator in the last election and now holds a leadership position in the Democratic Party), all have notable records and very bright futures.
Jim Crow laws, don't forget, also existed in Northern states. David Garrow, prize-winning author of work on the Civil Rights era, has called for the North to examine its own history of civil rights violations-calling such work "unfinished business." The most recent scenes of racial riots have been in two of the states most closely associated with Northern liberals (Massachusetts and California). According to the Sentencing Project, African-Americans are far more likely to be incarcerated in Northern states than in Southern states (on a percentage basis). As journalist Steve Coll has written,
"In July, the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group, released a state-by-state study of prison populations that identified where blacks endured the highest rates of incarceration. The top four states were South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Vermont; the top ten included Utah, Montana, and Colorado-not places renowned for their African-American subcultures. In the United States today, driving while black-or shoplifting while black, or taking illegal drugs, or hitting schoolmates-often carries the greatest risk of incarceration, in comparison to the risk faced by whites, in states where people of color are rare, including a few states that are liberal, prosperous, and not a little self-satisfied. Ex-slave states that are relatively poor and have large African-American populations, such as Louisiana, display less racial disparity."
Finally, African-Americans might just say to Northern elites: it is time to move on, as we have, and that prejudice towards Southerners is just another form of bigotry.
Military
Some elite Northerners view soldiers, many of them from the rural South, as an anthropologist would have viewed headhunters from Papua New Guinea a century ago: bloodthirsty primitive savages. More liberal myths and prejudices that obscure the truth.As much as any time in our history, America today must rely on its military might to defend our way of life from clear and present dangers. No other group of Americans is more important.
The South might be the last, deepest reservoir of patriotism we have in our nation. While Northern colleges have been dropping the studies of military history at a rapid clip (despite America's high level of interest in military history -- see the schedule of the History Channel and book sales figures), military schools and classes in military studies still find a home mostly south of the Mason-Dixon line. Well-regarded scholars have bemoaned the fact that Northern universities have dropped these types of courses from their offerings. Even the liberal New Republic criticizes this trend. These critics realize that in the days ahead an appreciation of military history may be crucial in defending our nation. Operational concepts, military strategies and tactics, historical lessons and analogies, let alone concepts such as valor and heroism, have completely vanished from the minds of many of our future leaders, assuming that the North will provide out future leaders.
Instead, Northern campuses have seen a proliferation of so-called "Peace Studies" which, as Bruce Bawer writes, are an anti-Western "Peace Racket" that touts dictators, advocates appeasement and is opposed to every value the West stands for-liberty, free markets, individualism..
Nevertheless, the grand military tradition that is part of the Southern tradition has been of inestimable value to our nation in times of war and peace (if one wants peace, prepare for war). Southerners have defended our nation in numbers that should shame the North.
Our Army is composed of volunteers and to a disproportionate extent they hail from the South. The South accounts for 40 percent of all Army officers. The Defense Department has found that their efforts to recruit volunteers from Northern states are so fruitless that it has been shutting down offices throughout the region.
The disdain felt towards the military is undoubtedly intertwined with the disdain felt towards the South. Northerners think the Hatfield-McCoy feud symbolizes the violence supposedly endemic to Southerners. Instead of admiring the patriotic virtues of the Southern military tradition -- its admiration for bravery, its concepts of valor and heroism -- Northerners have come to view Southerners as descendants of plantation overseers and slave drivers. They are willing to lay down their lives for ours; we are willing to lay down some ink on the pages of newspapers to insult them.
Yankees must get used to it
Sadly, old habits do die hard. Some Northerners may never come to regard the South with the esteem it so richly deserves. A bigotry that feasts on old and false images is also one that comforts Northerners as the South rises in power and influence. As Northerners migrate to the South, no doubt some blending of cultures is occurring and a new national character emerging. This has been and remains the story of America.
The exact mix of the evolving national culture remains to be seen. To the extent that the solid Southern virtues are not eroded and feature prominently, the values upon which our nation was founded and are which elemental to our greatness will flourish: religiosity, free enterprise, and patriotism. The overwhelming might of the media establishment is dead-set against such a mix gaining national traction. But then again, media might, like Northern might, is being challenged and not responding very impressively.
The South is already the most populous of the four regions of America. With its faster growth, more enlightened taxation, and cultural momentum, we may someday hear the accents of Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey wistfully intoning the words, "The North will rise again."
Who's the true DUMBFUCK????
Hint: look in the mirror
Desperately Seeking Fly
… for the ointment. AP sucks it up and reports on second month of dramatic drop in deaths. Not without some cheap digs:
October is on course to record the second consecutive decline in U.S. military and Iraqi civilian deaths and Americans commanders say they know why: the U.S. troop increase and an Iraqi groundswell against al-Qaida and Shiite militia extremists.
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch points to what the military calls “Concerned Citizens” — both Shiites and Sunnis who have joined the American fight. He says he’s signed up 20,000 of them in the past four months.
“I’ve never been more optimistic than I am right now with the progress we’ve made in Iraq. The only people who are going to win this counterinsurgency project are the people of Iraq. We’ve said that all along. And now they’re coming forward in masses,” Lynch said in a recent interview at a U.S. base deep in hostile territory south of Baghdad. Outgoing artillery thundered as he spoke.
Lynch, who commands the 3rd Infantry Division and once served as the military spokesman in Baghdad, is a tireless cheerleader of the American effort in Iraq. But the death toll over the past two months appears to reinforce his optimism. The question, of course: Will it last?
The question of course is, since when does commanding troops who fight hard and fight smart, and acknowledging their progress constitute being a “tireless cheerleader.” Would they prefer that he mope? The question, of course: When will the AP stop desperately seeking failure, and painting everything in terms of failure in Iraq? Regretably, the facts have become unavoidable.
As of Tuesday, the Pentagon reported 28 U.S. military deaths in October. That’s an average of about 1.2 deaths a day. The toll on U.S troops hasn’t been this low since March 2006, when 31 soldiers died — an average of one death a day.
In September, 65 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq.
Part of the trend can be seen in a volatile and violent band of lush agricultural land on Baghdad’s southern border.
The commander of the battle zone — Lt. Col. Val Keaveny, 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry (Airborne) — said his unit has lost only one soldier in the past four months despite intensified operations against both Shiite and Sunni extremists, including powerful al-Qaida in Iraq cells.
The efforts to recruit local partners began taking shape earlier this year in the western province of Anbar, which had become the virtual heartland for Sunni insurgents and al-Qaida bands. The early successes in Anbar — coming alongside a boost of 30,000 U.S. forces into the Baghdad area — led to similar alliances in other parts of Iraq.
“People are fed up with fear, intimidation and being brutalized. Once they hit that tipping point, they’re fed up, they come to realized we truly do provide them better hope for the future. What we’re seeing now is the beginning of a snowball,” said Keaveny, whose forces operate out of Forward Operating Base Kalsu, about 35 miles south of Baghdad.
And when facts are unavoidable, there’s nothing left but cheap digs. And wishful thinking.
While U.S. death figures appear to be in sharp decline, the number of Iraqi civilians and security forces show a less dramatic drop. And any significant attack — by insurgents or civilians caught in the crossfire — could quickly wipe out the downward trend.
Inshallah. And it’s true, if you count progress by straight numbers, rather than by the actual, somewhat more complex trends that reflect what is going on in a wide-ranging counter-insurgency. But the quality of war coverage in Iraq has been a chronic problem.
While the decline in deaths is notable, it is only one of many measures of potential progress in Iraq, said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon analyst now with the private Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Cordesman said a more balanced picture needs to include factors such as wounded civilians and soldiers and the number of people fleeing their homes. The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday that between 1,000 and 2,000 Iraqis still leave their homes each day for safer havens in the country or in neighboring nations. “It’s just been going up slowly,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Astrid van Genderen Stort in Geneva.
I seem to recall a suggestion that those numbers may be artifically inflated. Exit head count that doesn’t include a return head count, doesn’t account for simple vacationing. Who knows? We’ve learned that Iraq-related head counts can be highly suspect and highly selective. In any case, a drop in exit numbers is likely to lag behind a drop in deaths and attacks, and repatriation is likely to lag behind that.
I’d suggest a more balanced picture would include the number of neighborhoods, towns, cities, once murder zones, where attacks are less frequent, even a rarity, where American soldiers can now walk around unarmored. We got a partial number on anti-terrorism recruitment from Lynch, in his area of operations, before AP called him a ”cheerleader” and launched into earnest questioning/doubt mode. How about some totals on how many people in how many provinces have turned against al-Qaeda and against the militias, or are even just talking about it? How many tribes, and how many tribal leaders, if you like. Give us the drop in the number of attacks. It wouldn’t hurt to bring up the rather pathetic desperation voiced by Osama bin Laden in yesterday’s tape and by his people in Iraq in recent captured letters.
I guess I should go easy. This article indicates Hurst actually went out to have a look around, even if it was only by a general’s side. In lieu of more comprehensive reporting, the throw-away naysaying boilerplate got shoehorned in to show that AP’s healthy skepticsm is intact, they won’t get taken by some cheerleader general. Look for failure crowing to ratchet up if next month’s dead count bumps up.
Topics: Iraq, media, military
no one left to murder or drive out
Even for you, incredibly stupid
How you know its getting better in Iraq
Posted by: McQ
Billy points out the disconnect between what is going on in Iraq and what some people want to believe is going on in Iraq. And obviously, never the twain shall meet.
Here's another example of something those clinging to the belief that Iraq is an unrecoverable disaster are not going to want to hear:
Osama bin Laden urged insurgent groups in Iraq to unite, saying divisions only helped the enemy, in an audio recording aired by Al Jazeera television on Monday.
"The interest of the Islamic nation surpasses that of a group ... the interest of the (Islamic) nation is more important than that of a state," said a voice which sounded like the al Qaeda leader's.
"The strength of faith is in the strength of the bond between Muslims and not that of a tribe, nationalism or an organization.
"I advise ... our brothers, particularly those in al Qaeda wherever they may be, to avoid fanatically following a person or a group," he said.
You know the AQ ship has hit the iceberg when the captain is forced to make an appeal to any other ships in the area to come rescue him and his crew. And that is precisely what he's doing. He is appealing to the "greater Islamic nation" in a last ditch effort to keep AQI afloat. His problem is that AQI has lost the hearts and minds game. Iraqis, after seeing their vicious and murderous nature, have pretty much done the unthinkable in bin Laden's mind, and thrown their lot in with the "occupier". The most important product of that move has been a measurable increase in security and decrease in violence. Relatively speaking, life is returning to normal and AQI had absolutely no hand in that accomplishment.
When that happens, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which side means life and which means death.
Unless, of course, you're one of those folks still clinging to the narrative that says Iraq is a quagmire.
Violence in Iraq drops sharply: Ministry
Mon Oct 22, 2007 1:01pm EDT
By Aseel Kami
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Violence in Iraq has dropped by 70 percent since the end of June, when U.S. forces completed their build-up of 30,000 extra troops to stabilize the war-torn country, the Interior Ministry said on Monday.
The ministry released the new figures as bomb blasts in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul killed five people and six gunmen died in clashes with police in the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala south of the Iraqi capital.
Washington began dispatching reinforcements to Iraq in February to try to buy Iraq's feuding political leaders time to reach a political accommodation to end violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs that has killed tens of thousands and forced millions from their homes.
While the leaders have failed to agree on key laws aimed at reconciling the country's warring sects, the troop buildup has succeeded in quelling violence.
Under the plan, U.S. troops left their large bases and set up combat outposts in neighborhoods while launching a series of summer offensives against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, other Sunni Arab militants and Shi'ite militias in the Baghdad beltway.
Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf told reporters that there had been a 70 percent decrease in violence countrywide in the three months from July to September over the previous quarter.
GRADUAL IMPROVEMENT
In Baghdad, considered the epicenter of the violence because of its mix of Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs, car bombs had decreased by 67 percent and roadside bombs by 40 percent, he said. There had also been a 28 percent decline in the number of bodies found dumped in the capital's streets.
In Anbar, a former insurgent hotbed where Sunni Arab tribes have joined U.S. forces against al Qaeda, there has been an 82 percent drop in violent deaths.
"These figures show a gradual improvement in controlling the security situation," Khalaf said.
However, in the northern province of Nineveh, where many al Qaeda and other Sunni Arab militants fled to escape the crackdown in Baghdad and surrounding region, there had been a 129 percent rise in car bombings and a corresponding 114 percent increase in the number of people killed in violence.
While the figures confirm U.S. data showing a positive trend in combating al Qaeda bombers, there is growing instability in southern Iraq, where rival Shi'ite factions are fighting for political dominance.
Police said six gunmen were killed in police raids in Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) southwest of Baghdad.
Some 50 people were killed in Kerbala in August in fierce clashes between fighters loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and local police, who are seen as aligned to the rival Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council's armed wing, the Badr Organization.
After the clashes, Sadr said he was imposing a six-month freeze on the activities of the Mehdi Army, increasingly seen as beyond his control, so that he could reorganize it.
In Baghdad, three roadside bombs killed four people, including three policemen, while in Mosul one policeman was killed when a blast hit a police patrol.
Yeah, exactly like the dems have been doing with the black voters for decades
The shadow border war
Posted by: McQ
Apparently the Brits are taking it directly to Iran in a covert war which pits the SAS (as well as other special operators) against Al-Quds:
British special forces have crossed into Iran several times in recent months as part of a secret border war against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Al-Quds special forces, defence sources have disclosed.
There have been at least half a dozen intense firefights between the SAS and arms smugglers, a mixture of Iranians and Shi'ite militiamen.
The unreported fighting straddles the border between Iran and Iraq and has also involved the Iranian military firing mortars into Iraq. UK commanders are concerned that Iran is using a militia ceasefire to step up arms supplies in preparation for an offensive against their base at Basra airport.
The article says the special operations forces include a squadron of British SAS, some Australian SAS and US special operations troops. If I had to guess I'd say the US force is Delta force since it is the US equivalent to the SAS troops.
An SAS sabre squadron, btw, consists of 60 to 80 men. So with the Brit and Aussie SAS plus D-boys, I'd bet Al-Quds has its hands full at the moment.
They are patrolling the border, ambushing arms smugglers bringing in surface-to-air missiles and components for roadside bombs. "Last month, they were involved in six significant contacts, which killed 17 smugglers and recovered weapons, explosives and missiles," a source said. It was not clear if any of the dead were Iranian.
Again, guessing here, but they're probably not grabbing "surface-to-air" missiles, but instead the surface-to-surface 240mm missiles that have been raining down on US and Brit positions for the last few months.
It is also quite clear that Iran wants to have defacto control over the souther provinces in Iraq and have been stepping up their attempt to make it so. The Brits are quite candid about the involvement of Iran's government:
The Al-Quds force has been increasing its arms supplies to both the Shi'ite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Officially, Britain has been careful not to blame the Iranian government.
But senior British officials have confirmed to The Sunday Times that it would not happen without the backing of the Iranian leadership.
They pointed out that Gen Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Al-Quds force, has direct access to Ayatollah Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran
Liam Fox, the Conservative defence spokesman, said: "Increasingly Iran poses a direct threat to our armed forces and our wider interests . . . they are playing a very dangerous game."
Anyone who still believes this is a rogue force within Iran operating outside of the Iranian leadership needs to check their credibility at the door. The war on the border now going on is doing so in the shadows because neither side want, at least at the present, the confrontation that would be inevitable if what is going on becomes more visible. In the interim, covert warfare will rage along the Iran/Iraq border as Coalition Special Operators attempt to put Iranian Special Operators and their proxies out of business.
Victory would be getting your IQ above room temperature