Jobs, Americans Won't Do?

Mr Bush, I thought illegals were doing the jobs that Americans didn't want to do. Some employers like illegals because they can pay them less, and they have less of an ability to quit if conditions are bad. Americans workers are just so troubling...they'll leave if they have a better offer somewhere else, and they demand safety equipment. How unfair!

However, if illegals only do the jobs Americans won't as Mr. Bush claimed, and I think a meat processing plant falls into that category, then there wouldn't be a line.

GREELEY - The line of applicants hoping to fill jobs vacated by undocumented workers taken away by immigration agents at the Swift & Co. meat-processing plant earlier this week was out the door Thursday.

Among them was Derrick Stegall, who carefully filled out paperwork he hoped would get him an interview and eventually land him a job as a slaughterer...

Bonifacio was hoping to get a job in production or fabrication. So was Nathan Korgan, a former construction worker whose company closed and moved to California.

"I feel bad for the kids, but good for me," said Korgan of Tuesday's raid.
Rocky Mountain News

Killer Escapes Britian as Muslim Woman in Niqab

The PC-establishment is so great in Britian that you can board an airplane wearing a hijab. I'm not whether to laugh or cry. Famed poet Robert Frost said "a liberal is someone too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel." This is extremely true here. The British are so concerned about offended fundamentalist Muslims that they'd rather let who-knows board an airline rather than have someone take off a veil.

A man who was being hunted for the murder of a policewoman is understood to have escaped from Britain by disguising himself as a veiled Muslim woman.

Mustaf Jama, a prime suspect in the fatal shooting of PC Sharon Beshenivsky, assumed his sister’s identity — wearing the niqab and using her passport — to evade supposedly stringent checks at Heathrow, according to police sources.

The use of the niqab, which leaves only a narrow slit for the eyes, highlights flaws in British airport security. At the time, Jama was Britain’s most wanted man, while Heathrow was on a heightened state of alert after the 7/7 terrorist atrocities in London five months previously.

The Times has learnt that British immigration officers rarely carry out a visual check to match a passport photograph with a departing female passenger’s veiled face.

Details of Jama’s disguise emerged yesterday as his younger brother, Yusuf, awaited a life sentence for the murder of the police officer, who died during an armed robbery at a Bradford travel agency in November last year.

Detectives believe that Jama, 26, was allowed to board an international flight from Heathrow because no attempt was made to uncover his face... Times of London

Grand Achievements in Socialized Medicine

Left wing politicians and their allies in the media have championed socialized medicine as being compassionate and "free." What is happening is that there is a serious reduction in the quality and availibility of healthcare. It might be nice to say that healthcare is free, but if you can't get an appointment for surgery, then what good is it?

If your cancer surgery gets delay for months and the cancer spreads to your lymph nodes, will you be happy that they government told you it was free?

Stuart Browning of onthefencefilms, does a great job in reporting news stories from Europe, Canada, and Australia, documenting some horrors.

Canada

Woman waits four days for surgery for broken leg

Susy Horna spent four pain-filled days in Surrey Memorial Hospital waiting for an operation on her broken leg.

[...]

"You can't eat for 12 hours before surgery, so I didn't have anything to eat from Wednesday to Saturday," Horna said yesterday from her hospital bed, recovering from her Saturday operation. "The only thing they offer you is morphine."

Canadians fleeing long waitlists by going abroad

As waitlists grow ever longer, surgical tourism has become an option for many Canadians who are in pain and frustrated with the country's chronically overburdened medical system.

United Kingdom

Cancer Appointment Cancelled 48 Times

ANGRY cancer patient Dennis Burke yesterday branded the NHS a shambles after a hospital cancelled his appointment 48 times in a row.

Dennis, 68, who is in remission from bowel cancer, spent 14 months trying to get a consultation after his GP referred him to hospital. He said: "I am absolutely fed-up with them messing me around.

"What's the point in my GP telling me to go to hospital if I can't get an appointment?

"I have had to put up with 48 appointments with an NHS doctor being cancelled in a row. It is a disgrace."

U.K. Woman Goes to Norway to get an MRI

A WOMAN has spoken about why she opted for an MRI scan in Scandinavia rather than waiting for one in Wales

[...]

The 55-year-old, ... travelled the 715 miles for a contrasting MRI scan after being told she faced an 18-month wait for the same diagnostic procedure on the NHS in Wales.

No One to Operate the MRI Scanner

The dire state of funding at our hospitals was laid bare today when it emerged a scanner designed to ease pressure on the N&N has not been used since it was installed six months ago.

The delay was today blamed on a lack of money to employ radiographers to operate it and the need to test it fully.

[...]

North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb said: "It is not just lack of radiographers that is the problem - it is the lack of money to employ them."

"It has been excruciating and frustrating that the MRI scanner has sat there unused for so long, and even when it is used it will only be for one session a week. The hospital trust has had a bad deal from the Government. I will continue to encourage them to find ways to get the scanner in use full time and I know the hospital authority is keen to do that."

The scanner was moved from the N&N to Cromer and District Hospital in May to ease pressure at the N&N, where people were waiting up to 25 weeks for a scan.

Scottish Flee to India for Medical Procedures

When doctors told Stuart Shaw he needed a hip replacement he was faced with a six-month wait or a 9,000 [pound. bill from a private hospital. Suffering excruciating pain, the 67-year-old decided to travel to India instead. He paid less than 4,000 [pounds] for the operation, including his travel expenses and five weeks in hospital.

Breast Cancer Surgeries Delayed

Reports that 12 women have had vital breast cancer surgery delayed due to bed shortages at the Mater Hospital in Dublin are 'very disturbing', the Labour Party has said.

Australia

Triple Bypass Surgery Cancelled Four Times

Yesterday morning, 62-year-old Vincent Mays and his family were shattered to learn that his triple bypass surgery had been cancelled because of a lack of beds - for the fourth time in six weeks.

Woman with Cancer Told To Wait

"The recording said that the doctor had advised that my case wasn't urgent and that they would reschedule an appointment in the new year," she said.

Barack Obama: Race Baiting Poltics as Usual

Although many news organizations are running stories about Barack Obama, many are leaving out the below quote. In case you need help translating, that means that conservatives (those who won't vote for him due to his politics) are racists. Of course, it wasn't conservatives who pelted Michael Steele with oreo cookies.

“Are some voters not going to vote for me because I'm African-American? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn't vote for me because of my politics,” he said. theday

How Media Spins the Cost of Illegals

Here's a good example of media bias. Liberals (who run newspapers) love illegals. The article spins the negativity of the report, by presenting the existence of illegals as a wash to the government, instead of a negative drain.

The stand alone state government made $420M, but if you add in the county figures (+513 -1440), you are at a total of -$507M. Then the article says "that cities and school districts suffer as well" without estimating costs and which means the overall net affect of illegals is even lover. Illegals cost Harris County (Houston) almost $20M on police alone. That never made it into the other figures.

Of course, illegals raise the gross state product (GSP). GSP is the sum of all people's earnings. Any extra person with a job increases GSP. It doesn't mean they don't send it back to Mexico. Additionally, how does it affect the GSP/per person?

Imagine at raise time you get a $10,000 raise, but you lose your $8000/year car allowance, your contribution towards the Medical and dental plans goes up $5000/yr, and they are moving offices further away from your home, which will cost you an extra $1000/yr in gas. Are you going to be happy? Would anyone look at that like it was a "give and take?" Or would any sane person think they are getting the shaft?

Illegal immigration's give-and-take

Study: Their taxes lift state, but services drain counties

08:19 AM CST on Friday, December 8, 2006
By KAREN BROOKS / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Illegal immigration is draining hundreds of millions of dollars from local governments but bolstering the Texas economy by $17.7 billion a year, the state comptroller estimates in a new report.

And when it comes to taxes, illegal immigrants are a boon. They cost the state $1.16 billion in services, such as public health services and education, but they pay $1.58 billion every year in taxes and fees, according to the report, released Thursday.

That's a net profit to the state of $420 million.

But counties pay the price: They're taking in $513 million in local taxes and revenues – but spending $1.44 billion in indigent care and law-enforcement costs. Cities and school districts suffer as well, the report said.

While the debate on the impact of illegal immigrants has roiled the state and nation, the study represents the first time Texas has comprehensively looked at the costs and financial benefits. An estimated 1.4 million illegal immigrants live in Texas....

The report says the absence of the illegal immigrants would decrease the gross state product by $17.7 billion a year.

Islamists Attempt to Weaken Security

Six imams got pulled off a plane recently for acting suspiciously. They claim they were only praying, but the below article demonstrates it was more. So why would these imams do these things that would attract attention to themselves. Normal Muslims in America who just want to be Americans wouldn't do such things. Imagine German-Americans during the early 40s walking into a store shouting "sieg-heil?"

The imams are trying to degrade American security. They are trying to do suspicious things, get arrested, and decry that their rights were abused. So next time Muslims terrorists are aboard, and are acting suspiciously (this time unintentionally), Americans will censor themselves and not pull them.

I applaud the US Airways pilot for doing what is right.

...Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted "Allah" when passengers were called for boarding US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix. "I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud," the gate agent told the Minneapolis Police Department. Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks -- two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.
"That would alarm me," said a federal air marshal who asked to remain anonymous. "They now control all of the entry and exit routes to the plane."
A pilot from another airline said: "That behavior has been identified as a terrorist probe in the airline industry." ...
According to witnesses, police reports and aviation security officials, the imams displayed other suspicious behavior. Three of the men asked for seat-belt extenders, although two flight attendants told police the men were not oversized. One flight attendant told police she "found this unsettling, as crew knew about the six [passengers] on board and where they were sitting." Rather than attach the extensions, the men placed the straps and buckles on the cabin floor, the flight attendant said.
The imams said they were not discussing politics and only spoke in English, but witnesses told law enforcement that the men spoke in Arabic and English, criticizing the war in Iraq and President Bush, and talking about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden... "They should have been denied boarding and been investigated," Mr. MacLean said. "It looks like they are trying to create public sympathy or maybe setting someone up for a lawsuit."
The pilot with another airline who talked to The Washington Times on condition of anonymity, said he would have made the same call as the US Airways pilot. "If any group of passengers is commingling in the terminal and didn't sit in their assigned seats or with each other, I would stop everything and investigate until they could provide me with a reason they did not sit in their assigned seats."

Washington Times

Whites Only

It seems like a student at Boston University has set up a scholarship for White Students.

This is supposed to be a free country. That means no liberal double standard where it's okay for Black people and Hispanics to have racially based anything but when White people to do it becomes this disgusting horror. In the eyes of the White Guilters that double standard is okay. But it's not freedom.

Freedom means if a bunch of Black people want to get together and offer a scholarship to only poor Black students, they are free to do so. It's their money. Same goes for if White people want to do it. Even if either group is doing so because it believes their particular race is the "better" one, so be it. It's their money, they should be free set up scholarships as they please.

Anyway, no matter what your skin color; Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Another Victory in the WAR ON DRUGS!!!!

Good thing we're fighting the war on drugs. It claimed it's latest victim recently, a 92 year old Atlanta woman. The original dispatch is here and a video broadcast from Atlanta is here.

It's the police tactics that make these sort of things happen. The police use something called a "dynamic entry". The dynamic entry is intended to be used with suspects who are considered armed and dangerous. However, too many cowboy police outfits with not enough training and good judgement end up shooting of innoncent people at the wrong address.

A very good essay called Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America was written by the Cato Institute's Radley Balko. It discusses the increase in tactics like dynamic entries and midnight raids and the shift in police mentality into an us vs. them. That, combined with the rise of SWAT teams in every small town across America can lead to disaster. In this country, how has this:



become this:



Perhaps the men in the lower image are needed in a rare big-city hostage scenario. But to do the average pot raid? Police tactics have begun to claim more and more innocent lives. The war on drugs isn't worth it.

Hot for Martyrdom

The Nationial Post shows how terrorists really think and from their own words. Perhaps the West should listen instead of wringing their hands and saying how oppressed the poor Muslims are.

Dr. Tawfik Hamid doesn't tell people where he lives. Not the street, not the city, not even the country. It's safer that way. It's only the letters of testimony from some of the highest intelligence officers in the Western world that enable him to move freely. This medical doctor, author and activist once was a member of Egypt's Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Arabic for "the Islamic Group"), a banned terrorist organization. He was trained under Ayman al-Zawahiri, the bearded jihadi who appears in Bin Laden's videos, telling the world that Islamic violence will stop only once we all become Muslims.

He's a disarmingly gentle and courteous man. But he's determined to tell a complacent North America what he knows about fundamentalist Muslim imperialism.

"Yes, 'imperialism,' " he tells me. "The deliberate and determined expansion of militant Islam and its attempt to triumph not only in the Islamic world but in Europe and North America. Pure ideology. Muslim terrorists kill and slaughter not because of what they experience but because of what they believe."

Hamid drank in the message of Jihadism while at medical school in Cairo, and devoted himself to the cause. His group began meeting in a small room. Then a larger one. Then a Mosque reserved for followers of al-Zawahiri. By the time Hamid left the movement, its members were intimidating other students who were unsympathetic.

He is now 45 years old, and has had many years to reflect on why he was willing to die and kill for his religion. "The first thing you have to understand is that it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with poverty or lack of education," he says. "I was from a middle-class family and my parents were not religious. Hardly anyone in the movement at university came from a background that was different from mine.

"I've heard this poverty nonsense time and time again from Western apologists for Islam, most of them not Muslim by the way. There are millions of passive supporters of terror who may be poor and needy but most of those who do the killing are wealthy, privileged, educated and free. If it were about poverty, ask yourself why it is middle-class Muslims -- and never poor Christians -- who become suicide bombers in Palestine."

His analysis is fascinating. Muslim fundamentalists believe, he insists, that Saudi Arabia's petroleum-based wealth is a divine gift, and that Saudi influence is sanctioned by Allah. Thus the extreme brand of Sunni Islam that spread from the Kingdom to the rest of the Islamic world is regarded not merely as one interpretation of the religion but the only genuine interpretation. The expansion of violent and regressive Islam, he continues, began in the late 1970s, and can be traced precisely to the growing financial clout of Saudi Arabia.

"We're not talking about a fringe cult here," he tells me. "Salafist [fundamentalist] Islam is the dominant version of the religion and is taught in almost every Islamic university in the world. It is puritanical, extreme and does, yes, mean that women can be beaten, apostates killed and Jews called pigs and monkeys."

He leans back, takes a deep breath and moves to another area, one that he says is far too seldom discussed: "North Americans are too squeamish about discussing the obvious sexual dynamic behind suicide bombings. If they understood contemporary Islamic society, they would understand the sheer sexual tension of Sunni Muslim men. Look at the figures for suicide bombings and see how few are from the Shiite world. Terrorism and violence yes, but not suicide. The overwhelming majority are from Sunnis. Now within the Shiite world there are what is known as temporary marriages, lasting anywhere from an hour to 95 years. It enables men to release their sexual frustrations.

"Islam condemns extra-marital sex as well as masturbation, which is also taught in the Christian tradition. But Islam also tells of unlimited sexual ecstasy in paradise with beautiful virgins for the martyr who gives his life for the faith. Don't for a moment underestimate this blinding passion or its influence on those who accept fundamentalism."

A pause. "I know. I was one who accepted it."

This partial explanation is shocking more for its banality than its horror. Mass murder provoked partly by simple lust. But it cannot be denied that letters written by suicide bombers frequently dwell on waiting virgins and sexual gratification.

"The sexual aspect is, of course, just one part of this. But I can tell you what it is not about. Not about Israel, not about Iraq, not about Afghanistan. They are mere excuses. Algerian Muslim fundamentalists murdered 150,000 other Algerian Muslims, sometimes slitting the throats of children in front of their parents. Are you seriously telling me that this was because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians or American foreign policy?"

He's exasperated now, visibly angry at what he sees as a willful Western foolishness. "Stop asking what you have done wrong. Stop it! They're slaughtering you like sheep and you still look within. You criticize your history, your institutions, your churches. Why can't you realize that it has nothing to do with what you have done but with what they want."

Then he leaves -- for where, he cannot say. A voice that is silenced in its homeland and too often ignored by those who prefer convenient revision to disturbing truth. The tragedy is that Tawfik Hamid is almost used to it.

Die, Babies, Die!

The list Europeans support killing babies born with disabilities has grown even larger with the recent addition of the Church of England. Yes, the Episcopal church. The British have objected to the death sentence of Saddam. Now, whether or not you think Iraq was the right move, its hard to argue that Saddam was anything other than evil. So it's no to the death of mass murderers, but yes to the death of babies.

Who's next? The old, handicapped? This is an unmentioned side effect of government healthcare. If they decide that you are too expensive, they can cut off care.

The Church of England has broken with tradition dogma by calling for doctors to be allowed to let sick newborn babies die.

Christians have long argued that life should preserved at all costs - but a bishop representing the national church has now sparked controversy by arguing that there are occasions when it is compassionate to leave a severely disabled child to die.

And the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler, who is the vice chair of the Church of England's Mission and Public Affairs Council, has also argued that the high financial cost of keeping desperately ill babies alive should be a factor in life or death decisions.

The shock new policy from the church has caused outrage among the disabled.

A spokeswoman for the UK Disabled People's Council, which represents tens of thousands of members in 140 different organisations, said: "How can the Church of England say that Christian compassion includes killing of disabled babies either through the withdrawing or withholding of treatment or by active euthanasia?

"It is not for doctors or indeed anyone else to determine whether a baby’s life is worthwhile simply on the grounds of impairment or health condition."

The church's surprise call comes just a week after the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology sparked fury by calling for a debate on the mercy killing of disabled infants....

In practice, doing so can be controversial - with the three months premature Charlotte Wyatt a case in point.

The Portsmouth baby weighed just 1lb at birth, and had severe brain and lung damage. Doctors wanted to be allowed to leave her to die, but her parents successfully campaigned through the courts against them.

Now that the child is three, however, and could be cared for at home, her parents have separated and are considered unsuitable to look after. In future cases doctors may work to guidelines proposed by the Nuffield inquiry.

Daily Mail

Border Fence be Damned?

There are 6 billion people in people in the world, and given the opportunity I bet at least 3 billion of them would like to move to the US. I think 99.99% of people agree that the US cannot handle 3 billion immigrants tomorrow. So that means that there must be some sort of immigration control is needed. Not everyone who wants to come can come. I think more legal immigrants should be let in, and red tape reduced, but the US has a need a right to control its border.

The Vatican should really focus its efforts on improving the lives of Mexicans within Mexico. Perhaps it could focus on the overt racism that exists amongst the class of people as well as the extensive corruption. I'm sure the Vatican has its own immigration policies.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A senior Vatican cardinal on Tuesday condemned the building of walls between countries to keep out immigrants and said Washington's plan to build a fence on the U.S.-Mexican border was part of an "inhuman program".

Cardinal Renato Martino made his comments at a news conference presenting Pope Benedict's message for the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Migrants and Refugees, in which the Pope called for more laws to help immigrants integrate.

"Speaking of borders, I must unfortunately say that in a world that greeted the fall of the Berlin Wall with joy, new walls are being built between neighborhood and neighborhood, city and city, nation and nation," said Martino, head of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace.

President Bush signed legislation last month approving the construction of a 700-mile (1,100-km) fence -- a move that angered Mexico's government.

Bush defends the fence as necessary to tighten control of the border to keep criminals and terrorists out. Thousands of poor Mexicans risk their lives each year sneaking across the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border to seek jobs.

Asked if the U.S.-Mexican fence was the wrong thing to do, Martino said: "Yes, that's exactly what it is."

Martino praised Mexican and U.S. bishops for opposing what he called "an inhuman program, which is what the construction of that wall and all others is".

Example of Media's Bias

The title of the article is "Immigrant Protection Rules Draw Fire" and is supposed to be about how some city governments refuse to report illegals when they are arrested for other crimes.

First, the NY Times, conviently forgets the group under fire are illegal-immigrants. They do their best to eliminate any sort of distinction. Then the article starts off with three paragraphs of a sob story which pre-emptively tries to deflect attention away from the look-the-other-way policy. The average Times reader may think that the policy is needed because they read one story of out millions where illegals were adversely affected and afraid to come forward. It attempts to use one example to drive national policy.

This is what I'm going to call the Cider House Rules Strategy (message of the movie.... abortion on demand at any time is needed because in 0.0001% of abortion cases are the result of fathers raping their daughters).

If the NY Times was FOR the change in policy, the article would have looked much different. The article would have began with the criticism. The sob story would have been about a mother who's daughter was killed because an illegal was stopped for speeding but wasn't detained for being illegal and 3 days later the illegal raped and killed the daughter. They might have mentioned the murder of indie actresss Adrienne Shelly. The reported sob story could have even been after the discussion of the groups criticizing the policy.

While the Times may be fooling some readers, the ever declining readership means that many people are catching on. Abe Lincoln famously said: "It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time."

Immigrant Protection Rules Draw Fire
By JESSE McKINLEY
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 9 — Dr. Stephen B. Turner built a profitable business here by providing low-cost “immigrant medical exams,” including immunizations and blood tests, to hundreds of newcomers to America. Many of his clients did not speak English, but they paid in cash, spending a total of nearly $250,000 at Dr. Turner’s practice from 2003 to 2005.

It was only later, after a tip from a suspicious client, that the San Francisco police and the district attorney’s office learned the truth: Dr. Turner had been throwing out his clients’ blood samples and injecting them with “inoculations” of saline.

Kamala D. Harris, the San Francisco district attorney, said the case, which led to a seven-year prison term for Dr. Turner, was one of many her office had been able to pursue under San Francisco’s so-called sanctuary policy, which forbids police and city officials from asking people they encounter in the course of an investigation about their immigration status. It is a protection Ms. Harris says has made immigrants — legal and illegal — more willing to come to forward about crimes.

With immigration continuing to flare and frustrate as a national political issue, sanctuary cities like San Francisco may soon be the next battlefront. Critics argue that sanctuary policies discourage the police from enforcing laws, though about 50 cities and counties have enacted variations on sanctuary, according to the National Immigration Law Center. They include Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and Washington. A handful of states have similar policies, including Alaska, Maine and Oregon.... NY Times

Do Democrats Want Energy Independence or Not?

Almost all Americans know that energy independence would be good for America. Without as much money from oil, the Saudis and other countries wouldn't be able to finance jihad. Democrats say the want energy independence, but when given an opportunity to do so, they refuse? Even if everyone drove hybrid cars, that would only create a tiny drop in demand. More supply is better. Why is basic economics so hard for some?

The Democrats' return to power is increasing pressure on House Republican leaders to accept a limited expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling.

Supporters of such exploration say the next Congress, with Democrats in control come January, probably will not tamper with the long-standing drilling bans that have protected most coastal waters for a quarter-century.

A stubborn standoff has festered for months between the House and Senate over developing more of the oil and gas resources in the Outer Continental Shelf. The dispute is expected to be an issue in the final days of the Republican-run Congress this week when lawmakers meet in a lame-duck session.

The proposal is of great importance to Louisiana and three other Gulf Coast states. They stand to reap hundreds of millions of dollars under changes to the way the government shares royalties from oil and gas taken from the Gulf of Mexico.

House Republicans pushed through a bill that would open coastal waters for drilling everywhere unless a state objects. That essentially would end a ban on such drilling that Congress has imposed annually for the past 25 years in most areas outside the western Gulf.

Even drilling supporters said there was no chance that measure can pass the Senate, which has approved a compromise: opening 8.3 million acres in the east-central Gulf, no closer than 125 miles of land, and leaving other areas alone. AP

Bad Day For Republicans

Republicans lost last night. Yes, they lost, because Republicans couldn't generate the turnout. In the last four years, the Republicans didn't do anything except to squabble over pork money. Republicans failed to learn the lesson they should have learned in 1992, when Republicans act like Democrats, they lose.

In the last few weeks before the election, the Republican pundits big selling point was to try to scare their audience about the horror of Nancy as Speaker. That's an "inside the Beltway" mentality. Demonizing your opponent will only get you 45% of the vote. This one reason why Kerry lost in 2004, but Republicans failed to learn any lesson. You need successes to run on as well.

Iraq: I don't think Americans want us to leave, but they do expect victory or progress towards victory, even if that requires temporarily being more aggressive. If a pro football coach isn't doing well, he is replaced. You may like the man personally, but change him out nonetheless. Maybe you start dropping the hammer on types like Muqtada Al-Sadr. Maybe you actually try to rally the American people's will to fight. First stop calling it the "War on Terror" ... WWII was not the "War on Blitzkrieg."

Social Security: Bush tried to reform it, but spineless Republican Congressional leaders were afraid of being called extremists and felt that by challenging the status quo, they could hang onto power better.

Tax Cuts: An easy one would have been to make the tax cuts permanent, but spineless leaders failed to do even that.

Borders: Amnesty for illegals, calling the Minutemen "vigilantes", lip service on border security, etc.

Scandals: We all know about Mark Foley, but whatever happen to William Jefferson (D-La) who got caught stealing money by the FBI? Not only did the Republicans not play a full court press, Hasert defended the guy.... which reeks of "we have something also to hide."

Spending: Many Republicans completely abandoned the idea of limited government and began squabbling over pork spending.

Judges: Republican activists had to twist Bush's arm to get him to appoint Alito. Bill Frist never challenged the Democrats judicial filibuster. This spells weakness.

The Silver Lining: Republicans will start acting like Republicans again. We'll get new leaders in the House and the Senate. This could save the 2008 election. If Republicans reluctantly went to the polls again, nothing would have changed in the mindset of the Republican leadership and voter apathy would have finally crept into the 2008 election.

Other thoughts: There won't be one major story on voting problems or voter "disenfranchisement." Interesting column at Townhall on what Bush should say... but he wouldn't.

The Left Finally Seeing the Light in "Palestine"?

Perhaps those on the left are finally coming around to see the depravity and the lack of rights in Palestinian territories. Unfortunately in minds of the AP & Human Rights Watch, the lawless rape of women and killing of women who are raped in the Palestinian territories does not demonstrate that hey maybe the Palestinians are the cause of the terrorism. Nothing Israel does forces Palestinians to abuse their women or kill those who have been raped. So if one is willing to kill women who have been raped, isn't one likely to kill Jews in order to gain power? They can't put two and two together.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - A new report presents an alarming picture of the abuse of women in the Palestinian territories, with police, courts and government agencies failing to treat violence such as rape and beatings as a crime.

Human Rights Watch cited practices such as rape victims being forced to marry assailants and light sentences for men who kill female relatives suspected of adultery. In a report released Tuesday, the rights group said families, tribal leaders and authorities, backed by tradition and discriminatory laws, often sacrifice victims’ interests for “family honor.”

And the problem is getting worse with growing poverty and lawlessness in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the New York-based group said.

The report comes about a year after a Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics survey of more than 4,000 households found 23 percent of women said they experienced domestic violence, but only 1 percent had filed a complaint. Two-thirds said they were subjected to psychological abuse at home.

Human Rights Watch urged the Palestinian president, parliament and government ministries to make protection of women a top priority. It said more can be done despite the conflict with Israel and the cash crisis in the Palestinian Authority brought on by the rise to power of the Islamic militant group Hamas.

“The main failing of the system is the failure to treat violence against women as a crime and to address it accordingly,” researcher Lucy Mair said. “We want to say you can take some positive steps and it’s imperative to provide protection to more women."

Human Rights Watch’s report, based on dozens of interviews with victims, social workers, lawyers and police chiefs in the West Bank and Gaza, said abusers in the Palestinian territories are granted virtual immunity.

Rapists who marry their victims are not prosecuted, it said, and such deals are often arranged by the families, tribal leaders and police.

Palestinian law is lenient with men who kill female relatives because of adultery. Yet it bars rape and incest victims from having abortions. Rape within marriage is not considered a crime, the report said.

Police and hospital doctors are not trained to handle abuse cases and often further humiliate victims, the report said.

In one hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus, a doctor announced to a crowded waiting room that his unmarried 16-year-old patient was pregnant. The girl’s mother later cited that incident as the main reason for her decision to kill her daughter, according to a case documented in the report.

A premium is placed on female virginity, with rapists facing a lesser punishment if the victim is not a virgin, the report said. Virginity tests are imposed on sexual abuse victims against their will.

Women’s fates are increasingly determined by tribal leaders or Palestinian Authority-appointed governors, rather than the overloaded courts. The informal justice system is often arbitrary and biased against victims, Human Rights Watch said.

Victims are often afraid to come forward because of social stigma, the perceived futility of complaining and fear of inviting retribution by relatives, the report said. MSNBC

Tyranny isn't So Bad... so says the Guardian

People love tyranny! Saddam was needed to keep those animals in line. So a few people wanted to speak their mind and got killed. So what? They should have kept their mouths shut. That's what I get from reading the article.

People like David Cox, elitist, think that Saddam's hard fist was needed to control the people and prevent them from killing each other indiscriminately. That's actually a racist view....the people are inferior in ability to act civilized. Of course, at the same time David Cox, think that these same people who needed hard fist in their home country, should be granted whatever wishes they desire when they come to a Western country.

Cox also champions the Soviet Union....that modern-day Russia is no better. Whatever complaints he has about modern day Russia is the result of the fact that Russia is hardly a Western capitalist society. It resembles more a South American country.

Saddam would have had his work cut out to match these figures. So, why are the Iraqis better off without him? The only answer available is that now they are "free". Well, we all value freedom. Some value it more than life, and those who do certainly go on about it. Nonetheless, they are probably a minority.

Living under tyranny may not be ideal, but it is not impossible. In the Soviet Union, life took on a character of its own, in which the human spirit managed to flourish in spite of the political constraints. The literature generated in those conditions can still inspire us. Today, many former Soviet citizens feel no more free under the yoke of global capitalism than they did before, and some would like to see the return of Stalinism. The people of China seem in no rush to jettison a regime that holds out the prospect of prosperity at the expense only of liberty.

Even in Britain, our supposed attachment to our supposed freedom turns out to be tenuous. We seem content to toss aside ancient liberties in the face of a dubious war on terror, and we live, cheerily enough, under a regime of surveillance that the KGB might have envied.

Saddam offered his people a harsh deal. Yet, their lives were at risk only if they chose to challenge his authority. Now, they die because of the sect to which they happen to belong. Soon, their country may fall prey to a savage civil war. If that happens, the Iranians will doubtless intervene, along, perhaps, with Turkey and Israel. No one can predict where that might lead, but the outcome is unlikely to be positive for peace, prosperity, justice or, indeed, human rights.

If Saddam were still in power, he would have stopped this happening. Iraq's dissidents would have paid a price, but the rest of us would be a lot better off. As he goes to meet the hangman, the world has cause to rue his demise.

David Cox, UK Guardian

John Kerry = Humpty Dumpty

John Kerry is like Humpty Dumpty. All the liberal spinmeisters couldn't put John back together again. Kerry is an elitist and is completely out of touch with the common man.

Kerry's '72 Army Comments Mirror Latest - by John Solomon, AP
During a Vietnam-era run for Congress three decades ago, John Kerry said he opposed a volunteer Army because it would be dominated by the underprivileged, be less accountable and be more prone to "the perpetuation of war crimes."
Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran who turned against the war, made the observations in answers to a 1972 candidate questionnaire from a Massachusetts peace group.
After Kerry caused a firestorm this week with what he termed a botched campaign joke that Republicans said insulted current soldiers, The Associated Press was alerted to the historical comments by a former law enforcement official who monitored 1970s anti-war activities.
Kerry apologized Wednesday for the 2006 campaign trail gaffe that some took as suggesting U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq were undereducated. He contended the remark was aimed at Bush, not the soldiers.
In 1972, as he ran for the House, he was less apologetic in his comments about the merits of a volunteer army. He declared in the questionnaire that he opposed the draft but considered a volunteer army "a greater anathema."
"I am convinced a volunteer army would be an army of the poor and the black and the brown," Kerry wrote. "We must not repeat the travesty of the inequities present during Vietnam. I also fear having a professional army that views the perpetuation of war crimes as simply 'doing its job.'

Profiles of Bias in the Media - Jennifer Loven

John Kerry in typical fashion, implied that only stupid people join the military. Here's what he said: "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” Now political operatives posing as independent journalists do their best to spin. Take Jennifer Loven of the Associated Press. Let's breakdown her article (my comments are italicized)

White House, Kerry Trade Accusations -- Jennifer Loven, AP

The White House and Sen. John Kerry traded their harshest accusations since the 2004 presidential race on Tuesday, with President Bush accusing the Democrat of troop-bashing and Kerry calling the president's men hacks who are "willing to lie."

Ms. Loven tries to bore you to make it appear as if it is just "politics as usual," so you skip reading. She starts off with Bush to boot as if it some petty fight. If it had been a Republican she would have written: "Senator John Kerry is under fire tonight from veterans organizations for implying that only the uneducated go into the military."

The war of words, tough even for this hard-fought campaign season, came after Kerry told a group of California students on Monday that those unable to navigate the country's education system "get stuck in Iraq."

Unable to navigate the education system? That's a euphamism if I ever heard one. It would have read "Kerry told a group of California students on Monday that if you are smart you succeed other you'll be forced to go to Iraq."

The two parties are searching for any edge amid indications Democrats could take back the House and possibly win control of the Senate in next week's midterm elections. Though neither Bush nor Kerry is on any ballot, the bitterness with which they fought each other as 2004 rivals spilled over as both campaign hard for their parties in a race shaped in large measure by public doubts about the Iraq war.

Again she is trying to downplay it, and make it seem as if typical politics. If it had been a Republican it could have easily read: "Despite Kerry's claims, the all volunteer military is more highly educated that the average American. Every officer in the military is required to have a college degree. 92 percent of all enlistees have high school diplomas, compared with 79 percent of the American population."

On Iraq

From the below story from Newsweek, and I highlighted some of the email sections that stuck out. I think people can tend to fall into two camps whether they like Bush and decry anything critical of the war or they hate Bush and will smother any good news.

What people should be doing is focusing on victory and actively trying figure out how best to do that with the least amount of American casualties. The left wants to retreat but the Bush administration doesn't seem to want to change tactics.

While it is easy to play Monday morning quarterback, many people including myself, were saying the Muqtada Al-Sadr should have been dealt with over two years ago. Bush said he wouldn't appease terrorists, but as soon as Saddam fell, we began appeasing terrorists (Al-Sadr)

Some people don't think the Iraqis can govern themselves and need an iron fist. Many of those people are liberals, but to say that they imply that the Iraqis (and Arabs in general) are inferior people.

Nov. 6, 2006 issue - Robert Secher had a passion for history. Until his death in Iraq on Oct. 8, the 33-year-old Marine could recount all the major battles of the Civil War

His job there was one of the toughest in Iraq: making raw Iraqi recruits ready and able to take over the fight against the militants. Secher found the task exasperating and often discouraging; in e-mails and letters home, he expressed doubt that the Iraqi military would ever be ready for a handover, and criticized the way the Bush administration had directed the war. "Without the U.S., this army will fail and get eaten alive by the insurgents," he told his father in an e-mail this past April. Chatting with a friend during a brief leave five months later, he spoke of suspicions that some of his trainees were loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr and would have no compunction about betraying their American instructors if the radical Shiite cleric told them to.

At other times Captain Secher's messages expressed fondness for his Iraqi trainees and respect for their courage. He was no pacifist. His parents describe him as an unswerving Republican, and his own dispatches consistently defend the invasion of Iraq even as he anguishes over its dwindling prospects of success. "Don't mistake us for Cindy Sheehan," Pierre Secher told NEWSWEEK at his Memphis home ... "To me, pacifism could have led to Hitler's victory. We might have all been speaking German and Japanese right now." But as President George W. Bush speaks positively of setting benchmarks for Iraqi troops to "stand up" and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declares that their training is going well, Captain Secher's messages from the front give a more complicated picture....

[From his emails:]

"Anytime an American fires a weapon there has to be an investigation into why there was an escalation of force. That wouldn't have stopped us from firing, but it prevents us from just firing indiscriminately. We have to have positively identified targets. That is why I am now a big fan of having the Iraqis with us. They can fire at whatever the hell they want, we call it the "Iraqi Death Blossom."

"My 3 month informed opinion (based entirely on what I see in the Hit region) is that this war is futile. Even the Iraqi soldiers tell us that when America leaves, they'll quit. They trust us because they know Americans can take care of them, but they don't trust their government, or the Ministry of Defense, and they especially don't trust their officers"

"And anyone who calls those young Marines killers should think twice. War puts perfectly ordinary young men in situations that can't be judged by laws. They are the situations of survival. The dirty little secrets of war, no one would want to know the horrible things that the "greatest generation" did to German and Japanese soldiers and civilians. [...] If you really want to win a war you have to be brutal. You have to be Sherman and raze Georgia as you march to the sea."

"The biggest lesson I have learned over 6 months here is that the Iraqi culture is incapable of maintaining a western style military. The Arabic-style military [...] is distasteful to western soldiers: officers who hit their men; officers and senior enlisted men who regularly steal from their men; using leadership to openly grant yourself more food and 'standard of living' items while your men go without "

"This is such a long process. Maybe 20 years from now I'll look back with pride that I helped make a difference in Iraq, but right now I'm just not into it. I just want to come home alive. [...] The war in Iraq itself, yeah, it was the right thing to do, but the way it was carried out, man, Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney have nothing to be proud of."

Will Paris Burn Again?

During last year's Paris riots by unidentified "youths" I stated to "look for another excuse to riot with in 2 years, where the Muslims will demand even greater concessions". Well, looks like that time is now.

PARIS - Mixing rap music with memories of France's revolutionary past, youths from poor neighborhoods of largely Muslim and African descent marched through Paris on Wednesday to present a collection of 20,000 complaints to lawmakers.

The march by several hundred people came ahead of Friday's first anniversary of the riots involving disaffected youths from immigrant Parisian suburbs. Many in France fear new violence, with tensions rising in recent weeks.

"The context is still the same, nothing has changed. So the situation is propitious for other events like last year," said Samir Mihi, co-founder of the AC-Le Feu group that collected the grievances from minorities all over France.

The demonstrators held ragged-looking notebooks filled with complaints while crossing southern Paris toward the Assembly, the lower house of parliament, after a stop at the Senate.

"Immigrants scare the French" read one unsigned entry. Another entry, by a 17-year-old boy from Besancon in eastern France, urged companies to use their profits to create more jobs. AP

Trackback: Paris Burning

CNN, Al Jazeera - no difference

On October 19, 2006, Michael Ware of CNN reported on and aired a video of snipers killing a Marine.

Representative Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, asked Donald Rumsfeld to removed CNN embedded reporters.

Will Rumsfeld do anything? Is weak and feckless?

Love Your Body Day?

All University of Texas students received the below email on "Love your Body Day". Do we really need to spend state money to do this? Is this really necessary? My taxes are going to pay a 5'4", 275-pound Californian and a "star" of a transsexual documentary to tell 18 year olds to play with themselves? Do they really need the extra instruction?

Campus Fusion brings "Week of Dialogue" to The University of Texas at
Austin Sponsored by The University Co-op, The Multicultural Information Center, and Student Government.

Campus Fusion, a collaborative vision built by the Multicultural Information Center and Student Government at The University of Texas at Austin, and sponsored by The University Co-Op, brings a "Week of Dialogue" to campus from October 16-19.

Through different programs during the week-long event, the campus community recognizes the importance of talking about diversity issues at the University.

The Kick-off Rally took place this morning on Gregory Plaza and in the Gregory concourse. Also on Monday, October 16, the Gender and Sexuality Center at The University of Texas at Austin will be holding Love Your Body Day at 8 pm in the Texas Union's Santa Rita Room. Love Your Body Day will feature Raci Ignacio, star of Transgenerations, and Marilyn Wann, author of Fat!So?....

Retrying Failed Housing Policies in Houston

In a opinion piece in today's Houston Chronicle, an owner of many apartment complexes and housing advisor the mayor, David Mincberg offer solutions to the so-called problem of Houston housing costs, which are terribly misguided. Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that his solutions will only raise rents. Investment of capital to improve some neighborhoods will increase the desirability of to live in those apartments and hence an increase in rent. Removing a couple buildings in complexes might improve green spaces, but reducing supply will only increase prices. Tearing down and rebuilding apartment complexes will also increase prices as builders must recuperate their costs.

None of his options actually involve increasing the number of apartments, which is the correct solution if Houston is expecting an increase in population. The easiest way to cut rent prices is to increase supply. If builders construct new apartment complexes, Houstonians with higher incomes will likely move there. Then the complexes that are older will be forced to lower rent. Every city that has dictated rent control and created open space laws, end up with high rents and slums.

Houston already has some of the more affordable housing in the country, especially with contrast to its size. It’s significant that one person on minimum wage can afford to make rent and have some money leftover. Let’s not forget that good workers don’t stay at $6/hr for long. Houston’s costs are much lower than many other major cities, because it lets the market work. The other half of the equation is that Houston likely has an oversupply of unskilled labor due to illegal immigration. However, other locations need people and hence some may need to move.

As a final thought, it seems suspicious that Mincberg is championing policies that would actually raise rent. Perhaps he would like to increase profits without having to build. Very dodgy indeed. If the CEO of Exxon was the head of the Council on Alternative Energy, everyone would be rightly concerned.

Barbara Ehrenreich, the journalist who recorded her experiences living on the low end of the legal economy in her book Nickel and Dimed, learned first-hand the truth that all low-wage earners in America face today: lack of access to affordable housing is an enormous problem. That problem exists in Houston today.

It may not be glamorous, but the crisis in affordable housing impacts us all. Lack of housing increases homelessness, increases truancy and juvenile delinquency, and decreases economic opportunities for otherwise hardworking people. A city can not survive or prosper in these circumstances.

Half of Houston's population lives in rental housing. One million people. When you look

at the incomes earned by Houstonians, they don't fall in a neat bell curve. Instead, we have a two-hump curve; one small hump of high wage earners, like engineers. A much larger hump on the income curve is the number of people employed in Houston making $6 or $7 an hour, or maybe $60 a day.

Doing the math is pretty easy.

Sixty dollars times five days is $300 per week. Four weeks per month means $1,200 per month of total income. Since half the households in Houston are composed of one or two persons, this means total household income for a substantial portion of our residents is just that: $1,200 per month. With the cheapest apartments renting for $500 per month plus utilities, many families double up, live in cars, or make the tradeoff between food and electricity.

Drive in some neighborhoods and you'll notice the large number of little hibachi grills in the front yards of apartment units. Barbecue lovers? No. People without electricity.

Low incomes explain the large number of homeless and near-homeless employed persons in Houston, because people who want to work must have a car to get to employers. Look through the Chronicle's Help Wanted section, and you'll find more than 4,000 current job openings, mostly in places not accessible by public transportation. If you can get to La Porte, you can make $20 per hour as a painter's assistant. Forklift drivers in northwest Houston earn $9-$10 working in a warehouse. An ice cream shop is hiring scoopers in a convenient location on Kirby — at $6.25 per hour.

Many Houstonians ask: Aren't there programs? Aren't there vouchers? Aren't there places for people to stay?

The answer is a qualified yes. Some programs do exist, but the waiting list for assisted housing has the names of more than 18,000 families.

The 2000 U.S. Census predicts that Houston will add 350,000 more people over the next five years, with the greatest demand coming from workers requiring housing that costs $400-$600 per month. The apartments that are available in this price range are frequently in terrible condition. Every week, it seems we read another report of poor living conditions and rampant crime in apartment communities. This condition needs to change, now, if Houston is to remain a growing, viable city.

Houston has three options to help multifamily communities.

• First, the rehabilitation of existing units through significant dollar investments will improve properties in targeted neighborhoods.

• A second choice is the teardown of one or two buildings within selected complexes to decrease density and create green or community space as appropriate.

• Finally, the complete teardown and rebuilding of non-livable apartment properties may be appropriate. Each of these options will improve the quality of life for the 50 percent of families not able to own their own home yet. Having enough safe, decent, affordable housing units helps Houston draw a qualified workforce and keeps our economy strong. Government, civic leaders, businesses and all people that call Houston home have a stake in the success of getting enough affordable housing units here in Houston.

David Mincberg, chairman and CEO of Flagship Properties Corporation, currently serves as Mayor White's special assistant for Multi-Family Housing Policy. Houston Chronicle

The Fall of Global Warming Alarmism

Logical people have understood that global warming is media alarmism for a while now, but the media still presses the issue. If you've ever had a hint of doubt or was on the fence, read the following address. If you have time, read the whole thing, otherwise I've tried to highlight some key points.

SENATOR JAMES INHOFE CHAIRMAN, SENATE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE: Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930’s the media pedaled a coming ice age.

From the late 1920’s until the 1960’s they warned of global warming. From the 1950’s until the 1970’s they warned us again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming the fourth estate’s fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years. Recently, advocates of alarmism have grown increasingly desperate to try to convince the public that global warming is the greatest moral issue of our generation. Just last week, the vice president of London’s Royal Society sent a chilling letter to the media encouraging them to stifle the voices of scientists skeptical of climate alarmism....

One of the key aspects that the United Nations, environmental groups and the media have promoted as the “smoking gun” of proof of catastrophic global warming is the so-called ‘hockey stick’ temperature graph by climate scientist Michael Mann and his colleagues. This graph purported to show that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere remained relatively stable over 900 years, then spiked upward in the 20th century presumably due to human activity. Mann, who also co-publishes a global warming propaganda blog reportedly set up with the help of an environmental group, had his “Hockey Stick” come under severe scrutiny. The “hockey stick” was completely and thoroughly broken once and for all in 2006. Several years ago, two Canadian researchers tore apart the statistical foundation for the hockey stick. In 2006, both the National Academy of Sciences and an independent researcher further refuted the foundation of the “hockey stick.” ..

The National Academy of Sciences report reaffirmed the existence of the Medieval Warm Period from about 900 AD to 1300 AD and the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1850. Both of these periods occurred long before the invention of the SUV or human industrial activity could have possibly impacted the Earth’s climate. In fact, scientists believe the Earth was warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings grew crops in Greenland. ...

The alarmists freely concede that the Kyoto Protocol, even if fully ratified and complied with, would not have any meaningful impact on global temperatures. And keep in mind that Kyoto is not even close to being complied with by many of the nations that ratified it, including 13 of the EU-15 nations that are not going to meet their emission reduction promises. Many of the nations that ratified Kyoto are now realizing what I have been saying all along: The Kyoto Protocol is a lot of economic pain for no climate gain...French President Jacques Chirac provided the key clue as to why so many in the international community still revere the Kyoto Protocol, who in 2000 said Kyoto represents “the first component of an authentic global governance.”

Here is a quote from Newsweek magazine: “There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth.”
All of this sounds very ominous. That is, until you realize that ...[it is from] 1975 edition of Newsweek Magazine...They weren’t referring to global warming; they were warning of a coming ice age. ...
“[Those] who claim that winters were harder when they were boys are quite right… weathermen have no doubt that the world at least for the time being is growing warmer.” Before you think that this is just another example of the media promoting Vice President Gore’s movie, you need to know that the quote I just read you from Time Magazine was not a recent quote; it was from January 2, 1939. Yes, in 1939. Nine years before Vice President Gore was born and over three decades before Time Magazine began hyping a coming ice age and almost five decades before they returned to hyping global warming....

A front page article in the October 7, 1912 New York Times, ...declared that a prominent professor “Warns Us of an Encroaching Ice Age.” ...Which raises the question: Has this embarrassing 100-year documented legacy of coverage on what turned out to be trendy climate science theories made the media more skeptical of today’s sensational promoters of global warming? ...
Breaking the cycles of media hysteria will not be easy since hysteria sells -- it’s very profitable. But I want to challenge the news media to reverse course and report on the objective science of climate change, to stop ignoring legitimate voices this scientific debate and to stop acting as a vehicle for unsubstantiated hype.

Many scientists are opposed to global warming, but their views are not conveyed in the media:

The words "global warming" provoke a sharp retort from Colorado State University meteorology professor emeritus William Gray: "It's a big scam." And the name of climate researcher Kevin Trenberth elicits a sputtered "opportunist." ...At Boulder-based NCAR, researchers project a world with warmer temperatures, fiercer storms and higher seas.

From CSU, Gray and Roger Pielke Sr., another climate professor emeritus, question the data used to make those projections and their application to regional climate change. The models are trying to project a future world, Essex said, without a complete theoretical base on how climate works and the risk of small errors being amplified.

Another problem, [Christopher] Essex said, is in the inability to do controlled experiments - one of science's key tools. "There's only one atmosphere, so you can't hold everything steady and change just one variable to see what happens," he said. ... Gray...demanded: "Should we base national policy on these models?" Gray is among the most strident critics, quick to use words like "fraud" or "gang" to describe the modelers.

Instead of model projections, Gray looks at the history and patterns of weather to find trends. "We'd gone through a warming trend in the '40s, and everybody was saying we were going to win World War II but face terrible droughts...Soon after, temperatures went into a cooling trend and by 1975, Gray points out, there was talk of a coming ice age. The Earth does have natural cycles of cooling and warming - during the past 740,000 years there have been eight cycles with four ice ages. The cycles appear to be tied to slight variations in the tilt of the Earth toward the sun. During the last ice age - which ended about 10,000 years ago - Earth was on average about 4 degrees Fahrenheit cooler, and what is now Manhattan was buried under ice. Denver Post

AP's Puff Piece on Lack of "Aid" to Palestinians

We're supposed to feel sorry for the Palestinians who voted in Hamas, because we cut off aid. Why don't they start trying to build an economy instead of bombing Israel and then whining that they don't have money? I kinda bad for the average Palestinian, but all the aid over the years has filled the coffers of the PLO and Hamas. I also do remember them cheering after 9/11. Why should we, taxpayers of donating states, continue to pump money into that region? The AP is trying to get people to feel sorry for them, in order to get us to donate money to Hamas. So they can by more bombs?

Gaza's children used to light colorful lanterns to mark Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. But this year, many parents can't afford those small $1 toys as the coastal strip sinks deeper into poverty amid an aid cutoff to punish the Hamas-led government.

"These days, I just want to cry," said Umm Emad, a mother of six. The only lantern in her house is a paraffin lamp she keeps for Gaza's frequent power cuts.

Ramadan, which began Saturday in the
West Bank and Gaza and other parts of the Muslim world, is a time of fasting from dawn to dusk, piety and giving to the poor. It's also a festive month, with large family meals after sundown, social get-togethers and new clothes for everyone.

But Gaza is poorer than ever, and many will not be able to observe all Ramadan traditions. The U.N. feeds some 1 million of Gaza's 1.4 million people. One of the U.N. agencies, the World Food Program, added some 60,000 needy people — for a total of 220,000 — to its roster in September alone.

Foreign aid, which helped prop up the
Palestinian Authority for more than a decade, dried up in March after the Islamic militant group Hamas came to power. For long periods, Gaza also was cut off from the world, particularly after Hamas-allied militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier in June.

In the past three months, Israeli incursions to stop rocket fire and find smuggling tunnels have killed more than 200 Palestinians, most of them militants. Electricity is rationed, in six-hour blocks, after
Israel's military bombed Gaza's main power plant following the kidnapping of the soldier.

On the political front, moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has so far failed to set up a national unity government that would be acceptable to the West. His efforts are "back to zero," he said Saturday, after Hamas said it would not participate in a government that recognizes Israel.

Gaza's poor have tried to infuse some joy into Ramadan. In a holiday cleanup, Hamas youth swept a main city street, and burned garbage, including dozens of old shoes, leaving the smell of rubber in the air.

But many are feeling the strain.

Umm Emad, 45, said her husband beat their 10-year-old daughter after she pleaded for a Ramadan lantern. The mother of six, who would not give her real name because she said she is ashamed of being poor, works part time selling clothes in a relative's shop, for $3.50 a day.

Her husband sells clothes at a stand outside a U.N. office. On a good day, he makes a profit of $5. Before Hamas came to power, he earned about $22 dollars a day as the owner of a small clothing factory.

"In the good days, my husband used to buy lanterns for all the children, and the neighbor's children, because their father died, so they wouldn't feel left out," she said.

Like many Gazan families, Umm Emad has not yet bought any food for the household, although traditionally this is done a day before Ramadan begins.

In Gaza City's Shati refugee camp, grocer Adel Mudalal said he is not stocking ingredients for Ramadan desserts, like dried apricot paste. "I have no capital to buy and the neighborhood has no money to buy," he said.

Camp resident Deeb al-Ras' 11 children rarely buy from Mudalal's grocery. Al-Ras' restaurant went bust when the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began in 2000, and just one of his sons works, as a policeman, but hasn't been paid for months. The family will get by on rice and lentils donated by the U.N., al-Ras said, but with few vegetables or meat to supplement their diet.

Umm Saber, 58, a widow living with her son's family, said she was hungry most of the time. "I don't know what I'll be breaking my fast on," she said, "but I will eat something. Even if it's just a spoonful of yogurt. God always finds a way."

In a sweets shop in the upper-class Gaza City suburb of Saqallah, five or six people stop by every day, asking for leftovers, said salesman Osama Qandil, 24. "We don't turn them away, there's always a little extra for the poor," he said.

Gaza's shrinking middle class can still afford to spend $5 — or the day's wage of an unskilled laborer — at Qandil's shop for 2.2 pounds for kunafa, a popular holiday dish of vermicelli drenched in butter, wrapped around white cheese, then soaked in syrup.

But those who are still relatively well off try to keep a low profile.

Umm Ammar, 42, a mother of eight, said the family no longer eats out.

"Our situation is fine, but it's the general atmosphere that's depressing. We don't barbecue on the beach anymore, because that's insensitive and rude. Some people smelling the meat can't afford bread," she said.

She said years ago, colored lights were strung up in Gaza's main streets during Ramadan. Now, she said, "even if Gaza had the lights, there'd be no electricity for them to work." AP via front page of Yahoo by Diaa Hadid

The Only Thing People Learn From History...

Al Qaeda's goal as clearly stated is for Islam to take over the world. So how will being nice to them in any capacity change anything?

The only thing people learn from history is that people don't learn anything from history. After WWII (remember the subject, History, which no one studies anymore), there was criticism that leaders never read Hitler's book which detailed a lot of his plans. Today, Iran's leader Iwannajihad is telling the world press exactly what he wants to do but many don't believe him.

Al Qaeda in Iraq warned Pope Benedict XVI yesterday that its war against Christianity and the West will go on until Islam takes over the world, and Iran's supreme leader called for more protests over the pontiff's remarks on Islam
NY Sun

AN ITALIAN nun was killed by gunmen at a children's hospital in Somalia yesterday in an apparent revenge attack for the Pope¿s speech about Islam last week..

Sister Leonella Sgorbati, 65, left, was shot four times in the back by two men at the entrance to the hospital in the capital, Mogadishu. Her bodyguard was also killed. The Vatican said that it hoped that the “horrible tragedy” was an isolated incident. The Times

On the Passing of Orianna Fallaci

One of my biggest shocks was that since 9/11, liberals have been defending militant Islam even though it treats its women like cattle and stone homosexuals. Oriana Fallaci was a liberal in the classical sense. She did what NOW (National Organization of Women) and other groups should be doing.... taking a stand against abuses against women worldwide. Instead they cower, make apologies, and find minor offenses to pick at in the US. It's because they are cowards. Orianna was not. Rest in Peace

Oriana Fallaci, one of Italy's best-known writers and war correspondents who goaded the world's great and issued a vitriolic assault on Islam after the September 11 attacks on the United States, died on Friday aged 77.

Fallaci died in her home town of Florence after battling cancer for several years, a hospital official said.

She quarreled with Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat, provoked U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger into likening himself to a cowboy, and tore off a chador (enveloping Islamic robe) in a meeting with Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

De Bortoli first published the angry essay that turned into Fallaci's controversial best-seller, "The Rage and the Pride," which described Islam as oppressive and Arab immigrants in Europe as dirty, foul-mouthed and bigoted.

She called on Europeans to defend their culture and values instead of adjusting to immigrants' needs.

"The book was a great appeal to be proud of our identity," De Bortoli, former editor of Corriere della Sera newspaper, said. "It's the strongest testimony to the emotional and intellectual reaction to the September 11 (2001) attacks."

In a later book, "The Force of Reason," Fallaci wrote that the Islamic faith "sows hatred in the place of love and slavery in the place of freedom."

According to Fallaci's own anecdotes, she had a shouting match with Arafat and opened an interview with Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi by ridiculing his political manifesto as "so small and insignificant it fits in my powder puff." al-Reuters

Press to Crucify Pope

The global socialists are trying to put Pope Benedict in hot water for reading a quote from someone who died over 500 years ago. They want to create so much of an uproar as to censor himself in the future.

Benedict quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said. "He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"

Benedict did not explicitly agree with the statement nor repudiate it.

The comments raised tensions ahead of his planned visit to Turkey in November — his first pilgrimage to a Muslim country. AP

The AFP goes on today:

By unwittingly angering Muslims with his comments on Islam, Pope Benedict XVI has shown that he has yet to shake off his academic theological roots and master the global media machine with the same deftness as his predecessor.
In clinging to theology and orthodoxy, the bookish Benedict has shown little regard for media management in getting his message across, unlike the communications-savvy John Paul II. AFP

That means that Benedict isn't willling to placate the "Arab street", therefore he isn't savvy. Well, we've had a lot of savvyiness from leaders for decades and look were it has gotten us?! Then in typical leftist fashion, the talk about what he was doing when he was 13 and speculate about his health. It has nothing to do with the article (a poor one to begin with) and it serves as an underhanded ad-hominem attack.

September 11th, 5 years on

I can't duplicate some of the great memorials produced by Michelle Malkin or various other sources. However, I spent some time reviewing the photos, the videos, and the stories. The last phone calls goodbye, the horror the decision of those that jumped, the fear of those who knew the end was immiment. There's a lot of people on the left who would like us to forget, but we will not.

There's been a lot of courage shown since then by better men than I. The first resistor was Danny Lewin, then those on Flight 93. It has continued through the War against Islamic Miltancy. Here are some stories about our heroes. Other heroes exist too... a few bloggers and writers (Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, etc) who routinely expose the truth behind the jihadists do so at their own risk. Many have to live a life where they have to have security, varying their routines, or change their identities, because they get death threats. Judging by what happened to Theo Van Gogh, they are serious. Not many people are willing to risk the comfort and normality of their lives. For that, those few writers are hereos too.

For me, during a period in college, I worked on Vesey Street diagonally across the street from the WTC. John worked Downtown for a couple years. We both took the Path train to the World Trade Center. It's a lot more different when you've known the places so well.... the hustle of people on the long escalators up from the underground, the mall on the ground floor (a few floors below) of the WTC, the bagel store at the entrance to the WTC off Vesey st, the transit cops, the clerks behind the counter. Buildings can be rebuilt, but the lives cannot be reclaimed.

The Economies of State-run Healthcare

NY State is getting into financial problems and Eliot Spitzer is saying that hospitals would have to close. NY is now paying for the sins of past politicans who promised government intervention into healthcare. NY is learning economics 101: As cost of something goes to zero, demand will skyrocket. NY also has a unique solution to the fact that illegals and bums walk into hospital emergency rooms for routine care and don't pay for anything: close the whole hospital!

So NY will be rationing of healthcare after all. Instead of using prices, NY will institute the rationing of service and quality.

BALDWINSVILLE, N.Y., Sept. 7— Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said on Thursday that if elected governor he would close hospitals and drastically cut spending in an effort to restore fiscal discipline to New York State.

Giving his most candid glimpse yet of his plans to put the state’s fiscal house in order, Mr. Spitzer said that to fulfill his pledge to cut property taxes he would have to take aim at the state’s health care system.

“We’re going to take the tough medicine,” he said at a campaign stop in this Syracuse suburb, adding: “I’m saying to folks this isn’t all milk and honey. These are going to be tough decisions. Nobody likes to hear that a hospital is going to close, or a wing of a hospital, or beds are going to be shifted, but that is what we have to do.” NY Times

UPDATE:

Michael Moore plans his next film on healthcare. In typical Moore fashion, he will take a few odd examples and make them the norm in order to showcase why national healthcare is wonderful, but he will ignore the multitude of problems which nationalized healthcare faces. I doubt he'll talk about people who have been denied service or been forced to wait months for service. An NHS doctor, writes a blog, in which he sometimes recounts his horror.

"The segments presented stories of personal health care nightmares, including that of a woman denied payment for an ambulance ride after a head-on collision because it was not preapproved.

"They try to find every way they can to deny it to you or not sell it to you," he told a packed theater. "Or they try to find anyway they can not to pay the bill." AP

Texas Governor's Race

With two months until the election, there are four major candidates in this November's race to be the Texas governor. The odd thing is, in a state as conservative as Texas, there is no real conservative candidate. Interesting enough, they are all of them who seem to be polling decent numbers. Perry has about 35%, with the other three having 15-20%.


Rick Perry - Incumbent, former Democrat. He's socially conservative staking a pro-life and anti-gay marriage platform. He got tort reform passed, which limited pain and suffering damages in medical melpractice suits. His two big flaws are his pro-illegal alien stance and the Trans Texas Corridor. The TTC is a $184 billion, yes billion, highway project. It's supposed to be big super highways that will carry expressways, rails, and utilities. $184 billion is the GDP of many countries. When has a government estimate of a project ever been completed on budget? That means, that $184 billion could be much more. It also involves a huge grab for land, 580,000 acres in total. They take land using emminent domain and can lease it or sell it to potential businesses along the corridor. Infrastructure and transportation are vital to a vibrant economy, but you have to look at the investment verses the potential returns (in gains to the economy, not taxes). He has the big-government Republican view on illegal immigration -- open borders. While some influx of immigrants is good, turning a blind eye to massive border crossing is not.

Chris Bell - He's your run of the mill liberal Democrat. Big government spending, high taxes. His website never mentions spending or taxes, so you know they are going up.

Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn - Texas Comptroller and another former Democrat. She doesn't use all those names, but has at one time or another in the past.On her website she doesn't have a platform, which I don't like. How can I vote for someone when I don't know where they stand? She claims to be a tax fighter but in an interview with Chris Matthews, she says "I am a common sense fiscal conservative. You know, I would rather pay $98 a month and insure a kid with prescription drugs and get that 72 percent match from the feds, rather than pay $6,700 for one hospital stay picked up by the property taxes going right through the roof. I am a common sense conservative. I would rather educate our kids than incarcerate our kids. " To me, that seems to be like a fake fiscal conservative. "We'll save more later if we spend more now" is not my idea of fiscal conservative. Besides, it's rare to meet any candidate who doesn't claim to be a fiscal conservative? She originally was a proponent of the TTC, but since entering the race, she has switched views. The 2002 Democratic nominee, Tony Sanchez, has endorsed her.

Kinky Friedman - The oddball candidate. He's has liberal social views, but takes the toughest stand on illegal immigration, the TTC, and isn't afraid to share his views frankly. While his concern for Texas children is admirable, it could lead to yet another state run healthcare program, which utimately gets abused. Insuring children shouldn't be that expensive, but leave it to the government to make it so. I don't like his stem cell research funding on fiscal grounds (and moral for embryonic research). If there are potential cures in stem cells, companies will fund the research. The problem with government funding, is that scientists could ulitmately know that there is no cures to be found in stem cells, but continue working because they are on the government dole. A company will seek results, while the government would continue to pour money into a dead issue for years.

Current Opinion
Perry is competent, but the long term effects of illegal immigration and the looming TTC could bankrupt the State. I am generally displeased with the big-government Republicans which have dominated Congress and their stance on illegal immigration. Many have had a "well, who else are you going to vote for attitude?" I can't vote for Bell or Strayhorn. Kinky is defintely odd and hold liberal social views. However, Perry could bankrupt the State, while Kinky's view of abortion is irrelevent as long as Roe vs. Wade is in effect. Kinky also could prove to be horribly incompetent. Decisions, decisions.

Inviting Fraud

The California legislature has passed an initiative that would award the state's electoral votes to the popular vote winner.

Some have already rightly voiced concerns that it would cause politicians to concentrate on the urban areas and neglect the concerns of rural areas. Some Republicans think it would help them, but it could invite more fraud.

Currently, if there is fraud going on in Louisana, the most the fraud can do is help with Louisana's electoral votes. Additionaly if in Ohio, subversives efforts to create fraud do not succed, then there is nothing more the subversives can do.

With the new system, the strong ethics of the people of Ohio wouldn't matter. All they have to do is pump votes into Louisiana and it would have a national effect.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The California Legislature passed a bill that would give California's 55 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, rather than the candidate who captured the state — but for now, the measure stands a slim chance of becoming reality.

That's because it could go into effect only if states with a combined total of 270 electoral votes — the number now required to win the presidency — agree to the same process.

Similar legislation is pending in Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana and Missouri — which have a combined 50 electoral votes. With California's 55, the legislation would still be less than halfway there......... AP via Yahoo

Labor as a Commodity

Some on the right may wonder why some Republicans support unfettered illegal immigration. Are they all in the pockets of big business who want to underpay workers or skirt taxes? Not necessarily.

Some have bought into the economic idea that labor is a commodity that should only be regulated by market forces. Workers can come into the country and work whatever jobs they can get. If there is not enough jobs, they'll leave the country and go somewhere else. They won't publically admit it, but think that borders and culture are irrelevent in today's world. All other issues do not matter, economics is king.

They live in a dream world. People are not commodities. If the new models of Sony computers don't work, people won't buy them. However, if labor from another country doesn't work, they can sit and collect welfare. They can drain service. Good luck sending them home. Sony computer's don't come with baggage either. The only Sony exports that might explode are their batteries.

Robert Kiyosaki's Swindle

Get Rich Quick schemes come in all shapes and colors and they extend beyond pyramid, ponzi, or shell games. Some are even just want to sell you a worthless book. Enter Robert Kiyosaki. Nearly ten years ago, John purchased a couple of his books and was impressed. A few months later, I read one and was instantly impressed as well. Oooh making money was so easy! Wow! You get excited. At the same time, I was getting excited, John was starting to think he was full of shit and, yes, John is right. Real Estate author John T Reed also thinks he's full of shit and has done a splenid job explaining why.

Now Kiyosaki is a columnists on Yahoo Finance and in an article he is claiming that poor people are evil. I invite anyone interested to read the whole article. My thoughts: So for someone who only claims to believe in only a "Great Spirit" clings greatly to one Parable in the Book of Matthew to judge the poor as evil. He then misinterprets the Parable (nor can he tie it into the messages of other parables.) Kiyosaki says the message is that poor are "evil and lazy", but "poor" is a relative term. (There are poor in Harlem, but they have electricty, TVs, and phones...compare that to the poor in Africa.) The man with only two talents is praised for turning into four and the praise he receives is no less than the man who turns his five into ten. However, by comparison, the man who started with two is poor compared to the man who started with five. It is the man who doesn't do anything with the talent he is given, whom is criticized. So the action, not result is what is being criticized.

As final note, he leaves a disclaimer that you may interpret differently. How nice. Can I now claim that Schindler's List was the best comedy ever but leave a note saying that you may have interpreted it differently. That'll make it all better. Wow, how grand!

If the No. 1 reason people aren't rich is because they're lazy, the No. 2 reason may be that they're also wicked....For now, this week I derive much of its inspiration from the Bible. Since money and religion are controversial subjects, I should clarify my religious position: I prefer the Native American Indian term "Great Spirit" as a more approachable reference to God...While I'm no Bible scholar, I'm going to use a passage from the New Testament book of Mathew to illustrate my point about wickedness and the lack of wealth. If I misinterpret its message or don't follow your interpretation I mean no harm, nor do I claim to speak for God.

I draw my politically incorrect message from the parable of a master who, before leaving to travel, gave one of his servants five talents (a valuable unit of currency), another servant two talents, and a third servant one talent. When the master returned, the first servant had doubled his money and gave his master 10 talents....The third servant was frightened of his master, so instead of multiplying the money he buried his single talent. To this servant the master said, "You wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I reap where I have not sowed and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest."

The master then took the servant's one talent and gave it to the servant who had turned 5 talents into 10. The parable ends with these words: "For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away."

My politically incorrect interpretation of this parable is that the poor are wicked and slothful -- in other words, evil and lazy. My favorite line from it is "Enter into the joy of your master." If your master is God, then God's joy is the abundance derived from making money, which in turn creates more abundance. If that means God doesn't like poor people, then so be it....But this isn't what the Parable of the Talents says; I interpret it to say that the poor are evil and lazy. Your interpretation may be different.... Kiyosaki on Yahoo Finance

Stage One Thinking in Iraq

Marines are not "re-upping" their active duty contracts? Why not? Hmmm.... maybe because they risk the dual fears of being killed or being put on trial for shooting someone charging at them who later turned out not to his gun actually loaded. When Marines are accused of "murder" by some Iraqi, they are immediately thrown in the brig. The President doesn't say anything, not even to remind the public that they are innocent until proven guilty. Bush makes a political calculation to avoid criticism. This is called Stage One Thinking (coined by T. Sowell). "I say nothing, so then I don't get criticized." However he is never asked, "what happens then?"

The President repeating asks for our support for the war, but at the same time fights a politically correct war. He said that we would not kowtow to terrorists, but made deals with Muqtada Al-Sadr...who is continuing to be a cause of violence. Iwannajihad in Iran can smell the weakness. No doubt Bush has had a tough time being criticized at every turn, but only someone that can succeed despite such criticism is a great leader.

Note: I will add a disclaimer here that Bush is at least better than any of the major alternatives we have had in the past 6 years, how just because we don't like the D's and F's doesn't mean we have to settle for a C+.

WASHINGTON - The Marine Corps will soon begin ordering thousands of its troops back to active duty because of a shortage of volunteers for Iraq and Afghanistan - the first involuntary recall since the early days of the war.

Up to 2,500 Marines will be brought back at a time, and there is no cap on the total number who may be forced back into service as the military helps fight the war on terror. The call-ups will begin in the next several months....

As of Tuesday, nearly 22,000 of the 138,000 troops in Iraq were Marines.

The call-up will affect Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve, a segment of the reserves that consists mainly of those who have left active duty but still have time remaining on their eight-year military obligations.....