"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Saturday, September 01, 2007

ARTHUR MILLER: STILL A PHONY ON SATURDAY


WE POSTED ABOUT MILLER THE PHONY ON THURSDAY.

BEFORE THE AMERICAN THINKER AND INSTAPUNDIT, AND A DOZEN OTHER BIG BLOGGERS.

WE BEAT THEM TO THE PUNCH REGULARLY. WE DON'T FOLLOW THE PACK. WE LEAD.

BUT YOU KNOW THAT. SPREAD THE WORD. BLOGROLL US.

A Recent Conversation With an "anti-war" Leftie - An Expose in the Logic of BDS

THIS IS A COMPILATION OF A RUNNING ARGUMENT I'VE BEEN HAVING WITH AN ANTI-WAR LEFTIE FRIEND OF MINE:

Was it wrong to invade, or just done badly?

It was done badly, and it was wrong. Bush lied. And we're losing.

If it was wrong and done badly, should we pull out or try to get it right -as we seem to be now?

We should pull out - I mean redeploy; there's no chance we can make a positive difference. It's too late.

Is that because of us or them?

Both: our occupation inspires hatred, and they are not ready for democracy and the rule of mutually confirmed law.

Are they not ready because of years of oppression or centuries of Islam?

Both; they are not ready and you can't force people to be democratic.

Then why should the west accept any Muslims from historically Muslim nations which have been historically oppressed and whose citizens can't seem to accept self-rule? Won't accepting hundreds of thousands of people whose religion and experiences are antithetical to democracy weaken our democracy?

Er um...

And why were we successful in Japan and South Korea - since these nations had no democracy before American occupation either? And why were we right to force the south to extend civil rights to blacks?

Er... um...

And don't we have a moral responsibility to help out all our brothers and sisters achieve their innate human rights and live free from oppression of all types, everywhere - isn't this what FDR said in the Four Freedoms speech and JFK in his inaugural speech? And don't we have a greater responsibility for Iraq and Iraqis - having invaded and occupied Iraq?

Yes... sure... but... er... um... we went to war for Israel and oil! All this democracy talk is an after thought!

Er um, no - Bush talked of its importance in his UN speech to the General Assembly in September 2002 - before the Congress voted to give him authority to go to was against Saddam. And, Israel warned us and said stopping Iran was the key to stopping worldwide jihadoterror. And we could have bought all the oil we wanted from Saddam; there was no need to occupy Iraq to get the oil. We could have simply removed the sanctions and allowed US BIG OIL COMPANIES to get all the contracts they could.

Never mind.

If Iran and Syria are influencing events inside of Iraq, and aiding the Iraqi elements which Iraq want Iraq to be less democratic and more extremist, then why shouldn't we influence Iraq and support the Iraqi elements which want to liberalize and have a democracy?

Because we don't belong in the region; Iran and Syria are in the region.

But we can't become isolationist, can we?

No, but we should only get involved internationally if the UN has approved it.

(Forget for a moment the sovereignty issue), and consider this fact: the UN has long approved our occupation and just recently increased its presence there - for the first time since their HQ in Baghdad was attacked. Now that we have their explicit approval, are you saying we should ignore it and the wishes of the democratically elected government of Iraq?

Never mind. Iraqis didn't attack us on 9/11; Saudis did, and their al Qaeda bosses are still in Afghanistan. Which is where we should be concentrating our forces.

Zarqawi and other al Qaeda leaders fled from Afghanistan and went to Iraq after we deposed the Taliban. And we and NATO ARE fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and we are killing hundreds of them every week - with the help of the Pakistanis. If al Qaeda wants to fight us in Iraq - and that's where our most of our troops are (along with an indigenous population increasingly alienated if not hateful of al Qaeda), then why should we go somewhere/anywhere else?

Er um... I dunno. 'Cause Bush stole the 2000 election in Florida, and the 2004 election in Ohio, and he and his rich-and-getting richer (as the poor are getting poorer) tax-cutting deficit-exploding closeted-gay fascist cronies are destroying the planet with their CO2!

Never mind.

PITY: THESE CONVERSATIONS ALWAYS SEEM TO END ON A BDS NOTE.

BDS: THE LAST REFUGE OF THE LEFT.

HOW DOES IT HELP ISRAEL IF WE LET THE TURKS BLACKMAIL US INTO NOT BEING HONEST ABOUT THE GENOCIDE OF ARMENIANS?

The ADL caused such a scandal this past week by balking at proper recognition of Turkey's genocide of millions of Armenians in 1915 that it was forced to reverse its position.

But it also led to some very eyebrow raising discoveries about what kind of positions various other Jewish organizations may have on the issue, now being discussed by the Jewish Exponent:
The Anti-Defamation League's reversal last week of its position on the Armenian genocide has set off a flurry of diplomatic activity in Turkey and Israel.

Officials in Ankara and Jerusalem, in coordination with American Jewish leaders, were working this week to contain the fallout from the ADL's statement, which recognized the World War I massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as "tantamount to genocide."

The ADL was forced to reverse its longstanding position -- shared by other major American Jewish organizations -- of neutrality on the genocide question amid growing dissension within its own ranks.

Jewish leaders warned that recognizing the genocide, as Congress is now considering, could undermine American strategic interests in the Middle East, and Turkey's robust military and economic partnership with Israel. Also deemed at risk was the security of Turkish Jewry, which sent a letter earlier this year opposing a congressional resolution on the matter.
If Turkey refuses to admit their guilt, then all they're doing is implying that they're still an enemy country that shows no sorrow for its past acts of evil (and it should be noted that even Arabs and Kurdish Muslims were involved in the genocide, not only Turks). At the same time, it's bad for Jews and many other nationalities if they can't be honest and open about important historical events.

The ADL's initial refusal to take a full-fledged stand led to a fallout with the Armenian community too:
Though Jewish groups have toed a careful line on the genocide question for years, the issue exploded last month after the town council of Watertown, Mass. -- home to one of the country's largest Armenian communities -- voted to sever ties with an ADL anti-bigotry program in protest of the organization's refusal to acknowledge the genocide.

After the vote, the ADL's regional director in Boston, Andrew Tarsy, switched gears and condemned his organization's position. Tarsy was promptly fired by Foxman.

The Boston ADL leadership rebelled, and with pressure mounting, Foxman reversed himself last week, acknowledging that the "consequences" of Ottoman massacres of Armenians were "tantamount to genocide." Tarsy was reinstated Monday as Boston director.
Foxman, if you ask me, is a big problem, as IMO, he's a pretty jelly-spined chairman, and isn't it time he left his post already? I think so.

The subject has been in discussion in Israel too recently. Likud MK Ruvy Rivlin spoke about it earlier this week in a new daily paper called Yisrael HaYom, and is in favor of recognizing it. It should be fully recognized here, as it would help in making a case for the Jewish cause as well. And the US Congress should certainly recognize it too, and there should be major memorials founded in the US for it as well.

The Turks aren't the only ones who deny involvement in major crimes - the Arabs continue to deny their own involvement in the Jewish Holocaust, particularly Haj-Amin el-Husseini, the chief leader of the palestinian Arabs at the time.

(It should also be said that the Ottoman empire over the centuries treated the Jews in Israel more fairly and kindly than the local Arab Muslims did.)

The Big Easy's Billion Dollar Boondoggle

Excerpt:

Here's a pop quiz: How much money has Uncle Sam spent on New Orleans and the Gulf region since Hurricane Katrina ripped the place apart? I'll give you the answer because you'll never guess it. The grand total is $127 billion (including tax relief). That's right: a monstrous $127 billion. Of course, not a single media story has highlighted this gargantuan government-spending figure. But that number came straight from the White House in a fact sheet subtitled, "The Federal Government Is Fulfilling Its Commitment to Help the People of the Gulf Coast Rebuild."

Perhaps all this money should've been directly deposited in the bank accounts of the 300,000 people living in New Orleans. All divvied up, that $127 billion would come to $425,000 per person! After thanking Uncle Sam for their sudden windfall, residents could head to Southern California and buy homes that are now on sale thanks to the sub-prime mortgage crisis and bid up the sagging house prices in the state.

Meanwhile, according to an article by Nicole Gelinas at the Manhattan Institute, New Orleans has earned the distinct honor of becoming the murder capital of the world. The murder rate is 40 percent higher than before Katrina, and twice as high as other dangerous cities like Detroit, Newark, and Washington, D.C.

Think of this: The idea of using federal money to rebuild cities is the quintessential liberal vision. And given the dreadful results in New Orleans, we can say that the government's $127 billion check represents the quintessential failure of that liberal vision. Hillary Clinton calls this sort of reckless spending "government investment." And that's just what's in store for America if she wins the White House next year.

More here

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Swedish Artist's Mohammed Sketch Prompts Another Muslim Uproar

Swedes getting bolder?
"Marking the beginning of yet another dispute over free speech and religious sensitivity, the government of Pakistan has joined Iran in protesting the publication in a Swedish newspaper of a sketch featuring the head of Mohammed on the body of a dog. "Pakistan condemns, in the strongest terms, the publication of an offensive and blasphemous sketch of the Holy Prophet in the Swedish newspaper," the foreign ministry in Islamabad said in a statement Thursday.

The government in Stockholm has distanced itself from the decision by a regional newspaper, Nerikes Allehanda, to publish the picture on August 18. The sketch, by artist Lars Vilks, was used to illustrate an editorial on freedom of expression. The paper noted that three Swedish art exhibitions had turned down three Vilks sketches depicting a bearded, turbaned man as a dog, apparently because of security concerns....

Earlier this week the Iranian government also summoned a Swedish diplomat for a dressing-down, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a press conference during which he raged about Jews, accused "Zionists" of being responsible for the sketch.

The Swedish newspaper publishers' association has come out in support of Nerikes Allehanda's decision to publish the Mohammed sketch. "The strength of freedom of expression lies in the fact that it tolerates -- and protects -- not only comfortable, harmless and uncontroversial opinions, but also those that are tasteless, controversial, upsetting and offensive," the group's deputy chairman said in a statement.

Source
(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Prevent Global Warming - Give Up Soda Pop

That would be one little change that could help put off the advent of catastrophic global warming.


Soda pop drinkers and the companies that supply the soda drinkers are intentionally destroying the planet. One thing soda drinkers could do is to put one can out of every six they drink in storage. That would sequester at least part of the CO2.

So some one is going to tell me next that the CO2 is coming from natural sources. OK. So they have it in tanks. Why are they putting it in soda pop instead of burying it?

How can they release dangerous gases into the world?

Inspired by papertiger in the comments at The Reference Frame

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

BEING A LEFTIE: A FEW TIPS

In case you wanted to be a really cool, super hip and supremely PC Leftie and wow all the other hip, cool, PC Lefties you work with, here are 22 tips (from Nuke's blog):

Tree Hugger1. You have to be against capital punishment, but support abortion on demand.

2. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.

3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Chinese and North Korean communists.

4. You have to believe that there was no art before Federal funding.

GREENHOUSE GASES AND OUTHOUSE GASES: A PRIMER

Greenhouse gases are the ones which eco-nutsies claim cause global warming.

Outhouse gases are the ones emitted by eco-nutsies when they talk about greenhouse gases.

Now you know.

A LOOK AT THIS SUMMER'S WEATHER RECORDS IN THE UK

BBC:
This summer appears to have been the wettest since rainfall records began in 1914, according to provisional data from the UK Meteorological Office. Britain had 358.5mm of rain, just beating the 1956 record of 358.4mm. The main reason for the high rainfall has been the unusually southerly position of the jet stream, a band of strong winds high in the atmosphere.

Following earlier floods in central and southern England, five areas of the country are still on flood alert. ... The record rainfall was driven by conditions in England, where the downpour surpassed all other recorded years by a substantial margin. The record years for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales respectively remain 1958, 1985 and 1927. The figures are preliminary and may be revised at a later date. ...

"These figures confirm what most people have already been thinking - this summer has been very wet and very disappointing for most," said Keith Groves, the Met Office's head of forecasting.

While it has been wet, the summer has been distinctly average in terms of temperature. ... June, July and August saw a mean temperature of 14.1C, almost exactly the average for summers since the 1970s.
Hmmmmmmmmm... mean temperatures EXACTLY the average since the 1970's - nearly forty years... during which time there's a lot more man-made CO2 in the atmosphere... If CO2 CAUSED Global Warming then this would not be the case; the summers would be getting warmer... they are not. END OF STORY.

Friday, August 31, 2007

AS PREDICTED, JAIL FOR NIFONG

He was sentenced to only one day in jail, but he will be going to jail nevertheless.

The Punditarian asked back in June:
NIFONG DISBARRED - JAIL NEXT?
And back in April, the Punditarian noted:
The North Carolina State Bar Association's brief against him is entirely damning, and the State Attorney General's dismissal of all charges against the Lacrosse players, and his characterization of Nifong's zealous prosecution, used unprecedented language in lambasting Nifong for being just the sort of scoundrel he is. At a minimum, he will be disbarred for life. His conduct in this case was so outrageous that he is probably also liable for civil damages. I would not be surprised if he ends up behind bars, as well.
There's more to come. This is a real scandal, and before it all unravels, there will be more payouts -- financial and personal -- from Duke, Durham, and the other truly guilty parties.

FIAT JUSTITIA, RUAT COELUM.

CRAIG REPORTEDLY WILL RESIGN TOMORROW

LATEST NEWS AND AROUND UP ON CRAIG HERE - AT MEMEORANDUM.


I think that Craig's resignation will be seen as the SECOND biggest mistake of his life; (the biggest mistake in his life was of course pleading guilty without advise of counsel).

ALL CRAIG HAS TO DO TO SALVAGE HIS CAREER IS ADMIT HE IS BI-SEXUAL AND THEN SWITCH PARTY AFFILIATION AND BECOME A DEMOCRAT.

They like homosexual politicians -especially with a few indiscretions in their past: Barney Frank is a gay Congressman who had "lover" who ran an "escort" service from Frank's townhouse. Frank is part of the Dem leadership.

GEE WHIZ, BASED ON THAT, CRAIG COULD BECOME THE DEMOCRAT SENATE WHIP!

UPDATE: Punditarian reminds us (in the comments):
You didn't mention Gerry Studds; that Democratic congressman actually had real sex with an underage male page -- and was treated to a standing ovation by his fellow Democrats when the House voted to censure him. In contrast, the disgraced Mark Foley merely text-messaged an adult page.

"WORLDVIEW DEFENSE" AS AN EXPLANATION OF CONSERVATISM

A critique of research by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski

That old Leftist, John B. Judis, has an article in The New Republic that summarizes a stream of psychological research into fear of death that goes by the name of "worldview defense". The idea is that if you are reminded of your own mortality, you become more conservative.

In one way, that is all fair enough. The old saying "A conservative is a liberal who was mugged last night" embodies a similar idea and represents a claim that conservatives often make: That they are more realistic and that Leftists are dreamers who need to be brought down to earth. Being vividly reminded of your own forthcoming death (which is what the psychological experiments concerned do) should invoke a similar burst of realism and disable dreamy views of life.

So an interpretations of the findings congenial to conservatives is more than possible. Judis and those he quotes, however, strain to find a more elaborate interpretation that is some way derisory of conservatives. But in doing so Judis falls into a trap common among psychologists and other Leftists: He lives in such a self-protective Leftist bubble that he basically just does not know what conservatism is or what conservatives think. For decades now, psychologists have been devising questionnaires that allegedly "measure" conservatism but which in fact give no prediction of vote at all! The ludicrous Bob Altemeyer is the most recent example of that. The highpoint of such ignorance, however, would have to be the 2003 "Berkeley" study which classified various Communist leaders as conservatives. That Communists and conservatives have radically different views about the world had apparently not penetrated the ivory towers of UCB!

So we have the following remarkable comment from Judis: Also central to worldview defense is the protection of tradition against social experimentation, of community values against individual prerogatives". And you thought it was conservatives who stood for individual liberties! Not so, according to Judis. Conservatives stand for "community values". So Hillary Clinton, with her quotation of an old African saying that "It takes a village to raise a child" must be a conservative!

So I don't think we really need to say much more about such profound ignorance. As this stuff falls squarely within my own field of professional expertise; however, I will make one more comment: Answers to questions that are obtained from young college students (which is mainly what Judis is referring to) often tell you very little about the real world. The very first piece of psychological research that I ever did was based on responses from students and I found a most gratifying correlation of .808 between the two variables concerned. Being a born skeptic, however, I then did something that psychologists almost never do: I repeated the research among a group much more representative of the general population. And I found NO correlation between my two variables on that group.

And so it seems also to be with the research by Pyszczynski and friends that Judis quotes. Using student responses, Pyszczynski et al. found a correlation between awareness of death and what they (in their confused way) define as conservatism but I carried out long ago a piece of research into much the same question. I looked at the correlation between attitude to death and conservatism among a general population sample. And I used a measure of conservatism that DID closely reflect the political divisions of the day. So what did I find? I found that there was NO correlation between attititude to death and conservatism whatsoever. Nor was there any connection between anxiety generally and conservatism. So the Pyszczynski/Judis claims fail a more rigorous test. What they think happens, does NOT happen in the real world.

And I carried out that piece of research in collaboration with the head of our local Sociology department -- an impeccably mainstream Jewish Leftist. So the ad hominem attacks that one expects from Leftists would be more than usually implausible in this case.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

QUAGMIRE ALERT: LEBANON IS A STILL QUAGMIRE ... FOR AL QAEDA

XINHUANET:
Lebanese army helicopters waged a series of air raids Friday on hideouts of Islamist militants in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, Lebanon's official National News Agency reported.

The helicopters fired missiles in three phases at locations where remnants of Fatah al-Islam were holed up in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, said the report.

The army has made direct hits at buildings of which the lower floors are being used by terrorists for shelter, and terrorists have begun to flee the hit areas, it added.

Moreover, it noted that air raids were accompanied by heavy tank shelling and machinegun fire, adding that two army units were able to storm some districts of the camp.

Fatah al-Islam militants insist on battling to the end despite the great losses they suffered in the past hours and their fallback in light of army advancement in the refugee camp.

The Lebanese army have been battling with the militants of Fatah al-Islam in the Nahr al-Bared camp since May 20. The bloodiest internal violence since the Lebanese 1975-1990 civil war has killed more than 200 people.
  • HAS THE OIC OR THE ARAB LEAGUE OR THE UN or HRW or AI or CAIR SAID "BOO" ABOUT THE LEBANESE ARMY'S WAR AGAINST JIAHDISTS? Nope.
  • IS FATAH AL ISLAM FIGHTING THE LEBANESE ARMY BECAUSE OF THE GOP OR ROVE OR BUSHITLERBURTON OR THE LIKUDNIK NEOCONS OR USA HEGEMONY OR OIL? Nope.

Double standards, conspiracy theories, and blatant anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism have colored virtually all the so-called "anti-war" reporting about Afghanistan and Iraq.

But the war in Iraq and Afghanistan are merely a part of the same war being fought in Lebanon and Thailand and the Philippines - wars aboiut which the Left does not complain.

If the Left and the Arabs think it's okay for the Lebanese army to shell the jihadists near Tripoli, then it's okay for us to do the same in Iraq - and EVERYWHERE ELSE THE ENEMY RESIDES.

This is important for the sake of moral consistency. But also for another reason:

The sooner those who complain about "Bush's Wars" STFU, the sooner we win. (Their complaints aid the enemy.)

Self Medication Tragedy

My friend Eric at Classical Values tells of a self medication tragedy:
Most people who suffer from schizophrenia smoke. A lot.

This is one of those stereotypes that not only happens to be true, but there's a special reason why schizophrenics smoke:
Cigarette smoking may improve attention and short-term memory in persons with schizophrenia by stimulating nicotine receptors in the brain, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine researchers in the June issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry.
This explains not only why they smoke, but why they smoke so much more than people who don't have schizophrenia. They are engaged in self medication.
Why is this a tragedy? Read the whole thing.

And, if the subject of self medication interests you I have written a little on the subject.

PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System
Addiction or Self Medication?
A well known secret

I forgot to mention that nicotine is an anti-depressant, as is marijuana.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

TERESA'S DOUBT AND CHARITY

Contrary to what Hitchens has said and written, she was no atheist and not a phony posing as a pious person, just a doubter whose faith was never firm.

DOES IT MATTER THAT SHE WAS A DOUBTER?

Not at all.

A person's deeds are what matter. Good deeds are more important than faith or piety alone:
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these [is] charity.
Teresa was unquestionably charitable. That she continued a life of good deeds despite the fact she herself felt her faith was questionable is only greater testament to her goodness.

Goods deeds - even of doubters - are themselves filled with piety and FAITH.

THE CHIC DEGENERATI OF HOLLYWOOD ARE ATTACKING OUR TROOPS

IN VENICE.
The film's title refers to how, according to De Palma, mainstream American newspapers and television channels are failing to tell the true story of the war by keeping the most graphic images of the conflict away from public opinion.

... "Redacted", by U.S. director Brian De Palma, is one of at least eight American films on the war in Iraq due for release in the next few months and the first of two movies on the conflict screening in Venice's main competition.
THE "ANTI-WAR" MOVIE CONTAINS NO IMAGES OF BERG OR PEARL OR THE OTHER COUNTLESS AMERICANA AND IRAQIS TORTURED AND KILLED BY THE JIHADISTS.

I WONDER WHY?

When you hold one set of standards for the USA and another one - much lower - for the enemy, then you are being biased - in fact ANT-AMERICAN.

We deplore the RARE war crimes committed by the few US troops who "lose it." They should be punished. They have been.

But we deplore EVEN MORE the misdirected rage of those who brandish these crimes and ignore the enemy's routine - NAY DOCTRINAL use of terror.

An enemy which kills and cooks children and forces parents to eat them.

For making this movie, De Palma is a traitorous piece of crap.

He and his whole chic degenerati Hollywood crowd - like Oliver Stone and Tim Robbins and Sean Penn, and their producers - are traitors. Lower than scum. As evil as the enemy. Though they do no jihadoterror themselves they certainly facilitate jihadoterror's message.

THEY ARE IN EFFECT THE MINISTRY OF PROPAGANDA FOR THE ENEMY.



Update: Rusty weighs in:
To the Left and in this film, I'm sure:
When we do bad things: our fault
When our enemies do bad things: our fault
There's really no winning.

THE ROAD TO BAGHDAD GOES THROUGH ATLANTA

IT'S A HISTORY LESSON, NOT A GEOGRAPHY LESSON.

FOR THE COPPERHEADS. (MORE ON COPPERHEAD DEFEATISM HERE. AND HERE.)

CONGRESSMEN CLAIM TRUTH-TELLING IS "BEING SLIMED"

WASH POST (VIA MEMEORANDUM): Lawmakers Describe 'Being Slimed in the Green Zone'
The sheets of paper seemed to be everywhere the lawmakers went in the Green Zone, distributed to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank. So when Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) asked a soldier last weekend just what he was holding, the congressman was taken aback to find out.

In the soldier's hand was a thumbnail biography, distributed before each of the congressmen's meetings in Baghdad, which let meeting participants such as that soldier know where each of the lawmakers stands on the war. "Moran on Iraq policy," read one section, going on to cite some the congressman's most incendiary statements, such as, "This has been the worst foreign policy fiasco in American history."

The bio of Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.) -- "TAU (rhymes with 'now')-sher," the bio helpfully relates -- was no less pointed, even if she once supported the war and has taken heat from liberal Bay Area constituents who remain wary of her position. "Our forces are caught in the middle of an escalating sectarian conflict in Iraq, with no end in sight," the bio quotes.

"This is beyond parsing. This is being slimed in the Green Zone," Tauscher said of her bio.
WE DON'T SLIME THE "ANTI-WAR" LEFT.

WE TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT THEM AND THEY JUST THINK IT'S SLIME!

(Round up at MEMEORANDUM.)

RUSSIA GIVES IRAN CUTTING-EDGE ANTI-SHIP MISSILES TO GIVE TO HEZBOLLAH

We'd like to thank the State Department for keeping the IAF leashed during Lebanon II, the United Nations for stopping the war just as Israeli soldiers were getting poured across the border, and pretty much everyone else for the fantastic job they've been doing with Iran:
The recent delivery of an advanced Russian-made anti-ship missile to Iran has defense officials concerned it will be transferred to Syria and Hizbullah and used against the Israel Navy in a future conflict... Called the SSN-X-26 Yakhont, the supersonic cruise missile can be launched from the coast and hit sea-borne targets up to 300 kilometers away. The missile carries a 200-kilogram warhead and flies a meter-and-a-half above sea level... The missile homes in on its target using an advanced radar guidance system that is said to make it resistant to electronic jamming. The Yakhont is an operational and tactical missile and can be used against both a medium-sized destroyer and an aircraft carrier. It would pose a serious threat to the Israel Navy,... While officials could not confirm that the missile had reached Syria or Hizbullah, the growing assumption is that any weapons system or missile that can be taken apart and fit into a shipping container can easily be transferred.
Of course, any significant Hezbollah attack would now also send the IAF to Syria's doorstep. So at least Russia's not also pouring offensive and defensive weapons into Syria. We're not too worried. The UN was very clear that they would prevent any arms smuggling to Hezbollah, if only Israel agreed to withdraw behind the border.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

5-MILE LASERS THAT BURN THINGS. THINGS LIKE TERRORISTS

Laser Rifle Thing

This appeared in the Hot Air headlines earlier this week, and is hereby rescued in all of its sheer awesomeness:
TRW Systems in Redondo Beach, Calif., for instance, is working on a portable chemical laser (which produces a beam from the energy released in the reaction of two or more chemicals) that could be carried into battle by a unit of only three men. Aimed like a rifle, it would silently burn a fatal, quarter-inch-wide hole in the body of an enemy soldier up to five miles away. "Once you've got him in your sights," says a TRW engineer, "you've got him. There are no misses."
The Danger Room article goes on to point out that defense companies have been promising us these things for three decades, and that we shouldn't expect any field-operated laser rifles any time soon. Which is kind of like giving a kitten a cute little ball of string and then taking it away, all while pointing and laughing. Sadists.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

'Lost tribe of Israel' arrives in Jewish state

Excerpt:

TEL AVIV - One-hundred-seventy-four people from a group of thousands in India that believes it is one of the 10 "lost tribes" of Israel landed here this week, fulfilling for many a life-long dream of returning to what they consider their homeland. Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem-based organization led by American Michael Freund, hopes to bring to the Jewish state the remaining 7,000 Indian citizens who believe they are the Bnei Menashe, the descendants of Manasseh, one of biblical patriarch Joseph's two sons and a grandson of Jacob. The tribe lives in the two Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, to which they claim to have been exiled from Israel more than 2,700 years ago by the Assyrian empire.

"I truly believe this is a miracle of immense historical and even biblical significance," Freund told WND as the group of 174 arrived here earlier this week. "Just as the prophets foretold so long ago, the lost tribes of Israel are being brought back from the exile," said Freund, who previously served as deputy communications director under former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Another planeload of 57 Bnei Menashe is slated to touch down in Israel tomorrow. The group, which has preserved ancient Jewish customs and rituals, has been trying the past 50 years to return to Israel. Over the last decade, Freund's Shavei Israel, at times working with other organizations, brought about 1,200 Bnei Menashe members to the Jewish state. Many settled in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. About 80 lived in Gaza's slate of Jewish communities, which were evacuated by the Israeli government in 2005....

The new immigrants will spend the next few months studying Hebrew and Judaism at a Shavei Israel absorption center in northern Israel... "As much as we might think that Israel is helping the Bnei Menashe, it is the reverse that is true. It is they who strengthen us - with their faith, with their commitment and with their undying love for Zion," said Freund.

More here

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Muslim Hate Speech OK (Again)

We read:

"The editor of an Arabic daily newspaper published in London said in an interview on Lebanese television that he would dance in Trafalgar Square if Iranian missiles hit Israel.

Talking about Iran's nuclear capability on ANB Lebanese television on June 27, Abd Al-Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, said, "If the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight."

Bari Atwan founded the pan-Arab daily in London in 1989, and today the paper has a circulation of around 50,000. He is also a regular commentator on Sky News and BBC News 24.

A BBC spokesman told The Jerusalem Post that editors make decisions based on the following BBC guidelines.

"We should not automatically assume that academics and journalists from other organizations are impartial and make it clear to our audience when contributors are associated with a particular viewpoint."

"The BBC is required to explore a range of views, so that no significant strand of thought is knowingly unreflected or underrepresented."

"The BBC will sometimes need to report on or interview people whose views may cause serious offense to many in our audiences. We must be convinced, after appropriate referral, that a clear public interest outweighs the possible offense."

Source

The BBC and the rest of the Left are ALWAYS ready to excuse Muslim hate speech on free speech grounds. Just say something adverse about homosexuals (for instance) though and see what happens.

Note this, "The BBC is required to explore a range of views, so that no significant strand of thought is knowingly unreflected or underrepresented" and ask when the BBC has aired a program condemning homosexuality as psychopathological? Yet only a few decades ago homosexuality was listed as a pathology in psychiatry handbooks such as DSM II.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

House #2

Who does House #2 belong to?
House #2 Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every “green” feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet ( 4 bedrooms ) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F. ) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.
Answer here.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

NBC REFUSES TO AIR FREEDOMS WATCH COMMERCIALS





These are powerful and so true!! Check out others at Freedoms Watch!! Of course, since they speak the truth, NBC is refusing to air them.

EXTREME LIBERAL BIAS ON MORNING SHOWS

Brent Bozell exposes the extreme, liberal bias on the Morning shows.

Even though we've known this for what seems like centuries, it is still despicable. I was literally yelling at Matt Lauer on the TV last night when Fox played a clip of him telling Tom Delay that there isn't a double standard when it comes to Republicans and Democrats and scandals. Whatever Matt is smoking, it must be some pretty strong stuff.

Here is an excerpt from Bozell's column:
There is no pretense of political balance. They are actively rooting for a Democratic victory next year, and they have the power to make a real difference. Notwithstanding their overall loss of audience in the last decade, ABC, CBS, and NBC morning shows draw nine times the audience of their cable-news competitors and are geared toward the mostly apolitical mainstream, which makes them an important free-media showcase for presidential hopefuls. A new study shows that if this year’s campaign coverage on the TV morning shows were a primary election, the Democrats would win in a landslide of attention and hyperbole.

Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center assessed all morning-show coverage on the Big Three from January 1 through July 31. In those 517 campaign segments, the networks offered nearly twice as many segments to Democrats as Republicans, a margin of 284 to 152. (Another 66 stories focused on both parties.) When the sample is narrowed down just to interviews with the candidates or their spouses and staffers, the morning shows gave out nearly three times as much free air time to Democrats (4 hours, 35 minutes) than they gave to Republicans (1 hour and 44 minutes).

SENATOR LARRY CRAIG IS AN ALBATROSS THAT NEEDS TO GO

Senator Larry Craig needed to resign, yesterday. I often think that Republicans are too quick to throw their own under the bus but I can't throw Craig under quick enough. As Tom Delay said on Hannity & Colmes last night and as Mike from Mike's America has often said, Republicans kick their trash to the curb while Democrats re-elect theirs. I know that we need to wait until more is known but I think I know enough. The fact that there is more than one report of Craig engaging in this kind of behavior means that where there is smoke there is probably fire. I don't care whether Craig is gay or not, soliciting sex with strangers in a bathroom is completely reprehensible.

Many think that Mark Foley was the reason that Republicans lost in 2006 and I will not have the albatross that is Larry Craig hindering decent Republicans in 2008. We can do much better than Craig and I strongly urge him to resign. For once I agree with McCain, he needs to go.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

ARTHUR MILLER: A PATHETIC LEFTIE, A PHONY HUMANIST, A CHEAP HYPOCRITE AND AN AWFUL FATHER

IHT:
It had been something of an open secret for years, but most people did not learn the story of Daniel Miller until last week, when Vanity Fair published an article called "Arthur Miller's Missing Act."

As described in Suzanna Andrews's 5,000-word article, Arthur Miller, who died in February 2005, and his third wife, the photographer Inge Morath, had a son born with Down syndrome in 1966.

Soon after, they made the painful decision to put the child, Miller's youngest, in an institution for the mentally retarded before Miller essentially cut him out of his life.


... Andrews describes in detail how Miller rarely, if ever, accompanied his wife on weekly visits to see Daniel, almost never mentioned him to shocked friends and didn't mention him in his memoir, "Timebends." ...

... In a scathing post last week on the blog for the neoconservative Commentary magazine, James Kirchick suggests that this story "ought to damage permanently Miller's reputation, if not as a writer, then as a humanitarian."

What makes the revelation of Daniel so upsetting is how it juxtaposes Miller's private decision with his public image, as one of the greatest American playwrights and the man who refused to name names before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and eloquently and loudly opposed the Vietnam War.

... Writers like Miller and Günter Grass, "who set themselves up as moralists and public scolds, are more vulnerable to criticism based on their own behavior," wrote Morris Dickstein, who teaches English at the City University of New York Graduate Center, in an e-mail message this week.
UK TIMES:
Six weeks before his death in 2005 at the age of 89, Miller wrote a will and signed confidential trusts leaving Daniel a share of his estate equal to his other three children – Rebecca, and Jane and Robert, his son and daughter from his first marriage to Mary Slattery.

Rebecca Miller was at a loss to explain her father’s treatment of Daniel. “The only person who can truly answer your questions is my father, and he is dead,” she told Vanity Fair.

The playwright’s behaviour appears at odds with the principled stances he took throughout his life, from his refusal to “name names” of communist sympathisers to his opposition to the Vietnam War and his work for oppressed writers.
RELIAPUNDIT: Miller was a typical leftist; he was a phony and a hypocrite just like Edwards and Gore - espousing one thing while doing another.

Dear Lord: this baby was his son... his own son.

What cowardice - to run away from being a father to his own son.

His son Daniel is probably TWICE the man the libs thought Arthur Miller was, and a THOUSAND times better than Arthur Miller really was.

So tell me, who do you think Miller was talking about when he said this:
What is the most innocent place in any country? Is it not the insane asylum? These people drift through life truly innocent, unable to see into themselves at all.
Yes: Daniel - who IS innocent. And that makes his father what??? Guilty as hell.

IF THIS BE TREASON, MAKE THE MOST OF IT

According to Deborah Haynes of the London Times (hat tip: Vasko Kohlmayer) the Democrats' defeatism is having its desired effect:
US troops have had some success in winning the confidence of members of the community by pushing out into previously unexplored neighbourhoods as part of President Bush’s surge plan.

However, many Iraqis refuse to believe that the American presence will stay for very long.

These people remain fearful of offering up tips on where they know insurgents have placed roadside bombs because they fear being killed once the US troops leave.

“I cannot help the coalition because I worry that the soldiers will leave and the terrorists will come back to kill me,” said Mokdat Ahmed Shahib, a 40-year-old security guard in the village.

Do you understand that? All the noise made by Jean-Francois Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Carl Levin is frightening the honest, hardworking, suffering Iraqis who want to help us and help themselves.

The most important task of counterinsurgency operations is winning the confidence of the people. The Democrats are making it more difficult for our troops to achieve that. The Democrats are making it easier for the enemy to kill our troops.

As Kohlmayer puts it
:
We can only imagine how much further along we could have been in the war on terror had the Democrats joined in the effort instead of sabotaging it. For one thing, we would have long ago won the ‘hearts and minds' of those like Mokdat Ahmed Shahib who would not be afraid to offer up potentially life-saving intelligence, because they are afraid we may cut and run. Likewise, vacillating states would flock to our cause. We had no shortage of allies during the Reagan years when America conveyed an image of power, confidence and victory. Everybody wanted to be our friend then and understandably so.

Not so today, which is no surprise in light of Democrats' unrelenting defeatism. Before the surge had even properly begun, Harry Reid, America's most powerful elected democrat, rushed to the microphones and pronounced it a failure in front of the whole world. Who in their right mind would want to ally themselves with losers?

If we succeed in Iraq, it will be despite the democrats' best efforts. Those who care for this country can only hope that the American people will not forget their treachery and hold them responsible for the steep costs their actions have incurred.
In plain language, the Democrats are providing aid and comfort to the enemy. Their public pronouncements of defeat and failure are providing the enemy with valuable propaganda and psychological warfare ammunition.

In wartime.

That is treason.

But let's not jump to conclusions. Maybe it isn't treason. But let's let a jury decide. I think in all fairness, Pelosi, Reid, Kerry, and Levin should be duly charged with treason and given a fair trial.

Murtha Sued

It seems that at least two Marines are planning on suing John "I Was A Marine" Murtha over his public comments on the Haditha Incident once they are fully exonerated. From the first link:
Well, the Marine Corps investigator has now dropped all charges against 3 of the 8 accused Marines in the case, and only one Marine still stands accused of crimes at the scene. The others are charged with various after-the-fact issues that arose from investigations of Haditha, not the events themselves. Murtha’s aim, of course, in accusing the Marines of murder “in cold blood” was to pin the blame on Bush. But in the process of blaming Bush, he slandered those Marines.

One of those Marines, Col. Jeffrey Chessani, plans to sue Murtha once he’s exonerated.
I guess Murtha didn't follow events in Durham, North Carolina over the past year and a half.

The evidence is that the Marines were doing their job as trained and within the limits of the rules of engagement.
Based on that reasoning, the case against Wuterich is likely to fall apart too. He is the last Marine against whom charges from that night remain. If the charges against him fall, game over. Jack Murtha will have slandered Marines who acted according to their training during the course of ongoing combat.
Although Murtha is not a prosecutor he has certainly engaged in Nifongery. i.e. adverse pre-trial publicity on the part of a government agent, with reckless disregard for the facts.

The Marines may just have a case.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

EGYPT'S ACTOR'S UNION DOESN'T WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH ISRAELIS

They're not pleased that an Egyptian actor did some work in Tunisia with an Israeli one:
The chairman of Egypt's Actors' Union said Thursday that the group planned to investigate one of the country's brightest young movie stars for appearing in an upcoming miniseries with an Israeli actor.

The controversy began when the group discovered that Amr Waked, who starred in the Hollywood film "Syriana," was in Tunisia filming a four part series on Saddam Hussein's life opposite Yigal Naor, an Israeli of Iraqi descent.

"We found out Amr Waked was participating in a movie with an Israeli artist and so when he returns from abroad he will be investigated," union chairman Ashraf Zaki told the Associated Press. "The Actors' Union here is against normalization with Israel."

Media and artistic circles here remain deeply opposed to improving cultural relations with Israel even though Egypt is one of only two Arab nations that has made peace with the Jewish state.

Nearly a dozen articles have appeared in the past week condemning Waked for participating in the series, titled "Between Two Rivers" and backed by the British Broadcasting Corp. and Home Box Office.

"Who will hold Amr Waked accountable?" read a headline Monday in Egypt's opposition daily el-Wafd.
Actually, maybe someone should hold Waked accountable for helping make a propaganda movie like Syrianna instead? But there's another example of how "peace" with Egypt is political only.

By the way, why do I get the feeling that this miniseries on Saddam will be another work of propaganda too?

Update: More on this at Hot Air too.

PRO -WALT AND MEARSHEIMER ACADEMICS ARE SUSPICIOUSLY INCONSISTENT

JPost has a pretty decent article about how AIPAC and the Israeli government intend to counter Walt and Mearsheimer's The Israeli Lobby (subtitle: "how the Jews came from across the ocean, corrupted good Christian Americans, and tricked them into betraying their country"). The basic strategy: do nothing. Israel can't go around countering the claims of every vaguely disgruntled, largely discredited academic who discovers that "hey, these Jews make pretty good scapegoats". It's got all of its resources tied up dealing with the ones who are already on UN committees:
Neither Israel nor the American Israel Public Affairs Committee are putting together a proactive campaign to combat the new Stephen Walt-John Mearsheimer book slamming the Israel lobby for allegedly hijacking US foreign policy. The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy is scheduled to hit the stores on September 5, but is already being sold on the Internet. Government officials in Jerusalem, explaining why the Foreign Ministry has chosen to ignore the book, said Sunday that Israel had no desire to "help the sales of the book," something that would happen, one official said, if Israel aggressively fired back. "We don't want to play into their hands.
There is a very easy test to see whether a pro-The Israel Lobby academic is being genuine in his or her new-found anti-Israel sophistication. For decades, the academic left has railed against Mearsheimer. There were times when, for the critical left, he was more or less the embodiment of everything that was wrong with "academic Orientalism". No part of his theory - from ideas like "national interest" to his description of the anarchy problematic - was spared from withering criticism. He was quite openly indicted as complicit with colonialism, imperialism, genocide, etc. So if you find an academic that spent the last few decades quite convinced that the realist description of the world was (a) wrong and (b) bad - and if suddenly that academic has found something redeeming about Mearsheimer, just as Mearsheimer has become to demonize living, breathing Jews - then yeah, it's probably appropriate to be suspicious about their change of heart. Just remember: it's not anti-Semitism, it's just anti-Zionism. Why their anti-Zionism is so entrenched, seething, and irrational - of course - is a different question.


[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]

STATE DEPARTMENT KILLS CONGRESSIONAL INSTRUCTIONS, FIGURES OUT WAY TO FUND HAMAS

Because honestly, why wouldn't they?
A report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy documents that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided funds to institutions controlled by Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in defiance of guidelines issued by President Bush and Congress. The institute revealed that USAID has failed to screen applicants for U.S. funding to ensure that they were not linked to Hamas and other groups on the State Department terrorist list... In March 2006, USAID eliminated a requirement to periodically reevaluate aid recipients after initial clearance,... USAID's new policy ensured that the State Department would remain "unaware" of Hamas and other insurgency takeovers of Palestinian charities. Under pressure from Congress, USAID has demanded that aid applicants provide details of principal officers and other employees.
Back on our home blog, we posted this story with a video of the Palestinians dancing in the streets and handing out candy on 9/11.

Luckily, the mid-level career civil servants at the State Department are sophisticated enough to understand all the benefits of funding people who openly declare themselves to be mortal enemies of the US and its allies.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

Conservative sites Blocked in NC Airport

The usual Leftist "Hate speech" accusation against critics of Islam:
"This morning, as I sit in Charlotte/Douglas Airport, I discover that the following web sites are banned at the Airport by their SonicWall firewall:

1. Atlas Shrugged - This site is blocked by the SonicWALL Content Filter Service. URL: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/ Reason for restriction: Forbidden Category "Violence/Hate/Racism"

2. Jihad Watch - This site is blocked by the SonicWALL Content Filter Service.....Reason for restriction: Forbidden Category "Violence/Hate/Racism"

3. Dhimmi Watch - This site is blocked by the SonicWALL Content Filter Service...Reason for restriction: Forbidden Category "Violence/Hate/Racism"

In a peculiar turn of events, I can easily traverse the links to Hamas and Jihadist propaganda sites.

Source
(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

THE BIG BOWEL CANCER RETHINK

The current guidance is that those wonderful folates also protect against bowel cancer. So other food chemicals with a similar action to folate should be protective too -- right? Wrong! The study of choline below associated it with with INCREASED bowel polyps.

And choline is mainly found in red meat, eggs, dairy products etc. So should we all become vegetarians?

There are heaps of things that could be said about this but the reaction of the medical researchers and commentators is sure amusing. The authors themselves draw the sort of conclusion that should be drawn in EVERY epidemiological study. They conclude that the effect they found "could represent effects of other components in the foods from which choline was derived". Correlation is not causation, in other words.

The editors of the journal also showed unusual humility: "Clearly, one-carbon metabolism and its role in [cancer development] is more complicated than originally anticipated, and our understanding of the underlying mechanisms is probably incomplete. More research, and caution in developing public health policy and guidance, is warranted"

More "caution in developing public health policy" from epidemiological findings? Long overdue. There should be more of it.

Another VERY interesting comment from them: "Other reasonable hypotheses about one-carbon metabolism and colorectal carcinogenesis, based on our current understanding of the biochemistry and underlying mechanisms, have also not been proven correct. In a recently published placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial among 1021 men and women with a recent history of colorectal adenoma, supplemental folic acid at 1 mg/d for up to 6 years did not reduce the incidence of subsequent colorectal adenomas and might have increased it.

WHOA! That folate that everybody gets compulsorily added to their bread did no good and seems to have done harm?? And do we see a double blind controlled study contradicting epidemiological inferences?? Who would have believed it!

They go on to admit that two animal studies have shown that folate INCREASES cancer. Aren't you glad that your government is dosing you up with the stuff and giving you no say in the matter?

OK. I will not gloat any further. I am reluctant to let the wiseheads off the hook but I don't actually think that the particular study below tells us anything much at all. Its main value has been to squeeze out from the know-alls the long overdue admissions and cautions about folate noted above. It's certainly a pity that such admissions are so infrequent, however.

What they all seem to be overlooking is that the study is about REPORTED food intake. And we know how fraught that can be. The nurses who were surveyed would all be acutely aware that eating lots of meat, dairy and eggs is NAUGHTY, according to the current wisdom. So many would have understated what they ate in that department. So what the study really shows is that REBELLIOUS or especially honest people get more polyps. It probably had nothing to do with their choline intake at all.

So where do we go from there? Who is it who would disregard official dietary advice and eat what they like? Easy: Working class people. Nurses come from all social backgrounds and there would be plenty who would happily wrap themselves around a Big Mac with no guilt at all. And, as we repeatedly find, the workers have more health problems generally for all sorts of reasons, including not only such things as a riskier lifestyle but genetic differences as well. So all we have at the end of this study is another demonstration of that old truth: The workers have poorer health in all sorts of ways.

But the addition of folate to our bread is more and more looking like an iatrogenic disaster to come. I think I should note that I have previously reported that the addition of folate to bread seems to have caused an upsurge in bowel cancer.

Dietary Choline and Betaine and the Risk of Distal Colorectal Adenoma in Women

By Eunyoung Cho et al.

Abstract

Background: Choline and betaine are involved in methyl-group metabolism as methyl-group donors; thus, like folate, another methyl-group donor, they may be associated with a reduced risk of colorectal adenomas. No epidemiologic study has examined the association of intake of these nutrients and colorectal adenoma risk.

Methods: We investigated the relationship between intakes of choline and betaine and risk of colorectal adenoma in US women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study. Dietary intake was measured by food-frequency questionnaires, and individual intakes of choline and betaine were calculated by multiplying the frequency of consumption of each food item by its choline and betaine content and summing the nutrient contributions of all foods. Logistic regression models were used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (as approximations for relative risks) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of colorectal adenoma. All statistical tests were two-sided.

Results: Among 39246 women who were initially free of cancer or polyps and who had at least one endoscopy from 1984 through 2002, 2408 adenoma cases were documented. Increasing choline intake was associated with an elevated risk of colorectal adenoma; the multivariable relative risks (95% CIs) for increasing quintiles of intake, relative to the lowest quintile, were 1.03 (0.90 to 1.18), 1.01 (0.88 to 1.16), 1.23 (1.07 to 1.41), and 1.45 (1.27 to 1.67; Ptrend less than .001). Betaine intake had a nonlinear inverse association with colorectal adenoma; the multivariable relative risks (95% CIs) for increasing quintiles of intake were 0.94 (0.83 to 1.07), 0.85 (0.75 to 0.97), 0.86 (0.75 to 0.98), and 0.90 (95% CI = 0.78 to 1.04; Ptrend = .09). Among individual sources of choline, choline from phosphatidylcholine and from sphingomyelin were each positively related to adenoma risk.

Conclusions: Our findings do not support an inverse association between choline intake and risk of colorectal adenoma. The positive association between choline intake and colorectal adenoma that we observed could represent effects of other components in the foods from which choline was derived and should be investigated further.

JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2007 99(16):1224-1231


(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

STONING AHMADINEJAD: A LEFTIST LIVES HIS DREAM

Religious AhmadinejadWho do you choose for the lead character in your new movie? A megalomanic madman who tortures, murders, denies the Holocaust and wishes to annihilate the nation of Israel. Ahmadinejad, who else? If you truly loathe your country, it's best to go for the big fish.

Filmmaker, Oliver Stone had been snuffling around Ahmadinejad for months, begging and groveling for the privilege of making a movie on him.

Flat Earth Climate

I was visiting The Reference Frame where Lubos was talking about the changes required to become 100% carbon free by 2030 and came across this gem:
All industry and traffic will have to be converted to a new kind of energy that either doesn't exist today or looks economically or socially unacceptable. Agriculture, transportation, and industry represent significant fractions of the greenhouse emissions and the basic nature of all of them will have to be radically changed. That won't be enough because even breathing and grilling parties produce carbon dioxide. These processes will have to be banned, too, much like alcohol fermentation, cement production, and dozens of other processes.

How is this complete destruction of our civilization justified? Well, those people think that this radical step will lead to a
Flat Earth's Climate (thanks, moptop).
Well I added some emphasis. And capitals.

That just about sums it up. Flat Earth Climate.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS THRIVE IN COPENHAGEN

Hizb-ut-Tahrir is an anti-Israel, pro-palestinian group which employs pan-Islamic ideology to promote their own interests. It has been frequently reported that this Caliphate nostalgic organisation is openly active in Copenhagen - in spite of the efforts of some politicians to have them banned, and in spite of the fact that their leader - Fadi Abdullatif - has been convicted of violations of the "Racism Law".

It is ironic that their response to continued efforts to ban the group is that Denmark is approaching a totalitarian state!!! HA!!! I thought that's what they wanted?!?

Of course they want to kill jews, destroy the west, keep their women enslaved. Another issue has been that the group has frequently used facilities owned and operated by Copenhagen Commune for their meetings, more or less on the same basis as other groups - like the West Side Badminton Club, or the Old Guys Sailing Club.

The scariest news is that a pedagog employed at one Community Youth Center- Ry 27 - from 2001 to 2004 claims that about 80% of the club members, and some of the staff were Hizb-ut-Tahrir supporters.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir sympathisers used the youth center's computers to access extremist information and to distribute materiel.

Banning a political group is one thing - providing public funding and facilities to groups like Hizb-ut-Tahrir is nothing short of aiding and abbetting the enemy.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

LARRY AND FIDEL

HOW DO YOU SAY "WIDE STANCE" IN CUBAN?

SARKOZY POLICIES MAY LEAD TO INFLUX OF EXPATS

IHT:
There are an estimated 400,000 French people in Britain, most of them in the capital — leading some commentators to quip that London is now France's sixth biggest city.

Arnaud Vaissié, president of the French Chamber of Commerce in Britain, said some French expats, particularly young executives in finance, were interested in going back to France following Sarkozy's election.

He said many French people here would love to return to Paris — if only the system was opened up to reward talent and energy.

"I do think there is a high level of interest among executives in London about what's happening in France," he said.

He said many French financial institution that have bases in London may now see the economic merits of moving jobs back to France.
RTWT.

Here's more on why the French expats are eager to return:
President Nicolas Sarkozy is Thursday to unveil Phase II of his economic reform program for France, outlining a road map to jolt the economy into higher gear before a congress of business leaders.

Three months after taking over the presidency, Sarkozy is riding high in opinion polls but has faced disappointing figures on the economic front with second quarter growth falling below expectations, at 0.3%.

The data cast doubt on whether Sarkozy's right-wing government — banking on stronger growth to finance a 13.6 billion euro ($19 billion) package of tax breaks adopted last month — can meet its target of 2.25% growth for 2007.

In a speech to the summer congress of the MEDEF employers' federation, Sarkozy is expected to announce a raft of measures to make French companies more competitive and boost consumer spending.

Presidential spokesman David Martinon said his address would "mark the second phase of economic reforms."

"This new stage will enable us to move ahead with the process of reform and help strengthen the competitiveness of the French economy," he said.
The resurgence of France - economically is crucial. He probably will succeed if he stays he course despite the social unrest the Left will most assuredly use to try to intimidate him - as they did Chirac. (Sarko is tougher, and I doubt he will fold as Chirac did.)

But Sarkozy still has yet to take up the cultural issues, and the issue of assimilation. For Europe to remain France to remain French and Europe to remain European she must be both economically and culturally stable. And that means dealing forcefully with creeping sharia.

STAY TUNED...

Peak Oil?


























Oooops. That title is for the peak oil folks. It looks like all that has peaked is the "easy to get" oil.

Evidently there is a new abundance with current technology - and prices.

You can get the details at: Peak Oil?

Reliapundit adds: Great link! I added the pretty pictures to help dispel the notion that opil rigs are bad. And I want to remind everyone that not a single oil rig caused any environmental damage as a result of Katrina: THEY ARE CLEAN AND SAFE.

And pretty.

HOLLYWOOD'S MOST RECENT FORAYS INTO POSTMODERNIST LEFTISM AND ITS CONCOMITANT ANTI-AMERICANISM


The first instance is a bit of a repeat - a new violent spy movie has come out and Hollywood and their leftist comrades at the NYTIMES/AP are touting it as the new anti-Bond. I guess they mean "new" because THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM is a month older. Here's how they pitch the new flick:
Owen Is the Anti - Bond in `Shoot `Em Up'

... [Clive] Owen, 42, plays Mr. Smith, an angry anti-hero who shoots every type of weapon in every way imaginable as he battles to protect a newborn baby from the bad guy, creepily and convincingly played by Paul Giamatti.

Owen's character is aided by a lactating prostitute (Monica Bellucci), with whom he shares a tenderly damaged love affair.


He has all the coolness of 007 -- a role Owen was once reportedly considered for -- but is as gritty and street-tough as an anti-Bond can get.
Damon and his director said the same crap and worse about Bond when they were promoting the latest Bourne movie.

WHAT'S WITH ALL THE BOND-BASHING?!

WHAT'S WRONG WITH BOND? HE'S A GOOD GUY! HE HAS ALWAYS DEFENDED US AND THE FREE WORLD!

(BTW: I don't care how leftist the movie is: IT HAS BELLUCCI IN IT (MORE OF HER HERE!), AND IS THEREFORE A MUST SEE.)

AHMADINEJAD Gives Oliver Stone Thumbs Up to Film Him!!

... Film director Oliver Stone, who has compared President Bush to Ahmadinejad, was not taking "no" for an answer this time. Director Stone reached out again to genocide-promoter Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week to film his life story. ...

Fars News just reported that Iranian President Ahmadinejad has given Oliver Stone approval to film his biography:
"Stone’s publicist referred to the bad image that the U.S. media has given to Islam and Islamic countries and said that the documentary could assist in countering such negative propaganda.”
Would Hollywood've ever done a favorable bio-pic of Hitler in 1940!?!? NO WAY. At that time - Hollywood's Golden Age, Hollywood was run by 1st generation immigrants WHO LOVED AMERICA, and didn't take her for granted - or hate her.

This Stone movie is truly one of the all-time lows for the chic degenerati of H-wood. And that's saying a lot!