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

Saturday, December 08, 2007

MUSHARRAF WINNING IN SWAT

BBC:
Pakistan's army has said it has cleared most of the restive north-western Swat valley of pro-Taleban militants.

Troops were pursuing several hundred hardcore supporters of cleric Maulana Fazlullah in the region's mountains, the army's head of operations said.

... "The militants have retreated to two places in the mountains in the northwest of the valley and we will chase them there."

Only five troops and six civilians have been killed, and 20 civilians wounded, he said.


He said 290 militants had been killed and 143 arrested in recent weeks.
  • THIS IS PROBABLY TRUE.

  • AFTER ALL; IF THINGS WERE GOING BADLY THEN WE'D BE HEARING A LOT MORE ABOUT IT THAN WE HAVE BEEN HEARING.

OVERHEARD AT BLOGWORLD:

BEHEAD THOSE WHO WOULD INSULT BLOGGERS!

WHAT IF TODAY'S HOLLYWOOD LEFTISTS REMADE "NOTORIOUS"?


NOTORIOUS is a great film by Hitchcock. A spy thriller. Cary Grant plays a spy who recruits Ingrid Bergman to work for him and spy on a NAZI in South America - Claude Rains.

Turns out Claude was running some kind of weapons/chemical scheme for the NAZIS.


HERE'S PART NINE-OF12 - WHERE THE INTREPID SPIES DISCOVER WHAT THE ENEMY IS UP TO:



Well, if Hollywood made a remake this movie today, they wouldn't send in any spies. They just send in El Baradei and just have him ask Claude Rains to tell them what he's up to.

Like Blix did here (NSFW - or kiddies: language):



HERE'S ANOTHER POSSIBLE REMAKE ANGLE:


Hollywood could remake it with Sean Penn as Cary Grant and Barbra Streisand as Ingrid Bergman and Ron Silver as the bad-guy Claude Rains, only in this version Rains/Silver is an American working for Halliburton on an huge Iraq reconstruction project which Sean and Barbra expose as bad for global warming.

GOOD THING TEDDY DOESN'T LIVE IN THE UK: "Giant offshore wind farms to supply half of UK power"

LONDON TIMES:
Britain is to launch a huge expansion of offshore wind-power with plans for thousands of turbines in the North Sea, Irish Sea and around the coast of Scotland.

John Hutton, the energy secretary, will this week announce plans to build enough turbines to generate nearly half Britain’s current electricity consumption. He will open the whole of Britain’s continental shelf to development, apart from areas vital for shipping and fishing.

The scheme could see turbines so large that they would reach 850ft into the sky, nearly 100ft taller than Canary Wharf. Each would be capable of powering up to 8,000 homes.

Britain’s current range of coal, gas, nuclear and other power stations are capable of generating 75 gigawatts (GW) of electricity, but less than 0.5GW comes from wind. Planning consents have been granted for a further 3GW and the government had already made clear it wanted this raised to 8GW.

Hutton will announce at an energy conference in Berlin tomorrow that he wants to see this target raised to 33GW-worth of wind turbines installed in the seas around Britain by 2020. If energy consumption remains stable this would mean wind power could supply the electricity needs of every home in Britain.

  • BETWEEN WIND, SOLAR, COAL, NUCLEAR (AND FUSION, ONE DAY) WE CAN TELL THE MIDDLE EAST OIL SUPPLIERS TO GO TO HELL.

A WHOLE NEW MEANING TO THE TERM "JUNK FOOD": MAN SUING OVER CONDOM IN WHOPPER

SKY NEWS:
A 24-year-old American man is suing a Burger King restaurant - claiming he found a condom in his Whopper.

Van Miguel Hartless alleges he bit into the burger and found the unwrapped contraceptive under a piece of lettuce.

"My third bite into the burger, it was just a foreign taste," he said. "It was a very sour, bitter sort of taste. It almost had a numbing sensation.

"As I went to bite down a little harder, I felt a rubber grind in between my teeth. I saw it half in my mouth, half hanging out.

..."It was an immediate sick-to-my-stomach type of thing."

... He is seeking unspecified damages from the fast food restaurant in Rutland, Vermont.
YUCH. WAS IT USED?!?!? EYUCH.

THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS SCOOPS INSTAPUNDIT, AGAIN - THIS TIME ON H2H BIRD FLU, AND LURLEEN





ON MANY SUBJECTS, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS IS JUST SIMPLY BETTER THAN INSTAPUNDIT. (PLUS WE POST MORE PRETTY PICTURES AND YOUTUBES!)

SPREAD THE WORD.

BLOGROLL US.

THERE'S A PRO-WAR SURGE

WEEKLY STANDARD:
Another Surge Convert

In today's Washington Post, Pete Hegseth, executive director of Vets for Freedom, has coauthored an op-ed with...wait for it...Major General John Batiste.

Batiste, you will remember, is the formerly "antiwar" general who spoke out against Donald Rumsfeld, and who, until recently, was a Board Member of VoteVets.org (the antiwar MoveOn.org vets front group).

Today he joins Hegseth to write:
First, the United States must be successful in the fight against worldwide Islamic extremism. We have seen this ruthless enemy firsthand, and its global ambitions are undeniable. This struggle, the Long War, will probably take decades to prosecute. Failure is not an option.

Second, whether or not we like it, Iraq is central to that fight. We cannot walk away from our strategic interests in the region. Iraq cannot become a staging ground for Islamic extremism or be dominated by other powers in the region, such as Iran and Syria. A premature or precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, without the requisite stability and security, is likely to cause the violence there -- which has decreased substantially but is still present -- to cascade into an even larger humanitarian crisis.

Third, the counterinsurgency campaign led by Gen. David Petraeus is the correct approach in Iraq. It is showing promise of success and, if continued, will provide the Iraqi government the opportunities it desperately needs to stabilize its country.
There are two stories here: 1) A formerly anti-war general flips on supporting the war, and now believes Petraeus has the right strategy; and 2) Batiste has left VoteVets.org, and the antiwar movement, and joined up with the pro-troop, pro-surge, pro-victory Vets for Freedom.

The antiwar movement has lost one of its most powerful voices today, and it will be interesting to see whether they turn on one of their own, or come around to the view, supported by a preponderance of evidence, that the surge is working.

  • WE'RE WINNING - IN IRAQ, AND IN THE USA.

  • THE LEFT KNOWS THIS - AND HENCE THEIR TWO MOST RECENT LEAKS: THE NIE IRAN LEAK, AND THE CIA INTERROGATION TAPES' ERASURE LEAK.

  • THEY'RE DESPERATE TO HURT OUR COUNTER-MEASURES AND MILITARY EFFORTS.

WE WILL NOT BE DETERRED. WE WILL DEFEAT THE JIHADISTS AND THE LEFTISTS.

HUCKABEE IS A NANNYSTATE LIBERAL - a pro-life Hillary

ACE HAS THE DETAILS AND LINKS.

HE'S JUST AN ANTI-ABORTION HILARY.

Both in One Trench: guaranteed to make liberals cry

Ray Robison's Both in One Trench looks like this season's nascent bestseller.

In 2003 the United States invaded Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Subsequently, the U.S. government collected millions of the Iraqi regimes documents and media items. These Arabic documents have been translated and for the first time reveal the amazing secret support Saddam provided to Islamic terrorism...

...Transcripts from meetings in Baghdad showed the Taliban asked for help and Saddam's regime agreed to assist them even as the Taliban provided safe haven and support to Usama bin Laden and al Qaeda while it plotted the attacks of September 11th, 2001.

These documents reveal that the Saddam regime had a long history of cooperation with Islamic terrorists and was a legitimate target in the Global War on Terror.

The story revealed in these pages shows that the United States was correct in accessing that Saddam Hussein was a threat because of his support to terrorism. The United States was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power and stay to fight al Qaeda in Iraq.

Go order it and read snippets over the phone to your friendly, neighborhood liberal. I guarantee it will make any "progressive" cry. The truth hurts.

THE LEFT IS ITCHING TO "ABU GHRAIB"THE CIA INTERROGATION TAPES - which is why they were erased

Abu Ghraib - you remember that scandal, dontchya!?

A few idiotic and sadistic soldiers broke all the rules and were stupid enough to use their personal cameras to document it, and then shared the jpegs; they got caught - BY THE MILITARY - and punished... AND the Left used the scandal to hurt Bush and the war effort and thereby help the enemy.

Well, the Left is at it again, trying to turn the tough interrogation of two of the biggest, baddest and worst jihadists ever in our custody into a Bush Hate Fest which can only aid the enemy.

Dems on the committees overseeing the CIA at the time knew all about these tapes and apparently did nothing at the time.

A few wise heads at the CIA saw what the Left - and the Old Media they dominate - did with the Abu Ghraib photos and made a wide decision: destroy the tapes and the images therein before they are INEVITABLY leaked and used by the enemy for propaganda.

NOT CONNECTED!? THINK AGAIN: THE TAPES WERE APPARENTLY ERASED IN 2005 - THIS IS RIGHT AFTER THE ABU GHRAIB SCANDAL BROKE.

Now - just as we are winning and defeating al Qaeda in Iraq, coincidently - the fact that these tapes ever existed is leaked (actually threatened to be leaked, so DCIA Hayden made the proper move to make them public first).

Just after the NIE (which SUPPOSEDLY exonerates Iran's nuke program) is leaked for the same reason.

GEE: ya think there's a faction within the CIA which has it out for Bush and the hawks!?

YES. The Plame/Wilson/Rendition-leaking/NSA Intercept Leaking, SWIFT leaking scum of the Left - folks like Richard Kerry (John's Father) and Aldrich Ames.

They should be found, indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced - FOR TREASON.

If Bush wasn't a wimp we might. But Dubya stands for wimp.

And Mukasey - essentially a caretaker USAG - probably won't do anything except what he's told to do by the Leftist Democrat Party which controls Congress demands.

Bush is not a lame duck. He's a dead duck.

I wish he'd resign and let Cheney call the shots.

ANTI-SEMITIC FALLOUT IN LABOUR'S SCANDAL IN BRITAIN

Problem is, either the Jewish Telegraphic Agency or the UK Jewish community's own leaders are downplaying this case of two Jewish donors to the UK Labour party, thanks to the former's sometimes overly mainstream approach, when they report that:
(JTA) – A campaign financing scandal in which two of the principal players are Jewish is dealing a heavy blow to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s already weakened administration.

The involvement of two Jews at the center of the very public scandal is making many British Jews uncomfortable, but Jewish community leaders say it has not caused any alarming anti-Jewish media coverage or sign of anti-Semitic fallout.
Oh, really? Then what's this that Melanie Phillips says:
When the story first broke about the Labour donor scandal and the central player was named as David Abrahams, a thought bubble formed above my head. It said: ‘Uh oh…’

When the BBC then named Jon Mendelsohn, a former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel, as a major actor in the drama, the thought bubble swelled into a lurid neon message that started flashing: ‘Oh no, here we go again’.

And there we did indeed go, and with a vengeance. The media’s finest put two and two together and made minus five. One Jew following in Lord Levy’s footsteps as a Labour party moneyman might have been an accident. Two Jews was a conspiracy.[...]

The ancient libel of the world Jewish conspiracy has resurfaced in Britain behind the fig-leaf of antagonism to Israel. Now even that fig-leaf has been ripped away.

We face naked, vicious, virulent prejudice. The post-war idyll for British Jews is well and truly over— and with it the fools’ paradise in which we have been living.
I'm disappointed in the JTA for letting the British MSM get away with their sick little fantasies, and certainly with the Jewish leadership in the UK for being just as weak in the knees.

SILENCING THE VOICES

Being sidelined has its benefits. I've had a lot of time to think.

What follows is another of my long reads and delineates more of the trend of whining Muslims as they continue to attempt even more erosion of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. At present, the information in this posting may not be directly affecting you. In my view, however, the curbing of speech and press WILL directly touch you.

Mark Steyn, author of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, and a Canadian magazine have caught the attention of the Canadian Islamic Congress, Canada's largest non-profit Islamic organization, which is now seeking to silence Maclean's Magazine for publishing an excerpt from Steyn's book....

Read the rest at Always On Watch.

WHITE GUILT AND HATE-CRIMES



If you GOOGLE image-search the words "jena six victim" all you get are images of black protesters. You have to add the word WHITE to get a jpeg of the only victim in the crime.




Remember the Duke Lacrosse team? They were falsely accused of rape by a black woman - a false accusation gleefully and gullibly picked up by every left-wing counter-culturist in the country.




Now there's this news item - and these three news items should remind us all that hate crimes are not the exclusive territory of gay-bashers and the KKK. White people are victims of idiotic hatred of groups too (but this goes under-reported by the left-wing dominated Old Media. FOX/AP:
A white woman beaten by a group of black students on a bus has prompted a hate-crime investigation, attempts by transit officials to reassure riders of the safety of the system, and radio talk-show chatter over comparisons with the Jena Six case.

The uproar prompted two leading black politicians to issue statements decrying the attack.


Sarah Kreager, 26, suffered broken facial bones and other injuries after she was punched, kicked and dragged off the bus Tuesday afternoon. Kreager's companion, Troy Ellis, was also attacked, but not beaten as severely.

Kreager has an unlisted phone number and attempts to reach her Friday were unsuccessful.


MTA police said evidence has not been found to support claims by the students' parents that the children were provoked.


"We are at this point investigating it as a hate crime," MTA spokeswoman Jawauna Greene said.
Racism cuts both ways. And favoritism toward one race usually leads to a backlash - that's why affirmative action for race groups and LOOK-the-other-way treatment for Hispanic illegal aliens - breeds contempt for the rule of law and breeds more racism. That's one reason why these practices should be ended.

Here's a video - I first saw at SONDRAK - by a pro-choice, atheistic, plain-talking hawk - think of him as a talk-radio version of Glenn and Hitch and Savage. I disagree with his position on abortion and religion but on race he's 1000% correct.


AND LET'S NOT FORGET THIS "B.P.C.E." COM
EDY GEM - ("BEFORE PC-ERA").

Bill Keller's master plan to de-select the New York Times

Clay Waters, writing at Times Watch, highlights noteworthy aspects of a speech by Bill Keller. Keller is the Executive Editor of the New York Times, the second-leading source of information for anti-U.S. propagandists (al-Jazeera remains number one by a narrow margin).

Last week, Keller delivered the "Hugo Chavez Young Memorial Lecture", sponsored by London's ultra-liberal Guardian newspaper, and "said some things to his journalistic friends he might not have felt comfortable telling a more general audience."

...At least since the election of 2000, with its attendant questions of legitimacy, some of the wide, reasonable middle of the American electorate has gravitated to angry and intolerant fringes, right and left. There are many reasons for this -- including the proliferation of partisan blogs, hate-mongering radio broadcasts and intemperate television shout shows -- but a president plays a considerable role in setting the tone of public discourse... dividing the electorate into mistrustful camps and pandering to their fears was an explicit strategy of the president's political wizard, Karl Rove.

Interesting. I've never heard these memes before. You say the 2000 election was stolen by Bush?

That the president divided the country into mistrustful camps (say, by soliciting MorOn.org to portray him as Hitler)?

And you say that Rove was the diabolical force behind it all? Fascinating. I've never heard such things before.

...After our decision to report on the government's warrantless wiretapping program, some members of the administration's amen chorus proposed that the Times be charged with treason under the Espionage Act. A right-wing radio pundit suggested that I be put to death... And another defender of the national interest posted maps to my apartment -- and my publishers' -- on the internet, for the benefit of any lunatics who wanted to drop by and set us straight. Those of you who are acquainted with New York apartment life can imagine how that went over with my co-op board.

Keller fails to relate that his paper (in June 2006) published the locations of the weekend homes of Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

...And I would argue that in this clattering, interconnected, dangerous world, journalism that cuts through the noise has never been needed more. We have a war going very badly in Iraq, and another one in Afghanistan where our declaration of victory looks very premature...

Waters' apt retort: If Keller still thinks the Iraq war is "going very badly" even after the troop surge, perhaps he should take a moment to read the front page of his own paper. Well, no one else seems to be reading it these days, so who can blame him?

...we are agnostic as to where a story may lead; we do not go into a story with an agenda or a pre-conceived notion. We do not manipulate or hide facts to advance an agenda...

Here's proof of Keller's "agnostic" approach: remember Al Qaqaa? This was the weapons cache that American forces reportedly failed to secure after the fall of Saddam's government. In the week leading up to the 2004 Presidential Election, Keller's newspaper treated this story as though a large asteroid were about to hit the Earth (which, by the way, would have been Bush's fault).

The New York Times ran a week's worth of front-page stories on Al-Qaqaa; it featured 16 total articles and columns and seven anti-administration letters to the editor over an eight day span.

Jonah Goldberg relates:

Oh, and they left something else out: The weapons might have been removed before the invasion. Over the course of the week, the Times was forced to concede, often grudgingly and obliquely, that the weapons may not have been there for U.S. forces to secure in the first place...

So, anyway, I'd forgotten about all this. Bush won the election despite the al-Qaqaa drumbeat from Kerry and his surrogates in and out of the press.

But Byron York, my NR colleague, didn't forget. He wondered, whatever happened to The Biggest Story on Earth? The answer, it turns out, is nothing. The Times has not run a single story about the al-Qaqaa story since November 1 [2004]...

Agenda? What agenda?

We strive to preserve our independence from political and economic interests, including our own advertisers. We do not work in the service of a party, or an industry, or even a country.

The Times doesn't work in the service of the United States? You won't get an argument from me on that assertion.

When there are competing views of a situation, we aim to reflect them as clearly and fairly as we can."

Rimshot? Can we get a stinkin' rimshot now?

Keller, I'm glad you haven't been charged with violating the Espionage Act yet, though heaven knows you deserve it. Instead, I'm patiently awaiting the day that you're fired for your wonderful stewardship of the Times. How's that Internet strategy working out for you, genius? Oh, and I hear that the Huntington (West Virginia) Herald-Dispatch may be looking for an editor.

Cross-posted at Doug Ross @ Journal

Free Speech Victory for Religious Broadcasters

The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 bites the dust:



"Religious broadcasters were celebrating Friday over the removal of a hate-crimes provision from the National Defense Authorization Act. The American Civil Liberties Union supported the provision, saying that it protected free-speech rights while punishing only the hateful conduct.

The bill punished the conduct of targeting someone for violence because of race, color, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. It allowed bigoted speech or association with hate groups as evidence of a crime, but only if it was directly related to the crime.

But religious broadcasters were not assuaged. "We know the bill's sponsors did not believe it had any First Amendment implications," National Religious Broadcasters senior vice president and general counsel Craig Parshall said, "but we felt it did. It was a troublesome scenario," he added, calling its removal "a big victory." ...

Religious broadcasters are concerned that such a bill might suppress speech from the pulpit, like preaching on morals and values that might not square with some powerful politicians, say opposing homosexuality or branding Islam a false religion.

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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Leftist projection about political bias

Projection is so rife among Leftists that seeing what they say about conservatives is a handy guide to what is true about them. And nowhere is that more evident than in the various discussions about IQ. Quite plainly, what Leftists say about the subject is guided by their "all men are equal" ideology rather than by the facts. Their stance has everything to do with ideological bias and has only an incidental concern with the facts.

So what do they do when non-Leftists confront them with the facts? They accuse their opponents of ideological bias! -- as we saw in Metcalf's recent attack on Saletan. Saletan himself could not readily be accused of much but someone he quoted (Rushton) has some association with people who believe that racial differences are widespread (which makes them "racists" in Leftist parlance) so that was enough to throw all Saletan's pesky facts onto the trashheap. Logicians call such reasoning an ad hominem fallacy. A popular description of it is "playing the man and not the ball".

So the Leftist argument is that pro-racist bias completely discredits any facts you put forward but anti-racist bias makes whatever you say virtuous. Logically, however, if ideological convictions in a writer make anything he says of no worth then it is writers like Metcalf and Flynn who should be dismissed from consideration.

The underlying argument of course is that Leftists are immune from blame because of their "good" intentions but it would be naive indeed to accept their own claims of that sort about themselves. Judging by their results across history worldwide their intentions are in fact destructive. "By their fruits shall ye know them". What Leftists pine for is revolution, and, as Friedrich Engels said: "Revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon"

Be that as it may, however, the logic remains that judgements based on the facts are going to be much more reliable than judgments based on the apparent good or bad character of the arguer. The world would be a con-man's paradise if all that mattered was the apparent good character of someone! And following Leftist logic, bad character would equally be a foolish guide. Hitler liked dogs so liking dogs would be disgraceful! Maybe even dogs would be condemned!

I notice that Saletan does not seem to have been up to making the ancient points I have put up immediately above. His response to Metcalf's attack on Rushton was to apologize for not mentioning Rushton's associations! What he should have said to Metcalf is: "I don't see any problem in referring to someone with opposite biases to yours. The truth is probably best ascertained by hearing from both sides".

At least Saletan did not back down completely. He merely apologized for not including mention of Rushton's associations rather than condemning Rushton's work outright. I myself know very little about Rushton beyond what I read of his work in the academic journals. And to get that work published it has to pass peer review -- i.e. Rushton's work has to be passed as properly reasoned and accurately analysed by experts in the field. Rushton could of course still be making things up but most of the data he uses is publicly available -- so it is not amenable to that. And I have heard no claim that any of his findings are unreplicable. Rushton's work is in fact high-quality orthodox science and Saletan was right to refer to it.

For all I know Rushton f*cks bicycles in his bedroom every night. That has nothing to do with the quality of his published academic journal articles. His articles must be judged in their own right. John Nash (of "Nash equilibrium" fame) was as mad as a hatter but he still got a Nobel for the brilliance of his economic reasoning.


(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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

GERMANY PROCEEDS TO BAN SCIENTOLOGY

CNN/AP:
Germany's top security officials said Friday they consider the goals of the Church of Scientology to be in conflict with the principles of the nation's constitution and will seek to ban the organization.

The German government considers Scientology a commercial enterprise.

The interior ministers of the nation's 16 states plan to give the nation's domestic intelligence agency the task of preparing the necessary information to ban the organization, which has been under observation for a decade on allegations that it "threatens the peaceful democratic order" of the country.

... The ministers, as well as federal Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, "consider Scientology to be an organization that is not compatible with the constitution," said Berlin Interior Minister Ehrhart Koerting, who presided over the officials' two-day conference.
We posted on this developing story FOUR DAYS AGO. Here's what we concluded:
* WHAT THIS REALLY SAYS IS THAT IT'S PC IN GERMANY TO ATTACK SCIENTOLOGY, BUT NOT PC TO ATTACK ISLAM.


* COULD IT BE THAT THEY FEAR ISLAM MORE THAN THEY FEAR SCIENTOLOGY?


* I THINK SO. AFTER ALL, SCIENTOLOGISTS HAVEN'T COMMITTED 10,000 ACTS OF TERROR SINCE 9/11 - ISLAMICISTS HAVE.

AS LONG AS GERMANY AND THE RULING ELITE OF THE EU FEAR SCIENTOLOGY MORE THAN ISLAM, THEY ARE IN BIG TROUBLE.

BOTTOM-LINE: I CAN'T IMAGINE EVER SEEING THIS PLACARD:

BEHEAD THOSE WHO WOULD INSULT SCIENTOLOGY!
Because I can't imagine that sign, I think Germany's actions regarding Scientology are STUPID and misplaced.

Germany - if not all of Europe - should be taking steps to reign in radical Islam or ban Islam altogether. At the very least they should be monitoring their madrassas and mosques. And then - when they find radicals advocating sharia - they should ban, deport, expel and exile from Europe. Sharia is sedition and should not be tolerated.

  • SHARIA IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ANY CONSTITUTION IN EUROPE.

  • SHARIA AND NT SCIENTOLOGY IS THE REAL THREAT.

Friday, December 07, 2007

THE BAD NEWS KEEPS POURING IN ABOUT THE HUCKSTER

Will the Huckster be able to pass the "smell test"? The bad news just keeps rolling in about him as he seems to be gaining some traction.
--Is the Huckster the Republican's Jimmy Carter? I actually thought this exact thing when a caller was talking about him to Rush the other day.

--Mom: 'Carol Sue Would Be Alive Today' If Not for Huckabee

--The Huckster This excerpt from one of the articles was particularly disturbing to me:
Huckabee is very convincing at expressing regret. That's why he is doing so well in the polls: Because he is so good at sounding good, no matter whether what he says holds water or not.
[but]
What he says is an outright lie. Here is the big whopper: "Nobody, not me, not Jim Guy Tucker, not Bill Clinton, not that parole board, could ever imagine what might have transpired.. " This is, to put it kindly, a crock of manure. The whole point of the Murray Waas story out today is that Huckabee was warned repeatedly and convincingly EXACTLY what was likely to transpire if DuMond were to be released, and he ignored all those warnings. Meanwhile, the evidence presented is absolutely overwhelming that he strongly intervened with the parole board to secure DuMond's release -- and he seems to have lied about that too. Just like he lied about whether or not he was "ordered" by his state's courts to impose a particular tax hike, and just like several other now-documented misrepresentations he has made about the circumstances of his tax hikes.
(To be fair, I think that at the state and local level there can indeed be reasonable times, although not many of them, to raise certain taxes for particular purposes. That said, Huck's record is in every way that of a fairly profligate taxer and spender.)

But back to DuMond: We can believe Huckabee's denials, or we can believe the overwhelmingly documented evidence. There was a time when Republicans were empiricists, meaning that we actually pay attention to evidence, to facts. The evidence here is clear. Huckabee has no good answer for it, no matter how sincerely he regrets the ultimate, deadly result of his horrendous decision -- a decision whose horrendous results were eminently predictable.
This man simply cannot be our nominee. As Reliapundit so eloquently said, "He is McCain-Lite."

WHICH RELIGION HAS GOOGLE NEVER ACKNOWLEDGED WITH A HOLIDAY LOGO?

  • GOOGLE SOMETIMES DOES A SPECIAL LOGO FOR A HOLIDAY.


  • NOT ONCE HAS A JEWISH HOLIDAY BEEN SO "HONORED".

JUST SAYING.

OH AND.... HAPPY HANUKKAH.

FROM CHINA: EVIDENCE THAT BIRD FLU IS BECOMING H2H?

BBC: 'Human-to-human' bird flu fears
The father of a Chinese man who died of bird flu has also been infected with the virus, raising fear of human-to-human transmission. [H2H.]

The World Health Organization said it could not rule out the possibility that the H5N1 virus had spread from the son to the father.

For the most part, humans have caught the virus from sick birds.

Scientists fear if the virus gains the ability to pass easily between humans, tens of millions of people could die.
  • IT'S ONLY A MATTER OF WHEN. LOW ESTIMATES ARE 150 MILLION.

AS WE RELATED YESTERDAY, BIRD FLU IS NOW PRESENT IN 60 COUNTRIES AROUND THE GLOBE, AND HAS LED TO MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF BIRDS BEING KILLED AND CULLED ALL OVER THE WORLD.

*******UPDATE: 24HRS LATER AND GLENN REYNOLDS FINDS THE STORY. WE BEAT HIM AGAIN.

BALI STAKED OUT BY HEDGE FUNDS AND CARBON-TRADERS

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS - JUST FOLLOW THE BENJAMINS:

REUTERS:
NUSA DUA, Indonesia – Traders are already betting on a new global climate deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, as talks in Bali on Friday inched towards a two-year negotiating agenda for an expanded global climate pact.

Financiers are buying rights to emit planet-warming greenhouses gases after present Kyoto commitments expire in 2012, hoping that countries will agree new, tougher emissions limits – and drive demand for such permits.

“It's a great bet,” said one trader attending the talks on the tropical Indonesian island. The new, more speculative offsets came at a substantial discount, the trader, who declined to be named, added.

The Kyoto Protocol allows 36 rich countries to meet limits from 2008-12 on their production of greenhouse gases by buying emissions rights from developing nations.

About 190 countries attending the Dec. 3-14 meeting in Bali are edging towards launching negotiations on a successor deal to Kyoto, which is deemed too weak to win the battle against climate change.

Delegates were expected to draft on Saturday the first details of a negotiating agenda.

“You're seeing the hedge funds come in and say this is a great gamble,” said Odin Knudsen, managing director of environmental products at JPMorgan Chase and former head of the World Bank's carbon finance unit, which pioneered carbon trading under Kyoto.

  • AGW CAUSED BY CO2 IS A HOAX PERPETUATED BY MISGUIDED LEFTISTS AND UNSCRUPULOUS HEDGE-FUND MANAGERS AND CARBON TRADERS.

DON'T FALL FOR IT.

DEMOCRAT HEALTHCARE PLAN: MEDICARE/MEDICAID FOR EVERYONE!

YUP: THE DEMOCRAT HEALTHCARE PLAN JUST TO GIVE MEDICARE/MEDICAID TO EVERYONE!

Essentially, that's all they really want to do. A step at a time.

Well, if MEDICARE and MEDICAID are so damn good, then why don't the Senators and Representative of Congress all switch to it first!?

If they do that FIRST, then I'll think about it.

Until then: IT'S ALL A LOT OF BS!

No different then their AGW/CO2 BS - which they also talk about a lot, while they jet all over the world and keep up two, three or four BIG HOUSES and several CARS.

Lefties are nothing more than hypocrites - they want to force us do things they'd never do themselves.

DEFENDING MARK STEYN (AND OURSELVES) FROM TYRANNY

I hope that Stanley Kurtz and Mark Steyn will forgive me for reproducing here their comments at The Corner, but Mark Steyn is one of my favorite authors and pundits and this really got under my craw.

Steyn's commentary is sharp but also funny, and his intuitive grasp of the problems we face--and how to articulate them perfectly--is rare indeed. So when Steyn (and the rest of us who wish to speak freely in a country where we are guaranteed that right) are under attack from Islamists for daring to exercise his free speech in his superb bestseller America Alone, we need to step up and insist that his rights (and ours) are vigorously defended. Especially in a society where Stalinist "PC-ism" is quickly becoming a pandemic.

I will let Kurtz explain the particular circumstances at play, rather than to try and recreate in my own words (emphases are mine, however):

Late yesterday I stumbled across an article about a "human rights complaint" filed by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) against Maclean’s, Canada’s most widely-read news magazine, for running a "flagrantly Islamophobic" excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone. At least two Canadian Human Rights Commissions have agreed to hear these complaints. Only then did I find Steyn’s too-easily-missed late-night post from Wednesday on the controversy.

This is a big deal. The blogosphere has so far largely missed it, but this attack on Mark Steyn is very much our business. There may be an impulse to dismiss this assault on Steyn, on the assumption that it will fail, that Steyn is a big boy and can take care of himself, and that in any case this is crazy Canada, where political correctness rules, rather than the land of the free. That would be a mistake. The Canadian Islamic Congress’s war on Mark Steyn and Maclean’s is an attack on all of us. I’ll say more in a moment about how a Canadian case can reach into America, but let’s first take a look at the goings on up north.

The complaints against Maclean’s for publishing an excerpt from America Alone have been filed by several Canadian law students and by Faisal Joseph, a former crown attorney. Maclean’s published a total of 27 letters over two issues in response to Steyn’s piece–more responses than any Maclean’s cover story received over the past year. Yet when the law student’s demanded a longer response, Maclean’s was willing to consider it. The students then insisted that Maclean’s run a five-page article, written by an author of their choice, with no editing by the magazine. They also demanded that the reply to Steyn be a cover story, with art controlled by them, rather than the magazine. At this point, Editor-in-Chief Kenneth Whyte showed them the door, saying he would rather let Maclean’s go bankrupt than permit someone outside of operations dictate the magazine’s content. have been filed by several Canadian

The tiff over the excerpt from America Alone is only the tip of the iceberg. The Canadian Islamic Congress has actually accused several Canadian news outlets of Islamophobia. CIC issued a report entitled "Maclean’s Magazine: A Case Study of Media-Propogated Islamophobia," in which at least 18 articles were said to show anti-Muslim bias. Canada’s National Post has been similarly attacked. Here, journalist Andrew Coyne explains how he was accused of endangering Muslims merely for having penned the phrase: "...the massive backlash against innocent Muslims that failed to materialize..."

Although the more liberal Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) has criticized CIC and defended Maclean’s, it’s worth noting that CIC has managed to successfully intimidate MCC in the past. Coyne notes that a spokesman for MCC resigned his post last year when the president of the CIC accused him of "smearing Islam." The charge of de facto apostasy left the MCC spokesman fearing for his safety.

What about the article in question–the actual excerpt from America Alone published in Maclean’s? Read it and you’ll see that Steyn is an equal opportunity savager. Enervated Europeans come in for every bit as much criticism as jihadi terrorists–more, really. The closer to home, the tougher Steyn gets. Of all European’s, Steyn is hardest on culturally "dead" Belgians, the country where Steyn’s mother and grandparents came from. The only really vicious insult in the piece is hurled at Steyn himself.

This piece by Ali Eteraz in the Guardian commendably repudiates CIC’s attack on free speech. Even so, none of Eteraz’s points against the actual substance of Steyn’s piece hold water. Steyn does not say that "all" Muslims are radicals. If anything, Steyn goes out of his way to say that matters are not so simple. For example, he notes that the radicalization of South Asian Muslims is recent, and explains that it’s the watery weakness of Europe’s own multicultural ideology that forces Muslim’s back onto radicalism for a sense of cultural coherence. If anything, the anti-free-speech attacks on Steyn and Maclean’s, by Western-trained lawyers, no less, show that Steyn’s concerns about poorly assimilated Western values are more than justified.

Ugly as this affair may be, can we assume that Steyn and Maclean’s will ultimately emerge unscathed–and that America, at least, is safe from this sort of crazy Canadian multiculturalism? No we cannot. However they’re resolved, these high profile cases take a toll on all concerned. More important, they send a chill over smaller fish.

Americans need to recognize the pattern here, and we also need to realize that it has already invaded the United States. American readers depend on international outlets. We often read our Steyn in Canadian publications. So an attack on Steyn in Canada is an attack on America. And recall the ongoing battle over "libel tourism," which resulted in attempts to use British law to pull Alms for Jihad from American library shelves. (Here’s the latest update on the libel tourism battle, and how it threatens free speech in America.) And take a look at this list of Muslim libel cases in America. (Be sure to read the end of that account for an understanding of how enervating and intimidating these cases can be–especially for targets less well-placed than Steyn or Maclean’s.)

Then consider my post from yesterday on the spread of "bias reporting systems" to American college campuses. As in Canada, these systems may begin in response to alleged "homophobia," (see the link to the article on Georgetown in my post), but they also open up opportunities for accusations of "Islamophobia." (The term itself shows the echo effect.) Making use of "bias reporting" to attack Georgetown’s Catholic culture will surely play into the hands of Georgetown’s Saudi-funded programs to promote "Muslim-Christian understanding." These programs are positive connoisseurs of "Islamophobia." Give them a bias reporting system–especially an anonymous one–and they could easily go to town. And for more on the influence of Saudi money on American education, sure to open the field to CIC-like attacks on "Islamophobia," see "Saudi in the Classroom."

Connect the dots and you will see that the attack on Mark Steyn in Canada is part and parcel of a world-wide assault on free speech that has already reached well into America. This is our battle. It is essential that there be widespread public condemnation of the attack on Mark Steyn. Not only does this "human rights" complaint have to fail, it has to fail miserably and with embarrassment. Otherwise, whatever the formal result, the chilling effect will be one more victory for the forces trying to destroy our rights.

Spot on. This morning Steyn posted this, also at The Corner (emphasis still mine):

One of the critical differences between America and the rest of the west is that America has a First Amendment and the rest don't. And a lot of them are far too comfortable with the notion that in free societies it is right and proper for the state to regulate speech. The response of the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security to the Danish cartoons was to propose a press charter that would oblige newspapers to exercise "prudence" on, ah, certain controversial subjects. The response of Tony Blair's ministry to the problems of "Londonistan" was to propose a sweeping law dramatically constraining free discussion of religion. At the end of her life, Oriana Fallaci was being sued in France, Italy, Switzerland and sundry other jurisdictions by groups who believed her opinions were not merely disagreeable but criminal. In France, Michel Houellebecq was sued by Muslim and other "anti-racist" groups who believed opinions held by a fictional character in one of his novels were not merely disagreeable but criminal.


Up north, the Canadian Islamic Congress announced the other day that at least two of Canada’s “Human Rights Commissions” – one federal, one provincial – had agreed to hear their complaints that their “human rights” had been breached by this “flagrantly Islamophobic” excerpt from my book, as published in the country’s bestselling news magazine, Maclean’s. Several readers and various Canadian media outlets have enquired what my defense to the charges is. Here’s my answer:


I can defend myself if I have to. But I shouldn’t have to.

If the Canadian Islamic Congress wants to disagree with my book, fine. Join the club. But, if they want to criminalize it, nuts. That way lies madness. America Alone was a bestseller in Canada, made all the literary Top Ten hit parades, Number One at Amazon Canada, Number One on The National Post’s national bestseller list, Number One on various local sales charts from statist Quebec to cowboy Alberta, etc. I find it difficult to imagine that a Canadian “human rights” tribunal would rule that all those Canadians who bought the book were wrong and that it is beyond the bounds of acceptable (and legal) discourse in Canada.


As I say, I find it difficult to imagine. But not impossible. These "human rights" censors started with small fry - obscure websites, "homophobes" who made the mistake of writing letters to local newspapers or quoting the more robust chunks of Leviticus - and, because they got away with it, it now seems entirely reasonable for a Canadian pseudo-court to sit in judgment on the content of a mainstream magazine and put a big old "libel chill" over critical areas of public debate. The "progressive" left has grown accustomed to the regulation of speech, thinking it just a useful way of sticking it to Christian fundamentalists, right-wing columnists, and other despised groups. They don’t know they’re riding a tiger that in the end will devour them, too.

Follow the links in the quoted pieces above, they lead to gold. Also there is more here, and here.

Kurtz is right: this is every bit as much an attack on us all. If we do not stand up with Mark Steyn against this type of Stalinist bullying, who will?

UPDATE: Speaking of Steyn, what Wretcherd said:

Mark Steyn, quoting the Australian, notices that feminist Germaine Greer finds it "too tricky" to denounce 'honor killings' in Darfur.

Pamela Bone to Germaine Greer in Melbourne last week:

I then asked why it was that Western feminists seemed so reluctant to speak out against things such as honour killings.

Greer: "It's very tricky. I am constantly being asked to go to Darfur to interview rape victims. I can talk to rape victims here. Why should I go to Darfur to talk to rape victims?"

Questioner (me): "Because it's so much worse there."

Greer: "Who says it is?"

Questioner: "I do, because I've been there."

Greer: "Well, it is just very tricky to try to change another culture. We let down the victims of rape here. We haven't got it right in our own courts. What good would it do for me to go over there and try to tell them what to do? I am just part of decadent Western culture and they think we're all going to hell fast and maybe we are all going to hell fast."

The left is too deeply invested in the narrative of self-hatred to ever hear danger approaching from without. They're stuck in an ultimate conflict of interest between their ideology and the survival of their ideology; between their freedom to destroy their culture and the freedoms that culture guarantees. That's why in Europe it is often only people like the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, who can take up the cudgels for women being hunted down like animals in through the green fields of England by their Islamic relatives, even though theoretically a British Imam's daughter condemned for having converted to Christianity could have gone to Greer, not to Nazi-Ali, for help. Dr. Nazir-Ali doesn't have to protect a circle of leftist supporters nor a public record of foolish utterance from the danger of sudden common sense.

If the Left wants to be free to think again, it must first of all divest itself, in the way it encourages everyone to divest itself from Israel, of its own fascist ideology. Oops. I repeat myself. I already observed they're stuck in an ultimate conflict of interest between their ideology and the survival of their ideology. Reboot and try again.

"CLIMATE CHANGE" WEATHER REPORT: BALI IS WARM; EUROPE AND USA SNOWY

While the UN eco-nutsies are in balmy Bali soaking up the Sun and the HEAT, the rest of us - us oil-guzzling, CO2 emitting, climate-ruining idiots are freezing our butts off.

NEED PROOF?! Here are the current weather reports.

BALI:
Detailed Local Forecast

* Today: Isolated thunderstorms this morning, becoming sunny during the afternoon hours. High 87F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
* Tonight: Cloudy intervals. Low 79F. Winds light and variable.
* Tomorrow: A few clouds from time to time. High 87F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
* Tomorrow night: Partly cloudy. Low 79F. Winds light and variable.
* Monday: Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the upper 70s.
* Tuesday: A few clouds. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the upper 70s.
* Wednesday: Sunny. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the upper 70s.
USA: More ice and snow coming
An upper level low moving southward along the California coast tonight takes up residence over the Southwest into early next week. This pattern keeps moisture flowing northward through the Southwest, the Rocky Mountains and into the Plains and Midwest. At the same time bitter cold arctic air will keep oozing southward from Canada. The combination of the arctic air and moisture produces a wide swath of wintry precipitation into early next week from the Rockies to the Northeast.

Initially the snow, sleet and ice should be on the light side Saturday and Saturday night from Kansas and Nebraska eastward to the Ohio Valley. Snow accumulations should run 1 to 4 inches across Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and southern Minnesota Saturday. A second, stronger wave of moisture invades the Plains and Midwest Sunday with heavier ice accumulations.

At this time it appears the ice should fall from the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles through southern Kansas, central and northern Missouri, central and northern Illinois, northern Indiana and northern Ohio. A narrow band of light snow and sleet is expected along the northern edge of the precipitation shield from Nebraska through Michigan. South of the wintry precipitation a band of moderate rain falls along the Ohio Valley and southern Missouri.

The second wave should end Monday morning with a third wave anticipated for Monday night and Tuesday. Skiers get an early season lift with several feet of snow expected through Monday across the Rockies from Wyoming south to Arizona and New Mexico. Accumulating snow should fall in Salt Lake City and Denver through the weekend as well. Salt Lake City will have some enhancement from the lake with amounts ranging from 4 to 8 inches by Saturday afternoon. Moisture from the western storm flies into the Northeast Sunday.

Light sleet, freezing rain and rain streaks into western Pennsylvania and western New York by midday Sunday and races to the New England coast by midnight Sunday night. There could be significant ice accumulation across southern New York state and interior New England by Monday morning. A chilly rain should fall south of the icy area for New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.
EUROPE: All white now as snow arrives

The latest snow reports

Heavy snowfall across Europe this week has helped ease concerns that a third of Europe's ski resorts may not exist by 2050.

The lack of snow in the Alps last season led to numerous British skiers opting for the better conditions of North America. Many European chalets, hotels and restaurants are relying on a good winter this year to remain in operation.
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Last year's poor snow cover, along with reports of glaciers melting this summer, prompted the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to predict that the 670 top ski resorts in Europe now would have reduced to 400 by 2050, a result of low-lying slopes succumbing to a rising snow line and warmer temperatures.

But holidaymakers have been buoyed by heavy snowfall across the Alps this week. Val Thorens and Sestriere are the pick of the resorts, with 70-80cm (28-31in) of snow on the lower runs. St Moritz and Obergurgl are already enjoying around 1.5m (5ft) of snow on their upper slopes, while Zermatt has 2m (6ft 6in) on its higher runs, after 40cm (16in) of fresh snow this week.
The Internet site snow-forecast.com notes that "Austria in particular has got off to a good start this season" and it predicts that the effects of tropical storm Noel will be responsible for more snowfall in Scandinavia and the Alps.

There was a cooler than normal summer and snow fell early, helping maintain the Alpine permafrost. Kitzbuehel had a record early opening, Nov. 2, six weeks ahead of schedule. Schladming's ski runs opened a full month early.

  • AGW IS BS.

  • A HOAX THE LEFT IS TRYING TO EXPLOIT TOP PASS THEIR LONG HELD POLICIES OF HIGHER TAXES AND MORE REGULATIONS.

DON'T FALL FOR IT.

YOU WANT CLIMATE CHANGE? THEN GET ON A JET IN THE USA OR EUROPE AND FLY TO BALI.

IMAGINE THERE'S NO LEFTISM

SC&A (VIA MOM) - (AN OLDIE BUT GOODIE - ESPECIALLY NOW WITH ROMNEY AND FAITH BACK IN THE NEWS, AND WITH HITCHENS' RECENT ATTACK ON JUDAISM):
Advocate the desecration of the Bible, and it’s art.

Advocate the desecration of the Quran and it’s racism.

Talk about the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and it’s symptomatic of the ‘rot within.’

Talk about the (many, many times) larger sexual abuse of women and children in Islamic countries and we need to sensitize ourselves to ‘cultural differences.’

Talk about FGM, well, no one cares. Indeed, if Amnesty International really cared (see
this and this), the outrage over FGM would drown out every other conversation. Apparently, 100 million mutilated women and children aren’t important enough for Amnesty- or anyone else, for that matter. Then again, maybe it’s because caring about FGM won’t get you on TV or quoted in the NYT.

Imagine there is no Heaven.

Imagine a world in which religious people finally ’saw the light’ and abandoned their beliefs and behaved in the same manner as their non religious neighbors.

Do you think a secular Mother Teresa would have existed, doing her work for decades, before garnering public attention?

Do you imagine private hospitals might have been founded by groups that weren’t religious, would have lasted for decades, depending on the largesse of non religious contributors rather than government aid?

Where are they? Of course there are non religious people who do wonderful and outstanding work, day in and day out, and that is a wonderful thing. And for every one of them, there are a hundred people of faith that do the same.

Here’s another truth. Religious groups of all stripes feed millions of people a day, all over the world because if they didn’t, people would die. The choice has been made- government funded productions of the Vagina Monologues or feeding the poor. Good thing religious institutions are there to pick up the slack.

  • WHEN THE LEFT ATTACKS RELIGION, ESSENTIALLY THEY'RE ADMITTING THAT THEY PREFER THE DISPROVED IDEOLOGIES OF THE LAST CENTURY (FREUD, MARX, GRAMSCI, MARCUSE, LEVI-STRAUSS, LACAN) OVER THE ETERNAL TRUTHS AND VALUES OF THE PREVIOUS 30 CENTURIES.

AND THESE ATHEISTIC LEFTISTS HAVE THE AUDACITY TO THINK THIS MAKES THEM APPEAR WISER! SHEESH.

I SAY: IMAGINE THERE'S NO LEFTISM! NOW THAT'S A HAPPY THOUGHT!

  • REMEMBER: LEFTISM - AND ATHEISTS - KILLED MORE PEOPLE IN THE LAST CENTURY THAN JUDEO-CHRISTIANITY DID IN THE PREVIOUS THIRTY.

  • IN OUR OWN NATION, BELIEVERS - PEOPLE OF FAITH - GAVE US THE DECLARATION, THE CONSTITUTION, ENDED SLAVERY AND SEGREGATION.

  • I'LL STACK THAT UP AGAINST THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF ATHEISTS WORLDWIDE - AND FOR ALL TIME.

IOWA DOESN'T MATTER: CAUCUS HAS MOSTLY PICKED LOSERS

PUTIN*S PLAN TO STAY IN POWER!!!!


According to Radio Ekko, rumors are swirling around the Kremlin that Putin is planning to sign a treaty with White Russia to create a superstate with Putin at the helm. Perhaps it was wishful thinking to believe that Putin would quietly exit the halls of power. Stay tuned...

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Islam’s Silent Moderates

AYAAN HIRSI ALI:
I wish there were more Islamic moderates.

... But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image.

We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up.

... When a “moderate” Muslim’s sense of compassion and conscience collides with matters prescribed by Allah, he should choose compassion. Unless that happens much more widely, a moderate Islam will remain wishful thinking.

  • ISLAM IS NOT THE RELIGION OF PEACE.

  • ISLAM IS THE RELIGION OF INTIMIDATION - SUBMISSION UNDER THE THREAT OF CRUEL VIOLENCE. ALWAYS HAS BEEN.

  • MODERATE PEOPLE WHO HAPPEN TO BE ISLAMIC ARE INTIMIDATED BY THE MORE DEVOUT.

UNTIL THIS CHANGES - SOMEHOW, WW4 WILL CONTINUE....

EITHER WE DEFEAT THE JIHADO-THUGS, OR WE SUBMIT... LOSE.

Wikipedia Promotes Nazism??

More Leftist attention-seeking behavior:

"A left-wing German politician has filed charges against online encyclopaedia Wikipedia for promoting the use of banned Nazi symbols in Germany. Katina Schubert, a deputy leader of the Left party, said she had filed the charge with Berlin police on the grounds that Wikipedia's German language site contained too much Nazi symbolism, particularly an article on the Hitler Youth movement. "The extent and frequency of the symbols on it goes beyond what is needed for documentation and political education, in my view," she told Reuters. "This isn't about restricting freedom of opinion, it's about examining what the limits are."

Source

Its about limits on speech but not restricting freedom of speech? Limits aren't restrictions? Typical Leftist doublethink.

(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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Differences in female abilities

Post below excerpted from Taranto. See the original for links

From the New York Times:
Girls won top honors for the first time in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, one of the nation's most coveted student science awards, which were announced yesterday at New York University.

Janelle Schlossberger and Amanda Marinoff, both 17 and seniors at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School on Long Island, split the first prize--a $100,000 scholarship--in the team category for creating a molecule that helps block the reproduction of drug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria.

Isha Himani Jain, 16, a senior at Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pa., placed first in the individual category for her studies of bone growth in zebra fish, whose tail fins grow in spurts, similar to the way children's bones do. She will get a $100,000 scholarship.

The three girls' victories is "wonderful news, but I can't honestly say it's shocking," said Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Hopkins helped start a national discussion about girls and science two years ago when she walked out of a talk by Harvard University's president, Lawrence H. Summers, after he suggested that innate differences between men and women might be one reason that fewer women than men succeed in math and science careers. Dr. Summers apologized during the ensuing furor; he announced his resignation as Harvard's president 13 months later.

How pathetic is it that the Times can't report on these young ladies' accomplishments without using it as an opportunity to take potshots at Larry Summers for failing to adhere to feminist orthodoxy? But since they brought it up, we feel obliged to point out that this in no way disproves anything Summers said. He did not claim that no women succeed in math and science, only that fewer women than men do. That it is newsworthy when girls win a science contest only serves to underscore Summers's point.

Moreover, as intelligence expert Charles Murray noted in a 2005 Commentary essay, the differences between men and women are more pronounced in more abstract fields such as mathematics and theoretical physics than in less abstract ones like biology and medicine, the areas in which the girls won the prize:
In the humanities, the most abstract field is philosophy--and no woman has been a significant original thinker in any of the world's great philosophical traditions. In the sciences, the most abstract field is mathematics, where the number of great female mathematicians is approximately two (Emmy Noether definitely, Sonya Kovalevskaya maybe). In the other hard sciences, the contributions of great women have usually been empirical rather than theoretical, with leading cases in point being Henrietta Leavitt, Dorothy Hodgkin, Lise Meitner, IrSne Joliot-Curie and Marie Curie.

None of this is to disparage the accomplishments of the Siemens Competition winners. They have already accomplished more in science than any but a handful of women or men ever will, and we wish them all the success in the world if they choose a career in science (or, for that matter, if they don't). But is it really necessary for Hopkins and the Times to superimpose upon these young people's achievement a political agenda based on assumptions that cannot withstand honest scrutiny?

(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, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)