Judicious Asininity

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Wed Feb 28, 2007

Alberto Gonzales has been a useless Attorney General

Let's hope he never makes it to the Supreme Court

Let's start with the Plame Blame Game (aka the persecution of Scooter Libby). It set a precedent for the aggressive pursuit of leakers. The MSM and the left demanded that the "leak" be investigated and got their wish. You can bone up on the Plame Blame Game and the trial now drawing to a close at Just One Minute. What's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.

What happened? Sandy Berger got caught stealing and destroying highly classified documents. Did the AG appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate Berger? No.

The NYT exposed a secret program to track the finances of terrorists. It had been leaked by a traitor somewhere inside the Federal Government. Did the AG appoint a Special Prosecutor to identify the traitor? Someone who could send NYT reporters to jail for failing to reveal their sources? No.

Ditto on the dozens of damaging leaks that have weakened out national security, betrayed our troops and increased the danger to the American people. Would that the resources wasted by Fitzgerald had been dedicated to finding, prosecuting, convicting and executing the traitors.

Executing? The greatest generation, the one that saved the world from Hitler and Tojo, had no such qualms. We need to restore the WW2 fighting spirit before we lose a couple of cities. Gonzales has shown none of that fighting spirit. Had he pursued the important leaks as aggressively as Mr. (Perjury Trap) Fitzgerald pursued Libby, we would be much further along in the war. Specifically, the traitors in the MSM and the Government, who believe the real war is against our elected President and C.I.C., would be dead or rotting in prison.

Tue Feb 27, 2007

A Global Intelligence Briefing For CEOs

Found at Braden Files

Read this. Here a few morsels:

The world's most effective birth control device is money. As society creates a middle class and women move into the workforce, birth rates drop. Having large families is incompatible with middle class living. The quickest way to drop the birth rate is through rapid economic development. After World War II, the U.S. instituted a $600 tax credit per child. The idea was to enable mom and dad to have four children without being troubled by taxes. This led to a baby boom of 22 million kids, which was a huge consumer market that turned into a huge tax base. However, to match that incentive in today's dollars would cost $12,000 per child.
...
The summer after 9/11, France lost 15,000 people in a heat wave. In August, the country basically shuts down when everyone goes on vacation. That year, a severe heat wave struck and 15,000 elderly people living in nursing homes and hospitals died. Their children didn't even leave the beaches to come back and take care of the bodies. Institutions had to scramble to find enough refrigeration units to hold the bodies until people came to claim them.

This loss of life was five times bigger than 9/11 in America, yet it didn't trigger any change in French society. When birth rates are so low, it creates a tremendous tax burden on the young. Under those circumstances, keeping mom and dad alive is not an attractive option. That's why euthanasia is becoming so popular in most European countries. The only country that doesn't permit (and even encourage) euthanasia is Germany, because of all the baggage from World War II.
...
On the one hand, this makes the U.S. a magnet for bright and ambitious people. It also makes us a target. We are becoming one of the last holdouts of the traditional Judeo-Christian culture. There is no better place in the world to be in business and raise children. The U. S. is by far the best place to have an idea, form a business and put it into the marketplace. We take it for granted, but it isn't as available in other countries of the world.

The US should close its borders to Mexico's poor and open them to the remaining bright kids from Europe and Japan, on condition they bring families with them (spouse + 2.1). No Muslims, though.

Nancy Pelosi is intimately linked to Soros

The point man is her Senior Counsel, Joseph Onek

John Perazzo, writing in FrontPage Magazine explains how Onek is tied in with Soros. Perazzo writes:

A not insignificant clue is provided by the fact that Onek, a 1967 graduate of Yale Law School, is currently a Senior Policy Analyst for George Soros’s Open Society Institute (OSI), one of the world’s major financiers of the political far Left. OSI is a member of the benignly named Peace and Security Funders Group, an association of more than 50 foundations that earmark a sizable portion of their $27 billion in combined assets to leftist organizations that undermine the war on terror

What sort of causes does OSI support? Here's one, from Perazzo:

In September 2002, Joseph Onek’s OSI also made a $20,000 grant to the Legal Defense Committee of Lynne Stewart, the criminal-defense attorney who had unlawfully abetted her incarcerated client, Omar Abdel Rahman, in transmitting messages to the Islamic Group, the Egypt-based terrorist organization he headed. At the time of Stewart’s crime, Rahman was already serving a life sentence for his role in masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; he also had conspired, unsuccessfully, to plant additional bombs at the United Nations building, FBI offices in New York, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, and the George Washington Bridge.

Al Qaeda is linked to the Islamic group through the 1998 merger of Al Qaeda and another terrorist organization, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. GlobalSecurity.Org reports that:

In 1998, Bin Ladin started to create the foundation for a merger between al Qaeda and another terrorist organization, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. On February 23, 1998 the leaders of the two groups, Bin Ladin and Ayman Zawahiri, published a fatwa that made public a "ruling to kill the Americans and their allies." The fatwa not only instructed individuals to kill innocent civilians and members of the military but also stated that it was their duty to do it whenever and wherever possible.

Perazzo writes:

During his June 21 testimony, Onek also expressed deep concern about “the danger that the government will use the information it gathers and shares in ways that unfairly discriminate against Muslim Americans.” “Muslims will appear disproportionately on the government’s computer screens,” he explained, “because they are the people most likely (naturally and innocently) to visit, telephone and send money to places like Pakistan and Iraq. Inevitably, government officials will learn more about Muslim Americans than about other Americans.” He predicted that this would lead to the injustice of Muslims being disproportionately caught violating immigration laws, and that “[t]his unfairness will breed discontent in the Muslim community and undermine the fight against terrorism.”

And then, incredibly, Onek said this: “The government remains free to bring criminal or immigration cases against Muslim Americans, provided that it does not use information generated by anti-terrorist data-mining systems in cases not involving terrorism or violent crime. This limitation will require some segregation of information and impose some burdens on the government. But these burdens are a small price to pay to ensure fairness to all Americans and strengthen the fight against terrorism.”

In other words, Onek continues to advocate the very same “wall” — barring intelligence officials and law-enforcement officials from sharing information and collaborating on investigations — that his former employers at the Clinton Justice Department sanctified in the 1990s.

Onek's "small price to pay" is the successor attack to 9/11. Al Qaeda has to trump 9/11. Onek wants to take away the tools the US needs to detect and prevent that attack. A "small price to pay indeed". The one who should be paying a political price is Pelosi for even being in the same room as this guy, let alone giving him a senior position on her staff.

Mon Feb 26, 2007

Schumer talks sense on illegal immigration

It's hard to give a Democrat credit these days, but Schumer had some good ideas

He was on O'Reilly promoting his book. He actually said we needed more diverse immigrants instead of ending up with 90% of immigrants being poor Mexicans. He also seemed to suggest that a national ID card system would force employers to verify immigration status.

It is good to see a Democrat being serious about an issue that Bush has avoided.

Joe Lieberman is reminding the Democrats that he hold the cards

They should remember he beat an anti-war zealot

His WSJ fired a warning shot across the Democrat's bow. He concluded:

We are at a critical moment in Iraq--at the beginning of a key battle, in the midst of a war that is irretrievably bound up in an even bigger, global struggle against the totalitarian ideology of radical Islamism. However tired, however frustrated, however angry we may feel, we must remember that our forces in Iraq carry America's cause--the cause of freedom--which we abandon at our peril.

Remember that Lieberman ran supporting the war despite the fact that all his Democratic colleagues were running on anti-war platforms. He risked his Senate seat and the wrath of the Democrats on principle. The Democrats should take the warning shot very seriously.

Fri Feb 23, 2007

Rand Simberg made a wish

That Rudi Giuliani had already granted

Instapundit points to Simberg's blog where he writes:

But he [Giuliani] could make the following statement, and it would make perfect sense (at least to people who have followed my argument so far):

"I have stated a personal belief in a woman's right to choose. But I also have a strong belief in judges who follow the Constitution. I admire George Bush's choice of Supreme Court judges--Roberts and Alito. I wish that I'd made them myself, and I hope to have an opportunity to make similar, and (if that's possible) even better ones, who will interpret the Constitution in the manner intended, and not make new law out of old parchment, no matter how worthy the goal. While I personally favor a woman's right to choose, I think that Roe v. Wade was a mistake, and that this should be a matter for the states to determine. You can be sure that, if elected, this will be the criterion that I use to select judicial nominees, rather than a desire for a particular outcome that I happen to personally favor."

In fact, if he made a statement like this, I think that he could win over not only the pro-life crowd, but also those opposed to his views on gun control. And it would not be in any way inconsistent with any previous statements on his part.

That sounded a lot like what I heard Giuliani say on Fox. Simberg's first commenter heard what I heard:

Umm...Rand, he made a statement very similar to the one you're suggesting. He was interviewed on Fox News about 2 weeks ago, where he said that (and I'm paraphrasing):

1) I personally don't like abortions, but I believe that women have a right to choose.

2) I believe in parental notification laws, as long as there is a judicial out (minor could go to a judge).

3) I believe that Partial Birth Abortion is wrong and should be banned as long as there is an exception for the life of the mother.

4) I would appoint justices of the same judicial philosophy & temperament (he actually used the words "strict constructionists") as Alito and Roberts. He said they were great picks, and he fully supports them. In fact he's worked with at least one of them before and counts that one as a friend.

5) And he suggested the Roe was poorly made law.

Rudi is not into shifting his position to make himself more acceptable to a fickle electorate. I like that. Even if I don't like his positions. A straight politician with proven leadership skills makes a refreshing change.

Thu Feb 22, 2007

Terrorists use Chlorine in Iraq

That's a chemical weapons attack

The Germans were the first to use Chlorine as a chemical weapon in 1915 at Ypres. Wikipedia gives a fairly reliable account:

Chlorine was inefficient as a weapon, from a purely technical standpoint. It produced a visible greenish cloud and strong odor, making it easy to detect. It was water-soluble, so the simple expedient of covering the mouth and nose with a damp cloth was effective at reducing the effect of the gas.
...
Chlorine required a concentration of 1,000 parts per million to be fatal, destroying tissue in the lungs. Despite its limitations, however, chlorine was an effective terror weapon--the sight of an oncoming cloud of the gas was a continual source of dread for the infantry.

The terrorists have proven that they will use any weapon at their disposal to terrorize Iraqi civilians, including chlorine.

Of course, we already knew that Al Qaeda had an interest in chemical weapons. Who (besides Democrats) can forget the videos of dogs dying in hideous experiments conducted in Al Qaeda's refuge in Afghanistan? CNN reported:

Al Qaeda documents examined by CNN last fall in the bombed out ruins of the Darunta camp showed chemical formulas for sarin. Other documents connect the Darunta camp, a series of mud and stone buildings, to chemical testing.

Now we know that Muslim terrorists will use chemical weapons against anyone, including Muslims of a different sect.

The conventional wisdom is that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction. The truth is that the UN weapons inspection did not receive proof that Saddam destroyed his known WMD stocks. If any remain in Iraq, then God help the Iraqis if the terrorists get access to them. Chlorine is bad but sarin is really evil.

Wed Feb 21, 2007

Obama and Hillary duke it out

Maybe this is Murtha's chance to become CIC

The MSM has discovered that Hillary and Obama are competing for the same prize. Even the BBC senses a battle royal. These are the two leading Democrat contenders for CIC. If they defeat each other, and destroy each other's candidacies, perhaps the Democrats will turn to a compromise candidate, a former Marine, a man of the utmost integrity, a man who supports the troops but doesn't want them to fight, a man of vast experience in government. Yes, that man is Pelosi's Nancy-boy, the ever corruptible John Murtha.

Could it happen? I wish.

Mon Feb 19, 2007

Ben Stein gets it

We owe our defenders so much and give them so little

Braden Files has Ben Stein's open letter:

Above all, I talked to a friend of more than forty-three years who told me he thought his life had no meaning because all he did was count his money. And, friends in the armed forces, this is the story of all of America today. We are doing nothing but treading water while you guys carry on the life or death struggle against worldwide militant Islamic terrorism. Our lives are about nothing: paying bills, going to humdrum jobs, waiting until we can go to sleep and then do it all again. Our most vivid issues are trivia compared with what you do every day, every minute, every second.

Oprah Winfrey talks a lot about "meaning" in life. For her, "meaning" is dieting and then having her photo on the cover of her magazine every single month (surely a new world record for egomania). This is not "meaning."

We just returned from a weekend trip to DC. Every time we passed military personnel in uniform in the airports we simply said "thank you". Invariably, they smiled and expressed appreciation of our support.

McCain, Murtha

What's the difference between these war heroes?

Lucianne leads me to these disgraceful comments by Mr. McCain:

McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, complained that Rumsfeld never put enough troops on the ground to succeed in Iraq.

"I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history," McCain said to applause.

The comments were in sharp contrast to McCain's statement when Rumsfeld resigned in November, and failed to address the reality that President Bush is the commander in chief.

"While Secretary Rumsfeld and I have had our differences, he deserves Americans' respect and gratitude for his many years of public service," McCain said last year when Rumsfeld stepped down.

Rumsfeld faced incredible resistence as he tried to convert a DOD infested by Clintonistas and stuck on a Cold War model to adapt to the realities of the war on Radical Islam. He did a much better job than, say, Robert MacNamara. Hitting Rumsfeld from behind is a cowardly act, but typical of a political opportunist. Rumsfeld is too much of a gentleman to demean himself with a response to such a cheap shot.

Murtha is the most loathsome creature I can imagine. Neo-Neocon has his number. I wonder how this corrupt ex-marine would fare if he told the Marines serving in Iraq that they should give up the fight and retreat to Okinawa? His latest ploy is so disgusting that I can do no more than post a link and brief quote:

Three months later, Murtha has shaped party policy that would cripple Bush's Iraq troop surge by placing conditions on funding. That represents the most daring congressional attempt to micromanage ongoing armed hostilities in nearly two centuries, since the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War challenged President Abraham Lincoln.

These two are the new Copperheads. May they rot in hell.

Thailand has its own 9/11

The casualty rate far surpasses that suffered by the US on 9/11

According to this AP report:

More than 2,000 people have died in the provinces bordering Malaysia since the insurgency erupted in 2004, fueled by accusations of decades of misrule by the central government. The insurgents have not announced their goals, but they are believed to be fighting for a separate state imbued with radical Islamic ideology.

Thailand's population is around 62 million, about a quarter of the US's population. If we scale Thailand's losses up to the US level we get 8,000 victims in less than three years. Thailand is suffering far more that the US has on a per head basis.

A question for Hollywood's elite actors

How would you prepare for the role of Mohammed Atta?

Answers, please. I'm asking you guys: Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Ben Affick etc. etc. After all, you guys seem to hate your country so much you must be rooting for the other side. Mr. Atta (I'm following the NYT style of addressing anyone, including terrorists, as Mr.) is a big hero amongst rank and file America-hating dudes. That must make Mr. Atta something of a sympathetic character to you guys. So I'm waiting for you to follow your convictions and get some hot-shot director to star you in The Magnificent 19. Sort of like the Magnificent Seven but with planes instead of guns.

Fri Feb 16, 2007

Here's a suggestion for the White House & Tony Snow

Ridicule the NYT

Every time the Administration reports progress in the war against radical Islam, it should conclude the report by saying: "You're not going to read this in the New York Times".

That's all. Here are a few hypothetical examples:

"We killed 10 Al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists and captured 50 more plus a large weapons cache. You're not going to read this in the New York Times".

"40% of the Marsh Arabs' habitat, largely destroyed by Saddam, has been restored since Saddam's regime was toppled. You're not going to read this in the New York Times".

"After the Democrats stopped funding for the South Vietnamese government, the North Vietnamese army rolled into South Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese fled the country. Communists took over in Cambadia and killed two million people. You're not going to read this in the New York Times".

"The killer was a Bosnian Muslim. You're not going to read this in the New York Times".

The NYT has been ridiculous since Duranty got a Pullet Surprise for white-washing Stalin's genocide in the Ukraine. Just keep up the ridicule.

Thu Feb 15, 2007

Global Cooling had scientific consensus back in the 70's

It just goes to show that scientists are slaves to fads, not science

Neocon Express has posted excerpts from Time and Newsweek waxing hysterical about the threat of global cooling. This quote, from Newsweek Magazine, April 28th 1975, would not be out of place in Newsweek today:

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth's climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. "A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale," warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, "because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century."

Let's try that again, but switch the direction of the temperature change (bolded):

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth's climate seems to be warming up down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the warming trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. "A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale," warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, "because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century."

The photo, illustrating present day global warming in NY is funny. Note the "almost unanimous". Sounds like the current "consensus".

Personally, I take the threat of climate change very seriously. I fear our interglacial warm period may draw to a close before we figure out how to prevent the next ice age. The 70's meteorologists were probably closer to the truth than the 90's climate scientists.

Two guilty pleasures coming to an end

Rome and the Libby trial as blogged by Tom Maguire and Clarice Feldman

We bought the HBO Rome DVD set and watched an episode a night until we were done and Caesar was undone. It was enthralling to watch a great power tear itself apart. Funny how history seems to be repeating itself as the Left does its best to help Iran and Al Qaeda defeat the US in Iraq. Any Democrat leader with an ounce of sense would do well to heed Lawrence Haas, who writes:

The parallels are striking. In 1975, a Democratic Congress cut off funds for the U.S. effort in Vietnam. The public, disillusioned over Vietnam and Watergate, elected Jimmy Carter, who promised honesty and applauded the end of “our irrational fear of Communism.”

As America turned inward in the late 1970s, enemies sensed our vulnerability and dangers mounted. The fear of communism was not so irrational after all. In Ethiopia, Angola, Rhodesia and elsewhere, the Soviet Union or Cuba worked to stoke Third World revolution. The Soviets more openly laid bare their expansionist agenda in late 1979 by invading Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolution in Iran of 1979 toppled a staunch U.S. ally. The student seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, leading to a 444-day hostage crisis, painted a picture of American impotence.

But, as the decade came to a close, Americans had had enough of defeat and humiliation. Just five years after Americans had bid goodbye to Vietnam and turned inward, they elected Ronald Reagan, who promised to rebuild the nation’s defenses and stop the drift of U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, in that campaign season, Reagan called Vietnam a “noble cause.”

Reagan’s election initiated a long period of Democratic struggle to compete for the White House. While Reagan looked ahead and projected strength, Democrats looked back, focused on the failure of Vietnam, and expressed hesitancy about America’s role in the world. Not surprisingly, voters came to question the Democrats’ ability to protect the nation.

Will history repeat itself? To be sure, the White House seems an achievable target for Democrats in 2008, just as it was in 1976. Public disenchantment with President Bush in general, and with the war in Iraq in particular, should give Democrats a good head start.

Americans don't like losers but the Democrats seem determined to make America lose.

The Libby trial has been covered by Tom Maguire, Clarice Feldman and an army of able commenters. The difference between Just One Minute and the MSM coverage is dramatic. The one post that I've linked to has 573 comments (when I linked). My guilty pleasure has been reading through them and comparing them with MSM reports. Here's Clarice in one comment:

I want to say that after all the build up about this case, the jury will certainly be comparing the sloppy, often contradictory testimony of the prosecution's witnesses, with the crisp clear narrative of the defendant's. And it will not be overlooked how quickly the defense completed its case and the prosecutor offered no rebuttal.
The sense that this is a trivial matter, not proven beyond a reasonable doubt was conveyed by the choreography.

Despite Judge Walton's siding with the prosecution by, for example, not allowing Andrea Mitchell to be cross-examined, my sense from following the trial via JOM is that Libby will win. Of course, if I relied on the NYT, I might not be so confident.

This trial came about because the elites in this country are bitterly divided, just as they were in Ancient Rome. A power so divided cannot long survive in this dangerous world.

Wed Feb 14, 2007

What would the world have looked like if Saddam been left in power?

Worse than it is now

For the greenies and bleeding hearts (as if they would actually care) I would point out that Saddam's destruction of the Marsh Arabs' habitat and his genocidal campaign against them would now be complete. Human Rights Watch reported :

systematic bombardment of villages, widespread arbitrary arrests, torture, “disappearances,” summary executions, and forced displacement have reduced the Marsh Arabs from more than 250,000 to as few as 40,000.

Large-scale government drainage projects have virtually wiped out the Marsh Arab economy and, along with severe repression, forced the displacement of at least 100,000 of the Marsh Arabs inside Iraq. More than 40,000 others fled as refugees to Iran. “The Marsh Arabs have suffered some of the worst repression in a highly repressive political system,” said Joe Stork, Washington director of the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. “In the event of war, there is reason to fear that the marshes area will again be a battleground, with devastating consequences for those who remain.”

Post Bush's invasion, we find that:

New satellite imagery shows a rapid increase in water and vegetation cover in just the past three years, with the marshes rebounding to about 37 percent of the area they covered in 1970, up from about 10 percent in 2002, the United Nations Environment Program said in a report describing a multimillion dollar restoration project funded by Japan.

It is a safe bet that the NYT and WPO would underplay such a recovery, if they even bothered to report on it.

That's small beer on geo-poltical scales, so let's dig a bit deeper.

How about WMD? Iran has been working on nuclear weapons ever since Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan. Iraq had been too, until Israel took action. Saddam knew that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. Would he feel safe without his own nuclear weapons? Unlikely. Israel and Iran both had cause to take revenge on Saddam. So he had to have had his own nuclear weapons program going on, despite UN inspections and sanctions. He had 500 tons of yellowcake (good for 20 bombs) and was looking for more. Contrary to his NYT op-ed, Joe Wilson reported to the CIA that Iraq was interested in buying more "goods" from Niger. Saddam was also on record as saying that his biggest mistake in invading Kuwait was doing it before he had nuclear weapons. My personal view is that Saddam out-sourced his nuclear weapons program to Libya. Even if he hadn't, the chances that some of that yellowcake had been refined to weapons grade material is high. He had the incentive, the money and the experitise (internally or via the A. Q. Khan network). So, sometime this decade Saddam would have hit critical mass and become a nuclear power. So would Iran. Today, we only have to worry about one rogue regime getting nuclear weapons instead of three.

Moreover, we are now in a much better position to monitor and defend against Iran's efforts in becoming latter-day Nazis with Nukes.

Tue Feb 13, 2007

How to kill your friends

And dry up your secret sources

Jim Miller notes that Republicans and Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:

voted to make a secret National Intelligence Estimate available to every member of the House.

He asks:

How Many People Can Keep A Secret? One? Two? Five? Ten? Twenty? Up until twenty, you might have said yes to each question. But all of us know that, as the number increases, the secret is less likely to be kept.

So, what if the number is 435? Would the secret be kept? I think all of us would say no, unless those holding the secret were members of a very disciplined organization. And even then, the chance that the secret would leak out by mistake would be significant.

Years ago, I was a principal in a small software business that grew rapidly. When we reached around a hundred people we discovered that we were being ripped off by someone in the Accounts department. The cops told us that once a business grows past a hundred or so employees, the chances of hiring bad guys approaches 100%.

Miller makes the point that:

Sources and methods are usually the most sensitive parts of intelligence estimates, because knowing them may allow your enemies to get rid of the sources and to defeat the methods.

Our elected representatives will likely never know how many lives they have endangered by their foolish action. They might be singing a different tune if the plane that hit the Pentagon had hit the Capitol instead. In a semi-perfect world that might have happened. Be that as it may, our elected representatives have given scant thanks to the heroes of Flight 93 who saved their measly hides.

Mon Feb 12, 2007

Concerned about the number of US troops "wasted" in Iraq?

How about the number of US citizens killed by illegal aliens?

Braden Files leads us to these startling statistics:

Twelve Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That's 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001.

Total U.S. troop deaths in Iraq as of last week were reported at 2,863. Total U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan during the five years of the Afghan campaign are currently at 289, according to the Department of Defense.

But the carnage wrought by illegal alien murderers represents only a fraction of the pool of blood spilled by American citizens as a result of an open border and un-enforced immigration laws.

While King reports 12 Americans are murdered daily by illegal aliens, he says 13 are killed by drunk illegal alien drivers – for another annual death toll of 4,745. That's 23,725 since Sept. 11, 2001.

The US could easily reduce that annual death toll of 4,745 Americans by enforcing its own laws and protecting its own borders. Instead, we ignore the massive invasion from Mexico by people who contribute little to our hi-tech economy but contribute much to our welfare expenditures, our health care expenditures, our law enforcement expenditures, and Mexico's economy.

I would predict a massive change in American attitudes to illegal immigrants if the MSM devoted as much space to the deaths of Americans at the hands of illegals as it does to the deaths of our troops in Iraq.

Fri Feb 09, 2007

Anna Nicole Smith 24/7

Enough already

Please, there is a war on and all we get is Death of a Bimbo 24/7. Stop it. A 10-second obit would have more than enough.

A bold prediction on Global Warming

Soon the debate will be over human-induced cooling again

Besides pumping plant food (CO₂) into the air, humans have been pumping lots of pollutants into the air. Some are greenhouse gases, like Methane, while others have a cooling effect.

This past year has seen unusually cold weather in very odd spots around the globe. We had snow in the Australian state of Victoria -- where snow is almost unknown -- in November. I lived in Victoria for 15 years. It never snowed, not even in Winter. But snow in November? That's like snow in South Carolina in May. California lost most of its citrus crop due to unseasonal cold weather. Denver got dumped on by near record snowfalls in January. After a temperate January the snowbelt got clobbered by freezing temperatures and snow. Our European friends have not been spared:

In Britain, the first major snowfalls disrupted public transport services as British Airways (BA) said it had cancelled 16 short-haul flights from London airports due to the wintry conditions.

Road and rail traffic was particularly hard hit in the south-east of London, as the wintry weather moved down from northern parts of Britain.

The disruption was most acute in the London area and its immediate surroundings as commuters struggled to get to work.

BA said the problems at Heathrow airport, where 13 flights were cancelled, were due to de-icing. A further three flights from Gatwick airport were scrapped and there were delays of up to an hour.

In France, heavy snowfall in the southern and eastern parts of the country deprived some 100,000 households of electricity and disrupted traffic.

The utility company EDF said that heavy snowfall in the departments of Auvergne and Limousin caused power lines to break, cutting electricity to at least 100,000 homes. In addition, the snow and icy conditions made repair difficult, an EDF spokesman said.

The snow also closed down an important motorway linking Paris with destinations in the south. About 1,000 lorries were still trapped on the road early Wednesday, police officials reported.

I lived in London from 1989 to 1991. It sleeted a teeny bit once.

Every year weather records are set somewhere across the world. But the last year has seen a lot of unusually cool weather. The evidence is still anecdotal but my suspicion is that the warming trend seen since the end of the little ice age is running out of steam.

The global warming fanatics are not likely to be embarassed if the world starts to cool off a bit. Already, they talk about climate change instead of global warming. So, when some poor guy in up-state New York is digging out of yet another 10 foot snow dump he'll be really happy to hear the global cooling fanatics blaming human activities for his plight.

Maybe Instapundit is onto this switch already.

Wed Feb 07, 2007

Here's a test for the climate modellers

Can you run your model backwards and find an ice age 20,000 years ago?

Bruce Thompson at American Thinker writes:

John Fialka of the Wall Street Journal uncovered an interesting admission from Tom Delworth, a climate modeler for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the government agency in charge of climate science and weather service.
But, so far, the supercomputers the agency uses to model the effect on the earth's climate -- which were also used for the IPCC report -- aren't detailed or fast enough to predict how much clouds are accelerating the problem. Mr. Delworth said computer models divide the earth's oceans and atmosphere into four million boxes, each about 150 square miles, and that these boxes are too large to model the effects of clouds.

"We could use computers that are one million times faster than they are today and still not be satisfied," Mr. Delworth said.

We know that the default state of the world for the last few million years has been an ice age. We are currently basking in an inter-glacial period that could end at any time. So, can these models discover a prior or future ice age? If they cannot run forward or backwards to an ice age then they are virtually useless.

Tue Feb 06, 2007

Which is worse - Global Warming or Terrorism?

Terrorism

Terrorism is bad. Lots of people die.

History tells us that global warming is generally good for humanity and global cooling is very bad for humanity. Warming would reduce demand for oil, a commodity that finances terrorism. It would increase agricultural production. That means more can be grown on the same acreage which reduces the need to expand farming into the natural environment. Forests and jungles would benefit from the extra warmth and CO₂. Global warming would open up frozen tundra in Russia to agriculture. Agricultural production in North America would expand. Ethanol production would become economically viable, especially as science finds out how to convert all plant material to ethanol, instead of just the sugars and starch. A warmer world has more water circulating in the atmosphere. Droughts would become less common and milder. The minor losses at the coastal margins would be far out-weighed by the inland gains.

The GW proponents paint a picture of runaway warming as we burn fossil fuels. Unfortunately for them, they forget where the fossil fuels came from. The source is the ancient atmosphere, one much richer in CO₂ than is presently the case. The Earth survived CO₂ concentrations an order of magnitude higher than today. It's unlikely we could ever find and burn all the coal and oil laid down in the Carboniferous era. Even if we did we would simply return the Earth to the rich environment of that era.

I would agree with environmentalists that we need to limit the pollution that is spewed into the atmosphere. It comes from industry and from more traditional sources, the third-world villagers who burn cow dung and vegetable matter stripped from the landscape. That pollution can cause global cooling, as Wikipedia explains:

Human activity — mostly as a by-product of fossil fuel combustion, partly by land-use changes — increases the number of tiny particles (aerosols) in the atmosphere. These have a direct effect: they effectively increase the planetary albedo, thus cooling the planet by reducing the sunshine reaching the surface; and an indirect effect: they can affect the properties of clouds by acting as cloud condensation nuclei. In the early 1970s some speculated that this cooling effect might dominate over the warming effect of the CO2 release: see discussion of Rasool and Schneider (1971), below. As a result of observations (aerosol concentrations may have increased, but not enormously) and a switch to cleaner fuel burning, this no longer seems likely; the overwhelming bulk of current scientific work concentrates on the forcing, prediction and understanding of possible global warming. Although the temperature drops foreseen by this mechanism have now been discarded in light of better theory and the observed warming, aerosols are believed to have contributed a cooling tendency (outweighted by increases in greenhouse gases) and also have contributed to "Global Dimming".

I'm having trouble finding any reason not to welcome some global warming, especially if it helps stave off the next ice age. I doubt it can and the real challenge for humanity at some point in its future is how to deal with a real ice age; one that covers much of North America, Europe and Asia in mile-deep sheets of ice.

Mon Feb 05, 2007

Giuliani declares

He'd be fine by me

What struck me on his appearance on Hannity & Colmes was his honesty on the issues that concern conservatives. He's pro-choice. On the other hand, he wants to appoint Supreme Court Justices in the mold of Roberts and Alito. He noted that in his tenure at NY he promoted adoption as an alternative to abortion. Abortion politics is not a presidential issue. No President can over-turn Roe vs Wade. She/he can appoint judges that can do that, but the result is that the issue is pushed back to where it belongs: the States.

I've been reading Freakonomics and the authors make the case that the dramatic drop in the crime rate in the 1990s was due to Roe vs Wade. Lots of potential criminals didn't make it past conception. So, did Giuliani reduce crime or did he ride the abortion wave? New York did better than other crime-ridden cities over the same period, so Rudy get's a check.

His personal life isn't anything to write home about. But, if he's running against Hillary, that issue doesn't hamper him too much.

But the only issue I care about is the war that Radical Islam, in its Wahhabi and Khomeini strains, has declared on us. I think Guiliani understands this war. More importantly, he can communicate the issue far more effectively than GW.

The Anheuser Busch Super Bowl advertisement does the troops proud

But there are a couple of ironies

We loved this adverisement that aired during the Super Bowl.

First, our troops cannot partake of the company's products while serving in Iraq. Ostensibly, this is so as not to offend Muslim sensibilities. On the other hand, I spoke with an ER doctor who served with the National Guard in Tikrit. He said that an alcohol-free war zone has had a dramatic effect in reducing the number of accidents and accidental deaths. Not that he is a teetotaller; he drinks and smokes.

Second, you can sign up for the military at age 18 but you can't legally drink a Bud until age 21. You can put your life on the line serving your country but God forbid you down a few cold ones when you get back home.

Funny how warnings on Global Warming coincide with cold weather records

It's the Al Gore effect

I ran 10 miles on Saturday morning. It was 7°F at the start. I thought I was dressed well enough but it sure didn't feel like it for the first mile or so. Tomorrow, the forecast is for 8°F/5°F. This weekend will be the coldest I've ever encountered in six years of running in Cleveland. Not even the hot air being generated by the latest IPCC report could warm things up.

Chicago is looking to set new cold records, according to this Report in the Chicago Tribune:

Chicago is headed into a deep freeze likely to take on, if not surpass, a series of long-time late-winter cold weather benchmarks. An average of each day's temperatures over the coming 7 days may well finish colder than any Feb. 3-9 period on record since 1871 here.

The setting of new coldest records (that is since man started recording temperatures) does not prove that we are entering a new ice age, any more than a few hottest records prove Al Gore is right. The problem is that the MSM gives more weight to hottest records being broken. That bias helps Al Gore spread his lies.

Update: SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR of the Times of India makes the same point. He also cites a classic example of Greenpeace propaganda:

I have long been an agnostic on global warming: the evidence is ambiguous. But I almost became a convert when Greenpeace publicised photos showing the disastrously rapid retreat of the Upsala Glacier in Argentina. How disastrous, I thought, if this was the coming fate of all glaciers.

Then last Christmas, I went on vacation to Lake Argentina. The Upsala glacier and six other glaciers descend from the South Andean icefield into the lake. I was astounded to discover that while the Upsala glacier had retreated rapidly, the other glaciers showed little movement, and one had advanced across the lake into the Magellan peninsula. If in the same area some glaciers advance and others retreat, the cause is clearly not global warming but local micro-conditions.

Yet the Greenpeace photos gave the impression that glaciers in general were in rapid retreat. It was a con job, a dishonest effort to mislead. From the same icefield, another major glacier spilling into Chile has grown 60% in volume.

Memo to Greenpeace. Cherry-picking the evidence is not science. It is faith run amok.

Fri Feb 02, 2007

Hick's slicks nix pix

So, which side is Aussie traitor David Hick's on?

According to Opinion Journal's Best of the Web:

The Age of Melbourne, Australia, reports on the latest "outrage" at Guantanamo Bay:
The US military subjected Australian detainee David Hicks to mental torture by providing him with graphic material showing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein with a noose around his neck, his lawyers have claimed from Guantanamo Bay. . . .

Hicks was said to be stunned to see the large photographic display on a wall facing the exercise cells. He asked another detainee to translate the Arabic message on the posters and was told it said: "Because Saddam chose not to co-operate and not tell the truth, because he thought by lying he would get released, for that reason he was executed."

[Hicks lawyer Josh] Dratel said the display was an attempt to torture mentally an already abused detainee population and breached standards for humane treatment required by the Geneva Convention.

Hicks' father, Terry, said he was shocked at the mentality of the American military. "I think they are as brutal as the regime they are supposed to have thrown out," he said.

If Hick's is upset by pictures of Saddam about to meet his maker, he has proven which side he is on. And, as an unlawful combatant fighting for Al Qaeda, he deserves the same fate.

P.S. This famous Variety headline was the inspiration for mine.

Who is Judith Miller protecting?

And why was she willing to go to jail to do so?

According to Clarice, commenting in haste at Just One Minute:

Miller is no great shakes..You are "listening to her testimony" I am seeing the words, words that Wells will pull out of what she said to establish reasonable doubt--may have ha other sources, went tojail to protect them but can't remember who they are, doesn't know how Wilson's name and Phone no were in her notes, thought "Bureau" meant "CIA"

It is simply not credible that Miller would suffer 85 days in jail to protect sources and then forget who they were. Nobody is going to believe that. Not even the an OJ jury would buy that. I think she was protecting Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. The biggest clue is that she had Wilson's name and phone number in her notes but doesn't know how they got there.

Thu Feb 01, 2007

We are all going to drown (or freeze or starve)

It's just going to take a while.

According to the same Daily Telegraph report:

Ocean temperatures have increased at least two miles below the surface, causing seawater to expand and levels to rise by 1.8 mm a year (seven hundredths of an inch) from 1961 to 2003.

At that rate, ocean levels will rise by a foot in 171 years. Ocean levels do indicate global temperature levels. The colder it is, the more water is locked up in ice on land; the warmer it is, the less water is locked up in ice on land. Moreover, the land freed up by retreating ice and longer growing seasons in Nortern climes far out weighs the trivial losses at the fringes.

Since the last ice age ended 18,000 years ago, sea levels increased by 400 feet, mostly in the first 12,000 years. Humanity, and life on Earth, prospered as the world warmed

How will our civilization fare when the next ice age comes? Most of Canada, all of the snow-belt states of the US, much of Europe, and much of Russia would be covered in ice, miles deep. There is a lot of ice to be made from 400ft of the world's oceans. When it is spread on land, it covers a lot of territory and renders the land under it utterly useless. The grain basket of the world would be lost. The rest of the world would become more arid and less productive. The next ice age might yet prove Malthus right.

Science has a new model

Forget reproducible experiments; focus on consensus and negotiation

This Daily Telegraph report on the forthcoming IPCC report says it all:

Scientists are now overwhelmingly confident that mankind is to blame for the warming of the global climate observed since the industrial revolution, a UN report will conclude today.

The exact phrasing of the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was still being negotiated by scientists behind locked doors in the Unesco building in Paris last night.

My bold. Negotiated? Science advances by negotiation? Let's try negptiating about whether or not the speed of light is a constant throughout the universe. Let's try negotiating about string theory. Let's try negotiating to find a cure for cancer.

The caption to the accompanying picture of a smokestack reads:

Factory smoke: climate change is man-made. The world's temperature has risen 1.26°F since the industrial era started

As I last posted, such an increase when emerging from a cool period is within the bounds of previous natural temperature rises.

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