Required reading

Whomever is elected the next President of the US, required reading with the accompanying required thought.

It Was a Dream That Captivated Millions…

…until the day (spasibo, RV) it became reality…

Obama on the Subject of Fox News: A Complaint or a Threat?

There are several sinister things concerning Barack Obama's complaints about Fox News, the full extent of which does not seem to have been noted. You remember the words:

"I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls,” Obama told [Matt Bai]. “If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?

"I guess the point I’m making,” he went on, “is that there is an entire industry now, an entire apparatus, designed to perpetuate this cultural schism, and it’s powerful. People want to know that you’re fighting for them, that you get them. And I actually think I do. But you know, if people are just seeing me in sound bites, they’re not going to discover that. That’s why I say that some of that may have to happen after the election, when they get to know you."

The first sinister thing about this comment of Obama's are the man's double standards. Like the rest of the leftists — as well as the (Fox-hating) mainstream media — the man has obviously no problems with ABC, with CBS, with NBC, with CNN. He has no problems with the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post. He has no problem with the fact that if there were no ABC, no CBS, no NBC, no CNN, and no New York Times, no Los Angeles Times, no Boston Globe, and no Washington Post, John McCain might be two or three points higher (probably even more) in the polls; he has no problems with the fact that if there were no ABC, no CBS, no NBC, no CNN, no New York Times, no Los Angeles Times, no Boston Globe, and no Washington Post, Obama might be many points (hardly "just" two or three) lower in the polls. Never mind that: the only thing that irks him is that there is a media outlet — one! — that ensures that instead of being, say, 5 to 10 points ahead (that ain't enough), he isn't 8 to 13 points ahead.

The second sinister thing about the comment — obviously related to the first — is that it may not be be a complaint (whining or otherwise) at all: it may be a threat. It may be a warning to Rupert Murdoch to rein in his TV station (heck, all of his news outlets) if (when, in Obama's mind) the Illinois senator wins the 2008 election. Or else… Leftists cannot stand any criticism of their nigh-heroic measures. Fox News must be isolated, bloggers must be castigated, talk radio must be silenced with the Fairness Doctrine.

Jonah Goldberg hits the nail on the head:

Now, let us actually transcend race for a moment. Apparently for Obama, "transcend" isn't a racial term so much as a euphemism for declaring victory. He says he wants to "turn the page" on the arguments of the '80s and '90s, by which he means conservatives should stop clinging to their guns and antiquated Sky God and join his cause.

He told Planned Parenthood he wants to stop "arguing about the same ole stuff," by which he means he wants people who disagree with his absolute support for government-funded abortion on demand to shut up already.

He doesn't want to argue about his pals from the Weather Underground who murdered or celebrated the murder of policemen and other Americans, he just wants everyone to agree no one should care.

In short, Obama and his disciples only demand one kind of transcendence from all Americans. We must, as Obama likes to say, unite as one people, one nation, one American family and transcend all of our misgivings about Barack Obama. Then, and only then, will The One fulfill his wife's pledge and fix our broken souls.

Only a racist could possibly disagree.

Update: Obama camp lashes out at Fox News again (thanks, Duncan)

Who Are the Fascists and/or the Neo-Fascists and/or the Fascist Sympathizers?

When the Democrats' Congressman, Keith Ellison, compares George W. Bush to Hitler, media outrage is noticeable by its absence. Media snorts and snickers, in fact, are notably directed at the Republican ticket for making too big of a fuss about William Ayers.

And yet, if fascism is about seething hatred and mass murder, Confederate Yankee has the info about exactly who it was who was for "plotting the extermination of … 25 million" people ("four times greater than the Holocaust" — and what for? "for daring to cling to the American way of life").

Remember, Billy Ayers is the man who states that he has few, if any regrets, his regrets being confined to not doing more.



Confederate Yankee also links to Zombie Time's excerpts of Prairie Fire (and comments thereon, followed by comments about what the connection, if any, with Obama is all about).

Ayers was not simply protesting "against" the Vietnam War. Firstly, he wasn't against war in principle, he was agitating for the victory of the communist forces in Vietnam. In other words: He wasn't against the war, he was against our side in the war. This is spelled out in great detail in Prairie Fire.

Another Example of the Media's Independence and Fairness

A fellow American living in Paris who (for some unfathomable reason) doesn't think that Barack Obama speaks for him — and who, indeed (for some unfathomable reason), thinks that Barack Obama may be naive — sent a letter to the editor of New Hampshire's Granite State News. (Don’t be confused by the small town appearance of the paper, it is part of Salmon Press, a media group with multiple papers, a daily print circulation of over 200,000 in a small state, and a major online presence.) What he asked to be printed was the following viewpoint:

At the World Policy Forum in France, Jesse Jackson said that Barack Obama would “apologize for our [American] arrogance”. He also said that our support for Israel would end.

As a proud American living in France, I am offended at how Barack Obama feels he needs to apologize for America as he did during his European tour. Europeans do not want apologies. They want a strong America. Obama is naïve. Kruschev looked JFK in the face and saw naiveté leading to the Cuban missile crisis. Jimmy Carter’s “love the world” approach led to the Iran hostage crisis.

Now Obama’s campaign has foreigners contribute financially and calling voters in “swing states” to influence their vote. That is wrong and it is un-American.

I want a president who insures that America is respected, not one that worries about being loved by the French. Barack Obama is frighteningly naïve and unfit for the presidency of the United States.

Now, as you probably know, editors virtually never respond to emails or letters, they either publish or toss them in the trash. However, our friend was fortunate enough (?) to get a reply. He was not fortunate enough to get his viewpoint published, but he got the consolation prize (?) of a long (sic), a well-thought-out (sic), and a courteous (sic) reply. A reply showing that Tom Beeler, editor extraordinaire of the Granite State News, understands the world, politicians, preachers, Republicans, Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, common courtesy, and, last but not least, the independence of the media better than anyone…

No one listens to Jesse Jackson, even if he did say those ridiculous things, and Jesse Jackson is not Barack Obama. And Obama is anything but naive.

Another set of lies from desperate Republicans.

Thomas Beeler
Editor
The Granite State News
PO Box 250
Wolfeboro Falls, NH 03896
(603) 569-3126
grunter@salmonpress.com

What… nuance!…

Time to Remember: Howard Dean

I forget the exact quote (anybody have it along with a link?), but Howard Dean once was quoted as saying: "I will do anything, say anything, promise anything to get you elected" (you being whoever the candidate and whatever the race in question was).

If it feels good, do it!

As the patron saint of NP is of Argentine lineage we are duty-bound to take a peek from time to time at what gives south of that equator. Ugh:

Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez has signed a bill that will nationalise the country's 10 private pension funds.

...

Ms Fernandez said that Argentina needed to protect those with pensions amid falling stock prices around the world.

However, expectations of the announcement sent Argentine shares 11% lower and critics said the government simply wanted its hands on the money ahead of a tough budget year.

As can be seen elsewhere, the lock-step vanguard of the hard-left is eager to use the current financial system turbulence as subterfuge for their insatiable statist thirst for ever more money, your money of course. Previously the monetarily-grabbing vultures on the hard-left had to use a wee bit of stealth to hide their propensity to pick your pocket. With financial turmoil the gloves are off and the current play on the hard-left is the straight-up smash, grab, and gobble, all in the name of "social justice" mind you.

Argentina's 2001 default at least was wrapped in the faux-plausible radical blasé-chic liberation rhetoric of "sticking it to the man!". The 2008 version of events is nothing more than a blatant confiscation on the part of hard-left statists.

In surveying the very possible hard-left wave breaking against the barricades the thought does arise regarding the need for a new anthem of solidarity amongst the statists. Forget about dusting off that old copy of the Internationale you may have found while looking for your autographed copy of the Little Red Book. This is a new time in need of a new anthem befitting our smash-grab-and-gobble comrades on the hard-left. Two possible, and very appropos, offerings: Gimme, Gimme, Gimme and Money, Money, Money.

In other news:

A naked man found wedged in a supermarket chimney in Greater Manchester today has been arrested on suspicion of burglary.

One supposes light blogging from the Devil's Kitchen then.....

The media and the left need you to be demoralized

The most important part in all of this is that the media and the left need you to be demoralized. They need you to think it's hopeless … not only so that they get the presidency, but so that they get a filibuster-proof Senate as well.

Thus writes Christopher Cook, who is optimistic and gives arguments and reasons for you to be as well, adding that

Everyone is forwarding stuff around on Ayers and FannieFreddieMaeMac and ACORN. And well we should.

But in a way, those poll numbers are the most important thing to forward right now.

Think of it: You've read these emails, and surely you've noticed that in some, there's touch of resigned desperation, as if to say, "can you believe this guy is this corrupt and he's going to win anyways?".

But that's EXACTLY how the media and the Democrats want you to feel.

No, scratch that. That's how they NEED you to feel.

To What Extent Is It Racist to Vote Against Barack Obama in November 2008?

Americans are being told, by their fellow citizens as well as by foreigners, that in order to prove that they no longer are racist, they must elect a black man to the White House.

That is good to know.

But one question arises. By how many percentage points must Barack Obama win for "America" to "prove" (to itself as well as to others) that it is no longer racist? It would seem that only something in the neighborhood of a 99% victory could effectively determine that. But that is the kind of "victory" only seen in dictatorships, so hopefully a victory in that kind of numbers won't be required.

• Watch the video…

What if the Illinois senator wins by, say, 60%? That's a pretty impressive victory by any standard. But does that mean that the other 40% must necessarily be racists? Must race be the only, or the main, reason for their voting against Obama?

What if it's a razor-thin victory? Should the former community organizer win by only, say, 50.02%, will that mean that Americans aren't that ready to give up the racism that has (allegedly) characterized them for so long?

And how about four years from now? Must Americans again prove that they are not (or that they are no longer) racist? Come the 2012 election, must Americans reelect President Obama to the White House to prove they are not fettered by racism? Again, by how many percentage points? And what if a hypothetically impressive 2008 victory turns into a hypothetically lackluster 2012 showing? Will we then be told, ominously, that that proves that racism "rears its ugly head" again?

And what if the results of the election aren't that straightforward? Remember 2000? What if Obama comes out ahead (barely), only to have John McCain — for valid reasons or otherwise — mount a campaign to recount the votes in some state(s) or parts thereof? What if Obama's victory is not ascertained until several weeks after November 4? Can you imagine the outcry that will cause? (Let's not even imagine the hollering, the wailing, and the gnashing of teeth among American leftists as well as foreign ones, should Obama be the candidate who loses after a year-2000-election scenario!)

And how about the future? Given that one in seven Americans is black (it's actually about 12.85% or closer to one in eight, but since we are talking about presidential terms, seven is an easier figure to handle), must Americans from now on elect an African-American every seven election cycles to prove they aren't racist? And must they not just have a black person run, but actually win the election — meaning that any white person's campaign (for the presidency or simply to be his party's candidate) is doomed ahead of time, meaning in turn, the parties may have no whites even thinking of being a candidate every seventh election cycle? By the way: must Americans elect an African-American exactly every 28 years — regardless of circumstances — or must they elect every seventh president a black man, i.e., taking into consideration the number of terms of the intervening six presidents, that is, counting a (supposedly white) single-termer's four years in the White House and a (supposedly white) two-termer's eight years as one each (i.e., as one each of the intervening six presidents)?

Maybe the solution is even more drastic: instead of electing a black man every seven election terms, Americans must make up for the 220 years without an African-American at the helm; meaning that the next six presidents (the total number of white males in the White House, 43, divided by 7) must be black. This, in turn, can only mean that no white politician may run for the supreme office (or even for the party's candidacy), whether in the Democratic party or the Republican Party, at least, until 2032 and possibly (should all candidates win reelection) until 2056.

And while we're at it, how about women? Must we elect a woman every second presidential contest? And again, must we start afresh (i.e., electing every seventh president a black and every second one a woman) or must we — again — make up for the previous 220 years — meaning we can only have blacks as president until 2032 and only females as presidents (one out of seven of whom is a black female, naturally) until the year… 2228?

What is the point about these questions? The point is as follows: Make no mistake about it. Should Obama win the election, the hand-wringing and wild charges about American racism — both at home and abroad — will at best cease temporarily. Any opposition to President Obama's policies will be construed as racism "rearing its ugly head" again.

And at best (at best, according to the — non-thinking — bean-counters, that is), in the faraway future, we will be told by the snickerers and the snorters: "Well yeah, a black American was elected in 2008 (even reelected in 2012), but that was a one-time travesty!"

Or they will say that oh, sure there is an African-Americans (there are African-Americans) whom Americans have elected president, but… his (but their) skin color wasn't dark enough. "Would they ever" — insert knowing ironic smile here — "elect a really dark Negro?"

Why do I think this? Why do I know this? How can I be so sure of it? Because it has already come up. Every time Obama inches forward, we see a resurgence in the tales of Barack Obama getting assassinated.

So first, we get snickering and snorting that (of course) America will never elect a black man president. When the prospect of a black man acceding to the presidency becomes distinctly possible (and even probable), we get snickering and snorting that (of course) that president (or that candidate) will be shot dead.

Why does this come up? Because Americans — or certainly, conservative Americans from small town America — must be accused of something sinister.

It doesn't matter if the nation's sports stars are black, it doesn't matter if the nation's top film stars are black, it doesn't matter if a nation's top generals are (or have been) black, it doesn't matter if the largest cities' mayors are (or have been) black, it doesn't matter if the secretary of state is black, it doesn't matter if a main party has chosen a black man to run for the presidency (whether he wins or not). As for electing a black man president, I would happily vote for a person such as Michael S Steele, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Larry Elder, Shelby Steele, and (until recently) Condoleeza Rice.

But, again: all that doesn't matter: Americans — or certainly, Americans from small town America (the conservatives who usually vote for Republicans) — must be accused of something sinister. If it isn't racism, it's fascism. If it isn't fascism, it's something else. Americans must be treacherous, they must be greedy, they must be warmongers, they must be reactionary, they must be clueless. And… they must be racist. (Incidentally, has it ever occurred to you — has it ever occurred to our Liberal friends that what they think — what they are convinced they "know" — about run-of-the-mill Americans from small town America might actually be perfectly representative of the alleged racism that they deplore in those run-of-the-mill Americans' sentiments towards the black race? Notice that what the leftists accuse white, conservative, Waspish Americans of — nay, what they are convinced represents those Americans' entire reality — is far more derogatory and denigratory than the alleged racism that those Americans allegedly feel towards a race such as the black one.)

This is why we have what Mark Steyn calls it "Obama assassination porn." If/When Obama is felled by a bullet, the liberals will have a field day (or rather a field, week, month, year, decade, etc…) bemoaning that "America", i.e., that conservative racist America is what killed America. (But nations do not commit assassinations, nor do unorganized racial groups; only individuals do.)

Incidentally, what is frightening to envision, with all these martyred Obama fantasies and all this alleged racism floating around, is that the theoretical murder of Barack Obama would be (far) more profitable to the Democratic Party than to any racist individual or, certainly, to anybody supposedly embodying conservative America. If a Democrat really wanted his party to win, having their black candidate assassinated a few days before the election (along with the ensuing outrage and commotion) would ensure the party's near-certain capture of the White House. (Difficult to envision? As Jerry Bowyer points out, most presidential assassins have been rather of a leftist bent.)

Whatever the case, the basic truth about racism is as follows: racism is far less an accurate description of an attitude prevalent in a given society, in a given individual, than it is a weapon that is wielded to demonize one's opponents while making oneself appear heroic by parroting (and by doing nothing else than parroting) politically correct platitudes. More often than not, in other words, the fight against alleged pockets of racism is nothing more noble than a self-serving act of self-praise.

Bush a Symbol of Injustice in America for Outspending Gore and Kerry! Obama? Ho-Hum…

Four of five years ago, a furious leftist in France lashed out at me, asking me (rhetorically) whether I thought it was democratic and whether America was a democracy when the Republican (the conservative) candidate outspent the Democratic (the leftist) candidate. The unspoken message being that when one candidate outspends the other, there is no democracy, such things ought not to happen, and that if a man with leftist ideals were at the helm, a measure of justice would be at work and such things would not occur.

Now, we learn not only that the leftist candidate is outspending the conservative one, but that Barack Obama alone (that is, the political machinery behind him alone) is spending as much as George W Bush and John Kerry did in 2004 together!

But do we hear any kind of questioning of this kind of inequality, from the usual purveyors of political correctness and social justice (and alleged electoral fair-play)? You know the answer, do you not?

Update: Similarly Kyle-Anne Shiver says (merci à rv):

For the past eight years, Americans have been bombarded nearly nonstop by cries of "Bush stole the White House," without a single proven shred of evidence, without a single indictment or conviction of Republicans on vote fraud, vote rigging or anything even close. Meanwhile the only group indicated and convicted in actual vote fraud cases in the last two elections -- ACORN -- is fully mobilized still, claims to have registered 1.3 million new voters this year, and is tied historically and inextricably to our front-running candidate for President, Barack Obama.

Two Videos the Leftist Media Won't Share

Sayet Right has two Important Videos that the Leftist Media Won't Share…

Oh, How Very Cosmoplitan they are

This third story is more than just another bimbo eruption for Domenique Strauss-Kahn.

Blog aggregation site Agoravox.fr reported late yesterday, having later changed it's more accusitory seeming headline, that a woman has come forward saying that the IMF chief and French Socialist Party big-wig attempted to rape her.

Is the DSK affaire is the tree hiding in the forest? At the worldly Parisian dinner parties, director of the IMF is apparently well known for his amorous conquests. His supposed affair with a Hungarian economist is in the headlines right now, but this relationship between consenting adults is, after all, as inconsequential as DSK himself, merely a banal exchange. It gets more serious. A video posted on the web explains how DSK tried to rape Tristane Banon, a young journalist and novelist. If the facts are proved, the charge would indeed be terrible. But the victim does not conceal herself, but rather accuses the director of the IMF of bullying.

It also seems that that the matter was hushed up in February 2007, even though it was well after the presidential election that early on gave him a good bit of exposure, and Strauss-Kahn was far from Paris with conciderably less exposure, having already been appointed head of the IMF.

After her segment on Tous le Monde en Parle hosted by the terminally anti-American Thierry Ardisson, she mentioned it to the muckraker investigative journalist, who didn't think much of it. In his arrogance, he suggested that "it not what I asked you here".

In other words, to Ardisson a senior politician attempting rape is perfectly normal, and unworthy of his attention. What do you expect from a man that treats political discourse on TV the way Jerry Springer used to cover bisexual midgets who are unfaithful to their spouses.

See if you can spot the "clue"

A German bank is tagged as "Germany's Dumbest Bank", see if you can spot the clue which may have tipped off any reasonable person long before any problems cropped up:

German prosecutors and police today raided the Frankfurt headquarters of state-owned bank KfW, looking into a case suspected criminal breach of trust.

Prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into whether the bank's executives acted criminally in allowing KfW to transfer €319m (£251m) to US investment bank Lehman Brothers on the day it went bankrupt.

The Postman Always Rings Twice

17 percent of French voters take a shine to a relaunched LCR as an anticapitalist party. It’s run by the boy-wonder mailman Olivier Besancenot who never worked. It should prove popular among idiots who seem especially disturbed in their unionized jobs, especially in these confusing times where one might have to add up numbers from time to time.

Michael Gurfinkiel, writing the The Weekly Standard has more:

The Soviet empire disintegrated in 1991. The KGB networks, however, have continued to operate, both inside and outside Russia. And Havana continues to serve as a capital in exile for many of them. This accounts for both the spread of Castroite regimes in Latin America in recent years and the consolidation of a global anti-Western alliance, from Hugo Chávez in Venezuela to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. It may also explain the current attempts to resurrect hard left parties in Europe, whether Die Linke in Germany or the NPA in France. In any event, commenting on the recession in France last month, Besancenot expressed confidence that things were ripe once more for "good old revolution."

The party elite of the French far-left are genuine stooges straight out of the 1970’s who look to authoritarian prison states for inspiration – having learned nothing in the mean time, other than the parties themselves are a sort of meal-ticket for the ruling class that lead it. In Germany, Die Linke tried to promote in the last election to head the federal republic with the slogan “Luxus für Alle” or “luxuries for all” to appeal to the same mathematically deficient population that so many times before had made a name for Europe in the world as the continent of blood. Olivier Besancenot is surely aware of that he shares such a noble heritage with both the legacy of what the ideas he’s adopted have produced, and the simplistic methods by which it continues to peddle itself. The historical ignorance, as well as outright stupidity about economics are key. It’s why revolutionaries target the young and the educational establishment.

First, he has no working class background at all. His parents were solidly middle class (his father was a high school teacher and his mother a school psychologist). He went to college--Nanterre University in Greater Paris--and earned an M.A. in contemporary history. He is first and foremost a Revolutionary Communist League apparatchik who joined the working class at the party's request, first as a supermarket warehouse worker and then as a mailman, in order to acquire the politically necessary proletarian credentials. Tellingly, he was co-opted to the LCR's Central Committee in 1996, before he went to work for the postal service.

Besancenot, moreover, never actually worked much as a mailman. Under French law, workers are entitled to long leaves, on full salary, if they serve as officers of unions or political parties. Besancenot is both. And he knows how to make the most of it. He has been on leave almost continuously, either as a union activist or as an LCR figure--assistant to an LCR member of the European Parliament, party spokesman, or presidential candidate. This was his real job, and it was much better paid than his nominal job at the postal service. As a European Parliament assistant, he apparently made 5,000 euros a month.

Besancenot's private life is even more intriguing. His early rise within the LCR was due in large measure to the fact that he was living with a daughter of Alain Krivine, the group's founder and head, who himself ran for president as a Trotskyite in 1969 and 1974. Besancenot later separated from her, but remained Krivine's protégé. Then he met his current companion, Stéphanie Chevrier. A radical activist, Chevrier, 38, is also a top editor at the publishing house Flammarion and reportedly makes 10,000 euros a month with numerous perks. She owns an apartment in Paris on the exclusive Left Bank, where she lives with Besancenot. Her contacts in the French media have apparently been crucial in her common-law husband's meteoric rise.

To whom--one may ask, then--do Krivine, Chevrier, and Besancenot ultimately answer?

From its very inception in the 1960s, Krivine's Revolutionary Communist League was closely tied to the Castro regime in Cuba. Today, Besancenot describes Cuba as a "truly progressive" society. He coauthored a book in praise of Che Guevara in 2007. Last spring, shortly before launching the NPA, he visited his "friends" in Havana, where he "met with various militants." On May 6, in an interview with Rouge, the LCR magazine, he praised the "internationalist" dimension of the Cuban Revolution.

In truth, only in a corroded society where families are temporary things subject more to whim than love, and the state is one’s husband and breadwinner, could such a man thrive – one who, at 34 is considered a “kid” and given a pass on all of those things “kids” do:

The chief reason for Besancenot's popularity is that, like Barack Obama (to quote Michelle Obama), "he's cute." With his boyish face, broad smile, and big eyes, Besancenot appeals to his generational peers, women, and even older people, who tend to see him as their virtual son.

Thank you, Europe, for all of Your Wonderful Ideas

Change and hope, 60's style: Ayres Weather Underground planned to kill 25 million Americans in re-education camps

"I bought up the subject of what's going to happen after we take over the government. We, we become responsible, then, for administrating, you know, 250 million people.

And there was no answers. No one had given any thought to economics; how are you going to clothe and feed these people.

The only thing that I could get, was that they expected that the Cubans and the North Vietnamese and Chinese and the Russians would all want to occupy different portions of the United States.

They also believed that their immediate responsibility would be to protect against what they called the counter-revolution. And they felt that this counter-revolution could best be guarded against by creating and establishing re-education centers in the southwest, where we would take all the people who needed to be re-educated into the new way of thinking and teach them... how things were going to be.

asked, well, what's going to happen to those people that we can't re-educate; that are die-hard capitalists. And the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated. And when I pursued this further, they estimated that they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these re-education centers. And when I say eliminate, I mean kill. 25 million people.

I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees from Columbia and other well known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people.

And they were dead serious."

Larry Grathwohl, former member of the Weather Underground.

- Thank you, Stavn

Ho hum....

Just another article:

Also in September, American Craig Loehle, a scientist who conducts computer modelling on global climate change, confirmed his earlier findings that the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) of about 1,000 years ago did in fact exist and was even warmer than 20th-century temperatures.

Prior to the past decade of climate hysteria and Kyoto hype, the MWP was a given in the scientific community. Several hundred studies of tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediment, ice cores and early written records of weather -- even harvest totals and censuses --confirmed that the period from 800 AD to 1300 AD was unusually warm, particularly in Northern Europe.

But in order to prove the climate scaremongers' claim that 20th-century warming had been dangerous and unprecedented -- a result of human, not natural factors -- the MWP had to be made to disappear. So studies such as Michael Mann's "hockey stick," in which there is no MWP and global temperatures rise gradually until they jump up in the industrial age, have been adopted by the UN as proof that recent climate change necessitates a reordering of human economies and societies.

One item of interest though. An oft-asked but never answered (not that we have seen) question: out of the 100% of GHG in the atmosphere, what % is man's doing?

An analytical chemist who works in spectroscopy and atmospheric sensing, Michael J. Myers of Hilton Head, S. C., declared, "Man-made global warming is junk science," explaining that worldwide manmade CO2 emission each year "equals about 0.0168% of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration ... This results in a 0.00064% increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number."

We see if the science holds up. Much better to rely on science and data in these matters vs. religious feelings.

Already in 2007, John Bird and John Fortune explained how the markets really work…

First the Terrorists… Now a War Criminal Endorses Obama

You can't make this up, people, laughs Skye…

The Leftist Routine of Faking Ubiquity and Consensus

For no reason other than to grab any vote that they can, the way the loony left will suddenly start pretending to embrace military people whom they otherwise reflexively accuse of abuse and stupidity should prove amusing. Reserving their hatred for them until it seems politically expedient to "suport the troops", Powell's endorsement of a man with no executive experience or accomplishments.

It's as mercenary as the hypocrity that French politicians are trying to paper over Dominque Strauss-Kahn's abuse of his office in pursuing an affair with a subordinate at the IMF. They are biting the bullet for no reason other than their own advancement at the cost of anything they used to think was right an wrong, because like Powell, he's all they've got. All must agree to the exclusion of anything else. Even to the point where someone will censor the Wikipaedia page about the victim.

What, then, are the consequences? The perp's wife, Anne Sincair, is television political interviewer in a nation where repeating the fashionable superlatives is manditory to the exclusion of anything else and any other assertions even when they aren't true, is for now reserving her comments – much like Hillary Clinton after if became obvious that Bill couldn't suppress his appetite for any reason, is biting her lip for the sake of her own future value, and nothing more.

The hypocrity that the hardest core or Obama's supporters will have to engage in now, having over the past 7 years carried signs that say “Bush is te real terrorist” and the “Bush-Cheney did 9-11” should be amusing. What it will reveal is their lack of value and fidelity if their candidate actually wins.

Our European Betters Declare Gay Dogging a “Human Right”

Aren’t you glad the police are on the case? The quickest way to destroy a concept is to overuse the terminology associated with it. Ergo, anything in Europe is raised to the level of a right whether it really is or not. Blink twice and you’ll be able to kiss those rights goodbye.

Public homosexual activity in parks and public bathrooms must not be impeded by law enforcement officials except as a last resort, says a new set of draft guidelines for UK police.

Nonetheless, even though they are not to interfere, officers are told to go home and do their required reading in order to expressly not enforce any sort of public order.

The constable encouraged police to study sex websites for insight into the whereabouts of homosexual sex hot spots. Such websites show, among pornographic advertisements, dozens of public haunts for homosexual men seeking anonymous sex - among the most notorious being Dartford Heath, where public sex has been said to have spiraled "out of control."

Which is pointless, even if you are trying to “build trust” with 2% of the population, but enforcing the law on others.

The ACPO already enforces guidelines for police officers handling the public indecency claims against homosexual cruising, which emphasize "the value of building trust with local LGBT communities" to ensure that action against homosexual activity be "fair, necessary, and legitimate."  The guidelines were authored by the ACPO Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Working Group in 2000 to provide "a comprehensive LGBT policing strategy centered around anti-homophobia."

Let SOME adults fuck in public, force people to explain this to their children, and there will be no more homophobia – I get it!

But what does it really matter if you’ve already forgot what your fake concern for equal treatment was for to begin with.

Islam should be treated more sensitively than Christianity: BBC

Mark Thompson claimed that because Muslims are a religious minority in Britain and also often from ethnic minorities, their faith should be given different coverage to that of more established groups.

As if the grand span of other world religions who are minorities in the UK don’t deserve preferential coverage, or that there is some reason to behave preferentially to any private group or institution.

Must pick your enemies to detest, must pick your fashionably oppressed to champion, even if you’ve got no clue: lefty moral vanity demands it. In that prism, some must always be more equal (or pitiable in a politically useful way) than others, especially if they represent the fewest people and the treatment itself manages to dispossess the largest number of people of equal treatment.

Why? Because hating normal, happy people makes them feel smart.

Maybe money can buy happiness..

Right.

One may want to read this article from the EU Observer regarding the EU-15 indeed reaching those Kyoto emission targets:

The 15 'old' European Union member states are on track to meeting their targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions that they signed up to under the 1997 Kyoto Agreement.

So, how did we do it? What is our secret? Greater use of technology? More nu-clear power generation? A bit of belt-tightening? More individuals walking? Thinking globally whilst acting locally?

Well, it appears ..... well, perhaps the reader should decide:

Most of the EU-15 are planning for reforestation to achieve much of their Kyoto target. However, the total amount of carbon dioxide that could be removed annually between 2008 and 2012 is relatively small (1.4 percent compared to 1990), according to the EEA, although it is somewhat higher than the projections made in 2007.

This means that the countries may have to purchase more carbon offset credits to make up the difference.

I thought most modern religious movements had done away with paying for indulgences.

Finally, A Texan Worth Mocking

In the interest of creating the most and best unhinged and unbalanced reporting, Radio-Tele-ganda France is employing serial liar Dan Rather to do their US election night coverage. I hope Dan can add: for his audience it will be the middle of the night, and they will come to hate whoever Americans elect.

Rather has been tapped by Canal Plus to cover the U.S. presidential election.
Rather will appear live from New York on Nov. 2 in the program "Dimanche Plus," dedicated to the elections. He will then host an Election Day special on Nov. 4, and will be back on the air the following morning for post-election comments on the show "La Matinale."

Fire his ass and give us Schneidermann.

The former CBS News anchor is joining the list of Yanks who get more respect from the Gauls than they do at home.

Geez, if they only knew... I can't wait for them to try to translate some of his stranger gaffes and fake folksy expressions!

DSK will not be “Wolfowitzed”, Only an American may be “Wolfowitzed”

IMF head Domenique Strauss-Kahn is being investigated for going out of his way to initiate a romantic affair with a married employee of the IMF. The size of the severance package offered to her to quietly disemploy herself before someone blew the cover on the story is not known.

Nonetheless, the Gallic mind turns to only one thing: self-evasion. The essence of it is in this dimwitted comment featured on the unctuous Rue89 site:

The key in all this is that this will not be in our interest, because the tradition that it is a European (mainly French) who inherit the position of Director of the IMF is being challenged.

I am afraid that they will appoint an Englishman (as a "compromise" choice) instead of DSK. I see that the residents are well informed about the extra-conjugal escapades of DSK, which was not my case until this article! The IMF is not an American but international institution, we should not overexpose this story, because sexual adventures are usually not a determining factor for non-Americans. Americans do not appoint the director of the IMF, but that of the World Bank.

In any case, someone wanted to kill Strauss-Kahn in crisis, is obvious. For what purpose? Could it be that we wanted to torpedo a re-regulation "in shock" from DSK?

To “re-“ regulate something that wasn’t regulated to begin with? To revise the French manipulated Basel II banking rules? Which is it, papito? If all that matters here is that a Frenchman will be replaced by an Englishmen, despite his sexual greed wrecking a promising subordinate’s career and possibly her marriage, then it should have just gone unreported, right? Wrong. The world is not France. Very few parts of the world contain people who would brook no objection to that kind of abuse of a position, especially with a woman in a lower position in an organization. The very idea that it’s okay otherwise betrays all of the leftist howling and screaming about sexual freedom, womens’ rights, and their freedom from abuse. THAT kind of pliability might be common to you and most of the western left, but it is far from universal. Other people actually have principals.

The commenter is naturally worried that it’s those “money people” behind the hideous enforcement of ethics guidelines, all due no doubt to the heroic Asterix-like figure in Strauss-Kahn’s desire to “regulate” them. The ill informed buffoon forgets that when the Wall Street Journal broke the story, the investigation was initiated at the request of an Egyptian delegation with the backing of the Russian representative.

The really sad thing is that DSK is the only socialist party mucky-muck with a shred of common sense.