Ken Berwitz

Just a quick blog entry here.  I heard keith olbermann's "special comment" this evening.  It's overall theme was that President Obama has to get out of Afghanistan -- i.e. no additional troops, not even the ones we have.  Just bug out.

This, in and of itself, is no surprise.  Nor is it outrageous.  An argument (not a compelling one in my opinion, but a valid argument nonetheless) can be made for summarily leaving Afghanistan. 

What was surprising, however, was the stridency with which he attacked the probability that President Obama will order additional forces there.  Based on the way olbermann made his case, I do not know how he can continue to support Mr. Obama if there is any appreciable troop surge.

But the real reason I'm blogging about this "special comment" is its overall tone.  For the entire time - I didn't clock it but it had to be at least 6-7 minutes - olbermann was so insulting to so many people, so completely hate-filled, abusive and venomous, that he made me wonder if he is in the process of having a nervous breakdown of some kind.

I've been around a long time  a lot longer than keith olbermann (I was a Bar-Mitzvah one month after he was born).  And in all that time, I can honestly say I have never heard so much bilious vituperation from one person in so short a time before.  Never.

I assume there are videos or transcripts of olbermann's "special comments" available.  If so, I will find and post this one tomorrow.  You won't believe your ears.

Ken Berwitz

Something smells about this story.  Badly

I was driving home last night and tuned in to John Batchelor's radio show (the first time I ever did).  He was interviewing Aaron Klein of www.worldnetdaily.com. 

Klein was talking about the fact that state-dinner-crasher Tariq Salahi, was a close confidante of the virulently anti-Israel Khalid Rashidi - a close friend of President Obama's.  And that Salahi had been Vice President of  a virulently anti-Israel group called the Task Force on Palestine, but his involvement was scrubbed from the group's web site the day before.

FYI, the Task Force on Palestine is one of these phony "we want a two-state solution" groups which, in reality, will accept Israel only if it allows the "right of return" for all Arabs who claim descendency from those who left the land that is now Israel in 1948 (even if they never lived in Israel a day of their lives).  If that were to happen, Israel would immediately cease to be a Jewish state, and the Arab majority (those millions, plus the 1.4 or so million Arabs already living in Israel) would presumably turn Jews into what they are in every other Arab land - refugees or corpses.

Not surprisingly, this group was a valued participant in the J Street conference last month. 

But there's even more.  Today I read this, from the Washington Post:

A top Defense Department official corresponded with Tareq and Michaele Salahi in an effort to get them into last week's White House state dinner, according to sources familiar with an investigation into the security breach. On Friday the couple turned over copies of the email exchange to the Secret Service investigators.

 

Sources said the e-mails were sent from Michele S. Jones, the special assistant to the Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon-based liaison to the White House, who lists the Salahis' lawyer, Paul W. Gardner, as one of her 50 friends on the Facebook social networking site.

 

Several people familiar with the Jones-Salahi correspondence argued the e-mails support the Salahis' case that they were cleared to attend Tuesday night's gala.

Bottom line:  The claim that Tariq and Michaele Sahalhi just pranced into the White House without some kind of invitation does not - repeat, does not - hold water.

There is more to this story than a couple of publicity hounds who got lucky.  The smell of it is that these two - especially him - were people who were invited, but someone (maybe Mr. Obama himself) belatedly realized what a disaster it would be, especially among Jewish supporters, if it got out that they were welcome guests.

Stay tuned. 

=============================================================================

UPDATE:  The Salahis were on the Today Show this morning, and stated unequivocally that they were invited guests.  But Baghdad Bob Gibbons, President Obama's stumbling, bumbling press secretary (who reminds me a lot of the characters Grady Sutton used to play many years ago) states unequivocally that they were not invited at all.

The plot sickens.  And there is bound to be more coming.

Ken Berwitz

John F. Harris of www.politico.com has written a genuinely excellent article, titled "7 stories Obama doesn't want told".  It is too long to put up here, so I am culling out what I consider the key excerpts.  But I strongly urge you to read it all:.

7 stories Obama doesn't want told By: John F. Harris November 30, 2009 05:45 AM EST

Presidential politics is about storytelling. Presented with a vivid storyline, voters naturally tend to fit every new event or piece of information into a picture that is already neatly framed in their minds. No one understands this better than Barack Obama and his team, who won the 2008 election in part because they were better storytellers than the opposition. The pro-Obama narrative featured an almost mystically talented young idealist who stood for change in a disciplined and thoughtful way. This easily outpowered the anti-Obama narrative, featuring an opportunistic Chicago pol with dubious relationships who was more liberal than he was letting on. A year into his presidency, however, Obama’s gift for controlling his image shows signs of faltering. As Washington returns to work from the Thanksgiving holiday, there are several anti-Obama storylines gaining momentum. Here are seven storylines Obama needs to worry about: He thinks he’s playing with Monopoly money Economists and business leaders from across the ideological spectrum were urging the new president on last winter when he signed onto more than a trillion in stimulus spending and bank and auto bailouts during his first weeks in office. Many, though far from all, of these same people now agree that these actions helped avert an even worse financial catastrophe. Along the way, however, it is clear Obama underestimated the political consequences that flow from the perception that he is a profligate spender. He also misjudged the anger in middle America about bailouts with weak and sporadic public explanations of why he believed they were necessary. The flight of independents away from Democrats last summer — the trend that recently hammered Democrats in off-year elections in Virginia — coincided with what polls show was alarm among these voters about undisciplined big government and runaway spending. The likely passage of a health care reform package criticized as weak on cost-control will compound the problem. Too much Leonard Nimoy Obama, a legislator and law professor, is fluent in describing the nuances of problems. But his intellectuality has contributed to a growing critique that decisions are detached from rock-bottom principles. Both Maureen Dowd in The New York Times and Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post have likened him to Star Trek’s Mr. Spock.  That’s the Chicago Way This is a storyline that’s likely taken root more firmly in Washington than around the country. The rap is that his West Wing is dominated by brass-knuckled pols. It does not help that many West Wing aides seem to relish an image of themselves as shrewd, brass-knuckled political types. In a Washington Post story this month, White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, referring to most of Obama’s team, said, “We are all campaign hacks.” The examples of Chicago-style politics include their delight in public battles with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (There was also a semi-public campaign of leaks aimed at Greg Craig, the White House counsel who fell out of favor.) In private, the Obama team cut an early deal — to the distaste of many congressional Democrats — that gave favorable terms to the pharmaceutical lobby in exchange for their backing his health care plans. The lesson that many Washington insiders have drawn is that Obama wants to buy off the people he can and bowl over those he can’t. If that perception spreads beyond Washington this will scuff Obama’s brand as a new style of political leader. He’s a pushover If you are going to be known as a fighter, you might as well reap the benefits. But some of the same insider circles that are starting to view Obama as a bully are also starting to whisper that he’s a patsy. It seems a bit contradictory, to be sure. But it’s a perception that began when Obama several times laid down lines — then let people cross them with seeming impunity. Last summer he told Democrats they better not go home for recess until a critical health care vote but they blew him off. He told the Israeli government he wanted a freeze in settlements but no one took him seriously. Even Fox News — which his aides prominently said should not be treated like a real news organization — then got interview time for its White House correspondent. He sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe That line belonged to George H.W. Bush, excoriating Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988. But it highlights a continuing reality: In presidential politics the safe ground has always been to be an American exceptionalist. Politicians of both parties have embraced the idea that this country — because of its power and/or the hand of Providence — should be a singular force in the world. It would be hugely unwelcome for Obama if the perception took root that he is comfortable with a relative decline in U.S. influence or position in the world. On this score, the reviews of Obama’s recent Asia trip were harsh. His peculiar bow to the emperor of Japan was symbolic. But his lots-of-velvet, not-much-iron approach to China had substantive implications. On the left, the budding storyline is that Obama has retreated from human rights in the name of cynical realism. On the right, it is that he is more interested in being President of the World than President of the United States, a critique that will be heard more in December as he stops in Oslo to pick up his Nobel Prize and then in Copenhagen for an international summit on curbing greenhouse gases. President Pelosi No figure in Barack Obama’s Washington, including Obama, has had more success in advancing his will than the speaker of the House, despite public approval ratings that hover in the range of Dick Cheney’s. With a mix of tough party discipline and shrewd vote-counting, she passed a version of the stimulus bill largely written by congressional Democrats, passed climate legislation, and passed her chamber’s version of health care reform. She and anti-war liberals in her caucus are clearly affecting the White House’s Afghanistan calculations. The great hazard for Obama is if Republicans or journalists conclude — as some already have — that Pelosi’s achievements are more impressive than Obama’s or come at his expense. He’s in love with the man in the mirror No one becomes president without a fair share of what the French call amour propre. Does Obama have more than his share of self-regard? It’s a common theme of Washington buzz that Obama is over-exposed. He gives interviews on his sports obsessions to ESPN, cracks wise with Leno and Letterman, discusses his fitness with Men’s Health, discusses his marriage in a joint interview with first lady Michelle Obama for The New York Times. A photo the other day caught him leaving the White House clutching a copy of GQ featuring himself.

Harris just plain nails it, doesn't he?  Every one of the seven points significantly contributes to Mr. Obama's fall from the stratospheric level of popularity he initially enjoyed to his much-diminished status of today.  Excellent.  Just excellent.

My only problem with this is -- where have our wonderful "neutral" media been until now?  These story lines didn't magically materialize over Thanksgiving.

But at least they're starting to emerge now.  Finally.

===========================================================================

NOTE:  My pal Bob sent me this article before I posted it.  So even though I put it up before reading what Bob's sent, I will give him attribution for it on the grounds that, if I had not seen it previously, I would have done so after reading his email.

Ken Berwitz

So they held an election in Honduras this weekend.  A democratic election.  Over 60% of the voters cast ballots.  There was a winner and a loser.  There appears to be no question of voter fraud. 

So what's the problem?

Ed Morrissey of www.hotair.com explains:

Ken Berwitz

This excerpt of a truly remarkable commentary by Rajendra Pachauri is from an article published in London's Guardian:

Leaked emails won't harm UN climate body, says chairman

Rajendra Pachauri says there is 'virtually no possibility' of a few scientists biasing IPCC's advice, after UAE hacking breach

James Randerson

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 November 2009 17.03 GMT

There is "virtually no possibility" of a few scientists biasing the advice given to governments by the UN's top global warming body, its chair said today.

Rajendra Pachauri defended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the wake of apparent suggestions in emails between climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that they had prevented work they did not agree with from being included in the panel's fourth assessment report, which was published in 2007.

The emails were made public this month after a hacker illegally obtained them from servers at the university.

Pachauri said the large number of contributors and rigorous peer review mechanism adopted by the IPCC meant that any bias would be rapidly uncovered.

"The processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report," he said.

Yeah, ok.  Right.  Great argument, Rajendra

The processes are "so robust, so inclusive", that these so-called scientists have been lying to our faces for years, and covering their tracks by dumping the raw data which someone with even the slightest interest in facts and truth might use to debunk their claims. 

And it all happened right under your nose, Rajendra. 

One of two things is true:  you either didn't know about it, or, much worse, you did  know about it and hushed it up just like they did.  Which of these two possibilities makes anything you say about the global warming scam worth a damn?

One of the best comments about this article was made by a reader from the US:

In the United States we have this little thing called reasonable doubt. It should be clear to any sane person with a little common sense that perhaps the climate change hysteria needs to be examined truthfully and NOT by those who have the most to gain by convincing the world that we're facing armageddon. It's merely a scare tactic aimed at generating billions of dollars in taxes for governments worldwide. In turn, institutions whose "scientists" came up with this "global warming" scam to begin with are rewarded with fat annual grants. It's about money!! Get that through your heads, people of the world! It's ONLY about money!

Does he/she have a point?  You better believe it.

One other thing:  readers may have noticed that the newspapers I am quoting from in this and the previous global-warming-scam post are from London.  That is because while this is major, lead-story material there, it is largely being buried in the United States by our wonderful "neutral" media.

Then they wonder why people call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

If you like blatant fraud, you'll love these two little tidbits.

The first is excerpted from an article in the Times of London:

Climate change data dumped

Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The second comes to us from London's Daily Telegraph:

Climategate: University of East Anglia U-turn in climate change row

Leading British scientists at the University of East Anglia, who were accused of manipulating climate change data - dubbed Climategate - have agreed to publish their figures in full.

 By Robert Mendick
Published: 8:55PM GMT 28 Nov 2009

The U-turn by the university follows a week of controversy after the emergence of hundreds of leaked emails, "stolen" by hackers and published online, triggered claims that the academics had massaged statistics.

In a statement welcomed by climate change sceptics, the university said it would make all the data accessible as soon as possible, once its Climatic Research Unit (CRU) had negotiated its release from a range of non-publication agreements.

Isn't this just great?  They dump the data which created their "findings" (if you can call their BS findings), and now they're willing to make all the information they have (which is to say, minus what they have dumped) public.

What honest folks.  What princes on earth.

Anyone who believes a thing from this bunch needs to see a doctor about reversing that lobotomy.

Ken Berwitz

John Hinderaker, of www.powerline.blog, shows us how Iran values the input of other countries:

Iran to World: Drop Dead!

 

November 29, 2009 Posted by John at 1:54 PM

 

All those harsh measures that the "international community" has been threatening have really taught Iran's mullahs a lesson:

 

Iran's Government today announced plans to build ten new uranium enrichment plants and said work would start within two months.

 

Each site will be the size of the existing Natanz plant with the aim of producing between 250-300 tonnes of uranium a year.

 

IRNA, Iran's state news agency, says the Government ordered the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to begin construction of five uranium enrichment sites that have already been studied and propose five other sites for future construction. ...

 

The move comes just two days after world powers united in condemnation of Iran's nuclear activities in a rare show of international consensus on the threat posed by Tehran's continued nuclear defiance.

Your move, world.

This is the same government that Barack Obama has aided and abetted by ignoring the massive street protests in June.  It is the same government that Mr. Obama will not and cannot prevent from acquiring the means to vaporize Israel - which Iran has told the world it wants to do. 

But let's give credit where credit is due:  Mr. Obama certainly has found the intestinal fortitude to warn Israel about its actions - not just regarding Iran, but even down to whether it can build apartment houses in its capital city.

According to the exit polling, 78% of US Jews voted for Barack Obama last year.  Most of them, presumably, support Israel.

I hope they're happy with what they got.  Speaking as one of the other 22%, I can assure you I am not.

Ken Berwitz

Remember that lineup of  "czars" we were talking about a couple of months ago?  The lineup that interspersed people most of us would consider acceptable with hard leftists and chicken littles? The lineup that our media wrote about for a couple of days and then promptly buried (with more than a little thanks from President Obama, I'm sure)?

Well, here's one of them - Science & Technology "czar" John Holdren - who was talked about and then forgotten about like the rest.  But he is now being talked about again - at least by Peter Hannaford, writing for www.humanevents.com.

Read Mr. Hannaford's piece and see how you feel about him:.

Meet the White House’s Alarmist in Chief

by  Peter Hannaford

11/30/2009

 

If you had devoted your entire scientific career to predicting the end of the world, what do you think would be the symbol of success with which to crown that career?  Why, to be President Obama’s choice as White House Director of Science and Technology. That’s his formal title, but what John Holdren is, in fact, is the nation’s Alarmist in Chief.

Al Gore thinks he invented global alarmism, but he’s a Johnny-come-lately compared with Mr. Holdren who, back in 1971 edited (with population alarmist Paul Ehrlich) a book titled Global Ecology. Also, he supplied one of its essays, “Overpopulation and the Potential for Ecocide” in which he predicted that such human-caused phenomena as agricultural dust, jet exhaust and smog would cause a new ice age. Thus, he wrote, “...a sudden slumping in the Antarctic ice cap, induced by added weight, could generate a tidal wave of proportions unprecedented in recorded history.” Nowadays, of course, the giant tidal wave will be caused by melting ice caps, not growing ones. One must move with the times.

Holdren has been selling doom for years through academic papers, books and conferences. He has gone from overpopulation to global cooling, nuclear holocaust and global warming. The alarm level never wavers; only the vehicle changes as one disaster fad segues into a new one.

Now his name surfaces as being involved in the e-mail exchanges dubbed “Climategate” in which Climate Research Unit scientists at the U.K.’s University of East Anglia discussed amongst themselves and with others ways and means of suppressing climate data that refuted global warming ideology. Holdren joined in the e-mail exchanges early this year.

That a trove of these e-mails was recently hacked and made public in several online journals and blogs has caused acute embarrassment to the global warming fraternity now that its Copenhagen conference is but a few days away.

Holdren sought to undermine the professional credibility of physicists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon for papers they published in which they concluded that there is insufficient evidence to support the now-orthodox view that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a fact today. AGW is a linchpin of global warming proponents’ argument that human activity causes climate change.  

Another who attacked Baliunas and Soon was Michael Mann (inventor of the “Hockey Stick Theory” of climate which many of his fellow-zealots used to buttress their global warming arguments).  Mann’s e-mails were in the purloined batch, as were Holdren’s defending him.

President Obama’s Climate Czarina, Carol Browner, leapt into the fray the other day, saying she considered the science of the matter “settled” and that she would stick with the consensus of the 2,500 scientists on the International Panel on Climate Change (the Copenhagen conference group). Alas, the IPCC’s turgid tomes on global warming are written not by scientists, but by bureaucrats of various governments and the United Nations.  

Late last week Dr. Eduardo Zorita, a UN IPCC contributing editor, declared flatly that three high priests of the global warming movement “Hockey Stick” Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf “should be barred from the IPCC process.” The reason? Scientists who disagreed with global warming orthodoxy had been “bullied and subtly blackmailed.”  Climategate won’t go away.

As for Alarmist-in-Chief Holdren, now that his public profile has been raised as much as it has, the public may also take note of his anti-democratic, anti-freedom views, expounded in his screeds about population. At one point he argued for forced abortion and for putting chemicals in drinking water that would sterilize all in the population but those deemed by the elite to be worthy of  exemption.

One of his most recent notions is to blend two of his favorite doomsday concepts by injecting pollutants into the upper atmosphere. The global cooling effect of this would be to sink down to smother the global warming effects of pollution here on earth.

Where are the men in the white smocks with the big nets when we need them?

It figures that Barack Obama, whose presidential qualifications are at the elementary-school level but whose ideological qualifications are doctorate-quality, would pick someone like this.

How Mr. Holdren's decades-long history of scare scenarios must have impressed Mr. Obama!  But what about you?  Are you impressed?

This is our fault, folks.  This is what we get for electing a Chicago machine politician to the White House, whose only credentials appear to be that he looks good in a suit and has an excellent style of reading off a teleprompter.

Will we make this mistake again?  Or, more to the point, since we are three years away from finding out, will it even matter by then?

Ken Berwitz

If you wondered how the inexperienced, but hard-left, Barack Obama would fight what he himself considers to be a "war of necessity", please read the following excerpt from today's article in the New York Times:

Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan to Envision Exit

 

By PETER BAKER, ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: November 29, 2009

 

WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to lay out a time frame for winding down the American involvement in the war in Afghanistan when he announces his decision this week to send more forces, senior administration officials said Sunday.

 

Although the speech was still in draft form, the officials said the president wanted to use the address at the United States Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday night not only to announce the immediate order to deploy roughly 30,000 more troops, but also to convey how he intends to turn the fight over to the Kabul government.

 

“It’s accurate to say that he will be more explicit about both goals and time frame than has been the case before and than has been part of the public discussion,” said a senior official, who requested anonymity to discuss the speech before it is delivered. “He wants to give a clear sense of both the time frame for action and how the war will eventually wind down.”

 

The officials would not disclose the time frame. But they said it would not be tied to particular conditions on the ground nor would it be as firm as the current schedule for withdrawing troops in Iraq, where Mr. Obama has committed to withdrawing most combat units by August and all forces by the end of 2011.

Translation:

My fellow Americans.  Way back in August, the commanding General my administration put in charge of Afghanistan told us we needed 40,000 more troops.  He told us that, without them, the troops in their current numbers were too endangered and that we could  lose this war.

I sat on that recommendation for three months. 

But now, after occupying myself with unsuccessful trips to Copenhagen and Denmark, a great state dinner (yummy) and lots of golf, I have made a decision.  I have decided that he'll just have to get along with 30,000.  We can't all have what we want, can we?

And while I'm at it, here is the general framework for our exit strategy.  I make this public as a kindness to the taliban, which will then have a pretty good idea of how long it has to hold out before retaking the country.

For those of you asking how come a specific timetable is a good idea for Iraq and not for Afghanistan ..... can I have another three months?

Finally, you may remember all those attacks I made on former President Bush for not catching osama bin laden.  Well, the fact that we still haven't caught him since I've been President, and that my estimated timetable for withdrawal doesn't mention any requirement that he be caught?  That's Bush's fault too.

Any questions?

Ken Berwitz

Don't you just love it when someone writes something that a) is in complete agreement with you, but b) is written weeks and weeks after you wrote it?

With that in mind, here is Jimmie Bice Jr's piece, from www.hotair.com, about how completely the New York Times misrepresents what happened in Honduras (which, incidentally, had its democratic election today). 

Distorting Honduran History at the New York Times

posted at 2:00 pm on November 29, 2009 by Jimmie Bise, Jr
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I’m having a hard time deciding whether this article in the New York Times is dishonest or just biased toward the Obama Administration’s point of view. The author purports to be critical of the administrations vacillations toward the situation in Honduras, but clearly she’s in the tank on the administration’s approved explanation about what happened there. Here is the offensive paragraph.

Mr. Zelaya, once a darling of the Honduran upper classes, fell from favor when he began increasing the minimum wage, reducing the price of fuel and allying himself with President Chávez. His critics say he crossed a line when he defied the Supreme Court and pushed a referendum to change the Constitution so that he could run for another term. The court called in the military

That poor Zelaya, hero of the working class and foe of the rich, huh? Except you and I both know that’s now what really happened. In this case, “his critics” included the entire government of Honduras. Zelaya did not merely defy the Supreme Court; he openly violated the Honduran constitution which is crystal clear on the matter of Presidents serving more than one term and on the penalty for anyone who even attempts to change that provision. Both the Supreme Court (which unanimous decision included members of Zelaya’s own party) and the Honduran legislature decided to remove Zelaya, even though they did not need to do so. Their actions were found appropriate by the Law Library of Congress. I suppose you could call all those people “his critics” but that does cover them under an umbrella of understatement that’s so obscure as to be misleading.

Which does seem to be the point.

It’s also worth noting that “his critics” also included every printing business in Honduras (none of which would print his illegal ballot, which is why he had them printed in Venezuela) and the head of the armed forces, General Romeo Vasquez, who refused to comply with his illegal order.

In other words, “his critics” include the whole of the Honduran government, the head of the Honduran armed forces, all the printers in Honduras, and the Law Library of the Congress of the United States. Biased or dishonest; you tell me.

There is a truth in that paragraph, though, but it is also understated to the point of deception as well. The court did indeed call in the military to enact its will, bit it did so because the military was the appropriate authority to use in that situation according to the constitution. If the court has used any other law enforcement authority, it would have been guilty of violating the constitution just as surely as Zelaya is. The way that little fact reads, though, you’d think that the court brought in the military just like the military came in on every other coup in Central America.

Honduras has worked very hard over the years to pull itself out of decades of being an unstable banana republic where various “Presidents for Life” were toppled by any general with enough soldiers. The country has a constitution that works and a government that is respectful of the rule of law and good order. The Obama administration has discredited itself badly and shown a staggering amount of ignorance by treating Honduras like it was just another banana republic when it clearly is not. I’m sorry the New York Times had to resort to rhetorical chicanery to help prop up the administration’s ignorant and callous treatment of a would-be ally.

The only consolation is that the author has billed her piece as “news analysis”. Hopefully she never gets the chance to flex her puny analytical muscles again.

Jimmie, you may be having a hard time deciding whether the article is dishonest or biased in favor of Barack Obama.  But I'm not.

It's both.

Ken Berwitz

With a tip of my (nonexistent) hat to the late, great, Jimmy Cannon, here is the latest edition of "nobody asked me, but...."

-If Barack Obama commits any appreciable amount of our tax dollars at the climate-change convention in Copenhagen, it will cost his party seats in 2010.  However many they are likely to lose for all other reasons, this will make them lose more.

-We saw "An Education" yesterday at the Clearview Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey.  The movie was absolutely great, except for the fact that, for no good reason whatsoever, it made the bad guy - the guy who had no morals, no conscience and profitted from racism - a Jew.  I don't mean in passing, I mean conspicuously.  It was absolutely unnecesssary to the story, and no one else's religion was so much as mentioned.  I walked out of the theater troubled by this, but still very high on the movie.  However, the more I think of it the lower my opinion goes.  I'd love an explanation.  Maybe the story is adapted from a book, which has a discernible reason for his Jewishness that is not evident in the movie.  I'll try to contact Nick Hornby, the guy who wrote the screenplay, and find out.

-We were in New York with friends last weekend, and ate at Sevilla in the West Village.  God I love that place.  Great atmosphere, very neighborhoody, and the mariscada in green sauce is, as my wife would say "to die for".  Plus, you walk out of the place with so much garlic in you that you're safe from werewolves for a month.  Another fun element of Sevilla is that whenever we go there I walk over to Eduardo, the owner, and sing "Granada......."  And he immediately comes back with the rest of the song's first line, but in Spanish: tierra soñada por mi.  The next time we're there, maybe I'll blow him away by singing the entire second line in his native tongue:  Mi cantar se vuelve gitano cuando es para ti, and see what happens next.

-I do not know if the NBA's New Jersey Nets will win even 10 games this season.  So far, after 16 games (almost 20% of the season) they're 10 short.

-Still on sports (more or less) I genuinely hope that the Tiger Woods incident was nothing more than a silly spat that went awry.  I don't have high expectations for almost any sports or entertainment figures, but he is one of the very few who I've aways thought of as exemplary. (Derek Jeter is another of them - just thought I'd throw that in).

-We were at thanksgiving dinner with our nephew, his beautiful family and a bunch of other folks (mostly relatives but friends too).  And we had the most amazing dip - something totally easy to make and just flat-out delicious.  I won't tell you the ingredients, but I guarantee you wish you had them.  And you'd never guess them in a million years.

-My wife loves those dance shows (So You Think You Can Dance & Dancing With the Stars).  I don't.  It makes for two TV's going in two different rooms several nights a week.  Of course it should also be pointed out that she thinks I'm out of my mind to watch the Cable News shows.  So I guess it all evens out.

-My wife also likes good (not necessarily expensive, just good) wine, usually red.  At 63, I'm still a kid and usually prefer orange soda.

-No matter how fast we go on the Garden State Parkway, even 20 MPH over the speed limit, someone is always going much faster.  What happened to the speeding laws?

-I see Eliot Spitzer on TV news shows more and more these days.  I think he's trying to revive his political career.  I wonder if it can be done.

-Driscoll's strawberries used to be great.  Now, whenever we buy them we wind up throwing out a few because in no time flat they get that moldy fuzz.  Strange.

-Lord & Taylor at Freehold Raceway Mall never has many people in it, no matter how crowded any other of the department stores are.  I wonder how they stay in business.

-If I were a Republican, I would be torn by Attorney General eric holder's performance.  Part of me would pray that he resigns or is canned, because of what a disaster he is.  But another part would be praying that he sticks around, because his actions seem guaranteed to damage the Democratic Party.

Ken Berwitz

You could see this coming 100 miles away. 

Every mistake, every blunder, every failure that Barack Obama has been responsible for since he became President has not been his fault.  It has been George Bush's fault. 

Well, here is the latest example, via a wonderfully timed report which has been released just before Mr. Obama finally announces his decision on increasing troop strength in Afghanistan.  It comes to us from the AP and Mr. Obama's most munificent benefactors at MSNBC:

Senate report: Bin Laden was ‘within our grasp’

 

Review could be seen as warning against opponents of a troop surge now

WASHINGTON - Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.

The report asserts that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. Bin Laden's escape laid the foundation for today's reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan, it says.

Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Sen. John Kerry, as President Barack Obama prepares to boost U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate has long argued the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaida leader and top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan only three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Aimed at foes of surge?
Although limited to a review of military operations eight years old, the report could also be read as a cautionary note for those resisting an increased troop presence there now.

More pointedly, it seeks to affix a measure of blame for the state of the war today on military leaders under former president George W. Bush, specifically Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary and his top military commander, Tommy Franks.

"Removing the al-Qaida leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat," the report says. "But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism."

The report states categorically that bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops at least. It says that a review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants "removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora."

Fewer than 100 U.S. commandos
On or about Dec. 16, 2001, bin Laden and bodyguards "walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area," where he is still believed to be based, the report says.

Instead of a massive attack, fewer than 100 U.S. commandos, working with Afghan militias, tried to capitalize on air strikes and track down their prey.

"The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines," the report said.

At the time, Rumsfeld expressed concern that a large U.S. troop presence might fuel a backlash and he and some others said the evidence was not conclusive about bin Laden's location.

This is the mother lode of all BS.  Here's why, in no particular order:

-The report comes from the opposition party just before they need some cover for Obama's dithering and dawdling.  That blows its credibility to smithereens right there;

-This fortuitously timed report was prepared at the request of John Kerry, who a) was Bush's losing opponent in 2004 (there's a fair and balanced view) and b) has a decades-long history of being against military actions (apparently he suddenly became a hawk and a half on this one);

-The decision on how to proceed - unlike deciding how many troops to send - did not come from the White House.  It was a decision by the military people in the field.  So even if Kerry had a point, the point would be about Tommy Franks and the other field commanders, not George Bush;

-Sending in massive troops would have resulted in a wild goose chase through caves that the locals who were protecting bin laden knew like the back of their hands.  For this reason, our military probably would not have caught bin laden, but most assuredly would have sustained untold numbers of casualties.  This isn't a city block we're talking about, where the military can look  at a grid, see how tall each building is, where the doors are, etc.  These are frigging caves in the middle of nowhere.  The advantage was 100% with the enemy;

-And, in any event, though John Kerry may think he "knows" that bin laden was there, he doesn't.  In the absence of actually catching him at Tora Bora we will never know for sure;

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, maybe we can go back to wondering why Barack Obama has taken a quarter of a year to make a decision on Afghanistan, and then waited almost another week so he could announce it with the pomp and circumstance that seems so much more important to him than the decision itself.

Don't expect Kerry to be talking about that any time soon..

Ken Berwitz

Yeterday I blogged about Attorney General eric holder's position that, despite being outed as a thoroughly corrupt organization, ACORN should continue to receive federal money (otherwise known as our tax dollars).

I wasn't surprised at all.  Partly this is because eric holder - who, earlier this month, announced he was giving the 9/11 terrorists civil trials in New York City -  is so clearly an amoral sack of excrement.  But mostly it is because ACORN, as dirty as it is, generates votes for the Democratic Party.

Now we have this, from Mike Flynn's www.biggovernment.com web site:

Calif. Attorney General Offers Incoherent, Troubling Answers When Asked About ACORN Doc Dump

by Stage Right

 

On Tuesday November 24th, the day after Big Government broke the story revealing tens of thousands of documents containing sensitive material had been unceremoniously dumped in a trash bin behind the San Diego ACORN office, Attorney General Jerry Brown appeared on Talk Radio KABC’s Peter Tilden Show.

Considering this document dump occurred just a few days after the Attorney General had announced an investigation of this very same office, we anticipated his righteous anger at this obvious afront to the integrity of his investigation and the people of California’s right to investigate all evidence pertaining to the operations of ACORN.

Instead, Attorney General Brown offered a rambling and somewhat troubling political answer to a question of law and justice. (NOTE:  THERE SHOULD BE AN AUDIO BELOW.  IF IT ISN'T THERE, OR YOU HAVE TROUBLE USING IT, CLICK HERE)

Attorney General Brown cites a poll which claims that 52% of Republicans think ACORN stole the election for Obama.  The full results of this poll of 1,006 voters can be downloaded here.

Why is this poll and its results relevant to your investigation of ACORN and of this latest news that the office you announced you would be investigating trashed over 20,000 documents in the dark of night right before your investigators came down to visit?

Why does an opinion poll even enter into the discussion during the first minute of the Attorney General’s interview about an ongoing investigation?

And, why is more time spent in this interview on the constitutional rights of ACORN with regard to their trash and speculation over who hired Private Investigator Derrick Roach, instead of the activities of this ACORN office?

Mr. Brown, if this is how you conduct yourself as the chief law enforcement officer for the State of California, how seriously will you conduct your duties as Governor?  (Probably about as seriously as you did the first time you served)

The scariest part?  Jerry Brown is currently the Attorney General of California - the guy entrusted with going after corrupt organizations.  Like ACORN.  How do you suppose that's working out?

 Plus, while it is far from guaranteed, I have no doubt that Brown could win back the governorship of California.  And, while I would have no way of proving it, I broadly suspect that, if he did win, the winning margin might be comprised of illegally registered voters, probably including a great many illegal aliens, registered by ACORN. 

This is dirty even by dirty standards.  And it is entirely the province of one party - the Democratic party.

Which is why our wonderful "neutral" media are working so hard at avoiding it.

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Kyle Smith, writing for the New York Post has an excellent article today about how the hacked emails - the ones which appear to show that global warming is a scam and maybe a hoax altogether - should affect "cap and trade" legislation.  You can, of course, read the entire piece by using the link I've provided.  But since it is relatively long, I'm excerpting the key points below:

The end of cap-and-trade

By KYLE SMITH

Last Updated: 4:31 AM, November 29, 2009

Posted: 1:22 AM, November 29, 2009

 

Surprise: Hacked e-mails have revealed that sober, empirical, fact-loving scientists at the heart of global-warming research behave like a crazed group of Delta girls engaged in a flame war to paint the Kappas as a bunch of nasty skanks.

It may not be the biggest scandal since Watergate. But what appeared to be a clear path to massive cap-and-trade legislation just a few months ago now resembles a Jenga tower, and the scandal looks like the tile that will bring the whole thing down.

The British scientists at the Climatic Research Unit of East Anglia University and their correspondents, some of them American, apparently conspired to delete evidence to escape required public disclosure; fudged and buried data; tried to lock out skeptics seeking to publish non-alarmist research; and even wanted to “beat the crap out of” a skeptical scientist.

“It’s no use pretending this isn’t a major blow,” said environmentalist writer George Monbiot in The Guardian. The e-mails “could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.” BBC environmental analyst Roger Harrabin fretted that the e-mails will “have a lasting impact within the world of science.” Georgia Tech climate scientist Judith Curry wrote that, “Even if the hacked e-mails . . . end up to be much ado about nothing . . . the damage to the public credibility of climate research is likely to be significant.”

Republican lawmakers are calling for investigations to mirror the ones that will dog the CRU back in Blighty. All of this happens on the eve of next month’s Copenhagen climate-change summit, when President Obama will coo about decarbonizing the carbon-based US economy as if it’ll be as easy as banning smoking in bars.

Every product that is made with carbon-based energy would be punished. The primary appeal of the plan to statists and their never-ending search for new revenue is its ninja-like stealth. Like Europe’s “Value Added Taxes” that are simply included in the price of everything, it wouldn’t be transparent, like a sales tax or an income tax. “It’s really big, really, really hard, and is going to make a lot of people mad,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat, said this week.

Lawmakers, even Democrats, from states that produce oil, natural gas and coal are opposed to the plan, which is why the Senate has put off discussion until at least the spring. A few months before an election that already looks like a wipeout for Democrats? Sure, they’ll be much more courageous about it then.

All this backsliding comes before most Americans — 55% — have even heard of cap-and-trade. They aren’t going to grow more fond of it once they learn the sticker price — $1,761 per family, the equivalent of hiking income taxes by 15%, according to an internal estimate from Obama’s treasury department. (House Republican leader John Boehner says the actual total is more like $3,100 a year per family.)

Now the CRU e-mails undermine the most basic tenets of global-warming dogma (such as the idea that climatologists are automatically disinterested and neutral truth-seekers) and confirm what many Americans already believe: That global-warming science is highly politicized. (Only one-third of the US even believes that global warming is being caused by human activity.)

That comes on top of a lot of other climate-related “bad news,” which is the tag alarmists use for what the rest of us call “good news.” A now-famous BBC article from Oct. 9, “What Happened to Global Warming?” noted, “For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.”

Other horrible news for climate scientists: One of the hacked e-mails from a climate scientist considers the likelihood that SO2, or sulfur dioxide, being emitted by China’s smokestack economy may be counteracting warming trends elsewhere. So a cheap solution to warming — one that doesn’t rely on dreamy fantasies about rejiggering Western economies — might be to simply build really tall smokestacks to inject SO2 above the earth’s atmosphere to cool the planet like a windshield visor. The same solution is detailed in the bestseller “Superfreakonomics.”

Der Spiegel International wrote this week, “The closer one looks at climate models, the greater the temptation to doubt their usefulness. Is this not a case of altering parameters until they produce the desired results? How much real science can be found in the models? How much is merely the result of tuning?”

Thanks to the CRU scandal, the gap is closing between the BBC and Der Spiegel on the one hand and Homer Simpson on the other. His take on global warming: “I’ve got an inside tip that it’s all a bunch of crap.”

Will President Obama blithely go on his way to Copenhagen and commit this country to climate-change policies, like cap and trade (which, in my opinion is a scam even if global warming were not)? 

Well, if this presidency has shown us anything, it is that Barack Obama has no problem doing eminently dumb, damaging things to the country and lying to our faces about it.  This is a man who mortgaged our children's futures with the so-called "stimulus package", assured us it would cap unemployment at 8%, and then - when unemployment jumped to over 10% - told us that he had saved or created 600,000 - 1,000,000 jobs. 

A President who can lie that overtly about jobs, can lie about climate.   Don't doubt it for a moment.

The big question is:  do Democrats - at least the ones whose seats are not 100% safe - have the same capacity? 

The 2010 elections cannot come fast enough.

And that goes double for 2012.

Ken Berwitz

I hope that TMZ is wrong about this.  But I don't know, so here it is for you to decide:

Tiger Woods: Injuries Caused by Wife, Not SUV

Posted Nov 28th 2009 6:08AM by TMZ Staff

 

Tiger Woods did not suffer facial lacerations from a car accident. They were inflicted by his wife, Elin Nordegren -- according to a conversation Woods had Friday after the accident.

Tiger has yet to be formally interviewed by the Florida Highway Patrol -- that should happen this afternoon. But we're told Tiger had a conversation Friday -- with a non-law enforcement type -- detailing what went down before his Escalade hit a fire hydrant.

We're told he said his wife had confronted him about reports that he was seeing another woman. The argument got heated and, according to our source, she scratched his face up. We're told it was then Woods beat a hasty retreat for his SUV -- but according to our source, Woods says his wife followed behind with a golf club. As Tiger drove away, she struck the vehicle several times with the club.

We're told Woods became "distracted," thought the vehicle was stopped, and looked to see what had happened. At that point the SUV hit the fire hydrant and then hit a tree.

We're also told Woods had said during the conversation Friday he had been taking prescription pain medication for an injury, which could explain why he seemed somewhat out of it at the scene.

Until now, Tiger woods has had an ublemished image as a great guy, who also happens to be the Babe Ruth of golfing history.  It would be terribly sad if TMZ's story (which, let's remember, has no sourcing, only a useless "we're told" claim) were true. 

But if it is true, I suppose the emergency call could have gone something like this:

"Hello, 9/11  What's the problem?"

"I'm Tiger Woods' wife and I'm having trouble with my putts."

"Maam, I can't help you with your golf game, ask your husband."

"No, you don't understand, the putz I'm having trouble with IS my husband."

Ken Berwitz

Here is a terrific piece by Noel Sheppard at www.newsbusters.org on what's left of Joe Klein, who still writes, more or less, for what's left of Time Magazine:

Time's Joe Klein Blames Obama's Drop in the Polls On...THE MEDIA

By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive)
November 28, 2009 - 10:37 ET

 

The mistakes President Obama has made in recent months that have led to his plummeting poll numbers aren't his fault.

 

According to Time's Joe Klein, it's all being caused by -- and I quote! -- "the media's tendency to get overwrought about almost anything."

 

Yep. After withholding from the public material information about Obama last year that almost certainly would have doomed his candidacy, the press today are focusing too much attention on silly things like his: response to the Fort Hood massacre; not spending enough time on unemployment; accomplishing nothing in Asia, and; allowing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to be tried in New York City.

 

As one reads Klein's Wednesday column, you get the feeling he dearly misses the good old days when anything Obama did or said was met with thunderous applause, and anything that could take the bloom off the rose was squelched:

 

As a fully licensed pundit, I have the authority to weigh in here ... but I demur. Oh, I could sling opinions about every one of the events cited above — some were unfortunate — but it would matter only if I could discern a pattern that illuminates Obama's presidency. The most obvious pattern, however, is the media's tendency to get overwrought about almost anything. Why, for example, is the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall demolition so crucial that it requires a President's presence? Which recent U.S. President has gotten the Chinese to agree to anything big? (In fact, Obama has secured significant diplomatic cooperation from the Chinese on North Korea, Afghanistan and Pakistan.) Was his deep bow indicative of anything other than his physical fitness? (My midsection, sadly, prevents the appearance of obsequiousness in such circumstances.)

 

Let not your heart be troubled, liberals, for it's all following a predictable pattern that will end up just fine:

 

Stepping back a bit, I do see a metapattern that extends over the 40 years since Richard Nixon's Southern strategy began the drift toward more ideological political parties: Democrats have tough first years in the presidency. Of the past seven Presidents, the two Bushes rank at the top in popularity after one year, while Obama and Bill Clinton rank at the bottom, with Jimmy Carter close by. There is a reason for that. Democrats come to office eager to govern the heck out of the country. They take on impossible issues, like budget-balancing and health care reform. They run into roadblocks — from their own unruly ranks as well as from Republicans. They get lost in the details. A tax cut is much easier to explain than a tax increase. A foreign policy based in bluster — railing against an "axis of evil" — is easier to sell than a foreign policy based in nuance. Of course, external events count a lot: the ratings of Bushes I and II were bolstered, respectively, by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the flattening of the World Trade Center. Reagan's rating — 53% and headed south — was dampened by a deepening recession.

 

Isn't that great? The problem Obama's having is that unlike Reagan and the Bushes, he's actually trying to accomplish something right out of the gate. Those three didn't do anything in their first year in office according to this self-proclaimed "fully licensed pundit."

 

Stuff like this makes you wonder how many boxtops you have to send in for such accreditation:

 

So it is way too early to make pronouncements on Obama's fate. One pattern that can be limned from the recent overseas controversies is that this President has a tendency to err in the direction of respect toward other countries. This is a witting reaction to the Bush Administration's tendency to diss our allies and insult — or invade — our enemies. It is a long game, which will yield results, or not, over time. After a first year spent demonstrating a new comity, Obama has gained the global credibility to get tough — on Iran, for example — in his second year.

 

Isn't that great? You see, all this bowing and America-bashing abroad which has produced absolutely no diplomatic gains for the President this year are going to pay off in the long run:

 

But the real evaluation of Obama's debut must wait for the results of the two biggest problems he's tackling: his decision on Afghanistan and the congressional attempt to pass health care reform. And even here, it will be difficult to render judgment immediately — as difficult as it was to judge Clinton's decision to spend his political capital on deficit reduction in his 1993 economic plan, a triumph that didn't become apparent for nearly five years.

 

Actually, the payoff for Clinton came after the Republicans took back Congress in 1994 and forced fiscal sanity and tax cuts on the former Arkansas governor who went kicking and screaming the whole way.

 

Like most of his liberal colleagues, Klein has totally forgotten these inconvenient truths.

 

That's not at all surprising, for he's been clueless for decades.

My one and only dispute with Mr. Sheppard is his last line.  I don't think it has been that long since Joel has been in decline, I think it has only been in the past, say, 10 - 15 years.  And I also dispute that he is clueless.  I think it's actually worse:  i.e. he knows exactly what he's writing, and writes it anyway.

But the chronology is small potatoes.  However long ago he started writing hopelessly partisan crap, and whatever the reasons were, that is what he has been writing.

It is sad to see someone so talented go down this far.  But things are as they are, and that's where he is.

Ken Berwitz

Here, from the Pulaski County (Missouri) Daily, comes an article that is so absurd, it would more appropriately be about Red Skelton than Ike.  The bold print is mine:

Skelton endorses Gen. McChrystal’s ‘properly resourced’ Afghan strategy

By: Press Office of U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 22, 2009) — In a letter to the President, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) expressed support for the Afghanistan counter-insurgency strategy endorsed by President Obama last March. Skelton urged the President to give this strategy, and Commanding General Stanley McChrystal’s counter-insurgency campaign plan, the resources and time required to show success in Afghanistan.

Some of Skelton’s points include:

• “I am convinced that there is no strategy short of a properly-resourced counter-insurgency campaign that is likely to provide lasting security. But, time is not on our side. Coming from Harry Truman country, I ask myself, ‘What would Harry Truman do?’ And this leads me to urge you to waste no time in providing a clear direction to our commanders and civilian leaders, along with the resources necessary to achieve their mission—and to do so with an understanding that the American and Afghan people, as well as our allies, must see progress in the next 12 months.”

• “The last administration allowed itself to be distracted from the fight forced on us in Afghanistan by the fight it chose in Iraq. I believe that this was a strategic mistake, robbing the war in Afghanistan of the necessary resources and resulting in an approach of ‘half-ass it and hope.’ We cannot afford to continue that policy.”

It has been THREE MONTHS since the request Skelton is talking about was made.  How dare he pretend that he urged the President to "waste no time in providing a clear direction to our commanders", as if these three months didn't occur.

And how dare Skelton associate himself with Harry Truman (what a blatant attempt to pander to Missouri voters!).  If the President were Truman, a decision would have been made within days; not a quarter of a year later.  If Skelton bore any resemblance to Truman, he'd have demanded a decision in those few days.  But General McChrystal asked for the troops in August and we're almost into December.  Where was Skelton all this time?   Out golfing with Obama?  In Copenhagen, being crapped on by the Olympic committee?  Trying to run a haberdashery?  Where?

Then there is Skelton's invocation of George Bush, who, ludicrously, has become the Democrats' one-size-fits-all explanation for everything they do wrong.  What a joke.  Check the casualty figures in Afghanistan under Bush, versus the last three months when President Obama dithered and dawdled and didn't send the troops his commanding General was begging for.

And before you say "oh yeah, well how come Bush didn't catch osama bin laden", let me remind you that, though this was a major campaign issue for then-candidate Barack Obama, he has been president for almost a year and bin laden is still at large. 

When, instead of barfing out campaign blather, Mr. Obama actually had to accomplish something, the rules changed a bit, didn't they?  Not just for Mr. Obama, but for our wonderful "neutral" media -- which seconded his motion every time he attacked Bush for not bagging bin laden, but have exactly nothing to say about the fact that Obama hasn't brought him in either.

Ken Berwitz

If I were a Republican strategist, I wouldn't know whether to express my outrage at Attorney General eric holder, or send him a thank-you note.  Maybe I would do both..

Excerpted from today's article in the New York Times:

Justice Department Says Acorn Can Be Paid for Pre-Ban Contracts

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

Published: November 27, 2009

 

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress banned the government from providing money to the group.

 

The department’s conclusion, laid out in a recently disclosed five-page memorandum from David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, adds a new wrinkle to a sharp political debate over the antipoverty group’s activities and recent efforts to distance the government from it.

 

Since 1994, Acorn, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about $53 million in federal aid, much of it grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for providing various services related to affordable housing.

 

But the group has become a prime target for conservative critics, and on Oct. 1, President Obama signed into law a spending bill that included a provision that said no taxpayer money — including money authorized by previous legislation — could be “provided to” the group or its affiliates.

 

A Housing and Urban Development Department lawyer asked the Justice Department whether the new law meant that pre-existing contracts with Acorn should be broken. And in a memorandum signed Oct. 23 and posted online this week, Mr. Barron said the government should continue to make payments to Acorn as required by such contracts.

 

The new law “should not be read as directing or authorizing HUD to breach a pre-existing binding contractual obligation to make payments to Acorn or its affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations where doing so would give rise to contractual liability,” Mr. Barron wrote.

 

The deputy director of national operations for Acorn, Brian Kettenring, praised Mr. Barron’s decision.

 

“We are pleased that commitments will be honored relative to Acorn’s work to help keep America’s working families facing foreclosure in their homes,” Mr. Kettenring said.

 

Conservatives have long complained about Acorn’s voter drives in poor neighborhoods, citing instances in which workers fraudulently registered imaginary voters like Mickey Mouse. Acorn has argued that it is the real victim of such incidents, which its employees have often brought to the attention of the authorities.

 

Criticism of Acorn escalated in September, when two conservative activists released videos they had recorded using secret cameras of Acorn workers in several cities. The activists had posed as a pimp and a prostitute seeking financial advice. Instead of raising objections, the Acorn employees counseled the couple on how to hide their illicit activities and avoid paying taxes.

 

Conservatives seized on the videos to criticize the group further, highlighting that the Obama campaign had paid an Acorn affiliate for get-out-the-vote efforts. Congress then enacted the ban on providing money to it.

Acorn has fired several of the employees depicted in the videos.

Let's cut straight to the chase.  ACORN is as dirty and corrupt a Democratic voter-registration machine as you can find anywhere.  Numerous lawsuits have been  filed, or successfully brought to completion, against ACORN in over a dozen states.  The ones that have been adjudicated usually result in ACORN admitting no wrongdoing, but firing a few workers (it's those little people, your honor, not us). 

That is exactly the strategy being used to try to fend off the fact that ACORN personnel were more than happy to help the apparent pimp and hooker to get housing, so they could run a prostitution ring with underage girls from El Salvador.  ACORN personnel offered such advice as what to call the business, so it wouldn't be found out as an illegal prostitution business which exploited children for sex.

If this had happened in just one office, a case could be made that it was a bad-apple situation and not anything that defined ACORN.  But it happened in office after office around the country.  That speaks for itself.

This organization is not a "victim" of anything but the fact that it has been found out. 

And let's disabuse ourselves of the absolutely fraudulent idea that only "conservatives" are against ACORN being funded.  That is exactly the kind of bogeyman the New York Times likes to raise, apropos of nothing.  Here's a challenge for you:  other than hardline Democrats, try to find anyone who wants money to go to ACORN, conservative or otherwise. 

The bottom line is that ACORN has no business getting any money from taxpayers.  And it has no business existing in its current form (which, I suspect, is the only form it has ever existed in). 

But we have an Attorney General, eric holder, whose background includes:

-Recommending presidential pardons for terrorists (the 16 FALN members),

-Recommending a presidential pardon for a multi-million dollar thief who fled the country to avoid prosection, but could to contribute plenty to then-President Clinton (marc rich). 

-Working as a senior partner at Covington and Burling, which specializes in defending and advocating for terrorists, often pro bono (presumably to get big law contracts with the countries that back these terrrorists up). 

-And, if that's not enough, this is the Attorney General who just made the unprecedented decision to give enemy combatant terrorists khalid sheikh mohammed and his pals, civil trials in New York City instead of military tribunals.

An Attorney General like eric holder, therefore, would have no problem making sure that the millions and millions of taxpayer dollars continue to flow to ACORN.

The 2010 elections cannot come fast enough.  And, thinking politically, the damage this catastrophic Attorney General is doing to the country could not come at a better time for Republicans.

Ken Berwitz

Allow me to thank the New York Times for how clearly its editorial writers have explained what they consider to be "diplomacy".

Let's take a look at today's lead editorial, which talks about mideast diplomacy, and see where they are.  My thoughts are interspersed, in blue print:

Editorial

Published: November 27, 2009

We were thrilled when President Obama decided to plunge fully into the Middle East peace effort. He appointed a skilled special envoy, George Mitchell, and demanded that Israel freeze settlements, Palestinians crack down on anti-Israel violence and Arab leaders demonstrate their readiness to reach out to Israel.  This is the same BS we have been hearing for decades.  Israel is supposed to give up something tangible.  Palestinian Arabs are supposed to make a promise to “crack down” on people they have promised to crack down on for 40 years without ever doing it.  The game is that Israel gives what it promises, Palestinians don’t “crack down” on anyone, and in the next session Israel is supposed to give something else and Palestinians will “crack down” again.  It's Charlie Brown and the football, in real life.

Nine months later, the president’s promising peace initiative has unraveled. On this we agree fully.  President Obama’s dithering and equivocating have resulted in both sides disliking and distrusting him.

The Israelis have refused to stop all building. The Palestinians say that they won’t talk to the Israelis until they do, and President Mahmoud Abbas is so despondent he has threatened to quit. Arab states are refusing to do anything.  Lovely.  Unless Israel starts the ball rolling by freezing all building in its capital city (what other country would agree to that under any circumstances?), Palestinian Arabs refuse to do…what they won’t be doing anyway.  Yep, that’s a great deal for Israel.

Mr. Obama’s own credibility is so diminished (his approval rating in Israel is 4 percent) that serious negotiations may be farther off than ever.  That’s right.  It is.  Because while Mr. Obama's talking out of both sides of his mouth (that goes even more for Hillary Clinton) may have wowed enough people to get this Chicago machine politician elected President of the US, the people in Israel, Gaza and Judea/Samaria (the west bank) actually expect something real.  And since almost everything one side wants is going to be despised by the other side, it isn’t as easy as reading a few meaningless slogans off a teleprompter – Mr. Obama actually has to take a stand and do something significant.

Peacemaking takes strategic skill. But we see no sign that President Obama and Mr. Mitchell were thinking more than one move down the board. The president went public with his demand for a full freeze on settlements before securing Israel’s commitment. And he and his aides apparently had no plan for what they would do if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no.  Again we agree completely.  No thought, no diplomacy, no logic, not even the slightest look down the road.  Like playing chess one move at a time.

Most important, they allowed the controversy to obscure the real goal: nudging Israel and the Palestinians into peace talks. (We don’t know exactly what happened but we are told that Mr. Obama relied more on the judgment of his political advisers — specifically his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel — than of his Mideast specialists.)   I don’t know who Mr. Obama relies on most, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Times was right about Emanuel.  You would think that someone with so close a religious and familial connection to Israel could, in just this one case, rise above Chicago "tell-em-what-they-want-to-hear,-then-lie-and-stonewall-'em-forever" politics.  But it is clear that Mr. Emanuel cannot.

The idea made sense: have each side do something tangible to prove it was serious about peace and then start negotiations. But when Mr. Netanyahu refused the total freeze, President Obama backed down.  Have each side do something?  Haven’t we talked about this already?  Israel was asked to do something tangible, Palestinian Arabs were not, and never are.  Just as they never are expected to account for the billions and billions of dollars in international aid that is belched into their coffers every year.  When do their benefactors (the US being one of them) ask for such an accounting?  Do they avoid it because they know that, since no infrastructure is ever built in those territories, the money is probably being stolen and/or used to make war on Israel?  And knowing this would force them to make actual demands of the Palestinian Arab “leaders” instead of kissing their rumps to appease the rest of the Arab world?

Mr. Netanyahu has since offered a compromise 10-month freeze that exempts Jerusalem, schools and synagogues and permits Israel to complete 3,000 housing units already under construction. The irony is that while this offer goes beyond what past Israeli governments accepted, Mr. Obama had called for more. And the Palestinians promptly rejected the compromise.  I have a great idea.  Why doesn’t Mr. Netanyahu also demand that Palestinian Arabs not build thousands of housing units in, say, Gaza City and Ramallah.  And use the answers Palestinian Arabs give (who the hell are you to tell us what we can and can't do in our own lands) on them when it comes to Jerusalem?  Then, when they tell Netanyahu that East Jerusalem is Arab land, he can remind them that Jerusalem -- and Judea and Samaria (the west bank) -- were Jewish land long before Arabs settled on it.  Wouldn’t that be fun?

Washington isn’t the only one to blow it. After pushing President Obama to lead the peace effort, Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, refused to make any concessions until settlements were halted. Mr. Mitchell was asking them to allow Israel to fly commercial planes through Arab airspace or open a trade office. They have also done far too little to strengthen Mr. Abbas, who is a weak leader but is still the best hope for negotiating a peace deal. Ditto for Washington and Israel.  Are you as tired as I am of hearing that the US has any hope of getting Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressed fundamentalist states on the planet and the source of wahabbi Islam’s spread, to make concessions to Jews?  And are you just as tired of hearing that abbas – who hates Israel every bit as much as hamas and wants it every bit as vaporized, is our “best hope” because everyone is even worse?  That doesn’t make him a “hope”, it makes him a glaring example of why this so-called diplomacy has no chance to go anywhere.

All this raises two questions: What has President Obama learned from the experience so he can improve his diplomatic performance generally? And does he plan to revive the peace talks?   I’ll help out here.  The answers are 1) probably nothing, not with that ego, and 2) he’ll almost certainly revive them with a different version of the same go-nowhere, no-hope-to-succeed BS the Times is whining about this morning.

The president has no choice but to keep trying. At some point extremists will try to provoke another war. and the absence of a dialogue will only make things worse. Advancing his own final-status plan for a two-state solution is one high-risk way forward that we think is worth the gamble. Stalemate is unsustainable.  At some point extremists will try to provoke another war?  Does the Times editorial staff seriously think extremists aren't trying to provoke a war, that they are in some kind of hiatus?  How obtuse can they be?  And, by the way, stalemate – as nonproductive and violent as it is - has caused Israel to survive for 40 years, since they won Gaza and the west bank from Egypt and Jordan respectively.****  The saddest part of this near-hopeless horror show is that stalemate may be the only thing that works.

==========================================================================

****What’s that?  Did someone say “wait a minute, I thought Israel got that land from the Palestinians”?  Well, they didn’t.  Unfortunately, the people who thought that are already way behind the 8 ball, because they've been sold a phony bill of goods on this, and probably a great deal more.  Read up on the history of this land.  Don't let anyone (me included) manipulate what you know and don't know.

There are few things in this world discussed with a greater combination of certainty and ignorance than the middle east.

Ken Berwitz

This is the first in what I fully expect to be an extensive series of blogs concerning the farce of a civil trial for terrorist scumbag khalid sheikh mohammed and his four pals.

It comes to us from the Wall Street Journal, via www.yidwithlid.com:

Friday, November 27, 2009

NUTS!!!!: Two 9/11 Attackers May Be Declared Mentally Unfit For NY Civilian Trial

When Eric Holder announced he was moving the 9/11 terrorist trial to New York City, a rash of worries were released, the case will be dismissed because of the waterbording, all the evidence will be thrown out because they weren't read their Miranda rights..etc. The Wall Street Journal is warning of the very real possibility that the two of the terrorists, Ramzi Binalshibh and  Mustafa al-Hawsawi may be declared mentally unfit to stand trial. Their attorney's claim that the terrorists have mental disorders caused by harsh CIA treatment.

The issue already has arisen in military-commission proceedings at the military's detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. According to an August ruling by a military judge, prosecutors have made an "apparent concession" that Mr. Binalshibh "suffers from a delusional disorder-persecutory type" disorder. Mr. Binalshibh has been prescribed "a variety of psychotropic medications used to treat schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder, including Haldol, Abilify, risperidone and Ativan," according to commission records.

Last year  a military medical board reported Mr. Binalshibh may suffer from "severe mental disease" that could "impair his ability to conduct or cooperate intelligently in his defense." In other words he could be tried but wasn't up to acting as his own attorney.

A military attorney for Mr. Hawsawi, Lt. Cmdr. Gretchen Sosbee, said the military judge ordered a mental evaluation of her client, but its results haven't yet been entered into the record.

Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, a lawyer for Mr. Binalshibh, said a military judge has refused to allow a full examination into her client's condition, in particular by denying access to any information regarding his treatment in CIA custody between 2002 and 2006. An order by the judge, Col. Stephen Henley, said that information was "not relevant" to Mr. Binalshibh's condition.

In court papers, Lachelier said it was all Bush's fault, citing the previous administrations memorandums endorsing the use of sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and other harsh techniques intended to induce a prisoner's cooperation. There are no reports of Ms Lachelier citing the use of the Barney Theme Song, but that would make me crazy.

Military records cited by the defense say Mr. Binalshibh "was seen 'acting out' in various manners, including breaking cameras placed in his cell" and covering cameras "with toilet paper...and with feces." At a June 2008 hearing, Mr. Binalshibh said "we're still in the black site" -- the term for CIA secret prisons. Mr. Binalshibh said he couldn't sleep because, among other reasons, his bunk is "always shaking automatically."

Gee, shaking automatically used to make my kids go to sleep all the time, it doesn't work on mass murdering terrorists?

 

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd declined to comment specifically on the mental-capacity issue but said the government expects "a host of motions" to be filed. "It's the job of prosecutors to anticipate these challenges and plan their cases accordingly, and that is certainly being done in this case," he said.

A strong defense case for mental unfitness may force prosecutors to choose between unappealing options. They could sever Messrs. Binalshibh and Hawsawi from the joint conspiracy trial, allowing the case against the defendants whose capacity isn't at issue to proceed.

That would deprive prosecutors of a favored tool in conspiracy cases, because a joint trial allows the alleged guilt of one defendant to be imputed to the others. In this case, where the notoriety of alleged 9/11 organizer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed far exceeds that of his co-defendants, the separation could be beneficial to Messrs. Binalshibh or Hawsawi should they contest the charges.

If federal prosecutors decide to pursue a joint trial, proceedings will have to wait until each defendant's fitness is established.

In determining competence, "the key issue is the capacity to assist counsel," said Norman Poythress, a University of South Florida specialist in mental-health law.

It seems to me these two did a very competent job of planning this horrible mass murder, they should be competent enough to stand trial. But surprise, surprise the law of unintended consequences hits again. Base on his tarnished record on this case so far, it is doubtful that Attorney General Eric Holder thought of this before decided to move the trial of these mass murderers to a civilian court.

Did you have any doubt that BS such as this would be happening?  If so, why?  eric holder, our esteemed AG, was senior partner at Covington and Burling, the law firm which specialized in defending terrorist scumbags.  Why wouldn't he give them every opportunity to beat the rap?

What a complete. total disgrace.  What a slap in the face this is to the almost-3,000 dead on 9/11.  And what a telling statement it is about the Obama administration.

The 2010 elections cannot come fast enough

And that goes double for 2012.

Ken Berwitz

Here is another post in the series "why we fight", which details how life would be like under radical Islam. 

This one comes to us from Reuters:

Teenager lashed for wearing knee-length skirt

‘She is just a young girl,’ mom says after Sudanese judge imposes sentence

  

updated 8:42 a.m. ET, Fri., Nov . 27, 2009

 

KHARTOUM, Sudan - A 16-year-old south Sudanese girl was lashed 50 times after a judge ruled her knee-length skirt was indecent, her lawyer and family said in the latest case to push Sudan's Islamic law into the spotlight.

The mother of teenager Silva Kashif told Reuters on Friday she was planning to sue the police who made the arrest and the judge who imposed the sentence, as her daughter was underage and a Christian.

The case will add fuel to a debate already raging over Sudan's decency laws after this year's high-profile conviction of Sudanese U.N. official Lubna Hussein, who was briefly jailed for wearing trousers in public.

Hussein, a former journalist who used her case to campaign against Sudan's public order and decency regulations, is touring France to publicize her book about the prosecution. She had faced the maximum penalty of 40 lashes but was given a lighter sentence.

'We all sat and cried'
Kashif, whose family comes from the south Sudanese town of Yambio, was arrested while walking to the market near her home in the Khartoum suburb of Kalatla last week, her mother Jenty Doro told Reuters.

"She is just a young girl but the policeman pulled her along in the market like she was a criminal. It was wrong," said Doro.

Doro said Khashif was taken to Kalatla court where she was convicted and punished by a female police officer in front of the judge.

"I only heard about it after she was lashed. Later we all sat and cried ... People have different religions and that should be taken into account," she said.

Arrests for indecency, drunkenness and other public order offences are not uncommon in Khartoum which is governed by Islamic Shariah law.

But the punishment of residents of the capital originating from the south remains a sensitive issue.

Sudan is supposed to be working to soften the impact of Shariah for southerners living in Khartoum under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of north-south civil war. The deal lifted Shariah law in the south, where most follow Christianity and traditional beliefs.

Women's groups argue the decency laws are too vague, giving the country's separate public order police too much freedom to decide what kind of dress is appropriate.

Compensation bid
Kashif's lawyer Azhari al-Haj told Reuters he was preparing a case against the police and judge for arresting and sentencing an underage girl. He said according to the law, people under 18 should not be given lashes.

"She was wearing a normal skirt and blouse, worn by thousands of girls. They didn't contact a guardian and punished her on the spot."

Al-Haj said he was hoping to win compensation and to clear Kashif's record. "We are also against the law itself. We want the law to be changed."

Nigerian football star Stephen Worgu this month said he had been sentenced to 40 lashes after being wrongly convicted of drunk driving in Khartoum. The sentence has been postponed pending an appeal.

Take a good look.  Because this is what will replace western civilization if we allow it to.  And it will be the way YOU live.

If we fight against radical islam we may win and we may lose.  If we do not, we will most assuredly lose because, either way, they will continue fighting. 

And if they win, our culture and our civilization is over, to be replaced by what?  A society that summarily lashes 16 year old girls for the "crime" of wearing a knee-length dress -- and adult women for the "crime" of wearing full-length trousers?

Yes, there are people who want to live this way.  That's fine with me.  But God help the people who don't want to live this way and are subjected to shari'a law.  

We play political games with this lunacy at our own peril.

And that is why we fight.

Ken Berwitz

For a quarter of a year (that is not an exaggeration, it has been three full months) President Obama has been sitting with his own commanding general's recommendation that 40,000 more troops are needed in Afghanistan. 

Mr. Obama was told that, without those troops, our current forces were in greater danger, and that we could lose the war itself.

And for a quarter of a year he has dithered, and dawdled, and stalled and made no decision.

From a US perspective (which is the one I have), the greatest damage this has caused is the increase in military casualties.  By year's end they will have more than doubled from last year (155 all of last year, 298 this year with over a month to go). 

But that's not all.

Excerpted from Carlotta Gall's article in today's New York Times:

Ken Berwitz

Just how valuable is the United Nations to keeping us all safe?

Well, read this piece from www.sweetness-light.com, and you tell me:

ElBaradei Says Iran Probe At ‘Dead End’

November 26th, 2009

From a gob-smacked Associated Press:

IAEA chief: Iran investigation at ‘dead end’

By George Jahn, Associated Press Writer

November 26, 2009

VIENNA – The International Atomic Energy Agency probe of Iran’s nuclear program is at a dead end because Tehran is not cooperating, the chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Thursday in an unusually blunt expression of frustration four days before he leaves office.

Mohamed ElBaradei also warned that international confidence in Iran’s assertions of purely peaceful intent shrank after its belated revelation of a previously secret nuclear facility. And he criticized Tehran for not accepting an internationally endorsed plan meant to delay its achieving the ability to make nuclear weapons.

"There has been no movement on remaining issues of concern which need to be clarified for the agency to verify the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program," ElBaradei told the opening session of the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors. "We have effectively reached a dead end, unless Iran engages fully with us."

"Issues of concern" is the IAEA term for indications that Tehran has experimented with nuclear weapons programs, including missile-delivery systems and tests of explosives that could serve as nuclear-bomb detonators.

ElBaradei has emphasized the need for talks instead of threats in engaging Iran. He has criticized the U.S. for invading Iraq on the pretext that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapons program, which has never been proven. That — and perceived softness on the Iran issue — has drawn criticism from the U.S. and its allies that he was overstepping his mandate.

But ElBaradei’s comments Thursday left little doubt that he was most unhappy with Tehran.

"I am disappointed that Iran has not so far agreed to the original proposal" involving removal of most of Iran’s enriched stockpile, ElBaradei told the meeting…

Impatience with Iran has been fueled by Tehran’s September revelation that it had secretly been building a new enrichment facility. In a possible pre-emptive move, Iran notified the IAEA in a confidential letter only days before the leaders of the U.S., Britain and France went public with the project…

A perusal of IAEA records shows that Tehran’s chief envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told the agency’s board last year that his country "has repeatedly declared that there is no undeclared nuclear material and activity in Iran" — at the time when construction of the secret nuclear facility was in full force.

What a joke Mr. ElBaradei is and has always been. A dangerous one.

As is the IAEA.

Forgetting the (often deserved) disdain shown for the Associated Press, look at what this says:

-Iran is "not cooperating";

-Therefore the probe is at a dead end - not that there will be serious sanctions against Iran, or against countries that supply it with the tools to create the nuclear capabilities Iran is hiding;

-Instead of such sanctions, we just want to have more talks.

And what will happen if Israel, under mortal danger from Iran's nuclear capabilities (ahmadinejad:  "Israel should be wiped off the face of the map") decides that something more than talks is needed and hits their facilities?  Who will the UN condemn?

If there is a more useless organization than the morally, spiritually and ethically dead UN, I do not know it. 

Ken Berwitz

From the web site www.cimatedepot.com, (which, I acknowledge, was highly skeptical of global warming even before the scandalous emails were hacked):.

UK Scientist: 'Case for climate fears is blown to smithereens...whole theory should be destroyed and discarded and UN conference should be closed'  

'We should end this anti-scientific nonsense now' -- UN's 'Copenhagen jamboree is a scandal and it must be stopped'

Thursday, November 26, 2009By Marc Morano  –  Climate Depot

 

UK astrophysicist Piers Corbyn, of the long range solar forecast group Weather Action, declared that the ClimateGate revelations have rendered man-made global warming fears “false.”

 

“The case is blown to smithereens and this whole theory should be destroyed and discarded and Copenhagen conference should be closed,” Corbyn said in a contentious on air television exchange with an environmental activist with Russia's WWF. The live TV debate with Corbyn appeared on Moscow's RT TV on November 25, 2009. The RT TV's segment was titled “Heating Cheating.” See Full Video of Debate here.

 

“The world is cooling and has been cooling for 7 years and the leading scientists, so-called 'scientists' have been trying to hide that evidence,” Corbyn said in reference to hacked emails showing top UN IPCC scientists apparently conspiring to manipulate temperature data and exclude scientific studies from peer-review that they did not agree with.

“We should end this anti-scientific nonsense now,” Corbyn said.

 

“The data, real data, over the last one thousand, ten thousand or million years, shows there is no relationship between carbon dioxide and world temperatures or climate extremes. Now we can see that actually the people in charge of data have been fiddling it, and they have been hiding the real decline in world temperatures in an attempt to keep their so called moral high ground,” Corbyn told host Bill Dod and Aleksey Kokorin, the Climate Program Coordinator for WWF in Russia.

 

The upcoming UN global warming summit in Copenhagen is a "complete waste of time,” according to Corbyn.

 

'A scandal'

 

“The Copenhagen jamboree is a scandal and it must be stopped,” he added.

 

“There is a gigantic bandwagon run by governments who want to control world energy supplies and hold back development in the third world. This thing they are doing now is just the same as they are doing in the banking crisis, it is creating a whole bubble of false values,” Corbyn explained.

 

Corbyn said the ClimateGate revelations further revealed that man-made climate fears are not scientifically valid.

 

“Their claims are false, I repeat, they are false, and this theory they've got is like the titanic and it will crash. I would suggest that honest green campaigners who want to preserve biodiversity should get off this [man-made global warming] bandwagon before it sinks,” Corbyn explained.

 

"Carbon dioxide levels are driven by temps, not the other way around. There have been big peaks in CO2 in past...carbon dioxide is actually a good thing for the world," Corbyn explained. "More CO2 makes plants and animals more efficient," he added.

Strong words, but not at all unjustified.

Now:  When do our media start seriously covering it?  When does President Obama rethink his jaunt to Copenhagen for the purpose of committing more untold billions of money we do not have to something that may well be a scam and a fraud? 

Wasn't Copenhagen where Mr. Obama traveled earlier this year to petition for Chicago as the 2016 Olympics city, and told that it came in last?  Wasn't that enough embarrassment at Copenhagen this year? 

Ken Berwitz

Michael Freund of the Jerusalem Post asks, and brilliantly answers, this question below:

Fundamentally Freund: Do the Arab states really care about the Palestinians?

By MICHAEL FREUND  

For all their talk of standing by the Palestinians, the Arab regimes sure have a strange way of showing it. Despite reaping an oil-driven windfall last year of unprecedented proportions, few Arab states seem willing to dig very deep into their own pockets to back up their concern with cash.

Indeed, the hollowness of their pro-Palestinian pronouncements was unambiguously on display last week in Amman, at a meeting of the Advisory Commission of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, better known by its acronym of UNRWA.

Among the central topics discussed at the gathering was the growing financial crisis confronting the organization, which relies on voluntary contributions from governments to fund its activities on behalf of Palestinian refugees.

In her remarks, Karen Abu Zayd, UNRWA's commissioner-general, bemoaned the group's financial state, describing it as "my most worrying preoccupation."

She told those assembled that the agency is facing a deficit of $84 million this year, and that it projects a budget shortfall of $140m. in 2010. "UNRWA's weak financial situation," Abu Zayd said, "hinders our ability to discharge our responsibilities to the standards Palestinian refugees deserve."

FOR THE past several years, it seems, UNRWA has been in increasingly dire straits. Indeed, on Tuesday of last week, the group's 16,000 employees in Judea, Samaria and Gaza held a one-day strike to demand better pay.

Why, you might be wondering, have the UN agency's troubles been mounting of late? After all, fuel prices surged last year, with oil peaking in July 2008 at a high of $150 a barrel, so the coffers of Arab treasuries throughout the region were hardly lacking for funds with which to aid their Palestinian brethren.

I wondered too, so I did some research and discovered a few surprising facts about the colossal gap between Arab rhetoric and Palestinian reality.

Consider the following: In 2008, 19 of the top 20 donors to UNRWA's general fund were from the West, with the EU contributing over $116m., and the US more than $94m. Others, such as Sweden and the UK, each gave over $35m.

Just one Arab country - Kuwait - appeared among UNRWA's top 20 benefactors. The Kuwaitis came in last on the list, having coughed up just $2.5m.

Given that Kuwait's oil revenues last year surged by 44 percent to nearly $78 billion, you would think that if they really, truly cared about the Palestinians, this would have been reflected in the size of their donation to UNRWA.

Nonetheless, when compared to the other five Arab states that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - the Kuwaitis come out looking generous.

In 2008, the combined revenues of the GCC states from oil production amounted to a whopping $575b. Yet their joint contribution to UNRWA's regular budget was a little more than $3.6m., signifying less than one one-thousandth of a percent of their total petroleum income! Bahrain gave a miserly $50,000, Oman forked over just $25,000, while Saudi Arabia coughed up zero.

I've been to Hadassah dinners where more money was raised in an hour than the Arab states seem willing to part with in an entire year.

In fact, over the past two decades, Arab regimes have been providing a steadily decreasing percentage of UNRWA's funding. In the 1980s, their contributions amounted to 8% of the group's annual budget, whereas now they comprise barely 3%.

As a result, Western states are currently providing more than 95% of the funds behind UNRWA's ongoing programs.

Now don't get me wrong - I am not shedding any tears over UNRWA's difficulties. The organization has long been a vehicle for perpetuating the Palestinian refugee problem as a lever for pressuring Israel, and it has not shied away from working closely with Hamas in Gaza, or serving as a vehicle for anti-Israel and anti-Western indoctrination.

But UNRWA's woes lay bare the breathtaking hypocrisy of the Arab states. They lambaste Israel at every opportunity over the condition of the Palestinians, even as they themselves do very little to alleviate the problem.

Sure, some Arab countries have kicked in funds to various UNRWA emergency appeals, while others provide aid to Palestinians via other channels.

But the numbers above lead one to wonder: do the Arab states really care about the Palestinians?

If UNRWA's ledger is any guide, the answer is a clear and resounding "no."

So tell me:  How is this OUR problem when Palestinian Arabs' own brethren behave this way?

Is it that Arab states don't care about Palestinian Arabs?

Or....

Is it that they want Palestinian Arabs in a state of complete squalor and degradation, so the Arab states have a receptive audience when they pump Gazans and west bankers full of hatred against Israel (which, through providing goods and services, contributes more to Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and the west bank than any Arab state - so help me)?

See, if you make sure they have nothing, keep them in a perpetual state of rage, and have the state-controlled media tell them every day that Israel is the cause, you have a fighting machine that will try to vaporize Israel and kill every Jew there (and elsewhere).  And it it costs you next to nothing.  Let the suckers in the west spend their money instead.   

Based on what Mr. Freund has shown us, that is what Arab states care about when it comes to Palestinian Arabs.

Ken Berwitz

Maybe there's still time to make a balloon of New York Times columnist Gail Collins.  Since she's parading her ignorance in today's paper, they can also put it in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, so children can see her right up there with the cartoon characters.

If your stomach is strong, you can read Ms. Collins' entire column, which manages to attack almost every one of her political bogeypeople (men and women both).  But since you may want it to stay in condition for today's turkey dinner, I'll "treat" you to just one small excerpt:

It’s not really fair. The president knows he could jump-start the economy, fix health care and do his ambitious energy policy — if only the last administration hadn’t cut taxes, started two wars and created a new, large Medicare entitlement without paying for any of it.

There you have it folks.  Barack Obama is a savior, sent to us from God above, who could make everything perfect.  But George Bush - the fellow who hasn't been President for almost a year now - is stopping him cold.  Hail Obama.  Damn Bush. 

Ok, let's think about this (since what you just read is badly in need of some thinking - which should have occurred before it was written):

-Were the tax cuts some kind of problem?  The tax cuts jump-started our economy after 9/11 - which grew the GDP, created millions and millions of jobs and benefitted the entire country, from top to bottom;

-Did George Bush start the war in Afghanistan?  Or did 9/11?  Maybe Ms. Collins forgot about 9/11 since it was only a couple of miles from the Times Building, but her Democratic heroes didn't.  They were virtually unanimous in supporting this war right along with President Bush.

-Did George Bush start the war in Iraq?  Or did Saddam Hussein, by ignoring something like 16 UN resolutions, and sending Hans Blix's inspectors on a pathetic wild goose chase as he refused to account for the weapons of mass destruction that we all knew he had from the Desert Storm days.  And that's before we get to the fact that intelligence around the world - not just US intelligence, but France, Russia, Israel and the UK, among others - indicated he was creating new wmd's, which he could either use himself or sell to terrorist groups (does al qaeda come to mind?  hamas?  hezbollah?).  Monday-morning quarterbacking after we didn't find those wmd's (either because they didn't exist....or because he had a half year to hide, export or destroy them) is easy.  Knowing for sure is not.

 -And that medicare entitlement?  How many DEMOCRATS supported it, Ms. Collins?  President Bush signed it, but your beloved party was instrumental in getting it to his desk.  I wonder if Ms. Collins would like to regale us with how then-senator Barack Obama voted on that entitlement. 

Maybe they're painting Ms. Collins' face on a Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon even as I write this.  They could slip it in right next to the turkey float.  Or maybe just use it instead of the turkey float.  Who could tell the difference?

Ken Berwitz

Would you like a one-screen visual that shows why the Obama administration doesn't seem to know what it is doing in so many ways?  Why it thinks that spending money we don't have to create programs that don't work is such a great idea?  Why Mr. Obama's poll numbers are plummeting, as more and more of his former supporters become unmesmerized by how well he reads off a teleprompter, and realize at what is happening to our country?

Then look at this chart, from a J.P. Morgan research report, which shows how much private sector experience each President's cabinet has had, since 1900.

Any questions?

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from an article in today's The New York Times (to its credit):

As Bank Failures Rise, F.D.I.C. Fund Falls Into Red

By ERIC DASH

Published: November 24, 2009

 

The government-administered insurance fund that protects depositors fell into the red for the first time since the fallout from the savings-and-loan crisis of the early 1990s as the pace of bank failures accelerated.

 

Skip to next paragraph The fund had a negative balance of $8.2 billion at the end of the third quarter, federal regulators said Tuesday. Bank customers, however, should remain confident that their deposits would be protected since most of the amount reflects money that Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation has already set aside to cover the losses from future bank failures.

 

Officials of the F.D.I.C. said in October that the deposit insurance fund had been depleted, but the third-quarter report card on the banking industry issued on Tuesday was the first time that hard numbers had been released. Even amid early signs that the economy is recovering, the report suggested that the country’s 8,100 lenders remain in fragile condition.

This is a wakeup call for anyone who believes the adminstration's BS about the economy.

Anyone, that is, except the people who are still so mesmerized by Obama & Co. that they believe he. "saved or created" 600,000 - 1,000,000 jobs, while unemployment went from 8.1% to its current 10.2%. 

They are immune to wakeup calls.

Ken Berwitz:

Is Senator Kent Conrad a fool?  Maybe I'm being too kind.  Maybe he's an absolute idiot too.

Judge for yourself:

Sen. Conrad Suggests That People Who Don’t Believe in Civilian Trials for Terrorists Should Leave America and ‘Go Somewhere Else’
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

 

 (CNSNews.com) – Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) told CNSNews.com that civilian courts are well-suited to prosecute al Qaeda terrorists and that "if people don't believe in our system, maybe they ought to go somewhere else.” 

Conrad also dismissed a question about the rights of terrorists captured on foreign battlefields and the rules of evidence in terms of a civilian court trial as not serious.

A few thoughts:

-Since this is the first and only time an enemy combatant has ever been given a civil trial, then the people who "don't believe in our system" are not the ones attacking the trial, they're the ones supporting it.  Like Kent Conrad.  

-If Senator Conrad thinks the problems regarding rules of evidence when an enemy combatant is put into the civil courts are not serious, such as disclosure - which hands our enemies a treasure trove of intelligence they can use against us - maybe he ought to read up on the Abdel-Rahman case. 

-And, while he's reading up on things, maybe the senator should read up on how many terrorists Attorney General eric holder's former law firm, Covington & Burling, where he was a senior partner, defended - often pro bono.  Maybe it will then occur to him that we have an AG who is an advocate for terrorist defendants.  And that, in turn, might suggest to him that this is the real reason holder is giving these scumbags a civil trial in New York City, so they can have an international stage to spew their hate. 

So, which is it.  Is Senator Kent Conrad just a fool?  Or an absolute idiot too?

You tell me.

Ken Berwitz

Posted without additional comment (even though I have a few additional turkeys I'd append to the ones Ms. Malkin has cited):

Turkeys of the Year

by Michelle Malkin

 

As we gather round the Thanksgiving table, bow our heads in prayer and feast on the holiday bird, it is only fitting to take a moment to fete the unforgettable turkeys of 2009.

1. The stimulus. Back in February, I wrote that if the trillion-dollar stimulus plan were a Thanksgiving dinner entree, it would be a Turbaconducken -- the heart attack-inducing dish of roasted chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey, all wrapped in endless slabs of bacon. And so it has come to pass. After the Democratic majority larded up the massive spending package with earmarks and bribes, President Obama declared it pork-free and has stubbornly touted its job creation benefits for out-of-work Americans.

 

Reality check? The Washington Examiner reports that more than 10 percent of the jobs the Obama administration claimed were "created or saved" by the stimulus are doubtful or imaginary. ABC News uncovered countless examples of bogus congressional districts listed as stimulus beneficiaries by the Obama stimulus tracking website, Recovery.gov. The money has been lavished on shady beauty schools in New Hampshire, prison inmates in Texas and wind companies in Spain and China. Just this week, a California audit found that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation overstated the number of jobs saved by federal stimulus dollars by upward of 13,000.

While this Generational Theft Act continues to soak up our tax dollars and add to our children's and grandchildren's debt, the Democratic majority is in the government kitchen cooking up a second stimulus turkey to provide federal infrastructure money to public-sector unions. Gobble, gobble.

2. President O-bow-ma. The candidate who pledged to restore America's standing in the world couldn't figure out how to stay standing in front of world leaders. In April, he crouched before Saudi King Abdullah. This month, he provoked global derision when he broke protocol and performed a spineless blunder in front of the Japanese emperor.

The kowtower-in-chief's body language reflected the administration's broader foreign policy prostrations -- including scrapping missile defense in the Czech Republic and Poland, canceling a meeting with the Dalai Lama to appease China, sitting on its hands this summer during the Iranian election protests and unveiling the 9/11 show trials in New York City that will provide a circus platform for jihadis and international Bush-haters.

The left complained that George W. Bush was too much of a cowboy on the global stage. It's better than having a waterboy.

3. Green jobs czar Van Jones. This deep-fried turkey was recruited by Team Obama's Chicago consigliere Valerie Jarrett, who boasted about recruiting the Marxist rabble-rouser from Oakland. He openly crusaded to free Philadelphia death row cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, bashed capitalism with radical revolutionary rhetoric and signed a 9/11 conspiracy petition that he meekly disavowed in a botched attempt to save his job. Jones is now at the Center for American Progress, run by Obama transition official and Democratic operative John Podesta.

The other turkey in the story, Val Jarrett, escaped unscathed and went on to push the Obamas into their failed crony campaign for the 2016 Olympics bid in Copenhagen -- a taxpayer-funded, hubris-infused debacle that ties with Van Jones for third biggest turkey of the year. Rio got the Games. America got a closer look at the pay-for-play patrons, power brokers and developers in the Windy City who have put an indelible Chicago stamp on the Potomac.

4. The New York Times. Scooped by Fox News, conservative blogs and talk radio on the exploding ACORN scandal, the paper whitewashed its own role in covering up the community organizing racket's financial shenanigans last fall when it cut off a reporter's investigation a few weeks before Election Day. Jill Abramson, the Times' managing editor for news, acknowledged that her staff was "slow off the mark" and blamed "insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio." They assigned a new "opinion media monitor" to track the competition, but refused to identify the watchdog for fear that he/she would get too many mean, intrusive e-mails and phone calls.

More recently, the paper's website demonstrated that its real motto is "All the inconvenient news that's fit to suppress." The Times' lead environmental blogger, Andrew Revkin, haughtily refused to reprint damning e-mails leaked by a hacker in the burgeoning "ClimateGate" scandal. The documents reveal a long trail of manipulated data, but Revkin balked at the ill-gotten trove. The blabbermouths at the Times had no problem exposing national security secrets to undermine Bush. But shed light on scientific hoaxes that undermine Al Gore? Unethical!

5. Tea Party-bashers. Millions of ordinary, peaceful Americans joined the Tea Party movement to revolt against big government, backroom deals and the Beltway culture of corruption. For their exercise of free speech and free assembly, they were smeared nationwide. Hollywood has-been Janeane Garofalo called them "racist, backward motherf**kers." SEIU labor thug Dennis Rivera accused them of "terrorist tactics." CNN anchor Anderson Cooper used a vulgar sexual epithet to describe them. Team Obama's astroturfers declared all-out war on them.

For refusing to sit down and shut up in the face of such unhinged bigotry, and for exposing the foulness of the political fowl, I have two words for them: Thank you.

Ken Berwitz

As I have said here before, I'm not an Ann Coulter fan.  But, even though we strongly disagree on a number of issues,  I respect her intellect and her writing.

And how can you resist a column that takes both keith olbermann and Kathleen Sibelius apart, by showing how completely they misrepresent facts?

Here is Ms. Coulter's latest column:

MSNBC EXCLUSIVE: FORT HOOD NEVER HAPPENED!
November 25, 2009

 

It's been weeks since eyewitnesses reported that Maj. Nidal Hasan shouted "Allahu akbar" before spraying Fort Hood with gunfire, killing 13 people.

Since then we also learned that Hasan gave a medical lecture on beheading infidels and pouring burning oil down their throats (unfortunately not covered under the Senate health care bill). Some wondered if perhaps a pattern was beginning to emerge but were promptly dismissed as racist cranks.

We also found out Hasan had business cards printed up with the jihadist abbreviation "SOA" for "Soldier of Allah." Was that enough to conclude that the shooting was an act of terrorism -- or does somebody around here need to take another cultural sensitivity class?

And we know that Hasan had contacted several jihadist Web sites and that he had been exchanging e-mails with a radical Islamic cleric in Yemen. The FBI learned that last December, but the rest of us only found out about it a week ago.

Is it still too soon to come to the conclusion that the Fort Hood shooting was an act of terrorism?

Alas, it is still too early to tell at MSNBC. For Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews -- at least two of whom would be severely punished under Shariah law -- the shooting of George Tiller was an act of terrorism, no question. The death of a census taker in Kentucky was also an act of terrorism. (We learned this week that it was a suicide/insurance scam.) But as to Maj. Hasan, the jury is still out -- and will be out for many, many years.

Actually, according to Keith, the Fort Hood massacre may not have happened at all. He has argued persuasively, on several occasions, that it is impossible, literally impossible, to commit mass murder at a military base.

Like many on the left, Keith loved to sneer at all terrorist plots allegedly foiled by the Bush administration. He was particularly contemptuous of the purported plan of six aspiring jihadists to sneak onto the Fort Dix army base and kill as many soldiers as they could.

On Nov. 11, 2008, he explained why the Fort Dix terrorist plot was a laughable fraud, saying the "morons" apparently didn't realize that "all the soldiers have these big guns."

Keith, the moron, apparently doesn't realize that on military bases on U.S. soil only MPs have guns. (Special authorization is required for soldiers to carry a firearm, which can be granted only in the case of a specific and credible threat against military personnel in that region. Thank you, Bill Clinton.)

Again on May 21 this year, Olbermann ridiculed the Fort Dix terror plot, pointing out that the six alleged terrorists seemed to be "forgetting that every man there was armed." (Curiously, even though ROTC was offered at the ag school Keith attended, he appears not to have investigated it.)

But it was not until Aug. 21 of this year that Olbermann hit upon the true reason for the Bush administration's hyping of this implausible terror plot. According to Keith -- and I'm not kidding -- it was to distract from Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' announcement that her state had been unable to respond adequately to a tornado because Bush had diverted the National Guard to his crazy war in Iraq!

The Bush administration, you see, had revealed the arrest of the Fort Dix conspirators the day after Sebelius' world-reverberating bombshell about Kansas' decimated National Guard! Eureka!

This little theory of Keith's, adorable though it is, has problems apart from his insistence that it would be impossible to kill army personnel on "a closed compound full of trained soldiers with weapons." The other problem is Gov. Sebelius was full of crap.

First, Sebelius wasn't in much of a position to know how well Kansas responded to the tornado, inasmuch as she had been partying at New Orleans' Jazzfest the day after the tornado hit -- while Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts and both local congressmen were on the scene, helping the rescue efforts.

Second, the manager of the actual rescue team soon contradicted Sebelius, saying: "We have all the staff that we need and can manage at this time. If we had more people right now, it would just start being a cluster."

The Kansas National Guard had 352 Humvees, 72 dump trucks and more than 320 other trucks, which would seem to be sufficient for the town hit by the tornado, Greensburg, Kan., population 1,574. That's almost one National Guard truck for every two people. (This is the same tornado that Obama claimed had killed 10,000 people. He was off by 9,988.)

Third, it turned out that Gov. Sebelius had rejected offers of additional help from neighboring National Guard units.

Consequently, the day after her dramatic cri de coeur for more National Guard resources, Sebelius' office completely reversed course, telling The Associated Press that the rescue efforts were going "just fine."

What the governor had meant, her office explained, was that Kansas' National Guard might be stretched thin if, hypothetically, another natural disaster were to strike immediately after the tornado.

Keith, unfortunately, was unaware of Sebelius' humiliating about-face, as it was not carried on Daily Kos.

Last December, five of the Fort Dix plotters were found guilty by a federal jury of conspiring to kill American soldiers. The sixth had already pleaded guilty.

Still, compare the macho posturing of the Bush administration over thwarting the Fort Dix terror plot to the masterful handling of domestic terrorist plots since the angel Obama has taken the helm. Why, the Obama administration managed to capture and arrest Maj. Hasan without violating a single American's civil liberties!

Thank you, Ms. Coulter for exposing this sorry pair for what they are. 

Ken Berwitz

Do you have any doubt at all that the enormous sums of money being tossed around in the eminently PC name of "Global Warming", "Climate Change", etc. are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for lying, corruption and money-grabbing?

For anyone who thought for a minute that this would be done honestly, here is a BBC report to disabuse you of your fantasy:

Climate change help for the poor 'has not materialised'

Large sums promised to developing countries to help them tackle climate change cannot be accounted for, a BBC investigation has found. Rich countries pledged $410m (£247m) a year in a 2001 declaration - but it is now unclear whether the money was paid. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has accused industrialised countries of failing to keep their promise. The EU says the money was paid out in bilateral deals, but admits it cannot provide data to prove it. The money was pledged in the 2001 Bonn Declaration, signed by 20 industrialised nations - the 15 countries that then made up the European Union, plus Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland. They said they would pay $410m per year until 2008. The date the payments were meant to start is unclear, but the total should be between $1.6bn and $2.87bn. The declaration said: "We are prepared to contribute $410m, which is 450 million euro, per year by 2005 with this level to be reviewed in 2008." But only $260m has ever been paid into two UN funds earmarked for the purpose, the BBC World Service investigation has found. "There have been promises which have not been fully materialised. There is an issue of trust," says Ban Ki-moon. The question of finance for developing countries to tackle climate change is one of the keys to a deal at the Copenhagen summit next month. Poor countries may not sign up to a new agreement unless they trust rich countries to keep their promises, and are satisfied with the mechanisms put in place to handle the flow of funds. Unequal sums The industrialised governments which drew up the Bonn Declaration say they never intended to put the money just into the UN funds. The Declaration allowed them to spend it in "bilateral and multilateral" ways, they say. Artur Runge-Metzger, the senior climate change negotiator for the European Union, maintains the EU has lived up to its end of the bargain. "We can say we met the promise, climate finance has really been stepped up," he argues. However he admits the EU cannot provide data to show it did pay the money through these bilateral and multilateral means. "It's sometimes very hard to say what is the climate bit of this financing," he says. Richard Myungi, a climate change negotiator for the Least Developing Countries says: "We feel frustrated, we feel betrayed." Boni Biagini, who runs the UN funds, also believes much more money should have been paid in. "These numbers don't match the $410m per year. Otherwise, we'd be handling billions of dollars by now," he says. Confusion Dr Marc Pallemaerts, who drafted the Bonn Declaration in 2001 when he was the deputy chief of staff for the European Union's Belgian Presidency, admits some developing countries may have been led to believe the promised money would go solely into the UN funds. "Some countries may have been genuinely misled - others knew it was deliberate ambiguity," he maintains. The Bonn Declaration is surrounded by confusion and has led to mistrust between developed and developing countries. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says any new financing agreement signed at Copenhagen must be clear. "This whole agreement and negotiation should be based on trust and confidence," he says. He adds that any new financing deal must be "measurable, reportable and verifiable".

Between this, and the emails that have been uncovered showing how rife with fraud and deception this whole "issue" actually is, how could you expect anything else?

Is the Obama administration still prepared to commit untold additional sums of money we do not have for this scam? 

In a word, yes.  He still is, at least as of now.   And so do a large number of his lopsided Democratic majority in congress.  They have spent so much time and so much political capital lecturing us that man-made global warming is real, that they can't go back.

The 2010 elections cannot come fast enough.

And that goes double for 2012.

Ken Berwitz

Has there been a more in-your-face publicity hound in the presidency than this (ok, I admit Clinton is in the running, but he's a distant second):

From James Hibberd's "Live Feed" site:

November 25, 2009

ABC announces Oprah-Obama Christmas special

By James Hibberd & Nellie Andreeva

The queen of daytime will interview the president of the country during an ABC holiday special that brings together Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama.

The network has announced "Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special," which includes an interview with the president, a conversation with the First Couple and tour of the White House. The special will also go behind-the-scenes as staffers prepare the White House for the holiday season.

The special marks the first time Winfrey has interviewed Obama since he took office. "Christmas at the White House" will air Sunday, Dec. 13, at 10 p.m. 

Winfrey, who has never endorsed a presidential candidate before, was a strong supporter of Obama during his presidential campaign, stumping for him in key states.

She attended Obama’s victory rally in Chicago last November and the president’s inauguration in January but has not been politically involved since the election and recently interviewed former Alaska governor and Obama rival Sarah Palin.

Winfrey also didn’t attend the high-profile first White House state dinner Tuesday night, but her close friend Gayle King did.

While she reigns in daytime with her talk show, Winfrey has rarely hosted primetime specials, most notably her 1993 interview with Michael Jackson at his estate. Oprah recently announced she will end her syndicated talk show in 2011 and focus on launching her cable network, OWN.

There are wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The economy remains a shambles while our national debt goes from horrible to hopeless to impossible.  The people are rebelling against the godawful ObamaCare legislation, even as the senate slouches toward its passage.  The Attorney General is handing terrorists an international forum in New York to recruit for al qaeda.  We are about to commit hundreds of billions, maybe trillions, to fight global warming that may well be a complete hoax.  And there STILL is no decision on how many more troops, if any, will be sent to Afghanistan.

Doesn't this man have something to do besides co-opt Christmas? 

I would rather swim in nuclear waste than see an Obama Christmas special.  With or without Oprah Winfrey. 

Ken Berwitz

I kept meaning to write a blog about the need - the desperate need - to relieve Army Chief of Staff General George Casey of his command.  But other things kept pushing ahead.  Fortunately, however,  Ken Blackwell of www.americanthinker.com has written it - and probably a lot better than I would have. 

Here is Mr. Blackwell's commentary.  The bold print is mine:

Dismiss General Casey

By Ken Blackwell

 

We don't yet know how bad the Ft. Hood shooter's case was. We do not know -- and we must find out -- how it was possible for an Army medical officer to openly express treasonous statements and not be court-martialed. We do not know if the shooter or his family members were under surveillance by the FBI or other federal law enforcement agencies. We must soon find out.

But we do know this much: Gen. George Casey, the Army Chief of Staff, raced to the Sunday morning talk shows to express his deep concern. Gen. Casey's concern was not for American victory in the war on terror, nor for the safety of the American people, nor for the safety of U.S. military personnel. Gen. Casey's greatest concern was for diversity.

 

He said that if diversity were a "casualty," then it would be an even greater tragedy than the murders of fourteen innocent Americans.

 

If we want to know how such an obvious terror threat was ignored, how such a mass killer was enabled, we need look no further than the command climate created by Gen. Casey and his politically correct subordinates.

 

If you are serving in a forward unit of the Army today, can you have confidence that your fellow soldier can be trusted to "have your back"? Can you sleep soundly in an Army barracks wondering whether your bunkmate might be a jihadist?

 

Unit cohesion is essential to any effective fighting force. Troops must trust one another when their lives are on the line. By winking at treason, Gen. Casey and his subordinates allowed Major Nidal Hasan's conduct to taint every Muslim currently serving in the U.S. military.

 

No one has a right to serve. Service is an honor and a privilege, but it is not a right. Colorblind people and people with heart murmurs are perfectly loyal Americans. It casts no aspersion on them or their families to be excluded from military service.

 

All military personnel in the U.S. Armed Forces must demonstrate their loyalty to the United States of America. When they raise their right hand and take that oath before God to protect the Constitution of the United States "from all enemies foreign and domestic," Americans have a right to expect that that oath will be enforced. No one gets a pass.

 

Gen. Casey has clearly failed to do this. No action could reassure our troops more in the wake of the worst case of domestic terrorism since 9/11 that national security and loyalty to the United States is the first requirement for military service than the dismissal of Gen. Casey.

 

Our all-volunteer military should know that even a four-star general is held to the same high standard that we expect of the lowest-ranking enlisted man or woman. From now on, it should be understood by all our serving men and women that you can report disloyal, insubordinate, and treasonous statements by anyone in the military and that that report will be acted upon promptly.

 

Only if this lesson is forcefully taught by the prompt, public dismissal for cause of Gen. Casey will the troops have renewed confidence that they can trust all their fellow soldiers. They must know that the United States will be loyal to them as they are loyal to the United States.

 

In this, as in so many things, George Washington said it best. In his historic letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport in 1790, he wrote:

[The] Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

 

Notice this strong pledge of respect for rights of religious minorities comes with a stern requirement: All good citizens must give their "effectual support." Can anyone say that Major Hasan -- after more than a decade of taxpayer-funded education and special treatment -- gave the United States his effectual support? Of course not.

 

There were warning signs aplenty. Many of the shooter's classmates and fellow officers raise concerns about this man's loyalty and reliability. The command climate created by Gen. Casey stifled those warning cries. The result is the death of innocents. Gen. Casey must be replaced as Army chief of staff.

Think about what we have learned about nidal malik hasan since his killing rampage.  We have found out that, for years, this son of a bitch bastard did everything but wear a sandwich sign saying "I am a Muslim fanatic, I hate you all, and I'm counting the days until I do something about it".  And yet he was allowed to stay on that base, no problem at all.

Are we out of our minds?

Dump Casey.  Now.  And make it clear to every other military person that diversity, as preferable as it is in concept, does not extend to hating the United States, speaking against it and supporting the activities we are fighting around the world..

Ken Berwitz

For the poll lovers in the house:

President Obama continues to nosedive in the polls.  The latest, USA Today/Gallup, has him at just 50% approve versus 46% disapprove. 

His thin sliver of a silver lining here is that he is holding on (tenuously) to the 50% level:  five major polls (Rasmussen, Zogby, Quinnipiac, Gallup and Fox/Opinion Dynamics) have him in the 40's. 

On the other hand, the numbers are made even worse by the fact that the group running from him fastest is independents -- i.e. the swing votes that settle elections.

What does this mean?  Well, if these data are accurate, it means that Barack Obama has fallen precipitously from where he was just a few months ago.  It also means that he is becoming toxic to dozens and dozens of Democrats who have to run on his record next year.  This is particularly true in the house of representatives, where all members are up for re-election next year. 

How soon before they realize that if they don't cut him loose, voters may well cut them loose? 

Any time that some of these folks start attacking their fearless - and, so far, politically protected - leader will be no surprise to me.  Politicians have strong survival instincts.  And the survival they are most interested in is their own.

Ken Berwitz

From Steve McCann at www.americanthinker.com:

November 25, 2009

Thanks again, President Bush

Steve McCann

The Kyoto Protocol went into effect in February 2005.   George W. Bush was excoriated by the left for not signing on and acquiescing to the global warming hysteria.

All of us can recall how President Bush was called all sorts of names and accused of wanting to destroy the world.  Even some nominal Republicans fell for the “settled science” and got on board the climate change express.

Nonetheless, George Bush remained firm in his refusal to allow the United States to destroy its economy and standard of living for what has now turned out to be a political movement not one based on science.

With the exposure of the global warming hoax through the release of the CRU emails, we should offer a toast to the much maligned President George W. Bush and thank him for not committing the United States to similar disastrous actions that our counterparts in Europe fell for.   

The delay allowed the truth to come out as it always does.

With one exception - I disbelieve the truth always comes out - let me second Mr. McCann's motion. 

Enthusiastically.

Ken Berwitz

Here is another update on how the so-called "stimulus package", which puts our children and grandchildren into near-hopeless debt, has benefitted the economy.  The bold print is mine:

U.S. durable goods orders fall unexpectedly

Wed Nov 25, 2009 8:39am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods fell unexpectedly in October, according to government data on Wednesday that reinforced views of a gradual economic recovery from recession.

The Commerce Department said durable goods orders dropped 0.6 percent after rising by an upwardly revised 2.0 percent in September. New orders in September were previously reported to have increased 1.4 percent.

Analysts polled by Reuters forecast orders rising 0.5 percent in October. Durable goods orders are a leading indicator of manufacturing activity, which in turn provides a good measure for overall business health

Let's see:  Durable goods orders dropped .6% instead of rising by .5% as they were expected to.

This comes on the heels of today's news that there are another 466,000 new jobless claims (which, so help me God, some media are reporting as good news, not bad).

And then we have the downward revision of last quarter's economic growth (virtually all of which is in the government rather than private sector anyway), from 3.5%  to 2.8%.

Wow, isn't this working great?  And now they're talking about another stimulus package!  Hey, why not?  We can have even more of this amazing success story.

The 2010 elections cannot come fast enough.

And that goes double for 2012.

Ken Berwitz

My previous blog pointed out that, at least for a few of the so-called "news" venues, the global warming scandal either barely exists or doesn't exist at all.  But I don't have the time or resources to check further (I'm a staff of one, and I intersperse blogging with my business day).

L. Brent Bozell, however, does.  And here is his latest column on the two scandals - 1) the global warming scandal, and 2) major media's determined effort to ignore it.:

When the Press Favors Secrecy

by Brent Bozell

 

Here's a dirty little secret about The New York Times: It likes to leak things. Important things. Things that change the course of the public conversation. From the Pentagon Papers to the ruined terrorist-surveillance programs of the Bush era, the Times has routinely found that secrecy is a danger and sunlight is a disinfectant.

Until now. A troublesome hacker recently released e-mails going to and from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain, e-mails that exposed how the "scientific experts" cited so often by the media on global warming are guilty of crude political talk, attempts at censoring opponents and twisting scientific data to support their policy agenda.

 

The e-mails prove just how dishonest this left-wing global warming agenda truly is. And now suddenly, The New York Times has found religion and won't publish these private e-mails. Environmental reporter Andrew Revkin, who's more global warming lobbyist than reporter, quoted -- sparsely -- from the e-mails, but declared he would not post these texts on his "Dot Earth" blog on the Times website: "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won't be posted here."

That rule didn't apply to things like the disclosure of the SWIFT global bank monitoring program against terrorists.

Unlike our secret terror-fighting efforts, there is no grave matter of national security to protect here. There is only a danger of shredding the undeserved reputation of some global-warming alarmists as nonpartisan, nonideological, just-the-facts scientists with no preconceived environmentalist or statist agenda.

The networks also have ignored this emerging scandal with all the ignorance they could muster. But in the seven days after The New York Times revealed the existence of an NSA program to monitor communications to terrorist cells abroad, the three networks ran a combined 23 stories about the program, more than one story, per network, per night.

Revkin's story in the Times did have some truncated quotes with ridiculous details. In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing apparent climate patterns over the last two millenniums, Phil Jones of the CRU said he had used a "trick" employed by another scientist, Michael Mann, to "hide the decline" in temperatures.

Dr. Mann confirmed the e-mail was real, but told the Times "the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word 'trick' to refer to a good way to solve a problem," and not as something secret.

Doesn't a network correspondent just smell the fraud when scientists start offering lame excuses for the words they somehow didn't mean? Don't just listen to conservatives. Try Nate Silver, a statistician and liberal-media favorite, recently named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. He says the scientists in this exchange were unethical:

"Dr. Jones, talking candidly about sexing up a graph to make his conclusions more persuasive. This is not a good thing to do -- I'd go so far as to call it unethical -- and Jones deserves some of the loss of face that he will suffer." But then he adds the typical liberal disclaimer: "Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that happens all the time in both academia and the private sector -- have you ever looked at the graphs in the annual report of a company which had a bad year? And it seems to happen all too often on both sides of the global warming debate."

When conservatives are wrong, conservatives are wrong. When liberals are wrong, everyone does it, don't you know?

It's also important to note that these folks play a rough game of hardball. This isn't about science. It's politics -- the brass-knuckles sort. In another e-mail from Jones to Mann, reported in The Washington Post, there's talk of cutting skeptical scientists out of the official United Nations report: "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal to reject the work of climate skeptics, perhaps with a boycott: "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes. "I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor," Jones replies.

This kind of censor-your-opponents activity ought to disgust a journalist who values openness and rigorous debate above all. Every day the networks avoid this story, they're saying they don't really care about either of those values. In fact, they become willing accomplices in a cover-up of global proportions.

Simply stated, I do not know how a media venue can call itself a media venue and not be reporting on this.

But we have major media venues doing just that, don't we?

Then they wonder why people call them biased.....

Ken Berwitz

The Today show:  Not a word about the global warming emails that I saw.  I googled "Today Show global warming emails" and, in the first two pages, couldn't find any mention that Today has ever said a word about the emails, though this is is the fourth Today broadcast since the scandal broke.  

New York Times:  A front page article, below the fold, on Friday.  Nothing since.  A one-day-and-out story.

I have not monitored the network news shows, and do not know if they have covered this scandal.  On the web sites:

-www.cbsnews.com has put up a couple of articles about the emails.  Good for them;

-www.nbcnews.com:  Not a thing about it that I can find;

-www.abcnews.com:  I can't find any articles on the emails, but I did find one saying that the scientists - presumably including some of the ones doing the emailing - say things are even more dire than originally predicted;

Other major venues are reporting this - The Wall Street Journal and Fox News among them (funny how the much-maligned Rupert Murdoch empire is the only one keeping us informed of a story that is being reported around the world). 

I guess, for some news organizations, "fair and balanced" means "partial and tough luck if you want to know about what we're withholding from you".

Keep 'em ignorant and you own 'em.

Ken Berwitz

Here is an excerpt from the Associated Press article describing President Obama's "imminent" decision on Afghanistan:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Signaling an imminent decision on Afghanistan troop levels, President Barack Obama said Tuesday he intends to "finish the job" and destroy terrorist networks in the region.

"It is in our strategic interests, in our national security interest to make sure that al-Qaida and its extremist allies cannot operate effectively in those areas," Obama said. "We are going to dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks."

"It is my intention to finish the job," he said of the war in Afghanistan that has been going on for eight years—since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

What great words.  Barack Obama's actions are going to finish the job.

But, after waiting three months for a decision on troop strength, just one thing:

In order to finish the job, don't you have to start it?

How about a little less verbal saber-rattling, and a little more DOING SOMETHING.  Thanks.

Ken Berwitz

Let me put it to you:  What is more important?  Getting dirt on Sarah Palin or determining if man-made global warming is a scam and a hoax?

I'm sort of hoping you picked choice #2.  Please signify by saying "I have a brain and I use it".  Thank you.

Now please read this piece, by Lachlan Markay of www.newsbusters.org, and tell me how the New York Times feels about those choices:

------- A Tale of Two Leaks: NYT Bashed Palin, But Won't Touch ClimateGate

By Lachlan Markay (Bio | Archive)

The ClimateGate email leak has demonstrated in full force a glaring double standard in the mainstream media's coverage of leaked information. Too often, liberal media outlets jump at the chance to damage conservative figures by publishing sensitive information, but refuse to publish such information if it discredits or hinders the left's efforts.

As Clay Waters reported yesterday, Andew Revkin, who writes for the New York Times's Dot Earth blog, refused to publish emails from Britain's East Anglia Climate Research Unit showing efforts to manipulate climate data and marginalize global warming skeptics.

Said Revkin, "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner on September 17 of last year:

Computer hackers broke into the private Yahoo e-mail account of Gov. Sarah Palin, the of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here."

Revkin is correct that the emails were never intended for the public eye, contained private communications, and were released by hackers who violated the law in obtaining them. But apparently this standard for publication of such documents does not apply to information about Sarah Palin.

The Times's Caucus Blog reported Republican vice presidential candidate, and posted some of her messages and a long list of contacts on the Internet.

The Web site Wikileaks posted screen shots of Ms. Palin’s inbox displaying her username, gov.palin@yahoo.com, and messages that were reportedly obtained by a group of hackers on Tuesday night.

The e-mails include an exchange between Ms. Palin and Alaska’s lieutenant governor, Sean Parnell, as well as an associate, Amy McCorkell, who Ms. Palin appointed to a state drug and alcohol advisory board last year. Wired Magazine reported on its Internet privacy blog, Threat Level, that it obtained confirmation from Ms. McCorkell that she did, in fact, send the message to Governor Palin.

On Wednesday, the McCain campaign acknowledged the breach in a statement from campaign manager, Rick Davis: “This is a shocking invasion of the governor’s privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment.”

Governor Palin has faced criticism for reportedly using her private address to conduct government business.

When hackers posted screenshots of the then-Vice Presidential nominee on Wikileaks, the Times rushed to publish the information. It even included a link directly to a page displaying the screenshots, disclosing private communications and making available her personal email address and contact list. This is "private information" in every sense of the term.

Guy Benson at National Review extrapolates that at the Times, "it's unacceptable to direct readers to hacked private emails that fundamentally disrupt a lefty meme-of-the-decade, but it's totally cool to direct readers to hacked private emails of the lefty bete noire-of-the-year."

Revkin's statement displays a profound double standard in the Times's reporting on leaked information. It managed, in the last sentence of the Caucus Blog post, to turn Palin's email leak into an attack.

Yet in the case of the ClimateGate emails, which were obtained in a near-identical manner and contain similarly sensitive and personal communications, the Times suddenly finds ethical misgivings in publishing the information. The paper's reservations appear to be a veiled attempt to shield the left's global warming narrative from criticism.

How sad to watch a once-great newspaper circling the drain.  And even sadder that it is happening because of unbelievably imbecilic decisions like this one:

-By all means go after Sarah Palin with guns blazing.  Hacked emails?  So what, who cares? 

-But hacked emails from the dishonest scam artists who are doing everything they can - ethically and unethically - to suppress data showing that man-made global warming may not exist?  Don't you dare print that.  It's not ethical.  It's not nice.

That is how a newspaper becomes a comical shadow of its former self.

The damage to the New York Times is great.  The wound is deep.  And it is entirely self-inflicted.

Ken Berwitz

Here is an editorial from the Washington Times.  It is posted without further comment.  Read it and see how badly we have been scammed by the global warming chicken-littles -- led by al gore:

EDITORIAL: Hiding evidence of global cooling

Junk science exposed among climate-change believers

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Scientific progress depends on accurate and complete data. It also relies on replication. The past couple of days have uncovered some shocking revelations about the baloney practices that pass as sound science about climate change.

It was announced Thursday afternoon that computer hackers had obtained 160 megabytes of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in England. Those e-mails involved communication among many scientific researchers and policy advocates with similar ideological positions all across the world. Those purported authorities were brazenly discussing the destruction and hiding of data that did not support global-warming claims.

Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit, and professor Michael E. Mann at Pennsylvania State University, who has been an important scientist in the climate debate, have come under particular scrutiny. Among his e-mails, Mr. Jones talked to Mr. Mann about the "trick of adding in the real temps to each series ... to hide the decline [in temperature]."

Mr. Mann admitted that he was party to this conversation and lamely explained to the New York Times that "scientists often used the word 'trick' to refer to a good way to solve a problem 'and not something secret.' " Though the liberal New York newspaper apparently buys this explanation, we have seen no benign explanation that justifies efforts by researchers to skew data on so-called global-warming "to hide the decline." Given the controversies over the accuracy of Mr. Mann's past research, it is surprising his current explanations are accepted so readily.

There is a lot of damning evidence about these researchers concealing information that counters their bias. In another exchange, Mr. Jones told Mr. Mann: "If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone" and, "We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind." Mr. Jones further urged Mr. Mann to join him in deleting e-mail exchanges about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) controversial assessment report (ARA): "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re [the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report]?"

In another e-mail, Mr. Jones told Mr. Mann, professor Malcolm K. Hughes of the University of Arizona and professor Raymond S. Bradley of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst: "I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!"

At one point, Mr. Jones complained to another academic, "I did get an email from the [Freedom of Information] person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn't be deleting emails." He also offered up more dubious tricks of his trade, specifically that "IPCC is an international organization, so is above any national FOI. Even if UEA holds anything about IPCC, we are not obliged to pass it on." Another professor at the Climate Research Unit, Tim Osborn, discussed in e-mails how truncating a data series can hide a cooling trend that otherwise would be seen in the results. Mr. Mann sent Mr. Osborn an e-mail saying that the results he was sending shouldn't be shown to others because the data support critics of global warming.

Repeatedly throughout the e-mails that have been made public, proponents of global-warming theories refer to data that has been hidden or destroyed. Only e-mails from Mr. Jones' institution have been made public, and with his obvious approach to deleting sensitive files, it's difficult to determine exactly how much more information has been lost that could be damaging to the global-warming theocracy and its doomsday forecasts.

We don't condone e-mail theft by hackers, though these e-mails were covered by Britain's Freedom of Information Act and should have been released. The content of these e-mails raises extremely serious questions that could end the academic careers of many prominent professors. Academics who have purposely hidden data, destroyed information and doctored their results have committed scientific fraud. We can only hope respected academic institutions such as Pennsylvania State University, the University of Arizona and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst conduct proper investigative inquiries.

Most important, however, these revelations of fudged science should have a cooling effect on global-warming hysteria and the panicked policies that are being pushed forward to address the unproven theory.

.

Ken Berwitz

Here's another Obama bow - this one to the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao:

Who's next?  What will Obama do for ahmadinejad?  Get on all fours and kiss his feet?

Investors Business Daily cartoonist Mike Ramirez has a very definite idea of who Obama would honor with a bow, and what kind of bow he would use.  Click here to see it.  If a picture says 1,000 words, this is the picture.

Ken Berwitz

Here's an interesting little analysis by Steve Gilbert at www.sweetness-light.com.  It shows how our wonderful "neutral" media address GDP growth under Barack Obama versus how they did it when George Bush was in the oval office:

Oops: GDP Only Grew 2.8% – Not 3.5%

November 24th, 2009

From an unfazed Associated Press:

Economy’s rebound not as strong as first thought

By JEANNINE AVERSA (AP)

November 24, 2009

WASHINGTON — The economy grew at a 2.8 percent pace last quarter, as the recovery got off to a slower start than first thought.

The Commerce Department’s new reading on gross domestic product wasn’t as energetic as the 3.5 percent growth rate for the July-September period estimated just a month ago.

The main factors behind the downgrade: consumers didn’t spend as much, commercial construction was weaker and the nation’s trade deficit was more of a drag on growth. Businesses also trimmed more of their stockpiles, another restraining factor.

The new reading on GDP, which measures the value of all goods and services produced in the United States — from machinery to manicures — was a tad weaker than the 2.9 percent growth rate economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected.

Still, the good news is that the economy finally started to grow again, after a record four straight losing quarters. The bad news is that the rebound, now and in the months ahead, probably will be lethargic.

The worst recession since the 1930s is very likely over, but the economy’s return to good health will take time, Fed officials and economists say.

Growth probably won’t be strong enough to quickly drive down the nation’s unemployment rate, currently at 10.2 percent. It’s only the second time in the post-World War II period that unemployment has topped 10 percent.

Some economists think economic growth will slow to around a 2.5 percent pace in the current quarter, although others say it could clock in at about 3 percent if holiday sales are better than expected.

Most say they think the economy will weaken again next year, with growth at a pace of around 1 percent as the impact of the $787 billion stimulus package fades and consumers keep tightening their belts under the strain of high unemployment and hard-to-get credit.

Much of the economy’s return to growth last quarter reflected federal support for spending on homes and cars…

What’s not clear is whether the recovery can continue after government supports are gone.

If consumers clam up, the economy could tip back into recession. President Barack Obama recently cautioned that the economy could suffer a "double dip" downturn…

Notice how the Associated Press is using these GDP adjustments to argue for a second stimulus. And never mind that we haven’t even spent a quarter of the first stimulus.

And never mind that it is senseless to prop up the GDP with taxpayers dollars, since there is no real growth to the economy. That is it is ‘senseless’ – unless you are running for re-election.

Which is why we could very well have a second stimulus before the midterm elections in 2010.

Isn’t it funny? Somehow under Obama the first GDP numbers always seem to be higher. They are then adjusted down when nobody is looking.

But during the Bush administration it seemed like the numbers were always first reported as lower than what they turned out to be. And we rarely heard much about it when they were adjusted upward.

For instance, in the case of the the second quarter of 2008 (which we have mentioned before), our one party media practically declared that we had entered a recession when the GDP was reported to only grown at a rate of 1.9%.

This is how the New York Times treated the news:

More Arrows Seen Pointing to a Recession

By PETER S. GOODMAN

August 1, 2008

… Economists construed the tepid growth in the second quarter, combined with a surge in claims for unemployment benefits, as a clear indication that the economy remains mired in the weeds of a downturn. Many said the data increased the likelihood that a recession began late last year…

But when this number was bumped up to 3.3% a few weeks later, we heard very little about it.

Meanwhile, when the last quarter’s GDP was announced to be 3.5% the same media mavens declared it a sign of strong economic growth and the official end of the recession.

What Steve is not saying (though he has said it time and time again in other blog entries), is that the growth in 2nd quarter 2008 puts the lie to claims that we have been in recession for all of that year. 

Until there was a George Bush to unconditionally hate, recession was defined as two or more periods of negative growth.  Unless they revised mathematics during his term of office, a growth rate of 1.9% or 3.3% is positive territory, not negative.  But how often have you seen the entire year referred to as recessionary?

Then they wonder why people call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

John Hinderaker of www.powerlineblog.com has done terrific work in looking at, and reporting on, the emails that have emerged about global warming - the ones that establish that we are being scammed six ways from Sunday by the scare tactics of environmental profiteers.

Since his latest post is so long, just click here and you can read it all.   I srtrongly recommend that you do.

Look, I'm no scientist.  I do not know for 100% certain that man-induced global warming is a complete hoax.  But I do know for 100% certain that there is a lot of evidence suggesting it is a complete hoax, and there are a lot of people are making a lot of money by scaring us into believing it is real. 

I also know journalistic dereliction when I see it, and few issues have generated more journalistic dereliction than this one.  For years, journalists who dared to question the orthodoxy of global warming have been treated like mindless idiots.

It will be interesting to see how they're treated now -- and how many of the people subjecting them to this treatment are honest enough to talk about the possibility that they may have been had.

Ken Berwitz

How do you feel about calling all Black people criminals because Blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crimes?  Would you be comfortable saying that every Black doctor, accountant, storeowner, mechanic, lawyer, housewife, student, etc. is a criminal? 

I'm assuming the answer is no.  (If it's yes, you won't like the rest of this blog at all).

How do you feel about calling all Irish people drunks?  Or all Italians mafiosi?  Or all Jews cheap, etc. etc. etc?  The same way?

Now:  How do you feel about calling all Muslims devils?  I'm not talking about radical Muslims who are committed to jihad and want nothing more than to end western civilization; I'm talking about all Muslims, period.  Well over a billion of them.

I hope you feel the same way as you do about those other groups.  For exactly the same reason.

With this in mind, please read this article from the Independent Florida Alligator (whatever that is): 

ACLU files suit defending anti-Islam shirts

CJ PRUNER and EMILY FUGGETTA, Alligator Writers | Posted: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 12:30 am | 4 comments

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Monday on behalf of the Dove World Outreach Center claiming the Alachua County school district’s policy against anti-Islamic T-shirts intrudes upon the wearers’ freedom of speech.

 

The shirts, which read “Islam is of the devil,” raised controversy when students were sent home from local elementary and middle schools for wearing them.

 

The church’s families said the shirts are protected by the Constitution under the First Amendment as religious expression.

 

Alachua County School District spokeswoman Jackie Johnson said the district will stand by its decision to enforce the dress code and prevent students from wearing items that are “disruptive to the learning environment and offensive to students.”

 

But according to ACLU of Florida executive director Howard Simon, the messages are protected under the First Amendment, which the Supreme Court has done a good job of outlining in terms of public schools.

“The shirts’ message isn’t about sex or drugs,” he said. “It’s about [the students’] views on politics, religion and history.”

 

Simon said the district’s decision to forbid the students from wearing the shirts crosses a line that shouldn’t be set by the school system, which is allowed to forbid certain clothing based on its offensiveness.

 

He said if every school restricted freedom of speech based on offending others, the freedom wouldn’t exist.

Simon said the students were not sent home from school the first day they wore the shirts because there was no disruption, but the schools later decided to forbid the shirts because of their message.

 

While the shirts’ message is distressing, Simon said, their appearance should have sparked school-wide discussions about religion and politics, being used as a learning tool.

 

“Rather than restricting speech,” he said, “it should have opened the door to more speech.”

 

A spokesperson from the DWOC declined to comment on the case but referred to a statement from the Rev. Terry Jones, the church’s senior pastor.

 

“What we are doing is what every church should be doing,” part of the statement from Jones reads, “but the churches in America and in Gainesville have become cowardly. The church’s job is to stand up and speak out on issues…and warn against false religions like Islam that masquerades itself as a religion of peace. Their desire is to destroy America, Israel and western civilization and to institute Islamic law.”

It's bad enough that this church stereotypes all people of Islamic faith.  But they then send their children into schools wearing what amounts to advertisements for their prejudice? 

What will they say if a Muslim kid gets fired up over this and beats one of their little darlings up?  That it proves he is of the devil? 

Unreasoning hatred is unreasoning hatred.  Period.  I hope it makes you as sick as it makes me.

One other thing:  Congratulations to the ACLU for being on the wrong side of another issue.  That's quite a streak you have going.

Ken Berwitz

After a quarter of a year - that is NOT a typo - President Obama now says he has the information necessary to make a decision on whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan and, if so, how many.

But he's not going to announce it yet.  He is going to wait a week - enough time to put together a major TV address.

For three months commanding General Stanley McChrystal, Mr. Obama's own appointee, has been asking for these troops and telling him that they are necessary for the safety of the soldiers already there.  He has also told Mr. Obama that, without them, we risk losing this war.

But who cares?  Let our men and women in uniform twist in the wind for another week.  This is a new opportunity to be on all the networks at once, for the greater glory of Barack Obama.  And you don't waste opportunities like this.

What's that?  Why not implement the decision immediately and explain it on TV next week?  What are you, kidding?  It would ruin everything.  People won't be as excited to hear what the President has to say then because they will already know what he has done. 

Nope.  Better to let our soldiers wait another week.  Heck, they've waited three months, haven't they?  So what's another week anyway? 

Besides he has this big state dinner coming up with lots and lots of celebrities.  And there still may be enough good weather for another round on the golf course.  War is war, but we have to have our priorities, don't we?

The 2010 elections cannot come fast enough. 

And that goes double for 2012.

Ken Berwitz

Barack Obama must be royalty. 

He is prancing around the world, spending untold millions of our tax dollars and accomplishing absolutely nothing.  That's exactly what a royal (i.e. someone acting as if there is no accountability to voters) feels entitled to do, and he's doing it.

So it is only fitting that, when Mr. Obama screws up, he screws up royally.  And I don't know any other way of describing what he is doing in the Middle East.

Here is an excellent analysis of just how badly he is performing, by Frida Ghitis, writing for the Miami Herald.  The bold print is mine:

Obama's clumsy efforts breed mistrust

BY FRIDA GHITIS

fjghitis@gmail.com  

 

Everyone agrees about the Middle East today.

Everyone agrees that peace looks remote as ever and the process has all but completely collapsed. The Obama administration is strengthening precisely the wrong people as it proceeds with its clumsy efforts to produce peace between Israelis and Palestinians. It's a sad spectacle to watch.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power with minimal popular support. In fact, last March more people voted for his main rival, the Kadima party led by former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, a fervent advocate of Israel's need to make painful compromises for the sake of peace with Palestinians.

Obama's misguided efforts have created such a sense of anxiety among Israelis that Washington is weakening moderates, strengthening hardliners and pushing the prospects for peace further out of reach.

Netanyahu is enjoying a surge in popularity at home as Israelis look for a strong leader in the face of confusing moves from Washington, combined with the looming threat from an Iran that continues arming the likes of Hezbollah.

On the Palestinian side, Washington's actions have proven just as pernicious. The Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas has become paralyzed as a direct result of Obama's actions. Obama's loud demands on Israel have more than hardened Palestinian positions. They have created demands unlike any the Palestinians had made since the start of negotiations. While once the P.A. wanted U.S. officials to pressure Israel to negotiate, now Abbas simply refuses to talk to Israel unless it gives in, before sitting down to talk, to demands that Abbas well knows would bring down Netanyahu's government. Now Abbas threatens to resign.

Abbas knows that Netanyahu simply cannot declare that Israel will ban Jews from building in Jerusalem. But it was Obama who brought up the demand. Netanyahu says he wants to negotiate, but Abbas won't. The two sides aren't even speaking to each other.

Hamas vs. Fatah

Hamas, the mortal enemy of Abbas and his Fatah party, says Fatah should acknowledge negotiations have failed and only its brand of violence, known in much of the world as terrorism, will do the job. Meanwhile, Arab countries have bluntly rejected Obama's request that they make minuscule conciliatory gestures towards Israel.

Trying to work its way out of the box, Washington praised Netanyahu's steps towards limiting settlement growth. The Arabs cried foul, furious at the United States for backing down. Everyone is angry and disappointed with the Americans.

Obama has lost his mojo in the Middle East. Nobody listens to him, nobody trusts him. A poll found 70 percent of Palestinians have a negative view of the U.S. president. His standing in Israel is no better.

It is extraordinary that this is happening even as majorities of both Israelis and Palestinians offer strong support for the two-state solution. The War & Peace Index poll showed a record 75 percent of Israelis support negotiations, but 68 percent of Israelis also say Obama is not likely to preserve Israel's interests in the long run.

Israeli majorities have consistently stood in favor of the creation of a Palestinian state. But Obama seems determined to highlight the precise areas of most passionate disagreement, complicating the situation.

The most recent public disagreement came after Israel approved construction of hundreds of homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. The Israeli decision is unhelpful.

Claiming Jerusalem

The White House's reaction is even more damaging. The White House insists on equating East Jerusalem construction with West Bank settlements. That is a profoundly counterproductive misreading of reality.

Israelis are willing to give up the West Bank, but they view all of Jerusalem as their capital. East Jerusalem could eventually be on the negotiating agenda. But Obama's reactions are convincing Israelis that they cannot trust him. And in a democratic country, public opinion can make or break a deal.

If Israelis don't believe they can trust Washington, they will retrench and do all they can to protect themselves. They will resist taking risks for peace and support hardliners. If the Palestinians don't think Washington will protect Israel, they will revert to the view, still held by Hamas and Iran, that Israel can and should be destroyed.

My only disagreement with this piece is its suggestion that Palestinian Arabs will "revert" to the view that Israel can and should be destroyed.  That is ridiculous to me, because Palestinian Arab leadership (such as it is), whether fatah or hamas, has always held this view.  The only difference between the two is whether to accomplish Israel's destruction now or later.

That aside, however, is it not clear that President Obama has taken a bad situation which cries out for intelligent leadership, and royally screwed it up to the point where it would take a major breakthrough just to get us back to where we were in the first place?

And whose fault is this?  It's ours, folks.  We elected a Chicago machine politician, absolutely unqualified to be President, because he looked good in a suit and read beautifully off a teleprompter. 

Maybe we can improve on this in 2012.  But that election is three years away.  How much havoc will this man will wreak in those three years?

Ken Berwitz

From London's Daily Mail, we have this:

Sugardrop tomato that's sweeter than a peach

• By Sean Poulter
  Last updated at 11:30 PM on 23rd November 2009

Tomatoes are hailed as a superfood, packed with vitamins and anti-oxidants that can help prevent cancer.

Unfortunately, such arguments fail to persuade fussy children to eat them.

But a sweet version of the fruit could overcome their objections.

Growers is Spain have produced the sugardrop tomato, which they say is as sweet as peach.

It is the result of two years of cross-breeding involving 3,000 varieties, on behalf of Tesco.

It is hoped parents will be able to encourage their children to eat the tomatoes as readily as they might some grapes or a peach.

And while being as tasty as these fruits, the sugardrops, which are similar in size to a cherry tomato, will be even better for them. Just a handful will provide around 50 per cent of a child's recommended daily dose of vitamin C.

Tomatoes are also the richest source of lycopene. The potent anti-oxidant, which gives tomatoes their deep red colour --neutralises free radicals, which cause cell damage and play a part in triggering cancer.

Tesco's Ashleigh McWilliams said: 'As tomatoes are so healthy we're hoping that the added sweetness of the sugardrop will also appeal to children who might otherwise turn their noses up at them.'

To produce the new variety, growers found tomatoes with already high sugar levels --known as the brix level - and cross-pollinated them.

The sugardrop growers have managed to achieve sugar levels of nine to 13 brix. A standard peach has a nine brix level.

Highlighting the sugardrop's 'superfood' properties should help boost their popularity. The description has led to a 305 per cent increase in the sale of blueberries in the past 12 months, a study has revealed.

But the benefits come at a premium - a 280g punnet of sugardrops will cost £1.50, around four times the price of standard salad tomatoes.

Is it just me, or does that not sound very appealing?

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I like tomatoes that taste like tomatoes.  If I want something as sweet as a peach, I'll get a peach.

And if children need a tomato to be sweet as a peach before they'll eat it, then get regular cherry tomatoes, and dust them with confectioner's sugar.  They'll taste just as bizarre as the sugardrops, and you can pocket the other 300%.

Ken Berwitz

From the interestingly-named web site, jammiwearingfool.com:

Aww: 'Going Rouge' Authors Now Whining About Unfair Treatment

A bunch of far left cranks try to cash in on Sarah Palin's runaway success and the publishers of Palin's book fight back. So what do these twits do?

Whine like little babies. I guess they expected a free payday by piggybacking on her name.

A parody of Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue: An American Life" has been causing huge confusion -- forcing Palin's publishers HarperCollins to take out ads to direct buyers to the official version.

The rival book, "Going Rouge: An American Nightmare," was released on the same day as Palin's memoir and features an almost identical cover.

Colin Robinson, co-publisher of the book, compiled by Nation magazine staffers Betsy Reed and Richard Kim, told Page Six: "We have been contacted by numerous media outlets across the country asking for interviews with Sarah Palin, or companies offering security for her while on tour.

"One Web site not only thought we were Ms. Palin's publishers but called the book 'Going Rough.'

"We've noticed that someone, presumably HarperCollins, has been buying ads on Google redirecting people looking for 'Going Rouge' to 'Going Rogue,' which seems very unsporting of them."

 

Aww, the poor babies. It's very unsporting of them!

Unlike, say, printing an nearly identical book in order to score an quick payday.

Idiots.

FYI:  Going Rogue: An American Life is the #1 best selling book at amazon.com and, based on demand, they are in the process of running 2,500,000 copies (that's not a typo).

Going Rouge: An American Nightmare, the idiot's-delight knockoff?  Try and even find it.

Nice going, guys.  Great idea.  Did you also buy Enron stock in 2001?

Ken Berwitz

From USA Today:

Gibbs: No Obama Afghanistan decision this week

 

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs confirmed today that President Obama will not be making an Afghanistan announcement before the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Next week? Who knows?

Gibbs said he can answer that question "when the president tells me what's likely ... I would simply say that it's not going to happen this week, obviously."

Tonight's national security meeting is dedicated to answering some of the questions Obama raised a couple of weeks ago, Gibbs said, including the potential U.S. exit strategy from Afghanistan.

"A decent part of it is not just how we get people there, but what's the strategy for getting them out, " Gibbs said.

This is Obama's ninth national security meeting on an Afghanistan strategy -- and Gibbs said no more are scheduled.

"This is a complicated decision," Obama said.

Play another round of golf, Mr. President.  It's far more important, and it gives you something to do while our troops twist in the wind.

Ken Berwitz

Are you wondering why most of the press has been so conspicuously eager to move past Barack Obama's 8-day trip to Asia?

Well, allow me to de-wonderify you (how's that for a neologism;  i.e. a non-word you can figure out the meaning to?).

It was because Mr. Obama's trip was an unmitigated failure in just about every way.

John Hinderaker is one of the countless media people (very much including Obama supporters) who are saying as much.  But I'll use his commentary because it is so short and to the point:

"Everyone Wants Respect, But Hardly Anyone Is Willing to Pay for It"

  Share Post   Print

November 23, 2009 Posted by John at 7:40 AM

In an article titled "Obama's Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage," Der Spiegel sums up President Obama's Asian trip as a complete failure:

Barack Obama looked tired on Thursday, as he stood in the Blue House in Seoul, the official residence of the South Korean president. He also seemed irritable and even slightly forlorn. The CNN cameras had already been set up. But then Obama decided not to play along, and not to answer the question he had already been asked several times on his trip: what did he plan to take home with him? Instead, he simply said "thank you, guys," and disappeared. ...

The mood in Obama's foreign policy team is tense following an extended Asia trip that produced no palpable results. The "first Pacific president," as Obama called himself, came as a friend and returned as a stranger. The Asians smiled but made no concessions.

Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik.

President Obama took office wanting to distinguish himself from President Bush. That was foolish and arrogant. Now, as Der Spiegel concludes, he is trying desperately to distinguish himself from Jimmy Carter.

Unhappily, the one and only success of this trip is that it gave President Obama 8 more days to dither and not make a decision about Afghanistan.   

Ugh.

Ken Berwitz

For the poll lovers in the house, here are the latest data from Rasmussen:

Health Care Reform

Support for Health Care Plan Falls to New Low

 

Monday, November 23, 2009

 

Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.

 

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% now oppose the plan.

Half the survey was conducted before the Senate voted late Saturday to begin debate on its version of the legislation. Support for the plan was slightly lower in the half of the survey conducted after the Senate vote.

 

Prior to this, support for the plan had never fallen below 41%. Last week, support for the plan was at 47%. Two weeks ago, the effort was supported by 45% of voters.

 

Intensity remains stronger among those who oppose the push to change the nation’s health care system: 21% Strongly Favor the plan while 43% are Strongly Opposed

Hello, Mary?  Are you listening, Blanche?  How about you, Ben, down in Florida.  And numbers of others:  how will you be voting on this monstrosity?  Or, put another way, how badly do you want to lose your senate seats?

I guess we'll find out, won't we?

Ken Berwitz

To say that Norah O'Donnell hates Sarah Palin is a little like saying that mahmoud ahmadinejad hates Israel.  You don't need to work very hard to find the hatred.

Here, from John Zeigler (not my favorite guy, by the way, but he has this one down cold) is just how overtly Ms. O'Donnell's hatred of Ms. Palin manifests itself into her "news reporting" (after you read this, you'll understand the need to put that description in quotation marks):

Why Is Norah O'Donnell Still Employed by NBC News?

11/22/2009

Why Is Norah O’Donnell Still Employed by NBC News?

 

If there was an All-Star roster of news media members who have been willing to go the lowest and get the dirtiest in their brazen and transparent attempt to destroy Sarah Palin, NBC’s Norah O’Donnell, along with numerous of her NBC colleagues, would certainly make the first team. My question (which I have asked her twice on live TV)  is: How in the world does she still have a job at one of the most powerful alleged “news” organizations in the country, and if she isn’t fired for bias, then is such an event even possible?

 

This query is especially relevant given her shameful performance while covering a Palin book signing in Michigan where she went out of her way to embarrass a teenage girl who was just there to see the political superstar up close and personal (For the record, while some have tried to compare the two, my interviewing of Obama voters on election day was fundamentally different from what O'Donnell did, if only because I am not an alleged "news" reporter and they were backed up with scientific data.)

 

Even a cursory look at O’Donnell’s remarkably horrid track record when covering Palin, brings into grave question whether NBC was not committing “Media Malpractice” by even allowing O’Donnell to cover the book event. At this point a restraining order keeping O’Donnell away from Palin all together might be very well in order.

 

Think I am totally kidding? Let’s just consider what O’Donnell has done in 2009, a year in which Sarah Palin has run for absolutely nothing. 

 

n      In January, O’Donnell interviews me about the excerpts of my Sarah Palin interview I released that week as a preview of my documentary on the media coverage of the 2008 election. O’Donnell basically lies to me live on the air about what Palin’s people said about the release of the excerpts in an obvious attempt to create problems between Palin and me. Thankfully, largely  thanks to Palin calling me at home two days later, it doesn’t work.

 

n      Later that month, O’Donnell states on the air that Palin “called Barack Obama a terrorist,” which, of course, she never did. O’Donnell never corrects herself and Palin apparently decides it isn’t worth suing her for defamation.

 

n      In February, O’Donnell somehow gets the privilege of deciding which Palin clips from the unreleased portion of my interview with her will be shown on the Today Show just before my live interview with Matt Lauer. She goes to extraordinary lengths to make Palin seem whiny and boring, neither of which are remotely accurate descriptions of her in the interview (to this day I am completely convinced that O’Donnell never even bothered to watch the whole interview). A few hours later I do a live interview with O’Donnell in which I twice call for her firing and she comically tries to ignore me. 

 

n      In June, I am booked on MSNBC to discuss the Palin/Letterman flap because Palin’s first response came on my radio show. Much to my surprise, I am told that Norah O’Donnell will be doing the interview. About thirty seconds before air I am suddenly told by an MSNBC producer that O’Donnell will not be doing the interview, but instead, thanks to nonexistent “breaking news’ that happened twenty hours earlier, it will be conducted by Contessa Brewer. Hilarity ensues.   

 

n      In July, according to Palin’s book, immediately upon hearing the news of Palin’s resignation, O’Donnell is the to first jump on the completely false story that she will be indicted by the federal government. No indictment was ever even remotely under consideration.

 

n      Later that month, O’Donnell takes a rather energetic role in a bizarre MSNBC panel on Palin’s sex appeal.   

 

And these are just the episodes of which I am personally aware. I am quite sure there are more. I am equally certain that they should have stopped long ago. The evidence is overwhelming that at least when it comes to Sarah Palin, Norah O’Donnell is not remotely an objective  news person. If NBC wants to still claim to be a news organization (already a very open question) Norah O’Donnell should finally be fired and NBC

That's pretty pathetic, isn't it?

But, then again, this is NBC/MSNBC.  So maybe this degree of Palin Derangement Syndrome is just middle-of-the-road.

Then they wonder why people call them biased........

Ken Berwitz

Why stop at just one innovation.  Here's another:  an Israeli  "fire escape system", like none you have ever seen before. I guarantee it:

CLICK HERE TO SEE VIDEO

Did you watch the video?

Well, so what.  What's the big deal?  Israel's neighbors have engineering sectors which develop innovations like this all the time.

Don't they?

Ken Berwitz

My sister just sent me this article, from Israel National News:

New Wound Dressing Mimics Skin, Dissolves When Finished
by Hillel Fende

(IsraelNN.com) A revolutionary, dissolvable wound dressing developed at Tel
Aviv University could help reduce deaths caused by burn-related infections.
ScienceDaily.com reports that currently, 70% of those with severe burns die
from related infections. Prof. Meital Zilberman of Tel Aviv University's
Department of Biomedical Engineering has developed a new wound dressing that
is filled with antibiotics and other healing agents, and that dissolves when
the wound is healed.

The dressing is based on fibers that Prof. Zilberman engineered. A study
published in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research shows that the new
dressing can eradicate infection-causing bacteria after only two days.

"We've developed the first wound dressing that both releases antibiotic
drugs and biodegrades in a controlled manner," Prof. Zilberman said. "It
solves current mechanical and physical limitations in wound-dressing
techniques, and gives physicians a new and more effective platform for
treating burns and bedsores."

The ScienceDaily report explains that Prof. Zilberman designed the dressing
to mimic skin and the way it protects the body.  "Wound dressings must
maintain a certain level of moisture while acting as a shield," she
explained. "Like skin, they must also enable fluids from the wound to leave
the infected tissue at a certain rate. It can't be too fast or too slow. If
too fast, the wound will dry out and it won't heal properly. If too slow,
there's a real risk of increased contamination."

The dressing thus combines positive mechanical and physical properties with
what medical researchers call "a desired release profile of antibiotics."

Prof. Zilberman is now starting the early stages of clinical trials on
animal models. So far, her wound dressing has passed physical and mechanical
tests in vitro and in bacterial inhibition tests in the laboratory. She is
also seeking a strategic partner to co-develop the research and take it to
the commercial stage.

Well, so what?  What's the big deal?  Israel's neighbors have research facilities that develop innovations like this all the time.

Don't they?

Ken Berwitz

From Michelle Malkin - and without comment from me, since a) Ms. Malkin doesn't need my help and b) once you read her piece, you'll be too sickened to keep reading anyway:

Gitmo detainees will use trials as “platform” to bash America

By Michelle Malkin  •  November 22, 2009 10:13 PM

One of the Gitmo defendants’ lawyers confirms the obvious: The civilian trials for 9/11-linked enemy combatants are nothing more than a grand excuse to use our legal system to bash America and spread the jihadi virus on the world stage.

The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday. Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but “would explain what happened and why they did it.”

The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this month that Ali and four other men accused of murdering nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. will face a civilian federal trial just blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center. Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, is a nephew of professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Mohammed, Ali and the others will explain “their assessment of American foreign policy,” Fenstermaker said.

“Their assessment is negative,” he said.

Bleeding-heart Barack Obama and interest-conflicted Eric Holder are all too happy to serve as executive directors for the 9/11 show trials.

Hey, why not turn them into a Broadway play while you’re at it, White House?

***

Just a reminder of what Obama wrote about the 9/11 jihadists eight days after the attack left 3,000 innocent men, women, and children dead on American soil:

“We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.”

My response last year:

As for Obama’s continued delusion about the “climate of poverty and ignorance” that supposedly breeds Muslim terrorists, can American politicians ever rid themselves of this unreality-based trope? This belief is part and parcel of the same idiocy that lead the State Department to embrace “spa days” for Muslims to “build bridges” with the Arab world and President Bush to open up our aviation schools to more Saudi students to “improve understanding.” John McCain also alluded to education-as-cure for Islamic terrorism at the L.A. World Affairs Council in March, when he declared that “In this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs.” Just what we need: more student visas for the jihadi-infested nation that sent us the bulk of the 9/11 hijackers.

Author and National Review Online blogger Mark Steyn’s sharp rejoinder to McCain then applies to Obama now:

“There’s plenty of evidence out there that the most extreme ‘extremists’ are those who’ve been most exposed to the west – and western education: from Osama bin Laden (summer school at Oxford, punting on the Thames) and Mohammed Atta (Hamburg University urban planning student) to the London School of Economics graduate responsible for the beheading of Daniel Pearl. The idea that handing out college scholarships to young Saudi males and getting them hooked on Starbucks and car-chase movies will make this stuff go away is ridiculous – and unworthy of a serious presidential candidate.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri didn’t need more education or wealth to steer him away from Islamic imperialism and working toward a worldwide caliphate. He has a medical degree. So does former Hamas biggie Abdel Rantissi. Seven upper-middle-class jihadi doctors were implicated in the 2007 London/Glasgow bombings. Suspected al Qaeda scientist Affia Siddiqui, still wanted by the FBI for questioning, is a Pakistani who studied microbiology at MIT and did graduate work in neurology at Brandeis.

And as I’ve reported before and must reiterate again for the hard of hearing in Washington, lowering academic standards at American colleges helped al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed further the jihadi cause. In the early 1980s, he enrolled at tiny Chowan College in Murfreesburo, N.C., which had dropped its English requirements to attract–ahem–wealthy Middle Easterners. At Chowan, Mohammed bonded with other Arab Muslim foreign students known as “The Mullahs” for their religious zeal. Mohammed then transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he earned his degree in mechanical engineering along with 30 other Muslims. Mohammed applied his Western learning to oversee the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot (six Americans dead), the U.S.S. Cole attack (17 American soldiers dead), and the September 11 attacks (3,000 dead). He has also been linked to the 1998 African-embassy bombings (212 dead, including 12 Americans), the plot to kill the pope, the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, and the Bali nightclub bomb blast that killed nearly 200 tourists, including two more Americans.

Perhaps bleeding-heart Obama thinks a master’s degree in social work would have convinced poverty-stricken, helpless, ignorant, despairing Mohammed to change his mind?

Ken Berwitz

From the twitter page of CBS reporter Mark Knoller:

Some weekend Obama #s: He played golf saturday: his 25th round in office. And made no public or press appearances Sunday: his 16th such day.

Remember when media used to dilligently count how many days President Bush spent at his Crawford, Texas ranch (and how they called his stays there "vacations", even when, in truth, he was working from the ranch instead of the White House)?

Well, other than Mr. Knoller, how many media venues are counting the number of golf outings President Obama has had since taking office?  How often have you seen this mentioned?

Did you know that, in his first 10 months as President, Mr. Obama has played more golf than Mr. Bush played in his first three years as President?

Of course, there is no good reason not to play lots and lots of golf.  After all, it has been just three months of dithering since General McChrystal recommended (begged for) more troops in Afghanistan - certainly no need to spend the time thinking, or meeting about that.  Heck, it's only the war effort and the safety and well being of our troops. 

How can that compare in importance to a round of golf, anyway?

Ken Berwitz

Remember Aesop's fable about the story about the shepherd boy decided to amuse himself by crying "wolf!"?  Twice the townspeople came running and twice they found out he had fooled them.  Then, when he really did see a wolf and cried out, the townspeople ignored him and he lost his flock of sheep. 

The fable makes a very important point -- and its last line is well worth remembering:.

"Nobody believes a liar...even when he is telling the truth!"

With this in mind, I call your attention to Heather Ellis, the young Black woman who cut in front of people at a WalMart in Kennett, Missouri, and then cried "racism" when she was rebuked by the people behind her. 

You may have heard/read about this story in mainstream media.  And if you did, you probably "know" it was a racial incident.

But was it?

Before you answer, read the following article, which comes to us from Christopher Orlet, of www.americanthinker.com.  The bold print is mine:

The Girl Who Cried Racism

By Christopher Orlet on 11.23.09 @ 6:08AM

Kennett, Missouri, is best known these days as the hometown of pop rock diva Sheryl Crow. Sheryl Crow and now Heather Ellis. The latter is no rock star, but she is a bona fide celebrity (or one famous for being famous). Ellis, 24, the celebrated Wal-Mart line-cutter, earned her 15-minutes of celebrity when she accused a Wal-Mart shopper, cashier, assistant store manager, security guard, and Kennett police officers of racism. By the second day of the trial -- which ended last Friday in a plea bargain -- it was clear from mainstream media coverage that pretty much the whole town of Kennett was racist.

The facts were these: Ellis, then a college student, was in line at the local Wal-Mart, when she decided her lane was moving too slowly. She then joined her cousin in a faster moving lane, cutting in front of a line of waiting customers. The customer she cut directly in front of, Teresa Kinder, objected, especially when Ellis repeatedly shoved Kinder's merchandise back down the conveyer belt. The assistant store manager and a security guard arrived and asked Ellis to leave. When she refused, police were called. Ellis was later placed under arrest, and charged with disturbing the peace, trespassing, resisting arrest, and felony assault of police officers.

Not surprisingly, there are two very different versions of what happened. Ellis and her aunt say she was pushed by Ms. Kinder and called racial slurs. They say police roughed her up, tore her jacket, and told her to "go back to the ghetto." Police, store management and witnesses, meanwhile, say that Ellis was belligerent, and that she kicked officer Albert Fisher in the shin and hit Sgt. Joe Stewart in the mouth, splitting his lip. Whatever the truth, it is obvious that a minor instance of rude behavior and bad manners escalated into a felony assault on a peace officer.

The mainstream media was quick to indict Kennett as a racist community. An ABC News headline read: "Heather Ellis Could Face Prison Time After Cutting the Line at Walmart." Not for assaulting police officers, mind you, but for "cutting the line." CNN's Randi Kaye went after the entire town of Kennett, accusing it of being "a community known for racial tension." CNN showed more bias when it suggestively referred to Kennett's "predominantly white police department." (In fact, Kennett has two minority cops, which accurately reflects the percentage of minorities in the town.) Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Southern Christian Leadership Conference noted that the town's police have been accused of racial profiling minority drivers, a charge that has been leveled, one time or another, at just about every American city and town with minorities.

Needless to say, racial tensions exploded after Ellis made her accusations. White supremacist groups began slithering into town to spread their hateful propaganda, while big name minority activists flew in from New York and Washington DC, to further heighten tensions. Ms. Ellis's father, a local Baptist preacher, called the trial a "big, racial discrimination cover-up," which seems an odd comment since trials are supposed to promote justice, not cover up the truth. (Perhaps the state judicial system is racist too?) Ellis and her various coalitions and supporters quickly hired the top criminal lawyers in St. Louis: Scott Rosenblum and T.J. Hunsaker. When asked by reporters to comment on the charge of racism, Rosenblum would say only: "I'm not going to go there."

The fact that Rosenblum and Hunsaker had to settle for a plea bargain suggests Ellis didn't have a prayer in beating the assault charge, regardless of the extenuating circumstances. In the end, Ellis was convicted of the lesser charges of resisting arrest and disturbing the peace. The plea bargain stipulates she must attend two hours of anger management class.

"MANNERS ARE OF MORE importance than laws," wrote Edmund Burke. "Upon them, in a great measure, the laws depend." But good manners are today considered passé, a quaint and spurious remnant of our dark past. So many of today's young people simply do not care how their rude or anti-social behavior affects others. It is almost like no one else exists but himself or herself. I experience this form of anti-social behavior on a daily basis, whether it is the young hoodlums in the street outside my window playing loud and obscene music at 3 a.m. or young people talking loudly and obscenely on their cell phones during a movie. And you can see where they get it. I have attended theater productions where adults bring their toddlers and allow them to chat endlessly throughout the performance, no doubt finding this behavior "cute."

If our young are not taught good manners, they are well-schooled in resentment studies, during which they learn the various benefits of victimhood and the importance of political correctness. Good manners will never get anyone 15 minutes of fame, but bad manners and crying racism is almost guaranteed to buy you fifteen minutes and then some.

The tragedy is that by rushing to Ellis's defense, by excusing her actions, and by concocting blanket racism charges against an entire community, the "various coalitions" and civil rights groups have done great damage to the laudable goal of combating racial prejudice.

Perhaps now that the rock star has returned home to Louisiana, the Ellis-and-mainstream-media-created racial tensions will cool and Kennett, Missouri, can get back to being what it was: a normal southern town trying to deal with serious economic problems.

That next to last paragraph?  No truer words have ever been spoken. 

The great tragedy of this story has nothing to do with Heather Ellis personally. 

The great tragedy is that racism does exist and remains pervasive in this country.  Decent human beings should be vigilant against it in any way they can.  But those efforts will be futile if people use the accusation of racism as a blanket panacea for everything they do and everything that happens to them.  Eventually, it is trivialized to the point of not having any meaning.

Want an exact parallel?  How about the people who cry "racism" whenever someone criticizes Barack Obama?  Guess what:  Mr. Obama has done things wrong.  A lot of them.  And attacking him for his deficiencies and mistakes does not - repeat not - have to be based on the melanin content of his skin.

Heather?  Meet Barack.

Ken Berwitz

Yesterday I wrote that the Sunday New York Times did not have a word about the global warming emails which were hacked from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit in Norwich, England:

-emails which indicate that there are lots and lots of data debunking the claims made by Al Gore and his disciples;

-emails which indicate that there has been a concerted (and obviously quite successful) effort to shut skeptics up - even skeptics with the credentials that make them just as expert as the believers..

But, while I am right about the Sunday paper, it turns out that the Saturday Times had an article about the emails. 

Here is the Times' entire article (the bold print is mine):

Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Published: November 20, 2009

 

Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.

 

The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years.

 

In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical “trick” in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. In another, a scientist refers to climate skeptics as “idiots.”

 

Some skeptics asserted Friday that the correspondence revealed an effort to withhold scientific information. “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents.

 

Some of the correspondence portrays the scientists as feeling under siege by the skeptics’ camp and worried that any stray comment or data glitch could be turned against them.

 

The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument. However, the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists.

 

In several e-mail exchanges, Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and other scientists discuss gaps in understanding of recent variations in temperature. Skeptic Web sites pointed out one line in particular: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” Dr. Trenberth wrote.

 

The cache of e-mail messages also includes references to journalists, including this reporter, and queries from journalists related to articles they were reporting.

 

Officials at the University of East Anglia confirmed in a statement on Friday that files had been stolen from a university server and that the police had been brought in to investigate the breach. They added, however, that they could not confirm that all the material circulating on the Internet was authentic.

 

But several scientists and others contacted by The New York Times confirmed that they were the authors or recipients of specific e-mail messages included in the file. The revelations are bound to inflame the public debate as hundreds of negotiators prepare to negotiate an international climate accord at meetings in Copenhagen next month, and at least one scientist speculated that the timing was not coincidental.

 

Dr. Trenberth said Friday that he was appalled at the release of the e-mail messages.

 

But he added that he thought the revelations might backfire against climate skeptics. He said that he thought that the messages showed “the integrity of scientists.” Still, some of the comments might lend themselves to being interpreted as sinister.

 

In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing climate patterns over the last two millenniums, Phil Jones, a longtime climate researcher at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, said he had used a “trick” employed by another scientist, Michael Mann, to “hide the decline” in temperatures.

 

Dr. Mann, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, confirmed in an interview that the e-mail message was real. He said the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word “trick” to refer to a good way to solve a problem, “and not something secret.”

 

At issue were sets of data, both employed in two studies. One data set showed long-term temperature effects on tree rings; the other, thermometer readings for the past 100 years.

 

Through the last century, tree rings and thermometers show a consistent rise in temperature until 1960, when some tree rings, for unknown reasons, no longer show that rise, while the thermometers continue to do so until the present.

 

Dr. Mann explained that the reliability of the tree-ring data was called into question, so they were no longer used to track temperature fluctuations. But he said dropping the use of the tree rings was never something that was hidden, and had been in the scientific literature for more than a decade. “It sounds incriminating, but when you look at what you’re talking about, there’s nothing there,” Dr. Mann said.

 

In addition, other independent but indirect measurements of temperature fluctuations in the studies broadly agreed with the thermometer data showing rising temperatures.

 

Dr. Jones, writing in an e-mail message, declined to be interviewed.

 

Stephen McIntyre, a blogger who on his Web site, climateaudit.org, has for years been challenging data used to chart climate patterns, and who came in for heated criticism in some e-mail messages, called the revelations “quite breathtaking.”

 

But several scientists whose names appear in the e-mail messages said they merely revealed that scientists were human, and did nothing to undercut the body of research on global warming. “Science doesn’t work because we’re all nice,” said Gavin A. Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA whose e-mail exchanges with colleagues over a variety of climate studies were in the cache. “Newton may have been an ass, but the theory of gravity still works.”

 

He said the breach at the University of East Anglia was discovered after hackers who had gained access to the correspondence sought Tuesday to hack into a different server supporting realclimate.org, a blog unrelated to NASA that he runs with several other scientists pressing the case that global warming is true.

 

The intruders sought to create a mock blog post there and to upload the full batch of files from Britain. That effort was thwarted, Dr. Schmidt said, and scientists immediately notified colleagues at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. The first posts that revealed details from the files appeared Thursday at The Air Vent, a Web site devoted to skeptics’ arguments.

 

At first, said Dr. Michaels, the climatologist who has faulted some of the science of the global warming consensus, his instinct was to ignore the correspondence as “just the way scientists talk.”

 

But on Friday, he said that after reading more deeply, he felt that some exchanges reflected an effort to block the release of data for independent review.

 

He said some messages mused about discrediting him by challenging the veracity of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin by claiming he knew his research was wrong. “This shows these are people willing to bend rules and go after other people’s reputations in very serious ways,” he said.

 

Spencer R. Weart, a physicist and historian who is charting the course of research on global warming, said the hacked material would serve as “great material for historians.”

There you go.

I suppose it can be argued that the New York Times, as a matter of policy, would give minimal coverage to hacked/stolen information.  But that doesn't fly.  Remember the Pentagon Papers?  How about the intelligence information about our war in Iraq - the publication of which may a) have damaged the war effort and b) accordingly, may have caused the injuries and death of some number of our men and women in uniform?  No problem at all to the Times.  First page news for both.  And not just for one slow news day.

See, when the Times wants  you to know the material in secret documents, it makes damn sure you see it.  When it doesn't?  Well, how about the Environment section in Saturday's edition?

So, yes, the Times did publish this article on Saturday.  And, yes, the Times did not publish a word about it on Sunday.  Or today.  But, however minimally and grudgingly, it did publish something. 

So a rousing partial apology is in order.  And this is it.

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NOTE:  The original version of this blog mistakenly stated that the Times article was in Saturday's edition.  It was in Friday's.  Sorry about that.

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FURTHER NOTE:  In the immortal words of Fiorello LaGuardia, when I make a mistake it's a beaut.

I have managed to mangle this twice.  But the Times did publish an article about the email hacking on page 1 of its Saturday edition.  The partial apology, however, is still in order because there was nothing on Sunday or Monday.  They put it in there one time and promptly tried to make it die by neglect.

God I hope I don't have to put another "I screwed up" note here.

Ken Berwitz

Just when you thought you'd seen and heard it all, we have this:.

Barbie meets sharia

By Michelle Malkin  •  November 22, 2009 10:00 AM

No, it’s not a joke: