The Ugly American

Barack Obama's Muslim Childhood

Barack Obama's Muslim Childhood
By Daniel Pipes

As Barack Obama's candidacy comes under increasing scrutiny, his account of his religious upbringing deserves careful attention for what it tells us about the candidate's integrity.

Obama asserted in December, "I've always been a Christian," and he has adamantly denied ever having been a Muslim. "The only connection I've had to Islam is that my grandfather on my father's side came from that country [Kenya]. But I've never practiced Islam." In February, he claimed: "I have never been a Muslim. … other than my name and the fact that I lived in a populous Muslim country for 4 years when I was a child [Indonesia, 1967-71] I have very little connection to the Islamic religion."

"Always" and "never" leave little room for equivocation. But many biographical facts, culled mainly from the American press, suggest that, when growing up, the Democratic candidate for president both saw himself and was seen as a Muslim.

Obama's Kenyan birth father: In Islam, religion passes from the father to the child. Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. (1936–1982) was a Muslim who named his boy Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Only Muslim children are named "Hussein".

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http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5544

Leader Losing It

Leader Losing It

By Mark Hemingway

Senate meltdown.

There was a remarkable exchange on the floor of the Senate this past Thursday between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. It offers pretty stunning evidence of how personally petty Reid is, as well as his penchant for defining “partisanship” as anything that keeps him from getting his way.

The particulars here aren’t terribly important, but what happened was this: The Senate was voting on a Medicare bill bloated with new spending. The bill was also an attempt to prevent cuts in payment rates to doctors who treat seniors on Medicare, and Democrats wanted to pay for that by taking the funds from Medicare Advantage, a private fee-for-service plan. The president would likely have vetoed the bill in its current form and Senate Republicans opposed the gutting of Medicare Advantage, so Senate Republicans blocked the bill.

The trouble is that if the Senate doesn’t resolve the issue very soon, doctors will stop receiving Medicare funds. So Republicans proposed a 30-day extension to allow more time to hammer out a compromise. Democrats blocked the proposed extension. The impasse here caused Reid to go apoplectic on Mitch McConnell (I’ve highlighted the juicy parts):

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http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDNmOTQyYjA5MTEyMzZlMGUyNWU2ZjQ3ODA4YzQwMzM=

Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Sites on its Blogger Platform

Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Sites on its Blogger Platform
By Warner Todd Huston

It looks like Google has officially joined the Barack Obama campaign and decided that its contribution would be to shut down any blog on the Google owned Blogspot.com blogging system that has an anti-Obama message.

Yes, it sure seems that Google has begun to go through its many thousands of blogs to lock out the owners of anti-Obama blogs so that the noObama message is effectively squelched. Thus far, Google has terminated the access by blog owners to 7 such sites and the list may be growing. Boy, it must be nice for Barack Obama to have an ally powerful enough to silence his opponents like that!

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**UPDATE** BELOW FOLD

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/06/29/google-shuts-down-anti-obama-sites-its-blogger-platform

Bush Gets Rare Thank You as Liberator of Iraq

Bush Gets Rare Thank You as Liberator of Iraq
By Johanna Neuman

President Bush is struggling in the polls. Democrats are trying to tether his would-be successor, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, to unpopular Bush policies. And protests over U.S. beef imports have grown so violent in Seoul, South Korea, that Bush has postponed a visit to the country, as we reported here earlier.

But there is at least one constituency who view Bush as a hero: the leaders of the Iraqi government.

In a meeting at the White House today, Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, above at left, said that Iraqis will always consider President Bush the "liberator of Iraq, from the worst kind of dictatorship" and "a great friend of Iraq." Noting that Iraq's economy is growing and that its relations with Arab neighbors such as Iran, Syria and Turkey have improved, Talabani also thanked "the great American people for their sacrifice and their support."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/06/bush-as-liberat.html

London Times On War- We're Winning (Despite Western Media)

London Times On War- We're Winning (Despite Western Media)
By Richard Newcomb

The NewsBusters staff noted yesterday that the increasingly good news in Iraq was not being covered by the US media. And it is good news.

Contrary to the wishes of much, if not most, of the American media and their fellow believers in the Democratic Party, the United States and its allies are winning the war against Islamic aggression on the battlefields, although our courts and our media seem determined to do their utmost to turn this victory into defeat (see the New York Times coverage and the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene).

Most of the US media has placed its eggs into the basket of American defeat and support for the Islamic barbarians we are facing. So it is as welcome as it is rare to see that The Times of London today has a column that points our the indisputable fact that the West is winning.

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http://newsbusters.org/blogs/richard-newcomb/2008/06/27/london-times-war-were-winning-despite-western-media

Why Liberals Lie About What They Believe

Why Liberals Lie About What They Believe
By John Hawkins

Once you've watched liberals long enough to understand how they think -- scratch that, how they feel -- they become extraordinarily predictable.

To begin with, the liberal agenda is, in many respects, the same as it was in the thirties. Whether you call it communism, fascism, socialism, liberalism, or progressivism, the only real difference is how much they believe they can get away with, the way they sell it to people, and the latest trendy name for what they believe.

So, once the liberals pick a policy from their stale program to push, the next step is to get it implemented. This is where liberals have problems because whether a policy makes sense, is practical, or actually improves people's lives is of secondary importance to them. What is important to liberals is whether supporting or opposing that policy makes them feel good about themselves.

This is why liberals continue to support dysfunctional policies that have been failing miserably for decades and why they often oppose common sense programs that have been proven to work time and time again -- because it isn't about whether it works or not, it's about how it makes them feel.

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http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/JohnHawkins/2008/06/27/
why_liberals_lie_about_what_they_believe?page=full&comments=true

10 Concerns About Barack Obama

10 Concerns About Barack Obama

By William J. Bennett & Seth Leibsohn

1. Barack Obama’s foreign policy is dangerous, naïve, and betrays a profound misreading of history. For at least the past five years, Democrats and liberals have said our standing in the international community has suffered from a “cowboy” or “go-it-alone” foreign policy. While politicians with favorable views of our president have been elected in Germany, Italy, France, and elsewhere, Barack Obama is giving cause to make our allies even more nervous.

This past Sunday’s Washington Post reported, “European officials are increasingly concerned that Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to begin direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program without preconditions could potentially rupture U.S. relations with key European allies early in a potential Obama administration.”

Barack Obama’s stance toward Iran is as troubling as it is dangerous. By stating and maintaining that he would negotiate with Iran, “without preconditions,” and within his first year of office, he will give credibility to, and reward for his intransigence, the head of state of the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism. Such a meeting will also undermine and send the exact wrong signal to Iranian dissidents. And, he will lower the prestige of the office of the president:

In his own words he stated, “If we think that meeting with the president is a privilege that has to be earned, I think that reinforces the sense that we stand above the rest of the world at this point in time.” Not only has his stance toward Iran caused concern among our allies in Europe, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton called it, “Irresponsible and frankly naïve.”

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http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MzQ4YTY4YjQyMzRjYjA5MGZlNDBiZTkwYmEyODg5NTc=

The Obama Code

The Obama Code

By John J. Pitney Jr.

Easy and ridiculous.

On Friday, Senator Obama warned a cheering audience about the Republicans. “They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”

A few months ago, historian Sean Wilentz dubbed this tactic the “race-baiter card.” Smear your opponents as racists, and if there’s no evidence for the claim, accuse them of using “coded language.” There is no authoritative racial codebook, so the charge is easy to lodge. The campaign need not make such accusations directly, since sympathetic writers will do so.

Consider Senator Clinton’s “3 A.M.” television spot. The ad did not mention Obama. It merely said that if a crisis erupts while our kids are asleep, we need an experienced president to take the call. A race-neutral appeal, right? Not according to Professor Orlando Patterson. Noting that the ad’s sleeping children were white, he recalled the silent movie Birth of a Nation. This racist epic glorified the Klan, picturing black men as threatening and brutish. “The danger implicit in the phone ad — as I see it — is that the person answering the phone might be a black man, someone who could not be trusted to protect us from this threat.”

Patterson’s charge was ridiculous. The ad was a lineal descendant of a 1968 Nixon commercial, which showed a nighttime still of the White House, along with ominous music and a voiceover saying that the president’s decisions “can affect the future of your family for generations to come.” Nixon’s opponent was Hubert Humphrey, a Norwegian American.

An even more audacious accusation came after Obama spoke of “bitter” working people who “cling to guns or religion.” Critics slammed him as an elitist, and many conservatives noted that he was the latest in a long line of liberal snobs. One may think that that likening Obama to Adlai Ewing Stevenson II and John Forbes Kerry is about as un-racist as you can get. Yet journalist David K. Shipler wrote: “‘Elitist’ is another word for ‘arrogant,’ which is another word for ‘uppity,’ that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves.”And “outlandish” is another word for “absurd,” which is another word for “preposterous.”

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http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTNmNjdmMTk3ZjNkYzQ2MjhmZDA3OGE2MDQyZmI3MmY=

Obama's Lack of Ordinary Modesty

Obama's Lack of Ordinary Modesty
By James Lewis

In his victory speech over Hillary, Barack Obama soared rhetorically about his feelings of humility. And yet he hardly sounded humble:

"Generations from now...
we will be able to look back and tell our children (with mounting excitement)

that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick, and good jobs for the jobless.

This was the moment...
when the riiiiise of the oceans began to slow,
and our planet began to heal." [bolding added]

Now politicians are allowed some rhetorical overkill, but this is straight into Star Wars territory. There are no real precedents for this in traditional American speechifying, and that is saying something. Obama tells his hypnotized followers that we have not been caring for the sick (false); that we have no good jobs for the jobless (false); that the rise of the oceans (which doesn't exist) will begin to slow (false); and that our planet (which is feeling just fine, thanks) will finally begin to heal. (Also false).

So this is pure drivel from the deep regions of fantasyland. But Obama's brain dead followers are marching right in lockstep. They are a million Weekend at Bernie's, with millions of flatlining Obamanites being propped up to look as if they were alive and conscious. It's the Million Man March of the brain dead.

This election will pit the mind-numbed robots against sensible voters. Who is the majority? That's not clear at all at this point.

Obama deliberately plays to the lowbrow crowd; after all, half the population has an IQ of less than 100. This hardly shows Obama's modesty and humility of which he boasts in his first sentence. It is wild-eyed I Can Save the Planet grandiosity. This appears to be the real Obama; a Napoleonic Man of Destiny, with the zeal and certainty of a True Believer.

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http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/obamas_lack_of_ordinary_modest.html

Anti-Terror Oops: Barack Bumbles Legal Question

Anti-Terror Oops: Barack Bumbles Legal Question
By Scott W. Johnson

Speaking without a text in front of him, Barack Obama betrays a troubling lack of knowledge on important issues - such as the law and terrorism.

In his ABC interview last Monday, for example, Obama attacked the Bush approach on fighting terror. He claimed that, in the case of "the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in US prisons, incapacitated."

As an assistant US attorney, Andrew McCarthy prosecuted the perpetrators of the 1993 WTC attack. He calls Obama's statement "a remarkably ignorant account of the American experience with jihadism."

Writing for National Review Online, McCarthy notes: "While the government managed to prosecute many people responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing, many also escaped prosecution because of the limits on civilian criminal prosecution.

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http://www.nypost.com/seven/06232008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/anti_terror_oops_
116762.htm

ZOT For the Day!

“A man who has nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

John Stuart Mill

Why Do We Call Them 'Democrats'?

Why Do We Call Them 'Democrats'?

By Lance Fairchok

We all knew it even though Democrat spokespersons denied it. Worried that the negative connotations would affect their electability and their eyes glued to the capricious winds of public opinion, they invented new words for the old ideology such as progressivism and communitarianism. Apparently, the camouflage is no longer needed. The masks are off.

They now openly call for the nationalization of private business, the establishment of universal entitlements and increased taxation to pay for them. Why worry about socialist labels? The electorate is complacent, prosperity has numbed our senses and the left has worked diligently for many years to sap our national pride and deface our self-image.

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." - Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate 1940, 1944 and 1948

Eight years into the twenty-first century, Mr. Thomas' prediction is coming perilously close to fruition; the presidential elections of 2008 may well validate his faith in "liberalism" and its Trojan horse delivery of Socialism. After decades of slow yet persistent desensitization to Socialism in our schools, in our media and in government policy, Americans are blind to its ramifications for our prosperity, our individual freedoms and our national identity. Political candidates and legislators espouse openly socialist policies without eliciting the slightest outrage or significant comment, so successfully have the philosophies of Marx and Lenin permeated the national psyche.

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http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/why_do_we_call_them_democrats.html

Portrait Of A Typical Democrat...

Portrait Of A Typical Democrat...

Barack Obama Appears with Personalized Presidential Seal

Barack Obama Appears with Personalized Presidential Seal
By Michael Saul and Celeste Katz

Yes, he can. But, really: Oh, no, he didn't!

Barack Obama's presidential campaign raised eyebrows and elicited snickers Friday when it unveiled the Obamamania version of the presidential seal.

At a meeting with Democratic governors in Chicago, Obama sat behind a rostrum with a seal that looked not-so-coincidentally like the official seal of the President of the United States. Featuring an eagle clutching arrows and an olive branch, the seal contained a Latin phrase for a touch of gravitas that roughly translates to "Yes, We Can."

Asked to explain the new seal, Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, "It's a mix of presidential politics and a call for hope and change." Snarked John McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, "I think we can all agree that we need presidential candidates that are serious enough not to play make-believe on the campaign trail."

"It's laughable, ridiculous, preposterous and revealing all at the same time," Bounds said.

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/06/20/2008-06-20_barack_obama_appears_with_personalized_p.html

Obama Lies--Again

Obama Lies--Again
Politico

The main reason Barack Obama has given for eschewing public financing of his campaign was based on a lie:

In a web video emailed to supporters Thursday, Barack Obama explained that he was opting out of the public financing system because John McCain is “not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.”

Republicans can only wish that were the case. Obama’s alarmist prophecy — a bit of typical campaign rhetoric meant to scare his own donors into reaching for their credit cards — is wildly at odds with the flatlined state of conservative third-party efforts. The truth is that, less than five months before Election Day, there are no serious anti-Obama 527s in existence nor are there any immediate plans to create such a group.

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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11220.html

That '70s Show

That '70s Show
By Jonah Goldberg

You may have noticed that denouncing the "failed policies of the past" has become the official catechism of the Democratic Party.

Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if at DNC headquarters "gesundheit" is out as the polite response to a sneeze and tsk-tsking the rise in nose-tickling particulates thanks to the bankrupt policies of the Bush administration is in. So, you'd think if everything Bush has done is wrong, then a reversal of his position would be right.

Wrong again. We didn't hear applause from Democrats this week when President Bush "reversed" his "longstanding position" (in the words of The New York Times) on offshore drilling.

Nearly thirty years ago, Jimmy Carter's windfall-profits tax kicked in, making domestic oil exploration more difficult and expensive. In 1981, Congress passed a moratorium on offshore drilling that has stayed in place ever since. In 1990, the first President Bush signed an executive order reinforcing the ban on coastal oil exploration. And, until this week, the current President Bush supported the ban.

And yet, no cheers for Bush when he abandoned his failed policy of the last eight years. Instead, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid sniffed that these were more of the same "old ideas." Odd.

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http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/JonahGoldberg/2008/06/20/that_70s_show

Obama Vows to Disarm America

Obama Lied to Ohioans About NAFTA

Obama Lied to Ohioans About NAFTA

By Rick Moran

This is pretty shameless - even for a politician who claims to practice a "new kind" of politics.During the Ohio primary against Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama skewered her for her support of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), calling her out on what many Ohio workers thought was the reason they lost their jobs.

Obama promised that if he were president he never would have signed it in the first place and that if he became president, he would try to renegotiate the terms with Canada and Mexico.You may recall that his economic advisor told the Candadians that Obama really wasn't serious about this, that it was just campaign rhetoric.

Well, it turns out that the advisor - Austen Goolsbee - was absolutely right:

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http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/06/obama_lied_to_ohioans_about_na.html

Obama vs. Osama

Obama vs. Osama
By Ralph Peters

Promises aren't plans, Barack.

Name-brand journalists have let Barack Obama make any claim he chooses about Iraq, Afghanistan or coping with terrorism without pinning him down for details. Yet many of his comments and positions seem stunningly naive about national security. Given that this man may become our next president, shouldn't he explain how he'd do the many impressive things he's promised?

This week, Obama claimed, again, that he'd promptly capture Osama bin Laden. OK, tell me how: Specifically, which concrete measures would he take that haven't been taken? How would he force our intelligence agencies to locate bin Laden? And he can't just respond, "That's classified."

He also claimed that fighting terrorism is a law-enforcement problem, not a military one (should we send the NYPD to Mosul and Kandahar?), and that the answer to terrorism is the approach taken after the 1993 World Trade Center attack, featuring conventional trials and prison terms.
That flaccid post-'93 response only encouraged terrorists - who are unfazed by the prospect of a US prison, where the quality of life's better than it was at home. The Clinton administration's hesitancy and softness gave us the subsequent attacks on the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, on our embassies in East Africa, on the USS Cole and, ultimately, the events of 9/11.

The senator needs to tell us why it would be different now.

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http://www.nypost.com/seven/06192008/postopinion/
opedcolumnists/obama_vs__osama_116128.htm?page=0

NOBAMA!

Thanks to G.T. Stevens and Lucianne.com

Murtha Lied; Marines Were Tried (And Acquitted)

Murtha Lied; Marines Were Tried (And Acquitted)
By Ben Johnson

On May 17, 2006, John Murtha, he of the unassailable 'warhero'/'patriot mythos, assailed his fellow Marines in Haditha as murderers “in cold blood.” The super-patriot made this indictment, in front of an international audience, before an investigation had concluded. His spurious charges seem to have done those eight men charged little legal damage – but they have caused incalculable harm to the United States armed forces still in the field.

At Camp Pendleton yesterday, military judge Col. Steven Folsom dismissed all charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, the highest-ranking officer accused in the Haditha massacre-of-justice. The ruling makes him the seventh of eight accused in the Haditha skirmish to have charges dismissed. In Chessani’s case, his charges were dropped without prejudice – meaning they could be filed again later, but CentCom could not be part of the process, as there had been fear the judge had an inappropriately close relationship with one of the investigators. Chessani had been accused of violating a lawful order and dereliction of duty in reporting the incident.

The antiwar Left morphed reporting errors into a “cover-up,” much as it deformed a self-defense operation against terrorists hiding amidst Iraq’s civilian population as an imperial assault on 24 blameless Iraqi civilians cowering “as if in prayer.”

Lt. Col. Chessani can now be reunited with his six young children.“We hope it’s over,” said his attorney Brian Rooney.” We believe it should be over.” Rooney added, “We’ve had to go through a two-year process to prove what we knew from the beginning.”

Rooney referred to the report of the military’s internal investigation, issued in March 2006, two months before Murtha denounced his own military before the world. (Watch Murtha slander our troops.) The report concluded, “there is no evidence that the Marines intentionally set out to target, engage, and kill non-combatants.”

Every trial to date has proven the report truthful and Murtha a calumnious liar:

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http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=5592C7D8-5C37-4C59-AC3C-F95CE4E3D179

Muslims Barred From Picture at Obama Event

Muslims Barred From Picture at Obama Event
By Ben Smith

Two Muslim women at Barack Obama’s rally in Detroit on Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women’s headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate.

The campaign has apologized to the women, both Obama supporters who said they felt betrayed by their treatment at the rally. “This is of course not the policy of the campaign. It is offensive and counter to Obama’s commitment to bring Americans together and simply not the kind of campaign we run,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. “We sincerely apologize for the behavior of these volunteers.”

more...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11168.html

Now Mr. 'Unity' is throwing his volunteers under the bus (boy, is under-the-bus seating getting crowded!). Do you really think they would've asked the women to move if it hadn't come from the top? If McCain had so deliberately manufactured a photo op in such a prejudicial way, the MSM would be screaming it from the rooftops!

'Unity', ha! What a hypocrite!

Obama Adviser: Pooh Bear, Luke Skywalker Hold Lessons for Foreign Policy

Obama Adviser: Pooh Bear, Luke Skywalker Hold Lessons for Foreign Policy
FoxNews

Foreign policy architects could benefit from studying Winnie the Pooh and Star Wars, according to a Barack Obama adviser who is set to attend a meeting of the Democratic candidate’s national security work group Wednesday.

Richard Danzig, former Navy secretary under President Clinton, drew several creative and unusual analogies to explain the challenges America faces overseas during a foreign policy conference in Washington, D.C., last week, according to an article in the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

In arguing that the country should back off a policy that causes too much pain, Danzig said, “”Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”

He read a section from the children’s book where Pooh Bear hurts himself going down the steps because he hasn’t stopped to think of another way.

During his address to the Center for New American Security, Danzig also said much can be learned about the motivations of terrorists by looking at, for instance, soccer fans who become absorbed by violence or even the Star Wars movies.

According to the article, Danzig said a terrorist from the 1995 Tokyo nerve gas attack once told him: “We have been raised on a theory of superheroes. We all want to be like Luke Skywalker.”

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/06/18/obama-adviser-pooh-bear-luke-skywalker-hold-lessons-for-foreign-policy/

The Aria of Prince Algorino

The Aria of Prince Algorino
By John Tierney

Al Gore's “An Inconvenient Truth,” first a film and then a book, is becoming an opera. Officials of La Scala in Milan say the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to write it for the 2011 season, The Associated Press reported.

Dear Mr. Gore,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on my draft of “Verità Inconveniente.” Rest assured that I and the management of La Scala are committed to a serious presentation of your scientific work. I will try to adopt some of your suggestions, but I hope you appreciate the constraints faced by the composer of an opera that is already five hours long.

I agree it would “round out the résumé” of Prince Algorino in the opening scene if he were to sing about his creation of a communications network. But the “Mio magnifico Internet” aria you propose seems to me a distraction — and frankly out of place in an 18th-century Tuscan village. I believe the peasants’ choral celebration of Prince Algorino’s wisdom suffices to establish his virtues.

I will ask our technicians about the feasibility of producing “stinky smoke” to accompany the entrance of Petroleo, but it may be unnecessary. Doesn’t the wizard’s evilness become obvious once he beguiles the Minemaidens into relinquishing their buried treasure? (Note: I will try changing “treasure” to “fossil fuels,” but it will not be an easy rhyme.)

Perhaps, as you complain, Petroleo does exude a certain glamour in his patter song promising magic lanterns and horseless carriages and flying machines. But when he seduces the chief Minemaiden, the music darkens with a menacing crescendo as they embrace, singing “Combustione! Combustione!” There is no mistaking the unholiness of their union, nor its catastrophic consequence once their daughter Carbonia is born.

I grant you it would be more chemically precise to give Carbonia twin siblings named after oxygen. But this would dilute the role and doom our chances of getting Anna Netrebko for Carbonia, and she is essential for the scene on Olympus. If it is to be credible, we must have a Carbonia with the sinister beauty to inflame the passions of Zeus, Poseidon, Aether and the other weather gods.

You ask for a detailed revelation of how Petroleo prevents Prince Algorino from becoming king. I understand your interest and desire to introduce another villain. (Incidentally, the translation of “Bush” would be “Arbusto,” not “Shrubulo.”)

But no narrative purpose is served by Algorino’s singing about his “stolen throne” as he wanders in exile, particularly not in the glade where he encounters the earth goddess Gaia languishing near death. Instead of interrupting her “Molto caldo” aria, he should be focused on Gaia’s mysterious fever.

Nor, I believe, is it necessary for him to “gather data” from Gaia before setting out on his quest to save her, or to involve a new weather goddess named Katrina in the hurricane he encounters on the way to the Isle of Seers. I assure you that the numerical category of the hurricane was omitted only for dramatic purposes — not, as you suspect, because of any doubts raised by your scientific critics of the link between global warming and strong hurricanes.

During Algorino’s instruction in the Weather Seer’s castle, you again accuse me of “caving” to the critics by omitting your famous chart correlating rising temperatures and rising carbon dioxide over the past 600,000 years. But it is of no consequence to me which came first, the carbon dioxide or the temperature. As an artist, I simply felt it would be jarring to interrupt the Seer’s aria with a PowerPoint presentation.

I did plan to use a simpler chart etched on the castle wall for the duet we originally planned for Algorino and the Seer. I loved your idea of matching the musical notes with the graphs of temperatures and CO2 concentrations, but the resulting melodies were unfortunate. I was unable to find any tenor or baritone able to sing either of the graphs. A pity — as you said, the High C0 Duet would have been “an opera first.”

I don’t share your fear that audiences will expect Prince Algorino to “offset his travel footprint,” so I don’t see the need for the tree-planting scene you suggest. Once the Weather Seer has explained Poseidon’s passion and shown him the rising seas, Algorino should immediately rush back to save Gaia. And why, with his lover in peril, would he pause en route to rescue a drowning polar bear?

I’m sorry you were so saddened by the battle scene and the finale. I agree it would end more happily if Algorino vanquished Petroleo and reburied the Minemaidens’ treasure. No doubt we could create a fine aria for Carbonia as she is “sequestered” underground (although we might be accused of copying the “Aida” entombment finale). As you suggest, we could end with an ensemble celebration of Algorino’s marriage to Gaia.

But would a happy ending truly satisfy your devotees — or La Scala’s? Better to stay with tradition. I feel sure that audiences, like the earth goddess, will be moved to tears by the “Ciao, Gaia” aria of the mortally wounded Algorino, and then riveted as she feverishly wanders the stage. With the right soprano, I believe “Basta con la temperatura!” could be an unforgettable Mad Scene.

You complain that it’s a “cliché” for Gaia to collapse and die alongside her lover. Perhaps, as you suggest, we could have her first drape a medal around his neck (although I think the Nobel would be anachronistic). But as much as I admire your other idea for an “outside the box” death scene, I cannot accept it — and again, despite your accusations, this has nothing to do with the scientific criticism of your work. Whether your predictions for sea level rise are correct or not, it would be logistically impossible to end the opera by drowning the village under 20 feet of water.
Sincerely,
Giorgio Battistelli

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/earth/17tier.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

This was too delicious; I had to post the whole thing!

Gore-ging on Energy, One Year Later Gore's Home Energy Use Climbs 10%

Gore-ging on Energy, One Year Later Gore's Home Energy Use Climbs 10%
By Warner Todd Huston

In February of 2007 a small group named the Tennessee Center for Policy Research published an interesting little story that made Al Gore, the king of global warming alarmism, look a tad foolish. The report that TCPR sent out showed that Al Gore's own home was an energy hog.

The TCPR report revealed that Al Gore's Tennessee mansion used more energy each month than the average American household uses in an entire year. In a response to this report, Gore claimed that he was diligently working to make his home more green, but now it looks like Gore is being gored again because a year down the line his energy use hasn't gone down. It hasn't even stayed level. It actually increased by 10%. How will the media handle this bloated increase despite Gore's claims of trying to improve?

more...

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/06/17/gore-ging-energy-1-year-later-gores-home-energy-use-climbs-10

HERE'S THE TRUTH: http://www.kusi. com/weather/ colemanscorner/ 19842304. html

I guess 'hippie' really means 'hip-ocrite'... No wonder he's a Democrat party member!

Obama Advisers Say bin Laden Can Appeal to U.S. Courts

Obama Advisers Say bin Laden Can Appeal to U.S. Courts
By Bill Sammon

Obama advisers say bin Laden can appeal to U.S. courts Barack Obama's foreign policy advisers said Tuesday that Osama bin Laden, if captured, should be allowed to appeal his case to U.S. civilian courts, a privilege opposed by John McCain.

Responding to questions from The Examiner, Sen. John Kerry and former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said bin Laden would benefit from last week's Supreme Court decision giving terrorism suspects habeas corpus, the right to appeal their military detention to civilian courts.

“If he were to be brought back,” Clarke said of bin Laden, “the Supreme Court ruling holds on the right of habeas corpus.”

Kerry, who applauded the Supreme Court ruling, said it will be carried out by whichever candidate wins the presidency.

more...

http://www.examiner.com/a-1445814~Obama_advisers_say_bin_Laden_can_appeal_to_U_S__courts.html

Oh jeez, Bammikins is going to make sure the inestimable bin Laden has every comfort our justice system can offer. Bin Laden--the man that is so against American society he did everything he could to bring it down (and who cost us billions of dollars)--is going to have American taxpayers pay more money to insure his American civil rights!

Leave it to the Democrats! If you elect Bammie, he'll contribute to his own destruction of American in other ways, too. Thanks, Demmies (you'd better have all your gay folks make a plan to leave this country; homosexuals are the FIRST group radical muslims won't allow. For all the rest of you, you'd better hope your local Walmart discounts prayer rugs so you can save a few bucks.)

We good Republicans/conservatives will be the Resistance.

White House May Keep Documents in E-Mail Flap Private, Judge Rules

White House May Keep Documents in E-Mail Flap Private, Judge Rules
By Del Quentin Wilber

The White House does not have to make public internal documents examining the potential disappearance of e-mails sent during some of the Bush administration's biggest controversies, a U.S. district judge ruled yesterday.

In a 39-page opinion, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said that the White House's Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), even though its top officials had complied with the public records law for more than two decades.

The Office of Administration, which performs a variety of services for the Executive Office of the President, announced it would no longer comply with the FOIA last August, three months after an independent watchdog group filed a lawsuit seeking to discover what happened to the e-mails, which may have vanished from White House computer archives.

Acknowledging that the issue "is a close one, and is not easily resolved," Kollar-Kotelly wrote that the Office of Administration "lacks the type of substantial independent authority" necessary for it to fall under the FOIA. She added that the office performs mostly administrative functions, which also exempts it, and that past compliance with the FOIA was "insufficient by itself" to subject it to the law's requirements.

Kollar-Kotelly dismissed the lawsuit, which was filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061600872_pf.html

I guess all those Demmie 'righteous souls' are gnashing their teeth for sure! Yes, we all know how devoted to truth and justice they are (they all need their freezers checked, and then on to the next intern! LOL! I hear Sandy Berger is free for some evening work... we wouldn't want to overtax John Murtha in his various slanders, let the young fellas do it. Oh, Barack Obama IS a young fella... well, then their God is in their heaven and all's right with their world...!)

Judge Dismisses Charges Against Marine Officer Accused of Failing to Investigate Haditha Iraqi Killings

Judge Dismisses Charges Against Marine Officer Accused of Failing to Investigate Haditha Iraqi Killings
FoxNews

A military judge has dismissed charges against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis.

Col. Steven Folsom dismissed charges Tuesday against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after defense attorneys raised concerns that a four-star general overseeing the prosecution was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha.

The charges were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled, but Folsom excluded Marine Forces Central Command from future involvement.

Chessani was the highest-ranking officer implicated in the case.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,368023,00.html

I WISH he had some shame--but, being a democrat party member, he won't. He doesn't care that he almost ruined many soldiers' lives by his partisan attempt to hurt the Bush administration. No, he cared no more for those men than the Dems have any of our troops. Too bad they have to keep even their slanderer safe, too. That speaks to THEIR character--not his.

The Rock Star....

Energy Charade

Energy Charade
By Donald Lambro
There's no way to put this politely. Raising taxes on U.S. oil companies and calling it an energy plan is just about the dumbest idea the Democrats have come up with yet.

Democrats call it "a windfall profits" tax, and it is at the heart of their plan to deal with punishing oil prices nearing $140 a barrel and skyrocketing gas prices that have crossed the $4-a-gallon threshold at the pump.

Their proposed tax increase will not produce a drop more oil. In fact, it will reduce supplies. And it will not lower oil prices, either. It will make oil more expensive, because oil company costs would rise as a result of higher taxes.

Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas called the bill that Democratic leaders recently brought to the Senate floor "a pathetic attempt to even call itself an energy plan."

Democrats seem to have a problem with what they deem to be "windfall profits" only when it comes to oil. Farmers are raking in huge profits from corn to make ethanol, with heavy federal subsidies to boot. But there are no demands from Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama to slap corn growers with higher taxes to confiscate their earnings, even though the environmental ethanol craze has been driving up the cost of bread, cereal, meat, poultry and just about everything else we eat.

The legislation Democrats proposed did not pass the laugh test. Besides its windfall profits tax, the bill suggested that the United States sue the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (this is the way litigious lawyers in the world's most deliberative body think) and called for yet another federal commission to look for price gouging.

But as Mrs. Hutchison said, "It does not produce one ounce of energy. Not one ounce." Common sense suggests we need to produce more fuel, but this bill was on empty, and mercifully, the Democrats failed to muster the 60 votes needed to end debate on the bill.

more...

http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/jun/16/energy-charade/

Obama’s Gospel of Envy

Obama’s Gospel of Envy

By Ralph R. Reiland

Like losers in a shell game, most of us got snookered into looking under the wrong nutshell in regards to the inflammatory and racist sermon that was delivered by Rev. Michael Pfleger during his guest appearance in May at Barack Obama's church in Chicago.

The media focused the spotlight on what Pfleger, a visiting Catholic priest, said about Hillary Clinton from the pulpit at Trinity United Church of Christ, prompting Obama to end his 20-plus year association with the church.

"When Hillary was crying and people said that was put on, I really don't believe it was put on," proclaimed Pfleger, feigning tears and waving a hanky and generating uproarious laughter from the congregation . "I really believe that she just always thought 'This is mine. I'm Bill's wife. I'm white. And this is mine! And I just gotta get up and step into the plate.' And then out of nowhere came, 'Hey, I'm Barack Obama,' and she said 'Oh Damn! Where did you come from? I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealing my show!' She wasn't the only one crying.

There was a whole lotta white people crying."What might be more significant than this mocking of Hillary Clinton, more significant in terms of perhaps predicting the economic goals of an Obama presidency, is what Pfleger said about collective white guilt and white people's trust funds and 401k retirement funds.

After being introduced by Rev. Otis Moss, Trinity's new pastor, as "a prophetic, powerful pulpiteer," a "preacher par excellence," Pfleger began his sermon by telling his adoring audience how to address someone who doesn't buy the idea of collective racial guilt, someone who says, "Well, don't hold me responsible for what my ancestors did.

"Pfleger's answer to that person of insufficient guilt and inadequate color, delivered in an increasingly breathless and crazed voice to an applauding congregation : "But you have enjoyed the benefits of what your ancestors did and unless you are ready to give up the benefits, throw away your 401 fund, throw away your trust fund, throw away all the money you put into the company you walked into because yo' daddy and yo' granddaddy and yo' great granddaddy, unless you're willing to give up the benefits, then you must be responsible for what was done in your generation, 'cause you are the beneficiary of this insurance policy!"

You're guilty, in other words, unless you give up your money.

more...

http://www.theamericanprowler.com/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13377

Top 10 Reasons to Blame Democrats For Soaring Gasoline Prices

Top 10 Reasons to Blame Democrats For Soaring Gasoline Prices
By William Tate

This started out as an attempt to create a light and humorous, Letterman-esque Top 10 list. But the items on the list, and the drain Americans are seeing in their pocketbooks because of Democrats' actions (sometimes inaction) are just too tragic for that.

10) ANWR If Bill Clinton had signed into law the Republican Congress's 1995 bill to allow drilling of ANWR instead of vetoing it, ANWR could be producing a million barrels of (non-Opec) oil a day--5% of the nation's consumption. Although speaking in another context, even Democrat Senator Charles Schumer, no proponent of ANWR drilling, admits that "one million barrels per day," would cause the price of gasoline to fall "50 cents a gallon almost immediately," according to a recent George Will column.

9) Coastal Drilling (i.e., not in my backyard) Democrats have consistently fought efforts to drill off the U.S. coast, as evidenced by Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's protestation against a failed 2005 bill: "Not only does this legislation dismantle the bi-partisan ban on offshore drilling, but it provides a financial incentive for states to do so."
A financial incentive? With the Chinese now slant drilling for oil just 50 miles off the Florida coast, wouldn't that have been a good thing?

8) Insistence on alternative fuels One of the first acts of the new Democrat-controlled congress in 2007 was an energy bill that "calls for a huge increase in the use of ethanol as a motor fuel and requires new appliance efficiency standards." By focusing on alternative fuels such as ethanol, and not more drilling, Democrats have added to the cost of food, worsening starvation problems around the word and increasing inflationary pressures in the U.S., including prices at the pump.

7) Nuclear power Even the French, who sometimes seem to lack the backbone to stand up for anything other than soft cheese, faced down their environmentalists over the need for nuclear power. France now generates 79% of its electricity from nuclear plants, mitigating the need for imported oil. The French have so much cheap energy that France has become the world's largest exporter of electric power. They have plans in place to build more reactors, including an experimental fusion reactor.

The last nuclear reactor built in the United States, according to the US Dept of Energy, was the "River Bend" plant in Louisiana. Its construction began in March of 1977.

Need I say more?

more...

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/top_10_reasons_to_blame_democr_1.html

Are Democrats Dumber than Dolphins?

Are Democrats Dumber than Dolphins?
By Kevin McCullough

Congressional Democrats choose to ignore what we have, weaken our position to bargain and produce, and eventually injure our position for very foreseeable circumstances that are looming dead smack in front of us.

In an all out assault against the working poor, the struggling families, and the common decency of the citizens of America this week Nancy Pelosi gave the order for Democrats to stab the American voter in the back. Her orders were carried out. Thus Congressional Democrats proved a naked willingness to injure America in a play for power, or alternately proving unsurpassed stupidity.

more...

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/KevinMcCullough/2008/06/15/are_democrats_
dumber_than_dolphins

Good Morning!

Yay! Space Shuttle!

Happy Flag Day!