It's official: 'Global Warming' is a religon

So says a British judge.

But we knew it was a religion already, didn't we?

Excerpt:

"The judge ruled that Nicholson’s extreme green views fit the definition of 'a philosophical belief under the Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations, 2003.” So strong were these “beliefs,' that they “put him at odds with other senior executives within the firm.” The 41-year-old told the employment tribunal that, as head of sustainability at Grainger plc, Britain's largest residential property investment company, he constantly tangled with fellow-executives over the company’s environmental policies and corporate social responsibility."

And:

"What next, Earth Day declared a religious holiday, tax-exempt status extended to recycling plants, or defacing effigies of Al Gore prosecuted as a hate crime? Not likely.

On the other hand, greenies scoffed when Michael Crichton first called environmentalism “one of the most powerful religions in the Western World” over five years ago, insisting that “settled science” was on their side. Since then it’s become increasingly evident that alarmists’ warming beliefs are based not on reason or evidence, but a trusting acceptance in the absence of either. They outright refuse to discuss it, debate it, or abide those daring to question it.

Antitheist Sam Harris once wrote:

“The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments, and a passionate unwillingness to do so.”

If British carbo-chondriacs now choose to capitulate which better exemplifies their position in an effort to exploit victims’ status, we can only hope their American counterparts soon follow their lead.

It’d be well worth a few silly law-suits to establish precedent necessary to keep this nonsense out of our public schools on those very same grounds.

And that’s just the tip of the expanding iceberg."

#

Quote of the Day

"They told me that if I voted for McCain we'd have a Vice President who was a moron... and they were right!"

-- Tom Maguire, at Just One Minute.

#

The Plan

Via American Digest.

Releasing the CIA interrogation memos poses serious risk to our national security efforts

.....and the continued politicization of these, on the on-going attempt by Usual Suspects to criminalize political differences also puts our nation in danger.

Stratfor excerpts:

"Politics and moral arguments aside, the end effect of the memos’ release is that people who have put their lives on the line in U.S. counterterrorism efforts are now uncertain of whether they should be making that sacrifice. Many of these people are now questioning whether the administration that happens to be in power at any given time will recognize the fact that they were carrying out lawful orders under a previous administration. It is hard to retain officers and attract quality recruits in this kind of environment. It has become safer to work in programs other than counterterrorism.

The memos’ release will not have a catastrophic effect on U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Indeed, most of the information in the memos was leaked to the press years ago and has long been public knowledge. However, when the release of the memos is examined in a wider context, and combined with a few other dynamics, it appears that the U.S. counterterrorism community is quietly slipping back into an atmosphere of risk-aversion and malaise — an atmosphere not dissimilar to that described by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9/11 Commission) as a contributing factor to the intelligence failures that led to the 9/11 attacks."

And:

"One of the least well known, and perhaps most important, sources of intelligence in the counterterrorism field is the information that is obtained as a result of close relationships with allied intelligence agencies — often referred to as information obtained through “liaison channels.”

Like FBI agents, most CIA officers are well-educated, middle-aged white guys. This means they are better suited to use the cover of an American businessmen or diplomat than to pretend to be a young Muslim trying to join al Qaeda or Hezbollah. Like their counterparts in the FBI, CIA officers have far more success using informants than they do working undercover inside terrorist groups.

Services like the Jordanian General Intelligence Department, the Saudi Mabahith or the Yemeni National Security Agency not only can recruit sources, but also are far more successful in using young Muslim officers to penetrate terrorist groups. In addition to their source networks and penetration operations, many of these liaison services are not at all squeamish about using extremely enhanced interrogation techniques — this is the reason many of the terrorism suspects who were the subject of rendition operations ended up in such locations. Obviously, whenever the CIA is dealing with a liaison service, the political interests and objectives of the service must be considered — as should the possibility that the liaison service is fabricating the intelligence in question for whatever reason. Still, in the end, the CIA historically has received a significant amount of important intelligence (perhaps even most of its intelligence) via liaison channels.

Another concern that arises from the call for a truth commission is the impact a commission investigation could have on the liaison services that have helped the United States in its counterterrorism efforts since 9/11. Countries that hosted CIA detention facilities or were involved in the rendition or interrogation of terrorist suspects may find themselves exposed publicly or even held up for some sort of sanction by the U.S. Congress. Such activities could have a real impact on the amount of cooperation and information the CIA receives from these intelligence services.

As we’ve previously noted, it was a lack of intelligence that helped fuel the fear that led the Bush administration to authorize enhanced interrogation techniques. Ironically, the current investigation into those techniques and other practices (such as renditions) may very well lead to significant gaps in terrorism-related intelligence from both internal and liaison sources — again, not primarily because of the prohibition of torture, but because of larger implications.

When these implications are combined with the long-standing institutional aversion of U.S. government agencies toward counterterrorism, and with the difficulty of finding and retaining good people willing to serve in counterterrorism roles, the U.S. counterterrorism community may soon be facing challenges even more daunting than those posed by its already difficult mission."

None of this will stem the babble, dribble, drool, and spew of the Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" subversion of our nation.

Libthink agenda hypocrisy at work

James Taranto , at WSJ's Best of the Web.

" 'Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon, one of the most prominent Catholic conservative intellectuals in the United States, announced yesterday that she would refuse a prestigious award from the University of Notre Dame rather than appear on the same platform on which President Obama is being awarded an honorary degree,' the Boston Globe reports.

The Globe notes that not all Catholics are unhappy with Notre Dame's plan to give the president an honorary degree:

'There are some well-meaning people who think Notre Dame has given away its Catholic identity, because they have been caught up in the gamesmanship of American higher education, bringing in a star commencement speaker even if that means sacrificing their values, and that accounts for some of this,' said the Rev. Kenneth Himes, chairman of theology department at Boston College.

'But one also has to say that there is a political game going on here, and part of that is that you demonize the people who disagree with you, you question their integrity, you challenge their character, and you brand these people as moral poison. Some people have simply reduced Catholicism to the abortion issue, and, consequently, they have simply launched a crusade to bar anything from Catholic institutions that smacks of any sort of open conversation.'

Now read this 2006 Associated Press dispatch:

Nearly 100 faculty members at Boston College have signed a letter objecting to the college's decision to award Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice an honorary degree.

The letter entitled 'Condoleezza Rice Does Not Deserve a Boston College Honorary Degree,' was written by the Rev. Kenneth Himes. . . .

'On the levels of both moral principle and practical moral judgment, Secretary Rice's approach to international affairs is in fundamental conflict with Boston College's commitment to the values of the Catholic and Jesuit traditions and is inconsistent with the humanistic values that inspire the university's work,' the letter said.

Himes, it seems, is an expert on demonization."

It's just a little obvious that the "values" are just a little changeable according to the identity of the guest speaker, and the agenda of the hypocrite.

However, I'm sure some of our Usual Suspect rocket scientists can find away to rationalize the hypocrisy.

Why are we never surprised to read stories like this, or to hear non-supportable rationalizations from this crowd?

#

And yes, it WILL come

Backlash against the Obamanation WILL occur. He won't be able to supress the rising discontent that's already underway. It's just a question of how soon the the thin facade wears through, and the rotten foundation is exposed for all to see.

Noteworthy:

"By the time the bloom comes off this fanciful presidency, will conservatives have found their voice? Will Obama then reinvent himself with some Bill Clinton-style triangulation plan? Probably not. More likely, he has already shown us his best act and will slowly morph into a finger-pointing demagogue as his polls fade. If anyone else were president and deceptively trying to enact his programs, a full-scale revolt would already be underway."

#

'Serious Questions On Obama's Security Strategies'

....which will undoubtedly be answered frivolously or arrogantly, if answered at all by the Obamanation and its Enablers.

Heritage has the questions.

"The lesson of the first 100 days is that the Administration needs to start over on national security. It should:

• Reconsider dramatic and unwarranted missile defense and Pentagon procurement cuts and ill-considered changes in counterterrorism and homeland security policy;
  
  
• Finalize and implement changes in reorganizing the National Security Council and use cabinet officials and the council, not unaccountable czars, to develop critical national security policies; and
  
  
• Make a serious effort to develop and engage with Congress and the American people on the QDR, QHSR, and NSS.

Presidents must keep the nation safe, free, and prosperous for four years, not 100 days. The White House has a lot more work to do."

Democrat Irresponsibility Illustrated

Power Line says we need to add "greed" to the description.

I would also include the word "theft".

#

Why are the Lefties babbling AGAIN about 'torture'?

Simple: It's business as usual politics from the Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" slime machine.

Noteworthy:

"Since January 2007, Democrats have been in charge of both houses. At any time they wished, they could have revived the Kennedy Amendment, and passed it. Since January 2009, moreover, Democrats have run not only Congress but the White House. At any time they wished, they could have ended what they call the 'false choice between our security and our values' (translation: their considered choice of no security and their values). At any time they wished, they could have settled the debate and passed a law: No more waterboarding.

They haven’t done that. For all the high dudgeon, they won’t do it. And the reason for their reticence is shameful: To clarify the law would be to admit that the law has been unclear. Clarifying law is not the objective, settling political scores is.

To enact laws against coercive interrogation today would demonstrate that Democratic witch-hunts based on the coercive interrogation of yesterday — against the intelligence officers who carried it out and the legal experts who arrived at the inconvenient truth that our law did not prohibit it — are grotesque. These investigations violate the constitutional bar against ex post facto prosecutions. They run afoul of the constitutionally derived 'rule of lenity,' which bars prosecutions based on vague statutes that fail to provide adequate notice of what the law forbids. And they flout the doctrine of qualified immunity, which protects government officials from liability unless their conduct transgresses, as the Supreme Court has put it, 'clearly established statutory or constitutional rights.'

What is going on beneath President Obama’s theatrics about 'our values' (again, meaning his values) is a cynical farce. If our values were really at stake, if there were a consensus among us (i.e., Americans) that harsh interrogation tactics could never be justified, the Democrat-controlled Congress would outlaw them today and bask in the resulting adulation. But there is no such legislation, because the goal here has nothing to do with improving American policy.

The goal is vengeance, pure and simple."

....and:

"The Left likes to depict itself as the last bastion of due process. It decries federal conspiracy and racketeering statutes because, in the hands of unscrupulous prosecutors, they can be stretched to cover innocent conduct. They condemn the Patriot Act’s investigative powers as traps for the unwary. They reject military commissions because the governing procedures purportedly create new, ex post facto war crimes. They challenge Congress’s laws against material support to terrorism as vague and overbroad, criminalizing activities they claim are protected by the First Amendment.

And that leaves us with the strange and reprehensible paradox: If Democrats get their way, patriotic public servants acting in the interest of national security, during a time of national emergency, will be railroaded with less due-process protection than the same Democrats demand for mafia dons, drug kingpins, or al-Qaeda terrorists."

#

It's a plumbing problem that ails us

The problems with "Barry's Plumbing Service" are just beginning.

Excerpt:

"Our first plumber was selected by chance, just someone in the phone book. He seemed competent enough but he always did something that never sat well with me. Whenever he repaired something, he always seemed to have something bad to say about the previous craftsman. He might tell me, 'This wouldn't have happened if the stupid guy used Kohler faucets,' 'Whoever did this didn't properly caulk inside the wall,' or, 'I can't believe he installed the wrong main shutoff valves.'

One nightmarish day sewage backed up through the drain in the utility room and our toilets overran when flushed. In a panic, we called our plumber. He began by rodding out the utility floor drain. Eventually, he managed to fix the problem, we thought, but then he had to come back two days later for the same thing. This time the sewer rod snake, he explained, 'hit a wall,' could not penetrate any farther, and then he convinced me the sewer tile was broken. He never did rod out the main sewer line behind the clothes dryer.

The replacement of a sewer tile is a quite an ordeal. Permits have to be obtained, sidewalks broken up and eventually replaced, a digging crew hired (including two men who just stand above the trench in case it collapses), and a small Caterpillar tractor utilized. The digging began in my front yard. The problem was I live on a corner lot and the sewer line does nut run through the front of my house but through the side of the house.

By the time the job was finished, I was out thousands of dollars and I had two huge rectangles of parkway that required sod, one on the side of the house and one in the front of the house. To make things worse, my plumber never thought to install an outside access clean out. To this day, I am convinced I never needed a new sewer tile.

Today's President reminds me of my former plumber. He tells us we are going to have to pay up because nobody, other than himself, is competent. Our President has a unique aptitude for trashing. He trashes Wall Street, AIG, the credit card companies, the automobile industry, CEO's, the banks, the lenders, and, the economy. Unlike any other sitting President, he trashes his predecessor, and, when he is abroad, he loves to trash his country.

For a homeowner, nothing seems worse than a backed up sewer and overrunning toilet. Across our nation, metaphorically speaking, there is a plumbing problem. Our sewers are backing up. Rather than our cups, it is our toilets that runneth over. This plumbing problem now starts and ends with the White House."

#

So long, Chief

GM gives Pontiac a death sentence.

Several years ago, I would have bet on Buick being the division sent to the junkyard instead of Pontiac. The realities of the decades long decay of the American automobile industry have proven me wrong, and it's quite possible this particular move has been rumbling through the 14th floor of the GM building for more than a year or so.

Buick's vehicles have long been old in the tooth, tired designs that fit a description of a retiree's car after its evolution from the original doctor's car appellation. For years, Pontiac rode the crest of the GM performance division, a youthful and energetic brand ("We Build Excitement") with nameplates like GTO, LeMans, Bonneville, and Trans Am, and traditionally held the number three slot in vehicle sales behind Chevy and Ford.

That changed in recent times, along with the rapid disappearance of the small non-conglomerate one marque dealer. Today, Pontiacs exist only as a companion brand to Buick and GMC in retail stores, and soon they will exist with Oldsmobile in the GM brand graveyard.


For what it's worth department:

The automotive tradition runs deep in my family. My paternal grandfather was a master machinist, my father was a mechanic, and shortly before I was born, he joined the Buick Division of GM as a district service rep before switching to the sales side, ending up as the top man in the division's eastern region fleet operations.

As a young man, I worked in almost every department of an automobile dealership, mostly of the GM variety, starting as a summer teenage gofer in Parts, progressing through New Car Delivery service, the Oil/Lube rack, into Bookkeeping/Accounting experience while in college, evolving into Sales and Management after I returned from the service. I have worked virtually every job there is to work in an automobile dealership.

The selling, servicing, marketing, and racing of automobiles put clothes on my back and food in my mouth in one form or the other all my life up to my mid 30s. The doctors say my blood type is O+, but they're wrong. It's 5W-30.

The spirits of Willie Durant and Alfred P. Sloan are restless tonight. So is mine.

But I don't feel sorry for GM. They've been bringing things like this on themselves for almost a half century.

Postscript:

I have a keen sense for doomed brands. I bought a new Pontiac in February, to replace the Oldsmobile I bought new back in 2001.

#

Barry O sets the record straight about the pirate crisis

TARP fraud at high levels of business and government?

Don Luskin expounds.

Excerpts:

Yesterday’s sensational claims by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo — that Ken Lewis, CEO of TARP-recipient Bank of America, was pressured into what amounts to securities fraud by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve concerning his bank’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch — throws the question right into the headlines. It raises issues of corruption all around, and at the highest levels — from corporate CEOs and federal regulators to Mr. Cuomo himself....

....A $700 billion budget buys one heck of a big dog — apparently a dog that attracts some pretty big fleas."

#

The Death of the American health care system

Coming soon, perhaps this week, courtesy of the back-door, no debate tactics favored by the Obamanation.

Noteworthy:

The politicians don't last. But their policies live forever.

And in every successive election cycle, the Statist Democrats will use the health care system to bludgeon their opponents. They will use health care as a weapon, rewarding you by offering more benefits for your votes and punishing you with less benefits if you dare to vote against them.

So much power for a faceless set of bureaucrats who can't possibly have the best interests of your family in mind. And yet they're going to take those decisions away from you and your doctor. And they've been lying every day to justify what they're doing.


They've been lying about the number of people without health care. They've been lying about whether the public is satisfied with health care. They've been lying about every aspect of health care.

They unleashed the slip-and-fall lawyers on the medical system, causing untold higher costs for medical practitioners. They've attacked the health care system relentlessly, driving up costs just like they've attacked the energy industry and the automakers.

And even when they have complete monopolistic control of a system, like the educational system in America, they want more control. It's never enough. They want more money, more regulations. More. They need to "invest". They need to raise taxes. They need to repress. They need to compel.

Because the Statist cannot make the imperfect perfect, even though he says he can. The Statist is more imperfect than anyone else.

I ask you to consider something: what kind of persons can Obama and the Democrat leadership be, to think they can do these things when history tells them they can not?

What kind of a mind refuses to look at the evidence? What kind of person would refuse to look at Britain and Canada? Or engage in arm-twisting secretly, behind the scenes? And use brownshirts like ACORN and the SEIU to intimidate organizations and legislators alike?

They're going to rush socialized medicine through the system, without any debate or transparency... and it's going to be a complete disaster on multiple levels."

#

'Harsh interrogation ' doesn't work.....except when it does

Over at our local Babble, Dribble, Drool, and Spew Central Ed Cone's blog, there's been the expected Usual Suspect nonsense about "torture"and the CIA memos, and there's an air of positively giddiness over the prospect of make criminals out of people they despise politically.

It is, of course, carefully orchestrated from above to deflect attention away from the growing obviousness of the calamitous Obama administration, and the coming disastrous effects of the incompetence and arrogance of attempting to install such an egregious slate of agenda programs and to incur such massive debts to facilitate said agenda.

But the basic truth of the effectiveness of those so-called "torture" methods remains obscured by their nonsense rhetoric:


"It will be interesting to see if another of these a priori truths turns out to be that torture never 'works.' Or, as Ben Macintyre put it in yesterday’s Times of London ' "24" ' is fictional. So is the idea that torture works.'

Except, of course, when it does work.

But that is, in Mr Macintyre’s view, simply inconceivable. Those who are nowadays popping up to provide instances where — as they believe — such 'torture' as was licensed by the Bush administration did provide life-saving information are simply brushed aside as either mistaken or lying for self-protection — or, perhaps, as right-wing nuts, with all that that status implies of rhetorical and political marginalization."

Exactly.

Dick Cheney called these clowns' bluff a few days ago, when he called for the Obamanation to release ALL the CIA tapes, including the ones that established that the interrogations were effective.

The incessant babblers have a choice.

Insist that your beloved Obamanation release these tapes, or keep your mouths shut FOREVER about this subject.

If you don't, we will make sure you get pounded into the ground on your hypocrisy.

Count on it.

#

Obama's policy on highway safety? MADD

This was predictable.

Obama's choice to thread the NHTSA is an unqualified MADD zealot, who is bound to cause disaster in this public policy area.

Details:

"With Hurley in charge, MADD’s goals will become NHTSA’s goals. That's troubling because at heart, MADD is an activist organization. The groups once-admirable goal of raising public awareness about drunk driving has over the last several years morphed into a zealous, evangelical teetotaling campaign. When a coalition of college presidents recently asked for nothing more than a new debate over the federal drinking age last year, for example, MADD called on parents to boycott the presidents' schools.

MADD has supported prison sentences for parents who allow alcohol consumption at chaperoned parties for underage teens, and fought efforts to allow underage veterans to have a beer on base after returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Even MADD's founder, Candace Lightner, has renounced the group, calling them 'neo-prohibitionists.' "

....and:

"Hurley would take NHTSA in a much more activist direction. States could expect to see more federal mandates about how they manage their roads, and motorists could expect expensive new mandatory safety add-ons to new vehicles; more reasons for to get pulled over; and lots more red light and speed cameras.

NHTSA needs a director who will balance safety with freedom, who will look at data dispassionately, and who will consider unintended consequences before ushering in sweeping new policies."

From the Eric Peters link:

"Hurley, CEO of the public nuisance group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), may well be the most zealous enemy of individual liberty and the free-market at NHTSA since Joan Claybrook ruled during the Carter Administration.

His nomination on Tuesday sent shudders down the spines of everyone who considers motoring a special part of the joy of being American.

If his prior record is any indication, we can expect more in the way of arbitrary interference with the way the car companies do business at a moment when they can least afford the burden of bureaucratic meddling.

And drivers can expect a ratcheting up of the low-grade harassment they already endure on a daily basis — in the form of more obnoxious regulations, pullover 'safety' checks and very possibly lowered speed limits, ala Claybrook’s 55-mph national limit on federal interstates.

All of this will be imposed on states in the time-honored Washington way: Those that fail to comply will lose vitally needed highway funds."

These types of policies will only serve to enrichen the coffers of municipalities in their never ending thirst for more money, and will enable more shenanigans by those insurance companies that issue automobile insurance policies.

It won't improve our highways, nor will it improve "highway safety".

#

Qestions Al Gore should have been asked last week

From Steven Milloy, who thinks the legislation for whichThe Goracle's testimony supported should be called the "Al Gore Enrichment Act".

1. You are a partner in the venture capital firm of Kleiner-Perkins and a co-founder of the United Kingdom-based investment firm of Generation Investment Management, each of which stands to gain financially from greenhouse gas regulation.

Please describe any other financial interests that you have in any other businesses that stand to profit from greenhouse gas regulation.

2. In October 2008, the New York Times Magazine featured a cover story on how Kleiner Perkins had invested $1 billion in 40 companies that would profit from new environmental and energy laws and regulations.

What will be your share of any profits from these ventures?

3. How much of your own money have you contributed to Kleiner-Perkins, Generation Investment Management and other businesses that stand to profit from greenhouse gas regulation? If you have not contributed significant amounts of your own capital to these businesses, what, then, is your role in them? Are you a lobbyist? Are you the face of their public relations efforts?

Is your job to run around scaring politicians and the public into enacting greenhouse gas regulation?

4. Is Kleiner-Perkins’ business plan to have you press for legislation and regulation favorable to its clients in order to make them more attractive and available for sale to the public, at which time Kleiner-Perkins would cash out, leaving the public invested in not-ready-for-prime-time companies that have dubious financial prospects and that are dependent on taxpayer subsidies?

5. Your co-founder with Generation Investment Management is former Goldman Sachs partner David Blood. Goldman Sachs is lobbying for global warming legislation and is a part owner of the Chicago Climate Exchange, where carbon credits from cap-and-trade legislation would be traded.

Do you or Generation Investment Management stand to benefit in anyway from these relationships?

6. Generation Investment Management’s web site says the firm provides investment advice to clients. Who are Generation Investment Management’s clients and how do they stand to profit from upcoming environmental and energy legislation and regulation?

Will these clients share their profits with you and/or Generation Investment Management?

7. When you left public service in January 2001, your personal net worth was perhaps $2 million. In 2007, your personal net worth was reported to be on the order of $100 million.

How much of this fortune is related, directly or indirectly, to your advocacy of legislation to reduce 'global warming'?

8. When you testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January, why did you not disclose to the Committee and to the public your relationships with Kleiner-Perkins and Generation Investment Management? Generation Investment Management’s web site says, 'Integrity and honesty are the bedrock of our business. We demand the highest ethical standards in our work and in our personal lives.'

In light of this statement, how to you explain your failure to inform the Senate Committee of your financial conflicts of interest?

9. You travel all over the world in jets and limos, own a houseboat, use 20 times more electricity than the average American, and stand to make a fortune that most millionaires would envy. Yet you tell Americans to downsize their lives, such as by limiting their travel, using less heat and air conditioning, and drying their clothes outside on a clothesline.

Describe for us, in detail, your personal 'carbon footprint.'

10. If you are wrong about humans causing catastrophic global warming, will you give all the money you 'earned' from your alarmism back?

As usual, the silence from the Great Global Warming Shyster will be deafening.

#

Regarding Obama's recent 'American Apology' tour

"Why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?"

"If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.

Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.

That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley, Virginia to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda.

'Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks,' he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed.

So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradiated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers...

President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cosying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?"

#

Who loves our current tax code? The bureaucrats and the pandering politicians, of course!

Is there any rational, ordinary, non looney-tooner citizen anywhere who thinks our tax system is OK?

.....which is why we won't get any reform, and is also why your taxes (direct and otherwise) are going soon if the Obamanation is further successful in its continuing wealth redistribution crusade.

#

Doing the Hokey Pelosi

That indeed is What It's All About....

(Hat tip: Protein Wisdom)

#

Why do Dems have selective memory on 'torture'?

Former CIA Director Porter Goss:

"Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as 'waterboarding' were never mentioned.

It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:

– The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.

– We understood what the CIA was doing.

– We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.

– We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.

– On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.

I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed “memorandums for the record” suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately — to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president’s national security adviser — and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have. "

....and:

"The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust. We have given our enemy invaluable information about the rules by which we operate. The terrorists captured by the CIA perfected the act of beheading innocents using dull knives. Khalid Sheik Mohammed boasted of the tactic of placing explosives high enough in a building to ensure that innocents trapped above would die if they tried to escape through windows. There is simply no comparison between our professionalism and their brutality."

(Hat tip: Instapundit )

Not only are we seeing an attempt to criminalize political differences, we are seeing a typical example of selective memory from opportunistic Democrat members of Congress, and of the Obamanation administration. Next will come the official re-writing of history to suit these bottom feeders' notion of "justice".

It's time to tell these lowlife dirtballs "ENOUGH!"

#

There will be some changes under Obamacare

Hat tip: Dr. Sanity, who also quotes Thomas Sowell on the subject:

"Insurance is not medical care. Indeed, health care is not the same as medical care. Countries with universal health care do not have more or better medical care.

The bottom line is medical care. But the rhetoric and the talking points are about insurance. Many people who could afford health insurance do not choose to have it because they know that medical care will be available at the nearest emergency room, whether they have insurance or not.

This is especially true for young people, who do not anticipate long-term medical problems and who can always get a broken leg or an allergy attack taken care of at an emergency room -- and spend their money on a more upscale lifestyle.

This may not be a wise decision but it is their decision, and there is no reason why other people should lose the right to make decisions for themselves because some people make questionable decisions.

If you don't think government bureaucrats can make questionable decisions, then you haven't dealt with many government bureaucrats."

Do the Dems want civil war?

Lawrence Auster raises that possibility, and sees a parallel in the end of the Roman Republic.

Noteworthy:

"The Democrats do not consider our terrorist enemies to be our enemies; they consider the people who protected us from our terrorist enemies to be our enemies and to deserve arrest and imprisonment for defending America."

....and:

"When opponents within a political system criminalize their differences and threaten each other's lives and liberty, the system breaks down and turns into a battlefield.

Is this what the left wants? We know they are not rational, but live in an afflatus of narcissism and hatred. But is this what they really want?"

#

Dems protect Al (The Coward) Gore

They kept Lord Monckton from further embarrassing the former future president over his unctuous and ongoing "anthropogenic global warming" fraud.

Noteworthy:

" 'The Democrats have a lot to learn about the right of free speech under the US Constitution. Congress Henry Waxman's (D-CA) refusal to expose Al Gore's sci-fi comedy-horror testimony to proper, independent scrutiny by the House minority reeks of naked fear,' Monckton said from the airport Thursday evening.

'Waxman knows there has been no "global warming" for at least a decade.

Waxman knows there has been seven and a half years' global cooling.

Waxman knows that, in the words of the UK High Court judge who condemned Gore's mawkish movie as materially, seriously, serially inaccurate, the Armageddon scenario that he depicts is not based on any scientific view,' Monckton explained.

Monckton has previously testified before the House Committee in March. "

(See: Monckton: Have the courage to do nothing...US Congress told climate change is not real ) Monckton has also publicly challenged Gore to a debate. (See: Al Gore Challenged to International TV Debate on Global Warming By Lord Monckton - March 19, 2007 )

Obviously, Al Gore can't afford to be exposed as the liar and the scam artist he actually is.

#

How do the 'anthropogenic global warming' alarmists counter evidence that undercuts their agenda?

It's easy.

Whenever their sometimes perposterous assertions fall apart, they just retro-fit their beloved computer models, and proclaim the new metrics actually validate the original point anyway.

Noteworthy:

"So why do we continue to hear warnings about receding Arctic ice? How is that possible when the extent is quickly approaching its 1979-2000 mean? Simple -- the rules have changed again. It’s no longer the area of the ice that counts, but rather the volume. You see, thicker winter ice is better able to survive the summer and in turn help cool the planet while reflecting sunlight back into space. And, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “This year, ice older than two years accounted for less than 10% of the ice cover at the end of February.”

So there’s a new metric in town -- The ice that has been forming at a record pace since the 2007 record low simply doesn’t count because it’s not yet as thick and “effective” as older ice.

And that nonsense somehow gives cover to a mainstream media that, despite continually expanding ice, dutifully repeat the retrofitted analysis in headlines the likes of Arctic ice is thinner than ever according to new evidence from explorers and Arctic ice continues to shrink and thin and of course Arctic will be ice-free within a decade.

Pretty slick, huh?"

Why are we never surprised at the lack of academic and intellectual integrity shown by the "anthropogenic global warming" shysters, and those in the Tank Media/PR Team that enable this fraud?

#

Rasmussen Poll: Obama's release of CIA memos endangers America's national security

But we (those with their heads screwed on straight) knew that already, didn't we?

Michelle Malkin has some details.

Related:

"Oh, well.....um, I....uhhhh.....where's the teleprompter?......oh, never mind....":

" 'The president said that given all that’s on the agenda and the pressing issues facing the country, that a backward-looking investigation would not be productive,' a White House official who attended the session said. 'The president was very clear…that he believes it’s important that there’s not a witch hunt.' "

Yeah, right.

How magnanimous

#

Transparency? Accountability?

From the Obamanation?

Don't make me laugh.

ABC's Jake Tapper has shredded that phoney meme in his consistent grilling of Obamanation Press Clown Secretary Robert Gibbs.

Here's the latest, via Jennifer Rubin.

Key point:

"On the transparency and accountability front, we have so far perhaps the most under-achieving administration ever. The promise to have legislation on line for five days before a vote? Nope. A list of ethics waivers? Never provided. Oversight for trillions in spending? Not remotely.

And Congress, which is only too anxious to begin investigating the last administration, shows no interest in fulfilling its oversight role. So unlike the Bush administration, which after 2006 had to face aggressive Democratic-controlled committees and explain itself on everything from firing U.S. attorneys to the Walter Reed scandal, this administration is neither inclined to, nor forced to, explain much of anything. And with Gibbs at the podium no member of the media is going to get any intelligible answers either."

No doubt.

#

Predictions from Earth Day 1970

“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”

Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”

Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”

New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”

Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By [1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”

Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,”

Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”

Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half”

Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”

Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”

Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”

Martin Litton, Sierra Club director

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill’er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”

Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”

Sen. Gaylord Nelson

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Yet we are supposed to accept nonsense from "scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming" pimps like Al Gore, James Hansen, and the entire alarmist industry as the undisputed and absolute truth.

Makes perfect sense, if you're a Looney Toon Dem/Lefty/"Progressive".

More:

"Keep these predictions in mind when you hear the same predictions made today. They’ve been making the same predictions for 39 years. And they’re going to continue making them until…well…forever.

Here we are, 39 years later and the economy sucks, but the ecology’s fine. In fact this planet is doing a lot better than the planet on which those green lunatics live."

#

More Birds of a Feather

Looks like the former Mr. Madonna's enjoying himself, doesn't it?

Get this:

"I know President Chavez well. Whether or not one agrees with all his policies, what is certainly true of Chavez is that he is a warm and friendly man with a robust sense of humor (who daily risks his own life for his country in ways Dick Cheney could never imagine).

To treat such a man coldly is akin to spitting on him. As a country we've done enough of that. Say what you will, but it has only resulted in the self-celebration of our smirking spitters, while costing us international respect, American lives, and left wounds in the hands of our children's future.

The Cheneys, down to the O'Reillys and Hannitys and Limbaughs, effectively hate the principles upon which we were founded. They are among the greatest cowards in all of American history. I applaud an American President who's tough enough...to smile."

WAAAAAAY too funny for further comment.....

Once again, there is no way you can make stuff like this up.

#

Inescapable conclusion.....

I take that back.

Actually, you could make a case for the keynote speech at the 2004 Democrat National Convention, too.

#

A real world preview of how 'Card Check' actually works

The Obamanation releases CIA tapes 'in order to gain partisan political advantage......'

Former CIA Director Porter Goss:

“For the first time in my experience we’ve crossed the red line of properly protecting our national security in order to gain partisan political advantage”.

More from the article linked:

" 'You can imagine what it would have looked like, if on a sensitive intelligence matter involving the CIA and this controversy, if we sent Karl Rove out to do this briefing. And that’s in effect what’s happened here,' says a high-ranking official from the Bush White House.

'And I assume that’s because they saw it primarily as a political issue – because it’s being debated inside as a political issue –because it’s about appeasing the left, whose support they sought during the campaign. And Axelrod is more of an expert on that crowd that anybody else. It also says to me he was in all the meetings where they were debating this question – whether or not Obama had better go forward with some kind of investigation.' "

#

Putting the 'torture' nonsense, and the Obamanation's attempt to criminalize political differences into perspective

Cliff May:

"Terrorists are not criminal defendants with a 'right to remain silent.' They are not prisoners of war obligated only to recite only name, rank, and serial number. They are 'not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention.' Those are the words of Eric Holder, Obama’s attorney general (on CNN, January 2002) who added that had Mohamed Atta 'survived the attack on the World Trade Center, would we now be calling him a prisoner of war? I think not. Should Zacarias Moussaoui be called a prisoner of war? Again, I think not.

...and:

"......But let’s not sacrifice a single American life to score public-relations points in the cafés of Europe. Nor should we delude ourselves into believing that kinder, gentler American interrogations will prevent otherwise peace-loving Muslims from signing up to suicide-bomb kindergartens and saw off the heads of captured infidels.

We should fight this war in as civilized a manner as possible — understanding that this is a war against an enemy who is utterly ruthless and unscrupulous and who should not be permitted to prevail anytime, anywhere."

So what's next? A Fat Tax?

"Stay Slim to Save the Planet!"

"Overweight people eat more than thin people and are more likely to travel by car, making excess body weight doubly bad for the environment, according to a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

'When it comes to food consumption, moving about in a heavy body is like driving around in a gas guzzler,' and food production is a major source of greenhouse gases, researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in their study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

'We need to be doing a lot more to reverse the global trend toward fatness, and recognize it as a key factor in the battle to reduce (carbon) emissions and slow climate change,' the British scientists said."

So help me God, I did not make this up....

#

Summing up the disastrous effects of Obamanomics

Peter Wehner:

"Enormous economic and political consequences are likely to flow from Obama's actions.

On the economic front, it's quite likely that the combination of massive deficits, higher marginal tax rates, and a much larger role by the public sector in the economy (especially in health care and energy, if Obama gets his way) will be injurious: penalizing and discouraging the investor class and the creation of small businesses; hampering innovation; increasing dependency on the state; and piling up an unprecedented debt burden.

The government will need to print vast sums of money in order to finance our debt, generating a huge increase in the money supply, making high inflation and interest rates a real possibility. President Obama is pursuing policies that have historically led to distortions and disruptions in the economy, the subsidization of programs and industries that are inefficient, and severing the link between reward and effort."

Other than that, things couldn't be better, right?

#

Napolitano: 'Crossing the border not a crime'

Note to the Illegal Immigrant Apologist DHS secretary: In the context to which you refer, yes, it is.

Quoting Julie Kirchner:

ENTRY WITHOUT INSPECTION IS A CRIME: In fact, pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1325, crossing the border illegally is a crime–a misdemeanor for the first offense and a felony for the second and subsequent offenses. But of course, ignoring or mischaracterizing the law is a very convenient way for those in power to avoid the laws they find most inconvenient.

Sadly, statements such as these are also a signal that Americans will have to wait a long time before their government articulates any credible immigration enforcement policy.

Why do the Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" align with our nation's foes?

Simple.

It's an attempt to keep Socialism alive, and prop up all of their cherished political, social, and economic agenda items.

Here's the flow chart:



Noteworthy:

In the few short months that the dedicated leftist Barack Obama has been in the White House, we have seen a rapid acceleration of the "forces of revolution" rising to overthow this country. Obama's World Apology and America Bashing Tour is nothing if not a crystal clear deliniation of the sides of this battle. There is no dictator or tyrant he won't abase himself to, or belittle his country for; there is no ally that he is not willing to give up or betray in order to demonstrate his willingness to submit to Islamic bullying.

But, as I have mentioned before in "The Four Pillars of the Socialist Revival", appeasement and enabling of terror is only one way that the political left hopes to advance their ideology; it's important to remember the other three prongs of their strategy. Our new President seems intent on implementing all four as quickly as possible so as to achieve the "foundation" of this new leftist utopia.

Multiculturalism and political correctness are two key aspects of the strategy. Both are fundamental pseudo-intellectual, quasi-religious tenets for the left. The third is radical environmentalism which is a clever emotional substitute for Judeo-Christian religious traditions and dogma, for which the left has nothing but contempt.

All four of these strategies arose from the metaphysical, epistemological and ethical dead-end that traditional Marxism found itself in toward the end of the 20th century. Fortunately, postmodern philosophy has led them out of the "wilderness" of rational thought and objective reality, and brought them to the promised land; which, as it turns out, is a neo-Marxist revival, accelerated by the fascist goals of leftist environmentalism.

The end of civility and tolerance becomes official in this Obamanation

We've known for some time that "civility and tolerance" among Dems/Lefties/"Progressives" only applies to those who practice the fine art of libthink. All others are who dissent are immediately marginalized and ridiculed. The best example of that certainty can be found here locally at Ed Cone's blog, a notorious den of undeservedLibthink smarm.

When the pushback to these cretins from those who don't share the worldview takes on force and intensity, those people are immediately labeled as "trolls", "knuckledraggers", "troglodytes", or worse.

Despite all the protestations to the contrary, these people have never been interested in "civility" or "public discourse". It's ALL about their agenda, and it's ALWAYS been about ridiculing those with whom they disagree. we have only to look at the treatment of Dr. J. to forever establish that point in certainty.

Now in these daze of the Obamanation, all this crap is officially enabled.

Key point:

"But in the Age of Obama, there's no room for such nuance and inconvenient truths. A decent young woman is a 'dumb b*tch' for holding the same view of marriage as the Obamessiah. A conservative campus speaker is bullied as a hatemonger by wild-eyed hatemongers. A grassroots movement is debased as a bunch of racist vulgarians by a media mob of racists and vulgarians. Civility and tolerance have taken a left-hand turn down a one-way street. So much for changing course."

#

Earth Day message: 'Get lost, humans'

It looks like Huxley's "Brave New World" prescience is coming to fruition.

Noteworthy:

"Here and abroad, environmentalism itself seems to be evolving from a movement dedicated to conserving resources, preserving pristine areas, and protecting endangered species into an anti-humanistic ideology that increasingly disdains humankind as a scourge that literally threatens the existence of 'the planet.'"

All hail the New World Order!

We're well on our way to supporting that premise in in our nation, thanks to the machinations of the Obamanation.

#

Cheney calls the Obamanation bluff

DICK CHENEY:

“One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. And there are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity. They have not been declassified.”

"I formally asked that they be declassified now. I haven't announced this up until now, I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.”

“And I've now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so we can lay them out there and the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was, as well as to see this debate over the legal opinions.”

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit, who has an update:

(from CNS)

"The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of 'enhanced techniques' of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) -- including the use of waterboarding -- caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.

Before he was waterboarded, when KSM was asked about planned attacks on the United States, he ominously told his CIA interrogators, 'Soon, you will know.'

According to the previously classified May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that was released by President Barack Obama last week, the thwarted attack -- which KSM called the 'Second Wave'-- planned ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles."

Game, set, and match to Dick Cheney and the Bush Administration.

#

Putting Obama's 'requested budget cuts' in perspective

(hat tip: Right Angles)

#

Let the Show Trials begin!

The Obamanation's intent to criminalize the political differences of those with whom they disagree is set to begin.