Wednesday, April 11, 2007

My Candidates for Blogger Code of Conduct Seals


A couple of tech gurus have suggested a blogger's code of conduct (hat tip: John at Wuzzadem). The intent is to distinguish polite (some would say 'effete', but that would be hateful) blogs from their Wild West brethren. Here are my candidates for these "code of conduct" seals:


Civility Enforced

Anything Goes


Civility Enforced

Anything Goes


Civility Enforced

Anything Goes


Civility Enforced

Anything Goes

Two poems


These are two of my youngest daughter's poems. She's pretty talented for a 9th grader, if I do say so myself. And I guess I just did.

When I Dream

When I dream, I can be anything,
A sailor, a singer, a sailor that sings.
I can sail away on my very own yacht,
And eat the fish, that myself has caught.
I can cliff jump, and raft, and even sky dive,
I can waltz, and tango, and do the hand jive.
I can dream myself an ocean so blue,
And dream myself a killer breaststroke too.
If I can dream, the world could be mine.
I can shake and shimmy, sparkle and shine.
Maybe tonight when I close my eyes,
I can be a giant, of enormous size!
Because when I dream,
I'm the queen, with a king.
And I know once I wake,
I can be anything.
Summer

Swoosh, swoosh,
Goes my sundress in the wind,
My face morphs into a blissful grin.

I bend over and pick up a tulip with ease,
My heart's as light as the summer breeze.

I didn't know I could feel this way,
I feel like I've fallen in love with today.

I smile as the sun gives me a kiss,
As I softly whisper, "I love this."

I love this life,
I love this feeling,
I love this summer, my mind is reeling.

And as I burst with happiness,
And I don't know why,
I tilt my head back,
And laugh at the sky.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The Democratic Contract On America


Startlingly good editorial in today's Investors Business Daily (subscription required, hat tip: Atlas Shrugs):

Diplomacy: “We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy,” a member of Nancy Pelosi’s Mideast entourage said. Problem is, it’s one applauded by terrorists around the world who couldn’t be happier she’s speaker of the House.

We wonder what the media reaction would have been had Newt Gingrich traveled around the world in 1995 offering an alternative Republican foreign policy. Suppose he had, to cite just one example, condemned on foreign soil Bill Clinton’s shameful withdrawal from Somalia, which inspired Osama bin Laden to plan 9/11.

At least Gingrich, unlike Pelosi, wouldn’t have been giving aid and comfort to America’s enemies. She advocates talking to Iran, which is building nukes to annihilate Israel and shipping advanced explosive devices to Iraq to kill British and U.S. troops. She advocates a date certain for throwing the people of Iraq to the Islamofascist wolves.

Speaker Pelosi expressed the foolish thought that “the road to Damascus is the road to peace.” The road to Damascus is the road Syrian supply columns traveled bringing Iranian rockets and supplies plus a few goodies of their own to help Hezbollah attack Israel and plot the overthrow of Lebanon’s democracy. It was the body of that democracy that Pelosi tip-toed around to visit the killers of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, among others, who were dispatched by Syrian operatives.

We wonder if Pelosi is malicious or merely naive. After all, last December she picked Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas to head the critical House Intelligence Committee, describing him as having “impeccable national security credentials.” But in a subsequent interview, Reyes couldn’t describe Hezbollah, the Iranian-created and supplied terrorist group that used Lebanon as a human shield in its war with Israel and which murdered 241 U.S. soldiers in Beirut in 1983.

Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who accompanied Pelosi, said during the group’s stop in Israel, “We have an alternative Democratic foreign policy.” And of the visit to Baathist thug Bashar Assad, Lantos said: “This is only the beginning of our constructive dialogue with Syria, and we hope to build on this visit.” Our dialogue? Read the Constitution and the law, Tom.

We’re of a mind with Robert F. Turner, who served as acting assistant secretary of state under President Reagan. He suggests Pelosi et al. may have violated the Logan Act, which makes it a felony for any American, even one who is third in the line of presidential succession, to conduct foreign policy on their own initiative.

The Logan Act provides a prison term of three years for anyone who “without the authority of the United States” communicates with a foreign government for the purpose of changing its policies regarding “disputes or controversies with the United States.” Patrick Fitzgerald, call your office.

So who’s happy with Pelosi’s trip? Well, Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas’ military wing in the Gaza Strip. He said her trip to Syria “is proof of the importance of the resistance against the U.S.” He added that “Americans know and understand they are losing in Iraq and the Middle East and their only chance to survive is to reduce hostilities with Arab countries and with Islam.”

Sharing the Islamofascist view that our “only chance to survive” is to have Pelosi negotiate the terms of our surrender is Jihad Jaara, senior member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. “I think she is very brave and hope all the people will support her,” he said. “All the American people must make peace with Syria and Iran and with Hamas.”

Khaled Al-Batch, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad, says “Nancy Pelosi understands the area well” and expressed the hope she would keep winning elections. Islamic Jihad’s chief, Ramadan Shallah, calls Syria home, as does Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal.

We didn’t see Tip O’Neill running to Moscow with “an alternative Democratic foreign policy” subverting Reagan’s confronting head-on what he called the “evil empire.” But then, Tip knew all politics was local and all foreign policy was the president’s responsibility.

And O’Neill knew whose side he was on.

Would it be trite to say indeed?

The Imus Apology



Rev. Sharpton, Rev. Jackson, I can't tell you how stupid my remark was, you know, calling the Rutgers Womens' Basketball Team a bunch of "nappy-headed ho's."


Imus, you're just as bad as those diamond merchants who shed the blood of innocent babies.


Didn't you just hear me? I tried to apologize!


You better apologize for real, Imus. Tawana Brawley called me earlier and she was very upset...


If we would have been thinking about it, we wouldn't have said it.


All of Hymietown is in an uproar over this, Imus. Your comments went way, way over the line.


No, sir. Well, I can - no, sir, I mean that's a good point. But no, sir, I didn't think that. I wasn't thinking. If I'd been thinking, I wouldn't have said this, Reverend.


Yeah, you're right, you weren't thinking!

Monday, April 09, 2007

If I had time to draw this post...


I would depict one of our combat veterans wearing a Santa Claus beard and standing in front of a Salvation Army-style kettle.

He'd be soliciting passers-by for donations and mumbling: "They keep telling me they support the troops..."

Reid and Levin's Private Conversation



We're going to cut off funding for the war.


I don't think so, my wimpy-voiced friend.


Yes. We're going to force a phased surrender, I mean phased withdrawal, I mean phased redeployment.


Look at me. Look at me. What does my letterhead say?


"Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee." But - look at this...


What is that?


That's my honorary peace-sign badge from Daily Kos. I received that for meritorious blogging against the war. I head up the phased surrender, I mean phased redeployment, subcommittee on Kos.


Is that it? Those are your qualifications for de-funding the war?


Well, I'm helping spearhead the translation of Daily Kos into Arabic and Farsi for some of our biggest supporters.


Impressive.


So what's your prediction? Withdrawal from Iraq by March of '08?


Minority status for another dozen years.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

The UN's IPCC Global-Warming Bunko Scam


The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report on global warming with a massive publicity blitz. The New York Times breathlessly announced an impending disaster due to man's catastrophic treatment of the environment:


...[a temperature rise] of 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century could lead to the inundation of coasts and islands inhabited by hundreds of millions of people...

...While the report said that assessing the causes of regional climate and biological changes was particularly difficult, the authors concluded with “high confidence” — about an 8 in 10 chance — that human-caused warming “over the last three decades has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems...”

The Times waits until paragraph 28 to announce that the 21-page report summary was the subject of much debate. There was no unanimity and the summary itself represented the product of serious negotiation:

The meeting dragged on in a marathon session through the night before Dr. Pachaui emerged this morning to stand on a blue armchair and announce to reporters that an agreement had been reached between scientists and government officials over the final details... Officials from [several] countries argued that data in the report did not support the level of certainty expressed in the final draft...

Skeptical scientists


Indeed: government officials play a central role in the IPCC, refining and interpreting the science... for the scientists.


And when respected scientists do decry the hysterical posturing of the IPCC, the media does its best to shield it from criticism. Powerline highlights one of many scientists critical of the fear-mongering who spoke with the AP:

Yesterday, ...one of the world's leading weather experts, Dr. William Gray, blasted Al Gore for perpetrating global warming hysteria. Since Dr. Gray is generally recognized as the world's leading expert in the science of forecasting hurricanes, this is news. But let's examine how the AP handled it in the article that resulted from their interview...

As we have noted elsewhere, the U.N.'s IPCC is a political body, not a scientific one, and its findings have been subject to withering criticism. But the AP implies that the U.N's report represents a scientific consensus:

Rather than global warming, Gray believes a recent uptick in strong hurricanes is part of a multi-decade trend of alternating busy and slow periods related to ocean circulation patterns. Contrary to mainstream thinking, Gray believes ocean temperatures are going to drop in the next five to 10 years.

[The AP positions Gray as an] elderly crank who "rails" and disagrees with the U.N. is not part of "mainstream thinking," notwithstanding the fact that, as the AP acknowledges, he is the world's foremost authority on hurricanes...

This would be entirely typical for scientists who dare to defy the UN and IPCC bureaucracies.


MIT's Richard S. Lindzen, one of the world's foremost experts on climatology, pilloried Al Gore last year:

A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse...

...given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a "moral" crusade. [And] there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition...

Dr. Claude Allegre is another example. Twenty years ago, Allegre raised the possibility that burning fossil fuels could result in an increase in mean global temperature. However:

Since then, governments throughout the western world and bodies such as the United Nations [IPCC] have commissioned billions of dollars worth of research by thousands of scientists. With a wealth of data now in, Dr. Allegre has recanted his views. To his surprise, the many climate models and studies failed dismally in establishing a man-made cause of catastrophic global warming. Meanwhile, increasing evidence indicates that most of the warming comes of natural phenomena. Dr. Allegre now sees global warming as over-hyped and an environmental concern of second rank...

In fact, many scientists have pinned "global warming" on solar activity.

"It's the sun, stupid!"


After all, Earth lies within the scope of the Sun's 'atmosphere':


...The observed global warming may be explained by increased solar activity, the present level of solar activity is historically high as determined by sunspot activity and other factors. Solar activity could affect climate either by variation in the sun's output or by an indirect effect on the amount of cloud formation. Solanki et al. (2004 - Max Planck Institute, Germany) suggest that solar activity for the last 60 to 70 years may be at its highest level in 8,000 years...

In fact, Mars is suffering from its own fever:

[Saint Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory] -- at the pinnacle of Russia's space-oriented scientific establishment -- is one of the world's best equipped observatories and has been since its founding in 1839... Heading Pulkovo's space research laboratory is Dr. Abdussamatov, one of the world's chief critics of the theory that man-made carbon dioxide emissions create a greenhouse effect, leading to global warming.


"Mars has global warming, but without a greenhouse and without the participation of Martians," he told me. "These parallel global warmings -- observed simultaneously on Mars and on Earth -- can only be a straightline consequence of the effect of the one same factor: a long-time change in solar irradiance."

The sun's increased irradiance over the last century, not C02 emissions, is responsible for the global warming we're seeing, says the celebrated scientist, and this solar irradiance also explains the great volume of C02 emissions...

Given this wide range of respected scientists -- climatologists, astronomers, and environmentalists -- who question "human causality" of global warming, why would the IPCC be so anxious to promote its agenda of fear-mongering?

The answer is simple: money.


Recall that the IPCC is "a political body and not a scientific panel." It has commissioned billions of dollars worth of research by thousands of scientists. In fact, a great many scientific livelihoods rest upon the promotion of the IPCC's curriculum.

But that's only the beginning of the story.

The Carbon-Offset Market: "Fraudulent" and "Fictitious"


A set of meetings in March ("The Vienna Energy Efficiency and Climate Meetings" - March 19-22, 2007) offers another clue. Much of the discussion related to the growth of the carbon offset market. Panelists represented a variety of companies set to profit from "carbon offseting," including the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), Point Carbon, EDF Trading, Capital Carbon Markets, and Natsource.


Carbon offsets are a currency that supposedly allow organizations and individuals to "make up" (offset) their carbon-dioxide emissions.

What Al Gore and the rest of the IPCC bureaucrats won't tell you is that wanton profiteering appears to be at the very heart of "carbon offsets." Put simply, a wide range of respected scientists, environmentalists, researchers, agriculturalists, and activists believe that carbon offsets are a "scam", "fantasy", "fiction", "nonsense", "fraudulent" and worse.

In a 2001 report, a UK-based environmentalist group called The Corner House labeled the carbon-offseting scheme a "fantasy." And even earlier, in May of 2000, a presentation at the Agrarian Studies 2000 Conference at Yale University denounced the carbon offset market in extremely stark terms:


...This [carbon-offset] market is being put together not so much by states as by a burgeoning international web of technocrats, multilateral agencies, corporate alliances, brokers, lobbyists, consultants, financiers, think tanks, lawyers, forestry companies and non-government organizations...

...the [biological climate-change equivalents, or carbon sequestration credits] commodity to be traded in this new market is fictitious...


The IPCC's Conflict of Interest



In fact, what did IPCC officials do around the time they were finalizing their reports? They formed businesses to take financial advantage of their 'findings'. Among the IPCC panel members set to benefit from earlier IPCC reports on warming were Richard Tipper, Mark Trexler, Pedro Moura-Costa, Careth Phips, Sandra Brown, and Peter Hill. Tipper, for example, formed a consulting company just months after being appointed to one of the UN's climate panels.


The World Rainforest Movement investigated these bizarre financial ties and concluded that the IPCC report "must now be shelved due to their clear conflict of interest and a new report instigated which will be free of the taint of intellectual corruption."

And solar energy portal Ecotopia reports that members of the IPCC "...had vested interests in reaching unrealistically and unjustifiably optimistic conclusions about the possibility of compensating for emissions with trees... [and] should have been automatically disqualified from serving on an intergovernmental panel charged with investigating impartially the feasibility and benefits of such... projects."

In other words, IPCC members were poised to profit from carbon-profiteering from the very outset of their reporting.

The UN's Circle of Crime


Remember, the IPCC is an arm of the United Nations. That's the same organization that has brought us the multi-billion dollar Oil-for-Food scandal; the slaughter in Darfur; a plethora of anti-Israeli screeds; the Rwandan genocide; accusations of rape and child pornography in the Congo, Haiti, Liberia, and Sudan; and, most recently, ties to a North Korean counterfeiting operation.


Let's ignore for the moment the fact that the IPCC has, as its core membership, businessmen and scientists poised to profit from global warming alarmism. Consider, instead, that the mainstream media ceaselessly flogs the idea that we can trust the same organization that's brought us an unprecedented series of frauds, scandals, scams, and sex schemes.

Our media wants the public to believe that this same corrupt organization can be trusted on its dire predictions of calamity due to man-made global warming?

The media has harped for years on the failure of inadequate intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. But on the issue of global warming, the media tells us there's no need for evidence -- especially from scientists who have no conflict-of-interest with the IPCC and its carbon-offset trading schemes.

You'll forgive me if I'm skeptical. But based upon what I've read about the IPCC, what I know about its parent organization, and the many critical scientists who are routinely muffled by the mainstream media, I'm wagering that global warming is just another UN-sponsored bunko scam, from the same folks who brought you a world-class set of criminal operations.

Book 'em, Danno.


Oven-baked good readin', just like Mama used to make:
Bill Hobbs (note the title caption), Dan Riehl, Deroy Murdock - Leftist Hate: Gore Fans Threaten Gore Foes
Ace of Spades, Anchoress, Astute Bloggers, Blame Bush, Blue Crab Boulevard, Dinocrat, Don Surber, Dr. Sanity, Ecotality, Fausta's Blog, Flopping Aces, Gateway Pundit, Hedgehog Blog, Life ain't Brain Surgery, Mass Backwards, Outside the Beltway, Right Wing News, STACLU, Texas Rainmaker

Inspirational Story o' The Day


A tribute to the late, legendary Grambling coach Eddie Robinson:


[Cincinnati Bengals] Secondary coach Kevin Coyle told one of the best [Robinson stories]... Coyle, then 26, was in one of his first jobs as a defensive assistant at Holy Cross when he attended the 1982 NCAA coaches convention.

He happened to see Robinson honored with the American Football Coaches Association’s Amos Alonzo Stagg Award for services that “have been outstanding in the advancement of the best interests of football,” and when the event broke Coyle headed to a workshop about an interesting defensive topic taught by a junior-college coach.

There were about 20 guys huddled in chairs and no one had quite heard of the [presenter], so Coyle was bowled over when Robinson walked into the room with a yellow notepad, sat down, and raised his hand a few times to ask questions.

“I’m thinking, ‘That’s Eddie Robinson in this little room asking questions of a junior college coach,’ ” Coyle said. “I just figured here’s a guy who about 20 minutes ago received the highest award in the profession. Wouldn’t he be in his suite, or somewhere, celebrating with his friends? But there he was, trying to learn more about the game.”

Bengals.com: Boiler Room Heats Up

Friday, April 06, 2007

Controlled explosions my a**



YouTube: Controlled explosions my a**

Line o' the Day


After walking into the family room today, only to discover my wife watching a soap opera...

Me: You still watch soap operas?

Wife: No, I just want to see if they bring Janet back.

300 Workout


Carol Williams reports:

The movie "300" is packed with actors in tip-top shape, bodies sculpted to fit into skimpy spartan battle wear.

And there's a workout that got them there. The not-so-secret training regemin has hit the internet.

It, conveniently, involves 300 reps. 25 pull-ups. 50 deadlifts at 135 pounds 50 box jumps with a 24-inch box. 50 "floor wipers," a core exercise. 50 "clean and press" with 36 pounds, aweight-lifting exercise. Then 25 more pullups.

And the toughest part is, there's no rest between each exercise.

The Hillary Clinton Voice-Change


Kathleen Parker once compared Hillary Clinton's voice to a "car alarm," noting that it sounded as if it was "fashioned from metal."

But are changes afoot? After all the complaints about her voice, I've noticed something interesting. Her voice has changed. It's deeper, her cadence is slower, her timbre more mellifluent.

Is this training? Practice in front of a mirror? Or something more insidious?

Take a listen -- if you dare -- to the "old Hillary." We'll call this the before.


Witness... the "new Hillary." Here's another recent Hillary appearance.

I've had friends bet me dollars-to-doughnuts that Hillary is on something akin to hormone therapy in order to deepen her voice.

Hillary wouldn't engage in these sorts of dangerous stunts in order to address her critics?

Would she?


Also see: Don Surber traps Hillary in yet another fabrication. And the JTF has a Hillary history lesson. And an 'instant classic': Hillary is "no ways tired."

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Line o' the Day


Joel Mowbray, writing in The Washington Times (hat tip: Powerline):

Ask most Americans if they were aware that Iraqis, by almost a 2-to-1 margin, believe that life today is better than it was under Saddam Hussein, and you'd most likely elicit incredulousness, blank stares or outright laughter. Not because it isn't true, though. It is.

The mainstream media just forgot to mention it.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Exclusive transcript: Pelosi & Syrian Dictator Assad



Thank you, Madame Speaker, for your visit. I know President Bush had objected to your trip, so I appreciate your support.


You are most welcome, President Assad. I feel this can be more than a "photo opp," to use the President's term.


You are soooo right. Oh, hold on for a moment. We need a couple of pictures. Just freeze for a moment.


*** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click ***
*** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** ... ... *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click ***


Are we almost done?


Yes, just another few seconds.


*** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click ***
*** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** ... ... *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click *** *** Click ***


All set. You were saying... ?


We simply want to express our hope that Syria can arrive at a path to peace.


Does this involve recognizing the so-called state of Israel?


Why, yes, of course.


Does this require that we stop funding and equipping terrorists?


-Er- ... Yes, that too.


HAWHAHHAWHAHAWHAHAHAHWAHAHAHAHAHWAHAHAHHA!!! WHOOOOooooo!! Whoa! Hold on... ...let me catch my breath... good one! Wonderful sense of humor -


Hey, I'm serious here!


You can't be! Your President Clinton paid my father a visit in '94. We told him then that such an approach is ludicrous.


But we've declared a jihad on terrorism! You know that!


You can't declare a jihad! Only we can declare a jihad!


Well... well... we're a giant tsunami of anti-terrorism!


That was pretty politically incorrect... all of those innocent deaths due to the tsunami...


Yes, I guess that's true. That line went over like a pregnant suicide bomber.


Wait just a second. A pregnant suicide bomber... hmmmm.... interesting.


Mr. President, all that being said, I am hopeful that we can issue a statement that would confirm our joint hopes for peace.


We'll get back to you on a statement, though it might be punctuated with a loud explosion.


Thank you for that. Dialogue is the first step on the grand walk of peace.


Dialogue is the first step on the grand walk of peace. Quite poetic! You know... Nancy... I saw that picture of you wearing a hijab. And I'd wager that back in the Fifties, you were quite a hottie. Do you... do you have any dinner plans tonight?


Oven-baked good readin', just like Mama used to make:
LGF: Syrian Reformists: The Damage from Pelosi's Visit Will Be Felt for Years
Anchoress, Blue Crab Boulevard, Hang Right Politics, Rick Moran, STACLU, Wizbang