http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324556304578119502970431628.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop Here’s another post-election news flash: The tide of war is not receding. The latest Middle East flash point among so many is the Gaza Strip, where Israel on Wednesday launched retaliatory airstrikes on Hamas commanders and weapons storage sites. The strikes were in response to the latest rocket fire from Gaza launched willy-nilly into […]
http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/ambassador-rice-designated-non-expert-on-benghazi/?print=1 Finally, during his first press conference in eight months, President Obama has confirmed it was specifically “at the request of the White House” that on the Sunday after the Sept. 11 terrorist onslaught in Benghazi, his ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, appeared as the face of his administration on five TV news […]
http://pjmedia.com/blog/france-waking-up-to-its-anti-semitism/?print=1 There is something intriguing about François Hollande, the socialist president of France. Many of his policies boil down to sheer liberal mantras in the style of Paul Krugman or the New York Review of Books. He indulges in overtaxation, big government, inflated social programs, and such cultural demagoguery as compulsory gender parity, gay marriage, […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/petraeus_and_allen_non-combatant_general_disgraces.html Unlike Generals David Petraeus and John Allen, Colonel Douglas Macgregor (US Army retired), is an actual combat veteran, and innovative, iconoclastic PhD military strategist. After one year at the Virginia Military Institute, and four years at West Point, Macgregor was commissioned in the U.S. Army during 1976 As described by US News reporter Richard […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/petraeus_and_allen_non-combatant_general_disgraces.html
Unlike Generals David Petraeus and John Allen, Colonel Douglas Macgregor (US Army retired), is an actual combat veteran, and innovative, iconoclastic PhD military strategist. After one year at the Virginia Military Institute, and four years at West Point, Macgregor was commissioned in the U.S. Army during 1976
As described by US News reporter Richard J. Newman (July 28, 1997. “Renegades Finish Last. A Colonel’s Innovative Ideas Don’t Sit Well with the Brass”. U.S. News & World Report 123 (4): 35), Macgregor was the “squadron operations officer who essentially directed the Battle of 73 Easting” in the 1991 Gulf War. Under Macgregor’s bold leadership, U.S. troops with 10 tanks and 13 Bradley fighting vehicles destroyed almost 70 Iraqi Republican Guard opponents’ armored vehicles without any U.S. casualties during a 23 minute span of the battle. Moreover, positioned towards the front of the battle and involved in firing, Macgregor didn’t “request artillery support or report events to superiors until the battle was virtually over, according to one of his superior officers.”
My colleagues Diana West and AJ Rice, directed me to print and radio interview comments, respectively, that Colonel Macgregor has provided in the aftermath of the salacious allegations against Generals Petraeus and Allen.
Macgregor is singularly unimpressed with the military leadership record of these men – the Army’s Petraeus, Allen of the Marines – noting that both lacked personal combat experience, having, “never pulled a trigger” or “lead soldiers in direct fire battle.” Nonetheless, Macgregor observes, Petraeus and Allen created faux heroic identities and succeeded in their egotistical quest for military promotion.
Macgregor’s withering critique of Petraeus includes these comments made to Time reporter Mark Thompson:
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/climate-change-issues-for-2012?f=puball
Prepared by the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, summarizing current knowledge on climate
1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it has been rising steadily. How can you deny global warming?
The Earth has warmed – and cooled – over the past 50 years. We’ve also experienced periods of “unusual” weather and “normal” weather, more frequent and intense storms and droughts, less frequent and less severe storms and droughts. That’s natural and cyclical. However, we don’t agree that humans are responsible, or that climate change is becoming dangerous or catastrophic.
CO2 is a trace gas, but without it life on earth would be impossible. Carbon dioxide fertilizes algae, trees and crops, to provide food for humans and animals. We inhale oxygen and exhale CO2. Slightly higher atmospheric CO2 levels (390 ppm or 0.039% of the atmosphere at present) cannot possibly supplant the numerous complex and inter-connected forces that have always determined Earth’s climate.
As University of London professor emeritus Philip Stott has noted: “The fundamental point has always been this. Climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or variables, and the very idea that we can manage climate change predictably by understanding and manipulating at the margins one politically-selected factor (CO2), is as misguided as it gets.” Carbon dioxide is not the tail that wags the dog. Even the global warming activists at RealClimate.org acknowledged this in a September 20, 2008 article, which said, “The actual temperature rise is an emergent property resulting from interactions among hundreds of factors.”
2) Haven’t the past few years have shown global warming to be worse than we thought?
As the real world evidence mounts that global warming claims are failing, climate activists have ramped up predictions of future climate change impacts, declaring that it is “worse than we thought.” But a prediction or projection 50-100 years into the future is not “evidence.” Recent scientific data and developments reveal that Mother Nature is playing a cruel joke on promoters of man-made climate fears. The scientific reality is that on virtually every claim – from A to Z – the claims of manmade climate disaster promoters are failing. In many instances the claims are moving in the opposite direction.
Antarctic sea ice has been at or near record extent during the past few summers and is now expanding. In 2012, Arctic sea ice hit its lowest point since satellite monitoring began in 1979, with recent ebb and flow in ice extent now known to be the result of giant storms, ocean currents and high pressure days. Polar bears are thriving across the Arctic. Sea level rise has not been accelerating.
Cholera and malaria are not related to climate change and refuse to follow global warming predictions. Mount Kilimanjaro melt fears are mocked by gains in snow cover. Global temperatures have been stable for over a decade, and many scientists are predicting global cooling is ahead. Deaths from extreme weather are declining dramatically.
Global tropical cyclone activity is near historic lows, the frequency of major U.S. hurricanes has declined, and big tornados have dramatically declined since the 1970s. In fact, 2012 is thus far the quietest tornado and quietest hurricane summer on record. Even with Hurricane Sandy, November 2012 marks the quietest long-term hurricane period since the Civil War, with one major hurricane strike on the U.S. in seven years. Droughts are not historically unusual nor caused by mankind, and there is no evidence that we are currently having unusual weather.
3) If CO2 is not the main driver of global temperatures, what is? The sun?
When global temperatures are the question, the answer is not the sun or CO2. It is the sun, volcanoes, tilt of the Earth’s axis, water vapor, methane, clouds, ocean cycles, plate tectonics, shifting ocean currents, albedo (Earth’s changing reflective properties), atmospheric dust, atmospheric circulation, cosmic rays, particulates like carbon soot and volcanic dust, forests and grasslands, urban and other land use changes, and numerous other variables. Climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, not just manmade CO2.
4) How can you ignore thousands of scientists who say manmade global warming is a serious threat?
The idea that there is a “scientific consensus” does not hold up. Scientists who are skeptical about “dangerous manmade climate change” have been speaking out for years. Just this year, two prominent former believers in man-made global warming announced they were reconsidering the science. “Gaia” scientist James Lovelock had been “alarmist” about climate change for years. Now he says, “The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.”
German meteorologist Klaus-Eckart Puls also reversed his belief in man-made global warming in 2012 and called the idea of CO2 regulating climate “sheer absurdity.” “Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us,” he said. “One day I started checking the facts and data. First I started with a sense of doubt, but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements. To this day, I still feel shame that as a scientist I made presentations of their science without first checking it.”
In 2010, a report documented that “More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissented Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims.” Many of them were former IPCC scientists. Climate scientist Mike Hulme dismantled the “thousands of scientists agree” claim put forth by the United Nations and news media. Claims that “2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate” are disingenuous, Hulme noted. The key scientific case for CO2 driving global warming, like many others in the IPCC reports, “is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies; other IPCC authors are experts in other fields.” Other scientists are excluded or not consulted.
Dr. William Schlesinger agrees with the UN climate view but has admitted that only 20% of UN IPCC scientists deal with climate. In other words, 80% of the UN’s IPCC membership are experts in other fields and have no dealing with or expertise in climate change as part of their academic studies.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/angela-merkel-calls-christianity-the-worlds-most-persecuted-faith
IT IS NOT A CONTEST, AND I FULLY UNDERSTAND MERKEL’S POINT…..BUT, CHRISTIANS ARE “INFIDELS” IN THE GREAT STRUGGLE OF OUR WESTERN CIVILIZATION AGAINST JIHADIST BARBARIANS, BUT “THE SATURDAY PEOPLE” THE JEWS ARE THE MOST PERSECUTED PEOPLE ON EARTH TODAY….BECAUSE IN ADDITION TO THE JIHADIS, THE EUROPEANS AND THE LEFT ELITE OF THE WESTERN WORLD ABET ANTI-SEMITISM EVEN IN PLACES LIKE MALAYSIA WHERE THERE ARE NO JEWS……RSK
Speaking on November 5, 2012, before a synod of Germany’s Lutheran Church (Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands or EKD), German chancellor Angela Merkel recently incited national controversy. Merkel’s address in Timmendorfer Strand in the German province of Schleswig-Holstein included the passing comment that “Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world.” The German federal government had thus made the protection of religious freedom, including that of Christians, into a goal of German foreign policy.
Merkel’s singling out of Christianity did not find favor with various human rights advocates, as reported by the German news agency dapd. Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) Germany director, Wenzel Michalski, found Merkel’s conception “totally senseless” given that all religious persecution is equally wrong, irrespective of faith. Michalski cited Muslims in Burma, Falun Gong members in China, and Jews worldwide as non-Christian examples of persecution victims. A representative of Amnesty International also found Merkel’s reference to Christianity “not sensible.” Jerzy Montag, a German member of parliament from the Green Party (Die Grüne), likewise judged Merkel’s estimation to be “misguided”, given that any ranking of persecution among religions is “not especially helpful for combating human rights violations.”
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/uc-irvine-students-vote-for-israel-divestment-but-have-no-investments-to-divest/2012/11/14/
The Resolution was introduced by Sabreen Shalabi, and seconded by Shadi Jafari, with support from Ali Abunimeh and Noam Chomsky.Late last night, November 13, there was a unanimous vote at a California school for divestment from certain companies that do business with Israel. Unanimous, 16 -0.
There are, however, several points militating against an uptick in alarm.
For one thing, the school at which this took place was the University of California at Irvine. Yes, the school that allowed students to repeatedly disrupt Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, in 2010. Eleven of those hooligans were charged and convicted of conspiracy and disrupting a public meeting. Those convictions were obtained despite the efforts of many UCIrvine faculty members, including a large number of Jewish Studies department faculty.
But more importantly, the vote was taken by the UC Irvine Student Government, which, in all likelihood, does not have any investments in the targeted companies, or any other companies, for that matter.
The student government also called on the UC Irvine administration to divest from the named companies, but a student group’s call on its university to take the students’ investment advice is not exactly like money in (or, in this case, out of) the bank.
While the vote was really the equivalent of a small group of children shouting at those acting in loco parentis to take its investment advice, last night’s effort by anti-Israel student leadership at UCI is noteworthy for a small shift in tactic.
Although the Resolution repeatedly compared Israeli activity to Apartheid South Africa, the student government Resolution only sought divestment from those companies it deemed to provide support for the Security Fence, the demolition of “Palestinian” homes, and the building or maintenance of the “illegal Israeli settlements” on “occupied Palestinian territory.” In the past, calls for divestment from Israel typically called for divestment from any company doing business in Israel, which was the South Africa Apartheid divestment model.
The nitty gritty details, that is, that it was a student group that voted to divest its own (non-existent) financial holdings from certain companies – and was not the vote by a university to divest its holdings from companies doing business in Israel – was completely lost on most other media reporting on the vote. Professional Israel haters such as Ali Abunimeh and Noam Chomsky were quick to add their support, as were Muslim Student Associations and other anti-Israel groups across the country. To see the misguided glee, check on twitter #IrvineDivest.
Resisting War, Terrorism, And Genocide (Second of Three Parts) Israel, with an understandable desperation, still seeks to discover some discernible correctness and reassuring clarity in the theatre of world politics. However, the polite diplomatic meanings with which it is pressed to “make peace” remain squalid and elusive. Ominously, these meanings continue to seethe menacingly. A […]
http://nsroundtable.org/as-we-see-it/operation-not-taking-it-anymore/
In response to hundreds of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip by Hamas and Islamic Jihad into southern Israel, Israel has begun a military campaign named “Operation Pillar of Defense.”
You can read about it below, but here are some things to keep in mind:
The Israeli government “instructed the Foreign Ministry to begin a diplomatic public relations campaign to explain that Israel was acting in self-defense against military targets, because the continued rocket barrage had become intolerable.”
