"Iraq and the Marine Corps" - a Corporal's View

Full article (here). It contains a lot of information. This is but a snippet:

Negative comments from politicians played over television have a dramatic effect on morale, especially on troops who are otherwise indifferent and disdainful of politics in general. I cannot tell you how many times I have overheard Marines and soldiers talking about various inconsiderate comments made from the likes of John Kerry, Murtha, Reid, and Pelosi about how we cannot win, how we should be brought home, etc. The Kerry comments really cemented his reputation with the troops and upset people more than anything else. It is unnerving to volunteer for service during wartime hoping to be deployed and having to listen to a politician explain how the troops need to come home, especially when we clearly have not finished what we started. There is a widespread perception amongst the Marines I know, even those uninterested in politics, that the Democratic Party does not want us to win in Iraq for whatever reason. This is true even amongst Democrats who still maintain the party viewpoint on almost every other issue but the war. Morale is always a tricky issue to deal with, and it is difficult to tell a Marine to buck up when he sees important people back home undercutting his primary reason for existing at the moment.

Staying to Help in Iraq

Angelina Jolie chimed in with this op/ed that appeared in the Washington Post. I think she is going to lose some friends in Hollywood.

My visit left me even more deeply convinced that we not only have a moral obligation to help displaced Iraqi families, but also a serious, long-term, national security interest in ending this crisis.

Today's humanitarian crisis in Iraq -- and the potential consequences for our national security -- are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of Middle East, won't explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?

What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made. In fact, we should step up our financial and material assistance. UNHCR has appealed for $261 million this year to provide for refugees and internally displaced persons. That is not a small amount of money -- but it is less than the U.S. spends each day to fight the war in Iraq. I would like to call on each of the presidential candidates and congressional leaders to announce a comprehensive refugee plan with a specific timeline and budget as part of their Iraq strategy.

As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq. They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible.

It seems to me that now is the moment to address the humanitarian side of this situation. Without the right support, we could miss an opportunity to do some of the good we always stated we intended to do.

Full article (here).

(Video) How Barack Will Defend America

France eyes sending troops to Afghan combat zone

Full article (here).

France may send hundreds of ground troops to east Afghanistan where NATO-led forces are fighting al Qaeda-backed insurgents, Le Monde newspaper reported on Tuesday.

It said the move would be part of a new Afghan policy being worked out by President Nicolas Sarkozy and his advisers.

France has about 1,900 soldiers under NATO's Afghan command, most of them based in relatively calm Kabul, and Le Monde said the fresh troops would be deployed outside the capital.

"Their destination would be zones of potentially fierce fighting, preferably the eastern region of Afghanistan close to the tribal areas of Pakistan," it said.

Early last year, France withdrew 200 special forces soldiers who had been operating under U.S. command in Afghanistan, but Le Monde said Paris was now expected to sanction the return of the special forces. About 50 remained to train Afghan commandos.

A presidential spokesman declined to confirm or deny the newspaper report. "The president has not made a decision. We are in discussion with our partners, inside NATO but not exclusively," he said.

An alliance source said the plan was one of a number of options that France was discussing with allies ahead of an April summit in Bucharest at which alliance leaders will look to give new impetus to the security mission.

Under the plan, the deployment of French soldiers to the east would free up U.S. forces there to go and help Canadian troops fighting insurgents in the south.

War Protester Gets Squashed Under A Car

Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

Full story (here).

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Gaza's Culture of Self-Destruction

Full article (here).

The situation in Gaza is, indeed, “grim and miserable,” as the UN’s Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, noted the other day. Certainly, the Palestinians living in Gaza are struggling under severe economic conditions. There is no doubt that sanctions levied against Gaza inflict hardship and deprivation on the citizens of Gaza. These sanctions include closed borders with both Israel and Egypt, reductions in electrical power and fuel deliveries, and deliveries of food supplies that keep them short of a humanitarian crisis but, by no means, allow for comfortable existence. Yet, it is not the current deplorable economic conditions, the border blockade, nor the effects of the other sanctions that make the situation in Gaza so grim and miserable. These, after all, are recent and temporary measures, creating a temporary state of hardship. No, what makes the situation in Gaza so grim is far more insidious.

It is something that will remain to plague the citizens of Gaza long after memories have faded of the months spent eating a bland diet of staples, of the inability to purchase flat-screen televisions or to spend vacations in the Sinai. It is the very culture that the Palestinians in Gaza have spent so many years carefully crafting that makes their present — and their long-term future — both grim and miserable.

The people in Gaza need to stop and take a good look at the culture and society that they are creating and begin to think hard about how they might begin to undo the damage to their social fabric that is, with every day that passes, increasing. They should begin their social re-engineering not for the sake of their Israeli enemies across the border, nor to increase their standing on the world stage, but rather for their own sakes because inculcating blind hatred, with a murderous twist, against another group has some unintended side effects for the culture that does the inculcating.

When children are raised on a steady diet of hatred, disrespect for human life, and violence, those children grow up to be violent and with no regard for the life, or well-being, of others. And not just for “those” others but for all others, including those within their own society. Parents in Gaza need to ask themselves, “What kind of person will my child grow up to be if I have taught him to celebrate the murder of a 73 year old woman by passing out candy and flowers?” as the children of Gaza did in large numbers recently when two suicide bombers managed to kill an old woman and put her even more elderly husband into intensive care.

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

Full article (here).

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.

But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.

(Video) Hillary mocks Obama

OC Task Force Investigation Finds Anti-Semitism at UCI

Full story (here).

The Orange County Independent Task Force released its Findings and Recommendations (Report), concerning alleged incidents of anti-Semitism at The University of California, Irvine (UCI). The investigation began in February 2007 and lasted approximately one year. Over the course of the investigation Task Force members interviewed, students, faculty and community members and visited the campus on many occasions. Over 80 hours of interviews and numerous documents, articles, and written complaints were used in the compilation of the Report.

Among its findings, The Task Force investigation has concluded the following:

• The existence of: physical and verbal harassment, hate speech directed at Jews by guest speakers, hate events sponsored by the Muslim Student Union (MSU), disruptive behavior on the part of Muslim students when pro-Israeli speakers appear on campus, anti-Israeli classroom environments, and an unresponsive, if not a hostile, administration.

• Hate speakers have targeted “Zionist Jews” at MSU events; that MSU has defiled Jewish symbols, often using depiction of anti-Semitic stereotypes; and that Jewish students were targets of intimidation.

• There has been a lack of response by the administration that has selectively enforced University rules and regulations.

• The Chancellor has refused to unequivocally condemn anti-Semitic speech although other college/university presidents have spoke clearly and decisively against this form of hate speech.

• For the most part, Jewish organizations in Orange County have been ineffective in dealing with anti-Semitism at UCI.

Some of the major recommendations include: UCI should be held accountable for its actions and inaction by community leaders, Jewish organizations, and donors. Students with a strong Jewish identity should consider not attending UCI until tangible changes are made. The Board of Regents should investigate the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs in his capacity as an impartial arbiter of University Rules and Regulations.

On Coming Home...

From a letter sent to a Milblog by a US Army Command Sergeant Major in Iraq:

Something happened in June, I (and many others) don't know what it was, cannot quite put our finger on it, but something changed. Good people in Iraq started to stand-up, good people began to join with us. The back of Al Qaida began to break. We achieved a tipping point of sorts, the Iraqi Security forces, long berated for a lack of ability began to take a pre-emptive role in security operations. Good people starting coming forward and telling coalition forces where the bad guys and their tools of war were hidden. We began to roll-up mid and high level AQI and Special Groups leadership, and the more we did, the more the good people of Iraq came forward with even more information.

There are countless thousands of Iraqi's on the streets of the country from Baghdad to points west and north. 24 hours a day, seven days a week the people of Iraq provide us the freedom of maneuver we have been looking for in our effort to hunt down and capture (or kill) those that want nothing but chaos for this country.

Along the way, the manner and method our troops employed in the operating environment evolved as well. Instead of standing for anyone particular person and or group we began standing for everyone. We planted ourselves squarely in the middle of those who would do one another harm. We became the arbitrators and the honest brokers. We (the coalition), in the eyes of the Iraqi people, became the "go to guys". In their effort to end the violence and create an environment conducive to rebuilding and pursuing a "normal life", the Iraqi people began a grass roots movement of running the evil out and governing themselves. There is a litany of things, large and small that turned the tide in our favor last summer, far too many for me to elaborate on here. Suffice to say it was all contingent on the efforts of our youth and the quality and character of our leadership.

Our men and women committed themselves to the fight every day. When they lost a comrade they mourned the same, donned their armor and weaponry and marched back out onto the streets and fields. While small when compared to previous conflicts, our losses where, in the end, debilitating. Our sacrifices took their toll on our soul(s); we will never be the same.

Full article (here).

The poisonous myth of 'Israeli apartheid'

Full article (here).

Apartheid is the state-sanctioned and -generated degradation of one or more ethnic groups, based on an assumption of racial inferiority. Such a system relies for its implementation on segregation, denationalization and the denial of basic rights. How anyone could seriously equate Israel with such a system defies logic.

Israel is a liberal democracy, guaranteeing civil, religious and social equality to all its citizens -- including Jews, Christians, Muslims, Druze and Baha'0is. Israel's Arab citizens have the right to vote, and are represented by three Arab political parties in Israel's parliament (the Knesset), representing a gamut of views from communism to Islamic fundamentalism. Several newspapers freely represent the views of Arab citizens in a far freer manner than is permitted among the media of Israel's neighbours.

Complete freedom of religion for all is strictly protected in Israel -- unlike in neighbouring countries, which recognize only one state religion, Islam, and even criminalize and persecute the practice of other faiths. Consider, for instance, Saudi Arabia, whose police recently arrested 40 Christians for the "crime" of praying in a private house. Followers of the Baha'is religion, who are persecuted in Iran, are welcomed in Israel, and maintain their central religious institutions in Haifa and Acre. Coptic Christians, who face restrictions in neighbouring Arab countries, enjoy freedom of religion in Israel.

In Israel, every citizen and resident has the freedom to petition Israel's Supreme Court on any suspicion of a violation of basic rights by any governmental or official body. Arabic is an official language, together with Hebrew. All legislation, jurisprudence and official documentation appear in Arabic. Road signs are in Hebrew and Arabic. Films are subtitled in Arabic, Hebrew and Russian. There is an Arab member of the Israeli cabinet and an Arab judge on the bench of the Supreme Court. Senior officers of the Israeli army are both Arab and Druze, including at the rank of General. Arab soccer teams figure highly in Israel's soccer league, and Arab soccer players are part of Israeli soccer teams.

Does any of this sound like "apartheid"?

(Video) American Alienation

I can't tell if this guy is paranoid or prescient. In either case, I enjoyed this.

Warning: it is 10 minutes long and contains some graphic images and adult language.

Unpopular at home, Bush basks in African praise

Full article (here).

Unpopular at home and in much of the world during the last year of his presidency, George W. Bush is basking in rare adulation on his African tour.

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete poured praise on Bush in Dar es Salaam on Sunday, the second day of his five-nation African tour, each compliment applauded warmly by members of the east African country's cabinet.

Although around 2,000 Muslim demonstrators protested against Bush on the eve of his visit, many thousands more cheering, waving people lined his road from the airport on Saturday.

Banners across the route, decorated with Bush's image against a backdrop of Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro, read: "We cherish democracy. Karibu (welcome) to President and Mrs Bush."

Others read: "Thank you for helping fight malaria and HIV." Dancers at the airport and at Kikwete's state house to greet Bush on Sunday, wore skirts and shirts decorated with his face.

Back home, Bush is suffering some of the lowest approval ratings in his seven-year tenure and has been buffeted by criticism of his handling of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the ailing economy.

Not surprisingly he is enjoying the different reception in Africa.

Beaming repeatedly during a press conference with Kikwete, he made a point of referring to his welcome on the streets, which he described as "very moving".

Bush opened his remarks by saying "Vipi Mambo!" before turning to U.S. journalists and adding: "For the uneducated, that's Swahili for 'Howdy Y'all'" --a typical Texas greeting.

Kikwete told Bush: "The outpouring of warmth and affection from the people of Tanzania that you have witnessed since your arrival is a genuine reflection of what we feel towards you and towards the American people."

When the Clock Strikes Midnight, We Will Be Significantly Less Safe

Full article (here).

According to top Democrats, the expiration of the Protect America Act (PAA) when the clock strikes midnight Sunday is no big deal. Our ability to monitor foreign threats to national security, they assure us, will be completely unaffected.

This is about as dumb a talking point as one can imagine. And it is just as demonstrably false.

Think for a moment about Tuesday’s crucial Senate bill overhauling our intelligence law that Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to allow the House to consider before recessing Friday — for a vacation. (Democrats evidently had no time for national security, having exhausted themselves on such cosmic matters as a baseball pitcher’s alleged steroid use and unenforceable, unconstitutional contempt citations in a stale investigation into something that wasn’t a crime and that no one but MoveOn.org cares about any longer).

In a Senate controlled by the Democrats, the bill passed by an overwhelming 2-to-1 margin. To attract such numbers, the Bush administration (as I detailed yesterday) gave ground on critically important issues of executive power and expansion of the FISA court’s role.

Democrats surely did not want to give President Bush this legislative victory, and President Bush certainly did not want to cave on these issues. But both sides compromised precisely because they understood that failing to do so, failing to preserve current surveillance authority, would endanger the United States.

Now, maybe they did it because they didn’t want to be blamed if something catastrophic happened; I prefer to think it was because they felt it their obligation to prevent something catastrophic from happening. But either way, the certainty that a failure to act would mean an exorbitant increase in the odds of catastrophe clearly weighed on both sides.

That is why so many Senate Democrats went along. That is why Democrats in both houses agreed to the PAA in the first place. That is why 34 House Democrats defied their leadership on Wednesday, voting against another temporary extension of the PAA in an effort to force a vote on the Senate bill — which, had Pelosi allowed it to come to the floor, would have become law by a healthy bipartisan margin.

If the expiration of the PAA made no difference, as top Democrats are speciously claiming now, there is not the remotest chance any of those things would have happened.

Berkeley Marine Protest Photo Essay

Here's a sample.

At the height of the siege, hundreds of people surrounded police headquarters. The police were forced to retreat to a defensive perimeter around their own building.

The whole thing can be found (here).

Bill would require California's science curriculum to cover climate change

Full story (here).

Reading, writing and . . . global warming?

A Silicon Valley lawmaker is gaining momentum with a bill that would require "climate change" to be among the science topics that all California public school students are taught.

The measure, by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would mandate that future science textbooks approved for California public schools include climate change.

"You can't have a science curriculum that is relevant and current if it doesn't deal with the science behind climate change," Simitian said. "This is a phenomenon of global importance and our kids ought to understand the science behind that phenomenon."

The state Senate approved the bill, SB 908, Jan. 30 by a 26-13 vote. It heads now to the state Assembly. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken numerous actions to reduce global warming, but he has yet to weigh in on Simitian's bill. Other Republicans in the Capitol, however, are not happy about the proposal.

Some say the science on global warming isn't clear, while others worry the bill would inject environmental propaganda into classrooms.

"I find it disturbing that this mandate to teach this theory is not accompanied by a requirement that the discussion be science-based and include a critical analysis of all sides of the subject," said Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, during the Senate debate.

Al-Qaeda defeated in Baghdad: Iraqi PM

Full story (here).

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki proclaimed on Friday that Al-Qaeda had been routed in Baghdad thanks to a security plan launched a year ago, and would soon be defeated throughout the country.

"Thank God, we destroyed the cells of Al-Qaeda. They have been chased out of Baghdad and this has opened the way for their defeat throughout Iraq," Maliki said at a ceremony marking the launch on February 14 last year of the Baghdad security plan, known as Operation Fardh al-Qanoon (Imposing Law).

"Today our forces are locked in battle against outlaws in Nineveh and we are chasing them," he added, referring to the northern province where Iraqi officials say Al-Qaeda has regrouped after fleeing Baghdad.

Maliki on January 25 announced a "decisive battle" against Al-Qaeda in Nineveh province, and sent troop and police reinforcements to the provincial capital Mosul, which the US military says is the last urban stronghold of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The prime minister thanked "all those who helped make the security plan a success and who saved the country from the miserable situation it was in due to Al-Qaeda's violence and terrorism."

Danish Papers Reprint Muhammad Cartoon

Full article (here).

Denmark's leading newspapers on Wednesday reprinted a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked deadly rioting in Muslim countries two years ago.

The papers said they wanted to show their firm commitment to freedom of speech after Tuesday's arrest in western Denmark of three people accused of plotting to kill the man who drew the cartoon, which shows Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse.

The drawing by Kurt Westergaard and 11 other cartoons depicting Muhammad enraged Muslims two years ago when they appeared in a range of Western newspapers.

Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

The Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which first published the 12 drawings on Sept. 30, 2005, reprinted Westergaard's cartoon in its print edition Wednesday. Several other major dailies, including Politiken and Berlingske Tidende, also reprinted the drawing.

"We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper will always defend," said the Copenhagen-based Berlingske Tidende.

Lions Under a Plane

Lots of Pics from the Big Berkeley Showdown

Pro-Marines on one side. Anti-Marines on the other side.

This site has 5 pages worth of pictures. You know me, I can never get enough pictures of peace protesters.

http://www.protestshooter.com/2008BerkeleyMarinesMorning/

(Video) The Death of Nahoul the Bee

And the story of his successor, Assud, the giant Jew-eating rabbit.

Climate change may kill thousands in UK by 2017

Sounds terrifying.

There is a 25 percent chance that a severe heat wave will strike England and kill more than 6,000 people before 2017 if no action is taken to deal with the health effects of climate change, a report said on Tuesday.

The report for Britain's Department of Health estimated more than 3,000 people could die in an intense summer hot spell in southeast England, with just as many more dying from heat-related deaths over the summer.

Until 2012, when London stages the summer Olympic Games, the odds of thousands dying in summer heat each year will be 1 in 40, the report said, and thousands more could die each year as a result of other effects of global warming and air pollution.

"In terms of conventional thinking about risks to health, a risk of 1 in 40 is high," the report said.

Full article (here).

Picture of an Obama Supporter in Texas

(Video) What the hell were we doing in Hawaii anyway?

I do believe that I have now heard it all.

Al-Qaeda leaders admit: 'We are in crisis. There is panic and fear'

Full article (here).

Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an “extraordinary crisis”. Last year's mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military “created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight”. The terrorist group's security structure suffered “total collapse”.

These are the words not of al-Qaeda's enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province — once the group's stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.

The US military released extracts from that letter yesterday along with a second seized in another November raid that is almost as startling.

That second document is a bitter 16-page testament written last October by a local al-Qaeda leader near Balad, north of Baghdad. “I am Abu-Tariq, emir of the al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sector,” the author begins. He goes on to describe how his force of 600 shrank to fewer than 20.

“We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers,” he says. “Those people were nothing but hypocrites, liars and traitors and were waiting for the right moment to switch sides with whoever pays them most.”

Assuming the two documents are authentic — and the US military insists that they are — they provide a rare insight into an organisation thrown into turmoil by the rise of the Awakening movement. More than 80,000 Sunnis have joined the tribal groups of “concerned local citizens” [CLCs] that have helped to eject al-Qaeda from swaths of western and northern Iraq, including much of Baghdad.

US intelligence officials cautioned, however, that the documents were snapshots of two small areas and that al-Qaeda was far from a spent force.

Toledo Mayor to Marines: Leave downtown

Full article (here).

A company of Marine Corps Reservists received a cold send-off from downtown Toledo yesterday by order of Mayor Carty Finkbeiner.

The 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., planned to spend their weekend engaged in urban patrol exercises on the streets of downtown as well as inside the mostly vacant Madison Building, 607 Madison Ave.

Toledo police knew days in advance about their plans for a three-day exercise. Yet somehow the memo never made it to Mayor Finkbeiner, who ordered the Marines out yesterday afternoon just minutes before their buses were to arrive.

"The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people," said Brian Schwartz, the mayor's spokesman.

"He did not want them practicing and drilling in a highly visible area."

So after a brief stop at a friendly base in Perrysburg Township, the Marines by early evening were back on their way home to Grand Rapids.

"I wish they would have told us this four hours ago," Staff Sgt. Andre Davis said.

Sergeant Davis, who traveled ahead of the five-bus convoy, stepped from his vehicle into downtown about 3:20 p.m. and was told by a city employee that the mayor wanted him and his soldiers packed up and out by 6 p.m.

From a Soldier Serving in Iraq

This was written in response to the deaths of two Navy Seals.

Full article (here).

If you don't support this war I'm calling you out. I've had enough of people sitting in their living rooms watching the lying media and jumping on the bandwagon against this war. Don't ever say to me, "I support the troops, but not the war." You might as well be telling me that I'm committing a crime. You are in effect saying that my cause is unjust and everything I believe in is a lie. I have held my tongue in the past, but I will never allow you to have it both ways again. You cannot support me if you do not support this war. I am this war. It embodies everything that I believe in. If you believe that what we are doing here is wrong then you are in effect supporting the evil we seek [to] destroy. If you believe I'm wrong for trying to stop evil people from taking more innocent lives then I fear there is no hope for you. If you choose to dishonor my service and the sacrifice of my fallen brothers by taking a position against this war you are free to make that choice thanks to guys like Mike and Nate, but don't expect me to sit idly by and bite my tongue while you do it. Do it in my presence and be prepared to try and support your feeble position while I enlighten everyone else on the reality of this war and the nature of the enemy we face. I will ensure that you look like the fool that you are.

The stuff I'm seeing out here you won't see on Oprah Winfrey. I'm seeing really evil people doing really evil things and I'm doing everything in my power to stop them. There's nothing wrong or unjust about that.

The Sun Also Sets

Full article (here).

Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.

To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better "eyes" with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth's climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.

And they're worried about global cooling, not warming.

Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

Tapping reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.

(Video) February at UC Irvine

Let's see who was invited to speak this year...

(Video) Immigration Gumballs

This appears to have been filmed sometime in the 1990s. I think it is one of the most informative and least hysterical presentations I have seen on the immigration debate. It is nearly 10 minutes long, but that is because it attempts to explain and address a complicated situation.

If you look closely, you will see that their projections for when we hit a population of 300 million is pretty darn accurate.

Sen. Kerry Blames Tornados on Global Warming

Full article (here).

“[I] don’t want to sort of leap into the larger meaning of, you know, inappropriately, but on the other hand, the weather service has told us we are going to have more and more intense storms,” Kerry said. “And insurance companies are beginning to look at this issue and understand this is related to the intensity of storms that is related to the warming of the earth. And so it goes to global warming and larger issues that we’re not paying attention to. The fact is the hurricanes are more intensive, the storms are more intensive and the rainfall is more intense at certain places at certain times and the weather patterns have changed.”

Kerry’s assertion tornado activity is related to any type of climate change is questionable based on the writings of at least one meteorologist. Roger Edwards, a meteorologist at the Storm Prediction Center of the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla., has doubts about any global warming and tornado relationship.

“As of this writing, no scientific studies solidly relate climatic global temperature trends to tornadoes,” Edwards wrote on the Earth & Sky Web site in April 2007. “I don’t expect any such results in the near future either, because tornadoes are too small, short–lived, hard to measure and count, and too dependent on day to day, even minute to minute weather conditions.”

Semper Fi, Berkeley

From a US Senator who wants to revoke $2 million in federal earmarks to Berkeley.

The council's resolution sparked an escalation of anti-Marine protests. Code Pink organizer Zanne Joy points to the City Council as justification for the escalation. She said that "anything legal is justified if it succeeds in persuading the Marine Corps to move its recruiting station out of Berkeley." According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Code Pink protesters have been heard shouting at young men who are trying to enter the recruiting station, "You guys are just cannon fodder!" and "They want to train you to kill babies!"

It is sad to see a city like Berkeley moving so far left. Thanks to its elected leadership the city in which, as a young naval officer, the legendary World War II Pacific Theater Commander, Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz established the Naval ROTC in the fall of 1926 is now sadly a shell of its former self.

This is disappointing, but in a republican form of government, it must be up to local voters to change their leadership.

However, this particular case became the business of all Americans when they insulted our troops while coming to the federal government asking for special taxpayer-funded handouts. Over $2 million was secretly tucked away for Berkeley earmarks in the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations bill, projects that were never voted on or debated.

I do not believe a city that has turned its back on our country's finest deserves $2 million worth of pork-barrel projects. So, I will introduce legislation to revoke the funding.

Full story (here).

"Who needs oil? I ride the bus"

"We're trying to remain neutral as possible."

Video of "peace" protesters using force to accomplish their goals.

Code pink
by krs601

The End of the Waterboarding Controversy?

From an op-ed by Andrew C. McCarthy at National Review Online.

Let’s take a step back. Credible reporting — which is not addressed in the attorney general’s letter — indicates that waterboarding has been used on no more than three of the thousands of detainees the United States has held, long and short term, since military operations against radical Islam began over six years ago. Assuming (as I do), that it was used on those three (all top-tier al-Qaeda operatives), the same credible reporting also tells us the tactic has not been used in over four years.

So we did it an infinitesimal number of times, we haven’t done it in years, we don’t currently do it, the regulations in place don’t permit it, and it seems inconceivable that future regulations will alter that.

Is this issue really worth scandalizing ourselves over?

Is it really worth intimidating our intelligence officers with the fear of prosecution and consuming days upon days of the legislative calendar (including confirmation hearings) over waterboarding?

How can it be that people who claim to worry so much about America’s reputation in the world think they somehow advance that reputation by obsessing over something that virtually never happens, and in the process libeling our government as a programmatic torturer?

Full article (here).

(Video) Former Soldier Addresses a Pair of Democratic Congressmen

The congressmen don't appear very appreciative.