Japan's Radiation Plume: Soak It Up, It's Good For You!

In an hysterical media environment, where networks plot to achieve the top ratings by unnecessarily scaring the shit out of the few viewers who actually have faith in them, it takes Ann freakin' Coulter to point out what everyone else is afraid to tell you: That a little bit of radiation is good for the body and soul:

With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that have devastated Japan, the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer.

This only seems counterintuitive because of media hysteria for the past 20 years trying to convince Americans that radiation at any dose is bad. There is, however, burgeoning evidence that excess radiation operates as a sort of cancer vaccine.

As The New York Times science section reported in 2001, an increasing number of scientists believe that at some level -- much higher than the minimums set by the U.S. government -- radiation is good for you. "They theorize," the Times said, that "these doses protect against cancer by activating cells' natural defense mechanisms."

It makes sense. A small dose of radiation - which is all anyone not standing in front of melting fuel rods would likely receive - would likely work in a similar fashion to the common flu shot: Activating the cells to fight back against a potential winter flu by giving them a small dose of the very same virus. Ann gives some examples:

A $10 million Department of Energy study from 1991 examined 10 years of epidemiological research by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health on 700,000 shipyard workers, some of whom had been exposed to 10 times more radiation than the others from their work on the ships' nuclear reactors. The workers exposed to excess radiation had a 24 percent lower death rate and a 25 percent lower cancer mortality than the non-irradiated workers.

In 1983, a series of apartment buildings in Taiwan were accidentally constructed with massive amounts of cobalt 60, a radioactive substance. After 16 years, the buildings' 10,000 occupants developed only five cases of cancer. The cancer rate for the same age group in the general Taiwanese population over that time period predicted 170 cancers.

Read it all, Ann has more....and in doing a little research myself, I discovered that a lot of the fault for the current "radiation hysteria" can be laid at the feet of... the US Government, of course. From a FOX News article in 2005:

A federal research panel last week concluded that there is no safe exposure to radiation. It’s a conclusion based on assumptions about cancer that may be all wrong — and in very costly ways.

Other than the atomic bomb survivor data, in fact, no data support the idea that typical exposures to radiation are dangerous. So how did the NAS panel reach the conclusion that any exposure to radiation is risky?

For the sake of being able to somehow characterize low-level radiation exposures as a risk, the panel simply assumed that because high-level exposures to radiation increase risk of health effects — like the slightly elevated cancer risk observed in the atomic bomb survivors — then any level of radiation exposure is a cancer risk.

The panel employs this assumption even if the radiation is naturally occurring — that is from the ground or universe. This assumption is called the “no-threshold” model of cancer development, meaning the only radiation exposure with zero risk is absolutely no exposure — a state that is obviously impossible to achieve.

Such assumptions often result in stringent regulation that is very costly, but that may not provide any, much less commensurate, health benefits. The regulations limiting human exposure to low-level radiation are not known to have prevented a single health effect in anyone despite decades of use. But they have cost more than $1 trillion in the U.S. alone...

...and have likely killed more people than they have saved.

So when you here the warnings that the radiation plume is heading to your town, give a big middle-finger to the government and mainstream media and put on your shades, go outside, and bask in it.

More likely than not, you'll live long enough to dance on their graves....

UPDATE 3-18: 11 years of nuclear testing in Nevada (1951-1962), gave us the following dispersal spread (click to enlarge):

Via Charlie Martin at the PJ Tatler, who adds "It just struck me that I was born and grew up during this time, in one of the pinkest of the pink areas. That area also has a notoriously low cancer rate."

As I was saying...

UPDATE II: More info in the comments, and a great radiation chart here, giving you some reference points, the next time some loser TV anchor wails about receiving a dose of radiation equal to that of a chest X-ray...

"I'll bet they think this tsunami's about them..."

...with thanks to Carley Simon, of course....

One would think the media would be filled with stories like this, about Japanese nuclear technicians who are essentially committing suicide by manning the crippled nuclear reactors:

Dead men walking.

They're known as the "Fukushima 50," and they're Japan's only hope of avoiding a Chernobyl-like catastrophe.

The men, unidentified technicians and emergency workers, are desperately battling to save potentially millions of their countrymen -- knowing that even if they succeed, they'll likely die from lethal doses of radiation.

Chernobyl workers who stayed at their stations when the Ukrainian reactor exploded in 1986 died within three months of exposure.

Although the workers are dressed head-to-foot in protective body suits, the gear provides little protection against the radiation, which is at four times the level that causes cancer.

"I don't know any other way to say it, but this is like suicide fighters in a war," said Keiichi Nakagawa, a professor at the Tokyo University Department of Radiology.

But that's not a story we've heard much of. Instead, we've gotten a lot of the media reporting on....the media:

On “Today” this morning, NBC News anchor Lester Holt revealed that he and his crew tested positive for small traces of radiation after returning to his hotel from spending time in the field.

Luckily, as Holt explains, the amount of radiation he was exposed to was very small. His shoes, however, will not be coming back to the U.S. after his trip ends.

Poor baby, like getting dosed by an X-Ray machine. He'll still be alive in six months, while the men who he should be reporting on will almost certainly be dead.

But like the recent revolution in Egypt, the story becomes their "heroic" part in an historical event(" some one threw a bottle in my general direction!") rather than reporting the salient facts to an American public who is getting less information than ever from their confused and weak central government.

And speaking of which - if you want to know why our government has got their heads up their asses as far as current events go, this shocking exchange between ABC Jake Tapper and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney regarding unfolding events in Japan should shed some light on the Obama administration's sheer and utter incompetence:

JAKE TAPPER, ABC NEWS: "What is going on over there right now? We have not heard the latest information from the NRC or the Japanese government and apparently there has been something that has happened in the last few hours."

CARNEY, WH Press Secretary: "Well, it is clearly a crisis. There is clearly --"
TAPPER: "-- what is specifically going on?"

CARNEY: "Again, I am standing here at the White House, I think you have reporters in Japan, you have reporters including ones here that could get the technical detailed information on what we know from the NRC, from the Department of Energy --"

"It's up to the media, not the government?" Tapper asked in response to Carney dismissing his question.

"No, no I just referred to government agencies that can provide technical information..." Carney responded.

As the world rapidly unravels before him, Obama appears to be getting his guidance from the media, who feel that the true story is really their adventures overseas, not the dead, dying, destroyed, or dethroned.

The deserve each other, of course. We - and a lot of heroes - deserve better...

Israeli Model Teaches Snake A Lesson...

....no, this is not one of our IDF beauties snuffing out some Palestinian terrorist. This is the story of a real snake, who, when posing with an Israeli model, decided to take a nip at her tit.

But Miss Orit Fox came to the photoshoot armed, like many an Israeli girl. Not with a M-16, but with breasts full of silicone. And apparently, snakes don't like the taste of that one bit:

It should have been an alluring photoshoot between two of nature's beautiful creatures as a model wrapped herself in a snake.

But surgically enhanced Israeli model Orit Fox got more than she bargained for when the massive boa constrictor took objection to her over familiarity and reacted by biting into her breast.


However, it was the snake who came off worse because, while Ms Fox need a tetanus shot in hospital, the reptile later died from silicone poisoning.

Video of the bite is below, man, does it look painful! But props to Orit Fox, who proved yet again to the snakes of the world - both those who crawl on their bellies, and those who have learned to walk upright on two legs - that Israeli girls are not to be f*cked with....

Radiation Fears? Think The TSA, Not Japan...

Because the Japanese are competent, and our government is not:

The Transportation Security Administration announced on Tuesday that the x-ray body scan machines installed at airports nationwide emit 10 times more radiation than previously reported.

While insisting the machines are safe, TSA admitted there was “a calculation error” during previous tests. “Certainly, the errors are not acceptable. It’s not every report. We believe the technology is safe,” TSA spokesperson Sarah Horowitz told Wired. ”We’ve done extensive, independent testing. It doesn’t raise alarms in terms of safety.”

I wonder what the comparative dose of radiation is, say, to someone 10-15 miles outside of Japan's quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant (which, MSNBC tells us, is "a crisis spinning out of control") compared to what the TSA has been dosing us with every time we walk through one of their full-frontal body scanners...

I'll bet the difference is relatively insignificant (but please feel free to correct me). Except Americans are being dosed by their own government - which also can be labeled a "crisis out of control" - as opposed to the Japanese, suffering from a natural disaster.

Our disaster isn't natural, we created it - a government so amok that they either have no idea how much radiation they are forcing their citizens to absorb, or are lying about it. We can fix it, but alas, changing the course of our bureaucratic institutions these days is honestly more difficult than bringing the Fukushima nuclear plant under control.

Which is so sad....how the hell did we get here?

Don't Enter Into Any "Green" Deals With The Government...

...because the government can alter the deal at any given moment, and leave you holding the bag - and the debt - with absolutely zero recourse.

A "green" bet is a sucker's bet, and there's one born every minute. Probably more, though, in Washington, DC:

The District of Columbia is quickly realizing “going green” is easier said than done.

In 2009, the city established an incentive program promoting renewable energy to reimburse residents for installing solar panels on their homes. Now, government officials are telling those residents who participated that the city is too broke to reimburse them.

The program – the Renewable Energy Incentive Plan – which was intended to reimburse residents up to a third of the cost of the solar panels was financed by a special tax levied on resident and business gas and electric bills. Of the hundreds that took the city up on its offer, 51 will be missing out on approximately $700,000 in reimbursements this year alone.

Instead, that money is being used to help close the $188 million budget gap.

Chumps. Never count on getting paid from the government. I laugh at the innocents who list their deduction as "zero", hoping to get a big check back from the government in the spring - maybe you will, and maybe you'll get an IOU, or some "green credits", or 10% off your next purchase of a Chevy Volt.

Remember - your government, like Darth Vader, can alter the deal at any time:

NPR's Ira Glass, In The Echo Chamber...

Ira Glass, host of "This American Life" on NPR, defended his publicly-subsidized network from the onslaught of criticism it has received since the release of videotapes demonstrating their deeply-held hostility to conservative Americans.

Well, if you can call this a defense:

Ira Glass went on NPR's "On The Media" show on Friday to discuss the organization's current public troubles, and questioned why NPR is not responding head on to conservatives' charge that it has a left wing bias.

"I feel like public radio should address this directly, because I think anybody who listens to our stations understands that what they're hearing is mainstream media reporting," Glass said.

And mainstream media reporting has no liberal bias, Ira? I suppose it would seem that way to someone who's never stepped out of the box intellectually, and only hears things around him that echo their own worldview. No wonder that Ira believes the porridge served by NPR, the New York Times, and CNN is "just right" - it's the only kind he consumes...

And of course, if NPR is simply doing mainstream media reporting, then why in the world do taxpayers need to subsidize it? Especially since, as per Ira's own admission, their are private companies doing the same exact job while not suckling at the taxpayer's teet?

What's the matter, Ira? Afraid MSNBC won't pick up "This American Life"? Ironically, I could see FOX making an play for it....

No surprise that a man as blind as Glass would finish up by punching himself in his own eye:

Glass acknowledged that journalists tend to be more liberal than the general public, but he said "that doesn't change what is going out over the air."

I'm sure the fact that, in 2008, the New York Times put out a front page story on John McCain's affair with a lobbyist (which never actually happened, but...) and refused to investigate any of Barack Obama's dealings with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers had nothing to do with the editorial biases of their newsrooms and editorial staff, oh no. That's simply "mainstream media reporting".

Ira Glass is this century's version of Pauline Keal, of the New York Times, who famously exclaimed in 1972 upon Nixon's victory, "How can that be? No one I know voted for Nixon!"

Ira likely doesn't know many people who vote Republican, or Tea Party, or who watch FOX News rather than PBS. It makes him very similar to the rest of the NPR staff, but much less qualified to defend their biases. The man in the echo chamber only hears one voice...

Shocker: Virginia Liberals "Re-District" Out Only Jewish Republican

Yeah, what a surprise that the Virginia Congressional Redistricting Commission, headed up by a left-wing think-tank, would "disappear" the lone Jew:

A consultant to the commission, George Mason University professor Michael McDonald, presented draft congressional-redistricting maps last week. Despite thousands of plan options, McDonald’s maps would carve House Majority Leader Eric Cantor out of his congressional seat.

How curious that an “apolitical” redistricting plan would torpedo the first Virginian and Jewish man ever to serve as House majority leader...

Well, part of it is partisan, as forcing the House Majority Leader out of his seat is a big coup for the Democrats, especially when he is not a mere bomb-thrower, but an articulate and intelligent man, the two qualities that Democrats fear most in their opponents.

And the fact that Cantor is a Jew is not coincidental, either. Democrats save their harshest rhetoric for members of ethnic groups they deem to "own" who dare leave the liberal plantation. Note the boiling hatred for Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman (female), Condi Rice (black and female), Allen West (black), and even Joe Lieberman (Jew, who was disowned for thinking different thoughts rather than having fled on his own). Having Eric Cantor speak forcefully for the right can show Jews that they have an electoral alternative to the increasingly anti-Semitic Democratic party, and thus bleed votes from them. The Democrats cannot allow that to happen.

So Eric Cantor must be destroyed, legally through redistricting if possible, and if not, through smear and innuendo (coming up next, no doubt).

Of course, if you tagged a different type of minority status onto Cantor, the result would be an uproar. Can you imagine the first black Democrats from Virginia being redistricted out in a plan presented by a conservative group? The howls would be heard in Antarctica, as every Democratic party official, elected and otherwise, came out of the woodwork to scream "racism"! With sympathetic and encouraging media coverage, of course.

But "kill" a Jew? Silence from the media, who has absorbed the anti-Semitism of the Democratic party. Maybe this would be a good time for some Republicans to point out the fact that enlightened Virginia progressives are trying to eliminate the highest ranking Jew in COngressional history.

It's an unpleasent game. But two can play at it, and it is long past time to shine a light on some of the Left's uglier practices

The Democrat's "People's Convention": Brought to You By Cap & Trade Lobbyists!

The 2012 Democratic Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina - aka "The People's Convention" - will be getting a $10 million line of credit from Duke Energy (home of "purpose-driven capitalism", as in capitalism that serves Duke's purposes!).

Conflict of interest much? Nah, Duke and the Democrats are on the same page, and it is entitled "Crony Capitalism". Via The Weekly Standard:

Duke Energy is one of the biggest cap-and-trade lobbyists out there, and one of the most active members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.

About half the electricity the company supplies comes from traditional coal-fired plants, the other half comes from nuclear power. Taxing carbon dioxide will make its nuclear portfolio -- which doesn't emit any greenhouse gases -- much more valuable, and most of the companies coal-powered energy plants are in areas where they have a government enforced monopoly. They can just pass the carbon tax on to consumers who will have no choice but to pay higher rates or go without electricity.

Duke also has a growing windmill and green energy portfolio that are profitable through subsidy suckling. Oh and did I mention that Duke Energy's CEO, Jim Rogers, is a former Enron executive?

Well, this is what you get from the folks who use the term "People's" as a prefix. As soon as you here that, hold on to your wallet and what little freedom you have left. I wrote about this a few weeks back:

...while socialists use the word "People's" to connote a system that is managed by the proletariat, the truth is anything but that - it is run for the benefit of those who control the levers of power of the state, with the grunt work (the slave labor) being done by their subjects (not citizens), who are supposed to fill their bellies with pride that the state is "theirs", as opposed to filling it with food, which has either been sold, stolen, or unable to grow at all under incompetent management.

... What I find laughable is the idea that the American people are so stupid, so ignorant of history, that they would actually buy into the idea of a "people's convention" as something that would actually empower them, when it is really all about empowering the Obamas, and their political party.

But then again, the president and his advisers have made it quite clear how dim they believe the average American is....

And the media will have no desire to illuminate the average American as to who is paying for the 'People's Convention", and how they expect to be paid back: With taxpayer money from the same average American who is being convinced that the party's all about him, and it's all free! free! free!

Hopefully the Republicans will shine a light on the skulduggery of Duke and the Democrats. And they'd better not try to pull the same type of crap come their turn in 2012, either...

Nice, huh? Hope you liked it...you paid for it! And will continue paying, and paying....

It's Time For PBS To Get Off The Public Tit As Well...

...as it seems that their news-gathering and websites are equally as left-wing as their sisters at NPR.

True, PBS leaves out the sneer factor that gets the masses so easily enraged with NPR, and substitutes the cute factor, fronting their operation with Big Bird and Elmo. I'm less than impressed, as Hamas uses big floppy man-puppets as well to spread their message of hate.

A little harsh? Hardly. Via Contentions, we learn that PBS, when writing about conservative figures on their Frontline page, hyperlinks their names to a radical leftist site called Right Web ("Tracking militarists’ efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy"), which puts together false, biased biographies with more than a tinge of anti-semitism.

An article on the movie "Iranium" is subtitled "Documentary pushing hawkish Iran posture produced by company with ties to Israeli far right". Check out the links, Michael Leeden is foremost noted as "a Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs", while Frank Gaffney is biographied thusly:

Frank Gaffney heads the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a hardline neoconservative advocacy group that promotes controversial weapons programs, a Likudnik line on Mideast peace issues, and an expansive "war on terror" targeting "Islamofascists" (a popular Gaffney term) throughout the Middle East.

"Jewish Institute"? "Likudnik"? Hmmm....not a coincidence, as another article links to a Right Web biography of The Atlantic's Jeffery Goldberg, who is then described on the header, first and foremost, as an Israeli Defense Forces former corporal . Gasp!

Right Web has every right to exist and spew, of course, but it this the website Frontline should be linking to when offering information about conservative figures? Is this what PBS really believes about conservatives, or is it a well thought-out propaganda war against conservatives waged with taxpayer money? And furthermore, since every biography I've read seems to have its rage heated with more than a wee bit of Jew-hatred, should we take it for granted that this is the worldview of the PBS editorial staff as well?

I do. Thus endeth my donations to this organization. And it is far past time to end the taxpayer subsidies of these clowns as well. Get Oscar and Kermit off of welfare, and on the corporate track - there are plenty of big-name companies that would love to sponsor PBS's children's programming. And there's an added bonus as well: Corporate money is less dirty these days than government money, which has invariably been extorted from an innocent taxpayer who needs it more than Miss Piggy does...

Time for PBS to explain. And get to the hard work of obtaining private funding. They may have to curtail their anti-semetic activities somewhat, but - sigh - such is the price of dealing with the unenlightened...


UPDATE: Related, somewhat: Barack Obama: America's First NPR President

Palestinians: Stabbing 3-Month Old Babies In The Name Of "Resistance"

Sick bastards. I cannot believe we give a penny of our money to these bloodthirsty murders.

I call on the American Left, the J-Street crowd, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, President Barack Obama, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ - my congressman, and a terrorist sympathized par excellence) and all those who pillory the Jews under the code word "Zionists", to watch the video below, which shows exactly what happened to the sleeping Fogel family in Itamar, Samaria, when their home was invaded by two Palestinian terrorists (Are there any other kind ?). And then try and tell me their "resistance" is justified, and based on anything except hate's sake:

WARNING: Extremely graphic (link to video on original site here). But the truth often is....

Rest in peace, Rabbi Udi Fogel (36), wife Ruth (34), 11-year-old Yoav, four-year-old Elad and three-month-old Hada...slaughtered ruthlessly for being Jews, in the 21st century. If you couldn't watch the video, some photos are here.

It would be too much to ask the craven and cowardly Barack Obama to speak out on this - he's been hiding under his desk like a little bitch since the Middle East Revolutions broke out, and certainly one would expect him to morally equivilize this massacre of children with the Jewish crime of building homes in Jerusalem anyway....

But where is the rest of the world? Dare I say...celebrating in their hearts, with the Palestinians?

Gaza residents from the southern city of Rafah hit the streets Saturday to celebrate the terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Itamar where five family members were murdered in their sleep, including three children.

Residents handed out candy and sweets, one resident saying the joy "is a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank."

With the mandatory equivalence:

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said he "clearly and firmly denounces the terror attack, just as I have denounced crimes against Palestinians."

Because Jews always break into Palestinian homes and cut the throats of sleeping babies.

But I will say this: reading the comments (translated from the original Hebrew, so a bit choppy) where this video was posted, it seems as if the Jews have had enough of trying to make peace with their Palestinian "neigbors":

''...what kind of creature can slaughter innocent children ... the thought of such cruelty is unbearable ... .. this is the true nature of our "neighbors" -> Vicious MURDERERS!!

... I always said that making "peace" with the Arabs is like a flower to extend the dog: what will the dog? Smell, maybe eat a petal or two and that's all. Peace is not built for Arabs, they are not a nation but a collection of murderous tribes, who more than a murderer / thief / rapist is dominant. There is no peace at all of our eyes, for these animals is just an excuse for the next opportunity.

...Screaming heart weeps blood vengeance

...Shocking images! It reminds me of the pictures from the Holocaust!

...must revenge. All the families of murderers Haris homes. The State of Israel must

....Arabs understand only force! See what's happening today in the Arab countries,
Gaddafi and his ilk murderers and kill their own people !!!!! Israel must respond with a heavy hand, and of course the world "enlightened" does not respond

...Fable says, "It is better for close than distant relative." Such neighbors, we want as far as possible...

UPDATE: Hamas claims these murders were legal under international law. A pox on both, I say...

Obama Does Libya, European-Style

Daniel Hannan has a great piece in the WSJ today in which he clarifies Barack Obama's ideology quite nicely (and maybe too politely):

Obama would verbalize his ideology using the same vocabulary that Eurocrats do. He would say he wants a fairer America, a more tolerant America, a less arrogant America, a more engaged America. When you prize away the cliché, what these phrases amount to are higher taxes, less patriotism, a bigger role for state bureaucracies, and a transfer of sovereignty to global institutions.

He is not pursuing a set of random initiatives but a program of comprehensive Europeanization: European health care, European welfare, European carbon taxes, European day care, European college education, even a European foreign policy, based on engagement with supranational technocracies, nuclear disarmament and a reluctance to deploy forces overseas.

And maybe this is why Obama seems genuinely surprised when people call him a socialist. He sees his goal as "Europe-izing" the United States, as he sees the overseas version of government as superior to ours (due in no small part to the ever-increasing lack of accountability the EU owes to its population). Of course, most Americans see Europe as "socialism-lite", and don't want to be Brussels' junior partner...

But it is Hannan's last line - "the reluctance to deploy forces overseas" - which makes me think Hannan may be on to something. As the Middle East roils with turmoil, Obama has reacted in the same way Europe has for decades - sending diplomats scurrying about releasing statements about "unacceptable actions", tut-tutting civilian slaughter, and eventually getting back to the business at hand: blaming Israel for the all the world's ills.

How is our inaction playing in Libya? The Dignified Rant gives us a clue:

Sadly, rebels in Benghazi don't understand our new foreign policy approach:

"Help us to become a democratic country," said one banner strung between lampposts and written in English and Arabic.

What are they thinking? It doesn't even matter if the demonstrators want or understand what "democracy" means other than the downfall of Khaddafi (a good short-term goal, to be sure). The point is that democracy promotion is no longer an American goal (most old European states couldn't care less and never did believe Arabs were "ready" for it). Don't they know that we can't impose democracy? Don't they appreciate the benefits of doing it all on their own?

And did they not listen to Obama's Cairo speech, aka the Greatest Speech Even Given? The New Yorker quotes the relevant portion:

“The fourth issue that I will address is democracy,” he said, and continued, “I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.” Then the President paused, apparently expecting this sensible recognition to prompt a round of applause, but there was silence, and he seemed to stumble.

But there is more in this New Yorker article, almost a year old, that is profoundly relevant:

Tom Malinowski, of Human Rights Watch, who had been an informal adviser to the Obama campaign, said, “I don’t think he was aware that the audience both despised George W. Bush and desperately wanted Bush’s help in their cause.”

Better to be despised today and be worshipped for generations, than to be loved for the moment and despised throughout history. Look at George Bush's legacy today, how brightly will he shine in a decade?

One more tidbit from George Packer's New Yorker piece:

Obama, in his Cairo speech and throughout his first year in office, has rightly felt the need to cleanse the air of the arrogance and the folly of his predecessor. There is no more American moralizing or hectoring about freedom, no simplistic division of the world into good and evil. Instead of “with us or against us,” the key phrase in Obama’s foreign policy has been “mutual interest and mutual respect.”

Barely two years after the Cairo speech, and a year after the New Yorker gloated about Obama's new direction, what do the dispossessed of the world cry out for?

An America who will hector about freedom, and America which will call out evil when they see it, and an America who will help those who are willing to fight and die for the very freedoms we hold so dear.

But instead, we have a president who has forfeited that honored, albeit difficult, role in the world, for being part of the "in-crowd" who prefer to do nothing about the globe's problems save patting themselves on the back for their multilateral agreements to do nothing, which, while letting aspiring democracies die, does not risk their popularity. For the moment.

We are Europe now, and the Free Libya forces are dying because of that. How does the rest of the world feel about the role we have abdicated now?

More importantly....how do we feel about it?


UPDATE: Gay Patriot catches the New York Times cheering for Obama's policies here, re-branding his cowardice as "pragmatic-ism". And the feel-good Euro-style circle-jerk goes on...

Japanese Earthquake Caused By Global Warming?

That's what Europe's best and brightest want you to believe. Does it reflect more on how little regard Europe's liberal elite have of the "common man", or is it simply proof that Europe is suffering from a greater "brain drain" then we ever realized?

Representing the European Economic and Social Committee, one Staffan Nilsson gives us this gem:

On behalf of the EESC, I should like to express my sympathy with all the families of the victims in Japan. We stand shoulder to shoulder with all the people now struggling with the unfolding devastating effects of the earthquake in the Pacific region.

....The earthquake and tsunami will clearly have a severe impact on the economic and social activities of the region. Some islands affected by climate change have been hit. Has not the time come to demonstrate on solidarity – not least solidarity in combating and adapting to climate change and global warming? Mother Nature has again given us a sign that that is what we need to do.

Ah...I'm not seeing the connection between atmospheric science and plate tectonics here. But it seems as if Mr. Nilsson is not even trying to make one. It's not about science, or logic, or rationality. It's about a shaman with pseudo-government credentials claiming that the earthquake is a sign and a warning from the Earth gods that we are all in grave danger unless we do exactly as he says, right now...

Like ancient oracles used similar events to call for sacrifices, looting, revolution, and war.

Is it just me, or did European intellect reach its zenith sometime between the 14th and 17th century? The minds of the Renaissance would shudder in horror if they could see the lightweights who have assumed their throne....

You Call That A Protest Dog? Now THIS Is A Protest Dog!

Via Althouse, reporting from war-torn Wisconsin, we get "Union Protest Dog":

Sorry...that is a cute cuddly lab who would rather be out chasing rabbits and playing with little children that being dragged around Madison as an attention-getter for an overweight, unattractive, union slob.

Now this...this is a protest dog.

This is....Riot Dog:

You may not agree with his cause, but you must respect the soldier...read about his exploits at the link above...

Joe Biden Getting His Instructions From Russia?

From his secret bunker underneath his Oval Office desk, Obama appointed Vice President Joe Biden to be his point man on budget negotiations, then promptly sent him off on a world tour, before crawling back into his mattress-fort, where he reportedly resides fetal-style.

With the Democrats screaming for leadership, and the president cowering, Joe Biden has stepped into the breach, and reached out to Republican leadership to talk budget. Reached out with a long arm, from exactly the place most Democratic economic policy seems to be emanating from these days: the former Soviet Union:

At the same time, Vice President Joe Biden, delegated as a top budget negotiator by Obama, pursued a semi-comical second track: reaching out long distance to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s dacha.

Boehner and McConnell were not charmed. Quipped one GOP aide: “The idea of the vice president managing budget negotiations on Capitol Hill from the Russian prime minister’s dacha might seem unrealistic even in a James Bond movie.”

Can't you see the Russkie whispering sweet nothings into Biden's ear about the glories of socialism, government-run medicine, and printing up huge caches of cash, then turning to his comrades and giggling uncontrollably as Biden repeats this advice pro forma?

OK, maybe that didn't happen. But the optics of negotiating budget from deep inside Russia are brutal. But it may beat passing notes underneath the president's desk to a sorry, pathetic man sniveling about the unfairness of it all...

Rep. Keith Ellison: Full of Crocodile Tears...

Boo frickin' hoo (video at the link):

Rep. Keith Ellison, one of two Muslim members of Congress, broke down in tears while delivering his testimony in defense of the Muslim community during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing Thursday.

The Minnesota Democrat ended his testimony with the story of 23-year-old Mohammad Salman Hamdani, a Pakistani-born American who was killed in New York on Sept. 11, 2001 while trying to save victims from the World Trade Center buildings. Before his remains were found near the north tower, rumor spread that he had been involved in the killings.

“His life should not be identified as just a member of an ethnic group or just a member of a religion, but an American who gave everything for his fellow Americans,” he said.



More over at The Corner:

Photographers are jumping over themselves to get a shot of Ellison as he struggles to testify. Muslims, he says, his voice cracking, “are our neighbors, they are us.”...

Ellison had trouble wrapping up his talk, almost at a loss for words, then promptly left the hearing room.

That's your lead, folks! "Muslim lawmaker weeps at Congressional hearings, says 'we are all neighbors'..."

Funny thing is, Keith Ellison didn't always believe in "us" and the "we"...back in the days when he was actively campaigning on the side of hate - in this case, defending Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan - he said the following:

Racism means conspiracy to subjugate and actual subjugation. That means planned social, economic, military, religious and political subjugation of whites. It cannot be intelligently argued that the Nation of Islam is doing this. In fact, blacks have no history of harming or subjecting whites as a class. On the other hand, whites have it written into their very Constitution that blacks shall be considered three-fifths of a person for purposes of taxation and representation of their white owners. Their Constitution also makes provision for the return of runaway slaves. Their constitution [sic] is the bedrock of American law; it’s the best evidence of a white racist conspiracy to subjugate other peoples.

Not our Constitution, not "We" the people...just "theirs". Nothing like identifying lives based on an ethnic group, right, Congressman?

What a hypocrite. But it reminds me of the Passover Seder, where the tale is told of four sons - one wise, one wicked, one simple, and one who is too young to comprehend - who ask questions about the Seder, and why Jews celebrate the Passover. It is the question of the wicked son, and the prescribed response, which is relevant:

What does the wicked son say? "What does this drudgery mean to you?" To you and not to him. Since he excludes himself from the community, he has denied a basic principle of Judaism. You should blunt his teeth by saying to him: "It is for the sake of this that Hashem did for me when I left Egypt. For me and not for him. If he was there he would not have been redeemed."

Separated from the community. As Ellison did to white America. He deserves no more a response to his crocodile tears than the Torah's "Wicked Son"...

Memo to Michael Moore: Bring It, You Fat F*ck !

Bryan Preston, writing at the PJ Tatler, has a few choice words for filmmaker/Democratic activist Michael Moore, who declared "war" in Wisconsin when he didn't like the outcome of the democratic process:

Michael Moore, noted rich union buster who makes his money decrying capitalism to a stupidly receptive leftist audience, declares war. I’m not usually one for playground insults and taunts, but I’ll make an exception in his case.

You want war? Bring it, Lardbutt. You are the biggest talking, good for nothing little piece of Communist filth this country has produced in decades. You suck up to backward brutes and thugs like Castro while you castigate the American engines of the world’s economy. You trash this country and our people and belittle our values every chance you get, you cynical black hole of a human being. The worst words I can think of are too good to use to describe you. You are a buffoon, a hypocrite, and really of no use to civilization whatsoever.

Moore is the 21st century version of Hitler's beloved Leni Riefenstahl. Even worse, I bet Moore would take that as a compliment...

Kudos to Mr. Preston for my second-favorite insult string ever...Camile Paglia still keeps the gold, though...

NPR Sinks Deeper Into Stupid....

....if such a thing were possible. But alas, it is.

From the leader of the enlightened intellectual elite that is NPR, Dave Edwards (Chairman), we get this little nugget on why taxpayer funding for NPR is so vital to our nation:

"It is absolutely true that without federal funding, a lot of our public radio and public TV stations in the system could go dark, and that will happen in some of the smallest communities we serve," he tells the Associated Press. "In some cases, public broadcasting remains that community's primary connection with the outside world."

Perhaps someone should ask the obviously brilliant Mr. Edwards if he knows what year this is. Or better yet, what century this is. Even in the most rural areas of this vast nation, homes are affixed with satellite dishes, receive high-speed internet, and have access to telephones, not to mention radio stations other than NPR.

And really - if there are a few secluded spots in America which are in fact totally cut off from the rest of the world, do we really need to spend half a billion dollars a year of federal money in order to keep them inundated with liberal propaganda?

Seems like Chairman Edwards has no idea of what life is really like in the portions of America that are not Democratic-held big cities. Of course, that is of no matter to any of the bright lights that run NPR; questions about Middle America are generally never on the test.

But if Edwards, Schiller, and Schiller are emblematic of the mindset of NPR - and they certainly seem to be - it is no surprise to see it crumbling to the ground. Not unlike so many of the edifices that liberals attempt to construct on false premises...

Vivian Schiller's Firing: The End of Liberal Hate Speech?

While NPR - in the wake of the recent James O'Keefe video showing them to be an anti-white, anti-Semitic, biased leftist propaganda operation operating on the taxpayer dole - claims the board had accepted (CEO) Vivian Schiller's resignation "with deep regret", it appears the resignation was forced. Good.

NPR seems to have gone rogue under Schiller, starting with the firing of Juan Williams, and Schiller's comments afterwards that Juan should keep his off-the-liberal-plantation commentary between himself and "his psychiatrist or his publicist." The ugly remarks made by NPR executive Ron Schiller over lunch with "Muslims" appeared to be the final straw for the board, who is in fear of seeing their federal funding dry up permanently.

The one great positive that may come out of this is not balanced reporting from NPR - you'd need to burn the entire organization to the ground, sprinkle holy water on the ashes, and bring in a voodoo priest for that to happen - but the fact that the last acceptable targets of hate speech - white males and Jews - might finally get the protection they deserve.

Certainly Ron Schiller's videotaped luncheon was chock full of bile against both groups, with accusations of racism against whites and the old pathetic canard of "media control" applied to the Jews. While these are no doubt taken as granted within the liberal salons (and the newsrooms of the MSM), perhaps now the columnists who blame these two parties for all the world's ills will be left to fulminate in private, rather than being allowed to vent their unsophisticated, unsubstantiated hatred in public.

If so, we might have finally reached a balance in public speech. You are free to say whatever you want, but there are now equal repercussions for insulting whites and Jews as there are for any other racial group. The left might not like it - it seems as if they feel that any past sins of these groups condemns them to "lie back and take it" for eternity - but the condemnation of hate speech cannot be limited to the select few currently targeted for liberal outrage.

Perhaps, as penance, NPR could do a few honest stories on the Tea Party, or a series exposing some of the anti-Semitic libels they themselves helped to encourage. I wouldn't bet a taxpayer's nickle on it, but if there is any truth about their desire to educate their listeners, and if there is any soul left in the organization at all...

New York Times Keeps Unemployment High By Lying About Fracking

Fracking is a new method of recovering natural gas that can lower energy costs and employ tens of thousands. So of course the New York Times is opposed:

The American landscape is dotted with hundreds of thousands of new wells and drilling rigs, as the country scrambles to tap into this century’s gold rush — for natural gas.

But the relatively new drilling method — known as high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — carries significant environmental risks. It involves injecting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, at high pressures to break up rock formations and release the gas.

Other documents and interviews show that many E.P.A. scientists are alarmed, warning that the drilling waste is a threat to drinking water in Pennsylvania. Their concern is based partly on a 2009 study, never made public, written by an E.P.A. consultant who concluded that some sewage treatment plants were incapable of removing certain drilling waste contaminants and were probably violating the law.

Scared yet? Ready to call your State Representative and demand they halt fracking in your state? Geared up to protest in front of the schools of an extraction executive's children? Exactly the response the Times is hoping for with this scare story.

But like many a spooky bedtime tale, this one too is utterly, 100% false, as reported by the Times' spiritual sister, the Washington Post:

Tests of water in Pennsylvania downriver from sewage treatment plants that handle wastewater from natural gas drilling raised no red flags for radioactivity, the state Department of Environmental Protection said Monday.

All of the samples, taken in November and December, showed levels at or below the normal naturally occurring background levels of radioactivity, the agency said. All samples also showed levels below the federal drinking water standard for Radium 226 and 228, it said.

The department said it installed the sampling stations last fall to monitor the impact of Marcellus Shale gas drilling on water quality. The fast-growing industry in Pennsylvania....

So the reference to tainted waters in Pennsylvania is completely, 100% untrue. No correction has been issued by the Times, nor is one expected to be forthcoming, as the paper has reduced itself to a propaganda outfit for the liberal agenda, and no serious thinkers expect anything resembling "the truth" from it anymore.

Interesting that fracking is now the fastest growing industry in Pennsylvania. Interesting too that New York's Governor Cuomo Jr. has just appointed one Joe Martens as state environmental head, a man who has come out as anti-fracking on a number of occasions.

With thousands of new fracking applications pending in Pennsylvania, it looks as if even more j0bs and tax revenue will be flowing to the Keystone state, making New York's politicians look increasingly short-sighted and stupider than usual. Is the Times trying to pre-empt such a realization by the public by printing bald-faced lies about the process? Or are they so devoted to a carless, high-speed-rail-to-nowhere future for America that they are willing to tell whatever falsehoods are necessary to enact it?

Either way, Pennsylvania does not appear to be listening. Which seems to be the case for much of the mainstream media, as their leftist hysterics are tuned out by a population increasingly concerned about seeing and hearing realistic solutions for their future.

I don't think lying about about basic facts is going to help the media reverse that trend...

Conspiracy: Did Global Warmists Sabatoge Climate Satellites? And Was Obama Involved?

Rand Simberg has an interesting theory. He'll be the first to admit it is far-fetched, but if you told me a few years ago we would elect a full-fledged Socialist as president of the United States, and the media would fall in line directly behind him, well...

We lost a $424 million dollar climate satellite last week - Glory - when it failed to properly detach from the Taurus launch system. Hey, in space, sh*t happens. But when it happens twice, well...in space, no one can hear you sputter:

Just a little over two years ago, on February 24th, 2009, a Taurus assigned to deliver the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) met exactly the same fate, and the two lost satellites are probably sitting on the ocean floor not far from each other. After that failure, OSC conducted an investigation to determine its cause. Apparently, that investigation failed as well, because if they had discovered and fixed the problem, it’s unlikely it would have happened again on Friday.

The mission for both satellites were identical:

These two satellites were designed to take human judgement out of the monitoring and modeling loop, to provide direct and unbiased global sensor data on things such as carbon levels, clouds, irradiation, and other factors that are crucial to understanding the planet’s climate and its variability.

And who might be negatively affected by an unbiased report showing the Earth is not getting warmer? I don't know, ask any one of the thousands of groups obtaining billions and billions of dollars (and Euros) in "climate change" research money. Or ask any of the powerful "climate czars" out there (and it seems as if every nation has one) if they are willing to sacrifice their careers on the alter of the truth...

So there are plenty of people with a motive. Simberg calls the task of sabotage here a "James Bondian challenge", but knowing how fanatical the global warmists are, and knowing how deeply embedded they are in government projects, how hard would it really be for one warmist to wink while the other climbed on the launchpad and tightened a few bolts, making release impossible? May, if you think Julian Assange gets a ton of chicks with his escapades, imagine what kind of tail these guys could score...

I will throw out one more suggestion, one possible culprit. Who is the biggest global warmist on the scene right now, with the most political power? Which person has refused to let America drill for oil even as we thirst for it, lacking any other real alternatives? Who is adamant about using global warming as an excuse to get cars off the road and move folks onto "high speed rail systems"? Who is sitting back and smirking as gas prices skyrocket while refusing to act, seeing it all play into a master plan to force a "green economy" on his nation?

Barack Hussein Obama, that's who. Among the many things he cannot afford, one would be The Truth, as any proof the planet is not warming would put the kibosh his plan to convert America to a "green" economy, destroy what little credibility he has left, and likely leave him open to either impeachment or charges of criminal negligence.

So a little whisper to a few men who simply obey orders, and Glory goes to Davey Jones' locker. Along with the truth....

Hey - it's not as if he hasn't done it before...