December 11, 2009

Horrors! NT Times Slams CIA/Blackwater for... Poor Project Managment Skills

The New York Times is still deeply involved in fighting the ghosts of President's past, trumpeting the headline, Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret Raids by the C.I.A.

Considering the hype, I was expecting something explosive—maybe they helped snatch potential terrorists off the streets of Cairo, or maybe even here in the U.S.—or at least something mildly titillating.

Instead, the Times delivers this:

Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.

Really? This is the big story? While the confirmation that Blackwater operatives might have participated in raids in combat zones is newsworthy, it isn't exactly surprising, is it? That they've also escorted detainees being transported from one location to another is frankly boring.

But maybe there's more too this story than the lede suggests.

The raids against suspects occurred on an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, with Blackwater personnel playing central roles in what company insiders called "snatch and grab" operations, the former employees and current and former intelligence officers said.

Now, that is a bit more interesting. They were engaging almost nightly, and played central roles. The C.I.A. partnering with mercs... sounds like a thousand B-rated action movies, but hey, I like those.

Let's see what else they've got.

Several former Blackwater guards said that their involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred. Instead of simply providing security for C.I.A. officers, they say, Blackwater personnel at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.

Okay, NYT. You had me, and then you lost me.

If I understand this right, the Blackwater guys weren't originally a planned part of the raids, but were there playing security for the C.I.A. guys much as they did the State Department. At some point, there was the need for an extra active participant or more in the raid, and the Blackwater guys, being former military and there were the obvious and logical choice to step in.

I can see a logical (and quite human) progression from being an impressed team member who stepped in as part of his overarching mission to protect his principle (which seems to arguably still be within the scope of his assignment), to the more murky and politically problematic normalized use of Blackwater guards in these missions. There is certainly what the project managers among us with recognize as "scope creep," but the Times still isn't giving us much meat. Were the guards involved in overwatch roles, setting up a perimeter? Or were they intimately active in the actual door-kicking, room-clearing, Tango-bagging searches themselves? If so, to what extent? Did they shoot anyone the shouldn't have? Did they shoot anyone, at all?

The Times doesn't tell us. That seems to be a very important distinction to make if the newspaper is going to level charges of wrong-doing. Lacking that, the story seems to fall flat.

Indeed, a close reading of the story leaves the reader more perplexed than informed. The Times writers certainly set a dark and ominous tone, but what they delivered was anti-climatic.

Other than vague insinuations of wrong-doing and the rehashing of historical events involving the company—stories the paper has already covered ad nauseum—there seems to be very little actual substance in what the authors present .

Scope creep? Really? That is the big story?

If I didn't know better about the Times stellar reputation for politics-free, objective reporting, I might be tempted to offer up an allegation of my own. If I were so inclined, I might suggest they were offering up a red herring to their readers... perhaps to distract them from the sort of things the editors might not want their readers thinking about.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:09 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 10, 2009

Editor & Publisher Leads By Example

The unreadable and reliably-biased editorship of Greg Mitchell comes to an end.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:58 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Speech

I thought President Obama did a stellar job reciting his Nobel Peace Prize speech in Oslo today, and that Presidents Clinton and Bush did an excellent job writing it.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:50 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

E.J. Dionne Gets His Stupid On

It is usually so depressingly easy to pick apart the pro forma op-eds from Washington Post columnist E.J Dionne that it isn't any fun at all to make the effort, but since his latest, Beyond the NRA's absolutism, is pre-demolished by an article I already wrote last week and the effort is minimal, I may as well go ahead and make the effort.

Dionne complains that a survey of the National Rifle Association's membership found that members polled by Frank Luntz actually went against the NRA's official position on a number of issues.

In his survey of 832 gun owners, including 401 NRA members, Luntz found that 82 percent of NRA members supported "prohibiting people on the terrorist watch lists from purchasing guns." Sixty-nine percent favored "requiring all gun sellers at gun shows to conduct criminal background checks of the people buying guns," and 78 percent backed "requiring gun owners to alert police if their guns are lost or stolen." Among gun owners who did not belong to the NRA, the numbers were even higher.

On the surface and without reflection, these all superficially sound like reasonable ideas and I completely understand why most people would agree.

But if you take away someone's right to purchase a firearm for being on a terrorism watch list, you just tipped off that potential terrorist that he is under investigation. You've just helped the terrorist. The counterpoint of that, that civil libertarians have been harping on since early in the prior administration, is that these lists are wildly inaccurate, with even Senators being erroneously tagged a s terrorists in federal lists. Compound that with the fact Americans hate to see a citizen's rights denied without the due process of law, and you have a host of very good reasons for the NRA to dig deeper and oppose an idea that sounds good as a theory, but which is horrible in practice.

Likewise, while I would like to see all gun sellers at gun shows be required to follow the laws that FFL dealers do, including requiring a NICS background check, I know that such restriction would be a fig leaf. Non-dealers would still be able to sell guns outside of the show with no restrictions at all, and no felon would be significantly inconvenienced.

And while I would certainly hope that a citizen would report a stolen weapon, I find the idea of the government compelling citizens to report stolen property of any kind offensive, and I fail to see what reporting a gun as stolen with have any impact on what the criminal does with a stolen gun. It is—again—a law that enables politicians to claim they "did something" without any real benefit.

But what really amuses me about Dionne's whining column is when he shows the innocence of a child—one not burdened with being academically gifted—when he bleats propaganda from the front group, Mayors Against All Guns.

NRA members also oppose the idea behind the so-called Tiahrt amendments passed by Congress. Named for Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), the rules prevent law enforcement officials from having full access to gun trace data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and require the FBI to destroy certain background-check records after just 24 hours. Talk about handcuffing the police.

The mayors' poll offered respondents this statement, antithetical to the Tiahrt rules: "The federal government should not restrict the police's ability to access, use, and share data that helps them enforce federal, state and local gun laws." Among NRA members, 69 percent agreed.

As it turns out, the group—largely self-financed by anti-gun New York RINO Michael Bloomberg—blatantly lies about the Tiahrt Amendment, and what it does, while also obfuscating the fact that the BATF and Fraternal Order of Police want the law kept in place to protect the lives of police officers and informants.

I'm having a hard time to find who is more repulsive here. Is it Dionne for his intellectual laziness, or Bloomberg for his continued dishonesty?

It's a big world.

I think we have the space to revile them both.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:24 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Thank God for Incompetence

A would-be murderer missed his teacher twice before jamming an almost unjammable gun:

A community college student was upset about his grades when he walked into a classroom and fired two shots at his professor before his new rifle jammed, police said Wednesday.

Jason M. Hamilton, 20, was unable to continue shooting at mathematics professor Tatyana Kravchuk, who ducked behind a desk and was not hit, Prince William County police Maj. Ray Colgan said. No one was injured.

"Probably what prevented a further tragedy was that the gun jammed," Colgan said.

Hamilton bought the Marlin .30-06 bolt-action rifle Monday at a Dick's Sporting Goods store near the campus, police said.

There isn't any political angle to this story, just a failed human being looking to take out his frustration on someone else, unsurprisingly finding he's incompetent at that as well.

I suspect, however, that he'll excel as a prison girlfriend.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:38 AM | Comments (25) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ice Rubes Upset With Obama, But They Have Only Themselves to Blame

Just the latest in along line of arrogant gaffes:

"The American president is acting like an elephant in a porcelain shop," said Norwegian public-relations expert Rune Morck-Wergeland. "In Norwegian culture, it's very important to keep an agreement. We're religious about that, and Obama's actions have been clumsy. You just don't say no to an invitation from a European king. Maybe Obama's advisers are not very educated about European culture, but he is coming off as rude, even if he doesn’t mean to."

It isn't that complicated to understand. When someone is given an award or honor they clearly don't earn, it holds little meaning for them—it is a devalued trinket, and little more.

The Nobel committee whored itself to the unearned image of a political pop-star.

They do not deserve to be surprised or offended when he acts like one.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:15 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 09, 2009

Howl

If you have some time to kill, you could amuse yourself by watching various left wing bloggers and pundits try to undermine Sarah Palin's op-ed discussing the politicization of climate change science that appears in today's Washington Post.

The Op-ed, titled "Copenhagen's political science" contains what appears to be a few rhetorical embellishments and minor factual inaccuracies based upon what we now know, but overall, is more or less accurate.

Climategate and questions about the validity of data sets maintained and possibly manipulated by several other research gatekeepers should be taken very seriously, and the raw data reexamined and opened to public review. Instead, climate change scientists have conspired to hide their data, and in the case of the East Anglia CRU, "lost" their raw data, a very improbable claim according to career scientists.

Likewise, the code for the CRU's climate modeling software was exposed in the Climategate leak, and reveals that the the modeling of temperature trends was all but fraudulent, and compromised repeatedly by manual "adjustments" designed to provide advocates of anthropogenic global warming the manufactured evidence they desired.

The outrage on the left was loud and predictable.

Alan Colmes claimed the op-ed was "false and misleading," but instead bogged down in minutia. Perhaps Palin was incorrect in claim that AGW advocates deliberately destroyed data, but those scientists were forced to admit admit the raw data was destroyed. The rest of his "evidence" includes an ad hominem attack from a former Post correspondent and an attempt at obfuscation by a left-wing think tank over the damage cap-and-trade would do the to economy. The later still included an admission that Palin was essentially right on main basic point, that cap-and-tax would cost American jobs.

Think Progress also screams in indignation, but does no better a job of explaining why admittedly polarized and deceptive practices lead to science that should be trusted.

Taylor Marsh repeats similarly unimpressive arguments, and quite unscientific claims that climate change is leading polar bears to cannibalism (simultaneously, other advocates complain that the bears are in danger of extinction even as their population grows).

A survey of progressive blogs responding to Palin's op-ed seem to focus primarily on variations of the argument that:

• the data is accurate and unaltered, but doesn't need to be released to the public
• that the scientists involved have unimpeachable integrity, even though they admit in private emails to attempting to manipulate peer review and data to achieve desired results (which is why the CRU's head has stepped down and others in the cabal are under investigation)
• the data models are accurate, even though programmer's notes in the CRU code reveals it to have been manually corrupted to achieve specific results, thereby corrupting an other models that use the CRU's code or data, as apparently all other significant models used by the United Nations apparently do

If critics of anthropogenic climate change are correct, then billions of lives will be affected and trillions of dollars wasted for a minimal or non-existent impact to the natural process of climate change.

It is therefore only logical to open the raw data to public scrutiny outside of the closed enclaves of pro-AGW theorists so that independent scientists and statisticians can validate the data and conclusions drawn thus far.

If supporters of anthropogenic climate change are correct, then billions of lives will be affected and trillions of dollars must be spent for the most effective impact to reversing anthropogenic climate change.

It is therefore only logical to open the raw data to public scrutiny outside of the closed enclaves of pro-AGW theorists so that independent scientists and statisticians can validate the data and conclusions drawn thus far, in order to establish the best policies and procedures to make sure we do things correctly.

Those that still argue that the science is settled and insist that we must act now are not looking for the best solutions for mankind or the planet. They are opportunists drumming up fears based upon uncertainty, motivated by political or financial gain. They are the ones now howling the loudest, fearing that their mad dash will come to naught.

Such souls should be watched, monitored, investigated, and sentenced appropriately, regardless of station.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:30 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 08, 2009

Krauthammer: EPA Totalitarianism May Leave A "Revolution on the Administration's Hands"

Great. I'd hate to think Americans have been hoarding cases of ammunition and pallets of "assault rifles" for nothing.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:10 PM | Comments (29) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Marcellus Was Right

Something is rotten in the state of Demark:

The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.

The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as "the circle of commitment" – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.

The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol's principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.

What the leak to the Guardian reveals is that the Obama administration, the Brown government, and unknown co-conspirators know that the Climategate emails and other revelations have severely damaged the credibility of the cause of anthropogenic climate change. They are now fearful that they would fail to ram through the radical changes that they originally desired, and are instead focused on building a coalition of rich nations to adopt a still-radical but less-aggressive agreement that quite frankly guts the support that developing nations that thought they stood to gain from "Hopenhagen," while significantly undercutting their influence at the same time.

But the so-called "Danish text" is far more damning than even the Guardian lets on.

It conclusively shows that the nations involved in preparing that document don't actually believe that anthropogenic global warming is a threat. If they did, they wouldn't secretly be preparing a document that does less than what their so-called "settled science" says is the absolutely minimum necessary to avoid a global catastrophe.

They're charlatans, and this document is the smoking gun that unmasked anthropogenic climate change as a cynically-motivated bid for power, and nothing more.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:02 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Obama's Prestige, Job Approval Sinking Fast

And down she goes:

President Obama's job approval rating has fallen to 47 percent in the latest Gallup poll, the lowest ever recorded for any president at this point in his term.

The new low comes as Obama enters the home stretch in his push to enact his signature initiative, an overhaul of the nation's health care system, and escalates America's involvement in the Afghanistan war.

That's only a fraction of his problems.

As Obama's blind faith in the anthropogenic climate change cult threatens to decimate what remains of our economy, expect his approval to dive even further beneath the waves. Resistance will deepen against his Administration's attempts at totalitarianism.

It's just starting to get ugly.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:54 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Stay Classy, Google

I was mildly irked that Google let December 7 pass by without any reference to the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that plunged us into World War II, but in and of itself, it wasn't a huge deal. Many Web sites chose not to cover the anniversary (including this one), and that is simply a matter of choice.

But when you skip Pearl Harbor, and the very next day celebrate the birth of E. C. Segar—the creator of Popeye—it comes across as something of a slap in the face to those who fought and died in our first battle of the Second World War.

Corporate marketing departments dole millions in payroll every year to protect their brands. I can only wonder what kind of message Google thought they were delivering here.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:45 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Beta-Male Throws Tomatoes at Palin, Hits Cop Instead

What kind of outcome did this loser expect?

A man was arrested for throwing tomatoes at Sarah Palin during her book signing on Monday at the Mall of America.

Jeremy Olson, 33, allegedly threw two tomatoes from the second balcony, however did not come close to hitting Palin.

Bloomington Police report that Bloomington Commander Mark Stehlik was struck in the face with one of the tomatoes and may face charges for assaulting a police officer. Olson was booked at the Bloomington jail. He was arrested for suspicion of assault and disorderly conduct.

Even as a best-case scenario, this guy hits Palin with some produce and still ends up in jail. Not a very bright guy.

I'll be very interested to discover if Olsen's attack had political motivations, or if he was just some nut looking for a few moments of infamy.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:24 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 07, 2009

Nuke-Crazed Dwarf Claims America is More Powerful Than Islamic Jesus

At least that is what Ahmadinejad is claiming between his "treatments" at Tehran's Madhi Ali Small Engine Repair and Psychiatric Institute to Dubai-based Al Arabiya.

Ahmadinejad reportedly claims he has documented evidence that the U.S. is blocking the return of Mahdi, the Imam believed by Muslims to be the savior.

"We have documented proof that they believe that a descendant of the prophet of Islam will raise in these parts and he will dry the roots of all injustice in the world," Ahmadinejad said during a speech on Monday, according to Al Arabiya.

"They have devised all these plans to prevent the coming of the Hidden Imam because they know that the Iranian nation is the one that will prepare the grounds for his coming and will be the supporters of his rule," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

Ahmadinejad continued the rant by claiming there have been plots by both the West as well as countries in the East to wipe out his country, according to Iranian news Web site Tabak.

"They have planned to annihilate Iran. This is why all policymakers and analysts believe Iran is the true winner in the Middle East," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the site. He also alleged that foreign nations seek to control Iran's oil and natural resources.

For those of you not familiar with Ahmadinejad's religion, he belongs to a radical Shia sub-cult that even camel-sex-approving Ayatollah Khomeini thought was nuts. The mad dwarf's belief is that his messiah will only return after the world is burned in a cleansing fire, and somehow America is blocking their trip to Paradise. If it sounds to you like someone is laying the groundwork for a mass suicide to put Jonestown to shame, then you are on the right track.

When you understand their belief system is premised on triggering a nuclear war that obliterates their country in order to jump-start their End of Days and trip to Paradise, then you understand why Iran's fanatical leaders are so driven to obtain nuclear weapons.

It also showcases why our ignorant President is running us full-speed towards a nuclear war with his failure to even attempt disarming them preemptively with all necessary measures. Cowardice always leads to greater casualties than standing up for what is right.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:10 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Obama's EPA Declares Naturally-Occurring Air Gases Are "Pollutants;"
Asserts Sweeping Power To Regulate Every Aspect of American Life

These radical left-wing zealots constitute a clear and present danger to our way of life:

The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded greenhouse gases are endangering people's health and must be regulated, signaling that the Obama administration is prepared to contain global warming without congressional action if necessary.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson scheduled a news conference for later Monday to announce the so-called endangerment finding, officials told The Associated Press, speaking privately because the announcement had not been made.

In short, the unelected Lisa Jackson—with Barack Obama's blessing—has just declared herself to be more powerful than Congress, laying the groundwork for the Obama Administration to dictate business emissions, vehicle use, energy use, punitive taxes or penalties and even the kind and numbers of livestock that can be raised. Frankly, this declaration would seem to leave the EPA as the most powerful part of the federal government not specifically trained in how best to kill people.

This is underhanded, anti-democratic, and a serious threat to our economy, our way of life, and standard of living.

By the way, Lisa Jackson, you produce CO2 every time you exhale. Be a leader.

You stop first.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:22 PM | Comments (25) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Let's Put That Treason Charge Where it Belongs

Late last month Andrew Breitbart earned the ire of a couple of excitable left-wingers when he tweeted:

Capital punishment for Dr James Hansen. Climategate is high treason.

If you've been hiding in a cave for much of the past few years, Hansen is the chief climate change evangelical leader at NASA, and a serial contributor to the belief system of the climate change cult.

Now, those who got infuriated with Breitbart did so because they did what lefty bloggers typically do: they exaggerated Breitbart's tweet and focused on the capital punishment part of it and utterly ignored that charges of high treason lead to a trial, and it is the result of the trial that can lead to capital punishment.

Was Breitbart guilty of a little hyperbole? Perhaps, but certainly less than it took for those lefty bloggers to start screaming that Breitbart tweet was attempting to incite Hasen's murder by vigilantes.

The thing is, Breitbart may be on to something. If we have learned anything in recent weeks, we have learned that the "science" underlying claims of climate change was highly politicized and almost certainly corrupted by scientists that willfully doctored data to provide an end result they had already predetermined.

In the immediate-term, this constitutes massive fraud. Multiple communications from multiple climate change scientists also strongly support the case for criminal racketeering, and RICO investigations in the United States and equivalent investigations in other countries. The investigations will not only presumably indict the researchers, but journalists, activists, and politicians that conspired with them when they either knew the data was purposefully corrupted, or when they should have expected it was fraudulent.

The international climate change conference in Copenhagen that started today should also be considered as the basis for treason charges for any signatory of any treaty that comes out of the meeting in the face of overwhelming evidence that the basic science of climate change is completely compromised and represents a threat to national security no less dire than espionage, no less dangerous than a terrorist attack.

Andrew Breitbart had the right idea when he tossed out the idea of trying those responsible for their roles in climate change fraud, but Hansen and other scientists are powerless to actually cause any real damage, and should instead face only prison sentences if they are indeed guilty as it appears. Not, the weighty charge of treason will fall entirely upon the shoulders of the politicians attending Copenhagen with a dream of establishing more control and restraints over the lives of their people.

Politicians that embrace Copenhagen's rush to judgement amid the recent and ongoing revelations will deserve charges of treason if they willfully ignore the unmasking of scientific fraud to commit a political swindle. If they are willing to betray their nations, they deserve to be placed on trial and potentially forfeit their lives.

Nothing More.

Nothing Less.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:06 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Did Obama Administration Try to Silence NPR Reporter?

Executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network's top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network's political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said.

According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR's executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network's supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.

At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that she'd seen no significant change in Fox's programming and planned to continue appearing on the network, the source said.

NPR’s focus on Liasson's work as a commentator on Fox's "Special Report" and "Fox News Sunday" came at about the same time as a White House campaign launched in September to delegitimize the network by painting it as an extension of the Republican Party.

So NPR—a reliably left-leaning organization—has a problem with Liasson's appearances on Fox News—which she had been doing for a decade—at precisely the same time that the Obama Administration was trying to destroy the network's credibility.

The real question here is whether someone in the Obama Administration asked Elving and Meyer to pressure Liasson to leave Fox News, and if such influence is unethical or illegal.

I know... we can ask the Justice Department to investi—

Dang. Never mind.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:37 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

HuffPo: Palin is a Racist, or Something

Sarah Palin must really scare the crap out of Ariana Huffington. Really... is this the best they have?

Palin, though notoriously ill-traveled outside the United States, did journey far to the first of the four colleges she attended, in Hawaii. She and a friend who went with her lasted only one semester. "Hawaii was a little too perfect," Palin writes. "Perpetual sunshine isn't necessarily conducive to serious academics for eighteen-year-old Alaska girls." Perhaps not. But Palin's father, Chuck Heath, gave a different account to Conroy and Walshe. According to him, the presence of so many Asians and Pacific Islanders made her uncomfortable: "They were a minority type thing and it wasn't glamorous, so she came home." In any case, Palin reports that she much preferred her last stop, the University of Idaho, "because it was much like Alaska yet still 'Outside.' "

Wow.

So in the worst case scenario, Palin went to a place where the culture and people were radically different than what she was accustomed to, found it uncomfortable, and wanted to leave for someplace where she felt more at home. Outrageous.

According the Southern Poverty Law Center, Palin would like have had a good reason to feel uncomfortable, considering the violent prejudice of natives towards non-natives, whites in particular. A tall, pretty white 18-year-old female completely unexposed to the culture would have been quite a target, don't you think?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:33 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 06, 2009

Curtains for Obama?

Injured British soldiers refused to meet with Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he came to visit them at a hospital because of complaints that his government doesn't support troops fighting in Afghanistan. Those unable to physically leave their hospital beds requested for their privacy curtains to be drawn shut.

After President Obama's speech at West Point where he promised to implement a surge before self-imposed defeat, will American soldiers and Marines wounded in the conflict give their coldly-calculating Commander in Chief the same treatment?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:13 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 05, 2009

Obama: The Climate Change Denier and Threat

As Barack Obama commits to heading to a climate change summit despite strong evidence of scientific fraud, it certainly appears that denial is his course:

The controversy swirling around the leaked e-mails of climate scientists apparently trying to downplay data and exclude dissenting opinions has led to calls for President Obama to skip this month's climate summit in Denmark until the e-mails can be investigated.

Instead, the White House announced Friday that Obama was doubling down on his commitment to the summit's goals and moving his visit later in the month, hoping it will secure a "meaningful" agreement.

The scandal being referred to as "Climate-gate" has rallied global warming skeptics, who say the threat is exaggerated -- let alone caused by humans. In some of the e-mails stolen by hackers and posted online, scientists at Britain's University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit appear to discuss hiding or deleting data that may contradicts global warming claims. Others discuss ways of keeping competing research out of peer-reviewed journals.

While deniers have repeatedly claimed that the "science is settled" the simple fact of the matter is that the President's own science advisor has some of his emails disclosed in the East Anglia CRU scandal, the CRU's head has had to step down, other researchers (including at least one in the United States) are under investigation, the code of the CRU's data model exposes it as clearly being compromised, and the integrity of the raw data being used by NASA is also being called in question.

Not only is the science not settled, it now appears that the scientific process was entirely corrupted and the process of peer review politicized.

No credible person can now claim that the science is settled, and any objective person would have to agree with the UK's Met Office that the existing value-added data is worthless and that the raw data and raw data alone must be re-examined, a process that will not be complete before 2012.

But our President is not an objective one. His is a radical left-wing ideologue, and man-made climate change is a matter of theological faith for him. For Barack Obama, compromised or even blatantly falsified data is irrelevant. He is as committed a zealot as Al Gore, and addicted the the thought of the control he can exert over Americans if he can simply ram through his agenda... facts or fraud be damned.

Barack Obama does not have the best interests of the United States at heart... and that makes him dangerous to our nation's future, not a potential savior of it.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:52 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Earning the Reputation of a Bird-Cage Liner

What do you get when you let a ideologically driven sensationalist with an economic interest in rabble-rousing use a suspected fraud as his key source of information?

Why, an article in The Nation, of course.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:18 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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