SUNDAY,  DECEMBER 6,  2009

THE COPENHAGEN EXPERIENCE - AT 8:10 P.M. ET:  Just read this, from London's Telegraph:

On a normal day, Majken Friss Jorgensen, managing director of Copenhagen's biggest limousine company, says her firm has twelve vehicles on the road. During the "summit to save the world," which opens here tomorrow, she will have 200.

"We thought they were not going to have many cars, due to it being a climate convention," she says. "But it seems that somebody last week looked at the weather report."

Ms Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand," she says.

"We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden."

And the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? "Five," says Ms Jorgensen.

It tells us something about the attitudes of the "environmentalists" who will attend.  "Environmentalism for thee, but not for me."

And this:

The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports – or to Sweden – to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers.

Let us be sickened.  And yet, let us praise the professional enviros for doing more for the limo and private aviation industries than any group in history.

Yuch.  Double yuch.

I'd make it a triple yuch, but I don't want to leave too big a yuch footprint.

December 6, 2009   Permalink  

DID WE THINK WE'D SEE THE DAY? - AT 7:48 P.M. ET:  Well, yes.  The left is starting to turn on Barack Obama.  You see, he won't follow every item in the leftist liturgy.  The New York Times reports on the latest episode:

It looks like President Obama is unlikely to get the Nobel Peace Prize without the occasion being marked by protests. At least one antiwar group is already calling for a midday march to the U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Station in New York’s Times Square to coincide with the award ceremony in Oslo City Hall on December 10, the date on which Alfred Nobel died.

Days before the event protesters were already handing out leaflets headlined: ‘You Don’t End a War By Sending More Troops! Stop the Occupation of Afghanistan.”

Another group has already posted an online petition criticizing it as an “absurd” and “premature” decision.

What is really absurd here is the simplistic description of these groups as "antiwar."  That's a throwback to Vietnam-era language.  The mainstream media, even then, absolutely refused to go beyond "antiwar," despite overwhelming evidence that many groups were, quite obviously, pro-Communist.  You know, you didn't want to be called a McCarthyite.  I'm sure you understand.

Now, get this.  The Times story links to the website for one of the "antiwar" groups.  Here's what that website says.  You cannot make this up:

Lets express our objection against the absurd decision to award B. Obama Nobel Peace Prize. His activity had not yet abounded the unusual achievements. And although it can not be denied his potential, a decision the Nobel Committee is definitely premature, and in addition the political. Unfortunately, such a choice Stockholm committee is directed at existing laureates this prestigious Prize, who have spent years devoted themselves to working hard and consistently for their ideals.

Gee, nothing like English as a second language. 

Oh, I would just love to know who's really behind this.  But who are we to question someone else's culture? 

Right?

Wrong.

December 6, 2009   Permalink

CLIMATEGATE - THE SIMMERING SCANDAL - AT 7:26 P.M. ET:  Once again, British writers are ahead of their American counterparts in nailing down the machinations of the political left, and its allies, this time its environmentalist allies.  Christopher Booker points out the importance of Climategate.  This is not a minor-league scandal.  From The Telegraph:

To appreciate its significance, as I observed last week, it is first necessary to understand that the people these incriminating documents relate to are not just any group of scientists. Professor Philip Jones of the CRU, his colleague Dr Keith Briffa, the US computer modeller Dr Michael Mann, of "hockey stick" fame, and several more make up a tightly-knit group who have been right at the centre of the last two reports of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). On their account, as we shall see at this week's Copenhagen conference, the world faces by far the largest bill proposed by any group of politicians in history, amounting to many trillions of dollars.

And which country will be expected to pay the biggest chunk of that bill?  Guess.

The scientists involved had to prove that the Earth is warmer now than ever before in recorded history:

The most celebrated attempt to demonstrate this was the "hockey stick" graph produced by Dr Mann in 1999, which instantly became the chief icon of the IPCC and the global warming lobby all over the world. But in 2003 a Canadian statistician, Steve McIntyre, with his colleague Professor Ross McKitrick, showed how the graph had been fabricated by a computer model that produced "hockey stick" graphs whatever random data were fed into it...

...Although McIntyre's exposure of the "hockey stick" was upheld in 2006 by two expert panels commissioned by the US Congress, the small group of scientists at the top of the IPCC brushed this aside by pointing at a hugely influential series of graphs originating from the CRU, from Jones and Briffa.

The result of the chicanery:

Yet it is on a blind acceptance of this kind of evidence that 16,500 politicians, officials, scientists and environmental activists will be gathering in Copenhagen to discuss measures which, if adopted, would require us all in the West to cut back on our carbon dioxide emissions by anything up to 80 per cent, utterly transforming the world economy.

This could have a devastating effect on poor nations.  If the economy of the West gets a cold from all this, poor nations will get pneumonia.

Little of this extraordinary story been reported by the BBC or most of our mass-media, so possessed by groupthink that they are unable to see the mountain of evidence now staring them in the face. Not for nothing was Copenhagen the city in which Hans Andersen wrote his story about the Emperor whose people were brainwashed into believing that he was wearing a beautiful suit of clothes. But today there are a great many more than just one little boy ready to point out that this particular Emperor is wearing nothing at all.

Wonderfully said.  Finally:

...as we can see from the CRU's website, the largest single source of funding for all its projects has been the European Union, which at Copenhagen will be more insistent than anyone that the world should sign up to what amounts to the most costly economic suicide note in history.

But from the point of view of the militant left, that is entirely desirable.  Their ultimate aim is to destroy capitalism, especially American capitalism, and replace it with their socialist utopia.  To them, the loss of economic, scientific, engineering, and agricultural progress, even if it involves the loss of life, is a small price to pay for their egotistical dreams.

December 6, 2009   Permalink

GET TOGETHER, FELLAS - AT 11:57 A.M. ET:  More confusion from the administration, whose thought processes are so deep and wonderful that no mistakes can possibly be made.  From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) - National security adviser James Jones said Sunday that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden still spends some time inside Afghanistan.

Most recent U.S. estimates have placed bin Laden inside Pakistan. But Jones, a retired general, said the best estimate is that bin Laden "is somewhere in North Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border."

Jones described it as "very, very rough, mountainous area. Generally ungoverned and we're going to have to get after that to make sure that this very, very important symbol of what al-Qaida stands for is either, once again, on the run or captured or killed."

Now wait.  Let's just wait.  The story goes on to say this:

Earlier, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the U.S. hasn't had any good intelligence for years on bin Laden's whereabouts. He said he couldn't confirm reports that bin Laden had been seen recently in Afghanistan.

COMMENT:  Do these boys talk to each other?  Exchange e-mails?  Valentine cards?   Before administration officials talk to the press, they should sit down and get their stories straight.

December 6, 2009   Permalink

OBAMA RUSHES IN TO SAVE HEALTH "REFORM" - AT 11:31 A.M. ET:  Senate Dems, not quite making it on passing a health "reform" bill, have called on the ultimate weapon:

Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama plans to head to the U.S. Capitol to press Senate Democrats to agree on health legislation as lawmakers struggle to resolve disputes over issues including a proposed government-run insurance plan.

Democrats met throughout yesterday to seek an alternative to Senate Majority Harry Reid’s plan to create the new national program to cover the uninsured. Opposition within his party leaves Reid at risk of falling four votes short of the 60 he needs to pass the legislation, the most sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health-care system in more than four decades.

And then there's federal funding for abortion, which is even more volatile.

Obama’s scheduled visit comes as the bill’s backers need a jolt to come together, said Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry.

“We have to talk about how to put the final pieces together,” Kerry said. “It’s good to hear from the president now, because it’s getting to that stage where you have to come to a decision with your heart as well as your head.”

In other words, don't think too much.

Reid called the rare weekend session to meet his deadline of getting a bill by year-end. Republicans, unified in opposition, forced the Democrats yesterday to reiterate their support for cutting more than $40 billion in home health-care services funding under Medicare. It was the latest Republican effort to highlight the bill’s potential impact on the elderly.

Are the Dems completely nuts?  I can just see "the Democratic war on the elderly" as a major campaign theme.  The elderly vote.  They don't vote as often as the deceased vote in Chicago, but they do vote.  I recall when Democrats championed the elderly.  Not now.  Guess they're not pretty enough for Aspen.

December 6, 2009   Permalink

DRAWDOWN OR NO - AT 11:14 A.M. ET:  We are thinking of offering a reward to anyone who can figure this out.  From The Politico:

SECRETARIES CLINTON AND GATES TAPED JOINT INTERVIEWS yesterday with the three broadcast networks, producing the HuffPost banner: “HE SAID, THEY SAID: Clinton, Gates Contradict Obama's 'Locked In' Date For Afghan Draw-Down.”

--CBS’s Bob Schieffer, to Secretary Gates, on “Face the Nation”: “Mr. Secretary, is there a deadline or is there not?”
GATES: “There isn’t a deadline. What we have is a specific date on which we will begin transferring responsibility for security district by district, province by province, in Afghanistan to the Afghans.”

--Secretary Gates, from downtown, to Schieffer: "We are not going to abandon Afghanistan like we did in 1989. But the nature of the relationship will change."

--Secretary Clinton, to Schieffer: "We want to show urgency about our aims here. And we do expect to start this transition in July 2011. And I think everybody is very clear about that. All of the generals are. We certainly are. But it’s hard to sit here today in Washington and predict exactly what that pace will be.”

--Secretary Clinton, to NBC’s David Gregory, on “Meet the Press”: “We're not talking about an exit strategy or a drop-dead deadline. What we're talking about is an assessment that in [July] 2011, we can begin a transition … to hand off responsibility to the Afghan forces. That is what eventually happened in Iraq. You know, we're gonna be out of Iraq. We have a firm deadline, because the Iraqis believe that they can assume and will assume responsibility for their own future. We want the Afghans to feel the same sense of urgency. We want them to actually make good on what President Karzai said in his inaugural speech, which is that by five years from now they'll have total control for their defense.”

COMMENT:  Compare please to Obama's pretty clear date of July, 2011.  There will be a presidential election in this country the following year.  Draw your own conclusions.

December 6, 2009   Permalink

AND AGAIN - AT 10:24 A.M. ET:  It seems we're getting incidents like this every few months:

An upstate graduate student was charged yesterday with stabbing a beloved anthropology professor to death.

Saudi national Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani, 46, was held without bail for the murder of Binghamton University professor Richard Antoun, 77, an expert on comparative religion, authorities said.

Al-Zahrani, a cultural-anthropology grad student, allegedly pulled out a six-inch kitchen knife and stabbed Antoun four times in the chest in the professor's campus office Friday.

Student Devin Sheppard said the suspect was at the scene when cops arrived.

COMMENT:  Obviously, we make no prejudgments.  But once again an individual with a specific background commits a murder.  It may be entirely a personal matter, but law enforcement has an obligation to the public to ask questions about motivation and background...and so does the often blind, often politically correct press.

The victim was reportedly Jewish, but we cannot yet confirm that.  There is a report, again unconfirmed, that he was a convert from Islam.  We know that his wife works for a Jewish organization.

UPDATE AT 10:36 A.M. ET:  More is coming in on the Binghamton slaying, this from the local press:

The two apartment-mates of the man charged with stabbing a Binghamton University professor to death on Friday said Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani was confrontational, argumentative and "acted like a terrorist."

And...

Souleyman Sukho, a Senegalese doctoral student at BU, said during the three weeks the men lived together, Al-Zahrani "came at me with a knife."

"He asked me if I was afraid of dying," Sukho said. "Then he went into his room. I told him, 'don't ask me the question if you don't want to hear my answer.'

"He behaved like a terrorist," Sukho said. "He would open his door and would be screaming on the phone."

And...

Sukho said he didn't understand what Al-Zahrani was screaming about because he was speaking in a language Sukho didn't understand. "He claimed he was persecuted."

When have we heard that before?  Does the name "Major Hasan" ring a bell?

This is early information, and we stress the importance of confirmation.  But based on a number of points, this doesn't look good.  It also looks ripe for the usual cover-up, especially since a university is involved, and universities are great at covering things up.

Stand by.

December 6,  2009   Permalink

SATURDAY,  DECEMBER 5,  2009

ANOTHER GRIM POLL FOR OBAMA - AT 7:40 P.M. ET:  A CNN poll reported today contains more depressing news for the White House:

Washington (CNN) -- Support for President Obama has dropped below 50 percent for the first time in a CNN poll despite high marks for his recently announced Afghanistan policy.

Forty-eight percent of Americans questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. national survey released Friday said they approve of the job Obama is doing as president -- a drop of 7 percentage points from a survey last month.

Fifty percent said they do not approve. The difference of 2 percentage points between approval and disapproval falls within the range of the poll's sampling error.

"The poll indicates that the biggest drop in approval comes from noncollege-educated white voters," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director. "That's one indication among many that Obama's growing unpopularity may be more related to unemployment and the poor economy" than to factors such as his strategy for Afghanistan.

COMMENT:  What strikes me about the polls, including the ones that tilt Democratic, is that they're all heading in the same direction, and that the journey is relentless.  The president cannot seem to catch a break.  This may (stress may) indicate that Mr. Obama's problems extend beyond disagreement with an issue here and there. They may be fundamental - a loss of trust in him.

I suspect that's true, but it will take months more of polling to refine the findings.  Also, presidents can regain trust and popularity, and go on to a second term.  Clinton did.  Even Reagan had polling problems during his first term, and his campaign for reelection got off to a rocky start.  Yet, he eventually was reelected in a landslide.  Richard Nixon, never loved by the public, was also reelected in a landslide. 

The basic rule in politics always applies:  You can't beat somebody with nobody.  It will take a strong Republican candidate to defeat Mr. Obama in 2012.  His own problems won't do it alone.

December 5,  2009   Permalink

OBAMA SNUBS CLIMATEGATE - AT 6:01 P.M. ET:  In a sane world, the scandal known as Climategate - allegations that scientists in England cooked the books on global warming data - would prompt major investigations in the United States.  We, after all, will probably pay the highest economic cost if proposals to curtail "global warming" become law.

And yet, the governing party in the United States is silent or contemptuous.  Once again we see that modern liberalism has little to do with proof and observation, and much to do with a blind belief system indifferent to facts, even indifferent to real science.  There is a sarcastic saying among researchers:  "Believing is seeing."  It applies to those who discover in their "research" what they want to discover, what they already believed.

And so President Obama will go off to Copenhagen, indifferent to the implications of Climategate and other, serious questions about "warming."  The political left, which is pushing Obama, has adopted the global-warming agenda.  There must be no questioning.  Dissenters, they say, are like Holocaust deniers.

The liberals, having already marched this country toward bankruptcy, will march it even further if their environmental dreams are made to come true.  From Fox News:

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.

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is the most prominent figure to call on Obama to boycott the conference in Copenhagen in the wake of the e-mails' release.

"The president's decision to attend the international climate conference in Copenhagen needs to be reconsidered in light of the unfolding Climategate scandal," she said in a posting on her Facebook page. "Boycotting Copenhagen while this scandal is thoroughly investigated would send a strong message that the United States government will not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices."

COMMENT:  The president really has no choice.  He's already disappointed his loony fringe this week by agreeing to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan.  He can't very well hurt their delicate feelings again by actually questioning one of the building blocks of their new religion.  So he'll go.  Let's just hope he doesn't do too much damage.

December 5, 2009   Permalink

TO HEALTH AND BACK - AT 11:05 A.M. ET:  The Dems are obsessed with health "reform."  John Fund, in a fine Wall Street Journal piece, explains why, and notes the implications:

Voters are increasingly worried about unemployment, but Democratic leaders in Congress remain obsessed with passing health-care reform...

...Still, many in the trenches are uneasy about the sprawling, complex bill they privately acknowledge has no bipartisan support, doesn't seriously tackle soaring costs and will increase insurance premiums. That may explain Majority Leader Harry Reid's haste—he has ordered a rare Sunday session this weekend to hurry up the debate. Public support for the bill averages only 39.2% backing in all polls compiled by Pollster.com.

Nothing like a well-crafted bill.

But buried in the surveys is an explanation for the Democratic obsession to pass the bill: An overwhelming 76% of Democrats back it. "They believe the liberal base expects them to deliver and will punish them if they don't," says Democratic pollster Doug Schoen, who worked for Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

That fear is backed up by a new poll taken for the Daily Kos, the left-wing Web site: 81% of self-described Republicans say they are certain or likely to vote in 2010 compared to 65% of independent voters and only 56% of Democrats. "Democrats have simply not been given enough of a reason to come out and vote yet," writes liberal blogger David Dayen. "The left is waiting for that long-promised 'change' they can believe in."

They live entirely in a world of their own.

So the Senate death march continues. Many Democrats have grave misgivings about making the bill a top priority given the economy. But in the age of bloodthirsty partisan bloggers they dare not be fully candid. They can only hope their march doesn't lead them right over the edge of a political cliff next November.

COMMENT:  And this is the way the future of our health care, and a sixth of our economy, is being decided.  What great change Mr. Obama has brought. 

December 5, 2009   Permalink

THE MOUTH THAT ONCE ROARED - AT 10:32 A.M. ET:  There was a time, and it wasn't long ago, that Barack Obama's rhetoric could move the masses.  Apparently, no more.  Even after the most publicized, and broadcast, Obama speech in recent memory, the president's numbers have not improved at all.  From Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 26% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -14 (see trends).

These results are collected from nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. Today’s update is the first based entirely upon interviews conducted after the President’s Tuesday night speech on Afghanistan. The results are little changed from before the speech indicating that the President did not receive a bounce in the polls from his presentation.

COMMENT:  This is the first time I can recall when a president of the United States didn't receive at least some bounce from a war speech.  Are Americans tired of Obama?  On to him?  Finally aware that he's an inexperienced egotist?  All of the above?

If a president can't rally America behind a war policy, what's left for him?  This president is in trouble.

December 5, 2009   Permalink

AND IN THE GROWN-UP WORLD - AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  Apparently, other British officials aren't allowing the relationship described just below to taint their view of President Obama's Afghanistan policy.  Not exactly raves, as The Times of London reports:

Tensions between Britain and America over the war in Afghanistan erupted into the open yesterday as the Defence Secretary questioned President Obama’s decision to put a date on the start of US troop withdrawals.

In an interview with The Times, Bob Ainsworth said that the Government would not follow Washington’s promise to start pulling out in 2011. “You can’t put a time on it. You’ve got to look at conditions,” he said.

He accepted that the public would not tolerate the war “going on forever," but insisted there was no deadline for withdrawal. “Nobody is talking about a drawdown, we are talking about bringing more in there . . . but we are talking about transition.” He said that it would be wrong to set a date for the start of troop reductions.

His comments reflect dismay at the highest level in the British Armed Forces about Mr Obama’s suggestion this week that US troop withdrawals would start by mid-2011. Britain expects to have substantial forces on the ground in Afghanistan for at least five or six more years.

COMMENT:  Maybe the Brits should send back to Mr. Obama the bust of Churchill that our president
haughtily returned to Britain early in his term.  That might suggest to the White House the meaning of the term "leadership."

December 5, 2009   Permalink

BULLETIN - YOU TOO, HILLARY?  AT 10:13 A.M. ET:  Wasn't one Monica enough?  Does Bill know about this?  From The Times of London:

The Anglo-American relationship just got a bit more special. Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, has already admitted to an unlikely crush on David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary.

Yesterday one of the more unlikely pairings in international politics went one stage farther when a NATO meeting in Brussels was the forum for some weapons-grade flirting.

It started with a greeting in the form of an affectionate arm rub, moved on to a series of coquettish glances from Mrs Clinton that weren’t so much smouldering as positively incendiary — and, well, if it had gone any farther, there is little doubt that the meeting would have been drowned out with cries of “Get a room!” (Although, of course, if they did it would doubtless only be to discuss contemporary issues in global development policy).

The attraction between the globe-trotting duo was revealed last month when an interviewer from American Vogue magazine joked with Mrs Clinton — and yes, she is still married, though only to Bill Clinton, so perhaps it doesn’t count — about getting a crush on Mr Miliband, who is 44, after hearing his English accent on the telephone.

“Well, if you saw him it would be a big crush,” Mrs Clinton, 62, said. “I mean, he is so vibrant, vital, attractive, smart. He’s a really good guy. And he’s so young!”

Oh dear Lawd, what is this about?  Chelsea just announced her engagement last week.  Is this mom trying to prove that she's still got the stuff?

Apparently, the feeling is mutual:

The Foreign Secretary returned the praise, describing Mrs Clinton as “delightful to deal with one on one."

Oh, come on Miliband.  The woman is old enough to be your mother.  Get a life.  Or a wife.

I've heard of Lend-Lease, but this is ridiculous.

And do check out the photos with the story.  Even Bill didn't carry on in public like this.

December 5,  2009   Permalink