Russian Stealth Fighter Takes to The Skies

The Russians are testing their first fifth generation fighter, the Sukhoi F-50/PAK FA, a video of which is below.

The Sukhoi has been given the NATO designation Firefox, ramping up expectations that Mitchell Gant will soon steal it.

Afghanis: Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Deny, Deny, Deny

Uh...this is news?

As if U.S. troops and diplomats didn't have enough to worry about in trying to understand Afghan culture, a new report suggests an entire region in the country is coping with a sexual identity crisis.

An unclassified study from a military research unit in southern Afghanistan details how homosexual behavior is unusually common among men in the large ethnic group known as Pashtuns -- though they seem to be in complete denial about it.

The study, obtained by Fox News, found that Pashtun men commonly have sex with other men, admire other men physically, have sexual relationships with boys and shun women both socially and sexually -- yet they completely reject the label of "homosexual." The research was conducted as part of a longstanding effort to better understand Afghan culture and improve Western interaction with the local people.

The research unit, which was attached to a Marine battalion in southern Afghanistan, acknowledged that the behavior of some Afghan men has left Western forces "frequently confused."

The Pushtuns seem convinced that as long as they don't love the men and boys they're having sex with, then they aren't gay. Anecdotes I've read over the years suggest that this is very common in both Sunni and Shia Muslim cultures, with the men in those cultures in equally deep denial about their homosexuality and pedophilia.

These same cultures routine murder gays or have them executed after sham trials... I'm not sure how they reconcile that, and it seems denial is their only mechanism for coping. Kinda makes you wonder the gender of the 72 virgins they dream about, doesn't it?

Roeder Shoots for Unique Defense

When Scott Roeder gunned down late-term abortionist George Tiller in a Witchita, Kansas, last May, shock waves were felt immediately around the nation, and media attention was intense and predictably "front page" in nature.

Now that Roeder is actually on trial for Tiller's murder, the national media is offering much more subdued exposure, still covering it, but relegating the story to the deeper recesses of their news pages and web sites. Do the media simply not care as much about the murder of abortionists any more?

I suspect that the left-leaning media is still strongly interested in seeing Scott Roeder sent to prison for a very long time for putting a .22-caliber bullet in George Tiller's head, but they may concerned about popularizing Roeder's defense, perhaps worried that it might work.

Defence lawyers are expected to seek a conviction for the substantially less serious offence of voluntary manslaughter, defined as "an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force".

Noting that abortion is legal in Kansas, the judge has told Mr Roeder's lawyers that they must show that the doctor posed "imminent danger" in order to justify a voluntary manslaughter plea.

The judge has yet to rule whether he will allow jurors to consider the lesser charge.

I do not think there can be a valid claim that Tiller posed an "imminent danger" to unborn children at the moment he was gunned down, and my layman's perspective is that the judge will probably not allow the jury to consider the voluntary manslaughter charge because of that fact. That argument seem would have the most weight if Tiller had been gunned down at his clinic prior to killing an unborn baby, but as that isn't what happened, the point is moot.

If the judge does allow the jury to consider the voluntary manslaughter defense, that would presumably set a precedent for allowing such defenses, whether or not Roeder is ultimately convicted of murder of manslaughter.

Is the media concerned that putting a focus on Roeder's trial and defense may inspire the copycat murders of the few remaining doctors that practice late-term abortion? Or are there simply more pressing stories in the news cycle?

01/29 Update That didn't take long. The judge did not allow the jury to consider Roeder's defense, and they quickly convicted him of first degree murder.

Which of course made this the current top story on CNN.

Obama's SOTU

I purposefully didn't blog last night's State of the Union last night, because I didn't want to miss any of the nuances of President Obama's speech nor the audience reactions looking down at my laptop to type. Instead, I ended up still missing much of what happened during the address as I rolled my eyes.

After waiting through the night and half the next day to digest it all, it still comes back to my gut reaction:

When does the buck stop with Obama? When will the Democratic Congress finally take responsibility for its actions? The short answer seems to be "never," as our angry child-president presented us with a world where every problem is a manifestation of Bush's third term.

Real leaders don't make excuses, and they don't make a career out of bashing the men who came before them, by scolding other branches of government (and lying in the process).

Barack Obama spent 90 minutes making excuses for himself last night. I'm still waiting to hear about the state of the Union.

Climate Fraud Scientists Can't be Prosecuted For Hiding Data

The only thing good that come out of this is that the British may eliminate an absurd six-month statute of limitations on punishing those who violate their Freedom of Information act.

If the University of East Anglia would like to retain even a shred of credibility and dignity it should terminate all the scientists in the Climate Research Unit that willfully took part in a conspiracy to conceal real climate data that did not support the climate change hysteria they were hyping.

Furthermore, there are U.S. scientists that colluded with the British scientists to subvert the integrity of the scientific process, and it would seem that fraud and racketeering laws could be brought to bear against those who participated in this self-documented conspiracy.

Alternative History Prof Dies

Howard Zinn, who wrote The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, died yesterday, leaving a generation of weepy, self-loathing Marxists in his wake. He will be missed... just not by anyone who should be taken seriously.

Correction: Zinn wrote A People's History of the United States.

My apologies, but from where I sit, one fantasy history book is little different than another.

But Does The iPad Have Wings?

Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica got some hands-on time with the new Apple iPad and got several pictures of the device.

Everybody and his brother are commenting on it, but I'm stuck with one pervasive thought: "So, what does it do well?"

Don't get me wrong, as I'm certain I would have fun with this new device, but I can't carry it around as easily as a smart phone, it lacks the tactile keyboard response of a real laptop, and the sub-ten-inch screen is pathetically small when compared against the 22"-24" monitors I spend the bulk of my time on at home or at work.

Despite the relatively modest price (for Apple), I can't think of a compelling reason to rush out and buy one when they become available.

Can you?

Obama's First STFU Address Erupts Tonight

No, that acronym isn't a typo. Tonight, in his first State of the Union message, Barack Obama will try to distance himself from himself, and recast his Presidency as that of a crusading populist, leading a government that's here to help.

Good luck.

The problem with that approach is the condescending nature of it. He's been extremely combative with those who have not bowed down to his radical agenda since the early days of his campaign, and the sudden attempt to transform into something he most certainly is not is insulting to the entire nation.

It is an insult to the fanboys and girls who hang on his every word with rapt adoration, it's insulting to those of us who view him as an elitist schmuck in way over his head, and it's insulting to everyone in between.

I do not see this address satisfying anyone, and quite possibly irritating the majority of those who bother to tune in.

In other worse, a B+.

The Most Political of Marriages Ends At The Most Political of Times

John and Elizabeth Edwards separate, just in time to try to knock down some of the headlines of an aide's book about them.

I'm sure there are other political couples as calculating, but few could be as calculating all the way through the end of their relationship.

Bayou Watergate

I guess every generation or so someone has to learn that trying to tap telephones for political gain rarely ends well.

Former Surgeon General Koop Warns Seniors of Obamacare Rationing

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Politico story providing this video is absolute conviction of Koop's critics that there simply isn't rationing involved in the various schemes being floated out there as iterations of Obamacare.

Such a childlike faith is a wonder to behold, isn't it?

New Jersey Evacuates Due to Possible Terrorist Threat

A man acting suspiciously in a Branchburg, NJ Quick Chek convenience store led to the entire state state of New Jersey fleeing overnight after authorities arrested the man on weapons charges and revealed that he was wearing a bullet-proof vest and had in his possession a "grenade launcher," a ".223-caliber assault rifle that had been altered to fire .50-caliber ammunition," with "four loaded magazines with hollow-point ammunition" and a ".308-caliber semi-automatic assault rifle with a defaced serial number."

Police also recovered maps (including one of a military installation), a police scanner, and "Middle Eastern red and white traditional headdress."

The suspect, Lloyd Woodson, 43, was also suspiciously black.

Further reporting by the always excellent staff of ABC News revealed that the grenade launcher weapon of mass destruction was a "37 mm Cobray grenade launcher." The nefarious weapon is described by the company as a "flare launcher" in a blatant attempt to steer the less-informed away from the blatant fact that it looks a lot like 40 mm grenade launchers used in the world's militaries. No 37 mm grenades were recovered and none have apparently ever been manufactured, but authorities have left open the possibility that someone, someday, could make such munitions.

The .50-caliber "customized assault rifle, whose ammunition is typically used in heavy weapons mounted on military vehicles" found on Woodson proves that the suspect is a well-financed terrorist. The heavy weapons mounted on military vehicles chamber the .50 BMG cartridge, the largest bullet in the U.S. military arsenal not considered a cannon or artillery.

For Woodson to conceal the $5,000 weapon—which is in excess of three-feet long and weighs 33 pounds loaded—under a jacket also suggests that Woodson may only appear to be black, and is in fact a far larger species, possibly a Yeti.

The media, always striving for accuracy, immediately discounted the possibility that the Yeti was not armed with a highly-customized rifle-cannon, and insists he was not using an off the shelf drop-in upper assembly of far shorter size and range.

The Joint Terrorism has been called in to investigate the possibility that Woodson is actually a tea-bagging conservative white person, helpfully noting that most Yetis are believed to be white.

Let There Be "Light"

My final word on the Trijicon fiasco, at Pajamas Media.

False Choices

Allah notes that Obama would rather be an awesome one-term president than a mediocre two-term president. Of course, those aren't the only choices out there, and not the one way his presidency is currently trending.

I'd like to hear someone question him about the reality of being a mediocre first year president, but suspect any answer he would provide involves the words "alone" and "waffle."

Shrieking at the Mirror

This angry huff of pixels isn't a commentary about the economy or a scolding of Americans as much as it is a plea for faith in a dying religion.

Baa, Baa, Baa...

RealClearPolitics posted an article by an Obama-voting independent yesterday who says she now regrets casting her vote for our under-performing President.

Predictably, some of my peers are hammering her like they purchased an hour of her time, and not without reason.

But as self-centered, ignorant, and easily led Jill Dorson proves herself to be be then and now as a voter and media consumer, the sad fact of the matter is that there are millions of Americans that would write an almost identical piece if given the pixels, and millions more who have even less understanding of how they were taken in.

At War With Dying

Simply a must-read from the USNS Comfort. Please keep these wonderful men and women in your prayers as they show the best of humanity in the worst of times.

Are You Not Offended?!?!

I supposed that in a few days the newness of Senator Scott Brown will begin to wear off and we'll all go back to our normal routine of utterly ignoring the families of politicians when the aren't:

• doing something scandalous
• campaigning
• dying
• some combination of the above

In the mean time, though, it appears we'll have to deal with the faux outrage of left-wing bloggers who are going through the trash of the Brown family, attempting to find something, anything scandalous to diminish his current political rock star status.

They've gone after Senator-elect for posing nude in Cosmo, hugging his bikini-clad daughters, and found out his wife looked great in a bikini in an 80s music video.

As Meep notes at POWIP, it doesn't appear that anyone pushing these stories is actually offended by the unobjectionable actions and images of the Brown family, but instead seem to be hoping that independents and conservatives will be shocked and appalled by what they've found.

What these stories instead go to prove is that liberals are attempting to market to a caricature of conservatives and independents, and that the oppressive "Christian Taliban" strawman they've created only exists in their insular community-based realities. It's a flawed assumption, and an example of the kind of groupthink that may cost Democrats even more seats in the 2010 midterms.

Err America Goes Dark

I would have said they finally failed, but that would have erroneously implied that they were successful at some point, at some iteration, under some management. They never were.

The company, which was founded in 2004, never found a substantial audience or sound financial footing. It filed for bankruptcy protection in 2006, but managed to stay on the air at that time. The network churned through several owners and several attempted reinventions, with little to show for it.

&qout;The fact of the matter was, it was always a very challenging business proposition, and it never had the right management," said Sam Seder, who hosted programs on Air America until last year.

The headwinds were enormous, he said, adding, "Radio is a dying industry."

I suspect that the growing stable of conservative talk radio personalities that emerged over the same time period would scoff at Seder's self-denial. America doesn't seem to have the first problem supporting long-time talkers like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, and they've found that there is plenty of room for other center-right stars to emerge in recent years, such as Mark Levin. The simple fact of the matter is that the nation isn't nearly as liberal as the majority of the media/infotainment industry is, or as liberal as the media/infotainment industry would like America to be.

If they had ever been honest about that fact, Err America would have never gotten off the ground.

Repo Man

Thanks, Dad.

Targeting the Gun Industry

Glenn Reynolds notes this post on PointOfLaw.com where the author speculates that the Obama Justice Department might be targeting the gun industry. I can't say that would be very much of a surprise.

President Obama lied about the number of American weapons flowing into Mexico, but the facts undermined his case before he could use his doctored numbers to push for gun laws. He appointed a "wise latina" who believes cities and states can overrule the Second Amendment to the Supreme Court. And long before he had name recognition outside of Illinois, Obama was a director of the anti-gun Joyce Foundation as the funneled millions to anti-gun groups and attempted to subvert academic scholarship in hope of destroying the Second Amendment.

Time and again, Barack Obama has proven to be a radical ideologue with no problem using unethical means to further his agenda. That he would use his political power to aim his Justice Department at executives in the firearms industry and attempt to decapitate it from the top-down should hardly be surprising.

I Don't Know Much About Basketball...

...but isn't it hard to shoot a jump shot when your hood keeps slipping down over your eyes?

I can see it now:

"What are you going to do tonight, Timmy?"

"I don't know, Billy. Maybe watch some basketball at the Civic Center. I hear the Grand Wizards are playing the Cross Blazers."

Jeez...

ACOGs and Idiots

The more I think about the manufactured outrage I see in the press over this, the more upset I get.

Trijicon has been putting references to Bible verses on their products for at least two decades, well prior to elements of the U.S. military falling in love with the ACOG and Reflex optics as COTS (Commercial Off the Shelf) optics that excel at giving our soldier the ability to find, identify, and differentiate potential targets from innocent civilians, quickly and at range.

Trijicon did not, as some ignorant or malicious journalists implied, slip some sort of crusading reference into their products once they had military contracts. No they continued to sell the exact same product they sold when American soldiers took ACOGs to war for the first time in Panama, and in conflicts around the world since then. And because these optics were COTS, we, as taxpayers, didn't pay millions or billions of development costs, either.

The references to the verses only became a "problem" when angry atheists blatantly lied and said that the standard references to scripture passages on Trijicon's products—all of which play off of the word "light," appropriately enough for optics products—somehow broke the military ban on proselytizing in the military.

If anyone honestly thinks that tiny print passively notated on the side of a military weapon's sight is equivalent to exhorting people to convert, then they need their tiny minds examined.

The entire issue seems to stem from a group that seems to be under the mistaken impression that freedom of religion should be rewritten to be freedom from religion, and all aspects of religion at that.

I agree with the theory that the military is not in the business of evangelism by force, and do not think that the military should actively promote any particular religion beyond making it possible for practitioners of various religious faiths toexercise their right to worship as they please.

But a soldier's right to practice religion—or right to practice no religion at all—does not mean he should expect others to force their faith underground. That in and of itself is anti-religious bigotry, and the military should not be forced into recognizing anti-religious soldiers as more equal than religious ones.

There is nothing wrong with faith on the battlefield as long as the practice of that faith doesn't extend to proselytizing.

A Muslim soldier that complained about the ACOG's in his unit seemed to be using the ACOG as a scapegoat for the alleged proselytizing behavior of a non-commissioned officer in his unit, and if his complaint was focused on the noncom's behavior alone, he would have what appears to be a decent case of exactly the kind of behavior the military does not want to allow.

But to claim a static piece of military equipment is capable of evangelizing is asinine by any logical measure.

ACOGs in particular give American soldiers and Marines the ability to magnify their view and quickly and accurately discern possible friend from foe, using the Bindon Aiming Concept.

Small-minded "me too" detractors think themselves quite witty as they mockingly assert claims of "Who would Jesus shoot?" but they miss the reality of the situation entirely.

The undeniable fact is that Trijicon optics that the fashionably anti-religious like to mock happens to be a technology that enables our soldiers a better view of the chaotic urban battlefield. It provides them with better target discrimination, and enables them to more easily tell the innocent from the enemy. These sights also serve (quite obviously, one would think) to help our soldiers put more accurate shots downrange, meaning a lower volume of overall rounds expended. Both of these factors mean that these optics help save the lives of innocents downrange.

Somehow, I think Jesus would approve of that.

Trijicon-Religious Aiming Solutions

Via SaysUncle, we have what we can only assume will be the next big investigative revelation out of ABC New Blog, The Blotter.

Uh, we can still say "revelation," without running afoul of Brian Ross... right?

Hitler Slams Obama After Brown Loss: "Bush got Cs. Obama Probably Failed Lunch."

Godwin wept:

Via Instapundit,who highlight some of his favorite lines.

ABC Raids Message Boards to ‘Break’ a Decades-Old Story

Calling the staff of the ABC News blog The Blotter "journalists" is to insult those that actually do journalism.

Let us call them what they are: message board trolling stenographers of liberal orthodoxy and manufactured outrage.

That it appears they additionally stole content from these same message boards and claimed it as their own merely means that in addition to being intellectually lazy, they are likely guilty of content theft as well.

I spoke with a highly-placed media executive yesterday via email, who says that the international news organization he works for would have taken ABC's content theft very seriously.

One can hope that ABC will treat this suspected content theft with seriousness even if they avoid commenting on the shoddy work of Brian Ross and his team.

Or do they even pretend to have standards any more?

Not Again: Haiti Rocked by 6.1 Quake

The hits just keep coming:

The U.S. Geological Survey says the preliminary 6.1 magnitude quake hit at 6:03 a.m. (1103 GMT) Wednesday about 35 miles northwest of the capital of Port-au-Prince.

It says the quake struck at a depth of 13.7 miles.

AP reporters in the Haitian capital say the temblor sent scores of people fleeing into the streets.

The only possible upsides to this is that rescue teams and relief supplies are already on-hand, and that so many buildings were destroyed in last weeks quake that there simply aren't very many more occupied structures left to collapse.

For all intents and purposes, Haiti is no more.

So Tell, Me, Mr. Olbermann...

How do those teabags taste? *

Slowing Brown Down

What tactics and evasions can Democrats use if Scott Brown defeats Martha Coakley in today's Massachusetts Senate race?

I go over the options in my latest post at Pajamas Media.

Something Borrowed?

Did ABC News swipe photos from an internet forum and claim them as their own?

While working on an article about the latest sub-par hit piece investigative report from Brian Ross and his team at ABC News blog The Blotter, I ran across an accompanying slideshow of Trijicon weapons sights, which started out with these two captioned images.

Interestingly enough, these two images appeared on the Pennsylvania Firearms Owners Association (POFOA) forum a week ago... and they weren't the original source, either.

How do we know these came from images of the same optics?

The ACOG on the PAFOA sight is clearly the same one claimed by ABC News, with very distinctive scuff marks on the body of the scope tube.

The Reflex sight on the PAFOA sight is also clearly the same one claimed by ABC News, with a small dimple to the left of the NSN number.

So which is it?

Did the PAFOA contributor acquire a copy of ABC's images early,or did ABC claim images that came from another, earlier source?

Does ABC need to next investigate EX20:15?

NY Times Apparently Planning To Commit Suicide Online With Paywall

I can't improve on that headline.

A significant number of people refuse to even register for news and opinion that they kind find elsewhere online with no strings attached. News is close to being public domain these days with exclusives becoming widely disseminated blog fodder within minutes, which means charging for the reporting of the Times is a non-starter, as they will simply be bypassed for free content and commentary.

Does the Times honestly think that their stable of Op-ed writers is sufficiently loved and admired enough for people to fork over their hard-earned dollars for them in enough numbers to offset the decrease in advertising eyeballs they will get when non-subscribers go elsewhere for equally competent writing?

I'm sure the Times likes to think that they are special and the cream of the crop, but the simple fact of the matter is that there is no shortage of pundits that write just as well, and many have far more interesting perspectives than the often formulaic missives being offered up by the Old Grey Lady.

The Times apparently thinks of itself as a super-premium product. One can only wonder how long it will be before they realize they are not nearly as special as they think.

Still Blaming Bush

While most of the others (perhaps spurred by Drudge )are focusing on this Hotline article because Rep. Patrick Kennedy apparently thinks that the dismal candidate he was campaigning for is "Marcia" or perhaps "Marsha" Coakley, I was more interested in the fact that Democrats keeping repeating the same excuse for their unpopularity:

As audience members streamed out of Pres. Obama's rally on behalf of AG Martha Coakley (D) here tonight, the consensus was that the fault for Coakley's now-floundering MA SEN bid lies with one person -- George W. Bush.

"People are upset because there's so many problems," Rosemary Kverek, 70, a retired Charleston schoolteacher said as tonight's rally wrapped up. "But the problems came from the previous administration. So we're blaming poor Obama, who's working 36 hours a day ... to solve these problems that he inherited."

Patrick "I don't know who I'm campaigning for" Kennedy echoed the same sentiments.

Do these people, and Democrats in general, really think that people are so angry with a Democrat-controlled federal government because of what the last President did, a year after he left office? If so, they are simply not paying attention.

Americans know that the previous administration made mistakes and they do hold them accountable for those, but we are angry with our President, his cronies, and Congress because of what they have done to forward a radical, financially irresponsible agenda over the past year.

Democrats aren't being held to account for Bush's mistakes. They're being held to account for their own arrogance and ineptitude. If they continue to fail to deal with that inconvenient truth, they'll see every future candidate become a bewildered Coakley, losing elections without ever understanding why.

Our "Elite" Media: Anyone With a Gun is a Sniper

Just in case you haven't been paying attention for oh, your entire life, our media operates by creating fears, and then compelling you to tune in/buy a copy/listen to the next segment so that you can find the solution (and they can sell more advertising). That truth applies to the national media you likely despise, and the local newsmen and women you've come to " and trust."

A wonderful example of selling fear is the story of the so-called "Berea Sniper." Someone has been shooting at cars in this Ohio town since this past August. No one has been injured by the shooter, who police said is using a weapon that is "something in between" a BB gun and an assault rifle.

Well they have a suspect in custody now.

Check out what passes for a sniper's weapon in this day and age.

No, that isn't the wrong photo.

The suspect, Paul Hausmann, has been tooling around this Cleveland suburb plinking and his fellow citizens with a .22-caliber replica of an old cowboy six-gun.

But a story a story about what is essentially vandalism—even vandalism with a firearm—doesn't get the local chiropractor and car dealer to buy advertising. Heavily hyped stories that sell fear keep our local Ron Burgundy wannabes paid. We live in an age where any crank with any sort of a firearm (even BB guns) is a "sniper," because hyping fear is what sells advertising.

The truth only matters if it pays.

Danny Glover Is An Idiot

While it is fashionable (and correct) to slam Pat Robertson for his idiotic comment that the Haitian earthquake was because of a rumored pact made with the Devil hundreds of years ago, why aren't more people mocking this moronic actor for claiming that global warming was responsible?

What's next, Sheryl Crow insisting that it would have been a less powerful quake if Haitians had used less toilet paper?

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Unbelievable. Haitians aren't getting the help they need because the nation's already meager infrastructure was destroyed by the earthquake, and their brilliant response is to create more roadblocks? And out of the corpses of their countrymen, at that?

As Bill Whittle noted so perfectly in the essay Tribes after Hurricane Katrina, this is an issue of a mental mindset. The same mindset that has made Haiti one of the poorest and most corrupt nations in the hemisphere is the same childish, short-term gratification-focused mindset that leads people to build roadblocks when roads need to be cleared.

Their "logic"—such as it is—seems to be that if they build roadblocks, aide convoys cannot pass them by, and must stop and service them. That building such gruesome edifices only ensures that the flow of aide will slow even further, making their survival even less likely, seems to have completely escaped them.

It is heart-wrenching to watch an already pathetic nation experience such a disaster, but even more pathetic to watch them committing suicide through stupidity.

Coakley Putting Out Bids For Dead Girl, Live Boy

The way she keeps plummeting in the polls, and keeps finding new ways to alienate voters, Democratic Senate candidate/Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley needs some sort of a scandal to draw attention away from her incompetence, willingness to keep innocent people in prison (and the guilty out), and her willingness to allow people to die for a temporary legal advantage.

Too bad Tiger Woods slept with everyone.

Barack Obama Hates Black People

For years, all we've heard from the left is how George W. Bush was to blame for the failures that occurred during the hurricane relief efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi. Throughout the 2008 campaign season, we heard how George W. Bush was the cause of so many of this nation's problems real or imagined, and to this very day, Barack Obama and his administration try to blame every conceivable problem, malady, short-coming and gaffe on the 43rd President.

And now Obama wants Bush to help head up relief efforts for Haiti.

I wonder what Kanye West is thinking.

(h/t Hot Air)

Morehead City Port Shut for Third Day Because of Explosive Spills

This is just sad:

The cleanup of a spill of explosive materials at the state port in Morehead City stretched into a third day Thursday, with no word on when the port might reopen.

Nine 50-kilogram drums filled with the explosive PETN were punctured by a forklift early Tuesday as they were being unloaded at the port. Officials said Wednesday that they had found PETN leaking from drums in shipping containers not involved in Tuesday's accident.

100 grams of this can blow up a car/half that could rip open an airliner. There were 450,000 grams in the drums in the main spill, and an unknown amount of leakage in the secondary spills.

We're in the best of hands...

Witch: Coakley Kept Innocent Man in Prison to Enhance her Career

I was in my teens when the waves of daycare sex abuse hysteria swept the nation. The case that was closest to us was the Little Rascals case. It was full of absurd accusations, including satanic ritual abuse, murder, and the immolation of children. It was all quite preposterous an an obvious with hunt, but it destroyed lives and people all the same.

Martha Coakley, the woman who would be the next Senator from Massachusetts, played her own role in this dark wave of inquisitions, keeping an innocent man in prison to further her political career.

Danile Weaver reveals Coakley's detestable role in keeping an obviously innocent Gerald Amirault in prison. Coached children with fantastic imaginations accused Amirault of things that simply could not be:

The charges were some of the most heinous ever made. However, they were also ludicrous. Supposedly Gerald dressed up as a clown and assaulted the children in a secret or magic room. Some children claimed to be sodomized with two foot knives and lobsters. Some of the acts allegedly took place on the front lawn in full view of the highway.

And yet, when the Parole Board voted unanimously to pardon Amirault, Coakley did "everything in her power" to keep the innocent man in prison, including sending an assistant DA to oppose his release at the hearing.

Make sure you read the whole article, including the citation from Whores of the Court.

Martha Coakley didn't put Gerald Amirault in prison, but she did everything in her power to keep him there, for what appears to be purely political reasons. That isn't just wrong. That isn't just poor judgment.

That is evil.

Rather Denied

Dan Rather has lost his final appeal in his breach-of-contract suit against CBS that stemmed from the faked Bush Air National Guard records story:

His request for an appeal was declined today, putting the entire legal matter to bed, finally. "Naturally I am disappointed in today’s ruling because we know it is a grave miscarriage of justice, " he said in a statement to the Times. "Most of all I am disappointed that no court or jury studied the evidence and heard the actual facts of the case. The case was dismissed on purely technical grounds. My mission continues to be working to ensure that the media can gather and report news unfettered by the influence of government and major corporate interests."

To this day, Rather still believes in the story he reported.

Good News! NC Port's Contractors Spilled More PETN

Hey, it's only a slurry of one of the most powerful explosives on earth. We don't need to be careful with it, or anything:

Nine 50-kilogram drums filled with the explosive PETN were punctured by a forklift early Tuesday as they were being unloaded at the port. Also known as pentaerythritol tetranitrate, the colorless PETN crystals are used in detonating cords for industrial explosions, as well as in heart medications.

Officials said Wednesday afternoon that they had found more of the PETN spilled at the port that didn't come from the punctured drums, which necessitated additional cleanup. They said they didn't know how the PETN was spilled but said it might have occurred during shipping.

That's encouraging news. It seems that would-be terrorists don't need to manufacture explosives or try to smuggle them into the country. They can simply get custodial positions at the nation's ports, and then they can blow up what they retrieve from their dustpans or wring out of a mop.

Homeland security? Not so much.

Haitian Hell

As you probably know by now, a 7.0 earthquake centered just five miles underground apparently destroyed the Haitian capital of Port-au- Prince yesterday, and damged cites and towns throughout the impoverished island nation.

World governments, the Red Cross and other volunteer aide organizations are rushing in to save as many lives as possible.

The exact scope of the devastation is not precisely known and may not be known for some time, but there are expectations that thousands are dead in collapsed buildings, and that as many as three million people will need some sort of assistance in the wake of this natural disaster.

We're going to do the best we can with what we have, but we could do better.

In recent years there have been some novel ideas floated on using retiring U.S. Navy vessels as floating emergency response bases for natural disasters and terrorist attacks on coastal regions in our hemisphere. Theoretically, ships could be based strategically on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as well as in a port in the Gulf of Mexico with supplies and rescue equipment pre-loaded for dispatch on very short notice.

An acquaintance of mine named Ward Brewer (which I've unfortunately fallen out of contact with) was a firm proponent of the idea, and proposed using some of the retiring Tarawa-class amphibious assault ships in this role. While obsolete by Navy standards and being replaced by more modern vessels, many of the features that made the Tarawa-class so well-suited for landing Marines on hostile shore would work exceptionally well for transporting heavy equipment, medical supplies, and rescue craft to areas in need. Each Tarawa can create fresh water, electricity, and has a 300-bed hospital with four operating rooms, 17 ICU rooms, and a 1,000-unit blood bank.

As it so happens, two Tarawa class ships are still in service, and presumably could be re-tasked to this rescue role upon their retirements with minimal transition work, and the first ship in the series is presently inactive and presumably ready to be refit as needed.

With real unemployment presently at 22% and skilled American tradesmen at shipyards around the nation needing work, it would seem to be an excellent time for a President so concerned about America's image to announce plans to turn these old warriors into angels of mercy.

Thug Life: Democrat Roughs Up Reporter

Poor Martha Coakley.

The hand-picked machine politician selected as the heir to Ted Kennedy's Senate seat is having a tough time as of late. Ahead by double digits weeks before before the election, Coakley's campaign has been steady beat-down by revelations of her failures as a prosecutor to treat child predators aggressively, an arrogant, yet timid public facade, dumb political statements (still uses tired Bush/Cheney arguments, claims there are no terrorists in Afghanistan), and now, there emerges on-tape video evidence that someone associated with her campaign knocking down a journalist politely asking a simple question:

A photographer from the Associated Press got a good shot of the guy with Coakley's campaign that knocked down John McCormack of The Weekly Standard as Coakley looks on with her hands in her pockets and walks away.

McCormack has now revealed that the thug-on-loan is Michael Meehan, who seems to have been sent by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to "help" Coakley as she desperately met with DC lobbyists to raise money and hopefully save her dying campaign in a state that her staff can't even spell.

It's amazing how political fortunes can change so quickly, but when intense public scrutiny of the campaign put Coakley in a position where she had to perform, she cracked.

I think the revelations of the past few weeks is great news for the people of Massachusetts. They now have a much better idea of the kind of lockstep, "me-too" Senator she would be if elected, and the kind of Senator Scott Brown will be if elected to the people's Senate seat.

The More You Know

Do You know what the differences between Newsweek journalist Michael Isikoff and WorldNet Daily columnist/martial artist/actor/pitchman Chuck Norris are?

Norris has proven he's at least a moderate talent at more than one thing. Also, when Norris publishes what some consider a conspiratorial fantasy, people don't die.

Avatards

I'm still trying to determine how I feel about this:

James Cameron's completely immersive spectacle "Avatar" may have been a little too real for some fans who say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora...

[snip]

A post by a user called Elequin expresses an almost obsessive relationship with the film.

"That's all I have been doing as of late, searching the Internet for more info about 'Avatar.' I guess that helps. It's so hard I can't force myself to think that it's just a movie, and to get over it, that living like the Na'vi will never happen. I think I need a rebound movie," Elequin posted.

A user named Mike wrote on the fan Web site "Naviblue" that he contemplated suicide after seeing the movie.

"Ever since I went to see 'Avatar' I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it," Mike posted. "I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in 'Avatar.' "

Other fans have expressed feelings of disgust with the human race and disengagement with reality.

Okay—now I know how I feel. I feel disgust.

Listen up, cupcakes.

While it is as clichéd as Hell, the world really is what you make of it. Odds are that your life sucks because you enable the suck. You are responsible for it, and your negative attitude is the primary ingredient in the suck sandwich you love to gag yourself on.

I look at people CNN interviewed and the posting of these faceless drones and see people wallowing in woe-is-me mediocrity and co-dependency, waiting for someone else to give their lives meaning and purpose.

Life doesn't work like that.

Other people do not exist to give your miserable existence meaning or to give you edification. You and you alone are responsible for your actions, your thoughts, and how you deal with the circumstances of your life. You could be great, and make a great life, but you are terrified of doing anything worthwhile. You prefer to trap yourself into a pathetic, unhappy life. I feel no sorrow, only contempt for you.

Yes, some people are born with certain advantages, and some people are born with disadvantages. We all have strengths, and we all have flaws.

These—Avatards—live at the most prosperous time in the history of planet Earth, and have lives sufficiently comfortable that they can shell out more than some people in the world make in months, just to go blankly stare at a cartoon utopia. They then leave the theater, climb into their late model car and drive to their suburban home or apartment, grab a snack out of the fridge, and contemplate how much their lives suck.

These fools willing serve time in a solitary confinement of their own making, with lives not worth living because of the hell they create for themselves. They feel the world is better off without them.

They are probably right.

(h/t: Drudge)

Port of Morehead City Closed By Explosives Incident

Everything between 4th St. and the Hwy 70 bridge to Radio Island has been shutdown in Morehead City, NC, in response to a hazmat emergency.

According to local media, nine containers carrying explosives were involved. No media are reporting precisely what the explosive material is, but Marine Corps EOD technicians from nearby Cherry Point are on-scene.

Is is SOP to call in a military EOD team for industrial accidents?

Update: I guess it is entirely appropriate to call in military EOD when the spilled explosives are PETN.

80 grams is enough to bring down an airliner. We don't yet know how large the containers were that were damaged, but since there are at least nine and this is an industrial shipment, a conservative guess is that we're probably talking a minimum of hundreds of pounds of the explosive.

As an aside, I wonder what kind of port security they have at Morehead. It seems to me such a shipment would make one heck of hijacking target.

Pro-Terrorist Obama Ally Invites Muslim Brotherhood to "Join Us in Cleansing Our Country."

You remember Jodie Evans, don't you?

She's a co-founder of Code Pink, an apologist for Osama bin Laden, and bundler for Barack Obama that gets direct access to the White House.

She now inviting the group that spawned some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world to join Code Pink in &quut;cleansing our country.&quut;

In a more sane time in American history, Jodie Evans, Medea Benjamin, and other leaders of Code Pink would be viewed with the same scorn as the copperheads, but now they are instead embraced and consulted by the President himself.

We shouldn't be surprised that Barack Obama embraces radicals that hate America, as he has done that consistently his entire life. We retain the right, however, to be utterly appalled.

Money Bomb

As I'm typing this, Republican Scott Brown is in the later stages of his attempt to raise $500,000 in his run for Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat. He seems to be doing okay. He's raised more than $836,000, and the night isn't over.

Rather obviously, this race isn't just about filling a vacant Senate seat. It has become something of skirmish over the health care rationing scheme known as Obamacare.

That Brown is raising so much in one day in an off-year special election is a clear warning to Democrats that November will be bloody, indeed.

Update: Brown broke $1,000,000 well before 11:00 PM ET.

That Just Ain't Right

While I haven't had the chance to get out on the water in several years, I used to be an avid fisherman, stalking largemouth bass in lakes, farm ponds, and rivers. For bass fisherman, the &qout;holy grail&qout; has long been the 22 lb, 4 oz record bass caught by George W. Perry in Georgia in 1932. The catch spawned (sorry, couldn't resist) a multi-billion dollar industry, professional bass sport fishing, and made famous guys with names like Bill, Tom, and Ray.

Everyone suspected that one day soon Perry's record would be tied or broken, but we always figured it would be a good old boy in a remote Southern slough, or a new breed of big bass hunters that specialize in California's reservoir bass.

A bleach-blond Manabu Kurita isn't exactly the good old boy anyone expected to tie the record.

So Hot, We'll Freeze to Death

I had to go out a few minutes early this morning to use the global warming scraper™ on my car's windows before I could begin my morning commute.

It seems that some scientists are suggesting that instead of being an exception, that might one day become a regular part of my routine.

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.

Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in summer by 2013.

That's just the teaser; may sure you really dig into the article to get a full taste of just how much climate change cultists have lied to you about the direction our climate is heading.

The current, bitterly cold weather blanketing much of the northern hemisphere is a taste of what real science predicts for our future in the short term, and the long term as well.

The last 10,000 years have been very good to us; the 90,000 before that sucked, as it will again when our present interglacial comes to an end. The longer your view is of history, the more we see just how lucky we are that the human species had such an extended warm period in which to develop, but that long view also shows us that we're due for a long, and nasty temperature drop. We're overdue for the next ice age:

These data should frighten you. All of civilization developed during the last interglacial, and the data show that such interglacials are very brief. Our time looks about up. Data such as these are what led us to state, in the Preface, that the next ice age is about to hit us, any millennium now. It does not take a detailed theory to make this prediction. We don't necessarily know why the next ice age is imminent (at least on a geological timescale), but the pattern is unmistakable.

The real reason to be frightened is that we really don't understand what causes the pattern. We don't know why the ice ages are broken by the short interglacials. We do know something – that the driving force is astronomical.

Mankind is self-important, and arrogantly wants to believe that we can control the climate. Because of this we have wasted billions of dollars (and are poised to waste trillions more) trying to reverse a process in which we play a seemingly insignificant role.

We need to be focusing our efforts on trying to determine how—when the real climate change occurs—we're going to deal with longer periods of intense cold. We can't change the climate, but we can learn to adapt to it as it changes, as long as we don't waste our time, energy, and effort trying to control nature itself.

Update: I don't want to lose my funding! The scientist that was the bais for the Daily Mail article is challenging their representation of his work. Smart man. You don't bite the hand that feeds you all of that delicious grant money. He would probably come closer to agreeing with this Telegraph version of events, which will see him safely into retirement.

Attempting to claim that the reality of cooling and the projection of cooling actually supports a long term case for warming is a contortion to make a Cirque du Soleil gymnast wince, but it is amusing to watch.

Did Abdulmutallab Want to Fail? Eh, No

Most days, I don't think about him at all. Some days, I question his sanity. And then there are days when I have no doubts at all.

Glenn invokes Jane's law.

Yeah... that fits.

There Are No Coincidences

A U.S. solider deployed in Afghanistan captured the mastermind of the attack that killed his cousin three years before. When TankerBabe says she got chills hearing this story, I can understand why.

Via Thunder Run.

Wait a Second.. Allahpundit Knows Ray Stevens?

When you read someone long enough, you start to develop the feeling you actually know them to a certain extent, even though you don't actually know the person at all.

Well, Allahpundit through me for a loop this morning.

I never would have expected him to know the first thing about Ray Stevens, much less post his video ripping Obamacare:

If I find that AP's a closet fan of Lewis Grizzard and Jerry Clower, I just don't know what I'll do.

St. Louis Workplace Violence: Five Workers Shot, Shooter Commits Suicide

A disgruntled employee of more than 20 years entered the St. Louis branch of ABB Power and shot five others this morning before turning the gun on himself. The shooter, identified as Timothy Hendron, killed at least one of his co-workers. Several others are in serious-to-critical condition.

There is still a lot of confusion/misinformation over what precisely occurred and why, but several accounts indicate that Hendron was part of a class-action benefits lawsuit against his company, though it is unknown if that had any direct impact on today's events.

If anger over the court case is found out to be the proximate cause of the shooting, then it will be the second shooting this week with such a cause.

Please say a prayer for those affected.

Update: According to police, the suspect killed three ABB workers and wounded 5 others before taking his own life. There is still no word on a motive. The class-action lawsuit of which Hendron was a part was just getting underway this week.

Globe Columnist Tees Off on Martha Coakley

Ouch. Brian McGrory is not pulling his punches:

If you're a registered voter in Massachusetts, your friendly Democratic Senate candidate, Martha Coakley, is sticking her thumb in your eye.

Coakley, in exquisitely diva-like form, is refusing all invitations to debate her Republican opponent in the race, Scott Brown, unless a third-party candidate with no apparent credentials is included on the stage. She may also require a crystal bowl of orange-only M&Ms in her dressing room, but we haven't gotten that far yet. Her demands have led to an astonishing result: there will be just one -- that's one -- live televised debate in the Boston media market this general election season.

It gets mushy in the middle, but it ends strong.

If the Globe keeps hammering Coakley, will enough Massachusetts Democrats stay home to give Republican challenger Scott Brown an outside chance of winning Ted Kennedy's old seat? I still find it improbable, but Coakley's ineptitude, a continued withering assault from the typically left-leaning Globe, and the idea that some make use the race as a referendum against the health care rationing scheme seem to be making what should have been Coakley's race to win race more uncertain every day.

White House Refuses to Address Obama Health Care Lie

Shocking, I know.

Was Michael Yon Targeted For Harassment by DHS?

I'm really bad for getting around to this so late, but Michael Yon was hassled at the Seattle airport as he came back after nearly a year overseas:

Got arrested at the Seattle airport for refusing to say how much money I make. (The uniformed ones say I was not "arrested", but they definitely handcuffed me.) Their videos and audios should show that I was polite, but simply refused questions that had nothing to do with national security. Port authority police eve...ntually came -- they were professionals -- and rescued me from the border bullies.

Over at Blackfive, Laughing Wolf wrote about the incident, and someone calling themselves "Johnnie von Bernhardi" responded back in detail, challenging Yon's account, straight up calling him a liar.

Interestingly enough, von Bernhardi provides Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with a motive:

Yon actually has a history with CBP. His Thai girlfriend got stopped and questioned by CBP and he has a hissy fit afterward.

The "history" they speak of isn't of a problem with Yon passing through customs, but of publishing this article that detailed the bullying behavior of a CBP officer experience by a friend of Yon's.

And von Bernhardi? He/she posts from a socket-puppet Department of Homeland Security IP address both as Von Bernhardi and as Nicole on Blackfive.

While there is certain to be another official explanation for their behavior, the DHS sockpuppet makes it clear that CBP was both known to them and on their bad side before he attempted to re-enter the country.

I'll let you ponder what that may mean on your own.

As for his part, Yon is a fighter. He's challenged DHS to release the video-tapes of his harassment and may attempt to file a libel suit against DHS for the comment at Blackfive calling him a liar.

Let me tell you a little about what I know of Michael Yon. We've worked together on several stories in the past, and his concern for accuracy and fairness in reporting is second to none. If I had to weigh his integrity versus that of a person who leaves sock-puppeted comments under multiple aliases in a blog's comments, I'm going with Mike's account all the way, without reservations.

And if Janet Napolitano's DHS is targeting critics for harrassment, they certainly picked the wrong former Green Beret to start in on.

Update: Laughing Wolf says via email that Nicole claims she is not von Bernhardi. Duly noted.

Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie

Barack Obama, via Breitbart, promising on eight separate occasions to televise the health care debate.

Barack Obama is a liar. That isn't a slanderous accusation, just a well-documented fact. It rather makes you wonder what else he may have lied about.

Doesn't it?

Trouble for Coakley in Massachusetts

Before becoming a U.S. Senate candidate that expected to waltz into Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat merely for having a "D" behind her name, Martha Coakley was a prosecutor. The left-leaning Boston Globe is far from content with what would normally be their obvious choice over Republican candidate Scott Brown.

Maybe it's because she seemed so ambivalent about prosecuting child rapists:

In October 2005, a Somerville police officer living in Melrose raped his 23-month-old niece with a hot object, most likely a curling iron.

Keith Winfield, then 31, told police he was alone with the toddler that day and made additional statements that would ultimately be used to convict him.

But in the aftermath of the crime, a Middlesex County grand jury overseen by Martha Coakley, then the district attorney, investigated without taking action.

It was only after the toddler's mother filed applications for criminal complaints that Coakley won grand jury indictments charging rape and assault and battery.

Even then, nearly 10 months after the crime, Coakley's office recommended that Winfield be released on personal recognizance, with no cash bail. He remained free until December 2007, when Coakley's successor as district attorney won a conviction and two life terms.

Even as an isolated case this looks bad for Coakley, but I could understand how sympathetic people might consider her giving her the benefit of the doubt for having a bad case. OH, if it were only one bad case. But Winfield wasn't the first rapist she'd been soft on.

As Jules Crittenden notes, Coakley was also the prosecutor who allowed John Geoghan, the poster boy for Catholic priest pedophilia, to secretly plead to a probation deal in 1995. Geoghan molested at least 130 victims before finally being sentenced to prison.

I'm sure that there are voters in Massachusetts who can hold their nose, find a comfortable rationalization, and cast a vote for Coakley knowing her past.

But I imagine there quite a few more that now look on her with richly deserved suspicion.

Obama: Screw You, America, And Screw Transparency. Let's Ram Through This Bill

The veneer has shattered. Despite pleas from America (and the media) to keep his word, President Obama is calling for House and Senate Democrats to ram through Obamacare in a panicked rush:

President Barack Obama is prodding House and Senate Democrats to get him a final health care bill as soon as possible, encouraging them to bypass the usual negotiations between the two chambers in the interest of speed.

Obama delivered the message at an Oval Office meeting Tuesday evening with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his No. 2, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., joined in by phone.

They agreed that rather than setting up a formal conference committee to resolve differences between health bills passed last year by the House and Senate, the House will work off the Senate's version, amend it and send it back to the Senate for final passage, according to a House leadership aide, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the private meeting.

Obama himself will take a hands-on role, convening another meeting with congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday, the aide said.

The aim is to get a final bill to Obama's desk before the State of the Union address sometime in early February.

Nationwide, Democrats are dropping like flies, with two U.S. Senators and governor dropping out of planned re-election bids within the past 24 hours. This is presumably due to a combination of the bullying political tactics of the Democratic leadership for radical and rushed pork-laden expenditures, and the realization that their constituents are sick and tired of unethically-purchased and tyrannical legislation.

The Obama Administration and Democratic Congress have abandoned the concept of "representative" democracy, in that they have no interest in listening to the overwhelming majority of Americans who do not want this bill rushed through recklessly. As we are all painfully aware, health care comprises 20% of our national economy, and any legislation concerning it deserves careful and open deliberation to make sure that it meets the needs of the American people, without it being an undue burden on future generations.

It becomes more apparent with every passing day, however, that the radical leaders of the Democratic Party have no interest in making laws that help the American people. They are only interested in usurping as much power as they can for themselves.

Sorry Your Mommy Got Blown Up, Timmy: We Were Watching Icebergs

Pardon me for the sarcasm, but that future mea culpa is one that will likely be delivered (in substance, if not form) to the families of Americans killed because global warming cultists in the CIA are using assets to hunt clouds, tropical forests and ice instead of terrorists:

The nation’s top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government’s intelligence assets — including spy satellites and other classified sensors — to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.

The collaboration restarts an effort the Bush administration shut down and has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the last year, as part of the effort, the collaborators have scrutinized images of Arctic sea ice from reconnaissance satellites in an effort to distinguish things like summer melts from climate trends, and they have had images of the ice pack declassified to speed the scientific analysis.

That silly Bush administration!

Why, if there is one thing I've heard throughout the so-called "war on terror" it is that we've just had far too many intelligence assets being wasted, and that we might be better off draining analysts to retarget climate data from our multi-billion dollar constellation of satellites to a bunch of fear-mongering climatologists.

The article, of course, claims that:

the monitoring program has little or no impact on regular intelligence gathering, federal officials said, but instead releases secret information already collected or takes advantage of opportunities to record environmental data when classified sensors are otherwise idle or passing over wilderness.

Bull.

Anyone who has ever worked—well, anywhere—knows that side projects that have "little or no impact" invariably end up drawing a substantial number of resources away from their primary missions. In this case, that inevitable scope creep is intruding on a line of work where the consequences of failure can be the death of the very citizens the CIA is supposed to protect.

As for the scientists, I would think they already have their hands full attempting to validate and explain their existing manipulated data and doctored models.

But that's just me.

Massachusetts Senate Race Tightens. Is Obamacare The Cause?

A new Rasmussen poll out this morning shows that Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown (a member of the MA state Senate) trailing Democrat Martha Coakley (the state Attorney general) by only nine percentage points in the special election being held to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat:

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds Coakley ahead of Brown 50% to 41%. One percent (1%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

The special Senate election will be held on January 19 and special elections typically feature low turnout. That’s one reason the race appears to be a bit closer than might typically be expected for a Senate race in Massachusetts. Kennedy carried 69% of the vote when he was reelected in 2006.

I think this is a far closer race an anyone had any reason to suspect, but this may be because of a grassroots effort by Republican, conservative, and Tea Party activists (not always the same folks) to try to make this race a referendum on the national health care rationing bill known as Obamacare.

I doubt Brown will score an upset victory even with Coakley rather arrogantly taking a vacation just before the election, but if he makes it relatively close, that may be seen as a prelude to the kind of treatment Democrats might expect from voters for their attempts to bully through a dangerously flawed and poorly understood bill.

Vegas Courthouse Gunman Upset Over Social Security Cut

It looks like we have a motive for today's shooting at a Las Vegas courthouse.

A 66-year-old Las Vegas retiree, disgruntled over cuts in his Social Security benefits, opened fire this morning in the lobby of the federal courthouse here, killing a court security officer and wounding a deputy U.S. marshal, authorities said.

The gunman, identified as Johnny Lee Wicks, 66, was shot in the head and died on the scene, according to law enforcement sources. The deputy marshal was in stable condition at a local hospital. The names of the marshal and court security officer have not been released, though the security officer was a 65-year-old retired policeman, according to local media outlets.

Wicks was a recent retiree who was suing the U.S. government because his Social Security benefits were apparently denied or reduced, a law enforcement official said. He was living in a Las Vegas-area retirement home.

According to Fox News, the case was filed in 2008 but formally thrown out in September of 2009.

What he perceived as an unfair reduction in benefits was enough to send this retiree over the edge. I can only imagine the furor that will erupt when the entire Social Security system collapses under the weight of millions of Baby Boomers.

Violence Policy Center Still Can't Tell Difference Between Living, Dead

This is getting rather ridiculous.

Weeks ago in a Pajamas Media article I eviscerated the shoddy "research" of the Violence Policy Center, an anti-gun group President Obama repeatedly helped fund while a director of the Joyce Foundation.

In that exposeé, I highlighted the fact that VPC couldn't even total the number of deaths they reported correctly, "double-dipping" to create a higher false number of fatalities. But among the the biggest, most glaring weakness of the VPC report was the claim that at least one person they listed as killed, was never shot.

The VPC claims:

On March 8, 2008, Christine Burroughs, naked and covered with blood, ran to neighbor Alice and Lance Lather’s house seeking refuge from her enraged husband, Arthur Burroughs. Burroughs followed his wife to the home, fatally shooting Lance Lather. Burroughs then barricaded himself in the neighbors’ bathroom with his wife. A SWAT team and hostage negotiator were called to the house, but Burroughs shot and killed his wife and then himself. Christine Burroughs had previously told Alice Lather that her husband wanted to kill her because she wanted a divorce. Burroughs had been previously employed in loss prevention and security for T.J. Maxx and had possessed a concealed handgun permit since at least 1999.

As noted by citing several news accounts, including two that interviewed Christine Burroughs after the shooting, Mrs. Burroughs survived her husband's rampage. She was never shot. Period.

Gun control organizations routinely engage in hyperbole, fear tactics, and falsifying claims to pursue their political objectives. Still, even by the low standards of gun control groups, isn't claiming that someone died when they did not far over the line of acceptable behavior?

Xe Contractors Killed In CIA Attack

Via WRAL:

Two CIA contractors killed in a bombing in Afghanistan Wednesday were employed by North Carolina-based Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, according to CNN.

A former intelligence officer told CNN that two of seven deceased worked for the private security and training firm based in Moyock, a small community in Currituck County.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the bombing at a former military base on the edge of Khost city, the capital of Khost province, which borders Pakistan and is a Taliban stronghold. Six other CIA workers were wounded.

It would be interesting to know what services the Xe contractors were performing. Theoretically, security for government employees would have been their primary role. Just as obviously, that security was breached.

More "Settled" Science: Atmospheric CO2 Hasn't Increased Since Fillmore Administration

Actually, they are going only on recorded data, so another way of saying this is that atmospheric CO² hasn't risen in recorded history:

Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

However, some studies have suggested that the ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.

Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.

Oh, that lovely phrase again, where they reveal anthropogenic climate change cultists reveal they've assumed variables for their models that will lead to a desired outcome, instead of using what they actually known.

Using what you know and can prove instead of making speculative assumptions that invariably justify your preferred outcome... what a concept.

Update: The research abstract is a bit more clear:

Several recent studies have highlighted the possibility that the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems have started loosing part of their ability to sequester a large proportion of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This is an important claim, because so far only about 40% of those emissions have stayed in the atmosphere, which has prevented additional climate change. This study re-examines the available atmospheric CO2 and emissions data including their uncertainties. It is shown that with those uncertainties, the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero. The analysis further shows that the statistical model of a constant airborne fraction agrees best with the available data if emissions from land use change are scaled down to 82% or less of their original estimates. Despite the predictions of coupled climate-carbon cycle models, no trend in the airborne fraction can be found.

My bold above.

Obama The Appeaser May Have Violated Executive Order Against Negotiating With Terrorists

I completely missed this story yesterday, where Bill Roggio noted that the Obama Administration fell into a trap laid by Iranian-backed extremists, and released terrorists that killed American soldiers:

The US has released the leader of an Iranian-backed Shia terror group behind the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in January 2007.

Qais Qazali, the leader of the Asaib al Haq or the League of the Righteous, was set free by the US military and transferred to Iraqi custody in exchange for the release of British hostage Peter Moore, US military officers and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. The US military directly implicated Qais in the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in January 2007.

"We let a very dangerous man go, a man whose hands are stained with US and Iraqi blood," a military officer said. "We are going to pay for this in the future."

The US military has maintained that the release of members and leaders of the League of the Righteous is related to a reconciliation agreement between the terror group and the Iraqi government, but some US military officers disagree.

"The official line is the release of Qazali is about reconciliation, but in reality this was a prisoner swap," a military intelligence official said.

The Brit released in this uneven exchange was purposefully kidnapped to be used as swap-bait, and our American Chamberlain showed he was precisely the cultured rube they expected.

Today, Roggio follows up by noting that Obama may have violated an executive order issued by Ronald Reagan that expressly forbid negotiating with terrorists.

To the best I can determine, there are two possible answers to the question of whether or not Obama violated National Security Decision Directive Number 207.

The first possible answer is that yes, the Administration did violate the Directive. If that is the case, I'm not sure what the ramifications could or should be. I suspect that even if criminal laws were broken by the White House, the Holder Justice Department would not seek to prosecute. In the unlikely event that they would prosecute, you can be assured that a lower-level staffer would be the fall guy.

The other possible answer—and perhaps the more likely one—is that shortly after taking office President Obama issued an executive order of his own that authorizes negotiations with terrorists.

Whether he broke the Reagan-era directive or cravenly issued a secret one of his own, the fact of the matter is that our nation's enemies know that taking hostages is now a viable option to win concessions with this President.

Hell of a job, Barry.

Hell of a job.