Obama: The Man Who Would Be King

Why is Obama smiling? Perhaps if this wonderful, charismatic speaker, this man who has risen so quickly that he is still basically a State Senator in mental outlook truly understood what he was getting into, he would show a bit more concern.

Obama tried speaking about substance when he mentioned the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he displayed an astounding ignorance of the military instrument. He said that an anonymous U.S. Army captain told him that his infantry platoon was split and sent to different areas of operations; that they were lacking vehicles; and that they had insufficient ammunition to fight.

Although problems do occur in combat situations to be sure, none of what Obama related makes any sense ...

Politicians rely heavily, on almost every subject, on advisors to get them educated and keep them current. And nobody really expects Obama or Clinton or even McCain, who was a Navy aviator, to know anything about ground combat. But one does expect the candidate to employ advisors who know what they are talking about and to prevent their candidate from embarrassment.

While Obama has attracted money, notoriety and delegates, he has yet to attract military advisers who know what they are doing. ___Source

Who is Obama truly depending on, as advisors? Is he depending on the "poster-boy" economic and policy advisors put forward by his campaign, or is he performing as required for the "campaign show", while intending to fall back on his most pivotal and most trusted advisors once the deal is done? I suspect that Michelle Obama will play a very strong role in any Obama administration. A very alienated Michelle, with a strong sense of entitlement and victimisation--a dangerous combination indeed.

"Dreams of My Father", the 1995 Obama autobiography contains many clues. There may just be enough time between now and November to learn enough about the hidden core of this man who would be king.

Obama -- Running for President, or Caliph?

Senator Obama appears to have a rather mysterious past. Obama is clearly qualified to be Senator, or any other political job where not much is expected in terms of genuine wisdom, leadership, or accomplishment. But is he qualified for a job that requires him to represent all the people?

The photo above suggests more than a passing "muslim connection" on the part of the very junior Illinois senator. What other possible complications currently lie hidden, buried in obscurity by a hopeful campaign staff? Shelby Steele looked into Senator Obama's past, writing about it in "A Bound Man."

But for anyone who believes that a US President needs to be president of all the people, not just of a small but vocal minority, a simple reading of Obama's 1995 pre-autobiography, "Dreams from my Father", should be enough to show that until Obama does a lot of explaining, he is simply not a big enough man to be US President.

Most Americans would like to be able to vote for a black candidate, or--as in Obama's case--a mixed race candidate. The important thing in voting for a candidate is not his race or gender, however. It is his qualifications for the job.

Update: It keeps getting better: Louis Farrakhan has endorsed Obama for President!

You are Strictly Forbidden to Say a Single Bad Word About Islam, On Pain of Death

It seems that author Mark Steyn is an alarmist for pointing out a few things that are happening in Europe. Apparently, in Europe, telling an uncomfortable truth makes one an alarmist.

My book's thesis — that most of the Western world is on course to become at least semi-Islamic in its political and cultural disposition within a very short time — is "alarmist."...The question then arises: fair enough, guys, what would it take to alarm you?

...Last week, the British and Ontario governments confirmed within days of each other that thousands of polygamous men in their jurisdictions receive welfare payments for each of their wives.

...What does it mean when 57 per cent of Pakistani Britons are married to first cousins and 70 per cent are married to relatives? At the very least, it tells you that this community is strongly resistant to traditional immigrant assimilation patterns.

...Is sharia, polygamy, routine first-cousin marriage in the interests of Canada or Britain or Europe? Oh, dear, even to raise the subject is to tiptoe into all kinds of uncomfortable terrain for the multicultural mindset.___Macleans

What about honour killings, stoning adulterers, killing of apostates, genital mutilation, and the general, run-of-the-mill religious bigotry, hatred, and failure to assimilate?

Without pressure to conform to the norms of a larger society, immigrant muslims will form their own internal power structures--a state within a state. It is inevitable, given the totalitarian nature of Islamic life. Religion, family, government--all wrapped into one set of rules, Sharia. If the secular western government is too reticent to insist upon compliance with civil and criminal law, Muslim law will fill the void.

Leftist multiculturalism claims to view all cultures to be at least as good as western culture. But the only way for multiculturalists to tolerate the misogyny, homophobic violence, and religious intolerance of Islam, is for them to pretend it does not exist. So they do--pretend. And pretend, and pretend, and pretend. But to what end?

Here is a simple multi-cultural math question. One million male muslim immigrants each marry four female first cousins, from the old country. Each wife has four children, and collects her own welfare check for her household. If the fertility rate for indigenous English girls is close to 1 child per woman, how long before everyone in England is muslim, and living on welfare checks?

Research shows that when third world people move to the first world, the fertility rate of at least the first generation of immigrants goes up. In the case of muslims in Europe, every generation is the first generation, since muslim males send back to the old country for girl cousins to marry.

China to Send 300 Million Chinese to Africa

According to one official, China will need to move 300 million Chinese nationals to Africa, in order to reduce overpopulation and environmental devastation in the Chinese homeland.

During the last decade tens of thousands have uprooted themselves from China and migrated to Africa, with Chinese-government approval. There are estimated to be 750,000 Chinese across the continent, 900 Chinese companies, and an overall Chinese investment of $6 billion. Yet most Chinese speak neither English nor any African language....The Chinese work in agriculture, trade and construction, and are doing everything from producing oil and developing giant state-financed infrastructure projects building roads and railways, to smaller enterprises producing shoes, textiles, motorbikes, TVs and CDs.

...But the continent has come alight with Chinese enterprise. It is a new frontier for them, a land filled with promise, and Chinese faces are everywhere. Having jettisoned the communist ideological and revolutionary ideals that had tied them to Africa in the first place in favour of trade, today the Chinese are Africa’s newest, most enthusiastic and rampant capitalists...Nor do the newcomers seeking their fortune view Africa as a place of drought, war, disease and poverty – often the Western perception of Africa. “Africa is a paradise for wide lives,” said Luo Hung, a famous Chinese photographer who has been wooing fellow Chinese to Africa with photographic exhibitions in the big Chinese cities. “The landscapes, animals and human beings there create a harmonious and beautiful picture.”...A family in China will save for years to send just one of its members to Africa. Unlike cautious Westerners they are not afraid to start small – a massage parlour or restaurant here, a sewing shop or pharmacy there – which offer modest but quick returns on investment. Many live in small apartments on small wages in conditions that no European would consider.

...Like it or not, China’s growing economic presence in Africa is a reality that Europe and America have to face. It is unstoppable and has brought Africa to a tipping point. It could be a moment of immense opportunity....Chinese contractors are fast and competitively priced. There is plenty of positive spin-off. One is China’s provision of cheap chemicals enabling, in Tanzania’s case, the local pharmaceutical industry to manufacture life-saving generic anti-retroviral drugs for the millions of Africans with Aids. They cost less than £6 a month....The Chinese cash is a godsend for Africa. But it could yet turn out to be a curse if it is misused by Africa’s leaders who, Africa’s record on corruption shows, can be easily tempted.

...On big construction projects, wherever possible, the Chinese insist on importing their own workforce from China. These workers live in sprawling camps, eat like they did at home, and make little or no effort to adopt African customs, learn the language, much less marry local African girls. It is a harsh existence that no comfort-loving Westerner would consider emulating.

However, where the Chinese have done this – oil-rich Angola and mineral-rich Zambia come to mind – resentment has often arisen because of their unwillingness to employ indigenous workers. Even the unskilled labour is fulfilled by the Chinese. In Angola, the government has agreed that 70% of tendered public works must go to Chinese firms, most of which do not employ Angolans. The Chinese are also causing concern at the way they have used African countries as dumping grounds for cheap goods. Many small companies across Africa have been forced into dire straits, even bankruptcy, by Chinese competition...In Tanzania, for example, the scene of China’s great railway triumph, the country’s only flip-flop factory is dying. A few years ago it employed some 3,000 people and sold flip-flops across the continent. Now it employs only 1,000. Its Lebanese manager complains that he cannot compete with cheap Chinese imports sold for less than cost price. There have been stories that the Chinese were shipping goods in diplomatic containers to the embassy in Dar es Salaam, avoiding customs and import duty.____Times

China is using Africa more ruthlessly and cynically than a western nation could, at this time. No worries about human rights, environmental quality, or the massive human suffering occurring right under the noses of Chinese traders and contractors.

The Chinese understand the ruthless dictators on the dark continent, and have no qualms about dealing directly with butchers and murderers, who allow their own people to starve and bleed. That is nothing to migrants from the middle kingdom, who are only there to make a profit, then go home.

If China ever decides to make a longer-term stand in Africa, it may be necessary for them to make "king-making" deals with tribal leaders currently out of power, to get the concessions they will want. There is nothing so expected as a bloody coup, in SubSaharan lands.

Still, 300 million emigrants from China to Africa? At a time when the massive Chinese population is aging so rapidly? If so, it is possible for one reason--the one child policy. When families routinely have but one child, there are no cousins, no aunts or uncles, no siblings. Only parents, grandparents, and child. Fewer ties to the home country, perhaps. It will be interesting to watch.

Obama Uses JFK's Speechwriter: Echoes of Camelot

Barack Obama has reached into the past for a bit of campaign magic--the ghosts of JFK and Camelot. JFK's speechwriter, Ted Sorenson, is still alive, working to build a new Camelot in Washington.

At the age of 24, he joined the staff of the newly elected Sen. John F. Kennedy and later helped him win the presidency, calling on Americans to pass the torch to a new generation...The legendary speechwriter helped Kennedy craft the now-famous 1961 Inaugural address in which the new president proclaimed, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

...Today, at 79 years old and blind, Sorensen has a new mission: to resurrect Camelot. And it seems the Obama campaign is listening.

"I've given them a phrase or suggestion or two," Sorensen admits...As for all the comparisons that have been drawn between Obama and Kennedy, "I probably started it," he told ABCNEWS.com

ABCNews
This is important. Because if you have read the transcripts of Obama's "Yes We Can" speech, accompanied by the YouTube video, you will get an inkling of the inspirational power of a well written stump speech.

Obama is dipping deeply into the well of inspirational political rhetoric. The rhetoric of JFK's Camelot appears as if by magic--a glorious crystal spring oasis in the midst of the oppressive pessimism created by the mainstream media. What a relief! Obama offers the hope of a wonderful future, divorced from the parched desperation of the present.

If you have not watched the video and read the transcript, you should do so.

Obama induces at least two powerful hopes in the hearts of his listeners:

1. To be understood.
2. To have the hope of a glorious future.

Any politician who can pluck those heart strings will gather a significant following, in terms of numbers.

Obama's speechwriters, including the aging Sorenson, are clearly reaching into more than one historical source, for inspiration. The speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. are likewise being salvaged, for what they may provide in inspiration. And to be sure, Obama is being lifted up as a multitude of icons.

As the weeks and months go by, it will be interesting to count all the icons that one can find, hidden within Obama's speeches, press releases, and fan columns by journalists and celebrities. Because it appears that Obama is to be the recipient of a deluge of decades long, previously continent outbursts of adoration, saved for just the right shining object.

"He is the one," gushes Oprah--a woman who tends to excess from time to time. "He is the truth," Oprah adds, incontinently. Apparently, Obama is to be many things, as time goes on--but particularly he is to be the inspiration for a political movement. Call him a political Messiah.

Ted Sorenson's Messiah, perhaps, returned from the dead? Certainly Oprah's Messiah, and the Messiah of Hollywood's drug saturated, jaded crew.

But is he real? Is there any "there", there? We will see.

Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew--Bomb, Bomb, Bomb .... Bomb Bomb Iran

Actually, no, he does not actually come right out and say that Iran should be bombed. But if you can read between the lines... Lee is subtle, and often speaks in his silences.

Q: Which raises the question of the United States or Israel bombing Iran's nuclear facilities.

A: (long silent pause) … I can express no views on that.

Q: The Israelis say they are facing an existential crisis.

A: No question, they are at risk.

...Q: But in the Gulf, if the U.S. and/or Israel bombed Iran's nuclear facilities, Iran has formidable asymmetrical retaliatory capabilities?

A: But let me repeat, they cannot conquer you. Hezbollah cannot conquer Lebanon. They can create trouble for the non-Hezbollah Lebanese. So micro actors can cause a lot of trouble for your friends, but they can't eradicate them.____UPI

What Lee is saying, is that yes, Israel is at deadly risk from Iranian nuclear weapons. If it were his decision to make [for Israel] he would seriously consider bombing Iran [but not invading]. He would expect retaliation and significant losses. But at the end of the day, he appears to say that the need to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons ability exceeds the risks of retaliation.

The price of oil would shoot through the roof--probably over US $200 a barrel, temporarily. There would be significant economic short term difficulties in the US, Europe, and the rest of the west. Russia and China would be upset, but not enough to retaliate in the open. Behind closed doors is another matter.

The Islamic world would outwardly condemn Israel and the US, while inwardly the Sunni world and moderate Shias would be relieved to not have to face their own nuclear Islamic Civil War.

Iran is only 50% ethnic Persian, and most of them are very unhappy with the leadership of their country. If the west waited long enough, perhaps the leadership would be overthrown anyway. But then, you could have said the same about Hitler in 1930s Germany.

These decisions have serious consequences, either way. Acting, or not acting.

Impending Collapse of North Korea--Will South Korea Step Up to the Plate?

The biggest test of the mettle of the government and people of South Korea will be when North Korea collapses--which according to Jane's Information Group could be as early as the next 6 months.

The day Kim Jong-Il and his family flee North Korea will be a great day for the cause of human rights. Yet it is also a day that leaders in China, South Korea, and the U.S. dread. Chaos and a security nightmare will replace the previous state of brutal stability. And a gargantuan economic bill, to be borne by someone, will then begin to mount.

Once the North Korean police state collapses, it will be impossible to keep the global media out of the Hermit Kingdom. For the first time, the world will get to view the economic and social depravation imposed by the Kim regime. The pressure for wide-ranging humanitarian and economic relief will be immense.

However, government leaders in China, South Korea, and the U.S. will remember the economic consequences of the reunification of Germany. Germany's reunification resulted in a surge in Europe's inflation rate and a tightening of monetary policy in response, which later led to a painful recession. The economic situation in North Korea is even more extreme, a condition the global media won't let the world ignore.

But those are just the beginning of North Korea's costs. Even if the North Korean army were to assist a Chinese or South Korean or American relief force, such an expeditionary relief force would face large logistical challenges. The first task of the expeditionary force would be to find and seize control of North Korea's stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, along with any fissile material. Even with the cooperation of the North Koreans, this would be dangerous work. Add to that crowd control and humanitarian relief, and the costs and risks of the expedition multiply.

The intervention force would have to face the prospect that many officers in North Korea's army and secret police would resist an occupation of the country. Thus, the intervention force might very well have to find and seize control of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) stockpiles in the face of a terror insurgency armed with these very weapons.____TCSDaily

What a massively collectivist cluster-foque! West Germany was able to absorb East Germany, when its communist government folded. Although South Korea is quite affluent, few global analysts respect South Korea's ability to intervene to prevent massive human disaster.

China has been quite possessive of its "pet pit bull Kim". Is it likely that China would allow US troops to participate in a human relief mission--to save as many N. Koreans from starvation as possible? That question is debatable. China does not want North Korea to fall from its collectivist orbit. The CCP will try to install a puppet government to replace Kim--but will it work? Will the South Koreans have the substance to insist on re-unification on its terms?

The US would like to re-position its troops from the Korean peninsula to better locations. But what is South Korea made of? Can Seoul stand up to Beijing? We will find out, perhaps to our dismay, within years.

World Makes Contingency Plans In Case of Obama Presidency: Preparing for the Worst

Europe and Canada have marshaled armies of scientists to prepare for the worst--in case US voters elect Barack Obama as US President next November. In Norway, a "doomsday vault" is being stocked with seeds, in case a President Obama brings about unprecedented global devastation. British, Swedish, and Chinese scientists are studying the basic mechanisms of control of human ovulation, in what many observers see as an effort to develop a "doomsday vault" for human embryos.

"We would not be so concerned", stated Blythe Manfredson, EU Disaster Planner, "if not for some disturbing revelations coming from the United States. We have learned that Senator Obama's campaign is using deep brain stimulation to influence voting preferences in non-African American voters.""That's patently absurd!" declared an Obama campaign aide heatedly. "We only use DBS on resistant voters--racists! Many Americans willingly--even enthusiastically--vote for Barack, so they don't need the DBS."

EU sources state that they are not reassured by the explanations coming from the Obama campaign. "I would feel much better if the Obama campaign would just stick to the traditional deceptions, false promises, and misleading attacks against opponents. Using DBS is getting too close to unfair manipulation," declared one source, who asked not to be named.

Manfredson denies that she and other government planners are over-reacting to the possibility of an Obama presidency. "Look, we are destroying the European economy on the basis of unproven and unfalsifiable climate models. How could we face the people of Europe if we failed to react to the Obama threat in its turn?"

Other EU officials express concerns that Obama is seen by large segments of the US public as almost a "magic negro", possessing mythical powers to bring about a new millenium for everyone except bad people. "This type of expectation inevitably leads to catastrophe!" declared another anonymous EU source. "Unrealistic belief in a particular "change-bringer" too easily leads to suspension of critical thinking. The danger is particularly dire from charismatic but unproven politicians."

It is not likely that such cautions will be considered by the American public. In fact, most of the American news media itself appears to be in thrall to the first-term senator from Illinois.

"We have to be concerned," insisted Manfredson. "Obama has single-handedly destroyed an American political dynasty that was expected to last decades. He appears unstoppable. Clearly the American public's expectations of what an Obama presidency would mean, in terms of revolutionary justice and change, is completely unrealistic. When the reality sets in, we expect widespread social upheaval--perhaps even civil war in the US."

"The US is the leader of the world, the guarantor of world markets and trade routes," explained Chen Xin, Chinese liason to the EU Disaster Planning Commission. "Although we Chinese wish to replace the US as most powerful nation, it is no one's best interest for the handover of world power to occur by way of calamitous violent change. Despite his powerful charisma, Obama has simply not displayed an ability to lead, so the danger of violent disillusionment and backlash is extreme. We do not expect civil war in America--unless Obama attempts to radically alter the American military."

Meanwhile, the stocking of the doomsday seed vault has been placed at highest priority, as have preparations for stocking a doomsday vault with frozen human embryos. Judging by the actions of international disaster planners, the future of mankind has never looked so bleak.

In China, The Government Recommends Drinking One Glass of Concentrated Sulfuric Acid Every Day

This sad story illustrates the state of industry and public health in central China. If this were your home, would you consider moving to Africa?

"We have 70-80 patients at our hospital at the moment, but during the day, we get about 700 to 800 people a day arriving with the symptoms," a staffer at the Chenxi People's Hospital, who gave only his surname Zhang, told AFP by phone.

"This is due to sulfuric acid poisoning from the local factory."

.....The problem first came to light in early December, when a retired coal miner discovered that his tap water had turned yellow, the report said, quoting an unnamed victim of the poisoning.

The local government later in the month pronounced the area's water safe to drink. But about 10 days ago, growing numbers of local villagers began to fall ill with what hospital staff initially described as flu-like or leukaemia symptoms.

Others had inflamed throats or paralysis.

As more people began arriving at hospitals the local government began to investigate and found the water contaminated with arsenic, tantalum and other dangerous chemicals, it said.

....Chemical spills with serious health consequences are not uncommon in China.

In one of the worst recent examples, a massive chemical plant spill into northeastern China's Songhua River resulted in drinking supplies for millions of residents of Heilongjiang province being cut.

TerraDaily

This is the country that expects to lead the world by the second half of the 21st century! The entire nation is becoming a gigantic wasteland, due to government sanctioned abuse of the air, water, and land. Soon, China will need to invade its neighbors for lebensraum--and clean drinking water. Africa sounds nice....

Chinese Africans: Neo-Colonists?

A new wave of Chinese immigrants are coming to Africa, up to 750,000 of them so far. Many of the new wave immigrants are poor farmers looking for better land and more opportunity. Others are shopkeepers and traders, sensing a chance to fill a neglected niche.

They are settling all over the continent, in rural and urban areas, and are involved in agriculture, construction and trade.

This latest wave of Chinese migrants - thought to total up to 750,000....in the last 10 years are going for economic, not political reasons....They are part of China's bid to secure raw materials and markets for its manufactured goods, but they are also carving out their own opportunities.

Chinese farmers have already started moving to Africa, according to Liu Jianjun of the China-Africa Business Council, which helps Chinese firms find business opportunities in Africa....Mr Liu has personally sent several thousand Chinese people to Africa over the last few years from his home city of Baoding in Hebei Province.

His organisation mainly focuses on setting up agricultural companies, which he calls "Baoding Villages"...These Baoding farmers are working in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Senegal, growing crops with African partners and then turning them into food products.

"Chinese migrants or former labourers on construction sites are opening shops, using their contacts to get cheap goods from China," he says...As an example, he cites the provincial town of Huambo in central Angola, which had no Chinese shops seven years ago...Five years ago there were five and now there are more than 20, says Mr Alden, who has just written a book called China in Africa.

Unsurprisingly, many Chinese migrants themselves say the chance to earn more money is the main motive for leaving their country...Chinese worker Lu Shaoqing, who is helping to build sports stadiums in Angola, says he left his wife and seven-year-old daughter in Beijing for a number of reasons..."I came here because I wanted to see Africa, and Angola is under reconstruction at the moment so I came to help with that," he says.

But he admits the 700-odd Chinese workers in his company have the chance to earn up to three times as much as back home in China.___BBC

Most Chinese immigrants are actually migrants--in Africa for a few years to earn a cash bundle, then back to China. Some sense a longer opportunity, and will likely settle for a longer time. Tropical disease, tribal warfare, and other hazards abound on the dark continent.

In the 19th century, the British imported workers from colonial India. Those Indian workers who settled in Uganda were driven off by Idi Amin in the 1970s. Over time, the same thing may happen to Chinese who settle permanently in troubled multi-tribal sub Saharan nations.

The blatantly obvious need for experienced and disciplined market leadership in most African countries suggests that if a country can find prolonged peace, prosperity is possible with the proper cadre of market savvy traders in place.

Epidemic of Violence by Media Veterans

Normal citizens are becoming alarmed at the flurry of violence by media veterans:

A Denver newspaper columnist is arrested for stalking a story subject. In Cincinnati, a television reporter is arrested on charges of child molestation. A North Carolina newspaper reporter is arrested for harassing a local woman. A drunken Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member is arrested for wife beating. A Baltimore newspaper editor is arrested for threatening neighbors with a shotgun. In Florida, one TV reporter is arrested for DUI, while another is charged with carrying a gun into a high school. A Philadelphia news anchorwoman goes on a violent drunken rampage, assaulting a police officer. In England, a newspaper columnist is arrested for killing her elderly aunt.

..."These people could snap at any minute," says James Treacher of the Treacher Institute for Journalist Studies. "We need to get them the help and medication they need before it's too late."...Accounts of media psychopathy, while widespread, have until now been largely anecdotal. In order to provide a more focused and systematic study of the crisis, Iowahawk researchers set out to identify and tabulate criminal arrests and convictions of current and former journalists. While by no means comprehensive, this 10-minute project yielded a grim picture of a once-proud profession now in the grips of tragic, drunk, violent, child-raping rage.

The stories cited in the opening paragraph, while instructive, are by no means isolated. Google searches return hundreds of crimes attributable to workers in America's media industry, and millions of pages containing the terms "journalist" and "murder." They are as shocking in their detail as they are in their number.

....How many unsuspecting American motorists and pedestrians remain at risk from alcoholic media professionals is still a matter of scientific conjecture, but one thing is certain: journalists can be even more deadly outside their cars. Often the journalistic gateway to violent behavior begins with stalking and trespassing -- such as has been alleged of People magazine reporters Jeffrey Neal Weiss, and, in an unrelated incident, Don Sider. But sometimes, as in the case of MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, serial stalking behavior goes unpunished and the perpetrators go on to seek more serious thrill-crimes. Journalists recently charged with violent offenses include New York Times reporter and alleged batterer Michael Katz, British reporter Ben Stubbings, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Margaret Gillerman, charged with striking a police officer.

... A shocking number of journalism-related crimes involve child molestation, child pornography, and internet stalking of minors. Journalists recently charged with sickening crimes in this category include Arizona newspaper editor Lindsey Stockton, Arkansas radio reporter Charles "David" Ballard, New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter William Kalec, Former KTTV-TV Los Angeles reporter Rod Bernsen, Washington DC TV weatherman Bill Kamal, and Noel Neff, former editor of the children's magazine Weekly Reader.

In recent times, the national journalist crime spree has taken an increasingly deadly turn. A typical case in point is former Savannah newspaper reporter Donald Lowery, charged with robbing a bank with a sawed-off shotgun. Sometimes arrests are made before bloodshed, such as in the case of Oak Ridge (TN) newspaper reporter and alleged murder plotter Michael Frazier, and former San Francisco AsianWeek columnist Kenneth Eng, arrested for threatening a Virginia Tech-style massacre at a New York University commencement. All too often, though, the warning signs come too late. Recent years witnessed several journalists arrested on murder charges, including longtime Hartford Courant reporter Gregory Robertson and Missouri radio host and reporter James Keown, charged with fatally poisoning his wife by spiking her Gatorade with antifreeze.

...Among the defenders is University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds.

"I think it's unfair to single out journalists as thieves, or violent, or drunks, or child abusers," says Reynolds. "Sometimes they're all of the above."...He cites the case of Kevin Lee Pettiford, a Knoxville journalist charged with abducting and threatening to kill three minor girls during a drunken high speed chase to an attempted bank robbery.

Iowahawk

Truly, the North American public is at serious risk from violent media veterans--the scummiest of the scummy.
;-)

Barack Obama: A Brief Bio Part I

Barack Obama is an extremely articulate US Senator from Illinois, who happens to be running for US President in 2008. He is currently in his first Senate term, so Obama is not well known to most US voters. In order that abu al-fin readers can get a better grasp of Senator Obama's background, this brief bio is presented:

Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii to Stanley Ann Dunham from Kansas who moved to Hawaii and there married Muslim, Barack Obama, Sr. a black student from Kenya...Obama’s dad...left his wife and two-year-old Obama to work on a Ph.D. at Harvard. He returned to Kenya to take a lucrative government job and another wife. He ended up fathering eight children by four different women, not all could be counted as wives.

...Obama’s white mother then married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim student at the University of Hawaii who moved the family to Indonesia when Obama was six. After his drinking and womanizing stepfather died, the family moved back to Hawaii when Obama was in the fifth grade. During those years, Obama lived in nice neighborhoods and attended the best schools until he was graduated from high school.

...Barack Obama is a member of Trinity United Church of Christ....The pastor is Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. who baptized Obama into the church 20 years ago. The United Church of Christ was formed by the 1957 merger of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church;

...Dr. Wright...preaches that Zionism is racism and has compared Israel with South Africa of 20 years ago. On the Sunday following the attack on America, Wright said the attacks were a consequence of American policies. He also said, “In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” as quoted in the Oct., 2003 issue of The Trumpet Newsmagazine, edited by Wright’s daughter....

Wright....said of Israel, “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now.” ...

Canada Free Press

Obviously, Senator Obama had an interesting childhood, and currently associates with some rather colourful characters. In a later post, we will go into some of Obama's public statements and actions in more detail.

MIT / Johns Hopkins / Lancet Corruption Scandal Update: George Soros Moneybags

The most recent news concerning the corruption scandal involving Johns Hopkins University and The Lancet, a UK medical journal, leads us directly to George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.

“The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research,” said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Timesonline

So this is how much MIT, Johns Hopkins, and The Lancet can be bought for--to influence a US election? Pathetic.

Can George Soros buy your vote? No, a better way to put it: could George Soros have already bought your vote--and you did not even know it?

Politics and the Corruption of a Formerly Prestigious Medical Journal

As a trained epidemiologist, I regret being forced by the Lancet to reveal the underlying sleaziness of a sub-layer of the epidemiologic profession, as well as medical journalism. When the Lancet published its reports on Iraqi civilian casualties[pdf]--immediately before the US 2006 mid-term elections--it was clear to me that the authors had taken some unwarranted shortcuts in methodology. What was even clearer, was that the Lancet editorial staff was willing to overlook the methodologic deficiencies of the report, and publish anyway--just in time to influence the US elections. Since then, I have had no respect for the Lancet.

How to explain the enormous discrepancy between The Lancet's estimation of Iraqi war deaths and those from studies that used other methodologies? For starters, the authors of the Lancet study followed a model that ensured that even minor components of the data, when extrapolated over the whole population, would yield huge differences in the death toll. Skeptical commentators have highlighted questionable assumptions, implausible data, and ideological leanings among the authors, Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, and Les Roberts.

...Lafta had been a child-health official in Saddam Hussein's ministry of health when the ministry was trying to end the international sanctions against Iraq by asserting that many Iraqis were dying from hunger, disease, or cancer caused by spent U.S. depleted-uranium shells remaining from the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In 2000, Lafta authored at least two brief articles contending that U.N. sanctions had caused many deaths by starvation among Iraqi children.

...Little is known about Lafta's decision-making in amassing the data for the Lancet surveys....Even though the second study was even further out of line with other sources' estimates than the first, it got tremendous attention -- probably because its findings fit an emerging narrative: Iraq was a horrific mess....Democrats who had opposed Bush's Iraq campaign embraced the report. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., for example, issued a statement saying that the "new study is a chilling and somber reminder of the unacceptably high human cost of this war.... We must not stay on the same failed course any longer." Such remarks, amplified by myriad articles, broadcasts, and blogs, helped to cement Americans' increasingly negative perceptions of the war. "For those who wanted to believe it, it gave them a new number to circulate, [and] it was a defining moment" in attitudes toward the war, said pollster John Zogby, who commended the report in a CNN interview.

...In the Middle East, both Sunni and Shiite Islamist groups have used the study to bolster their claims that the West is waging a war against Islam. In an October 30, 2007, debate on Al Jazeera, for example, an Egyptian cleric, Sheik Ibrahim al-Khouli, slammed a Syrian author's criticism of fundamentalist Islam. The United States and Europe had "fought in Iraq and destroyed it," he said. They "killed one and a half million people ... [and] killed a million Iraqi children during the [1990s sanctions] siege; left traces of enriched uranium from the weapons that were used [in 1991]; and destroyed the environment for the next 35 billion years, according to American estimates."

...the authors have declined to provide the surveyors' reports and forms that might bolster confidence in their findings. Customary scientific practice holds that an experiment must be transparent -- and repeatable -- to win credence. Submitting to that scientific method, the authors would make the unvarnished data available for inspection by other researchers. Because they did not do this, citing concerns about the security of the questioners and respondents, critics have raised the most basic question about this research: Was it verifiably undertaken as described in the two Lancet articles?

"The authors refuse to provide anyone with the underlying data," said David Kane, a statistician and a fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Statistics at Harvard University. Some critics have wondered whether the Iraqi researchers engaged in a practice known as "curb-stoning," sitting on a curb and filling out the forms to reach a desired result. Another possibility is that the teams went primarily into neighborhoods controlled by anti-American militias and were steered to homes that would provide information about the "crimes" committed by the Americans.

National Journal

This Lance/Johns Hopkins article has become a cluster fuck--damning politically interested medical journalism, the Lancet, epidemiology, Johns Hopkins, and specifically damning the authors of the study.

It seems likely that Lafta--a former Saddam Hussein official--has been faking his research ever since the first Gulf War in 1991. Lafta's co-authors allowed their political leanings to influence their judgment. The Lancet's editors allowed their anti-Americanism to bring them to the precipice of journalistic integrity--and they stepped over the brink.

It is a sad story of corruption, sleaze, failed ethics, and lost journalistic integrity and reputation. It will be instructive to see how the mainstream media covers the aftermath of a journalistic catastrophe that they themselves elevated to monumental proportions when they believed the story to be true.

Just Stopping Over in the UK Long Enough to Destroy the Place

The UK has a long and fascinating history, dating to long before the origin of human writing. By the time Margaret Thatcher came along to save the UK from its own leftist leanings, the nation had seen a world-wide empire come and go. It was just settling peacefully and prosperously into its role as "only one of the most important countries in the world" when--under the radar--things began to go perilously wrong.

Peter Hitchens in today's Daily Mail:

The deeply English, deeply Christian city of Oxford, one of the homes of free thought, is now being asked to accept the Islamic call to prayer wafting from mosque loudspeakers over its spires and domes.

If that is not a threat to our "way of life", then I don't know what is. Allowing the regular electronic proclamation of Allah's supremacy in a British city is not tolerance, but a surrender of the sky to a wholly different culture. Just you wait and see what opponents of this scheme are accused of.

It may be a "wholly different culture", but unlike the spires of those empty Anglican churches it represents the demographic energy of today's England. Corner

Even worse than the shift in demographic energy of the UK, is the government turning on its own citizens. If a homeowner shoots a home invader in defense of his family, it is the homeowner who goes to jail and is sued penniless by criminals. Now, the voice of England is less the voice of Empire than the voice of the vanquished:

We're all being taken for idiots. - Mike, Coventry

This society gets worse and sicker by the day. I can't wait until I can retire and get out of this hell hole of a country. - Diana, England

Eating a sarnie?! does that also apply to sweets? Or having just one hand on the wheel? which would mean virtually nearly every driver getting caught as (unlike most other countries) most cars are manual! - Cww, Ipswich, Suffolk

Oh happy days in our free and happy country- smile you slaves or I will tax sorry fine you... - Ian, Hereford

I think the use of these high tech digital cameras to catch potentially dangerous drivers is a fantastic idea. I'm tired of observing drivers using mobile phones and smoking whilst driving on our congested roads where full concentration is needed at all times. I'd make the fines higher too, maybe confiscation of their cars would make these irresponsible drivers think twice... - Bill, Warrington England

Will there be two variants of camera? Type A set up to screw Joe Public; type B programmed to disregard police who commit the same offence. - Glyn, Southampton, U.K.

I think I'll give up motoring and take up drug-dealing, pimping, mugging, burglary, and extortion ...it'll be safer for me, and more socially-acceptable. - David Bourke, Rochester, England. Corner

Originally published in Daily Mail via SDA

Brits have always wondered why the Yanks rebelled against the Crown when they had it so good over there. Now, the UK may be ready for an "American-style" revolution of its own against a "Crown" that treats them like vassals.

George W. Bush--Climate Superhero!

The United States under President George W. Bush has done more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than 75% of Kyoto signees. While the duncehat mainstream media is expected to downplay such accomplishment, one might expect climate organisations such as the IPCC to acknowledge Bush's climate superherodom.

If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following.

* Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
* Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.
* Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%.
* Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%.

In fact, emissions from the U.S. grew slower than those of over 75% of the countries that signed Kyoto. Below are the growth rates of carbon dioxide emissions, from 1997 to 2004, for a few selected countries, all Kyoto signers. (Remember, the comparative number for the U.S. is 6.6%.)

* Maldives, 252%.
* Sudan, 142%.
* China, 55%.
* Luxembourg, 43%
* Iran, 39%.
* Iceland, 29%.
* Norway, 24%.
* Russia, 16%.
* Italy, 16%.
* Finland, 15%.
* Mexico, 11%.
* Japan, 11%.
* Canada, 8.8%.

American Thinker

Bush appears to have picked up support from fellow Anglosphere nations, including Canada and Australia (under the new PM!).

Rather than being isolated, the decision by the United States and Canada to take the lead in international energy and climate diplomacy appears to have galvanized key allies, who are gradually rallying around a much tougher stance vis-a-vis China and India.

In Bali, the Anglosphere nations have in effect drawn a red line in the sand: Unless developing countries agree to mandatory emissions cuts themselves, much of the Western world will henceforth reject any unilateral burden imposed by future climate deals.

Source

Believers in Kyoto are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, to be sure. But their tendency to bury their heads in the sand provides a very tempting target for a quick wicked kick! I feel better now.

This Campaign Ad Gets My Vote

I tend not to vote for Republicans or Democrats. But I have no reservations about voting for this Fred Thompson campaign ad YouTube video.

It reminds me of all the Jack Bauer jokes, growing out of the TV show "24." Something tells me that a lot of American voters are ready for a Jack Bauer like president. As long as he was willing to abstain from an inordinate level of "nation-building" overseas.
;-)

The Unfortunate Rudeness of Essential Truths--The Fastidious Decadence of an Affluent and Forgetful Civilisation

Western democracies, by virtue of their affluence, relative stability and security, and general absence of deep spirtuality--whether religious or secular spirituality--have grown forgetful of historical lessons. But the needful lessons of history have not forgotten the neo-decadent west. Hardly.

It is obvious that a military can only fight well on behalf of a society in which it believes, and that a society which believes little is worth fighting for cannot, in the end, field an effective military. Obvious as this is, we seem to have forgotten it....War is a fact of the human social condition neither man wishes were so. Sun-Tzu, concerned with war on the highest strategic level, affirms that the greatest warrior is one who calculates so well that he never needs to fight. Clausewitz, interested more in the operational level, allows that war takes precedence only after other forms of politics have failed.

...But there are also the Martin Decouds of this world, the brilliant sneerers who analyze everything into oblivion. ...Decoud doesn’t represent any particular philosophical position or point of view; he is there to remind us that cleverness should not be confused with character.

...Holding or not holding a place for warriors in our midst is not just a matter of faith as we normally think of it, or even moral hardiness as I have described it. It is also a matter of collective self-regard...Faith is the capacity to believe in what is simultaneously necessary but improbable. That kind of faith is receding in America among a social and economic class increasingly motivated by universal values: caring, for example, about the suffering of famine victims abroad as much as for hurricane victims at home....You may care to the point of tears about suffering humankind without having the will to actually fight (let alone inconvenience yourself) for those concerns....The loss of a warrior mentality and the rise of universal values seem to be features of all stable, Western-style middle-class democracies.

...As American society grows more socially distant from its own military, American warrior consciousness is further intensifying within the combat arms community itself....Marine[s] and Army....Special Forces A-teams, manifest a proclivity for volunteers from the states of the former Confederacy, as well as Irish and Hispanics from poorer, more culturally conservative sections of coastal cities.

...As for the West, it is divided. European civilians take little pride in their standing armies; in America, however, civilians still do. Iraq, in this respect, has not been like Vietnam. While Americans may have turned against the Iraq war, they have not turned against the troops there. If anything, in recent years, they have grown more appreciative of them. The upshot is that America has a first-class, professional military that is respected even if it is not reflective of society.

But to see that America’s circumstances are not as bad as those of the European Union is not the point. The point is to remember what we have forgotten. A military will not continue to fight and fight well for a society that could be losing faith in itself, even if that society doffs its cap now and again to its warrior class....While a good society should certainly never want to go to war, it must always be prepared to do so. But a society will not fight for what it believes, if all it believes is that it should never have to fight.

Robert Kaplan

Europe's sneering sense of superiority toward the US--and any other western nation determined to maintain a modern military shield against both old enemies and emerging Islamic and third world violence--is a facade covering an empty shell. Europe cannot defend herself. So she pretends that nothing exists in the world worth defending against. In the meantime, a growing number of human termites continue to degrade Europe's structural integrity.

The US is indeed exceptional, among its first world peers. But if the US does not wake up enough to recognise the importance of a more broadly societally-based military--one where all strata of society meet and must work smoothly together--the will and ability of the US military to not only defend America, but to defend Europe, the world's seaways and trade routes, the western hemisphere, and other allies, will melt away.

Radical Islam Exposed: A Must-See Expose of A Nightmare Future--If You Allow It

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4 below:

Hundreds of millions of muslims are susceptible to the fanatical message of mad mullahs, imams, and clerics. There is no shortage of youthful cannon fodder in most primitive third world muslim countries. If western civilisation is to survive largely intact for the huge challenges of the next level, it will have to be smart.

If you fail to understand what radical Islamists have in mind for you, your families, your countries, your civilisation--you will be in no position to stop it.

In fact, if you fail to understand . . . . you will probably delay any effective preventive action until it is too late. At that point, westerners will understand that what they though was war, was not really war. What they thought was curtailment of their civil rights, was not curtailment. What they thought was American Theocracy, was not theocracy at all. They will learn, but by then, sadly it will not help.

Hat tip: Augean Stables

Regional Nuclear War--If So, When?

Thanks to Iran, North Korea, China, and Pakistan's infamous Dr. Khan, nuclear proliferation is a fact of modern life. Israel's famous bombing of Iraq's Osirik reactor, and its more recent bombing of a Syrian/North Korean collaborative reactor, bring the issue into focus. While Iran appears to be pushing US President Bush into a confrontation over its own nuclear proliferation program, some people think that Pakistan is the greater danger:

There was George Bush's Oct. 17 warning that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III," you ought to worry about the prospect of Iranian nukes. ... Then, a few days after Bush's Oct. 17 shocker, I came upon a less widely noticed, perhaps even more ominous quote, originally published two weeks earlier in London's usually reliable Spectator, in a story about the Sept. 6 Israeli raid on that alleged Syrian nuclear facility. A quote from a "very senior British ministerial source" contending, "[I]f people had known how close we came to world war three that day there'd have been mass panic."

...And now we have the crisis in Pakistan, one that portends a nightmare scenario in which Pakistan's so-called "Islamic bomb" falls into the hands of al-Qaida sympathizers. Such an outcome would put us on a fast-track route to World War III....Finally, there was the almost unprecedented declassification of an element of the U.S. nuclear war plan formerly known as the Strategic Integrated Operating Plan, now called OPLAN 8044...Soon, if not already, one can be sure, there will be "robust contingency plans" for Pakistan, as Martin Walker put it recently in the New York Times.

...Now, there are at least eight nuclear nations and who knows how many "nonstate actors," as the euphemism for terrorist groups goes. And some of these nonstate actors have adopted an ideology of suicidal martyrdom, even when it comes to nukes, and thus can't be deterred by the reciprocal threat of death.

...I'm surprised there isn't a greater sense of concern about those Pakistani nukes. Forget Iran and Israel (Bush's hypothetical route to World War III). Pakistani nukes now represent the quickest shortcut to a regional nuclear war that could escalate to a global nuclear war.

Slate

Despite whatever Al Gore may say, climate change will probably not be the trigger for nuclear war. But a nuclear war may very well usher in the next significant climate change. All that dust circulating around the atmosphere will promote a "global dimming" that will not be good for the world's crops.

Nuclear weapons technology is a cat that is long out of the bag. If Pakistani, Iranian, and North Korean scientists have the technology, then anyone with political, religious, or financial connections to these scientists or their particular agencies can have the technology as well. Think about it. And make your plans accordingly.