Someone Asks A Simple Question

And look what happens. What a tap dance. This is the 2 minute segment of the debate, all you need to know about this Clinton. We don't need more Clintons, nor more Bushs. Just that simple.

72% of New Yorkers say no to drivers licenses for illegals. How out of touch can you get?

Magic Act

Abracadabra, poof.

Inconvient Opposition

Here's the kind of information the ``scientific consensus" types don't want you to read. MIT's Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen recently complained about the ``shrill alarmism" of Gore's movie ``An Inconvenient Truth." Lindzen acknowledges that global warming is real, and he acknowledges that increased carbon emissions might be causing the warming -- but they also might not.

``We do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change" is one of Lindzen's many heresies, along with such zingers as ``the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940," ``the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average," and ``Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why."

Climate Catastrophe Cancelled

I would say that despite the Goracle's nobel prize they have in fact lost the battle to corrupt science to their political ends.

What you're not being told about the Science of Climate Change. A University of Calgary Video. In cooperation with The Friends of Science Society. This is a look at Global Warming, Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocols from the viewpoint of scientists involved with the study of Climate Change and it's possible true causes. www.friendsofscience.org What you think you may know about global warming, may not be true..



Climate Catastrophe Cancelled Pt 1


Climate Catastrophe Cancelled Pt 2


Climate Catastrophe Cancelled Pt 3


Climate Catastrophe Cancelled Pt 4


Climate Catastrophe Cancelled Pt 5


CO2 is a really, really small part of the atmosphere. Currently CO2 makes up about 0.0378% of the atmosphere, up from an estimated 0.0280% before the industrial revolution. AGW advocates are arguing that a CO2 concentration increase of 0.009% has heated the world over a half a degree C.

Big Full Moon

This week's full Moon is the biggest full Moon of 2007. It's no illusion. Some full Moons are genuinely larger than others and Thursday night's will be a whopper. Why? Read the answer below.

Left: A big, bright perigee Moon. RIght: A lesser apogee Moon.

The Moon's orbit is an ellipse with one side 30,000 miles closer to Earth than the other. The full Moon of Oct. 25-26 is located on the near side, making it appear as much as 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser full Moons we've seen earlier in 2007.

In the language of astronomy, the two ends of the Moon's orbit are called "apogee" and "perigee." Apogee is the farthest point, perigee the nearest: diagram. This week's full Moon is a "perigee Moon" with extra-high "perigean tides."

The Moon is 14% bigger, but can you actually tell the difference? It's not so easy. There are no rulers floating in the sky to measure lunar diameters. A fun experiment: Take a friend outside Thursday night and ask if they notice anything unusual about the Moon. Explain perigee after they answer.

Climate Prediction

Climate prediction is a science based on computer models, not empirical data capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment. The computer program, and there are more than one, assumes a bunch of things as input and regurgitates a bunch of things the computer program calculates might happen. The understanding of the interdependencies and interactions between the 'input things' is not fully understood, nor is the interdependencies and interactions between the 'output things'. A bunch of really shaky models we have here to base taxes and future policies on.

Michael Crichton has some words for predictions: "Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're being asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?"

He goes on to point out:

"Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

"But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was. They didn't know its structure. They also didn't know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon….

"Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it's even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They're bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment's thought knows it."

Mosquitoes

West Nile Virus


Dengue fever


Malaria


Where the coverage of infection is for various types of mosquito born diseases. When you live in mosquito country you pay attention.

The DDT myth was thoroughly discredited, and now WHO, since 2005, is recommending that DDT be used in malaria prone areas. Bet you didn't know WHO is recommends and is now actively using, DDT did you -- If you didn't see this in the newspaper, that is just one more reason that the newspaper is no longer a credible source of anything except leftist orthodoxy, and even then it is going to contain the favorite lies of the left.

All Quite, Sunspot Predictions, Cycle 24

The image is from Hinode X-ray Telescope, October 21, 2007. A solar wind stream flowing from the dark coronal hole should reach Earth on Oct. 25th or 26th.

Current sunspot cycle, enlarged to show recent detail. To predict the turning is not possible, to be sure that an actual low turning-point has been reached there has to be a substantial rise.


The official NOAA, NASA, and ISES Solar Cycle 24 prediction was released by the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel on April 25, 2007. The Prediction Panel included members from NOAA, NASA, ISES and other US and International representatives. Press Briefings and presentations at the SEC Space Weather Workshop, plus additional announcements and information from the Panel are linked below. The Panel expects to update this prediction annually.

The Panel considered all Predictions of Solar Cycle 24 they found in the literature or received directly from an author. The May 24, 2007 List shows the predictions considered.

What is interesting about the current sunspot cycle, or lack thereof, is history has shown us, the sun is unpredictable. It can be really hot one cycle, generating lots os sunspots, and then almost go to zero during the next sunspot cycle for no apparent reason. The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, lasting from about 1790 to 1820. Like the Maunder Minimum and Sporer Minimum it coincided with a period of lower than average global temperatures.Historical context of sunspots over the last few hundred years.

Global Warming Doomsday Called Off

ABC’s 20/20 John Stossel on Climate Change “Give me a break!”

U.S. public schools don't indoctrinate children, do they?

From the UK courts comes this ... The judge had stated that, if the UK Government had not agreed to send to every secondary school in England a corrected guidance note making clear the mainstream scientific position on these nine “errors”, he would have made a finding that the Government’s distribution of the film and the first draft of the guidance note earlier in 2007 to all English secondary schools had been an unlawful contravention of an Act of Parliament prohibiting the political indoctrination of children.

Christopher Monckton of Brenchley put together a more thorough response to the lies in the Goracle's global warming for the ignorant film.

Jindal Wins LA-Gov

"They can either go quietly or they can go loudly, but either way, they will go." -- Governor-elect Bobby Jindal (R), on Louisiana's corrupt establishment

One of the most corrupt, ridiculous Democrat swamps in the nation is about to be drained. Louisiana chose an Indian-American Republican to do the job.

Jindal's 54% first-round victory is an historic mandate for change against the most corrupt political culture in America. For decades, Louisiana has lived in the shadow of the easy populism of Huey Long, its politicians feasting on revenues from the state's natural resources. If you want to get a taste of a sense of entitlement and venality normally seen in the Saudi royals, except right here in America, just visit Louisiana. From Blundering Blanco to Freezer Cash Jefferson, the political class was a parody of itself.

A generation ago, New Orleans was the capital of the South, its strategic position at the mouth of the Mississippi delivering real wealth to the state. Ever since, Louisiana has fallen further and further behind, as places like Atlanta and Charlotte took the lead. Taxes went up. Corruption continued unabated. There was a revolving door between jail and public office.

Old orders like this always seem to die hard. Think of liberalism in 1979, the Democratic majority in Congress in 1994, unlimited welfare in 1996. They all went on for decades, and seemed indestructible.

Until one day they weren't. Inevitably, they fail so spectacularly that the people are compelled to rebel through democratic means. Yesterday was that day in Louisiana, the last enclave of welfare state liberalism and corruption in the South.

The impact of Katrina was felt up and down the ballot. The grandstanding Attorney General finished third and won't make the runoff. The grandstanding Democratic Jefferson Parish President faced an unexpectedly tough race against an unknown opponent, doing worse in areas that flooded. Helped along by term limits, the majority of the state legislature is turning over.

Epic... historic... ginormous are the words that come easiest to mind tonight.

Source:

Fred At The Friday Value Voters Confab

Limbaugh's Charity Aution

Right Wing Hate Machine

You don’t have money to fund the war or children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President’s amusement.

Rep Stark(D-CA) has always been an idiot and has said idiotic things in the past. Clearly, hate is not a redeeming quality. This nut case needs to resign, he is not fit for office.

Rush Limbaugh On Pelosi

The Second Amendment

The Second Amendment, as written by the Constitutional Convention of 1787, states:

“A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

The hand-written copy of the Bill of Rights which hangs in the National Archives had slightly different capitalization and punctuation inserted by William Lambert, the scribe who prepared it. This copy reads:

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Both versions are commonly used in official US Government publications.

The words that are often overlooked, "the security of a free state" clearly intends the people to protect themselves from tyranny, both from their own government and from other governments.

Sea Level Rise

With all the Al Gore hysteria out there, how do you reconcile an academy award and a Nobel Peace prize, when the recipient is neither a film director nor a scientist. Easy, propaganda needs no credentials.

Al Gore says that the sea level will rise 20 feet in the next 100 years, the IPCC says about a foot, but who may be right?

Some facts about sea level change. First off, most of the ice volume that has covered the Earth since the last ice age has already melted. Why the Earth exited the last ice age about 20,000 years ago is not known, but what is known is it was not man caused global warming. Nor was it CO2 driven. Those are inconvenient facts.

We are approaching the end of the cycle of ice age and temperate climate. So let us look at some of the best data that we have regarding sea level change in the last 20,000 years. One thing to note when looking at the charts is that the heavy lines are the smoothed lines, the smaller rapid lines are supposedly actual data points -- The sea level rise was not uniform, but fraught with many ups and downs in the process. Not the sizes of the rapid excursions, huge when taken referenced to the smooth line at the same point.

Also note that the sea level has risen about 400 feet since the warming started.

Total rise of about 20 cm over 100 years

Total rise about 15 meters over 8,000 years

Total rise of about 130 meters over 20,000 years

What do you call the Al Gore 'imagined' 20 feet, margin of error.

2007 Budget Deficiet

One of the liberal touchstones that was predicted to exponentially grow out of control - much like the global mean temperature, population bomb, pollution, and various other liberal predictions of doom, gloom and catastrophe -- was the U.S. budget deficit.

However, the graph from 1993 shows something different. The fiscal 2007 deficit was smaller than the deficit of any of the years in this list: 1983-1986, 1990-1995, 2003-2006 even if you don't take into account inflation. With inflation, it would be even better.

But if Democrats get their way with spending, kiss all this goodbye. The latest is a $Trillion dollar Democrat tax increase followed by a $Trillion dollars in new socialist spending increases. Wealth redistribution on a grand scale. How else is Hillary Matters going to fund all those things "she wants". Maybe some one should tell her, it's our country and what "she wants" doesn't matter.

Raise taxes, fund socialism and gun control. Democrats, what's so hard to understand.

Things Leftists Don't Understand

``Here's what Ronald Reagan did before he negotiated with communists,'' the former New York mayor continued. ``First he called them the evil empire. Then he took missiles, intermediate-range missiles ... and he put them in European cities, and he pointed the missiles at Russian cities with names on them.

``Then he said, in a very nice way, 'Let's negotiate.'''

Giuliani Tells Obama 'You're No Reagan'

Obama was doing his meet with every dictator skit ...

to meet as president with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.

``Then he went on to explain that Ronald Reagan negotiated with the communists,'' Giuliani said, pausing and sighing. ``I say this most respectfully: You're not Ronald Reagan, you know?''

Where is the gravitas with these lightweights? Hillary Matters is the same, what has she ever done, except run after the hound daog and play doormat when the time was right?

Gravitas, we don't need no gravitas, we are Democrats.

Fred On Cavuto

Game on ...



Rudy responds ...

Giuliani spokeswoman Maria Comella tells First Read that the former New York mayor “is the only candidate who does more than just talk about the importance of Republican principles — he actually has the track record to back it up. It’s easy to throw around meaningless rhetoric, but quite another thing to stand up to a Democratic majority and successfully cut taxes, control spending, and reform welfare.”

How To Lie, Without Lying

On September 15, 2007, at the time of the Arctic sea ice minimum, the MODIS on NASA's Terra satellite captured an unusually clear view of the open Northwest Passage. Although clouds appeared over some of the Arctic in mid-September, skies were clear enough to allow Terra’s MODIS sensor to observe much of the sea ice and open ocean throughout the Arctic.

This image is a mosaic of Terra observations of the Arctic, taken on September 15-16, 2007. Overlain onto the image are sea ice minima from 2007 (medium blue), the previous record from 2005 (light blue), and the long-term average from 1979-2000 (gray). The 2007 minimum, which correlates closely with the ice visible through clouds in this image, fell substantially below previous records. In 2007, all Arctic sea ice records were broken in August, more than a month before the end of melt season.
-----
And so you might ask, why is the Arctic Sea Ice pack so small? Turns out, the very same NASA has the answer. NASA undertook a study, beginning after the then record lows of 2005 for Arctic sea ice pack and that study concluded on Oct 1, 2007. You probably heard little of it, because the study did not produce the required answer that the global warming hysteria crowd wanted.

NASA Examines Arctic Sea Ice Changes Leading to Record Low in 2007

The scientists observed less perennial ice cover in March 2007 than ever before, with the thick ice confined to the Arctic Ocean north of Canada. Consequently, the Arctic Ocean was dominated by thinner seasonal ice that melts faster. This ice is more easily compressed and responds more quickly to being pushed out of the Arctic by winds. Those thinner seasonal ice conditions facilitated the ice loss, leading to this year's record low amount of total Arctic sea ice.

Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. "Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.

"The winds causing this trend in ice reduction were set up by an unusual pattern of atmospheric pressure that began at the beginning of this century," Nghiem said.

The Arctic Ocean's shift from perennial to seasonal ice is preconditioning the sea ice cover there for more efficient melting and further ice reductions each summer. The shift to seasonal ice decreases the reflectivity of Earth's surface and allows more solar energy to be absorbed in the ice-ocean system.

The perennial sea ice pattern change was deduced by using the buoy computing model infused with 50 years of data from drifting buoys and measurement camps to track sea ice movement around the Arctic Ocean. From the 1970s through the 1990s, perennial ice declined by about 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) each decade. Since 2000, that amount of decline has nearly tripled.

Lies by omission, the secret weapon of the leftists mainstream media. Winds caused the ice pack to shrink, winds that have been observed before.

Navy SEAL Wins Medal of Honor

If you look on the front pages of our nation's major newspapers you might learn that a loudmouth poseur and fabulists is set to win the Nobel Peace Prize but what you won't find is acknowledgement that Navy Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy has been awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.

Lieutenant Murphy led a 4-man stick of Navy SEALs on a mission in Afghanistan. A mission that was ultimately compromised by their humanity. In the ensuing firefight three of the SEALs, including Lt. Murphy were killed. Eight more SEALs and eight soldiers were killed when their MH-47 was hit by a rocket propelled grenade and crashed.

Whether this wasn't newsworthy in the view of some pencil neck editor or part of a worldview that only thinks bad behavior by US forces worth reporting or indicative of a culture that can no longer bring itself to acknowledge sacrifice and heroism is immaterial. The fact that a young man could win the nation's highest award for valor, posthumously, and receive only passing attention (less than one column-inch in the Washington Post) is a sad commentary on the country he died defending.

Source:

Meaningless

What award has become most meaningless in you lifetime?

• 1. The Nobel Peace Prize?
• 2. Time’s “Man of The Year”?
• 3. Academy Awards
  

Tough choice

In creating the annual prizes for physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and the promotion of world peace, Nobel stated the desire in his will to honor

"those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."

How does mankind benefit from a hoax fabricated with lies?

Footnote from history -- During the years 1939 - 1943 the Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded because the committee did not feel it appropriate to award a prize for peace during a time of war.

Some former recipients of note from the last 20 years.

2005
MOHAMED ELBARADEI (joint winner). He's done such a nice job with Iran and North Korea.

2004
Wangari Maathai. The Kenyan ecologist peacefully teaches that the AIDS virus is a biological agent deliberately created by the Man.

2002
JIMMY CARTER JR., former President of the United States of America. A true cosmopolitan, he has undermined the foreign policy of his own country and vouched for the bona fides of tyrants and murderers all over the world.

2001
UNITED NATIONS, New York, NY, USA.
KOFI ANNAN, United Nations Secretary General. Among other things, respectively served as the vehicle for, and presided over, one of the biggest scams in history.

1994
YASSER ARAFAT (joint winner), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, President of the Palestinian National Authority for his efforts to create peace in the Middle East. A cold-blooded murderer before and after receiving the award.

1992
RIGOBERTA MENCHU TUM, Guatemala. Faker and author, sort of, of I, Rigoberta Menchu.

1988
THE UNITED NATIONS PEACE-KEEPING FORCES New York, NY, U.S.A. Notwithstanding rapes and sex abuse committed by the team in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and the Congo, still doing fine work all over the world.

Rush Video: How To Be A Good Liberal

Icy Blue Hood On Mars

The north of Mars is getting cold. It's winter and that brings temperatures as low as -140^o C. The most flamboyant sign of the season is a giant icy cloud hanging over the martian north pole--the North Polar Hood.

Amateur astronomer Dan Petersen of Racine, Wisconsin, took the picture on Oct. 7th using his 10-inch backyard telescope. The electric blue color of the Hood is a sign that many ice crystals in the cloud are tiny--smaller than the wavelength of light. Sunlight scattered from sub-wavelength particles looks blue; local examples include cigarette smoke, noctilucent clouds and a New England sky.

Recent photos hint that the Hood is in motion possibly in response to warm dusty air wafting up from temperate latitudes. To monitor developments, point your telescope at the bright red star--make that red planet--high in the eastern sky at dawn.

11 Inconvient Inaccuracies in Inconvient Truth.

Children, and some adults, you are being told untruths to scare you. And shame on those who are party to this deceit.

In order for Al Gore's film Inconvenient Truth to be shown in England, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that

• 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument.
• 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination.
• 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.
  

How marvelous, and what are those inaccuracies?

• The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
• The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
• The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
• The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
• The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
• The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
• The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
• The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
• The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
• The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
• The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.
  

So in other words, Al Gore's film is a flam, a hoax with provable inaccuracies, distortions and misrepresentations.

And finally, we have CNN, the propagandists' TV channel and their meterologist ...

Global Warming Hot Enough for CNN a Second Day
Meteorologist points out more flaws in Gore film 'An Inconvenient Truth.'

Global warming certainly generated a lot of heat – for CNN. Meteorologist Rob Marciano told the October 4 “American Morning” audience: “There are definitely some inaccuracies” in the Al Gore film “An Inconvenient Truth.” After the previous report ended up “stirring a new storm” and generating “a lot of e-mails to our show,” Marciano followed up with even more things Gore got wrong the next day.

“He does talk about tornadoes, implying that there’s an increase in tornadoes from global warming, that’s not necessarily true,” said Marciano.

In the earlier report, Marciano had said, “There are definitely some inaccuracies” in the film. “The biggest thing I have a problem with is this implication that Katrina was caused by global warming,” he concluded.

This time, he followed up with quotes from two scientists with conflicting views about hurricanes. “First up is the science and operations officer of the National Hurricane Center, a big time researcher named Chris Landsea.” Landsea explained why he didn’t think warming was causing current hurricane problems.

“He told me,” Marciano said of Landsea, “the best computer models suggest global warming will cause changes in hurricanes. We should see slightly stronger hurricanes, 5 percent stronger 100 years from now. But the concern that we’re seeing drastic increase today due to global warming I think is wrong.”

Marciano explained that there are good reasons for Landsea’s skepticism because the global data “is not as reliable” as the information used by the United States. “We’re the only country that routinely flies into hurricanes and that’s the only way to truly

see how strong a storm is.” He added that Atlantic hurricanes count for just 15 percent of the global total, so the results could easily be skewed by bad data.

The CNN story then showed the opposite view – the regional director of the national Center for Atmostpheric Research, Greg Holland. He told Marciano “it’s a pity to use a lack of good data as a crutch instead of looking at the total evidence as a whole. The evidence we have about Atlantic hurricanes is that there is a contribution from global warming.”

An actual scientific debate – contradicting the Al Gore assertion that the science is settled and there is only one side to the issue. According to Gore: “The debate's over” about global warming, as he explained on “Today” May 24, 2006. Not on CNN.

Marciano added that the whole hurricane issue is “complicated.” “There’s other factors involved. There’s humidity, there’s wind, pressure fields, dust in the air, the list goes on. There’s much more that goes into making a hurricane, Kiran, than just warm water,” he said.

The report concluded with more on the scientific debate. Marciano included the uncertainty about the issue in his final point saying, “the globe is getting warmer and humans are the likely the main cause of it.”

Anchor Kiran Chetry summed up the network sense of the debate at the end. “Just don’t say anything for a couple more days.”

The Business & Media Institute has extensively critiqued the media’s coverage of global warming in Fire & Ice, which covers a hundred years of coverage of global warming. While journalists have warned of climate change for more than 100 years, the warnings switched from global cooling to warming to cooling and warming again.

Pelosi Says, You Just need the Right Tee Shirt

From the Washington Post comes this hilarious quote from the woman who was going to drain the swamp but decided to call it a wetland and just move on ...

"Look," she said, the chicken breast on her plate untouched. "I had, for five months, people sitting outside my home, going into my garden in San Francisco, angering neighbors, hanging their clothes from trees, building all kinds of things -- Buddhas? I don't know what they were -- couches, sofas, chairs, permanent living facilities on my front sidewalk."

Unsmilingly, she continued: "If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have 'Impeach Bush' across their chest, it's the First Amendment."

Truth hits home, after telling the leftists loons in the last election, vote for me because 'I feel the same rage as you', which was now hard to tell from a lie. Hey you didn't know it was a lie when you bought the line the first time, well shame on you.

"We have to make responsible decisions in the Congress that are not driven by the dissatisfaction of anybody who wants the war to end tomorrow," Pelosi told the gathering at the Sofitel, arranged by the Christian Science Monitor. Though crediting activists for their "passion," Pelosi called it "a waste of time" for them to target Democrats. "They are advocates," she said. "We are leaders."

Democrats being responsible, when did that happen. The Democrats who openly encourage terrorist to kill our troops, those same? The Democrats who sound like a Usama bin Laden tape, or Usama sounds like a Democrat talking points video, you decide, when did this responsibility thing happen? Maybe it is the Democrats who openly accuse our troops of murder with no more evidence tahn a badly written news report.

Pelosi should clear her material with Hillary Matters.

100 GBPS Internet 2 Completed

At its Fall 2007 member meeting, the Internet 2 consortium announced that its updated infrastructure is ready to go online and provide an initial capacity of 100 Gb/s to researchers and educators.



The blazingly fast network connection was demonstrated for the first time when the organization established a connection between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and Fermilab in Batavia, IL and was able to transfer a third of a terabyte within five minutes over a 10 GB/s connection.

Internet 2 is often confused with a next-generation Internet infrastructure for the public. However, the Internet 2 is limited to currently 207 connected universities that use the high-speed network as infrastructure to quickly exchange data and test new technologies that one day could find their way into the public Internet.

12 years after the unveiling of the idea for the Internet 2 – the concept dates back to a presentation at the Monterey Futures Conference in September 1995, the Internet 2 has reached an initial capacity of 100 GB/s, which can be provided to researchers and educators in dedicated bandwidth chunks of 10 Gb/s beginning in January of next year. According to the consortium, the new optical infrastructure provides a “uniquely scalable platform on which to build side-by-side networks that serve different purposes, such as network research and telemedicine.” Representatives for Internet2 said that the network will be continuing to provide an advanced Internet Protocol (IP) Network that supports production networking technologies such as IPv6, multicast, and other high-performance networking technologies.

"Today's milestone marks the completion of an ambitious effort to exponentially increase the capacity and flexibility of the networking resources available to serve the rapidly changing needs of the Internet2 community," said Doug Van Houweling, Internet2 president and CEO. "More importantly, we believe the Internet2 Network and its new capabilities will play an integral part in enabling our members to provide the robust cyber-infrastructure our community requires to support innovative research and education."

Internet2 currently has provisioned ten 10 Gb/s links on each segment of the network, which however can be scaled to 20 or 40 or 100 or more wavelengths. The consortium is also working with partners such as Level 3, Ciena and Juniper to test and develop new 40 and 100 Gb/s technologies.

Smear

The Current State Of Global Warming

Video 1: An Inconsiderate Troupe: a movie about the last glacier that is melting - a parody to Al Gore's movie for penguins. Incidentally, a climate skeptic, Britney Spears, talks to an alarmist called Paris Hilton. See also Al's and Tipper's Summer Nights.

Old Democrats, Same As New Democrats

Raise taxes, fund socialism and gun control. Democrats are not hard to understand.

Al Gore Debates Global Warming, Sort OF

Al Gore refuses to debate global warming in a science forum setting. Why? Maybe the UK Courts have an answer. An Inconvenient Truth, hmmm, not true, fiction. But, the movie won an academy award. Well yes, but academy awards aren't true either. Movies are fiction for the most part, even so-called documentaries are now fiction, Hollywood rules. Michael Moore won an academy award as well for his fiction.

Junk Science blog author Steve Milloy has upped the ante once again. While Al Gore refuses to debate his man-made global warming freak-out theory, real scientists are all over the debate, which liberals say is over, on the basis that all scientists agree (through a cool-sounding “consensus") with the man-made global warming theories of Al ("my hair she be on fire") Gore. Well that’s just confusing. Science is not about consensus, it's about provable facts. Consensus means nothing, else we would be living on a flat Earth -- Once upon a time, the scientific consensus said the Earth was flat, if you went far enough in one direction, you would fall off into nothingness.

Steve Milloy brings the debate right to Al Gore, sort of.

“We’ll see what the public thinks after both sides make their case on a specific and narrow point,” said Milloy. “Global warming alarmists didn’t fare so well last time that happened,” he added.

Last March, the prestigious New York debating society Intelligence Squared sponsored a debate on global warming, which may be viewed at here. A pre-debate poll indicated that, by 2-to-1 (57 percent to 29 percent, with 14 percent undecided), the audience believed that manmade global warming was a crisis. But in the post-debate poll, the audience reversed its pre-debate views - the ranks of the skeptics swelled to 46 percent, the believers plummeted to 42 percent and the undecided declined slightly to 12 percent.

“That’s the power of debate,” said Milloy. “Though Al Gore aggressively promotes global warming alarmism, he unfortunately seems to lack confidence in his ability to debating climate change against others. But Al Gore’s curious reluctance will hardly stop the public from being able to see how his points stack up against that of climate experts,” Milloy concluded.


Stay tuned, Steve says more chapters to follow.

... yet another reason to watch “The Great Global Warming Swindle”!

Still Burning

Throughout September 2007, and continuing into October, intense fires burned across South America, and the skies were frequently thick with smoke. This image of central South America was captured on October 2, 2007 by the MODIS on the Aqua satellite. The fires are marked by red dots. Running down the left side of the image, the brown Andes Mountain range is easily visible because it is not covered with smoke. The mountains are too high for the smoke to cross over them.

Although naturally occurring fires can occur in the savannas and dry woodlands of southern Bolivia and northern Paraguay, this type of intense, widespread burning is likely the result of human activities. Agricultural fires (for example, fires for brush or crop-residue clearing) can get out of control and spread to surrounding forests and other natural areas.

As the Nobel Peace Prize outfit is trying to decide whether to give The Goracle's fiction film about global warming the Nobel Prize, no one seems to want to mention problems like these agricultural fires. Fires such as these are set world wide to burn off last years scrub and prepare for this seasons planting. The pollution and particulate matter released into the atmosphere is incalculable, yet no one speaks up. I wonder why?

Another salient question, why is the Nobel Peace Prize becoming nothing more than the latest leftists bash America reward system?

Democrats, Cynicism 101

Here’s a 1992 Al Gore speech rescued from the memory hole, in which he blasts George H. W. Bush for ignoring Saddam Hussein’s connections to terrorism and his quest for weapons of mass destruction.

Undeniable proof that the current Democrat position is a cynical political stance, a grab for power and nothing more, with no concern whatsoever for the security of their own nation.

NRA, Right All Along?

JONATHAN TURLEY: A liberal's lament: The NRA might be right after all.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms is stated in the same way as the right to free speech or free press. The statement of a purpose was intended to reaffirm the power of the states and the people against the central government. At the time, many feared the federal government and its national army. Gun ownership was viewed as a deterrent against abuse by the government, which would be less likely to mess with a well-armed populace.

Considering the Framers and their own traditions of hunting and self-defense, it is clear that they would have viewed such ownership as an individual right — consistent with the plain meaning of the amendment.

None of this is easy for someone raised to believe that the Second Amendment was the dividing line between the enlightenment and the dark ages of American culture. Yet, it is time to honestly reconsider this amendment and admit that ... here's the really hard part ... the NRA may have been right.

Read the whole thing. And you might want to read my survey of Second Amendment thinking, as well as this piece on what it would mean to take the "states' rights" argument seriously. As Tom Lehrer said, we'll all stay nice and calm, when Alabama gets the bomb.

PRETEND TO BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE

Ann Coulter's latest right here.

What's At Stake In 2008

The main question for the 2008 elections is whether or not the American people want to elect a socialist who will install a socialist government and implement socialist policies.

Three Supreme Court Justices are expected to retire during the next President's term. That, you need to seriously think about when casting your vote in 2008.

Pelosi and Democrats, Lying About S-CHIP

So you say, what's new about that Democrats lie, the meaning of the lie is it's all about socialism and the nanny state. Children, now up to age 25, low income, now up to 83k a year? What's next, make the minimium wage $100k a year? Lies are important, it is good to see the White House not letting this just sit there.

Ask yourself this, would you give up your health care plan so your family can stand in line for government run health care? I thought so.

Setting the Record Straight: Speaker Pelosi Misleads on SCHIP
Congress' Bill Would Expand SCHIP Beyond Poor Children It's Intended
To Help; Move Children From Private To Government Insurance

White House News

Fact sheet Setting the Record Straight

"The policies of the government ought to be help poor children and to focus on poor children. ... Poor kids first."
- President George W. Bush, 10/3/07

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wrongly stated Congress' bill is "just enrolling all of the children who are eligible" and not "expanding an eligibility" for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). (Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Floor Statement, U.S. House Of Representatives, 10/3/07)

* There are hundreds of thousands of children eligible for SCHIP under current law who are not signed up for the program. SCHIP was created to cover children in families with annual incomes at or below 200 percent of the Federal poverty level.

* Congress' bill explicitly rejects a requirement that 95 percent of eligible children from families with incomes under 200 percent of the poverty level must be enrolled in SCHIP before children in higher-income families can be covered.

* Congress' bill would also allow SCHIP to cover children in some households with incomes of up to $83,000 per year – 400 percent of the Federal poverty level.

Speaker Pelosi inaccurately claimed Congress' bill is "about private medicine." (Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Floor Statement, U.S. House Of Representatives, 10/3/07)

* Under Congress' plan, one out of every three additional children moving onto government coverage would be moving from private insurance. Of the approximately 6 million enrollees Congress' legislation would attract by 2012, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that 2 million would drop private insurance to enroll.

* The policies of the government ought to be helping people get private insurance, not Federal coverage. That's why the President believes strongly in Association Health Plans to help small business owners better afford insurance for their workers and believes we ought to change the Federal tax code to help individuals better afford insurance in the marketplace.

Speaker Pelosi falsely accused the President of "miss[ing] an opportunity to say to the children of America, your health and well-being are important to us." (Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Floor Statement, U.S. House Of Representatives, 10/3/07)

* Today, President Bush reiterated his strong support for SCHIP. THE PRESIDENT: "I strongly support the program. I like the idea of helping those who are poor be able to get health coverage for their children. I supported it as governor, and I support it as President of the United States." (President George W. Bush, Remarks To The Lancaster Chamber Of Commerce And Industry, Lancaster, PA, 10/3/07)

* This year, the Administration will spend about $35.5 billion to provide health insurance for poor children through Medicaid. THE PRESIDENT: "In other words, when they say, 'Well, poor children aren't being covered in America,' if that's what you're hearing on your TV screens, I'm telling you there's $35.5 billion worth of reasons not to believe that." (President George W. Bush, Remarks To The Lancaster Chamber Of Commerce And Industry, Lancaster, PA, 10/3/07)

Call it what it is, socialism.

Iraq, How Is It Going

Insurgents are hit trying to escape after conducting an IED attack on Coalition forces. The lone survivor is then hit with a Hellfire.

Fred On Rush

"Congressional Democrats are trying to divert attention from insulting our military leader in Iraq and pandering to the loony left by attacking Rush Limbaugh. He is one of the strongest supporters of our troops, yet Democrats claim he is not being strong enough. I wonder who General Petraeus and his troops think is most supportive?"

Democrats At The Trough

This is how you get your brand back. They need to do more.

Limbaugh, The Whole Truth

Pat Dollard has the story.

General Pace

Duane Patterson at TownHall.com has posted the video of General Pace's moving farewell remarks together with his own commentary on the events leading to General Pace's departure.

Make no mistake, Admiral Mullen is a very capable replacement for General Pace, and the country's military opinions will be accurately offered to the President and the Secretary of Defense. But there is only one winner when General Pace is sent off to retirement earlier than necessary, and it isn't the Democrats or MoveOn.org. The only one that wins is the enemy we face, because of the propaganda win it provides them. Al Jazeera hails the change in military leadership as a good chance that the policy in Iraq will finally change.

Thanks phony patriots you give another propaganda victory to the enemy.

Democrat obstruction was the cause, Gen Pace citing gays were unfit in the military was the reason. What is it with Democrats and gays? What man wants a gay man drooling over them when in the showers?

Phony Soldiers

While Media Matters and Democrats on The Hill act like the "phony soldier" phenomenon is a figment of Rush Limbaugh's imagination, we're finding out that Scott "Baghdad Diarist" Beauchamp and Jesse Macbeth are only known to us because liberal anti-war types gave them a megaphone.

The annotated version, courtesy of ABCNews. View here.

Operation Stolen Valor

September 21, 2007
NORTHWEST CRACKDOWN ON FAKE VETERANS IN “OPERATION STOLEN VALOR”
Phony Vets Scam more than $1.4 Million and Damage Image of Honorable Veterans

U.S. Attorney Jeffrey C. Sullivan today announced some of the results of “Operation Stolen Valor,” a year long effort to investigate and prosecute those who lie about their military service for financial gain or other reasons. Sullivan and Doug Carver, Special Agent in Charge of the Veteran’s Affairs Office of Inspector General detailed eight prosecutions in the Veteran’s Affairs Northwest Region in 2007.

“As a Vietnam Veteran, and the father of a decorated Army officer currently serving, I feel very keenly the damage done by Jesse Macbeth and these other fakes,” said Jeff Sullivan, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. “Macbeth’s lies fueled hostility to our servicemen in Iraq and here at home. Those who falsely claim medals for heroism, cheapen the recognition of our true war heroes.”

“The ‘phony war hero phenomenon’ plagues the American landscape and tarnishes the service of thousands of veterans who have served honorably. It strangles VA resources from providing critical care and benefits to deserving veterans returning from war,” said Douglas J. Carver, Special Agent in Charge of the VA Office of Inspector General, Western Field Office. “It all boils downs to this: these phonies submit claims to the VA for compensation and medical benefits they are not entitled to, and it takes away valuable resources from those who are entitled.”

In a dozen cases under investigation in the northwest, the fraud totals more than $1.4 million. Eight of the cases have been publicly filed and are in various stages of being adjudicated:

*Jesse Macbeth, 23, Tacoma, Washington, sentenced today in connection with his fraudulent claims of military service. Macbeth sought medical benefits claiming to suffer from PTSD related to service in Iraq and Afghanistan, in fact, Macbeth was discharged from the Army about a month after he joined. Macbeth never traveled outside the U.S. with the Army. Macbeth duped reporters, claiming to be a decorated Army Ranger who had witnessed war crimes.

*Reggie Buddle, 60, Puyallup, Washington, sentenced July 30, 2007, for Unlawful Wearing of United States Military Medals and Decorations. Buddle posed as a decorated Marine Corps Chaplin presiding over weddings, funerals and baptisms. Buddle was sentenced to 500 hours of community service and two years of probation.



*Larry Lewis Porter, 52, Seattle, Washington, sentenced April 19, 2007, for Mail Fraud in connection with a scheme to fraudulently obtain disability benefits from Veterans Affairs. Porter was sentenced to 37 months in prison. Porter claimed he suffered PTSD from experiences in the Navy, however investigation revealed the events were fabricated. Loss Amount: $134,000

*Roy J. Scott, 71, of Port Angeles, Washington pleaded guilty August 31, 2007, to Use of an Altered Military Discharge Certificate to obtain VA Compensation and Medical Benefits, and Unlawful Wearing of United States Military Medals and Decorations. Scott claimed he had served in the Marine Corps in Korea, that he was wounded in combat in Korea, and that he had been awarded the Korea Defense Medal, Korea Star Medal, and a Purple Heart (due to alleged gun shot wounds sustained during combat in Korea). Scott claimed to be honorably discharged, when in fact, he never earned those medals, never served in Korea or any foreign country and was Court-Martialed out of the Marine Corps. Loss Amount: $21,960.

*Merrick K. Hersey, 64, of Vancouver, Washington, Hersey was indicted August 1, 2007, for Use and Possession of Forged or Altered Military Discharge Certificate and False Statements. Hersey is a fugitive and is being sought by law enforcement. Hersey applied for benefits claiming he served in 1967-68, was awarded two Purple Hearts (for wounds sustained in active combat) and the Bronze Star (awarded for heroism). Hersey claimed he suffered from PTSD and sought benefits. In fact, Hersey never served in the Marine Corps at all. Loss Amount: $2,688.

*Michael D. Heit, 58, of Harrington, Washington, pleaded guilty yesterday (September 20, 2007) in U.S. District Court in Spokane, Washington to Use and Possession of a Forged or Altered Military Discharge Certificate and False Claims of Military Medals. Heit claimed he was a Vietnam vet who was held as a prisoner of war. He claimed to have been awarded three Purple Heart medals and the Silver Star. None of that is true. Loss Amount: $3,500

*Elvin J. Swisher, 70, of Idaho, is charged with Wearing Unauthorized Military Medals, False Statements, and Theft of Government Funds. Swisher falsely claimed he was wounded in Korea and that he had been awarded the Silver Star, Purple Heart and other medals for valor. Loss Amount: $95,000.

*Carlos Riosvalle, 83, of Portland, Oregon, was sentenced April 9, 2007, in Multnomah County for multiple counts of Theft by Deception. Riosvalle collected benefits claiming to have been “shot down while a pilot in World War II.” In fact Riosvalle never served in the armed forces. Loss Amount: $22,818.

These cases were all investigated by the Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General VA-OIG. The VA Office of the Inspector General operates a HOTLINE for the public to confidentially and safely report crimes like “Stolen Valor” involving VA or its programs. Call 800-488-8244, or fax to 202-565-7936, or e-mail to vaoighotline@va.gov, or write to VA OIG HOTLINE, PO Box 50410, Washington, DC 20091-0410.

The cases filed in the Western District of Washington are being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ronald J. Friedman. For additional information please contact Emily Langlie, Public Affairs Officer for the United States Attorney’s Office, at (206) 553-4110.

President Thompson

From American Thinker, an essay entitled President Thompson by J. Peter Mulhern:

We have gotten so used to speaking of the President of the United States "running the country" that most of us no longer notice how unrealistic and unAmerican that expression is. The whole point of the American Revolution was to establish a country without anyone to run it.

While I may not agree with every point in the piece, it's surly worth the read.

Democrats, Phony Patriots

Watch the video.

Phony patriots, Democrats criticize the troops and their mission. So what is the deal with Rush Limbaugh, why he called a soldier who was the darling of the left anti-war crowd a phony soldier. That was a week after this very same soldier was convicted in a court of law for defrauding the VA with his phony claims of Iraq service. The soldier, McBeth, had never served a day in Iraq, in fact washed out of boot camp. Democrats know this, support the lie and try and make the case to the public.

What damaged does it do, for starters McBeth's lies were picked up by the Arab press and plastered all over the Arab world. Those lies fueled jehad's who then went to Iraq and attacked our troops and other Iraqis. People lied, people died as the left is want to say. The violence in Iraq was then plastered all over the US media as the case for surrender, by the very same parrots who started the original lie.

BTW, McBeth was found out by the blogs, not the crack investigative reporters who did no investigation, just reprinted the lies as true.

This is what Rush was talking about, this is what needs to be carried by the media to the American people, but because of the far left agenda of the MSM, they won't tell the truth. Dangerous waters we are in, when the press willingly and knowingly lies about events and reports them as true.

Here is another such series of events. The media is on the terrorists side, think about that for a minute.

The phony patriots in the Democrat party and the media have no shame and should be called on it for spreading lies and causes people to get killed, unnecessarily. All to feed their agenda driven politics.

With lies so blatant, you have to wonder what else Democrats lie about.

In the old days, the Democrats would just pass the lie on to their faithful parrots in the media who would then spread the lies far and wide. I guess they haven't looked in on their parrots lately, they are wheezing their last gasps over in MSM land, soon to be former parrots all.

UPDATE: A NY Times article by Carl Hulse gets to the bottom of the manufactured outrage over comments about "phony soldiers" (in the wake of the conviction of phony soldier Jesse MacBeth)Rush Limbaugh made:

Having abandoned for now their effort to force President Bush to withdraw troops from Iraq, Democrats are not giving ground against a lesser nemesis: Rush Limbaugh.

With the help of liberal advocacy groups, the Democrats in Congress are turning Mr. Limbaugh’s insinuation that members of the military who question the Iraq war are “phony soldiers” into the latest war of words over the war.

A resolution introduced by 20 Democrats urges the House to condemn the “unwarranted slur” made by Mr. Limbaugh, though it does not condemn the broadcaster himself.

Their push, not coincidentally, comes after House and Senate Republicans maneuvered some Democrats into voting to condemn an advertisement by MoveOn.org in The New York Times last month that referred to Gen. David H. Petraeus as “General Betray Us.”

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the House majority leader, said Tuesday.

That, frankly, is about all you need to know about this particular dust-up and its motivation.

Hillary Matters

Here’s video of Hillary Clinton at the YearlyKos loony bin, admitting outright: “I helped start Media Matters.” In other words, the Hillary propaganda machine is in place.

Droning on, and on, and on.

Tyranny Pays, And The World Doesn't Care

That's the lesson of Burma, circa 2007.

Burma Teaches A Lethal Lesson

With reports of massacres seeping out, real questions are raised. Nationalistic tolerance for any kind of regime may have reached its limits with Burma. Its entire history is a cautionary tale in neglect from the civilized nations.

Burmese military rulers achieved power through the massacre of nationals, shooting 3,000 students in the streets in 1988. They overturned an elected government in 1990 and imprisoned its democratic leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has lived under house arrest for most of the past 20 years. The regime sealed its power through the repression of ethnic minorities, the employment of slave labor, the destruction of the environment and its leadership in the global drug trade.

The silence has descended, after the shooting has stopped.

The depth and extent of the crimes committed are not known yet, but their message is clear:

Tyrants and democracies that oppress to cling to power, no matter how little legitimacy they have, can sink deep indeed with no need to worry about more than words. For regimes such as those in China, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Bolivia, Burma serves as a useful benchmark as how low a tyranny can go with little action from a toothless world community.

The ultimate lesson of Burma is that it's not the active countries out there that create an environment for mass murdering regimes to flourish, it's the passive ones that prefer the decorum of international institutions. There needs to be a strong response or communities such as the U.N. and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will forfeit all their moral authority.

Gun control has claimed another victim -- Good intentions get people killed. Just remember the words in the US Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

To make the point, 'life' and defense of it, is enshrined in the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights

* Second Amendment – Right to keep and bear arms.

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

So why is the UN pushing for a new round of global gun control, when the results are always the same. Look to Rwanda for answers, an armed citizenry prevents genocide.

BTW, anyone remember who was President during the years and years of killing during the Rwanda genocide?

Thankfully, this time we expect an accounting for what has happened in Burma, even though the world may not get it, it may cast a chill over the future occurrences.

Tom Harkin, Phony Combat Pilot

Sen Tom Harkin has more in common with phony soldiers than at first known. This from Wikipedia

While running for his Senate seat in 1984, and again while running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, Harkin has faced criticism for claiming that he had flown combat missions over North Vietnam. In a 1979 round table discussion with other Congressional Veterans, Harkin said of his service as a Navy pilot: “One year was in Vietnam. I was flying F-4s and F-8s on combat air patrols and photo-reconnaissance support missions”. These comments were later published in a 1981 book by David Broder. After subsequent inquiries by Barry Goldwater and The Wall Street Journal, Harkin clarified that that he had been stationed in Japan and sometimes flew recently repaired aircraft on test missions over Vietnam. His service flying F-4s and F-8s was later, while he was stationed in Cuba.

References to this controversy were deleted from Wikipedia by staffers from Harkin's senate office.

Tom Harkin's military record doesn't match his boasting does it. Isn't this what Rush was talking about?

Fred

The whole point of the American Revolution was to establish a country without anyone to run it. If we wanted the country run, we would have established a kingdom. We don't want or need a president who is inclined to run things. Running things is what dictators and socialists do. We need a President who leads and inspires. Fred, with his non-managerial background, is the only candidate of either party who seems to get this.

Fred in a nutshell: After a recent Thompson speech in Iowa a member of the audience called out: "Kill the terrorists, secure the border, and give me back my freedom." Thompson replied "you just summed up my whole speech."

Glitch Renders 'Virtual Fence' Unusable

The virtual fence is broke, and needs to be fixed. Meanwhile, the guard is leaving the border.

Guard to cut Mexico border force in half

Despite protests from border states, the chief of the Army National Guard said Wednesday that he has ordered the withdrawal of 3,000 of the 6,000 National Guard members sent last year to deter illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum said the remaining troops can be moved anywhere along the border, if needed.

"If Arizona really, truly needs more troops, we can move them from neighboring states to Arizona. We can weight the effort there if it is necessary," Blum said, adding that further reductions are planned.

"We will ultimately work ourselves out of a job by the end of next year," he told reporters.

Blum also said that after six years at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, some Guard units are still struggling with less than half the equipment they need to do their jobs at home. He said it will take an extra $13 billion over the next five years to get them 90 percent of what they need.

Blum also joined other military leaders in criticizing congressional efforts to legislate the length of troop deployments or rest times. While the thought is well-intentioned, he said, it would be "unhelpful," and the unintended effects could make things worse rather than better.

Blum said the Guard often finds itself in a bidding war to keep special operations soldiers from leaving to join the more lucrative security firms, such as Blackwater USA.

The Guard has two special forces units, including about 5,000 soldiers headquartered in Alabama and Utah, and Blum said they are "constantly being recruited" by security companies. Blackwater, the main provider of security escorts for U.S. government workers and other business contractors in Iraq, has been suspended from working in Iraq after an incident this week in which as many as 11 Iraqi civilians were killed.

The border drawdown was ordered by Blum because the Guard has made sufficient progress in its border mission since being assigned along the border starting in May 2006, he said.

Border state lawmakers have sought to halt the drawdown.

"Arizona remains a problematic border in the Southwest region, and the long-planned drawdown in personnel and patrol is premature," Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano recently wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

"The drawdown of Operation Jump Start's strength level is ill-timed and should be halted and re-examined," Napolitano said, referring to the government's name for the Guard deployment to the border.

Similarly, Sens. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked Bush to reconsider the drawdown of Guard troops.

"We strongly believe," they wrote in July, that Operation Jump start "should continue with the same number of National Guard personnel, or more, as have been deployed over the past 12 months."

Blum replied that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has approved the reduction in Guard forces.

"My ultimate customer is the federal law enforcement agency charged to secure the border, and they are telling us this is what they want," Blum said.

The 3,000 guardsmen are scheduled to be withdrawn by Oct. 1. As of this week, 3,182 Guard personnel remained at border posts, down from 3,721 last month, said Randy Noller, a spokesman for National Guard headquarters.

Guard personnel have been assisting U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations near Tucson and Yuma, Ariz., El Paso, and along the border in California and New Mexico.

Along the 2,000-mile U.S. border with Mexico, the Guard has focused on building roads in remote regions so that U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents can move quickly to intercept illegal immigrants; building fences and towers with sensing equipment to spot illegal immigrants; providing reconnaissance with aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles; and providing logistics and intelligence analysis.

The vitual fix has a glitch, it doesn't work properly.

Glitch Renders 'Virtual Fence' Unusable

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - Because of a software glitch, the first high-tech "virtual fence" on the nation's borders remains inoperable, three months after its scheduled debut.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he is withholding further payment to the prime contractor, Boeing Co. (BA), until the success of the pilot project stretching 28 miles near the border southwest of Tucson.

Nine 98-foot towers laden with radar, sensors and sophisticated cameras have been built in an area heavily trafficked by illegal immigrant and drug smugglers. The towers, each a few miles apart, are intended to deter or detect border crossers and potential terrorists and enhance the ability of Border Patrol agents to catch them.

More testing is expected by early October, Chertoff told the House Committee on Homeland Security this month in Washington.

"We are now looking to begin acceptance testing in about a month," Chertoff said - meaning the point at which contracting officials give the go-ahead for testing - "and we will then kick the tires again."

Of Chertoff's remarks, Boeing spokeswoman Deborah Bosick said only: "We're working with our customer to solve some remaining technical issues."

The virtual fence is the first stage of a plan to smother the Mexican and Canadian borders with 1,800 such towers, all aimed at enabling the U.S. Border Patrol to pinpoint crossings and improve their ability to intercept crossers.

About three-fourths of the $20 million cost for the 28-mile project has been paid, homeland security officials said. The fencing was announced as part of a $67 million initial contract awarded last September to Boeing, the bulk going to set up program management, systems engineering and planning support.

The virtual fence system is supposed to coordinate camera, sensor and radar sightings and provide a common operating picture to agents on the ground to intercept those entering the country illegally.

"The integration of all the systems into a common operating picture continues to be the challenge," said Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke. Boeing has put new people on the project who are working to resolve the problems, he said.

In June, with the towers up, a radar problem caused a brief delay. Then, federal officials said there was a software problem.

In his Sept. 5 testimony, Chertoff said the original plan was to begin acceptance testing in June "so that we could make a determination that we were satisfied with the product and take possession of it I think in July."

Acceptance testing is "a little bit like buying a car. We didn't want to get stuck with a lemon," Chertoff said.

The individual components worked well, but the system integration did not, he said.

Boeing has "retooled their team on the ground and replaced some of the managers. ... They are now working through the problems of system integration as we speak," Chertoff said. "I think they put their A-team in place to do it."

As for the testing, Chertoff added, "We should get it done well before the end of the year."