Considerettes

That’s all they can stands, they can’t stands no more.  (Apologies to Popeye.)

ASHKELON, Israel - Israel’s deputy defense minister warned on Friday of a disaster in the Gaza Strip after Israel activated an air raid system to protect a major city from increasingly threatening Palestinian rocket barrages.

As Israeli troops, tanks and aircraft went after Palestinian rocket operations, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio that Israel had "no other choice" but to launch a massive military operation in Gaza.

For over 2 years, ever since the good-faith move out of Gaza by the Israelis, the Palestinians have been flinging rockets from Gaza into southern Israel almost daily, mostly at Sderot.  But now, thanks to the ever-insistently-"peaceful" Iranians, the attacks are getting worse.

Israel evacuated its troops and settlers from Gaza in late 2005, but the rocket fire has persisted and this week became more ominous as Iranian-made rockets slammed into a major city.

Communities right over the Gaza border have taken the overwhelming brunt of the rocket attacks from Gaza, but militants firing longer-range Iranian rockets struck hit the town of Ashkelon several times on Thursday. One sliced through the roof of an apartment building and three floors below, and another landed near a school, wounding a 17-year-old girl.

The world gasps in shock whenever Israel retaliates in defense of their own people, aiming at military targets, but yawns in apathy when the Palestinians indiscriminately chuck explosives at civilians.  And at the UN, it’s all Israel’s fault.

Maybe, but only because they didn’t retaliate earlier.  Letting the bully continue to act out, without consequence, doesn’t stop the bullying.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Middle East, Gaza, Palestinians, Hamas

Popularity: 10% [?]

That’s the title of a post by Russ Neglia on his Townhall blog "Pro-Life, Pro-Logic".  How does the determination a person relate to the beginning of the universe?  Click through and see his well-reasoned arguments (hence the blog’s name). 

While you’re there, read his excellent post on the language of abortion.  He really deconstructs some of the (sometimes contradictory) words and phrases used to justify the abortion position.

Technorati Tags: abortion, language, pro-life

Popularity: 5% [?]

It’s snowing. No, I mean really snowing.

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average.”

…

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its “lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

Granted, as the article goes on to day, “one winter does not a climate make”. But you just know that if the numbers were in the other direction this would be trumpeted by Al Gore and his shills in the media. You just know it because, well, they have.

This has got some climatologists rethinking things.

According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona — two prominent climate modellers — the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong.

“We missed what was right in front of our eyes,” says Prof. Russell. It’s not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind’s effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt.

But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the current Arctic warming.

And then there’s always that major source of global warming, the Sun.

Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.

Again, as the article says, while it’s way too early to start predicting a new Ice Age, it’s also way too early to be predicting catastrophic warming as well. Thus it’s also way too early to make huge economic and policy changes based on what could very well be a flawed premise.

Technorati Tags: global warming, environment, climate change, National Climatic Data Center, Toronto, Kyoto protocol, Arctic Sea, Gilles Langis, Canadian Ice Service, Robert Toggweiler, Joellen Russell, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton University, University of Arizona, Kenneth Tapping, National Research Council, Little Ice Age

Popularity: 8% [?]

Now that Ralph Nader has entered the presidential race, things get a little more interesting.  My personal feeling is that McCain would lose to Obama but could win against Clinton, with all her negatives.  Nader typically draws votes more from the Democratic candidate (just ask Al Gore), so with Obama looking more and more like the presumptive candidate, I like this development. 

One of the things that Nader’s candidacy always puts forth is that he is the candidat of real change, and that there’s not much difference between the two major parties.  Which, in my mind, means that those who vote for Nader on that basis really just don’t generally pay attention to what’s going on.  That most of Nader’s votes come from Democrats says, to me, more about Democrats than about Nader.

Technorati Tags: Ralph Nader, Al Gore, Democrats, politics

Popularity: 6% [?]

Shire Network News #118 has been released. Ezra Levant returns to our show for the second week and talks about how the blogosphere is the real power behind the fight back against Human Rights Commissions and other transgressions of the state. He tells us about the Union he has formed to protect bloggers from malicious legal threats. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

I did not have a commentary this week.

Technorati Tags: Shire Network News, Ezra Levant, human rights, free speech

Popularity: 6% [?]

Yeah, I know, that’s a cliche line if there ever was one, but the smear by the New York Times on John McCain is only the latest, and perhaps one of the most egregious, example in this election cycle.  They endorsed him while preparing this story, and now that he has the nomination essentially sewn up, they tossed a bunch of innuendo about him from disgruntled former aides on the front page.  The blogosphere has been all over this story, but Captain Ed gives a good post-mortem on the whole thing today.

So what do we have? We have salacious but completely unsubstantiated gossip, combined with a rehash of at least one old Times smear, placed on the front page of what used to be the premiere newspaper in America. And what exactly does that do for the Times’ credibility for the rest of this electoral cycle? They can’t run anything on McCain now without it being seen in the context of what the Times itself calls a "war" between the Times and McCain. Keller and company declared war on McCain yesterday, and it fired a bazooka of effluvium as its opening salvo. They’ve marginalized themselves for the next nine months.

Ed notes earlier that the Times has done what the Republican party couldn’t; fire up the base for McCain.  Blogger punditry on the Left still wants to milk this for all what it’s worth, but it’s unlikely their words will be taken seriously when trying to prop up rumor as some sort of "I told you so" moment.  Not gonna’ happen. 

Technorati Tags: John McCain, New York Times, politics, liberal media

Popularity: 6% [?]

Ed Morrissey notes an exchange between Chris Matthews and Texas State Senator Kirk Watson that is rather telling in regards to Obama’s accomplishment thus far.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “You are a big Barack supporter, right, Senator?”

State Sen. Watson: “I am. Yes, I am.”

Matthews: “Well, name some of his legislative accomplishments. No, Senator, I want you to name some of Barack Obama’s legislative accomplishments tonight if you can.”

State Sen. Watson: “Well, you know, what I will talk about is more about what he is offering the American people right now.”

Matthews: “No. No. What has he accomplished, sir? You say you support him. Sir, you have to give me his accomplishments. You’ve supported him for president. You are on national television. Name his legislative accomplishments, Barack Obama, sir.”

State Sen. Watson: “Well, I’m not going to be able to name you specific items of legislative accomplishments.”

Matthews: “Can you name any? Can you name anything he’s accomplished as a Congressman?”

State Sen. Watson: “No, I’m not going to be able to do that tonight.”

Matthews: “Well, that is a problem isn’t it?”

(Video is here.)

Indeed, that is the problem. A speech with “something something something change! something something something hope!” may get ‘em swooning, but it’s also the perfect way to fly in under the radar and foist on the American people policies they had no idea were coming.

And it actually says more about Obama’s supporters, since they’re more than willing to vote based on platitudes and “free” government goodies than on actual, y’know, policies. Getting more people involved in politics is one thing, and a good thing, but getting them voting without a clue of why they’re voting is not a good thing at all for the democratic process.

Technorati Tags: Barak Obama, Democrats, Kirk Watson, Ed Morrissey, democracy

Popularity: 6% [?]

So how’s that socialism working out?

The pressure on both firms may signal a tougher line by the government against foreign companies in politically sensitive industries such as food. The increasing scarcity of staples such as milk, chicken and eggs is denting Mr. Chávez’s popularity and might worsen the political climate for food companies.

In a sign of how serious the shortages have become, looters last week ransacked government food warehouses in Mr. Chávez’s hometown of Sabaneta. About 100 soldiers and police were sent to restore order, according to the Associated Press.

Empresas Polar, Venezuela’s largest food producer, responded yesterday to nationalization threats, saying it has had no role in the country’s chronic food shortages. Mr. Chávez said Sunday that Polar was "a clear example" of a company that could be nationalized if it were caught hoarding food.

Shortages have become a problem because of price controls implemented by Mr. Chávez in an effort to stem galloping inflation caused by Venezuela’s oil-fueled spending. Companies in many industries complain official prices don’t leave room for profits. Mr. Chávez accuses the companies of hoarding food.

If nationalizing industry causes shortages and inflation, fix it by nationalizing more industries.  Brilliant.  After the Soviet Union, North Korea, communist Eastern Europe, Cuba and many other examples, you’d think people would come to understand that socialism, in spite of all the flowery talk about it being "for the people", is really all about the government and its power.  (Remember that when you hear the about all the "free" goodies you’ll supposedly get from Democrats this election year.)

No human or committee of humans can ever hope to manage something as incredibly complex as a national economy.  Regulate, yes.  Nudge, yes.  Manage, no.  If a business can’t make a profit, it won’t stay in business, and won’t provide the goods or services it was providing. 

Now, Chavez ain’t no dummy.  He knows that all this bullying of corporations gives him street cred as a "man of the people", but even that sheen is beginning to dull as reality sets in. 

Tell ya’ what, though.  I’ll bet Sean Penn, Harry Belafonte and the other glitterati that visit Venezuela won’t have to stand in those lines.  Bad for Hugo’s PR machine, dontcha’ know?

Technorati Tags: Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, socialism

Popularity: 7% [?]

Scientists have discovered a hydrocarbon reserve larger than all of our current oil and gas reserves. Hydrocarbons, as you know, are those dregs of ancient dinosaurs and plants that we mine for energy. So then, where is this incredible field?

Oh, about 750 million miles away.

Before we get too excited here, let’s remember. There’s still an energy problem. Global warming, too. Nobody’s going to be importing oil substitutes from Titan anytime soon.

That said, data from the Cassini probe orbiting Saturn has shown that the ringed planet’s moon has “hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth,” according to research reported in the Geophysical Research Letters. The stuff is literally falling from the sky.

Lakes are scattered across the moon, with each of several dozen holding more hydrocarbon liquid – largely in the form of methane and ethane — than all of Earth’s oil and gas reserves.

OK, so it’s technically not the “mother lode” since it’s not physically connected to the oil and gas here. And it’s technically not biological in nature, since (and we’re pretty sure about this) dinosaurs and plants have never existed on Titan.

Which begs the question: Where did it come from, and are the same processes happening here on Earth? If so, perhaps oil isn’t from dead dinos. Worth looking into.

Technorati Tags: abiotic oil, Saturn, Titan, hydrocarbons, methane, ethane, energy, space, Cassini probe

Popularity: 12% [?]

Shire Network News #117 has been released. The feature interview is with Ezra Levant, who is the former publisher of Canada’s Western Standard newspaper, and who was famously hauled up in front of some sort of bogus Province of Alberta Kangaroo Court for a variety of thought crimes. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network News asking you to "Consider This!"

Regular listeners to SNN will recall that in May of 2007 I talked about the children’s show "Tomorrow’s Pioneers", a Hamas-produced TV show that depicted a young girl and her mouse sidekick, named Farfur, meaning butterfly.  The purpose of Farfur was to indoctrinate Palestinian children to the idea of jihad and to demonstrate just how eeevil the Jews are.  Episodes on how to properly hold an AK-47 give you an idea of just how "charming" this show was.

At the time, the Palestinian government, aware of the PR fiasco it might be incurring, said they would nix the show.  When Hamas refused to stop airing the show, the government said that, well, OK, but they’d be watching it closely.

I’m sure they have, and here in February of 2008 the show is still going strong.  I guess in the world of the Palestinians, "oversight" simply means to watch.  These days, there is a new sidekick.  It’s a rabbit named Assud, meaning lion.  Either these Hamas producers enjoy this sort of cognitive dissonance, or they just didn’t have the requisite costumes. 

Assud’s arrival was required after his predecessor, Nahoul the bee, died because he couldn’t get to a hospital in Egypt for surgery.  Someone apparently didn’t tell him that Hamas took down that wall a few weeks ago.  Of course, Egypt’s feelings toward the Palestinians made a rapid change after that development; from "we support the Palestinians in their plight" to "hey, who invited you here?"  So it sounds like Nahoul still wouldn’t get his operation, and it still would be Israel’s fault.

Before Nahoul, Farfur himself died at the hands of an Israeli after Farfur wouldn’t sell his land and got punched out on camera.  The desensitizing of Palestinian children continues unabated, but it’s all "educational", doncha’ know?

So now Assud, the rabbit named "Lion", follows in these illustrious footsteps, vowing to liberate the Al-Aqsq mosque and the Palestinian "homeland".  Not exactly your typical Children’s Television Workshop faire.  Assud seeks martyrdom and intends to eat Jews, all while bringing "smiles and joy back to the children of Palestine".

Just remember, this is on a television station run by the terrorist group that is in power in the Palestinian territories.  This is the voice of a group that wants to be taken seriously on the world stage, and, unfortunately, is taken seriously by too much of the world.  They say they want to live in peace, but ingrain in their preschool children a hatred of and desire to kill their neighbors.  Until this sort of insanity stops, they cannot be taken seriously and cannot be taken at their word.  Peaceful is as peaceful does.  The rabbit named "Lion", who is teaching Palestinian children, isn’t.

Consider that.

Technorati Tags: Shire Network News, Hamas, Palestinians, Farfur, Nahul, Assud

Popularity: 10% [?]

A web site hosted by my website provider was the proud recipient of a Denial of Service attack the past couple of days, and has put the blog into an unexpected hiatus. Everything’s back to normal (for now).

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I understand that schools should and do determine what’s appropriate to be said during school hours, but with all the other speech and such that they do allow, this prohibition looks rather targeted.

A federal judge has rejected a claim that the Poway Unified School District violated a teenager’s First Amendment rights by pulling him out of class for wearing a T-shirt with an anti-gay slogan.

Tuesday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge John Houston reaffirmed an earlier decision in which he found the school district’s policy on hate speech lawful.

Tyler Harper sued the school in 2004 after the district said he could not wear a shirt printed with a Bible verse condemning homosexuality. His younger sister, Kelsie, was named as a plaintiff after he graduated.

Via Stop the ACLU.

Technorati Tags: Bible, Poway Unified School District, hate speech, homosexuality

Popularity: 9% [?]

Shire Network News #116 has been released. The feature interview is the second half of the interview with Mark Steyn, in which he talks about all the ways in which he is currently under investigation. In this part of his interview he continues where he left off discussing his prosecutions in Canada taking on no go areas in Britain and plenty of other topics on the way. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for "Shire Network News", asking you to "Consider This!"

Recently in the United States, we celebrated that high holy day of politics known as "Super Tuesday", when many states hold their presidential primary balloting.  This year, "Super Tuesday" fell on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the first day in the season of Lent.  Now, on the day before Ash Wednesday, Mardi Gras is celebrated, which is French for "Fat Tuesday".  so some had suggested the day be renamed this year to "Super Fat Tuesday", or perhaps "Morbidly Obese Tuesday". 

With so many candidates still in play for both the Republicans and Democrats, no outcome was sure.  There were many surprises, but not all of them were publicized.  So, from the home office in Camillus, NY, here are the top 9 lesser-known surprises from Super Tuesday polling:

#9 - Yassar Arafat won all the delegates from Gaza

#8 - "Tastes Great" beat out "Less Filling" 2:1 in Wisconsin.

#7 - The New York Giants may have won the most points, but the New England Patriots won the popular vote.

#6- Al Gore insists he won Ohio and wants a recount.

#5 - Hillary Clinton won the critical demographic of angry Saudi jihadists.

#4 - The states of Georgia and Alabama finally agreed on something.

#3 - The "Obama Girl" didn’t go out to vote, for anybody.  The Obama cadaver, on the other hand, did manage to vote.  14 times.  In Chicago.

#2 - Howard Dean, in an effort to preclude a brokered convention, threatened to use his "Dean Scream of Death" to force reconciliation in the Democratic party.

And the number one lesser-known surprise from Super Tuesday polling:

American Idol still gets a better turnout of voters.

Yes, if Paula Abdul were running for office, you gotta’ wonder if perhaps she’d win. 

Back to you, Brian.

Technorati Tags: Super Tuesday, Shire Network News, Yassar Arafat, Obama girl, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Paula Abdul

Popularity: 6% [?]

You expect this sort of talk from the Bush administration.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an “extraordinary crisis”. Last year’s mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military “created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight”. The terrorist group’s security structure suffered “total collapse”.

But this is not the script from the latest press briefing in DC.

These are the words not of al-Qaeda’s enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province — once the group’s stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.

The US military released extracts from that letter yesterday along with a second seized in another November raid that is almost as startling.

That second document is a bitter 16-page testament written last October by a local al-Qaeda leader near Balad, north of Baghdad. “I am Abu-Tariq, emir of the al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sector,” the author begins. He goes on to describe how his force of 600 shrank to fewer than 20.

“We were mistreated, cheated and betrayed by some of our brothers,” he says. “Those people were nothing but hypocrites, liars and traitors and were waiting for the right moment to switch sides with whoever pays them most.”

Given that, this pronouncement seems at odds with reality.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said twice Sunday that Iraq “is a failure,” adding that President Bush’s troop surge has “not produced the desired effect.”

“The purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the political change to bring reconciliation to Iraq,” Pelosi said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” “They have not done that.”

The speaker hastened to add: “The troops have succeeded, God bless them.”

If al Qaeda is having to regroup and has lost all this ground, then the Iraqi government does have “a secure time”, at least far more secure than it has been. If that’s her definition of success, I’d say the Surge has been quite successful.

That the Iraqis have had a tough time coming together and resolving differences is simply human nature in action. As I mentioned earlier, culture and tribalism can work against a shared national identity, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. It will take time, but we are giving them that time, successfully.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Nancy Pelosi, terrorism

Popularity: 9% [?]

…die by the asset seizure.

Exxon Mobil Corp has moved to freeze up to $12 billion in Venezuelan assets around the world as the U.S. company fights for payment in return for the state’s takeover of a huge oil project last year.

The company said it has received court orders in Britain, the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles each freezing up to $12 billion in assets of Venezuela state oil firm PDVSA. An Exxon spokeswoman said the total that could be frozen worldwide was $12 billion.

Exxon also won a court order from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in December freezing more than $300 million belonging to PDVSA, as Exxon argued it would have little chance to recoup its investment from PDVSA should it win its arbitration.

A taste of his own medicine that Chavez may find does not agree with his pallet. But somehow, socialists always seem to think that grabbing up whole industry sectors is the way to utopia. He’s been threatening to do it with the food sector as well because of food shortages caused by price controls.

And that is the lesson here, taught many times over the centuries but lost on socialists; price controls don’t work. And since that’s one of hallmarks of a socialist government, determined to control an economy down to every little detail, then socialism is doomed to fail as well.

A committee cannot hope to manipulate an economy to the degree that Chavez wants to. The sooner the people of Venezuela understand that, the sooner they can remove him from power before he starts expropriating that, too.

Technorati Tags: Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, socialism, economics, Exxon, PDVSA

Popularity: 7% [?]