America turns it’s back on the “American Family”

America turns it’s back on the “American Family”

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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What has happened to the American family? It doesn’t exist, anymore. Oh, we have something we like to call "family", often times living beneath the same roof, but it’s not family… not in the true sense of the word.

America has redefined “family” until we have defined it out of existence. I think that was intentional. Our socialist brothers and sisters, on the left, want to control this country and to do that they must destroy the basic building blocks of this republic and reassemble those blocks to suit themselves.

The single most important building block of any nation is her families. Destroy that and you can easily lay claim to a nation’s soul. And that is exactly what has happened.

I saw, a short time ago in the press, that families with unmarried parents now out number families with married parents in America. In the first place, the group of people with unmarried parents, at its head, is NOT a family... in the true sense of the word. So the entire report was based upon the flawed assumption that a family is a group of people with the authority figure either married or unmarried. That is not the classic family. That is a mob.

Americans, look around you and consider that we have a society rotten at its core.

The core of civilization is the family and when that core does not exist, or is mortally wounded, as ours in America is, then a country’s entire society is in peril. If there is any doubt that America’s society is in danger, pick up any newspaper, turn on any TV news channel, or just stand still for a moment and look a round you.

We have failed, as a people, to protect our families. We have, through social programs, and such, made it much easier to dissolve the family and to create something acceptable to the “socialist shadow government”, working behind the scenes in America, in order to provide the necessities for that group without actually working for it, nor providing the guidance of a nuclear family. The children coming out of such a "mock-up" of a family have no way of knowing that their experience was anything less than normal and they create their own… and in so doing… perpetuate the rot at our core.

Here in America we have an entire underclass, and entire segment of American society, who are wards of the US government.

We have so may children, and grown young people, now, who were “raised by a village”, and not a family, that they lack those “familial ties” that anchor all humanity to the core of a family and that core is… love for one another. It isn’t there... and they are empty. Their souls are just barely attached to their bodies.

We have been breeding and raising psychopaths!

We look around us in awe, and wonder, when some child, or young adult, walks into a school with a gun, and begins to pump round after round into innocent children. We gaze at the vivid stories on TV news of heinous murders committed by a young person who looks just like the boy, or girl, living down the street from us. And… we still don’t get it.

It’s OUR fault.

We destroyed the American family. Why? Because it was expedient. A tight nit family is nearly impossible to manipulate. But as with any organization, break it apart… and you can destroy it, piece by piece, and that is what we have done.

Our children are sent to nurseries, as sucklings, because the mother must report for work at the end of the allotted family leave period. The children don’t see their parents, save for short periods in the morning, as they are prepared for daycare, in the evenings as they are prepared for bed, and on the weekend when parents are worn out from their daily jobs and have no time to spend with them.

Then those same children are sent off, at the age of six, to the public school system run by a government intent on molding their minds in the way it would have them go… and they spend 12 years in that system. The tie with their parents remains about the same, but becomes even more tenuous as the years speed by.

Then… there is college. And there the finished product is rolled out. The liberalities of the college instructors and professors further mold those young minds into automatons of the socialist agenda.

The process is now complete and the product is a near heartless, soulless, individual who believes his upbringing was NORMAL!!!

We have at least two generations of these automatons walking among us. They are now in positions of power in our government, in our universities, in our public schools, and in our churches… and America is the worse for it.

In a five-year period (2004 through 2008), 15,000 Americans, per year, were murdered by fellow Americans. 100,000 women a year were raped in America, and 1 million Americans, per year were subjected to some sort of violent crime. (These numbers only account for the five years 2004 through 2008.)

That bright shinning city on a hill has been corrupted and has become dull and it’s luster is gone. No longer does it stand as a shining beacon to the remainder of mankind as the promise of a nation, which seeks after God and liberty for its people.

It is said that all great nations commit suicide. Consider the Greeks and the Romans, from which America drew so much in founding this republic. Those great civilizations have been tossed into the dustbin of history. I am deeply afraid that America will soon join them.

As a society defines its families… so it defines itself. The American family has been ruled, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant. We no longer even understand what a family is. The family was the bedrock upon which the pillars of this great society were seated. That bedrock has crumbled and our society is showing the effects. (I refer you to the paragraph above with the statistics of violent crime committed by Americans against Americans.)

It is said that change is inevitable. That may be, but change can be guided and channeled in the direction a society wishes to travel. In America’s case, we channeled change in the wrong direction. We replaced America’s reliance upon God with reliance upon the Federal Government. We replaced the Ten Commandments with a code of laws developed by man and loosely based on the Ten Commandments, but… we deny even that. We replaced God in our public schools with school councilors, and policemen, and metal detectors… and murder. Our religion has gone weak in the knees with many of America’s mainline churches, saying openly, that the scriptures, which have served us for well over 2000 years, are no longer relevant, that God doesn’t actually matter anymore. The plain truth is, dear reader, we have condemned ourselves.

Can we turn it around? That remains to be seen. America is racing toward the apocalypse, the final hour when all will be irrelevant. Nothing will matter any longer. “The End” will have been writ large across the pages of history and America will be but a footnote. The scriptures tell us that God’s Spirit will not always strive with man. At some point God will pull back that protecting hand, that guiding hand, that gracious hand.

America has grown fat and arrogant and, like the builders of the tower of Babel, we have taken it upon ourselves to “be like God”. And, frankly… we’re not big enough.

Man’s instructions were simply enough. A man and woman should cling to one another and be fruitful and multiply... and create families. Children were admonished to honor their fathers and mothers. The parents, likewise, were admonished to not provoke their children to anger. In other words… love one another. Love was the basic building block of the family and the family was the basic building block of man’s society. Now, here in America, we have destroyed the family. Our foundation is gone, our anchor is gone, and we are adrift, soon to slip beneath the waves… as history sails on… without America.

J. D. Longstreet

Freedom Action Conference - August 12-14, Valley Forge, PA

Freedom Action Conference - August 12-14, Valley Forge, PA
By Alan Caruba
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I don't usually promote specific events, but the Freedom Action Conference that will convene at Valley Forge, PA, August 12-14, at the Dolce Hotel, is one you should consider attending if, like Howard Beale in the movie, "Network", you're mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore.

It will feature three days of speakers who will train attendees and provide hands-on knowledge about how to end federal and UN attacks on individual freedoms, states rights, local loss of control, Second Amendment rights, and other issues that affect you and everyone else right where you live.

In 1777, George Washington’s tired and starving troops, having experienced initial defeat at the hands of the most powerful army of its times, retreated to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to regroup, to train, and to take up the struggle to establish independence. By 1781, they were victorious at Yorktown, Virginia.

Today, Americans are under siege again, but this time from a federal government seeking to overturn the protections of the Constitution and to establish control over every aspect of our lives via legislation that affects our health, our property, our access to energy, and via international treaties that over-ride the Constitution.

The American Policy Center, a grassroots, activist organization led by Tom DeWeese, along with 22 co-sponsoring organizations, will convene a three-day conference where American liberty began its struggle, where patriots suffered and regrouped to establish the world’s beacon of liberty at Valley Force, Pennsylvania. You will be able to join other concerned Americans. A website, http://www.freedomactionconference.com/ will facilitate registration.

“In the same fashion as the spontaneous creation of the Tea Party movement,” says Tom DeWeese,the founder of the American Policy Center, “we are expecting a large turnout of people who want to learn about the threats to their freedoms and to learn what they can do at the grassroots level to fight them.

”The Conference will feature an extensive lineup of speakers on a wide range of topics that include the Constitution, states rights, Second Amendment rights, illegal immigration, the environmental movement, Sustainable Development, the United Nations, property rights, health and education issues, and grassroots activism.

Local action to counter federal intrusions will be a major focus. The American Policy Center has long been recognized as a leader in the opposition to government intrusion and attacks on Constitutional rights.

“It is time to take America back,” says DeWeese, and he's right.

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Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/. An author, science and business writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.

Turkey-vs-Israel. ANOTHER War in the Middle East?

Turkey-vs-Israel. ANOTHER War in the Middle East?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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THIS is what happens when America has a weak President.

There can be no doubt that America has the weakest President in office, since the Jimmy Carter fiasco. The rogue nations of the world can sense a spineless President and as soon as one is ensconced in the Oval office they begin to take advantage of the limp-wristed “see on evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” polices of these feckless regimes.

Carter had his Iranian hostage problem. Clinton had his Kosovo and Serbian problem, and now Obama has his Turkey-vs-Israel problem.

Obama wanted some “daylight” between Israel and America. Well, he accomplished that -- and THIS is the result.

There is the likelihood that war will breakout between Turkey and Israel at any hour. If Turkey sends Turkish military vessels and fighter aircraft to escort those so-called “peace activists” in another attempt to run the Gaza blockade, I have no doubt the IDF will sink Turkey’s ships and shoot down most, if not all, of the Turkish fighter aircraft. Of course there will be Israeli causalities, but Turkey needs to recognize they will going up against one of the premier militaries on the planet. Remember, too, If Israel goes to war today, they will be going to war under Netanyahu, a former IDF Special Forces officer. Netanyahu can be as bellicose as the situation requires.

Certain parts of the US President’s nether region have been caught in a crack -- largely by his own ineptitude. Those who sniff out weakness in an American leader are applying pressure. North Korea, Iran, Turkey, Russia, and yes, China are the usual culprits – save for Turkey, which, however, seems to be making a maximum effort to break its bonds with NATO and join that list of delinquents as a permanent member.

If Turkey goes through with committing its military in a skirmish with the Israeli Defense Forces, it will suffer withering loses as well as a tremendous loss of face.

Look, Netanyahu is not to be messed with! Frankly, I wish the man were qualified to be a candidate for the US Presidency. He is what America needs – a former officer in Israel’s elite special forces, he HAS the military experience required for a strong president. Unfortunately, America’s leadership comes in a far distant second to Netanyahu. Israel’s leader is perceived to be strong while America’s leader is perceived to be, well, pitiful!

President Obama’s obvious disdain for Israel and his nauseating rash of sucking up to Islamic countries leads one to question whether he favors Islam over Israel.

There are roughly 6 million Jews in Israel. There are roughly 6 million Jews in America. We would respectfully suggest that those American Jews, who support President Obama’s Regime, might wish to re-evaluate that support in light of Obama’s obvious dislike of the nation of Israel, which is, like it or not, recognized by the nations of the world as the Jewish state.

The Obama Regime not only has Americans at each other’s throats, it also has America’s allies at each other’s throats!

There is something terribly wrong with America’s current government led by the Obama Regime. America made a horrible mistake in 2006 and 2008 with the election of a socialist government to lead the country. Most sentient Americans have awakened to this fact and are determined to correct this error this November and again in November of 2012.

If the correction isn’t made in the next two elections, I think it is, indeed, plausible to see some of the American states again asserting their sovereignty by breaking away and re-establishing themselves as independent states.

Look, most Americans have come to understand that we, as a country, cannot continue in the direction the country is currently headed. They are as sincere as it is possible to be when the say they want their country back. They stand ready to rescue and restore America and elect a leader Americans and the rest of the world can respect.

America did not choose the role of policeman of the world. We were drafted into the job. Even if we threw up our hands and walked away, we would still have the job BY DEFAULT!

It seems America has its very own Hamlet in the Oval Office. His wrestling with decisions is reinforcing the appearance of weakness -- and weakness in an American President can bring the world to the brink of war. In fact, we may be tiptoeing along that brink even as I scribble these few words.

May God Bless America… and hurry up!

J. D. Longstreet

The 202nd birthday celebration of President Jefferson Davis At Arlington National Cemetery this Sunday, June 6th, 2010

The 202nd Birthday Celebration of President Jefferson Davis at Arlington National Cemetery on Sunday, June 6th, 2010
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Please do not forget...We are just a couple of days away from the 202nd birthday celebration of President Jefferson Davis and the 96th Annual Confederate Ceremony to be held at Arlington National Cemetery.

In June of 1900, the Congress of the United States approved a section of land to be dedicated as a Confederate burial ground within Arlington National Cemetery. Fourteen years later, on the 106th birthday of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, the United Daughters of the Confederacy and President Woodrow Wilson unveiled a more than thirty-two foot statue to honour the 482 Confederate soldiers buried beneath these grounds. This bronze and polished granite monument was designed and sculpted by Confederate veteran Moses Ezekiel. Following in that tradition, on Sunday, June the 6th, at three o'clock, the Confederate Memorial Committee of the District of Columbia, Inc., and the Jefferson Davis Camp #305, Sons of Confederate Veterans, will gather for the annual memorial ceremony at this famed Confederate shrine at Jackson Circle in Arlington National Cemetery.

This, indeed, is a special year, as we celebrate the 202nd birthday of Jefferson Finis Davis. Although words alone cannot serve to properly recognize this hero of the South, our first President, one inscription on the Confederate monument comes close to describing the character of the man we choose to honour:

Not for fame or reward
Not for place or for rank
Not lured by ambition
Or goaded by necessity
But in simple obedience to duty
as they understood it
these men suffered all
sacrificed all
dared all -- and died.

This year's keynote speaker will be Mr. Wesley Pruden, Editor Emeritus of the Washington Times. There are attached to this post an event flier and map for your information and convenience to get you there.

Also, here are directions for those coming from Richmond, and southward, to get to Arlington...
Drive north on Route 95. Near the Washington Beltway, Route 95 will merge with the Beltway-do not merge with the Beltway. Continue traveling north on Route 395 toward Washington, DC. Take Exit 8-B (Arlington National Cemetery exit). This exit is to Route 27. Stay in the left lane until reaching the circle (on the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge). Proceed counter-clockwise around the circle to Memorial Drive.

Once you get to the cemetery, there will be guards directing you to the parking garage/visitors center... do not take this. You actually get free parking at Arlington for coming to the ceremony. Tell the guards that you are attending the Confederate service at Jackson Circle. They will then direct you straight into the cemetery, which is Eisenhower Drive.

Follow Eisenhower and then take your third right, Bradley Drive, follow it straight and it becomes Porter Drive. Follow Porter until it T's into McPherson Drive, and then take a right on McPherson. Jackson Circle will be on your left.

Jackson Circle is marked by name and number 16 at the top of the map.

Should you have any other questions, please let us know, and we look forward to seeing you all on Sunday! E-Mail: ConfederateMemorialDC@gmail.com

DEO VINDICE!--
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Confederate Memorial Committee
of the District of Columbia

The chasm between Apollo and the Gulf ... ... by Harrison Schmitt

The chasm between Apollo and the Gulf
There is no valid analogy between the Gulf spill and Apollo 13
Harrison H. Schmitt, Former US Astronaut

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President Obama’s Administration and its supportive media repeatedly say our 1970 Apollo 13 experience is analogous to the effort to contain and cap the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Not hardly!

The rescue of Astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, after an oxygen tank explosion on their spacecraft, illustrates how complex technical accidents should be handled, in contrast to the Gulf fiasco. Nothing in the government’s response to the blowout and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon and its aftermath bears any resemblance to the response to the Apollo 13 situation by the National Aeronautic and Space Administration and its Mission Control team at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.

“Failure was not an option” for Gene Kranz and his Apollo 13 flight controllers and engineers. In contrast, failure clearly has been an option for President Obama and those claiming to have been on top of this situation “from day one” in his White House and in the Departments of Interior, Energy and Homeland Security. With no single, competent, courageous and knowledgeable leader in charge of a comparably competent, courageous and knowledgeable team as we had with Apollo 13, the Administration has been doomed to failure from the start. The President, without any experience in real-world management of anything, much less a crisis, has no idea how to deal with a situation as technically complex as the Gulf oil spill.

Whatever may be the culpability of British Petroleum and its federal regulators in causing and dealing with the accident, it has been left to BP engineers and managers and to Gulf State officials to respond as best they can in a regulatory environment that is politically charged, incompetent, fearful and hesitant.

Absolutely no reason exists to assume that any part of the Federal Government has engineering expertise comparable to the petroleum industry that can be applied to this or any future energy-related crisis. Certainly, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu have no more experience in these matters than does the President.

Salazar’s empty threat to “push BP out of the way” has no basis as a realistic option and best illustrates the floundering of the Obama Administration. Indeed, from “day one,” the expertise of the entire U.S. and British drilling and production industry should have been mobilized to combat this spill, with a single experienced engineering manager in charge. It still is not too late to start doing it right.

A more appropriate analogy from the Apollo era would be the recovery from the tragic fire during a pre-launch test on January 27, 1967, that took the lives of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. The Apollo 204 fire occurred in the clearly recognized crisis atmosphere of the Cold War, in which America raced to demonstrate to the world the superiority of freedom over the Communist oppression of the Soviet Union. The Deepwater Horizon explosion took place in the equally apparent crisis of America’s dependence on sources of oil from foreign nations governed or intimidated by our enemies or economic competitors. There, however, the validity of the 204 fire analogy ceases.

The NASA’s response to the 204 fire was to rapidly implement its previously well-formulated, objective investigation of its causes, both technical and managerial. Managerial responsibilities were identified, and George Low and his engineering team made appropriate changes without a prolonged exercise in finger pointing or the delays of another Presidential, buck-passing “commission.” NASA of that day moved forward and even accelerated the Apollo effort to its successful conclusion. Apollo 8’s Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders orbited the Moon less than two years after the 204 fire. Seven months after that, on July 20, 1969, Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, with Mike Collins in orbit overhead, landed on the Moon.

The lessons from the 204 fire were applied and we moved on. In contrast, President Obama’s and his Administration’s otherwise rambling response to the Deepwater Horizon explosion has been to stop offshore oil exploration by the United States. How misguided and, indeed, how either ignorant or devious can our President be!?

President Obama has shown repeatedly that the best interests of the American people are a lower priority than his ideological goal of changing America from what it has been, to some mystical, socialist utopia with a renewable-energy-based standard of living equivalent to that of the late 1800s. As if the Administration could not make its ineffective, disjointed response to the Deepwater Horizon accident any worse, it did not even use previously established sea surface burn-off and dispersant procedures to minimize the effects of the spill.

In addition, it has inexcusably delayed approving and assisting in Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s request to protect the state’s shores and wildlife habitats, by building offshore sand barriers – as unnecessary as having to make that request should have been. And this is the government that Congress and the President want to run healthcare, immigration, banking, carbon emissions, auto manufacturing, and everything else in American life?

The geologists, engineers, and on-site managers responsible for the Deepwater Horizon drilling effort understood that drilling to an oil reservoir through 13,000 of rock in 5000 feet of seawater would be very difficult. They knew that their geophysically defined target, typical of Gulf petroleum reservoirs, would be a complex mix of crude oil, natural gas and brine, contained in porous and permeable rock. Because of the rock and water depth, the reservoir also would be under very high pressure. In this situation, a reliable blowout preventer, a crimping device installed on the pipe near the floor of the sea, would be essential to reduce the risk of both a spill and potential explosion on the Deepwater Horizon.

Current information indicates that BP installed a defective blowout preventer and did not have a deep-water, robotically emplaced crimping technique as a backup to the blowout preventer. Essential to the prevention of future accidents will be an objective, complete technical and managerial investigation of why a geological and engineering situation of known risks spun out of control. The primary question is, will such an investigation be possible in the politically charged, adversarial “boot on the neck” atmosphere created by President Obama and his team? Imagine if such an atmosphere had surrounded the 204 fire investigation and recovery.

Responsibility for the Deepwater Horizon accident ultimately lies with the chaotic regulatory environment for petroleum exploration created over recent decades by the Congress, courts, Department of the Interior and environmental pressure groups. Will we learn anything about regulatory overkill from this tragic loss of eleven lives, extensive environmental damage, and disruption of business and employment in the Gulf?

Elimination of access to most on-shore and near-shore oil production prospects has driven American exploration away from more easily discoverable and producible resources – and into the much more dangerous and technically challenging deep waters of the seas and oceans. Even then, drilling and production accidents are exceedingly rare, in spite of the geological, engineering and weather-related difficulties that explorers and producers face as a consequence of these misguided restrictions.

Long-term, history reminds us that naturally and accidentally released oil in the oceans disappears due to bacterial action. Remember that the fuel oil which blackened the world’s beaches as a result of World War II ship destruction disappeared after only a few years, and ocean life survived. The Gulf oil spill will not be this Nation's most serious environmental crisis: World War II tops it by orders of magnitude in more than just this respect.

If America and freedom are to survive indefinitely, the next Congress must begin to restore sanity and intelligence to national energy policy. Until economically competitive alternatives become fully feasible, fossil fuels will remain the mainstay of our economy. Our dependence on unstable foreign sources of oil has become one of our greatest national security vulnerabilities, and only domestic production can solve it in the next 50 years.

The 2010 elections thus become a critical starting point to bring rational, constitutional, America-first thinking back into the Federal Government.
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Harrison H. Schmitt is a former United States Senator from New Mexico, as well as a geologist and former Apollo Astronaut. He currently is an aerospace and private enterprise consultant and a member of the new Committee of Correspondence.

Conservative's Wishful Thinking ... Alan Caruba

Israel's Next War Begins
By Alan Caruba
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As this is being written, the news is about an Israeli effort to interdict a “humanitarian” flotilla of ships that refused to dock at its port of Ashdod to have its passengers and cargo checked. When Israeli troops boarded a Turkish ship in international waters on Sunday they were met with violent resistance that led to casualties. The Israeli navy stopped six ships ferrying 700 people and 10,000 tons of supplies toward the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave.

I don’t know what the flotilla was delivering, but it is likely that among its passengers were Hamas terrorists and that there are weapons hidden among its cargo. That is why they refused orders to proceed to the Israeli port where tons of cargo routinely docks before making its way to Gaza. The flotilla was a deliberate provocation. Naturally, much of the world will blame Israel.

Having been in a state of war since its founding, Israel routinely has interdicted shipments of weapons to the PLO and Hamas. One of the most notable was in January 2002 when the Karine-A, a Palestinian ship, was found to have more than fifty tons of Iranian weapons and explosives.

Largely unreported are the fierce battles Egyptian Special Forces are waging in central Sinai with Bedouin tribesman smuggling weapons and fighters into Gaza on behalf of al Qaeda. As always, the Middle East is an asylum for the insane who, when not trying to kill Israelis, stay busy killing one another. I believe that war will come again soon and will originate in Lebanon.

In the end, the decision will be Iran’s, not Syria’s, its sock puppet and stalking horse. Syria has reportedly provided the Lebanon-based Hezbollah an estimated 1,000 Iranian-made rockets and missiles, all aimed at Israel. The last time the Israelis had to deal with Hezbollah aggression from Lebanon was in 2006. The conflict lasted 34 days. It is widely agreed that the Israeli Defense Force performed poorly and, not surprisingly, the most criticism came from the Israelis themselves.

Part of the problem at the time was an indecisive Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, who has since been replaced by Benyamin Netanyahu. If “Bibi” gets any intelligence regarding a pending attack, he will not wait around for it to start. On word of the confrontation with the flotilla, he cancelled a June 1 meeting with President Obama and returned to Israel.You may recall that in March Barack Obama accorded Netanyahu one of the nastiest receptions ever given an Israeli Prime Minister. Only the Dalai Lama fared worse, being ushered out the White House back door.

One might reasonably assume that the president is no fan of Jews after having spent twenty years in the Chicago pews of the Trinity United Church of Christ listening to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright say hateful things about them and about America. Obama has many close ties with black nationalists and anti-Semites such as Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan. One of his longtime associates is Palestinian apologist Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University professor.

There is ample reason to believe another attack on Israel is likely. The Syrians have reportedly moved the number of their army units to the Israeli border and have been supplying arms to Hezbollah ever since the last war.

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been saying ever more crazy things of late. He even lectured the United Nations on the coming of the Twelfth Imam, a Shiite spook whose return will require massive worldwide death and destruction. More recently Mahmoud got into a fight with the Russians over the proposed UN sanctions. Iran is running out of friends even if its oil is not.The Israelis have been practicing war games that include long distance flights, the purpose of which may have something to do with dropping some very big bombs on places with Persian names.

While all this is going on, the United States is significantly building up its fighting strength in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf regions. Carrier Strike Group 10, led by the USS Harry S. Truman, pulled up anchor on May 21st and headed to the Middle East. That will put two carrier groups in the area. More vessels, including guided-missile cruisers and destroyers will be there as well.

No matter how it plays out, the Middle East is going to turn into a shooting gallery again. The Iranians, Syrians, and Palestinians in Hezbollah and Hamas are living testimony to why all those people demanding that Israel make peace with them are clueless or worse.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

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Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.

Ken Cuccinelli v. 810 academics ... Paul Driessen

Ken Cuccinelli v. 810 academics
Special Bulletin: Academic freedom is not a license to commit fraud
Paul Driessen

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“Scientific debates should be played out in the academic arena,” insists University of Virginia environmental sciences professor David Carr. “If Michael Mann’s conclusions are unsupported by his data, his scientific critics will eventually demonstrate this.”

Carr and 809 other Virginia scientists and academics signed a petition launched by the activist Union of Concerned Scientists, protesting Commonwealth Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s investigation of former University of Virginia professor Michael Mann. The American Association of University Professors likewise opposes Cuccinelli, who is seeking documents from UVA, to determine whether there are grounds to prosecute Mann for violating the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, by presenting false or misleading information in support of applications for state-funded research.

Carr claims Cuccinelli is attempting to “drown out” scientific debate.” Others have accused the AG of conducting a “witch hunt,” engaging in “McCarthyite” tactics, and “restricting academic freedom.”
It’s time to clear a few things up.

Mann is the former UVA professor, whose “hockey stick” temperature chart was used to promote claims that “sudden” and “unprecedented” manmade global warming “threatens” human civilization and Earth itself. The hockey stick was first broken by climatologists Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, who demonstrated that a Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were clearly reflected in historic data across the globe, but redacted by Mann. Analysts Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick later showed that Mann’s computer program generated hockey-stick patterns regardless of what numbers were fed into it – even random telephone numbers; that explained why the global warming and cooling of the last millennium magically disappeared in Mann’s “temperature reconstruction.”

The Climategate emails revealed another deliberate “trick” that Mann used to generate a late twentieth-century temperature jump: he replaced tree ring data with thermometer measurements at the point in his timeline when the tree data no longer fit his climate disaster thesis. During his UVA tenure, he employed other statistical tricks to generate an accelerated warming trend of 2-4.5 degrees F per decade (1-2.5 deg C), as shown in his 2002-2003 publications. That extrapolates to as much as 45 degrees F per century!

Not surprisingly, he refused to share his data, computer codes and methodologies with skeptical scientists. Perhaps worse, Climategate emails indicate that Mann and others conspired to co-opt and corrupt the very scientific process that Carr asserts will ultimately condemn or vindicate them.

This behavior certainly gives Cuccinelli “probable cause” for launching an investigation. As the AG notes, “The same legal standards for fraud apply to the academic setting that apply elsewhere. The same rule of law, the same objective fact-finding process, will take place.” Some witch hunt.

There is simply no room in science, academia or public policy for manipulation, falsification or fraud. Academic freedom does not confer a right to engage in such practices, and both attorneys general and research institutions have a duty to root them out, especially in the case of climate change research.

Work by Mann and other alarmist scientists is not merely some theoretical exercise that can be permitted to “play itself out” over many years, if and when the “academic arena” gets around to it. These assertions of climate crisis are being used right now by Congress, states, courts and the Environmental Protection Agency to justify draconian restrictions on energy use and greenhouse emissions. They would shackle our freedoms and civil rights and hammer our jobs, economy, health, welfare and living standards.

If the science is wrong – or far worse, if it is manipulated, fabricated, fraudulent and covered up – then grave damage will be done to our nation, liberties and families, before the truth gets its boots on.
As to “scientific debate” over global warming, there has been virtually none in the academic arena. The science is viewed as “settled,” debate has been squelched, and those who seek to initiate debate are attacked, vilified, harassed and shipped off to academic Siberia.

Dr. Patrick Michaels, another former UVA climate researcher, was fired as Virginia State Climatologist by then-Governor Tim Kaine for raising inconvenient questions and facts on climate science. When Greenpeace demanded access to Michaels’ emails, UVA promptly acceded – before contesting AG Cuccinelli’s request for Mann’s.

The 810 protesters and their UCS and AAUP consorts were silent. Their principles and objections do not seem to apply to shrill activist groups infringing on the academic and scientific freedom of “politically incorrect” researchers, even when there is no suggestion of dishonesty. Other “skeptical” climate researchers have met with similar fates. The pungent scent of hypocrisy fills the air.

No surprise there. The massive US government climate change research gravy train alone totaled some $9 billion in grants during 2009, courtesy of hardworking taxpayers. IPCC, EU & Company climate grants – plus billions more for renewable energy research – fatten the larder still further. Now that money, prestige and power are threatened.

Climategate and other revelations about the lack of evidence for the “manmade climate disaster” thesis have sent belief in AlGorean gloom and doom plummeting. Global warming consistently comes in dead last on any list of environmental concerns. Three-fourths of Americans are unwilling to spend more than $100 a year to prevent climate change. China, India and other developing nations properly refuse to sign a carbon-cutting economic suicide pact.

The public is rightly concerned that in-house investigations by Penn State University (Mann’s current institution), East Anglia University (home of Phil Jones and the Climategate emails) and the IPCC have the patina of a Tom Sawyer whitewash. Independent investigations like Cuccinelli’s are absolutely essential, to ferret out fraud and misconduct – which may be rare but must be dealt with when it happens.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield falsified studies to create a connection between autism and trace mercury in vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella. Britain stripped him of his right to practice medicine. But meanwhile, a lingering stench remains over double standards; World Wildlife Fund press releases and rank speculation masquerading as peer-reviewed science; computer models enshrined as “proof” of looming climate disasters; and billions being squandered on research purporting to link global warming to nearly every malady and phenomenon known to man.

We the taxpayers are paying for this work. We the people will pay the price – in soaring energy bills, fewer jobs, lower living standards and lost freedoms – for draconian energy and emission laws enacted in the name of saving the planet.

We have a right to insist that the research be honest and aboveboard. That the work products stay in the public domain, available for scrutiny. That researchers share their data, computer codes and analytical methodologies, and engage in robust debate with skeptics and critics. That those who violate these fundamental precepts forfeit their access to future grants. And that our tax dollars no longer fund bogus acne-and-climate-change studies and alarmist propaganda. (Talk about budget cutting opportunities!)

It’s certainly understandable that scientists, academics, eco-activists and the AAUP and UVA would line up behind Mann and against Cuccinelli. There’s a lot of power, prestige and cash on the line. But it is essential that the attorney general and law-abiding citizens insist on transparency, integrity, credibility and accountability in the climate change arena.

We should support what Ken Cuccinelli is doing – and demand that Eric Holder and other state AGs take similar action.

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Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death.