So Violent Images from Politicians Is To Blame

Violent imagery, including pictures of crosshairs and gun-toting politicians proclaiming their independence from federal authorities is being blamed for Loughner's cold-blooded killing spree. I guess they're referring to the following campaign video:

Speaking of Violent Images in Politics…
January 10, 2011 7:11 A.M.
By Jim Geraghty
Tags: Arizona Shooting, Joe Manchin

It’s time for politicians to stop using violent imagery in their political rhetoric, holding guns and proclaiming, “I’ll take on Washington and this administration and get the federal government off of our backs!”

I was wondering if this image would qualify as violent or threatening?
This is from February of 2006 in front of the White House during an anti-war march. Its obvious the image is calling for the beheading of a sitting President. Free speech at its worst.

I'm with the government and I'm here to help you. Does that phrase send chills down your spine?

Before every election there is a plethora of polls and questionnaires on voters political leanings. Through various means, they try to determine the political philosophies held by the voters.

Well, enough.

Here is the only poll you need to describe today's political landscape.

"I'm with the government. I'm here to help you."

One type of American sees that as a Feature.
One type of American sees that as a Bug.

What type of American are you?

Jonah Goldberg explains it in more detail. An American Divide

Maggie's Farm puts it another way. Two Americas

Original data that started "Global Waming theory" missing, falsified, or unavailable for review.

Global warming is settled science. Everything about it is proven. Just ask them.

Heh. Its not even science......

Imagine you are a climate researcher who has been assembling the data that is used to support claims of global warming. Or imagine you are Phil Jones from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia. Or imagine you are a scientific fraud. Did I write “or”? I meant “and.”

Over at RedState, "BeagleScout" Miller begins his post with the above statement. Its also a summary of the entire thing. Quite a feat summarizing the entire post in your opening paragraph.

Apparently, scientific theories are supposed to be "repeatable" or, at least, "reviewed" by other scientists, using the ORIGINAL data.....who knew?

Over at Watts Up With That, Patrick J. Michaels, of National Review Online, exposes the fraud inherent in the entire global warming theory, in the article, The Dog Ate Global Warming.

The original "scientists" admit to throwing away the ORIGINAL data. And kept only their doctored data. Except when they have it, but refuse to provide it for review.....
Of course the sources for that data have huge problems, also.....

...the weather data that go into the historical climate records that are required to verify models of global warming aren’t the original records at all. Jones and Wigley, however, weren’t specific about what was done to which station in order to produce their record, which, according to the IPCC, showed a warming of 0.6° +/– 0.2°C in the 20th century.

Now begins the fun. Warwick Hughes, an Australian scientist, wondered where that “+/–” came from, so he politely wrote Phil Jones in early 2005, asking for the original data. Jones’s response to a fellow scientist attempting to replicate his work was, “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

Reread that statement, for it is breathtaking in its anti-scientific thrust. In fact, the entire purpose of replication is to “try and find something wrong.”

Make sure that you read the comment section of the above post. Very, very enlightening about the actual status of climatology....

Human Rights Watch: Rendition is WRONG! Oh, Obama's doing it....OK, then. Carry on....

Under President Bush, the USA was vilified and condemned over the CIA practice of rendition in which agents turn detainees over to authorities in their home country for interrogation.This resulted in harsher interrogations than might be found under the US custody. The Europeans screamed hysterically about the use of their countries for either transport or custody. Apparently, rendition is only proper when used by Democrats. There was no outcry by any of the supposed watchdog groups or by Europeans when rendition was initiated under President Clinton.

And now, under The ONE, rendition is now considered a legitimate activity. Since GTMO will be closing soon, rendition might be the ONLY activity allowed. Too bad the terrorists won't be in our custody....I understand that certain countries have harsher methods than waterboarding.

Here's a round up of the reactions by the Blogosphere to the ABSOLUTE FLIP FLOP by the anti-war/anti-torture groups:

The LA Times (of all newspapers) starts the ball rolling with the revelation that "civil rights" groups don't care if OBAMA abuses the terrorists. It's only a bad idea if Republicans do it.

There is a Suitably Flip advertisement of a new movie.

Professor Darren Hutchinson calls out Human Rights Watch on their hypocrisy.

Da Tech Guy seconds that opinion.

The Corner at National Review Online does a nice Before and After of the positions held by Human Rights Watch.

Gord Tulk, a commenter at Small Dead Animals puts into perspective: So putting them in the responsible care of US governemnt people where they are given some degree of habeaous corpus at Gitmo and perhaps the odd waterboarding is a huge violation, but kidnapping them secretly and shipping them to some foreign country where they will suffer unspeakable torture and probably death is okay.

McCauliffe Is A Typical Democrat

You really want this piece of democrat excrement as Governor of our Commonwealth?
Remember Enron?

McAuliffe’s Shady Business Past
Why the former DNC chairman and potential candidate for Governor of Viriginia can’t preach about business accountability.

But even as he questions the president's credibility on the issue of corporate responsibility, there are questions about McAuliffe's own past as a private businessman — questions that suggest how difficult it will be for the DNC chairman to be a credible voice for greater accountability. In the late 1990s, some of McAuliffe's business ventures came under investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor, which filed suit against two labor-union officials, both of them with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers pension fund, for entering into questionable business arrangements with McAuliffe. Both officials later agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties for their actions, and the union itself had to reimburse its pension fund by nearly $5 million.
McAuliffe's real-estate deals have attracted relatively little attention in the press. Last October's consent agreement that ended the Labor Department lawsuit, coming after the terrorist attacks of September and just before the collapse of Enron, received almost no coverage. But the details of McAuliffe's business career may take on new importance now that he has become one of the president's chief critics on the issue of business ethics.
A Democratic-party spokeswoman dismisses suggestions that McAuliffe's record might damage his credibility. "First of all, Terry McAuliffe isn't president of the
United States," says the DNC's Jennifer Palmieiri. "He doesn't have the responsibility or the ability to restore confidence in the markets." Second, Palmieiri says, "We're holding Bush to Bush's standard — the standard he has laid out for corporate CEOs. He should follow that example. He has not been upfront with what his own situation was." Finally, Palmieiri says, the business records of Bush's Democratic critics are far less important than the fact that they support the Sarbanes corporate reform bill. "Whatever their business dealings are, and whatever they have done in the private sector," Palmieiri says, "they still want to support the most responsible reforms
available."
Nevertheless, McAuliffe's business career might attract increased scrutiny should he continue his high-profile criticism of the president's business history. Already there have been mentions of McAuliffe's extraordinarily well-timed investment in the now-bankrupt Global Crossing, in which McAuliffe invested $100,000 and made $18 million. There has also been talk about the six-figure profit McAuliffe made for helping Prudential Insurance Company win a government contract. And there has been talk about McAuliffe's role in a politically connected Washington bank in the 1980s and early 1990s.

As McAuliffe himself has said, every day, more questions arise.

Questions indeed. Let's ask them, before this gets too far.

Do we understand our enemy?

We are still at war. With the upcoming inauguration and the lessening of hostile action in Iraq, we seem to have forgotten that. We seem to think that if we only a) kill/capture Bin Laden b) free the oppressed muslims from tyranny c) kill all of the "radical" muslims that we will have peace.

We don't seem to realize that, like any faithful, the "typical" muslim takes the words and tenets of their religion to heart. Their worldview does not seem strange or dangerous to themselves. While the majority of muslims don't take up arms, they also won't try to stop "militants" from attacking non-muslims. Islam is both a religion and a political system. While western Christians may apply the teachings of Christ to their daily lives, their religion does not have the rule of law.
Islam IS THE LAW. If one breaks the tenets of the Quran, that person is penalized by the society.

We will not be able to "change the minds" of the majority of the 1 billion or so muslims in the world. We can only hope that they do not wish to take up arms.

The alternative is horrible.


WorldNetDaily - Benjamin Shapiro gets it. Tell me why he's wrong.

Enough with the pseudonyms. Western civilization isn't at war with terrorism any more than it is at war with grenades.

Enough with the psychoanalysis. They don't hate us because of Israel.

Enough with the niceties. We don't lose our souls when we treat our enemies as enemies.

Enough with the words. Talking with Iran without wielding the threat of force, either economic or military, won't help.

Enough with the faux allies. We don't gain anything by pretending that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are true allies.

Enough with the myths. Not everyone on earth is crying out for freedom.

Enough with the lies. Stop telling us that Islam is a religion of peace. If it is, prove it through action.

Enough. After the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the plane downed in Pennsylvania, the endless suicide bombings, shootings and rocket attacks in Israel, the Bali bombings, the synagogue bombing in Tunisia, the LAX shootings, the Kenyan hotel bombing, the Casablanca attacks, the Turkey synagogue attacks, the Madrid bombings, the London bombings, and the repeated attacks in India culminating in the Mumbai massacres – among literally thousands of others – it's about time that the West got the point: We're in a war. Our enemies are determined. They will not quit just because we offer them Big Macs, Christina Aguilera CDs, or even the freedom to vote. They will not quit just because we ensure that they have Qurans in their Guantanamo cells, or because we offer to ban "The Satanic Verses" (as India did). They will only quit when they are dead. It is our job to make them so, and to eliminate every obstacle to their destruction.

So enough. No more empty talk. No more idle promises. No more happy ignorance, half measures, or appeasement-minded platitudes. The time for hard-nosed, uncompromising action hasn't merely come – it's been overdue by seven years. The voice of our brothers' blood cries out from the ground.


And the writer at Mere Rhetoric have a very interesting take on the Isreal-Palestine conflict:

And of course - as left-leaning peace process diplomats now admit openly - it's actually Palestinian political instability that suffocates the peace process. Abbas can't make peace and Hamas won't make peace. But somehow that turns out to be Israel's fault. Because if it wasn't then Israeli concessions wouldn't translate into a peace deal. And then it wouldn't be possible to diplomatically stabilize the Middle East. And then where would the State Department be? So Rice is angling to have UN call for a new Arab state. Because why not?

And because I've now gotten two obnoxious emails on this question in two days: the problem with misguided US foreign policy toward Israel isn't just that it screws a major US ally. It's that diplomats who focus obsessively on Israel do it as a result of willful denial about political Islam. If you believe that political Islam is a global threat driven by a pathological ideology expressed through asymmetric and urban warfare - then Israel is incidental. But if you really need terrorism to be an misguided response to underlying political problems - which is to say, if you're the State Department - then Israel becomes the central issue.


And in a more immediate example: Why does Khalid Sheik Mohammed want to be executed? Who cares? by Andrew McCarthy at National Review Online.

We don’t understand our enemies any better than we did when they first strode out on that great American stage, the federal courtroom, 15 years ago.

What we don’t yet seem to grasp, even after all that’s gone on these last two decades, is that our politics and our law are of interest only to us. They matter nothing to jihadists. It’s a fatuous exercise in self-absorption to suppose otherwise — and a foolish one since it demonstrates for all to see that we still don’t get it. The delusion that we can change our enemies by changing ourselves is what makes the useful idiots useful.

KSM doesn’t see Bush or Obama. He sees an American president. He sees a symbol — the embodiment of a people and culture that are his mortal enemy.

Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, cowboy or solon — these distinctions matter to us. KSM couldn’t care less.

For radical Islam, it’s not about us; it’s about them. KSM isn’t about us. He’s about KSM. There is no system we can devise, nothing we can do or not do, no one we can elect or anoint, that will alter how we are perceived by the millions who share the jihadist worldview, if not jihadist methods.

We don't seem to understand our enemy. From SaneWorks.

What explains the fact that Sunni Wahhabi Salafi followers of Saudi Arabia (9/11) and Deobandis in Pakistan (Mumbai) embrace the same essential doctrine of Jihad against the infidels? Or, the fact that also the Shia Muslims of Iran and of course the Shia Hizbullah in Lebanon adhere to this shared theo-political-military doctrine? And, to these we can add the Jihadis of Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Chechen, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Gaza, London, Europe and the United States.

The narrative we most often hear is that somehow--usually due to poverty, oppression, colonialism, or imperialism--this eclectic group of mujahideen have somehow taken a noble and peaceable religion and applied incredibly the same "toxic ideology" to a love-peace-mercy theology and that it has metastasized into global jihad. The problem with this "toxicity" narrative is the rather stubborn fact that such disparate groups sharing no common national interests, racial affinities, cultural ties, and language have each come down on all fours on the almost identical legal doctrine of Jihad and they all rely explicitly on traditional, authoritative, and pedigreed Shariah in their respective understandings of this law of Jihad.