June 24, 2008

Top Ten Arguments Against Obama

Obama's campaign has two powerful things going for it.

1. We've had a Republican President for 8 years, and it's unusual to have a President of the same party 3 terms in a row.
2. He's Black, and Obama's come-from-nowhere success as a major-party nominee is evidence that America rightfully wants to have a Black President already.  Obama's candidacy is welcomed, not just by those on the Left, but by the majority of Americans. From the Washington Post: "In a Post-ABC News poll last month, nearly nine in 10 whites said they would be comfortable with a black president. [.....] And by nearly 3 to 1, those who think Obama's candidacy will affect race relations said it will have a positive impact."
   

On every other measure, the facts are massively against him:

1. He has no experience. Per Rasmussen, "As the general election campaign gets started, 41% of voters nationwide say that Barack Obama is too inexperienced to be President..."
2. He has a 20-year history of close ties with people who hate America and say so. His official position is that he had no idea what his close friend Reverend Wright was like ("The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation"), or what his business associate Tony Rezko was like ("this isn't the Tony Rezko I knew"). At times, he'd like us to believe, he  doesn't know what his own statements mean. From Reuters: "NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama misused a 'code word' in Middle East politics when he said Jerusalem should be Israel's 'undivided' capital but that does not mean he is naive on foreign policy, a top adviser said on Tuesday." In short, his official position of excuse after excuse after excuse, is tantamount to admitting that he had insufficient judgment to recognize who he was associating with, or at times, what he himself was saying.
3. He wants to pull our troops out of Iraq, and turn victory into defeat, as even the Washington Post now admits. From the Washington Post: "While Washington's attention has been fixed elsewhere, military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have 'never been closer to defeat than they are now.' ..... Still, the rapidly improving conditions should allow U.S. commanders to make some welcome adjustments -- and it ought to mandate an already-overdue rethinking by the 'this-war-is-lost' caucus in Washington, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)."
   
4. He was raised from the ages of 6 to 10 in Jakarta, Indonesia, and as a result does not have the deep understanding of America and love for it that an American President needs to have if he is to take every possible action for the good of this country and its citizens.
   
5. He claims to have no Muslim background, despite having a Muslim father, a Muslim middle name, and being able to recite the first prayer in the Koran from memory, in Arabic. From the NY Times: "Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as 'one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.'" Obama also admitted to the Times that as a child in Jakarta he "studied the Koran". (same link).  Video is available of Obama saying "We are no longer a Christian nation - at least not just...." 
   
6. He wants to meet with Ahmadinejad, giving his support to a world leader who has stated that he wants to destroy America.
7. He has no backbone: he backed down within 48 hours when this was demanded by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. From the Washington Post: "Facing criticism from Palestinians, Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged yesterday that the status of Jerusalem will need to be negotiated in future peace talks, amending a statement earlier in the week that the city 'must remain undivided.'"
8. He opposes the things that would bring gas prices down, like drilling.
9. Obama would leave America open to a future 9-11 style attack. He wants to use the courts only to prevent a future 9-11, somehow missing the fact that those who committed the 9-11 attacks were not deterred by this approach.
   
10. He wants to nearly double the capital gains tax, which would result in lowering tax revenue to the U.S. government, not in raising it.
    

It would be very good for America to have a Black president. But it has to be the right guy. Being Black is a huge plus for Barack, because it would be a great step forward for America to have a Black president - but you can't elect a President based on that alone. Surely even Barack would agree that a job as important as that of President of the United States has to be awarded based on the ability of the candidate to do the job.

Obama has shown that the majority of Americans are comfortable with a Black candidate for President. But he has also shown that he himself, does not have the qualifications to do a good job of being President of this country. He does not have the qualifications to seek out, identify, and to take every action he can for the good of this nation and of its citizens.  He is not prepared to be the Commander in Chief of our military forces.

It would be great if America's first Black President does a fantastic job of leading this country, so as to make the way easier for future Black candidates for the office. Obama has neither the experience, nor the qualifications, to do so.

June 13, 2008

Is it Time to March on the Supreme Court of California and on the Supreme Court of the U.S.?

This democracy cannot survive if our supreme court justices arrogate to themselves the right to dictate to the people - to be, in the words of Mark Steyn, our "monarchs".

Just last month, the Supreme Court of California, seeking to make law from the bench, rather than to do its rightful job of merely interpreting the State Constitution, sought to overturn the expressed will of the people and force gay marriage on the people of California. Per Mark Steyn:

...what happened here was not just a sly judicial coup, but an explicit one in the wake of the expressed will of the California electorate, and their elected representatives. And what's interesting to me about this general business of judicial activism, in a period when most sort of sources of authority in society, whether you're talking about politicians or the Church, or I suppose the media, if you mean fellows like Walter Cronkite, when most of those sources have diminished in authority, we have kind of compensated by over-venerating a handful of guys in black robes, just because they happen to be called judges, and sit on a fancy court. And there's no reason for this. It's entirely at odds with the founders' conception of a functioning republic, that in effect, you should turn a handful of judges into super monarchs who can overrule.

This week the Supreme Court of our nation, by a 5-4 vote, declared that enemy soldiers who are trying to kill us have protections under our laws that, in the dissenting opinion of Justice Scalia, "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." Scalia's dissent states:

Today the Court warps our Constitution in a way that goes beyond the narrow issue of the reach of the Suspension Clause, invoking judicially brainstormed separation-of-powers principles to establish a manipulable “functional” test for the extraterritorial reach of habeas corpus (and, no doubt, for the extraterritorial reach of other constitutional protections as well). It blatantly misdescribes important precedents, most conspicuously Justice Jackson’s opinion for the Court in Johnson v. Eisentrager. It breaks a chain of precedent as old as the common law that prohibits judicial inquiry into detentions of aliens abroad absent statutory authorization. And, most tragically, it sets our military commanders the impossible task of proving to a civilian court, under whatever standards this Court devises in the future, that evidence supports the confinement of each and every enemy prisoner.

The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.

The Supreme Court of the nation has made a ruling that, in the words of dissenting Justice Scalia, "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." 

There's one thing the 5 Supreme Court justices who seek to be our super-monarchs have overlooked.

We, the American people, do not like things that put our countrymen in danger of being killed. We, the American people, do not like our officials arrogating to themselves powers that were not intended by the Constitution, and making decisions which put our lives in danger.

There is one power in this country that is greater than the Supreme Court. That is we, the people. If the Supreme Court of California and the Supreme Court of the U.S. are to try to become our monarchs, it may be time for a popular march on both courts, in the tradition of American's great historic marches.

June 06, 2008

What Does It Mean that Obama is Responding to Pressure from Abbas, Rather Than From US Voters?

Just last Wednesday Obama stated to The American Israel Public Affairs Committee that Jerusalem "must remain undivided." The very next day Obama contradicted his own statement. From the Washington Post: 

Obama Backs Away From Comment on Divided Jerusalem

Facing criticism from Palestinians, Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged yesterday that the status of Jerusalem will need to be negotiated in future peace talks, amending a statement earlier in the week that the city "must remain undivided."

Obama's statement, made during a speech Wednesday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group, drew a swift rebuke from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

"This statement is totally rejected," Abbas told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "The whole world knows that holy Jerusalem was occupied in 1967, and we will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state."

...Obama quickly backtracked yesterday in an interview with CNN.

"Well, obviously, it's going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations," Obama said when asked whether Palestinians had no future claim to the city.

Under pressure from Palestinians, Obama contradicted himself. Under pressure from Palestinians, Obama changed his position. 

Not pressure from U.S. citizens. Not pressure from U.S. voters. Pressure from Palestinians. Think about that. Does Obama wish to represent the people of the country of which he seeks the presidency? Does Obama wish to represent the people of the United States?

Here we see him caving, in less than 48 hours, to a mere statement from Abbas, the leader of another people. How fast would Obama cave in a face-to-face meeting with Ahmadinejad - a meeting that Obama says he wishes to have?

What does it mean that Obama is responding to pressure from Abbas, rather than to pressure from US voters? It appears to mean that the interests of voters of United States are not high on his list of priorities. The explanation for this may be in part, that from the age of 6 years old to 10 years old, he lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, rather than in the U.S. 

Update on Effort Of UN Committee, Chaired by Genocidal, Slave-Holding Sudan, to Eject WUPJ from UN

Scanning Google News for "United Nations World Union of Progressive Judaism" shows no new articles, suggesting that there is no vote yet. See this previous article for details.

June 04, 2008

UN Committee, Led by Genocidal Sudan, Votes Today Seeking to Expel Jewish NGO from the UN

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights was so dishonest, so packed full of brutal dictators and oppressors, and had made so many biased decisions, that even the U.N. could no longer tolerate it, and it was disbanded in 2006. From Wikipedia:

The New York Times, in its editorial The Shame of the United Nations, praised those intent on "reforming the disgraceful United Nations Human Rights Commission." The Times said that the Commission was composed of "some of the world's most abusive regimes" who used their membership as cover to continue their abusiveness. On 15 March 2006, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to replace UNCHR with the UN Human Rights Council.

...The Commission was repeatedly criticized for the composition of its membership. In particular, several of its member countries themselves had dubious human rights records, including states whose representatives have been elected to chair the commission.

Another criticism was that the Commission did not engage in constructive discussion of human rights issues, but was a forum for politically selective finger-pointing and criticism. The desire of states with problematic human rights records to be elected to the Commission was viewed largely as a way to defend themselves from such attacks.

Activist groups had long expressed concern over the memberships of the People's Republic of China, Zimbabwe, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, and the past memberships of Algeria, Syria, Libya, and Vietnam on the Commission. These countries had extensive records of human rights violations, and one concern was that by working against resolutions on the commission condemning human rights violations, they indirectly promoted despotism and domestic repression.

On May 4, 2004, United States ambassador Sichan Siv walked out of the Commission following the uncontested election of Sudan to the commission, calling it an "absurdity" in light of Sudan's ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region. One major consequence of the election of Sudan to the Commission was the lack of willingness for some countries to work through the commission. Indeed, on July 30, 2004, it was the United Nations Security Council, not the Commission, that passed a resolution - by 13-0, with China and Pakistan abstaining - threatening Sudan with unspecified sanctions if the situation in the Darfur region did not improve within the following 30 days. The reasons given for the action were the attacks by the Janjaweed Arab militias of Sudan on the non-Arab African Muslim population of Darfur, a region in western Sudan.

The U.N. replaced the Commission, with the United Nations Human Rights Council. This new Human Rights Council almost immediately proved that it intended to conduct business as usual. From the NY Times in March 2007:

UNITED NATIONS, March 12 - A United Nations Human Rights Council mission to Darfur said Monday that the Sudanese government had organized and taken part in human rights crimes against its own population, and that international action to stop the killings and rapes had been inadequate.

...The rights council has been widely criticized for being no more effective than the discredited Human Rights Commission it replaced this year. Taking action on Darfur is seen by rights groups as a measure of whether the council can start to build credibility during its formal session, the fourth it has held, which began Monday.

So far, all eight of the condemnations of human rights performance it has issued since its creation in June have been against one country, Israel.

The UN Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations is currently meeting with the intention to eject one particular NGO from the UN - the World Union of Progressive Judaism. The reason? WUPJ representative, Mr. David Littman, a friend of this site, dared to suggest to the Human Rights Council that it was derelict in its duties. From the Daily News, Monday:

...the UN is on a warpath against one particular NGO. It is poised tomorrow to revoke these basic access rights from the World Union of Progressive Judaism. Yes, the WUPJ - which represents more than 1.7 million reform, progressive, liberal and reconstructionist Jews all over the world - is about to have its privileges to attend and speak at UN events erased.

What was its sin? Daring to speak clearly against UN human rights hypocrisy.

Bureaucrats at the UN trace the problem back to a statement made by the WUPJ during a Jan. 24, 2008, session of the Human Rights Council. The meeting marked the fourth time the UN's lead human rights body had convened an entire session to condemn Israel. That brought the total to four special sessions on Israel - compared with six sessions to address human rights in the other 191 UN member states.

As the council conducted its predetermined witch hunt, WUPJ representative David Littman made the mistake of referring to Hamas' genocidal charter. He began three times, quoting the charter's words that "Israel will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it," and calling upon the council to invoke the Genocide Convention.

Each time, the council president interrupted and warned him to "focus on the issue." Littman stood his ground: "The issue is what Hamas and the government in Gaza wishes to do to Israel." Bang, bang, bang went the gavel. Stymied, Littman recalled his Shakespeare and said: "There is a general malaise in the air. A feeling that something is rotten in the state of this council."

That was the last straw. Those words were "disrespectful" to the Human Rights Council, the diplomats from the Muslim world declared.

That brings us to the present day - tomorrow, actually - when the UN committee charged with ensuring NGOs' equal access rights is set to expel the WUPJ from the premises.

Chairing the committee is that bastion of civil liberties, Sudan. Vice-chairs include Pakistan and Cuba. Among the other 16 members are serial free speech abusers Angola, China, Egypt, Qatar and Russia.

At this past Thursday's committee meeting, Sudan - currently committing genocide - expressed concern that the WUPJ's behavior "violates the spirit and the letter of the charter of the UN." China - where you're arrested for logging on to the Internet and typing in "human rights" - was upset because "We respect civil society and NGOs."

Absurdly, the chair of the UN Committee on NGO's is that very same nation - Sudan - whose election to the Human Rights Commission was a key factor in publicizing the illegitimacy of the Human Rights Commission, and causing it to be disbanded. Sudan - which is committing genocide, and which still permits slavery! From the NY Times, February 2008:

The Sudanese government started the first genocide of the 21st century in Darfur, and now it seems to be preparing to start the second here among the thatch-roof huts of southern Sudan.

Yet Sudan is chairing the committee which is seeking to eject the WUPJ from the UN! This is the UN writ large - an organization controlled too much by oppressors, dictators, slave-holders and even committers of genocide.

The mere fact that ejection of the WUPJ from the UN is under consideration, has the makings of international scandal - even more so since the head of the committee that is to rule on it is Sudan.

If the WUPJ is ejected, the illegitimacy of the UN will be underlined in gigantic letters for the world to see.

The vote is expected today.

May 31, 2008

Barack’s Church- Are We Really Supposed to Believe that It Suddenly Changed When He Started Running?

So Barack finally resigned from his church of 20 years, the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.  With one preacher after another making horrendous comments there, he had no choice.

Barack would still have us believe that speeches like those of Wright and Pfleger are recent anomalies there:

"It's clear that now that I'm a candidate for president, every time something is said in the church by anyone associated with Trinity, including guest pastors, the remarks will imputed to me even if they totally conflict with my longheld views, statements and principles," he said.

"By anyone associated with Trinity"? "Guest pastors"? Who is he kidding? Jeremiah "God damn America" Wright wasn't a guest pastor. He wasn't just remotely associated with Trinity. He was the leader of Trinity from 1972 to 2008.

And the preachings of Pfleger weren't unexpected. He is well known at Trinity.  In his introduction, Pastor Otis said of Pfleger, "He needs no introduction. He is a friend of Trinity. He is a brother beloved. He is a preacher par excellence. He is a prophetic powerful pulpiteer. He is our friend. He is our brother. He is none other than Father Michael Pfleger. We welcome him once again!"

Pfleger's rant wasn't considered shocking or surprising at Trinity. After Pfleger spoke, Otis said, "We thank God for the message and we thank God for the messenger!"

Will anyone believe, as Obama evidently would like us to believe, that the speeches currently heard at this church, are significantly different than those that have been heard there for the last 20 years? Are we really supposed to think, that the normal goings-on at that church suddenly changed since Obama began running for office?

May 22, 2008

If Only there Were Some Pattern to the Things Obama Does…

May 16, 2008

California Court Gay Marriage Diktat Was Based on Liberal Talking Points Rather than the Law

Per Hotair:

That's actually the key ruling here: The court holds on page 95 that because sexual orientation is (1) immutable, (2) unrelated to one's ability to function in society, and (3) a target of prejudice, it should be treated as a "suspect classification" for purposes of the state constitution's equal protection clause.

There's no proof that sexual orientation is immutable. On the contrary - a Google search on the phrase "formerly gay" turns up many listings of people who were formerly gay, and no longer are.

The Court has based its ruling not on the law, but on a Liberal view that they now seek to impose on all of us. This is a massive attack on free speech. The Left lost this argument on the playing field of public opinion, and now the Court seeks to impose a view on us all using the power of the state.

Per Mark Steyn, the Court is acting like they are our "super monarchs," in defiance of their historic duty to merely interpret the law:

...what happened here was not just a sly judicial coup, but an explicit one in the wake of the expressed will of the California electorate, and their elected representatives. And what's interesting to me about this general business of judicial activism, in a period when most sort of sources of authority in society, whether you're talking about politicians or the Church, or I suppose the media, if you mean fellows like Walter Cronkite, when most of those sources have diminished in authority, we have kind of compensated by over-venerating a handful of guys in black robes, just because they happen to be called judges, and sit on a fancy court. And there's no reason for this. It's entirely at odds with the founders' conception of a functioning republic, that in effect, you should turn a handful of judges into super monarchs who can overrule.

This ruling can be overturned by a constitutional amendment that is already heading towards the November ballot. If the Court's ruling were to stand, you can expect to see the ACLU in our grade schools demanding:

• That children be taught in grade school to consider being gay.
• That free speech on the subject of gay marriage be outlawed in the schools, and that any school employee exercising his or her rights to free speech in defense of heterosexuality, must be fired.

The Court was split on this - it was a 4 to 3 decision. Do you object to having four guys in robes tell you what your children can and can't be taught about sexual orientation? Do you want to protect free speech? If so, contribute to ProtectMarriage.com, and sign up on ProtectMarriage.com to help. 

May 15, 2008

Obama Says He’s a Uniter, and Anyone Who Says Differently is a Racist

Obama likes to say that he is a uniter:

Obama Says He Can Unite U.S. 'More Effectively' Than Clinton

MANCHESTER, N.H., Aug. 14 -- Drawing a sharp contrast with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama said in an interview that he has the capacity she may lack to unify the country and move it out of what he called "ideological gridlock."

"I think it is fair to say that I believe I can bring the country together more effectively than she can," Obama said. "I will add, by the way, that is not entirely a problem of her making. Some of those battles in the '90s that she went through were the result of some pretty unfair attacks on the Clintons. But that history exists, and so, yes, I believe I can bring the country together in a way she cannot do. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be running."

But if Obama is such a uniter, why does he permit his supporters to say that anyone who doesn't vote for him, is a racist? For example:

• Obama Camp: McCain Has Racist Vote
• Matthews Sees Racism in Anti-Obama Ads, Liberal Panel Disagrees
• Navarrette: If You Don't Like Obama, You're a Racist
  

He not only permits them to say it - he personally led the way, in December of 2006. From Sisu:

"Are some voters not going to vote for me because I'm African-American? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn't vote for me because of my politics," Barack Obama told ecstatic New Hampshire voters yesterday. Being one of those voters who probably wouldn't vote for him because of his politics, we were naturally offended at his suggestion that people like us are racists.

His claim to be a uniter is shown to be incorrect, because under his leadership his supporters are using this extremely divisive strategy.

May 09, 2008

Check out This Very Funny Political Spoof Documentary

It stars grade-school and high-school kids, and is from Writer-Director Cheryl Felicia Rhoads.

------

May 01, 2008

Obama’s Coming Disgrace

Many are discussing how Obama and Wright are setting back race relations in this country. From Roger L. Simon:

Al Sharpton criticizing Barack Obama for urging non-violence in the Sean Bell verdict protest puts into dramatic relief the major racial conflict of our time - and it is inside the African-American community, not outside. Outdated racial profiteers like Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and now the formerly obscure Reverend Jeremiah Wright are clinging for dear life to their reactionary views that have impeded progress in their own community for years.

Unfortunately for all of us, Obama - whose instincts should have been better on this matter - has found himself trapped between appeasing these race baiters (and their constituencies) and taking what is truly a progressive (note the use of the word) stand against them because of his twenty year association with Reverend Wright. The candidate's speech on racism, so lauded in the press, actually worsened the situation by implying an equivalency between the reverend's excrescences and his own grandmother's fear of being mugged. That Obama could even think this way makes us wonder about his ability to lead us out of these particular woods.

And woods they are indeed. The situation is close to tragic and this election year shows a real chance of running off the rails in a way few of us would have predicted. It has a potential for pushing race relations seriously backwards in a society that was already relatively open handed. People do not like being accused of racism when it is not there. The original attraction of the Obama campaign is that it was post-racial and now it is anything but.

Wright has made his own racism undeniable.

Obama has shown that he, Obama, also excuses racism:

• By his 20-year close association with Wright.
• The NY Post has a report that Wright is outraged that Obama claims that Obama never knew Wright's true views. "'After 20 years of loving Barack like he was a member of his own family, for Jeremiah to see Barack saying over and over that he didn't know about Jeremiah's views during those years, that he wasn't familiar with what Jeremiah had said, that he may have missed church on this day or that and didn't hear what Jeremiah said, this is seen by Jeremiah as nonsense and betrayal,' said the source, who has deep roots in Wright's Chicago community and is familiar with his thinking on the matter."
• By his "typical white person" statement.
• By his initial defense of, and excuses for, Wright's racism.
• From Victor Davis Hanson: "The ghosts of Howard Cossell and Jimmy the Greek, Don Imus, and Michael Richards apparently have now all been absolved by Barack Obama. Thanks to the bar he has lowered in reacting to racism, no one will ever be disowned for their racist remarks, but always contextualized and excused. Watch what follows as a consequence of what Obama has wrought."
• By his latest attempt to distance himself from Wright, in which he appeared to many to be complaining, not so much of Wright's racism, as of Wright's accusation that Obama was being cynically disingenuous:
  
• From PowerLine: "In Obama's eyes, the most serious wrongdoing in Wright's statements is their disrespect of Obama. From the revered father figure who could not be disowned, Wright has become the the father from whom separation must be achieved in favor of his own identity, or the boorish relative who cannot be tolerated. The adolescent grandiosity and adolescent pettiness of Obama's remarks are perhaps the most shocking revelations of this entire episode."

Will Obama and Wright set back race relations in this country?  I suggest that on the contrary, America's decades-long tradition of powerfully opposing any tendency towards racism, will win in the end, resulting in the disgrace of Obama.

Since Martin Luther King, America has moved in the direction of opposing and putting down all notions of racism. In just the past two years, we have seen striking examples of this in the cases of Don Imus, Michael Richards, and Duane "Dogg" Chapman. 

Obama's implied and explicit excuses for racism, are being powerfully rejected by the American public.  It appears that Obama's supporters are already finding him to be no longer acceptable. From Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal:

This week we learned the limit of a dream in American politics. At Barack Obama's darkest hour, not one prominent ally came forward to support him. Everyone abandoned Everyman.

No prominent black clergyman came forth to make even the simple point that Jeremiah Wright's notion of the "black church" is but one point on a spectrum of faith. Rev. Wright, now written off as a virtual nut case, got more support from black clergymen than did Obama.

Barack Obama was bleeding by Monday and needed cover. Where, when he could have used them, were Obama's oh-so-famous endorsers: Jesse Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Oprah, John Kerry, Chris Dodd, Patrick Leahy, Tom Daschle, Amy Klobuchar, Claire McCaskill, Jay Rockefeller, John Lewis, Toni Morrison, Roger Wilkins, Eric Holder, Robert Reich, Ted Sorenson, Alice Walker, David Wilhelm, Cornel West, Clifford Alexander, Donald McHenry, Patricia Wald, Newton Minow?

Where were all the big-city mayors who went over to the Obama camp: Chicago's Richard Daley, Cleveland's Frank Jackson, Atlanta's Shirley Franklin, Washington's Adrian Fenty, Newark's Cory Booker, Baltimore's Sheila Dixon?

It isn't hard for big names to get on talk TV to make a point. Any major op-ed page would have stopped the presses to print a statement of support from Ted Kennedy or such for the senator. None appeared. Call it profiles in gopher-holing.

Are we really to believe that two individuals - Obama and Wright - are going to turn a nation away from a course it has been on for decades?

On the contrary.

Far from setting back race relations in America, there is a good chance that Obama and Wright will suffer a fate similar to that of Don Imus, Michael Richards, and Duane "Dogg" Chapman, and wil be - to a greater degree, a la Richards and Chapman, or to a lesser degree, a la Imus - disgraced.

April 28, 2008

“No wonder the general public is ignorant!”

From A.M. Whittaker:

I'm not quite certain where to put my comment - but this seemed to be the best place.

I don't have cable so I don't have access to the 24 hour news services. My news comes from the local network morning shows - msm.

This morning, after wading through stories like the recent shark attack, there was just a mention of the recent apparent assassination attempt on President Karzai. I was astounded and immediately switched around and ended up at a local international station, MHZ, and got a great deal of information.

I just don't understand, this is a tremendously important incident. which should have been covered over Matt Lauer in Argentina, jumprope champions, or the latest recipes.

No wonder the general public is ignorant!

April 25, 2008

More from Israeli Amb. Gillerman’s News Conference: “Iran is a danger to the world as we know it.”

This morning Drudge is linking a report on a news conference held yesterday by Israel's UN Ambassador, Dan Gillerman: "Israel's UN ambassador calls Jimmy Carter 'a bigot'".  I'd been invited to attend that news conference, by telephone hookup, and can report on a lot more that Gillerman had to say. From my typed notes (not expected to be verbatim):

Today I believe we are no longer in a clash of civilizations... but in a clash of civilization, singular. In most of the bloodshed within the Muslim world, the vast majority of the victims are Muslim. Every day hundreds of Muslims are slain by their brethren.

What worries me is the eerie silence of the Muslim world. No Muslim leader, secular, religious, or academic, gets up and says, 'What are we doing?'

[On press coverage of this:] When Westerners kill Muslims, it's a crusade. When Jews kill Muslims, it's a massacre. When Muslims kill Muslims, it's the weather channel.

But there is a shot of optimism. I don't know what woke them up. Maybe it was the war in Lebanon in 2006, which most of the Arab nations realized was only a preview of a something coming soon to a theater near you. They realized that the real threat, is Iran, with its ambitions of spreading Shia extremism and terrorism, and generating it all over the world. They came to Annapolis defying Iran, and forming a coalition of the moderates, with a view toward being more pragmatic and realistic regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel has no war with the people of Iran. We respect and admire the history and the people of Iran. We feel the people of Iran were dealt a very raw deal, with the extreme, reactionary leaders of Iran, including a president who denies the Holocaust while preparing the next one.

Iran is a danger to the stability and civilization of the world as we know it.

We have no war with Iran, but Iran has a war with us.

Iran is a thousand miles away from Israel, but it has proxies on our borders. Iran's proxy Hezbollah is on our northern border, and its proxy Hamas is on our Southern border, armed and controlled and trained by Iran. 60 years after its birth, Israel is under real threat from Iran. All Israelis - seven million Jews, Muslims and Christians, are under range of missiles, mainly supplied by Iran.

The world realizes this, and the Muslim world realizes this, and realizes that there is a limit to what Israel will take. Hamas continuously shells Israeli cities and villages and schools, trying to kill and maim Israeli civilians and children. And all this is done with very direct supplies from Iran.

Not only most of the world, but most of the Muslim world, will choose to side against the Iranian extremists.

It is important to bolster and embolden the moderates, while marginalizing extremists. So I am very happy with Abbas' visit to Washington and the support he's getting from Washington.

What would be the ramifications in the event that the majority of Arab nations sided with the US against Iran, and joined us in an effort to halt Iran's sponsorship of extremism and terrorism in the world? Gillerman also stated that "Basically, Syria and Iran, together with Hamas and Hezbollah, are the main axes of terror and evil in the world." If this is correct, the elimination of Iran as the principal driver of extremism and terrorism, could contribute substantially toward cutting the heart out of the global Islamist and extremist movement.

April 24, 2008

Why One Day OPEC Could Be Buying Its Gasoline from Us

Oil is near $120 a barrel, and OPEC expresses reluctance to increase output so as to help lower prices.

But Popular Science reports on new ways to turn biomass into - not ethanol - but into actual gasoline (via Instapundit):

Researchers at UMass Amherst recently published a new method of refining hydrocarbons from cellulose, paving the way to turn wood scraps into gasoline, diesel fuel, Tupperware-anything, essentially, that's normally refined from petroleum.

..."If we can get 100 percent yield, we estimate the cost to be about a dollar per gallon," Huber says. "Right now we're at 50 percent. Can we get 100 percent? I don't know. Hopefully we'll bump those numbers up."

This process can use biomass other than corn or food products, leaving the world's food 100% available for people and other living things to eat:

Huber's work stands out as likely the first direct conversion from cellulose, opening up as potential fuel sources virtually anything that grows. Commercialization of the technology may take another five to 10 years, the researchers predict.

Developments in so-called "green hydrocarbons" arrive as ethanol continues to come under attack as expensive, inefficient and a contributor to rising food prices around the world. (More than a billion bushels of corn are diverted to ethanol production each year.) "There's certainly a lot of historical inertia for ethanol. It's gotten us off to a great start, but I can't see the country transitioning to flex-fuel," says John Regalbuto, director of the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program at the National Science Foundation. "I almost think, long term, that we will go to plug-in hybrids. But we're still going to need diesel and jet fuel-you can't run trains or fly planes with ethanol or hydrogen."

"We already have the infrastructure in place to distribute liquid fuels," Huber says. "We're using them to power transportation vehicles today, and I think that's what we'll be using in 10 years and in 50 years. And if you want a sustainable liquid transportation fuel, biomass is the only way to go.

So the hubris of OPEC appears to be driving us to unexpected success in the development of alternative fuel sources.

And here's the kicker: what's one thing the OPEC states can never produce? Biomass. Their land is a desert. They can't grow anything there. Their old-fashioned oil deposits could become too expensive to use. It's the ultimate irony: rather than running out of oil, the oil of the OPEC states would be left in the ground, replaced by ultra-cheap gasoline produced from waste biomass.

They'd be buying their fuel from us.