New York Times Warns Young Reporters-Be Careful of Those Evil Bloggers

Its really amazing how little the progressive mainstream media really understands. In yesterday's NY Times, media reporter Jeremy Peters issued a warning to young journalists in a front page article “Covering 2012, Youths on the Bus” The warning?  There are partisan bloggers out there who are out to embarrass mainstream journalists. By partisan bloggers Peters means conservative bloggers, because to the NY Times a liberal bias is the definition of fair coverage.

The point that the NY Times doesn't understand is  conservative bloggers are not out to embarrass mainstream journalists.  Our mission is to point out the bias of liberal journalists where necessary, to tell the truths much of the mainstream media miss, ignore or misrepresent.  Bloggers have taken over the traditional role of the mainstream media, we are the eyes and ears of the public, pointing out the smoke screen of liberal bias presented as truth by "news" organizations such as the Times.

The list of examples the NY Times uses on the article as proof the conservative blog world's desire to "embarrass" MSM reporters actually prove why conservative blogging watchdogs are necessary. The recounting of the incidents used as  support for their warning to young reporters are misleading and in some cases untruthful.

Helen Thomas, the trailblazing White House correspondent, saw her career come to an ignominious end last year after she made hostile comments about Israel to a rabbi who filmed the encounter and posted it on his personal Web site.

This is a story which I had a personal involvement with as I was the one who took the video and made it go viral.  Rabbi Nesenoff came to me only after the mainstream media refused to even look at the video. Within hours of my posting the story and video on my site, The Lid, here on  Big Journalism and Breitbart TV, and submitting the story to be linked by Instapundit, and Drudge, the Helen Thomas story was all over the mainstream media.  The  Thomas indecent was not big news because her comments were hostile to Israel, but because they were anti-Semitic.

Thomas' Antisemitism (which she continues to spew) needed to be revealed to show her readers that she had an obvious bias so they could put her writing in context. Personally, I do not believe that Thomas should have been fired, but  I do believe her readers should have had the opportunity to understand where she was coming from.

CNN fired Octavia Nasr, its senior editor for Middle East affairs, after she composed a 19-word Twitter message expressing sadness after the death of a Hezbollah leader.

Here too the issue is context. This  woman who  the gatekeeper of all CNN news from the Middle East.  Her tweet was not revealed as an embarrassment, it was revealed because it explained some of the biased Middle East coverage presented by CNN. Octavia Nasr was not fired because of a tweet, she was fired because as a sympathizer of the terrorist group Hezbollah, she could not be counted on to be a fair gatekeeper.

Some reporters have even found their personal e-mails leaked and used against them. David Weigel, now a columnist for Slate, was pressured into leaving his job at The Washington Post last year after he attacked conservatives in private messages that found their way to a right-leaning Web site, The Daily Caller.

JournoList was not about personal emails but correspondence with an on-line message board composed of major "Journalists"  and academics.  It was revealed was these people were colluding to skew the news to help the liberal point of view.  As for Weigel his job at WAPO was to be the "house conservative," and report on conservative news in a "gossipy" kind of way.  His Journalist letters proved he had a true disdain for the people he was writing about and had  misrepresented himself to his editors and to his readers.

The NY Times warning was correct in this respect,  there are many conservative bloggers (myself included) who are looking over the shoulder of the mainstream press. It remains an easy task because those liberal media organizations believe that we are looking to embarrass them personally.  To be honest, we don't care if they spend their days goofing off, smoking joints,  and/or sleeping with sheep. We are looking to see if their stories are truthful and fair. If they cover Michele Bachmann's religious beliefs, they should cover Barak Obama and Jeremiah Wright. If they publish Rick Perry's college transcripts, then dig up the president's also. When they find that one crazy person who may show up at a tea party rally of thousands, then they should also cover all of the Nazi signs at the Wisconsin Union protests.

And Be truthful !  Just in the three examples the NY Times used in their message to young reporters, it misrepresented the truth. Keep in mind the basic warning of the article, we are there with you, not to trip you up but to be quality control agents for the public, a role the mainstream media discarded a long time ago.

To paraphrase Harry Truman, "We don't embarrass them, we just point out the truth they are ignoring, and they find it embarrassing."

Labor Secretary Solis-Obama Hasn't Been Ignoring Jobs (He's Just Incompetent)

Sometimes when administration hacks defend their boss they don't quite understand what they are saying. For example, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumpka criticized the President's effort on fixing the job market.  He said said Obama has not offered bold enough solutions to fix the economy and has been distracted by Republican demands to bring down the national deficit.

Today Labor Secretary Solis rejected Trumka's criticism and said the president has been focused on jobs.

Solis said Obama has “absolutely not” been nibbling around the edges in trying to fix the economy and instead had offered bold solutions to create jobs as the economy struggles. She highlighted Obama’s efforts to help the U.S. auto industry.

"Absolutely not,” Solis told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Monitor. “I can say that because the last two and a half years I have spent a tremendous amount of time ramping, reforming and reinventing some of our job-creating programs to strengthen them, to better coordinate them with our partners in the field.”

Maybe Solis should have let well enough alone.  Think about it for a moment.  Trumka was claiming Obama wasn't doing enough in the job market.  He may be right, after all the unemployment is over 9% (and he promised it wouldn't go over 8%).  But according to Solis the administration has been working hard on jobs, which means their programs haven't been working. Instead of jobs not being a priority the Secretary of Labor is saying something much worse, the Obama administration is simply not up to the task.

Who's "Right-Wing?"

By Barry Rubin

An AFP dispatch about the firing of Larry Derfner has been published widely throughout the world. It mentions correctly that I defended Derfner's right to free speech and said he should not have been fired.

There are two points in the article, however, I would like to challenge. First, is the description of me as "right-wing" and found it surprising that I defended Derfner.

I reject that entirely. There is more of a choice in politics today--I hope--than being either "left-wing" or "right-wing." As I have repeatedly made clear, I am more accurately described as a traditional liberal in American terminology and as a moderate social democrat in European or Israeli terminology. Since I was a parliamentary candidate in the last Israeli election of a social democratic party that might be some clue as to my political views.

By redefining everyone as extreme, the common ground of democracy is being destroyed. I judge each issue on its merits rather than on a preconceived ideological framework. Moreover, the defense of democracy, civil liberties, free speech, and judging someone's work on the basis of merit are important ideas to fight for. Political life should not be reduced to a battle between two extremes that ignore fair play in the search for victory.

Have we reached the point that it is shocking for someone to echo the famous statement that I might not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it (in this case, without being fired)? Is it surprising that someone actually agrees with the idea that an open democratic debate is the best solution for a society and opposes all of the various forms of "hate speech" thought crimes?

Because, you see, the founders of the United States were completely correct in understanding that once someone is able to set the boundaries of free speech--with the exception of speech intended directly to lead to criminal action--they can define it any way they want? Even laws defining "Holocaust denial" as a crime are pernicious and, as we have seen, were the opening wedge for far greater denials of free speech.

As for Israel today, a "right-winger" might be someone glad to hold onto control over territory. But most of the center and moderate left, though preferring a two-state solution, knows very well from experience that holding control over the territories in the framework of the 1993 and later agreements between Israel and the Palestinians is a necessity. That isn't "right-wing" that is sanity.

Finally, the AFP dispatch went out of its way to disagree with my point that in practice Palestinian-populated territory is not under Israeli occupation except for east Jerusalem and 20 percent of Hebron--both by agreement with the Palestinian Authority, by the way. The AFP says that international law interpretations say that everything--including the Gaza Strip--is "under occupation."

What this means in the context of the Derfner discussion is that a Palestinian can dwell completely within a Palestinian-ruled territory and be governed in every aspect of life by Palestinian authorities, and then kill Israeli civilians on the basis that he is suffering from a horrible Israeli occupation. This is absurd but then that's par for the course regarding Western news coverage of these issues.

Of course, the AFP had no space for my critique of Derfner's argument: that giving independence would not end the "right to kill Israelis" claim. But then they don't want their readers to know that the problem keeping this conflict going is not the lack of a Palestinian state but the existence of Israel.


Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and Middle East editor and featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). GLORIA Center site is http://www.gloria-center.org.His articles published originally outside of PajamasMedia are at http://www.gloria-center.org 

William Shakespeare Responds to The CBC Declaration of War Against The Tea Party

Tea Party Patriot-William Shakespeare

During the past few weeks we have been covering the cross-country trip of Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) who have been been using job fairs as an excuse to incite hatred against the grass roots Tea Party movement. Among the more famous incidents were Maxine Waters telling the Tea Party to go to hell,  Frederica Wilson declaring the Tea Party as the enemy, and CBC Whip Andre' Carson's statement that the Tea Party programs are the efforts of Jim Crow who would like to see Black American's "hanging from a tree."

These charges are very serious and very false. Rather than try to address these CBC charges myself, I have decided to ask someone much more talented in the language arts to answer the Congressional Black Caucus. I've channeled the Bard himself, William Shakespeare to answer the CBC's reprehensible, divisive rhetoric. This morning I went to a medium-rare and spoke to the spirit of the Bard of Avon, below is what he told me to write:
To call me names if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my resolve. The CBC hath disgraced me, and
hindered me with their mistruths; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my policy, scorned my constitution, thwarted my
honest dialogue, cooled my supporters, heated mine
enemies; and what's his reason? I am a tea party patriot.


Hath not a patriot eyes? hath not a patriot hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a CBC Democrat is?


If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
expose you for what you are? If we are like you in the rest, 
we will resemble you in that. 

If a tea party patriot wrong a Democrat,
what is his humility? Lies.
If a Democrat
wrong a tea party patriot,
what should his sufferance be by
the Democratic example? 

Why, TRUTH. The villainy you teach us,
we will execute the opposite, and will expose you 
for what you are,  frauds 
who bully American voters like us lest we remind the public 
you have no entitlement to your position
Nay we hold the power and you sit at our whim and will

Remember November, the Second of November remember:
Did not the Tea Party wave rise for the budget's sake?
What progressive was sent home, that did lose,
And not for the economy? 

What, shall one of us
That struck the biggest progressive congress in all of history,
But for Taxing and Spending, shall we now
Contaminate our cause with base rhetoric,
And sell the mighty space of our Constitutional movement
For so much trash talk as may be grasped thus?
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such an American


You have done that you should be sorry for.
There is no terror, CBC, in your charges
For we are armed so strong in honesty
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not. 

We did ask of you
Not to spend sums of gold, which you denied us,
For we  will raise no more money till the budget cut.
By heaven, we  had rather coin our  hearts
And drop our blood for drachmas than to wring
From the hard hands of any American their limited cash
To pay for your fiduciary indiscretion.


We did sent
To you to pay our bills FIRST,
Which you denied us and called us racist. 
Was that done like Americans? Should we have answered 
the Congressional Black Caucus so?
When Tea Party Patriots grow so covetous of power
To use such rascal venom in political debate
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts.
Dash them to pieces!

Rest in Peace Jane Jamison My CPAC Buddy

For those who haven't noticed, the right hand column of this blog is an RSS reader showing the latest post of my favorite blogs.  Tonight as I was going to close down for the night this headline from The Other McCain leaped out at me Jane Jamison, R.I.P., Right Wing News had one too Jane Jamison From Uncoverage Has Passed Away

Jane passed away Saturday--a total shock to me.  Jane (not her real name) lived in suburban San Fransisco and needed to use the pseudonym because being a conservative pundit and a successful lawyer in "the people's republic of San Fransisco" were not compatible.
,
I first met Jane at CPAC 2009. We were stuck on the line for people who "weren't on the list." We immediately struck up a friendship while the CPAC folks were trying to work out our blogger papers. We spent most of the next few days sitting together in the  bloggers lounge.

It was hard not to be friends with Jane she radiated a warmth that was unique, even at a setting like CPAC where people who have had internet contact with each other were anxious to put the faces with the emails. Jane was different she was the one who walked around the bloggers lounge asking everyone if they needed anything (she had no responsibility but really cared).

From my short time with Jane, she showed a passion for almost everything she did. I still remember how excited she was when she found out Donald Trump was coming to CPAC, she even wrangled a meeting with Trump. 

Now she is gone, apparently she had been ill but she never showed it

Goodbye Friend, you touched our lives and made us better. May you rest in peace. 

Liberal's Latest Call For a Protected Minority is Really UGLY!

 It started with African-Americans (at the time we called them Blacks), the Latino community and of course women (who are actually the majority, but I won't get into that now). After that group it expanded, to Asians, Muslims, gays, lesbians and transvestites.Which was followed by atheists, union members, criminals who served sentences in jail, people who have committed voter registration fraud (ACORN), groups associated with HAMAS such as CAIR, and of course people who are criminals because they came into the country illegally. Thanks to liberalism gone mad it seems that everyone is now a protected minority. Well its not everyone but just the minorities whom the liberals decide need the protection.

But the liberal's latest try at establishing a protected minority has gone too far.  Now some liberals want to have affirmative for a new group---the terminally ugly.  Yep now we have to protect people who are so ugly, when they were born the doctor slapped their mothers.

On Hurricane Sunday, the NY Times published an editorial called Ugly? You May Have a Case. In the piece Daniel S. Hamermesh, a professor of economics at the University of Texas, Austin, explained that ugly people do not make as much money as good looking ones(I guess that I am the exception to the rule). 

In addition to whatever personal pleasure it gives you, being attractive also helps you earn more money, find a higher-earning spouse (and one who looks better, too!) and get better deals on mortgages. Each of these facts has been demonstrated over the past 20 years by many economists and other researchers. The effects are not small: one study showed that an American worker who was among the bottom one-seventh in looks, as assessed by randomly chosen observers, earned 10 to 15 percent less per year than a similar worker whose looks were assessed in the top one-third — a lifetime difference, in a typical case, of about $230,000.

Maybe that's why rich people are sometimes called "the beautiful people."

According to this economics professor, a woman's looks helps them pick better mates, but it is the physical looks of men that impacts jobs and money.

Why this disparate treatment of looks in so many areas of life? It’s a matter of simple prejudice. Most of us, regardless of our professed attitudes, prefer as customers to buy from better-looking salespeople, as jurors to listen to better-looking attorneys, as voters to be led by better-looking politicians, as students to learn from better-looking professors. This is not a matter of evil employers’ refusing to hire the ugly: in our roles as workers, customers and potential lovers we are all responsible for these effects.

Then he starts getting crazy

A more radical solution may be needed: why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals?

We actually already do offer such protections in a few places, including in some jurisdictions in California, and in the District of Columbia, where discriminatory treatment based on looks in hiring, promotions, housing and other areas is prohibited. Ugliness could be protected generally in the United States by small extensions of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Ugly people could be allowed to seek help from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies in overcoming the effects of discrimination. We could even have affirmative-action programs for the ugly.

The mechanics of legislating this kind of protection are not as difficult as you might think. You might argue that people can’t be classified by their looks — that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That aphorism is correct in one sense: if asked who is the most beautiful person in a group of beautiful people, you and I might well have different answers. But when it comes to differentiating classes of attractiveness, we all view beauty similarly: someone whom you consider good-looking will be viewed similarly by most others; someone you consider ugly will be viewed as ugly by most others. In one study, more than half of a group of people were assessed identically by each of two observers using a five-point scale; and very few assessments differed by more than one point.

For purposes of administering a law, we surely could agree on who is truly ugly, perhaps the worst-looking 1 or 2 percent of the population. The difficulties in classification are little greater than those faced in deciding who qualifies for protection on grounds of disabilities that limit the activities of daily life, as shown by conflicting decisions in numerous legal cases involving obesity.

This guy is serious.  Maybe there could be some sort of sliding scale were the uglier one is the more help they get. The government could start out with something like "unconventional looks, aesthetically challenged, or forever virgin" and then move on to other terms as a persons looks got worse:

• got a great face for radio.


• look like they fell out of the ugly tree, hit all of the branches on the way down and got tangled up in the roots!


• coyote ugly


• Alan Colmes


• beat with the ugly stick


• double coyote ugly 


• 4 drink minimum


• OMG so fugly I want to puke

 I am sure the liberals can come up with their own terms.  The way things are going soon there will be protected minority called "People who are not in a minority." Maybe its time to stop this nonsense and understand that maybe if we stop trying to make excuses for why people succeed or not, more people will have the confidence to do their best and try and succeed.

At least that's the position of this fat, bald, very good looking Jewish guy, who hasn't had a full time job since Barack Obama became President (not that I am blaming anyone).

Lazy Tuesday at the Bull...

Today was the start of the new Lazy Bull Pub hours on Tuesday!  DJ Anakin and Host Tamil were on hand to keep the crowd dancing and of course bull riding!  Check out photos of today's event and check out the Lazy Bull Pub, Kensington's newest party spot:

Newsbusted: Study Proves Last Week's Virginia Earthquake Good for America

It was felt as south as Georgia and as north as Maine, now in an exclusive report by Newsbusted Anchor Jodi Miller, we learn that last week's earthquake centered in Virginia was good for America. Learn all about this new study in today's installment of Newsbusted the twice weekly program from Newsbusters.org.

Other reports included in today's edition are; President Obama's code word for hurricane Irene, Joe Biden, the SCHMOTUS' strange relationship with the Washington monument, former DC Mayor Marion Barry's latest adventure and President Obama's stunning new first.

Please don't let yourself miss this special episode of Newsbusted. Because if you skip the video below New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will sneak up behind and scold you every time you try and tan .

Oh and if you cant see the video below click here.

Trying to Manage the Post-Qadhafi Libya While Qadhafi is Still Around

NBC Executive: What’s the premise [of your proposed television show]?
GEORGE: “…Nothing happens on the show….”
NBC executive: “Well, why am I watching it?”
GEORGE: “Because it’s on TV.”
NBC executive: (Threatening) “Not yet.”
–”Seinfeld,” The Pitch episode

By Barry Rubin

The United States has recognized the Transitional National Council (TNC) of Libya as the provisional government of that country. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns addressed the Libyan Contact Group meeting–where else?–in Turkey, the Obama Administration’s favorite Middle East mediator despite that regime being a pro-Iran Islamist government that is turning Turkey into a police state. Turkey as a role model for the Arab world, anyone?

Burns said:

“It is critical that the TNC continue to engage with stakeholders across Libya, including those who have served in the government in Tripoli, to form a new, inclusive interim authority that can ensure civil order, respect human rights, provide essential services to the people, and pave the way for a full democratic transition….

“This new authority must represent all Libyans, from all tribes, regions, and minorities of the country. This demands a true commitment by all parties to national reconciliation—-revenge attacks and reprisals must have no part in the new Libya. Libya’s future will be peaceful only if the leaders and people of Libya reach out to each other to make peace.”

Precisely because Burns, a serious professional diplomat, has stated the problems so well, I’m skeptical. For rebel commanders, the TNC is a bunch of corrupt guys with expensive suits, many of whom worked with the dictator, Muammar al-Qadhafi, in an oppressive dictatorship, and lived luxuriously abroad while the rebels were fighting and dying (and looting and burning, too). The rebels are undisciplined; there’s no chain of command; and the tribes in many cases hate each other. Burns describes a utopian situation that I think has very little to do with the reality of Libya.

The Islamists are already calling for the TNC’s overthrow since they–rightly–suspect it from their standpoint of wanting to create a pro-Western government. Let’s see if I am right but I cannot conceive this is going to produce a stable Libya where everyone loves everyone else.

At any rate, Qadhafi is not yet dead or gone. The incompetence of the NATO-supported but not trained rebels; the fact that Qadhafi’s forces know they are fighting to the death; the dictator’s ruthlessness; and his option of retreating to his tribal stronghold has so far shown that reports of his demise have been greatly exaggerated. Of course, it might well happen but the story of repression and violence in Libya is far from over.

Meanwhile, however, the Libya issue gives us still another example of what the high-rankers in the West don’t understand about the Middle East. The Western conception assumes order, hierarchy, stability, and moderation are normal. It expects that guys in nice suits and ties will walk in and become Libya’s government because it knows their names, they have served in high positions previously, and the West recognizes them as the rulers. In addition, the theory is, they will be able to win support with money (through control of the oilfields) and a monopoly on weapons.

But wait a minute! As I said a moment ago (presuming you are reading this article reasonably quickly) The fact that they’ve held high posts previously–under Qadhafi–makes them less trustworthy to the rebels. The fact that they have Western backing makes the rebels more suspicious, as does the fact that these politicians are wearing suits and ties rather than military fatigues. Where were these guys, rebel leaders can well ask, when we were shooting it out? At five-star hotels abroad living it up at the buffet tables?

As for control of the oilfields, not even the rebels have that yet. And as for a monopoly of violence, well, who’s carrying the AK-47s anyway?

A diplomat asked me, “Who’s the most important leader in Libya? The head of the TNC?”

I started laughing.

Libya is a country badly divided between east and west; Arab and Berber; ideology and factions and tribes. It has not had a real political life or any tiny fragment of pluralism for more than four decades. Tunisia has a real chance of democracy; Egypt has a real chance of democratically electing anti-democratic radicals; and Libya is the Wild West of the Middle East.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and Middle East editor and featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). GLORIA Center site is http://www.gloria-center.org.His articles published originally outside of PajamasMedia are at http://www.gloria-center.org  

Deja Vu All Over Again- One Year Ago Today: Obama Promised A Jobs Plan After His Vacation

Its Deja Vu all over again.  One year ago today President Obama sat down with Brian Williams just before he went on his end of summer vacation to Cape Cod.  The big revelation in the interview was the President's promise that as soon as he is back from his family vacation he was going to present a jobs plan to the country. (See Video Below).  Gee the only thing missing was the hurricane.

“We anticipated that the recovery was slowing – the economy is still growing, but it’s not growing as fast as it needs to. I’ve got things right now before Congress that we should move immediately, and I said so before I went on vacation, and I’ll keep on saying it now that I’m back,” Obama told Williams when asked if he had a jobs plan.


“There are a whole host of measures we could take – no single element of which is a magic bullet – but cumulatively can start continuing to build momentum for the recovery,”

Now where did I hear that before. Oh wait..I know, today in the White House Rose Garden:

Next week, I will be laying out a series of steps that Congress can take immediately to put more money in the pockets of working families and middle-class families, to make it easier for small businesses to hire people, to put construction crews to work rebuilding our nation’s roads and railways and airports, and all the other measures that can help to grow this economy.

 See President Obama doesn't even have enough respect for the American people to change the scenario in which he spews his political nonsense.  Last year his post vacation speech led to almost nothing in terms of concrete programs.  If history is our guide, nothing new will be announced next week either.

Mayhem in Hyde Park This Week!

This week, Mayhem Rock Club started a weeks worth of events in Hyde Park!  You can catch Mayhem Rock Club each day in Hyde Park from 2pm to 4pm slt! Below are photos of today's event with DJ Anakin and Host AJ:

Warming Scientists On Suicide Watch?-The Global Sea Level is Shrinking

One of the big threats from the global warming moonbat types is that a rise in temperature will melt the polar ice caps causing the oceans to rise, with the cataclysmic result of skyscrapers being under water.  And boy oh boy, if you think that the commute into Manhattan is bad now....just wait.

There is only one problem with this scenario,  Mother Nature isn't being cooperative.  The latest data shows sea level falling during the past year. Of course one year does not make a trend, but the data makes sense of you look at the past century of data.

It is true that sea level has risen during the 20th century and probably well before that.  Scientists estimate that sea level has increased by 7 inches during the 2oth century.

The climate change hoaxers use computer models to predict that sea levels would rise anywhere from 15 inches to 2o feet because of global warming in the 21st century (the consensus number is closer to 3 feet).

But Mother Nature was never good at computer science.  Satellite data proved that the first decade of the 21st century sea level grew by only 0.83 inches (a pace of just 8 inches for the entire century). What's even worse (for the global warming hoaxers) there has been no rise since 2006.  Now I know that some Democrats believe that Obama is a miracle worker, but even the the crazies at the Daily Kos would admit that controlling sea level is way above his pay grade. To "fudge" the data they didn't agree with, the scientists at the University of Colorado’s NASA-funded Sea Level Research Group did what any other self-respecting cult members would do, they simply added .3 millimeters per year to its Global Mean Sea Level Time Series. That way they could report that the sea level rise was accelerating, instead of  what was actually happening--decelerating.

Now, new data has been released from NASA comparing the summer of 2011 to that of 2010.

The global sea level this summer is a quarter of an inch lower than last summer, according to NASA scientists, in sharp contrast to the gradual rise the ocean has experienced in recent years.

The change stems from two strong weather cycles over the Pacific Ocean — El Niño and La Niña — which shifted precipitation patterns, according to scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The two cycles brought heavy rains to Brazil and Amazon, along with drought to the southern United States.

Climate scientist Josh Willis, who also works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, warned that this water will eventually return to the ocean, and the long-term trend of rising sea levels will continue.

But it will continue to slow down unless the insist on adding their little .3 millimeter fudge.

“What this show is the impact La Niña and El Niño can have on global rainfall,” he said in an interview, adding scientists need to get a better sense of ice sheet dynamics before they can offer a more precise estimate of future sea level rise. “We really have a lot left to understand before we can do better.”

I would agree with that, they have lots to understand, including whether man-made global warming is real or not. Another thing they need to understand is that computer  models are nice, but they are based on biased assumptions.  There is nothing like sticking your finger out the window (or using satellite data) and trying to determine what the real numbers are.

Then again they don't want to do that, because every time they look at the real numbers it proves their computer models wrong.

The “Ground Zero” Mosque Will Never be Built–For Totally Non-Political Reasons

By Barry Rubin

Readers of my column know that I have written repeatedly that the “Ground Zero” mosque would never be built for reasons having nothing to do with politics. The main financiers and the imam have gotten into one legal problem after another and Allstate Insurance Company is now launching a major lawsuit for fraud against one of them. As we approach the tenth anniversary of September 11, it’s clear that there isn’t going to be a mosque next to the World Trade Center attack site.

From the start, it seemed to me that the whole project was designed as something of a scam by shady characters to get lots of money from the contributions of the Saudis and others. In other words, the controversial and triumphalist aspects of the mosque were a public relations’ scheme designed to win millions of dollars from the Muslim-majority world’s millionaires. When the money didn’t materialize–the controversy didn’t help matters–the whole thing fell apart.

Should the mosque have been built? I have no strong opinion on that issue (especially since I knew nothing would ever actually be built). My father was a builder and I spent a lot of time around construction sites learning the trade in my youth, also gettingto know about how to put together a development project and what it takes to get zoning permissions. This project could never have gotten off the ground without the fear of being called Islamophobic making politicians either tremble or see an opportunity to burnish their Politically Correct credentials. But the scheme was such a mess that even with these special privileges it could never actually fly.

What should be most interesting about the whole affair aside from the political battle about whether or not a mosque should be built on that spot (freedom of religion versus respect for the victims, and so on). At any rate, you already know about all the various arguments on both sides.

Here’s the real story:

A group of people with a terrible record as developers who didn’t develop, businessmen who didn’t pay their bills, and slumlords put together a very badly designed project that would never otherwise have gotten zoning and other permits. In other words, the true story is how city officials gave special privileges and the media gave sweetheart coverage because people were Muslims building a mosque, not that there was discrimination against Muslims who wanted to build a mosque. Remember, in the end the mosque project got everything its advocates wanted and yet it still wasn’t built.

It is the story of how the corrupt can play a system built around special privileges for special categories of people, in which fear of being labelled some variety of “racist” overrides the proper enforcement of the law.

Someone should write the detailed story of the whole affair from that standpoint.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and Middle East editor and featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). GLORIA Center site is http://www.gloria-center.org.His articles published originally outside of PajamasMedia are at http://www.gloria-center.org  

Lockerbie Bomber Comatose, Near Death (So His Family Says)

According to a report by CNN Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi is comatose and near death and under the care of his family in a palatial villa in Tripoli, living on oxygen and an intravenous drip.

Al-Magrahi is responsible for the worst terrorist attack in Britain's history, the deadliest assault on U.S. civilians until 9/11.

On Dec. 21, 1988, a bomb exploded in the forward cargo hold of Pan Am Flight 103, a jetliner flying from London to New York. Within less than a minute, the Boeing 747 splintered into thousands of pieces and fell 31,000 feet, smashing down in the village of Lockerbie, Scotland. The impact killed 11 villagers and destroyed 21 homes. None of the 259 people on board the aircraft survived.

On August 21, 2009 Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the terrorist attack, was released from the Prison where he had been serving a life sentence. Because he supposedly had less than three months to live, he had been sent home to Libya to die. Under pressure from Great Britain, Scottish courts were forced to show more mercy to al-Megrahi than he showed to the 270 people he killed

Now the cancer-stricken former Libyan intelligence officer who lived two years rather than three months may take the secrets of the terrorist operation to his grave.

"We just give him oxygen. Nobody gives us any advice," his son, Khaled Elmegarhi, told CNN.

With the recent overthrow of longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have called for al-Megrahi to be sent back to prison.

But the National Transitional Council, the rebel movement that toppled Gadhafi, announced Sunday that it won't allow the dying al-Megrahi to be extradited.

"We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West," NTC Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagi said.

Al-Megrahi lived far longer than expected. He made a public appearance with now-fugitive Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi in July, confined to a wheelchair. He always maintained his innocence.

With the fall of Tripoli to the rebels, his care has been left up to his son and his mother.

"There is no doctor. There is nobody to ask. We don't have any phone line to call anybody," Elmegarhi said.

 If this report is true and not just a cynical ruse designed to take the pressure off this mass murderer, then soon Al-Megrahi may have to answer to the people he killed, and his maker. Only then will the full truth be worked out.

If you cannot see video below click here

Will Post-Gaddafi Libya Become a "Weapons-R-Us" For Terrorists?

There are still vestiges of Gaddafi’s government fighting the rebels some of whom have ties to al Qaeda. Today neither side is truly ruling over Libya nor will control be settle for weeks to come.  With the chaos happening throughout the country, Libya may turn out to be an arms boom to terrorists across Africa and the Middle East. Arsenals ranging from small arms to chemicals weapons are being found, opened and sold by unorganized opposition fighters and ordinary Libyans.

“It’s very hard to say what is actually out there. The large arsenals in the hands of Libyan armed forces have been plundered. This plundering has been very disorganized. People walk in and take whatever they need and load them onto trucks. No one knows where those trucks are going,” said Pieter Wezeman, a research arms transfer program research, at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

“There will be very many weapons from these arsenals spreading throughout Libya and maybe outside of Libya,” Wezeman, told The Media Line.

Unlike the government change in Egypt, the Libyan rebellion has brought anarchy for the time being and the Gaddafi regimes weapons stockpile is pure gold, especially when you consider that the countries unguarded borders make movement out of Libya relatively easy.

Hours after rebel fighters seized the leader’s Bab Al-Aziziya headquarters in Tripoli, looters were seen carrying out trophies like gold-plated pistols and submachine guns, not to mention flat-screen television sets and household goods. But the prize for arms smugglers and their clients is Libya’s vast arsenal of small and portable weapons.

Some weapons have already found their new owners.

Yoram Schweitzer, a senior research fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, told The Media Line that there are already signs that some Libyan weaponry has reached the Islamic militant movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Don't forget that smuggling weapons into the Gaza strip from the Egyptian Sinai peninsula has become much easier since the ouster of Mubarak six months ago.

No one knows exactly what there is, where it is stored or in what condition it is in, but SIPRI has reported that the Ukraine supplied 100,000 rifles to Libya in 2007-08 while Russia reportedly sold Gaddafi an unknown number of its Igla-S, a man-portable infrared homing surface-to-air missile popular with militant groups. Also known as the SA-24 in one of its variants, it could be the biggest prize of all in the arsenal, Wezeman said.

Gen. Carter Ham, commander of US Africa Command, said last April in Congressional testimony that as many as 20,000 surface-to-air missiles were in the country when NATO operations began last March. "Many of those, we know, are now not accounted for," said Ham, who was once in charge of the military operation in Libya.

The US has budgeted $3 million to date for two international weapons-abatement teams to find and destroy anti-aircraft systems and other munitions and landmines. They have found shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile systems, including Russian SA-7 launchers. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Tuesday that Washington is taking steps to make certain that "the governing forces in Libya have full command and control of any WMD [weapons of mass destruction] or any security assets that the state might have had," the Associated Press reported.

Some are saying that the NATO refusal to put "boots on the ground," may be facilitating the movement of arms to terrorists.

“Libya has probably fewer of the most modern weapons terrorists would like to get their hands on because the country was subject to a United Nations arms embargo. Even after it was lifted,” Wezeman said, adding that Gaddafi had signed a few deals.

“They were looking at weapons but hadn’t ordered many yet, very little really modern material has reached Libya,” he said. “But small arms don’t have to be modern to be effective.”

As far as the WMDs, Libyan stockpiles contain the the components of the weapons rather than completed armaments.

Libya dismantled its chemical weapons program eight years ago when it joined the Chemicals Weapons Convention. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has verified that two of the country’s three known chemical plants were destroyed and a third was converted by agreement into a pharmaceutical facility, said Michael Luhan, a spokesman OPCW, an Amsterdam-based group that monitors countries’ compliance with the convention.

When unrest broke out last February, Libya was in the process of destroying stockpiles of mustard gas and other chemicals, stored in corroding drums, at a site southeast of Tripoli.

Coincidentally, the equipment being used to destroy the stockpile broke down days before the fighting. Mustard gas can cause severe blistering and death, but Luhan said terrorists would likely have trouble making use of it.

“It would be difficult to weaponize the existing stockpile of mustard gas – difficult but not impossible,” he told The Media Line. “Whether it would be worth it depends on what someone would plant to do it. It’s in very suboptimal conditions right now. For it to be weaponized, the technical factors involved would make weaponizing it difficult.”

Its the same story with his nuclear supply:

Gaddafi surrendered the hardware for his nuclear program and let the US remove about 5.5 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium from a nuclear research reactor near Tripoli two years ago. While there are still some 500 to 900 metric tons of raw uranium yellowcake stored in drums at Libya's lone nuclear reactor, east of Tripoli, it would require considerable refining and enrichment to be used as an explosive.

 But it could be used as a dirty bomb "as  is."

This is another example of the United States joining an operation without thinking things though.  While NATO nears its goal of removing Gaddifi, many of the arms he left behind may be used against the U.S. or her allies in the war against terror.

Goodnight Irene! Hello Obama?

When I shut down on Friday night, all forecasts predicted the world would end on Saturday thanks to hurricane Irene. Thankfully they were wrong.

Last night my eyes were glued to the weather channel and the "french doors" that led outside from my family room in anticipation of the coming apocalypse. At least I was told it would be an apocalypse, after all president Obama cut his trip short for this.  This is the man who refused to cut his trip short to show some leadership, an area begging for a leader, but he came home for Irene which seemed to be handled well without him, by governors, FEMA and of course Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of NY. Heck this is the kind of operation where Bloomberg thrives, he just loves to control every aspect of people's lives, so ordering an evacuation of low lying areas give him almost as much joy as when he tells people what they can or cannot eat. There is even a rumor that when using the restroom in a NYC facility, there is a recording of the Mayor reminding people to flush and wash their hands (some even say it's not a recording, but Bloomberg making live announcements).

But not Obama, he likes other people to do his dirty work.  He hates soiling his Presidential fingers. For the President to come home for Irene, there must be something the media wasn't telling us, something severe like giant salt shakers, super-sized burgers or some other unhealthy food hiding somewhere in the storm clouds, there was no other reason why the President would come home for a hurricane while he ignored our ongoing economic crisis.

Just around midnight the wind began to whip up and what had been a light rain became a downpour.  I began to ignore the TV to concentrate on what was happening outside.  The trees seemed to be doing a synchronized dance, bending and moving their arm-like branches in unison.

The wind began to make fierce noises as it pushed around the trees. My dog ran out of the room and into the kitchen, as if she was trying to get away from any window. Just about then we lost power. Both the inside and outside became pitch dark and I pressed my face against the windows of the "french doors," looking for whatever that hidden calamity which drew the president home early from vacation to arrive.

I must have passed out around 1 am, but since the power was out I couldn't really tell.  At 8 am, I woke from my deep slumber and looked out the window.  The backyard was covered  with tree branches, the pool was overflowing with water and leaves,  the rain was coming down hard but not as hard as it had been, and the wind was whipping through the trees.

Within the hour the eye of the hurricane passed over Far Rockaway, a part of Queens NY about 30 miles west of my house. What I never saw was the giant salt shaker, hamburger,  other unhealthy food or any other reason why the President would come home for this hurricane which was under control, while he ignored the economy which is spinning out of control.

The Weather Channel is declaring that all danger to Long Island has largely passed. Irene, now a tropical storm is doing damage to northern NY State and Connecticut.  But I don't believe them.  There must be something else coming from Irene.  Why else would Obama come back from vacation?

A Lesson from Egypt for American Politics

By Barry Rubin

Recently, the Egyptian minister of agriculture blamed the fact that some exported food products were infected with bacteria and killed almost 50 European consumers on an Israeli plot. The deputy prime minister explained that Muslim-Christian strife in Egypt (i.e,, Muslim extremists attacking Christians) is fomented by Israel. Internal conflict is generally blamed on the triumvirate of Israel, America, and Saudi Arabia.

But if the minister of agriculture spoke about bad quality control, perhaps the problem could be fixed. If the deputy prime minister criticized Islamic and Islamist incitement, the violence might be halted. No such luck.

Conspiracy theories and scapegoating are central to the Arabic-speaking world’s debates. But there are many lessons for the West from that malady. Unfortunately, the wrong lesson has been drawn: Let’s copy them!

Most obviously, dictatorial regimes use scapegoating to turn their people’s enmity toward others and create dependence on themselves. Radical movements also use scapegoating and conspiracy theories to muster mass support.

But there’s another important factor that gets less attention: If external saboteurs are responsible for a problem, nothing has to be done to fix it. In other words, all you have to do is wipe the offenders’ country off the map and the problem would go away. You don’t need to improve agricultural inspections or to teach Egyptian Muslims to respect Christians; you just have to make a speech denouncing the “real enemy.”

Twenty or thirty years ago, most would have said that this kind of behavior would go away as enlightenment and education spread. But it has gotten worse, spread more than ever to the West, and is now being extended by “education” in the form of school indoctrination.

Years ago, the literature on analyzing the problems of the modern Third World focused on development studies. The question was how a country needed to change in order to become advanced, democratic, and enjoy high living standards. Various specific remedies were prescribed: more education, import-substitution, fostering free enterprise, government-backed infrastructure projects, and so on. In short, action and changing attitudes were required to achieve success.

Then along came various Marxists, radical nationalists, and political con men (Barack Obama’s father was one of them) who argued that underdevelopment wasn’t a malady based on long history, social backwardness, and bad policies but rather was a crime perpetrated by the West. In this vision, what was needed was to confiscate domestic wealth from private hands and — even more important — battle the evil West’s exploitation. One solution was a form of global welfarism, endless payments from the West to make up for its imperialism. New crimes were also invented (global warming—whether or not that is a real phenomenon it is ridiculous to make it the basis for transfer payments) to demand reparations.

Literally millions of people have died or suffered because they were run over while going down this wrong road. Note that the countries that have done the best in rcent years — India, China, South Korea, for example — threw this scapegoating notion into the garbage basket. Those that continue to whine rather than work to fix their problems are becoming basket cases

I’ve been told directly by an Arab friend who had been to China the following story that he claims is true:

Arab visitor: “How do you Chinese deal with the fact that you suffered so much from foreign invasion and imperialism?”
Chinese official: “We got over it.”

Israel’s Bureau of Statistics reported recently that Israeli cows produced an average of 10.2 kg. of milk in 2009, outperforming cows in the U.S. (9.3 kg. per cow), Japan (7.5), the EU (6.1) and Australia (5,6).

So the equivalent of what’s happening in the understanding of underdevelopment would be if the EU leaders complained that Israel and the United States were sabotaging their cows rather than deciding to study the methods used by these countries, improving their own practices, or even buying some of the — if you’ll excuse the expression — cash cows for themselves.

But there’s more: conspiracy theories have conquered large parts of the West in another way. The key word here is “racism,” though there are others like “Islamophobia.” Rather than analyze the actual cause of issues, these conspiracy theories are being tossed around.

People want to criticize something involving Islam? It can’t be due to intolerance in the Muslim-majority world, unlikeable things about Sharia law as presently practiced, or terrorism, so it must be Islamophobia with charges of racism thrown in also even though they don’t apply.

People want to define marriage as it has been always defined in Western history (even in pre-Christian times), as between one man and one woman? They cannot make a historical or sociological argument because it must be homophobia. (Remember here we are not talking about what people decide to do for themselves exercising freedom or even the regulations governing things like pension funds or hospital visits, but what the government approves officially.)

People want to criticize what is in practice unlimited immigration or Obama’s presidency? Must be racism.

As with Stalin’s secret police, new conspiracies must be invented and new thought-criminals found to justify the regime’s rule, repression, and the salary of the witch hunters. Thus, since there aren’t enough real racists or homophobes or Islamophobes around, new ones must be discovered, declared to be enemies of the people, and purged.

I often meet good, well-intentioned people who believe everything they see in the mass media. Don’t underestimate the size of this group. And who would have believed that college professors could be turned into screaming lynch mobs baying for blood?

The current ruling establishment in the United States uses the same rhetorical response to the Tea Party or Glenn Beck (demonization) as Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar al-Assad employ against their opponents. (Note, I am referring to the propaganda, not the gunfire.) The issue is not whether the target being demonized is right or wrong or makes mistakes but the fact that the mass or mainstream or elite audience has no idea at all what they are actually saying.

Regarding the economy, the same principle holds. Rather than have an intelligent discussion of how out-of-control, often-wasted deficit spending and excessive regulation is destroying the country, we are told that the real problem is a conspiracy of private-jet-riding capitalists and their paid agents to fool the American people and take them back to the age of racism.

Let me summarize:

–A wise president puts into effect policies that work.

–A smart president sees his policies aren’t working and changes them.

–An Egyptian president says the Israelis ate my homework; an Egyptian-style president says headwinds, his predecessor, a Japanese earthquake, and just plain bad luck ate the economy.

–This American president says that the Japanese earthquake ate my economy. And he blames the local equivalent of Zionist imperialist running dogs such as Bush, the Republican minority in Congress, ATMs, Arab revolts, the Japanese earthquake, the Internet, workers manufacturing too many corporate jets, taxes being too low, bad luck, and “headwinds” because his policies aren’t working and then doubles down on the aforementioned policies. Then his supporters call critics greedy racists for not supporting the failed policies.

As I said earlier, when a country is unable to discuss its problems honestly and intelligently, it is unable to fix its problems.

What’s supposed to happen is that both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, agree that government spending must be cut steeply and regulations reduced. They disagree by how much but both see the same needed policy response. Instead, we get a new theory of economics in which food stamps “create” jobs, strangling regulations help the economy, gigantic debts are great, and anyone who espouses economic sanity is evil.

And this most anti-liberal form of scapegoating and bigotry against the “other” is now supposed to be what liberalism is? No, it has more in common with how Arab dictatorships are governed.


Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and Middle East editor and featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). GLORIA Center site is http://www.gloria-center.org.His articles published originally outside of PajamasMedia are at http://www.gloria-center.org 

Middle East Terrorist Scams and the Western Naivete that Empowers Them

By Barry Rubin

Rockets from the Gaza Strip continue to pound Israel. And much of the Western media blames: Israel. I want to explain again how this system works.

What follows is a seven-point pattern that goes something like this: Someone shoots at your spouse, you punch the attacker, he yells, “Ceasefire!” then kicks you in the groin and takes some more shots at your spouse. You try to defend yourself. The police stand by doing nothing and then declare you to be the aggressor for breaking the ceasefire.

If this sounds like an exaggeration, I sincerely wish that it was! (Scholarly disclaimer: Of course many politicians and media outlets do see through this but the pattern discussed below is a very widespread one.)

1. Terrorist group attacks Israeli civilians.

2. As Israel seeks to retaliate, the group declares a ceasefire.

3. Western media announce ceasefire.

4. But rockets continue to be fired into Israel against civilian targets. Responsibility is usually taken by smaller groups allied with Hamas, like Islamic Jihad. This allows Hamas–and Western media–to deny that Hamas has any responsibility and thus there is no need to take actions against it. Nobody notes that Hamas is now allied with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the latter does not condemn the attacks but only condemns Israel.

(Note: Western media only report it when the PA condemns a terrorist attack and that at times gets more coverage than the attack and the Israeli victims.)

(Additional note: In late 2008, Hamas launched a war of rockets, missiles, mortars, and attempted cross-border attacks on Israel, breaking an existing ceasefire. When Israel retaliated, many accused Israel of aggression.)

(Another additional note: It is generally forgotten that because of Israel’s self-defense against the Hamas attacks the PA broke off negotiations with Israel and three years later, despite constant missreporting that the lack of talks is Israel’s fault, that policy continues.)

5. Israel retaliates against rocket-firing teams, weapons’ workshops, arms-smuggling tunnels, rocket storage places, and leaders of groups firing rockets. Some civilians are killed and this becomes the main point of Western media stories. Since the numbers and identities come from Hamas, they maximize numbers and civilians, concealing terrorists’ being killed and at times reclassifying terrorists as civilians. Note that when civilians are killed by Western airstrikes, as in Afghanistan or Libya, it is emphasized that these are regrettable accidents. With Israel it is implied that such action is purposeful or at least careless.

6. Western media report that Israel “broke” the “ceasefire.”

7. Continued attacks on Israel are thus blamed on Israeli action.

Think that’s an exaggeration? Here’s the Washington Post:

“A tenuous cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip was punctured Wednesday by a deadly Israeli airstrike that triggered rocket and mortar fire at Israel.”

Political result:

Anti-Israel politicians, media, and experts blame Israel for being aggressive and using “disproportionate force,” a phrase that only seems to be applied to Israel in the world.

More moderate politicians, media, and experts decry the cycle of violence for which both sides are responsible.

Coming soon to a UN Near You: The September UN Scam! Here’s a wonderful indication of what’s going on:

A pro-Palestinian Oxford University law professor has warned the Palestinian leadership that it must do the unilateral independence declaration at the UN properly so it can claim all of Israel later.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and Middle East editor and featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). GLORIA Center site is http://www.gloria-center.org.His articles published originally outside of PajamasMedia are at http://www.gloria-center.org 

In Congress "Morning" Joe Scarborough Introduced Resolution Condemning MSNBC Colleague Al Sharpton

Here's an interesting back story to MSNBC's hiring of racial arsonist Al Sharpton as their latest evening host.  Back in March of 2000, MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough was Congressman Joe Scarborough  and he introduced House Resolution 270  condemning Al Sharpton as a racist and a bigot. Read the text of the bill which was dug up by Legal Insurrection


106th CONGRESS 2d Session H. CON. RES. 270

Condemning the racist and anti-Semitic views of the Reverend Al Sharpton

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

March 8, 2000

Mr. SCARBOROUGH submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

---

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION Condemning the racist and anti-Semitic views of the Reverend Al Sharpton

Whereas the Congress strongly rejects the racist and incendiary actions of the Reverend Al Sharpton;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as `bloodsucking [J]ews', and `Jew bastards';

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as `white interlopers' and `diamond merchants';

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton was found guilty of defamation by a jury in a New York court arising from the false accusation that former Assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones, who is white, raped and assaulted a fifteen year-old black girl;

Whereas, to this day, the Reverend Al Sharpton has refused to accept responsibility and expresses no regret for defaming Mr. Pagones;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton's vicious verbal anti-Semitic attacks directed at members of the Jewish faith, and in particular, a Jewish landlord, arising from a simple landlord-tenant dispute with a black tenant, incited widespread violence, riots, and the murder of five innocent people;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton's fierce demagoguery incited violence, riots, and murder in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, following the accidental death of a black pedestrian child hit by the motorcade of Orthodox Rabbi Menachem Schneerson;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton led a protest in the Crown Heights neighborhood and marched next to a protester with a sign that read, `The White Man is the Devil';

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has insulted members of the Jewish faith by challenging Jews to violence and stating to Jews to `pin down' their yarmulkes; and

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has practiced the politics of racial division and made inflammatory remarks against whites by characterizing the death of Amadou Diallo as a `racially motivated police `assassination': Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That the Congress--

(1) condemns the practices of the Reverend Al Sharpton, which seek to divide Americans on the basis of race, ethnicity, and religion;

(2) expresses its outrage over the violence that has resulted due to the Reverend Al Sharpton's incendiary words and actions; and

(3) fervently urges elected officials and public servants, who have condoned and legitimized the Reverend Al Sharpton's incendiary words and actions, to publicly denounce and condemn such racist and anti-Semitic views.

The bill was sent to committee where it died. 

I wonder if Morning Joe still feels the same way about "Rev" Al? Sharpton hasn't changed. But then again Joe has, he no longer is a congressman from Florida, he is the morning host of the same network that hired Sharpton.  Will Joe speak out?  Only time will tell.

Sales of Chevy Volt Are Running Out of Power

 Operating on direction from the Obama administration, GM is in the process of re-tooling its line toward more energy efficient products.  The Chevy Volt is supposed to be the signature car of that "new" General Motors.

The way thing look right now the Chevy Volt may turn out to be one of those infamous Harvard Business School case studies where they explain why a product failed.  

In the case of the Volt, the reason is simple, most drivers  don't want tiny energy efficient cars, especially the electric ones with their limited range between charges and their very high out of pocket costs.

As GM is ramping up production of the volt, sales have not been going well, neither have the sales of Nissan's battery operated car the Leaf. Piling on the bad sales reports is a new study showing that the limited interest consumers had in the Volt is declining

Through the end of July, Chevy has sold about 3,200 of the plug-in hybrids compared to 4,500 Nissan Leafs. But both makers have begun ramping up production, General Motors forecasting sales of around 16,000 for the year as a whole – including a small number of Volt clone Opel Amperas targeted at markets abroad.

But a new study by CNW marketing shows dark clouds hovering over the GM electric vehicle:

In March, 21% of so-called Early Adapters said they were “very likely” to consider buying a Volt, while 38.1% said they were “likely” to do the same. That slipped to 14.6% saying “very likely” in July, and 31.1% “likely.” Among EV Enthusiasts, reports the CNW study, the number of those likely or very likely to consider Volt fell from a combined 71% to 51% during the same four-month period.

“It’s way too early to tell, but the signs aren’t encouraging,” said CNW’s chief analyst Art Spinella. 

When it comes to mainstream consumers Volt has all but slipped off the radar screen, only about 3% of new car buyers likely to consider the Chevrolet Volt, the analyst added.

The big problem is the plug-in’s price, CNW data indicate. When first introduced, the Volt carried a $41,000 sticker, though it qualified for a $7,500 federal tax credit. For 2012, the Chevy will drop to $39,995, a $1,005 cut, though it is still thousands more than the Leaf – and nearly double the price of a base Chevrolet Cruze compact, which shares the same underpinnings as Volt.

.....GM’s commitment to electric propulsion is, if anything, being charged up. As TheDetroitBureau.com reported last week, the maker has inked a deal with battery supplier A123 that will be used for a range of new battery-electric vehicles that will begin to reach market in 2014.

Don't forget that much of the electric and hybrid car business is in the US are subsidized by the US Govt.In 2010, one fourth of GM and Ford’s hybrids were purchased by the federal government.  Nissan got a $1.4 billion dollar loan from the feds to develop their electric car, the Leaf.  Several thousands of dollars in tax credits per car have to be shelled out to make these models attractive for sale.

Electric cars are turning out to be a typical example of what happens when the government picks winners in the marketplace rather than let the market pick the winners. We now have government inefficiently using tax dollars to create a limited and declining market. There is a reduced incentive to improve battery technology to increase the cars range and price, as long as the government subsidizes the market.  The government will have to continue to subsidize the hybrid, hybrid electric, and electric car marketplace for the foreseeable future or else it will collapse from the reduced demand. That's if it doesn't collapse anyway.