Touring Vietnam in 1965, Michigan Gov. George Romney proclaimed American involvement there "morally right and necessary." Two years later, however, Romney -- then seeking the Republican presidential nomination -- not only recanted his support for the war but claimed that he had been hoodwinked.

"When I came back from Vietnam, I had just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get," Romney told a Detroit TV reporter who asked the candidate how he reconciled his shifting views.

Romney (father of Mitt) had visited Vietnam with nine other governors, all of whom denied that they had been duped by their government. With this one remark, his presidential hopes were dashed.

The memory of this gaffe reverberates in the contemporary rhetoric of many Democrats, who, when attacking the Bush administration's case for war against Saddam Hussein, employ essentially the same argument. In 2006, John F. Kerry explained the Senate's 77-23 passage of the Iraq war resolution this way: "We were misled. We were given evidence that was not true." On the campaign trail, Hillary Rodham Clinton dodged blame for her pro-war vote by claiming that "the mistakes were made by this president, who misled this country and this Congress."

Nearly every prominent Democrat in the country has repeated some version of this charge, and the notion that the Bush administration deceived the American people has become the accepted narrative of how we went to war.

Yet in spite of all the accusations of White House "manipulation" -- that it pressured intelligence analysts into connecting Hussein and Al Qaeda and concocted evidence about weapons of mass destruction -- administration critics continually demonstrate an inability to distinguish making claims based on flawed intelligence from knowingly propagating falsehoods.

In 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously approved a report acknowledging that it "did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments." The following year, the bipartisan Robb-Silberman report similarly found "no indication that the intelligence community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."

Contrast those conclusions with the Senate Intelligence Committee report issued June 5, the production of which excluded Republican staffers and which only two GOP senators endorsed. In a news release announcing the report, committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV got in this familiar shot: "Sadly, the Bush administration led the nation into war under false pretenses."

Yet Rockefeller's highly partisan report does not substantiate its most explosive claims. Rockefeller, for instance, charges that "top administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and Al Qaeda as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11." Yet what did his report actually find? That Iraq-Al Qaeda links were "substantiated by intelligence information." The same goes for claims about Hussein's possession of biological and chemical weapons, as well as his alleged operation of a nuclear weapons program.

Four years on from the first Senate Intelligence Committee report, war critics, old and newfangled, still don't get that a lie is an act of deliberate, not unwitting, deception. If Democrats wish to contend they were "misled" into war, they should vent their spleen at the CIA.

In 2003, top Senate Democrats -- not just Rockefeller but also Carl Levin, Clinton, Kerry and others -- sounded just as alarmist. Conveniently, this month's report, titled "Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq by U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated by Intelligence Information," includes only statements by the executive branch. Had it scrutinized public statements of Democrats on the Intelligence, Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees -- who have access to the same intelligence information as the president and his chief advisors -- many senators would be unable to distinguish their own words from what they today characterize as warmongering.

This may sound like ancient history, but it matters. After Sept. 11, President Bush did not want to risk allowing Hussein, who had twice invaded neighboring nations, murdered more than 1 million Iraqis and stood in violation of 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions, to remain in possession of what he believed were stocks of chemical and biological warheads and a nuclear weapons program. By glossing over this history, the Democrats' lies-led-to-war narrative provides false comfort in a world of significant dangers.

"I no longer believe that it was necessary for us to get involved in South Vietnam to stop communist aggression in Southeast Asia," Romney elaborated in that infamous 1967 interview. That was an intellectually justifiable view then, just as it is intellectually justifiable for erstwhile Iraq war supporters to say -- given the way it's turned out -- that they don't think the effort has been worth it. But predicating such a reversal on the unsubstantiated allegation that one was lied to is cowardly and dishonest.

A journalist who accompanied Romney on his 1965 foray to Vietnam remarked that if the governor had indeed been brainwashed, it was not because of American propaganda but because he had "brought so light a load to the laundromat." Given the similarity between Romney's explanation and the protestations of Democrats 40 years later, one wonders why the news media aren't saying the same thing today.

Goodness.  From the LA Times?

In Canada, you have Global Warming warrior numero uno, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) poster boy David Suzuki encouraging children to rat out their own parents in a treehouse setting televised advertisement (The David Suzuki Foundation YouTube)

In Australia, the state-run Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) targets 9-year-old children in Planet Slayer, which includes “Prof. Schpinkee’s Greenhouse Calculator.  Find out when you should die”.  Planet Slayer’s when you should die option comes for kiddies whose don’t use only their “fair” share of the Earth.  (Parents can view Planet Slayer here).

The Australian parents of 9-year-olds waking up screaming with nightmares of exploding pigs dying in pools of blood can blame their state-run television network.

As offensive as these child-frightening tactics are, it’s proof positive that global warming scare tactics on adult masses are failing—failing enough for Global Warming Alarmists to seek out a younger, more impressionable audience.

And at the same time global warming alarmists in Canada and Australia are stooping to bogeymen tactics for school age kids, their leader Al Gore has been caught with his global warming pants on fire.

For the second time in the space of little more than a year, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has dragged the size of Gore’s real global warming footprint onto the Drudge Report.

Despite Gore’s well-touted “green” overhaul of his mansion, his personal electricity is up more than 10%.

“A man’s commitment to his beliefs is best measured by what he does behind the closed doors of his own home,” said Drew Johnson, President of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.  “Al Gore is a hypocrite and a fraud when it comes to his commitment to the environment, judging by his home energy consumption.

“In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity—enough to power 232 average American households for a month.”

Champagne belches celebrated the February 2007 academy award for An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary film based on a climate change speech developed by Gore.

The very next day the Tennessee Center for Policy Research uncovered that Gore’s Nashville home guzzled 20 times more electricity than the average American household.

Gore’s documentary was to go on as mandatory viewing for school age children in the British Isles.  His personal wealth increased by an estimated $100 million, thanks largely to speaking fees and investments related to global warming hysteria.

In the year that followed, Gore’s partner in global warming credits, Canadian Maurice Strong--the UN diplomat who started the global warming craze, has all but disappeared.

But while Global Warming alarmists were laughing all the way to the bank, average people everywhere were starting to smell a Global Warming rat. 

Tired of being told to give up their SUVs, by SUV-driving global warming Hollywood hypocrites, something was about to backfire on Gore, Suzuki, Strong and company.  Their plebes were being reminded of radical environmentalism every day at the gas pumps.

Soaring gas prices are a burden on hard-working families.  The genie came out of the bottle when consumers made the link between gas prices and radical environmentalists.  For years environmentalists enabled by government grants have routinely erected barriers to the production and distribution of energy.

The latest trend of the global warming alarmists frightening children is destined to come to a bad end.

Parents have been slaying bogeymen for their children down through the centuries.

Al Gore, David Suzuki, Maurice Strong et al are too far from their child rearing days to remember how nine year olds love their parents.

Meanwhile the Global Warming scare is careening its way to hit with a big bang, proverbial rock bottom.

Canada Free Press

She's big-busted, petite, very friendly and she runs on batteries.

Sega, best known for its home video game consoles, has introduced a 15-inch tall robotic 'girlfriend' that kisses on command, with a target market of lonely adult men.

The robot, named "EMA," which stands for Eternal Maiden Actualization, is designed to pucker up for nearby human heads, entering "love mode" using a series of infrared sensors powered by battery.

"Strong, tough and battle-ready are some of the words often associated with robots, but we wanted to break that stereotype and provide a robot that's sweet and interactive," said Minako Sakanoue, a spokeswoman for the maker, Sega Toys to Reuters news agency.

BY ERIC CREED

GOOGLE “RECORD HEAT” and you will get 3,180,000 hits. Google “record cold” and you will get 5,110,000. Yes, that’s right; and it’s just the tip of the proverbial (not melting) iceberg. You see, the convenient truth about the theory of global warming is that you can blame anything on it. Record snows and snow cover in North America, record cold in Asia, snow falling in Baghdad. That’s right. Snow in the desert. Clearly more signs of catastrophic global warming. Not so fast. Pull up a chair, put your feet up, expel some evil CO2, and let’s talk about how “settled” the issue of global warming really is.     I know full well that writing this piece will cause me to be labeled a “global warming denier” and be lumped in with those that Al Gore said in March are, along with Dick Cheney, “in such a tiny minority view now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat.”

    Seriously? I can’t question the people who are incapable of telling me what the weather is going to be for my tee-time this Saturday, but claim to know exactly how much warmer the entire globe will be, how much the sea will rise, how much the snow cover will recede, and how much the ice caps will melt in 100 years?

    You’re really going to implicitly equate me with a holocaust denier because I don’t believe that your faulty computer models (designed by James Hanson, et al., a liberal NASA scientist with an agenda) prove that the globe is warming, or if it is, that it’s our fault? You swear by the models, why don’t you swear by the corrections that NASA very quietly released last summer that show the warmest year on record was not 1998, but in fact is 1934, and that five of the top 10 hottest years on record were all before World War II?

    The Pope once had a problem with a “denier.” His name was Galileo, and he thought that the earth was round and that it was not the center of the universe; [Uh, it was widely accepted that the Earth was round at the time...  -- ed.] that it actually revolved around the sun, not the other way around. The Pope did the same thing that Al Gore is doing now. With faulty data and conjecture, the Pope declared that the debate was over and that anybody who disagreed would be burned at the stake. While we don’t burn people at the stake these days, Gore claims we will all die in a ball of fire if we don’t rally around this theory and devote all of our time, energy (both fossil and kinetic), and money to it.

    OK, I am a skeptic. When every lunatic liberal leftist on the face of the planet says we need to close down the carbon emissions of industry (carbon caps) and spend trillions of dollars trying to fix something that (1.) we don’t know if we caused it (the factual evidence says we didn’t), and (2.) if we did cause global warming, is it really in our power to fix (reverse) it, red flags go up. Many leading scientists firmly believe that more CO2 in the atmosphere is actually good for the planet. David Archibald, PhD, at the Biology Department of San Diego State University, is one of those leading scientists. In a lecture given at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, Dr. Archibald said that more CO2 in the atmosphere will give us a lusher environment and actually increase plant growth rates in addition to increasing the sustainability of crops in arid regions.

    If you believe that liberal bastion of policy wonks and diplomats (and a couple of decent, and many not-so-decent, scientists), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we cannot reverse it. The IPCC closed its Fourth Assessment Report’s (AR4) Summary for Policymakers with this: “[B]oth past and future anthropogenic (man-made) carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to global warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium, due to the time scales required for removal of this gas from the atmosphere.” For those of you who do not know, the IPCC is more than just Gore’s co-conspirator in the global warming fraud, they are co-recipients of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. And what does climate change have to do with peace anyway?

Back to our favorite global warming alarmist, Al Gore. He recently announced that his Alliance for Climate Protection will embark on a mission to better educate the public on the dangers of man-made global warming and the dire necessity to make drastic (and prohibitively costly) changes in order to stop it. Oh yeah, he’s spending $300 million to do it. Maybe Gore subscribes to Gallop. A recent Gallop poll revealed that about the same percentage of people believe in man-made global warming as did when they first took the poll in 1989. Ironically, the propaganda machine that is Nobel Laureate Gore bans the media from his lectures. An odd contradiction for a man that wants the world to adopt his doomsday outlook and invest in his “green” funds. Gore’s lecture contract, handled by The Harry Walker Agency, Inc., in New York, in addition to requiring non-disclosure of the terms and conditions of the agreement, says in section 9(a) that “the press is not invited or permitted to cover the event unless express written permission is granted by the Harry Walker Agency, Inc.” Section 9(c) reads, “Vice President Gore will accept no interview requests.” Maybe if he allowed the press into his lectures, or gave an interview or two, he wouldn’t have to spend $300 million on public awareness. In case you are wondering, yes, I have a copy. Are you at least a little bit curious why the free press is not allowed to attend his lectures? Read on, my friend.

GLOBAL WARMING HAS BECOME QUITE THE INDUSTRY.
    The U.S. alone spends over $4 billion per year on climate change research. That seems like a lot of money to spend on something that is so well settled and agreed upon by all but a few “flat-earthers.” Gore has started giving a disclaimer during his lectures. Gore, and Global Investment Management, LLP (GIM), the London-based private equity firm of which Gore is the founder and Chairman, stand to benefit in untold riches if we invest in the companies he recommends in his lectures. His disclaimers are no different than those of a stock broker or insurance agent. Gore is basically saying, yes, I own stock in these companies, but you should too if you want to save the planet from certain doom. Doom-and-gloom has served Gore well. Like the other two shysters from his administration, he is reported to be worth north of $100 million. If you missed the media’s passing mention last month, Clinton finally released her income tax returns. Turns out she’s worth about $109 million. Civil servants, huh? Servants never had it so good. All the past presidents and vice presidents combined probably don’t have the wealth of the Gores and Clintons. As a side note, Gore closed GIM’s second “green” fund, Climate Solutions Fund, in April at $683 million. The first fund, Global Equity Strategy Fund, has invested $2.2 billion in large companies judged to have, from an environmental, social and economic viewpoint, a “sustainable” business. I wonder, can any of the companies that Gore is investing billions in help him and his Nashville mansion use less than 10 times the amount of energy the average American household uses? But don’t worry, he’s using compact fluorescents in his house, so it’s ok to use 10 times as much energy as everyone else. Speaking of Gore’s waste and gluttony, I wonder how ginormous his carbon footprint was while he was jetting around the world promoting his lie/movie and trying to convince everyone to invest in his companies.

    It was reported in April that An Inconvenient Truth used computer-generated footage from the movie The Day After Tomorrow to show a crumbling ice shelf. Those are the kinds of deceptions necessary when trying to convince the world of a lie.

Just as Nazi Propaganda Chief Joseph Goebbels said, “[T]ell a lie enough and it becomes accepted as truth.” As well as that has worked for Gore, support for his “planet in peril” mantra is eroding faster than he claims the ice caps are. In 2007 a British court held that, in order for his lie/movie to be shown to school children, “eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of the [students].” Among those inaccuracies, the court ruled, was that rises in CO2 lagged behind temperature rises by 800-2,000 years; that despite the movie’s claim, it is a scientific impossibility for global warming to cause the Gulf Steam to stop flowing; and that, while the movie claims sea levels could rise 23 feet, the evidence showed sea levels are expected to rise 15 inches over the next 100 years. If you believe Gore, we shouldn’t even bother buying green bananas, the end is so close at hand. Gore should have won his Oscar for the best mockumentary, not documentary, of 2007.

Although quite ham-handed, the author makes some excellent points.

Read the rest.

The Associated Press has not only jumped the shark, they’ve leaped over that baby like Carl Lewis: AP sets up a toll booth for bloggers citing its stories.

The AP’s disharmony with bloggers may have only just begun, as the alternative it’s now offering to being served with takedown notices involves paying an up-front sum for excerpting online articles — as few as five words.

A meeting between the Associated Press’ Vice President for Strategic Planning Jim Kennedy and Robert Cox, who heads the Media Bloggers Association, is now planned for Thursday of this week. The subject at hand is the AP’s attempt to find a new way of sharing AP content, which now involves a fee per excerpt based on its word length.

On the heels of a blogosphere revolt last week because of its harsh actions against social news site The Drudge Retort, the AP regrouped over the weekend to take a less litigative — but more bureaucratic — approach to dealing with those who wish to quote its material.

Where the group had previously invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and sent cease-and-desist orders to at least one blogger, seeking the removal of excerpted content (in some cases as few as 17 words in length), now the press service has attached an “Excerpt for Web Use” charge for passages as short as five words in length.

The pricing scale for excerpting AP content begins at $12.50 for 5-25 words and goes as high as $100 for 251 words and up. Nonprofit organizations and educational institutions enjoy a discounted rate.

Meanwhile, they continue to provide RSS feeds for free, in a classic case of one hand not knowing what the other’s doing.

if they plan to enforce this mind-bogglingly stupid policy, it will be interesting to see what happens with sites like Digg.com — which are nothing but excerpts from news articles, with hundreds of AP stories being posted every day.

Via:  LGF

Fair enough.  Screw you, AP.  Ernie Pyle must be weeping in Heaven.  Bastards.

Un-freaking-believable: Barack Obama aide: Why Winnie the Pooh should shape US foreign policy.

Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if it is causing you too much pain, try something else.

Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”

Oh yeah. Let’s put these people in charge of the United States. What could possibly go wrong?

Via:  LGF

Gore’s personal electricity consumption up 10%, despite “energy-efficient&r dquo; home renovations

NASHVILLE - In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10%, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

“A man’s commitment to his beliefs is best measured by what he does behind the closed doors of his own home,” said Drew Johnson, President of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. “Al Gore is a hypocrite and a fraud when it comes to his commitment to the environment, judging by his home energy consumption.”

In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.

In February 2007, An Inconvenient Truth, a film based on a climate change speech developed by Gore, won an Academy Award for best documentary feature. The next day, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research uncovered that Gore’s Nashville home guzzled 20 times more electricity than the average American household.

After the Tennessee Center for Policy Research exposed Gore’s massive home energy use, the former Vice President scurried to make his home more energy-efficient. Despite adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork, Gore now consumes more electricity than before the “green” overhaul.

Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally-friendly last June, Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month –1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations – at a cost of $16,533. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

In the wake of becoming the most well-known global warming alarmist, Gore won an Oscar, a Grammy and the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, Gore saw his personal wealth increase by an estimated $100 million thanks largely to speaking fees and investments related to global warming hysteria.

“Actions speak louder than words, and Gore’s actions prove that he views climate change not as a serious problem, but as a money-making opportunity,” Johnson said. “Gore is exploiting the public’s concern about the environment to line his pockets and enhance his profile.”

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a Nashville-based free market think tank and watchdog organization, obtained information about Gore’s home energy use through a public records request to the Nashville Electric Service.

Lying, hypocritical sack of shit...

TCPR

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani is the latest Marine to turn out not to be a "cold-blooded killer" that the media and Democratic politicians painted Marines charged with the Haditha "massacre" to be. This two weeks after another Marine was acquitted in a Haditha court martial.

FoxNews.com has the AP story about the dismissal of charges against him here.:

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A military judge dismissed charges Tuesday against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis.

Col. Steven Folsom dismissed charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after finding that a four-star general overseeing the case was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha.

As you might have guessed, this story is not exactly commanding the airwaves of the cable news networks this afternoon, although the media obsessed about the "massacre" in 2005.

From my colleague Scott Whitlock's June 5 post about the media's similar lack of interest in the acquittal of Marine Lt. Andrew Grayson:

The same network newscasts that hyped the 2005 "alleged massacre" by U.S. soldiers in Haditha are so far ignoring the acquittal on all charges of Lieutenant Andrew Grayson on Thursday. Grayson was accused of attempting to cover up details of the events surrounding a raid that lead to the death of 15 Iraqis. However, Grayson's acquittal was skipped by ABC's "Good Morning America," CBS's "Early Show" and NBC's "Today" show. (CNN's "American Morning" covered the story only as a news brief.)

In contrast, the morning shows seemed much more interested in the subject back when dark allegations were made about the actions of U.S. solders in Haditha. On Memorial Day 2006, then-GMA host Charles Gibsonbut troubling new information about Marine misconduct in Iraq. A new eyewitness on what could be a mass murder of civilians. Was there a cover-up?" On the March 20, 2006, "Nightly News," host Brian Williams touted the "disturbing new allegations" made by Congressman John Murtha about Haditha. (It should be noted that, so far, five of the eight originally charged with murder or cover-up have been acquitted.) On May 25, 2006, referencing the massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians in 1968, "Nightline" host Terry Moran speculated, "Will Haditha be the My Lai of the Middle East?" On June 7 of that year, reporter Andrea Mitchell opined on "Today" that Haditha was a "black eye for American policy." intoned, "America honors its fallen war heroes,

A 2006 MRC study of how CNN, MSNBC and Fox News covered Iraq found that CNN and MSNBC were much more likely to focus on the negative, such as incidents like Haditha.

The MSM has obviously chosen a side, and it is NOT that of the American people.  Screw you, John Murtha.  Where's your apology?

Newsbusters

Remember that Che Guevara flag in Barack Obama’s Houston campaign office? The one that all the Obama supporters came out and decried as a fluke, and totally unrepresentative of the campaign, and just one person’s opinion?

Well, here’s an Ohio judge with an attraction to mass murderers and Communist thugs—and Barack Obama.

And as we’ve been pointing out all week, you can find blogs all over the official Obama web site that support Communists, terrorists, and 9/11 Troofers.

Still just a “fluke?”

(Hat tip: Power Line.)

Via:  LGF

AUSTIN -- Whoever launched the Molotov cocktail that led to the devastating weekend fire at the Texas Governor's Mansion had breached the security fencing and was standing on the property's front lawn at the time of the attack, officials said Thursday.

"There was an individual on the property," state Fire Marshal Paul Maldonado told reporters at a news briefing near the 152-year-old two-story mansion, which has been home to the past 40 governors of Texas. "The individual was on the grounds. The origins [of the fire] were on the porch."

Latest updates

Maldonado, who with other state officials and federal investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives concluded the on-site portion of the investigation Thursday, confirmed published reports that surveillance video taken when the fire began about 1:45 a.m. Sunday showed one person lighting an object and heaving it toward the mansion's front door. Maldonado said the surveillance video was not being made public because of the ongoing investigation.

The resulting huge fireball on the building's stately front porch quickly spread inside, causing severe damage to both floors and the roof.

Maldonado said it was unclear how the arsonist had reached the mansion, which is surrounded by construction fencing that has been in place for several months during an ongoing $10 million restoration project and by the wrought-iron and masonry fence that has been in place for decades.

Restoration and rebuilding

Gary Jaster, a structural engineer brought in to evaluate the building, said the exterior brick walls, the flooring and even the elegant staircase near the entrance were in surprisingly good shape. The flat roof, which has been visibly sagging since the fire, will need to be removed and replaced with a temporary top to protect the interior from further damage, he said.

"The mansion is salvageable," Jaster said.

Gov. Rick Perry, who has been living in temporary quarters since the restoration project got under way and was in Europe when the fire broke out, is promising to push for a complete restoration of the mansion. Cost estimates are pending.

"I will not allow the destructive act of some deranged individual or group to destroy something that Texans hold so dear," said Perry, speaking Thursday at the state Republican Convention in Houston. "We will rebuild. We will restore. We will renew this Texas treasure for future generations."

Criminal investigation

Maldonado repeated on Thursday what he has been saying since the fire was ruled an act of arson: Authorities will catch the culprit. Asked how he could be so sure -- it isn't clear whether the person on the surveillance video is a man or a woman, or if accomplices were involved -- he replied that tips coming in to a special hot line, 877-434-7345, were proving helpful.

He declined to elaborate, but he held out the possibility that reward money might be offered in the hope of producing even more leads.

"There is consideration of that at this time, but we have not made final decisions about that," Maldonado said. "We'll be discussing that with the investigation team throughout the day."

Staff writer Anna M. Tinsley contributed to this report from Houston.

How to help

Contributions may be made to the Save the Mansion Fund, Heritage Society of Austin, P.O. Box 2113 Austin, TX 78768-2113.

Donors may also direct contributions to Friends of the Texas Historical Commission, P.O. Box 13492, Austin, TX 78711, or to Austin Community Foundation, 4315 Guadalupe St., Suite 300, Austin, TX 78751; and Friends of the Governor's Mansion, P.O. Box 24447, Austin, TX 78768.

Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

Man, I want one of these...

This piston was fitted to the World Championship-winning F1-2000. 2000 was one of the most significant years in Ferrari's F1 career: the team scored 170 points, 10 victories and 10 poles, winning both world titles in the process. For the first time in 21 long years, a Ferrari driver, Michael Schumacher, was crowned World Drivers' Champion while the Scuderia Ferrari won the Constructors' title for the second year in a row.

The article is set on a special carbon fiber base with metal nameplate and it is stowed in a red cardboard box.

The piston comes with a certificate of origin signed by Jean Todt as a guarantee of its absolute authenticity.

Ferrari Store

This bill is supposed to stop the military from sending “any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes or behavior of the people of the United States in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.”

In other words, the military is not allowed to talk to the American people or Congress for fear of disseminating “propaganda.”

The only way to fulfill this idiotic policy is to stop anyone in the military from ever speaking in public because, when you get right down to it, nearly any communication from the Pentagon, or any command staff in theater, will have the effect of “influencing” those who hear it. That is the nature of human communication, after all.

Of course this is a silly concept that the Democrat Party has come up with. Every single thing that man conceives of must be “sold” to everyone else to get implemented. The idea is born in the minds of one or a few and then those disciples of the idea go forth and begin a campaign to convince those who can put that idea into place that the idea is worthy of support. In essence, that is propaganda in its simplest form. The happy face is put on, the hands are shaken, and the plan is laid out for discussion. This is called being human! It’s how we all get things done.

Besides, what level of information becomes propaganda and what just “information” ? To a rabid, anti-military nut any words from the Pentagon is “propaganda.” To the highest booster, none are. Who is to determine when what is being said becomes “propaganda”?

My guess is no one in the Democrat caucus is smart enough to know.

But, let’s look at the real reason this simple-minded policy was created. The real reason the Democrats want such a policy in place is to silence the military entirely. Democrats aren’t interested in keeping the tender ears of the people from being assaulted with “propaganda.” No, they want to be able to shut the military off from being able to appear before the American people to defend themselves against Democrat attacks. THAT is the true goal.

If the Democrat Party can keep the Pentagon in the can, then Congress and the Democrat Party will be the conduit of information between the military and the people. And the Democrat Party finds an enemy in the American military. So, what better way to further their own propaganda then by making sure the enemy’s will never be heard.

Stalin would be proud of Congressional democrats.

Publius Forum

Since they didn't bother in the article:  Here it is, section 1075, page 559, of the “Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House)”.  H.R. 5658

Analysts used to joke about waiting for the results from cemetery precincts in Chicago before calling elections. In Louisiana, that may be closer to the truth than one might imagine. WBRZ reports on a voter registration scandal that had Democrats submitting thousands of fraudulent enrollments, included George W. Bush and a bunch of dead people:

Secretary of State Jay Dardenne said Tuesday he will meet today with a Democrat-affiliated group responsible for a voter registration effort that is inundating East Baton Rouge and other parish registrars with bogus and incomplete applications.

Dardenne said his investigators are trying to determine if any state election laws have been violated as thousands of voter registration cards have been dumped on registrars offices through the efforts of VIP.

“We have some very real concerns about the data we are getting from them,” Dardenne said.

VIP is a Washington, D.C., group hired by national Democrats to register some 70,000 new voters in advance of the presidential and other federal elections this fall.

It’s easier to meet that goal when recruiters don’t pay attention to details, such as a pulse:

Two cards received in Caddo Parish had George W. Bush as the voter applicant with a 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. address in Shreveport, Dardenne said. Other cards have been filed for prisoners who cannot vote and dead people. In Jefferson Parish, a voter registration card was filed for the registrar of voters.

Louisiana Republicans demanded an investigation, and Dardenne assured them that he had already begun a probe into VIP’s activities. It would seem that “hope and change” in Louisiana means “more of the same”.

Voter fraud strikes at the heart of a democracy. If VIP conspired to inflate Democratic registrations unlawfully, the FBI has jurisdiction, as this qualifies as interstate commerce. Congress should also look into this latest corruption eruption in Louisiana.

Hot Air

I talked about this a bit yesterday, but now I have the exact quote before me, so I want to cover it again.  On the night that Barack Obama clinched the Democrat nomination he was in St. Paul, Minnesota – there to deliver this absolute gem of a quote:

"I am absolutely certain that generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick.  This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." 

Isn't that amazing?  Not until Barack "The Messiah" Obama signed up that last delegate did this country do anything to care for sick people. Medicare and Medicaid have existed on paper only ... certainly not in reality.  What's more ... a signal has now been sent to the oceans to recede and a great glob of Neosporin has now been spread across our planet.  Does this man believe his own bullshit?  We can only hope not.

By the way ... I'm still waiting for someone to point out one single Obama legislative accomplishment.  Don't rush, I have all the time in the world.

Neal Nuze

WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, commented today on the cloture vote that effectively halted the Climate Tax Bill.

"This bill was doomed from the start," Senator Inhofe said. "When the Majority Leader filled the amendment tree and filed cloture on the Climate Tax Bill, it was obvious that the Democrats were not serious about supporting this bill. This was one of the largest bills ever considered by this Congress and probably the largest non-appropriations bill the Senate has ever considered. This bill deserved a full and honest debate, with amendments offered and voted upon. The American people did not deserve a political exercise geared toward election year politics. Republicans were prepared to debate this bill with over 150 amendments ready to be offered. The Democrats did not want to debate and vote on our amendments that were aimed at protecting American families and workers from the devastating economic impacts of this bill. The 1990 Clean Air Act amendments were considered on the Senate floor for five weeks, and this comprehensive climate bill demands at least equal debate.

"The committee process was short-circuited, the floor debate was circumvented, and the amendment process was derailed. I do not see how the Democrats use this failed bill as any kind of model for future success. As I suspected, reality hit the U.S. Senate when the economic facts of this bill were exposed. When faced with the inconvenient truth of the bill’s impact on skyrocketing gas prices, very few Senators were willing to even debate this bill."  

Background:

This week’s Climate Tax Bill debate revealed many useful insights into why the American people will remain skeptical of a global warming cap-and-trade system.

The Wall Street Journal aptly noted on June 6 that environmentalists are "stunned that their global warming agenda is in collapse" after the Climate Tax Bill debate. "The green groups now look as politically intimidating as the skinny kid on the beach who gets sand kicked in his face. Those groups spent millions advertising and lobbying to push the cap-and-trade bill through the Senate," the paper noted. "With gasoline selling at $4 a gallon, the Democrats picked the worst possible time to bring up cap and trade," a political analyst noted. "This issue is starting to feel like the Hillary health care plan," the analyst added. (LINK)

On June 3, Roll Call quoted frustrated Democrat staffers as being beside themselves in anger for the way the cap-and-trade bill was presented.

"We have no strategy, no message and no plan," said one senior Senate Democrat aide. "Everyone knows this bill is going nowhere. The president is opposed to it. The House is not inclined toward action on this, and now we're going to spend valuable floor time on a bill that's going nowhere ... while Republicans are champing at the bit to accuse Democrats of raising gas prices," the aide added. “Boxer is walking us off a cliff,” another senior Senate Democratic aide said, according to the paper. (LINK) & (LINK)

What We Learned This Week:

1) Raise Gas Prices Higher: "Government studies confirm this will only raise gas prices." The EPA estimates that the Lieberman-Warner bill will increase fuel costs an additional 53 cents per gallon by 2030 and by $1.40 by 2050. The Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimates gas prices will increase anywhere from 41 cents per gallon to $1.01 per gallon by 2030.

2) Largest Tax Increase Ever: The Climate Tax Bill was the largest tax increase in American history. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says Lieberman-Warner would effectively raise taxes on Americans by over a trillion dollars just during the next 10 years. The bill would have created $6.7 Trillion in the form of higher gasoline and electricity bills, and with no climate benefit. The Lieberman-Warner bill did not have a tax cut provision in it.  Boxer’s claim of "tax relief" in the bill is based on a non-binding Sense of the Senate resolution that says some funds "should be" used to protect consumers from the coming "increases in energy and other costs" caused by the bill (Section 585, page 204 of substitute version, Sense of the Senate on Tax Initiative to Protect Consumers). 

3) Nuclear Energy Lacking: Nuclear power is by far the world’s largest sources of non-emitting energy. Any credible attempt to reduce carbon emissions must include significant development of new nuclear plants. Merely passing a climate bill will not be enough to support the nuclear construction needed to satisfy the bill’s mandates. Additional incentives will be indispensable in the near-term to revitalize the industry to a level that encourages massive development.

4) Job Killer: The independent Energy Information Administration says the bill would result in a 9.5% drop in manufacturing output and higher energy costs, and that it will be worse unless we can build 268 new nuclear plants by 2030. This country has already lost 3 million manufacturing jobs since 2000. An analysis of this bill by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Council for Capital Formation states that up to 1.8 million jobs could be forfeited by 2020 and 4 million jobs could be by 2030. Midwestern states alone could lose close to a million jobs alone in this time frame. Without international participation, which this bill fails to adequately address, global concentrations of greenhouse gases will continue to increase, even if America were to nearly eliminate its emissions.

Good riddance.

EPW

Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants.

At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished.

CO2 is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Plants absorb CO2 and emit oxygen as a waste product. Humans and animals breathe oxygen and emit CO2 as a waste product. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient, not a pollutant, and all life-- plants and animals alike-- benefit from more of it. All life on earth is carbon-based and CO2 is an essential ingredient. When plant-growers want to stimulate plant growth, they introduce more carbon dioxide.

CO2 that goes into the atmosphere does not stay there but is continually recycled by terrestrial plant life and earth's oceans-- the great retirement home for most terrestrial carbon dioxide.

If we are in a global warming crisis today, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have a negligible effect on global climate!

The case for a "greenhouse problem" is made by environmentalists, news anchormen , and special interests who make inaccurate and misleading statements about global warming and climate change. Even though people may be skeptical of such rhetoric initially, after awhile people start believing it must be true because we hear it so often.

"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

"In the United States...we have to first convince the American People and the Congress that the climate problem is real."

Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are...

"In the long run, the replacement of the precise and disciplined language of science by the misleading language of litigation and advocacy may be one of the more important sources of damage to society incurred in the current debate over global warming."

"Researchers pound the global-warming drum because they know there is politics and, therefore, money behind it. . . I've been critical of global warming and am persona non grata."

"Scientists who want to attract attention to themselves, who want to attract great funding to themselves, have to (find a) way to scare the public . . . and this you can achieve only by making things bigger and more dangerous than they really are."

"Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing -- in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

"No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits.... Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."

'An ominous tone of authoritarianism'

Around this time in the presidential election cycle, Democratic candidates traditionally start "running to the center."

With a wink and a nod to their core, far-left constituencies, the candidates in effect say, "For the next five months I'm going to sound like a small-government Republican, talking about tax cuts and free enterprise and a strong defense and cutting back the welfare rolls. But don't worry, this is just to have a calming effect on all those oxen we're going to get back to collectively goring next year."

The rhetoric then shifts to the right -- until the day after the election, of course.

We hope our congratulations are not premature, but it's worthy of note that, so far, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama does not seem to be taking this path. If Sen. Obama is elected president, it will not be because he has disguised the fact that he is a dyed-in-the-wool collectivist.

Researchers have found a potentially deadly strain of tuberculosis infection spreading through Latino communities in Southern California and suspect the disease is being imported from Mexico in unpasteurized cheese.

Health officials in Orange County, though, say they have not seen any cases of the rare strain of tuberculosis in at least five years. They credit a long-running campaign to educate people about the dangers of eating unlabeled cheese and other dairy products.

Tuberculosis is an infection of the lungs that kills nearly 2 million people worldwide every year. The strain of tuberculosis that researchers found in San Diego County is more often linked to cattle, but can spread to people through raw dairy products.

That particular strain remains rare, even in San Diego County, the researchers concluded. But more than 90 percent of the people who were sickened by it were Latino, mostly from Mexico.

The researchers from the University of California, San Diego, pointed to a kind of cheese known as queso fresco, or fresh cheese, as the likely culprit. The soft, crumbly cheese is especially popular in Latino communities.

All dairy products sold in the United States are required to be pasteurized, which kills tuberculosis and other diseases. But, the researchers noted, unpasteurized dairy products are common just across the border, in Baja Mexico.

An earlier study also linked cases of the rare tuberculosis strain – known as M. Bovis – in New York City to unpasteurized cheese from Mexico.

Orange County's health-care agency has received no reports of that kind of tuberculosis in years, said Richard Sanchez, the director of the county's Environmental Health Division. The county also hasn't fielded any recent complaints about markets or vendors selling illegal cheese, he said.

That may be due to an earlier outbreak linked to bad cheese in Orange County. Several years ago, cases of Listeria were traced back to the same kind of illegal, home-made cheese that's sometimes called "bathtub cheese."

Listeria infections are especially dangerous for pregnant women; the disease can kill babies in the womb. The outbreak in Orange County prompted an aggressive campaign to warn people not to eat unpasteurized cheese or other dairy products. "We hope that had some impact," Sanchez said.

The advice then is the same as the advice now, Sanchez said: Look for a label. Make sure you know where your food came from. Buy cheese and other dairy products from a market or store.

And, he said, call the county's Health Agency at 714-433-6000 if you see someone selling suspect cheese.

Gee.  What an effing shock...

OC Register 

 The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Space). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is recognized for 60 minutes.

   Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I preface my remarks with a personal statement that, while I am opposed to the advocates of man-made global warming theories, I am committed to a clean and healthy environment, to purifying our air, our water, and our soil; all of this for the sake of the people of this planet, including my three children, Anika, Tristan and Christian. I do this not because of some paranoid theory that humans are changing the climate of the world, but instead, I am very concerned about the health of the people of the world and, thus, committed to clean air, clean soil, and clean water.

   Thus, we have, today, to take a look at the issues of global warming and pollution that confront our society because there are enormous implications to this whole discussion of what has been called ``man-made global warming.''

   Only 18 months ago the refrain ``Case closed: Global warming is real,'' was repeated as if the mantra from some religious zealots. It was pounded into the public consciousness over the airwaves, in print, and even at congressional hearings, ``Case closed.'' Well, this was obviously a brazen attempt to end open discussion and to silence differing views by dismissing the need for seriously contrary arguments and seriously listening to both sides of an argument. And rather than hearing both sides of the argument, this was an attempt to dismiss arguments even though the person making the arguments might have a very impressive credential or might be a very educated scientist or someone else who should be listened to.

...

 A 2006 report entitled ``Livestock's Long Shadow'' to the United Nations mentions livestock emissions and grazing, and it places the blame for global warming squarely on the hind parts of cows. Livestock, the report claims, accounts for 18 percent of the gases that supposedly cause the global warming of our climate. Cows are greenhouse-emitting machines. Fuel for fertilizer and meat production and transportation, as well as clearing the fields for grazing, produce 9 percent of the global CO2 emissions, according to the report. And also, cows produce ammonia, causing acid rain, of course.

   Now, if that's not bad enough, all of these numbers are projected in this report to double by the year 2050. Well, not only are we then going to have to cut personal transportation, which will keep us at home, but when we stay at home, we can't even have a bbq. And heck, they won't even let us have a hamburger.

   I would like to point out that before the introduction of cattle, millions upon millions of buffalo dominated the Great Plains of America. They were so thick you could not see where the herd started and where it ended. I can only assume that the anti-meat, manmade global warming crowd must believe that buffalo farts have more socially redeeming value than the same flatulence emitted by cattle. Yes, this is absurd, but the deeper one looks into this global warming juggernaut, the weirder this movement becomes and the more denial is evident.

...