A whole mess of stuff this morning

As a number of others have already pointed out, the mainstream media are doing their best to turn a mass murder committed by someone who worshipped at the same mosque as two of the 9/11 hijackers, made repeated attempts to contact al-Qaeda-supportive clergy, and shouted “Allahu Akbar” at the start of the attack into something other than an Islamic terrorist attack.

If this wasn’t such a dreadfully serious matter, it would almost be funny watching Democrats insist that there’s no elephant in the bathtub. Perhaps the most bizarre of these claims is that of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who insists that the core problem behind Fort Hood is that “America loves guns.”
And all the violent crime and shootings in Chicago is just because the rest of us don't want to follow him down the drain, uh huh. And here's a quote for all the Soviet lovers:
(Anne Applebaum’s Gulag: A History (2003) describes how prisoners in the Soviet work camp system did not refer to the society outside the barbed wire as “freedom.” They called it bolshaya zona, or “the big prison zone”: “larger and less deadly” than the camps, but not fundamentally different.)



Biden has ties to a corrupt mess? And the New York Effing Times covers for him? Well, whoda thunk it? Problem is, their own past stories kind of mess with the narrative:
Blogger Tom Maguire is somewhat incredulous at the Times' assertion Biden was "influenced by Mr. Galbraith’s thinking but [does] not advocate such a partitioning of the country." In fact, Maguire unearths this op-ed Galbraith wrote for, well, The New York Times some two years ago:

IN a surge of realism, the Senate has voted 75-23 to acknowledge that Iraq has broken up and cannot be put back together. The measure, co-sponsored by Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate, and Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, supports a plan for Iraq to become a loose confederation of three regions — a Kurdish area in the north, a Shiite region in the south and a Sunni enclave in the center — with the national government in Baghdad having few powers other than to manage the equitable distribution of oil revenues.

Picking up where Maguire left off, here's a New York Times op-ed directly authored by Biden from 2006 where he advocates partitioning Iraq. And here's another New York Times article from 2007 -- "Biden plan for 'soft partition' of Iraq gains momentum." Here's the New York Times covering a campaign ad Biden ran in Iowa where he advocates his plan to partition Iraq. I could go on.

What happened here is clear -- Joe Biden advocated policies in Iraq that his adviser Galbraith also advocated. Galbraith profited handsomely off those policies through close ties to oil companies. Does anyone think that if this story were about an adviser to Dick Cheney profiteering as a nexus between powerful politicians and oil companies that the paper would dishonestly obscure the relationship between the two men?
Hey, but that would be about Darth Cheney, so that's different!


From Crittenden on the Ditherer in Chief:
It’s not quite a strategic retreat, more of a retreat into strategizing as Obama dithers about the dithering, informs his national security team it’s back to Square One. Scratch everything, back to the drawing board. He wants to stop thinking about the war until he can figure out the peace part. OK, that may not be exactly how senior administration officials put it, but at this point, inaction speaks louder than words.
...
Never mind whether he’s going to commit more troops. He isn’t ready to commit to whether he’ll commit to commiting more troops. This part is fun:

Military officials said Obama has asked for a rewrite before and resisted what one official called a one-way highway toward war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recommendations for more troops. The sense that he was being rushed and railroaded has stiffened Obama’s resolve to seek information and options beyond military planning, officials said, though a substantial troop increase is still likely.

Ha ha, his resolve to keep dithering has been stiffened! Good one. AP scribbler with a keen sense of irony or AP scribbler without a clue?

(Well, in fairness, even if the president did declare back in 2008 this war was a vital national security interest, and he did signal last spring he was on board with counterinsurgency, and even if he did appoint Gen. Stanley McChrystal to get the job done in May, the general’s recommendations only arrived in August, and the president didn’t look at them until, what, late September, and he’s been really busy this whole time letting Congress bollix his health-care initiative, throwing Eastern Europe under the bus and flying to Copenhagen, that kind of thing, so he’s only been able to squeeze in seven high-level national security meetings, or is it eight? Is it so unreasonable to ask for new options on top of the new options that he asked for on top of the new options that McChrystal gave him? Meanwhile, China’s ass wants kissing and then we’re into the holidays … )


Hell with it. Things to do...

Based on what's been coming out, if he'd been a nutty islamist

the Army wouldn't be screwing with him; since he's not...

How is it that a Army Major can make treasonous remarks and still hold his job and then go and murder 13 people, but CJ tries to exercise his rights of free speech and then gets his life turned upside down? What the hell is this about? How can this happen?

ACORN and NEA; more coming from Big Government

and Big Hollywood. ACORN first:
Since I woke up to the news that ACORN had sued the U.S. government to get its federal funding back, it struck me as obvious that ACORN is in the process of trying to get its mojo back absent any real investigations by the Holder Justice Department, the Democratic-controlled Congress, and the Jerry Brown sham investigation in California – not to mention the so-called “internal investigation” whose chief investigator was picked by number one ACORN defender, John Podesta, and SEIU head Andy Stern, whose union is deeply aligned with the troubled “community organizing” group.

Despite all the evidence we have published that exposes ACORN as both corrupt and criminal, no other mainstream media organization has shown any signs of investigating ACORN despite countless angles and document trails. So I knew I had to go down to the protest on Bundy Drive to ask ACORN protesters a few questions.
Note the line at Insty: There are more videos to come next week. I wonder when the major media will get off their bigoted asses and actually start to cover this?


And on the NEA mess,
Chairman Landesman’s claim that Yosi Sergant, the former NEA Communications Director, acted “unilaterally” on the controversial August 10th conference call is not only beginning to erode, but new documents obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act show that another federal employee thought the arts effort was entering murky legal waters.

In an email dated July 30, 2009, Nellie Abernathy, a representative of the federal program United We Serve, sent an email to Sergant to inquire of his interest in attending a meeting regarding 9/11 events – the culmination day of the United We Serve campaign. In the email Abernathy states (emphasis added):

“Just got off the phone with [redacted]. They’re interested in helping produce some 9/11 events and will be in DC next week. Any chance you could join us for a meeting Tuesday morning? Or does this fall into that sketchy grey we might get arrested area?”

Sergant responded, “I’d love to.”

The subject of the email correspondence was entitled “rock the vote,” which presumably should have been redacted (blacked out) in the subject line given that the organization is a non-government group and the other subject lines in the email chain were redacted.

Same question as on ACORN; probably same answer: Only when they think they have to or lose everything.

Like the lady says, how great

are dogs?

If this Obamacare scheme is so damned good,

why do they have to threaten to jail you if you don't take part?
Stone: Do you think it’s fair to send people to jail who don’t buy health insurance?
Pelosi: … The legislation is very fair in this respect.
I heard the audio earlier; he asked three times as I recall and never got an actual answer from this bitch.
Back to this leftist insistence that we're all paranoid to even think this way, to even define "freedom" in an antique, right-wing fashion, meaning "stuff you are permitted to do or not do without penalty and coercion from the state:" It is especially risible to me, in gallows-humor way, that the left continues to call us lunatics for fretting about increasing state control and increasing state coercion and increasing state outlawing of previously-legal behavior and freedoms even as, in their very first bill out of the socialist box, they propose jailing Americans for engaging in unobjectionable behavior which no one ever before dreamt of being a crime.
...
Right out of the box. The state here -- Pelosi, Reid, Obama -- are claiming that they can imprison people for behavior that has never before even been hinted as being a crime, on the theory that such behavior constitutes unpatriotic economic behavior which is detrimental to the state's balance sheets.

Think about what a broad, all-encompassing term "economics" is. 80% of our waking hours are spent in economic activity of one sort or another. The state here is asserting the right to imprison people for behavior they consider not actually morally reprehensible or harmful as other crimes are, but instead merely detrimental to the Great Push Forward, the state's master plan of economic health and well-being.

"Fascism, as they say, tends to come with a smiling face, and there's hardly a face more surgically stretched into smiles than Nancy Pelosi's, quite chipper and blithe as she proposes that she will begin filling America's prisons with a whole new category of criminal, the economic saboteur."

Cartoon thanks to Theo

President B. Hussein Cartman Obama votes 'Present' (updated)

on Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
He got the damned study from his commanding general in the country, spent a month playing games refusing to 'officially' receive it, then started playing more games to delay, and now this.

Among the options for Obama would be ways to phase in additional troops, perhaps eventually equaling McChrystal's full request, based on security or other conditions in Afghanistan and in response to pending decisions on troops levels by some U.S. allies fighting in Afghanistan.
If he doesn't know that we can't count on most of the allies we have there, he's far more stupid than I think he is; Gordon Brown won't even supply enough choppers for his own damned troops, for instance. British troops and others are fine fighters when they're allowed to be; but most of their governments have deliberately hamstrung them. And this 'eventually' means "Drag it out as long as possible so I can find a way to cut and run without calling it that." Or so I'm convinced.

Obama's top military advisers have said they are comfortable with the pace of the process, and senior military officials have pointed out that the president still has time since no additional forces could begin flowing into Afghanistan until early next year.
A: YOUR fat ass isn't being shot at, and dealing with IEDs, I'm sure you're very comfortable.*
B: Every Effing Day you clowns delay a decision means the enemy gets another day of thinking you don't want to win, and it encourages them; and Every Effing Day makes getting any additional troops there drag farther and farther out. And makes it that much harder for them to get the damned job done.


Update: thoughts on the matter from Uncle Jimbo
I am not an expert on ret. LTG Eikenberry, but his ideas seem to be complete fantasy. His last tour in country was as Commander of Combined Forces Command- Afghanistan from 2005-2007. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that when things there went completely into the shitter?

*Am I being unfair? Maybe. Right now, I don't care.

Insty pointed to an article titled Face it: the Democratic Party

is not for women. Basically, long rant about how allowing the Stupak amendment is 'an attack on reproductive rights'. So I went and took a look.

Ok. So an amendment saying 'The Federal Government can't take money away from other people to pay for your abortion' is 'an attack on reproductive freedom'. Uh huh.

This may be hard for some to understand, but you don't have a right to rob other people to pay for something for yourself. Period. The fact that you think you have a right to take money from others to pay for your abortion indicates you think you're owed. And I've got news for you: you're not.

The Fort Hood murderer mess just gets better

and better.
"Put it this way," says one official familiar with the conversations that took place. "Everybody felt that if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, you would not want Nidal Hasan in your foxhole."
...
One official involved in the conversations had reportedly told colleagues that he worried that if Hasan deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, he might leak secret military information to Islamic extremists. Another official reportedly wondered aloud to colleagues whether Hasan might be capable of committing fratricide, like the Muslim U.S. Army sergeant who, in 2003, killed two fellow soldiers and injured 14 others by setting off grenades at a base in Kuwait.

So why nothing done? "It would be too difficult and expensive", "We might be discriminating against him if we act", ...were not aware, as some top Walter Reed officials were, that intelligence analysts had been tracking Hasan's e-mails with at least one suspected Islamic extremist since December 2008. And then we come to the finale:
And finally, Hasan was about to leave Walter Reed and USUHS for good and transfer to Fort Hood, in Texas. Fort Hood has more psychiatrists and other mental specialists than some other Army bases, so officials figured there would be plenty of co-workers who would support Hasan — and monitor him.

So. They didn't want to deal with the trouble of taking action against a guy who scared hell out of them, they didn't want to be seen as being nasty toward a muslim, nobody bothered to point out that along with the other stuff he was contacting the enemy and- kind of the crowning glory of this bullshit- "When he transfers he won't be our problem any more." Isn't this just the kind of reasoning you want from doctors who'll be dealing with wounded and troubled soldiers?

Hope these useless bastards feel real damned good about their cowardice now.

Wish I'd seen this one earlier

Found at Babalu

I really didn't need to read even more 'diversity' bullcrap

on this day, but we can't let this pass without spreading the word around. First, from the freaking NAVAL ACADEMY,
Here we go.

Leaders of the U.S. Naval Academy tinkered with the composition of the color guard that appeared at a World Series game last month so the group would not be exclusively white and male.

An affirmative statement of fact. Keep this para in mind as we move forward. This is the core truth of what happened.

Accounts differ on whose names were added to the color guard roster, or purged from the list. But the net result was that one of the six who marched on the Yankee Stadium field Oct. 29, Midshipman 2nd Class Hannah Allaire, was selected because her presence would make the service academy look more diverse before a national audience.

Accurate - though it would have been two of six if one of the Diversity Selectees did not forget his shoes and cover.
You really need to read it all to get the full flavor of A: the bullshit itself and B: the Academy playing word games to cover things up.

Some more on this bullcrap from Diana West here.


And finally, we have Congress screwing with the Coast Guard Academy in the name of Diversity!
Washington (AP) - The House voted overwhelmingly for a bill that includes a provision giving members of Congress a say over who is admitted to the U.S. Coast Guard's 1,000-cadet service academy in New London, Conn.

The measure -- part of a multi-billion-dollar authorization bill that passed 385-11 on Friday -- was sponsored by Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., who argues that congressional nominations are needed to help increase the number of blacks enrolled at the academy and graduate as commissioned officers.
Don't you just love this shit? "I don't care who got the best scores or who's more qualified, I want more blacks in the academy no matter what!" Rep. Oberstar, you bigot, I don't give a rats ass about the skin color of who's in the Academy; I care that the people who work hard and try for it get a fair shot at it. Period. Screw you and your 'diversity' bullcrap.

Guess who would dictate the rules

governing our entire financial system, up to and including dismantling a large bank or financial institution if it deemed it presented a risk to the economy? Can you say White House czar? I thought that you could.
And the corrupt Sen. Dodd is right in the middle of putting this pile of steaming crap together.

Kind of like Rep. Rangel writing tax laws he won't obey.

Yeah, THIS'LL scare the Democrat Party

It's really more of a "pause," than a boycott. Boycotts sounds so final, and angry. Whereas this campaign is temporary, and is only meant to help some friends - President Obama and the Democratic party - who have lost their way. We are hopeful that via this campaign, our friends will keep their promises.

Then you get to the FAC, and 'Won't this help the Republicans?':
We are not calling for a boycott of donations to the DNC. We are simply calling for a pause until the party follows through on its campaign promise to repeal DADT and DOMA, and pass ENDA.
So it's not a boycott, they're just calling it that. And they'll punish the Democrats by not giving them the money now.

Got a question: do they actually believe Obama gives a damn about them and their concerns?

Well, one of the lessons we can learn

is to tell people like Michael T. McPhearson just how full of shit they are. War is taking a heavy physical and mental toll on our troops. The physical injury is easier to see. The mental wounds are many times invisible until it is too late. It is not a new lesson. We saw social and political questions deteriorate unit cohesion of our military forces in the Vietnam War. and so freaking on. Hey, McPhearson, this asshole had never been in the field! He'd been treated with special consideration every damned step of the way, so piss off, asshole.

And, of course, Zogby: After providing support for survivor families, an immediate concern that must be addressed is how best to secure the vision of a diverse military so eloquently articulated by the President and General Casey.
Got that? The 'immediate concern' is 'diversity'. Not weeding out the jihadi dirtbags, oh no. Screw you too, Zogby.

I don't think the standard "So that's why we didn't catch it"

are going to work.
A senior government official tells ABC News that investigators have found that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan had "more unexplained connections to people being tracked by the FBI" than just radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki. The official declined to name the individuals but Congressional sources said their names and countries of origin were likely to emerge soon.

Questions already surround Major Hasan's contact with Awlaki, a radical cleric based in Yemen whom authorities consider a recruiter for al Qaeda. U.S. officials now confirm Hasan sent as many as 20 e-mails to Awlaki. Authorities intercepted the e-mails but later deemed them innocent or protected by the first amendment.
Throwing out the magic words 'First Amendment' doesn't cut it; he was a serving military officer making contact with an al Qaeda recruiter. THAT should have had the red flag waving and maybe a flare going off. Instead,
The FBI said it turned over the information to the Army, but Defense Department officials today denied that. One military investigator on a joint terror task force with the FBI was shown the e-mails, but they were never forwarded in a formal way to more senior officials at the Pentagon, and the Army did not learn of the contacts until after the shootings.
Ah, yes. They were 'shown', but the 'formalities' weren't taken care of, so... And we're supposed to TRUST these clowns?

Meanwhile, in a true G-Man effort to look like they're doing something,
In Texas, an hour before a memorial service for the Fort Hood victims, four FBI agents showed up at the Killeen mosque where Hasan prayed and searched a trash bin outside. The mosque president was clearly upset when he had to return from traveling to the service to sign a document handed to him by agents, apparently authorizing the search.

The FBI would not comment on what the agents were looking for at the mosque a full five days after the shooting, but motivation remains the focus.
And, of course, the Outrage Is Flowing:
"We're concerned any time a house of worship is searched in this fashion," said Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington, D.C.-based civil rights group. "And we would follow up to see if there was probable cause for the search and if it was carried out in the appropriate and legal manner."
First off, Hooper, if I recall correctly it's been long settled that what you throw in the trash the police can dig through without a warrant; that's been covered in many cases in the past. So your 'concerns' you can shove up your ass, you're just as subject to that as anyone else.
Second, 'apparently' authorizing the search? In other words "We can search the trash without their permission, but while we'd do that to anyone else, for a mosque we need something signed giving 'permission' ." Or so it seems to me. I may be wrong, but right now I'm not willing to give these people ANY benefit of the doubt.

In interviews with the media, leaders of the Muslim Community Center

have painted a portrait of Hasan as a quiet, unassuming Muslim more interested in finding a wife than debating world politics. They express shock at his killing spree and, appropriately, condemn it. But a closer look behind the doors of the mosque and inside the conversations between the engineer and the doctor reveal a more complex picture of a young first-generation American Muslim man living a life of dissonance between his identity as an American and his ideology as a Muslim who had accepted a literal, rigid interpretation of Islam, akin to the puritanical Wahhabi and Salafi interpretations of Islam that define the theology of militancy inside the Muslim world today, according to community members who knew Hasan.

“So many times I talked with him,” said Akhter, a community leader who is sort of like a mosque gadfly, challenging congregants to reject literal, rigid interpretations of Islam. “I was trying to modernize him. I tried my best. He used to hate America as a whole. He was more anti-American than American.”

Despite all the conversations, Akther said, “I couldn’t get through to him. He was a typical fundamentalist Muslim.”
Which is exactly the fact that so much of our media and PC-at-any-cost morons do not want to recognize; or if they do, don't want anyone allowed to mention it. It hurts their poor brain to have to recognize that a real enemy is out there, and it interferes with their plans to re-make this country in their PC image.

Second, it's that 'they condemn it, but behind the mosque doors' crap that's going to lead to real trouble; sounds very nice to say "This was a terrible act, etc.", but when we find that off camera they're praising the bastard, how are we supposed to trust them?

Third, the muslims who actually want to change things, stop the "Kill all people of other beliefs" crap, are more in danger from their mosque brethren than from some beloved-by-the-media redneck.



Found thanks to Tim Blair

Why the Department of Homeland Security missed Hasan

And apparently the Effing.B.I. was using the same method

And I should have said this earlier: Happy Birthday,

Marines

It appears that the need of a bunch of people to refuse to even mention

Reagan in connection with the Wall coming down is, well, it's at the level of a mental disorder for a good many.

And while we're on the subject of PC morons who hate troops,

can it at least be made not-a-crime for a parent to beat hell out of Code Pinko when they do shit like this?

Right at the moment, I'm of the mind that every FBI, Army and any other 'intelligence'

or LE agency who knew about the murderer Hasan's contacts should be fired. And possibly hanged, seeing as how they've turned out to be accomplices to mass murder.
Army officials strongly deny any suggestion that Hasan's religion resulted in his being given special treatment. But one officer who attended the Pentagon's medical school with Hasan disagrees. "He was very vocal about being a Muslim first and holding Sharia law above the Constitution," this officer recalled. When fellow students asked, "How can you be an officer and hold to the Constitution?," the officer said, Hasan would "get visibly upset — sweaty and nervous — and had no good answers." This medical doctor would only speak anonymously because his commanders have ordered him not to talk about Hasan, he said.

This officer said he was so surprised when Hasan gave a talk about "the war on terror being a war on Islam" that he asked the lieutenant colonel running the course what Hasan's presentation had to do with health care. "I raised my hand and asked, `Why are you letting this go on — this has nothing to do with environmental health.' The course director said, `I'm just going to let him go.'" The topic of Hasan's presentation, the officer says, had been approved in advance by the lieutenant colonel.
So let's add to the list officers who knew this bastard was doing things he shouldn't and didn't have the integrity or balls to officially say or do anything.


WASHINGTON – Finger-pointing erupted between federal agencies Tuesday over Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Hasan. Government officials said a Defense Department terrorism investigator looked into Hasan's contacts with a radical imam months ago, but a military official denied prior knowledge of the Army psychiatrist's contacts with any Muslim extremists.
"Don't blame US, WE didn't know anything about this! It was somebody else's fault!"
The assessment concluded Hasan did not merit further investigation — in large part because his communications with the imam were centered on a research paper about the effects of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and the investigator determined that Hasan was in fact working on such a paper, the officials said.
And, of course, it never occurred to these clowns to wonder why, in researching such a paper, he'd contact an imam who preaches death to and murder of American troops and Americans in general... Sure, first guy he'd contact; after all, this bastard offspring of a rabid pig was counseling American troops, so why wouldn't he contact someone who wants us all dead for research 'about the effects of combat' ?

Of course, we also have idiotic statements like Hasan has not been formally charged but officials plan to charge him in military court, not a civilian one, a choice that suggests his alleged actions are not thought to have emanated from a terrorist organization. He could face the death penalty. Hey, moron, how 'bout a military court because he was/is a serving military officer? You jackass.

The fact is, we've got a bunch of politicians and people in influential groups who'd rather see more of us dead than admit that being muslim does indeed represent a serious data point in watching out for these murderers. And lots of politicians in uniform who'll do just about anything to keep said politicians happy; that seeming to be far more important to them than, say, the lives of fellow soldiers.

Can we borrow some parts of the Tower of London for a while? Assuming the equipment still works.

A cop writes on her experience with TSA

and it ain't flattering.
"Do I have the right to refuse this search?"

TSA doesn't understand what 'random' means

CNN: Slanting information and sliming people

who say what they don't want to hear:
Update: Turns out the "C" stands for "cover-up". CNN has deleted the story and replaced it with another one at the same url. No doubt that can be explained as a "re-write" - of course, no explanation is provided. (Common practice among news organizations these days.) That first mistake was not a transcription error or a typo, nor was Pvt Foster's meaning unclear. Two comments delivered two minutes apart were combined to make one that meant exactly the opposite of what he said.

However. the same passage can still be found in this CNN report (for now) - they really wanted people to get the message.The original CNN story (headlined Fort Hood Shooting Suspect Conscious, Talking, Hospital Says) can still be found at other locations.
...
From the day this story broke, CNN has run with a storyline that the killer's actions are typical of all military members - that he's a typical soldier - which means his victims were just like him.

As evidence to the contrary mounted they ignored it, but here they willfully and intentionally re-wrote an eyewitness account to make it fit their narrative - something altogether different. This isn't the only example from the Ft Hood story that proves once again if you get your news from television and newspapers you're getting something other than news.

Well, so they wanted information from Indymedia

including "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair to "include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information," including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers' Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on. AND ordered them not to tell anybody about it.

And then dropped it when challenged.

Wonder just what they were actually after?

Couple of interesting things on the science front

First, on a volcano in Italy:
TO ANCIENT Romans the Phlegraean Fields hosted the entrance to Hades. In modern times it is better known as the site of a "supercolossal" volcanic eruption 39,000 years ago.

Will we see the next disaster coming? That's one of the questions an ambitious drilling project hopes to answer by sinking boreholes into Campi Flegrei, as the giant collapsed volcanic crater is now called. Starting as early as next month, the Campi Flegrei Deep Drilling Project is planning to drill seven holes in the region (see map).
Interesting project. There's concern that if they drill into- or close enough to- a magma chamber it could cause a problem, up to and including the possible triggering of a eruption
Several incidents have plagued similar projects. In June, the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP), which aims to tap geothermal energy from hot magma, had to be stopped. At 2104 metres down, magma streamed into the borehole, causing a small explosion as the drilling fluid vaporised. That project is on hold, though it will start again in 2011 with a new borehole, says Guðmundur Ómar Friðleifsson of the IDDP. And in 2005, researchers working on a drilling project in Hawaii got a fright when magma hotter than 1000 °C leaked into the borehole.

"Under unfavourable conditions, contact of the drilling fluid with magma could be very dangerous," says Ralf Büttner, a volcanologist at the University of Würzburg in Germany. "It is even theoretically conceivable that, ultimately, a major eruption could result."
the all the arguing you could expect about the idea. Which leads to this statement:
In any case, the Campi Flegrei drilling is unlikely to hit magma. Boreholes are expected to reach a maximum depth of 4 kilometres, around half the depth of any known reservoirs, according to Jörg Erzinger of the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam (GFZ). Even if magma flows into a borehole, Ulrich Harms, another GFZ scientist, argues it would not necessarily be dangerous. "Situations like that provide exceptional insights," Harms says.(bold mine)
Please understand, I like the idea of research into how things work, and when they might; it's just that this causes me to imagine one of those "Uh, pro- PROFESSOR!" moments.


The other is light sail research. Which is a good idea; EVERY way of going out there should be worked on. My only problem is the pessimism of the guy:
Whether humans could ever take these trips depends on just how starry-eyed one’s view of the future is.

Dr. Friedman said it would take too long and involve too much exposure to radiation to sail humans to a place like Mars. He said the only passengers on an interstellar voyage — even after 200 years of additional technological development — were likely to be robots or perhaps our genomes encoded on a chip, a consequence of the need to keep the craft light, like a giant cosmic kite.
I think that, if after 200 years, we're still at the point of "We can only send instruments out", we're screwed. Of course, he may just be playing "Let's not push this thing too hard right now"; I hope so.

If you think Obamacare is really about health care,

I point you to a couple of things:
Before the House vote last Saturday, Obama made two key political points to Democratic House members. First, they needed to vote for health care because it would motivate the party base in 2010. Second, those who think they can run away from the president by voting against his signature legislative effort are kidding themselves.
This is about control of our lives, at any cost. The Evil Party, and a bunch of RINOs in the Stupid Party, like having control of us; it makes them feel less threatened by voters. And, note, he's not phrasing this as "It's better for people"; he's pushing this as "It's good for the Party. And maybe I can help you stay in office for a long time." Which is one more reason I've come to be real interested in term limits.

Second, the Evil Party desperation to keep a 'public option' in the bill:
That approach appeals to moderates such as Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. “If the private market fails to reform, there would be a fallback position,” Landrieu said last week. “It should be triggered by choice and affordability, not by political whim.”

Lieberman said he opposes the public plan because it could become a huge and costly entitlement program.

For now, Reid is trying to find the votes for a different approach: a government plan that states could opt out of.
There is absolutely no reason that any actual 'health care reform' needs the government taking over insurance. And all these 'options'- like the 'opt-out' where a state would still have to pay for it even if they opt out, and the 'triggered by' crap, are just ways to get a government takeover through so they can then change it, or interpret it, to allow complete takeover(anyone think Landrieu's 'choice and affordability' wouldn't be defined specifically to allow the feds to take over as soon as possible?)

Make no mistake, this is about control, nothing more.

But as he heads to Japan,

Obama he promised a reporter that he will visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki sometime in his presidency.
Hey, visiting the ceremony of the falling of the Berlin Wall would have been uncomfortable for him; he probably wishes the Soviet Union was still operating and crushing freedom. Whereas if he goes to these cities he can make some references to how mean and nasty the US was to Japan, which would fit right in as a continuation of his Apology Tour.

How 'bout some legal news?

Like how the St. Louis DA, Bob McCulloch, seems to be trying to cover for the SEIU thugs who beat up Kenneth Gladney?
The Gladney beating took place at a forum on ‘Aging’, sponsored by Rep. Russ Carnahan. Carnahan had been caught flat-footed by earlier protests. This time he was more prepared; the day before the forum, Sara Howard took over as his communications director. Ms. Howard is a veteran leftist activist, holding senior positions with SEIU.

SEIU and partisan hacks like Media Matters have tried to spin away the Gladney beating. They would have you believe a 130 lb diabetic, recovering luekemia patient, picked a fight with men almost twice his size. The police report puts an end to that lie.
So if the police report shows the facts of the Gladney case, why isn't McCulloch filing-hell, why hasn't that already been done- charges?


Looks like the Chicago prosecutors are more interested in scaring off people who check back on cases than in the idea of justice:
Protess and his students spent three academic years investigating the case of Anthony McKinney, a suburban Chicago man serving a life sentence for killing a security guard in 1978. After interviewing witnesses and inspecting documents, they're convinced that McKinney had nothing to do with the murder.

Several witnesses told the students that they implicated McKinney in the murder only after they were beaten by police. Northwestern's legal clinic filed a petition seeking a new trial.

Prosecutors conceded a hearing was warranted but also sought all the students' notes, unpublished memos and reimbursements for their expenses. Daly insists the subpoenas are justified because of information that Alvarez's office has uncovered, but would not elaborate.
Unless they have some really interesting reasoning, the only reason I can see for this is "You're making us look bad, and we want to stop you from doing it again."
Northwestern's lawyers have filed a motion to quash the subpoenas, and the judge may act on that Tuesday when a hearing is set to hear arguments about whether there should be a new trial in the case. In the prosecution's response, they argue that Protess and his students aren't journalists and therefore aren't protected by reporters' privilege.

John Lavine, dean of Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, considers that argument chilling.
Which is, I'd say, exactly the idea.
Meanwhile, prosecutors have declined to release records of the police officers who were involved in McKinney's case, and have also rebuffed a Protess offer to release students' grades in exchange for prosecutors' performance reviews.

Benn, the former Protess student, said he thinks the prosecutors' motives are clear.

"The state's attorney's office is trying to save itself from the embarrassment of students finding another innocent man in prison," he said.
I'd think the records of the officers in the case are far more relevant than the student's grades; and so are the prosecutors records. But then, I'm just a layman. And haven't, quite possibly, stuck another innocent man in prison.

One last thing has to be put up tonight

There is no context, there is no nuance, there is no circumstance that will EVER make the good General’s words or the like to be correct. And if I hear one … just one … more person say that the “real” victims here are the American Muslims I will punch them squarely in the face.

I think I shall close this evening with a note of two politicians, (updated)

one disgusting little suckup of the Stupid Party,
This is the oldest trick in the book, and one all conservatives are rightly furious at. We all know that any prominent Republican can gain that Strange New Respect from the liberal media simply by running down his fellows. We all know this. We all know how ineffably easy it is to acquire the personal fondness of the liberal media -- all this is necessary is some quick and easy slanders of everyone else in the party.

In case Michael Steele didn't notice, the job of GOP chairman is to promote the party. Promote the party. Promote the party. Promote the party Promote the party.


And one flat amazingly disgusting little egomaniac of the Evil Party:
There was one world leader absent for today’s commemorations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Surprisingly enough, it’s President Barack Obama, who found time last year to give a campaign speech there last year, which Der Spiegel summed up as “People of the World, Look at Me”.

The White House has cited a packed schedule, though looking at it he had nothing much on yesterday (brief chat to reporters about healthcare – by far his biggest priority) and just blah briefings and a bill signing today until a metting this evening with Benjamin Netanyahu. This time, Der Spiegel has reported it as “Barack Too Busy”.
Hey, he was busy visting the wounde- oh, that's right. Never mind. I guess he was worn out figuring how to say "The fall of the Berlin Wall actually happened to pave the way for me to become President of the World."

Update: found the wording from his recorded speech:
Even as we celebrate these values, even as we mark this day, we know the work of freedom is never finished. In a Berlin under siege, President Kennedy said, “Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.” Few would have foreseen on that day that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it.
YOU DON'T HAVE A DAMNED THING TO DO WITH IT, YOU DIRTBAG! But you've just got to insert your greatness into EVERY DAMNED THING, don't you?

It seems Chris Matthews still has that thrill so far up his leg over Obama

that it's reached into his ass and scrambled his brain:
Chris Matthews: "It's not a crime to call Al Qaeda, is it? I mean, where do you stop the guy?" Matthews spins on behalf of his wannabe-boyfriend Obama and the incompetents in the federal government.

Funny, seems to me that after 9/11, National Security Concern Trolls like Chris Matthews were pretty sure we should have rolled up the Mohammad Atta cell based upon pilot-training inquiries.

But now we have a guy in the army calling Al Qaeda on the phone and Chris Matthews is generally perplexed as to what we could have possibly have done to stop this.

And now, from the Effing.B.I, the excuse is

"We didn't think he was actually dangerous or anything, so we didn't go any further."
Intelligence agencies intercepted communications last year and earlier this year between Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who is accused of shooting to death 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., and a radical cleric in Yemen known for his incendiary anti-American teachings. But federal authorities dropped an inquiry into the matter after deciding the messages warranted no further action, government officials said on Monday.
...
But federal officials briefed on the case said their decision to break off the investigation was reasonable based on the information about Maj. Hasan that was compiled at the time, which they said gave no indication he was likely to engage in violence.
Let's see, who was he contacting? Guy named al-Awlaki:
“There is good reason to believe Anwar Aulaqi has been involved in very serious terrorist activities since leaving the United States, including plotting attacks against America and our allies.”
But a serving military officer exchanging e-mails with this bastard was no cause for concern? For an in-depth investigation? Even when combined with all the other crap they knew about him?

Yeah.

You Effing.B.I morons, I hope you're real happy about your actions, because you had a hand in allowing the murders and woundings at Fort Hood to happen.

Of course, the Effing.B.I. clowns who screwed up in the days leading up to 9/11 didn't get fired, or even really disciplined that we know of, so hey, you're good, right? After all, if they didn't get fired or prosecuted after 3,000 dead, why would the bureau do anything to you for a lousy baker's dozen?

The kind of thinking you may be paying big dollars

to a university for:
Students constructed a memorial to the victims of socialism as a stark reminder of the horrors of socialism, and of its victims.
...
YAL leader John Burns reported on the event today.
The university shut it down… It was too offensive.

Let's see, Yale won't print the Mohammed cartoons, Washington U thinks informing people of the horrors of communism is 'too offensive'(I wonder if the millions of dead victims are offensive to them, or just part of making the omelette?), conservatives and libertarians get either shouted down or 'disinvited' by the administration of many universities... Tell me again how it's us nasty conservative tea party types who hate free speech?

A little bit from the lady on our media and the military

"Back in 2005 I conducted a little thought experiment. I went to America's leading newspapers and searched on the names of American heroes. What I found out won't surprise you if you've been paying attention. Mentions of Cindy Sheehan were thick upon the ground. Mentions of American heroes? Not so much:
Sgt. Rafael Peralta didn't have to become a United States Marine. And he didn't have to go to war. That's just the kind of man he was.
...
Most Americans have never heard of Rafael Peralta, and they never will.

In past wars, he would have been a hero. His name would have been a household word, his deeds an inspiration to small boys, their eyes growing wide with amazement at his sacrifice. The chests of old men would have puffed out in pride. Crusty veterans would have stood a bit taller, remembering their own service. Women would have grown misty-eyed, and young girls would have laid flowers on his grave, wiping away a tear as they dreamed of handsome heroes.

But they will never hear of him - his voice has been silenced. The mainstream media does not consider the sacrifices of men like Sgt. Rafael Peralta "newsworthy". The media do not seem interested in talking to Sgt. Peralta's family. Instead, we get to hear about Cindy Sheehan all day, every day."

Yeah, and they'll- hell, go read it.

Since I didn't sleep well, and I'm in a bad mood anyway,

let's lay into the Clown in Chief and his use of our troops blood to push socialized medicine:
I'm trying to imagine the political environment that Washington Democrats occupy. A President glibly lays out that analogy, and it is received — without any wincing or taint of disgust — as awesome inspiration. These are the minds that will be making decisions for us for quite a while.
Don't you just love it that a bunch of politicians seem to consider "I might not keep this office!" as a 'sacrifice'? News for you, you bastards, you're not SUPPOSED to stay there as a damned lifelong career; the fact that you consider it such means you shouldn't be there in the first place.

And I'll note in the comments you have lots of lefties who seem to have completely blanked out eight years of "Bushitler!" and other such bullcrap. As usual.


From the lady at Villainous Company,
Life is full of mysteries, but chief among them in this Marine wife's mind at the moment is, "Just how stupid does this White House think we are?" If the events of the past few months have shown us anything, it's that Barack Obama has little enthusiasm for - or interest in - one of the most important duties of an American President: his role as Commander in Chief of the nation's armed forces.
and she notes this:

Instead of comforting his troops, President Obama decided to spend the weekend at Camp David.

Even if one were inclined to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt and assume that he had asked Former President Bush and Mrs. Bush to visit the wounded soldiers because the Bushes live in Texas, why would he ask this of his predecessor and not get on Air Force One overnight to get down there himself?

Why would he not go to be with those whom he is charged to send into battle and who were so horrifyingly betrayed by one of their own?

Because he doesn't give a rat's backside, that's why not.

(And, I suspect, he realizes that dragging the whole damned press corp along to take pictures wouldn't be well-received; and if he can't get publicity shots, he just doesn't think it's worth going)

The lady closes with this:
Obama doesn't "get" the military because with every step they take, whether it's on prosthetic legs or the steely sinews of a combat hardened Marine, their strength and independence give the lie to his defeatest rhetoric. All those unbowed shoulders, unbeaten spirits and uplifted heads make him profoundly uncomfortable.

As well they should. Americans don't need to be rescued by the government. We have each other.

A bit more information from Steyn

"A coherent strategy to address 21st century threats to the United States, one that treats national and homeland security as a seamless whole, has yet to emerge... To help fuel this process, in April 2008 The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) established the Presidential Transition Task Force, comprised of national and homeland security experts, policymakers and practitioners... The goal was to determine the top strategic priorities to advance the nation’s security in the coming decade...

Event Participants:

...Amanda Halpern
U.S. House of Representatives

Beth Hampton
Homeland Security Institute

Nidal Hasan
Uniformed Services University School of Medicine

Donald Hawkins
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Eric Heighberger
Homeland Security Council...

That's quite the company for a deranged misfit loner whacko of no broader significance."

The idiocy about the Fort Hood jihadist just gets better

and better:
U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.

One senior lawmaker said the CIA had, so far, refused to brief the intelligence committees on what, if any, knowledge they had about Hasan's efforts.
Number one: if they didn't inform the Army, why the hell not? Second, they 'refuse' to brief them? Really. I can think of several responses to that that do not involve violent conduct(think there's be a problem finding someone to swing a flagrum right now?), so I'd say at least one of them needs to be done. At least first.


Second, while the speaker for IVAW is throwing out bullshit like this:
Selena Coppa, an activist for Iraq Veterans Against the War, said: “This man was a psychiatrist and was working with other psychiatrists every day and they failed to notice how deeply disturbed someone right in their midst was.”
their little 'nobody noticed' is kind of contradicted by things like
One Army doctor who knew him said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim soldier had stopped fellow officers from filing formal complaints.
and this
Another, Dr Val Finnell, who took a course with him in 2007 at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Maryland, did complain about Hasan’s “anti-American rants.” He said: “The system is not doing what it’s supposed to do. He at least should have been confronted about these beliefs, told to cease and desist, and to shape up or ship out. I really questioned his loyalty.”
So while General Casey is saying thing like ...the Army’s Chief of Staff, said it was “speculation” that military authorities failed to pick up on warning signs. “I don’t want to say that we missed it,” he said.
(Oh, God, you REALLY don't want to say you missed it; but you did), we're dealing with the fact that a good number of people who did notice the problems with this murderer refused to make an official report because they knew the Diversity Police would quite possibly ruin their career for doing so.
“It’s too early to draw conclusions but we will ask ourselves the hard questions about what we are doing and the changes we should make as a result of this.”
How about making sure that devotion to political correctness and 'diversity' does NOT trump intelligence and good sense? Seems like that might be a change to make, General. So we don't have to read things like this:
Danquah assumed the military’s chain of command knew about Hasan’s doubts, which had been known for more than a year to classmates in a graduate military medical program. His fellow students complained to the faculty about Hasan’s "anti-American propaganda," but said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal written complaint.
AFTER a terrorist murders American troops.

I'm not as polite as the guy posting the list; here's some crap-eating blue lapdogs

that need to be remembered for rolling over for Pelosi:
Congressman Arcuri - New York's 24th congressional district - R+2.
Congressman Baca - California's 43rd congressional district - D+13.
Congressman Berry - Arkansas 1st congressional district - R+8.
Congressman Bishop - Georgia's 2nd congressional district - D+1.
Congressman Boswell - Iowa's 3rd congressional district - D+1.
Congressman Cardoza - California's 18th congressional district - D+4.
Congressman Carney - Pennsylvania's 10th congressional district - R+8.
Congressman Cooper - Tennessee's 5th congressional district - D+3.
Congressman Costa - California's 20th congressional district - D+5.
Congressman Cuellar - Texas' 28th congressional district. - EVEN.
Congresswoman Dahlkemper - Pennsylvania's 3rd congressional district - R+3.
Congressman Donnelly - Indiana's 2nd congressional district - R+2.
Congressman Ellsworth - Indiana's 8th congressional district - R+8.
Congresswoman Giffords - Arizona's 8th congressional district - R+4.
Congresswoman Harman - California's 36th congressional district - D+12.
Congressman Hill - Indiana's 9th congressional district - R+6.
Congressman Mechaud - Maine's 2nd congressional district - D+3.
Congressman Mitchell - Arizona's 5th congressional district - R+5.
Congressman Moore - Kansas 3rd congressional district - R+3.
Congressman Murphy - Pennsylvania's 8th congressional district - D+2.
Congressman Pomeroy - North Dakota's at-large congressional district - R+10.
Congressman Salazar - Colorado's 3rd congressional district - R+5.
Congresswoman Sanchez - California's 47th congressional district - D+4.
Congressman Schiff - California's 29th congressional district - D+14.
Congressman Scott - Georgia's 13th congressional district - D+15.
Congressman Space - Ohio's 18th congressional district - R+7.
Congressman Thompson - California's 1st congressional district - D+13.
Congressman Wilson - Ohio's 6th congressional district - R+2.
Normally I'd just post the link, but I think these named need to be put up as much as possible.

Oh, and let us not forget,
RELATED: Congressman Cao is a backstabbing SOB!

So Italy is going down the PC toilet along with so many other

places. You can argue about the actual question here, the Crucifix being displayed in schools, but the actual intent of these people is well-displayed:
Calling the crucifix a “small body on two wooden sticks,” and “a miniature cadaver,” Smith and UOMII lobbied hard for their removal. Also on their agenda was the removal of an “offensive” 15th century Giovanni di Modena fresco in the Bologna cathedral and the deletion of Dante’s Divine Comedy from the school syllabus.
This wasn't simply "You shouldn't have one religion favored" type argument; this was a "You can't have anything we don't like" power grab.

You aren't going to see too many bloggers commenting on this

shocking poll result, nor will you see the media do anything but shy away from any criticism that could even vaguely be misrepresented as racist, but seriously... what kind of plantation mentality is this?
Some good questions from Confederate Yankee

Oh, just friggin' wonderful; among the things the FBI missed

by not having an 'official' investigation,
Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother's funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Now, I realize I'm not a G-Man, a (so very)Special Agent of the Eff Bee Aye*; nor am I a Trained Professional in Army CID; but I, a dumbass in Oklahoma, do think that finding out things like this about a serving officer WHO ALSO WAS PRAISING SUICIDE BOMBERS WHO KILL AMERICAN TROOPS- and saying crap like THIS- just MIGHT have been important.

But in this case, there appears to be a legitimate question whether political correctness has infected the Army to a degree that has endangered military personnel. That possibility deserves a sober and serious investigation. No damned question; but do you think we'll actually get that with our 'racial cowards' AG and President Obama? Hell, he's too busy using their blood to shove his socialized medicine scheme down our throats to actually worry about things like this.

For that matter, he hasn't managed to find time in his schedule to, y'know, visit the wounded; I guess using their blood for political purposes is just so much more important...

*For a good many in that agency, I'm convinced that one of the translations of their initials is properly 'Effing Bunch of Incompetents'.

I repeat, every politician who voted for Pelosi's socialized medicine bill

ought to be dragged out into the street and horsewhipped. And removed from the office. Hey, Louisiana, you've got a dirtbag with an 'R' after his name- Joseph Cao- who sold out(and cheap, too); you need to have words with this jerk.

And the Republican Party is continuing to demonstrate why its proper name is the Stupid Party.

And to all of you whose Democrat representative voted for a bill that includes you getting fines and jail time for not buying insurance like the Dear Leader and his minions want, how's that Hope! and Change!! working for you?

Also on the Stupid Party, the RINO Lindsey Graham is still working hard to screw the whole country over.

Y'know, there's got to be at least a couple of hundred lampposts in DC...