[dailymail] Norwegian officials estimate that after sentencing, 20 percent of Norway's criminals don't bother to show up for prison.
That is because until very recently it was not against the law in Norway to skip out of prison. Norway's legislature recently changed that law, but prison officials haven't gotten around to implementing the law.
This makes me wonder about the 80 percent of Norway's convicted criminals who do show up for prison. Are they really that stupid?
Not surprisingly, Norway's crime rate is double that of the United States.
In 2006, Norway had 86.3 crimes reported for every 1,000 people, according to Statistics Norway.
In the United States, reported crimes were 39.8 per 1,000 people, according to the FBI.
The violent crime rates are similar: 5.5 per 1,000 people in Norway, 4.7 per 1,000 people in the United States.
No, for violent crime, one has to head north to Canada, where there are 9.5 violent crimes for every 1,000 people. That figure is down 5 percent from 1996. The numbers are from Statistics Canada.
That's double the violent crime rate in the United States.
**
- In 1995, the U.S. had 411 inmates and 684.6 for every 100,000 people.
- In 2005, the U.S. had 497 inmates and 469.2 violent crimes for every 100,000 people.
[dailymail] (links at site)
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[vdh] Apparently to be called a “new conservative” no longer refers to a way of thinking first identified with a group of influential New-York leftists who tired of their own doctrinaire liberalism in the late 1960s and 1970s, and turned on the Great Society. Nor in matters of foreign policy does it mean that these once liberal / now conservative skeptics were suspicious of both the realpolitik of supporting tyrants and the liberal appeasement of terrorists that amounted to the same thing through inaction.
Instead, to be frank—and I speak as one who supported the idea of removing Saddam and staying on to foster constitutional government there—it is now a thinly-veiled slur against supposedly sneaky, scheming Jewish intellectuals who likewise supposedly got us into a surrogate war for Israel. And this conspiracy theory persists despite the fact that former realists like Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, and Rumsfeld are neither Jewish nor easily hoodwinked—and ultimately made the final decision to go to war after receiving overwhelming authorization from the US Congress, including a majority of Democrats and stirring saber-rattling speeches and warnings about WMD from the likes of Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry.
I have disagreements with neo-cons on things like open borders, but on the Middle East ultimately I think they will be proven correct: that we must find a way to distance ourselves from dictators and yet reply militarily to those who harbor terrorists. In the long term, the forces of globalization and modernism are far more lethal to jihadism than 7th century Islam is to us, but in the dangerous short-term, Bush-I realism and Clintonian cruise-missiles will only lead to another 9/11.
Whom to Trust?
Not The New Republic that printed false accusations from a once anonymous, now unmasked Pvt. Beauchamp, his falsehoods “checked” at the magazine apparently by his newly-wedded wife. Not Newsweek’s “Periscope” that printed falsehoods about flushed Korans. Not Reuters or AP whose wirephotos can be assumed to be either photoshopped or simply captioned with untruths. Not CBS news (‘fake, but accurate’)—not CNN’s president who stepped down after those Davos slurs. I say this only out of amazement at the self-righteousness of all these outlets that give moral lectures about integrity and “truth” to the rest of us.
I Guess We Forgot the Laws of the Past
There used to be certain laws about mortgages, wisdom slowly acquired through past boom and bust cycles of American history. You got a fixed, usually 30-year mortgage. You paid 20% down. And you bought a house whose debt payments did not eat up more than 30-40% of your monthly income.
Tales of wild real estate riches and speculative profits, even if true, meant little, since a home was more than just an investment. Somehow all that was forgotten with no or little down payment loans, adjustable-rate or interest only schedules, and excess purchased square footage.
** Bonus material: Victor Davis Hanson response to Andrew Sullivan
(Entirely and consciously leaving out the meat of the response - do read it yourself - selected lines here...just for the grins.
[nro] The last time I had a run-in with the frenetic Andrew Sullivan was in front of an audience at Columbia University. There while loudly renouncing his former support for invading Iraq, he accused me of supporting government-sponsored torture — only later to concede that in fact, as I told him at the time, I had written a column specifically objecting to its use as others acknowledged. But that apparently has become Sullivan’s modus operandi — in frenzied fashion to toss out slurs and then to grow silent when they are refuted.
Now he is angry that I, like dozens of others, referred to The New Republic’s Pvt. Scott Beauchamp as a fabulist that he is, and so tried to make the case that an opinion writer whose views he disagrees with is comparable to a war chronicler making up facts on ground around him as he goes along.
[...]
I used to think Sullivan was perhaps unstable, but not necessarily dense. But I fear that he is increasingly both-or more still.
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The Report the CIA Didn't Want You to See
Buried in the files for more than two years, a withering internal assessment of pre 9/11 intelligence failures is finally made public.
[msnbc] A long-suppressed internal CIA report on pre-9/11 failures includes important new information about intelligence community squabbling and government fumbling in the months before the terror attacks.
An executive summary of the report, prepared by the agency’s inspector general’s office in 2005 and finally released Tuesday under orders from Congress, is unquestionably embarrassing for former agency director George Tenet and many of his top deputies. According to the report’s findings, the CIA under Tenet’s leadership repeatedly blew opportunities to disrupt the Al Qaeda network—and possibly even penetrate the 9/11 plot itself—because of “mismanagement,” a lack of strategic direction and a “systemic breakdown” within the agency’s Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC).
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Vista Prevents Users Playing High-Def Content
[pcworld] Vista's complicated, overzealous copy protection system is degrading even premium content's that's not copy protected, such as high-definition home movies, says researcher Peter Gutmann.
Content protection features in Windows Vista are preventing customers from playing high-quality video and audio and harming system performance, even as Microsoft neglects security programs that could protect users, computer researcher Peter Gutmann argued at the USENIX Security Symposium in Boston Wednesday. [...]
While Microsoft's intent is to protect commercial content, home movies are increasingly being shot in high definition, Gutmann said. Many users are finding they can't play any content if it's considered "premium."
"This is not commercial HD content being blocked, this is the users' own content," Gutmann said. "The more premium content you have, the more output is disabled." [...]
High-definition audio is also blocked in many cases, Gutmann said Wednesday.
"It's taking this open architecture that IBM created 25 years ago and making it closed again," he said.
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See Who's Editing Wikipedia - Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign
[wired] On November 17th, 2005, an anonymous Wikipedia user deleted 15 paragraphs from an article on e-voting machine-vendor Diebold, excising an entire section critical of the company's machines. While anonymous, such changes typically leave behind digital fingerprints offering hints about the contributor, such as the location of the computer used to make the edits.
In this case, the changes came from an IP address reserved for the corporate offices of Diebold itself. And it is far from an isolated case. A new data-mining service launched Monday traces millions of Wikipedia entries to their corporate sources, and for the first time puts comprehensive data behind longstanding suspicions of manipulation, which until now have surfaced only piecemeal in investigations of specific allegations.
Wikipedia Scanner -- the brainchild of Cal Tech computation and neural-systems graduate student Virgil Griffith -- offers users a searchable database that ties millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to organizations where those edits apparently originated, by cross-referencing the edits with data on who owns the associated block of internet IP addresses.
Inspired by news last year that Congress members' offices had been editing their own entries, Griffith says he got curious, and wanted to know whether big companies and other organizations were doing things in a similarly self-interested vein.
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[NRO] New research from Stephen Schwartz of Brookhaven National Lab concludes that the Earth’s climate is only about one-third as sensitive to carbon dioxide as the IPCC assumes. Schwartz’s study is “in press” at the Journal of Geophysical Research and you can download a preprint of the study [here].
Schwartz is careful to include the appropriate caveats to his results. But he also shows that his estimates are consistent with much of the previous literature on the subject. His study also has the virtue of relying largely on empirical measurements of actual climate behavior during the 20th Century, rather than on climate models.
Stephen Schwartz is a pretty mainstream climate scientist. Yet along with dozens of other studies in the scientific literature, his new study belies Al Gore’s claim that there is no legitimate scholarly alternative to climate catastrophism.
Indeed, if Schwartz’s results are correct, that alone would be enough to overturn in one fell swoop the IPCC’s scientific “consensus”, the environmentalists’ climate hysteria, and the political pretext for the energy-restriction policies that have become so popular with the world’s environmental regulators, elected officials, and corporations. The question is, will anyone in the mainstream media notice?
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Jane Fonda’s Radio Network Tanks
[newsmax] The "feminist” radio company whose founders include Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem failed to attract an audience and it signed off the air for good on Friday.
When the talk-radio network, called GreenStone, officially launched in September 2006, NewsMax reported that it was a "new left-wing radio network that plans to appeal to women listeners and counter the dominance of conservative talk radio.”
[nypost] Former staffers of Green Stone Media, the defunct women's radio network, are grumbling that its founders aren't living up to their feminist creds. Women's libbers Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda are "putting their own reputations above their female employees' finances," one source told Page Six.
The recently shuttered station is "refusing to pay severance, and the founders won't file for bankruptcy protection because it would publicly embarrass Jane and Gloria." A spokesperson for Fonda told us, "This is pure speculation. There is no foundation to the accusations and the staff has been informed throughout."
[nypost] TO thunderous acclaim from the liberal intelligentsia, a team of feminist icons - including Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda - last year launched a women-run radio network. The mainstream media dutifully parroted press releases describing the launch as a "breakthrough" for women in the male-dominated world of talk radio. [...]
Last Friday, GreenStone Media signed off for good. [...]
GreenStone's problem was it couldn't attract an audience of either gender. The programming was picked up by only eight affiliates in small to mid-sized markets. Apparently, GreenStone's programming wasn't the talk that women really want. [...]
GreenStone Media's brand of tepid liberalism didn't appeal to women. This isn't a tragedy for women; it's the market at work. Women will continue to listen to the radio and women talk-show hosts will continue to compete to earn their interest.
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Concerns Raised on Wider Spying Under New Law
[nyt] WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 — Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said. [...]
The dispute illustrates how lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought.
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Edwards, Foreclosure Critic, Has Investing Tie to Subprime Lenders
[wsj] As a presidential candidate, Democrat John Edwards has regularly attacked subprime lenders, particularly those that have filed foreclosure suits against victims of Hurricane Katrina. But as an investor, Mr. Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims.
The Wall Street Journal has identified 34 New Orleans homes whose owners have faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress Investment Group LLC. Mr. Edwards has about $16 million invested in Fortress funds, according to a campaign aide who confirmed a more general Federal Election Commission report. Mr. Edwards worked for Fortress, a publicly held private-equity fund, from late 2005 through 2006.
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Chávez to Propose Removing His Term Limits
[nyt] Aug. 14 — President Hugo Chávez will unveil a project to change the Constitution on Wednesday that is expected to allow him to be re-elected indefinitely, a move that would enhance his authority to accelerate a socialist-inspired transformation of Venezuelan society.
The removal of term limits for Mr. Chávez, which is at the heart of the proposal, is expected to be accompanied by measures circumscribing the authority of elected governors and mayors, who would be prevented from staying in power indefinitely, according to versions of the project leaked in recent weeks.
Willian Lara, the communications minister, said Mr. Chávez would announce the project before the National Assembly, where all 167 lawmakers support the president. Supporters of Mr. Chávez, who was re-elected last year with some 60 percent of the vote, also control the Supreme Court, the entire federal bureaucracy, public oil and infrastructure companies and every state government but two.
The aim of the overhaul is “to guarantee to the people the largest amount of happiness possible,” Mr. Lara said at a news conference on Tuesday.
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TIME Magazine :: Drop in Circulation :: No Worries
[forbes] Time's total paid and verified weekly circulation during the six months ended June 30 stood at 3.4 million, down 17.1% from 4.1 million during the same period last year following a reduction in January in the magazine's rate base. Newsweek's circulation stood at 3.1 million, virtually unchanged from a year earlier.
Time spokeswoman Betsy Burton said the decline in circulation was in line with the magazine's expectations after it slashed its rate base--the average circulation level it guarantees advertisers--from 4 million to 3.25 million. The move was part of Time's plans to shift its ad sales efforts to audience measurements, as opposed to strict circulation measurements. The magazine has said the former will provide advertisers with more transparency and accuracy.
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Nov. 2, 1922 :: The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."
[wshtimes] D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."
The 1922 article, obtained by Inside the Beltway, goes on to mention "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."
"This was one of several such articles I have found at the Library of Congress for the 1920s and 1930s," says Mr. Lockwood. "I had read of the just-released NASA estimates, that four of the 10 hottest years in the U.S. were actually in the 1930s, with 1934 the hottest of all."
Dennis Miller : We enjoy your schtick - have for years - but if someone thinks it's worth $50.00 a year to listen to your archives and get a ball cap...good luck with that. Seriously. I don't even like ball caps. Finite current fanbase aside, by charging this fee you are eliminating potential listeners right out of the gate. The content is great and as amusing as your take on issue might be, the program truly does move with a sludge-like pace. That is tolerable if one is in the mood, but sorry, no sale.
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Karl Rove to Resign At the End of August
[wsj] Karl Rove, President Bush's longtime political adviser, is resigning as White House deputy chief of staff effective Aug. 31.
Mr. Rove, who has held a senior post in the White House since President Bush took office in January 2001, told Mr. Gigot he first floated the idea of leaving a year ago. But he delayed his departure as, first, Democrats took Congress, and then as the White House tackled debates on immigration and Iraq, he said. He said he decided to leave after White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten told senior aides that if they stayed past Labor Day they would be obliged to remain through the end of the president's term in January 2009.
"I just think it's time," Mr. Rove said in the interview. "There's always something that can keep you here, and as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family." Mr. Rove and his wife have a home in Ingram, Texas, and a son who attends college in nearby San Antonio.Mr. Rove said he expects Democrats to give the 2008 presidential nomination to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he described as "a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate." He also said Republicans have "a very good chance" to hold onto the White House in next year's elections.
Mr. Rove also said he expects the president's approval rating to rise again, and that conditions in Iraq will improve as the U.S. military surge continues. He said he expects Democrats to be divided this fall in the battle over warrantless wiretapping, while the budget battle -- and a series of presidential vetoes -- should help Republicans gain an edge on spending restraint and taxes.
Mr. Rove has advised Mr. Bush for more than a decade, working with him closely since Mr. Bush first announced he was running for governor of Texas in 1993 and serving as chief strategist in his presidential campaign in 2000. Before joining the White House, he was president of Karl Rove & Company, the Austin, Texas-based public affairs firm he founded. Mr. Rove first became involved in Republican politics in the 1970s.
From The Onion: Robin Paulus, Gas Station Attendant:
"Is there any word on whether he'll be vanishing into black mist on or off camera?"
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Sanctuary Cities : Fred Thompson
[fredfile] If you listen to folks who oppose immigration and border enforcement, you get the feeling they think we put locks on our doors to keep everybody out. The truth is we have locks so we can choose who comes in.
An example of what happens when we don’t make the choice took place August 4th when three Newark, New Jersey, college students with great promise were executed, gangland style. The killers’ ringleader was apparently an illegal alien indicted twice in 2007 for felonies, including the rape of a kindergarten-aged girl.
Why would such a person be set free instead of being handed over to authorities for deportation? The answer is that Newark is a “sanctuary city” which bans cooperation between local officials and federal immigration officials. More than 60 sanctuary zones, including 30 of America’s largest cities, provide a national networked haven for foreign and organized criminals who recruit and operate outside those areas as well. These sanctuaries include Cambridge, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, California; Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Austin and Houston, Texas; Denver, Colorado; and New York City.
The consequences of “sanctuary cities” may be most obvious in the city that became the first in 1979 — Los Angeles. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, a confidential California Department of Justice study from the mid-1990’s showed then that at least 60 percent of the members of L.A.’s most violent gangs, with membership in the tens of thousands, were illegal aliens. Of all outstanding murder warrants in Los Angeles, 95 percent are for illegal aliens. Frustrated police say they are powerless to pick up even well-known, previously deported felons.
The costs of policies that offer shelter to criminals are borne not just by the citizens of Newark, Cambridge, and other sanctuaries though. According to the investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, illegal aliens made up 27 percent of the federal prison population in 2005, totaling 49,000 and costing federal taxpayers $1.2 billion. There were also more than 220,000 illegals in state and local prisons and jails. Now, I am not suggesting that all illegal aliens are violent criminals. They are not. Most are peaceful folks just trying to get by like the rest of us. But we would be far better off if we checked on people as they come into the country rather than find out who the bad ones are after they victimize people here.
We have the right to keep criminal predators out of our home. Those who want to immigrate into America need to knock, identify themselves, and ask permission first. They will not do so though if we can’t even ask who they are, which is prevented in sanctuary cities. Now I am a strong federalist, but immigration is a responsibility of the federal government, and the failures of local officials to enforce our national laws have a direct impact on communities around the country. So federal law must be enforced, or our neighborhoods will continue to be the scene of chilling and lurid crimes committed by those who broke the law in the first place to come to America.
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[breitbart] Murder charges against a US Marine accused of killing three Iraqi civilians during an alleged massacre in Haditha two years ago have been dropped, the military said on Thursday.
A statement released by the Marines at their Camp Pendleton base in southern California revealed that three charges of unpremeditated murder against Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt had been withdrawn.
The decision was announced in a written ruling from the commander Lieutenant General James Mattis and followed a recommendation from an investigator last month that the charges should be dropped.
"An independent Article 32 investigating officer has considered all the facts and determined that the evidence does not support a referral to court-martial for Lance Corporal Sharratt," Mattis wrote.
"Based on my review of all the evidence in this case and considering the recommendation of the Article 32 officer, I have dismissed the charges."
In a statement recommending the charges be dropped released last month, investigator Lieutenant Colonel Paul Ware said the prosecution charges were "unsupported by the independent evidence."
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Many well recall the jackassery of disgraceful Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, when he made dispicable comments, pre-judging the marines last year in the media, which received no shortage of coverage:
"There was no firefight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood," Murtha said. Watch Murtha level accusations against the Marines : [video clip- 1:58]
"They actually went into the houses and killed women and children," the congressman said. [cnn]
Various people have been calling Murtha's office (and getting hung up on) to get comment regarding this development, but surprise, surprise, none are offered.
How about an apology Mr. Murtha?
Representative Jack Murtha
Washington, D.C. Office
2423 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-2065
(202) 225-5709 fax
You sir, are disgusting.
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[guardian] News agency Reuters has been forced to admit that footage it released last week purportedly showing Russian submersibles on the seabed of the North Pole actually came from the movie Titanic.
The images were reproduced around the world - including by the Guardian and Guardian Unlimited - alongside the story of Russia planting its flag below the North Pole on Thursday last week.
But it has now emerged that the footage actually showed two Finnish-made Mir submersibles that were employed on location filming at the scene of the wreck of the RMS Titanic ship in the north Atlantic some 10 years ago.
This footage was used in sequences in James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster about the 1912 disaster.
The mistake was only revealed after a 13-year-old Finnish schoolboy contacted a local newspaper to tell them the images looked identical to those used in the movie.
Reuters has admitted that it took the images from Russian state television channel RTR and wrongly captioned them as file footage originating from the Arctic.
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How to Survive Anything Mother Nature Throws at You
[popularmechanics] One hundred years of technological progress can be erased in minutes by nature’s fury. Recent disasters have left not only destruction, but also heroism in their wake, and we can learn from the experiences of the survivors.
Also: Popular Mechanics Investigates 9/11 Myths: FAQs
[popularmechanics] Since our cover story debunking September 11 conspiracy theories appeared in early 2005, and our book expanded upon its findings last year, we have received numerous questions—and accusations—regarding our research and analysis of that day's events. Here are our responses to the most frequent ones.
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[dailytech] Steve McIntyre, who operates the site climateaudit.org. While inspecting historical temperature graphs, he noticed a strange discontinuity, or "jump" in many locations, all occurring around the time of January, 2000.
These graphs were created by NASA's Reto Ruedy and James Hansen (who shot to fame when he accused the administration of trying to censor his views on climate change). Hansen refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data.
An example of the Y2K discontinuity in action (Source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies)
McKintyre notified the pair of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an "oversight" that would be fixed in the next data refresh.
NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.
The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the U.S. global warming propaganda machine could be huge.
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[NRO] Historian Hansen offers a lesson to comedian / Presidential candidate Mike Gravel:
Presidential aspirant Mike Gravel recently opined on the advantages of having gays in the military: “...the Spartans trained their people to be homosexuals because they were better fighters.”
Not quite.
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Obama: "Will Call The President Of Canada"
[CNN] For the second time in recent debates, the mention of world leaders has attracted attention to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
At Tuesday night’s AFL-CIO forum in Chicago, Obama was asked if he would scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement as president. The senator from Illinois said, “I would immediately call the president of Mexico, the president of Canada, to try to amend NAFTA, because I think that we can get labor agreements in that agreement right now.”
The only problem is Canada has a prime minister, not a president.
[NRO] Oh well, it's not as if a politician from Illinois would have reason to know anything about Canada. On second thought, here's this just in ...
* 304,500 Illinois jobs are supported by Canada–U.S. trade
* Canadians made more than 383,000 visits to Illinois, spending $141 million
Illinois residents made 477,500 visits to Canada, spending $255 million
22% growth in Illinois-Canada trade
* Canada remained Illinois' main trading partner, receiving more goods than the state's next five foreign markets combined.
* Bilateral trade at $33.4 billion in 2005 grew by 22% over 2004. This expanding trade relationship was led by Illinois imports of $22 billion, half of which was in energy alone. Illinois' exports to Canada totaled $11 billion, led by the transportation and machinery sectors.
Or maybe the excuse is that Obama is only unbriefed and unready on the easy questions in foreign affairs?
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[timesindia] Pop legend Sir Elton John wants the internet closed down because he feels that the cyberspace is destroying good music. The flamboyant singer insists that internet has suppressed the face-to-face communication among people, as a result of which long-term artistic vision has died.
"The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff. Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK, but it doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision. It’s just a means to an end," British tabloid The Sun quoted him as saying.The Grammy award-winner, who turned 60 earlier this year, had revealed in the past that he did not use contemporary technology for composing his music."I am the biggest technophobe of all time. I don’t have a mobile phone or an iPod or anything. I am such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano," he had said.
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[michaelyon] Bread and a Circus, Part I of II :: Before the Battle for Baqubah (Operation Arrowhead Ripper), thousands of refugees had streamed out of Baqubah and the surrounding towns. I’ve heard Iraqis throw around a number of 17,000 IDPs [Internally Displaced Iraqis], although I have no idea how accurate that is, if at all. Two weeks after the start of Arrowhead Ripper, 3-2 SBCT was tracking just over a thousand IDPs, and since I shared a tent with the soldiers who did most of the counting (C-52), I put stock in that number and believe it to be roughly accurate. I saw many of the IDPs with my own eyes.
Some of the fleeing families had kept out of the sun by moving inside Baqubah’s electrical plant. The plant had been captured by C-52, a group of 54 soldiers who have fought all over Iraq. I accompanied C-52 on the night of 19 June.
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[NYT] Viewed from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.
Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.
After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.
Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.
***[politico] Brookings scholars Michael E. O’Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack used the most established of platforms, the Op-Ed page of The New York Times, to offer the most politically incorrect of arguments on Monday: “We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms.”
Their 1,343-word piece, “A War We Just Might Win,” instantly provoked a more furious ideological shootout than has been sparked by any recent development on the battleground or action by the Bush administration.
O'Hanlon told The Politico in an e-mail that he and his co-author were espousing "just temporary optimism," but their article was treated by the left and right as if it were etched on golden tablets.
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Better Living Through Bathroom Etiquette
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[timesonline] Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.
Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.
The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.
Fresh research published in New Scientistlast month suggested that 1kg of meat cost the Earth 36kg in global warming gases. The figure was based on Japanese methods of industrial beef production but Mr Goodall says that farming techniques are similar throughout the West.
What if, instead of beef, the walker drank a glass of milk? The average person would need to drink 420ml – three quarters of a pint – to recover the calories used in the walk. Modern dairy farming emits the equivalent of 1.2kg of CO2 to produce the milk, still more pollution than the car journey.
Cattle farming is notorious for its perceived damage to the environment, based on what scientists politely call “methane production” from cows. The gas, released during the digestive process, is 21 times more harmful than CO2 . Organic beef is the most damaging because organic cattle emit more methane.
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The Ant and The Grasshopper
Classic Version:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
The End
_________________________________________________
The Canadian Version:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. So far, so good, eh?
Then, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like him, are cold and starving.
The CBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.
Canadians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer while others have plenty.
The NDP, the CAW, and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house.
The CBC, interrupting an Inuit cultural festival special from Nunavut with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome."
Sven Robinson rants in an interview with Pamela Wallin that the ant has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."
In response to polls, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant's taxes are reassessed and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers.
Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.
The ant moves to the U.S., and starts a successful agribiz company. The CBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food, though spring is still months away...while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it.
Inadequate government funding is blamed, Roy Romanow is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost the taxpayers $ 10,000,000.00.
The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose; the Toronto Star blames it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity.
The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching Canada's multicultural diversity, who promptly set up a marijuana grow op and terrorize the community.
The End
muchas gracias TOne!
::::
[americanthinker] If there was any question as to why the Democrats were refusing to hold a debate sponsored by Fox News, last night's broadcast of the YouTube debate on CNN should be self explanatory.
Many of the questions chosen among thousands of YouTube submissions appeared to be selected more for their entertainment value than for the way the question addressed a specific issue. And those questions that did confront an issue were so general in nature it allowed even the dumbest of candidates (Biden) to hit it out of the park. In the midst of a war involving 160,000 Americans in Iraq, there was no question - not one - about terrorism. And given the recent eruption on Capitol Hill over immigration, not one question was directed toward that issue either.
Instead, you had people asking questions in costume. Or with props as the poor fellow who asked a question about gun control while cradling his rifle and calling it "my baby". Senator Biden, not getting the joke, called the young man "mentally unbalanced" and suggested he shouldn't even possess a gun. Most of the questions were the kind of earnest citizen kinds of questions you hear at a televised town hall meeting. And Anderson Cooper obliged the Democrats beautifully by doing his earnest reporter shtick which may not be very deep or penetrating as far as getting at the truth but sure looks good on TV. 
[HPayne]
::::
[dailymail] Pollster John Zogby Breaks Down The Numbers
"The Democratic Congress gets poor marks across the ideological spectrum -- just 21 percent of liberals and 10 percent of the very liberal give it positive marks, while 14 percent of conservatives and 14 percent of the very conservative give it positive ratings," Zogby wrote.
"Among Democrats, just 19 percent give Congress positive marks, compared to 13 percent of Republicans and 8 percent of political independents.
"By way of comparison, the Republican Congress had a 23 percent positive job approval rating last October, just a week before voters tossed the GOP out of their leadership posts in both houses."
After six months, Democrats do have one bipartisan accomplishment: Everyone hates Congress.
Not so George Walker Bush. Among Republicans, 63 percent still think he is doing an outstanding job
Congress now has no base outside of its staff, the reporters who cover it and Mom, and even she is wavering.
::::
[BBC] BBC Fakes Calls In Phone-in Competitions
The BBC has revealed new details of six shows in which production staff passed themselves off as genuine viewers or listeners, or invented fictitious winners.
COMIC RELIEF - 16 MARCH 2007 ON BBC ONE
In a section of the appeal programme, viewers were invited to donate money to Comic Relief and were informed that by calling in, they could win prizes that belonged to a famous couple.
The first two callers taken on air gave incorrect answers. The other waiting callers were lost and a third caller was heard on air successfully answering the question. This caller was in fact not a viewer but a member of the production team.
Similar incidents apparently occurred during these events:
TMI - 16 SEPTEMBER 2006 ON BBC TWO AND CBBC
SPORT RELIEF - 15 JULY 2006 ON BBC ONE
CHILDREN IN NEED - 18 NOVEMBER 2005 ON BBC ONE SCOTLAND
THE LIZ KERSHAW SHOW - 2005/6 ON BBC 6 MUSIC
WHITE LABEL - WORLD SERVICE UNTIL APRIL 2006
::::
Hugh Hewitt guest Jake Tapper
[Hugh Hewitt] Jake Tapper is in denial about the collapse of MSM credibility, just like every other MSMer I have ever interviewed (or been interviewed by.) Jake seems genuinely unaware of what millions of Americans see every day: He and the guild roll over for the Democrats, rarely if ever even offering a tough question much less a series of them. They advance a narrative of Iraq fed by their own prejudices and are oblivious to counter-arguments and facts.
Worst of all, they genuinely believe that the debate inside the Beltway matters most of all, when in fact like the products of most closed systems, their interpretive skills are underdeveloped and their biases so deeply embedded as to be unrecognizable by anyone living under the dome. Thus they are surprised by McCain's collapse, the uproar over the immigration bill, and the political suicide being undertaken by Senators Domenici and Smith.
It isn't journalism they practice, but a sort of high-end yodeling: shouting out cliches which, when echoed back, they take for proof positive of their prejudices. It is all very amusing --until you realize that the lives of millions of Iraqis and eventually millions of Americans are imperiled by their collective incompetence. Walter Duranty was knowing dupe of mass murderers, and this generation of MSM dupes are not knowing at all. But their reckless disregard for the obvious consequences of their one-sided approach to the war and politics will be as infamous as Duranty's, and the disdain for their "work" just as deep a generation down the road.
Transcript: [here]
::::
[IBD] Leadership: It's pathetic when a major political party holds a pajama party to publicize its desire to surrender during a war. But it's even worse when such shenanigans drown out a vital message from a real leader.
In the end, it was a cheap PR stunt that came undone when the Senate voted not to cut off debate on a proposal to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days.
Such maneuvers have earned the Democrat-led Congress the American public's contempt. They've rewarded this Congress with a 14% approval rating — the lowest ever.
Unfortunately, the noise from Congress' pajama-clad know-nothings drowned out a truly important voice in this debate: that of Gen. David Petraeus.
Petraeus spoke about the progress in Iraq on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show.
What he had to say, in measured, nonpartisan tones, both the good and the bad, should be of interest to every American.
After watching a parade of Democratic congressmen pursue their 15 seconds of fame on TV, it was refreshing to hear someone who genuinely knows what he's talking about — and wants to win.
Here's just a taste of what Petraeus said:
• On progress in the war: "(W)e have achieved what we believe is a reasonable degree of tactical momentum on the ground, gains against the principal near-term threat, al-Qaida Iraq, and also gains against what is another near-term threat, and also potentially the long-term threat: Shia militia extremists."
• On fighting al-Qaida: "(We have seen) the detention, or the capture or killing of (a) number of leaders that we have taken out in recent months . . . and the progress in terms of just clearing areas of them. . . . So there has been considerable progress against them."
• On Iran's support for the enemy: "It has remained very substantial. . . . Iran has indeed provided substantial funding, training, equipping, arming, and even direction, in some cases, to what are called the special groups or secret cells affiliated with the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr."
• On our troops: "Our (military) leaders get it, our soldiers get it, they are these flexible, adaptable, thoughtful, culturally astute, and by and large, leaders and soldiers and Marines, and they are showing that on a daily basis here."
As we said, balanced. But read for yourself. The entire extraordinary interview can be found at hughhewitt.townhall.com.
::::We haven't caught "Obamamania" much around the Offices, but there was a fleeting moment way back when where he was...interesting. Once his oratories became more present and available, I'm afraid that I've grown to dislike him more and more as time has gone along.
It's the pandering.
I've also never been one to agree with the crapline fed by so many that goes something like "...but he's a great speaker..." and various incarnations of that to tout Bill Clinton, Obama, or whoever.
Useful in politics, the "smooth-talker" thing does less than zero for me. Beyond being coherent, this is a library storytime, used car salesmen gibberish skillset. I have to think that people that trot out this gem as an almighty qualification have not been too close to any sales industry. If I were attending a play, book reading or conference, then this might carry more weight with me, but when the speaker has the ultimate goal and task of taking and spending a populations money, sorry, it's simply not that high a priority compared to "what they say."
Charismatic? Isn't that wholly subjective? Personally, I always thought he seemed like a nice enough guy and certainly has the political schmoozescreen operational, but sorry, after hearing him for the months since announcing, I find him borderline vapid, entirely unsubstantive and as dull as dishwater.
That however, pales in comparison to the mentality he offers for consumption in the following passage regarding Supreme Court appointments or this sex education for kindergarten kids thing. How about letting them focus on finger painting and nap time at that age and realizing that this is really none of your business? Do they even still allow finger painting? You can't play tag anymore since, you know, someone might get an owie.
[thehill] After a speech heavily critical of the new Supreme Court in front of a Planned Parenthood Action Fund conference in Washington, the presidential candidate said he would look into potential nominees’ hearts when deciding whom to select for vacancies in the country’s highest court.
“[Chief] Justice Roberts said he saw himself just as an umpire,” Obama said. “But the issues that come before the court are not sports; they’re life and death. We need somebody who’s got the empathy to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom.”
Obama said that 95 percent of cases can be judged on intellect, but that the other 5 percent are the most important ones.
“In those 5 percent of cases, you’ve got to look at what is in the justice’s heart, what’s their broader vision of what America should be,” Obama said, adding that justices should understand what it’s like to be gay, poor or black as well.
Obama said these are the criteria he would use to evaluate potential justices.
::::
[abc] ABC News' Teddy Davis and Lindsey Ellerson Report: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told Planned Parenthood Tuesday that sex education for kindergarteners, as long as it is "age-appropriate," is "the right thing to do."
::::
[washtimes] MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Sen. Barack Obama told the nation's largest Hispanic advocacy group yesterday that he earned their support for his presidential campaign by marching in last year's May 1 immigrant rallies and challenged them to learn whether others met that standard.
"Find out how many senators appeared before an immigration rally last year. Who was talking the talk, and who walked the walk — because I walked," Mr. Obama said at the National Council of La Raza's annual convention in Miami Beach. "I didn't run away from the issue, and I didn't just talk about it in front of Latino audiences."
The Illinois Democrat said the recent Senate immigration debate "was both ugly and racist in a way we haven't see since the struggle for civil rights."
Both Mr. Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat and the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, supported the bill and yesterday assured NCLR that they will work to pass a bill as president.
Mr. Obama was the most forceful, promising "in my first term we will make this a priority and get this done." Mrs. Clinton said she couldn't predict an outcome, but would "promise my best efforts."
::::
It's baffling to me that some people find argument with the idea of requiring a citizen to produce reasonable identification for verification when it comes to the matter of vote casting.
Is the thinking that all people should simply be taken on their "good word"? If someone says they are a heart surgeon, then, surely they must be? I will gladly repay you Tuesday for a hamburger today?
We recall the politicians belching about "fixing" the voting system - on and on - and yet, when it came time to voting on an amendment to a student loan bill that would require voters to show photo ID at the polls the amendment failed 42-54.
Here's the role-call who is who result on that vote: [mmalkin]
"You’ll notice that not a single Democrat cast a vote in favor of the photo ID requirement for voters."
::::
Democrats cut 'John Doe' provision
[wshtimes] Congressional Democrats today failed to include a provision in homeland security legislation that would protect the public from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior that may lead to a terrorist attack, according to House Republican leaders.
"This is a slap in the face of good citizens who do their patriotic duty and come forward, and it caves in to radical Islamists," said Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Republicans wanted the provision included in final legislation, crafted yesterday during a House and Senate conference committee, that will implement final recommendations from the September 11 commission.
"Democrats are trying to find any technical excuse to keep immunity out of the language of the bill to protect citizens, who in good faith, report suspicious activity to police or law enforcement," Mr. King said. "I don't see how you can have a homeland security bill without protecting people who come forward to report suspicious activity."
::::
CNN Blowing Youtube Video Debates?
[kausfiles] Next Monday, CNN will hold the first of two "CNN/YouTube" debates.
It "will feature video questions submitted to YouTube which will be broadcast and answered" by the Democratic candidates for president.
"YouTube enables voters and candidates to communicate in a way that simply was not possible during the last election," said Chad Hurley, CEO and co-founder of YouTube. ...
"These debates take the bold step of embracing the ever-increasing role of the Internet in politics," Jim Walton, CNN Worldwide president.
Yeah, yeah. But the CNN debate, as currently planned, completely misses what's so innovative and subversive about YouTube--namely the ability of average citizens to put political messages before millions of potential voters without the approval of MSM gatekeepers. Who decided that "Obama Girl" would be a huge hit? Nobody. Or, rather, the cumulative decisions of hundreds of thousands of You Tube users. The choice was largely out of the hands of those who traditionally decide what voters get to hear about candidates: editors of daily newspapers, producers of nightly newscasts, professional campaign consultants. The phenomenon rightly alarms the consultants, at least, who now have to worry that a popular amateur video could rise up and bite them at any moment. (See Edwards, John, "Feeling Pretty.") It's all too ... uncontrolled.
So who will decide which 30-second YouTube "video questions" get broadcast on Monday?
CNN will produce the televised events and will select the questions used in the debates.
Kind of misses the point, doesn't it? Instead of being spontaneously and uncontrollably selected by Web democracy, the YouTube questions will be safely filtered through the predictable, respectable sensibilities of CNN editors. They'll be not much different from the queries traditionally sent to the front of the room on index cards--just in video form. Sure, the questions will be asked by "voters from around the country," but debates have been accepting (filtered) email questions for years, no?
You can view the three video questions CNN's editors have already chosen as samples. They're safe and easily answered queries about discrete issues--glorified index cards.** It looks like a long evening.
It's not too late for CNN to save its "unprecedented" format. The debate is a week away. Post all the competing videos on YouTube tomorrow afternoon in a way that easily lets viewers pick the most popular, and commit CNN to broadcast, say, 20 questions from the top 40 submissions at random. No gatekeeping. (There are presumably technical tricks to filter out ballot-box-stuffing by various campaigns, some of which are already trying to gin up submissions. If that can't be done, go with the viewer's selections anyway. Let's see the stuff the ballot-box-stuffers stuff. The ballot-stuffing competition would itself help build excitement.)
A no-gatekeeper format really would be unprecedented, and will terrify the candidates. Politicians know the sorts of questions CNN editors pick. They can handle those questions. But who knows what an army of partisan geeks in their basements will select? Even if the questions aren't penetrating in themselves, we'll get to see the candidates react to unpredictable events, which will be revealing even if the questions themselves are stupid.
Anderson Cooper can always ask follow-up questions and calm things down. He's good at that.
**--One of the sample videos is mildly obnoxious in a way that would make a CNN editor think it has "attitude." Not a virtue. ...
::::
Sir Winston Churchill Axed From History Class?
[sun] Fury erupted last night after Sir Winston Churchill was axed from school history lessons.
Britain’s cigar-chomping World War Two PM — famed for his two-finger victory salute — was removed from a list of figures secondary school children must learn about.
Instead they will be taught about “relevant” issues such as global warming and drug dangers. Churchill’s grandson, Tory MP Nicholas Soames, branded the move “total madness.”
The decision to axe Churchill is part of a major shake-up aimed at dragging the national curriculum into the 21st century, it was claimed last night.
But the plan — hatched by advisers — angered schools secretary Ed Balls, who vowed to probe ALL the changes to the curriculum.
The proposals will see traditional timetables torn up, with pupils focusing on modern “relevant” topics such as drug and booze abuse, climate change and GM foods.
Churchill — voted the greatest ever Briton — goes off the required lessons list, along with Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King.
There will also be no need to mention the Wars of the Roses, Elizabeth I or Henry VIII.
The move left Mr Balls locked in a row with his curriculum advisers.
He insisted: “Churchill should be taught to all pupils and I shall be taking steps to ensure it is.”
Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove said: “Winston Churchill is the towering figure of 20th-century British history. His fight against fascism was Britain’s finest hour.
“Our national story can’t be told without Churchill at the centre.”
Churchill’s grandson, Tory MP Nicholas Soames, stormed: “It’s total madness. The teaching of history is incredibly important. If people do not seem to care about the country in which they live, the reason is that they don’t know much about it.”
::::
[businessweek] How Top Bloggers Earn Money : From cat pictures and celebrity gossip to tech news and politics, the stars of the blogosphere earn plenty of dough, regardless of subject. Some bloggers start their sites intending to make big profits. But most of the bloggers we talked to had more modest expectations, and saw their blogs unexpectedly turn into businesses as traffic picked up and ad dollars rolled in. Here's a look at how some of the most popular blogs make their money.
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Internet Equality Act / Radio
Time and options are running out for Internet Radio. The emergency stay sought on behalf of webcasters, millions of listeners and the artists and music they support has been denied.
UNLESS CONGRESS ACTS BY JULY 15th, the new ruinous royalty rates will go into effect on Sunday, threatening the future of all Internet radio.
This situation is grave, but that makes the message all the simpler and more serious.
CALL YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES RIGHT AWAY and urge them to support the Internet Equality Act. If they've already co-sponsored, thank them and ask them to fight to bring it to the floor for an immediate vote.
[savenetradio]
Americans See Liberal Media Bias on TV News
Friday, July 13, 2007
[rasmussen] By a 39% to 20% margin, American adults believe that the three major broadcast networks deliver news with a bias in favor of liberals. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 25% believe that ABC, CBS, and NBC deliver the news without any bias.
Similar results are found for CNN and National Public Radio (NPR). By a margin of 33% to 16%, Americans say that CNN has a liberal bias. The nation’s adults say the same about NPR by a 27% to 14% margin.
There is one major exception to the belief that media outlets have a liberal bias—Fox News. Thirty-one percent (31%) of Americans say it has a bias that favors conservatives while 15% say it has a liberal bias.
When it comes to delivering news without bias, 37% believe NPR accomplishes that goal. Thirty-six percent (36%) say the same for Fox and 32% believe it’s true of CNN. As noted earlier, just 25% believe the major broadcast networks deliver news in an unbiased manner. Results for other media outlets will be released over the next week.
::::
Regardless of any opinion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, CBC employee Avi Lewis is an embarrassment in this interview that he conducts with her. This jackassery is actually produced with Canadian taxpayer funds.
Royalty Fee 'to damage net radio'
[bbc] Hundreds of US net radio stations face potential closure from Monday when they will be expected to comply with a new royalties ruling for playing music.
Smaller stations face a payment increase of 1,200% while larger station could owe up to 300% more, lobby group SaveNetRadio has said.
On Wednesday, an appeal court declined to grant a petition by stations to delay the introduction of the new fees.
SaveNetRadio say the fees could cost webcasters $1bn (£500m).
Earlier this year the US Copyright Royalty Board ruled that royalties should rise from .08 cents per track to .19 cents by 2010 for net radio stations.
The new fees, will charge a flat fee per-song, per-user in addition to a $500 fee for every channel owned by a station.
Fees will increase every year until 2010. Previously, stations paid an annual fee, plus 12% of their profits.
Tim Westergren, who runs net radio station Pandora, wrote to his listeners, warning: "Disaster looms."
He said: "The new ruinous royalty rates will be going into effect on Monday threatening the future of all internet radio."
In a statement, Jake Ward, a spokesperson for the SaveNetRadio coalition, said: "We are disappointed that the Court failed to acknowledge the irreparable and quite frankly, devastating effect these new royalties will have on the Internet radio industry.
"An invoice of more than $1bn (£500m) must be paid in four days, which is unfathomable for an industry that grossed less than $200m (£100m) last year."
Gore Effect Mutates
[dailymail] The Al Gore Effect holds that if he visits your town to preach about global warming, expect a drop in temperatures. Over the weekend though, the Gore effect mutated to the point that it can be delivered electronically via satellite.
AFP reported that South America was hit with its worst winter weather in 89 years following the Live Earth concert:
A cold snap sent thermometers plunging in South America in recent days, killing three people in Chile and Argentina while Buenos Aires saw snow on Monday for the first time in 89 years.
The Live Earth concert also drew sparse crowds Down Under. Australian Broadcasting Company reported record cold there:
It’s official — Tasmanians last month shivered their way through one of the coldest and driest Junes on record.
World Net Daily reported cold weather minimized the Live Earth crowds in Johannesburg, where it had snowed for the first time in 25 years.
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