Blatant Reality

Yea, a new intelligence report is stating that global warming could possibly be a threat to our national security by destabilizing countries and making them more susceptible to extremism. Take a look:

Global warming is likely to have a series of destabilizing effects around the world, causing humanitarian crises as well as surges in ethnic violence and illegal immigration, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment debated Wednesday.

 

“Logic suggests the conditions exacerbated [by climate change] would increase the pool of potential recruits for terrorism,” said Tom Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence, who testified Wednesday before a joint hearing of two House committees.

 

Climate change alone would not topple governments, but it could worsen problems such as poverty, disease, migration and hunger that could destabilize already vulnerable areas, Mr. Fingar said.

 

But he warned that efforts to reduce global warming by changing energy policies “may affect U.S. national security interests even more than the physical impacts of climate change itself.

 

“The operative word there is ‘may.’ We don’t know,” he said.

I’m glad that they admit that they do not know the future because otherwise I would definitely want to know who will win the coming election so I can plan accordingly.

Anyways, the problem with this report (or it might just be the article since the actual intelligence report is still classified) is that it assumes that fixing global warming would help stabilize these regions. The fact is that we could help these countries more and at a cheaper cost by giving them direct humanitarian aid to help with the affects climate change (not man-made of course). This is what Bjorn Lomborg basically proposes in his newest book “Cool It.”

One of these days I will get around to writing a nice long article describing how outrageously expensive and economically inefficient trying to combat climate change is but today is not the day.

As Gateway Pundit point out, Amnesty International seems to take some unnecessarily hard punches at the United States while completely avoiding seemingly more pressing issues.

However, that isn’t the only thing they seem to get wrong. Take a look at their profiles for Israel, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority. See anything missing? Yep, it seems that Amnesty International fails to leave out anything having to do with terrorism.

Groups such as Hamas, Fatah, or Hezbullah are just considered “armed groups,” not terrorist groups. And these groups don’t commit murder, they just commit “unlawful killings.” I hate all this PC talk.

Also, in the Israel profile, they list off supposed human rights abuse after abuse without ever discussing why Israel has had to take those security measures. I’m not saying that everything they have done is right but Israel is in a very special situation where it is surrounded by enemies who have almost all vowed to push it into the sea. Combine that with the fact that you have a domestic populace (Palestine) that also wants to see this happen and you have a pretty “dire” situation.

Then again, when you think about it, Amnesty International is a pretty worthless group. All the countries that have the worse human rights violations are not even going to listen to what Amnesty’s report says. Therefore, the only thing Amnesty can do is be critical of countries like the United States or Great Britain whose populaces will listen and make something get done for these mostly minor (in comparison) issues.

Today, two men were stopped from entering a nuclear power plant in Sweden after they were discovered to be carrying small amounts the same highly explosive material used by suicide bombers in Israel.

“They told us a welder who was going to perform a job there had been stopped in a random security check. He had been carrying small amounts of the highly explosive material TATP,” Karlsson said.

 

TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, is a high explosive which is extremely unstable, especially when subjected to heat, friction and shock.

 

The compound can be prepared in a home laboratory from easily available household chemicals. It has been employed by suicide bombers in Israel and by Richard Reid, the thwarted British “shoebomber” who attempted to blow up a transatlantic airliner in 2001.

Weird how the article doesn’t mention anything about how these men might be terrorists because it sure sounds like it could be one.

According to Ali Eteraz, It seems that Sharia Law has basically been established in Pakistan’s North Western Frontier Province. And guess what? The new PPP majority government is supporting this.

And people thought Musharraf was bad. At least he didn’t appease the terrorists.

Hat Tip Gateway Pundit

Today, the New York Times ran an article with this headline: “Carter says Hamas and Syria are Open to Peace“. When I saw this, I thought to myself, “Wow, maybe Carter isn’t completely oblivious and worthless after all.” However, I should have known not to get my hopes up to much.

As it seems to happen quite often in the MSM, the author of this piece focussed on the completely wrong aspect of the story. After you wade through all the junk about how Carter actually did something useful you get to this very important section:

Mr. Carter had tried to get Hamas to agree to several other requests and all were turned down. Those included a prisoner exchange and declaring a 30-day unilateral cease-fire with Israel — Hamas fires rockets on Israeli towns and communities in an effort to hurt and kill civilians. On Monday a 4-year-old child was injured from shrapnel after a rocket hit a home on a kibbutz and caused damage, the Israeli army announced.

 

Mr. Meshal said at his news conference that, through Egypt, he and Israel were working on a possible mutual cease-fire or period of calm so there was no reason to accept Mr. Carter’s suggestion of a unilateral cease-fire.

 

Mr. Carter said he found the Hamas leadership, including Mr. Meshal, to be clear-thinking, educated people who gave no sign of fanaticism, although he did condemn in harsh terms their use of violence. He said they did not break for prayer, talk of holy land or God. “It was secular talk,” he said.

 

“They are just as rational as you are,” he said, adding, “The thing that Meshal and I have is that we are both physicists.”

At this point in the article, I just begin to shake my head in despair. Honestly, what kind of peace talks can happen when the enemy (yes, Hamas is the enemy) won’t even agree to stop murdering innocent civilians including children? Carter didn’t accomplish anything other than finding out that he had more in common with a terrorist than the majority of the American people.

It truly shocks me that the NYT would try to spin this story into some kind of win for Carter. The real title for this article should be “Carter Fails: Hamas Will Continue Rocket Barrages” or “Hamas Won’t Agree to Ceasefire” or my favorite “Hamas Will Continue Mercilessly Killing Innocents.” Take your pick. Any of those would be ten times better than the current headline. Even a Russian news source got a better headline with “Hamas rejects Carter’s call to halt rocket fire on Israel for 1 month”

Well, I guess I can’t complain too much about this. It’s things like this that get me all riled up and give me something to write about.

Check out Gateway Pundit for some more on this.

And he obviously bordering on being worthless. He met with again today with Khaled Meshaal, the exiled Hamas leader in Syria, to discuss a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange between Israel and the Palestinians. However, Hamas launched another attack today, the eave of Passover.

Palestinian suicide bombers from Gaza drove three explosives-laden vehicles into the Kerem Shalom goods crossing on the border with Israel early on Saturday, detonating two of them, the Israeli military said.

 

Three bombers were killed in the blasts and 13 Israeli soldiers were wounded, three moderately and the rest lightly, the military said.

 

Hamas, the Islamic group that controls the Gaza Strip, claimed responsibility for the attack. It came on the eve of the weeklong Passover holiday in Israel and hours before former President Jimmy Carter held a second meeting in Damascus with exiled leaders of Hamas, reportedly to explore the possibility of a cease-fire and a prisoner exchange between the group and Israel.

An obvious sign that they want to talk peace, right? Thank goodness that they only succeeded in killing themselves. Now you might be thinking that it is because of these suicide bombings that we need Carter there. Well guess what, he’s obviously not succeeding and both the the Israeli and United governments do not want him negotiating with known terrorists.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter met with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal again Saturday in Syria, despite objections from both Israel and the United States.

 

Mr. Carter did not comment after his talks with Meshaal on Friday night and Saturday morning in Damascus.

 

A Hamas official, Mohammad Nazzal, told reporters Mr. Carter proposed a cease-fire between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters, a prisoner exchange, and the lifting of Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

 

The official said Hamas would respond soon.

Yea and we now know what that response would be: a suicide attack against Israeli soldiers on one of Israel’s most important holidays.

Jimmy Carter, go back home, grow some peanuts, and relax. We all know you did the whole thing between Israel and Egypt but it is quickly becoming evident that you are a “one hit wonder.” Give it up. You are only succeeding in distracting the media from the real issue at hand and that is the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization and should be dealt with as such.

I always seem to get very nervous when known terrorist organizations support a political campaign. Call me old fashioned but when that happens, it’s normally a hint that I probably shouldn’t support them. So how do you think I feel about Presidential hopeful Barack Obama when I heard that Hamas recently endorsed him.

“I hope Mr. Obama and the Democrats will change the political discourse. … I do believe [Obama] is like John Kennedy, a great man with a great principal. And he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community, but not with humiliation and arrogance,” Yousuf said, speaking from Gaza

 

(…)

 

Together with presidential candidates John McCain and Hillary Clinton, Obama called Hamas a “terrorist organization” that should remain isolated until it renounces violence and recognizes Israel. Obama told reporters he opposed Carter’s meeting with Hamas.But Yousuf chalked up Obama’s statements to political posturing.

 

“I understand American politics and this is the season for elections and everybody tries to sound like he’s a friend of the Israelis … so whatever [the] Israelis didn’t like they will take from all those candidates,” he said.

 

Yousuf said that in Hamas’ view, Obama has “a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with humiliation and arrogance.”

Note the highlighted segments above. Obama believes Hamas is a terrorist organization yet they still support him! In today’s world, terrorists need to be afraid of our president. Obama is going to be like that one kid who talks all tough in the school yard but everyone just laughs at him because they know they can trounce all over him any time they want.

Do you really want that kind of leader? I don’t.

(Hat Tip Right Wing News)

Well it seems that there might have been some sectarian violence in Iran today. A Baha’i church in Iran was bombed, killing at least 9 people.

A bomb exploded in a mosque in the southern Iranian city Shiraz on Saturday, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 100, Iranian media reported.

 

Ambulances rushed to the scene of the blast in a crowded district of the city, state television said.

 

“At least nine people were killed and 105 injured in the blast,” the semi-official Fars news agency quoting a local hospital official as saying.

 

The death toll was expected to rise because some of the wounded were in critical condition, the official said.

No one has come forward to claim the bombing yet the article does seem to think that the United States or Britain might of had a hand it in.

Slow news day + me being really busy = me posting my favorite IMAO article of the day. Read it. My favorite is the question about global warming.

Whats the difference between a terrorist and a person who likes to detonate things in public areas? A terrorist’s aim is to hurt people. The Basque terrorist group ETA seems to have forgotten how this terrorism stuff works. Instead of calling in 30 minutes after an explosion to claim it, they called 30 minutes before it detonated in order to warn people away.

State radio said ETA had issued a warning stating the location of the bomb and the make, model and colour of the car.

 

Media reported the police station and surrounding area had been cleared and cordoned off before the explosion.

 

State television said the warning had been received about 30 minutes before the explosion and there had been scenes of panic as the area around the police station was crowded with people attending a Holy Week religious procession.