Random-American

In my not-so-humble opinion, John F. Kerry is pompous elitist grade-A schmuck.  While addressing students at Pasadena College in California, Senator Kerry made the following comment:

“You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Watch it for yourself.

Senator John McCain and the American Legion have called for an apology to the troops.  Kerry refuses and just tries to shift the blame.  And, as Michelle Malkin points out, some in the media are doing their best to come to Kerry’s aid.

And naturally, instead of fessing up to his comments, he is attempting to blame Bush.  He’s claimed any outrage over his comments are a Republican smear job, derided conservatives and radio talk show hosts for having the audacity to question him.  He’s even tried to claim that it was a joke gone bad. 

Sorry Senator, not buying it.  You said it, plain and simple.  In my opinion, no amount of backpeddling will counter the fact that you essentially labeled out troops in Iraq as not smart enough to get a good education, so they ended up “stuck in Iraq.”  For you, or any other lefty apologist, to try to claim that you intended your comments to be directed at President Bush is utter and complete balderdash.  Even other Democrats are distancing themselves from your asshatish comments.  Anyone with a half a brain can read or watch your statement and know exactly who you were referring to…and it sure as hell wasn’t Bush. 

Senator Kerry, I never served during Vietnam (I was a small child at the time) and can not attest to your service, particularly since you refuse to sign the Form 180 which would detail your military service records.  But I will say this… I am ever thankful that you lost the 2004 election.  With comments like these about our servicemen and women who volunteered to serve their country, you are not fit to serve as the commander in chief of our nation’s military.  Your attempts to shift the blame and your lame excuses of jokes gone bad just don’t cut it.  As if ripping on your fellow Vietnam veterans during the Winter Soldier Investigations and labeling them as war criminals wasn’t bad enough, now you imply that our current soldiers in Iraq are only there because they aren’t smart. 

I guess now the dear Senator can add to his tally of flip-flops in that he was for the troops before he was against them?

As a veteran who had a degree before I began my enlistment in the US Army, let me just say this…

Senator Kerry, perhaps it’s time for you to retire.  Feel free to travel the world with your other pompous anti-American UN buddies.  Lounge by the poolside and enjoy a nice big glass of shut-the-hell-up.

*update*

Gee, I wonder how these troops feel about Kerry’s comments? 

courtesy Newsradio 620 WTMJ 

Wow, just…wow.  Insurgents? Iraqi “militia?” Terrorists? Friendly neighborhood brute squad? Religion of Peace, perhaps?

According to the Assyrian website ankawa.com, a 14 year old Christian Assyrian boy, Ayad Tariq, from Baqouba, Iraq was decapitated at his work place on October 21.

Ayad Tariq was working his 12 hour shift, maintaining an electric generator, when a group of disguised Muslim insurgents walked in at the beginning of his shift shortly after 6 a.m. and asked him for his ID.

According to another employee who witnessed the events, and who hid when he saw the insurgents approach, the insurgents questioned Ayad after seeing that his ID stated “Christian”, asking if he was truly a “Christian sinner.” Ayad replied “yes, I am Christian but I am not a sinner.” The insurgents quickly said this is a “dirty Christian sinner!” Then they proceeded to each hold one limb, shouting “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!” while beheading the boy.

AINA

Ya know, I really like this.  Wind power is clean and essentially free for the taking.  Naturally the eco-kooks snivel that it may be harmful to birds.  So, they don’t want us to use oil and don’t want us to use nuclear power.  But since windmill blades may strike a few random birds on occasion and may harm scenic views, they’re against that too.  So what exactly do they want us to use?  Guess they just want us to go back to caveman days when we didn’t have power.  Whoops, nevermind…fire is bad too.  Ah well, the hell with the eco-kooks.  They’ll always find something to whine about anyway.  But I’m all for anything to help ween us off our dependence on foreign oil so we can tell the Middle East to go pound sand.   

Wind is a form of solar energy, as winds are caused by the uneven heating of the atmosphere by the sun, the irregularities of the Earth’s surface, and the rotation of the Earth. For thousands of years, windmills have been used to pump water and grind grain, as well as to sail the seas.

Alaska has a large amount of wind energy potential, especially for remote communities on the Aleutians and the western Alaska coast. The strongest winds in Alaska often happen during winter, corresponding to the time of peak energy demand. Home-sized small wind systems are available, and wind turbines can be scaled for use in small communities. Significant wind resources also exist close to several Alaska population centers, such as on Fire Island just west of Anchorage.

Wind energy is the fastest growing renewable energy source in the world and, along with biomass, is the only non-hydro renewable energy source presently producing utility-scale power in Alaska.

Wind turbines capture the kinetic energy of the wind with spinning rotors, similar to those of propeller or airplane wing, which convert it to rotational mechanical energy and turn generators to produce electricity. All electric-generating wind turbines, no matter what size, are comprised of the basic components: the rotor blades, the electrical generator, a speed control system, and a tower.

Wind speed is the most critical feature of wind resources, as a stronger wind means a lot more power. For successful power generation, the winds must also be steady, since sudden gusts of chaotic winds can damage equipment and make the supplied electricity unreliable.

In the United States, millions of windmills were erected as the American West was developed during the late 19th century, most of which were used to pump water for farms and ranches. By 1900, small electric wind systems were developed to generate direct current. By 1910, wind turbine generators were producing electricity in many European countries and the United States. However, most of these early wind generator units fell into disuse as the power grid was extended to rural areas during the 1930s. Strong winds are found across the USA, particularly in the western states and the Great Plains.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that the total wind power potential is at least 50% more than the nation’s present total of 775,000 megawatts (MW) of total installed electric generation capacity. In theory, just the two states of North and South Dakota have enough wind energy potential to power the entire USA. About 0.25% of the electricity in the U.S. now comes from wind power, though that amount is growing fast. At the end of 2005, the total wind generation capacity in the USA was around 9,150 MW, with 3000 MW more slated to come online by the end of 2006, worth several billion dollars in generation equipment.

Alaska Report

And what’s the best way to commemorate an anniversary of riots and violence?  With more riots and violence, of course!  Muslim extremists, err, I mean “troubled youths” and “vandals” continue their rampage in France…this time torching a bus while people are still on it, critically injuring one woman.  Naturally, the press continues to whitewash the story, usually not even mentioning the Muslim extremist influences, but instead refer to them as “youths of mainly North African origin.”  But as you can also see here and here, the root story isn’t completely unnoticed.

A woman in the southern city of Marseille suffered severe burns when vandals set fire to a bus she was traveling on, a police source said on Saturday.

The attack occurred as France marked the first anniversary of riots that scarred the country’s poor suburbs, inhabited largely by immigrants.

Vandals have set at least six buses on fire in suburbs around Paris this week in an upsurge of violence ahead of the anniversary, but there have been no injuries.

The police source said an unknown number of people forced their way on to the bus in Marseille at about 9.00 p.m. (1900 GMT) and set fire to it before a 26-year-old woman could escape.

“The woman’s life is in danger,” the source said.

Three other people needed treatment for smoke inhalation.

After several attacks on security forces in French suburbs in recent weeks, police warned there was a danger that violence might again get out of control as last year.

Reuters via Yahoo!News 

And from BBC:

The riots were sparked by the deaths of two teenagers in the capital, Paris [who were supected of committing a criminal act, ran from police when approached, hid in an electrical substation and got elecrocuted.  So naturally that's the police's fault, right?].

Minor skirmishes were reported in Paris on Saturday. An additional 4,000 officers had been deployed - six were injured and 47 people were arrested, according to the interior ministry.

At least six buses have been set on fire in suburbs around the capital this week in an upsurge of violence ahead of the anniversary of the riots.

Earlier, about 500 people marched in memory of two teenage boys, both from immigrant families, who died in 2005.

Their deaths and the suggestion they had been running from police triggered three weeks of suburban clashes. 

During the violence last year - between youths of mainly North African origin and police - more than 10,000 cars were set ablaze and 300 buildings firebombed.

Nearly 3000 police officers have also been injured by the “vandals” and “youths of mainly North African origin” in the last year. 

Ok, I just don’t get this kinda stuff.  Why in the hell would someone lie and invent a “hate crime?”  There’s already enough problems and issues, so why create something that didn’t exist?  Just for attention?  What an asshat.  I’m sure she’ll use some lame excuse that she was just trying to bring more attention to already troubling situations.  But, this is nothing more than a pathetic act of “crying wolf” and, unfortunately, the next time there is a real hate crime, people will be more hesitant to believe it.  Nice job, genius.  Way to bring people closer together.  *rolls eyes*

A reported anti-Semitic hate crime at the University of New Hampshire earlier this month never happened and the student who reported it has been arrested and charged with lying to authorities, police said yesterday.

Breanne Coventry Snell, 24, of Midlothian, Va., is charged with two counts of giving false information to police and one count of unsworn falsification. Each charge is a class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison.

Earlier this month, Snell reported to police that she had been attacked near the Whittemore Center around 6 p.m. on Oct. 3 after leaving a meeting for Hillel, a Jewish student organization. She told police two men shoved her up against a fence and used a number of anti-Semitic slurs related to Nazism.

“It didn’t happen,” UNH Police Chief Nicholas Halias said yesterday.

Snell was arrested around noon yesterday at the UNH police station after officers called her in. She has since been released on $2,000 personal recognizance bail.

Union Leader

Gotta love a good heartwarming story where the good guy wins…

A 70-year-old former British soldier who fought guerillas in Aden and Triad gangs in Hong Kong showed four muggers how it doesn’t pay to mess with the SAS.

Douglas O’Dell is past retirement age but the moves he learned as a volunteer in Britain’s toughest regiment half-a-century ago stood him in good stead when he was ambushed near his home in Bielefeld, Germany, by four local toughs.

The former Provost Sergeant put paid to the danger on the street like he once took out bandits in hotspots across the globe.

THWACK! The first mistake came when one of the teenagers grabbed him around the throat and said in German: “Give my your money, grandad, if you don’t want to get hurt.”

“Bad move,” said Douglas. “The only part he got right was grandad. If you’re gonna grab someone from behind take their arms and pin them to their waist.

“This joker, I was able to grab his elbow, crouch down and throw him over my shoulder. He landed on his back on a fence and squealed like a stuck pig.”

CRASH! As one went down another moved in and Douglas thought he saw him reaching for a knife. The Birmingham-born divorcee, who has a daughter and three grandchildren, said: “I had the measure of him but I slipped on some wet leaves as he came for me and bashed my face badly on the concrete.

“I saw his boot coming towards my face and I thought: ‘No you don’t, sunshine.’ I grabbed his leg and twisted it until he too was screaming out in agony.

“Then I got to my feet and kicked him in the chest.”

With two down the two remaining would-be muggers had enough. One peeled his groaning pal from the fence, the other picked up his crippled accomplice from the pavement.

“The last I saw of them they were limping down the pavement like a WW1 trench raiding party who got clobbered,” said Douglas.

Douglas, who served nearly nine years with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment before leaving the army in the late 1950s, learned his combat moves when he was accepted for SAS training. 

Daily Mail 

A nice story from Iraq.  Hmm, I must’ve missed the nightly news coverage of this.

Spc. Carrielynn Spillis (left) of Toledo, Ohio, a medic with Company C, 210th Brigade Support Battalion attached to 4-31, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, examines a young Iraqi girl. Spc. Chris McCann, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division Public Affairs.

The first few were hesitant, coming in by ones and twos, but soon the floodgates opened and the citizens here came from all over town to receive medical care for a variety of ailments Oct. 19 at a Multi-National Division – Baghdad medical operation.

The Soldiers of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, conducted the medical operation to get an idea of what medical supplies the town needed and to determine what clinics and health care providers were available in the area.

“It’s what we came to do, besides taking care of our own,” said Spc. Carrielynn Spillis, a native of Toledo, Ohio, and a medic with Company C, 210th Brigade Support Battalion, attached to 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment. “It’s nice being able to come here and help them.”

Kazar, a resident of Rushdi Mullah, brought his cousin’s son, Mustafa, to the operation to have the 1-year-old boy’s hand treated for an injury.

Medics washed it, applied antibacterial ointment and explained, through an interpreter, that each finger would have to be wrapped separately to keep them from healing together.

“I’m glad the Americans came to help,” Kazar said.

Multi-National Force - Iraq

Ridiculous.

From El Universal:

President Fox sharply criticized U.S. President George W. Bush´s signing Thursday of a bill to build hundreds of kilometers of additional fencing on its southern border, calling the move an “embarrassment.”

Bush signed the bill to build 1,100 kilometers (700 miles) of fencing, approved by the U.S. Senate last month, despite pleas from Mexico for a veto.

Fox told reporters in the Caribbean resort city of Cancún that the fence would not stop millions of Mexicans from heading north in search of jobs.

“It is an embarrassment for the United States,” Fox said. “It is proof, perhaps, that the United States does not see immigration as a subject that corresponds to both countries.”

I’ll tell you what’s an “embarrassment,” Señor Presidente… Not being able to provide food, healthcare, education, and jobs to your own friggin country.  It’s an “embarrassment” that millions of your countrymen are trying everything in their power to leave your country.  It’s an “embarrassment” that your entire government, police, military, and legal system is so rife with corruption and influence from cartels.  It’s an “embarrassment” that, while being so full of natural resources, a rich culture, and hard-working people, Mexico’s biggest export is illegal aliens.  It’s an “embarrassment” that people are so hard up that they will risk life and limb just to sneak into a country illegally and hopefully be able to send some money back to their family.  It’s an “embarrassment” that rather than try to fix your country’s problems, you’d rather dump the poor and uneducated into your neighboring country.  It’s an “embarrassment” that you also lump illegal aliens in the same category as law-abiding immigrants and slap your countrymen in the face who follow the rules.  If anything is an “embarrassment,” señor… it is your government and its policies.

Ah, another fine example of “tolerance” from an extremist Muslim, who also happens to be the most senior Muslim cleric in Australia.  Are we to believe this man is a true leader of the “Religion of Peace?”  Or will we see him step down from his position?  Thankfully, there are some Muslim imams and Muslim women speaking out against the comments, but I guess only time will tell if that will be enough or if comments like these will become acceptable.  Naturally, I’ll be waiting with bated breath to hear this denounced by CAIR, and American feminists, and the ACLU, and Amnesty International.  Yeah right, like that’ll happen.  I welcome you to judge this cleric for yourself… but if you don’t feel he should be denounced, then you’re a tool.

[Australia's] most senior Muslim cleric has blamed immodestly dressed women who don’t wear Islamic headdress for being preyed on by men and likened them to abandoned “meat” that attracts voracious animals.

In a Ramadan sermon that has outraged Muslim women leaders, Sydney-based Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali also alluded to the infamous Sydney gang rapes, suggesting the attackers were not entirely to blame.

While not specifically referring to the rapes, brutal attacks on four women for which a group of young Lebanese men received long jail sentences, Sheik Hilali said there were women who “sway suggestively” and wore make-up and immodest dress … “and then you get a judge without mercy (rahma) and gives you 65 years”.

“But the problem, but the problem all began with who?” he asked.

The leader of the 2000 rapes in Sydney’s southwest, Bilal Skaf, a Muslim, was initially sentenced to 55 years’ jail, but later had the sentence reduced on appeal.

In the religious address on adultery to about 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, Sheik Hilali said: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?

“The uncovered meat is the problem.”

The sheik then said: “If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.”

He said women were “weapons” used by “Satan” to control men.

“It is said in the state of zina (adultery), the responsibility falls 90 per cent of the time on the woman. Why? Because she possesses the weapon of enticement (igraa).”

The Australian

*update*

Australia Muslim cleric suspended [for three months].

[However,]Sheikh Hilali sparked more controversy on Friday when, asked by reporters if he would resign, he responded: “After we clean the world of the White House first.” 

His comments, made outside his mosque in Sydney after Friday prayers, prompted a round of applause from supporters.

BBC News

So, the Muslim extremist imam blames women for being raped, then blames America for the problems in the world.  Sheesh.

700 miles is only a portion of a border that stretches nearly 2000 miles.  Gotta start somewhere I guess… but I won’t actually believe it until it’s fully funded and actually built.  Call me skeptical…

President Bush signed a bill Thursday authorizing 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to give Republican candidates a pre-election platform for asserting they’re tough on illegal immigration.

“Unfortunately the United States has not been in complete control of its borders for decades and therefore illegal immigration has been on the rise,” Bush said at a signing ceremony.

“We have a responsibility to enforce our laws,” he said. “We have a responsibility to secure our borders. We take this responsibility serious.” He called the fence bill “an important step in our nation’s efforts to secure our borders.”

AP via MyWay

I realize that a fence, by itself, is not the answer.  But… proper fencing, combined with electronic sensors and cameras, additional manpower, additional detention space and also additional steps to end the demand for illegal labor, such as:

• Fine and/or imprison employers who knowingly and willingly hire illegal aliens.
• Eliminate birthright citizenship if the mother is in our country illegally.
• Eliminate all “entitlements”, except for emergency healthcare, unless the person can prove they are here legally.
• Increase manpower and screening techniques at the Ports of Entry so we actually have a grasp of just who the hell is coming in. 
• We don’t need some new crazy “guest worker” program.  We already have one, it’s called the H1A, H1B, H2A, H2B, and H3 work visas.  Increase number of visas if need be, but only after Department of Labor proves our country needs additional workers because jobs aren’t being filled.  Not only would it help control who is here, it would cause real wages to rise.  There are no jobs Americans won’t do, only jobs Americans won’t do for dirt cheap slave-wages.  Want proof that Americans will do anything if the price is right?  Watch Fear Factor.

And don’t try to play the race card with me, because that dog just don’t hunt.  I don’t care if it’s Juan Rodriguez from Mexico, Ian O’Flaherty from Ireland, or Sven Bjorgenson from Norway.  It’s just that the overwhelming majority of illegal aliens happen to be Mexican.  To allow millions of illegals to sneak across our border unchecked, and allow them to work here, is a complete slap in the face to legal Mexican immigrants who have waited for years and spent thousands of dollars to do it the right way.  As I’ve stated numerous times, for people who seek to have their shot at the American dream of freedom, liberty, and capitalism, are willing to endure the years of hassles and thousands of dollars to immigrate here legally, and will accept our national heritage, history, traditions, culture, and common language, I welcome with open arms.  I just ask that they all follow the rules and come here legally.  Comprehende?  Why is that concept so hard for some people to understand? 

Good fences make good neighbors.  Millions of Americans have fences in their yards and it’s perfectly acceptable.  It’s not that we hate our neighbors, it’s just that we want them to respect our boundaries and privacy.  Good friends come to the front door and knock; they don’t sneak in through the bedroom window.

I just happened to catch John Wayne’s film “The Alamo” tonight on Turner Classic Movies.  Although the film has some historical inaccuracies, it’s still a classic and one of my favorites.  There’s an exchange between Davy Crockett (John Wayne) and Col. William Travis (Lawrence Harvey) that contains a very memorable bit of dialog where Crockett explains what a republic means to him.  It’s a quote that I feel is worth remembering.

“Republic. I like the sound of the word. It means people can live free, talk free, go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose. Some words give you a feeling. Republic is one of those words that makes me tight in the throat - the same tightness a man gets when his baby takes his first step or his first baby shaves and makes his first sound as a man. Some words can give you a feeling that makes your heart warm. Republic is one of those words.”

Millions of illegal aliens, alien smugglers, drug traffickers, violent thugs, and God knows who else sneak across our border.  Our Border Patrol Agents put their lives on the line to deal with this kind of stuff day in and day out.  Two agents, one of which was nominated for BP agent of the year last year, have now been convicted for doing their jobs.  If anyone ever deserves a pardon, it’s these two men.

A dozen members of the House of Representatives have written to President Bush demanding an investigation of the case against two Border Patrol agents sentenced to 11 and 12 years in prison for the pursuit and shooting of a drug smuggler and calling for a presidential pardon of the pair.

U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas, sentenced Jose Alonso Compean to 12 years in prison and Ignacio Ramos to 11 years and one day despite a plea by their attorney for a new trial after three jurors said they were coerced into voting guilty in the case.

As WND reported, a federal jury convicted Compean, 28, and Ramos, 37, in March after a two-week trial on charges of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence and a civil rights violation.

…

“Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean attempted to apprehend a Mexican drug smuggler who brought 743 pounds of marijuana across the U.S. border last year,” wrote the congressmen. “The two agents were prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the smuggler was granted full immunity to testify against the agents. Both men were convicted by a Texas jury for firing shots at the fleeing smuggler, who, they believed, carried a gun.”

…

“We ask that a full investigation of this case be ordered immediately,” they went on to say in the letter sent to the White House yesterday. “We are confident that during such an investigation you will find that these Border Patrol agents were acting within the scope of their duty and were unjustly prosecuted. Also, we ask that you use your power of presidential pardon, as granted by the United States Constitution in Article II, Section 2, to pardon these two Border Patrol agents. We understand these requests usually are for those that have already completed their sentences; however, we feel in this case it would be a miscarriage of justice to send these two Border Patrol agents to prison for protecting our nation’s borders from an illegal drug smuggler.” 

…

“This is not the message that our legal system should be giving to the drug cartels that are smuggling drugs, people and terrorists across our borders,” said [Congressman Tom] Tancredo, author of “In Mortal Danger,” a book that says the insecure border and immigration enforcement policies represent the No. 1 crisis in the U.S. today.

WorldNetDaily 

Knowing of the patriotism and selfless devotion of this soldier makes me not only proud to be an American, but also proud to have once served in the same division of the US Army that Sgt. Lootens was assigned to.  May he rest in peace.

Jonathan Lootens enlisted in the Army after the September 11th terrorist attacks, telling his family “this is something I have to do.”His sister, Andrea Ralyea, gave a eulogy today for the 25-year-old sergeant killed last week in Iraq.

Ralyea said the attacks “struck a chord” in her brother that propelled him into the military. The funeral Mass in the Ontario County town of Phelps [NY] was attended by some 200 mourners.

Lootens was on a second tour of duty when he was killed October 15th. A roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in the northern city of Kirkuk. Assigned to the 25th Infantry Division, he had previously served in Afghanistan and earned a bronze star and purple heart.

AP via WCAX-TV

Newsweek 1975: “Oh no! The sky is falling!  Global cooling will kill us all, it’s a fact!”

Newsweek 2006: “On no! The sky is falling!  Global warming will kill us all, it’s a fact!”

From Newsweek via MSNBC 

In April, 1975, in an issue mostly taken up with stories about the collapse of the American-backed government of South Vietnam, NEWSWEEK published a small back-page article about a very different kind of disaster. Citing “ominous signs that the earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically,” the magazine warned of an impending “drastic decline in food production.” Political disruptions stemming from food shortages could affect “just about every nation on earth.” Scientists urged governments to consider emergency action to head off the terrible threat of . . . well, if you had been following the climate-change debates at the time, you’d have known that the threat was: global cooling.

…

But is that the right lesson to draw?  How did NEWSWEEK—or for that matter, Time magazine, which also ran a story on the subject in the mid-1970s—get things so wrong? In fact, the story wasn’t “wrong” in the journalistic sense of “inaccurate.” Some scientists indeed thought the Earth might be cooling in the 1970s, and some laymen—even one as sophisticated and well-educated as Isaac Asimov—saw potentially dire implications for climate and food production. After all, Ice Ages were common in Earth’s history; if anything, the warm “interglacial” period in which human civilization evolved, and still exists, is the exception. The cause of these periodic climatic shifts is still being studied and debated, but many scientists believe they are influenced by small changes in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun (including its “eccentricity,” or the extent to which it deviates from a perfect circle) and the tilt of its rotation.

…

The point to remember, says Connolley, is that predictions of global cooling never approached the kind of widespread scientific consensus that supports the greenhouse effect today.

…

Astronomers have been warning for decades that life on Earth could be wiped out by a collision with a giant meteorite; it hasn’t happened yet, but that doesn’t mean that journalists have been dupes or alarmists for reporting this news. Citizens can judge for themselves what constitutes a prudent response-which, indeed, is what occurred 30 years ago. All in all, it’s probably just as well that society elected not to follow one of the possible solutions mentioned in the NEWSWEEK article: to pour soot over the Arctic ice cap, to help it melt.

In other words [sarcastically paraphrased by me]… “We (Newsweek) were wrong, but it’s not our fault.  And although we were wrong then, you should really believe us now, even though we also say that climate fluctuations are natural (just to cover all bases).”

As if there weren’t enough problems with the border, we also get crap like this…

More than 200 Americans on the public payroll have been convicted of taking bribes from narcotics smugglers or illegal immigrant traffickers during the past two years, according to a wide-ranging probe by the Los Angeles Times.

The disturbing figure is double that of prior accounts and it appears thousands more officials are under investigation for being on the take along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The list of officials involve Border Patrol agents, local police, a county sheriff, motor vehicle clerks and an FBI supervisor. Others include immigration examiners, prison guards, school district officials and uniformed personnel of every branch of the U.S. military.

The vast majority of these officials have pleaded guilty or been convicted of taking bribes from Mexican criminal networks, which the Times notes can afford lavish payoffs with bribery payments topping the $1 million mark.

So far, the number of individuals indicted for corruption shows a steady growth: 17 in 2004, 35 in 2005 and 52 in 2006.

Newsmax