Wolf Howling: tapes

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Interesting News From Around The Web - 12/22/2007

Secretary of Defense Gates says that Pakistan is now al Qaeda’s primary target. And now a suicide attack inside a crowded Mosque in a settled area of Pakistan.

When the NYT runs positive front page articles on a particular Republican presidential candidate, why do I feel like there is an ulterior motive?

More on the destroyed CIA Tapes, this time from the 9-11 Commission staff.

Is China’s military operating outside of Politburo control?

Is global warming a cover for countries to try and gain economically at our expense?

The WSJ takes note of the incredible sophistry of Ms. Clinton’s far left foreign policy statements.

Reversing a trend that began with the Jacobites some 200 years ago, Sarkozy, a Catholic, is urging a greater role for religion in France’s public life.

Soccer Dad looks at Iranian influence on this side of the pond which, in reality, has been with us and growing for many years: "Allowing Iranian influence to grow in the Western hemisphere presents a threat to the United States. Will the government act to forestall this threat or allow it to grow unchecked?" If the latest NIE is any indication, we will not be forestalling that threat anywhere in the world.

I do not understand Israel’s restraint in failing to respond with overwhelming force when they are regularly attacked from the Gaza Strip. The latest is six qassam rockets that landed in an Israeli school yard. Joshuapundit has the story.

A Porkbusters letter to the President pleading for an end to earmarks in the Omnibus Spending Bill.

The insane energy bill that skews agricultural production and puts us on the edge of incredible inflation in the price of food.

Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse throws his political endorsement behind Fred Thompson.

The question of universal healthcare has several facets, but the gate keeper is can such a system be made to work without degrading the quality of care. The Glittering Eye has an interesting post on this from the perspective of a Canadian doctor.

Interesting News From Around The Web 12/14/07

From the USA Today: Congressional Democrats . . . seem lost in a time warp. . . . [T]oo many seem unable or unwilling to admit that President Bush's surge of 30,000 more troops has succeeded beyond their initial predictions. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who in the spring declared the war lost, said last week that "the surge hasn't accomplished its goals." Anti-war Democrats remain fixated on tying war funding to a rapid troop withdrawal. Yet pulling the troops out precipitously threatens to squander the progress of recent months . . .

And now that the surge has worked, Cheat Seeking Missles ponders what comes next and looks for answers to Iraq the Model and Christopher Kojm.

Meanwhile, Lebanon continues to suffer from the bloodlust of Iran and Syria. Lebanon remains unable to choose a President against the backdrop of another assassination and in light of the outrageous demands of Iran’s proxies, Hezbollah. The single biggest key to reestablishing peace in the Middle East is the destruction of Iran’s theocracy. It would end the financing of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza strip, it would end the immediate threat of nuclear proliferation, and it would isolate and neutralize Syria.

Our federal prosecutors are having a real problem with making charges of terrorism stick. Joshuapundit is doing a good job of keeping track of the most recent cases and the problems arising out of jurors who take their political beliefs into the jury room. The latest chapter in that tale is the Sears Tower case involving homegrown terrorists.

I love this story on the CIA waterboarding issue from the other day. The headline is "CIA Destroyed Tapes Despite Court Order." Of course, the problem with that assertion is that neither of the Court Orders described in the article could possibly have applied to the waterboarding tapes, something the author very grudgingly admits later in the story.

There is a long post due on the First Amendment – the words of which do not include "separation of Church and State." In the meantime, Rhymes with Right tells us that we have the House voting unanimously in favor of resolutions supporting both Hinduism and Islam, but nine Democrats voting against a similar resolution in support of Christianity. This arises from the same type of virulent, multicultural ethos discussed in this post that is destroying Britain. From the other end of the spectrum, a Muslim is seeking a ban on crosses as offensive. It leaves one near speechless.

Right Wing Nuthouse likes compares Thompson and Huckabee, or as he puts it, Substance versus Stupid. This is a very good post, and I concur completely for all the reasons he states.

According to Charles Krauthammer, "It's two centuries since the passage of the First Amendment, and our presidential candidates still cannot distinguish establishment from free exercise."

Corruption can destroy a democracy. That said, the corruption of Fatah under Yasser Arafat was legendary. And that corruption played a huge role in the election of Hamas by the Palestinians in the last election. Soccer Dad looks at the issue of corruption in the PA now under Abbas. It has not subsided.