Lysenkoism

Biola University recently sponsored a ceremony in which a number of people associated with the soon to be released film Expelled were recognized. One of the guests was executive producer Walt Ruloff who began with a short presentation. GilDodgen at Uncommon Descent reports:

[Ruloff] talked about his background in computer technology and how he founded a logistics-optimization software company in his early 20s that became spectacularly successful, primarily, according to Walt, because they thought outside the box and questioned everything.

After Walt sold his company he became involved with the biological research and technology world, and discovered that the exact opposite was the case: people in this field were not, and are not, allowed to ask questions. Walt was totally shocked when it was revealed to him by one of the leading genomic researchers in the U.S., who gets all his funding from the NIH and NSF, that the only way to get funding is to pretend to believe in Darwinian orthodoxy.

Even more horrifyingly, this leading genomic researcher (whose face is blacked out and voice disguised in the movie to protect him from the destruction of his life and career by Darwinists) said that as much as 30% of the research in his field is shelved and never published because it might provide ammunition for "creationists." In order to stand any chance of being published, interpretations of biological research must be artificially force-fit into the Darwinian paradigm, regardless of the evidence.

Isn't it ironic that the Darwinians tell us that Intelligent Design is the "science stopper?" It reminds me of the story of Trofim Lysenko, a Soviet biologist who rejected Mendelian genetics and pushed an environmentally-based theory of inheritance that conformed nicely with communist dogma. He exerted great influence over Soviet agricultural practices during the Stalinist era:

Scientific dissent from Lysenko's theories of environmentally acquired inheritance was formally outlawed in 1948, and for the next several years opponents were purged from held positions, and many imprisoned. Lysenko's work was officially discredited in the Soviet Union in 1964, leading to a renewed emphasis there to re-institute Mendelian genetics and orthodox science.

Though Lysenko remained at his post in the Institute of Genetics until 1965, his influence on Soviet agricultural practice declined by the 1950s. The Soviet Union quietly abandoned Lysenko's agricultural practices in favor of modern agricultural practices after the crop yields he promised failed to materialize. Today much of Lysenko's agricultural experimentation and research is largely viewed as fraudulent.

Today's Darwinian KGB agents in the university are the intellectual heirs of those who enforced Lysenko's genetic orthodoxy. The movie Expelled, from all accounts, makes this plain.

RLC

Documenting Hate Is Hateful

Geert Wilders' film Fitna is causing a lot of hand-wringing among many of his country's leaders, including the Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende. People are complaining that Fitna is hateful and will incite Muslims to violence. Balkenende says it "threatens the nation."

In light of this reaction Andrew Walden at The American Thinker writes:

Nothing makes people want to see something more than banning it, or even better yet, telling them they may not be able to handle it (remember the Blair Witch Project?). On that basis, the new film Fitna, must be pulling in internet viewers by the tens of millions.

Everyone who's anyone in the "world community", from the Dutch Prime Minister to the OIC to the EU to the UN, is telling the world this is mighty hateful stuff.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is denouncing the internet premier of Fitna, claiming, "The right of free expression is not at stake here,"

But Ban seems to imply there may be limits [for he goes on to say that], "...there is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence."

Let's see. A 15 minute video clip which documents Muslim hate and violence is condemned because, presumably, to document hate and violence is itself hateful and incites violence. By this reasoning, it would have been wrong to document the suffering of slaves in the South because to do so would have incited hostility of southerners toward the North.

I wonder if medical technology in Europe has advanced to the point where spinal implants are possible.

RLC

Internecine Warfare

This ad was developed, evidently, by a Clinton supporter in order to show his fellow Democrats the sort of thing they're in for from the Republicans if they nominate Obama. It's actually pretty good as propaganda, but to accuse the GOP of intending to use something like this when even in 2004 they never ran footage of 9/11, and despite the fact that McCain has not commented at all on Rev. Wright's peculiar views, is a bit of a stretch. Anyway, keep in mind that this was developed by a Democrat:

Maybe the GOP should use it.

Hot Air has the details.

RLC

Bad Cells

This video is an animation of the chain of events that occurs when the body rids itself of a diseased cell. It happens in our bodies millions of times every day. Mike Gene has a step by step description of what you're seeing here at Telic Thoughts.

It's remarkable what unguided evolution can accomplish. Imagine how complex and sophisticated a process like this would be were it intentionally designed.

RLC

Rappin' with Dicky Dawkins

Richard Dawkins raps on how we need to purge all unbelievers and heretics from the citadels of learning. Daniel Dennett, Eugenie Scott, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, P.Z. Myers and even Charles Darwin himself join in the fun. We're even shown historical footage of William Jennings Bryan KO'ing Clarence Darrow in the Scopes trial, though Bryan's victory was pyrrhic.

Who thinks of this stuff?

HT: Uncommon Descent

RLC

Open Letter to the Religious Right

Joe Carter is about seven for nine in this open letter to the Religious Right. The letter could have used a little proof-reading, but it's otherwise both entertaining and wise, although I'd want to dissent from a couple of things he says.

In any event, here are the first three of his nine pieces of advice to religious conservatives:

One-- As a matter of political liberty I believe it is important that we support such issues as prayer in schools and public displays of religious symbols. But I can't imagine that on the Day of Judgment I'll hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant--you have faithfully fought to keep the Ten Commandments in the courthouse." More likely we'll all be asked why we didn't spend more time concerned about our neighbors in Darfur or fighting the pandemic of AIDS. Perhaps we should rethink our priorities and put the first things first.

Two -- Being Right doesn't mean we are always right. I know we claim we understand that but it would probably help if we acted like we believed it as well.

Three -- We have ideological enemies (such as Islamo-fascists) and we ideological opponents (such as secular liberals). While our ideological opponents want us to lose elections; our ideological enemies want us to lose our lives. That's a crucial distinction that we should always keep in mind. While we have to love them all, we shouldn't lump them all together.

Some of the comments are pretty good as well.

RLC

What's Happening in Iraq?

Reading the newspaper reports of the current flare-up in Iraq and watching the evening news gives the impression that Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi army is clobbering the Iraqi military and police and that things are falling apart in that woeful country.

But then we read someone like Bill Roggio who has done outstanding reporting all through the war, and a quite different picture emerges.

Here are several important facts gleaned from Roggio's Long War Journal:

-- Close to 1000 Mahdi fighters have been killed, wounded, or captured in the last four or five days. This amounts to between 1% and 2% of their fighting force, which is a heavy attrition rate.

-- Despite media palpitations over Iraqi security personnel defecting, the number of such defections in Baghdad is about 15 out of a force of about 50,000. There may have been more in Basra but the numbers are unknown.

-- People in some of the affected towns feel secure enough at this point to demonstrate in support of the government's crackdown on the Mahdi army, and the governing coalition in Baghdad supports it as well.

-- American involvement seems limited. It consists mostly of embedded advisors in Iraqi units, scattered special forces operations, and air strikes.

-- Al Sadr is calling for a cease-fire. Why would he do that unless he realizes that if this battle continues he's going to soon be left without a functioning fighting force and is going to have to take off for Iran again to avoid arrest or worse?

Here's a good rule of thumb: Things are usually not nearly as bad as the Old Media makes them appear to be.

RLC

Surprising Truth Is No Surprise

Most of my adult life I've heard people stereotype conservatives as rich, greedy, and hard-hearted. The portrayal started with professors I had in college, some of whom I was personally close to, and continued among my professional colleagues during my early years in education. I continue to find the charge laid at conservatives' feet by liberal columnists and bloggers today.

But, like a lot of things I heard from my professors in college, this turned out to be quite the opposite of the truth. George Will explains why in this excellent article in the Washington Post to which my friend Byron called my attention.

Will quotes from a book by Arthur Brooks which we discussed at Viewpoint about a year and a half ago. Here's part of his column:

Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism." The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable than conservatives.

If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:

-- Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).

-- Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.

-- Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.

-- Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.

-- In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.

-- People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.

Brooks demonstrates a correlation between charitable behavior and "the values that lie beneath" liberal and conservative labels. Two influences on charitable behavior are religion and attitudes about the proper role of government .... The single biggest predictor of someone's altruism ... is religion. It increasingly correlates with conservative political affiliations because, as Brooks' book says, "the percentage of self-described Democrats who say they have 'no religion' has more than quadrupled since the early 1970s." America is largely divided between religious givers and secular nongivers, and the former are disproportionately conservative.

As we noted in the earlier post, none of this should be understood to mean that conservatives are more generous than liberals. Both groups are generous, but the difference is that conservatives are generous with their own money whereas liberals are generous with other people's money.

RLC

Intramural War

Bill Roggio at The Long War Journal summarizes the fighting taking place in Iraq. It appears that media reports that the Iraqi army is falling apart are grossly over-stated.

Fighting in Basrah, Baghdad, and throughout much of the South continues as Iraqi security Forces and Multinational Forces Iraq press the fight against the Mahdi Army and other Iranian-backed terror groups. The Iraqi Army has moved additional forces to Basrah as the US and Iraqi military have conducted significant engagements in Shia areas of Baghdad. The Mahdi Army has taken significant casualties. The US military has denied the Mahdi Army has taken control of checkpoints in Baghdad.

Several hundred Iraqis are reported to have been killed during the fighting since the operation began on March 25. A large majority of them are Mahdi Army fighters, according to the press reports. The US and Iraqi military have killed more than 70 Mahdi Army fighters in Shia neighborhood in Baghdad alone over the past three days.

The Times Online claimed the Iraqi Army and police have abandoned checkpoints in Baghdad, but the US military denied the Mahdi Army is in control of police and Army checkpoints in Baghdad.

"All checkpoints and ISF [Iraqi security forces] buildings are in ISF and/or Coalition control. No checkpoint is in enemy control," said Lieutenant Colonel Steve Stover, the Public Affairs Officer for the 4th Infantry Division and Multinational Division Baghdad in an email response to questions from The Long War Journal. "There were several cases where the ISF needed our assistance (and more often than not - did not) and either CF 9 (Coalition forces) ground or air responded and either reinforced or took back in a couple instances the CP or IP (Iraqi Police) building - none of that happened today."

The Mahdi army, actually a militia, is a Shiite group being trained and influenced by Iran and vying for control of the government. The Iraqi forces under the authority of the Shiite-dominated Maliki government are inflicting heavy casualties. This is an intra-mural fight among Shia that everyone pretty much knew was inevitable, but it has little to do with the coalition surge despite claims by some in the media that it casts doubt on the surge's success.

There's more on the conflict at the link.

RLC

<i>Fitna</i> Update

The outfit hosting the movie Fitna received serious threats and decided to remove the video. It can, however, be seen here.

RLC

Amateur Atheists

Theologian John Haught makes the New Atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens look like the gang that couldn't shoot straight in an essay which appears in the February 26th issue of The Christian Century.

Haught writes:

For many years I taught an introductory theology course for undergraduates titled "The Problem of God." My fellow instructors and I were convinced that our students should be exposed to the most erudite of the unbelievers. Our rationale was that any mature commitment that intelligent young people might make to a religious faith should be critically tested by the very best opponents.

The recent books by Richard Dawkins, Samuel Harris and Christopher Hitchens would never have made the required-reading list. Their tirades would simply reinforce students' ignorance not only of religion but also of atheism. The new atheists do little more than provide a fresh catalogue of the evils wrought by members of the theistic faiths.

It's true that when reading their books one gets the feeling that the authors believe if they can just discredit religion in the eyes of their readers they will have disproven the existence of God. It's not very sophisticated polemics, but there you have it.

Anyway, Haught offers a number of reasons supporting his conclusion that the New Atheists are philosophical incompetents, and it makes for very entertaining reading.

RLC

Lyme Vaccine

One of the most insidious maladies afflicting those who live in the northeastern U.S. is Lyme disease. Approximately 20,000 cases a year. It's both puzzling and irritating that one hears during the summer months daily news reports about the number of cases of West Nile virus, but rarely is the far more prevalent, dangerous and debilitating Lyme disease ever mentioned.

Anyway, it looks now as if a vaccine for the spirochete that causes the disease is on the near horizon. Read about it here.

RLC

Fitna

We recently posted about the courage of Geert Wilders, the Dutch member of parliament, who has put together a 15 minute video titled Fitna that exposes the horrors of Islamic extremism. Wilders film has somehow managed to get onto the internet even though a lot of services declined to host it. I couldn't embed it, but it can be viewed here. Much of the footage will be familiar to those who've been getting their information from the blogosphere for the last couple of years, but for those still relying on the old media much of it will be new.

Be advised that some of what you'll see is very rough, but it's important that every citizen of this country be aware of the nature of the struggle we're engaged in and that every citizen, therefore, watch it. It may well cost Wilders his life to have brought it to you.

UPDATE: The outfit hosting the movie Fitna received serious threats and decided to remove the video. It can, however, be seen here.

RLC

The Wright Stuff

I know this may upset some faithful readers, but I have to confess that I weary of talk radio hosts like Sean Hannity battering his listeners with the details of the Jeremiah Wright imbroglio for three hours every day for weeks. Wright's ravings are certainly significant and they do tell us something important about Obama, but Hannity seems obsessed with making sure we get the message and refuses to let go of our lapels until we nod obligingly that we have indeed absorbed the lesson.

It's almost enough to make me hope that I never hear another word on the subject, but then along comes a trio of essays by three of the best writers in contemporary journalism, and I'm hooked. I have to read them each to the end. So should you.

The first is by Mark Steyn at NRO. Steyn is a deft and funny writer whose wordcraft is a delectation. Steyn commences his skewering of Obama's defense of Wright with this:

"I'm sure," said Barack Obama in that sonorous baritone that makes his drive-thru order for a Big Mac, fries, and strawberry shake sound profound, "many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed."

Well, yes. But not many of us have heard remarks from our pastors, priests, or rabbis that are stark, staring, out-of-his-tree, flown-the-coop nuts. Unlike Bill Clinton, whose legions of "spiritual advisers" at the height of his Monica troubles outnumbered the U.S. diplomatic corps, Senator Obama has had just one spiritual adviser his entire adult life: the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, two-decade pastor to the president presumptive. The Reverend Wright believes that AIDs was created by the government of the United States - and not as a cure for the common cold that went tragically awry and had to be covered up by Karl Rove, but for the explicit purpose of killing millions of its own citizens. The government has never come clean about this, but the Reverend Wright knows the truth. "The government lied," he told his flock, "about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied."

Does he really believe this? If so, he's crazy, and no sane person would sit through his gibberish, certainly not for 20 years.

Or is he just saying it? In which case, he's profoundly wicked. If you understand that AIDs is spread by sexual promiscuity and drug use, you'll know that it's within your power to protect yourself from the disease. If you're told that it's just whitey's latest cunning plot to stick it to you, well, hey, it's out of your hands, nothing to do with you or your behavior.

Read the whole thing. It's worth a week of Sean Hannity.

Christopher Hitchens doesn't hold back about much and his feelings toward Barack Obama are no exception. He concludes his essay at Slate with this:

To have accepted Obama's smooth apologetics is to have lowered one's own pre-existing standards for what might constitute a post-racial or a post-racist future. It is to have put that quite sober and realistic hope, meanwhile, into untrustworthy and unscrupulous hands. And it is to have done this, furthermore, in the service of blind faith. Mark my words: This disappointment is only the first of many that are still to come.

Read the rest of it, if for no other reason than to enjoy the honey-like flow of Hitchens' prose.

Perhaps the most important of the three is penned by Pat Buchanan, another man not celebrated for pulling punches and prettifying the unpretty. Thus when he turbned his journalistic gaze toward Barack Obama's defense of Jeremiah Wright it was a foregone conclusion that there would be a lot of politically inconvenient truths contained in the result:

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks - with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas - to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Barack talks about new "ladders of opportunity" for blacks.

Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for "deserving" white kids.

Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

All three of these columns are not only good reading, they're important reading. Turn off talk radio and take twenty minutes to digest them.

RLC

Dire Outlook for the NORKs

Strategy Page gives us an update on the situation in communist North Korea. It's pretty grim, especially now that a number of countries have decided to stop the flow of food aid which only went to feed the military and the government anyway:

March 20, 2008: In the north, destitution is the rule. South Korean economists have downgraded their estimates of per capita income in North Korea. It's now believed to be under $1,000 a year (it's over $25,000 in the south). Power and food shortages have left many farms unable to work on the Spring planting.

As seen from space, North Korea is dark at night, while South Korea is lit up. The newly elected, conservative, president of South Korea has told the north that food aid would no longer be automatically sent. The north would have to be more cooperative in areas of economic development and nuclear disarmament. The new South Korean government further irritated the North Korean officials by increasing radio broadcasts to the north that told people up there about why more free food and fuel was not going to arrive until the North Korean government kept its earlier promises to South Korea.

To back up this, South Korea released photos it had taken (with special long range cameras) near the DMZ, clearly showing Red Cross food aid being transferred to the military in 2006 and 2007. The previous South Korean government, following a decade long "sunshine policy" had discussed these photos privately with North Korean officials. There was never any response. So the new South Korean government released the photos.

The north has been caught diverting food aid to the military dozens of times since 2003, and has ignored foreign criticism of this. As a result, many nations will not contribute food aid to North Korea any more. The food shortage is so severe this Winter that lower ranking government officials had their food rations cut. This had never happened before.

The North Korean armed forces have lost the power struggle with the "economic reformers" in the government. Many senior generals have been forced to retire in the past few months. The military has been stripped of many of its economic assets, mainly because of mismanagement and corruption. The police have been given the power to arrest military personnel for "economic crimes" and corruption. Meanwhile, the growing use of narcotics in the north (by those getting rich in the black market and along the Chinese border) has resulted in harsher penalties. From now on, anyone caught with more than a quarter pound of narcotics will be executed.

The North Korea military has been declining for over a decade, and the government has apparently concluded that there's no point in putting a lot of money into the military when the economic situation is so dire.

On the Chinese border, North Koreans are so desperate to get out that they are selling themselves into slavery (or, rather, indentured servitude, where they work for free for a period of time to work off the money used to get them past the border guards). North Korean refugees are increasingly suffering from stress related disorders. This is the result of increasing police activity back home.

North Korea has entered into a trade deal with Uganda. North Korea will supply weapons and training for Ugandan police, while the African nation will export food and silk. More importantly, North Korea announced new economic reforms. The government is giving in to Chinese demands that economic reforms, like those that made China rich in the last three decades, be implemented in North Korea. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to delay providing proof that it has halted its nuclear weapons program. The new reforms will take at least a year to show some results, and in the meantime, the food, corruption and public order situations will get worse.

What a bleak picture. It almost makes you think Strategy Page is describing the misery of African Americans in Jeremiah Wright's America.

If Marx were alive today to survey the fruits of his life's work he'd probably burn all his books. Marxism has been applied in the Soviet Union, Cuba, Africa, North Korea, Eastern Europe, and China. In every case either Marxism had to be abandoned or the country languishes in poverty and squalor. The only people left today who still have hope that Marxism is an answer to the world's problems are people, like American college professors, who've never lived under it.

RLC

Arrested Development

The rule of thumb for some people, even some who are chronologically older than twelve, is that when they don't have an argument, or worse, when their argument is completely incoherent, the best course is to conceal the fact by piling on the personal invective. Darwinian Larry Moran is evidently a good example of the type.

Michael Egnor tells us a little bit about Professor Moran's style:

University of Toronto biochemistry professor Larry Moran takes issue with my characterization of his vicious personal attacks on Dr. Jonathan Wells. Dr. Wells has pointed out that superb recent research on bacterial resistance to antibiotics was independent of Darwin's theory. Dr. Moran said of Dr. Wells:

"...the right people hate IDiots...Wells makes a virtue out of lying for Jesus...He should be an embarrassment to the intelligent design creationist cult except that the members of that cult are all incapable of separating fact from fiction when it comes to science...When I first saw the Wells article I seriously wondered whether Jonathan Wells was mentally stable..."

Dr. Moran has a low view of people who question his evolutionary views from the perspective of design. In 2006 he said of students who support the inference to design in biology:

"Flunk the IDiots...40% of the freshman class [at UCSD] reject Darwinism... the university has become alarmed at the stupidity of its freshman class and has offered remedial instruction for those who believe in Intelligent Design Creationism...UCSD should not have required their uneducated students to attend remedial classes. Instead, they should never have admitted them in the first place...[T]he University should just flunk the lot of them and make room for smart students who have a chance of benefiting from a high quality education."

In fairness to Dr. Moran, though, he no doubt feels threatened. His life's work and credibility, everything he's ever said to his students, is under assault, and he feels bitter toward those responsible. So he lashes out, flailing ineffectually and incoherently, at the perceived cause of his distress. The man's world is collapsing all around him so we shouldn't judge his juvenile screed too harshly.

RLC

Defining Our Terms

Jonathan Wells takes the occasion of a nasty dispute involving some vitriolic Darwinians to clarify the meaning of key terms in the contemporary debate over origins. Wells succinctly clears up the difference between Darwinian evolution, Darwinism, microevolution and macroevolution. Confusion often reigns in the popular media over these terms, largely because the first, Darwinian evolution, is often used a synonym for each of the others even though each of the others means something entirely different.

RLC

Inside the Bridge

The March 12 missile attack on Taliban leadership gathered in a house in Pakistan was orchestrated from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Phil Peterson was at the command center (called the Bridge) and describes the operation as he witnessed it there:

The March 12 strike originated from intelligence gathered on the ground from a subordinate unit seeking information on the Haqqani Network. After full-motion video and other "special intelligent collection capabilities" were performed, the Bridge confirmed this particular compound was indeed a safe house for insurgents. Analysts continued to scrutinize the area looking for any signs of life, the presence of women or children, and activity in neighboring structures. Other disciplines, such as law and weapons, are consulted as well.

In this case, intelligence assets reported no presence of civilians in the area over the previous five days, making the decision to launch a strike urgent. Full-motion video captured and projected on to the center projection screen -- known as "Kill TV" -- several individuals performing sentry duty in and around the Haqqani Network compound's boundaries.

At 9:40 PM local time, Coalition forces declared an imminent threat from the compound and gathered in the Bridge to discuss the possibility of striking the compound. Due to its location inside Pakistan, the proposal was sent up the chain of command to US Central Command and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force). After discussing the latest intelligence reports, rechecking and confirming their accuracy, the commanding general ordered the strike.

While everyone was working the "pre-strike," they gathered in groups of 2-3 people, larger groups at times, and in the minutes leading up to the strike, everyone was working to make sure their data and intelligence was correct. In the final seconds, all eyes were on Kill TV, some people were sitting while others were standing, to see the real time video of the impending strike.

There was no cheering or high fives; only a hushed "ohhh" from a few people when the strike was made.

The strike was completed and work resumed as usual. Personnel returned to their workstations and the designated section began the process of contacting Pakistan officials to let them know about the strike. Analysts continued studying the streaming video images looking for signs of life in and around the area while other teams at offsite locations were doing the same and then feeding their conclusions to the Bridge commander.

There's more at the link.

RLC

Four Questions

The media continues to trivialize our politics by treating the presidential campaign as though it were a board game in which gaffes, scandals, missteps and debate zingers all get tallied up to delight the talking heads and newspaper columnists. Meanwhile, the voting public wishes they'd grow up and start doing their job. They can begin by pressing the candidates to answer some urgent questions and holding their feet to the fire until they do. Here are four questions with which each candidate should be confronted at the earliest opportunity, and they should be badgered with these questions every time they make a public appearance until they answer them:

1) The National Intelligence Estimate notwithstanding, the consensus seems to be that Iran is still engaged in the production of a nuclear device. The Iranians have threatened to use such a weapon against Israel once they have it. What will you do if Iran (or North Korea, for that matter) persists in pursuing a nuclear weapon? Please do not answer that you will sit down and talk with their leaders. The question presupposes that all such diplomatic efforts have failed. How far are you prepared to go to stop Iran or North Korea from obtaining a nuclear weapon?

2) The sub-prime mortgage crisis and the falling dollar have placed us on the verge of a global economic recession. What, precisely, will you do about the crisis we are facing? Please don't answer with platitudes about "hope" and "change" and "yes, we can". What measures will you take, that the Bush administration has not taken, to fix the problem?

3) Illegal immigrants are flooding into this country and placing enormous burdens upon our schools, hospitals, justice system, and welfare system. What, if anything, do you propose to do to stop the flow of illegal immigration? Please be specific. Telling us that we must secure our border is vague and unhelpful. Please state exactly what you propose to do, if anything, to secure the border.

4) Please name a Supreme Court justice, current or former, who would be most similar to a nominee that you would select for the court or federal bench should the opportunity arise during your presidency.

If the media neglect to ask these questions and to demand answers they will have failed to meet their responsibility to the public. If the questions are asked, but the candidates refuse to give clear answers then the candidates will have failed the voters, who will be given little upon which to base a responsible vote.

RLC

Al Gore, Call Your Office

There's a scientific tsunami welling up on the horizon and it bodes ill for those who've been for the last several years forecasting impending doom due to global warming. The data seem to show that for the last decade, even though greenhouse gas emissions have increased, global temperatures have not. In fact, they appear to be declining according to this piece in The Australian:

Catastrophic predictions of global warming usually conjure a notion of a tipping point, a point of no return.

Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth still warming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"

Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant."

Duffy: "It's not only that it's not discussed. We never hear it, do we? Whenever there's any sort of weather event that can be linked into the global warming orthodoxy, it's put on the front page. But a fact like that, which is that global warming stopped a decade ago, is virtually never reported, which is extraordinary."

Duffy then turned to the question of how the proponents of the greenhouse gas hypothesis deal with data that doesn't support their case. "People like Kevin Rudd and Ross Garnaut are speaking as though the Earth is still warming at an alarming rate, but what is the argument from the other side? What would people associated with the IPCC say to explain the (temperature) dip?"

Marohasy: "Well, the head of the IPCC has suggested natural factors are compensating for the increasing carbon dioxide levels and I guess, to some extent, that's what sceptics have been saying for some time: that, yes, carbon dioxide will give you some warming but there are a whole lot of other factors that may compensate or that may augment the warming from elevated levels of carbon dioxide.

"There's been a lot of talk about the impact of the sun and that maybe we're going to go through or are entering a period of less intense solar activity and this could be contributing to the current cooling."

There's much more to this story at the link, including an interesting discussion of the impact this news is going to have when it finally sinks in. You read it here first.

RLC