A Story About Climate Change

On Tuesday's NBC Nightly News broadcast, anchor Brian Williams took a look at the warm winter temperatures across most of the continental United States - and in particular, New York City where he broadcasts from most weeknights.

This look brought forward Williams' concern that the warmer than normal January temperatures are just the latest in the examples of the effects of climate change that we are facing.  He then turned the story over to the network's Chief Environmental Affairs correspondent Anne Thompson who proceeded to present a story to add to the climate change alarmism and promotion.

Zombie, the intrepid blogger for PJ Media, has an excellent post that brings forward something that we all need to consider the next time we are inflicted with an individual, a group, a panel, an academic, broadcasters, non-government, or government entity that argues that climate change demands immediate action and solutions...

I just finished reading a terrifying new book about climate change. I learned this:
• Climate change is happening faster than we realize and it will have catastrophic consequences for mankind.

• There’s very little we can do to stop it at this late stage, but we might be able to save ourselves if we immediately take these necessary and drastic steps:

- Increase our reliance on alternative energy sources and stop using so much oil and other carbon-based fuels;

- Adopt energy-efficient practices in all aspects of our lives, however inconvenient;

- Impose punitive taxes on inefficient or polluting activities to discourage them;

- Funnel large sums of money from developed nations like the U.S. to Third World nations;

- In general embrace all environmental causes.

You of course recognize these as the solutions most often recommended to ameliorate the looming crisis of Global Warming. But there’s a little glitch in my narrative. Because although the book I read was indeed about climate change, it wasn’t about Global Warming at all; it was instead about “The Coming of the New Ice Age,” and it isn’t exactly “new” — it was published in 1977.

The real goal and focus from the progressives who are advocating the immediate adoptions of 'solutions' is not to address what is causing the problem.  The cause for them is immaterial.  What is important is the solution - and the implementation of the solution which just so happens to support the progressive / socialistic solution to society which has nothing to do with science and everything to do with power and control for the elite progressives.

It's a perfect example of - when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Or in this case is it when all you have is the hammer and sickle?

The Arab Winter

Mark Steyn's column this week looks with a great deal of pessimism at the latest developments resulting from the 'Arab Spring' - the revolutions across a number of countries in the Middle East against the mainly secular dictatorships that existed there.  Most troubling to not only the US, but Western Civilization and the prospects of peace in the region, are the replacement of these dictatorships by Islamic fundamentalist governments.

In Egypt, which held it's first stage of Parliamentary elections earlier this week, the Muslim Brotherhood and the even more radical Salifi's won nearly 65% of the vote and are positioned to take firm control of the Egyptian government once (if?) the military regime that stepped in after the departure of Mubarak hands the reins over to an elected government.  Already, the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi's are calling for the replacement of the current legal system with one that is based on Shari'a law.

Corruption and Islamism in Egypt is rampant today.. "Post Mubarak Egypt has become an uncontrolled kleptocracy, in which public officials steal whatever isn't tied down." Chaos exists - one that will be capitalized on by the Islamists who will 'bring order' to the situation.

One of the best bloggers / observers of this region, Michael J. Totten, maintains a blog on PJ Media.  Totten travels extensively in the Middle East region and his writings from Lebanon during 2005-2006 were exceptional.  (Totten is one of those bloggers who works harder, writes better, and informs more than so many of the so-called professional journalists.)  Totten notes in this recent blog entry 'Watch Out':

– “I’ve always scoffed at those who describe the Muslim Brotherhood as moderate. It’s not at all an objectively moderate organization, and certainly not by any Western standard. Conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans are moderates. These guys are authoritarian theocrats. If a Christian counterpart existed in the United States, they’d be called fascists.


They really are moderate compared with the Salafists, though. The Salafists are the Taliban-style totalitarians that produced Al Qaeda. “

We are making a huge mistake if we dismiss these changes in government, in Tunisia, in Libya, in Egypt, and in Yemen, to name the one's already underway, into Islamic fundamentalist based governments as one that is not a threat to the Western nations. Syria continues to be in turmoil as the tyrant Assad tries to hold on - and it's far more likely that the hard core Islamists will take power (with the support of Iran and Hezbollah) when Assad falls. Lebanon is another country that is under divided rule, but lacks the power to really dismiss and disengage itself from Hezbollah's influence. Hezbollah will do in Lebanon what it wants to do - and the Lebanese people / government is unable to stop it - and will have to share any price paid.

All of this moves to further isolate Israel. While it is a nation under siege today, the siege will tighten considerably between these government changes and renewed actions by the Islamic bloc in the United Nations.

Pressure will increase in the United States to abandon Israel - which would be fatal to both if that decision is ever made.

Far too many refuse to accept the threat that the radical Islamists, ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood (see writings of Sayid Qutb), the Salafis, to the Iranian Shiite theocrats, seek to re-establish a larger Caliphate in the name of Islam. This is a fundamental challenge to the neo-liberal Western Civilization that has been in combat with the Islamic caliphate and it's goals to expand via the sword since the 8th century.

Among those refusing to accept the actions of these groups as evidence of their intent to obtain their goals and agenda are the liberals / left of the West. Rather than look at the fundamental differences between the cultures - in particular the treatment of women - the focus remains locked into the fallacy of multiculturalism. Where is the outrage, when for example, nearly 3,000 women in Britain last year were the victim of so-called 'honor attacks' by their Muslim family members?

A Middle East View for November 28, 2011

Today, four major Egyptian party coalitions are vying for seats in their Parliament as the first stage of elections take place since the ouster of former President Mubarak earlier this year. 

Since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in February, ending decades of enforced one-party rule, dozens of parties have sprung up, all hoping to make it big. They fall into four major groups:


•The Democratic Alliance is led by the Freedom and Justice Party, a new party created by the once outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. The alliance includes a number of liberal forces in an effort not to scare off more secular voters.


•The Egyptian Bloc is led by the Free Egyptian Party a new party created by Coptic Christian. The alliance is largely secular and includes some left-leaning outfits. This is the biggest rival to the Democratic Alliance.


•The Islamist Alliance is led by Nour Party and other Salafis, ultraconservative Muslims whose ideology resembles Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism. It includes the Gama’a Al Islamiyya terrorist group’s Building and Development Party. This group hopes to pick up support from those disillusioned by the Brotherhood’s apparent drift towards the political center.


•The Revolution Continues Alliance is leftist and includes many of the youth groups that helped lead the anti-Mubarak uprising in January, as well as the Brotherhood’s youth wing, which has broken away from its parent organization.


The Muslim Brotherhood has become more centrist than in the past, as it is torn between the vanishing old leaders, who yearn for the days of violence, and the youth groups that want it to become fully secular. It is expected to emerge as the largest party, though not a majority, since it has the best organization. Guardian

Some are touting this as an example of the 'Arab Spring' where Arabs, mainly young adults, took to the streets to protest and ultimately overthrow the despots who ran their countries.  They will point to this election, and others, as an example that these Arab nations are embracing the tenants of Democracy.  Perhaps...but I am highly skeptical that democracy and democratic principles will find a welcome home in the Arab nations which experienced the Arab Spring.

Instead, we are far more likely to see that the Arab Spring will result in the swapping of secular despots for Islamic despots....

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Muammar Gadhafi in Libya were corrupt dictators who outlived their days. They all suppressed the Islamic movements in their respective countries, and were all thus on the side of the seculars in their own perverse way. The same holds true for Syria’s Bashar Assad, whose father, Hafez, killed some 20,000 people in the city of Hama in 1982, quelling a rebellion by the Moslem Brothers. Now, his son, Bashar, no less ruthless, seems to be about to go the way of Ben Ali, Mubarak and Gadhafi.

The demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt were initially led by secular groups – educated youngsters adept at using the Internet, Facebook and Twitter. In Egypt, they stood shoulder to shoulder with members of the Coptic Christian community, which constitutes 10% of the Egyptian population. Quite naturally, they called for the downfall of Mubarak to be followed by democratic elections. The motley crew in Libya that overthrew Gadhafi was supported by the democracies that make up NATO, and it is unimaginable that the bloodbath that rid the country of the “mad dog of the Middle East,” as former U.S. President Ronald Reagan called him, would not be followed by democratic elections – even under the chaotic conditions that followed Gadhafi’s downfall.

But who is going to win the elections when they take place – in Egypt, in Libya and eventually in Syria?

We already have a preview: In Tunisia, the country that had been the most secular and westernized of the Arab states, the election was won by Ennahda, the Islamic party, with the advocates of a secular Tunisia left far behind.  [Original here]

But with this disconcerting news that provides a grim forecast for the region, there still are signs that there may be hope for the region....in Lebanon.

While the Palestinians Fire Rockets into Israel - UNSECO grants Palestinians full membership

UNESCO (United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) earlier today voted to grant full membership to the Palestinian Authority even as the Palestinians in Gaza continue to fire rockets / missiles into Israeli cities and towns.

The vote apparently was not even close as far too much of the United Nations and it's affiliated organizations seem to have willing blinders on when it comes to Israel and in particular the actions of the Palestinian Authority.  It is, basically, a recognition of a terrorist organization and one of the steps towards granting those terrorists their request to be recognized by the UN as a state.  It also continues the pattern of anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic votes, rulings, and actions by the UN and it's affiliated organizations.

Under a long existing US law, the US is obligated to not fund the UN or any affiliated organization that grants the Palestinian Authority the status of a state or state-like authority (ie full membership in UNESCO).  For UNESCO, if the President remains willing to support and uphold the US law, that means they stand to lose about $70 million in annual funding.  If the UN reacts favorably to the Palestinian application that is pending, the US, under that law, would withhold it's share of the total UN budget.  That share represents 22% of the total UN budget.

The UN is an increasingly irrelevant and dysfunctional organization.  While it moved quickly to condemn Qaddafi in Libya and authorized the use of force to protect the Libyan civilians from air and helicopter assault by the Libyan military (which significantly helped the rebels overthrow Qaddafi's regime), the UN Security Council remains at an impasse as to taking similar action to prevent Syria's Assad from killing more than the 3,000 civilians he already has.