Intelligence Chairman not up on basics

Jeff Stein interviewed Congressman Sylvestre Reyes who will be the new Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee since Speaker Pelosi passed over Jane Harmon and reluctantly decided against naming an impeached Judge Hastings. The following is a segment of that interview, but you can read the whole thing here.

We warmed up with a long discussion about intelligence issues and Iraq. And then we veered into terrorism’s major players.

To me, it’s like asking about Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland: Who’s on what side?

The dialogue went like this:

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

That’s because the extremist Sunnis who make up a l Qaeda consider all Shiites to be heretics.

Al Qaeda’s Sunni roots account for its very existence. Osama bin Laden and his followers believe the Saudi Royal family besmirched the true faith through their corruption and alliance with the United States, particularly allowing U.S. troops on Saudi soil.

It’s been five years since these Muslim extremists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center.

Is it too much to ask that our intelligence overseers know who they are?

Clinton bugs Diana

It says here that the Clinton CIA was bugging the phone of Princess Diana when Atta was planning 9/11 and now the dems are all upset that Bush is bugging real terrorists.

Mark Steyn Analyzes the ISG

This is another great column from Mark Steyn. He focuses on just one of their recommendations, but he does it brilliantly. Read it all here.

"RECOMMENDATION 5: The Support Group should consist of Iraq and all the states bordering Iraq, including Iran and Syria . . ."

Er, OK. I suppose that's what you famously hardheaded "realists" mean by realism. But wait, we're not done yet. For this "Support Group," we need the extra-large function room. Aside from Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait, the ISG -- the Iraq Surrender Gran'pas -- want also to invite:

". . . the key regional states, including Egypt and the Gulf States . . ."

Er, OK. So it's basically an Arab League meeting. Not a "Support Group" I'd want to look for support from, but each to his own. But wait, Secretary Baker's still warming up:

". . . the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council . . ."

That would be America, Britain, France, Russia, China. A diverse quintet, representing many distinctive approaches to international affairs from stylish hauteur to polonium-210. Anybody else?

". . . the European Union . . ."

Hey, why not? It's not really multilateral unless there's a Belgian on board, right? Oh, and let's not forget:

". . . the Support Group should call on the participation of the United Nations Secretary-General in its work. The United Nations Secretary-General should designate a Special Envoy as his representative . . ."

Oh, but lest you think there are no minimum admission criteria to James Baker's "Support Group," relax, it's a very restricted membership: Arabs, Persians, Chinese commies, French obstructionists, Russian assassination squads. But no Jews. Even though Israel is the only country to be required to make specific concessions -- return the Golan Heights, etc. Indeed, insofar as this document has any novelty value, it's in the Frankenstein-meets-the-Wolfman sense of a boffo convergence of hit franchises: a Vietnam bug-out, but with the Jews as the designated fall guys. Wow. That's what Hollywood would call "high concept."

More U.N. Lunacy

This might seem a big day for U.N. lunacy judging by the Title of BestView entries, but in fact every day could be filled with examples, I suspect. Now we have another guess with absolutely no more scientific basis than other global warming nonsense from this most worthless of institutions. Entire article here.

Mankind has had less effect on global warming than previously supposed, a United Nations report on climate change will claim next year.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there can be little doubt that humans are responsible for warming the planet, but the organisation has reduced its overall estimate of this effect by 25 per cent.

In a final draft of its fourth assessment report, to be published in February, the panel reports that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has accelerated in the past five years. It also predicts that temperatures will rise by up to 4.5 C during the next 100 years, bringing more frequent heat waves and storms.

More U.N. Lunacy

This is the last one from Senator Coburn's web site. There is no reason to raise the blood pressure unduly, but this is just so outrageous that light must be shown on the extent of our unwise continued association with the U.N.

UNDP pays historian half a million to praise itself

In the meantime, UNDP condemns the US for not giving it millions more "for the poor"

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) paid $567,379 in 2004 for a historian to lavish praise upon itself in the form of a published book released this year entitled, UNDP: A Better Way? This included the following expenses:

• $252,000 for the historian's 21-month salary
• $87,639 for the "project coordinator's" salary
• $91,559 for "research and editing"
• $37,299 for travel
• $26,752 for office space
• $55,452 for purchasing mass quantities of its own book

Overlooking the fact that the U.N. must pay historians to praise itself, U.N. officials continue to criticize the U.S. for not giving more than the $108 million we give to the UNDP each year. This criticism towards the #1 U.N. donor seems odd at a time when U.N. management should be asking UNDP how many Guatemalan farmers could be trained to maximize crop yields, how many Burmese refugees could be taught to read and write, how many Sudanese survivors of genocide could be fed a meal, how many micro-loans could be administered in India for $567,379?

U.N. Kitchen Upgrade

The United Nations last week approved a $4.3 million plan for a super-luxe makeover to the Secretary General's New York apartment. The U.S. taxpayer, who covers 22% of all U.N. operating expenses, will be expected to donate $1 million towards this lush project.

Part of the plan is to spend $200,000 on a new kitchen alone. For $200,000, the U.N. could purchase 200,000 malaria pills to help save 200,000 kids suffering in Africa.

This and other examples of what happens to your money can be read daily on my favorite politician's web site nearly every day. Yes, it is Senator Coburn from Oklahoma.

Osama bin Laden Study Group

Scott Ott at Scrappleface announces a new study group being formed.

(2006-12-07) — Just a day after the Iraq Study Group released its report and dozens of recommendations to help the United States escape what it termed a “grave and deteriorating” situation, an unnamed al Qaeda spokesman announced the appointment of a similar panel by terror leader Usama bin Laden.

“Mr. bin Laden, peace be upon him, favors a transparent process of laying all of our military and diplomatic options on the table before the world,” said the source. “The civil war in Iraq hinders our efforts to establish Baghdad as the capital of our global Islamic Caliphate. Mr. bin Laden believes it’s not going well enough or fast enough, and he’s open to any good suggestions for finding a way out of Iraq,”

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Mr. bin Laden may terminate his stalwart second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and appoint a less controversial man who could garner broader support from the Muslim media and in public opinion polls.

However, an anonymous official at the White Cavern, Mr. bin Laden’s headquarters, provided The New York Times with a classified top-secret memo that indicates the al Qaeda leader is considering a “graceful exit” from Iraq, in order to avoid the political consequences of having the conflict drag on.

A Scientific Fork in the Road?

For several decades I taught medical students that the scientific basis of cancer chemotherapy was based on the concept that tumors were composed of cells which had been triggered to grow more rapidly and with different controls than normal cells. As a result our efforts to counter this proliferative abnormality had to be directed at discovering and targeting the slight alteration which allowed the differential growth rates of the tumor cells. Well, it turns out now that we should turn our attention to a different model. Recent evidence out of Canada suggests that it is stem cells which make cancers grow. This is based on the finding that tumor cells are quite diversified and some of them have very little proliferative potential and are thus unworthy targets of our chemotherapeutic agents currently in use. In fact, the evidence now is that when stem cells are removed the bulk of the tumor cells are not particularly nasty. So, if a tumor cell does not have the abnormal cell division potential, it poses very little threat. It turns out that in one study only 1 cell in 40,000 colon cancer tumor cells was responsible for all the growth in the tumor. Ergo, we need to change our thinking about cancer chemotherapeutic targeting.

I am struck by the way in which this could mesh with an observation by others that when we try to use embryonic stem cells to cure such things as diabetes in animal models, we almost always end up with cancers. This sad fact is no deterrent to the liberals who will not be content until we create embryos on a massive scale to pursue what now seems a dead-end in stem cell research as opposed to the use of adult stem cells which have been shown to be effective in 78 different medical conditions. This perhaps because the adult stem cells cause the proliferation of cells which are deficient in a given medical condition. Thus, nerve cell regeneration, pancreatic cells which make insulin, and other conditions are amenable to treatment with adult stem cells, but not with embryonic stem cells which have not yet differentiated.

Mark Steyn on the ISG

And the only specific strategic proposal is a linkage between Iraq and a “renewed and sustained commitment” to a “comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace” – which concedes the same ludicrous rationale that the Saudi King Abdullah and all the rest of them make: that one tiny ten-mile sliver of Jews is the reason why millions of Muslims from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Emirates are mired in dictatorships, failed economies and jihadist fever. For the Baker group to endorse this clapped out pan-Arabism is disgusting. An “Arab-Israeli peace”? What does that mean? What exactly is Israel doing to Iraq, or Tunisia, or Qatar, or any other Arabs except those in the “Palestinian territories”? To frame it in those terms is to adopt the pathologies of the enemy. Shame on Baker, Hamilton and all the rest.

Read it all here.

Teachers don't understand written English

Teachers unions are supposed to promote the financial interests of, well, teachers--but not in Washington state. Here, the Washington Education Association is fighting some 4,000 nonmember teachers who don't want their paychecks raided each year and used for political activities that they don't believe in. "The right of free speech is being trampled" by the union political spending, complains Scott Carlson, a business teacher in Spokane. "And that's a right I hold very precious."

Too bad the unions don't. The WEA derisively refers to teachers like Mr. Carlson who want their money back not as free-speech advocates but "dissidents." The goal is to squash these dissidents by overturning Initiative 134, a law--approved by 72% of Washington voters in 1992--that requires unions to obtain written approval from teachers before dues are spent on campaigns or candidates. Back in March, the unions got a surprising assist from the state Supreme Court, which ruled that the paycheck protection law places "too heavy" a burden on the free-speech rights of the union.

The Washington law states unambiguously that a union may not use dues "for political purposes without the affirmative consent of the nonmembers from whom the excess fees were taken." The Washington Supreme Court somehow twisted these words to mean that the unions can spend as they wish unless workers object and affirmatively opt out. That's a big distinction, because the unions make it as time-consuming and cumbersome as possible to get the money back once they snatch it.

The case is discussed here and will go before the U.S. Supreme Court in January. Let's hope the court will help the teachers understand their liberal causes should not be supported by coerced money.

Paper Tiger

For some time now I have been uneasy about the action of the U.S. in response to the situations which have arisen in the past few years. The problem has become increasingly evident though the presidencies of the two Bushes and Clinton. In these years we have become increasingly less willing to assert our perogatives and act as the lone superpower on earth should. When Reagan took the oath of office, the Iranians released the hostages immediately. This act revealed an enlightened self-interest which is currently being exhibited again by the Iranians as they openly pursue nuclear weapons because they know that Bush is content to wait for the U.N. to pass another worthless resolution despite opposition from Russia and China. This passive response by Bush is proceeding despite repeated assurances from Ahmadinejad that he will use these same weapons to eliminate Israel.

In Iraq, you have very little talk about victory in a specific sense. Instead, we hear about wanting stability and our generals appear before congressional committees explaining why they can't defeat a militia headed by Muqtada al-Sadr. In the meantime our soldiers who were trained to wage war venture out of the Green Zone to pass out candy and soccer balls to children in the streets.

In other areas we sit by and let Putin resurrect a dictatorship in Russia while providing Iran with anti-aircraft missiles and nuclear technology to be used against us. We let Hugo Chavez solidify his hold on an important country in South America while he develops anti-American alliances with Iran, North Korea and liberals like Joe Kennedy who accepts his heating oil to help the "poor". We apologize for removing 6 Islamic clerics from and airplane, offer to provide them with a meditation room at airports while denying our children in elementary school the right to sing Christmas carols.

Osama bin Laden said early on that America would cave in as we did in Somalia under Clinton, fail to follow through on commitments liked Bush 41 did when he asked the Iraqis to rise up against Saddam, and Bush 43 is continuing in the same timid vein when he ignores his post 9/11 assertion that we would hold those nations who harbor and support terrorists to full account. Such nonsense. How frightened is Iran right now? Syria? Venezuela? North Korea?

It is all very sad and ominous.

Liberal Folly

BestView has observed several times how the loony left seems to have accepted the conclusion that man has caused the global warming and that if we don't take some ill-advised action right now to correct the situation, we are all doomed to some myriad forms of calamity. When they are confronted by the fact that the science behind this chicken-little conclusion is not settled, they say that is better to take some action "just in case".

Contrast that to their idiotic position on a missile-defense system. It is, unfortunately, advanced by Senator Carl Levin who is now going to be Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He is following a long established democrat position against the development of an anti-ballistic missile system on the basis that it has not been proved to work and we should not do the research to make it work because then it might work and that would be destabilizing in some way. Yes, I know it is moronic, but that is what Levin and his liberal fellow travelers say. He objects to the situation we have now where we have tested parts of a missile-defense system and had some success because the conditions of the test were not against a missile launched by a hostile nation. So the only tests he will accept are those which would come when North Korea actually lobs one our way and the idea that we should follow the flawed logic of the wacky environmentalists and do something "just in case" is not applicable in this case.

Jimmy Carter's Legacy?

It will be interesting to see how much of the following makes it into the news and public discussion. Since I consider Jimmy Carter a traitor to his country, my bias would support the view that the Professor is correct in his description of the situation. Read the whole thing here.

Mark Steyn Is Right Again

Here is how Mark starts his latest essay. Be sure to read the whole thing.

James Baker's "Iraq Study Group" seems to have been cast on the same basis as Liza Minnelli's last wedding. A stellar lineup: Donna Summer, Mickey Rooney, the Doobie Brothers, Gina Lollobrigida, Michael Jackson, Mia Farrow, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Jill St. John. That's Liza's wedding, not the Baker Commission. But at both gatherings everyone who was anyone was there, no matter how long ago it was they were anyone. So the fabulous Baker boy was accompanied by Clinton officials Leon Panetta and Bill Perry, Clinton golfing buddy Vernon Jordan, Clinton's fellow sex fiend Chuck Robb, the quintessential ''moderate'' Republican Alan Simpson, Supreme Court swing vote par excellence Sandra Day O'Connor . . . God, I can't go on. I'd rather watch Mia Farrow making out with Mickey Rooney to a Doobie Brothers LP. As its piece de resistance, the Baker Commission concluded its deliberations by inviting testimony from -- drumroll, please -- Sen. John F. Kerry. If you're one of those dummies who goofs off in school, you wind up in Iraq. But, if you're sophisticated and nuanced, you wind up on a commission about Iraq. Rounding it all out -- playing David Gest to Jim Baker's Liza -- is, inevitably, co-chairman Lee Hamilton, former congressman from Indiana.

Pretty good analysis

From Hillbilly White Trash:

George W Bush invited James Webb into his home. Webb accepted his hospitality by showing up then snubbed his host by refusing to go through the receiving line and shake the President's hand. Mr. Bush made a point of ignoring the insult and reached out to Mr. Webb on the one area in which any civilized person would assume that they could agree - the well being of Mr. Webb's son.

Instead of answering his hosts sincere question with a polite response like, "he's fine, I just heard from him", he chose to give an answer which said, in effect, "screw off, it's none of your business". Well I'm sorry Mr. Webb but as the Commander in Chief the welfare of an active duty Marine is damned well George Bush's business.

Also, consider how much political hay the left could have made if Bush had shown no concern whatsoever over Mr. Webb's son. Would not the mainstream media's action line be something like, "Bush sends Webb's kid to war and then can't even be bothered to ask how he's doing"?

Is this the proper attitude?

I just noticed this in the paper and it seems a bit strange to have a major legal entanglement arise within a religious denomination like this.

Virginia Episcopal Bishop Peter J. Lee is threatening to sue conservative Episcopal churches that soon will vote on whether to leave his diocese, saying individual members of each congregation's governing board will be liable.
In a four-page letter released late Friday, the bishop of the country's largest diocese, with 90,000 members, sent a letter to parishes conducting a 40-day period of discernment on whether to leave the Episcopal Church.
Thousands of Episcopalians already have left the 2.2 million-member denomination over arguments about biblical authority and the 2003 consecration of New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, an active homosexual.
"I believe your successors in the future will regret that decision and its destructive consequences to the whole church," the bishop wrote of congregations threatening to leave the diocese. Any congregation attempting to leave without a negotiated settlement with the diocese "will have repercussions and possible civil liability for individual vestry members."

Liberal Compassion

The always insightful Thomas Sowell has skewered the liberals with solid evidence that despite their constant call for forgiveness of loans to 3rd world countries, a living wage for the poor, and a safety net for all, these are all governmental acts of compassion. How about situations where the actual help for someone or something comes out of their own pockets? Not so caring, it seems. You can read his essay here, but at the end you may be reminded as I was that when the press looked at Al Gore's tax information while running for President, they found his charitable contributions for an entire year was $768.00.

The Kyoto Price Tag

There is every indication that carbon dioxide emissions will become an international concern which almost matches the attention currently being paid to Britney's crotch. IBD has an editorial reporting that 90% of Europeans believe that man is responsible for the current warming trend. Even more interesting is the poll showing that 68% of them would be in favor of lifestyle restrictions to help address this "problem". The question now is how much in favor they really are. If the Kyoto accords are actually met by Europe, it is estimated the EU would lose from 1.5 to 4% of their GDP and millions of jobs. This would be 4 million in Spain and 1 million jobs a year in Britain from 2008 to 2012. The Clinton administration correctly concluded that the Kyoto Treaty should not even be submitted to the Senate because it would cost us $400 BILLION a year and nearly 4.9 million lost jobs. Maybe this would be acceptable to the Europeans since they aren't all that crazy about work in the first place, but someone should consider the calculation that each one- billionth if warming avoidance will cost $100,000. So, in order to reduce the global temperature by about 1 degree Celsius, it would cost $100 TRILLION.
As IBD points out, the loony environmentalists bemoan the cost of doing nothing (which is at least as theoretical as the calculations above), but Europeans should at least consider the cost before getting in line for a dubious remedy to a nebulous problem. The same admonition should be made to the newly empowered Dems in the U.S. Congress who will be inclined to follow everything European.

Bush needs to take another look

When they first met, President Bush said he looked into Vladimir Putin's soul and liked what he saw. As Putin continues on his current path to destroy all semblance of democracy in Russia and eliminate his critics by whatever means necessary, Bush needs to reconsider what a proper soul looks like.

Diversity Anyone

The loony left is quite insistent on society providing for diversity unless that includes ideas which come from anywhere this side of Marxism. Witness the reaction on college campuses when speakers who are invited which have ideas that do not comport with their extreme ideology. Such violent demonstrations have been directed toward Ann Coulter , John Bolton, and now Tom Tancredo.