I wonder if the ACLU will sue for mixing church and state? Hezbollah Marshals The Young Via Scout Troops

On a Bekaa Valley playing field gilded by late-afternoon sun, hundreds of young men wearing Boy Scout-style uniforms and kerchiefs stand rigidly at attention as a military band plays, its marchers bearing aloft the distinctive yellow banner of Hezbollah, the militant Shiite movement.

They are adolescents — 17 or 18 years old — but they have the stern faces of adult men, lightly bearded, some of them with dark spots in the center of their foreheads from bowing down in prayer. Each of them wears a tiny picture of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shiite cleric who led the Iranian revolution, on his chest.

“You are our leader!” the boys chant in unison, as a Hezbollah official walks to a podium and addresses them with a Koranic invocation. “We are your men!”

This is the vanguard of Hezbollah’s youth movement, the Mahdi Scouts. Some of the graduates gathered at this ceremony will go on to join Hezbollah’s guerrilla army, fighting Israel in the hills of southern Lebanon. Others will work in the party’s bureaucracy. The rest will probably join the fast-growing and passionately loyal base of support that has made Hezbollah the most powerful political, military and social force in Lebanon.

Does this remind you of someone elses idea and followers?

So, I go and read the whole NY Times story a few times, which fawns on these tea drinking AK-47 carrying Mahdi Scouts, who are just oh-so-faithful, and ya know, I seem to be missing several issues. The writers fail to mention the inherent violence, the anti-semitism, the anti-Israel and pro-radical Islam fervor, and the fact that this is the next generation of Islamic terrorists.

Surrendie and his cousin Do! love this story, because it involves surrender of kids to public schools, creating the perfect Democrat voters!

More than twice as many Americans – 56 percent — know that Paula Abdul is a judge on “American Idol” as know that the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” comes from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (21 percent) — a phrase President-elect Barack Obama used in his election-night victory speech.

The average American is nearly illiterate when it comes to basic principles of American history, government and economics, according to a new report from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute – and politicians are even worse.

More than 2,000 people were administered a 33-question test this Spring on American history and our political and economic institutions. Of them, 71 percent — college and non-college educated alike – got a failing mark, ISI’s Josiah Bunting III said, presenting the study at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Thursday.

“It can truly be said that we are suffering from an epidemic of civic ignorance,” Bunting said. “The extent of failure is pervasive, cutting across every segment of the American population.

How bad was it?

• Less than half of Americans can name all three branches of government.
• Only 27 percent of Americans know that the Bill of Rights prohibits the government from establishing an official religion in the U.S.
• 54 percent do not know that the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, not the president.

Politicians scored even lower.

Darryl DeMarzio, an assistant professor in the education department at the University of Scranton, told CNSNews.com that many politically correct college campuses no longer teach “history” classes, as most people remember.

“One of the purposes of a history course now is not the acquisition of historical knowledge, but it’s a vague skill like ‘thinking historically,’ or something like that,” DeMarzio said.

The culprit is that teachers are steeped in a philosophy called “constructivism.”

“That’s the idea that knowledge is not something that teachers possess and give to students or teach students,” DeMarzio tolld CNSNews.com. “Rather, knowledge is a process in which students construct meaning for themselves.

So what we are talking about is more feel good socialization education, rather then practical reality.

Surprise!

Somali pirates struck again yesterday, seizing an Iranian cargo ship holding 30,000 tonnes of grain, as the world’s governments and navies pronounced themselves powerless against this new threat to global trade.

Admiral Michael Mullen, the US military chief, pronounced himself stunned by the pirates’ reach after their capture of the supertanker Sirius Star and its $100 million (£70 million) cargo. Commanders from the US Fifth Fleet and from Nato warships in the area said that they would not intervene to retake the vessel.

The Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, the owner of the ship, condemned the hijacking as an “outrageous act” that required international action.

Here it comes

Pirates pulled the 333m supertanker yesterday to a mooring point off Harardhere, on the Somali coast. Farther north, Italian, Greek, Turkish, British, American and Russian frigates and warships were patrolling the Gulf of Aden under a UN mandate.

Operations undertaken by the coalition fleet are fraught with legal difficulties, ranging from restrictive rules of engagement to rights of habeas corpus, as the British Navy discovered when it detained eight pirates after a shootout last week. Yesterday the detainees were passed on to Kenya, where efforts to prosecute them will be closely watched for precedent.

Here’s an idea: screw the United Nations. Here’s a group that has no military of its own, with leaders who mostly come from countries with tiny worthless militaries, trying to dictate the use of military forces. Those countries with navies who want to be involved should just go and blockade the Somali ports, where the majority of these pirates are coming from, and stop all ships going out. Use those caught as target practice for live fire exercises. And, in the cases where ships are hijacked, let groups such as the Navy SEALS get their live fire, real world practice in.

BTW, there is also some surrender talk in the article regarding the thought that maybe they should just let the Islamic Court re-establish control of Somalia.

And said organ actually, you know, works!

Surgeons replaced the damaged windpipe of Claudia Castillo, a 30-year-old mother of two, with one created from stem cells grown in a laboratory at Bristol University.

Because the new windpipe was made from cells taken from Ms Castillo’s own body, using a process called “tissue engineering”, she has not needed powerful drugs to prevent her body rejecting the organ.

Avoiding the use of these drugs means she will not be at an increased risk of cancer and other diseases unlike other transplant patients - another significant advance.

Five months after the operation was carried out she is now living normally and is able to look after her children again.

So, yet again, we see that it is research using stem cells other then from embros that is creating medical breakthroughs.

This is what you get when government is involved

Visitors to the World Trade Center site will soon get a visual update on the work in progress.

The agency began wrapping the fence that surrounds the 16-acre site with vinyl mesh Sunday.

The fence wrapping will have renderings of some of the buildings being constructed at the site, like the Freedom Tower and the World Trade Center Transit Hub and it will provide information about construction progress.

Oh, good, visuals of the buidlings. It’s seven years later: how about having the actual buildings?

“A lot of tourists come down here, they don’t understand what will happen here,” said Community Board 1 member Catherine McVay Hughes. “They know there have been a lot of controversies, a lot of stories, but they want to see what is actually happening. And those photographs will let people know what is happening at the site.”

A lot of us would like to know that there is actually progress, seven years later. Which there is. Some. A bit. Including a plan to make it green.

This is still my favorite design for the new WTC.

Perhaps some of the climahysterics can explain how this occurred

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China’s official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its “worst snowstorm ever”. In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS’s computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious “hockey stick” graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new “hotspot” in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

This is what the Climahysterics call science. Cooking the books. Falsifying the data. Making it up as they go. And NASA is not the only ones. The UN IPCC recently came up with some wonky data to continue their Chicken Littleism, “Despite no global warming in 10 years and recording setting cold in 2007-2008…”

Don’t forget these two quotes from Al Gore, who is, of course, one of the main leaders in the AGW movement

• “In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.”
• “When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler. “

The AGW crowd in a nutshell. Also, add in that they rarely practice what they preach. Like tax increases, that is always for the other guy/gal.

Save us from hysterics, who probably just want money: Report: Climate change threatens half of California

A University of California, Berkeley, report released Thursday estimates that $2.5 trillion of California real estate is threatened by climate change.

Real estate and insurance represent the largest sectors at risk from climate change in the state, according to the report. It found that the state has $4 trillion in real estate assets, of which $2.5 million (WT: I assume that is supposed to be “trillion“) are at risk from extreme weather events, sea level rise and wildfires. The projected annual price tag is $300 million to $3.9 billion over this century, depending on how the global temperature rise.

Sigh. Apparently there were no extreme weather events and wildfires in California prior to global warming from SUVs. And the sea level thing has pretty much been a farce. Little proof. Supposition, yes. The sea levels have gone up before during warmer periods, and gone down during colder periods. But even the UN IPCC reports do not go farther then a sea rise of a couple inches. Which has, again, happened before.

Californians should worry instead about environmental policies that increase the severity of the wildfires, because they aren’t allowed to manage the brush, aren’t allowed to clear the dead wood, aren’t allowed to create fire breaks, and aren’t allowed to do proscribed burns, among others.

They should worry about the massive amounts of illegal aliens, quite a few who are criminals. They should worry about the policies that create rolling blackouts. They should worry about the policies that create sky high prices. All liberal policies.

Down the road a couple hours from me, political correctness run amok

A veteran whose son was killed in the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole has sued officers at the Marine base where he works, saying they violated his free-speech rights to display bumper stickers that link Islam with terrorism on his vehicle.

Jesse Nieto has worked as a civilian at an electrical distribution shop on Camp Lejeune since 1994. He previously served 25 years in the Marine Corps, including two combat tours as an infantryman in Vietnam, according to his federal lawsuit filed Monday in the eastern district of North Carolina.

The lawsuit — which does not seek monetary damages — asks the court to declare that Nieto’s constitutional rights were violated by the Marines and to allow him to express his political viewpoints on federal installations.

I wonder if the NC ACLU or the parent organization will get involved and stand up for Nieto’s Rights? He has been told he would be fired from his job if he didn’t remove the stickers, he has been ticketed, and

In August, Lt. Col. James Hessen, the base’s traffic court officer, ordered Nieto to peel off the anti-Islam decals, the lawsuit said. Nieto did so while a Marine observed. Two weeks later, Hessen ordered Nieto to remove the rest of his decals, including one that said “REMEMBER THE COLE, 12 Oct. 2000,” the lawsuit said. Nieto refused.

Hessen also issued an order barring Nieto from driving his vehicle onto any military installation, which includes his workplace and Arlington National Cemetery, where Nieto’s son is buried, the lawsuit said.

ACLU? Hello?

How do we win the War on Terrorism when the military leadership won’t acknowledge which religion is behind the majority of terrorist acts?

Photo via Winds Of Babylon thru WorldNetDaily, where you can see the other sticker (and this one, if it gets banned at Photobucket, like many others critical of the Religion of Peace)

Ah, the policies of sanctuary for young absconders. Aren’t they wonderful?

A teenager accused of stabbing a 14-year-old boy to death in a gang-motivated attack had been given sanctuary from deportation under San Francisco’s previous practice of shielding young illegal immigrant felons from federal authorities, records show.

Rony Aguilera, 17, known as “Guerrillero,” has been charged as an adult in the July 31 sword attack in the Excelsior neighborhood that killed Ivan Miranda, who police say was an innocent victim caught up in an act of gang vengeance. Authorities believe Aguilera is an illegal immigrant from Honduras, but he was never referred to federal officials after being arrested last year in an assault case, according to records reviewed by The Chronicle.

So, not only caught as an illegal, but caught in a violent act. Allowed to remain. Then kills.

Aguilera is also a member of MS-13. The police knew he was a member of one of the most violent gangs in America. And they still let him go, per San Fran policy.

In early July, after The Chronicle reported that the city had shielded dozens of young felons from deportation, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said the sanctuary law did not protect adult or juvenile criminals. Mayor Gavin Newsom declared that he had ordered juvenile justice officials to report illegal immigrant offenders to federal authorities.

Since then, the mayor has pledged a “top-to-bottom” review of the city’s sanctuary policies and practices. His office did not return calls seeking comment Thursday.

I hope the family of Ivan Miranda, the 14 year old killed by Aguilar, sues the pants off of Mayor Newsom and anyone else they can. The policy may be over with, but, with such raging liberals in charge, can we be sure it is?

The Other McCain: It’s very important that rich Democrats in San Francisco have illegal aliens to do their housework, and if the housekeeper’s kids are out gang-banging in the streets while Maria is dusting the antiques, well … that’s just the price you pay for social justice, eh?

Don Surber: I remember when liberals made sense.

Interesting advice

THE threat of recession could disappear if we all put a smile on our face, the Government’s top money man said today.

After two months of persistent bad economic news, Treasury secretary Ken Henry said the worst could be avoided if Australians simply cheered up.

“Fundamentally what is driving weaker economic outcomes globally at the moment is fractured confidence,” Dr Henry said.

“We can talk ourselves into worse outcomes; of course we can. People do; it wouldn’t be the first time. But we don’t have to,” he said during a speech at the National Press Club.

On one hand, he is correct. It is a loss in confidence. And, consider that the Democrats, who have railed about a “bad economy” since Bush took office, saw their whining become reality. Being positive will certainly help.

On the other hand…well, there is no other hand. It may sound silly coming from the Aussie’s top money man, but, if leaders push doom and gloom, you get doom and gloom. If they push positives, yeah, may not always work, but, it sure doesn’t hurt.

Anyhow, can a nice smile be worse then the Crap Sandwich 2.0 that Congress has fed us? It sure doesn’t have the capability for abuse that all that money has, eh? Dr. Henry also stated that Australia’s tax system was too complicated, and should be simplified.