Right Wing Nut House

Judging by this article in the New York Times, China would appear to be the world’s #1 nuclear enabler for Kim Jong Il and the North Koreans:

China on Tuesday ruled out applying economic or political sanctions to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program, appearing to undercut a crucial element of the Bush administration’s evolving North Korea strategy. The announcement comes just as American intelligence agencies are trying to determine whether North Korea is preparing for a nuclear test.

Echoing President Bush’s public comments, the Chinese said in a briefing on Tuesday that they still hoped that talks with North Korea would succeed in disarming the country, even though it has boycotted those talks for 11 months.

Liu Jianchao, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Tuesday that China rejected suggestions that it should reduce oil or food shipments to North Korea, calling them part of its normal trade with its neighbor that should be separate from the nuclear problem. “The normal trade flow should not be linked up with the nuclear issue,” he said. “We oppose trying to address the problem through strong-arm tactics.”

Given that the mad bomber Kim won’t respond to anything but “strong arm tactics” it appears certain that China will oppose any move the US and Europe make to bring Kim to account before the United Nations.

And evidently, it’s isn’t just North Korea that China wishes to enable:

Chinese delegation head Zhang Yan said China “favors resolving the Iranian nuclear issue within the framework of the IAEA,” the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which verifies NPT safeguards.

Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Kislyak sounded the same note when he said “current negotiations and consultations” should resolve the Iranian crisis.

China enunciated what is expected to be a key theme at the month-long NPT conference when Zhang said that “the relation between non-proliferation and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy should be put in correct perspective” so that respect is paid to “the rights of non-nuclear-weapons states to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.”

Like the group Al-Anon that counsels the loved ones of alcoholics in how not to be an enabler for their spouses sickness, someone should take China aside and perform an intervention on behalf of the rest of us who aren’t quite as sanguine at the prospect of the mad mullahs or the nutty NoKo’s getting their mitts on weapons of mass destruction.

One might ask what possesses Beijing to act this way?

China could veto any United Nations resolution, and if it was unwilling to enforce sanctions along its border, any efforts to isolate North Korea would be likely to fail. The World Food Program, citing statistics from the Chinese government, said China’s food aid to North Korea soared in the beginning of this year. By the organization’s estimate, China sent 146,000 tons of food to North Korea in the first three months of this year, compared with 165,000 tons for all of 2004.

In addition, Chinese delivery of coal and oil to their starving, bankrupt neighbors are up 20% this year over last year.

Another reason for China’s reluctance to stop the Iranians and North Koreans may be their shadowy involvement in Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan’s clandestine nuclear black market network:

Reacting to reports about the Khan nuclear network, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson urged Islamabad to undertake the investigations “properly” and bring them to a conclusion “quickly.” The Chinese preference for conducting investigations “properly” and ending them “quickly” reveals Beijing’s apprehensions over exposing the Chinese nuclear establishment’s long standing ties with Khan. His numerous visits to China’s nuclear installations over the last three decades and gains accrued to China’s weapons program from the Dutch centrifuge technology stolen by Khan in the mid-1970s are particularly sensitive issues for Beijing. A senior member of the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam) told a Pakistani journalist in early February that “Chinese officials had expressed a desire for the proliferation inquiry to end quickly as they feared that Dr. Khan would publicly detail his network’s ‘China connection,’ thereby embarrassing a crucial ally that Pakistan considers a strategic counterweight to India.”

The Chinese enablers are playing with fire when it comes to allowing Kim to achieve his nuclear ambitions. Both South Korea and Japan are scared witless at the prospect of this lunatic having the bomb. Already Japan has made noises about increasing its defense capabilities, something unheard of in a country where the constitution is very restrictive of the defense establishment. China has voiced disapproval of this, as they remember what Japanese troops did in China 70 years ago and see any rearming by Japan as a direct threat to their security. But what is Japan to do? The madman has already test fired a missile over Japanese territory that landed in the Pacific Ocean. Besides looking into missile defense, Tokyo is seeking closer defense cooperation with the United States.

South Korea is a different matter as the US is not very popular there now and the yearning for reunification with the North grows steadily. President Roh Moo-hyun has his own political problems but has stated that the most desirable state of affairs would be a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. But any overt move by Kim to demonstrate his nuclear capability will inevitably draw the South Koreans closer to the United States.

If China makes good on its threat to block our sanctions effort in the United Nations against both North Korea and Iran, the US may have no alternative but to seek other means - including blockade or other military action - to get both Kim and the radioactive mullahs to give up their nuclear ambitions.

Any way you look at it, former senior Venezuelan intelligence officer Luis Posada Carriles is not a very nice fellow. In fact, by any objective standard, he’s a murderous terrorist.

He’s been implicated in the plot to blow up a Cuban airliner in 1976 that took the lives of 73 innocent people. And Fidel Castro has accused Carriles of trying to kill him, a deed which if successful could have saved thousands of Cubans from enjoying the hospitality of El Presidente’s communist gulags and secret police torture chambers.

Although an estimable goal, one deed full of good intentions does not wash away the multitude of mortal sins committed by Carriles.

And now Mr. Carriles, 77 years old and apparently retired, would like to spend his remaining years in the United States. A Miami attorney who claims to represent the terrorist says that Mr. Carriles would like asylum.

Mr. Carriles is no freedom fighter. He’s an assassin. He’s been tied to the CIA of the 1960’s when the agency was hell bent on getting rid of Castro by hook or by crook. To that end, the spooks used some of the slimiest low lifes in the western hemisphere in order to get close to the Cuban dictator including vengeful mafioso, loony Cuban exiles, dope smugglers, and various riff raff who always seem to hover around the edges of intelligence operations.

According to FBI files, they seem to have the goods on Mr. Carriles’ involvement in the terror attack on the commercial airliner:

The decision on whether an anti-Castro activist will get to stay in the United States may end up hinging on the word of a dead man.

The problem is, the dead man told two tales about Luis Posada Carriles, a man some hail as a hero and others condemn as a terrorist.

Ricardo “Monkey” Morales was once an informant for the Miami-Dade police, and according to previously secret U.S. government documents, Morales said Posada was present for two meetings to plan the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed 76 people.

“Luis Posada Carriles and (Morales) were present,” Detective Raul Diaz wrote in a report to the FBI describing what Morales had told him about Posada.

The Miami Herald reported in 1982 that during an unrelated drug smuggling case, Morales said he was the “conduit” for explosives used in the bombing.

Not long after that newspaper article, Morales was shot and killed in a Key Biscayne bar brawl.

Still more documents show that Mr. Carriles had other dirty tricks up his sleeve - as long as you were willing to pay the price:

Other documents say Posada was also a CIA agent in the 1960s and that he was paid about $300 by the CIA while working with an alliance of several groups based in the Dominican Republic that sought Castro’s overthrow.

Still another FBI document quoted an unnamed Cuban refugee as saying Posada was paid $5,000 in 1965 by a prominent Cuban exile in Miami to finance an attempt to attach powerful explosive mines to Cuban or Soviet ships in the port of Veracruz, Mexico.

The documents were released by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit organization based at George Washington University that collects government records.

Their release comes as U.S. officials wrestle with the political asylum request from Posada, who is regarded by Cuba, Venezuela and some in the United States as a criminal or terrorist.

In the past, the United States has employed some pretty nasty people to help achieve one goal or another. During the 1980’s former National Guardsmen for Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza were employed by the CIA to initially help recruit and train the Contra army that eventually succeeded in bringing down the Sandanistas. And there’s some evidence the spooks used drug smugglers to ferry arms to those same contras.

At the time, a real politiker like me could condemn the people involved but support the policy because it furthered national ends at an absolutely critical juncture of the cold war. We relied on far worse to help us in World War II including Josip Broz Tito, a Yugoslavian freedom fighter every bit as murderous as his genocidal successors from the 1990’s,

In this day and age, however, there’s no conceivable justification for allowing Mr. Carriles into this country for any purpose except to hand him over to the Venezuelans for prosecution. If perception is reality in politics, in order to maintain our credibility on terrorism we must be like Cesar’s wife; above reproach. And the fact that Castro was one of Mr. Carriles’ targets should not sway our opinion that he’s anything except a criminal that needs to be prosecuted and made to answer for his crime against innocents.

At this juncture, the US government is waiting for an extradition request from the Venezuelan government. It would send the strongest possible signal to our friends and enemies if we were to honor that request.

The election is over. There’s no need to pander to the exile community in Florida any longer. Carriles must be handed over not because Castro desires it, but because it’s simply the right thing to do. He must not be allowed a quiet retirement while his victims cry out for justice from their graves.

CORRECTION:

In the original post, I erred in saying that Tito was a Serb. Tito was in fact half Croat and half Slovene. He did however, carry out several massacres in WWII which is the point I was trying to make.

Cross Posted at Blogger News Network

60,000 PEOPLE TURNED OUT TO HEAR THE PRESIDENT IN GEORGIA

This must be incredibly galling to the moonbats:

President Bush, before a cheering crowd of tens of thousands of people, said Tuesday that the former Soviet republic of Georgia is proving to the world that determined people can rise up and claim their freedom from oppressive rulers.

“Your courage is inspiring democratic reformers and sending a message that echoes across the world: Freedom will be the future of every nation and every people on Earth,” Bush said in speech from the Freedom Square that symbolizes the city’s democratic pursuits.

“You gathered here armed with nothing but roses and the power of your convictions and you claimed your liberty. And because you acted, Georgia is today both sovereign and free and a beacon of liberty for this region and the world.”

Why is it that the people in countries that until just a few short years ago were groaning under the yoke of communist dictatorships seem to be the only ones who truly understand what Bush is fighting for in Iraq and around the world?

Are people in France, Germany, Scandanavia and elsewhere in the increasingly apt term “old Europe” smarter than their cousins in eastern Europe? Are they more resistant to American propaganda? Are they nuts?

I think it’s pretty clear that the people in the newly freed republics of eastern and central Europe see a kindred soul when they look and listen to George Bush. What sounds like empty rhetoric when the President speaks of freedom to the cynical mountebanks and dilletantes of western Europe and our own home-grown moonbats, those words have extraordinary meaning and resonate deeply among peoples who only recently experienced only oppression and brutality.

Bush spoke to a massive crowd that filled the square — known as Lenin Square during Soviet rule — and spilled out into the roads that feed into the plaza. The buildings around the square were freshly painted for Bush’s visit, the first from a U.S. president, and hundreds of people dressed in red, white and blue stood in a human formation of the U.S. flag, with another group forming the red and white Georgian flag.

“When Georgians gathered here 16 years ago, this square had a different name,” Bush said. “Under Lenin’s steely gaze, thousands of Georgians prayed and sang and demanded their independence. The Soviet army crushed that day of protest, but they could not crush the spirit of the Georgian people.”

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who led the “Rose Revolution” in 2003 that overthrew a corrupt government, praised Bush as “a leader who has contributed as much to the cause of freedom as any man of our time. … We welcome a freedom fighter.”

Well and truly said.

It may be a large part of the Bush legacy that he be reviled as an American devil in the capitals of western Europe, a caricature of an American cowboy whose fast on the draw foreign policy and plain unvarnished speaking style grated on the ears of the sophisticates in the salons and drawing rooms of old, tired, elitist continental society.

But there will always be the Bush legacy in Georgia and other newly freed nations where he’ll be seen as freedom’s prophet, carrying the Good News of liberty and democracy to every corner of the earth.

Not a bad legacy at that.

Cross Posted at Blogger News Network

So Marwan is finally in the bag. But with missile going up, up, and away is it too late? Marwan certainly thinks so.

The fact is, the missile is a SRBM - Short Range Ballistic Missile - with a range of no more than 1000 miles. Flight time is measured in minutes. No time for Dr. Feel Good at CTU to use his little black bag of needles and potions to get Marwan to talk. No time to warm up any Patriot Missile batteries. No time for a “Star Wars” type solution. No time for Jack to beat the info out of the fanatical Marwan.

There’s just no time.

Looks like it will be up to the geeks to save the day. Somehow, Chloe or fat geek Edgar have to come up with a way to either detonate the missile in the atmosphere or steer it away from a population center. My money is on Edgar. He was able to shut down the chain reactions at the nuke plants. What’s a little missile compared to that?

SUMMARY

Jack is kicked out of the operating room where the Doctor, desperately trying to save Lee, finally tires of Jack’s incessant badgering. In the hallway, he confronts a grieving Audrey who tells him to “just leave, Jack.” He runs into Bill who assures him he did the right thing. Huh? Perhaps its an indication of how far our heroes have sunk into the morass of amoral expediency but Bill’s words, meant to be comforting I’m sure, ring a little hollow considering that Jack just killed his love’s husband.

After being informed by Palmer that his little excursion at the Chinese Consulate resulted in the death of the Consular Chief, Jack gets his crew together and informs them how much trouble they’re in. Agent Bern, who was unmasked and whose visage was caught on the security tape, realizes he may be in trouble.

Sure enough, the Chinese security chief Mr. Chiang ID’s the CTU agent and calls Michelle. He wants to stop by and discuss the matter and to hell with your national security crisis. Michelle fobs him off but the clock starts ticking on the Chinese time bomb.

Palmer and Novik come up with a plausibly deniable scenario involving Chinese terrorists. The self-satisfied look on their faces for being so clever will disappear soon enough. In the meantime, President Jellyfish makes an appearance. After ranting about the consulate raid, Novik makes the mistake of telling the Spineless One that the death of the Consular Chief was just “unlucky.”

JELLYFISH: Unlucky? HA HA. Yeah, I’d say we were unlucky. That’s the kind of thing that can start a war! (whining like a 10 year old girl) How am I supposed to fight terrorists if I’m provoking a nuclear superpower?

PALMER: I would advise you to calm down sir if we are going to get through this day. We didn’t bring this crisis on ourselves. But we’re going to be the ones to settle it. This is a dirty business and we’re going to have to get our hands dirty to clean it up. You brought me here to help you. Now let me do it!

What a tool.

After the Secretary of State orders Michelle to cooperate, Mr. Chiang drops by CTU for a visit. His interview with Jack is priceless. Bill Clinton has nothing on Jack when it comes to being able to look someone in the eye and lie through his teeth. Jack pooh-poohs the authenticity of the Bern photo and easily fends off Chiangs accusations. Everything is going swimmingly until Bern casually walks up to Chloe’s desk in full view of Chiang and starts to chit chat. With some quick thinking, Jack hustles Bern out of the building and into a waiting helicopter.

If the scenario were to play out logically, Palmer would order Bern’s death. That may happen yet. But after Audrey is interviewed by Chiang about Jack’s whereabouts during the time in question and isn’t very convincing and after a chance meeting in the hallway with fat geek Edgar who confirms his suspicions, Chiang orders his people to get everything they have on Jack. It looks like Jack is going to become a target for the Chinese security services.

Back in the recovery room, Mr. Lee regains consciousness and is grilled by Jack. As it turns out, Paul did not die in vain as Mr. Lee fingers Marwan’s hideout. Jack readies his team to go to the warehouse where Marwan is directing the attack. Audrey confronts him in the hallway about having to lie to the Chinese to cover Jack’s ass:

AUDREY: Jack, what are you doing? You’ve broken every major protocol set by DoD and CTU and for what? Is any of this working?

JACK: You’re still alive. (Good point! ed.) Your father is still alive. And we managed to stop all but one power plant from melting down. Yeah, it’s working. And we have to keep it working.

Chloe’s “personality disorder” makes another appearance when Jack stops by her work station for some DoD files that Audrey needs to authorize access to:

CHLOE: That’s got to be weird.

JACK: What?

CHLOE: Talking to Audrey. I mean, you had to do what you did but her husband died. It’s probably destroyed your relationship with her.

JACK: Chloe, just please free up the server!

That’s our girl!

Palmer gives Novik the distasteful job of having to ask President Jellyfish to order Chiang out of the CTU office so that our people can do their jobs. The scene in Logan’s office is painful. After whining that everyone is against him, Novik slaps Jellyfish down by asking him if he should tell Palmer to leave. The cur acquiesces like the beaten dog he is.

With his tactical team in place, Jack and Curtis enter the warehouse. Having just set the countdown for the missile in motion, Marwan is on his way out. Will he escape the clutches of Jack again? Not this time, slimeball! They surround the terrorist mastermind and after a nice little subterfuge involving Curtis driving his prey toward Jack we get the enormously satisfying picture of Marwan coming out the door and looikng directly into the barrel of Jack’s gun. The look of triumph on Jack’s face says it all.

Just to make sure that the slippery Marwan won’t escape, Jack casually puts a bullet in the terrorist’s leg. After kneeling on the wound, it’s all Jack can do to keep from blowing Marwan’s brains out. Several agonizing seconds pass as Jack struggles to maintain control. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t ask Marwan anything. He simply holds the gun to Marwan’s head with a look of maniacal fury on his face. Marwan, for once truly frightened, blurts out that he won’t stop the missile.

That seems to bring Jack back to earth as its the first they’ve heard of the nuke being mounted on a missile. Curtis finds the laptop with the uplink to the missile site in Iowa. There’s less than a minute to go. The uplink is encrypted so CTU can’t access missile control. They can’t get a lock on the missile’s location. Jack, Curtis, CTU, and the rest of us stand by helplessly while the missile ignites and in a fiery burst rises majestically into the pre dawn sky headed for…where? We still don’t know. But the look of hate on Jack’s face as he glances over at Marwan’s smug, self satisfied visage tells the story.

The missile is on its way and it doesn’t look like anything can be done to stop it.

BODY COUNT

CTU sniper takes out a terrorist. Jack plugs two before capturing Marwan.

Jack: 42

Show: 226

Chloe: 1

SPECULATION

Anyone notice the look on Michelle’s face when the missile was about to launch? Did I detect - possibly - the beginning of a…smile? Just prior to the missile’s final countdown, Chloe experienced a denial of service attack on her satellite network. Since the mole is still unknown, is it possible that Michelle????

Just wondering.

The capture of Marwan doesn’t end it. Next week, the mole hunt begins in earnest. And before he or she is found, I expect two or three false positives in identifying the traitor and maybe even a false negative or two.

DON’T FORGET TO STOP BY THE HOUSE SUNDAY NIGHT FOR MY SPECULATION CONTEST “24 TILL 24″

The entries are in for the best, the looniest, and the funniest speculation for tonight’s episode from my “24 Till 24″ post. And the winners are:

SPECULATION MOST LIKELY TO GET A LAUGH:

Winner: Van Helsing
Speculation: Who Richard Heller told about his dad’s visit

Meanwhile, it will be revealed that Sec. of Defense Heller’s son was secretly in contact with KIM BAUER (hey, we’ve got to get Kim back somehow) who in her usual way blabbed the information to parties that were monitoring her phone conversations.

Remember poor Richard? I spent about three weeks speculating who he told about his dad’s visit to his house when Secretary Heller tried to talk him out of going to the anti-war demonstration. Then the writers dropped it, the bastards.

As for Kim Bauer, ever since she starred as a porn queen in that movie I can’t remember the title for, I’ve ached to have her back on the show but alas, I don’t think that is to be.

SPECULATION MOST LIKELY TO ELICIT A GROAN

Winner: Diamond
Speculation: How CTU will stop the nuke

Now as to how to stop the nuke. Could it be that someone inside the operation to damage America actually gets cold feet and his over riding love of country makes him act in his and his families own interest and he F****up the plans with Jacks help?

Diamond, (who’s other comments are intelligent and thoughtful) jumped the shark on this one. I will say if that speculation comes true, I’m gonna throw my popcorn at the screen!

MOST IMAGINATIVE SPECULATION

Winner: Scott
Speculation: Tony is the Mole!

Wild, but still a possibility. Is Marwan that clever, that he’d get to Tony before Jack needed him? Yes he’s proven that in the past. So it’s not impossible.

However, I think we’re looking for someone in the defense establishment here because of one overriding piece of evidence; the transponder code for the football. Only someone high up could have gotten that for Marwan.

CONSENSUS SPECULATION

Paul is dead. (If you play the videotape backwards, you can hear Jack say “Paul is dead” 7 times)

The nuke will not detonate on US soil (Oh, my naive readers! Of course it will. Probably not on a city though. I like Tim Mcfall’s guess here: The nuke will be detonated in the atmosphere off the East coast after Jack, while not able to prevent its launch does change its direction.

As for the mole hunt, we have 2 Audrey’s, 1 Tony, 1 Walter Cummings, with The Maryhunter giving us Mike Novik and Paul Raines (dead, remember?) as possibles.

We may find out tonight although more likely the last night where I guarantee you will sh*t in your pants at least 4 times over the two hour finale.

SPECULATION MOST LIKELY TO CAUSE YOU TO LOSE YOUR COOKIES

Winner: The Maryhunter
Speculation: I can’t even write it without gagging…

Bonus Speculation on FGE (fat geek Edgar) and Chloe: some koochey-koo (or at least a tender moment) when Chloe finally freaks out at the end of the show for killing that guy and Edgar comforts her, even as he weeps for his dead ma.

FGE and Chloe: definitely made for each other, complementary halves of the same yummy geek pie.

Puhleez!

Thanks to all for playing. Come again next Sunday night for another edition of “24 Till 24.”

Everyone agrees that global warming is real and that unless we do something soon our descendents will experience radical climate change that will destroy human civilization and send us back to the stone age, right?

Not quite:

Two of the world’s leading scientific journals have come under fire from researchers for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global warming.

A British authority on natural catastrophes who disputed whether climatologists really agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, says his work was rejected by the American publication, Science, on the flimsiest of grounds

A separate team of climate scientists, which was regularly used by Science and the journal Nature to review papers on the progress of global warming, said it was dropped after attempting to publish its own research which raised doubts over the issue.

The controversy has erupted over an article published in Science Magazine by Dr Naomi Oreskes that purports to show almost universal agreement among climatologists over global warming being a genuine phenomenom and that mankind is indeed to blame.

Unfortunately for Dr. Oreskes, she um, didn’t quite tell the truth:

However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.

They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.

Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication - but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he makes had been “widely dispersed on the internet”.

Dr. Peiser thought that Science should publish the paper anyway. “As the results from my analysis refuted the original claims, I believe Science has a duty to publish them.”

This isn’t the only instance of global warming dissenters being shut out of legitimate scientific debate. Via Little Green Footballs we get this remarkable story from Canada. It seems that a group of scientists have made a documentary debunking global warming but are unable to get the show aired in Canada:

The numbers of scientists staggered me–17,100 basic and applied American scientists, two thirds with advanced degrees, are against the Kyoto Agreement. The Heidelberg Appeal–which states that there is no scientific evidence for man-made global warming, has been signed by over 4,000 scientists from around the world since the petition’s inception. I strongly questioned these high numbers, since I’ve had benefit of the Canadian government’s public relations machine on this issue. Dr. Leahey has since sent documentation to back his figures up.

All those scientists were in total agreement: the Kyoto Protocol was complete fiction.

The forces arrayed against dissenters are formidable. What’s at stake are hundreds of millions of dollars - perhaps billions - in research grants from governments and various NGO’s (Non-Governmental Organizations) who have a vested interest in seeing the Kyoto Accords ratified by the world’s scientific community. With that kind of money floating around as well as the reputation and prestige of scientists on the line who’ve gone out on a limb to endorse the theory, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that dissenters are having trouble getting their viewpoints before the public and hence policy makers.

The third world has a huge stake in Kyoto in that they are not only immune from its requirements, they will be able to profit from the agreement because they will be able to “sell” emission credits to industrialized countries that can’t meet Kyoto’s stringent standards. Since the US has the farthest to go to meet the Kyoto target emissions, it could end up costing US taxpayers up to $800 billion dollars over the life of the agreement.

In short, Kyoto is nothing less than a massive transfer of wealth scheme from the industrialized world to impoverished and corrupt third world kleptocracies. No wonder one of its major supporters is that noted environmentalist and humanitarian Fidel Castro.

What are the pro-Kyoto scientists afraid of? Peer review is the lifeblood of scientific advancement. Unless your theories can stand up to the challenges of your peers, their not worth the paper they’re printed on. And with climate models, CO2 projections, and other greehouse gas emission predictions being so wildly off target the last few years, it may be that the proponents of the theory are just not up to the task of defending their work.

All they’re doing is defeating their own purpose. The US is never going to ratify Kyoto unless it’s amended to include China, the biggest polluter on the planet today, under its restrictive protocols. Even then, unless real debate is allowed, it’s doubtful that Kyoto has much of a future.

An orgy of remembrance took place all across Europe this last weekend as the continent’s increasingly passive and pacific countries celebrated the very war-like achievements of their grandfathers in tossing the regime of Adolph Hitler and all it stood for on the ash heap of history. Even France, where 2.5 million men of its armed forces never fired a shot in anger before their cowardly government surrendered thus leaving the British to face the Nazi onslaught alone, celebrated the end of World War II, confident in the knowledge that no one would bring up uncomfortable truths like their collaboration with Hitler or the myths surrounding the small minority of citizens who were actually involved in the resistance.

Where the French are concerned, some things are just better left unsaid lest Gallic huffiness spoil a good party.

Even George Bush was silent about the duplicitous French whose wartime actions as “ally” included armed resistance to the American landings in North Africa, handing tens of thousands of European Jews who had taken refuge in “unoccupied” France over to the tender mercies of the Nazi death merchants, and saddling the western world for a generation after the war with the prickly personality and insufferable haughtiness of Charles De Gaulle.

While the President may be faulted for his selective memory where the French are concerned, he should receive the thanks and admiration from all of us for being the only world leader to recall one of the immediate and proximate causes of the war; the Nazi-Soviet Pact signed a scant 2 days before the outbreak of Hitler’s unprovoked attack on Poland.

The fact that Bush spoke of this agreement in Latvia, one of the Baltic states that both Hitler and Stalin coveted is significant in that he connected the brutality of Hitler with the perfidy of Stalin and the Soviet Union in a way that’s rarely been done by an American President:

But in his speech, Mr. Bush indirectly acknowledged that the United States and Britain shared some blame for the annexation of the Baltics, noting that the 1945 Yalta agreement, in which Europe was carved up by Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, was in an “unjust tradition” of earlier treaties like the Munich and Molotov-Ribbentrop pacts.

“Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable,” Mr. Bush said. “Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable. The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history.”

And Bush recalled the spirit of defiance of the Baltic states following Stalin’s occupation for their own “protection” following the Nazi-Soviet Pact:

The Baltic states had no role in starting World War II. The battle came here because of a secret pact between dictators. And when the war came, many in this region showed their courage. After a puppet government ordered the Latvian fleet to return to port, sailors on eight freighters chose to remain at sea under the flag of free Latvia, assisting the United States Merchant Marine in carrying supplies across the Atlantic. A newspaper in the state of South Carolina described the Latvian crew this way: “They all have beards and dressed so differently… They are … exhausted, but full of fighting spirit.”

By the end of the war, six of the Latvian ships had been sunk, and more than half the sailors had been lost. Nearly all of the survivors settled in America, and became citizens we were proud to call our own. One American town renamed a street Ciltvaira — to honor a sunken ship that sailed under a free Latvian flag. My country has always been thankful for Latvia’s friendship, and Latvia will always have the friendship of America.

Curiously, this acknowledgment went unnoticed in the press who instead played up Bush’s “apology” for US inaction after Yalta to halt the spread of communism across eastern Europe.

The sad history of Batlic occupation is a direct result of Stalin’s greed and Hitler’s warped vision for Germany. Small German minorities in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia allowed Hitler to cast a covetous eye toward the prosperous little countries while Stalin, ever the expansionist, had similar designs to incorporate them into his growing empire. But Hitler had a strategic problem of the first magnitude. Before he could gobble up the Baltics, he had to make sure his rear was secure. That meant a final showdown with France and Britain, the only two military powers that could challenge him in the west.

The problem arose because Stalin was nominally committed to come to the aid of France if she went to war with Germany. And Hitler’s plan to invade and occupy Poland would most surely trigger a response from France, goaded on by Britain. So Hitler needed to somehow separate Stalin from the west. He was fully prepared to invade Poland regardless of anything Stalin did, but realized a two front war would be as disastrous for him as it had been for the Kaiser.

Hitler scheduled the invasion of Poland to begin on August 26, 1939. But less than 24 hours before the Nazi blitzkrieg began to roll, Hitler evidently got cold feet. He recalled some of his forward units who had already moved up to the German-Polish frontier and delayed the strike for 72 hours.

The reason was Stalin. The Soviet Union was, as usual, in horrible shape economically. And on the 25th, German Foreign Minister Johann Von Ribbentrop had begun negotiations that promised Stalin not only gigantic deliveries of raw materials like coal and copper, but also grain, fodder, and meat stuffs for his perpetually starving country. All Stalin had to do was sit on the sidelines while Hitler dealt with, in order, the Poles, the French, and the British.

Stalin, a shameless opportunist and as two American Presidents could attest, a canny and tough negotiator, realized he had Hitler over a barrel and went for the gold. How about settling all of our differences? Poland, the Baltics, and the mutual defense pact with France could all be on the table.

Thus, in one of the most cynical deals in modern history, Hitler and Stalin carved up eastern Europe between them. For the third time in 500 years, Russia and Germany partitioned Poland with Hitler getting the prize port of Danzig as well as the bulk of Polish industrial production. Stalin, whose forces invaded Poland on September 22 with the excuse of protecting ethnic Russians in “a country that no longer existed,” got western Poland’s vast agricultural holdings as well as what he thought was a 1000 mile buffer between himself and Hitler’s Wehrmacht.

In addition, Hitler recognized Stalin’s “sphere of influence” in the Baltics and Finland while Stalin promised to do nothing to to fulfill his mutual defense obligations with France. Both dictators got exactly what they wanted. And both should be held equally responsible for the carnage and slaughter that followed. The treaty of “Friendship and Non-Aggression” was signed on August 29. Hitler invaded Poland on September 1.

There are some who argue that the Nazi-Soviet Pact was Stalin’s response to the Munich Agreement signed 2 years earlier where Britain and France colluded in the partition of Czechoslovakia, leaving the Soviet dictator to believe that both western democracies wanted Stalin to be the one to bear the brunt of stopping Hitler. He was right of course. But that doesn’t lessen Stalin’s culpability one whit. The fact is there was no reason for Stalin to insist on the partition of Poland nor the occupation of the Baltic States by Soviet troops. The last was pure greed on Stalin’s part. And his country was to pay for his greed and shortsightedness with the loss of more than 20 million Russians.

There was no mention of all of this in Moscow yesterday while Putin basked in the reflected glow of dozens of world leaders watching Russian troops carrying the old Hammer and Sickle flag while modern jets screamed overhead as a reminder of more recent Soviet military achievements. Until Russia comes to terms with its part in starting World War II instead of celebrating its role in ending it, the legacy and true meaning of that conflict will never be understood and the wrong lessons will be drawn from it.

This may be what Putin is after. Russian revanchism would complicate matters immensely both for the United States and the recently freed Baltic states. As they turn to the west, the question uppermost in their minds must be will we once again become the pawns in the deadly games played by big powers?

Hopefully George Bush’s speech eased some of those concerns.

Cross Posted at Blogger News Network

With only three nights to go in the series (the finale will be a two hour long roller coaster ride, thank God!), I thought I would try a new feature for Sunday night in which you, my loyal “24″ fanatics, can give me your wildest, funniest, and/or most outrageous speculation on how Jack is going to save the United States for the fourth straight year.

First, some speculation from me and a set up:

1. Who’s the mole? Who gave Marwan the trasponder codes for the football? Where did all the American mercs who are helping Marwan come from? How were they able to kidnap the Secretary of State way back in the beginning of the show?

My guess: AUDREY HELLER!

2. Will Marwan be able to launch the nuke? What city is targeted?

Yes, and say goodbye to D.C. As if to prove the show’s conservative tilt, the writers will nuke Washington and fullfil a secret fantasy that conservatives have harbored for more than a generation.

3. Is Paul really dead?

Yes, but would it suprise you if when the episode started tomorrow night his heart magically started to beat again?

Get the idea? Give me your best and I’ll do a post tomorrow night before the show with the best speculation!

It’s often been said that blogs are “new media.” I guess so. I mean, you can say that blogs are new media in the sense that no one has ever challenged the primacy of the mainstream media before. And the ease with which you can start a blog, build traffic, get noticed, and have your ego stroked by a multitude of sycophantic admirers offering you wealth, fame, and sex is truly amazing.

Well…maybe not the sex…

But ever since the much discussed and reported impact that blogs had on the 2004 Presidential election, it’s become de rigueur to talk of a “Blog Revolution” as if legions of geeky, bespectacled pajama clad fanatics are about ready to storm the moss covered walls of the MSM.

Maybe that’s why the New York Times is so worried:

The thing about influence is that, as bloggers well know, it is only a matter of time before people start trying to hold you accountable. Bloggers are so used to thinking of themselves as outsiders, and watchdogs of the LSM (that’s Lame Stream Media), that many have given little thought to what ethical rules should apply in their online world. Some insist that they do not need journalistic ethics because they are not journalists, but rather activists, or humorists, or something else entirely. But more bloggers, and blog readers, are starting to ask whether at least the most prominent blogs with the highest traffic shouldn’t hold themselves to the same high standards to which they hold other media.

Ethics? Us? Be real! I’m one of those bloggers who insist that we don’t need a code of ethics. If there’s one thing the blogosphere does extremely well it’s promoting sites with a distinctive voice and the talent to express it in unique and entertaining ways. Whatever ethics we have, we bring to the table ready made, forged by our life experiences and upbringing. We hardly need any advice on promulgating a “Code of Ethics from a group that collectively speaking has the moral standards of my pet cat Aramas.

At least Ari has several redeeming features; he can be extremely pleasant company, he’s very affectionate, and he doesn’t have a liberal bias.

And that’s not the Times’ only complaint. It seems that when blogs brought down both Eason Jordan and Dan Rather, we didn’t play fair. We didn’t call them first!

But Mr. Rather’s and Mr. Jordan’s misdeeds would most likely not have landed them in trouble in the world of bloggers, where few rules apply. Many bloggers make little effort to check their information, and think nothing of posting a personal attack without calling the target first - or calling the target at all. They rarely have procedures for running a correction. The wall between their editorial content and advertising is often nonexistent. (Wonkette, a witty and well-read Washington blog, posts a weekly shout-out inside its editorial text to its advertisers, including partisan ones like Democrats.org.) And bloggers rarely disclose whether they are receiving money from the people or causes they write about.

First of all, does Mr. Cohen (whose piece appears on the Time’s editorial page and is, hence reflective of its thinking) really believe that Dan Rather would have taken a call from “Buckhead,” the Free Republic poster who first raised questions about the authenticity of the TANG documents? Or a blog called “Little Green Footballs?”

Yeah sure. And once that “blogmob” got going (thanks for the new blogword Adam) can you imagine two or three thousand bloggers all calling Black Rock wanting to get in touch with Dan Rather?

The New York Times just doesn’t get it. I don’t really blame them because it takes a leap of imagination beyond their extraordinarily short-sighted and outmoded view of who and what blogs are to envision a media that really is self correcting. And the reason for the ease with which blogs are self corrected is simple; the blog universe really is a big place. Evidently, much bigger than Mr. Cohen and the Times are able to imagine. If they could see beyond their myopic view of news dissemination, they’d realize all the things Mr. Cohen wishes blogs had like verification procedures, a corrections regime, full disclosure of conflicts of interest, and a “clear wall” between editorial content and advertising are already in place and have been functioning quite well thank you.

Bloggers like John Hawkins plug their advertisers all the time and nobody would even think of accusing John of mixing into one of his posts a paean to his T-Shirt company (unless, like Ace he does it as satire.) And Nick Coleman of the Minneapolis Star-tribune tried to tar and feather the boys at Powerline with the accusation that they’re being paid by the conservative think tank The Claremont Institute, a charge they’ve not only denied but threatened to sue the Unhinged One over.

When it came out that the “Daschle V Thune” site was a paid organ of the Senator’s campaign, blogs both left and right came down so hard on the bloggers who ran it that they may have been chased out of the blogosphere all together. I haven’t seen or heard of John Lauck, the proprietor of Daschle V Thune since November.

Would that such punishment could be meted out to the MSM when one of their undisclosed affiliations with the Democratic party came out.

At this point, one would think that the Times would quit while they’re at least even. No such luck:

Many bloggers who criticize the MSM’s ethics, however, are in the anomalous position of holding themselves to lower standards, or no standards at all. That may well change. Ana Marie Cox, who edits Wonkette, notes that blogs are still “a very young medium,” and that “things have yet to be worked out.” Before long, leading blogs could have ethics guidelines and prominently posted corrections policies.

Bloggers may need to institutionalize ethics policies to avoid charges of hypocrisy. But the real reason for an ethical upgrade is that it is the right way to do journalism, online or offline. As blogs grow in readers and influence, bloggers should realize that if they want to reform the American media, that is going to have to include reforming themselves.

Evidently, since I haven’t written down and published my ethical guidelines I’m “in the anomalous position of holding [myself] to lower standards, or no standards at all.” He’s right, of course. I’m a shameless hussy about this blog. Being a polemicist, I make no bones about the fact that I’m conservative and biased about everything I write. What else would you expect from a site named “Rightwing Nuthouse?” I mean, it’s not like I’m trying hide anything! Now, if I’d called the site “Leftwing Whackjob” and then put out a lot of rightwing propaganda, The Times could then accuse me of acting shamelessly.

And if I were the Times, I wouldn’t hold my breath on that happening any time soon.

Some, like Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media which includes Gizmodo, Wonkette, Fleshbot, and a half dozen other blogs pooh-pooh the idea of a blog “revolution:”

At a time when media conferences like “Les Blogs” in Paris two weeks ago debate the potential of the form, and when BusinessWeek declares, as it did on its May 2 cover, that “Blogs Will Change Your Business,” Mr. Denton is withering in his contempt. A blog, he says, is much better at tearing things down - people, careers, brands - than it is at building them up. As for the blog revolution, Mr. Denton put it this way: “Give me a break.”

“The hype comes from unemployed or partially employed marketing professionals and people who never made it as journalists wanting to believe,” he said. “They want to believe there’s going to be this new revolution and their lives are going to be changed.”

(I do believe in blogs, I do, I do, I do believe in blogs)

I can see Mr. Denton’s point. If I had Skankette as an employee, I’d wonder about the future of blogs too, not to mention the future of western civilization especially if he thinks what the Skanker does is what blogging is all about.

It’s not, of course. The best blogs are either traffic cops (Glenn Anderson) or advocates (The Capn’, Malkin, etc.). The Smelly One may be a liberal, but she rarely deviates from a rather tiresome formula that’s at the same time conversational and condescending. And the penis jokes. Don’t forget the penis jokes.

Denton did get one thing right:

Other critics of the blog movement wonder whether the hoopla over the commercial viability of blogs - particularly as publishing ventures - is overstated. “Blogs primarily excel at marketing and promotion for companies or individuals,” Mr. Phillips of I Want Media said. “I think blogging can catapult unknown writers, and it can give them a platform if they’re talented. But as a stand-alone business, I think the jury is still out on that.”

I think he’s spot on there. Blogs as on-line opinion magazines are probably a pipe dream. But what if a blogger could come up with a neat little niche e-zine idea? John Henke may have come up with a viable product with his “The New Libertarian.” Using his blog to promote his writing, John may have hit upon a new business model that, if successful, will be much imitated. I’d love to see his progress six months from now.

Six months from now will seem like an eternity in the blogosphere. With Pajamas Media ready to launch and Blogger News Network off the ground, it seems pretty clear that this revolution - a revolution that some are still denying or wanting to go away - will continue on its merry way, oblivious to the naysayers and serial deniers until a truly authentic “citizens brigade” of new media disseminaters gets the respect it already so richly deserves.

UPDATE

Tim Worstall is a very clever fellow. I have to say that because Mr. Worstall has given many of the same arguments that I’ve made above for why Adam Cohen should take a remedial course in Blogs:

Blogs are quite rightly not held to those standards of “ethical journalism”. Only what comes out of the system, after the unsupported allegations, the rants, the foam-flecked screaming, only after the filtering process provided by 8 million blogs shouting at and correcting each other, only that should be considered ethical journalism. Each individual blog post, he is correct, is simply the unsupported word of a partisan (given the financial rewards currently available, there is no one doing this who doesn’t have some kind of bee in their bonnet) but the system as a whole works very well. It’s an economic thing (not a great strength of NYT writers I know, but try some Hayek), that information is distributed. It doesn’t matter how many thousands of reporteers and fact checkers the NYT has (or any other organisation), how many sources they speak to, how often they refine their words, 8 million blogs have access to more information than they do. (HT: Instapundit)

Tim also has a different take on The Skanker…sex jokes but a different part of the anatomy:

It would be quite wonderful to see a piece on blogging that did not include Ms. Cox but apparently anal sex jokes really are the way to the MSM’s heart. Not sure who that says most about actually.

And Greyhawk makes the same point I made about Mr. Cohen’s clueless suggestion that we bloggers contact our prey before devouring them:

He’s trying to create the impression of blogs as being akin to The National Enquirer, of course. And I’ll note that I didn’t call Mr. Cohen before writing this. You see, I have his commentary before me now - he’s on the record. That’s what blogs do when dealing with media outrages, respond. I suppose I could contact him for clarification on this point: is he really clueless about the blogosphere, and therefore wrong in his accusations, or does he assume his readers are clueless, and is willing to deceive them?

I think Mr. Cohen is right. Someone should track down his home telephone number so that we can all call him for his response to the 10,000 blog posts that are going to fisk this idiot’s lights out.

Do you think he’ll get it then?

“The mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7, 1945.”

Seventy million dead and that’s the best Ike could come up with?

Actually, Eisenhower wrestled with what to say about the German surrender that had just taken place at Reims, France in the early morning of May 7, 1945. He knew full well his words would echo down through the ages and wanted the announcement to be memorable. But the truth was, he and his staff were exhausted. They had been up for nearly 48 hours tracking the disintegration of the German armed forces as Army Group after Army Group surrendered locally to Allied forces.

On May 4 1945, the British Field Marshal Montgomery took the military surrender of all German forces in Holland, Northwest Germany, and Denmark on Lüneburg Heath; an area between the cities of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen. Monty had flatly refused to accept the surrender of Nazi armed forces fighting the Russians in the east, preferring to deal with the capitulation of the troops facing his forces alone. Previously, the Germans had surrendered in Italy (May 2), Austria (May 5), and Bavaria (May 5).

Finally, Admiral Donitz who had assumed control of what was left of the Nazi government, sent General Alfred Jodl, Chief of Staff for the German High Command to Reims to negotiate. Ike would have none of it. At one point, Eisenhower threatened to resume offensive operations against the Germans unless Jodl accepted the surrender terms unconditionally. Bowing to the inevitable, Jodl and the government representative Admiral Hans Georg Friedeburg signed the instrument of surrender early in the morning of the 7th. Eisenhower had tried unsuccessfully to coordinate an announcement of the surrender in London, Washington, and Moscow which became moot when the news leaked out anyway.

Friedburg later committed suicide. Jodl was executed for war crimes following his trial at Nuremberg.

As his staff gathered in the little schoolhouse that served as SHAEF heaquarters following the surrender, Eisenhower pondered what he should say in breaking the news of the German capitulation. His top aide, General Walter “Beedle” Smith says that Ike fiddled with the statement for about a half an hour, taking suggestions from other equally exhausted members of his staff until finally settling on the simple declarative statement he sent in a telegram.

While seeming to be anticlimactic, the statement relfects the mood of SHAEF headquarters at that time. Following the surrender, there was no joyous celebration. A bottle of champagne was brought out but when opened, was found to be flat. Most of his staff simply went to bed.

The next day, Jodl showed up at Marshall Zuhkov’s headquarters outside of Berlin where the Russians made a great show of taking the surrender. This is why the Putin’s celebration will be taking place tomorrow, the 8th.

Officially, V-E Day was celebrated by the Allied people on May 9.

Cross Posted at Blogger News Network