Navy Seals acting in defense of America forced to stand before a hearing for alleged abuse of a terrorist prisoner on an already infamous day – the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. See a documentary here at Atlas Shrugs.

Probably Monday, the EPA will officially declare CO2 a public health hazard. Never mind that it is essential to the health of the plant life that keeps us alive–it’s causing !!!Global Warming!!! Never mind that the EPA’s Draconian reduction regulations will do nothing to stop atmospheric CO2  levels from increasing. Never mind that the “data” the EPA used for its endangerment finding are from the IPCC, and as such are based on the (charitably) suspect CRU/Mann/Briffa Thermageddon models. And of course, never mind that the EPA wrote is endangerment finding before the public comment period had ended and excluded reports that countered its desired result. Sound familiar?

Since the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been bought off,  Someone else with legal standing must bring the lawsuit and tie up these eco-bandits in court for years. I nominate Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship.

Yes, it rhymes–I’m a genius. Okay, it’s bad enough that the Met office said it will take three years to retrieve, recalculate, re-collate, re-invent  160 years of  “lost” temperature data, (Can you say whitewash?), but it’s still not bad enough for Gordon “AGW skeptics are flat earthers” Brown. His government doesn’t want the work done because, it says, “it would be seized upon by climate change skeptics.”

This is the same government that spent millions on a prime-time media campaign to scare children and intimidate the citizenry into supporting its carbon trading boondoggle because it will (not) save the planet.

Well, what do you know–so, it’s not about getting the science right. As I have said numerous time, it never has been. It’s always been about control, forcing  us to live a worse existence than medieval serfs–they could at least burn peat and wood–while globalist elites live like Pharaohs. Nice to hear one of them say it for a change.

Americans have gone collectively insane. Like sheep being led to the slaughter, no one could imagine the terror that is about to be visited on millions of unsuspecting innocents. The health care bill is an instrument of selective death. Seniors will be prematurely sacrificed so that millions of poor Americans (many of them illegal immigrants) can get mediocre government care.

So begins the John Griffing article in American Thinker.  Do yourself a favor and read it.  Knowledge is power.

from:

http://gothamist.com/2009/12/05/new_jersey_senate_to_vote_on_gay_ma.php

Just days after the New York State Senate voted down a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, the Garden State is getting ready for the debate.According to the Times, the New Jersey State Senate’s Judiciary Committee is gearing up for a vote on gay marriage as early as Monday — with the full Senate preparing for a vote possibly on Thursday.

While the Judiciary Committee is expected to pass the bill, the full Senate vote will likely be closer. Democrats have the majority, but some do not support same-sex marriage rights, so in order for the bill to pass, some Republicans will need to vote for it. The paper of record notes that timing is also important because Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, who supports gay marriage, will leave office on Jan. 19 to be replaced by Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who opposes it.

Despite the less-than-encouraging results of the Maine referendum and the New York State Senate vote, gay marriage supporters including Senator Raymond Lesniak (D-Union County) say there is a “momentum change” behind the bill, which seemed stalled until a recent petition boasting the names of more than 2,300 Democratic officials, advocates and residents began making the rounds. One insider said that the Garden State has a better chance of passing the bill than the Empire State. “New York is two different states, New York City and upstate New York,” said Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Princeton). “We’re still the progressive suburbs of Philadelphia and New York City. I believe we’re a more progressive state.”

Lunatics live among us.

This gem was on page B1 of today’s daily.

by Ken Brewer

So far, nation building has worked only after our total conquest of a nation, Germany and Japan being the prime examples. It hasn’t actually worked in Korea, because we are still there. Iraq, although a noble effort, remains an open question.

I have reassessed George W. Bush’s decision in Afghanistan in view of this fact and others. He was right to attack Al Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11/2001, but erred in electing to stay there. His goal was righteous, but unachievable. Afghanistan has never been a nation in any meaningful sense. What we could achieve there, we did achieve. That is, eliminate Al Qaeda as much as possible and let the Taliban and the population know that we will return to eliminate them at will any time we feel threatened by their presence in Afghanistan. We supposedly learned in Somalia that nation building in populations at a medieval to Stone Age stage of development is a bad idea!

President Obama agreed with Bush’s war in Afghanistan, calling it a necessary war and outlining a valid approach to it in March by appointing General McCrystal to perform an assessment of it and give recommendations. Being the architect of the surge in Iraq, Obama had picked a true expert in McCrystal. General McCrystal gave his assessment and recommendations in August, saying that drastic action was needed immediately or we could be on an irreversible path to defeat within one year. He recommended a troop surge of 80,000 to win in a reasonable time, but 60,000 minimum to win in more time. He further stated that we could run an indefinite holding action with a 40,000 troop increase. 

For more than two months, Obama dithered and sent a message of encouragement and weakness to our enemies while more soldiers suffered and died. Without recounting his record of activities during this time let me just say that Obama’s dithering was for purely political reasons. He then announces a troop increase that is half of what his hand picked General says is needed to achieve victory.

Obviously, Obama does not have victory in mind. It simply is not in his vocabulary. General McCrystal should resign his position in protest to commanding troops in a calculated defeat.

If Obama thinks that Afghanistan is not worth the effort, I can definitely go along with that. In that case, he needs to order an immediate withdrawal with the caveat that we will attack Al Qaeda in Afghanistan any time we detect their presence there.

The fact is that our President sent a message of surrender to Al Qaeda and the Taliban by setting a pullout date only 18 months hence. No matter what shysterly qualifications he attached to it, that is the message that he sent Tuesday night. Chris Matthews, for once, was entirely correct when he characterized President Obama’s appearance at West Point as being among the enemy, for his enemies are the true American patriots at West Point and in our military who he is now murdering, for that is what he is doing by sending them to war and planning for their defeat!

Related:

Washington Times EDITORIAL: The Enemy at West Point

$450,000 Taxpayer Dollars for Abortions & Planned Parenthood in Texas? Action Item!

The Washington Examiner’s Timothy P. Carney writes an illuminating piece on  Barack Obama’s jobs summit and the invited corporate CEO’s in attendance who have sidled up to the  government trough while letting the axe fall on tens of thousands of their own employees.

Republican lawmakers were notably absent from the event, and some business groups that have clashed with Obama on other issues were omitted from the list — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business..

“The groups that represent large numbers of the actual job creators are not involved, presumably because the White House doesn’t want to hear what they have to say,” said James Sherk, Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

In addition to labor leaders, economists and liberal think-tankers,  attendees included business leaders from AT&T (where 12,000 jobs were cut a year ago and about 4,600 this year), Boeing Co. (where 6,212 net jobs have been eliminated since November 2008), AstraZeneca (6,000 cuts this year and 1,400 last year), American Airlines (which laid off 6,800 last summer and more workers in October), Home Depot (which announced 7,000 jobs cuts in January), Dow (which cut 5,000 last December), U.S. Steel (3,500 cuts in North America), Xerox (3,000 jobs cut this year), Disney (which eliminated 1,900 jobs in the first quarter), and Dow Corning Corp. (which cut 800 workers globally earlier this year), according to the impressive new internet news site, Sphere.

Obama invited more than 130 leaders from business, labor, academia, nonprofits and local government to talk about the issue that casts a shadow over the country — and his approval ratings. Currently, one in 10 Americans is unemployed. And the economy still is shedding jobs as we reported earlier today.

posted by Sibyl West

America – defend your defenders against the surrender bureaucrats!

(hat tip Atlas Shrugs)

More local news VIDEO HERE.

Dec 7 Navy SEALs Support Rally – Norfolk, Virginia

Details:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=190340654910&ref=nf

Please don’t forget to write to write letters of support to all 3 Navy Seals charged in the capture of Ahmed Hashim Abed, & boost their morale by letting them see us at the rally on Dec. 7th in Norfolk. (hat tip Angela)

Send letters for Matthew McCabe, Jonathan Keefe, & Julio Huertas to: 1300 Helicopter Rd/ Attn: Seal Team 10 / Norfolk VA 23521-2944

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Navy Seals Could Face Year in Prison Over Alleged Punching of Terrorist Suspected of Masterminding Fallujah Murders
Friday, December 04, 2009

By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) – The Navy Seals facing court martial for the alleged abuse of a terror suspect arrested for killing four Americans face up to a year in military confinement, discharge for bad conduct, and forfeiture of two-thirds of their pay for a year, if convicted, according to defense attorneys.
 
Further, their attorneys said that the possibilty that they would not be able to cross-examine their clients’ accuser would be grounds for dismissing the case. 

The accuser, Ahmed Hashim Abed, is the alleged architect of the murder of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. The bodies of the four Americans were burned and hanged from a bridge for display.

The three Navy Seals–Matthew McCabe, Jonathon Keefe, and Julio Huertas–will be arraigned on Monday in Norfolk, Va. They are facing a special court martial–which is equivalent to a misdemeanor charge–and have each denied the allegations of abuse and cover-up

The trial date for McCabe, the Seal charged with the alleged assault, is tentatively set for Jan. 19, 2010, McCabe’s attorney Neal Puckett said.

Read more.

Somebody at Fort Hood Should Be Walking the Plank   [Andy McCarthy] NRO The Corner

Prepare to be infuriated.

It’s been brought to my attention by several reliable sources that the Defense Department has brought Louay Safi to Fort Hood as an instructor, and that he has been lecturing on Islam to our troops in Fort Hood who are about to deploy to Afghanistan. Safi is a top official of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and served as research director at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

Worse, last evening, Safi was apparently permitted to present a check (evidently on behalf of ISNA) to the families of the victims of last month’s Fort Hood massacre. A military source told the blogger Barbarossa at the Jawa Report: “This is nothing short of blood money. This is criminal and the Ft. Hood base commander should be fired right now.”

ISNA was identified by the Justice Department at the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing conspiracy trial as an unindicted co-conspirator. The defendants at that trial were convicted of funding Hamas to the tune of millions of dollars. This should have come as no surprise. ISNA is the Muslim Brotherhood’s umbrella entity for Islamist organizations in the United States. It was established in 1981 to enable Muslims in North America “to adopt Islam as a complete way of life” — i.e., to further the Brotherhood’s strategy of establishing enclaves in the West that are governed by sharia. As I detailed in an essay for the April 20 edition of NR, the Brotherhood’s rally-cry remains, to this day, “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” The Brotherhood’s spiritual guide, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who issued a fatwa in 2004 calling for attacks on American forces in Afghanistan, openly declares that Islam will “conquer America” and “conquer Europe.”

Also established in 1981, the IIIT is a Saudi funded think-tank dedicated, it says, to the “Islamicization of knowledge” — which, Zeyno Baran (in Volume 6 of the Hudson Institute’s excellent series, “Current Trends in Islamist Ideology”) has aptly observed, “could be a euphemism for the rewriting of history to support Islamist narratives.” Years ago, the Saudis convinced the United States that the IIIT should be the military’s go-to authority on Islam. One result was the placement of Abdurrahman Alamoudi to select Muslim chaplains for the armed forces. Alamoudi has since been convicted of terrorism and sentenced to 23 years in federal prison.

As noted in this 2003 Frontpage report, 2002 search warrant links Safi to an entity called the “Safa Group.” The Safa Group has never been charged with a crime, but the affidavit allegest its involvement in moving large sums of money to terrorist fronts. Safi was also caught on an FBI wiretap of Sami al-Arian, a former leader in the murderous Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The year was 1995, and the topic of the discussion between Safi and al-Arian was Safi’s concern that President Clinton’s executive order prohibiting financial transactions with terrorist organizations would negatively affect al-Arian. More recently, al-Arian has been convicted of conspiring to provide material support to terrorism.

At Human Events a couple of months back, Rowan Scarborough had a disturbing report about the FBI’s “partnering” efforts with Islamist groups — including the very same ISNA that the Justice Department had cited as an unindicted co-conspirator in the terrorism financing conspiracy. A prominent figure in the report was Louay Safi:

Safi is a Syrian-born author who advocates Muslim American rights through his directorship of ISNA’s Leadership Development Center. He advocates direct talks between Washington and Iran’s leaders. He has spoken out against various law enforcement raids on Islamic centers.

In a 2003 publication, “Peace and the Limits of War,” Safi wrote, “The war against the apostates [non-believers of Islam] is carried out not to force them to accept Islam, but to enforce the Islamic law and maintain order.”

He also wrote, “It is up to the Muslim leadership to assess the situation and weigh the circumstances as well as the capacity of the Muslim community before deciding the appropriate type of jihad. At one stage, Muslims may find that jihad, through persuasion or peaceful resistance, is the best and most effective method to achieve just peace.” [ACM: Implicitly, this concedes there is a time for violent jihad, too.]

At ISNA’s annual convention in Washington in July, one speaker, Imam Warith Deen Umar, criticized Obama for having two Jewish people — Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod — in the White House. “Why do this small number of people have control of the world?” he said, according to a IPT transcript. He said the Holocast was punishment for Jews “because they were serially disobedient to Allah.”

[Steven] Emerson’s group [the Investigative Project on Terrorism] collected literature at the convention approved for distribution by ISNA. It said the pamphlets and books featured “numerous attempts to portray U.S. prosecution of terrorists and terror supporters as anti-Muslim bigotry; dramatic revisionist history that denied attacks by Arab nations and Palestinian terrorists against Israel; anti-Semitic tracts and hyperbolic rants about a genocide and holocaust of Palestinians.”

Asked if the FBI should sever ties with ISNA, Emerson said, “ISNA is an unindicted co-conspirator. It’s a Muslim Brotherhood group. I think in terms of legitimacy there should be certain expectations of what the group says publicly. If it continues to espouse jihad and anti-Semitism, I think it nullifies it right to have the FBI recognize it.”

If you want to get a sense of the garbage our troops are being forced to endure in Fort Hood’s classrooms, check out Jihad Watch, where my friend Bob Spencer has more on this episode and on his prior jousts with Safi, here, here, and here.

What on earth is this government doing, and will Congress please do something about it?

More war.

Bernake threatens Social Security.

The nations health care is just another ponzi scheme.

Choice is less than a bargaining chip.

Estate taxes were nearly abolished.

Jobs mean less than the money they cost.

In just one week.

From the Richmond Times Disgrace (as my economics professor always called it):

Col. Van T. Barfoot, a local Medal of Honor recipient, is under the gun from his Henrico County community’s homeowner association.

In a five-paragraph letter to Barfoot that he received yesterday, Barfoot is being ordered to remove a flagpole from his yard. The decorated veteran of three wars, now 90 years old, raises the American flag every morning on the pole, then lowers and folds the flag at dusk each day in a three-corner military fashion.

In a priority mail letter, the Coates & Davenport law firm in Richmond is ordering Barfoot to remove the pole by 5 p.m. Friday or face “legal action being brought to enforce the Covenants and Restrictions against you.” The letter states that Barfoot will be subject to paying all legal fees and costs in any successful legal proceeding pursued by the homeowner association’s board

Can anything be more stupid than a homeowner’s board hassling a 90-year old, three war veteran Medal of Honor winner because they don’t like flag poles?  I mean, seriously?  Seriously?

This situation calls for OUTRAGE – OUTRAGE I say.  Nothing less will do.

Col. Barfoot – if I were in your presence, I would snap to attention and salute you, giving you the respect that you deserve.  Clearly, your homeowner’s association does not understand that respect that is due this hero.

Unbelievable.

JustJon

http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/880990.html

Here are the email addresses of the seven NY Democrats who voted against marriage equality for NYers. Please repost this in your status. addabbo@senate.state.ny.us, kruger@senate.state.ny.us, diaz@senate.state.ny.us, shuntley@senate.state.ny.us, monserra@senate.state.ny.us, onorato@senate.state.ny.us, stachows@senate.state.ny.us

Hat tip Dorrie: “I called the number at the bottom of message. Gene Hackamack is real, he’s standing by his friend’s story, and he’s inundated with calls like mine, giving him and Tedd a thumbs up. Thank you, Frank N., for sending it to me.” —Dorrie

 —– Begin Message —–

This is unbelievable. The story on the web makes it all sound so nonchalant.  Phone call delays Houston-bound AirTran flight.

Then I got this email from my good friend Tedd Petruna, a diver at the NBL facility at NASA who I used to work with. He happened to be on this same flight. In my opinion, the muslims are all getting very brave now, since they have one of their own in the White House. Read Tedd’s story below. Can you imagine, our own news media are so politically correct now that they are afraid to report that these were all muslims. Unbelievable! Thank God for people like Tedd Petruna. 

Semper Fi,

Gene Hackemack. Brenham TX  

   —– Original Message —–

From: Petruna, Tedd J. (JSC-DX12)[RAYTHEON TECHNICAL SERVICES COMPANY]

To: undisclosed-recipients   Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009 11:32 AM

One week ago, I went to Ohio on business and to see my father. On Tuesday, November 17, I returned home. If you read the papers, you may have seen a blurb where an AirTran flight was cancelled from Atlanta to Houston due to a man who refused to get off of his cell phone before takeoff.  It was on Fox. 

That was NOT what happened!

I was in first class coming home. Eleven muslim men got on the plane in full attire. Two sat in first class and the rest peppered themselves throughout the plane all the way to the back.  As the plane taxied to the runway, the stewardesses gave the safety spiel we are all so familiar with. At that time, one of the men got on his cell and called one of his companions in the back and proceeded to talk on the phone in Arabic very loudly and very aggressively. This took the first stewardess out of the picture for she repeatedly told the man that cell phones were not permitted at the time. He ignored her as if she wasn’t there.

The second man who answered the phone did the same and this took out the second stewardess.  In the back of the plane at this time, 2 younger muslims, one in the back aisle, and one in front of him, window, began to show footage of a porno they had taped the night before, and were very loud about it.  Now, they are only permitted to do this prior to Jihad.  If a Muslim man goes into a strip club, he has to view the woman via mirror with his back to her (don’t ask me, I don’t make the rules, but I’ve studied). The third stewardess informed them that they were not to have electronic devices on at this time. To which one of the men said, “Shut up, infidel dog!” She went to take the camcorder and he began to scream in her face in Arabic.

At that exact moment, all 11 of them got up and started to walk to the cabin. This is where I had had enough! I got up and started to the back where I heard a voice behind me from another Texan twice my size say, “I got your back.” I grabbed the man who had been on the phone by the arm and said, “you WILL go sit down or you Will be thrown from this plane!” As I led him around me to take his seat, the fellow Texan grabbed him by the back of his neck and his waist and headed out with him. I then grabbed the second man and said, “You WILL do the same!” He protested but adrenaline was flowing now and he was going to go. As I escorted him forward, the plane doors open and 3 TSA agents and 4 police officers entered. Me and my new Texan friend were told to cease and desist for they had this under control. I was happy to oblige actually.

There was some commotion in the back, but within moments, all 11 were escorted off the plane. They then unloaded their luggage.

We talked about the occurrence and were in disbelief that it had happened, when suddenly, the door opened again and on walked all eleven!!  Stone faced, eyes front and robotic (the only way I can describe it). The stewardess from the back had been in tears and when she saw this, she was having NONE of it! Being that I was up front, I heard and saw the whole ordeal. She told the TSA agent there was NO WAY she was staying on the plane with these men. The agent told her they had searched them and were going to go through their luggage with a fine tooth comb and that they were allowed to proceed to Houston. The captain and co-captain came out and told the agent, “we and our crew will not fly this plane!” After a word or two, the entire crew, luggage in tow, left the plane. Five minutes later, the cabin door opened again and a whole new crew walked on.

Again, this is where I had had enough!! I got up and asked, “What the hell is going on?” I was told to take my seat. They were sorry for the delay and I would be home shortly. I said, “I’m getting off this plane.” The stewardess sternly told me that she could not allow me to get off.

Now I’m mad! I said, “I am a grown man who bought this ticket, whose time is mine with a family at home and I am going through that door, or I’m going through that door with you under my arm!!  But I am going through that door!!” And I heard a voice behind me say, “So am I.” Then everyone behind us started to get up and say the same. Within 2 minutes, I was walking off that plane where I was met with more agents who asked me to write a statement. I had 5 hours to kill at this point so why the hell not. Due to the amount of people who got off that flight, it was cancelled. I was supposed to be in Houston at 6pm. I got here at 12:30am.

Look up the date. Flight 297, Atlanta to Houston.

If this wasn’t a dry run, I don’t know what one is. They wanted to see how TSA would handle it, how the crew would handle it, and how the passengers would handle it. 

I’m telling this to you because I want you to know. The threat is real. I saw it with my own eyes.

Tedd Petruna

The flying imams (hat tip Atlas Shrugs)

Be sure to read additional eyewitness testimony from Senior Chaplain Dr. Keith A. Robinson here.

“Old Soldiers never die; they just fade away.” General Douglas MacArthur

Updates:  See Bob Gill’s interview withthe chaplain and Gill’s obvious pro-Petruna take on the story. More evidence of dry run

E-mail stirs fears of hi-jacking dry run

Related: Terrorist Dry Run

Debbie Schlussel is on it, too. So is CanadaFreePress.

More at The Statesman blog

From rPulse.com:

Meredith Baxter said, “To come out and disclose stuff is very antithetical to who I am.” I sure hope you’re proud of yourself Mario.

Every gay person believes it is their own choice and decision about coming out.

Every gay person except Mario Lavandeira aka Perez Hilton who claims he is gay, and yet he lacks compassion for other gays who he publicly bashes into coming out.

Meredith Baxter, who starred on the successful television series “Family Ties” became Mario’s target on Tuesday of this week when he posted photos of Meredith with her girlfriend Nancy.

This is nothing new for Mario, he forced Neil Patrick Harris and Lance Bass to out themselves as well.

nd now Meredith was forced to publicly announced her sexuality because the rag-gossip media cannot be controlled, yet.

“I am a lesbian and it was a later-in-life recognition,” she told Matt Lauer on TODAY.  “Some people would say, well, you’re living a lie and, you know, the truth is – not at all.  This has only been for the past seven years.”

Meredith who is 62, was not ready to do this, and yet was forced because of the public tabloid chatter.   “I’ve always lived a very private life,” said the actress, who’s never even had a publicist.

“I did not want some tabloid to take the story and make it up — I wanted it to be in my own words,” she told Lauer.

Meredith has now had to explain her relationship with men, which says was complicated and took her decades to understand why.

In 1966 she married her first husband, Robert Lewis Bush, and they divorced five years later; she married her second husband David Birney in 1974, and they divorced in 1989; she married her third husband, Michael Blodgett, in 1995, and they divorced in 2000.

She explained that she deliberately chose to be with men with whom she clashed, so that she could blame them for the end of the relationship.“It never occurred to me to think, oh, [the problem is] me,”she said.

Then, seven years ago, she had a relationship with a woman and concluded that she was homosexual.  Suddenly, things seemed to make sense.

“I got involved with someone I never expected to get involved with, and it was that kind of awakening,” she said. “I never fought it because it was like, oh, I understand why I had the issues I had early in life. I had a great deal of difficulty connecting with men in relationships.”

Meredith has been with her girlfriend, Nancy, a contractor who she met through mutual friends, for the past four years.  Because Nancy is openly lesbian, their relationship has not been kept a closely guarded secret.

“I had to reach a level of comfort because it wasn’t fair to push her back into secrecy,” she said. “We live very out lives in Los Angeles.”

When “Family Ties” ended, Meredith went on to direct and star in several TV movies, winning a daytime Emmy award in 1993 for portraying a lesbian mom in the CBS School Break Special, “Other Mothers.”

These days, she’s taken on a few roles, including promoting her skin care line,Meredith Baxter Simple Works.

She is also a public speaker and advocate, traveling the country discussing her personal battles with breast cancer and alcoholism.

Now that she is coming out, she also sees herself as an advocate for gay rights.

“This is a political act, even though that’s not what it feels like to me,” she said. “If anyone knows someone who’s gay or lesbian … they’re less likely to vote against them to take away their rights. I can be that lesbian you know now…”

Since AccuWeather is at Penn State, this is no great journalistic coup. But it does give me a chance to use this excellent snark art from Simon Jester that’s now in my sidebar. H/T Anthony

What pisses me off is the smug smile as he gives “policy makers” direction on how to continue responding to the scandal. Naturally he’s not asked about his “new” paper with the same deliberate, upside-down graph he used before. This guy is scum.

But what I really found amusing–when I went to watch it–was the ad for Google Search running before the video kicks in. Curiously, there were no searches for ClimateGate. I wonder why?

From Yahoo.com:

NEW YORK, New York — Former “Family Ties” star Meredith Baxter has revealed she is gay.

Meredith, who starred as Michael J. Fox’s mother on the hit ’80s television show, confirmed the news to Matt Lauer on Wednesday’s “Today.”

I guess I wanted to… say that I’m a lesbian,” Meredith revealed on the NBC morning program. “It was a later-in-life recognition of that fact.”

Meredith, 62, has been living life as a lesbian for seven years and confirmed to Matt that she has been involved in a relationship for four years with contractor Nancy Locke. But it was only after becoming involved with another woman that Meredith realized why her three marriages to men didn’t work out.

I got involved with someone I never expected to get involved with and it was that kind of awakening and I never fought it because it was like, ‘Oh! I understand why I had the issues I had early in my life,’” Meredith said. “I had a great deal of difficulty connecting with men in relationships… Sometimes, I assumed I was a bad picker, which I was indeed, but I also was involved with people who made me think, ‘Oh, they’re the problem,’ because there were problems with the people I chose. It never occurred to me to think, ‘Oh, it’s me.’”

Meredith told Matt that sharing the news of her sexuality with her children, who range in age 25-42, was a lot easier than she expected.

The actress also revealed that her television family co-stars are aware she is gay.

“All my pals in ‘Family Ties’ know,” she said. “They all knew [when we had a reunion on 'Today' two years ago]. We all had dinners together and [TV husband], Michael Gross and his wife and Nancy and I go out, we’ve gone out many times. It’s all OK.”

Meredith said she and Nancy “live very out lives in Los Angeles” and the actress even went on a cruise with 1,200 lesbians not too long ago. But as for why she is speaking out now, Meredith said, in part, it was to share her story in her own words before a tabloid could put their spin on her life.

From: http://www.chinadaily.com

The idea was simple: Set up a bar to attract gay men and then use it to distribute information on AIDS/HIV prevention.

The media loved the idea – but all the attention kept the gay men away.

“They (gay men) refused to show up at the opening for fear of media exposure and potential discrimination,” said Zhang Jianbo, the bar’s founder and a local AIDS doctor in Dali, Yunnan province.

The bar, partially funded by the Dali Health Bureau in collaboration with two local anti-AIDS NGOs that Zhang heads, was meant to facilitate outreach efforts targeting groups facing a high HIV risk, particularly gay men.

Its opening was set for yesterday, World AIDS Day.

Zhang said intense media attention surprised him a lot.

“Had I known it, I would not have told the media,” he said.

Though there are gay bars in major cities in China, which experts estimate has 30 million homosexuals, including 20 million gay men, the one in Dali was dubbed “China’s first government-funded bar for AIDS control” and instantly got widespread media coverage.

“It’s understandable,” said Luke Zhao, executive editor of Beijing-based Gay Spot magazine. “Factors like government endorsement and support, gay men, HIV/AIDS, naturally made the gay bar so attractive to the press and the general public,” he told China Daily yesterday.

“As a long-term medical worker in HIV/AIDS prevention and control, I know how hard it is for us to reach these groups to promote self-protection messages like safe sex,” Zhang said.

He managed to establish contacts with more than 1,500 local gay men.

“To sustain and build more of that, I thought of opening a bar for regular get-togethers with them,” Zhang said.

“We could teach them about HIV/AIDS and how to protect themselves from it,” he said.

Now no one knows what will happen to a bar with no visitors or even a name.

“But it is at least a good signal that the government is beginning to pay attention to gay people as a vulnerable group facing HIV/AIDS and their health,” Zhao said.

The HIV/AIDS prevalence among gay men averages 6 percent in the country and same-sex transmission accounted for about one-third of new HIV infections last year, official tallies showed.