It's Either True Or It's Not

Today, two bombs exploded in Oslo, Norway doing considerable damage to a Norwegian government building where their prime minister is officed.

There is a link to an Iraqi cleric who threatened the lives of Norwegian politicians, Mullah Krekar, the founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam.

This mullah said that, if deported from Norway, he'd be killed, therefore the politicians who deported him deserve the same fate. Norway considered deporting him because they saw him as a national security threat.

In the ABC News article, the writer chose to make an interesting connection. He wrote;

Prior to the Iraq War, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell said Ansar al-Islam was the "sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network."

Now then, we've been blasted by the left who assert that Powell was either lying or duped when making this statement. If that is the case, why is it used NOW as supporting evidence of the danger of mullah Krekar?

Either Ansar al-Islam was a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda, or it wasn't. It can't be both. It can't be a connection now, if it wasn't then. If it is a connection now, then it was back when Powell made the statement, too.

So, given the history since Powell said this, if ABC is still reporting it, then I would say there WAS a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda, making Iraq a valid target for invasion in the pursuit of al Qaeda.

Walking Tax?

Transportation Department Embraces Bikes, and Business Groups Cry Foul

By LEORA BROYDO VESTEL

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced “the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized.”

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced a “major policy revision” that aims to give bicycling and walking the same policy and economic consideration as driving.

“Today I want to announce a sea change,” he wrote on his blog last week. “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized.”

The new policy, which was introduced a few days after Mr. LaHood gave a well-received speech from atop a table at the National Bike Summit, is said to reflect the Transportation Department’s support for the development of fully integrated transportation networks.

I wonder if LaHood - wasn't he the bad guy on Pale Rider? anyway - I wonder if Sec. LaHood realizes what pays for road maintenance.

It ain't bikes and pedestrians.

Start squeezing motorized vehicles off the roadways, and they'll have to start taxing walking and biking to make up for the shortfall.

Good Thing The World's Ending in 2012

Otherwise, this might be something to worry about;

CBO report: Debt will rise to 90% of GDP

By David M. Dickson

President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation's economic output by 2020, the Congressional Budget Office reported Thursday.

What's That? Social Security Is Doing Just Fine?

That's what I've been told by some. They claim that SS is so well run and efficient and that it's in fine shape.

Really.

Social Security to See Payout Exceed Pay-In This Year

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH
Published: March 24, 2010

The bursting of the real estate bubble and the ensuing recession have hurt jobs, home prices and now Social Security.

This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Yeah.

Fine shape.
Very efficient.
No problems at all.

Just What The Founding Fathers Ordered

Obama administration to order lenders to cut mortgage payments for
jobless

By Renae Merle and dina elboghdady
Thursday, March 25, 2010; 7:14 PM

The Obama administration plans to overhaul how it's tackling the foreclosure crisis, in part by requiring lenders to temporarily slash or eliminate monthly mortgage payments for many borrowers who are unemployed, senior officials said Thursday.

Nah, the feds aren't taking over the financial market.

This is just what the Founders had in mind; the federal government dictating to private business.

Hmm.

Dictating.

Wonder what that makes Obama?

Speaking as someone who is jobless and pays a mortgage, I oppose this act by the criminal socialist Obama administration.

I signed a contract with my lender. I have to live up to the terms of that contract. I have the right to renegotiate my contract due to my current status, but my lender is not required to agree. And, unless he does, my contract remains as is.

If the feds are allowed to step in and make contracts null and void, what reliance can be placed upon contracts?

Absolutely none.

Doing America Proud

This is what 100,000 American soldiers, sailors and marines died for in the Pacific theater.

I Can Feel It

Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), who was recently appointed to the Senate Energy Committee, can "feel" global warming;

"Climate change is very real," she confessed as she embraced cap and trade's
massive tax increase on Michigan industry - at the same time claiming, against
all the evidence, that it would not lead to an increase in manufacturing costs
or energy prices. "Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I'm flying.
The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and
tornadoes."

"We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes."

Let's check on hurricane and tornado activity, shall we?

Let's...

On tornadoes;

Tepid tornado season disappoints some

By Melanie S. Welte
The Associated Press
Monday, Aug 03, 2009 - 10:03:45 am CDT

DES MOINES -- This has been an unusually mild year in Tornado Alley,
which is good news, of course, for the people who live here, but a little
frustrating to scientists who planned to chase twisters as part of a $10 million
research project.

“You’re out there to do the experiment and you’re geared up every day and
ready. And when there isn’t anything happening, that is frustrating,” said Don
Burgess, a scientist at the University of Oklahoma. But he was quick to add that
he is pleased the relative quiet has meant fewer injuries and less damage.

Nationwide, there were 826 tornadoes this year through June 30, compared
with an average of 934 for the same period during the previous three years,
according to the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.

"[A]n unusually mild year[.]"

11.6% [i]fewer[/i] tornadoes than the previous three years.

So much for "[i]more[/i]" tornadoes. Now, let's look at hurricanes;

Experts predict quieter Atlantic hurricane season

AFPAugust 5, 2009, 6:00 am

MIAMI (AFP) - Weather experts on Wednesday reduced the number of projected
hurricanes in the north Atlantic this season to four, two of them major
hurricanes with winds above 178 kilometers (111 miles) per hour.

After one of the calmest starts to the hurricane season in a decade, the
experts from Colorado State University said the development of an El Nino effect
in the Pacific had caused them to scale back their projections for the
Atlantic.

"[O]ne of the calmest starts to the hurricane season in a decade[.]"

So much for "more" hurricanes.

I wonder what it is that Stabenow is feeling?

Given Obama's recent decision to correct misinformation, maybe he will correct Stabenow's claim.

Nah, doubt it...

But, But, But - It Was The PATRIOT Act!

In 2004, Obama criticized passing legislation without reading it, without "clear debate."

But, now that it's 2009, he has to have healthcare reform rushed through - no time to stop and read it, not time for debate, it has to be done now!

BARACK OBAMA: ...When you rush these budgets that are a foot high and nobody
has any idea what's in them and nobody has read them.

RANDI RHODES: 14 pounds it was!

BARACK OBAMA: Yeah. And it gets rushed through without any clear
deliberation or debate then these kinds of things happen. And I think that
this is in some ways what happened to the PATRIOT Act.

So.

Now that it's healthcare, why, that's different.

Don't read those 1,000+ pages! Just pass it!

10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 -

0...all engines running...lift-off, we have a lift-off, 32 minutes past the hour, lift-off on Apollo 11...

Tower cleared...

She's lifting beautifully into the sky, a typically beautiful Saturn V launch.

If I timed this right, 40 years ago, around the time of this posting, we sent men to the moon.

This was an historic and milestone event in Man's existence; to travel to another world and return safely.

Nothing before or since can compare to this achievement.

Yet, for some reason, as of this posting, Google - a site that commemorates everything else by changing their logo - has taken no notice of this momentous event.

That is shameful.

But, their ignorance aside, this is a glorius day and, in just four days, we will have the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's first steps on a surface beyond Earth's.

Those are US flags on the Moon.