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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (64442)	2/28/2008 6:15:04 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Cut and Run and Then Run Back Best of the Web Today by JAMES TARANTO Thursday, February 28, 2008 3:08 p.m. EST With Hillary Clinton being written off (perhaps prematurely), the eight-month general election campaign between John McCain and Barack Obama seems to be getting under way. Obama, apparently moving to the right, is now threatening military intervention in Iraq after years of demanding America's immediate surrender. As the Associated Press reports: <<< McCain criticized Obama for saying in Tuesday night's Democratic debate that, after U.S. troops were withdrawn, as president he would act "if al-Qaida is forming a base in Iraq." "I have some news. Al-Qaida is in Iraq. It's called 'al-Qaida in Iraq,' " McCain told a crowd in Tyler, Texas, drawing laughter at Obama's expense. He said Obama's statement was "pretty remarkable." >>> Quips Glenn Reynolds: "In Obama's defense, he probably reads the New York Times, which always calls it 'Al Qaida in Mesopotamia.' That may have confused him." Obama's response to McCain, described in the same AP dispatch, makes even less sense: <<< "I do know that al-Qaida is in Iraq and that's why I have said we should continue to strike al-Qaida targets," he told a rally at Ohio State University in Columbus. "But I have some news for John McCain," Obama added. "There was no such thing as al-Qaida in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq. . . . They took their eye off the people who were responsible for 9/11 and that would be al-Qaida in Afghanistan, that is stronger now than at any time since 2001." Obama said he intended to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq "so we actually start going after al-Qaida in Afghanistan and in the hills of Pakistan like we should have been doing in the first place." >>> So let's see if we have this straight. Al Qaeda in Iraq isn't worth fighting because it wouldn't be there if it weren't for Bush and McCain. Obama is going to pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq to go fight in Afghanistan and Pakistan, although he will send them back to Iraq if al Qaeda are there, even though he now wants to withdraw notwithstanding al Qaeda's presence. Yes, we can! By the way, the left has been denying al Qaeda's presence in Iraq since before the 2003 liberation. This is from a February 2003 article in In These Times, a leftist magazine: <<< [Secretary of State Colin] Powell told the world, "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network, headed by Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants." This information, Powell said, came from "detainees." But American officials have admitted those very detainees are subjected to torture, raising questions about the reliability of that information. . . . Meanwhile, someone at Britain's Defense Intelligence Staff leaked a document to the BBC indicating that its agents doubt there is any link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. And the the [sic] New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence officials "said they were baffled by the Bush administration's insistence on a solid link between Iraq and Osama Bin Laden's network." The Times quoted an unnamed intelligence official: "We've been looking at this hard for more than a year and you know what, we just don't think it's there . . . the intelligence is obviously being politicized." >>> At least Zarqawi isn't in Iraq anymore. opinionjournal.com

To: Sully- who wrote (64442)	2/28/2008 6:35:08 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

A warmer Arctic 1,000 years ago Iain Murray PLANET GORE @ NRO A new peer-reviewed paper looks at the historical temperatures in northern Scandinavia. It finds: <<< The late-twentieth century, however, is not exceptionally warm in the new record: On decadal-to-centennial timescales, periods around ad 750, 1000, 1400, and 1750 were equally warm, or warmer. The 200-year long warm period centered on ad 1000 was significantly warmer than the late-twentieth century (p < 0.05) and is supported by other local and regional paleoclimate data. The new tree-ring evidence from Torneträsk suggests that this “Medieval Warm Period” in northern Fennoscandia was much warmer than previously recognized. >>> This is just one region of the Arctic, of course, but it provides yet more evidence that we know very little about natural climate variability. Of course, the authors do not actively cast doubt on the theory of "man-made global warming" so, by default, this is part of the literature supporting the "consensus," according to the alarmists' formulation. planetgore.nationalreview.com 02/28 01:15 PM