Say Anything Blog

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - President Bush failed to win the help he sought from Saudi Arabia to relieve skyrocketing American gas prices Friday, a setback for the former Texas oilman who took office predicting he would jawbone oil-producing nations to help the U.S.

Bush got a red-carpet welcome to this desert kingdom, home to the world’s largest oil reserves, and promised to ask King Abdullah to increase production to reduce pressure on prices, which soared past $127 for the first time Friday. But Saudi officials said they already were meeting the needs of their customers worldwide and there was no need to pump more.

Their answer recalled Bush’s trip to Saudi Arabia in January when he urged an increase in production but was rebuffed.

Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said the kingdom decided on May 10 to increase production by 300,000 barrels a day to help meet U.S. needs after Venezuela and Mexico cut back deliveries.

“Supply and demand are in balance today,” al-Naimi told a news conference, bristling at criticism from the U.S. Congress. “How much does Saudi Arabia need to do to satisfy people who are questioning our oil practices and policies?”

Osama bin Laden said in a new audio recording released Friday that al- Qaida will continue its holy war against Israel and its allies until it liberates Palestine.

The terrorist leader’s third statement this year came as President Bush was wrapping up his visit to Israel to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state.

Bin Laden said the fight for the Palestinian cause was the most important factor driving al-Qaida’s war with the West and fueled 19 Muslims to carry out the suicide attacks against the U.S. on September 11.

This is all crap! The goal of Bin Laden, Iamabadhandjob from Iran and militant Islam is the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of every Jew on earth. That has been the goal of Islam from the beginning and there will never, I mean never be any real peace in the Middle East until they achieve that damnable goal.

These extremists know that there is no such thing as an ethnically distinct Palestinian people, that Islam has no historical claim on one inch of Israeli soil; yet, enough people buy this garbage, that they have turned a lie into the truth.

There will be a 7-year peace treaty in the near future and 3.5 years later it will be abandoned and a worldwide attack on Israel to end this conflict will result in a nuclear holocaust, all because Islam cannot allow Israel to exist or any Jew to live on this planet.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D90MUJH00&show_article=1

Seeing as how Obama self identified himself as the un-named proponent of appeasement in President Bush’s address before the Knesset, it seems reasonable to examine the claim.

Prior to WWII, Neville Chamberlain got Hitler to sign a piece of paper, then announced that he had achieved “peace in our time.” History 101 showed all of us, regardless if we have a D or an R after our name, that appeasement doesn’t work.

Looks like a really bad case of poor historical understanding on the part of “D"s in general, and the Obama Messiah in particular.

Bring it on Obama, really he does not want to have that debate. Bush and McCain would eat the empty suit Barack Obama's lunch. How is he going to out smart McCain? McCain is a decorated military veterans and Barack is an empty suit that knows nothing about foreign policy and military tactics.

Seriously folks if political light weights like Obama want to get eat alive when they bite off more than they can chew the Republicans should get out of the way and let him have his Dukakis moment. Maybe Obama should stick to his Marxist views and ideas because when it comes to foreign policy and security he doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about.

Last night at the Red River Area Sportsmens Club meeting Wahpeton I presented the Game and Fish Departments video found on towards the bottom 1/3 of our home page www.gf.nd.gov about concerns with hunting big game over bait.

While you hear and read about bovine TB in Minnesota and CWD issues and concerns in other states, there’s many many many other factors. I’d ask you to check out the video and see what you think about the other issues surrounding this topic.

INDEPENDENT

A new report published by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Global Footprint Network states that we are currently living through a period of mass extinction which is unprecedented since the time of the dinosaurs - 65 million years ago - and the cause? Human activity, of course.

The report says that in the 35 years to 2005, biodiversity has fallen by almost a third, elaborating that

“...land species have declined by 25 per cent, marine life by 28 per cent, and freshwater species by 29 per cent”

Tracking nearly 4,000 species between 1970 and 2005, the team has not only revealed the destruction of the Earth’s wildlife, but also pointed the finger at the perpetrators of this devastation.

Ben Collen, extinctions researcher at ZSL, said: “Between 1960 and 2000, the human population of the world has doubled. Yet during the same period, the animal populations have declined by 30 per cent. It’s beyond doubt that this decline has been caused by humans.”

The thing that concerns me most is not that humans are to blame, but that such a profound loss of biodiversity could have far reaching implications for future biodiversity, especially with the advent of climate change (whether human caused or not - THIS IS NOT INTENDED AS A MMGW DEBATE).

Less biodiversity, means less range within an ecology to respond to abrupt environmental changes. Therefore, there is less chance (a third less?) that species will survive such upheaval, which could have disastrous implications for us and for the biosphere.

What can we do about it?

We can pressure our governments to do something, but ultimately I think it’ll be a lost cause. I’m becoming increasingly pessimistic as I get older and really can’t see how we, as a species, can ever cooperate on something as big and far reaching as this.

On a 17-12 vote this afternoon, the Senate Appropriations Committee added Sen. Feinstein’s ag amnesty to the Iraq supplemental spending bill. This bill could come up for a vote before the full Senate tomorrow. They have done this in total disregard of the overwhelming majority of the people.

This is an outrageous act of disrespect for our men and women in uniform and to the citizens of this country by attaching an illegal-alien amnesty to the Iraq spending bill. Senators should be encouraged to vote and work to strip the amnesty from the Iraq spending bill on the floor.

Your Senator can still vote NO and send the bill back to committee if the amnesty is NOT stripped. This is typical of how the Democratic Congress has traded lives for their pet projects. Every phone of every Senator should be ringing off the hook. 202-224-3121

There is no need for an amnesty to provide growers with workers. There already is an H-2A foreign ag worker program that provides growers with an unlimited number of temporary workers if the growers agree to pay a decent wage and ensure that they go home at the end of the season. Feinstein is just trying to protect the abysmally low wages and bad working conditions that farm workers labor under.

As a matter of fact, their policies is almost word for word.

Thanks again to Hot Air and Ed Morrisey

Cross posted at Proof Positive

Marc Dann Resigns as Ohio Attorney General

UPDATE: Just in, from the AP, Ohio AG Marc Dann has resigned amid the scandal of a sexual harassment investigation in his office and his extramarital affair. Dann, 46, led the state on a 10-day odyssey, at first refusing to resign despite demands by Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland and others within his party, a growing number of investigations into conduct at his office, and the filing Tuesday of articles of impeachment against him. (Find past LB coverage of the Dann scandal here and here.)

Wringing your hands worried about the world opinion of the U.S.? Get a load of this.

There is a certain familiarity to the concomitant series of actions and reactions when disaster strikes in the world. The US stands ready, willing and able to offer assistance. It is often the first country to send in millions of dollars, navy strike groups loaded with food and medical supplies, and transport planes, helicopters and floating hospitals to help those devastated by natural disaster.

Then, just as swift and with equal predictability, those wedded to the Great Satan view of the US begin to carp, drawing on a potent mixture of cynicism and conspiracy theories to criticise the last remaining superpower. When the US keeps doing so much of the heavy lifting to alleviate suffering, you’d figure that the anti-Americans might eventually revise their view of the US. But they never do. And coming under constant attack even when helping others, you’d figure that Americans would eventually draw the curtains on world crises. But they haven’t. At least not yet.

So it was last week. The US stood ready to help the cyclone-ravaged Burmese people. It did not matter that Burma’s ruling junta was no friend of the Americans. With more than 100,000 people feared dead and many more hundreds of thousands left destitute, US Air Force cargo planes loaded with supplies and personnel started arriving in nearby Thailand to begin humanitarian operations in Burma.

A US Navy strike group in the Gulf of Thailand sent helicopters ashore, ready to arrive in Burma within hours. Alas, Burma’s military leaders left their people to die for 10 days before finally accepting help from the evil empire. Even if the Yanks are allowed to boost their assistance to Burma, they can expect a groundswell of criticism.

Back in 2004, the Americans - along with the Australians - arrived within hours to help the hundreds of thousands of people left devastated by the Boxing Day tsunami in Asia. A US carrier group steamed towards Indonesia’s Aceh province. A second US Marine Corps strike force made its way to Sri Lanka with water, food and medical supplies.

The Pentagon spent millions of dollars sending C-130 transport planes from Dubai to Indonesia with tents, blankets, food and water. A navy chief in charge of co-ordination efforts said the US would deliver “as much help as soon as we can, as long as we’re needed”.

The resentment that comes from needing the military and economic might of the US translated into the most absurd criticism. Jan Egeland, the former UN boss of humanitarian affairs, cavilled about the stinginess of certain Western nations. His eye was on the US. Former British minister Claire Short was equally miffed, describing the initiative by the US and other countries as “yet another attempt to undermine the UN”, which was, according to her, the “only body that has the moral authority” to help.

I love moral authority as much as the next guy, but the UN’s moral authority is a mighty hard sell given that the UN club includes the most odious regimes in the world, such as Burma. And notice how the UN’s moral authority did not quickly translate into helicopters laden with food and water?

read the entire article

Here’s a video produced by the Tennessee Republican Party. It’s a bit long (runs about four minutes) and the editing leaves a little to be desired, but the sentiment and contrast are very powerful.

hat tip to Allahpundit at Hot Air
Cross Posted at Proof Positive

BBC

Those pesky varmints have been at it again with the Democrat controlled House of Representatives voting to reject further military funding for the two fronts - in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bill would have provided the Pentagon with $162.5bn to keep the two wars going but included add-ons wanted by the Democrats.

Republicans withheld their votes in protest, allowing the war funding bill to be defeated by 149-141…

...The House did pass two components of the bill that call for extended education benefits for returning soldiers and for President George W Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within 30 days of the bill becoming law.

The Senate will be debating the bill shortly.

If we consider that Bush will veto any bills which are set to hamper US efforts in Iraq or Afghanistan, this can simply be seen as shameless politicking with the lives of US service personnel.

Attempts to withdraw funding for this military action are ignorant of the fact that we have a moral obligation to see this through until Iraq and Afghanistan are stable, secure and able to stand alone. Cutting and running will create such a power vacuum that the region could be plunged into an even worse situation that it is in now and would inevitably alienate yet more people, making the world an even more dangerous place for Westerners.

Summary of Article:

The billion tree campaign, which was launched by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in 2006 as a response to the threat of global warming, has been so successful that it was expanded on Tuesday to become a 7 billion tree campaign.

To date the initiative, which is under the patronage of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Kenyan Green Belt Movement founder Professor Wangari Maathai and Prince Albert II of Monaco, has broken every target set and has catalyzed tree planting in 155 countries.

The benefits from tree planting are many. Trees not only absorb carbon dioxide, but also play a crucial role in providing a range of products and services to rural and urban populations, including food, timber, fiber, medicines and energy as well as soil fertility, water and biodiversity conservation.

Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme said the following: “The Billion Tree Campaign is UNEP’s call to the nearly seven billion people sharing our planet today to take simple, positive steps to protect our climate. It is a defining issue of our era that can only be tackled through individual and collective action. I am convinced that the new target will be met - one tree at a time.”
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2008/2008-05-14-02.asp
Billion Tree Campaign Flowers Into Seven Billion Tree Campaign

Sen. Diane Feinstein is set to try this afternoon to add an amnesty for illegal-alien ag workers to the Iraq supplemental spending bill.

The details of the amnesty are not known. There is some chance she may try to slip it through by not including permanent legalization but just giving one or two million illegal ag workers a 5-year amnesty that allows them to work and live here while further sinking roots. The open-borders champions hope that the longer illegal aliens stay the more difficult it will ever be to deny them U.S. citizenship.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has strong-armed anti-illegal-immigration Democrats to withhold their support for enforcement and is in the process of killing the SAVE Act for the year.

You can call the offices of members of the Senate Appropriations Committee and voice your objections. 202-224-3121

Here are the Appropriations Senators:

Alexander (R-Tenn.)
Allard (R-Colo.)
Byrd (D-West Va.)
Bennett (R-Utah)
Bond (R-Mo.)
Brownback (R-Kan.)
Cochran (R-Miss.)
Craig (R-Idaho)
Domenici (R-N.M.)
Dorgan (D-N.D.)
Durbin (D-Ill.)
Feinstein (D-Calif.)
Gregg (R-N.H.)
Harkin (D-Iowa)
Hutchison (R-Texas)
Inouye (D-Hawaii)
Johnson (D-S.D.)
Kohl (D-Wis.)
Landrieu (D-La.)
Lautenberg (D-N.J.)
Leahy (D-Vt.)
McConnell (R-Ky.)
Mikulski (D-Md.)
Murray (D-Wash)
Nelson (D-Neb.)
Reed (D-R.I.)
Shelby (R-Ala.)
Specter (R-Pa.)
Stevens (R-Alaska)

You can point out that there is no excuse for growers hiring illegal aliens. North Carolina growers, for example, have set up a North Carolina Growers Association that meets all of the ag labor needs through local workers and through legal foreign workers brought through the H-2A visa which ensures that the guest workers go home.

There is a good chance that Feinstein will decide not to introduce her amnesty Thursday afternoon if she feels there is a major move against it. Let every member of the committee know just how worked up citizens get as soon as they hear of a possibility of an amnesty.

Evidently the EPA and the White House would have us believe that somehow polar bears are threatened by hypothetical global warming.  Let’s take a look at that idea, specifically at a location called James Bay.

Where is James Bay? Take a look at a map of Canada; it's at the southern tip of Hudson's Bay, about 53 degrees north, or about 12 degrees and ~600 miles south of the Arctic Circle. On the other end, the bruins range as far north as polar pack ice--submariners tried (and rejected) polar bear steaks on one expedition back in the late 1950s.

Given the huge range of this species, I'm hard pressed to believe that 1-2C in warming would kill them off. It might force them to move north from James Bay, Ontario, but it certainly wouldn't kill them off.