Month: September 2008

Obama Gets a Helping Hand on Faith From the MSM

h/t Little Green Footballs.

Nice help there George, Nice Lie there Obama:

“He has suggested that I am a muslim.”

 John McCain never suggested that you were muslim, and has decried the attempts to paint you as one.

The Latest Smear: Sarah Palin Wants to Star in Fahrenheit 451

The left in their desperation to tumble the amazing popularity of Governor Sarah Palin is having a blogfest, email spamfest, and googlegasm over a letter from Wasilla Alaska. The letter was written by a Democrat from Wasilla, who is a disgruntled supporter of former Wasilla Mayor Stein, defeated in election by Sarah Palin. It’s an anomaly as Sarah won the election after that in Wasilla by an even clearer margin of 3 to 1. It’s full of disgruntled allegations and pseudo attacks, and is driving the notion around the net that Sarah Palin wanted to ban books. Like all moonbat letters, this one carries their inevitable line “I’m scared”.

This resulted from Questions Sarah raised with a librarian, and now there are several lies out there feeding off the non-event. Two key facts:

The Librarian was not fired, but was asked for a standing letter of resignation along with several other city officials. It’s normal for Mayors to do this, since they don’t know how cooperative employees of the former opposition mayor are going to be. The librarian quit two years later of her own volition and moved to Fairbanks.

The list of books Sarah supposedly wants to ban is thoroughly bogus, it’s a standard list that has circulated the net for years of books that other people have attempted to ban, and it includes books that were published after the trumped up overblown “incident” supposedly took place.

The list of rumors, innuendo, and outright lies attacking Governor Palin is astounding, imagine the outrage and umbrage the media would be taking if this dirty tricks campaign were against Nancy Pelosi. For the full list please stop by Explorations.

Pakistan Reopens Torkham Border Crossing to NATO Supplies

Pakistan shut down the border crossing at Torkham to NATO fuel supplies after a series of raids by the US in Pakistan aimed at taking out the leadership of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. They reoppened the crossing today, and it demonstrates the power Pakistan has over Nato supply lines at the moment. The only other options to supply are by air, or overland and sea via Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, or through Russia. Either presents problems at the moment, as does negotiatng new supply routes from China via the silk road.

These raids have increased in tempo since the beginning of the year, but have not to our knowledge taken out anyone higher than mid level in either organization. Osama Bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Ayman Al Zawahiri, Baitullah Mehsud, Haqqani, and Abu Yazid Al Masri are still all out there to the best of my knowledge.

While many Taliban and AQ were killed, the identities are largely unknown until we get confirmations from other sources.

More on the interdiction of supplies from Bill Roggio:

The US has recently stepped up attacks against Taliban and al Qaeda safe houses and training camps inside Pakistan’s tribal areas of North and South Waziristan over the last week. The US has conducts five strikes in the Waziristans in the past week, including a controversial helicopter assault in a village along the border.

But other Pakistani officials are maintaining that the border crossing was closed due to a deteriorating security situation. Rahmin Malik, the advisor to Prime Minister Gilani on internal security, said the road was closed after members of the security forces protecting the road to Afghanistan were kidnapped.

This is a political move, demonstrating the new President’s independence from US control, but ultimately the Pakistan economy could not withstand the shock of stopping the supplies permanently, as well as the other likely reprecussions. It is significant that Pakistan also made this move as the India nuclear deal took place, allowing open trade with India and bringing them back into the nuclear arms treaties. Similar deals were in the works with Pakistan, but those fell through, more from the chaos of the elections and the aftermath of forming a new coalition after the initial one collapsed.

Pakistan’s future could be bright: They sit on the best path for energy and food supplies to most of the subcontinent, but as long as their frontiers remain out of control they will never be able to leverage that geopolitial advantage very well.

Who Produces the Oil and Who Uses it

There’s an interesting new Chart at Gapminder of who produces, and who uses world oil supplies. Notice the steady slip leftwards from the US from 1972 onwards, when we were at our peak in oil production. Interim that capacity has been replaced by other sources, mainly coal and imported oil. That is not a good thing, but on the other hand it’s better than what would be if we had not kept our energy use high. Imagine where the economy would be, and where the world would be if we were not using that energy to produce food, goods, cleaner water, sewage treament, medical products, and other assorted boons to mankind.

If we had replaced the oil production shortfall with nuclear energy over the past thirty years our economy, and the world’s would both be in better shape. Another interesting dot to watch: Iran around 1980.

Abu Yazid Appears in New AQ Video of Preparations for Danish Embassey Bombing

New Al Qaeda video is out showing the preparation for bombing the Danish Embassey in Pakistan, and it has footage of Abu Yazid “Saeed” Al Masri. The video is undated, but seems to purport that he is alive. Story here.

There’s also been another missile strike, and unconfirmed reports of a US helicopter raid into Pakistan. Bill Roggio has the details here, and here.

Meghan Kelly Rips US Magazine Over Sarah Palin Story

Please also note that US magazine is owned by Rolling Stone, who has sent thousands to the Barack Obama Campaign.

UPDATE: Robert Bidinotto is running through the smorgasboard of smears against Sarah Palin and countering them as the left goes deranged in the run up to her speech tonight.