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The Quebec Court of Appeal ruling that stamped out any hope that 75 immigrant and anglophone children could attend an English school this year is "absolutely unfair," says the president of the province's English School Board Association. Marcus Tabachnik said Friday there would never have been a flood of children leaving the French-language system to attend English schools if last week's Court of Appeal decision to allow easier access had been allowed to stand. "A thousand students out of a million students doesn't shift the balance. More...

Reaction: 'I don't know why here they don't let you make the decision. Where I come from, we learn both English and French, and we came out very good.'—Pounam Carpanen, parent

As the school year opened in Quebec on Thursday, about 75 children who wanted to attend English-language schools had their hopes dashed by the province's Court of Appeal. Last week, the court ruled that 25 Quebec families could send their children to English public schools More...

Lawyers for the Quebec government were at the Court of Appeal on Wednesday, asking that a recent ruling against the province's language law be suspended until they can plead their case in Canada's highest court. The move came one week after the Quebec Court of Appeal in Montreal ruled that 25 Quebec families can send their children to English public schools, provided that the children attended English private schools for at least one year. The ruling goes against Quebec's Charter of the French Language. Quebec is appealing the ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada ... More...

CNN’s “God’s Warriors”: Hard on Jews, Soft on Islam
Christiane Amanpour’s six-hour documentary special creates controversy.

At the conclusion of the widely advertised CNN TV series “God’s Warriors”, dealing with the intersection between religion and politics Christiane Amanpour said she tried to explain the phenomenon of millions of people who know how to make the world right but feel ignored. While she certainly deserves an A+ for her professionally conducted interviews in seven countries over eight months, the documentary barely earns a C- for its explanations. The six-hour program leaves serious viewers more confused than before. More...

Much of the history of the 20th century is the history of the inexplicable propensity of civilized people to deny the existence of evil which time and again threatens to destroy them. Unfortunately, inhabitants of the 21st century are on the brink of needlessly suffering the pain that the failure to deal with the world as it is always inflicts. British historian Geoffrey Best's book Churchill: A Study in Greatness proves the truism that the more things change, the more they remain the same. More...

Iran, and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, have been actively involved in supporting Shia militias and encouraging sectarian violence in Iraq since the invasion of 2003-and Iranian planning and preparation for that effort began as early as 2002. The precise purposes of this support are unclear and may have changed over time. But one thing is very clear: Iran has consistently supplied weapons, its own advisors, and Lebanese Hezbollah advisors to multiple resistance groups in Iraq, both Sunni and Shia, and has supported these groups as they have targeted Sunni Arabs, Coalition forces, Iraqi Security Forces, and the Iraqi Government itself. Their infl uence runs from Kurdistan to Basrah, and Coalition sources report that by August 2007, Iranian-backed insurgents accounted for roughly half the attacks on Coalition forces, a dramatic change from previous periods that had seen the overwhelming majority of attacks coming from the Sunni Arab insurgency and al Qaeda. More...

Comment: Be sure to read all of the reports linked at the end of the article.

In May, the Commonwealth Fund issued its latest comparison of the U.S. medical system with five other wealthy nations' systems: Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and Great Britain. Predictably, the study begins: "Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms." I was immediately suspicious, More...

The recent discovery by a retired businessman and climate kibitzer named Stephen McIntyre that 1934--and not 1998 or 2006--was the hottest year on record in the U.S. could not have been better timed. August is the month when temperatures are high and the news cycle is slow, leading, inevitably, to profound meditations on global warming. Newsweek performed its journalistic duty two weeks ago with an exposé on what it calls the global warming "denial machine." I hereby perform mine with a denier's confession. More...

**French President Nicolas Sarkozy ...**
un-deux-trois-quatre ... cinq Who knows what they'll have him saying next. It's all in the hands of translators and headline writers. Read well and notice the subtle differences from piece to piece. (1) Only diplomacy can avert bombs in Iran now: Sarkozy Reuters By Francois Murphy Mon Aug 27, 2007 PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday a diplomatic push by the world's powers to rein in Tehran's nuclear programme was the only alternative to "an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran". In his first major foreign policy speech since taking office, Sarkozy emphasized his existing priorities, such as opposing Turkish membership of the European Union and pushing for a new Mediterranean Union that he hopes will include Ankara. He also offered some new ideas ... *More...* (2) Sarkozy calls for troop exit from Iraq By AFP Monday, August 27, 2007 President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday said Iraq's road to recovery begins with a clear timetable for the pullout of foreign troops as he outlined an assertive role for France in world hotspots. Making his first major foreign policy speech since taking office earlier this year, Sarkozy recalled that France had opposed the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 but that it was now ready to help ... More... (3) Sarkozy: Presidential poll Lebanon's only recourse French leader says election should be held within constitutional deadlines Compiled by Daily Star (Lebanon) staff Tuesday, August 28, 2007 French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday that the only efficient solution to Lebanon's nine-month-old political impasse was the election of a new president. "The presidential poll ought to proceed within deadlines set by the Constitution, while keeping in mind that Lebanon's next president should act as a representative of all the Lebanese," Sarkozy told an array of ambassadors at the Elysee Palace. Sarkozy said Lebanon's next president should be capable of dealing with everybody, "with all of Lebanon's groups as well as with all of Lebanon's external allies." *More...* (4) Sarkozy needs to lay the groundwork to achieve his goals in the Middle East Editorial By The Daily Star (Lebanon) Tuesday, August 28, 2007 President Nicolas Sarkozy's speech on Monday suggests that there is every reason to believe that France will be playing a more assertive role in the Middle East in the coming years. Sarkozy outlined his views and positions on some of the thorniest problems in the region, including the governing crisis and upcoming presidential election in Lebanon, Syria's international isolation, the ongoing war in Iraq, Hamas' takeover of Gaza and Turkey's bid to gain membership in the European Union. Sarkozy's remarks suggest that although he hopes to repair France's frayed relations with the United States, he does not aspire to ... *More...* (5) France's Sarkozy raises prospect of Iran airstrikes ynetnews.com Middle East News Monday August 28, 2007 In his first major foreign policy speech, French president says diplomatic push by world's powers to rein in Tehran's nuclear program is only alternative to 'Iranian bomb or bombing of Iran' *More...*

Whatever happened to liberals? One thing I have learned by writing columns on global warming the past two weeks is that liberals are less interested in free expression of ideas than in total compliance with their ideas, less interested in critical thinking than in being critical, and less interested in the truth than in their truth. It wasn’t always so. In fact, considering that I was raised as a good Democrat and a proud liberal, it pains me to have to admit such distaste for the current state of liberalism. But how can I remain silent ...

Orange County Register By MARK STEYN Syndicated columnist
Saturday, August 25, 2007

George W. Bush gave a speech about Iraq last week, and in the middle of it he did something long overdue: He attempted to appropriate the left's most treasured all-purpose historical analogy. Indeed, Vietnam is so ubiquitous in the fulminations of politicians, academics and pundits that we could really use anti-trust legislation to protect us from shopworn historical precedents. But, in the absence thereof, the president has determined that we might at least learn the real "lessons of Vietnam."

By Gethin Chamberlain and Kim Willsher in Paris, Sunday Telegraph (UK)
Sunday August 26, 2007

Since his election 100 days ago, Nicolas Sarkozy has swept like a whirlwind through France and across the international arena. But is there a touch of Napoleon in the little president ...

Q: What do Belgian Muslims calling for a ban on Easter eggs have to do with American parents hiring "parenting coaches" to put junior to bed? And what do imperiled Easter eggs and the advent of parent coaching have to do with U.S. foreign policy? Furthermore, what does all of this have to do with the triumphant shriek of Western womanhood on wriggling into jeans fit for a 7-year-old?

A: Plenty. In fact, I could write a book about such recent events -- only that I already have. It's called "The Death of the Grown-Up," and the phenomenon it describes -- Western society's relatively new tendency to replace maturity as the goal of human development with a state of perpetual adolescence -- makes the connections obvious. Well, obvious if you've been spent the last two, three, five, 10 years thinking through the theory. Let's see how the theory works ...

This Op-Ed was originally submitted to the New York Times,
which declined to publish it.

weeklystandard.com by David Bellavia, Pete Hegseth, Michael Baumann, Carl Hartmann, David Thul, Knox Nunnally, Joe Worley
08/24/2007

ON SUNDAY, seven soldiers from the 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division stationed in Iraq penned a passionate opinion piece in the New York Times that further illustrates the complexity of what is "really" happening in Iraq. Of the almost 3,000 soldiers from the Army's storied 82nd Airborne Division currently serving in the hottest of Iraqi neighborhoods, seven felt confident enough in their misgivings to sign an opinion piece. They should not be surprised that many of their comrades--including the seven undersigned here--find their work to be misguided.

WASHINGTON — What the federal government sees as a way to beef up security, an immigration advocate sees as another roundup of immigrants for deportation. A division of the Homeland Security Department on Wednesday proposed requiring legal residents with green cards issued without expiration dates to get those cards replaced. And the government estimated about 750,000 cards need replacing. But getting the card replaced could be like walking into a trap for some legal residents.

George Orwell, call your office. You can add to your list of opposites ("war is peace," "ignorance is strength" and "freedom is slavery") a new one. It is the emerging plan of congressional Democrats, joined by at least one Democratic presidential candidate: "losing is winning." After years of embracing defeat and openly saying of Iraq "the war is lost" and "this surge is not accomplishing anything" (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, among others), is that a light at the end of the Democrats' dark tunnel? Apparently hoping to head off a potentially positive report next month from the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, some leading Democrats are acknowledging that the surge of American troops is succeeding.

Just about everyone claims the U.S. must urgently become "energy independent," yet at the same time just about every policy that may actually serve that goal is met with environmentalist opposition. That contradiction has impeded the Bush Administration's attempts to increase domestic energy production. And even the modest progress so far may be blocked because litigation is driving the conflict out of politics and into the courts. To see this trend at work, look north to Alaska, where lawsuits are blocking an offshore drilling program.

Comment: "If anyone wants to know why we're still "dependent on foreign oil," this is it."

It can credibly be argued that the presidential election of 2008 is the most important in the history of our Republic. Why? Because if we get this one wrong, Islamic terrorists will almost certainly strike into the heart of America. That is their stated goal. That is why they are paying so much attention to this election. Political correctness has made us a weaker nation ...

It is not just in Iraq that the political left has an investment in failure. Domestically as well as internationally, the left has long had a vested interest in poverty and social malaise. The old advertising slogan, "Progress is our most important product," has never applied to the left. Whether it is successful black schools in the United States or Third World countries where millions of people have been rising out of poverty in recent years, the left has shown little interest. Progress in general seems to hold little interest for people who call themselves "progressives."

The United States is at last making significant progress against al Qaeda in Iraq--but the road to victory now requires cutting off al Qaeda's road to Iraq through Damascus. Thanks to Gen. David Petraeus's new counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, and the strength and skill of the American soldiers fighting there, al Qaeda in Iraq is now being routed from its former strongholds in Anbar and Diyala provinces. Many of Iraq's Sunni Arabs, meanwhile, are uniting with us against al Qaeda, alienated by the barbarism and brutality of their erstwhile allies. As Gen. Petraeus recently said of al Qaeda in Iraq: "We have them off plan."

NBC Promotes Bogus Russian Claim to North Pole
Law of the Sea Treaty, United Nations

On the NBC Nightly News on Monday night, Brian Williams introduced a story about Russian claims to the North Pole that featured an image of what viewers were led to believe was a small Russian submarine under the polar ice. The image originally appeared on the Russian television channel Rossiya. But the image was not of a Russian sub under the Pole. It shows a min-sub at the scene of the wreckage of the Titanic. Similar images appeared in James Cameron's 1997 movie Titanic.

U.N. May Give Black Gold at North Pole to Russia
Law of the Sea Treaty, UN Economic Zone,

canadafreepress.com By Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media, Thursday, August 9, 2007

The failure by the U.S. State Department to cite historical evidence that American explorers actually discovered the North Pole, in the wake of Russian claims to the oil-rich region, has had the desired effect. Our media are declaring that the matter has to be resolved by the United Nations. One writer, Eric Margolis, even proposes that the U.N. take complete control of the region.

Abraham Lincoln once famously observed, "The philosophy of the school room in one generation is the philosophy of government in the next." The truth of Lincoln's observation is, no doubt, at the core of the apprehensions that New Yorkers have expressed about the Khalil Gibran International Academy scheduled to open next month in Brooklyn. Adding to their apprehensions is the fact that KGIA is just three blocks from a mosque which has a history of employing radical imams and which was frequented by one of the terrorists implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. It takes a lot to rankle Gotham City dwellers, but, given their experience with radical Islam, one can sympathize with their angst.

A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars. Aerogel, one of the world’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C. Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation of tennis rackets to super-insulated space suits for a manned mission to Mars.It is expected to rank alongside wonder products from previous generations ...

It used to be said that there were two things you should not talk about at the dinner table — religion and politics — in order to avoid unpleasant disagreements. To that we may now add global warming, a topic which certainly leads to hotter tempers if not always rising temperatures. Last week, I wrote about Newsweek’s recent cover story about global warming, and noted that it was more of an effort to belittle and besmirch critics of global warming dogma than a serious news story. Well, to be accurate, it was not even an unserious news story; it was commentary without an appropriate label.

WASHINGTON -- The great horned owl is a magnificent raptor with feathers so soft its prey can't even hear it coming until it's too late. But even this superb hunter has a major challenge to overcome: It cannot move its eyes. To scan forest or field for danger -- or its next meal -- the owl, its eyes fixed straight ahead, must rotate its head. Today, the U.S. national security apparatus is much like an owl with a stiff neck. For more than three years now, our White House, State Department and Pentagon have been fixated on America's adversaries in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Our preoccupation has been on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. Unfortunately, we seem to have missed what's happening in Russia.

Socialized medicine has meant rationed care and lack of innovation. Small wonder Canadians are looking to the market.

Mountain-bike enthusiast Suzanne Aucoin had to fight more than her Stage IV colon cancer. Her doctor suggested Erbitux—a proven cancer drug that targets cancer cells exclusively, unlike conventional chemotherapies that more crudely kill all fast-growing cells in the body—and Aucoin went to a clinic to begin treatment. But if Erbitux offered hope, Aucoin’s insurance didn’t: she received one inscrutable form letter after another, rejecting her claim for reimbursement. Yet another example of the callous hand of managed care, depriving someone of needed medical help, right? Guess again. Erbitux is standard treatment, covered by insurance companies—in the United States. Aucoin lives in Ontario, Canada.

Scott Beauchamp was the last straw. I realized that I need a scorecard to keep track of all the fallen journalists, journalistic mistakes and major and minor screw-ups in the media. I couldn't find one already made, although Wikipedia came close, so I started my own. I apologize if there is a good list already out there, but I looked and could not find. Offenses include lying and fabricating, doctoring photos, plagiarism, conflicts of interest, falling for hoaxes, and overt bias. Some are hilarious ...

Does anyone wonder where the Tom Hayden-Jane Fonda SDS radicals went? The ones who chanted “Hey, hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today?” and cheered on the Communists in Vietnam, and went into the streets to demand America’s withdrawal from Vietnam and became suddenly silent when our troops were pulled and the Communists proceeded to slaughter two-and-a half million Cambodians and Vietnamese? Well today they are the heart and soul of the Democratic Party...

Suspiciously, Daniel Pearl's widow is suddenly being lavishly praised by the Treason Lobby. Jane Mayer, co-author of the discredited hit-book on Clarence Thomas, "Strange Justice," published an article in The New Yorker last week recounting that Mariane Pearl was called by Alberto Gonzales in March with the news that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had admitted to American interrogators that he had personally beheaded her husband and they were going to release the transcript to the press. Mayer wrote: "Gonzales' announcement seemed like a publicity stunt." Frank Rich followed up with an article in The New York Times saying of Gonzales' call: "Ms. Pearl recognized a publicity ploy when she saw it." Inasmuch as these are journalists who adjudge George Bush more evil than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ...

One of the two major political parties of the United States has linked all its electoral hopes on domestic pathologies, economic downturns and foreign failure. It is actually difficult to name any positive development for America that would benefit the Democratic Party's chances in a national election. Name almost any subject, and this unhealthy pattern can be discerned. If African Americans come to believe that America is a land of opportunity in which racism has been largely conquered, it would be catastrophic for the Democrats.

Comment: You may not even be aware of it, but all of this has probably been going around in your head for a long time -- only not so eloquently or in such an organized and succinct way.

(IsraelNN.com) Defense Minister Ehud Barak has given an order to leave Israelis without working gas masks for fear that Syria would see the redistribution of masks as preparing for war. Following the Second Lebanon War, it was decided to collect the masks for refurbishing, which had been distributed long ago due to the threat of Saddam Hussein using chemical weapons. Barak has ordered that process halted. Army Radio reports that Barak issued the directive despite the fact that Syria has built up a huge arsenal of missiles capable of holding biological and chemical warheads.

Comment: Gas masks are now offensive weapons? What? There will be more on this later.

The ability of Western Civilization to delude itself and ignore the real threat is amazing! Incitement to commit genocide and murder is being preached by Islamic "religious" leaders, absorbed by the faithful, and protected by the West's unwillingness to face the truth. Political Correctness does not make people stupid. It just makes them act that way.

Politics: Two million pages of Hillary Clinton's files as the most active first lady in history are locked up until after next year's election. Candidates are usually proud of their record. Does she have things to hide?

Comment: Voters need both eyes wide open so Justice can afford to be blind.

Archivists say the documents at her husband's presidential library won't be released until after the '08 vote.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton cites her experience as a compelling reason voters should make her president, but nearly 2 million pages of documents covering her White House years are locked up in a building here, obscuring a large swath of her record as first lady. Clinton's calendars, appointment logs and memos are stored at her husband's presidential library, in the custody of federal archivists who do not expect them to be released until after the 2008 presidential election. A trove of records has been made public detailing the Clinton White House's attempts to remake the nation's healthcare system, following a request from Bill Clinton that those materials be released first. Hillary Clinton led the healthcare effort in 1993 and 1994. But even in the healthcare documents, at least 1,000 pages involving her work has been censored ...

British-born physicist Freeman Dyson has revealed three "heresies", two of which challenge the current scientific orthodoxy that anthropogenic carbon causes climate change. "The fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated," writes Dyson in his new book Many Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe, published on Wednesday. He pours scorn on "the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models".

LOS ANGELES - People who own an HD DVD player can forget about watching Spider-Man 3 in high definition when it goes on sale during the holiday season. The movie from Sony Pictures will only be available in the Blu-ray DVD format. Likewise, people with Blu-ray players won't be able to enjoy the action thriller The Bourne Ultimatum, which Universal Pictures will release only in HD DVD. These exclusive arrangements, plus aggressive price cuts for high-def DVD players, are designed to persuade consumers to finally embrace one format or the other. But analysts wonder if the moves will anger consumers,

Lebanese Canadians Condemn Billboard Promoting Hezbollah, a Banned Terrorist Organization

Canada Free Press By Elias Bejjani, Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC) Chairman
Monday, August 13, 2007

The LCCC, (Lebanese Canadian Coordinating Council), strongly condemns the erection of a billboard in the city of Windsor, surreptitiously promoting the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which has been banned in Canada since 2002. While not identifying Hezbollah by name, the billboard depicts Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the controversial group. Printed in English are the words: "Lebanese and Arab communities in Windsor city congratulate the Lebanese people for their steadfastness and endeavor to establish peace in Windsor." According to the Canadian anti-terrorist act, it is a crime ...

Something rather odd happened the other day. If you go to NASA's Web site and look at the "U.S. surface air temperature" rankings for the lower 48 states, you might notice that something has changed. Then again, you might not. They're not issuing any press releases about it. But they have quietly revised their All-Time Hit Parade for U.S. temperatures. The "hottest year on record" is no longer 1998, but 1934. Another alleged swelterer, the year 2001, has now dropped out of the Top 10 altogether, and most of the rest of the 21st century – 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 – plummeted even lower down the Hot 100.

Bombshell? NASA revises recent U.S. temperatures downward after Y2K bug fix Updated

Confessions of a BBC liberal
The BBC has finally come clean about its bias, says a former editor, who wrote Yes, Minister

In the past four weeks there have been two remarkable changes in the public attitude to the BBC. The first and most newsworthy one was precipitated by the faked trailer of the Queen walking out of a photographic portrait session with Annie Leibovitz. It was especially damaging because the licence fee is based on a public belief that the BBC offers a degree of integrity and impartiality which its commercial competitors cannot achieve. But in the longer term I believe that the second change is even more significant.

Hillary Clinton: How Dare You Call Universal Health Care Socialized Medicine

Hillary goes off on a reporter at the National Association of Black Journalists Presidential Forum for daring to call socialized medicine...well...socialized medicine. What do you think she’s angry about more, that she’s essentially being called a socialist or that a black man dared wander off the liberal plantation to question her “we liberals know what’s best for you” policies? A couple of choice quotes from the accompanying article. First up, Hillary objecting to the “socialized medicine” label:

Can any representative republic survive a progressively ignorant electorate? Can freedom be sustained in any society hell-bent upon taxing its productive members out of existence, for benefit of its non-productive? Can people unable to successfully govern their own lives be entrusted with the power to govern others?

The Hairline Difference between Universal Healthcare and Socialized Medicine (scroll down the article to get to this one)

Once Universal Healthcare is installed, the federal government will soon cut out the inconvenient middle-man, the health insurance company, collect the insurance premiums itself to stay afloat and begin to administer medicine and medical decisions from the hall of congress directly. This, my dear ignorant fellow Americans, is socialized medicine and there is only a hairline difference separating Universal Healthcare from socialized medicine.

More than half of Americans say US news organizations are politically biased, inaccurate, and don't care about the people they report on, a poll published Thursday showed.

This job can be very strange. One day, I'm excoriating some poor 17-year-old in print, ridiculing his singing ability and shaggy-dog hairstyles. The next, the kid is on the line, eager to discuss an upcoming concert. On Tuesday night, the American Idols Live! Tour touches down at the Air Canada Centre. The 50-plus city tour, which started in Florida on July 6, features performances from this season's Top 10, including winner Jordin Sparks ...

Financial Times By Daina Lawrence in Ottawa and Daniel Dombey in London
August 8 2007

Canada raised the stakes in the battle to claim ownership of the Arctic by sending Stephen Harper, prime minister, on a three-day trek to the region, just days after the Russians planted a flag on the seabed at the North Pole. The US, Norway and Denmark are also competing alongside Russia and Canada to secure rights to the natural resources of the Arctic. The Northwest Passage, which is the main focus of the dispute ...

Global warming has become a big-ticket item in the eyes of its supporters. At stake are research funds, jobs and the ability to control lives all over the globe. Most climatologists agree that over the last century, the Earth's average temperature has risen about one degree Celsius. The controversy centers around the source of the temperature change -- man-made or natural causes.

Town Hall By Fred Thompson
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
This column originally appeared on Fred Thompson’s blog at http://fredfile.imwithfred.com/.

Economist Larry Kudlow calls today’s American economy, “the greatest story never told.” If you’re generally predisposed to not support tax cuts and economic growth, you’re probably satisfied that the U.S. economy isn’t bragged on more. But you’d also be out of step with Americans traditional optimism, and out of step with reality, too. The economic reality I’m talking about, and about which I’ve written on numerous occasions, is how well our country is doing economically thanks to the hard work of the American people, the innovation and competition our free market encourages, as well as the Bush tax cuts that helped spur 5½ years of economic growth.

UN Development Program, UN peacekeeping supplies
And Now, the UN Cash-for-Visas Program?

Let no one fault the UN for lack of enterprise and ingenuity. A series of federal investigations over the past few years have been delving into the activities of a growing list of UN officials engaged in all sorts of lively and creative endeavors, from setting up secret offshore front companies, to laundering money meant to buy UN peacekeeping supplies, to allegedly keeping counterfeit U.S. $100 bills in a UN Development Program (UNDP) office safe in North Korea. Today brings the arrest of a UN employee ...

On Saturday The Wall Street Journal and this Web site published a letter to the editor from Sen. John Kerry, wherein he responded to the July 26 op-ed in which we took the senator to task for his statement: "We heard that argument over and over again about the bloodbath that would engulf the entire Southeast Asia, and it didn't happen." In typical Kerry fashion, he acknowledges in his letter that it did happen, but faults us for taking what he said at face value and ...

LAKELAND, Fla., Aug. 6, 2007 — Beginning today, Publix Super Markets is offering a free prescription drug program at its 684 Publix Pharmacies for the following oral antibiotics

Oct. 23, 2006 - In April, 1975, in an issue mostly taken up with stories about the collapse of the American-backed government of South Vietnam, NEWSWEEK published a small back-page article about a very different kind of disaster. Citing "ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically," the magazine warned of an impending "drastic decline in food production." Political disruptions stemming from food shortages could affect "just about every nation on earth." Scientists urged governments to consider emergency action to head off the terrible threat of . . . well, if you had been following the climate-change debates at the time, you'd have known that the threat was: global cooling.

Comment: Be sure to read the comments from readers followiing this article.

How will we lose the war against "radical Islam"? Well, it won't be in a tank battle. Or in the Sunni Triangle or the caves of Bora Bora. It won't be because terrorists fly three jets into the Oval Office, Buckingham Palace and the Basilica of St Peter's on the same Tuesday morning. The war will be lost incrementally because ...

We suppose it was inevitable: Four and a half years after Congress authorized the liberation of Iraq, some observers are comparing the situation there to Vietnam, where America lost a war after its will faltered. It turns out at least one congressman actually served in Vietnam, so he ought to be particularly qualified to help us determine the lessons of that conflict for this one. Meet John Kerry, junior senator from Massachusetts. Some say he looks French, others call him haughty. But everyone agrees on one thing: He served in Vietnam. After returning from a tour of duty that lasted an astonishing four months, Kerry also became an antiwar activist. In 1971 Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Vietnamese were a simple people, too simple to care about freedom or oppression:

(2) Exaggerated Claims of Violence
The Vietnam War was worse than what followed
By John Kerry

James Taranto misinterpreted my words and misreads history (" 'It Didn't Happen,' " July 26). I know the tragedy that followed a tragic war. John McCain and I led the effort to locate American POWs and ultimately normalize relations with Vietnam. I traveled to Cambodia to help create a genocide tribunal to bring to justice the butchers of the killing fields. But what did not happen was the region-wide war or immediate chaos predicted by many who believed we had to maintain our massive military presence in Vietnam. A brutal dictatorship consolidated power in Vietnam, the region's refugee crisis worsened, and two years after we left Vietnam, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge launched a genocide.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistani officials called Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama irresponsible for saying that, if elected, he might order unilateral military strikes in Pakistan against al-Qaida. Hundreds chanted anti-U.S. slogans and burned an American flag in the street to protest the remark. Obama's comment turned up the heat on already simmering anger among Pakistanis about the issue, after senior Bush administration officials said last week they too would consider such strikes if intelligence warranted them. Further inflaming the situation was a comment by Tom Tancredo ...

A United States icebreaker will leave Seattle on August 6 for an Arctic research mission, just after Russia attempts to symbolically lay claim to a huge section of the region, the US Coast Guard said on Thursday. News of the Healy vessel's trip came as two Russian mini-submarines started the first-ever dive 4,200 metres (14,000 feet) under the ice near the North Pole to take soil and fauna samples on the ocean floor, and back the country's claim to a vast swathe of the hydrocarbon-rich Arctic territory.

Comment: Also see below Canada must be vigilant about Arctic, Harper says

Within the past several weeks, presidential aspirant Barack Obama has announced that he would meet with America's enemies and attack America's friends. Those interested in a dramatic departure from Bush/Cheney need look no further. Asked whether he would -- without preconditions -- meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, Obama declared that he would and added, "I think it's a disgrace that we have not spoken to them." (Actually, the U.S. has had diplomatic contact with all of those nations, just not at the presidential level.)

Comment: And let's not forget Mona Charon's New York Times bestseller "Useful Idiots" (How liberals got it wrong in the cold war and still blame America first) published by Harper Collins.

CHARLOTTETOWN — Russia’s actions at the North Pole show the importance of Canada defending its sovereignty in the Arctic, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper, speaking after a Conservative caucus meeting today, said he doesn’t know exactly what to make of Russia’s latest move — placing a Russian flag on the sea floor beneath the pole. However, he said it shows Canada can’t be complacent about the North. “It shows once again that sovereignty over the North and sovereignty in our Arctic is going to be an important ...

If victory in Iraq was oversold at the outset, there are now signs that defeat is likewise being oversold today. One of the earliest signs of this was that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that he could not wait for General David Petraeus’s September report on conditions in Iraq but tried to get an immediate congressional mandate to pull the troops out. Having waited for years, why could he not wait ...

Republicans and the White House say Democrats are pursuing a "giant leap" toward socialized health care by trying to draw middle-class families into a federally funded health insurance program for low-income children. They say proposals being pushed in the House and Senate this week undermine the marketplace by offering coverage to children already insured privately and try to do so by cutting benefits to the elderly. Democrats are once again moving us toward 'Hillary Care' — a massive, complex system wholly run by government bureaucrats," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio.