podpolia

George Soros has spoken, so now we know the Official Reason that George W. Bush defeated John Kerry: Kerry didn’t emphasize his past as a Vietnam War protester as much as he emphasized his military service in said war.
Other than the vast amount of money he has, I don’t understand why the media pays any attention to this man at all.

Via Power Line we have a transcript of Geraldo Rivera’s comments in Iraq today about the election. Finally, the news business is expressing something positive about Iraq, and Geraldo is right there at the front.

Not only is Russia building up its military forces, but now we find out that they’re building up their spy forces as well. The biggest question at the moment is ‘why?’ I think it likely that Russia is making a move towards regaining a status as a major world power, and is using America’s distraction by the War on Terror as an opportunity. Personally, I’m all in favor of more power for Russia, but only under the condition that democracy there improves. The Russians could be a valuable ally in the future, as they are helpful now. However, the last thing we need at the moment is another cold war, particularly if both sides get into the nasty business of fighting proxy conflicts. Terrorists with superpowers backing them are definitely not a good thing.

Iraq is VOTING! Despite the attacks, they’re still going to the polls. Hopefully this will show doubters here as well as there the strength of the human desire for freedom and democracy.

Via Power Line we have this analysis of the national debt. Rather different than what you’re likely to hear from people who like to complain about this sort of thing.

It’s obvious that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is more interested in furthering “career development opportunities for Hispanics in the fields of business and finance” than in furthering any specific Hispanic’s career in government. At least, if that Hispanic disagrees with them politically.

This story is a terrifying exploration of what global warming will do.
Unfortunately, it’s not really valid. The academics involved predicted the absolute “‘worst case’ scenario” and are presenting it as what WILL happen. The problem is that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is using an estimate that is about half of what the academics predict, but the prediction treated as gospel is (of course) the worse one. Nevermind the fact that we really don’t understand how Earth’s temperatures are kept stabilized, and therefore global warming might not be able to drive the temperature that high. Nevermind that scientists say that the temperature on Earth has never risen by that much (actually, the highest average temperature on Earth is approximately equal to the prediction made by the Intergovernmental Panel). We have to automatically go with the assumption that humans are destroying the planet irreversibly — a planet that has dealt with problems much larger than a bunch of paranoid homo sapiens sapiens over its billions of years of life. This is quite simply a form of academic terrorism — scaring the populace with half-scientific, half-religious eco-nut ideas in order to achieve the political goals of those involved.
Sad, really.