Ed Koch-- by withdrawing from Iraq, the Democrats will be emboldening the enemy and will bear the blame for any homeland attacks

"When and if — God forbid — the war and the acts of terrorism now faced daily in Iraq follow our retreat across the ocean to our homeland shores the Democratic leaders who forced the withdrawal will be held responsible. While they will reject responsibility for the deaths and destruction that occur here in our homeland, the American public will remember the dire predictions of what would follow giving up the fight, and switch their support and recall the valiant efforts of George W. Bush to save us from those consequences and honor him in larger numbers than those who mistakenly now loathe his very name."

Mark Steyn's letter of the week on global warming...........

"In each of one of these scenarios there are assumptions. Not one of these assumptions represent the current trends in population growth vis-a-vis the Industrial Nations (China, Europe, Japan, India, North America). The A1 scenario is totally unrealistic (Of course, this is the one used by ALGORE, the UN NGOs, MSM, etc...), for it extrapolates current economic productivity, consumption, etc... out 100 years. Even B2 is problematic as the majority of today's consumers and producers will not be around in 50 or 100 years, and their progeny and their progeny's progeny will be at best 60% of today's -in Japan and Europe's case it will be lower. I don't think China publishes its fertility info, but their one male child policy will certainly lead to reduced economic activity. As you stated in your book, India's most productive industrial regions are now seeing plunging fertility rates. So, the question that needs begging is where does the IPCC get their demographic data? Why isn't there a C2 scenario for a halving of the population of the most productive economic nations on earth"

For the global warming alarmists............-and it snowed in New Brunswick this week-in May.....via..Newsbusters

“First off, there isn't a consensus among scientists,” [Mississippi state climatologist Dr. Charles] Wax told the Columbus Rotary Club Tuesday. “Don't let anybody tell you there is.”

Wax spent much of his presentation telling the audience how the global climate is cyclical. It's always gone through periods of warming and cooling. As for cries of impending doom, Wax says there's tons of data on both sides - and man's ever-changing weather monitoring capability further clouds the picture.

How refreshing, wouldn’t you agree? Yet, Wax was just getting warmed up:

“I don't know if it's going to rain Thursday or not. Certainly I don't know what the temperature is going to be in 2050,” he said.

Wax said political and policy confusion have fueled the debate over global warming, and changes in the way weather is tracked have added to the confusion.

“In 1957, all the thermometers (the government uses to track temperatures) were moved from fields onto airports,” Wax said. “It went from the Weather Bureau, which supported agriculture, to the Department of Commerce. Cities are hotter. (If you look at the numbers) you'll see a major climate change in 1957 alone.”

Ralph peters ....Czars..........layers of bureaucrats can't catch nimble terrorists

"But the problem with past "czars" has been that they were handed big missions and zero clout. Despite the hoopla surrounding their appointments, they were little more than nags in the government kitchen. At most, they provided the illusion that a problem was taken seriously.

I worked for the most effective "czar" of the past half-century. As director of the Office for National Drug Control Policy, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey did a remarkable job of getting the government's cats and dogs (and not a few monkeys) to work together for the common good.

But the major players could blow off even McCaffrey. The general could beat our nation's deadly enemies, but not the Washington bureaucracy. (To his credit, McCaffrey never used the term "drug czar" himself; an American patriot, he found "czar" repulsive.)"

Efraim Karsh

"Or take the terror war waged by the Palestinians since September 2000, which has thus far claimed some 1,130 Israeli lives (equivalent to 45,000 American fatalities, when you adjust for Israel's smaller population) with seven times as many wounded............ "

Melanie Phillips

"Of course, by no means all have given way to such pressure, and they maintain high professional standards. Yet not only can their careers be jeopardised if they don’t meet these targets, but they find that ticking the box marked ‘crimes solved’ or ‘arrests made’ is a fast track to promotion.

As a result, diligent, hardworking officers who want to tackle serious offences are forced to inflate trivial incidents into crimes and to criminalise people for the slightest misdemeanour, all in the interests of bumping up targets.

Their traditional discretion, which enabled the police to temper enforcement of the law with common sense and an elementary grasp of proportion, has been all but destroyed.

And all the time, of course, the police are failing to prevent or detect real crimes that cause harm and distress. The result is that the law-abiding public who are normally the staunchest supporters of the police are becoming terminally disenchanted with them, and police officers themselves are leaving the service in droves."

LGF: John Bolton unloads on BBC interviewer

Captainsquartersblog....live blogging the Online News Association

"Polling has gotten tougher and tougher. Seventeen percent of the people in the US no longer has landlines. More people refuse to answer polls. Paul Maslin says we should be wary, and says that 75% of them will be seriously flawed to useless.

Ann asks what political coverage would look like without polling. It would reflect campaign spin much more than real data. It gives media a clue as to where to probe.

Jim says that we should also be wary of media polls. They are performed by amateurs for the most part. Campaign polls are usually more reliable, if you can get to the data. (Paul conducts the Iowa Poll, which is usually pretty reliable for the Iowa caucuses.)"

Turning coal to gasoline........via Instapundit........the Germans converted coal to liquid during WWII to run their war machine- 65 years ago

Crime beat- asset forfeiture program

Crime beat..........

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007/May/07_ag_360.html

Federal agents and prosecutors have a strong track record of identifying offenders whose crimes are appropriate for federal prosecution, and successfully targeting, apprehending and bringing these individuals to justice. U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and Department law enforcement agencies throughout the country have effectively leveraged the assets of the federal system by concentrating their violent crime investigative and prosecutorial efforts on the most serious violent offenders in their jurisdictions, and today’s announcements reinforce that strategy and provide resources to support it.

Today, Attorney General Gonzales directed all federal prosecutors and Department law enforcement components to work with state and local law enforcement and prosecutors to identify violent crime cases that can be most effectively prosecuted in the federal system. Often, these cases will focus on the “worst of the worst” violent offenders. Targeting these “worst of the worst” offenders will ensure that violent individuals who post the most significant danger to our communities are met with the most effective and vigorous prosecutorial tools available.


To support this effort, the Department is in the process of hiring at least 70 prosecutors, enabling our U.S. Attorney’s Offices to increase their efforts to prosecute violent crime.


All Justice Department law enforcement agencies will develop and launch a new series of coordinated takedowns and fugitive sweeps aimed at removing the maximum number of violent offenders from some of America’s most vulnerable communities. Specifically, federal law enforcement will conduct these coordinated fugitive sweeps and takedowns in six additional cities this calendar year. The goal for these six additional operations will be both to remove the maximum number of violent offenders and to develop a tough new law enforcement model that can be used to target and reduce violent crime across the country.


USMS will conduct a Fugitive Safe Surrender program in at least three additional cities this calendar year. Fugitive Safe Surrender is a powerful new initiative that encourages persons wanted for felony or misdemeanor crimes to voluntarily surrender to the law in a neutral setting. Authorized by Congress in July 2006, the Marshals Service has recently conducted successful operations in Cleveland, Phoenix, and Indianapolis, resulting in the surrender of more than 2,600 individuals, including over 700 wanted for felony warrants.


ATF will expand the “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy” program, developed in partnership with the National Shooting Sports Foundation, to educate federal firearms licensees (FFLs) on how to detect and deter illegal “straw purchases,” enhance our partnership with FFLs to prevent and deter these illegal purchases, and educate the public that engaging in straw purchases is illegal under federal law.


ATF will also expand their Violent Crime Impact Team (VCIT) initiative that has already targeted crime in 25 cities to include five additional cities in the next year.


The FBI in 2007 has expanded its Violent Gang and Violent Crime Safe Streets Task Forces to seven additional locations, bringing the total number of Safe Streets Task Forces to 176, and will add at least two more by the end of the year.

Comrades in arms.........

“For atheists, considered worthy of the death penalty by Islamists, to team up with their ultimate opponents in attacking Canadian civic society, demonstrates the fundamental bankruptcy of these two political ideologies.” Bankrupt, indeed!"

The Dennis Miller Show

Passport Officer guilty

"Sgt. Monique Beauchamp said Villarceau's job was to approve passport applications and he signed off on at least 10 that normally would not have been approved.

Those applicants were Canadian citizens living in the U.S.

Beauchamp said the applicants didn't have required prerequisites, such as a guarantor.

Police said Villarceau was selling his inside services to those applicants"

Slogans and "revenue tools" = taxpayers' lighter wallets

"If the city's gridlock was in check, if the fiscal coffers were not bone dry, if the streets were as clean and litter-free as King of Denial claims they are, if Toronto was running like a lean machine, he could spend all the time he likes playing footsie with the environmental elite and pushing changes to one's carbon footprint.

But as has become clear, the Emperor has no clothes. Miller is deluding himself if he thinks Toronto's taxpayers aren't aware of that fact."

Border Patrol

Lessons form a foiled plot

"The 9-11 commission famously cited a failure of imagination in assessing the terrorist threat. There's no imagination required here.

Twelve million immigrants are in the United States illegally. More come every day while others who are here legally fall out of legal compliance. Our enemies know how to evade and game a porous immigration system.

The United States should have a generous immigration policy that takes into account economic and social realities in this nation and elsewhere. But the inability of the federal government to control its borders and keep track of visitors is national suicide.

Fourth: The United States has real enemies who intend to do real harm to Americans.

Finding the proper balance between privacy and security in a new form of war is an ongoing process.

But pretending those enemies and that war don't exist will ultimately prove disastrous both to civil liberties and national security"

American Hezbollah- 98,000+ OTM/yr

Broken border promises