California Conservative

Sounds just like Saddam. We know the drill.

AP reports: “Iran ‘won’t give a damn’ about any U.N. resolutions concerning its nuclear program, its president said Friday, hours before an expected finding that Tehran has failed to meet a Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment.”

The anticipated finding by U.N. nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei will set the stage for a confrontation at the Security Council.

If Iran does not comply, the council is likely to consider punitive measures against the Islamic republic. While Russia and China have been reluctant to endorse sanctions, the council’s three other veto-wielding members say a strong response is in order.

No doubt. But a few tersely-worded (though always diplomatic) letters might not be enough in this case. Maybe it’s time to send in the secret weapon: Cindy Sheehan, Sean Penn, Charlie Sheen and Alec Baldwin, and all the rest making up the merry band of anti-military activists to “talk tough,” real tough, more about letting the U.N. do its job, and how “inspections” work.

President Bush should deploy them immediately.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Nuclear, Terrorism, Hollywood

And no beheadings, either.

Allahpundit reports: “Another American university tackles free speech, and everyone involved embarrasses themselves — except the conservatives. A parable for our times.”

World Net Daily broke the news yesterday that a far-left student newspaper at the University of Oregon — called “The Insurgent” appropriately enough — decided to publish 12 deliberately offensive cartoons of Jesus in their March issue. Why? Because the Oregon Commentator, a conservative student newspaper at U of O, recently published the 12 Jyllands-Posten cartoons of Mohammed. The Insurgent wanted Christians to know what it felt like to have their religion insulted.

Because, really, what would Christians know about something like that?

Indeed.

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Technorati Tags: Cartoons, Christians, Muslims, Terrorism

CIA officer Mary McCarthy was fired last week from the CIA for leaking government secrets to the press. She “leaked” to Washington Post reporter Dana Priest that there are CIA prisons in Europe used to hold captured Al-Qaeda terrorists, damaging US ties to countries helping the US wage the war on terror and foreign intelligent agencies. McCarthy was also the one who leaked the existence of Pres. Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program supervised by the National Security Agency. McCarthy failed several CIA conducted polygraph tests, after which she confessed that she had leaked the intelligence.

Meanwhile, Washington Post reporter Dana Priest won a Pulitzer Prize for her anti-Bush, anti-war reports based on the intelligence leaks.

Facts about Mary:

• Mary McCarthy was special assistant to President Clinton and senior director of intelligence in his White House
• Mary donated to John Kerry campaign 2004 and the Al Gore Campaign in 2000
• Mary worked with Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame’s husband, and Sandy Burger
• Mary’s confidante Dana Priest, writer for the Washington Post, is married and her husband is close with Jo Wilson

The term ‘den of thieves’ comes to mind.

Democrats who were swift to condemn the leaking of not so covert Valerie Plame as a criminal offense are now DEFENDING McCarthy and Priest’s truth telling escapades.

JOHN KERRY: Here’s my fundamental view of this, that you have somebody being fired from the CIA for allegedly telling the truth, and you have no one fired from the white house for revealing a CIA agent in order to support a lie. That underscores what’s really wrong in Washington, DC Here.

I’m glad she told the truth, but she’s going to obviously — if she did it, if she did it — suffer the consequences of breaking the law.” — ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos
(more…)

Several months back, Senate Democrats preened for the cameras after filibustering the drilling in ANWR, saying that they’d protected ‘the environment’ by doing so. What they didn’t say is that they also caused us to get more addicted to foreign suppliers of natural gas. That’s just part of the Democrats’ energy policy.

Democrats filibustering the drilling in ANWR didn’t tell you that ANWR is home to one of the largest reserves of natural gas in the world. Everyone knows that natural gas is the most efficient, cleanest burning home heating fuel. What we don’t know is why Democrats are blocking us from tapping into a natural gas field that would eliminate most of our foreign purchases of natural gas.

People living in the Rust Belt states, from Montana to Maine, are adversely affected by that filibuster. What’s worse is that the area in ANWR where the drilling would occur, isn’t “pristine wilderness.” It’s 3.13 square miles of tundra swamp.The section of ANWR that is “pristine wilderness” is 200 miles away.

By not drilling in Section 1002, states like Massachusetts had to make deals with the devil to get the home heating oil they needed. In this instance, the devil is known as Hugo Chavez, the American-hating terrorist supporter. Massachusetts Representative Bill Delahunt brokered the deal.

What’s scary is that this is the most coherent part of the Democrats’ energy policy. It gets worse after that. Consider their bemoaning our reliance on foreign sources of oil. Their proposed fix? Levy a windfalls profit tax on the oil companies, which will cause them to shrink production. (more…)

Liberal “tolerance” strikes again.*

Michelle Malkin reports:

“The anti-military punks are at it again. Reader Nora. A. e-mailed me photos of vandalism yesterday at UNC-Chapel Hill’s ROTC armory taken by her son, an ROTC cadet on campus...”

While this is yet another example of liberal activists showing their true color, there’s a certain irony to the graffiti’s message.

Indeed, these types of subversive losers won’t be fighting any wars. That much is self-evident. They can barely sober up to get on their bikes for the next protest rally, or to deface the next public property while hidden by the cover of night.

But in a field of real military combat, say Iraq, they would soon find themselves grabbing their ankles whilst an Islamic terrorist demonstrates on them how they practice interrogation techniques, ode to Saddam-style.

Fortunately, our national defense is not in their hands — just a few buckets and cans of spray paint.

Semper vigilo.

UPDATE:
SisterToldjah has all the news and other details

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Forget 1776. Forget Washington crossing the Delaware, John Hancock and the Constitution itself. The tradition of America is irrelevent, at least according to the California Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana). On Tuesday, the Assembly Elections Committee, of which Umberg is the chair, passed two bills, authored by Umberg, that would alter the way California elects the President.

One of the bills, AB2948 (.pdf) would undercut the electoral college, and thus the very constitution upon which our nation was founded and built. Several Assembly Republicans oppose the legislation.

[AB2948} would ratify an interstate compact under which California’s 55 Electoral College members would agree to support the winner of the national popular vote for President regardless of the outcome of the election in California” (San Francisco Examiner, 4/26/06, emphasis added)

In other words, it would remove California’s individuality in electing a President by submitting all Electors to place their vote for the candidate receiving the largest popular vote. The second bill, AB2949 (.pdf) would require that California hold the first national primary election, in an effort to compete with New Hampshire. The bill suggests that it should be held on January 2nd of the election year.

“It’s an effort to make California relevant again in presidential elections,” Umberg said, clearly unaware of the influence California’s 55 Electoral votes have when it comes to Presidential elections, and clearly disregarding the fact that California’s interests, as determined by state election results would be superceded by national voting outcomes. (more…)

Ankle Biting Pundits reports: “When you have the entire Mainstream Media doing your work for you and a former Vice President in your employ, you’d think you could kick up a significant amount manufactured fear about the world coming to an end. But not so.”

Last year, Laurie David promised the world she would produce 1,000,000 petition signers, whom she called “Virtual Marchers” to end global warming…But it hasn’t worked out that way.

Instead, David’s crusade has failed to produce even a third of that number and her breathless campaign has fallen flat.

ABP has the full story.

Who knows? Maybe Larry David will turn it into an episode. But his wife probably won’t be laughing.

It’s not news to us, but here’s the story.

S.F. Chronicle reports: “The University of California gave most of its top executives extra bonuses, car allowances or other compensation that wasn’t approved by the governing board of regents, according to a report presented today by the university’s outside auditors.”

In fact, the audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the UC system gave more than two-thirds of its top managers extra pay or benefits as an exception to university policies or procedures without approval from the regents.

And much of that pay was never disclosed to the public as required by the regents’ policies.

Read the audit.

Reuters reports: “Go ahead and have that second cup of coffee — or third, or fourth. A study published on Monday shows heavy, long-term coffee drinking does not raise the risk of heart disease for most people.”

The study, which followed 128,000 men and women for as long as 20 years, showed that drinking filtered coffee — not espresso or French-style brews — did not raise the risk of heart disease.
. . .

“We believe this study clearly shows there is no association between filtered coffee consumption and coronary heart disease,” said Esther Lopez-Garcia, an instructor in the School of Medicine at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain, who worked on the study.

Well, that’s a relief.

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The Washington Post’s David Ignatius has written another positive article about Iraq’s improving climate, this time talking about the significance of Jawad al-Maliki’s becoming their prime minister.

So what should the world make of Iraq’s new prime minister, Jawad al-Maliki? What chance will his new government have of containing the sectarian violence in Iraq and averting a full-blown civil war? The first reaction of many outsiders is likely to be, “Jawad who?” Maliki is not well known outside his country, and his election after a four-month impasse may seem anticlimactic. Indeed, since he is a member of the same Islamic faction, the Dawa party, as the incumbent, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, people might imagine that little has changed. But that would be a mistake.
The most important fact about Maliki’s election is that it’s a modest declaration of independence from Iran. The Iranians waged a tough behind-the-scenes campaign to keep Jaafari in office. Tehran issued veiled threats to Iraqi political leaders, in written letters and through emissaries, that if they didn’t back Jaafari, they would pay a price. In resisting this pressure, the political leaders were standing up for a unified Iraq. To succeed, Maliki must mobilize that desire for unity to break the power of the militias and insurgent groups.
“His reputation is as someone who is independent of Iran,” explained Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad. He explained that although Maliki initially went into exile in Iran, “he felt he was threatened by them” because of his political independence, and later moved to Syria. “He sees himself as an Arab” and an Iraqi nationalist, Khalilzad said.

In David Ignatius’ opinion, this is a positive step forward. (more…)