Sunday Morning Blogburst

Here are a few interesting things I have found on my morning rounds:

Al Fin addressed panic:

What does it take to bring you to the verge of panic? Global Warming? Peak Oil? Muslim terrorism? Threats of economic recession? The thought of [you fill in the blank] in the US White House? Whatever it takes, the mainstream media is determined to push your panic button. The media has no scruples about crying "fire" in a crowded theatre.

Popular panic, or collective panic, typically happens when the fear of being trapped in a dangerous place sweeps through a large group of people. This often leads to a mass stampede with some number of persons being trampled underfoot.

Solar Cycle Number 24 may have begun, according to VE3EN:

A new high latitude sunspot has just emerged and yes this time it is a sunspot. It also has the correct magnetic signature of a Cycle 24 spot. Pictures below.

Contrary to popular belief, Iran continues to support violence in Iraq:

On Jan. 3, The Washington Times reported that Colonel Steven Boylan, the spokesman for General David Petraeus said Iran's leadership has cut off support for the Special Groups. "We are ready to confirm the excellence of the senior Iranian leadership in their pledge to stop the funding, training, equipment and resourcing of the militia special groups," The Washington Times quoted Boylan.

Boylan immediately denied Iran has cut off support for the Special Groups. "[The Washington Times] misunderstood the context and intent of what I was saying," Boylan said in an email conversation with The Long War Journal. He indicated Multinational Forces Iraq was prepared to recognize that Iran has assisted in reducing attacks, but evidence of this does not exist.

Boylan clarified his position on Jan. 3 in a letter written to the news outlets that carried The Washington Times report. "We do not know if there has been a decrease in the supply of Iranian weapons," Boylan wrote. "It is not clear if Iran's leaders stopped supplying weapons or training to extremist elements in Iraq. We hope that they have, but until we can confirm it, we are in the wait and see mode. We have seen a decrease in the attacks using four specific types of Iranian weapons. However, this should not be misunderstood as anything other than lowered levels of attacks using these specific weapons."

Read more at The Long War Journal.

And Michael Yon reports that The Sunday Telegraph has declared U.S. General David Petraeus 'Nan of the Year':

And so on a final note, this solitary writer salutes the wisdom of The Telegraph in naming General Petraeus as the Man of the Year. I spent Thanksgiving Day flying to bases in Iraq with General Petraeus, who is genuinely respected for the man he is and not just the rank he has attained.


And in Iraq,

KARKH DISTRICT — After eight weeks of intense training, Iraqi Army Soldiers finally graduate from the first ever mechanics course, Dec. 30. More than 150 Soldiers now possess valuable knowledge in vehicle maintenance which will greatly help them with their mission.

The training encompassed the basics repair of engines, clutches, manual and automatic transmissions, differential gear, two-and-four-wheel drive vehicles, brakes systems, mechanical and hydraulic steering mechanisms, cooling systems and basically everything else on the vehicle, said Eugene Koster, contractor of Fiafi Group and senior trainer at the training center. From the theoretical to in-depth, practical training, the Soldiers received clear and specific instructions of the workings of the vehicle.

Find out more at MNF-Iraq.

And an Iraqi notes:

While some might call the murder of two U.S. soldiers by a militant infiltrator a brave act, ordinary Iraqis disagree. We see courage as standing up to the killers. Iraqis prefer to celebrate the holidays. They go the shops, the children play soccer, and generally live life while the militants plan their next attack.

What are the extremists fighting? Well, one expample is the U.S. marines are setting up a soccer league for the children. "We see kids playing soccer in the fields all the time, but there's no league or anything like that for them," said one marine. "We want to create six teams per age group in the area, 24 teams in all. "I'm doing it with a friend here, Capt Carlos Gomez who was a soccer coach in civilian life. He's talking to the local sheikhs."

Read the rest at IraqPundit, and follow the this link to other Iraqi Bloggers who are enjoying their new-found freedom...by blogging about it, and everything else!

Turning to America, local blogging super star, Hillbilly White Trash comments on the Wyoming Primary win by Mitt Romney:

Wyoming doesn't have many people so it doesn't have too many delegates but this is still an important win for Mitt. It helps establish that the Huckabee phenomena is nothing more than a speed bump on the way to a Thompson or Romney nomination.

Which brings me to the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll:

• John McCain 20% (18%)
  

• Mike Huckabee 18% (16%)

• Rudy Giuliani 16% (14%)

• Mitt Romney 16% (17%)

• Fred Thompson 11% (13%)

• Ron Paul 5% (6%)

Daily tracking results are collected via nightly telephone surveys and reported on a four-day rolling average basis. Three-fourths of the interviews for the national tracking update were conducted before final results from Iowa were known. New results will be posted Sunday at 11:00 a.m. Eastern.

Survey includes approximately 600 Likely Republican Primary Voters. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points. Results from the poll released January 4, 2008 are in parentheses.


And Gordon Smith, of Scrutiny Hooligans, was beaten up by Mitt Romney (don't worry Gordon, Hillary beat me up, but she cheated!):

Follow the link to play this game, styled after Mortal Kombat, in which you can be any of the candidates. Mitt Romney just kicked my Barack Obama arse, but I’m going to take him down as soon as I get this post onto the blog. Careful, this is addictive gaming.

And Swain County's Conscience has a post up called, "THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER, BLOOD MONEY":

Cash settlement is ‘Blood Money"

While I applaud the progressive actions of a North Carolina politician, as well as The Hon. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, I would ask three simple questions that could very well help my own feeble mind in understanding, if only they can be answered:

1- What is the timeline for the remaining compensation regarding the unpaid balance totaling $46 million, and just exactly what are the penalties for non-payment in the future?

2- What effect will this decision to receive a cash settlement have on designating the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, or a portion thereof, as Wilderness, along with the creation of buffer zones concerning Swain and Graham counties?

3- Finally, in the past, the elected officials of Swain County have proclaimed their position on the issue of the North Shore Road both for and against, until now. The present position indicated was not made by the sitting administration and has not been officially endorsed by this administration, either by vote or affirmation.

How, exactly, should this particular point be construed, since the present administration has not yet embraced the question?

In the Inner Banks Eagle, Dean Stephens comments on a Mark Steyn Column declaring "It's The Secular Left Versus The Christian Left":

This is one of the great articles that Steyn constantly writes. He explains in simple words why Huckabee is not a conservative, and where he is leading his conservative supporters wrong. Compassionate conservatism is not conservatism. It is socialism. I have said this before but I think it important for Christians to remember, "Jesus rejected the idea that we could use government to collect and distribute tithes. Sending government bureacrats . . . and ultimately government goons . . . to take the money they are supposedly going to use to do good works, is incompatitble with the idea that God granted us free will."


and I will leave you with an article by Jeff Jacoby asking where all the global warming has gone:

THE STARK headline appeared just over a year ago. "2007 to be 'warmest on record,' " BBC News reported on Jan. 4, 2007. Citing experts in the British government's Meteorological Office, the story announced that "the world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007," surpassing the all-time high reached in 1998.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the planetary hot flash: Much of the planet grew bitterly cold.

In South America, for example, the start of winter last year was one of the coldest ever observed. According to Eugenio Hackbart, chief meteorologist of the MetSul Weather Center in Brazil, "a brutal cold wave brought record low temperatures, widespread frost, snow, and major energy disruption." In Buenos Aires, it snowed for the first time in 89 years, while in Peru the cold was so intense that hundreds of people died and the government declared a state of emergency in 14 of the country's 24 provinces. In August, Chile's agriculture minister lamented "the toughest winter we have seen in the past 50 years," which caused losses of at least $200 million in destroyed crops and livestock.

Latin Americans weren't the only ones shivering.

I'll bet the greenie weenies are shivering with anger that their lies are being exposed, and their political agenda becoming unglued. You can read an article from 2003 called "Eight Reasons Why 'Global Warming' Is a Scam." From the same site, you can read how lefties are changing the vocabulary so that their agenda remains intact.

I, too, have noticed the subtle shift from 'global warming' to 'climate change' so they can claim BOTH warming and cooling are our fault.

Watch a video here.