If Required

Insufferable Twits 2 Comments

Reuters on the news conference by Bill Graham that already has our local radio news people crowing that Canada has pledged “more than the US” to tsunami relief:

Defence Minister Bill Graham, explaining why the ministers had not come home more quickly, told a news conference: “The scope of the tragedy, the scope of the damage that was done, took some time for us to absorb.”

Not to anyone who knows how to spell “Drudge Report”, Bill. Try it, sometime.

The government has faced repeated questions as to why it was not sending its Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), a 200- member military unit created precisely for this kind of emergency. Graham said it would cost C$15 million to C$20 million just to get it there and said it would not be able to arrive before next week even if required. He said the reconnaissance team leaving on Thursday for the region would determine if parts or all of the rapid response team were needed.

Graham: “This is an issue we look at in terms of whether it’s appropriate, whether countries need it and whether or not it’s worth moving it.”

The Diplomad is is at the scene. Mercifully, Canada stayed outside his line of fire today. He begins by quoting a UN statement;

As the United Nations system moves into high gear to identify the immediate needs of the countries devastated by the South Asian tsunami that has reportedly claimed nearly 70,000 lives and affected millions more, initial actions have been tailored to help each of the worst-hit nations.

He goes on to say,

The UN site then goes on to list all the “donations” that the World Food Program and other UN agencies are making to alleviate the suffering.

OK. We’ll make this short.

Let’s start with the last citation, the one from the UN. I can tell you, dear readers, that I am temporarily working in one of the countries that got slammed hard by the tsunami and while the UN effort might be in high gear, it must have its parking brake on. No sign of that effort here! Lots of bureaucrats flying in and out, but that’s about it.

And now to that Egeland character and the UN official site’s claims. Notice to the UN: The USA is BY FAR the biggest donor to the UN system. We pay for about 25% of the whole operation, BUT when you look at operations like WFP or UNHCR, we cough up about 40%. That wheat and rice that the WFP is bragging about? It is almost all from the USA. Notice to Mr. Egeland: if taxpayers want to give more they can do so without having the government reach into their wallets. Ever hear of charities? The American people are BY FAR the biggest donors to private charities — many of which are doing very fine work here in alleviating the suffering. Please note, they are actually on the ground, delivering goods and services, not flying about on first class tickets and holding press conferences in New York.

Now to that weird Post newspaper. Whom have you heard saying Bush is insensitive to the plight of the victims of this natural disaster? I haven’t heard that here in ground zero. I doubt you’ve heard it anywhere but in the MSM.

Well, whaddaya know? The German Chancellor has cut short his vacation! Now that’s gotta hurt a EUroweenie, huh? Giving up a day or two of the four or five or six months annual vacation EUrocrats get –boy that feeds and shelters a lot of people out here! They really appreciate it, Mr Chancellor! And those $4 million the ENTIRE EU has pledged, yeah, that’ll do it! I’m sure it will be a big help when some of it gets here in about six months.

One more note about the USA. The amounts listed in the newspapers as donated by the USA greatly underestimate the true size of the donation we make. We are moving huge numbers of aircraft, ships, and personnel to help out. We have carriers and even a MEU on the move. And guess what? We don’t charge the UN for that, and we don’t include those enormous costs in any “pledging conferences.” The only countries I see delivering goods and services where I am are the Aussies (who are terrific!) and us. The EU is only to be seen in press releases.

These lib-left people and their posturing make me sick . . . real folks are dying and the comfortable chattering lefties want little lip-biting gestures. I’ll take a C-130 any day.

A Snapshot Of Camp Julien

Military 1 Comment

From a recent arrival to Camp Julien, Afghanistan.

It is a well organized camp. We work, eat, sleep, shower, all in tents. The sleeping quarters area is down a flight of stairs into a lower area. The tents are all in rows…………tent city. Each large tent is set apart by a concrete bunker around it. When you go in the door it appears almost like a hall with canvass walls. There are 8 people per tent unit. Each has their own ‘cubicle’. The cubicles are made of canvass with a zippered door. Nobody uses the zipper though, because it is very iratating to hear a zipper open and close each time someone has to go to the bathroom. We have hung up blankets or rugs instead, gotten at a bargan from the market. The cubicles are large enough to comfortable contain your cot with a mattress and a couple of barrack boxes. Some of the people who have been here for the whole ROTO have given there area a personal touch. The woman I replaced has shelves. There is an availability of wood here, and no shortage of talent. The guys built here a couple of ‘book shelf’ units to hold clothes and such. Each of us has a light and power supply. There are lots of TVs and DVDs here.
A word about DVDs and CDs. That is a hot item here. There is a large business in bootleg discs. You can by up to 5 movies burnt on a disc for as little as 2.50 US. Even all the movies still in the theatres are out there. They record them from the movie theatres or find stolen copies of to bootleg.
The bathroom is another story. From the outside it almost appears like a sea cargo container with tented sides opened out. Inside on the right is 5 stainless steel toilets up on pedestals. You step up into the toilet area and close the canvas curtain behind you. There is very little room. Your knees touch the canvas. There are 5 showers on the otherside. The bathrooms are cleaned once a day by a cleaning staff. They do an excellent job of it.
One other thing I am greatly impressed by, is the laundry facilities. If you take your laundry in before 1100 to the laundry tent, it will be ready for you the next day by 1300. It is returned bagged and folded. Laundry is sent out to be done. It is so nice and clean. Gone are the days of sitting for 6 to 8 hours on the ship to do laundry and fighting for a washer or dryer. Then getting your clothes out smelling like jet fuel.
Right now I am not impressed with the weather. The other night it rained all night and turned to slush by morning. It snowed/rained all the next day. We now have rivers and lakes in the camp. This is reeking havoc with the power. Our sleeping area/bathrooms had power problems for the last few days. Power is on and off. It gets bloody cold in those tents with no heat.
There you go. A little taste of life in the fast lane.

Reader Tips

Reader Tips 3 Comments

Police admit defeat in the battle to control marijuana grow operations. (Really?? I wonder… other cities seem to have the legal capacity and manpower to demand entry to homes to search for unlicensed pets. )
“China uses visiting students, scientists, business people and delegations to obtain industrial secrets and high-technology that will benefit Chinese companies and its military-industrial complex, said the source, who asked not to be identified for national security reasons.”
Well, look on the bright side – at least they’re not going to spirit away any new military technology.
Muslims are winning the war against free speech and Zionists in Britain, according to Hani Mohammad at Islam Online – a must read article.
Naivette this profound must be painful. Memo to Salim Mansur – try doing a little google searching. You’ll figure out why the Canadian government has been mute on UN corruption – they’re in it up to their Desmarais.

Breeding Their Own Slaves

Genetics No Comments

Ants’ ‘genetic engineering’ leads to species interdependency

Findings reported this week reveal how an evolutionary innovation involving the sharing of genes between two ant species has given rise to a deep-seated dependency between them for the survival of both species populations. The new work illustrates how genetic exchange through interbreeding between two species can give rise to a system of interdependence at a high level of biological organization–in this case, the production of worker ants for both species.
Millions of years before the first modern humans evolved, ants were practicing many of the social innovations we consider to be our own: division of labor, agriculture, and even slavery. Indeed, these traits have been taken to their extreme in many ant species, such as the case of slavemaker ants, which have become so specialized for raiding food from the colonies of other ants that they can no longer feed themselves or raise their younger siblings. Recent work on ants suggests that we may need to add genetic engineering to the list of innovations ants have evolved to employ. In two species of harvester ants, populations have been discovered in which queens mate with males of another species to produce genetically novel hybrid workers. In a new study, Dr. Sara Helms Cahan and colleagues demonstrate that both of the species involved have effectively given up the ability to produce pure-species workers in favor of the hybrids, thereby becoming completely dependent on one another for survival.
Female ants are generally found in two forms: reproductive queens and sterile workers. The role, or caste, of an individual is determined for life at a certain stage in her development. In virtually all ant species, it is the environment in which a female is raised, rather than a genetic predisposition, that determines which caste she will adopt. However, in two harvester ant populations in southern New Mexico, queens and workers from the same colonies are genetically very different; in both species at the site, only the queens are genetically derived from a pure species-specific lineage, whereas all the workers are hybrids that possess a combination of genes from the two species in a single individual. It is not currently known whether the ants benefit from having hybrids do the work, but, as is evident from the researchers’ own attempts at selective breeding and genetic engineering, combining genomes is an easy way to produce novel characteristics that may be highly advantageous for growth, environmental tolerance, or disease resistance. Regardless of the specific advantages, however, it is clear that these ants have committed themselves to the hybrid workforce strategy. When the researchers prevented queens from mating with males of the other species, very few succeeded in making any workers at all, a handicap that would lead to certain population failure in the field. The new findings suggest that specialization involving reliance on interspecific hybrid workers has left these species unable to survive independently of one another.

A little like Paul Martin’s minority government…

Illogistics

Military 5 Comments

Laurie Hawn reveals how the gutting of the Canadian military has resulted in an inability to move the manpower and equipment most needed during natural disasters. “We can’t get there from here”;

What the devastated area really needs is our capability to deal with such emergencies with direct medical aid and other life saving requirements, such as potable water. We have that capability standing by in the Canadian Forces Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), but we just can’t get there from here. The reason for that is that we have lost our capability to deploy such an asset by sea or air in a timely manner.
Our strategic sealift capability resides in three overtasked supply ships, in need of replacement, and smaller-sized and equally overtasked warships, not designed to haul equipment and supplies. With the Navy’s shortage of personnel and existing deployments of ships, timeliness would be a major handicap in addressing the short-term requirements.
The capability of the Air Force to reliably deploy in an emergency situation has gone the way of the serviceability of our C-130 Hercules fleet, that is straight downhill with age and overuse. We will use what Hercs and Airbuses are available to send equipment and supplies, but it will be on a catch-as-catch-can basis. To commit to sending DART would require a carefully planned operation and a large number of serviceable C- 130s to conduct it in a timely manner. The emergency operational planning is a no-brainer for the tremendously capable people we have in uniform. The expectation of a large number of C-130 missions without embarrassing breakdowns is another question. We’ve been there before and that just might be the real reason behind the slow/non-existent response with DART. We don’t want to risk looking like the international weaklings that we have become.

And we had better hope that a similar catastrophe doesn’t strike in Canada – the Armed Forces would be hard pressed to move large volumes of equipment and supplies by road, if the convoy of vintage transport vehicles I passed near Regina on Monday is any indication. They were parked on the shoulder, stalled by a breakdown of one of the trucks.

SUV’s Kill Thousands In SE Asia

Moonbats 4 Comments

It took them two days, but Greenpeace has found a way to tie the tsunami in Southeast Asia to global warming. You see, it’s all about the mangrove swamps!

A creeping rise in sea levels tied to global warming, pollution and damage to coral reefs may make coastlines even more vulnerable to disasters like tsunamis or storms in future, experts said Monday.
Few coastal ecosystems are robust enough to withstand freak waves like the ones that slammed into Asian nations from Sri Lanka to Thailand Sunday, killing more than 22,000 people, after a subsea earthquake off Indonesia.
But global warming, poorly planned coastal development and other threats over which humans have some control are weakening natural defenses ranging from mangrove swamps to coral reefs that help keep the oceans at bay.

I notice that “human overpopulation” is seldom cited as a problem in the wake of such events. Even Greenpeace knows when an argument becomes an oxymoron.
(ht – Powerline)
update – Juan Cole (one man Al-Zarqawi fan club and professional conspiracy theorist), gets in on the act.

Susan Sontag – RIP

Insufferable Twits No Comments

Laurence Simon has a devastatingly cruel – and apt – obituary for an outspoken apologist of terrorism.

The breast cancer cells that killed Susan Sontag were not cowards or an “evil” disease attacking an individual human being. No, they were the bravest of cells, attacking Susan from within at high risk to their own existence, uprising and resisting the constant bombardment from the so-called “brave” medical practicioners bathing her in radiation and chemotherapy. These so-called curatives were nothing more than genocidal technological campaigns waged against the livelihood of these innocent cancer cells, and these treatments slaughtered these cancer cells that had just as much a right to live and go about their business as any other of the cells in Susan’s body.

Ouch.
(hat tip – OTB

Aftershocks

Radioactive No Comments

Aftershocks continue near the original earthquake zone, and they’re large.
Even in the crush of need, there’s enough surviving political will remaining to reject Israeli help and “if you can’t find blame, go for shame” criticism of the US. … It’s too bad the Americans didn’t respond by announcing diversion of their UN funding to the rescue and rebuilding efforts.
In other news, The NYT is acknowledging the ability of blogs to stay ahead of the information curve.
Tsunami Help is an example of just that.
Command Post has a lengthy roundup of organizations providing information and soliciting donations.

Embrace Hollywood

Embrace Hollywood 4 Comments

“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.” – Michael Moore*

“I don’t have a stake in this adventure now – the cultural, historical adventure of America and the biological adventure of this species on the planet,” he said. “I don’t care what happens to this country. There’s no changing the way this planet is headed. So I kind of watch it as entertainment.”
“I say it this way, when you’re born in this world, you’re given a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America you’re given a front row seat.” – George Carlin

*

His Brother’s Keeper?

Terrorism No Comments

Yeslin Bin Laden was interviewed by Matt Lauer for NBC Dateline, in July of this year.

Lauer: “Did you immediately suspect that your brother might be involved in this?”
Bin Laden: “Never thought. It’s too sophisticated, I thought, for anybody to imagine something like this.”
But somebody had imagined it. And now Yeslam BinLadin shared a name and a father with the most wanted man on earth.
Lauer: “To many people around the world right now, the name Bin Laden is synonymous with terror.”
Bin Laden: “Uh-huh.”
Lauer: “Does that distress you?”
Bin Laden: “It does because we are well known, and we have been well known before September 11 for being a very well- to-do and proper family.”
Lauer: “And after September 11, you’re well known for a much different reason.”
Bin Laden: “One person is known for a much different reason. And a lot of people amalgamate the whole thing.”
[…]
Yeslam says the last time anyone in his family spoke to Osama was in the early 1990s when he was living in Sudan.

Uh-huh.;

PARIS (Reuters) – A French judge has widened a probe into the financial network surrounding the family of Osama bin Laden after questioning his half-brother and learning of a 241 million euro transfer to Pakistan, Le Monde daily said. Investigating magistrate Renaud Van Ruymbeke received court authorization to extend his investigation after Yeslam bin Laden was questioned on Sept. 27 over allegations of links with the organizers of attacks in 2001 in the United States, the paper said in its Saturday edition.

Tsunami Pics

stuff 10 Comments

Spectacular photos of the tsunami at NBC

I had originally written something complaining about the snow I had to shovel when I got home this afternoon. Changed my mind.
update – my sitemeter shows this page is recieving a lot of hits. This link to bloggers who are located closer to the scene may be of interest to visitors surfing in. Wizbang has a list of video links.
(If you aren’t familiar with the blogosphere, this is an individual entry – the “main” link at the top of the page will take you to the home page and links to many more.)

“Dangerous Glibido”

What He Said 7 Comments

Methinks we need more Newfoundland politicians. They seem to be among the few who have the integrity to say what needs to be said, without equivocation or first checking a laundry list of special interests whom they must take care not to speak the offensive truth to.

“When asked why he was visiting Khadaffy in Libya, Martin explained “a number of world leaders have seen him,” so it appears this is the reason that our own great world leader wished to see him. This is the same Khadaffy who accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in which 270 people, including two Canadians, were killed; the same Khadaffy whose son wants us to apologize because we dared to apply sanctions to his country in opposition to such murderous terrorism.
A recent proverb states that “eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.” Unfortunately, in Canada, since 1945, it is the weasels who are the most successful in getting into power and are there now. The PM and his colleagues weasel to the discredit of the reputation of Canada — equivocating, quibbling, defaulting on and getting out of obligations.” – John Crosby, in today’s Toronto Sun.

What a contrast to Paul Martin – the quivering, bulging, stammering, dithering human incarnation of the so-called Liberal “big tent” – ever at the ready to have stakes pulled from the current position and moved to lower ground.
h/t – reader “Reido”
update – Get a Newfoundlander’s take. (Westerners identify, Captain.)

The Majority Minority

Roadkill 2 Comments

Christopher Caldwell on the growing Islamic crisis in Holland (in tomorrow’s Weekly Standard), “Holland Daze – The Dutch Rethink Multiculturalism”;

“… the public has been told for two decades now that they ain’t seen nothing yet, that this is only the first wave of a long era of immigration, which they’d better learn to love. The immigrants the country now hosts have been difficult to manage. Part of the problem is the interaction of high immigration and what was for years a generous, no-questions-asked welfare state: As many as 60 percent of Moroccans and Turks above the age of 40–obviously first-generation immigrants–are unemployed, in the only major economy in Europe that has consistently had unemployment at or below American rates.
Most of these immigrants are Muslims. Muslim immigrants had begun to scare people long before Pim Fortuyn, the charismatic populist, turned himself into the country’s most popular politician in the space of a few weeks in 2002, by arguing that the country was already overloaded with newcomers. (Fortuyn was assassinated by an animal-rights activist in May of that year.) Already in the 1990s, there were reports of American-style shootouts in schools, one involving two Turkish students in the town of Veghel. This past October, newspaper readers were riveted by the running saga of a quiet married couple who had been hounded out of the previously livable Amsterdam neighborhood of Diamantbuurt by gangs of Muslim youths. There were incidents of wild rejoicing across Holland in the wake of the September 11 attacks, notably in the eastern city of Ede. The weekly magazine Contrast took a poll showing that just under half the Muslims in the Netherlands were in “complete sympathy” with the September 11 attacks. At least some wish to turn to terrorism. In the wake of the van Gogh murder, Pakistani, Kurdish, and Moroccan terrorist cells were discovered. The Hague-based “Capital Network,” out of which van Gogh’s killer Mohammed Bouyeri came, had contact with terrorists who carried out bombings in Casablanca in 2003. Perhaps the most alarming revelation was that an Islamist mole was working as a translator in the AIVD, the national investigative service, and tipping off local radicals to impending operations.
The question naturally arises: If immigrants behave this way now, what will happen when they are far more numerous, as all authorities have long promised they will be? It has been estimated that the country’s two largest cities, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, will be “majority minority” very soon (Rotterdam is today at 47 percent), and already 65 percent of primary and secondary students in both cities are of non-Dutch parentage. London’s Daily Telegraph, citing immigration experts and government statistics, reported a net outflow of 13,000 people from Holland in the first six months of 2004, the first such deficit in half a century. One must treat this statistic carefully–it could be an artifact of an aging population in which many are retiring to warmer places. But it could also be the beginning of something resembling the American suburban phenomenon of “white flight,” occurring at the level of an entire country.

Read the rest.

Earthquake Roundup

Radioactive 2 Comments

Several sites are following the reports coming in on the massive earthquakes and resultant tidal surges in the Asian Pacific.
Instapundit has picked up blogsites covering it, the Command Post has frequent updates. Drudge has devoted almost his entire page to news links.
_40665715_penang.jpg
(More reader supplied photos at the BBC.)
Update With some estimates placing the death toll at over 11,000 already, there is no word at all from Myanmar (formerly Burma) and low-lying Bangladesh.
topMap.eveday-thumb
(Red indicates within the past day – yellow, in the past two weeks)
Click here for the updated seismic map at IRIS.

Associated Voice Of Islamic Fascism Press

Media 5 Comments

Jack Stokes, director of media relations, Associated Press, responds to contraversy over the presence of a AP photographer on the scene of an ambush and murder of Iraqi election workers;

Several brave Iraqi photographers work for The Associated Press in places that only Iraqis can cover. Many are covering the communities they live in where family and tribal relations give them access that would not be available to Western photographers, or even Iraqi photographers who are not from the area.
Insurgents want their stories told as much as other people and some are willing to let Iraqi photographers take their pictures. It’s important to note, though, that the photographers are not “embedded” with the insurgents. They do not have to swear allegiance or otherwise join up philosophically with them just to take their pictures.

It’s too bad they missed the boat with Robert Picton, during his (alleged) murder spree of Vancouver area prostitutes. Perhaps he would like to have his story told? The Hells Angels must feel shortchanged – they’ve had to resort to buying billboard space to get their message out.
Unsurprisingly, there are a few others who remain unimpressed.
Wretchard: at what point did the “brave Iraqi” photographer become aware that the story of the day was going to be the live execution of two Iraqi election workers?
Just asking.
Roger Simon: It sounds as if the “Insurgents” were calling a press conference to express their campaign positions. But they weren’t. What they were doing was brutally murdering innocent people in the street and they wanted the press there to record the event. The Associated Press, like good poodles of fascism, came along for that most necessary of tasks for terrorists in asymetrical war–publicity.
Powerline: Am I missing something, or has the AP now admitted everything it was charged with by Wretchard?

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