And I thought the science was settled

Geosystems scientists at Oxford University, that well-known den of climate-change deniers, have concluded that "Global warming may be occurring more slowly than previously thought."

Not warming very fast after all.

Computer modelling used a decade ago to predict how quickly global average temperatures would rise may have forecast too much warming, a study has found.

 

The Earth warmed more slowly than the models forecast, meaning the planet has a slightly better chance of meeting the goals set out in the Paris climate agreement, including limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

 

Scientists said previous models may have been “on the hot side”.

 

The study, published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience, does not play down the threat which climate change has to the environment, and maintains that major reductions in emissions must be attained.

 

But the findings indicate the danger may not be as acute as was previously thought.

 

Myles Allen, professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford and one of the study’s authors told The Times: “We haven’t seen that rapid acceleration in warming after 2000 that we see in the models. We haven’t seen that in the observations.”

Don't you hate it when nature won't cooperate in confirming your politics? By that I refer again to Ottmar Edenhofer, the lead author of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report and co-chair of the IPCC's Working Group III on Mitigation of Climate Change.

He told Germany's Neue Zurcher Zeitung in November, as reported by Investors.com:
"The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War."

Edenhofer let the environmental cat out of the bag when he said "climate policy is redistributing the world's wealth" and that "it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization." ...

Edenhofer claims "developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community" and so they must have their wealth expropriated and redistributed to the victims of their alleged crimes, the postage stamp countries of the world. He admits this "has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole."

What is climate science really about? Oh, you know:

Remember, climate science's only customers are governments because climate science has no product.

Because it's religion for the Left and mere science for the Right

Study: Global warming skeptics know more about climate science

Are global warming skeptics simply ignorant about climate science?

Not so, says a forthcoming paper in the journal Advances in Political Psychology by Yale Professor Dan Kahan. He finds that skeptics score about the same (in fact slightly better) on climate science questions.

The study asked 2,000 respondents nine questions about where they thought scientists stand on climate science.

On average, skeptics got about 4.5 questions correct, whereas manmade warming believers got about 4 questions right. ...

 The study’s author, Kahan, also says that the global warming debate has become so politically polarized that people pick their side based on politics rather than what they know about science.   

And all this, especially that last excerpted paragraph,  will make a lot more sense once you read my 2008 essay, "Environmentalist religion explained," in which I pointed out that,

[Physicist Freeman] Dyson wrote that, "Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion." I demur. Environmentalism has not replaced socialism at all. Instead, the old-line socialists, faced with decades of the failure of political socialism, have jumped on the environmentalist bandwagon to keep socialism alive. 

Environmentalism has become a much better vehicle to achieve a rigid regulation of people's lives than political socialism ever was. After all, the fate of the entire planet is at stake! Environmentalism has already led some British members of Parliament to propose that the government regulate almost every aspect of buying and selling by private individuals. If this is not socialism, it is a distinction without a difference.

And now, just this week, voila! "U.N. Official Reveals Real Reason Behind Warming Scare"

The alarmists keep telling us their concern about global warming is all about man's stewardship of the environment. But we know that's not true. A United Nations official has now confirmed this.

At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism. 

"This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution," she said.

This seems an apt time to quote the old liberals' bumper sticker: "If you're not outraged, you are not paying attention."

Update: Thomas Sowell, "Global Warming Hysteria Has Problem: It Doesn't Fit With Facts"

And here is a prime example of such hysteria: "Animated map of what Earth would look like if all the ice melted." "Gloom! Depair! And agony on me! Deep dark depression! Excessive misery!"

Understand that absolutely no one of the global-warming hysteria movement, nay not even them, has ever said that all the ice on the earth will melt. There is not one climatology study that makes such a prediction, even at their funding-grubbing alarmist worst.

Why not, "What the earth would look like if all the liquid water froze?" After all, only 40 years ago were were supposed to be headed for a new ice age.

 

Israel and the 1948 "borders"

Post by The Jewish Standard.

Photo of the decade, at least

Glenn Reynolds and Bill Hobbs shared Michael Graham's photo.

Michael Graham

Greatest photo EVER?!

Putin pulls rug out from under Syria strikes

"Welcome to school, Barack."

President Obama is being taken to grand-politics school by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Der Spiegel reports,

Moscow - Russia has urged the Syrian regime to put its chemical weapons under international control. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday called for a "quick and positive" response from the government in Damascus. Moscow hope from the measure that a possible military strike against the country could be prevented. 

"We do not know if Syria agrees, but when an international control of chemical weapons prevents military strikes, we are now ready to work with Damascus," Lavrov said, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) must receive full access to chemical weapons arsenal of the Syrians, he demanded. 

"We have already said Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem passed our proposal and put on a fast, I hope, positive response," Lavrov said at a hastily transferred on state television recognized opinion. His Syrian colleague had visited Moscow on Monday.

"We call on the Syrian leadership to set the chemical weapons not only under international control, but to destroy later," Lavrov said. Also, Syria was to join the organization on the prohibition of these weapons.

Because Obama has described the purpose of his proposed strikes against Syria in terms of having no intended effect but to prevent Assad from using chemical weapons again, it will be very difficult for Congress to ignore the Russian proposal, although an astute US president would make US concurrence dependent on a number of Russian concessions.

But right now, on the face of it (and I admit the devil is in the details) Russia has put on the table a way of avoiding punitive US strikes while still, putatively at least, offering a course to accomplish the same objectives without America going to war.

Also, by placing the UN back into the thick of the proposed resolution, Obama would have to renounce UN involvement in international-security affairs to say nyet to the Russians. Which he may well do, but not even his base will swallow that easily.

So, assuming the Russian proposal is in good faith (which is a huge assumption, I admit) here is Obama's proposal compared to Putin's:

Obama: The United States will bomb Syria to persuade Assad not to use chemical weapons any more.

Putin: The United Nations will assume control of Syria's chemical weapons and remove from Assad the capability to use them at all, and will then destroy those weapons.

Without defending Putin, who is a former-KGB thug in his own right, I would say that he has pulled off a political master stroke that has no downside on Russia's waxing influence in international affairs, especially in the Middle East:

1. If Obama assents to pursuing this course, Russia's standing is strongly strengthened in the UN and in world public opinion.

2. If Obama says no, same thing: Russia is the nation urging peaceful resolution while the US is seen to be set on war - again.

3. If Assad says no - possible but since his survival depends of Russian patronage, not very likely. (Update: that didn't take long, Assad has already said it backs the Russian proposal. Of course, Assad and Putin had already worked this out together before Russian went public.)

It must be pointed out that Obama, insisting that "international norms" be adhered to, cannot pick and choose which norms he means and maintain the slightest credibility on the world stage. Every chemical-weapons convention that Obama says define the norms Syria has violated are specifically under the oversight and authority of international agencies under the auspices of the UN. That's an international norm, too. So foreign ministries around the world will be openly scornful of any attempt by Obama to cleave to one norm while explicitly rejecting another, both on the same issue.

Update: Another good question is why Obama didn't make the same proposal to begin with. Why did he immediately decide to bomb? As I asked before, what was the fierce urgency of bombing now?

Assad asks UN for protection against USA

A politically brilliant move, perhaps? "Assad Regime Asks U.N. to Protect Syria From U.S. 'Aggression'."

In a letter to U.N. leaders, Syria has called on the international organization to protect it from “any aggression” directed at the country following the regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons. The letter, from Syrian ambassador to the U.N., Bashar Ja’afari, is addressed to U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon and President of the Security Council Maria Cristina Perceval. 

In the letter, Ja’afari called on "the U.N. Secretary General to shoulder his responsibilities for preventing any aggression on Syria and pushing forward reaching a political solution to the crisis in Syria", state news agency SANA said on Monday. The U.N. envoy also urged the Security Council to "maintain its role as a safety valve to prevent the absurd use of force out of the frame of international legitimacy." 

In response to potential U.S. military strikes, Ja’afari said the U.S. should “play its role, as a peace sponsor and as a partner to Russia in the preparation for the international conference on Syria and not as a state that uses force against whoever opposes its policies."

Certainly without endorsing Assad's gambit, I think he probably does have a strong case to make in the arena of the UN Charter and before the international assembly. The Charter actually forbids nations from intervening in the internal affairs of other nations; like it or not, the civil war in Syria, no matter how brutal, is not (yet) a cross-border war. We could argue that the two million Syrian refugees have made it an international affair, but so far we have not so argued.

Further, the great majority of UN members almost certainly believe that the UN Security Council, if not the entire General Assembly, must approve any strike by the US on Syria. That, of course, will never occur as both Russia and China have promised to veto such a resolution in the UNSC.

However, it is equally impossible for Assad's plea to the UN SecGen to yield action by the UN, since the US will veto any such thing in the UNSC, and so will Britain and France. So Assad's letter is only a political gambit, but I think it's frankly a smart one on the world stage.

UN leader says US-Syria war will lead to wider conflict

FNC is reporting that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon just said that if America goes to war against Syria, it will lead to wider conflicts in the Middle East. I will continue to look for linkable citations.

In related news, the UN inspection team is preparing to leave Syria tomorrow. A UN spokesman said,

... there was no timeline on when that final report would be completed and passed on to the Secretary-General. “The focus is on completing that analysis of the event from the 21st of August, and everybody concerned, including the Syrian authorities, agreed that his should be a priority,” he said reiterating that the team would return to Syria to complete its inspection of other sites.

Meanwhile, the Arab League has announced that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is responsible for the Aug. 21 attack in which several hundred people died, at least. But the League insists that only the United Nations, "as the official representative of the international community" could "take action to stop those who committed this crime".

Guns will be banned by hook or by crook

U.S. government spokesperson on UN Arms Treaty, "United States would vote “yes” on the treaty"

What? You mean the Obama administration (meaning Obama himself) has changed the USG's position on the looming United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, and now says it will vote for it? 

Get ready for severe gun-control measures to be imposed on Americans because the language of the treaty specifically includes regulating "small arms and light weapons," a category so broad it could be twisted to include air guns. Whether the Senate confirms the treaty is not relevant, and it's more likely than not that the Democrat-controlled Senate will. 

No matter whether the Senate confirms, this president will simply declare that his administration will enforce its terms and that will be that. I recollect that this is exactly what Bill Clinton did regarding one of the treaties he had signed when he was president, but I can't recollect which one. Anyone know?

Then there is the shibboleth that treaties trump the US Constitution. This is a favorite canard of the Left but it's a total falsehood. The US Supreme Court has ruled explicitly that treaties cannot restrict the Constitutional rights of Americans. 

But again, it will not matter. Obama will do it anyway and will get away with it. The Senate will not oppose and the media will never scrutinize the Constitutionality of what Obama does. The media will in fact vigorously support the cancellation of Americans' Second-Amendment rights. That's simply the state of the union today.

Update: Washington Times -

The long-debated U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) requires countries to regulate and control the export of weaponry such as battle tanks, combat vehicles and aircraft and attack helicopters, as well as parts and ammunition for such weapons.

Well, thank goodness we got that export deal signed already for sending 20 advanced-model F-16 jet fighters to Islamist Egypt!

Yale law professor: bin Laden killing was legal

Jed Rubenfeld, professor of law at Yale Law School and a former U.S. representative to the Council of Europe, in "U.S. justified in killing Osama Bin Laden:"

An "extrajudicial execution," that's what many in the international community are now calling the killing of Osama bin Laden. The U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for an investigation. According to a U.N. special rapporteur, if the U.S. commandos were under shoot-to-kill orders and did so without offering Bin Laden a "meaningful prospect of surrender," his killing could have been a "cold-blooded execution." ...

What Prof. Rubenfeld surely realizes, though he didn't write, is that the intention of the U.N.'s "investigation" is not actually to determine whether double tapping OBL met some legal criteria. It is to hamstring American might and hamper our efforts against Islamist terrorists. It is to put the United States into a box.

As Prof. Rubenfeld points out, there is no existing international treaty or Convention on warfare that says that an enemy combatant must be given a "meaningful prospect of surrender," or any opportunity at all. Says the professor,

It is pure foolishness to suggest that by going in on the ground, the U.S. turned its soldiers into policemen required to give Bin Laden "due process," place him "under arrest" and read him his Miranda rights.

I remember very well an incident during 1991's Gulf War in which American media excoriated US forces who observed Iraqi tanks heading toward their position and destroyed them with anti-tank missiles. Why the media fury? Because in the breathless words of a reporter whose face I remember well but can't put a name to it, the tanks were moving toward the American position "with their turrets reversed," that is, pointing toward the tanks' rear. So, the reporter continued, "the tanks were surrendering!" She claimed as well that a reversed tank's turret was a recognized sign of surrender.

Which is just stuck on stupid. First, tanks cannot surrender at all, turrets reversed or not. Only soldiers can surrender. If the crews wanted to surrender, all they had to do was dismount their tanks, casts away arms and raise a white flag (an undershirt would do - so many Iraqis used white undershirts to surrender during that war that Saddam finally made it a capital offense in the army even to possess one). Second, because tanks cannot surrender, it does not matter where the main gun is pointing. You just shoot the tank.

There was a later incident involving Saudi troops who accepted the surrender of a small group of Iraqi soldiers, including a handful of Iraqi officers, who did raise a white ensign and proceed on foot toward Saudi soldiers. When the Saudis went out to meet them, the Iraqis raised weapons and shot the Saudis down. Other Saudis immediately gunned down the Iraqis, of course, but several Saudi men lost their lives. From that day on, that unit of Saudis took no prisoners - any Iraqi showing a white flag was shot. And that was both entirely reasonable and legal. Perfidy of surrender is explicitly forbidden in the international conventions, and once perfidy is done, it is justifiable to expect it will be practiced again.

As Prof. Rubenfeld explains, perfidy has been the hallmark of bin Laden's acolytes. They are,

... enemies who flagrantly violate the laws of war, targeting civilians for death, hiding bombs behind burkas, using children as shields or — yes — faking a Red Cross, upraised hands or other symbolic white flags to perpetrate lethal attacks. ... Even if we imagine Bin Laden actually waving a little white sock on a stick in Abbottabad, there would have been no reason for our soldiers to credit these statements. No soldier had a duty to take the slightest risk to his own life because Osama bin Laden promised to be good from now on.

The SEALs were never under any obligation to do anything to bin Laden except shoot him on sight. As Prof. Rubenfeld points out, "If Bin Laden wanted to surrender, he could and should have done it sometime in the last decade. He could not do it by raising his hands during an attack on his compound."

Cancun Conferees decide to meet again next year!

The delegates at Cancun's eco-convention have adjourned with practically no conclusion except to continue the process of saving the planet.

Greenpeace's Climate Coordinator Martin Kaiser also criticized the compromise. "Central questions regarding an ambitious, fair and legally binding climate protection treaty have yet again been postponed," he said. "The oil, coal and timber industries have a further year for the uncontrolled pollution of the atmosphere with carbon dioxide."

German Environment Norbert Röttgen had a far more positive take on the outcome of Cancun. "I think it's a really great success," Röttgen, who took part in the negotiations, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "It is a significant step to revive the international climate process."
The EU should remain committed to curbing global warming, Röttgen added. He said the EU should cut its CO2 emissions by 30 percent by 2020, rather than by the 20 percent envisaged so far. Germany alone would not be able to meet that more ambitious goal, he said, adding that the other 26 nations would need to do their part.

EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said she was relieved at the deal. "We can be happy that the UN process was saved," she told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "But we must not overlook how difficult the path ahead is."

Well, by golly, the difficult path ahead will mean that these people will just have to get together again next year and try again! It's a hardship duty, of course - meeting is Cancun is such a simple way of life - but it has to be done. And it will be done - starting Nov. 28, 2011, in Durban, South Africa.

Well, at least Durban's on the same continent as Brazzaville.

The simple life in Cancun

As I covered here, the 16th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol is meeting in Cancun to decide to the tiniest detail how you and I should live. A popular idea there is that the people of the First World (that is, America and Europe) should be rationed in all their consumer goods. Economic growth should be halted.

Cancun is nothing but a soapbox for "bell the cat" proposals, like that of Prof. Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, who, according to the Telegraph, announced that the only way to save the planet is to "halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years." He conceded that this "would not be easy."

Rationing for thee but not for me:

Cancun's blessed irrelevance

COP16, the 16th edition of Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, began Monday in Cancun, Mexico, with little notice from most of the world. This is a stunning but welcome letdown from the breathless adoration heaped upon the opening of last December's COP15 in Copenhagen.

Copenhagen, you may recall, was supposed to result in the complete reordering of international affairs, especially in funneling hundreds of billions of dollars from the First World (coff, United States) to the rest. Copenhagen's aim was literally to set up a world government, which was made explicit in the language of the proposed treaty. As Britain's former chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Monckton, explained at the time, the Copenhagen treaty was designed to eliminate true national sovereignty altogether, especially that of the United States.

It didn't happen of course, not least because no matter how much money developing nations were offered - $100 billion was the opening buy in - it wasn't enough. If Copenhagen was the Super Bowl of the new world order, it was as if the teams, the bands, the crowds all came, got off two or three plays, and then did nothing else but argue about how the TV money would be divided.

President Obama and more than 100 heads of state were elbowing each other at Copenhagen. At Cancun, the head of a national delegation is typically something like the fifth deputy assistant undersecretary to the vice-associate minister of thermostat settings. So even the Left-Green BBC has sent only one reporter. The New York Times does not even have a reporter down there for the full conference.

Three years ago UN Secretary-General warned the delegates at Bali, “We are at a crossroad. One path leads to a comprehensive climate change agreement, the other to oblivion. The choice is clear.”

Oblivion, the man said. And so the frenzy began to write treaties that would regulate almost everything we do, culminating in the Copenhagasm of COP15, a Treaty of Everything (but most of all of slurping wealth away from the United States and Europe).

What Copenhagen would have done was set up a new nomenklatura of bureaucracies and factotums and commissioners, providing them with near-unlimited political power, a luxurious lifestyle and upward mobility for their children and political allies, accountable to no one. In other words, the old Soviet system writ global.

Blessedly, it didn’t happen. In only one year, the COP series have become irrelevant, which is unsurprising considering that they are, after all, sponsored by the United Nations. Cancun is nothing but a soapbox for "bell the cat" proposals, like that of Prof. Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, who, according to the Telegraph, announced that the only way to save the planet is to "halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years." He conceded that this "would not be easy."

Masters of clipped understatement, those Brits!

Martin Luther once remarked that the one redeeming virtue of the papacy was that it provided splendid hunting estates for the bishop of Rome. Likewise, the one redeeming virtue of the annual COPs is that they provide splendid vacations for the delegates: Bali (COP13), Nairobi (COP12), Montreal (COP11), Nagoya (COP10), and now Cancun. The obvious question is voiced by Walter Russell Mead,

Ever wonder why more diplomatic gasfests aren’t scheduled for horrible or dull locations? If delusional green treaty addicts must waste time, money and resources on worthless, no-hope diplomatic engagements, obviously they don’t intend to spend time in unpleasant surroundings.

You have to understand, you see, that saving the planet from oblivion is simply not the sort of work (or play, whatever) that can be done in Brazzaville. Thankfully, establishing a global nomenklatura is no longer even a gleam in the delegates’ eyes anymore. Since it is obvious that they will never have both power and perks, well, they’ll settle for the perks. As long as they can keep COP conferences going annually until they retire, all will be well.

I say let ‘em have them. It’s a small bribe to pay to keep them both ineffective and ineffectual.

Netanyahu's Address to the World

From the Jerusalem Post:

The State of Israel faces an attack of international hypocrisy. This is not the first time we have faced this, two years ago we faced a massive attack of missiles fired by Hamas who hid behind civilians. Israel went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties but who did the UN condemn? It condemned Israel.

Hamas continues to arm. Iran continues to send weapons to Gaza. Iran's rockets are intended to hit Israeli communities, not just in the vicinity of Gaza, but in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

It is our right according to International law to prevent arms smuggling to Gaza and that is why the naval blockade was put in place. The flotilla intended to break the blockade, not to bring in emergency supplies which we allow to reach Gaza.

If the blockade had been broken, hundreds of ships would have followed, with a scale of smuggling far greater than that possible in the tunnels. Two ships stopped in the last years -Francop and Karine-A - had hundreds of tons of weapons.

It is our duty to examine any ship going to Gaza - If we don't do this, the result would be an Iranian port in Gaza, only a few dozen kilometers from Tel Aviv, which would also threaten other countries in the region. We offered to take the cargo to Ashdod and examine it, an offer which Egypt seconded. The flotilla leaders rejected this.

The takeover of five of the ships passed quietly. In the sixth ship, our soldiers encountered an extreme group that supports Hamas terror. This wasn't the "love boat" this was a flotilla of terror supporters.

I talked to our soldiers, they were shot at. There was an attempt to lynch them. These are pacifists? The soldiers defended their lives with incomparable restraint. What would any other country do? At best, they would act in the same way, or much worse.

Of course we regret the loss of life, but I ask the international community what would you do instead? We'll continue to defend our citizens and assert our right for self defense, which is my first duty as Prime Minister.

It is important that we stay united on this issue, which is a matter of life and death.

The Jerusalem Post site also has a video of Netanyahu speaking--in English--well worth the view.

Actually, Netanyahu omitted the first duty of being a head of a country--you have to make hard choices that not all the folks in other nations will like. Are you listening, Barry?

Oh, it's budget time again . . .

Remember that the operating meme of our government has been openly stated by its top officials, including the secretary of state herself: "Never waste a good crisis."

Now consider two reports about the swine flu. First, the AP reports, "Swine flu may be less potent than first feared."

The swine flu outbreak that has alarmed the world for a week now appears less ominous, with the virus showing little staying power in the hardest-hit cities and scientists suggesting it lacks the genetic fortitude of past killer bugs. President Barack Obama even voiced hope Friday that it may turn out to be no more harmful than the average seasonal flu.

In New York City, which has the most confirmed swine flu cases in the U.S. with 49, swine flu has not spread far beyond cases linked to one Catholic school. In Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak, very few relatives of flu victims seem to have caught it.

A flu expert said he sees no reason to believe the virus is particularly lethal. And a federal scientist said the germ's genetic makeup lacks some traits seen in the deadly 1918 flu pandemic strain and the more recent killer bird flu.

But don't worry - the World Health Organization is on it: "WHO Raises Swine Flu Alert to Level 5."

The World Health Organization has raised the swine flu pandemic alert level to phase 5 - just one step below the highest level. The decision comes as the number of countries with confirmed cases rises to at least 10. ...

The increase to level 5 indicates that there is sustained human-to-human transmission in communities in different geographical locations.

That last item, of course, directly contradicts the empirical evidence reported by the AP.

Why do I get the impression that it's budget-pleading time at the WHO? Wait, with any government or UN agency, it's always budget-pleading time.

My prediction, noted epidemiologist that I am: within two weeks the swine flu will have fizzled like a wet firecracker, pandemic-wise. People will still be getting sick, but Level 5 emergency (much less Level 6)? Nope.

Remember, here in the US, between 30,000-35,000 people die every year from flu of the ordinary type. "Ordinary" flu means, of course, flu strains without a catchy, crisis- and cable-news-ready name.

Remind me this fall to write a post warning people of the threat of the hackengag flu.

Hamas robs UN at gunpoint

The AP reports: 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Armed Hamas police broke into a Gaza warehouse packed with U.N. humanitarian supplies and seized thousands of blankets and food packages, officials said Wednesday. ...

In New York, U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said UNRWA "condemned in the strongest terms" the confiscation of its aid supplies. The U.N. demanded the items be returned, but they remained with Hamas late Wednesday.

Hamas policemen stormed an aid warehouse in Gaza City Tuesday evening and confiscated 3,500 blankets and over 400 food parcels ready for distribution to 500 families, said United Nations Relief and Works Agency spokesman Christopher Gunness.

"They were armed. They seized this. They took it by force," Gunness said, terming the incident "absolutely unacceptable."

The seizure took place after UNRWA staff earlier refused to hand over the aid supplies to the Hamas-run Ministry of Social Affairs, he said. Similar aid packages were distributed to 70,000 residents over the past two weeks, Gunness said.
Ahmad Kurd, the Hamas official in charge of the ministry, did not deny the aid was seized, charging the U.N. was giving the aid to local groups with ties to Hamas opponents. ...

Israeli officials say the incident vindicated their long-standing claims that Hamas routinely confiscates aid meant for needy Gazans. ...

However, Gunness said this was the first time Hamas seized UNRWA supplies. "Does anyone really think that the Americans, who are our single largest donor, or the Europeans, who are our largest multination donor, would give us aid in the generous way they do if they thought that aid would go to terrorists?" Gunness said.

What strikes me most strongly about this story is not that Hamas would rob the UN at gunpoint, but that United Nations official Gunness actually referred to Hamas as "terrorists." Maybe the AP can get a clue and rethink calling Hamas "militants."

A 10-point plan for peace in Gaza

It's a great idea, but I don't see how it will work, even if the UNSC grows a backbone. Walid Phares offers, "Plan for Gaza: Demilitarization and Internationalization." In a sane area of the world, this would make a lot of sense and could be be doable, but even Walid admits at the end,

Evidently, such a plan will never see the light of day as long as any party to the conflict thinks they can only count on a military solution — and particularly as long as Hamas is instructed by Tehran and Damascus to sink the peace process. Sadly as long as democracy is not on the rise in Iran and Syria we cannot predict the end of the War on Terror.

He also posted this video summary.

Yoo Hoo, Mr. Ban

One of the most popular themes in the MSM in the Israeli Palaeostinian conflict is how those mean-ole-Israelis constantly stop and search rigorously ambulances. How dare they! Don't they KNOW that ambulances are neutral vehicles on errands of mercy? Don't they KNOW that ambulances are ABOVE the everyday frascas--they save lives not take them?

I guess whoever it is that KNOWS such things forgot to tell the Palaeostinians; at least that's what this clip from LiveLeak.com, taken by barnsey, is showing.



It also helps explain why UN in Israel stands for "useless nobodies". If he wants to increase the profile of his organization in the region, perhaps Mr. Ban might want to know why HIS ambulances are being used as troop carriers. Cute.

Stealth Storks Show Skills

Yesterday, I drove up through the upper Jordan valley to Jerusalem. It is my favorite way from the Galilee to Jerusalem because the road is empty and the countryside is empty, except for the occasional nomadic shepherd and the regular IDF patrols. It is easy to drive the speed limit and no one tries to run me off the road, unlike the well traveled Israeli routes.

Somewhere in the upper regions of uninhabited hills, I stumbled across a team of International Observers cleverly disguised as Dutch Storks. I knew immediately they were International Observers by their characteristic white vehicles with black markings.

I decided to welcome them to The Land, so I pulled off the side of the road, got out of my vehicle, and approached the group with respect and deference.

Immediately, detecting my approach, they came to attention and formed ranks. This precision drill was followed by a loud bill snapping sound and the carefully executed International Observer battle order of "wheel left" and "fly away" executed in split seconds.

You go, guys.

Bolton pulls rug from under Olmert

Via email from Israel, by Daniel Jackson

Haaretz reports of former American UN Ambassador John Bolton's visit to Israel. Bolton essentially cuts Olmert's legs out from under him. The message is incredibly blunt:

John Bolton, who was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Second Lebanon War, rejects Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's version of he launched [sic] a failed ground offensive during the war's final days.

"The Israeli military operation did not play a role in the talks on drafting UN Security Council Resolution 1701," which ended the war, Bolton told Haaretz Sunday. He was in Israel to attend the Herzliya Conference.

Bolton, who has warned in the past about the possibility of nuclear cooperation between North Korea and Syria, also said that both the United States and Israel owe their citizens a full report on what kind of facility Israel bombed in Syria last September. Media reports have identified the target as a nuclear facility.

Bolton was Washington's point man for the negotiations over 1701. He told Haaretz that on August 5, 2006, six days before the Security Council approved the resolution, he and his French colleague, who was unofficially representing Lebanon's interests, had agreed on the wording. But the Arab League objected, "so we had to make changes to obtain the Lebanese government's support and make the Arabs happy. We also understood that we had to prevent a Russian-Chinese veto in the Security Council."

However, the former ambassador said, the main reason for America's retreat from its initial position was U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who "changed her mind fundamentally" after an Israeli aerial assault killed 28 civilians in Kana on July 30. "Rice exerted enormous pressure on me to reach an agreement already," he said. "Until Kana, the U.S. wasn't interested in another typical Middle Eastern cease-fire. We thought we would exploit the fighting to fundamentally change the situation, especially in Lebanon and Syria. But under the influence of her shock over Kana, the secretary of state changed her mind and only wanted an immediate end to the fire. That was the policy Rice dictated."

After the war, Olmert claimed that he launched the 11th-hour ground operation, in which 33 soldiers were killed, because the draft UN resolution that Israel received on August 11 was detrimental to its interests. The operation, he added, improved the resolution.

Bolton, however, rejected both assertions.

The Herzliya Conference, an annual political science event (several years old) over the weekend (during Shabbat, of course) is about as neocon as it gets here in Israel. It has already become a forum where US politicians come to speak to Israeli conservatives on US Israeli policy. Bolton is essentially telling Israelis that not only was Olmert totally ineffectual in executing the war, but that he really is "All-Merde," as many Israelis have nicknamed him.

The timing of this talk is not accidental, either in the larger picture or the smaller one--the Winograd Report is due at the end of the month and already the cracks are showing in the coalition. Leiberman has left the group, Shas is on the way out, and the polls, while rejecting the imput of Jews and Jewish groups outside Israel in deciding Jerusalem's fate, clearly show that no political sector here trusts Olmert at all--Peres talks of referendum, some talk about the Knesset deciding (in true Kibbutz fashion), but no one is saying, "You Go, Ehud", to either Ehud for that matter.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but it would seem to silly old me that Olmert has been cut loose, or rather set adrift.

Be that as it may, the idea that Rice would "suddenly" have a change of heart over the collateral damage in Kana when the daily rain of rockets then in the north and now over S'derot is just too outrageous for words. Where is her outrage over the homicidal acts of terrorism conducted intentionally and willfully against women, children, and the elderly that has become the hallmark of Middle Eastern warfare during the last 20 years?

Daniel Jackson, writing from Israel

Humanity headed for "oblivion"!

Let us here remember Den Beste's Law: The job of bureacrats is to regulate, and left to themselves, they will regulate everything they can."

Now consider:

Humanity faces oblivion if it fails to confront global warming, the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon warned today.

As delegates to the Bali climate conference argued over a new document strengthening a call for deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by rich nations, Ban Ki-moon arrived to preside over its final days.

Nuff said.If we don't all fall into line to do what the UN wants - which is regulate every waking moment of our lives - then humanity will perish from the earth. That's what the man said.

On second thought, they want to regulate us even when we're sleeping, too.