Fausta’s Blog

Finally, a weatherman who hates snow even more than I,

Via LauraW

First the snow, since it’s out there and you can’t get anywhere from here (and no, you can’t get to tango from here since it’s been canceled, unless you go to New York),

Cold, in the low 20sF, dreary day.

Which, by the way, didn’t stop the American Sheepdogs guys, who managed to hold a rally in the middle of the blizzard.

And the roundup,
New York Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner’s fuzzy math . . . and bad language.

Worries about the direction of the Tea Party movement

Jim Treacher’s knee: This pretty much covers what we know so far about the vehicular assault on my person, including a ticket for jaywalking?

Humor: Breaking News: Joseph Lieberman Announces Run For Obama’s White House!

William Jacobson’s New Project: Patrick Kennedy Must Go

Holder’s Ignorance of Terrorism

The Damage of the Anti-vaccination Movement

Now that you’re all grown up and mom’s not there (assuming you either live away from mom, or she never goes to the basement where she lets you stay), you can get a gadget to nag you when you’re slouching by the laptop:
USB Posture Alert Reminder

Yes, thanks to modern technology, for $22 plus shipping you too can get nagging like mom used to make.

Hat tip TigerHawk, who curiously thinks this is “Cool”.

I had the pleasure of being a guest in Minnesota NPR’s In The Loop. We talked about Argentina’s Central Bank crisis: Their mess, or ours too?

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was reconfirmed this week, but it was kind of a squeaker as these things usually go. Lots of folks are wondering if the political pressure he now has on him will compromise the independence he needs to manage the country’s money supply and prevent future financial disasters.

In light of that, what’s going on in Argentina is all the more interesting. President Christina Fernandez has fired — or tried to — the Governor of the Central Bank (their equivalent of the Federal Reserve). It’s a big ol’ mess. We called up Latin America blogger/podcaster Fausta for more details.

Here’s the audio,

You can also subscribe to In The Loop’s network.

In other NPR news, The Anchoress was talking to another NPR station about Madonna and Lady Gaga.

Some people have amazing skills. They can wrap any odd-shaped present to look like a thing of beauty. They can craft a stack of old photos, colored paper and lettering into a beautiful scrapbook. They can bake cookies that will delight you aesthetically and digestively. And they have a sense of direction.

Alas, not I.

The first three skills are not particularly important, but I can not find my way out of a paper bag. I get lost so often I simply allow extra time to get anywhere. It happens so often it doesn’t even bother me.

Behold the Garmin!

My first experience with the Garmin was when a friend of mine (let’s call her D) and I were heading to a mutual friend’s home. D had her Garmin on and it directed us, or should I say, cajoled us, to the correct place without a hitch. Considering that the location was several miles away in a suburb with many turns, I was impressed at the ease and simplicity.

Later on I rode as a passenger in other friends’ cars and they, too, had GPS gadgets which got us there in no time.

While I lack crafts skills, I love gadgets. Gadgets do cool things and all you have to do is plug them. Good.

By now, I saw the advantages to owning a GPS gadget.

Then recently I got lost (as I normally do) trying to get to someone’s house, and decided to take the plunge and get a Garmin. No, I didn’t check Consumers’ Reports or anyone. I just drove myself to Best Buy – mercifully I had been there enough times that I could get there without getting lost – and got the Garmin on display on the aisle.

Bought the Garmin, and been using it for the past week. Love it! Did not get lost once in the entire week.

However, I switched the female voice – “Barbara”, to the British male voice – “Daniel.” “Barbara” sounds like she’s nagging when she insists that you TURN RIGHT or TURN LEFT, tetchy when you’re approaching an intersection, and downright bitter when you take a different route forcing her to go into RECALCULATING mode.

“Daniel” keeps his cool, aloof tone all throughout. Not sure why they call him “Daniel.” Instead, he sounds a lot like this guy,

However, maybe “Daniel” is named after C3PO’s voice, Anthony Daniels.

Either way, it’s nice to have him in the car.

From Obama’s speech:

It’s time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office.

With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign corporations –- to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.) I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. (Applause.) They should be decided by the American people.

Justice Alito mouthed “Not true” to that statement:

Bradley Smith explains why the President is wrong:

Tonight the president engaged in demogoguery of the worst kind, when he claimed that last week’s Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, “open[ed] the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.”

The president’s statement is false.

The Court held that 2 U.S.C. Section 441a, which prohibits all corporate political spending, is unconstitutional. Foreign nationals, specifically defined to include foreign corporations, are prohibiting from making “a contribution or donation of money or ather thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State or local election” under 2 U.S.C. Section 441e, which was not at issue in the case. Foreign corporations are also prohibited, under 2 U.S.C. 441e, from making any contribution or donation to any committee of any political party, and they prohibited from making any “expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication… .”

This is either blithering ignorance of the law, or demogoguery of the worst kind.

It was certainly unexpected (to borrow a frequently used word) to have a President badmouth a Constitutional decision: Randy Barnett,

In the history of the State of the Union has any President ever called out the Supreme Court by name, and egged on the Congress to jeer a Supreme Court decision, while the Justices were seated politely before him surrounded by hundreds Congressmen? To call upon the Congress to countermand (somehow) by statute a constitutional decision, indeed a decision applying the First Amendment? What can this possibly accomplish besides alienating Justice Kennedy who wrote the opinion being attacked. Contrary to what we heard during the last administration, the Court may certainly be the object of presidential criticism without posing any threat to its independence. But this was a truly shocking lack of decorum and disrespect towards the Supreme Court for which an apology is in order. A new tone indeed.

In that sense, you can call Obama’s speech “historic”.

More discussion on the State of the Union Address with special guest Moe Lane in this morning’s podcast at 11AM Eastern.

Sing it!

Marc Thiessen

Thiessen, figuratively, picks up Amanpour, turns her over, and uses her to mop up the water left over from her failed attempt at an interview waterboarding of him.

He uses her own words while at it:

A stunned Amanpour … was left momentarily speechless as Thiessen pulled out a transcript from a 2008 CNN broadcast from the Khmer Rouge prison S-21, where Amanpour had stood before a picture of Khmer Rouge torturers drowning an innocent Cambodian in a vat of water, and declared that the CIA had done the same thing to terrorists in its custody.

Thiessen told Amanpour, “There have been so many so misstatements told about the enhanced interrogation techniques, comparing them to the Spanish Inquisition and the Khmer Rouge, and I have to tell you Christiane, you are one of the people who have spread these mistruths.”

An incredulous Amanpour replied, “Excuse me?”

Thiessen pulled out a transcript of her story from her visit to S-21, and said “Let me read to you what you said.” He then quoted Amanpour’s report:

“I stared blankly at another of Van Nath’s paintings. This time a prisoner is submerged in a life-size box full of water, handcuffed to the side so he cannot escape or raise his head to breathe. His interrogators, arrayed around him, are demanding information. I asked Van Nath whether he had heard this was once used on America’s terrorist suspected. He nodded his head. ‘It’s not right.”

Thiessen told Amanpour, “That is completely false.” Amanpour asked, “That’s false?” Thiessen told her, “We did not submerge people in a box of water.” Amanpour replied, “Excuse me a second, that is called waterboarding.” “No it’s not,” Thiessen replied. Amanpour tried to turn to the other guest, left-wing author Philippe Sands, but Thiessen pressed his point: “Christiane you are absolutely wrong. 14,000 people killed in S-21. Seven survivors …” But Amanpour cut him off, “Excuse me, you are trying to obfuscate the debate. That prison was full of images of water torture.” Thiessen responded, “Which is nothing like what the CIA did. Do you have any evidence …” Amanpour cut him again off to go Sands, after which Amanpour tried to change the subject.

But Thiessen pressed her: “I want to answer this, because it is very important. What you said was not waterboarding but a barrel filled with water. You have no evidence whatsoever that the CIA did what you said they did.”

Amanpour insisted that there was no difference between what she had described and what the CIA did. “Dipping people’s heads in water to simulate drowning. Period. End of story.” But as Thiessen explains in his new book, Courting Disaster, the Khmer Rouge not “simulate drowning” at S-21 – they actually drowned their victims. Only 7 of the 14,000 people who entered S-21 emerged alive.

In the shocking new book released this week, Thiessen takes Amanpour and other public figures to task for making false and shameful comparisons between the CIA and the torturers of murderous regimes like the Khmer Rouge. Among those Thiessen exposes for their lies and misstatements are Attorney General Eric Holder, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Christopher Dodd, Dick Durbin, former White House Special Counsel Lanny Davis, Atlantic Monthly blogger Andrew Sullivan and others.

Thiessen systematically dismantles their arguments, and shows how the “techniques used by the CIA bear no resemblance to the techniques used by the Inquisitors of the Middle Ages or the murderous regimes cited by the critics.”

Here is the YouTube

Part 2 here

Or, as Scott Johnson put it,

Indeed, the assertion that the interrogation techniques included torture has become an article of faith among the true believing left, among whom we must count the execrable Phillippe Sands. Paul Mirengoff recognized Sands as dishonest journalist of the year in 2008, when the competition was particularly stiff. Among the true believing left we must also count the ludicrous Christiane Amanpour of CNN. Amanpour is also dishonest, but she’s not very smart either. If I had to choose between being waterboarded or having to listen to Sands and Amanpour for a protracted period of time, I’d need to think it over.

Marc Thiessen’s book is Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack.

… because of a sinus headache!
Thank you for your patience.

Those of us old enough to remember the 1970s will remember a best-selling book, and a Time Magazine article, Science: Another Ice Age?, which, if memory serves, made it to the cover of several other magazines, predicting an ice age right around the corner.

Back then I lived in Puerto Rico, which was hot and humid, so I thought an ice age might not be entirely unwelcome. Once the talk about global warming started I was already living in the US, and a warmer winter season would be welcome, too.

Alas, now that global warming has been proved to be a scam, and there’s severely cold weather all over the world (Seville is under snow for the first time in 50 years, and Florida’s oranges are freezing), it looks like The mini ice age starts here

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.

Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in
summer by 2013.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.

The scientists’ predictions also undermine the standard climate computer models, which assert that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise.

They say that their research shows that much of the warming was caused by oceanic cycles when they were in a ‘warm mode’ as opposed to the present ‘cold mode’.

The scientists involved are now able to measure ocean temperatures 3,000ft beneath the surface, where the cooling and warming cycles start. Let’s hope they kept their records, didn’t dump the data, and conserved their programming code.

And,

This challenge to the widespread view that the planet is on the brink of an irreversible catastrophe is all the greater because the scientists could never be described as global warming ‘deniers’ or sceptics.

In the meantime, don’t invest in Al Gore’s carbon trade scam. Instead, I recommend buying lots of polartec socks.