It was great to welcome back to Pundit Review Radio one of our favorite commentators on politics and culture, Michael Medved. Michael’s talk radio show is syndicated nationally, he is author of several best-selling books and is, of course, one of America’s best known film critics.
Home for only two hours following a 25-hour return trip from Israel to Seattle, Michael was very generous with his time tonight. We had a great discussion about Israel, the attitude of its people, their booming economy, how they feel about Iraq and Iran. In many ways, life in Israel is good but the public mood is sour. Just like here. We also talked about the broader situation in the Middle East and the domestic insurgency in Congress and Hollywood.
All of our interviews are also available for download at iTunes and Podcast Alley via the Pundit Review Radio Podcast.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week Kevin and Gregg give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Hailed as “Groundbreaking†by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 7-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
William Gray is a professor emeritus in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University and a research fellow at the Independent Institute, who has issued Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecasts for the past 24 years.
Here is what he says to those who claim like Al Gore and other global warming alarmists that there is a direct link between the post-1995 upswing in Atlantic hurricanes and global warming brought on by human-induced greenhouse gas increases:
The hypothesis that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the number of hurricanes fails by an even wider margin when we compare two other multi-decade periods: 1925-1965 and 1966-2006. In the 41 years from 1925-1965, there were 39 U.S. land-falling major hurricanes. In the 1966-2006 period there were 22 such storms — only 56% as many. Even though global mean temperatures have risen by an estimated 0.4 Celsius and CO2 by 20%, the number of major hurricanes hitting the U.S. declined.
So what has caused the increase you may be asking yourself? It is somewhat technical but interesting nevertheless:
My Colorado State University colleagues and I attribute the increase in hurricane activity to the speed-up of water circulating in the Atlantic Ocean. This circulation began to strengthen in 1995 — at exactly the same time that Atlantic hurricane activity showed a large upswing.
Here’s how it works. Though most people don’t realize it, the Atlantic Ocean is land-locked except on its far southern boundary. Due to significantly higher amounts of surface evaporation than precipitation, the Atlantic has the highest salinity of any of the global oceans. Saline water has a higher density than does fresh water. The Atlantic’s higher salinity causes it to have a continuous northward flow of upper-ocean water that moves into the Atlantic’s polar regions, where it cools and sinks due to its high density. After sinking to deep levels, the water then moves southward, and returns to the Atlantic’s southern fringes, where it mixes again. This south-to-north upper-level water motion, and compensating north-to-south deep-level water motion, is called the thermohaline circulation (THC).
The strength of the Atlantic’s THC shows distinct variations over time, due to naturally occurring salinity variations. When the THC is strong, the upper-ocean water becomes warmer than normal; atmospheric circulation changes occur; and more hurricanes form. The opposite occurs when the THC is weaker than average.
Since 1995, the Atlantic’s THC has been significantly stronger than average. It was also stronger than average during the 1940s to early 1960s — another period with a spike in major hurricane activity. It was distinctly weaker than average in the two quarter-century periods of 1970-1994 and 1900-1925, when there was less hurricane activity.
Since Al Gore produced his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” to start a vital debate about man-made “global warming,” I am sure that he would debate professor Gray concerning whether the increasing number of hurricanes experienced during the past 12 years is the result of human induced carbon emissions as Gore claims in his movie.
entire article here
James Taranto of Opinion Journal Online has a great piece today (subs req) entitled “It Didn’t Happen” and serves as a clear reminder that Democrats are ill prepared to defend America and Western Civilization from the Jihadist Threat we today face- not to mention a blithe disregard for the potential bloodbath that would ensue in Iraq if America were to precipitously withdraw troops as Murtha, Reid, Pelosi, and the NY Times Editorial Board have called for.
Obama last week in an interview with the AP had this to say of a proposed Iraq withdrawal:
“Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done,” Mr. Obama told the AP. “We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven’t done. Those of us who care about Darfur don’t think it would be a good idea.”
Taranto correctly points out the inherent flaw in Obama’s convoluted “reasoning.”
Mr. Obama is engaging in sophistry. By his logic, if America lacks the capacity to intervene everywhere there is ethnic killing, it has no obligation to intervene anywhere — and perhaps an obligation to intervene nowhere. His reasoning elevates consistency into the cardinal virtue, making the perfect the enemy of the good. Further, he elides the distinction between an act of omission (refraining from intervention in Congo and Darfur) and an act of commission (withdrawing from Iraq). The implication is that although the U.S. has had a military presence in Iraq since 1991, the fate of Iraqis is not America’s problem.
Making a similar plea for withdrawal Senator “botched joke” Kerry (who served in Viet Nam by the way), had this to say:
We heard that argument over and over again about the bloodbath that would engulf the entire Southeast Asia, and it didn’t happen,” he said recently.
Excuse me but is Senator Kerry smoking some of that tai stick that he may have picked up in that Christmas in Cambodia he so clearly remembers?
It “didn’t happen” Senator? And this guy was within about 150,000 votes of the Oval Office?
In case you have forgotten Senator Kerry, here is what “didn’t happen.”
In 1973, the U.S. withdrew its troops from Vietnam, as Mr. Kerry had urged. In December 1974, the Democratic Congress ended military aid to South Vietnam. In April 1975, Saigon fell. According to a 2001 investigation by the Orange County Register, Hanoi’s communist regime imprisoned a million Vietnamese without charge in “re-education” camps, where an estimated 165,000 perished. “Thousands were abused or tortured: their hands and legs shackled in painful positions for months, their skin slashed by bamboo canes studded with thorns, their veins injected with poisonous chemicals, their spirits broken with stories about relatives being killed,” the Register reported. Laos and Cambodia also fell to communists in 1975. Time magazine reported in 1978 that some 40,000 Laotians had been imprisoned in re-education camps…The postwar horrors of Vietnam and Laos paled next to the “killing fields” of Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge undertook an especially vicious revolution. During that regime’s 3½-year rule, at least a million Cambodians, and perhaps as many as two million, died from starvation, disease, overwork or murder. The Vietnamese invaders who toppled the Khmer Rouge in 1979 were liberators, albeit only by comparison.
For a party that claims to represent the downtrodden and disadvantaged, Democrats display an unsettling and almost eerie apathy and disregard to the possibility of genocide in Iraq.
For politicians like Obama and Kerry who are often portrayed by the media as intelligent, they sure do have short memories.
Hollywood used to like a good patriotic storyline during wartime. Not anymore. They are about to release an avalanche of movies portraying Iraq vets in the worst possible light. Why are they doing this? For the same reasons Democrat politicians declare the surge a failure before it has begun, the same reason they declare the mission lost and give aid and comfort to our enemies. For cheap political points. At least they are not shy about it.
“Media in general responds much more quickly than ever before,†said Scott Rudin, a producer of “Stop-Loss.†“Why shouldn’t movies do the same?†He said his film was deliberately scheduled to be released in the middle of the presidential campaign season.
Today’s New York Times gives us a warning, er, preview of the coming distractions,
While Real Bullets Fly, Movies Bring War Home
Other coming films also use the damaged Iraq veteran to raise questions about a continuing war. In “Grace Is Gone,†directed by James C. Strouse and due in October from the Weinstein Company, John Cusack and two daughters struggle with the loss of a wife and mother who is killed on duty. Kimberly Peirce’s “Stop-Loss,†set for release in March by Paramount, meanwhile, casts Ryan Phillippe as a veteran who defies an order that would send him back to Iraq.
…In October, for example, New Line Cinema will release “Rendition,†in which Reese Witherspoon plays a woman whose Egyptian-born husband is snared by a runaway counterterrorism apparatus. Paul Greengrass, the director of “The Bourne Ultimatum,†in which the bad guys belong to a similar rogue unit, is adapting Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book about the Green Zone in Baghdad, “Imperial Life in the Emerald City,†for Universal Pictures.
Brian De Palma’s “Redacted,†focusing on an Army squad that persecutes an Iraqi family, is to be released in December by Magnolia Pictures. And Sony Pictures is developing a film based on the story of Richard A. Clarke, the former national security official and Bush administration critic.
Among the new films, “Valley of Elah†is sure to be one of the most closely examined, thanks to Mr. Haggis’s credentials — he shared an Oscar for writing “Million Dollar Baby†and was nominated for another as co-writer of “Letters From Iwo Jima†— and because of his opposition to United States policy in Iraq.
“This is not one of our brighter moments in America,†Mr. Haggis said in a telephone interview from London, where he is still working on the film’s music. “We should not have gotten involved.â€
These Hollywood people disgust me. They have never met anyone who doesn’t agree with their world view. They live in a giant echo chamber. People don’t want to see this crap. Who are they kidding. It used to be that people like Jason Dunham and Paul Ray Smith would be the subjects of Hollywood movies. You know, actual war heroes. Not today. Like the MSM, they have no use for the true, inspirational stories of of the men and women fighting for us around the world.
This is exactly why we contacted Blackfive and asked him if we could bring his Someone You Should Know series to the radio. You can listen to dozens of stories about the amazing achievements, bravery, courage and valour of our soldiers, Marines and airmen here.
Screw Hollywood.
We always welcome the opportunity to speak with retired Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson. Buzz served his country with distinction for two decades and offers an uncommon combination of military experience, political access and unfiltered opinions. For two year's during the Clinton administration, he carried the nuclear football. He had tremendous first-hand experience with the Clinton's and he doesn't hold them in high regard at all.
The Amazon book description serves as a guidepost for the interview,
Lieutenant Colonel Robert “Buzz” Patterson (USAF, Ret.) lays bare the Left’s campaign against their own nation’s armed forces; in the media, on campuses, in popular culture, in Washington, and elsewhere, revealing:
The roots of liberal enmity toward our military
The five liberal lies about the war on terror
How the mainstream media, Hollywood, and academia perpetuate these myths
How liberal politicians engage in seditious acts for political gain, and what the costs of these acts are
How America can and must defeat the liberal assault on America’s ability to defend itself against its enemies
All of our interviews are also available for download at iTunes and Podcast Alley via the Pundit Review Radio Podcast.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week Kevin and Gregg give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Hailed as “Groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 7-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
The Socialist-Democrats have been shouting from the rooftops that “We lost the War in Iraq.” Trying to replicate their success in Viet Nam where the Leftist anti-war politicians, activists, and those within the media told the American people that we lost (most notably lying about the VC’s victory in the Tet Offensive when it was actually a US Military Victory), Harry, Nancy, and the rest of the domestic insurgent Democrats (and to be fair a few linguine spined liberal Republicans) have been declaring defeat in Iraq for months now (actually for years) to dispirit public morale in an effort to ensure retreat and defeat-especially a defeat for the man who consumes their every thought George W. Bush.
But this time around we actually have an alternative media (blogs, independent citizen journalists who actually embed with the troops, talk radio, and cable) to provide a semblance of balance and fair reporting to the American people. It looks as though the scales are tipping in Iraq. And I for one am glad to see significant progress being made. As I have said before on many occasions, the only thing that can inhibit US Military victory in Iraq and elsewhere, is the left leaning media and politicians who are fully invested in our defeat in Iraq.
So for those of you libs who have been saying that no “progress” has been made in Iraq you may want to consider what is actually happening there.
My friend David Limbaugh has this piece in today’s Townhall.com.
Very good news is coming out of Iraq. Not surprisingly, this hasn’t caused a change of heart among the Democratic leadership. It hasn’t even given them pause. One wonders if they are capable of hearing such news anymore.
The Times Online reports that Al Qaeda is facing rebellion from within its ranks. Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a persons face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of Al Qaeda are daring to become informants for the U.S. military in a hostile Baghdad neighborhood.
Some of these junior Al Qaeda members are said to be repulsed by the gratuitous, barbaric violence. One said, I am sick of it and I hate them, and I am done.
The good news doesn’t stop here. Al Qaeda is not only facing internal dissension, but evidence is also emerging that other ethnic forces formerly friendly to Al Qaeda are changing their tune. Iraqi locals are denying Al Qaeda the sanctuary they need to operate. Lt. Col Stephen Michael, commander of a 700-troop battalion in Doura, says, Al Qaeda’s days are numbered, and right now he is scrambling.
This news, says the Times, comes out of Doura. But it is part of a wider trend that has started in other Al Qaeda hot spots across the country and in which Sunni insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs have stood together with the coalition against the extremist movement.
The Left was wrong about the Bush Tax Cuts and now it is becoming increasingly apparent that they will be proven wrong on Iraq.
From the coalition of Shia and Sunni Shieks opposing AQ (brokered by the 1st Cavalry Div in Taji), to Falahal being totally calm, to Anbar province where violence in Ramadi has declined from 22 enemy incidents per week to 2/wk, to Baqouba where Operation Arrowhead Ripper has driven out 1000 AQ, to greater numbers of trained Iraqis fighting and dying, we are MAKING SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS IN IRAQ. GOT THAT HARRY? GOT IT NANCY? GOT THAT TEDDY AND JOHN “our troops are terrorizing women and children in Iraq” Kerry? Despite your overt and profoundly treacherous behavior we are winning. Now go back and do what you do best, go draft some legislation for raising taxes or expansion of some government entitlement program for illegals. Do whatever you have to but let the military do the job we have entrusted to them.
Two weeks ago we had the pleasure of spending an hour talking to Darryl Sharratt, father of recently exonerated Haditha Marine Justin Sharratt. We also welcomed Haditha investigator Tim Harrington and blogger Gary Gross from Let Freedom Ring to give us their perspective. It was a great discussion that got to the heart of the three most important issues in the Haditha case,
The imapct on the Marines and their families
The actions of Congressman John Murtha and,
The problems with the investigation itself
Below is an email from Darryl Sharratt recapping his recent phone conversation with John Murtha. Needless to say, it was not a pleasant conversation.
Throughout this Haditha investigation our family has believed in the innocence of our son LCpl Justin Sharratt; we knew he was innocent. There are things I do not understand and I would like to find the answers. We do not seek revenge, but we would like to see justice. In a conversation with Congressman John Murtha, my questions still remain unanswered. With the help of the American people, I hope to find justice.
On Wednesday morning, July 17th I spoke with Congressman John Murtha via telephone from his Washington, DC office. We had a courteous conversation. I knew what to expect from a career politician and Congressman Murtha did not disappoint. Mr. Murtha avoided answering the hard questions and I was unable to press him for the answers. I wanted the conversation to remain amicable and decided to let him speak and avoid a heated confrontation.
At no time during the dialogue would Mr. Murtha acknowledge the impending exoneration of my son. I pressed him to use the word exoneration but the best I could get was “things seem to have gone well in your son’s Article 32. The General is a fair man and I believe he will do the right thing.†I replied, “Lt. Col Paul Ware presented a strong recommendation for exoneration and we are anticipating Lt. Gen James Mattis following this recommendation.â€
Mr. Murtha asked me if I had served in the military. He recalled his visits with injured Marines, soldiers and sailors. He said he supports our troops and it is the war he does not condone. Mr Murtha believes combat operations in Iraq have put an enormous strain on our Armed Forces. The stress of combat situations has led our troops to kill innocent civilians. I pointed out to Mr. Murtha, “Our Haditha Marines are innocent until proven guilty.†It seems he is again denying our Marines their Constitutional rights of due process and the presumption of innocence. Mr. Murtha replied that we have a Marine(Mendoza) testifying that innocent women and children were killed in Haditha. I retorted that he is again believing the reports of the media and Mendoza was granted immunity for his lies. Mendoza has changed his testimony at least two times. NCIS may have threatened him with deportation and denial of US citizenship. This time I scolded him, “I witnessed their (NCIS) conduct first hand in my son’s Article 32.â€
I questioned Congressman Murtha as to his statements of 17 May 2006. On national television, in front of millions of Americans, he stated “Marines killed innocent civilians in cold blood.†I asked him why he denied these Marines their Constitutional rights of due process and the presumption of innocence. Again the Congressman used his experience to side step the answer. Mr. Murtha stated his intentions were to point out the stress our military was under in Iraq. He replied we would not win the hearts of the Iraqi people by killing women and children. I again snapped, “Our Haditha Marines have not been convicted of killing innocents and are innocent until proven guilty.â€
I believe this conversation was the first step in obtaining justice for Our Haditha Marines. I did not expect Mr. Murtha to admit to or apologize for any wrongdoing in his role to railroad my son and his Marine comrades. The American people now know that his unfounded and untruthful allegations were used to further his political agenda. It is my intention to ask the Congress of the United States to censure Representative John Murtha and hold hearings to explain his conduct in respect to the Haditha incident. I will ask the American people to question his blatant disregard for the Constitutional rights of Our Haditha Marines. I will campaign to the voters of Pa Congressional District 12 to oust Representative Murtha from his elected office. The American people deserve better, we must demand better representation from our elected officials.
Darryl Sharratt
Proud American, Proud father of LCpl Justin L. Sharratt
Let Freedom Ring has much more here.