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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; series</title>
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		<title>The Final Truth of True Detective</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/andrew-klavan/the-final-truth-of-true-detective/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-final-truth-of-true-detective</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/andrew-klavan/the-final-truth-of-true-detective/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Mar 2014 04:55:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Andrew Klavan]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cohle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[klavan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nic Pizzolatto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[series]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[True Detective]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220795</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Time turns out not to be a flat circle.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/tf.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-220858" alt="tf" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/tf-450x239.jpg" width="450" height="239" /></a>Lots of spoilers here.</p>
<p>Given the nearly ecstatic reactions that greeted HBO’s <i>True Detective</i> in some quarters, it seems almost surly of me to say that I found it a good, generally entertaining show but not a great one.  That, however, was my final reaction. The list of pros and cons that I began with in my first blog held pretty much valid throughout. The style, structure and especially acting were all superb, giving the show the <i>feeling</i> of something great. But the plotting was unoriginal and finally rather bland and the showy philosophizing ultimately delivered less than met the eye (more on that below).</p>
<p>On top of this, while the final chase sequence had a wonderfully cool setting, I — and several people I asked — found it strangely lacking in any sort of suspense or emotion. At the end of the first season of <i>Dexter</i>, I remember actually standing up from the couch I was so tense and involved. Here, I mostly felt impatient to get on with it. I’m not sure why this should’ve been so. Maybe the heroes had become representative philosophical tropes rather than human beings, or maybe it was simply that they were both such isolated depressives that it didn’t really matter even to them whether they lived or died. Certainly the villain added nothing to the piece and the portentously referential conspiracy never really paid off. Carcosa, my eye.</p>
<p>In any case, to the very end, I kept wanting to love this series but only liked it. But then liking a show is no small thing. Indeed, while I suspect a lot of the over-the-top enthusiasm for the series was event-generated rather than content-generated, there’s nothing particularly wrong with that. The fact that the show was interesting enough to blog about and discuss and disagree over was a source of pleasure. I don’t want to seem negative about it at all. Watching was a fun experience.</p>
<p>As to the final dispensation of Matthew McConaughey’s nihilist detective Rust Cohle: my response was somewhat divided.</p>
<p>At the end of the story, Cohle has a redeeming mystical experience. Near death, or possibly beyond the border, he finds that his identity contains an irreducible and presumably eternal aspect that is bound together with everyone that he has ever loved. The only truly mystical experience of my own life was very similar (sans the whole stabbed-by-a-serial-killer business) so while the revelation struck me as a bit sudden and unearned, I certainly could identify with it.</p>
<p>But if you were paying attention to Cohle’s various philosophical speeches throughout the series, you know that this mystic moment, if we take it seriously, negates every single word he’s previously spoken. In the light of Cohle’s experience, it can no longer reasonably be held true that identity is an illusion gratefully surrendered at death, or that humanity is a tragic misstep in evolution, or even that time is a flat circle. Since it turns out we are, in fact, engaged in an eternal struggle between light and dark, Cohle has basically been talking complete crap this entire time.</p>
<p>This certainly explains the character’s central inconsistency: that, while a nihilist, he is obsessed with doing good and finding justice. It also explains why he drinks so much, since booze alleviates the tension of maintaining a philosophy that deep down we know to be untrue. Cohle’s revelation also makes us, the audience, feel that we have been engaged with an authorial voice that is bigger than its central character. This always broadens and deepens a work of art because it frees us from the oppressive sense that we are being lectured by an author who thinks he possesses the Absolute Truth — which we, of course, know he cannot.</p>
<p>So I not only personally approved of this plot turn, I also appreciated it.</p>
<p>And yet, on another level, I couldn’t help feeling that the religion Cohle was discovering here was the religion of elitism, what we might call Snobianity:  the belief that only a vague mystic spirituality amenable to the analytic maundering of intellectuals can possibly be held valid. (Atheist Sam Harris seems to me one of the high priests of this cult.) Why else did every simple Christian in the show turn out to be a loser or a child-molesting murderer? After all, it seems possible that even someone as stupid as a Christian might be just as linked to eternal love in the afterlife as an intellectual. The only difference is:  the stupid Christian knows it’s true beforehand, while the intellectual is likely to be taken by surprise.</p>
<p>It was almost as if writer Nic Pizzolatto wanted Cohle to have his hip, urbane, cynical persona and his mystic revelation too.  But of course the latter trumps the former entirely and renders hipness, urbanity and cynicism morally worthless.</p>
<p>Just saying.</p>
<p>Anyway, my final review: great acting and great style in a generally enjoyable show.</p>
<p><strong>Previous Blogs on the Series:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part I: <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/andrew-klavan/the-real-mystery-of-hbos-true-detective/">The Real Mystery of HBO’s ‘True Detective’</a>.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part II: <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/andrew-klavan/who-is-the-true-detective/">Who Is The True Detective?</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part III: <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/andrew-klavan/the-babes-of-true-detective/">The Babes of True Detective.</a></strong></p>
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		<title>The Real Mystery of HBO’s &#8216;True Detective&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/andrew-klavan/the-real-mystery-of-hbos-true-detective/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-real-mystery-of-hbos-true-detective</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/andrew-klavan/the-real-mystery-of-hbos-true-detective/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Feb 2014 05:51:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Andrew Klavan]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HBO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michelle Monaghan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pizzolatto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[series]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[True Detective]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=219697</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Despite stunning style and performances, the question remains:  Is this show any good?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/true-detective-poster.gif"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-219723" alt="true-detective-poster" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/true-detective-poster.gif" width="280" height="374" /></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The biggest mystery at the center of the new HBO crime series </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">True Detective</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> is this: is this a good show or not? When the first episode ended, I thought, “I don’t know if that was great or mediocre.” Six of eight episodes in, I’m still not at all sure.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In part, this is a problem endemic to mystery stories: endings are dispositive. AMC’s </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Killing</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> had everything it took to be a great crime series — acting, atmosphere, intelligence, suspense — until the idiotic solutions rendered it second rate. The ending of </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Crime and Punishment</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> secures the novel’s status as a work of genius, whereas the ending of Woody Allen’s attempt to nullify </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Crime and Punishment —</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Match Point — </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">reveals the film as nothing deeper than you would expect from a really smart undergrad philosophizing over pizza and beer.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So we may not know the full truth about </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">True Detective </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">until the final hour’s close. But how’s it doing so far?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Well, it has big shoes to fill, first of all. The show was clearly set up by HBO — and has already been hailed by some — as the next great crime show in this era of great crime shows. After </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Shield, The Wire, The Sopranos, Dexter, Breaking Bad</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> and </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Justified</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, man, I set my DVR for this baby before the promo announcer reached the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">tive</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> in </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Detective</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. And I wanted to love it. And I still want to love it. And I sometimes feel like I almost love it. And I might come to love it. But I don’t love it yet.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So as a crime writer and a crime story fan, I’m going to try to get to the bottom of this phenomenon in a series of blogs. In this first one, let me list what I see as the basic pros and cons. There will be spoilers.</span></p>
<p>The Pros.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The style: it looks great. Director Cary Joji Fukunaga is doing a fantastic job conjuring up a Louisiana wasteland where the bayou laps at the edge of something that’s not quite civilization.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The structure: Two cops are interviewed in 2012 about a crime that occurred in 1995. So we simultaneously get to see our heroes in the bloom of youth and at the beginning of their decline, each period informing our idea of the other; very cool.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The acting: toss a couple of parts like this to Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson and it’s feeding time in the lion’s den. They’re a joy to watch and almost obscure the fine performance being turned in by the underused Michelle Monaghan as Harrelson’s put-upon wife and a wonderfully subtle smaller turn by Shea Whigham as a tent preacher.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Cons. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Well, the tired plot above all and the even more tired plot elements. A Satanic serial killer who poses his victims? Really? Evil-doing religious people who molest children? Boy, I never saw </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">that</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> before! A corrupt Billy Graham type? It is to snore. Nothing surprises. Nothing is new. Even the writer Nic Pizzolatto said in an interview, “I’m not interested in serial killers. I certainly have no desire to get into some kind of creative competition for who can think of the most disgusting serial killer.” Well, fine — then come up with something fresh. That’s the job. Quite often, this strikes me as a crime story for people who never watch or read crime stories.</span></p>
<p>The pros and cons came crashing together in one stunning set piece at the end of episode four. Here’s the set up. Our detectives, Harrelson’s Marty Hart and McConaughey’s Rust Cohle, find they have to reach a source in a biker gang. But hey, it just so happens to be the biker gang Cohle used to be undercover with. And hey, it just so happens the bikers never found out he was an undercover cop. So Cohle goes back into the gang, is forced to take a lot of drugs to prove his sincerity and then, to further prove his sincerity, is forced to participate in an armed hold-up which starts a shoot out and race riot. But he manages to drag the source out of the melee.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">What? The plotting is absolutely ridiculous — but then the action sequence is absolutely superb. I don’t mean to be picayune or cranky. I loved the funny, crazy, exciting shoot-out and chase. I just didn’t believe it for a minute. It violated the show’s carefully constructed sense of realism. I was dying to just kick back and enjoy it but the coincidences and absurd reasoning kept taking me out of the moment.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The whole show is kind of like that. At one point, Michelle Monaghan’s character remarks of her husband (I’m quoting from memory): “He didn’t know who he was, so he didn’t know what he wanted.” The same could be said of the series.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But all of this, though basic, is secondary. The real star of </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">True Detective</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> is Pizzolatto, the writer. This is first and foremost a </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">written</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> show and the question behind the question of its quality is this: does Pizzolatto have something really rich to say or is it all just flash and bang?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">More on that in my next installment.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Why Do We Love Superheroes?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/ben-shapiro/why-do-we-love-superheroes/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-do-we-love-superheroes</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/ben-shapiro/why-do-we-love-superheroes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 13 May 2011 04:10:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american love affair]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dime novels]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[green hornet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hero]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iron man series]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[man]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[norse god]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reason]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[series]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[X-Men]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=93068</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The answer lies in our dual needs for clarity and hope.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Thor.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-93172" title="Thor" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Thor.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="592" /></a></p>
<p>This weekend’s box office results showed that Americans need a hero &#8212; preferably, a hero with a large hammer and a bizarre haircut.  <em>Thor</em> cleaned up in theaters across the country, clocking in with a whopping $65.7 million.  The Norse god’s movie debut follows <em>The Green Hornet</em> and precedes both <em>Captain America</em> and <em>The Green Lantern</em>.  It also marks the latest in a decades-long American love affair with superhero movies.</p>
<p>Over the last ten years, superhero movies have exploded in number and popularity.  The 2000s opened with the <em>X-Men</em> series (another <em>X-Men</em> is due out this year); then moved on to the <em>Spiderman </em>series (the next installment is in production); the re-launched <em>Batman </em>series<em> </em>(which spawned <em>The Dark Knight </em>and <em>The Dark Knight Rises</em>, soon to enter theaters); the <em>Hellboy </em>series; the <em>Iron Man </em>series; and the egregious <em>Fantastic Four</em> series.  Then there were the one-offs like <em>Hulk</em>, <em>Catwoman</em>, <em>Daredevil</em>, <em>Watchmen</em>, <em>Kick-Ass</em>, and <em>The Incredibles</em>.</p>
<p>During the 1980s, superhero movies took off, with the rise of the <em>Superman </em>series, and the beginnings of the original <em>Batman </em>series.  During the 1990s, the number and quality of superhero movies seemed to trail off – it’s a long way down from Tim Burton to Joel Schumacher (though Christopher Nolan beats both by a long shot).  Nonetheless, the American superhero has been a constant in pop culture for more than a century, from the dime novels of fast-draw cowboys to the comic books of the incomparable Flash.</p>
<p>Why do we need superheroes in the first place?  Why, in this age of cynicism, do we look to escape to the world of <em>Thor</em>?</p>
<p>The answer lies in our dual needs for clarity and hope.</p>
<p>First, clarity.  The human mind desires clarity above all – that’s why we create mythologies in the first place.  The concept of mythology, in its original sense, meant a narrative attempting to explain mankind’s origins in a rational manner.  Mythology was an attempt to superimpose a reasonable story on a mysterious universe.  Religion is the highest form of mythology (which isn’t to say that it isn’t true, of course).  Certain sorts of mythology are vital to a healthy mind, telling us why things are the way they are, and why certain people are evil and certain people good.</p>
<p>Mythology, however, has been damaged by the “enlightened” Western mind, which supposed that attempted explanations of creation and human nature had to be destroyed.  Darwinism pictured the world as a random place full of odd coincidences springing from nothingness.  It debunked mythology.  Nietzsche dedicated his life to fighting mythology, stating in forceful terms that only when just-so stories were cast aside could man be free.</p>
<p>A world without mythology is disturbing enough.  It is nihilistic in nature – without any explanation of who we are or how we got here, how can we define what to do next?</p>
<p>The left copes with this problem by creating a mythology of its own – a mythology of ends rather than of means which seeks to paint a politically-driven picture of mankind.  “We must have a new mythology,” Hegel wrote, “but this mythology must be in the <em>service of the Ideas</em>, must be a mythology of reason.”</p>
<p>This “mythology of reason” justifies every leftist agenda.  Thus environmentalists create a mythology of environmentalist reason in which the Earth is a precariously fragile planet requiring human sacrifice (population control), self-flagellation (cap-and-trade), and ritual (recycling).  Communists create a mythology of communist reason in which Rousseau-ian man lived in peace and harmony with nature, only to be torn from Gaea and shackled to the bonds of capitalism.  Nazis create a racial origins mythology in which certain areas dominated other areas, and in which certain races were destined to dominate others.  The mythology of reason is highly dangerous.</p>
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		<title>Why Leftists Are Losers</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frontpagemag-com/why-leftists-are-losers/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-leftists-are-losers</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Apr 2011 04:06:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Leftists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[losers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mohammed al dura]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[provocative interviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[satirist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scholar of islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[series]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stanley kurtz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thriller writer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[today]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=90962</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Comedian Evan Sayet joins Jamie Glazov's video series to explain why the political faith attracts the people that it does. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/loser.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-90966" title="loser" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/loser.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="387" /></a></p>
<p>Welcome to FrontPage Close-Up with Jamie Glazov, a new video series    of provocative interviews with the leading thinkers and newsmakers of    our time.</p>
<p>Our guest today is satirist, lecturer and writer, Evan Sayet.<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Post-American-Presidency-Obama-Administrations-America/dp/B004J8HWWI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1301892914&amp;sr=1-1"><em> </em></a></p>
<p>We ran Part II of the interview yesterday. To view it<strong>, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/04/20/to-hate-a-sarah-palin/">click here</a>.</strong><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/04/20/to-hate-a-sarah-palin/http://frontpagemag.com/2011/04/20/to-hate-a-sarah-palin/http://frontpagemag.com/2011/04/20/to-hate-a-sarah-palin/http://frontpagemag.com/2011/04/20/to-hate-a-sarah-palin/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong> </strong><br />
</span></a></p>
<p>To view Part III, see below:</p>
<p><object style="height: 390px; width: 440px;"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/J5TSFSupozU?version=3" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="440" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/J5TSFSupozU?version=3" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"></embed></object></p>
<p><strong>Previous Interviews:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Robert Spencer, </strong>leading scholar of Islam<strong>, </strong><a href="../2011/04/20/2011/04/04/wheres-the-party-at-in-the-muslim-world/">Click Here</a>.<strong><br />
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Raheel Raza, </strong>courageous Muslim reformer, <a href="../2011/04/20/2011/04/19/2011/03/11/a-muslim-reformer-vs-the-ground-zero-mosque/">Click Here</a>.<strong><br />
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Nonie Darwish</strong>, author of <em>Cruel and Usual Punishment</em>, <a href="../2011/04/20/2011/04/19/2011/04/04/2011/02/14/dark-forebodings-for-egypt/">Click Here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Stanley Kurtz, </strong>the author of <em>Radical-in-Chief</em>. <a href="../2011/04/20/2011/04/19/2011/04/04/2011/03/11/2011/02/02/obamas-secret/">Click Here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Philippe Karsenty</strong>, the French media analyst who exposed the Mohammed Al-Dura Fraud: <a href="../2011/04/20/2011/04/19/2011/04/04/2011/03/11/2011/02/14/2010/12/09/the-premiere-of-frontpage-close-up-with-jamie-glazov/">Click Here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Klavan</strong>, world-renowned thriller writer: <a href="../2011/04/20/2011/04/19/2011/04/04/2011/03/11/2011/02/14/2011/01/24/frontpage-close-up-andrew-klavan/">Click Here</a>.</p>
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		<title>To Hate a Sarah Palin</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frontpagemag-com/to-hate-a-sarah-palin/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=to-hate-a-sarah-palin</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frontpagemag-com/to-hate-a-sarah-palin/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Apr 2011 04:51:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Evan Sayet joins Jamie Glazov's video series to explain why leftists revile women who are happy being women.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/sarahpalin.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-90912" title="sarahpalin" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/sarahpalin.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="459" /></a></p>
<p>Welcome to FrontPage Close-Up with Jamie Glazov, a new video series   of provocative interviews with the leading thinkers and newsmakers of   our time.</p>
<p>Our guest today is satirist, lecturer and writer, Evan Sayet.<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Post-American-Presidency-Obama-Administrations-America/dp/B004J8HWWI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1301892914&amp;sr=1-1"><em> </em></a></p>
<p>We ran Part 1 of the interview yesterday. To view it, <strong><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/04/19/why-no-one-likes-bill-maher/">click here</a></strong>.</p>
<p>To see Part II, see below:</p>
<p><object style="height: 390px; width: 440px;"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/m2JNB2oz4u4?version=3" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="440" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/m2JNB2oz4u4?version=3" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"></embed></object></p>
<p>Join us for the third and final segment in <strong><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/04/21/why-leftists-are-losers/">tomorrow&#8217;s issue</a></strong>.</p>
<p><strong>Previous Interviews:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Robert Spencer, </strong>leading scholar of Islam<strong>, </strong><a href="../2011/04/04/wheres-the-party-at-in-the-muslim-world/">Click Here</a>.<strong><br />
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Raheel Raza, </strong>courageous Muslim reformer, <a href="../2011/04/19/2011/03/11/a-muslim-reformer-vs-the-ground-zero-mosque/">Click Here</a>.<strong><br />
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Nonie Darwish</strong>, author of <em>Cruel and Usual Punishment</em>, <a href="../2011/04/19/2011/04/04/2011/02/14/dark-forebodings-for-egypt/">Click Here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Stanley Kurtz, </strong>the author of <em>Radical-in-Chief</em>. <a href="../2011/04/19/2011/04/04/2011/03/11/2011/02/02/obamas-secret/">Click Here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Philippe Karsenty</strong>, the French media analyst who exposed the Mohammed Al-Dura Fraud: <a href="../2011/04/19/2011/04/04/2011/03/11/2011/02/14/2010/12/09/the-premiere-of-frontpage-close-up-with-jamie-glazov/">Click Here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Klavan</strong>, world-renowned thriller writer: <a href="../2011/04/19/2011/04/04/2011/03/11/2011/02/14/2011/01/24/frontpage-close-up-andrew-klavan/">Click Here</a>.</p>
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		<title>Why No One Likes Bill Maher</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frontpagemag-com/why-no-one-likes-bill-maher/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-no-one-likes-bill-maher</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frontpagemag-com/why-no-one-likes-bill-maher/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Apr 2011 04:47:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=90767</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Comedian Evan Sayet joins Jamie Glazov's video series to unlock one of Hollywood's biggest mysteries.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/bill-maher.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-90768" title="bill-maher" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/bill-maher.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="338" /></a></p>
<p>Welcome to FrontPage Close-Up with Jamie Glazov, a new video series  of provocative interviews with the leading thinkers and newsmakers of  our time.</p>
<p>Our guest today is satirist, lecturer and writer, Evan Sayet.<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Post-American-Presidency-Obama-Administrations-America/dp/B004J8HWWI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1301892914&amp;sr=1-1"><em> </em></a></p>
<p>See Part 1 of the interview below:</p>
<p><object style="height: 390px; width: 440px;"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MJt6PzNQtL4?version=3" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="440" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MJt6PzNQtL4?version=3" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"></embed></object></p>
<p>Join us in our next issue for <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/04/20/to-hate-a-sarah-palin/">Part II</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Previous Interviews:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Robert Spencer, </strong>leading scholar of Islam<strong>, </strong><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/04/04/wheres-the-party-at-in-the-muslim-world/">Click Here</a>.<strong><br />
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Raheel Raza, </strong>courageous Muslim reformer, <a href="../2011/03/11/a-muslim-reformer-vs-the-ground-zero-mosque/">Click Here</a>.<strong><br />
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Nonie Darwish</strong>, author of <em>Cruel and Usual Punishment</em>, <a href="../2011/04/04/2011/02/14/dark-forebodings-for-egypt/">Click Here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Stanley Kurtz, </strong>the author of <em>Radical-in-Chief</em>. <a href="../2011/04/04/2011/03/11/2011/02/02/obamas-secret/">Click Here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Philippe Karsenty</strong>, the French media analyst who exposed the Mohammed Al-Dura Fraud: <a href="../2011/04/04/2011/03/11/2011/02/14/2010/12/09/the-premiere-of-frontpage-close-up-with-jamie-glazov/">Click Here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Klavan</strong>, world-renowned thriller writer: <a href="../2011/04/04/2011/03/11/2011/02/14/2011/01/24/frontpage-close-up-andrew-klavan/">Click Here</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>29</slash:comments>
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		<title>Politically Incorrect Fiction</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidforsmark/politically-incorrect-fiction/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=politically-incorrect-fiction</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidforsmark/politically-incorrect-fiction/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:04:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Forsmark]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=54174</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[New novels challenge the liberal mainstream narrative. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0399156208?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;creative=390957&amp;amp;creativeASIN=0399156208"><img class="size-full wp-image-54196 alignnone" title="I, Sniper" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/isniper.png" alt="" width="375" height="500" /></a></p>
<p>In <em>I, Sniper</em>, Stephen Hunter’s latest thriller, a Vietnam War hero is assumed to be a crazed killer, but a veteran FBI agent smells a rat.</p>
<p>As the agent and his colleague dare to challenge the media&#8217;s &#8220;narrative,” he delivers a wonderful rant that combines critiques of the mainstream press that Thomas Sowell and Bernard Goldberg have advanced:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;The narrative is the set of assumptions the press believes in, possibly without even knowing that it believes in them. It&#8217;s so powerful because it&#8217;s unconscious. It&#8217;s not like they get together every morning and decide &#8216;these are the lies we tell today.&#8217; No, that would be too crude and honest. Rather, it&#8217;s a set of casual non-rigorous assumptions about a reality they&#8217;ve never really experienced that’s arranged in such a way as to reinforce their best and most ideal presumptions about themselves and their importance to the system and the way they&#8217;ve chosen to live their lives. It&#8217;s their way of arranging things a certain way what they all believe in without ever really addressing it carefully. It permeates their whole culture. They <em>know,</em> for example, that Bush is a moron and Obama a saint. They <em>know</em> Communism was a phony threat cooked up by right-wing cranks as a way to leverage power to the executive. They <em>know</em>Saddam didn&#8217;t have weapons of mass destruction, the response to Katrina was f&#8212;-ed up, torture never works, and mad Vietnam sniper Carl Hitchcock killed the saintly peace demonstrators. Cheney’s a devil, Biden’s a genius. &#8230;The story was somewhat suspiciously concocted exactly to their prejudices, just as Jayson Blair&#8217;s made-up stories and Dan Rather&#8217;s Air National Guard documents were. And the narrative is the bedrock of their culture, the keystone of their faith, the altar of their church. They don&#8217;t even know they&#8217;re true believers, because in theory they despise the true believer in anything. But they will absolutely de-frackin-stroy anybody who makes them question all that. &#8230;&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>And this from a fellow who&#8217;s not only a former journalist but also a Pulitzer Prize winner (for his film criticism).</p>
<p>As this long, hard winter (sorry, Al Gore) winds down, here are a few red-hot reading choices to help you stave off that last bit of cabin fever by five authors who dare to challenge the intelligentsia’s conventional wisdom.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416565159?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1416565159">I, Sniper</a><img style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=fronmaga-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=1416565159" border="0" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></strong> by Stephen Hunter</p>
<p>“Someone once defined a newspaper gun story as ‘something with a mistake in it.’&#8221;</p>
<p>While <em>I, Sniper</em> (Simon &amp; Schuster, $26) ostensibly is about iconic hero Bob Lee Swagger taking down snipers who have killed several Vietnam-era radicals and framed a war hero for the crime, Hunter’s crosshairs are really on the mainstream media in general and the New York Times in particular.</p>
<p>Hunter, a former film critic for the Washington Post, obviously is fed up with the media’s narrative about Americans who love their guns and the warriors who fight for our freedom.</p>
<p>After someone has taken out an actress who collaborated with the North Vietnamese and made a fortune out of exercise videos, then shot two Chicago academics who were &#8217;60s domestic terrorists (yes, the resemblance is intentional), FBI agent Nick Memphis has this exchange at a press conference:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Do you have any opinions, special agent, on the use of &#8216;trained killers&#8217; in the military and the risks such men pose for society when they return to civilian world? I mean this seems to dovetail neatly with the report released by the Homeland Security Agency some months ago that &#8211;&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;You must be from the <em>New York Times</em>.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Yes sir,&#8221; the young man said.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is Hunter’s sixth novel featuring Bob Lee Swagger, a combination of Sergeant York and Jack Bauer whom Hunter uses as an archetype of the small town, gun-handy American who does his duty as a matter of course and confounds the bad guys with toughness and know-how.</p>
<p>While the political jabs and media commentary are fun, <em>I, Sniper</em>’s main goal is to entertain, and it does.  In many ways this could be considered the ultimate Swagger tale. If this, indeed, is the final adventure for the 60-something hero with the stainless steel hip, it would be a fitting sendoff.</p>
<p>Though if Bob goes into retirement, I will certainly miss lines like this:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;I sure wouldn&#8217;t want to be in your shoes,&#8221; said Bob. &#8220;I can&#8217;t help out with the papers. Never read ‘em. I get my news from Fox.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0399156208?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0399156208" target="_blank"><strong><em>The Midnight House</em></strong></a><strong> </strong><strong>by Alex Berenson</strong></p>
<p>Speaking of New York&#8217;s Old Gray Lady, former Timesman Alex Berenson certainly hasn&#8217;t adopted the paper’s narrative that the United   States under George W. Bush became a lawless nation of torturing and liberties-violating rogues.</p>
<p>In the press material for <em>The Midnight House</em> (Putnam, $25.95), his latest best-seller, Berenson says:</p>
<blockquote><p>“If you take a fair-minded view of what the United States has actually been doing the last eight to ten years, you really can’t conclude that is torture.  When you’ve got one set of lawyers arguing that someone can be held in a room that is 46 degrees, while another set of lawyers argue it must be at least 48 degrees, you’d be hard pressed to say we’re torturing people.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Berenson also doesn&#8217;t cotton to the so-called experts&#8217; insistence that harsh interrogation techniques don’t work on terrorists.  In <em>The Midnight House</em>, he proposes an effective secret interrogation base in Poland where a group of interrogators goes considerably farther than Americans have actually gone — and his main concern is what the adverse effects might be on the good guys, not the bad &#8216;uns.</p>
<p>The Midnight House has been disbanded by the “new administration,” and someone is killing the retired interrogators one by one. CIA agent John Wells, on a well-deserved vacation after saving the nation from yet another big terrorist strike is put on their trail.</p>
<p>Like all of Berenson’s books, <em>The Midnight House</em> is well-researched, intelligent and suspenseful.  Unlike the others, this is not an action-packed yarn where Wells saves the world from terrorists. Rather, this is more of a whodunit with a jaded look at the bureaucracy that “Homeland Security” has become.</p>
<p>This book is less Vince Flynn and more John LeCarre — if LeCarre weren&#8217;t such a pedantic bore, that is.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0399156135?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0399156135" target="_blank"><strong><em>The First Rule</em></strong></a><strong> </strong><strong>by Robert Crais</strong></p>
<p>Under the media&#8217;s current narrative, private military companies like Blackwater are the bad guys du jour. In Robert Crais’ excellent series of private eye novels, PMC contractor Joe Pike has mostly served as the dark Doc Holliday to series hero Elvis Cole’s Wyatt Earp.</p>
<p><em>The First Rule</em><em> </em>(Simon &amp; Schuster, $26.95) is the second novel featuring Pike, an ex-LAPD patrolman, former Marine, current gun shop owner and sometime mercenary whose protective instincts would even impress Sandra Bullock’s character in <em>The Blind Side.</em></p>
<p>Crais’ recent books have tended to stress the human need for family and the vital role of fatherhood, but Pike here takes on Serbian mobsters whose first rule is the direct opposite &#8212; family is nothing next to the criminal brotherhood.  But when the criminals kill a family that Pike loves, they learn a new primary rule: don’t incur Pike&#8217;s wrath.</p>
<p>The first rule for mystery or suspense fans should be read all the Robert Crais you can get your hands on.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316045187?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0316045187" target="_blank"><strong><em>Hollywood</em></strong><strong><em> Moon</em></strong></a><strong> </strong><strong>by Joseph Wambaugh</strong></p>
<p>In the dark days of the &#8217;60s and &#8217;70s, when “pig” was the word of choice for police among elite radicals, real-life L.A. cop Joseph Wambaugh changed the mainstream narrative with such powerful novels as <em>The New Centurions</em> and nonfiction masterpieces like <em>The Onion Field</em>.  The books were dark enough to appeal to critics but also told the truth about policing in a turbulent era. Wambaugh helped restore cops to their rightful place as American literary heroes (and led to a lot of cops taking writing classes hoping to emulate him.)</p>
<p><em>Hollywood Moon</em> (Little, Brown, $26.99) is the third book in his series about the LAPD&#8217;s wild and woolly Hollywood Station. As Wambaugh examines the near-impossibility of doing good police work under the federal oversight placed on the LAPD after the Rodney King riots, he offers a collection of riotous, bawdy, tawdry and tragic vignettes that one might hear a few beers into a good night in a cop bar; the yarns ofter are tied together with one overriding crime or group of criminals.</p>
<p>In <em>Moon</em>, a hen-pecked identity thief decides to recruit his clueless gopher to kidnap his ruthless wife and find out where she’s been hiding all the money they’ve been scamming.</p>
<p>Think of the usual Wambaugh antics taking place under a full moon, and you’ll get the picture.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061929379?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0061929379" target="_blank"><strong><em>Pirate Latitudes</em></strong></a><strong> </strong><strong>by Michael Crichton</strong></p>
<p>I had to laugh at some of the critics who lamented that <em>Pirate Latitudes </em>(Harper $27.99), Michael Crichton’s last novel, which was posthumously discovered in his computer, was “not up to his usual standards.”  Most of these were the same blowhards who lambasted Crichton for trashing their narrative of man-made global warming in his provocative bestseller, <em>State of Fear</em>.</p>
<p>Crichton’s final novel, however, contains neither a political point nor a warning about the dangers of arrogant technology.  Instead, it’s just a swashbuckling entertainment about a British privateer attacking a Spanish stronghold for king, country&#8211;and a 50 percent share of the booty.</p>
<p><em>Pirate Latitudes</em> has the feel of a very polished first draft or the novelization of an action-packed miniseries, rather than a completed Crichton novel — which makes sense, since it wasn’t.  Still, it&#8217;s a fast moving, thoroughly enjoyable adventure; think <em>The Guns of Navarone</em> meets a Wilbur Smith sea-going swashbuckler. While it may not be as good as either, or up to Crichton’s normal standards, it’s a good, if imperfect, way to say bon voyage to one of the more dominant writers of his generation.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312380429?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0312380429" target="_blank"><strong><em>The Lock Artist</em></strong></a><strong> </strong><strong>by Steve Hamilton</strong></p>
<p>As long as we’re talking about books that have no relation to the topic at hand, I&#8217;d like to take a point of personal privilege. I’ve long been an admirer of Steve Hamilton’s Alex McKnight mystery series set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, describing it as Travis McGee in a cold climate.</p>
<p>After a lackluster stand-alone novel set in upstate New York, Hamilton returns to Michigan for an utterly original thriller set in Milford, one of my favorite small towns in the Detroit metro area.</p>
<p>In <em>The Lock Artist</em> (Minotaur, $25.96) Mike, a mute teenager, is known as “The Miracle Boy” since surviving an infamous atrocity as a toddler. He comes to the attention of an organized crime boss because a high school prank reveals his skill with locks of all kinds to the wrong people.  (On the plus side, it also brings him into contact with the girl of his dreams.)</p>
<p>Like all top thriller writers, Hamilton takes this unusual situation and relates it to everyday emotions and common fears and insecurities, from the longing to fit in, to the satisfaction of being really good at something.</p>
<p>As silent Mike tells his story in flashback from his prison cell, the reader finds an uncommon connection with this anti-hero and will root for him to find redemption.  Even the most jaded mystery readers who think they’ve seen it all will love this one.</p>
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		<title>The Times Finds A Lone Crazed Assassin</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/peter-collier/the-times-finds-a-lone-crazed-assassin-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-times-finds-a-lone-crazed-assassin-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/peter-collier/the-times-finds-a-lone-crazed-assassin-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:05:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter Collier]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=51395</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What the Grey Lady won't tell you about professor Amy Bishop.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/bishop1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51443" title="bishop" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/bishop1.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="347" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Visit <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/">Newsreal</a></strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/us/21bishop.html" target="_blank"><em></em></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/us/21bishop.html" target="_blank"><em>The New York Times</em>’ front page profile</a> on Saturday of professor Amy Bishop, who allegedly executed three University of Alabama Biology Department colleagues after being denied tenure, appears to be an exhaustively reported piece based on “numerous interviews with colleagues and others who knew her.” It portrays Bishop as violent and unpredictable, rejected by Harvard because of mediocre work and shunned by a series of neighbors and co-workers scared off by the suppressed rage that kept bubbling up to the surfaces of her social life, and also someone who may already have gotten away with the murder of her brother years earlier possibly because of her mother’s political connections in her home town of Braintree, Mass.</p>
<div>
<p>“Between brilliance and rage” is the caption of the photo of Bishop used by the<em> Times</em> for the story, although the piece makes no case for the former.  But is this all the news that is fit to print about the perpetrator of this murder spree in academe?  What about the “family source” who told the Boston Herald that Bishop was,</p>
<blockquote><p>“<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=144&amp;type=issue" target="_blank">a far left</a> political activist who was ‘obsessed’ with <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1511" target="_blank">President Obama</a> to the point of being off putting”?</p></blockquote>
<p>What about the student who called her a <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=115&amp;type=issue" target="_blank">“socialist”</a>? What about one report that Bishop complained about a rule issued by University  of Alabama administrators regarding underclassmen living on campus because she believed it was destructive of “diversity.”  And what about the crowning irony of this case, whether or not she made this complaint: that two of the colleagues she allegedly killed were black and one was South Asian, and that Bishop thus wiped out the 14 person Biology department’s entire diversity in one burst of gunfire?</p>
<p>Considering the politics of Bishop’s <em>ressentiment</em> might have helped fill out the Times’ portrait of a psychopathic time bomb who had already gone off several times in her disordered life on her way to the Big Explosion on February 12 in Huntsville. There is no doubt, as the blogosphere has already noted, that the paper would have pursued even the vaguest hint that Bishop had been a fan of Glenn Beck or was a Tea Party fellow traveler as a major story line. For the Grey Lady, only the politics of the Right is personal.</p>
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		<title>Intellectuals and Society</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-wargas/intellectuals-and-society/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=intellectuals-and-society</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-wargas/intellectuals-and-society/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:02:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Wargas]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=49650</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why Thomas Sowell does not put much faith in Ph.D. degrees.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/noamchomsky.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-49655" title="noamchomsky" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/noamchomsky-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>In 1980, during a debate for Milton Friedman’s <em>Free to Choose</em> series, Frances Fox Piven, of Cloward-Piven infamy, tried to lecture Thomas Sowell on race and economics. Her contention was that equality of opportunity had failed and what black people needed was a strong dose of socialism. “That’s why equality of results became an issue…for black people in the United   States,” she said, “and they expressed their concern….”</p>
<p>“No, you expressed it, damn it!” Sowell shot back. “It’s what you choose to put in the mouths of black people.”</p>
<p>The moral of the story is that Thomas Sowell does not put much faith in Ph.D. degrees. Three decades later, at age seventy-nine, he once again pounces on armchair theorists and assorted ivory-tower types in his newest book, <em>Intellectuals and Society</em>. Sowell identifies his targets as “people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas.” In other words, ideas are the finished products of their labor. This category could include writers, philosophers, and the literature professor who thinks <em>Hamlet</em> is about a young man struggling with the horrors of capitalist society.</p>
<p>These intellectuals are different from others not only because of their interests, but because of their method of operation and the incentive structure that comes with it. Unlike carpenters, who produce tangible goods, or scientists, who produce theories that must be tested against results, the dealer in pure ideas is cut off from the normal feedback mechanisms that filter faulty notions out of the intellectual landscape. An auto mechanic who can’t fix transmissions is bound to go out of business, just as a civil engineer who designs a bridge that collapses is apt to suffer some problems with his career.</p>
<p>Not so with intellectuals. “Not only have intellectuals been insulated from material consequences, they have often enjoyed immunity from even a loss of reputation after having been demonstrably wrong.” Their insularity can also lead to dilettantism, as the intellectual is not constrained from wandering into fields completely outside his or her own. The pattern is clear: Chomsky the linguist becomes Chomsky the foreign-policy wonk. Michael Eric Dyson the minister becomes the expert on everything racial. Your anthropology professor becomes an expert on healthcare economics.</p>
<p>Though his main topic is focused, Sowell’s context is wide. He discusses economics, war, the law, the media, politics, and race. For decades, these subjects have been the canvases on which intellectuals have painted their grotesque portraits. Sowell documents not only the disastrous ideas themselves—straight out of the mouths of characters like John Dewey—but discusses why those ideas have failed so miserably.</p>
<p>Sowell is one of the greatest debunkers of our time, capable of laying waste to vast fields of demagoguery through slash-and-burn logic and empiricism. No one throws the wrench in the leftist chain quite like him. The most devastating chapter of the book is the one entitled “Intellectuals and Economics,” in which Sowell obliterates common claims about “income distribution,” poverty, and inequality. His <em>bête noire</em> is the person for whom evidence is merely optional filigree. (Who needs evidence when one is flying under the banner of “social justice”?) Bromides about the “widening gap” between rich and poor don’t consider that individuals are constantly moving between income brackets, as Sowell illustrates. Looking merely at statistical abstractions creates the illusion that “the rich” and “the poor” are merely static, immutable categories, rather than mere classifications through which many different people are constantly passing.</p>
<p>Intellectuals’ perverse desire to see some sort of “plan” imposed on society has made for a decidedly sordid history of their ilk. The Progressives of the early twentieth century, for instance, were bona fide racists, and the academic extension of their ideas was the eugenics movement. It comes as no surprise, then, that the revolutionary creeds of Italian Fascism and German National Socialism were especially intriguing to the intelligentsia, despite their being mislabeled today as “conservative” or “right wing” movements. Sowell reminds us that these ideologies were originally considered left wing by the intellectuals themselves. Lincoln Steffens, who glorified Soviet Communism, also reserved praise for Mussolini. Other radical socialists who shared his sentiments included British novelist H.G. Wells and American historian Charles Beard.</p>
<p>Still more saw the ultimate promise of collectivism in the Nazi movement. During the 1920s, W.E.B. Du Bois, prominent black historical figure and devoted communist, became so fascinated with Nazism that he decorated the magazine he edited with swastikas. This love affair was not a one-night stand, either. As late as 1936, Du Bois remarked that “Germany today is, next to Russia, the greatest exemplar of Marxian socialism in the world.”</p>
<p>The ease with which intellectuals migrate from one squalid “ism” to another has necessitated some revisionism on their part. It was only after the West fully realized the horrors of the Italian and German dictatorships that the intellectual Left disowned them in a massive act of historical face-saving. Writes Sowell: “The heterogeneity of those later lumped together as the right has allowed those on the left to dump into that grab-bag category many who espouse some version of the vision of the left, but whose other characteristics make them an embarrassment to be repudiated.”</p>
<p>If there’s any weakness with the book, it’s that Sowell is himself an intellectual, making it easy for left-wing bloggers to dismiss him even if they can’t refute the book’s arguments. There are differences, however, between this book and the putrid machinations of a Noam Chomsky or a Cornel West: Those intellectuals are so sure of their ideas they have no doubt they’d make the perfect blueprint for society. Sowell, on the contrary, has never advocated anything except leaving people alone. Also, part of intellectuals’ decidedly anti-intellectual strategy, as Sowell points out, is their inoculation against empirical evidence. That socialism killed millions in the twentieth century, and that quasi-socialist policies have wiped out inner cities in America, makes no difference to the tenured cultural studies professor.</p>
<p>Sowell, then, while being an intellectual according to his own definition, is in practice far more scientific and accountable. His awareness of human fallibility is straight out of Burke or Hayek. The absence of this quality in radicals is what makes today’s intellectual climate so uninviting. Sowell writes: “Because the vision of the anointed is a vision of themselves as well as a vision of the world, when they are defending that vision they are not simply defending a set of hypotheses about external events, they are in a sense defending their very souls—and the zeal and even ruthlessness with which they defend their vision are not surprising under these circumstances.”</p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>Robert Wargas is a writer and graduate student who lives on Long Island, NY.</em></p>
<p><strong>To order Intellectuals and Society, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Society-Thomas-Sowell/dp/046501948X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1265783449&amp;sr=1-1">click here</a>. </strong><em><br />
</em></p>
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		<title>The Heretics: Anthony Watts</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/the-heretics-anthony-watts/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-heretics-anthony-watts</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/the-heretics-anthony-watts/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:04:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rich Trzupek]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=49202</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Meet the meteorologist, conservationist and self-styled “green” who is also a leading global warming skeptic. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/anthonywatts.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-49244" title="anthonywatts" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/anthonywatts-298x300.jpg" alt="" width="298" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Given the dogmatic fervor of global warming proponents, and their intolerance of  skeptics who dare to question the latest commandment (see: <a href="../2009/12/10/how-to-stop-cap-and-trade-by-rich-trzupek/">cap-and-trade</a>)  in the green scripture, it is perhaps no coincidence that the environmentalist  movement sometimes seems to have more in common with theology than with science.  If that is true, then the logical word to describe those scientists who have  challenged environmental hysteria and extremism is “heretics.” In a series of  profiles, <em>Front Page’s </em><a href="../author/rich-trzupek/">Rich Trzupek</a> will  spotlight prominent scientists whose “heretical” research, publications, and  opinions have helped add a much-needed dose of balance and fact to environmental  debates that for too long have been driven by fear mongering and alarmism. In a  field that demands political conformity, they defiantly remain the heretics.  Previous profiles in the series include <a href="../2010/01/05/the-heretics-steve-milloy-by-rich-trzupek/">Steve  Milloy</a>, <a href="../2010/01/06/the-heretics-dr-craig-idso-by-rich-trzupek/">Dr.  Craig Idso</a>, <a href="../2010/01/12/the-heretics-dr-roy-spencer-%e2%80%93-by-rich-trzupek/">Dr.  Roy Spencer,</a> and <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/29/the-heretics-lord-christopher-monckton/">Lord Christopher Monckton</a>. – <em>The Editors</em></p>
<p>Theorizing that burning fossil fuels can cause catastrophic global warming is relatively easy to do, all you need is a computer model and the “right” set of inputs. Proving that one’s model reflects reality is another matter entirely. Meteorologist Anthony Watts has been a leading skeptical voice in the global warming debate because he has challenged supposed evidence that the models work, through his herculean efforts in examining the dubious surface temperature records published by leading climate change centers.</p>
<p>At first blush, Watts seems an unlikely heretic. While he questions the veracity of alarmist data, Watts personal lifestyle reveals a man who spends a great deal more time trying to conserve energy than, say, Al Gore. He describes himself thus:</p>
<blockquote><p>“While I have a skeptical view of certain climate issues, I consider myself &#8216;green&#8217; in many ways, and I promote the idea of energy savings and alternate energy generation. Unlike many who just talk about it, I’ve put a <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/er-outlook-sustainability-my-missing-article/">10KW solar array on my home</a>, plus a <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2007/06/14/my-solar-anniversary/">125 KW solar array on one of our local schools</a> when I was a school trustee. I’ve retrofitted my home with CFL’s and better insulation, as well as <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2007/11/25/sustainable-bathrooms-and-closets/">installed timer switches</a> on many of our most commonly used lights.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Watts’ two chief websites, <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/">wattsupwiththat.com</a> and <a href="http://www.surfacestations.org/">surfacestations.org</a> are regular stops for most people interested in learning more about the other side of the global warming debate. While many of the themes on his sites are familiar to skeptics, his examination of the United States’ surface temperature monitoring network affords him a unique niche in the debate.</p>
<p>A bit of background first. When Climategate – the publication of data and e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (CRU) – first broke, some climate change supporters said, in effect, that even if CRU’s temperature data was flawed, plenty of other respected, reliable organizations reached the same conclusion as CRU, so climategate didn’t matter. Chief among those seemingly respectable, reliable scientific organizations cited was the United State National Weather Service, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA’s data does indicate a steady rise in average temperatures across the country for the last few decades. But, how reliable is NOAA’s data and, specifically, the data from the National Weather Service’s network of 1,221 surface temperature monitoring stations?</p>
<p>This is where Anthony Watts comes in. Watts started a surface stations auditing project in 2007, assisted by Dr. Robert A. Peilke, a climatologist at Colorado  State University. The purpose of the project is to examine each of those 1,221 surface temperature monitoring stations and to determine how reliable the data from is, following the National Weather Service’s own guidelines. The results were stunning. Though the project is not complete, Watts has released preliminary reports through the Heartland Institute. In the latest version of the report, entitled “Is <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf">The U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?</a>” and published in 2009, Watts reached a damning conclusion:</p>
<blockquote><p>“During the past few years I recruited a team of more than 650 volunteers to visually inspect and photographically document more than 860 of these temperature stations. We were shocked by what we found.</p>
<p>We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat. We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.</p>
<p>In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating reflecting heat source.</p>
<p>In other words, 9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited.”</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/30/on-climate-comedy-copyrights-and-cinematography/">NOAA responded to Watts</a>’ latest report, saying that its data is reliable and claiming: 1) the 70 properly sited stations supported a warming trend, and 2) the remainder of the data had been “homogenized” and showed the same trend. Homogenization is, simply put, a statistical method of blending data points in order to come up what a number that replaces all the bad data points. The technique has been widely used, and roundly criticized, as part of the global warming debate. As responses go, even given the often bizarrely unscientific tone of many climate change defenders, NOAA’s answer to Watts rang exceptionally hollow.</p>
<p>This isn’t the first time that climate change advocates have been caught fiddling with temperature records. Climategate showed that the Dr. Phil Jones of the CRU had truncated temperature data associated with tree ring measurements when that data ceased to show a temperature increase and replaced it with new surface temperature records instead, thus “hiding the decline.” More recently, The Guardian (which can hardly be accused of being a home to skeptics) revealed that <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese">Jones attempted to conceal flaws</a> with temperature records in China – problems with the measurement network that are eerily similar to the inaccuracies that Watts uncovered in the United States. As increased urbanization compromised temperature measurement sites that had previously been properly located, effectively putting them into the middle of new urban heat-sinks, Jones appears to have been desperate to cover up the newly-discovered bias.</p>
<p>Temperature records are the key to proving the alarmist case. If they can show that nature dutifully follows the script that their computer models have written for them, their predictions of doom carry infinitely more weight. But, skeptical, independent, thoughtful scientists like Anthony Watts have cast more and more doubt onto the truthfulness of the official records, proving once again that one man can truly make a difference.</p>
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		<title>Leaked climate change emails scientist &#8216;hid&#8217; data flaws &#8211; The Guardian</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/leaked-climate-change-emails-scientist-hid-data-flaws-the-guardian/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=leaked-climate-change-emails-scientist-hid-data-flaws-the-guardian</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:51:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48525</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based. A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia&#8217;s climatic [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Professor-Phil-Jones-Dire-001.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.</p>
<p>A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia&#8217;s climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese">Leaked climate change emails scientist &#8216;hid&#8217; data flaws | Environment | The Guardian</a>.</p>
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		<title>The Heretics: Lord Christopher Monckton</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/the-heretics-lord-christopher-monckton/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-heretics-lord-christopher-monckton</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:02:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rich Trzupek]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A global warming critic explains how Al Gore and his disciples are supporting mass starvation and silencing debate. 
]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-47978" title="lord-christopher-monckton" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/lord-christopher-monckton.jpg" alt="lord-christopher-monckton" width="456" height="313" /></p>
<p>Given the dogmatic fervor of global warming proponents, and their intolerance of skeptics who dare to question the latest commandment (see: <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/10/how-to-stop-cap-and-trade-by-rich-trzupek/">cap-and-trade</a>) in the green scripture, it is perhaps no coincidence that the environmentalist movement sometimes seems to have more in common with theology than with science. If that is true, then the logical word to describe those scientists who have challenged environmental hysteria and extremism is “heretics.” In a series of profiles, <em>Front Page’s </em><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/author/rich-trzupek/">Rich Trzupek</a> will spotlight prominent scientists whose “heretical” research, publications, and opinions have helped add a much-needed dose of balance and fact to environmental debates that for too long have been driven by fear mongering and alarmism. In a field that demands political conformity, they defiantly remain the heretics. Previous profiles in the series include <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/05/the-heretics-steve-milloy-by-rich-trzupek/">Steve Milloy</a>, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/06/the-heretics-dr-craig-idso-by-rich-trzupek/">Dr. Craig Idso</a>, and <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/12/the-heretics-dr-roy-spencer-%e2%80%93-by-rich-trzupek/">Dr. Roy Spencer</a>. – <em>The Editors</em></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-47980" title="Monckton" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Monckton.jpg" alt="Monckton" width="400" height="362" /></p>
<p>Lord Christopher Monckton, Third Viscount of Brenchley, is a legend within the global warming skeptic community. The erudite Englishman was an advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when climate change theories were in their infancy. In recent years, he has been one of the most eloquent and vocal critics of Al Gore and those who echo Gore’s alarmist cries.</p>
<p>Thatcher is often identified as the western leader most responsible for promoting the theory of man-made climate change that would explode into full-blown hysteria soon after she left office. This, Monckton says, is a misleading characterization. He recalled raising the issue with Thatcher as a possible concern, since carbon dioxide is indeed a greenhouse gas, but after studying the issue with leading scientists, the Prime Minister and Monckton concluded that any potential warming would be insignificant compared to natural factors. Monckton re-entered the climate-change fray in 2006, writing two pieces in the Sunday <em>Telegraph </em>criticizing global warming alarmism. The articles caused an immediate stir.</p>
<p>“There were 127,000 hits at the Sunday <em>Telegraph</em> website within the first two hours of my article hitting the site,” Monckton recalled. “There was so much traffic that they actually crashed the site. It was the first time that had happened. I believe it’s still the only time that happened.”</p>
<p>In a world hungry for understandable, reasoned explanations of climate science, Monckton’s greatest gift is his skill as a communicator. Though he is not a climatologist, he is well versed in both the basics and the nuances of the issues surrounding climate change. Typical of his style is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzkB5DuveDE">this video</a> of Monckton politely explaining the realities of global warming theory to a member of Greenpeace during the Copenhagen climate conference in December.</p>
<p>Monckton is one of the few to address one of the tragic, unintended consequences of the world wide rush to produce biofuels as means of combating global warming: mass starvation in some of the world’s poorest nations. Between 2002 and 2008, world food prices more than doubled, <a href="http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/FoodPricesIndex/en/">according to the Food and Agricultural Organization</a> of the United Nations. With the United States leading the way in turning cropland previously used to grow foodstuffs to support energy crops, world food supplies have dropped, both raising food costs and leading to an unprecedented number of food riots throughout the third world. Long before an earthquake ravaged Haiti, Monckton witnessed firsthand the turmoil that the world food crisis had caused in that impoverished nation.</p>
<p>Many Haitians, Monckton found, regularly consume mud pies – literally: dirt and water pies that are sometimes (but not always) sprinkled with a modicum of something that might be actually nutritional. “It’s quite extraordinary that this should happen in the 21<sup>st</sup> century,” he said. “This [global warming alarmism] is causing mass starvation, but nobody seems to care. They’re too busy worrying about every icicle purportedly melting in Greenland.”</p>
<p>The former newspaperman places a great deal of the blame on the media. He argues that the press has championed a theory formulated by a couple of dozen scientists, refusing to reconsider any evidence that may challenge it. “The press, having nailed their flag to the mast of this sinking ship, have no stomach to go through the not inconsiderable embarrassment of admitting that they were wrong,” he said.</p>
<p>While Monckton was pleased that industrialized nations did not sign onto a Copenhagen treaty he believes would have effectively created a world government, he was not as upbeat as many others were about the result. Pointing to the establishment of a high-level panel to address global warming and the establishment of a green fund to transfer money from the first world to the third, he sees Copenhagen as yet another step down a gradual, yet slippery, slope. “They know now that they can’t do it all in one go,” he explained. “They tried, but that didn’t work, so they’ll try to do it incremental, almost imperceptible, steps.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne-X_vFWMlw">One video from Copenhagen</a> shows Monckton shedding his customary genial air, as he takes young members of the group SustainUS sternly to task, calling them “Hitler youth” over and over again. Intrigued, I asked Monckton what about this seemingly harmless, naïve group of college-age kids so incensed him. The back story explained it all. At the time, Monckton was in the company of his Danish wife and three German citizens. All four were part of families that had suffered under Nazi rule and had been well-schooled in the tactics that the Nazi Party used to harass and intimidate their way to power. So, when <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZw8yF5alkM">SustainUS invaded a meeting</a> of Americans For Prosperity that Monckton was attending, the sight of young people shouting slogans and attempting to stifle free speech shocked and frightened Lady Monckton and their guests.</p>
<p>“They said this is what the Hitler youth did,” Monckton recalled. “They came in and started shouting and pretty soon no one dared to ever have a meeting again. I was just horrified to see the distress on the faces of my wife and our German friends. Some of them were crying.”</p>
<p>But, despite all of the shouting and deal making, Lord Monckton believes that the global warming movement cannot sustain itself much longer. “They’ve cried wolf once too often,” he said. “The Australian Liberal party just sacked their leader for going along with this, and I think Republicans in America will be the next to go. So far Republicans have been fighting it based on the cost, but I think most now realize that they will have to kill it on the science. In very short order, the majority of the electorate is going to say: we don’t buy this rubbish.”</p>
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		<title>Eric Kurlander: Empathy for Hitler? What in the World is Oliver Stone Talking About? &#8211; HNN</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/eric-kurlander-empathy-for-hitler-what-in-the-world-is-oliver-stone-talking-about-hnn/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=eric-kurlander-empathy-for-hitler-what-in-the-world-is-oliver-stone-talking-about-hnn</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Jan 2010 07:35:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=46999</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last week the director Oliver Stone caused quite a stir when, in describing his new Showtime mini-series, &#8220;A Secret History of America,&#8221; he declared that Adolf Hitler was an &#8220;easy scapegoat throughout history… [who]&#8216;s been used cheaply.&#8221; &#8220;We can&#8217;t judge people as only &#8216;bad&#8217; or &#8216;good,&#8217;&#8221; Stone continued. Even Hitler was &#8220;the product of a [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.hnn.us/articles/122342.html"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/51tAa8ZT0HL._SL500_AA240_.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>Last week the director Oliver Stone caused quite a stir when, in describing his new Showtime mini-series, &#8220;A Secret History of America,&#8221; he declared that Adolf Hitler was an &#8220;easy scapegoat throughout history… [who]&#8216;s been used cheaply.&#8221;  &#8220;We can&#8217;t judge people as only &#8216;bad&#8217; or &#8216;good,&#8217;&#8221; Stone continued.  Even Hitler was &#8220;the product of a series of actions.  It&#8217;s cause and effect.  People in America don&#8217;t know the connection between WWI and WWII.&#8221;  “You cannot approach history,” Stone added in reference to Stalin and Hitler, “unless you have empathy for the person you may hate.&#8221;</p>
<p>The furor, as one can imagine, was immediate; not only from historians and Jewish groups, but journalists and politicians as well.  As Ron Radosh wrote in his own scathing HNN reply to Stone and the director’s main consultant, the historian Peter Kuznick, it&#8217;s hardly novel for academics to argue that Nazism was a product of external and internal circumstances.  Without the First World War, Versailles Treaty, or the Great Depression, the Nazi movement could never have achieved the success that it did.  And without the repeated social and political crises that defined the latter years of the Weimar Republic, Hitler would not have been named German Chancellor in January 1933.  We don’t need “empathy” for Hitler to understand the way that people, even Hitler and the Nazis, were shaped by circumstances.  So what in the world is Stone talking about?</p>
<p>One can only speculate as to the director’s precise point of departure.  But I’m going to presume that Stone, despite his penchant for sensationalism, is hardly going to make the case that Hitler was a decent human being.  The question he probably intends to answer is the same one I address in my recent book, Living With Hitler (reviewed by Jeffrey Gaab in the September 2009 HNN newsletter):  How could so many educated, liberal-minded Germans have actively supported, or at the very least passively accommodated, a fanatic like Hitler?</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.hnn.us/articles/122342.html">What in the World is Oliver Stone Talking About?</a>.</p>
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		<title>Full Report: Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israel Hatred on the Huffington Post</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/huff-watcher/anti-semitism-and-anti-israel-hatred-on-the-huffington-post-part-1-by-huff-watcher/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=anti-semitism-and-anti-israel-hatred-on-the-huffington-post-part-1-by-huff-watcher</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:16:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Huff-Watcher]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45501</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Welcome to the ugly side of the most powerful blog in the world.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-45650" title="huffington_560" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/huffington_560.jpg" alt="huffington_560" width="450" height="300" /></p>
<hr /><strong><em><em><span style="font-weight: normal;">[Editors’ note: The following is an introduction to, and summary of a new investigative report </span></em><em><span style="font-weight: normal;">by </span><a style="color: #2a5db0;" href="http://huff-watch.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Huff-Watch</span></a></em><em><span style="font-weight: normal;">: </span><strong>&#8220;The Stimulus And The (Approved) Response: Anti-Semitism and Israel-Hatred on Huffington Post.&#8221;</strong><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Click </span><a style="color: #2a5db0;" href="http://frontpagemag.com/full-report-anti-semitism-and-anti-israel-hatred-on-the-huffington-post/" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: normal;">here</span></a><span style="font-weight: normal;"> for the full report.]</span></em></em></strong></p>
<hr />
<p style="font-family: arial;">
<p style="font-family: arial;">
<p style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In its four years of existence,<a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.huffingtonpost.com/');" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/" target="_blank">The Huffington Post</a> (aka <span style="text-decoration: underline;">“HuffPost”</span>) has grown from obscurity into the world’s <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/technorati.com/pop/blogs/');" href="http://technorati.com/pop/blogs/" target="_blank">most-visited blogsite</a>, and <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1886214,00.html');" href="http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1886214,00.html" target="_blank">one of America’s most popular news sites</a>. It now has <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004022708');" href="http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004022708" target="_blank">more monthly visitors</a> than the <em>Washington Post</em>, and is supported by some of the largest advertisers in the world. Its representatives have been allowed to <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1878625,00.html?iid=tsmodule');" href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1878625,00.html?iid=tsmodule" target="_blank">ask questions</a> at presidential press conferences, and one was even given <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0609/Obama_calls_on_HuffPost_for_Iran_question.html');" href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0609/Obama_calls_on_HuffPost_for_Iran_question.html" target="_blank">preferential treatment</a>. It now enjoys access to, and influence over, the top levels of the U.S. government. Top members of the U.S. Senate are among HuffPost’s official bloggers, including <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry');" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry" target="_blank">John Kerry</a>, <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-carl-levin/');" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-carl-levin/" target="_blank">Carl Levin</a>, <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-dodd');" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-dodd" target="_blank">Chris Dodd</a>, <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-barbara-boxer');" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-barbara-boxer" target="_blank">Barbara Boxer</a> and others.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A significant reason for HuffPost’s success and “legitimization” are its claims that it is <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22861.html');" href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22861.html" target="_blank">a</a> <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22861.html');" href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22861.html" target="_blank">nonpartisan “newspaper,”</a> dedicated to <em><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&amp;aid=147167');" href="http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&amp;aid=147167">“ferret(ing)</a> <span style="font-style: normal;"><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&amp;aid=147167');" href="http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&amp;aid=147167"><em>out the truth,”</em></a> and <em><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2007/11/14/Huffington-Post-Profile/');" href="http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2007/11/14/Huffington-Post-Profile/" target="_blank">“debunking</a> <span style="font-style: normal;"><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2007/11/14/Huffington-Post-Profile/');" href="http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2007/11/14/Huffington-Post-Profile/" target="_blank"><em>the left-right way of thinking.”</em></a></span></em></span></em></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">HuffPost also <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.huffingtonpost.com/comment/policy/');" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/comment/policy/" target="_blank">claims</a> to be non-partisan in its moderation of user comments. <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2010');" href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2010" target="_blank">Arianna Huffington</a>, the site’s founder and Editor-In-Chief, claims HuffPost has <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/bill-oreilly-needs-to-en_b_92646.html');" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/bill-oreilly-needs-to-en_b_92646.html" target="_blank"><em>“a zero tolerance policy”</em></a> for hate speech, and that it acts vigilantly to keep its comment threads free of offensive content, 24-7.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, HuffPost consistently “frames” news stories in such a way that incites anti-Israel perceptions and hatred. Further, in violation of its own policies, it approves and tolerates user comments submitted in response to these stories that contain incendiary, hate-filled libels against Israelis and Jews, as well as links to anti-Semitic hate websites.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Given the fact that an estimated 135,000 of Huffington Post’s unique monthly visitors reside in Iran and Pakistan, there is great concern among informed observers that its incitement against Israel influences perceptions far outside the United States.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This report, the result of three years of observation, documents:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Numerous examples of Huffington Post’s incitement of anti-Israel perceptions, and the defamatory user comments that have appeared on the site in response, with special focus on Israel’s recent Operation Cast Lead.
<p></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fact that many of the most egregious violators of Huffington Post’s stated policies, including some of its most prolific anti-Semitic propagandists, remain active users – some, with tens of thousands of comments in their archives.
<p></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fact that contrary to Huffington Post’s public statements, since at least March 2008, it has been pre-moderating all user comments, meaning that all of the hateful and defamatory comments that appear have been approved by its moderators.
<p></span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of the following anti-Semitic user comments were published <em>after</em> HuffPost <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/4.bp.blogspot.com/_XLVZ0IbIMas/SitxMK82x6I/AAAAAAAAAGs/PJo1Q3VmAAY/s1600-h/03Mar08BRODIGAN_1.jpg');" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_XLVZ0IbIMas/SitxMK82x6I/AAAAAAAAAGs/PJo1Q3VmAAY/s1600-h/03Mar08BRODIGAN_1.jpg" target="_blank">announced</a>, in March 2008, that the only comments that would appear on its site are those that a human moderator had reviewed, approved and made the decision to publish. Ms. Huffington <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&amp;aid=147167');" href="http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&amp;aid=147167" target="_blank">confirmed</a> this fact, several months later.</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>“Jews are evil. Israel runs the world. Lets kill ‘em all and give the land back to Islam; result-perpetual peace. Seig Heil.”<br />
<em><span style="font-weight: normal;">By “pedrothemigrant,” 5/23/08</span></em></strong></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>“Funny how [Israelis] had NO problem with wiping the [Palestinians] off the face of the earth until they discovered they might actually be able to strike back in a meaningful way. proof that bullies like this are nothing but cowards.”<br />
<em><span style="font-weight: normal;">By “peacekitten,” 1/2/09</span></em></strong></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>“There’s a reason they [Jews] have been the most problematic group for thousands of years.”<br />
<em><span style="font-weight: normal;">By “Amennyc,” 1/4/09</span></em></strong></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>“[W]omen holding limp little bodies of children in their hands, crying, as an Israeli soldier aims an AK.-47 at her head. With each civilian casualty Israel gets closer to the regime in Germany that provided the impetus for the creation of Israel.”<br />
<em><span style="font-weight: normal;">By “SkepticHume,” 1/3/09</span></em></strong></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>“Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, Here I am, stuck in the middle with Jooooz [Jews]“<br />
<em><span style="font-weight: normal;">By “JamesR.,” 11/22/08</span></em></strong></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>“They [Jews] all need to be rounded up and gassed.”<br />
<em><span style="font-weight: normal;">By “markoze,” 12/30/08</span></em></strong></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps more shockingly, all of these comments were posted by users whose accounts are <em>still active</em> (they have not been banned), some of whom HuffPost has allowed to post thousands of additional comments. This stands in stark contrast to the fact that HuffPost routinely bans other users who don’t violate its policies — some after as few as <em>six comments</em> — but dare to challenge or mock the radical leftists that the site attracts.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These comments are representative of thousands of others containing anti-Semitic and Israel-bashing libels, hate and propaganda that have been published on HuffPost in recent years. Columbia University professor Lincoln Mitchell recently <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lincoln-mitchell/the-shooting-anti-semitis_b_214140.html">claimed</a> that on nearly every HuffPost news story concerning international affairs, <em>regardless of the topic,</em> he and his friends usually find that it takes no more than <em>ten comments</em> before its users are finding a way to blame Jews.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The most incendiary of these comments are usually submitted in response to “news” stories that HuffPost publishes regarding Israel, which it consistently “frames” in ways that incite inaccurate and unjustifiably negative perceptions of the Jewish state, and particularly its military. HuffPost does this primarily through the use of inflammatory, decontextualized headlines and headline imagery, and biased “news” sources. Examples of this incitement include:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Its daily depiction of Israel’s incursion into Gaza in December 2008, in which it cast Israeli soldiers as thuggish villains, Palestinian civilians as their targets, and Hamas terrorists (often labeled as <em>“security forces”</em>) as victims. One example of this was its headline on 12/29/08 that featured a picture of a dead Muslim toddler, alongside text that claimed, <em>“Israeli assault targets symbols of Hamas power.”</em>
<p></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Its headline story on 3/11/09 featured Charles Freeman’s claims that a Jewish conspiracy led him to withdraw his nomination to a national security post.<em> HuffPost did not post any indication of the broad, bipartisan opposition to his nomination.</em>
<p></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It uncritically uses biased Arabic “news” sources – including the <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/littlegreenfootballs.com/article/32867_Al_Jazeera-_The_Network_That_Praises_Child_Killers');" href="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/32867_Al_Jazeera-_The_Network_That_Praises_Child_Killers" target="_blank">jihadist-celebrating</a> al Jazeera (also a past HuffPost <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.reuters.com/article/mediaNews/idUSN1738968120090218');" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/mediaNews/idUSN1738968120090218" target="_blank">advertiser</a>) – as single-sources for its headlines. One example was its 5/29/09 article that used a little-known Arabic “news” source’s account of what it described as an “activist” that was killed by the Israeli military. 24 hours earlier, the “activist” was identified by CNN as a suspect in several deadly terror attacks, and that the Israeli military had attempted to arrest him. Instead, he opened fire on them, and was killed.<em> None of this was covered in HuffPost’s depiction of the incident.</em>
<p></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Its prominent positioning on 8/19/09 of a blood libel against Israel — that it murders Palestinians in order to harvest their organs — even though the “reporter” behind the story <em>admitted in the article </em>that he has <em>“no idea… no clue”</em> if the allegations are true or not. <em>Soon thereafter, credible sources determined that these allegations were physically impossible, and further discredited the “reporter.” Yet HuffPost gave these stories little to no “play” (certainly nowhere near the prominence of the original blood libel).</em></span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Given the growing <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-70335677156278639');" href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-70335677156278639" target="_blank">resurgence</a> of anti-Semitism worldwide, HuffPost — like every other “legitimized,” advertiser-supported “newspaper” — is obliged to ensure that its “news” stories concerning Israel are fact-based and contextual. Further, HuffPost is obligated to enforce its nonpartisan comment moderation policy. In both of these regards, HuffPost is failing profoundly.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is hoped that<strong> </strong>this detailed report will spur HuffPost to take corrective measures to ensure that it is living up to its self-proclaimed standards, particularly in regards to Israeli and Jewish affairs.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><strong>Click <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/full-report-anti-semitism-and-anti-israel-hatred-on-the-huffington-post/">here</a> to read the full report.</strong></em></span></p>
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		<title>Censorship and Libel at USC</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-horowitz/censorship-and-libel-at-usc-by-david-horowitz/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=censorship-and-libel-at-usc-by-david-horowitz</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-horowitz/censorship-and-libel-at-usc-by-david-horowitz/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:10:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Horowitz]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45990</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A university shows tolerance for Muslim student radicals – but not for their critics.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-45994" title="david" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/david.jpg" alt="david" width="450" height="402" /></p>
<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s note:</strong> In September 2009, David Horowitz was invited by the University of Southern California College Republicans to come on campus and protest an Islamic Hadith calling for the genocide of the Jews that appeared on an official USC website. His speech was attacked in advance by Students for Justice in Palestine and the USC Progressive Alliance, who made up quotes and attributed them to Horowitz in order to paint him as an Islamophobe and a racist. Undeterred by this slander, Horowitz spoke on the USC campus on November 4 to a packed house.</p>
<p>On December 3, the USC Vice President of Student Affairs, Michael Jackson, published “<a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/JacksonOpenLetter.pdf">an open letter to the USC community</a>” in the <em>Daily Trojan</em>, the USC campus newspaper, attacking the College Republicans for bringing Horowitz to campus. Jackson claimed that Horowitz’s presence “led members of our community, our Muslim students, to feel threatened, unsafe, and betrayed.” This letter was also sent to every official USC student, faculty, and staff email address and was published as an ad in the <em>Daily Trojan</em>.</p>
<p>Horowitz wrote a response to Jackson’s letter and submitted it as an ad to the <em>Daily Trojan</em>, which Jackson controls and which initially rejected it. The David Horowitz Freedom Center responded by notifying USC officials of its intent to pursue relief under California&#8217;s Unruh Act, which requires student papers to observe rules of basic fairness. After reflection, the <em>Trojan</em> agreed to print Horowitz&#8217;s response and it ran in Tuesday’s edition of the paper. It appears below. Tomorrow, <em>FrontPage </em>will run the speech Horowitz gave at USC, which aroused the ire of the campus left.</p>
<p><strong>An Open Letter to the USC Community: Response to VP Student Affairs Michael L. Jackson:</strong></p>
<p>Vice President Jackson’s “Open Letter to the USC Community” denigrating student leaders of College Republicans for inviting me to speak is ill-informed and provides unfortunate support for campus hate speech, specifically for the attacks on Jewish students that have become increasingly prevalent on college campuses these days. I was invited to USC to speak about this problem and specifically about an incitement to kill Jews posted on an official USC website and attributed to the prophet Mohammed. The incitement was originally posted by the USC Muslim Student Union. It was removed last spring by Provost Nicias, who called it “disgusting,” over protests from the Muslim Student Union. It was recently restored to a USC website by another campus group. When this re-posting came to my attention, I contacted USC students and said I would like to come to campus to address this and related issues. This led to my invitation from College Republicans.</p>
<p>My speech and my hosts were attacked, however, before I even appeared at USC. We were subjected to a series of vicious slanders which should have no place on a university campus. A flyer put out by the USC Progressive Alliance maliciously and falsely claimed that College Republicans hate Muslims and then invented an entire quote attributed to me claiming that Muslim believers are “soulless beasts.” I have never said or written anything that could be construed this way, nor do I believe it. In the millions of words I have published I have never used the phrase “soulless beast” to describe anyone, let alone pious Muslims.</p>
<p>Nor was this the only attack on us. The president of Students for Justice in Palestine sent out a campus email making a series of false claims about what I have written in the past, including the malicious lie that I said that African Americans should be grateful for slavery. A version of this slander endorsed by half a dozen recognized USC student groups and five USC professors was published in the <em>Daily Trojan</em>, which is under Michael Jackson’s jurisdiction and which refused to print my rebuttal.</p>
<p>In his “Open Letter” Vice President Jackson not only ignores these assaults on campus tolerance but singles out the victims of these attacks for disapprobation. He justifies this moral blindness by claiming that I described the USC Muslim Student Union as “a terrorist organization with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.” I never made such a statement – not before my speech nor during the course of it.</p>
<p>What I did point out in my speech was the USC Muslim Student Union’s decision to post the alleged saying of the prophet Mohammed that in order for the Day of Judgment to come, Muslims must “fight the Jews and kill them,” and its defense of the posting after Provost Nicias ordered its removal.</p>
<p>It is true that on other occasions I have said that the <em>national</em> Muslim Students Association is part of the Muslim Brotherhood network with ties to Hamas. I have also said that the national Muslim Students Association sponsors anti-gay, anti-woman and anti-Semitic speakers on many campuses, and is behind an event on every anniversary of the creation of the state Israel that calls for its destruction – a genocidal incitement. These claims are documented here in this <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/31.pdf">Investigative Project report</a> on the Muslim Student Association. In any case, they should be a legitimate part of any dialogue on a university campus concerned with the current conflict between radical elements in Islam and the democracies of the West. The fact that a vice president in charge of student affairs should want to de-legitimize and thereby suppress these opinions in the name of “tolerance” is positively Orwellian and does not speak well for the intellectual climate at this great university.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>David Horowitz</p>
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		<title>The Heretics: Dr. Roy Spencer – by Rich Trzupek</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/the-heretics-dr-roy-spencer-%e2%80%93-by-rich-trzupek/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-heretics-dr-roy-spencer-%25e2%2580%2593-by-rich-trzupek</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rich Trzupek]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45654</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A former NASA climatologist casts doubt on climate change zealots’ cherished dogmas.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-45658" title="Dr.-Roy-Spencer" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Dr.-Roy-Spencer.jpg" alt="Dr.-Roy-Spencer" width="450" height="540" /></p>
<p>Given the dogmatic fervor of global warming proponents, and their intolerance of skeptics who dare to question the latest commandment (see: <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/10/how-to-stop-cap-and-trade-by-rich-trzupek/">cap-and-trade</a>) in the green scripture, it is perhaps no coincidence that the environmentalist movement sometimes seems to have more in common with theology than with science. If that is true, then the logical word to describe those scientists who have challenged environmental hysteria and extremism is “heretics.” In a series of profiles, <em>Front Page’s </em><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/author/rich-trzupek/">Rich Trzupek</a> will spotlight prominent scientists whose “heretical” research, publications, and opinions have helped add a much-needed dose of balance and fact to environmental debates that for too long have been driven by fear mongering and alarmism. In a field that demands political conformity, they defiantly remain the heretics. Previous profiles in the series include <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/05/the-heretics-steve-milloy-by-rich-trzupek/">Steve Milloy</a> and <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/06/the-heretics-dr-craig-idso-by-rich-trzupek/">Dr. Craig Idso</a>. – <em>The Editors</em></p>
<p>Former NASA climatologist Roy Spencer, currently a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), was drawn into the global warming debate by accident, while he was working at the space agency over two decades ago. “John Christy and I started looking at data that is used for weather forecasting and we wondered if it could be used for climate forecasting,” Spencer said.</p>
<p>As Spencer and Christy (also a professor at UAH) studied that data, they became convinced that, contrary to climate-alarmists’ claims, the climate is not all that sensitive to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Some scientists, like NASA physicist James Hansen maintain that increasing concentrations of relatively weak man-made greenhouse gases will result in a disastrous increase in the atmosphere’s most powerful greenhouse gas: water vapor. Spencer and Christy, on the other hand, don’t completely discount the effect of carbon dioxide. They just don’t find it very significant. The climate, they say, has ways of correcting itself.</p>
<p>A great deal of the evidence that man-made global warming has indeed occurred is based on surface temperature records. Some scientists, most notably <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/">Anthony Watts</a>, have questioned the validity of those records. Spencer focused on atmospheric temperature, as recorded by NASA satellites, which revealed a much different picture. “Over thirty years we didn’t get quite a much of a warming trend as the surface data gets,” he said. “It’s about thirty percent less.”</p>
<p>The satellite data compares closely to weather balloon data, Spencer said, but does not correlate with either surface station data or with the temperature increases predicted by International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models. The reason for the disconnect, he believes, is that the models don’t properly account for a ubiquitous feature of the earth’s atmosphere: clouds.</p>
<p>“The scientists who assume that global warming is man-made assume that cloud cover doesn’t change,” Spencer said. “All of their models assume that cloud cover remains the same.” The net effect of increased cloud cover is to cool the planet. When this effect is taken into account, Spencer asserts, the net effect of introducing more weak greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is minimal, compared to the natural phenomena that influence the climate.</p>
<p>Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in February 2009, Dr. John Christy commented on Spencer’s work:</p>
<blockquote><p>“My colleague Dr. Roy Spencer has shown that in the real world – the world of observations from satellites &#8211; that during warming episodes, clouds respond by stepping up their cooling effect (the basic effect of clouds is the cool the climate already). When climate model output calculated in the same way is compared with observations, not one model mimics this cooling effect – in fact the models’ clouds lead to further warming, not cooling as it is in nature. We hypothesize that this poor representation of clouds in models is the reason we find the warming rates of model projections to have significantly overshot what has actually happened.”</p></blockquote>
<p>It is difficult for climate change alarmists to criticize Spencer’s credentials. He is a degreed climatologist; he worked for NASA for fourteen years; he is still involved with NASA projects; and he has received the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1991) and the American Meteorological Society Special Award (1996). His colleague, Dr. Christy, was a lead author of the IPCC’s 2001 report on climate change, though Christy has long since distanced himself from the IPCC’s increasingly-alarmist views.</p>
<p>Accordingly, many critics resort to ad hominem attacks when it comes to Spencer’s work. For some, he has to be a paid minion of Exxon-Mobil. To others, he’s a Christian extremist. The supposed Exxon-Mobil connection most often attributed to Spencer relates to his involvement with the <a href="http://www.heartland.org/">Heartland Institute</a>, a libertarian think tank that, <a href="http://www.heartland.org/about/truthsquad.html">according to its web-site</a>, has never received more than five percent of its funding from Exxon-Mobil. Since 2006, it has received no contributions at all from Exxon-Mobil.</p>
<p>Spencer’s critics frequently point to the fact that he was a co-author of a paper published by The Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, “<a href="http://erlc.com/article/a-call-to-truth-prudence-and-protection/">A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming</a>,” in July 2006. Far from being a theological treatise, “A Call to Truth” lays out a scientific case for climate change skepticism. Citing scientific evidence, it urges Christians not to join in global-warming alarmism or to press for unneeded reductions in carbon emissions that would have disastrous effects for the world’s poor. It was written as a response to the Evangelical Climate Initiative’s (ECI) “<a href="http://christiansandclimate.org/learn/call-to-action/">Call to Action</a>,” a document that advises Evangelicals to support massive reductions in greenhouse gases.</p>
<p>The tone of “Call to Truth” reflects the kind of reasoned approach that Spencer adopts when attempting to explain climate science to an audience:</p>
<blockquote><p>It is important to speak directly to the issue of motive. We do not question the motive of those who produced or signed the ECI’s “Call to Action.” We assume that they acted out of genuine concern for the world’s poor and others and considered their action justified by scientific, economic, theological, and ethical facts. We trust that they will render us the same respect. It is not sufficient, however, to have good intentions. They must be linked to sound understanding of relevant principles, theories, and facts. As we shall argue below, that linkage is lacking for the ECI’s “Call to Action.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Having worked with James Hansen, Spencer explained a core reason why the NASA physicist is so adamant that mankind is causing catastrophic climate change. “I think he has a pretty simplistic view of how the climate system works,” Spencer said. “He thinks he knows how the ice ages were started. He believes that tiny shifts in the earth’s orbit cause the ice ages and that leads him to conclude that the earth’s climate is very sensitive. Personally, I don’t think we know what caused the ice ages.”</p>
<p>Spencer, like many other skeptical scientists, doesn’t believe that earth’s climate is nearly as sensitive as Hansen and others in his camp assume. And, for Spencer, if the climate were in fact as “infinitely sensitive” as Hansen suggests, then nothing could be done except to adapt to the shifts in temperature to come. It’s the kind of cool-headed assessment that has turned the mild-mannered scientist into such a lightning rod for the more zealous champions of climate change.</p>
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		<title>Obama takes steps to bolster security &#8211; latimes.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/obama-takes-steps-to-bolster-security-latimes-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-takes-steps-to-bolster-security-latimes-com</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:17:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45313</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Declaring that &#8220;the buck stops with me,&#8221; President Obama on Thursday released the results of an internal investigation into the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt and ordered a series of incremental measures meant to close gaps in the U.S. intelligence system that failed to detect it in advance.The president avoided blaming any particular agency or [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Declaring that &#8220;the buck stops with me,&#8221; President Obama on Thursday released the results of an internal investigation into the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt and ordered a series of incremental measures meant to close gaps in the U.S. intelligence system that failed to detect it in advance.The president avoided blaming any particular agency or official for the breakdowns that allegedly allowed a Nigerian extremist to board a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit armed with explosives, leaving a series of warning signs along the way.&#8221;As president, I have a solemn responsibility to protect our nation and our people. And when the system fails, it is my responsibility,&#8221; Obama said.The remedies he ordered in a memo to Cabinet officials and security chiefs mostly were modest steps. And the report, conducted by Obama&#8217;s counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan, concluded that another round of sweeping intelligence reorganization &#8220;is not required.&#8221;&#8221;Before 9/11, there was often a reluctance or refusal to share information between departments and agencies,&#8221; Brennan said. &#8220;That is not what happened here.&#8221;</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-obama-terror8-2010jan08,0,2657238.story">Obama takes steps to bolster security &#8211; latimes.com</a>.</p>
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		<title>Geithner&#8217;s New York Fed Pushed AIG To Keep Sweetheart Deals Secret &#8211; Huffington Post</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/geithners-new-york-fed-pushed-aig-to-keep-sweetheart-deals-secret-huffington-post/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=geithners-new-york-fed-pushed-aig-to-keep-sweetheart-deals-secret-huffington-post</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:24:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45236</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An arm of the Federal Reserve, then led by now-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, told bailed-out insurance giant AIG to withhold key details from the public about overpayments that put billions of extra tax dollars in the coffers of major Wall Street firms, most notably Goldman Sachs. The sordid tale unfolds in a series of e-mails [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>An arm of the Federal Reserve, then led by now-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, told bailed-out insurance giant AIG to withhold key details from the public about overpayments that put billions of extra tax dollars in the coffers of major Wall Street firms, most notably Goldman Sachs.</p>
<p>The sordid tale unfolds in a series of e-mails between the company and the New York Fed obtained by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and first publicly disclosed by Bloomberg News.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/414449;_ylt=AgWIaeQ5j8vieQKaehKKU9as0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNncmM5YjVnBGFzc2V0A2h1ZmZwb3N0LzIwMTAwMTA3LzQxNDQ0OQRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzQEcG9zAzEEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawNnZWl0aG5lcnNueWY-">Geithner&#8217;s New York Fed Pushed AIG To Keep Sweetheart Deals Secret &#8211; Yahoo! News</a>.</p>
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		<title>The Heretics: Dr. Craig Idso &#8211; by Rich Trzupek</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/the-heretics-dr-craig-idso-by-rich-trzupek/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-heretics-dr-craig-idso-by-rich-trzupek</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:11:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rich Trzupek]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The anti-Al Gore, Dr. Craig Idso says the world can use more carbon dioxide, not less.
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				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44980" title="Idso-Craig" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Idso-Craig.gif" alt="Idso-Craig" width="450" height="471" /></p>
<p>Given the dogmatic fervor of global warming proponents, and their intolerance of skeptics who dare to question the latest commandment (see: <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/10/how-to-stop-cap-and-trade-by-rich-trzupek/">cap-and-trade</a>) in the green scripture, it is perhaps no coincidence that the environmentalist movement sometimes seems to have more in common with theology than with science. If that is true, then the logical word to describe those scientists who have challenged environmental hysteria and extremism is “heretics.” In a series of profiles, <em>Front Page’s </em><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/author/rich-trzupek/">Rich Trzupek</a> will spotlight prominent scientists whose “heretical” research, publications, and opinions have helped add a much-needed dose of balance and fact to environmental debates that for too long have been driven by fear mongering and alarmism. In a field that demands political conformity, they defiantly remain the heretics. (For the first part of the series, a profile of Steve Milloy, please click <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/05/the-heretics-steve-milloy-by-rich-trzupek/">here</a>.) <em>&#8211; The Editors</em></p>
<p>Like many scientists, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_D._Idso">Dr. Craig Idso</a> has a problem with the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but his perspective is a bit different. He believes the planet can use <em>more</em>. “As carbon dioxide concentrations rise, we expect plants to be more biodiverse,” Idso said. “We expect a great greening of planet earth.”</p>
<p>Idso is the founder and chairman of the <a href="http://www.co2science.org/">Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change</a>. The Center’s <a href="http://center%20for%20the%20study%20of%20carbon%20dioxide%20and%20global%20change/">website</a> serves a repository of a wide variety of data and information involving greenhouse gases and climate change. Like most skeptics, Idso rejects the notion that mankind’s contribution to the amount greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will significantly affect the earth’s mean temperature, but climate change is not the primary focus of his work. Idso is one of the leading voices in the scientific community to declare that, far from being a problem, today’s concentrations of carbon dioxide are a necessity for a healthy planet.</p>
<p>“At the end of the last ice age, carbon dioxide concentrations were about 180 parts per million,” he explained. “At the beginning of the industrial revolution, it was about 280 parts per million. You’re very close to plant death at those concentrations. The plants are effectively carbon dioxide starved. The current concentration, around 380 parts per million, is much better for plant life.”</p>
<p>In geologic terms, earth is currently enjoying the comforts of an interglacial period, known as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene">Holocene Period</a>, which began a little over 10,000 years ago. Interglacials, which occur roughly every 100,000 years, are relatively warm respites from the more prominent ice ages that dominate recent geologic history. No scientist – not even the most ardent alarmist – disputes this fact.</p>
<p>Nor, as Idso’s father <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_B._Idso">Dr. Sherwood Idso</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene"></a>points out, is there any doubt in the scientific community that the temperature increase associated with an interglacial period precedes an increase in carbon dioxide concentrations. Ice core data shows this relationship quite clearly and Al Gore’s misrepresentation of this fact, by skewing data in “An Inconvenient Truth” to make it seem that carbon dioxide concentrations have historically caused, rather than followed, temperature changes is one of the more glaring errors in his film.</p>
<p>The core of the alarmists’ claims is that, if left unchecked, increasing carbon dioxide concentrations will magnify this natural warming cycle, with catastrophic consequences to the planet and its eco-systems. In addition to disputing the theory that disastrous warming will, or even can, occur, Craig Idso sees a host of planetary benefits as carbon dioxide concentrations continue to rise.</p>
<p>“The major benefit is an increase in productivity,” he said. “We’ve looked at several thousand experiments and, based on that data, a doubling in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere will lead to a twenty five to fifty five per cent increase in biomass, or crop yield. And for woody plants, it’s even better. We expect to see a fifty to seventy five percent increase in woody plants. As carbon dioxide concentrations continue to grow, were going to help feed the population of the planet.”</p>
<p>Studies also show that increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reduces the amount of water that plants need to grow, an important consideration in those areas of the world where fresh water supplies are scarce. Rising carbon dioxide also helps to minimize the stress on plants, Idso said. For example, a plant can get by with less phosphorous – a vital but sometimes scarce nutrient – <a href="http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001938.html">when there is more carbon dioxide available</a>.</p>
<p>Idso passion for his area of expertise belies his soft-spoken manner. It’s a passion that is, at least in part, inherited. Dr. Sherwood Idso was one of the first scientists to speak out against popular theories involving disastrous climate change, so his sons grew up immersed in the issue. But it was one particular confrontation, between his father and a certain Senator from the Tennessee that pushed Craig Idso into what has become his life’s work. “What really brought me into the issue was when <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2140">Al Gore</a> went after my father when [Gore] was in the Senate and he rigged a Senate sub-committee meeting to go after my father and discredit his work,” Idso said.</p>
<p>In addition to serving as chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Craig Idso is the co-author, along with Dr. Fred Singer, of <em><a href="http://www.nipccreport.org/aboutReport.html">Climate Change Reconsidered</a></em>. Published by the <a href="http://www.nipccreport.org/aboutNIPCC.html">Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change</a> (NIPCC), an international panel of nongovernment scientists and scholars who study climate change, the comprehensive report is a compendium of data and analysis that serves as a counterweight to the politically driven reports issued by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.</p>
<p>Idso, Singer and their many prominent contributors in the scientific community are gearing up to begin work on their second report, provisionally known as NIPCC-2. Initially, NIPCC-2 will be a living document, with its own website, updated periodically as chapters are developed and data examined. The idea, Idso explained, is to make the report production process entirely transparent so that anyone, no matter their predispositions with regard to global warming, can see, be part of and comment on the process. Given what the world has learned about the way that some of the IPCC data has been developed, such transparency is a breath of fresh air.</p>
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		<title>Blaming Israel First &#8211; by P. David Hornik</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/davidhornik/blaming-israel-first-by-p-david-hornik/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=blaming-israel-first-by-p-david-hornik</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:03:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Obama administration “anti-Semitism” czar Hannah Rosenthal makes non-liberal Jews her first target. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-43648" title="1258747487Hannah-380" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1258747487Hannah-380.jpg" alt="1258747487Hannah-380" width="380" height="255" /></p>
<p>From <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=36196">Van Jones</a> to <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2009/10/05/valerie-jarrett%E2%80%99s-ministry-of-culture-by-ben-johnson/">Valerie Jarrett</a>, the Obama has made a series of politically extreme personnel appointments that it has since come to regret. Its latest hire bids fair to continue the pattern. President Obama has appointed an “anti-Semitism czar,” <a href="http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2009/11/23/1009366/hannah-rosenthals-appointment">Hannah Rosenthal</a>, who appears singularly unqualified for the job. Her first target of criticism has not been an anti-Semitic exponent or event. Rather, it is Israel’s Jewish ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, who has drawn her ire for the offense of disparaging a liberal group with which Rosenthal has been affiliated.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly for a liberal-Democratic administration, Rosenthal has a <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/133357.htm">liberal-Democratic background</a>. She worked for the Department of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration, and in 1992 and 1996 was a leader of the Wisconsin Clinton-Gore campaigns. From 2000 to 2005 she was executive director of the liberal Jewish Council for Public Affairs. More recently she’s been on the advisory council of the ostensibly “pro-Israel, pro-peace” J Street and JStreetPAC.</p>
<p>Ideally, it shouldn’t matter. Isn’t “to monitor and combat anti-Semitism”—from the “anti-Semitism czar’s” official job title—a bipartisan concern for Jews and a consensus concern for all decent people? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Some Jews define themselves highly invidiously in opposition to other Jews. Rosenthal appears to be one of them.</p>
<p>As the <em>Jewish Press</em> <a href="http://www.jewishpress.com/content.cfm?contentid=41507&amp;sContentid=3">noted</a> in an editorial,</p>
<blockquote><p>“Speaking several years ago on the sharp increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Europe after the outbreak of the Second Intifada, [Rosenthal] said:</p>
<p>“‘I’ll tell you point-blank; I have two grown daughters, and I didn’t think that my kids were going to have to deal with the same anti-Semitism that I did as the daughter of Holocaust survivors. It’s a scary time, with people losing the ability to differentiate between a Jew, any Jew, and what’s going on in Israel.’”</p></blockquote>
<p>As Michael Goldfarb <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/11/obamas_likely_antisemitism_chi.asp">observes</a>,</p>
<blockquote><p>“Parse that quote and it’s pretty clear what Rosenthal is saying—the Israelis have it coming, but the rest of the world needs to distinguish between the good progressive Jews who are not living on Palestinian land and the Israeli Jews who are committing daily atrocities in the name of colonialism and occupation.”</p></blockquote>
<p>To that must be added Rosenthal’s affiliation, in itself, with J Street. Indeed, the Obama administration likes J Street and sent National Security Adviser James Jones to give the keynote address at its October conference. That doesn’t change the fact that J Street has taken strange positions such as favoring the staging of the anti-Semitic play <em>Seven Jewish Children </em>and the (abortive) appointment of the anti-Israeli diplomat Chas Freeman as chairman of the National Intelligence Council.</p>
<p>Or as Israeli ambassador Michael Oren recently <a href="http://www.forward.com/articles/120600/">put it</a>, J Street is “a unique problem in that it not only opposes one policy of one Israeli government, it opposes all policies of all Israeli governments….” As Oren went on to note, that has included criticizing Israel’s campaign in Gaza last winter, calling to include Hamas in peace talks, failing to reject the Goldstone report, and opposing sanctions on Iran.</p>
<p>And it is Hannah Rosenthal’s recent criticism of Oren’s remarks that has prompted a storm of anger and protest from Israeli and U.S. officials as well as American Jewish leaders.</p>
<p>Last week Rosenthal <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1137296.html">told</a> Israel’s left-wing daily <em>Haaretz</em> that Oren’s statements against J Street were “most unfortunate” and that Oren, who declined J Street’s invitation to speak at its October conference, “would have learned a lot” by participating.</p>
<p>In response, <em>Haaretz</em> <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1137764.html">reports</a> in a subsequent article, “Senior Israeli officials told their American colleagues that it was unacceptable for an administration official to publicly criticize Israel’s ambassador over his relationship with Jewish organizations.”</p>
<p>For its part, “the White House asked the State Department to issue a clarification notice.” And “Alan Solow, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and a confidant of…Obama issued a condemnation of Rosenthal’s remarks, casting doubt over her ability to fulfill her responsibilities as an opponent of anti-Semitism.”</p>
<p>While the complaints rightly focus on the inappropriateness of the anti-Semitism czar’s criticism of the Israeli ambassador, there is much else in Rosenthal’s <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1137296.html">quoted remarks to <em>Haaretz</em></a> that calls into question her suitability for her new post.</p>
<p>As when—apparently also in connection to Oren’s declining to address J Street—she “said she opposes blurring the lines between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel. ‘It is not 1939,’ she said. ‘We have the state of Israel. We have laws in countries that are holding people accountable.’” This appears oddly inane, since Oren has never accused J Street of anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>Or when she says:</p>
<blockquote><p>“We need to have as many people coming together to try and put an end to this crisis, the matzav [i.e., Israel’s ongoing conflict with some of its neighbors] cannot continue—it’s unacceptable and that’s why I always paid my membership to AIPAC, but I have always paid my membership to Americans for Peace Now—because they all need to be supported and they all need to be at the table.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Or:</p>
<blockquote><p>“I lived in Israel in 1973 in the bomb shelters. I don’t want my kids or my grandchildren to have to ever come visit their homeland and to live in a bomb shelter—that is what I mean when I say the matzav&#8230;. Sometimes I wonder what it does to the psyche of people and children to know that they have to know where the nearest bomb shelter is—that’s not okay. As a peace loving person and as a Jew who wants my kids to feel comfortable here—I think that’s what I mean that the matzav cannot continue.”</p></blockquote>
<p>It’s peculiarly muddled, but she seems to be saying that everyone should be open to, and ultimately embrace, a liberal-dovish view of Israel’s conflict with some of its neighbors, because then the conflict would go away. Finding the situation “unacceptable,” not <em>wanting</em> children to live near bomb shelters or even be exposed to them on a visit, is somehow connected to ending the conflict. In other words, it’s Jews—bad Jews like Oren, or the Israeli government—who are responsible for keeping it going.</p>
<p>For the anti-Semitism czar, the enemy of the Jews or at least of Israel is not the anti-Semites, the violent attackers of Israel, but the Jews themselves – or at least the bad ones who don’t embrace J Street’s outlook and even find it objectionable.</p>
<p>That means Rosenthal lacks exactly what she ought to have: a clear, reality-attuned grasp of the actual, grim situation of Jew-and Israel-hatred in today’s world. And it means the Obama administration has failed to make a wise choice even for the seemingly nonpartisan task of “monitoring and combating anti-Semitism.” Instead, it has appointed a left-wing partisan who promotes the liberal delusions that help anti-Semitism thrive.</p>
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