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NOVEMBER 30,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:40 P.M. ET: 

PROTECTING FANS – From Fox:  More guns are needed at NFL games to keep fans safe, according to the nation's largest police union -- which recently asked the league commissioner to let certain firearms owners pack heat on Sundays.  The National Fraternal Order of Police has asked the NFL to lift its ban on fans carrying guns at games, at least for retired and off-duty law enforcement officers who hold permits to carry concealed weapons. In a letter to Commissioner Roger Goodell, FOP President Chuck Canterbury said armed cops are the best bet for stopping a terrorist attack inside a stadium.  “Today, I am writing on behalf of the members of the Fraternal Order of Police to urge you to rescind this policy, which weakens the safety and security of NFL players, personnel and fans,” read the Nov. 20 letter, which was reported by BuckeyeFirearms.org. “The terrorist attacks and threats of attacks from organizations like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are selecting targets based on the amount of death and injury they can inflict -- mass murder and casualty events.  Sounds very reasonable to me, and a deterrent to terror and crime.  Of course, the officers would have to be carefully vetted, but that should be no problem. 

TRUE?  FROM THE TIMES OF ISRAEL –  US special forces are actively engaged in fighting against the Islamic State group in Iraq, according to Kurdish peshmerga fighters, despite official US policy that says its soldiers are only training and advising local militias, the Guardian reported on Monday.  Kurdish fighters showed the Guardian video clips in which Western-looking men were seen firing various weapons at IS militants in different firefights in northern Iraq.  “They fight and they even fight ahead of the peshmerga,” a Kurdish fighter named Karwan Hama Tata said. “They won’t allow anyone to take photos of them, but they take photos of everyone.”  The peshmerga fighters refused to allow the videos be published, the report said.  According to the Kurdish fighters, US special forces have been involved in the fighting for several months including in a battle on April 20 to retake Dawus al Aloka village. Attempts to retake the villages of Wastana and Saddam on June 11 and August 26 also saw US personnel in combat against the jihadists, although IS maintained control of the towns.  If true, Field Marshal Obama better go on TV and explain it.  Looks like the same kind of mission creep we experienced in Vietnam.  It may well be the right move, but it must be discussed with the American people.

HMMM – From CNN:  Washington (CNN) Hillary Clinton was joined by 13 of the 14 Democratic women of the U.S. Senate at a fundraiser that amounted to a Monday night pep rally for the candidate who could become the first female president.  The Washington event was an attempt by the front-runner's campaign to flex its establishment muscle as the first caucuses and primaries draw closer, but one Democratic leader was notably missing from the stage that hosted all the women: Sen. Elizabeth Warren.  Clinton never mentioned Warren's absence -- and ignored the questions when asked about it after the event, instead choosing to focus on her platform and the future of women in the Senate.  As the story goes on to say, Warren has yet to endorse Clinton.  Is she waiting for the results of the FBI probe into Clinton's tenure at the State Department?  That would be logical.  Has she been tipped some inside information about the probe?  That would be logical as well.  An awful lot of people don't want Hillary Clinton to be president,

November 30,  2015     Permalink

IS GERMANY NEXT? – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:   The flood of refugees into Germany is providing good fodder for local Islamist extremists.  A lesson for America in this?  From The Wall Street Journal:

BERLIN—The Paris attacks have raised fears of terrorists slipping into Europe by posing as refugees. But in Germany, the top migrant destination, security officials have another worry: Local extremists will recruit the newcomers to join the Islamist cause once they arrive.

German authorities warn that migrants seeking out Arabic-language mosques in search of the familiar are increasingly ending up at those attended by Islamist radicals. In interviews, security officials from Berlin to the southwest German state of Saarland said they have registered a sharp rise in the number of asylum-seekers attending mosques they believed attracted extremists.

Federal officials said they have counted more than 100 cases in which Islamists known to them have tried to establish contact with refugees. According to state and local agencies across the country, Islamists have offered migrants rides, food, shelter and translation help. In some cases, they have invited them to soccer games and grill parties, or brought them copies of the Quran and conservative Muslim clothing.

“They start by saying, ‘We will help you live your faith,’ ” said Torsten Voss, the head of the German domestic intelligence agency’s Hamburg branch. “The Islamist area comes later—that is, of course, their goal.”

Security officials across Germany describe the potential radicalization of migrants, still entering the country by the thousands every day, as a challenge that adds to Europe’s existing security threats. With Germany expecting to take in roughly one million asylum-seekers from the Middle East and elsewhere this year, authorities are scrambling to prevent new pockets of radicalism from forming.

COMMENT:  The Europeans are nuts.  This is an invasion, and they don't realize it.  These people aren't coming to Germany to become Germans.  We have seen that time and time again, and yet Europe, dominated by an adolescent left, refuses to understand.

There really won't be a Europe in about 50 years.  Many countries aren't even reproducing their populations.  They see immigration as a means to providing new laborers for factories.  Germany is in the worst shape of all.  Germany as we know it may simply cease to exist.  But for "sophisticates" it's merely a step toward integration and "multiculturalism."  But even Angela Merkel has said that multiculturalism has failed.  Trouble is, nobody is listening.

November 30, 2015        Permalink

INSECURITY – AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  Security reviews in France following the recent attacks have revealed deep cracks, but at least there are signs that the flaws are being addressed.   From Townhall.com: 

The Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris has forced France to examine its security policies, including at the Charles de Gaulle Airport, where it was recently discovered that 57 employees who had access to airplanes and runways were on a terror watch list.

Now, the security passes of 86,000 workers at the Paris airport will be reviewed, according to a report by the Sunday Times of London.

Police carried out extensive searches of the airport under state-of-emergency powers after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks in which 130 people were killed and 350 injured by Islamic State militants.

Belgium, where several of the Paris attackers had lived, also has pulled security badges from several airport workers after discovering that some had links to jihadis who had traveled to Syria.

Meanwhile, anxiety has been brewing about radicalism among bus, Metro and railroad workers.

Samy Amimour, who blew himself up in the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, managed to get a job as a bus driver while on a watch list.

The recent finding of Arabic graffiti on four planes at two French airports, including one that had “Allahu Akbar” written on a fuel tank hatch, has only increased security concerns. While the graffiti in and of itself is not harmful, it raises serious questions about who has access to restricted airport locations.

COMMENT:  We should be doing that kind of review here.  I'm afraid too many Americans believe that the oceans will save them.   There are ISIS sympathizers here, and you may be sure they're trying to infiltrate our most sensitive facilities.

November 30, 2015       Permalink

JOLTING – AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  The University of Chicago is canceling classes today because of a threat.  Obviously, the threat is a serious one.  From the Chicago Sun-Times: 

The University of Chicago has canceled all classes and activities on its Hyde Park campus Monday after the FBI alerted it to an online threat of gun violence, according to a campus statement.

University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer wrote that the university “will have an increased police and security presence on and around campus, including police personnel with visible weapons and other additional measures.”

“University security personnel are keeping in close contact with the FBI, which is continuing to investigate the threat,” Zimmer wrote.

Responding to a request for comment from the Chicago Sun-Times, FBI Special Agent John Hyde wrote in a statement: “Upon learning of a possible threat, we shared information with law enforcement and University officials, as is our practice. The decision to cancel classes was made by the University. Our investigation to determine the source of the online threat is ongoing.”

FBI counterterrorism officials alerted the school Sunday that “an unknown individual posted an online threat of gun violence against the University of Chicago, specifically mentioning ‘the campus quad’ on Monday morning at 10 a.m.,” according to the statement.

Zimmer wrote that the university canceled classes “based on the FBI’s assessment of this threat and recent tragic events at other campuses across the country.”

COMMENT:  This demonstrates that a key purpose of terrorism is terror, to instill fear and panic.  A major university can be shut down on the basis of a threat.  I suspect that this is the start of many such incidents. 

November 30,  2015     Permalink

NOVEMBER 29,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:49 P.M. ET:

WELL, HE WAS IN TOWN, SO WHY NOT? – From the Washington Examiner:  In Paris for the international climate summit, President Obama made a surprise stop to the Bataclan concert hall early Monday morning, Paris time.  He was accompanied by French President Francois Hollande and the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.  All three of them laid white roses at the site, while saying nothing to nearby media. The streets near the site were deserted, and the trip had been planned for a few days, but kept secret, according to Agence France-Presse.   Obama should have made this pilgrimage right after the attacks, when he was in Turkey.  It wouldn't have been a long side trip.  This is too little, too late.

IMPORTANT, OR LAST GASP? – From Fox:   Chris Christie won a key endorsement Sunday from New Hampshire’s largest newspaper, another sign that the moderate Republican presidential candidate could perhaps win the GOP primary in the early-voting state.  “We doubt that too many people across New Hampshire have politics front and center right now,” wrote Union Leader publisher Joe McQuaid. “But in just 10 weeks, New Hampshire will make a choice that will profoundly affect our country and the world. We better get it right. … Our choice is Gov. Chris Christie.”  Political analysts have said that Christie could win New Hampshire, considering its voters' so-called “independent streak” and Christie’s ability to get elected and re-elected as governor in such a Democrat-leaning state as New Jersey.  “Christie is a solid, pro-life conservative who has managed to govern in liberal New Jersey, face down the big public unions, and win a second term,” McQuaid also wrote.  Christie won the primary endorsement despite struggling to break into the top tier of 2016 GOP candidates, even failing to qualify for the main-stage event in the last primary debate.  The Union Leader has influence, but I wonder if this isn't a bridge too far.  Christie has had many opportunities to prove himself to primary voters, and hasn't made much of an impression.

WHERE DID THIS COME FROM? – From London's Express: SCIENTISTS claim we are in for a decade-long freeze as the sun slows down solar activity by up to 60 per cent.  A team of European researchers have unveiled a scientific model showing that the Earth is likely to experience a “mini ice age” from 2030 to 2040 as a result of decreased solar activity.  Their findings will infuriate environmental campaigners who argue by 2030 we could be facing increased sea levels and flooding due to glacial melt at the poles.  I say let's not spend a red cent on this until 2035, 20 years from now, when we should know whether the global-warming panic has any legs to it, or is wrong and possibly a fraud.

November 29, 2015       Permalink

HEROINE – AT 12:51 P.M. ET:  Britain's Spectator has a fine piece about Judith Curry, a brave professor at Georgia Tech, who has taken on the "climate change" lobby.  The result, as she says, is being ostracized from her own profession.  She is considered a heretic.   In the Middle Ages she would have been burned at the stake.  But she is fighting on, and has a wonderful attitude: 

Curry’s independence has cost her dear. She began to be reviled after the 2009 ‘Climategate’ scandal, when leaked emails revealed that some scientists were fighting to suppress sceptical views. ‘I started saying that scientists should be more accountable, and I began to engage with sceptic bloggers. I thought that would calm the waters. Instead I was tossed out of the tribe. There’s no way I would have done this if I hadn’t been a tenured professor, fairly near the end of my career. If I were seeking a new job in the US academy, I’d be pretty much unemployable. I can still publish in the peer-reviewed journals. But there’s no way I could get a government research grant to do the research I want to do. Since then, I’ve stopped judging my career by these metrics. I’m doing what I do to stand up for science and to do the right thing.’

She remains optimistic that science will recover its equilibrium, and that the quasi-McCarthyite tide will recede: ‘I think that by 2030, temperatures will not have increased all that much. Maybe then there will be the funding to do the kind of research on natural variability that we need, to get the climate community motivated to look at things like the solar-climate connection.’ She even hopes that rational argument will find a place in the UN: ‘Maybe, too, there will be a closer interaction between the scientists, the economists and policymakers. Wouldn’t that be great?’

COMMENT:  It would be great, but Professor Curry may not fully understand the religious fanaticism of the left.  They're not interested in science.  They're interested in changing the way we live to conform to their idea of what is good.  They don't accept any other idea.

November 29, 2015       Permalink

THIS IS GETTING SERIOUS – AT 12:10 P.M. ET:  We reported yesterday that an upcoming UN report on Iran's past nuclear program would not come to definite conclusions as to whether Iran was pursuing a bomb.  Now, today, Iran is making ominous threats about this very issue.  From AFP: 

TEHRAN — Iran said Sunday there would be no final implementation of a nuclear deal with world powers unless a probe into allegations of past weapons research is closed.

The declaration, by a top security official, comes after the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said a report into the possible military dimensions of Iran’s activities would not be “black and white.”

Iran has always denied seeking to develop an atomic weapons capability, insisting its nuclear program is for peaceful energy production and medical purposes only.

Referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the July 14 agreement’s official name, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, said anything short of the watchdog’s probe being closed was unacceptable to Iran.

“Without the closure of the file regarding past issues, there is no possibility of implementing the JCPOA,” the official IRNA news agency reported him as saying.

COMMENT:  But if the UN shuts down that probe, we're flying blind as to where Iran stands with nuclear knowledge.  I hope the negotiating powers stand firm, but I doubt they will.  Field Marshal Obama will probably figure out a "compromise," which will be in Iran's favor.

November 29, 2015       Permalink

OH MY , HOW THEY LIE – AT 11:46 A.M. ET:  Lying in Hollywood is routine.  You don't lie, you don't play.  But sometimes the lies are truly embarrassing.  From the New York Post: 

It’s “Pulp Fiction,” all right.

Quentin Tarantino — under fire for recent comments about police violence — has claimed for decades that, as a young man, he served time in a Los Angeles County jail.

One problem: The LA County Sheriff’s Department has no record of the filmmaker ever being in its system. At The Post’s request, the department searched its files back through the 1980s, when, according to Tarantino, he would have been incarcerated.

“A check of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department jail records revealed no evidence that Mr. Tarantino was ever incarcerated in our jail system,” said Capt. Christopher Reed of the Sheriff’s Office.

Tarantino used to tell the story as evidence of his outlaw bona fides. But on a recent episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Tarantino, now 52, recounted it again to claim solidarity with police protesters — that he understands what it means to be frightened of cops.

“Back when I was in my 20s and broke, I was a little scared of the cops, all right?” Tarantino told ­Maher. “And oftentimes, I had warrants out on me for traffic stuff that I never took care of and everything . . . I’d get stopped, and I’d have to do eight days in county jail.”

COMMENT:  Hillary will advise him to say, "At this point, what does it matter?"  Perfectly good answer.  If it worked for Hillary, it should work for Quentin.

November 29,  2015     Permalink