THURSDAY,  DECEMBER 25,  2008

AND NOW THE GOOD CHANNEL 4 - AT 9:44 A.M. ET:  We were critical of Britain's Channel 4 broadcasting a Christmas message from the warped president of Iran.  (See "Christmas Disgrace" below.)  But Channel 4 has done some good things as well.  A distinguished American linguist, and Urgent Agenda reader, refers us to a decidedly non-PC documentary on "global warming" that is hard-hitting, well done and enlightening.  It's here.

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL - AT 9:35 A.M. ET:  You really must read the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's reprint of letters to Santa Claus, written more than 100 years ago by children, who sent them to the paper.  The feature is here.

BAD REWRITE

Posted at 8:55 a.m. ET

Since we're doing a bit of UK bashing today, let us by all means continue.  (Actually, we love true Brits, those who are left.)

It seems that the rewriting of traditional Christmas carols is a growth industry in the more politically correct outposts of British society.  Consider this from The Telegraph:

A modern version of Joy to the World rewritten to remove references to Jesus has been voted the worst politically-correct carol by churchgoers.

The bowdlerised song, which replaces "Joy to the world, the Lord is come, Let earth receive her King" with the lines "Joy to the world, for peace shall come, Let this be our refrain" came out top of a poll hosted by Ship of Fools, the religious humour website.

Other Christmas favourites altered for the politically-correct age include O Come All Ye Faithful, with some congregations told to sing "O come in adoration" instead of "O come let us adore him", which is apparently considered too gender specific.

No matter what one's religious outlook, that is appalling. 

The website's Steve Goddard said they were inspired to start the poll after dozens of readers complained that their local churches had made clumsy alterations to songbooks...

"...Theologically-modified carols will ring out everywhere this year. Innocents like king, man, son, virgin and Lord have been slaughtered to make carols more modern and inclusive. In some cases, entire verses have been rewritten."

May the rewriters be haunted by the original composers and lyricists, and their lawyers.

He added: "How long will it be before we have to sing 'Oh Vertically Challenged Town of Bethlehem' because 'little' is perceived to be politically incorrect?"

And remember, "Silent Night" may be offensive to those who like the daytime.  Think about it.

December 25, 2008.      Permalink          

CHRISTMAS DISGRACE

Posted at 8:11 a.m. ET

In an insult to believers and to decency itself, Britain's Channel Four is broadcasting a Christmas message to the UK from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is offering season's greetings to Christians in a British TV address and suggesting that if Jesus were alive he would oppose "bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers" -- an apparent reference to the United States and its allies.

Another message of peace.  Of course, Middle East "scholars" will eat it up.

Ahmadinejad's Christmas Day broadcast will be delivered on Britain's Channel 4 television, occupying a slot that provides an often controversial counterpoint to Queen Elizabeth II's traditional annual message, the station said Wednesday. A leading British Jewish body said it was appalled.

Well, it's 1943, and here's Chancellor Adolf Hitler in a Christmas message to the British people.  Can't let the king have the only word, can we? 

Yuch.

"If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly he would hoist the banner of justice and love for humanity to oppose warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over," Ahmadinejad said, according to the English translation of the Farsi-language speech. The broadcast will air with subtitles.

There are protests to this obscenity, but, sadly, not many:

The Israeli ambassador to Britain condemned the speech as a "bogus message of goodwill."

"That [Channel 4] should give an unchallenged platform to the president of a regime which denies the Holocaust, advocates the destruction of the sovereign state of Israel, funds and encourages terrorism, executes children and hangs gay people is a disgrace," Ron Prosor said.

"Outrage doesn't begin to explain it," he said.

British human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell echoed the comments, saying the broadcaster was "aiding and abetting a tyrant."

At least Britain has one human rights campaigner who's actually interested in human rights. 

There's a time and a place.  Channel 4 has done some good things.  But this is an affront to Christians and Jews, and the management might reflect.

December 25, 2008.      Permalink          

WEDNESDAY,  DECEMBER 24,  2008

TOUGH TIMES - AT 2:21 P.M. ET:  From The Washington Times:  Recession worries have put a monumental chill on holiday sales, which are on track to be the worst in at least four decades, raising the possibility of many retail bankruptcies next year.

COMMENT:  With those bankruptcies will come unemployed workers, and, in keeping with the morality of the season, those are the people we should be thinking about. 

LIKE THE BAD OLD DAYS - AT 1:21 P.M. ET:  From, incredibly, Britain's left-wing Guardian: Russia has thrown down a new gauntlet to Barack Obama with an announcement that it will sharply increase production of strategic nuclear missiles.  In the latest of a series of combative moves by the Kremlin, a senior government official in Moscow said the Russian military would commission 70 strategic missiles over the next three years, as part of a massive rearmament programme which will also include short-range missiles, 300 tanks, 14 warships and 50 planes.

COMMENT:  This comes despite the large drop in the price of oil, a major Russian export.  It demonstrates that militant regimes will always find the means to stay militant and militarily strong.

A GREAT QUOTE - AT 9:09 A.M. ET:  From Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman of New York, on Caroline Kennedy's qualifications to be a U.S senator:  “DNA in this business can take you just so far.  Rembrandt was a great artist. His brother Murray, on the other hand, Murray Rembrandt, wouldn’t paint a house.”

COMMENT:  Murray Kennedy.  Sounds good to me. 

MORE HEAT ON WARMING

Posted at 8:26 a.m. ET

One of the most popular pieces we've published recently was Professor Frank Tipler's debunking of the global-warming scare.  Today, conservative economist Walter Williams continues that theme, attacking those who deny the validity of any skepticism about global warming:

Americans have been rope-a-doped into believing that global warming is going to destroy our planet. Scientists who have been skeptical about manmade global warming have been called traitors or handmaidens of big oil. The Washington Post asserted on May 28, 2006 that there were only "a handful of skeptics" of manmade climate fears. Bill Blakemore on Aug. 30, 2006 said, "After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such (scientific) debate on global warming." U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said it was "criminally irresponsible" to ignore the urgency of global warming.

My, my, my.  How far did ABC News look?

Recently, more and more scientists are summoning up the courage to speak out and present evidence against the global warming rope-a-dope. Atmospheric scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said, "It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming."

I like the term "blatant lie."  But in too many universities, a lie is simply called "an alternative narrative."

Dr. Goldenberg has the company of at least 650 noted scientists documented in the recently released U.S. Senate Minority Report: "More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims: Scientists Continue to Debunk 'Consensus' in 2008." The scientists, not environmental activists, include Ivar Giaever, Nobel Laureate in physics, who said, "I am a skeptic … Global warming has become a new religion." Dr.

Kiminori Itoh, an environmental physical chemist, said warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history … When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists."

But here is the key, the money quote:

Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, said, "Many (scientists) are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined."

Destruction of careers is one of the most potent weapons of the global-warming lobby.

Geologist Dr. David Gee, chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress, currently at Uppsala University in Sweden asks, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?"

Dr. Gee, the answer may lie in the financial interests involved in the global-warming industry.  Al Gore could comment on that.

That's a vital question for Americans to ask. Once laws are written, they are very difficult, if not impossible, to repeal. If a time would ever come when the permafrost returns to northern U.S., as far south as New Jersey as it once did, it's not inconceivable that Congress, caught in the grip of the global warming zealots, would keep all the laws on the books they wrote in the name of fighting global warming. Personally, I would not put it past them to write more.

More and more, though, people like Walter Williams are speaking out.  They are up against the religion of global warming, whose main cathedrals are filled with believers from Manhattan, Beverly Hills, and the cocktail circuit in Georgetown. 

Winning will be hard.  But win we must.

December 24, 2008.      Permalink          

POLITICS AT ITS WORST

Posted at 7:03 a.m. ET

We've said here that the possible appointment of Caroline Kennedy to the U.S. Senate, succeeding Hillary Clinton, is a national and international story.  The very day she enters the Senate she becomes a potential presidential candidate, someone who can short circuit any ambitions Hillary Clinton still has.

Now John Fund of The Wall Street Journal gives us a brief, but hard-hitting report on the politics behind the politics, and it is ugly.  As we've suggested here, the president-elect's office is not an innocent bystander:

It wasn't his idea. He may be irritated at being pressured into it. But it appears New York Governor David Paterson is moving towards appointing Caroline Kennedy to the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton.

And...

Normally, Mr. Paterson would have selected someone like Andrew Cuomo, the state's attorney general. Not only would that have removed Mr. Cuomo as a possible primary challenger to Mr. Paterson when he seeks a full term in his own right in 2010. Appointing Mr. Cuomo also would have given New York a proven operator with instant clout and credibility in the Senate.

But Mr. Cuomo's supporters were blindsided by the Kennedy boomlet, which was pushed by allies of Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Within days it was made clear to Governor Paterson that if he appointed Ms. Kennedy, he would have no trouble raising money against any possible primary opponent and would be looked on with great favor by an Obama White House.

And that's the heart of it.  Obama wants an ally in the Senate to replace Clinton, who's being sent off to the State Department.  The Kennedys were instrumental in seizing the presidential nomination for the president-elect.  This is hardball, inside politics at its worst.

All of this leaves both Mr. Cuomo and allies of Hillary Clinton sputtering. They are unhappy with the blitzkrieg campaign waged on behalf of Ms. Kennedy but realize there's little they can do to thwart it.

It comes at a time when the Obama camp exonerates itself in the seat-for-sale scandal in Illinois, issuing its "not guilty" report yesterday, while Mr. Obama shows off his star-quality torso while vacationing in Hawaii.  This is all change we can believe in.

The only thing that could gum up the works now is Ms. Kennedy's possible overexposure in coming weeks -- i.e., if she answers too many questions. The perils of having this political Greta Garbo reveal too much about her opinions showed up even in the tentative answers she gave to Politico.com about some key policy positions.

Her answers had to be carefully calibrated to navigate the turbulent waters of New York special interest politics.

Nice, huh?  And apparently Caroline's chances haven't been hurt by her spokesman's blunt announcement that she will not release any financial data - a fundamental requirement these days in politics.  Remember the ridicule Sen. McCain received regarding his wife's wealth?

She has far, far less experience that does Sarah Palin, but note the silence from those who bashed Gov. Palin.

The hypocrisy flows.  If a Hollywood scriptwriter wrote this, the script would be turned down as unrealistic.

December 24, 2008.      Permalink