Brutally Honest

“If we really believe the truth, we shall be decided about it. Certainly we are not to show our decision by that obstinate, furious, wolfish bigotry which cuts off every other body from the chance and hope of salvation and the possibility of being regenerate or even decently honest if they happen to differ from us about the colour of a scale of the great leviathan. Some individuals appear to be naturally cut on the cross; they are manufactured to be rasps, and rasp they will. Sooner than not quarrel with you they would raise a question upon the colour of invisibility, or the weight of a non-existent substance. They are up in arms with you, not because of the importance of the question under discussion, but because of the far greater importance of their being always the Pope of the party. Don’t go about the world with your fist doubled up for fighting, carrying a theological revolver in the leg of your trousers. There is no sense in being a sort of doctrinal game-cock, to be carried about to show your spirit, or a terrier of orthodoxy, ready to tackle hertodox rats by the score . . . These are theologians of such warm, generous blood, that they are never at peace till they are fully engaged in warâ€
- (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 224).

Just how obvious is it that the media's economic and business coverage is so negatively skewed that it has to be part of a political agenda in an election year?

Obvious enough for the folks at Fox News to do an entire segment Saturday morning asking the extraordinary question: "Media ‘Talking Down' the Economy to Get a Dem Elected?"

Despite my surprise seeing "Cavuto on Business" begin with such a question framed at the bottom of the screen, I was almost enraptured by the comments from Neil's guests which not only included regular assertions that this is clearly about getting a Democrat in the White House, but also that media are "committing a crime against the general public" by creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that will end up costing people their jobs in the long run.

More importantly, "if we have a serious recession, a great deal will lie at the media's feet."

Cavuto marvelously began the segment:

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Well, is the economy slowing? Well, yeah it is. But call me crazy, is it as bad as this? This week, the Associated Press claiming Americans are being subjected to, and I quote "economic water torture." And then this little ditty item on the GDP, "The economy nearly sputtered out at the end of the year."  We were up at the end of the year. Why someone here says this is all part of the media's plan to get a Democrat in the White House. Is it?...First to Ben Stein, and Ben, your reaction to this idea that we're going to hell in a hand-basket.

BEN STEIN: Well, the media has been selling us on fear and recession for months maybe years now. Even before there was and really seriously bad news they were selling, selling, selling fear. They have been shouting "FIRE" in a crowded theatre now for months, quarters, I'd say probably over a year. The actual economic conditions are not that bad. I think if we have a recession, if we have a serious recession, a great deal will lie at the media's feet. And I don't know why they're doing it. They're the ones that are going to lose their jobs.

CAVUTO: What do you think of that, that we are going into a slowdown - some would even say a recession - but to hear some in the media tell it, depression?

CHARLES PAYNE, WSTREET.COM: It's really, what the real problem is is that it's not fair to the public that they're supposedly serving. You know, when you stir things up, and I think Ben the analogy to yelling "FIRE" in a crowded movie theatre is absolutely perfect. I mean, when you say something like "water torture," it's not only, to me it just seems that they're taking a shot at the GOP on the economy, but also with the Iraq war and water-boarding. That's exactly what I thought of when I heard it. And, it's so transparent, and, but, the really sad thing is I think they're committing a crime against the general public when they do this.

"I think there's no room for hate, and I could not sit and tolerate that kind of language, and especially over a very long period of time," said Philadelphia's newly elected mayor, Michael Nutter, in an interview with ABC News' David Muir.

"If I were in my own church and heard my pastor saying some of those kinds of things," he added, "we'd have a conversation about what's going on here, what is this all about, and then I would have to make my own personal decision about whether or not to be associated or affiliated."

Asked by Muir if he would he have quit Obama's church, Nutter said, "Absolutely."

Light, both natural and artificial, has traditionally been associated with The Good. A critical element of civilization has been the development of ever brighter, more flexible, and more reliable forms of illumination, from the tallow candle, through whale oil and kerosene, to Thomas Edison's marvellous invention of the electric light bulb.

Conversely, the absence of light is associated with primitivism and ignorance. Is it not significant, therefore, that radical environmentalists are seeking to persuade citizens of the world to flick the switch? Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver are among the cities planning to dim their lights this coming Saturday between 8 and 9 p.m. as part of "Earth Hour."

The cause, masterminded by the World Wildlife Fund, WWF, is allegedly to raise awareness of climate change. But what needs raising is not so much awareness as knowledge. People are woefully ignorant both about the uncertainties of climate-change science and the implications of climate-change politics. However, the WWF has no interest in discussing or debating the issue. According to them, we should "stop talking and start acting." Check your brains at the door.

Far from being a harmless gesture of support for the environment, Earth Hour is symbolic of a spreading soft fascism, aided by well-meaning individuals and well-meaning and/or cynical and/ or scared corporations. Indeed, what is truly astonishing, and disturbing, about this turn-out-the-lights exercise is how many businesses and corporations have signed on to it. According to the WWF Canada, they haven't had one "no" from any company they've approached.

Quite right. At 8pm tonight, rational Canadians will become aware of which of their neighbors live on programmed-control thought timers.

And then be aware that there are those who, while admitting their own token effort won't make any difference, think that an hour of illuminated dissent will result in "driving up your electric bill". This is less awareness raising than it is an IQ test for the candle powered.

In appearance taped for airing this morning on "The View," Senator Obama makes news by saying he might have left Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ if the Rev. Jeremiah Wright had not retired.

In a clip posted by ABC, Obama says: 'Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country -- for all its flaws -- then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying there at the church."

"You have all heard the racist and anti-American outbursts of my pastor Rev. Wright. They are all inexcusable. His speeches have forced me to re-examine my long association with Trinity United Church of Christ. And so it is with regret that I must now leave that church.

"I had heard similar extremist language of Rev. Wright in the past, and now apologize that I did not earlier end my attendance and contributions. Had I long ago expressed my strong objections to Rev. Wright's views, such opposition might have suggested to him a more moderate path.

"But any good that now might come by remaining steadfast to Rev. Wright in consideration of our long past friendship is outweighed by the damage that would accrue from the sanction of his extremism that my continued attendance at his church might convey.

"I have loyalty aplenty, but it is to the truth, my country and universal tolerance, not to any one friend, however long and close our association.

"Allegations that America helped to cause -- and thus deserved -- 9/11 and that the U.S. government engineered the AIDS epidemic, as well as the pastor's slurs against 'white people' and Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice, are not reflective of the views of mainstream black America and they have no place in any house of Christian worship.

"It would be easy to claim that Rev. Wright's biases are no different from those voiced on occasion by our own family members, our pastors or political leaders in the public eye and therefore not so injurious to America. That defense of false equivalence, that 'others do it all the time,' is a common one offered by those who offend the public sensibility.

"It would also be easy to excuse my pastor's outbursts by citing the long tragic history of the African-American experience. After all, every extremist outburst always has a particular and perhaps mitigating context.

"And finally it would be easy to suggest that the special landscape of the black church allows a sort of venting and role-playing unlike other common venues in America. It has often been a refuge from white oppression and a place to make sense of the tragic history of race relations that plague us still. That and the good that Rev. Wright has done could also be an extenuating circumstance.

"But neither Pastor Wright nor I -- a candidate for the presidency of the United States -- can afford to find refuge in any of these relativist explanations. To do so would not merely exempt the statements of Rev. Wright from proper censure, but also would have the effect of offering endorsement to them. Here is why we must not and will not do that:

That question becomes harder to answer when one recalls that Israel is a democratic nation with vigorously independent courts that has not only survived brutal attacks by its Arab neighbors but provided a prosperous home for the children of many Holocaust survivors. As with any other nation, Israel has pursued policies that one can challenge. Some may criticize its management of the West Bank, for example, or its attacks on Hamas leaders. But these concerns are trivial compared with Iran’s announced desire to wipe Israel off the map by using every weapon at its disposal, including (eventually) a nuclear one.

The answer, I think, is that many Christian liberals see Israel as blocking the aspirations of the oppressed—who, they have decided, include the Palestinians. Never mind that the Palestinians support suicide bombers and rocket attacks against Israel; never mind that the Palestinians cannot form a competent government; never mind that they wish to occupy Israel “from the sea to the river.†It is enough that they seem oppressed, even though much of the oppression is self-inflicted.

Obama:

(italics mine)

Obama wants voters to judge McCain based on the company he keeps…but it’s terribly bad form to judge Obama by the company he keeps.

OK then.

Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

An indictment unsealed in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit group, of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary.

At the time, the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq.

The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California.

“Let’s note, that in what I consider the most disgraceful performance abroad by an American official in my lifetime -- something not exampled since Jane Fonda sat on the anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi to be photographed -- Mr. McDermott said in effect, not in effect, he said it, we should take Saddam Hussein at his word and not take the President at his word. He said the United States is simply trying to provoke. I mean, why Saddam Hussein doesn’t pay commercial time for that advertisement for his policy, I do not know.â€

"We don't like being pushed outside of our comfort zones. You know it right here on this campus. You know people sitting at different tables- you all living in different dorms. I was there. You're not talking to eachother, taking advantage that you're in this diverse community. Because sometimes it's easier to hold on to your own stereotypes and misconceptions. It makes you feel justified in your own ignorance... That's America.  So the challenge for us is are we ready for change?"

Mr. Obama’s church published this open letter to Oprah Winfrey (who was at one time a member of the congregation) in the June 10, 2007 edition of their bulletin (pdf file):

Open Letter to Oprah

Dear Oprah,

...

I must tell you that Israel was the closest ally to the White Supremacists of South Africa. In fact, South Africa allowed Israel to test its nuclear weapons in the ocean off South Africa. The Israelis were given a blank check: they could test whenever they desired and did not even have to ask permission. Both worked on an ethnic bomb that kills Blacks and Arabs.

Arabs have always supported the dismantling of this racist government. In 1962, African-Arab Sudan granted Mandela a passport to travel with to gain international support in his struggle to free his people. Libya, among other Arab states, provided Mandela and other African liberation movements, political as well as material support. As a result, Libya was designated by the White House as a terrorist rogue state. What a great honor!

Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago where Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been a member for two decades, slurred Italians in a piece published in the most recent issue of Trumpet Newsmagazine.

"(Jesus') enemies had their opinion about Him," Wright wrote in a eulogy of the late scholar Asa Hilliard in the November/December 2007 issue. "The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans."

Wright continued, "From the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth (in a barn in a township that was under the Apartheid Roman government that said his daddy had to be in), up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on a cross, a Roman cross, public lynching Italian style. ...

"He refused to be defined by others and Dr. Asa Hilliard also refused to be defined by others. The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge, but Asa, like Jesus, refused to be defined by an oppressive government because Asa got his identity from an Omnipotent God."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a wide-ranging interview today with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters and editors, said she would have left her church if her pastor made the sort of inflammatory remarks Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor made.

"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

Dear Senator Obama:

I have now read and reread your speech, understanding you take this to be a “teaching moment,†I have applied myself to its lessons. But some questions have arisen and I need a little more clarification.

You tell me Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s horrendous remarks will take on a different meaning if I will but contextualize them and understand he has seen terrible things in his time, a burden shared by all African-Americans. A fair proposition; from Kant to Auden and beyond we learn we define by comparison and only by internalizing can we grasp true meaning. So I have done precisely that: looked inside myself to understand how hatred might need to be contextualized.

I did not have to look far. I remembered how, as a boy, I sat at the Passover Seder with my sister’s Polish-born husband and the remnants of his family. The remnants of five families to be precise, for the 12 weary souls around that table were all that remained of what had once been 300. The others – their loved ones, their sons, their daughters, their hopes and dreams – were gone, their lives consumed by zyklon-b gas, their mortal remains wisps of smoke from a Büchenwald chimney. These people, who had seen and suffered so much, read of my ancestor’s deliverance from Egypt exactly as the Bible instructed: in the present tense, as if it happened to them. “For with a mighty hand the Lord thy God raised thee out of Egypt and brought you from slavery to freedom.†But as they spoke – or really whispered such was the fear and holiness of the moment – they were not conjuring up Egyptian slavery as a present experience but recalling the horrors they themselves had witnessed, murder on a scope once unimaginable and only made possible by perverted technology. Though their Yiddish was foreign to me, I picked up the odd word. When they spoke of the Concentration Camp guards, they called them the Ukrainians. When they remembered the betrayal of their neighbors, I could distinguish the word Pole. But above all, it was the Germans, the hated Germans. The Hun. The Devil’s Scourge. And I was filled with a righteous hatred. Had I, in that moment, the power to end the life of every German on earth, I might have well done so. That is a shameful thought. I am humiliated by the memory. But perhaps, in context, you can understand my homicidal rage and forgive me, and should I have chosen to preach that doctrine in a place of worship and stir an audience to its feet as it cheered my righteous fury, I trust you would offer me the fig leaf of “context.â€

As the Seder ended, my brother-in-law, seeing my rage, put his arm around my shoulder and asked what troubled me. I stammered the best explanation I could. He smiled, “Don’t be a fool,†he said, “the Germans left so many of us dead and stole the joy from so many that remain. So now you want to give them the final victory by allowing your own life to be consumed and twisted and deformed by the same hatred? Leave it to them. That’s why we, at this table, forgive. Not forget, but forgive. You just heard how Moses told the Israelites not to celebrate the death of the Egyptians in the Reed Sea. Learn.â€

But his words were empty to me.

A few years later, work on a particular film took me to Munich, and as I drove past the road signs to Dachau, past Hitler’s favorite spot, “The English Gardens,†to my suite at the Bayerischof Hotel (where The Fuehrer himself once stayed) I was physically ill. I couldn’t stand to hear the German tongue, nor bear to see Germans smile, and when I noticed a man in traditional Bavarian dress I again felt my homicidal anger rise. I survived that trip, came back to the safety of my blessed America, promising never to return to part of the world that was home to alien races who had destroyed so many people just like me.

Sometime after that, I was invited to participate on a panel on “Hollywood and Stereotypes†sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. It was against my instinct, but a good friend had asked I participate and so I did. It began with a clip from Hollywood movies picturing stereotypical Germans and ended with the famous moment in Casablanca where the French stand and sing “La Marseillaiseâ€. What a crock, I thought, Senator! After all, the short story upon which the film was based was set in Marseilles where the French were happily arresting Jews for transport to their own concentration camp at Drancy. Besides France had yet to apologize for her diligent rounding up and deportation of Jews even after the successes of D-Day. And yet they considered themselves victims which meant never having to say they were sorry. My first co-panelist to speak was a young woman, a German filmmaker. She spoke of how growing up as a German she felt ashamed and humiliated whenever it was necessary to admit her lineage and how her life was about working to ease her shame. It was pure self-hatred. Senator, by some strange alchemy I heard myself explaining to her the mantle of guilt did not fall upon the shoulders of her generation. In fact, I found myself describing Germany’s honest attempt to come to terms with the horrors committed in its name. I spoke of all the things they had done from which the French, the Ukrainians, the Poles had run. How they taught in their schools the truth of their actions, how they policed their civil society and punished words or acts that had echoes of that time, how they worked tirelessly to make reparation to those survivors not stamped out by their hobnailed boots. They had sought atonement. That is not say anti-Semitism and anti-Semites did not persist in Germany. Of course they did, as they do everywhere. But they are no longer the soul or intent of the German nation, they are seen for the abhorrent aberration they truly are. Mind you, Senator, the “new†Germans did not ask for forgiveness; they knew this was not within the power of humankind and could only be given by the grace of God. They acted out their atonement from pure understanding of what had gone before.

And in that instant I realized my hatred was unjustified. The “context†was false. I was nursing the anger for my own psychic advantage and not because the current state of humanity or my own experience gave it justice. And I shed my anger. And when another film project took me to Germany, my journey was completely different. I’m not saying as I sat in the lobby of the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kimpinski in Munich I couldn’t help but imagine it filled with SS Officers enjoying the fruits of their murdering conquest. Of course I did. But I also understood the young Germans around me could not be held to that account. When one of my colleagues, also Jewish, made a derogatory remark I engaged him, and with surprising ease found he agreed it was time to let go. I threw away the comfort of context, spoke the truth to him. And it freed me. Now, this is not true for all Jews, Senator; some still dwell on that bitterness, and you would say, understandable, given the “context.†Perhaps. But they are not our soul or intent. They are a past generation and we do not look to them for leadership. We teach redemption. We try to hold them to some form of account.

That is the teaching opportunity I hoped you would evoke: not explaining Wright’s outrage to me, but explaining his outrageousness to him. That’s how we’ll reach the postracial era: by no longer justifying ourselves with what was, instead speaking to what now exists. Not deny the past, but recognize that’s what it is: past.

Sen. Obama’s reverse-racist pastor got caught spewing his vitriol on YouTube…thank heavens we live in the age of YouTube…and they’re telling me Obama addressed this with a wonderful speech that helped “unify†the country on the subject of race. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe his speech was all about how all black churches have hateful crap like this and us “typical white persons†should just learn to deal with it. That, in 2008, crap-hockers like Herbert tell me, is “unifying.â€

Not only is it divisive, but beneath the glaring incompetence at recognizing the difference between those two, which Obama evidently has — I struggle to think of a personal attribute that would more effectively disqualify a candidate from any important office.

Obama’s a poor leader, plain and simple. His qualification for the office he currently seeks — for any occupation — is that he has a golden throat. Fine. Let him sell cleaning solvents and exercise equipment on infomercials at three in the morning. He can do that all week, and then on Sunday go back to those “services.â€

How embarrassing. People are dividing us and we’re calling them “uniters†— and the worst part is, it seems we’re just following through on something we’ve been doing for forty years. They make their careers out of telling us how different we are due to the color of our skin, and we reward them by allowing them to continue those careers as long as possible, becoming as rich as possible.

I wonder if that’s what all this noise is about the Rev’d Jeremiah Wright. He’s not preaching the pablum of suffer now, but don’t worry, there will be pie-in-the-sky bye and bye. He’s not preaching the (seemingly acceptable) message of hatred against gays and lesbians and feminazis and Roman Catholics and whomever else it’s still okay to hate. He’s preaching words that make some people uncomfortable, but beneath those words is a powerful connection with the overarching story, the main plot, of the Bible. That God created us and that God’s on-going work in creation is that of liberation. Liberating us from bondage of any kind whether from oppression as was the case of the Children of Israel (and which still continues to be the case to this very day throughout the world), all the way up to and including liberating us from sin – separation from God – and death.

Seen and heard just now on CW channel 56 Boston news: a report on Good Friday "services" (hate that word in Catholic contexts) around the world, including Jerusalem, where "worshipers packed the church where Jesus is believed to be buried."

It's not the baptism that bothers me. It's the choice to publicly fan flames of religious anger. And it's not educated Muslims that, by and large, will be angered. There was no reason to go out of his way to do this. None.

I have no problem with Catholicism. None. I have a problem with one man's decision to do something that is fanning the flames of global religious intolerance and anger.

I'm angry. This piece shows it. I'm angry because religious zeal and the need to convert people has driven the three religions of Abraham to be at war with each other. WE MUST STOP trying to convert each other. And the leaders of our religions should be leading us there. But at LEAST the leaders of our religions should not be fanning flames and going out of their way to do things that make it worse.

“Yesterday has been the most beautiful day of my life, when I chose the most simple and explicit name. Since yesterday, my name is Magdi Christian Allam,†he wrote.

Explaining the stages of his conversion, Allam said that “at some point I had to take action†after discovering that “the roots of evil are intrinsic to Islam, that [it] is physiologically violent and historically conflictive.â€

The convert also gave thanks to “the embrace of high prelates of great humanity,†mentioning Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and “especially Bishop Rino Fisichella who has personally followed me on the spiritual road to accepting the faith.â€

Bishop Fisichella is the Auxiliary Bishop of Rome and President of the Pontifical Lateran University.

But Allam says that the most decisive factor was his meeting with the Pope “whom I have admired and defended as a Muslim for his brilliance in presenting the indissoluble link between faith and reason as the foundation of true religion.â€

He praised the Pontiff for agreeing “to personally give me  the Sacraments,†thus launching  “an explicit and revolutionary  message to a Church up to now too prudent regarding the conversion of Muslims.â€

Addressing Corriere’s editor in chief Paolo Mieli, Allam writes: “you have asked me if I fear for my life. You are right. I realize what I am going up against, but I will confront my fate with my head high, with my back straight and the interior strength of one who is certain about his faith.â€

According to Allam, in Italy “there are thousands of converts to Islam who peacefully live their faith. But there are also thousands of Muslim converts who are constrained to hide their new faith.â€

In his open letter, he finally expresses his hope that these former Muslims “from the Pope’s historic gesture and my testimony may be convinced  that the time has come to come out from the shadows of the catacombs.â€

In an interview with ABC News Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., called for the firing of talk radio host Don Imus. Obama said he would never again appear on Imus' show, which is broadcast on CBS Radio and MSNBC television.

"I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus," Obama told ABC News, "but I would also say that there's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group. And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude."

"He didn't just cross the line," Obama said. "He fed into some of the worst stereotypes that my two young daughters are having to deal with today in America. The notions that as young African-American women -- who I hope will be athletes -- that that somehow makes them less beautiful or less important. It was a degrading comment. It's one that I'm not interested in supporting."

"What we've been seeing around this country is this constant ratcheting up of a coarsening of the culture that all of have [us] to think about," Obama said.

"Insults, humor that degrades women, humor that is based in racism and racial stereotypes isn't fun," the senator told ABC News.

"And the notion that somehow it's cute or amusing, or a useful diversion, I think, is something that all of us have to recognize is just not the case. We all have First Amendment rights. And I am a constitutional lawyer and strongly believe in free speech, but as a culture, we really have to do some soul-searching to think about what kind of toxic information are we feeding our kids," he concluded.

Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth stillwarming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"

Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant."

Duffy: "It's not only that it's not discussed. We never hear it, do we? Whenever there's any sort of weather event that can be linked into the global warming orthodoxy, it's put on the front page. But a fact like that, which is that global warming stopped a decade ago, is virtually never reported, which is extraordinary."

Duffy then turned to the question of how the proponents of the greenhouse gas hypothesis deal with data that doesn't support their case. "People like Kevin Rudd and Ross Garnaut are speaking as though the Earth is still warming at an alarming rate, but what is the argument from the other side? What would people associated with the IPCC say to explain the (temperature) dip?"

Marohasy: "Well, the head of the IPCC has suggested natural factors are compensating for the increasing carbon dioxide levels and I guess, to some extent, that's what sceptics have been saying for some time: that, yes, carbon dioxide will give you some warming but there are a whole lot of other factors that may compensate or that may augment the warming from elevated levels of carbon dioxide.

"There's been a lot of talk about the impact of the sun and that maybe we're going to go through or are entering a period of less intense solar activity and this could be contributing to the current cooling."

Duffy: "Can you tell us about NASA's Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we're now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?"

Marohasy: "That's right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you've got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you're going to get a positive feedback. That's what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

Duffy: "The climate is actually, in one way anyway, more robust than was assumed in the climate models?"

Marohasy: "That's right ... These findings actually aren't being disputed by the meteorological community. They're having trouble digesting the findings, they're acknowledging the findings, they're acknowledging that the data from NASA's Aqua satellite is not how the models predict, and I think they're about to recognise that the models really do need to be overhauled and that when they are overhauled they will probably show greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide."

Duffy: "From what you're saying, it sounds like the implications of this could beconsiderable ..."

Marohasy: "That's right, very much so. The policy implications are enormous. The meteorological community at the moment is really just coming to terms with the output from this NASA Aqua satellite and (climate scientist) Roy Spencer's interpretation of them. His work is published, his work is accepted, but I think people are still in shock at this point."

If Marohasy is anywhere near right about the impending collapse of the global warming paradigm, life will suddenly become a whole lot more interesting.

While Sen. Barack Obama said he couldn't throw over his friend and pastor of 20 years for racially charged and divisive hate speech, he had no trouble calling for the head of Sen. Trent Lott, the Republican Senate majority leader, for embracing a colleague with a segregationist past on his 100th birthday.

On Dec. 12, 2002, Obama, then serving as an Illinois state senator and filling in as host of the Cliff Kelley radio show on WVON, challenged the Republican Party to demand Lott's resignation.

"It seems to be that we can forgive a 100-year-old senator for some of the indiscretion of his youth, but, what is more difficult to forgive is the current president of the U.S. Senate (Lott) suggesting we had been better off if we had followed a segregationist path in this country after all of the battles and fights for civil rights and all the work that we still have to do," said Obama.

He added: "The Republican Party itself has to drive out Trent Lott. If they have to stand for something, they have to stand up and say this is not the person we want representing our party."

I think Obama did what he should have. He stated very clearly that he disagreed uncategorically with Wright's statement. Where he drew the line was that he would not reject him as a person, after a more than 20 year history with him, who has had a place in many very signigicant times of Obama's life. I don't think he should have to walk out on him, or reject him altogether simply because others find his words uncomfortable. If he had said, "Well, what's the issue? He didn't say anything wrong!" I might have an issue with it. But he didn't. He said he disagreed. But that clip is one clip. Obama has a much broader experience of him, and has heard many more sermons from him. And it is his choice whether he remains in relationship with him. It is our choice whether or not we vote for him. I personally am voting for him, with no hesitation.

- Reverend Susan in Ca.

I'm sure everyone's pastor has said some pretty outrageous things on occasion. I'm sure everyone who has ever run for political office in the past 2 decades has had to have crap like this thrown at them, even crap they did not create themselves. What a bunch of sideline trouble mongers we have become! Obama's pastor's opinions are not necessarily Obama's opinions, just as my opinions are not necessarily shared by members of my church. We disagree on much, but they don't walk out, cry foul or call the newspaper to grouse about it. We have a deeper relationship than shared opinions on little things like the war in Iraq, abortion, Social Security, the economy, and favorite ball teams.

I don't CARE what Obama's PASTOR said, what his WIFE said, what his
next door neighbor said, what a former businss partner did, what his tailor thinks.   I just don't care.

- Reverend Glen

This is such an interesting phrasing. I don’t mean the “typical white person†which is obviously problematic as it assumes there is such a thing. I’m more interested in the rest of that quote. Let’s break this down.

If she “sees somebody on the street.†Here we’re obviously talking about someone black, but he doesn’t say that. Why not? He’s just referred to his own grandmother as a “white person†why not refer to a “black person†on the street. It’s very odd to shy away from that in this context. It’s as if Barack can verbally acknowledge white stereotypes but not black ones.

Then it gets really confusing with, “there’s a reaction that’s been bred into our experience.†What in the world does that mean? If something is a result of experience, we call that judgment or learning. But if something is “bred into†us that would seem to be innate, or prejudicial. It seems to me a reaction can’t be both. It can be innate or learned, predjudice or judgment. Either one obviates the other.

I can only conclude that when he says this reaction is bred into “our experience†he means the experience of the culture at large. In short, he’s returning to the old saw about the media focusing on black crime to the point that all black people begin to look like criminals.

So the suggestion here is that “typical white people†who may be wonderful in many ways, nevertheless have an unfortunate view of blacks which has in some way been foisted upon them contrary to reality. Here’s the problem with that.

Black people commit a great deal more violent street crime per capita than white people.

Not a slight difference, but a large and statistically significant margin. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2004 black males aged 14-24 were 1.2% of the population yet committed 26.1% of the murders in the US. If that figure were attributed to redheads or left-handed people, you bet there’d be a different assessment of those individuals walking down the street.

This is the problem black America faces, or more accurately hasn’t been able yet to face. This is not a PR problem that can be solved with better TV coverage. The problem of black crime (mostly against other blacks) is not one that exists primarily in the imagination of white people. It’s one that exists in the real world.