An almost coordinated series of winter storms has wreaked havoc on most of the U.S. East Coast, in many European countries as well as in China. It is not hard to imagine the glee of the global warming deniers, who appear to think that because it does get colder somewhere for a few days, or if more than the average amount of snow falls, their beliefs that global warming, or climate change is a hoax are proven and confirmed.

Our advice would be for the deniers to come back when they actually manage to learn the difference between climate and weather.

It should be noted that increased temperatures and increased aberrant weather patterns are not mutually exclusive.

One of the most noticeable effects of global warming is extreme weather. In 2007 we had the California wildfires, the worst flooding in England since the 18th century, severe water shortage in the southern U.S. Now, at the end of 2009 we have unseasonably cold temperatures and record, or nearly record snowfalls on several continents. One can only guess what climate and weather changes 2010 will bring.

So, for those affected by the wintery weather, dress warm, shovel your driveways with a smile, since it might be years, or even decades, before you will be seeing the beautiful white stuff again in such quantities.

Technorati Tags: change, china, Climate, cold, europe, Globa warming, snow, US, Weather

It’s been many years since the 9/11 attacks and America’s favorite boogieman Osama bin Laden is apparently still out there…Or is he? Nobody seems to know for sure, it seems.

U.S. National Security Adviser, James Jones, says bin Laden, believed hiding mainly in a rugged area of western Pakistan, may be periodically slipping back into Afghanistan as well. At the same time, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, says the U.S. has lacked good intelligence on bin Laden for a long time – “I think it has been years” – and did not confirm that he’d slipped into Afghanistan.

The failed hunt for bin Laden has been one of the signature elements of the global “war on terror” that George W. Bush launched after the Sept. 11 attacks. The principal explanations given by both the Bush and Obama administrations for not getting bin Laden is that they simply don’t know where he is.
“If we did, we’d go get him,” Gates said.

Jones, a retired Marine general, stressed the urgency of targeting bin Laden, and spoke of a renewed campaign to capture or kill him. Bin Laden had been allowed to operate in Afghanistan by his Taliban allies while allegedly plotting the Sept. 11 attacks. When U.S. forces ousted the Taliban from power in late 2001, bin Laden reportedly fled into Pakistan from what was generally described as a complex of caves in the Tora Bora area.

Asked whether the administration has reliable intelligence on bin Laden’s whereabouts, James Jones replied, “The best estimate is that he is somewhere in North Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border.” He did not elaborate on the intelligence behind that estimate, nor did he cite a time period or describe more specifically bin Laden’s apparent border crossings.

Robert Gates in turn, said: that “we don’t know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is,” although he agreed that his likely hideout is in North Waziristan.

The U.S. has targeted North Waziristan and other areas on the Pakistani side of the border with drone-launched missile strikes, killing a number of militants as well as Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani army has undertaken an offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan but it has not expanded it into North Waziristan.

Obama administration officials have often asserted, as did the Bush administration, that they believe bin Laden is being sheltered on the Pakistani side of the border, along with other senior al-Qaida leaders. But Jones’s assertion that al-Qaida chief may have slipped back into Afghanistan puts a new twist on the issue.

Senator John McCain said: “that knowledgeable people have told him that bin Laden ‘moves back and forth.’”
McCain did not elaborate, except to say that although bin Laden is not currently able to establish bases for training and equipping terrorists who would attack the United States, “I think it’s important to get him.”

Gates said he does not blame a lack of Pakistani cooperation for the absence of intelligence on bin Laden. “No, I think it’s because if, as we suspect, he is in North Waziristan, it is an area that the Pakistani government has not had a presence in, in quite some time,” he said.

During a visit to Pakistan in October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton caused a stir by chiding Pakistani officials for failing to press the hunt for al-Qaida inside their borders. She said she found it “hard to believe” that no one in Islamabad knows where the al-Qaida leaders are hiding and couldn’t get them “if they really wanted to.”

A recent Senate report said bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora only three months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when American military leaders made the crucial decision not to pursue him with massive force.

Some Pakistanis believe that Osama bin Laden is actually a CIA agent.

Take a look at this video:

So, it appears that we are as much in the dark about bin Laden’s whereabouts, as we seem to be about what really and truly transpired on September 11, 2001. Lets just hope that our intelligence regarding both Afghan and Pakistani Taliban is more accurate, since nobody in his right mind wants the Afghan war to drag on forever.

Technorati Tags: afghanistan, al-qaida, bin laden, cia, clinton, gates, jones, Pakistan, Terrorism, US

The U.S. unemployment rate has passed the psychological threshold of 10 percent for the first time since 1983, a couple of years into Ronald Reagan’s presidency when it reached 10.8 percent. It is also quite likely that it will go higher.

Economists say the unemployment rate could reach 10.5 percent next year because employers remain reluctant to hire.

October was the 22nd straight month the U.S. economy has shed jobs, the longest on records dating back 70 years.

Nearly 16 million people can’t find jobs even though the worst recession since the Great Depression has apparently ended. Persistently high unemployment could hurt the recovery by restraining consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy. That percentage is obviously much too high, as is the percentage of the economy held by the debt repackaging mills – read Wall Street and banks.

So, the news isn’t good despite some small rays of hope coming from the supposedly recovering automakers. The dollar continues to lose value, ostensibly to make U.S. products more attractive abroad, but in reality, because we continue printing money as if the national debt wasn’t an issue. The interest rates hovering at near zero percent might be attractive for certain borrowers, but totally counterproductive in the area of savings and secure and meaningful investments.

There seems to a slightly growing tendency to rebuild some of our former manufacturing might, following the example of Germany, which is a huge exporter, second only to China.

It would certainly be about time. After all, it has been a very long time, since we ceased to be a manufacturing giant, preferring to buy cheaper products elsewhere. It has also been a long time, since the importance of quality has been displaced by an ever-present quest to save 10 cents here and seven cents there.

Technorati Tags: Economy, Highest, Jobless, Rate, Reagan, Since, unemployment, US

Matthew Hoh, a former Marine captain and lately a Foreign Service official in Afghanistan has decided to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he believes simply fuels the insurgency.

“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” wrote Hoh. “I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.”

Hoh also wrote that many Afghans are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there – a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected.

In 2006 Matthew Hoh was called up to active duty from the reserves to serve in Iraq. He commanded a Marine company in Anbar province. In 2008 he rejoined the Foreign Service and went to Afghanistan’s Zabul Province, on the border with Pakistan.

Soon after the August 20, 2009 presidential elections Hoh became so seriously disenchanted that he wrote: “multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, “[the insurgency] is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified.”

Although we generally agree with Matthew Hoh’s assessment of the situation and his decision, there probably isn’t much that we can add to this.

Technorati Tags: Afghan, Diplomat, Matthew Hoh, Over, Resigns, US, war

The claims and counterclaims in this case vary widely, but as it stands, Eric Williamson, of Springfield, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC is being accused of indecent exposure.

As a woman, who was walking her 7-year-old son to school tells the story; Williamson has shown himself butt-naked twice through the windows of the house he was living in.

Williamson, in turn says that he just got up and was preparing breakfast in his own house, totally unaware that anyone could see him.

It is also interesting to note that the accusing woman is a wife of a Fairfax County policeman.

Police showed up very quickly. One of the five cops who went into his house reportedly called Williamson a pervert and others looked through his belongings. They left but returned a short time later to take him to the magistrate.

A police spokeswoman would not comment on Williamson’s claim that officers entered his room without a warrant, but she did say “We don’t arrest people for being nude in their house.”

Williamson in turn, says Fairfax County police treated him “like an animal” at his home.

Considering the huge brouhaha about a sex-related show in Saudi Arabia and the sentences of lashes and prison for those involved (apparently now pardoned by King Abdullah), or the stoning and other punishment in Afghanistan and Pakistan, our domestic morals might not seem to be that strict. On the other hand, how does walking naked around one’s own house compare to miles and miles of nude people on many European beaches? Who could be considered more advanced from the cultural and moral point of view, we wonder…

Technorati Tags: afghanistan, Alive, lashes, man, Morals, naked, Pakistan, police, Puritanism, Saudi Arabia, US