‘Scientist’ Group’s Funding Comes with Liberal ‘Strings Attached’

By Kevin Mooney
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
January 23, 2007

(CNSNews.com) – At a time when the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is censuring free market organizations for accepting donations from ExxonMobil, critics have turned the spotlight back onto the UCS, its left-wing positions, and its own funding practices.

In a recent report, the UCS charged that organizations are using oil industry money to create public uncertainty about what it calls “consensus” about climate change and the role of human activity in affecting temperatures see related story. Organizations named in the report have denied the claims.

The UCS describes itself as an “alliance” of over 200,000 citizens and scientists that initially came together in 1969. It integrates “independent scientific research” with “citizen action” for the purpose of developing and implementing “changes to government policy, corporate practices and consumer choices.”

But critics say it is an openly political group.

According to James Dellinger, executive director of Greenwatch – a project of the Capital Research Center – the UCS has a long financial association with elements that have a “partisan view of science.”

David Martosko, executive director of ActivistCash.com – a division of the Center for Consumer Freedom – agrees. He told Cybercast News Service the UCS would be “more aptly named the Union of Pro-Regulation, Anti-Business Scientists.”

More.

Also, read this comment from Kevin McCullough

MORONS.

When is it not?
Take for example the fact that there was a rather large pro-life demonstration in Washington D.C. on the 22nd of January.
Where was the media coverage?

Had it been an anti-life (pro-abortion) rally, it would have been plastered in every newspaper as their number one story, with pictures to go along with it.

Had it been Cindy Sheehan running her mouth, again it would have been front page news.

Here’s a site that has many pictures of the pro-life rally.

This is from the Worldwide Standard:

Body Count

In the past, President Bush has expressed his concern about releasing the body count of enemy fighters killed or captured in Iraq. Late last year, the president sat down with a number of conservative journalists and talked about the absence of daily body counts in the Iraq war. “We have made a conscious effort not to be a body-count team . . . [which] gives you the impression that [U.S. troops] are just there–kind of moving around, directing traffic, and somebody takes a shot at them and they’re down.”

In fact, that is exactly the impression one gets watching the evening news. But that might be starting to change. On a day when twin car bombs killed more than a hundred people on the streets of Baghdad, and after a weekend that saw 27 American servicemen killed (13 of them in a helicopter crash and another five when gunmen posing as American soldiers slipped through security and attacked a provincial headquarters in Karbala), the U.S. military looks set, at long last, to report the number of enemy fighters killed. From Reuters:

The U.S. military said on Monday 93 rebels were killed and 57 captured in a 10-day operation against al Qaeda-linked insurgents northeast of Baghdad.

I’ve never understood the government’s resistance to reporting numbers of enemy dead. Sure, there are all types of problems with putting an emphasis on body counts, not least of which is a tendency to overestimate the number killed and create a false sense of progress. Still, every day Americans turn on their TVs and see the number of Americans killed that day, the number of Iraqis slaughtered by terrorist attacks, and not a single bit of evidence that American troops and Iraqi forces are getting the bad guys, too. It won’t change the facts on the ground, but the American people deserve to know what they’re getting for more than $4 billion a month. Last week they got close to 100 dead insurgents and 57 captured.

Harry Reid and Iran

As I have warned before, the Democrats will do anything in their imagination to ruin this country.
One way is by empowering our adversaries with their rhetoric.

Let’s take a look at their latest blunder…

Today’s New York Sun editorial:

“Since Washington’s hostile and hawkish policies have always been against the Iranian nation, this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation.”

—The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, November 10, 2006.

Not since Dean Acheson helped provoke a North Korean invasion of the south on January 12, 1950, by stating publicly that Seoul was not part of America’s defense perimeter has a Democrat so blundered. That’s the appropriate way to describe Senator Reid’s remarks Friday at the National Press Club.

“The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization,” the Senate majority leader said, standing next to Speaker Pelosi.

The present situation differs from the one 57 years ago in that the enemy, in this case Iran, is already in Iraq. The Iranians are manning outposts our GIs are raiding. The Iranians are infiltrating the Iraqi government and interior ministry. But the stakes for the American interest are similarly high. And there is enough ambiguity about America’s intentions in Iraq in light of the Democratic victory in November that Mr. Reid’s remarks could have the same devastating effects as Mr. Acheson’s.

More.

As I have warned before, the Democrats will do anything in their imagination to ruin this country.
One way is by empowering our adversaries with their rhetoric.

Let’s take a look at their latest blunder…

Today’s New York Sun editorial:

“Since Washington’s hostile and hawkish policies have always been against the Iranian nation, this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation.”

—The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, November 10, 2006.

Not since Dean Acheson helped provoke a North Korean invasion of the south on January 12, 1950, by stating publicly that Seoul was not part of America’s defense perimeter has a Democrat so blundered. That’s the appropriate way to describe Senator Reid’s remarks Friday at the National Press Club.

“The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization,” the Senate majority leader said, standing next to Speaker Pelosi.

The present situation differs from the one 57 years ago in that the enemy, in this case Iran, is already in Iraq. The Iranians are manning outposts our GIs are raiding. The Iranians are infiltrating the Iraqi government and interior ministry. But the stakes for the American interest are similarly high. And there is enough ambiguity about America’s intentions in Iraq in light of the Democratic victory in November that Mr. Reid’s remarks could have the same devastating effects as Mr. Acheson’s.

More.

Stealth Bunker-Buster

Military and Aerospace Electronics reports that the Air Force is working to outfit the B-2 stealth bomber with a “30,000-pound bunker-busting ‘super bomb.'” The bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), is designed to destroy deeply buried and reinforced bunkers of the type North Korea and Iran have relied upon for their nuclear weapons programs.

You can read more about the MOP at globalsecurity.org, but most significant is its ability to penetrate more than 200 feet of earth and reinforced concrete. That is a significant improvement over the GBU-28, which is a 5,000-pound laser-guided bomb that was initially used to destroy Iraqi underground facilities in the first Gulf War. And while some experts have questioned how effective bunker-busters will be against hardened targets in Iran and elsewhere, John Pike told me last year that he believed the military had deliberately fostered such doubts in an attempt “to lull the mullahs into a false sense of security.” He said the GBU-28 would cut through such facilities “like a hot knife through butter,” which makes one wonder just what a bomb six-times heavier could do.

Governor’s health plan under fire

Some doctors complain proposed fees are really taxes levied against them
Ryan Orr January 22, 2007

Many High Desert residents involved in the sales and delivery of healthcare agree that universal healthcare is a wonderful notion, but the governor’s proposal has many of them questioning their future, and even the constitution.
Details on how the governor plans to give healthcare to the 6.6 million uninsured people in California have not yet been disclosed. What has been clearly stated is that doctors will be charged a 2 percent fee and hospitals will pay a 4 percent fee on revenue. Employers with 10 or more employees will be charged 4 percent of their payroll to fund the program.

More.

I actually beat Michelle Malkin to a story!

What? I gotta toot my horn when that happens!

I published this story on the 17th.

‘If our troops pull out my son will have died in vain’

Kingsman Alex Green, of the 2nd Battalion the Duke of Lancashire’s Regiment, died after was shot in the shoulder by small arms fire when returning to barracks following his task of escorting a convoy out of the city of Basra. He was 21 years old. He had a two-year-old son, Bradley. Here his father, Bill Stewardson, talks about the son he has lost.
My son, Al, was killed on Saturday morning. He was 21. His blood was spilled in the sand in Iraq and he joins the ranks of British servicemen who have laid down their lives for the betterment of that country.

He was a good bloke, Al. We used to laugh at him because he supported Arsenal in spite of coming from Warrington. He decided to like Arsenal at the age of five. I tried to get him out of that – but it didn’t work. He’ll be buried in his Arsenal shirt.

I am told that his body will be flown back next Tuesday. I don’t know yet if I want to be at Brize Norton when he comes home. It’s like torture lessons, where you have got to keep your face straight. I don’t know if I can. We all have our weak spots.

One of the things that I have found hard to deal with is the people who have called me to pass their condolences then gone on to tell me that the war in Iraq is wrong and that we should pull the troops out.

Of course war is wrong, but they are also wrong: we should not pull the troops out. If we had pulled the troops out last week, my son would still be alive but that is not the right thing to do.

If you want to take them out, fine, no British soldiers will be killed, but who will go in? It’s as if the British public are saying ‘We know there are going to be deaths in that country to restore democracy but we don’t want our boys dying – send somebody else’s.’

More.

Iraqi special forces nab top aide to al-Sadr

By Joseph Giordono, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, January 20, 2007

American-backed Iraqi special forces arrested a top aide to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, another indication this week that the Iraqi government is — at least publicly — following its new commitment to security regardless of sectarian ties.

The overnight raid was conducted in eastern Baghdad and resulted in the arrest of Sheik Abdul al-Hadi Darraji, the director of Sadr’s main office in Sadr City, Iraqi officials said, adding that the man was captured around 2 a.m. Friday in a mosque.

U.S. military officials did not confirm the man’s identity, but released a statement acknowledging the capture of “a high-level illegal armed group leader.”

The statement accused the man of leading a “punishment committee” that involved kidnappings, murders and torture.

“The suspect is also reportedly involved in the assassination of numerous Iraqi Security Forces members and government officials,” the statement read. “The suspect allegedly leads various illegal armed group operations and is affiliated with illegal armed group cells targeting Iraqi civilians for sectarian attacks and violence.”

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