More UN idiocy: Iran to Oversee Arms Treaty Conference

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Iran has been chosen as a member of the “bureau” overseeing a month-long United Nations conference in New York aimed at finalizing a controversial global “arms trade treaty.”

The move, which came as the conference got underway last week but received virtually no attention, is the latest example of Iran taking up leadership positions at the United Nations despite its defiance of Security Council resolutions relating to its nuclear program.

Furthermore, according to an expert panel monitoring U.N. sanctions on Iran, Tehran continues to flout a Security Council ban on exporting its weaponry, with Syria the main recipient.

“This is like choosing Bernie Madoff to police fraud on the stock market,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a non-governmental monitoring group based in Geneva, which drew attention to Iran’s elevation to the conference bureau.

UN Watch is urging U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the move: “He should remind the conference that the Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its prohibited nuclear program, and that Iran continues to defy the international community through illegal arms shipments to the murderous Assad regime . . .”

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TSA will confiscate your sealed soda but not your 300 lb pot-bellied pig

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Pot-bellied pigs must be granted passage on airplanes if they are used for “emotional support” by their owners, states the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) draft manual on equity for the disabled in air travel.

The DOT published its “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in Air Travel: Draft Technical Assistance Manual” in the Federal Register on July 5, providing guidance that allows swine on airplanes if they are determined to be service animals.

The manual is designed to “help carriers and indirect carriers and their employees/contractors that provide services or facilities to passengers with disabilities, assist those passengers in accordance with” the Air Carrier Access Act. The manual open for public comments until Oct. 3.

Under the “Service Animal” section, the department lays out a scenario for airline carriers entitled “Example 1.”

The manual states: “A passenger arrives at the gate accompanied by a pot-bellied pig. She claims that the pot-bellied pig is her service animal. What should you do?”

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House Panel Votes Today on Prohibiting DC Abortions on Unborn Children that feel Pain

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A House Committee will vote today on a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in the District of Columbia based on scientific evidence showing unborn children feel pain.

Arizona Republican Congressman Trent Franks introduced the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill is similar to a first-in-the-nation law the state of Nebraska passed that successfully drove late-term abortion practitioner LeRoy Carhart to move most of his abortion business to Maryland and bans abortions at 22 weeks gestation (20 weeks post-conception) due to the scientific evidence that not only do unborn children feel pain, they feel it more acutely because pain “dampeners” do not fully develop until 40 weeks gestation, and later.

Currently, in the District of Columbia, abortion is legal for any reason, until the very moment of birth.

According to officials with National Right to Life, at least two abortion providers currently are advertising that they provide abortions in the District past the point that the bill would establish protection – one to 24 weeks after fertilization, and the other during the third trimester, at least to seven and one-half months, and perhaps later.

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BP suspends massive Liberty Project in Alaska

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BP has indefinitely suspended a $1.5 billion offshore oil project in Alaska due to cost overruns and technical setbacks, a company spokeswoman said on Monday.

An 18-month company review concluded that the Liberty project, a field with about 100 million barrels of recoverable oil, should not go forward as planned, said Dawn Patience with BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.

“We are not going to pursue Liberty in its present form,” said Patience. “The project, as it’s designed right now, doesn’t meet BP’s standards.”

Under plans submitted five years ago to regulators, Liberty would have been the first oil field located entirely in Federal waters offshore Alaska. Back then, BP expected production to begin in 2011.

A BP review found that Liberty — slated to produce 40,000 barrels a day — would have cost “a lot more” than the $1.5 billion BP had planned to spend there and would have taken several additional years to begin production, Patience said.

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Five men indicted for shooting death of US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry

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Five men were named Monday in a federal grand jury indictment unsealed in Tucson, Ariz., in the December 2010 shooting death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry, with the FBI announcing a $1 million reward for information leading to the arrest of four of the men designated as fugitives.

The Terry death has been the catalyst for a heated debate between the Justice Department and Congress over Fast and Furious – a botched gun-running investigation in which two weapons purchased by “straw buyers” during the probe were found at the scene of the Terry shooting, just north of the Arizona-Mexico border.

The Justice Department’s refusal to turn over hundreds of pages of Fast and Furious documents led to a contempt citation by the House against Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

According to the indictment, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, Jesus Rosario Favela-Astorga, Ivan Soto-Barraza, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes and Lionel Portillo-Meza are charged with first- and second-degree murder, conspiracy, robbery, use and carrying of a firearm during a crime of violence, assault on a federal officer and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. A sixth man, Rito Osorio-Arellanes, is charged with conspiracy.

The indictment, handed up by a federal grand jury on Nov. 7, 2011, alleges that on Dec. 14, 2010, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, Favela-Astorga, Soto-Barraza, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes and Portillo-Meza engaged in a firefight with four Border Patrol agents and during that exchange, Terry was fatally shot.

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Obama is “fundamentally transforming” the US military

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In “Lone Survivor,” a chilling firsthand account of the loss of 11 members of the Navy’s elite Sea, Air, Land (SEAL) Team and eight Army aviators, Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell describes the fateful decision that led to disaster for him and death for his comrades. It came down to a judgment call about whether to risk prosecution and jail time for doing whatever it took to complete their mission, or to allow three Afghan goatherds to rat out his unit to the Taliban.

Petty Officer Luttrell cast the deciding vote to turn loose the farmers who had stumbled upon him and three other SEALs shortly after they had been dropped behind enemy lines to take down a particularly dangerous Taliban leader. He describes the thought process:

“If we kill these guys, we have to be straight about it. Report what we did. We can’t sneak around this. … Their bodies will be found, the Taliban will use it to the max. They’ll get it in the papers, and the U.S. liberal media will attack us without mercy. We’ll almost certainly be charged with murder.”

Such concerns prompted Petty Officer Luttrell to make the call to release the goatherds, setting in motion calamity for his buddies and 16 others dispatched to rescue them from the massive Taliban assault that ensued. It turns out those concerns were well-founded, as was demonstrated most recently in a case before the U.S. Military Court of Appeals. By a 3-2 vote, the judges outrageously determined that an Army Ranger, 1st Lt. Michael Behenna, had no right to self-defense when he killed an Iraqi prisoner he was interrogating after the man threw a concrete block at him and tried to seize his firearm. Unless he is pardoned, Lt. Behenna will remain incarcerated for the next 12 years.

Unfortunately, under President Obama, service members’ rising fears of being prosecuted for acting to protect themselves and their missions are among many ways in which the military is being “fundamentally transformed,” to use Mr. Obama’s now-infamous turn of phrase.

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Bill Gates gives $100k to support gay marriage in Washington State

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Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer and co-founder Bill Gates have each donated $100,000 to the campaign supporting the state’s new gay marriage law, which faces a referendum vote in November.

Zach Silk, campaign manager for Washington United for Marriage, said Monday that the checks were cut Friday and are being reported to the state Public Disclosure Commission on Monday afternoon.

“It’s going to make a tremendous difference,” Silk said. “It’s very important for us to have that broad support from business leaders and companies themselves.”

Microsoft is just one of several prominent Pacific Northwest businesses that have expressed their support for same-sex marriage, including Starbucks Corp. and Nike Inc.

Referendum 74 was certified for the ballot last month after gay marriage opponents turned in more than 240,000 signatures, far more than the minimum of 120,577 valid voter signatures required.

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Does EMILY’s List really know what women want?

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A few minutes before 3:00 PM last Thursday, the always-cheerful gals over at EMILY’s List (Early Money Is Like Yeast) sent out yet another e-mail blast begging for money. Since their “proven” track record is so less-than-stellar they opted to use this solicitous rant as an opportunity to address what they have accomplished this year.

They touted and featured some of the 1,300 pro-abortion Democrat women they’ve “trained” these last few months in an effort to excite their strictly pro-abortion base. In the hopes of adding even more to their already deep war-chests they lauded the “political prowess” of this year’s EMILY Listers. What they don’t mention and what becomes embarrassingly apparent every election night is that they should have cut back on the canvas bags and given these poor dears a lesson in the subtleties of concession speeches.

The e-mail that went out to millions of their subscribers notes and emphasizes that these pro-abort broads were made aware of what the American female electorate “really” wants as seen through the pro-abortion prism that is EMILY’s List. They claim to have conducted their own “extensive” polling and discovered that:  “The characteristics women voters seek in their congressional representatives include collaborative, equality, balance, relatable, listeners, nurturing, smaller egos, understanding, … and more feminine qualities.”  Really?!?

Nurturing? This is an organization that raises tens of millions of dollars each election cycle with the singular purpose of giving cash to women who advocate the destruction of their own children. In their warped and disconnected reality nothing says “nurturing” more than supporting partial-birth abortion. They advocate nurturing their unborn daughters by ripping them to shreds. Hamsters have a better “nurture” track record.

Smaller Egos? On June 16, 2009 Brigadier General Michael Walsh was testifying before the Environment and Public Works Committee. During the course of his back and forth with male Senators he referred to them as ”Sir,” which is the most common and respectful way of addressing Senators by members of our Armed Forces. But when he referred to Babs Boxer (D-CA) as “ma’am” (most respectful way the military addresses superiors) her super-sized ego attempted to publicly dress-him-down by insisting he call her “Senator.” You can watch the demure Ms. Boxer’s cringe-worthy exchange with the Brigadier General here.

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Obama’s Transportation Secretary says we should be like Communist China

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China’s attempt at a high-speed rail network is fraught with corrupt officials, impossible costs, and deadly safety failures. But U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wishes America would follow it as a model.

LaHood told The Cable last week:  “The Chinese are more successful [in building infrastructure] because in their country, only three people make the decision. In our country, 3,000 people do, 3 million. In a country where only three people make the decision, they can decide where to put their rail line, get the money, and do it. We don’t do it that way in America.”

His comments are stunning. Yes, that’s how Communists do it: A few people make decisions for the country and control the money, land, resources, and workers. And how has that worked out?

“Rather than demonstrating the advantages of centrally planned long-term investment, as its foreign admirers sometimes suggested, China’s bullet-train experience shows what can go wrong when an unelected elite, influenced by corrupt opportunists, gives orders that all must follow — without the robust public discussion we would have in the states.” That sounds like a direct rebuttal to LaHood, but Washington Post editorial writer Charles Lane wrote that back in April 2011.

The Telegraph (U.K.) reported in February that 70 percent of China’s railway projects had been suspended, as its railways ministry attempted to continue deficit financing while facing slow ticket sales. Last year, a deadly train crash brought safety concerns and corruption at the highest levels of the railway to light.

The bottom line is that high-speed rail is like pouring money down a hole. China’s official institutions aren’t known for transparency, but according to the Voice of America, “Even the [Chinese] national research institution, the Academy of Science, reported last year that at current investment and estimated passenger numbers, the trains will never collect enough in fares to repay construction loans.”

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Iran’s Supreme Leader is telling nation to prepare for “end of times”

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Iran’s supreme leader, for the first time, is telling his nation that it must prepare for war and “the end of times” as it continues to develop nuclear weapons.

State-owned media outlets, in a coordinated effort, all ran a similar story Friday highlighting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s message on the coming of the last Islamic messiah.

Until now, the Iranian media would mostly quote clerics from seminaries on the issue of the last Islamic messiah to avoid the regime being labeled messianic. However, the wide publication of Khamenei’s statements on a need to prepare for the end of times as it confronts the West over its illicit nuclear program is alarming to Western leaders.

“The issue of Imam Mahdi is of utmost importance, and his reappearance has been clearly stated in our holy religion of Islam,” Khamenei said. We must study and remind ourselves of the end of times and Imam Mahdi’s era. … We must prepare the environment for the coming so that the great leader will come.”

Shiite theology holds that great wars must engulf the Earth, during which one-third of the world’s population will die in the fighting and another third from hunger, lawlessness and havoc. Israel is to be destroyed, and only then will the 12th imam, Mahdi, reappear and kill all the infidels, raising the flag of Islam in all corners of the world.

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