Iraq, again!

I was checking with Bill Roggio's site this AM and ran across these two posts,Attacks decrease in Sadr City; fighting shifts to western Baghdad and Operation Lion's Roar nets more than 1,000 suspects. Both are good views of what is happening in Iraq. Al Maliki's government is taking control of most factions in Iraq, and accordingly most efforts are shifting from open revolt to political efforts in anticipation of this Fall's elections.

If you are a anti-war Dem this is all bad news for America. I suspect through their eyes the view is we are losing and this ole war is endless. But if you are other than them, it is more obvious that America's strategic goals for Iraq are being met and maybe exceeded. Much of the fight has been pursued by Iraqi troops. We are taking on a more supportive role.

So Sadr's truce has had limited effect, while Al Maliki has been consolidating governmental gains in Sadrd city. Meanwhile, Al Maliki's attack on Al Qaeda in Mosul has been successful. Sadr's motives are obvious. If he goes head-to-head he loses too much. If he loses such a contest he is done, politically. Al Maliki's peace efforts are clearly winning, and turning heads in Iraq. Politics are changing in Iraq.

While in the North of Iraq, Al Qaeda is being pushed further into their few remaining corners. They have lost most of their local support and must intimidate to get what they do receive. Many of their outside recruits are now discouraged and fewer are joining them. In a few weeks the fight for Mosul will be done, and Al Maliki will have consolidated another major city under his government's influence.

It is nearly over in Iraq. Will it be over in time to influence this Fall's election is anyone's guess. Regardless, all bets will be off on the withdrawal of US troops. Its pace will increase after this election season.

Services Meet Their April Recruiting Goals

As requested by reader, Buff Pilot, here are the April recruiting numbers for the the US Active Military Services. The article is provided by the DoD.

The Army recruited 5,804 troops, which was 107 percent of its goal; the Marine Corps recruited 1,899, which was 141 percent of its goal; the Navy recruited 2,718, 100 percent of its goal; and the Air Force recruited 2,040, 100 percent of its goal.

Been a good recruiting month.

Cause of the food crisis, unique?

Are things really different for the world with the use of food stuffs to create fuel for transport? From Jennifer Marohasy's Blog we find this article which provides a view not yet often seen nor voiced.

In the article she references some truths in the "Food Crisis" issue seen in recent headlines. Common sense history tells us:

It should not be forgotten that in the entire sweep of human history prior to 90 years ago, almost all non-railway transport fuel was grown on farms and the trade-off between the use of grain for food or transport was a central element of all human commerce. A part of every farm was set aside as the "horse paddock" and part of every oat or corn crop was set aside for both family consumption and horse transport and traction purposes. The family's ride into town was fueled by a stomach full of grass but it was the bag of oats, that was contentedly munched on while the shopping was done, that fueled the ride back home. Every farmer also knew that if they wanted the ploughing done on schedule then they would need a few more bags of supplemental grain to maintain the effort. And all the products the family had bought had been transported by animals whose sole source of fuel was grain that had been bought in the same market where the same grains (of slightly different quality) were sold as food for humans.

Moreover, today's world wide society is and has been catastrophe driven for several generations. We just don't seem to respond until the catastrophic declaration, and then only grudgingly. Ms. Marohasy reminds us:

The moralising on the supposed evils of converting grain to biofuel and pushing food prices to record levels in a soon to be hungry world has only just begun. It has been described as nothing less than a "crime against humanity" by UN expert, Jean Ziegler and these sentiments were also echoed by the IMF. The only thing missing were the "four horsemen of the apocalypse", but give them time, they are only just warming up yet.

Just be sure to take it all with a grain of salt because that is a narrow minority urban view. Afterall, the majority of the world's population are still farmers and fisher folk. And under the principles of universal sufferage and one vote one value, it is the farmers perspective of high food prices that should, but rarely does, prevail over the bleatings of minority urban panic merchants.

Most do not know Jennifer, so I will give a very brief background. She is an Australian biologist, who ranges far and wide in her writings. Her Wiki biography can be found here. Read the whole thing.

Once a year, ONLY!

Last year it was the Duke Lacrosse team that was vindicated from a woman's false claim of rape. This year it's a husband, and this time the woman gets convicted. From Fox News. com

FORT WORTH, Texas — An Arlington woman who caused her lover's shooting death by falsely crying rape was found guilty Friday of involuntary manslaughter.

Tracy Denise Roberson, 37, cried slightly when the verdict was announced after jurors had deliberated for more than a day. The punishment phase was set for Monday, and she faces two to 20 years in prison.

In late 2006, Darrell Roberson came home from a late-night card game to find his scantily clad wife with another man in a pickup truck in the driveway. Tracy Roberson was with her lover but cried rape, and her husband fired four shots into the truck as Devin LaSalle was driving off, killing him.

Darrell Roberson initially was arrested, but the murder charge later was dropped and a grand jury indicted Tracy Roberson instead.

During her three-day trial, defense attorneys called no witnesses but blamed LaSalle's death on Darrell Roberson's jealousy and rage.

But prosecutors placed all the blame on Tracy Roberson, showing evidence of the affair with LaSalle, 32, and a text message in which she invited him to her house that evening.

US Deaths in Iraq for April 2008 (Updated w/ later stats)

It's obvious that fighting has increased in Iraq.


Pulling back the covers we have a total of 52 casualties, and ten (10) of them were non-hostile. The non-hostile rate is higher than the norm. More travel going on? Don't know.

As always the source is Icasualties.

Cherry picking makes for a good warming story

Record setting temperatures! Never been warmer? Catastrophic impacts? We've all heard this and similar stories from the Global Warming alarmists. What you need to know is that almost any story can be told using similar data just by selecting different start and stop points.

There is an ongoing thread over at Steve McIntyres blog, Climate Audit, which is accumulating errors, exaggerations and other anomalies from the UN IPCC Reports on Global Warming. This discussion illustrates how this is being done in the "Official" Reports by cherry picking start and stop dates in datasets.

Cherry Picking is not the real issue, because with tens of thousands of years of data it is necessary to pick some starting point. In doing so, is it not human nature to make the resulting analysis appear at it's extreme? Maybe so. But is that good science?

Here is an example used in the 2007 IPCC Assessment Report.

Cherry picking temperature comparisons to make a case

PaulM (March 12) and myself (April 6) have already talked about IPCC’s “shift” of the 20th century from 1901-2000 (in the TAR) to 1906-2005 (in AR4), and how the replacement of a 1901-1906 cooling trend with an essentially flat 2001-2006 trend resulted in an apparent increase over the 100-year period from 0.6 to 0.74C, suggesting falsely that this increase is the result of adding the “warmest years”, which occurred in “the last twelve years”, to the record.

In the same paragraph (IPCC SPM 2007, p.5) IPCC also states: “ The linear warming trend over the last 50 years (0.13C [0.10 to 0.16C] per decade is nearly twice that for the last 100 years” [i.e. 0.074C per decade].

With the shift of the 20th century IPCC picked a good comparison by comparing the last 50 years with the whole 100-year period.

Had IPCC compared the last 60 years of the period (1946-2005) with the first 40 years (1906-1945), the sentence would have read as follows: “The linear warming trend over the first 40 years (0.14C per decade) is 23% higher than that for the last 60 years (0.11C per decade).”

Pick the right period for making a comparison and you can get the desired point across.
(BTW the 40/60 example is also a “cherry pick”, just “proving” another point).

So does the report prove the climate is warming? Yes! Is it accelerating? Maybe. Depends on the starting and ending points selected. Cherry Picking? Maybe, if the message is exaggerated.

Here are two visual examples of how it works.
See the warming trend? Impressive?

Not quite as impressive in the latter view. This is how the Global Warming story is being spun. Never been warmer? Catastrophic impacts? You be the judge, because we can tell almost any story we want from the same dataset just by selecting different start and stop points.

Gone for a few days!

Play nice and don't dirty the place! See'Ya in a few days.

Is Nuclear Nonpoliferation over?

Obviously not! N Korea and Iran are the most obvious of symbols of the newest Nuclear threats. Charles Krauthammer in Today's WaPo has an excellent opinion piece on what the future may require. In it he postulates:

"...Everyone says Iran must be prevented from going nuclear. No one will bell the cat.

The "international community" is prepared to do nothing of consequence to halt nuclear proliferation. No one wants to admit that. Nor does anyone want to contemplate the prospect of nuclear weapons in the hands of one, two, many rogue states.

We must. The day is coming, and quickly. We must face reality and begin thinking how we live with the unthinkable. There are four ways to deal with rogue states going nuclear: preemption, deterrence, missile defense and regime change.

His key point is that in today's and the the near future world a combination of deterrence and missile defense ?MAY? suffice to stop a future nuclear attack from one of the rogue states.

His appraoach still leaves me with this question. What about Al Qaeda? Is it enough?