I for one, cringe that I remember this ;)

It only takes 40 or 41 in the Senate...

It is against this backdrop that Congressional Republicans, and especially GOP senators, have to prepare for a combined MSM-Democratic activist assault on them, an assault which has already turned two --Hagel and Snowe-- into retreatists.  The ominous word that Senator Warner is circulating a "compromise" draft of a non-binding resolution brings immediately to mind the disastrous "compromise"  resolution of December, 2005 that Senator Warner midwifed, which dealt a huge blow to the Adminstration and divided the president's supporters. Even though the president did his best to put lipstick on that pig, the damage done by the attempt to "compromise" with the anti-war Democrats was doomed, just as this effort would be.

We have quickly arrived at a moment where the sides are going to line up, and Republicans on the wrong side of that line --and that would include so-called "compromises" that are in fact slow motion retreats-- will not only not get support from the GOP base, they will see a revolt in their re-election campaigns like the one which Lincoln Chafee encountered. 

In this video, Dennis opines on global warming in his unmistakably snarky way.

It looks like Gov Bill Richardson is joining the fray in the Democratic primary. Yawwwwn!

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson intends to take the initial step toward the Democratic nomination, hoping his extensive resume will fuel an insurgent campaign to become the first Hispanic president.

Richardson plans to announce on Sunday that he will soon file the papers to create a presidential exploratory committee, several officials with knowledge of his plans said Friday. The governor is scheduled to appear on ABC's "This Week."

Donald Sensing explains why the Democrats can not repeal the Law of supply and demand. Since they can not, removing subsidies to the oil industry will only drive up the cost of gasoline and heating oil. Way to help the little guy there my friends. I guess we know where that minimum wage increase is going... Big Oil ;)

What the House, or at least the Members who voted aye, seem not to understand is that the price of petroleum is completely internationalized because the market is, too. If US oil companies can produce oil wholesale cheaper than its retail, or spot market, price on the international market, then they will sell the oil on the market and make a profit. At least the oil company will sell internationally the oil it produces that is excess to its domestic-retail capacity.

But if the cost of producing domestic oil is greater than its price on the international market, then companies shut down domestic production (never entirely, of course, because the restart costs would be prohibitive when/if the world price rose again and companies need a retained production capacity to surge production in that case). Since federal taxes are a major part of overall production costs for the US oil industry, increasing those taxes by removing subsidies simply raises the costs of domestic production. That makes it more likely that the oil companies will simply cut domestic production and make up the difference in imports.

This essay would not have been possible without the protection of a powerful Muslim cleric and these pictures are possible due to the same cleric. So take a moment to look at them. They are pictures of the destruction wrought on Hezbollah's heart, it's strongest point in Lebanon and tell me they 'won'.

They could have flattened all of Haret Hreik in a day if that’s what they wanted to do. There is nothing Hezbollah can do to stop that kind of assault.

Hezbollah’s supposed “victory” is a Pyrrhic one, if even that. And it should serve as a warning. Military historian Michael Oren explained it to me this way at the end of the war: “If [Nasrallah] has enough victories like this one, he’s dead.”

He is walking the line in the third part of a 3 piece essay. Part 2 and part one are here. He covers everything from Saddam's execution to the IP. I want to quote a small piece of the essay about the Minnesota National Guard. A lot of people seem to think that the NG is a bunch of second class soldiers. SM Howard doesn't think so.

Any notion that a Marine Sergeant Major was giving the unit high praise as a gesture of respect for an Army colleague was quickly disabused by Mellinger when he added that Sergeant Major Howard, the top enlisted Marine in Iraq, had also extended congratulations. Mellinger said he was going to contact the CSM of the National Guard to make sure it was known how highly regarded these soldiers are by the people who have come to rely upon their effectiveness in one of the most dangerous outposts in the world.

It seems there is an ongoing argument in the weather community about whether CO2 as a warming agent is as dangerous as the enviros think it is. James Spann doing weather since '78 says:

The climate of this planet has been changing since God put the planet here. It will always change, and the warming in the last 10 years is not much difference than the warming we saw in the 1930s and other decades. And, lets not forget we are at the end of the ice age in which ice covered most of North America and Northern Europe.

If you don’t like to listen to me, find another meteorologist with no tie to grant money for research on the subject. I would not listen to anyone that is a politician, a journalist, or someone in science who is generating revenue from this issue.

Addendum: Kim adds to the debate here with a Cavuto debate on Fox.

Cavuto: Crippling snow in Denver, unseasonable warmth in the east, and a deep freeze in Texas. Climate expert Heidi Cullen over at the Weather Channel says that anyone paid to do the weather who does not blame all of this on man made global warming should be out of a job. Now meteorologist Larry Cosgrove says that Heidi needs to come in from the heat a little bit, but Greenpeace, USA executive director John Passacantando says that the Weather Channel woman actually has it right. Ms. Cullen was unavailable to come on today, but if she were here Larry, you’d be saying, what?

Cosgrove: She would say that I should not have an AMS Seal of Approval for radio or television because I do not espouse the global kool-aid line of the American Meteorological Society. Now, I like many people, believe in global warming. You can’t refute that. Temperatures are warming around the globe. But, the question is what’s causing it. Is it purely man made as the American Meteorological Society and Dr. Cullen espouse or is it a combination of events, namely what’s happening on the earth and ’some help’ so to speak, from man kind.

Bill Roggio is back in Anbar and chronicles the rebirth of a local IA unit, the 3/3-1 Iraqi Army.

In conversations with Lt Col Mohammed and Major West, they explained the history of the 3/3-1, which they both felt was important in understanding the development of the unit and its place in the fight today. The unit possessed experience and leadership in the officer corps. The officers and many of the enlisted fought against the U.S. in the Gulf War in 1991, during Operation Desert Fox in 1998, and during the Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The unit was considered to be an elite fighting force, superior to Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard. “This Iraqi Army battalion has a positive, martial attitude,” said Major West.

During the 2003 invasion, the battalion dropped its weapons and faded back into the civilian population, awaiting the call to reform after the fighting was over. “The call never came,” said Major West, which he said was a critical error made by the Coalition Provisional Authority, led by Paul Bremer. The unit maintained its social network and reformed after the failure and collapse of the Iraqi National Guard in 2004. The 3rd Brigade of the 1st Iraqi Army Division was the first unit to form up under General Petreaus' order to reconstitute the Iraqi Army.

The 3/3-1 trained in Taji and fought heavy battles in Mosul during 2004, where they “learned what it was like to fight offensively,” said Major West. “We fought on both the east and west sides of the city, and the fighting was tough,” said LtCol Mohammed, “But it prepared and hardened us.” In Mosul, the 3/3-1 also established what Major West calls “a predator-prey relationship,” an aggressive, offensive mindset which is vital to control security out here in Anbar province. A passive security posture is viewed as weakness by the local population, and serves only to encourage the insurgency. The battalion conducts multiple patrols, raids and security operations on a daily basis, and conducts the intelligence gathering and planning for these missions. They work closely with the Iraqi Police in the region, and conduct joint operations. Like other Iraqi battalions, their weakness lies in their ability to sustain logistics and pay their soldiers on a regular basis.

The price of oil is steadily going down and that is a good thing. Most people see this as one of those things that happens from time to time. Only one nation can make this happen, especially this quickly: Saudi Arabia. The Saudis aren't doing this for us in the western world though. It is totally for their own benefit and Iran's detriment.




 

Her view of the situation in Iraq has improved since being there on the ground.

I came to Iraq a darkening pessimist about the war, due in large part to my doubts about the compatibility of Islam and Western-style democracy, but also as a result of the steady, sensational diet of "grim milestone" and "daily IED count" media coverage that aids the insurgency.

I left Iraq with unexpected hope and resolve.

Read her account and find out why.

He also spends the last half of his post explaining the mistakes we made getting where we are in Iraq today. I do wish to point this one small part of the piece out however.

6. Assuming Iraq will conform only to unreasonable expectations which are based on ignorance of counterinsurgency warfare. The troops in Iraq will tell you about three successful American occupations if you ask them–the Philippines, Japan and Germany. The latter two took five years to go from defeated enemy to ally, and decades after that before they really stood on their own feet. The Philippine insurgency took 8 years to quell and that country still has myriad problems that keep it from enjoying true First World status a century after the US put down its insurgency. Iraq is a far more complex place than either Japan, Germany or the Philippines and should therefore be expected to take longer to make the full transition to standalone state. But not knowing the history of America’s counterinsurgency operations has led us to want quick, clean victory where it just isn’t possible and never was.

Captain Ed thinks it may be:

Noticed a drop in prices at the gas pump of late? After approaching or even topping $3 a gallon for gasoline, the prices have steadily fallen in recent weeks; stations here in Minnesota had it at $1.89 per gallon over the weekend. The decline at the pump comes from an unexpected glut in the market, and some OPEC producers had hoped to force a round of production cuts to bolster crude prices. However, Saudi Arabia announced today that it had 3 million bbls/day of spare capacity, and it intends to start using it .

This will hurt Iran a lot more then it will the Saudis.

Ms Cole explains it to those that do not understand. ( I know it is a repeat, but the truth is still the truth)

Here is the second half of the interview. Michael talks about IEDs, Iran and what he sees on the ground. My link to the first half is here.