Video: This Year’s Model

Here’s a video by environmentalist Peter Sinclair that asks and answers the question: how reliable are the scientific models used to predict climate change? This is one of those subjects that’s brought up in every LGF thread on global warming, usually by people who’ve uncritically bought into the climate change denial propaganda that models are “worthless” or have been proven wrong. They’re not and they haven’t.

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New Details: Terrorist Had a Very Powerful Bomb Sewn Into His Clothes

New details on the attempted Christmas Day terror attack:

The plot to blow up an American passenger jet over Detroit was organized and launched by al Qaeda leaders in Yemen who apparently sewed bomb materials into the suspect’s underwear before sending him on his mission, federal authorities tell ABC News.

Investigators say the suspect had more than 80 grams of PETN, a compound related to nitro-glycerin used by the military. The so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, had only about 50 grams kin his failed attempt in 2001 to blow up a U.S.-bound jet. Yesterday’s bomb failed because the detonator may have been too small or was not in “proper contact” with the explosive material, investigators told ABC News.

So it was indeed a bomb, not just an “incendiary device” as earlier reports claimed — and a very powerful bomb at that. PETN is a notoriously unstable explosive, so the passengers on that plane are incredibly lucky that it didn’t detonate as intended.

Amazon Year-End Deals

Now that Christmas is past, Amazon has a great selection of Year-End Deals, with discounts of up to 70% on lots of items.

Here’s one special that caught my eye, a Panasonic VIERA X1 Series TC-L26X1 26-Inch 720p LCD HDTV for only $260 — more than half off.

And here’s one that I just ordered for myself, for podcasting and musical instrument recording: an Audio-Technica AT2020 USB Condenser USB Microphone, for only $95 — more than 60% off.

(Note: if you click through to Amazon from one of our links, LGF gets a small percentage in referral fees on all qualifying merchandise, without raising the cost to you, so you get terrific deals and help support us at the same time.)

Passengers Took Security Into Their Own Hands

The New York Times has a story on the scene aboard Northwest flight 253, as passengers acted quickly to avert disaster.

During 19 hours of travel, aboard two flights across three continents, law enforcement officials said, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab bided his time. Then, just as Northwest Flight 253 finally began its final approach to Detroit around noon on Friday, he tried to ignite the incendiary powder mixture he had taped to his leg, they said.

There were popping sounds, smoke and a commotion as passengers cried out in alarm and tried to see what was happening.

And then history repeated itself. Just as occurred before Christmas in 2001 when Richard C. Reid tried to ignite the plastic explosives hidden in his shoe on a trans-Atlantic flight, fellow passengers jumped on Mr. Abdulmutallab, restraining the 23-year-old Nigerian. Crew members poured bottled water on the flames, snuffing out the sparks of what could have been a planewide conflagration. …

Mr. Abdulmutallab, who was sitting on the left side of the aircraft, may not have been trying to blow up the plane, but possibly intended to cause a fire to distract the cabin crew, cause passengers to panic and create a stampede for the exits as the plane was landing, a senior airline industry official who had been briefed on the situation said Saturday.

One passenger who was sitting in the same row as Mr. Abdulmutallab, but on the right side of the plane, apparently hurled himself across a middle row of four seats to tackle him. The passenger who hurtled across the aisle was Jasper Schuringa, a filmmaker from Amsterdam, a friend of Mr. Schuringa said Saturday. A senior airline executive said that flight attendants also jumped in.

Report: Passenger Tried to Blow Up Northwest Airlines Jet

There was apparently an attempt to blow up a passenger jet today, but the bomb failed to detonate. Details are still sketchy.

WASHINGTON — A Northwest Airlines passenger landing in Detroit on Friday tried to blow up the flight but the explosive device failed, two U.S. national security officials said.

The passenger, who was traveling on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam, was not identified. He was being questioned Friday evening, according to one of the officials, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

The motive of the Christmas Day attack was not immediately clear.

“He appears to have had some kind of incendiary device he tried to ignite,” said one of the U.S. officials.

Video: The Om Nom Nom Meme

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Pamela Geller: White House Tree ‘Festooned with Evil’

Taking the Obama Christmas tree nontroversy to the next level of deranged absurdity, Pamela Geller says Obama’s tree is festooned with evil.

I could not help but smile to myself when I got a gander at Obama’s vile “Christmas” ornaments, defiled with images of history’s most evil men, like the murderer of untold millions and cultural executioner Mao Tse Tung.

And it was hard not to laugh when Michelle explained the decadent ornaments away. She and O  were unaware of the images, as the ornaments were decorated and sent to them from her various groups (clearly those of a seditious and conspiratorial nature). Do you notice how there were no accidents or mistakes like an image of Ronald Reagan festooned to the tree? How about George Washington, or General George Patton or any of the really exceptional human beings who walked among us that were not of the red variety, but of the red, white and blue schema?

No. Evil hung from the Obama tree.

Leaving aside the weirdness of Pamela Geller smiling and laughing when she sees a White House Christmas tree “festooned with evil,” let’s take a look at the photo of the tree posted at Flickr, shall we?

The Obamas look so happy in this photo; it must be the close proximity to all of that evil festoonage.

But then, we zoom in on the ornament just below Michelle Obama’s right shoulder, from the full-sized image:

Why, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that was Ronald Reagan, in front of a red, white, and blue American “schema.” But it can’t be, because Pamela Geller says this is one horrifically evil Christmas tree, and Ronald Reagan wasn’t evil, was he? Maybe it’s Stalin disguised as Reagan?

(Some of us might think it’s “evil” to write this kind of incendiary, hateful nonsense without even bothering to check if it’s true.)

Merry Christmas, from LGF

Christmas gift suggestions:

To your enemy, forgiveness.

To an opponent, tolerance.

To a friend, your heart.

To a customer, service.

To all, charity.

To every child, a good example.

To yourself, respect.

— Oren Arnold

Christmas Mist

Christmas Eve Music: Keith Jarrett, ‘There Is No Greater Love’

Here’s a little Christmas Eve virtuosity, as Keith Jarrett redefines the 1936 Isham Jones standard “There Is No Greater Love,” in another amazing track from the sadly out of print DVD Solo Tribute: The 100th Performance in Japan.

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Congressional Report: ACORN Broke No Laws

More bad news for right wingers who think ACORN is the very embodiment of evil, as a congressional report totally exonerates them.

The controversial community organizing group Acorn has not broken any laws in the last five years, according to a Congressional Research Service report released Tuesday evening.

The report, requested by Representative John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, said that federal agencies, mainly the Departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development, have awarded money to the group 48 times since 2005. But, in none of those instances did Acorn violate the terms of their funding, the report said.

Since the 2008 elections, the group, which works primarily to expand voter registration and affordable housing, has become a key Republican target. A series of scandals brought to light by conservative activists led to multiple Congressional hearings and repeated attempts to deny it taxpayer funding.

Acorn has been the subject of scores of investigations—a total of 46 inquiries by federal, state, and local agencies, including the FBI and the Treasury Department, and five by Congress as of October 2009, according to the report.

The report found no evidence that voters attempting to cast ballots at the polls had been improperly registered by Acorn, a chief Republican accusation.

And the hits keep on coming, because the makers of those heavily edited “sting” videos endlessly hyped on Fox News and right wing blogs may be in serious legal trouble.

The report also said that a sting-style effort to publicize the group’s allegedly illegal activities, may have broken state laws. Two conservative activists set off a firestorm in September when they posed as a pimp and a prostitute seeking financial advice and secretly videotaped Acorn employees offering advice on how the couple could hide their illicit activities and avoid paying taxes.

Senate Passes Health Care Bill

You’ve probably already heard that the Senate passed the health care reform bill today, after months of political wrangling designed to remove any vestiges of actual usefulness: Senate approves landmark health-care bill.

Democrats are increasingly confident that President Obama will sign a bill into law in early 2010 that would prevent insurers from refusing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, limit the amount individuals have to pay for their own care and require other reforms that Obama called “the toughest measures ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable.”

“We are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality in this country,” Obama told reporters in a White House appearance shortly after the Senate vote. “Our challenge now is to finish the job.”

At least the commie “public option” to pollute our precious bodily fluids was defeated. Or was it?

Outrageous Outrage of the Day: Commies Take Over Washington DC

The Los Angeles Times “Culture Monster” blog has a piece on Andrew Breitbart’s shocking Mao Zedong White House Christmas tree ornament exposé, one of the year’s most outrageous outrages: A Warhol Christmas at the White House.

Blogger Christopher Knight points out that the commie infiltration of Washington DC is much, much worse than anyone realized — because right down the street from the White House, the National Gallery of Art has also been subject to a commie putsch, with twenty-one different versions of Andy Warhol’s Mao prints.

Those damned commies are everywhere. We are surely doomed.

(Andrew Breitbart shows up in the comments for this post, and invokes Hitler in his first six words.)

Imam Linked to Fort Hood Shooter Possibly Killed in Yemen

An air strike by Yemeni forces has killed at least 30 Al Qaeda terrorists, possibly including the radical Islamic cleric linked to Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan.

(CNN) — Yemeni jets launched an aerial assault Thursday against suspected senior al Qaeda operatives meeting in a remote location, and about 30 militants were killed, according to the Yemen news agency SABA.

Without mentioning a number, the Yemeni Embassy in Washington said in a news release, “Preliminary reports suggest that the strike targeted scores of Yemeni and foreign al Qaeda operatives.”

One of the militants may have been the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the embassy said.

Al-Awlaki recently told the Arab-language Web site of Al-Jazeera that he had been in touch with the U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of fatally shooting 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5.

In that interview, al-Awlaki said Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan communicated with him via e-mail starting about a year before he went on the shooting rampage. Hasan wanted al-Awlaki’s advice about killing U.S. troops, the cleric said.

“Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the regional al Qaeda leader, and his deputy, Saeed al-Shihri, alongside Anwar al-Awlaki, were presumed to be at the site (of Thursday’s attack),” according to a news release from the Yemen Embassy in Washington.

Video: The Principles of Critical Thinking

“QualiaSoup” makes some of the best scientific/intellectual videos you’ll find on YouTube, and his new presentation explains the principles of critical thinking.

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The Palin-Schwarzenegger Smackdown

At the Daily Beast, Joe Mathews has an interesting take on the recent climate change dust-up between Sarah “Ions” Palin and Arnold Schwarzenegger: The Palin-Schwarzenegger Smackdown.

Palin seemed to see Schwarzenegger as an easy target, the sort of Republican In Name Only that her conservative partisans love to hate. But the Schwarzenegger vs. Palin comparison is not one that serves her well, not because of their differences but because of their similarities.

In a contest between celebrities, he wins both on style—he’s more famous and better at sound-bytes—and on substance.

This is why GOP regulars who want to marginalize Palin—and that should include any Republican interested in unifying the party and winning a national election—should beg Schwarzenegger to keep up his blasts at Palin.

A war of words would be good for the California governor too. For all his mistakes, Schwarzenegger has tried desperately to make the centrist compromises needed to govern. He has been defeated, again and again, by Palinist ideologues whose distrust of government has careened, in the words of the author Sam Tanenhaus, into a doctrine of “full-scale repudiation of governance itself.” Making life miserable for Palin, the hero of the anti-governance crowd, would be more than delicious payback. It would be a public service for someone so skilled at media warfare to stand up for the virtues of governance in the face of non-stop bullying from the populist right.