Heights Of Hypocrisy

Peter Glover has an article up over at TCS Daily that really is a must read. It is about the globe-trotting jet setters in the "green" movement who rack up thousands and thousands of frequent flier miles to tell people to cut their carbon emissions. In other words, jet-propelled hypocrites.

They are the Green Bigots, leading environmentalists, those at the vanguard of the fight to change our lifestyles, restrict our foreign flights, who insist we do our 'bit' to cut greenhouse gas emissions while they rack up thousands of airmiles on business and pleasure trips."

As the UK's The Sunday Times has recently revealed, "In the past year the directors and chief executives of groups such as WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association have crisscrossed the globe, visiting the Falklands, Japan, Africa and Brazil." The ST's environment editor points out, "All are running high-profile campaigns to persuade people to change their lifestyles and cut emissions of carbon dioxide."

The article identifies a number of well known examples. They included Bob Napier, chief executive of WWF, who through jetting to various destinations in Asia, the Americas and Europe helped generate more than 11 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) last year. As the ST points out, aviation generates around 5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions "but their warming effect is up to four times greater at high altitudes." To get this in perspective, a typical British household generates about six tons of CO2 over a whole year.

Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, is another who has had to admit to having flown business trips across three continents - in addition to flying his family on holiday to Slovakia. "This weekend he is on a business trip to Nigeria, " reports the ST, which goes on to claim Juniper's trips contributed to around 8 tons of CO2 emissions. Graham Wynne, chief executive of the Royal Society for the Protection of Bird (RSPB), has this year completed business trips to Indonesia, Washington and Scotland - as well as taking his family on holiday to New Zealand.

Only one person in an organization, you might think? But then the RSPB will next month be burning large amounts of carbon emitting fuels by importing its supporters to the centre of London to protest against how much others are contributing to global warming. The piece quotes a sheepish RSPB boss: "There are a lot of contradictions like these which organisations like ours have to solve." I'll say. Like asking themselves why, in the age of Internet conferencing, such international jetsetting is even necessary. And let's be kind and not enquire what 'moral dilemma' led to Wynne flying his family halfway around the world on holiday. And, given the burgeoning culture of international environmental conferencing, this is just the tip of a fast-advancing iceberg.

This one is a must read. What is really happening here is that others are trying to impose their worldview on others. This is no different than a faith based group forcing its beliefs on non-believers. That they worship nature rather than a particular God makes no difference. That they are flaming hypocrites about it just makes it worse.

“They Have No Right To Be Able To Speak Here.”

The words of a budding leftist storm trooper proud of storming a stage to silence someone else's right to free speech at Columbia University. In an appalling display of intolerance, students assaulted two speakers from the Minuteman group and forced them to cancel the speeches they were giving.

Students stormed the stage at Columbia University's Roone auditorium yesterday, knocking over chairs and tables and attacking Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minutemen, a group that patrols the border between America and Mexico.

Mr. Gilchrist and Marvin Stewart, another member of his group, were in the process of giving a speech at the invitation of the Columbia College Republicans. They were escorted off the stage unharmed and exited the auditorium by a back door.

Having wreaked havoc onstage, the students unrolled a banner that read, in both Arabic and English, "No one is ever illegal." As security guards closed the curtains and began escorting people from the auditorium, the students jumped from the stage, pumping their fists, chanting victoriously, "Si se pudo, si se pudo," Spanish for "Yes we could!"

The Minuteman Project, an organization of volunteers founded in 2004 by Mr. Gilchrist, aims to keep illegal immigrants out of America by alerting law enforcement officials when they attempt to cross the border. The group uses fiery language and unorthodox tactics to advance its platform. "Future generations will inherit a tangle of rancorous, unassimilated, squabbling cultures with no common bond to hold them together, and a certain guarantee of the death of this nation as a harmonious ‘melting pot,'" the group's Web site warns.

Columbia has a lot to answer for here. Why was there insufficient security? Why is there no tolerance for free speech? What kind of graduates are they producing? Ones tat thinks overrunning a stage and attacking speakers is a valid way of expressing oneself? Thugs like the one quoted at the start of this post?

"These are racist individuals heading a project that terrorizes immigrants on the U.S.-Mexican border," Ryan Fukumori, a Columbia junior who took part in the protest, told The New York Sun. "They have no right to be able to speak here."

This is appalling. These thugs should be in jail.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has the video up. The words I used at the beginning of this post are especially apt: Leftist Storm Troopers. That is what this is, the same tactics as some other people used in the past. (Yeah, I know that's close to a Godwin's Law violation, but it is quite obviously applicable here). Columbia has a genuine problem if this is the quality of graduates it is turning loose.

“We’re Getting Into Very Dangerous Territory”

That's the lead sentence in a piece by the Prowler, quoting a Democratic Leadership aide about David Corn's revelation about the "list" of gay Republican staffers. It seems there are a few people who realize that Democrats are in serious danger of getting cut by their own double edged sword. Well, yeah. We've been warning about that for a while now.

"We're getting into very dangerous territory, and I've warned my colleagues to be careful." That's what a Democrat leadership aide was saying on Wednesday, as word circulated about David Corn's blog posting that revealed that a list of gay Republicans congressional staffers was circulating through emails.

Such a list has been talked about for months, if not years, by more militant homosexual activists, who have threatened to out Republican congressional staffers or even congressmen if they take positions counter to their gay lifestyle.

Now, in the wake of the Rep. Mark Foley scandal, a form of "the list" is again circulating among journalists and any other interested third parties.

"If that list is made public, all of the political gains we've made in the past 96 hours get flushed down the toilet," says the leadership aide.

Just as troubling are concerns among some House Democrat staff that there are potential scandals lurking of a similar vein for them. According to another Democrat source, "I've been warning my people to stay away from this story because you just don't know what will come back to bite you."

There was just an object lesson from Brazil on how smear campaigns can bite the attempted user much worse than the intended target. But the Democrats seem to be caught in the momentum right now and appear to be hurtling toward a cliff with no way to stop.

Lamont Financial Problems?

Ned Lamont has had to dig into his own pocket for another half a million bucks. This comes about a week after his last transfusion of 3/4 of a million a week or so ago. It would appear that Lamont is having a bit of trouble getting contributions.

Greenwich Democrat Ned Lamont on Monday invested $500,000 more in his campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, bringing the cable company executive's total contribution since last winter to $6.75 million.

Lamont's campaign spokeswoman, Liz Dupont-Diehl, said the candidate's latest personal contribution - which came on the heels of a $750,000 contribution he made only a week earlier - was intended to "equalize spending in a race where his opponent outspent him nearly two-to-one in recent weeks on television advertising."

"Ned is not going to let Senator Lieberman's negative allegations go unanswered," she said.

Meanwhile, nationally syndicated columnist Robert Novak reported last weekend that a Lieberman campaign fundraiser held last week in Washington, D.C., shows that President Bush has "moved a step closer" to Lieberman's re-election bid.

A Lieberman campaign spokeswoman, Tammy Sun, had told the Journal Inquirer that the fundraiser - which she said netted the three-term incumbent $400,000 - was organized by the campaign itself and had no prominent sponsors. 

But Novak says its sponsors included Tom Kuhn, a close friend and college roommate of Bush, and Rick Shelby, a longtime Republican operative and executive, "who pressed fellow Republican lobbyists to pay a minimum of $1,000 a ticket."

Kuhn, the president of the Edison Electric Institute, an association of U.S. shareholder-owned electric companies, raised more than $100,000 for Bush in 2000 and 2004, according to Novak.

Shelby is executive vice president for public affairs at the American Gas Association, which represents 197 energy utility companies.

A top Lieberman campaign aide, Dan Gerstein, said today that he didn't know whether Novak was correct to identify Kuhn and Shelby as sponsors of the fundraiser.

"I don't know the terminology," he added, noting that certain individuals often are described as members of a "host committee" on invitations to such events.
Gerstein referred questions about the fundraiser to Sun, who stood by her previous statement.

"Novak is incorrect," she said. "There were no hosts, no sponsors or co-sponsors, no host committee, no names on the invitations. Everybody came as a guest, and it was a very bipartisan crowd with a lot of Democrats there as well as Republicans."