1. The Climate Conference Echo Chamber

2. Council on American Islamic Relations: A Co-Conspirator to Terror

3. The American Idol-ization of Abortion

4. Have Some Irish Coffee

5. Fred Upton’s Shocking Votes on Energy-Related Bills

1. The Climate Conference Echo Chamber

Phelim McAleer is a journalist. In his capacity as a journalist, he is a skeptic. The role of skeptic – the one who asks the questions, the one who demands answers – is generally a lauded role in modern society. At least .. as long as there’s a Republican on the hot seat. But in climate circles, they have another word, a pejorative term, for skeptics: deniers. The church of global warming has no tolerance for heresy, and even less for probing questions or investigations. And so it is that the journalist Phelim McAleer was denied press credentials for the UN Climate Change Conference taking place in sunny Cancun, Mexico this week. (Certainly a better PR choice than frigid Copenhagen.)Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. Council on American Islamic Relations: A Co-Conspirator to Terror

Power Line brings us the news that the Council on American Islamic Relations (”CAIR”) has been found by both the executive and judicial branches of the United States Government to be an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case.If you recall, the Justice Department prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation for providing support to a terrorist group. In the particular case it was Hamas.As Power Line notes, the Justice Department named CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case and both a federal district court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals concurred.Maybe now the media will stop trying to pretend that CAIR is some innocuous civil rights group. Hahahaha. Who am I kidding?!Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. The American Idol-ization of Abortion

Last week the smut-peddlers at Gawker.com introduced us all to Pete and Alisha Arnold. Alisha Arnold is apparently 17 weeks pregnant, and the Arnolds have allegedly decided to let the Internet vote on whether Alisha will carry their son to full term or abort him. I say “allegedly” because I am fairly skeptical of whether the Arnolds intend to follow through with their plan. In fairness, the Arnolds have left themselves a pretty substantial loophole, declaring essentially that they have veto power over the Internet poll. This seems to be fairly transparent way of saying that the Arnolds will check the results of the poll and then do whatever their hearts desire.To my mind, the question of whether this episode is a hoax or publicity stunt is quite beside the point. What ought to concern us more are the hordes of American citizens voting in the Arnolds’ poll and publicly obsessing over their gratuitous display of moral vacillation.Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. Have Some Irish Coffee

Yesterday afternoon, Ireland finalized terms of a bailout valued at 85 billion euros, from the ECB, the IMF, a government pension fund, and several European states. So far, the bailout is NOT having a calming effect on Europe’s capital markets.Credit spreads on so-called “peripheral” European sovereigns are blowing out this morning, and government bonds of Portugal and Spain are falling sharply. Italy managed to tap the credit markets earlier today, but the interest rate was high and the subscription level was disappointing.This can’t keep up. If investors continue to dial up the interest rates they charge Europe’s governments, there’s little chance of a sustained recovery. And that makes European states even less credit-worthy.Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. Fred Upton’s Shocking Votes on Energy-Related Bills

Fred Upton’s liberal voting record is a textbook example of why Republicans were kicked to the curb. From taxes to energy to federal government land grabs, Upton is no conservative.Upton’s proudest energy achievement is co-authoring the ban on incandescent light bulbs with über-liberal Rep. Jane Harman (D.–Calif.).A big believer in global-warming-consensus “science,” Upton told a Subcommittee on Energy and Environment hearing in 2009—just last year—that the global warming debate is over: “I have said at nearly every climate change hearing that for me I don’t dispute the science. Right or wrong, the debate over the modeling and science appears to be over.”Please click here for the rest of the post.