THE TENSION: The Decline and Fall of Western Civ for 13 Nov.

The Decline and Fall of Western Civ.: Barbarians have Crashed the Gate

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A top U.S. intelligence official has been meeting with Middle East counterparts to discuss proposals expected from the Baker commission on Iraq, Middle East sources have told Newsday.

The proposals reportedly include an approach to Iran and Syria -- a policy that Robert Gates, a member of the commission, has argued for. Gates, a former CIA chief and longtime protege of the Bush family, is President Bush’s choice to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose resignation Bush announced on Wednesday.

You may think the same folks who leaked the above story on the Baker commission must have made a call to Tony Blair. The legacy media says as much. The first cracks in the united front over Iraq between Blair and President Bush appeared last night as the Prime Minister offered Iran and Syria the prospect of dialogue over the future of Iraq and the Middle East, according to the Times Online.

Mr Blair said there could be a new “partnership” with Iran if it stopped supporting terrorism in Iraq and gave up its nuclear ambitions. Syria and Iran could choose partnership or isolation, he said.
Hold on, not so fast...

2003: The Axis of Evil. 2006: Our Good Buddies? The Independent cherry picks Tony Blair's Veteran's Day speech and reports Iran and Syria were demonised to justify the invasion of Iraq. The piece says Britain and the US now want their help sorting out the mess.
Robert Gates, the new US Defence Secretary, is an advocate of dialogue with Tehran to enlist its help in extricating allied forces from Iraq. Tony Blair, who wants Iran to help stop cross-border attacks on UK troops, backs this, setting the scene for demise of Bush's neoconservative policy. But Iran is now in the grip of a hardline leadership, headed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is defiant over its nuclear programme. Iran faces UN sanctions. Ahmadinejad will aim to make Bush and Blair sweat before he agrees to help.
However, in the full text of the speech, Blair says something much different than reported in the press:

There is a fundamental misunderstanding that this is about changing policy on Syria and Iran. First, those two countries do not at all share identical interests. But in any event that is not where we start.
It is a perfectly straightforward and clear strategy. It will only be defeated by an equally clear one: to relieve these pressure points one by one and then, from a position of strength to talk, in a way I described in July in my speech in Los Angeles: offer Iran a clear strategic choice: they help the MEPP [Middle East Peace Process] not hinder it; they stop supporting terrorism in Lebanon or Iraq; and they abide by, not flout, their international obligations. In that case, a new partnership is possible. Or alternatively they face the consequences of not doing so: isolation.

On the sidebar to all the repositioning with regard to the Middle East, AFP reports according to the Iranian media Monday, Iranian President Mahoud Ahmadinejad declared that Israel was destined to ‘disappearance and destruction’ at a council meeting with Iranian ministers.

“The western powers created the Zionist regime in order to expand their control of the area. This regime massacres Palestinians everyday, but since this regime is against nature, we will soon witness its disappearance and destruction,” Ahmadinejad said.
Israel will not accept a nuclear Iran, visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told US television, but while not ruling out military action, said he hoped diplomacy would dissuade Tehran from pursuing its nuclear program, according to AFP.
"We will not tolerate the possession of nuclear weapons by Iran," Olmert told NBC television's "Today Show" program, ahead of talks with President George W. Bush on Iran's nuclear ambitions and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Folks can hope the view of the forest isn't obstructed by the trees.

AP notes a long-awaited report by an international scientific network will offer much stronger evidence of how man is changing Earth's climate, and should prompt balky governments into action against global warming, the group's chief scientist said Monday.

The upcoming, multi-volume U.N. assessment - on melting ice caps and rising seas, with authoritative new data on how the world has warmed - "might provide just the right impetus to get the negotiations going in a more purposeful way," Rajendra K. Pachauri said in an interview midway through the annual two-week U.N. climate conference.
Likewise, the U.S. Senate notes that a new United Nations children’s book promoting fears of catastrophic manmade global warming is being promoted at the UN Climate Change Conference in Kenya. The book's main character, a young boy, is featured getting so worried about a coming manmade climate disaster that he yells “I don’t want to hear anymore!” The new children’s book, entitled “Tore and the Town on Thin Ice” is published by the United Nations Environment Programme and blames “rich countries” for creating a climate catastrophe and urges children to join environmental groups.

It may not be politically correct but many scientists dispute the notion that mankind has created a climate doomsday. To find the truth simply follow the money. Here's some useful sites: U.S. EPA Climate Change, Global Warming.

It all started with tacos and a movie and allegedly ended up as a hospital trip and testing positive for drugs. It does sound strange, but one man says it happened to him. He claims the soft tacos he bought at a fast food chain contained some sort of drug, reports CBS News.

WISN asks what's 7 feet tall, hairy and roams the local woods after midnight?

"I felt the truck shake. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a large, black furry figure reaching into the back of the truck. At that point and time, I threw the truck into drive and gunned it, because it scared the dickens out of me."