Governor-elect Deval Patrick supports efforts by Massachusetts to force the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide (you might recognize that as the gas you exhale every 10 seconds). He has also pledged to put Massachusetts in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a local "Kyoto Treaty" for New England states.

Why? Global warming, of course!

Everything you need to know about the weakness of the Al Gore/Global Warming "science" is here. The undeniable conclusion: Nobody knows what the earth's temperature is going to be in 100 years, and nobody knows if humans can do anything to significantly impact it even if we had to.

So let's focus instead on what we DO know...at least all of us who aren't going to be Massachusetts' next governor:

1-- The RGGI will raise the cost of heating your home and business in Massachusetts, which might be a problem since we already have the highest energy costs in America;

2-- The RGGI will drive businesses out of Massachusetts and will keep new businesses from coming here. Why, because...

3-- Just as China and India aren't signing up for Kyoto (and raising their energy costs), Colorado and Indiana are signing up for RGGI. Why would a high-energy-consuming business like manufacturing come to Massachusetts when they can open the same factory in Missouri and not pay the RGGI costs?

Deval Patrick: Together We Can Drive Your Electricity Bill Through The Roof and Cost You Your Job, Too!

My take on the angry imams is in the Boston Herald today.

US Airways is already under investigation for showing common sense. If you'd like to show your support for US Airways, you can contact them here.

What you won't read in the Boston Globe-Democrat about the strange and unsettling behavior by the six imams removed from a US Airways flight.

Among the highlights:

Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted "Allah" when passengers were called for boarding US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix. "I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud," the gate agent told the Minneapolis Police Department.

Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks -- two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.

"That would alarm me," said a federal air marshal who asked to remain anonymous. "They now control all of the entry and exit routes to the plane."

And how much sympathy do I have for idiot imams in the post-9/11 world who feel the need to shout "Allah!" at the top of their lungs while people are boarding an airplane? Slightly less than Ann Coulter does.

Coulter suggests that this entire event might be a publicity stunt by US Airways. Personally, I can't imagine a better slogan for an airline than "We're the airline angry Muslims refuse to fly!"

But after reading the Washington Times' coverage of the provocative, unnecessary and unsettling behavior of the imams (who had just attended a "fight the power!" imam convention), I honestly wonder if this wasn't a lawsuit setup by the CAIR crowd. A handful of imams act in a manner that all but forces the airline to respond, then scream "Profiling! Profiling!" as soon as they are removed from the plane.

All just in time for the Christmas travel season. Terrific.

Now come the usual threats of boycotts, lawsuits, blah, blah, blah. Angry liberals demand that I be offended that Muslims acting weird on airplanes aren't treated the same way as Methodists (as if you could actually GET a Methodist to pray aloud in public).

Sorry. No go. I don't feel sorry for these imams, not one bit. They were not treated unfairly in the least. Is it unfortunate that Muslims must be viewed by all rational people as more dangerous than non-Muslims. Yes. Is it tragic? Yes. It is the tragedy of the current state of Islam.

Rep. Rangel has repeated his assertion that young men who have the chance for a "decent career" would never serve in the US military today.

Now, I'm not as brilliant or intellectual as the Chairman-in-Waiting of the House Ways and Means Committee, but I have spent some time in Iraq and at American military facilities from Hawaii to Walter Reed. And I did not find the folks serving our nation to be of limited intellectual or economic capability.

Maybe they are all a bunch of chumps, as Charlie Rangel insists. Maybe they're just Americans with a sense of duty to their nation. Either way, if you'd like to join me in suppporting these young men and women, please click become part of Operation USO Care Package.

It's one way we can thank these young men and men for ignoring Charlie Rangel.

Mark Steyn is the best columnist writing in English today. Period.

And if you haven't gotten your copy of America Alone, don't wait 'til Christmas. It's too good.

My high school band director was a very successful jazz musician and played with bands like Les Brown. One of the life lessons he taught me was a jazz maxim that "Some of the most important notes are the ones you don't play."

I think of him frequently while reading my daily edition of the Boston Globe-Democrat.

It's hard to imagine another capitol city daily paper that would not run a single editorial about the legislature abandoning the state constitution and refusing to cast a legally required vote on a citizen-initiated petition. That's the kind of story editorial writers live for: Defend democracy! Defend the rule of law! Power to the people!

But from the BG-D? Crickets.

Today, Vladimir Bukovsky has an article at NRO recounting Sen. Ted Kennedy's secret communications with the Soviets during the Cold War, during which time he was openly aiding the Communists to undermine the elected government of the United States. It's not a new story at all. We were talking about it on my radio show weeks ago.

But at the BG-D? Cue the crickets, one more time.

How does a major daily paper ignore a story like this...ABOUT ITS OWN SENATOR? It's not like they have to look for a local hook. Kennedy is the local hook. But they simply refuse to cover it. Astonishing.

At a minimum, the reports of Kennedy's secret cooperation with Soviet Russia reveal that our senior senator was completely wrong about the Soviets, the Reagan Doctrine and the power of freedom. It's also rather disgusting for a liberal like Kennedy to demonstrate such a willingness to accept 100 million people living under tyranny across Eastern Europe, as though there is no moral element to his support for the Soviet spies and gulags.

But beyond that, it's impossible to read Kennedy's offers to help the Soviets defeat the efforts of the West without asking the obvious, common-sense question "When does this become treason?"

Kennedy and one of his trusted aides weren't just offering advice. They also gave the Russians information that was supposed to be for our embassies and representatives negotiating with the Soviets. I don't know if this makes Sen. Kennedy a spy, a traitor or just one of the many dopey liberals who could support Communist tyranny but call the Nicaragua freedom fighters "terrorists."

But as a newspaper reader, it seems to me that these are exactly the kinds of questions one would expect to find people writing about in the Boston Globe-Democrat.

UPDATE! The Jewish Advocate has a new article on this story and the petition to support our immigration enforcement agents.



That might be the real story behind the federal government's crackdown on visa fraud by

As reported by Miss Kelly (among others), some members of the Islamic Center of New England’s mosque in Sharon are afraid to speak out about problems there after their moderate imam was pushed out last year by the now-indicted Hafiz Muhammed Masood.

Masood came to the attention of federal authorities during their successful prosecution of Muhammad Khalil on visa fraud charges. Prosecutors alleged that Khalil (pictured above) is an admirer of Osama bin Laden and his jihadist philosophy, and they caught him on tape praising bin Laden and calling for Muslims to "arm themselves”" for "another attack."

What's the connection between Khalil of NYC and Masood of Boston? We don't know yet, other than it appears they both abused the religious-workers visa system to help Muslims immigrate to America under false pretenses.

The usual suspects, such as the pro-Hamas Muslim American Society-Boston, have denounced the arrest of the Boston-area imams as anti-Islamic bigotry. But does the MAS have anything to say about what's actually happening at the ICNE, or the allegations that the clerics and congregation there are becoming radicalized?

If only moderate Muslims would get half as angry at the people destroying the image of Islam as they do at people who draw pictures of the Prophet.