Did Hollywood Today Plagiarize American Power on Tareq Salahi's Palestinian Ties?

Look, the New York Times first broke the news that Tareq Salahi, the White House gate-crasher now under investigation for the massive state dinner security breach, had ties to Palestinian rights organization, ATFP.

After I saw that, I looked into it, and published my report, "Tareq Salahi, Gate-Crasher at White House State Dinner, Tied to ATFP, America-Bashing Palestinian Group Calling for Power-Sharing With Hamas!"

Jules Crittenden linked to the piece last night at his snarky entry, "O Presidency Shark Jumped." And Ruby Slippers, also citing my post, emphasizes the potentially catastrophic nature of Salehi's intrusion in "It's Not Easy to be a Reality Show Star these Days."

So folks might understand my peeve at this entry from Hollywood Today, "Palestinian Organization Tied to White House Gate Crashers, Hollywood Today Confirms."

Okay, sure, sounds good. But where'd Hollywood Today "confirm" Salahi's ties to ATFP? From my blog? The Hollywood Today author, Jeffrey Jolson, doesn't indicate a personal interview with any of the sources cited at the piece. But the giveaway is the cut-and-paste prose at Jolson's essay:

The couple that crashed a State Dinner at the White House had ties to the American Task Force on Palestine, Hollywood Today has confirmed.

Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who may have been there posing as a team from Bravo TV, (the husband-wife team has been auditioning for a role on Bravo’s “Real Housewives of Washington D.C.”), so Bravo should either hire them as resourceful, or more likely turn over all correspondence to the Secret Service under threat of abetting potential terrorists and revoking Bravo’s FCC license – if the network was involved in the set-up.

The way it works, according to former White House press aide Edward Lozzi, is that the White House sets up the guest list well in advance. The Secret Service then vets the individuals. It is not a rock concert, you can’t sneak a peek at the guest list and use someone’s name or slip in a backdoor.

Already, various Arab groups are making the Salahis heroes of the anti-U.S. or anti-Israeli causes on the Internet.

So why were the Salahis allowed on the list? True, the Palestinian organization they both have ties to, the American Task Force on Palestine, claims only the most peaceful intents – so maybe the couple was invited by someone in the White House who believes this. We do not dispute AFTPs insistence of peaceful goals without proof one way or another, yet in the recent past, the AFTP has been accused of America-bashing and promoting power-sharing with self-acknowledged terror group HAMAS.

So why is Tareq’s image on the ATFP webpage gone, as are most references to him and his wife? They are scuttling even faster than Bravo to distance themselves from what they may figure is a time bomb. The ATFP picture shows Tareq as a board member of their group a week ago. He has been deleted now.

Did Jolson speak to Lozzi directly? It's not clear. But no matter. The phrases "America-bashing" and "power-sharing" at Hollywood Today are almost surely drawn from my post, "Tareq Salahi, Gate-Crasher at White House State Dinner, Tied to ATFP, America-Bashing Palestinian Group Calling for Power-Sharing With Hamas!" Note this passage at my conclusion:

In addition, and ominously, it turns out that Tareq Salahi, the polo-playing intruder, is a Palestinian nationalist with ties to the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) , a pro-Palestine lobby demanding the "right of return" for all Palestinian refugees and their descendants. The "right of return" has long been considered the backdoor to Israel's destruction. But not only that: ATFP President Ziad Asali is an America-basher who blamed 9/11 on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Asali was a lead U.S. official to PLO terrorist Yassir Arafat's funeral in 2004. And in a position paper in 2007, the ATFP called for a power-sharing agreement at the Palestinian Authority, which would have included the State Department's designated-terrorist group, Hamas.

And, a few minutes after publishing I updated the post to indicate that ATFP had dropped Salahi's picture from their website, and I linked to an essay at KABOBfest, "Tarek Salahi: Coolest Arab of the Moment."

That's all it takes, a quick link to serve as a citation for your sources. Even near-verbatim paraphrasing is cool as long as you link back to your source as a courtesy.

Hollywood Today has not done so, however. And not just to my essay, but to KABOBfest's as well, which includes the screencap of ATFP's website with Tareq Salahi's picture on it prior to the gate-crashing incident:

Norms for citation are obviously lax on the net, and folks snag a lot of graphic material, pictures and stuff, under reasonable claims of fair use.

But Hollywood Today is passing off online investigative research into THE SIGNIFICANCE of Salahi's Palestinian ties as its own. And that's what bugs me. I'm just another blogger out there, but when I dig up and analyze a good bit of information, whether a big deal in the end or not, I wish to be credited, at the least.

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UPDATE: Linked at the Astute Bloggers, "TAREQ AND BARACK: BWAHAHAHAHA!" Plus, Three Bears Later links to my initial entry on Salahi's Palestinian ties. See, "Obama Party Crasher Anti-American Palestinian Activist!"

Grad Students Bailing on Climate Science? Judith Curry Responds

Graduate students in the climatological sciences are questioning their professional choices in the wake of the Climaquiddick controversy. Climate Progress has posted a response from Dr. Judith Curry, a research professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Science, Georgia Institute of Technology.

Dr. Judith Curry, Georgia Tech professor and climate modeling expert, shows projections of the coming climate shifts during the opening session of Mercer's conference "Caring for Creation: Ethical Responses to Climate Change," on Feb. 27.

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Note the sample letter from a graduate student:

Hi Dr. Curry,

I am a young climate researcher (just received my master’s degree from xxx University) and have been very troubled by the emails that were released from CRU. I just want to applaud and support your response on climateaudit.org [95% of it ]. Your statement represents exactly how I have felt as I slowly enter this community. The content of some of the emails literally made me stop and wonder if I should continue with my PhD applications for fall 2010, in this science. I was so troubled by how our fellow scientists within the climate community have been dealing with opposing voices (on both sides). I hope we can all learn from this and truly feel that we are going to need voices like yours to fix these problems in the coming months and years.

Now, you'll want to read the whole entry from Dr. Curry. It's a pretty thoughtful and open-minded response to climate skeptics. But while she expresses a sincere affirmation of scientific integrity and the need for open and democratic replicability of scientific research, she in fact barely mentions the essence of Climaquiddick itself.

It's going to take a lot more than a few letters like this to restore any kind of integrity to the global warming field. In fact, it's nowhere near my field, but I wouldn't advise students to enter the profession of climate science, not unless they were totalitarian radicals themselves, and then of course they wouldn't be asking for my opinion in the first place.

Global warming is a scam. It's an industry that's bent on impoverishing the world in an attempt to implement one-world governmental control. The CRU leak of just the tip of the iceberg on this, for sure. See, for example, Vincent Gray, an IPCC expert reviewer, "There Was Proof of Fraud All Along."

Photo Credit: Mercer University, "Climate Change a Moral Challenge For All People."

Obama Administration Closely Monitoring Dubai Debt Default

The New York Times has the main story, "Dubai Debt Troubles Push Down Stocks in U.S. and Asia" (via Memeorandum). And Max Boot's account of the crisis is worth a look, "The Middle East Needs Dubai." But check, "Obama Administration Closely Monitoring Dubai Debt Outlook." And it should be too, considering how administration's helped stir Dubai's sharia finance scam. See, "Dubai in Meltdown":

Dubai was a classic bubble. It was also largely a facade. Billed as a playground for Western tourists and a financial center, the truth about Dubai and the rest of the UAE is rather different.

All along, the Islamists were working behind the scenes and, if a Westerner strayed outside the facade and committed a terrible crime like kissing his girlfriend in public, authorities would in fact act.

And then there is the whole disturbing problem of ties between UAE (of which Dubai is a part) royals and Al Qaeda. Long forgotten is the testimony of then-CIA director George Tenet before the 9/11 Commission that a US strike on an Al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan thought to contain Osama Bin Laden was called off because of the presence of numerous UAE royals in the compound with Bin Laden. It seems that Bin Laden and the UAE royals were falconry buddies and they often visited him.

Why in the world would ANY Westerner trust these scoundrels???

Well, who knows? Better ask the White House, where the crack financial advisors there basically helped GE finance its sharia bond buys, "GE Capital Plans $1 Billon Islamic Bond." See, "Obama’s Hidden Bailout of General Electric," and "Does G.E. Stand to Gain From the Obama Administration?"

More at Memeorandum.