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Oh come now Vitruvius, it wasn't that long ago! I mean, black and white! Gosh she was a looker.

IPCC now in Bizzaroland: Pachauri releases “smutty” romance novel

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/30/ipcc-now-in-bizzaroland-pachauri-releases-smutty-romance-novel/

Can some wise guy tell me how to do italics and other gymnastics in the comments window?
Than you.

Wow - when I was a teenage boy, Diana Rigg was my idea of the ultimate woman (or, at least, Emma Peel was). Smart, beautiful, strong, and fearless - I hope my daughters grow up to be like Mrs. Peel. (And, hey, whatever happened to Mr. Peel anyway?)

Now, a few comments on the financial situation. The US announced an astounding 5.7% increase in GDP for the last quarter. As David Rosenberg notes in his daily missive from Gluskin-Sheff (free with registration), this type of growth is unprecedented when consumer spending has dropped, when hours of work have dropped, and when capital investment has dropped. I've posted here before that I believe US CPI figures are deliberately manipulated to keep COLA costs down. For example, the collapse in the real estate market has brought housing costs down, but if you already own a house or rent an apartment, the drop in the real estate index is pretty much irrelevant to you, but it gets counted in the CPI. I wouldn't put it past Bambam's team to manipulate GDP as well (particularly in a week when Fed chief "Helicopter" Ben Bernanke was facing a confirmation vote.) Revisions sure to come.

Meanwhile, in Japan, the budget deficit is set to be larger than gross tax revenues. Can you run a business or a household on those type of finances? Didn't think so.

Finally, John Law created temporary prosperity in France in the early 1700's by creating paper currency (his alleged quotation: "I have discovered the philosphers stone - turn paper into gold"), and bankrupted the country in 20 years. The monarchy held on for another 50 years, but we all know how that ended. Nixon's ending the gold window in 1971 was an analogous event; since things happen faster now, it wouldn't surprise me if the US seriously collapsed. In his state of the union address, Bambam seriously said that the US needs to double its exports over the next five years. Um, a 14% compounded annual growth rate when your economy stagnates? These are not the words of a reasonable man; these are the words of man so out of touch that "lunatic" barely seems adequate.

This is only a week old, and its initial prediction is already starting to come true.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/Only+military+occupation+save+Haiti/2467058/story.html

If there was a place for a benevolent dictator (Platon), Haiti is it.

Vandals deface Israeli emblems displayed at Olympic Games Flagwalk

Mississauga Matt, do you know if the usual suspects have an alibi?

Must say I'm somewhat surprised by the amount of support that Steve Fonyo has received since the revocation of his medal. I'm not so supportive myself, but then I think it should be taken from the grotesque Sue Johanssen (spell.) and the craven Mr. Morgantaler before old Steve. I once had a couple of beer with Steve in White Rock (as I recall, I paid, and he seemed to expect me to) and he told me that for what he did he should have been paid $1 million. I disagreed and told him so. A few years later I saw him limping around after the crack gangs in New West, and he once came into a coffee shop I was in and asked the owner if he could use his phone, as he had a flat tire. The owner, a friend of mine asked how he would leave home without a quarter, but never got an answer. The trouble with Steve is that he could never live up to the image of Terry Fox. Terry always reminded me of Herman Melville's character Billy Budd, of whom he said "The bonfire in his heart made luminous the rose-tan in his cheek". A bit romanticized maybe, but Steve was never our golden-haired boy, and that was his problem; he brought it on himself.

I started to watch the first scene, but decided to wait until tomorrow as I want to sleep tonight rather than have nightmares.

The UAW falls on (self-inflicted) hard times.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/30/turning-cash-to-ash/

if, as the article notes, Michigan passes right to work legislation (at long last) then private sector unions in the US will rapidly shrink to less than 10% of the workforce maybe less than 5% in a decade. The pressure this will put on the public sector unions will be enormous. Here's hoping...

Speaking of unionists, none were there today in support of Coptic Christians protesting the treatment of their co-religionists at the hands of Muslims in Egypt.

Nor was James Clark of the Stop The War Coalition there to organize transportation and hand out union-made-on-employer's-time signs.

No Marxists either. No deluded member of the gay community. No self-hating Copts.

See for yourself here on Youtube.

PS: Thanks Vit!

Good series, but not as realistic as Mission Impossible.

Larben:

I'm kind of disappointed in Steve Fonyo, but really the facts are this:

Terry Fox set out to run across Canada and didn't do it.

Steve Fonyo, with an equal handicap, set out with the same mission, and accomplished it.

So who does Canada celebrate? The failure or the guy who actually did what he sent out to do?

I'm not saying Terry Fox is some kind of wimp; it took a lot of courage and pain for him to do what he did. But, jeez, didn't Fonyo undergo the same sort of pain and effort? But there's no day named after him, no coins with his picture, nothing.. I don't blame Fonyo in the least for being a little bit upset. We seem to elevate losers more in this country than we do winners.

"President Barack Obama told Congress he would sell Taiwan $6.4 billion in helicopters, missile defense rockets, mine-hunting ships and other material"

The Chinese are not too happy. But since Taiwan is a democracy whereas China is run by a gang of criminals who would destroy that democracy, who cares what China thinks?

You may have heard that there is going to be a light show in Vancouver during the Olympics, along both sides of False Creek where it meets English Bay.

It looks like my webcam is going to have a great view of this. I just got a picture of them practising their act and it is amazing.

www.katkam.ca

You may have heard that there is going to be a light show in Vancouver during the Olympics, along both sides of False Creek where it meets English Bay.

It looks like my webcam is going to have a great view of this. I just got a picture of them practising their act and it is amazing.

www.katkam.ca

Kevinb:

someone who contributes regularly to the comments here said a while back that fonyo was a fraud - that he spent much of the journey riding in the motorhome. It cannot say whether that's true or not, but in light of how he's behaved since, it seems plausible.

while I'm no fan of the Official Olympic Organization, this video is well worth a watch. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fu3MkvC3w0

Gord:

Geez, I never heard that. If it's true, I retract my comments. I'm getting old, and my memory is fading, but didn't some Canadian woman pull a similar stunt in the Boston marathon many years ago?

KevinB: That was Rosie Ruiz, a Cuban:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_Ruiz

Rosie Ruiz, was as I recall a he/she of sorts, wasn't he/she?

O'Hope and Fear and Hate.
...-

"People are fearful, eventually fear turns to hate."
(2. toad)

"Jobs"

http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/01/30/jobs/#comments

Our Enemy, The State.

"the chains that bind,"

"because the trust is gone."
...-

"Even if the gov’t cut loose the chains that bind, the mindset is such that I would wait a year to see if it was real and wasn’t going to be pulled out from under us – because the trust is gone."
(36. novanglus)

"Jobs"

http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/01/30/jobs/#comments

Rosie Ruiz, was as I recall a he/she of sorts, wasn't he/she?

Posted by: larben at January 31, 2010 8:12 AM
.....................

Isn't that Rosie O'Donnell?

KevinB: "We seem to elevate losers more in this country than we do winners."

Although that's generally true, Terry Fox in no way can be considered a loser. His run was cut short in Thunder Bay, after he'd run 5,373 km (3,339 miles), when it was discovered that the cancer that had taken his leg had returned in his lungs -- and that was the end of that. He died 10 months later.

lev 10;44 html tags

Al Gore's Weather (AGW): "Continuous snow blizzards".
...-

"Weather drives Mongolian herders to cities

ULAN BATUR, Mongolia, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- Mongolia's extreme cold and snow have killed more than 1 million livestock and forced herders to leave homes for shanties near Ulan Batur, an aid group said.

The weather threatens the livelihoods of thousands of people, Xinhua reported Saturday.

"Every morning five to 10 animals are dying," said Javzmaa Batbold, a herder in Adaatsag County, Dundgobi province. "Out of 500 livestock, about 120 have died due to the extreme cold weather and shortage of food.

"I don't know what future is waiting for our family if all our livestock die," said Batbold, a father of two children. "We are doing our best to save our animals, which are the only source of livelihood. Continuous snow blizzards are killing our livestock."

More than 14,000 Red Cross volunteers are delivering food to herders who have lost their livestock."
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2010/01/30/Weather-drives-Mongolian-herders-to-cities/UPI-85651264904271

Another poll going swimingly well:

http://www.edmontonsun.com/

WHY YOU AND I FIGHT THEM

The Subversion Of America: A Long-Running KGB Operation

http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/2010/01/subversion-of-america-long-running-kgb.html

We know EXACTLY what he's talking about. He said this in the mid-Eighties, and we now know he was telling the truth.

Shockingly candid explanations by a famous KGB defector

BEGIN EXCERPT

It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages. The first one being "demoralization".

It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of [their] enemy. In other words, Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generation of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism; American patriotism....

The result? The result you can see ... the people who graduated in the 60's, dropouts or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, and educational systems. You are stuck with them. You can't get through to them. They are contaminated. They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern [alluding to Pavlov]. You cannot change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still can not change the basic perception and the logic of behavior.

In other words [for] these people the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To rid society of these people you need another 15 or 20 years to educate a new generation of patriotically minded and common sense people who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society.

ED: And yet these people who have been programmed and as you say [are] in place and who are favorable to an opening with the Soviet concept - these are the very people who would be marked for extermination in this country?

YURI: Most of them, yes. Simply because the psychological shock when they will see in [the] future what the beautiful society of EQUALITY and social justice means in practice, obviously they will revolt. They will be very unhappy [and] frustrated people, and Marxist-Leninist regime does not tolerate these people. Obviously they will join the [ranks] of dissenters; dissidents. Unlike the present United States there will be no place for dissent in future Marxist-Leninist America. [Now] you can get popular like Daniel Elsburg and filthy rich like Jane Fonda for being a dissident [and] for criticizing your Pentagon. In [the] future these people will simply be [he makes a squishy noise] squashed like cockroaches for criticizing the government. Nobody is going to pay them nothing for their beautiful [and] noble ideas of EQUALITY. This they don't understand and it will be the greatest shock for them, of course.

END EXCERPT

batb:

I never said Terry Fox didn't have courage, or that he didn't feel pain. I said he didn't accomplish what he set out to do.

So, if what Gord said is correct, let's forget Steve Fonyo. What about Rick Hansen? He went all the way across the country in a wheelchair. Is there a "Rick Hansen" day celebrated every year? Was there a coin made for him? If we're going to celebrate the guys who didn't make it, shouldn't we give equal time to the guys who do?

Sterngate? It's more AGW Fraud.

"Muir-Wood said his research showed no such thing and accused Stern of “going far beyond what was an acceptable extrapolation of the evidence”."

Here is the Stern defence:

"A spokesman for Stern said: “Muir-Wood may have been deceived by his own observations.”"
...-

"Climate change study was ‘misused’'

LORD STERN’S report on climate change, which underpins government policy, has come under fire from a disaster analyst who says the research he contributed was misused.

Robert Muir-Wood, head of research at Risk Management Solutions, a US-based consultancy, said the Stern report misquoted his work to suggest a firm link between global warming and the frequency and severity of disasters such as floods and hurricanes.

The Stern report, citing Muir-Wood, said: “New analysis based on insurance industry data has shown that weather-related catastrophe losses have increased by 2% each year since the 1970s over and above changes in wealth, inflation and population growth/movement.

“If this trend continued or intensified with rising global temperatures, losses from extreme weather could reach 0.5%-1% of world GDP by the middle of the century.”

Muir-Wood said his research showed no such thing and accused Stern of “going far beyond what was an acceptable extrapolation of the evidence”.

The criticism is among the strongest made of the Stern report, which, since its publication in 2006, has influenced policy, including green taxes.

Muir-Wood’s study did show an association between global warming and the impact and frequency of disasters. But he said this was caused by exceptionally strong hurricanes in the final two years of his study.

A spokesman for Stern said: “Muir-Wood may have been deceived by his own observations.”"

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7009710.ece

How not to cover the Haiti Relief effort. A CBC production. http://contrarian.ca/2010/01/31/confined-to-ship/

And for the We don't need no stinking fans file :

Wind farms are sprouting up around the world, but aviation specialists are raising concerns that the giant turbines are creating blackout zones for air-traffic control radars. The spinning blades of the turbines are being detected by the radars, presenting false images or generating so much clutter on radar screens that controllers are losing track of airplanes as they fly near the wind farm sites.

http://tinyurl.com/ycjz6k5

mojo at January 31, 2010 9:34 AM

You will have to read "Republic" by Plato (Platon)

Re- Steve Fonyo. I feel a little bad for the comment about the motorhome. I really did see his convoy, twice, with Fonyo nowhere in sight, but I believe those are the accepted rules of that sort of marathon. You only have to actually run/cycle/walk a certain fraction of the distance. My criticism of Fonyo was based on his actions, after the 'run'.

I may be mistaken, but I think Terry Fox ran the entire distance. Terry's legacy was his character. As they say, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.

Everybody loves Toronto:
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/rob_granatstein/2010/01/29/12670966.html#/comment/columnists/rob_granatstein/2010/01/29/pf-12670971.html

Zimbabwe "Mugabe closes in on last white farmers

White farmers are being beaten into submission and driven from their land as Robert Mugabe's campaign enters its final stage"
(timesUK)

Socialism is shooting the kulaks (farmers), aka The Final Solution (German: Die Endlösung).

What's new?

"New Statesman - Troika and terror *
Lenin not only believed in the efficacy of terror to solve most problems, ... If there's any doubt, just shoot him. And hang those blood-sucking kulaks in their thousands in full view of the people,"
www.newstatesman.com/200010230038

KevinB: "batb, I never said Terry Fox didn't have courage, or that he didn't feel pain. I said he didn't accomplish what he set out to do."

Well, Kevin, I didn't attribute to you your saying that Terry Fox wasn't courageous or didn't feel pain. I simply quoted one of your comments which was, "We seem to elevate losers more in this country than we do winners."

That's what I was referring to. And, surely, you can't fault Terry Fox for not accomplishing what he set out to do: He had cancer. He was very ill and couldn't continue running.

As for Rick Hansen and his accomplishment, I agree that he should probably be equally as celebrated as Terry Fox. On the other hand, Terry had cancer, and the Canadian Cancer Society is a big player in the charity/government funding sweepstakes in Canada and has a much bigger profile than spinal cord injuries.

Maybe that's why we've made such a big thing of Terry Fox. Who knows?

"*Jobs", The State of the Union by Not'O.
...-

"71. lugh lampfhota:

I have worked as an engineer the automotive semiconductor business for 37 years. I was lucky and found work at an automotive lithium battery startup after nine months of being unemployed. But I know too many engineers in their 50s who are sitting at home looking for any work. All of us should be working at peak salary to put money away for retirement. Instead we are cashing in the 401k to scrape by. Such a waste for the country and the individuals.
Most of us who are working are contract with no benefits. We’re making far less than market rate and pay a fortune for health care benefits. Employers are just too uncertain about the future to convert contracts to full time employees.
Meanwhile my college educated daughters aren’t making enough to even pay their student loans. It’s damn near impossible for young folks to start a life in this environment. The future looks bleak here in the midwest, far worse than the early 1980s recession. I can’t see what is going to turn this thing around."
...-

"74. JMH:

or the repo/eviction men come, but it reaches such a huge mass that police more or less stop enforcing the orders. And some cops may actively engage in civil disobedience, telling the banks to shove it since the homeowner didn’t get bailed out like the bankers did.

A cousin of mine is an attorney. Decent guy other than that, but anyway. He told me a story about a client of his last year. But first set the wayback machine to 2005. A guy buys a condo in Seattle, No-doc, no-down, blah blah. Moves in. Never makes a single mortgage payment. Never makes a single property tax payment. Or condo association dues payment. Two years later, the bank forcloses. Eventually it goes to auction, and Cuz’es client buys it. Pays back taxes, dues, etc. Goes to tell the deadbeat (who’s still living there) that he bought it, needs him to move out, etc. At this point, the buyer didn’t reaize the guy had never made any payments, just thought he’d hit some back luck, and was trying to be nice. Deadbeat says he’ll need some time to look for a new place.

Keeps saying that, week after week. Finally, buyer get’s fed up and call Sheriff about evicting the guy. Well, this sits on the Sheriff Dept’s priority list about half a notch above jabbing a hot needle in their eye, so it takes some time (quite a bit of it billabe to Cuz). Eventually, 18 months after the auction, the deadbeat is evicted. He’d “bought” the place with no intention of ever making a payment and lived rent-free for over 4 years in a luxury condo.

Bad enough, but the real kicker is, it was the third time the guy had done the same thing. And no, he wasn’t arrested and nobody has charged him with anything.

Just another datapoint in how the scammers are living off the rest of us and suffering no consequences."

"*Jobs":
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/01/30/jobs/#comments

Just an amazing video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vOhf3OvRXKg

It shows the winner of " Ukraine's Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II.

Kseniya Simonova says:

"I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me [well, it clearly isn't when you see her pictures]. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there's surely no bigger compliment."

>>"And hang those blood-sucking kulaks in their thousands in full view of the people,"

And once you have killed off the only people who can feed you, you are free to starve to death at your leisure.

batb- What? Are Ukranians trying to pretend they weren't allied with the Nazis? Talk about revisionist education.

"but then I think it should be taken from the grotesque Sue Johanssen (spell.) and the craven Mr. Morgantaler before old Steve." said larben @11:43

I agree. Maybe Steve should be thankful he no longer shares this questionable award called the ORder of Canada with those luminaries of the left....

*
Gotta love those Globe headlines

I'm just waiting for... "sitting on a
throne made of human skulls."

*

The brothers of socialism: Stalin and Adolf.

"*We were horrified, but we didn't say anything."

Political correctness, a tool of the Red-Greens, demands your silence.
...-

"Giant Katyn memorial to be built in Poland.

The memorial is supposed to consist of a tall monument, and an „army” of 21.857 natural size statues of soldiers – the number equal to the number of the Polish POWs murdered by the Soviets in Katyn.
Something like the Chinese ancient Terracota Army.

Each statue will have its first name, surname, military rank and ... a hole in the head."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2441004/posts
...-

"*'They Really Do Smell Like Blood'
Among Hitler's Executioners on the Eastern Front

As a young woman, Annette Schücking-Homeyer served as a Red Cross volunteer on the Eastern Front in Ukraine. In an interview with SPIEGEL, the retired judge discusses the horrors committed against the Jews there, how everyone knew about them and why, even after the war, most people just wanted to forget.

SPIEGEL: After World War II, most Germans denied having known about the Holocaust. From 1941 to 1943, you were a volunteer with the German Red Cross behind the lines on the Eastern Front. When did you discover that Jews were being murdered?

Annette Schücking-Homeyer: In the train on the way to the front. It was October 1941. I had been sent with another nurse to run a so-called soldiers' home in Zwiahel, a small city 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Kiev. After Brest-Litovsk, two soldiers joined us in our compartment, but I don't remember whether they were with the SS or just regular soldiers. All of a sudden, one of them told us how he had been ordered to shoot a woman in Brest. He said the woman had begged for mercy, pleading that she had to take care of her handicapped sister. He had someone get the sister, and then he shot them both. We were horrified, but we didn't say anything."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,674375,00.html

maz2 @ 2:15 I can vouch for that, as I had a number of small farmer relatives who decided not to or could not leave the Soviet Union in the 1920s that paid this price. I know some T-rolls do not believe this or think they had it coming.

Liberals think Cuba, Zimbabwe and now Venezuela are approaching the Utopian state of Nirvana.

dp @ 3:06 asked "Are Ukrainians trying to pretend they weren't allied with the Nazis?" Most Ukrainians lost family members to Stalin's societal restructuring during the 1930s, millions in fact, and thought at first Hitler would save them from further communist depredations. Many Ukrainians, except for hardcore communists, welcomed the invaders as saviours.

It is true that a few, as in all western European countries, excepted this what they thought was a new anti-communist ideology and voluntarily worked for the Nazis. Others worked for the Nazis to survive and put food on the table. It is also true that hundreds of thousands were either forced or coerced into working in the factories in Germany.

Galician Ukrainians, at least those who had been part of Poland until September 1939, were treated brutally by Stalin for two years until the German army rolled in and some young men joined the Waffen SS.

It is also true that many Cossacks who had been in the Soviet army and captured by the German Wehrmacht recalled the treatment of their Cossack fathers and people by the communists and wanted revenge.

Ken- Yes, I agree the Ukranians thought they were choosing the lesser evil, but trying to change history can make people seem more complicit, after the fact.

A Chinese friend of mine was born in Canton Province, on the eve of the Great Leap Forward. She was taught, in school, that Russia was responsible for the starvation of millions of Chinese, during that period. That's right, they were told the USSR had called in loans, unfairly, and that's the reason people had no rice.

CBC,our tax-payer funded national news source,has an article up about a pro-Gaza rally in Fredericton. This massive rally was totally ignored by the local newspaper,yet found it's way onto CBC. Crowd estimates range as high as 24 protesters.---http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2010/01/30/nb-gaza-rally-fredericton.html. FIRE.THEM.ALL.