small dead animals

"I Think I Know A Shortcut"

(thanks to reader Bruce. A different view.)

In A Case Of Mistaken Identity

Freeloading backpackers are forced to cut journey short, after being mistaken for freeloading backpackers.

Finally

A bill to strip the WCB of its barley marketing status will be introduced Monday.

DrD in the comments - "I chose "wit", because, as it is often said: "A bun is the lowest form of wheat.". However, I stress that you should not allow this to influence your vote. Decide carefully.

Update: According to 650 CKOM, there was a bit of jostling at the legislature among farmers in attendance. About 80% of those there were lending support to ending the monopoly.

Update 2: Ritz's statement is up at Agriville

Yes We Won't !

NAFTA, shafta....

OBAMA'S NAFTA DOUBLE-TALK confirmed. "After reporting on Barack Obama’s dance with the Canadians on NAFTA yesterday, Canadian broadcaster CTV got accused of perpetrating a smear against the Democratic front-runner. They insisted that Obama meant every word he said about overturning the free-trade treaty, and that no one had contacted the Canadian diplomatic corps to reassure them that it was mere demagoguery. CTV responded today by naming names — and suddenly the Obama campaign has grown quiet." More here from ABC News.

At least we're learning which bunch of rubes is being fooled. Coming next -- an Obama adviser tells the Iraqi government not to pay attention to his troop-withdrawal talk?

Heh.

Y2Kyoto: Self-Sequestration

They'll pry my ashes out of my cold, dead... oh, wait...

Since it takes two to four hours at temperatures ranging from 1,400 and 2,100 F, or 760 and 1,150 C, the estimated energy required to cremate one body is roughly equal to the amount of fuel required to drive 4,800 miles, or 7,725 kilometers.

Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide are spewed in large volume, along with carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen fluoride, particulate matter, heavy metals, dioxins and furans.

There is also release of cadmium and lead from pacemakers and mercury from dental amalgams. Total mercury emissions from cremation in Canada for 2004 were between 240 and 907 pounds, or 109 and 411.6 kilograms.

!!! Think of all that toxic mercury going to waste, when it could be captured and recycled into environmentally-friendly compact fluorescents!

Meanwhile, some funeral providers are providing natural burials -- the body is not embalmed or cremated, but instead buried in a simple casket or shroud in protected green space.

Spend as much time flying the friendly skies as you like, so long as you show up a few years early for your scheduled topple into the moist, warm pit of fellow travellers.

(Flashback - Or carbon-sequester a friend!)

The great recycling ideas keep pouring in From the comments "Here's an idea -- instead of wasting valuable resources throwing eco-criminals in jail, as Doktor Suzuki advises, why don't we turn them into something useful, like soap, or lamp shades?"

Let your death brighten a room and provide the warm ambience, too!

"Mr. Dion, Mr. Duceppe, Mr. Layton take note"

This is what "reconstruction" looks like in southern Afghanistan.

One Thing Ted Kennedy And I Can Agree On

I'd rather live near an open pit coal mine than have to peer through a hedgerow of these things every day.

Reader Tips

Tips open for Friday. Busy work day planned, so blogging may be slow for a few hours.

The BOFH Goes Carbon Neutral

Glenn Reynolds says - "EVEN HARD DRIVES ARE going green."

Simon sez - "Oh right, NancyBoy boxes."

The Sound Of Settled Science

With over 500 USHCN climate stations now surveyed -

13% of the sites (those rated "1" or "2") met acceptable standards.

Obama As Churchill

we shall surrender on the seas and oceans,
we shall surrender with growing confidence and growing weakness in the air, we shall
surrender our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall surrender on the beaches,
we shall surrender on the landing grounds,
we shall surrender in the fields and in the streets,
we shall surrender in the hills;
we shall always surrender,

What, No Graffiti?

h/t

Rove-rgate?

CBS and election years - never a good combination.

Y2Kyoto: Another Poll Goes Horribly Wrong

Time for caring conservatives to gather up your old whale song tapes and send them to those who need them most.

(Whale... yum!)

"It kind of makes me wonder who is the superior political strategist."

Maxwell Smart: It's funny you should ask, because as we speak this building is being surrounded by one hundred security agents with one hundred Doberman pinschers. Would you believe it? One hundred agents and one hundred Doberman pinschers!

Nicholas Dimente: No, I don't believe that.

Maxwell Smart: Er... would you believe fifty security guards and a bloodhound?

Nicholas Dimente: I don't think so.

Maxwell Smart: How about a rabid Boy Scout?

A Good Fit

I have a confession. I couldn't quite recall ever having heard of Avi Lewis prior to this interview in which Ayaan Hirsi Ali reduced him to tender little bite-sized pieces.

But then I remembered this;

For reference, Avi Lewis is the son of the image former you’ve got to be kidding party’s Stephen Lewis, who sounds very much like a communist to me. Stephen Lewis is the son of Federal NDP Leader David Lewis, who similarly sounds very much like a communist to me. Stephen Lewis is married to Michele Landsberg, a feminist activist and former writer for the leftist Toronto Star, which is perhaps the most left-wing mainstream newspaper in North America, and the liberals’ Globe and Mail. She sounds very much like a communist to me. Not to be outdone, young Avi Lewis is married to far-left-wing feminist activist and Bush-hater Naomi Klein, daughter of an American draft dodger; and her brother is a director of the far left-wing Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (the “alternative” they speak of being global socialism and an end to capitalism as we know it, which sounds very much like communism to me). Naomi Klein was also a Toronto Star writer. She sounds very much like a communist to me.

UPDATE - "How do you say "sucker" in Farsi?"

Reader Tips

"Could it be that the Klan is just getting soft?"

"Maybe he could look into safe-injection sites while he's at it."

"How is it that LGen Marc Dumais, Commander of Canada Command, recently signed a Civil Assistance Plan with Gen. Gene Renuart, Commander of NORAD and USNORTHCOM, and I have to learn about it at a pop-culture blog?"

"Now listen, you queer"...

Yours welcome in the comments.

ElBaradei Out Of The Loop?

What's going on at the International Atomic Energy Agency?

Friday, Feb 22:

"In the last four months, in particular, we have made quite good progress in clarifying the outstanding issues that had to do with Iran´s past nuclear activities, with the exception of one issue, and that is the alleged weaponization studies that supposedly Iran has conducted in the past. We have managed to clarify all the remaining outstanding issues, including the most important issue, which is the scope and nature of Iran´s enrichment programme."

"A senior diplomat who attended the IAEA meeting said that among the material shown was an Iranian video depicting mock-ups of a missile re-entry vehicle. He said IAEA Director General Oli Heinonen suggested the component — which brings missiles back from the stratosphere — was configured in a way that strongly suggests it was meant to carry a nuclear warhead.

Other documentation showed the Iranians experimenting with warheads and missile trajectories where "the height of the burst ... didn't make sense for conventional warheads," he said."

19:32am

In the footsteps of the master.

Update - Ladies and Gents, we have a retraction.

Quote Of The Week

Rest In Peace

William F. Buckley

"Results 1 - 10 of about 417,000 for Obama + assassination"

And people scoffed when Ramesh Ponnuru * called them the party of death;

The Bush-assassination fantasies are concocted by his political opponents and at least arise from his acts — invading the world; slaughtering 14 million Iraqi civilians or whatever it’s up to by now; shredding the constitution. By contrast, the Obama-assassination porn is written by his worshippers and testifies to one of the most palpable features of the senator’s campaign — its faintly ersatz quality, its determination to appropriate Camelot and every other mythic narrative.

This macabre longing for martyrdom in some quarters may be less "assassination porn" than it is political pragmatism - a subconscious recognition that the tsunami of emotion propelling the refreshingly achievement-free candidate of hope is likely to crash unhappily upon Reality Rock the first time he's faced with a difficult foreign policy decision.

Better a dream denied than a dream deflated. After all, it's a recipe that stood the test of time for an abbreviated Kennedy presidency that was, likewise, long on promise and short on delivery. Perhaps that's where they keep finding the similarities.

BBC: Not Anti-War

Just on the other side;

A BBC producer failed to give police information that would have helped track down the July 21 bombers, the trial was told.

Don't Panic, I'm Islamic, which featured the group paintballing and an interview with Mohammed Hamid, was shown on BBC2 on June 12, 2005.

Nasreen Suleaman, the producer, told the court that Hamid said he would use his £300 fee to settle the fine he had been given by magistrates for racially abusing two policemen at his Oxford Street stall.

Called as a defence witness, Miss Suleaman admitted that she had spoken to Hamid in the days following the July 21 attacks and found out he knew the wanted men.

She said she thought he was scared the fugitives might try to call him but did not contact the police because she felt under "no obligation" to do so.

Miss Suleaman claimed she told BBC managers of the situation but no one passed on the information to the authorities.

*snort*

More here;

Phil Rees, who produced the show, told the court that he was impressed by Mr Hamid’s sense of humour while looking for someone to appear in the documentary. He said: “I think he had a comic touch and he represented a strand within British Muslims. I took it as more like a rather Steptoe and Son figure rather than seriously persuasive. I saw him as a kind of Cockney comic.” Mr Rees, who now works for the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera, gave Mr Hamid a signed copy of his book Dining With Terrorists.

Think Of The Possibilities

A curious story out of Memphis...

The FBI still isn’t saying why it raided the offices of two truck driving schools and a licensing office in the Memphis area on Monday.

Also involved in the raids headed by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force were the U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general; Secret Service; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement; U.S. marshals; Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration; and Tennessee Highway Patrol.

No arrests have been made.

But the Memphis ABC News affiliate reported that documents were seized and that the investigation centers on the illegal issuance of commercial driver’s licenses.

The two driving schools – one in Memphis, the other in Millington – are operated by Swift. A Swift official says he’s been told the company, which employs more than 20,000 drivers in more than 40 locations around the country, is not the focus of the investigation.

Reader Tips

Your tips thread for Wednesday.

(Woke up feeling pretty crappy this morning, so things may be slow for a few hours.)

Don't Try This At Home

"Are you going to ask the locals what they know?"

"Nah," he said. "That's their deal. The Iraqi Police have their sources. We're their liaisons, their trainers. We're not in charge anymore. We're just here to help them become police officers instead of paramilitaries."

I kept hearing this sort of thing, and it always slightly surprised me. It may seem like Americans are in charge in Iraq, but that is really only true to an extent.

"We make sure they follow the rule of law," Sergeant Guerrero continued, "that they don't abuse prisoners. We're trying to get them self-sustaining so we can pull out and go someplace where there's some actual fighting."

"At this point," Sergeant Phillips said, "we're just waiting for the Iraqi Police to work their magic."

Weapons caches are usually found on land somebody owns. It wasn't clear whether anyone owned the land we were standing on, but if so they didn't seem to mind Americans and Iraqis digging holes all over the place. No one from the village next door came out to talk to anyone. No one even came out to watch. I found that curious, and it made me slightly uneasy. Often it means the locals know an explosion or ambush is imminent.

"Hey," Sergeant Phillips said. "They brought in a front-loader."

An Iraqi Police officer drove up in a bulldozer. Now we might be in business. I really hoped they would find something. There is so little "action" in and around Fallujah these days that this, I realized, might be as interesting as it gets anymore.

Budget 2008

Open thread.

Update: Liberal Party reaction here

Plus - Post-budget analysis I could have written myself.

CWB - Worst Basis Ever

From Rolf Penner;

While every other commodity outside of the wheat boards control can be priced by farmers year round the board only offers basis contracts from now until the end of October. It did offer futures only contracts prior to this but since you couldn't lock in a basis level you had no idea what your final price would be.

For your readers who have asked this question before - 'basis' is the difference between the futures market price and the actual in your pocket cash price and as such is very important. For board grains one also needs to subtract the standard CWB deductions back to their location to get your final price.

So here we are in the hottest wheat market ever and the CWB response is to give producers who want to price their grain into this rally the worst basis they have ever offered. Every other year it started as a positive, this year its a negative $29.10/tonne. And to top it all off this year you have less opportunity than ever to pull the trigger as the board will only be taking orders from 3pm until 9pm, they are no longer taking them in the morning before the market opens.

Its the CWB version of competition and choice, they can’t even successfully compete against themselves and while they talk about offering more choice you actually get less. We need real choice on the prairies and real competition and we need them like Britney Spears needs Fruit of the Loom.

"...every snake-faced gangster and exbryonic yegg in the Twin Cities is a Jew."

Jonathan Kay, on "the building next door"*;

Ironically, the censorship regime that well-meaning Jewish intellectuals helped put in place to fight anti-Semitism a generation ago is now being applied to prosecute the pundits blowing the whistle on the one truly genuine existential threat that Jews are facing worldwide: militant Islam.

[...]

The ongoing sniping match between Levant and the Jewish establishment, petty as it may seem to some, is essentially a proxy battle in a larger struggle for the political soul of the Jewish community. It is a fight between those Jews who support free speech, and those who support censorship; between those focused on the new threat of militant Islam, and those still worried about neo-Nazi kooks; between those who want Jews to take a vocal leadership role in the defining ideological battle of our time, and those who see themselves as passive victims who require protection from a nanny state.

War Dogs In Iraq

I've done some design work for a group dedicated to the memory of Vietnam war dogs left behind after the US campaign there ended. It's good to know this no longer happens - for the sake of both the dogs and their handlers;

Rose and Iron are one of about 200 canine teams deployed in Iraq, where the bond between soldiers and their dogs is so deep that some handlers have asked to be buried with their canine partners if they are killed together.

On frigid winter nights in the Iraqi desert, Rose shares his cot and sometimes his sleeping bag with Iron to keep him warm. In the scorching summer heat, he makes sure Iron has enough water before taking his own share. If the heat is too much for Iron, who has a thick coat of glossy black fur, Rose lets him rest, no matter what the platoon leader might want.

Whenever he goes on a mission, Rose tucks a copy of an ode to police and military dogs into his front pocket. It reads in part: "Trust in me, my friend, for I am your comrade. I will protect you with my last breath. When all others have left you and the loneliness of the night closes in, I will be at your side."

[...]

Last July, Cpl. Kory D. Wiens, 20, and his Labrador retriever, Cooper, became the first soldier-dog team killed since Vietnam. They were buried side by side in Wiens' hometown of Dallas, Ore.

Y2Kyoto: An Inconvenient Mountain

Related - A Globe poll! "Do you consider yourself a fan of the work David Suzuki is doing?"

Reader Tips

Tips open for Tuesday.

Khalil Jeha, We're Gonna Make You Famous!

Calgary Jew hater Khalil Jeha threatens blogger. (Apparently, this is a "she". I remain unconvinced.) Kathy Shaidle - "Is anyone else starting to reconsider the whole burqa thing?"

A Change Of Turf (Bumped)

And a welcome opportunity for Lucy to pay someone else's costs for a change.

Update - here. "Now, just for fun, can you think of any way of establishing that Warman did in fact use the IP from which the nasty screed on Anne Cools would have been posted? For example, is it possible that Lucy sent some emails from that IP on the days in question? And is it possible that he might have used such emails as evidence in other proceedings?"

Heh.

Update 2 - Understanding the evidence.

Six Unimportant Things

I've been tagged. As I like "the Anchoress" I'll play along...

The Meme: Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.

1) The single time I attempted to eat shrimp, I had to spit it out. Thus began and ended my entire lifetime's experience with an entire culinary category of oversized bottom-feeding gelatinous water beetles fraudulently offered to an unsuspecting public as "seafood".

2) I don't own a dishwasher.

3) I once flamed a blind chick on Usenet in braille*.

4) My website went *poof* a few years ago when the U.S. Department of Justice took the host server away over a little misunderstanding called "Operation Digital Piratez".

5) Sock, shoe, sock, shoe.

6) I own a dog with prosthetic eyes.

Tagging 6 Canadian bloggers:

Jay Currie
Wonder Woman
Darcey
Mike Brock
Last Amazon
Alice The Camel

I Miss New York City

It seems like just yesterday that we stayed glued to the television sets as the permanent evacuation of Manhattan unfolded on the cable news networks...

An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.

h/t

Giai Blows A Gasket

h/t

Inside Iraq Politics

Another installment in a series, from Bill Ardolino for The Long War Journal;

The first three installments of The Long War Journal’s series on Iraqi politics discussed the structure and progress of the executive branch and the composition of the legislative branch. This installment begins examination of progress on key legislation.

Sorry About That Breakfast

"What did that goodwill get us?"

From the comments at the Belmont Club, in response to news that the EU is withdrawing from northern Kosovo;

If the Clash of Civilizations occurring along Islamic fault lines is indeed the defining civilizational issue of the 21st Century then recognizing the extra legal independence of Kosovo is a major bonehead move.

Ultimately, the clash is between a world view that makes men Allah's non-thinking automatons and women but 1/2 a man, and a world view that has raised the standard of living of billions of people to heights not imaginable even a few generations ago.

Ideas mean something. Every confrontational success or failure validates the ideas of one side or the other in a zero sum game. What do we benefit by handing a victory of any kind to Islam? There are many arguments that could be made about the vicitmhood of the Kosovors but the creation from nothing of a new Islamic state in Europe is the real story. How many times have we heard of the necessity to fight jihadism on many levels? How is shooting Taliban in Afghansitan while surrendering at the state creation level a good thing?

I couldn't begin to count the number of posts I've read (and have written) about how the real danger to Western Civ is the loss of moral direction in the West - if only the Europeans, in particular, would take a moment to reflect on their Judeo-Christian heritage they would find the philosophical footing to stand up for themselves and push jihadism off the continent.

Well, those Europeans do exist in places called Ukraine, Georgia, Bulgaria, Armenia, Serbia, and in Russia too. Christendom - believe it or not is a word and concept still in use in the Orthodox countries. Christianity is very much alive in Central Europe and is very much a part of daily life despite the generational attempt of the Communists to bury it forever.

Life is rougher around the edges of the Islamic fault lines, and this where the Orthodox countries live. Politics are raw. Elected leaders can be thugs. Liberty can have the half life of a quantum particle. So what? I've paid up my touchy-feely dues and have turned in that membership card.

The Brits doll out to Muslim polygamists about $10,000 per wife. The Serbs put their own bodies on the line to build a wall against Muslim encroachment. We should be extending our palm to the people who have fought this fight for 700 years, and not be clucking in righteous judgment while giving them the back of our hand.

As I see it the USA is again trading its goodwill with the Orthodox countries, which are at least in a position to help put the squeeze on Iran and limit long term Islamic influence in the Caspian Basin, for the illusion of goodwill with Islam which has a proven value of exactly zero. In 1999 Sandy Berger admitted that NATO was intervening "for the Muslims." What did that goodwill get us?

On the more personal level many Serbs consider Kosovo the birthplace of their unique Serbian identity. One of Huntington's intriguing thoughts was that you could more easily grasp the concepts behind the Clash of Civilizations by overlaying today's maps with a political map of Central Europe in the 1500s. What we are doing today is kicking the Serbs, and indirectly the other Orthodox countries, in the teeth to expand the Islamic empire. How does that make sense? Do we say "poor little misunderstand Kosovors" and just watch them start (continue) tearing down 1,000 year old Christian monasteries?

Reader Tips

A little red meat for the knucklebusters among us - Dropyourgloves.com.

Speaking of which - Hillary turns to truth as offence. (Yes, that means you lived to see the day.)

Peace be upon him, indeed.

This seems to me to be related to the previous item, though for the life of me, I can't say how.

Yours in the comments.

How Many Crows Had To Die To Put Penélope Cruz In That Dress?

The Oscars, liveblogged at Libertas.

Hyphen Nation

David Thompson;

'[O]ne might wonder how it is much of the left came to embrace dogmatic loathing and a pretentious disdain of territory. As when Joseph Harker, the Guardian’s deputy comment editor, repeatedly claimed “all white people are racist,” before identifying any fluttering of national identity as, almost by default, a sign of xenophobia. When such views appear in the mainstream organ of the British left, voiced by a member of its own editorial staff, this isn’t exactly a cause for optimism. Nor is it encouraging to discover that even the most positive expressions of shared national identity can meet with official censure and threats of punishment.

Y2Kyoto: The Twilight Zone

Quotable exerpts from two good Sun columns, both with harsh and deserved criticism for a media that seems more brain-dead by the week. Angelo Persichilli;

[Politicians] should tell us not to use our cars (and tell GM workers to prepare for even more pink slips), tell our children to dump their TVs, stereos, and iPods, tell us and store owners to lower the heat in winter, keep the air conditioning off in summer and stop killing trees to make paper we just throw in the garbage.

They should tell Canadians until we do all this, and more, we can't stop the oil sands project in Alberta, nor can we stop throwing paper in the garbage, because if we do, we'll kill the oil and paper industry.

They should also tell Canadians the environment is not a "Canadian" issue, it's a global issue and that even if we were to eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions from all our industries, there will be no noticeable impact on global warming, although we will cripple our economy, sending more jobs to China, India, Brazil and the United States, countries responsible for almost 50% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, none of which any of them are reducing under the Kyoto accord.

* In B.C., where charging people more for gas and heat by Premier Gordon Campbell's government, part of a tax shell game we're assured will be "revenue neutral" (no comment), is praised by the politician doing it as courageous and revolutionary, while mesmerized media pundits, having forgotten the story about the emperor having no clothes, mindlessly repeat the mantra.

* In Ontario, where Premier Dalton McGuinty is paying outrageously high prices, using tax money, for very little solar power, instead of doing something that would help the environment -- cleaning up the air pollution spewing out of the province's coal-fired energy plants, the same ones he promised five years ago to close by last year, and now won't close, or even clean up, for six more.

* In Quebec, where consumers are being told by their government, with a straight face, that there's nothing it can do to stop a new "green" tax intended to target oil and gas industry profits, from being passed along to them. Gee, how about not imposing the !@$@?! tax in the first place?

* And finally in crazytown ... Ottawa ... where, amongst so many other absurdities on the environmental front, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, a man who can't control his caucus, has a plan to control the climate.

I'm going to assume, for a moment, that the major voices in Canadian news media have spent the time required to read and digest all points of view on the claims and counterclaims, the data and the models, and the critics of those models, the history and qualifications of those behind the IPCC reports, and have decided. after weighing the evidence, that the theory of man-made global warming is legitimate and that the warnings and predictions are sound.

This means, among other things, that these individuals accept the assertion that we are approaching no less than "the end of civilzation as we know it" if something is not done to reverse the process.

Fine.

Very well.

So, then - how does one explain their avoidance of the solution equation, the hard facts of just what would be required for this country to meet the objectives laid out by the environmental gurus and climate modelling experts? Why do they fail, with near uniformity, to inform their viewers and readers that even if we gut every major industry in the nation and go back to horseback - it will make no difference at all?

These same individuals (and David Akin, I include you in this) who present this information on our nightly news with utter conviction, must have also studied with equal determination the question of how to achieve these targets, and what price Canadians must pay to do so.

And yet, it seems they haven't, for it is mentioned only by a few scattered skeptics in media, most of them opinion columnists.

Why is that?

But let's back up a little, for this is the end of civilization as we know it, and they're apparently convinced of that. A planetary emergency, no less.

How does one convinced of impending planetary doom get up in the morning to work in the industry they do - an industry that employs vast numbers of people to travel the country via commercial jet and automobile, that sustains huge media complexes clogged to the ceilings with electricity consuming CO2-belching technology, that hauls tons of satellite equipment to produce on-the-scene reporting?

That indulges in the broadcasting of sporting events? And entertainment "news"?

"We interrupt this report on the last remaining meter of Arctic sea ice to bring you live footage of Britney Spears' entourage leaving the hospital ... John, you're in the helicoptor, what can you tell us?"

When it comes to curtailing wasteful practices and excessive C02 emissions, shouldn't they be among the first to go?

It's beyond absurdity, beyond hypocrisy. It's nothing less than blatant dishonesty, gross laziness, professional malpractice - or most likely, all of the above. Every one of these so called "journalists" would, if they belonged to any other profession, be called before an industry ethics board to explain their conduct - if their industry entertained such notions, or bothered itself with abstract concepts like "ethics".

Remembering Bobby Kennedy

And not in a good way.

Hearts And Headchoppers

Rueing the day they threw their lot in with the BushCo War on Terror, I'll wager.

Oh wait, they didn't. It came to them;

RAE POH, Thailand - The tea shop is abandoned. Rubber plantations stand untended. Soldiers constantly patrol the one-lane road leading into this Muslim village.

Rae Poh was once designated a "green zone" village, one of more than 1,600 such islands of peace amid the violence that has torn Thailand's southern tip since a Muslim insurgency erupted four years ago. Then, on Jan. 14, insurgents ambushed an army patrol about two kilometres away, killing all eight soldiers and beheading one of them.

Now Rae Poh is a "red zone" - one of some 320 loosely designated by the authorities as insurgent hotbeds and under virtual military siege.

Their number is up from 215 at the end of 2004, the first year of the insurgency, a dramatic example of the failures of a government hearts-and-minds campaign to quell an uprising that has taken more than 2,900 lives.

The insurgency worsened as the government of Thaksin Shinawatra adopted an iron-fist policy. The military leaders that overthrew him in 2006 tried a conciliatory approach, apologizing for Thaksin's crackdown. But since December the violence has escalated. Now Thailand again has an elected government, and the insurgency is its big challenge.

"Finally, consider this: Muslims are angrily at war with Buddhists in East Asia. Muslims are enraged with Animists in Africa. Of course, none of this approaches the sheer hatred that Muslims bear towards Hindus in the South Asia peninsula. And this foaming hatred blanches compared to the white-hot fury Muslims feel for the Christian American Crusaders. And this fury is but a candle to the incandescent, boiling, supernova of murder they feel toward the Jews.

Does anyone beside me detect a pattern here? You know, my Dad told me once, "Bill, if more than three people in your life are utter, total assholes, then maybe it's you." - Bill Whittle, Strength

Not Waiting For The Asteroid

The New York Stock Exchange halted on-the-floor trading of Sun-Times Media Group Inc. (STMG) when its share price opened at $1.00.

h/t Maz2

Time

After Time.

Reader Tips

Tips thread open.

Attention SDA Math/Physics Geeks

A problem I've been grappling with:

How large is this seemingly bottomless pit of non-renewable "innocence" we keep losing?

Is there such a thing as "peak" innocence?

How does the city of Toronto manage to lose its so often. (Is it growing back?)

Is lost innocence surrounded by mountains of unmatched socks?

Responses that provide equations preferred.

(As you may have noticed, I'm in a philosophical mood today.)

Update - Looks like we have our answer.

Ripe For Islamicization

David Warren;

I was not without sympathy for the "plight of the Kosovars," however. Like virtually all journalists at that time, not of Serbian ethnicity, I fell for a great deal of typically Balkan propagandist rubbish that has since been quietly withdrawn.

My rule of thumb, on wars, is to fight them with your enemies, when absolutely necessary; but never with your friends, and in particular, never in order to create new enemies. True, as we all know from personal experience, sometimes your friends are more irritating than your enemies, and the temptation to bomb them is always there. It is a temptation that must be resisted, however.

Mr. Harper, I Think It's Safe To Come Out From Under Your Desk Now

Where Stormfront leads, others are sure to follow!

Canadian Association of Journalists is calling on federal and provincial governments to amend human rights legislation to stop a pattern of disturbing attacks on freedom of speech. Two recent cases spotlight the dangers of allowing state-backed agencies to censor speech based on subjective perceptions of offensiveness - MacLean's magazine, which is facing complaints in two provinces and nationally for an article by syndicated columnist Mark Steyn, and Ezra Levant, the former publisher of the Western Standard who is now before the Alberta Human Rights
Commission for his decision to publish the Danish cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

"Human rights commissions were never intended to act as a form of thought police," said CAJ President Mary Agnes Welch. "But now they're being used to chill freedom of expression on matters that are well beyond accepted Criminal Code restrictions on free speech."

The CAJ supports Liberal MP Keith Martin's private members motion to have section 13(1) of federal human rights legislation, the clause dealing with published material, repealed. Similar provincial legislation should also be amended as required.

Over on my side, we have not only David Irving but Keith Martin, Liberal Member of Parliament; The Globe & Mail, Canada's establishment newspaper; two-time Canadian columnist of the year Margaret Wente; the CBC's Rex Murphy; Toronto Star columnist Kelly Toughill; leftie colossus Noam Chomsky; and PEN Canada, an organization headed by former viceregal consort John Ralston Saul and run by the cream of the CanCon literati - Margaret Atwood, Rohinton Mistry, David Cronenberg, Louise Dennys, etc.

Related items:
BCF - A culture of corruption in the CHRC?
Calgary Herald - It's time our most basic right became an election issue.

Stop Being Alarmist

While Driving To Manitoba The Other Day

I came up with the ultimate plan for world peace.

It's a such an astoundingly simple plan, actually, I can't believe no one has thought of it before. (Well, perhaps Victoria did.)

Make everyone speak English - and only English.

Because really, how long has it been since two English speaking nations went to war?

Exactly.

From the comments, DrD;

It's an interesting discussion. The specific issue of linguistics is a subset of the larger issue of "cultural diversity". I hear touted frequently the advantages of cultural diversity, but rarely any concrete example of the supposed advantage beyond the "more pavillions at folkfest" boilerplate. While I can imagine off hand possible advantages of having linguistic diversity within Canada -- facilitation of trade links with the Orient for instance, the numbers of individuals who would require such skills for the advantage to accrue to the larger population as a portion of that larger population is miniscule. Even the supposed necessity to preserve language for the preservation of cultural gems is dubious. For example, while the latin dance scene is alive and well in Calgary, tango in particular, very few of the participants speak more than a smattering of Spanish, and the leading instructor is Japanese. Since the aim of language is communication, efforts by government to artificially preserve languages which would otherwise disappear in the larger linguistic sea in which they exist are effectively efforts to thwart communication and preserve divisions which would otherwise be more likely to disappear. Unscrupulous politicians may exploit such divisions to gain political advantage, but this does not equal an overall gain for the population as a whole. While I do not advocate efforts to deliberately suppress linguistic diversity, neither do I see any reason for taxpayers to fund efforts to preserve linguistic diversity in the absence of any observable advantage for those taxpayers.

Which makes complete sense, when you think about it. When one's market extends from Asia to Europe to South Africa on any given day, which language do you propose one learn? It's much easier to find a translator and pay them to do the job.

[1] Footnote:

A typical call goes something like this...

Translator: Ms. Catherine, I have a call from Mr. David from Brasil. Can you hold on?

Me: Sure, no problem.

Translator: Blehdyblah deblahdeblah.

Mr. David: Blehdyblahdeblahdebla hblehdyblah Ms. Catherine deblahdeblah, blehdyblahdeblah deblahblehdyblahde blah deblah blehdyblahblahblahblah. Deblah dedede Sharky blah blahdeblahdeblah. Blehdyblahdeblahdeblah blehdyblah deblah blahdeblah blehdy. Blehdy blahdeblahdeblade blah blehdy deblah. Blehdyblahdeblahdebla hblehdyblah blahdeblahdeblah. Blehdyblahdeblahdebla hblehdyblahdeblah blahdeblah blahde blah blah blah deblah. Deblah blehdy blahblahblahblah. Deblah dedede Sharky blah blahdeblahdeblah. Blehdyblah deblahdebla hblehdyblahdeblah blahdeblah blehdy. Blehdy blahdeblahdeblade blah blehdy deblah. Blehdyblah deblahdeblah blehdyblah blahdeblahdeblah. Bleh dyblahdeblahdebla hblehdyblahdeblah blahdeblah Blahdeblah deblah deblah. Blahdeblah.

Translator: OK. Thank you. Ms. Catherine?

Me: Yes?

Translator: Mr. David wants to know - is your dog Sharky for sale?

Reader Tips

Your tips in the comments.

There Will Be Bamboozling

h/t Cjunk

Shocking News!

I swear, this boy trolls alt.watersports looking for used diving gear.

*

Attention SDA Engineers And Geeks

Big honking climate science puzzle here - FORTRAN geek needed, apply within.

Please - If you do not have the skills/background to contribute to the linked discussion, don't clutter their work with off-topic junk. Use this one for general comments.

But I do encourage you read the thread, as something very curious happens ...

The Mob Mentality Of Carol Off

James Kautz has a transcript of an exchange between the CBC's Carol Off
(As It Happens) and Pakistani General General Rashid Koreshi (spokesman for President Musharraf) that reveals more about the host than perhaps she intended;

Carol Off: But surely the President reads the papers. Surely he watches the news. Every single day.

General Koreshi: Yes.

Carol Off: Every paper, every headline - except for some media, which is close to the government - every headline is about how he has to go; that it's time for him to leave. Is her enured to that? Does it mean nothing to him that he sees every single day the newspapers are saying, reporting on yet another group that says, 'President Musharraf, take a hint - there's the door.'?

General Koreshi: I would like to ask you, if media starts a campaign, in your country, against your President or Prime Minister, will he just get up and leave? No. No!

Carol Off: Well, sometimes you take into consideration that maybe they're telling...

General Koreshi: No, there are millions, there are 160 million people in Pakistan. There is a system in place. If for some reason the elected representatives do not want President Musharraf, there is a system in place, there is an impeachment, where two thirds of the elected assembly can impeach the President.

Carol Off: You see, really, do you want to wait until it comes to that? To be impeached, to be tossed out? Is that... Read the whole thing.

There is no requirement for the Constitutional process to play out, no purpose in consulting the citizenry proper - for she has determined the mob's cause to be just. Musharref must "go". The Mob has demanded it and the Mob has a printing press.

She's representive of a growing number of individuals who, while impersonating journalists, hijack the public debate in an attempt to effect change in government and direct public policy. It happens in Pakistan, as it happens in Canada.

It's the single most corrupting force in the modern political arena - this branch of the journalistic profession that seeks to govern without the messy inconvenience of running for office.

It helps to explain why the extreme left has such a disproportionate voice in the political media, why so much approving coverage is granted fringe politicians like Elizabeth May. With political views that are largely rejected by the electoral mainstream, they gravitate to journalism. There, they can have their voice "heard" through the proxies of political parties and advocacy groups. They provide the Green Parties and the Marijuana Parties and other marginal political movements an unearned legitimacy they cannot achieve through popular support.

You need look no further than the common reference to the unelected May as an "opposition" leader for evidence of that.

Posted by Kate at 11:55 AM | Comments (40) | TrackBack

Almost Identical

Biotech News;

An international team of researchers have reported that differences between discordant monozygotic twins - where one twin has a genetic disorder and the other does not - are probably due to copy number variations.

The researchers studied 19 pairs of monozygotic twins and found differences in copy number variations in DNA. Copy number variations (CNVs) occur when a set of coding letters in DNA are missing, or when extra copies of segments of DNA are produced.

[...]

"This could have a major impact on our understanding of genetically determined disorders."

"By uncovering these small genetic differences in identical twins where one of them is sick, we have a way of tying specific genetic changes to the genesis of common diseases," Bruder said.

Discordant twins are an interesting area of study as one twin might develop a particular disease such as Parkinson's while the other does not. Previously, it was thought that environmental factors were the likely culprits, not genetics.

Stephane On Saskatchewan

Gentlemen - start your tape recorders. Stephane Dion will be on John Gormley Live at 9 am Sask time. Who knows what comedy gold may arise for the youtubing!

(If you miss it, 650 CKOM has archives.)

Update: Darcey grabbed it. (MP3)

Reader Tips

Mighty kind of you, Mike.

Whiner of the Month: Mike Evans of Toronto.

About the time I start to feel sorry for him, I remember "Sometimes When We Touch".

Add yours in the comments.

The Sound Of Settled Science

This just in from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration;

Increased Hurricane Losses Due to More People, Wealth Along Coastlines, Not Stronger Storms, New Study Says

A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes.

“We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time,” said Chris Landsea, one of the researchers as well as the science and operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts."

Not Waiting For The Asteroid

*

CTV Stringer Detained In Afghanistan

Rusty Shackleford;

Reporters Without Borders, of course, is outraged that a journalist--a journalist!--is being detained. After all, aren't all journalist--journalists!--immune from any and all suspicion?

To be honest, this may be one time (finally) that Reporters Without Borders has something intelligent to say (maybe). I have Taliban phone numbers and plenty of Taliban propaganda on my computer. Granted, I've never actually given Zahidullah Mujahid or Qari Mohammad Yousuf a phone call, but still I have them. Our friends at the NEFA Foundation have. They certainly aren't rooting for the Taliban.

I'm not a fan of media types doing interviews with the Taliban, but it's common practice. AP, AFP, & Reuters routinely quote Qari Mohammed Yousef.

But it's really the context of the contacts with the Taliban that matters in this case. If Ahmad served as a surrogate propagandist for the Taliban, then he's a combatant and his detention is justified. Enemy propagandists are just that: enemies, and should be treated as such.

Having journalistic credentials is not some magical immunization from suspicion. There's no reason why one cannot be a willing or tacit Taliban agent and be a member of the media.

Another problem would be if Ahmad not only called local Taliban commanders but actually met with them. By not disclosing the location of illegal enemy combatants who routinely commit war crimes, Ahmad would be assisting in the commission of those war crimes--journalistic credentials or not.

Out Of Sight

Out of line;

Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets.

Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour pledge.

The hold-ups mean ambulances are not available to answer fresh 999 calls.

Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show that last year 43,576 patients waited longer than one hour before being let into emergency units.

Only seven out of 11 ambulance trusts responded to the survey, so the true figure could be far higher.

Today A Bomb Exploded In Copenhagen

Jakob Illeborg;

The suntan shop was situated just by the national football stadium in Oesterbro, a peaceful and affluent part of the Danish capital. The explosion completely destroyed the shop and the surrounding flats were also damaged. The police are putting the fact that no one was hurt down to sheer luck; two other bags were found in the area and have been destroyed. Two young men between the ages of 15 and 25 were seen running away from the crime scene; they were described as "foreign-looking" and are now wanted by the police.

[...]

Denmark, once acknowledged for her liberal stance and social egalitarianism, has over the last years become an increasingly polarised society where the differences between the Danish majority and migrants and especially Muslim migrants have been the dominant political agenda.

This was certainly the case back in 2005 when Jyllands Posten chose to print the 12 prophet cartoons. The following months the Danes had the dubious honour of being on the cover of magazines around the world and TV crews from CNN, BBC, and CBS visited Denmark to tell the story about the people behind the cartoons.

Back then, the debate about whether the cartoons were right or wrong split the nation in two. On one side were the idealists who defended the them on the grounds of speech. For them this was about making an important stance against what - in Denmark - is still perceived as "the threat" from Islam. Needless to say, the xenophobes joined this side of the argument. On the other side were the pragmatists - the internationalists, if you will. These included most liberals, including most broadsheet papers. The domestic debate was far from pretty, and the rightwing Danish People's Party benefited enormously from the tense atmosphere. Two years later, many liberals and the liberal press seem to have joined the idealistic and confrontationalist boat.

In certain neighbourhoods the atmosphere is now so tense that I avoid going there when in Copenhagen. Far from the prophet cartoon crisis clearing the air like most good arguments, this argument only led to division. There are countless examples of qualified foreigners who can't get a job in Denmark simply because of the sound of their surname. On the other hand, many young Muslim migrants have behaved like thugs, vandalising their neighbourhoods. The situation is clearly untenable; the question is: who's got the remedy to solve it?

Reader Tips

Tips thread.

Oops.

Indeed.

(Note: Site linked to is no longer "work safe". Read comments for an explanation.)

*

Name One Accomplishment...

h/t

"There is a story, which I hope is apocryphal"

"... the French police were chasing a criminal who fled into a building in Paris. Their first thought was that they would surround the building. But then they realized that the building was so large, and had so many exits, that they didn’t have enough policemen on the scene to do that. So they surrounded the building next door, which was smaller and had fewer exits."

h/t.

Y2Kyoto: Clogging The Arteries

BBC;

A bus company's efforts to cut global warming emissions have led to services being disrupted by cold weather.

First Eastern Counties Buses, which runs services in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, said bio-diesel had turned waxy in sub-zero temperatures.

The thicker consistency of the diesel meant fuel lines became blocked.

The company said it had suspended use of the bio-diesel, and was refuelling buses with ultra low-sulphur diesel which is not temperature sensitive.

Killing Him Softly

From: Flexner, Allison
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 7:46 AM
To: *CNN Superdesk (TBS)
Cc: Neill, Morgan; Darlington, Shasta
Subject: Castro guidance

Some points on Castro – for adding to our anchor reads/reporting:

* Please say in our reporting that Castro stepped down in a letter he wrote to Granma (the communist party daily), as opposed to in a letter attributed to Fidel Castro. We have no reason to doubt he wrote his resignation letter, he has penned numerous articles over the past year and a half.

* Please note Fidel did bring social reforms to Cuba – namely free education and universal health care, and racial integration. in addition to being criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech.

* Also the Cuban government blames a lot of Cuba’s economic problems on the US embargo, and while that has caused some difficulties, (far less so than the collapse of the Soviet Union) the bulk of Cuba’s economic problems are due to Cuba’s failed economic polices. Some analysts would say the US embargo was a benefit to Castro politically – something to blame problems on, by what the Cubans call “the imperialist,” meddling in their affairs.

* While despised by some, he is seen as a revolutionary hero, especially with leftist in Latin America, for standing up to the United States.

Any questions, please call the international desk.

Allison

More turd-polishing...

h/t to reader "wnc" - "CTV leads with the fact (see website) that Castro outlasted nine US presidents. Never mind term limits, lack of democracy etc. Expect more hagiography over the next few days. Stay tuned for a CBC/CTV special on Trudeau's 'historic' visit to Cuba."

Perhaps Sasha can narrarate.

His intellect is one of the most broad and complete that can be found. He is an expert on genetics, on automobile combustion engines, on stock markets. On everything.

Combined with a Herculean physique and extraordinary personal courage, this monumental intellect makes Fidel the giant that he is.

Reader Tips

Someone once called it a "continent-wide parade of dysfunction", if memory serves.

FCPP's 2nd Annual Aboriginal Governance Index.

Preparing for the Worst.

Global Warming Speeds Onset Of Car-B-Que Season: Scores of cars and several schools have been vandalized or burned in the past week. Police could give no reason, but said that unusually mild weather and the closure of schools for a winter break might have contributed.

Yours in the comments.

Y2Kyoto: Save A Goose. Shoot A Prius.

About 100,000 migratory birds disappeared in recent fierce snow storms in eastern China, state media reported Sunday.

Meanwhile, as a world warms...

Snow continued to fall in Jerusalem Tuesday after an overnight storm which blanketed city streets.

A raging snow storm that blanketed most of Greece over the weekend also continued into the early morning hours on Monday, plunging the country into sub-zero temperatures.

Because of a harsh and snowy winter, wildlife managers will start feeding starving deer near Eagle and Wolcott [Colorado] for just the third time in almost 25 years.

A cold air mass with west winds is expected to drive wind chills to the 20 below zero mark after midnight tonight. The cold will linger over much of southeastern Wisconsin Tuesday and Wednesday, with overnight wind chills of 11 to 25 below, according to the NWS.

The number of Afghans killed by the chilly weather continued in the snow-covered Afghanistan has reached almost 1000 ...

News agencies said it was the most severe frost on Hoang Lien Son Mountain in at least 40 years - and the longest cold snap ever recorded in Vietnam.

"Gasoline consumption in the US has been falling for years"

MaxedOutMama;

All those who scream about Hummers and wasteful consumers may be discussing their neighbors, but they aren't discussing the US as a whole. For about 9 years gasoline consumption has been dropping, and in 2007 consumption was the lowest for ten years.

Gas consumption in the US is not price invariant at all. Sales of gas-efficient cars have been steadily increasing, and those fuel-efficient cars will stay on the road for years to come. It's likely that this trend has multiple causes, among which are real declining incomes for a large section of the population, a growing number of retirees who are not forced to drive to work, home workers, and sincere efforts to conserve by a portion of the population. It may also reflect a shift in jobs toward major urban areas in which mass transport is a viable option for more workers.

Regardless, the idea that gas taxes need to be raised to force conservation is a stunningly stupid one. It appears that current gas prices are causing conservation, and that wasteful consumption is restricted to portions of the population that can frankly afford to pay higher taxes without changing their habits. It also appears that US efforts to conserve are not going to affect world trends much - the growth is coming from other areas.

The Dungeon of Fallujah

"I hadn't seen or smelled it yet, but I was about to."

Reader Tips

I arrived home yesterday to discover my isp connection is down. (Posting from a friend's computer).

They're supposed to be working on it this morning, but until my connectivity is restored, reader tips are going to have to do ya.

Shangri-La La Land

For decades now "progressives" have been regaling us with tales of Europe. It used to be that pointing to "Europe" was the default position whenever Canadian socialist utopians got backed into a corner. "In England you know, they ... ," was the response whenever unions, over-taxation, and above all, healthcare, were debated. Sometimes you'd think Swedes or Dutch were little blond angels sent down from NDP heaven just to show the rest of us in Canuckland how it's supposed to be done. Ah, the good'ol days.

So it is, that "progressive" Shangri-La now uses ambulances as waiting rooms outside emergency units and in some countries wait-times rival Saskatchewan's. When it comes to short wait times and socialized medicine, "progressives" in Canada are running out of examples to point to.

more

So, what happened to Jon Kay's column on Richard Warman?

UPDATE: Actual Defamation Lawyer Ezra Levant posts excerpts of the Kay column at his site.

***
It's up at FreeDominion, but has disappeared from the Post's own site.

Was it in the print edition?

The Little Country That Could

Photo: Danish Jews Escape to Sweden (WW2)

A little known fact about Denmark is that during World Two, she stubbornly protected her Jewish population. Other occupied lands turned over their Jews and even assisted the Nazis, so much so, that Himmler commented about France that his own SS couldn't have done a better job. In the land of my ancestors, Czechoslovakia, the Slovaks in particular were ardent Jew-hunters.

But not the Danish; they continued their liberal human rights traditions even when faced with the full brutality of Adolf's Reich. Now, in 2008, it would seem that the tradition is continuing and the Danes provide a lonely voice in a sea of "progressive" milque-toast values. They understand full well the menace they (we) face:

Today the Danish Board of Foreign Policy Matters unanimously have cancelled a planned trip to Iran after the Iranian ambassador demanded an apology for the reprinting of the Mohammed cartoons. That is, every single member from the far right to the far left has collectively made it crystal clear to the Iranians that under no conditions will they try to interfere with the press, or even worse, make an apology. And since this is an ultimatum from the Iranians, the trip is cancelled!

As they say: “No one is going to tell us what to print in our own newspapers. If anyone should make an apology it should be the Iranians for all their repeated violations against human rights etc.”

I cannot tell you how happy I am to see this kind of collective spirit among Danish politicians.

Only if the rest of Western civilization would learn from the Danish example, we might be spared the next great conflict between barbarism and the democratic liberal West. First though, the "progressive" class has to somehow be injected with a dose of reality, and made to see how dangerous its well-meaning, but naive, multi-culti-we-are-the-world religion is.

crossposted @ Celestial Junk

Update: And then, there was Finland.

Update 2: Bomb and Slaughter Them.

Update 3: Youths Celebrate the Motoons.

Speaking My Language

If you think freedom is dispensable, let's remove yours. Your convenience is more important than someone else's, let's show you what real life is like outside of the bubble of a First World liberal democracy.

Reader Tips

Tips open.

Y2Kyoto: The Great Greenland Polar Bear Extinction

They shoot them just to keep the poor buggers from freezing to death.

Meanwhile, back in Canada...

"Last week when I was on the Hill mingling with some MPs from both the Liberal and the Tory parties, I asked an MP for an opinion on the freedom of speech/ Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn human rights complaints. This particular MP was appalled by it. I asked this individual for a public comment. After a few moments thought, the MP decided not to.

"Then this person mused--alas, I did not have a notebook or my recorder out so I can't recall the exact words--that some MPs might be afraid to speak out on this issue, afraid their families might be targeted."

'I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam,' says Holland's rising political star

"The Dutch politician, who sees himself as heir to a recent string of assassinated or hounded mavericks who have turned Holland upside down, has been doing a crash course in Koranic study. Likening the Islamic sacred text to Hitler's Mein Kampf, he wants the 'fascist Koran' outlawed in Holland, the constitution rewritten to make that possible, all immigration from Muslim countries halted, Muslim immigrants paid to leave and all Muslim 'criminals' stripped of Dutch citizenship and deported 'back where they came from'."

"But if Wilders shares positions and aims with others on the far right in Europe, he is also a very specific Dutch phenomenon, viewing himself as a libertarian provocateur like the late Pim Fortuyn or Theo van Gogh, railing against 'Islamisation' as a threat to what used to be the easy-going Dutch model of tolerance.

"'My allies are not Le Pen or Haider,' he emphasises. 'We'll never join up with the fascists and Mussolinis of Italy. I'm very afraid of being linked with the wrong rightist fascist groups.' Dutch iconoclasm, Scandinavian insistence on free expression, the right to provoke are what drive him, he says."

New Technology

To enhance your blog reading experience. Download this screen cleaner here.

More creeping sharia in Canada

"Long-distance telephone marriages can be dialled up under sharia law and then used to sponsor loved ones into Canada, Muslim leaders say.

"Two Muslim leaders have told the Toronto Sun telephone marriages are permissible under Islamic law and require two witnesses and imams here and abroad to conduct the vows, which may have the bride in Pakistan and the groom in Toronto."

And if these couples are first cousins, which is a commonplace in the UK, their chances of producing unhealthy children increases exponentially.

But so what? Health care is "free", eh?

Reader Tips

Tips thread open.

History

... has a way of repeating itself ... so much so it's creepy:

Copenhagen, February 15th, 2008

crossposted @ Celestial Junk

"What the men didn't know"

A Canadian Success Story

Canadian company Entrust provides internet security for Saudi Arabia's Ministry of the Interior:

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has made important strides in implementing security solutions as it continues to transition into an innovative, citizen-centric e-government. As a proactive step to help secure communication and access for the Ministry of Interior's National Information Centre, the country standardized on Entrust, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENTU) and Entrust GetAccess, a key component of a layered security model.

The Sound Of Settled Science

Almond Chocolate Bar

Hershey’s fans chanted “Almond Chocolate Bar” as they wound their way down Nørrebrogade in Copenhagen this past week. It’s believed that the use of Almonds in biofuels has made the Danish favorite scarce:

cross posted @ Cjunk

Update: Is Denmark going to be the first Western country to grow some.

Saved

We may be able to breath a sigh of relief, now that the horror of Global Warming induced extended growing seasons may be on hold.

Kenneth Tapping, National Research Council (Solar "Expert"):

It is the opinion of scientists, including me, that global warming is a major issue, and that it might be too late to do anything about it already. If there is a cooling due to the solar activity cycle laying off for a bit, then the a period of solar cooling could be a much-needed respite giving us more time to attack the problem of greenhouse gases, with the caveat that if we do not, things will be far worse when things turn on again after a few decades.

I feel so much better; I can hardly wait for the North American and European crop failures:

No wonder there is so much talk recently about global cooling. I certainly hope that’s wrong, because a Dalton type solar minimum would be very bad for our world economy and agriculture. NASA GISS published a release back in 2003 that agrees with the commonly accepted idea that long period trends in solar activity do affect our climate by changing the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI).

Reader Tips

Reader tips for Saturday.

Not Waiting For The Asteroid

This leads overburdened reporters to fill the pages of their newspapers with "Flat Earth News", a worthless commodity defined here as an unreliable statement or story "created by outsiders, usually for their own commercial or political benefit, injected via a wire agency into the arteries of the media through which it then circulates around the whole body of global communication".

Rex Murphy spanks David Suzuki

"We generally look upon it as a backward moment when the Catholic Church put the bridle on Galileo, subjected him to house arrest and the tender rebukes of the Inquisition. So it's at least mildly disconcerting to hear of a celebrated son of the Enlightenment, in the person of one of Canada's star communicators, urging a university audience no less, to seek to 'jail' those whom he perceives as 'ignoring science.'"

Record budget for "outdated, ideologically driven sink-hole"

In August 2006, Kate, myself and other bloggers initiated a blogburst against the tax-payer supported, perpetual grievance machine known as Status of Women Canada.

"In September the same year, the Tories announced they had cut $5 million over two years out of the agency's $23 million annual budget. In December, Heritage Minister Bev Oda said 12 of the agency's 16 offices were going to be shut down across the country, after a re-evaluation of the program showed it was not offering concrete help directly to women. According to the Public Service Alliance of Canada, 61 of the 131 jobs at the Status of Women were cut."

But that was then...

"Subsequently, however, the Tories renewed federal funding of the organization. A Parliamentary review of the cuts took place in February 2007. REAL Women told LifeSiteNews.com that the House Committee was stacked with witnesses who opposed the cuts. The 27 witnesses opposed to the cuts were all funded directly by Status of Women and according to their testimony, said they regarded the government grants as their 'entitlements.'"

(...)

"Verner said the total [2008] budget for the federal organization was $29.9 million, 'a record for Status of Women Canada'. Under the government's new Women's Partnership Fund, the government provided $10 million to the agency in 2007 and has no plans to stop."

Interview with MP Keith Martin

Audio here.

He talks to Rob Breakenridge about his pro-free speech, private members bill (M-446) to remove 13(1) from the Canada Human Rights Act (that notorious "likely" clause which essentially enshrines "future crime" into Canadian law.)

Due Process

We're being rushed! The Conservatives in the Senate try and force the issue.

Yesterday, the government's representatives in the Senate brought forward a motion pre-empting hearings and debate, saying the Senate "intends to pass" their crime bill by March 1st,.

( .... )

Parliament is now recessed for a week, although the Senate's committee has extended its normal schedule in order to sit all next week in hearings on Bill C-2. That's the real work of the Senate. The ultimatum is mere political posturing. Unfortunately, rather than speeding things up, it has done nothing more than impede progress on other important issues currently before us.

I guess, Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Museums Act is more important than protecting our children or putting drunk drivers and dangerous criminals in jail for longer.

So, Alberta, how's that Senator working out for ya? Just asking, cause I figure your representative should have your input, you know the drill: Senator Elaine McCoy, senator@albertasenator.ca. You can find her blog on Progressive Bloggers which I know is fully representative of Alberta.

Cheers,
lance

Bonus points for the freespeechers in the crowd by reading the Other Business,Other,No. 3 and finding a reference to free speech somewhere in all that back-slapping.

Our friends the Saudis

Being a witch is something to be discouraged.

Big Climate's strange "Science"

I've noticed this pattern, too:

The scientists who interest me in this field are those who can draw on the experience of a lot of people who have come before them. And uniformly in these areas I find scepticism. People who write mathematical models of complex systems for a living tend to find the climate models very unconvincing. Geologists find the arguments very unconvincing. Engineers find the arguments unconvincing. And astrophysicists find the arguments unconvincing.

Death to a Terrorist

Japan demonstrates how to deal with a convicted terrorist:

Rejecting his appeal, the Supreme Court on Friday finalized the death sentence of senior Aum Shinrikyo cultist Yasuo Hayashi, a key figure in the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway system.

Why Doesn't Someone Substitute Thomas Sowell For Barack Obama

And give Americans a candidate everyone can vote for?

"I feel I am committed to social justice"

wrote Illinois University rampage killer, a social work major who also listed "peace" and "political violence" among his interests.

(Note that word "feel.")

Ah yes, "social justice": the forced application of unworkable solutions to imaginary problems.

So: answer as if you had to bet your life on it -- did this guy vote Democrat or Republican?

Unpack to your hearts' content in the comments.

Behold

CHANGE - we can believe in,
WE ARE THE ONES WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR,
Not since the days of JFK and Martin Luther King
have we been inspired to hope and dream this way!

So you have to look at yourself,
Have the cynics thrown you astray?
We'll be the voice to determine our fate.
We've got a chance, We can make it,
With your support,
We'll be patient,
GET OFF THE COUCH - JOIN ME IN HARMONY!

(sing it with me)

Post It Note

Just a note from this wireless hotspot to thank everyone for your kind emails in response to the Post column. I'll try to reply to them all in the coming days, but at the moment my time at the laptop is limited.

As you were, and thanks to the guest bloggers who are picking up the slack !

Context? We don't need no stinkin' context!

Let's pretend for a moment, gentle reader, that you're a reporter. Don't look at me like that, I said we're just pretending...

You learn of a psychological study that indicates four of six Canadian Forces members with "mental disorders and problems like alcoholism" didn't seek professional treatment for their supposed problems.

Quiz time!

Do you: a) look up the comparable rate for the general Canadian population on Google to see if this is really a news story; or b) write a piece to be carried in newspapers across the country that makes it seem as if the "stiff-upper-lip military culture" is turning our men and women in uniform into mental health victims?

I know which option I'd go with, gentle reader. Unfortunately - surprise, surprise - the real reporter in question chose differently.

An Inconvenient Omission

Can you spot the missing side of the political spectrum?

Perhaps we should jail any scientist that denies there is a political motive behind climate change...

Reader Tips

Dog show weekend. I hope to get a bit of blogging in, but no promises.

If things get slow around here, you know where the blogroll is. Or push back the chair and get away from the keyboard for a while. Things will get back to normal by Tuesday.

Y2Kyoto: Hope And KaCHING!

Chris Horner;

At a rally in College Park, MD, this week, Obama seized the mantle of “hopemonger,” in contrast to those other “mongers” out there. He then proceeded, through three separate stanzas about global warming, to reveal he is also a warmmonger. Apparently, climate change is yet another “change we can believe in.”

For someone who pitches himself as a sainted outsider determined to bring revelatory change to our national politics, Obama’s prescriptions sure sound like tired old inside-the-Beltway nostrums — foretelling impending disaster that only various governmental interventions in the economy can mitigate.

One of his money lines was “we are going to spend billions of dollars on solar, wind, and biodiesel.” Yes. It's criminal that we haven't done that yet.

The details of how those billions would be spent were less amusing: “We will hire young people who don't have a trade and give them a trade making homes more energy efficient, insulating homes, changing light bulbs, reducing our dependence on dirty power plants.” So, the idealistic, modern-day version of the “ask not what your country can do for you” consists of telling slackers that the government will provide windmill and lightbulb-changing jobs after graduation?

That’s not Camelot; it’s the New Deal.

Europe's Underbelly

This just gets better all the time:

Muslim coercion against women extends to psychiatric hospitals, the Times of London's religion correspondent Ruth Gledhill reported on February 7 (cited in Rod Dreher's indispensable Crunchy Con blog, .) Glenhill quoted a women's rights advocate as follows:

The men get tired of their wives. Or bored. Or maybe the wife objects to her daughter being forced into a marriage she doesn't want. Or maybe she starts wearing Western clothes. There can be many reasons. The women are sent for assessment to a hospital. The GP [general practitioner] referring them is Muslim. The psychiatrist assessing them is Muslim and male. I have sat in these assessments where the psychiatrist will not look the woman patient in the eye because she is a woman. Can you imagine! A psychiatrist refusing to look his patient in the eye? The woman speaks little or no English. She is sectioned (committed to a psychiatric ward). She is divorced. There are lots of these women in there, locked up in these hospitals. Why don't you people write about this?

At least UK firemen have hoses to defend themselves with.

"A modest proposal for curing a whiny nation"

At the National Post. They'll get letters!

Because Nothing Says "Canadian" Like An Inferiority Complex

Nice catch at Canwest by Darcey.

It's Over

Not convinced?

More at American Digest.

Reader Tips

Open.

My Editor Hates Me

As the sun sets on the term of this generation's best-loved president, one of Canada's more convincing writers sees dark clouds on the horizon...

They do not want to hear that Barack Obama is as much an American as they are, and who has had to explain more times than he should have that he is not a Muslim, but a secular Christian. They do not want to hear that he is a better American than they are, these right-wing extremist fascists in the land of America who no doubt believe it's God's will Barack Obama not get to the White House, no method of deterrence out of bounds, in their zealotry to protect and perpetuate Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Mom's apple pie, and the cross of Jesus in every home.

[...]

No doubt right now in America some person, some group, is thinking of how to assassinate Barack Obama and no one should be surprised at one of the demented reasons given for fearing him: That Barack Obama is the new "Manchurian Candidate," that Barack Obama -- as captured Korean War U.S soldier Lawrence Harvey in the 1962 movie was brainwashed by the communists and programmed in his subconscious through a playing card to assassinate a right-wing presidential nominee -- is a plant by America's Islamic enemies to destroy the nation from within.

Y2Kyoto: The Plesiosaur Extinction

Despite having hundreds of sonar contacts over the years, the trail has since gone cold and Rines believes that Nessie may be dead, a victim of global warming.

Indeed

"It's not about P.R. It's about teaching people not to screw with you."

Coincidentally - Today Danish papers have reprinted Muhammad cartoons.

Update - Oh, good grief...

CBC's coverage of the Motoons story just started a few minute ago. The dhimis at the Ceeb pixelated the drawings while showing the papers on camera!

What a bunch of knobs!!

Uno

Great name. Great dog.

Ch. K-Run's Park Me in First, owned by Caroline Dowell of Austin, TX and the first Beagle to win at Westminster.

And via MSNBC, the dog in the lower left is a member of the extended "Minuteman" family, Ch.Beauideal It's Raining Men, bred by Dr.Lisa Sarvas, who grew up a few miles from here, at BIggar, SK. and now practices veterinary medicine in North Carolina. "Manny" was first Award Of Merit in Miniature Schnauzers.

With A Bang And A Whimper

Hezbollah’s chief of military operations is dead;

For many, Mughniyah was a reviled figure, wanted by both Israel and the United States for his alleged role in numerous attacks on American and Israeli targets—including the truck-bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the attack on the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992. (Formally, the FBI most-wanted him for his role in the 1985 hijacking of an American airliner to Beirut and the murder of a U.S. Navy diver on board.)

Update - Two excellent pieces, at the Belmont Club (a long list of suspects) and by Sigmund, Carl and Alfred" - "the medium is the message."

(Belmont Club link fixed - sorry!)

Little Of This Applies In My Case

I'm heavily invested in the "work till death" retirement plan;

[R]etirement programs are funny things and they have funny consequences. Especially when ALL of the retirement programs designate financial securities (read stocks) as the only medium by which you can save for retirement.

Let me repeat that again...

Reader Tips

Bookends! Muslim leader drops Ezra Levant cartoon complaint.... Arrests in plot to kill Danish cartoonist

Black History Month in the US.... Make-Up History Month in Canada.

A series of photos of Corcovado.

Smackdown!

Add yours in the comments

Another Poll Goes ....

horribly wrong .... Should Dr. Henry Morgentaler be awarded the Order of Canada?
Yes - 13% 5109 votes
No - 87% 33841 votes

Or did it? It shouldn't come as a surprise that even pro-choicers would see the "ick" factor in this. But what of the folks who hand out the Orders?

Dion Heading To Afghanistan

To teach the Taliban how to surrender properly.

The More They Hope, The More Things Stay The Same

A thoughtful look at a man now poised to seize the Democratic nomination through the sheer force of earnestly expressed empty platitudes;

Attempting to discern true meaning from Obama's speeches gives one the feeling of having been trapped in a sort of verbal quicksand. Hair-pulling levels of frustration await any effort to find any specific meaning. A sensation of lethargic sinking into an abyss of abstract gibberish awaits the mind looking for specifics..

Obama's public statements, his speeches, even his "present" votes in the Illinois legislature leave one dangerously unsure of his true intentions.

Whatever Obama's concrete plans are, they ought to aligned with his political mentor, Saul Alinsky, and his spiritual mentor and liberation theology specialist, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Baby Boomer Children's Network

h/t Warwick

Well, There Went That New Bikini

"Don't point your weapon at anything you don't intend to shoot,"

...he said to the Iraqis seated in front of him. He said that with a straight face. The Iraqis listened and kept straight faces of their own as if they were actually taking him seriously.

Friends In Low Places

The Alberta Liberal Party just rose a few notches in my estimation. No, the other Alberta Liberal Party - the one that isn't in office. Ezra exerpts the relevant passages;

The Alberta Liberal Party supports Mr. Levant’s freedom to express his opinions and to maintain, what the American Supreme Court termed, “the marketplace of ideas”. If citizens and publishers don’t maintain the limits of their freedoms it would bring about a chill in fundamental freedoms which could adversely affect all Canadians. The Alberta Liberal Party shares the opinion expressed in Ross v. New Brunswick School District No.15; when discussing the importance and limits of expression, Justice La Forest opined in s. 2(b):

“…[freedom of expression] is not restricted to views shared or accepted by the majority, nor to truthful opinions. Rather, freedom of expression serves to protect the right of the minority to express its view, however unpopular such views may be…”

It appears the Harper government doesn't have the political stomach right now to engage in any kind of major defense of free speech rights in Canada. NoApologies.ca has obtained a copy of a document circulated to all Conservative MP's from Justice Minister Rob Nicholson's office late last week.

If "freespeechers" want a decent shot of pushing CHRC reform forward successfully, those hopes rest with a government that isn't legislating with a hand tied behind its back.

That said - it hasn't stopped the Alberta Liberals from taking a position, and a little political courage can go a long way towards demonstrating that principles still matter. And with a growing number of MSM editorials questioning the legitimacy of these tribunals, it would seem that political cover is there to be had, if selected Conservative MP's were given the nod to take the debate forward.

Read both links.

(As an aside - a google search on "stormfront Joan Bryden" returned 199 hits. I don't know what to take away from that.)

Good point - "You might want to ask why the Harper government is more committed to building a $100 million Museum for Human Rights than to ensuring real, live freedom of speech in the here and now. "

Because it's easier to worship symbols than it is to uphold principles.

Reader Tips

And I haven't had that much fun since the Christmas eve I asked Santa for a Bonsai Kitten.

As you were. Tips are open for Tuesday.

Y2Kyoto: Laws Were Made To Be Repealed

After all, they've been around since 1798;

California is moving towards a mandate for zero net energy for residential new construction by 2020. Zero net energy means the home cannot consume more net energy than it generates.

Generates?

Yup. California homes are going to have to generate as much energy as they consume by 2020. The next question is, how?

Look At The Bright Side

"Inbred" is about to be added to the growing list of banned insults;

While Woolas has raised the question of birth defects, the most serious concern is that cousin marriage blocks assimilation. (I show how in "Assimilation Studies" and "Assimilation Studies, Part II.") That is why cousin marriage poses a genuine threat to Britain’s survival as a nation. The most spectacular example is today’s report that surveillance planes in Afghanistan have picked up the voices of Taliban fighters speaking in, for example, Bradford accents. Bradford is a virtual "reverse colony" within Britain, a city that has for all practical purposes transformed into a section of Pakistan. And as I explain in "Assimilation Studies," this enclave was essentially built through cousin marriage. Now the Taliban draws recruits from the children of these unassimilated Pakistani immigrants.

For all the outrage stirred up by Woolas’s comments on "inbreeding," it may actually be easier to talk about cousin marriage’s harm to young children than to directly acknowledge that cousin marriage is the mainspring of failed Muslim assimilation.

"After the close, we bought 50,000 bushels of wheat at 20 bucks"

Wheat hits $20 in North Dakota and Minnesota The wheat market moved into historic ground Friday in North Dakota and Minnesota, as short-term demand from mills pushed prices up to $20 a bushel at one elevator in an after-hours scramble. Most elevators in northeast North Dakota and northwest Minnesota posted prices of $16.70 to $17.30 Friday. posted a bid of $18.25 Friday. But the market was much hotter than that. "After the close, we bought 50,000 bushels of wheat at 20 bucks," Lokken said. "That's a million dollars worth of wheat." The AGP Elevator in Valley City, N.D. buyer on the "floor," in the Minneapolis Grain Exchange told him late Friday, "Just see what it would take to buy X amount of bushels of wheat," Lokken said. "So, we went to a few guys and asked, what would you sell wheat at? They said 20 bucks. So we said, if we paid you 20 bucks, would you sell? Some of them did. Amazingly, some of them said they wanted 30." But much of the wheat this year was sold between $5.50 and $7, Lokken and other elevator managers say. Historic highest price of $20 a bushel for spring wheat is a record, by far, in nominal terms. But if the historic highs reached in 1973, after the Soviet Union's first big forays into the world market, are adjusted for inflation, the $5 per-bushel price would be roughly $22 a bushel in today's dollars. He doesn't think the market has hit the top yet. "We will see what happens," Lokken said. "I bet you that on Monday, we won't be the only elevator out there bidding $18, $20." (GRANDFORKSHERALD)

(You can subscribe to his newsletter at the link.)

Those Bulldozers Are To Pull The Plows, Señor

Zimbabwe lite;

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in an effort to deal with food shortages nationwide, threatened today to expropriate farms and raised the price rice producers are permitted to charge.

Fallow farmland ``can't be allowed,'' Chavez said on his weekly television and radio broadcast, calling for the National Guard to take over farms with nonproductive lands. He also announced a price boost of 44 percent for rice growers.

It was at least the fourth time this year that Chavez's government has threatened to use expropriation to deal with shortages of milk, rice, cooking oil and other price-controlled basic foods. The decision on rice prices was another in a series of increases this year, following boosts in the prices of beans, cheese and ultra-pasteurized milk.

Reader Tips

Notoriously, the infant mortality rate...

... is twice as high in the lowest social class as in the highest. But the infant mortality rate of illegitimate births is twice that of legitimate ones, and the illegitimacy rate rises steeply as you descend the social scale: so the decline of marriage almost to the vanishing point in the lowest social class might well be responsible for most of its excess infant mortality. It is a way of life, not poverty per se, that kills.

(Click image.)

Always use a safety fuse.

Update Advice that, sadly, came too late. ..

Add yours in the comments.

Enriching Their Folklore

It's on days like today, with the mercury dropping and a blizzard blowing in, that an urge comes over me to visit the garage and spend a little time with a sleeping Aretha.

(From better times).

After all, we share a few secrets.

*

Silence Wikipedia!

WE KEEL YOU!

Islam is a religion of peace and brotherhood. But this doesnot mean that we will forgive every thing and be peacefull. If anyone try to make joke of our beloved Prophet (Sallaho Alaihe Wassallam) he will not be forgiven and will get the punishement by Allah (Azzawajal) in the life and after death InshAllah. So dont try to hurt feelings of Muslims . . . . .

Sinister Looking Man Who Posted Swastikas To Website

No longer employed by Jew run* media.

More; "Incidentally, say what you like about Lucy but at least he adopts a nom-de-plume when he goes a-lurking in the comments sections." Well, actually...

Update - an obit...

The Curious Affinity Of The Left For Islamism

Explained;

... Modern Christianity, however, is a far different creature from modern Islam. Every religion is, to a greater or lesser extent, a balance between reason and faith in its teachings and day to day practices. The great fault of modern Islam is not its having missed the sexual or industrial revolutions, but having missed the epistemological revolution of the thirteenth century. The Islamic world seems medieval in its attitudes and outlook because it is medieval, or more accurately early medieval, in its thinking.

[...]

What separates the citizen of a liberal democracy and his medieval ancestor, and the Cario slum dweller, is how they go about solving the bigger problems of life. How do I decide something is true in ethics, politics or science? The dictum of the Thomists was "Nihil est in intellectu quod non sit prius in sensu." (Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses). Evidence and rational thought are the ideal of modern life, even of post modern life. It is an ideal we fall short of but the alternative is the life of the modern medievalists. The Islamists and so many of the actual "moderate" Muslims - moderate in the sense they occupy the intellectual middle ground between liberal democracy and theocracy - act upon faith. What that means in practice is not living according to the teachings of an ancient holy book, but the interpretations of the holy book.

If one's interpretations are based on reason, on an attempt to rationally analyze the text and compare and contrast with the evidence of one's senses, one admits that religious teachings are a matter of debate and even disagreement. If one's interpretations are based solely on faith, not merely faith in accepting a certain set of assumptions as true, but faith in applying those principles as well, how does one debate with others? I say this is the truth. Why? Because it is. What are your reasons? There are not reasons, only faith. The only way to resolve the conflict is to follow or fight. For a modern Christian faith extends as far as accepting certain assumptions as true without evidence, their application and mitigation with empirical evidence is done - or at least striven to be done - by reason.

It's not by accident that so much of what is offered as debate by the modern left on the critical issues facing our times sounds less like reasoned argument than it does "Silence infidel!"

(I have more to say about this here)

Reader Tips

Tips here.

CWB: It All Averages Out, Eh?

Courtesy of Rolf Penner:

Many board supporters don’t like spot price comparisons with the pool price, they feel that it is not a fair comparison, while that point is debatable, even when one looks at average prices the board still comes up short year after year. The average of the 8 year average (and if its one thing Canadians love is averages, lets not get to extreme here) is $36.36 per tonne or 79 cents per bushel.

Some Of My Best Friends Are Lawyers

But this is still the comment of the week;

I'm probably going to burn for this but when I saw all those LAWYERS protesting in their suits. And then the cops started beating those protesting LAWYERS and I realized thats not right but then again they were LAWYERS but oh the humanity but they were LAWYERS so in the end I was rooting for the cops and screaming get that one and that one. Then the wife was yelling GET OFF THE COUCH AND PUT THE CLICKER DOWN.

Agents Of Defeat

Those who don't know history are doomed to believe in the news;

Media misreporting of Tet passed into our collective memory. That picture gave antiwar activism an unwarranted credibility that persists today in Congress, and in the media reaction to the war in Iraq. The Tet experience provides a narrative model for those who wish to see all U.S. military successes -- such as the Petraeus surge -- minimized and glossed over.

In truth, the war in Vietnam was lost on the propaganda front, in great measure due to the press's pervasive misreporting of the clear U.S. victory at Tet as a defeat. Forty years is long past time to set the historical record straight.

Tort Wielding Mob

"In Islamabad, police battled with hundreds of lawyers..."

Heroes

The longest drive.

More.

If Shaidle Is Forced Back To Work

Then the terrorists will have won!

If everyone who comes to this blog every day bought a copy of my book Acoustic Ladyland...

I could blog full-time for the rest of the year.

Inside Politics: Baghdad

At The Long War Journal - An examination of the political structures and internal conflicts within the Iraqi government;

Colonel Martin M. Stanton, Chief of Reconciliation and Engagement for Multinational Corps–Iraq, is quick to praise the remarkable progress in ground-up reconciliation he’s seen in his job coordinating Iraqis who want to engage with the Coalition and Iraqi government. But he is also candidly skeptical about the willingness of the “Shia [federal] government” to reconcile with Sunnis, in light of sectarian hostility.

“What haunts me is the prospect of wasting all these opportunities,” said Stanton. “It’s encouraging at the bottom, at the tactical level, and then you deal with the people in the Iraqi government who are so paranoid and so reticent, and it’s a real emotional rollercoaster.”

But while most officials acknowledge a heavy atmosphere of mistrust stoked by sectarian carnage that peaked in 2006, many cite other elements that impede action on key political benchmarks. This Long War Journal series on Iraqi politics – involving more than a dozen interviews with American and Iraqi officials – will attempt to examine the factors, including but beyond sectarianism, that have affected political progress by the Iraqi federal government.

Reader Tips

Tips for Saturday.

"Boo Hoo..... the whole world hates your cult of death......"

Who's fault is that?

If there was not a single terrorist attack, suicide bombing or rocket attack against Israel for, say 5 years, you can come back and ask forgiveness then....until then, STFU and crawl back under the rock you crawled out from under.

People hate muslims because of the terror and savagery they have been inflicted on innocent people in the name of Islam.... no more, no less. Clean up your own act before you complain to others about racism and bigotry. Oh, and you can include 'tolerance' too. When I can openly walk down a street in Saudi Arabia carrying a bible in my hand on my way to a corner church and be greeted with smiles instead of rifles and hand-cuffs, let me know

He's dead, by the way.*

Via Kathy Shaidle, (Actually, I pretty much stole her post wholesale.)

Update For readers who find this image disturbing, I advise you avoid the movie "Team America - World Police". Their positionally compromised inanimate figures aren't anatomically correct, either.

But as it clearly offends some of our readers, I'll provide some of that "balance" so many of you complain is lacking here, by adding one that offends me.

So, what do you say? Can I get my nomination for Best Feminist Blog now?

Protocols Of The Graduates Of Dalhousie

Loose lips sink a Jewish conspiracy.

Neil Young A Remnant Of The Original Big Bang Of Stupid

Other news from the world of science; Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking admits research into the influence of meteorites on personal wish fulfillment has hit a dead end.

Whatever Happened To Jeans And A T-Shirt?

"Mommy, can I wear your bra to school?"

If You Build It, They Will Come

When the concept of "multiculturalism" was introduced to Canadians, most assumed it meant "more pavilions at Folkfest".

Hundreds of GTA Muslim men in polygamous marriages -- some with a harem of wives -- are receiving welfare and social benefits for each of their spouses, thanks to the city and province, Muslim leaders say.

Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, said wives in polygamous marriages are recognized as spouses under the Ontario Family Law Act, providing they were legally married under Muslim laws abroad.

"Polygamy is a regular part of life for many Muslims," Ali said yesterday. "Ontario recognizes religious marriages for Muslims and others."

He estimates "several hundred" GTA husbands in polygamous marriages are receiving benefits. Under Islamic law, a Muslim man is permitted to have up to four spouses.

Thank God For Greedy Corporations

Don't mess with Exxon;

Exxon Mobil Corp has moved to freeze up to $12 billion in Venezuelan assets around the world as the U.S. company fights for payment in return for the state's takeover of a huge oil project last year.

The company said it has received court orders in Britain, the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles each freezing up to $12 billion in assets of Venezuela state oil firm PDVSA. An Exxon spokeswoman said the total that could be frozen worldwide was $12 billion.

The Sound Of Settled Science

At the National Research Council;

Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a “stethoscope for the sun.” Recent magnetic field readings are as low as he’s ever seen, he says, and he’s worked with the instrument for more than 25 years. If the sun remains this quiet for another a year or two, it may indicate the star has entered a downturn that, if history is any precedent, could trigger a planetary cold spell that could bring massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.

The last such solar funk corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. While there were competing causes for the climatic shift—including the Black Death’s depopulation of tree-cutting Europeans and, more substantially, increased volcanic activity spewing ash into the atmosphere—the sun’s lethargy likely had something to do with it.

Reader Tips

Open thread for tips.

Tony Blair's Britain

Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch, and all without firing a shot;

The Archbishop of Canterbury has today said that the adoption of Islamic Sharia law in the UK is "unavoidable" and that it would help maintain social cohesion.

Rowan Williams told BBC Radio 4's World At One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

Obama On Road To White House After Stealing Nomination

Total votes:
Clinton 8,914.030
Obama winning 8,392,514

Total Delegates!
Obama 1,806
Clinton 1,789

This is undemocratic! I demand a recount!

Hitler Youth On Prowl In Ontario Hockey Arenas

Man loitering in boys' washroom with camera phone is startled by swastikas;

" I found it in the boys' washroom, in smallish letters, but at about a kid's eye level."

"By Almost Any Means Possible" - a trip back in time to visit Richard Warman and friends;

Bob MacDonald of the Toronto Sun wrote the following on February 5, 1995: "Now we've come to the sorry point in Metro Toronto where a so-called anti-racist gang goes on the prowl armed with knives, iron pipes and machetes - looking for 'neo-Nazis' to attack". Sadly, the three people who were stabbed and slashed in a subway attack were not even 'neo-Nazis', they were "just some guys on their way home from a party".

Y2Kyoto: A Neo-Con Victory For The Climate

With Canadians increasingly anxious over the looming threat of year-round gardening, and entrenched in a foreign policy viewpoint premised on a seething hatred of George Bush, Stephane Dion's stars were aligning.

And then this had to happen;

"Iraq has formally ratified the UN's Kyoto Protocol on climate change, according to a government statement..."

("Elizabeth May, Canada's Ambassador to Iraq" has a nice ring to it.)

Related - At this rate, Al Gore may end up killing more islamists than Bush ever hoped to.

The Sound Of Settled Science

Joe Bastardi, Meteorologist(PDF);

The maturation of the La Nina to its classic major cold look, both in the equatorial Pacific waters and the amazing amount of the Northern Hemisphere troposphere that is covered by colder than normal temperatures, is not only a major driving force in the every day weather picture of earth, but is a sign, that in the end, it is nature, not man, that will have its way with the weather.

Why?

It is straight out of the book of climate. The pattern is so much like the 1949-1950 La Nina, which was signaling the start of the reversal of the warming of the earth’s climate in the 1930s, ‘40s and early 50s. Only someone choosing to ignore it, or not wanting to see it, would not be cognizant of it. But because such a pattern leads to warmer than normal conditions in areas where the greatest centers of human induced global warming information comes out of, western Europe and the eastern part of North America, no attention is being called to the fact that the winter this year does have outstandingly large areas of colder than normal temperatures and in areas, the vast expanses of the tropical Pacific, and the vast expanse of the air above us.”

[...]

Why the model bust? It is because most of these climate models have little or no ability to foresee regime changes in the oceans short and long term. It should be a warning shot to climate modelers that their longer term climate models are clueless as to the parameters predicted. In the end, it may be ice, not fire, that is the problem. As this powerful La Nina could be the sign of the regime change back to cool like the one in 1949/50.

Reader Tips

Taking down the thought police is just the warm up.

Obama Girl - at the front of the line. Right?

Glavin on on Afghanistan.

Add yours in the comments.

Unfortunately, It Means Michael Marzolini Can No Longer Post Here

But this is a troll problem you can solve by blocking Pollara computers from accessing your site.

It's too bad, really.

Update:
Men taking cameras.
Into restrooms.
In Canada.

We're not making this up.

From The City That Brought You The "Campaign Of Hope"

Via Tom Elia;

20 voters in a North Side Chicago precinct were told not to worry when the apparently non-working pens they were given to mark their ballots really contained "invisible ink" that would be read by scanners.

Update - Now on video...

The Lies Jack Layton Told Me

Thank God for greedy corporations;

In other words, just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people!

The Gauntlet

Globe and Mail;

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is prepared to put his minority government on the line over the future of the Afghanistan mission after he warned Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion that the Tories are preparing a confidence motion that could be voted on as early as next week.

A source told The Globe and Mail that the government is prepared to give notice tomorrow of the motion that Canada's role be extended. If the government were to lose, it could plunge the country into an election.

More: Is he a leader, or is he a flounder? Perhaps a fishing analogy would be better.

Did You Know?

Reader Tips

One missed call.

"A key organizer within the most active "anti-war" group in Vancouver has spilled the beans in an open letter that confesses to several years' worth of blackshirt behaviour and "mafia-type" depravity centred around the cult's tyrannical, messianic Ali Yerevani."

The glaciers are receding at Portage and Main.

An interview with Thomas Sowell at Right Wing News.

Add yours in the comments.

"I AM Big"

"It's the politics that got small."

John Iveson - "... Mr. Spector's secretary had come to her to say she had been asked to photocopy Mr. Mulroney's household expenses and had felt it was a "very unusual request."

Flashback: Once a slimy little creep, always a slimy little creep, I guess.

"It has almost become commonplace for a young girl to fall from a balcony in Malmö…"

h/t Cjunk.

QOTW

"I was on the beach in the Dominican Republic and I had a little break and I heard about that and —- can I say without everyone beating up on me across canada — I was on my third rum-and-coke and I really didn’t give a damn." - General Rick Hillier

Super Tuesday

Since it's dominating the news, and I'm busy with other stuff. Meanwhile, the Corner is probably your best source for Republican side analysis.

Another link: Making sense of exit polls.

Meanwhile, cast your own ballot on this question:

Comments are open for your related links or observations.

The Result Of An Undercover Investigation

h/t

Slave Restitution

I admit some remorse after reading this column in the Torstar;

"I'm not certain the truth about history will do much to enhance the cultural esteem of white students, though perhaps ultimately, that's what we need is for black people feel [sic] a little better about themselves and for white people to feel a little worse."

I live in a modern western society, blessed with wealth I'm told was extracted at a cost of centuries of pain and exploitation. But try as I might, I cannot bring myself to share this essential white burden.

While my melanin content is a product of my birth, "guilt" does not come easily to me. Call it a flaw in character, but my guilt has always been partnered with "consequence" - consequence for my transgressions - not my mother's, nor my grandfather's three times removed.

I cannot feel their pangs of conscience. Their remorse eludes me.

And even in those rare moments during quiet reflection, when I push back the force of reason and allow quivers of 18th century slave-trading shame to wash over my 21st century privilege... I have no place to put it.

Scotland was never known for its cotton.

While I'm sure many Scots grew fat trading in human bondage, I can't count my rooming house ancestors among them.

And there withers the root of my spiritual failure. Like the African hyphenated people of today, my cultural history is lacking completeness. Their ancestors were robbed of their liberty - my ancestors were deprived of their slaves.

History has never fully reconciled my people, haunted as we are by a record of slavelessness.

Our society, our governments, must reach out to support our search for worse feelings, recognize and answer for our diminished angst.

I know there's no turning back the clock. No government can compensate my ancestors - men and women who toiled their own soil, tended their own flocks, washed their own laundry. No program of today could provide the restitution that might fulfill my ancestral guilt - a slave of my own.

But they could pay for a maid.

Reader Tips

Tips open.

Abiogenic Hydrocarbon Production at Lost City Hydrothermal Field

Given the engineers and geologists* who frequent this site, the following may spark some discussion...

In a fairly dense article entitled "Abiogenic Hydrocarbon Production at Lost City Hydrothermal Field," researchers Proskurowski et al., find evidence of the abiogenic formation of short-hydrocarbon chains in an area where hydrocarbons would not otherwise be able to form by the biogenic theory. What Proskurowski et al. identified was the formation of carbon chains 1 to 4 carbon atoms in length, with shorter chains forming deeper, and with isotopic signatures ruling out biogenic origins. The conclusion of the article is as follows: "Our findings illustrate that the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in nature may occur in the presence of ultramafic rocks, water, and moderate amounts of heat."

What Would Lester Pearson Do?

"You think we had our own jails in Cyprus or Suez?"

Update - lots more at The Torch, sparked by the comments here.

A Profession Divided

Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting.

Does anyone else find it troubling that doctors feel the need for a special interest organization to address this?

Y2Kyoto: CBC Fruit Fly Fascist

Jail politicians who ignore science: Suzuki "He urged today’s youth to speak out against politicians complicit in climate change, even suggesting they look for a legal way to throw our current political leaders in jail for ignoring science – drawing rounds of cheering and applause. Suzuki said that politicians, who never see beyond the next election, are committing a criminal act by ignoring science."

Flashback - "A polar-bear killer on wheels."

Another flashback - a long history of asshatness.

My Friends, Watch Out For The Little Lady With A Big Idea

"Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans."

Update - The Would-Be Commandress In Chief has the sniffles again!

Y2Kyoto: Al And The Volcano

Saving the planet one tropical vacation at a time;

Leaders talk climate change at Hawaii conference [....] Delegates met behind closed doors for a two-day global climate change conference in Hawaii but were not expected to make major progress on setting limits for greenhouse gases.

And not a moment too soon...

The Mauna Kea Weather Center forecast snow flurries and possibly heavy snow today and into tomorrow night on the 13,796-foot mountain. [...] Haleakala National Park officials said snow reached much lower elevations than normal, down to the 7,000-foot level in the general area where the park headquarters is located.

As global warming continues to strike around the globe...

In Tehran...

In China...

Tokyo...

Saudi Arabia...

Baghdad...

And hardest hit of all - the northern hemisphere...

When will it all end?

Addendum: Members of the Church of Kyoto are advised to read this comment before posting.

One Of Mankind's Greatest Ideological Riddles Solved

"Why does the western liberal left openly advance the interests of murderous fundamentalist Islam?"

It's the eugenics, stupid!

h/t

The Perfect Storm

One year after first reports;

... in ConsumerAffairs.Com that the Toyota Prius traction control system can fail to operate properly on a snowy road, Prius owners report the hybrid’s TRAC system is still inadequate on slippery inclines.

One Vermont Prius driver, suffering through a recent January snowfall, described Toyota Prius traction control as "dangerous in mountainous snow country.”

[...]

A Langley, Washington Prius owner told us that her hybrid this month “stopped totally on a medium uphill approach to her driveway and garage resulting in the car falling off (the) driveway into ravine of trees” on a snowy December day.

In Medford, Oregon, Mike is the most recent victim of the reluctant traction control system.

“I am a seasoned driver in the snow. I can drive front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive and four-wheel drive. I am a forester and have been driving in snowing conditions for 28 years, 22 of those years on the job," he wrote. "I just had my first experience driving my Toyota Prius in the snow today. The engine cut out all power anytime the wheels slipped at all.”

Mike said that the traction control failure made driving the vehicle on an uphill climb almost impossible.

“It was very dangerous as you had no control as other vehicles came toward you, and once I lost momentum and could not start again. This was in 2 inches of wet snow on a 6 percent incline. I finally inched my way home and ended up putting chains on to back into my flat driveway with 2 inches of wet snow,” he wrote.

He concluded that the traction control system in the Prius “is absolutely a design flaw.”

Welcome, Windsor Star readers.

Reader Tips

To start your Monday.

True Colours

*

Related: Coincidence and contradiction

Tony Blair's Britain

Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch, and "I'd like you to meet my 'better quarter' ..."

Husbands with multiple wives have been given the go-ahead to claim extra welfare benefits following a year-long Government review, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Even though bigamy is a crime in Britain, the decision by ministers means that polygamous marriages can now be recognised formally by the state, so long as the weddings took place in countries where the arrangement is legal.

Muslim medical students are refusing to obey hygiene rules brought in to stop the spread of deadly superbugs, because they say it is against their religion.

Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam.

Universities and NHS trusts fear many more will refuse to co-operate with new Department of Health guidance, introduced this month, which stipulates that all doctors must be "bare below the elbow".

The measure is deemed necessary to stop the spread of infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile, which have killed hundreds.

Keep Your Friends Close, And Your Enemies In Brampton

The voice of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan ...

... coming to you from deep in the wilds of Trudeaupian Canuckistan;

It is against Canadian law to do business with the Taliban. This company needs to be reminded of that fact.

Hosting: (where the website is served from)
alemarah.org = 206.53.62.196
company: rcp.net
Brampton, Ontario, Canada
CONTACT COMPLAINTS:abuse@velcom.com
1-905-791-4597

UPDATE - "Cyber-Jihad denied".

Smalldeadanimals gets results!

Not Waiting For The Asteroid

"Now, normally, beating up on someone like this isn't very much fun. But we are talking about a profession that specializes in passing judgment, often snide, on everyone else. And so, onward..."

HAO FU!

Heh.

The Sound Of Settled Science

Official NOAA thermometer, Cordova, AK.

Reader Tips

SJHL History - 1000 regular season wins for Weyburn Red Wings coach, Dwight McMillan. Congrats! I spent many an hour skating figures on that ice.

"A year ago, we were losing in Iraq. Then the president made the most momentous decision of his presidency." (A very good read.)

One of the chief reasons behind underfunding of reserves.

Three weeks in.. "I'm guessing that if Kinsella could get his phone calls returned by the OLO, he wouldn't need to resort to writing "public letters" on his blog".

Drop yours in the comments.

Let The Joyous News

Be spread!

"There is no right not to be offended"

Pete Vere, Sootoday.com;

The MP wasn't Prime Minister Stephen Harper, or even Conservative. Despite the current high-profile cases against Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant and Alphonse de Valk, the government has been silent.

No, taking the lead in defense of our traditional freedoms was Liberal MP Dr. Keith Martin, a visible minority with a strong record of promoting human rights. It's too bad he's also a minority among MPs when it comes to defending the fundamental right to free expression. Dr. Martin has introduced a private member's motion to repeal the section of the Canadian Human Rights Act that is allowing a quasi-judicial government agency to censor not only the media, but the average Canadian.

"This is a question of freedom of speech," Dr. Martin said. "As a citizen of a free country, I am deeply concerned and disturbed by the fact that the bar of freedom of speech has been moved, quite significantly, in a way that is a serious violation in a serious democracy. People fought through two world wars to give us freedom of speech."

Contrast this with the yellow journalism on display in this Canadian Press item. (Contact info)

The email for the Senior Supervising Editor Patti Tasko appears to be ptasko@cp.org

“You can’t expect all males to control themselves when the breasts are out”

When the concept of "multiculturalism" was introduced to Canadians, most assumed it meant "more pavilions at Folkfest".

"it is good to see you have changed phrase “Iranian Pig” to “Fine Iranian Gentleman” . this is exactly what we do . we call the girl “victim” although we belive the “canadian bitch” is some thing she deserves ."

"Maybe you Canadians prefer pedophiles over breast kissers!
cover ur ass before affectedly boasting to be so prude. We are closely watching you, my host friends!"

"Hi Pigs!!

The following link shows the place that Farhood and all the other pigs came from. Tehran capital of Iran with 2500+ year of civilization and NO GAY or RAPER!!"

Reader Tips

Open Letter to Warren Kinsella ... and by coincidence, shares nosedive!

Bookmark this link for daily developments in the Case of the Greatest Canadian Blasphemer.

Now is the time at the Flea when we fling aside the burka!

Yours on the comments.

A Reminder

That one person's terrorist is Michael Moore's freedom fighter.

We Didn't Vote For The NDP

I know they're new at governing, but I had hoped the days of spending our tax dollars prosecuting "shower curtain" cases were over.

Tony Blair's Britain

Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch, and "There never was an England".

Patriotism should be avoided in school lessons because British history is “morally ambiguous”, a leading educational body recommends.

History and citizenship lessons should stick to the bare facts rather than encouraging loyalty to Britain when covering subjects such as the Second World War or the British Empire, the Institute of Education researchers said. Teachers should not instill pride in what they consider great moments of British history, as more shameful episodes could be downplayed or excluded.

The slave trade, imperialism and 20th century wars should be taught as controversial issues while students are deciding how they feel about their country, the report says.

Three quarters of teachers felt obliged to tell students about the danger of patriotism. The survey suggested neither pupils nor teachers wanted patriotism endorsed by schools.

"I was vilified."

OK, fine, but rebuilding a city that is mainly below sea level is — what’s the technical word for it? — oh yeah, stupid.

"Pim Fortuyn saw all this coming years ago"

Bruce Bawer;

Not very long ago, Oslo was an icy Shangri-la of Scandinavian self-discipline, governability, and respect for the law. But in recent years, there have been grim changes, including a rise in gay-bashings. The summer of 2006 saw an unprecedented wave of them. The culprits, very disproportionately, are young Muslim men.

It’s not just Oslo, of course. The problem afflicts most of Western Europe. And anecdotal evidence suggests that such crimes are dramatically underreported. My own partner chose not to report his assault. I urged him to, but he protested that it wouldn’t make any difference. He was probably right.

The reason for the rise in gay bashings in Europe is clear – and it’s the same reason for the rise in rape. As the number of Muslims in Europe grows, and as the proportion of those Muslims who were born and bred in Europe also grows, many Muslim men are more inclined to see Europe as a part of the umma (or Muslim world), to believe that they have the right and duty to enforce sharia law in the cities where they live, and to recognize that any aggression on their part will likely go unpunished. Such men need not be actively religious in order to feel that they have carte blanche to assault openly gay men and non-submissive women, whose freedom to live their lives as they wish is among the most conspicuous symbols of the West’s defiance of holy law.

Multiculturalists can’t face all this. So it is that even when there are brutal gay-bashings, few journalists write about them; of those who do, few mention that the perpetrators are Muslims; and those who do mention it take the line that these perpetrators are lashing out in desperate response to their own oppression.

[...]

It’s very clear what’s going on here – and where it’s all headed. Europe is on its way down the road of Islamization, and it’s reached a point along that road at which gay people’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is being directly challenged, both by knife-wielding bullies on the street and by taxpayer-funded thugs whose organizations already enjoy quasi-governmental authority. Sharia law may still be an alien concept to some Westerners, but it’s staring gay Europeans right in the face – and pointing toward a chilling future for all free people. Pim Fortuyn saw all this coming years ago; most of today’s European leaders still refuse to see it even though it’s right before their eyes.

The Sound Of Settled Science

Gorman,

.... who has spent 25 years observing and predicting ice patterns in the Arctic, and now does the same remotely from Ottawa for shipping company Fednav, said that it is important to consider differences between climate change and decadal oscillations.

"Climate change is really slow, long-term creeping change over centuries," he said. Decadal oscillations, on the other hand, are changes in energy patterns around the world that come and go at cyclical intervals, leading to hurricanes, causing various shifts in sea-level pressure and ice formation.

He said that scientists are still figuring out the relationship between climate change and decadal oscillations. "It's not really well understood," he added. Despite this, some media mistakenly report the effects of decadal oscillations as caused by climate change.

For example, though a recent report by CBC suggested that a huge ice fracture in the Arctic's Beaufort Sea area may be attributed to climate change, Gorman dismissed the claim. "I see this every year," he said.

Reader Tips

A few items gathered while surfing -

The justice of settled science;

Findley said the ruling was among the first from a state appellate court to recognize the new research and reverse a conviction. At the time of Edmunds’ 1996 trial, doctors who raised such questions were viewed as extremists, he said. Now, they are in the mainstream.

Michael Yon is back in Iraq.

Abu Laith al-Libi

Add yours in the comments.