Category: Uncategorized

Modest progress

Further to Lance’s post below, I’ve gone through some of the highlights of the recent Environics poll of Afghan public opinion, pointing out some of the problem areas as well as the overwhelmingly good news, and providing a link to a similar but more comprehensive poll conducted just over a year ago.
Conclusion: the international community is making slow but steady progress winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan. Read the source data yourself if you need convincing.

Get the job done

Environics Research in Afghanistan

Forty-three per cent of all Afghans surveyed say that foreign troops should stay as long as it takes to get the job done. Only about 15 per cent of all Afghans surveyed want foreign troops to leave their country immediately, and the rest want time limits.

CBC’s poll

Cheers,
lance

Winning two, losing one

If you read only one piece about Canada’s effort in Afghanistan this week, make it Michael Den Tandt’s article in the Owen Sound Sun Times:

I came back to Afghanistan to find answers to two questions. Is Canada’s deployment here still worthwhile, despite the rising toll in lives? And if it is, then why do so many people back home think it isn’t?
In the past week I’ve spoken to dozens of Canadian soldiers, non-governmental aid workers and Afghans, including some who are very critical of the U.S.-led international effort here and of the Karzai regime. Their message was unanimous: Please, Canada, don’t go.

It’s a ringing endorsement of the efforts of Canadians on the ground in Afghanistan, helping rebuild that country. It’s also a scathing indictment of our government’s communications strategy, and a fully merited one as I see it.
Read the whole thing.

Saskatchewan Votes 2007

I’m trying to think of a catchy election title… Use the comments section for your ideas. If I use it, the winner gets a set of steak knives.
Observations made during the Saskatchewan election call.
Lorne Calvert – “We’ve cut the PST by two points to 5%…”
However, after the last election in 2003, the Calvert NDP raised the PST by 1%, from 6% to 7% for three full years. When the Minister Harry Van Mulligan was asked about why that wasn’t mentioned during the 2003 election campaign, Van Mulligan (quite candidly) responded that it was unpopular and not something you talk about during election campaigns.
Lorne Calvert – “We’ve implemented Project Hope…”
Sure, but Project Hope does not have any new addictions beds opening until the year 2009.
Lorne Calvert – “We’ve laid the path for the minimum wage to reach the poverty limit, first in Canada…”
Technically, that’s impossible. The Low Income Cut Off (LICO) is a moving target. Once the minimum wage gets raised, the LICO also gets raised by the present method of evaluation. This is the economic equivalent of Lucy pulling the football away.
Lorne Calvert (defines the wedge issue) – “With Saskatchewan booming like never before; with Saskatchewan families benefitting like never before, the question tonight is simple. Is it really time to put all of this at risk, for the sake of changeIs change for the sake of change worth the risk?Should we go forward or should we go back?
Now the best for last…
Lorne Calvert (doing his best Tommy Douglas impersonation) – “It was four years ago at just this time of year, I walked in the Qu’Appelle Valley with our grandson, and he and I decided that the time was right. Well this past weekend, he and I again, walked in the Qu’Appelle Valley, stood on one of the highest hills and again decided the time was right.”
To which the room in which Brad Wall was about to speak in erupted in laughter. Lorne missed the part about birdies eating out of his hand and seeing the doe and her new fawn silhouetted against the setting sun.
Lorne Calvert – “I am pleased to announce that the people of Saskatchewan will go to the polls for a provincial general election on Wednesday, November the 07th, 2007”
A full 30 minutes after 980CJME’s Alex Docking scooped the information off the Elections Saskatchewan website.
What a great way to start off an election campaign…

The Sound of Settled Science: Passing Wind

How long does a theory have to be dead, before the general public starts to smell the reek of it’s corpse:

A new NASA-led study found a 23-percent loss in the extent of the Arctic’s thick, year-round sea ice cover during the past two winters. This drastic reduction of perennial winter sea ice is the primary cause of this summer’s fastest-ever sea ice retreat on record and subsequent smallest-ever extent of total Arctic coverage.
A team led by Son Nghiem of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., studied trends in Arctic perennial ice cover by combining data from NASA’s Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat) satellite with a computing model based on observations of sea ice drift from the International Arctic Buoy Programme. QuikScat can identify and map different classes of sea ice, including older, thicker perennial ice and younger, thinner seasonal ice.
[…]
Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. “Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic,” he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.

crossposted @ Celestial Junk

New AGW Game

Let’s play “Spot the Scientist” … if you can!
Warning: Scary Music

And, in other news …
It takes an abject failure, or charlatan, to be at the center of a hoax not once but twice:

Did NASA scientist James Hansen, the global warming alarmist in chief, once believe we were headed for . . . an ice age? An old Washington Post story indicates he did.
On July 9, 1971, the Post published a story headlined “U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming.” It told of a prediction by NASA and Columbia University scientist S.I. Rasool. The culprit: man’s use of fossil fuels.
The Post reported that Rasool, writing in Science, argued that in “the next 50 years” fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun’s rays that the Earth’s average temperature could fall by six degrees.
Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, Rasool claimed, “could be sufficient to trigger an ice age.”
Aiding Rasool’s research, the Post reported, was a “computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen,” who was, according to his resume, a Columbia University research associate at the time.

When it comes to Hansen, following the money may explain a few things.
Yet More:
Let’s cheer for the Canadian

Already topping the international agenda, the fight against global warming and activists such as Al Gore could take home this year’s Nobel Peace Prize when it is announced on Friday, observers say.
Gore, a former US vice-president, and another climate change campaigner, Canadian Inuit Sheila Watt-Cloutier, are believed to be among the favorites as the Nobel committee hunkers down to select a winner among the 181 candidates nominated for this year’s award.

Some Sense from an AGW Believer:

All eyes are on Greenland’s melting glaciers as alarm about global warming spreads. This year, delegations of U.S. and European politicians have made pilgrimages to the fastest-moving glacier at Ilulissat, where they declare that they see climate change unfolding before their eyes.
Curiously, something that’s rarely mentioned is that temperatures in Greenland were higher in 1941 than they are today. Or that melt rates around Ilulissat were faster in the early part of the past century, according to a new study. And while the delegations first fly into Kangerlussuaq, about 100 miles to the south, they all change planes to go straight to Ilulissat — perhaps because the Kangerlussuaq glacier is inconveniently growing.

Speaking of Ice … Southern Ice Breaks Record for “Growing“:

Just as we set a new record in the northern hemisphere for minimum sea ice area in September, the southern hemisphere has officially set a new record for maximum sea ice area. According to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Polar Research Group the southern hemisphere sea ice area reached 16.17 million square kilometers, narrowly breaking the old record of 16.03 million square kilometers. The record data goes back to 1979.

… get a load of the two-step shuffle at the end of the article …
crossposted @ Celestial Junk

Canuck Combat Vid

It’s a rare thing to see Canadian combat footage post 1950’s. So it is, that the following videos are rare indeed. Many of you have seen these before, as they’ve been out for a while, but I thought I’d post them anyway.
The first marks a watershed, capturing just how aggressive Canuck operations were last summer. Our guys rooted out an enemy who’d never been driven out of his home turf … not even by soviet offensives.
“There definitely going to wonder who the Canadians are from here on out … that’s for sure!”

Ambushed:

Engagement:

I’ve had 3 ribbons stolen from my vehicles so far … good thing about it is, it forces me to buy new ones, which means more donation to CF families.
And finally, a Canadian soldier who has passed on a unique legacy:

In Afghanistan, our men and women move among the indigenous people. Our soldiers know better than any of us the poverty that traps Afghans. One Canadian soldier used to write his parents about the poverty, and he requested assistance in aiding newborns … his request was simply that the home front supply caps for newborns. The knitted caps became known as Boomer Hats, named for the soldier who requested them.
That soldier was Corporal Andrew James Eykelenboom. He never made it home. He was killed by a suicide bomber.

CUPE full of Lies?

The Sask Party demands that CUPE refrain from doing their masters bidding.

“No one is disputing the right of unions or other agencies to speak
out and make their views known to the electorate — that’s part of our
democratic process,” McMorris said. “But, for a union to distribute
this pack of lies in a deliberate attempt to scare vulnerable people
truly goes beyond what’s acceptable.” – Don McMorris

Sorry, Don, but that’s like asking salmon to pass on the run.

CUPE is, has been, and will be in the pocket of the NDP. They’re the trump card. Demanding they not lie about Sask Party intentions in seniors’ homes and hospitals is like asking the sun to not rise in the east.

Asking that people go and read the Sask Party policies and guidelines for themselves isn’t as easy as scaring people by having the union’s representative drop off propaganda.

Too bad.

Cheers,
lance

Friday Nite AGW

Dr. Tim Ball:

The world is cooling. Global temperatures have declined since 1998 and a growing number of climate experts expect this trend to continue until at least 2030. This, happening while carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions continue to rise, is in complete contradiction to the theory of human-induced (anthropogenic) global warming (AGW). The CBC and other die-hard AGW proponents respond by publicizing selected glacial melts and the impact of dramatic but improbable sea level rises, the only warming issues that seem to grab public attention.

Sir John:

A record number of floods, droughts and storms around the world this year amount to a climate change “mega disaster”, the United Nation’s emergency relief coordinator, Sir John Holmes, has warned.
Sir John, a British diplomat who is also known as the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said dire predictions about the impact of global warming on humanity were already coming true.

Richard Lindzen:

Lindzen doesn’t dispute that the planet has warmed up in the past three decades, but he argues that human-generated CO2 accounts for no more than 30 percent of this temperature rise. Much of the warming, he says, stems from fluctuations in temperature that have occurred for millions of years—explained by complicated natural changes in equilibrium between the oceans and the atmosphere—and the latest period of warming will not result in catastrophe.

Friday Nite Open … Shit Happens!

Put your links in the comments …
To get you started:

Taoism: Shit happens.
Confucianism: Confucius say, “Shit happens.”
Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn’t really shit.
Zen Buddhism: Shit is, and is not.
Zen Buddhism #2: What is the sound of shit happening?
Hinduism: This shit has happened before.
Islam: If shit happens, it is the will of Allah.
Islam #2: If shit happens, kill the person responsible.
Islam #3: If shit happens, blame Israel.
Catholicism: If shit happens, you deserve it.
Protestantism: Let shit happen to someone else.
Presbyterian: This shit was bound to happen.
Episcopalian: It’s not so bad if shit happens, as long as you serve the right wine with it.

Lots more shit …

Fundamentally Flawed … con’t

Moving on from the discussion HERE:

The problem though, as I see it, is an enormous missunderstanding in the West as to what “moderate” means in the context of Islam. Hardly a commentator or pundit takes the time to determine the meaning of “moderate Islam”, yet casually tosses the term about willy-nilly.
Let me suggest therefore, a definition for moderate Muslim based in Western values … a definition that just may challenge our understanding. After all, we constantly read about and hear the term, “moderate Muslim majority” , as if it is a fact. I don’t at all intend to censure or judge the basic “goodness” of any man or woman, but do want to demonstrate that casual use of the term “moderate Muslim” may be ill-conceived.


keep reading …
An Interview to Think By:

Fundamentally Flawed

So, let me get this straight; if I make the argument that a religion or creed is fundamentally flawed … I’m a bigot … right? Painting one particular group with the same brush, tends to make it so.
I suppose that in it’s purest form, any blanket rejection of any religion, culture, or creed may make me a bigot … unless I’m a “progressive” of course, in which case the rules don’t apply.
In this context, I give you a lengthy and well thought-out two part essay on Islam. The picture it paints ain’t pretty: Part One Part Two

The theological iron curtain is draped over every country with a majority Muslim population. Wherever the Muslim faith predominates, political repression and despotism are the rule. Afghanistan and Iraq are no exception: any pluralism which is now tolerated in these two countries would recede quickly if the encouraging presence of the United States military were withdrawn.
Turkey is often cited as an exception — the exception — to Islamic despotism. But secularism in Turkey is enforced from the top down. It has shallow roots, and requires repeated interventions by the military in order to survive. Indonesia and Malaysia also used to be relatively tolerant places, but as European colonialism recedes further into history, these countries have become more and more Islamized and repressive.

Speaking of bigotry: CLICK

The whole phenomenon has become so convoluted, that despite the fact that one group, fundamentalist Muslims, openly and articulately express their hate of our institutions, democracy, religions, and liberty, we continue to invite them to come and live among us. We continue to talk in abstract terms about a “War on Terror”, when it is in fact a “War on Us” being carried out by Muslims.
We have been taught to suppress that wee small voice inside, that diminutive primitive germ of an instinct that is trying to scream aloud and warn us that mortal danger is just over the next hill.
In an age long ago, they would’ve simply called it “common sense”.

UPDATE …

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