Global Warming...More Dissent...

I agree with Livermore's thesis - all those scientists may indeed be wrong.

The scientific mainstream, however, refuses to concede that it could be wrong. It insists we must act now to decarbonise our economy, whatever the consequences. If the science were as certain as suggested, it would have a point. But it isn't and, in the meantime, we are being forced down a single policy direction that may be ineffectual and takes resources away from the real and present problems in the world.

Increasing food security, providing access to clean water and basic education, building defences against the floods that inevitably hit low-lying regions: these are the sort of initiatives that have to take second place to the drive to reduce carbon emissions.

In any case, there is little likelihood that a global carbon reduction regime can be made to work. Most EU member states will not meet their commitments under the Kyoto protocol. How likely is it, then, that China and other expanding economies will compromise their growth to meet much more demanding targets?

To shut down debate is unscientific. Science progresses by observation and deduction, by setting up hypotheses and testing them. Allowing one view to be pushed forward with no dissent sets a precedent that will stifle innovative thinking. Whatever Al Gore may believe, there is an even more inconvenient truth: he could be wrong.

And, where is Maher Arar???

An amazing opinion piece in today's National Post about that supposed spy for the Israelis Mohammed Essam Ghoneim el-Attar who is on trial in Egypt.

El-Attar fled Egypt to escape persecution from family, friends and society at large, because he was gay. For being homosexual, he was disowned by his own relatives. His gayness had ostensibly brought shame and disgrace to the family's supposed good name. Only someone from the Arab world can understand what a gay man experiences inside prison walls. It is puzzling: Why did Arar choose not to utter a single word demanding the freedom of a fellow Arab Canadian who was going through the same travails he underwent in a Syrian jail?

Reports from Cairo have quoted experts on the Egyptian justice system as saying el- Attar's confession, while being held incommunicado for more than six weeks at an unknown location, should be treated with extreme scepticism.

"If you want me to be frank, 95% of the confessions extracted by Egyptian police are false. The defendants are forced into signing them, and there's only one way of getting them to sign. You hang the suspects up, and you beat the hell out of them," says Mahmoud Qatari, a retired police brigadier-general.

Maher Arar was not alone in the conspicuous silence that descended on the politicians and human rights activists on Feb. 14. Amnesty International was there; so was the Canadian Labour Congress. Both said nothing. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's followers in Canada at the Islamic Circle of North America, and the Muslim Association of Canada, had sponsored the event; but they too chose to stay mum, despite the fact Brotherhood members fill up thousands of jail cells in Egypt.

I wrote to the Canadian Islamic Congress, the Canadian Arab Federation, CAIR-Canada and Professor Tyseer Abol Nasser, who chairs the so-called Canadian Muslim Network and was master of ceremonies, asking them why they had not raised the case of Mohammed el- Attar. Not one of them had an answer.

Is it because El-Attar had "confessed" to being an Israeli spy? Or was el-Attar ignored by the Islamic groups because he is a gay Arab man?

The saddest thing about the event is the fact that both Arar and his wife failed their first big test as self-professed human rights activists.

East Europeans rushing into Britain...

Ultimately, this can't go on forever...there's going to be a huge reaction to immigration.

The number of Eastern Europeans flooding into Britain has soared to 700 a day.

Official figures show there are 579,000 Poles and other residents of the former Soviet Bloc registered to work here.

The total does not include the self-employed, children or partners of the migrants, who do not appear in the Government figures.

The true number is likely to stand at 800,000 - or one in every 75 people living in the UK.

It is the equivalent of a city the size of Leeds, the third biggest in the UK.

The migrants - as well as placing enormous pressure on schools and hospitals - are receiving up to £75million in benefits.

Palestinians use ex-Synagogues as bases to fire on Israel...

Could you imagine the uproar if the reverse was true?

The ruins of two large synagogues in evacuated Jewish communities of the Gaza Strip have been transformed into military bases used by Palestinian Arab groups to fire rockets at Israeli cities, according to a senior leader of a Gaza militant group.

When Israel withdrew from the Gaza in August, 2005, it left intact 20 synagogues of the Gush Katif Jewish communities following an Israeli Cabinet decision against demolishing the structures. Immediately after the Israeli evacuation was completed, Palestinian Arabs destroyed most of the Gaza synagogues.

Speaking to The New York Sun from Gaza, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, Abu Abir, said the area in which the synagogues once stood is now used to fire rockets at Israel.

"We are proud to turn these lands, especially these parts that were for long time the symbol of occupation and injustice, like the synagogue, into a military base and source of fire against the Zionists and the Zionist entity," Mr. Abir said.

Mr. Abir blamed the Jewish state for the desecration of the Gaza synagogues by Palestinian Arabs, claiming the decision to leave the structures intact was part of an Israeli conspiracy.

Israel "left the synagogues behind so the world would see the Palestinians destroying them," Mr. Abir said.

Farrakhan's Book Club...

I knew he couldn't resist bashing the Jews in his last speech.

The Anti-Defamation League Tuesday condemned Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan for a speech in which the ADL said Farrakhan recommended "several notoriously anti-Semitic books."

"Farrakhan may have held his anti-Semitic views in check while on the dais, but if this is what he wants people to read, then the leopard hasn't changed his spots," said ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman in a statement released by the organization.

"Minister Farrakhan's reading list includes books that purport to expose 'the truth' about Jews and their control of the federal banking system or their role in the African slave trade.

According to the group, during an address at Ford Field in Detroit, Farrakhan recommended the following books:

- The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews.

The ADL said the book "argues that the history of slavery in the New World was dominated by Jewish ship owners and merchants. The book presents a multi-layered attack against the Jewish people, assaulting the integrity of the Jewish religion, the meaning of Jewish history, and the foundations of Jewish scholarship upon which the book's own fraudulent charges are based."

- The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, by Eustace Mullins

According to the ADL, Mullins is an "anti-Jewish conspiracy theory propagandist," and the book "one of the key conspiracy books claiming that the banking system in the U.S. is controlled by a few elite families (most of them Jewish). It is a key text used by anti-Semites on the far right."

- The Synagogue of Satan, by Nation of Islam member Ashahed Muhammad

The ADL said the book "claims that the world is being manipulated and corrupted by Satanic powers led by Jewish elites."

Smoke bomb thrown into Jewish kindergarten in Berlin...

This is despicable...

A tragedy was avoided on Sunday after a smoke bomb, thrown through a window of a Jewish kindergarten in Berlin, failed to ignite.

However, the school, located in a northwest neighbourhood of the German capital, was not spared by the spray painting of swastikas, other Nazi symbols and anti-Semitic phrases, such as “Auschwitz,” “Juden Raus” (Jews, get out) and “Sieg Heil”, on its outer walls, as well as on toys that had been lying around in the school’s playground.

A police spokesman said the attack did not cause serious damage or endanger children or staff at the school.

Berlin’s Interior Minister Ehrhart Körting condemned the attack as a "cowardly act" and called it “a particularly brutal one…one that had taken anti-Semitic acts to a new dimension”.

Although individual Jewish children have occasionally been victims of anti-Semitism, it is the first time that an entire school had been targeted in Germany.

So far, no suspects have been found. Police are still investigating when exactly the attack took place and appealed for witnesses.

However, it seems as if it was planned to coincide with the inauguration of a new Torah scroll which took place on Sunday, several kilometres away, at the Chabad Lubavitch synagogue of the Jewish Family and Education Centre which runs the school.

Massive increase in rape in Oslo...

Oslo is becoming a very unsafe city....and this is being driven by immigrants...

Three women reported attempted rapes in Oslo over the weekend, and a man who tried to help one of the women ended up being stabbed himself. It's the latest in a string of rape cases since December.

All three women were attacked in Oslo's popular Grünerløkka district late Saturday night while on their way home. As in earlier cases, one of the women was attacked as she unlocked the entry door to her apartment building on Trondheimsveien.

Her assailant, described by police as an "aggressive" man in his mid-20s, believed to be Somalian, drew a knife and forced her into the apartment she shared with several roommates.

One of them was home, and he woke up after hearing her screams. He rushed to her aid and was stabbed in the neck by the assailant, who then fled. Both the woman and her roommate were taken to hospital for treatment, where his stab wounds were not determined to be life-threatening.

The two other attempted rapes occurred nearby, on Jens Bjelkes Gate and Kirkegårds Gate, and police believe the same man was involved in at least one of them. Both victims escaped.

Oslo's main emergency clinic, Legevakten, has handled 43 rape victims so far this year and police are warning women against walking alone late at night. They're advising women to talk, or at least pretend they're talking, in a mobile phone if they do walk alone. If they've taken a taxi home, police advise women to ask their drivers to wait until they're inside their building before driving off.

Animal Rights Terrorists Strike Again....

These aren't fanatics...but terrorists...

An Oxford college has been firebombed by animal rights campaigners - almost one year after a fightback was launched against intimidation by extremists.

Two incendiary bombs were found in an annexe of Templeton College, forcing the evacuation of dozens of staff and students.

An extremist Internet bulletin board, which acts on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front, claimed responsibility for the devices.

Both failed to explode but are the latest in a wave of attacks on the university which refuses to end animal testing in its laboratories.

In February last year a 16-year-old schoolboy, Laurie Pycroft, formed Pro Test, a group speaking out in favour of vivisection at the university.

Central to the controversy has been the construction of a vast new £20 million animal research laboratory. This has led to anyone connected to the university becoming a 'legitimate' target for the fanatics.

A posting on the BiteBack website said the attack was carried out on February 18.

It read: "This latest action is part of an ongoing fight against the University of Oxford and its continued reign of terror over the unseen victims inside its animal labs."

The Oscars go green...

Well, I watched the Oscars tonight, and Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio made a big deal about the awards going green. They said to check the web site about what they had done...but, here's what it says:

This year, the Academy, the Oscar telecast producer Laura Ziskin and the entire production team endeavored to select supplies and services with a sensitivity toward reducing the threats we face from global warming, species extinction, deforestation, toxic waste, and hazardous chemicals in our water and food. With guidance and assistance from the Natural Resources Defense Council, a non-partisan environmental and advocacy organization, we learned that it was easy (and often cost effective) to make simple changes to reduce Oscar's ecological footprint.

No details, nothing!

So, I have some simple questions:

1. How many of the nominees took public transit to get to the Awards. I ask this because it was suggested that we make more use out of public transit when Melissa Etheridge was performing. Related to this: How many of the nominees carpooled to get to the Awards (suggested on the web site)?

2. How many of the nominees flew on private planes to get to the Awards?

3. How is the ecological footprints of the parties being reduced?

4. Was there any heating or air conditioning used at the Awards?

5. How many of those parties afterwards are going to use "reusable utensils' as suggested on the web site???

Hey, do you have a question of your own? Comment, please?

Nick Cohen..once again....

Cohen talks about the British far left....and its' common cause with muslim reactionaries...

Why is the world upside down? In part, it is a measure of President Bush's failure that anti-Americanism has swept out of the intelligentsia and become mainstream in Britain. A country that was once the most pro-American in Western Europe now derides Tony Blair for sticking with the Atlantic alliance. But if Iraq has pummeled Mr. Blair's reputation, it has also shone a very harsh light on the British and European left. No one noticed it when the Berlin Wall came down, but the death of socialism gave people who called themselves "left wing" a paradoxical advantage. They no longer had a practical program they needed to defend and could go along with ultra-right movements that would once have been taboo. In moments of crisis, otherwise sane liberals will turn to these movements and be reassured by the professed leftism of the protest organizers that they are not making a nonsense of their beliefs.

If, that is, they have strong beliefs to abandon. In Europe and North America extreme versions of multiculturalism and identity politics have left a poisonous legacy. Far too many liberal-minded people think that is somehow culturally imperialist to criticize reactionary movements and ideas--as long as they aren't European or American reactionary movements. This delusion is everywhere. Until very recently our Labour government was allowing its dealings with Britain's Muslim minority to be controlled by an unelected group, the Muslim Council of Britain, which stood for everything social democrats were against. In their desperate attempts to ingratiate themselves, ministers gave its leader a knighthood--even though he had said that "death was too good" for Salman Rushdie, who happens to be a British citizen as well as a great novelist.

Beyond the contortions and betrayals of liberal and leftish thinking lies a simple emotion that I don't believe Americans take account of: an insidious fear that has produced the ideal conditions for appeasement. Radical Islam does worry Europeans but we are trying to prevent an explosion by going along with Islamist victimhood. We blame ourselves for the Islamist rage, in the hope that our admission of guilt will pacify our enemies. We are scared, but not scared enough to take a stand.

Al-Qaeda tagets Britain...

This is from the Daily Telegraph in the UK...

The terrorist threat facing Britain from home-grown al-Qaeda agents is higher than at any time since the September 11 attacks in 2001, secret intelligence documents reveal.

The number of British-based Islamic terrorists plotting suicide attacks against "soft" targets in this country is far greater than the Security Services had previously believed, the government paperwork discloses. It is thought the plotters could number more than 2,000.

Under the heading "International Terrorism in the UK", the document - seen by The Sunday Telegraph - states: "The scale of al-Qaeda's ambitions towards attacking the UK and the number of UK extremists prepared to participate in attacks are even greater than we had previously judged."

It warns that terrorist "attack planning" against Britain will increase in 2007, and adds: "We still believe that AQ [al-Qaeda] will continue to seek opportunities for mass casualty attacks against soft targets and key infrastructure. These attacks are likely to involve the use of suicide operatives."

Hypocrisy, Discrimination - all in the name of equality...

I can see this coming to Canada, from the UK.

It is responsible for implementing what has been called the biggest shake-up in equality laws for 30 years.

From April, the Equal Opportunities Commission will tell 40,000 public authorities, including government departments, police forces, schools and hospital trusts to employ equal numbers of men and women, or risk court action.

The new Gender Equality Duty will give public organisations a statutory duty to "promote gender equality" and "eliminate sexual discrimination". But the authorities -affected may wish to ask the commission to impose its rigorous new regime on itself.

For figures show that only 18 per cent of Equal Opportunities Commission staff are male. Amanda Ariss, head of policy and research at the commission, said: "It's true. We have more women than men. We're well aware of the issue and we've put a lot of effort into trying to attract more men."

Eleven of the 15 most senior officials profiled on the commission's website are women. While critics might accuse the equality watchdog of perpetrating the type of discrimination it combats, the commission insists it is not to blame for its "gender imbalance".

The responsibility, it claims, lies with men. "A lot of males think we won't employ men - which isn't true at all," said Mrs Ariss, adding that men "edit themselves out of the recruitment process". The commission says low staff turnover also makes it harder to cut the number of women.

What if Pakistan goes terrorist?

A great symposium on Iran on FrontPage Mag leads to some interesting comments on Pakistan from Steve Schippert, co-founder of the Center for Threat Awareness.

But perhaps too great a share of the focus is put on Iran’s nuclear program and the unending international debate that drags on with all the alacrity of Puxatawny Phil on a cold February morning. By that I mean, long before Iran achieves their own weapons-grade fissile material, we are likely to see the fall of Musharraf and the evaporation of a nuclear-armed Pakistan as an ally in the global conflict against Islamist terrorists. There is an insurgency afoot in Pakistan that gets scant attention, and it grows stronger by the day. Before you raise your eyebrows, this has everything to do with Iran, the global epicenter of terrorism.

Waiting in the wings to replace Musharraf is former ISI chief, Islamist Hamid Gul, at least as the public face of a new murky ruling cabal consisting of an alliance among al-Qaeda, the Taliban, ISI (Pak Intel) Islamists and the increasing number of generals splitting away from Musharraf. Sharing some degree of power with him will surely be Aslam Beg, another Islamist who openly called for an alliance with Iran while he was the Army Chief of Staff. Gul is quoted as saying in 2004, "I turned against America because they betrayed the Afghan nation."

And with the assassination or overthrow of Musharraf comes the birth of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the first nuclear terrorist power and an instant nuclear ally for the Iranian mullahs. The number of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters amassed in North and South Waziristan and the North West Frontier Province & FATA is estimated now at over 200,000. It is not an unreasonable assessment that the fall of the Musharraf government could well happen within this calendar year. The face of the conflict we think we know would then change in horrific fashion overnight. Buckle up.

So is it possible that by focusing almost solely on Iran's own program we can miss similar ends by different means? It is foolish to dismiss and unwise to ignore.

Their terrorism should dictate policy, not their reactors, per se.

How's this for a candidate???

At least she blogs!

A muslim woman running for public office in the Netherlands has refused to be interviewed or photographed and will only campaign in mosques, sparking new claims of attempts of isolationism among the Islamic community.

Ouafaa Abrazi is standing for the Islam Democraten in municipal elections in the Zuid-Holland region, and is the only female candidate on the Islamic list.

"She does not want to give interviews and we must also not give her phone number to anyone," said Islam Democrat leader Hasan Kucuk.
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"She does not want to appear in public and certainly not have her photo in the paper."

Miss Abrazi, a prominent campaigner against government plans to ban the wearing of the burqa in public, will instead restrict her campaign to a Muslim-only audience, concentrating her efforts in local mosques.

She has, however, embraced the internet, and regularly blogs.

"We Muslims must know that it is our duty to take decisions which benefit the Islamic nation, choosing the Islam Democrats is one of them," she writes on Maroc.nl.

Ronald Sorensen, the leader of Leefbaar Rotterdam, a city council grouping founded by the assassinated Dutch populist politician Pim Fortuyn, welcomed Miss Abrazi's candidature as an opportunity to address "ideas from the middle ages".

"This is the first time Muslims have been so honest. We know that over half of them act like that, if only Muslims had been this open before," he said.

"We like to fight Muslim separatism in the public arena, before Dutch Islamic political parties there was no chance to debate these things publicly."

Miss Abrazi teaches in the Muslim Yunus Emre primary school in The Hague. Abdelsadek Maas, the school's chairman, is another Islamic candidate. Pupils at the school mark Islamic religious days and observe mid-day prayer.

A World Without America

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for posting this. A terrific video.

The problem with environmentalists...

A good article on how environmentalists get it very wrong, sometimes....

Hurricane Katrina need not have been the tragedy it was. In 1977, the Army Corps of Engineers wanted to build large steel and concrete "sea gates" below sea level to prevent hurricane force winds driving storm surges into Lake Pontchartrain, overflowing into low-lying New Orleans. Such gates have been enormously successful in the Netherlands. But the Environmental Defense Fund, which had been a party to the lawsuit leading to the banning of DDT, persuaded a judge that the sea gates would discourage the mating of a certain fish species. Fishy romance trumped the lives of 3,100 Orleanians. "If we had built the barriers, New Orleans would not be flooded," says Joe Towers, who was counsel for the New Orleans District of the Corps.

Here's a minister I like....

Is Sweden finally going to start to tackle its problems?

Sweden's new integration minister dismissed allegations of "Islamophobia" by Muslim groups, and vowed Monday to defend the rights of women who are "oppressed in the name of religion."

Nyamko Sabuni, 37, has irritated Muslim leaders by opposing religious schools and suggesting that all schools ban Islamic headscarves for girls younger than 15.

Nearly 50 Muslim organizations signed a petition opposing her appointment as integration minister, saying her views "breathe of populism and Islamophobia."

"I will not let myself be scared into silence," Sabuni told reporters when asked about the petition. "I will never accept that women and girls are oppressed in the name of religion."

The Talibanization of Pakistan....

This is troubling....

Fearing to educate your daughter or to shave could be a flashback to Taliban-run Afghanistan in the 1990s - only this is Pakistan, where few officials now care to acknowledge the creeping influence of the ousted militant movement.

Statements by President Pervez Musharraf and local governors emphatically renounce Talibanization of Pakistan as the country works with the international community to contain radical militant elements in this volatile region.

Yet in the frontier territories by Afghanistan, media continue to report cases of Taliban infiltration of towns and cities to the point where they even assume law enforcement duties and parade criminals in the streets, supplanting mistrusted and inefficient state authorities.

'Where law and order and justice vanish, the Taliban emerge and the public response is positive because the people want protection, irrespective of who provides it,' a retired police official in the afflicted North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) told Pakistan's Daily Times newspaper.

Other police officials claimed that whole areas in the province have been 'taken over' by the Taliban.

In the armaments-making centre of Darra Adam Khel, located 30 kilometres from the NWFP capital Peshawar, militants reportedly threatened NGOs, terrorized music and video shop owners and staged bomb blasts by girls' schools to deter people from a profane and 'un- Islamic' lifestyle.

In December, a cleric in Darra went as far as declaring all multi- national companies, monetary institutions, the Red Cross and local NGOs as 'agents of the Jews and the West', prompting rights activists to demand government action against him.

And now, muslim spies...

I'm sure this will prove to be popular...

A MALAYSIAN state plans to recruit "spies" from the public to snoop on unmarried lovers and report them to Islamic religious authorities.

The Terengganu State Government plans to enlist the part-time spies to look out for un-Islamic behaviour, such as unmarried couples kissing or holding hands, the Star daily newspaper said.

"Some of these 'spies' could be waitresses or even janitors at hotels acting as auxiliary undercover agents for our religious department," the head of the State Government's Islamic and Welfare Committee, Rosol Wahid, was quoted as saying.

Muslim demands in the UK....

Can Britain resist?

Muslim schoolchildren should be treated differently from other pupils, the country’s most prominent Islamic organisation has said.

They should have separate changing rooms for sports and swimming, single sex classes for sex education, prayer rooms and new rights to Islamic worship, and different uniform rules, the Muslim Council of Britain said.

Boys should be allowed to grow beards for religious reasons, said new guidelines for schools published by the council.

The call for special treatment for Muslim pupils comes at a time when Government efforts are concentrated on eliminating segregation and encouraging 'British' values to tackle religious extremism.

The National Association of Head Teachers dismissed the ideas as "completely undoable" and warned they ran against the grain of tolerance in schools.

In a paper offering guidance on the treatment of nearly 400,000 Muslim pupils in state schools, the council said some schools "have not been receptive of legitimate and reasonable requests made by Muslim parents and pupils in relation to their faith-based aspirations and concerns".

It added: "Many of these issues relate to aspects of schooling such as collective worship, communal changing, swimming, halal meals and sex education. It is essential that positive account is taken of the faith dimension of Muslim pupils in education and schooling.

An honour burning....

A husband burns his wife and 4 daughters...

An inquest took place on Tuesday in Blackburn, Lancashire, on Caneze Riaz and her four daughters, who died in a blaze at their home in Accrington on November 1, 2006. 39-year old Caneze, her daughters Sayrah (16), Sophia (15), Alicia (10) and Hannah (3) had no way of escaping the fire as the doors of the home had been bolted. While they had slept, 49-year old Mohammed Riaz, husband to Caneze and father to the four girls, had poured gasoline around the house and had lit several fires. The five had died from smoke inhalation.

Police were told by associates and relatives that Mohammed Riaz was a conservative Muslim, and he was incensed that Caneze wanted to bring up the girls with Western ways.

Riaz had poured gasoline along the first floor landing and down the stairs, as well as in the living rooms. He had demanded arranged marriages for his daughters, but Caneze refused. The fanatical Muslim had destroyed Western-style clothes which had been bought for the girls.

On the night of the fire, Riaz had made three fires, outside the bedroom of his wife and his eldest daughter Sayrah.

Coroner at Blackburn Register Office, Michael SIngleton, took only 35 minutes to rule verdicts of unlawful killing for Caneze and her four daughters. Mrs Riaz had woken, and her DNA was found on a gasoline canister which had been placed in the doorway of her room - indicating she had tried to move it.

The fanatical father was pulled alive from the flames, having suffered 65% burns, but he died two days later at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester.

Only one member of the family survived. 17-year old son Adam Riaz was not in the house at the time, as he was in Christie Hospital in Manchester at the time. He was fighting leukaemia, a battle that he lost, dying on December 11.

And, Barbara Kay asks some big questions..

I'd pick Michael Crichton over David Suzuki anyday....

- Why was climatologist James Hansen -- the father of global warming--off by 200% in his prediction that temperatures would increase by 0.35 degrees Celsius by 2008 (the actual increase has been .11 degrees); and why did he (and colleagues) say in 2001 that "the longterm prediction of future climate states is not possible"?

- Of the world's 160,000 glaciers, some are shrinking. But many --in Iceland, for example --have "surged" in the last few years, while most of Antarctica is getting colder; if warming is "global," why?

- Why haven't sea levels risen to the extent predicted? Why have the waters off the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean not only experienced no rise over several centuries, but an actual fall in the last 20 years?

- Where is the predicted "extreme weather?" There has been no global increase, and in many cases a decrease, of extreme weather patterns.

- From 1940-70, carbon dioxide levels went way up, but temperatures went down so abruptly that a new Ice Age was the prevailing fear; wherefore this disparity?

- The Sahara Desert is shrinking--purportedly due to the greening effects caused by man-made global warming; but isn't the greening of the desert a good thing? I know to ask these questions only because I've read State of Fear. And as the environmental hysteria burgeons, I continue to press the book on everyone I know. Forget the silly (but riveting) plot, which is to the embedded environmental science in the novel as blini to caviar. You cannot read State of Fear with an open mind and continue to believe global warming is a "totally settled issue."

Some wisdom on global warming...

There are some rational voices out there...

Many things are contributing to such global temperature changes. Solar radiation is one. Sunspot activity has reached a thousand-year high, according to European astronomy institutions. Solar radiation is reducing Mars's southern icecap, which has been shrinking for three summers despite the absence of SUVS and coal-fired electrical plants anywhere on the Red Planet. Back on Earth, a NASA study reports that solar radiation has increased in each of the past two decades, and environmental scholar Bjorn Lomborg, citing a 1997 atmosphere-ocean general circulation model, observes that "the increase in direct solar irradiation over the past 30 years is responsible for about 40 percent of the observed global warming."

Statistics suggest that while there has indeed been a slight warming in the past century, much of it was neither human-induced nor geographically uniform. Half of the past century's warming occurred before 1940, when the human population and its industrial base were far smaller than now. And while global temperatures are now slightly up, in some areas they are dramatically down. According to "Climate Change and Its Impacts," a study published last spring by the National Center for Policy Analysis, the ice mass in Greenland has grown, and "average summer temperatures at the summit of the Greenland ice sheet have decreased 4 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since the late 1980s." British environmental analyst Lord Christopher Monckton says that from 1993 through 2003 the Greenland ice sheet "grew an average extra thickness of 2 inches a year," and that in the past 30 years the mass of the Antarctic ice sheet has grown as well.

Brutal anti-semitic attack in London...

This is very scary....

Police in London are appealing for information about a brutal anti-Semitic attack committed by three teenage thugs armed with baseball bats and rocks in one of the city’s most vibrant Jewish neighbourhoods.

The attackers - one of whom was described as white, one Asian and one of Mediterranean complexion - launched their assault in Golders Green Road last Tuesday shortly after their two Jewish victims, one of whom was a tourist, left a restaurant at 9.30pm.

Police say the men were given a torrent of anti-Semitic verbal abuse as they left the restaurant, and they were followed and physically attacked minutes later.

The trio of thugs hit their victims with baseball bats, wooden sticks and rocks and left the men with bruises, cuts to their faces and arms as they tried to defend themselves, officers say.

The London Jewish News reported that the victims were brothers.

One of the victims was a 25-year-old on holiday from France, who was left with cuts to the face and arms, a swollen lip and severe bruising.

His brother, 35, suffered a slashed arm in the attack, the newspaper reported.

Muslims in Germany - A status report..

An unsettling look at Germany's muslim population.

A teacher at Richard Elementary in the same district gave disturbing evidence last year to the school committee: German children "weren't really being tolerated," and "Christian" was often used as a term of contempt. The teachers were doing their best to set things straight during class "but, sadly, with very little success," she said.

School is one of the few places where young Muslims come into contact with the non-Islamic environment. As a result, the teachers often see what is happening most clearly. Dietmar Pagel, principal of the Hector-Peterson High School in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, actively seeks dialog with his students. But with increasing frequency, he and his colleagues feel they are banging their heads against a brick wall. "Lots of our adolescents have a fundamentalist outlook on life," he says. Many more girls are wearing headscarves, and almost all the Muslim students fasted during the major Islamic holidays, with catastrophic consequences for their performance at school. "The further we get into Ramadan, the more distracted the pupils become."

He often feels let down by the politicians who discuss the problems of integration more passionately than ever, yet won't appoint the additional social workers and teachers he needs. But Pagel refuses to give up. After the caricatures of Mohammed were published, he attempted to debate the controversy with his pupils. But the discussion was hopelessly lopsided. The children contributed a few bits of factual information, the principal relates, but then "the room fell silent when it came to the moral dimension, so the teachers simply held forth on their own ideas."

He cannot get through to his pupils any more, Pagel complains. "If I say that headscarves are worn less in Turkey than here, they simply counter: 'That's why we came to Germany, so that we can openly practice our religion.'" And sometimes they simply remind him that - as a non-Muslim - he would be better off keeping such views to himself.

The truth about organic food products....

They are actually harmful to the environment....

Organic food could actually be worse for the environment than produce grown using pesticides and fertilisers, say scientists.

A government report claims that, despite its eco-friendly image, some organic farming creates greater pollution and contributes more to global warming.

According to the study, certain organic foodstuffs — such as milk, chicken and tomatoes — produce more greenhouse gases, create more soil and water pollutants and require more energy and land for their production than those farmed by conventional methods.

As the first major report on the environmental impact of organic food production, the document will reignite the debate over the £1.6billion industry, which grew by almost a third last year alone and now accounts for four per cent of farm produce.

The market is forecast to be worth £2.7billion by 2010.

"You cannot say that all organic food is better for the environment than all food grown conventionally," said Ken Green, professor of environmental management at Manchester Business School, who conducted the research with the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs.

"If you look carefully at the amount of energy required to produce these foods, you get a complicated picture.

"In some cases, the carbon footprint for organics is larger."

The report looked at Britain’s 150 top-selling foodstuffs, as identified by supermarkets, and assessed energy use, the effect of by-products from farming, and the impact of processing and packaging of both methods.

It concluded that there was "insufficient evidence" to prove organically farmed food was better for the environment.

"In particular, organic agriculture poses its own environmental problems in the production of some foods, either in terms of nutrient release to water or in terms of climate change burdens," the report said.

Buy this book immediately!

Nick Cohen is a British journalist who has just written a tour de force called, "What's Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way".

I couldn't put this book down. Cohen is furious at the left - furious that they have not supported the Iraqi people, furious that identity politics have betrayed the working class, furious that the left supports anything that is against Bush and the United Stated, furious at the new anti-semitism amongst the left, furious at organizations like Amnesty International....etc and etc.

Now, I should say up front that Cohen is no conservative. He was not a supporter of the war in Iraq, and doesn't think highly of George Bush. He has written extensively about his dislike of Tony Blair. Fair enough. But, Cohen has some principles, and he cares deeply about the working class and believs in helping working people everywhere. You know, if more liberals thought like Cohen, I might just become one.

I like people who rock the boat. And, Cohen does just that. He also makes me think back to when I was a socialist. I used to rail on about Ronald Reagan and his acceptance of dictators around the world. Well, the world has changed and George Bush isn't trying to replace dictators with other dictators.

And, like someone who is honest, Cohen recognizes that. But for most of the left, if you oppose Bush, no matter how vile, you're ok.

Here's one quick excerpt from his chapter, "The Liberals Go Berserk."

When a war came to overthrow him [Saddam Hussein] came, the liberals had two choices,. The first was to oppose the war, remain hypercritical of aspects of the Bush administration's policy, but support Iraqis as they struggled to establish a democracy.

The policy of not leaving Iraqis stranded was so clearly the only moral option, it never occurred to me that there could be another choice. I dhad have an eminent liberal specialist on foreign policy tell me that "we're just going to have to forget about Saddam's victims', but I thought he was shooting his mouth off in the heat of the moment. From the point of view of the liberals, the only ground they would have to concede if they had stuck by their principles in Iraq would have been an acknowledgement that the way had a degree of legitimacy. They would have still ben able to say it was catastrophically mismanaged, a provocation to al-Qaeda and all the rest of it. They would have still been able to condemn atrocities by American troops, Guantanamo Bay, and Bush's pushing of the boundaries of torture. They might have usefully have linked up with like-minded Iraqis, who wanted international support to fight against the American insistence on privatization of industries, for instance. All they would have had to accept was that th attempt to build a better Iraq was worthwhile and one to which they could and should make a positive commitment.

A small price to pay; a price all their liberal principles insisted they had a duty to pay. Or so it seemed.

The second choice for the liberals was to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. To look at the Iraqi civilians and the British and American troops who were dying in a war whose central premise had proved to be false, and to go berserk; to allow justifiable anger to propel them into 'binges of posturing and ultra-radicalism' as the Sixties liberals had done when they went off the rails. As one critic characterized the position, they would have to pretend that 'the United States was THE problem and Iraq as its problem.' They would have to maintain that the war was not an attempt to break the power of tyranny in a benighted region, but the bloody result of a 'financially driven mania to control Middle Eastern oil, and the faith-driven crusade the batter the crescent with the cross.'

They chose to go berserk.

The book is full of great stuff to quote. I plan to give this book to several of my liberal friends - but I am sure they will see it as conservative propaganda. But it isn't. Cohen has stayed true to his principles - and I hope his book is widely read.

Dutch comedians aren't laughing...

They're under threat from radical muslims...

Actor and stand-up comedian Hans Teeuwen has launched a solidarity campaign to support his colleague Ewout Jansen, who has been receiving death threats from Muslim extremists because of his jokes, De Volkskrant writes.

Teeuwen says he finds it difficult to unite all fellow-comedians as one force, for many seem to be afraid to speak out for the "freedom of humour". Every comedian's agenda tells you the exact time and place where he is going to perform. One or two phone calls with threats and he cannot perform at ease any more, Teeuwen explains.

Teeuwen will act as the spokesperson for the cabaret duo Ewout Jansen en Etiënne Kemerink, to distract the attention now focused on Jansen.

Meanwhile, the threats have been addressed not only to Jansen, but targeted at every form of satire somehow touching upon Islam.

This is why Ewout and Etienne are calling upon all Dutch comedians to join in filing collective charges against a member of the Amsterdam As Soenna Mosque named Kabli and the mosque's current leadership.

At the end of January, Kabli told student magazine Folia that it was supposedly every Muslim's task to fight back if jokes were made about Islam. Such jokes are called haram (reprehensible). If a comedian, despite having been warned, continues with his jokes, he must be punished or even killed, Kabli said in the interview.

Kabli added that Muslims felt "powerless" next to popular performers. "We could press charges, but any non-Muslim judge would decide against us", he said.

UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees....

Som interesting facts about their 2006 budget.

Of UNRWA's $462 million 2006 budget, $137m. came from the US, $41m. from Sweden, $27m. from the UK and $12m. from Denmark. Saudi Arabia, the world's richest oil-producer, managed to scrape a mere $1.2m. Smaller Kuwait managed a tad more with $1.5m., still a drop in its overflowing oil bucket. The rest of the Arab states are even less generous. Oil-rich Bahrain spared no more than $30,000. Indeed the Arab world's share has declined. In the 1980s it financed 8% of UNRWA's outlay. By 2006 it put in less than 3%.

How the Arab states help al-Queda...

So-called allies of the west were very willing to help Al-Qaeda...

MIDDLE EASTERN countries secretly armed and supported suspected Al-Qaeda recruits in the failed state of Somalia in a direct challenge to western interests in east Africa, according to a United Nations report.

Hundreds of Islamist fighters were flown, with Eritrean assistance, from Somalia to Syria and Libya for military training. Others were taken to Lebanon to fight with Hezbollah, the report to the UN security council has revealed.

UN investigators also detailed military aid given to the Islamists by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Arab states friendly to the West. Iran also supplied 125 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, 80 of which arrived by sea in dhows and the rest by air.

A clandestine operation to smuggle the fighters out of Somalia began in July last year.

In an interview, Evgueny Zakharov, the owner of Aerolift, an airline with a fleet of ageing Antonov and Ilyushin transport aircraft, based in Johannesburg but registered in the British Virgin Islands, said: “We transported lots of men in uniform — Arabian men with masks.

“They were disciplined men and although none of them had rank badges there were obviously people in charge. They got on the aircraft as if they had done it many times before.”

Zakharov said his involvement began after he was approached by a General Tambi of the Eritrean People’s Defence Forces. Eritrea, a neighbour of Somalia in the volatile Horn of Africa, was a major supporter of the Islamists.

Tambi offered to buy Zakharov’s Ilyushin 76 transport aircraft carrying the Kazakhstan registration number UN 76496 for $1.5m (£770,000), even though the normal price for an aircraft of that vintage and condition is just $1m.

Zakharov went ahead despite the unusual contract conditions that stipulated secrecy. He insisted the contract should specify that the new owners were not to use the aircraft to make arms flights.

However, he said last week that the Ilyushin made three sanctions-busting arms flights to Somalia from the Eritrean port of Massawa, bringing out the masked men on the return legs. “I do not know who they were but you can draw your own conclusions,” he said.

Zakharov’s revelations came as western security services continued their investigation into foreigners suspected of fighting on behalf of Islamic forces in Somalia and of joining Al-Qaeda last year. Among them are British, American and French Muslims.

Significant numbers of foreigners went to Somalia, western intelligence officials have found, after the radical Islamic Courts Union (ICU) movement seized power from a weak UNbacked government, established links with Al-Qaeda and allowed Somalia to be used as an Al-Qaeda terrorist training ground like Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

Jews can't run for President in Bosnia...

Of course, the tougher thing would be winning...

Jakob Finci, the leader of Sarajevo's small Jewish community, has asked the European Court of Human Rights to lift the prohibition on Jews and other minorities running for the Bosnian presidency.

Under the country's post-war constitution, only Bosnian Serbs and Croats, who are overwhelmingly Catholic and Christian Orthodox, respectively, and Bosniaks, who are Muslim, are allowed to run for presidency. Bosnia has three presidents, each representing one of Bosnia's principal constituent groups.

"We understand that Mr. Finci wants the equal right to vote and be voted for, but unfortunately this is not the case," Bosnia's ambassador to Israel, Nedeljko Maslesa, told The Jerusalem Post on Friday. "The Bosnian government is aware of the case, but has no official position on it."

The Minority Rights Group International in London and Sheri Rosenberg, director of the program in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cordozo Law school in New York, are supporting Finci's application.

"As far as [we] are aware, there is no other case in Europe where Jews are actually prevented from contesting the presidency" an official from the Minority Rights Group said in a statement. "Ironically, the Bosnian constitution is a modern day creation, but de facto reinforces centuries-old discrimination." There are about 500 Jews living in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Here's something really promising...

Yes, a Secular Islam Summit. This sounds awesome.

Among the speakers are Nonie Darwish, Irshad Manji, Wafa Sultan (who had a great debate on Al-Jazeera that was played all over YouTube), Amir Taheri and Ibn Warraq (who wrote the book, Why I am Not a Muslim).

The summit will take palce from March 4-5, 2007 in St. Petersburg, Florida. I wish them the best of luck.

Are polio vaccines an American plot?

Most people would think that is a really stupid question...but not some clerics in Pakistan.

The parents of 24,000 children in northern Pakistan refused to allow health workers to administer polio vaccinations last month, mostly due to rumours that the harmless vaccine was an American plot to sterilise innocent Muslim children.

The disinformation - spread by extremist clerics using mosque loudspeakers and illegal radio stations, and by word of mouth - has caused a sharp jump in polio cases in Pakistan and hit global efforts to eradicate the debilitating disease.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recorded 39 cases of polio in Pakistan in 2006, up from 28 in 2005. The disease is concentrated in North-West Frontier Province, where 60% of the refusals were attributed to "religious reasons".

How's this for European denial?

This is scary...an interview with the ex-foreign minister of Germany Joschka Fischer.

Joseph Puder: In your presentation, you did not touch upon the Islamic threat to Europe. How do you see this threat?

Joschka Fischer: (Waving his hand in a dismissive gesture) The Muslim vote in Europe is insignificant, and European leaders are not formulating their policies with the Muslim community in Europe on their mind.

JP: And what about the prospect of Shariah laws in Europe?

JF: It is more likely in the U.S. than in Europe. Your system is much more liberal in this respect. You have the separation of Church and State that Europe does not have. Since the Reformation, European leaders chose the religion of their respective states. I do not envision such a thing as Shariah laws in Europe.

JP: How about your multi-culturalism and political correctness, which accommodates radical Muslims in Europe?

JF: I believe that you have it worse in the U.S.

Drug rape is a myth....

At last, some sense...from the UK..you'd never see a study like this in Canada...

Women who claim to be victims of 'date-rape' drugs such as Rohypnol have in fact been rendered helpless by binge-drinking, says a study by doctors.

They found no evidence that any woman seeking help from emergency doctors because their drinks were allegedly spiked had actually been given these drugs.

Around one in five tested positive for recreational drugs while two-thirds had been drinking heavily.

The findings further erode the theory that there is widespread use of Rohypnol and GHB, another drug said to be favoured by predatory rapists.

Last month a personal safety campaigner claimed that Rohypnol had never been used to assist a sexual assault in the UK. Doctors carrying out the latest study at the Wrexham Maelor Hospital said it was far more likely women were claiming their drinks had been spiked as an "excuse" for binge-drinking.

The 12-month study was based on 75 patients - mostly women - treated in casualty who told doctors their drinks had been tampered with in pubs or clubs.

But tests for drugs such as Rohypnol, GHB and ketamine found nothing, says the study published in the Emergency Medicine Journal.

It showed 65 per cent of women had 160mg of alcohol in their blood - twice the 80mg drink/drive limit - and a quarter were three times over the limit. Although all the patients denied taking drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine, one fifth tested positive.

No matter what - you have to pay child support...

Yet another case that's ridiculous...

Once again, Missouri judges have ordered a man to pay thousands of dollars in child support for a child he didn't father.

This time, even the child's mother agrees the man is not the father. Yet a state agency says he is, because he was married to the woman when she gave birth.

The state wants David Salazar thrown in jail, and an appeals court on Tuesday agreed.

His lawyer, though, hopes that a higher court will rescue the Buchanan County man and others like him caught in a national issue that pits fairness for men against what is considered best for children.

Many men nationwide get trapped into paying child support because they do not contest paternity before state-set deadlines.

Several states recently have changed laws or are considering changes that would allow men to introduce DNA evidence after the deadlines have passed. A bill pending in the Missouri Senate would allow that here.

In the case decided Tuesday, David Salazar and his wife agreed that they separated 14 months before she had a baby girl by another man in November 2001.

But the couple was too poor to pay for a divorce, his attorney said. A hospital clerk ordered the mother to list Salazar as father on the birth certificate. The Missouri Division of Child Support Enforcement named Salazar the father without DNA testing.

Salazar did not attend a hearing to contest the paternity finding. A Buchanan County judge later found him guilty of not paying $278 a month in child support and sentenced him to 28 days in jail.

Salazar appealed, but lost Tuesday in a 6-5 ruling by the appeals court in Kansas City

The New President of Harvard...

Heather Mac Donald writes on the new feminist President of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust.

Faust runs one of the most powerful incubators of feminist complaint and nonsensical academic theory in the country. You can count on the Radcliffe Institute’s fellows and invited lecturers to proclaim the “constructed” nature of knowledge, gender, and race, and to decry endemic American sexism and racism. Typical guest speakers include left-wing journalists Susan Faludi and Barbara Ehrenreich. At Radcliffe, Faludi argued that 9/11 had triggered yet another “backlash against feminism,” while Ehrenreich lectured on “Weird Science: Challenging Sexist Ideology Since the 1970s.” It is received truth among Radcliffe Institute lecturers that obstacles throughout American society block women’s progress. Radcliffe speaker Rebecca Walker, for example, has created the “I Spy Sexism” initiative, which asks young women between the ages of 15 and 30 to keep logs of the “sexism, racism, and homophobia” that they see as they walk down the street or go to a movie.

With typical feminist hypocrisy, Faust has managed to wield massive power even as she rues female powerlessness. She headed the Task Force on Women Faculty, created after the firestorm over Summers’s recklessly honest speculations about women in science, that strengthened the feminist hold on faculty hiring and promotions. The Task Force won a $50 million commitment to increase faculty “diversity efforts” at Harvard, notwithstanding that for decades the university has tied itself in knots trying to increase female and black faculty representation. Faust’s Task Force also muscled into existence a remarkable new bureaucratic sinecure: the Senior Vice Provost for Diversity and Faculty Development. This new official sits with the president, the provost, and the deans of faculties, in order to push “diversity” quotas in every corner of the university’s academic operations. Naturally, Harvard gave the new position to one of Faust’s two co-chairs on the Task Force: Evelyn Hammonds, a professor of the history of science, and of African and African-American studies, who specializes in discerning bias against minority women in science and medicine. (Please do not question how Hammonds’s unobstructed rise through the most elite American universities comports with her thesis of pervasive discrimination against black women.)

How low can the Taliban go?

And, Jack Layton wants to negotiate with them?

Taliban fighters used children as human shields to flee heavy fighting this week during an operation by foreign and Afghan forces to clear rebels from around a key hydro-electric dam, NATO said on Wednesday.

The Taliban have used human shields before, but never children, local residents say.

The fighting occurred during Operation Kryptonite on Monday, an offensive to clear insurgents from the Kajaki Dam area in southern Helmand province to allow repairs to its power plants and the installation of extra capacity.

"During this action ... Taliban extremists resorted to the use of human shields. Specifically, using local Afghan children to cover as they escaped out of the area," Colonel Tom Collins, a pokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told reporters in Kabul.

One way to stop rape and incest...

An innovative idea from a Malaysian Imam.

A leading Malaysian Muslim cleric has suggested that all women should be fitted with chastity belts as a deterrent to rape and incest, a news report said Friday.

Abu Hassan Al-Hafiz, an influential cleric from the northeastern Terengganu state, said that women were most safe from sexual predators if they donned some form of barrier to their sexual organs.

"We have even come across a number of unusual sex cases, where even senior citizens and children are not spared. The best way to avert sex perpetrators is to wear protection," Abu Hassan said in a sermon late Thursday, quoted by the Star daily.

"My intention is not to offend women but to safeguard them from sex maniacs. Besides, husbands could also feel more secure, if you know what I mean."

Some global warming skeptics...

The ranks are growing...

Claude Allegre: The recent conversion in 2006 of Allegre, a geophysicist and French Socialist, from alarmist to skeptic, is just one example of a growing list of scientists leaving the alarmist climate camp. Allegre now says the cause of climate change is "unknown" and he also accused proponents of manmade catastrophic global warming of being motivated by money, noting that "the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!"

Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv, one of Israel's top young scientists recanted his belief in manmade emissions driving climate change. "Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming," Shaviv said in January 2007. But Shaviv now points to growing peer reviewed evidence that the sun has been driving the temperature changes. "Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming," Shaviv said. "I am quite sure Kyoto is not the right way to go," Shaviv added. one of Israel's top young scientists recanted his belief in manmade emissions driving climate change. "Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming," Shaviv said in January 2007. But Shaviv now points to growing peer reviewed evidence that the sun has been driving the temperature changes. "Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming," Shaviv said. "I am quite sure Kyoto is not the right way to go," Shaviv added.

Climate scientist Henrik Svensmark, released a report last week from his team of researchers at the Danish National Space Centre which shows that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere. "We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years," Svensmark said. released a report last week from his team of researchers at the Danish National Space Centre which shows that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere. "We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years," Svensmark said.

Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, also expressed his view last week that the UN rejects science it sees as "politically incorrect" and the UN denies that "climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis." former editor of New Scientist, also expressed his view last week that the UN rejects science it sees as "politically incorrect" and the UN denies that "climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis."

Canadian climatologist Timothy Ball recently called fears of man-made global warming "the greatest deception in the history of science." recently called fears of man-made global warming "the greatest deception in the history of science."

Meteorologist James Spann said in January that he does "not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype" and he noted that "Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon." said in January that he does "not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype" and he noted that "Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon."

Meteorologist Reid Bryson, who was pivotal in promoting the coming ice age scare of the 1970's ( See Time Magazine's 1974 article "Another Ice Age") has now converted into a leading global warming skeptic. Bryson now dismisses what he terms "sky is falling" man-made global warming fears in an article last week.

Another reason to support gay marriage...

Opponents of gay marriage claim they support civil unions...yet look at what has happened in Michigan.

A Michigan appeals court ruling that bans public universities and state and local governments from providing health insurance to partners of gay employees has alarmed gay rights advocates nationwide.

They fear the decision could encourage similar rulings in 17 other states whose bans on gay marriage could be interpreted to prohibit domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples.

Michigan last week became the first state to rule that public employers cannot offer health benefits if the benefits are based on treating same-sex relationships similar to marriage.

''It really is just a matter of time before we start seeing wholesale litigation in this area,'' said Carrie Evans, state legislative director for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group in Washington.

In Alaska, the only other state to rule on the benefits given to same-sex partners of public employees, the courts ruled the other way, saying it was unconstitutional to deny them.

More than 20 other states have yet to decide how their gay marriage bans apply to same-sex partner benefits.

Dennis Patrick, a professor at Eastern Michigan University, worries that Michigan's ruling will strip his partner's health insurance.

The couple have adopted four foster children, one with a developmental disability, and Tom Patrick works part-time so he can care for them.

"If he has to go back to work full-time, that hurts our family. Or we have to pay for health benefits out of pocket, which hurts our family," Dennis Patrick said. "To me that either demonstrates a lack of understanding of how this can affect our family or other families, or it's just mean and cruel."

Fortunately, we don't have to worry about this in Canada!

Another data point for global warming?

When the winter is over, we'll count up all the deaths due to cold....but, how about this...snow in Kathmandu.

Snow fell on Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, for the first time in 63 years on Wednesday, stirring excitement and curiosity among residents and their children.

"I have never seen it snow in Kathmandu in all my life," said 45-year-old housewife Manju Shrestha, playing in the snow with her young children.

Weather officials said the brief snowfall, which lasted only a few minutes, was the result of a "westerly disturbance" over Nepal that earlier in the week caused heavy rains.

Though the Himalayan country is home to
Mount Everest, Kathmandu, with a population of 1.5 million people, is situated in a valley and has not had snow since January 1944, according to Independent Kantipur television.

It said one young man was killed in the icy weather in the western Palpa district.

How on earth can we win in Afghanistan???

The Norwegian government is ONLY allowing its troops to serve in Kabul - probably the safest place in the country.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg repeatedly assured questioners in parliament on Wednesday that the new Norwegian forces being sent to Afghanistan will solely operate in the Kabul area, and insisted that the issue has not split the majority coalition government.

The opposition demanded clarification on this point after Defense Minister Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen said Tuesday that there would be no limitation on where the 150 new soldiers could be deployed, while Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre insisted that Kabul was their only sphere of operation.

"We have made it clear to NATO that the forces shall only be used in Kabul and no other place. If they need to be moved elsewhere then this will be a matter of governmental discussion," Stoltenberg said.

A great letter from Grant Brown..

You might have seen the story in which a woman was cleared of pimping charges in Winipeg. Here's a letter by Grant Brown to the National Post:

Justice John Scurfield determined that 41-year-old Natalie Matinet steered a troubled 13-year-old runaway toward a life of drugs and sex for money. "There is no doubt that she contributed to the corruption and destruction of a young girl's life," he says, before acquitting the woman.

As if that isn't perplexing enough, Justice Scurfield goes on to observe that it was possible Ms. Matinet's boyfriend was pushing the teen into drugs and sex but that she was too scared of him to tell police the truth. Yet the man was never charged.

It seems we have a new "man in the house" rule in Canada: If there is a man in the house, no woman can be held criminally resp

Where's the gay activists on this?

And, how many governments are going to protest?

The National Assembly held public hearings Wednesday on a bill to ban gay marriage and criminalize virtually all forms of gay expression in Nigeria.

The bill lays down penalties of up to five years for anyone watching or reading material deemed to be pro-gay either in public or in their own homes, and even would forbids meetings between two gay people.

In part, the proposed bill reads:

"Any person who is involved in the registration of gay clubs, societies and organizations, sustenance, procession or meetings, publicity and public show of same sex amorous relationship directly or indirectly in public and in private is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a term of five years imprisonment.''

And, now for something completely ridiculous...

My god..they gave him tinned halal meat, instead of fresh...

ONE of the victims of a Brisbane pedophile who was controversially awarded $2000 compensation for being refused fresh halal meat in prison has urged the Queensland Government to freeze the funds and launch an appeal.

The woman, now in her late 20s, said she was still receiving counselling to help her cope with severe trauma arising from the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of Sharif Mahommed.

"He could flush that money down the toilet and it would be better than going into his pocket," she told The Australian. "I can't think of a decent way to say what I would really like to say to the court about its decision.

"It's ridiculous that this is about his Muslim faith. As far as I'm concerned, after what he's done, he has no religious beliefs ... I have been trying for the last 19 years to put this behind me. I know there are people out there fighting for his rights. I don't think anyone has given a damn about me, to put it bluntly."

Mahommed, who was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment, has been backed by Queensland's Supreme Court, which affirmed an earlier decision by the state's Anti-Discrimination Tribunal that found he had been unfairly denied fresh halal meat.

The court heard that instead of fresh halal meat he was given tinned halal meat, as well as vegetarian meals, fish, chicken, salads and lasagne as substitute meals.

Mahommed, a Muslim who has since been released from prison, lost weight because he did not look forward to the meals. He could not enjoy the tinned halal meat, which he regarded as "fatty and salty".

Doesn't take much to start a riot....

I guess I should start a daily column on the muslim outrage of the day...

Groups of Egyptian Muslims set fire to Christian-owned shops in southern Egypt after hearing rumours of a love affair between a Muslim woman and a Coptic Christian man, security sources and a witness said yesterday.

Eight Muslim men were arrested in the town of Armant, around 600 km south of Cairo, on suspicion of taking part in arson attacks on four stores and a mini-van owned by Coptic Christians, the security sources said.

The EU Gives Up On Stopping Iran....

They give up so easily...I guess it's in their bones.

European Commission officials have issued a bleak assessment of Iran's nuclear potential, all but surrendering to the inevitability that Teheran will develop enough weapons-grade uranium to make a nuclear bomb.

The three-page policy paper, presented to EU foreign ministers at the weekend by Brussels diplomats and subsequently leaked, said that the EU's twin-track policy – offering Teheran rewards for renouncing its secret weapons programme but threatening sanctions if it did not – had failed.

"At some stage we must expect that Iran will acquire the capacity to enrich uranium on the scale required for a weapons programme," it said. "Attempts to engage the Iranian administration in a negotiating process have not so far succeeded. The Iranians have pursued their programme at their own pace, the limiting factor being technical difficulties rather than resolutions by the UN or the International Atomic Energy Agency."

Irshad Manji on Israel as an apartheid state...

It's Israel Apartheid week in Toronto and Montreal....but, here's the truth...

Would the vast majority of Arab Israeli citizens turn out to vote in national elections, as they've usually done? Would an apartheid state have several Arab political parties, as Israel does? In recent Israeli elections, two Arab parties found themselves disqualified for expressly supporting terrorism against the Jewish state. However, Israel's Supreme Court, exercising its independence, overturned both disqualifications. Under any system of apartheid, would the judiciary be free of political interference?

Would an apartheid state award its top literary prize to an Arab? Israel honoured Emile Habibi in 1986, before the intifada might have made such a choice politically shrewd. Would an apartheid state encourage Hebrew-speaking schoolchildren to learn Arabic? Would road signs throughout the land appear in both languages? Even my country, the proudly bilingual Canada, doesn't meet that standard.

Would an apartheid state be home to universities where Arabs and Jews mingle at will, or apartment blocks where they live side by side? Would an apartheid state bestow benefits and legal protections on Palestinians who live outside of Israel but work inside its borders? Would human rights organisations operate openly in an apartheid state? They do in Israel.

For that matter, military officials go public with their criticisms of government policies. In October 2003, the Israel Defence Forces' chief of staff told the press that road closures in the West Bank and Gaza were feeding Palestinian anger. Two weeks later, four former heads of the Shin Bet security service blasted the occupation and called on Ariel Sharon to withdraw troops unilaterally, which later happened in Gaza. Would an apartheid state stomach so much dissent from those mandated to protect the state?

Above all, would media debate the most basic building blocks of the nation? Would a Hebrew newspaper in an apartheid state run an article by an Arab Israeli about why the Zionist adventure has been a total failure? Would it run that article on Israel's independence day? Would an apartheid state ensure conditions for the freest Arabic press in the Middle East, a press so free that it can demonstrably abuse its liberties and keep on rolling? To this day, the East Jerusalem daily Al-Quds hasn't retracted an anti-Israel letter supposedly penned by Nelson Mandela but proven to have been written by an Arab living in The Netherlands.

But, read the whole thing...

Hey..I like the Czech President...

Some realism on global warming from the Czech President.

Global warming is a myth and I think that every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" and "if's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.

Hurrah! But, please read the whole interview!

Here we go again with the cartoons...

Let's hope they don't give into this ridiculous pressure...

MUSLIMS in Cambridge have demanded a public apology from a student who printed anti-Islamic material in a magazine.

The material included a cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammed which sparked worldwide outrage last year when it was published in Denmark. It is thought this is the first time the cartoon has appeared in a publication in England.

Asim Mumtaz, president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, said: "I'm horrified and shocked. In such a seat of learning, I am horrified that things could stoop to this level.

"I'm actually shocked that intelligent people know how offensive this cartoon is and that they have decided to reprint it in such a horrible manner. It's disgusting."

The cartoon was reprinted in Clare College's student magazine in a special edition on religious satire. The 19-year-old student who printed the cartoon has since gone into hiding and the college has called a rare Court of Discipline to decide how the student should be brought to account.

Mr Mumtaz, a former Cambridge University student himself, is now demanding that everyone involved with the publication of the cartoon should make a public apology.

Feminist Courses at Concordia....

Ever look at the number of feminist courses at a University? At Concordia University in Montreal, they not only have an entire College dedicated to Women's studies, but just about every department has feminist courses.

The Simone de Beauvoir Institute lists a total of 13 main courses. Here is a partial list:

Women of Colour
Feminism, Race & Racism
Boys, Dudes & Men: Feminist Perspectives
Queer Feminism
Feminist Ethics
Marxism and Feminism

Ugh! But, if you start to go to other departments like History and Political Science, you'll find other feminist courses. So, in Political Science they offer:

Women and Politics in Canada
Women, Ethics and the Law In Canada

And, if you take a Master's degree in Political Science you can take:

Feminist Critiques of Public Policy
Gender and International Politics

Then, if you go to the History Department, you'll find the following:

Women in Western History I: In Her Own Voice
Gender and Sexuality in South Asia
Gender, Sexuality, and Empire: The View from the Modern Middle East

You can go to the Classics Department and you'll find:

Representations of Women in Ancient Greece and Rome

And, if you go to Communications, you'll find:

Media and Gender
Communications Technoloty and Gender

Is there a department at Concordia that does NOT have feminist courses? Are there ANY courses at Concordia that looks at Men???

When will the African Union come to the aid of Zimbabwe?

Somebody's got to remove Mugabe from power...

Inflation in Zimbabwe has reached such proportions that it destroyed the value of a new national currency before a single one of its banknotes had been spent.

The world's highest inflation rate, which rose to a record 1,594 per cent yesterday, rendered the new money worthless before it could be distributed. Mounds of banknotes — all paid for in scarce hard currency — are lying unused in warehouses.

President Robert Mugabe's regime ordered the new money from a German company, Giesecke and Devrient, in 2004. At that time, inflation was a relatively modest 400 per cent and Mr Mugabe was anxious to avoid the impression of economic chaos.

Jonathan Moyo, then information minister, disclosed that Mr Mugabe personally insisted that a banknote of 1,000 Zimbabwe dollars could be the highest denomination of the new currency.

"In early 2004, Mugabe thought that inflation had been conquered and he refused to allow notes of a value higher," said Mr Moyo.

Yet by the time the new currency had been designed, printed and delivered, Z$1,000 had a purchasing power of about nine pence. Today, it would be just enough to buy a box of matches.

Rather than release a currency whose largest banknote is roughly the value of one tomato, the Reserve Bank in the capital, Harare, simply stockpiled the useless money.

Isn't this just plain discrimination?

I guess not if the ends justify the means.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion is prepared to take “extraordinary measures” to boost the ranks of female candidates in the next election, including barring men from seeking nominations in some ridings.

During last year’s leadership race, Dion promised that under his watch at least a third of the party’s candidates in the next election would be women.

But campaign organizers have concluded that the ambitious goal will be impossible to reach without some intervention to secure nominations for female candidates.

So-called green-light committees, set up to run the party’s nomination process in each province, have been empowered to ensure the 33 per cent target is met. Among other things, the committees can set dates for nomination meetings and approve or reject nomination papers from those seeking to carry the Liberal colours.

Where necessary, the committees will be able to simply refuse to allow men to run for nominations in some ridings.

So, merit gets thrown out the window....and local democracy also gets thrown out the window...in the name of political corrrectness. Thanks to Jeremy for sending me this article.

Why Canada should ignore Kyoto....

As you know, I've been blogging about the plans the Chinese have for powering their economy over the next 20 years. In case you missed it, here's an excerpt from an editorian in the Financial Post last Thursday:

China announced that last year alone it added 102 gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity to its economy. Give or take a gigawatt, that new capacity is equal to roughly Canada's total current annual electricity capacity.

These new Chinse power plants are 90% coal-powered, which means they spew out large amounts of carbon emissions. With the help of an expert, I've worked out an estimate of the new annual carbom emissions China added to its inventory last year alone. If 90% of the 102 gigawatts is coal, that means coal capacity of about 90 gigawatts. If the power plants operate at 60% capacity, the new plans will add 473 million kilowatt hours to China's annual electricity production. A conventional and reasonable estimate of carbon emissions is about 1.1 kilograms of greenhouse gases for each kilowatt-hour of power, for an annual total of 470 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent each year.

To recap: China last year added electricity-generating capacity that will produce an estimated 470 million tonnes of greenhouse gases each year. That number id equal to about 70% of the total annual greenhouse-gas emissions from the entire Canadian economy. Not 70% of the Canadian electricity secotr, but 70% of total annual emissions from all sectors -- energy, automobiles, heating, industry -- of the Canadian economy.

Canada's estimated national economy-wide production of greenhouse-gas emissions is currently about 750 million tonnes. Even if China cleans up the coal with the latest technology -- unlikely -- or even sequesters part, it will still be pumping new carbon into the atmosphere equal to 50% of Canada's total emissions. Even under the best environmental assumption of total sequestriation, in which China would capture and store carbon at these new plants, it will still be producing 140 million tonnes of carbon, or almost 20% of total Canadian carbon emissions.

These numbers demonstrate global issues that have always been obvious, which is that Canada's carbon role is worth only 2.3% of total world carbon emissions. China is adding the equivalent of a new Canada every year.

When I watch the news, it seems like the public believes that if we reduce OUR carbon emissions, then Canada won't heat up. But, global warming is just that - global. No matter how much we reduce, total emissions won't be going down....and if you believe that carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming (which I don't), then, the problem won't go away.

How's this for an honour killing?

It's hard to make this stuff up...

A man has been charged with the premeditated murder of his sister who was shot dead in the country’s second “honour crime” this year. The suspect, a taxi driver, told police he killed his 22-year-old married sister after receiving an anonymous call suggesting she was having “extramarital affairs”.

The caller told the man his sister’s picture was “circulating on men’s mobile phones”. It was also revealed the authorities had arrested the woman last year and kept her briefly in administrative detention - a protection measure to ensure she was not harmed by her family - after she ran away from home.

Could you imagine the reverse?

Palestinian hospitals treating Israeli soldiers?

The wounded in the bitter Palestinian struggle between Hamas and Fatah fall in the dusty streets of Gaza, but it is to an Israeli hospital in this nearby coastal city that many are brought for treatment.

Officials at Ashkelon's Barzilai Medical Center say there is no political calculation behind the decision to take in the Palestinian wounded, who were arriving at a rate of several a day before the factions struck a deal in Saudi Arabia yesterday.

But when the father of a wounded security officer from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction tells a reporter that he wants "to say thank you to all of the people of Israel," it seems that the center's work is changing at least some hearts and minds.

The expression of warmth toward Israel came from Abdel Hamin Odeh, father of Adel Odeh, a Fatah fighter who was brought to Barzilai suffering a critical leg wound. By this week, he was shuffling gingerly though the halls with the help of a walker.

Mr. Odeh had first been taken to the Palestinian Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City, said the gunman's father, Abdel Hamin Odeh. "They took care of him, but not very well."

Barzilai's chief medical director, Ron Lobel, says the Israeli hospital has treated 124 patients from the Gaza Strip in the past year.

"We don't know if it's Hamas or Fatah, we don't know if they are civilian or armed forces, we just know they are injured," said Dr. Lobel. "It's something normal, between hospitals."

Surprise, Surprise...

The new unity government will not recognize Israel.

The Palestinian unity government which will be formed under an agreement reached in Saudi Arabia will not recognize Israel, a political advisor to Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said Saturday.

"The issue of recognition was not addressed at all (in Mecca)," Ahmed Youssef said. "In the platform of the new government there will be no sign of recognition (of Israel), regardless of the pressures the United States and the Quartet would exert," he said.

The Jihad continues in Thailand...

The beheading of the day....

Extremists in the South have beheaded a 72-year-old Buddhist rice miller in at least the 24th such atrocity since they escalated their insurgency just over three years ago.

Police said the victim apparently was killed in retaliation for a bomb attack on a village tea shop owned by Muslims.

The man's head was not found and police said they found severe cuts on his fingers, hands and shoulder at his village mill in Pattani province.

"This is revenge for what happened last night in Nakohn Nua," a message left at the mill said in reference to the village where a bomb exploded that injured no one.

Some sense from Australia...

I wish our government would also talk like this...

Anti-American feeling in Europe is playing into the hands of al-Qa'eda and unwittingly encouraging terrorism, Australia's foreign minister said yesterday.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Alexander Downer urged European politicians to weigh up the consequences of their words before they "leap out there and attack America".
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Mr Downer gave warning that criticism of America's conduct in Iraq could inadvertently provide an incentive for terrorist attacks.

"People in the West, and not only in Europe, blame America for a suicide bomber in a market in Baghdad," he said.

"That only encourages more horrific behaviour. Every time there is an atrocity committed, it is implicitly America's fault, so why not commit some more atrocities and put even more pressure on America?"

Mr Downer added: "The al-Qa'eda leadership has said on many occasions that more than 50 per cent of the battle is a battle in the media. The more you can get media denigration of America, the more that the war against terrorism is seen to be an indictment of America, the better for those who started this war." Speaking during a visit to London yesterday, Mr Downer, who has served as Australia's foreign minister for almost 11 years, said that European critics of Washington were not aiming to help terrorists, but this could be the consequence of their words.

"It's very rude to say these people want to help al-Qa'eda. They don't. But America's enemies take comfort from continual attacks on America by America's friends," he said. "Before you leap out there and vigorously attack America, think about the consequences of what you're saying."

They are finally going to remove chapters....

First they deny it, then they say it was all a misinterpretation..and now they are going to remove the offensive chapters....

An Islamic school in London has announced it is removing offensive chapters from its textbooks which describe Jews as "monkeys" and Christians as "pigs".

Harper's Speech on Israel last night....

I was at the Prime Minister's speech last night at the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy dinner - and he was just excellent. So, here's a full copy of his speech:

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you, Linda, for that kind introduction, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for that very warm welcome.

I’m very pleased to join with the CIJA family of agencies this evening.

On behalf of Canada’s New Government, I’d like to thank you for helping to strengthen both Canadian civil society and the long-standing friendship between Canada and Israel,

Not to mention your encouragement of the Jewish community's full and active participation in the political process.

It’s a great honour, therefore, to be able to once again address this biennial gathering.

Now friends, I’m going to be brief in my remarks tonight, as the message I want to convey is clear, direct, and concise.

Over the past year, we got a pretty sharp reminder that it’s one thing to offer supportive words to Israel when it’s convenient, and quite another to stand firm in its hour of need.

Last summer, when Israel came under attack from terrorist groups, this government stood against those organizations and their objectives, and we stood with our friend in the democratic family of nations, the state of Israel.

We stood by the commitment I made at your last dinner. When it was not popular to do so, we stood and told the truth.

Israel had a friend when it mattered, and that, my friends, is the only thing that really counts.

Because a battle between a democratic state and terrorist groups who seek to destroy both it and its people is not a matter of shades of grey – it is a matter right and wrong.

Now friends, just as our government supports Israel’s right to defend her borders and her population, so too do we support a fair and just future for the Palestinian people.

And I know this is something you support as well, because each of us in this room tonight has a strong reverence for human dignity, and that’s why Canada’s New Government supports the creation of a viable, democratic Palestinian state that will live peacefully beside a secure, prosperous Israel.

The road to this much-needed state, however, will not be paved with the blood of innocent victims of terror. It will only be achieved through negotiations carried out in good faith by serious players who actually desire peace, and we sincerely believe that peace is what the majority of ordinary Israelis and Palestinians truly want.

And that’s why we’re going to continue standing up against the terrorists, extremists, and fanatics who eschew peace and stability while embracing violence and chaos.

And when faced with such threats, Israel will always have a steadfast friend in Canada’s New Government.

Thank you.

Shalom.

God bless Canada.

What a terrific speech. Makes me proud to be a Canadian.

Is the Vatican kidding itself?

The Vatican wants dialogue....not exactly what the Islamists want...

Secularization, the relationship between faith and reason, and coexistence with modern ideas of freedom represent a "challenge for Islam as well as for the Church," says a Vatican official.

Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, Vatican secretary for relations with states, also said that he believes both religions "can help each other, thanks to dialogue."

He made this affirmation Thursday in his opening address at the presentation of the Arabic edition of the book "The Religious Sense," by Monsignor Luigi Giussani, founder of the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation.

Archbishop Mamberti referred to Benedict XVI's lecture at the University of Regensburg last September, and to the Pope's Christmas address to the Roman Curia. The archbishop observed that "the Muslim world is going through a crisis due to the different forms in which the gap between faith and reason is expressed."

The Vatican official said that it is all the more timely to reflect on the proposal put forward by the Pope, according to whom "the integration between faith and reason suggests to Islam the path to go forward."

In particular, the two religions can meet to reflect on how they can be "united against violence and in view of a synergy between faith and reason," noted Archbishop Mamberti.