Muslim gangs taking over prisons in the UK....

I'd like to know more about muslim gangs in other countries too....

Muslim gangs are threatening to take control of one of Britain's top security prisons where inmates include al-Qa'eda terrorists, a report reveals.

Staff at Whitemoor jail, Cambs, believe a "serious incident is imminent" as several wings become dominated by Muslim prisoners.

There is an on-going theme of fear and instability among employees, says the Prison Service's Directorate of High Security report.

"There is much talk around the establishment about 'the Muslims'," it says.

Some staff believe the situation has resulted in Muslim prisoners becoming more of a gang than a religious group.

"The sheer numbers, coupled with a lack of awareness among staff, appear to be engendering fear and handing control to the prisoners," the report says.

The situation has become so bad that white prisoners are warned about the Muslim gangs by staff on arrival.

One way to earn respect in the Arab world....

Nice to see they admire democracy....wish they'd demand it at home...

The corruption case against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has earned Israel tremendous respect throughout the Arab world, where many have called on their leaders to benefit from Israel's democratic system and independent judicial system.

Words of praise for Israel are a rare phenomenon in the Arab media. But judging from the reactions of many Arabs to the corruption case in the past week, the trend appears to have changed.

Even some Arabs who describe themselves as "sworn enemies of the Zionist entity" have begun singing praise for Israel.

Over the past week, the corruption case against Olmert received wide coverage in the mainstream Arab media, prompting an outcry about the need for transparency and accountability in the Arab world.

"Show me one Arab or Islamic country where a prime minister or a senior government official was ever questioned for financial corruption or bribery," said a reader who identified himself only as Majed.

Majed, like many others, was responding to a news story on an Arab Web site about the testimony in court of American philanthropist Morris Talansky, who told police he had given Olmert more than $150,000 in cash over the course of some 14 years.

Another reader, Sami, commented: "The Israeli regime with all its defects is better than all the Arab 'democracies' and still changes ministers and governments every few years."

A Saudi national named Abdel Karim urged his Arab brethren to stop criticizing Israel and learn something about its democracy. "Before we curse Israel, we must learn from the democratic and judicial system in Israel, where no one is above the law," he wrote.

Khaled, another Saudi national, chimed in: "Although we are talking about Israel, which I have always hated very much, there is still no one above the law there."

Mahmoud al-Bakili of Yemen posted the following response on one of the Web sites: "We want this kind of accountability and transparency in the Arab and Islamic world."

And there was this comment from an Arab who described himself as a Syrian Voice: "Despite my strong hatred for the Zionist regime, I have a lot of admiration and respect for this entity because there is no one above the law. In the Arab world, laws are broken every day and no one seems to care."

Egyptian writer Abdel Aziz Mahmoud said he doesn't believe the day will ever come when an Arab leader will be put on trial for sexual harassment or financial corruption.

"I don't think we will live to see the day when the police interrogate an Arab leader for sexually harassing his secretary or receiving bribes," he wrote. "Nor will our children and grandchildren live to see that day. What happened in Israel can never happen in any Arab country."

If the IAEA is alarmed......

then everybody should really be worried....

Inspectors from the UN atomic watchdog are "alarmed" that Iran has in its possession a document describing the process for making what could be the core of a nuclear weapon, a western diplomat said Thursday.

And at a closed-door meeting with diplomats, the International Atomic Energy Agency's chief for inspections, Olli Heinonen, revealed that the agency had gathered intelligence from around 10 countries suggesting Iran was engaged in weaponisation studies in the past, the diplomat said.

Tehran has repeatedly dismissed the intelligence as "fabricated," and the allegations that it was seeking to build a bomb as "baseless".

At a briefing to prepare IAEA board members for a meeting of the full board next week, Heinonen talked about the so-called uranium metal document, the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

The 15-page document describes the process of machining uranium metal into two hemispheres of the kind used in nuclear warheads.

"And the term he used for this document was 'alarming'. He essentially said there was no reason why a country would need to possess such a document unless they wanted to produce uranium hemispheres for a nuclear weapon," the diplomat said.

Is Syria hiding nuclear sites???

Inspectors must be sent in...

Although American efforts to defuse the nuclear crisis with Iran have yet to bear fruit, the Bush administration now appears to be focusing on yet another nuclear program which they believe is under secret development, this time in Syria.

In a report published by the Washington Post on Thursday, the US is said to be appealing to the United Nations to send inspectors to search for hidden nuclear facilities in the country. According to the report, the Bush administration suspects that Syria is hiding at least three sites, which they believe were intended to support a nuclear reactor which was destroyed in September.

On September 6, Israeli warplanes reportedly bombed a nuclear reactor deep in Syrian territory. Damascus has repeatedly denied ever having built a reactor, and soon after the bombing, bulldozed the area and erected buildings on top of the site. Israel has never formally admitted to carrying out the attack.

US intelligence suspects that at least three secret facilities may have been used to provide fuel for that nuclear reactor, the report states. In a briefing to US congressmen earlier in the year, intelligence officials suggested that the Syrian reactor was nearly operational at the time that it was bombed. Yet no fuel source has ever been found for the reactor - a fact which has baffled experts. The suggestion that nuclear facilities still exist in the country and remain hidden potentially solves that problem.

Ezra Levant tells an incredible story.....

This country owes a huge debt to Ezra Levant. His website www.ezralevant.com is a daily must-read for the goings on at the various human rights commissions. I strongly urge all my readers to visit Ezra's site...and perhaps donate some money for the cause.

His story about Elizabeth Lampman - a teenaged girl who was put in danger by Richard Warman is required reading. It's a story that will make you sick - and a story that demands action.

Thanks, Ezra!

Blue planet in green shackles....

Vaclav Klaus's new book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles, is now out in English...and that's a cause for celebration!

My deep frustration has been exponentially growing in recent years by witnessing the fact that almost everything has already been said, that all rational arguments have been used and that global warming alarmism is still marching on. It could be even true that "We are now at the stage where mere facts, reason, and truth are powerless in the face of the global warming propaganda" (R. McKittrick, private correspondence).

We are regretfully behind it. The whole process is already in the hands of those who are not interested in rational ideas and arguments. It is in the hands of climatologists and other related scientists who are highly motivated to look in one direction only because a large number of academic careers has evolved around the idea of man-made global warming. It is, further, in the hands of politicians who maximize the number of votes they seek to get from the electorate. It is also - as a consequence of political decisions - in the hands of bureaucrats of national and more often of international institutions who try to maximize their budgets and years of careers as well regardless the costs, truth and rationality. It is in the hands of rent-seeking businesspeople who are - given the existing policies - interested in the amount of subsidies they are receiving and look for all possible ways to escape the for them often merciless, but for the rest of us very positive, general welfare enhancing functioning of free markets. An entire industry has developed around the funds the firms are getting from the government.

The basic questions of the current climate change debate are sufficiently known and well-structured:

1) Do we live in an era of a statistically significant, non-accidental and noncyclical climate change?

2) If so, is it dominantly man-made?

3) If so, should such a moderate temperature increase bother us more than many other pressing problems we face and should it receive our extraordinary attention?

4) If we want to change the climate, can it be done? Are current attempts to do so the best allocation of our scarce resources?

My answer to all these questions is NO, but with a difference in emphasis. I don't aspire to measure the global temperature, nor to estimate the importance of factors which make it. This is not the area of my comparative advantages. But to argue, as it's done by many contemporary environmentalists, that these questions have already been answered with a consensual "yes" and that there is an unchallenged scientific consensus about this is unjustified. It is also morally and intellectually deceptive.

The boycott is coming back....

Well, now they don't like to use the term......this is from the UK....

Academics are preparing to reignite an international row as they urge fellow lecturers to consider whether they should sever links with Israeli universities.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) will highlight the "humanitarian catastrophe imposed on Gaza by Israel" at their annual congress in Manchester.

A motion passed by the union last year, obliging all branches to consult members on the issue, provoked outrage from academics and politicians in Britain and overseas.

Today's UCU meeting is likely to reopen the row, with a similarly worded call to members.

Tom Hickey, a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Brighton, stressed that the new motion stopped short of backing a full boycott.

"It is not a resolution calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions," said Mr Hickey, who is proposing the motion.

"We are urging people to reflect on whether it is appropriate for them to maintain their links with Israeli institutions.

UNIFIL Is failing in South Lebanon...

Armed Hezbollah fighters are not supposed to be present in Southern Lebanon....but UNIFIL has decided to ignore the problem...

Israel is also concerned about the new instructions that were given to UNIFIL troops following recent incidents in which UNIFIL soldiers managed to take photos of armed Hezbollah militants. In some of these instances, Hezbollah managed to grab hold of the photography equipment. UNIFIL now instructs its soldiers not to take pictures of Hezbollah.

Gay victims of Nazis to be honoured in Berlin.....

This is long overdue....

A monument with the video footage of two men kissing will be unveiled Tuesday in Berlin in memory of the thousands of homosexuals persecuted, tortured and murdered by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945.

Laborers completed the last preparations around the memorial, an imposing gray concrete slab about four meters high near the Brandenburg Gate, opposite the main Holocaust memorial. At eye level inside the monument, designed by Norwegian-Danish duo Ingar Dragset and Michael Elmgreen at a cost of 450,000 euros, is a gap containing a television screen showing two men kissing.

Tuesday's official inauguration ceremony follows years of controversy. The commemoration of homosexuals' persecution, the monument's location near the Holocaust memorial and its design has all been subject to public debate in Germany in recent years.

The monument's unveiling will be attended by Berlin's openly gay mayor Klaus Wowereit, Culture Minister Bernd Neumann and representatives of Germany's Jewish and Roma communities.

No survivors will attend, however. The last known survivor, Pierre Seel, a Frenchman deported in 1941 when he was 17 years old, died in November 2005. He described in his memoirs how his first love, 18-year-old Jo, was torn apart by dogs in front of other prisoners.

Surprise, surprise - Iran is still not cooperating....

Of course, they have nothing to hide....

Iran may be withholding information needed to establish whether it tried to make nuclear arms, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday in an unusually strongly worded report.

The tone of the language suggesting that Teheran continues to stonewall the agency - the UN nuclear monitor - revealed a glimpse of the frustration felt by agency investigators stymied in their attempts to gain full answers to suspicious aspects of Iran's past nuclear activities.

Addressing whether Iran was complying with agency requests, the report said that "Iran has not provided the Agency with all the information, access to documents and access to individuals necessary to support Iran's statements" that its activities were purely peaceful in intent.

"The Agency is of the view that Iran may have additional information, in particular on high explosives testing and missile related activities which ... Iran should share with the agency," said the report. It was referring to two alleged sets of tests that agency officials say could be linked to a nuclear program.

Misandry is the norm...

Kudos to Barbara Kay for writing about misandry....

The family on the sofa is divided, but not equally. On one side a sullen, rather menacing father stares defiantly at the camera; on the other, a waifish, stressed-looking mother is shielding anxious children. The message of the advertisement is one we have heard or seen innumerable times in the media: domestic violence is only perpetrated by men, who are by nature disposed to controlling behaviours, while women and children (an inseparable unit) are always innocent victims.

I call it misandry, discrimination against men, but although the Ontario Human Rights Code bars “discrimination via signs or symbols,” I doubt that any charges of discrimination will be laid against the Canadian Women’s Foundation, which has been carpet-bombing the media with this ad. Its appearance in newspapers, bank statements and on the sides of buses is aimed at promoting awareness of domestic violence:

The image represents a half-truth and therefore a lie. The truth, established by all credible, peer-reviewed research, including our official number cruncher StatsCan, is that unprovoked intimate-partner violence is about equally split between men and women. Imagine another picture based on a half-truth: a woman on one side of the sofa, a man protecting children or even his aged mother on the other -- because women abuse the elderly and their children more frequently than men do. You never will see such an ad. Media bias against men is as notable for what you don’t see and hear as for what you do.

Do carbon offsets work?

This UN programme is wasting billions...but who's counting???

Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN's carbon offsetting programme.

Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN's main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical, wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify. The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made, undermining assurances by the UK government and others that carbon markets are dramatically reducing greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

Where are the moderate Palestinians???

A nice, short piece in the Washington Times....

If we want peace between Israel and the Palestinians we need to marginalize the radicals and empower the moderates. That's the conventional wisdom. There's one problem with it: Moderates wield no power in Gaza.

Meanwhile, over in the West Bank there is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the head of Fatah, Hamas' rival. He is reportedly furious over President Bush's recent remarks to the Israeli parliament looking forward to the 120th anniversary of Israeli independence — a time, Mr. Bush predicted, when Israel will live in peace with an independent Palestinian neighbor.

Mr. Abbas told reporters: "The Bush speech at the Knesset angered us... I frankly, clearly and transparently asked him that the American position should be balanced."

This, too, has become conventional wisdom. The problem with it: If my goal is to kill your two children and your goal is to keep them alive, a balanced position — one midway between the two — would endorse the murder of one of your kids.

Such balance is relentlessly on view in the mainstream media. For example, to commemorate Israel's 60th year of independence, The Washington Post ran a Page One feature on two men, one Israeli, one Palestinian, both born 60 years ago "into a land at war."

The story neglects to mention how that war began: The United Nations passed a resolution that established Israel and called for an Arab state as well. Jewish leaders agreed. Had Arab leaders done likewise, Palestinians also would be celebrating 60 years of statehood this month — and there would have been no war and no refugees.

Terror 'map' being redrawn in the UK.....

In fact, there are plots throughout the entire country....

Counter terrorism investigators say a map of terrorism "hot spots" must be redrawn following the discovery of plots in the West Country.

The attempted attack on a shopping centre restaurant in Devon last week and the raid on an alleged "bomb factory" in Bristol have forced investigators to admit that their net needs to be spread more widely.

One source said: "Our map was pretty near empty over the West Country. Now we're tempted to put a big warning sign over the whole area."

Police and MI5 believe the plots demonstrate that no area can be considered free from terrorism.

Freeman Dyson on Global Warming...

Dyson reviews two books on global warming....

All the books that I have seen about the science and economics of global warming, including the two books under review, miss the main point. The main point is religious rather than scientific. There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world.

Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful.

Unfortunately, some members of the environmental movement have also adopted as an article of faith the be-lief that global warming is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one reason why the arguments about global warming have become bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice. Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, their arguments on these issues deserve to be heard.

Is this the end of organic food???

I sure hope so...

Then last week came a forecast from the Ernst and Young ITEM club that as the credit crunch worsens and the economy goes further down the pan, one of the first areas where the straitened middle classes will economise is on "ethical" produce like organic meat and Fairtrade coffee.

And who can blame them? Despite the claims of bodies like the Soil Association, there has never exactly been a mountain of evidence that organic food is any better for you - or indeed for the world.

That famous research "proving" that organic milk was richer in Omega-3 than the ordinary stuff, for example, turned out to be skewed. It compared the produce of an organic herd lovingly outdoor-reared in lush pastureland, with the produce from non-organic cows (non-organic? They're still ruddy animals, aren't they?) which had been kept mostly indoors and fed on dry food.

Nor is it clear that organic saves the environment. A biochemist at Edinburgh University, Anthony Trewavas, has shown that organic uses more energy per tonne of food produced because the yields are lower. Also, because it requires more land - roughly twice as much as conventionally grown food - it means there is less available to be left unfarmed for biodiversity.

As for the oft-cited claim that organic food stops you ingesting tons of deadly cancer-causing pesticides - this got short shrift from Sir John Krebs of the Food Standards Agency. He wrote in Nature magazine: "A single cup of coffee contains natural carcinogens equal to at least a year's worth of carcinogenic synthetic residues in the diet."

But the organic craze was never really about hard science or pragmatism. It was about nostalgia for an idealised rural past where man lived in harmony with nature. As the American author Michael Pollan put it in his investigation of the US food industry, The Omnivore's Dilemma, organic "gratifies some of our deepest, oldest longings, not merely for a safe food, but for a connection to the earth".

In the Nineties and early Noughties, paying through the nose to live out this fantasy was a luxury many felt they could afford. Organic - to adapt Robin Williams on cocaine - was God's way of telling us we were earning too much money.

In times of rising food prices (partly the result of eco-fanatics obsessing about organic and biofuels, and rejecting genuinely productive technologies like GM) and falling incomes, the last thing a hard-pressed family wants to spend money on is the warm glow of ecological righteousness. All it wants is a full stomach, and the more cheaply-filled that stomach the happier it will be. Organic will be off the menu for some time to come.

How deep can hatred of Israel go???

Even saving your children's life is too much...if the treatment is in Israel...

The parents of Iraqi babies with congenital heart problems are facing a dilemma: should they allow their children to be treated in Israeli hospitals when they have been brought up to believe that Israel is their mortal enemy?

Hostility towards the Jewish state in Iraq is so strong that many parents refuse to travel to Tel Aviv for free life-saving hole-in-the-heart surgery.

Some accept the offer but never reveal where their children were treated, even though the operation has not been available in Iraq since its leading cardiac clinic burnt down after the American-led invasion in 2003.

Other parents are seeking treatment elsewhere in the Arab world, despite prices of up to £15,000 for heart surgery in private clinics. They fear the stigma of being treated in Israel.

Aria, an 18-month-old baby from Kirkuk in northern Iraq, was waiting to return home last week after a successful operation at the Edith Wolfson medical centre in Tel Aviv, where 11 Iraqi children are being treated. The surgery is sponsored by Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), a humanitarian organisation founded in Israel in 1996 and supported by private sources, including Christian charity groups.

Aria’s young mother, Paiman, paid tribute to the clinic and the surgeon, Dr Lior Sasson, saying: “He saved little Aria’s life.”

However, the parents of other Iraqi children in urgent need of surgery said they had rejected free treatment when they heard it would be performed in Israel.

Syria stalls IAEA visit...

Gee, I wonder why....

Syria has not yet accepted a request by the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the site bombed by the IAF on September 6, which Washington says was a nuclear reactor, Reuters reported Friday.

The news agency quoted diplomats in Vienna as saying that Damascus was stalling its approval of the UN delegation visit, demanding more details on the proposed inspection.

Syrian atomic energy chief Ibrahim Othman came to Vienna earlier this month to speak with IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei on the matter, but the two did not agree on the timing or nature of a visit, diplomats said.

The agency received a letter from Syria several days ago asking for more details on the trip, one diplomat said. The IAEA has replied and is now waiting for Damascus's response, he added.

And this guy might head up UNESCO???

And, this is from a Minister of a country at peace with Israel...

Egypt's Culture Minister Faruq Hosni, a candidate to head UNESCO, has drawn fire from Israel and the Wiesenthal Centre for saying he was prepared to burn Israeli books.

"I'd burn Israeli books myself if I found any in libraries in Egypt," Hosni said in parliament on May 10 in reply to questioning from an opposition MP.

The comment, which Hosni admits making but which he says must be put into perspective, sparked an official protest from Israel's ambassador in Cairo Shalom Cohen to the foreign ministry.

Coal is making a comeback....

The markets do work...

These rugged green mountains, once home to one of Asia’s most productive coal regions, are littered with abandoned mines and decaying towns — backwaters of an economy of bullet trains and hybrid cars.

But after decades of seemingly terminal decline, Japan’s coal country is stirring again. With energy prices reaching record highs — oil settled above $135 a barrel on Thursday — Japan’s high-cost mines are suddenly competitive again, and demand for their coal is booming. Production has jumped to its highest in nearly four decades, creating a sensation rarely felt in these mining communities: hope.

“We are seeing a flicker of light after long darkness,” said Michio Sakurai, the mayor of Bibai, on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido. “We never imagined coal would actually make a comeback.”

Soaring commodity prices have had distorting effects across the global economy, driving up food prices and prompting fears of future energy shortages. But they have been an unanticipated boon to the coal producing regions of countries like Japan that had written off coal mining as a relic of the Industrial Revolution.

In Bibai, once a thriving cultural center that had a ballet troupe and five cinemas showing first-run Hollywood movies in its heyday in the 1950s, the population shrank to 27,800, from 92,000. As mining jobs evaporated, they left behind rows of abandoned clapboard-fronted stores that give some neighborhoods the air of a ghost town.

While Japan’s coal industry remains tiny, its revival is an example of how higher commodity prices are driving a search for resources even in some of the world’s most urbanized and developed nations.

In recent months, South Korea has experienced calls to create a domestic coal industry in order to reduce dependence on imports. In the United Kingdom, where coal’s decline became a symbol of withered industrial might, companies are increasing production and considering reopening at least one closed mine as demand for British coal rises.

Climate change on Jupiter....

Many of the planets are experiencing climate change...

The first images of Jupiter since it came out from behind the sun show that the turbulence and storms that have plagued the planet for the past two years continue. Whether or not this is a sign of global warming, the turbulence does seem to be spawning new spots. As Red Spot Jr. and the Great Red Spot approach a June conjunction, a new third spot may merge with the GRS in August.

Pallywood Strikes Again 2: France2 vs. Evidence

France 2 loses libel case....

The judge sides with Karsenty who claimed that Mohammed al-Dura's death had been staged....

A French appeals court on Wednesday overturned a libel verdict won by France 2 television over a report about the killing of a Palestinian boy in 2000.

The Paris court ruled in favour of media critic Philippe Karsenty, who called into question the veracity of the report, but it also said that it did not rule out that journalists at France 2 had acted professionally.

Karsenty, head of an online media commentary site, had appealed a 2006 decision which found libellous his statement that the station's Israel correspondent had orchestrated images which later became a symbol for Palestinian militants.

In February, Karsenty presented judges with new evidence including a ballistics report and footage from other sources, which he said proved 12-year-old Mohammed al-Durra's death had been staged.

The court said in its ruling the new footage "did not allow to rule out the opinion of (France 2) professionals," but it also rejected claims by state prosecutor Antoine Bartoli that the new evidence was "neither complete nor serious."

Anti-semitism in the spy business.....

I hope this is a one-off and not really indicative of what is going on...

For the past 11 years, Army tank engineer David Tenenbaum has been trying to undo the damage the government did to him in four days in 1997, when he was accused of being a spy for Israel.

It started with a polygraph test administered February 13, where one interrogator yelled epithets about how they knew how to deal with Jews. The next day, Mr. Tenenbaum arrived at work and found his computer gone and his name erased from the classified e-mail system at the Tank Automotive and Armaments Command in Warren, Mich.

He was then asked to enter a conference room, where agents from the FBI informed him he should confess to the crime of espionage. When Mr. Tenenbaum learned he would not be arrested, he walked out of the room and to his Toyota Camry parked on the base outside of Detroit. A guard asked him for his badge and proceeded to use it to scrape away the parking decal on his windshield.

Then the Jewish Sabbath came and the investigators he met in his office the day before began ransacking his home and confiscated this amateur violinist and guitarist's music books as well as the coloring books that belonged to his 4-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

The ordeal was complete on the following Monday. Mr. Tenenbaum read in the Detroit Free Press that he was an alleged spy and learned later that the FBI had forgotten to seal the court request for the Eastern District Federal Court of Michigan asking for a search warrant of his home. Some newspapers even began to call him the next Jonathan Pollard, the Naval officer who was sentenced to life in prison for stealing technology for Israel in 1986.

"It was like the twilight zone," Mr. Tenenbaum said. The U.S. attorney ultimately declined to prosecute the case, stating in a letter that the government failed to produce enough evidence to warrant prosecution despite a thorough investigation. This month, new details emerged when an independent watchdog organization called the Project on Government Oversight published new internal documents relating to the Pentagon inspector general's investigation into the handling of the Tenenbaum case.

Among the documents is a presentation laying out the inspector general's findings. The presentation's third slide says, "Mr. Tenenbaum experienced religious discrimination when his Judaism was weighed as a significant factor in the decision to submit him for an increase in his security clearance."

The investigation then went on to quote several Pentagon officials involved in the case against Mr. Tenenbaum acknowledging that his religion and his contacts in Israel were grounds at least in part for launching the investigation against him. A discrimination suit brought by Mr. Tenenbaum was thrown out of federal court after the government requested the judge acknowledge that the Army would need to disclose state secrets in order to mount its defense.

According to a sworn affidavit of Mr. Tenenbaum, when he took his first polygraph test in 1997, his questioner said to him: "I have done other Jews before and gotten them to confess and I'll get you to confess too," and, "I can tell you are lying by looking into your eyes."

Mother gets away with murder.....

Could you imagine if the father had killed the kids????

A Markham woman charged with drowning her two babies in the family’s bathtub was found not criminally responsible in a Newmarket court today.

Sivananthi Elango, 33, was charged in 2006 with two counts of first-degree murder after her daughters, Renu, 2, and Movlika, three months were found murdered.

Elango was also found in the tub with her throat and wrists slashed after a fight with her husband

“I find (Elango) committed these acts, but is not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder,” said Judge Michael Brown.

A light sentence in Germany.....

Gee, and witnesses were afraid to testify....

A 23 year-old German man of Afghan origin was sentenced to three-and-half years in prison on Tuesday for attacking a rabbi with a knife in the centre of Frankfurt in September 2007.
Prosecutors had sought four years prison.

Sajed Aziz stabbed Rabbi Zalman Gurevitch, co-director of the Chabad-Lubavitch community in Frankfurt, in the lower abdomen while he was walking home from his synagogue with two friends. Witnesses said the attacker shouted "Bloody Jew, I'm going to kill you."

The rabbi received emergency surgery but his injuries were not life-threatening.

Aziz, described as an unemployed troubled young immigrant with a history of minor offences,conceded stabbing Gurevitch on September 7 but called it self-defense, saying the rabbi had grabbed him by the collar.

He denied shouting racist insults.

Judge Klaus Drescher said there was not enough evidence to support the original charge of attempted manslaughter. The court said testimony did not show that Aziz intended to kill the man, though Drescher noted that he clearly called Gurevitch, 43, a “Shit Jew” and a "Jewish pig."

Two important witnesses, the man and the woman who had been walking with rabbi Gurevitch, refused to attend the trial because they feared for their safety.

Gregorius nekschot - de verboden cartoons.

Cartoonist arrested in the Netherlands....

For discrimination against Muslims and 'people with dark skins'....

MPs from across the political spectrum have urged justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin to explain the arrest of a cartoonist on discrimination charges.

The cartoonist, who operates under the pseudonym Gregorius Nekschot, was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of publishing work which discriminates against Muslims and 'people with dark skins'. The arrest follows a complaint made against Nekschot in 2005.

In a short statement, Hirsch Ballin said there was no question of there being limits placed on the right to free speech in the Netherlands.

Nekschot, an established cartoonist whose work features in magazine HP/De Tijd amongst others, was released after spending Tuesday night in custody. His house was searched and a quantity of work taken away.

Anti-Semitic Hate Speech in the Name of Islam...

A depressing report from Spiegel online...

"Sanabel, what do you want to do to help the Al-Aqsa Mosque?" Farfur asks on the children's program of Hamas's Al-Aqsa television station. "We want to fight." "And what else?" "Wipe out the Jews." Now Farfur, the cartoon character on Hamas's children's television program, is satisfied. Farfur is a carbon copy of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, but the Hamas version does something that Mickey would never do: He entertains children while propagating the murder of Jews.

International protests forced Hamas to take its Disney clone out of circulation. Al-Aqsa complied, but promptly turned Farfur's departure into an anti-Semitic statement: Farfur was clubbed to death by an Israeli official. Then the girl hosting the program turned to the camera and said: "You've seen how the Jews killed Farfur as a martyr. What do you want to say to the Jews?" A three-year-old girl named Shaima called into the show to say: "We don't like Jews, because they are dogs! We will fight them!" "Oh, Shaima, you're right," the girl in the studio replied, "the Jews are criminals and our enemies."

A cooler Berlin means higher emissions....

It's ironic - as things cool, emissions go up....

German coal consumption jumped 3.5 percent in January as colder weather increased demand, boosting emissions of greenhouse gases in Europe's biggest economy, government statistics show.

Electricity generated by burning hard coal and lignite climbed to 24.35 terawatt-hours from 23.52 terawatt-hours in the same month a year earlier, according to the state statistics office, whose January data is the latest available.

Coal burning expanded to meet higher demand for heating as temperatures in Berlin fell an average 2.3 degrees Celsius below those a year earlier.

Massive anti-semitic graffiti in London...

This is just shameful...

London's Jewish community has been targeted by a wave of anti-Semitic graffiti.

Residents were today warned to look out for suspicious activity following the racist attack in north-east London.

Vandals sprayed shops, pavements and walls outside four synagogues in Clapton Common and Stamford Hill on Tuesday night. Worshippers were yesterday confronted with slogans such as "Jihad to Israel" and "Jihad to Tel Aviv".

Hackney council is removing the graffiti, which consisted of 40 pieces of writing.

David Greenwald, 20, who visits the Chasidey Belz Beth Hemedrash synagogue in Clapton Common, said the close-knit community was shocked.

"This morning I went to synagogue to pray and saw the writing all over everywhere - walls, shops, traffic lights," he said. "Everyone feels scared. Here we do not have any problem with Arabs - there has never been anything like this before, but now we are worried."

Another worshipper said: "It makes us feel that we are in exile. It could be kids doing it but even so, it shows something." The other synagogues were Satmar Beth Hamedrash Yetev Lev, Atereth Zvi Beth Hamedrash, and the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. Yesterday further racist graffiti appeared in Bethnal Green.

The gathering storm...once again...

An important piece by Irwin Cotler from the Jerusalem Post...

The incendiary hate language emanating from Ahmadinejad's Iran - in which Israel is referred to as "filthy bacteria" and a "cancerous tumor" and Jews are characterized as "a bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians" - is only the head wind of the gathering storm confronting Israel on its 60th anniversary.

Indeed, we are witnessing, and have been for some time, a series of mega-events, political earthquakes that have been impacting not only upon Israel and world Jewry but upon the human condition as a whole.

These include:

• state-sanctioned incitement to genocide in Ahmadinejad's Iran (and I use that term to distinguish it from the many publics and peoples in Iran who are themselves the object of massive state repression) dramatized by the parading of a Shihab-3 missile in the streets of Teheran draped with the emblem "Wipe Israel off the map";

• symmetrical terrorist militias confronting Israel, in particular Hamas in the south and Hizbullah in the north. These are not simply - though that would be threatening enough - terrorist in their instrumentality, but genocidal in their purpose as they openly and avowedly seek the destruction of Israel and anti-Jewish in their ideology. Both, by their own acknowledgement, demonize Judaism and Jews, not just Israel and the Israeli, as "the sons of monkeys and pigs" and "defilers of Islam";

• the globalization of a totalitarian, radical Islam that threatens not only Jews and Israel but international peace and security, while warning Muslims who seek peace with Israel that they will "burn in the Umma of Islam";

• the fragility, even erosion, of the Lebanon-Hizbullah divides, aided and abetted by the Iranian-Syrian pincer movements and further exacerbated in the present Lebanese-Hizbullah warfare;

• the phenomenon of radicalized home-grown extremism, fuelled by Internet incitement, threatening the security of Jewish communities in the Diaspora;

• exploding energy prices, with oil at $120 a barrel - six times what it was just six years ago - with the windfall billions of petrodollars encouraging and financing rogue states like Iran. Every $1 increase in the price of a barrel of oil represents millions more in the coffers of Iran;

• the ugly canard of double loyalty, where the Jewish and Israeli lobbies are accused of acting in a matter inimical to the American and European national interest, as if it is somehow "un-American" or "un-European" to petition government for redress of grievances, an Orwellian politics of intimidation that chills free speech and public advocacy;

• the trahison des clercs - betrayal of the elites - of which the UK is a case study, exemplified in the calls for academic, trade union, journalist, medical and intellectual boycotts of Israeli and Jewish nationals;

• the singling out of Israel for differential and discriminatory treatment in the international arena, as when the UN Human Rights Council,, the repository for human rights standards-setting, adopted 10 resolutions of condemnation against one member state of the international community, Israel, in its first year of operation alone; while the major human rights violators - Iran, Sudan, China - enjoyed exculpatory immunity; and

• the emergence of a new, escalating, global, virulent and even lethal anti-Semitism.

Bush's speech to the Knesset...

Everybody should read the whole thing.....I think it was great...

President Peres and Mr. Prime Minister, Madam Speaker, thank very much for hosting this special session. President Beinish, Leader of the Opposition Netanyahu, Ministers, members of the Knesset, distinguished guests: Shalom. Laura and I are thrilled to be back in Israel. We have been deeply moved by the celebrations of the past two days. And this afternoon, I am honored to stand before one of the world's great democratic assemblies and convey the wishes of the American people with these words: Yom Ha'atzmaut Sameach. (Applause.)

It is a rare privilege for the American President to speak to the Knesset. (Laughter.) Although the Prime Minister told me there is something even rarer -- to have just one person in this chamber speaking at a time. (Laughter.) My only regret is that one of Israel's greatest leaders is not here to share this moment. He is a warrior for the ages, a man of peace, a friend. The prayers of the American people are with Ariel Sharon. (Applause.)

We gather to mark a momentous occasion. Sixty years ago in Tel Aviv, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel's independence, founded on the "natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate." What followed was more than the establishment of a new country. It was the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David -- a homeland for the chosen people Eretz Yisrael.

Eleven minutes later, on the orders of President Harry Truman, the United States was proud to be the first nation to recognize Israel's independence. And on this landmark anniversary, America is proud to be Israel's closest ally and best friend in the world.

The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friendship runs deeper than any treaty. It is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul. When William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, he quoted the words of Jeremiah: "Come let us declare in Zion the word of God." The founders of my country saw a new promised land and bestowed upon their towns names like Bethlehem and New Canaan. And in time, many Americans became passionate advocates for a Jewish state.

Centuries of suffering and sacrifice would pass before the dream was fulfilled. The Jewish people endured the agony of the pogroms, the tragedy of the Great War, and the horror of the Holocaust -- what Elie Wiesel called "the kingdom of the night." Soulless men took away lives and broke apart families. Yet they could not take away the spirit of the Jewish people, and they could not break the promise of God. (Applause.) When news of Israel's freedom finally arrived, Golda Meir, a fearless woman raised in Wisconsin, could summon only tears. She later said: "For two thousand years we have waited for our deliverance. Now that it is here it is so great and wonderful that it surpasses human words."

The joy of independence was tempered by the outbreak of battle, a struggle that has continued for six decades. Yet in spite of the violence, in defiance of the threats, Israel has built a thriving democracy in the heart of the Holy Land. You have welcomed immigrants from the four corners of the Earth. You have forged a free and modern society based on the love of liberty, a passion for justice, and a respect for human dignity. You have worked tirelessly for peace. You have fought valiantly for freedom.

My country's admiration for Israel does not end there. When Americans look at Israel, we see a pioneer spirit that worked an agricultural miracle and now leads a high-tech revolution. We see world-class universities and a global leader in business and innovation and the arts. We see a resource more valuable than oil or gold: the talent and determination of a free people who refuse to let any obstacle stand in the way of their destiny.

I have been fortunate to see the character of Israel up close. I have touched the Western Wall, seen the sun reflected in the Sea of Galilee, I have prayed at Yad Vashem. And earlier today, I visited Masada, an inspiring monument to courage and sacrifice. At this historic site, Israeli soldiers swear an oath: "Masada shall never fall again." Citizens of Israel: Masada shall never fall again, and America will be at your side.

This anniversary is a time to reflect on the past. It's also an opportunity to look to the future. As we go forward, our alliance will be guided by clear principles -- shared convictions rooted in moral clarity and unswayed by popularity polls or the shifting opinions of international elites.

We believe in the matchless value of every man, woman, and child. So we insist that the people of Israel have the right to a decent, normal, and peaceful life, just like the citizens of every other nation. (Applause.)

We believe that democracy is the only way to ensure human rights. So we consider it a source of shame that the United Nations routinely passes more human rights resolutions against the freest democracy in the Middle East than any other nation in the world. (Applause.)

We believe that religious liberty is fundamental to a civilized society. So we condemn anti-Semitism in all forms -- whether by those who openly question Israel's right to exist, or by others who quietly excuse them.

We believe that free people should strive and sacrifice for peace. So we applaud the courageous choices Israeli's leaders have made. We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction. (Applause.)

We believe that targeting innocent lives to achieve political objectives is always and everywhere wrong. So we stand together against terror and extremism, and we will never let down our guard or lose our resolve. (Applause.)

The fight against terror and extremism is the defining challenge of our time. It is more than a clash of arms. It is a clash of visions, a great ideological struggle. On the one side are those who defend the ideals of justice and dignity with the power of reason and truth. On the other side are those who pursue a narrow vision of cruelty and control by committing murder, inciting fear, and spreading lies.

This struggle is waged with the technology of the 21st century, but at its core it is an ancient battle between good and evil. The killers claim the mantle of Islam, but they are not religious men. No one who prays to the God of Abraham could strap a suicide vest to an innocent child, or blow up guiltless guests at a Passover Seder, or fly planes into office buildings filled with unsuspecting workers. In truth, the men who carry out these savage acts serve no higher goal than their own desire for power. They accept no God before themselves. And they reserve a special hatred for the most ardent defenders of liberty, including Americans and Israelis.

And that is why the founding charter of Hamas calls for the "elimination" of Israel. And that is why the followers of Hezbollah chant "Death to Israel, Death to America!" That is why Osama bin Laden teaches that "the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties." And that is why the President of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)

Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace, and America utterly rejects it. Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States of America stands with you. (Applause.)

America stands with you in breaking up terrorist networks and denying the extremists sanctuary. America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal for future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. (Applause.)

Ultimately, to prevail in this struggle, we must offer an alternative to the ideology of the extremists by extending our vision of justice and tolerance and freedom and hope. These values are the self-evident right of all people, of all religions, in all the world because they are a gift from the Almighty God. Securing these rights is also the surest way to secure peace. Leaders who are accountable to their people will not pursue endless confrontation and bloodshed. Young people with a place in their society and a voice in their future are less likely to search for meaning in radicalism. Societies where citizens can express their conscience and worship their God will not export violence, they will be partners in peace.

The fundamental insight, that freedom yields peace, is the great lesson of the 20th century. Now our task is to apply it to the 21st. Nowhere is this work more urgent than here in the Middle East. We must stand with the reformers working to break the old patterns of tyranny and despair. We must give voice to millions of ordinary people who dream of a better life in a free society. We must confront the moral relativism that views all forms of government as equally acceptable and thereby consigns whole societies to slavery. Above all, we must have faith in our values and ourselves and confidently pursue the expansion of liberty as the path to a peaceful future.

That future will be a dramatic departure from the Middle East of today. So as we mark 60 years from Israel's founding, let us try to envision the region 60 years from now. This vision is not going to arrive easily or overnight; it will encounter violent resistance. But if we and future Presidents and future Knessets maintain our resolve and have faith in our ideals, here is the Middle East that we can see:

Israel will be celebrating the 120th anniversary as one of the world's great democracies, a secure and flourishing homeland for the Jewish people. The Palestinian people will have the homeland they have long dreamed of and deserved -- a democratic state that is governed by law, and respects human rights, and rejects terror. From Cairo to Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies, where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy and tourism and trade. Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, with today's oppression a distant memory and where people are free to speak their minds and develop their God-given talents. Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists' vision and the injustice of their cause.

Overall, the Middle East will be characterized by a new period of tolerance and integration. And this doesn't mean that Israel and its neighbors will be best of friends. But when leaders across the region answer to their people, they will focus their energies on schools and jobs, not on rocket attacks and suicide bombings. With this change, Israel will open a new hopeful chapter in which its people can live a normal life, and the dream of Herzl and the founders of 1948 can be fully and finally realized.

This is a bold vision, and some will say it can never be achieved. But think about what we have witnessed in our own time. When Europe was destroying itself through total war and genocide, it was difficult to envision a continent that six decades later would be free and at peace. When Japanese pilots were flying suicide missions into American battleships, it seemed impossible that six decades later Japan would be a democracy, a lynchpin of security in Asia, and one of America's closest friends. And when waves of refugees arrived here in the desert with nothing, surrounded by hostile armies, it was almost unimaginable that Israel would grow into one of the freest and most successful nations on the earth.

Yet each one of these transformations took place. And a future of transformation is possible in the Middle East, so long as a new generation of leaders has the courage to defeat the enemies of freedom, to make the hard choices necessary for peace, and stand firm on the solid rock of universal values.

Sixty years ago, on the eve of Israel's independence, the last British soldiers departing Jerusalem stopped at a building in the Jewish quarter of the Old City. An officer knocked on the door and met a senior rabbi. The officer presented him with a short iron bar -- the key to the Zion Gate -- and said it was the first time in 18 centuries that a key to the gates of Jerusalem had belonged to a Jew. His hands trembling, the rabbi offered a prayer of thanksgiving to God, "Who had granted us life and permitted us to reach this day." Then he turned to the officer, and uttered the words Jews had awaited for so long: "I accept this key in the name of my people."

Over the past six decades, the Jewish people have established a state that would make that humble rabbi proud. You have raised a modern society in the Promised Land, a light unto the nations that preserves the legacy of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And you have built a mighty democracy that will endure forever and can always count on the United States of America to be at your side. God bless.

Global Wheating....

Thanks to Benny Peiser for distributing this - a tale from Richard Lindzen...

And the land became full of wheat. Pharoah called upon Joseph to inquire of the meaning of this.

And Pharoah said unto Joseph, "Behold, the land waxeth full of wheat. It is abundant everywhere. It has swallowed up the land. Even worse, it is intruding upon habitats of endangered species."

And Pharoah said unto Joseph, "Last night I dreamed a dream. There was a banquet in the palace. Bread was brought to the table, and we ate. But as soon as the bread was eaten, more bread appeared on the table as if none had been eaten. This continued until I sent the servants away. What means this?"

Joseph said unto Pharaoh, "The dream is one with the land. It is global wheating. Global wheating is caused by man's planting and harvesting. We have to stop the planting and harvesting."

And Joseph told Pharaoh what he must do.

"Appoint ministers over wheat and ministers over taxes throughout the land, and set goals to reduce global wheating. A 5-year plan to bring wheat levels down to 20-year-ago levels; a 10-year-plan to bring them down to 50-year-ago levels. Cap the allowable planting, and levy high taxes on those whose yields are too much as they profit too much. Give tax credits to those who do not yield wheat, and they can barter with those who do yield wheat. Those who yield too much wheat will have a large wheat footprint."

"You, Pharaoh, will have more power over the people and more wealth in your treasury; and global wheating will cease."

But Pharaoh entreated Joseph, saying, "What about the famines? We have always had famines in Egypt. Should we not have too much in time of plenty as there will be too little in time of scarcity?"

"You are under term limits", replied Joseph. "Let the next Pharaoh worry about famines. Now you can increase your power and your treasury; the people will cheer you as a hero and love you. The kings and princes of the world will bow to you because you stopped the global wheating. But you must act now, while there is time."

Pharaoh was very pleased when he heard this.

Can Israel negotiate with this???

The latest genocidal ravings of Hamas...

Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said Wednesday that a Palestinian state will be established on all of the land of Palestine and not only on parts of it, and that it will include "Jaffa, Lod and Haifa."

Zahar also reiterated Hamas' unwillingness to recognize the State of Israel and said that the group "will continue to persecute the Zionists wherever they are, after we prove that the Zionist army can be defeated - contrary to what was believed in the past, that it is impossible to beat the Zionists."

Speaking in the Gaza Strip, he went on to affirm Palestinian right of return, claiming that the "right of return of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians is closer than ever."

"After we defeat the Zionists we will persecute them… we will persecute them to eternity, and the sun of the freedom and independence of the Palestinians will burn all of the Zionists," he continued.

EU not meeting its Kyoto targets...

Consumers just aren't playing fair...

E.ON AG. Chief Executive Officer Bernotat said the European Union will probably not meet the 2012 carbon dioxide emission targets of the Kyoto Protocol because consumers are using too much energy, Die Zeit reported.

Bernotat said in an interview with the weekly newspaper he is sceptical that the German government's longer-term emission target of one-quarter of energy consumption coming from renewable sources by 2020 can be met.

The projected annual increase in energy efficiency of 3 percent contrasts with a current improvement rate of 0.8 percent, he said in the interview to be published Thursday.

The CEO also expressed doubt that 15,000 MW of off-shore wind power capacity can be erected by 2020, which is also part of the government plan.

More questioning of global warming...

A good overview of what's wrong with the global warming theories...

A recent survey exposed the extent of bias among news programs on the three main U.S. networks: just one-fifth of stories about climate change featured opinions that dissented from the alarmist orthodoxy. However, CNN has probably outdone them all in terms of melodramatic reporting — hardly surprising given that founder Ted Turner thinks global warming will have turned those of us who aren’t lucky enough to be dead into cannibals within 40 years. Meanwhile, in the UK the BBC has effectively seconded dozens of its journalists to the alarmist PR machine, unquestioningly reporting new findings that support the alarmist narrative, while largely ignoring research that questions the “consensus,” other than to debunk it. Reputable science journals haven’t been much kinder to the skeptics, who often find it difficult to get research published as editors take an increasingly pro-alarmist stance.

But the skeptics have refused to be silenced, and in the past year or so there have been signs the momentum is beginning to shift away from the alarmists and towards the realm of common sense. Most significantly, it’s becoming abundantly clear that the Earth is not warming in the way the alarmists have claimed it should be. In February of this year a raft of data from the leading monitoring centers showed that average global temperatures had fallen by around 0.65º C, effectively canceling out the recent 30-year warming trend and leaving the Earth’s temperature close to what the alarmists would consider “normal.” And a few weeks later the World Meteorological Association reported that global temperatures would fall again this year.

Two years of cooling do not a new ice age make, but they do raise serious doubts about the predictions made by the alarmists, and undermine the fundamental tenet of climate change theory: that global temperatures will continue to increase in line with CO2 emissions. Predictably, the alarmists have simply discounted the cooling, claiming that the long-term temperature trend is still upwards, and explaining away the fall by pointing to the cooling effects of the La Nina weather system — despite refusing to credit the warming El Nino system with contributing to 1998 being the warmest year since records began.

The alarmists also said we’d see an increase in hurricanes and other storms as the planet warmed, but this hasn’t proved to be the case, and several studies have shown no link between global temperatures and hurricane activity. Similarly, there has been no significant rise in sea levels, despite the alarmists’ predictions to the contrary. So much for the science, which, contrary to the alarmist mantra, is far from settled.

Forward-thinking muslims....

Nothing like forward thinking in the fight against AIDs...

Muslim leaders in Kenya's North Eastern Province have resolved to campaign against the promotion of condoms as a means of preventing HIV.

The decision was made after a recent meeting on the theme of "Islam and Health", attended by more than 60 Muslim scholars and teachers in the provincial capital of Garissa.

"A lot of money is being wasted to poison our community ... a huge amount of money is spent on buying condoms, buying immorality," Sheikh Mohamud Ali, of Garissa district, told IRIN/PlusNews.

The leaders agreed to actively preach against the use and public promotion of condoms as a strategy to contain the pandemic and prevent pregnancy. They also agreed to oppose the distribution of condoms in villages and educational institutions across the northeast.

Thanks to James for sending this to me.

The Greens don't like to debate...

Thanks to Lubos Motl for finding this - here's a frank admission from a green advocate...

When I launched the TalkClimateChange forums last year, I was initially worried as to where I would find people who didn’t believe in global warming. I had planned to create a furious debate, but in my experience global warming was such a universally accepted issue that I expected to have to dredge the slums of the internet in order to find a couple of deniers who could keep the argument thriving.

The first few days were slow going, but following a brief write-up of my site by Junk Science I was swamped by climate skeptics who did a good job of frightening off the few brave Greens who slogged out the debate with. Whilst there was a lot of rubbish written, the truth was that they didn’t so much frighten the Greens away - they comprehensively demolished them with a more in depth understanding of the science, cleverly thought out arguments, and some very smart answers. If you want to learn about the physics of convection currents, gas chromatography, or any number of climate science topics then read some of the early debates on TalkClimateChange. I didn’t believe a word of it, but I had to admit that these guys were good.

In the following months the situation hardly changed. As the forum continued to grow, as the blog began to catch traffic, and as I continued to try and recruit green members I continued to be disappointed with the debate. In short, and I am sorry to say it, anti-greens (Reds, as we call them) appear to be more willing to comment, more structured, more able to quote peer reviewed research, more apparently rational and apparently wider read and better informed.

And it’s not just TalkClimateChange. Since we re-launched the forums on Green Options and promoted the “Live Debate“ on Nuclear Power, the pro-nuclear crowd have outclassed the few brave souls that have attempted to take them on (with the exception of our own Matt from TalkClimateChange). So how can this be? Where are all these bright Green champions, and why have I failed to recruit them into the debate? Either it’s down to poor online marketing skills, or there is something else missing. I’ve considered a range of theories as to the problem, none of which seem to fit - such as:

Greens are less educated? Nope.
Greens have less time? Nope.
Greens are a little reticent? Nope.
Greens are less intelligent? Definitely nope.
Greens are less passionate? Absolutely nope.]
Greens have less at stake? Clearly not.

The only feasible explanation that I can come up with so far is that perhaps Greens are less invested in the status quo, and therefore less motivated to protect it? The other possibility is that we are all completely wrong and we’re deluded - please tell me this isn’t so. So I am hoping that La Marguerite, with its insightful host and enlightened readership may be able to help shed some light on this peculiar phenomenon?

The real reason - Greens aren't used to debating...and they just don't know the facts. They only know emotion.

The land of Israel belongs to the Israelis

A nice op-ed from Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe....

Under siege since the day it was born, Israel has never known a day of true peace. It is the only nation in the world whose legitimacy is routinely called into question. It still has enemies who want it wiped off the map. Uniquely, the Jewish state came into being with the imprimatur of both the League of Nations and the United Nations. Yet time and again it is told it has no right to exist. Of course that is fatuous; few nations can present a birth certificate as storied as Israel's. Nonetheless, Israel's fundamental right to exist doesn't derive from UN votes, or promises in the Bible, or its own Declaration of Independence.

For the right of statehood ultimately accrues only to those who can fashion and sustain a nation. "The land of Israel belongs to Israelis," Yale's David Gelernter wrote in 2002, "for the same reason America belongs to Americans: Because Israelis conceived and built it - and what you create is yours. If you want a homeland, you must create one. You drain swamps, lay out farms, build houses, schools, roads, hospitals . . .

"That's how America got its homeland. And that is why Israel belongs to the Israelis."

The new Islamic Outrage

A complaint has been filed with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission.

Police are investigating an allegation that an editorial cartoon in The Chronicle Herald promoted hatred.
The cartoon by award-winning Herald staff cartoonist Bruce MacKinnon appeared on April 18 and depicted Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal, a former Nova Scotia woman now living in Ontario. She had told the Herald that she would seek millions of dollars in compensation from the federal government after terrorism-related charges against her husband, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, were stayed.

Mr. Jamal was one of 17 men and youths in the Toronto area arrested in June 2006. An 18th suspect was arrested two months later.

Charges remain in effect against 11 suspects. The Crown alleges they attended a terrorist training camp and were involved in a plot to storm Parliament Hill and bomb targets in Toronto and Ottawa.

In the cartoon, Ms. Jamal is shown saying she’d use the government compensation to fund her husband’s "next training camp."

Halifax Regional Police spokeswoman Theresa Rath couldn’t name the complainant or even the newspaper.

"We did receive a complaint on April 21 from someone who found a political cartoon to be offensive and believed it may border on hate literature," she said.

Police are still trying to determine whether a crime took place, she said

Why do environmentalists make us suffer?

They're going to starve us and send us back to the 11th century - which is why they can't seem to fathom the Islamic threat...

Do today’s soaring food prices and Third World food riots mean we’re headed for global famine?

Not any time soon—if we suspend the biofuels mandates quickly. Unfortunately, if we keep burning corn, wheat, and palm oil in our vehicles, there’s no limit to the hunger, malnutrition, wildlife extinction and political disruption we can cause.

The problem is simple: Food demand is inelastic. People need about the same number of calories whether they’re expensive or cheap. But the demand for biofuels is almost without limit. An acre of corn produces only 50 gallons worth of gasoline per acre, while humans worldwide burn more than a trillion gallons of gasoline per year.

Biofuels could absorb the whole world’s crop production without bringing down gasoline prices—because we’re banning coal and refusing to drill for oil. If we want to keep on eating, we’ll have to scrap the false “fuel security” of the biofuels.

Even giving up biofuels won’t stave off the world’s hunger for long, because we’ll need more than twice as much food and feed per year by 2050. The number of humans is likely to peak at about 8 billion, up from today’s 6.4 billion, and at least 7 billion of them are likely to be affluent enough to eat meat and ice cream. They’ll have fewer children—but more pets, few of them vegetarian.

If the world plans to have forests, wildlands, and wildlife species in the 22nd century, then we’ll need to triple the crop yields on the land we already farm—just for food and feed. Except for a chunk of western Brazil, there isn’t much high-quality cropland left in the world for cropland expansion, and none of it “extra” for biofuels.

But the same people who don’t want us to burn coal are telling us not to raise high-yield crops either. Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund tell us not to use nitrogen fertilizer taken from the air. They demand organic-only nitrogen from cattle manure or green manure crops—but such low-yield systems produce only half as much food per acre.

We’re locked into the same “don’t use it” debate on food as on energy. Is the Greens’ information on high yield crops any better than their “advice” on global warming—which tells us to stop burning fossil fuels though the world has cooled over the last ten years?

Syria's attempt at deception...

Here's an interesting article from the Washington Post about the deception used by Syria to hide its nuclear facility...

Syria went to extraordinary lengths to conceal its undeclared construction of a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor from spies in the sky and on the ground in recent years, according to a draft report by independent nuclear experts briefed by Bush administration officials.

The effectiveness of the camouflage effort raises new doubts about the prospects for certain detection of future clandestine nuclear weapons-related activities, the Institute for Science and International Security concluded in its report on the Syrian facility. "This case serves as a sobering reminder of the difficulty of identifying secret nuclear activities," the report said.

U.S. intelligence officials last month released images of the Syrian facility before it was bombed by Israel last September and bulldozed by the Syrian government once the raid became public. U.S. and Israeli officials have said the facility was a nearly completed nuclear reactor built with North Korean help and fitted with a false roof and walls that altered its shape when viewed from above.

According to the ISIS report to be released this week, the fake roof was just the start. Syrian engineers went to "astonishing lengths" to hide cooling and ventilation systems, power lines and other features that normally are telltale signs of a nuclear reactor, authors David Albright and Paul Brannan wrote.

For example, the main building appears small and shallow from the air, but it was evidently built over large underground chambers -- tens of meters in depth -- that were large enough to house the nuclear reactor, as well as a reserve water-storage tank and pools for spent fuel rods, the report said.

An extensive network of electrical lines appears to have been buried in trenches. Traditional water-cooling towers were replaced with an elaborate underground system that discharged into the Euphrates River. And, instead of using smokestack-like ventilation towers prominent at many reactor sites, the ventilation system appears to have been built along the walls of the building, with louver openings not visible from the air, the authors contended.

How far do you take freedom of religion???

This is from the UK...surprised this is not happening here....

Prison bosses have been instructed to let pagan inmates keep twigs in their cells...to use as wands.

Officers have been told to allow prisoners to collect and decorate the twigs which they need for their rituals.

It is the latest in a series of rulings to protect convicts' rights and ensure equality among different faiths.

Followers of other faiths are allowed items such as a prayer mat to allow them to worship.

The policy regarding pagans was announced by Justice Reform Minister Maria Eagle in a parliamentary answer.

She said: "Prison service policy is to enable prisoners of different faith traditions, including paganism, to practise their religion.

"Religious artefacts are allowed for relevant faiths within the constraints of good order and discipline. The religious artefacts for pagan prisoners include a flexible twig for a wand."

Another interesting story about Canada....

This is getting no publicity in Canada...read the whole interview...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Howard Rotberg, the author of The Second Catastrophe: A Novel about a Book and its Author (Mantua Books). The novel explores the problems faced by a pro-Israel historian after he wrote a book comparing Islamists to Nazis, and the situation for Israeli Jews today with that of Jews in 1939. Rotberg is a Canadian author who has faced the manufactured wrath of Islamists after they made up allegations against him.

FP: Howard Rotberg, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Rotberg: Thank you.

FP: Let’s begin with the trouble you began having after the release of your novel.

Rotberg: Several years ago, at a book lecture at the Waterloo Ontario store of the monopoly book retailer in Canada (with 72% of Canadian retail book sales), I was attacked by a Palestinian and an Iraqi, who shouted me down, with shouts of “you have no right to be heard if you are pro-Israel.” Then when I could no longer speak, and folded up my notes, and audience members asked the hecklers to be quiet and let me speak, the Iraqi shouted “he is a fucking Jew.” The lecture was stopped.

The only employee present was a young woman with a hijab. She later told some people in attendance that she was Palestinian and knew the hecklers. She later reported to her boss, fraudulently, that I said that “all Muslims are terrorists.” Later she changed the allegation in a written statement, also fraudulent, that I said that “all Middle Easterners are terrorists.” No matter how ridiculous, the PR person for Chapters stated in a press release that they were sorry that patrons had to hear racist statements from both the hecklers and the guest author.

Later an allegation appeared on the internet that I supposedly said at the lecture that “all Arabs and Muslims deserve to die.” In this case I got the internet site to furnish me with the IP address for the computer from which emanated this terrible allegation. Then I obtained a court order compelling the internet service provider to disclose the name and address of the computer owner. The allegation was posted in the name of a Jewish person, but I had reason to believe that such a person could never state that.

When I got the court order I found out that the source of the internet posting was a Palestinian family who lived a few doors away from the Jewish family whose name they appropriated for the internet allegation. I also did some detective work and found that the daughter of the family was a school friend and fellow member of the local university Muslim Students Association with the Palestinian, then 18 year old, book clerk, who started this little fraud. It had large repercussions. When I complained to the President of the book chain about the press release, she did not take it well. In one week, the book chain “banned” my book, returning some 300 copies to the publisher, and stated on their web site that the book was “unavailable”. Of course, refusing to carry it on their website was an indication of their animus; it costs the chain nothing in terms of shelf space to have it available by web-ordering, but the “fatwa” was a complete one.

FP: So what’s happening now?

Rotberg: I am still trying to get a court case heard against the book chain, but their lawyers are quite successful in stalling the case. Canadian newspapers do not want to cover the matter, because they receive large advertising dollars from the book chain.

Stephen Harper's speech to celebrate Israel's 60th Anniversary...

A true friend of Israel...

Toronto, May 8, 2008

Thank you for your warm welcome. Thank you Ivan for your kind introduction. Consul General Gissin, Minister Jim Flaherty, Leader of the Opposition John Tory, colleagues from the federal and provincial legislatures, members of the United Jewish Appeal Federation, ladies and gentlemen, I am truly honoured to be part of tonight’s celebration marking the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel.

All of my life, Israel has been a symbol – a symbol of the triumph of hope and faith. After 1945, our battered world desperately needed to be lifted out of post-war darkness and despair. After so much pain and suffering, humanity needed comfort and optimism. After so much death and destruction, we needed renewal – the renewal of the dream of a better and more civilized world. In short, we needed to be inspired. It was the people who had suffered who most provided that inspiration. By their example, they led the world back to the light. From shattered Europe and other countries near and far, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob made their way home. Their pilgrimage was the culmination of a two-thousand-year-old dream; it is a tribute to the unquenchable human aspiration for freedom, and a testament to the indomitable spirit of the Jewish people.

In the sixty years that followed, Israel blossomed into one of the most successful countries on earth; a land of ingenuity and enterprise, an oasis of agricultural genius, a wellspring of fine art and high culture, a model of democracy. Israel truly is the “miracle in the desert.”

But the source of Israel’s strength and success, in my view, is its commitment to the universal values of all civilized peoples: freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Soon I hope to have the opportunity to travel to Israel to see the “miracle” with my own eyes; to see how millions of people from all over the earth, with their countless different languages and traditions, came together to build a modern, prosperous, vibrant, democratic country. It is a pilgrimage I have wanted to make for a long time, but my determination to do so was redoubled this spring after I visited Auschwitz. I want to see first-hand what the survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants have accomplished, for theirs is truly an achievement of resilience and renewal unsurpassed in human history. I also want to go to deliver in person the message of Canada’s unshakable support for Israel.

Unfortunately, Israel at 60 remains a country under threat – threatened by those groups and regimes who deny to this day its right to exist. And why? Make no mistake; look beyond the thinly-veiled rationalizations: because they hate Israel, just as they hate the Jewish people. Our government believes that those who threaten Israel also threaten Canada, because, as the last world war showed, hate-fuelled bigotry against some is ultimately a threat to us all, and must be resisted wherever it may lurk.

In this ongoing battle, Canada stands side-by-side with the State of Israel, our friend and ally in the democratic family of nations. We have stood with Israel even when it has not been popular to do so, and we will continue to stand with Israel, just as I have always said we would.

I know that we all hope and pray that someday freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law will be a reality for all the peoples of the Middle East.

Enshrining these values is the best way to assure lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians alike. The foundations for a peaceful future are there. At the individual level, throughout the holy land, people of all faiths only want what all of us want: a safe place to live, a fair opportunity to get ahead, a good life for their children, a future for their grandchildren. So as we gather tonight to celebrate the first 60 years of the State of Israel, let us resolve as Canadians to do whatever we can to support Israelis and their neighbours in their quest for a better future.

There will be many challenges along the way, but considering how far Israel has come in such a short time, in the face of such seemingly insurmountable odds, I can foresee no dark force, no matter how strong, that could succeed in dimming the light of freedom and democracy that shines from within Israel.

Thank you very much.

Happy 60th anniversary.

Shalom.

More on Al Gore...

I can't help posting more on Al Gore...but I think the stats on hurricane activity is important...

Gore's reaction to the death and destruction caused by a cyclone ravaging Burma was to utter an emphatic "I told you so" Tuesday on National Public Radio. In an interview on NPR's "Fresh Air" broadcast, the jolly green giant made the charge while talking about the paperback release of his ironically named book, "The Assault on Reason."

Ignoring the fact that the rising death toll is due in part to an incompetent, isolationist and authoritarian government that allows most of its people to live in shanty towns of tin and bamboo, Gore claimed that "we're seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming."

In other words, people die in Rangoon because of an SUV in Richmond, Va.

There's a "trend toward more Category 5 storms," Gore claimed, and this trend "appears to be linked to global warming and specifically to the impact of global warming on higher ocean temperatures in the top couple of hundred feet in the ocean, which drives convection energy and moisture into these storms and makes them more powerful."

Except, as we recently noted, the trend in the world's oceans — as shown by measurements taken by a fleet of 3,000 high-tech ocean buoys first deployed in 2003 — is toward cooling. As Dr. Josh Willis, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, noted in a separate interview with National Public Radio, "there has been a very slight cooling" over the buoys' five years of observation.

As Joseph D'Aleo, the Weather Channel's first director of meteorology, told National Review Online's Deroy Murdock that the slight warming trend "peaked in 1998, and the temperature trend the last decade has been flat, even as CO2 has increased 5.5%. Cooling began in 2002." He added: "Ocean buoys have echoed that slight cooling since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration deployed them in 2003."

In fact, Ryan Maue of Florida State University's Center for Ocean-Atmosphere Prediction Studies says 2007 "will rank as a historically inactive tropical cyclone year for the Northern Hemisphere as a whole."

In the past 30 years, Maue adds, only 1977 had less hurricane activity from January through October. Last September had the lowest activity since 1977 while the Octobers of 2006 and 2007 had the lowest activity since 1976 and 1977, respectively.

Are the 'bin police' coming here???

This is from the UK....

Uniformed posses of “bin police” are set to replace traffic wardens as the most loathed busybodies on the streets.

So far they have slapped fixed penalties of up to £100 on more than 2,000 householders for environmental misdemeanours such as overfilling wheelie bins, leaving out too many bags or putting rubbish out at the wrong time.

Councils are now sending wardens on a £299 “waste crime” course, run by Keep Britain Tidy, to hone their tactics for prosecution.

More than 20 councils employ inspectors to look for what the government calls “waste receptacle” offenders, and have issued fines of £110,000 over the past two years.

Gore sinks to a new low....

He's blaming the Burmese cyclone on global warming...

Thirty days after Steve McIntyre caught NASA cooking climate history again - this time in a feeble attempt to somehow conceal the alarmist-embarrassing downward trend since 1998 -- Al Gore shamelessly portrayed Saturday's Myanmar cyclone catastrophe as a ‘consequence' of global warming.

A mere 16 days after NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation's cool phase shift would likely bring colder temperatures for as many as the next 20-30 years, Gore told NPR that the "trend toward stronger and more destructive storms appears to be linked to global warming and specifically to the impact of global warming on higher ocean temperatures." This just 6 days after a German study also predicted cooler ocean temperatures due to the Meridional Overturning Circulation entering a weak cycle, and in spite of there being absolutely no empirical evidence of a global warming / storm strength link.

Gore's monotonous and baseless account of AGW forced violent cyclones and hurricanes came just two days after McIntyre reported that 4 of the past 5 months were "'all-time' records for Southern Hemisphere sea ice" levels.

Israel mourns its fallen soldiers....

22,437 Israelis have died in the fight for Israel. Truly a sober number for its 60th anniversary. The sad thing is that the numbers will continue to climb. And, who knows when Israel will ever see peace? Let's all take a moment to reflect on the sacrifices made everyday to protect freedom in the west.

Kuwait's Prisoner Release Program....

But, how much will they retain?

The Ministry Interior will reward 60 prisoners by releasing them from jail for learning the Holy Quran by heart, reports Al-Watan daily quoting a ministry source.

Shame on the Paralympics Committee....

Do they really need this mentally-challenged individual to attend???

The president of the International Paralympics Committee (IPC) has invited the Iranian president to attend the opening ceremony of the Paralympics in Beijing.

Sir Philip Craven extended the invitation to President Ahmadinejad in Tehran on Monday.

Why isn't this all over the mainstream press????

Here's a story you won't see on CBC...

If you want to understand why murderous Islamic extremists still pour out of the Middle East, consider a small drama under way in Saudi Arabia right now.

A few weeks ago, one of the nation's most senior religious authorities directed that two reporters for a mainstream Saudi newspaper be executed for publishing stories suggesting that religions other than Islam are worthy of respect. In Saudi Arabia, malefactors are beheaded by sword, as the nation calls the punishment, often in public, outside a mosque just after Friday prayers. By official count, authorities beheaded 151 people last year.

So far, the two reporters, Abdullah bin Bejad al-Otaibi and Yousef Aba al-Khail, have not been put under the sword. They are still working at their newspaper, Al Riyadh. But they are reported to be terrified, and they have called on the government for protection. It has not responded, and the other Saudi papers have barely even mentioned the controversy.

Yes, shark attacks now blamed on global warming....

Geez...just how much can they blame on global warming???

Three decades have passed since the movie Jaws sent terrified bathers scrambling out of the ocean. But as any beach lifeguard knows, there's still nothing like a gory shark attack to stoke public hysteria and paranoia.

Two deaths in the waters off California and Mexico last week and a spate of shark-inflicted injuries to surfers off Florida's Atlantic coast have left beachgoers seeking an explanation for a sudden surge in the number of strikes.

In the first four months of this year, there were four fatal shark attacks worldwide, compared with one in the whole of 2007, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

'The one thing that's affecting shark attacks more than anything else is human activity,' said Dr George Burgess of Florida University, a shark expert who maintains the database. 'As the population continues to rise, so does the number of people in the water for recreation. And as long as we have an increase in human hours in the water, we will have an increase in shark bites.'

Some experts suggest that an abundance of seals has attracted high numbers of sharks, while others believe that overfishing has hit their food chain. 'I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's a convenient excuse,' Burgess said. Another contributory factor to the location of shark attacks could be global warming and rising sea temperatures. 'You'll find that some species will begin to appear in places they didn't in the past with some regularity,' he said.