Don't give in to PETA

Why on earth are they even talking with PETA???

Military chiefs are to meet with an animal rights group on Tuesday to discuss alternatives to the traditional bearskin hats famously worn by the guards at Buckingham Palace.

Solar cycles and global warming...

Wind doesn't work.....

Some interesting evidence that wind doesn't work....

However, according to the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the agency that oversees the state’s major alternative energy rebate programs, the small wind initiative was canceled because the turbines it has funded are producing far less energy than originally estimated.

An MTC-sponsored study released earlier this summer found that the average energy production of 19 small turbines reviewed was only 27 percent of what the installers had projected. The actual production for the 19 turbines, which received nearly $600,000 in public funding, ranged between 2 and 59 percent of the estimates.

A $75,663 turbine at Falmouth Academy that received $47,500 in state money, for example, has produced only 17 percent of the projected energy in the year since its installation. Another, smaller device in Bourne is producing only 15 percent of the originally estimated energy.

The MTC blamed the underperformance generally on inaccurate information provided by manufacturers and poor siting of the turbines, as well as inaccurate wind speed estimates and inefficiencies in wiring and other equipment.

Islamist defaces thousands of Dutch websites...

This is in response to Fitna...

A 'hacktivist' has hijacked numerous Dutch sites in retaliation for the anti-Islamic short film "Fitna" which was made and released earlier this year by the Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders.

Over the last six weeks an activist hacker by the name of 'nEt^DeViL' has hacked many Dutch Web sites and posted ideological statements on their home pages. Such an attack is known as a website defacement.

The hacked sites feature an embedded YouTube video dubbed "Anti-Fitna", which the hacker states is "[a] Response to the Fitna Movie by 'Geert Wilders' Cow !" "This hax0ring is to defend ISLAM - The Religion of [ Abraham, Moses, Jesus & Muhammad ( Peace Be Upon Them All ) ] that Insulted by a Cow ! from Netherlands !"

Zone-H.org, a website that tracks website defacement attacks worldwide, has documented thousands of compromised websites over the last months. Zone-H reports that 'nEt^DeViL' has hacked 18,157 websites as of Thursday, August 28.

Islam and Homosexuality still can't mix in the Netherlands.....

They still can't find a museum willing to show these photos....

MuseumgoudA is withdrawing its offer to exhibit artist Sooreh Hera's photos about Islam and homosexuality. Earlier, the museum in the town of Gouda had explicitly presented itself as a champion of free expression.

Hera took pictures showing two men in a homosexual context whilst wearing masks representing the prophet Mohammed and his nephew. The municipal museum of The Hague (Gemeentemuseum Den Haag) selected Hera's work for an exhibition last autumn, only to withdraw its decision within days. The given reason was that upon closer inspection, the quality of the photographs was not sufficiently high and that the museum did not feel like "needlessly offending certain groups".

MuseumgoudA criticised the Gemeentemuseum and offered to show Hera's work. "If Hera accepts our invitation, then we will certainly exhibit the photos here", as the museum's manager Ranti Tjan stated in November. He emphasised that his museum was a free port, "also for art that is experienced as offensive".

But Tjan is now going back on his promise, according to Hera. "He says he first needs to work on 'sentiments' in Gouda. Several Moroccans have already visited the museum in search of the photos. He says he wants to exhibit them, but cannot. First he wishes to teach the Muslims in his municipality how to look at art. But how long will that take?", Hera wondered rhetorically in newspaper De Pers yesterday.

Oslo is now the capital of robberies....

Yes, Oslo is now becoming a dangerous place....

Three men were in police custody on Thursday after they allegedly carried out no less than six robberies or attempted robberies on the streets of Oslo during the night.

Two men aged 20 and 18 are suspected of knocking down an apparently random victim on Vogts Gate in Oslo's Torshov district around 10:30pm. He was found unconscious on the sidewalk by a passerby who ended up chasing the robbers away.

While the victim was rushed to Ullevål Hospital, the robbers allegedly attacked two others in the Torshov area before they were apprehended by police about an hour later. Neither victim in the second and third assaults was seriously injured. The first victim was listed in stable condition on Thursday.

Meanwhile, on the west side of town in Oslo's affluent Skøyen district, another man was being robbed at knifepoint. Police also received a call just after midnight that a woman walking with her husband in nearby Frogner was kicked and beaten in another robbery attempt at Skarpsno, home to several foreign embassies.

Twenty minutes later, a 29-year-old man was accosted by a man with a knife near Olaf Ryes Plass.

Have Universities in Canada gone nuts???

All of this is unnecessary....

The University of Victoria is including "de-gendered" washrooms in all its new buildings for the comfort and safety of transgender students. Simon Fraser University juggles room bookings for Muslim students whose prayer times follow the sun, and the University of Calgary is launching an "equity audit" this fall to identify under-supported groups on campus.

At Carleton University and the University of Western Ontario, the official calendar listing holy days when students can be excused from classes or exams includes those central to Wicca and Zoroastrianism, an ancient religion that originated in Iran and is now estimated to have about 200,000 members worldwide.

Immigration, swelling numbers of international students and a shift in the population attending university means Canadian campuses are set to welcome a more diverse group of staff and students this fall than ever before. Many are abandoning a one-size-fits-all approach to their facilities and services as a result.

"Any university worth its salt for the last 10 or 15 years has recognized the need to change to be more accommodating to the significant and growing diversity that all campuses are experiencing," said Joe MacDonald, dean of students at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N. S.

In an effort to serve students' spiritual needs, the University of Toronto counts two pagans, two Hindus, two Buddhists and a First Nations spiritual leader among more than 20 chaplains associated with the new Multi-faith Centre that opened last year. It features half a dozen prayer, meeting and worship rooms, said director Richard Chambers, along with ablution facilities for foot-washing, a depressurized space that allows for fire and incense during worship ceremonies and a "living wall" of greenery.

Change of leadership of Hamas????

Gee, they say the radicals are taking over...I thought Hamas was already radical....

The results of a recent election held for one of Hamas's key decision-making bodies are likely to hinder efforts to free kidnapped IDF soldier St.-Sgt Gilad Schalit, sources in the Gaza Strip told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

The secret ballot was held about 10 days ago for the Shura (Consultative) Council, which is made up of Hamas's senior political and religious leadership and is tasked with discussing all important issues.

The names of the Shura Council members are kept secret, although it is believed that some of them are based in a number of Arab countries.

The sources told the Post the vote resulted in a major victory for representatives of the "young guard" in Hamas, most of whom are affiliated with the movement's armed wing, Izzadin Kassam.

The sources described the victory as a "coup," pointing out that the newly-elected members were far more radical than those who were ousted from the council.

"The Shura Council of Hamas is now dominated by warlords, thugs and militiamen," one source said. "The new members are not as educated as their predecessors.

Don't they know the American stole the oil?

How can the Chinese make a deal to develop an oil-field in Iraq if the Americans have stolen all the oil?

China and Iraq have signed a $3 billion deal revising an earlier agreement for China's biggest oil company to help develop the Ahdab oil field, an official at the Iraq's Oil Ministry said Thursday.

Finally - someone defending traditional marriage...

Yes, a new champion of traditional marriage...

A prominent Islamic Scholar and former president of the Gambia Supreme Islamic Council, Alhagie Ahmed Cherno Banding Drammeh, has said that Muslim men who marry more than four wives should be stoned to death.

The renowned preacher made this pronouncement to The Point yesterday following a media report that a man in Nigeria’s Niger State, known as Mr Bello Abubakar, is married with 86 wives and 170 children.

The intolerance of the gay community....

Yes, the gay community can be just as intolerant as the straight community...

Two weeks ago, news emerged that the co-founder of the website Manhunt.net had contributed $2,300 to the presidential campaign of John McCain. Uproar ensued.

Haven't heard of Manhunt?

Unless you're a gay man, that's to be expected. It's one of the most popular gay websites in the world, with 1 million registered members in the U.S. alone and 400,000 unique visitors a month. As its name implies, it's a site where many gay men go to find casual sexual encounters. Manhunt and sites like it have revolutionized one formative aspect of gay culture, taking what was once a public activity to the privacy of one's home.

Except that the Internet, as Jonathan Crutchley recently discovered, isn't really private. A successful real estate developer, he founded Manhunt with his life partner, Larry Basile, in 2001. He ran into trouble when Out, a gay magazine, published an article about the website in its current issue. The article, in passing, referred to Crutchley -- who until last week was chairman of the board at Manhunt -- as a "liberal Republican." That tidbit apparently shocked gay blogger Andy Towle, who within seconds found Crutchley's donation to McCain on a contributor database and posted the news on his website.

The shaming and condemnation of Crutchley was swift and unforgiving.

"Let's show MANHUNT what we in the gay community think of members of our community who support politicians who vote against the interests of the community," an anonymous commenter wrote. "Delete your MANHUNT profile!" Michelangelo Signorile, a gay liberal radio host, labeled Crutchley "asinine" simply for supporting McCain.

Rarely do you come across a political candidate who shares each and every one of your political views, and Crutchley's support for McCain was hardly different from that of any other donor who doesn't make the perfect the enemy of the good. "I believe McCain will be a better commander in chief than Obama, who also opposes gay marriage," Crutchley wrote on a website that covers the online personal ad industry. "If we have an experienced, seasoned person defending the country in this dangerous age, we will be able to argue about the gay agenda later."

Can Somalians integrate into Canada....

This is a report from Norway...does the same hold true here???

A Somalian woman who came to Norway more than 10 years ago is harshly criticizing her fellow Somalian immigrants and Norwegian authorities. In a new book, she claims Somalians themselves don't want to integrate into Norwegian society, and that Norwegian welfare programs make it easy for them to remain isolated.

he book written by Amal Aden, a pseudonym for the Somalian author, is already creating an uproar. Amal Aden wouldn't use her own name because of fears for her own safety.

In an interview with newspaper Aftenposten, the author said she hopes to launch a new debate on immigration and what can be done to further integration.

"I wrote the book in the hopes that children will get better lives," she said. "I want to see more integration, and the responsibility for that lies with the Somalians themselves and with the authorities."

She claims that resistance to integration is widespread especially among Somalian men, who fear losing their culture and religion. Many are afraid of Norwegians and view them as infidels who can't be trusted.

In her book, entitled "See us!" (Se oss!), Amal Aden claims the Somalians also exploit the Norwegian welfare state and have many children in order to qualify for more welfare payments. Many couples also "divorce" under Norwegian law in order for the women to receive even more welfare payments as single mothers, only to continue to live under Somalian customs with their Somalian husbands and have more children, the author claims.

She writes that violence is a part of life in Somalian homes, that young girls are often molested and women and children are intentionally kept isolated. Many Somalian men, she claims, prefer to live on welfare than accept jobs seemingly below their social status.

"I'm tired of being patient with a situation where children aren't getting enough food at home, where women are beaten by their husbands, where welfare payments to the (Somalian) families are used by the men to buy (the narcotic) khat, where the willingness to simply obtain more welfare money is stronger than the ability to care for children," writes Amal Aden. She accuses many spokesmen for the Somalian community of hypocrisy, saying they say they support integration when in reality they don't.

Want a Bulgarian Passport???

Gee, they're not expensive at all....

A criminal group in London is selling Bulgarian passports to suspected terrorists, a British newspaper reported after undertaking an investigation. A Bangladesh citizen was selling Bulgarian passports in a mosque in East London for GBP 1500 apiece. The merchant was trying to find customers by assuring that since Bulgaria is EU member state anyone who purchases a passport will be living in London undisturbed by authorities.

Why is Al-Manure in Australia....

No country should let in Al-Manure...

AUSTRALIA should investigate jamming an anti-Semitic, pro-terrorism television station being broadcast into Australia from Indonesia, a Jewish advocacy group says.

Anti-Defamation Commission chairman John Searle said yesterday he was disappointed that Australia's Arabic community was supporting the station, al-Manar.

The Australian Communication and Media Authority has twice stopped the channel from being broadcast in Australia, in 2004 and in January this year, because of its support for terrorism. Now it is being transmitted by an Indonesian satellite company part-owned by the Indonesian Government, which has declined American requests to halt the broadcasts.

Al-Manar is operated by Hezbollah, a militant Lebanese Muslim party banned in the United States as a terrorist organisation. In Australia only its armed wing is proscribed.

The fiercely anti-Israel and anti-US station endorses suicide bombing and often broadcasts the final messages of suicide bombers.

Mr Searle said al-Manar went beyond acceptable limits of free speech and was renowned for inciting violence and hatred.

He said he was disturbed at statements by Australian Arabic Council chairman Roland Jabbour in The Age yesterday that the channel was popular and should not be restricted.

"I would have hoped that a station broadcasting programs which describe Jews as the offspring of apes and pigs and which advocates their annihilation would not receive the support of Australia's Arabic community," he said.

Mr Jabbour responded yesterday by saying that anti-Semitism was wrong and that Judaism should be respected, but that Hezbollah was not anti-Semitic.

"We need to make a clear distinction between anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, and between a terrorist organisation and a resistance group," he said.

He said he would not call Jews the offspring of apes and pigs, but that in the context of "the crimes of the state of Israel" it was reasonable for al-Manar to do so and to portray Israeli rabbis as killing Christian children to use their blood in Passover meals.

Air pollution is way down.....

Compared to the turn of the century...

Although we still have much progress to make on reducing emissions, new research suggests the situation could be worse.

According to a study by the Desert Research Institute, pollutant levels at the beginning of the 20th century were two to five times higher than current levels of pollution. Researchers attribute the decrease in pollution levels to the advent of more efficient coal-burning technologies, as well as legislation aimed at reducing emissions.

Another traditional marriage....

The Father arranges the marriage and the mother wants a divorce....what's an 8-year-old to do???

A Saudi court will next month hear a plea for divorce from an eight-year-old girl married off by her father to a man in his fifties, the Arabic-language daily Al-Watan reported.

It said the girl’s mother had filed the divorce case with the court at Unayzah 220 kilometres (135 miles) north of Riyadh, and cited lawyer Abdullah Jtili as saying the father had arranged the marriage without telling the girl.

"She doesn’t know yet that she has been married," added Jtili of the girl who is about to begin her fourth year at primary school.

In defense of traditional marriage...

Good to see the Islamic Authory of Nigeria defending traditional marriage, no?

Nigeria's Islamic authority has told the man who has 86 wives to choose only four and repent within three days or else he will be sentenced to death.

The Jamatu Nasril Islam (JNI) passed their verdict on Mohammed Bello Abubakar, 84, according to Sharia law.

This comes two weeks after the Nigerian press and the BBC reported on the case.

Talking to the media then, Mr Abubakar challenged Muslim scholars, saying there is no punishment stated in the Koran for having more than four wives.

However, Mr Abubakar advised other men not to follow his example and marry 86 women.

Israel's so-called peace partner....

Abbas always protests when Israel calls itself a Jewish state...

“When I was there, I was shocked to see on their own television references to Israel’s conducting of Nazi-like experiments on Palestinian prisoners. Prisoners are very important for Palestinian society, for families, and the notion that their family members are being subjected to Nazi-like experiments just breeds hatred and contempt for Jews.”

Cotler said the most disturbing and ignored incitement comes from the Palestinian leadership itself, including the PA’s president Mahmoud Abbas.

“People don’t realize that Abbas signed a law, on the very day there was a suicide terrorist attack in December 2005 against Israel, providing monthly stipends for the families of suicide bombers. In January 2007, Abbas addressed a large crowd that was estimated as being over 100,000, in which he said ‘the sons of Israel are mentioned in the Koran as those who are corrupting humanity on Earth.’

“Abbas has never recognized Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state. What was also passed over was a meeting of Arab countries in Senegal last March. During that meeting, Abbas spoke of the Palestinians as being the object of an ethnic cleansing and, worse, that Palestinians are facing a campaign of annihilation by Israel and that Israel perpetrates barbaric attacks against defenceless Palestinians.”

Cotler said Abbas also celebrated Israel’s release of a Lebanese terrorist who killed members of an Israeli family, in exchange for the return of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in 2006.

“Abbas personally sent his own expressions of celebrations. Knowing that Israel was in mourning was, tragically, a national day of celebration in Lebanon.

Global warming misses New Zealand....

This is news in New Zealand, but not elsewhere...

Mt Ruapehu is claiming the biggest snow base ever recorded for a New Zealand skifield with over 4.5m of snow on the ground.

Ruapehu Alpine Lifts, operator of Mt Ruapehu ski area, was celebrating what it called a major milestone today.

The snow measuring stake at Turoa previously only stood at 380cm so had to be extended to measure today's 455cm snow base.

The Whakapapa side of the mountain also had 350cm of snow, the biggest since 1995.

Mt Ruapehu marketing manager Mike Smith said the record-breaking snow base would be paradise for skiers and boarders, and with such large bases the season could potentially keep going into November.

How's this for scare-mongering???

Here's the latest bad news - human extinction...

We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and the beginning of survival" for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction.

The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable, bringing long-term sea level rises of 70-80 metres. All the world's coastal plains would be lost, complete with ports, cities, transport and industrial infrastructure, and much of the world's most productive farmland. The world's geography would be transformed much as it was at the end of the last ice age, when sea levels rose by about 120 metres to create the Channel, the North Sea and Cardigan Bay out of dry land. Weather would become extreme and unpredictable, with more frequent and severe droughts, floods and hurricanes. The Earth's carrying capacity would be hugely reduced. Billions would undoubtedly die.

Turkey welcomes Ahmadinejad.....

This is worrying...

Praying in Istanbul's Blue Mosque on Friday, I witnessed firsthand Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's international publicity coup.

Ahmadinejad's visit produced little in terms of substantive policy; the signing of a multibillion-dollar natural gas pipeline deal was put off. But Ahmadinejad got something just as valuable: a chance to spin his own image, court popularity and bash the United States and Israel.

I've long been fond of the Blue Mosque because it is where, many years ago, I attended my first Friday prayers. Last Friday, though, I felt uncomfortable in the prayer hall, where I found myself in front of God but next to Ahmadinejad, who turned the ritual into a political show.

Departing from established practice of having visiting Muslim heads of state pray in a smaller mosque in Istanbul, the government allowed Ahmadinejad to pray in the Blue Mosque, Turkey's symbol of tolerant Ottoman Islam. With permission from Turkish authorities, he also allowed Iranian television to videotape him during the entire prayer, in violation of Islamic tradition, which requires quiet and intimate communion between God and the faithful. There was so much commotion around Ahmadinejad that the imam had to chide the congregants. Then, as he left the mosque, Ahmadinejad got out of his car to encourage a crowd of about 300 to chant, "Death to Israel! Death to America!"

Even without this behavior, any visit from a leader representing an authoritarian, anti-Western autocracy would have created controversy in Turkey just a few years ago. Not today. The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government not only opened the Blue Mosque to Ahmadinejad but accommodated his refusal to pay respects at the mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern, secular Turkey -- a major violation of protocol for an official visit.

Geert Wilders on HARDtalk...

There are three parts - you can see the hostility from the BBC interviewer...

And...more refugees to flood into Norway.....

This is a recipe for disaster....

Norwegian townships will need to accommodate twice the number of refugees that they're already taking in, as a steady stream of persons seeking asylum turns into a flood. The state, meanwhile, has started publicizing what's required to actually receive asylum in the country.

Newspaper Aftenposten reported Monday that immigration agency UDI is now publishing what some critics call a "recipe" for winning asylum in Norway. Despite even some internal concerns, UDI is disclosing on its web site detailed descriptions of the conditions that can help would-be refugees in their quest for asylum.

Asylum-seekers from Afghanistan, for example, can have a better chance of winning asylum if they've made a "real" religious conversion, or if they've declared themselves as homosexuals. Asylum-seekers from Iraq, meanwhile, will have a good chance if they're single women without resources or a network in their homeland.

Frode Forfang, acting director of UDI, conceded there had been internal disagreement over whether such information should be revealed. He contended, however, that no details are revealed as to what can make an asylum application credible in the eyes of the authorities.

UDI concluded that publication of its notations help clarify what's required for asylum. Attorneys representing asylum seekers welcome the new information, after complaining that asylum rules are "horribly complicated."

Norway is bracing for a new wave of asylum seekers. After accepting 6,500 refugees last year, around 15,000 are expected this year. That compares to 25,000 expected by Sweden, but just 2,000 expected by Denmark and 1,500 expected by Finland.

Norway can't deport violent foreigners....

The West seems unable to face up to problems in immigration....

New, stricter rules adopted in 2004 were supposed to make it easier for police to quickly deport foreigners charged with violent crimes. They're not working.

Newspaper Aftenposten reported over the weekend that Norway's 25 police districts identified 797 persons between 2005 and 2007 who were candidates for quick deportation. The offenders had committed violent crimes, including murder, but by the end of last year, only 21 had actually been sent out of the country.

The unruly foreigners avoided deportation either because investigations into their crimes were suspended or because their cases were delayed in the courts.

Italy's deal with the devil.....

Why on earth do they do such things???

A former Italian president says his country had allowed Palestinian terror groups to roam free in exchange for not attacking Italian targets.

Francesco Cossiga's admission confirmed claims of such a deal revealed last week in an interview in the Corriere della Sera newspaper with Bassam Abu Sharif, the former chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

In a letter published Aug. 15 in Corriere della Sera, Cossiga described a "secret 'non-belligerence pact' between the Italian state and Palestinian resistance organizations, including terrorist groups" such as the PFLP. The deal, he said, had been devised by Prime Minister Aldo Moro, who in 1978 was kidnapped and assassinated by the Italian terror group the Red Brigades.

Nonetheless, there were several major Palestinian terror attacks on Italian targets in the 1970s and 1980s. They included attacks on Rome's airport and main synagogue, and the hijacking of the cruise ship the Achille Lauro cruise ship.

Last month, Cossiga accused the PFLP of being behind a terrorist attack at the Bologna train station in 1980 that killed 85 people. That attack has long been ascribed to Italian neo-fascist terrorists, and two leaders of a neo-fascist extremist group were given life sentences for their role in the attack.

Why won't the IOC honour the slain Israeli athletes???

The Israelis organize memorials for the slain athletes from the 1972 Munich Olympics - but it's never held under the Olympic banner....

While in office, neither Samaranch nor his successor, Jacques Rogge, made even the slightest effort to commemorate the victims. Those most hurt by the committee's inaction were the families of the slain athletes.

Since Munich, widows Anki Spitzer and Ilana Romano have tried to persuade IOC officials to erect a monument to the slain athletes in the city's Olympic Village.

On Monday, Romano pleaded with Giladi, who was present at the 1972 Games as a broadcaster, that the "next ceremony be held under the Olympics' five-ring banner."

Spitzer spoke in English about the families' desire not for vengeance, but for peace of mind, and of the difficulties the widows have faced in raising 14 children between them as orphans.

She also leveled damning accusations at Rogge and his predecessors.

"The sons, husbands and fathers who were murdered weren't tourists or bystanders, but part of the Olympic family. But the Olympic family doesn't recognize them," she said, receiving a standing ovation from the audience.

Despite the emotional pleas, the ceremony will likely remain an Israeli-organized event at the London Games in 2012, and indeed for the foreseeable future.

An interview with Brigitte Gabriel....

One of my heroes....

What about all the moderate Muslims who represent our hope for the future? Why don’t you write about them? The moderate Muslims at this point are truly irrelevant. I grew up in the Paris of the Middle East, and because we refused to read the writing on the wall, we lost our country to Hezbollah and the radicals who are now controlling it.

In your new book, you write about the Muslim presence in America and bemoan the rise of Islamic day schools and jihad summer camp. Is there really such a thing? Yes. Instead of taking lessons on swimming and gymnastics, the kids are listening to speakers give lectures titled “Preparation for Death” and “The Life in the Grave.”

You also lament the public foot baths that have been installed at the University of Michigan and elsewhere to accommodate Muslim students. I lived in the Middle East for the first 24 years of my life. Never once did I see any foot-washing basins in airports or public buildings. So why are they pushing them down the throats of Americans?

I can’t get upset if people want to wash their feet before they pray. This is the way they are taking over the West. They are doing it culturally inch by inch. They don’t need to fire one bullet. Look what is happening in Europe. Do we want to become like “Eurabia”?

Just who's running Malaysia????

Just days after the Islamists complained, the concert was cancelled...

An Avril Lavigne concert scheduled for later this month in Malaysia has been cancelled amid complaints that the show by the Canadian rock singer is "too sexy.''

The Arts, Culture and Heritage Ministry says it had decided not to permit Lavigne's planned Aug. 29 performance because it is unsuitable for Malaysian culture.

The decision came after complaints by the youth wing of a fundamentalist opposition party, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic party.

Kamarulzaman Mohamed, a party youth official, told The Associated Press on Monday that Lavigne's show was "considered too sexy for us'' and would promote the wrong values just before independence day on Aug. 31.

Half the tickets had already been sold.

The truth about wind power....

Syria's Nuclear facility...

Will the IAEA really find out the truth???

The photographic evidence of the existence of a nuclear reactor under construction at the site was overwhelming: pictures of the reactor under construction, with great similarities to a North Korean plutonium production reactor, and its later camouflage by the construction of a surrounding building that completely enclosed the structure; the intake of water from the Euphrates River and the outlet of returning water from the building back into the downstream of the river, which indicated the existence of a strong energy source at the site. The most damning piece of evidence probably is the way the Syrians razed the site, poured concrete over it and claimed that it was some sort of a military site and not a nuclear reactor.

THIS SHOULD have been enough for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to indict Syria for its violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). However, the IAEA requested an inspection of the bombed site in the hope that it would be able to collect evidence that would clinch the matter. A four-day inspection trip was made in June 2008, months after the Syrians finished their clean-up of the site, but was probably limited by the Syrians to "classical" IAEA inspection methods of visual observations and collection of samples. It is doubtful whether these would uncover much, given the Syrian efforts at a cleanup. The "corpse" still lies buried in the huge amount of poured concrete. It is possible, however, that the IAEA inspectors were getting too close for comfort, since Syria recently announced that it would not permit the inspectors to return to the site.

Is this coming to Canada???

Paying women to study science?

Women can win cash payments of £1,000 a year to study science as universities struggle to fill places on undersubscribed courses, an investigation has found.

An undercover reporter was told by Leicester University physics department that she was a strong candidate for the money partly because women were “underrepresented” on the course.

The policy, which critics argue is the result of “social engineering”, is evidence of the booming market in cash awards to fill some courses. Other offers made to reporters posing as applicants last week included an institution paying up to £1,000 cash to allcomers, regardless of their income. Another was offered £500 a year for choosing a less popular course.

Professor Alan Smithers, director of Buckingham University’s centre for education research, said using gender as a justification for offering money was “really quite alarming”.

How's this for a traditional marriage???

Will supporters of traditional marriage support this???

A Saudi man in his 50s has announced that he refuses to annul his year-and-a half-long marriage to an eight-year-old girl, because he claims never to have done anything forbidden by Islamic law.

He said that Islamic law does not set a specific age for marriage, and that the Prophet Muhammad married 'Aisha when she was nine.

So, they were married when she was 6 and a half!

Are the Greenshirts coming???

Just what we need...greenhouse cops...

AFTER the release of the Rudd Government's green discussion paper on climate change last month, eyes are focused on how business and the community will be affected by the mitigation costs of climate change.

But there has been little attention given to climate change and its implications for Australian policing. As the principal domestic security actor in Australia, with 44,000 officers, the eight police forces that serve this country need to think harder about how climate change may affect their core business.

Most Australian senior police officers haven't considered climate change to have much relevance for their work. The notable exception is Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty, who suggested last September that climate change could eclipse terrorism as the security issue of the century.

Climate change could have wide-ranging implications and challenges for Australia's police. New legal regimes are required to manage carbon markets and these will require compliance and enforcement.

Compliance under the carbon pollution reduction scheme will involve liable entities monitoring and reporting emissions at least annually.

The Government proposes establishing an emissions trading regulator as an incorporated body with a high degree of operational independence. The regulator will have its own investigation and enforcement mechanisms, and trading activities could be covered by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Detailed compliance and enforcement arrangements are to be developed, but the regulator and ASIC may wish to invite police involvement to investigate criminal breaches of the scheme once legislation has been defined. This will require police to develop knowledge and competencies on the use of emissions trading for money laundering and fraud.

Boy, the global warming people can exxagerate!

They love to scare-monger...

Much of the global warming debate is perhaps best described as a constant outbidding by frantic campaigners, producing a barrage of ever-more scary scenarios in an attempt to get the public to accept their civilisation-changing proposals. Unfortunately, the general public – while concerned about the environment – is distinctly unwilling to support questionable solutions with costs running into tens of trillions of pounds. Predictably, this makes the campaigners reach for even more outlandish scares.

These alarmist predictions are becoming quite bizarre, and could be dismissed as sociological oddities, if it weren't for the fact that they get such big play in the media. Oliver Tickell, for instance, writes that a global warming causing a 4C temperature increase by the end of the century would be a "catastrophe" and the beginning of the "extinction" of the human race. This is simply silly.

His evidence? That 4C would mean that all the ice on the planet would melt, bringing the long-term sea level rise to 70-80m, flooding everything we hold dear, seeing billions of people die. Clearly, Tickell has maxed out the campaigners' scare potential (because there is no more ice to melt, this is the scariest he could ever conjure). But he is wrong. Let us just remember that the UN climate panel, the IPCC, expects a temperature rise by the end of the century between 1.8 and 6.0C. Within this range, the IPCC predicts that, by the end of the century, sea levels will rise 18-59 centimetres – Tickell is simply exaggerating by a factor of up to 400.

How's this for a magazine???

Arabic magazine in Berlin labels gays as diseased....

Two sensitive subjects have crashed into each other in Berlin, with a row over an article in a German Arabic language magazine warning readers that shaking the hands of gay men can transmit diseases.

The article, in the free magazine al-Salam which is distributed to restaurants and cafes around the German capital, is couched in pseudo-scientific language, and accompanied with graphic photos of skin diseases.

Titled "A flesh-eating bacteria and sexual abnormality," the article claims that gay men are hit by deadly diseases and that Muslim "brothers" should not shake their hands as “one never knows what kind of bacteria and germs are found on them.”

Ahhh, the Chinese Olympics....

Some interesting conditions for performers at the opening ceremonies....

The Kung Fu pupils in the opening ceremony of the Olympics have spent the last year cooped up in a military camp outside Beijing. Conditions have been bad. "They weren't even given enough food," says their trainer. This news adds to the criticism of the Beijing Organizing Committee.

Viewers from around the globe marvelled at the Opening Ceremony last Friday. One of the most spectacular features was the martial arts display by 2008 pupils from the famous Shaolin Centre in Henan province. With coordinated movements, they showed the Tai Chi variant of Kung Fu; a popular way to relax for many Chinese people.

The skilful and well-executed show took a severe toll on many of the participants; both those who took part and the performers who were held in reserve.

Many of the martial arts performers feel abused and ignored by the Olympic organizers. For the last year, they have been housed 50 to a room, more than 70 kilometres from the ‘Bird’s Nest’ National arena. This is where they have slept, eaten and spent all their time.

Leaving the compound around the barracks was strictly forbidden. The dormitories are crammed with bunk beds. Between 30 and 50 of the teenagers spent the night in each room. Only a few of the showers work and the toilet facilities have been bad. The winter was icy and in summer, the pupils had to battle against mosquitoes and the heat.

"After repeated complaints they finally installed air-conditioning in the sleeping quarters. However, most of the equipment was so old that it didn't work," says one of the pupils.

Most of the 2500 performers have been sent home after the opening ceremony. The few that remain in order to take part in the closing ceremony are extremely angry about the treatment they have received from the Olympic organizers.

"The food is the worst thing. We’ve had the same two courses for dinner for a year. Sometimes there hasn't been enough for everyone. Those who have arrived last haven't got anything to eat," says a pupil.

He adds that he "wants to throw up," when the food is served.

Chicago had fewest 90-degree days since 1930....

We've also had a cool summer in Ottawa...with very few days over 30 (c)....

August is the wettest and often the muggiest month of the year. Yet, summer heat continues in short supply, continuing a trend that has dominated much of the 21st Century's opening decade. There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008. That's by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930.

This summer's highest reading to date has been just 91 degrees. That's unusual. Since 1928, only one year—2000—has failed to record a higher warm-season temperature by Aug. 13.

Netherlands recognizes muslim polygamy....

If the marriages take place in countries where polygamy is accepted, then it is ok...

Although polygamy is banned in the Netherlands, the marriages of Muslims who have several wives are recognised by Dutch authorities.

Registrars in the major cities, in particular, record dozens of bigamous or polygamous marriages per year. These marriages are prohibited and an offence in the Netherlands. However, polygamous marriages that take place in countries where more than one wife is permitted, such as Morocco, are accepted, newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports.

If immigrants with several wives settle in the Netherlands, the local authorities register all the marriages. However, the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS), where all marriages are registered nationally, removes these bigamous or polygamous marriages from its files, on the assumption that administrative errors have occurred. As a result, it is not known how common the phenomenon is in the Netherlands.

Jordan bars religious jews...

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

Jordanian border officials refused to allow a group of Israeli tourists carrying religious objects such as talitot and tefillin to enter their country on Tuesday, saying it was "a safety measure" to avoid potential terror threats.

Thirty-six Israeli tourists on their way to Amman for a three-day tour were detained at the Sheikh Ali Hussein Crossing near Beit She'an at 6:30 a.m. and notified of a new regulation that prohibits entry into Jordan with tefillin, talitot, prayer books, Bibles or the Talmud.

"Our group was presented with two options," said Alan Novetsky, a recent immigrant from New York who was accompanied on the tour by his wife. "Either enter Jordan without religious objects or go back to Israel."

Novetsky said the group's suitcases were thoroughly searched for religious items. "They seemed to know exactly what they were looking for.

Zimbabweans now eating elephants....

Geez...how long will Africans allow this to go on...

Elephants in Zimbabwe are being shot and eaten as wildlife is decimated by the impact of the country's economic crisis, activists claimed today.

Almost 2,000 elephants have been killed in and around the Hwange national park in north-west Zimbabwe this year, the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force claimed, adding that the country's national parks department intended to authorise the shooting of 1,000 more by the end of the year.

The Palestinians show off their engineering prowess: A New Rocket to bomb Israel...

Yes, finally, the Nasser-4....something we've all been waiting for...

Nearly two months after Israel entered into a truce with militant groups in Gaza, at least one of them says it is building longer-range rockets that Israel says would violate the cease-fire.

In a rare display of militant public relations, the Popular Resistance Committees last week showed off its training techniques and a rocket factory to journalists.

The militants showed off what they said was a new rocket, called the Nasser-4, which can travel 25 km (16 miles) -- double the range of the existing Nasser-3. If true, larger Israeli cities like Ashkelon and Ashdod would be under threat of attack.

Some Gazans want the Israelis back...

This is from the Christian Science Monitor...

Three years have passed since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, and in that time the economy of this coastal territory of 1.4 million people has gone from bad to worse.

Gas and food shortages are now being compounded by cash shortages as tens of thousands of people were unable to withdraw money from banks on Monday.

Still, despite their economic hardships, most Gazans insist that they prefer life here without the Israelis.

But in Mawassi – a mixed ethnic Palestinian and Bedouin town that was completely isolated from the rest of Gaza inside a Jewish settlement enclave – it's a different story.

"I want [the Israelis] to come back," says Riyad al-Laham, an unemployed father of eight who worked in the area's Jewish settlements for nearly 20 years. "All the Mawassi people used to work in the settlements and make good money. Now there is nothing to do. Even our own agricultural land is barren."

Hezbollah's global reach.....

They are now operating in several countries outside of Lebanon...

Iranian-Hizbullah footprints can be found in various African and South American countries. In Nigeria, for example, Hizbullah operates within the expatriate Lebanese Shiite and local populations. The leader of the indigenous Shiites in Nigeria, Sheikh Zakzaky, has created idolism for Hassan Nasrallah and the leaders of Iran.

In Venezuela and other South American countries Hizbullah has been waging a long-term campaign to convert the native Indians to Shiite Islam. Teodoro Rafael Darnott, also known as “'Commander Teodoro,” recently claimed, “If the United States were to attack Iran, the only country ruled by God, we would counterattack in Latin America and even inside the United States itself. We have the means and we know how to go about it. We will sabotage the transportation of oil from Latin America to the US. You have been warned.”

On June 29 the Kuwaiti daily al-Siasa reported that Hizbullah was training young men from Venezuela in its military camps in south Lebanon to prepare them to attack American targets. In addition, Hizbullah and Iran has set up secret cells abroad for carrying out terrorist attacks. Such cells were responsible for the attacks on the Israeli Embassy and the AMIA Jewish Center building in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s, the attacks in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and attempted attacks in London and Thailand.

Meanwhile, ABC reported that the American and Canadian intelligence services had information about Hizbullah sleeper cells in Canada whose role was to gather intelligence about Israeli and Jewish targets in Ottawa and Toronto for possible terrorist attacks.

Ahh...nothing like the joys of summer camp...

Bomb-making in the morning, suicide operations in the afternoon...

Youths leaped through fiery hoops as gunfire echoed in an action-packed graduation ceremony for a Hamas summer camp aimed at preparing the youngsters for battle against Israel.

About 200 teens dressed in the uniforms of the Hamas military wing showed off their new skills Sunday in a sandy, ramshackle stadium in the eastern Shejaiyeh area of Gaza City. The goal of the Hamas camp was clear — train the youth in military tactics and impart the militant Islamic ideology that has characterized Hamas.

A truce that began June 19, halting Palestinian rocket barrages and Israeli reprisal raids, provided the calm for the camp to proceed unhindered.

Some of the drills in the final event were the same as those seen at graduation ceremonies for Palestinian police and security forces.

The youths leaped through hoops set on fire and summersaulted over the backs of others as older Hamas militants fired rifles. Random small bombs were also detonated in the sandy field.

An older youth lay on the ground as a minivan drove over him — the tire rolling over the youth's body to cheers and gasps by hundreds of onlookers. He later smashed concrete plates set on fire with a quick snap of his hand. Other youths also smashed concrete blocks piled on the youth's body, as organizers set a small fire nearby, increasing the pressure.

A black-suited trio sung strident pro-Hamas music as the youths backflipped off scaffolding into a pool of water below, held onto a rope to glide across a metal cable fixed above the ground, and leaped off wooden bars, a few landing in a smoldering fire pit lit below them — all while bearded gunmen fired their assault rifles in the air and around the youths' feet.

They later lined up breathing heavily and standing still as khaki-clad camp leaders walked sternly among them.

"They are tomorrow's leaders!" thundered Khalil Hayyeh, a senior Hamas leader.

Why believe the NGOs???

The press always seems to believe the NGOs when it comes to supposed human rights violations of Israel...

IN RECENT weeks, local, highly political rights groups - funded by the EU and by European governments - have received worldwide coverage for their attacks on Israel. Consider the publicity afforded to Physicians for Human Rights - Israel (PHR-I) when it accused the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) of denying Gazans life-saving health care in Israel unless the patients informed on family and friends. PHR-I's report was published in hundreds of major media outlets, and Israel was portrayed as cruel and inhumane, as opposed to genuinely concerned for the security of its citizens.

Yet, despite the importance of this story, did reporters question PHR-I's reliability? Rather, the halo effect shielded it from past mistakes. Three months ago, PHR-I reported that a cancer patient in Gaza died while awaiting a permit to receive treatment in Israel, only to admit days later that the "deceased" was still alive. The patient was attempting to evade a security check. Even if we give PHR-I the benefit of the doubt, that it was unknowingly misled by the patient's family, surely similar self-serving "evidence" from Palestinians and provided by PHR-I should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. But it was not.

Are greens now uncool???

This is from the Times of London...where being green is just a little less cool...

Only a year ago, according to MORI, 15 per cent of those polled put the environment in their top three concerns. That figure has dropped by a third to 10 per cent this month. Now that people are fighting for their own survival rather than their grandchildren's, they put crime, the economy and rising prices at the top of their list.

According to Andrew Cooper, director of the research company, Populus: “There is a direct correlation between how people perceive the economy and the importance they place on the environment. When times are tough people resent paying more to salve their conscience.” This means that fewer people are now buying organic chickens from smart supermarkets when they can pay £3.99 at Lidl. With all food prices rising, the organic market is being credit-crunched. Demand for it grew by 70 per cent from 2002 to 2007; now it has stalled, according to the consultancy Organic Monitor.

The vast new organic Whole Foods Store on Kensington High Street in London is so quiet you can hear the cheese breathe in the specially designed glass room. Meanwhile the demand for takeaway pizzas and McDonald's has risen as people find the cheapest way to eat.

When David Cameron became leader of the Conservative Party he said that green issues were at the top of his agenda. His slogan for the local elections last year was “Vote Blue, Go Green”. But in the past few months he has realised that voters have lost the appetite for their greens.

He has only given one environmental speech since Christmas. Once he used to talk about putting a £3,000 windmill on top of his house. Now the message is not about conserving the planet but preserving his bank balance. He wears catalogue clothes, grows his own vegetables and holidays barefoot in Britain because it is less extravagant, not because he is trying to reduce his global footprint.

In fact, when the Tory leader's bicycle was stolen a week ago, the message of the story was not how green he was for riding his bike, but how broken our society has become when a politician finds his bike nicked from under his nose.

The Iranians show what great sports they are.....

Shouldn't they be sent home or something???

Politics reared its ugly head at the Olympic Games once more on Saturday after an Iranian swimmer refused to compete alongside Israeli Tom Be'eri.

Mohammad Alirezaei was due to race against Be'eri in the fourth heat of the 100 meter breaststroke, but pulled out, apparently under the orders of the chiefs of the Iranian delegation.

"This isn't the first time this has happened and it doesn't surprise me anymore," Olympic Committee of Israel General Secretary Efraim Zinger told The Jerusalem Post. "Politics takes precedence over sport with the Iranians and the Olympic spirit is as far from them as east is far from west.

Pickens is wrong....

His much-heralded energy plan misses the mark...

So hats off to Mr. Pickens. That said, the plan he is advancing for dealing with the crisis — build windmills to release natural gas from electricity generation so it can be used to power compressed natural gas (CNG)-driven cars, displacing gasoline in the process — is technically flawed and needs to be revised.

While a net exporter twenty years ago, the United States today imports about 18% of its natural gas. So without a very substantial change in our electric power generation portfolio, shifting from gasoline to natural gas would just shift us from one imported fuel to another. Wind power is an improbable candidate for achieving such a shift. Simply to replace the 18% of our natural gas we currently import would require multiplying the nation’s current total wind power tenfold; to free up enough domestic natural gas to replace half our gasoline would require a thirty-fold wind power increase. The feasibility of doing this is very doubtful, not merely because of the size of the project but because wind power is intrinsically unreliable. When the wind speed drops in half, power output drops by a factor of eight, so wind simply cannot provide the baseload power. Rather, it can only be used as an as-available auxiliary to reduce somewhat the net overall fuel consumption of a fossil-fuel-driven baseload system that must have — and frequently run at — full power capacity to meet the needs of its customers. Replacing natural gas power generators with nuclear or coal-fired systems would be possible in principle, as both of these can provide reliable baseload power, but would take many years and entail many other problems.

Furthermore, shifting to natural gas as a critical transportation resource is unwise for fundamental logistical reasons. The United States is currently using natural gas at a rate of 27 trillion cubic feet per year. The total known reserves of natural gas in all of North America are 274 trillion cubic feet. And while new reserves are always being discovered, launching a heroic effort to shift our transportation system to critical dependence upon a fuel whose known domestic reserves amount to little more than ten years’ supply is simply not prudent.

Finally, compressed natural gas is an inferior technology for vehicle fuel. This is so because it is a gas, not a liquid, and so must be stored in heavy high-pressure tanks. A standard steel K-bottle compressed gas cylinder, which weighs about 133 lbs, can only store enough natural gas to match the energy content of two gallons of gasoline. So CNG cars are either limited to short range, or must carry massive tank systems that increase their cost and reduce their mileage. Lighter graphite composite tanks are possible, but these are very expensive and unsafe in the event of a crash, as they are susceptible to breakage followed by gas release and explosion.

New problems with global warming models...

Our current models are very crude given the incredible complexities of weather...

Arizona State University researchers have made a breakthrough in understanding the effect on climate change of a key component of urban pollution. The discovery could lead to more accurate forecasting of possible global-warming activity, say Peter Crozier and James Anderson.

Crozier is an associate professor in ASU's School of Materials, which is jointly administered by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering. Anderson is a senior research scientist in the engineering school's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

As a result of their studies of aerosols in the atmosphere, they assert that some measures used in atmospheric science are oversimplified and overlook important factors that relate to climatic warming and cooling.

The research findings are detailed in the Aug. 8 issue of Science magazine, in the article "Brown Carbon Spheres in East Asian Outflow and Their Optical Properties," co-authored by Crozier, Anderson and Duncan Alexander, a former postdoctoral fellow at ASU in the area of electron microscopy, and the paper's lead author.

So-called brown carbons – a nanoscale atmospheric aerosol species – are largely being ignored in broad-ranging climate computer models, Crozier and Anderson say.

Studies of the greenhouse effect that contribute directly to climate change have focused on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But there are other components in the atmosphere that can contribute to warming – or cooling – including carbonaceous and sulfate particles from combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, salts from oceans and dust from deserts. Brown carbons from combustion processes are the least understood of these aerosol components.

The parameter typically used to measure degrees of warming is radiative forcing, which is the difference in the incoming energy from sunlight and outgoing energy from heat and reflected sunlight. The variety of gasses and aerosols that compose the atmosphere will, under different conditions, lead to warming (positive radiative forcing) or cooling (negative radiative forcing).

The ASU researchers say the effect of brown carbon is complex because it both cools the Earth's surface and warms the atmosphere.

"Because of the large uncertainty we have in the radiative forcing of aerosols, there is a corresponding large uncertainty in the degree of radiative forcing overall," Crozier says. "This introduces a large uncertainty in the degree of warming predicted by climate change models."

The truth about organic foods...

Aha...same amount of nutrients as non-organic food...

Shoppers can pay up to a third more for organic produce, but the researchers said that with no more nutrients, it was a "lifestyle choice".

Dr Susanne Bugel and a team at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Human Nutrition, studied fruit and vegetables on most families' shopping lists, including carrots, peas, apples and potatoes.

The team found no clear evidence of any difference in the vitamin and mineral content between the organically and the chemically grown crops.

Their findings are published in the Society of Chemical Industry's Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

Dr Alan Baylis, from the society, said: "Modern crop protection chemicals to control weeds, pests and diseases are extensively tested and stringently regulated, and once in the soil, mineral nutrients from natural or artificial fertilisers are chemically identical.

"Organic crops are often lower yielding and eating them is a lifestyle choice for those who can afford it."

Congratulations to Ezra Levant...

It's great that he won....but we'll only really win when governments start dealing with these human rights commissions.

Fire.them.all.

Should gays be executed?

Bruce Bawer has a chilling article on Pajamas Media - should gays be stoned or be crushed by a wall....those are the questions facing Islam....

One of the pillars of the future totalitarian state in 1984 is the practice of doublethink, which Orwell defined as “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. … To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.”

As it happens, this is a precise description of exactly what’s been going on in many parts of Europe in recent years, as multicultural ideology has been confronted by realities about Islam that, in a doublethink-free world, would send that ideology crashing to the ground in flames.

For a case in point, I will refer the reader to an episode I’ve mentioned previously in this space — an Oslo debate last November at which the deputy chairman of Norway’s Islamic Council, Asghar Ali, refused to reject the death penalty for gays. When Senaid Kobilica, the head of the Islamic Council (which represents 60,000 Muslims), was asked where he stood on the question, he replied that he couldn’t give a definitive answer until he got a ruling from the European Fatwa Council. This week it was reported that he’s still waiting.

But not to worry! Kobilica added that he’s “100 percent certain that the fatwa council will not come out in favor of something which conflicts with European law.” Meaning that while the death penalty for homosexuals is, indeed, an orthodox Islamic position — one about which the Fatwa Council’s head, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, has himself written sympathetically — Western Muslim leaders, in accordance with the Koran (and with good strategy), prefer in such controversial cases not to challenge infidel law. (There will, after all, be time enough to execute gays in the coming decades, as the Muslim population attains critical balance in one country after another — first, most likely, in France and Sweden and the Netherlands, and in Norway some time after that.)

But, read the whole thing - the important part of the article is the reaction of the Norwegian establishment.

Will children become climate cops????

Is this coming to Canada???

Last week's Sunday Times carried a large advertisement for the German-owned energy company npower, inviting children to "save the planet this summer" by becoming "climate cops". A picture showed a sleeping dad, with a notice on his head warning in a childish scrawl that he had been found guilty of "climate crime" by "falling asleep with the tv still on".

For more "interactive games and fun downloads", readers were invited to contact npower's Climate Cops website. This explains in comicbook format how children can spy on their parents, relatives and neighbours to catch them out in seven "climate crimes", such as leaving the TV on standby, putting hot food in a fridge or freezer (as is recommended by hygiene experts) or failing to use low-energy light bulbs.

Children could record these offences in a "climate crime case file", while teachers are offered a full "learning resource" pack for use in schools, including a PowerPoint presentation and posters for classroom walls.

When my colleague Richard North asked the Advertising Standards Authority how they squared this with their rules prohibiting "marketing communications" which "undermine parental authority", they replied (as he records on his EU Referendum blog) that they had "considered you (sic) objections but do not feel it have (sic) breached our Codes on the basis you suggest".

The logs of Lord Nelson and Captain Cook....

More evidence of natural warming and cooling of the earth...

Scientists have uncovered a treasure trove of meteorological information contained in the detailed logs kept by those on board the vessels that established Britain's great seafaring traditition including those on Nelsons' Victory and Cook's Endeavour.

Every Royal Naval ship kept a detailed record of climate including air pressure, wind strength, air and sea temperature and major meteorological disturbances.

A group of academics and Met Office scientists has unearthed the records dating from the 1600s and examined more than 6,000 logs, which have provided one of the world's best sources for long-term weather data.

Their studies have raised questions about modern climate change theories. A paper by Dennis Wheeler, a geographer based at Sunderland University, recounts an increasing number of summer storms over Britain in the late 17th century.

Many scientists believe that storms are caused by global warming, but these were came during the so-called Little Ice Age that affected Europe from about 1600 to 1850.

The records also suggest that Europe saw a spell of rapid warming, similar to that experienced today, during the 1730s that must have been caused naturally.

"British archives contain more than 100,000 Royal Navy logbooks from around 1670 to 1850 alone," Mr Wheeler said. "They are a stunning resource. Global warming is a reality, but our data shows climate science is complex. It is wrong to take particular events and link them to carbon dioxide emissions.

How to get the world to hate Israel.....

Unfortunately, this program of hate is working....

This is how you would accomplish that objective if you were an enemy of Israel:

Even after 60 years of its existence, you question the fundamental right of Israel to even exist and regularly, though falsely, condemn it for being created “illegally”—through the “theft” of Palestinian lands and property—and thus decide, because of its original sin, it has no “right to exist.” You accuse the government of a “brutal,” illegal “occupation” of Palestinian lands, especially Gaza and the West Bank (but for many, all of Israel), of being a “colonial settler state,” a Zionist “regime” or “project,” a land-hungry nation, a usurper of property that was lived on and owned by a Palestinian “people” “from time immemorial.”

You describe the very existence of the country as being the “greatest threat to world peace,” the core cause of all Muslim anger toward the West, the root of all of the Palestinians’ suffering and economic plight, and describe Israel as a nation that has even been referred to publicly as a “shitty little country” by the French ambassador to Britain.

You make ‘Palestinianism’ into a virtual cult whose members offer a world-wide reverence for the Palestinian cause and repeat without end that their nationalistic striving is inviolable, a basic human right, Of all the 100 million refugees who were dispersed around the globe and were re-assimilated since World War II, you chose only the Palestinians to languish, as if in amber, in barbaric refugee camps where their lives are used as political fodder to denounce the existence of an Israel that supposedly has deprived them of a home.

You have the United Nations set up an agency whose sole function it is to make sure that this one group of refugees in the whole world are coddled, advocated for, and repeat, mantra-like, that a human “right of return” has been sanctified and assured by international law for the Palestinians, giving only this group of refugees a collective, as opposed to individual, right of return—and not only to those refugees who supposedly lived in and left what is now Israel, but all of their descendents, as well.

Does the west have the guts to stop Iran????

Certainly not the Europeans, who just love to talk..but have the Americans also lost their nerve?

Every day that goes by allows Iran to increase the threat it poses, and the viability of the military option steadily declines over time. There are a number of reasons why this is so.

First, while the European-led negotiations proceed, Iran continues both to convert uranium from a solid (uranium oxide, U3O8, also called yellowcake) to a gas (uranium hexafluoride, UF6) at its uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. Although it is a purely chemical procedure, conversion is technologically complex and poses health and safety risks.

As Isfahan's continuing operations increase both Iran's UF6 inventory and its technical expertise, however, the impact of destroying the facility diminishes. Iran is building a stockpile of UF6 that it can subsequently enrich even while it reconstructs Isfahan after an attack, or builds a new conversion facility elsewhere.

Second, delay permits Iran to increase its stock of low-enriched uranium (LEU) -- that is, UF6 gas in which the U235 isotope concentration (the form of uranium critical to nuclear reactions either in reactors or weapons) is raised from its natural level of 0.7% to between 3% and 5%.

As its LEU stockpile increases, so too does Tehran's capacity to take the next step, and enrich it to weapons-grade concentrations of over 90% U235 (highly-enriched uranium, or HEU). Some unfamiliar with nuclear matters characterize the difference in LEU-HEU concentration levels as huge. The truth is far different. Enriching natural uranium by centrifuges to LEU consumes approximately 70% of the work and time required to enrich it to HEU.

Could you imagine if the Israelies had done this???

There'd be an uproar..

Five Palestinians were killed and 18 wounded in a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border after Egyptian troops blew up the entrance, an Egyptian security official and Gaza hospital doctors said Saturday.

"The destruction of the entrance deprived those inside the tunnel of oxygen," said the Egyptian official, who is stationed at the border and spoke on customary condition of anonymity. Gaza hospital officials said the five died from lack of oxygen.

Cold snap in Peru...

Another data point for climate change, no?

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has provided urgently needed medical supplies to poor farmers in the Peruvian highlands whose livestock are suffering as a result of a severe unseasonable cold spell, known locally as “El friaje.”

The antiparasitic medicines, antibiotics and vitamins are being used to treat some 18,000 alpacas in the country’s Pilpichaca en Huanvavelica district that have been weakened or fallen ill as a result of the unexpected cold snap.

The El friaje phenomenon involves a combination of unseasonable low temperatures, frosts, snow and hail that damages crops and the high-altitude pastures on which alpacas graze, according to Marc Vandersmissen, FAO’s Emergency Coordinator in Peru.

This year, the cold arrived well ahead of the usual season – in March and April, instead of June – and many small-scale farmers have not been able to harvest their crops.

The early arrival of the cold weather has greatly affected alpaqueros – smallholders in high-altitude areas whose livelihoods depend completely on raising alpacas. Pastures have been covered in snow which has frozen over, making grazing impossible. Unable to find adequate food, the alpacas have become weak and susceptible to disease, Mr. Vandersmissen said.

The gravity of the situation has led the Peruvian Government to declare a state of emergency in 11 of the country’s 25 provinces.