Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Terry Glavin

That's all I have to say. Go read him.

UPDATE: More from Glavin in the comments at this blog. Rather astute and pinpoint accurate, too.
"Galloway and his friends do not believe their own propaganda. They know his conduct falls clearly within the proscribed activity set out in Section 34 (1), and the only way he could get into Canada was to get a free pass from 34(1). so that's what they asked for, and that's all they were denied. All Canada said was, in effect, 'Sorry, George. We don't care if you are the Queen of England. You'll just have to take your chances and submit to the same laws that govern commoners.'

That's it. This is not barring him, banning him, denying him the right to speak, or any other thing." (Emphasis mine.)
h/t BCF

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Misery Manufactured by Arabs

...and folks like George Galloway.

Salim Mansur writes an excellent piece of the Palestinian hoax.
"The Gaza misery is not the outcome of some natural disaster. It is the result of deliberate choice – something the liberal-minded westerners can barely grasp – of Arab and Palestinian leadership to perpetuate the condition of Palestinians resulting from the events of 1947-48, and turning their despair into violence against Israel."
The Palestinians have been used by Arab nationalists for more than two generations now. This problem will not be solved until the Palestinians understand that they have been used as pawns in a larger game. At the moment, the chance of that happening is about the same as the proverbial snowball's chance in hell. George Galloway's groupies are willing tools in the perpetuation of Palestinian misery.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Speaking of the Wrong Message

The United Nations Human Rights Council votes to quash one of the most basic of human rights - the right to freedom of expression. No surprise here, folks. But I don't think we should move on. I would prefer to move it out.
"The U.N.'s top human-rights body approved a proposal by Muslims nations Thursday urging passage of laws around the world to protect religion from criticism."
[---]
"A simple majority of 23 members of the 47-nation Human Rights Council voted in favor of the resolution. Eleven nations, mostly Western, opposed the resolution, and 13 countries abstained."
[---]
"Opponents of the resolution included Canada, all European Union countries, Switzerland, Ukraine and Chile."
[---]
"India, which normally votes along with the council's majority of developing nations, abstained in protest at the fact that Islam was the only religion specifically named as deserving protection." (Emphasis mine.)

"India's Ambassador Gopinathan Achamkulangare said the resolution "inappropriately" linked religious criticism to racism."

Damn. To my American cousins, please, please, please do something about that monstrosity occupying that building on 1st Ave. & E 44th St. in New York City. And if Obama won't do it, then put Tom Tancredo in the Oval Office next time.

Leftover Contaminant

It seems I have mentioned the name of George Galloway before on my blog. I was looking at past entries and quite by chance ran into this one. It addresses the naivete of a young U of R student who has been brainwashed by his professors into thinking the worst thing visited upon Iraqi children is leukemia allegedly caused by spent uranium shells and a supposed link to Saskatchewan's uranium industry. I tried to set the record straight by discussing the lives and deaths of children under Saddam Hussein's regime and lo and behold, here's a quote about the nefarious nazi himself, taken from one of the links I provided:
"'While we were in the north of Iraq, the chairman of the Great Britain Iraq Society, Labour MP George Galloway, was in Baghdad. He popped up on Iraqi TV, saying "When I hear the word Iraq, I hear someone calling my name".

I don't agree.

When I hear the word Iraq, I hear a tortured child, screaming.'"
This is the George Galloway who wants to have the privilege of entering my country. I say no way. Let him spew his anti-Iraqi pro-Ba'athist poison somewhere else. Letting him in sends the wrong message.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Jason Kenney's Decision

Good idea or bad?

Over the past few days, opinion has been varied about Jason Kenney's decision not to overturn the CBSA's ruling barring the Street Corner Cromwell from entering Canada. Some have suggested that the decision has given he-whose-name-is-too-odious-to-mention more publicity that he deserves. As for me, I don't think he can get too much publicity. The number of stories in the media and YouTube videos that have appeared about this guy have been phenomenal and the more we hear the better. Take this one, for instance:



It speaks for itself and you couldn't ask for better publicity to demonstrate that Galloway really is just a low-life Street Corner Cromwell.

By the way, I wonder how many naive little lefties really understand the intent of the phrase "Street Corner Cromwell"? What do they know about the real Oliver Cromwell after whom the phrase is coined? Do they know, for example, that the English had a civil war in the seventeenth century during which their monarch, King Charles I, was beheaded. Do they know that a man named Oliver Cromwell became the leader of puritanical republic, which many historians describe as a genocidal regime, which lasted for eleven years, and ended only with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660?

How many of the naive little lefties know about the phrase from the poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, in which the poet, Thomas Gray, refers to the possibility that a hypothetical "Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood" lies buried in the village cemetery? Gray is referring, of course, to the possibility that any community can suffer a tyrant, only circumstances render such tryanny less destructive by virtue of its more limited sphere of influence. Just as a village can have its tyrants, whose influence is only local, so too can a street corner be home to a tyrant whose influence is very nearly non-existent. This, then, should be the way George Galloway is to be portrayed. Kenney's refusal to overturn the CBSA's decision sends a very clear message to Galloway and his groupies that he should be seen as a nobody, and although it has served to raise public attention to the idiot, the media, blogs and YouTube frenzy that has followed, has simply served to verify Kenney's message. So, if you ask me, bring it on. The more exposure this twit gets, the better.

All hail, Jason Kenney.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Reaction to the Street Corner Cromwell

...from his fellow countrymen (and women):

George Galloway spanked by Canada
"I would like to take this opportunity, as a resident of the Bethnal Green and Bow parliamentary constituency, personally to thank the Canadian government and in particular its immigration minister, Jason Kenney, for succeeding where many - including myself - have been struggling and failing in recent years: to find a word that adequately sums up George Galloway, my MP

That word is "infandous". Roll it around your mouth. Savour it. Apparently it means "too odious to be expressed or mentioned". It came along with the filip that he was a "street-corner Cromwell". Oh. And they decided not to let him into the country either."
From Canada:

Galloway Kept at Bay
"Initial news reports in Britain pointed to Galloway's opposition to the war in Afghanistan, but the decision also comes a week after Galloway delivered money and dozens of vehicles carrying more than $1.7 million in aid to the Hamas-run government in Gaza."
Banned Brit hurls insults at Canada's immigration minister
"But in 2004, the shoe was on the other foot. Then it was Galloway who argued, unsuccessfully, that David Plunkett, then Britain’s home secretary, should prevent Le Pen, the aging leader of the French National Front party, from entering Britain."
[---]
"As well, there’s no sign Galloway objected last month when Britain denied entry to Geert Wilders, a Dutch member of Parliament who has compared the Koran to Mein Kampf and blamed Islamic texts for inciting the 9/11 terrorist attacks."
Mr. Galloway was expelled from the British Labour Party in 2003. He must be getting used to it by now.

BTW, lots of vids at Stephen Taylor's website of the sort of activity that takes place when supporters rally for Hamas. Galloway would love to foment a rent-a-riot sham such as this. Perhaps that's another reason he was denied entry.

UPDATE: Liveleak video showing him giving money to Hamas leader.



Near the end he expresses his support for the British Government's decision to ban Geert Wilders from entering Britain. What a hypocrite!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Dr. Roy Spencer

Worked for NASA, the same institution that James Hansen works for. His bio is here. Note that he is the recipient of "NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites" and that his "research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies: NASA, NOAA, and DOE. He has never been asked by any oil company to perform any kind of service. Not even Exxon-Mobil."



I like what he says about the MSM. That is right bang on. The media thrives on sensationalism and ratings. Where there is hysteria, you will find the media in there like a dirty shirt, pumping and pimping. This one is also a zinger: "Only 39 out of 100,000 molecules in the atmosphere are CO2 and it takes five years for us to one to that."



"The climate models are based on faulty assumptions."



"They have confused cause and effect."

Interesting bit about hurricanes and the PDO, too, wouldn't you say? Saskboy should be issuing a retraction right about now.



"The IPCC was not set up to look for natural reasons for climate change. They were set up to study the impact of mankind and they've had blinders on. They haven't been looking at alternative hypotheses for why there might have been the warming and that you always need to do that in science"



Interesting bit about the recent cooling in the last decade, too. Mount Pinatubo and El Nino are the likely cause, according to Spencer. Makes sense to me.



To the question about funding for research into alternative explanations for global warming: "I'm not aware of anything funded to look at possible natural causes for warming. I haven't heard of a single proposal for funding to do that" .... This is just scientific malpractice as far as I'm concerned. Scientists in this field have allowed themselves to be dragged around by the nose by some influential politicians. That's what's happened."

There you go, folks. The very definition of consensus. Love it.

More on Galloway

Terry Glavin has the best summary yet of this weasel's sordid record.

The Company We Keep

I wonder if Saskboy knows this. If he doesn't, then shame on him. If he does, then God save his soul.

What's Next?

Forced sterilization? Forced abortions? Infanticide?

Friday, March 20, 2009

"We'd get rid of him if we could."

Fresh from his grandstanding performance in Egypt, George Galloway is now banned from entering Canada. h/t to the The Surly Beaver and yay, Jason Kennedy!!

Settle back and enjoy:























Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Global Warming Skeptics Conference Up

2009 Heartland Institute Conference Proceedings are now on the web.
"Some of the left’s leading spokespersons also have expressed concern over global warming. Alexander Cockburn wrote in The Nation, “vast amounts of money will be uselessly spent on programs that won’t work against an enemy that doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, real and curable environmental perils are scanted or ignored. Hysteria rules the day, drowning really useful environmental initiatives. ...”

If the scientific community were convinced that we could reliably forecast future climates, or that the consequences of some warming would be catastrophic, then perhaps no price would be too high to pay to save the Earth. But that is not what the scientific community is telling us. According to the most recent international poll of climate scientists,

* Most climate scientists believe global warming “is a process already underway.”

* But that “consensus” drops to below 60 percent when climate scientists are asked if “climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes.”

* 65 percent of climate scientists do not believe “climate models can accurately predict climate conditions in the future.”

* 68 percent do not believe “the current state of scientific knowledge is able to provide reasonable predictions of climatic variability on time scales of ten years.”

* 73 percent do not believe it is possible to predict climate “on time scales of 100 years.”

* About 70 percent of climate scientists think “climate change might have some positive effects for some societies.”

* Finally, on the question that might matter the most, climate scientists are perfectly split over the question of whether they know enough about global warming to turn it over to policymakers to take action, with 44 percent saying we do and 46 percent saying we do not.
Consensus, my ass. But wait. There's more.

"This extensive disagreement within the scientific community is not reflected in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Why is that? Maybe because, to quote Alexander Cockburn again, “the IPCC has the usual army of functionaries and grant farmers, and the merest sprinkling of actual scientists with the prime qualification of being climatologists or atmospheric physicists.”

Indeed, it was recently acknowledged that 80 percent of the contributors to the latest IPCC report are not climate scientists at all
."

Life in the Switzerland of the East Swat Valley

h/t The Further Adventures of Indigo Red





Meanwhile, the French, thank goodness, have finally figured out that WWII is over. NATO is beefing up. Coincidence? No. I didn't think so either.

Next step? Boot the UN out.
"This annual poll is surprising in one respect: approximately a fourth of Americans persist in the belief that the United Nations is doing a “good job”. Maybe they tiptoed by and shielded their eyes to avoid seeing the vast corruption, the Israel-bashing, the sexual abuse by “peacekeepers”, or the habit of putting tyrants in charge of Human Rights?"
Faster, please.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Dramatic Advances Sweep Iraq

Boosting Support for Democracy
"Eighty-four percent of Iraqis now rate security in their own area positively, nearly double its August 2007 level. Seventy-eight percent say their protection from crime is good, more than double its low. Three-quarters say they can go where they want safely – triple what it’s been.

Few credit the United States, still widely unpopular given the post-invasion violence, and eight in 10 favor its withdrawal on schedule by 2011 – or sooner. But at the same time a new high, 64 percent of Iraqis, now call democracy their preferred form of government."
[---]
"Still, the number of Iraqis who call security the single biggest problem in their own lives has dropped from 48 percent in March 2007 to 20 percent now. Two years ago 56 percent called it the single biggest problem for the country as a whole; that’s down to 35 percent now, including a 15-point drop in the last year alone. Fifty-nine percent now feel “very” safe in their communities, up 22 points from last year and more than double its lowest. Recent local fighting among sectarian forces is reported by 6 percent, compared with 22 percent a year ago.

Optimism and confidence have followed. Sixty-five percent of Iraqis say things are going well in their own lives, up from 39 percent in 2007 (albeit still a bit below its 2005 peak). Fifty-eight percent say things are going well for Iraq – a new high, up from only 22 percent in 2007. Expectations for the year ahead, at the national and personal levels, also have soared, after crashing in 2007. And the sharpest advances have come among Sunni Arabs, the favored group under Saddam Hussein, deeply alienated by his overthrow, now re-engaging in Iraq’s national life.

Confidence in the national government, local governments, the army and police all are at new highs. And the growth in support for democracy, bolstered by successful provincial elections in January, is critical – a 21-point gain from March 2007 to a new high in polls since 2004. As Sunni Arabs have stepped back from their preference for strongman rule, so have many Shiites dropped their preference for an Islamic state."
RTWT

Iraq Pundit writes about this survey, too.
"Again, public opinion polls are tricky in the region. But when people are no longer hiding out in their homes, we can say that security is not longer the biggest problem. The survey also found that most were worried about Iran's meddling in Iraq. They do have reason to be concerned. U.S. jets shot down an Iranian drone over Iraq last month."

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Expect an Even Bigger Tizzy

Expect Big Tizzy

UPDATE: David Warren takes a swipe at the global warming lemmings and points to the real cause of the hysteria - an utter corruption of the principle of peer review. Amen brother!! The abuse of peer review began about the time that I finished my first degree way back in the early 1970s. Self congratulations by the old boys club for the promotion of political causes does not good science make.

==========================



h/t Dr. Roy's Thoughts

The Real Climate Change Experts

Nobody listens to the real climate change experts

"Thus the name of the game last week, as we see from a sample of quotations, was to win headlines by claiming that everything is far worse than previously supposed. Sea level rises by 2100 could be "much greater than the 59cm predicted by the last IPCC report". Global warming could kill off 85 per cent of the Amazon rainforest, "much more than previously predicted". The ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica are melting "much faster than predicted". The number of people dying from heat could be "twice as many as previously predicted".

None of the government-funded scientists making these claims were particularly distinguished, but they succeeded in their object, as the media cheerfully recycled all this wild scaremongering without bothering to check the scientific facts.

What a striking contrast this was to the second conference, which I attended with 700 others in New York, organised by the Heartland Institute under the title Global Warming: Was It Ever Really A Crisis?. In Britain this received no coverage at all, apart from a sneering mention by the Guardian, although it was addressed by dozens of expert scientists, not a few of world rank, who for professional standing put those in Copenhagen in the shade.

Led off with stirring speeches from the Czech President Vaclav Klaus, the acting head of the European Union, and Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, perhaps the most distinguished climatologist in the world, the message of this gathering was that the scare over global warming has been deliberately stoked up for political reasons and has long since parted company with proper scientific evidence.

Nothing has more acutely demonstrated this than the reliance of the IPCC on computer models to predict what is going to happen to global temperatures over the next 100 years. On these predictions, that temperatures are likely to rise by up to 5.3C, all their other predictions and recommendations depend, yet nearly 10 years into the 21st century it is already painfully clear that the computer forecasts are going hopelessly astray. Far from rising with CO2, as the models are programmed to predict they should, the satellite-measured temperature curve has flattened out and then dropped. If the present trend were to continue, the world in 2100 would not in fact be hotter but 1.1C cooler than the 1979-1998 average.

Yet it is on this fundamental inability of the computer models to predict what has already happened that all else hangs. For two days in New York we heard distinguished experts, such as Professor Syun-Ichi Akasofu, former director of the International Arctic Research Center, Dr Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Professor Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute, authoritatively (and often wittily) tear apart one piece of the scare orthodoxy after another.

Sea levels are not shooting up but only continuing their modest 3mm a year rise over the past 200 years. The vast Antarctic ice-sheet is not melting, except in one tiny corner, the Antarctic Peninsula. Tropical hurricane activity, far from increasing, is at its lowest level for 30 years. The best correlation for temperature fluctuations is not CO2 but the magnetic activity of the sun. (For an admirable summary of proceedings by the Australian paleoclimatologist Professor Bob Carter, Google "Heartland" and "Quadrant").

Yet the terrifying thing, as President Klaus observed in his magisterial opening address, is that there is no dialogue on these issues. When recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he found the minds of his fellow world leaders firmly shut to anything but the fantasies of the scaremongers. As I said in my own modest contribution to the conference, there seems little doubt that global warming is leading the world towards an unprecedented catastrophe. But it is not the Technicolor apocalypse promised by the likes of Al Gore. The real disaster hanging over us lies in all those astronomically costly measures proposed by politicians, to meet a crisis which in reality never existed."


More here: Global warming's no longer happening. So why are eco types moaning about record highs while ignoring record lows?

Saturday, March 14, 2009

One Thing Leads to Another

Starting out at The Sudanese Thinker, where I was introduced to Sam Harris speaking about atheism, very thoughtfully, I might add, I was led, as the world wide web is wont to do, to this excellent series entitled Does God Exist? Sam Harris & Rabbi David Wolpe Debate.

I just love this stuff and this is why, even though I have spent most of my adult life searching for the perfect descriptor, I cannot call myself an atheist.









These kinds of debates revolving around atheism and mature interpretations of religion always remind me of M. Scott Peck's Stages of Spiritual Growth, in which atheism is, at level three, not the highest stage. Level four, mysticism, is where humankind really begins to understand the nature of the God debate and at that level, IMHO, the debate becomes unimportant. Rabbi Wolpe's summation beginning at the 4:38 mark pretty much sums it up. Or as the moderator in the Wolpe-Harris debate sums it up, quoting Henny Youngman, "I once wanted to become an atheist. I gave it up. They have no holidays."

Sandmonkey Reports

on another expression of free speech, just like the shoe thrower. And it couldn't have happened to a better guy.

Cuban Missile Crisis Redux?

From the "everything old is new again" department: Will Obama have his JFK moment? If so, will he prevail?

h/t Barce Pundit

Case in Point

Further to the posting below, and a tip of the hat to the Egyptian Sandmonkey. Click on the picture to make it bigger.

Oh My - Will CBC Soon Expire?

It's certainly way past its "best by" date. We all know that.

CBC tunes in to new reality

"As potential layoffs loom and programs are cancelled, union employees are talking as though the end of the CBC is nigh.

Late last month, Hubert T. Lacroix, President and Chief Executive of the CBC, hinted at a more dire scenario in which he'd sell off the TV division."

[---]
"Three weeks later, the situation has worsened."

[---]

"But it's not just the CBC that is about to hit a wall.

Broadcasters are hurting everywhere. Advertising revenues are plummeting. Networks in Canada and the U.S. are cutting their budgets, shuttering stations and shrinking head counts.

The stock of CBS, the most-viewed broadcaster in the U.S., has dropped 50% in the past two months.

Reliant on advertising, CBC TV faces the same challenges. "They're in the same boat as CTV or Global," said Stephen Tapp, a former top executive at CHUM. "No broadcaster can live the same way they did five years ago."

Public broadcasting is also in major flux.

"Almost everywhere there is a lack of imagination, a failure to articulate what public broadcasting should look like," said Michael Tracey, the author of The Decline and Fall of Public Service Broadcasting. "They don't have a f------n clue."

U.S. public broadcasters such as National Public Radio will lay off 7% of its workforce and PBS's New York flagship is laying off 14%.

Britain's Channel 4, a publicly owned, commercial broadcaster, is teetering on bankruptcy."

[---]

"A media professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Mr. Tracey said that the CBC and its counterparts have turned to "crude populism" as a way to lure viewers away from speciality channels - or from YouTubing, Facebooking and Twittering away their time.

He also said that they have made the mistake of pushing a brand, which is an increasingly weak approach for a media property.

In recent years, analysts have stressed that viewers are less loyal to channels than to programs, partly because of digital recording and pirated downloads."

And it looks like the Harper government has heard us after all:

No emergency loans for CBC: Tories

"The Conservative government has no plans to "insulate" the CBC from the sharp decline in advertising revenue that has forced companies across the media industry to lay off workers and cut costs, a spokesman for the prime minister said Wednesday."

[---]
"The CBC cannot be insulated from all market realities," said Kory Teneycke, chief spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. "Nobody likes to see this [oh ya?], but broadcasters have to adapt to lower ad revenues. No one broadcaster is immune from that."
Right on!!
"Private-sector media companies such as Canwest Global, CTV Globemedia and Quebecor Media have struggled as the economic downturn has sapped advertising revenues, forcing them to lay off staff, chop expenses and shut underperforming operations. On Wednesday, CTV announced it will close two A-Channel stations in southwestern Ontario, warning more closures could be on the horizon."
[---]
"But Christopher Waddell, a journalism professor at Carleton University, said the CBC will be hard-pressed to make the argument for more federal money, especially to support its TV operations, which compete with private broadcasters for ad dollars."
[---]
"Even while in government, the Conservatives have appealed to distaste for the CBC among grassroots supporters to raise funds for the party. But Mr. Waddell said there is likely little support for a CBC bailout, even among the general public."
Unless, of course, you represent a group whose self-serving interests are so blatant that they they think nothing of placing themselves squarely in a conflict of interest position, to wit:
"A spokeswoman for the union that represents CBC employees said the government needs to recognize that the CBC provides important public services that private broadcasters do not, such as operating radio stations in remote communities.

"It fulfils (sic) a really important role in this country. It would be wonderful to see some recognition of that," said Karen Wirsig of the Canadian Media Guild. "The CBC is woefully underfunded when you compare it with public broadcasters in other countries.""

Wake up folks. New media is taking over. As Bob Dylan taught us so long ago, "You better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changin'."

Friday, March 13, 2009

The Empty Suit

People on my side of the aisle have been referring to Barack Obama as an empty suit. This just about proves it. I mean, really. Dropping the term "enemy combatants" but leaving everything else about the Bush administration's policy on the Guantanamo detainees is about as wimpish as you can get. What happened to all this hope and change? I guess being president leads one to this thing called reality which must force The One to have to abandon some of his silliest campaign promises. I guess I should be happy. I hope the fanatics in the Arab and Muslim world have taken note and I hope the mixed messages become firm and clear and on the right (in both senses of the word) side.

Cool!

A modern day Genghis Khan, without the rape, pillage and plunder:



Visit the original website to view the whole series of five pictures.

Genghis Khan, by the way, is a fascinating historical figure. He and his little band of Mongolian marauders literally raped, pillaged and plundered their way across Asia carving out the largest empire ever known to man, leaving the landscape littered with blood and corpses. That empire only lasted a generation or two, since his sons, being more the marauding, warring type, like their father, were not much at empire administration. The empire broke up into various Khanites and had all but disintegrated a hundred years later.

Prior to the Mongol Empire, the Arab Empire stood between the civilizations at the opposite ends of the Eurasian continent, acting as middlemen traders, zealously guarding their privileged position of control over the famous Silk Road as well as the Arabian Sea route. The Mongol hordes destroyed the Arab Empire and a good part of Eastern Europe, which caused that region to lag behind in development right up until the end of the Soviet Union.

However, during the height of the Mongol Empire, with the Arabs no longer able to block direct access, an Italian dude by the name of Marco Polo traveled overland to China, spent a considerable amount of time actually working for the Emperor himself, Kublai Khan, a descendant of Genghis Khan, and brought back fantastic tales of riches and splendor. His story was published and it inspired Europeans to search for a passage to the East by sea. It was this brief little window of opportunity that ushered in the age of European exploration that eventually brought Christopher Columbus to the shores of some Carribean Island, thinking he had landed on the east coast of Asia and it's why North Americans who were already in the "New World" became known as Indians.

Thanks Genghis.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Three Years - Sentence du Jour

A man throws his shoes at an American president and gets three years. A man's criminal negligence results in the freezing death of his two small daughters, and he gets three years.

Hmmmm. Seems to me to be a little matter of disproportion here, but I'm not sure which way. What I am sure of is both men seem to be cast from the same irresponsible-blame-everyone-else mold and they both have their cheering section with a political agenda:
"Earlier this week, an angry Chief Lawrence Joseph, head of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations delivered a scathing address, to the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association convention.

He suggested politicians stop worrying about potholes and start focusing on the "rampant" crisis of substance abuse in the aboriginal community."
Ya, sure, Joseph. Self-government means accepting responsibility, not pointing fingers of blame in order to deflect it from yourself. Gotta keep that whipping boy handy, don't we.

Now on to the shoe thrower:
"His (the shoe thrower) sister, Ruqaiya, was seen to burst into tears and shout: "Down with (Iraqi Prime Minister) Maliki, agent of the Americans" and several family members stood outside Iraq Central Criminal Court shouting anti-American slogans."
[---]
"A bronze monument of a shoe has been put up in honour of al-Zaidi in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit."
So, it seems the journalist has some fans among Saddam Hussein's hometown compatriots. If he talks like a Ba'athist, acts like a Ba'athist and scores points with Ba'athists, the guy is a Ba'athist. Surprise. Surprise.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Global Warming Myth

A good video.

Monday, March 09, 2009

Can you hear us now?

"The scientists attending this conference come from a dozen countries, including Australia, Canada, England, France, New Zealand, Russia, and Sweden. They have published in every leading scientific journal in the world. They have stood up to political correctness and defended the scientific method at a time when doing so threatens their research grants, tenure, and ability to get published."

Can you hear us now? Global warming is not a crisis.

The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change

The 2009 conference is currently underway.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Plan

Well, it's not much different than the one negotiated by the Bush Administration. Sixteen months earlier. That's all. But then neither plan could withstand the test of yet another demonstration of Iraq's democracy.
"Forgotten in the rounds of self-congratulation following President Barack Obama’s presentation of his timetable for withdrawal from Iraq that was delivered last Friday was that the United States is already committed to a different timetable on which the Iraqi people will have the final say. The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), signed during November 2008 between America and Iraq, was only ratified by the Iraqi parliament after a clause allowing for a national referendum on the document was included."
[---]
"In case it fails to pass the popular referendum, then the agreement expires within one year according to the mechanism laid out in Article 30, making it next to impossible to negotiate a new agreement giving the Americans an extension. This effectively means that a rejection of SOFA would set an earlier deadline for a full troop withdrawal by the summer of 2010 involving all U.S. and coalition troops, not just combat divisions, which means that Obama’s plan for keeping a residual force of 30,000-50,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq until the end of 2011, a trajectory already envisioned by SOFA, will fly out the window too."
[---]
"U.S. interests in the Middle East will not be served by this exit but it is too late for recriminations now. American eagerness at leaving without securing a long-term strategic partnership with Iraq is thus mirrored by an Iraqi eagerness to see the Americans leave sooner rather than later. It is akin to a relationship involving a commitment-phobic person whose significant other has decided to move on.

Consequently, Obama can give speeches to his heart’s desire but he’s not in charge of this particular policy, a policy agreed to by his predecessor in office and now wholly up to the Iraqi voter to decide on."

Friday, March 06, 2009

The History of the Iranian-American Standoff

An amazing series on Youtube. h/t The Spirit of Man

Notice at the 1:52 to 2:02 mark of the last video:

"It soon became clear. The whole world was arming Saddam."

In fact, leftards should play the first 2 minutes and 16 seconds of the sixth video over and over until they fully understand the complexities of that event, just as every event in history is multifaceted. How many times have leftard idiots repeated the meme that the US and the US alone armed Saddam Hussein during the Iraq-Iran war or worse yet that the American's "created Saddam Hussein"? What fools!!!















Monday, March 02, 2009

Johns Hopkins Sanctions Gilbert Burnham

h/t Iraq Pundit

Iraqi Researcher sanctioned
"The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is sanctioning the lead author of a 2006 study that suggested massive civilian deaths in Iraq.

The school announced yesterday that it is barring Gilbert M. Burnham from serving as a principal investigator on projects involving human subjects, saying he violated school policies by collecting the names of those interviewed."
Interesting. These people must have known that if the researchers weren't happy with what they said, some goon (ala Saddam Hussein's era) could come after them. You don't suppose that would have influenced the results, now do you?

Hopkins Professor Accused of ethics violation in Iraq study
"Officials of the association, of which Burnham is not a member, said Burnham refused to disclose the wording of his questions and basic methodological details of his research, a violation of the group's code of ethics and practices. That makes it impossible for other researchers to verify the work, said Mary E. Losch, chairwoman of the AAPOR's Standards Committee.

"If you're not willing to provide information about how you conducted a study, we believe that is problematic," said Losch, a psychologist at the University of Northern Iowa."
So the guy has an ethics problem. Sounds like more than just ethics, to me. Maybe agenda might be the better word. Surprise, surprise.

Saskboy Hysteria Syndrome

Over at Saskboy's blog the other day, various and sundry econuts were decrying the usual doom and gloom future that will surely be our fate as a result of global warming. One of the arguments Saskboy makes is that coastal areas will be devastated, cities wiped out, etc., etc.. Commenter Zach Bell pointed out that people do have the ability to pack up and move, but that, apparently, never occurs to econuts. Their egos are rather attached to the notion that disaster awaits us, and no other scenario is allowed to penetrate. Anyone who suggests otherwise is a denier, a right winger, a blah, blah, blah, etc., etc., etc..

At the same time, Canadian Blue Lemons provides a little explanation of what all the hysteria is really about:
"The point I think that is the stupidist thing about the whole looming global warming catastrophe and the subsequent sinking of Manhattan Island, Great Britain, PEI and Salt Spring Island is the forecasted rises in sea level.

It's about 1 Foot!
Maybe as much as 3 Feet!

So, each year for the next 100 years we are gonna see the beaches rise by about 1/8 to 3/8 of an inch...
And each of us are gonna stand there for 8 years and see the water come up an extra one full inch and drown
..."
You see, Saskboy, that's why you and your fellow econuts are so easy to laugh at. Get a brain. Even a snail can move fast enough to get out of the way.

Oh. And Saskboy, you might want to read this for an ego shattering experience regarding your take on the link between global warming and Katrina.

BTW, at the Canadian Blue Lemons link there's some other interesting info, too. RTWT.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Another Newspaper Bites the Dust

After 150 years in print, one of Denver's big dailies, The Rocky Mountain News, published it's last edition on Friday. A few trees will be saved. There will likely be more to follow.

There Is Hope After All

UPDATE: Gates of Vienna has more: The Blond Pulls Ahead

-------------------------------------------------
Geert Wilders Freedom Party Leads Polls
"Mr Wilders' popularity has been rising ever since an Amsterdam appeals court decided to try him for anti-Muslim comments six weeks ago. He has since received even more exposure following Great Britain's refusal of permission to enter the country."
h/t: Gay and Right

Also thanks to Gay and Right for linking to this story. I hadn't heard about this. Yet another reason to vote the Conservatives back in and to look to this Kenney guy as a future PM. Kinda funny in the comments at the bottom of the article, someone says "I thought there were no gay people in Iran? Damn Ahmadinajhad you lied to me!"

John Murney, if you're reading this, isn't it about time you re-examined your cherished myths about the Conservative Party and their alleged homophobia?

On related topic, Mark Steyn C-SPAN interviews here.