Musings

One of many confessions of a converted AGW believer

2011-05-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

Carbon warming too minor to be worth worrying about

Climate models go cold

Special to Financial Post Apr 7, 2011 – 8:46 PM ET | Last Updated: Apr 7, 2011 8:57 PM ET

By David Evans
The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. Watching this issue unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools out of our politicians.
Let’s set a few things straight.
The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.

Read the entire article here

The Nazis and the Taliban..... juxtaposed

2011-01-15T09:37:00.000-08:00

Nazis........

The Only Surviving Album

This is the story of a Hungarian Jewish woman who survived Auschwitz and found a coat belonging to a guard which she took to shield her from the cold immediately after her liberation.

In the pocket of this coat she found a photo album.

It contained pictures of what went on in this extermination camp.

Imagine her reaction when she saw a picture of herself coming off of the train as well pictures of her family who were already murdered.

This album at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem was donated by this woman in 1980 and will forever be displayed there.

When you have 5 minutes of peace and quiet in front of your computer, watch it and consider passing it around to people that you know so they can share it and know about it.

It is truly moving and important.

See link under.

http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/album_Auschwitz/mutimedia/index.HTML

Taliban..........

http://www.rawa.org/murder-w.htm

And this is why Taliban Jack Layton is an idiot that should never hold a position of political power, ever.

File this under "Don't hold your breath"

2011-01-14T19:46:00.000-08:00

Taliban May Lift Ban on Education for Women

January 14, 2011 - 2:49 PM | by: Conor Powell

Taliban attacks on school aged girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a regular occurrence.

However, according to Afghanistan’s Education Minster Farooq Wardak, Taliban leaders are willing to lift a ban on girl’s schools and female education.

Wardak told Times Educational Supplement, a British newspaper, that the Taliban as undergone a profound “cultural change” since losing power in 2001 and is now willing to allow young women the opportunity to receive an education.

“What I am hearing at the very upper policy level of the Taliban,” Wardack told the TES, “is that they are no more opposing education and also girls’ education.”

If true, the change would be likely welcomed by many in Afghanistan and Pakistan - where millions of young girls now enrolled in school.

Unfortunately, no one from the Taliban as ever voiced a similar position and recent events make Minister Wardak’s statement seem unbelievable.

Militants regularly attack girls’ schools across Afghanistan and in Western Pakistan. Just last week in Peshawar, a violent Pakistani city near the shared border, the Taliban killed two female teachers.

During the past year, Afghan officials have tried to start negotiations with Taliban leaders in an effort to find a political situation to the current conflict - even meeting with insurgents in Dubai and the Maldives.

But those close to the talks admit very little progress has been made due to a lack of trust between insurgents and the Afghan government, and because neither side seems willing to give an inch.

If Taliban leaders truly have under gone an “attitudinal change,” as Minister Wardak suggests, and attacks on girls’ schools were to stop, it would represent a massive step forward in ending the current conflict.

Mark Knopfler: Money for Nothing gets banned in Canada...HUH?

2011-01-14T09:18:00.000-08:00

Watch the video over there on the right of the screen above the wine mouse. Top bar, second from the left

(See the little faggot with the earring and the makeup
Yeah buddy that’s his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot he’s a millionaire)

Nearly three decades ago, Mark and the boys sang that song to millions of folks all over the world.

Millions of plays on radio and on tape (remember) as well as CDs and DVDs over the years and not a gay person was hurt all the while.

Now the little faggot has taken out the earring, washed off the make-up and cut his hair.

Now the little faggot is a billionaire, and he does not give a rat's ass what anyone says.

I was in Bangkok when Dire Straights played a stadium that held 100,000 people, and they had to do four concerts to satisfy the demand for tickets.

Not one gay was injured.

Now 27 years later, someone took offense, and wants no one to listen to this classic. Sorta like closing the barn door, is it not?

Former Dire Straits' frontman and Mark Knopfler in a July 2008 photo

Photograph by: Shaughn Butts, edmontonjournal.com

EDMONTON —An Edmonton rock station says it will flout a decision by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council by playing a Dire Straits song from the 1980s that uses the term “faggot” non-stop for an hour Friday night.

On Wednesday, the council ruled that the term, which appears three times in the lyrics to Money For Nothing, was offensive.

A complainant in Newfoundland heard the song on St. John’s station CHOZ-FM and contacted the council to say that the song’s lyrics were “extremely offensive” to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

“Really, we feel it’s a poor decision on the part of the CBSC who are really taking the word ‘faggot,’ used in the song several times, out of context,” K-97 radio personality Todd James said Thursday night. He will be playing the song continuously between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Friday.

“It’s not an attack against homosexuals. It wasn’t 26 years ago, it isn’t now.”

Read the rest at

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Edmonton+flout+decision+offensive+Dire+Straits+tune/4106159/story.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+canwest%2FF264+%28Edmonton+Journal+-+News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

RCMP and Ottawa Police apologizing to Muslims in Ottawa for arresting three suspected Muslim terrorists during Ramadan.

2011-01-06T12:13:00.000-08:00

Did you notice the title?

Read it and weep. The RCMP is so completely politically correct it cannot even do its job.

Imagine, no more speeding tickets at Easter, no arrests during Christmas, it is all so good and kind and respectful to the Christians.

Is this gonna happen? I think not.

But this did:

The meeting of the RCMP's cultural diversity consultative committee was called as investigators were still building their case against Hiva Mohammad Alizadeh, Misbahuddin Ahmed and Khurram Syed Sher. The three men were arrested on Aug. 25.

“To show support to our Muslim brothers and sisters during RAMADAN, there will be no food or drink during this most important meeting. This meeting is for one hour only, in order to observe prayer time and the breaking of the fast during RAMADAN,” Cpl. Wayne Russett wrote to meeting participants in an e-mail.

See the entire article here:

http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/canada/2011/01/06/16785946.html#/news/canada/2011/01/06/pf-16785946.html

Autism, vaccine study was ‘fraud’

2011-01-05T17:03:00.000-08:00

Yuri Gripas/Reuters

Actors Jim Carrey (R) and Jenny McCarthy are vocal supporters of the theory that some vaccines are linked to autism. The majority of health experts agree there is no evidence that can link autism to any kind of vaccine.

Autism, vaccine study was ‘fraud’ says journal

Agence France-Presse · Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2011
PARIS — A 1998 study that unleashed a major health scare by linking childhood autism to a triple vaccine was “an elaborate fraud,” the British Medical Journal (BMJ) charged Thursday.
Blamed for a disastrous boycott of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in Britain, the study was retracted by The Lancet last year and its senior author disgraced, after the country’s longest-running hearing, for conflict of interest and unethical treatment of patients.

But the BMJ, taking the affair further, on Thursday branded the paper a crafted attempt to deceive, among the gravest of charges in medical research.

“The paper was in fact an elaborate fraud,” the BMJ said in an editorial, adding: “There are hard lessons for many in this highly damaging saga.”
It pointed the finger at lead author Andrew Wakefield, then a consultant in experimental gastro-enterology at London’s Royal Free Hospital.

Read the rest by clicking here:

http://www.nationalpost.com/Autism+vaccine+study+fraud+says+journal/4066001/story.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NP_Top_Stories+%28National+Post+-+Top+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez

2011-01-03T11:47:00.000-08:00

The following is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian
Vilar Rodriguez and published in a Spanish newspaper on Jan. 15, 2008.

It doesn't take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe - and possibly to the rest of the world.

REMEMBER AS YOU READ -- IT WAS IN A SPANISH PAPER, Date: Tue. 15 January 2008 14:30

ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez

I walked down the street in Barcelona , and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz ....

We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims.

In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent.

We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.

The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world.

These are the people we burned.

And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates
to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness
to work and support their families with pride.

They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime.

Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.

And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and
superstition.

We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to
life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and
theirs.

What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe .

No, I really don't see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you? So, to ensure Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us, airport security screeners will no longer be allowed to profile certain people.

They must conduct random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, secret agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winner and former Governor Joe Foss, but leave Muslim Males between the ages 17 and 40 alone lest they be guilty of profiling.
______________________________

__

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfooz (Born in Egypt)

Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat (born in Egypt)
1990 - Elias James Corey (born Massachusetts USA)
1994 - Yaser Arafat: (Murderer of children and elderly.)
1999 - Ahmed Zewai (born in Egypt)

Economics:
(zero)

Physics:
(zero)

Medicine:
1960 - Peter Brian Medawar (Born in Brazil, British mother - Lebanese father.)

1998 - Ferid Mourad born in Indiana, USA, 1936
TOTAL: 7 SEVEN

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis
1996- Lu RoseIacovino

TOTAL: 129!

The Jews are NOT promoting brain washing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of
Jews and other non Muslims.

The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants.

There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church.

There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people.
The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.
Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more
culpability on Israel 's part, the following two sentences really say it all:

'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.
If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel ."
Benjamin Netanyahu

General Eisenhower Warned Us It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims
of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps
and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect: 'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that
this never happened'

Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred.

It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.
This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the, 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic priests
who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated' while the German people looked the other way.

Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world.

How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States ?

The US debt clock

2011-01-01T13:22:00.000-08:00

The US debt clock, watch these incredible numbers.

Click on the bottom to view car sales, etc.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Am I missing something?

2011-01-01T12:17:00.000-08:00

The new cigarette packaging that has sprung from the teeny weeny brains of the nanny state gurus has me questioning if I am just stupid, or is the new packaging just stupid.

Bear with me, because I admit that I do not 'get' a lot of the programs that are meant to protect the pathetically mentally challenged citizenry of this country from their own dimness.

I ask myself, first, does anyone who smokes a cigarette or cigar today not aware of the health dangers already?

Would a smoker, shaken awake in the middle of the night, admit that he or she had no idea that sucking harsh and dangerous chemicals into their lovely pink lungs could be harming them?

I think probably not. But then, how would making the pictures of the tragic end of Barb Tarbox cover three quarters of the cigarettes package, make the smoker more aware of the danger?

Why not cover the entire package with graphic horror-show photos? Also, cover the inside of the package, and include a 8" x 11" glossy photograph folded up and inserted as well. Or hand out a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood with images of suffering and death with each pack of smokes?

Now, I admit that I used to smoke, and I loved to smoke, but you wanna know a surprising thing? Well, it made me cough. Yes, smoking made me cough. Heard here first, it made me sick and it made me cough.

So, without seeing a photo of an emaciated woman drawing her final painful breaths, I QUIT. See, I quit smoking because I knew it was bad for the health and it was particularly bad for me.

No one from the government came and advised me that I should no longer smoke. I figured it out myself. Myself. How is that possible?

Our bureaucrats will never figure me out. How did I do it? Why, if I was not repulsed by graphic pictures of rotting lungs or drooping ashes, would I just up and quit? It will drive them crazy.

You see, if it gets out that the dim witted citizens like me are beginning to do things without direction from the halls of power, they will become restive and begin to worry about their jobs.

Then they will find something new to do.

Recall when hiding the ciggies behind a curtain at the gas station was going to prevent people from looking past the cash register and say to themselves, "Wow, do those things ever look cool, I think I would like to buy some, and then I will become a smoker."

But, it seems, just hiding the things was not enough for the supreme nannies, they were compelled to go another mile.

What could be next?

I can imagine my new Mercedes or Chevy with a blood soaked photo of a multi-car crash along both sides. With smaller and more disquieting pictures on the hood, roof and trunk.

Perhaps, as you turn the key, a voice says, "You could be injured, maimed or killed by making the decision to drive this vehicle".

Or the long skinny picture of someone bashing their brains out on a tree or rock adhered to the bottom of your new skis?

There are so many more ways to protect us, so many things to do, one cannot expect the watchers and nannies to do them all at once, can we?

There will be ample opportunities for them to coddle the populace in the future.

They are not done with the playgrounds yet, or the beaches, or the video games, or the cell phones.

In the meantime, if I am ever tempted to smoke again, I will be grateful for the hideous photographs on the package that will forever turn me around.

we need to be careful what we wish for

2010-12-31T17:48:00.000-08:00

Global Cooling, Part 3 of 3

Written by Mike Smith, Meteorogical Musings | 31 December 2010

We are hearing that Great Britain is experiencing the coldest December in 1,000 years. We also know that atmospheric temperatures more or less stopped warming in 1998 and ocean heat content (the more important metric of the earth’s temperature) is steady or slightly falling. These measurements are markedly different than the forecasts of warming made by the International Panel on Climate Change, the group cited by most global warming proponents.
As discussed in Part II, what if these indications of cooling are just that: Signs of cooling? Since many (see here and here) are advocating cooling and desire to spend tremendous sums of money to make it happen, I must ask if this is a situation where we need to be careful what we wish for.
What might be the source of the cooling? Less energy from the sun.
When I was in meteorology school, before satellites measured the sun’s output from above the earth’s atmosphere, we were incorrectly taught about “the solar constant.” That is, the sun’s output was thought to be the same year after year, in spite of astronomers observing a variety of sunspot changes over the centuries.
Some thought the number of sunspots might affect the weather but they were generally outside the mainstream of scientific thinking.
Now, we know the sun’s output varies. Still, the IPCC has generally thought the effect of the sun’s changes on climate are minimal.
Looks like we are about to find out whether the IPCC's hypothesis is correct.
Read rest…

Once Upon a Time in Afghanistan...

2010-12-31T16:55:00.000-08:00

This article by a former resident of Kabul gives us a snapshot (right is a photo of Kabul in the 1960's) of Afghanistan in the 50's and 60's.

There are no lights in Kabul at night now.

Before Sharia, before Taliban, before the Russian invasion, when the country was like Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

A modern, developing nation with a bright future, which has been reduced to a rusted, decaying, dying place with the dimmest of hope for the future.

As fundamental Islam continures to reduce the Arab world to chaos and murder and corruption, the rest of the world, the civilized countries run by rule of law and decency, have to protect themselves from the insanity of the mullahs and ayatollahs that are in charge in so many Muslim nations.

If you think that the average family man in those countries agrees with the backward stone-age leadership, think again. They are intimidated, tortured and murdered by the thousands until the "religious" leaders are satisfied that all they do and learn is in the Koran.

As Pol Pot did in Cambodia, these gene-damaged cretins are killing and driving off the educated and intelligent, and wish only to rule the ignorant and uneducated. Pol Pot's score was about 2 million fellow Cambodians slaughtered, the Mullahs will score much higher.

Education is the enemy of fundamental Islam, that is why they kill the schoolgirls and burn the kindergartens, and allow the boys to only study the Koran.

The ignorance of their subjects gives them the power to control the masses, and the feverish beliefs that they instill in their followers can become contagious to some who were not raised this way.

Only if we can protect the children long enough to enlighten them to our way of human rights and freedom can we look forward to peace with the Muslim world.

Read the article here:

Once Upon a Time in Afghanistan...

Why import such hate? Andrew Bolt

2010-12-29T16:37:00.000-08:00

Thursday, December 30, 2010 at 09:30am

Stricter controls on Muslim immigration are inevitable, at least until this insane jihadism blows out:

SCANDINAVIAN intelligence agencies say they have foiled a plot by Islamic extremists to massacre staff at a Danish newspaper which published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
Denmark’s PET intelligence service said five suspects had been arrested, preventing an imminent “Mumbai-style” assault on the Copenhagen offices of the Jyllands-Posten daily in which as many staff as possible would have been killed.
Four men were arrested in Denmark while a spokeswoman for Swedish intelligence agency Saepo said a fifth was arrested in Sweden in connection with the same international plot.
“It is our sense based on intelligence that this is a militant Islamic group with links to international terrorist networks,” PET head Jakob Scharf told reporters…
The man arrested in Stockholm is a 37-year-old Swede of Tunisian background.
Danish intelligence said the four men arrested in Denmark, in the Herlev and Greve suburbs of Copenhagen, were a 44-year-old Tunisian, a 29-year-old Swede born in Lebanon, a 30-year-old Swede and a 26-year-old Iraqi asylum-seeker.
The first three were all living in Sweden and travelled to Denmark overnight.

Meanwhile, in London:

Nine men arrested in Britain on terrorism charges last week found inspiration and bomb-making instructions in an English-language Internet magazine published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, British investigators reportedly said.
The revelation, relayed by British newspapers, provided the first purported link between the nine British-based suspects, some of Bangladeshi origin, and an anti-Western terrorism campaign being waged by Yemen-based jihadists of Yemeni, Saudi, U.S. and other nationalities under the aegis of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula…
A statement issued Monday by British police said that between Oct. 1 and Dec. 20, the day of the arrests, the nine suspects were “researching, discussing, carrying out reconnaissance on, and agreeing potential targets” for a terrorist bombing as well as “igniting and testing incendiary material.” A State Department official in Washington said the U.S. Embassy in London was among the targets under discussion.

London’s Daily Telegraph allows itself to reflect the growing unease at an immigration policy designed by people too polite to even imagine the consequences, now beyond repair:

Two points need to be made.
First, that Muslims have migrated to Britain in enormous numbers over the past 40 years; one of the heaviest waves of immigration was encouraged by the last government. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life estimates that there are 2,869,000 Muslims in Britain, an increase of 74 per cent on its previous figure of 1,647,000, which was based on the 2001 census. No demographic statistics are reliable in an era of open borders, but such an expansion is unprecedented.
The second point is that – different political traditions notwithstanding – Britain is beginning to experience French-style anxiety about Islamisation. The fact that many terrorists are Muslims may lead to unfair assumptions about the loyalty of British Muslims. But, a

Profile

Andrew Bolt
Andrew Bolt's columns appear in Melbourne's Herald Sun, Sydney's Daily Telegraph and Adelaide's Advertiser. He runs the most-read political blog in Australia and is a regular commentator on Channel 9's Today show and ABC TV's Insiders.He will be heard from Monday to Friday on the breakfast show of new radio station MTR 1377. His book 'Still Not Sorry' was released in 2006.

t a time when – according to some surveys – around 40 per cent of the Muslim community support the establishment of Sharia, fears of social fracture are understandable.

Read Andrew Bolt at

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/why_import_such_hate

A true Christmas Miracle

2010-12-26T21:55:00.000-08:00

I do not remember, and could not begin to guess, what year this happened. That detail is lost in the intervening years.

But a good guess would be as early as 1966, and as late as 1969. All we remember for sure is the car, that it was a 1959 Ford, belonged to my brother, and it was blue.

It was Christmas night, on the prairies, it was 30 degrees below zero, with a biting north wind and light snow falling.

It was 50 kilometers to my Grandma and Grandpa's house, and after a day of excitement, gifts, rich food and Mandarin oranges, the family struck out for a bit more of the same at their place.

In those days, Highway 40 from the Alberta border to North Battleford, Saskatchewan was a graveled excuse for a wagon trail, ignored by the socialist hordes in faraway Regina. Back then they were known as the CCF, now known as the NDP. That road resembled a mortar range, with the huge holes and ruts, and you really had to squint to call it a highway.

A troll must have been living in one of the chuck holes, and he must have become irritated when, late on Christmas day, a car had the temerity to disturb his slumber. At least that is what I thought must have happened when the car and its gas tank parted company.

There we were, on a lonely God forsaken ribbon of ruts and gravel, with a car that would not run, and in minus 30 degrees with a windchill that rivaled the South Pole. We had not seen another car for a very long time, and for those of you under 30, we had no cell phone. No one had a cell phone.

There were no cell phones. Or Nintendo, internet, email, Blackberry, or Google. Not even PacMan at that time, let alone OnStar.

There was just the six of us, huddling in a car that would not run, getting colder by the minute.

My brother and my Dad were rounding up as many warm things as they could find to cover us, and one of them was about to embark on very long walk for help, which could surely have left him frozen to death in a ditch. But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

They were about to step out of the car, when we heard a diesel truck gearing down. Out of the gloom and snow emerged a wondrous sight.

No, not a sleigh with eight tiny reindeer, no jolly elf in red, no, but something equally hard to imagine.

Remember when I said that this was the evening of Christmas day. It was dark, cold and snowing. This was not a hard working trucker trying to make it home on Christmas Eve.

There should not have been any trucks on the road.

In fact, we never saw another vehicle that night, car or truck. And furthermore, this truck should have been on Highway 16, a few miles north, which is a real truck route.

This was back when Christmas meant something to Canadians, and I don't mean just the immigrants from countries of other religions who seem to embrace Christmas more that we do these days.

Back to the diesel truck, he geared down and down again, I could hear the shoosh sound of the air brakes as he pulled to a stop in front of our car.

That diesel tractor was pulling, of all damned things, an empty car carrier.

The driver pulled onto the shoulder of the road.

He reversed a few yards and climbed down from the cab.

"I could see you are in trouble", he said, "Does it run?" The answer came in the negative of course, and he said,"OK, I can winch it up onto the trailer, just put the kids into the cab before they freeze".

As sure as God made green apples, that old boy hauled out a wire rope, hooked it to the underneath of the car, and slowly the winch whined and squealed the car up the ramps and onto the trailer.

The truck driver chained the car into place, while we sere sitting in that warm cab, that smelled vaguely of tobacco and coffee.

That old boy drove us the last miles into town, and winched the car off in front of Grandma's house, while we all trooped into the house and huddled around the stove while Grandma broke out the oatmeal date cookies.

That truck driver politely declined to join in the cookie fest, and climbed into his rig and quite simply, vanished into the dark and the swirling snow.

There was no sign on the side of the truck cab, no company name, no indication of who he hauled that trailer for, no way to contact him later to send some expression of gratitude. No way to praise him to his employer for his selfless act that made him hours later that he would have been had he sailed on by us that bitterly cold Christmas night.

I have always thought of him on Christmas night over the intervening years, and I never fail to raise a glass of mulled wine or fine scotch to him, and as the many Christmases have come and gone, I have wondered if he was real.

If he was real, I hope he had a good Christmas, in spite of being home so late, for it was more than an hour's drive to the closest place he could have lived.

That means, at best, he arrived some time near midnight, meaning he sacrificed whatever time he may have had with his family to save our lives that night.

Was there a home that he was late to? Was there a family and a tree covered in ornaments, with presents piled under it, waiting for him?

Or, was this one of those angel stories or ghost-truck stories you hear about, like the ones that Red Sovine used to sing about?

And that, dear reader, is the story of my personal Christmas miracle.

On my oath, it is true.

I love these stories from England in 2008

2010-12-21T08:27:00.000-08:00

UK NEWS

WHY WINTER NO LONGER EXISTS

Friday February 8,2008

By

Polly Buchanan

Winter has gone for ever and we should officially bring spring forward instead, one of the country’s most respected gardeners said yesterday.

For climate change has wiped out the season of traditionally long, hard frosts and replaced it with brightly blossoming gardens bursting into flower months early.

The curator of Kew Gardens said that native plants which historically flower in May are already in leaf and a modern definition of the seasons was needed.

“Over the last 12 months there has been no winter,” said Dr Nigel Taylor. “Last year was extraordinary. Spring was in January, April was summer, the summer was cool, then it was warmer and sunny in autumn.

Over the last 12 months there has been no winter

Dr Nigel Taylor

“English hawthorn or May – so called because it used to flower then – has leafed out in Kew in the last week of January, two months or more ahead of when it normally would.

“It may flower before the end of February. Blackthorn is already leafed out and in flower and common ash is in flower.

“These are months earlier than the norm and, given that they are species which have evolved in the vagaries of the English climate, the more remarkable and surprising.

“The climate is behaving very strangely. No one predicted winter was finished but these plants’ behaviour shows it has ended.

“There is no winter any more despite a cold snap before Christmas. It is nothing like years ago when I was younger. There is a real problem with spring because so much is flowering so early year to year. It’s hard to plan attractions as the marketing has to be planned. You do that relying on things happening at certain times.”

Dr Taylor added: “Like most scientists, I’m fairly convinced that climate change is down to man’s reckless use of fossil fuels and destruction of natural habitats.

“Twenty per cent of carbon increases in the atmosphere are down to the destruction of natural vegetation – that’s more than the contribution of burning fossil fuels to power every transport system in the world.

“People worry about the impact of aeroplanes and cars and rightly so. But if we were better at preserving natural habitats we’d more than offset the problems we create by powering transport.”

Historically, spring begins on March 21 after the vernal equinox – vernal comes from the Latin word for bloom – but the Met Office rejected Dr Taylor’s call. A spokeswoman said: “From a meteorological and statistical point of view, spring is March, April and May, that’s when we take our averages.

“It would be difficult to move it forward. If you look historically at averages, January and February are still two of the coldest months. If they moved spring they would need to move summer. It would have a knock-on effect for all the seasons.”

It’s not just flora that is being affected by the milder winter. Asiatic bears at Dudley zoo in the West Midlands normally hibernate for two months this time of year but they have been kept awake by the warmer weather. “The behaviour of the bears is a really good indicator of the effects of climate change,” said a zoo spokesman.

How much would Iggy "spray around"

2010-12-17T10:13:00.000-08:00

Ignatieff says Canadians - and Liberals - are ready for federal election

at 23:35 on December 16, 2010, EST.

Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press

Share|

OTTAWA - Michael Ignatieff says Canadians are ready for an election.
And he says the Liberal party is ready too, despite public-opinion polls that suggest the Grits are hovering around 30 per cent — slightly behind the Conservatives and far from the support levels needed to win a majority.

"We are ready for an election and we think Canadians are ready for an election," the Liberal leader told The Canadian Press in a year-end interview Thursday.

Over the past two years, Ignatieff has repeatedly justified having Liberals prop up Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority government by stressing that Canadians don't want an election.
But Ignatieff said he changed his mind after hearing from thousands of Canadians during a summer-long cross-country bus tour and a series of "Open Mike" townhalls throughout the fall. He said Canadians are no longer saying they want to "avoid an election at all costs."

"In fact, what I'm hearing and I heard all summer long — and I'm not making this up — was: 'Get rid of the guy' . . . There's a lot of impatience, anger and disappointment at this government."
Ignatieff's changed message suggests the days of Liberals rolling over on confidence votes just to avoid an election are over.

He stopped short of saying Liberals will deliberately try to pull the plug on the government over its next budget, expected in February or March. But he held out little hope it will contain the kinds of measures needed to win Liberal support, such as rolling back corporate tax cuts, halting the fighter jet purchase and investing in family care.

"Mr. Harper never listens to anybody on budgets," he said.

"I don't know what we're going to do about the budget because I need to read it first . . . but I can't say I'm especially optimistic that he will listen to us."

Triggering an election won't be entirely up to Ignatieff. All three opposition parties would have to vote against the government on a confidence matter, such as the budget. Alternatively, Harper could simply decide to call an election himself.

Despite polls suggesting a majority of Canadians — and even a majority of Liberals — would like to see him replaced as Liberal leader, Ignatieff seemed relaxed and cheerful as he gave back-to-back interviews to a couple dozen reporters who traipsed one by one through the official Opposition leader's residence Thursday.

Asked what he wants for Christmas, he quipped: "Peace and quiet."

And his New Year's resolution? "I'd obviously like a change of address and a change of job," he said, presumably referring to 24 Sussex Dr., the prime minister's residence.

Instead of harping on the Liberals' tepid polling numbers, Ignatieff said the media should be wondering why Harper's Tories aren't doing much better.
"He has every advantage of incumbency, he can spray money around in every constituency in the country and look at his numbers. I mean, you know, I wish I had the tools at his disposal, is all I can say."

Ignatieff insisted he's not frustrated by his apparent inability to break through with Canadian voters, despite a frenetic year that saw him host a thinkers' conference, tour the country non-stop through the summer and much of the fall and unveil several important platform planks.

"It's been fun, actually. Is it frustrating? No, it's not frustrating because I feel I'm doing the right thing. I really feel I'm rebuilding a party, I'm reinforcing its unity, I'm getting its electoral platform ready, I'm solving its organizational problems . . . I'm just ticking off the things you have to do to be the next government of Canada."

He counseled Liberals to be patient and predicted that all the preparatory work done over the past year will pay off once an election is called and Canadians actually start paying attention.
"I'm just convinced this will pay dividends," he said.

"I feel extremely confident that if we have an election in 2011 and the choice is between four more years of this and a compassionate and responsible alternative, people will choose the compassionate, responsible alternative, which is us."

Having spent much of the past six months trying to re-engage and motivate Liberal grassroots, Liberal insiders say Ignatieff will be back on the road early in the new year.

His target audience this time, however, will be non-Liberals in ridings held by rival parties. And his message will be aimed at polarizing the electorate between Liberals and Conservatives, marginalizing the so-called "boutique parties" like the Bloc Quebecois, NDP and Greens.

Ignatieff gave a preview Thursday, repeatedly casting the Liberals as the only opposition party capable of replacing the Harper government.

"Everybody has to understand in the next election . . . that if you vote for Gilles Duceppe, you get Stephen Harper. If you vote for Jack Layton, you get Stephen Harper. If you vote for Elizabeth May, you get Stephen Harper."

He said the Harper government is "out of gas and out of steam," focused on "corporate tax giveaways, prisons, planes and photo ops." By contrast, he asserted that Liberals are focused on the real priorities of middle class families: education, child care, health care and pension security.

TV glasses never caught on

2010-12-17T08:02:00.000-08:00

Inventor Hugo Gernsback wears his television glasses, a product that didn't really take off back in 1963.

In the guise of environmentalism

2010-12-16T07:57:00.001-08:00

In the guise of environmentalism, U.S. foundations are spending millions to stop oil tankers along the B.C. coast
Vivian Krause
Last week, Michael Ignatieff and 142 other Members of Parliament voted in favour of a motion to ban oil tanker traffic on the north coast of British Columbia. This week, Liberal MP Joyce Murray from Vancouver Quadra introduced Bill C-606 to put that motion into law by amending the Canada Shipping Act to prohibit oil tanker traffic on the north and central coast of British Columbia.
Ms. Murray and every single one of those MPs played right into the hands of the U.S. foundations seeking to block oil tanker traffic. Whether intentional or not, these actions will also stop oil exports to Asia. On the surface, this is about oil, Canada’s single most important export. More important, this is about the sovereignty of our country, which should be decided by Canadians, not foreign-funded campaigns.
The charge to pressure MPs to vote for a tanker ban was led by the Dogwood Initiative. In 2009, a U.S. foundation paid $30,000 to the U.S. Tides Foundation to fund the Dogwood Initiative “to expand an outreach campaign to mobilize urban voters for a federal ban on coastal tankers.” Another U.S. foundation paid the Dogwood Initiative “to help grow public opposition to counter the Enbridge pipeline construction …”
In 2006, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund paid $100,000 to the Pembina Foundation and $100,000 to the Westcoast Environmental Law Research Foundation, “To prevent the development of a pipeline and tanker port that would endanger the Great Bear Rainforest. ”
China, Japan, South Korea, and other Asian countries would just love to buy Canadian oil — if only there were a pipeline to get it to the B.C. coast. But if Canadian oil gets exported to Asia, where will U.S. oil companies get enough gas to put in the pumps at gas stations across the U.S.? Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are the choices. Is it any wonder that U.S. foundations are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on “conservation” initiatives that would land-lock Alberta oil within North America?
Environmentalists say an oil tanker spill on the West Coast would be catastrophic. They’re dead right. But to say the only acceptable way to prevent such a risk is a complete ban on tanker traffic is like saying the only way to avoid a fatal car accident is to never get in a car.
If marine conservation were really the issue, the ban wouldn’t be only for the north coast of British Columbia and U.S. foundations would be funding a tanker ban in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, on the Eastern Seaboard and in the Gulf of Mexico. But no, U.S. foundations are funding a tanker ban campaign only for the central and the north coast of British Columbia — right smack where oil tankers, export-bound for Asia would need to travel.
The day the House of Commons voted for the tanker ban, I was in Ottawa at the invitation of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. On the basis of U.S. tax returns that I’ve analyzed on my own nickel — with additional data from Vancouver consultant Rob Scagel — I testified that since 2000, U.S. foundations have spent upward of $300-million on “conservation” initiatives and the so-called “reform” of resource-based industries in Canada. That $300-million sounds like a lot — and it is — but it is less than 3% of the $11.7-billion that U.S. foundations have spent since 2000 on environmental and wildlife protection.
At least $210-million was from five U.S. foundations: the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
More than $120-million from U.S. foundations went toward the Great Bear Rainforest Initiative on the B.C. coast ($29-million), the Boreal Forest Initiative ($56-million), The Turning Point Initiative for First Nations in B.C. ($14-million), and the Pacific North Coast Integrated Area Management Initiative (PNCIMA) ($20-million) whose member organizations are anything but favourable to oil tanker traffic.
Since 2004, U.S. foundations have granted $18-million specifically for “demarketing” Alberta oil. Demarketing is reducing demand or shifting demand away. The lion’s share of that $18-million went to the U.S. Tides Foundation ($7-million), Tides Canada ($2-million), the Pembina Foundation ($4-million) and Corporate Ethics International ($1.2-million).
Several U.S. foundations made grants that explicitly spell out over-reliance on fossil fuels as a matter of national security. By their own admission, protecting the environment isn’t their only concern.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund granted $105,000 specifically to the First Nations at the Kitimat village, which is right at the mouth of the Douglas Channel. That’s precisely where export-bound oil tankers would need to load. That included $70,000 for an anniversary celebration in 2004 and $35,000 for a ceremonial event in 2006. Of all the aboriginal people in the world, why is the Rockefeller Brothers Fund giving money to the First Nations at Kitimat Village?
Over the past 10 years, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) also paid $1-million to the David Suzuki Foundation. That included $425,000 for “legal, scientific and media work” and “for organizing First Nations’ work” along the B.C. coast. Between 2000 and 2003, the David Suzuki Foundation was granted about $5-million from U.S. foundations, U.S. tax returns say. Canadian tax returns over those same years show the David Suzuki Foundation granting about $2-million to First Nations along the B.C. coast.
In 2009, RBF paid Tides Canada Initiatives Society (TCIS) $20,000 for DeSmog Blog, which is run by the chairman of the David Suzuki Foundation, James Hoggan. RBF also paid TCIS $255,000 (2004-2006) for its “Canadian Climate Project.”
Compared to what U.S. foundations are spending on the B.C. coast, what they have granted for the interior of B.C. is a pittance.
U.S. foundations also funded the demarketing of Canadian forest products and B.C. farmed salmon — all in the name of protecting the environment. The Moore Foundation paid $560,000 “to provide a high quality toolkit and co-ordination infrastructure for environmental organizations in their campaigns to shift consumer and retailer demand away from farmed salmon.” These campaigns involved “science messages,” “earned media,” and “co-ordination of media for anti-farming environmental organizations.” Ahem. With all the bad press over farmed salmon, the value of Alaskan salmon has tripled.
When concern was raised about the “anti-farming campaign,” four grants for $3.6-million were quietly rewritten by the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation. In a grant to Living Oceans Society for $453,400, the Farmed and Dangerous campaign was renamed the “Aquaculture Education Campaign.”
The Pew Charitable Trusts has spent $44-million since 2002 for the Boreal Forest Initiative. Based in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., Pew has $5.8-billion in assets that originated from the founders of Suncor, a U.S. oil company.
Pew recognizes a need to protect boreal forests in Russia, South America, Indonesia and Africa, but the place where Pew is spending tens of millions is Canada. Pew acknowledges that 12% of our boreal forest is already protected by Canada but that’s not good enough for Pew.
Let’s not forget, Canadian forests cover some of the world’s largest deposits of energy and minerals. This is not lost on Pew. In fact, two of Pew’s grants for the Boreal Forest Initiative are actually titled, “British Columbia mining.”
According to Pew’s database, since 1997 Pew hasn’t made one single grant to address the pine beetle, the single most serious problem afflicting B.C. forests. The pine beetle-infested forests in B.C. aren’t even included on the map of the Canadian forests that are of interest to Pew.
Since 2006, Moore has paid $20-million toward PNCIMA which, supposedly, is a collaboration between Canadian environmental organizations and the Canadian government. On top of that, $8-million more was promised in November. Moore-funded environmentalists may be every bit as Canadian as I am, but their funder and the interests they’re serving are anything but purely Canadian. And yet, $6-million of our taxes has gone into topping up this U.S.-funded initiative that bears the logo of the Government of Canada.
PNCIMA extends from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to the southern tip of Alaska but not Vancouver Island. Thus, PNCIMA covers precisely the area where oil tankers would need to pass — but not other parts of the B.C. coast. While Moore has paid or promised $28-million for PNCIMA, Moore granted less than $1-million for the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Like PNCIMA, the Coast Conservation Endowment Fund Foundation (CCEFF), commonly known as the “Coast Opportunity Fund,” covers the same part of the north and central coast of B.C. — but not the coast of Vancouver Island. The CCEFF supports “eligible” First Nations along the north and central coast of B.C. Of the 37 grants the Rockefeller Brothers Fund has made since 2003 for projects in Canada, the largest by far was a 2003 grant to the CCEFF for a nice, cool $1-million.
The year 2003 was a boom year indeed, especially for the Heiltsuk, a vociferous First Nation on the B.C. coast. U.S. tax returns show that in 2003 the Packard foundation paid $935,000 to Tides Canada, including $175,000 “to develop the Canadian capacity for indigenous conservation philanthropy.” That same year, Moore granted $500,000 to Ecotrust for work with the Heiltsuk. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave $5,000 for a summer camp for Heiltsuk youth and from 2004 to 2006, more than half of Tides Canada’s scholarship funds went to two Heiltsuk individuals.
The CCEFF now has equivalency status in the United States, so U.S. foundations can quietly channel millions of dollars directly to First Nations — but only along the B.C. coast. U.S. tax returns show that since 2000, U.S. foundations have granted at least $50-million to First Nations. In 2008, one single grant from Tides Canada was for a whopping $27.3-million. If First Nations would support the Enbridge pipeline, my hunch is that they wouldn’t be getting U.S. money. Last week, 61 First Nations in B.C. agreed to support the tanker ban.
The Moore Foundation has granted at least $8.7-million for projects specifically with First Nations along B.C.’s north and central coast. In 2007, Moore granted $250,000 for “a groundbreaking test case related to aboriginal rights and title to the lands and water of Haida Gwaii.” That grant says, “The legal framework for aboriginal rights and title in Canada has the potential to have a significant impact on land and natural resource conservation in affected regions.” No kidding. Aboriginal rights and title are the best pretext for choking oil exports to Asia and preventing Canada from diversifying our customer base in Asia.
It may be that blocking oil exports to Asia isn’t the intention of environmentalists or U.S. foundations. Regardless, that would be the consequence of their initiatives.
Vivian Krause is a Vancouver-based researcher and writer. Her website is fair-questions.com

Pakistan doctor arrested on suspicion of blasphemy

2010-12-14T08:38:00.000-08:00

Pakistan doctor arrested on suspicion of blasphemy

By ASHRAF KHAN, Associated Press

Sunday, December 12, 2010

(12-12) 07:03 PST KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) --
Pakistani authorities have arrested a doctor on suspicion of violating the country's contentious blasphemy law by throwing away a business card of a man who shared the name of Islam's prophet, Muhammad, police said Sunday.
The blasphemy law has been widely criticized by human rights groups following the case of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death last month for insulting Islam. Critics say the law should be amended or repealed because it is often used to settle grudges, persecute minorities and fan religious extremism.
Naushad Valiyani, a Muslim doctor in the southern city of Hyderabad, was arrested Friday after a complaint was lodged with police alleging his actions had insulted the Prophet Muhammad, said regional police chief Mushtaq Shah.
The case began Friday when Muhammad Faizan, a pharmaceutical company representative, visited Valiyani's clinic and handed out his business card. He said when the doctor threw the card away, Faizan went to police and filed a complaint that noted his name was the same as the prophet's.
Shah said police were investigating whether Valiyani should be charged with blasphemy.
Dozens of Pakistanis are sentenced to death each year under the blasphemy law, though most cases are thrown out by higher courts and no executions have been carried out. The law, however, is unlikely to be repealed because the government's ruling party — largely secular — relies on the support of Islamist groups.
Islamist political parties have recently demonstrated in support of the law and the sentence against Bibi. One hard-line cleric said if the government did not execute Bibi, his mosque would pay anyone who killed her $5,800.
The family of Bibi — a mother of five — insists she was falsely accused over a personal dispute. There have been appeals from around the globe — including one from Pope Benedict XVI — to pardon her. But the government has said it is first waiting for a court ruling on her appeal.
Pakistan's minister for minority affairs has said the law is being examined to prevent widespread abuse.
___
Associated Press writer Hussain Afzal in Parachinar, Pakistan, contributed to this report

Geert Wilders - "Let us acknowledge that Jordan is Palestine."

2010-12-11T08:29:00.000-08:00

Shalom chaveriem,

Let me start by saying that it is with great sadness that I share your grief over the deaths of more than 40 brave Israelis who lost their lives - many while trying to save others in the great fire near Haifa. My country, the Netherlands, is amongst other countries helping to put down this fire, which is threatening the lives and property of thousands of your compatriots. I offer my heartfelt condolences to the families of those who perished. My thoughts are with them. Israel is an immense source of inspiration for me. When I came to your country for the first time as a teenager, I lived here for a year.

I am not ashamed to stand with Israel, but proud. I am grateful to Israel. I will always defend Israel. Your country is the cradle of Western civilization. We call it the Judeo-Christian civilization with good reason.

Israel is often being treated unfairly. The world looks at the plight of the Palestinians in refugee camps in Lebanon, Gaza, and other places, and many blame Israel. The UN claims that there are over 4.7 million Palestinian refugees, and many blame Israel. These voices say the Palestinians should be allowed to return to "Palestine." But where is Palestine? Many say Israel must solve the problems of Palestine. But is Israel guilty of the plight of the Palestinian refugees?

My answer is "No." The Arab leaders are to be blamed - and Islam is to be blamed. Let me first tell you why, and then I will tell you where Palestine can be found.

At the end of World War II, there were 50 million refugees. Today, all the refugee problems dating from before the 1950s have been solved. All, except one - the problem of the Palestinians.

Why did this problem not get solved? The reason is simple: Because the Arab countries did not allow it to get solved. And because Islam does not allow it to get solved.
In May 1948, the number of Jews in the Arab countries was estimated to be close to 1 million. Today, fewer than 8,000 Jews are left in the entire Arab world. In 1948, the Arab countries forced the Jews out and confiscated their properties. More Jews fled the Arab countries than Arabs fled Israel. Where are the Jewish refugee camps? There are none.

So, why are there refugee camps for Palestinians in areas surrounding Israel? Because the Palestinians were not welcomed in the neighboring Arab countries. There was no Arab solidarity; the refugees were forced into camps and slums, where many of their descendants still linger today.

Under international definitions the status of refugee or displaced person only applies to first generation refugees. However, the UN makes an exception for Palestinians. Descendants of Palestinian refugees are granted the same refugee status as their ancestors. Consequently, the number of so-called Palestinian refugees registered with the UN increased from 711,000 in 1950 to over 4.7 million in 2010. These refugees are being used as a demographic weapon against Israel.

Instead of blaming the inhospitable Arab regimes, many blame Israel.

My friends, the blame should be laid where it belongs: with the Arab world. The Jewish refugees built new lives for themselves. They did what millions of refugees have done in the course of history, including, in the 20th century, the Germans who had to leave Sudetenland and the lands east of the Oder and Neisse rivers, the Hungarians who fled Transylvania, the Greeks who were ejected from the Aegean coast of Anatolia, the Hindus who fled the Punjab.

With each generation, the resentment of these refugees and their descendants slowly fades away. Time heals all wounds. Acceptance of the new situation is the norm.

Islam, however, conditions Muslims to hate Jews. It is a religious duty to do so. Israel must be destroyed because it is the homeland of the Jews.

Influential Islamic scholars, such as Muhammad Tantawi, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Cairo, the most prestigious center of Muslim learning, call Jews "enemies of Allah." Tantawi, who died last March, was generally considered a moderate by the Western media and policy makers. But how did this "moderate" address a delegation of Palestinian Muslims who visited him in 2002?

He urged them to intensify suicide attacks against Israelis, stating that every so-called "martyrdom operation" against - I quote - "any Israeli, including children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to [Islamic] religious law, and an Islamic commandment, until the people of Palestine regain their land." - end of quote.

Nizar Qabbani, one of the most revered poets in the Arab world, praised the madness of those who are blinded by an ideology of hatred. In his poem Ode to the Intifada, he wrote: "O mad people of Gaza, A thousand greetings to the mad. The age of political reason has long departed. So teach us madness."
Thát is the nature of the Islamic enemies confronting the Jews - sheer madness.

Israel, on the other hand, is a beacon of light; it is like a Hanukkah menorah whose lights have been kindled in a region that until 1948 was engulfed by darkness.

Friends, Israel is not to blame for the situation in the Middle East. The problem is Islam's rejection of Israel's right to exist. Only last month, Fatah concluded its convention in Ramallah by declaring its blatant refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The problem is also our Western leaders' refusal to understand that Israel is the West's canary in the coalmine: If the Jews are denied the right to live in freedom and peace, soon we will all be denied this right. If the light of Israel is extinguished, we will all face darkness. If Israel falls, the West falls. That is why we are all Israel.

But as long as the West refuses to understand how the Palestinians are used as a weapon against Israel, it will not be able to see who is truly to blame; it will not be able to see that it is not Israel's duty to provide a Palestinian state - for the simple reason that there already is a Palestinian state and that state is Jordan.
Indeed, my friends, Jordan is Palestine. Take a look at the map of this part of the world after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I. Both contemporary Israel and contemporary Jordan were part of the British Mandate of Palestine.

In 1922, the British partitioned Palestine into Cisjordan and Transjordan - the latter comprising 78 per cent of the territory of Palestine. The British handed that territory over to their ally, the Hashemite strongman Abdallah ibn Hussein. Abdallah was the son of the emir Hussein bin Ali, guardian of the Islamic holy city of Mecca. The Hashemites belong to the Quraish tribe - the tribe of Islam founder Muhammad. They are a foreign body in Palestine.

In 1946, Transjordan became an independent state under Hashemite rule. In November 1947, the United Nations proposed to partition the remaining 22 per cent of Palestine. The territory between the Jordan River and the sea was divided into a Jewish and an Arab part. The Jewish representatives accepted the UN partition plan, but the Arab representatives refused. In an attempt to "drive all the Jews into the sea," they began the 1948 war - which they lost.

They took revenge, however, on the Jews in East Jerusalem and the rest of Cisjordan - the ancient provinces of Judea and Samaria - held by the Arab forces. This entire region was ethnically cleansed of all Jews. Even the names of Judea and Samaria were wiped off the map and replaced by the ridiculous term "West Bank." A river bank of over 40 kilometers wide. I come from a country full of rivers, and there the river banks are only a few dozen meters wide.

Israel, including Judea and Samaria, has been the land of the Jews since time immemorial. Judea means Land of the Jews. Never in the history of the world has there been an autonomous state in the area that was not Jewish. The Diaspora of the Jews, which began after their defeat by the Romans in AD 70, did not lead to the departure of all the Jews from their ancient homeland. Jews had been living in the Jordan Valley for centuries until the Arab invaders drove them out in 1948, when the provinces of Judea and Samaria were occupied by the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, which abbreviated its name to Jordan in 1950.

And until 1967, when Israel regained the ancient Jewish heartland of Judea and Samaria, no-one, not a single Islamic scholar or Western politician, ever demanded that there be an independent Palestinian state in the so-called West Bank.
Must Israel trade land for peace? Should it assign Judea and Samaria to another Palestinian state - a second one, next to Jordan? My friends, let me be very clear: The conflict in the Middle East is not a conflict over territory, but rather an ideological battle.

People are mistaken when they assume that giving up Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem and letting the Palestinians have it, will end the conflict between Israel and the Arabs. In 2005, Israel sacrificed the settlements in Gaza for the sake of peace. Did it get peace?

On the contrary, because the conflict is essentially ideological, the situation worsened. Because the conflict is ideological, territorial concessions are counterproductive. Ideologies cannot be defeated by concessions. They are encouraged and emboldened by it.

Ideologies must be confronted with the iron will never to give in, "never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty." That is the lesson which the world learned from Winston Churchill when he confronted the evil ideology of nazism.

This conflict here in the Middle East is not about land and borders, but about Islamic jihadism opposing Western liberty. From the moment that Israel was founded, the Arab leaders have rejected every partition plan and every initiative for a territorial settlement. The Islamic ideology simply does not accept the concept of a Jewish state. Neither Hamas nor Fatah are willing to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own in their historic homeland. No territorial concession on Israel's part can ever change that.

Israel's ideological enemies want to wipe Israel out as a nation. They simply deny the Jewish state the right to exist and to live in peace, dignity and liberty.

For the sake of its own survival and security, Israel needs defendable borders. A country that is only 15 kilometers wide is impossible to defend. That is the strategic reason why Jews need to settle Judea and Samaria.

Therefore, the Jewish towns and villages in Judea and Samaria are not an impediment to peace; they are an expression of the Jewish right to exist in this land. They are tiny outposts of freedom, defying ideological forces which deny not only Israel but the entire West the right to live in peace, dignity and liberty.
Let us never forget that Islam threatens not just Israel; Islam threatens the entire world. Without Judea and Samaria, Israel cannot protect Jerusalem. The future of the world depends on Jerusalem. If Jerusalem falls, Athens and Rome - and Paris, London and Washington - will be next.

Thus, Jerusalem is the main front protecting our common civilization. When the flag of Israel no longer flies over the walls of Jerusalem, the West will no longer be free.

However, a peaceful solution must also be found for the many Palestinians in the refugee camps in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere. Each year, hundreds of millions of euros and dollars are spent on the Palestinian refugees in international aid.

The financial assistance, however, did not provide the refugees a new home, a place to live and build a future for their children and grandchildren. It is obvious where this place should be. It should be Palestine, just as, after the Second World War, the obvious place for the German refugees from the East to go to, was Germany. Since Jordan is Palestine, it is the duty of the Jordanian government to welcome all Palestinian refugees who voluntarily want to settle there.

Until the late 1980s, Jordan's Hashemite rulers did not deny that their country was Palestine. They said so on numerous occasions. In 1965, King Hussein said: "Those organizations which seek to differentiate between Palestinians and Jordanians are traitors." As late as 1981, Hussein repeated - I quote - "Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan."

In March 1971, The Palestine National Council, too, stated that - I quote - "what links Jordan to Palestine is a national bond [...] formed, since time immemorial, by history and culture. The establishment of one political entity in Transjordan and another in Palestine is illegal." - end of quote.

By the late 1970s, however, the Arab authorities began to differentiate between Jordanians and Palestinians. What was previously considered to be treason and illegality suddenly became the propaganda line.

In March 1977, PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein admitted in a candid interview in the Dutch newspaper Trouw: - I quote -

"Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot lay claim to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan." - end of quote.

In 1988, as the first Intifada raged, Jordan officially renounced any claim of sovereignty to the so-called West Bank. In recent years, the Jordanian authorities have stripped thousands of Palestinians of their Jordanian citizenship. They do so for two reasons.

First, because the alien Hashemite rulers fear that the Palestinians might one day take over their own country. And second, because stripping Palestinians of their Jordanian citizenship supports the falsehood that Jordan is not a part of Palestine. And that, consequently, the Palestinians must attack Israel if they want a place of their own.

By arbitrarily reducing thousands of their citizens to statelessness, the Jordanian authorities want to force the Palestinians to turn their aspirations towards the establishment of another Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. This decision is a great injustice committed by the Hashemite rulers of Jordan - this foreign clan which the British installed.

I am not naïve. I am not blind to the possibility that if Jordan were to be ruled by the Palestinians, this might lead to political radicalization in Jordan. However, a continuation of the present situation will most certainly lead to radicalization. We need a paradigm shift. If we keep thinking along the same lines as we have done so far, no peaceful solution of the Palestinian problem is possible without endangering the existence of Israel and disrupting the social and economic fabric in Judea and Samaria. Resettling millions of Palestinians in these small provinces is simply impossible and is not going to happen.

To the skeptics, I say: What is the alternative? Leaving the present situation as it is? No, my friends, the world must recognize that there has been an independent Palestinian state since 1946, and it is the Kingdom of Jordan.

Allowing all Palestinians to voluntarily settle in Jordan is a better way towards peace than the current so-called two-states-approach (in reality a three-states-approach) propagated by the United Nations, the U.S. administration, and governing elites all over the world. We only want a democratic non-violent solution for the Palestinian problem. This requires that the Palestinian people should be given the right to voluntarily settle in Jordan and freely elect their own government in Amman. If the present Hashemite King is still as popular as today, he can remain in power. That is for the people of Palestine to decide in real democratic elections.

My friends, let us adopt a totally new approach. Let us acknowledge that Jordan is Palestine.

And to the Western world I say: Let us stand with Israel because the Jews have no other state, while the Palestinians already have Jordan. Let us stand with Israel because the history of our civilization began here, in this land, the homeland of the Jews. Let us stand with Israel because the Jewish state needs defend-able borders to secure its own survival. Let us stand with Israel because it is the front-line in the battle for the survival of the West.

We must speak the truth. The truth that Jordan is Palestine, the truth that Samaria and Judea are part of Israel, the truth that Jerusalem may not fall, the truth that Israel is the only democracy in a dark and tyrannical region, the truth that Israel is the linchpin of the West.

Of course, I am just a foreign guest and should be modest. Israel is a democracy and I respect every decision which its people and government will make. But I am proud to be here and grateful for the opportunity to share my thoughts and beliefs with you.

Because it is here that our civilization is under attack as we speak. It is here that we, men and women of the West, must show our resolve to defend ourselves. It is here that Israel has lit the light of freedom and that Europeans and Americans must help the Israelis to keep that light shining in the darkness. For Israel's sake and for the sake of all of us.

Toda raba... And shalom to all of you.

http://www.geertwilders.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1731&Itemid=1

You can always blame the Jews for anything

2010-12-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

A string of shark attacks in the Red Sea has Egyptian officials worried about the impact on tourism.

Egypt puzzled by string of Red Sea shark attacks

Mohamed Zaki, Reuters · Monday, Dec. 6, 2010

SHARM EL-SHEIKH — Shark attacks on tourists in the Red Sea have triggered a flurry of speculation as to what could have caused them, with suggestions ranging from overfishing to an Israeli plot to harm Egyptian tourism.
The body of a 70-year-old German woman washed up on the shore at Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea after an attack on Sunday. Officials said the shark had taken a chunk out of her right thigh and bitten through her right elbow.
Egypt had just lifted a ban on swimming in parts of the area imposed after three Russians and a Ukrainian were injured in shark attacks last week.
The government has invited international experts to help locate the killer shark but officials were at loss as to what could have caused its behaviour.
“There is not one reason that will be ignored. We are seeking any reason that causes a change in shark behaviour,” Ahmed el-Edkawi, assistant secretary for the South Sinai region, told Reuters.
Some said sharks had been drawn to shallow waters after cattle being shipped in for last month’s Islamic feast of the sacrifice, or Eid al-Adha, had died and were thrown overboard.
Others suggested it could have been part of a secret plot by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.
“What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark (in the sea) to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm,” South Sinai Governor Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha was quoted as saying by state news site egynews.net.
Egyptians often blame neighbouring Israel for a variety of problems such as drug and weapon smuggling, or say it supports media that seek to portray Egypt in a bad light.
Local diving experts said single shark attacks are extremely rare in the area and were mystified by as to why so many people were attacked in such quick succession.
The attacks grabbed the attention of world media and raised fears of a long-term hit to a tourism sector that is a lifeline for the desert peninsula’s population and the biggest foreign currency earner for Egypt.
“We’ve seen more attacks in a few days than in the previous 15 years,” said Florian Herzberg, dive operations manager at the Reef 2000 centre in Dahab resort north of Sharm. “It could be a shark with behavioural problems that was deliberately fed different things and now associates humans with food.”
Water sports centres said business had dried up after officials banned snorkelling and swimming, leaving tourists with little to do but speculate over the cause of the attacks.
“Egypt is full of rumours and one does not know what to believe,” said Gasser Mohamed, a diving instructor at CFun Divers centre in South Sinai. “I see that there are a lot of sharks in the sea and the possible rarity of tuna fish due to over-fishing seems to be causing the attacks.”

I juxtapose.................

2010-12-01T21:41:00.000-08:00

Hey, Wes, don't worry about taxes, take advantage of a new income stream.

Wesley Snipes Ordered to Federal Prison in Pennsylvania for Tax Evasion

Published December 01, 2010

| Associated Press

Actor Wesley Snipes was ordered Wednesday to voluntarily surrender at a federal prison in Pennsylvania next week to start his three-year sentence for failing to pay taxes.

The U.S. Marshal's Office ordered Snipes to report to the Federal Correctional Institution McKean in Lewis Run, Pennsylvania by noon on Dec. 9.

Snipes had tried unsuccessfully to remain free on bail while appealing his conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 48-year-old star of the "Blade" trilogy was convicted in 2008 for willful failure to file income tax returns. His attorney, Daniel Meachum, didn't immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Following his conviction by a federal jury in Ocala, Florida, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Orlando, Snipes appealed to the appellate court in Atlanta. But the appellate court upheld the conviction and sentence.

Last month, Snipes' attorneys argued at a hearing in Ocala that jurors should be interviewed about whether they had perjured themselves by stating during jury selection that they didn't have preconceived opinions about the case. Meachum said he had received e-mails from two former jurors who claimed other jurors thought Snipes was guilty even before the trial started.

Snipes' attorneys also argued a new trial should be granted because of testimony by Kenneth Starr, a former financial adviser to celebrities, who admitted during a plea hearing last September in New York to cheating wealthy and elderly clients out of tens of millions of dollars.

A judge rejected those arguments, writing that "the defendant Snipes had a fair trial; he has had a full, fair and thorough review of his conviction and sentence. ... The time has come for the judgment to be enforced."

Inmates Cash In By Claiming Tax Refunds

Published December 01, 2010

| Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Nearly 50,000 prison inmates claimed more than $130 million in tax refunds this year without providing any wage information to the IRS, a government investigator says in a report to be released Thursday.

The Treasury inspector general for tax administration stops short of saying the refunds were fraudulently claimed. It does, however, say the Internal Revenue Service should investigate further.

The report is the latest in a series of audits looking at prison inmates claiming tax credits and other government payments. It notes that the IRS identified nearly 250,000 fraudulent tax returns during the 2010 filing season -- a 50 percent increase over 2009 -- preventing $1.48 billion in fraudulent refunds.

"While the IRS is identifying larger numbers of fraudulent returns, improvements must be made to its screening processes to ensure that returns filed by prisoners get adequate scrutiny," said J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. "Expanded and expedited access to wage and withholding information would significantly increase the IRS's ability to verify information reported on a tax return when processed, and prevent fraud."

The IRS issued a statement saying the agency takes refund fraud seriously and aggressively fights it.

"The IRS is very successful at detecting and stopping incorrect refunds, including criminal refund fraud, and overall prevents 98 percent of questionable claims from being issued," the statement said.

"The situation involving prisoners is not a simple process, particularly considering the fact that some inmates and their families are legally entitled to tax refunds and that the prisoner population is constantly changing."

The IRS said it works with state and federal prisons to get information about inmates on a voluntary basis.

"However, without congressional action to require state and federal prisons to report the status of inmates to the IRS, there will be gaps in the prison data and compliance problems will persist," the IRS said in its statement.

If you are wondering why I support Israel over the "Palestinians"

2010-12-01T20:48:00.000-08:00

"Crash Course on the Arab-Israeli Conflict."

Here are overlooked facts in the current & past Middle East situation. These were compiled by a university professor:

BRIEF FACTS ON THE ISRAELI CONFLICT

It makes sense and it's not slanted. Jew and non-Jew -- it doesn't
matter.

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem: Israel became a nation in 1312 BC, two thousand (2000) years before the rise of Islam.

2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BC, the Jews have had dominion over
the land for one thousand (1000) years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 lasted no more than 22 years.

5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem
has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.

6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Koran.

7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.

8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs towarJerusalem.
9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to
leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left (many in fear of retaliation by their own brethren, the Arabs) without ever seeing an Israeli soldier. The ones who stayed were afforded the same peace, civility, and citizenship rights as everyone else.
10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.

11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be
around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.

12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the
Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people';s lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey...

13. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: the Arabs are represented by eight separate
nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.

14. The PLO';s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.

15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews
were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.

17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.

18. The UN was silent while 58 Jerusalem synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.

19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the
ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

On top of all of this, Israel is the ONLY country in the middle east that is democratic, with freedom of religion for all citizens, rights for homosexuals, and constitution built on laws and not religion. Muslims have more rights in Israel than in any Islamic republic.

Death by Stoning - the religion of peace.

2010-11-29T10:45:00.000-08:00

From http://nationalpostnews.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/1119stoning1.jpg

General Nguyen Ngoc Loan

2010-11-26T11:20:00.000-08:00

General Nguyen Ngoc Loan's life was over as well.

The photo above was taken in 1968 and is one of the most famous images of the 20th century. The picture was taken by photographer Eddie Adams and won the Pulitzer Prize. It is also included in the 15 Incredible Historical Photographs list. Many have seen this photograph but most are not aware of the full story behind it. The man on the left shown executing a prisoner is South Vietnamese national police commander, General Lone. Before the execution it was reported that the prisoner had been the captain of a terrorist squad that killed the family of one of his deputy commanders. After shooting the prisoner, the general walked over to a reporter and said, “These guys kill a lot of our people, and I think Buddha will forgive me.” When the photo was shown on television and appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world, it was seen as an act of savagery and symbolized an unjustified war. Three months after the photo was taken, General Loan was severely wounded and taken to Australia for treatment. There was such an outcry against him that he was moved to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC. During the fall of Saigon in 1975 he asked for American help in fleeing with his family but was ignored and had to escape with his family in a South Vietnamese plane. Gen. Loan, whose right leg had been amputated, settled in northern Virginia, where he eventually opened a pizzeria restaurant. Loan was then forced into retirement when his identity was publicly disclosed. Eddie Adams (the photographer) stayed in touch and recalled that on his last visit to the pizza shop, he had seen written on a restroom wall “We know who you are, fucker.”
Interesting Fact: Eddie Adams said this in a Time magazine interview: “The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn’t say was, ‘What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?’” When General Loan died of cancer in 1998, Adams praised him and sent flowers with a card that read, “I’m sorry. There are tears in my eyes.”

See 9 more careers ruined by a photo.

http://listverse.com/2010/03/31/top-10-careers-damaged-by-photographs/

Why corn costs $1 per cob

2010-11-22T10:42:00.000-08:00

End The Ethanol Subsidies! Congress Inaction Would Save Taxpayers Billions

Written by Paul Driessen, Post Chronicle | 22 November 2010

What am I missing? There must be some aspect of our insane energy policies that I fail to appreciate.
"We the People" just booted a boatload of spendthrifts out of Congress, after they helped engineer a $1.3 trillion deficit on America's FY-2010 budget and balloon our cumulative national debt to $13.7 trillion.
The "bipartisan White House deficit reduction panel" chimed in with a 50-page draft proposal, offering suggestions for $3.8 trillion in future budgetary savings. The proposal targets $100 billion in Defense Department weapons programs, healthcare benefits and overseas bases. It also proposes a $13-billion cutback in the federal workforce and lining out $400 million in unnecessary printing costs.
And yet, amazingly, not even this independent commission was willing to eliminate the $6-billion sacred cow of annual ethanol subsidies. The current 45-cents-per-gallon tax credit for blending ethanol into gasoline automatically expires December 31, as does the 54-cents-a-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. So all senators and congressmen need to do is nothing, and beleaguered taxpayers will save six billion bucks.
We can only hope. Unfortunately, renewable fuel lobbyists will try to use the lame duck session to perpetuate the special treatment. The National Corn Growers Association, Renewable Fuels Association, Growth Energy, ADM and POET ethanol count as friends incoming House Speaker John Boehner, incoming House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, other influential Republicans and scores of prominent Democrats.
Perhaps if DePuy or Sofamor Danek donates some spinal implants, enough wavering legislators will find the backbone to challenge the subsidizers and ensure a little adult supervision over the budget process. If this election was about anything, it was about ending business as usual, ensuring energy and economic common sense, and not bankrupting the United States.
Ethanol and earmarks represent a key litmus test for Republicans and fiscal conservatives. Failure to hold the line will create a rocky road for credibility and progress next year. It should be an easy decision. It's time for action - or more accurately, inaction.
Federal laws already require that gasoline be 10% ethanol, and EPA has announced that it will now allow up to 15% ethanol blends for cars and trucks built since 2007. These mandates already require that ethanol use increase from 13 billion gallons today to 36 billion by 2022, ensuring profitable markets for corn growers and ethanol producers, without subsidies. Even large corn ethanol producers like Green Plains Energy now say the subsidies are no longer needed.
The subsidies and tariffs only fatten profit margins, reduce competition, increase consumer prices, cause frayed relations with Brazil over barriers to its sugar-cane ethanol entering US markets, and stifle technological innovation that could improve production efficiencies and lessen environmental impacts.
As Examiner columnist Timothy Carney observes, "the tax credit won't boost ethanol consumption at all in the future, because the mandate will set demand. So the tax credit will simply subsidize the ethanol that blenders - ie, oil companies - would have bought anyway."
The corn/ethanol lobby says ending the subsidies would cost up to 160,000 jobs. However, a recent study by leading agricultural economists at Iowa State University concludes that only 300 jobs would be lost. If so, preserving the subsidies works out to $20 million for each job saved.
Meanwhile, says Louisiana State University professor Joseph Mason, the Interior Department's heavy-handed offshore drilling moratorium could cost up to 155,000 Gulf Coast jobs. That's on top of countless billions of lease bonus, rent, royalty and tax dollars the US Treasury will never see, because Interior, EPA, Congress and the White House have made billions of barrels of offshore, Alaskan and Lower 48 oil and gas off limits.
America could produce 670 billion gallons of oil (including 480 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel) from a splinter of ANWR equal to 1/20 of Washington, DC. Doing so would generate enormous revenues, instead of requiring perpetual subsidies. By contrast, reaching the 36-billion-gallon biofuel mandate would require 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol from cropland and wildlife habitat the size of Georgia, and 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuel from switchgrass grown on additional acreage the size of South Carolina.
Opposition to extending the tax credit and tariffs also comes from a growing coalition of meat and food producers, environmental groups and consumer organizations. They emphasize that corn ethanol production increases corn prices, reduces farmland available for other crops, and drives up the price of beef, pork, poultry, eggs, corn syrup and all groceries made with those products. It means fewer malnourished people can be fed under current USAID and World Food Organization budgets.
The coalition also points out that growing and processing corn into ethanol requires enormous amounts of water for every gallon of alcohol fuel produced. (Cornell University agriculture professor David Pimental estimates the inputs at 8,000 gallons of water per gallon of corn-based ethanol.) Much of the water comes from already stressed aquifers - and growing the crops results in significant pesticide, herbicide and fertilizer runoff into our rivers, lakes, bays and oceans.
Producing ethanol from sugar cane carries much lower water demands and environmental impacts.
Pro-subsidy factions say $6 billion is pocket change in a $3.6-trillion federal budget. It may indeed be a small step. But all the caterwauling suggests it is a giant step for Congress - and a hugely symbolic one that can no longer be avoided. Moreover, if reductions like this are to be rejected as too trivial to trifle with, how do Nanny State legislators justify their intrusive rules on toilets, washing machines, plastic bags and light bulbs? How do they suppose cash-strapped families balance their budgets?
The ethanol mandates are enough interference in what should be a highly competitive marketplace of ideas and technologies for America's energy future. Congress should not muddy the waters even further, by extending the subsidies and protective tariffs.
(While they're at it, the lawmakers should also pull the plug on chicken-fat-to-biofuel subsidies. This tax credit is just another unaffordable, feel-good "green energy" boondoggle - that turns waste fat into wasted tax dollars. Reducing effluent streams, garnering positive PR, and selling their "alternative fuel" to oil companies and the Air Force, under utopian biofuel mandates, ought to be adequate incentive.)
It should be an easy decision. It merely takes commitment to principles - something our legislators better start discovering, if they want to be around after the next election cycle.