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Sunday, November 29, 2009

Swiss vote to ban further minarete construction

In general, this commenter believes people should be allowed to choose whether their circumstances will change or not. Thus when the Swiss voted overwhelminlgly to ban futher construction of minaretes, their actions were supported.

One commenter replied:

“Lame. You either believe in religious freedom or you don’t.”

Well…they don’t.

That is why you continue to hear stories of people in the Western world being intimidated in one way or another, either a Greek boy in Sydney Australia beaten for eating a salami sandwich during Ramadan, or public parks in England being turned into no-go areas for non-Muslims, or London synagogue's being targeted by a wave of anti-Semitic graffiti. None of these demonstrate particularly tolerant attitudes on the part of the Muslim members that have come to dominate their local communities.

People that immigrate to a nation with no intention of embracing that nation's culture, but have designs to subvert it to their own should not be accommodated. If the Swiss do not wish to have their skylines dominated by minarets and the muezzin's call to prayer five times a day, that is their prerogative, but as Mr. Neal points out, the problem is primarily a problem of immigration, which has been amplified by multiculturism's undermining of Western culture and uncritical embrace of non-Western cultures.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Climate scientist Mike Hulm notes IPCC has "run its course"

As reported at Watts Up With That, Mike Hulme, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia and author of “Why We Disagree About Climate Change,” has weighed on the significance of the leaked files and emails with these comments:

"...[The upcoming UN climate conference in Copenhagen] is about raw politics, not about the politics of science. [...] It is possible that climate science has become too partisan, too centralized. The tribalism that some of the leaked emails display is something more usually associated with social organization within primitive cultures; it is not attractive when we find it at work inside science. It is also possible that the institutional innovation that has been the I.P.C.C. has run its course. Yes, there will be an AR5 but for what purpose? The I.P.C.C. itself, through its structural tendency to politicize climate change science, has perhaps helped to foster a more authoritarian and exclusive form of knowledge production"

In November 2009, Hulme was listed as “the 10th most cited author in the world in the field of climate change, between 1999 and 2009.

Steyn has holiday fun!

I'm sure we all have pondered how Mark Steyn could possibly follow his smash hit "A Marshmellow World". Well, the wondering is over, as he has teamed up with Jessica Martin for another fun filled Christmas time release titled "Gingerbread and Eggnog."

It is hard not to smile when the leading pundit of the free world takes it upon himself to spread a little Christmas cheer. Bravo Mark and Jessica!

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Keeping cool in the global warming debate

Ed Begley Jr makes the case for cooler heads to prevail in his discussion with Stuart Varney on Fox News.

CRU Fallout: Lawsuit filed against NASA, Goddard Space Center over information withholding

The radioactivity of the Hadley CRU campus seems to have elevated the geiger count ticks over in two US facilities, as The American Spectator reports that the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has filed a lawsuit against NASA and Goddard Space Center demanding information they've withheld for three years:

“The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding "ClimateGate" scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries' freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies.”

Lucy, you've got some explaining to do.

The Andy Griffith Show

Every now and again Sheriff Taylor would leave the Sheriff's office in the capable hands of his ambitious and industrious assistant, Barney Fife, with the usual comedic result: innocent people brow beaten and locked up, bank robbers inadvertently set free, and a huge mess created which Andy invariably would have to clean up, usually with the comment: "Thanks Barne”.

“Nervous traders transferred the focus of their anxieties from the risk of companies failing to the risk of nation states defaulting.”

Traders are now worried that whole nations will default on their loans. That makes for a very unstable and unpredictable economy. Hard to believe this international economic collapse was touched off by people like Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank.

You see, these two huckleberries did some thinking. And they thought it would be a great idea for government to be in the banking business. And tell you what, they also thought it their duty as representatives of the people to pressure banks to make loans that the banks ordinarily would not consider. You know, too risky they said. Well Barney fixed all that and next thing you know:

“Shazamme!"

This is what you get when people with little experience and no sense are allowed to monkey with an industry they know nothing about.

Thanks Barne.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Obama transfoming the nation

Well, we were all told he was going to be a transformative president, but this was not what I had in mind:

Obama Shatters Spending Record for First-Year Presidents

Wow.

Do you think he ever wonders what effects this kind of spending will have on the economy? He is hopeful, and things are changing. But what will all that debt and interest burden do to economic stability? And if he is partially paying for the programs with money freshly minted, what kind of inflationary pressure will that be?

I'm finding it hard to be hopeful.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Warmists feel the heat

The latest to abandon on the global warming front is one George Monboit of the Guardian.

"The e-mails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging.

There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.

Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign."


Indeed.

It would be one thing if the theorists on global warming were working out the details of the curious cyclical ice ages the planet has experienced sixteen times over the past two million years. It would be an interesting discussion, and they could argue amongst themselves to their hearts content, just as Stephen Hawkins and his fellow theroists argue about unifying theories and multiple dimensions.

But these fellows have brought their idea into the political sphere which impacts you and me, and the idea they brought was a whopper: "The activities we have undertaken to improve our lives will result in the end of the world"

Lord Christopher Monckton has written a biting criticism of his countrymen, as seen here.

"Worse, these arrogant fraudsters — for fraudsters are what we now know them to be — have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up. Unfortunately, the British researchers have been acting closely in league with their U.S. counterparts who compile the other terrestrial temperature dataset — the GISS/NCDC dataset. That dataset too contains numerous biases intended artificially to inflate the natural warming of the 20th century.

Finally, these huckstering snake-oil salesmen and “global warming” profiteers — for that is what they are — have written to each other encouraging the destruction of data that had been lawfully requested under the Freedom of Information Act in the UK by scientists who wanted to check whether their global temperature record had been properly compiled. And that procurement of data destruction, as they are about to find out to their cost, is a criminal offense."

That being the case, perhaps it is time we slow down the race to destroy the economy.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Freedom of Information Act and the Hadley CRU

Reading through the various theories and comments over at Watts Up With That, perhaps the best question to ask is who does this information really belong to. To wit, commentor GL Alston had the following to say:

This isn’t their data; it’s my data. And yours. I paid for it, as did you. It belongs to us, and we may do with it as we please. It’s not up to Pierrehumbert to dole it out to those possessing the magic key or otherwise demonstrating worthiness to his satisfaction.

Of all of the things in this case, this one is the part that’s ultimately the most damaging, this assumption that the public pays for these people to run a fiefdom as they jolly well please.

The emails and the code commentary are interesting but don’t seem to demonstrate a concerted conspiracy. Sure there’s turf wars with others and blockades to control the mechanism of peer review. This is all part of how the big boys do it everywhere, not just here. The contents of the data release will not likely yield a smoking gun so much as provide some of the data that was supposed to have been released years back via FOIA.

In sum, the travesty playing out is that this is the data that will affect the lives of billions if certain political aims are achieved. Certainly something of this level of importance ought to have been gone through with a fine tooth comb and universally agreed upon accordingly.

And they have been withholding the data as if it’s part of their personal playground.


G.L. Alston


Very well said.

Of course, he is speaking to the significance the data holds in terms of governmental policies which have already been enacted and which are now being considered. That millions of people have been mislead as to the openess of the science reported and have been frightened unnecessarily shows a criminal breech of duty on the part of these investigators, and should result in disciplinary actions and consideration of the dismissal of Dr. Jones from the Climate Research Unit.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Haz-Mat team reaches perimeter of Hadley CRU

Frequent commenter Wakefield Tolbert has the latest on the thermonuclear mushroom cloud enveloping the research boys over at Hadley CRU. The first efforts to contain the radioactive fall-out have been advanced with the aid of the New York Times. As it is all good stuff, I have moved our discussion to a post all its own.

The science boys over at Hadley CRU basically explained to the journalists of the New York Times:

“We’re all assholes here, but we’re still right!”

To which the NYT was quick to concur:

“The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument.”

Very helpful of the NYT to explain to us all that there is nothing to worry about, everything is just as it was before, the world is overheating and will explode in a giant ball of methane, and the time for thinking is over.

How is it then that they follow that sentence with this one:

“In several e-mail exchanges, Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and other scientists discuss gaps in understanding of recent variations in temperature. Skeptic Web sites pointed out one line in particular: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” Dr. Trenberth wrote.

Yeah, right. To which I would ask, why is the human contribution to global warming so widely accepted if the scientists who most emphatically pronounced the time for discussion as over, privately discuss their gaps in understanding amongst themselves.

Gaps? What gaps? I was certain sure these didn’t exist. What's more, the same guy laments their limitations as being a travesty.

Curious to understand the concepts the science community was using to discuss global warming, I took it upon myself to look up the word travesty. First on the list: false representation.

“Dr. Trenberth said Friday that he was appalled at the release of the e-mail messages. But he added that he thought the revelations might backfire against climate skeptics. He said that he thought that the messages showed ‘the integrity of scientists.’" (?)(!)

And particularly his own integrity it would seem. Dr. Trenberth should be awarded an honorary degree in Integrity. Here is my tip to you. If the good doctor advises you to buy long, either sell or buy short, cause that's for damn sure what he's doing.

Probing further, in one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical “trick”

"Dr. Mann, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, confirmed in an interview that the e-mail message was real. He said the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word “trick” to refer to a good way to solve a problem"

Which is possible. The question is, is that the meaning Dr. Phil Jones employed when he wrote of using a “trick” employed by another scientist to “hide the decline” in temperatures.

The e-mails are great fun of course, and we are hardly surprised to learn these guys are a bunch of egocentric elitists. But it is the data that we are most concerned with. The theory is fine as far as it goes, but what is the predictive value? Theoretically, trace greenhouse gasses like CO2 may have some warming effect on the global climate, but what degree of influence would they have? Is it a weak forcing agent, or is it a negligible factor of no real influence? How has the data been handled? What opportunity was allowed for the information to be reviewed?

Based on the certainty of these theories, the plan is to take down the economy of the entire free world, transfer large amounts of wealth from the industrial nations to the thug dictators of the third world, all managed by our trusted friends down at the United Nations.

What's the word at Copenhagen? Act now and we can still save the planet! And in case you forgot, the time for discussion is over.

"Dr. Jones, writing in an e-mail message, declined to be interviewed."

Buy the way, pulling a trick has other meanings.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Letterman throws like a girl who doesn't know how to throw

With the recent scrutiny of Sarah Palin and her book tour, her following exchange with late night comedian David Letterman comes to mind:

“Effectively accusing David Letterman of being a dirty old man, Sarah Palin yesterday ripped the CBS late night host for making crude jokes about her 14-year-old daughter”

In a written response, Palin was quoted as saying:

"Concerning Letterman's comments about my young daughter: 'Laughter incited by sexually perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl is not only disgusting, but it reminds us some Hollywood/NY entertainers have a long way to go in understanding what the rest of America understands - that acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone's daughter, contributes to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.”

I would phrase that a direct, well worded and penetrating statement. Some might phrase it a common sense statement which a husband and a father would not need reminding of. But I digress.

Letterman responded:

"I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record."

Well, the young woman accompanying Ms. Palin at the game Dave referenced was, in fact, none other than her fourteen year old daughter, Willow. Perhaps we should have taken him up on his offer right then and there.

Four months later, the extortion plot against Mr. Letterman was brought to light, and the joke was suddenly on Dave. The laughter became rather awkward now. It also brought opportunity to examine the record he spoke of. Subsequently, it was learned that Mr. Letterman had engaged in sex with quite a number of people, all involved with his show, and shall we say, under Mr. Letterman in one way or another. Reports of an extortion plot brought a bit of irony to his earlier statement, and resulted in Mr. Letterman arriving at a new found insight, as seen here:

"My response to that is, yes, I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would," he explained on the show. "I feel like I need to protect these people. I need to certainly protect my family."

and here:

“I was worried for myself, I was worried for my family," he said. "I felt menaced by this, and I had to tell them all of the creepy things that I had done."

The list of sexual partners did not include Biff Henderson or Larry "Bud" Melman.

Ted Casablanca, the E! Online columnist added this valuable insight:

"He's a rebel, but even rebels have to treat women kindly. You just get the sense that he is so cavalier about it, that he thinks this is OK because it's him."

Regarding Regina Lasko, Letterman's wife, Casablanca had the following to say:

"Absolutely [Lasko] knew. You don't get in bed with Letterman in any sense, romantically or professionally, without knowing it's going to be a different set of rules."

In light of the response to the Polanski case, it appears that is a widely held attitude among the elites of the arts and entertainment crowd, making Ms. Palin's quote listed above ...

right on the money.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Global Alarmists caught mucking the works

The main computer over at the United Kingdom's Climate Research Unit in Hadley, England was hacked into and the records released onto the internet. Dr. Phil Jones is a major proponent for anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and his reports have been a key part of the IPCC's recommendations to curtail CO2 production.


The file that was dumped onto the internet was large, about 61 megabytes, and so far appears to be legitimate.

As an example:

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit


Well, it is dirt indeed. Still, it remains that CO2 levels have risen over the past one hundred and fity years, and there is a plausible theory with broad based support that ties the global climate to CO2 levels, whose conclusions predict disastrous consequences for our planet. The proponents of this theory have advanced as a solution the restriction of industrial activities and massive transfers of wealth from the industrialized nations to the third world nations, all overseen by a large bureaucracy managed by the UN. All this, even though it is unlikely that such a program would have any affect on CO2 levels, except perhaps by its ability to strangle economies and decrease industrial activities.

There is no empiric data defining the effect a changing CO2 level has on the climate. We are unsure if CO2 is a weak forcing agent or a negligible forcing agent. We are confident that it is not a strong forcing agent. The basic problems with the situation remain. The difference is that it is now clear the scientists whose theories and measurements we have been relying upon to guide our discussion on policy decisions have not been entirely honest in their presentation of the facts.

That’s a problem.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Islam and the rights of women

The notion that women have more freedom under Sharia is contradicted by our limited but direct experience with Islam. Who could forget Aasiya Z. Hassan, whose decapitated body was found at the studios of Bridges TV, her estranged husband arrested shortly thereafter. Assaiya had filed for divorce, fully aware of the danger it entailed.

The grounds for divorce were "cruel and inhuman treatment," DiPirro said, referring to mulitple prior incidents of abuse. She declined to elaborate.

"She was a very brave woman who was extremely devoted to her children and had come to this decision after a long, thoughtful process and was determined to change her life for herself and her children," DiPirro said.

Oddly enough it turns out Muzzammil Hassan founded Bridges TV in November 2004 to counter anti-Islam stereotypes. He ended up surrendering to the police, but Aasiya’s life is gone and her children will grow up knowing that their mother died a brutal death at the hands of their father.

My impression is that this case is not unusual. In England and Canada this population subset is the only group where the sudden disappearance of grade school children routinely goes uninvestigated, as cultural sensitivity has made us accept that little girls will disappear from their fifth grade classrooms to become the bride of some forty year old second cousin back in the home country. Furthermore adolescent girls have been murdered at the hands of their father and brothers for the crime of wearing a pair of jeans. The so-called “honor killings” are simply the most grotesque and obvious expression of a repressive culture at odds with the Judeo-Christian traditions which our laws and society are based upon.

The poling of the population of Muslims cannot possibly enlighten one as to the true thoughts and feelings of women caught in the vise of this “religion of peace”, as the stakes for dissenting are far too high.

Similar poling was conducted in Iraq in an election held a couple of months prior to our intervening in Iraqi affairs in 2003, and the big winner in that one was none other than Saddam Hussein himself, with 100% of Iraqi’s selecting President Hussein to another term at the helm. It turned out to be short lived, but only because of the force applied. He ended up hiding in a spider hole, and was ultimately hung by the people who had previously elected him unanimously. The BBC dutifully reported on the elections:

There were 11,445,638 eligible voters - and every one of them voted for the president, according to Izzat Ibrahim

Right.

For me of course, it all comes back to another one of these Beauty Pageants, which in the name of modernity were recently begun in Saudi Arabia. "

"Sukaina al-Zayer is an unlikely beauty queen hopeful. She covers her face and body in black robes and an Islamic veil, so no one can tell what she looks like.
Here’s the first ever winner from 2008, Zara al-Shurafa: “I tell this year’s contestants that winning is not important . . . What is important is obeying your parents.”


The idea of the pageant is to measure the contestants’ commitment to Islamic morals.

Perhaps our president and we as a people should renew our commitment to our own.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Jimma clears the air

This guy will just not go away.

“Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days.”

Actually, the Carter Administration, and for Pete’s sake the entire nation for that matter, were held hostage for 444 days.

“Carter said Monday that one proposed option was a military strike on Iran, but he chose to stick with negotiations.”

He was working the Iranian leadership with that slow southern delivery.

"My main advisers insisted that I should attack Iran," he told reporters in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, where he was helping build houses for Habitat for Humanity. "I could have destroyed Iran with my weaponry. But I felt in the process it was likely the hostages' lives would be lost, and I didn't want to kill 20,000 Iranians.

He was concerned about the loss of life on that particular day, and so kicked the problem of confronting a belligerent Iran down the road for some other President to deal with.

“The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, just minutes after the swearing in of President Ronald Reagan.”

But the lesson for Iran was already learned. Enough said.

Dang

Lost out to Johnny Depp.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Something's amiss

This is unconscionable.

“Major Nidal Malik Hasan's military superiors repeatedly ignored or rebuffed his efforts to open criminal prosecutions of soldiers he claimed had confessed to "war crimes" during psychiatric counseling”

Not only had Major Hasan repeatedly demonstrated his ideological loyalties were not with the US whose armed forces he was serving in, but he attempted to violate his professional ethics by offering information obtained from counseling to initiate court martial investigations on his patients. There is no way that this man should have been allowed to continue in his capacity as a physician for the military, nor as an officer.

“Investigators believe Hasan's frustration over the failure of the Army to pursue what he regarded as criminal acts by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan may have helped to trigger the shootings.”

That would be because the investigators are a bunch of witless dolts.
All of this needs to corrected, and now. Not just in the major’s current and previous postings, but all across the military.

The only upside to this tragic tale is that it underscores the problems of bringing civilian ideology of political correctness and multiculturalism to the US armed forces.

Monday, November 16, 2009

This is bizarre

I was just investigating why my name was appearing as a web address on Miss Carnivorous' blog site, when suddenly...I have a blog. Well, this may be useful in the future. We shall see.