A Belgium military court this week acquitted two Belgian peacekeepers accused of torturing a Somali boy in 1993, saying the soldiers were just playing a game.
The soldiers were photographed by a Belgian newspaper stretching the boy over an open fire.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Who Wants To Play?
Wright vs. Obama
My opinion. It has nothing to do with ideology. Obama was fine with Dr. Wright until he started actively digging the hole deeper instead of leaving the past the past. Dr. Wright was supposed to keep his mouth shut and step back, but he didn't do that. Wright is actively and seemingly purposely hurting Obama's Presidential aspirations. That's why Obama is mad, he wants the job. Now Dr. Wright is in the way.
Miami Driving
Bad driving: It's not just for old people
''They can't get any worse!'' I used to think that, but lately I'm not so sure. For example, the other night I was driving on the Palmetto Expressway. (I know, I know.) Normally, on the Palmetto, traffic moves at an average speed of 53 miles per hour, calculated as follows:
• 49 percent of the drivers are going 80 miles per hour.
• 49 percent of the drivers are going 30 miles per hour.
• 2 percent of the drivers are, for a variety of reasons, backing up.
But the other night, there was a fourth group of drivers out there: Young male idiots racing each other in cars traveling at -- this is a very conservative estimate -- the speed of light. It was terrifying. You're flowing along with the traffic, going either 80 or 30 miles an hour, and suddenly you see lights in your rearview mirror and, ZIPPPPPP, this weaving blur hurtles past and cuts you off, and while the swear word is still forming in your brain, ZIPPPPPP, another one cuts you off, and then ZIPPPPPP ZIPPPPPP ZIPPPPPP, more of them, using the Palmetto Expressway as their own personal video game, with you playing the role of Annoying Obstacle. It's no use honking your horn at the idiots because the sound waves can't catch them.
Race Mongering
America, You Have Been Had
Now we hear the ravings of Reverend Wright and realize that we have been had. While we were buttoning our lips and attending compulsory diversity seminars liberals were not holding up their end of the deal and neutralizing the Reverend Wrights of America and their vicious racist bile. On the contrary, liberals were pumping them up! We used to wonder how it could be that blacks voted 90 percent for Democrats. How could this be, we wondered, when you can never get more that 60 percent of the rest of America to take sides on anything?
We instinctively felt that it had to take something extraordinary to create such "unity" in the African American community. Now we know what it is. It is not just a few loose cannons like Reverends Jackson and Sharpton. It is, you might say, institutional.
I don't think we yet realize what a watershed moment this is in American politics. All of a sudden the veil has been ripped away from a sacred mystery and a horror revealed to an innocent world.
We know why this systemic and shameful horror has been allowed to pollute America. The day that blacks stop voting 90-10 for Democrats is the day before the day that liberals will be out of a job.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Ya Gotta Eat!
Just not at Checkers!
Employees at the Checkers store on South French Avenue at West 15th Street apparently decided it was okay to store buns for their hamburgers inside a not-so-clean men's room.
"The bread was stacked sky high to the ceiling, plus it was only about 12 inches from the men's commode,"
For Obamaniacs
If there are any left.
Found this old video, but the picture and sound are not so good.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Drinking Eco-Kool-Aid
Chickenfeedhawks
"Unlike “global warming,” food rioting is a planet-wide phenomenon, from Indonesia to Pakistan to Ivory Coast to the tortilla rampages in Mexico and even pasta protests in Italy.
So what happened?
Well, Western governments listened to the eco-warriors, and introduced some of the “wartime measures” they’ve been urging. The EU decreed that 5.75 percent of petrol and diesel must come from “biofuels” by 2010, rising to 10 percent by 2020. The U.S. added to its 51 cents-per-gallon ethanol subsidy by mandating a five-fold increase in “biofuels” production by 2022.
The result is that big government accomplished at a stroke what the free market could never have done: They turned the food supply into a subsidiary of the energy industry. When you divert 28 percent of U.S. grain into fuel production, and when you artificially make its value as fuel higher than its value as food, why be surprised that you’ve suddenly got less to eat? Or, to be more precise, it’s not “you” who’s got less to eat but those starving peasants in distant lands you claim to care so much about.
Heigh-ho. In the greater scheme of things, a few dead natives keeled over with distended bellies is a small price to pay for saving the planet, right? Except that turning food into fuel does nothing for the planet in the first place."
"So why be surprised that totalitarian solutions to mythical problems wind up causing real devastation?"
Canadians Insufficiently Hateful
Please send more complaints
When you see a friend heading for disaster, making the wrong decisions and yet, nothing you do or say will change their mind...
Happily, beginning on July 1, under Ontario's "human rights" reforms, Commissar Hall will have far greater powers to initiate prosecutions against all and sundry. Under the new proposals, " 'hate incident' means any act or omission, whether criminal or not, that expresses bias, prejudice, bigotry or contempt toward a vulnerable or disadvantaged community or its members." "Act or omission"? Of course. The act of not acting in an insufficiently non-hateful way can itself be hateful. Whether or not the incident is a non-incident is incidental. I quote from "Concepts Of Race And Racism And Implications For OHRC Policy" as published on the OHRC website:
"The denial of racism used by so many whites in positions of authority ranging from the supervisor in a work place to the chief of Police and ministers of government must be understood for what it is: an example of White hegemonic power over those considered 'other.' "
Got that? Your denial of racism merely confirms your racism — because simply by being a "White hegemon" (like Barbara Hall or Jennifer Lynch) you wield racist power. The author, Frances Henry, cites the thinking of "modern neo-Marxist theorists" as if these are serious views that persons of influence in Canada's "human rights" establishment ought to be taking into account, rather than just the latest variant of an ideology that's led to the deaths of millions in Russia, China and everywhere else it's been put into practice. Yet, underneath the blather about "omissions" and "denial" of racism is the bleak acknowledgement that, alas, Canadians just aren't hateful enough to justify the cozy sinecure of taxpayer-funded hate police. "I would say that for a province as large and as diverse as Ontario, to have 2,500 formal complaints a year, that that's a very low level," Commissar Hall said. C'mon, you Ontario deadbeats, can't you hate a little more? Or complain a little more?
Americans need to be doing all they can to fight against those wanting to take us down the same road. The U.S. Constitution has safeguards but it is also being trampled and slowly but surely reinterpreted.
Punishing the Law Abiding
I found this interesting. Apparently, people of downtown Los Angeles enjoy their hotdogs wrapped in bacon. The hotdog venders want to sell hotdogs so they wrap them in bacon, but that's illegal (health department regulations) so it's become sort of an underground practice. Get caught, face fines and jail time. A licensed vender takes a big chance selling the illegal hotdogs or loses business to... unlicensed venders, who are probably illegal aliens to boot. Unlicensed venders sell the bacon wrapped goodness right out in the open with no apparent fear of the law. I don't know what happens to them if they are caught beyond having their hotdogs and tiny, improvised cart thrown out, almost no investment to lose. It can't be too much more than that or there wouldn't be so many out on the streets. Of course, the legal vender can purchase a cart that they can legally sell bacon-dogs from - for about $26,000.
Drew Carey explains it in this video.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
The Birds
Seagulls force kids' playtime to be cancelled
And I just watched Alfred Hitchcock's movie the other day.
Here's An Interesting Video
Schlieren photography
a visual process that is used to photograph the flow of fluids of varying density.
See What Happens When You Marry Out Of Species
Satien Kenkudlung’s python wife slithered away last week, after a short marriage. The volume of curious visitors has dried up, but K. Satien has kept the interest of the public sated with the discovery of an egg, supposedly laid by his now-departed wife.
Experts have debunked a theory that the egg is the fruit of Satien's union with the snake, as the gestation period for a python is 80 days. The marriage was just a fortnight long. Plus, snakes usually lay a nest of up to 50 eggs. A mother never abandons her eggs. (Emphasis mine)
What Would We Do Without Experts?
This Is Not A Joke
Border agents to use paintball guns to fend off attackers.
And some people are complaining because it might leave a small welt.
Small welt or not, human rights activists say it is a bad idea, even for a line of defense.
It is a bad idea though, because it's not a line of defense at all. Well, maybe against 1st graders.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Where Art Thou, O' England?
EU wipes England off map
England has been wiped off a map of Europe drawn up by Brussels bureaucrats as part of a scheme that the Tories claim threatens to undermine the country's national identity.
There Are No Tomatoes In Shepherd's Pie
After a day spent drinking, Michael Garvin cooked his brother John the traditional English dish for dinner, expecting a grateful response.
John, however, voiced his disquiet that the pie was not topped with a layer of sliced tomatoes.
His brother, a chef, claimed a layer of tomatoes was not the appropriate way to finish off a shepherd’s pie, and responded by hitting him over the head with a shovel.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Midnight Snacking
Tampa-area woman finds 8-foot alligator in her kitchen
"the gator must have pushed through the back porch screen door and then went inside through an open sliding glass door at her home in Oldsmar, just north of Tampa. It then apparently strolled through the living room, down a hall and into the kitchen."
That's a big gator to find in your house. Good thing she didn't have a dog. Or did she? There's a picture at the link.
Restating the Obvious
This is a good one.
Madness and Political Life
"Is it not obvious, by now, that a cyclical climate change is part of the history of our planet? (Has that not been obvious since we knew about the ice ages?) And is it not obvious that we do not even know whether the planet is growing hotter or colder? (What if the real problem turns out to be global cooling? Then we have no time to lose in doing all we can to heat up the environment and increase our individual carbon footprint.) The depressing part of all this is that otherwise sane people seem invested in catastrophic silliness. We are reduced to restating the obvious."
And,
"Universities have become havens of official intolerance and bigotry the likes of which American society has seldom experienced. More galling is the fact that almost everyone encourages young adults to go to college, that parents and students spend vast amounts of money for this education, and that even more billions for university education is funded by taxpayers. Yet university administrators and professors seem overwhelmingly hostile to America, to Judeo-Christian moral traditions, and even to honest science (as in the case of global warming or arguments on the utility of Darwin's Theory of Evolution.)
Our universities have almost morphed into an Orwellian Ministry of Truth. The dangers of a monolithic and totalitarian system of education in a democracy are obvious to anyone but the willfully ignorant. We have sunk to a depth where restatement of the obvious is the duty of intelligent men."
Walking in Darkness
Food Crisis Shows How Bad Policies Can Be Deadly
Sometimes, bad economic policies create small annoyances. Sometimes, they lead to catastrophes.
For years, the U.S. has heavily subsidized the production of corn-based ethanol. The global impact of that policy is beginning to lean toward the latter category.
There is no question that subsidies have had their desired effect: An enormous share of the grain crop is now devoted to energy production. How much? A new World Bank report states that "almost all of the increase in global maize production from 2004 to 2007 (the period when grain prices rose sharply) went for biofuels production in the U.S." Go back and read that sentence a second time. It is stunning.
Bad policies based on bad science. And we just keep marching on.
Our Growing Government
The Taxpayer Frog In the IRS Pot
This is interesting. There is too much to post it all here, so be sure to read through it.
In 1900 federal spending was $0.5B. In 2000 it was $1,789B . Those amounts translated to 2.5% of GDP in 1900 and 21% in 2000. Government spending at all levels in the U.S. was 36.5% of GDP in 2006. That 2.5% of GDP that could sustain the entire federal government in 1900 is not even enough to cover the Medicare program today.
Here's another example:
There were few enough federal regulations in 1900 that the government did not do anything special to keep track of them. That changed in the middle of the New Deal. The Federal Register, the master list of federal regulations, came into existence in 1936. In that year it had 2,620 pages of regulations. The next year it had 3,450. In the year 2000, it had 83,294 pages.
Last one:
At the beginning of last century, communism was considered so bad by our liberal and Democratic President Woodrow Wilson and the Democratic Congress at time that they passed the Espionage and Sedition Acts and authorized Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to conduct the "Palmer raids" to fight it - the original "Red Scare". I would say that was equivalent to frogs jumping out of the water because they felt the heat immediately.
But the heat has been turned up slowly so that today communism is not even feared. In fact it is taught in our best universities by communists. By the end of the 20th century, a third of the voting age population in the U.S. thought the phrase "to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities" was in the U.S. Constitution, and another third were not sure. (The phrase came from Karl Marx, author of The Communist Manifesto.) The Communist Party USA openly advocates to "defeat McCain and strengthen Democratic majorities in Congress" and to elect either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in 2008.
Feel the heat.
Proof of Evolution?
More Proof That Evolution is Not a Theory
The original article: Lizards Rapidly Evolve After Introduction to Island
Italian wall lizards introduced to a tiny island off the coast of Croatia are evolving in ways that would normally take millions of years to play out, new research shows.
In just a few decades the 5-inch-long (13-centimeter-long) lizards have developed a completely new gut structure, larger heads, and a harder bite, researchers say.
First of all, how do you know what is normal for lizards? Do you know what has been programmed into their DNA? It is very possible that they have an elasticity built in to deal with changing environments, it seems to be so. Many animals have intraspecies variations depending on the environment they live in or other factors, including deliberate breeding by humans for certain traits.
As far as proof of evolution, just what is evolution? Must the definition include the evolving of one type of animal to another - on the order or family level? By that I mean breeding a lizard until it is no longer a lizard, it can no longer be classified as a lizard. When I think of evolution that is what I imagine. That's evolution to me. What is their definition? Intraspecies variation? That doesn't do it for me as there are other possibilities as to explanation in that respect.
The fact is, the lizards in the article are still lizards - undeniably so. A new gut structure, larger head, harder bite and a very, very large leap of faith equals proof of evolution. There are other possible explanations which cannot be thrown to the wayside because you desperately want evolution to be true.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Can't Eat Biofuel
Worldwide food shortages hit Japan
While soaring food prices have triggered rioting among the starving millions of the third world, in wealthy Japan they have forced a pampered population to contemplate the shocking possibility of a long-term — perhaps permanent — reduction in the quality and quantity of its food.
Biofuels under fire at International Energy Forum
Biofuels, once seen as a key factor in curbing greenhouse gas emissions, are behind the current global food crisis, major oil producers and consumers charged at an energy forum here on Monday.
Surely there are many factors in the current food crisis but subsidizing the use of farm land to grow 'fuel' is pushing it over the edge. Biofuel is not cost-effective and wouldn't be much of a factor in a free market.
Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World
Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing. Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply.
Global warming won't kill us but the global warming fanaticism sure will. It's time to take a couple of steps back and get our bearings instead of running blindly into the darkness of our conceit. The Al Gores of the world don't have a clue or a care about what they are doing to the world except as they line their own pockets with cash and their heads with power.
Goodbye Harvard
Harvard Goes Halal
Separate gym hours for Muslim coeds. Calls to prayer. Lectures on Shariah finance. A campus in the Mideast? Nope. It's all happening at America's pre-eminent college.
And this weekend it hosted a $400-per-person conference on Shariah finance led by officials from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The goal of the forum — sponsored by Harvard's Islamic Finance Project — is to "integrate" Islamic finance into the mainstream economy.
That's a tough fit, because Islamic, or Shariah, finance forbids investment in major Western industries, including those that derive substantial income from interest.
Banking and insurance, as well as alcohol, tobacco or pork-related industries, are not considered "halal," or allowable, under Islam. Entertainment is also unlawful.
The goal of the forum is to "integrate" Islamic finance into the mainstream economy.
Did you get that?
Climate Momentum Shifting
Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics
"If you funnel money into things that can't be changed, the money is not going into the places that it is needed,” he said.
Yes, yes, hello? What he said.
Bribes - A Way of Life
Mexicans paid $2.58 billion in bribes last year
Corruption is so rooted and pervasive in Mexican culture that many people see nothing wrong with it. A continuum runs from tipping a waiter to bribing a politician, with no clear line separating what's acceptable and what's not.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Don't Eat in Canada
The human right for McDonald's employees not to wash their hands.
Datt wouldn't wash her hands. She just wouldn't -- she said she couldn't. So her employment was terminated. The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal ordered that McDonald's pay her not only $23,000 for "lost income", but an additional $25,000 for her "dignity and self-respect". You see, in B.C. a food preparation worker's self-respect trumps a company's commitment to cleanliness. They violated her "human rights".
The $50,000+ penalty -- plus several years of legal fees and medical and rehab experts -- isn't the worst of it. Inventing a "human right" for a worker to go to the bathroom and then to handle meat without washing her hands in between, as an excuse for that $50,000 shakedown isn't the worst of it either.
The worst of it is that the BCHRT has ordered that McDonald's, in paragraph 298 of the decision, to "cease the discriminatory conduct or any similar conduct and refrain from committing the same or similar contravention."
This is just crazy. A human right not to wash your hands - while working in a restaurant? AND you have a skin condition? If that is the case the same must hold true for meat packers and any food handling facility.
But wait, there's more!
And, dear reader, if you think that this decision is some rogue ruling, you just don't know human rights commissions. This decision has plenty of precedents -- such as the Alberta ruling that found a human right to work in a restaurant, while infected with Hepatitis. There, Ruby Repas only got $5,000 for her "human right" to be a health hazard. (That case, incidentally, was argued by the Alberta HRC's resident Muslim supremacist, Arman Chak).
Not just don't eat in Canada, don't eat Canadian.
Canada is
Step by Step
Father and son banned from council swimming pool for not being Muslims
David T said: "I arrived at the pool to discover that they were holding what staff described to me as 'Muslim men-only swimming'.
"I asked whether my son and I could go as we were both male. I was told that the session was for Muslims only and that we could not be admitted.
"I asked to speak to the duty manager, who confirmed that this was the case."
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Distractions
"We have an economic problem," Barack Obama told a crowd in Pennsylvania, "and the way to handle it is--"
"You're not wearing any pants!" someone in the crowd yelled out.
Obama looked as angry as he was pantsless. "That has nothing to do with the important issues people care about such as the economy and healthcare. It is a distraction to bring that up."
Continue reading at IMAO.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Everything But a Race
Amis descends into Steyn-hugging
He has a point. Islam is everything but a race. It's a religion — which is to say (if you're an atheist like Amis and his friend Christopher Hitchens) an ideology. It's also a political platform and an imperialist project, as those terms are traditionally understood. It has believers of every colour on every continent. So, if Islam is a race, then everything's a race — from the Elks Lodge to the Hannah Montana Fan Club to the British Airways frequent flyer program. Moreover, to denounce as "racist" any attempt to discuss Islam is to accept that being Muslim, like being black, is a given, fixed, unchangeable. That's what its adherents believe: 36 per cent of young British Muslims think that anyone attempting to leave Islam should be killed. But there's no reason for non-Muslims to sign on to that. "Racist," of course, no longer has anything very much to do with skin colour. It merely means you have raised a topic that discombobulates the scrupulously non-judgmental progressive sensibility. I wonder if one reason we seem so bizarrely fixated on "climate change" and the flora and fauna is because it's one of the few subjects we can talk about without having any dissenting view greeted by cries of "Racist!" For the moment.
Lesson Learned
'World peace' hitcher is murdered
She had said she wanted to show that she could put her trust in the kindness of local people.
"Her travels were for an artistic performance and to give a message of peace and of trust, but not everyone deserves trust," another sister, Maria, told the Italian news agency, Ansa.
And that's a very serious message for living in the world these days.
It Almost Worked
A San Rafael man is facing felony drug and traffic charges after ramming other vehicles in what he called a secret government experiment for Area 51, authorities said.
Patrinostro "told the officer that the vehicle could fly if he went fast enough, and basically just started bouncing off of cars," Ziegenbein said.
"He was under the influence of cocaine, Valium and marijuana and stated that it was a top secret experiment with his doctor for Area 51 and the government," she added. "He also stated that he was working for a cure for AIDS by taking the drugs."
5 more minutes, that's all he needed.
Wait, Wait, Wait!
Did any of the senior citizens buy it? I mean, is there a market among senior citizens for crack cocaine?
Man Accused Of Trying To Sell 'Bread-Ball' Crack At Nursing Home
A 22-year-old man is accused of balling up pieces of bread and trying to sell them as crack cocaine to senior citizens in a Florida nursing home.
????????????
Ready, Aim, Fire!
Artillery takes out roof, cat
A piece of artillery that was apparently misfired by the military crashed through the roof of a home in New Jersey and injured a young girl's cat - which had to be put down.
Apparently.
Bigfoot in South Carolina
The Rawsons live about two miles southeast of downtown Bishopville. They woke up Feb. 28 to find the front fender of their 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan chewed up, bite marks through the front grill, wheels on both sides bitten and metal crumpled in a wad. There was also blood on the front and sides of the car.
Self-proclaimed Bigfoot hunter Tom Biscardi knows what did it.
While Biscardi hasn't ruled out it was a bear, he thinks it was more likely a Bigfoot. “They’re called different names in the different communities,” he said.
The creatures have three toes, Biscardi said. They range in height from 6 to 9 feet and weigh 300 to 800 pounds. They are hairy. They climb trees and move around by doing what Biscardi describes as knuckle walking.
More than 3,500 Bigfoot creatures exist nationwide, Biscardi said. "They're nocturnal creatures and they’re migratory," he said. "They move from south to north this time of year."
It completely amazes me how much this guy knows about a creature that in all probability doesn't even exist. Certainly, it is completely unknown to science, they've never captured one, they've never found a body or bones or any physical evidence, and the pictures and sightings (and foot prints) are highly suspect. But Mr. Biscardi even knows how many there are.
Breaking News?
Big Quake Likely in California
California faces an almost certain risk of being rocked by a strong earthquake by 2037, scientists said Monday in the first statewide temblor forecast.
They've been forecasting the big one in California for years, I remember hearing it when I was a kid. Not saying it won't happen, but it's not exactly news either. We know.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Out of Touch, Out of Time
The real Obama shows up in San Francisco - Newt Gingrich
If you go to the most expensive private school in Hawaii and then move on to Columbia University and Harvard Law School, you may not understand normal Americans. Their beliefs are so alien to your leftwing viewpoint that you have to seek some psychological explanation for what seem to be weird ideas.
They can't really believe in the right to bear arms.
They can't really believe in traditional marriage.
They can't really believe in their faith in God.
They can't really want to enforce the law on immigration.
Therefore, they must be "bitter" and "frustrated."
This is the closest Senator Obama has come to openly sharing his wife's view that "America is a mean country". Not since Governor Dukakis have we seen anyone so out of touch with normal Americans. It makes perfect sense that it was in a fundraiser in San Francisco that he would have shared the views he has so carefully kept hidden for the entire campaign.
That's pretty much what I thought when I heard what Obama said about small towns. His correction doesn't even make sense.
He meant, he said, that voters in places that had been losing jobs for years expressed their anxiety at the polls by focusing on cultural and social issues like gun laws and immigration.
No, if they are focusing on gun laws it's because people like Obama want to take away their right to own them and if they are focusing on immigration laws it's because America is being flooded with people coming into the country illegally and not integrating into our society and our elected representatives are enabling the situation instead of curtailing it.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Illustrating Absurdity with the Absurd
Carbon Credit Killers
We are on a mission to take away every one of Al Gore's meaningless carbon credits by simply providing carbon debits. Help us make this dream a reality by purchasing one of the packages below. Don't let Al Gore assuage his guilt with meaningless penance, heap it back on with carbon debits – every one of which we will let him know about.
Stuck on Stupid
"'Gangsta rap' was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. 'Gangsta rap' didn't exist."
So, 'Gangsta rap' is an invention of white people and what, beamed into the brains of young blacks with ultra-high frequency radio waves? Who told?
There is a defense, you know. All you have to do is wear a tinfoil hat. Really, it works.
Another of her theories: That the bicoastal feud between slain rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. was fueled "by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing."
With leaders like that, who needs enemies? People actually believe performers are leaders? They must be the people with expanded minds.
Stalinist Science
The slick trick behind global frauding
In Stalin's Russia any dissenter from the Party Line was guilty. Innocence had to be proved. It's a standard tyrant's trick. During the reign of Oliver Cromwell in England, witchhunters did not have to prove that their victims were guilty. The accused witches had to prove their innocence.
That's what Al Gore has done to science: He and his friends have flipped innocence and guilt from normal science to Stalinist science.
In Al Gore's America, any "global warming denier" is guilty until proven innocent. He or she must have been bought off by Big Oil. Skeptics, no matter how well-qualified, must prove the negative about really silly alarmist hogwash. And whenever some prediction is falsified, the warm mongers have an explanation: it's just a temporary glitch in the data. Oh, yes, we were wrong about 1998, but just wait till 2050! The excuses are endless.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Tolerance
Children Told they are Dogs during Mosque Visit
A primary school in Amsterdam wished to provide its pupils with an understanding for other cultures. But during a visit to a mosque, the children were told they were dogs.
Now they understand Islam.
And in America:
Wall of silence broken at state's Muslim public school
Charter schools are public schools and by law must not endorse or promote religion.
Evidence suggests, however, that TIZA is an Islamic school, funded by Minnesota taxpayers.
There Used To Be An England
Bin Laden's 'right-hand man' set for life on British benefits
One of the world's most dangerous terror suspects was last night preparing for a life on benefits in Britain after judges ruled that his deportation would breach human rights law.
Abu Qatada, dubbed Osama Bin Laden's "truly dangerous" ambassador in Europe, could be released from jail within months following the Court of Appeal verdict.
Yesterday's decision has left Britain's anti-terror laws in tatters. It means the Jordanian father of five - who has been linked to a string of global terror conspiracies and is held in a high security prison under immigration powers - can expect to receive £1,000 a month in handouts.
But wait, there's more.
At the same time, 12 Libyan fanatics were cleared to remain in Britain for the rest of their lives by a second human rights ruling. They include an asylum seeker considered a "real and direct threat" to security who had a map marked with the flightpath to Birmingham Airport.
Yeah, I know, there's still an England - for the time being.
Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
God, who made thee mighty ...
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Justice and the Justifier
How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.
I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city. Hosea 11:8,9
"John Watson, better known as Ian Maclaren, the author of The Bonnie Brier Bush, once said, 'God is the chief Sufferer in the universe.' He was right. This is the suffering of God, and it is God suffering because of His love; and it is love in agony not because those He loves are wronging Him, but wronging themselves, and blighting themselves, and blasting themselves. How, being what I am, says God, can I give you up?
And yet do not forget that the 'how' suggests the difficulty. How can I give thee up? Justice alone says it is the right thing that the rebellious shall be punished; but how can I do it? And that compassion led to the decision, 'I will not.'
Now quietly for a moment or two. How came it that God could say 'I will not?' Let us listen.
'I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God, and not man, The Holy One in the midst of thee.'
Here, all mere intellectuality breaks down; here is something very strange. I have been talking about His love. He has spoken of a heart in turmoil, of compassions that are moved to the very depths, and He says I will not give you up; what is the reason? Because of His heart and His compassions? Yes, but go on. 'I am God and not man,' and I am 'the Holy One in the midst of thee.' There is no lowering of the standard of moral requirement. The Holy One can be compassionate and remain holy because He is God, and not man. Things are possible to Him that are not possible to man.
That is as far as we get in Hosea. It is a long way, but it leaves us asking questions; and filled with wonder, we do not understand it. It is as though, on this page, and through all the Old Testament, the glory is breaking through, but never coming into clear manifestation. A wonder and a mystery of righteousness and compassion are seen working together. Wonderful seeing was the seeing of the prophet who could write a thing like that. That must have come by inspiration, or else it is the fairest mirage that ever deceived the heart of humanity. When God, in spite of sin, says, How can I give you up? My heart is stirred, My compassions are stirred, but I am holy; how can I give you up, I will not, I will not, we are in the presence of some possibility wholly of God. It must have been a great word for trembling and troubled hearts even then.
But our Bible does not end in Hosea. The name Hosea meant salvation. I do not know who named him. The father or mother, or both, in all probability; but they called that boy Hosea, a sob and sigh and song merging in a name. There came One in the fullness of time, whose name was Jehovah and Hosea: Jesus. So in the fullness of time the gleams and glints of glory broke out into full manifestation; and we find out at last in Jesus, how God can be just, and the Justifier of the sinning soul.
This way of accomplishment Hosea did not see. In communion with God he had learned facts about the Divine Nature which seemed to be conflicting, and he delivered his message and uttered the words; but at last He came, Who is the Brightness of the Father's glory and the express Image of His Person, and in Him I see how righteousness and peace meet together, and God can be just and the Justifier.
Through Him the claims of justice which are against my soul are all met. Through Him the glory of holiness is maintained; for His redemption of the human soul is not a pity that agrees to ignore sin; but a power that cancels it and sets free from its dominion. Through Him the loved one is regained, restored, renewed, and all the lights that flash and gleam upon the prophetic page, astonishing my soul, come into focused unity in Jesus. God says of you, of me, 'How can I give thee up? I will not ... I will not ... I will not.'
But how? 'I am God and not man, I am the Holy One.' Through Christ He has made the way by which sinning souls can be conformed to His image, His likeness, His will. The gospel is gleaming in Hosea. It is shining in full radiance in Christ.
We can leave the historic and come to the immediate. That is God. But in order to provide ransom, and redemption, and renewal, what? The answer is found fully in the words:
'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'"
G. Campbell Morgan - Hosea: The Heart and Holiness of God
Diversity
Michelle Obama speaks at presidential rally
“Get me more white people, we need more white people.” To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, “We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.”
"I didn't know they would say, 'We need a white person here,' " said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. "I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn't know it would be so outright."
Anti-Social Restaurant
This restaurant in Germany is almost completely automated, you order by computer and your food comes to your table on roller coaster-like tracks - no waiters. Watch the video.
Up in the kitchen, it is man, not machine, that makes the food. They haven't found a way of automating the chef, just yet.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
E.T. Throw Stones
Man 'targeted by aliens'
A Bosnian man whose home has been hit an incredible five times by meteorites believes he is being targeted by aliens.
"I am obviously being targeted by extraterrestrials. I don't know what I have done to annoy them but there is no other explanation that makes sense. The chance of being hit by a meteorite is so small that getting hit five times has to be deliberate."
Sometimes you just don't like a guy and you don't know why.
Breaking News
A van carrying a dozen movie stuntmen on the way to a film location in the mountains spun out of control on the icy road, crashed through a guardrail, rolled down a 90-foot embankment, turned over, and burst into flames. There were no injuries.
Dennis Prager Asks ...
What's worse: Human evil or global warming?
I am convinced that human evil is so great that most people choose either to ignore it or to focus their concerns elsewhere – like those who believe that human-created carbon dioxide emission, not human evil, poses the greatest threat to mankind. No one will ever get killed for fighting global warming. Fighting evil, on the other hand, is quite dangerous.
I agree with that. People just wish evil away and hide their head in the sand.
Obvious Conclusion
"It has taken more than 90 days, 270 witnesses and a bill of £10 million to" figure out what we already knew:
"The Princess and Dodi were unlawfully killed by a combination of their drunk driver, Henri Paul, and the paparazzi who were chasing their car, the jury at their inquests decided."
Link
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Thirty-Seven
Obama scored a 37 when he went bowling in Pennsylvania. How hard is it to bowl a 37? Mary Katharine Ham finds out. (Very funny)
Frank Asks ...
Regarding the Absolut ad, "And why would Mexicans want an even larger country to flee from?"
Read it here. It's short and sweet.
Absolut Apology
Vodka-maker Absolut apologizes, ends ad showing California, Texas as part of Mexico.
"In no way was it meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues," Absolut said in a statement left on its consumer inquiry phone line.
It does lend support to anti-American sentiment. Yes it does.
Charlton Heston
Passed away Saturday, he was 84. I remember him best in Planet of the Apes and The Ten Commandments, and I've seen at least some of Ben Hur. I'm not a big movie guy.
Statement by the family.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Please, Take Your Kids Out of Government Schools
Superintendent's orders to worried dad: Butt out!
The superintendent of a public school that sparked a federal lawsuit by teaching homosexuality to children as young as kindergarten has told another worried parent he can review course material, but he has no right to withdraw his child from class during lessons.
Parker's strenuous objection to not being notified when lessons concerning homosexuality were presented landed him in jail overnight. His subsequent lawsuit resulted in a court verdict that essentially concludes parents have no rights to control what their children are taught.
He's right, You Know
Henry Lamb: When will Islamic extremism be stopped?
Americans who fail to recognize that the war is between Islamic extremism and freedom – regardless of whether the bombs explode in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza or Indonesia – have their heads in the sand. Those who think Iraq is simply a civil war between warring factions are way too near-sighted. Those who say that the Muslims are just reacting to our presence in their country fail to recognize the forces in conflict.
Anyone who believes that Muslim extremists will suddenly disavow their quest to rule the world when American troops leave their soil is naïve in the extreme. Anyone who believes that freedom, as practiced in the United States, can co-exist with the Islam advanced by the extremists is worse than naïve. The Europeans and Americans who are condemning Geert Wilders for making a film that displays Muslim clerics reciting the Quran and statements from Muslim extremists are empowering the extremists. The truth must be told, and told forcefully.
Those who contend that U.S. policy should be to "live and let live" overlook the simple truth that to be successful, this policy must be embraced by all participants. Even a casual review of the Quran reveals that this idea has no place in Islam. Sooner or later, if Muslim extremism is to be stopped, American blood, treasure and determination will have to stop it. If not now, when? If not there, here!
It's going to get messy, they are not going away without a fight and they will not allow us to live in peace with them, they want our subjugation or our death.
Friday, April 04, 2008
What the World Needs Now ...
is more CO2.
You could have heard a pin drop at the Hong Kong conference designed to persuade the airline industry to cut back on its production of so-called greenhouse gases to fight "global warming."
The "Greener Skies 2008" conference had just heard from David Archibald, a solar scientist asserting that climate change is mostly dictated by solar cycles, not carbon dioxide levels, as conventional wisdom suggests.
Archibald didn't just tell the group not to worry about carbon dioxide emissions. He told those gathered they should figure out ways of increasing CO2 output.
"In a few short years, we will have a reversal of the warming of the 20th century," Archibald warned, according to CargoNews Asia. "There will be significant cooling very soon. Our generation has known a warm, giving sun, but the new generation will suffer a sun that is less giving, and the earth will be less fruitful. Carbon dioxide is not even a little bit bad – it's wholly beneficial."
Penguins Don't Fly
It was an elaborate joke by the BBC. Nicely done, but about as pointless as turning off your lights for an hour to save the Earth.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Super Highway, Here We Come!
As long as the driver can understand English road signs, there is no reason why Mexican trucks should not be allowed on U.S. highways.
A Zebra and It's Stripes
Hillary Clinton Fired For Lies, Unethical Behavior
As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying.
The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary's history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther – and goes much deeper – than anyone realizes.
Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy's chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman's 17-year career.
Why?
"Because she was a liar," Zeifman said in an interview last week. "She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality."
What took so long for this to come out?
Great Idea!
Let's use food for fuel! >>> 'Silent' famine sweeps globe
According to some experts, the worst damage is being done by government mandates and subsidies for "biofuels" that supposedly reduce carbon dioxide emissions and fight climate change. Thirty percent of this year's U.S. grain harvest will go to ethanol distilleries. The European Union, meanwhile, has set a goal of 10 percent bio-fuels for all transportation needs by 2010.
"A huge amount of the world's farmland is being diverted to feed cars, not people," writes Gwynne Dyer, a London-based independent journalist.
Leave it to government to take a bad problem and make it much worse.
Global Heating
Report: Non-Muslims Deserve to Be Punished
A report posted on Islam Watch, a site run by Muslims who oppose intolerant teachings and hatred for unbelievers, exposes a prominent Islamic cleric and lawyer who support extreme punishment for non-Muslims — including killing and rape.
A question-and-answer session with Imam Abdul Makin in an East London mosque asks why Allah would tell Muslims to kill and rape innocent non-Muslims, including their wives and daughters, according to Islam Watch.
"Because non-Muslims are never innocent, they are guilty of denying Allah and his prophet," the Imam says, according to the report. "If you don't believe me, here is the legal authority, the top Muslim lawyer of Britain."
The lawyer, Anjem Choudary, backs up the Imam's position, saying that all Muslims are innocent.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Religion of Fear
Fitna is back on LiveLeak.
On the 28th of March LiveLeak.com was left with no other choice but to remove the film "fitna" from our servers following serious threats to our staff and their families. Since that time we have worked constantly on upgrading all security measures thus offering better protection for our staff and families. With these measures in place we have decided to once more make this video live on our site. We will not be pressured into censoring material which is legal and within our rules. We apologise for the removal and the delay in getting it back, but when you run a website you don't consider that some people would be insecure enough to threaten our lives simply because they do not like the content of a video we neither produced nor endorsed but merely hosted.
Penguins
It's just gone 8 o'clock and time for the penguin on top of your television set to
"Not only does it create a vivid and emotional experience for the viewer, it also illustrates just how bold and simple Darwin's idea of natural selection was."
Yeah, I'm sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense. The footage, from the BBC natural history series, Miracles of Evolution, however, is terrific, great job capturing this. Apparently, evolution can perform miracles, but God can't. Whatever.
April fools.
And now ... the exploding penguin:
Children's TV Puppet Show
The White House "has been turned into a great mosque for the nation of Islam."
Don't worry though, it's just a infinitesimal, small minority of Muslims who do this stuff, hardly worth mentioning.