The guys at Counterterrorism Blog had noted that the so-called “Waziristan Agreement” between Pakistan and the regions tribal leaders was a failure. This has allowed many of the usual suspects to reconstitute in the northern mountain regions of the district. Their sources indicated that the Pakistani Army was getting its butt chewed by the Taliban, al Qaeda and tribal fanatics over the previous 4 years and ended up having to pay tribute in the form of cash payments to the Taliban to rebuild destroyed structures and return all of the arms that were seized during the previous years’ operations!
A report in the Feb. 19 NYTimes is supported by David Gartenstein-Ross and reflects the logical continuation of the resurgence of both the Taliban and al Qaeda in the relative safety of that province.
While the moonbats will go loony, this incident with Cheney is probably a minor action in an already developing strategic plan (no doubt summarized for a squirming Mubarrak during his meeting with Cheney) that will involve us as the hammer in that province, probably with air power and targeted special ops airborne missions.

The greatest submission on earth: the gogoplata

Month > Year

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization committed to achieving a freer, more prosperous Tennessee through free market policy solutions, issued a press release late Monday:Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy. Gore’s mansion, [20-room, eight-bathroom] located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES). In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359. Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006. Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year. “As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk to walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

For Further Information, Contact: Nicole Williams, (615) 383-6431 editor@tennesseepolicy.org

Mr. Pahlke,
We've received your letter to the editor and would like to run it on our
Mailbox page for the Feb. 28 issue. However, for verification purposes, we
do ask that letter-writers provide a local street address. As I'm sure
you've noticed, only the street (no address number) is published. If we
have your permission to run the letter, may we get an address from you?
Thanks much,
Kat Hyatt
Copy Editor
Willamette Week
503-443-1528

>>

If I thought they were going to publish it I would have taken more time to craft it-


Why mention that your multi-referenced source, Michael Munk, is a "retired political science professor" when you could also, for the sake of context, mention that he is also a hard-left activist? He publishes something called "Portland's Red Pages" for goodness sakes. Why characterize him as some middle of the road concerned citizen?
His desire to try lawyer Scott Caplen in the pages of your paper has had his desired effect. The assumption of guilt before trial is a favorite tactic of extremists on the right and left. Mr. Munk himself claims he knows what innocent people "act like"! http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3315/8562/. You have no problem pointing out where Caplan lives and works but can't dig into Munk's background beyond his retirement status. I am sure the choir you preach to will eat it up. "Fake but accurate" seems to be the order of the day for the mainstream media.

Tom Pahlke

Food Network

I came across this post by Anthony Bourdain detailing the Food network and it's chefs- pretty funny. My favorite:

MARIO!Oh, Mario! Oh great one! They shut down Molto Mario--only the smartest and best of the stand-up cooking shows. Is there any more egregiously under-used, criminally mishandled, dismissively treated chef on television? Relegated to the circus of Iron Chef America, where--like a great, toothless lion, fouling his cage, he hangs on--and on--a major draw (and often the only reason to watch the show). How I would like to see him unchained, free to make the television shows he’s capable of, the Real Mario--in all his Rabelasian brilliance. How I would love to hear the snapping bones of his cruel FN ringmasters, crunching between his mighty jaws! Let us see the cloven hooves beneath those cheery clogs! Let Mario be Mario!

http://blog.ruhlman.com/2007/02/guest_blogging_.html

Global warming is out.
It's now called "Climate Change."
So ANY change in weather can now be used as evidence for the need for further socialism.

That is all.

Pacman Jones Doesn't Like To Make It Rain

Time for your Pacman Jones update ... and it's a fun one. Everybody's favorite bouncer biter is in even more trouble today, as the search warrant for him has been made public. All kinds of doozies in here:

Las Vegas police recovered more than $81,000 in cash from Mitchell's room that investigators believe belonged to Jones. The search warrant also shed light on some missing details about what happened inside the strip club before the 5 a.m. shooting occurred. Cornelius Haynes Jr., better known as the rapper Nelly, and rapper Jermaine Dupri, were also at the club and sitting with Jones's entourage in the VIP section, the warrant stated.Haynes had tossed hundreds of $1 bills on the stripper stage, an action known in street slang as "making it rain," and Jones joined in. An announcer told all the dancers to go to the center stage, and about 40 strippers soon were on the stage. Mitchell told the strippers from his Houston club to pick up the money, which apparently was only supposed to be used for visual effect, the warrant stated. One of the dancers than took the trash bag filled with Jones' money and a "melee broke out. Jones became irate about the loss of his money, and the fact that girls were in a frenzy, picking up the money at their feet," the warrant stated.

Oh, so this was all about a trash bag with $81,000 in it. THAT should clear everything up.
Warrant Includes Details Of Club Melee, Shootings [Las Vegas Review Journal] Ghosts Closing In On Pacman Jones

http://www.subgenius.com/

Famous "Bob" quotes:

"You'll PAY to know what you really think."
"They may be Pink, but their money's still green!"
"Don't just eat that hamburger, eat the HELL out of it!"
"You know how dumb the average person is? Well, by definition, half of 'em are even dumber than THAT."
"This 'Church of the SubGenius' is the best scam I ever pulled."
"Pull the wool over your own eyes."
"Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."
"Too much is never enough."

Heat-Beaming Weapons

Shooting PainThe future of heat-beaming weapons.
By William Saletan
Posted Saturday, Feb. 17, 2007, at 6:27 AM ET

If you're worried about terrorism, upset about the war in Iraq, and depressed by global chaos, violence, and death, cheer up. We've just invented a weapon that fires a beam of searing pain.
Three weeks ago, the U.S. armed forces tested it on volunteers at an Air Force base in Georgia. You can watch the video on a military Web site. Three colonels get zapped, along with an Associated Press reporter. The beam is invisible, but its effects are vivid. Two dozen airmen scatter. The AP guy shrieks and bolts out of the target zone. He says it felt like heat all over his body, as though his jacket were on fire.
The feeling is an illusion. No one is harmed. The beam's energy waves penetrate just one-sixty-fourth of an inch into your body, heating your skin like microwaves. They inflame your nerve endings without actually burning you. This could be the future of warfare: less bloodshed, more pain.

NBA fans pose unique security challenges By Abigail Goldman <abigail.goldman@lasvegassun.com> Las Vegas Sun

Metro Police have been preparing for the NBA All-Star Game for at least a year, working out security plans so serious they're largely secret.
So what glimpse into the security effort are we getting when the mayor of Las Vegas says, over lunch with a bunch of businesspeople last week, that he'll have more police on the city streets, explaining, "I don't want to see some gangbangers or hip-hoppers knocking over a jewelry store at Fashion Show mall."
NBA All-Star week brings with it some unique security concerns. Like New Year's Eve on steroids, the All-Star festivities will lure thousands to the Strip. Police offi cials say the sheer scale of the event requires extra security precautions. In private, however, police officers confess they've never prepared for anything quite like this. Behind all that preparation and precaution, officers acknowledge, is a tacit trepidation of NBA fans, namely, those gangbangers and hip-hoppers.
Mayor Oscar Goodman's comment was likely off the cuff. When questioned about it two days later, the mayor took a more moderate stance, saying what he meant was, "The sheriff is going to make sure the community is safe and that there are no incidents that would sully our reputation."

Dog Loses Extradition Battle

By Associated Press

GUADALAJARA, Mexico - A federal court has cleared the way for TV bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman to be extradited to face charges in Mexico, but the decision can still be appealed.

Kennedy & Chavez

Kennedy Criticized Over Chavez Link
By STEVE LeBLANC, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON - In a TV commercial, former Rep. Joseph Kennedy stands aboard an oil tanker moving across the Boston skyline and promises that millions of gallons of discounted heating oil are on their way to poor, shivering families, courtesy of "our good friends in Venezuela."

What he doesn't mention is that those "good friends" include Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist and staunch U.S. critic who famously called President Bush "the devil" in a speech last year at the United Nations.

The reference to Venezuela has led to accusations that Kennedy is a shill for Chavez.
Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., fired off a letter to Kennedy this week accusing him of working with "a sworn enemy of the United States" and betraying the legacy of President John F. Kennedy, his uncle, who spoke of the perils of communism.

"Hugo Chavez is providing your company `low-cost heating oil' not to help the American people, but rather to exploit his apologists in the name of public relations. Sadly, you have chosen to actively participate in his charade," Mack wrote.

In an interview this week with The Associated Press, Mack went further, calling the ad "part of a propaganda message from Hugo Chavez."

In an interview with the AP, Kennedy defended his decision to refer to "our good friends in Venezuela."
Kennedy said he approached other oil companies but only Citgo, the Venezuelan government's Texas-based oil subsidiary, responded with an offer of aid. He said nothing in his contracts require him to publicly thank Citgo and Venezuela. That was his decision, he said.

"I think it would be the height of arrogance to accept the help and assistance of Citgo, the only oil company to respond to my plea to help, and never even mention them in the ad," said Kennedy, who served in Congress from 1987 to 1999.

Although he declined to offer an opinion on Chavez, Kennedy did say he had "significant disagreement with the kind of personal politics that have characterized the relationship" between Chavez and Bush, on both sides. He also said "there have been many changes in Venezuela since I started going there 25 years ago, some of them for the better."

Citizens Energy was founded by Kennedy in 1979 in the wake of the energy crisis of the late 1970s with the goal of reducing the cost of home heating oil for the poor and elderly.

The corporation signed its first crude oil contract with Venezuela that year, and in its first 18 months, Citizens Energy had delivered more than 13 million gallons of home heating oil from Venezuela to families in Massachusetts. Citizens Energy has since expanded to 16 states and this year will deliver low-cost oil to between 300,000 and 400,000 households.

Washington resident Lucille Benjamin lives in one of those households. "It doesn't matter to me where it comes from as long as it keeps me warm," she said, "and right now I'm warm."

This is not the first time Massachusetts has found itself debating Chavez. Last year a Boston City Council member called for the demolition of the famous neon Citgo sign above Fenway Park in a protest over Chavez's "devil" insult. The sign remains.

Chavez is "trying to play politics, of course, with oil prices," Romney said in that interview. "The reality is we buy a lot of oil from Venezuela. We ought to get as much oil we can for as cheap a price as we possibly can and suck it dry if we possibly could."

http://www.celebrityhack.com/

Print your brackets! Smart money's on ALF

Loose Shoes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJYRJhopcy4

Please, please watch

In 1976, Butz became the center of a controversy when it was revealed that he frequently told jokes that demeaned various racial and religious groups; he reportedly ridiculed Pope Paul VI for his stand on birth control, quipping that "he no play-a da game, he no make-a da rules," drawing fire from Roman Catholics, and especially those of Italian American heritage. Butz also allegedly uttered the following comment while on board Air Force One during Ford's 1976 re-election campaign: "I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It's three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit." American newspapers and news magazines wanted to cover this, but they felt that the statement was too obscene and offensive to print. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, the Associated Press sent out the uncensored quotation but only two newspapers printed the statement verbatim: the Madison Capital Times and the Toledo Blade of Toledo, Ohio. Some paraphrased, saying for example that Butz had commented on the desire of black Americans to have "good sex, comfortable shoes, and a warm place to go to the bathroom." Others stated that he had said something too obscene to print, and invited their readers to contact the editors if they wanted more information. The San Diego Evening Tribune offered to mail a copy of the whole quotation to anyone who requested it; more than 3,000 readers did so request, and received their copies.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Butz

Awsome

http://www.mavericktradingpost.com/novelties.htm

Om Mani Padme Hum

Hollywood Heroism

"I think people are paranoid" was how former Grateful Dead member Mickey Hart's comments to Reuters began. Hart was speaking about this year's Grammy Awards and the Dixie Chicks. Then he provided a sterling example of that very paranoia.
"I think that if they speak out, they think they're gonna get whacked by the government. It's pretty oppressive now. Look at the Dixie Chicks. They got whacked."
What? The government did nothing concerning The Dixie Chicks after they "spoke out" against President Bush while they were in concert in London. The singers were free to say whatever they wanted, just as the buying public was free to say whatever they wanted with respect to what the Dixie Chicks said.
There was public outcry, and indeed the Dixie Chicks lost fans and concertgoers. But they also garnered new fans, including fawning press. Their "naked" cover on Rolling Stone seems to have started a new fad: the Multimillionaire Artist As Suffering Figure of Persecution.
They would be followed in magazine-cover martyrdom by Kanye West, who nearly ruined a Hurricane Katrina fundraiser with his off-the-cuff remarks about Bush hating black people. His cover shot on Rolling Stone showed him wearing a crown of thorns.
Madonna, as is her wont, took the fad to its logical extremes; comparing Bush to Hitler and Osama bin Laden and then hanging herself on a crucifix.
But it's all vanity. Hart's comments, the "musical martyrs," the paranoia — it's just self-congratulatory hooey. Musicians aren't getting "whacked" by the Bush administration for "speaking out." But it's fun to believe it, because only then could the very mundane act of speaking out in this, the Land of the First Amendment, appear dangerous and brave instead of merely mercenary.
Perspective is sorely lacking when fabulously wealthy, celebrated recording artists somehow believe that the fabric of free speech in a community is in danger because they said something political and a bunch of folks replied in no uncertain terms that they didn't like what they said. They're seeing free speech at its most vibrant and they think it's in peril.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago provides countless examples of a government "whacking" an artist for speaking out. Compare these few lines, for example, to the worst of Dixie Chicks "whacking" anecdotes:
Tanya Khodkevich wrote:
You can pray freely
But just so God alone can hear.
(She received a ten-year sentence for these verses.)
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (www.thefire.org) provides numerous examples of Americans being "whacked" for speaking out in government schools. Just a perusal of the top items, one finds:
— San Francisco State University investigating the College Republicans for stepping on Hamas and Hezbollah flags during an anti-terrorism protest.
— A challenge to Michigan State University's "Student Accountability in Community" program that forces "mandatory ideological re-education" on students, at their own expense, if they are found to have "behaviors or attitudes [that] are considered unacceptable."
— The discovery that the University of Central Florida bars free-speech on campus except for a few "free speech zones."
— College administrators policing and punishing students for their entries on social-networking Internet sites such as Facebook.com and MySpace.com.
And then there are Americans under threat of government "whacking" for speaking out about global warming. Just ask ExxonMobile CEO Rex Tillerson, who recently received an ominous missive from Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe. The letter tells Exxon to "end its dangerous support of the [global warming] 'deniers'" and "repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make public its funding history." Then Exxon, "one of the world's largest carbon emitters," should put those dollars toward "global remediation efforts" instead.
Or ask climatologist George Taylor in Oregon, where the governor, Theodore R. Kulongoski, wishes to strip him of the position of state climatologist because Taylor is skeptical of the origins of global warming. Other apostate climatologists, such as David Legates in Delaware and Patrick Michaels in Virginia, could also recount experiences from their principled refusal to toe the climate-change line that would leave the Dixie Chicks in a sniveling heap.
Now, it would be wonderful if popular recording artists put their faddish fear of being whacked by the government to good use — taking up the cause of free-speech victims on college campuses, for example, or supporting climate-change dissent. But of course that shouldn't be forced on them like some crazy Michigan ideological re-education plan. After all, it's a free country.

Jon Sanders is a policy analyst and research editor at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, N.C.

Iraqi insurgents using Austrian rifles from Iran

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Last Updated: 7:05pm GMT 13/02/2007

Austrian sniper rifles that were exported to Iran have been discovered in the hands of Iraqi terrorists, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
More than 100 of the.50 calibre weapons, capable of penetrating body armour, have been discovered by American troops during raids.
The Steyr HS50 is a long range, high precision rifle
The guns were part of a shipment of 800 rifles that the Austrian company, Steyr-Mannlicher, exported legally to Iran last year.
The sale was condemned in Washington and London because officials were worried that the weapons would be used by insurgents against British and American troops.
Within 45 days of the first HS50 Steyr Mannlicher rifles arriving in Iran, an American officer in an armoured vehicle was shot dead by an Iraqi insurgent using the weapon.
Over the last six months American forces have found small caches of the £10,000 rifles but in the last 24 hours a raid in Baghdad brought the total to more than 100, US defence sources reported.
advertisement
The find is the latest in a series of discoveries that indicate that Teheran is providing support to Iraq's Shia insurgents.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, yesterday denied that Iran had supplied weapons to Iraqi insurgents. But on Sunday US officials in Baghdad displayed a range of weapons they claimed had originated in Iran.
They said 170 American and British soldiers had been killed by such weapons.
The discovery of the sniper rifles will further encourage those in Washington who want to see Iran's uranium-enriching facilities destroyed before a nuclear weapon is produced.
The Foreign Office expressed "serious concerns" over the sale of the rifles last year and Britain protested to the Austrian government.
A Foreign Office spokesman said last night: "Although we did make our worries known the sale unfortunately went ahead and now the potential that these weapons could fall into the wrong hands appears to have happened."
The rifle can pierce all body armour from up to a mile and penetrate armoured Humvee troop carriers.
It is highly accurate and fires a round called an armour piercing incendiary, a bullet that the Iranians manufacture.
The National Iranian Police Organisation bought the rifles allegedly to use them against drug smugglers in an £8 million order placed with Steyr in 2005.
The company was given permission to export them by the Austrian government, which is not a Nato member.

Protein Wisdom linked to a study in the UK on what women find attractive in men. It’s not a rigorous accounting by any means, but it certainly shows the intuitive mating selection process for women.

Onion Sniper

"Sniper draws mustache on crosshairs"

IRON MAIDEN Frontman Flying High - Aug. 11, 2003

One of the greatest things about being a rock star is never having to work another day in your life, right?
So why, you might ask, would a rocker as financially secure as Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, the singer of a band that is still selling out Madison Square Garden some 20 years down the line, want to go out and work a J-O-B?Well, because it's a job that parallels his love for singing and performing.
When he's not on the road or in the studio with Maiden, Dickinson spends a good chunk of his year piloting 150-seat Boeing 737s for Astraeus Airlines in London.A first officer for Astraeus and a pilot for some 11 years, Dickinson logged between 600 and 700 hours in the air for the company last year, regularly jetting back and forth from London to such locales as Egypt, Iceland and the former Soviet Union.
During Maiden's recent tours, he's even flown himself and several band members from gig to gig in a Cessna 421 Golden Eagle, a seven-seat propeller plane.Dickinson, whose first commercial job was with British World (an independent airline that folded after Sept. 11, 2001), equates discovering his love for flying to finding another woman. When he's flying, his wife often remarks, " 'Oh, he's off sleeping with the tin bitch again,"' he relays with a laugh.He adds that he's constantly humbled by flying.

>>

He just flew the Rangers to Isreal for thier UEFA Cup soccer match!

Ando putiando

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_profanity

deadspin.com

OK, Grandma ... put your hands in the air ... slowly ... step away from the bingo machine ... put down the knitting needles ... we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. It's your choice.
Acting on an anonymous tip, armed agents raided the Lake Elsinore Elks Lodge and found an envelope containing $50.00, which was to be paid to the winner of an impromptu Monday Night Football pool. Margaret Hamblin, a 73 year-old great-grandmother, and 39 year-old volunteer waitress Cari Gardner both pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of operating an illegal gambling operation. Both are due in court on February 28 for a preliminary hearing, where the judge will determine if they should stand trial.
If you don't think that anonymous tip came from Edna Granderson, Margaret's schoolgirl rival for the past 64 years, well, you don't know Edna.
Agents Swoop Down On High Rolling Elks Club [West Side Slant]

opinionjournal.com

Denying the Future
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/02/09/no_change_in_political_climate/
The Boston Globe's Ellen Goodman starts off a column about global warming on a loopy note:
*** QUOTE ***
On the day that the latest report on global warming was released, I went out and bought a light bulb. OK, an environmentally friendly, compact fluorescent light bulb.
*** END QUOTE ***
Wow, Ellen, thanks for sharing! But a few paragraphs later she tries to make a serious point and ends up making a serious moral and intellectual error:
*** QUOTE ***

I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.

*** END QUOTE ***
No, Ellen. Let's not "just say" it. Before we make a truly invidious comparison, let's think a bit, shall we?
On our shelf sits a book called "The House That Hitler Built." It is a 380-page study of Nazi Germany, written by Stephen H. Roberts, a professor of modern history at the University of Sydney. Roberts spent 16 months in Germany and neighboring countries between 1935 and 1937. "My main aim," he explains in the preface, "was to sum up the New Germany without any prejudice (except that my general approach was that of a democratic individualist)."
The substance of the book is alarming, although the tone is calm and detached--so much so that it is eerie to read with the knowledge of what happened in the years after October 1937, when it was published. One 10-page chapter is devoted to "The Present Place of the Jews." At the time Roberts wrote, the persecution of Jewish Germans was well under way:
*** QUOTE ***
At present, the German Jew has no civil rights. He is not a citizen; he cannot vote or attend any political meeting; he has no liberty of speech and cannot defend himself in print; he cannot become a civil servant or a judge; he cannot be a writer or a publisher or a journalist; he cannot speak over the radio; he cannot become a screen actor or an actor before Aryan audiences; he cannot teach in any educational institution; he cannot enter the service of the railway, the Reichsbank, and many other banks; he cannot exhibit paintings or give concerts; he cannot work in any public hospital; he cannot enter the Labour Front or any of the professional organizations, although membership of many callings is restricted to members of these groups; he cannot even sell books or antiques. . . . In addition to these, there are many other restrictions applying in certain localities. The upshot of them all is that the Jew is deprived of all opportunity for advancement and is lucky if he co!
ntrives to scrape a bare living unmolested by Black Guards or Gestapo. It is a campaign of annihilation--a pogrom of the crudest form, supported by every State instrument.
*** END QUOTE ***
When Roberts published his book, Kristallnacht was more than a year away; the ghettoes and death camps were further still in the future. Roberts described what he witnessed as "a campaign of annihilation," but he did not foretell the multiplication of its brutality in the ensuing years. Had he somehow managed to do so, he would be a prophet today, but he might well have looked like a crank at the time.
Which brings us back to Ellen Goodman. Imagine if someone in 1937 had foreknowledge of the Holocaust and began sounding the alarms, describing in detail what was going to happen just a few years later. Most people probably wouldn't believe him. They would be, to use Goodman's phrase, denying the future. But would they be "on par" with people who deny the Holocaust after it has happened?
That seems a stretch. There's an enormous difference between doubting an outlandish prediction (even one that comes true) and denying the grotesque facts of history. Because we are ignorant of the future, we can innocently misjudge it. Holocaust deniers are neither ignorant nor innocent (though extremely ignorant people may innocently accept their claims). They are falsifying history for evil purposes.
This columnist is skeptical of global warming. We don't have enough scientific knowledge to have anything like an authoritative opinion--but neither does Ellen Goodman, who bases her entire argument on an appeal to authority, namely the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We lack the time, the inclination and possibly the intellect to delve deeply into the science. No doubt the same is true of Goodman.
Our skepticism rests largely on intuition. The global-warmists speak with a certainty that is more reminiscent of religious zeal than scientific inquiry. Their demands to cast out all doubt seem antithetical to science, which is founded on doubt.

The theory of global warming fits too conveniently with their pre-existing political ideologies. (Granted, we too are vulnerable to that last criticism.)
Above all, we can't stand to be bullied. And what is it but an act of bullying to deny that there is any room for honest disagreement, to insist that those of us who are unpersuaded are the equivalent of Holocaust deniers, that we are not merely mistaken but evil?

Finally watched
Rocky last night
by myself at a
second run theater
here in the Couv.
It was corny but I
teared up about 5 times.

Quote from Rocky

to his son:

Rocky Balboa: It will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much can you take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!

The primary role of insulin is to regulate blood-sugar levels. After you eat carbohydrates, they will be broken down into their component sugar molecules and transported into the bloodstream. Your pancreas then secretes insulin, which shunts the blood sugar into muscles and the liver as fuel for the next few hours. This is why carbohydrates have a significant impact on insulin and fat does not. And because juvenile diabetes is caused by a lack of insulin, physicians believed since the 20's that the only evil with insulin is not having enough.
But insulin also regulates fat metabolism. We cannot store body fat without it. Think of insulin as a switch. When it's on, in the few hours after eating, you burn carbohydrates for energy and store excess calories as fat. When it's off, after the insulin has been depleted, you burn fat as fuel. So when insulin levels are low, you will burn your own fat, but not when they're high.
This is where it gets unavoidably complicated. The fatter you are, the more insulin your pancreas will pump out per meal, and the more likely you'll develop what's called ''insulin resistance,'' which is the underlying cause of Syndrome X. In effect, your cells become insensitive to the action of insulin, and so you need ever greater amounts to keep your blood sugar in check. So as you gain weight, insulin makes it easier to store fat and harder to lose it. But the insulin resistance in turn may make it harder to store fat -- your weight is being kept in check, as it should be. But now the insulin resistance might prompt your pancreas to produce even more insulin, potentially starting a vicious cycle. Which comes first -- the obesity, the elevated insulin, known as hyperinsulinemia, or the insulin resistance -- is a chicken-and-egg problem that hasn't been resolved. One endocrinologist described this to me as ''the Nobel-prize winning question.''
Insulin also profoundly affects hunger, although to what end is another point of controversy. On the one hand, insulin can indirectly cause hunger by lowering your blood sugar, but how low does blood sugar have to drop before hunger kicks in? That's unresolved. Meanwhile, insulin works in the brain to suppress hunger. The theory, as explained to me by Michael Schwartz, an endocrinologist at the University of Washington, is that insulin's ability to inhibit appetite would normally counteract its propensity to generate body fat. In other words, as you gained weight, your body would generate more insulin after every meal, and that in turn would suppress your appetite; you'd eat less and lose the weight.
Schwartz, however, can imagine a simple mechanism that would throw this ''homeostatic'' system off balance: if your brain were to lose its sensitivity to insulin, just as your fat and muscles do when they are flooded with it. Now the higher insulin production that comes with getting fatter would no longer compensate by suppressing your appetite, because your brain would no longer register the rise in insulin. The end result would be a physiologic state in which obesity is almost preordained, and one in which the carbohydrate-insulin connection could play a major role. Schwartz says he believes this could indeed be happening, but research hasn't progressed far enough to prove it. ''It is just a hypothesis,'' he says. ''It still needs to be sorted out.'' David Ludwig, the Harvard endocrinologist, says that it's the direct effect of insulin on blood sugar that does the trick. He notes that when diabetics get too much insulin, their blood sugar drops and they get ravenously hungry. They gain weight because they eat more, and the insulin promotes fat deposition. The same happens with lab animals. This, he says, is effectively what happens when we eat carbohydrates -- in particular sugar and starches like potatoes and rice, or anything made from flour, like a slice of white bread. These are known in the jargon as high-glycemic-index carbohydrates, which means they are absorbed quickly into the blood. As a result, they cause a spike of blood sugar and a surge of insulin within minutes. The resulting rush of insulin stores the blood sugar away and a few hours later, your blood sugar is lower than it was before you ate. As Ludwig explains, your body effectively thinks it has run out of fuel, but the insulin is still high enough to prevent you from burning your own fat. The result is hunger and a craving for more carbohydrates. It's another vicious circle, and another situation ripe for obesity.

Fort Drum

More than 60 years ago Calistogan Jack Cole served aboard the USS 'No Go' the army's only "battleship" in the Pacific Theater during World War II or any theater of war for that matter. Known officially as Fort Drum, it was originally a coral island at the entrance to Manila Bay in the Philippines. Called El Fraile, it had Spanish fortifications set up in 1898. Between 1909 and 1919 the island was cut down by Americans forces and covered in a concrete shell made to resemble a ship. Fort Drum, part of the Army's network of harbor defenses of Manila and Subic bays, was considered impregnable. But with the fall of Bataan and nearby Corregidor on May 6, 1942, Cole, and other members of Battery E 59th Coastal Artillery, learned otherwise. "If we'd had water we could have lasted three or four years --we had the food," Cole said as he recalled the days before he and the 428 men were taken prisoner. "See all the water that came in was brought on water tenders from Caballo Island. Without water we were done for. We had water all around but none we could drink." Cole, 82, a longtime Calistoga hairdresser and antiques dealer, sports three tattoos, two of them nearly 70 years old. He's a little hazy on their origins but he thinks the unicorn was done at a state fair in Indiana when he was just barely in his teens and living with his grandparents. Another, a heart with the word "Mother," stems from the time he ran away to Los Angeles at 13 "to see the wild west." Instead he spent the night playing checkers with the desk sergeant in a Glendale police station before being sent home. The third and newest of the lot is a sentimental depiction of a dark-haired girl in a polka dot scarf, a tattoo he got while stationed in the Philippines. And then there are the war memories. He signed up in 1939 and when the U.S. entered the war, he was stationed at Fort Drum, more commonly called "the concrete battleship." "The first time I got there was at night and you could hear the diesel motors," Cole recalled. "You would swear you were on a ship. Everything was designed like on a ship." There was even a 60-foot fire control cage mast used to direct missiles. "I was spotting planes on the middle of it one time with missiles going right past me," Cole said. "I was lucky. A missile dropped on the deck about 30 feet from me and I couldn't hear for about two days." The distance of six decades has tempered Cole's wartime memories and added spice to the telling of otherwise horrific adventures. Fort Drum, 350 feet long, 144 feet wide with a top deck 40 feet above low water, had exterior walls 25 feet to 36 feet thick. It was Cole's home for nearly three years. During the six-month siege, from December 1941 to May 1942, Corregidor — whose guns were being used to support Filipino and American forces on Bataan — was hit with more than 16,000 rounds in one 24-hour period before its fall. Enemy guns were also pounding away at Fort Drum, knocking at least 15 feet of concrete off the decks. "Towards the end there, the whole structure would shake," Cole recalled. The end came May 6, 1942, at noon. On the commander's order, the concrete battleship was flooded, the guns drained of recoil oil and fired one last time, the colors lowered and burned.

Members of the 59th were either killed, missing in action, or taken prisoner. "I heard there were 428 of us taken," Cole said. "As far as I know just 28 of us returned." Cole and the remaining members of the 59th were taken in fishing boats to the Cavite side of Luzon and from there to Cabanatuan prison camp where men were dying daily from malnutrition, malaria and dysentery. "People ask me why I didn't try to escape," Cole said. "It was impossible. On one side was a Japanese military installation. On the other, unchartered territory. Even the Japanese wouldn't go in there, so where were you going to go even if you did escape?" At Cabanatuan, Cole and other prisoners worked in the fields planting casaba roots and Japanese sweet potatoes. "We ate the vines, they ate the casabas. We'd eat them raw when we got the chance but it was dangerous because they used night soil for fertilizer." Food was foremost in their thoughts — its scarcity, and how and where to get it. Cole remembers eating the branches of papaya trees, trimmed of bark and sliced. And eating python. "Six of us captured a python about 16 feet long," he said. "The Japanese let us take it to camp. So we carried it four or five miles. We ate it. It was good — the python tastes more like chicken, and we craved protein." "I'd eat anything that didn't eat me first," Cole explained, "except rats." It didn't pay to be squeamish, he said. "Some guys said they wouldn't eat rice because it had rice worms. Now a rice worm is a mournful looking thing, but I ate it all." After two and a half years, Cole was sent with others on a prison ship to Japan. Three hundred men or more were lined up in the hold with only a bamboo slop bucket for a toilet, he recalled. "They let us out every so many hours and rinsed us off with salt water but the smell was awful. The only issue on the ship was coconuts and garlic and most of us had dysentery. That was something." Cole worked forced labor in a steel mill between Yokohama and Tokyo then was moved to a copper mine near Hondo. He and his fellow prisoners knew the war had ended when Navy planes began flying over and dipping their wings. Later, planes dropped 50-gallon drums of food. The first drum he came across was filled with chocolate bars and fruit cocktail. "For a long time I hated chocolate," he recalled. "I ate so much I was sicker than a dog ... I hadn't had chocolate for years and the fruit cocktail did­n't help." Looking back. Cole doesn't dwell on why he survived when others didn't. But he does think about the war — although he knows that he's losing bits and pieces of those times — and sometimes he dreams he is back in the prison camp. "We had to live by our wits," he said. "If I didn't live by my wits I wouldn't have made it. "But," he added, "I guess my time wasn't up. I always say, 'I'll live 'til I die.

Diehard Bears fan lives up to bet, files to change name to Peyton Manning
By TONY REID - H&R Staff Writer

DECATUR - Scott Wiese kept a rendezvous with destiny Tuesday as he scored an official touchdown on is way to becoming Peyton Manning.Wiese braved the snow to show up at the Macon County Courts Facility and file the paperwork to change his name to that of the star quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts. Wiese, a die-hard Chicago Bears fan who lives in Forsyth, had pledged to his friends that if his beloved team did not win Super Bowl XLI on Sunday, he would legally change his name to the man who led the Indiana nemesis to victory."A bunch of friends and I were talking one night before the game, and there was a little alcohol involved," said Wiese, 26. "I made the bet, and now I've got to keep it. I chose Manning because, well, he is kind of the face of the Colts franchise."For those who had earlier doubted his resolve to go through with it, Wiese had signed a solemn pledge in front of some 200 people Friday night in Katz Piano Bar in downtown Decatur. With Sunday's 29-17 score having declawed the Bears, Wiese duly presented himself at the courts facility to start the official name change process. He will have to advertise his intention in the Herald & Review for several weeks and then appear before a judge to explain why he can't go on being Scott Wiese.He's the first to admit he doesn't much resemble his soon-to-be namesake: The original version is 30 years old, stands 6-feet-5, weights 230 pounds and has a contract worth more than $126 million. Wiese is 5-feet-11, weighs 190 - "it's not muscle" -and works at Staples in Forsyth. But he says looks are not the issue here. Wiese said he so loves his team and his fellow fans that he is willing to lay down his identity as a kind of spiritual statement to wash clean the original sin of failure."I think I kind of represent all Bears fans," he said. "Not that I'm saying they're all idiots like me, but I represent their passion because I really care about my team, you know?"His lawyer and friend, Andy Bourey, is handling the paperwork and can't help but admire Wiese's sense of honor. "I never doubted him," he said. "He's a man of his word."And he's no stranger to doing the right thing. He was in his senior year of college - a sports management major - when he quit school to get a job and help the family's finances out after his father, Steve Wiese, suffered a heart attack.Tom Waters, an assistant manager at Staples, said he admires his employee's character and says he is an "outstanding guy."Waters only wishes the Bears shared that kind of fortitude: "If they had shown commitment like that, the score would probably have been a little different," he said.Wiese, who plans to go back to school when his dad is fully recovered, has no idea how long he will stay Peyton Manning.Asked if he would wait until the Bears win the Super Bowl, he flinched at that degree of sacrifice. "I mean, well, it may be another 21 years," he said.

Tony Reid can be reached at treid@herald-review.com or 421-7977.

From Alexander Pope's Essay on Man

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much;
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall:
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

We imagine that a night of gambling with Charles Barkley must be a lot like the scene in Casino where Nicky Santoro is losing at blackjack; very little tipping, and at some point Don Rickles ends up being savagely pummeled. Sunday was an exception though, as Barkley announced that he won $700,000 in Las Vegas betting on the Super Bowl and playing blackjack.
"That was all profit (from) blackjack and I bet on the Super Bowl. I had the Colts," Barkley said in an interview with Phoenix television station KTVK. "I played a lot of blackjack."
That's the good news. Now for the punch line:
Barkley also said Monday that he lost $2.5 million "in a six-hour period" one night last year. "It's a stupid, bad habit. I have a problem," Barkley said. "But the problem is when you can't afford it. I can afford to gamble. I didn't kill myself when I lost two and half million dollars ... I like to gamble and I'm not going to quit."
Barkley's legendary gambling Jones has been previously documented, of course. But $2.5 million over a six-hour span is a little hard to fathom. Especially for us, whose idea of Casino Night is putting on pants and taking our loose change to Coinstar.

Captain's Quarters

February 06, 2007

Shifting Blame
It has been amusing to see Democrats in Congress attempt to explain away their votes for the war in Iraq over the past year. Most of them have settled on the excuse that the Bush administration deceived them in October 2002 into authorizing military force based on the exact same intelligence that moved them to declare official American policy of regime change in 1998. The Democrats won a majority in the midterms by stoking Bush Derangement Syndrome, but for 2008 they face a daunting task -- winning elections without using the retiring George Bush as a bogeyman.
John Edwards has found a solution by shifting blame yet again, and in the process exposing the "Bush lied" meme as a hypocritical dodge. In his Sunday appearance on Meet the Press, Edwards attempted to excuse his vote on the AUMF by blaming Clinton administration officials for confirming the intel coming from the Bush administration (via McQ at QandO, emphases mine):
MR. RUSSERT: “ A grave threat to America,” do you still believe that?
SEN. EDWARDS: No.
MR. RUSSERT: Why were you so wrong?
SEN. EDWARDS: For the same reason a lot of people were wrong. You know, we—the intelligence information that we got was wrong. I mean, tragically wrong. On top of that I’d—beyond that, I went back to former Clinton administration officials who gave me sort of independent information about what they believed about what was happening with Saddam’s weapon—weapons programs. They were also wrong. And, based on that, I made the wrong judgment. ...
MR. RUSSERT: But it seems as if, as a member of the intelligence committee, you just got it dead wrong, and that you even ignored some caveats and ignored people who were urging caution.
SEN. EDWARDS: Well, I, I, I would—first of all, I don’t want to defend this. Let me be really clear about this. I think anybody who wants to be president of the United States has got to be honest and open, be willing to admit when they’ve done things wrong. One of the things, unfortunately, that’s happened in Iraq is we’ve had a president who was completely unmoving, wouldn’t change course, wouldn’t take any responsibility or admit that he’d made any mistakes. And I think America, in fact the world has paid a huge price for that. So I accept my responsibility. I’m not defending what I did. Because what happened was the information that we got on the intelligence committee was, was relatively consistent with what I was getting from former Clinton administration officials. I told you a few minutes ago I was concerned about giving this president the authority, and I turned out to be wrong about that.
Edwards, having discovered that George Bush cannot run for a third term, needs to find another excuse for his vote to invade Iraq, a vote which his progressive base abhors. He can't just explain it away by saying he was too stupid to see past the web of Bush lies -- after all, he sat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and had access to the classified information that formed the basis of Bush's case for military action. At the time, he was one of the more vocal Democratic supporters of action.
So now he's blaming members of the Clinton administration for lying to him as well. That's certainly convenient. After all, Hillary Clinton is his biggest competitor for the nomination, and shifting blame to her husband for the Iraq war would suit his needs perfectly. He can now argue that he was no sap -- he checked on the information and got the same answer from the previous Democratic administration.
However, this opens up a completely new problem for Edwards and the rest of the Democrats. They have claimed for at least the last two years that Bush Lied (TM), that the entire basis of the war was based on his deceptions about the intelligence. Their campaigns have created an impetus for impeachment in some Democratic circles based on this supposed set of lies. Now John Edwards, years later, claims that Clinton administration officials gave him essentially the same analysis about WMD in Iraq -- exposing the Democrats as liars and smear artists themselves.
All of this results from the lack of political courage by Democrats in Congress. They voted for the war based on the same intelligence that fueled American policy well before George Bush took office. When that intel turned out to be incorrect, or at least out of date, they panicked and tried to shove all the responsibility off onto the Bush administration, calling him and Dick Cheney liars and whipping up anti-war sentiment to cover for their own responsibility in the decision to go to war. In the process, they have made it almost impossible for the White House to exercise any flexibility in the war strategy to ensure a positive outcome from the removal of Saddam Hussein.
Edwards has proven himself to be a craven, whiny opportunist. He's also exposed many of his colleagues as having similar character flaws.

America, Fuck Yea!

Astronaut Charged With Kidnap Attempt
Email this StoryFeb 6, 6:31 AM (ET)By MIKE SCHNEIDER

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - An astronaut drove 900 miles and donned a disguise to confront a woman she believed was her rival for the affections of a space shuttle pilot, police said. She was arrested Monday and charged with attempted kidnapping and other counts.
U.S. Navy Capt. Lisa Nowak, 43, who flew last July on a shuttle mission to the international space station, was also charged with attempted vehicle burglary with battery, destruction of evidence and battery. She was denied bail and is scheduled to make a court appearance Tuesday.
Police said Nowak drove from her home in Houston to the Orlando International Airport to confront Colleen Shipman.
Nowak believed Shipman was romantically involved with Navy Cmdr. William Oefelein, a pilot during space shuttle Discovery's trip to the space station last December, police said.
Nowak told police that her relationship with Oefelein was "more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship," according to an arrest affidavit. Police officers recovered a love letter to Oefelein in her car.
NASA spokesman James Hartsfield in Houston said that, as of Monday, Nowak's status with the astronaut corps remained unchanged.
"What will happen beyond that, I will not speculate," he said.
Hartsfield said he couldn't recall the last time an astronaut was arrested and said there were no rules against fraternizing among astronauts.
When she found out that Shipman was flying to Orlando from Houston, Nowak decided to confront her, according to the arrest affidavit. Nowak raced from Houston to Orlando wearing diapers so she wouldn't have to stop to urinate, authorities said.
Astronauts wear diapers during launch and re-entry.
Dressed in a wig and a trench coat, Nowak boarded an airport bus that Shipman took to her car in an airport parking lot. Shipman told police she noticed someone following her, hurried inside the car and locked the doors, according to the arrest affidavit.
Nowak rapped on the window, tried to open the car door and asked for a ride. Shipman refused but rolled down the car window a few inches when Nowak started crying. Nowak then sprayed a chemical into Shipman's car, the affidavit said.
Shipman drove to the parking lot booth, and the police were called.
During a check of the parking lot, an officer followed Nowak and watched her throw away a bag containing the wig and BB gun. They also found a steel mallet, a 4-inch folding knife, rubber tubing, $600 and garbage bags inside a bag Nowak was carrying when she was arrested, authorities said.
Inside Nowak's vehicle, which was parked at a nearby motel, authorities uncovered a pepper spray package, an unused BB-gun cartridge, latex gloves and e-mails between Shipman and Oefelein. They also found a letter "that indicated how much Mrs. Nowak loved Mr. Oefelein," an opened package for a buck knife, Shipman's home address and hand written directions to the address, the arrest affidavit said.
Police said Nowak told them that she only wanted to scare Shipman into talking to her about her relationship with Oefelein and didn't want to harm her physically.
"If you were just going to talk to someone, I don't know that you would need a wig, a trench coat, an air cartridge BB gun and pepper spray," said Sgt. Barbara Jones, a spokeswoman for the Orlando Police Department. "It's just really a very sad case. ... Now she ends up finding herself on the other side of the law with some very serious charges."

"I was sent here for a reason I have not yet been able to fathom. I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive."

"The Warriors Return"

In the conflict resistless, each toil they endured,
'Till their foes fled dismayed from the war's desolation:
And pale beamed the Crescent, its splendor obscured
By the light of the Star Spangled flag of our nation.
Where each radiant star gleamed a meteor of war,
And the turbaned heads bowed to its terrible glare,
Now, mixed with the olive, the laurel shall wave,
And form a bright wreath for the brows of the brave.

Poem penned by Francis Scott Key in 1805 to celebrate the return of Stephen Decatur from the Barbary wars. Set to the tune of "To Anecreon in Heaven" which Key also set "The Star Spangled Banner" to in 1814.

Got to love how they snuck intercourse in. It's science!

Man facing charges over attempted abortionFeb 05 2:51 PM US/Eastern

GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- A 26-year-old man in Sweden will face assault charges and abortion law violations after he allegedly slipped his pregnant girlfriend abortion pills.The Local said that the unidentified man allegedly mixed some of the prescription pills into his girlfriend's food after learning she was pregnant, leading her to nearly suffer a miscarriage.Once the woman ingested the pills, she required medical attention after becoming nauseous and starting to bleed.The paper said the man will now face the charges in Vanersborg District Court in western Sweden.


I knew this would happen!

As President-for-Life of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov issued many controversial and unusual decrees:

In April 2001, ballet and opera were banned after Niyazov felt they were "unnecessary ... not a part of Turkmen culture", .[13]
In 2004 it was forbidden for young men to grow long hair or beards.[13]
In March 2004, 15,000 public health workers were dismissed including nurses, midwives, school health visitors and orderlies and replaced with military conscripts.[14]
In April 2004 the youth of Turkmenistan were encouraged to chew on bones to preserve their teeth rather than be fitted with gold tooth caps or gold teeth.[15]
In April 2004 it was ordered that an ice palace be constructed near the capital.[16] (In December 2006 an article in the UK's Sunday Times revealed the 'ice palace' to be an ornate ice skating rink.[17])
In 2004 all licensed drivers were required to pass a morality test.[18]
In 2004 it was prohibited for news readers to wear make-up[19]
In February 2005 all hospitals outside Aşgabat were ordered shut, with the reasoning that the sick should come to the capital for treatment. All rural libraries were ordered closed as well, citing ordinary Turkmen do not read books.[20]
In November 2005 physicians were ordered to swear an oath to the President, replacing the Hippocratic Oath.[21]
In December 2005, video games were banned as being too violent for young Turkmen to play.
In January 2006, one-third of the country's elderly had their pensions discontinued, while another 200,000 had theirs reduced. Pensions received during the prior two years were ordered paid back to the state.[22] The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan strongly denied allegations that the cut in pensions resulted in the deaths of many elderly Turkmen, accusing foreign media outlets of spreading "deliberately perverted" information on the issue.[23]
In September 2006 Turkmen teachers who failed to publish praise of the Turkmen leader would remain at a lower payscale or be sacked.[24]
In October 2006 Turkmenistan claimed to have set free 10,056 prisoners, including 253 foreign nationals from 11 countries on the Night of Omnipotence. Niyazov said, "Let this humane act on the part of the state serve strengthening truly moral values of the Turkmen society. Let the entire world know that there has never been a place for evil and violence on the blessed Turkmen soil."[25]
The Turkmen words for bread and the month of April were changed to the name of his late mother, Gurbansoltanedzhe. [26]
Car radios, lip-syncing, and recorded music are all prohibited.[27]
Video monitors are required in all public places.[27]
Dogs are restricted from the capital city due to unappealing odour.[28]

Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?
By Timothy Ball
Monday, February 5, 2007

Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and that for 32 years I was a Professor of Climatology at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.
What would happen if tomorrow we were told that, after all, the Earth is flat? It would probably be the most important piece of news in the media and would generate a lot of debate. So why is it that when scientists who have studied the Global Warming phenomenon for years say that humans are not the cause nobody listens? Why does no one acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes on?
Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification. For example, Environment Canada brags about spending $3.7 billion in the last five years dealing with climate change almost all on propaganda trying to defend an indefensible scientific position while at the same time closing weather stations and failing to meet legislated pollution targets.
No sensible person seeks conflict, especially with governments, but if we don't pursue the truth, we are lost as individuals and as a society. That is why I insist on saying that there is no evidence that we are, or could ever cause global climate change. And, recently, Yuri A. Izrael, Vice President of the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this statement. So how has the world come to believe that something is wrong?
Maybe for the same reason we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat: a matter of faith. "It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species," wrote Lowell Ponte in 1976.
I was as opposed to the threats of impending doom global cooling engendered as I am to the threats made about Global Warming. Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.
Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.
No doubt passive acceptance yields less stress, fewer personal attacks and makes career progress easier. What I have experienced in my personal life during the last years makes me understand why most people choose not to speak out; job security and fear of reprisals. Even in University, where free speech and challenge to prevailing wisdoms are supposedly encouraged, academics remain silent.
I once received a three page letter that my lawyer defined as libellous, from an academic colleague, saying I had no right to say what I was saying, especially in public lectures. Sadly, my experience is that universities are the most dogmatic and oppressive places in our society. This becomes progressively worse as they receive more and more funding from governments that demand a particular viewpoint.
In another instance, I was accused by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki of being paid by oil companies. That is a lie. Apparently he thinks if the fossil fuel companies pay you have an agenda. So if Greenpeace, Sierra Club or governments pay there is no agenda and only truth and enlightenment?
Personal attacks are difficult and shouldn't occur in a debate in a civilized society. I can only consider them from what they imply. They usually indicate a person or group is losing the debate. In this case, they also indicate how political the entire Global Warming debate has become. Both underline the lack of or even contradictory nature of the evidence.
I am not alone in this journey against the prevalent myth. Several well-known names have also raised their voices. Michael Crichton, the scientist, writer and filmmaker is one of them. In his latest book, "State of Fear" he takes time to explain, often in surprising detail, the flawed science behind Global Warming and other imagined environmental crises.
Another cry in the wildenerness is Richard Lindzen's. He is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT, renowned for his research in dynamic meteorology - especially atmospheric waves. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has held positions at the University of Chicago, Harvard University and MIT. Linzen frequently speaks out against the notion that significant Global Warming is caused by humans. Yet nobody seems to listen.
I think it may be because most people don't understand the scientific method which Thomas Kuhn so skilfully and briefly set out in his book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." A scientist makes certain assumptions and then produces a theory which is only as valid as the assumptions. The theory of Global Warming assumes that CO2 is an atmospheric greenhouse gas and as it increases temperatures rise. It was then theorized that since humans were producing more CO2 than before, the temperature would inevitably rise. The theory was accepted before testing had started, and effectively became a law.
As Lindzen said many years ago: "the consensus was reached before the research had even begun." Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing wisdom is marginalized and called a sceptic, when in fact they are simply being good scientists. This has reached frightening levels with these scientists now being called climate change denier with all the holocaust connotations of that word. The normal scientific method is effectively being thwarted.
Meanwhile, politicians are being listened to, even though most of them have no knowledge or understanding of science, especially the science of climate and climate change. Hence, they are in no position to question a policy on climate change when it threatens the entire planet. Moreover, using fear and creating hysteria makes it very difficult to make calm rational decisions about issues needing attention.
Until you have challenged the prevailing wisdom you have no idea how nasty people can be. Until you have re-examined any issue in an attempt to find out all the information, you cannot know how much misinformation exists in the supposed age of information.
I was greatly influenced several years ago by Aaron Wildavsky's book "Yes, but is it true?" The author taught political science at a New York University and realized how science was being influenced by and apparently misused by politics. He gave his graduate students an assignment to pursue the science behind a policy generated by a highly publicised environmental concern. To his and their surprise they found there was little scientific evidence, consensus and justification for the policy. You only realize the extent to which Wildavsky's findings occur when you ask the question he posed. Wildavsky's students did it in the safety of academia and with the excuse that it was an assignment. I have learned it is a difficult question to ask in the real world, however I firmly believe it is the most important question to ask if we are to advance in the right direction.

Dr. Tim Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (www.nrsp.com), is a Victoria-based environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. He can be reached at letters@canadafreepress.com

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

You have got to be kidding me. Super Bowl Ads of Cartoonish Violence, Perhaps Reflecting Toll of War.

"No commercial that appeared last night during Super Bowl XLI directly addressed Iraq, unlike a patriotic spot for Budweiser beer that ran during the game two years ago. But the ongoing war seemed to linger just below the surface of many of this year’s commercials.
More than a dozen spots celebrated violence in an exaggerated, cartoonlike vein that was intended to be humorous, but often came across as cruel or callous.
For instance, in a commercial for Bud Light beer, sold by Anheuser-Busch, one man beat the other at a game of rock, paper, scissors by throwing a rock at his opponent’s head.
In another Bud Light spot, face-slapping replaced fist-bumping as the cool way for people to show affection for one another. In a FedEx commercial, set on the moon, an astronaut was wiped out by a meteor. In a spot for Snickers candy, sold by Mars, two co-workers sought to prove their masculinity by tearing off patches of chest hair.
There was also a bank robbery (E*Trade Financial), fierce battles among office workers trapped in a jungle (CareerBuilder), menacing hitchhikers (Bud Light again) and a clash between a monster and a superhero reminiscent of a horror movie (Garmin).
It was as if Madison Avenue were channeling Doc in “West Side Story,” the gentle owner of the candy store in the neighborhood that the two street gangs, the Jets and Sharks, fight over. “Why do you kids live like there’s a war on?” Doc asks plaintively. (Well, Doc, this time, there is.)
During other wars, Madison Avenue has appealed to a yearning for peace."

This kind of absurd tripe is how you end up losing $648 million in one quarter.

>>

On another note- I have never minded Peyton, he always seemed like the goofy everyman.
But good gravy, could they honestly hype him anymore?

Forget his first five amazing games, the six good ones and 5 bad games. let's talk playoffs: grossman had a 75 QB passer rating in the playoffs. 10 points higher than what Manning threw in the playoffs. Grossman has thrown less interceptions than Manning in the playoffs and had some impressive and crucial 20+ yard throws against Seattle to win the game.

The convocation for the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting was delivered today by Shi’ite Imam Husham Al-Husainy, of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn, Michigan, and it’s amazing what this spiritual leader managed to get away with saying, in front of America’s Democrat leadership: Video: Imam prays to stop ‘oppression and occupation’ at DNC meeting.

In the name of God the most merciful, the most compassionate. We thank you, God, to bless us among your creations. We thank you, God, to make us as a great nation. We thank you God, to send us your messages through our father Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Mohammed. Through you, God, we unite. So guide us to the right path. The path of the people you bless, not the path of the people you doom. Help us God to liberate and fill this earth with justice and peace and love and equality. And help us to stop the war and violence, and oppression and occupation. Ameen.

“Not the path of the people you doom?”
No one in attendance thought this was a bit ... odd?
Robert Spencer has a good post showing that this statement is right in line with Islamic doctrine.
And Debbie Schlussel has much more information on Imam Al-Husainy. The religious figure chosen by the Democrats to open their meeting is a supporter of Hizballah, Hamas, the Ayatollah Khomeini, and Yasser Arafat.
Which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Watched this last night after buying it for a buck. Hilarious.

"I like to kiss it, I like to suck it, I'll take a shit in a bucket!"

or

"Blood is dripping, you be slippin, bitch's panties I be rippin"

Freund: The Straightforward Arithmetic of Jihad
Michael Freund drops the touchy-feely “tiny minority” nonsense and takes a look at The straightforward arithmetic of the global jihad.

It’s time we open our eyes and confront reality. Ever since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the media has sought to reassure us that only a tiny minority of Muslims actually support the use of violence against Israel and the West.
It’s just a small fringe, a marginal few at best, they tell us, so don’t worry about it all too much. One percent or three percent - who cares? Just sit back, enjoy your morning eggs and coffee and have a nice day.
But a look at the numbers tells a very different story. The extent of support for global jihad is frightening in its proportions, and the numbers are anything but insignificant.
Consider, for example, the following statistics regarding support for suicide bombings and other types of terror attacks.
In a poll conducted five months ago, and broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4 TV, nearly 25% of British Muslims said the July 7, 2005, terror bombings in London, which killed 52 innocent commuters, were justified. Another 30% said they would prefer to live under strict Islamic Sharia law rather than England’s democratic system.
Now, one in four justifying terror may not be a majority, but it certainly isn’t a “small fringe” either.
In other countries, the figures are no less unsettling. A survey published in December found that 44% of Nigerian Muslims believe suicide bombing attacks are “often” or “sometimes” acceptable. Only 28% said they were never justified.
According to the annual Pew Global Attitudes Survey, released in July 2006, “roughly one-in-seven Muslims in France, Spain and Great Britain feel that suicide bombings against civilian targets can at least sometimes be justified to defend Islam.” The report also found that less than half of Jordan’s Muslims believe terror attacks are never justified. In Egypt, only 45% of Muslims say terror is never justified.
Still think only a “tiny minority” are in favor of violence?