Articles referred to in recent Programs ( last updated 28 July 2010)

NEW!! The pathological hierarchy of humbug

(28July2010) “……The great and wise Professor Philip Stott, who has painstakingly charted the anthropogenic global warming scam since it burst into public consciousness more than two decades ago, has penned some reflections on the cause of such epidemic derangement. Depicting it as the grand narrative that human greed and profligacy are changing the world's climate apocalyptically, a sin that can only be appeased through public confession and self-sacrifice to the Goddess, Gaia-- a  Grand Narrative that has now spectacularly collapsed before our eyes, even though certain politicians are as ever well behind the curve and are currently stranded alongside the professionally compromised activists who will never admit their epic error --  Stott observes that an explanation for the phenomenon can be provided by the psychological theory of Maslow's ‘hierarchy of needs.'……” The pathological hierarchy of humbug , Melanies Phillips/ Professor Philip Stott, Spectator    “…..As our basic needs are fulfilled and life gets more secure, so we place more emphasis on higher tiers. This rationalises our increasingly rights-based culture and the rise and entrenchment of environmentalism in everyday life. Subsistence farmers or poor labourers have more pressing needs to fulfil. But the obverse of this is that, as short-term, pressing threats are lifted, we have time to focus on longer-term or less urgent ones…..It appears that, the higher we move up the Maslow pyramid, the greater is our need for theoretical, manufactured, future ‘catastrophes'. ‘Global warming' thus comprised the classic ‘need' of the ‘loads-of-money' generation. But, we are now plunging back to reality, so that we no longer require this particular ‘catastrophe' for our psychological fulfilment. Of course, new ‘catastrophes' will surely arise to replace it, and they are already doing so, in the guise of food and energy security, and genetic choices, among many others….. The modern activist wants jam with everything. Well-heeled Greens rail against capitalism and technological progress while personally benefiting hugely from their unique bounty. In similar vein, militant atheists rail against Judeo-Christian ethics while wanting to retain the human rights these codes have uniquely bestowed upon western society. As such, maybe Maslow's ‘hierarchy of needs' might be refined for the western intelligentsia to become a ‘hierarchy of humbug'……”  

NEW!! Desperate days for the warmists

(25July2010) “......Ever more risibly desperate become the efforts of the believers in global warming to hold the line for their religion, after the battering it was given last winter by all those scandals surrounding the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. One familiar technique they use is to attribute to global warming almost any unusual weather event anywhere in the world. Last week, for instance, it was reported that Russia has recently been experiencing its hottest temperatures and longest drought for 130 years. The head of the Russian branch of WWF, the environmental pressure group, was inevitably quick to cite this as evidence of climate change, claiming that in future "such climate abnormalities will only become more frequent". He didn't explain what might have caused the similar hot weather 130 years ago.... Administration (NOAA) has been trumpeting that, according to its much-quoted worldwide temperature data, the first six months of this year were the hottest ever recorded. But expert analysis on Watts Up With That, the US science blog, shows that NOAA's claimed warming appears to be strangely concentrated in those parts of the world where it has fewest weather stations. In Greenland, for instance, two of the hottest spots, showing a startling five-degree rise in temperatures, have no weather stations at all......” Desperate days for the warmists , Christopher Booker, The Telegraph “......A second technique the warmists have used lately to keep their spirits up has been to repeat incessantly that the official inquiries into the "Climategate" scandal have cleared the top IPCC scientists involved of any wrongdoing, and that their science has been "vindicated". But, as has been pointed out by critics like Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit, this is hardly surprising, since the inquiries were careful not to interview any experts, such as himself, who could have explained just why the emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were so horribly damaging. The perfunctory report of the Science Appraisal Panel, chaired by Lord Oxburgh, examined only 11 papers produced by the CRU, none of them remotely connected to what the fuss was all about.... A third technique, most familiar of all, has been to fall back on the dog-eared claim that leading sceptics only question warmist orthodoxy because they have been funded by "Big Oil" and the "fossil fuel industry"......Even the big oil companies have long been putting their real money into projects dedicated to showing how they are in favour of a "low-carbon economy". In 2002 Exxon gave $100 million to Stanford University to fund research into energy sources needed to fight global warming. BP, which rebranded itself in 2004 as "Beyond Petroleum", gave $500 million to fund similar research.... Compare the funding received by a handful of think-tanks to the hundreds of billions of dollars lavished on those who speak for the other side by governments, foundations, multinational corporations, even Big Oil, and the warmists are winning hands down. But only financially: they are not winning the argument......”

NEW!! Proof that Gillard brought in the boats that Howard stopped

(25July2010) From The Adrew Bolt Blog Proof that Gillard brought in the boats that Howard stopped

NEW!! Palestinians in the Arab world: Why the silence??

(23July2010) “.....When was the last time the United Nations Security Council met to condemn an Arab government for its mistreatment of Palestinians? How come groups and individuals on university campuses in the US and Canada that call themselves "pro-Palestinian" remain silent when Jordan revokes the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians? The plight of Palestinians living in Arab countries in general, and Lebanon in particular, is one that is often ignored by the mainstream media in West. How come they turn a blind eye to the fact that Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and many more Arab countries continue to impose severe travel restrictions on Palestinians? And where do these groups and individuals stand regarding the current debate in Lebanon about whether to grant Palestinians long-denied basic rights, including employment, social security and medical care? Or have they not heard about this debate at all? Probably not, since the case has failed to draw the attention of most Middle East correspondents and commentators. A news story on the Palestinians that does not include an anti-Israel angle rarely makes it to the front pages of Western newspapers....” Palestinians in the Arab world: Why the silence? , Khaled Abu Toameh “..... Can someone imagine what would be the reaction in the international community if Israel tomorrow passed a law that prohibits its Arab citizens from working as taxi drivers, journalists, physicians, cooks, waiters, engineers and lawyers? Or if the Israeli Ministry of Education issued a directive prohibiting Arab children from enrolling in universities and schools? But who said that the Lebanese authorities have not done anything to "improve" the situation? In fact, the Palestinians living in that country should be grateful to the Lebanese government. Until 2005, the law prohibited Palestinians from working in 72 professions. Now the list of jobs has been reduced to 50. Still, Palestinians are not allowed to work as physicians, journalists, pharmacists or lawyers in Lebanon...... Rami Khouri, a prominent Lebanese journalist, wrote in The Daily Star that "all Arab countries mistreat millions of Arab, Asian and African foreign guest workers, who often are treated little better than chattel or indentured laborers…The mistreatment, abysmal living conditions and limited work, social security and property rights of the Palestinians [in Lebanon] are a lingering moral black mark." Foreign journalists often justify their failure to report on the suffering of Palestinians in the Arab world by citing "security concerns" and difficulty in obtaining an entry visa into an Arab country.  But these are weak and unacceptable excuses given the fact that most of them could still write about these issues from their safe offices and homes in New York, London and Paris. Isn't that what most of them are anyway doing when they are write about the situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip?

NEW!! Gillard plan for power

(22July2010) Comrade Julia Gillard explains her plan to use Labor as a Trojan horse for the far Left's agenda:   “... For the Left to make any real advance all these perspectives on the relationship to Labor in government need to be rejected in favour of a concept of strategic support for Labor governments. We need to recognise the only possibility for major social change is under a long period of Labor administration. Within that administration the Left needs to be willing to participate to shape political outcomes, recognising the need to except (sic) often unpalatable compromises in the short term to bolster the prospect of future advance. The task of pushing back the current political constraints by changing public opinion would need to be tackled by the Left through government, social movements and trade unions...” That comes from a document Gillard wrote for the communist-formed Socialist Forum group which she helped to run, despite now claiming she was just a part-time “typist”. Gillard plan for power  It's clear from Gillard's writings that she sees the Socialist Forum not as a mere “debating society” (another false claim), but as an activist group that would infiltrate Labor to push its own socialist agenda.  Well, her plan seems to be running to schedule so far. Of course, maybe she's changed her mind about her far-Left agenda in the past few years, but I'd believe that more if she didn't tell so many untruths about what she was up to .  As it is, I'm inclined to suspect Labor has a cuckoo in its nest.

NEW!! Eminent Physicists Skeptical of AGW

(22July2010) “....The guys at Popular Tech have created  a v ery nice list of Eminent Physicists Skeptical of AGW.  They've put together seven names of eminent scientists who are skeptical of man-made climate catastrophe, along with their stellar biographies and quotes. It tells us nothing about the climate, but before you write it off as just a fallacious appeal to authority, ponder that these eminent people are the same people that teenage tree-huggers would call “deniers”. “....To see just how mindlessly puerile “denier” is, try the thought experiment of putting those-who-use-it in the same room as one of the more notable “deniers”. Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard used “denier” 11 times in one recent speech . So imagine she's in a room talking with, say, Ivar Giaever. She studied arts and law, he got a PhD in theoretical physics two years before she was born, and won a Nobel Prize by the time she was nine. Picture him talking atmospheric physics and her telling him he's a denier .....”

NEW!! Too late to save Britain it's time to emigrate

(20July2010) “.....Part of me feels that those who have helped to bring the country down — venal politicians, false educators, degraders of the media, thieving privatisers of the public domain — need to be fought to a standstill, here on this battlefield, by those with the energy, strength and clarity of mind to do so. For no one wants to believe that the country of his birth, language, upbringing and way of thinking cannot be redeemed. But the thousands, and tens of thousands, leaving Britain — another million and more will be gone in the next five years, the largest category of them the young, the skilled, the professional — are not wrong. The country's dilapidation has gone too far. Britain has been impoverished by the mismanagement of the national economy, the running down of manufacturing, and the voraciousness of free-market ethics....It might be treason to leave if there was a real nation to betray. In the era of the ‘global market', with its flux of capital, goods and labour, there isn't. And most, whether they are staying, leaving, or merely thinking of going, know it. British citizenship signifies less today than at any time in its history....” Too late to save Britain it's time to emigrate , David Selbourne, The Spectator “.....Britain is also an increasingly tough place for young people, let down by the education system, harmed by familial breakdown, with shrinking opportunity and an infernal housing situation. But it is not a happy land in which to grow old either. In 1927, André Maurois wrote that ‘in all countries old age is a virtue in a public man, but especially in England'. Can that be said now? Of course not....in the last few decades, and at accelerating pace, a great unravelling has taken place in Britain, a free country degraded by its freedoms. And ‘business as usual' will serve the British national interest no more than Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers have served the world economy, or BP's practices have served the people of Louisiana and Florida..... The country's broadly shared values rested, among other things, on convention, on common law and custom, on a sense of community despite social inequality, on respect for public service and on a belief in the work ethic. They have not survived the self-degrading moral and market free-for-all which has been unleashed upon the land. It has reduced the citizen to a mere customer and consumer, and has invited so many free-loaders... In a country that does not know what it once was, or where it is going next, the re-branded and ‘modernised' mainstream parties — which once represented values as well as interests — have also lost their way (and their memberships) on the ‘centre ground'; Labour no longer represents labour, Conservatives do not wish to conserve, and Liberal Democrats appear to have no principles at all. The parties have become indistinct....There is no utopia on earth, and other free and too-free societies are not in good shape. But few have squandered their inheritance as rapidly as Britain, few have been so self-harming.....”

NEW!! West's failure of nerve is a win for Islamic terrorism

(20July2010) “.....The West has just confirmed the central fear about why it is ill-suited to deal with the Islamic fundamentalists who seek to destroy it. The fear? That extremists will fight for their dream as long as they're alive, but the West will fight only as long as the opinion polls hold up. Even before the coalition forces in Afghanistan have been able to demonstrate a single success from their new counter-insurgency strategy, their governments are about to announce their withdrawal. Even as US forces are still building towards their peak ''surge'' strength in August, the political leadership has decided to abandon the fight. Today, the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is expected to announce agreement among the 46-nation coalition that combat forces will withdraw by 2014....The announcement seems reasonable on its face, but in reality it is tantamount to a declaration of surrender. It represents a threshold declaration that the West does not have the strength of purpose or the stamina to meet its stated goal of depriving the violent, repressive international jihadists of a territorial base from which to operate. It means the Taliban and its al-Qaeda ally are succeeding in their strategy of ''discredit, exhaust, inherit....” West's failure of nerve is a win for Islamic terrorism, Peter Hartcher, The Sydney Morning Herald “.....Although the full consequences of this moment will not be evident for years, it is an unmistakeable sign of the strategic fickleness of the great Western powers. It sends the strongest signal across all contested political territories of the world that they cannot depend on the strength of the West...Of course, the Western politicians meeting in Kabul today will fall over themselves to tell us the withdrawal will be strictly ''conditions-based and phased''. But it's just an unseemly political retreat that bears no relation to the successful progress of the allied strategy on the ground...The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, described the forthcoming Kandahar assault as ''the cornerstone of our surge effort and the key to shifting the momentum''. So even with the strategy, the surge and the ''cornerstone'' still in serious doubt, the West is announcing its withdrawal date. This is clearly not a serious commitment to a task. It is plainly a retreat in the face of a failure of political will. Afghanistan is the field, but this is not about Afghanistan. It's about the strength of purpose of the West and its credibility. It is in the very act of failing on both.....”

NEW!! Climate Change Timeline – 1895-2009

(20July2010) There is most certainly a pattern to climate change…But it's not what you may think: For at least 114 years, climate “scientists” have been claiming that the climate was going to kill us…but they have kept switching whether it was a coming ice age , or global warming .Climate Change Timeline – 1895-2009

'Times Square Bomber' appears in video justifying actions (16July2010)

Before moving forward, have a look in the rear-view mirror

(16July2010) “.......Julia Gillard's address to the Lowy Institute last week was titled " Moving Australia forward ", one of the cliches of our time. No doubt it will be given a thorough workover before the election. In the interests of formulating policy on the contentious issues of immigration, refugees, asylum seekers, unauthorised boat arrivals and all that, it is appropriate to look backwards and confront some prevailing myths. The exaggerated, and sometimes intolerant, comments by opponents of asylum seekers are a matter of public record. But asylum-seeker advocates, who inflate figures and fudge history, do not help the cause of rational debate. In The Age last Wednesday Julian Burnside, QC, wrote: "It is easy to forget that the Fraser government received about 25,000 Indochinese 'boat people' each year, without a murmur from the community". Both comments contain significant errors. That evening Paul Barclay, presenter of the Radio National program Australia Talks , elaborated on the Burnside claim by asserting "during Malcolm Fraser's government 25,000 refugees arrived by boat per year and there was bipartisan support for it". This is hopelessly wrong. Now for some facts .... In 1976, the first year of Fraser's government, 111 people arrived by unauthorised boats. As the former prime minister acknowledges in Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs , by the end of his government almost 70,000 refugees "had settled in the country, only 2059 of whom were boat people". In other words, the figures cited by Burnside and Barclay are simply incorrect......” Before moving forward, have a look in the rear-view mirror , Gerard Henderson, The Sydney Institute “...... About 97 per cent of Indochinese who settled in Australia during Fraser's prime ministership were processed in offshore centres in such places as Indonesia and the Philippines and arrived by air with valid visas. One of the reasons there was so little opposition to Indochinese refugees in the late 1970s and early 1980s turned on the fact their arrival was authorised..... As the former Whitlam minister Clyde Cameron pointed out in his book China, Communism and Coca-Cola , Gough Whitlam said the would not tolerate "f------ Vietnamese Balts coming to this country with their religious and political hatreds".....On Sky News on July 4 the GetUp! activist Amanda Tattersall alleged the Howard government's decision to turn boats around led "350 people [to] die on the Siev X". This is wrong and a grievous insult to the navy. The Senate Select Committee for an Inquiry into a Certain Maritime Incident, which included Senator John Faulkner, found no evidence "for believing that negligence or dereliction of duty was committed in relation to Siev X". Last week the Prime Minister announced her government was discussing with East Timorese leaders the possibility of establishing a regional processing centre for asylum seekers. Labor is responding to a spike in unauthorised boat arrivals of about 2750 last year and about 3000 this year so far....Despite the current emotion, offshore processing has worked in the past and it may work again. A sense of history should be of assistance in helping to resolve the matter.....”

How the mining tax revision turned into secret goalpost-shifting business

(12July2010)“.....Tony Abbott is right. Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan have grossly misled the public on the cost of their abject surrender to the three big mining companies over the former resource super profits tax. They claimed that almost halving the rate of the tax - from 40 per cent to an effective 22.5 per cent - and making various other concessions demanded by the companies would reduce tax collections by just $1.5 billion over its first two years - a mere 12.5 per cent of the originally budgeted $12 billion. How was that always unbelievably small cost achieved? Partly by shifting the goalposts.... Let's be clear: there's nothing wrong with the government using more up-to-date specifications when it redoes its budget figuring. No, the crime is to do so without acknowledgement, let alone without indicating the value of the changes. Coming from a treasurer, this isn't tricky behaviour, it is dishonesty.....” How the mining tax revision turned into secret goalpost-shifting business , Ross Gittins. Sydney Morning Herald  “..... But the other part of the sleight of hand is to change the tax in ways that have implications over many years, then tell us only about the first two. So again we're forced to rely on figuring by outsiders lacking the Treasury's knowledge....The original tax's now-abandoned guarantee to pick up 40 per cent of losses was of little value to the big boys, but (despite their claims to the contrary) of great value to the new small boys (as was also the now-abandoned plan to give a refundable rebate rather than a simple deduction for exploration costs). Whereas under the original tax 2500 firms would have been affected, now only about 320 will be. But this means about 2200 mining companies will now not be relieved of paying state royalties. This greatly reduces the economic efficiency gain from the new tax because so many miners will remain subject to royalties based on volume or price, not profits. Well done....”

Bid for Islamic teachings

(11July2010) “.....Every Australian school student would be taught positive aspects about Islam and Muslims - and that Australia is a racist country - under a proposal by an education think tank. The plan is outlined in the Learning From One Another: Bringing Muslim Perspectives into Australian Schools booklet, published during the week by the Australian Curriculum Studies Association and the University of Melbourne's Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies. It says there is a "degree of prejudice and ignorance about Islam and Muslims", and Australian students must be taught to embrace difference and diversity....... Its authors are offering free seminars to teachers, which promise to "provide avenues for you to introduce Islam- and Muslim-related content in your classrooms" and "equip you with the skills to meet the needs and expectations of Muslim students in a multi-faith classroom" But education experts have branded it a biased and one-sided approach that ignores Australia's Christian heritage and Western culture....." Bid for Islamic teachings , Herald Sun “....The book fails to mention the terrorist nature of such Islamic fundamentalists or describe their terrorist acts like the Bali bombings," education consultant Dr Kevin Donnelly said. "Ignored is what some see as the inherently violent nature of the Koran, where devout Muslims are called on to carry out jihad and to convert non-believers, and the destructive nature of what is termed dhimmis - where non-believers are forced to renounce their religion, are discriminated against and forced to accept punitive taxation laws.... ACSA executive director Catherine Schoo said the booklet was misunderstood "This is simply a resource for non-Muslim teachers who may want to improve their understanding of issues Muslims face in Australian schools," she said....”.

Children won't be left to drown....How about Gillard?

(7July2010) “....How stupid does Julia Gillard think "redneck central'' is? She can't honestly believe voters in marginal electorates will fall for her election-eve volte-face on asylum seekers, unveiled in a speech this week to the Lowy Institute. She can't honestly believe they will be grateful for her patronising defence of them as not being the racist, bigoted "rednecks" refugee advocates such as Julian Burnside say they are. Especially while she bent over backwards to praise him as: ''Prominent Australian, Julian Burnside, QC, an eminent lawyer, much respected in our community.'' Everyone knows that it was the Labor policies crafted by Julia Gillard, when she was shadow immigration minister, that turned a trickle of about three unauthorised boat arrivals a year into an escalating three boats a week, leading to more than 150 drowning deaths of asylum seekers along the way, and almost 600 children currently in detention. But after years of vilifying conservatives for supporting the Howard government policies that stopped the flow of boats, Labor thinks it can turn around within weeks of an election, without admitting they were wrong, and create their own version of a ''Pacific solution''.....” Children won't be left to drown....How about Gillard? Miranda Devine. Sydney Morning Herald  “.....Gillard is kidding if she thinks she can suddenly undo all the vile distortions and character assassinations of the past, which caused so much division and unpleasantness in the nation.....Now we see, as we always knew anyway, the bullies couldn't care less about asylum seekers. They were using the issue as a battering ram against their opponents. And it worked. Nice, well-meaning people started to believe there was something wrong with conservatives - they were hard-hearted and cruel. Thus came the rise of the doctors' wives. Now all the usual suspects who pummelled the Howard government are lining up to support Gillard...The generous view is that all those who vilified conservatives as racists and bigots during the Howard era have realised they were mistaken. They will never have the grace to admit it. But those who were vilified and treated as rednecks are not so easily conned. Voters have long memories, too....”

What is an Extreme Conservative?

Conservatives too often are tagged as 'extremists', writes Senator Cory Bernardi.

(7July2010) “......Apparently conservatives are now regarded as extremists, or so I was told via email yesterday. In a thinly veiled insult, I was identified as an extreme conservative for daring to speak publicly of my political and personal views. In times gone past there was nothing unusual about advocating for the natural order of things or defending the wisdom of the ages. In fact the extremist tag was historically given to those who sought to overthrow the existing order. Somehow, over the past few decades, the radical is no longer the aberration but seems to have become the norm.... This has placed the conservative in the awkward position of becoming tagged as the 'extremist'. As the epithet has been directed at me, I thought it might be wise to examine briefly some of my beliefs that cause such consternation among the political left... Yes I am an advocate for smaller government and believe that government should stick to its core responsibilities..... I also believe in lower taxes. Firstly because I don't think government spends your money as well as you can, but also because individuals need incentives to work and invest.... I believe that there is actually right and wrong and that moral relativism eventually dooms a society (and a nation) to mediocrity and dysfunction.....” What is an Extreme Conservative , Senator Cory Bernardi “.... Our moral and legal foundation is based on the Judeo-Christian tradition and regardless of whether one is of faith or not, this tradition has served us well... This tradition was also at the very foundation of our constitution. This enduring document details the separation of powers, the rights and obligations of every citizen and is the basis of our robust democracy. As such, I endorse the existing constitutional arrangements as vital to the peace and stability we have enjoyed for the past 110 years... Finally, the one thing that seems to get the most hostile and virulent response is my refusal to subscribe to the anthropogenic climate change alarmism. I know thousands of people are making billions of dollars out of this racket but that is not a good reason to suspend common sense and responsible scientific analysis. The more often the alarmists are shown to be disingenuous, manipulative and outright liars, the more vicious and nasty they become. Perhaps Shakespeare should have written "Hell hath no fury like an alarmist exposed!.....”.

 

NEW!! Europe in Twilight

(6July2010)“......It is not too incredible to imagine that within a century, German, the language of Goethe, Schiller and Mann, may become a dead language. That is already the almost certain fate of the Swedish and Norwegian languages. French, Spanish and English will survive as the pidgin languages of distant colonies, but in their own capital cities, these languages are swiftly becoming transformed into dialects, crossbred with Middle Eastern and African intonations and jargon to become increasingly alien to their own origins. In hardly two generations we have moved from a world dominated by Europe, to one in which the peoples that not too long ago formed its ruling civilization may become extinct. The nations of Europe are caught between the economic unsustainability of socialism and the political fortunes of its overlords, who have built entire economic castles of cards on government entitlements and guest workers. The European Union has been proven to be unworkable, even as an authoritarian organization. It may survive, but like all overly enthusiastic parasites, its survival would only serve to quicken its host's doom... The One-Worldism that once so animated European socialists is conceptually dead. The European Union is its last gasp, and the international organizations erected in desperate fits of optimism from the UN on down, have become a sham of a farce, unfit to do anything but promote the agendas of the most brutal and power hungry regimes.... Europe's leaders surrendered their national identities and cultures bit by bit, expecting to find some new Utopian society on the other end. Instead all they found was debt and savagery. Socialism slashed the birth rate and hiked the budget. The immigrants and guest workers who were brought in to compensate for both, only inflated the budget further and fixed the birth rate in their own direction. England and France left behind their colonies, only to have those colonies follow them home, like ownerless dogs turned feral. And Europe's governments pretended that this was the best of all worlds. After all European culture and national sovereignty were being stamped out, but it was being replaced with a new identity. Not European, not post-National, but Islamic...” Europe in Twilight , Daniel Greenfield. Canada Free Press “...... By abandoning its identities, Europe abandoned any form of meaningful self-definition.... To fight for a nation, its citizens must see it as a meaningful part of their identity.... And so today Europe is in twilight, its sun has set and the shadows have grown. Huddled shapes are massing, gathering their forces and preparing for Europe's long night. A night it may never wake from. Burning cars and burqas, mosques and medieval mores being enforced again in Republics that had prided themselves on their showy modernism, The vandals of London and Paris, Brussels and Rome, know exactly what they're fighting for. A new golden age of Islam, built on the looted technology and wealth of Europe. Just as the old one had been built on stolen Roman and Greek texts that had somehow escaped burning by the Islamic hordes.... Culture abhors a vacuum, and the human mind will fill in identities where they are lacking. And while Islam could not contend with the complexity of European culture, its identity is far more uncomplicated and secure. The Muslims protesting against returning English soldiers understand their identity and role in a way that the bobbies directed to keep them apart, do not. And this problem extends all the way up the trunk of government, and down again by way of the poisoned sap of appeasement. For European Muslims, there is only the decision between Jihad Now or Jihad Later When We Are In the Majority...... While the Islamists continue programming identity into regional Muslims, Europe's governments instead focus on deprogramming their own citizens..... EU members are working to strip away the remains of their national identities.  The outcome is clear. To disarm a man's identity is to take away his soul... And Europe's post-nationalism has produced a generation that despises war even more fervently than their grandparents did, despises the United States for its purported warmongering even while living on a diet of American culture, and prides itself on tolerance for immigrants and refugees. Even self-interest can only move them so far, considering that they have been taught that self-interest is a dirty word. (Along with unilateralism and colonialism, but not Communism.) But renewal can only come from identity, for people to wake up and fight for their rights, they must first know who they are, so that they will believe that their rights are worth fighting for.....”

NEW!! Green Laws and dead business

(6July2010) From the Andrew Bolt Blog : First it was Peter Spencer from Cooma NSW now it's Matt and Janet Thompson, beef producers from Narrogin in Western Australia . It is quite unbelievable that this can happen in Australia , that bureaucrats having granted a licence can then change the terms and conditions of that licence and send a very successful family business employing 20 people to the wall.  Meanwhile, governments sit back and do nothing.      Green Laws and dead business

NEW!! Climategate was 'a game-changer' in science reporting, say climatologists

(5July2010) “.....This Wednesday sees the publication of the Muir Russell report into the conduct of scientists from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) , whose emails caused a furore in November after they were hacked into and published online. Critics say the emails reveal evasion of freedom of information law, secret deals done during the writing of reports for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a cover-up of uncertainties in key research findings and the misuse of scientific peer review to silence critics...."The release of the emails was a turning point, a game-changer," said Mike Hulme, professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia . "The community has been brought up short by the row over their science. Already there is a new tone. Researchers are more upfront, open and explicit about their uncertainties, for instance." And there will be other changes, said Hulme.....” Climategate was 'a game-changer' in science reporting, say climatologists, Guardian.co.uk “.....The emails made him reflect how "astonishing" it was that it had been left to individual researchers to police access to the archive of global temperature data collected over the past 160 years. "The primary data should have been properly curated as an archive open to all."......The climate scientist most associated with efforts to reconciling warring factions, Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said the idea of IPCC scientists as "self-appointed oracles, enhanced by the Nobel Prize, is now in tatters". The outside world now sees that "the science of climate is more complex and uncertain than they have been led to believe". Some IPCC scientists are in denial on this issue, she said, arguing that they would like to see the CRU incident as "an irrelevant blip" and to blame their problems on "a monolithic denial machine", but that won't wash....The veteran Oxford science philosopher Jerome Ravetz says the role of the blogosphere in revealing the important issues buried in the emails means it will assume an increasing role in scientific discourse.... a new generation of more sophisticated computer models is failing to reduce the uncertainties in predicting future climate, he says – rather, the reverse. "This is not what the public and politicians expect, so handling and explaining this will be difficult...”.

REPOSTED FROM MARCH 2009 interactive sea levels

I think you'll find this fascinating!!! Check the global sea levels on this interactive site from Monash University. Click here As you shift the bar to the left with your mouse you'll see how the sea levels have changed over 10's of thousands of years. Using the plus and minus tools (magnifying icon's) on the left you'll scroll back millions of years. Using the plus and minus tools on the right you can zoom in and out for the global view

REPOSTED FROM 28JULY 2008 The IPCC's False evidence of man-made global warming

The name Ben Santer has cropped up in this deluge of emails from TheClimatic Research Unit (CRU) based at the University of East Anglia. Santer features in the book by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T Avery "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred years . As you will see from these two or three pages reposted from 28th July 2008, The IPCC's False evidence of man-made global warming,  Santer has form. He singlehandedly was responsible for inserting and deleteing crucial paragraphs into the 1995 IPCC report that totally reversed what the scientists had concluded.

It's worth noting also that the Michael Mann mentioned in the emails is the same Michael Mann that was behind the fraudulent and now debunked Hockey stick graph.

 

Reposted from August 2007 Unmasking Global Warming

I have often made the case that it seems to me that the Berlin Wall didn't so much come down (and the associated ideology of The Soviet Union collapse) as just mover further west. In other words, the bricks and mortar came down but not the ideology. This article ( reposted from 5th August 2007 )  further advances that argument.

Unmasking Global Warming

(23June2010)“…The most remarkable aspect of the man-made global warming claim is the lack of solid scientific evidence for it. Yet there are those whose apparent goal it is to advance this theory at all costs. Blatant in their disregard of the facts , they try to convince as many as would believe of the real nature of this alleged danger. But since this activism does not rest on scientific evidence or hard facts, it must be driven by motives other than those publicly stated. This much at least should be obvious, but sadly far too many people have failed to make this inference….To see just what those motives may be, we need to go no further than Mikhail Gorbachev whose remarkable political transformation offers a striking insight into the true character of the man-made global warming movement. Formerly leader of the Soviet Union , Mikhail Gorbachev is now one of the world's most vocal global warming activists. This is an unlikely role indeed for a man who during his years in power showed no inclination to address environmental issues….The question is how we are to reconcile Gorbachev's past behavior of environmental destructiveness with his present-day activism….”   Unmasking Global Warming , The Case of Mikhail Gorbachev by Vasko Kohlmayer “…We would do well to ponder this, because the answer sheds light not only on a wily personal reinvention, but also on the motives of those responsible for the creation and spreading of the global warming hysteria…Gorbachev has not changed his basic ideological convictions. In other words, this life-long party apparatchik remains an unrepentant communist to this day…To remain credible, Gorbachev had to look for a more respectable platform from which to continue his efforts. This he quickly found in environmentalism and less than two years after his fall from power he founded Green Cross International , a Geneva-based eco lobby group….while even the most basic forms environmentalism have proven themselves to be a potent vehicle for advancing socialist ideals, the potential of global warming has exceeded almost all expectations in this regard…It is precisely for these reasons that the idea of man-made global warming so appeals to Mikhail Gorbachev who never did anything for the environment when he was in the position to do so…”

Grisly thud of kneecapped Rudd

(23June2010)“…..One minute Kevin Rudd was on his way to the G20 in Canada, the next he was "blubbering" his way through a farewell press conference, his stricken wife and children by his side.There may be euphoria that the new leader is the straight-talking charmer, Julia Gillard, and that she is the history-making first female prime minister. But it is overlaid with a sickening sense that something very wrong has happened, that an elected first-term prime minister has been treated shamefully, assassinated by a cabal of unionists and ALP machine men, using media leaks to accelerate a murderous frenzy that may in years to come be seen as a colossal mistake…. The accidental Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, had suddenly acquired an awesome menace. He has claimed his first scalp, and with it, a newfound authority, bestowed by the ALP….. For all Kevin Rudd's annoying quirks and policy failures, voters didn't hate him. And they are not happy at being cheated out of the right to vote out - or not - the man they voted in, judging by hundreds of grassroots comments posted on the Labor Party website….Monica of Sydney wrote: "I was looking forward to Julia Gillard becoming a PM sometime in the future … I am disgusted with the way Kevin Rudd was treated. I will not be voting for Labor eve….” Grisly thud of kneecapped Rudd Miranda Devine, Sydney Morning Herald “…..The name 'Labor' will be associated with odious behaviour especially by the NSW Mafia." Monica may, of course, forgive Gillard, with time. Refreshingly direct, with good instincts and a deft touch, the new PM is hard to dislike, and will benefit from a honeymoon with the media even though, as she admits, she shares responsibility for government errors…They are the same men who killed off the popularly elected NSW premier Morris Iemma, installed an untested, flailing unknown, Nathan Rees, and, after 15 months, knifed him and replaced him with the more appealing Keneally, who Rees described as a "puppet" in his bitter parting speech… The man pushing hardest for its dumping was none other than Senator Mark Arbib, the media-savvy former general secretary of NSW Labor, fingered this week as Rudd's chief underminer. The same Arbib who dispatched Iemma and helped finish Rees. The same Arbib who Rudd had entrusted with co-ordinating stimulus spending programs, who had weekly briefings on the disastrous home insulation program but never saw a problem…… when it all falls in a heap, and the polls turn sour, instead of mending their ways, they change leaders, with the aim of staying one step ahead of the electorate, a whole party of artful dodgers. It will backfire on them in spades. Even if they win, they lose….”

The most beautiful seatbelt advocacy commercial ever? (23June2010)

UK jihadist misunderstands Islam, says it's not a Religion of Peace (23June2010)

Canary in the Coalmine: Europe's “Decoy Jews”

(23June2010)…. “Decoy Jew” is a new phrase in the Netherlands. Jews are no longer safe in major Dutch cities such as Amsterdam. Since 1999, Jewish organizations in the Netherlands have been complaining that Jews who walk the Dutch streets wearing skullcaps risk verbal and physical attacks by young Muslims. Being insulted, spat at or attacked are some of the risks associated with being recognizable as a Jew in contemporary Western Europe. Last week, a television broadcast showed how three Jews with skullcaps, two adolescents and an adult, were harassed within thirty minutes of being out in the streets of Amsterdam. Young Muslims spat at them, mocked them, shouted insults and made Nazi salutes. “Dirty Jew, go back to your own country,” a group of Moroccan youths shouted at a young indigenous Dutch Jew. “It is rather ironic,” the young man commented, adding that if one goes out in a burka one encounters less hostility than if one wears a skullcap….” Canary in the Coalmine: Europe's “Decoy Jews” , Brusselsjournal.com “….. In an effort to arrest the culprits who terrorize Jews, the Amsterdam authorities have ordered police officers to walk the streets disguised as Jews. The Dutch police already disguise officers as “decoy prostitutes, decoy gays and decoy grannies” to deter muggings and attacks on prostitutes, homosexuals and the elderly. Apparently sending out the decoys has helped reduce street crime. The “decoy Jew” has now been added to the police attributes. The deployment of “decoy Jews”, however, is being criticized by leftist parties such as the Dutch Greens. Evelien van Roemburg, an Amsterdam counselor of the Green Left Party, says that using a decoy by the police amounts to provoking a crime, which is itself a criminal offence under Dutch law… It is often said that the Jews are the canary in the coalmine. When the Jews feel compelled to leave, the light of freedom is being extinguished. Something is badly wrong when the police need to deploy “decoy Jews.” Once again, the specter of anti-Semitism is haunting Europe. If the Europeans do not stand with the Jews, they deserve no freedom themselves and cities such as Amsterdam and Antwerp will soon be Islamic cities…..” .

Jordan is Palestine

(23June2010)“....Jordan is Palestine,' said Dutch Politician (Geert) Wilders, who heads the third-largest party in Holland. “ Changing its name to Palestine will end the conflict in the Middle East and provide the Palestinians with an alternate homeland...There has been an independent Palestinian state since 1946, and it is the kingdom of Jordan.' Wilders also called on the Dutch government to refer to Jordan as Palestine and move its embassy to Jerusalem. Wilders has spoken the big inconvenient truth. As a result, it is inevitably being dismissed as merely what ‘the right' regularly says..... But it is not untrue. It is correct. Anyone familiar with the history knows it is correct. Immediately after World War One, Palestine consisted of what is now Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The great powers dividing up the region decided that Britain should be given a mandate to administer Palestine and restore within it the historic Jewish national home. Within a couple of years, however, Winston Churchill, for reasons of realpolitik, gave away three quarters of Palestine to the Hashemite dynasty to found (Trans)Jordan (leaving all the rest to be settled by the Jews.. So Jordan is indeed Palestine....” Jordan is Palestine “.....as 'Palestinian' politician Zouhair Moussein told the Dutch newspaper Trouw in 1977: “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people..” As Camie Davis points out, the Arabs themselves repeatedly said so: Jordanians, for decades, were avid proponents of the ‘Jordan is Palestine' position.  They used that position as justification for the annexation of the West Bank, arguing that Palestine was one single, indivisible unit, and that Jordan was the legitimate governing body of Palestine... ‘We are the government of Palestine, the army of Palestine and the refugees of Palestine.' Prime Minister of Jordan, Hazza' al-Majali, 23 August 1959...‘Palestine and Transjordan are one.' King Abdullah, Arab League meeting in Cairo, 12 April 1948...'The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan.' King Hussein 1981.... It is the west's refusal to acknowledge this connection, and wholly to misrepresent instead both the history of the region and the causes of the conflict in the Middle East, which is one of the principal reasons why that murderous impasse continues to this day....”.

George Soros, Barack Obama, BP and Petrobras

(23June2010) Barack Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel once said “Never let a good crisis go to waste”  Glenn Beck joins the dots between George Soros, Barack Obama, BP and Petrobras Suddenly the left's concerns with politicians and Big Oil seem to have dissipated. As usual, follow the money...

The Mining Tax Explained, (sort of) (22June2010)

Israel and the Surrender of the West (22June2010)

“…the quickest cover for inferiority is hatred. The problem is not me; it is them. And in my victimization I enjoy a moral and human grandiosity—no matter how smart and modern my enemy is, I have the innocence that defines victims. I may be poor but my hands are clean. Even my backwardness and poverty only reflect a moral superiority, while my enemy's wealth proves his inhumanity..”

“…..The most interesting voice in all the fallout surrounding the Gaza flotilla incident is that sanctimonious and meddling voice known as "world opinion." At every turn "world opinion," like a school marm, takes offense and condemns Israel for yet another infraction of the world's moral sensibility. And this voice has achieved an international political legitimacy so that even the silliest condemnation of Israel is an opportunity for self-congratulation….This is something new in the world, this almost complete segregation of Israel in the community of nations. And if Helen Thomas's remarks were pathetic and ugly, didn't they also point to the end game of this isolation effort: the nullification of Israel's legitimacy as a nation? There is a chilling familiarity in all this. One of the world's oldest stories is playing out before our eyes: The Jews are being scapegoated again. "World opinion" labors mightily to make Israel look like South Africa looked in its apartheid era—a nation beyond the moral pale. And it projects onto Israel the same sin that made apartheid South Africa so untouchable: white supremacy. Somehow "world opinion" has moved away from the old 20th century view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a complicated territorial dispute between two long-suffering peoples. Today the world puts its thumb on the scale for the Palestinians by demonizing the stronger and whiter Israel as essentially a colonial power committed to the "occupation" of a beleaguered Third World people…...” Israel and the Surrender of the West , Shelby Steele, The Wall Street Journal “….the entire Western world has suffered from a deficit of moral authority for decades now. Today we in the West are reluctant to use our full military might in war lest we seem imperialistic; we hesitate to enforce our borders lest we seem racist; we are reluctant to ask for assimilation from new immigrants lest we seem xenophobic; and we are pained to give Western Civilization primacy in our educational curricula lest we seem supremacist. Today the West lives on the defensive, the very legitimacy of our modern societies requiring constant dissociation from the sins of the Western past—racism, economic exploitation, imperialism and so on….Our problem in the West is understandable. We don't want to lose more moral authority than we already have. So we choose not to see certain things that are right in front of us. For example, we ignore that the Palestinians—and for that matter much of the Middle East—are driven to militancy and war not by legitimate complaints against Israel or the West but by an internalized sense of inferiority. If the Palestinians got everything they want—a sovereign nation and even, let's say, a nuclear weapon—they would wake the next morning still hounded by a sense of inferiority. For better or for worse, modernity is now the measure of man. And the quickest cover for inferiority is hatred. The problem is not me; it is them. And in my victimization I enjoy a moral and human grandiosity—no matter how smart and modern my enemy is, I have the innocence that defines victims….The fervor for hatred as deliverance may not define the Muslim world, but it has become a drug that consoles elements of that world in the larger competition with the West. This is the problem we in the West have no easy solution to, and we scapegoat Israel—admonish it to behave better—so as not to feel helpless. We see our own vulnerability there….”

Cropped photo's (22June2010)

Where are the protests when Iran, North Korea or Sudan kill people?

(19June2010) “......On May 18 last year the long, bitter war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government came to an end. After tens of thousands of deaths over decades, it is believed, 40,000 Tamils died during the final few days. On January 17 this year, in Nigeria, about 300 Muslims were slaughtered by Christians. In March 500 Christians were slaughtered by Muslims. On March 26, North Korea torpedoed a South Korean ship, killing 46. On May 28, in Lahore, Pakistan, 95 members of the Ahmedi Islamic sect were killed in an attack on a mosque because they were blasphemous. A few days later six "police" machine-gunned the survivors, killing 12. Detailed lists of this year's suicide bombings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India are not available, but readers will be aware that barely a week passes without suicide bombers causing the deaths of hundreds of innocent families......Then there were the hundreds massacred after last year's Iranian elections and the 400,000 killed in Darfur in recent years.....The question that comes to mind is, did anyone notice? Most of these massacres received only a cursory glance from the media but few asked questions. Nobody demanded an independent inquiry.... There was some tut-tutting but little else. Where were the demonstrations, protests, marches and letters to the editor by those compassionate souls who demonstrate whenever brutal Western regimes commit an action of which they disapprove? They were nowhere to be seen....” Where are the protests when Iran, North Korea or Sudan kill people?  Barry Cohen, The Australian “.....Which brings us to Gaza, and the flotilla of "peace activists" who we had known for weeks would attempt to break the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of Gaza.... Having established a brutal totalitarian regime, they (Hamas) concentrated their efforts to bring about peace by firing 7000 rockets into Israel, killing 20 Israelis.... Those who had remained silent as thousands of rockets were lobbed into Israel suddenly crawled out from under their rocks screaming "disproportionate". Some of us had the bad manners to remind them that "disproportionate", had rarely been used during World War II when the Americans bombed Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Allies flattened Germany, killing 670,000. Not much proportionality there.... Israel's critics forget that Hamas is at war with Israel.The hypocrisy is breathtaking.... But the prize for the hypocrite of the century must surely go to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He accused Israel of "state terrorism, a bloody massacre" and called the attack as being "like 9/11 for Turkey"...this is a bit rich coming from a country that refuses to acknowledge or have an inquiry into the alleged genocide of one million Armenians during World War I. Nor did he mention the nonstop war between Turkey and its Kurdish minority that has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of the latter. Israel is not perfect and it makes mistakes but it is not alone... Criticise Israel, by all means, but spare us from the hypocrisy of those whose hands are 100 times more bloodied....”.

How the super tax works (17June2010)

Hamas Rises in the West

If this is in fact what the likes of Obama and his European and Australian counterparts think, apparently no one in the West is thinking very hard. The fact is that by backing Hamas against Israel, they are backing Hamas against Fatah and they are backing Iran, Syria, Turkey, Hamas and Hizbullah against Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. ...

(17June2010) “......Led by US President Barack Obama, the West has cast its lot with Hamas. It is not surprising that Obama is siding with Hamas. His close associates are leading members of the pro-Hamas Free Gaza outfit. Obama's friends, former Weather Underground = terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and William Ayres participated in a Free Gaza trip to Egypt in January. Their aim was to force the Egyptians to allow them into Gaza with 1,300 fellow Hamas supporters. Their mission was led by Code Pink leader and Obama fund-raiser Jodie Evans...... All of these people have open lines of communication not only to the Obama White House, but to Obama himself. Obama has made his sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood clear several times since entering office. The Muslim Brotherhood's progeny include Hamas, al-Qaida and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Last June, Obama infuriated the Egyptian government when he insisted on inviting leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood to attend his speech at Al Azhar University in Cairo. His administration's decision to deport Hamas deserter and Israeli counterterror operative Mosab Hassan Yousef to the Palestinian Authority where he will be killed is the latest sign of its support for radical Islam.... then of course we have the EU's call for Israel to cancel its lawful blockade of the Gaza coast. That is, the official position of the EU is that an Iranian proxy terrorist organization should be allowed to gain control over a Mediterranean port and through it, provide Iran with yet another venue from which it can launch attacks against Europe......” Hamas Rises in the West , Caroline Glick. Jerusalem Post “...... For their part, the Sunni Arabs are forced to go along with this. The Egyptian regime considers the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood took over Gaza a threat to its very survival and has been assiduously sealing its border with Gaza for some time. And yet, unable to be more anti-Hamas than the US, Australia and Europe, Mubarak is opening the border. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa's unprecedented visit to Gaza this week should be seen as a last ditch attempt by Egypt to convince Hamas to unify its ranks with Fatah. Predictably, the ascendant Hamas refused his entreaties... the Americans and the rest of the West are simply naïve. They believe that by backing Hamas, they are advancing the cause of Middle East peace.
If this is in fact what the likes of Obama and his European and Australian counterparts think, apparently no one in the West is thinking very hard. The fact is that by backing Hamas against Israel, they are backing Hamas against Fatah and they are backing Iran, Syria, Turkey, Hamas and Hizbullah against Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. They are backing the most radical actors in the region – and arguably in the world – against states and regimes they have a shared strategic interest in strengthening. There is absolutely no way this behavior advances the cause of peace.....”

Reposted from October 2007

The Muslim Brotherhood: An Association for Jihadists

(7 Oct 07) “…One of the more clandestine groups in radical Islam is the Muslim Brotherhood. Originating in Egypt in 1928, the group has been outlawed in Egypt …This radically fundamentalist Islamist group is the parent organization to some of the most violent terror groups operating today. It thrives as a pseudo professional association for terrorists while feigning legitimacy as a political movement…. The Muslim Brotherhood has become a central issue in federal court proceedings now taking place in Dallas , Texas . These proceedings involve what, until now, has been portrayed as an Islamist philanthropic organization, The Holy Land Foundation. But the Muslim Brotherhood, the Holy Land Foundation and over 300 unindicted co-conspirators are enabling and funding terrorist groups around the world with money derived from people right here in the United States …. As stated in the organization's charter and on its website, the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to install an Islamic empire ruled under Sharia Law and a Caliphate across the Muslim world and ultimately the entire world, through stages designed to “Islamisize,” incrementally, targeted nations. We can witness this very action taking place in Europe today …” The Muslim Brotherhood: An Association for Jihadists by Frank Salvato MichNews.com “…The Muslim Brotherhood has been active in the United States since the 1960s….The Muslim Brotherhood has succeeded in setting up numerous US front groups since the 1990s that should be regarded as hostile and a threat to the United States…In December 2001, the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control joined the European Union in designating the Holy Land Foundation as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group. In July of 2004, a federal grand jury in Dallas , Texas , returned a 42 count indictment against the Holy Land Foundation…. The “Ikhwan in America ” is essentially a 20 point plan to replace the American Democratic Republic with an Islamist State ruled under Sharia Law…. One key excerpt of this 20 point plan is as disturbing as it is revealing: "The process of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist Process.' The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

REPOSTED FROM SEPTEMBER 2006

ISLAMISM - BEYOND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

(10Sept 06) “….Australia has granted asylum to five men who claim their membership of an organisation accused of ties to al-Qa'ida would expose them to persecution in their home countries. The men from Syria , Egypt and India sought protection on the basis of their membership of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned in Syria and is considered the father of terrorist groups including al-Qa'ida. Osama bin Laden's right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri adopted the organisation… US terror expert Steven Emerson said the practice of allowing Muslim Brotherhood members into Australia was "extremely dangerous"… The worrying statistic is not only the number of those who were accepted by the Refugee Review Tribunal as refugees because they could prove that they belonged to the Brotherhood BUT the far greater number who were rejected because they could not do so …” ISLAMISM - BEYOND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS by Paul Stenhouse “….The Department of Immigration accepts as a datum that ‘The Muslim Brotherhood is not an extremist group…. If the Egyptian government and the Syrians – not noted for squeamishness in dealing with militant opposition – fear the Muslim Brothers then Australia would be foolish to think it knows better…The militant wing of Hamas is attached to the Brothers, and both its founders belonged to the brotherhood… If proving that you belong to the Brotherhood entitles you to refugee status in Australia , then it entitles you to citizenship also; and nothing can prevent your setting up a branch of the Brotherhood in a nearby supermarket. How can the anonymous Australian bureaucrats who decide the criteria to be applied to seekers of asylum, know that ‘the Brotherhood,' is not still  ‘work[ing] under the Islamic doctrine of "concealment" ( kitman ) in order to "Islamize" the country'? Only this time, ‘the country' is not Egypt , Syria , the Sudan , Algeria or Palestine , but Australia ….”

History Returns to Europe

“....Vienna — Walk the beautiful streets in Munich, Strasbourg, and Vienna, and you can see why Europeans thought in the last decades that they had reached the end of history. There is not a soldier to be seen. Sidewalk cafes are jammed midweek with two-hour lunch-goers. Fashion, vacations, and sex dominate the ads and billboards. Bikers, electric commuter trains, and tiny fuel-efficient cars zoom by in a green contrast to our gas-guzzling Tahoes and Yukons.... Naturally, there is a general sense of satisfied accomplishment among European social democrats. They believe that finally a quiet sameness across their continent has replaced two millennia of constant European warring and revolution. Now, everybody seems to get an apartment, a small car, a state job, a good pension and peace — and in exchange, all voice comfortable, center-left consensus politics. But beneath the genteel European Union veneer, few remember that human nature remains constant and does not give even nice Europeans a pass from its harsh laws... Suddenly, the Greek financial meltdown and the staggering debts that must be repaid alternately enraged and terrified northern-European creditors.....” History Returns to Europe , Victor Davis Hanson “..... Even the most vocal Europhiles are quietly rethinking the entire premise of a European Union that offers lavish benefits but has no sound method of paying for them..... Much is made of European multiculturalism, the continent's willingness to allow Muslims from the Middle East, Pakistan, and Turkey to live separate lives without assimilating fully into European society. But such “tolerance” reflects in part a fear of radical Islam and terrorism. For all of Europe's talk of progressive attitudes about free speech, feminism, and gay rights, such principles fade quickly when radical Muslims demand sharia law, demonize homosexuals, or threaten European cartoonists and novelists... Europeans forgot that, just because they are not looking for war, it doesn't mean that war might not look for them. In short, as a reaction to the self-destruction of Europe in World War II and the twin monsters of fascism and Communism, Europeans thought they could change human nature through the creation of an all-caring, all-wise European Union über-citizen. Instead of dealing with human sins, European wise men of the last half-century have simply declared them passé.....”

Ground Zero mosque

(7June 10) Pat Condell on Ground Zero mosque: "Is it possible to be astonished, but not surprised?"

Those troublesome Jews

(7June 10) “.....The world is outraged at Israel's blockade of Gaza. Turkey denounces its illegality , inhumanity, barbarity, etc. The usual U.N. suspects, Third World and European, join in. The Obama administration dithers.... But as Leslie Gelb , former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel -- a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself In World War II, with full international legality, the United States blockaded Germany and Japan. And during the October 1962 missile crisis, we blockaded ("quarantined") Cuba. Arms-bearing Russian ships headed to Cuba turned back because the Soviets knew that the U.S. Navy would either board them or sink them. Yet Israel is accused of international criminality for doing precisely what John Kennedy did: impose a naval blockade to prevent a hostile state from acquiring lethal weaponry.....” Those troublesome Jews Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post “.....But even more important, why did Israel even have to resort to blockade? Because, blockade is Israel's fallback as the world systematically de-legitimizes its traditional ways of defending itself -- forward and active defense.  Israel has already twice intercepted ships laden with Iranian arms destined for Hezbollah and Gaza. What country would allow that? But, if none of these is permissible, what's left? Ah, but that's the point. It's the point understood by the blockade-busting flotilla of useful idiots and terror sympathizers, by the Turkish front organization that funded it, by the automatic anti-Israel Third World chorus at the United Nations, and by the supine Europeans who've had quite enough of the Jewish problem. What's left? Nothing. The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense..... The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million -- that number again -- hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists -- Iranian in particular -- openly prepare a more final solution.....”

REPOSTED!! Pallywood

(originally posted in 2005) When watching any media coverage from the Middle East its worth keeping this 18 minute clip “Pallywood”  in mind..As you will see, a great deal of the video footage you see on the MSM is not what it seems.

 “…This website is devoted to exploring some of the problems and issues that plague modern journalism. In this age of globalization, the media has unprecedented influence on the way we see the world. And yet, whether out of misplaced good intentions, unconscious agendas and predispositions, or unwarranted faith in false information, they can get the story dramatically wrong…” I think you'll find this 18 min clip Pallywood “ According to Palestinian sources ”  particularly instructive (it's the 5th video on the left from the top of the home page).

NEW! Israel Innovation (5June 10)

NEW! Royal Society to publish guide on climate change to counter claims on exaggeration

(2June 10) “….The most prestigious group of scientists in the country was forced to act after fellows complained that doubts over man made global warming were not being communicated to the public. In particular they were unhappy that the long term effects of greenhouse gases were being oversimplified….Lord Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, admitted that the case for man-made global warming has been exaggerated in the past. He emphasised that the basic science remains sound but agreed to issue guidance so that it better reflects the uncertainties…We aim to provide the public with a clear indication of what is known about the climate system, what we think we know about it and, just as importantly, the aspects we still do not understand very well…..” Royal Society to publish guide on climate change to counter claims on exaggeration , UK Telegraph “…..The Royal Society will look again at the public communications on climate change after 43 fellows complained that so far the message has not reflected the uncertainty in the debate…..Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation said it was about time the sceptics were taken more seriously…. I think it is a very significant development in that it is no longer one or two eccentrics but a wide group of fellows so it is taken more seriously – as it should be," he said. I think it is very wise to accept that while the basic science is solid, we have no idea what is going to happen in the future…..I think it is very wise to accept that while the basic science is solid, we have no idea what is going to happen in the future…..”

Another equal opportunity employer

This unbelievable!!!! Well, not really I suppose. Just par for the course actually, now that I think about it.

From the Andrew Bolt blog Another equal opportunity employer

Barack Obama, Al Gore, Goldman Sachs, And the Greatest Swindle In Human History

(15 May 10)“….If you have ever sat back, scratching your head and wondering why the Marxists are pushing for a “ cap and trade ” bill that would not only make energy costs “ necessarily skyrocket ,” to quote Barack Obama, but do absolutely nothing to effect fictional “ climate change , ” one way or the other, you are about to find out….We have long known this Marxist idea was nothing more than a continuation of the communist desire to “ spread the wealth ” by forcibly stealing from those who create and earn, and giving to those that don't….Even Obama's boss , George Soros, got in on the act writing an essay on his website speaking to the dangers of derivatives…You are not buying a real product, or producing a benefit. Trading carbon credits can best be described as a “ sin tax ” with the “ sinner ” being able to purchase the ability to continuing “ sinning ,” without stopping the “ sinful behavior ” in any way whatsoever. You are simply redistributing wealth. In this case, those who actually produce will be forced to purchase the right to continue to produce from those who don't produce. A real triumph for the glorious communist revolution!... But stealing money from the producers, and giving it to the non-producers is only half the story. These carbon credits will have to be tracked and traded. These credits will be treated as any other commodity, and traded on the open market. This is where the Chicago Climate Exchange comes in. They will be the only exchange for trading these credits and will make hefty commissions buying and selling these credits….Gore, self-proclaimed Patron Saint of the Environment, buys his carbon off-sets from himself—the Generation Investment Management LLP, an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 with offices in London and Washington, D.C., of which he is both chairman and founding partner. The Generation Investment Management business has considerable influence over the major carbon credit trading firms that currently exist, including the Chicago Climate Exchange….” Barack Obama, Al Gore, Goldman Sachs, And the Greatest Swindle In Human History “…..It may be interesting to note that the Chicago Climate Exchange in spite of its hype, is a veritable rat's nest of cronyism. The largest shareholder in the Exchange is Goldman Sachs. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley is its honorary chairman, The Joyce Foundation, which funded the Exchange also funded money for John Ayers' Chicago School Initiatives. John is the brother of William Ayers….The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) advertises itself as “ North America's only cap-and-trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide .” Barack Obama served on the board of the Joyce Foundation from 1994 to 2002 when the CCX startup grants were issued. As president, pushing cap-and-trade is one of his highest priorities. Now isn't that special?....So lucrative does this market appear, it attracted the attention of London-based Generation Investment Management, which purchased a stake in CCX and is now the fifth-largest shareholder. As we noted last year, Gore is co-founder of Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offsets of dubious value that let rich polluters continue to pollute with a clear conscience.Other founders include former Goldman Sachs partner David Blood, as well as Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris, also of Goldman Sachs. In 2006, CCX received a big boost when another investor bought a 10% stake on the prospect of making a great deal of money for itself. That investor was Goldman Sachs, now under the gun for selling financial instruments it knew were doomed to fail….The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) is projecting a $10 trillion a year gross profit if the Obama regime's cap and tax scheme passes. It will destroy the nation's economy…..GIM, the collaboration between Al Gore and the Goldman Sachs people owns 10 percent of CCX, and it's potential $10 trillion yearly take, Goldman Sachs also owns 10 percent of CCX. This is an incredible weave of corruption, deceit, and greed…..”

Blind Ideology Is Dancing On The Grave Of Reason

“....Across a broad range of issues, the progressive intelligentsia appears to have junked the rules of evidence, objectivity and rationality in favour of fantasy, irrationality and upside-down thinking...The result is not merely that the West has become irrational. By turning truth and lies, victim and aggressor, justice and injustice upside down, it cannot even recognise, let alone deal with, the threats being mounted to its own values and civilisation....”

(15 May 10)“....In Britain, the benefits of diversity are apparently boundless. Now that the Pagan Police Association has received government recognition, police officers can take a string of pagan festivals as official holidays. These include celebrating the festival of lactating sheep, and drinking mead and dancing naked to celebrate the harvest. In court, pagan officers will be allowed to pledge to tell the truth not before God but by what "they hold sacred", including, presumably, the Sun God or Kriss Kringle, the Germanic god of yule. In Australia, as historian Keith Windschuttle has chronicled in his new book The Stolen Generations - volume three of his tireless evisceration of The Fabrication of Aboriginal History - the allegedly monstrous theft of 100,000 Aboriginal children by Australian officials just because they were Aboriginal never actually happened. In the US, when a car bomb was planted recently in New York's Times Square by a man later revealed to be a Muslim trained in bomb-making in Pakistan's Waziristan region, there was an initial stampede to declare the attempted atrocity was unconnected to Islamic terrorism.... What has Britain come to when its police officers are given leave to dance about naked? How can generations of Australians have been taught the egregious falsehood of the Stolen Generations as fact? And how many times have Tea Party members or people opposed to a piece of legislation tried to commit mass murder against their fellow Americans, compared with the number of recent attempts by Muslim terrorists? Such intellectual perversity can be understood only in the context of a far wider and profound retreat from reason throughout the West...”  Blind Ideology Is Dancing On The Grave Of Reason , Melanie Phillips, The Australian “......Across a broad range of issues, the progressive intelligentsia appears to have junked the rules of evidence, objectivity and rationality in favour of fantasy, irrationality and upside-down thinking.... "minority rights" mean activities previously marginalised or considered transgressive are now privileged through "family lifestyle choice" or multiculturalism. Dissenters from these creeds are socially and professionally ostracised. Academics are hounded as racists for upholding the true historic origins of Western civilisation. Scientists sceptical of man-made global warming find funding is withheld. And those sounding the alarm about the true scope of the Islamic jihad are demonised as warmongering neo-cons or part of a Jewish conspiracy. Such irrationality, intolerance and, indeed, bigotry run counter to the cardinal tenets of a free society based on reason and the toleration of dissent...Rather than going where the evidence leads, ideology wrenches the evidence to fit a prior idea. Not only is ideology inimical to reason, it sacrifices truth to power as it attacks those who try to uphold reality in the face of dogma.... This is because the progressive mindset believes it is synonymous with virtue itself. All opposition is therefore not just wrong but evil. Since progressives also believe anyone who opposes them is a right-winger, it follows that all dissent is right-wing and evil, and so must be shut down.... The result is not merely that the West has become irrational. By turning truth and lies, victim and aggressor, justice and injustice upside down, it cannot even recognise, let alone deal with, the threats being mounted to its own values and civilisation. With ideology eroding the principles of rationality and freedom, truth and justice on which it rests, the West is failing to understand what it is that it cannot understand, and so cannot grasp the mortal danger in which it stands....”

The Great American Power Grab

Some of  this stuff I have talked about for years, Maurice Strong in particular... (see the repost below)

(15 May 10) Glenn Beck again slots more of the pieces into place naming names and further exposing the entire Climate Change scam. The Great American Power Grab As I have often said Climate Change is a stalking horse for a much broader agenda. it's nothing to do with Climate Change but everything to do with a strict doctrinaire, (think, green fascist/Marxist) political, economic , social, and cultural change.

Re-posted from September 2008  Maurice Strong: The new guy in your future

( 27Sept 08) It's interesting to look back on this piece 11 years later in the context of the Climate Change debate and the proposed global emissions trading scheme. Maybe now people can join the dots for themselves as far as a global agenda is concerned. Too late.

“....The practice started by Strong at the 1972 conference, of cloaking the agenda in the perception of public grassroots support from NGOs, culminated in Rio in 1992, with the largest collection of NGOs ever assembled in support of Agenda 21 . Only those NGOs that were "accredited" by the U.N. Conference were permitted to attend...”

“....As a Senior Advisor to Kofi Annan, Strong will have a free hand to do what he wants while Annan takes the heat - or the praise. Strong prefers to operate in the background. He, perhaps more than any other single person, is responsible for the development of a global agenda now being implemented throughout the world.... Although various components of the global agenda are associated with an assortment of individuals and institutions, Maurice Strong is, or has been, the driving force behind them. It is essential that Americans come to know this man who has been entrusted with the task of "reforming" the U.N. - this man Maurice F. Strong... According to Elaine Dewar, author of Cloak of Green . Strong is a Socialist....Strong's cousin, Anna Louise Strong, was a Marxist, and a member of the Comintern, who spent two years with Mao and Chou En-lai. Her burial in China in 1970 was organized personally by Chou En-lai. Maurice is well received in China, partly because of his cousin's connections... Strong is also closely aligned with Mikhail Gorbachev and was a participant in Gorbachev's State of the World Forum in San Francisco in 1995. His organization, Earth Council, and Gorbachev's organization, Green Cross International, are currently developing a new "Earth Charter" for presentation to the U.N. General Assembly.... Strong was chosen to direct Earth Summit I, in Stockholm in 1972 , not for his demonstrated interest in the environment, but because the Swedish representative to the U.N. believed that only Strong, with his extensive worldwide network of friends, could get both the developed and developing nations to participate....The 1972 Stockholm Conference on Human Environment (Earth Summit I) had far more international significance than was ever reported....” Maurice Strong: The new guy in your future!   Henry Lamb, January 1997 “.....The 1972 Stockholm Conference institutionalized the environment as a legitimate concern of government, and it institutionalized NGOs as the instruments through which government could varnish its agenda with the appearance of public support....In 1983, Strong was appointed to the U.N.'s World Commission on Environment and Development, headed by Gro Harlem Brundtland, Vice President of the World Socialist Party... At a luncheon with Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson in 1986, Strong proposed another world conference on the environment to be held on the 20th anniversary of the Stockholm Conference.... As Strong organized the Rio Conference, he utilized his vast network to ensure the outcome.... The practice started by Strong at the 1972 conference, of cloaking the agenda in the perception of public grassroots support from NGOs, culminated in Rio in 1992, with the largest collection of NGOs ever assembled in support of Agenda 21 . Only those NGOs that were "accredited" by the U.N. Conference were permitted to attend .. Maurice Strong has demonstrated an uncanny ability to manipulate people, institutions, governments, and events to achieve the outcome he desires. Through his published writings and public presentations he has declared his desire to empower the U.N. as the global authority to manage a new era of global governance. He has positioned his NGO triumvirite, the IUCN, WWF, and the WRI, to varnish U.N. activity with the perception of "civil society" respectability....The fox has been given the assignment, and all the tools necessary, to repair the henhouse to his liking....”

The Narrative of Defeat

(14 May 10)“....It is now life-threatening to criticize or mock Islam in the United States of America. The creators of South Park, Viacom, and anyone associated with the production of a recent episode portraying Mohammed in a bear suit would have potentially risked life and limb if they had broadcast the original cartoon sketch. In a manner eerily reminiscent of the Danish cartoon jihad, a Brooklyn-based Muslim group called Revolution Muslim posted a threat to South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker for their "outright insult" to the prophet..... The incident underscores the unceasing efforts by Islam to silence opposition and criticism in order to advance the establishment of a worldwide caliphate under Shari'ah law. Despite incidents like these, we in the West continue to react to Islam as if it were merely another variety of religious faith. Descriptions of Islam as a "religion of peace" and as "one of the three Abrahamic faiths" proliferate, obfuscating the need for further study and shielding the immutable, intolerant, militant, murderous doctrine from discovery.... No other religion on earth exists with a holy book dominated by hatred toward non-believers. The Islamic trilogy -- the Koran, the Sira (or biography of Mohammed), and the Hadith (the words and deeds of Mohammed) -- requires jihad, the killing of infidels, as the highest form of devotion to Allah.....The Koran contains over four thousand verses of enmity toward non-believers. Over 63% of the Koran instructs Muslims to hate and avoid any association with non-Muslims. It teaches that non-Muslims should be held in contempt, killed, beheaded, humiliated, raped, enslaved, converted, or forced to pay the jizya or dhimmi tax.... Let's not lull ourselves into complacency by citing that out of 1.57 billion Muslims worldwide, many are secular or have little knowledge of Islam.....”   The Narrative of Defeat   Janet Levy, American Thinker “.....Although this may be true, that still leaves, conservatively, 10% to 15% (upwards of 235 million) of devout Muslims or jihadists who fit the description of submissive and intimidated, witting or unwitting enablers. As Mark Steyn astutely observed in America Alone , a "dominant minority" is the sole requirement for global jihad to take hold. In Mumbai, the carnage wreaked was caused by just ten people over three days. Nineteen hijackers were able to commandeer four passenger planes and murder three thousand Americans on 9/11. It doesn't take huge numbers to institute evil. In Nazi Germany, Hitler didn't win popular support in the country, but he pushed through his genocidal agenda as a passive, fearful populace looked on.....In our free society with a tradition of openly criticizing everything, even the sacred, it has now somehow become unacceptable to Islam and the heinous actions of many of its practitioners. Yet it is perfectly acceptable to criticize Christianity, Judaism, or any other religion, for that matter.. ... By comparison, in 2005, when editorial cartoons depicting Mohammed were published in a Danish newspaper, the Muslim world erupted into violence that claimed over one hundred lives and destroyed property worldwide, including four Danish embassies. Instead of reinforcing the Western value of free expression and severely punishing the actions of destructive Muslims, Westerners apologized for giving offense, censored the display of the cartoons, and cautiously monitored any future examination or critique of Islam.... Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna said,  "It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated; to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet." The work of the Muslim Brotherhood in America is "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions...."

A Nation in Denial and Deeper in Debt

After 13 years of this profligacy, millions of people in Britain now believe they have an entitlement to government assistance. The election campaign did nothing to disabuse them of this.

(13 May 10) “......For four weeks, Britain witnessed a mock general election campaign in which none of the principal parties was willing to explain what it intended to do to reduce the country's huge deficit.... on Friday, the country woke up to find it had produced a mock result in which none of the parties had sufficient seats to form a government. Just as the politicians refused during the campaign to confront the issue of spending cuts and tax rises, so the voters refused in the polling booths to give any party the power to tackle the crisis the country is facing. It is as if the entire nation is in denial......Labour lost 91 seats - more than at any time since 1931 - and ended up with just 29 per cent of the vote....After 13 years of this profligacy, millions of people in Britain now believe they have an entitlement to government assistance. The election campaign did nothing to disabuse them of this.The gap between the government's annual income and spending has grown to 12 per cent of gross domestic product, which is financed by borrowing. Interest charges alone already cost more than the entire defence budget.....” A Nation in Denial and Deeper in Debt , Peter Saunders. The Australian “...... The national debt stands at £950 billion ($1582bn), or 68 per cent of GDP...Add to this about £1 trillion of unfunded public sector pension liabilities, and don't forget the payments that will have to be made to private sector businesses, which invested in all those new schools and hospitals through public-private partnerships (the Private Funding Initiative). The BBC estimates that, putting all this together, each British household is burdened with an average of £90,000 of government debt. In Britain, if these were private individuals or business, they would be calling in the receivers... Everybody knows severe cuts are needed to get on top of this problem. During the election campaign, the governor of the Bank of England was quoted as saying that, whichever party wins, it is going to have to introduce measures so unpopular that it could find itself out of power for a generation...... And if you were an international bond dealer, looking at the scale of the country's indebtedness and the politicians reluctance to get to grips with it, would you still be putting your cash into Britain?.... this was a disastrous election result for anybody hoping Britain might avoid the Greek road to ruin.....”

Swan's dead dream

(8 May 10)From the Andrew Bolt Blog Swan's dead dream

Glenn Beck, Fox News,  blows the entire Cap and Trade scam wide open.

(4 May 10)“...The United States Government is now Crime, Incorporated. Glenn Beck has uncovered even more on the cap-and-trade scam that will blow your mind- what the hell is wrong with the rest of the media..? what cap-and-trade really means..and why it's being pushed. "

Thought police muscle up in Britain

(4 May 10)“......Britain appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state. As a sometime teacher of political science and international law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely. There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent. Nikolai Bukharin claimed one of the Bolshevik Revolution's principal tasks was "to alter people's actual psychology". Britain is not Bolshevik, but a campaign to alter people's psychology and create a new Homo britannicus is under way without even a fig leaf of disguise. The Government is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalise politically incorrect jokes, with a maximum punishment of up to seven years' prison....The Government is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalise politically incorrect jokes, with a maximum punishment of up to seven years' prison.....Countryside Restoration Trust chairman and columnist Robin Page said at a rally against the Government's anti-hunting laws in Gloucestershire in 2002: "If you are a black vegetarian Muslim asylum-seeking one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you." Page was arrested, and after four months he received a letter saying no charges would be pressed, but that: "If further evidence comes to our attention whereby your involvement is implicated, we will seek to initiate proceedings." It took him five years to clear his name....” Thought police muscle up in Britain , Hal G. P. Colebatch, The Australian “.....In September 2006, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Codie Stott, asked a teacher if she could sit with another group to do a science project as all the girls with her spoke only Urdu. The teacher's first response, according to Stott, was to scream at her: "It's racist, you're going to get done by the police!" Upset and terrified, the schoolgirl went outside to calm down. The teacher called the police and a few days later, presumably after officialdom had thought the matter over, she was arrested and taken to a police station, where she was fingerprinted and photographed..... There have been innumerable cases in recent months of people in schools, hospitals and other institutions losing their jobs because of various religious scruples, often, as in the East Germany of yore, not shouted fanatically from the rooftops but betrayed in private conversations and reported to authorities. The crime of one nurse was to offer to pray for a patient, who did not complain but merely mentioned the matter to another nurse. A primary school receptionist, Jennie Cain, whose five-year-old daughter was told off for talking about Jesus in class, faces the sack for seeking support from her church. A private email from her to other members of the church asking for prayers fell into the hands of school authorities.... Permissiveness as well as draconianism can be deployed to destroy socially accepted norms and values. The Royal Navy, for instance, has installed a satanist chapel in a warship to accommodate the proclivities of a satanist crew member.... This campaign seems to come from unelected or quasi-governmental bodies controlling various institutions, which are more or less unanswerable to electors, more than it does directly from the Government, although the Government helps drive it and condones it in a fudged and deniable manner.....”.

A note from Professor David Flint. Yet another myth about our Flag... 

(27April 10) “.....Just one of many myths pushed by the Flag changers is that our Flag is too similar to that of our sister ANZAC Realm, New Zealand. There are three significant differences. Just go to the excellent website created by Nick Hobson DFC AFC,  Australian Republic Unplugged .   Click on Flags and when the menu comes down, click on  The ANZAC Flags.
The three differences between our two Flags will be explained and illustrated. As for being confused, I have always thought how confusing all those tricolour and multi stripe flags are, and also, just how plain they are. Hobson now offers  everyone - including all of those  flag changers - the opportunity to  test how distinctive other nations' flags are. On the same page just click on Flag Tests . There are three tests. Each shows six or seven flags. You have to name each flag. Then you click on the Answers icon. It's easy and its fun. It's also embarrassing for the Flag changers. They have been well and truly exposed with their ridiculous myth that the Australian Flag is not distinctive. Incidentally, I would be astounded if anyone knows all nineteen flags......” 

 

“ Now what does this remind you of ..."

(26 April 10) .....The evidence is now very strong that the panic about volcanic ash over Britain which closed British airspace for five days, caused a £1.3 billion airline shutdown and left 150,000 Britons stranded was completely unfounded. The Mail on Sunday reports that the information on which the British Meteorological Office based its assertion that Britain was shrouded by a dangerous layer of ash was mainly derived not from satellite observations of where ash was visible but from theoretical models, so showed the entire region that might be affected by minute concentrations of ash dispersed by weather systems. Across most of this, the ash was so thin as to be invisible. ‘Scientific' assertions based upon theoretical computer models which produce merely speculation based on ‘might' and ‘if' , and which actually runs totally contrary to evidence-based, demonstrable reality? Ring any bells?

Clue: another ‘scientific' claim which originated in the Met Office about a catastrophic development in the atmosphere....”.

A bureaucratic child of our times

(24 April 10) “......When I was given my first management role with a newspaper in my late twenties, the editor said, ''I don't expect you to work long but I expect you to work smart.'' We worked long anyway but his point was good, and he was a leader in the classic alpha male mould. He was fearless, his style was blunt, his directions clear. Work became exhilarating under his command, and paradoxically liberating. He was not impressed by the appearance of busy-ness but only in results - fresh ideas which became stories and pictures in print. He poked fun at phoniness and PowerPoint presentations and encouraged us to take risks, and thumb our noses at authority, whether inside or outside the building. He resisted attempts by management to drag him away from the core business of putting out a daily newspaper, and deputised process-minded underlings to such menial chores as attending marketing meetings. He would bellow and throw advertising people out of his office in a burlesque display designed to assert the primacy of editorial...When the former Victorian police commissioner, Christine Nixon, 56, admitted in the bushfire royal commission this month that she was getting her hair cut, meeting with her biographer and having dinner at a restaurant with friends on Black Saturday last year, she was enveloped in a warm group hug....We seem to be impressed by leaders skilled at looking confident and brazen through catastrophe, as incredible amounts of money are wasted, their core business disintegrates and, sometimes, people die. What was most telling about Nixon's testimony to the royal commission were the mundane details of her performance that day and how she perceived her role. She was the No.1 person in the state with operational responsibility, yet she didn't know what to do.....” A bureaucratic child of our times , Miranda Devine. Sydney Morning Herald “.....When she dropped into the State Emergency Response Co-ordination Centre about 3pm on Black Saturday, February 7, after meeting in her office with her biographer, she seemed to just float around, lost, not asking for a briefing, observing that people seemed ''very busy''.......The paralysis in the co-ordination centre on Black Saturday, as revealed in the commission testimony, is a textbook demonstration of what managerialism or bureaumania does to organisations. It causes everyone to lose sight of their core aim, which is to run an emergency response system that warns people a fire is on its way, or a police force that protects good people from bad people, or a land management system that doesn't allow fuel to build up to lethal levels in the bush. As police commissioner Nixon became the posterchild for bloated bureaucracies everywhere......And the media adored her. She was progressive! She took part in the gay and lesbian pride march! She was a woman! She was consultative! She relaxed uniform standards! She recruited women and minorities! She answered emails, had lots of meetings and set up myriad committees. She was the nana feminist, who humbled the most masculine, testosterone charged militaristic symbol of the patriarchy itself. She was perfectly chosen and trained to spend her days being busy doing her job, whatever that was. Busy, busy, busy. The truth is her defenders are right, she can hardly be blamed. Christine Nixon is the perfect leader for our age.....”

ABN Amro, Germany's IKB Were Victims Of Goldman Fraud – SEC

(17 April 10) “....Two big European banks lost almost $1 billion after Goldman Sachs Group (GS) fraudulently misled them into buying a collateralized debt obligation that turned toxic within months, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged Friday. The two institutions, ABN Amro from the Netherlands and Germany's IKB (IKB.XE), were later involved in some of the largest government bailouts in the European financial sector. The SEC charged Goldman with securities fraud Friday, alleging the investment bank didn't tell investors that hedge-fund firm Paulson & Co. was involved in structuring a collateralized debt obligation, or CDO, known as Abacus 2007-AC1. Goldman also didn't disclose that Paulson was betting against the CDO, the regulator claimed... Had ABN Amro and IKB known about these things, they probably wouldn't have invested in the CDO, the SEC said....” ABN Amro, Germany's IKB Were Victims Of Goldman Fraud – SEC , Wall Street Journal  “..... For the Abacus CDO deal, ABN Amro and IKB were the suckers, according to the SEC's suit. The deal closed in late April 2007 and IKB, a commercial bank based in Duesseldorf, bought $150 million worth of notes, the regulator said. Within months, the notes were "nearly worthless," and IKB had lost almost all of its investment. Most of this $150 million was ultimately paid to Paulson & Co. in a series of transactions between Goldman and the hedge-fund firm, the SEC explained in its suit.... In late 2007, ABN Amro was acquired by a group of banks led by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). The CDS contracts were unwound in August 2007, through a payment of $841 million from Royal Bank of Scotland to Goldman. Most of this money was subsequently paid by Goldman to Paulson & Co., the SEC said. Royal Bank of Scotland was one of the hardest-hit banks during 2008's credit crisis, so much so that the U.K. government was forced to eventually become majority owner of the bank late that year. To date, RBS has received 45.5 billion pounds from British taxpayers.....”

Goldman Sachs

(17 April 10) You're going to be reading and hearing at lot about Goldman Sachs in the next few days. Headlines like    SEC accuses Goldman Sachs of civil fraud and Goldman Sachs accused of fraud by US regulator SEC

With all of this in mind I have reposted below a couple of pieces from August 2009

(1 Aug 2009) Max Keiser- Goldman Sachs are scum

(7 Aug 2009) Goldman Sachs = Neo-Slavery = Government  THIS IS MUST WATCH!!!! CRONY CAPITALISM LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE

Tenacious G

Inside Goldman Sachs, America's most successful, cynical, envied, despised, and (in its view, anyway) misunderstood engine of capitalism.

(1 Aug 2009) “......Ever since the bank crossed paths with U.S. taxpayers, getting saved with at least $10 billion in government aid last year and then parlaying that into $5.1 billion in profits in 2009 (so far), the firm has been seen as the ugly essence of capitalism at its most cynical—by Washington, by the public, by the financial press, even by some of its clients.....A recent Rolling Stone article called Goldman “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity” and accused it of rigging every major market bubble since the Great Depression..... Before the market crashed, Goldman Sachs was betting 28 times its underlying capital. After the events of the fall, it bet half that: $14 for every dollar it had on hand. But that was still more than its nearest competitor, Morgan Stanley, was willing to gamble.... There is no evidence that Goldman was directly gambling with taxpayer money. But it seems clear that none of this would have been possible without government intervention—without the AIG bailout, the TARP money, the FDIC bonds, the fact that without Lehman Brothers it had one less competitor in the field...... This doesn't sit right with some. “Much of their recent profits seemed to be derived from ‘trading,' which typically means gambling—not lending,” says Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize–winning economist who teaches at Columbia University. “It is lending which is required if our economy is to be revived; it was gambling that got our financial system into trouble.” Even Goldman alumni were struck by the company's shameless posture in ramping up the leverage again so soon after the government bailouts. “It's a statement of arrogance,” says one former executive. “What they're saying by keeping leverage high is, ‘We're smarter than anybody else.....” Tenacious G , New York Magazine “..... There's been a lot of head-scratching of late about how it is that Goldman does what it does, namely make more money than anyone else... if a big investor wants to buy into, say, the energy market, Goldman Sachs, by virtue of its knowledge of what other big investors are trading and what its corporate energy clients are doing (on Goldman's own advice), can offer a highly accurate view of what's likely to happen with the energy market. It can also do damned well on its own energy trades—in fact, before the market crashed, the firm made vast profits on “proprietary trading,” bets made on its own balance sheets.....Basically, it is legal card-counting, which most clients accept as a necessary evil to deal with the company with the most information.”...Goldman Sachs sold subprime-mortgage investments to its clients for years, but then in 2006 began trading against subprime on its own balance sheet without informing its clients, a hedge that ultimately let it profit when the real-estate market cratered.... Earlier this month, Goldman had an ex-employee arrested for allegedly stealing computer codes that could be used, as the prosecutor noted, “to manipulate markets in unfair ways.” Some hedge-fund traders and financial bloggers have speculated that Goldman itself could have been using the codes for the same purpose..... If Goldman's database knows nearly every trade that is about to be made, sophisticated computer codes could, theoretically, instantly execute fail-safe trades on Goldman's behalf milliseconds beforehand. This, some are insisting, is where the company is manipulating the markets and making hundreds of millions of dollars a day.....”

Maurice Newman is dead right about the ABC

Even Tony Jones admits that Lateline has its own view on man-made global warming, reveals John Styles

(17 April 10) “......Almost two years ago, ABC1 presenter Tony Jones told Crikey publisher Eric Beecher and a Melbourne audience that between 2001 and 2008 the members of the Lateline team made up their minds about the science of climate change. The sceptics, they'd decided, were wrong. Jones prefaced the admission by saying he was in favour of scepticism. But not, apparently, about climate change. On 6 April 2008, Jones said: ‘From around the year 2001 on Lateline, we began interviewing everybody we could about this subject; and we interviewed all the main scientific sceptics. And gradually, over a period of time, we resolved in our own minds that the sceptics had it wrong and the vast majority of scientists disagreed with their position.....Jones's claim that Lateline had interviewed all the main sceptical scientists was puzzling. Presumably, by the term ‘interview' he was referring to those long, one-on-one conversations like the nine he has had with Gaia fan and true believer Tim Flannery. But a dip into the Lateline transcript archive in search of one-on-one interviews with sceptical scientists conducted between 2001 and April 2008 returned just one — with Russian economic adviser Andrey Illarionov.  Sure, Lateline included a few sceptical climate scientists in some packaged reports. But in-depth, information-seeking chats of the Flannery kind have been scarce. Not so rare were interviews with climate change believers. A trawl through the archive netted more than 20 one-on-one interviews in the same period with experts on the true-believer side of the debate. It is a scandalous scorecard: believers 20+, heretics 1...” Maurice Newman is dead right about the ABC , John Styles, Spectator “.....Last year, The Australian pointed to another example of how the Lateline team just can't seem to grasp the fact that there are two sides to a story. When climate change minister Penny Wong appeared on the program to try to explain the Rudd government's emissions trading scheme, the newspaper editorialised: ‘The first question Jones asked, as well as the following four, concerned how many renewable energy jobs the ETS would create. Not how many jobs the ETS will cost as export industries lose business to companies based in countries where they do not pay to pollute. Not the overall economic impact of a scheme that miners say will lead to workers being sacked. Jones is interested in jobs in the future, not people in the present.' Bear all this in mind when you recall Maurice Newman's recent speech to the corporation's senior staff. The public, the ABC chairman said, should not perceive any ‘ABC view' on an issue. He pointed to the coverage of climate change as an example of ‘group-think' that was intolerant of contrary views . ‘Should there be a view that the ABC was sheltering particular beliefs from scrutiny, or failing to question a consensus,' Newman said, ‘I would consider it to be a dangerous perception that could lead to the public's trust in us being undermined.....”'

Re-posted from June 2009 Gallipoli: Second Front in The History Wars

“...The gauntlet has been thrown down, and the next phase of the Left's ideological onslaught on Australian society and its history is under way. The intelligentsia would no doubt like to be as successful in imposing its view of the Anzac tradition on Australian society as it has been in promulgating its fabrication of the history of indigenous Australians and requiring students at every level of education, from day care to university, to make unquestioning obeisance to a politically correct, contrived mythology....”

(8 June 09) “......As 2014 approaches there will be a resurgence, intensification and expansion of the already vigorous debates about the war as historians, intellectuals, ideologues, politicians, veterans' organisations, community groups and laypersons continue to come to grips with the meaning of this titanic struggle; exploring it in terms of its origins, battles, strategies, tactics, and consequences; while addressing political ideologies, wartime cultures, battlefield experiences, memories, gender and race, national identities, the fates of empires, and the future of civilisation... Floundering, and looking for an explanation that doesn't require it to examine its own basic assumptions, the Left has concluded that the principal reason for the resurgence of the Anzac spirit is the alleged militarism and nationalism of the Howard government....The views of Mark McKenna, Associate Professor of History at the University of Sydney are also typical of the intelligentsia's position..... Such passages reveal why the Left fails to connect with the Anzac legend and why it sees it as such a threat: according to the Left's peculiar ideology and dissociated mind-set, all these qualities of patriotism, allegiance, faith, freedom, prosperity, nationalism, pride and achievement are suspect, or invalid, or even pernicious. Consequently, it devalues and even despises any cultural tradition—like Anzac—that gives expression to them.....” Gallipoli: Second Front in The History Wars , Mervyn F. Bendle, Quadrant “......Confronted by the survey's findings that young people present at the Gallipoli ceremony overwhelmingly saw their pilgrimage in terms of respect, national pride, gratitude, remembrance, sadness, sacrifice, affirmation, love, reconciliation, and connection with their Australian forebears, (Joan) Beaumont objected. No, she insisted, these were merely values into which these young people had been socialised at school. In the ensuing discussion I suggested that one should not so readily dismiss what appeared to be deeply held attitudes and that these were extremely valuable results that should be addressed; Beaumont reaffirmed her view and other academics supported her. For them, it appeared, these results reveal merely shallow, ersatz values inculcated by the state, with no genuine emotional or psychological roots.ect, or invalid, or even pernicious. Consequently, it devalues and even despises any cultural tradition—like Anzac—that gives expression to them...The attack on the Anzac legend is not restricted to Gallipoli but increasingly encompasses the Second World War. Consequently, an excellent example of contemporary revisionism was provided by Peter Stanley's high-profile and relentless opposition in 2002 to the popular belief that Australia faced the threat of Japanese invasion in 1942..... The attack by the intelligentsia on the Anzac tradition is both explicit and co-ordinated. Consequently, what clearly aspires to be a manifesto was widely promulgated just prior to Anzac Day this year..... the Anzac legend is far too precious to be left to the mercy of these ideologues. The centennial of the outbreak of the Great War approaches: it may soon be time for those who value the sacrifices of their forebears, the national identity of their country, and all that its people have achieved, to follow the Anzac spirit in the battle of ideas, and go over the top....”

This Culture War Cuts To The Core

(7 April 10) “.....A funny thing happened in the nation's capital recently. ACT Supreme Court judge Richard Refshauge ordered the release of Gim Em Moh, a convicted criminal, after finding that the sentencing magistrate had failed to treat Moh with the "inherent dignity" he deserved as a human being under the ACT Human Rights Act..... Moh pleaded guilty to using fake credit cards and a fake driver's licence to buy electronic goods. In sentencing Moh, a Malaysian national, to six months' jail, magistrate Grant Lalor said that Moh "was turned loose to burgle the stores of Canberra with false credit cards" and "turned loose to rape and pillage the stores of Canberra". Refshauge ordered Moh's release, claiming that sentencing obligations had not been met, and chastised the magistrate for his "exaggerated and extreme language". The judge said "anyone deprived of liberty must be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person". What was Lalor thinking when he said a fraudster and thief had behaved like a fraudster and thief?.... the real joke is on Refshauge. By treating colourful language as a breach of Moh's rights, the judge has unwittingly delivered a useful sermon, not on the inherent dignity of human beings but on the inherent folly of a human rights act. Refshauge has demonstrated the irresistible seduction that happens when judges are given the chance to impose their personal preferences using a list of ambiguously worded "human rights"... This Culture War Cuts To The Core, Janet Albrechtsen. The Australian. “.....Community views? They don't get a look in when a judge is charged with defining what "inherent dignity" means when a criminal is being sentenced.And here is the essential defect in a human rights act. At its core, it is anti-democratic, requiring unelected judges to answer a wide range of social and political questions once left to parliament. Previously, the Left relied on specific pieces of discrimination legislation to impose its "rights" agenda. A charter of rights is a more ambitious project. It empowers an elite cadre of unelected charter recruits to impose a broader ideological agenda that would have no hope of success under normal democratic processes.... As Margaret Kelly wrote on this page a few weeks ago, this is a "legal Trojan horse": unnamed bureaucrats behind closed doors will decide on highly contested human rights....Every chapter in the culture wars has its own orthodoxy. The orthodoxy surrounding a human rights act says empowering unelected judges and backroom bureaucrats to make fundamental social and political determinations is a benign process aimed at improving our human rights culture... Culture wars don't get more core than this one.......”

More proof that Canada is slipping over the edge ,

(3 April 10) “….From Mark Steyn we learn that the Palestine House in Toronto is hosting Abd al-Bari Atwan, editor of the London newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi. Atwan is, in Steyn's words, "a celebrity eliminationist" who declared on TV that "if the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight."…. I'm not one of those who wants the government to prosecute hate speech. But I thought Canada, which launched proceedings against Steyn for "Ïslamphobic" utterances, had laws against this sort of thing…..” More proof that Canada is slipping over the edge , “…… It turns out that, far from prosecuting the Jew haters at the Palestine House, the Canadian government is subsidizing them. This means, among other things, that the appearnce of the jihadist Atwan is effectively being underwritten by Canadian taxpayers. Given Canada's approach to Steyn's speech and to the speech of jihadists, I wonder not so much whether Canada will survive as a free society but whether it deserves to…..”

"If Guam Gets Too Overpopulated It Might Tip Over"

Don't laugh this is seriously serious

(2 April 10) In a hearing in the House of Representatives, concerning the number of U. S. Forces on the Island of Guam, a "distinguished" House Member actually said -- "If Guam Gets Too Overpopulated It Might Tip Over" This man serves on the House Armed Service Committee - sleep well America .  You have to ask yourself - How do people like this get elected to public office? Perhaps those casting the votes are equally as stupid...

New EU Gestapo spies on Britons

(2 April 10) “......Millions of Britons face being snooped on by a new European intelligence agency which has been handed frightening powers to pry into our lives. Europol can access personal information on anyone – including their political opinions and sexual preferences.... The vagueness of the Hague-based force's remit sparked furious protests yesterday with critics warning that the EU snoopers threaten our right to free speech. It is understood the agency will concentrate on anyone thought “xenophobic” or likely to commit a crime involving the environment, computers or motor vehicles. This could include covert monitoring of people who deny the existence of climate change or speak out on controversial issues. .. James Welch, legal director of campaign group Liberty, said: “We have huge concerns that Europol appears to have been given powers to hold very sensitive information and to investigate matters that aren't even crimes in this country. Any extension of police powers at any level needs to be properly debated and scrutinised.”... .. Until January 1, Europol was a police office funded by various states to help tackle international organised crime......” New EU Gestapo spies on Britons , Mary Reunolds. Express.co.uk “...... But it has been reborn as the official criminal intelligence-gathering arm of the EU and Brussels has vastly increased its powers.. ... Campaigners last night expressed concern over the vague list of “serious crimes” which the agency can help investigate, which include racism and xenophobia, environmental crime and corruption. Among personal details that can be gathered and stored are “behavioural data” including “lifestyle and routine; movements; places frequented”, tax position and profiles of DNA and voice. Where relevant, Europol will also be able to keep data on a person's “political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or trade union membership and data concerning health or sex life”.....if Brussels adopts a hard-line stance on climate change, it's conceivable that someone who broadcasts their scepticism of climate change may be accused of committing an environmental crime because they have undermined the EU's efforts to save mankind.” Timothy Kirkhope, Conservative leader in the European Parliament, said: “Europol's new mandate has significantly expanded its powers.  “There is a real chance that the vague mandate will enable it to gradually extend its areas of intervention even further.” The Home Office insisted the changes were in Britain's interests......”

James Lovelock on the value of sceptics and why Copenhagen was doomed

James Lovelock is the Godfather of the “Mother Earth” Gaia movement. He is to Gaia what Gore is to Climate Change...So through that prism his views are instructive and sobering to say the least

(2 April 10)  “......I remember when the Americans sent up a satellite to measure ozone and it started saying that a hole was developing over the South Pole. But the damn fool scientists were so mad on the models that they said the satellite must have a fault. We tend to now get carried away by our giant computer models. But they're not complete models. They're based more or less entirely on geophysics. They don't take into account the climate of the oceans to any great extent, or the responses of the living stuff on the planet. So I don't see how they can accurately predict the climate. It's not the computational power that we lack today, but the ability to take what we know and convert it into a form the computers will understand. I think we've got too high an opinion of ourselves.... If you make a model, after a while you get suckered into it. You begin to forget that it's a model and think of it as the real world. You really start to believe it..... If you look back on climate history it sometimes took anything up to 1,000 years before a change in one of the variables kicked in and had an effect. And during those 1,000 years the temperature could have gone in the other direction to what you thought it should have done. What right have the scientists with their models to say that in 2100 the temperature will have risen by 5C?..... James Lovelock on the value of sceptics and why Copenhagen was doomed The Guardian “.....There are plenty of incidences where something turns on the heat, but temperatures actually go down perversely, before eventually going up. A cold winter may mean nothing, as could 10 cold winters in a row. The great climate science centres around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they're scared stiff of the fact that they don't really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven't got the physics worked out yet. One of the chiefs once said to me that he agreed that they should include the biology in their models, but he said they hadn't got the physics right yet and it would be five years before they do. So why on earth are the politicians spending a fortune of our money when we can least afford it on doing things to prevent events 50 years from now? They've employed scientists to tell them what they want to hear...... I don't know enough about carbon trading, but I suspect that it is basically a scam. The whole thing is not very sensible. We have this crazy idea that we are setting an example to the world. What we're doing is trying to make money out of the world by selling them renewable gadgetry and green ideas. It might be worthy from the national interest, but it is moonshine if you think what the Chinese and Indians are doing in terms of emissions.....”.

For other interesting features be sure to visit March 2010