PRESTOPUNDIT HAS THE DETAILS, THE LINKS AND THE BACKGROUND.
ELECTING OBAMA NOW WOULD BE LIKE ELECTING WELL KNOWN SOVIET SPY (AND FELLOW HARVARD GRAD) ALGER HISS IN 1940.
COMPLETE ROUNDUP AT MEMEORANDUM.
DEDICATED TO EXPOSING DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA AND TO PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - WITH SHARP ANALYSIS AND BLUNT COMMENTARY. NO ADS. NO TIP-JAR. JUST THE TRUTH.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
UKRAINE BRAVELY STEPS UP TO THE PLATE
*******SUNDAY UPDATE: WE SCOOPED DRUDGE ON THIS. HE LINKS HERE.
*******SUNDAY UPDATE #2 - DOUG REMINDS US THAT OBAMA WOULD SCREW EASTERN EUROPE BY CANCELING MISSILE DEFENSE.
BBC:
*******SUNDAY UPDATE #2 - DOUG REMINDS US THAT OBAMA WOULD SCREW EASTERN EUROPE BY CANCELING MISSILE DEFENSE.
BBC:
Ukraine offers West radar warning
Ukraine has said it is ready to make its missile early warning systems available to European nations following Russia's conflict with Georgia.
The foreign ministry said Moscow's abrogation earlier this year of an accord involving two tracking stations allowed it to co-operate with others.
President Viktor Yushchenko said his country could ensure its sovereignty only through collective security.
Last week, Kiev limited the freedom of movement of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
The move came after several of the fleet's warships, based at Sevastopol in Ukraine's Crimea's peninsula, were deployed along the Georgian coastline.
Moscow denounced the restrictions as anti-Russian and said its military commanders would answer only to the Russian president.
'Unprecedented situation'
In a statement, Ukraine's foreign ministry said that because the country was no longer party to the 1992 agreement with Russia on the use of its radar stations, it could now "launch active co-operation with European nations".
... He said the situation was unprecedented and showed that his country could only ensure its national sovereignty through collective security.
Only that, he said, "could prevent any actions like those which occurred on 7-8 August at first in South Ossetia, and then in other regions of Georgia".
BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins says the decision is evidence Ukraine is now more desperate to embrace the West as its fear of Russia intensifies and Moscow seemingly becomes more determined to prevent any neighbouring states from joining Nato.
Russia clearly sees Nato as America's sphere of influence, despite US President George W Bush's insistence that it is a purely defensive alliance of sovereign democracies, our correspondent says.
Increasingly, the events of the past 10 days demonstrate Russia has gone back to arm-wrestling with its neighbours and the West after the immediate post-Soviet years, when it felt too weak, he adds.
- YUSHCHENKO KNOWS PUTIN'S MURDEROUS TACTICS FIRST HAND: RUSSIA TRIED TO MURDER HIM WITH DIOXIN.
- UNLIKE LITVINENKO (WHO WAS POISONED WITH A HIGHLY RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCE), YUSHCHENKO SURVIVED.
- YUSHCHENKO IS A PRO-DEMOCRACY/PRO-WEST PATRIOT.
- WE MUST SUPPORT HIM AND UKRAINE.
- WE NEED TO BE AS COURAGEOUS AS UKRAINE - AND STAND UP TO THE "VLAD THE RABID VAMPIRE."
AN EYE FOR AN EYE: WE OUGHT TO HELP JAPAN SEIZE THE KURIL ISLAND CHAIN FROM RUSSIA
BBC; (TWO YEARS AGO TODAY):
REUTERS:
The island chain known as the Kurils stretches north across the Pacific Ocean from the Japanese island of Hokkaido to the southern tip of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula.THE ISLANDS ARE STILL IN DISPUTE.
Four islands - which Russia calls the Southern Kurils and Japan calls the Northern Territories - are the subject of a 60-year-old dispute between the two nations.
They are Kunashir (known in Japanese as Kunashiri ), Iturup (Etorofu), Shikotan and the rocky Habomai islets.
The southernmost islet in the Habomai group lies only a few kilometres off Nemuro on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.
Because of the dispute, Russia and Japan have not yet signed a peace treaty to end World War II.
... A 30,000-strong Russian community now lives on the islands and there is also a Russian military presence on Iturup.
REUTERS:
MOSCOW, April 14 [2008] - Japan pressed Russia on Monday to end a territorial dispute over a chain of Pacific islands which has prevented the two countries from formally ending World War Two hostilities and strengthening ties.
The dispute over the islands, known as the Southern Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan, has overshadowed Russian-Japanese relations for more than 60 years.
Japan says a resolution of the dispute would attract a new wave of Japanese investors to Russia.
- WE OUGHT TO EMBARGO THE ISLAND UNTIL THE RUSKIES GET OUT OF GEORGIA. AIR AND SEA.
- IF BUSH HAD BALLS WE WOULD.
- BUT DUBYA STANDS FOR WIMP.
Kwame Obama: hey, it's only ten felony charges!
Barack Obama just breathed a sigh of relief.
A judge ruled that his good friend Detroit Mayor (and Democratic superdelegate) Kwame Kilpatrick could not attend the Democratic National Convention.
Just a few months ago, Barack Obama vocally endorsed Kilpatrick, embracing the mayor and stating that he had done "an outstanding job" and brought about a "renaissance" in Detroit.
"He is a leader not just in Detroit, not just in Michigan, but all across the country people look to him... we know he'll be doing astounding things in the years to come."
Astounding, alright. Ten felony charges including perjury, obstruction of justice, misconduct of office, and two counts of assaulting police officers.
As Jim Geraghty observed, "When video of Obama embracing Kilpatrick is playing, suddenly McCain's embrace of Bush doesn't look so bad anymore, huh?"
And since Democrats like to call the maverick McBush, I think it's fair to call the Democratic candidate Kwame Obama.
A judge ruled that his good friend Detroit Mayor (and Democratic superdelegate) Kwame Kilpatrick could not attend the Democratic National Convention.
Just a few months ago, Barack Obama vocally endorsed Kilpatrick, embracing the mayor and stating that he had done "an outstanding job" and brought about a "renaissance" in Detroit.
"He is a leader not just in Detroit, not just in Michigan, but all across the country people look to him... we know he'll be doing astounding things in the years to come."
Astounding, alright. Ten felony charges including perjury, obstruction of justice, misconduct of office, and two counts of assaulting police officers.As Jim Geraghty observed, "When video of Obama embracing Kilpatrick is playing, suddenly McCain's embrace of Bush doesn't look so bad anymore, huh?"
And since Democrats like to call the maverick McBush, I think it's fair to call the Democratic candidate Kwame Obama.
"OBAMA: INEXPERIENCE AMERICA CAN'T AFFORD"
The slogan comes from Dem poltiical analyst Doug Shoen.
It's right on.
Here's a McCain video which strikes the same theme:
BOTTOM-LINE: OBAMA MEANS HIGHER TAXES.
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.
It's right on.
Here's a McCain video which strikes the same theme:
BOTTOM-LINE: OBAMA MEANS HIGHER TAXES.
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.
BUSH CONTINUES TO MORPH HIMSELF INTO CARTER: AGREES TO PAY LIBYA
JPOST:
Sickening.The historic reconciliation between the United States and Libya last week, capped by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's announcement Friday that she will visit the North African country before leaving office, has left some American victims of Libyan terrorism outraged.
US and Libyan diplomats...
US and Libyan diplomats embrace in Tripoli on Thursday upon signing a deal to settle outstanding terrorism lawsuits and restore diplomatic relations."They allow this horrible terrorist who murdered my daughter and all these other people to triumph. This is a triumph for terrorism," said Susan Cohen, whose daughter Theodora Cohen was killed in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. "All this does [is] it says we swept the families away. We pretend that Gaddafi never blew up an American plane."
Despite anger from bereaved families, who wanted Libya to be held accountable for its actions, the US signed an agreement on Thursday setting all outstanding lawsuits by victims against Libya.
- THIS AGREEMENT IS SHAMELESS APPEASEMENT OF AN AWFUL TYRANT.
- VERY CARTERESQUE.
- ALSO LIKE CARTER, BUSH DOES NOTHING AFTER RUSSIA INVADES A GEOPOLITICALLY KEY NATION.
- MCCAIN IS BETTER ON THIS FRONT THAN BUSH -
- AND MORE LIKELY TO BE REAGANESQUE THAN CARTERESQUE.
- OBAMA... HE'D BE WORSE THAN CARTER.
- UPDATE: More here from Andy McCarthy.
JORDAN BARS JUDAIST ITEMS FROM BEING BROUGHT IN
Discrimination against Jews carrying items related to their founding faith has turned up in Jordan. From the Jerusalem Post (via The American Thinker):
Jordanian border officials refused to allow a group of Israeli tourists carrying religious objects such as talitot and tefillin to enter their country on Tuesday, saying it was "a safety measure" to avoid potential terror threats.This should serve as a telling sign that one day, relations with Jordan are going to deteriorate. And I wouldn't be surprised if sooner or later, Jordan will bar even Christians from bringing religious items into the Islam-dominated country too.
Thirty-six Israeli tourists on their way to Amman for a three-day tour were detained at the Sheikh Ali Hussein Crossing near Beit She'an at 6:30 a.m. and notified of a new regulation that prohibits entry into Jordan with tefillin, talitot, prayer books, Bibles or the Talmud.
"Our group was presented with two options," said Alan Novetsky, a recent immigrant from New York who was accompanied on the tour by his wife. "Either enter Jordan without religious objects or go back to Israel."
Novetsky said the group's suitcases were thoroughly searched for religious items. "They seemed to know exactly what they were looking for.
"It was very demeaning to have such a negative experience in what is billed as a friendly country. People in the group, including the tour guides, were quite shocked. No one had ever heard that Jordan imposed religious restrictions," he said.
"What made it worse was that the whole thing seemed to be directed solely at Jews. I saw Christians walking through into Jordan openly wearing crosses. Apparently, Christian religious symbols did not seem to be a problem for the Jordanians. I can well imagine the international outcry if Islamic tourists were to encounter such restrictions on their entry into Israel."
A Jordanian security official said the decision was taken only for "security reasons."
The official said that the decision had been in effect for a long time and Israeli authorities were aware of it.
"The Jordanian security authorities are responsible for the safety of all visitors to the kingdom and it is our duty to take all measures required in this regard," the official explained. He expressed regret that the tourists had been offended by the measure.
Novetsky said that at first the the guides tried to bargain with the Jordanian officials, promising to keep the religious items hidden and to pray inside the hotel. But the suggestions were rejected.
"The vast majority of the group decided that as proud Israelis, we were either going to be allowed to walk into Jordan holding our religious objects or we would not go in at all."
THE PUTIN PROBLEM: RUSSIAN NATIONALISM EMPOWERED BY SOCIALISM
First he did it to YUKOS.
Then he tried to whack a foe who was likely to win (and then won) the Ukrainian Presidency.
They probably smuggled Saddam's WMD's out of Iraq before the war (There's photographic evidence and the testimony of the US General in charge of satellite imagery). (SADDAM WAS ALSO A SOCIALIST.)
He whacked Litvinenko and other foes at will - with no repercussions.
He smashes his domestic political foes - like Kasparov. [ASIDE: CHESS GENIUS KASPAROV WROTE ABOUT HOW HE THOUGHT PUTIN WAS TRYING TO ACHIEVE GLOBAL DOMINANCE HERE; EXCERPT:
Putin did not name any specific country, but his statement underlined Moscow's strong opposition to U.S.-backed efforts to build pipelines to deliver hydrocarbons to the West bypassing Russia.(MORE ON PUTIN'S PIPELINE STRATEGY HERE.)
"Projects that may inflict serious environmental damage to the region cannot be implemented without prior discussion by all five Caspian nations," he said.
Other nations bordering the Caspian Sea and in attendance at the summit are: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.
The legal status of the Caspian — believed to contain the world's third-largest energy reserves — has been in limbo since the 1991 Soviet collapse, leading to tension and conflicting claims to seabed oil deposits.
Iran, which shared the Caspian's resources equally with the Soviet Union, insists that each coastal nation receive an equal portion of the seabed. Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan want the division based on the length of each nation's shoreline, which would give Iran a smaller share.]
He arms Venezuela (RUN BY SOCIALIST CHAVEZ), Syria (RUN BY THE SOCIALIST ASSAD) and Iran (A SOCIALIST THEOCRATIC STATE), and builds Iran's nuclear power plant - thus enabling their entire program.
AGAIN: without ANY repercussions.
All would be IMPOSSIBLE if Russia was NOT a socialist state with huge oil income.
YUKOS NEVER HAD AN ARMY.
The expansionistic socialist state of Russia is like a vampire - with rabies.
Russia should IMMEDIATELY be tossed out of every multinational organization they belong to - or we should quit them.
They must be isolated - and countered at every turn.
Obama won't do that. He wants to decrease our military defenses - in "harmony" with Russia.
Unlike Bush, McCain has recognized Putin for what he is from the get-go.
THE SECOND VIDEO IS MCCAIN GETTING IT RIGHT ON RIGHT WAY BACK IN 2000!
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.
STOP WHISPERING!
From this excellent essay by Andrew Klavan, author of the novel Empire of Lies:
Take the risk. Speak up and speak out.
At a recent writers conference in Southern California, one of my colleagues on a screenwriters panel told the crowd of about 50 people that she hoped Barack Obama would win the presidency. A number of people applauded. When it was my turn to speak, I politely said that I disagreed with her politics and moved on to other topics. There was no applause for me, but several writers approached me afterward. Each dropped his voice to a whisper and, looking around to make sure no one would overhear, said, "Thank you for saying that."Klavan is right. Although the voting ballot is a powerful weapon, we mustn't forget the war of ideas. If we keep silent in the face of idiots supporting Obama and any other leftists, we'll lose the war of ideas.
Which raises a question for all conservatives in the arts: Why are we whispering?
It's true throughout Hollywood certainly. In filmland business meetings, the executives, producers and talent feel free to wax on about how stupid President Bush is, how evil American foreign policy is, even what awful human beings conservatives are. Hollywood rightists, meanwhile, are reduced to holding secret gatherings to confess their beliefs in sympathetic company.
[...]
I believe there is a deeper, more troubling reason for conservative reticence. The left has somehow succeeded in convincing the rest of us that there is virtue in a culture of lies, that some truths should not be spoken and that if you speak them you are guilty of racism or sexism or some other kind of bigotry. Right-wingers may disagree philosophically with this sort of political correctness, but I think they may have incorporated some of its twisted values psychologically and walk in fear of seeming "offensive" or "insensitive."
[...]
Conservative artists can't battle this state of affairs with silence or secrecy. They must create -- with courage, openness and honesty. These are the tools of both conservatism and art. With them, we can take the culture back.
Take the risk. Speak up and speak out.
NYC SUMMER STREETS: THE EPITOME OF LIBERAL INSANITY
NYC SUMMER STREETS is an asinine liberal program in NYC this summer. They close down major north-south thoroughfares to ALL motorized vehicular traffic and only allow bikes and pedestrians (joggers etc).
VIDEO HERE.
OF COURSE, THE LIBS AT THE NYTIMES LOVED LOVED LOVED LOVED THE PROGRAM:
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has not had an easy time trying to unclog New York City’s gridlocked streets. Most notably, he lost a high-profile political battle a few months ago over congestion pricing. Now, though, the mayor has found a clever way to free at least some of the city’s streets some of the time.
Last weekend, Mr. Bloomberg and his commissioner of transportation,Janette Sadik-Khan, unveiled an innovative program called Summer Streets. Nearly seven miles of Manhattan streets, from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park at East 72nd Street in Manhattan — including a large stretch of Park Avenue — were shut off to car traffic for six hours on Saturday. They will be car-free again for the next two Saturdays this month.
Without honking horns and speeding taxis, the streets became serene parks, open to throngs of cyclists, in-line skaters and strollers. Yoga and fitness classes added to the therapeutic feel. Cyclists and walkers mostly seemed to respect each other, and people found themselves doing something decidedly un-New York: meandering.
... New York is not the first city to temporarily transform its traffic-clogged streets. It has been tried, with great success, in Bogotá, Colombia, where car-free Sundays and holidays are called Ciclovía, and in Paris.
The REAL result is simple: all the surroundings streets - including many major east-west streets - are EXTRA CLOGGED with cars and trucks. YUP: it creates MORE traffic where -- on the weekend -- there would normally be none.And all those cars and trucks are BURNING EXTRA FUEL - at a high cost - and spewing EXTRA STUFF INTO THE ATMOSPHERE (which - if you're a lib who believes in AGW - is bad because it INCREASES the likelihood of the "impending global-warming catastrophe". And those extra costs actually hurt workingclass people hardest.
As the rich folks jog get their jollies off jogging and biking up the middle of an avenue (OH GOLLY HOW THRILLING!), middleclass folks in cars (who aren't just out for a spin but have someplace they need to get to) are being forced to WASTE THEIR HARD-EARNED MONEY BURNING GASOLINE THEY'D NORMALLY NOT HAVE TO BURN.
And it's so so so so SO typical of the xenophilic libs to look to FOREIGN CITIES for their leadership - as if Bogota and Paris - crime infested cities with far more serious social and economic problems than NYC - had ANYTHING to teach us about civic affairs and municipal management! Sheesh.
The whole lib misadventure is probably costing taxpayers a bundle, too: Though the city "had" to tow hundreds of cars to open the streets - which is a source of extra revenue for the city; they also have to deploy thousands of extra cops to close the streets and oversee the traffic. (I guess the police union likes that.)
This "summer streets" program sees to me to sum up liberal policy making: they fervently desire these feel-good/look-good programs whose net effect is actually detrimental in the real world.
Like their desire to raise taxes on the wealthy or on "windfall profits" of the energy companies.
These policies would actually retard economic growth and increased investment in new energy sources and therefore they would HURT everyone, especially the workingclass here in the USA - and, as our ability to consume declined, it would hurt the global economy (because the world economy depends on US consumption).
But the shallow imbecilic liberal mindset only considers the retributive/redistributive feelgood/Robin Hood aspect of the initial act of raising taxes on "the guy behind the tree", as the saying goes.
The sad and frustrating thing is - because we live in a democracy - the lib can call the shots, sometimes, and RUIN THINGS FOR EVERYONE.
YUP: Obama could be elected (GOD FORBID!) and do idiotic things like SUMMER STREETS on a "grand scale".
It will take us decades to recover - if we can recover at all.
And if we don't recover, then I'd expect the liberals to be okay with that - if not happy: as good little postmodernists, they think the USA is a big-bad-bully who needs to be taken down a notch.
BOTTOM-LINE: Don't be a dupe and fall for the shallow "feelgood" policies of the liberals - like SUMMER STREETS; they aren't remedies; they'll only make things worse.
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.
Leftism is essentially parasitical
My theory is that many self styled "authorities" defend their doctrines, often more deliberate than erroneous, as if they were defending their lives because they are defending their lives. The false authority is dependent on the work of other people for their survival and well being. Without the blind obedience of productive people the false authority would wither away and die. To the parasite power over the productive is life.
These self appointed intellectuals, whom Ayn Rand had labeled as Witch Doctors, claim the position of authority in a division of labor economy through the claim of being in possession of superior knowledge. Such so called superior knowledge must by necessity contradict the knowledge gained by direct perception of objective (commonly perceived) reality.
Against the entirely valid charge of fraud the intellectual con artist will claim that his perception of reality differs from that of the common man. One practice, which began with the original aboriginal witch doctors, is to claim that self appointed authority is perceiving or is otherwise in contact with a higher or spiritual level of reality. This practice continues to this day in the scam religions of Islam and Scientology.
The materialist version of the false authority con operates on the practice of polylogism, the claim that members of different groups perceive differently. What is true for one group is false for another group. Thus what is true for Jews is claimed to be false for Aryans. The practice of polylogism is not confined to issues of race (such as Africans versus "Crackers"), it can be applied to conflicts of class (Proletarians versus the Bourgeoisie), gender ("Womyn" versus "Sperm Donors"), and national culture (The French versus everyone else*).
But since Man is an entity of both spirit and body the most effective, and thus destructive, version of the different knowledge con will combine both the claim of spiritual wisdom and material polylogism. This occurs in the notion that a group has a distinct consciousness whose will is embodied in a leader. Thus the claim that Adolf Hitler embodied the will of the Volk, Josef Stalin embodied the will of the Proletariat, Hillary Clinton embodied the will of all Womyn, and that Barack Obama embodies the will of the functionally dumb.**
And if this wasn't bad enough there are now false authorities who claim to represent something other than a human population, such as the Gaianist witch doctor Al Gore.
It is essential for the survival of human society that false authorities be identified and rendered unable to cause further harm to us. Of course if they are also buried that would be fine with me.
* I'm really serious here. The French as a nation have a long history of insisting on being different and claiming it's a superior practice. A case in point is that at the beginning of the First World War is that while all other nations had adopted earth toned uniforms for their soldiers the French politicians INSISTED that their soldiers go into combat with the traditional dark blue coats and bright red trousers. As you can imagine this didn't work out well for the French Army. The French also had the best bayonets mounted on the worst rifle, but that's another story.
** There is simply no other way that anyone could support a Harvard indoctrinated Marxist empty suit from the Chicago Democratic Machine.
Source
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
These self appointed intellectuals, whom Ayn Rand had labeled as Witch Doctors, claim the position of authority in a division of labor economy through the claim of being in possession of superior knowledge. Such so called superior knowledge must by necessity contradict the knowledge gained by direct perception of objective (commonly perceived) reality.
Against the entirely valid charge of fraud the intellectual con artist will claim that his perception of reality differs from that of the common man. One practice, which began with the original aboriginal witch doctors, is to claim that self appointed authority is perceiving or is otherwise in contact with a higher or spiritual level of reality. This practice continues to this day in the scam religions of Islam and Scientology.
The materialist version of the false authority con operates on the practice of polylogism, the claim that members of different groups perceive differently. What is true for one group is false for another group. Thus what is true for Jews is claimed to be false for Aryans. The practice of polylogism is not confined to issues of race (such as Africans versus "Crackers"), it can be applied to conflicts of class (Proletarians versus the Bourgeoisie), gender ("Womyn" versus "Sperm Donors"), and national culture (The French versus everyone else*).
But since Man is an entity of both spirit and body the most effective, and thus destructive, version of the different knowledge con will combine both the claim of spiritual wisdom and material polylogism. This occurs in the notion that a group has a distinct consciousness whose will is embodied in a leader. Thus the claim that Adolf Hitler embodied the will of the Volk, Josef Stalin embodied the will of the Proletariat, Hillary Clinton embodied the will of all Womyn, and that Barack Obama embodies the will of the functionally dumb.**
And if this wasn't bad enough there are now false authorities who claim to represent something other than a human population, such as the Gaianist witch doctor Al Gore.
It is essential for the survival of human society that false authorities be identified and rendered unable to cause further harm to us. Of course if they are also buried that would be fine with me.
* I'm really serious here. The French as a nation have a long history of insisting on being different and claiming it's a superior practice. A case in point is that at the beginning of the First World War is that while all other nations had adopted earth toned uniforms for their soldiers the French politicians INSISTED that their soldiers go into combat with the traditional dark blue coats and bright red trousers. As you can imagine this didn't work out well for the French Army. The French also had the best bayonets mounted on the worst rifle, but that's another story.
** There is simply no other way that anyone could support a Harvard indoctrinated Marxist empty suit from the Chicago Democratic Machine.
Source
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
Distorting the DHL Deal
Excerpt:
An AFL-CIO flier and Obama campaign ads say that McCain cost Ohioans 8,000 jobs. We say that's a distortion of the record
Summary
Ads from the AFL-CIO and the Obama campaign claim that McCain is partly to blame for the loss of more than 8,000 jobs in Ohio. They paint a false picture.
There's at least some truth in both ads: German-based DHL announced a deal that could result in 8,200 lost jobs in Wilmington, Ohio. And McCain did in fact oppose an amendment that would have kept DHL from buying Wilmington-based Airborne Express. McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, was also a DHL lobbyist charged with easing the merger through the Senate.
But the ads go too far. Some statements about McCain are misleading and some of the inferences the ads invite are unsubstantiated:
* The ads charge that McCain opposition to a 2003 amendment helped DHL and amounted to turning his back on workers. That's misleading. McCain said he opposed a version of the amendment because it was a special project inserted into an unrelated bill, not to help DHL. And the Teamsters union praised the merger at the time, saying that it would lead to more jobs. And at first, more jobs indeed followed.
* The ads also imply that the DHL merger is a direct cause of the job losses in Ohio, which we find to be both unlikely and unsubstantiated. Airborne Express had laid off 2,000 employees before the merger, and analysts at the time said that the struggling carrier would need to make expensive investments in its international infrastructure to remain competitive.
Analysis
The AFL-CIO and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama are blaming John McCain for the loss of more than 8,000 jobs in southwestern Ohio. The AFL-CIO mailer is the most explicit, saying that "McCain helped cut a deal that sent over 8,000 jobs to a foreign-owned company." Obama's television ad, which began airing on Aug. 14, charges that "John McCain helped pave the way for foreign-owned DHL to take over an American shipping company." An Obama radio ad, which began airing in Ohio over the weekend, repeats the message that McCain "used his influence in the Senate to help foreign-owned DHL buy a U.S. company and gain control over the jobs that are now on the chopping block in Ohio."
The Backstory
In 2003, DHL, a company owned by Deutsche Post (the German equivalent of the U.S. Postal Service) announced that it would purchase the ground fleet of Seattle-based Airborne Express. The merger gave DHL a fleet of more than 15,000 trucks, as well as ownership of Airborne's Wilmington, Ohio, hub, which consisted of a sorting facility and the world's largest privately owned airport.
Legal challenges from United Parcel Services and FedEx prevented DHL from purchasing Airborne's air freight service. That's because federal law prohibits foreign ownership of any U.S. airline. As a result of those legal challenges, DHL had to sell the airline it had already owned to American investors. That airline became ASTAR Air Cargo. Moreover, when DHL purchased Airborne Express, it had to spin off the air cargo portion into a separate business, ABX Air, which remained under the ownership of the original Airborne Express stockholders.
The upshot is that DHL cannot fly its own packages. It collects packages on the ground and transports them to airports, but it has to contract the air transport of those packages to U.S.-owned airlines. DHL had used ABX Air (which also operated the sorting facility in Wilmington) and ASTAR Air Cargo to move packages by air. But, in May 2008, DHL announced that it would no longer use ABX or ASTAR and would instead pursue an agreement to contract its sorting and air freight to UPS. ABX Air President John Graber says that the move could cost his company 6,000 jobs. Wilmington's mayor, David Raizk, told the Dayton Daily News that another 1,000 ASTAR employees as well as 1,200 DHL workers could face unemployment as well.....
There is some truth to the ads. As we said, as many as 8,200 workers in Wilmington are likely to lose their jobs as a result of DHL's decision to outsource to UPS. It's also true that in 2003, some senators supported legislation that was designed to make German-owned DHL's purchase of U.S.-owned Airborne Express less attractive. McCain did in fact oppose the legislation. And it's true that DHL paid $185,000 to the firm of Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, to lobby for the merger (the $590,000 cited in the AFL-CIO mailer represents the entire amount that Davis' firm collected from DHL during Davis' tenure, most of which went for lobbying on other measures). But it's misleading to say, as Obama does, that McCain "used his influence" to help DHL "buy a U.S. company and gain control over" the 8,200 jobs in question. The AFL-CIO's claim that McCain "could have stopped the deal" is one we find dubious, to say the least.
More here
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
An AFL-CIO flier and Obama campaign ads say that McCain cost Ohioans 8,000 jobs. We say that's a distortion of the record
Summary
Ads from the AFL-CIO and the Obama campaign claim that McCain is partly to blame for the loss of more than 8,000 jobs in Ohio. They paint a false picture.
There's at least some truth in both ads: German-based DHL announced a deal that could result in 8,200 lost jobs in Wilmington, Ohio. And McCain did in fact oppose an amendment that would have kept DHL from buying Wilmington-based Airborne Express. McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, was also a DHL lobbyist charged with easing the merger through the Senate.
But the ads go too far. Some statements about McCain are misleading and some of the inferences the ads invite are unsubstantiated:
* The ads charge that McCain opposition to a 2003 amendment helped DHL and amounted to turning his back on workers. That's misleading. McCain said he opposed a version of the amendment because it was a special project inserted into an unrelated bill, not to help DHL. And the Teamsters union praised the merger at the time, saying that it would lead to more jobs. And at first, more jobs indeed followed.
* The ads also imply that the DHL merger is a direct cause of the job losses in Ohio, which we find to be both unlikely and unsubstantiated. Airborne Express had laid off 2,000 employees before the merger, and analysts at the time said that the struggling carrier would need to make expensive investments in its international infrastructure to remain competitive.
Analysis
The AFL-CIO and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama are blaming John McCain for the loss of more than 8,000 jobs in southwestern Ohio. The AFL-CIO mailer is the most explicit, saying that "McCain helped cut a deal that sent over 8,000 jobs to a foreign-owned company." Obama's television ad, which began airing on Aug. 14, charges that "John McCain helped pave the way for foreign-owned DHL to take over an American shipping company." An Obama radio ad, which began airing in Ohio over the weekend, repeats the message that McCain "used his influence in the Senate to help foreign-owned DHL buy a U.S. company and gain control over the jobs that are now on the chopping block in Ohio."
The Backstory
In 2003, DHL, a company owned by Deutsche Post (the German equivalent of the U.S. Postal Service) announced that it would purchase the ground fleet of Seattle-based Airborne Express. The merger gave DHL a fleet of more than 15,000 trucks, as well as ownership of Airborne's Wilmington, Ohio, hub, which consisted of a sorting facility and the world's largest privately owned airport.
Legal challenges from United Parcel Services and FedEx prevented DHL from purchasing Airborne's air freight service. That's because federal law prohibits foreign ownership of any U.S. airline. As a result of those legal challenges, DHL had to sell the airline it had already owned to American investors. That airline became ASTAR Air Cargo. Moreover, when DHL purchased Airborne Express, it had to spin off the air cargo portion into a separate business, ABX Air, which remained under the ownership of the original Airborne Express stockholders.
The upshot is that DHL cannot fly its own packages. It collects packages on the ground and transports them to airports, but it has to contract the air transport of those packages to U.S.-owned airlines. DHL had used ABX Air (which also operated the sorting facility in Wilmington) and ASTAR Air Cargo to move packages by air. But, in May 2008, DHL announced that it would no longer use ABX or ASTAR and would instead pursue an agreement to contract its sorting and air freight to UPS. ABX Air President John Graber says that the move could cost his company 6,000 jobs. Wilmington's mayor, David Raizk, told the Dayton Daily News that another 1,000 ASTAR employees as well as 1,200 DHL workers could face unemployment as well.....
There is some truth to the ads. As we said, as many as 8,200 workers in Wilmington are likely to lose their jobs as a result of DHL's decision to outsource to UPS. It's also true that in 2003, some senators supported legislation that was designed to make German-owned DHL's purchase of U.S.-owned Airborne Express less attractive. McCain did in fact oppose the legislation. And it's true that DHL paid $185,000 to the firm of Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, to lobby for the merger (the $590,000 cited in the AFL-CIO mailer represents the entire amount that Davis' firm collected from DHL during Davis' tenure, most of which went for lobbying on other measures). But it's misleading to say, as Obama does, that McCain "used his influence" to help DHL "buy a U.S. company and gain control over" the 8,200 jobs in question. The AFL-CIO's claim that McCain "could have stopped the deal" is one we find dubious, to say the least.
More here
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
Friday, August 15, 2008
FILE UNDER "WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?": NEPAL ELECTS A MAOIST
BBC:
Maoist leader elected Nepalese PMER UM... CUZ IT WORKED SO WELL IN CHINA!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Nepal's Maoist leader Prachanda is elected as prime minister, months after the country abolishes its monarchy.
IDIOTS.
THEN AGAIN: THE USA MIGHT ELECT OBAMA.
WHICH WOULD BE ALMOST JUST AS BIG A MISTAKE.
THE MARCELLUS SHALE OIL BOOM
WASH POST:
"It's a gold rush, really. It's a boom," said Steve Rupert, an executive with Range Resources, which is drilling aggressively in the rolling farmland southwest of Pittsburgh.
... The state of Pennsylvania is on pace to issue more than 7,000 permits for oil and gas drilling this year, more than twice as many as five years ago. Coal mining is expanding, driven by rising coal exports. With the Marcellus looking so promising, Pennsylvania farmers are suddenly flush with cash from leasing mineral rights.
"It's a land-rush type of deal," said Gary Lash, a geologist at the State University of New York at Fredonia who studies the Marcellus. "Some people are becoming millionaires overnight."
... The Marcellus Shale underlies much of Pennsylvania and parts of New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky -- an area that already has a lot of infrastructure for distributing natural gas. Geologists say the shale might contain more than 50 trillion cubic tons of gas, about twice what the United States uses in a typical year.
- IF THE DEMOCRATS WOULD JUST THE EFF OUT OF THE WAY, WE COULD BE MAKING THOUSANDS OF MORE MILLIONAIRES RIGHT HERE IN THE USA, AND BE A LITTLE MORE ENERGY INDEPENDENT AT THE SAME TIME.
- IT WOULD BE A WIN-WIN.
- THERE'S ONLY ONE THING IN THE WAY: THE DEMOCRAT PARTY.
- WHY SHOULD RUSSIA AND BRAZIL AND THE GULF STATES BE THE ONLY ONES TO EXTRACT OIL AND GET RICH!?
- THERE'S ONLY ONE THING IN THE WAY: THE DEMOCRAT PARTY.
ONCE-CAPTIVE NATIONS KNOW THE PRICE OF FREEDOM
The leaders of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, and Poland joined Georgian President Saakashvili in an open rally in Tbilisi during the Russian invasion of its sovereign neighbor. Why didn't any other Western leader join them?
KIEV TOUGHER ON MOSCOW THAN WASHINGTON!
Not only did President Yushchenko join Latvian Prime Minister Godmanis, Polish President Kaczynski, Estonian President Ilves, and Lithuanian President Adamkus in a mass rally in Tbilisi showing solidarity with the Republic of Georgia and Georgian President Saakashvili, Ukraine now vows to restrict the movements of the Russian Fleet based in Ukrainian ports.MURTHA: TRAITOR, THIEF... SCUMBAG
HOW EFFIN SCUMMY IS MURTHA!?!?!
Forget about ABSCAM - when he thought helping Arab scum FOR A BRIBE was okay.
HE'S DONE WORSE:
Murtha went out of his way to trash MARINES who risked their lives for our security.
And Murtha goes out of his way to HELP a company in his district which was CONVICTED for illegally selling and shipping military hardware overseas.
WHAT SCUMBAG.
He's a dove Democrat - like Obama.
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.
Forget about ABSCAM - when he thought helping Arab scum FOR A BRIBE was okay.
HE'S DONE WORSE:
Murtha went out of his way to trash MARINES who risked their lives for our security.
And Murtha goes out of his way to HELP a company in his district which was CONVICTED for illegally selling and shipping military hardware overseas.
He attacks our best and defends our worst.
WHAT SCUMBAG.
He's a dove Democrat - like Obama.
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.
FACT: THE MSM LOOKED THE OTHER WAY AND PROTECTED EDWARDS FROM SCANDAL - WHICH HELPED OBAMA...
... SO WHY BELIEVE THEY'RE BEING THOROUGH OR OBJECTIVE WITH REGARD TO OBAMA!?
MORE HERE.
- THEY'RE NOT BEING EITHER.
- THEY ARE COVERING UP FOR HIM.
- HIS GAFFES,
- HIS RADICAL LEFT BACKGROUND -
- AND TIES TO FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS AND AYERS,
- HIS CORRUPT TIES TO REZKO AND THE CHICAGO MACHINE.
MORE HERE.
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA JUNIOR - AKA "BARRY SOETORO" - WAS A MUSLIM
PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF HERE.
- SHOCKED!?!?!
- I DUNNO WHY YOU WOULD BE: HIS FATHER AND STEP-FATHER WERE MUSLIMS.
- AND HIS MOTHER WAS A COMMIE ATHEIST, I THINK.
- THESE DAYS... BARRY HAS MORE IN COMMON WITH HIS MOTHER.
GOP BLACKS VERSUS DEMOCRAT BLACKS: A VISUAL PRIMER
- DEAN MADE AN ASS OUT OF HIMSELF AGAIN TODAY - CALLING THE GOP "THE WHITE PARTY" AND ACTING AS IF IT WAS A SLIP OF THE TONGUE.
- WHAT AN ASS.
- AND IT'S DEVASTATING - TO THE DEMS!
WHAT BUSH SHOULD DO ABOUT RUSSIA: GIVE THEM A DIPLOMATIC ULTIMATUM
Bush should announce that if Russia fails to withdraw all their troops to Russia in 48 hours, that they will be kicked out of the UNSC, G8, NATO (where they have a special seat), and the WTO (accession process).
If these organizations fail to expel Russia then we will withdraw.
This would send the most powerful message possible without a military threat.
If the UN and NATO can't respond properly and in consensus to this crisis then they are not worth shit.
FOR A COOLER RESPONSE TO THE CRISIS READ THIS - BY A MAN KNOWN FOR HIS COOLNESS: JOHN BOLTON.
If these organizations fail to expel Russia then we will withdraw.
This would send the most powerful message possible without a military threat.
If the UN and NATO can't respond properly and in consensus to this crisis then they are not worth shit.
FOR A COOLER RESPONSE TO THE CRISIS READ THIS - BY A MAN KNOWN FOR HIS COOLNESS: JOHN BOLTON.
ANOTHER POLICE "COMMANDER" DESERVEDLY SUED
Here's the story about another monster who deserves to be sued:
(IsraelNN.com) The commanding officer of the Mounted Police Unit, Superintendent Zevulun Hadar, is being sued for damages in civil court by a young woman who was trampled during the violent evictions from Amona in 2006. The case, filed in a Herzliya Magistrate's Court, is the first civil lawsuit against a commanding police officer stemming from the violence at the Amona protests.Read the rest of it, and ask yourself: are these the kind of people you want to see the police hiring? The man should pay for his crimes, as should any other violent "officer" there whom you wouldn't want going out with your daughter.
The plaintiff, Rivka Turgeman, claims to suffer a 10 percent disability as a result of unjustified violence against her during the 2006 eviction of protesters prior to demolition of nine structures at the Samaria town of Amona. According to the action filed by Attorney Pinchas Maoz of the Yesha Human Rights Organization, Turgeman, 18 years old at the time of the protest, said she and dozens of other young women sat passively on the road into Amona on the night before the scheduled eviction. When the mounted police made their way towards the town along the road, according to Turgeman, one police officer purposely ran her down and several others trampled her under hoof.
STOKE UP THE CO2, FAST: A NEW ICE AGE IS COMING!
CURRENT:
THE AGW CROWD SHOULD JUST STFU.
BTW: AFTER THE MOST FOLKS REALIZE THAT THEY'VE BEEN HOODWINKED BY THE LEFT AND THAT CO2-BASED AGW IS BS - AND BECAUSE OF CLEAN EXTRACTING, TRANSPORTING AND REFINING TECHNOLOGY, AND BECAUSE OIL IS PLENTIFUL ALL OVER THE WORLD - THERE WILL BE AN EXPLOSION OF DRILLING AND OIL WILL FALL TOO $35/BARREL AGAIN.
A top observatory that has been measuring sun cycles for over 200 years predicts that global temperatures will drop by two degrees over the next two decades as solar activity grinds to a halt and the planet drastically cools down, potentially heralding the onset of a new ice age.WE'VE POSTED ON THIS BEFORE, BUT WE GOTTA KEEP POUNDING ON IT: THESE GLOBAL CLIMATES CHANGES ARE NATURAL AND BEYOND OUR ABILITY TO ADD OR DETRACT.
While the mass media, Al Gore and politicized bodies like the IPCC scaremonger about the perils of global warming and demand the poor and middle class pay CO2 taxes, both hard scientific data and circumstantial evidence points to a clear cooling trend.
... The reason? Sunspot activity has dwindled. There have only been a handful of days in the past two months where any sunspot activity has been observed and over 400 spotless days have been recorded in the current solar cycle.
THE AGW CROWD SHOULD JUST STFU.
BTW: AFTER THE MOST FOLKS REALIZE THAT THEY'VE BEEN HOODWINKED BY THE LEFT AND THAT CO2-BASED AGW IS BS - AND BECAUSE OF CLEAN EXTRACTING, TRANSPORTING AND REFINING TECHNOLOGY, AND BECAUSE OIL IS PLENTIFUL ALL OVER THE WORLD - THERE WILL BE AN EXPLOSION OF DRILLING AND OIL WILL FALL TOO $35/BARREL AGAIN.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
DRILL HERE FIRST: CALIFORNIA
IN FACT, JUST OPEN THE FREAKIN PLATFORMS YA ALREADY GOT:
For oil, California is the quickest relief. Existing platforms there would allow access to some of the leases companies paid $1.1 billion for in 1981, but have been precluded from developing for 26 years. California is the nation's largest consumer of gasoline, so it could go directly to their extensive refinery network, also.SHEESH.
- LEMME SEE NOW.... OBAMA AND THE DEMS WANNA RAISE TAXES ON THE ENERGY COMPANIES, AND THE GOP WANTS TO LET THEM DRILL FOR MORE.
- WHICH DO YOU THINK WILL BRING PRICES DOWN?
Not Pictured Here
To the Left, "There is no such thing as truth", of course
An Obama ad features video of McCain walking toward the camera with a group of people in power suits, as the narrator says, "the lobbyists, running his low road campaign." None of the people pictured are lobbyists, however.
The ad also repeats a misleading claim that McCain favors "billions in tax breaks for big oil and drug companies." But McCain's tax policy doesn't target those industries. He calls for lowering the corporate tax rate for all companies.
Barack Obama's campaign has been very forthright about criticizing John McCain for having lobbyists work for his campaign. Yet a new Obama TV ad, released Aug. 11, gives a false picture - quite literally - of who exactly they are.
The ad features a shot of McCain walking with a serious-looking group of people in power suits as the narrator says, "The lobbyists" - dramatic pause - "running his low road campaign." But none of the folks pictured are actually lobbyists. Not even former lobbyists. And two of them are Secret Service guys.
The Washington Times' Christina Bellantoni noted the discrepancy in the ad Aug. 11, identifying those pictured as, from left to right, "an unidentified Secret Service agent, eBay executive Meg Whitman, McCain, another Secret Service agent, traveling press aide Brooke Buchanan and Greg Wendt, a San Francisco Democrat and volunteer adviser who travels with McCain." The McCain campaign confirms that those are the identities of the people pictured.
The Obama campaign justifies the ad's statement that "the lobbyists" are running McCain's campaign by citing various press reports about McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, who is a former telecommunications lobbyist; senior adviser Charlie Black, who was chairman of the lobbying firm BKSH & Associates and who recently stepped down to work for McCain; and several other McCain advisers that have worked as lobbyists. McCain said in February that while lobbyists serve as his advisers, "they're honorable people, and I'm proud to have them as part of my team," as reported by the Associated Press. In May, the McCain camp announced a new conflict-of-interest policy saying that no one working for the campaign could be a currently registered lobbyist. There are now former lobbyists in the campaign.
When we asked the Obama camp about its use of an image lacking any actual lobbyists, former or otherwise, spokesman Tommy Vietor told us, "I think everyone knows which lobbyists are running his campaign." If so, everyone should also know they're not pictured in this ad.
Source
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
An Obama ad features video of McCain walking toward the camera with a group of people in power suits, as the narrator says, "the lobbyists, running his low road campaign." None of the people pictured are lobbyists, however.
The ad also repeats a misleading claim that McCain favors "billions in tax breaks for big oil and drug companies." But McCain's tax policy doesn't target those industries. He calls for lowering the corporate tax rate for all companies.
Barack Obama's campaign has been very forthright about criticizing John McCain for having lobbyists work for his campaign. Yet a new Obama TV ad, released Aug. 11, gives a false picture - quite literally - of who exactly they are.
The ad features a shot of McCain walking with a serious-looking group of people in power suits as the narrator says, "The lobbyists" - dramatic pause - "running his low road campaign." But none of the folks pictured are actually lobbyists. Not even former lobbyists. And two of them are Secret Service guys.
The Washington Times' Christina Bellantoni noted the discrepancy in the ad Aug. 11, identifying those pictured as, from left to right, "an unidentified Secret Service agent, eBay executive Meg Whitman, McCain, another Secret Service agent, traveling press aide Brooke Buchanan and Greg Wendt, a San Francisco Democrat and volunteer adviser who travels with McCain." The McCain campaign confirms that those are the identities of the people pictured.
The Obama campaign justifies the ad's statement that "the lobbyists" are running McCain's campaign by citing various press reports about McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, who is a former telecommunications lobbyist; senior adviser Charlie Black, who was chairman of the lobbying firm BKSH & Associates and who recently stepped down to work for McCain; and several other McCain advisers that have worked as lobbyists. McCain said in February that while lobbyists serve as his advisers, "they're honorable people, and I'm proud to have them as part of my team," as reported by the Associated Press. In May, the McCain camp announced a new conflict-of-interest policy saying that no one working for the campaign could be a currently registered lobbyist. There are now former lobbyists in the campaign.
When we asked the Obama camp about its use of an image lacking any actual lobbyists, former or otherwise, spokesman Tommy Vietor told us, "I think everyone knows which lobbyists are running his campaign." If so, everyone should also know they're not pictured in this ad.
Source
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
Greenies beginning to see that abuse alone is not enough
Writing below, Andrew Dessler even acknowledges that there is a climate "debate". Wow! And he even argues his case instead of just saying that the skeptics are in the pay of "Big Oil". His arguments are nonsense but we must be thankful for small mercies, I guess. For instance, Einstein's theory didn't "extend" anything; Einstein REMOVED assumptions that Newton (and others, implicitly) had used to derive a theory of universal gravitation.
And there is NO need to go back a century to find scientific consensus being overturned. Instances crop up all the time on my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog. For instance, the recognition of the role of helicobacter pylori happened only in the 1990s and that overturned a centuries-old consensus that bacteria could not survive in the acid environment of the stomach. Where stomach ulcers were once universally treated with antacids and surgery, they are now treated with antibiotics. Similar revolutions already under way this century in the treatment of burns, snakebite, the use of blood transfusions and the use of N2O in anesthesia etc., etc.
And as for 100% certainty that global temperature is increasing, that's true only if you believe the "cooked" figures of Jim Hansen. Other sources show no increase over the last 10 years
One of the biggest problems in the climate change debate is the fact that many people out there fail to understand the finer points of "scientific consensus." For an example of this misunderstanding, see Ron Rosenbaum's recent article in Slate. His article trots out one of the staples of the denial industry: Science has been wrong in the past, so how do we know that a scientific consensus on climate change is right? Because of this, reporters should report all sides of the argument.So if you're writing an article about climate change, you can interview one of the thousands of climate scientists out there who basically agree with the scientific assessment described by the IPCC reports, and then you can balance them out by quoting one of the the dozen or so credible scientific skeptics out there. After all, you don't want to be biased.
To support this well-worn canard, he trots out the usual examples of scientific consensus being overturned, such as Ignaz Semmelweis, who recognized that proper hygiene could greatly reduce disease, and Einstein, whose theory of general relativity superseded Newton's. Of course, the fact that the author had to go back more than a century to find these examples should give the reader pause. And never mind that Einstein's theory didn't overturn Newton's, but extended it.
Why is this such a ridiculous argument? As all scientists know, the confidence in any "consensus" can range from low to very high. For some, such as the connection between cigarettes and lung cancer, or the observation that the Earth's temperature is increasing, there is virtual 100 percent certainty that the scientific consensus is correct.
For the statement that humans are responsible for most of the recent warming, the consensus is slightly weaker. The IPCC estimates that there is about a one-in-ten chance that this statement is wrong. For statements about changes in precipitation patterns under climate change, the consensus is weak. We think we know generally how precipitation will change, but no one would be surprised if it turns out to be substantially wrong.
Dissenting voices exist on just about every scientific question that touches the political sphere. For example, there are dissenters out there arguing that HIV does not cause AIDS, such as Kary Mullis, the 1993 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. Because they are always out there, the existence of dissenting voices actually tells you nothing about the actual scientific strength of a position. I doubt that even Rosenbaum would argue that journalists writing an article about HIV should balance their work by providing the dissenting view that perhaps HIV does not cause AIDS.Rather, journalists need to evaluate the strength of the consensus that they are reporting on.
For confidently held scientific views, such as the connection between increasing greenhouse gases and climate change or the connection between cigarettes and cancer, it is highly unlikely that the scientific community is wrong. What Rosenbaum fails to understand is that promoting uncertainty is a technique to forestall action. In other words, those opposed to action want the debate to focus on the science. As long as people are debating whether climate change is happening or not, and whether humans are responsible or not, then the debate will not be about what to do, and the status quo is maintained.In these cases, providing balance is, in reality, bias.
Source
(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, DISSECTING LEFTISM, GREENIE WATCH, OBAMA WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena . My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)
And there is NO need to go back a century to find scientific consensus being overturned. Instances crop up all the time on my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog. For instance, the recognition of the role of helicobacter pylori happened only in the 1990s and that overturned a centuries-old consensus that bacteria could not survive in the acid environment of the stomach. Where stomach ulcers were once universally treated with antacids and surgery, they are now treated with antibiotics. Similar revolutions already under way this century in the treatment of burns, snakebite, the use of blood transfusions and the use of N2O in anesthesia etc., etc.
And as for 100% certainty that global temperature is increasing, that's true only if you believe the "cooked" figures of Jim Hansen. Other sources show no increase over the last 10 years
One of the biggest problems in the climate change debate is the fact that many people out there fail to understand the finer points of "scientific consensus." For an example of this misunderstanding, see Ron Rosenbaum's recent article in Slate. His article trots out one of the staples of the denial industry: Science has been wrong in the past, so how do we know that a scientific consensus on climate change is right? Because of this, reporters should report all sides of the argument.So if you're writing an article about climate change, you can interview one of the thousands of climate scientists out there who basically agree with the scientific assessment described by the IPCC reports, and then you can balance them out by quoting one of the the dozen or so credible scientific skeptics out there. After all, you don't want to be biased.
To support this well-worn canard, he trots out the usual examples of scientific consensus being overturned, such as Ignaz Semmelweis, who recognized that proper hygiene could greatly reduce disease, and Einstein, whose theory of general relativity superseded Newton's. Of course, the fact that the author had to go back more than a century to find these examples should give the reader pause. And never mind that Einstein's theory didn't overturn Newton's, but extended it.
Why is this such a ridiculous argument? As all scientists know, the confidence in any "consensus" can range from low to very high. For some, such as the connection between cigarettes and lung cancer, or the observation that the Earth's temperature is increasing, there is virtual 100 percent certainty that the scientific consensus is correct.
For the statement that humans are responsible for most of the recent warming, the consensus is slightly weaker. The IPCC estimates that there is about a one-in-ten chance that this statement is wrong. For statements about changes in precipitation patterns under climate change, the consensus is weak. We think we know generally how precipitation will change, but no one would be surprised if it turns out to be substantially wrong.
Dissenting voices exist on just about every scientific question that touches the political sphere. For example, there are dissenters out there arguing that HIV does not cause AIDS, such as Kary Mullis, the 1993 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. Because they are always out there, the existence of dissenting voices actually tells you nothing about the actual scientific strength of a position. I doubt that even Rosenbaum would argue that journalists writing an article about HIV should balance their work by providing the dissenting view that perhaps HIV does not cause AIDS.Rather, journalists need to evaluate the strength of the consensus that they are reporting on.
For confidently held scientific views, such as the connection between increasing greenhouse gases and climate change or the connection between cigarettes and cancer, it is highly unlikely that the scientific community is wrong. What Rosenbaum fails to understand is that promoting uncertainty is a technique to forestall action. In other words, those opposed to action want the debate to focus on the science. As long as people are debating whether climate change is happening or not, and whether humans are responsible or not, then the debate will not be about what to do, and the status quo is maintained.In these cases, providing balance is, in reality, bias.
Source
(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, DISSECTING LEFTISM, GREENIE WATCH, OBAMA WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena . My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)
SOMALI HAD A POUND OF CYANIDE IN DENVER
The Denver Post reports that Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, who crossed the Canadian border into the United States, had about one pound of sodium cyanide in the hotel room, two miles from the Democrat Party Convention site, where he was found dead. (Hat tip: Charles Johnson.) That would be enough cyanide to kill hundreds of people. Odds are, this episode is the tip of a mass-casualty attack iceberg that may have derailed. Thank Heaven. Let's just hope that it is being pursued by counter-terrorism agents more vigorously than might appear from press reports.
IS BILL AYERS BARACK'S REAL CHICAGO MENTOR?
Glenn Reynolds linked to Tom Maguire's answer to his question:
Maguire linked to Steve Diamond's latest summary of Barack [middle name redacted] Soetoro's 20-year relationship with an unrepentant communist terrorist.
Barack evidently hooked up with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn during his first sojourn in the Windy City, before he went to law school. When he came back, he went to work for the same firm as Dohrn, and collaborated with Ayers in a number of years-long left-wing projects.
This relationship is the key to Barack Soetoro's political ideology. Read the summary now.
Glenn Reynolds has been wondering what other secrets the media is sitting on and what other stories they are not pursuing that might damage Obama. I have a nominee.The answer is the Bill Ayers connection.
Maguire linked to Steve Diamond's latest summary of Barack [middle name redacted] Soetoro's 20-year relationship with an unrepentant communist terrorist.
Barack evidently hooked up with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn during his first sojourn in the Windy City, before he went to law school. When he came back, he went to work for the same firm as Dohrn, and collaborated with Ayers in a number of years-long left-wing projects.
This relationship is the key to Barack Soetoro's political ideology. Read the summary now.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
MORE HERE THAN MEETS THE EYE: BUSH TO VISIT CIA AT LANGLEY
WASH TIMES:
President Bush, staying in Washington an extra day before leaving for his Texas ranch, will tomorrow head to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., according to the schedule just released by the White House.I HAVE A FEELING THAT THIS THING MAY GET CRANKED UP A NOTCH REAL SOON...
He'll receive a 30-minute briefing at 11 a.m. on U.S. efforts in the war on terror, and then a second 30-minute briefing on the situation in Georgia, where reports indicate that Russia continues to violate a ceasefire.
A REAL LAUGHER FROM THE BBC: POET AS ARAB CULTURE ICON!
BBC:
WHAT BULLSHIT.
THEY DON'T DRESS UP THEIR KIDS AS POETS; THEY DRESS THEM UP AS SUICIDAL BOMBERS!
THEY DON'T THROW PARADES FOR POETS; THEY THROW THEM FOR CHILD MURDERERS.
WHAT UTTER BULLSHIT.
Palestinians say farewell to poetER UM.. AHEAD OF NASSER AND BIN LADEN AND NASRALLAH!?
Palestinians attend the funeral of poet Mahmoud Darwish, one of the Arab world's most influential cultural figures.
WHAT BULLSHIT.
THEY DON'T DRESS UP THEIR KIDS AS POETS; THEY DRESS THEM UP AS SUICIDAL BOMBERS!
THEY DON'T THROW PARADES FOR POETS; THEY THROW THEM FOR CHILD MURDERERS.
WHAT UTTER BULLSHIT.
SCARIEST TWO FACTS OF THE CAMPAIGN SO FAR: HUCKABEE MORE QUALIFIED THAN OBAMA
AND IOWA SUCKS AT PICKING PRESIDENTS.
JUST SAYING...
AND ER UM...
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.
JUST SAYING...
AND ER UM...
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.
FROM MIDWAY AIRPORT, MORE PROOF THAT GLOBAL WARMING IS BS
CHICAGO TRIBUNE - VIA DRUDGE: Decade has had fewest 90-degree days since 1930
August is the wettest and often the muggiest month of the year. Yet, summer heat continues in short supply, continuing a trend that has dominated much of the 21st Century's opening decade.
There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008.
That's by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930.
This summer's highest reading to date has been just 91 degrees. That's unusual.
Since 1928, only one year—2000—has failed to record a higher warm-season temperature by Aug. 13.
- IOW: AGW = BS.
- OR: AGW = AN EXCUSE FOR THE LEFT TO RAISE TAXES AND ATTACK INDUSTRIALIZATION AND TRADE.
THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL RACE IN A NUTSHELL:
JOHN "ANDREW JACKSON" MCCAIN VERSUS BARACK "CLEMENT ATLEE" OBAMA.
MCCAIN IS MORE LIKE OLD HICKORY AND IKE THAN OBAMA.
OBAMA IS MORE LIKE JOHN QUINCY ADAMS AND HENRY WALLACE AND ADLAI STEVENSON.
AND IN AMERICA, THE MORE JACKSONIAN CANDIDATE ALWAYS WINS. (MORE HERE.)
THE OLD HICKORY HAWK ALWAYS SMASHES THE EGGHEAD DOVE.
MCCAIN IS MORE LIKE OLD HICKORY AND IKE THAN OBAMA.
OBAMA IS MORE LIKE JOHN QUINCY ADAMS AND HENRY WALLACE AND ADLAI STEVENSON.
AND IN AMERICA, THE MORE JACKSONIAN CANDIDATE ALWAYS WINS. (MORE HERE.)
THE OLD HICKORY HAWK ALWAYS SMASHES THE EGGHEAD DOVE.
THE GOP ENERGY PLAN VERSUS THE DEMOCRAT ENERGY PLAN: A VISUAL PRIMER
GOP PLAN:
DEMOCRAT PLAN:
DEMOCRAT PLAN:
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.
OLMERT DEMANDED DOUGH FOR SPEAKING AT CONFERENCE
Another revelation about Olmert's obsession with money:
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert demanded $5,000 dollars after speaking at a fund raising event for an organization that runs the Sarel IDF volunteer program, Channel 10 reported Wednesday.Heh. I'd say Olmert's just too embarrassed to talk about it anymore.
The TV channel quoted Sarel founder Col. Aharon Davidi (ret.), a former OC Paratroops and Infantry, as saying that in 1994, when Olmert was Jerusalem mayor, Davidi asked him to speak at an event in New York.
According to the report, Olmert agreed and said that not only would he come, but he would also bring then-New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
Davidi, who also served as former prime minister Ariel Sharon's deputy in the IDF Paratroopers, said that two months after the event, he got a call from Olmert's office demanding $5,000 to cover the then-Jerusalem mayor's expenses.
A shocked Davidi said that he could not pay such an amount since his organization existed on donations alone.
Eventually, Davidi compromised on $2,000.
An Olmert adviser told Channel 10 that he didn't have the means to either confirm or deny the report since the prime minister was on vacation and was therefore unavailable for comment.
Obama chooses a foreigner to record his theme song
No Americans good enough? How about Ludacris?
The British soul singer Joss Stone is recording a theme-song for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Mr Obama is said to have approached the 21-year-old from Devon personally to ask her to write a one-off track, partly because he believes her music has cross-racial appeal. Stone, who spends up to nine months a year in the US, was said to be "honoured" to have been asked and is now in a recording studio working on the song.
Alicia Keys and Jay-Z have also dedicated songs to Mr Obama in the lead up to his November election battle with the Republican senator John McCain.
Miss Stone is well-known in the US, where her third album, Introducing Joss Stone, debuted at number two in the Billboard album chart - the highest new entry by a British female artist in US chart history.
Source
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
The British soul singer Joss Stone is recording a theme-song for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Mr Obama is said to have approached the 21-year-old from Devon personally to ask her to write a one-off track, partly because he believes her music has cross-racial appeal. Stone, who spends up to nine months a year in the US, was said to be "honoured" to have been asked and is now in a recording studio working on the song.
Alicia Keys and Jay-Z have also dedicated songs to Mr Obama in the lead up to his November election battle with the Republican senator John McCain.
Miss Stone is well-known in the US, where her third album, Introducing Joss Stone, debuted at number two in the Billboard album chart - the highest new entry by a British female artist in US chart history.
Source
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
Democratic convention chooses nutcase to lead them
Her blackness makes her wise, apparently
The woman commissioned by the Democratic Party to direct its presidential nominating convention in two weeks espouses the same black liberation theology pursued by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose church presumptive nominee Barack Obama was forced to leave because of its controversies. Those included Wright's condemnation of America and a vicious attack on Hillary Clinton from the pulpit, and WND reported when, finally, the Obama campaign announced the candidate resigned his 20-year membership in the church.
Now a profile in the New York Times reveals Rev. Leah Daughtry, a Pentecostal minister who leads a congregation of 20 [Big time!] in Washington, embraces "black liberation theology" beliefs such as the "debt" the U.S. "owes" all blacks for slavery.
The Times describes the congregation in which Daughtry was raised - the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., where generations of family members, including her father Herbert Daughtry, have preached for decades: "Below the sanctuary, in the fellowship hall, a banner for slavery reparations proclaimed, 'They Owe Us.' Fliers recounted Herbert Daughtry's arrest, a few weeks earlier, as he led marchers protesting the not-guilty verdict in the police killing of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man. His ministry has always combined consuming spirituality with black liberation theology - the theology Jeremiah Wright invoked this spring to defend his controversial sermons - and zealous political activism. Leah holds these forces within her."
Judi McLeod, a former Toronto Sun columnist, opined it will be "Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a skirt" as Daughtry leads the Democratic National Convention in Denver. "While the media hounded Wright for his anti-American rants and while presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Hussein Obama divorced him as his personal pastor, Obama's head will be crowned by Leah Daughtry, who ardently believes in the same Marxist 'Black Liberation Theology' preached by Wright," McLeod wrote on Canada Free Press.
When Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, announced Daughtry's appointment to the post of convention CEO, he cited her "strong guidance, skilled leadership and counsel."
More here
What a lot of bulldust that last bit is. "Leadership"? She leads only 20 people! She is a failure by church standards. It is another example of the Leftist faith in verbal magic. They think that you can alter the reality by fooling around with the words used to describe it. Angry white men have given her good jobs but that says more about the stupidity of anger than it says about her
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
The woman commissioned by the Democratic Party to direct its presidential nominating convention in two weeks espouses the same black liberation theology pursued by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose church presumptive nominee Barack Obama was forced to leave because of its controversies. Those included Wright's condemnation of America and a vicious attack on Hillary Clinton from the pulpit, and WND reported when, finally, the Obama campaign announced the candidate resigned his 20-year membership in the church.
Now a profile in the New York Times reveals Rev. Leah Daughtry, a Pentecostal minister who leads a congregation of 20 [Big time!] in Washington, embraces "black liberation theology" beliefs such as the "debt" the U.S. "owes" all blacks for slavery.
The Times describes the congregation in which Daughtry was raised - the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., where generations of family members, including her father Herbert Daughtry, have preached for decades: "Below the sanctuary, in the fellowship hall, a banner for slavery reparations proclaimed, 'They Owe Us.' Fliers recounted Herbert Daughtry's arrest, a few weeks earlier, as he led marchers protesting the not-guilty verdict in the police killing of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man. His ministry has always combined consuming spirituality with black liberation theology - the theology Jeremiah Wright invoked this spring to defend his controversial sermons - and zealous political activism. Leah holds these forces within her."
Judi McLeod, a former Toronto Sun columnist, opined it will be "Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a skirt" as Daughtry leads the Democratic National Convention in Denver. "While the media hounded Wright for his anti-American rants and while presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Hussein Obama divorced him as his personal pastor, Obama's head will be crowned by Leah Daughtry, who ardently believes in the same Marxist 'Black Liberation Theology' preached by Wright," McLeod wrote on Canada Free Press.
When Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, announced Daughtry's appointment to the post of convention CEO, he cited her "strong guidance, skilled leadership and counsel."
More here
What a lot of bulldust that last bit is. "Leadership"? She leads only 20 people! She is a failure by church standards. It is another example of the Leftist faith in verbal magic. They think that you can alter the reality by fooling around with the words used to describe it. Angry white men have given her good jobs but that says more about the stupidity of anger than it says about her
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
LIBERAL FASCISM: NANNY-STATERS BAN NEW FAST FOOD RESTAURANTS IN L.A.'S POOR NEIGHBORHOODS
FOOD FACSISTS.
EXCERPT:
EXCERPT:
“What we’re beginning to see is almost the monopolization of our dietary intake by a handful of corporations,” said David Zinczenko, editor in chief of Men’s Health magazine and the author of several diet books, including “Eat This, Not That! for Kids!” (Rodale, 2008).BOTTOM-LINE: No one is forced to go onto any restaurant. And the fast-food restaurants employ many people - especially young people, from right in the community --- the POOR community, right thee in the neighborhood. And these restaurants are all built with private funds. Therefore: the government has NO BUSINESS and NO RIGHT to get involved. It's fascist.
“Add to that the financial reality of feeding ourselves today, where a single grapefruit from a corner fruit stand costs two or more times as much as a few Chicken McNuggets,” he said, “and I think you can begin to put together a case for governmental intervention.”
But not everyone agrees, including Joe R. Hicks, a radio talk show host who was the executive director of Los Angeles’s Human Relations Commission under Mayor Richard Riordan a decade ago. The two now work for a think tank that focuses on race relations.
“The crime in all of this is that people are sitting around meddling into the very minutiae of what people are putting in their mouths,” he said. He argues that the ban assumes the 500,000 people who live in South Los Angeles are intellectually incapable of deciding what to eat.
“It’s insulting, and you could almost infer a racial insult out of the interference,” he said.
Islam in Europe Weekly Review
When does reporting become adertising? How can we tell truth from fiction? Not so easy to tell, sometimes.
Here are the stories I've reported on this past week.
Sharia
* The Norwegian Islamic Council is still waiting for a fatwa from the European Fatwa Council regarding how European Muslims should see the death sentence for homosexuals. It is interesting that they expect European Muslims to have a united approach, since Europe itself does not have a united approach to homosexuality, as can be seen from the recent gay parades in Eastern Europe.
Norwegian authorities are meanwhile tired of waiting and the council might lose government funding.
* A gynecologist in Lyons trying to treat a Muslim woman was attacked by her husband.
* A new Sharia pre-paid card is available in the UK.
* Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen accuses a bank of Islamist propaganda on its site.
* Balkan Muslims agree on the same date for Ramadan, using astronomical calculations.
* Halal slaughtered chicken is available from several Swedish brands. Halal slaughter is banned in Sweden, but in this case the actual slaughter is done in Denmark.
* In the UK, several Muslim bodies came together to write up a new marriage contract which gives women more rights within the Muslim framework.
Terrorism/Radicalism
* An Israeli-Arab was arrested in Israel on suspicion of being recruited by Hizbullah, in Germany. This has caused concern in Germany about possible future attacks by the Shiite group.
* Mullah Krekar is suing Norway in the European human rights court for not letting him live a normal life. Krekar has not been deported, is not in jail, but is prevented from working.
* A Palestinian terrorist currently in Ireland claims Israel tried to assassinate him.
* The Glasvej terror trial started out in Denmark.
* A new study was published by Lorenzo Vidino on Islamism and Jihadism in Italy.
* Tabligh preachers preach Islam openly outdoors.
Interviews
* Richard Dawkins, a noted scientist in the UK, accused fundamentalist Muslims of bringing creationist theories into schools. He then went on to complain about fundamentalist Christians.
* Hirsi Ali appeared on CNN, comparing European and American Muslims.
Immigration
Sweden and Iceland agreed to take in more Palestinian refugees from Iraq. In Brussels, the police helped evict Afghani illegals who took refuge in a church after the parish priest feared neighbors will post clips from the church on YouTube. (A newsclip is available)
Marriage
Statistics Netherlands will now look into polygamy in the Netherlands, previous policy having been to disregard such marriages registered as administrative errors.
Forced marriage among men is going up in Denmark. Previously this trend had been noted in the Netherlands and the UK.
In Germany a court approved the (future) deportation of a Turkish brother who had killed his sister's girlfriend on the grounds of honor.
Discrimination/Anti-Muslim
* Le Pen, Streche and Dewinter will be gathering in Germany for an anti-Islamization congress, leading to criticism from some who had previously supported the efforts against building a mosque there.
* A Muslim in France wants to have an attack he'd experienced officially labeled Islamophobic.
* A proposal in Italy to turn a medieval Crusader gathering point into an interfaith center has run into opposition.
* Attitudes towards Muslims in the Netherlands are becoming more positive.
* Refugees in Norway who cannot prove their identity cannot attain citizenship. Apparently this is also true for their children.
* A Muslim school in Rotterdam won a court case against a local councillor who warned parents not to send their kids there.
Miscellaneous
* The Quran was translated to Maltese and presented to the local archbishop. This seems a new trend, as formerly translation of the Quoran was considered undesirable.
* Lack of media interest has brought about a sharp decline in conversions to Islam in Belgium.
* A Muslim site in Germany launched a Muslim Comedy Contest.
* A court in France approved municipal support of mosque building.
* Whether in Morocco, Turkey or elsewhere on the globe, insurance companies in the Netherlands are turning to investigators to find out if ill workers might really be vacationing.
* A proposal to open a debate forum in Italy for Islamic dissent has received support from local Muslim leaders.
* Serbs complain that Sarajevo has become almost completely Muslim.
-----
This article was cross-posted to Islam in Europe and to THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS.
Here are the stories I've reported on this past week.
Sharia
* The Norwegian Islamic Council is still waiting for a fatwa from the European Fatwa Council regarding how European Muslims should see the death sentence for homosexuals. It is interesting that they expect European Muslims to have a united approach, since Europe itself does not have a united approach to homosexuality, as can be seen from the recent gay parades in Eastern Europe.
Norwegian authorities are meanwhile tired of waiting and the council might lose government funding.
* A gynecologist in Lyons trying to treat a Muslim woman was attacked by her husband.
* A new Sharia pre-paid card is available in the UK.
* Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen accuses a bank of Islamist propaganda on its site.
* Balkan Muslims agree on the same date for Ramadan, using astronomical calculations.
* Halal slaughtered chicken is available from several Swedish brands. Halal slaughter is banned in Sweden, but in this case the actual slaughter is done in Denmark.
* In the UK, several Muslim bodies came together to write up a new marriage contract which gives women more rights within the Muslim framework.
Terrorism/Radicalism
* An Israeli-Arab was arrested in Israel on suspicion of being recruited by Hizbullah, in Germany. This has caused concern in Germany about possible future attacks by the Shiite group.
* Mullah Krekar is suing Norway in the European human rights court for not letting him live a normal life. Krekar has not been deported, is not in jail, but is prevented from working.
* A Palestinian terrorist currently in Ireland claims Israel tried to assassinate him.
* The Glasvej terror trial started out in Denmark.
* A new study was published by Lorenzo Vidino on Islamism and Jihadism in Italy.
* Tabligh preachers preach Islam openly outdoors.
Interviews
* Richard Dawkins, a noted scientist in the UK, accused fundamentalist Muslims of bringing creationist theories into schools. He then went on to complain about fundamentalist Christians.
* Hirsi Ali appeared on CNN, comparing European and American Muslims.
Immigration
Sweden and Iceland agreed to take in more Palestinian refugees from Iraq. In Brussels, the police helped evict Afghani illegals who took refuge in a church after the parish priest feared neighbors will post clips from the church on YouTube. (A newsclip is available)
Marriage
Statistics Netherlands will now look into polygamy in the Netherlands, previous policy having been to disregard such marriages registered as administrative errors.
Forced marriage among men is going up in Denmark. Previously this trend had been noted in the Netherlands and the UK.
In Germany a court approved the (future) deportation of a Turkish brother who had killed his sister's girlfriend on the grounds of honor.
Discrimination/Anti-Muslim
* Le Pen, Streche and Dewinter will be gathering in Germany for an anti-Islamization congress, leading to criticism from some who had previously supported the efforts against building a mosque there.
* A Muslim in France wants to have an attack he'd experienced officially labeled Islamophobic.
* A proposal in Italy to turn a medieval Crusader gathering point into an interfaith center has run into opposition.
* Attitudes towards Muslims in the Netherlands are becoming more positive.
* Refugees in Norway who cannot prove their identity cannot attain citizenship. Apparently this is also true for their children.
* A Muslim school in Rotterdam won a court case against a local councillor who warned parents not to send their kids there.
Miscellaneous
* The Quran was translated to Maltese and presented to the local archbishop. This seems a new trend, as formerly translation of the Quoran was considered undesirable.
* Lack of media interest has brought about a sharp decline in conversions to Islam in Belgium.
* A Muslim site in Germany launched a Muslim Comedy Contest.
* A court in France approved municipal support of mosque building.
* Whether in Morocco, Turkey or elsewhere on the globe, insurance companies in the Netherlands are turning to investigators to find out if ill workers might really be vacationing.
* A proposal to open a debate forum in Italy for Islamic dissent has received support from local Muslim leaders.
* Serbs complain that Sarajevo has become almost completely Muslim.
-----
This article was cross-posted to Islam in Europe and to THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS.
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