LIBS AND JIHADISTS AGREE: NEOCONS ARE THE BIGGEST THREAT IN THE WORLD

The Left and the Iranian jihado-maniacs stand shoulder to shoulder. They sound so similar you'd think Shrum and Trippi and Obama were advising both camps.

Scum.

AMNESTY PROVES THAT BUSH IS A LIB AND THAT DUBYA STANDS FOR WIMP

I WROTE IT WAY BACK ON APRIL 21: DUBYA STANDS FOR WIMP

BUSH HAS FOUGHT WW4 IN A TOTALLY HALF-ASSED MANNER - WE'RE FIGHTING WITH ONE HAND BEHIND OUR BACKS.

AND HE SUPPORTS LIBERAL DOMESTIC POLICES.

LIKE STEYN SAID: HE'S BLAIR WITH A RANCH. AND BLAIR IS A FREAKIN' SOCIALIST!

I RECOMMEND THAT IN RESPONSE TO THIS, WE GIVE ZERO - BUPKUSS/ZILCH/NADA - TO THE RNC AND SENATE AND HOUSE GOP CAMPAIGN FUNDS.

ZERO.

BRAZIL: STATE-SPONSORED GENOCIDE OF THE LOWER-CLASS

Forbes/AP: The Brazilian Government is to going give poor people abortion pills ("morning after pills") for free:

Brazil's government has added "morning after" pills to its newly expanded birth control program in hopes of helping poor people reduce unwanted pregnancies and dangerous illegal abortions.

Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao announced the addition a month after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the government would provide cheap birth control pills at 10,000 drug stores across Latin America's biggest country.

Speaking at a round-table discussion Monday sponsored by the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, Temporao called the morning-after pill "an important tool for the prevention of unwanted pregnancies that will definitely be part of our strategy" to help Brazil's poor have the same access to birth control as its rich elite.

Reducing the numbers in poverty by reducing the number of poor people being born is somehow considered "enlightened" by the Left - whereas CUTTING TAXES to spur growth of the economy and lifting up th poor ECONOMICALLY is considered EVIL.

SICK. The Left is freakin' sick. BTW: These pills ABORT an "unwanted" pregnancy. PERIOD.

BANNED BY PBS: MUSLIMS AGAINST JIHAD--A REVIEW

"Muslims Against Jihad" didn't air on Saturday like it was originally supposed to because of the late breaking news on the Jessie Davis case. Instead, Fox News aired it Sunday night. It was extremely well done and very eye-opening.

The question is often asked, "Why don't moderate Muslims speak out more against radical Muslim extremists?" The documentary shows the reasons why, many of them are terrified and afraid to speak out because of what might happen to them. It showed many Muslims in Europe, especially Denmark, who would try to break away from Islamic extremism only to live in fear for their lives.

The Koran states: First of all guidance, advice, and admonition, then, banishment from the bed and then 'beat them'. When the Koran presented this verse, it did not present it for all cases, but for one case out of all ways of female behavior-the case of disobedience.

The above quote was taken directly from a clip that they showed that aired on an Islamic channel that Europeans were able to access from the Middle East. Basically, it says men don't beat your wife in all cases of bad behavior, only when she disobeys. The whole concept makes me shudder to think about how oppressive it would be to live in a extremist Muslim home.

One of the things I have never understood about U.S. feminists is why they aren't speaking out more about how atrociously women are treated in the Middle East and other countries. The documentary showed how women who flee arranged marriages or who try to flee abusive relationships are often at risk of losing their lives.

Islamic Honor Killings

Islamic Honor killings are where the men in the family, whether it be a father, brother or Uncle are ordered to kill a female relative for a transgression that she has committed. One Pakistani man who lived in Denmark was ordered by his father to kill his sister. Why? Because she wanted to divorce her husband. He refused to do it so his father sent men to try and kill him also. The man said that Islamic honor killings aren't necessarily taught, it is just an unwritten rule in the culture. In Denmark there are crisis centers set up for Muslim women who are fleeing abusive treatment and/or arranged marriages.

Even though there is fear for their lives, more and more women and men are leaving the extremism and speaking out. One such man, Abdel Malik who lives in France was recruited into an extremist group that turned out to be actively involved in terrorism. At first they had him luring in others and then they actually wanted him to commit an act of terrorism. He refused to do it. Instead, he was just starting a rap singing career and after 9/11 he began speaking out against the extremism in his music.

Throughout the airing of the documentary E.D. Hill was talking to producer and director Martyn Burke, and Executive Producer Frank Gaffney. They both talked about the blatant liberal bias at PBS. Early on Martyn Burke was told by PBS to fire Frank Gaffney and another partner because they were conservatives. They asked Burke, Don't you check into the political backgrounds of the people you work with? Burke said he didn't and he refused to fire them. PBS fought them all along the way and when this documentary along with its companion film, Islam vs. Islamists was done they complained that they were alarmist. They showed them to an extremist Muslim group and of course they didn't like them.

As a result, PBS refused to air "Muslims against Jihad" and its companion piece "Islam vs. Islamists" will only be available through Oregon Public Broadcasting. If you live in Oregon check it out, and hopefully Fox News will re-air Muslims Against Jihad if you missed it. It is well worth your time.

Obama condones antisemitism

Excerpt:

While many Christians, notably the evangelical community, are deeply supportive of Israel, the leaders of a few Christian church groups in America have issued anti-Israel resolutions over the last few years. These are often established groups that are politically liberal (and often have become so secular that they are suffering a decline in membership). The anti-Israel Resolutions are typically one-sided and blame Israel for the problems of the Palestinians....

Among these churches is one that does not fit the mold of established liberal Protestant groups: the United Church of Christ (UCC). The UCC, primarily an African-American denomination, has taken a pronounced lead in anti-Israel invective. So pronounced that a broad coalition of major Jewish groups has publicly rebuked (usually these types of disagreements are not aired publicly) the United Church of Christ for its unbalanced treatment of Israel. The coalition noted that the UCC failed to mention Israeli peace overtures, Palestinian rejection of those overtures, and the "brutal Palestinian campaigns of terror aimed at innocent Israeli children and families".

It so happens that aspiring Presidential candidate Barack Obama is a prominent - almost certainly the most prominent - member of the United Church of Christ. Obama has made political hay from emphasizing the role that his church and his faith have played in his life and career. He has credited his Pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, for being his inspiration and spiritual mentor.

But now that Obama is in the midst of his political campaign and raising money and support from prominent Jews among many others, he has tried to bury this relationship, because Wright's philosophy and teachings have a very pronounced anti-Israel bias and are divisive on the issue of black-white relations in America. These views of Obama's church would have significant political repercussions for Obama, if they were more widely known. Even Pastor Wright recognizes that this history would be a problem, noting that he has been temporarily shunted aside because his views and relationship with Obama would hurt Obama's image....

This past Saturday, Obama spoke to a group of 300 delegates at the United Church of Christ state convention in Iowa. He delivered his usual bromides, including an attack on the "Christian Right." He did not mention Israel or the controversial anti-Israel positions that the United Church of Christ has taken. Not a word. Here is a man who preaches tolerance and the coming together of people, a man whose voice is a powerful instrument and can be used to heal wounds. He chose to remain silent about the bias within his own church.

More here


(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

SCOTUS Discovers Previously Unknown Provision in the Constitution

We read:

"A US high school student who was suspended for unfurling a banner saying "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" did not have his rights violated, a divided US Supreme Court ruled today, in its first major decision on student free-speech rights in nearly 20 years. The high court's conservative majority ruled that a high school principal in Juneau, Alaska, did not violate the student's constitutional free-speech rights by confiscating the banner and then suspending him.

Student Joseph Frederick says the banner's language was meant to be nonsensical and funny, a prank to get on television as the Winter Olympic torch relay passed by the school in January 2002. But school officials say the phrase "bong hits" refers to smoking marijuana. Principal Deborah Morse suspended Frederick for 10 days because she said the banner advocated or promoted illegal drug use in violation of school policy.

Mr Frederick, 18, had been standing on a public sidewalk across the street from the school when Ms Morse grabbed his banner and crumpled it. Students had been allowed out of class to watch the event.

The majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts said the court agreed with Ms Morse that those who viewed the banner would interpret it as advocating or promoting illegal drug use, in violation of school policy. Justice Roberts, who was appointed to the court by President George W. Bush, said a principal may, consistent with the First Amendment, restrict student speech at a school event when it is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use.

Source

Now where do I find that exemption concerning illegal drug use in the Constitution?


(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

HAMAS TAPED GILAD SHALIT

The Hamas released an audio recording of Gilad Shalit, whom Ehud Olmert's government has abandoned for almost a year now. The most enraging thing about this is that there's still no telling if they will take any genuine steps to rescue him.

Fred Thompson on Taxes

FRED:

One of the reasons I keep ringing the bell about the Bush tax cuts is that they’ve been so good for our country in so many ways.

Letting them expire would amount to a tax hike of historic proportions -- a tax hike that would take a higher share of our total economy than any year but one since the end of World War II.

... Prosperity is a wonderful thing in many ways. When societies have strong economies, people voluntarily take care of all kinds of problems, and the quality of life improves for everybody. This may be particularly true for children. Look around the world and you see healthy, growing economies have cleaner environments and better educational systems. The wealthier a society is, the better its children are in terms of nutrition, health care and even crime.

... we got these improvements in our children’s lives from a strong economy driven by tax cuts.

Now we're being told [by the Dems] that tax cuts have to end, so that the government can tax us and spend the money on programs to accomplish what Americans already did for themselves. And they did it far better than any bureaucracy ever could.

LISTEN TO THE WHOLE THING HERE.

LEADING SWEDISH GEOPHYSICIST SAYS UN'S IPPC LIES AND CHEATS AND DISTORTS THE DATA

VIA NEWSBUSTERS:

According to Swedish paleogeophysicist Nils-Axel Mörner, who’s been studying and writing about sea levels for four decades, the scientists working for the IPCC have falsified data and destroyed evidence to incorrectly prove their point.

Mörner was recently interviewed by Gregory Murphy of Executive Intelligence Review, and began by making it clear that the sea level claims made by the IPCC are a lot of nonsense

THEY'RE LYING IN ORDER TO SCARE US INTO PASSING THEIR LONG-HELD LEFTIST AGENDA OF HIGHER TAXES AND MORE REGULATIONS.

Zakaria/MSNBC/Newsweek:"We're winning WW4."

YUP: WINNING.

AMERICANS ARE THE MOST GENEROUS PEOPLE ON EARTH

Americans give twice as much as the next most charitable country, according to a November 2006 comparison done by the Charities Aid Foundation.

PLUS the USA liberated and/or protected a billion people from totalitarianism.

With our treasure and blood.

Which is why anti-Americans can kiss my freakin' ass.

BOSTON GLOBE NOTICES UN IS NOT ENTIRELY FAIR TO ISRAEL

The Boston Globe (whaaa?) has a piece that is somewhat unsympathetic to the formal and binding decision by the UN Human Rights Commission to exclusively single out Israel for demonization. It's by Irwin Cotler, a Canadian member of Parliament and a former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, and he is not pleased:

This discriminatory treatment is not only prejudicial to Israel, but it is a breach of the United Nations Charter's foundational principle of "equality for all nations, large and small," and it concluded a week - and year - of unprecedented discriminatory conduct. The week began with Archbishop Desmond Tutu reporting to the UN Human Rights Council on the fact-finding mission to investigate the Israeli "willful killing of Palestinian civilians" in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, in November 2006. He received a standing ovation, an extraordinary reaction by a body that frowns even upon applause. I suspect the appreciation was as much for the man as anything else. For the mandate that authorized the mission was a sham. It made a mockery of the council's own founding principles and procedures.

We're not sure if this is Anglo understatement or genuine confusion, but our hunch is that the applause were for to the man and his mandate. We originally wrote about the UN's decision to send Tutu to Israel here. The title of the post was "UN Sends Committed Anti-Semite Anti-Zionist To Conduct Unbiased Investigation Of Zionists". Even by our admittedly jaded standards, it probably rose to the level of a rant - the rank bias was just that transparent. Cotler has significantly more on how how the bias has become even more shameless. Of course, among the anti-Israel resolutions that get debated are recurring condemnations of Israel's defensive actions against Hezbollah. Syria never seems to come up. Here's what a Lebanese Muslim leader thinks about that.

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]

FOREIGN POLICY SOPHISTICATES WOULD SOUND LESS STUPID IF THEY STOPPED MIXING CONDESCENSION WITH DEMONSTRABLY FALSE FANTASIES OF COMPETENCE

Do you notice how Israeli security concerns are always dismissed by purported foreign specialists? And how those dismissals always come in the most condescending ways possible? And how those specialists are always wrong?

Newest example: US Lt-Gen Keith Dayton, the guy responsible for training Fatah troops. A month before Hamas took over Gaza, he imperiously tried to get Israel to make massive security concessions to the Palestinians. His statements - to say nothing of his demeanor - gave the impression that Fatah's weakness was Israel's fault. Turns out he was spouting the the same nonsense - in more or less the same tone - all over Washington.

The U.S. security coordinator for the Palestinians, Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, who is in charge of strengthening Abbas' security forces, came to Washington a few weeks ago with a positive assessment of the consolidation of the presidential guard and the Fatah forces subordinate to Abbas. He claimed they were holding their own in the battles against Hamas, and to skeptics he suggested the "telephone test." "Phone the Karni crossing," Dayton said. "If a Fatah man answers the phone, that's a sign that Fatah has won the battle."

That's how these people talk. Condescension built on, to put it mildly, a less than robust justification in reality.

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]

CAIR'S TIES TO AL QAIDA

Front Page Magazine has a lengthy article about the emerging discoveries of connections between CAIR and al Qaida (Hat tip: Newsbusters and BizzyBlog):

It started out as an investigation into U.S.-based financing of Hamas terrorist operations, which was bad enough. But as federal investigators developed a matrix of suspects, they discovered a possible 9/11 connection.

The Holy Land Foundation terror case has already touched the top Muslim lobby in Washington -- the Council on American-Islamic Relations -- which U.S. prosecutors recently named as an unindicted co-conspirator.

A former senior CAIR official is among five indicted figures in the major terror-funding case. It turns out he is related by marriage to a key suspect in the conspiracy -- a radical Muslim cleric and activist who authorities have linked to al-Qaida.

In fact, they say the cleric is closely connected to the spiritual adviser to the 9/11 hijackers.

Federal investigators have learned that imam Mohammed El-Mezain -- who goes on trial next month with one of CAIR's founding board members -- once lived in the same small Colorado apartment complex with another imam accused of preparing some of the hijackers for their "martyrdom" operation.

There's more to read on this too. I think it's high time to put CAIR on the list of organizations to fully indict.

Baltic beacon of economic sanity

Excerpt:

Anyone interested in seeing first-hand what a simple and fair tax system can help accomplish should visit Estonia. After gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the little Baltic country first tried its luck with the kind of progressive tax system so popular in the West. Productive people were punished with higher tax rates, and savings and investments - the lifeblood of future prosperity - were subject to double-taxation. Not surprisingly, Estonia did not prosper. To be fair, the tax system was just one of many problems plaguing the nation. But it was ironic that Estonia hindered its economic recovery from communist enslavement by using a fiscal regime - progressive taxation - advocated by Karl Marx. No less ironic is the fact that most capitalist economies have adopted that counterproductive taxation model as well.

Seeking a new approach to jump-start its economy, Estonia adopted a 26% flat tax in 1994 and never looked back. Combined with other free-market reforms, the flat tax has helped Estonia become one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Tallinn is now a boom town, filled with expensive cars, elegant shops, trendy restaurants and new construction. Estonia's system is not a completely pure version of the flat tax model. But it is remarkably free from distortions, exemptions, loopholes and penalties. The flat rate applies to both personal income and business income. And since one of the key principles of a flat tax is that income should be taxed only once, there is no death tax, no wealth tax and no double-taxation of savings or dividends.

With such a simple and fair tax system, it is hardly surprising that Estonia is now the Baltic Tiger, growing faster than every other post-Soviet economy. In the last six years, growth has averaged nearly 9%. And that's after adjusting for inflation.

More here

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

No Separation of Church and State when it Comes to Muslims

And who says so? That great protector of separation -- the ACLU

"Muslim leaders in Metro Detroit have decided not to raise private money to pay for two footbaths at a local college campus now that the American Civil Liberties Union has said the plan doesn't pose constitutional problems.

The University of Michigan-Dearborn's plan to spend $25,000 on the footbaths was criticized on conservative blogs and radio shows this month. Critics said using public money for the project would violate the First Amendment, which says governments can't favor or subsidize religions.

Muslims are required to wash body parts, including feet, up to five times daily before prayers.

Source

I guess Islam is now America's Established Church. There are some extended comments on the matter here

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

TIMESWATCH: PROMOTING TRAVEL BEHIND ENEMY LINES

Yesterday's Sunday New York Times Travel section features a cover-plus-centerfold spread hyping travel to . . . Damascus.

Dr. Assad blows up anti-Syrian politicians in Lebanon, provides material aid to terrorists targeting American troops & civilians, oppresses the Syrian population, but the New York Times still wants to inveigle its latte-sipping Upper West Side devotees into spending their after-tax dollars in Damascus . . .

Reliapundit claims that 75% of the time, the Times features anti-American dictatorships as its favored travel destinations.

In this new Astute Bloggers feature, the Punditarian is going to keep track . . .

SADDAM'S CHEMIST COUSIN SENTENCED TO HANG

Saddam's cousin al-Majid, the madman in charge of their chemical warfare against the Kurds, has been sentenced to death:

BAGHDAD (AP) - Two decades after Iraq's military laid waste to Kurdish villages, the Iraqi High Tribunal on Sunday sentenced Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," and two others to death for their roles in the bloody campaign against the restive ethnic minority.

Al-Majid, a cousin of executed former President Saddam Hussein, was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for ordering army and security services to use chemical weapons in an offensive said to have killed some 180,000 people during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

Hang 'im high, I say!

GEOSCIENTIST SAYS SUNSPOT CYCLE PREDICTS GLOBAL COOLING

The left wing is obsessed with the spectre of global warming both because they think it is an issue which will enable them to grab more power & control, and because they are behind the times. If the earth's climate, in the northern hemisphere anyway, is a degree or so warmer than it was 30 years ago, that's most certainly due to effects which have run their course.

In a recent article in the Financial Post, Professor R. Timothy Patterson, the Director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center warns that global cooling may be a more significant problem:

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.

Here's an excerpt that shows Professor Patterson's mastery of a difficult and complex subject, and his ability to communicate it effectively:

My research team began to collect and analyze core samples from the bottom of deep Western Canadian fjords. The regions in which we chose to conduct our research, Effingham Inlet on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and in 2001, sounds in the Belize-Seymour Inlet complex on the mainland coast of British Columbia, were perfect for this sort of work. The topography of these fjords is such that they contain deep basins that are subject to little water transfer from the open ocean and so water near the bottom is relatively stagnant and very low in oxygen content. As a consequence, the floors of these basins are mostly lifeless and sediment layers build up year after year, undisturbed over millennia.

Using various coring technologies, we have been able to collect more than 5,000 years' worth of mud in these basins, with the oldest layers coming from a depth of about 11 metres below the fjord floor. Clearly visible in our mud cores are annual changes that record the different seasons: corresponding to the cool, rainy winter seasons, we see dark layers composed mostly of dirt washed into the fjord from the land; in the warm summer months we see abundant fossilized fish scales and diatoms (the most common form of phytoplankton, or single-celled ocean plants) that have fallen to the fjord floor from nutrient-rich surface waters. In years when warm summers dominated climate in the region, we clearly see far thicker layers of diatoms and fish scales than we do in cooler years. Ours is one of the highest-quality climate records available anywhere today and in it we see obvious confirmation that natural climate change can be dramatic. For example, in the middle of a 62-year slice of the record at about 4,400 years ago, there was a shift in climate in only a couple of seasons from warm, dry and sunny conditions to one that was mostly cold and rainy for several decades.

Using computers to conduct what is referred to as a "time series analysis" on the colouration and thickness of the annual layers, we have discovered repeated cycles in marine productivity in this, a region larger than Europe. Specifically, we find a very strong and consistent 11-year cycle throughout the whole record in the sediments and diatom remains. This correlates closely to the well-known 11-year "Schwabe" sunspot cycle, during which the output of the sun varies by about 0.1%. Sunspots, violent storms on the surface of the sun, have the effect of increasing solar output, so, by counting the spots visible on the surface of our star, we have an indirect measure of its varying brightness. Such records have been kept for many centuries and match very well with the changes in marine productivity we are observing.

In the sediment, diatom and fish-scale records, we also see longer period cycles, all correlating closely with other well-known regular solar variations. In particular, we see marine productivity cycles that match well with the sun's 75-90-year "Gleissberg Cycle," the 200-500-year "Suess Cycle" and the 1,100-1,500-year "Bond Cycle." The strength of these cycles is seen to vary over time, fading in and out over the millennia. The variation in the sun's brightness over these longer cycles may be many times greater in magnitude than that measured over the short Schwabe cycle and so are seen to impact marine productivity even more significantly.

Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called "proxies") is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change.

However, there was a problem. Despite this clear and repeated correlation, the measured variations in incoming solar energy were, on their own, not sufficient to cause the climate changes we have observed in our proxies. In addition, even though the sun is brighter now than at any time in the past 8,000 years, the increase in direct solar input is not calculated to be sufficient to cause the past century's modest warming on its own. There had to be an amplifier of some sort for the sun to be a primary driver of climate change.

Indeed, that is precisely what has been discovered. In a series of groundbreaking scientific papers starting in 2002, Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svensmark et al., have collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies, and with it, our star's protective solar wind, varying amounts of galactic cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system and penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. These cosmic rays enhance cloud formation which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet. When the sun's energy output is greater, not only does the Earth warm slightly due to direct solar heating, but the stronger solar wind generated during these "high sun" periods blocks many of the cosmic rays from entering our atmosphere. Cloud cover decreases and the Earth warms still more.

The opposite occurs when the sun is less bright. More cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth's atmosphere, more clouds form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots, was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. By comparison, CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales.

Will the threat of "global cooling" be used by the left to promote its totalitarian agenda? Undoubtedly! But it will be more difficult for them to do it with global cooling, because it will be apparent that the causes are not related to the industrial economy.

Previous TAB sunspot posts here, here, here, and here.

THAT "TINY MINORITY" OF FANATICS, CONTINUED

A Peer of the British Realm unashamedly refers to Al Qaeda criminals as "martyrs:"

Interviewed in Le Figaro newspaper in France, the Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham added fuel to the row when he hit out at Mr Rushdie.

"This honour is given in recognition of services rendered to Great Britain," he said. "Salman Rushdie lives in New York. He is controversial man who has insulted Muslim people, Christians and the British. He does not deserve the honour.

"Two weeks ago Tony Blair spoke about constructing bridges with Muslims. What hypocrisy.

"What would one say if the Saudi or Afghan governments honoured the martyrs of the September 11 attacks on the United States?"

What will the House of Lords have to say about Lord Ahmed of Rotherham? Nazir Ahmed is a Pakistan-born, naturalized Briton, who was created a Baron after a long career as a Labour politician. In 2005 he sponsored appearances by an extreme anti-Semite:

Lord Ahmed invited a known anti-Semite to speak in the House of Lords, has not uttered a word of criticism since and remains a Labour peer. Before hearing from Lord Ahmed, I also wrote to Lord Grocott, the Labour Chief Whip in the Lords. I asked him if, given Lord Ahmed’s apparent lack of contrition, Lord Grocott considered it appropriate that Lord Ahmed should still hold the Labour whip? No reply.

The House did nothing then. What now my Lords?

HAMASTAN: YOUR U.S. TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!

In an interview with Der Spiegel online, Hamas founder Dr. Mahmoud Zahar says that Hamas acquired the weapons it used in its recent putsch against the coalition government in Gaza with American money!

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The militant wings of Fatah and Hamas have been fully armed over the last few months. Are these weapons still in circulation?

Zahar: There are naturally very many weapons around now. Two years ago, one bullet in Gaza cost around €3.50 -- now it would cost 35 cents. The American aid money has been translated into weapons. Thank you, America!

And George Bush & Ehud Olmert still want to send even more money and even more weapons to terrorist organizations that are committed to the ethnic cleansing of the Middle East and the genocide of the Jews.

BBC: Lebanon Islamist clashes spread

BBC:

Lebanon Islamist clashes spread

A Lebanese civil defence worker throws a gas barrel from the balcony of a damaged building before it explodes following clashes between Lebanese soldiers and suspected al-Qaeda gunmen in Tripoli. At least 10 people have been killed in fighting between Lebanese troops and suspected Islamic militants in the northern city of Tripoli.

Two civilians, one soldier, a policeman and at least six Islamist gunmen are said to have been killed in the fight.

It came after the army raided an apartment of a suspected militant in the Abu Samra district on Saturday.

The clashes mark a shift in fighting away from the nearby Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp.

The latest violence began when gunmen fired at soldiers who were trying to raid their apartment, the Reuters news agency reported.

The army responded with an attack, blocking off the area and bringing in reinforcements.

IRAN IS ATTEMPTING TO HAVE THEIR SURROGATES TAKE OVER LEBANON AS THEY DID GAZA.

IT IS GOOD THAT THE LEBANESE ARMY IS FIGHTING BACK. THEY ARE GETTING AID FROM ALL THE "MODERATE" ARAB NATIONS IN THE REGION AND THE USA.

BECAUSE IT IS IN IRAN'S INTEREST TO HAVE AS MUCH HAVOC IN THE REGION AS POSSIBLE, I EXPECT HAMAS TO ATTACK ISRAEL AND JIHADOTERROR IN JORDAN WITHIN A FEW WEEKS.

STAY TUNED.