Political correctness in the USA and Australia

Beware the "S-word"

We read:

"Ruby Bernal wasn't self-conscious about her American Indian heritage until her adolescence, when a band of teenage boys called her "squaw" during a drive-by heckling.

"It's like saying the 'N-word' to a black person," says Bernal, a member of the Shoshone-Bannock, one of five tribes with reservations in Idaho.

"To me, it's a slap in the face. It belittles me and it belittles all Indian women." ....

Now one of the Northwest's most influential American Indian tribes is campaigning to wipe the word off the names of 11 creeks, bluffs and canyons in Idaho.

Source

An earlier (2001!) episode in this "controversy" is recorded here (scroll down). I suspect that the term is only derogatory if you think it is.

There is a derogatory term for an ignorant and uncultured Australian: "ocker". Most Australians accused of being an ocker, however, would do little more than laugh. "Too right, mate" (a form of good-humored agreement) would be the most likely reply. (I guess the word is much like "redneck" in the USA). Rather sad that so much of the world lacks the maturity to respond that way.





Australian Leftists Disown "Racism" Accusation

It has long seemed to me that Australian Leftists seem to be a lot less hysterical and more realistic than their American counterparts and I think an episode yesterday is a good example of that.

There is an election campaign underway in Australia's most populous state -- New South Wales. The State is Left-run and likely to remain so. Nobody seems to take much notice of it but the state government concerned is heavily Italian. Both the Premier and many of his senior ministers are of Italian origin. Australian-born people of Italian origin are a generally successful and generally popular group in Australia these days.

Yesterday, one of the senior ministers concerned, Michael Costa, accused the conservative leader of criticizing him and the government out of "racism" against Italians. It was an absurd accusation but no more absurd than many of the accusations that are flung around in American politics.

So what did the Leftist NSW government do? If it had been America, I think they would have quietly applauded Costa's comments. In fact however, Premier Iemma rejected the accusation, reprimanded Costa and barred him from further speaking to the press. I wonder why the American Left cannot be that mature?

Details here.


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

be it ever so humble...

the Gore carbon - neutral residence

pure as the driven slush

Hillary caught on charity tax scheme


DEMOCRAT senator Hillary Clinton failed to disclose a family charity she operates with former president Bill Clinton that has enabled the couple to write offmore than $US5 million ($6.3 million) in taxable income since 2001.
The US Ethics in Government Act requires members of Congress to disclose positions they hold with any outside entity, including non-profit foundations.

But in successive annual Senate disclosure forms, Senator Clinton has failed to report the foundation, established in 2001, or her position as treasurer and secretary, The Washington Post reported yesterday.
here:
Update:

"The Clintons are plowing new ground. Ethics and election laws should keep pace. Never before has the spouse of a former president run for president. One of the reasons for disclosure forms is to ensure no improper influences are exerted on public officials by outside groups, or governments. Among those for whom Clinton spoke were a Saudi Arabia investment firm ($600,000 for two speeches), a Chinese real estate firm, run by a Communist Party official ($200,000), and a Toronto company, founded by a Kenyan immigrant who was convicted of stock fraud and barred for life from the brokerage business ($650,000 in 2005 and an undisclosed sum last year). The public needs to know more about their backgrounds."
Townhall.com

US Christians win one, lose one

Free Speech for Christians Upheld in Ohio

There have been quite a few cases of Christians being harassed by police when they publicly proclaim messages against abortion, homosexuality etc. See e.g. here. One hopes that police nationwide will be a bit less likely to do that after a recent case in Ohio upheld the right of anti-abortion campaigners to display images of aborted babies:

" Today, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, Ohio, unanimously ruled that a three-hour police detention of law-abiding, pro-life demonstrators presented valid constitutional claims under the First and Fourth Amendments. The Court reversed a lower court's decision in favor of the law enforcement officers.

Robert Muise, the Thomas More Law Center Trial Counsel handling the case, successfully argued that the lengthy detention - so that the FBI could "gather intelligence" on the pro-life demonstrators - violated the demonstrators' Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable police searches and seizures. He further succeeded in showing that the police violated the demonstrators' First Amendment rights by targeting them for disfavored treatment because they were "anti-abortion."

Source




Peaceful Street Preaching not Protected?

Both freedom to exercise religion and free speech protection were ignored by this judge:

"A new federal court decision in the case of the Philadelphia Eleven could send Christians' free speech rights another step towards extinction, according to group members who have been told police officers had a right to silence their biblical messages at a public homosexual festival.

The decision came in a civil rights lawsuit brought by members of that team, including Repent America director Michael Marcavage, who sued the city and a homosexual-festival sponsor after group members were cleared of criminal charges for their actions at the 2004 "Gay Pride" public street festival in the downtown area.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel dismissed their civil rights claim, concluding that a "permit" granted by the city to the homosexuals allowed police to silence the Christian activists' message on public streets.

Source

A municipal permit trumps the constitution??


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

If that don't beat all....

This has to be one of the funniest things I have ever read.

You see, one of the resident leftist fuckwits we seem to have around here took issue with kg's post about a comment which basically suggested that the government really should butt the fuck out and not be so eager to trample individual rights so some left wing wankers can feel good about themselves.

This brain deficient troll actually had the nerve to say:

"It is idiotic, and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of human nature."


Yes, you read that correctly. A leftist is accusing someone else of not having an understanding of human nature.

I mean, holy shit. Is he (and the rest of the left) really that fucking retarded and oblivious?

As we can see from Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, Cambodia, Zimbabwe... well pretty much every single place where leftists have instituted their philosophies (to the tune of more than 100 million murdered and countless more in abject misery and poverty), they have a real clear understanding of human nature.

Too fucking funny.

the hypocrisy of the left:

"Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth”
Gore’s home uses more than 20 times the national average

Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006. "

from HERE

IMMIGRATION WATCH

I don't seem to be able to help myself. I have started yet another blog -- called Immigration Watch. The topic is such a red-hot one that I felt I should do more in that field. I have in the past put up a lot about immigration on PC Watch but it is not really a good fit there. I am not sure as yet whether I will be posting daily to the new blog but I suspect so. I already have a fair bit up.

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

Absurdity about Israel in "The Economist" magazine

Post lifted from American Thinker. I myself like "The Economist" -- but only on economics. Economics is certainly inevitably bound up with politics but foreign policy is just way outside their field of expertise

We have in the past noted that The Economist magazine has a typically European elitist view toward America (particularly in its ridicule of  Christians). The editors also have a very biased view towards Israel. The current issue has yet another editorial that advocates Israel and the world "break bread" with Hamas and reach a deal with the Hamas-led "government".

The Economist did take note that Hamas has refused to abide by the three major principles of the Road Map that the Palestinians had previously agreed to do, to wit: recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce terror and violence, and agree to abide by previous agreements.  Despite these failures, the editorial board writes that the Road Map principles should be ignored and that it is time to soften economic pressure and negotiate statehood for the Palestinians. The last line of the piece  says it all about the philosophy of the magazine:

"It will be hard, but this is a better way to win the argument against Hamas than the past year's vain efforts to make the Palestinians jump through verbal hoops they have come to consider humiliating".

Got that? Recognizing Israel's right to exist, forswearing violence, and abiding by past agreements and promises are considered "humiliating" by the magazine.

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

from a fine post at Not PC

Here:

"What's wrong with persuading people, rather than using force? Isn't that -- or shouldn't that be -- the mark of a truly civilised society? If you look for symbolism, you might think of it as reason against brute force, or the mind versus the gun.

Why isn't it wrong for politicians to impose their will on parents, or for planners to impose their views on home-owners? Why isn't it wrong for busybodies to impose their own values on party pill users and gun owners, on Easter holiday shoppers and fireworks users, or on people who smoke in bars, or people who don't save enough, or who spend too much, or borrow too much, or who work too hard or too much -- or too little -- or who drive the wrong car, or use the wrong lightbulbs, or upon anyone and everyone who just might be doing something the busybody might just disagree with?

Why do we so easily countenance using coercion when we wish to impose our values upon others? Why is individual liberty so thoughtlessly and so easily sacrificed for some feel-good wowser's fix. What's wrong with persuasion? What's wrong with freedom with responsibility? Isn't that -- or shouldn't it be -- the mark of a truly civilised society?"

you listening, Ben?

OVERFEEDING IS NOW CHILD ABUSE IN BRITAIN

Overweight adults are already being denied some medical services in Britain. This criminalization of fat is therefore a harbinger of worse discrimination to come. I suppose however we should be glad that the social workers now seem to have given up on witchcraft scares as a way to attack families. At least fat is not imaginary. Progress of a sort, I guess. Wouldn't it be nice, though, if they concentrated on (say) children of drug addicts instead of on ordinary decent families? Social work schools are covens of Leftism and the ingrained Leftist hatred of ordinary decent people happily getting on with their lives is always the best predictor of whom social workers will target. You can be sure that no social worker will ever mention how small the difference is between the average lifespans of slim and overweight people. A "crack" baby, or a baby with fetal alcohol syndrome, on the other hand, DOES have serious problems.

Note further that dieting normally promotes weight GAIN so the intervention described below is as ill-conceived as it is authoritarian


An eight-year-old boy who weighs 14 stone, more than three times the average for his age, may be taken into care if his mother fails to improve his diet. Connor McCreaddie, from Wallsend, near Newcastle upon Tyne, has broken four beds and five bicycles. The family claims to have a history of intolerance to fruit or vegetables. On Tuesday his mother and grandmother will attend a formal child protection conference to decide his future, which could lead to proceedings to take him into care.

Connor could be placed on the child protection register, along with victims of physical and sexual abuse, or on the less serious children in need register. The intervention of social services is a landmark in the fight against youth obesity. The boy's mother, Nicola McKeown, said: "If Connor gets taken into care that is the worst scenario there could be. Hopefully, we will be able to work through it and come up with a good plan and he will just be put on the at-risk register or some other register. That wouldn't be so bad because, hopefully, there will be some help for us at the end of it."

Two specialist obesity nurses, a consultant paediatrician, the deputy head of Connor's school, a police officer and at least two social workers are expected to be on the panel deciding what action should be taken. One National Health Service source said: "We have attempted many times to arrange for Connor to have appointments with community and paediatric nutritionists, public health experts, school nurses and social workers to weigh and measure him and to address his diet, but the appointments have been missed. "Taking the child into care or putting him on the child protection register is absolutely the last resort. We do not do these things lightly but we have got to consider what effect this life-style is having on his health. Child abuse is not just about hitting your children or sexually abusing them, it is also about neglect." The source added: "The long-term health effects of obesity such as diabetes are well known and it is concerning that Connor is more than twice the weight he should be. There has to be some parental responsibility."

Source

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

"Wicked" Israeli academic to give talk in Melbourne

Professor Raphael Israeli will give a talk on "The Growth of Islam in Europe and it's effect on Western democracies" on Sunday 11th March, 2007, 8.00 pm at Beth Weizmann, 306 Hawthorn Road, Caulfield South. Admission: $10

Given recent events in the Press and the Jewish leadership, there has been an unprecedented demand for Professor Israeli so bookings are advised. Enquiries and bookings: Ronit 0413 813345, Fran 0414 822 584

Prof. Israeli has been disowned by official Australian Jewry because he is outspoken about Muslims. See my post of 17th..

Update:

You can book to attend the talk over the internet. Click HERE

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

COMPACT FLUORO LIGHTS

In a sad world first, the Australian government has decided to burnish its Green credentials by banning ordinary light globes. In 3 years time, Australians will be able to buy compact fluorescents only. The idea is that the fluoros use electricity more efficiently. That much is true. But the drawbacks of the fluoros are many.

A major one is that they tend to blow up if you use them in conjunction with dimmer switches. That little detail aside, here is a full list (so far) of the problems:

1. Compact fluorescent bulbs are almost always Edison (screw) type, whereas most Australian lighting uses bayonet fittings. This could no doubt change but may push up costs because the lights would have to be made for just the Australian market.

2. They are often physically larger than the incandescent bulbs they replace and simply may not fit the lamp or fixture conveniently or at all. People often have very fancy light-fittings that cost hundreds of dollars. Millions of those may have to be abandoned.

3. The funny elongated or circular shape may result in a less optimal lighting pattern.

4. Many models have light output claims that are only achieved at the optimum operating temperature and/or in some optimum burning position that achieves an optimum internal temperature. Many light output claims are outright exaggerated, often by about 15 percent and in a few extreme cases by 25 percent.

5. Compact fluorescent lamps usually do not produce full light output until they warm up for a minute or two. A few models require about three minutes to fully warm up and produce as little as 20-25 percent of their full light output when first started.

6. Some types may produce an annoying 120 Hz (or 100 Hz) flicker.

7. There are many small incandescent lamps (e.g. in refrigerators) that could not conceivably be replaced by the bulky fluoros we have today. Technology MAY be able to solve that but the costs will probably be large. The compacts we have today are already the endpoint of a big effort at downsizing.

8. May produce Radio Frequency Interference (RFI).

9. The up-front cost is substantial (unless there is a large rebate): $10 to $20 for a compact fluorescent to replace a 60W incandescent bulb that costs 40 to 70c.

10. Due to the high up-front cost, the pay-back period may approach infinity.

11. While their life may be 20,000 hours, a wayward ball will break one of these $10 to $20 bulbs as easily as a 40 cent incandescent.

12. Few commonly available compact fluorescent lamps designed to fit into 240 volt ordinary light bulb sockets match or exceed the light output of a 100 watt standard incandescent lamp.

13. Lots of people just don't like the type of light they get from fluoros -- to glary, too white, too flickery etc.

What Wal-Mart have done in the USA -- make compact fluoros cheaper -- is all that reasonably should be done to promote energy savings from lighting. The new Australian policy is a classical example of how Green "alternatives" are generally very poor alternatives to what they replace.

For most of the info above I have drawn on this post. And Gust of hot air has some satirical comments on the matter.

Update:

A reader adds:

"The untold story here is that it is a tax grab by the gubmin. There are approx 7.4 million households in Australia and I would guesstimate there are on average 10 light bulbs per household. With the average cost of the fluoro replacement being $15.00 this generates $1.50 GST per unit fluoro to the gubmin x 10 x 7.4 million = $111 million tax grab. Added to this is the number in all other locations likely doubling the number of light bulbs. Since these fluoros are manufactured mainly overseas you can most likely double the tax take due to import tarrifs. We are looking at a half Billion Dollar rip-off by the gubmin."

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

Travelling In Style

I had to laugh when I read that Cpt. Kyoto aka David Suzuki was making his way across this country in a diesel tour bus. Suzuki is presently engaged in a 30 day cross-Canada tour trying to raise awareness of environmental issues and lecture us all on the evils of greenhouse gas emissions. It wasn’t until his little merry band landed here in Winnipeg that a journalist finally pointed out the irony of travelling across Canada in a fuel guzzling emission spewing diesel tour bus.

When asked why the hell seven or eight people needed to travel in a rock-star style tour bus David Suzuki Foundation spokesman Jason Curran said,
“If we could have walked the distance, we would have.”

Huh? Nobody is suggesting the Suzuki Seven walk across Canada. There are plenty of alternatives to a diesel tour bus. When asked why they didn’t find a biodiesel bus Curran replied,
“We were hoping to have biodiesel. But we were told towards the beginning of the tour - for this company that we’re going through - that it would void the warranty.”

What? Void the warranty? Cpt. Kyoto has been lecturing us all ad nauseum on the benefits of car pooling, using smaller fuel efficient vehicles and public transit because the future of the planet is at stake and then chooses a diesel spewing tour bus because of a warranty issue? I suppose we are all to inconvenience ourselves except for the Grand Poobah himself who by the way urged Toronto’s mayor to adopt a pollution bylaw when he and his entourage were in that city.

But the best part of all of this is their attempt at rationalization by claiming that the tour is carbon neutral.
“At the end of the tour, we will calculate the total emissions from the tour, and purchase high-quality carbon offsets that support renewable energy and energy efficiency projects,” said Paul Lingl, a climate-change specialist with the foundation. The group says it’s buying what it terms “gold standard” carbon offsets from myclimate, a Zurich, Switzerland-based non-profit company that funds energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

I see. So in other words you can pollute all you want as long as you offset it by investing a corresponding amount in clean energy. What the hell are we talking about - the environment or accounting? This is as ridiculous as claiming a pedophile may absolve himself of any blame as long as he gives to the Boy Scouts.

Of course this is one of the major problems with Kyoto itself. One can actually claim that their activities cause no net addition of emissions by investing in green projects that offset those emissions - a common practice in accounting.

The Cpt. should practice what he preaches.

Update: This is for Nilk

Death of the American Constitution

"… the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."

George Washington’s First Inaugural Address

The Constitution was designed largely according to the ideas of Montesquieu and John Locke. Following Montesquieu, it specifies the separate duties for each of America’s three branches. Following Locke, it limits the government’s powers so as to protect individual liberties.

Its ability to do the latter function has faded rapidly since the New Deal. For example, most of the Bill of Rights remain de jure in force but are de facto void. This can be easily tested by a Lexis search of successful attempts to use them in litigation. You will find almost none.

At some point in our future the Constitution seems likely to become a purely procedural document, much like that of the former Soviet Union, and equally effective at preserving our liberties. Our rights will exist only on the sufferance of the government and our ruling elites. This is already true in the UK, as the “unwritten constitution” protecting the “rights of Englishmen” has blown away like smoke in the wind.

more HERE:

"last will and testament"? don't bet on it.....

From today's NZ Herald:

Family fight for $650,000 left to charity

A woman who claims her father raped her and abused young family members was forced into a legal battle with Save the Children after he left the bulk of his fortune to the charity.

The man left his family less than 10 per cent of a $715,000 estate.

The woman, 60, alleged her father raped her 30 years ago, molested her sister when she was young and also abused his granddaughter.
The money would "release them from financial burdens because they are living on welfare", the family member said.

The challenge was filed last July and this week Save the Children was awarded just $56,666 of the $715,000.

In an affidavit supporting her claim, the woman said she had a "very difficult relationship" with her father and described an incident where he raped her at age 30
which is thirty years ago! Even if this man were still alive, how could he possibly defend himself against allegations concerning something that allegedly happened so long ago?
A complaint was never laid with police and the father was never charged but the woman's brother was convicted of abusing his own daughter and jailed in the late 1980s.
And what exactly does that have to do with this woman's allegations?

The woman described a difficult childhood where she and her siblings were made to dig drains, paint buildings and do maintenance work for their father.
The horror! Digging drains, painting buildings and doing maintenance work! Clearly, he was a heartless bastard...but not so despicable that they're unwilling to make a grab for his money now he's dead.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yet another case where the lawyers and judges presume themselves to be the anointed arbiters of morality.
Yet another case where allegations of abuse are used in order for a plaintiff to get her (usually) own way by using the court's leftist bias. The standard of proof in civil cases is lower than that required in criminal cases. This woman and her legal accomplices have used the court to smear a dead man's reputation, to overturn what is supposed to be his right to dispose of his assets as he wished--all in order to grab money which they didn't earn themselves.
All this judge had was his personal assessment of the woman's veracity. A woman who stood to gain financially and whose "evidence" couldn't be challenged by the person smeared.
Lawyers and judges are effectively another layer of government, making laws and interpreting laws according to their personal philosophical bent.
If your will isn't sacrosanct, proof against the depredations of the socialist state,then what the fuck is?

THEY'RE GETTING DESPERATE!

Once you look past the hype, the latest IPCC report on climate change is actually rather unfavorable to the Greenies -- something many of them have been squealing loudly about. The scientific findings just don't show what the Greenies want them to show.

Solution? Alter the data! Fudge the facts. In plain English: Lie.

Three major repositories of climate facts and figures are the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in England, The United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the USA. The remarkably restrained Steve McIntyre has been looking at some of the data they put out. And guess what? It has changed recently! They have revised the past. The figures they now give for temperatures during the 20th century have been changed! And you don't need to guess the direction of the change. They are now representing the late 20th century as being warmer than what they once said it was and the early 20th century as being cooler than what they once said it was.

And how do we know that? After all, they have expunged from the record all their earlier data and replaced it with their new "edited" versions. We know it because of that pesky internet! Steve McIntyre was able to find on the net a copy of the earlier data. He comments:

The effect of the adjustments since 2000 has been to bring the USHCN history more in line with the CRU version. One wonders exactly what adjustments have been performed by CRU and others and the recent admission by Brohan et al 2006 that original versions of many series have been lost (or never even collated by CRU in the first place) leaving only the adjusted versions at CRU (with the nature of some or all of the adjustments undocumented and unknown) is extremely disquieting.

Science has gone out the window when this sort of thing happens. It is a given in scientific discourse that you don't question the other guy's data. You just look for different explanations of it or misinterpretations of it. In climate "science", alas, that courtesy is no longer automatically possible. The pro-warming side of climate "science" must now be regarded as one big whirlpool of fraud. One can now safely accept nothing that they say. They are driven people, but respect for truth is no part of that drive.

Prof. Brignell also has some astringent comments on McIntyre's findings.





It had to happen

Now climate change "deniers" are not only evil Nazi types but are also psychologically inadequate. Not a shred of research evidence for any of the assertions is offered, of course. Has the author below or anybody he quotes ever interviewed a single "denier"? There is no evidence of it. It is just armchair theorizing -- which can be used to justify anything. But the author is Dick Meyer, editorial director of CBSNews.com, so I guess that makes it authoritative:

So what is it that makes some human brains dismiss or ignore global warming and others, far fewer, feel worried, threatened and called to action? Answering this question properly is probably far more important to future behavior and policy than endless arguments about how hot it will be in Cincinnati in 2077.

Charles Darwin explains a lot of this. Global warming simply does not present the kinds of stimuli that the human nervous system evolved to respond to in order to survive threats from bears, lightning, rolling boulders and mean cavemen. Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist who wrote "Stumbling on Happiness," summed up evolutionary psychology's perspective by noting how global warming lacked four traits "the human brain evolved to respond to."

First, the threat is not human and we "social mammals" are especially sensitive to dangers from other humans - and dangers that are intentional (terrorism) rather than accidental (floods). Similarly, homo sapiens respond with greater instinctive power to threats that violate group sensibilities or "moral emotions;" global warming doesn't spawn visceral feelings (for most) of something "indecent, impious or repulsive."

Third and most obvious, the threat of global warming is far, far away, not immediate, not something that makes you duck or twitch. In fact, a person really has to use the analytic brain hunks to get in a global warming lather, not the affective or emotional mechanisms that detect common threats and risks. As another scholar said, "risk is a feeling." Statistics and reports don't enter the brain through feeling portals. So after Hurricane Katrina, polling found concern about global warming ticked up.

Similarly, climate change is gradual. Indeed it is invisible; there are no "affective" sights and sounds to switch on the neurological special alert system - no infernos, poxes, pests and plagues.

The problem with the Darwinian angle here is that it doesn't explain why some human brains do feel threatened and worried by global warming and some don't. The biggest variable here is probably simple anthropology: as social mammals, we use the group to survive and thus tend to share the beliefs of our own group.

In modern society, groups are intangible and amorphous; they aren't discrete tribes gathering walnuts and spearing bison. Group ties are as often emotional or even ideological as geographic or even familial. You may identify, with varying degrees of self-consciousness, as a Catholic, a Green, a Jew, a small businessman, an African-American, a geek, a recovering alcoholic, a Republican, a liberal, a lesbian, an Italian-American, a Blue Blood, a Texan, an artist or a stamp collector. Most people cross-pollinate.

But these group affiliations are likely to be a strong determinant of your feelings about global warming (feelings you will call a "position"). Do you think global warming is an urgent problem because you are a Democrat or are you a Democrat because you think global warming is an urgent problem? Some variant of the former is most likely, I'm sorry to report.

Scandinavians and Germans have been the most alarmed and politically active about global warming. Why? Diet? Too much existentialism?

Compared to other countries, Americans display an unusually large disconnect in describing themselves as environmentalists by being broadly unwilling to support voluntary restraints and vigorous laws and regulations. (This comes from a paper called "The American Paradox" by Dale Jamieson of New York University, part of a fascinating collection of papers on "Global Warming: The Psychology of Long-Term Risk" in the July 2006 edition of a journal called, "Climactic Change.")

Group identification not only orients specific positions but what might be called the distribution of alarm. Elke Weber, also writing in "Climactic Change," notes that societies have a "finite pool of worry." Neither a group nor an individual can stay at red alert about terrorism, salmonella, bird flu, identity theft and global warming. We don't prioritize threats and risks rationally; we do it emotionally and through the genius or dumbness of crowds.

On top of all this very cool psycho-babble are some common-sense factors that keep global warming from triggering our inner worry monkeys. It's a hard problem to solve; OK, the world is warming, but it's not like you can go out and buy a Glock, duct tape or Cipro and do anything. Global warming is also the classic other guys' problem: leave it for the next generation; let the Chinese cut their pollution then we'll talk. It is also susceptible to optimism: American ingenuity will fix it.

"Global warming is a deadly threat precisely because it fails to trip the brain's alarm, leaving us soundly asleep in a burning bed," Daniel Gilbert wrote.

Scientists, economists and "ists" of all sorts have probably done all they can do to trigger our humanoid alarm systems. American politicians will probably hurt, not help. Bizarre and inconvenient as it sounds, effective and affective warnings and information about global warming will likely come from novelists, moviemakers and comedians.

Source




ANTI-GLOBAL-WARMING PETITION NOW UP

Patriot Post are taking action. See below:

Please join fellow Patriots and sign this petition to Stop Albert Gore and Reject the UN's Global Warming Treaty (see text below). Gore is reenergizing the movement advocating Kyoto compliance. We urge you to sign this petition today, and reject Gore's advocacy for UN control of the U.S. economy.

In order to encourage serious consideration of this issue by the Bush administration and Congress, we must collect over 100,000 signatures. Please sign and then forward this invitation to all of your family members, friends and associates.

To sign this petition online, go here.

If you don't have Web access, you can sign this petition by sending a blank e-mail to: sign-stopgore@PatriotPetitions.US

Petition Text:

To President George Bush, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Republican Leader John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

We urge the United States Senate to reject the 1997 United Nations Kyoto Protocols Treaty purporting to address global warming by constraining economic growth in the United States while allowing unmitigated growth in 129 other nations, included two of the largest world economies in China and India.

The Senate overwhelmingly rejected this Treaty (95-0) by way of the Byrd-Hagel Senate resolution in 1997, which objected to the lack of any "specific scheduled commitments" in regard to the CO2 output of "developing" countries."

We reject the Orwellian solutions proposed by Albert Arnold Gore and others who claim that the Kyoto Protocols must be adopted to stop global warming. The science of climate change is very imprecise, and current trends in climate change may have little or nothing to do with production of so-called "greenhouse gasses" such as carbon dioxide.

Albert Gore's solutions will only impede the advancement of scientific and technological innovation, and would impoverish hundreds of millions of people around the world.


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

The Europeans are back to their old hatred of Jews

Excerpt from Michael Ledeen. I am not quite clear on what Ledeen thinks started at the beginning of C20. European antisemitism goes back many centuries. Both Luther and Marx were great antisemites

Daniel Johnson, writing in the Weekly Standard from London, notes with sadness and alarm that the European elite have now admitted their failure to negotiate an end to the Iranian nuclear program. Not only that, but they let out of the diplomatic bag the dirty little secret that it's always been about nuclear weapons.

So the Europeans know-in all likelihood they've always known-that the Iranians are building atomic bombs, and intend to use them against Israel. Against the Jews. Johnson says that if that happens, he'll pack up and leave Europe, as well he might. I'm tempted to ask him why he needs to wait. British Jews now constitute the largest single group of immigrants to Israel, having seen the graffiti on the walls and in the newspapers of their finlandized country.

The campaign against Israel and the rising tide of antisemitism are two faces of the same medallion. Anybody who has studied the rise of National Socialism recognizes the symptoms, above all the dehumanization of the Jews, accompanied by the big lies about Jewish control of this and that, from the banks to the newspapers.

In retrospect, we can see that Europe set on this course at the turn of the twentieth century, then indulged their antisemitic fantasies until they were defeated in war. We then had a happy interlude, when antisemitism was so discredited by Hitler and rendered taboo as a result of defeat. That interlude is now over, and the Europeans are reverting to form.

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

Go*gle Censors Blog after "Death Threat"

We read:

"Internet giant G*ogle has finally caved in to complaints and shut down a controversial weblog on which a death threat against a New Zealand politician was posted.

Authorities in New Zealand have complained to G*ogle for weeks about the cyfs blog, critical of the country's government-run Child Youth and Family (CYF) service. CYF, part of the Ministry of Social Development, is responsible for removing children from homes for care and protection.

The blog, run on G*ogle's blogging platform, had called on people angry at CYF to post messages containing personal information about individual social workers. In January the ministry called in police amid fears the site was putting some of its staff at risk and a complaint was made to G*ogle. Following the complaint the internet company censored postings on the site, but allowed the blog to continue operating.

However, that situation changed yesterday after threats against a politician were posted. With New Zealand's "anti-smacking" Bill going before parliament yesterday - which would make it an offence for parents to strike their children - posts to the blog were critical of Green MP Sue Bradford who introduced the Bill.

One post said Ms Bradford was a "worthy candidate for NZ's first political assassination" and another post called on her home address to be published on the site.

Source

The offending comment was hardly a "death threat" but it does appear to be an advocacy of violence so that could put it apart from other types of comment. Though Muslims are free to advocate violence, of course. Some of them do little else.

The offending comment is recycled on another NZ blog, where the blogger makes the point that a POLITICAL assassination, not a physical assassination was described as desirable.

The site concerned was called cyfswatch.blogspot.com. For those who want to make their own judgment of the rightness or wrongness of what appeared on the site, I have reposted all the recent content on it here.

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

Global Warming is a Big Money Game

About a week ago I wrote a couple of pieces on Dr. Timothy Ball and his assertion that global warming as caused by man does not exist. Of course I was quickly jumped by greenies complaining that Ball is on the Big Oil payroll so we ought to take what he says with a grain of salt.

But what about those on the other side of this issue? Are they being totally honest about where their funding comes from? What about the environmental Grand Poobah himself David Suzuki - defender of all things green and slayer of the evil inustrialists?

Suzuki, appearing on a Toronto talk radio show last week, claimed that scientists who speak out against global warming have ulterior motives, that they are on the payroll of industry. When host John Oakley asked him where he got his funding from he replied,
"We don’t take government money, corporations have not been interested in funding us."

Apparently some corporations are interested. A little fact checking by the Institute for Canadian Values reveals that in fact at least 52 corporations have given money to the David Suzuki Foundation including Bell Canada, Toyota, IBM, McGraw-Hill Ryerson, Microsoft, Scotia Capital, Warner Brothers, RBC, Canon and Bank of Montreal. Somehow Suzuki forgot to mention that.

Which brings me back to my original point of honesty insofar as funding is concerned. It’s no secret that an entire industry has been built up around the global warming issue with Suzuki being a major player. We’re talking big money, big stakes. Think about it.

h/t Dust My Broom

anti-smacking? anti democracy, more like.

A hard-left totalitarian cow sponsors an "anti-smacking" bill in the NZ parliament. The vast majority of Kiwis oppose this bill yet still it looks as though it will become law.
This, from a government that stole the election by using large amounts of taxpayer's money.

Now the media is making much of threats made against the politician concerned on a website and some commenters have the attitude that this is ..gasp!..unlawful and awful and horrible and everything.
Pig's arse. When politicians show such contempt for those who employ them, when they reduce the democratic process to a system of bribery and threats, when the Prime Minister can get away with breaking the law and the courts imprison a man for sedition then any pretence that New Zealand is a functioning Western democracy becomes a joke.
Mealy-mouthed pompous pronouncements about how the owners of that blog are breaking the law miss the point--when the politicians themselves show such contempt for the law, why the hell should citizens-- who pay them-- respect it?

Censorship and Parental Rights

Even extreme libertarians usually concede that it is proper on many occasions for parents to make decisions for their children. And, although both Hitler's Germany and modern Germany seem to believe that there are NO parental rights except what the government allows, I think most Americans would believe that parental responsibility for children comes first and should only very rarely be surrendered to anybody else, including to the government.

And it is a long-standing legal doctrine that school teachers act in loco parentis -- i.e. they act in the place of the parents. So, in theory, teachers cannot do or teach anything that the parents disapprove of. Leftists are continually doing their best to undermine that doctrine, however, -- usually by propagandizing for what many would see as various forms of debauched sexual behaviour.

But at the basis of such controversies is the fundamental judgment that children and adults are in a different situation as far as censorship is concerned. Where censorship of what adults can see and hear might be totally undesirable, keeping some of the same things away from children is a parent's prerogative. The parent is entitled to introduce certain matters to his/her children in his/her own way and at his/her own time.

Exactly that issue is involved in the current controversy about a childrens' book being rejected because it contains the word "scrotum" on page 1. That touches on the parents' right to introduce sex-related matters to their own children in their own way and in their own time.

Fortunately, many schools and school libraries have indeed acted in loco parentis and have declined to purchase or use the book. They have respected the rights of parents in the matter.

Leftists, however, in their usual way have rejected any notion of such rights and called the refusals "censorship". It is indeed censorship but the issue is whether parents have the right to censor what their children read -- and that is a right that many parents value and which conservatives tend to see as fundamental to a parental role.

The Leftist refusal to distinguish parental censorship from other forms of censorship is of course typical of the simplistic, "black-and-white" way they think about most things but it might at least be regarded as a respectworthy viewpoint if they applied it consistently. No-one will be surprised that they do not, however.

Take the still ongoing controversy about the teacher, David Paszkiewicz, who expressed various Christian beliefs in his New Jersey classroom. The ACLU and other Leftists definitely want THAT censored! Christian teaching in class must be censored but teachings about sex must not!

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

RECENT REPORT ON THE "SEXUALIZATION" OF GIRLS

Comment on "Report of the APA task force on the sexualization of girls"

What would you expect of a report -- written by a group of Leftist women -- about the influence of the media on girls? Shriek! Shriek! and Shriek? You would be right.

A recent report issued under the aegis of the American Psychological Association -- but which was apparently not considered good enough for publication in any of their many peer-reviewed journals -- has attracted a fair bit of media attention -- e.g. here. Excerpt:

Inescapable media images of sexed-up girls and women posing as adolescents can cause psychological and even physical harm to adolescents and young women, a study has found.

The pressure of what experts call "sexualisation" can lead to depression, eating disorders, and poor academic performance, said the report, released by the American Psychological Association. "Sexualisation of girls is a broad and increasing problem and is harmful to girls," it said.

Adult women dressed as school girls in music videos, bikini-clad dolls in hot tubs, and sexually-charged advertisements featuring teenagers were among the many examples cited. Such omnipresent images - on television and the internet, in movies and magazines - could also have a negative effect on a young girl's sexual development, the study said.


As one indication of the "kick the media" mentality of the report, roughly the first half of the report is devoted to a big session of finger-pointing at examples in the media of young females being portrayed in attractive ways. That attractiveness and sexual attractiveness are closely linked in females should surprise no-one but it apparently surprised the harpies who wrote this report. No doubt advertisers could portray young girls in dowdy ways if they chose but who would want to look at such images?

The only interesting part of the report therefore is whether or not research has been pointed to which shows harm coming from media portrayals -- and there is indeed a small section in the report devoted to summarizing such research. What that research generally shows however is that females feel bad if they do not see themselves as pretty. We needed a report to tell us that?

There are a few studies mentioned that purport to show a linkage between particular media messages and a decline in female self-esteem but there are large lacunae in what is discussed. There is, for instance, no systematic attempt to separate out findings about young girls and (say) teenage girls. That what is true of pre- and post-adolescent females might differ has apparently not occured to these female authors. Since it must have occurred to them, however, I think we have to conclude that the blurring is deliberate. They want to take findings about troubled teenagers and make them appear much more worrisome by implying that they apply to young girls too.

Furthermore, we are told little about the magnitude or permanence of any adverse effect mentioned nor are we given any assurance that the results reported are in any way representative. In almost any research field worthy of the name, there are contradictory results. From this report one gathers that there are no contradictory results. One has to conclude therefore that this is not an honest research summary. It is just a feminist shriek. No wonder no APA journal would publish it.

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

Telling it like it is. . .

High Court Justice Michael Kirby mustn’t have been listening to HIGH Court Chief Justice Murray Gleeson’s warning:

HIGH Court Chief Justice Murray Gleeson has warned fellow judges against becoming political activists and using judgments to promote their personal agendas.

Speaking at a conference in Canberra, Justice Gleeson said it was important that people believed judges were committed to deciding cases regardless of the identity of the parties, fairly and according to law.
So what the hell has AIDS - a disease that could be largely wiped out in a single generation if only people would employ the modicum of self-control required to stick a glove on it - to do with a control order over the wannabe terrorist Jihad Jack Thomas? Read on:

HIGH Court judge Michael Kirby yesterday accused America of being "obsessed" with September 11, 2001, saying more people died each day of AIDS than perished in the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, The Australian newspaper reports.

Justice Kirby played down the significance of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon - in which 2900 people, including 10 Australians, died - after questioning claims by lawyers for the commonwealth that they had made Australia more vulnerable to terrorists.

He made his observation as the High Court considered an appeal against a control order imposed on "Jihad" Jack Thomas, the first man convicted under Australia's new anti-terror laws.
What? I’ll ask that question again: what has AIDS (or Kirby’s observations regarding America’s perceived ‘obsession’, for that matter) got to do with the fact that one of our citizens was caught doing the naughty with Al Qaeda, the terror group who just so happened to be the ones who carried out the 9/11 attack, and we’re keeping an eye on him for that reason among others, thank you very much?

Chief Justice Gleeson fleshes things out a little more:

The ultimate test of confidence was whether people believed a judge would be even-handed in a legal contest between a citizen and a government, he said.

"There are some who say that impartiality is a myth, that, whether they realise it or not, judges are controlled by personal impulses and inclinations, perhaps formed unconsciously and that the best judges are those who break free of the myth of impartiality and exercise judicial power in order to promote social ends," he said.

"If this were ever to become a general opinion of the way judges behave, then there could be no public confidence."
I think Justice Kirby well and truly makes Gleeson’s case.

Gore's Bad Science



Al Gore's grasp of Earth science was dreadful in college and has gotten steadily worse, according to the embarrassing facts exposed in the "Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming," a book that declares: "Catastrophic Manmade global warming is not catastrophic, manmade, or global." It reveals that Gore's college grades were not anything to write home about:

NATURAL SCIENCES 6 (MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE): D
NATURAL SCIENCES 118: C+

Gore's favorite crusade of recent months, that global warming caused Katrina, is summarily dismissed in the book by the nation's top hurricane expert. "The degree to which you believe global warming is causing major hurricanes is inversely proportional to your knowledge about these storms," said Dr. William Gray, the leading Hurricane expert in the U.S.

"The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming" dismantles Gore's faulty science with hard facts ignored by the mainstream media:

* Gore's favorite animal, the polar bear, is thriving. Ten out of 12 polar bear populations are thriving, although the White House has recently said they are going extinct.

* Man is responsible for only 3% of all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

* Methane is a naturally occurring greenhouse gas that comes from decaying plants, seeps from swamps, bogs, rice paddies, and leaks out the front and back ends of masticating animals.

* The Antarctic ice sheet is getting thicker and the South Pole is getting colder. The Southern hemisphere on the whole shows no appreciable rise in temperatures.

* Gore points out that the "snows of Kilimanjaro" are melting, but leaves out the fact that the temperature there is dropping.

Source

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

the business of politics

Hillary Buys Black Support In South Carolina

"For a few hundred thousand dollars Hillary Clinton has obtained the highly pursued endorsement of an influential South Carolina senator who also happens to be the pastor of the state’s largest black church.

Clinton’s main rival for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, also fought for Senator Darrell Jackson’s endorsement but evidently Clinton offered the highest bid. The former First Lady signed a contract with Jackson’s public relations firm for $210,000 and days later the legislator, who is also the pastor of the Bible Way Church of Columbia, vowed his support."
Judicial Watch

TV still being demonized

Strange that no good effects of TV are mentioned below -- typical of propaganda. For just a few examnples of the good effects that might have been mentioned, see here. Anything popular is hated by the Left and there is a lot of Leftism and its accompanying low ethical standards in academe so all the adverse findings about TV must be viewed with deep skepticism. For the record, I personally almost never watch TV, although I have two of them -- very old ones

Watching too much television as a child may trigger serious health problems such as autism and obesity, and in girls the early onset of puberty, a scientist has claimed. So great are the dangers, says Aric Sigman, that watching television should be banned for children under three years old and severely restricted as they grow older. Writing in the journal Biologist, Dr Sigman says that the average six-year-old child in Britain will have already spent a year watching television, and claims that the simple act of staring at a bright television screen, regardless of a programme's content, can damage a child's health.

Dr Sigman identified 15 negative effects that, he says, television can have on youngsters, ranging from short-sightedness and diabetes to premature puberty and autism. "We may ultimately be responsible for the greatest health scandal of our time," he writes. "Given the evidence, it would be prudent to cordon off the early years of child development as a time when screen media is excluded and then introduced judiciously as the child matures. "To allow children to continue to watch this much screen media is an abdication of parental responsibility. Truly hands-off parenting."

Dr Sigman's report, which is based on his analysis of 35 scientific studies, claims that television viewing affects levels of melatonin, a hormone linked to when puberty occurs in girls. Melatonin levels increase in the evening, at the onset of darkness, but staring into a bright screen during this period hinders its production.

Research has shown that melatonin affects puberty in females more than males. "Animal studies have shown that low melatonin levels have an important role in promoting an early onset of puberty and linked to reproductive function in several sexually mature animals," Dr Sigman says. Girls have been reaching puberty earlier since the 1950s, which previous research had blamed on an average increase in female weight, but he claims that lower melatonin levels may be another cause.

Dr Sigman, a member of the Institute of Biology and associate fellow of the British Psychological Society, says that watching television also damages sleep patterns, causes over-eating and increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. "Television may induce us to eat more [by] causing our brain to monitor external non-food cues - the television screen - as opposed to internal food cues telling us that we have stuffed ourselves and can stop eating." Low attention spans and poor educational achievement could also be linked to television viewing habits.

Source

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

a note from Crusader Rabbit:

Here at AWH, authors have their own styles and their own views on what constitutes reasonable dialogue so what follows is very much my own opinion.
The blog title ought to give a clue regarding my allegiance to Western ideals and values and those values are absolutely not negotiable. I don't believe that all cultures are equal and I sure as hell don't believe that we have the "right" to negotiate or give away any of our hard-earned freedoms in the name of multiculturalism.

It's a frequent complaint of leftists that we on the right are ravening death beasts, intolerant of other viewpoints and incapable of reasoned debate.

Leaving aside the pot/kettle/black aspect of those charges (just visit DailyKos to see the hypocrisy at work ) the fact is that the left's idea of reasonable debate is debate on their terms. Leftists drag comments threads off-topic with nitpicking asides, by constantly shifting the goalposts, by pretending to engage in examination of "underlying causes" and so forth while all the time they're little more than apologists for some of the most barbaric thugs in the modern world.
As though panties on the heads of prisoners in Abu Ghraib were somehow the equivalent of raped and murdered schoolchildren in Beslan. As though one or two undisciplined soldiers out of several hundred thousand were somehow representative of our troops.
I have no patience with them and zero tolerance for a screwed-up worldview that would see us lose a civilisation in order to feel somehow morally smug and superior.

So--a warning. My posts are my opinion. You want to argue with them? fine by me. Argue away. But I'm implacably opposed to islam and regard myself as being at war with them. With all of them, so even the barest hint of sympathy for them or apologising for them will be met with contempt, ridicule and--if persistent--with deletion of the comment.

It's not AWH policy. Just my personal level of intolerance for traitors and cowards.

kg

Demented Rules of engagement in Iraq

Now that Lt. Gen. David Petraeus is the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, one of his first jobs will be to clarify what military and defense officials say are vague rules of engagement that govern how U.S. troops can use force to defend themselves. Gen. Petraeus was asked recently about the problem of the vague rules, which have been discussed at length in this column over the past several weeks. He told a former general during a recent meeting that fixing the rules will be one of his most important priorities.

More evidence of the rules problem comes from an e-mail from an Army E-5 sergeant in Iraq who took issue with the recent letter in The Washington Times written by an Army attorney. The lawyer asserted that the current rules for soldiers were adequate and not confusing.

"I can tell you from personal experience that [the current rules of engagement] don't give us very much leeway with self-defense," wrote the sergeant, a member of a combat service support unit. "They tell us in our convoy briefings that we have the right to self-defense, defense for civilians and other coalition forces," the soldier said. "However, I do know that it is hard for soldiers to distinguish when is the proper time to use self-defense and when it is not. Soldiers are scared and they have a right to be. If a higher-up decides what you did was not in self-defense, you could get in major trouble and we feel that it's really not worth it."

In one case, a soldier fired two 5.56 rounds and as a result "had to sit in an office for two days straight and tell his story over and over and fill out a ton of paperwork for doing what he felt was right." The soldier said after the experience that "he would never fire his weapon again because he felt the aftermath wasn't worth it, and that's just not right."

"The military has gone severely soft in its effort over here and that is why more and more [people] are dying," the sergeant concluded. "They're just too scared to let soldiers think for themselves."

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

Muslim clerics push for flags to be flown on mosques

" SENIOR Muslim leaders have called for the Australian flag to be flown outside the nation's mosques as an expression of the Islamic community's "loyalty" and commitment to this country."

from an item in The Australian newspaper.

Flags, eh...I'd be a damn sight more impressed if those same clerics stamped on sermons preaching hatred of the West, which describe Jews as dogs and Western women as sluts. I'd be even more impressed if they closed down the muslim bookshops attached to the mosques which sold hate literature and videos.

And while they're at it--how about controlling Lebanes muslim youths who roam the cities in gangs, beating up whoever they feel like?

never mind the flags--reform your stinking ideology, you two-faced bastards.



This is your captain. Get ready to jump on the hijacker when we land

Confronted by a lone gunman in the cockpit of his airliner, Captain Ahmedou Lemine's thoughts immediately turned to the horror of 9/11.

He recalled how the heroic folk on Flight 93 prevented two hijackers crashing their plane into the White House – and determined to enlist the help of his own passengers.

Having established that the gunman did not speak French, unlike most of those on board the Air Mauritania flight, he made an announcement in French over the public address system.

He told the 71 passengers and eight crew that the plane had been hijacked but advised them not to panic because he had a plan.

Then, shortly before landing at Gran Canaria, with the gunman having joined the passengers in the main cabin, he revealed that he planned to brake suddenly as soon as he touched down and then accelerate hard, hoping to knock the hijacker off his feet.

At that point, he said, women and children should move to the back of the plane while the men jumped on the gunman.

It worked perfectly. The man was standing in the middle aisle when the pilot carried out his manoeuvre, and he fell to the floor, dropping one of his two 7mm pistols.

Flight attendants then threw boiling water from a coffee machine in his face and at his chest, and ten people jumped on the man and beat him.

more:

A black muslim racist as President?

Over the fourth coffee of the morning I was reading the comments in a blog about the controversy John Howard caused by criticising Barack Obama's Iraq withdrawal plans and came across this comment:

"Hussein Obama (himself raised a Muslim in Indonesia) certainly knows this and can be relied upon to throw Australia to the Indonesian Jihad. But then Hussein Obama belongs to a Black Supremacist Church (Trinity United Church of Christ) which has a commitment to "the Black Value System" and a rejection of "Middleclassness."

So I hit Dogpile and went to look at the Church Obama is so active in. Interesting.

"
Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee chaired by Vallmer Jordan in 1981. We believe in the following 12 precepts and covenantal statements. These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered. They must reflect on the following concepts:

1. Commitment to God
2. Commitment to the Black Community
3. Commitment to the Black Family
4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
6. Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of "Middleclassness"
9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black Community
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions
11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.

Substitute "white" for every time "black" is used by the church in that statement, and pretend that it ain't racist!
Of course it's racist as all hell. But it's ok to be a racist if you're a black poster boy. Provided you're a Democrat, that is.

Blind feminism has hurt British children

The "Sure Start" daycare scheme is typical of British Labour's failure

For ten years I have been advising various elements of new Labour on how to improve the care of small children. Alas, almost everything the Government has done has been the opposite of what was needed. No wonder Britain came bottom of Unicef's league table of the happiness and welfare of children in industrialised nations....

The great obstacle for new Labour was "the wimmin". The party bought into a "men in skirts" version of feminism that is vigorously hostile to parents being at home when their children are small. Nowhere was this clearer than in the Sure Start programme.

Here was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to alter the life chances of the most disadvantaged children. After the success of similar American schemes, such as Highscope, it could have provided psychiatric, medical and practical support to break the cycle of deprivation. But as Norman Glass, Sure Start's founding director, complained after he had resigned, it went in the wrong direction. A significant proportion of the budget has been wasted on the provision of group day care - including expensive and unnecessary buildings. Although Polly Toynbee, the principal media cheerleader for Labour's child policies, has maintained frequently that group day care is not harmful, the evidence of countless studies contradicts her.

I spent a week in Copenhagen observing 18-month-olds in what is often regarded as the best day nursery in the world. The Danish Government holds it up as the model of its system (three quarters of Danish children are in day-care nurseries by age 18 months), and representatives from all three of our political parties have been shown around it. But the most unbiased of observers would have found it hard to avoid the conclusion that the toddlers were upset by their care. Some became aggressive, others withdrawn, but it was horrifying to see the contrast between their wellbeing at home, where I also observed them, and their manifest distress while at the nursery.

Although I admire Toynbee's writing on many subjects, she epitomises the blindness to evidence found in this area. When Jay Belsky, the distinguished psychologist, published the findings of the Sure Start evaluation in the British Medical Journal, it turned out that the programme had not only failed to help the children, but had also led to worse outcomes for some of the most disadvantaged.

For instance, a survey of all the studies on its impact found that whereas 41 per cent of children in day care for more than 20 hours a week were insecure, this was true of only 26 per cent of toddlers cared for full-time by their mothers. More recently, a definitive study of more than 1,000 British children by Penelope Leach revealed that children who experienced day care were more likely to be disturbed than children cared for by minders or by grandparents. Most recently, several studies have demonstrated heightened cortisol levels and proneness to attention deficit disorder in children in day care. The most consistent finding is that such children are more likely to be aggressive.

Interestingly, few if any of the new Labour elite opt for group day care for their own children. They prefer one-on-one nannies. I once heard a new Labour woman minister say, "if women really want to sit around all day looking after their children, OK". Like the vast majority of senior politicians, she had never done so - otherwise she would have known that it is nothing less than the most exacting of roles.

Real feminism requires us to reevaluate the roles of both men and women. Of course, that means women having careers as men do - but not at the expense of their role as mothers. Likewise, it entails men becoming much more involved in caring for their small children and investing less in their careers - at present, by far the most significant pillar of identity for both sexes in the English-speaking world.

In most of mainland Western Europe nearly all children under a year old are cared for by a parent and in Southern Europe most under3s are too. We could do the same in Britain. What is desperately needed is a government whose main goal is to correct the balance of the household economy that has been wrecked by the market and its workaholic ways.

Source

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

Please Take a Stand ... On Anything

A couple of days ago I blogged about how I wasn't ready to jump on the "Stephane Dion is not a leader” bandwagon preferring instead to give the guy a chance. (see So This is Leadership?) I also stated that if his recent push to have the Tories come up with a plan to implement Kyoto in 60 days, after the previous Liberal regime dragged its feet for 10 years, then point me at that bandwagon.

What has this guy done for the 'natural governing party' of Canada?

Aside from showing absolutely no leadership with respect to Kyoto ie: he prefers to play politics knowing full well the economic damage the accord will cause Canada,

  • He pushed Wajid Khan out of the party in what can only be described as tactical brilliance given the current seating arrangement in the House.

  • He criticized Stephen Harper's plan to hold plebiscites on Senators when the Liberals don't even have a Senate-reform strategy of their own

  • In response to John Baird being named the new Environment Minister he said "I hope that this government will do more [on the environment] than what it has done in the past. It won't be hard" evidently forgetting his Liberals were actually the ones in power for over 10 years not to mention the fact that Canada's emissions climbed to over 35% above 1990 levels instead of being lowered to 6% below those same levels as per the terms of Kyoto

  • In another shrewd political move he is now reversing his Party's stance on 2 anti-terror measures originally drafted by the Chretien Liberals. The Tories think these two pieces of legislation are actually pretty good and will help to protect Canadians from terrorists but suddenly Dion doesn't like them simply because the Conservatives do.

When your only strategy is to hold a position directly opposite to your opponent it serves to show you have no strategy or position for that matter. It all boils down to we'll say black because they say white.

This from a fellow who would be Prime Minister?

Did someone mention an election may be near?

They Just Don't Learn

Liberal MP Denis CoderreOnce again a prominent Liberal has stuck his foot in his mouth and the result is not pretty. Liberal MP and defence critic Denis Coderre joins an elite club which boasts such other notables as Scott Reid, Mike Klander and Carolyn Parrish to name just a few.

No, Mr. Coderre didn't tell Alberta to blow him nor did he compare Handsome Jack Layton's wife to a chow or poke fun at Conervative MP Stephen Fletcher's physical impairment. He didn't even refer to the Americans as bastards. But what he did do was almost as bad. He outright accused Canada's top soldier of playing politics.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Conference of Defence Associations General Rick Hillier, describing military life under the previous Liberal administration said,
"Those actions, dollar deprived, have now led to some deep wounds in the department in the Canadian Forces over this past, what I would call, a decade of darkness."

This is not the first time Gen. Hillier has used the phrase 'decade of darkness'. He has also referred to the Forces as being on 'life support' but is now pleased with the new change of direction provided by the Conservatives. Of course those remarks didn't sit well with Mr. Coderre who responded by saying,
"...I think it's highly political and I am very disappointed at it. To get involved in politics, there is one way. You should run."

Wow. Did he touch a nerve? You know the old saying 'if the shoe fits...". However Mr. Coderre should know better. As this nation's top soldier it is the duty of Gen. Hillier to want and try to provide the absolute best to his troops and he wasn't getting it from the Liberals. If the situation was reversed and it was the Tories who slashed and hacked the military budget you don't think Gen. Hillier would be criticizing them? It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the government of the day.

Besides, where does Mr. Coderre get off accusing the General of playing politics for speaking his mind when it was the Liberals who accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of muzzling then RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli over the Maher Arar affair? I guess it's called playing politics when it's something you don't want to hear.

You can't have your cake and eat it too boys.

Global apocalypse? What global apocalypse?

Melanie Phillips nails the IPCC report:

As is habitually the case, the media seems to have missed the real story of the IPCC’s fourth report on climate change, which has been universally reported as predicting that the imminent global apocalypse is going to be even worse than previously anticipated and so it’s Even More All Our Fault Than Ever.

What has been largely overlooked is that what has been published is merely the summary for policymakers, while the actual science on which that summary is allegedly based will not be published — extraordinarily — for a further three months. As with previous IPCC reports, the summary is a political document written not by scientists but by officials. And now, various folk who have read the draft scientific material for the fourth report are saying that the IPCC summary bears little relation to the IPCC science which tells a very different story indeed — namely, that previous IPCC forecasts of the climate change apocalypse were exaggerated and wrong and that accordingly current forecasts have been drastically scaled back.
As I have so often said to our lefty/greenie/generally psychotic, moonbat antagonists:

‘If you are so right, why do you need to lie to prove it?’

Read the rest here.