#1
So, if I read that correctly, my boss can let me handle any given old bra found God know where, and right after, he can handle me a smaller-than-expected paycheck, and I'd be satisfied? Sounds fair.
#2
Nope - the message is simple - sex sells. This is why the "Swedish bikini team" is used to sell beer. It's also why auto shows have good-looking models draped over the cars displayed.
Forty years after Enoch Powell's infamous speech predicting that mass immigration would lead to violence on our streets, filmmaker Denys Blakeway explores the impact of the maverick Conservative MP's words and legacy.
Powell was a member of Edward Heath's Shadow Cabinet when he made the Rivers of Blood speech in 1968, so-called because he quoted the Roman poet Virgil's prophesy: "I see the Tiber foaming with much blood". He was immediately sacked, but not before sparking furious debate, with his words dividing the nation.
This film examines Powell's speech in unprecedented detail, discovering how his core argument was ignored in favour of his incendiary language. It questions what led him to speak out in the first place and traces the speech's effect on immigration policy in Britain.
"French cultural robustness"??? WTF??? Modern-day France is all about hating anything that is french, and the All-Dominating dogma is "métissage", that is "races & cultures mixing", meaning in actuality integration of the french's culture or what's left ot it to arab and african newcomers' ones... how do you "integrate" (assimilation is not even mentioned anymore, as it would be racist) to a culture that doesn't exist anymore, except in movies???
#1
Maybe Britain will wind up with the remnant Anglo-Saxons in the far north (Highland Scotland) and the far west (Wales), with the main body of England predominantly Pakistani and Muslim. A repeat of the displacement pattern of the Celtic-speaking people by Danes and Saxons.
WASHINGTON -- I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I'm a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can't be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats.
Predictions of catastrophe depend on models. Models depend on assumptions about complex planetary systems -- from ocean currents to cloud formation -- that no one fully understands. Which is why the models are inherently flawed and forever changing. The doomsday scenarios posit a cascade of events, each with a certain probability. The multiple improbability of their simultaneous occurrence renders all such predictions entirely speculative.
Yet on the basis of this speculation, environmental activists, attended by compliant scientists and opportunistic politicians, are advocating radical economic and social regulation. "The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity," warns Czech President Vaclav Klaus, "is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism."
If you doubt the arrogance, you haven't seen that Newsweek cover story that declared the global warming debate over. Consider: If Newton's laws of motion could, after 200 years of unfailing experimental and experiential confirmation, be overthrown, it requires religious fervor to believe that global warming -- infinitely more untested, complex and speculative -- is a closed issue.
But declaring it closed has its rewards. It not only dismisses skeptics as the running dogs of reaction, i.e., of Exxon, Cheney and now Klaus. By fiat, it also hugely re-empowers the intellectual left.
For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class -- social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies -- arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).
Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher's England to Deng's China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history.
Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but -- even better -- in the name of Earth itself.
Environmentalists are Gaia's priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect. (See Newsweek above.) And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment -- carbon chastity -- they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.
Just Monday, a British parliamentary committee proposed that every citizen be required to carry a carbon card that must be presented, under penalty of law, when buying gasoline, taking an airplane or using electricity. The card contains your yearly carbon ration to be drawn down with every purchase, every trip, every swipe.
There's no greater social power than the power to ration. And, other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society.
So what does the global warming agnostic propose as an alternative? First, more research -- untainted and reliable -- to determine (a) whether the carbon footprint of man is or is not lost among the massive natural forces (from sunspot activity to ocean currents) that affect climate, and (b) if the human effect is indeed significant, whether the planetary climate system has the homeostatic mechanisms (like the feedback loops in the human body, for example) with which to compensate.
Second, reduce our carbon footprint in the interim by doing the doable, rather than the economically ruinous and socially destructive. The most obvious step is a major move to nuclear power, which to the atmosphere is the cleanest of the clean.
But your would-be masters have foreseen this contingency. The Church of the Environment promulgates secondary dogmas as well. One of these is a strict nuclear taboo.
Rather convenient, is it not? Take this major coal-substituting fix off the table and we will be rationing all the more. Guess who does the rationing?
#2
What a load of crap. Post Ice-Age Warming is opening up the Arctic Ocean land shelves up to development. Anywhere that is now a desert, was once a jungle, which means milleniums of tranformation of organics into oil. Oil is in the Arctic; that is why the Ruskies are laying claim to the shelf. Prediction: enough new oil sources will be discovered prior to the invention of cost effective hybrid and electrical vehicles, to meet all of our needs. A major leap would be the introduction of linear induction engines. Go-Karts are empowered by an attachment to an overhead power source. What if electrical roadways could be created that allowed low amp powering from an source in the road surface? Sci fi films like "Minority Report" feature exactly that type of transport system; looking ahead 30 years or so, it could be science fact. Pardon my optimism.
#3
I get into the culture of deception that pervades the warming side of the debate at Anthony Watts excellent blog. My comments are toward the end where I beat up on a warming believer.
#4
Models depend on assumptions about complex planetary systems -- from ocean currents to cloud formation -- that no one fully understands.
What I do know is that this having been the coldest Jan-Apr time frame in a long time, that the models are just plain screwed and anyone who uses them for justification are just plain power mongers out to substitute them as our new overlords. It's all mesmerized by 'science' that is nothing more than a Three Card Monty hustle than classical critical scientific analysis.
#5
Models depend on assumptions about complex planetary systems -- from ocean currents to cloud formation -- that no one fully understands.
Can they tell if I will meet a young, slender, beautiful woman and have her steal me away from my current wife? Hey, Newton worked on astrology, too. After they pass this bill maybe they can solve the housing crisis by finding a way to turn lead into gold.
Alex Cull (08:49:29) :
According to the Zen of Global Warming, the ice could simultaneously be there (i.e. we can see it and the ship was stuck in it) and not there, as it could still be melting but in some strange alternative way that cannot be witnessed or measured. Just like polar bears can be simultaneously be increasing in numbers and dwindling away to extinction. Can you hear the sound of one hand clapping?
Im sure many will also fall back on the long-term warming-trend explanation. One cold day does not a winter make (although a hot day is yet another ominous sign that GW is on us.) As long as the models still predict long-term climate meltdown, anything can happen in the short term - flourishing Arctic ice, polar bears frolicking in the streets, glaciers doing the hokey-cokey - and it wont mean a thing. Global Warming will be postponed for a little while longer, they will say, but wait and see. We might not have an ice-free Arctic in 2020, but we assuredly will in 2025. Or in 2030. Or 2050. Or maybe 3050. Depends on how we tweak the models.
Or maybe all that ice is a GW-denial-induced hallucination, and the reality is a steaming expanse of open ocean, littered with floating polar bear corpses and oil-drilling platforms
Me, facetious?
Posted by: George Smiley ||
05/31/2008 8:57 Comments ||
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#7
Research -- untainted and reliable -- to determine whether the carbon footprint of man is or is not lost among the massive natural forces (from sunspot activity to ocean currents) that affect climate.
THat's all I want. A fair and open debate. Not the stacked deck the political types want, and the kind the treetards have where they demand silence and assume thier conclusions rather than actually testing them.
And not based off some damnably variable model on a computer that cannot even reproduce the climate of today given the starting point and inputs of the last 400 years.
I know programs and modeling. And it not something to stake such important things upon.
#8
I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I'm a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can't be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats.
-explains my position to a t.
Concur OS, I just want the most object & unbiased report possible.
Posted by: Snash Oppressor of the Mohammatans aka Broadhead6 ||
05/31/2008 12:14 Comments ||
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#9
McZoid I was thinking "Slot Cars" but I like the induction idea better, no need to keep the slot clean with induction, no slot.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/31/2008 14:04 Comments ||
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#10
A carbon card -- what a lovely eco-idiot concept. I suggest they make them optional for a decade so the Al Gores of the world can work out the kinks and show us how it's done. That should stop Gore in his tracks by about January 15th of each year. It should be good for U.N. conference budgets too, except I assume that the Indian and Chinese delegations would be exempt.
#11
since private jets are notorious fuel burners. I would propose a year-long ban on private jet travel - to see the effects on the climate. Think that would pass?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/31/2008 18:14 Comments ||
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#12
We are designing wood-fired boilers into our municipal buildings that we design and build. The more independent we become at the local level, the better off everyone is.
Now, we have to start thinking about wood-fired aircraft.......
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/31/2008 19:01 Comments ||
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#13
in the days of wood aircraft, I think fire was a concern (after gravity and termites)
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/31/2008 19:06 Comments ||
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How much anger is there among women about how Hillary Clinton has been treated during this campaign? Some of the nation's leading female politicians will tell you: quite a lot.
"From the beginning, she's been treated very badly," says Therese Murray, president of the Massachusetts Senate. "No woman would have run with Obama's résumé. She wouldn't have been considered." But Clinton has been "demonized by the press and the talking heads. How do you get away with that?"
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) says she is regularly approached "by women of all races, of all ages, of all faiths. They stop me, grab my hand and say, 'Look what they've done to her, we were so close.' They wanted this for their daughters and granddaughters. . . . It's so heartbreaking."
f there is good news for Barack Obama in any of this, it is that the rage felt by Clinton's female supporters is directed in large part toward the media. "The anger is aimed much more at you all," said Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts of Rhode Island. Added Murray: "Obama wouldn't have gotten to where he got today if it weren't for the bias of the male media -- no offense."
It's true that campaigns and political movements use anger as a bargaining chip. The message is: Appease us or we will cause trouble. The Clinton campaign is hoping that such rage will strengthen its hand in the battle to seat pro-Clinton Michigan and Florida delegations at the party's national convention, even though those states held early primaries in violation of party rules.
But the conversations I had this week with prominent female politicians from around the country who support Clinton suggest that the fury and disappointment is more than short-term maneuvering. In many cases, it is rooted in the empathy of women who themselves broke gender barriers at various levels of politics.
Female politicians feel for Clinton as someone who regularly faces questions that male politicians would never be asked. When a reporter queried Roberts about "my brand of lipstick and what color was it," she revealed the vital information -- "Revlon Number 235" -- but noted that "some of my supporters were offended that she asked me."
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/31/2008 05:50 ||
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#1
Appease us or we will cause trouble.
"Revlon Number 235" -- but noted that "some of my supporters were offended that she asked me."
#2
Politics, especially national politics, is a vicious, tough business, especially dealing with the MSM, whose main mission is to dig up dirt and drag you in it.
Well, the world is a mean, dangerous place, and our enemies are nasty people. So if you want to play this game, you better be tough and thick-skinned.
Like Pres. Truman said, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." Playing the victim card does not cut it at the presidential level.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/31/2008 19:06 Comments ||
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#3
So blacks vote for obama because he's black (kinda). Women vote for hillary based on gender.
And I'm the racist, misogynist because I have to hold my nose to vote for the only barely acceptable candidate?
Hold them by the nose, kick em in the ass! G. S. Patton
A year ago in July, a National Intelligence Estimate warned that al Qaeda had "protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability," meaning it could be poised to strike America again. The political reaction was instantaneous and damning. "This clearly says al Qaeda is not beaten," said Michael Scheuer, the former CIA spook turned antiterror scold.
What a difference 10 months and a surge make.
CIA Director Michael Hayden painted a far more optimistic picture in an interview yesterday in the Washington Post. "On balance, we are doing pretty well," he said. "Near strategic defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al Qaeda globally and here I'm going to use the word 'ideologically' as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam."
What happened? To certain sophisticates, this is all al Qaeda's doing: By launching suicide attacks on Shiite and even Sunni targets, and ruling barbarically wherever they took control, the group has worn out its welcome in the Muslim world.
There's some truth in this. The Sunni Awakening in Iraq was in part a reaction by local clan leaders against al Qaeda's efforts to subjugate and brutalize them. The Arab world took note when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ordered the November 2005 bombing of three hotels in Amman, Jordan, in which nearly all of the victims were Sunni Arabs. Extremist Islamic parties took an electoral drubbing in Pakistan's elections earlier this year following a wave of suicide bombings, one of which murdered Benazir Bhutto.
It's also true that al Qaeda finds itself on the ideological backfoot, even in radical circles. As our Bret Stephens reported in March, Sayyed Imam, a founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and once a mentor to Ayman al Zawahiri, has written an influential manifesto sternly denouncing his former comrades for their methods and theology. This was enough to prompt a 215-page rebuttal from Zawahiri, who seems to have time on his hands. Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker and Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank in the New Republic have recently written about similar jihadist defections.
But the U.S. offensives in Afghanistan and especially Iraq deserve most of the credit. The destruction of the Taliban denied al Qaeda one sanctuary, and the U.S. seems to have picked up the pace of Predator strikes in Pakistan or at least their success rate. This has damaged al Qaeda's freedom of movement and command-and-control.
As for Iraq, Zawahiri himself last month repeated his claim that the country "is now the most important arena in which our Muslim nation is waging the battle against the forces of the Crusader-Zionist campaign." So it's all the more significant that on this crucial battleground, al Qaeda has been decimated by the surge of U.S. forces into Baghdad. The surge, in turn, gave confidence to the Sunni tribes that this was a fight they could win. For Zawahiri, losing the battles you say you need to win is not a way to collect new recruits.
General Hayden was careful to say the threat continues, and he warned specifically about those in Congress and the media who "[focus] less on the threat and more on the tactics the nation has chosen to deal with the threat." This refers to the political campaign to restrict wiretapping and aggressive interrogation, both of which the CIA director says have been crucial to gathering intelligence that has blocked further terrorist spectaculars that would have burnished al Qaeda's prestige.
One irony here is that Barack Obama is promising a rapid withdrawal from Iraq on grounds that we can't defeat al Qaeda unless we focus on Afghanistan. He opposed the Iraq surge on similar grounds. Yet it is the surge, and the destruction of al Qaeda in Iraq, that has helped to demoralize al Qaeda around the world. Nothing would more embolden Zawahiri now than a U.S. retreat from Iraq, which al Qaeda would see as the U.S. version of the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan.
It is far too soon to declare victory over al Qaeda. Still, Mr. Hayden's upbeat assessment is encouraging, and it suggests that President Bush's strategy of taking the battle to the terrorists is making America safer.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Forty years after Enoch Powell's infamous speech predicting that mass immigration would lead to violence on our streets, filmmaker Denys Blakeway explores the impact of the maverick Conservative MP's words and legacy.
For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class -- social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies -- arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).
