Saturday, May 31, 2014

Teaching

 Over at SNN there was a thread about teaching and the wages teachers make. As much as I like SNN, the commentators on this thread pissed me off. As a former teacher, I was really annoyed at some of the erroneous assertions being made about the profession; how they only work 8.5 months a year; how they are over paid for doing a really easy job, etc., etc., etc..

I weighed in, but I'm afraid my take was like the proverbial voice in the wilderness. Then I found this. It's perfect, even if it is from the Daily Kos, which is the American equivalent to rabble.ca
 
 Are-you-sick-of-highly-paid-teachers

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Yup

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Age Old Question Answered



And, of course, the chicken's name is HENrietta.

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This Image Speaks For Itself...



And for me.

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LOL!!

Friday, May 30, 2014

No Need To "Make The Rich Pay"

They already pay enough:

Facebook CEO Zuckerberg tops list of biggest U.S. charitable donors in 2013


SHHHH!! Don't tell leftards, but there's a list of five fat cats and the amount of money they contribute to charity in this article.

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Thursday, May 29, 2014

Oops!

UPDATED AND BUMPED:  Update below.

I must say, I'm getting a little tired of this topic, but it seems to be taking some time for the true believers (ie- the flat earth society) to accept that Anthropogenic global warming just isn't happening. This is not to say that global warming isn't happening, just that any explanation of it that doesn't blame human produced CO2 just isn't allowed. This entry, on Joanne Nova's website, documents a case in point:

That West Antarctic melting couldn’t be caused by volcanoes could it?
"Despite the 95% certainty of doom, it’s not like we have all the data on heat sources in Antarctica either. Until November last year we didn’t even know one particular volcano was smoldering under a kilometer of ice in West Antarctica. [Emphasis, mine]

Do volcanoes melt much ice? Could be…

“Eruptions at this site are unlikely to penetrate the 1.2 to 2-km-thick overlying ice, but would generate large volumes of melt water that could significantly affect ice stream flow.” Lough et al 2013

The fastest warming areas of Antarctica — the Peninsula and West Antarctica are part of the Pacific Rim of Fire. Not worth a mention in any “news” service? Not the right kind of propaganda…

Remember — if it’s broadcast on the ABC, BBC or CBC, the whole chain of one-sided-information is fully government funded. They have specialist science units trained not to ask hard questions."
I wonder which "CBC" she is referring to? Columbia Broadcasting Corporation or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or is their an Aussie CBC? Certainly the North American ones could be guilty of this kind bias.

To read more of my entries about volcanoes, go here.

UPDATE:

The Myth of the Climate Change '97%'
"Last week Secretary of State John Kerry warned graduating students at Boston College of the "crippling consequences" of climate change. "Ninety-seven percent of the world's scientists," he added, "tell us this is urgent."

Where did Mr. Kerry get the 97% figure? Perhaps from his boss, President Obama, who tweeted on May 16 that "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous." Or maybe from NASA, which posted (in more measured language) on its website, "Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities."

Yet the assertion that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is a man-made, urgent problem is a fiction. The so-called consensus comes from a handful of surveys and abstract-counting exercises that have been contradicted by more reliable research."






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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Random Humour

"Thick And Fast"

That describes the rate at which the great climb down from Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global warming is occurring.

Case in point:
"The Myth of the Climate Change '97%'; What is the origin of the false belief that almost all scientists agree about global warming?"
[---]
"Last week Secretary of State John Kerry warned graduating students at Boston College of the "crippling consequences" of climate change. "Ninety-seven percent of the world's scientists," he added, "tell us this is urgent."

Where did Mr. Kerry get the 97% figure? Perhaps from his boss, President Obama, who tweeted on May 16 that "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous." Or maybe from NASA, which posted (in more measured language) on its website, "Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities."

Yet the assertion that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is a man-made, urgent problem is a fiction."
A couple of others from the same website:

New paper finds Antarctic temperatures were warmer in 1800's and 1940's

New paper finds Ross Sea ice in Antarctica has increased 5% since 1993


All satisfying reads for this old denier.

This also explains why the alarmists are ratcheting it up:

Green 'smear campaign' against professor who dared to disown 'sexed up' UN climate dossier


Columbia University Is Spending Millions Of Tax Dollars On Fake Climate-Change Death Voicemails

After Election Drubbing, UK Government Climate Adviser Backs Down On Wind, Tones Down Rhetoric





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Monday, May 26, 2014

I Don't Remember Writing...

...this column:

A ‘dream palace’ built on gas and gold won’t solve aboriginal poverty

Sounds like I could have, though. Almost.

"After being immersed in the euphoric coverage surrounding the Idle No More movement, it is refreshing to see that a rational assessment of it is beginning to emerge. Jeffrey Simpson’s recent column, which alerted readers to the “dream palace” mentality of the movement, was insightful.

The column correctly points out that aboriginal groups are too small, isolated and unproductive to ever achieve what the movement is demanding – sovereignty. It points out that a return to aboriginal traditions can only result in a life of poverty in the modern context. Finally, it recognizes the mythology of assertions about an indigenous environmental consciousness. The lack of environmental degradation before contact was obviously due to the primitive technology and subsistence economies of hunter gatherers and horticulturalists, not some kind of “sacred l ink” to the land."

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Another Twist From Mom Nature

Northern cod reclaiming its territory
"After being beaten down by overfishing to a fraction of the mighty force it once was, northern cod are starting to rebuild and re-populate its traditional areas off the coasts of Newfoundland and Labra­dor.

That’s good news for a species that has shown few positive signs of recovery during the 22 years since being placed under a moratorium.

George Rose, director of the Marine Institute’s Centre for Fisheries Ecosystems Research, said the centre’s latest research shows “a strong initial rebuilding” of the northern cod along the northeast coast of the province.

“After years and years of where it was flatlined, where nothing was happening, we are seeing strong signs of rebuilding now,” Rose said."
That sound you hear? It's environuts' heads exploding.

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It's Not Navel-Gazing, Sweetie

Navel-gazing days are over, Justin Trudeau says
"There’s been just too much navel-gazing.

That’s how Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau explains the party’s drop in support in the past 10 years or so."
[---]
"The Liberals have only eight of the 75 seats in Quebec and Trudeau acknowledged they have bridges to rebuild in the province. “Not only will Quebecers be present in my government, they will be lsitened (sic) to.

“It won’t just be a prime minister from Quebec, but there will be ministers from Quebec in strong positions.”"
I think it's the Liberals obsession with appeasing Quebec, for one thing. I see that hasn't changed. Secondly, it's all the good things they gave us, like the Human Wrongs Commissions and a drastically underfunded armed forces, and false heroes like Lester Pearson and his peacekeeping forces and other farces, such as making you the leader, in effect trying to establish a dynasty and bring back the glory days that never were.

More:

Liberal culture has changed

"He says that attitude illustrates why the party has gone from 172 seats in 2000 to its current 35-member caucus.

He told reporters he believes he has changed that culture since becoming leader in April 2013.

The party has only eight of the 75 seats in Quebec and Trudeau acknowledged the Liberals have bridges to rebuild in the province."
See what I mean?
""Not only will Quebecers be present in my government, they will be listened to.

"It won't just be a prime minister from Quebec but there will be ministers from Quebec in strong positions."
See what I mean?

Justin Trudeau says Liberal culture has changed

Sure. We believe you.

The pandering continues.

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The Once Great Britain...

...is dusting itself off and starting to stand up. At last!
"An earthquake” is how the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) described what happened Thursday May 22 when all Britain voted to elect its share of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and various parts of the country voted to elect local councils.

While the results of the Euro Elections were not announced until Sunday to wait for the results of the whole European Union, where some countries voted later, the local election results were known immediately, and were pretty much as Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader, described them: an earthquake."
[---]
"But it was last night, at the European Elections, that UKIP got a real triumph. Not only did it top the polls with more votes than all other parties for the first time in its history, but its victory also marked the first time in which a nationally-held election has not been won by either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party since 1906."
[---]
"UKIP went from two to an astonishing 163 councillors, turning from a fringe, tiny party into a serious contender for government.

But it was last night, at the European Elections, that UKIP got a real triumph. Not only did it top the polls with more votes than all other parties for the first time in its history, but its victory also marked the first time in which a nationally-held election has not been won by either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party since 1906."
[---]
"There was a time when a vote for UKIP was considered wasted, but it turned out to be instrumental in putting pressure on the Tories on the issue of leaving the European Union. There will be a time when voting for Liberty GB will put pressure on UKIP on the issue of the threat of Britain’s Islamization, on which Farage’s party has so far been persistently silent."(Emphasis mine)

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Sunday, May 25, 2014

Me Too

"I wish I was four again."



What to do?  What to do?

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'Nuff Said

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The one state solution:



Related, but not BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! worthy:

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Saturday, May 24, 2014

Did You Know...

...Canadians drink more than Americans.

Canadians spent 4.5 times more per capita on beer, wine and liquor than Americans did last year, says the study.

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Memory Lane - Sorta





And here we thought it was about LSD.

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Thursday, May 22, 2014

Oh! That's What They Meant By Climate Disruption!!

Raaaacism

Yup

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

From The Settled Science Of Global Warming...

...We learn that ice cover on the Great Lakes has never been greater:

Lingering Great Lakes Ice Slows Spring's Arrival

...while glaciers are melting as never before:

Glaciers in Canada rapidly melting

Meanwhile, nobody seems to be paying attention any more:

Public interest in climate change unshaken by scandal, but unstirred by science

Little wonder:

Climate change research shows pockets of warming around world

What!! You mean it's not global?

It's virtually all political.

Jerry Brown says 'virtually no Republican' in Washington accepts climate change science


(Aside: I wonder if we should tell him that old-growth forests do burn more readily than younger forests, and without fire there would be no new growth. Nah. Never get in the way of a ideologue and his cherished beliefs. It just ruins everything for them.)

UN climate change expert reveals bias in global warming report

But that's Fox News. Fox News lies, doncha know.

Green Fatigue: Public Isn't Affected By Climate Change Scandals - Or New Science

Public Interest on Climate Change is Diminishing

'Climategate' had only fleeting effect on global warming scepticism

And the sane voices are finally emerging, after the public interest wanes, or maybe it's because of it. The IPCC has given up, after having been outed.

Zane: Constant study, not crystal balls, the right call on climate
"Cooler heads are emerging in the overheated discussion of climate change. The N.C. Coastal Resources Commission announced last week that it will no longer ask members of a state science panel to trade their lab coats for crystal balls. Instead of trying to do the impossible – accurately predict sea levels into the next century – the panel will prepare a 30-year forecast, to be updated every five years."
[---]
"The commission’s let’s-not-get-too-far-ahead-of-ourselves approach is a welcome rainbow of reason in a scientific discussion that has been clouded by politics. Not surprisingly, the loudest voices tend to be the most extreme.

One voice belongs to climate change activists including President Obama, who falsely claim that “the debate’s over” while smugly dismissing all skeptics as members of “ the flat-Earth society.”"
[---]
"The earth has indeed warmed by about 1.8 degree Fahrenheit since the 1970s, as CO2 levels have risen. However, the warming has plateaued during the last 16 years, even though we have pumped billions of tons of CO2into the atmosphere. A study in the prestigious journal Nature Climate Change found that the rate of actual warming 1998-2012 is “four times smaller” than that predicted by most models.

The New York Times reports scientists are puzzled by the slowdown in warming: “Practitioners of climate science would like to understand exactly what is going on. They admit that they do not.”"

Tom Harris: Get real about climate change
"We hear it over and over, “Climate change is real. Only industry-funded ‘deniers’ disagree.”

This is ridiculous.

No scientist denies that climate changes. Geology professor Tim Patterson of Carleton University explains, “Climate is and always has been variable. The only constant about climate is change; it changes continually.” Scientists like Patterson deny that they deny climate change — they are climate denial deniers."

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Tuesday, May 20, 2014

But, Can He Predict Who Will Win The...

Monday, May 19, 2014

God Bless The Aussies

Christian Privilege

Now even Christians in Europe are under threat: Report claims hundreds of attacks on religious grounds

The Daily Mail is too chickenshit to say who's behind the attacks, but you know what I think.


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Saturday, May 17, 2014

Wow! A Superb Article By Rex Murphy

...on the scourge of political correctness and so-called "White privilege". The comments aren't bad, either.


Check your bigotry


Ladies and gentlemen. I think we are on the crest of a sea-change. And not a minute too soon.

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Yay Canada!!!

Most of us, anyway:

Canada’s oil-rich provinces not only best in nation for economic performance, they are best in world: Conference Board

Good to see the Newfies among them.

"Canada scores highly on economic growth and employment growth, although “poor grades on labour productivity as well as inward and outward foreign direct investment raise concerns about long-term prosperity,” the report cautions."
[---]
"Ontario, Prince Edward Island and British Columbia score B grades, putting them alongside Switzerland, Germany and the United Kingdom. Manitoba and Quebec were given C grades."
Hmmmm. I wonder way Manitoba and Quebec scored so low? /sarc
"The Conference Board report predicts Alberta and Saskatchewan will continue to “dominate” its economic performance report card in the coming years, continuing to “record lower unemployment rates than the rest of Canada and stronger growth than the peer countries as the eurozone continues its long and painful recovery.”"

Yay, Saskatchewwan!







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An Interesting Take On The Crusades

Busts some popular "politically correct" myths commonly preached on university campuses:

Four Myths about the Crusades
"The verdict seems unanimous. From presidential speeches to role-playing games, the crusades are depicted as a deplorably violent episode in which thuggish Westerners trundled off, unprovoked, to murder and pillage peace-loving, sophisticated Muslims, laying down patterns of outrageous oppression that would be repeated throughout subsequent history. In many corners of the Western world today, this view is too commonplace and apparently obvious even to be challenged."
[---]
"Myth #1: The crusades represented an unprovoked attack by Western Christians on the Muslim world.

"Nothing could be further from the truth, and even a cursory chronological review makes that clear. In a.d. 632, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, North Africa, Spain, France, Italy, and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica were all Christian territories. Inside the boundaries of the Roman Empire, which was still fully functional in the eastern Mediterranean, orthodox Christianity was the official, and overwhelmingly majority, religion. Outside those boundaries were other large Christian communities—not necessarily orthodox and Catholic, but still Christian. Most of the Christian population of Persia, for example, was Nestorian. Certainly there were many Christian communities in Arabia.
[---]
By a.d. 732, a century later, Christians had lost Egypt, Palestine, Syria, North Africa, Spain, most of Asia Minor, and southern France. Italy and her associated islands were under threat, and the islands would come under Muslim rule in the next century. The Christian communities of Arabia were entirely destroyed in or shortly after 633, when Jews and Christians alike were expelled from the peninsula.6 Those in Persia were under severe pressure. Two-thirds of the formerly Roman Christian world was now ruled by Muslims.
[---]
What had happened? Most people actually know the answer, if pressed—though for some reason they do not usually connect the answer with the crusades. The answer is the rise of Islam. Every one of the listed regions was taken, within the space of a hundred years, from Christian control by violence, in the course of military campaigns deliberately designed to expand Muslim territory at the expense of Islam’s neighbors. Nor did this conclude Islam’s program of conquest."
[---]
"Far from being unprovoked, then, the crusades actually represent the first great western Christian counterattack against Muslim attacks which had taken place continually from the inception of Islam until the eleventh century, and which continued on thereafter, mostly unabated. Three of Christianity’s five primary episcopal sees (Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria) had been captured in the seventh century; both of the others (Rome and Constantinople) had been attacked in the centuries before the crusades. The latter would be captured in 1453, leaving only one of the five (Rome) in Christian hands by 1500. Rome was again threatened in the sixteenth century. This is not the absence of provocation; rather, it is a deadly and persistent threat, and one which had to be answered by forceful defense if Christendom were to survive. The crusades were simply one tool in the defensive options exercised by Christians.

To put the question in perspective, one need only consider how many times Christian forces have attacked either Mecca or Medina. The answer, of course, is never."
[---]
"In short: very few people became rich by crusading, and their numbers were dwarfed by those who were bankrupted. Most medieval people were quite well aware of this, and did not consider crusading a way to improve their financial situations."
[--]
Myth #2: Western Christians went on crusade because their greed led them to plunder Muslims in order to get rich.

"As Fred Cazel has noted, “Few crusaders had sufficient cash both to pay their obligations at home and to support themselves decently on a crusade.” From the very beginning, financial considerations played a major role in crusade planning. The early crusaders sold off so many of their possessions to finance their expeditions that they caused widespread inflation. Although later crusaders took this into account and began saving money long before they set out, the expense was still nearly prohibitive. Despite the fact that money did not yet play a major role in western European economies in the eleventh century, there was “a heavy and persistent flow of money” from west to east as a result of the crusades, and the financial demands of crusading caused “profound economic and monetary changes in both western Europe and the Levant.

One of the chief reasons for the foundering of the Fourth Crusade, and its diversion to Constantinople, was the fact that it ran out of money before it had gotten properly started, and was so indebted to the Venetians that it found itself unable to keep control of its own destiny. Louis IX’s Seventh Crusade in the mid-thirteenth century cost more than six times the annual revenue of the crown.

The popes resorted to ever more desperate ploys to raise money to finance crusades, from instituting the first income tax in the early thirteenth century to making a series of adjustments in the way that indulgences were handled that eventually led to the abuses condemned by Martin Luther. Even by the thirteenth century, most crusade planners assumed that it would be impossible to attract enough volunteers to make a crusade possible, and crusading became the province of kings and popes, losing its original popular character."
[---]
Myth #3: Crusaders were a cynical lot who did not really believe their own religious propaganda; rather, they had ulterior, materialistic motives.
"...like the first two myths, this statement is generally untrue, and demonstrably so. For one thing, the casualty rates on the crusades were usually very high, and many if not most crusaders left expecting not to return. At least one military historian has estimated the casualty rate for the First Crusade at an appalling 75 percent, for example.

The statement of the thirteenth-century crusader Robert of Crésèques, that he had “come from across the sea in order to die for God in the Holy Land—which was quickly followed by his death in battle against overwhelming odds—may have been unusual in its force and swift fulfillment, but it was not an atypical attitude. It is hard to imagine a more conclusive way of proving one’s dedication to a cause than sacrificing one’s life for it, and very large numbers of crusaders did just that.

But this assertion is also revealed to be false when we consider the way in which the crusades were preached. Crusaders were not drafted. Participation was voluntary, and participants had to be persuaded to go. The primary means of persuasion was the crusade sermon, and one might expect to find these sermons representing crusading as profoundly appealing.

This is, generally speaking, not the case. In fact, the opposite is true: crusade sermons were replete with warnings that crusading brought deprivation, suffering, and often death. That this was the reality of crusading was well known anyway. As Jonathan Riley-Smith has noted, crusade preachers “had to persuade their listeners to commit themselves to enterprises that would disrupt their lives, possibly impoverish and even kill or maim them, and inconvenience their families, the support of which they would . . . need if they were to fulfill their promises.

So why did the preaching work? It worked because crusading was appealing precisely because it was a known and significant hardship, and because undertaking a crusade with the right motives was understood as an acceptable penance for sin. Far from being a materialistic enterprise, crusading was impractical in worldly terms, but valuable for one’s soul. There is no space here to explore the doctrine of penance as it developed in the late antique and medieval worlds, but suffice it to say that the willing acceptance of difficulty and suffering was viewed as a useful way to purify one’s soul (and still is, in Catholic doctrine today). Crusading was the near-supreme example of such difficult suffering, and so was an ideal and very thorough-going penance."
[---]
Myth #4: The crusades taught Muslims to hate and attack Christians.

Part of the answer to this myth may be found above, under Myth #1. Muslims had been attacking Christians for more than 450 years before Pope Urban declared the First Crusade. (Ed. emphasis added) They needed no incentive to continue doing so. But there is a more complicated answer here, as well.

Up until quite recently, Muslims remembered the crusades as an instance in which they had beaten back a puny western Christian attack. An illuminating vignette is found in one of Lawrence of Arabia’s letters, describing a confrontation during post–World War I negotiations between the Frenchman Stéphen Pichon and Faisal al-Hashemi (later Faisal I of Iraq). Pichon presented a case for French interest in Syria going back to the crusades, which Faisal dismissed with a cutting remark: “But, pardon me, which of us won the crusades?”
"This was generally representative of the Muslim attitude toward the crusades before about World War I—that is, when Muslims bothered to remember them at all, which was not often. Most of the Arabic-language historical writing on the crusades before the mid-nineteenth century was produced by Arab Christians, not Muslims, and most of that was positive. There was no Arabic word for “crusades” until that period, either, and even then the coiners of the term were, again, Arab Christians. It had not seemed important to Muslims to distinguish the crusades from other conflicts between Christianity and Islam.
RTWT






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Friday, May 16, 2014

The End Of The Indian Industy?

Thursday, May 15, 2014

"In Cuba, They Don't Have A Minimum Wage:...

...they have a maximum wage.
"Cuba has the fascination of a train wreck. Among the country’s most striking features is its rigid caste system. Members of the ruling elite–the criminal gang, i.e. the Communist Party–live in a semi-capitalist bubble and are able to enjoy not just power, but relatively luxurious living conditions. Everyone else bears the full brunt of socialism, and is mired in want and misery:"
[---]
"Outside its small tourist sector, the rest of [Havana] looks as though it suffered a catastrophe on the scale of Hurricane Katrina or the Indonesian tsunami. Roofs have collapsed. Walls are splitting apart. Window glass is missing. Paint has long vanished. It’s eerily dark at night, almost entirely free of automobile traffic. I walked for miles through an enormous swath of destruction without seeing a single tourist. Most foreigners don’t know that this other Havana exists, though it makes up most of the city—tourist buses avoid it, as do taxis arriving from the airport. It is filled with people struggling to eke out a life in the ruins. …"

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Wednesday, May 14, 2014

LOL!!

Police on standby as Montreal Canadiens fans to pack Bell Centre for giant-screen viewing

'awkey riots predicted. Some things never change.  

GO HABS!!

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Monday, May 12, 2014

Here's A Nice Little History Of Iran Since the 50's

Boko Haram: Is The Media Raaaaacist?

The Rise of Boko Haram
"Boko Haram—the Taliban of Nigeria—finally seized the world’s attention this month, first for kidnapping hundreds of little girls and threatening to sell them, and again for indiscriminately massacring 336 people last week in the town of Gamboru Ngala. A ramp-up in attacks actually began back in February when its suicide bombers and gunmen struck 21 times, but we’re not yet numb to the kidnapping of hundreds of children, and last week’s atrocity was the deadliest yet."
[---]
"All but one of Boko Haram’s previous attacks claimed dozens of victims, but the last three in a row reach into the hundreds.

Any terrorist attack anywhere in the world that claims 200 or more victims will make international news, and any terrorist organization that pulls those kinds of numbers in rapid succession will really find itself under the spotlight.

Whatever the reason, it’s about time. Africa is far too often ignored by the rest of the world."
[---]
"Boko Haram is not some popular armed grassroots movement from the Muslim community like Hezbollah is for the Shias of Lebanon, nor is it a sectarian Iraqi-style militia. Boko Haram coordinates and has pledged solidarity with Al Qaeda, and as always for such organizations, everybody, Muslims included, is a potential target."
[---]
"When Islamists seized power in Northern Mali in January of 2012, everybody they terrorized, murdered, and killed was a Muslim. The overwhelming majority of the Taliban’s victims are Muslims. Islamist insurgents ignited a nearly apocalyptic war in Algeria in 1991 which killed around 150,000 people, and with just a handful of exceptions, everybody they slaughtered was Muslim. Nearly all the civilian victims of Iraqi death squads and terrorist organizations were Muslims."
[---]
"In the case that baffled the Christian Science Monitor—and, apparently, some unnamed “Africa watchers”—Boko Haram shot 44 men inside a mosque while they were praying. That might baffle someone who has paid little or no attention to violent Islamists over the last decade or so, but the article itself (which the headline writer must not have read) includes a perfectly obvious motive for Boko Haram attacking a mosque. “On a recent trip to Maiduguri, most imams refused to speak of Boko Haram after several of them had been assassinated for criticizing the group. One imam said the militants attacked mosques and Muslims because they were not devoted to Boko Haram’s extremist cause.”"
RTWT

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Sunday, May 11, 2014

What They Don't Tell Ya'

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Saturday, May 10, 2014

I Wonder Where This Is Going?

Egypt's Sisi turns Islam on the Islamists

Have they replaced an Islamofascist government with another strong man government, or will Sisi really bring about democratic reforms:
"As the Egyptian state presses its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, the man expected to become president has deployed a new weapon in the battle with the Islamists: his own vision of Islam.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former army chief who deposed the Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi and is expected to be elected president later this month, has cast himself as a defender of religion and taken aim at the doctrinal foundations of Islamist groups the state is seeking to crush.

Striking a pious tone that sets him apart from former president Hosni Mubarak, Sisi also appears to be taking on the mantle of a religious reformer. He has blamed outdated "religious discourse" for holding back Egypt.

"I see that the religious discourse in the entire Islamic world has cost Islam its humanity," Sisi said in an interview televised on May 5. "This requires us, and for that matter all leaders, to review their positions."

With references to God and morality, Sisi may turn out to be the most outwardly pious of any of the military men to have governed Egypt since the republic was founded in 1953."
There's enough meat on that bone to keep everyone chewing this over for a good long time.

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More Of The Same From Indian Country

 UPDATED AND BUMPED:What did I tell you?



 ===========Original Post Starts Here==========

I've been thinking for several days now what the consequences of AFN's latest fiasco will be. The National Post had a number of informative articles about it, which remain the best I've read, so far: Atleo’s resignation does more than derail the $1.9B First Nations education plan, it may have upended the whole AFN
"Mr. Atleo’s shock departure also energized the Idle No More movement that tagged him as too close to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, undermined the credibility of the AFN, and set the stage for a race to replace him that, according to one senior member, is likely to be dominated by hopeless idealists and outrage radicals. “I think we are heading to a very disappointing upcoming election for national chief,” said Grand Chief Doug Kelly of the Sto:lo Tribal Council in British Columbia, an ally of Mr. Atleo and a supporter of the education deal, Bill C-33, which he said was unanimously supported in principle by chiefs in December. “Why would anyone stand up and say ‘I want to lead this unruly, undisciplined organization that doesn’t know what it wants to do from meeting to meeting.’ What government would deal with it?” Mr. Kelly said. “We don’t have any credibility, so that’s a serious problem. We damaged our own credibility as an advocacy organization because of a lack of discipline.” He is not alone in this view, though not all share his pessimism. Mr. Atleo’s resignation reflects the “growing power of community members” and “is the manifestation of whatever Idle No More has become” and could even lead to the AFN’s “disappearance,”"
Yup. The AFN has been very good at shooting itself in the foot.
"As it sits on the shelves in Ottawa awaiting a new National Chief, however, Bill C-33 already illustrates a dangerous tendency in First Nations politics that would worry any aspiring leader. “Any national chief that establishes a productive working relationship with any federal government is accused of being too tight, or jumping into bed with the federal government,” Mr. Kelly said in an interview. “It’s politics. What’s fair in politics? I expect more from chiefs.”"
Atleo’s departure shows us everything that’s wrong with First Nations identity politics
"The resignation of Assembly of First Nations (AFN) national chief Shawn Atleo is a symptom of not one, but two serious and systemic problems afflicting First Nations communities: (1) a lack of quality schools for native children living on reserve, and (2) native leaders’ own self-destructive insistence that any solution to this and other social problems must conform to the false conceit of unfettered First Nations sovereignty."
Shawn Atleo was a different type of National Chief, and that’s what led to his ouster
"From the outset of Shawn A-in-chut Atleo’s surprise 2009 ascendancy to the Assembly of First Nations’ top job, he seemed a different type of National Chief. The 42-year-old was young enough to have dodged the residential school era, he was a university chancellor with an Australian education degree, a breakdancer who could moonwalk on command and, in an organization composed largely of treatied peoples, Mr. Atleo came from the untreatied lands of British Columbia. And before rooms of Toronto suits, he had no qualms declaring that First Nations were “open for business.” “We’re here to stay and we’re looking for partners. We’re open for business,” he told a gathering of the Toronto Board of Trade just five months after his election. His modern approach wasn’t universally popular, though, and on Friday the man whose name literally means “everyone depends on you” became the first-ever National AFN Chief to resign, openly vilified as a traitor, a sellout and a man colluding with Ottawa to destroy his own people."
And, IMHO, this could be the end of the AFN. And not a moment too soon. Watch for the Canadian government to ignore the AFN and work with Atleo from here on in. Shawn Atleo swallowed up by the native divide
"What won’t be resolved is the crucial question of who speaks for whom. Politics at the best of times is complicated, and in keeping with this principle, native communities are in many instances divided. On the surface there’s grassroots consensus around honouring treaties, “respecting the relationship,” and empowering communities. But the fact that Shawn Atleo and National Chief aspirant Pam Palmateer can both use this language and mean contrary things suggests the gap between aspirations and plans. A good deal of what the grassroots demand is past the posts: there will never be, to cite only one of many possible examples, legislation from the Crown affirming real political independence, much less sovereignty, of First Nations. In any case, political independence has prerequisites like physical and emotional health, education and economic security – and in each of these categories there is work to be done. If any message has been delivered this week it’s that this work is neither the job of the federal government nor the Assembly of First Nations. Both can have a supporting role to play, but the way out and forward must be found and sustained under the steam of the people who are directly involved. Shawn Atleo said as much to me over lunch. How strange that this principle brought him down."
Yawn.

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Cute

Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Flatlined

Sunday, May 04, 2014

They Say With Global Warming...

...sea levels will rise to the point where coastal cities will be inundated. Well, that's not the only thing they have to worry about:

Coastal Cities Don't Just Need to Worry About Rising Seas; They're Also on Sinking Land


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At Risk Of...

...being seen to be beating a dead horse, let me post one more thing about Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. It's bit old, but Bill Whittle, the man in the middle, is a pilot, so he has some perspective that most of us don't have:

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Saturday, May 03, 2014

Quelle Surprize!

Zero - David Suzuki

Round Up

Shawn Atleo was a different type of National Chief, and that’s what led to his ouster

This could be the beginning of the end of the Indian Industry, and not a moment too soon.


Police pile onto tractor as farmer helps track suspects through muddy field
"Four RCMP members hitched a ride on a farmer’s tractor Friday afternoon as they tracked down three suspects through a wet and muddy field near Briercrest, Sask."
[---]
"The suspects, without transportation to leave the town, were now somewhere in the area on foot, police said.

A canine unit and neighbouring police detachments were called to assist the tracking efforts. Word spread among residents to keep an eye out for the three suspects and to alert police of sightings.

Several residents assisted police by searching grid roads in their pickup trucks. Others canvassed wet and boggy areas with quads and one resident, a pilot, took to the air to search."
Lots of fun.

New views about Neanderthal Man:


Neanderthals not incompetent dimwits: study
"That is the message a pair of researchers have delivered after analyzing archaeological evidence detailing the capabilities of Neanderthals, our closest extinct human relatives, compared to the early modern humans who first crossed their path about 40,000 years ago."
Gap Between Neanderthals and Us Narrows, But Does Not Close

[---]

Tsunamis




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Still Believe In Global Warming?

NASA Scientist: Global Warming Is Nonsense

"Another scientist has pushed back against the doom-and-gloom climate change predictions from the United Nations and other governmental agencies.

Dr. Leslie Woodcock, emeritus professor at the University of Manchester (UK) School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, is a former NASA scientist along with other impressive accomplishments on his distinguished professional resume.

In an interview, he laughed off man-made climate change as nonsense and a money-making industry for the green lobby, which approaches the subject with a religious fervor. Explained Woodcock:

“The term ‘climate change’ is meaningless. The Earth’s climate has been changing since time immemorial, that is since the Earth was formed 1,000 million years ago. The theory of ‘man-made climate change’ is an unsubstantiated hypothesis [about] our climate [which says it] has been adversely affected by the burning of fossil fuels in the last 100 years, causing the average temperature on the earth’s surface to increase very slightly but with disastrous environmental consequences. The theory is that the CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuel is the ‘greenhouse gas’ causes ‘global warming’ — in fact, water is a much more powerful greenhouse gas and there is 20 time more of it in our atmosphere (around one per cent of the atmosphere) whereas CO2 is only 0.04 per cent. There is no reproducible scientific evidence CO2 has significantly increased in the last 100 years."
[---]
"Even the term ‘global warming’ does not mean anything unless you give it a time scale. The temperature of the earth has been going up and down for millions of years, if there are extremes, it’s nothing to do with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it’s not permanent and it’s not caused by us. Global warming is nonsense.”
[--]
In perhaps a further contrary development for the climate change adherents, it’s been reported that the polar ice cap is actually expanding rather than contracting: “… In fact, receding Arctic ice rebounded between 2012 and 2013, growing by 29 percent into an unbroken patch more than half the size of Europe and within 5 percent of what it was 30 years ago, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Last month near the South Pole, a Russian ship carrying scientists and tourists traveled to the bottom of the Earth so passengers might document global warming and shrinking ice caps. But the ship got stuck on ice that was thicker than at any time since records started being kept in 1978.”



One of the Hardest Winters in Years Devastates Honey Bee Population in Ohio

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Friday, May 02, 2014

Betcha They Could Learn To...

...play chopsticks:


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Another "Say It Ain't So"

Three Centuries of New Climate Change Data for West Antarctica
"According to Thomas et al. (2013), "the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica have both warmed dramatically in recent decades, with some records suggesting that these are among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth (Bromwich et al., 2013)." And they note, in this regard, that "the lack of long-term records is hindering our ability to evaluate modeling results and place these recent changes in a longer-term context," which is especially aggravating since, as they continue, "the climate in the coastal region, especially in the area closest to some of the largest and fastest flowing outlet glaciers in the region, is still largely unknown."

To help rectify this situation, Thomas et al. developed "a new stable isotope record from Ellsworth Land which provides a valuable 308-year record (1702-2009) of climate variability from coastal West Antarctica." More specifically, they obtained deuterium (δD) data from the Ferrigno ice core (F10) drilled on the Bryan Coast of West Antarctica during the austral summer of 2010/2011, which they say was "significantly correlated with the ERA-Interim temperature (1850, 1979-2009)."

[--]

"The four UK researchers report "the large isotopic warming since the 1950s is not unusual, with equally large warming and cooling trends observed several times over the past 308 years," which they further note is "consistent with a study from continental West Antarctica (Steig et al., 2013) which concluded that this recent warming is not unprecedented in the context of the past 2000 years."

Based upon the above-noted facts, Thomas et al. were able to confidently conclude "the effect of anthropogenic climate drivers at this location has not exceeded the natural range of climate variability in the context of the past ~300 years," which adds to the growing body of evidence that indicates there is nothing unusual, unnatural or unprecedented about late 20th-century global warming."
That website, BTW, is an excellent resource. And I love it's name: Non-intergovermental Panel on Climate change.

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Thursday, May 01, 2014

Say It Ain't So!

Top climate expert's sensational claim of government meddling in crucial UN report
""A top US academic has dramatically revealed how government officials forced him to change a hugely influential scientific report on climate change to suit their own interests.

Harvard professor Robert Stavins electrified the worldwide debate on climate change on Friday by sensationally publishing a letter online in which he spelled out the astonishing interference"
Unfortunately, he doesn't say which governments or which side of the argument.

We already knew it's all politics and very little science. I have my suspicions.





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