DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- The president of the University of Colorado has recommended that a professor who likened some September 11 victims to a Nazi should be fired, according to the professor and the school.

Ward Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, has denied the allegations and threatened a lawsuit if he is dismissed.

CU President Hank Brown made the recommendation in a 10-page letter sent to the chair of the committee that handles tenure issues. University spokeswoman Michele McKinney confirmed published reports about the recommendation Monday but said the school would not make the letter public.

The university's governing Board of Regents would have the final say on whether Churchill is fired or disciplined. It could be several weeks before the case ends up in its hands; the tenure panel must review it first.

Churchill touched off a firestorm with an essay likening some victims in the World Trade Center to Adolf Eichmann, who helped carry out the Holocaust.

University officials concluded he could not be fired for his comments because they were protected by the First Amendment, but they launched an investigation into allegations that he fabricated or falsified his research and plagiarized.

The interim chancellor of the university's Boulder campus and another faculty committee have also recommended Churchill be fired. At Churchill's request, the Privilege and Tenure Committee also reviewed the case and recommended a one-year suspension without pay and a demotion.

Churchill said Monday the university process was biased against him and that he believes he will get a fairer hearing in the courts.

"I've got more faith in almost anything (than in the university process)," he said. "A random group of homeless people under a bridge would be far more intellectually sound and principled than anything I've encountered at the university so far."

Jeeze!  He's even more sanctimonious than surrogate...

Caliphate News Network 

Cindy in one of a multitude of situations that had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with her.

Perhaps now she can spend time getting the mental health treatment she needs. In what should stand as the best example of a piece written by a MalNar, Sheehan quits whatever it was she appointed herself to. Why now? Here, let me translate her Resignation Notice posted at Daily Kos: (HT Drudge).

"Good Riddance Attention Whore"

1. Everyone hates me now, even the Dems ("I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called "Face" of the American anti-war movement...I have been further trashed on such "liberal blogs" as the Democratic Underground.")

2. The money has dried up. (" [W]hen I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode...")

3. People stopped paying attention to me. ("I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong.")

4. Democrats are blind and stupid and just like Repubs because they don't agree with me, either. ("It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party.")

5. America is evil. ("a fascist corporate wasteland...")

Cindy grieving the loss of her son during her work to stop all the death and destruction, for which everyone is so ungrateful.

6. I wasted all my money and ignored my family to try to prove to myself I am not the attention whore that apparently I am. ("I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an "attention whore" then I really need to be committed.")

7. America is an ungrateful bitch. ("I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither.")

8. I'm in debt and won't pay my bills because America is evil. ("my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings.")

9. Americans are stupid and vapid and don't care. ("Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months.")

10. Everyone is jealous of me because I get all the attention. ("This group won’t work with that group; he won’t attend an event if she is going to be there; and why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway?")

11. Everyone is doomed, so I'm getting out while I can. ("Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death ...I am going to take whatever I have left and go home.")

12. I need money. ("Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any reasonable offer.")

Cindy still obviously suffering with grief, with her bud, the fascist dictator Hugo Chavez. Hey! maybe he can give her a job with his new state-run TV channel " All Hugo All the Time."

And lastly...

13. America is evil. ("Good-bye America ...you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice...")

But no, she's not, not an attention whore, and it's never been all about her. Which is why she uses the personal pronouns "I" and "me" no less than 59 times in her little blog post. Her one 'moment of clarity' seems to exhibit itself in her choice of title for this regurgitation.

So yes, good riddance. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Heck, we could hope she turns to wrestling, or the Ultimate Fighter Championships. With our luck, she'll return like a bad penny on The Biggest Loser (to shed the 100 pounds she gains after losing all that attention), or, with her money problems, she could take over for Gary Coleman on those "Cash Call" commercials.

Ultimately, she could take a page from the late Dana Plato and try to hold up a dry cleaner in Vegas. If she wore a Jimmy Carter mask, she might actually get away with it.

Tammy Bruce.com

Wow.  Harsh. 

HAMBURG, Germany (AFP) - European foreign ministers are expected to confront China over the Darfur conflict at a meeting of top diplomats from 46 EU and Asian nations that gets underway here on Monday.

The eighth Asia-Europe meeting (ASEM) of foreign ministers will also focus on the Iranian and North Korean nuclear standoffs and fraught efforts to map the way forward on fighting climate change.

Asian nations are also likely to come under pressure on their position towards Myanmar, whose hardline leadership has extended by one year the house arrest of opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is set to hold one-on-one talks with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi on Darfur amid frustration over Beijing's support for the Sudanese government.

China's close ties with Sudan -- it sells arms to the African state and buys more than half its oil output -- is bedevilling US-led attempts within the UN Security Council to use sanctions to force President Omar al-Beshir to let UN troops into Darfur.

Fighting in the western Sudanese region has claimed some 200,000 lives since 2003 when an ethnic minority rebellion met with a scorched earth response from the government and allied Arab militias.

The ASEM meeting comes just a week ahead of the Group of Eight summit in Heiligendamm in Germany.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has put Darfur on the G8 agenda, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned that neither this issue nor the Iranian and North Korean nuclear crises can be resolved without China.

The EU troika will hold a special meeting with Yang just before the two-day ASEM meeting starts.

As with the G8, climate change is high on the agenda for the Hamburg meeting, and diplomats are expected to lobby China and new ASEM member India on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Together the two nations' output of the harmful gases will surpass that of the United States by 2015 and Merkel, who is having trouble winning Washington's support on the environment, believes that without their help efforts to fight global warming will fail.

German authorities are expecting up to 100,000 anti-globalisation protestors at the G8 summit and Hamburg police have warned that some 5,000 could target the ASEM meeting as they 'warm up' for Heiligendamm.

Y! News

North Carolina Democrat David Price is leading a congressional delegation in Egypt—and meeting with representatives of one of the world’s most insidious and implacable jihad organizations, the Muslim Brotherhood: Egypt criticizes US over meeting with Muslim Brotherhood lawmaker.

Egypt criticized a meeting Sunday that included four US members of Congress and the head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s bloc in Parliament, accusing the US of having double standards for meeting with the banned Egyptian group but refusing to meet with the militant Palestinian group Hamas.

The congressional delegation, headed by North Carolina Democrat David Price, held talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak early Sunday before heading to Parliament to meet a group of lawmakers that included the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Saad el-Katatni. (AP)

Via:  LGF 

Last week, NewsBusters readers were introduced to Portland, Maine’s fabulous fifteen-year-old, Kristen Byrnes, whose website “Ponder the Maunder” marvelously takes on anthropogenic global warming myths including those being advanced by soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore. [Honorary Dr. - ed.]

As will be revealed post haste, this newest – and likely youngest – member of the growing list of folks skeptical about man’s role in climate change actually walks the walk better than she talks the talk.

Yet, despite her youth and precocious scientific acumen, it seems quite unlikely that she’ll be sitting down with Matt Lauer or Diane Sawyer any time soon to discuss her research concerning one of the most popular subjects on the media’s front-burner. Why?

Because a prediction that she made last month concerning Australia's drought has marvelously borne fruit making the scientists employed by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change look a bit foolish.

To set this up, here’s what the IPCC Summary for Policymakers report released on April 7 predicted regarding Australia (emphasis added):

As a result of reduced precipitation and increased evaporation, water security problems are projected to intensify by 2030 in southern and eastern Australia and, in New Zealand, in Northland and some eastern regions. ** D [11.4]

[…]

Production from agriculture and forestry by 2030 is projected to decline over much of southern and eastern Australia, and over parts of eastern New Zealand, due to increased drought and fire.

About two weeks later, in an Internet discussion group which I belong to that deals exclusively with anthropogenic global warming issues, Byrnes wrote the following to an Australian participant (emphasis added, released with her permission and that of her parents):

I was just looking at my ENSO 3.4 chart when I was responding to Eduardo's email. It looks like the ENSO has been positive for 95% of the last 6 years. Since Austrailia [sic] experiences warm and dry conditions during positive ENSO, six years of drought would not surprise me. But it is headed negative very quickly now, so you might want to dust off your umbrella.

Well, just last week, there were signs from Australia that the six-year-old drought might be over. As reported by News.com.au on May 18 in an article deliciously titled “Drought Could Be Ending”:

THE El Nino weather system has run its course and the weather bureau says the worst drought in a century could be coming to an end, as heavy rain soaked parched southeastern Australia.

Inland NSW and north-east Victoria enjoyed heavy rainfall today, with reports from 20-30mm falling in some areas and as high as 53mm in country Victoria, Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) senior forecaster Phil King said.

[…]

Mr King said the rainfall reflected a shift in weather patterns back to a more normal situation following an end to the drought-making El Nino and signs emerging of its opposite, a La Nina, which brings rain.

"The El Nino is over,'' he said.

"The global patterns are indicating there are more neutral and natural conditions and with the rainfalls, there are signs we have returned to more normal patterns.''

Certainly great news for Australians, wouldn't you agee? And, the Canberra Times reported Wednesday (emphasis added):

Winter has arrived early on the Snowy Mountains in spectacular fashion.

A blanket of snow has covered much of the high ranges of the Kosciuszko National Park over the past two days and hopes are running high for the coming ski season.

After spending much of the summer season enduring the drought and feeling the threat of climate change, the residents of Jindabyne are alight with anticipation of a good season. The town, at the foot of the national park, almost triples in size during the snow season and relies heavily on the tourist dollar.

"Don't you worry, this season will be a good one, this is a big one. You'll see, we can feel it," one long-time resident said.

As for agriculture, The Age reported Thursday:

A good wet season in northern Australia has put Queensland-based cattle producer Australian Agricultural Co Ltd (AAco) on track for an improved performance this year.

AAco managing director Don Mackay said recent rain in some parts of southern states had also boosted prospects.

And, News.com.au reported the following on Thursday as well (emphasis added):

Recent storms over the northeast Top End put the icing on the cake for the Nothern [sic] Territory's rain totals, which have been more than 5 times the May average in some areas.

Places such as Batchelor Airport in the north, and Kulgera in the Alice Springs district have had more than 500% of their average monthly rainfall.

Lajamanu has done particularly well with more than 7 times their average monthly rain. Most of that was from a heavy downpour of 44mm. 20mm of that fell within 1 hour.

On Thursday storms crossing the eastern Top End drenched Nhulunbuy, with 41mm recorded from this event. Showers will continue on Friday in moist, unstable easterly winds, with falls heaviest in the east.

Obviously, Kristen’s April 20 suggestion that folks in Australia better dust off their umbrellas was rather prescient. Just imagine if this 15-year-old’s prediction supported the Global Warmingist-in-Chief Al Gore’s position on man’s role in climate change. Think she’d be Matt, Meredith, and Diane’s guest tomorrow?

Regardless of the answer, here’s what Kristen saw in the climate data that the global warming alarmists working for the U.N. either didn’t recognize or chose to ignore as shared with me by e-mail:

There are certain rules in climate. One of them is that when there is an El Nino, there is dry weather in Australia, especially during their summer. Here is a map of what I am talking about:. 

and during their winter: 

Australia has been in drought for about 6 years because there have been positive ENSO conditions for most of the past 6 years.

ENSO stands for El Niño/Southern Oscillation; more information on this indicator is available here and here. Kristen continued her explanation:

This is the NOAA Oceanic Nino Index. There are many different ENSO indexes. I use this one because it is updated all the time.

NOAA also publishes ENSO forecasts. They are usually pretty good a few months in advance but not perfect. Last month the La Nina was starting much faster but it has slowed down. This means that Australia will have normal rainfall for the planting season. The forecast for ENSO can be found here.

Kristen then addressed why so much of the alarmism is based on specious science:

The reason that computer climate models do not work is because they cannot predict volcanoes, ENSO and solar variance. They also do not understand how water vapor and clouds work.

Another rule in climate is that El Nino warms the average global temperature and La Nina is the opposite. During normal conditions the trade winds at the equator blow cool water off the coast of Peru to the east and cause warm water to pile up near Indonesia, the wind pressure actually causes sea water levels to be higher there. During La Nina, the winds blow even harder and pile the water up even more. During El Nino the winds slow down and the warm water flows back to Peru.

The result is, during La Nina (cool event) the cold water coming from the bottom of the ocean near Peru is blown across the surface to Indonesia. The Earth's normal circulation that takes heat from the equator towards the poles has less heat to move to the poles.

On the other hand, when there is an El Nino, the warm water spreads across the surface back to Peru. More warm water is in contact with the air above and the Earth's circulation takes that heat toward the poles.

From about 1944 to 1976 the ENSO was mostly negative and solar increased then decreased. Temperatures during this time cooled a little. Since 1976 the ENSO has been more positive. This along with increasing solar activity has combined to warm the globe. What is expected over the next few years is for the ENSO to move back to a negative phase and for solar activity to level off then go down. That is why the weather guy said that in 5 years global warming will be a joke.

Kristen was referring to a NewsBusters' article about New Zealand's favorite weatherman, Augie Auer, who was quoted last week as saying that over-hyped fears regarding climate change are "all going to be a joke in five years."

Kristen continued:

I am already seeing signs that the climate is cooling. Since 2001 the oceans have not warmed. 2005 was supposed to be the warmest year on record but ENSO went a little negative that year. That means the base temperature (the oceans) was as warm as it is going to get because 2006 was an El Nino year and it was the 6th warmest on record. Keep in mind that for the last 70 years there has been an 11,000 year solar high. It takes time for all that heat to build up in the oceans, but it seems that the oceans are as warm as they will get from this 11,000 year solar high. This year will be cooler than last year because it will be an ENSO negative year and the solar cycle still has not started yet.

Also keep in mind that just because there is no El Nino or La Nina, there is still heating or cooling. ENSO positive that does not get to the level of El Nino will still warm the climate, just a lot less. Same with ENSO negative that does not make the level of La Nina.

So, what does all this tell us?

Well, if the drought in Australia and New Zealand is indeed ending – and, certainly, early-season rains and snowstorms do not yet prove this – one must question the models being used by the IPCC to forecast climate change in the future.

After all, if a long-range forecast issued April 7 ends up being wrong five weeks later, why on earth would we trust these folks from the U.N. to be able to accurately predict what’s going to happen next year, or fifty to a hundred years from now?

Maybe more important, should we actually enact policy changes that could negatively impact the economy on the recommendations of a group that can’t accurately predict events beyond just a month and a half?

Of course, the other likely more pivotal side of this revelation is whether the scientists involved are just incompetent, or willfully malfeasant. As Kristen wrote in her e-mail message to me, “They were probably trying to scare the people of Australia into signing Kyoto.”

Well, if this is the case, then aren’t all involved participating in a shameful scam?

Think about it. If this is indeed about getting developed nations to agree to the Kyoto Protocol, isn’t the U.N. best served by predicting calamitous climate events regardless of their merit in order to scare the public into complacent support?

If there is evidence to suggest that this is indeed the case – for example, proof of errant predictions by the IPCC – shouldn’t the veracity and integrity of the information emanating from this organization be much more thoroughly scrutinized?

Sounds like questions good journalists should be asking, wouldn’t you agree?

So, why aren’t they?

Wow.

Newsbusters

Ponder the Maunder 

For five years we have been lectured that George Bush ruined the trans-Atlantic relationship. But now we see pro-American governments in both France and Germany, and a radical change in attitudes from Denmark to Holland to Italy. The truth is that the Europeans neither hated nor loved Bill Clinton, whom they on occasion privately seethed at for not exercising leadership, or George Bush who swaggered and talked tough to them during the lead-up to Iraq and seemed to them to be rudely unilateral. Instead, after getting their teen-age anger out, they are starting to see that the United States did not fabricate Islamic radicalism nor order them to let in and then not assimilate millions of now angry Muslims.

For all the cheap shots, the European public is worried about importing half their natural gas from Vladimir Putin, who now bullies Eastern Europeans, former Soviet republics, and dissidents well beyond his borders on the premise that his oil wealth and nukes ensure Europe can’t and won’t do anything.

Europeans know they won’t or can’t stop the Iranians from getting a nuke, but hope someone—that is, the United States—will. And from the Spanish flight from Iraq after the Madrid bombing, the spectacle of the British naval personnel in Iranian hands, and the continental paralysis after the Danish cartoons and other serial Islamic affronts to free expression, Europe knows that radical Islam is both dangerous and has little respect for either European moral authority or force of arms.

European Sobriety?

So it is they, not us, that are returning to sobriety in matters of the trans-Atlantic relationship, and they are doing this not because of affection for George Bush, but despite their anxiety about him. And that is good news, since it suggests the warming exists apart from personalities, and reminds us that if the so-called and much deprecated “West” were ever to act in unison (the former British commonwealth, Japan, the US, and continental Europe), then radical Islam would simply have no chance against 8-900 million of the planet’s most productive, ingenious and democratic peoples.

At some point, European statesmen are going to bump into a great truth: that they spend almost nothing on defense, but intrinsically have access to the United States military, both by shared values, or at least the memory of shared values, and the allegiance of the American people to this now ridiculed, now archaic notion known as the “West.” All they have do is to occasionally show some warmth to the United States, and we crazy American people whether in World War I, II, the Cold War, or the war on terror, give our all to them—at no cost. We sense that Merkle and Sarkozy and the majorities that elected them, finally fear that they were reaching the point of American exasperation at which the old ties were broken for good, adn Europe was truly to be on its own, and thus pulled back—in time?

The Danger is Isolationism, not Preemption

If I were a European, Taiwanese, Saudi, or almost anyone else who habitually complains about American presumptuousness, I would worry that the American public is reverting to its (natural?) 1930s sort of isolationism. Tired of cheap anti-Americanism, the burden of global defense obligations, and the continual erosion of the dollar, they wish to pull in their horns and let others in multilateral fashion pick up the slack.

Perhaps the European rapid reaction force could respond to Estonia’s plight should Putin send in a punititive brigade. Maybe the UN could provide the necessary deterrence to protect Taiwanese autonomy should the island provoke mainland China to the point of invading.

No doubt the EU3—Britain, France, Germany—could warn Iran not to nuke Israel—or else. These are not longer just parlor-game musings, but the look of the world if the exhaustion of the American people is reflected in retrenchment, best summed up by “These people are not really worth it, so let them handle their own affairs.” It would be a very dangerous attitude to adopt, but one psychologically understandable.

Brilliant.  God, I wish this man would run for President.

Go.  Read the rest.

Works and Days 

Paris - France plans to offer incentives to more immigrants to return home, especially to Africa, new Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux said on Wednesday.

France will provide €6 000 to a family with two children if they agree to go back to their country of origin, an incentive that was taken up by about 1 000 families in 2005 and 2 000 in 2006.

"We must increase this measure to help voluntary return. I am very clearly committed to doing that," said Hortefeux, who last week was named in the rightwing government of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Hortefeux heads a newly-created ministry of immigration, integration, national identity and co-development that is expected toughen up immigration policy and tailor it to France's employment needs.

Sarkozy has warned of a "social explosion" if immigration is not managed in France where rioting in the immigrant-heavy suburbs in 2005 highlighted the failures of the government's integration efforts.

Amnesty International expressed concern on Wednesday that a new restrictive immigration policy would affect France's willingness to take in asylum seekers.

Language skills 'a must'

"Our concern is that asylum will be under the responsibility of Mr Hortefeux along with everything dealing with immigration control," said Patrick Delouvin, an official with Amnesty International.

"The asylum request is made in the context of a life and death situation in the country of origin and today it is extremely difficult for an asylum seeker to come to France," said Genevieve Sevrin, president of Amnesty France.

Hortefeux, who plans to travel soon to Spain and Africa to try to co-ordinate efforts to fight illegal immigration, also said he was in favour of a language test for newcomers to France.

"To be integrated, you need language skills and a professional activity," he told RFI radio.

France is home to about 1.5 million immigrants from mostly Muslim North Africa and 500 000 from sub-Saharan Africa out of a total immigrant population of about five million, according to the 2004 population census.

No mass legalisation

Hortefeux earlier this week said there would be no mass legalisation of illegals, as was done in neighbouring Spain, and that requests for legal status would be treated on a case-by-case basis.

He predicted there would be about 25 000 expulsions of illegals from France this year, which is roughly the number deported last year.

He estimated the number of illegals in France at between 200 000 and 400 000.

News24 

In a 2005 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, epidemiologist John Ioannidis showed that among the 45 most highly cited clinical research findings of the past 15 years, 99 percent of molecular research had subsequently been refuted. Epidemiology findings had been contradicted in four-fifths of the cases he looked at, and the usually robust outcomes of clinical trials had a refutation rate of one in four.

The revelations struck a chord with the scientific community at large: A recent essay by Ioannidis simply entitled "Why most published research findings are false" has been downloaded more than 100,000 times; the Boston Globe called it "an instant cult classic." Now in a Möbius-strip-like twist, there is a growing body of research that is investigating, analyzing, and suggesting causes and solutions for faulty research.

Two papers published this spring in the open-access journal PLoS Medicine by Benjamin Djulbegovic from the University of South Florida and Ramal Moonesinghe from the CDC have delved into the issues raised by Ioannidis and suggested possible ways to mitigate this apparent failure of scientific enterprise. One of the suggestions is to ensure that experimental results are independently replicable. "More often than not, genuine replication is not done, and what we end up with in the literature is corroboration or indirect supporting evidence," says Moonesinghe.

The culprits appear to be the proverbial suspects: lies, damn lies, and statistics. Jonathan Sterne and George Smith, a statistician and an epidemiologist from the university of Bristol in the UK, point out in a study in British Medical Journal that "the widespread misunderstanding of statistical significance is a fundamental problem" in medical research. What's more, the scientist's bias may distort statistics. Pressure to publish can lead to "selective reporting;" the implication is that attention-seeking scientists are exaggerating their results far more often than the occasional, spectacular science fraud would suggest.

Cash-for-science practices between the nutrition and drug companies and the academics that conduct their research may also be playing a role. [And Environmentalists mebbe? - ed.] A survey of published results on beverages earlier this year found that research sponsored by industry is much more likely to report favorable findings than papers with other sources of funding. Although not a direct indication of bias, findings like these feed suspicion that the cherry-picking of data, hindrance of negative results, or adjustment of research is surreptitiously corrupting accuracy. In his essay, Ioannidis wrote, "The greater the financial and other interest and prejudices in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true."

Academic bias could also be to blame. As Ioannidis puts it, "Prestigious investigators may suppress via the peer-review process the appearance and dissemination of findings that refute their findings, thus condemning their field to perpetuate false dogma." Advocates of prevailing paradigms have been observed to band together in opposition against alternative ideas with perhaps more antagonism than one might expect from objective scientific debate. And the opposition isn't limited to publication of new science; jobs and grants are also more easily allocated to those affiliated with the scientific party in power.

Ioannidis is adamant that the problem is widespread. "I have heard from scientists from many different fields who think that the problems are the same in their fields as well," he says. "This is a potentially severe crisis, unless we realize the issue and try to address it."

With the debate over the causes and solutions of high rates of falsifiable research findings ongoing, how the problem is seen in the eyes of a skeptical public may be another issue altogether. Virginia Barbour, managing editor of PLoS Medicine, puts it simply: "In terms of perception, the point is that science doesn't emerge from single new findings that become 'breakthrough' stories in the media, but rather from developments that mature over months or years, with different sources of experimental validation."

Hmmm... Human Caused Glo-bull Warming, anyone?

Now THAT'S an "Inconvenient Truth."

Seed Magazine

Thomas Lifson

Carole Migden is one of the most powerful people in California, and she knows it. The lesbian activist (author of the state's original domestic partners act, "married" in a faux ceremony conducted by SF mayor Gavin Newsom) is chair of the majority Democrat caucus in the State Senate, and has held a series of extremely powerful posts in a state government that spends $100 billion a year with little press scrutiny.

State Sen. Carole Migden bounced her state-issued SUV off the concrete median on Interstate 80 and nearly ran other motorists off the freeway before slamming into the back of another vehicle last week, the California Highway Patrol and witnesses said Tuesday.

More than half a dozen motorists made emergency calls about Migden's erratic driving before the Friday accident, the CHP said. The rear-end collision in Fairfield, midway between San Francisco and Sacramento [about 25 miles from her first accident careening off the median barrier - ed.], injured a woman and her 3-year-old daughter, who were sent to the emergency room.

In a statement released by her office last week, the San Francisco Democrat said the accident happened after she took her eyes off the road while reaching for a ringing cell phone.

...two drivers who followed Migden off the interstate began berating her immediately after the accident.

"One of them said she'd run him off the road. They were pretty upset that she'd been driving so badly," Jordan said.

"She kept saying, 'You can't talk to me like that, I'm a state senator,"' he said. "She was kind of wobbly. She didn't seem alert. She was not acting normally."

"I did not see it coming. I heard no screeching brakes," the Honda's driver, Ellen Butawan of Vallejo, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

She said the impact smashed in the Honda's trunk about 3 feet.

"The tow-truck guy told me that I was lucky no one was seriously injured," said Butawan, 31. "I went to the ER with a head injury, and the left side of my face is black and blue."

Her daughter, Leila, was in a child seat and suffered chest abrasions from the restraining harness, Butawan said. Both will see doctors for follow-up visits this week.

The impact pushed Butawan's car into the vehicle stopped in front of her, a heating and air-conditioning van driven by Turlock resident Bob Jordan. Jordan, 57, was uninjured and his company vehicle received only minor damage, the CHP said.

"Sir, could you answer a few questions for me? When the defendant was punching you, did he at any time mention your country of origin or what religion you practice?"

Victim: "Well, no, we were arguing about the football game and he shoved me. That led to a pushing match just before he socked me in the nose."

Officer: "I see. But, how about during the argument; did he make any references to your sexual orientation?"

Victim: "Certainly not! What would make you ask such a question?"

Officer: "Because I need to know the severity of the crime. Now, have you ever been a woman?"

"What? I don't understand what you mean."

"Sir, I'm trying to establish if you've ever had a sex change operation because if you did and he referred to it during the fight, then we can nail him."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!"

"I'm just doing my job, sir. If this guy used any language that could be interpreted as prejudicial, I can charge him with a much more serious crime."

"Officer, all he did was call me an SOB before he hit me with a left hook."

"Aha! Then he made a slur against your mother, and, since your mother is a woman, he was making disparaging remarks based on gender. I think we have enough here to throw the book at him."

Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.

Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics.

Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria.

Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.

For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught -- many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.

Now the confluence of two events -- the highly publicized contamination of U.S. chicken, pork and fish with tainted Chinese pet food ingredients and this week's resumption of high-level economic and trade talks with China -- has activists and members of Congress demanding that the United States tell China it is fed up.

Dead pets and melamine-tainted food notwithstanding, change will prove difficult, policy experts say, in large part because U.S. companies have become so dependent on the Chinese economy that tighter rules on imports stand to harm the U.S. economy, too.

"So many U.S. companies are directly or indirectly involved in China now, the commercial interest of the United States these days has become to allow imports to come in as quickly and smoothly as possible," said Robert B. Cassidy, a former assistant U.S. trade representative for China and now director of international trade and services for Kelley Drye Collier Shannon, a Washington law firm.

As a result, the United States finds itself "kowtowing to China," Cassidy said, even as that country keeps sending American consumers adulterated and mislabeled foods.

It's not just about cheap imports, added Carol Tucker Foreman, a former assistant secretary of agriculture now at the Consumer Federation of America.

"Our farmers and food processors have drooled for years to be able to sell their food to that massive market," Foreman said. "The Chinese counterfeit. They have a serious piracy problem. But we put up with it because we want to sell to them."

Go read the rest.

The Washington Post 

The latest absurdities to emerge from Jimmy Carter's big, smug mouth.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, May 21, 2007, at 11:35 AM ET

Almost always, when former President Jimmy Carter opens his big, smug mouth, he has already made the psychological mistake that is going to reduce his words to absurdity. When he told the press last week that the Bush administration had aroused antipathy around the world, he might have been uttering no more than a banality. But no, he had to try to invest it with a special signature flourish. So, he said instead:

I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history. The overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including [those of] George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me.

Leave aside the sophomoric slackness that begins a broken-backed sentence with the words "as far as" and then cannot complete itself. "Worst in history," as the great statesman from Georgia has to know, has been the title for which he has himself been actively contending since 1976. I once had quite an argument with the late Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who maintained adamantly that it had been right for him to vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980 for no other reason. "Mr. Carter," he said, "quite simply abdicated the whole responsibility of the presidency while in office. He left the nation at the mercy of its enemies at home and abroad. He was the worst president we ever had."

I still think Richard Nixon has to be the prime candidate here, but you will notice that Jimmy Carter evinces nostalgia for that period, too. Apparently, the Christmas bombing of Vietnam, the invasion of Cambodia, the subversion of democracy in Chile, the raising of illegal slush funds, and the attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee offices were assertions of America's "basic values." Leave aside Carter's newfound admiration for Ronald Reagan, who is now undergoing a more general historical revision thanks to the work of professors Diggins and Brinkley, and just concentrate for a moment on what he says about George Bush Sr. What did he say at the time? Many people in retrospect think Bush did a good job in assembling a large multinational coalition, under U.N. auspices, for the emancipation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. But Jimmy Carter used his prestige, at that uneasy moment, to make an open appeal to all governments not to join that coalition. He went public to oppose the settled policy of Congress and the declared resolutions of the United Nations and to denounce his own country as the warmonger. And, after all, why not? It was he who had created the conditions for the Gulf crisis in the first place—initially by fawning on the shah of Iran and then, when that option collapsed, by encouraging Saddam Hussein to invade Iran and by "tilting" American policy to his side. If I had done such a thing, I would take very good care to be modest when discussions of Middle Eastern crises came up. But here's the thing about self-righteous, born-again demagogues: Nothing they ever do, or did, can be attributed to anything but the very highest motives.

Go read the rest.

Slate.com 

House Democrats rejected a Republican bid Tuesday to reprimand Rep. John Murtha, a senior lawmaker accused of threatening legislative reprisals against a GOP member who had crossed him…

Murtha, known for his bluff manner and fondness of pork barrel projects, did not dispute claims that he charged across the House floor May 17 to confront Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. Rogers had tried unsuccessfully to strike a $23 million Murtha earmark — a targeted spending item — for a drug intelligence center in Murtha’s district…

In a House speech Monday, Rogers said Murtha threatened him by saying, “you will not get any earmarks now and forever.” Rogers, backed by House GOP leaders, said Murtha’s threat violated congressional ethics rules.

In conversations with colleagues and reporters, Democrats played down the incident. Murtha is known for blowing off steam, they said, and his comments to Rogers were too vague to constitute a genuine violation of ethics rules. “It’s time to put on your long pants and grow up,” Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said in an interview when asked how Democrats would respond.

Still, several Democrats said some party members found it distasteful to vote to protect Murtha.

Yeah, you can tell from the roll they were all broken up about it. Total Democrats voting: 221. Total voting for Murtha: 219.

Shamelessly harvested from Hot Air

Cannes - A semi-documentary about a group of US men who had sex with horses has taken the title as the most shocking movie at the Cannes film festival.

But while Zoo has drawn big, curious crowds at its screenings, the real unsettling quality about the movie is its approach: it depicts the men in a sympathetic light, one that tries to push the viewers to understanding their sexual perversion.

The documentary - in which actors recreate non-explicit scenes under audio interviews with some of the men involved - centres on a true-life incident.

In July 2005, a 45-year-old man died of internal bleeding after being anally penetrated by an Arabian stallion during a bestiality weekend in the US state of Washington.

The victim, a Boeing engineer working on top-secret defence projects named Kenneth Pinyan, suffered a perforated colon.

The ensuing investigation led police - and eventually much of the national media - to the farm where the interaction took place, outing the other members of the group.

Independent filmmaker Robinson Devor shies away from prurient imagery, instead enveloping the story in rich photography that gives it a dreamlike beauty overwhelming the sordidness of the subject matter.

Absence of judgement

"In this film, there were things with much more importance to us than the sex aspect," he told journalists after a screening in the sidebar Directors' Fortnight section.

He said the absence of judgement was a deliberate choice, one reinforced after he watched some of the actual videos the men had taken of their horse sessions - footage that doesn't make it into the film, apart from the barest of glimpses at one point.

"They showed us the videos not to show us pornography, but to show an animal that wanted to be with them," Devor said, though he added that he kept some scepticism about the taped acts.

"We don't know what the conditioning was (for the horses)."

Many reviews have been favourable to the approach taken by Devor and his team.

"They've crafted a subdued, mysterious and intensely beautiful film that presents bestiality not for the purpose of titillation, but as a way of investigating the subjective nature of morality," the movie trade magazine Variety wrote.

'Mammal to mammal love'

The men heard in the film are remarkably honest about their motivations. One of them argues "mammal to mammal" love should not be seen as wrong.

Another firmly rejects the tag "bad person" his employer lays upon him before he is sacked. They all say the horses were willing participants.

Indeed, the only judgement seemingly expressed in the documentary is not on the matter in the stable at all. It is in fleeting radio references to US President George W Bush's "war on terror" and the presumed complicity-for-profit of big companies such as Boeing.

Even the cast ended up feeling compassion for the men depicted in Zoo.

John Paulsen, who played Pinyan, said he believed the engineer had been on a self-destructive streak linked to his defence work, a divorce and injuries from a motorcycle accident.

"Here's a man whose greatest loves in his life were so secret, so private," and who abruptly had "these great secrets in his life made so public by dying in such a public and humiliating way," he said.

But Paulsen himself acknowledged the black humour surrounding the incident, and now the film, saying that "in a way, it's a classic Western, except here it's the horse riding the man."

He added with a smile: "I call this role my 15 inches of fame."

See??  The horses CONSENTED... 

Sick bastards.

News24 

The Al Qaeda Most Valuable Player Award Goes Too(sic)….Every single politician in Washington, Democrat and Republican who voted to grant amnesty to over 12 million criminals who have entered the United States illegally. Never am I more nervous, as I am when Democrats and Republicans agree on something. This is one of those times!

The September 11th, 2001 Islamic Terror Attacks on America were orchestrated by people who were in the country illegally! Now we’re making it easier for bin Laden and everyother anti-American putz who wants destroy America! Amnesty for illegals…Terrorist win, America loses….Big Time!

Granting amnesty is nothing more then rewarding bad behavior. Something most Democrats like Senator Ted Kennedy are quite accustomed too, but as a former Law Enforcement Officer, I am not!

The United States Senate have given a group of criminals benefits like Free Education, Free Health Care, and Free Back Tax Evasion. These are the most offensive and self destructive gestures I have ever seen happen in our nation. What’s next, the ability to burn thousands of cars with no criminal penalty?

I can guarantee you this much. A majority of Americans are against making it easier for Illegal Aliens to become United States Citizens. Most of these schmucks in Washington who votes for this Amnesty Bill, will be terminated upon their next campaign for re-election.

Senator John McCain is finished! He has single handedly squashed his campaign for President in 2008. ( I never liked him anyway) I predict that he will not get the Republican nomination and his constituents in the state of Arizona will see to it that he is terminated from his position as United States Senator with extreme predjudice!

If you want to stem the flood of illegals from Central and South America we need to take away from them the reason they are coming here for in the first place!

Islamic Terrorists, are staging themselves for entry into the United States at our southern borders. They are similar in appearance to the latin American Squatters and blend in nicely.

The Rogue Jew

Forget about all that. Even forget the fact that this immigration bill was hammered out in the dark of night by senators who think they can make better law without interference from everyday Americans. Forget the fact that there is every indication that this bill is being bought and paid for by multinational corporations who want a source of cheap labor, and don’t care about the future of the United States of America.

Just forget all that, and focus on the fact that for a few more short months, you still have a chance to make a difference. Think about how unresponsive your government is, and how you have no confidence that your senators or even your congressman will do what is best for this country, and then ask yourself who is going to fix it if you don’t.

Yeah you. Because I am pretty sure you scare the bejeezus out of Mr. Congressman and Mr. Senator.

If you are waiting for them to fix the problems in this country you will wait for a long time. The Senate and the House do not speak for you. They speak for the campaign contributors who financed them into office. It is time that the real rulers speak up, and that is “We the People.”

It is time for “We the People” to run our own country for a change, and not assume that someone else is doing it for us. We can do that, if we do it quickly, by seizing control of the Constitution and stopping the Congress from giving away our country to the foreigners who have invaded it.

All it would take is a simple amendment to establish that citizenship shall not be granted to anyone who entered the country illegally. It should also establish that citizenship is not granted automatically to anyone born in the United States while their parents are here illegally. And finally such an amendment should spell out that it is the duty of the commander in chief to act to secure the borders of the country against foreign intrusions of any kind. The amendment could also establish the authority of the Congress to regulate legal immigration but rule out blanket amnesty of any kind for illegal residents of this country.

The problem, of course, is that such an amendment could never pass in Congress. Congress has no interest in securing our borders, and certainly the president has proven time and again that he has absolutely no desire to protect the rights of American citizens against the costly invasion from Mexico and elsewhere.

Outstanding.  Go read the rest.

Daily InterLake 

I get quite a few loony tMails and comments to the things I post. Not surprising I guess, given what I post about.

I'm thinking of starting a "Moonbat of the Month" entry. This is my pick for May.

What do you folks think?

From my post Jihad coming to the streets of America:

"Quit spreading hatred. If I put up a count of the number of innocents killed by Christians (or Jews) since 9/11, it would make your head spin. The word "terrorism" is subjective. Killing innocents is wrong...that's all there is to it. Your numbers about Muslims may be correct but so would mine be about Christians. Writing them off as collateral doesn't make it the right. Not to mention throwing and torturing Muslims in prison just for belonging to a religious faith that you don't agree with. I am getting a little tired of Islamophobia."

"Sorry..that should have read "...doesn't make it
right". And the numbers I'm referring to is that dubious little counter in your side-bar."

A fine example of public education.

"Wow. What a nearly incomprehensible rant. You make a whole lot of inferences of my beliefs based on a ticker generated on someone else's blog.

Anyway, to ignore your specious, ad homonym attacks, OK, I accept you challenge.
Please feel free to "...make my head spin." Go right ahead and post the number of innocents killed by Christians and Jews. Just to keep it apples to apples, consider 9/11/01 the start date. Be sure to include your sources. Be forewarned, if you cite Wikipedia or any other DailyKos like source, we reserve the right to point at you and laugh.

"The word "terrorism" is subjective. Killing innocents is wrong...that's all there is to it."

WTF is that supposed to mean? It may be *subjective* to a moral relativist or the media, but come on. Lemme guess. The asshats in Iraq blowing up children are just "Freedom Fighters," right?

"Not to mention throwing and torturing Muslims in prison just for belonging to a religious faith that you don't agree with."

Bullshit. Please provide me with a cite where I have ever advocated this.

"I am getting a little tired of Islamophobia."

And I tire of 19 year olds thinking that they know jack squat about anything, and constantly preaching willful ignorance. Hint: "The Daily Show" is NOT a news source.

I breathlessly await your evidence of Judeo-Christian mass murders since 2001.

Still waiting for a response, holding of breath optional.

Wild1, I dub thee "Moonbat of the Month."

Here's your prize...

 

Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio sent out a message about global warming at the Cannes Film Festival.

The heartthrob has made a film, the 11th Hour, warning that human beings face extinction as a result of the environmental crisis.

At a press conference in the South of France following the screening, The Blood Diamond actor, 32, attacked US President George Bush, saying: "It's very simple. He's done very little for the environmental movement."

The Titanic star's latest film, which he narrates, follows another environmental warming documentary by former US Presidential candidate Al Gore, shown at the Cannes Film Festival last year.

DiCaprio defended Gore from criticism over the amount of energy he has been reportedly using to jet around the world and to run his home.

"Don't shoot the messenger", he said. "This person is trying to relay a message to the public and the way that he travels should not be splayed out like that."  [Exactly.  Just IGNORE the hypocracy...  -ed.]

DiCaprio said it should be oil companies that came under scrutiny and that the Government should make systematic change.

The US star said he took steps in his own life to reduce global warming, telling the famous film festival: "I do try to live my life in a green manner. I have installed solar panels in my house and the car that I drive is a hybrid one.

"But it's more about the day-to-day things, being conscious about being a consumer, about looking to endorse green technology. People ask, 'what can a hybrid car do?' It's not about that. [Yes it is, dickhead, see here.  -ed]  It's about being a consumer, the choices you make everyday."

Hey Leo?  Shut the fuck up, OK?  Having a job reading lines written for you does *not* make you a climatic expert any more than being a self-important, bloviating, washed up Snake-Oil Salesman.  Carbon offsets my ass...

The London Paper 

Cairo, 16 May (AKI) - Egypt has called on the international community and the United Nations to work for a document which condems the crimes of offending and defaming religions. The request was made by Egypt's foreign minsiter Ahmed Aboul Gheit, during the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference being held in Islamabad. "The document should be adopted unanimously by the countries of the international community, with the aim of preventing violence and discrimination and preserving stability and peace," he explained.

Aboul Gheit added that "religions have too often been victims in recent times of attacks under the guise of freedom of expression" and that particularly the Muslim faithful must deal with increasing 'islamophobia'. He recalled that "Egypt has been committed for years to promoting dialogue between relgiions(sic) as otulined in the Charter of Human Rights." [what a load of crap.  -ed]

There have been flare ups of sectarian violence in recent says in Egypt between the majority Muslim community and the Coptic Christians. The town of Bham about 20 kilometres south of the capital Cairo has seen 59 arrested after clashes that broke out in a row over the extension of a local Copt church there.

The Coptic community in Egypt is estimated to represent some 10 percent of the population which is majority Sunni and it contests the requirement that it seek authorisation for building churches when the same is not required for mosques.

Some animals are more equal than others.

adnkronosinternational

Islam:  The cult of perpetual victimhood. 

Christians in Charsadda, a town in North-West Frontier Province in Pakistan, have been warned that if they do not convert to Islam by 17 May they will face “dire consequences and bomb explosions”.