The unravelling and discrediting of AGW continues...

Scientist fired by Al Gore was told, "science will not intrude on public policy". Noted energy expert and Princeton physicist Dr. Will Happer has sharply criticized global warming alarmism. Happer, author of over 200 scientific papers and a past director of energy research at the Department of Energy, called fears over global warming "mistaken"."I have spent a long research career studying physics that is closely related to the greenhouse effect", said Happer. "Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science." More, here... and here...

Hat tip and seasons greetings to Eric from The Pool Bar...

The Middle East Will Come to Hate Obama...

...For now, Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East see two things in Obama: to them he’s a walking, talking apology, and an infiltrator. He’s an apology for the Bush years; America’s gift basket to the rest of the world for the fault of protecting itself. The hatred that has been whipped up against President George Bush by the Arab media—much of it owned and directed by America’s alleged allies, the Saudis and other Persian Gulf dynasties—has been unprecedented, much like the adulation presently, and temporarily, being given to Obama. However, Arab and Muslim fascination with Obama rests on the idea that he is their Trojan horse into the highest office in America, the gleeful whispers describe him at times to be a secret Muslim, and in another light, an ‘anti-imperialist’ leftist...
...History tells us that nothing riles up the masses of Nejd, Damascus, Cairo, and Istanbul like the fear that Christians are out to convert Muslims. It is only a matter of time before Obama’s biography, once thought to be the harbinger of international goodwill, will be distorted into yet another reason to hate America...more from Nibras Kazimi, here...

Back to the drawing board...CO2's not the problem...

THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change model of dangerous, human-caused climate change has failed. Independent science relevant to supposed human-caused global warming is clear, and can be summarised in four briefpoints...
First, global temperature warmed slightly in the late 20th century and has been cooling since 2002. Neither the warming nor the cooling were of unusual rate or magnitude.
Second, humans have an effect on local climate but, despite the expenditure of more than $US50 billion ($70 billion) looking for it since 1990, no globally summed human effect has ever been measured. Therefore, any human signal must lie buried in the variability of the natural climate system.
Third, we live on a dynamic planet; change occurs in Earth's geosphere, biosphere, atmosphere and oceans all the time and all over the world. No substantive evidence exists that modern rates of global environmental change (ice volume; sea level) lie outside historic natural bounds.
Last, cutting carbon dioxide emissions, be it in Australia or worldwide, will likely result in no measurable change in future climate, because extra increments of atmospheric CO2 cause diminishing warming for each unit of increase; at most, a few tenths of a degree of extra warming would result from a completion of doubling of CO2 since pre-industrial times.....more, here...

The failure of the green/left...

From this morning's NZ Herald editorial..."It must be galling to be green these days...clearly environmentalists have more work to do to convince governments and the public that climate change exceeds all other threats to their livlihoods and that the proposed solutions are worth the candle...
If governments are able to soft pedal on proposed solutions whenever their economies turn sour, the public will be left to wonder whether climate change is really to be taken seriously."

"...environmentalists have more work to do..."? ? I thought science was the driver of public policy in this issue ? No matter. The editorial above in a nutshell sounds the deathknell of AGW. As predicted green doomcasters will now have to summon up direr and more apocalyptic scenarios, compliant scientists will have to either acquiesce with more doom and gloom or cross the floor, and the climate better damn well start doing what the computer models say it should...
Better crank out another horror movie Al... Green scare tactics have been unsucessful. The greens have not won the battle for hearts and minds...
And, as an example of green stooges within the media overplaying their weak hand, check out this AP report and the scientific anger over it...H/T Crusader Rabbit...

London's cool again ! forget the swingin' sixties !

...it's the insane Islamic noughties !

London's Swinging Again - Like a Scimitar!...Islam -- it’s the capital’s hottest lifestyle trend! A growing religion, based on noble traditions and compassionate principles, yet infidels sometimes get the wrong impression because of ignorance and misunderstanding and the occasional subway bomb. Here Time Out argues that an Islamic London would be ab fab!
The expectant crowd ululates as the open-backed lorry drives slowly around the Picadilly Circus – known since the Islamic revolution of 2021 as The Mohammad Sidique Khan Roundabout...

more, from the greatly esteemed Iowahawk here...

Scientists abandon global warming 'lie'....

...and when the dust settles, the biggest mistake made in the battle for hearts and minds will be seen to be Al Gore's desperate and arrogant statement that "the debate is over, the science is settled..." Recent events have shown too, that ex-leaders George Bush and John Howard were correct to oppose the lunacy of Kyoto, more here...and see Christopher Monckton's open letter to John Key here...(thanks to NonPC).

Note too, that within the scientific community there are still plenty of men and women of integrity who have taken umbrage at the scientific abuses perpetrated in their name. Here are some of them, and they will not be silenced...

• "I am a skeptic ... . Global warming has become a new religion." -- Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.
• "Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined." -- Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, Pa.
• "Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly ... . As a scientist I remain skeptical." -- Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called "among the most pre-eminent scientists of the last 100 years."
• Warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history ... . When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists." -- U.N. IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning Ph.D. environmental physical chemist.
• "The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn't listen to others. It doesn't have open minds ... . I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists." -- Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the U.N.-supported International Year of the Planet.
• "The models and forecasts of the U.N. IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity." -- Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
• "It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming." -- U.S. Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
• "Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapor and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will." -- Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
• "After reading [U.N. IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet." -- Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an associate editor of Monthly Weather Review....More comments here...
• and for the full article, click here...H/T Eric, who dragged himself away from The Pool Bar...
  

Europe’s Climate Policy For Dummies = 4% by 2020...

Just what did they all decide at Poznan ?
From OXFAM..."The lack of progress at Poznan merits outrage," said Barry Coates, senior executive of charity group Oxfam International."They have left themselves with a huge amount to do to secure a deal at Copenhagen next year."
From Prometheus...The agreement allows countries to exceed their annual emissions targets by 5% annually. So this extra headroom reduces the total emissions reduction goal to about a 4% reduction (very similar to what WWF calculates). A 4% reduction is not so far from business as usual (under some projections), which of course is why the package passed.
And this does not get into any of the other loopholes, like for Lithuanian nuclear plants, the Polish, German, Italian, etc. economies, or unusually cold or warm weather. Oh yeah, the entire agreement is subject to review and is contingent upon what happens in Copenhagen.
The Obama administration should be paying attention.
Read the whole article from Prometheus here... and from Time magazine here...
...In short, more gabble and pretense, little in the way of specifics but plenty of pious grandstanding, all in the desperate hope that Barack Obama will commit the U.S. to economic suicide...
Our representative at Poznan; Tim Groser, has yet to report back to Rodney Hide (the only environmental scientist in Parliament). Expect an interesting press release...

The Climate Cops are coming...

...to a school near you. This children's board game is unlikely to be bought by many parents, but will no doubt be used by green embedded teachers in our schools to "raise awareness" as they like to say, of global warming/climate change.

To counter The Climate Cops we now have an electronic game for little sceptics...no doubt with a catchy tune...all designed to scare that brimstone breathing radical preacher Al Gore away from the door...
...Marc Hendrickx has created an online presentation depicting an imagined visit by Al Gore to a classroom where his message meets a spirited challenge.In his dedication of the work to two young people he says:
"When I was a kid anything was possible.Despite what the experts say, it still is.The possibility of a little hot weather is the last thing you need to be afraid of."
...see more here...

One Law for All...

...The One law for All Campaign launched in the UK on 10th December (International Human Rights Day.) Who amongst us would have thought ( well, Enoch Powell for a start) that we would need to revisit fundamental human rights in the first decade of this new century ?
In the words of the Campaign Declaration: ‘Rights, justice, inclusion, equality and respect are for people, not beliefs. In a civil society, people must have full citizenship rights and equality under the law. Clearly, Sharia law contravenes fundamental human rights. In order to safeguard the rights and freedoms of all those living in Britain, there must be one secular law for all and no Sharia.’...More from the cantankerous Old Holborn here...

Rethinking observed land warming...another headache for the alarmists...

"...Evidence is presented that the recent worldwide land warming has occurred largely in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land.”

...The United Nations Climate Change Conference is underway this week in Poznan, Poland, and thousands have convened and reinforced the notion that the buildup of greenhouse gases has caused substantial warming in recent decades and that left unchecked, the continued buildup will undoubtedly cause significant warming in the decades to come... it is possible that aspects of the traditional greenhouse gas explanation could be largely wrong, ...pay a visit to an article just published in the prestigious journal Climate Dynamics...read more, here...

Who said the haka was passe ?

Ka mate, ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!
Ka mate! ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!
Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru
Nāna nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā
Ā, upane! ka upane!
Ā, upane, ka upane, whiti te ra!

The mighty All Blacks in distinguished company...

It's a hard, cruel world...

...President-elect Barack Obama...“We have the opportunity now to create jobs all across this country in all 50 states to repower America, to redesign how we use energy and think about how we are increasing efficiency to make our economy stronger, make us more safe, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make us competitive for decades to come even as we save the planet...” more here...
A magnificent wish list, the economy stronger, the USA safer, a reduced dependency on foreign oil, economically competitive, and all the time saving the planet...wishes that are doomed to disappointment and failure. The only hope of success will be drilling for more domestic oil and more interminable negotiated stalling on climate change policy, giving the impression of caring for the planet, but actually doing nothing. Either way, Obama's actions will be scrutinised, analysed and deliberated on. In the meantime the planet better start warming up and behaving like the computer models say it should, and soon, or what little support American voters have for saving it via tax hikes will evaporate like the proverbial mirage...

The role of carbon...

...There is no scientific theory linking carbon dioxide to the “runaway” global warming that is the basis of the calamitous predictions. The contribution of the gas to the making of a comfortable planet by the greenhouse effect is well understood, modest and self-limiting. It is only turned into a terror by computer models. These are worthless; depending as they do on extensive guesswork about the ill-understood mechanisms and interactions involved in climate, and involving so many tunable parameters and feedback factors that they could produce any desired result by appropriate tweaking. A quarter of a century ago, before science came under firm bureaucratic control, such models would have been laughed out of court...more from John Brignell here...and see Quote of the day, below...

Quote of the day...

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.H. L. Mencken

An off topic anecdote...

...as the veterans of WW2 fade away, I treasure moments with them. 20 minutes ago a stooped elderly bloke told me this...He was a pilot, ending the war flying Mosquitoes. In 1943 or 44, he ferried Hurricane fighters to a Russian base. These aircraft were modified into tank busters, fitted (he says) with twin 40mm. cannon (!)altering their centre of gravity significantly. (Illustration left shows a Hurricane tank buster in action in the Tunisia.) On delivery, and after signing the aircraft over to the Russians he was surprised to find out that ground crew were allowed to taxi the aircraft into dispersal bays. His aircraft while being moved clipped another's wing tip causing slight damage to both planes. Horrified, he watched as the Russian officer present hauled the hapless and careless ground crewman from the cockpit and shot him on the spot through the back of the head...At the war's end and well into 1946, he continued to fly Mosquitoes over Russian occupied Germany to show Churchill's resolve and demonstrate capability. He was never fired upon, but his experiences made him cautious about his ruthless allies...

Old Holborn writes...

...I would like all my readers to meet a new pet of mine. OH already has three chickens currently wrecking the grounds of Farqham Hall and he quite likes supporting British entrepreneurship, so I am adopting a baby pig from those wonderful people at http://www.eatbabe.co.uk/.
They have a great business model, in that you pick a plump piglet, they look after it, pamper it stupid, it send you emails and photos and in six months you get to eat the f***er, delivered to your door.
Meet Mohammed (peace and apple sauce be upon him in six months time)...more here...

The science is all settled then...cont...

...Scientists find greenhouse gas hysteria to be based on scientific myth...'Global warming may not be occurring in quite the manner one might have imagined'... According to a study released earlier this year by Gilbert Compo and Prashant Sardeshmukh of the University of Colorado and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and presented in the scientific journal Climate Dynamics... all the greenhouse gases humans have dumped in the atmosphere over the last 46 years – the primary factor most climate change proponents cite to blame humans for global warming – haven't affected land temperatures at all.
The rise in land temperatures, the study states, can be tied directly to increased heat and humidity coming from warmer oceans, which in turn, the study admits, may be caused solely by natural forces.
The results led the scientists to conclude, "Global warming may not be occurring in quite the manner one might have imagined." More from World Net Daily Exclusive here...

...and from Christopher Booker in the UK...The timing was immaculate. Last week, as blizzards closed roads and schools across northern England and Scotland and large parts of the country were carpeted with snow for the third time this winter, the Government's Committee on Climate Change, chaired by Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, issued its first report on how Britain is to meet the terrifying threat of runaway global warming...more here...

The Clash of Civilisations...cont...

From Mark Steyn...Last week, a critic reprimanded me for failing to understand that Muslims feel "vulnerable." Au contraire, they project tremendous cultural confidence, as well they might: They're the world's fastest-growing population. A prominent British Muslim announced the other day that, when the United Kingdom becomes a Muslim state, non-Muslims will be required to wear insignia identifying them as infidels. If he's feeling "vulnerable," he's doing a terrific job of covering it up.We are told that the "vast majority" of the 1.6 billion to 1.8 billion Muslims (in Deepak Chopra's estimate) are "moderate." Maybe so, but they're also quiet. And, as the AIDS activists used to say, "Silence=Acceptance." It equals acceptance of the things done in the name of their faith. Rabbi Holtzberg was not murdered because of a territorial dispute over Kashmir or because of Bush's foreign policy. He was murdered in the name of Islam – "Allahu Akbar."

I wrote in my book, "America Alone," that "reforming" Islam is something only Muslims can do. But they show very little sign of being interested in doing it, and the rest of us are inclined to accept that. Spread a rumor that a Quran got flushed down the can at Gitmo, and there'll be rioting throughout the Muslim world. Publish some dull cartoons in a minor Danish newspaper, and there'll be protests around the planet. But slaughter the young pregnant wife of a rabbi in Mumbai in the name of Allah, and that's just business as usual. And, if it is somehow "understandable" that for the first time in history it's no longer safe for a Jew to live in India, then we are greasing the skids for a very slippery slope. Muslims, the AP headline informs us, "worry about image." Not enough. More here...

And see the Green/Left perspective on Muslim anger here...

Quote for the day...

Politicians of the left and the sheep that follow them, take note...

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. The Rt Hon. William Pitt, the Younger.(Prime Minister of England 1783-1801, 1804-1806)

The reality of South Africa today...

...South Africa has slowly slipped away from the international spotlight after being the cause celebre of the international left for many decades.

It is up to expatriates who mourn for their homeland to direct attention to the ongoing human rights abuses that continue to stain their lost country. Many of these expats have families left behind, languishing, hoping for better times...

...in 1994, when the ANC were handed the reins of power, there were 85 000 farmers in South Africa - occupying just 6% of the entire land surface. Now there are 13 500 white farmers left occupying less than 1% of the land...more from MAWM, here...

The slow suicide of the West continues...

...lead, encouraged and supported by the PC left (as we would expect from an ideology that signed a non-agression pact with fascism)...from the incomparable Cranmer; news that British Roman Catholic bishops want Muslim prayer rooms in Catholic schools. Would Muslim schools and institutions consider such accomodation with Catholics I wonder ?...Dialogue is important, and so are respect and tolerance. And these should certainly be values taught in the nation’s schools. But it is a thoroughly secular spirituality which seeks to reduce orthodoxy to perpetual compromise and accommodation. It is a politically-correct move straight out of the Tony Blair brand of Catholicism – it must be New Catholic. New Labour’s New Catholicism for a New Britain...Perpetual compromise and accomodation... Leading to eventual Sharia law in the UK. Begging the interesting question; isn't the reigning monarch also The Defender of the Faith ?...See below and here re Rowan Williams, the hand-wringing, cringing Archbishop and... more from Cranmer here...
...and from Ayatolla Choudary, a UK Muslim leader..."In an Islamic state, non-Muslims will have to wear a sign to show what they are – it should say Kaffir. We won’t discriminate on height, race or appearance but we will discriminate on faith." More here...

Argo research into climate change continues...

...Climate Clues In Southern Ocean...“In our study we used data obtained by the international Argo Programme”, explains Prof. Claus Böning from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) in Kiel, Germany. Argo is a system of currently 3000 autonomous free-floating robotic systems which are surveying the world ocean. Every 10 days these buoys measure temperature and salinity profiles over the upper 2000 meters. These measurements are transmitted to land stations via satellite. “For this study about 52,000 profiles of more than 600 Argo-drifters in the Southern Ocean were used and compared with historic ship measurements”, explains oceanographer Astrid Dispert from IFM-GEOMAR. For this analysis the extensive archives of the Australian marine research centre in Hobart, Tasmania were also used.
As expected, the observations in the subpolar ocean demonstrate an increase of water temperature and a decrease in salinity at the same time. Nevertheless, in contradiction to the simulations of various climate models the data show no significant changes in water transport...more, here...

Trust the main stream media on climate change?

...sure don't...hence the blogosphere bypass.

...When it comes to global warming, newspapers play up stories that reinforce the prevalent the-sky-is-falling belief that global warming is human-caused and catastrophic. But if a study or scientist does not portend the end of the world as we know it, it rarely rates as news.
In that spirit, many papers... have reported on a UC San Diego science historian who reviewed 928 abstracts of peer-reviewed articles on global warming published between 1993 and 2003, and concluded, "Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."
Over 10 years, not one study challenged the orthodoxy - does that sound right to you? If that were true, it would strongly suggest that, despite conflicting evidence in this wide and changing world, no scientist dares challenge the politically correct position on the issue. More here...

A cheery kia ora...

...to Bomber (above) co-writer of the lefty blog Tumeke. Bomber and I had an interesting debate on Tumeke about AGW...read what remains of it here...until he pulled the plug, and went down in angry flames, deleting my comments. (Now back, an interesting exchange, with the sceptics in the lead...) A shame, but not unexpected. The ever so tolerant left often demonstrate their insecurity and intolerance when confronted.
Feel free sir, to contribute to the on-going discussion...
Picture here , too Bomber (and other green tinted people), of a green dude on a bike...

And to remind Bomber, and his lefty friends at Tumeke about the correct response to terrorism, here's Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City; Bombay Lost and Found...
...but the best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever. Dream of making a good home for all Mumbaikars, not just the denizens of $500-a-night hotel rooms. Dream not just of Bollywood stars like Aishwarya Rai or Shah Rukh Khan, but of clean running water, humane mass transit, better toilets, a responsive government. Make a killing not in God’s name but in the stock market, and then turn up the forbidden music and dance; work hard and party harder...

The Spin Doctor's back...talking about Mumbai...

...arrgh no ! Last October 1st the NZ Herald carried an apology to Daniel Pipes, (see "Correction and Clarification" below,) dealing with a column written by Irfan Yusuf (interestingly an anagram for; A Fun Fury Is) an associate editor of Altmuslim.com. Mr Yusuf always devotes his energies to excusing and downplaying the beheaders and bombers, and I had hoped that after his earlier humiliation leading to the Herald apology we may have been spared his attentions. Alas no.

Mumbai's sufferings under the terrorists; (so the Herald's sub-editor opines) are due to "the forces of intolerance" (not terrorism, intolerance. Extreme intolerance.) Mr Yusuf develops the intolerance theme by explaining the Mumbai attack as the latest in an ongoing tit for tat retaliatory racist/religous war. No mention of the fact that the main slaughter targeted Jews, Britons and Americans, ...Kasab said the gunmen hoped to kill 5000 and that the militants were ordered to target Americans and Britons...(NZH 2.12.08) and that the attackers were the Deccan Mujahideen; ie,Pakistani Islamic militants.

Eyewitness snapshots here...

More here...The article in total is a weasle's apology for his fanatic jihadist brethren, and a pathetic and sad indictment of the Herald for allowing such a propagandist back into our midst.

More on the Islamist onslaught from Melanie Philips, here...

And from ProCommerce.. I see a cowardice in the vast numbers of people who deny the reality of this war...Mumbai is a case where a tiny militia, fully armed and trained, invaded by boat. This was a significant advance over previous terror tactics. The kill ratio was better than 10 to 1 of victims to perpetrators. Like the two planes and the Twin Towers in NY. Horrifying....

from LGF; Media excuses for atrocity...here...

Comment from Spiked...All of this goes some way to explaining the existential, non-etiological response to Mumbai: because what we have here is really the nihilism that dare not speak its name. The attackers disguise their teenage disgust with shiny Mumbai under grand names such as ‘Mujahideen’, while Western observers feel outraged by the attacks, yes, but also fundamentally estranged from the attackers’ targets: wealth, development, modernity itself. There is, I would venture, a shared, unspoken, unnamed nihilism here. It is far more convenient to label it a ‘mayhem’ that springs from nowhere, and spreads everywhere, than to interrogate its origins and influences. Those of us who believe in growth and progress – and who see in Mumbai a messy but brilliant desire to create a city that is a match for New York or Tokyo – should expose this contemporary unspoken nihilism, and form a firmer attachment to those things that it assaults... More here...

The heroes of Mumbai, here...

Now we can add Mumbai to the list... 9/11, Madrid, Bali, and London. The roll of terror grows while Irfan Yusuf, A Fun Fury Is, continues his apologetic smokescreen, and useful fools in the West continue to deny the reality of this war...

Aussie bastards back pedal on climate change...

Australia squibs on climate promise...says the Sydney Morning Herald here and The Australian here...disappointing the left and the overly anxious global warming masoschists around the world; but possibly indicating a new level of Aussie realism about climate change, its effects and its implications...The Rudd Government has reneged on a commitment to present its 2020 target to cut greenhouse gases to UN climate talks that start today. The back-pedalling comes amid wrangling in cabinet over how far to go with curbing emissions.The Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, yesterday defended the decision not to announce the target before she left for the talks in the Polish city of Poznan. She refused to comment on whether cabinet was divided over the target, which is expected to fall significantly below the level called for by European ministers, climate scientists and environmentalists who will attend the talks...more from The Australian here... and here...

An appropriate beverage to toast our Aussie coussie bro's at this sensitive time is...the Dr. Oz Green Drink... recipe here... scroll down to the comments. Priceless...
No. Shouldn't be mean. There are plenty of Aussie battlers taking the AGW crowd on. See Slattnews for example...Thanks JBD!

Girls having fun in Saudi Arabia...

... in oppressive male dominated, macho societies, women must eventually start to make the changes to achieve liberation. What better example of change that needs fostering and support and exposure than an all female rock band in Saudi Arabia...more here...WTF would Osama bin Laden think ? and who gives a falalfel ?

...They cannot perform in public. They cannot pose for album cover photographs. Even their jam sessions are secret, for fear of offending the religious authorities in this ultraconservative kingdom.
But the members of Saudi Arabia’s first all-girl rock band, the Accolade, are clearly not afraid of taboos.
The band’s first single, “Pinocchio,” has become an underground hit here, with hundreds of young Saudis downloading the song from the group's MySpace page. Now, the pioneering foursome, all of them college students, want to start playing regular gigs — inside private compounds, of course — and recording an album...
Listen to their single, here on MySpace...go girls go !

The world watches...

...with much interest as President-elect Barack Obama proposes economic suicide for US...
If the holder of the most powerful office in the world proposed a policy guaranteed to inflict untold damage on his own country and many others, on the basis of claims so demonstrably fallacious that they amount to a string of self-deluding lies, we might well be concerned. The relevance of this is not to President Bush, as some might imagine, but to a recent policy statement by President-elect Obama. Mr Obama begins by saying that "the science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear". "Sea levels," he claims, "are rising, coastlines are shrinking, we've seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."
Tomorrow, delegates from 190 countries will meet in Poznan, Poland, to pave the way for next year's UN conference in Copenhagen at which the world will agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. They will see a video of Mr Obama, in only his second major policy commitment, pledging that America is now about to play the leading role in the fight to "save the planet" from global warming...more wonderful news from the UK Daily Telegraph...here...and here...

The state of the nation...

From clean green NZ. Today's NZ Herald...page 1; a 78 year old murdered in his home, page 3; a grandfather charged with torturing his grandaughter; and this small item from page 8...

A Rotorua mother has resorted to taking all her food to work each day because child burglars as young as eight keep breaking into her home.
The burglars have regularly raided her house while she is at work, stealing stereos, cellphones, jewellery, clothes, a TV, DVDs, photos - and food. They enter by smashing windows or forcing them.
She estimates the cost to her family to be more than $10,000, and says the attacks have happened so often she doesn't bother ringing the police any more.
The food, including meat, milk and other perishables, are stored in her work fridge and brought home at the end of each working day.
"I now put our food in my car so it doesn't get stolen. People have told me to move but I've been here 20 years. Why should I move?"....more here...
And, as Theodore Dalrymple says... Few things are more despicable, after all, or more indicative of moral nihilism, than a willingness to prey upon the old and frail. more here...
A quiz...what to do about it?