By David Evans. David is a mathematician, a computer and electrical engineer and is head of Science Speak. David is also a former believer in man-made warming who converted to skeptic. The summary below is an introduction to a larger paper that can be read here (PDF)

Our scientific understanding of global warming has gone through three stages:

1. 1985 – 2003. Old ice core data led us strongly suspect that CO2 causes global warming.

2. 2003 – 2007. New ice core data eliminated previous reason for suspecting CO2. No evidence to suspect or exonerate CO2.

3. From Aug 2007: Know for sure that greenhouse is not causing global warming. CO2 no longer a suspect.

The paper discusses how the ice core changes, missing greenhouse signature in the real data and the recent waning of the warming all suggest that carbon emissions are not behind the changes we have experienced in recent decades.

The IPCC 2007 report (the latest and greatest from the IPCC) is based on all scientific literature up to mid 2006. The Bali Conference is the bureaucratic response to that report. Too bad that the data has changed since then!

Source

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The article comes from the British Ananova site. It starts with:

A US man has been arrested after a speed camera was shot three times with a high-powered rifle.

And it ends with:

In Britain, speed cameras have been beaten, burned and hacked down by angry motorists but not shot at, so far.

Do you feel a smirk of that European superiority on the face of this article? I do.

Tell you what, my dear British hack: I bet you would vastly prefer execution by a shooting squad to being burned. Or stomped. Or hacked to pieces.

I consider the issue settled.

SimplyJews

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Christian Science Monitor:

By now, almost everyone in America has heard of Jena, La., because they’ve all heard the story of the “Jena 6.” White students hanging nooses barely punished, a schoolyard fight, excessive punishment for the six black attackers, racist local officials, public outrage and protests – the outside media made sure everyone knew the basics.

There’s just one problem: The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice.

A report by a local journalist that will further erode your trust in the MSM. If you had any left, that is.

the blog québécois

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Marty’s Musical Meltdown: Pawbox, Carnival of Souls, Gang Green, Carlton Walker & more
Some of the latest CDs out there.

Plus I have reviewed What’s wrong with Islam? and the anime-like Vision of Rage.

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I mentioned recently that the Religion of Peace site has been “filtered” by several internet censoring companies as “hate speech”. To get the filtering lifted they had to remove certain pictures. Following are links to the censored pictures. One depicts Iranian punishment for adultery and the second Iranian punishment for homosexuality. See here and here

Reality must be censored! You are too immature to be told the truth. Our wise Leftist guardians know best!

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What nonsense below! Are these guys seriously arguing that because genes with high relevance to IQ have not yet been found then there are none? I hate to repeat an old saw but the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Genes relevant to IQ are being discovered all the time. One with a big link to IQ could be just around the corner. Though it is most probable that high IQ is the result of an accumulation of many “good” genes —which is why high IQ people tend to be healthier and live longer etc.

A team of scientists led by Professor Robert Plomin, of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, identified only six genes linked with intelligence to any degree of significance, but even those accounted for just 1 per cent of the differences in IQ between individuals. Experts said upbringing, education and a healthy diet in early life had important roles to play in helping to nurture intelligence. The research also means testing the potential intelligence of new-born babies – or improving it with genetic engineering – could be impossible.

The researchers said a study of the human genome revealed hundreds of genes which contribute to IQ, but their individual effects are barely detectable. Previous studies on twins and adopted children have established that about half of the variation in intelligence is down to environment, but almost all of the genetic component has yet to be uncovered.

Prof Plomin said: “If the biggest [genes] only account for 1 per cent of the variance [in intelligence], there’s a long way to go. The most striking result is there are no large effects.” However, this does not mean intelligence is not inherited. Many experts believe IQ is due to the cumulative effect of a combination of genes.

The study, published in the journal Genes, Brains and Behaviour, involved obtaining intelligence scores for 7,000 seven-year-olds and DNA samples. Dr Robin Campbell, an expert in intelligence and child development at Stirling University, said: ” [This research] leaves it open that nurture, education and good early nutrition have an important role.” [Of course they do. Nobody has ever said otherwise. But genetic inheritance is the major determinant]

Source

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What? What? I just see a cute iPod. You see other things, that’s your problem, homo.

A Rorschach moment from the lads at b3ta

the blog québécois

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Welcome to the November 29, 2007 edition of carnival of the vanities.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents One Of These Days, I?ll Actually Say This posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.

Maria Fernandez presents Learn a foreign language – blog: Spanish comic strips – Maitena posted at Learn a foreign language – blog, saying, “It made me smile.”

200motels presents The Yankee Army posted at 200motels.net, saying, “Satire”

poetloverrebelspy presents Budget Analysis: NY Times’ “Frugal Traveler” posted at Less Than a Shoestring, saying, “One of the things that really annoys me is the budget travel advice given by travel writers with a budget I (and others) would kill for. Matt Gross, better known as the Frugal Traveler of the NY Times, is one such writer. His weekend travel budget for a recent trip to Chicago was $500. For himself. For two days. In this post, I take a closer look at what frugal means to the NY Times. Part one in a series.”

themaiden presents The Naked People Made Me Do BAD Things! | hell’s handmaiden posted at Hell’s Handmaiden.

Alexandra presents How To Have Beautiful Hair posted at Be Beautiful.

blue skelton presents Windows Movie Maker Video Tutorial posted at Blue Skelton Publications, saying, “This Windows Movie Maker Video Tutorial is the bomb. The tutorial cured my hatred for Windows Movie Maker and I now use the program to quickly create viral videos. Before this video tutorial, I would load final cut pro and do it that way. This is probably the best article that I have written so far.”

Adam Gurri presents The Academic Schools posted at Sophistpundit.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents My Family Needs Me (Limerick and Video) posted at Mad Kane’s Political Madness.

Dan-O presents How to Make Real Life Money in the Second Life Virtual World posted at Danogo.com – Discover. Inspiring . Media, saying, “People are making millions of real dollars in the virtual real estate business. Are you missing out on the next Web gold rush?”

FitBuff presents What is MRSA? Symptoms and Prevention | FitBuff.com’s Total Mind and Body Fitness Blog posted at FitBuff.com’s Total Mind and Body Fitness Blog, saying, “What is MRSA? You’ve probably seen the recent headlines about this menacing “super bug” ravaging through hospitals, gyms, and even schools.

Here’s what you can do to keep it away and stay healthy…”

Moneywalks presents Homeless Guy on Roller Skates Inspires a New Name Brand posted at moneywalks.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of the vanities using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: carnival of the vanities, blog carnival.

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That is the program you download from the BBC’s iPlayer if you have a PC and are running all the right kit. Cory Doctorow points out that if you are a licence fee payer you have already paid for the program you are downloading from iPlayer so you should be able to keep it as long as you want.

So basically not only do the BBC not give a damn about Linux, Mac and older PC users; they are ripping you off by making the downloads DRM. Lovely bunch the BBC eh?

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Cosma Shalizi is a rather egotistical-sounding young man of apparently Afghan ancestry. He is also an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. On his blog, Three Toed Sloth, he has a long post demonstrating that a popular form of mathematical analysis generically called factor analysis cannot be used to demonstrate the existence of IQ (or ‘g’ as we psychometricans call it).

His criticisms are perfectly correct. Factor analysis cannot prove ANYTHING in fact. It is just a convenient but rather arbitrary way of summarizing a set of correlations. Factor analysis is such a weak technique that I myself in my more than 200 published academic papers have used it only rarely —even though I normally present my research results in correlational form. Shalizi is also correct in saying that much of the research into IQ has used factor analysis as a way of summarizing findings. That the findings are not DEPENDANT on that descriptive technique is the point he appears to overlook.

The underlying finding for 100 years or more is that ability to solve one sort of puzzle generalizes strongly to the ability to solve other quite different sorts of puzzle. Problem solving ability is general, no matter how you choose to summarize that. And problem-solving ability is what IQ or ‘g’ measures.

OK. What I have just said above is an excerpt from what I said on October 25. I emailed Shalizi a link to the October 25 post and I hear that others did so too. He has completely ignored it. In fact he has a very inflated recent post here in which he uses his previously demonstrated “wisdom” to attack the article on IQ in Slate by Saletan. Shalizi is so sure of his wisdom that he can only ascribe discreditable motives to Saletan and his editors for publishing what they did. And other bloggers (e.g. here) have taken Shalizi and his conclusions at face value. They seem to think that Shalizi has made lots of large correlations between different types of ability tests suddenly disappear!

A matter I did not address in my previous post is heritability. Once again in this case, Shalizi uses perfectly legitimate concerns about the statistical techniques used in summarizing the findings to claim that no firm conclusions at all are possible. In so doing he is using an old Leftist dodge that I commented on many years ago. He sets the standard so high for what he will accept as satisfactory evidence that nobody could prove anything to him under such standards.

In most of science, maybe ALL of science, you cannot prove things beyond all shadow of doubt—so someone who does not want to believe something will always be able to say that the evidence is still not good enough. But if we normally behaved that way we would disregard most science. But we don’t. And that is because we get a lot further by accepting that science is an enterprise that deals in probabilities rather than in certainties. If you want certainty, you need to turn to either theology or mathematics and you might not even find it there.

So what Shalizi is doing is what is called “intellectual dishonesty”—judging a matter not on the balance of the evidence for and against it but rather on whether or not the concusions suit him.

And again, when you look at the underlying evidence about heritability that the various statistical techniques try to summarize, there is a lot there that Shalizi just cannot make go away. The IQ scores of identical twins will almost always be strikingly similar, for instance —much more similar than the IQs of normal brothers and sisters or even of fraternal twins—and certainly much more similar than the scores of random strangers. The facts on the ground just don’t go away, no matter how you choose to summarize them. And those facts show that IQ scores are clearly tied to your genetic inheritance.

Razib makes further points about Shalizi’s shilly shallying. Razib shows that, if you look hard enough, Shalizi does in fact to a degree acknowledge the underlying realities in his writings. But you would never guess that from his dismissive conclusions.

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This hasn’t happened to me (yet), but I recently ran across this Microsoft technical bulletin:

During normal operation or in Safe mode, your computer may play “Fur Elise” or “It’s a Small, Small World” seemingly at random. This is an indication sent to the PC speaker from the computer’s BIOS that the CPU fan is failing or has failed, or that the power supply voltages have drifted out of tolerance. This is a design feature of a detection circuit and system BIOSes developed by Award/Unicore from 1997 on.

Yeah, that’s really intuitive engineering there, guys. I know that immediately I hear the haunting melody of “Fr Elise,” my thoughts turn automatically to CPU fan failure. (I understand that Beethoven was plagued with the very same problem, made all the worse because he couldn’t hear it power down.)

Like it would have killed you to put up a warning message or something?

the blog québécois

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Sperm donors to ban Muslims, lesbians?

Why is discrimination bigotry? We ALL practice discrimination in our personal life. Women tend to choose tall men and men tend to choose busty women, for instance. Hence boob jobs for women and Filipina brides for short men. And what is more personal than your offspring? More practically, I believe that there is a shortage of sperm donors —hence the new legislation—as men are scared away by possible legal obligations to offspring (Obligations that have in fact been imposed by courts in Sweden). So giving donors the right to express personal preferences should encourage more of them to come forward

A BIZARRE row is set to erupt over claims that reproductive donors will be given the right to direct their sperm or eggs not go to certain groups such as Muslims, Jews, single mothers or lesbians. Critics believe the Iemma Government’s Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill allows sperm and egg donors to specifically discriminate against ethnic, religious and other minorities.

The Bill, due to be debated in the NSW Legislative Council, is primarily aimed at allowing donor-conceived children to access information about the donor parent when they turn 18.

But Greens MP John Kaye said yesterday there was widespread concern the Bill, as currently drafted, allowed donors to nominate classes of people to whom their sperm or eggs may not be given. “While the Bill contains a number of positive features, it is simply unacceptable to enshrine discrimination into the law,” Mr Kaye said. “Granting legal sanction to bigotry and prejudice sends an appalling message that it is acceptable to discriminate on grounds that are irrelevant.”

Under the Bill, the names of donors in NSW will be recorded on a compulsory central register to guarantee they can be found by their offspring. But Health Minister Reba Meagher has said the legislation will not oblige donors to have contact with their offspring or make them legally or financially responsible for the children.

Source

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NYC Murders Drop, Democrats Call for Cop Pull Out : “As the number of murders in New York City reached a 40-year low, Democrats in Congress introduced a measure calling for an immediate and total pull-out of law enforcement personnel citing the high cost of fighting crime, the risk to those in uniform and lack of political progress in the city. In a typical Congressional maneuver, Democrats attached the redeployment measure as an amendment to an unrelated bill, sponsored by Republicans, which would provide senior citizens with a taxpayer-funded MediCare prescription golf benefit. Official statistics show the Big Apples murder rate is now less than a quarter of what it was in 1990, but Democrats in Congress say the reduction has nothing to do with the actions of the New York City Police Department or the policies of the last two Republican mayors. The dip in the murder rate is certainly temporary, said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, and it presents us with a window of opportunity to safely extract our brave men and women in uniform before the slaughter returns to normal levels. [With grateful thanks to the inimitable Scrappleface]

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Like many in blogosphere I am rather enamoured of Ron Paul’s domestic ideas, however I am rather perturbed by his foreign policy stance and idea. Chief among those is his ideas on 9/11. Daily Pundit has found quite a good summation of this concern.

Ron Paul has become the most visible exponent of that malignant view of America. In my mind, his blowback excuse for 9/11 and excuse is exactly what his explanation amounts to is sufficient to completely disqualify him for any American public office, let alone for the role of commander in chief of the U.S. military.

That pretty much sums it up for me.

A good discussion of this over at AMG.

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After a fairly lame season last time around; with their infamous redneck-taunting exploits, it was great to see they came up with something this fun. The sheer comedy of seeing the trio do a bunch of challenges with 70s era British Leyland cars is priceless. You can catch it on YouTube for now until its pulled.

I found it most amusing as my parents owned a Maxi while we lived in Wales in the early 70s. As if that wasn’t a hint enough; for a time in the 90s I owned a 1980 Triumph Spitfire. A car, despite its nuisances, which I still miss. It was bloody easy to fix that is for sure.

If you like Top Gear or like amusing challenges; head over to YouTube and watch the BL Challenge. Its quality television for the auto aware.

Via: Theo.

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I was off to several of my doctors yesterday, have a last appointment with another today, and seems that I am recovering along nicely. All the aches, pains and grumbles coming from my stomach are normal and part of the process of healing. I have nine layers to heal down there and it will take a few months. The weeping that was making life uncomfortable for last week has ceased; which is nice.

It is possible I will be returning to Albion at the end of this week. Traveling in this state will be an interesting experience that is for sure.

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Tony Judt is a New York historian who ignores history when it come to Israel. Why? It seems that he does not like being Jewish and slandering Israel makes him feel better about that. His superficialities are taken apart step by step here

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England’s loss to Croatia in the Euro 2008 qualifying rounds got off to an amusing start, at least.

Ananova:

Tony Henry was trying to sing the national anthem in Croatian, but reportedly got the words wrong.

Fans say the mispronounciation helped the players relax before the game at Wembley where Croatia beat England 3-2.

The national anthem is written in old style Croatian, and there can be slightly different interpretations in English because it is a very lyrical language.

The line in which Henry slipped up should have been “mila kuda si planina” (You know my dear how we love your mountains).

Which is kind of suggestive all by itself.

But what he actually sang was “mila kura si planina” which means “Dear Penis, you are a Mountain” or “My Dear, my penis is a mountain”.

Croat players like Manchester City’s Vedran Corluka and Arsenal target Luka Modric started looking at each other and grinning when they realised what he was singing.

Croat fan websites have been calling for Henry to be given a medal of honour for helping the players relax, they also want him made an official team mascot for the tournament.

I think they should make the change official. It’s much more intimidating than “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

*

the blog québécois

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At least according to the reports:

Youths have damaged police stations, shops and cars in two Paris suburbs, following the deaths of two teenagers whose motorbike hit a police car. Police said 21 officers were injured in the rioting in the northern suburbs of Villiers-le-Bel and Arnouville.

If you look at the undeniably tragic incident, police involvement in it was of a very passive nature:

Police sources said the two were riding a stolen mini-motorcycle, and that neither was wearing a helmet. The police car was on a routine patrol and the teenagers were not being chased by police at the time of the accident, police said. The collision wrecked the front of the car and smashed the windscreen.

Now, you and I both could be at loss for an explanation of the reason for rioting. After all, it is not that usual for bereaved relatives and friends of every person who expires in a traffic accident to start chasing a passing policeman up a tree, to burn cars and the neighboring police stations. Oh, and looting a burning down a few shops as well, lest we forget.

But there is an explanation of sorts in the article, if you look carefully:

Omar Sehhouli, the brother of one of the dead teenagers said that the rioting “was not violence but an expression of rage”.

That’s it. I think I can see it. Can you?

SimplyJews

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Don’t you like the image above? It is about the recent but long overdue changes to the exchange-rate of the greenback—changes that have American producers and manufacturers rubbing their hands with glee. The changes are just about the best news possible for their “buy American” campaign. But even if you don’t read German, I think you can see that Spiegel magazine is treating it as something catastrophic. Like American Leftists, Germans don’t want to believe anything good about America. Sad. David’s Medienkritik has the details.

And the fact that the exchange-rate change has just about sunk the European Airbus does have its amusing side: Schadenfreude, even. The silly old socialist plane-makers were so dumb that they did not even hedge their currency bets! Bureaucrats don’t make good businessmen. Boeing must be laughing.

It’s amazing how complicated these currency matters get. The European governments will be inclined to pour more money into Airbus to keep it afloat. That’s actually against EU rules on subsidies but they will probably do it anyway. They have SUCH generous taxpayers in Germany and France!

But the ones who will be laughing about THAT will be the Swiss. The EU is presently heavying Switzerland with the claim that Swiss low taxes are an illegal “subsidy”. It’s total nonsense but henceforth the Swiss will simply have to say one word: “Airbus”

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BWBK is reporting that Quiet Riots infamous lead singer Kevin Dubrow has been found dead in his apartment in Las Vegas. Quiet Riot, despite their critics, managed quite a feat in the 80s with their hits ‘Cum on Feel the Noize” and “Metal Health” which pushed their debut to number one. A first for a metal band in the US. He will be missed.

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We read:

“A recent example of hate speech and ignorance occurred on Oct. 29 through the airing of a radio show on KCMO 710 AM. On the syndicated “Michael Savage Show,” Savage said, “I’m not gonna put my wife in a hijab. And I’m not gonna put my daughter in a burqa. And I’m not getting on my all fours and praying to Mecca. And you could drop dead if you don’t like it.. I don’t wanna hear any more about Islam. I don’t wanna hear one more word about Islam. ”

Savage continued, “I’m sick of you. What kind of religion is this? What kind of world are you living in when you let them in here with that throwback document in their hand, which is a book of hate. Don’t tell me I need re-education. They need deportation.”

These words of rabid bigotry and hate reflect the same venom that Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels spewed out against the Jews in Nazi Germany.

Source

Silly me! I thought it was the oppression of “kuffars” (unbelievers) preached in the Koran which were “words of rabid bigotry and hate that reflect the same venom that Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels spewed out against the Jews in Nazi Germany.”

Savage doesn’t want to convert them or oppress them or attack them. He just does not want to have anything to do with them. If only Muslims had similar attitudes towards the West!

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Welcome to the November 26, 2007 edition of best of me symphony.

Warren Wong presents How To Win Someone?s Heart posted at Personal Development for INTJs, saying, “Do you want to win someone’s heart and gain their trust and loyalty? Here are some tips on how to go about doing it.”

Jon Swift presents Do We Need Another Terrorist Attack? posted at Jon Swift, saying, “Of course, no one wants another terrorist attack on American soil, but many conservatives are coming to the reluctant conclusion that, regretfully, another terrorist attack may be just what we need right now to wake the country up.”

Danogo presents The 2 Simple Ways to Get Your Website into Google Search Results posted at Danogo.com – Discover. Inspiring . Media, saying, “For blogs on a budget the inexpensive way to promote your site is right in Google’s search results.”

nickel presents Q&A: Debt Reduction Strategy posted at fivecentnickel.com.

mom & dad presents How to Build a Double (or Single) Desk on the Cheap posted at raising4boys.com.

Edith presents Life is not a Race posted at Edith Yeung.Com: Dream. Think. Act..

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of best of me symphony using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags:

best of me symphony, blog carnival.

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The Watcher of the Weasels needs another member as they are down from full strength. Do you feel you have the wherewithall to take on such a challenge? If you do they would be happy to hear from you.

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When my cousin came over to record, we’d usually have a cup of coffee (occasionally stronger refreshments were served) before heading down to the basement. In September 1983 the radio was ablaze with the news that the Soviet Union had shot down a Korean Air Lines jumbo jet that had strayed off course on a flight from Alaska.

So we were listening to some of that, when, inspired, I wrote down the first verse and pushed it across the table to my cousin, who read it and laughed.

That is the acid test of songwriting, innit? Make your cousin laugh—next stop, The Ed Sullivan Show!

You will no doubt be amazed that the whole of it came together in twenty minutes. You’re thinking: No way! That couldn’t have taken more than ten, fifteen minutes, tops. Well, yeah, but we had to work out the harmonies.

Speaking of which, I never knew before that moment that my cousin could ad-lib perfectly good “Yahoooos!” The things you learn in the pressure cooker of the recording studio.

It was at times like that, with the world trembling on the brink of war, that the media (this was our theory, anyway) would turn our way and exclaim: “There’s a couple of guys with guitars! They must have something intelligent to say about all this!”

As it turned out, we didn’t. Like that ever stopped us.

Link Warning: Embedded QuickTime audio.

——————————————————————————————————-
Verse:

Cancel my trip to Korea
The skies are safe no more
First they lost my luggage
Then they lost the war

The valiant Red Air Force
Locked in mortal battle
With a deadly 747
armed with cameras
——————————————————————————————————-
Chorus:

Rotten stinking Commie pinkos
Dirty Soviet tricky finkos
Hear this now, you murderous lackeys
Americans on that plane, by Cracky!——————————————————————————————————-
Verse:

A thousand heat-seeking missiles
Fired in comradely warning
Trespassers in Soviet airspace
Will not live to see the morning
——————————————————————————————————-
Bridge:

Unscheduled stopover in the Sea of Okhotsk
But a Boeing makes for a lousy boat
Water rushing in, cold and green
Boeing’s even worse at making submarines!——————————————————————————————————-

[Rpt. 1st verse, chorus]
===============================

Previous:

The Chase
Just Like A Woman

the blog québécois

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I have always had a soft spot for Neil Hamilton and his wife. I have known them since before his fall, I think he was foolish but screwed just the same, and they have always been kind to me. Unlike many other politicians who have fallen from grace Neil seems to have taken things with good grace and steadfastness. Yes they have felt hard done by; but there is none of the bitterness and rancor that sometimes find with politicians who have suffered a similar fate.

Its good to see they are recovering their financial footing and getting back in shape. The ST article on them is most interesting.

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Some implications of the recent Australian Federal election: As I see it, one centre-right government has been replaced by another. As Andrew Bolt has pointed out, there are even some ways in which Rudd is to the Right of John Howard. And the policies of the two major parties on social issues such as illegal immigration, abortion and homosexual marriage seem to differ only in the smallest of details.

There are some causes for concern, of course, but nothing major is likely to change much. The Australian Labor party is arguably the world’s most conservative Leftist party and they strongly reinforced that in the recent election campaign by their constant “me-toos” to the policies of the Howard government. They NEEDED to do that. Any hint of traditional Leftist policies would have sent them to oblivion again—as it did in the previous election under the leadership of Mark Latham. In other words, they won by promising that there would be only micro-changes. That is pretty conservative in at least one sense.

There will certainly be a lot of rabid Leftists in the new Labor cabinet (government) but Rudd has immense authority for having led them out of the wilderness and he is also an obsessive bureaucrat who will not let much past him and he knows full well what his victory depended on. So any Bolshevik tendencies in the cabinet will undoubtedly be stared down.

If Rudd WERE to depart from his election promises to any substantial degree that would be a strong confirmation of what his electoral opponents constantly harped on during the campaign: Can he be trusted? And that would almost certainly lead to his defeat in the next Federal election in 3 year’s time. And I know without looking that Rudd has far greater ambitions than being a one-term Prime Minister. So, ultimately, it is the electorate that is the watchdog watching him. And his recent success shows that he is too good a politician to be unaware of that gaze.

The biggest danger that I see is in his High Court appointments. Judges generally seem pretty power-mad and Rudd appointments could take the brakes off that. Australia has had a lot less legislating from the bench than the USA has had so it would be a great pity to lose that restraint.

The Rudd stance on the Iraq involvement is certainly weaker than that of John Howard but I again think Rudd will be cautious. His habit of caution and avoiding controversy should see any moves being slow and well-considered rather than hasty. He is certainly a lot less frantic about it than the U.S. Democrats are. Britain is already in the process of pulling out of Iraq, however, so that makes whatever Rudd does fairly inconsequential by comparison.

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The much maligned community of truthers has a good cause to rejoice, welcoming a new heavyweight that joined its slightly incoherent but feisty rows.

History books record that Simn Bolvar, the liberator of South America, died of tuberculosis in 1830: a banal end to a magnificent life. Now Bolvar is depicted as the victim of a perfect murder, a crime so deft that for almost two centuries nobody suspected a thing.

In the absence of any evidence to support the allegation, the amateur sleuth who made it would normally command little attention. But Hugo Chvez is difficult to ignore.

It is time to erase this smile of superiority of your faces, you Western scribes you.

Evidence – shmevidence: there are some things that must be clear to anyone who looks with an unprejudiced eye (or two eyes even) at the global picture.
As Hugo here astutely notices:

He was assassinated – they wanted him dead.

I am not convinced Bolvar died of tuberculosis.

The key detail was the arduous trip just before his death. “Bolvar covered I don’t know how many kilometres.” According to an unnamed doctor whom the president consulted, such a feat would have been impossible for someone enfeebled by advanced tuberculosis.

See how simple it is, when you really need to get to the bottom of a diabolical conspiracy? Indeed – how could these two buildings have been destroyed by 19 Arabs who allegedly piloted modern airplanes without CIA/Mossad being closely involved? How could Arafat die of “unidentified illness”, surrounded by the best doctors the money could buy without being poisoned by you know who? How could dinosaurs, these freedom-loving intelligent species roaming the pampas and selvas of South America die out suddenly, without Bush family shamelessly pumping the oil stolen from the Iraqi people into their pristine habitat?

Ergo – Bolvar was stabbed in the back by Zioneoimperialists as sure as Hugo created small green apples. As his best buddies Mugabe and Ahmadinejad were sworn witnesses to.

SimplyJews

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around… per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

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A simple, if frustrating puzzle. Click on any of the green dots, and the cat will move to any free adjoining dot. Your task is to prevent it from escaping from the board.

the blog québécois

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I have just gone and voted in Australia’s Federal election. My local polling place was VERY well-staffed and well managed. I was in and out in 10 minutes —unlike the way many Americans have had to line up for hours in their previous Federal elections. And because all votes are on paper, recounts are fairly easy and disputes about the results are rare.

We have separate ballot papers for the Senate and the lower house and the fact that the two ballot papers are very different in size means that it is almost impossible to get the two mixed up. Nonetheless there was a lady standing by the ballot boxes to see that everybody put their paper in the right box. Very good for absent-minded people like me!

I gave my Senate vote to Pauline, of course. Her policy of restricting Muslim immigration is the only sensible one for any Western nation, in my opinion.

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