Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Most Dangerous Animal....
"We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives, that it is inside ourselves"
-Albert Camus, Notebooks, VOL. 3, Entry For September 7, 1939
I have become fascinated by war and the ability that we have as a species to firmly occupy opposing psychological states - at the same time! Humanity is capable of seemingly limitless compassion, but also absolute, devastating violence. It was armed with this curiosity that I began to study war more intently - the blood and guts, twitching bodies, screaming terror and reeking stench of it--not the clean, sterile, whitewashed version of it so popularly portrayed in Hollywood blockbusters - and that self-education continues in earnest with the following book recommendation.
In The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War, David Livingstone Smith sets out to connect the strings of history, to the mountains of biological evidence in support of the idea that "war is nature", and attempts to illustrate just how it is that war is not separate from, but rather an integral part of our evolutionary development. The language is clear, the evidence is presented professionally and the tone is matter-of-fact - this is a book for the casual laymen interested in understanding the evolution of war and how it relates to the development of the human animal. But it is also a book for the academic elite who may be looking for a fresh and truly fantastic organization of known field work, as well as some intriguing theoretical ideas about the subject of war by Mr. Smith himself.
At the very least, what Mr. Smith has offered is a robust explanatory theory of the undoubtedly human penchant for bloodshed and our paradoxical aversion to it. Throughout the book, Mr. Smith gives very detailed accounts of the savagery and brutality that humans have inflicted upon one another throughout our bellicose existence. It is fascinating, and at times heart-wrenching, to read about these events "straight from the horses mouth".
Also of note, is the VERY extensive and VERY excellent bibliography. The bibliography alone is worth the purchase in my opinion.
A couple of reviews for Mr. Smith's book, one of which comes from a man that many of you will probably be intimately familiar with:
"This is the most important post-9/11 analysis of war and it comes none too soon, as hundreds are daily dying and commentators continue to ask why. David Livingstone Smith has provided a cogent answer to the deeper why question of war; not why Iraq? or why Afghanistan? or why Darfur?, but why war at all? Smith's answer - that war is buried deep in our evolutionary past - will be controversial, but his case is irrefutable. We have seen the enemy in the mirror, and until we gather the courage to accept our true nature, men will fight and people will die. Every politician should read this book before deciding on war."
- Michael Shermer
"Here is the unvarnished tale of human gangs, driven by built-in survival mechanisms and an uncanny ability for self-deception, romping through history--raiding, pillaging, terrorizing, waging wars, and committing large-scale atrocities in the name of abstract gods, holy lands, master races, and political systems. David Smith’s rapid-fire account of our uniquely lethal nature makes a mockery of our dreams for peace. We could always try, though, but seeing ourselves as we truly are is a necessary first step. This book shows us how."
- Anouar Majid, author of FREEDOM AND ORTHODOXY: Postcolonial Islam in a Polycentric World
"Deftly combining concepts and analytical skills from traditional philosophy with an impressive grasp of contemporary science in several disciplines, Smith has produced a unique work that is at once chilling, invigorating, enlightening, and ultimately hopeful. Believing that truth is the best medicine, I recommend for every thinking person a full dose of this fiercely argued and deeply insightful book."
- Dale Peterson, author of Jane Goodall, The Deluge and the Ark, and co-author of Demonic Males
In closing, I am by no means a master-reviewer, but I cannot recommend this book enough.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
I Love New York
I've been on a writing craze of late, in preparation for a new project and here's my latest output.
You can find this poem and a larger selection of my work over at my other blog which is dedicated solely to poetry; http://wwwtheveil.blogspot.com/
GWC
empty beer cans rattle-
dreams get wasted-
torn Levi's like street couture-
shoes rebel against feet; shuffle
amongst the shit-
old bones piled in piss-
eyes distant, bulging and hollow; bloody
gum grin like those cats at Loews-
smiling at the bottom of a bottle-
illuminated by barrel light;
personification-
New York at night
© GWC 2010
You can find this poem and a larger selection of my work over at my other blog which is dedicated solely to poetry; http://wwwtheveil.blogspot.com/
GWC
empty beer cans rattle-
dreams get wasted-
torn Levi's like street couture-
shoes rebel against feet; shuffle
amongst the shit-
old bones piled in piss-
eyes distant, bulging and hollow; bloody
gum grin like those cats at Loews-
smiling at the bottom of a bottle-
illuminated by barrel light;
personification-
New York at night
© GWC 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Rosedale
I originally wrote this poem back in mid-2009, but recently changed it quite a bit with the intent to distribute to various resources for possible publication. I'm pleased with how it turned out.
GWC
there was a time
when my fingers
caressed
her blushing face-
she is a memory
out of phase
no longer visited
on the street
corners crept back in-
now she walks
another beat,
but they don't share
Rosedale moments-
those dirty hippie sheets,
or the wrinkled dollar bills laughing
from the corner table;
cheap perfume
mixing with motel-sweat-
we were just two beaten souls
searching for a diamond
gaze,
and behind those nicotine curtains
we found our place
© GWC 2010
GWC
there was a time
when my fingers
caressed
her blushing face-
she is a memory
out of phase
no longer visited
on the street
corners crept back in-
now she walks
another beat,
but they don't share
Rosedale moments-
those dirty hippie sheets,
or the wrinkled dollar bills laughing
from the corner table;
cheap perfume
mixing with motel-sweat-
we were just two beaten souls
searching for a diamond
gaze,
and behind those nicotine curtains
we found our place
© GWC 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Geert Wilder's Trial Opener
This is what it's all about folks:
And this is why he's on trial; FITNA:
In short, let it be said here and now that freedom of speech CANNOT and MUST not be silenced. May the fire of courage forever warm your heart, to stand firm in the face of tyrants and murderous savages who wish to end your right to freedom!
And this is why he's on trial; FITNA:
In short, let it be said here and now that freedom of speech CANNOT and MUST not be silenced. May the fire of courage forever warm your heart, to stand firm in the face of tyrants and murderous savages who wish to end your right to freedom!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Race Realism
This is an older article but relevant to what I wish to cover in this blog.
By Ian Jobling • 12/26/06
The culture of the age that we live in is founded on a lie: racial egalitarianism. It is an article of faith among the elites that govern the West that the races are the same in abilities and temperament, and that it is only racial bias in the present or in the past that prevents all races from performing at the same level.
This dogma has been conventional wisdom among the Western elites since 1950, when the United Nations published its “Statement on Race,” which declared: “[T]here is no proof that the groups of mankind differ in their intelligence or temperament. The scientific evidence indicates that the range of mental capacities in all ethnic groups is the same…. [G]enetic differences are not of importance in determining the social and cultural differences between different groups of Homo sapiens.” Link, p. 102.
In the succeeding years, this dogma has filtered downwards from the elites and entrenched itself to such an extent that it is dangerous for any Westerner to contradict it.
The heart of race realism is recognizing this lie for what it is. Both the findings of the best scholars and simple common sense force us to recognize that the races are inherently different. But holding onto the truth is a hard duty, as it means refusing the dominant ideology of our culture, which constantly tries to persuade us that racial equality would be achieved if only people, and especially whites, were less racist.
The idea that the races are innately different flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that is promulgated by the mass media and many experts. It may seem odd that I am trying to persuade people to renounce the conventional wisdom. Last week, in criticizing the conspiracy theories of David Duke, I argued that conventional wisdom ought to be trusted in almost all cases. The reasonable person should reject it, I said, only where the evidence against it was overwhelming. Any challenge to conventional wisdom had to meet three stringent criteria:
1)There must a respected school in the relevant community of experts that thinks the conventional wisdom is wrong.
2)The community of experts and other shapers of opinion must have a powerful motive for not recognizing the truth.
3)Facts of which we can be absolutely certain contradict the conventional wisdom.
Very few challenges to conventional wisdom meet these criteria, but the challenge of race realism to racial egalitarianism does. Studies of the black-white gap in intelligence prove beyond any doubt that the race realist perspective is correct.
The school of researchers that argues for the biological basis of racial intelligence differences, among whom are psychologists Arthur Jensen, J. P. Rushton, and Richard Lynn, have solid academic credentials and publish in peer-reviewed psychological journals, and their work is respected even by those who disagree with them. Furthermore, in 1988, a survey of experts in intelligence and its measurement found that a full 53 percent believed that the black-white difference in IQ was partially genetic in origin. The same study found the news media consistently overestimated the percentage of IQ experts holding egalitarian views. There can be little doubt there still exists today at least a significant school of experts that hold race realist views.
The reason why this school exists is simply that the evidence for race realism is so powerful. Hundreds of studies have been conducted on black-white differences in IQ, and wherever blacks are in the world, they score substantially below the white mean of 100 on IQ tests. In reviewing the literature on black intelligence in Race Differences in Intelligence, Richard Lynn found that 57 studies of the IQ of blacks in Africa conducted between 1955 and 1994 consistently showed that they had a mean IQ of around 671. Fourteen studies between 1986 and 2002 of blacks in the Caribbean and Latin America found a mean IQ of 712. Thirty-one studies of American blacks between 1918 and 1998 found a mean IQ of 853. Twenty-nine studies conducted in Britain and the Netherlands between 1966 and 2002 found a mean black IQ of 85 there as well4. In Israel, two studies of Ethiopian immigrants who are Jewish by religion but racially black showed they had a mean IQ of 655.
Second, despite all the efforts made in the US to achieve parity among the races, the IQ gap has not gone away. Indeed, it has remained approximately the same for nearly a century. In 1917, the first large scale IQ tests in America found about a 17-point difference between the scores of the races; the most recent studies show the difference is about the same6. The equalization of spending on black and white education, government educational programs for the poor, diversity training, and all the rest of it simply has had no discernible effect on the racial IQ gap.
This in itself is powerful evidence that the black-white IQ difference is rooted in biology. However, there is much more evidence of this. First, psychologists know intelligence is a highly heritable (i.e., genetically determined) trait. The heritability of IQ is as great as 80 percent, meaning it is primarily determined by genetic background7. The more related people are, the greater the similarity in IQ scores. The IQ’s of identical twins have a correlation of 0.86, whereas those of fraternal twins have a much weaker correlation of 0.6. However, after they have grown to be adults, there is no correlation whatsoever between the IQ’s of unrelated children who are reared in the same household8. Given the strong heritability of IQ, it is exceptionally unlikely that such a large difference as that between mean black and white IQ has no genetic component.
Some of the most powerful evidence of the biological origin of racial differences in intelligence comes from trans-racial adoption studies. For example, a 1992 study examining the IQ’s of adopted white and black 17-year-olds raised in upper-middle-class white families found that despite their similar environment, the adopted children with two biological white parents had a mean IQ of 106, whereas the adoptees with two black biological parents had a mean IQ of 899.
There is no doubt that IQ tests do measure intelligence. In fact, a person’s IQ is the strongest predictor of how well he will perform in school and whether he will get a well-paying, high-status job10.
In light of evidence like this, none of the cultural explanations of racial differences in intelligence and educational achievement are even remotely plausible. Some object that IQ tests are not a good measure of intelligence because they are culturally biased. But the racial IQ difference appears even on reaction-time IQ tests, in which subjects must respond as quickly as possible to a simple visual stimulus, such as a flashing light or a change in color in a dot on a screen11. It is difficult to see how such tests could be culturally biased.
Nor do arguments that blacks score lower on tests because of socio-economic deficits hold water. If class background explains differences in IQ scores, why do blacks raised in upper-middle-class white families score so much lower on IQ tests than whites from the same background? Moreover, black high-schoolers from affluent backgrounds regularly score lower than whites from poor households on SAT tests, which are a good measure of intelligence12.
Do the shapers of public opinion have a motive to deny racial differences in intelligence? Very much so. In fact, they have several different reasons for denying racial difference, which will be the subject of future writings on this website. As one example, Western elites hold racist doctrines responsible for the rise of Nazism and the genocide it brought about. The elites think the key to preventing such atrocities in the future is to discredit the idea of racial differences. The Nazi genocide was very much on the minds of the writers of the UNESCO statement on race quoted earlier, which contains this passage:
The myth “race” has created an enormous amount of human and social damage. In recent years it has taken a heavy toll in human lives and caused untold suffering. It still prevents the normal development of millions of human beings and deprives civilization of the effective co-operation of productive minds. Link, p. 101.
There was thus a clear ethical and political agenda behind the UNESCO statement that gave its framers and subsequent generations of Western elites the motive to portray the evidence in a biased manner.
The work of race realist scholars proves that our culture ignores not only innate intelligence differences, but a principle of the utmost importance in explaining human behavior. If the popular media sweep such well-documented findings under the carpet, who knows what else they have swept there too? Once one has realized that innate racial differences exist, one begins to suspect a whole hidden reality beneath the surface of things that explains phenomena that are so mysterious to the talking heads on the news programs. To be a race realist is to constantly sense this monster in the depths.
http://whiteamerica.us/index.php/Articles/Articles/what_is_race_realism/
By Ian Jobling • 12/26/06
The culture of the age that we live in is founded on a lie: racial egalitarianism. It is an article of faith among the elites that govern the West that the races are the same in abilities and temperament, and that it is only racial bias in the present or in the past that prevents all races from performing at the same level.
This dogma has been conventional wisdom among the Western elites since 1950, when the United Nations published its “Statement on Race,” which declared: “[T]here is no proof that the groups of mankind differ in their intelligence or temperament. The scientific evidence indicates that the range of mental capacities in all ethnic groups is the same…. [G]enetic differences are not of importance in determining the social and cultural differences between different groups of Homo sapiens.” Link, p. 102.
In the succeeding years, this dogma has filtered downwards from the elites and entrenched itself to such an extent that it is dangerous for any Westerner to contradict it.
The heart of race realism is recognizing this lie for what it is. Both the findings of the best scholars and simple common sense force us to recognize that the races are inherently different. But holding onto the truth is a hard duty, as it means refusing the dominant ideology of our culture, which constantly tries to persuade us that racial equality would be achieved if only people, and especially whites, were less racist.
The idea that the races are innately different flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that is promulgated by the mass media and many experts. It may seem odd that I am trying to persuade people to renounce the conventional wisdom. Last week, in criticizing the conspiracy theories of David Duke, I argued that conventional wisdom ought to be trusted in almost all cases. The reasonable person should reject it, I said, only where the evidence against it was overwhelming. Any challenge to conventional wisdom had to meet three stringent criteria:
1)There must a respected school in the relevant community of experts that thinks the conventional wisdom is wrong.
2)The community of experts and other shapers of opinion must have a powerful motive for not recognizing the truth.
3)Facts of which we can be absolutely certain contradict the conventional wisdom.
Very few challenges to conventional wisdom meet these criteria, but the challenge of race realism to racial egalitarianism does. Studies of the black-white gap in intelligence prove beyond any doubt that the race realist perspective is correct.
The school of researchers that argues for the biological basis of racial intelligence differences, among whom are psychologists Arthur Jensen, J. P. Rushton, and Richard Lynn, have solid academic credentials and publish in peer-reviewed psychological journals, and their work is respected even by those who disagree with them. Furthermore, in 1988, a survey of experts in intelligence and its measurement found that a full 53 percent believed that the black-white difference in IQ was partially genetic in origin. The same study found the news media consistently overestimated the percentage of IQ experts holding egalitarian views. There can be little doubt there still exists today at least a significant school of experts that hold race realist views.
The reason why this school exists is simply that the evidence for race realism is so powerful. Hundreds of studies have been conducted on black-white differences in IQ, and wherever blacks are in the world, they score substantially below the white mean of 100 on IQ tests. In reviewing the literature on black intelligence in Race Differences in Intelligence, Richard Lynn found that 57 studies of the IQ of blacks in Africa conducted between 1955 and 1994 consistently showed that they had a mean IQ of around 671. Fourteen studies between 1986 and 2002 of blacks in the Caribbean and Latin America found a mean IQ of 712. Thirty-one studies of American blacks between 1918 and 1998 found a mean IQ of 853. Twenty-nine studies conducted in Britain and the Netherlands between 1966 and 2002 found a mean black IQ of 85 there as well4. In Israel, two studies of Ethiopian immigrants who are Jewish by religion but racially black showed they had a mean IQ of 655.
Second, despite all the efforts made in the US to achieve parity among the races, the IQ gap has not gone away. Indeed, it has remained approximately the same for nearly a century. In 1917, the first large scale IQ tests in America found about a 17-point difference between the scores of the races; the most recent studies show the difference is about the same6. The equalization of spending on black and white education, government educational programs for the poor, diversity training, and all the rest of it simply has had no discernible effect on the racial IQ gap.
This in itself is powerful evidence that the black-white IQ difference is rooted in biology. However, there is much more evidence of this. First, psychologists know intelligence is a highly heritable (i.e., genetically determined) trait. The heritability of IQ is as great as 80 percent, meaning it is primarily determined by genetic background7. The more related people are, the greater the similarity in IQ scores. The IQ’s of identical twins have a correlation of 0.86, whereas those of fraternal twins have a much weaker correlation of 0.6. However, after they have grown to be adults, there is no correlation whatsoever between the IQ’s of unrelated children who are reared in the same household8. Given the strong heritability of IQ, it is exceptionally unlikely that such a large difference as that between mean black and white IQ has no genetic component.
Some of the most powerful evidence of the biological origin of racial differences in intelligence comes from trans-racial adoption studies. For example, a 1992 study examining the IQ’s of adopted white and black 17-year-olds raised in upper-middle-class white families found that despite their similar environment, the adopted children with two biological white parents had a mean IQ of 106, whereas the adoptees with two black biological parents had a mean IQ of 899.
There is no doubt that IQ tests do measure intelligence. In fact, a person’s IQ is the strongest predictor of how well he will perform in school and whether he will get a well-paying, high-status job10.
In light of evidence like this, none of the cultural explanations of racial differences in intelligence and educational achievement are even remotely plausible. Some object that IQ tests are not a good measure of intelligence because they are culturally biased. But the racial IQ difference appears even on reaction-time IQ tests, in which subjects must respond as quickly as possible to a simple visual stimulus, such as a flashing light or a change in color in a dot on a screen11. It is difficult to see how such tests could be culturally biased.
Nor do arguments that blacks score lower on tests because of socio-economic deficits hold water. If class background explains differences in IQ scores, why do blacks raised in upper-middle-class white families score so much lower on IQ tests than whites from the same background? Moreover, black high-schoolers from affluent backgrounds regularly score lower than whites from poor households on SAT tests, which are a good measure of intelligence12.
Do the shapers of public opinion have a motive to deny racial differences in intelligence? Very much so. In fact, they have several different reasons for denying racial difference, which will be the subject of future writings on this website. As one example, Western elites hold racist doctrines responsible for the rise of Nazism and the genocide it brought about. The elites think the key to preventing such atrocities in the future is to discredit the idea of racial differences. The Nazi genocide was very much on the minds of the writers of the UNESCO statement on race quoted earlier, which contains this passage:
The myth “race” has created an enormous amount of human and social damage. In recent years it has taken a heavy toll in human lives and caused untold suffering. It still prevents the normal development of millions of human beings and deprives civilization of the effective co-operation of productive minds. Link, p. 101.
There was thus a clear ethical and political agenda behind the UNESCO statement that gave its framers and subsequent generations of Western elites the motive to portray the evidence in a biased manner.
The work of race realist scholars proves that our culture ignores not only innate intelligence differences, but a principle of the utmost importance in explaining human behavior. If the popular media sweep such well-documented findings under the carpet, who knows what else they have swept there too? Once one has realized that innate racial differences exist, one begins to suspect a whole hidden reality beneath the surface of things that explains phenomena that are so mysterious to the talking heads on the news programs. To be a race realist is to constantly sense this monster in the depths.
http://whiteamerica.us/index.php/Articles/Articles/what_is_race_realism/
The Axis Of Perdition
For me, ritual requires a large dose of atmosphere. Without atmosphere, a ritual quickly becomes dull and I exit my ritual chamber feeling unfulfilled. That's why for the most part, I never perform any ritual without musical accompaniment.
The Axis of Perdition create just the right blend of ambiance and raw hatred often associated with black metal/dark ambient hybrids. Naturally, I find this style of music is more suitable for a destruction ritual, but your mileage may vary.
The Axis of Perdition create just the right blend of ambiance and raw hatred often associated with black metal/dark ambient hybrids. Naturally, I find this style of music is more suitable for a destruction ritual, but your mileage may vary.
Monday, February 8, 2010
It Never Ends!
From The Sunday Times
February 7, 2010
Africagate: top British scientist says UN panel is losing credibility
A LEADING British government scientist has warned the United Nations’ climate panel to tackle its blunders or lose all credibility.
Robert Watson, chief scientist at Defra, the environment ministry, who chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 1997 to 2002, was speaking after more potential inaccuracies emerged in the IPCC’s 2007 benchmark report on global warming.
The most important is a claim that global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change. The claim has been quoted in speeches by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, and by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.
This weekend Professor Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC’s climate impacts team, told The Sunday Times that he could find nothing in the report to support the claim. The revelation follows the IPCC’s retraction of a claim that the Himalayan glaciers might all melt by 2035, dubbed 'Glaciergate' by commentators.
The African claims could be even more embarrassing for the IPCC because they appear not only in its report on climate change impacts but, unlike the glaciers claim, are also repeated in its Synthesis Report.
This report is the IPCC’s most politically sensitive publication, distilling its most important science into a form accessible to politicians and policy makers. Its lead authors include Pachauri himself.
In it he wrote: “By 2020, in some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50%. Agricultural production, including access to food, in many African countries is projected to be severely compromised.” The same claims have since been cited in speeches to world leaders by Pachauri and Ban.
Speaking at the 2008 global climate talks in Poznan, Poland, Pachauri said: “In some countries of Africa, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by 50% by 2020.” In a speech last July, Ban said: “Yields from rain-fed agriculture could fall by half in some African countries over the next 10 years.”
Speaking this weekend, Field said: “I was not an author on the Synthesis Report but on reading it I cannot find support for the statement about African crop yield declines.”
Watson said such claims should be based on hard evidence. “Any such projection should be based on peer-reviewed literature from computer modelling of how agricultural yields would respond to climate change. I can see no such data supporting the IPCC report,” he said.
The claims in the Synthesis Report go back to the IPCC’s report on the global impacts of climate change. It warns that all Africa faces a long-term threat from farmland turning to desert and then says of north Africa, “additional risks that could be exacerbated by climate change include greater erosion, deficiencies in yields from rain-fed agriculture of up to 50% during the 2000-20 period, and reductions in crop growth period (Agoumi, 2003)”.
“Agoumi” refers to a 2003 policy paper written for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a Canadian think tank. The paper was not peer-reviewed.
Its author was Professor Ali Agoumi, a Moroccan climate expert who looked at the potential impacts of climate change on Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. His report refers to the risk of “deficient yields from rain-based agriculture of up to 50% during the 2000–20 period”.
These claims refer to other reports prepared by civil servants in each of the three countries as submissions to the UN. These do not appear to have been peer-reviewed either.
The IPCC is also facing criticism over its reports on how sea level rise might affect Holland. Dutch ministers have demanded that it correct a claim that more than half of the Netherlands lies below sea level when, in reality, it is about a quarter.
The errors seem likely to bring about change at the IPCC. Field said: “The IPCC needs to investigate a more sophisticated approach for dealing with emerging errors.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017907.ece
February 7, 2010
Africagate: top British scientist says UN panel is losing credibility
A LEADING British government scientist has warned the United Nations’ climate panel to tackle its blunders or lose all credibility.
Robert Watson, chief scientist at Defra, the environment ministry, who chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 1997 to 2002, was speaking after more potential inaccuracies emerged in the IPCC’s 2007 benchmark report on global warming.
The most important is a claim that global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change. The claim has been quoted in speeches by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, and by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.
This weekend Professor Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC’s climate impacts team, told The Sunday Times that he could find nothing in the report to support the claim. The revelation follows the IPCC’s retraction of a claim that the Himalayan glaciers might all melt by 2035, dubbed 'Glaciergate' by commentators.
The African claims could be even more embarrassing for the IPCC because they appear not only in its report on climate change impacts but, unlike the glaciers claim, are also repeated in its Synthesis Report.
This report is the IPCC’s most politically sensitive publication, distilling its most important science into a form accessible to politicians and policy makers. Its lead authors include Pachauri himself.
In it he wrote: “By 2020, in some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50%. Agricultural production, including access to food, in many African countries is projected to be severely compromised.” The same claims have since been cited in speeches to world leaders by Pachauri and Ban.
Speaking at the 2008 global climate talks in Poznan, Poland, Pachauri said: “In some countries of Africa, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by 50% by 2020.” In a speech last July, Ban said: “Yields from rain-fed agriculture could fall by half in some African countries over the next 10 years.”
Speaking this weekend, Field said: “I was not an author on the Synthesis Report but on reading it I cannot find support for the statement about African crop yield declines.”
Watson said such claims should be based on hard evidence. “Any such projection should be based on peer-reviewed literature from computer modelling of how agricultural yields would respond to climate change. I can see no such data supporting the IPCC report,” he said.
The claims in the Synthesis Report go back to the IPCC’s report on the global impacts of climate change. It warns that all Africa faces a long-term threat from farmland turning to desert and then says of north Africa, “additional risks that could be exacerbated by climate change include greater erosion, deficiencies in yields from rain-fed agriculture of up to 50% during the 2000-20 period, and reductions in crop growth period (Agoumi, 2003)”.
“Agoumi” refers to a 2003 policy paper written for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a Canadian think tank. The paper was not peer-reviewed.
Its author was Professor Ali Agoumi, a Moroccan climate expert who looked at the potential impacts of climate change on Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. His report refers to the risk of “deficient yields from rain-based agriculture of up to 50% during the 2000–20 period”.
These claims refer to other reports prepared by civil servants in each of the three countries as submissions to the UN. These do not appear to have been peer-reviewed either.
The IPCC is also facing criticism over its reports on how sea level rise might affect Holland. Dutch ministers have demanded that it correct a claim that more than half of the Netherlands lies below sea level when, in reality, it is about a quarter.
The errors seem likely to bring about change at the IPCC. Field said: “The IPCC needs to investigate a more sophisticated approach for dealing with emerging errors.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017907.ece
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Penn & Teller: Patriotism
To avoid drawing a line that I cannot cross, let me stress from the outset that I am speaking as a patriot of American ideals, not the borders within which I find myself. Any seeming 'bordercentrism' is only by extension of the fact that I do happen to live in America. With that said....
I've been asked before to define my sense of patriotism, above are two videos by two of my favorite commentators - the intellectual magicians and comedy duo Penn & Teller, and the astute thinker known as The Southern Avenger. Both videos express elements of thought that I strongly resonate with, with only a couple of disagreements, so small that they don't even bare mentioning.
For me, it's simple, there is no philosophical obfuscation here, no collection of ambiguities to wade through. By the fortune of my birth, I am American; land of law, freedom and the right to succeed. These things which are granted me by the very same fortune of my birth. They are dear to me and shape the 'has been', as well as the 'is to be' of my life. Without such freedom, it is reasonable to say that I would not be writing this at all. I almost certainly would not be extolling the virtues of freedom in Pyongyang, North Korea for instance.
As articulated in the above videos, these rights are mine and inherently attached to who I am. These rights are limited only insofar as rational and acceptable laws should limit them. There is great beauty to be found in a sea of opinions freely expressed with no fear of reprisal from a totalitarian government, nefarious death squad, et al. Knowledge available to anyone, about anything, with the greatest of ease and only reasonable restrictions. These are the type and kind of freedoms that I love and would sorely miss should I no longer have them.
It is often pointed out by many of my associates that I am not what I do (an idea immortalized in Stanley Kubrick's Fight Club), or where I live is not of importance to who I am. I disagree slightly, by degree. The borders that surround me do not make me, but the ideals found within those borders, definitely do. The ideals championed by The United States of America are minority ideals, they are in no way popular or emulated worldwide. If I did not toil under the banner of these standards, how could I begin to say that I would be the same person I am today, without feeling like a liar or just a little naive? Freedom and oppression necessarily shape people differently - I think that this is a truism, almost embarrassing to mention.
All of these freedoms and rights form a distinct American culture, and it is known as "The American Way"; "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" baby. I argue that culture is to a man, what a foundation is to a house. The cultural freedom and rights that I am afforded, while not uniquely American, are so devastatingly unpopular that finding them elsewhere in order to compile a list, would I suspect, be a very short list indeed. No, I don't think I would be the same man writing this from a hotel room in Tehran, and I almost certainly would not be a patriot.
But, since I do live in a nation that upholds these basic truths to be self-evident, I have the right to be a patriot - and I am one.
GWC
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Principles Of The Pro-White Movement
This is not a Klu Klux Klan membership pamphlet; this is not an endorsement of Neo-Nazi activities, such as mixing unnecessary violence and illegal activities - this is simply an appreciation of white culture, the acceptance of reality and a growing disdain for forced multiculturalism (affirmative action comes to mind). This is, however, an endorsement of racial autonomy. Label me a racist if it makes you feel better.
When did it become a crime?; and who judged it a moral deficiency to prefer association with members of one's own race?
Anyway, while I find a few of the statements questionable, whether from ignorance or incredulity - the science behind IQ differences and how much IQ actually matters, some of the statistics mentioned without recourse to references etc. - the meat of the article is sound.
GWC
By Ian Jobling
The state of the white race in the West confronts us with a horror unprecedented in the annals of human history. Demographers predict whites will be a minority in the United States in 40 years and in Western Europe shortly after. Since the West condones interracial breeding, there is a serious prospect that the white race as we know it will disappear in the next two or three centuries.
An even more urgent threat is that whites will lose political control over their ancestral homelands and be put at the mercy of alien races who are unfriendly to our people.
Because culture is rooted in biology, the subjugation or extinction of the white race may well mean the death of Western culture and its fundamental ideals of individualism, pluralism, tolerance, and the rule of law. If the white West is not preserved, it is quite possible that what we today call the Third World will become the whole world, and the light of humanity and progress will be extinguished.
This prospect, while fearsome enough, does not express the full horror of our plight. What gives the situation of whites its uniquely dreadful and grotesque cast is that it is taboo for us to voice any desire for our continued existence. Our current cultural establishment labels “racism” and “hatred” any word of complaint that whites may breathe about their impending subjugation and obliteration. These labels are a slander wicked almost beyond imagining. Indeed, the hatred is on the side of the people who express indifference towards or even eagerness for the destruction of a people.
The pro-white movement is committed to the preservation of the white race and its unique culture. Pro-whites, as the movement’s adherents call themselves, frankly admit that they prefer their own people to others and see no evil in doing so. Pro-whites resemble the Jewish activists who attempted to awake a callous and bigoted world to the prospect of the Holocaust during the Nazi period or Spartans trying to preserve their society from Persian rule.
In furtherance of our goal of racial preservation, the pro-white movement will spread awareness of the threats to the white race and the reasons for preserving it. We will seek to overcome the slanders against our race and our movement that have made it disreputable for whites to defend themselves against extinction. Finally, we will do all in our power to restore to America a government that respects the white race and promotes its interests.
Why Preserve White Societies?
White societies are worth preserving not merely because of the inherent value of ethnic autonomy, but also because of the precious uniqueness of Western culture, which only whites have succeeded in creating.
Scholars have found that Western culture is distinguished by preference for the rule of law, individualism, pluralism, and tolerance. Also, whites have a uniquely powerful urge to discover the objective truth about the world. This urge has led the West far more than other cultures to defend the individual exercise of reason from suppression by state and ecclesiastical authorities. Additionally, the Western taste for the truth has created a culture uniquely capable of self-criticism and innovation in science, technology, philosophy, and the arts.
The unique attributes of Western culture are due in part to whites’ relatively high intelligence and providence, or ability to defer gratification for greater future rewards.
Without the white race, it is quite likely that people would still be living pre-modern despotisms like the ancient Persian or Chinese empires, since more or less all of the technological, scientific, philosophical, and political innovations that led to modernity were accomplished by whites.
Cultural differences among the races are almost certainly in part due to biological differences. Psychologists have found that the black-white IQ gap, the most intensively studied racial difference, is certainly genetic in origin. It is the consensus among behavior geneticists that personality traits are about 50 percent heritable, so it stands to reason that other racial differences have some biological basis as well.
The influx of non-whites into America erodes our culture. Unintelligent and improvident populations like blacks and Hispanics, through high rates of crime and other forms of social irresponsibility, threaten a peaceful, prosperous society. Not only do these populations act as a drag on the white population, but they tend to corrupt our nation by lowering standards. Indeed, the current mortgage crisis and concomitant stock market collapse are in part due to minority activism to lower home lending standards.
Irresponsible populations have other negative effects on America’s economy. They mean higher taxes for welfare and prisons and a strained social infrastructure. The influx of poorly achieving and crime-prone Hispanics into the schools has caused white flight into an ever-shrinking number of decent school districts. Consequently, housing prices in good neighborhoods soar, and whites go deep into debt in order to provide a future for their children.
Furthermore, non-white groups are a threat to the culture of freedom that white societies have established. Non-whites do not seem to possess the broad-minded tolerance of free expression that is fundamental to Western culture.
Finally, the research of Harvard professor Robert Putnam has demonstrated that diversity destroys trust. In an empirical study of communities, Putnam concluded:
people living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down,’ that is, to pull in like a turtle… [They tend to] withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.
As commentator Ilana Mercer put it, “Greater diversity equals more misery.”
The inherent value of racial autonomy, the preciousness of Western civilization, the distrust and misery bred by racial diversity, and its negative economic impact—together these form a compelling justification for preserving white societies.
Leukophobia
Despite the fact that whites invented the critique of ethnocentrism, contemporary common wisdom has it that whites are the only “racist” race and that all other peoples are noble savages who have been cruelly exploited by us. The pro-white movement dubs the bias against the white race “leukophobia,” or fear and loathing of whites. The counterpart of leukophobia is “chromophilia,” or unwarranted idealization of non-whites.
Leukophobia causes our society not only to exaggerate examples of white egotism and destructiveness, but actually to fabricate white racism hoaxes. Leukophobia is an accepted, mainstream racial hatred, so pervasive that it seems like common sense. Leukophobia has so far been successful in discrediting anyone who has tried to preserve and defend the white race.
Leukophobia creates an inverted world in which the blame for racism falls on the race that has done most—indeed, far too much—to end it. Whites invented the concept of human rights in the name of which the oppression of ethnicities can be criticized. Whites were the first to abolish slavery. American whites have even gone to the extreme of making non-whites a privileged class through affirmative action in order to bring out about racial equality.
White America has discussed several examples of leukophobia and chromophilia. For example, American history textbooks, in the words of Diane Ravitch, display “a barely concealed rage against people of European ancestry.” The textbooks lay heavy emphasis on slavery, racial subjugation, and war crimes perpetrated by whites, while ignoring or whitewashing similar, or worse, practices perpetrated by other peoples. The myth that Americans frequently committed atrocities against Asians during the Vietnam War is another example of anti-white bias in our understanding of history.
Leukophobia even causes the news media to fabricate instances of white racial hatred. The Duke rape and Jena 6 cases are recent examples.
Leukophobia takes its most blatant form among non-whites, large minorities or even majorities of whom fantasize that whites are conspiring to undermine them. The beliefs of Jeremiah Wright are not marginal among blacks. One quarter of blacks think that whites invented AIDS as a means of racial genocide, and 50 percent think that the CIA and FBI have flooded black neighborhoods with guns and drugs so that they will harm one another. Mexican-Americans share similar beliefs about whites.
Even as the shapers of opinion exaggerate and even fabricate instances white racial hatred, examples of non-white racial hatred are ignored. Thus, when whites are even suspected of committing crimes of racial hatred, as in the Duke rape and Jena 6 cases, there is massive press coverage. But proven crimes of racial hatred committed by minorities receive little coverage.
Similarly, the shapers of public opinion suppress awareness of non-white misbehavior, or even more despicably, blame it on whites. Such is the purpose of the myth of racial profiling, which illegitimately pins the blame for high non-white incarceration rates on white police officers and judges.
The Causes of Leukophobia
Leukophobia has many different causes. Among them are minority egotism, which makes whites a scapegoat for minorities’ social dysfunction, and the horrific forms that white ethnocentrism has taken in the past, such as the Hitler regime, American slavery, the Klan, and the neo-Nazis.
Carrying on the dismal tradition of American white supremacism, most pro-whites today believe our current racial dispossession is due to Jewish influence on the West, if not actual Jewish conspiracies against whites. However, these tired lies conceal the real dynamics of white dispossession, which has been inflicted by white Gentiles on themselves. While it is true that Jews have been inclined towards highly liberal—that is, leukophobic—beliefs, nevertheless more than 90 percent of white racial liberals are Gentiles. Moreover, that Jewish leukophobia could thrive in America suggests that it was a mere extension of something in our national character. For these reasons, the pro-white movement repudiates anti-Semitism and will resolutely oppose the obsession with Jews that poisons and discredits our cause.
The primary reason for the ascendancy of leukophobia is diversity snobbery. Various currents in 19th and 20th century thought made tolerance and openness to diversity the virtues that we most esteem. This attitude is particularly prevalent among the wealthy and powerful in America. Leukophobia originated with intellectuals in the early 20th century, spread to college students in the 1960s and to the professional class in the 1970s, and dominates all of the American elite today. While tolerance and openness are great virtues, they turn into vices when taken to destructive extremes.
Diversity snobbery is rooted in the aspiration to show oneself more tolerant and open than others. Diversity snobs slander today’s white majority or the “racist” America of the past so that their own superior virtues can shine more brightly by comparison.
A particularly obnoxious example of the slanders to which diversity snobbery gives rise is the elites’ assertion that America’s immigration reform movement is rooted in “ugliness” and “hatred,” to use the New York Times’ terms or “bitterness,” to use Barack Obama’s. The white working and middle class support the immigration reform movement because they are on the front lines of the demographic transition currently taking place in America. It is they who are suffering from the importation of unintelligent, crime-prone populations into the US. It is they who have to send their children to school with aspiring gangsters. All that the immigration reformers are asking for is enforcement of our current immigration laws. It is monstrous to describe the white majority’s concern for its way of life as “hatred.”
Another manifestation of diversity snobbery is the completely unfounded belief that greater racial diversity leads to greater creativity. In fact, the relatively homogeneous and white racialist culture of early 20th century America produced an explosion of creativity that dwarfs the achievements of the post-Civil Rights era. Think of the extraordinary transformation that took place in America between the end of the 19th century—the age of horse-drawn carts, vaudeville, and typhoid epidemics—and 1950, the age of Pan Am, CBS, and penicillin. All of this was accomplished by us white-bread Americans without any help or other enrichment from Somalis, Guatemalans, or Koreans. It is unlikely that the diverse America of the future will be able to match our ancestors’ record of achievement.
Discrimination and Segregation
The term “civil rights” as it is currently used in America is an Orwellian abomination that actually designates a restriction of rights. The right to racial discrimination, including segregation in housing and schools, is founded on the principle of free association, a right that is normally respected and protected by the law. The pro-white movement supports the extension of this principle to all associations.
In many contexts, it is perfectly legal for Americans to form racially exclusive associations, and there are tens of thousands of them: the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Nurses, the National Association of Asian-American Professionals are examples.
If racially exclusive professional groups are legal, there is no reason why racially exclusive neighborhoods should not be. If we can have the National Association of Black Journalists, why is it illegal for a group of white neighbors form an association that declares their neighborhood will be all white? Why is it illegal for white parents to decide to establish a racially exclusive school? There is no foundation in the Constitution for such inconsistencies in laws governing associations, nor can moral arguments justify depriving Americans of a fundamental right.
Consider what would happen if a judge told the National Association of Black Journalists that it could no longer exist because it excludes people on the basis of race. Imagine the outcry! The group’s members would regard this as a tyrannical violation of their rights. Pro-whites think the same of all anti-discrimination laws.
Goals of the Pro-White Movement
The pro-white movement will attempt to preserve the white race in America through lawful activism. The following will be our primary goals and activities:
Improving our movement’s image: The pro-white movement should stand in the public mind for all that is best in the Western tradition, not what is worst. We should make ourselves the representatives of the humane and civilized ideals of the West, not its undeniable history of oppression and atrocities. The public should associate pro-whites with Galileo, John Locke, and Thomas Edison, not with Hitler and the Klan.
Lobbying for accurate portrayals of white history and culture: The ugly stereotypes that attach to the pro-white movement are only an extreme version of the ones that tarnish the image of the white race as a whole. We want the world to see whites not as the only “racist” race but as the torchbearers of compassion and accomplishment.
Lobbying for the dissemination of accurate information on race: Journalists, academics, and other molders of public opinion should be honest about racial differences and diversity’s true effects on America. They should also stop slandering whites in order to bolster the leukophobic myth.
Restoring Americans’ right to free association: People have a natural right to form racially exclusive associations, just as Hispanic nurses and black journalists do. To this end, we support the restoration of Americans’ right to racial discrimination in living arrangements and other aspects of life. If whites want to form racially segregated neighborhoods and schools, it is their right to do so.
Ending mass immigration: America should stop importing non-white peoples who erode the Western values on which this nation was founded.
An end to minority preferences: Preferences for minorities in education and hiring discriminate against the race that founded and built America. Affirmative action also places power in the hands of people who are alien to our white culture and way of life. Minority preferences should be ended.
A Shocking Self-Respect
The pro-white viewpoint may seem shockingly radical. However, we ask you to read our words carefully and consider our ideas seriously. Are these the ravings of madmen, or reasonable conclusions from plausible premises? If our viewpoint is shocking, it is not because we are unreasonable, but because our society is. We ask the white race to show some self-respect, but whites are so used to thinking of themselves as the world’s only racist race that they have forgotten what self-respect is.
Ask yourself whether diversity has really been as enriching as you were told it would be. Hasn’t it rather meant the insecurity and loneliness of alien neighborhoods, shocking insults directed against your culture by minority demagogues, the increasingly crippling expense of living in a decent school district, and a gnawing suspicion that the world has gone wrong?
White men and women, remember that you are the heirs of the race that brought man out of the darkness of despotism and ignorance into the light of freedom and knowledge. See the hosts of your ancestors beseeching you not to let their hard-won civilization perish. Tremble before the prospect of your descendants under alien rule and of a world without blond hair. Join our cause and declare to the world that the white race will not go quietly into the night!
http://whiteamerica.us/index.php/articles/articles/principles_of_the_pro_white_movement/
When did it become a crime?; and who judged it a moral deficiency to prefer association with members of one's own race?
Anyway, while I find a few of the statements questionable, whether from ignorance or incredulity - the science behind IQ differences and how much IQ actually matters, some of the statistics mentioned without recourse to references etc. - the meat of the article is sound.
GWC
By Ian Jobling
The state of the white race in the West confronts us with a horror unprecedented in the annals of human history. Demographers predict whites will be a minority in the United States in 40 years and in Western Europe shortly after. Since the West condones interracial breeding, there is a serious prospect that the white race as we know it will disappear in the next two or three centuries.
An even more urgent threat is that whites will lose political control over their ancestral homelands and be put at the mercy of alien races who are unfriendly to our people.
Because culture is rooted in biology, the subjugation or extinction of the white race may well mean the death of Western culture and its fundamental ideals of individualism, pluralism, tolerance, and the rule of law. If the white West is not preserved, it is quite possible that what we today call the Third World will become the whole world, and the light of humanity and progress will be extinguished.
This prospect, while fearsome enough, does not express the full horror of our plight. What gives the situation of whites its uniquely dreadful and grotesque cast is that it is taboo for us to voice any desire for our continued existence. Our current cultural establishment labels “racism” and “hatred” any word of complaint that whites may breathe about their impending subjugation and obliteration. These labels are a slander wicked almost beyond imagining. Indeed, the hatred is on the side of the people who express indifference towards or even eagerness for the destruction of a people.
The pro-white movement is committed to the preservation of the white race and its unique culture. Pro-whites, as the movement’s adherents call themselves, frankly admit that they prefer their own people to others and see no evil in doing so. Pro-whites resemble the Jewish activists who attempted to awake a callous and bigoted world to the prospect of the Holocaust during the Nazi period or Spartans trying to preserve their society from Persian rule.
In furtherance of our goal of racial preservation, the pro-white movement will spread awareness of the threats to the white race and the reasons for preserving it. We will seek to overcome the slanders against our race and our movement that have made it disreputable for whites to defend themselves against extinction. Finally, we will do all in our power to restore to America a government that respects the white race and promotes its interests.
Why Preserve White Societies?
White societies are worth preserving not merely because of the inherent value of ethnic autonomy, but also because of the precious uniqueness of Western culture, which only whites have succeeded in creating.
Scholars have found that Western culture is distinguished by preference for the rule of law, individualism, pluralism, and tolerance. Also, whites have a uniquely powerful urge to discover the objective truth about the world. This urge has led the West far more than other cultures to defend the individual exercise of reason from suppression by state and ecclesiastical authorities. Additionally, the Western taste for the truth has created a culture uniquely capable of self-criticism and innovation in science, technology, philosophy, and the arts.
The unique attributes of Western culture are due in part to whites’ relatively high intelligence and providence, or ability to defer gratification for greater future rewards.
Without the white race, it is quite likely that people would still be living pre-modern despotisms like the ancient Persian or Chinese empires, since more or less all of the technological, scientific, philosophical, and political innovations that led to modernity were accomplished by whites.
Cultural differences among the races are almost certainly in part due to biological differences. Psychologists have found that the black-white IQ gap, the most intensively studied racial difference, is certainly genetic in origin. It is the consensus among behavior geneticists that personality traits are about 50 percent heritable, so it stands to reason that other racial differences have some biological basis as well.
The influx of non-whites into America erodes our culture. Unintelligent and improvident populations like blacks and Hispanics, through high rates of crime and other forms of social irresponsibility, threaten a peaceful, prosperous society. Not only do these populations act as a drag on the white population, but they tend to corrupt our nation by lowering standards. Indeed, the current mortgage crisis and concomitant stock market collapse are in part due to minority activism to lower home lending standards.
Irresponsible populations have other negative effects on America’s economy. They mean higher taxes for welfare and prisons and a strained social infrastructure. The influx of poorly achieving and crime-prone Hispanics into the schools has caused white flight into an ever-shrinking number of decent school districts. Consequently, housing prices in good neighborhoods soar, and whites go deep into debt in order to provide a future for their children.
Furthermore, non-white groups are a threat to the culture of freedom that white societies have established. Non-whites do not seem to possess the broad-minded tolerance of free expression that is fundamental to Western culture.
Finally, the research of Harvard professor Robert Putnam has demonstrated that diversity destroys trust. In an empirical study of communities, Putnam concluded:
people living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down,’ that is, to pull in like a turtle… [They tend to] withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.
As commentator Ilana Mercer put it, “Greater diversity equals more misery.”
The inherent value of racial autonomy, the preciousness of Western civilization, the distrust and misery bred by racial diversity, and its negative economic impact—together these form a compelling justification for preserving white societies.
Leukophobia
Despite the fact that whites invented the critique of ethnocentrism, contemporary common wisdom has it that whites are the only “racist” race and that all other peoples are noble savages who have been cruelly exploited by us. The pro-white movement dubs the bias against the white race “leukophobia,” or fear and loathing of whites. The counterpart of leukophobia is “chromophilia,” or unwarranted idealization of non-whites.
Leukophobia causes our society not only to exaggerate examples of white egotism and destructiveness, but actually to fabricate white racism hoaxes. Leukophobia is an accepted, mainstream racial hatred, so pervasive that it seems like common sense. Leukophobia has so far been successful in discrediting anyone who has tried to preserve and defend the white race.
Leukophobia creates an inverted world in which the blame for racism falls on the race that has done most—indeed, far too much—to end it. Whites invented the concept of human rights in the name of which the oppression of ethnicities can be criticized. Whites were the first to abolish slavery. American whites have even gone to the extreme of making non-whites a privileged class through affirmative action in order to bring out about racial equality.
White America has discussed several examples of leukophobia and chromophilia. For example, American history textbooks, in the words of Diane Ravitch, display “a barely concealed rage against people of European ancestry.” The textbooks lay heavy emphasis on slavery, racial subjugation, and war crimes perpetrated by whites, while ignoring or whitewashing similar, or worse, practices perpetrated by other peoples. The myth that Americans frequently committed atrocities against Asians during the Vietnam War is another example of anti-white bias in our understanding of history.
Leukophobia even causes the news media to fabricate instances of white racial hatred. The Duke rape and Jena 6 cases are recent examples.
Leukophobia takes its most blatant form among non-whites, large minorities or even majorities of whom fantasize that whites are conspiring to undermine them. The beliefs of Jeremiah Wright are not marginal among blacks. One quarter of blacks think that whites invented AIDS as a means of racial genocide, and 50 percent think that the CIA and FBI have flooded black neighborhoods with guns and drugs so that they will harm one another. Mexican-Americans share similar beliefs about whites.
Even as the shapers of opinion exaggerate and even fabricate instances white racial hatred, examples of non-white racial hatred are ignored. Thus, when whites are even suspected of committing crimes of racial hatred, as in the Duke rape and Jena 6 cases, there is massive press coverage. But proven crimes of racial hatred committed by minorities receive little coverage.
Similarly, the shapers of public opinion suppress awareness of non-white misbehavior, or even more despicably, blame it on whites. Such is the purpose of the myth of racial profiling, which illegitimately pins the blame for high non-white incarceration rates on white police officers and judges.
The Causes of Leukophobia
Leukophobia has many different causes. Among them are minority egotism, which makes whites a scapegoat for minorities’ social dysfunction, and the horrific forms that white ethnocentrism has taken in the past, such as the Hitler regime, American slavery, the Klan, and the neo-Nazis.
Carrying on the dismal tradition of American white supremacism, most pro-whites today believe our current racial dispossession is due to Jewish influence on the West, if not actual Jewish conspiracies against whites. However, these tired lies conceal the real dynamics of white dispossession, which has been inflicted by white Gentiles on themselves. While it is true that Jews have been inclined towards highly liberal—that is, leukophobic—beliefs, nevertheless more than 90 percent of white racial liberals are Gentiles. Moreover, that Jewish leukophobia could thrive in America suggests that it was a mere extension of something in our national character. For these reasons, the pro-white movement repudiates anti-Semitism and will resolutely oppose the obsession with Jews that poisons and discredits our cause.
The primary reason for the ascendancy of leukophobia is diversity snobbery. Various currents in 19th and 20th century thought made tolerance and openness to diversity the virtues that we most esteem. This attitude is particularly prevalent among the wealthy and powerful in America. Leukophobia originated with intellectuals in the early 20th century, spread to college students in the 1960s and to the professional class in the 1970s, and dominates all of the American elite today. While tolerance and openness are great virtues, they turn into vices when taken to destructive extremes.
Diversity snobbery is rooted in the aspiration to show oneself more tolerant and open than others. Diversity snobs slander today’s white majority or the “racist” America of the past so that their own superior virtues can shine more brightly by comparison.
A particularly obnoxious example of the slanders to which diversity snobbery gives rise is the elites’ assertion that America’s immigration reform movement is rooted in “ugliness” and “hatred,” to use the New York Times’ terms or “bitterness,” to use Barack Obama’s. The white working and middle class support the immigration reform movement because they are on the front lines of the demographic transition currently taking place in America. It is they who are suffering from the importation of unintelligent, crime-prone populations into the US. It is they who have to send their children to school with aspiring gangsters. All that the immigration reformers are asking for is enforcement of our current immigration laws. It is monstrous to describe the white majority’s concern for its way of life as “hatred.”
Another manifestation of diversity snobbery is the completely unfounded belief that greater racial diversity leads to greater creativity. In fact, the relatively homogeneous and white racialist culture of early 20th century America produced an explosion of creativity that dwarfs the achievements of the post-Civil Rights era. Think of the extraordinary transformation that took place in America between the end of the 19th century—the age of horse-drawn carts, vaudeville, and typhoid epidemics—and 1950, the age of Pan Am, CBS, and penicillin. All of this was accomplished by us white-bread Americans without any help or other enrichment from Somalis, Guatemalans, or Koreans. It is unlikely that the diverse America of the future will be able to match our ancestors’ record of achievement.
Discrimination and Segregation
The term “civil rights” as it is currently used in America is an Orwellian abomination that actually designates a restriction of rights. The right to racial discrimination, including segregation in housing and schools, is founded on the principle of free association, a right that is normally respected and protected by the law. The pro-white movement supports the extension of this principle to all associations.
In many contexts, it is perfectly legal for Americans to form racially exclusive associations, and there are tens of thousands of them: the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Nurses, the National Association of Asian-American Professionals are examples.
If racially exclusive professional groups are legal, there is no reason why racially exclusive neighborhoods should not be. If we can have the National Association of Black Journalists, why is it illegal for a group of white neighbors form an association that declares their neighborhood will be all white? Why is it illegal for white parents to decide to establish a racially exclusive school? There is no foundation in the Constitution for such inconsistencies in laws governing associations, nor can moral arguments justify depriving Americans of a fundamental right.
Consider what would happen if a judge told the National Association of Black Journalists that it could no longer exist because it excludes people on the basis of race. Imagine the outcry! The group’s members would regard this as a tyrannical violation of their rights. Pro-whites think the same of all anti-discrimination laws.
Goals of the Pro-White Movement
The pro-white movement will attempt to preserve the white race in America through lawful activism. The following will be our primary goals and activities:
Improving our movement’s image: The pro-white movement should stand in the public mind for all that is best in the Western tradition, not what is worst. We should make ourselves the representatives of the humane and civilized ideals of the West, not its undeniable history of oppression and atrocities. The public should associate pro-whites with Galileo, John Locke, and Thomas Edison, not with Hitler and the Klan.
Lobbying for accurate portrayals of white history and culture: The ugly stereotypes that attach to the pro-white movement are only an extreme version of the ones that tarnish the image of the white race as a whole. We want the world to see whites not as the only “racist” race but as the torchbearers of compassion and accomplishment.
Lobbying for the dissemination of accurate information on race: Journalists, academics, and other molders of public opinion should be honest about racial differences and diversity’s true effects on America. They should also stop slandering whites in order to bolster the leukophobic myth.
Restoring Americans’ right to free association: People have a natural right to form racially exclusive associations, just as Hispanic nurses and black journalists do. To this end, we support the restoration of Americans’ right to racial discrimination in living arrangements and other aspects of life. If whites want to form racially segregated neighborhoods and schools, it is their right to do so.
Ending mass immigration: America should stop importing non-white peoples who erode the Western values on which this nation was founded.
An end to minority preferences: Preferences for minorities in education and hiring discriminate against the race that founded and built America. Affirmative action also places power in the hands of people who are alien to our white culture and way of life. Minority preferences should be ended.
A Shocking Self-Respect
The pro-white viewpoint may seem shockingly radical. However, we ask you to read our words carefully and consider our ideas seriously. Are these the ravings of madmen, or reasonable conclusions from plausible premises? If our viewpoint is shocking, it is not because we are unreasonable, but because our society is. We ask the white race to show some self-respect, but whites are so used to thinking of themselves as the world’s only racist race that they have forgotten what self-respect is.
Ask yourself whether diversity has really been as enriching as you were told it would be. Hasn’t it rather meant the insecurity and loneliness of alien neighborhoods, shocking insults directed against your culture by minority demagogues, the increasingly crippling expense of living in a decent school district, and a gnawing suspicion that the world has gone wrong?
White men and women, remember that you are the heirs of the race that brought man out of the darkness of despotism and ignorance into the light of freedom and knowledge. See the hosts of your ancestors beseeching you not to let their hard-won civilization perish. Tremble before the prospect of your descendants under alien rule and of a world without blond hair. Join our cause and declare to the world that the white race will not go quietly into the night!
http://whiteamerica.us/index.php/articles/articles/principles_of_the_pro_white_movement/
Friday, February 5, 2010
Texas Hippie Coalition
Lately, I've been enjoying a lot of what I call "Southern Swamp Metal" and Texas Hippie Coalition is currently reigning supreme; for the record, I fucking hate hippies. Totally divorcing the politics of musicians from the music that they create seems to be the only sensible approach to enjoying music in the first place.
Anyway, with that being said, I was a fan of "Dimebag" Darrell; his easy grace with the guitar was beautiful and the crushing riffs that he churned out were brutal, yet defined perfection. Hate his drug abuse, excessive drinking and general lifestyle choices up until his death - but goddamn it, that mother fucker could pick the guitar.
Texas Hippie Coalition bring a little of that Pantera-era Dimebag sludge, or more affectionately, some down home "Southern Swamp Metal". Enjoy.
Anyway, with that being said, I was a fan of "Dimebag" Darrell; his easy grace with the guitar was beautiful and the crushing riffs that he churned out were brutal, yet defined perfection. Hate his drug abuse, excessive drinking and general lifestyle choices up until his death - but goddamn it, that mother fucker could pick the guitar.
Texas Hippie Coalition bring a little of that Pantera-era Dimebag sludge, or more affectionately, some down home "Southern Swamp Metal". Enjoy.
Writing Matters - Or Why You'll Never Be Taken Seriously
I spend a fair amount of my time online - whether it's participating on forums or indulging in some harmless, if unproductive banter in chat rooms - and I've discovered that there is a memetic trend to write like shit; and be proud of it. It's a social demarcation line, more than likely linked to general intelligence; I'm certain that given the proper treatment, a scientific study could be conducted to verify this hypothesis. This wretched behavior is so prevalent and so obnoxious, it's even developed slogans - you've probably seen some of them, "Lol"; "Brb"; "Wtf"; etc.. What the fuck indeed.
There seems to be a general line of reasoning in defense of terrible and barely discernible communication skills. Apparently, the internet is not a place that you should be judged based on your writing skills, or in this case, the outrageous lack of.
I find this defense to be quite despicable and unbelievably naive.
Let's consider for a moment entering the workforce and what respectable employers look for in a prospective employee. It's a safe assumption that upstanding employers - I'm not going to consider fly-by-night assholes in this treatment of the issue - will require a few things of you; being well groomed (clean shaven, well trimmed hair, lack of facial piercings or tattoos and specifically no snot strings streaming down your face); being well dressed (clothes that actually fit your form, clothes that lack offensive imagery and or writing); being well spoken (sorry kids, Ebonics probably won't go over very well for jobs that pay over minimum wage). However, all of that aside, one of the most important factors that any employer will look at, is how well you write - the application is more than just a sheet of paper to list facts, it's also a resource for employers to determine general levels of intelligence; PC culture won't allow them to out-and-out say this, but you can bet your fucking ass that they do - and if you write like a mongoloid monkey, your application is likely going to take a fast trip to the trash bin.
Remember that the internet is an open circuit that anyone with an agenda to discover anything about you, easily can. We're in the age of Google my illiterate friends, and for every "r u realy worring about my grammer" complaint you spew forth, the Google eyeball will see it and retain it forever.
That's just one reason to shape up your writing skills.
Here's another. Forums, chat rooms etc., are places that the written language is a major form of communication, so there is a strong responsibility to at least be semi-literate, lest nobody understand a word you're saying. This is where the respect issue comes into play. I firmly believe that if you're communicating with me via the written language, you should at least have enough respect for me, as I do for you, to at the very least communicate your ideas legibly, whether your ideas make sense or not is a different issue entirely. It really is a respect issue, it's as simple as that. There are three groups that abuse this principle - those that really aren't able to communicate intelligently, those that are simply too lazy and those that don't write in or speak the native language of whomever it is they are communicating with - one group can be excused begrudgingly, the other group is downright contemptible and the last group is excused completely. It's you lazy fucking pricks that I find most deplorable. For example, it's not complicated or time consuming to add the extra "y" and "o" in "u". Determine which group you fall in, and adjust your dealings with me accordingly.
Fail to do that, and you can be certain that I will treat you as disrespectfully as you have treated me.
GWC
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
The IPCC Does It Again
By Chris Irvine
Published: 12:59PM GMT 24 Jan 2010
The United Nations' climate science panel is facing further embarrassment after claims it incorrectly linked global warming to a rise in natural disasters.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claimed in 2007 that the world had "suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather related events since the 1970s", suggesting that part of the increase was down to global warming.
But the scientific paper on which the IPCC based its claim was allegedly not peer reviewed or published by the time the report was issued. When it was eventually published in 2008, it came with the caveat: "We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses".
Despite the concession, the IPCC failed to clarify the statement ahead of last month's Copenhagen summit. The claim formed a central argument at the climate change conference, where African nations demanded £62 billion in compensation from rich nations responsible for the highest amount of carbon emissions.
Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chair of the IPCC has now conceded that the evidence will be reviewed.
"We are reassessing the evidence and will publish a report on natural disasters and extreme weather with the latest findings," he said.
Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, who commissioned Dr Muir-Wood's paper, told The Sunday Times: "All the literature published before and since the IPCC report shows that rising disaster losses can be explained entirely by social change. People have looked hard for evidence that global warming plays a part but can't find it," he said.
"The idea that catastrophes are rising in cost because of climate change is completely misleading."
Last week the IPCC was forced to admit it made a mistake by claiming the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. It made the assertion two years ago, saying it was based on detailed research into global warming, but has now conceded it was an error and the claim would be reviewed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/7066720/UN-climate-science-panel-incorrectly-linked-global-warming-to-rise-in-natural-disasters.html
Published: 12:59PM GMT 24 Jan 2010
The United Nations' climate science panel is facing further embarrassment after claims it incorrectly linked global warming to a rise in natural disasters.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claimed in 2007 that the world had "suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather related events since the 1970s", suggesting that part of the increase was down to global warming.
But the scientific paper on which the IPCC based its claim was allegedly not peer reviewed or published by the time the report was issued. When it was eventually published in 2008, it came with the caveat: "We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses".
Despite the concession, the IPCC failed to clarify the statement ahead of last month's Copenhagen summit. The claim formed a central argument at the climate change conference, where African nations demanded £62 billion in compensation from rich nations responsible for the highest amount of carbon emissions.
Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chair of the IPCC has now conceded that the evidence will be reviewed.
"We are reassessing the evidence and will publish a report on natural disasters and extreme weather with the latest findings," he said.
Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, who commissioned Dr Muir-Wood's paper, told The Sunday Times: "All the literature published before and since the IPCC report shows that rising disaster losses can be explained entirely by social change. People have looked hard for evidence that global warming plays a part but can't find it," he said.
"The idea that catastrophes are rising in cost because of climate change is completely misleading."
Last week the IPCC was forced to admit it made a mistake by claiming the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. It made the assertion two years ago, saying it was based on detailed research into global warming, but has now conceded it was an error and the claim would be reviewed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/7066720/UN-climate-science-panel-incorrectly-linked-global-warming-to-rise-in-natural-disasters.html
Friday, January 22, 2010
James Randi on Anthropogenic Global Warming
Written by James Randi
Tuesday, 15 December 2009 17:14
Though this subject is not one that directly concerns the JREF, I'm very frequently asked if I'll turn my skeptical eye to it. As a year-end fling, I'll give it a try. To wit:
An unfortunate fact is that scientists are just as human as the rest of us, in that they are strongly influenced by the need to be accepted, to kowtow to peer opinion, and to "belong" in the scientific community. Why do I find this "unfortunate"? Because the media and the hoi polloi increasingly depend upon and accept ideas or principles that are proclaimed loudly enough by academics who are often more driven by "politically correct" survival principles than by those given them by Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and Bohr. (Granted, it's reassuring that they're listening to academics at all -- but how to tell the competent from the incompetent?) Religious and other emotional convictions drive scientists, despite what they may think their motivations are.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- a group of thousands of scientists in 194 countries around the world, and recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize -- has issued several comprehensive reports in which they indicate that they have become convinced that "global warming" is and will be seriously destructive to life as we know it, and that Man is the chief cause of it. They say that there is a consensus of scientists who believe we are headed for disaster if we do not stop burning fossil fuels, but a growing number of prominent scientists disagree. Meanwhile, some 32,000 scientists, 9,000 of them PhDs, have signed The Petition Project statement proclaiming that Man is not necessarily the chief cause of warming, that the phenomenon may not exist at all, and that, in any case, warming would not be disastrous.
Happily, science does not depend on consensus. Conclusions are either reached or not, but only after an analysis of evidence as found in nature. It's often been said that once a conclusion is reached, proper scientists set about trying to prove themselves wrong. Failing in that, they arrive at a statement that appears -- based on all available data -- to describe a limited aspect about how the world appears to work. And not all scientists are willing to follow this path. My most excellent friend Martin Gardner once asked a parapsychologist just what sort of evidence would convince him he had erred in coming to a certain conclusion. The parascientist replied that he could not imagine any such situation, thus -- in my opinion -- removing him from the ranks of the scientific discipline rather decidedly.
History supplies us with many examples where scientists were just plain wrong about certain matters, but ultimately discovered the truth through continued research. Science recovers from such situations quite well, though sometimes with minor wounds.
I strongly suspect that The Petition Project may be valid. I base this on my admittedly rudimentary knowledge of the facts about planet Earth. This ball of hot rock and salt water spins on its axis and rotates about the Sun with the expected regularity, though we're aware that lunar tides, solar wind, galactic space dust and geomagnetic storms have cooled the planet by about one centigrade degree in the past 150 years. The myriad of influences that act upon Earth are so many and so variable -- though not capricious -- that I believe we simply cannot formulate an equation into which we enter variables and come up with an answer. A living planet will continually belch, vibrate, fracture, and crumble a bit, and thus defeat an accurate equation. Please note that this my amateur opinion, based on probably insufficient data.
It appears that the Earth is warming, and has continued to warm since the last Ice Age, which ended some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. But that has not been an even warming. Years of warming followed by years of cooling have left us just a bit warmer than before. This conclusion has been arrived at from data collected at some 1,200+ weather stations in the USA, though bear in mind that there are very few weather stations over the vast oceans that cover 70% of our planet, or on the continents Africa, South America, and especially Antarctica.
We can now record temperatures with much better than the former fraction-of-a-degree accuracy we had just a decade ago, but that temperature change appears to be just about half a degree Centigrade.
Our Earth's atmosphere is approximately 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen. Just .04% is carbon dioxide -- a "trace" amount. But from that tiny percentage is built all the plants we have on Earth. CO2 is a natural molecule absolutely required for plant life to survive, and in the process of growing, those plants give off oxygen. We -- and all animal life -- consume that oxygen and give off CO2. (No, this is not an example of Intelligent Design.) If that balance is sufficiently disturbed, species either adapt or perish. And the world turns...
Incidentally, we have a convenient phenomenon that contributes to our survival. Doubling the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere will not double the temperature rise, small though it is. The basic principle of what's known as the "greenhouse effect" is quite simple: in a glass-enclosed environment, sunlight enters through the glass and strikes a surface, where it is transformed into longer infrared rays which do not easily reflect back through the glass; they're trapped. and raise the temperature. However, the greenhouse effect as applied to our planet is more complicated. The infrared rays that are reflected back from the Earth are trapped by the greenhouse gases, water vapor and CO2 -- a process that warms those gases and heats the Earth. This effect makes Earth habitable, preventing extremes of temperature. The limit of the influence of CO2 is dictated, not by the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but by the amount of solar radiation reflected back from the Earth. Once all the infrared rays have been "captured" by the greenhouse gases there is no additional increase in carbon dioxide.
Yes, we produce CO2, by burning "fossil fuels" and by simply breathing. And every fossil fuel produces CO2. Some products produce more than others, varying with their chemical composition. Methane gas produces less CO2, wood produces more. But almost paradoxically, when wood burns it produces CO2, and when a tree dies and rots it produces yet more CO2. Oceans are huge storage tanks for CO2, but as they warm up, they hold less of the dissolved gas. They release it into the atmosphere, then more of it is absorbed back into the oceans. And as far as humans are concerned, ten times more people die each year from the effects of cold than die from the heat. This a hugely complex set of variables we are trying to reduce to an equation...
It's easy enough to believe that drought, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes are signs of a coming catastrophe from global warming, but these are normal variations of any climate that we -- and other forms of life -- have survived. Earth has undergone many serious changes in climate, from the Ice Ages to periods of heavily increased plant growth from their high levels of CO2, yet the biosphere has survived. We're adaptable, stubborn, and persistent -- and we have what other life forms don't have: we can manipulate our environment. Show me an Inuit who can survive in his habitat without warm clothing... Humans will continue to infest Earth because we're smart.
In my amateur opinion, more attention to disease control, better hygienic conditions for food production and clean water supplies, as well as controlling the filth that we breathe from fossil fuel use, are problems that should distract us from fretting about baking in Global Warming. From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1891 A Scandal in Bohemia, I quote:
Watson: "This is indeed a mystery," I remarked. "What do you imagine that it means?"
Holmes: I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts...
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html
Tuesday, 15 December 2009 17:14
Though this subject is not one that directly concerns the JREF, I'm very frequently asked if I'll turn my skeptical eye to it. As a year-end fling, I'll give it a try. To wit:
An unfortunate fact is that scientists are just as human as the rest of us, in that they are strongly influenced by the need to be accepted, to kowtow to peer opinion, and to "belong" in the scientific community. Why do I find this "unfortunate"? Because the media and the hoi polloi increasingly depend upon and accept ideas or principles that are proclaimed loudly enough by academics who are often more driven by "politically correct" survival principles than by those given them by Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and Bohr. (Granted, it's reassuring that they're listening to academics at all -- but how to tell the competent from the incompetent?) Religious and other emotional convictions drive scientists, despite what they may think their motivations are.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- a group of thousands of scientists in 194 countries around the world, and recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize -- has issued several comprehensive reports in which they indicate that they have become convinced that "global warming" is and will be seriously destructive to life as we know it, and that Man is the chief cause of it. They say that there is a consensus of scientists who believe we are headed for disaster if we do not stop burning fossil fuels, but a growing number of prominent scientists disagree. Meanwhile, some 32,000 scientists, 9,000 of them PhDs, have signed The Petition Project statement proclaiming that Man is not necessarily the chief cause of warming, that the phenomenon may not exist at all, and that, in any case, warming would not be disastrous.
Happily, science does not depend on consensus. Conclusions are either reached or not, but only after an analysis of evidence as found in nature. It's often been said that once a conclusion is reached, proper scientists set about trying to prove themselves wrong. Failing in that, they arrive at a statement that appears -- based on all available data -- to describe a limited aspect about how the world appears to work. And not all scientists are willing to follow this path. My most excellent friend Martin Gardner once asked a parapsychologist just what sort of evidence would convince him he had erred in coming to a certain conclusion. The parascientist replied that he could not imagine any such situation, thus -- in my opinion -- removing him from the ranks of the scientific discipline rather decidedly.
History supplies us with many examples where scientists were just plain wrong about certain matters, but ultimately discovered the truth through continued research. Science recovers from such situations quite well, though sometimes with minor wounds.
I strongly suspect that The Petition Project may be valid. I base this on my admittedly rudimentary knowledge of the facts about planet Earth. This ball of hot rock and salt water spins on its axis and rotates about the Sun with the expected regularity, though we're aware that lunar tides, solar wind, galactic space dust and geomagnetic storms have cooled the planet by about one centigrade degree in the past 150 years. The myriad of influences that act upon Earth are so many and so variable -- though not capricious -- that I believe we simply cannot formulate an equation into which we enter variables and come up with an answer. A living planet will continually belch, vibrate, fracture, and crumble a bit, and thus defeat an accurate equation. Please note that this my amateur opinion, based on probably insufficient data.
It appears that the Earth is warming, and has continued to warm since the last Ice Age, which ended some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. But that has not been an even warming. Years of warming followed by years of cooling have left us just a bit warmer than before. This conclusion has been arrived at from data collected at some 1,200+ weather stations in the USA, though bear in mind that there are very few weather stations over the vast oceans that cover 70% of our planet, or on the continents Africa, South America, and especially Antarctica.
We can now record temperatures with much better than the former fraction-of-a-degree accuracy we had just a decade ago, but that temperature change appears to be just about half a degree Centigrade.
Our Earth's atmosphere is approximately 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen. Just .04% is carbon dioxide -- a "trace" amount. But from that tiny percentage is built all the plants we have on Earth. CO2 is a natural molecule absolutely required for plant life to survive, and in the process of growing, those plants give off oxygen. We -- and all animal life -- consume that oxygen and give off CO2. (No, this is not an example of Intelligent Design.) If that balance is sufficiently disturbed, species either adapt or perish. And the world turns...
Incidentally, we have a convenient phenomenon that contributes to our survival. Doubling the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere will not double the temperature rise, small though it is. The basic principle of what's known as the "greenhouse effect" is quite simple: in a glass-enclosed environment, sunlight enters through the glass and strikes a surface, where it is transformed into longer infrared rays which do not easily reflect back through the glass; they're trapped. and raise the temperature. However, the greenhouse effect as applied to our planet is more complicated. The infrared rays that are reflected back from the Earth are trapped by the greenhouse gases, water vapor and CO2 -- a process that warms those gases and heats the Earth. This effect makes Earth habitable, preventing extremes of temperature. The limit of the influence of CO2 is dictated, not by the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but by the amount of solar radiation reflected back from the Earth. Once all the infrared rays have been "captured" by the greenhouse gases there is no additional increase in carbon dioxide.
Yes, we produce CO2, by burning "fossil fuels" and by simply breathing. And every fossil fuel produces CO2. Some products produce more than others, varying with their chemical composition. Methane gas produces less CO2, wood produces more. But almost paradoxically, when wood burns it produces CO2, and when a tree dies and rots it produces yet more CO2. Oceans are huge storage tanks for CO2, but as they warm up, they hold less of the dissolved gas. They release it into the atmosphere, then more of it is absorbed back into the oceans. And as far as humans are concerned, ten times more people die each year from the effects of cold than die from the heat. This a hugely complex set of variables we are trying to reduce to an equation...
It's easy enough to believe that drought, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes are signs of a coming catastrophe from global warming, but these are normal variations of any climate that we -- and other forms of life -- have survived. Earth has undergone many serious changes in climate, from the Ice Ages to periods of heavily increased plant growth from their high levels of CO2, yet the biosphere has survived. We're adaptable, stubborn, and persistent -- and we have what other life forms don't have: we can manipulate our environment. Show me an Inuit who can survive in his habitat without warm clothing... Humans will continue to infest Earth because we're smart.
In my amateur opinion, more attention to disease control, better hygienic conditions for food production and clean water supplies, as well as controlling the filth that we breathe from fossil fuel use, are problems that should distract us from fretting about baking in Global Warming. From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1891 A Scandal in Bohemia, I quote:
Watson: "This is indeed a mystery," I remarked. "What do you imagine that it means?"
Holmes: I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts...
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html
Thursday, January 21, 2010
More From The Front Lines Of Skepticism
This doesn't surprise me when you take into consideration that many of the people who work for the IPCC, and do research for the IPCC, are not even scientists. Instead these are people that don't possess the qualifications necessary to weigh in on what should be a scientific debate - not a political platform. Is this really the organization that we as a species want biasing sweeping political policy? They don't exactly have a sterling reputation for thorough fact checking, astute science or objective presentations - and five minutes with Google will be more than enough to verify my very explicit accusations.
GWC
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
The vice-chairman of the UN's climate science panel has admitted it made a mistake in asserting that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) included the date in its 2007 assessment of climate impacts.
A number of scientists have recently disputed the 2035 figure, and Jean-Pascal van Ypersele told BBC News that it was an error and would be reviewed.
But he said it did not change the broad picture of man-made climate change.
The issue, which BBC News first reported on 05 December, has reverberated around climate websites in recent days.
Some commentators maintain that taken together with the contents of e-mails stolen last year from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, it undermines the credibility of climate science.
Dr van Ypersele said this was not the case...
Read more at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8468358.stm
GWC
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
The vice-chairman of the UN's climate science panel has admitted it made a mistake in asserting that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) included the date in its 2007 assessment of climate impacts.
A number of scientists have recently disputed the 2035 figure, and Jean-Pascal van Ypersele told BBC News that it was an error and would be reviewed.
But he said it did not change the broad picture of man-made climate change.
The issue, which BBC News first reported on 05 December, has reverberated around climate websites in recent days.
Some commentators maintain that taken together with the contents of e-mails stolen last year from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, it undermines the credibility of climate science.
Dr van Ypersele said this was not the case...
Read more at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8468358.stm
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Roy Spencer
If you like to get the temperature of a debate pool before hopping in, then I simply cannot recommend this book enough. In his book, Dr. Spencer takes the readily available information on both sides of the spectrum and dissects the scientific jargon and eliminates hazy math in order to give us, the laymen, a full understanding of the argument. Dr. Spencer is gentle in his tone, professional in his language but also fiercely dedicated to telling the truth and displaying the facts for what they are, facts. This book also serves as a fine weapon to bash idiots over the head with, I must say.
Below I have taken the liberty of posting a couple of reviews.
You can follow Dr. Spencer at his website:
GWC
http://www.drroyspencer.com/climate-confusion/
--------------------------------------------------------------------
“Climate Confusion is the best book length treatment of global warming science that is available to the literate citizen. The title says it all. Spencer explains the broad agreement over the existence of some climate change and the existence of some human role, but he also explains why these have little to do with the implausible and overheated projections of environmental disaster. The author thus cuts through all the rhetorical brickbats of “denialism” and “salvationism” to allow the citizen to reach rational conclusions. Despite a light touch, Spencer does not pull punches when it comes to unclothing the moral pretenses of many in the environmental movement—pretenses often disguising some truly immoral agendas.”
Richard S. Lindzen
Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“An outstanding discussion of the many scientific, political and religious problems associated with the acceptance that humans are the primary cause of global warming. A must read for anyone wanting a full and balanced understanding of the global warming debate.”
William M. Gray
Professor Emeritus, Department of Atmospheric Science
Colorado State University
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Immigrants Will Be The New Constituent Assembly
By DEVIN DWYER and TEDDY DAVIS
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2010
The Obama administration said today that tens of thousands of illegal Haitian immigrants can remain temporarily in the U.S. while their country rebuilds after Tuesday's devastating earthquake.
The announcement to grant "temporary protective status," or TPS, to Haitian nationals allows immigrants already in the U.S. to live and work freely here until conditions in Haiti improve. After 18 months the status could be revoked.
Read more at:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/HaitiEarthquake/haiti-earthquake-illegal-haitians-protected-status-quake/story?id=9570995
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2010
The Obama administration said today that tens of thousands of illegal Haitian immigrants can remain temporarily in the U.S. while their country rebuilds after Tuesday's devastating earthquake.
The announcement to grant "temporary protective status," or TPS, to Haitian nationals allows immigrants already in the U.S. to live and work freely here until conditions in Haiti improve. After 18 months the status could be revoked.
Read more at:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/HaitiEarthquake/haiti-earthquake-illegal-haitians-protected-status-quake/story?id=9570995
Monday, January 18, 2010
Letter To Ban Ki Moon
Below is an open letter sent to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon. It's fascinating to me that so many scientists still question what the media would have us believe is a "settled" case. Could it be that the vote is still out? Well damn Mr. Gore, what kind of bullshit are you trying to sell here?
GWC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
His Excellency Ban Ki Moon
Secretary-General, United Nations
New York, NY
United States of America
8 December 2009
Dear Secretary-General,
Climate change science is in a period of ‘negative discovery’ - the more we learn about this exceptionally complex and rapidly evolving field the more we realize how little we know. Truly, the science is NOT settled.
Therefore, there is no sound reason to impose expensive and restrictive public policy decisions on the peoples of the Earth without first providing convincing evidence that human activities are causing dangerous climate change beyond that resulting from natural causes. Before any precipitate action is taken, we must have solid observational data demonstrating that recent changes in climate differ substantially from changes observed in the past and are well in excess of normal variations caused by solar cycles, ocean currents, changes in the Earth's orbital parameters and other natural phenomena.
We the undersigned, being qualified in climate-related scientific disciplines, challenge the UNFCCC and supporters of the United Nations Climate Change Conference to produce convincing OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE for their claims of dangerous human-caused global warming and other changes in climate. Projections of possible future scenarios from unproven computer models of climate are not acceptable substitutes for real world data obtained through unbiased and rigorous scientific investigation.
Specifically, we challenge supporters of the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused climate change to demonstrate that:
1. Variations in global climate in the last hundred years are significantly outside the natural range experienced in previous centuries;
2. Humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide and other ‘greenhouse gases’ (GHG) are having a dangerous impact on global climate;
3. Computer-based models can meaningfully replicate the impact of all of the natural factors that may significantly influence climate;
4. Sea levels are rising dangerously at a rate that has accelerated with increasing human GHG emissions, thereby threatening small islands and coastal communities;
5. The incidence of malaria is increasing due to recent climate changes;
6. Human society and natural ecosystems cannot adapt to foreseeable climate change as they have done in the past;
7. Worldwide glacier retreat, and sea ice melting in Polar Regions , is unusual and related to increases in human GHG emissions;
8. Polar bears and other Arctic and Antarctic wildlife are unable to adapt to anticipated local climate change effects, independent of the causes of those changes;
9. Hurricanes, other tropical cyclones and associated extreme weather events are increasing in severity and frequency;
10.Data recorded by ground-based stations are a reliable indicator of surface temperature trends.
It is not the responsibility of ‘climate realist’ scientists to prove that dangerous human-caused climate change is not happening. Rather, it is those who propose that it is, and promote the allocation of massive investments to solve the supposed ‘problem’, who have the obligation to convincingly demonstrate that recent climate change is not of mostly natural origin and, if we do nothing, catastrophic change will ensue. To date, this they have utterly failed to do so.
Signed by:
Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, Dr. Sci., mathematician and astrophysicist, Head of the Russian-Ukrainian Astrometria project on the board of the Russian segment of the ISS, Head of Space Research Laboratory at the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
Göran Ahlgren, docent organisk kemi, general secretary of the Stockholm Initiative, Professor of Organic Chemistry, Stockholm, Sweden
Syun-Ichi Akasofu, PhD, Professor of Physics, Emeritus and Founding Director, International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S.A.
J.R. Alexander, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Civil Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Member, UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000, Pretoria, South Africa.
Jock Allison, PhD, ONZM, formerly Ministry of Agriculture Regional Research Director, Dunedin, New Zealand
Bjarne Andresen, PhD, dr. scient, physicist, published and presents on the impossibility of a "global temperature", Professor, The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Timothy F. Ball, PhD, environmental consultant and former climatology professor, University of Winnipeg, Member, Science Advisory Board, ICSC, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Douglas W. Barr, BS (Meteorology, University of Chicago), BS and MS (Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota), Barr Engineering Co. (environmental issues and water resources), Minnesota, U.S.A.
Romuald Bartnik, PhD (Organic Chemistry), Professor Emeritus, Former chairman of the Department of Organic and Applied Chemistry, climate work in cooperation with Department of Hydrology and Geological Museum, University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland
Colin Barton, B.Sc., PhD, Earth Science, Principal research scientist (retd), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Many more signatures can be found at the source posted below.
http://www.copenhagenclimatechallenge.org/
GWC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
His Excellency Ban Ki Moon
Secretary-General, United Nations
New York, NY
United States of America
8 December 2009
Dear Secretary-General,
Climate change science is in a period of ‘negative discovery’ - the more we learn about this exceptionally complex and rapidly evolving field the more we realize how little we know. Truly, the science is NOT settled.
Therefore, there is no sound reason to impose expensive and restrictive public policy decisions on the peoples of the Earth without first providing convincing evidence that human activities are causing dangerous climate change beyond that resulting from natural causes. Before any precipitate action is taken, we must have solid observational data demonstrating that recent changes in climate differ substantially from changes observed in the past and are well in excess of normal variations caused by solar cycles, ocean currents, changes in the Earth's orbital parameters and other natural phenomena.
We the undersigned, being qualified in climate-related scientific disciplines, challenge the UNFCCC and supporters of the United Nations Climate Change Conference to produce convincing OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE for their claims of dangerous human-caused global warming and other changes in climate. Projections of possible future scenarios from unproven computer models of climate are not acceptable substitutes for real world data obtained through unbiased and rigorous scientific investigation.
Specifically, we challenge supporters of the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused climate change to demonstrate that:
1. Variations in global climate in the last hundred years are significantly outside the natural range experienced in previous centuries;
2. Humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide and other ‘greenhouse gases’ (GHG) are having a dangerous impact on global climate;
3. Computer-based models can meaningfully replicate the impact of all of the natural factors that may significantly influence climate;
4. Sea levels are rising dangerously at a rate that has accelerated with increasing human GHG emissions, thereby threatening small islands and coastal communities;
5. The incidence of malaria is increasing due to recent climate changes;
6. Human society and natural ecosystems cannot adapt to foreseeable climate change as they have done in the past;
7. Worldwide glacier retreat, and sea ice melting in Polar Regions , is unusual and related to increases in human GHG emissions;
8. Polar bears and other Arctic and Antarctic wildlife are unable to adapt to anticipated local climate change effects, independent of the causes of those changes;
9. Hurricanes, other tropical cyclones and associated extreme weather events are increasing in severity and frequency;
10.Data recorded by ground-based stations are a reliable indicator of surface temperature trends.
It is not the responsibility of ‘climate realist’ scientists to prove that dangerous human-caused climate change is not happening. Rather, it is those who propose that it is, and promote the allocation of massive investments to solve the supposed ‘problem’, who have the obligation to convincingly demonstrate that recent climate change is not of mostly natural origin and, if we do nothing, catastrophic change will ensue. To date, this they have utterly failed to do so.
Signed by:
Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, Dr. Sci., mathematician and astrophysicist, Head of the Russian-Ukrainian Astrometria project on the board of the Russian segment of the ISS, Head of Space Research Laboratory at the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
Göran Ahlgren, docent organisk kemi, general secretary of the Stockholm Initiative, Professor of Organic Chemistry, Stockholm, Sweden
Syun-Ichi Akasofu, PhD, Professor of Physics, Emeritus and Founding Director, International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S.A.
J.R. Alexander, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Civil Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Member, UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000, Pretoria, South Africa.
Jock Allison, PhD, ONZM, formerly Ministry of Agriculture Regional Research Director, Dunedin, New Zealand
Bjarne Andresen, PhD, dr. scient, physicist, published and presents on the impossibility of a "global temperature", Professor, The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Timothy F. Ball, PhD, environmental consultant and former climatology professor, University of Winnipeg, Member, Science Advisory Board, ICSC, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Douglas W. Barr, BS (Meteorology, University of Chicago), BS and MS (Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota), Barr Engineering Co. (environmental issues and water resources), Minnesota, U.S.A.
Romuald Bartnik, PhD (Organic Chemistry), Professor Emeritus, Former chairman of the Department of Organic and Applied Chemistry, climate work in cooperation with Department of Hydrology and Geological Museum, University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland
Colin Barton, B.Sc., PhD, Earth Science, Principal research scientist (retd), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Many more signatures can be found at the source posted below.
http://www.copenhagenclimatechallenge.org/
Sunday, January 17, 2010
That Pesky Ice!!!
By MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE
Last updated at 8:18 AM on 12th January 2010
Sea water under an East Antarctic ice shelf showed no sign of higher temperatures, first tests showed today.
Despite fears of a thaw linked to global warming that could bring higher world ocean levels, tests conducted on the Fimbul Ice Shelf showed the sea water is still around freezing point.
Thanks to sensors, lowered through three holes drilled in the shelf, scientists have discovered the water is not at higher temperatures widely blamed for the break-up of 10 shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula, the most northerly part of the frozen continent....
Read more at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1242398/Now-tests-ice-ISNT-melting-Sea-water-shelf-East-Antarctic-freezing.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Seems that the data just isn't going to conform to alarmist propaganda.
Bummer.
GWC
Last updated at 8:18 AM on 12th January 2010
Sea water under an East Antarctic ice shelf showed no sign of higher temperatures, first tests showed today.
Despite fears of a thaw linked to global warming that could bring higher world ocean levels, tests conducted on the Fimbul Ice Shelf showed the sea water is still around freezing point.
Thanks to sensors, lowered through three holes drilled in the shelf, scientists have discovered the water is not at higher temperatures widely blamed for the break-up of 10 shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula, the most northerly part of the frozen continent....
Read more at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1242398/Now-tests-ice-ISNT-melting-Sea-water-shelf-East-Antarctic-freezing.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Seems that the data just isn't going to conform to alarmist propaganda.
Bummer.
GWC
John Coleman
My opinion has never warmed up (pun intended) to the assertion that anthropogenic global warming is a doomsday crisis. Rather, I suspect that this is another case in the historical grocery list of politically motivated disinformation and fear mongering. Cynicism seems to be the reasonable position to adopt when you consider the prevailing culture of 'big government, fast money, loose business' we currently live in. Fear sells, and it sells great.
John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, gives a rather compelling treatment of the situation in this short, but concise video. Enjoy.
GWC
John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, gives a rather compelling treatment of the situation in this short, but concise video. Enjoy.
GWC
Only A Matter Of Time
Hardly surprising that an interview starring Pat Robertson - that always grossly insensitive, outrageously dumb, Evangelical fruitcake - would eventually surface on YouTube. Let's not forget that this is the same dip shit that blamed 9/11 on unions and homosexuals, and hurricane Katrina on abortion. So is it any wonder that he knows exactly why God chose to smite ol' Haiti? And that his reasoning is just as stupid as he is?
P.R. lesson for the day; God endorses slavery - those Haitians should have enjoyed their yoke of bondage with much thanks. This dumb mother fucker would have been truer to his cause and to the absurdities written in the bible if he blamed this on circumcision.
GWC
P.R. lesson for the day; God endorses slavery - those Haitians should have enjoyed their yoke of bondage with much thanks. This dumb mother fucker would have been truer to his cause and to the absurdities written in the bible if he blamed this on circumcision.
GWC
The Mighty War Nerd
Given the recent events in Haiti, I think the amazing history of the region as told by the "War Nerd" Gary Brecher is only fitting.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was first published in The eXile on February 19, 2004.
Haiti popped into the news again, and I decided it was time to tell the whole military history of the place. It’s got to be the most amazing, bloodsoaked, heroic, messed-up story in the Western Hemisphere: slave armies defeating Napoleon’s troops, huge castles built in the middle of the jungle, endless three-cornered war between whites, blacks and mulattos…it’s just incredible. In fact, it’s so wild and complex I’m going to have to divide it into two columns. This one will cover Haiti up to independence in 1803. Next issue I’ll bring it from there to the present.
Haiti is like the big slaughterhouse across the tracks: you kind of know what goes on in there, but you’d rather not think about it.
Every now and then there’s a bad stench when the wind’s blowing the wrong way, or the drainage ditch runs red with blood for a week — the kind of thing nice people can’t ignore any more. That’s when the do-gooders send a commission to investigate, or even send in the Marines to clean the place up. They stick around a while, till the blood starts slopping around their ankles, then pack up and head home. And nobody worries about Haiti for another few years....
Read more at:
http://exiledonline.com/homage-to-haiti-a-war-nerd-classic/
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was first published in The eXile on February 19, 2004.
Haiti popped into the news again, and I decided it was time to tell the whole military history of the place. It’s got to be the most amazing, bloodsoaked, heroic, messed-up story in the Western Hemisphere: slave armies defeating Napoleon’s troops, huge castles built in the middle of the jungle, endless three-cornered war between whites, blacks and mulattos…it’s just incredible. In fact, it’s so wild and complex I’m going to have to divide it into two columns. This one will cover Haiti up to independence in 1803. Next issue I’ll bring it from there to the present.
Haiti is like the big slaughterhouse across the tracks: you kind of know what goes on in there, but you’d rather not think about it.
Every now and then there’s a bad stench when the wind’s blowing the wrong way, or the drainage ditch runs red with blood for a week — the kind of thing nice people can’t ignore any more. That’s when the do-gooders send a commission to investigate, or even send in the Marines to clean the place up. They stick around a while, till the blood starts slopping around their ankles, then pack up and head home. And nobody worries about Haiti for another few years....
Read more at:
http://exiledonline.com/homage-to-haiti-a-war-nerd-classic/
Oh Oh Haiti
Nothing like a disastrous earthquake to bring them ol' Haitians together in a wonderful display of social solidarity. Oh yeah, this is Haiti, forget that fluffy idea, they'd rather hack and slash each other to bits with rusty machetes. That's right, those animals are following the script perfectly. Really, the only thing that I find regrettable is the innocent children left to rot in the wake of the Haitian condition.
Maybe the death of tens of thousands of people (when and if the chaos subsides to the standard level of genocidal mayhem) will lessen the burden of feeding a dreadfully poor, mostly uneducated, culturally suicidal populace. I mean really, what else do these people have to hope for? If I believed in God, I'd say that Haiti was his penultimate cosmic "fuck you" to humanity. Well anyway...
...Here you go, the pearl of the Caribbean, in all it's shit-ridden glory.
GWC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Published: 1:00AM GMT 15 Jan 2010
Shaul Schwarz, a photographer for TIME magazine, said he saw at least two downtown roadblocks formed with bodies of earthquake victims and rocks.
"They are starting to block the roads with bodies, it's getting ugly out there, people are fed up with getting no help," he said.
President Barack Obama has promised Haitians they would not be forgotten, offering $100 million in immediate earthquake aid and the backing of every element of US power.
A large-scale US military and civilian aid operation has gained momentum with Washington sending rescue teams, ships, helicopters, planes, a floating hospital, emergency supplies and more than 5,000 ground troops.
However, there was little sign of the aid effort on the ground in the capital, where chaos ruled.
Gunshots were heard throughout the night and looting was commonplace as desperate survivors scrambled to find scarce supplies of food, water and medical equipment.
Gangs were also reported to be roaming the streets, making up rumours of a looming tidal wave so that they could steal from fleeing families.
Complicating the relief effort, the city's airport was closed for several hours due to severe overcrowding and a lack of airport fuel.
The Pentagon has rejected criticism that it may have acted too slowly to deploy its military might in the first 24 hours of the disaster, saying it moved in assessment teams quickly.
But the relief effort faced serious challenges, Mr Obama said, with roads in Haiti impassable, communications rudimentary, and aftershocks still rumbling.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/haiti/6992274/Haiti-earthquake-corpses-used-as-roadblocks-as-anger-grows.html
Maybe the death of tens of thousands of people (when and if the chaos subsides to the standard level of genocidal mayhem) will lessen the burden of feeding a dreadfully poor, mostly uneducated, culturally suicidal populace. I mean really, what else do these people have to hope for? If I believed in God, I'd say that Haiti was his penultimate cosmic "fuck you" to humanity. Well anyway...
...Here you go, the pearl of the Caribbean, in all it's shit-ridden glory.
GWC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Published: 1:00AM GMT 15 Jan 2010
Shaul Schwarz, a photographer for TIME magazine, said he saw at least two downtown roadblocks formed with bodies of earthquake victims and rocks.
"They are starting to block the roads with bodies, it's getting ugly out there, people are fed up with getting no help," he said.
President Barack Obama has promised Haitians they would not be forgotten, offering $100 million in immediate earthquake aid and the backing of every element of US power.
A large-scale US military and civilian aid operation has gained momentum with Washington sending rescue teams, ships, helicopters, planes, a floating hospital, emergency supplies and more than 5,000 ground troops.
However, there was little sign of the aid effort on the ground in the capital, where chaos ruled.
Gunshots were heard throughout the night and looting was commonplace as desperate survivors scrambled to find scarce supplies of food, water and medical equipment.
Gangs were also reported to be roaming the streets, making up rumours of a looming tidal wave so that they could steal from fleeing families.
Complicating the relief effort, the city's airport was closed for several hours due to severe overcrowding and a lack of airport fuel.
The Pentagon has rejected criticism that it may have acted too slowly to deploy its military might in the first 24 hours of the disaster, saying it moved in assessment teams quickly.
But the relief effort faced serious challenges, Mr Obama said, with roads in Haiti impassable, communications rudimentary, and aftershocks still rumbling.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/haiti/6992274/Haiti-earthquake-corpses-used-as-roadblocks-as-anger-grows.html
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Jihad Anyone?
November 12, 2009 by Amil Imani
There is a division of the house. On one side are the politically correct in government, the leftist mainstream media, and a raft of Islamist apologists. One and all are tripping over each other in reassuring us the mass murderers such as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and suicide-bombers who detonate their explosive vests in crowded marketplaces and even mosques are individual anomalies and Islam is not responsible for what they do.
On the other side are those fed up with the innumerable daily horrific acts throughout the world that are clearly committed under the banner of Islam. In all fairness, there needs to be a distinction. Numerous criminal acts are also committed on a daily basis by non-Muslims. The critical difference is that non-Muslim criminals do not hoist a religious banner to justify their misdeeds, while the Muslims proudly claim that they commit their heinous acts in obedience to the dictates of their religious faith.
Would someone please explain what motivated Nidal Hasan, who at taxpayers' expense was educated from college all the way through medical school and post medical-school training, to turn his deadly weapons against the nation that gave him everything he had?
If Islam had nothing to do with what Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan did, then why:
* did he repeatedly preach the ascendancy of Islam over the U.S. Constitution?
* did he publicly support Islamic suicide-bombing?
* did he proclaim his highest loyalty to Islam?
* was he in contact with violent anti-U.S. Islamists and a virulent Yemeni Imam?
* did he distribute copies of the Quran to people the morning of his bloody attack?
* did he keep screaming "Allahu akbar" as he heartlessly sprayed over a hundred bullets, killing thirteen and injuring some thirty innocent men and women?
Here is the truth, as bitter as it may be: Islam is the culprit. Islam is anything but a religion of peace. Violence is at the very core of Islam. Violence is institutionalized in the Muslims' holy book, the Quran, in many suras:
Quran 9:5 "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."
9:112 "The Believers fight in Allah's cause; they slay and are slain, kill and are killed."
8:39 "So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world)."
8:65 "O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will slaughter a thousand unbelievers, for the infidels are a people devoid of understanding."
9:38 "Believers, what is the matter with you, that when you are asked to go forth and fight in Allah's Cause you cling to the earth? Do you prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? Unless you go forth, He will afflict and punish you with a painful doom, and put others in your place."
47:4 "When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in battle (fighting Jihad in Allah's Cause), smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them. At length, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly, making (them) captives. Thereafter either generosity or ransom (them based upon what benefits Islam) until the war lays down its burdens. Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam."
And the Quran is considered by Muslims to be the word-for-word literal edicts of their god, Allah.
Right from the start, violence served as the engine of Islam under the command and supervision of Muhammad himself. For one, the Prophet's son-in-law cousin, Ali, was titled the Commander of the Faithful for his unsurpassed feats of butchery. With the assistance of one or two of his thugs, Ali beheaded some seven hundred captives, most of them Jews, in only one day. This man, highly esteemed by the prophet of Allah, carried a sword that had its own name -- Zolfaghar. Ali's portrait, holding the menacing sword, adorns the homes and shops throughout Shiite lands. And Ali is revered by the Shiites at the same level as Muhammad.
On the Sunni side, Muhammad's co-revered is Umar, another unabashed killer of untold numbers. And of course, the choice weapon of these champions of the religion of peace was the sword. To this day, a sword adorns the flag of Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the religion of peace.
And Islam, by the very nature of its doctrine, appeals to man's base nature. It promotes intolerance, hatred, discrimination, and much more:
Quran 61:2 "O Muslims, why say one thing and do another? Grievously odious and hateful is it in the sight of Allah that you say that which you do not. Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in a battle array, as if they were a solid cemented structure."
In reality, Islam is like a deadly, contagious disease. Once it invades the mind of its victim, it is capable of transforming him to a helpless pawn that has no choice but to execute what he is directed to do.
Of the reported 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, millions are already trapped in the terminal stages of this affliction, while millions of others are rapidly joining them. The people enslaved with the extreme cases of Islamic mental disease are highly infectious. They actively work to transmit the disease to others, while they themselves engage in horrific acts of mayhem and violence to demonstrate their unconditional obedience to the dictates of the Islamic cult.
The savagery and variety of the actions of these Islamic captives are seen daily around the globe. Many of these acts, committed under the banner of Islam, have become so commonplace that the world has come to view them as part and parcel of a troubled humanity. And, from time to time, the world is shocked into a passing and momentary realization of the evil deeds these Islamist robots commit. However, people quickly get over it, and they do nothing to seriously address this affliction.
The recent and dastardly mass murder at Fort Hood, committed by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, will be forgotten by the public before long. Life will continue on its deadly course, pushed along in a variety of ways by Islamists, the agents of death. Only the families who lost their loved ones and those who survived the bullets have to live the rest of their lives with incapacitating injuries. They likely won't be able to put the episode behind them.
The mass-murderer Hasan did not riddle people with bullets under the pressure of momentary insanity. The insanity -- ironic in a man who was trained to help people with sanity -- was introduced in him from the moment of birth and from the very early years when he prostrated himself five times daily toward Mecca in expression of total submission to the dogma of hate called Islam.
A true Muslim does not and cannot believe in freedom of choice. In the religion of Islam -- "submission" -- everything is up to Allah, as clearly and repeatedly stipulated in the Quran. The raison d'être for the Muslim is unconditional submission to the will and dictates of Allah. Everything that a "good" Muslim does is contingent upon the will and decree of Allah, in which the Muslim is indoctrinated to believe.
Humanity is facing a deeply troubling dilemma. On the one hand is the desire of enlightened people to forge a diverse world into one society ruled by peace and justice, while on the other hand, Islamists are hellbent on imposing their stone-age system on everyone. Tellingly, the Muslims themselves are at one another's throats regarding which of dozens of Islamic sects' dogma should rule.
For now, Islam is busy with what it did from the time of its birth: fighting the non-Muslims, and infighting.
Truth be told, violence is the animating force of Islam. Islam is a religion born through violence, raised by violence, which thrives on violence, and which dies without violence.
Article written by Amil Imani
There is a division of the house. On one side are the politically correct in government, the leftist mainstream media, and a raft of Islamist apologists. One and all are tripping over each other in reassuring us the mass murderers such as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and suicide-bombers who detonate their explosive vests in crowded marketplaces and even mosques are individual anomalies and Islam is not responsible for what they do.
On the other side are those fed up with the innumerable daily horrific acts throughout the world that are clearly committed under the banner of Islam. In all fairness, there needs to be a distinction. Numerous criminal acts are also committed on a daily basis by non-Muslims. The critical difference is that non-Muslim criminals do not hoist a religious banner to justify their misdeeds, while the Muslims proudly claim that they commit their heinous acts in obedience to the dictates of their religious faith.
Would someone please explain what motivated Nidal Hasan, who at taxpayers' expense was educated from college all the way through medical school and post medical-school training, to turn his deadly weapons against the nation that gave him everything he had?
If Islam had nothing to do with what Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan did, then why:
* did he repeatedly preach the ascendancy of Islam over the U.S. Constitution?
* did he publicly support Islamic suicide-bombing?
* did he proclaim his highest loyalty to Islam?
* was he in contact with violent anti-U.S. Islamists and a virulent Yemeni Imam?
* did he distribute copies of the Quran to people the morning of his bloody attack?
* did he keep screaming "Allahu akbar" as he heartlessly sprayed over a hundred bullets, killing thirteen and injuring some thirty innocent men and women?
Here is the truth, as bitter as it may be: Islam is the culprit. Islam is anything but a religion of peace. Violence is at the very core of Islam. Violence is institutionalized in the Muslims' holy book, the Quran, in many suras:
Quran 9:5 "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."
9:112 "The Believers fight in Allah's cause; they slay and are slain, kill and are killed."
8:39 "So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world)."
8:65 "O Prophet, urge the faithful to fight. If there are twenty among you with determination they will vanquish two hundred; if there are a hundred then they will slaughter a thousand unbelievers, for the infidels are a people devoid of understanding."
9:38 "Believers, what is the matter with you, that when you are asked to go forth and fight in Allah's Cause you cling to the earth? Do you prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? Unless you go forth, He will afflict and punish you with a painful doom, and put others in your place."
47:4 "When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in battle (fighting Jihad in Allah's Cause), smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them. At length, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly, making (them) captives. Thereafter either generosity or ransom (them based upon what benefits Islam) until the war lays down its burdens. Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam."
And the Quran is considered by Muslims to be the word-for-word literal edicts of their god, Allah.
Right from the start, violence served as the engine of Islam under the command and supervision of Muhammad himself. For one, the Prophet's son-in-law cousin, Ali, was titled the Commander of the Faithful for his unsurpassed feats of butchery. With the assistance of one or two of his thugs, Ali beheaded some seven hundred captives, most of them Jews, in only one day. This man, highly esteemed by the prophet of Allah, carried a sword that had its own name -- Zolfaghar. Ali's portrait, holding the menacing sword, adorns the homes and shops throughout Shiite lands. And Ali is revered by the Shiites at the same level as Muhammad.
On the Sunni side, Muhammad's co-revered is Umar, another unabashed killer of untold numbers. And of course, the choice weapon of these champions of the religion of peace was the sword. To this day, a sword adorns the flag of Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the religion of peace.
And Islam, by the very nature of its doctrine, appeals to man's base nature. It promotes intolerance, hatred, discrimination, and much more:
Quran 61:2 "O Muslims, why say one thing and do another? Grievously odious and hateful is it in the sight of Allah that you say that which you do not. Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in a battle array, as if they were a solid cemented structure."
In reality, Islam is like a deadly, contagious disease. Once it invades the mind of its victim, it is capable of transforming him to a helpless pawn that has no choice but to execute what he is directed to do.
Of the reported 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, millions are already trapped in the terminal stages of this affliction, while millions of others are rapidly joining them. The people enslaved with the extreme cases of Islamic mental disease are highly infectious. They actively work to transmit the disease to others, while they themselves engage in horrific acts of mayhem and violence to demonstrate their unconditional obedience to the dictates of the Islamic cult.
The savagery and variety of the actions of these Islamic captives are seen daily around the globe. Many of these acts, committed under the banner of Islam, have become so commonplace that the world has come to view them as part and parcel of a troubled humanity. And, from time to time, the world is shocked into a passing and momentary realization of the evil deeds these Islamist robots commit. However, people quickly get over it, and they do nothing to seriously address this affliction.
The recent and dastardly mass murder at Fort Hood, committed by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, will be forgotten by the public before long. Life will continue on its deadly course, pushed along in a variety of ways by Islamists, the agents of death. Only the families who lost their loved ones and those who survived the bullets have to live the rest of their lives with incapacitating injuries. They likely won't be able to put the episode behind them.
The mass-murderer Hasan did not riddle people with bullets under the pressure of momentary insanity. The insanity -- ironic in a man who was trained to help people with sanity -- was introduced in him from the moment of birth and from the very early years when he prostrated himself five times daily toward Mecca in expression of total submission to the dogma of hate called Islam.
A true Muslim does not and cannot believe in freedom of choice. In the religion of Islam -- "submission" -- everything is up to Allah, as clearly and repeatedly stipulated in the Quran. The raison d'être for the Muslim is unconditional submission to the will and dictates of Allah. Everything that a "good" Muslim does is contingent upon the will and decree of Allah, in which the Muslim is indoctrinated to believe.
Humanity is facing a deeply troubling dilemma. On the one hand is the desire of enlightened people to forge a diverse world into one society ruled by peace and justice, while on the other hand, Islamists are hellbent on imposing their stone-age system on everyone. Tellingly, the Muslims themselves are at one another's throats regarding which of dozens of Islamic sects' dogma should rule.
For now, Islam is busy with what it did from the time of its birth: fighting the non-Muslims, and infighting.
Truth be told, violence is the animating force of Islam. Islam is a religion born through violence, raised by violence, which thrives on violence, and which dies without violence.
Article written by Amil Imani
Ricky Gervais - Discussing The Bible
A little clip from that paragon of British comedy Ricky Gervais.
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