19 May 2007
Aussies go crazy for cat poo coffee (Good to the last dropping?)
May 17, 2007
Kopi Luwak, made in neighboring Indonesia
...Australia 's first civet cat brew has only just gone on sale in Queensland
"Everyone calls it cat poo coffee," cafe owner Michelle Sharpe told the Australian Associated Press.
"People who willingly pay the US $50 are uplifted by the thrill of the experience," her husband Allan Sharpe said.
Civet cats, considered a delicacy in China
..."It's as good as my private life is bad. This is the kind of coffee you renounce your religion and sell your child for," one taster quoted by AAP said. (Linked to deadly SARS virus and worth renouncing your religion, yeah, right)
Bald eagles in Wyoming
May 15, 2007
The number of bald eagles in Wyoming
The bald eagle population is soaring nationally, as well, with the number of breeding pairs in the lower 48 states climbing from a low in 1963 of 417 to more than 9,700 today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday.
The population recovery offers evidence to some scientists that federal protection of the birds under the Endangered Species Act should be lifted.
"They're not facing extinction, and they are not threatened with moving into the endangered classification," said Bob Oakleaf, who oversees nongame species for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. "So we might as well reserve that act and the money and heartache and conflict that goes with it to the species that need it."
...numerous other laws will remain in place to protect bald eagles when federal protection is lifted.
Cancer: The good news Survival rates soar as cancer treatments improve
16 May 2007
...In the past 30 years, overall survival rates from cancer have doubled, thanks to better treatments, earlier diagnosis and greater public awareness of the warning symptoms...
...However, Britain still trails Europe in terms of cancer survival, despite the recent improvement. The last European survey of cancer, Eurocare-3, published in 2003 showed British patients died sooner than in most other European countries... (Thanks to socialized medicine.)
...Professor Michel Coleman, a cancer epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine [said] "Survival rates for many cancers have been lower in the UK
...A key reason for Britain's past poor performance has been delays in diagnosing patients - hence their cancers were more advanced when treatment started - compared with other countries...
...Professor Richards admitted that uptake of new cancer drugs was slower in Britain than in other countries, as highlighted in a report by the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, last week...
Michael Moore blasted for making film extolling Cuba
May 15, 2007
A Cuban-born author and activist dedicated to a free Cuba says it's absolutely outrageous that left-wing American filmmaker Michael Moore is making a documentary extolling the virtues of Cuba
...author Humberto Fontova, who escaped the island nation in 1961, says he has more of a problem with Moore
"I still have relatives in Cuba
Fontova, who recently published a book called Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him, says Moore Moore
UK
News.com ^ | 5/17/2007
THE way was cleared today for scientists to conduct experiments using hybrid animal-human embryos after the UK Government bowed to a storm of protest from researchers who said a proposed ban could hurt British science.
The Department of Health said it would accept a recommendation from the Commons Science and Technology Committee that inter-species embryos could be created for research...
...The change comes after sustained pressure from scientists and politicians who argued the hybrid embryos would help overcome a shortage of human eggs for research...
...The hybrid embryos, which would be destroyed within 14 days, would be more than 99 per cent human but would contain a small amount of animal DNA...
UNITED STATES Climate Summary April 2007
The average temperature in April 2007 was 51.7 F. This was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 47th coolest April in 113 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.
Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics
...Following the U.S. Senate's vote today on a global warming measure (see today's AP article: Senate Defeats Climate Change Measure,) it is an opportune time to examine the recent and quite remarkable momentum shift taking place in climate science. Many former believers in catastrophic man-made global warming have recently reversed themselves and are now climate skeptics. The names included below are just a sampling of the prominent scientists who have spoken out recently to oppose former Vice President Al Gore, the United Nations, and the media driven “consensus” on man-made global warming.
The list below is just the tip of the iceberg. A more detailed and comprehensive sampling of scientists who have only recently spoken out against climate hysteria will be forthcoming in a soon to be released U.S. Senate report. Please stay tuned to this website, as this new government report is set to redefine the current climate debate...
more at
Gore's hypocrisy exposed
2007-05-17
What's this? Global warming guru Al Gore caught on tape refusing to endorse the Kyoto
In his recent special, Exposed: The Climate of Fear, CNN's Glenn Beck showed some priceless footage of then vice-president Gore explaining in 1997 why he didn't support U.S. participation in the Kyoto
"We will not submit this (Kyoto
Problem is, Kyoto required nothing of developing countries such as China and India
...it's utterly hypocritical for Gore to now condemn Bush and Prime Minister Stephen Harper for refusing to implement Kyoto
If it was so important, why didn't Gore and his then-boss Bill Clinton, who signed Kyoto
After all, they had more than two years left in Clinton
The reason is the U.S. Senate had already made it clear a year earlier, in a bipartisan vote of 95-0, that it wouldn't ratify Kyoto
...As for Canada
Not the Americans, since while we ratified Kyoto
And not the Chinese, since we're 35% over our Kyoto
New Penance Doesn't Offset Much
May 17, 2007 Victor Davis Hanson
What do leftist, mostly secular elites share with medieval sinners?
They feel bad that the way they live sometimes doesn't quite match their professed dogma.
Many in the medieval church were criticized by internal reformers and the public at large for their controversial granting of penance, especially to the wealthy and influential. Clergy increasingly offered absolution of sins by ordering the guilty to confess. Better yet, sometimes the well-heeled sinners were told to pay money to the church, or to do good works that could then be banked to offset their bad.
Of course, critics of the practice argued that serial confessions simply encouraged serial sinning. The calculating sinner would do good things in one place to offset his premeditated bad in another. The corruption surrounding these cynical penances and indulgences helped anger Martin Luther and cause the Reformation.
Maybe it was inevitable that the old practice of paid absolution would appeal to elite baby boomers -- a class and generation that always seems to want it both ways by compartmentalizing their lives. The only difference is that the new sinners are not so worried about God's wrath as they are about their reputation among their judgmental liberal gods.
Take the idea of "carbon offsets" made popular by Al Gorebal-warming. If well-meaning environmentalist activists and celebrities either cannot or will not give up their private jets or huge energy-hungry houses, they can still find a way to excuse their illiberal consumption.
Instead of the local parish priest, green companies exist to take confession and tabulate environmental sins. Then they offer the offenders a way out of feeling bad while continuing their conspicuous consumption...
Gas Pump Posturing
By George Will May 17, 2007
...Speaker Nancy Pelosi was characteristically overwrought when she said that Democrats intend to do this and that because the price of gasoline recently "set a record" at $3.07 a gallon. In real (inflation-adjusted) rather than nominal dollars, $3.07 is less than gasoline cost in 1981...
...As Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute notes, there is no yearning for national self-sufficiency concerning other essential goods, such as food, automobiles, airplanes or medicines. Are Democrats worried about security of oil supplies? In some ways, Hayward says, America U.S. America consumes -- only one-eighth of which comes from the Middle East -- is used almost entirely in transportation, and accounts for about 40 percent of energy uses. Half of America 's electricity is generated by coal, of which America
Neal Boortz: JUST STOP WHINING ABOUT GASOLINE PRICES
...We did the math here last week, but let's pull out the calculator again for those of you who don't come here every day.
First, the figures: According to the AAA, one year ago the price of regular was $2.929. Today that price is $3.114. That's an 18.5 cents per gallon increase over the past year.
Now we go for the average gas mileage for cars in the U.S. U.S.
Now ... You're driving your family of four 1400 miles to get to Disney World and back. That means you'll be burning 70 gallons of gas at 20 mpg. The gas is now 18.5 cents more expensive than it was last year. Let's go ahead and round that UP to 20 cents. So, we burn 70 gallons and each gallon costs 20 cents more than it cost last year. That's going to cost you an amazing $14.00.
..What an incredible tragedy! What a devastating blow to your finances! You're going to have to spend $14.00 more to drive your family to Florida
...Oh .. and you people driving to and from work need to be outraged too! Are you doing your share of the whining?
The average commute to and from work in this country is 16 miles. Now of course we know that cars don't get the mileage on a stop-and-go commute as they do on the road, so we're going to lower the gas mileage figure from 20 to 15. So, you're driving 32 miles (on the average) to get to work and back every day. That is gobbling up about 2.13 gallons of gas. Go back to that 18.5 cents per gallon increase over last year and you'll see that you're spending about 40 cents more for gas for your commute this year than you were last year. That would be about $2.00 a week.
Less than the price of a decaf skinny latte at Starbucks. A lot less.
European Al-Qaeda group threatens attacks in France
An Al-Qaeda front group in Europe threatened on Tuesday to launch bloody attacks in France
"As you have chosen the crusader and Zionist Sarkozy as a leader ... we in the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades warn you that the coming days will see a bloody jihadist campaign ... in the capital of Sarkozy," (that would be Paris) the group's "Europe division" said in an Internet statement addressed to the French people...
...The group previously claimed responsibility for the July 2005 terror attacks in London , as well those in Madrid in March 2004 and in Istanbul
Big Oil says not to blame for high gasoline prices
(Why would news services who are suppose to be unbiased use the term "Big Oil" when reporting on the energy industry?)
May 16, 2007 (Reuters & ABC News) Oil companies are not overcharging motorists for gasoline, an industry group told Congress on Wednesday, but U.S.
The American Petroleum Institute told lawmakers its members were not to blame for high pump costs.
"We recognize that consumers are frustrated with today's higher prices," API chief economist John Felmy told lawmakers on a House panel investigating the price run-ups.
"The contention that higher prices are driven by market failure or market manipulation, including the holding back of supplies, is not credible," Felmy said.
...Felmy acknowledged that many of the nation's aging refineries are temporarily down for planned routine maintenance or had unexpected operating problems that have prevented them from making gasoline.
In a telephone call with reporters before the hearing, Felmy said oil companies were not able to coordinate their refinery maintenance and outages to make sure enough facilities were always operating because that would violate federal antitrust laws...
...Felmy higher crude oil prices, not refinery problems, is the main factor behind expensive gasoline. "More than half the cost of gasoline is attributable to the cost of crude oil."
Felmy also said U.S.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1620905020070516?feedType=RSS&rpc=22 & http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3180759
It’s a Small World After All
By Fred Thompson May 16, 2007
...the Internet has changed things in good ways and bad. In the old days, Yasser Arafat could condemn terrorism in English and promise more attacks in Arabic -- and almost no one would hear about it. In this new age, one subtitled video posted to the Web can get the world's attention and trigger international repercussions.
That's a good thing but, of course, the same technology can also be used for evil. According to press reports, the six New Jersey United States
Think how much more effective this type of propaganda must be when it is aimed at children. Now think about an entire generation of Palestinians, Pakistanis, Iranians and others -- saturated with this message their whole lives. That's the real message we should take from that Mickey Mouse video... more at http://www.townhall.com/columnists/FredThompson/2007/05/16/it%e2%80%99s_a_small_world_after_all
Democrats Force Surrender Now, Terror Later
By Ed Koch May 15, 2007
Ed Koch is the former Mayor of New York City
PELOSI LOWERS THE BOOM
Drudge ^ | May 16, 2007
After losing a string of embarrassing votes on the House floor because of procedural maneuvering, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has decided to change the current House Rules to completely shut down the floor to the minority.
The Democratic Leadership is threatening to change the current House Rules regarding the Republican right to the Motion to Recommit or the test of germaneness on the motion to recommit. This would be the first change to the germaneness rule since 1822.
The Democrats had complained that they were completely shut out of House business when the Republicans were in charge...Hillary even charged that the Republicans ran the House like a plantation...
Media monitor: NY Times soft-pedals Islamic connection in Fort Dix
May 17, 2007
The director of a media watchdog organization thinks the New York Times has gone out of its way to downplay the role Islam played in the plot by six foreign-born Muslim men to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix , New Jersey
Clay Waters, director of Times Watch http://www.timeswatch.org/ , a division of the Media Research Center, is accusing the Times of "soft-pedaling" the Muslim beliefs of the men recently arrested on charges of plans to attack the New Jersey Army base. Waters cites an article by Times reporter Alan Feuer which stated: "It is unclear what role, if any, religion played in the attack Mr. Shnewer and the five other men are charged with planning." Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 22, is the alleged ringleader of the group.
Waters says Feuer chose to ignore a videotape made by the suspects discussing killing soldiers in the name of Allah. Not only is Feuer a "liberal reporter," says Waters, but "he seems pretty lazy too -- because this thing about the Fort Dix
The major news outlets -- except the Times, according to Waters -- were all aware of the video and its contents, he says. "Everyone has heard about the tape that the Circuit City
The Times Watch leader contends the Times goes out of its way not to say anything bad about Islam. "They would never want to spread anything that would result in anti-Muslim backlash, so they soft-pedal the religion," he states.
On the other hand, says Waters, the Times published a related article that was very sympathetic to the father of one of the suspects, whose pizza business was suffering because of the publicity over the terror plot.
Senator gives highly optimistic assessment of Iraq War
May 16, 2007
A veteran member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee who just returned from Iraq believes the war is being waged even more effectively than the top U.S. commander in Iraq
A recent trip to Iraq Iraq
"The Iraqis have now taken over; they have the numbers and the capacity and they've taken over the battle space in Fallujah," Inhofe points out. "In other words, they're providing their own security," he says. "It's a success story in Fallujah, one of the most difficult areas to deal with."
…House Republicans who have soured on the war are "not exercising the leadership they should" but are instead "reading the polls," Inhofe says. However, he insists the troop surge in Iraq
PELOSI LOWERS THE BOOM
Drudge ^ | May 16, 2007
After losing a string of embarrassing votes on the House floor because of procedural maneuvering, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has decided to change the current House Rules to completely shut down the floor to the minority.
The Democratic Leadership is threatening to change the current House Rules regarding the Republican right to the Motion to Recommit or the test of germaneness on the motion to recommit. This would be the first change to the germaneness rule since 1822.
The Democrats had complained that they were completely shut out of House business when the Republicans were in charge...Hillary even charged that the Republicans ran the House like a plantation...
Marxists and Radical Muslims of the World Unite!--The Unholy
May 17, 2007
Forget the proletariat! Now it is Marxists and radical Muslims of the world unite!
If any doubt still existed regarding bonds being formed between the hardcore left and elements within Islam, one needed to look no further than the leftist “Festival of Resistence” conference held at the University of Toronto
As indicated by the causes they represented, the contemporary Marxists gathered there seem to have given up on the Western proletariat ever becoming revolutionary and placed their hopes elsewhere in their unending, hate-filled struggle to destroy capitalism. In the audience were members from such stimulating groups as the environment, First Nations, the anti-war movement and the transgendered (Was Marx a cross dresser?). But while diverse in nature, the one commonality they all possessed, one can be assured, was hatred of capitalism, Israel , the United States
But, as reported in the Canadian newspaper, The National Post, the conference’s opening night was not given over to any of these ragtag, would-be revolutionaries to rail against the ills of capitalism or George Bush, as one would expect, but rather was dedicated to forging unity between Marxists and Muslims. To this end, the keynote speaker the first evening was a controversial local Muslim, Zafar Bangash, a Muslim imam and the director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought
Bangash is currently at the center of a controversy to bring a mosque to Newmarket , a town north of Toronto
In an interview earlier this year with a Toronto
“How could that be radical?” he said. “Is it permissible to starve millions of people?”
However, in the same story, Bangash is cited for having written after 9/11, as the editor of a Muslim newspaper, that Osama bin Laden was someone who “stands up to the West in the name of Islam” and that there was a “far greater tragedy taking place in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan.” In the same interview, Bangash also called stories, in which he was supposed to have said America knew about 9/11 beforehand and that Canada is a “fully paid-up member of the Anglo-Saxon Mafia, which is responsible for most of the genocides in the world”, fabrications.
At the Marxism conference, Bangash, according to The National Post reporter, “railed” against a Jewish group that complained the teams in his soccer league had lovely names like Jihad and Hezbollah. But despite the violent, warlike messages these names send, the controversial imam said his presence at the event was to due to humane reasons like “…justice, inequality and poverty”, common themes that concerned all the participants.
It was an irony of the evening, however, that Bangash interrupted his delivery to his audience of atheists in order to go and pray. And while Marxism has always been virulently anti-religious, the heirs of Marx and Lenin present said not a word. On the contrary! According to the newspaper report, they shouted down a Trotskyist who said he opposed all religions, indicating how much times have changed for the radical left...
Earth's Revenge: Gaia Is One Unhappy Lady
Breakpoint with Chuck Colson
5/17/2007
If you watch nature shows, you may notice how often writers use terms like “nature’s wrath” and “nature’s fury”—even though we no longer believe that earthquakes, storms or lightning are caused by angry gods.
Or maybe we still do.
The headline of a recent New York Times article read, “On Screens Soon, Abused Earth Gets Its Revenge.” The story was about upcoming films that depict the planet’s efforts to “even the score” against the human race.
In these films, the “victim” isn’t a person or group of people—it’s “the environment.” And the “enemy” is, you guessed it, us!
...This should sound familiar. Hardly a year goes by without some environmentalist saying publicly what others say privately: The world would benefit from a drastic reduction in human population. If we won’t control our population, nature will do the job for us.
What also should sound familiar is the way that Earth is spoken of as if it were alive. It’s in keeping with the “paganism-lite” that permeates much of our culture, especially our pop culture.
David Bennett <><
posted by David Bennett | 10:09 AM
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