Cool Fridays: The 90th Anniversary Of The Birth Of Most Influential Artist In Comics History

The "King". No not that one.
Jack Kirby born Jacob Kurtzberg, August 28 1917-February 6 1994

The Professional Peace Movement......Another Leg Of The Neo-Marxist Stool

An interesting piece from the City Journal via Arts & Letters Daily about Peace Studies and the movements founder Norwegian professor Johan Galtung. A priceless study of a fellow traveler and his love affair with the totalitarian.

You Need To Give Up Your SUVs.....

........,but John Edwards has earned the right to his 28,800 sq ft "home."

"I think Americans are actually willing to sacrifice," Edwards said Tuesday during a forum held by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. "One of the things they should be asked to do is drive more fuel efficient vehicles."

The former North Carolina senator was asked specifically if he would tell them to give up their SUVs, he said, "Yes."

*******

Edwards was asked during his appearance how he explained the contradiction of asking Americans to sacrifice while he's living in a 28,000-square-foot (2,600-square-meter) mansion.

He said he came from nothing, worked hard all his life, has always supported workers and fought big corporations as a lawyer.
(cue violins)
"I have no apologies whatsoever for what I've done with my life," he said to loud cheers. "My entire life has been about the same cause, which is making sure wherever you come from, whatever your family is, whatever the color of your skin, you get a real chance to do something great in this country."

Persecution Of Christians.....In Colorado

Denver, CO - Today, Liberty Counsel filed suit against Lewis Palmer School District on behalf of Erica Corder, a high school valedictorian who was forced to publicly apologize for sharing her Christian faith at graduation. Erica was one of fifteen valedictorians from the Lewis-Palmer High School class of 2006. For the past year, she has been the subject of criticism because the school continues to portray her as a student who engaged in improper conduct because she mentioned Jesus Christ during her speech.

Before graduation in May 2006, Principal Mark Brewer informed the valedictorians that they could choose one student to speak, or that all of them could deliver a 30-second graduation message. The students chose to have all fifteen valedictorians participate and chose a general topic for each speaker. Erica and one other student were chosen to give concluding messages. Each valedictorian orally presented a proposed speech to the principal before graduation.

During her 30-second message Erica spoke about her faith in Jesus Christ. Afterwards, she was escorted to see the assistant principal, who said she would not receive her diploma because of the speech she had given. Principal Brewer later indicated that her comments were "immature." He said that she could only receive her diploma if she apologized to the school community. Erica prepared a statement saying the message was her own and was not endorsed by the principal. Brewer insisted that she include the words: "I realize that, had I asked ahead of time, I would not have been allowed to say what I did." Erica complied because she feared the school would withhold her diploma. She was also afraid that the school would put disciplinary notes in her file and would generate negative publicity, which could prevent her from becoming a school teacher. Principal Brewer sent out Erica's message in an e-mail to the entire high school community. Soon after, Erica received her diploma.

"I think that's the right thing to do as of right now," **

Will Surry county Commonwealth's Attorney Gerald G. Poindexter prosecute Michael Vick for the dog-fighting and dog killing which is a felony in Virginia?
According to him...

"My intention is to vindicate the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the people of Surry County based on what we believe happened in Surry County," said Gerald G. Poindexter, the commonwealth's attorney in the rural jurisdiction near Vick's home town of Newport News. He said the case "likely will be presented" to a local grand jury on Sept. 25, the next time it meets.

Yet from what I've seen of the county residents' responses to this crime on the local news , and from what I know of the demography of the area, is there any point in even bringing this to trial?

Also, are we to believe in a small, overwhelmingly rural county (pop. 7,119) that it wasn't common knowledge what it's most prominent recent resident was doing?

Can a prosecutor ask for a trial to be moved in a dog-fighting case?


**

Chris Mathews Recognizes The Evil Of The Gay "Lifestyle"

Idaho Senator Larry Craig, cultural warrior of the right, stands naked tonight, exposed as both a sexual deviant and a world-class hypocrite.

British Invasion

Gordon Ramsey tries to cook his own goose...

“Hell’s Kitchen” star Gordon Ramsay broke his silence on a lawsuit accusing the perfectionist chef of faking scenes in a New York eatery for his upcoming Fox reality show.

“I would never-ever-ever dream of setting anything up,” Mr. Ramsay said by phone from London on Friday. “I want to sleep at night. We were issued a writ because, God bless America, if the toilet paper is not thick enough and you come out with a rash on your ass [you’ll get sued].”
///////
“Trying to say I set up a wobbly chair,” Mr. Ramsay said, his voice full of disgust at the lawsuit. “This is supposed to be the most powerful nation in the world, not the most pathetic.”

I'm growing increasingly tired of American networks and producers hiring British "celebrities" to come over here and insult Americans.

Restless Leg Sufferers Beware

Hidden amongst the Larry Craig Restroom scandal is this little piece of information...

Roll Call, citing the report, said Sgt. Dave Karsnia made the arrest after an encounter in which he was seated in a stall next to a stall occupied by Craig. Karsnia described Craig tapping his foot, which Karsnia said he "recognized as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct."

The Immigration Sex Scandal

Anne Coulter in her latest column enumerates some of the extracurricular activities of that "wretched refuse of your teeming shore", and so I took the time to Google the names of the suspects for some more information.

Jose Carranza:

NEWARK, N.J. — A Peruvian national in the U.S. illegally and who was previously charged with raping a 5-year-old girl pleaded not guilty Friday in the execution-style slayings of three young college students, a day after he surrendered to the Newark mayor

Ruben Hernandez-Juarez:

INDIANTOWN — A 52-year-old illegal immigrant has been arrested and charged with sexual battery on a child after allegedly molesting a 6-year-old boy, according to Martin County Sheriff’s Office reports.

Ruben Hernandez-Juarez, who lived in the 15800 block of Southwest Osceola Street in Indiantown, was arrested Tuesday for the alleged incident, which occurred on Sunday, according to reports.

The arresting detective requested Hernandez-Juarez be held without bail because he is an illegal resident.

Alejandro Bautista:

COOK COUNTY - An undocumented immigrant who pleaded guilty Monday to molesting the two teenage sons of a church couple who befriended him drew a sharp rebuke from the judge who sentenced him to 6 years in prison.

Lucio Sanchez-Martinez:

HURON -- A man suspected of being an illegal alien was charged with gross sexual imposition after he was accused of entering an apartment and lying down next to and touching the thigh of a sleeping 8-year-old girl, according to Huron police.

Lucio Sanchez-Martinez, 32, also was charged with entering the apartment where the girl lived with her father and two other children, said Huron police Chief Randy Glovinsk

She even forgot one...

Alvaro Vargas:

A man who authorities say is an illegal immigrant has been charged with rape and sexual abuse.

Officials with the Franklin County Sheriff's Office said 38-year-old Alvaro Vargas, 203 Califas Road, Russellville, was arrested Monday and charged with first-degree rape, first-degree sexual abuse and second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument.

If you check these stories the thing that stands out the most(at least to me) is that they are all from the past 10 days.

Now imagine if that there had been that many sexual assault stories about Catholic priests in the same time period.
Can you imagine the hue and cry from the Mainstream Media ?

A Foxx Is Not Man's Best Friend Best Friend

Words of wisdom from actor and part-time cultural anthropologist Jamie Foxx...

“It’s a cultural thing … I used to see dogs fighting in the neighbourhood all the time … Mike probably just didn’t read his handbook on what not to do as a black star.

Is there anything that a prominent Black man can do that will lead to him being criticized by another prominent Black man?


Oh, I know, join the Republican Party.

Not Like A Stonewall

The Senior Senator from Virginia, John Warner (RINO) calls for a "cut and run" just as major figures in the Democratic party start coming around to holding on and fighting it out.
This might include Hillary Clinton..... no one can tell.


Of course the Telegraph has invented a new Senator, David Warner.

Isn't There Any Sweeping Up To Be Done In Mexico?

Here's a head scratcher...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican Senate committee passed a measure Wednesday urging President Felipe Calderon to send a diplomatic note to the United States protesting the deportation of an illegal migrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year.
/////
Elvira Arellano, 32, became an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents by defying her deportation order and speaking out from her sanctuary in the Adalberto United Methodist Church. She announced last week that she was leaving to try to lobby U.S. lawmakers for immigration reform.

On Sunday, shortly after she spoke at a rally in a Los Angeles church, she was arrested and deported to Tijuana, across the border from San Diego.

So the Mexican Senate is honoring a woman whose chief claim to fame is her apparent desperate desire to leave Mexico by any means necessary.

A Man Called Rage

More on the local color that Somalis are bringing to the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area.
Michelle Malkin references " Kitty Genovese Syndrome" but it seem more like "Taliban Syndome" if you ask me.

The Pacific Northwest....

......does it yet again....

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is refusing to run the photos of two men the FBI is seeking to question in connection with suspicious behavior aboard a Puget Sound ferry - behavior that could be a precursor to a terror plot, or could be nothing nefarious at all.

Here is their explanation of their "tough call".

Running Out Of bounds

Football goes from enabling dog killers to enabling baby killers.

NFL Team Financing the Abortion Business

Noteworthy: The Jacksonville Jaguars Foundation recently awarded a $30,000 donation to Planned Parenthood of Northeast Florida. Check out this article, complete with quotes from the Executive Director of the Foundation being supportive of “prevention programs” – not “abortion programs”. Don't expect the article to tell you why the 12-year-old expansion team finds it appropriate to fund the most notorious abortion provider — providing more than 250,000 abortions each year — in the United States. Surely there are other organizations with superior prevention programs in northeastern Florida which would sincerely appreciate a $30,000 donation from the Foundation.

Scarey Values

Michelle Obama, the wife of Senator Barak Obama is letting her opinion fly on...family values !?

Telling her audience that her husband bucked the fears of running for the highest office, she managed to get a few licks in at Hillary Clinton, his biggest obstale to the presidential nomination from the Democrats.

Michelle said, "I am tired of being afraid . . . I don't want my girls to live in a country that is based on fear." Michelle hammered the point that family values ruled the Obama house, and added "if you can't run your own house, you can't run the White House."

But what actually are the tenets that she extols, are they the same as the ones that we see extolled on the website of the church the Obama family belongs to in Chicago; a church which pledges its members, among other things, to....

11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.

And for all those people out there trumpeting Obama as some champion of the Middle Class there is this little nugget....

Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”

Classic methodology on control of captives teaches that captors must keep the captive ignorant educationally, but trained sufficiently well to serve the system. Also, the captors must be able to identify the “talented tenth” of those subjugated, especially those who show promise of providing the kind of leadership that might threaten the captor’s control.

Those so identified as separated from the rest of the people by:

Killing them off directly, and/or fostering a social system that encourages them to kill off one another.

Placing them in concentration camps, and/or structuring an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.

Seducing them into a socioeconomic class system which while training them to earn more dollars, hypnotizes them into believing they are better than others and teaches them to think in terms of “we” and “they” instead of “us”

Der Sturmer couldn't have said it better.

“He hates the army. The only reason he joined was because he wanted to have more experience to write about.”

Nepotism, shoddy management, ideological blinders and gay-bashing, the sad story of The New Republic and the Scott Thomas Beauchamp Affair

Giuliani Defends Us....?

While many people find these warm and fuzzy statements about immigration (and even illegal immigration) disturbing, it's his reaction to the 1997 Empire State Building shootings carried out by a disgruntled Palestinian (is there any other kind) immigrant that is much more telling...

''Something has got to be done to stop the flow of guns into this city,'' said Morris Gurley, co-founder of the National Victim Center, a crime-victims advocacy and support group.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, also taking a turn at the lectern, echoed that appeal. He said that in many states, it was much easier to get a license for a gun than it was to get a license for a car, and that while both instruments have the power to kill, only one is designed for that purpose.

Along with other speakers, Mr. Giuliani called for people to put pressure on lawmakers in other states and in Washington to restrict the number of guns and to monitor more strictly the backgrounds, temperaments and intentions of those who possess them.

So when face with terrorism committed by a radicalized Arab immigrant Rudy took the typical New York Liberal position and downplayed all factors (Giuliani: a "man who had many, many enemies in his mind") but the "illegal gun" angle.

Cool Fridays: August 17th Edition

The dragons from Korea...

So When Is Franklin Foer Going To Apologize ??

"My magazine this last week has been subject of basically a smear job by the Weekly Standard and a lot of the conservative blogosphere over a piece that we published from a soldier in Iraq, which we have gone back and re-reported and it turned out to be aside from one mistake to be the case and I just wish that there was, and this sounds like a trite mainstream media criticism, but that those in the blogosphere who kind of move from one reckless allegation to another reckless allegation for once apologize when they get something wrong.”

More Adventure In Ecumenicism

The Bishop of Breda, Tiny Muskens, wants people to start calling God Allah. He says the Netherlands should look to Indonesia, where the Christian churches already pray to Allah. It is also common in the Arab world: Christian and Muslim Arabs use the words God and Allah interchangeably.

Speaking on the Dutch TV programme Network on Monday evening, Bishop Muskens (pictured) says it could take another 100 years but eventually the name Allah will be used by Dutch churches. And that will promote rapprochement between the two religions.

The Catholics are still behind in the Islamic bidding war, falling behind those Episcopal priests who are actually becoming Muslims.

Two Magic Bullets

Conservatives may very well be at war with Science but at least we know the difference between a spent and a unspent shell casing.

I Was Just Thinking

Do you realize if we stopped wasting so much money on the Space Shuttle and the Global Space Station (or whatever it's called...how about "federally subsidized housing in orbit"?) imagine how much money we would have to build giant transforming robots.
Discuss it among your selves.

If I Was From Minnesota....

.....I'd be pretty annoyed that my 38.4 cents a gallon can't keep bridges from falling down.
Heat wave or no heat wave.

Mr. Bessemer Meet Rep. Hortman

Rep. Melissa Hortman of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor party that is, who wonders...

...that 90-plus-degree heat Wednesday and the above-normal temperatures of the past two summers may have been a contributing factor.

"Did the heat put extra strain on the steel?" Hortman said. "You wonder if this bridge was built to withstand the massive heat we have had this summer."

Wow, it gets a lot hotter in Minnesota than I thought.


For her edification I include these links.
Steel
Bessemer Process

H/T to smalldeadanimals

Great Britain Not Just Nanny State......But Mean Nanny State

A British clown has had the smile wiped off his face after being told he couldn't use balloons in his act because children might be allergic to latex.

Barney Baloney said he was told by bosses at a supermarket where he was booked to appear that he should leave his balloons at home because of the potential for allergic reactions.

The 47-year-old entertainer, also known as Tony Turner, has previously had to ditch his bubble-making machine because he could not get public liability insurance as companies assessed that youngsters might slip and hurt themselves.

He said he was also told by one venue he could not twist balloons into the shape of guns for fear of encouraging youngsters to commit violence, although swords were deemed acceptable.

When A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Reuters

The New White Slavers

A follow up on some news I posted back in December on the revival of the New White Slave Trade among the "Asians" of Britain....

Grooming of white girls for sex is exposed as two Asian men jailed

A hidden world in which Asian men “groom” young white girls for sex has been exposed with the jailing yesterday of two men for child-abuse offences.

The trial came amid growing concern at the attitudes of some Asian men towards white girls which campaigners for women claim few people wish to address.

Parents have complained that in parts of the country with large Asian communities white girls as young as 12 are being targeted for sex by older Asian men yet the authorities are unwilling to act because of fears of being labelled racist.

She said: “The family and cultural norms of their community means they are expected to marry a first cousin or other relative back in a village in Mirapur or wherever the family comes from. Therefore, until that marriage is arranged they look out for sex.

“At the point in their lives when they are ready for this sort of activity, Asians cannot go to Asian girls because it would be a terrible breach of the honour of the community and their family to have sex with an Asian girl before marriage.”

And of course when we see the words "Asian men" in a British publication we must remember that what they in fact mean is Muslim. Though you will not see that word in the article.

Hat tip to Dhimmi Watch.

Illegal Immigrants Continuing To Do The Jobs Americans Will Not Do

The murders of Dashon Harvey and Iofemi Hightower, both 20 years old, and Terrance Aeriel, 18, were particularly brutal, many believe. Police said the three robbery victims (and a fourth who survived) were ordered to kneel in front of a wall, before being shot in the back of the head.

Police have arrested three suspects, two of them 15 years old. But outrage is particularly keen when it comes to the third suspect, a 28-year-old illegal immigrant from Peru, who was out on the streets despite two prior arrests this year, including one for the rape of a little girl.

In State Superior Court on Aug. 10, the day after his arrest, Carranza spoke in Spanish and had his comments translated for the judge. He pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder, attempted murder and robbery. He admitted that he did not have a valid Social Security card.

Relatives of the victims and many others are wondering how Carranza could have been allowed back on the streets after two prior felony arrests this year. Carranza had already been indicted on 31 counts involving the rape and sexual assault of a girl who had been in his care since she was four years old. He also faced aggravated assault and weapons charges stemming from a fight in a bar.

Oh, and there is more...

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office said it did not learn of Carranza's illegal immigration status until New Jersey officials informed the office last Thursday, according to the New York Times. An agency spokesman said that if ICE had been notified earlier, Carranza would have been detained.

They may not have been told that the Peruvian was here illegally because New Jersey does not allow police to ask about a person's immigration status.

Newark is one of a handful of cities nationwide considered a "Sanctuary City."

Driving While Virginian

Gov. Tim Kaine's and Del David Albo's Summer time gift to the people of the Commowealth has kicked in with a vengeance, and who do they pick on first?..........a pregnant woman

The labor pains were coming, so Jessica Hodges got going. The 26-year-old bank teller from Burke sped toward Inova Fairfax Hospital, but before she got there, the law got her -- 57 mph in a 35 zone. Reckless driving.

Hodges's labor pains subsided -- they turned out to be a false alarm -- but the agony from her ticket is mounting. She was found guilty of the July 3 offense and given a $1,050 civil fee on top of a judge-imposed $100 fine and court costs, making her one of the first to be hit with Virginia's new "abusive driver fees," which have been greeted by widespread public outrage.

The fees, which range from $750 to $3,000, were passed by the General Assembly in the spring as part of a package aimed at funding scores of transportation projects. Backers said the fees would both raise money and improve highway safety by targeting the state's worst drivers -- those guilty of severe traffic offenses such as DUI, reckless driving and driving on a suspended license.

But the fees have since been vilified by an angry public (more than 170,000 people have signed an online petition to repeal them), denounced by lawmakers who once supported them and ruled unconstitutional by judges in two localities who said they violate equal protection rights guaranteed under the 14th Amendment. A Centreville man convicted of reckless driving filed a challenge to the fees in Arlington County General District Court on the same grounds.

Thank you part time legislature which can't take the time to pay any attention to what you're voting for.....or who's pushing it.

Thank you Governor who is too busy hoping he's on that VP short list.

Setting The (Temperature) Record Straight

According to the new data published by NASA, 1998 is no longer the hottest year ever. 1934 is. Four of the top 10 years of US CONUS high temperature deviations are now from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999). Several years (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004) fell well down the leaderboard, behind even 1900. (World rankings of temperature are calculated separately.)

This Is The Albino Hedgehog; The Albino Hedgehog Means No Blogging Today

Life On The Mississippi, Or A Goat Here, A Goat There, And Soon It's Just Like Home

The Somali's of Minneapolis (yes there is such a thing) are taking the whole I-35 bridge collapse a little too personal...

Still, the collapse was something Somalis never expected to witness in their new homeland. And it has some wondering if the American government has misplaced its priorities by ignoring a decaying national infrastructure in favor of its costly foreign policy.

"Instead of building bridges, they spent more on invading countries," said Abbi Osman, a young Somali who came to Minnesota four years ago and was watching buddies play dominoes Tuesday in a Somali coffee shop. "They are investing in the wrong places."

Yes, and of course if you want to learn anything about properly maintained infrastructure the obvious person to turn to is a recent immigrant from Somalia.
What with their glittering interstate highway system, dams and all that other stuff.
In fact lets look up some information on that....here it is from GlobalSecurity.org

There are no railways in Somalia; internal transportation is by truck and bus. The national road system is comprised of over 22,000 km of highways though only 2,600 of it is paved.

Air transportation is provided by small air charter firms and craft used by drug smugglers. There are a total of 62 airfields in Somalia, of which 5 are paved and have a length ranging from 2,500 to 3,000 meters. The other 57 runways are unpaved with lengths ranging from 900 to 3,000 meters. The UN and other NGOs operate air service for their missions.

There are no major waterways and four major ports including deepwater facilities at Berbera, Mogadishu, and Chisimayu; lighterage port at Merca; minor port at Maydh. A port modernization program launched in latter half of 1980s with United States aid significantly improved cargo handling capabilities at Chisimayu, and increased number of berths and deepened harbor at Berbera.

Hmmmm. Obviously one of those "wrong places" where we were investing.

Oh, and look who they're turning to for comfort.

Ellison (Rep. Keith Ellison) has met with the family and those in the Somali community in recent days and finds them resolute in support of local, state and national government efforts on the scene.
"They are Minnesotans," he said of the Somalis

Well maybe in a very loose sense, because just four sentences before that we have...

"We are in a state of shock," she said, sitting in the entrance of her son's textile shop in a makeshift Somali mall designed to resemble a stall market in Mogadishu.

I was saying just the other day, "what the Upper Mississippi valley needs is some more Mogadishu style stall markets.

Biological Terrorism In The UK ?

Have the Jihadis opened a new front?

The deliberate release of viral material, possibly in an act of sabotage, may have caused the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, officials said last night.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said in a report ordered by the Prime Minister that “release by human movement [of the FMD virus] must be considered a real possibility”.

The Perils Of Being A Magazine That Prints Fables....

So is this one of those glass half full, glass half full situations ?

from the Plank (?) at The New Republic...

We've talked to military personnel directly involved in the events that Scott Thomas Beauchamp described, and they corroborated his account as detailed in our statement. When we called Army spokesman Major Steven F. Lamb and asked about an anonymously sourced allegation that Beauchamp had recanted his articles in a sworn statement, he told us, "I have no knowledge of that." He added, "If someone is speaking anonymously [to The Weekly Standard], they are on their own." When we pressed Lamb for details on the Army investigation, he told us, "We don't go into the details of how we conduct our investigations."

--The Editors

from The New York Times...

An Army investigation into the Baghdad Diarist, a soldier in Iraq who wrote anonymous columns for The New Republic, has concluded that the sometimes shockingly cruel reports were false.

“We are not going into the details of the investigation,” Maj. Steven F. Lamb, deputy public affairs officer in Baghdad, wrote in an e-mail message. “The allegations are false, his platoon and company were interviewed, and no one could substantiate the claims he made.”

The Perils Of Being A Fabulist...

...Or beware how the facts can come back to bite your narrative in the rear.

As the Scott Thomas Beauchamp episode explodes in the antiwar Left's face (a fact I expect the MSM to keep very quiet about) we are left with this the most troubling aspect of the whole episode...

There’s no rational logic in much of anything that this guy did. Why did he think he could get away with writing nonsense in a national journal, where there was always a potential that someone could read it and call him out on it? Why did he write about murderous US officers in Iraq when he was still in Germany or wherever. Why did he do any of what he did, including joining the Army on the presumption that he would a) survive the war at all and b) become some famous writer out of it. We’re not dealing with an entirely rational actor here.
//////
If you’re looking for a tight, logical answer to each move that he made in this, you’re going to be dissatisfied. The model you’re looking for is more along the lines of a trapped animal than a cold, rational and logical operator.

Actually I understand the actions of a trapped animal, I even often understand how they wound up in the trap,....what I can't understand are the deeds of Liberalis Homus Superior.



Compliments to Hot Air.

A Year Here, A Year There, And Soon You're Talking About Real Time

I thought Al Gore was the Mr. Wizard of Climatology....

"Countries like China, just to give an example, which will next year be the largest emitter in the world, can't be excluded just because it's technically a developing country," Gore said. "When you look at the absolute amount of CO2 each year and going forward, China will soon surpass the U.S."

Gore said that as the Asian giant's economy expands, China faces an increased risk from climate change and must leapfrog old, polluting technologies while maintaining growth.

but then we read that actually...

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said in June that China overtook the United States in carbon dioxide emissions by about 7.5 percent in 2006.

2006, 2007, 2008 well at least they're all in the same decade.


At least he's doing better than the hurricane experts.

Abandonment Issues

Britain was accused yesterday of abandoning 91 Iraqi interpreters and their families to face persecution and possible death when British forces withdraw.

The Times has learnt that the Government has ignored personal appeals from senior army officers in Basra to relax asylum regulations and make special arrangements for Iraqis whose loyal services have put their lives at risk.

The British government apparently has an extremely short memory.

Off The Cuff

Robin Givhan the Washington Post's Fashion writer seems to be suffering from a case of what I like to call Warren Brown syndrome. The syndrome's primary feature is the desire of second string personnel from a major political daily being convinced that the public at large is at all concerned about the political musings of a car or fashion columnist. Ms. Givhan seems determined to make hay out of a slight indentation in the blouses of Hillary Clinton in the same way she showed a strangely prurient interest in the footwear of Condoleezza Rice, or has everyone forgotten...

Rice looked as though she was prepared to talk tough, knock heads and do a freeze-frame "Matrix" jump kick if necessary. Who wouldn't give her ensemble a double take -- all the while hoping not to rub her the wrong way?

Rice's coat and boots speak of sex and power -- such a volatile combination, and one that in political circles rarely leads to anything but scandal.

...though Rice got off rather lightly compared to the grilling she gave to the small children of Chief Justice John Roberts...

There they were -- John, Jane, Josie and Jack -- standing with the president and before the entire country. The nominee was in a sober suit with the expected white shirt and red tie. His wife and children stood before the cameras, groomed and glossy in pastel hues -- like a trio of Easter eggs, a handful of Jelly Bellies, three little Necco wafers.

Here's to sticking to pins and needles in the future.

This Is The Albino Hedgehog; The Albino Hedgehog Means No Blogging Today

Happy Birthday Olivia!!!!

Cool Fridays

In keeping up with some of our former Lovecraftian themes.........we present......The Origami of Cthulhu

Happy Birthday Peter O'Toole....

.......happy 75th birthday to a magnificent actor.

Bergman's Nazi past

The early pro-Nazi attitude of famed Swedish film legend Ingmar Bergman should surprise no one.
And no I don't mean because it was a youthful indiscretion on his part. According to Bergman it was the scenes from the liberation of the concentration camps that "...was a hideous shock for me...in a brutal and violent way I was suddenly ripped of my innocence." He was 26 in 1945. He was far from being the only prominent Swede with that kind of past.

No, we shouldn't be surprised because much of Sweden's experience in the first half of the
Twentieth Century has been as a silent partner to the German war machine. Sweden the benevolent neutral was the source of iron ore and steel ball bearings for Germany during the First and Second world Wars.

Sitting OnTop Of The World

Two Russian vessels - including an atomic icebreaker - are expected to reach the Pole this afternoon.

There they will release two mini-submarines which will drop a metal tube containing a Russian flag onto the seabed. The release is likely to take place tonight or tomorrow morning, according to organisers.

The gesture, while symbolic, marks an escalation of the growing international dispute over who owns the Lomonosov Ridge, a 1,240 mile underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region. It is thought to contain rich oil and gas deposits.

Seemingly everyone is interested in the top of the world these days.
It's obvious however why the Russians are so interested.
The Pole you see, is how you get inside the hollow earth.

For several years the scientists preserved the secret of the shocking data of interpretation of photographs of our planet from space. In the ice of the North Pole area a huge hole could be clearly seen. Soon a similar hole was discovered in Venus. Astronomers were shocked and questioned if these planets are hollow inside and what they have in their cores.