As we approach a three year anniversary of the horrible atrocities at 9/11-01, US Homeland Security is in a verysorrystate.
How do you adequatly secure liberal democracies that have open economies? It
is obviously more difficult to be constructive than it is to be critical. In
one sense, the proof of the pudding is in its eating, so we could say
the absense of actual terror attacks in the US shows something is being
done right. Taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and the
Middle East have diminished their ability to strike overseas. A good offence is
maybe the best defence, but it cannot be the only defence. If the
designated security services of the west fails to function properly,
then sooner or later more devastating attacks will go through. Madrid
was one.
In a somewhat overstated article, The Telegraph points to the growing
evidence that global warming on the Earth is at least partially caused
by the sun shining more brightly today than at any time in the past
1000 years.
Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max
Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who
led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the
past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.
"The
Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred
years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the
last 100 to 150 years."
Dr Solanki said that the
brighter Sun and higher levels of "greenhouse gases", such as carbon
dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature but
it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.
This again draws attention to the uneasy many
scientists have with the certainty environmentalists and politicians
express on the topic of global warming. The consensus touted to us in
media simply does not exist in science departments worldwide, in my
experience. Obviously, there are more grants to be won in researching a
danger than outright rejecting it, but there are still scientists who
are far from convinced.
"The Sun's radiance may well have an impact on climate
change but it needs to be looked at in conjunction with other factors
such as greenhouse gases, sulphate aerosols and volcano activity," he
said. The research adds weight to the views of David Bellamy, the
conservationist. "Global warming - at least the modern nightmare
version - is a myth," he said. "I am sure of it and so are a growing
number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world's
politicians and policy-makers are not.
"Instead,
they have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately, become one
of the central credos of the environmental movement: humans burn fossil
fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide - the principal
so-called greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere
to heat up. They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock."
However, the conviction that everything is going to hell in a
handbasket, be it through global warming or global cooling, is probably
going to remain a dogma with environmentalists in the foreseeable
future.
Facing violent unrest in Gaza, Yasser Arafat apparently backed
down by firing his nephew Musa (or Mousa) Arafat and putting him under Brig.
Gen. Abdel Razek Majaida, at least officially. The administrative reshuffling may not be
enough to satisfy those who are tired of Arafat's cronyism and the administration incomptence and corruption.
At any rate, it would be naive to think the armed fractions are
fighting for noble goals. This is all part of the fight for power
between various fractions awaiting the Israeli disengagement from
Gaza.
Al-Aqsa is not only fighting against Arafat's corrupt deputies in the Gaza strip, today its gunmen shot dead the Israeli judge Adi Azar in a drive-by shooting in Tel Aviv. There was no knownedge of a specific threat to the judge.
I encountered a presence on a message board that inspired me to be a bit poetic today.
I guess we should be thankful you have taken time off from your joyous
weekend, no doubt having had great fun pulling legs off insects and
doing other activities that is the life of thoughtless little pond scum
like you. Thankful, because you have shown us that no matter how
despicable some of our resident trolls are, someone, somewhere, will be
worse. Much worse. No insult too low, no argument too strained, no
allegory too painful, and no posting too mindnumbingly retarded for you
to regularly spew it out over the boards you choose to debase with your
presence.
It takes a level of effort to become such a pathetic, lowlife worm,
such an obnoxious presence that nominally stupid people for once can
feel they are the pinnacle of humanity. You must have worked hard to
eradicate all sense, all decency and all logic from the pitiful string
of words you no doubt thought was such a stinging insult. It was an
insult, all right, but only because it reminded us that members of the
human race can start at the bottom and dig themselves downwards into
an until now unreached depth of pure stupidity, a physics-defying
singularity of worthless, pathetic venom from one who wears his troll
badge with misunderstood pride.
It is serious enough that President Arroyo of the Philippines has withdrawn
forces from Iraq to appease the terrorists, now it is revealed that her
government has also paid a $6M ransom to assure Angelo de la Cruz is
released on schedule for home propaganda.
A ransom of $6 million was offered and paid out to the Iraqi rebels
holding Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz hostage, to ensure his
release before President Arroyo's scheduled State of the Nation Address
(Sona) on July 26, a high level Philippine intelligence officer told
the Tribune yesterday.This offer was alleged to have been approved by
the President herself, who then tapped Malaysian emissaries for the
job, the intelligence officer, who asked for anonymity, said.
Of the $6-million payoff, $5 million was shouldered by Malaysia and $1
million by the Landbank of the Philippines, the officer added.
This is even more pathetic than appeasement of terrorists. Sending cash to
terrorists is equivalent (and probably worse) than sending ammunition.
What do you think the money will be used for? This is beyond cowardice, it is betrayal.
If you're into RTS games like the WarCraft series, you may be
interested in the mythology behind the games, if it can be called that.
In a somewhat over-pompous pseudo-Tolkiensque style, with way too many
difficult names, Blizzard has given us History of Warcraft.
