It’s all about range vs performance

Not a week goes by without there being another story about some new electric car coming onto the market and they are all without exception grossly deficient in one very significant way.
None of them can continuously travel anywhere near the sort of distances that we can expect from any liquid fuelled machine and none of them can be made ready for reuse in a reasonable time frame once their batteries have been discharged.

Mitsubishi i MiEV. Click for article

Impressive: The Ultimate Aero EV will prove that electric-powered vehicles will not only match but outperform internal combustion cars, the makers claim (Click to see details about this car)

Maybe we will see the development of viable (and affordable) fuel cell cars in my life time which will redeem electric propulsion for transport but until that happens I think only a religious zealot or a total idiot would spend money on a battery car that will not get you to the shops and back .

Cheers Comrades

Distressed

I am very distressed about this story. I don’t know if I should be just be angry at the man for murdering his child, angry at the family court for another man screwed when it comes to his children or both.
What I do know is that no child should die in such a manner at the hands of her father.

Charged with murder ... Arthur Phillip Freeman is driven away by Melbourne police yesterday. (Brisbane times Photo)

A DAY after reaching an agreement with his estranged wife over access to their children, a father allegedly threw his four-year-old daughter off Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge while her two young brothers watched.

Bridge horror
A 36 year-old man has been charged with murder after allegedly throwing his daughter to her death…

Arthur Phillip Freeman, a 35-year-old IT professional from the leafy eastern suburb of Hawthorn, was yesterday due to take Darcey Iris, 4, Benjamin, 6, and Jackson, 2, to their first day of school and creche for 2009.

Instead, Mr Freeman – who apparently gave no indication of his intent – allegedly got out of his 2004 Toyota LandCruiser 4WD at about 9.15am and threw Darcey over the edge of the bridge, where she fell 58m into the Yarra River.

Horrified motorists, who claimed Mr Freeman acted so quickly that they were helpless to stop him, immediately called emergency services. Ten minutes later, water police pulled Darcey out of the river and desperately tried to resuscitate her before she was rushed by helicopter to the Royal Children’s Hospital with internal injuries.

Darcey died just four hours later and Mr Freeman, who was later arrested and charged with murder, was last night on suicide watch.

The only other thing that comes to mind is why does that bridge have such low railings that makes such a thing both easy and possible?

Distressed Comrades
Very distressed.

Hap’s anti-Semitism or I love the smell of a burning Leftist in the morning

Hap has taken particular offence at my suggesting that he is “anti-Semitic” the comment below came from here but he has been ranting and raving ever since I was pressed to name some leftists who I consider to be anti-Semitic.

1. But as both you and SM post under pseudonyms what difference does it make if I believe that you are both anti-Semites and I say so? If you actually believe that, then you’ve once again proven what a knuckle-dragging moron you really are.
2. Look, ad hom arguments have a place in debating. If a neo-Nazi starts criticising the Israeli Government, we might have good reason to be suspicious of his/her arguments. On the other hand, my positions (and I suspect those of SM) are entirely universalist. It would be unusual for somebody to find racism in our statements. If you think you’ve found it, the onus is on you to back up your claims. As I said previously, show us a single instance of Holocause denial, or anti-Jewish bigotry, or the like.
3. Of course, you won’t, as you’re a lying scumbag who’s too immature to take responsibility for his words. Instead you evade and divert. And fill up the interwebs with more blogs.

4. Based on the above, I think any ad hom criticisms you receive are entirely legitimate. Until you can back up your slurs and dissembling with at least a shred of evidence, you and your pathetic attempts at bloging (sic) deserve to sit in the dunce corner of the bloggosphere (sic).

   This will be my final word on this topic on this thread.

   As you were .source

Before I get into Haps Post on the recent Gaza incursion I might just make a couple of simple observations about this comment

1. I ask a question and he goes on as if I have made a statement, so who is the moron?
2. I really do not  think Haps suggestion that “holocaust denial” is a prerequisite for ‘anti-Semitism” makes any sense at all. There are plenty of anti -Semites who celebrate the holocaust and their only regret is that it did not go far enough. It is enough to show that Hap has a clear disdain and hatred for the Jews my Fisk of his post below will show that disdain and that hatred is there and barely concealed.
3. I suspect that Hap really believes his own propaganda , now I may well be a bit of rogue from time to time but I have not been lying here I have just stated my honestly held opinion about an anonymous blogger
4. What a convoluted piece of self justification that is

Hap claims not to be anti Semitic yet he writes this post.

I’ve been wanting to write something about this earlier, but I’m a little lost as to what to say. Again, Israel are committing atrocities against the Palestinians, and again, their apologists use every bit of sophistry at their disposal to justify it.

Any fair minded reader is going to see that “Hap” is pinning his colours to the mast from the very outset of his post. Clearly on planet Hap Nothing can justify Israel’s actions against Hamas or even its very existence.

Let us be clear – it is Israel that broke the truce. On November 4, 2008, Israel entered Gaze(sic) and killed 6 members of Hamas.

Oh and 6000 rockets launched against Israel are of no consequence? In Hap’s mind clearly not, nor does he consider them a violation of the “truce” Now anyone who was being truly fair minded would conclude that both sides were to a greater or lesser extent have seen the “truce” as being very far from absolute.

Yes, Israel has a right to self-defence. The concept of ‘self-defence’ has clearly been stretched by Israel to the point of meaningless. Context is important. For an occupied people, battling blockade, ethnic cleansing, and colonial expansion to resist by way of rocket fire is not the same as say, Iran attacking Israel. The only way to make Israel look legitimate in this conflict is to airbrush away its history of brutality.

I don’t know about anyone else but I read his paragraph as saying that Israel does not have a right to respond to the many thousands of rockets fired out of Gaza.

The guff about ethnic cleansing and occupation are just your typical Marxist nonsense. I can only conclude that in Hap’s eyes the people of Israel are in some sense lesser human beings if they are not entitled to fight back when so constantly attacked and he thinks that they are lesser people because they are Jewish.

Yes Israel may very well fail, both militarily and politically. Hamas rockets are still firing, and Israel has largely failed to draw Hamas into open areas of conflict thus far. Should the IDF enter built-up urban zones, both they and the Palestinians will likely suffer massive casualties.

Now that Israel has withdrawn from its Gaza incursion it is clear that Hap’s prediction has NOT been fulfilled: 1300 dead are claimed but there is some suggestion that this number has been grossly inflated :

The Mystery Dead Of Gaza

January 25, 2009: Palestinians have found, in their decades of fighting Israel, that well crafted lies can be an effective weapon. The recent 22 day battle in Gaza, between Hamas and Israel, ended with the Palestinians claiming they had lost 1,300 dead, and the Israelis admitting to 13 (including four soldiers from friendly fire.) Now, as reporters get into Gaza, and start asking questions, the Palestinian death toll is starting to shrink. Medical personnel at the Palestinian hospitals say that there appeared to be no more than about 500 dead, and most of them were young males (guys of fighting age). Civilian dead appear to have been no more than a hundred or so.

source

 

Whichever figure it is hardly the massive number that Hap was dreaming about now is it?

When you consider that the Gaza population is what 1.4 million. So even the highest number claimed is a truly small percentage of the population. However If the report that I cite is correct about both the number and the Demographics of the dead then Haps attempts use the “victim hood of the Palestinian people” card falls very flat indeed.

Should Israel fail in its latest military adventure, it is likely that the rightists will take over at the next election. In addition, Hamas will probably see a rise in domestic support, and Iran may well vote in the conservatives.

Does this chap like to draw a long bow or what?

The only possible political victory that may emerge from this conflict is if the people of Egypt use it as a catalyst to oust the US-proxy neoliberal dictatorship in Egypt. Israel have clearly been targeting civilians* and civilian areas, as they did in Lebanon in 2006.

Targeting civilians!!!!???????

Hap must believe his own propaganda. As I pointed out elsewhere this is a spurious argument for two very simple reasons , firstly there is nothing to be gained by Israel targeting those who are actual civilians , the propaganda negatives alone are evident enough from the reactions when the IDF accidentally kills Palestinian civilians . Secondly if the IDF really wanted to massacre the Palestinian people it has more than enough capability to do just that and the death toll from military actions would be in the hundreds of thousands, not somewhere between 5 and 13 hundred.Finally if the IDF were “targeting civilians” the why  do we here the reports about the IDF dropping leaflets and the sending of sms messages warning of impending attacks on Hamas targets. There can only be one reason that Hap runs this line and that is to  blacken   the Jewish side of this conflict.

Naturally, IDF spokespeople justify the carnage by alleging that every dead civilian is a terrorist.

No they do not. They are quite up front that some of the dead are civilians and I bet that if it were possible that no civilians would be killed that the IDF would chose such an option. Hap wants to pretend that none of the dead are Hamas fighters because then it is easier to portray the IDF as “evil” which is consistent with his views about the Jews in general.

Israel could have negotiated with Hamas, and have done so before. The alleged failure of Hamas to ‘recognise’ the state of Israel is purely symbolic.There is no recognition of Palestinian statehood by the Israeli government, so any lack of reciprocal recognition by Hamas is a moot point. When I have debated these issues on rightist sites, I have very quickly been accused of ‘anti-Semitism’, as if Arabs were not also Semites. This smear is fairly common on the right.

How so is it “purely symbolic”? because Hamas ‘s Charter not only fails to recognise the existence of Israel but calls for its destruction…

I am amused that Hap tries the semantic excuse for his anti-Semitism. Everyone knows that saying you can’t be an anti-Semite if you love the Palestinians (because they too are a Semitic people) is a nonsense of the highest order, the term first and foremost refers to hating or despising the Jews which Hap certainly demonstrates quite often.

The recent Melbourne demonstration can be viewed on You Tube, for instance. I saw no evidence of anti-Semitism at this demo, yet the right-wing blog Little Green Footballs pieced together a slideshow of alleged anti-Semitism at the event. Obviously, the charge of anti-Semitism is baseless, particularly when plenty of Israelis, and Jews worldwide, oppose the current slaughter.

Actually I think that Nilk’s photos like this one

As we can see, this sign was rather popular for the photographers. Child in hijab, mother in niqab. I spoke to a policeman about this sign, but by the time I got him here to show him, the sign had been damaged. He said the crowd wouldn't support her message anyway, and I disagreed. No way a crowd shouting "allahu akhbar" is going to disagree with this woman. (Nilk)

show how one eyed Hap is about the demonstration and if he considers this is not an example of anti-Semitism then why should I be surprised by his vehement denials of his own feelings about the Jews? But I just  delight in the absurdity of his logic here: Because there are Jews who disagree with the actions of the Israeli government so there can be NO anti-Semitism at a rally  of mostly Muslim supporters  of the Palestinians in Melbourne . It is a total non-sequitur .

For what it is worth, the IDF’s latest actions are to be condemned as yet further collective punishment against one of the world’s most oppressed peoples. When Israel’s relationship to the Palestinians is one of oppressor-oppressed, claims of ‘self-defence’ are utterly disingenuous. On one point, at least, the rightists are correct – there can be no moral equivalence in this war, given that one side is starving, bombing, shooting, colonising and blockading the other.

Really? You have to ask just who is the coloniser in the land between the river Jordan and the sea? Which is a point that I have pressed a number of times. This area is one of the most contested pieces of dirt on the planet. But in Hap’s world view the Israeli attachment to and claim on the land has no validity whatsoever, even though their is perhaps the most ancient and long-standing claim of any of the people that currently lay claim to the dirt there. Thus it is easy for him to portray the conflict as a simple oppressor /oppressed dichotomy and paint every thing done by Israelis to protect her citizens as evil acts. There is NO balance at all in his commentary here not one concession that the Palestinians in general or Hamas in particular have acted in an unacceptable manner in they way that they have prosecuted their “struggle”. I see this one-sidedness as evidence of his dislike of the Jews in general and the state of Israel in particular.

Universal moral principles seemingly do not apply when commentators discuss the Palestinians. As per a previous post, it is as if the rightist defenders of Zionism have appropriated postmodern discourses on identity politics to justify Israel’s moral exceptionalism.

Now I could not find the previous post alluded to here So I just have to ask just what are the “universal moral principles” that Hap is on about here? Hap is very fond of such grandiose statements  that are self-referential (without citing the reference) and essentially say nothing The only universal principle that comes to mind here for me is a nation state’s right to defend itself with deadly force when attacked.

I have wondered aloud elsewhere whether these apologists would be so quick to defend the actions of, for example, a homosexual or Roma state. None of this should be interpreted as ‘support’ for Hamas, though Hamas, like everybody else, has the right to defend itself. Religion can be incidental to liberation politics, but I see no reason to believe that religion alone, in the absence of a liberation agenda, can free the Palestinians in a political sense.

“No but , Yeah but” But, Here we have Hap pulling out the old Vicky Pollard argument strategy. He wants to pretend that religion is not a big part of the issues in the Israel/ Palestine conflict because then he can pretend that this is just a simple political power  struggle and disguise his own disdain for the Jews.

There is a wealth of information available on the internet, and the links are coming too quickly for me to list all of them. I personally recommend that all interested readers take a look at the writings of Richard Seymour and the much-maligned Robert Fisk. On a positive note, the level of protest around the world has been heartening. The first goal must be an immediate ceasefire, preferably not on Israel’s terms.

The first reference that Hap cites here is not doing him any favours at all when it comes to presenting himself and NOT being an anti-Semite  the blog post he links to is making the same argument that Hap makes, suggesting that Israel is not entitled to respond to the rockets from Gaza and it is illustrated with this picture:

Richard Seymour is doing nothing more than providing explicit support for the Hamas Terrorists  who would happily see every Jew in Israel exterminated. He to is a fine example of the way that the left  couch their anti-Semitism in terms of  “anti Zionism” and Hap’s endorsement of this chaps arguments is yet another piece of evidence of his own feelings towards the Jews.

Secondly, there must be negotiations between the Israeli government and Hamas, at least insofar as this latter group are still the elected representatives of Gazans. Finally, a universalist one-state solution is the terminus ad quem to which efforts should be directed. I realise that this is a long way off, but, short of purging the Middle East of Palestinians, Israel will have to contemplate this solution as some stage. May there be peace and freedom for Palestinians soon, and may all honest men and women from all sides of political discourse express their solidarity with an oppressed and brutalised peoples.

To be fair to Hap he does begin with and entitle  his post with the claim that this is just “some thoughts” about the conflict and I think to some extent he has not structured this post as a narrative that is intended to make liner and logical argument but  In doing so he has made his  feelings about the Jews so much more clear.

No where in the post is there even the slightest concession that the Jews in Israel are entitled to live in peace on their own terms. His suggestion in the conclusion that “a universalist one-state solution is the terminus ad quem” is a call fro the dissolution of the state of Israel and teh subjugation of the Jews under the heal of Muslim majority government (given demographic trends) of the sort that no Jew could ever trust to protect  their lives, dignity  or their civil rights. This blind and willfull indifference to the people on the Israeli  side of the conflict is in itself evidence of Hap’s underlying anti-Semitism.

Conclusion

I have spent a fair bit of time here and I know that Hap is very  unlikely to agree with either my logic or my conclusion. He is clearly in denial about his own feelings which is consistent with so many other leftists.

In short Hap is an anti Semite because:

(in no particular order)

He refuses to acknowledge that Jews in Israel should not be subject to attack from Hamas rockets. In fact he supports such attacks.

He calls for the destruction of the state of Israel which would mean that the Jews there would either be killed or “driven into the sea”.

He hides behind semantics of the term “Semite”

He unquestionably accepts the worst case examples in all sources when it comes to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. he does not even have the semblance of a balanced consideration of the issues.

He creates the ridiculous straw man argument that an ‘anti- Semite” has to “deny the holocaust”  just so  the definition excludes him.

I want re-iterate what I said in the same thread as the comment I opened this post with  I can not for life of me see what difference it makes if I believe that Hap or any other Leftard for that matter is  and anti-Semite and I say so, especially if  that person is writing under a pseudonym they can not in any sense “Hurt”by my belief or me saying it openly.

Finally given the fact that Hap hacked my email and blogging accounts last year for the most malicious reasons it is the hight of hypocrisy for him to seek to justify his rancour on the basis of my internet behaviour  when his own is nothing short of despicable.

Forgive him comrades, because he is but a poor deluded Marxist who believes that the ends justifies the means.

We more moral individuals reject such a notion out of hand.

Cheers Comrades

8)

That makes four that we know about

Greetings from the most exclusive club in the Caribbean

While the left make some very simplistic arguments made on high legal principles those of a more practical bent have to face the precisely the problem highlighted in the quote below.

RIYADH – Saudi authorities have rearrested nine Islamist militants, including former inmates of the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the interior ministry says.

The ministry in a statement late on Sunday said the nine Saudi nationals had undergone a rehabilitation program for Islamist militants arrested in the kingdom and for returnees from the notorious US prison.

“Since the start of the rehabilitation program, nine people, who had taken part in the program, have been rearrested,” a ministry official told state news agency SPA.

“Some of them had returned from Guantanamo,” the official said.

The comments come in the wake of reports that two men who had been released from Guantanamo and went through the rehabilitation program had resurfaced in Yemen and had rejoined al-Qaeda.

On Friday the US-based SITE monitoring service reported that two men released from Guantanamo have appeared in a video posted on a jihadist website.

Now I think that my friends from the left are bathing in that longest of African rivers on this question and that it may only be when one or more of the men from Club Gitmo does something  more serious than a bit of Jihadist blogging, that the  leftist minions   will have  to answer the really hard questions about how do we  ensure procedural fairness for the individuals at Gitmo and protect the innocents who may be killed in an atrocity if some truly evil men are let lose on the world.

It is the same questions that confront law enforcement agencies everywhere, do they act as soon as they know about a planned attack  or do they wait until just before the off so that enough evidence for a successful prosecution can be  gathered? The risk is of course that they may wait just that little bit too long and they may just end up be watching an atrocity in real time….

It ain’t easy and those who think that it is are being so foolish, it is no surprise to me that even the great Messiah of the global left, Barack Obama, has given himself a year to sort out the holiday makers at Club Gitmo why should any of the leftist minions think that it can be done sooner?
Oh that is right, they don’t care about the practical realities, all they care about of their “high minded principles”. Sadly it is unlikely to be any of the latte sippers who lie cooling in a morgue if Barack Obama gets it wrong …
This is an act in haste and repent at leisure situation Comrades and I for one am comforted by the fact that those actually in power in the US are going to take the utmost care and a little time  on this issue.
Cheers Comrades
8)

Beyond that little dial in front of the steering wheel.

Well this little story has to prove just how easy it is to accidentally exceed the arbitrary speed limits on many of our roads. Especially in a modern car which gives its occupants almost no sensation  of speed and movement beyond that little dial in front of the steering wheel.

Commissioner Bob Atkinson

A police officer has been booked for speeding while driving Queensland’s police commissioner to an Australia Day event.

Commissioner Bob Atkinson was sitting in the front seat of the unmarked police car when the driver, a sergeant based at Queensland’s police headquarters, was pulled over on Brisbane’s inner city bypass on Monday morning.

The sergeant was travelling 12km above the 60km speed limit and has been booked for speeding.

A police statement said Mr Atkinson was reading briefings in preparation for his public engagements and was unaware of the speed the car was travelling.

Mr Atkinson was apologetic and the sergeant was also highly embarrassed, the statement said.

Ah but for the radar zealots that does not matter… all that they care about is strict 100% compliance with those arbitrary speed limits. Well If the police commissioner’s driver can make such an honest mistake then so to  can lesser mortals and my question is to what extent should anyone be penalised when there is no actual intent to break the law?

Just something to think about Comrades.
8)

The big day in school

The first day of school

It is the day that all parents look forward to and sort of dread as well, when your youngest child begins the big adventure that is formal education.
Yep, you guessed it, my little mate is off to  school later this morning for his first day of prep. I have his clothes ready and shortly I will be making packed lunches for for him and his sister.
He is looking forward to it and I know that he will love having other children to play and learn with but I can’t get over what a difference this day will herald in the lives of my beautiful wife and I.
So to all of the other parents out there who are sending their children to school for the first time today I say three cheers, you have got them this far and I just hope that they enjoy their schooling, hopefully with teachers that are as dedicated as the ones at the school I send my children too.
Just remember though that the most important lessons that your children will learn come from you and the way that you live your life….
And finally  special salute to all of those little Comrades beginning the big adventure of school.
Cheers Comrades

You Tube and Links:- Geert Wilders

On the day that we celebrate the making of our nation, apart from the prospect of a bloody good party it is perhaps salutatory to think about just how easily it can go wrong, when a democracy and a very liberal one at that can be subverted and destroyed from within, So comrades as you bathe in the smoke from the barbie and enjoy that nice cold beer spare a thought for those people , like Geert Wilders in the Netherlands who face  prosecution for exercising their right to free speech. Oh and please sign THE PETITION IN SUPPORT OF GEERT WILDERS to express your outrage about his prosecution in the Netherlands.

Dutch MP to be charged

“America Last Man Standing” – Speech by Geert Wilders

Decision to prosecute is political

Submission in the Netherlands by Bruce Bawer

In Defence of Wilders – Robert Spencer

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION IN SUPPORT OF GEERT WILDERS

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION AND SUPPORT THE GLOBAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST SHARIA LAW

HERE

AND HERE

Cheers Comrades

The place to eat, in hard times

Here is some news that will make my Latte sipping friends writhe with disgust as their own favourite eating establishments go down the gurgler because people are wisely overlooking that $5 cup of coffee and expensive restaurant meal in favour of simplicity and value…

The recession has proved to be good news for McDonald’s as families abandon restaurants for less expensive fast food.

The American hamburger chain is expected to announce next week that it has just enjoyed its best ever year in Britain.

Beating the crunch: McDonald’s is expected to beat the recession and announce it’s best ever year in Britain

It joins rivals Domino’s Pizza and Greggs the Baker in cashing in from the consumer downturn. McDonald’s serves 2.5million customers in the UK every day.

And as the recession squeezes household spending, it seems consumers are giving up nights out in favour of staying at home with a DVD, a bottle of wine and a takeaway.

Big in breakfasts: Breakfasts at the American burger chain – like this Bacon and Egg McMuffin have rocketed by 10%

[...]

Sales of its McBreakfasts showed a 10 per cent rise and there was strong growth in ice cream business.

Last night, a McDonald’s source said that the group’s full year results, to be announced on Monday, ‘will show the 11th consecutive quarter of growth. It is likely to be McDonald’s best ever year in the UK’.

You certainly would not want to live entirely on the food served under the golden arches (ala Morgan Spurlock) but it certainly is not as bad as my latte sipping friends make out, and when it comes to recession proof business you just can not go past one that provides a necessity of life (food) at a price people can afford*.
Cheers Comrades

* of course the best way to make you food budget go the distance is to buy basic ingredients and go DIY…

MY Award for ‘unAustralian’ of the year goes to…

Well, here we stand on the eve of another Australia day and everyone is getting ready to show just how much patriotism is to much. Personally I tend towards the HG Nelson view that “too much is never enough” when it comes to loving this wide brown land but I try to temper that with the fine Aussie tradition of self-deprecating humour.

Now I think that it is fine for Sam Kekovich to promote Lamb and Barbies as icons of our cuisine and culture and I even agree with him that Eddie Groves deserves  our disdain for his greed and stupidity. (after all if you can fail in business where you have a guaranteed subsidy from the Feds for the service you are selling  you must be a real idiot)

Eddy Groves.

On the eve of the Australia Day long weekend, outspoken social commentator and self-professed lamb aficionado Sam Kekovich has announced the unAustralians of the year.

And the most unAustralian down under according to Kekovich is the former CEO of ABC Learning Centres Eddie Groves.

“Is there anything more unAustralian than allowing care to be taken away from our little kiddies? That’s what you get if you focus too much on Lamborghinis, and not enough on Lamb,” Kekovich said.

But for my money nominating someone as ” unAustralian” of the year needs more than that, because in many ways the Eddie Groves is very Australian indeed. He maybe  a Spiv and a chancer who has come unstuck when circumstances have changed but at least he has had a bloody good go at making something from his idea.

We all love to have a gamble now and then, heck we even stop the nation for a bloody horse race, but we don’t respect the foolish or stupid high stakes gamble, picking a horse with a newspaper and a pin is fine when you are only betting what you can afford to lose…
So for being such a mug punter with his own life I announce that Andrew Hoods is my unAustralian of the year.

Cheers Comrades

I love this truth about ETS from the father of Gaia theory.

My scepticism about AGW is a given and of late I have been arguing against the Warministas on the basis of the sheer impossibility of their prescription for the disease ever being politically possible.

So imagine my surprise to find that James Lovelock saying that ETS schemes are nothing more than a scam designed to make money for the Green spivs?

James Lovelock (Image: Eamonn McCabe / Camera Press)

Your work on atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons led eventually to a global CFC ban that saved us from ozone-layer depletion. Do we have time to do a similar thing with carbon emissions to save ourselves from climate change?

Not a hope in hell. Most of the “green” stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It’s not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it’ll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It’s absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt – that’s an awful lot of countryside.

What about work to sequester carbon dioxide?

That is a waste of time. It’s a crazy idea – and dangerous. It would take so long and use so much energy that it will not be done.

Source

There is a message here for the spotty faced and gullible AGW enthusiasts and it is the same one that I have been making for a long time: There is just no point in pursuing a course of action that will be expensive and will ultimately have no effect whatsoever. Now as the message has been enunciated by one of the prophets of The Green faith will you actually listen?
There are none so blind a he who will not see.
Cheers Comrades

The price of those high minded principles

My friends from the left have been dancing with joy now that Barack Obama has signed the executive orders to close Camp Delta, to close all secret CIA detention centres, and to ban “torture”. But when you hear stories like this one it becomes very clear that such high minded principles may come at a very high price indeed.

Barack Obama signs away Guantanamo Bay

THE emergence of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch underscores potential complications in carrying out US President Barack Obama’s order that the detention centre be closed within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in the deadly bombing of the US embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with al-Qaeda in Yemen.

His status was announced in an internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by a US counterintelligence official: “They’re one and the same guy.”

The development came as Republicans criticised the plan to close the camp in the absence of any measures for dealing with the detainees. But it also helps to explain why the new Administration wants to move cautiously, to work out a plan to cope with the complications.

Almost half the remaining detainees are Yemenis and efforts to repatriate them depend in part on the creation of a Yemeni rehabilitation program — financed in part by the US. The Saudi Government has claimed that no graduate of its program has returned to terrorism.

“The lesson here is: whoever receives former Guantanamo detainees needs to keep a close eye on them,” the US official said.

The minions of the left who cheer so loudly now  have no answer to the very difficult problem of just what to do with the 248 inmates of “Club Gitmo” They may talk about these men as if they are accused of trivial acts , as if  they may be common thieves or even your garden variety murderers.  Speak most eloquently about civil rights and the presumption of innocence, they may even deny that these men (or any Jihadi) see themselves as warriors in a war for Allah but one thing that I do know is that when (not “if”) more of the  “Club Gitmo” men return to their Jihad,  many of those same lefties will be loudly denouncing the governments that let them go for not knowing about  or stopping the next  atrocity  in the first place.

Getting the balance right is the real trick …

Cheers Comrades

Still, will they enforce it?

RUN a red light on a bicycle – $231 fine.

Find below a table of some new fines for traffic offences in South Australia and take particular note that they have made it a specific offence for cyclists to ignore red lights. This of course begs the question about enforcement.

The changes were printed in the South Australian Government Gazette on September 25 last year. However, neither the Government nor police have further publicised the changes.

A police spokesman said it was a motorist’s responsibility to keep up to date with road rules.

It will now be an offence to:

DRIVE with a person or animal on your lap – $95 fine.

RIDE a motorcycle with an animal on the petrol tank – $95 fine.

TAKE children under the age of eight as pillion passengers on a motorcycle – $83 fine.

RIDE a motorcycle and sidecar with the passenger not seated safely, with $83 fines applying for both rider and passenger.

RUN a red light on a bicycle – $231 fine.

DRIVE on a safety ramp or arrester bed to avoid a hand-held stop sign – $231 fine.

MAKE a U-turn across certain dividing lines – $248 fine.

DRIVE in a tramway – $158.

STOP on a painted road island – $54.

I wonder just how the police down there are going to be able to know who the offenders actually are unless they make the effort to physically catch them,in the act so to speak. Because for some strange reason Loonies in Lycra are not required to fit or display any identifying numbers on their machines.  Maybe it would be a good idea for the future.
Or we could just authorise the use of lethal force against cyclists who run red lights, hmm, maybe that would be going just a touch too far but it could be an effective deterrent to a group of road users who seem to so often  ignore red lights.

Cheers Comrades

With a foundation of truth

The confirmation yesterday that two of my regular commentators here are officially “an item” was in my mind as I did my morning blog crawl and this story made its way onto my screen. It got me thinking about honesty within a marriage (or a relationship). Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that my friends have any honesty issues to contend with at all. It is just a simple case of one thing free associating with another.

Paternity shock: Elspeth Chapman discovered her real father is Allen Mottram, after reading her mother's diary

Mrs Chapman, who denies deceiving her ex-husband, allegedly told Mr Webb in 2002 that he was not the girl’s father and filed for divorce the following year.

Mr Webb’s barrister, Nicholas Mostyn, QC, told the court it was not until 2004 – by which time the girl was 18 – that a DNA test confirmed that he was not the girl’s father.

Mr Mostyn argued the case raised ‘profound questions’ about a spouse’s ‘duty of candour’ to their partner. He told the court: ‘Honesty and good faith lie at the very heart of the contract of marriage.’

Describing 45-year-old Mrs Chapman as an ‘inveterate liar’, he claimed she had ‘a fixed and certain knowledge’ that Mr Webb was not the girl’s father.

Mr Mostyn said Mr Webb’s ‘sense of injustice’ meant he wanted to pursue his case to the House of Lords if necessary, but the Appeal Court judges denied him that opportunity yesterday.

They refused him permission to appeal against a Bournemouth County Court judge’s dismissal of his damages claim.

Who would not be most horribly hurt to discover that the girl that you had nurtured as your own was in fact another man’s daughter? To know that the very foundations of your marriage was a lie? It is no wonder that Mark Webb was so keen to pursue this matter to the highest court.

No amount of money is going to really fix this matter though is it? This really is a “no winner” game (except for the lawyers who will have their pound of flesh no matter what) so perhaps the judges were right to halt these proceedings now, before all participants in this matter are  reduced to absolute penury.

The availability of DNA technology certainly makes paternity  cases so much more decisive. You either are the biological  parent or you are not. Since the beginning of time  some women have been duping  their husbands about the paternity of their children and the poor chaps so deceived have been unable to do a thing about it. Already we have cases that pertain to issues of child support for children that have not reached the age of majority and I don’t doubt that eventually a case like Mark Webb’s will  succeed through the courts and it will create a very large precedent when it does. Taking on someone else’s child as your own is one thing when you know that you are doing However when you raise a child thinking it is your own,  and she is not, well there is a world of pain and internal conflict there.

As to my friends? Well they are both people of high principles (although I disagree with much of their politics) and I hope that they make a good go it remembering that it is a partnership of the journey and not just a sharing of the destination that matters.

Cheers Comrades

8)

Update from the daughters perspective here

Come back sheik Hillaly, you have company

Hands up those who remember the cat-meat man?
You do?
Well it seems that another Islamic cleric has decided that our laws which protect the autonomy, and dignity of women, do not apply to Muslim women .If you are a lefty who is unable to denounce what this chap is saying for fear of offending any Muslim then I suggest that you skip this post and go right on to read about The Stig’s identity instead.

Samir Abu Hamza

A MELBOURNE Islamic cleric has told his male followers they can force their wives to have sex and hit them if they are disobedient.

Coburg’s self-styled cleric Samir Abu Hamza said despite Australian rape laws it was impossible for a man to rape his wife even if she refused to have sex with him.

In a recorded lecture entitled “The Keys to a Successful Marriage”, delivered to his male worshippers but now broadcast on the internet and viewed by several thousand people, Mr Hamza said Islamic law allowed men to hit their wives as a last resort, but they were not to make them bleed or become bruised.

He said under Islamic law, as described in a koranic verse, it was a man’s right to demand sex from his wife whenever he felt like it.

“If the husband was to ask her for a sexual relationship and she is preparing the bread on the stove she must leave it and come and respond to her husband, she must respond,” Mr Hamza told his male followers on the video sermon.

He then mocked Australia’s criminal laws, which required consent for sex to be lawful.

“In this country if the husband wants to sleep with his wife and she does not want to and she hasn’t got a sickness or whatever, there is nothing wrong with her she just does not feel like it, and he ends up sleeping with her by force . . . it is known to be as rape,” Mr Hamza said. “Amazing, how can a person rape his wife?“

In the contradictory sermon, delivered in Melbourne or Sydney about 2003 but posted late last year, Mr Hamza initially instructs his listeners “don’t hit your wife”.

But he goes on to say exactly how men should hit their wives, according to his interpretation of Islamic teachings.

He said Islam cursed “those people who hit the animal on the face, (but) what about hitting your wife?”

“First of all advise them,” he said. “You beat them . . . but this is the last resort.

“After you have advised them (not to be disobedient) for a long, long time then you smack them, you beat them and, please, brothers, calm down, the beating the Mohammed showed is like the toothbrush that you use to brush your teeth.

“You are not allowed to bruise them, you are not allowed to make them bleed.”

Mr Hamza told his followers not to get carried away and become too physical with the beatings.

“This is just to shape them up, shape up woman – that is about it,” he said.

“You don’t go and grab a broomstick and say that is what Allah has said,” Mr Hamza said to sporadic laughter from his flock.

Mr Hamza runs the Islamic Information and Services Network of Australasia on Sydney Rd, Coburg, which offers spiritual advice, prayer facilities and boxing, karate and gym classes for Muslims.

Despite concerns about his preaching being raised by female members of the Islamic community, Mr Hamza yesterday stood by his comments and blamed controversy over them on a hidden Zionist agenda run by the media.

Anyone is free to practice their faith however they may please in this country, as long as the practices of that faith do not contradict our secular laws. Thus we do not allow Rastafarians to smoke the ‘erb here, even though in their faith it is a sacrament (Ja bless), because it contravenes our prohibition on the consumption of cannabis. Likewise it is an offence for a man to force himself upon a woman even if that woman is his wife.  No Cleric, of any faith should be telling his followers to ignore the rape laws and NO cleric should be telling his followers that beating their wives is ever OK .
Cue Leftists finding excuses and seeking “understanding”.
Cheers Comrades

Update

To please Jeremy and to be fair, I note that there has been more than a few Muslim voices in the media who  are very roundly condemning this chap, and good on them for doing so.

On a similar note all of my regular leftist commentators have likewise been falling over themselves to to prove me wrong where I Implied that there would be leftists willing to make excuses for this chap . Sadly in the process of trying to do so at least one of them has shown that he needs to do more study of what the Koran actually says on the matter of wife beating.

And that is the problem for any Muslim who does not support any form of domestic violence or rape within marriage, there ARE passages in the Koran that say exactly what Hamza is advocating. If ever there was a faith in need of reformation it is Islam, however followers of that faith are told that  Islam is eternally immutable so I wonder how it will ever deal with modernity in the long run

Cheers again Comrades

The Stig named

There are times when even an old bloke like me can feel like a kid who has just been told that there is NO Santa. Today is such a day because what should I find when cruising around the news but the identity of the Stig…

The cult surrounding the character has grown because he is routinely introduced on the show with a humorous reference to his alleged non-human faculties. Introductions include ’Some say his voice can only be heard by cats’, and ’Some say one of his eyes is a testicle’.

Fortunately as a long time science fiction fan I have developed a Zen like ability to suspend all belief in objective reality and to entirely submerge myself into the reality on the screen.

If you are unable to do this and if your knowing  the name of Stig will forever ruin your enjoyment of Top Gear, then please for the love of all that is holy do not look over the fold because if you do your life will never be the same again .

Tears  Comrades, tears