Rex Murphy gets it right again....

He's slowly becoming one of my favorite commentators...

Sarah McLachlan, obviously, is not as much of a fan of diversity as I am. She came to Canada Day wearing a PETA T-shirt. Whatever else PETA is, most sensible people will agree it is tasteless, vulgar and vile. It has had some of the very crudest and most insensitive exercises in the history of so-called protest, of which I will cite only “the Holocaust on your plate” campaign, which, in my judgment, reached the level of a blasphemy against the memory of the six million Jewish people exterminated in Hitler's death camps.

How crude that was you may easily measure for yourself: It featured a picture of a starving man in a concentration camp next to the picture of a starving cow. I wrote “crude” just now, but that word is far too feeble to convey the abject, garish viciousness of such a juxtaposition. A PETA T-shirt, as this example demonstrates, is not the banner of a serious moral sensibility.

Once again, Ms. McLachlan's own words on the seal hunt this Canada Day are far more descriptive of PETA's outrages than anything she is protesting. “Perverse and sick” is how she described the hunt. Well, I'm not so sure. Exploiting the memory of six million dead for cheap publicity, putting a “cow” in any equivalence with history's greatest crime, that is “perverse and sick.”

Actually, I think putting on a PETA T-shirt might be one signal that you've surrendered any moral leverage you may vaguely possess to lecture anyone about anything. And calling the traditional lifeline of some of Canada's northern aboriginals “perverse and sick” might suggest the person doing the calling is less familiar with the concepts of tolerance and diversity than most would hope. As does slandering those on the East Coast who have found the hunt a needed resource for more than a century and a half.

But Ms. McLachlan does have Pamela Anderson in her corner – and what is time and native culture against that bulwark? A queen of soft-core porn and PETA: There's an alliance.

Ms. McLachlan could learn a lot on this issue from a far more worthy source. Our own Governor-General, who, by her gesture of respect to the hunt a near month ago, showed more class and understanding than PETA and its camera-hungry devotees - on Canada Day or any other - can ever hope to approach.

And, yeah, pushing the cause on Canada Day was just tacky.

The Palestinians don't want peace...

They rejected Olmert's incredibly generous offer..and that says a lot about the Palestinians...

However, in 2008 negotiations were held between PLO leaders known to be very moderate and an Israeli government known for its readiness to walk an extra mile on the road to peace. Indeed, Hamas took over Gaza in June 2007, but even this did not divert the negotiators from their goal; the decision was to try to reach an agreement between Israel and the PLO and to then shelve it until it was ripe for execution.

Since the failure of these negotiations was not regarded as a public scandal, it did not arouse public discourse or any attempt to deeply explore its reasons; only lately have some disturbing reports surfaced. The Washington Post on May 25 reported that according to PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), prime minister Olmert accepted the principle of the "right of return" for Arab refugees and offered to resettle thousands in Israel. Abbas also said that Olmert offered him 97% of Judea and Samaria (after Israel had already withdrawn from Gaza in 2005). In addition, last week Newsweek reported that Olmert had told them that he proposed that Israel would give up its sovereignty in the "Holy Basin" in Jerusalem and suggested that it be jointly administered by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the PLO, Israel and the United States; this was confirmed by PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Why, then, didn't the moderate PLO leadership embrace such an extreme Israeli offer? The answer given by Abbas to The Washington Post surprised many: "The gaps were wide." However, it is also quite surprising that a full month has elapsed since that interview was published and yet no public discussion has taken place attempting to explore the meaning of that statement and to understand what is left for Israel to do to fill those gaps and contribute to a successful outcome of the negotiations.

THE TRUTH IS, of course, that nothing more can be done on the part of Israel. Unintentionally, Olmert took the veil of moderation off the face of the PLO. When the claim is raised that the PLO would actually suffice itself with a symbolic gesture concerning the thorny refugee issue, its refusal to accept Olmert's proposals proves that the PLO truly intends to apply the "right of return" of refugees to their original homes in Haifa and in Jaffa, in Lod and Beersheba. PLO leader Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala) explained lately to Haaretz that "it's not fair to demand that we recognize you [Israel] as the state of the Jewish people because that means... a predetermination of the refugees' future, before the negotiations are over. Our refusal is adamant." To prevent misunderstanding, Mahmoud Abbas, in his Washington Post interview, rejected the possibility that the PLO recognizes Israel as a Jewish state because it would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees.

Although the Arab Peace Initiative includes two articles explicitly dealing with the "right of return," it should be recognized that the resettlement of refugees in Israel is not the goal but the instrument. All signs indicate that the goal is the cancelation of Israel as a sovereign state in Palestine, and that this is the source of the PLO's adamant refusal to accept Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. Hence, even Israel's withdrawal to the 1949 armistice demarcation line - even that which runs through Jerusalem - and even its agreement to assume responsibility for the plight of the refugees and resettle thousands of them in Israel, will not bring about the termination of the struggle, but will rather lead to the next chapter of prolonged hostility.

The real dispute does not concern the natural growth of Ariel (in Samaria) but the natural right of the Jewish people to sovereignty in Carmiel (in the Galilee).

THIS IS not a futile theological debate but a practical and vital issue. Its severe significance was proven last year, when in the course of talks PLO negotiators were explicitly asked whether, after an agreement is reached to their satisfaction, they would agree to include in it a specific article stating that this puts an end to the dispute and terminates all further claims. The government did not bring to the public's attention the fact that to this simple question, the PLO leadership ominously answered in the negative.

And, terrorism right here in Canada....

Time to catch these terrorists and throw away the key...

For the sixth time in nine months, and the second time in three days, a bomb has exploded near EnCana's natural gas pipeline in northeastern British Columbia.

The blast early Saturday morning took place less than a kilometre from where EnCana workers were trying to cap a gas well damaged in an explosion Thursday.

“Our crews were at the wellhead site, where they were working to stop the gas leak,” EnCana spokeswoman Rhona DelFrari said from Calgary.

“Around 2:30 in the morning they heard a loud bang, so they immediately went to the spot where they thought it was and that's where they discovered the explosion at the pipeline.”

The Mounties are labelling the bombings as domestic terrorism and have flown in a unit of its Integrated National Security Enforcement Team to investigate.

RCMP spokesman Corporal Dan Moskaluk said the EnCana crew, as well as a nearby resident, reported the explosion.

The blast caused a brief leak of potentially toxic sour gas but the pipeline's control system sensed the drop in pressure and triggered emergency shutdown valves to isolate that portion of the line.

It's not clear whether the EnCana repair crew was downwind of the leak but Cpl. Moskaluk said no one was hurt.

Some nearby residents evacuated their homes when they heard the blast, said Ms. DelFrari, but it was unnecessary.

The small amount of leaked sour gas dissipated instantly, she said, and tests of the air showed no signs of hydrogen sulphide, which can kill in small quantities.

“So there was no risk to the public,” said Ms. DelFrari.

It's the sixth bombing against EnCana gas-transmission facilities since October.

The bombings have all taken place along a 15-to-20-kilometre stretch of the pipeline near Pouce Coupe, just south of Dawson Creek on the B.C.-Alberta border about 1,050 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.

The string of unsolved bombings has left Pouce Coupe, which has less than 800 residents, edgy and suspicious.

“This is an attack on the entire community now,” said Ms. DelFrari. “This isn't just an attack on EnCana as a corporation. This person is putting everyone's lives in risk right now.”

Police suspect the bomber is someone who has a grudge against EnCana and who perhaps lives in the area.

The attacks began with three bombings shortly after a letter was sent to a Dawson Creek newspaper and to EnCana. It labelled oil and gas companies terrorists and demanded EnCana stop natural gas development in the area.

A first-hand look at a sharia court in the UK....

Ahhh....nothing like the sweet smell of justice...

In a shabby converted sweetshop in Leyton, East London, a group of burka-clad Muslim women sit in a waiting room. They have an appointment with Dr Suhaib Hasan at his twice-weekly surgery.

The women look worried. There is no talking in the airless reception area - the only sound is a fan purring quietly in the corner as temperatures outside exceed 80F.

Inside, the atmosphere is just as stifling. There are no magazines, television or other diversions. The beige walls are bare except for a flow-chart depicting the process of securing a Muslim divorce, and a picture of Mecca.
At an Islamic centre in East London, Sheik Haitham Al-Haddad talks to two women about divorce issues

This is no GP's surgery or Citizens Advice Bureau. Within these non-descript walls lies the nerve centre of sharia law in Britain, the headquarters of the Islamic Sharia Council, which oversees the growing number of Muslim courts operating in Britain.

For the first time, the Islamic Sharia Council has granted access to a newspaper to observe the entire sharia legal process in Britain. Over several weeks, I was allowed to witness the filing of complaints, individual testimony hearings and the monthly meeting of imams, or judges, where rulings are handed down.

Sharia has been operating here, in parallel to the British legal system, since 1982. Work includes issuing fatwas - religious rulings on matters ranging from why Islam considers homosexuality a sin to why two women are equivalent to one male witness in an Islamic court.

The Islamic Sharia Council also rules on individual cases, primarily in matters of Muslim personal or civil law: divorce, marriage, inheritance and settlement of dowry payments are the most common.

However, in the course of my investigation, I discovered how sharia is being used informally within the Muslim community to tackle crime such as gang fights or stabbings, bypassing police and the British court system.

A few hardline leaders would like it to be taken even further. One told me that Britain should adopt sharia punishments such as stoning and the chopping off of hands to reduce violent crime.

Please read the entire article...

The latest Hamas crime - laughing in public....

Wipe that smile off your face....

A Palestinian female journalist complained over the weekend that Hamas policemen attempted to arrest her under the pretext that she came to a Gaza beach dressed immodestly and was seen laughing in public.

The journalist, Asma al-Ghul, said that the policemen instead confiscated her passport. Since the incident, she added, she has been afraid to leave her home, especially after receiving death threats from anonymous callers.

"They accused me of laughing loudly while swimming with my friend and failing to wear a hijab," Ghul told a human rights organization in the Gaza Strip. "They also wanted to know the identity of the people who were with me at the beach and whether they were relatives of mine."

In a phone interview with the Dubai-based Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news Web site, the journalist said that the policemen who stopped her belonged to the Hamas government's Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice security force.

The special force reports directly to the Ministry of Waqf Affairs and is said to be a copy of units that have long been operating in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

Insiders a threat to Pakistan's nukes...

Someone on the inside could post a major threat...

Pakistan’s nuclear assets face threats from three quarters, the most important being the growing extremism in the country, increasing “the odds of insiders in the nuclear establishment collaborating with outsiders to access weapons, materials, or facilities”, says a new report in ‘Arms Control Today’.

The second is that the “rapid expansion of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme will introduce new vulnerabilities into the security system. Finally, growing instability within the country could lead to unanticipated challenges to nuclear command and control procedures, resulting in a ‘loose nuke’ scenario, a takeover of a facility by outsiders, or, in the worst case, a coup leading to Taliban control over the arsenal.”

Despite repeated reassurances from the Pakistan top brass that its nuclear weapons are safe, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, former CIA official and head of counter-intelligence at the department of energy of US government, says in a sobering article, “All signs indicate that the professional and disciplined Pakistani military establishment that maintains control over the nuclear arsenal understands the dangers of a breakdown in nuclear security.”

But despite this, Larssen argues, the greatest threat to the nuclear assets in Pakistan “stems from insiders in the nuclear establishment working with outsiders.

Too radical for Egypt...

But, OK for France....

Egypt has expelled about 20 suspected French Islamists over the past month, an Egyptian security official told AFP on Saturday.

"About 20 French Muslims detained in the investigation into the Cairo attack in February that cost the life of a French girl have been expelled, little by little," the official said, declining to be named.

He said that no charges were filed against the French nationals but they were considered religious extremists and undesirable in Egypt.

A French consular official told AFP "a certain number of French nationals were detained along with other foreigners" after the attack and "asked to leave Egypt at their own expense and without any legal case" against them.

A French teenager was killed on 22 February in a bomb attack in Cairo's famed Khan al-Khalili bazaar, in the first deadly violence against Westerners in Egypt since 2006.

Khaled Abu Toameh on helping the Palestinians...

One of the best journalists in the region...

The leaders of the Palestinian Authority do not want the international community to hear anything about massive abuse of human rights and intimidation of journalists that its security forces are practicing almost on a daily basis in the West Bank.

They do not want the world to see that, with the help of the Americans and some Europeans, they are building more prisons and security forces than hospitals and housing projects for the needy.

They want the US and the rest of the world to continue believing that peace will prevail tomorrow morning only if Israel stops construction in the settlements and removes a number of empty caravans from remote and isolated hilltops in the West Bank.

The Palestinians do not need a dictatorship that harasses and terrorizes journalists, and that is responsible for the death of detainees in its prisons. In the Arab world we already have enough dictatorships.

The Palestinians do not need additional security forces, militias and armed gangs. In fact, there are too many of them, both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

American and European taxpayers' money should be invested in building hospitals, schools and housing projects. Investing billions of dollars in training thousands of policemen and establishing new security forces and prisons will not advance the cause of peace and coexistence.

There is no doubt that many Palestinians would love to abandon the culture of uniform and weapons in favor of improved infrastructure and medical care.

As for the international media, it's time to abandon the policy of double standards in covering the Israeli-Arab conflict. For many years, the mainstream media in the US and Europe turned a blind eye to stories about financial corruption under Yasser Arafat. The result was that Arafat and his cronies got away with stealing billions of dollars that had been donated to the Palestinians by the Americans and Europeans.

Back then, many foreign journalists said they believed that the stories about financial corruption in the Palestinian areas were "Zionist propaganda." Other journalists said they would rather file an anti-Israel story because this way they would become more popular with their editors and publishers.

Recently, a Palestinian TV crew was stopped at a checkpoint in the West Bank, where soldiers confiscated a tape and erased its content.

This incident, hardly received any coverage in the mainstream media in the US and Europe.

The reason? The perpetrators were not IDF soldiers, but Palestinian Authority security officers. And the checkpoint did not belong to the IDF; it was, in fact, a Palestinian checkpoint.

Iran is being betrayed by leftists.....

The West has abandoned Iran...

Apart from ethnic Iranians, there has hardly been a single demonstration in any Western capital in support of the Iranian democrats.

Yet isn't there a class, in Australia and in the rest of the West, of people deeply concerned about human rights? The class that Robert Manne and Judith Brett call the moral middle class? Weren't there thousands of demonstrators against the World Trade Organisation and G20 meetings in Australia because the global economy allegedly repressed the rights of poor people?

What about the groups explicitly dedicated to human rights? In the twilight struggle against the communist empire, human rights groups played an honourable and at times indispensable role in gaining freedom for the likes of Soviet dissidents Andrei Sakharov, Natan Sharansky and countless others.

It was a tremendous consolation to these dissidents when a US president, or indeed a humble human rights group, campaigned on their behalf.

Recently I interviewed David Menashri, one of the great authorities in the world on Iran. He was born in Iran and studied for his PhD there. Now he is a professor at Tel Aviv University. He is in no sense a military hawk on Iran. He asked this simple question: "Can't the West exercise its moral muscles? What a gesture it would be if all the European nations, and Australia, temporarily withdrew their ambassadors from Iran in protest at what is happening there."

The truth is the language and practice of human rights advocacy in the West has become completely corrupted by the postmodern ideologies of the contemporary Left. In this parallel universe all crimes are a subset of imperialism and the only true villains are the US, Israel and, for us, Australia.

When Frank Brennan commented that the Victorian human rights charter had been ineffective in its own terms and had little to do with human rights, but had become "a device for the delivery of a soft Left sectarian agenda", he was, perhaps somewhat unconsciously, making a broader point about the debasement and collapse of authentic human rights advocacy in the West.

Where are you on Iran, Louise Adler, happy to accuse Israel of war crimes without the slightest evidence, but apparently unstirred by the murder of hundreds of innocent civilians in Iran?

What have you got to say, Antony Loewenstein, stupidly and inaccurately labelling Israel an apartheid state and approvingly quoted in the Iranian official media, but listless on your blog in the face of the Iranian repression?

What about The Age's cartoonist Michael Leunig, who once drew a cartoon so morally obtuse, stupid and offensive that it was happily accepted by an Iranian newspaper in a competition for cartoons that would offend Jews (the cartoon was submitted without Leunig's knowledge), but who is apparently unmoved to draw an image in sympathy with young Iranian democrats?

The conclusion must be that many Western human rights organisations, and many of the most self-congratulatory and morally vain posturers, are not interested in human rights at all. They are interested in advancing a soft Left sectarian agenda. Except, of course, that the word soft may be wholly misplaced.

Happy July 4th!

Happy Birthday, America! I love the United States. I strongly feel it is a huge force for good in this world, and I salute all Americans!

Climate skeptic silenced....

We'll see more of this as the alarmists are in control....

In case anyone missed the point, Mr. Obama took another shot at his predecessors in April, vowing that "the days of science taking a backseat to ideology are over."

Except, that is, when it comes to Mr. Carlin, a senior analyst in the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics and a 35-year veteran of the agency. In March, the Obama EPA prepared to engage the global-warming debate in an astounding new way, by issuing an "endangerment" finding on carbon. It establishes that carbon is a pollutant, and thereby gives the EPA the authority to regulate it -- even if Congress doesn't act.

Around this time, Mr. Carlin and a colleague presented a 98-page analysis arguing the agency should take another look, as the science behind man-made global warming is inconclusive at best. The analysis noted that global temperatures were on a downward trend. It pointed out problems with climate models. It highlighted new research that contradicts apocalyptic scenarios. "We believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science by EPA," the report read.

The response to Mr. Carlin was an email from his boss, Al McGartland, forbidding him from "any direct communication" with anyone outside of his office with regard to his analysis. When Mr. Carlin tried again to disseminate his analysis, Mr. McGartland decreed: "The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office." (Emphasis added.)

Mr. McGartland blasted yet another email: "With the endangerment finding nearly final, you need to move on to other issues and subjects. I don't want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research etc, at least until we see what EPA is going to do with Climate." Ideology? Nope, not here. Just us science folk. Honest.

The emails were unearthed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Republican officials are calling for an investigation; House Energy Committee ranking member Joe Barton sent a letter with pointed questions to Mrs. Jackson, which she's yet to answer. The EPA has issued defensive statements, claiming Mr. Carlin wasn't ignored. But there is no getting around that the Obama administration has flouted its own promises of transparency.

Ban Ki-Moon demands to visit Gilad Shalit....

hahahaha...I'm just kidding...

Hamas cuts salaries to fund Koranic studies...

I'm sure the Palestinian Authority employees are just thrilled...

The Hamas government in Gaza has recently decided to cut the salaries of Palestinian Authority employees in the Strip in order to finance Koran studies.

In an effort to reinforce Koran study centers across Gaza, Hamas has decided to deduct one percent of the salaries of public officials in the Strip and earmark the funds to the Koran schools.

A clash of cultures...

I'm glad there was someone to film this...otherwise it might have been violent..

Cultures collided Sunday when a gay man was harassed by more than a dozen Somali youths while heading home after the Twin Cities GLBT Pride Festival. Shouting “I hate gay people,” “Fuck gay people,” and “Gay is not the way,” the youths followed the man for several blocks. The entire incident was caught on video.

Thanks to Vlad Tepes for sending this to me...

Let's be bold about Iran....

Now is the time for some aggressive moves....

Our government has done its best to keep out of trouble in Iran’s post-election turmoil, but the ruling theocracy is intent on forcing Britain into a fight. Ahmad Jannati, the radical cleric who heads the Guardians Council which oversaw the sham election and a top aide to supreme leader ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Friday that some local British embassy staff would be put on trial for alleged involvement in the violence that erupted following the 12 June poll.

If Iran thinks it can hoodwink its people and the international community by bullying Britain into accepting responsibility for the domestic crisis on the mullahs’ plates, then Whitehall needs to show Tehran some serious teeth.

In the past three weeks since Iranian authorities began to crack down on nationwide anti-government protests, Tehran has expelled two of our diplomats and arrested nine others. It expelled the BBC’s correspondent after accusing him of conspiring to kill Iran’s pro-democracy activists to stoke unrest. Supreme leader Khamenei has urged vigilance against “evil Britain” and his hard-line followers have on at least one occasion threatened a repeat of the US hostage crisis this time against our diplomatic staff.

The mullahs are masters of deception. Somehow they managed to turn international furore over their brutal crackdown on the young inconsolable population into a row with Britain over its “meddling” in Iran’s internal affairs.

Iran’s apologists point to the unjustifiable British-inspired coup against the democratically-elected government of Mohammad Mosaddeq 55 years ago as justification for Iranian mistrust and fixation on Britain.

But what has that tragic episode got to do with events in Iran today?

Today the mullahs are using brute force to suppress the Iranian people and deny them the right to choose their own future – one that would be far more to the interest of the international community as well. The regime uses the false pretence of foreign interference to change the equation of people vs. the theocracy to Iran vs. the West.

It uses countries it perceives as weak as a scapegoat. The government’s initial measured response to the suppression inside Iran and its history of inaction in previous years when Iranian Revolutionary Guards kidnapped our sailors made it a good target.

But Iran’s aggressive provocations do not stem from its strength - to the contrary they are an attempt to conceal the regime’s instability.

The people of Iran have come to the streets in their millions demanding an end to the theocratic dictatorship in its entirety. In daytime the people chant “Death to the dictator” and “Death to Khamenei”. At nights they chant “God is great” from their rooftops, reminiscent of the protests the generation before them embarked on to topple the Shah’s dictatorship. Revolutionary Guards are attacking houses from where the divine calls are heard, exposing the mullahs’ false premise to moral and religious authority.

The people of Iran, simmering with anger and hope, have demonstrated to the world that the regime that governs Iran is illegitimate. The Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary David Miliband should vow not to recognise the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iranian Resistance leader Mrs. Maryam Rajavi has urged Britain and the West to align themselves with the millions demanding freedom instead of the mullahs denying them this right. Like some other EU leaders, Mr Brown should call for new UN-supervised elections in Iran based on popular sovereignty and not the supreme rule of the mullahs.

So send a message of firmnesses to Tehran. We should withdraw all diplomatic staff and ban visits by the regime’s leaders to the UK. We should impose tough sanctions until the regime halts suppression of its people. Finally we should urge the UN Security Council to set up an international tribunal to investigate the crimes of the regime’s leaders, including the 200 or so reported murders of pro-democracy activists in recent weeks.

That horrible conference at York...

A first-hand report..by Na'ama Carmi, Professor of Law at the University of Haifa...

I hesitated whether to accept the invitation to participate in the conference at York University on "Models of Statehood in Israel/Palestine."

Such conferences, even when organized with goodwill, are frequently hijacked and become anti-Israeli events. However, the dilemma is always whether to leave the floor only to the most extreme and one-sided views, or to try to bring a different voice, one that attempts to display the complexity of the situation and presents a perspective that would not be presented if one were to stay away.

Reaction to the pressure put on the conference and the Jewish Defense League's (JDL) activity against it, and the desire to present such a voice seemed good reasons to take part, and not to surrender to attempts to silence debate and curb academic freedom.

Although the extreme manner in which they were presented was sometimes hard to hear, I was not surprised by the same Palestinian arguments that have been around for decades.

Thus, we heard that Israel is a racist, apartheid state; that the Palestinians are the "indigenous" and Zionists the colonials; that the only reason for the unwillingness of Jewish Israelis to give up a Jewish national state is their unwillingness to surrender power and privileges; and that Zionism has an inherent tendency toward war crimes.

Unfortunately, this was not accompanied with introspection or self-criticism by the Palestinians. Hamas was not mentioned at all. Apparently it does not exist in the virtual map of the Palestinian participants. Another "marginal" phenomenon that disappeared as if it did not exist is the lethal Palestinian terror against Israeli citizens.

But if all this was quite an expected scenario, not in my worst dreams did I imagine an atmosphere that was totally incompatible with academic discourse. The university rightly resisted outside pressures aimed at silencing the conference. But there were attempts at the conference itself to silence unpopular views.

A hostile atmosphere toward people with different views generally, and Jewish-Zionist Israelis in particular, was created. Anyone who challenged the Palestinian perspective was intimidated or even labelled a racist. The audience vocally applauded those whose views it approved. At times, those presenting a different view were subject to abuse and ridicule.

For me, this reached an extreme when one interlocutor, rather than debating the substantive arguments I presented, questioned my psychological state. And all of this without any apparent attempt by the organizers to stop it. Never before in my whole academic career have I encountered the rudeness that I experienced at this conference.

Academic discourse implies in-depth analysis of issues, even loaded ones, theorizing and making well-based arguments. Reasoned criticism is a first-degree instrument for the advancement of academic knowledge. Ad-hominem offence and the silencing of unpopular views are its antithesis. If one has good arguments, one doesn't need to resort to such tactics. As an Israeli politician once reputedly wrote on the side of his written text: "Here the argument is weak, raise your voice."

After my presentation, people approached me to thank me for presenting an alternative view. They admitted that in the prevailing atmosphere they were deterred from stepping forward and expressing a different voice. This is a disgrace for the academic host of this conference. I'd very much want to believe that the organizers were only naive. It's more difficult to accept that there was no agenda, explicit or hidden, to this conference

The Palestinians' pain and rage are understandable. But what happened at York University reflects a worrying, dangerous and, unfortunately, not uncommon pattern. Persons who demand the protection of human rights abandon them and display little tolerance for the views of others when they have the power to marginalize them. This provides food for thought. Surely such tolerance would be a sine qua non in the liberal democratic state that many participants in the conference purport to support.

The universities that sponsored this conference should give themselves an accounting. While the JDL demonstrated outside the campus, a pro-Palestinian demonstration took place inside the conference itself, from the floor, under an academic disguise.

This was not an academic conference, but an "academic" version of Durban.

Want to go to this event???

Dispatches - the Terror in Mumbai...

You can get all 5 parts on Youtube. Thanks to Vlad Tepes for posting this...

The Canadian Arab Federation celebrate Canada Day!

This is an excellent column from Barbara Kay - I wish I had blogged this yesterday...

Vancouver-based Omar Shaban is the Vice President for western Canada of the Canadian Arab Federation, and he is definitely not feeling the gratitude vibe. Quite the opposite. Shaban has labelled Canada a "genocidal state" and described our national holiday on Facebook as "F*** Canada Day," adding, to be sure he had made his point, "It's finally Canada Day...Couldn't be more ashamed to be Canadian." Shaban is no aberration in the CAF. As staunchly anti-Islamist Tarek Fatah reported here: "While one VP of the Canadian Arab Federation was throwing insults at Canada, another Vice President of CAF was on cable TV showering praise on the discredited leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Appearing on a Muslim cable TV show, Ali Mallah endorsed the election of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad as valid, and echoed the official line of the Tehran regime, claiming Western governments and Western Media were to blame for the current unrest in Iran. "

You will recall that in February of this year Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced he would slash federal funding to the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) after its president, Khaled Mouammar, called him a "professional whore" for supporting Israel. This was not a one-off. During the 2006 Liberal leadership campaign, the CAF initiated a smear campaign against Bob Rae solely on the grounds that his Jewish wife was active in her community. The CAF are also 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and last year sponsored an essay contest on "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," in which it urged high school students to channel the group's own fervid hatred of Israel for prizes.

As Jonathan Kay noted February 17 here, "Last year, the National Post editorial board hosted Mouammar and a CAF colleague for an editorial board meeting. To our collective shock, they laid blame for virtually every problem the world faces on Israel - including the alienation of Arab-Canadian children in Canada's public school system. (One explained that he had sent his daughter for education overseas - because the inclusion of Israel in Canadian textbooks was too traumatic for her to endure.)"

Many liberals reflexively rose up to challenge Jason Kenney's announcement that the government would no longer fund the CAF. The wonder to any objective observer of this hateful group is how they ever came to get a red cent from the government in the first place. Nobody in this country is forced to celebrate Canada Day, but it's a bit much, even for us phlegmatic types, to witness the alleged spokesman of a cultural community spewing hatred against a democracy they had no part in making, and whose freedoms and security, so unlike the countries they come from, they apparently take for granted. To bite the hands of one's benefactor on the most symbolic day of the benefactor's year is a provocation that must not go unchallenged. There is tolerance and there is masochism. We too often confuse them in this naive and well-meaning nation. It is past time that this intolerant and subversive organization folded its tents and retreated from the public forum. It is a disgrace to all Arabs, and it is, by the way, past time that we heard the same from a sizable number of Arab-Canadians. Loud and clear.

Thanks to Vlad Tepes for posting this...

Vegetarian diets weaken bones...

The Vegan diet is the worst of all...

People who live on vegetarian diets have slightly weaker bones than their meat-eating counterparts, Australian researchers said Thursday.

A joint Australian-Vietnamese study of links between the bones and diet of more than 2,700 people found that vegetarians had bones five percent less dense than meat-eaters, said lead researcher Tuan Nguyen.

The issue was most pronounced in vegans, who excluded all animal products from their diet and whose bones were six percent weaker, Nguyen said.

There was "practically no difference" between the bones of meat-eaters and ovolactovegetarians, who excluded meat and seafood but ate eggs and dairy products, he said.

"The results suggest that vegetarian diets, particularly vegan diets, are associated with lower bone mineral density," Nguyen wrote in the study, which was published Thursday in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Israel and Arabs agree - Iran is the big threat...

Well, something they can agree on !

At a Pew Forum discussion on Iran and the Middle East last December, Vali Nasr, the Iran expert (and adviser to Richard Holbrooke, the State Department’s envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan), talked about the rise of Iran, and the marginalization of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Nasr argued, convincingly, that most Arab states have a deeper interest in containing Iran than they do in containing Israel. “Once upon a time we used to think—and some people still do—that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the key to solving all the problems of the region: terrorism, al-Qaeda, Iran, and Iraq,” he said. “I think the Persian Gulf is the key to solving the Arab-Israeli issue. All the powers that matter—Iran, Saudi Arabia, and even the good news of the region: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, etc.—are all in the gulf. And all the conflicts that matter to us—Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran—are in the gulf and then to the east.”

Israel, of course, considers Iran a threat to its existence. “Can Israel flourish—survive and flourish—in a Middle East in which Iran, under its current leadership, is nuclear?” asked Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, when I visited him earlier this spring. “I think it’s much better not to get to that point.”

The remarkable thing about this moment in the Middle East is that Arab leaders speak about Iran more critically than even Netanyahu does. In March, Morocco broke diplomatic relations with Iran over what it claimed were attempts by Iranian Shia to convert Moroccan Sunnis; in Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak’s intelligence services spent the spring breaking up Hezbollah cells (Hezbollah being the Lebanese Shia proxy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps). “Even if we forget that Iran is trying to obtain a nuclear capability, all gulf and Arab countries are extremely unhappy with the Iranian involvement in our region,” a senior official of the United Arab Emirates recently told me. “We see this today in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Yemen. We just saw the Moroccans breaking diplomatic ties with Iran because of that. We’ve been seeing that in one way or the other in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Sudan.”

In 2006, Mubarak accused Arab Shia of being loyal to Iran. “Definitely Iran has influence on Shiites,” he said. “Shiites are 65 percent of the Iraqis. Most of the Shiites are loyal to Iran, and not to the countries they are living in.” And Yusuf Qaradawi, a leading Sunni scholar, said last year, “Shiites are Muslims, but they are heretics, and their danger comes from their attempts to invade Sunni society. They are able to do that because their billions of dollars trained cadres of Shiites proselytizing in Sunni countries.”

Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, recently told me that he has sensed an oncoming revolution in Sunni thinking. “For the first time, the majority of the Arab world thinks that Iran is the real danger, not Israel. Seventy percent of the Arabs are Sunnis. The Sunnis look upon us, whether they say it or not, not as a problem but as a hope.”

Peres may be overstating, but moderate Arab leaders would obviously like a Sunni-Jewish alliance: Israeli compromise—an agreement, for instance, to freeze settlement growth on the West Bank—would prove to their pro-Palestinian constituents that Arab states, and not Iran, are guarantors of Palestinian interests, and it would allow them to deepen their subterranean military-intelligence connections with Israel on the Iran question. Such an alliance has even more obvious strategic advantages for Israel: Netanyahu has said he will lobby Europe, China, and Russia on the necessity for strong action to stop the Iranian nuclear program. His case would be strengthened immeasurably if he could make these arguments in concert with Arab leaders.

Hamas tells prisoners to bring their own food....

Well, the Hamas prison food isn't all that good...

Hamas's security forces in the Gaza Strip have asked Fatah detainees to bring their own food and drink with them, Fatah officials said on Wednesday.

The officials said that at least 500 Fatah supporters have been detained by Hamas security forces over the past few days in one of the biggest security crackdowns in recent years. Some of the Fatah activists who were summoned for questioning by phone before they were detained said Hamas security officers told them to bring their own food and drink.

"The prisons in the Gaza Strip are so full that Hamas doesn't have enough money to feed all the detainees," said a Fatah official in Ramallah. "In many cases the detainees receive permission to call their families and ask for food and soft drinks."

A chat with environmentalist John Christy...

He's one of the authors of the IPCC report, and is director of the Earth System Science Center at University of Alabama-Huntsville...

In laymen's terms, what's wrong with the surface temperature readings that are widely used to make the case for global warming?

First is the placement of the temperature stations. They're placed in convenient locations that might be in a parking lot or near a house and thus get extra heating from these human structures. Over time, there's been the development of areas into farms or buildings or parking lots. Also, a number of these weather stations have become electronic, and many of them were moved to a place where there is electricity, which is usually right outside a building. As a result, there's a natural warming tendency, especially in the nighttime temperatures, that has been misinterpreted as greenhouse warming.

Are there any negative consequences to this localized warming?

It's a small impact, but there is an indication that major thunderstorms are more likely to form downwind of major cities like St. Louis and Atlanta. The extra heating of the city causes the air to rise with a little more punch.

Have you been able to confirm your satellite temperature readings by other means?

Weather balloons. We take satellite shots at the same place where the balloon is released so we're looking at the same column of air. Our satellite data compares exceptionally well to the balloon data.

During your House Ways and Means testimony, you showed a chart juxtaposing predictions made by NASA's Jim Hansen in 1988 for future temperature increases against the actual recorded temperature increases over the past 20 years. Not only were the actual increases much lower, but they were lower than what Hansen expected if there were drastic cuts in CO2 emissions - which of course there haven't been. [Hansen is a noted scientist who was featured prominently in Al Gore's global warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."] Hansen was at that hearing. Did he say anything to you afterwards?

We really don't communicate. We serve on a committee for NASA together, but it only deals with specific satellite issues. At the Ways and Means hearing, he was sitting two people down from me, but he did not want to engage any of the evidence I presented. And that seems to be the preferred tactic of many in the alarmist camp. Rather than bring up these issues, they simply ignore them.

(Contacted by Fortune, Hansen acknowledges that his 1988 projections were based on a model that "slightly" overstated the warming created by a doubling in CO2 levels. His new model posits a rise of 3 degrees Celsius in global temperatures by 2100, vs. 4.2 degrees in the old one. Says Hansen, "The projections that the public has been hearing about are based on a climate sensitivity that is consistent with the global warming rate of the past few decades." Christy's response: "Hansen at least admits his 1988 forecasts were wrong, but doesn't say they were way wrong, not 'slightly,' as he states." Christy also claims that even Hansen's revised models grossly overestimated the amount of warming that has actually occurred.)

I know you think there's been something of a hysteria in the media about melting glaciers. Could you explain?

Ice melts. Glaciers are always calving. This is what ice does. If ice did not melt, we'd have an ice-covered planet. The fact is that the ice cover is growing in the southern hemisphere even as the ice cover is more or less shrinking in the northern hemisphere. As you and I are talking today, global sea ice coverage is about 400,000 square kilometers above the long-term average - which means that the surplus in the Antarctic is greater than the deficit in the Arctic.

What about the better-safe-than-sorry argument? Even if there's a chance Gore and Hansen are wrong, shouldn't we still take action in order to protect ourselves from catastrophe, just in case they're right?

The problem is that the solutions being offered don't provide any detectable relief from this so-called catastrophe. Congress is now discussing an 80% reduction in U.S. greenhouse emissions by 2050. That's basically the equivalent of building 1,000 new nuclear power plants all operating by 2020. Now I'm all in favor of nuclear energy, but that would affect the global temperature by only seven-hundredths of a degree by 2050 and fifteen hundredths by 2100. We wouldn't even notice it.

CNN is now the Michael Jackson network....

Ok, I have had it with Michael Jackson...enough...

So Michael Jackson's body was going to be returned to his ranch at Neverland, where it would lie in state in a glass coffin for his helplessly grieving fans to say their goodbyes.

It would be borne there in a white 'fairyland' horse-drawn coach as sobbing crowds line the route. Then would come the bad-taste funeral to end all bad-taste funerals, an orgy of saccharine camp with yet more artificially whipped-up sentiment.

You will start to feel, if you do not feel already, like someone who has turned on a cold shower tap hoping for some refreshing water, only to be bathed in warm, sticky syrup.

Michael Jackson's death has prompted an extraordinary outpouring of grief across the world

Michael Jackson was a remarkable performer who more than earned his fame and popularity as a pop singer. And he had many fans who are perfectly entitled to feel sad that he has died.

But he was also a sad little weirdo, possibly a child molester, and it would be wholly inappropriate to mourn his passing with too great a weight of solemnity.

Michael Jackson's promoters want to make this death into a new Princess Diana funeral moment. A global Jade Goody weep-in. They stood to make a fortune out of Wacko's London series of concerts, and are now determined to reap the benefits of the revival of his reputation in the charts.

They are not going to allow us simply to think: 'It's sad about Wacko - now who's the next big star coming along?'

They want us to wallow in artificially created grief. And the reality is that so many of us are prepared to go along with this grotesque commercial ruse.

What has happened to our society to make us so keen on phoney, self-indulgent grief? Partially, of course, it is the changing nature of the people we hold in esteem compared to our heroes of old.

I am glad I am just old enough to remember Winston Churchill's funeral on the television. Here was a man of titanic greatness.

Iran disqualifies the EU....

Look, if you won't even talk to the EU (which never stops wanting to talk), then you have nobody to talk to at all...

The EU is no longer qualified to take part in talks on Iran's nuclear programme, Iran's military chief says.

Maj Gen Hassan Firouzabadi, Iran's chief of staff, accused the EU of "interference" in riots which followed June's disputed presidential elections.

EU states, meanwhile, are considering withdrawing their ambassadors from Iran in a growing diplomatic row.

Britain proposed the step after Iran detained nine of its embassy staff last week. Eight have since been released.

The BBC's European affairs correspondent Oana Lungescu says senior officials from EU capitals will discuss the request in Stockholm on Thursday.

But diplomats say that Germany and Italy - Iran's biggest trading partners in the EU - oppose it, arguing that channels of dialogue with Iran should be kept open.

I love that last line! There is no dialogue with Iran - the west keeps talking - and they keep saying NO.

A letter to Congress....

TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: YOU ARE BEING DECEIVED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

You have recently received an Open Letter from the Woods Hole Research Center, exhorting you to act quickly to avoid global disaster. The letter purports to be from independent scientists, but that Center is the former den of the President’s science advisor, John Holdren, and is far from independent. This is the same science advisor who has given us predictions of “almost certain” thermonuclear war or eco-catastrophe by the year 2000, and many other forecasts of doom that somehow never seem to arrive on time.

The facts are:

The sky is not falling; the Earth has been cooling for ten years, without help.
The present cooling was NOT predicted by the alarmists’ computer models, and has come as an embarrassment to them.

The finest meteorologists in the world cannot predict the weather two weeks in advance, let alone the climate for the rest of the century. Can Al Gore? Can John Holdren?
We are flooded with claims that the evidence is clear, that the debate is closed, that we must act immediately, etc, but in fact

THERE IS NO SUCH EVIDENCE; IT DOESN’T EXIST.

The proposed legislation would cripple the US economy, putting us at a disadvantage compared to our competitors. For such drastic action, it is only prudent to demand genuine proof that it is needed, not guesswork, and not false claims about the state of the science.

DEMAND PROOF, NOT CONSENSUS

Finally, climate alarmism pays well. Many alarmists are profiting from their activism. There are billions of dollars floating around for the taking, and being taken.

Robert H. Austin
Professor of Physics
Princeton University
Fellow APS, AAAS
American Association of Arts and Science Member National Academy of Sciences

William Happer
Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics
Princeton University
Fellow APS, AAAS
Member National Academy of Sciences

S. Fred Singer
Professor of Environmental Sciences Emeritus, University of Virginia
First Director of the National Weather Satellite Service
Fellow APS, AAAS, AGU

Roger W. Cohen
Manager, Strategic Planning and Programs, ExxonMobil Corporation (retired)
Fellow APS

Harold W. Lewis
Professor of Physics Emeritus
University of California at Santa Barbara
Fellow APS, AAAS; Chairman, APS Reactor Safety Study

Laurence I. Gould
Professor of Physics
University of Hartford
Chairman (2004), New England Section of APS

Richard Lindzen
Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fellow American Academy of Arts and Sciences, AGU, AAAS, and AMS
Member Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Member National Academy of Sciences

Happy Canada Day!

Here's a terrific Canada Day story...

He walked into the room dressed in traditional black robes to preside over our citizenship ceremony last month, but Judge Tanh Hai Ngo is anything but the stereotypical pompous judge.

His warm smile and cheerful demeanour put all citizens-to-be at ease. From 41 countries, 80 people stood with their right hands raised swearing allegiance to the Her Majesty the Queen and to Canada. Among them, my husband and I, born and bred in England. Our journey was perhaps not as inspiring. We did not come seeking safety, nor freedom. We have been privileged enough to have comforts of all kind in Britain. We did come seeking a change, and that is precisely what we received in the form of a more sane pace of life.

Judge Tanh Hai Ngo though, came to Canada fleeing Vietnam and communism over 40 years ago. He arrived with his wife and children and was looking for freedoms, safety, and prosperity. Watching him and listening to the intense enthusiasm he had as he spoke, it was not difficult to see that he has fulfilled his dreams in Canada.

“Canada is the best country in the world,” he told all participants, and from the huge smile on his face and warmth in his eyes, it was easy to see, he meant it.

He spoke at length to those present about how Canada is a wonderful place to live and that citizenship comes with so many rights, rights we as Canadians cherish. He listed some of those rights: the right to practice our faith in peace; the right to think freely; to speak freely. As he did so, he did not lecture, or speak in a condescending manner. He spoke from the heart and earnestly. In Vietnam, it would have been impossible to do any of these things 40 years ago. He went on to speak about the condition of those rights: citizenship certainly comes with rights and freedoms, but it also comes with responsibility. He went on to explain to people how important it was for them to get actively involved in our democratic process and vote.

“I stress on that in the ceremony,” he said as we chatted afterwards. “I especially stress it because I know what it is like, in some countries people don’t feel their vote counts, or they feel they don’t need to bother to vote. They come here and think that everything’s okay, that they have their life and they let everyone else take care of voting. That’s not right,” he said.

The real obstacle to peace in the Middle East...

Ahmadinejad warns of revenge.....

I am glad this douchebag keeps on making horrendous statements....

Mr Ahmadinejad used the attack on Western powers send a defiant message in his first public comments since his controversial re-election was upheld by the electoral authorities on Monday. He said: "We must use all the capacities to break the monopoly of the global powers."

The myth of feminist scholarship...

Christina Hoff Sommers tells the truth about feminists...

"Harder to kill than a vampire." That is what the sociologist Joel Best calls a bad statistic. But, as I have discovered over the years, among false statistics the hardest of all to slay are those promoted by feminist professors. Consider what happened recently when I sent an e-mail message to the Berkeley law professor Nancy K.D. Lemon pointing out that the highly praised textbook that she edited, Domestic Violence Law (second edition, Thomson/West, 2005), contained errors.

Her reply began:

"I appreciate and share your concern for veracity in all of our scholarship. However, I would expect a colleague who is genuinely concerned about such matters to contact me directly and give me a chance to respond before launching a public attack on me and my work, and then contacting me after the fact."

I confess: I had indeed publicly criticized Lemon's book, in campus lectures and in a post on FeministLawProfessors.com. I had always thought that that was the usual practice of intellectual argument. Disagreement is aired, error corrected, truth affirmed. Indeed, I was moved to write to her because of the deep consternation of law students who had attended my lectures: If authoritative textbooks contain errors, how are students to know whether they are being educated or indoctrinated? Lemon's book has been in law-school classrooms for years.

One reason that feminist scholarship contains hard-to-kill falsehoods is that reasonable, evidence-backed criticism is regarded as a personal attack.

Lemon's Domestic Violence Law is organized as a conventional law-school casebook — a collection of judicial opinions, statutes, and articles selected, edited, and commented upon by the author. The first selection, written by Cheryl Ward Smith (no institutional affiliation is given), offers students a historical perspective on domestic-violence law. According to Ward:

"The history of women's abuse began over 2,700 years ago in the year 753 BC. It was during the reign of Romulus of Rome that wife abuse was accepted and condoned under the Laws of Chastisement. ... The laws permitted a man to beat his wife with a rod or switch so long as its circumference was no greater than the girth of the base of the man's right thumb. The law became commonly know as 'The Rule of Thumb.' These laws established a tradition which was perpetuated in English Common Law in most of Europe."

Where to begin? How about with the fact that Romulus of Rome never existed. He is a figure in Roman mythology — the son of Mars, nursed by a wolf. Problem 2: The phrase "rule of thumb" did not originate with any law about wife beating, nor has anyone ever been able to locate any such law. It is now widely regarded as a myth, even among feminist professors.

A few pages later, in a selection by Joan Zorza, a domestic-violence expert, students read, "The March of Dimes found that women battered during pregnancy have more than twice the rate of miscarriages and give birth to more babies with more defects than women who may suffer from any immunizable illness or disease." Not true. When I recently read Zorza's assertion to Richard P. Leavitt, director of science information at the March of Dimes, he replied, "That is a total error on the part of the author. There was no such study." The myth started in the early 1990s, he explained, and resurfaces every few years.

Zorza also informs readers that "between 20 and 35 percent of women seeking medical care in emergency rooms in America are there because of domestic violence." Studies by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, indicate that the figure is closer to 1 percent.

Few students would guess that the Lemon book is anything less than reliable. The University of California at Berkeley's online faculty profile of Lemon hails it as the "premiere" text of the genre. It is part of a leading casebook series, published by Thomson/West, whose board of academic advisers, prominently listed next to the title page, includes many eminent law professors.

I mentioned these problems in my message to Lemon. She replied:

"I have looked into your assertions and requested documentation from Joan Zorza regarding the March of Dimes study and the statistics on battered women in emergency rooms. She provided both of these promptly."

If that's the case, Zorza and Lemon might share their documentation with Leavitt, of the March of Dimes, who is emphatic that it does not exist. They might also contact the Centers for Disease Control statistician Janey Hsiao, who wrote to me that "among ED [Emergency Department] visits made by females, the percent of having physical abuse by spouse or partner is 0.02 percent in 2003 and 0.01 percent in 2005."

Here is what Lemon says about Cheryl Ward Smith's essay on Romulus and the rule of thumb:

"I made a few minor editorial changes in the Smith piece so that it is more accurate. However, overall it appeared to be correct."

A few minor editorial changes? Students deserve better. So do women victimized by violence.

Feminist misinformation is pervasive. In their eye-opening book, Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women's Studies (Lexington Books, 2003), the professors Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge describe the "sea of propaganda" that overwhelms the contemporary feminist classroom. The formidable Christine Rosen (formerly Stolba), in her 2002 report on the five leading women's-studies textbooks, found them rife with falsehoods, half-truths, and "deliberately misleading sisterly sophistries." Are there serious scholars in women's studies? Yes, of course. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, an anthropologist at the University of California at Davis; Janet Zollinger Giele, a sociologist at Brandeis; and Anne Mellor, a literary scholar at UCLA, to name just three, are models of academic excellence and integrity. But they are the exception. Lemon's book typifies the departmental mind-set.

Consider The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World (2008), by the feminist scholar Joni Seager, chair of the Hunter College geography department. Now in its fourth edition, Seager's atlas was named "reference book of the year" by the American Library Association when it was published. "Nobody should be without this book," says the feminist icon Gloria Steinem. "A wealth of fascinating information," enthuses The Washington Post. Fascinating, maybe. But the information is misleading and, at least in one instance, flat-out false.

One color-coded map illustrates how women are kept "in their place" by restrictions on their mobility, dress, and behavior. Somehow the United States comes out looking as bad in this respect as Somalia, Uganda, Yemen, Niger, and Libya. All are coded with the same shade of green to indicate places where "patriarchal assumptions" operate in "potent combination with fundamentalist religious interpretations." Seager's logic? She notes that in parts of Uganda, a man can claim an unmarried woman as his wife by raping her. The United States gets the same low rating on Seager's charts because, she notes, "State legislators enacted 301 anti-abortion measures between 1995 and 2001." Never mind that the Ugandan practice is barbaric, that U.S. abortion law is exceptionally liberal among the nations of the world, and that the activism and controversy surrounding the issue of abortion in the United States is a sign of a vigorous free democracy working out its disagreements.

On another map, the United States gets the same rating for domestic violence as Uganda and Haiti. Seager backs up that verdict with that erroneous and ubiquitous emergency-room factoid: "22 percent-35 percent of women who visit a hospital emergency room do so because of domestic violence."

Here are some really stupid parents...

Gender is NOT a social construction...and these parents will find it out the hard way....it's just too bad their child has to be experimented on...

The Local reported June 23 on Swedish parents who are keeping their 2-year-old's gender a secret. They're raising a not very funny Saturday Night Live Pat.

The child was called "Pop" for the interview with parents, but is not the child's real name:

Pop's parents, both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop's sex a secret. Aside from a select few - those who have changed the child's diaper - nobody knows Pop's gender; if anyone enquires, Pop's parents simply say they don't disclose this information.

In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.

"We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset," Pop's mother said. "It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead."

The child's parents said so long as they keep Pop's gender a secret, he or she will be able to avoid preconceived notions of how people should be treated if male or female.

Pop's wardrobe includes everything from dresses to trousers and Pop's hairstyle changes on a regular basis. And Pop usually decides how Pop is going to dress on a given morning.

Although Pop knows that there are physical differences between a boy and a girl, Pop's parents never use personal pronouns when referring to the child - they just say Pop.

Islamists against legalization of gay sex in India...

India is finally thinking about legalizing gay sex....but, of course, the muslims object...

A leading Islamic seminary on Monday opposed Centre's move to repeal a controversial section of the penal law which criminalises homosexuality saying unnatural sex is against the tenets of Islam.

"Homosexuality is an offence under Shariat Law and haram (prohibited) in Islam," deputy vice chancellor of the Darul Uloom Deoband Maulana Abdul Khalik Madrasi said.

Madrasi also asked the government not to repeal section 377 of IPC which criminalises homosexuality.

Good news! White firefighters win the US....

A good decision by the Supreme Court...

The Supreme Court has ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide, potentially limiting the circumstances in which employers can be held liable for decisions when there is no evidence of intentional discrimination against minorities.

"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Good news! Ahmadinejad loves Neda!

Good god...can you imagine what horrors will come out of this investigation - probably that the Zionists were behind the death of Neda...

Mr Ahmadinejad sent a letter to Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, the head of the judiciary, requesting an investigation to help identify "the elements" behind this month's killing of the student, the official IRNA news agency said.

He accused foreign media of using the case for propaganda purposes. He also suggested that the opposition and Iran's enemies abroad aimed to misuse it "for their own political aims and also to distort the pure and clean image of the Islamic Republic in the world".

His letter added: "I request you to order the judicial system to seriously follow up the murder case ... and identify elements behind the case and inform the people of the result."

Great Lake Water Levels are Up....

If they were down, it would be a huge global warming story...

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reports that Great Lakes water levels are up from this time a year ago. Lakes Michigan and Huron are up 12 inches, Lake Superior 2 inches and Lake Erie 5 inches while Lake Ontario is unchanged. Even Lake St. Clair is up 9 inches. Erie and Ontario (and St. Clair) are between 2 and 6 inches above long-term monthly averages for June. Superior, Michigan and Huron are only 6 to 7 inches below long-term averages for June. While this change in the water levels is pronounced, it is not unusual. The Great Lakes have a history of considerable fluctuation in water levels.

During the last 10 years, water levels in the Great Lakes have been below long-term averages. For 30 years prior to that the levels were above average. In fact, historical water level data indicates there is no normal water level for the Great Lakes. A normal water level and an average water level are not the same thing.

The press has been quick to report on lower-than-average Great Lakes levels over the last decade. Many of the articles quote environmental and other groups predicting the dire consequences of global warming's influence. "Warming saps Great Lakes: Water levels could take big drop as Earth gets hotter" is the headline of an article that appeared April 7, 2007, in The Detroit News. In the article, Scudder Mackey of Canada's University of Windsor predicts that in a worst case scenario, Lake St. Clair's shoreline could recede by as much as 3.5 miles. In the same article George Kling, a University of Michigan ecologist, suggests that within 30 years summers in Michigan are likely to feel more like those in Kentucky today and that by the end of the century, summer weather will resemble Arkansas and northern Mississippi.

Climate change alarmists predicting doomsday scenarios for the Great Lakes are probably not too pleased with the draft report "Impacts on Upper Great Lakes Water Levels: St. Clair River" released May 1, 2009, by the International Joint Commission. The report found that the difference in water levels between Lake Michigan-Huron and Lake Erie of 9 inches between 1962 and 2006 was caused by three factors:

* A change in the conveyance of the St. Clair River, mostly likely caused by a large ice jam that occurred in the mid-1980s;
* Glacial isostatic adjustment (the rebounding of the earth's crust after the melting of the glaciers about 10,000 years ago);
* Changes in climate patterns.

If lower-than-average water levels in the Great Lakes is caused by global warming, then increasing water levels must be caused by global cooling, right? Of course the global cooling connection to Great Lakes water levels is just as spurious as the global warming claims. Maybe it is time to take a pause and understand that as much as we might like to, man does not control nature. At the very least we should not undertake expensive and job-killing policy initiatives such as cap-and-trade of CO2 because of predictions regarding the Great Lakes, which are proving to be wrong.

Iran has arrested over 2,000 people...

And, who knows what the real number is...

More than 2,000 Iranians have been arrested and hundreds more have disappeared since the regime decided to crush dissent after the disputed presidential election, a leading human rights organisation said yesterday.

“A climate of terror and of fear reigns in Iran today,” the International Federation for Human Rights , an umbrella body for 155 human rights organisations, said as it released the startling figures.

Last night 3,000 protesters tried to gather outside a mosque in Tehran where they believed that Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated presidential candidate, was going to speak. The police rapidly dispersed them and Mr Mousavi never appeared.

Having largely suppressed such protests, the security forces are engaged in a purge of dissidents in an apparent effort to decapitate Mr Mousavi’s so-called green movement.

Prominent Iranian actors, actresses, writers and singers are believed to have been seized at the weekend for supporting the demonstrators. Several opposition bloggers have fallen silent, probably because they have been detained. Almost anyone who dares to challenge President Ahmadinejad’s re-election is now considered an enemy of the state.

At least one senior Mousavi aide and other unidentified Iranians have appeared on state television to “confess” that the demonstrations were part of a foreign conspiracy against the Islamic Republic.

Human Rights Watch says that the Basiji — volunteer Islamic militiamen — are raiding houses, beating civilians and destroying their cars and other property in an effort to silence the nightly rooftop chanting that has become the opposition’s last means of peaceful protest. “The Basiji entered our neighbourhood and started firing live rounds into the air, in the direction of the buildings from which they believe the shouting of ‘Allahu akbar’ [God is greatest] is coming from,” a middle-aged Tehran resident said.

“Shortly thereafter my cousin arrived at our apartment. He was very shaken. The Basiji had entered their house and they had destroyed the doors and they had destroyed cars in the street. In every neighbourhood of Tehran people are talking about how the Basiji and other security services are coming into their houses and terrorising people.”

Even a comedian can't play Lebanon...

Calls for a boycott despite the shows being sold-out!

French-Jewish stand-up comedian Gad Elmaleh has cancelled his performances in a Lebanon festival, after media in Lebanon reported he had served in the Israel Defense Forces.

The organizing committee of the Beiteddine festival, which is scheduled to take place south-east of Beirut next month, wholly denied the claims.

But in a statement, Elmaleh's agent said he decided to cancel his participation "out of concern for his personal security and that of the festival," after the organizers were swamped with e-mails and phone calls calling for a boycott of his three shows, which are sold out.