Thursday, December 24, 2009

Mary's Place of Quiet



Our Daily Bread offered a fitting reflection for Christmas Eve today, and gave me a new insight into that special birth as Mary brought Jesus into this harsh world in Bethlehem; it was two millenia ago but it is so fresh to me and countless others today.

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, AB

God’s Special Place
 [Mary] brought forth her firstborn Son, . . .  and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. —Luke 2:7
As a young girl in the late 1920s, Grace Ditmanson Adams often traveled with her missionary parents through inland China. Later, she wrote about those trips and the crowded places where they stayed overnight—village inns full of people coughing, sneezing, and smoking, while babies cried and children complained. Her family put their bedrolls on board-covered trestles in a large room with everyone else.

One snowy night, they arrived at an inn to find it packed full. The innkeeper expressed his regret, then paused and said, “Follow me.” He led them to a side room used to store straw and farm equipment. There they slept in a quiet place of their own.
 
After that, whenever Grace read that Mary “brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7), she saw the event differently. While some described the innkeeper as an example of uncaring, sinful mankind who rejected the Savior, Grace said, “I truly believe that Almighty God used the innkeeper as the arranger for a healthier place than the crowded inn—a place of privacy.”

Through eyes of faith, we see God’s provision for Mary. Look for the ways He provides for you.  — David C. McCasland


Wait on the Lord from day to day,
Strength He provides in His own way;
There’s no need for worry, no need to fear,
He is our God who is always near. —Fortna


Those who let God provide will be satisfied.





Our Daily Bread God’s Special Place

Israel's Netanyahu's Christmas and Civil New Year Greetings

I am grateful that there is one country in the Middle East where Jews, Christians and Muslims can "act in accordance with their beliefs and according to the dictates of their consciences." So I publish Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Christmas greetings in its entirety below.

Christian's are at best second class citizen's, and frequently face persecution across all Middle East countries except Israel. The examples are numerous and freely available for those who care to look to the truth, here are two that were posted at Lux et Veritas; these happen to be about Egypt but the situation is the same or worse in other Muslim countries (sometimes Sunni against Shia and Shia against Sunni).
Anti-Semitism in Egypt;
and the plight of Coptic Christians: Egypt's Coptic Christians call for general strike on September 11 to protest persecution

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary AB

Prime Minister Netanyahu's 
Christmas and Civil New Year Greetings

"Today Christmas Eve, I would like to wish Israel's Christian citizens a Merry Christmas.

Since its founding, the State of Israel has granted freedom of worship to its citizens – Jews, Christians and Muslims act in accordance with their beliefs and according to the dictates of their consciences. We must preserve the delicate fabric that has been created among the people of the various faiths and continue to develop the religious tolerance that exists between us all.

Ahead of the civil New Year, I would like to wish Christians in Israel, the Middle East and throughout the entire world – a good and prosperous year. May it be that in the coming year that we will take another step toward coexistence in Israel and that together we will advance the economy, education and tourism in our country.

Since its inception, my Government has worked to advance the peace process with our Palestinian neighbors. In the coming year as well, we will continue to advance efforts to achieve a lasting peace in our region."

PM Netanyahu's greetings are from the Prime Minister's Office of Israel.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Taking back freedom from government tyranny


This man speaks sound principles with passion and conviction - and there is no teleprompter - Colonel Allen West speaks from the heart.

Florida Congressional Candidate Allen West calls on all Americans to stand up against an out of control Federal Government.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Climategate - the Infamy of the Lamestreet Media


Where is all the professional journalism on climategate? You would think that the mainstream media (from now on to be referred to as the lamestreet media) would be all over this.

The media hacks who have been cheerleaders for global warming propaganda and IPCC disinformation should be livid that they fell for this story; livid that they where duped.

They should also be livid at themselves for their lack of professionalism in not researching into the scam.

There has been ample resources on the Internet exposing the shaky science, but the vast majority of the lamestreet media has been behaving like groupies at a rock concert waving their panties on the air.

Following my report on the CBC earlier today, I did a quick Google search on some major news outlets today (Nov 30).

The Washington Post
The Washington Post only had 3 pages (one of them was just a duplicated reference) of these 3 pages, 1 was a blog entry asking why no climategate coverage, that left 2:
  • Juliet Eilperin - made lame excuses and generally supported the phony global-warming science in her piece In the trenches on climate change, hostility among foes  
  • Howard Kurtz - one letter on climategate near the end of a very long roundup Media Backtalk; Mr. Kurtz does not give justice to the letter and is somewhat dismissive. The entry is dated Monday, November 30, 2009 and yet Kurtz can only cite 2 entries at the Washington Post, here's the letter, from a gentleman in Kalamazoo:
from Kalamazoo, Mich: Mr. Kurtz,
It has been suggested that one way media show their bias is to diminish the importance of stories that don't fit the script, perhaps by burying them, or to ignore the stories altogether. Against that backdrop I find the coverage of the climate e-mails story (called in some quarters "climategate") quite revealing. These thousands of e-mails came from the English academy which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.
Putting aside the question of whether global warming is real or not, or if it is, whether it is caused primarily by man or not, the e-mails appear to reveal a profound corruption of the scientific process. Of course, the very validity of scientific inquiry is based on the assumption that scientific processes are followed, and here it is beyond question that they were not.
And yet, at the same time the Obama administration stands ready to commit the country to billions of dollars in expenditures to "fight" global warming, the media largely appear to be dodging this story. Why?
Of course, it is possible that the science is valid. But if it were, why the need to suppress contrary views? Why the effort to ostracize scientific journals which published differing opinions?
The Post has penned several editorials which gloss over the issue. Can anyone in your shop not see what a failure this is on the Post's part? No sense of inquiry, no sense of healthy skepticism. Instead, just a complete buy-in to what may be bogus science.
Howard Kurtz:
I see two news stories about the e-mails in The Washington Post, as well as editorial and opinion pieces. So we have hardly ignored it. There was criticism of a NYT reporter who blogged that he wouldn't report the content of the e-mails because they had been obtained by hackers. This doesn't prove by a long shot that climate change is "bogus science," but it's a huge embarrassment to the scientists involved.

No Mr Kurtz, the Washington Post did not completely ignore it - but this is a huge story, but you can only cite 2 entries.

2 news stories is not much since the story broke at least 10 days earlier (there are reports as early as Nov 20, perhaps even earlier).
this is a huge story, but the Washington Post can only cite 2 news entries.
Hadley CRU was the premier source for climate data in the global warming world, with a huge budget to  research global temperature changes, it is up to the global warming theorists to prove the case, which they have not done to date. But when some of the principle scientists for the theories are caught lying and falsifying the data there should be some alarm bells going off in the media; the journalistic antennae of the reporters should be tingling with this massive story - but apparently they are not - not even mildly stimulated it seems.
...  it is up to the global warming theorists to prove their case, which they have not done to date
I think the point of the gentleman from Kalamazoo, Mich is proven by the reply of Mr. Kurtz - Q.E.D. (quod erat demonstrandum - "which was to be demonstrated").

Returning to Juliet Eilperin's piece thee ae a number of links to other climate stories at the end of her piece, but these were generally moderately or very favourable to global warming theories. From an article titled Hackers steal electronic data from top climate research center we see this reference: 
In one e-mail from 1999, the center's director, Phil Jones, alludes to one of Mann's articles in the journal Nature and writes, "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."
Mann said the "trick" Jones referred to was placing a chart of proxy temperature records, which ended in 1980, next to a line showing the temperature record collected by instruments from that time onward. "It's hardly anything you would call a trick," Mann said, adding that both charts were differentiated and clearly marked.
Ms. Eilperin gives Professor Mann the benefit of the doubt by publishing his explanation concerning the word "trick";  very commendable to give all sides of the story, but she fails to note that the word "trick" in the context of "hide" a trend in temperatures clearly shows intent to falsify the results so they looked btter from a global-warming point of view. Where was Ms. Eilperin's journalistic antennae?  

 But, as shown here on Lux et Veritas in the post: Climategate - It Had to Happen, Professor Mann's hockey stick graph was debunked by a paper in 2003 by Canadians Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. But the lamestreet media chose not to investigate but stick with Al Gore and Davis Suzuki.

As I said, there has been ample reason for suspicion of global warming theories, many reports from well-respected scientists, but the lamestream media chose to ignore them.

AMMENDMENT
I just found this piece which is a gold-star for the Washington Post - oh sorry it is the the Washington Times - ok Washington Post - no gold star for you - gold star  goes to ... The Washington Times.

Washington Times - The global-cooling cover-up


Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, Alberta

Climategate - Won't Go Away So Report it CBC


Are the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and the French Language arm RDI (Radio Canada) reporting Climategate?


What would your guess be? Would your answer be:
"Of course this is a huge story and this is a publicly funded media corporation committed to objective reporting - so of course they will report it"
Or would your answer be:
"I doubt it the CBC has been a devoted cheer-leader for the man-made global warming fraud for years, true to their liberal-leftist biases."


A Google search of "climategate" on the CBC site revealed three entries - that means there are only three pages on the whole CBC website with the word climategate.

One entry is buried in their technology section, and two entries from the CBC blog. Hmm that's very odd - the CBC does not have a front-line news story on this, so the only reporting is by way of their blog; at least we can be thankful that the CBC has a vestige of decency and did not suppress these two entries.

I like this comment post by a gentleman named Alan Forsythe
Okay we get it, the CBC has become the official spokesgroup for global warming hysteria.
Last week you did a drive by on Lawrence Solomon and promoted the message that there's a global warming cover-up. Yet we can't open a newspaper, turn on a radio or TV without hearing about global warming. And still, not a peep about climategate, wherein the so-called science is settled crowd admit their 'science' was never settled and that they have cooked the books.
I've listened to Suzuki talk and his message is much more about taking on the Conservatives than it is about environmentalism; he never mentions the Liberal Party's failure to pursue Kyoto goals when they were in government. His agenda is clear as is Gore's, who as others have mentioned, will soon be the first enviro-billionaire.
Many more have lined up at the gravy train or have joined the legions of useful idiots. But as the hysteria grows as we approach Copenhagen, most Canadians are deciding they don't want to be 'saved' by Gore and Suzuki and prefer their lives as they are now to lives led under the dictatorial hand of the UN.
The mainstreet media, or lamestreet media as I call it, is suppressing the story. It is not a side-show, governments are contempltating diverting trillions of dollars into useless programs, and the voting public needs to hear about the scam.

There is misinformation on the Internet, but at least one can sift through and find out what is happening, rather than relying on the lamestreet media.

With all due reverence: Thank God for the openness of the Internet

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, Alberta

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Misguided Anti-Israel Protest at Mountain Equipment Co-op stores

According to the Calgary Herald today (Saturday November 28), it's time to
Ignore boycott, it's time to BUYcott Israel
With the Aryan Guard in Calgary disbanding, it's good riddance to one bunch of anti-Semites.
Now, if only another bunch would disperse, as well. The misguided members of this particular group plan to picket at Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) stores today to protest the retailer's selling of Israeli-made products.
MEC management should ignore them and continue selling made-in-Israel goods.
I went over there to see what was going on and to buy something made in Israel.

There were a few picketers handing out leaflets condemning Israel, quite polite and peaceful in their behaviour, but I find their message odious. They slander MEC with their headline in their pamphlet: "Tell MEC to stop supporting Israel's was crimes". There were a few of the obligatory Yassar Arrafat scarves - quite the fashion statement on campus these days.



Of course there has to be the stupid naming of Israel as an apartheid state; they quote the egregiously misleading Goldstone report, as well as the warped opinion of the US' worst president, that big embarrassment to the United States - Jimmy Carter.

More from the Herald - this excellent comment:
Anyone who wants to boycott merchandise made in a democracy because of the despicable belief that this democracy has no right to defend itself against attacks by terrorists determined to wipe it out should be dismissed with the contempt merited.
Israel is the only country in the world that suffers condemnation for fighting back when attacked--and that bespeaks loudly of anti-Semitism, for no other reason is discernible.
One useful aspect of their pamphlet is they list the names of  brands of goods at MEC which are made in Israel; this made it easier for me to find items to purchase that are from Israel.
Thanks to the protesters for their pamphlet with the comprehensive list of goods made in  Israeli to buy when you visit at MEC.
But you can get a list here without soiling your hands taking their grubby little pamphlet.

I mentioned to every shop assistant that I talked to that I was looking for items made in Israel and they all seemed pleased.

The lady at the check out gave me an encouraging word for my support and her antipathy towards the protesters and invited me to return tomorrow (Sunday) for the pro-Israel demonstration. When she saw my Israel flag she asked me if I was Jewish, and when I said not but just a supporter of Israel she gave me an encouraging: "good for you."

The report I got from Toronto is that the pro-Israel people were more in evidence in Toronto than the pro-Hamas brigade, supported by the pictures ...


A short while ago we had the odious Sid Ryan of CUPE trying to initiate a boycott of Israeli academics, and this is the same kind of besmirching of Israel.

MEC is a co-operative and therefore it's members have a voice at the annual general meeting;the UJA Federation explains:
Become a MEC member by December 19, 2009. It costs only $5 and it gives you a say in how MEC is run at the company's Annual General Meeting.
... they  posted more information on their website - take a look if you this type of protest is repugnant to you and you would like to do something tangible to counteract it.



Gurth Whitaker
Calgary

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Global Warming Retraction

I asserted on these pages that there wasn't any proof of global warming and that it is a hoax, now I am forced to make a formal retraction in Lux et Veritas as the incontestable proof has come to light, and I feel that these things should be properly aired in the public forum for all to clearly see  ...


Better proof than the hockey-stick graph see Climategate - It Had to Happen

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, Alberta

President Calls UN Climate Meeting An Undignified Propaganda Exercise


The BS Report has an excellent commentary on the UN sponsored Climate Meeting to rally support for the Copenhagen summit in December.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon organized the climate summit to help create momentum before a U.N. meeting in Copenhagen in December to reach agreement on new targets for reducing so-called greenhouse gas emissions.
The World’s Best President Calls UN Climate Meeting An Undignified Propaganda Exercise

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply criticized a U.N. meeting on climate change on Tuesday at which U.S. President Barack Obama was among the top speakers, describing it as propagandistic and undignified.
Klaus said there were increasing doubts in the scientific community about whether humans are causing changes in the climate or whether the changes are simply naturally occurring phenomena.
The BS Report also has an interest view on the leftist nature of global-warming activism in general, and President Obama in particular. This is the first time I have seen this blog looks like it is well worth a return visit...
Compared to most of the world’s so-called leaders, Klaus is a clear-headed thinker and a defender of liberty and free markets.  He not only has the guts to oppose the popular man-made global warming hypothesis, but he also sees the movement itself as a veiled attack on the freedom and capitalism that has characterized western democracies.
"Characterized western democracies" but UK has had various ventures into socialism since the end of WWII, as wwll as France and other EU countries, but now it seems now the US is flirting with the dangerous mistress lady disaster.  BS Report continues...
In other words, the Czech President has far more in common with the past presidents of the United States than our current occupant of the office has with his predecessors. But perhaps I’m being unfair–never has an American president been so popular and received so many compliments and well-wishes from dictators and thugs. Castro, Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Kim Il Jung and a host of others all sing the praises of Obama.

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, Alberta

Climategate - It Had to Happen


Global-warming theories have been suspect from the beginning; certain climate scientists have hidden their data and shown to falsify their results [1] and subsequently refused to cooperate with; scientific peer review to validate their findings, contrary to normal scientific procedures.

The negative effect of global-warming theories is enormous: producing panic, global-warming industries, huge government grants to support research into global warming, policies that will have disastrous effect on; western economies and shift production and economic benefit to China, India, Russia etc. Billions of dollars that could have been spent on projects that would benefit the global community have been diverted to a myth.

Therefore let us consider the magnitude of climategate, and the assertion that "it had to happen."

The Watergate scandal was big news in the 1970s. US President Nixon was implicated in a cover-up; hiding of the facts, of a break-in to the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972.

That was big news because it involved the President of the United States, now we have a very different cover-up but one that actually could be bigger and more far-reaching than Watergate.

Climategate - we are talking about the leaking of thousands of documents from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, Hadley in the UK. Some of the documents show that scientists had deliberately distorted their findings to show a warming trend that really didn't exist, and they had done this by manipulating data to make it show what they wanted.

Emails and documents from Hadley CRU show that poor scientific methods were used, poor management of data (which is key to this particular research), but far worse it is revealed that there was a deliberate attempt to falsify and distort. That is very bad in scientific circles, as in any endeavour, but in this case it had great significance because the work at Hadley CRU is used by the UN body the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

This warming trend is known as the notorious "hockey-stick graph" [2] which tries to show that; temperatures have been relatively stable for about a thousand years and then show a very rapid upward trend coinciding with the growth of the industrial revolution from about the mid 1800s. This graph is supposed to show that global temperatures are rising with recently rising levels of carbon-dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.


The hockey stick graph [3] as shown in the 2001 IPCC report. This chart shows the data from Mann et al. 1999. The colored lines are the reconstructed temperatures, and the gray shaded region represents estimated error bars.

The proponents of global-warming theory say this data supports a "correlation" between CO2 and rising global temperature. A correlation is the scientific (or statistical) term to denote that there is a mutual relation between two phenomenon, and specifically there is a dependence: one thing changes dependent on changes in the other. So the claim is that global temperatures were relatively constant until humans started to produce increasing amounts of CO2, at which point there was a corresponding increase in global temperatures.

When you look at the graph, the global-warming / CO2 connection certainly looks very convincing indeed. In fact it looks to show overwhelming evidence - it's case over! .... CO2 guilty as charged! But the problem is the graph is completely bogus from a scientific point of view. It is not science it is deception.


Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age (Northern Hemisphere)

[AMMENDMENT: The medieval warm period is correctly and prominently shown
in the IPCC’s 1990 report but omitted from subsequent reports]

During the period known as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), temperatures were up to 3 degrees Celsius warmer than today’s temperatures; we know Eric the Red and Icelanders settled in Greenland and were able to farm - that's why it was named green-land.

Equally well-know that temperatures were significantly colder during a period called the Little Ice Age; the Thames froze over, and all of Europe was in a deep freeze.

These things are beyond doubt, the knowledge of them does not depend on manipulating data of the size of tree-rings to infer temperatures. The hockey-stick graph fails to show temperature variations in the Northern hemisphere which are very well known;

If we compare the two graphs we can see that the MWP and the Little Ice Age are completely missing from the hockey-stick graph. Furthermore, common sense tells us that coming out of a very cold period the temperatures has to rise and that is where the northern hemisphere was in the mid 1800s. Thirdly we can see that the hockey-stick graph shows temperature variation of about 0.5 degrees Celsius compared to a warming period of about 3 degrees Celsius.

Common sense tells us that there is something wrong with the hockey-stick graph; it doesn't work; a fact noticed by Canadians Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick 2003 published a paper in 2003 [1] which refuted the science of the hockey-stick graph.

But the hockey-stick graph was very important to global warming theories. The UN body the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published Mann's hockey-stick graph multiple times in their Third Assessment Report (2001). Lord Christopher Moncton in his excellent presentation "Hockey Stick, What Hockey Stick" [4]:
The IPCC’s politicized bureaucrats liked the graph so much that they reproduced it six times, in very large scale, and in full color. The “hockey-stick” graph was the only graph in the entire 2001 assessment report that was reproduced as often as this. 
As Lord Moncton points out the graph is based on data from varying widths of tree-rings, but the IPCC themselves (although the IPCC promoted the subsequent graph) "had previously given strong warnings against using tree-rings as proxies for pre-instrumental surface temperatures."

One of the problems of Mann's work is that it is based on the assumption that wider tree-rings always indicated warmer temperatures:
One reason for the IPCC’s warnings was that wider tree-rings do not always indicate warmer temperatures.
Trees grow faster not only when it is warmer but also when there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, because carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but a naturally-occurring substance that is plant food.
With sunlight, chlorophyll, and water, it is an essential ingredient in plant photosynthesis, without which there would be little or no life on Earth.
Note that despite the IPCC's own standard advising against the use of tree rings, the IPPC greatly promoted the hockey-stick graph as evidence of global-warming in the Third Assessment Report (2001), reproducing "it six times, in very large scale, and in full color."

Furthermore, the situation got worse after McIntyre and McKitrick (M&Ms) paper; Mann and colleagues, and scientists at the CRU embarked on a policy of disinformation and non-compliance. But even worse, they set-out to discredit and undermine any person or publication that criticised their work.

I remember those phrases that the global-warming zealots used to parrot: "the debate is over" but there never was a proper debate. It was a fait accomplis , it was a done-deal after the IPCC issued their Third Assessment Report in 2001. The press and the public jumped aboard the global-warming train.

If the case was so clear to support global warming there would not have been any reason to suppress all other scientific opposition. It was precisely because there was no clear scientific evidence that the global-warming zealots had to resort to tactics to shut people up. If good science existed it would have spoken for itself - the problem is there never was any.
If good science existed it would have spoken for itself - the problem is there never was any.
Following the Third Assessment Report in 2001 and the controversy over the invalidity of Mann's hockey-stick, the IPCC did not offer an explanation of  the errors in their report, nor bothered to clarify, nor did they alert the public and the media as to the question mark around the content of their report.

On the contrary they tried to gloss-over the issue. The zealots doctrine is "the issue is so serious that if some of the facts are distorted - so what! We need to stampede the people to raise awareness."

So why is this issue so serious, even more far-reaching than Watergate?

The US are in the process of implementing a disastrous cap and trade (Waxman-Markey Bill) to combat the myth of global-warming. They are doing this under the leadership of President Obama at a time when the the US economy is in a shambles

The US deficit has increased by three times since Obama took office, unemployment is at an almost  unprecedented 10.2% (highest in 26 years), and at such a time the President and the leftist Democrats want to implement policies which will make the situation even worse - I say a disaster.

Why a disaster? Because it will divert billions of dollars away from US business into other countries, firstly by direct payments or penalties, and far worse by making it much more expensive for US companies to operate and therefore forcing closures or moving the businesses overseas to places such as China or India. Those countries will have exemptions which will make them far more competitive in the US and in World markets; this will inevitably result in further erosion of business  and thus jobs in in the US.

Not only job losses, but the cost of living will rise steeply because fuel costs will rise. A further twist is the loss of business and jobs means a decrease in tax revenues to government, and an increase in burden because of entitlements. The leftist approach is to further increase taxes to maintain revenues and entitlements, which on exacerbates the problem, producing another twist of the vicious-circle. (Reganomics did the opposite decreased taxes resulting in an increase in business and overall increases in wealth and a large increase in tax revenues).  

A further twist of the knife, is Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are trying to nationalise health-care (in the guise of health-care reform), which will produce a further burden on the US economy and the US people.

Here are some past related posts at Lux et Veritas which are relevant to the issues around the US economy:

For Canadians the information has been somewhat distorted;
Does the US Want Obama Health-Care Reform?
Ronald Reagan sums up liberal approach to government perfectly.
The problem with socialism
The polices of this US Administration are vitally important not only to Canadians but to the whole world: 
When Pravda Says It - You Know It's Bad

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, Alberta 

FOOTNOTES

[1] Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick published a paper in 2003 that show the methods used by Mann et al are faulty.

McIntyre, Stephen; McKitrick, Ross (2003), "Corrections To The Mann Et. Al. (1998) Proxy Data Base And Northern Hemispheric Average Temperature Series"
The data set of proxies of past climate used in Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998, “MBH98” hereafter) for the estimation of temperatures from 1400 to 1980 contains collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculation of principal components and other quality control defects. We detail these errors and defects.

We then apply MBH98 methodology to the construction of a Northern Hemisphere average temperature index for the 1400-1980 period, using corrected and updated source data. The major finding is that the values in the early 15th century exceed any values in the 20th century. The particular “hockey stick” shape derived in the MBH98 proxy construction – a temperature index that decreases slightly between the early 15th century and early 20th century and then increases dramatically up to 1980 — is primarily an artefact of poor data handling, obsolete data and incorrect calculation of principal components.

[2] The scientific journal Nature published the hockey stick graph. In 1998 / 1999 three paleoclimatologists; Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998), otherwise referred to as “MBH98”

[3] The term hockey stick was coined by the head of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Jerry Mahlman, to describe the pattern.

[4] The excellent Lord Moncton Paper Hockey Stick, What Hockey Stick

Friday, November 20, 2009

The Media Spin on Israel


When the news media takes it's reports from Hizbullah, Hamas, or PLO sources it is usually based on outright fabrications; but leftists usually lap it up anyway.

What is harder to spot are the slight distortions, the slight twists or the spin, which although not a complete fabrication nevertheless deceive us. Because it is subtle it is more effective in its deception.

We have an expectation that our media will present us information in the news in a reasonably objective and truthful manner, and we formulate our opinions based on that assumption, however when the news concerns Israel and Palestine there is often some sort of deception involved which usually presents Israel in a bad light.

On this occasion the offending newspaper is the National Post in their headline "Peace Effort Stalls After Israel OKs Settlements, Nov. 18". The NP is usually one of the more reliable sources in this regard, however they are usually swimming against the tide of the  "mainstream media" ... which would be better named the  "lame-stream media."

Seems innocent enough but the word "settlements" completely distorts the true picture. Fortunately the NP publishes a letter to put the matter straight, but the damage is done, one more damaging distortion upon which to build the case of public opinion against Israel

Mike Fegelman, executive director, HonestReporting Canada, sheds light on the matter  ... the facts show a very different picture than that presented by the spin.

Gilo is not a 'settlement'
Contrary to the headline and body of this AFP report, the majority of the Israeli neighbourhood of Gilo is built on land legally purchased by Jews prior to 1948.
In the 1948 war, Jewish lands in Gilo were captured and confiscated by the Jordanian government. From 1948-67, Jewish landowners did not relinquish ownership to their land in Gilo and when Israel recaptured the land in the Six-Day War, Gilo was built.
Although the UN considers it a "settlement," Gilo lies within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries and is geographically contiguous to surrounding Jewish neighborhoods that pre-dated the 1967 reunification of the city.
Despite being over the 1967 Green Line, Gilo is certainly not a "settlement," in the most-used sense of the word which can conjure up images of isolated enclaves in the West Bank or hilltop outposts for those without a knowledge of the region.

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, Alberta

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Lord Christopher Monckton challenges Al Gore

Glenn Beck hosted a discussion with Lord Christopher Monckton, is the chief policy advisor to the Science and Public Policy Institute, and John Bolton, who is the US former UN Ambassador, on Al Gore’s shoddy global warming science and hypocrisy, on the Glenn Beck Show (October 30)

During the show,Lord Monckton challenged Gore to debate him on the science of global warming, but Gore has consistently refused to enter into debates with anybody on Global Warming.

Why wont Gore debate? He has a lot to lose; he is making a lot of money from his Global Warming products and he stands to make huge amounts if carbon trading is adopted.

Addressing Gore, Monckton said:
“and if you don’t dare, I want you to remain silent about that subject forever from now on.”

Monday, November 16, 2009

Obama Bows Low to Japan's Emperor

President Obama must be a fan of Frank Sinatra as judged by his unusual low bow to Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko upon arrival at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo

The White House claimed that the President was following protocol, but what protocol? The "I did it my way" protocol?


Obama bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito

Actually the US Protocol is that the President bows to no one; heads of states meet as equals. The US protocol is the same as every other sovereign state in the world. 

Heads of states do not bow to each other

There was a furor when President Clinton appeared to make an almost indiscernible bow to Emperor in 1994. At that time the New York Times made it clear that had Clinton actually executed a full bow, it would have destroyed a precedent dating to the founding of the Republic:
But the “thou need not bow” commandment from the State Department’s protocol office maintained a constancy of more than 200 years.
But that was the slightest of inclinations of the head, nothing compared to Obama's full and deep bow.

Following the Japanese fiasco, the White House claimed "Protocol", but who's protocol were they following?

A compilation of photos of Emperor Akihito meeting with various foreign leaders shows 47 leaders meeting with the Emperor; tally: 46 hand-shakes and 1 bow 
46 hand-shakes -1 bow

According to the White House it is protocol for the US to bow - but apparently not the rest of the world. (warning this is painful to watch).



But this bowing cannot be explained away by respect for Japanese culture. Obama bowed very low to Saudi King Abdullah at a meeting of the G-20 in April of this year. 

Remembering that Saudi Arabia is an extremely repressive regime, and funds jihad and wahabi Islam, why I ask, would the President of the US, the Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful and influential nation on earth, act like a feudal subject to his overlord?

The President should be following established norms and protocols while he is the President, he has a duty to the citizens of the US, and is therefore he is not free to do as he sees fit - to make it up as he goes a along.

I wonder if he has been watching too much of Jimmy Carter's behaviour?
 


Obama bows to Saudi King Abdullah, while Sarkozy and the King chuckle.

I saw the video of President Obama bowing to Vladimir Putin; the gesture of humility was not reciprocated by the ex KGB leader.

The leftist idea is that the US has to erase a legacy from previous administrations, but the attack on the  USS Cole was on October 12 2000 during the Clinton presidency, and the attack on the World Trade Centre was on September 11, 2001 during the Bush administration (sworn in on January of that year).

The theory that bowing to other leaders will increase the respect for the US is a wild fancy; a "vanity" in older language.

In fact the Japanese were embarrassed by it. It is embarrassing to everyone who looks to the President of the US to be a leader in the war against repression and terrorism. Unfortunately Obama does not recognise that there is a war; that is the first problem


Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, AB

Saturday, November 14, 2009

A Meditation for All


This week I am posting my meditation before Sunday; after all has been said and done, Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest for the Christian, unless of course you are the pastor. I do not forget all the doctors, nurses, firemen, police, and countless other folks who are obliged to work on a Sunday. The main point is that you actually take a day of rest on one day of the week.

Reading my devotional "Day by Day," I came to this morning's entry by the author, Chuck Swindoll, titled "Commence Prayer."

The message should reach believers and non-believers alike; it seems appropriate for all but the most hardened atheists.

I have to say that the belief of atheists, that there is no God, seems very strange to me; a difficult "belief", and requires a denial of the evidence. How can anyone imagine that this amazing world all happened by a matter of chance would seem to require the suspension of one's critical faculties. I think it is clearly a belief, because the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved, but weighing the evidence it seems very hard to deny that God is real. 

But I digress; my aim in reproducing this is for a message that it would reach all faiths, including agnostics, and perhaps even some atheists, and so I include the whole piece for your consideration.

Gurth Whitaker ><>

+++++++++

COMMENCE PRAYER

~ Malachi 3  ~

It was in 1968, I was on an airplane headed for New York - a routine and normally very boring flight. But this time it proved to be otherwise, As the plane was on its descent pattern, the pilot realized that the landing gear was not engaging. Passengers were told to place their heads between their knees and grab their ankles just before impact.

Then, with the landing only minutes away, the pilot suddenly announced over the intercom:
"We are beginning our final descent. At this moment, in accordance with International Aviation Codes established at Geneva, it is my obligation to inform you that if you believe in God you should commence prayer."
Scouts honour. . , that’s exactly what he said!

I'm happy to report that the belly landing occurred without a hitch. No one was injured and, aside from some rather extensive damage to the plane, the airline hardly remembered the incident.

Amazing. The only thing that brought out into the open a deep down "secret rule" was crisis, Pushed to the brink, back to the wall, right up to the wire, all escape routes closed ...  only then does our society crack open a hint of recognition that God may be there and - "if you believe ... you should commence prayer."

There's nothing like crisis to expose the otherwise hidden truth of the soul. Any soul. We may mask it, ignore it, pass it off with cool sophistication and intellectual denial, but take away the cushion of comfort, remove the shield of safety, interject the threat of death without the presence of people to take the panic out of the moment, and it's fairly certain most in the ranks of humanity "commence prayer."

Remember Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s admission? 
"It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. . . . So bless you, prison,for having been in my life."
Those words provide a perfect illustration of the psalmist’s instruction:
"Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word. . . . It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees" (Ps. 119:67, 71 NIV)
After crisis comes, God steps in to comfort and teach.

There's nothing like crisis to expose the hidden truth of the soul
Charles Swindoll

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The Liberal Aversion to Face the Facts


The Executive Officer, the Commander in Chief, Mr President himself called the massacre at Fort Hood a tragedy. NO! It was terrorism plain and simple.

The only tragedy is that political correctness, mealy-mouthed obscurantism, has now so ham-strung people that a non-existent "Muslim backlash" is more important than the lives of those brave men and women who are fighting Islamic terrorism, helping moderates Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq to be free from Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and to lead a better life free from tyranny.

By-the-way: The "War on Terrorism" has now been renamed by Mr. President, it is now to be known as "Overseas Contingency Operation" whatever that might mean.

The "War on Terrorism" has a clear meaning for most people, (except liberal-leftists who don't like to think in simple clear concepts); "Overseas Contingency Operation" could be anything.
Obscurantism = a policy of withholding information from the public.
The article "Silence = Acceptance" (Bombay Revisited) by Mark Steyn sheds a brilliant light on the current liberal-leftist nonsense that has been spewed up in response to the despicable and contemptible murderous jihadi traitor at Fort Hood.

It seems that the liberal-leftist view of terrorism hasn't changes since Bombay; the media are still peddling this poison. Poison because it is dangerous to all Americans, Christian, Jewish, and moderate Muslim alike.

Is it "Muslim Terrorism"? Or is it "pre-traumatic stress disorder"? (Yes really - some leftist lummock suggested that, claiming that the jihadi major could be suffering from stress caused before going to war.)

Occam's razor should apply; the theory with the least number of assumptions (the least complex) should be favoured over all others. (It is not a proof but an aid for a logical analysis)

In the case of Major Hasan there are really no assumptions required - the facts tells the story. It was an act of terror. Whether he was acting alone or or not - it is still terror. The liberal-leftist theories are built on a web of tenuous assumptions and speculations.
 
I produce Mark Steyn's article "Silence = Acceptance" in its entirety...

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary Alberta




Silence = Acceptance


Rabbi Holtzberg was not murdered because of a territorial dispute over Kashmir or because of Bush’s foreign policy.

By Mark Steyn

Shortly after the London Tube bombings in 2005, a reader of Tim Blair, the Sydney Daily Telegraph’s columnar wag, sent him a note-perfect parody of a typical newspaper headline: “British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow’s Train Bombing.”

Indeed. And so it goes. This time round — Bombay — it was the Associated Press that filed a story about how Muslims “found themselves on the defensive once again about bloodshed linked to their religion.”

Oh, I don’t know about that. In fact, you’d be hard pressed from most news reports to figure out the bloodshed was “linked” to any religion, least of all one beginning with “I-“ and ending in “-slam.” In the three years since those British bombings, the media have more or less entirely abandoned the offending formulations — “Islamic terrorists,” “Muslim extremists” — and by the time of the assault on Bombay found it easier just to call the alleged perpetrators “militants” or “gunmen” or “teenage gunmen,” as in the opening line of this report in the Australian: “An Adelaide woman in India for her wedding is lucky to be alive after teenage gunmen ran amok…”

Kids today, eh? Always running amok in an aimless fashion.

The veteran British TV anchor Jon Snow, on the other hand, opted for the more cryptic locution “practitioners.” “Practitioners” of what, exactly?

Hard to say. And getting harder. Tom Gross produced a jaw-dropping round-up of Bombay media coverage: The discovery that, for the first time in an Indian terrorist atrocity, Jews had been attacked, tortured, and killed produced from the New York Times a serene befuddlement: “It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene.”

Hmm. Greater Bombay forms one of the world’s five biggest cities. It has a population of nearly 20 million. But only one Jewish center, located in a building that gives no external clue as to the bounty waiting therein. An “accidental hostage scene” that one of the “practitioners” just happened to stumble upon? “I must be the luckiest jihadist in town. What are the odds?”

Meanwhile, the New Age guru Deepak Chopra laid all the blame on American foreign policy for “going after the wrong people” and inflaming moderates, and “that inflammation then gets organized and appears as this disaster in Bombay.”

Really? The inflammation just “appears”? Like a bad pimple? The “fairer” we get to the, ah, inflamed militant practitioners, the unfairer we get to everyone else. At the Chabad House, the murdered Jews were described in almost all the Western media as “ultra-Orthodox,” “ultra-” in this instance being less a term of theological precision than a generalized code for “strange, weird people, nothing against them personally, but they probably shouldn’t have been over there in the first place.” Are they stranger or weirder than their killers? Two “inflamed moderates” entered the Chabad House, shouted “Allahu Akbar!,” tortured the Jews and murdered them, including the young Rabbi’s pregnant wife. Their two-year-old child escaped because of a quick-witted (non-Jewish) nanny who hid in a closet and then, risking being mown down by machine-gun fire, ran with him to safety.

The Times was being silly in suggesting this was just an “accidental” hostage opportunity — and not just because, when Muslim terrorists capture Jews, it’s not a hostage situation, it’s a mass murder-in-waiting. The sole surviving “militant” revealed that the Jewish center had been targeted a year in advance. The 28-year-old rabbi was Gavriel Holtzberg. His pregnant wife was Rivka Holtzberg. Their orphaned son is Moshe Holtzberg, and his brave nanny is Sandra Samuels. Remember their names, not because they’re any more important than the Indians, Britons, and Americans targeted in the attack on Bombay, but because they are an especially revealing glimpse into the pathologies of the perpetrators.

In a well-planned attack on iconic Bombay landmarks symbolizing great power and wealth, the “militants” nevertheless found time to divert 20 percent of their manpower to torturing and killing a handful of obscure Jews helping the city’s poor in a nondescript building. If they were just “teenage gunmen” or “militants” in the cause of Kashmir, engaged in a more or less conventional territorial dispute with India, why kill the only rabbi in Bombay? Dennis Prager got to the absurdity of it when he invited his readers to imagine Basque separatists attacking Madrid: “Would the terrorists take time out to murder all those in the Madrid Chabad House? The idea is ludicrous.

And yet we take it for granted that Pakistani “militants” in a long-running border dispute with India would take time out of their hectic schedule to kill Jews. In going to ever more baroque lengths to avoid saying “Islamic” or “Muslim” or “terrorist,” we have somehow managed to internalize the pathologies of these men.

We are enjoined to be “understanding,” and we’re doing our best. A Minnesotan suicide bomber (now there’s a phrase) originally from Somalia returned to the old country and blew up himself and 29 other people last October. His family prevailed upon your government to have his parts (or as many of them as could be sifted from the debris) returned to the United States at taxpayer expense and buried in Burnsville Cemetery. Well, hey, in the current climate, what’s the big deal about a federal bailout of jihad operational expenses? If that’s not “too big to fail,” what is?

Last week, a Canadian critic reprimanded me for failing to understand that Muslims feel “vulnerable.” Au contraire, they project tremendous cultural confidence, as well they might: They’re the world’s fastest-growing population. A prominent British Muslim announced the other day that, when the United Kingdom becomes a Muslim state, non-Muslims will be required to wear insignia identifying them as infidels. If he’s feeling “vulnerable,” he’s doing a terrific job of covering it up.


We are told that the “vast majority” of the 1.6-1.8 billion Muslims (in Deepak Chopra’s estimate) are “moderate.” Maybe so, but they’re also quiet. And, as the AIDs activists used to say, “Silence=Acceptance.” It equals acceptance of the things done in the name of their faith. Rabbi Holtzberg was not murdered because of a territorial dispute over Kashmir or because of Bush’s foreign policy. He was murdered in the name of Islam — “Allahu Akbar.”

I wrote in my book, America Alone, that “reforming” Islam is something only Muslims can do. But they show very little sign of being interested in doing it, and the rest of us are inclined to accept that. Spread a rumor that a Koran got flushed down the can at Gitmo, and there’ll be rioting throughout the Muslim world. Publish some dull cartoons in a minor Danish newspaper, and there’ll be protests around the planet. But slaughter the young pregnant wife of a rabbi in Bombay in the name of Allah, and that’s just business as usual. And, if it is somehow “understandable” that for the first time in history it’s no longer safe for a Jew to live in India, then we are greasing the skids for a very slippery slope. Muslims, the AP headline informs us, “worry about image.” Not enough.

© 2008 Mark Steyn

Friday, November 6, 2009

Hasan Called War on Terror ‘War Against Islam’



Bosnian Muslim Waffen SS.
"Hasan Called War on Terror ‘War Against Islam," Classmate Says
by Justin Blum for Bloomberg (here)
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people and wounding 30 others at the Fort Hood Army Base in Texas, regularly described the war on terror as "a war against Islam," according to a doctor who was in a graduate program with him.
While studying for a masters degree in public health in 2007, Hasan used a presentation for an environmental health class to argue that Muslims were being targeted by the U.S. anti-terror campaign, said Val Finnell, a classmate.
"He was very vocal about the war, very upfront about being a Muslim first and an American second," said Finnell, 41, a preventive medicine doctor in Los Angeles, in an interview today. "He was always concerned that Muslims in the military were being persecuted."
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, said she was told by Fort Hood authorities the suspect was about to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and had been “very upset and angry” in the past few days.
Finnell said he remembered Hasan “vividly” and said of the shooting: “I’m not surprised, based on the things he said in the past. I’m shocked that it happened, but not surprised.”
In conversations, students challenged Hasan on his statements and he would become “visibly upset, sweaty, nervous,” Finnell said.
Toward the end of the program, in 2008, Hasan gave a presentation that was billed as a survey of the climate for Muslims who serve in the U.S. military, Finnell said.
“It wasn’t really very objective,” Finnell said. “It was like he was trying to prove a point.”
 As I said in my previous post - there should be both screening and monitoring. It is immoral to put innocent lives at risk because of some politically correct ideology of avoiding profiling.

It is clear that there was inadequate monitoring of Major Hasan; here's the conlcusion from my post earlier today (here) "The Liberal Conclusions on Major Hasan"
Nor is it a reason for a witch-hunt. However, there are more than adequate grounds for proper precautions and for; complete shedding of political correctness.
We should remember that it Muslim solders could have been numbered with the slaughtered at Fort Hood. Giving Muslims special treatment to avoid profiling ultimately does not reward loyal Muslims, it only protects the Jihadists and therefore makes their purpose easier.
Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, AB

The Liberal Conclusions about Major Hasan


We are warned: "don't jump to conclusions about Major Hasan"

Reuter's has this report (here):
"We don't know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts," Obama said.
(I recall hearing the President said that before; it was when a policeman arrested a very abusive certain professor who happened to be black; I recall the President made a pronouncement that it was stupid to arrest a man in his own home, and the President said this before he was apprised of the facts. However, the facts were the professor - Gates is his name - followed the cop into the street and was hurling abuse according to eye-witnesses in the neighbourhood.)

Is anyone "jumping to conclusions"?  It seems to me that the opposite is true; the liberal media is going out of their way to avoid the obvious conclusion that this man is under the influence of radical Islam
Hasan's cousin, Nader Hasan, said in interviews that he had agitated not to be sent overseas. "We've known over the last five years that was probably his worst nightmare," he said.
Major Hasan happily joined the army and accepted the pay six years ago - but he has been dreading being sent overseas for five years. So he kept taking the army pay until he was drafted overseas five years later. Does that seems ethical? Not in my book.

I imagine no-one in the US forces is actually looking forward to being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan - but when you join you know that it is the military that you are joining and that means you may be called on to fight. This man has a degree - he's not an uneducated man, so he can't say: "when I signed on I didn't realise that I could actually be posted overseas". So now he finds out he has a change of heart. Little bit of yellow perhaps?
Nader Hasan also said his cousin had complained, as a Muslim, of harassment by fellow soldiers.
Yeah right! See the video at Lux et Veritas of Major Hasan parading around in Arab garb (here) - sure doesn't seem like he is intimidated by anti Muslim sentiments around him. He seems to enjoy acting the part.

But in reality it is actually a difficult position to be an orthodox believer in Islam in a Western Society.

According to sharia law the Muslim should get preferential treatment to the kufr (the dhimmi class), and in Canada and the US we have this principle of equality whatever race, gender, or religious beliefs. (The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms).

But sharia law speaks against that equality, as I have discussed previously in Lux et Veritas. I explore the relationship between sharia law and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Toronto Imam - Preacher of Hate?

(Sharia is incompatible with the Canadian Charter and I am sure the same would apply to the US Constitution).

So Islamic teaching, and sharia law sets up an internal conflict. How can Major Hasan really be integrated into the US Army with his colleagues and fellow officers and soldiers when at the heart of his beliefs are that he should not mix freely with the kufr.

Hasan yelled "Allah akbar!" -- Arabic for "God is great" -- just before the shooting, Chuck Medley, Fort Hood's director of Emergency Services, told Reuters.
That's what the Jihadis scream when they attack, or just before they slice off someones head with their sword of Islam.
But the Fort Hood commander, Lieutenant-General Robert Cone, said there was no evidence this was a terrorist attack.
Hmm - must have been one of those "Christian fundamentalists", screaming: "Allah akbar". It sure seems like terrorism - one coward shooting with automatic weapons at unarmed people. Usually they prefer to attack women, children and old people. Do you remember the cruise ship the Achille Lauro? [1] On that occasion it was an old man in a wheel-chair the brave Palestinians killed - unarmed of course. The they tipped his body overboard. "Allah akbar! Allah akbar!" 
In May, a U.S. soldier at a base in Baghdad shot and killed five fellow soldiers.
I recall that shooting was by a Muslim too.

The authorities at Fort Hood were warned about Major Hasan's anti-war comments, and how he aired his views that Muslims should not be sent to fight Muslims, but the authorities did not act on the information.

Why not act on the information? Because of the success of soft Jihad. Although Jihad is real, terrorism is real, saving lives is not as important as toeing the politically correct line. Avoid profiling at all costs - this is more important than weeding out the bad apples.
"Thousands of Arab Americans and American Muslims serve honorably every day in all four branches of the U.S. military and in the National Guard," the Arab American Institute said.
There is a minority of bad apples - the vast majority of Muslims are not Jihadists. But poles such as the Pew Report show that there are a sizeable percentage of Muslims in the US who support suicide bombing and terrorism.

Statements such as the one by the Arab American Institute, have to be regarded objectively.

According to the US Department of Defence (here)  
There are 5 million to 7 million Muslims in the United States.
They make up between 10,000 and 20,000 members of the American military.
Let's say that 99% of Muslims in the military are loyal Americans and loyal to their military calling. That would be the vast majority.

BUT it would mean that 1% are not loyal. 1% is a small percentage, but if t is correct it would mean that 100 to 200 Muslims in the military are potential Jihadists.

The actual percentage may be smaller, or it may be bigger, it doesn't change the point; the statement: "Thousands of Arab Americans and American Muslims serve honorably every day in all four branches of the U.S. military and in the National Guard" while very nice to hear, is not a reason for complacency because there are likely some who are not loyal. 

Nor is it a reason for a witch-hunt. However, there are more than adequate grounds for proper precautions and for  complete shedding of political correctness

We should remember that it Muslim solders could have been numbered with the slaughtered at Fort Hood. Giving Muslims special treatment to avoid profiling ultimately does not reward loyal Muslims, it only protects the Jihadis and therefore makes their purpose easier.


Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, AB 


NOTES 
[1] 
On October 7, 1985, four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) took control of the liner off Egypt as she was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said.

The hijackers had been surprised by a crew member and acted prematurely. Holding the passengers and crew hostage, they directed the vessel to sail to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians then in Israeli prisons. After being refused permission to dock at Tartus, the hijackers killed disabled American passenger Leon Klinghoffer and then threw his body overboard.

The ship headed back towards Port Said, and after two days of negotiations, the hijackers agreed to abandon the liner in exchange for safe conduct and were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner.

United States President Ronald Reagan ordered that the plane be intercepted by F-14 Tomcats from the VF-74 "BeDevilers" and the VF-103 "Sluggers" of Carrier Air Wing 17, based on the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, on October 10 and directed to land at Naval Air Station Sigonella, a N.A.T.O. base in Sicily, where the hijackers were arrested by the Italians, after a disagreement between American and Italian authorities. 


The other passengers on the plane (possibly including the hijackers' leader, Abu Abbas) were allowed to continue on to their destination, despite protests by the United States. Egypt demanded an apology from the U.S. for forcing the airplane off course.

Major Hasan - Jihadi?


His brother claims he was getting some flak for being a Muslim on the base - BUT Major Hasan felt bold enough to walk around in Arab garb, and spout his opinions that the US shouldn't be in Iraq.

You can see the video from ITN News in the UK of  Major Nidal Malik Hasanin Arab Garb earlier today on Lux et Veritas (here).

It is sickening, this snake in the grass accepts wages from the US Army for the last 6 years and then when he is about to be posted to Iraq he starts protesting. According to the National Post today, he was "mortified";  I suppose killing 13 innocent people didn't come up on his moral radar.
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who his family said had been harassed because of his Muslim faith and was "mortified" at the prospect of going to Iraq,
Nidal Malik Hasan was born in Virginia but didn’t think of himself as an American: on a form he filled out at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, he gave his nationality not as “American” but as “Palestinian.” A mosque official found that curious, saying: “I don’t know why he listed Palestinian. He was not born in Palestine.”
The we get the nauseating mantra about anti-Muslim backlash, that we get every time there is a Jihadi atrocity.

CBS news, is more concerned about some supposed back-lash, than the families of the murdered soldiers. Here's the CBS odious headline on their website:
Mosques Up Security in Wake of Ft. Hood 
Anti-Muslim Backlash Immediate over Suspect Accused of Killing 13 at Army Base
It makes me sick - the Jihads are bad enough... but why do our news media turn things upside down?

Remember after 9/11 we heard all about the anti Muslim backlash? It didn't happen, FBI data showed that there were more anti-Semitic attacks than anti-Muslim ones.

But that is a corner-stone of the liberal-left ideology - they judge Jihadis through the lens of their own dogma. The facts don't count when you have a theory.

Why wont these clueless-gorms just look at the facts? Unfortunately that is what libby-leftists do - they stick to their theories at all costs. Refuse to face the facts - just like Chamberlain - waving a piece of paper to the British press on landing back in England after meeting the Nazis leader:
"I have here, an agreement signed by Herr Hitler..."
 Later he said:
My good friends, this is the second time there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Now I recommend you go home, and sleep quietly in your beds
Honour? Now we see newspapers and TV media trying to tie themselves in knots to show that we can have peace with Jihadis - it is just an aberration - if we appease them and speak nicely to them it will all magically go away.

How?

How will it go away? Jihadis have contempt for liberal "weakness" (we see this in the Middle-Easts reactions to Obama's apologetic overtures and unilateral 'we will throw the olive branch and make concessions without asking for anything in return').  They appreciate strength - not weakness. Remember Osama-bin-Laden's "Strong Horse" statement?
when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse. 
The Jihads, the young men that are attracted to the movement - they like a strong horse. Christianity, our Western Democracy with its pluralism and tolerance is an abomination to them. They hate it and they want to destroy ot like they want to destroy the only democracy in the entire Middle East - which is of course Israel.

Folks, we need to protect the moderate Muslims too. We are not doing them any favours by this approach.

Robert Spencer makes some sound points:
Maybe he just snapped, perhaps under the pressure of his imminent deployment to Iraq. But it’s noteworthy that if he did, he snapped in exactly the same way that several other Muslims in the U.S. military have snapped in the past.
In April 2005, a Muslim serving in the U.S. Army, Hasan Akbar, was convicted of murder for killing two American soldiers and wounding fourteen in a grenade attack in Kuwait. AP reported: “Prosecutors say Akbar told investigators he launched the attack because he was concerned U.S. troops would kill fellow Muslims in Iraq. They said he coolly carried out the attack to achieve ‘maximum carnage’ on his comrades in the 101st Airborne Division.”
And Hasan’s murderous rampage resembles one that five Muslim men in New Jersey tried to carry out at Fort Dix in New Jersey in 2007, when they plotted to enter the U.S. Army base and murder as many soldiers as they could.
That was a jihad plot. One of the plotters, Serdar Tatar, told an FBI informant late in 2006: “I’m gonna do it….It doesn’t matter to me, whether I get locked up, arrested, or get taken away, it doesn’t matter. Or I die, doesn’t matter, I’m doing it in the name of Allah.” Another plotter, Mohamad Shnewer, was caught on tape saying, “They are the ones, we are going to put bullets in their heads, Allah willing.”
Nidal Hasan’s statements about Muslims rising up against the U.S. military aren’t too far from that, albeit less graphic. The effect of ignoring or downplaying the role that Islamic beliefs and assumptions may have played in his murders only ensures that – once again – nothing will be done to prevent the eventual advent of the next Nidal Hasan.

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, AB