More Anti-Catholic Bigotry On Display By BBC

Gee, what are the chance? Netherlands gays in protest over Catholic snub

Hundreds of activists in the Netherlands have walked out of a Sunday Mass in protest at the Roman Catholic policy of denying gay people communion.

There is, of course, no such "policy." There is a policy that states that anyone known to be out of communion with the Church, for any reason, should not receive communion. There is no "policy" singling out homosexuals for special treatment. Therefore, if a parish priest knows, for example, that a parishioner has divorced and re-married outside the sanction of the church, the priest is required to deny communion to them as well.

Maybe the BBC would then run a story outlining the "Church's policy of denying heterosexual people communion."

That is the thing about being bigoted like the BBC; it makes you incredibly stupid.

Where In The World Are Climate Researchers?

This week it's Bali.



Will the drudgery never cease?

Fat Cat Scientists To Rest Of World: "See Ya! Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya!"

They just don't get it:

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The pace of global warming continues unabated, scientists said on Thursday, despite images of Europe crippled by a deep freeze and parts of the United States blasted by blizzards.

The bitter cold, with more intense winter weather forecast for March in parts of the United States, have led some to question if global warming has stalled.

Understanding the overall trend is crucial for estimating consumption of energy supplies, such as demand for winter heating oil in the U.S. northeast, and impacts on agricultural production.

"It's not warming the same everywhere but it is really quite challenging to find places that haven't warmed in the past 50 years," veteran Australian climate scientist Neville Nicholls told an online climate science media briefing.

Mr. Nicholls then called for the "boy" to bring him another cocktail and retired to the pool.

It's is amazing that a so-called scientists can attempt to make pronouncements on "climate" based upon 30 years worth of satellite data. Any climate moron knows you cannot make assessments on climate with only 30 years worth of data. That is not debatable. To do so means you are not doing science.

But, hey, it does pay for trip to the tropics.

Nice work if you can get it.

BTW, this is the way the deception is being run these days. Using satellite data that encompasses areas over land and oceans do show this has been one of the warmer winters, though it clearly shows that the warmth has been confined almost entirely to ocean areas. Over land in the northern hemisphere we have been freezing to death. But, that doesn't matter to them because they will then compare global (land and ocean) temps with pre-satellite number, which of course do not take into account what temps were like over oceans. They then have the unmitigated gall to claim that represents an apples-to-apples comparison.

It's fraud pure and simple. It's a fraud that is buying them a lot of Singapore Slings as well.

Wow. Crist Is A Desperate Loser

Talk about a non-story:

Marco Rubio, a conservative Senate candidate in Florida, charged personal expenses such as car repairs and groceries to a credit card issued to him by the state Republican Party while he was speaker of the Florida House...

Hmm...last time I checked the Republican Party was a private organization. Did they file criminal charges agaisnt Rubio for theft? No, they didn't. Is there any evidence that Rubio misdirected donation funds? No, there isn't.

Next up: Crist camp reveals Rubio once got parking ticket.

Michael Moore: Supporter Of Slavery

Cuba trades doctors, who must serve terms of involuntary servitude (i.e. slavery), to Venezuela in exchange for oil. That's the charge:

Seven Cuban doctors and a nurse say their government conspired with Venezuela and its state-owned oil company to hold them in a "modern form of slavery," as Cuba barters their services for cheap Venezuelan oil. The doctors and nurse say they were put into "servitude for debt," with their work used to "to discount ... the commercial debt ... of the subsidized oil supplies provided by Venezuela to Cuba."

The doctors say that faced with precarious conditions and material needs in Cuba, they were deceived and threatened by Cuban authorities and taken by force to work in violent places in Venezuela, including the jungle and the frontier with Colombia.

The plaintiffs are a part of a mission called "Barrio Adentro." They say they are held in captivity in crowded lodgings or in houses with families affiliated with the Venezuelan regime. They say they are under strict control, surveillance, and threats by "slave hunters": Venezuelan security officials.

This is the system film maker and moron Michael Moore wants to bring to the United States.

Because, nothing says "progress" more than re-introducing slavery into America.

The Bane Of My Existence: Golf People

First, I'm subjected (along with other exciting sports lovers) to their interminable tournaments monopolizing huge chunks of weekend television coverage. Now, I can't hear about the Winter Olympics, or the start of baseball Spring Training, or the tight conference races in college basketball, or anything else remotely interesting to those who like sports, because I'm supposed to care about where Tiger Woods sticks his John Thomas and the state of his marital vows.

Ugh.

Golf people...please go away (and don't ever come back.)

Oh, Grow Up

It's eye rolling time: Photo Evidence: Michelle Obama Keeps Socialist Books In The White House Library.

So what? Good Lord, I can glance over my shoulder and see copies of Marx, Marcuse, Sartre, and various other sundry socialists and communists. Hell, I got some Hitler over there as well. It doesn't mean crap.

I'm sorry, I not afraid of people reading any of these books. What are we going to do? Ban certain books from the White House? Have a book burning? What nonsense. What stupid nonsense.

If you want to complain about Obama's socialism, then stick to his actions. Leave books out of it. You just wind up looking like a thought police thug.

Yeah Right

Study Finds Public Discontent With Colleges:

Most Americans believe that colleges today operate like businesses, concerned more with their bottom line than with the educational experience of students, according to a new study. And the proportion of people who hold that view has increased to 60 percent, from 52 percent in 2007.

At the same time, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said that colleges should use federal stimulus money to hold down tuition, even if it means less money for operations and programs.

The study, a joint project of Public Agenda and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, also found that most Americans believe that colleges could admit a lot more students without lowering quality or raising prices, and that colleges could spend less and maintain a high quality of education.

“One of the really disturbing things about this, for those of us who work in higher education,” said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, “is the vote of no confidence we’re getting from the public. They think college is important, but they’re really losing trust in the management and leadership.”

And the public is right to have no confidence in the management and leadership of our universities. It sucks, and it in no way is prioritized in a manner that would benefit students or the largest majority of professors whose job it is to teach them.

The truth is, teaching faculty has almost no say in what the policies are at American colleges and universities. Administration has grown by leaps and bounds over the last 50 years until it now consumes most of the resources in higher education, and its rapacious appetite is ever demanding more. The way this appetite is fed is two-fold: 1) by increasing the tuition they charge students (and their parents), and 2) by cutting what they pay the teaching faculty, through removing tenure track lines, and shifting the teaching burden to lower paid part time adjuncts.

Of course, the New York Times doesn't follow up on this story by asking teachers what they think...they ask college administrators:

In “Iron Triangle,” a 2008 study of 25 college presidents, Public Agenda and the center found that most saw an unbreakable link between the cost of running their operations, the number of students they can educate and maintaining educational quality.

To serve more students or offer higher quality education, the college presidents said, would require more money — and conversely, cuts in their budgets would inevitably translate into either a smaller number of students or diminished educational quality.

According to the new report, the public disagrees.

“It’s nice to think that we can have guns and butter, but it’s not that easy,” said Terry Hartle, the senior vice president of government and public affairs for the American Council on Education. “The public is not always right.”

While it is true that colleges and universities could provide higher education for less money, Mr. Hartle said, it would require cuts in areas that most people see as fundamental to quality.

“We probably wouldn’t have libraries open as much, we wouldn’t update I.T. regularly, we wouldn’t have small classes,” he said. “Running a first-class college or university costs money. It’s a very labor-intensive enterprise, in which it’s common to spend 70 to 76 percent of the budget on faculty and staff.”

This is all unmitigated bullshit and lies. For example, at the University of Michigan (I picked it at random) "Instruction" and "Operation and Maintenance" account for a grand total of 37% of the money spent. This means 63% of the budget is going elsewhere. Now, I'm not saying all the rest of the money is wasted, but if the main duty of a university is to educate students, what is more important than paying for teachers and the facilities they teach in?

Well, if they don't get their money, what are the administrators above threatening to cut?

Hint: It isn't the budget for administrators.

Wow.

I mean, wow.

In March, 2002, Bishop walked into an International House of Pancakes in Peabody with her family, asked for a booster seat for one of her children, and learned the last seat had gone to another mother.

Bishop, according to a police report, strode over to the other woman, demanded the seat and launched into a profanity-laced rant.

When the woman would not give the seat up, Bishop punched her in the head, all the while yelling "I am Dr. Amy Bishop."

Bishop received probation and prosecutors recommended that she be sent to anger management classes, though it is unclear from court documents whether a judge ever sent her there.

The woman, identified in court documents as Michelle Gjika, declined to comment, saying only "It's not something I want to relive."

In other words, everyone on earth had to know this woman was a time bomb and, yet, those in academia missed it all together.

Wow.

Another Reason To Have Free Speech

Too bad no one knows Constiutional history or liberal political theory anymore, because this would be a great teaching moment:

Americans of both parties overwhelmingly oppose a Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations and unions to spend as much as they want on political campaigns, and most favor new limits on such spending, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Eight in 10 poll respondents say they oppose the high court's Jan. 21 decision to allow unfettered corporate political spending, with 65 percent "strongly" opposed. Nearly as many backed congressional action to curb the ruling, with 72 percent in favor of reinstating limits.

One of the main reasons why we have the 1st Amendment is exactly to stop a majority from denying a minority the right to speak.

Unfortunately, too many people in this country are only interested in exercising power over others, particularly if the other is unpopular in some way.

To their mind the Bill of Rights sucks because it doesn't allow them to always get their way.

I say, thank God for that!

Scientists: "We Have No Idea What The Hell Is Going On"

Oh, they won't admit to the headline, but you only have to look at what they actually say. Fog over San Francisco thins by a third due to climate change:

The coastal fog along the Californian coast has declined by a third over the past 100years – the equivalent of three hours cover a day, new research shows....

"Since 1901, the average number of hours of fog along the coast in summer has dropped from 56 per cent to 42 per cent, which is a loss of about three hours per day," said the study leader Dr James Johnstone at the University of California.

He said that it was unclear whether this is part of a natural cycle of the result of human activity, but the fog is receding because of a reduction in the difference between the temperature of the sea and the land.

"A cool coast and warm interior is one of the defining characteristics of California's coastal climate, but the temperature difference between the coast and interior has declined substantially in the last century, in step with the decline in summer fog," he added.

Got that?

OK, let's move on. Science has spoken... WTH is this? Get ready for even foggier summers:

The Bay Area just had its foggiest May in 50 years. And thanks to global warming, it's about to get even foggier.

That's the conclusion of several state researchers, whose soon-to-be-published study predicts that even with average temperatures on the rise, the mercury won't be soaring everywhere.

"There'll be winners and losers," says Robert Bornstein, a meteorology professor at San Jose State University. "Global warming is warming the interior part of California, but it leads to a reverse reaction of more fog along the coast."

The study, which will appear in the journal Climate, is the latest to argue that colder summers are indeed in store for parts of the Bay Area.

Scientists began sounding the alarm 20 years ago when looking at greenhouse gases and their possible reverse effects along the foggy Northern California coast. The theory, then and now, is that the hotter the Central Valley gets, the greater the temperature and pressure gradients between the inland and coast will be - therefore forming more fog.

In the new fog study, Bornstein broke the Bay Area down into smaller regions and looked at daily temperatures for the last half century, focusing on the rapid post-1970 warming period. He found that although temperatures were trending upward as a whole, it was asymmetric - the hills and inland areas were warming, while low-elevation coastal areas were actually cooling.

Got that?

Scientist #1: "temperature difference between the coast and interior has declined substantially in the last century..."

Scientist #2: "temperatures were trending upward as a whole, it was asymmetric - the hills and inland areas were warming, while low-elevation coastal areas were actually cooling..."

Isn't "consensus" a beautiful thing? Quick, let's allow these guys to destroy the economy based upon the state of our present knowledge!

Please?!?!

(Gleaned from Gateway Pundit)

Desert Island Here I Come?

Joe Carter over at First Thoughts makes note of the Vatican's picks for the Top 10 Pop/Rock albums of all-time: Geezer Rock-Listening Baby Boomers Take Over Vatican Newspaper

Did Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski get a job at L’ Osservatore Romano? That seems to be the only explanation for the Holy See’s official newspaper including these works on their list of top ten rock and pop albums of all time:

The Beatles’ “Revolver”
Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of The Moon”
Oasis’ “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?”
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”
U2’s “Achtung Baby”
Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours”
Donald Fagen’s “The Nightfly”
Carlos Santana’s “Supernatural”
Paul Simon’s “Graceland”
David Crosby’s “If I Could Only Remember My Name.”

According to the WSJ, the rock critics at L’ Osservatore claim the albums are perfect listening material for anyone who finds himself marooned on a desert island. This could not be more wrong. Unless you’re stranded on a island with a bunch of hippies, there is no way you want to listen to Pink Floyd, Donald Fagen, and David Crosby. (As a matter of fact, if you’re stranded on an island with hippies those are also the last albums you’d ever want to listen to.)

Unlike Joe, I believe they at least got "Revolver" right, but the rest of the picks have to go.

Here is my comment on what are the other nine albums should be:

1. The Kinks – Singles Collection: OK, maybe I’m cheating here, but this compilation of early Kinks’ singles thru to “Apeman” can’t be beat. “Sunny Afternoon” echoes trad jazz but no one at the time seemed to notice. Brilliant.

2. Simon & Garfunkel – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme: Simply buries Simon’s “Graceland.” Garfunkel’s voice on “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her” is one of the prettiest things ever found on a pop record.

3. Matthew Sweet – Girlfriend: Were there any justice in the record business (or fewer record executives in the record business) this guitar driven power pop jam fest would have spawned the great music movement of the 1990’s. Sadly, that distinction went to Nirvana. Granted, a subtext here is Sweet’s mistrust of organized religion (e.g. “Divine Intervention” “Evangeline” and “Holy War”) but there isn’t as much rancor as you might expect.

4. The Alan Parsons Project – The Turn of a Friendly Card: Too prog for a lot of pop lovers, too poppy for a lot of prog purists, this album (best known for the two singles “Time” and “Games People Play”) is seriously underrated. The second side title track suite is gorgeous symphonic rock. That it examines the human cost of gambling and addiction makes it unusual, to say the least.

5. Jellyfish – Spilt Milk: Go ahead and roll your eyes if you must…I know this is a record that lots of folks claim as a “influence” and, normally, that would be enough to frighten me away, but this “throw everything including the kitchen sink production” is a sonic work of art. Yes, I realize there is a song about a penis here, but I just said it was “art” not “high art”. The track “New Mistake” is sublime.

6. Graham Parker – Heat Treatment: “Squeezing out Sparks” usually gets mentioned, and it’s raw power is impressive, but it is Parker’s blast of rocking R&B that I need to have with me. “Fool’s Gold” is the sort of anthem the world needs more of at all times.

7. Crowded House – Woodface: The finest thing ever to come from the Kiwi brothers Finn. The more patriotic among us may take exception to the song “Chocolate Cake” but maybe we do live up to it sometimes. As for the rest of the album, it is as smooth a piece of pop as you could want to hear. “Weather With You” sparkles from beginning to end.

8. They Might Be Giants – Apollo 18: Even among those who love TMBG, choosing between the records is a bit of a fool’s errand. They are so varied in their makeups that reactions will be even more subjective than normal. Still, this is a cornucopia of tunes, hummable, slightly smart, slightly stupid, and yet substantive. I’ve no idea how they manage it. “Mammal” and “See the Constellation” always make me smile.

9. Al Stewart – Between the Wars: For my money, easily the finest thing Mr. Stewart has ever done. Literate pop-folk with a good ear for the jazz rhythms of the age, and if it is a little sonically jarring it mimics the recordings of the 20’s while updating them. A list of the stand out tracks would simply be a listing of every track on the album, but I’ll mention “Last Train to Munich” and “Laughing into 1939″. Wow.

Now, as long as I get washed up on shore with a well stocked bar, I'm ready for that desert island.

Cold Cases

For some odd reason today you can have your choice of Ye Olde Murder Mysteries to puzzle you.

First, was Descartes murdered back in 1650? Someone thinks so. The culprit? Those dastardly Catholics, of course.

Is that too contemporary for you? Well, there is always the question of who killed Baroness Laura Lanza in 1563.

My guess?

Mr. Mustard in the library with the candlestick.

Deep Down Inside I'm A Scotsman

The other day I wanted to buy a nice bottle of wine for a nice Valentine's Evening dinner with my wife. "Well," I said to myself, "We are doing pretty well financially these days, all things considered.... So let's splurge a little!" And what better way to splurge than to buy a bottle of Dom Pérignon?

So, I got to my local wine shop (or I should say the nearest wine shop that would carry Dom Pérignon), and there it was! $160 a bottle.

But, hey, it wouldn't be a splurge if it wasn't expensive, right?

I couldn't do it. I really tried, but my hand instead grabbed a more price friendly Perrier-Jouët.

Damn my thrifty genes!

Good Wishes

The IMW sends all sorts of positive thoughts in the direction of President Clinton this afternoon. Hopefully he will be out of the hospital and continuing his good work very soon.