Proof that media bias is as prevalent as ever

When I discuss media bias with my left wing friends and, unfortunately, family members they look at me and ask what the heck I'm talking about and then generally carry on about media bias being yet another right wing conspiracy theory.

Because these people agree with what the papers write and, critically, do not understand where the political middle is, they come to the false conclusion that newspapers present a fair and balanced view of the world.

Frontpagemag's John Perazzo tells us what is obvious to anyone with even the most basic analytical skills.

During the 2008 presidential election, even center-left observers have noted the unmistakable bias of the prestige news media toward Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party in general. As we shall reveal, the bias of the media is pervasive, ideologically motivated, and quantifiable: that is, it has been admitted, measured, and analyzed in statistical terms. Those results reveal a media doggedly out-of-touch with the political center and tilted decidedly leftward.

One of the most striking aspects of the current presidential campaign is the news media’s assault on Sarah Palin. The Republican vice presidential candidate has been portrayed as a ditzy know-nothing; a Christian fanatic who uses her office to vengefully carry out personal vendettas and who may even have faked her motherhood of her son Trig. From the media coverage of Palin, readers and viewers would never know that she effectively ran an important state, or that she had the highest voter-approval ratings of any governor in the U.S.

But the double standards of the media in their election coverage are as striking as their bias. Scant attention has been paid to the litany of idiocies that have flowed from the tongue of Palin’s vice-presidential opponent, Joe Biden. Some lowlights include the following:

• Biden exhorted a wheelchair-bound state senator at a Missouri campaign rally to stand up and take a bow;
  
• He told interviewer Katie Couric that in times of crisis, it was incumbent upon the U.S president “to demonstrate that he or she knows what they are talking about,” in the tradition of President FDR, whom he said “got on the television” to allay Americans’ fears “when the stock market crashed” in 1929. Of course, Herbert Hoover was president at the time (FDR would not take office until early 1933), and TV would not be introduced to the public until 1939;
  
• At a pair of October fundraisers, Biden advised supporters to “gird your loins” because, within six months after Barack Obama’s inauguration, an adversary somewhere in the world would undoubtedly manufacture a “crisis” in order to “test” the young president “like they did John Kennedy”;
  
• During his debate with Sarah Palin, Biden stated authoritatively: “Vice President Cheney…doesn’t realize that Article One of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the executive – he works in the executive branch. He should understand that.” But in fact, Article One of the Constitution defines the role of the legislative branch of government, not the executive branch; and
  
• At a recent campaign appearance, Biden said that John McCain’s “last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number-1 job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack [Obama] says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S.”
  

None of these gaffes are important. But neither is Gov. Palin’s wardrobe. And unlike her new clothes, Biden’s slips – like the reporting of his infamous plagiarism of a speech by British Labor leader Neil Kinnock in his abortive 1988 presidential run, a plagiarism so thorough that it resembled identity theft – received little mention in the mainstream media.

As they say, read the whole thing, as it really does put the media bias argument to rest.

(Nothing Follows)

Goodness gracious

Obama supporter Peggy Joseph reveals why so many Gen-X and Gen-Y voters are supporting Obama.

Unhindered by having learned the fundamentals of critical thinking or basic economics while at school, many of these well meaning, decent people simply lack the ability to understand the impact of Obama's policies.



So how long will Peggy be able to have everything paid for her?

While it is, why should she seek a better paying job that would see her lose benefits?

America, and by extension the rest of the world, is in for a rough time over the next four years.

(Nothing Follows)

Australia's Labor government - That 70s Show

Andrew Bolt has been hammering away at the government's incompetent handling of the effort to prevent a run on the banks, which caused an entirely predictable run on other financial institutions leading to a situation where investors, including many self-funded retirees, are unable to draw down on their funds.

Treasurer Wayne Swan's sympathetic response?

If you're having trouble then go and seek a handout from Centrelink.

Can you imagine Costello or even Keating not only giving the bank guarantee in the first place but then poking self-funded retirees in the eye by telling them to seek social security if they're in trouble?

The leadership group in this government is dangerously uneducated in even the most basic facts about how economies work, even less so than the great disaster of Australian politics, Gough Whitlam's government.

Bolt then follows up with an analysis of an article in The Australian in which Prime Minister Rudd is made to look like the smart, tough guy in a phone conversation with George W Bush:

Kevin Rudd was entertaining guests in the loungeroom at Kirribilli House in Sydney when an aide told him George W. Bush was on the telephone.

It was 10.40pm on Friday, October 10

(Note that date, by the way. Rudd trips over it.)

What followed was an extraordinary exchange in which Rudd advised the most powerful man in the world that a plan to address the global financial crisis through the G7 group of leading industrialised nations was wrong . . .

It made no sense, he said, to take action on the crisis without engaging China. Rudd argued that the better vehicle for a co-ordinated response to calm the markets and toughen financial regulation was the broader G20 grouping (which includes China) . . .

Two weeks later, Rudd’s view has prevailed . . . Perhaps more so than any of his predecessors, Rudd is bringing a new understanding to world politics . . .

(Good heavens. Did Rudd write that bit of halo-polishing himself? Or was that just reporter Matthew Franklin’s way of saying “thank you”?)

Rudd was then stunned to hear Bush say: “What’s the G20?” . . .

He told Bush he had heard through back channels that the Chinese believed the economic collapse underscored the inherent failures of capitalism and the benefits of a planned economy.

Rudd’s view on China was probably better informed than he let on to the US President. Just four days earlier, the fluent Mandarin speaker had discussed the global turmoil on the telephone with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao . . .

Sources said Bush spent the first third of the conversation attempting to keep Rudd at bay . . . But over time, Rudd appeared to convince Bush he had a reasonable point.

“He was like a bull terrier,” said one source. “He was polite but firm. He was not deferential at all. I could not have imagined John Howard talking to Bush like that.”

And right there is the reason Rudd - or his agent - blabbed. To make Rudd seem a player. A tough guy. The man who forced Bush to invite the G20, including Australia and China, into talks about the financial crisis.

...

But perhaps more brazen still is Rudd’s attempt in this latest retelling to belittle Bush and steal his credit.

Go back to the date of this conversation, when Rudd claims to have been “stunned” by Bush’s ignorance about the G20, and had to “convince” the fool to use it.

For a start, a search of White House transcripts reveals Bush knew what the G20 was long before Rudd allegedly had to lecture him.

In June 2006, for instance, he gave a press conference in which he explained he had “problems with the G20 position” on global trade.

In July 2006, he said he’d have a “good forum” to discuss trade problems “when the members of the G20 come” to Russia.

And Bush certainly didn’t need a “polite but firm” Rudd in their conversation on October 10 this year to tell him to get the G20 involved in talks on this financial crisis.

You see, Bush and his Treasury Secretary had two days earlier already agreed to do just that, and the G20 was already gathering to convene in Washington that very weekend.

The only source for the article in The Australian is someone involved in the phone call - Rudd, his assistant, Bush or his assistant.

I think we can strike out the US side and it's wildly unlikely that an assistant would leak a conversation between the PM and President.

Which leaves Rudd himself as the person who breeched the confidentiality of the leaders of the world's most powerful nation and the world's most populous nation.

Why didn't Rudd throw in a few references to Arabic leaders, the odd South American authoritarian and African dictator just to make sure that leaders all over the world understand just how important he is?

When the Whitlam government was elected in 1972 it ended a long period out of office for the Australian Labor Party dating back to Ben Chifley in 1949.

Those years in the wilderness led to the more left wing elements in the party gaining power meaning that when they were eventually returned to office they had an anti-US, pro-market intervention and pro-China/Moscow philiosophical bent.

Within about 6 months that government was leaking like a sieve with information that would embarrass or harm the United States' efforts to combat communism in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as fight the Cold War globally.

US officials made strenuous efforts to get the leaks plugged but it was beyond Whitlam to rein in his undisciplined ministers.

The consequence was that the Americans significantly reduced the level of intelligence they were sharing with us, harming our own intelligence operations in the region, and it would be many years before we would regain the lost trust.

Like Rudd, Whitlam placed an emphasis on engaging China though his position was one of philosophical alignment rather than Rudd's more practical understanding of the importance that China now has to Australia.

Australian governments publicly poke the United States in the eye at their peril and it is simply childish to attempt to embarrass any world leader in the way Rudd has let alone the leader of the United States.

We are coming up to the anniversary of Kevin Rudd's election victory and his list of accomplishments is astonishingly short while the list of countries he has managed to get offside is alarmingly long including major ones like Japan, India and, now, the US.

There are many parallels between Gough Whitlam's disastrous 1972-75 government and Kevin Rudd's incompetent lot today.

They've spent the bulk of the Howard-Costello generated surplus and are now looking to raid people's pension funds in order to fund infrastructure projects.

One of John Howard's goals was to build a 'resilient economy', one that could weather any downturns in the global economy, which he largely achieved.

In less than one year this government has undone many years of economic discipline and Treasurer Wayne Swan's statement that 'the days of budget surpluses may be' over should send a chill down the spines of all Australian taxpayers.

(Nothing Follows)

One week to go to find out whether US voters have lost their minds

One more week of campaigning and there are signs that John McCain is making ground on Barack Obama.

So how is the betting market treating the apparent tightening?

By putting more money on Obama.



Current odds are: Obama $1.11 and McCain $9.80.

If you think that McCain can win then nearly $10 is an amazing price and you should load up.

McCain's only chance seems to be that young voters do what they've always done and suffer a huge, debilitating dose of apathy on polling day and stay home, based on the assumption that polling companies are over representing young people.

One assumes that blacks will vote in record numbers and that may prove decisive though I think that the Hispanic vote may trend back to McCain.

All in all, it's looking ugly.

I've got my fingers crossed that the Democrats don't take the Senate.

That would be a huge problem for America and, by extension, for the rest of the world.

(Nothing Follows)

Belief that climate change is man made plummeting like a stone

The EcoFascists at The Nature Conservancy are surprised that only 18 percent of people strongly agree that climate change is human caused.

Encouragingly for them, 18% is a few points higher than those who think that 9/11 was an inside job, believe that the CIA killed Kennedy or that Elvis is still alive.

Americans are sharply divided in their beliefs about whether climate change is real, according to a new study commissioned by The Nature Conservancy and other leading conservation and climate action groups.

The study — the American Climate Values Survey (ACVS), conducted by the consulting group EcoAmerica — also found that only 18 percent of survey respondents strongly believe that climate change is real, human-caused and harmful. It also found that political party affiliation is the single largest indicator as to whether people see climate change as a threat.

Climate Change is a partisan political topic?

Nooooo, surely not?

• Convinced it's happening: 54 percent of Republicans, 90 percent of Democrats.
  
• Think that weather has gotten more severe: 44 percent of Republicans; 77 percent of Democrats.
  
• Noticed the climate changing: 54 percent of Republicans; 84 percent of Democrats.
  
• Trust Al Gore when he talks about global warming: 22 percent of Republicans; 71 percent of Democrats.
  
• Trust environmentalists who talk about global warming: 38 percent of Republicans; 71 percent of Democrats.
  
• Trust anyone who talks about global warming: 39 percent of Republicans; 75 percent of Democrats.
  

Which just goes to show that Republicans have a better grasp on reality than Democrats though the high numbers on both sides saying they've noticed the climate changing is a real concern given the conditions that will bring noticable change have not yet come to pass and are a good 50 years in the future.

CO2 is supposedly the primary driver of climate change so how does the following come about?



Naturally, Climate Liars will scream about the graph not containing enough years. Why data back to 1979 (the start of satellite data) is also not too short is beyond me but they clearly like to use it because it's near the end of the cool period from around 1940 to the mid-70s.

(Nothing Follows)

Sunday night rock 'n' roll

The Sex Pistols are an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. The band originally comprised vocalist Johnny Rotten, guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock. Matlock was replaced by Sid Vicious in early 1977. The Sex Pistols are widely credited with initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and creating the first generation gap within rock and roll. Although their initial career lasted only three years and produced only four singles and one studio album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, the group has been described by the BBC as "the definitive English punk rock band."

The Sex Pistols emerged as a response to the bombastic progressive rock and sentimental pop music that predominated in the mid-1970s. Under the guidance of impresario Malcolm McLaren, the band created controversies which captivated Britain, but often eclipsed their music. Their concerts repeatedly faced difficulties with organisers and authorities, and public appearances often ended in mayhem. Their 1977 single "God Save the Queen" was regarded as an attack on the monarchy and British nationalism.

In January 1978, at the end of a turbulent US tour, Rotten left the band and announced its breakup. Over the next several months, the three other band members recorded songs for McLaren's film version of the Sex Pistols' story, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. Vicious died of a heroin overdose in February 1979. In 1996, Rotten, Jones, Cook and Matlock reunited for the Filthy Lucre Tour; they staged two further reunion shows in 2002, and undertook tours in 2003, 2007 and 2008. On 24 February 2006, the Sex Pistols were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but they refused to attend the ceremony, calling the museum "a piss stain".

Pretty Vacant



Anarchy in the UK



God Save the Queen



(Nothing Follows)

The Soviet Union had its Useful Idiots. So does Obama.

I lived in Moscow for 18 months during the height of the Cold War when I was growing up.

The misery and hopelessness of the people left an indelible impression on me.

Moving from Moscow to the United States and seeing the difference in optimism, opportunity and standard of living was a real eye opener.

What was even more eye opening was that there were people who not only defended the Soviet system but also attacked the United States and the West for being 'unfair' and 'lacking justice'. Useful Idiots was the derisive term given to them by Stalin.

The Soviet Story was a movie released earlier in the year that highlighted the horrific reality of not only Soviet Socialism but totalitarian regimes in general. Mao, Pol Pot and the Kim Sung Il operated in the same brutal way of destroying completely any resistance to their rule.

When the Russian Revolution took place in 1918 it was generally well received by the public because the rhetoric was all about hope and change.

Americans are about to choose a president who preaches from the same Marxist textbook as did Lenin, which is not to say that Obama is going to implement a Soviet style regime - far from it.

The point is that the gap between rhetoric and reality is going to surprise Obama's own Useful Idiots who have been sucked in by the vacuous message and soaring speeches.

Do you think that those who embraced the communists in 1918 expected the outcome to be as per the videos below?

The Soviet Story trailer



The Soviet Story - Why Killing is Essential to Communism



The Soviet Story - Starvation in Ukraine



(Nothing Follows)

Australia to copy China's Internet policy

Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is an avowed fan of China, speaks the lingo and seems to kowtow to all things Chinese at every opportunity even when it means giving Japan or India the bird in the process.

The new Australian government has decided to copy a part of China's Internet policy that will surprise many who live in Western democracies - censorship.

Australians will be unable to opt-out of the government's pending Internet content filtering scheme, and will instead be placed on a watered-down blacklist, experts say.

Under the government's $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety, users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material.

Pundits say consumers have been lulled into believing the opt-out proviso would remove content filtering altogether.

The government will iron-out policy and implementation of the Internet content filtering software following an upcoming trial of the technology, according to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

Department spokesman Tim Marshall said the filters will be mandatory for all Australians.

"Labor's plan for cyber-safety will require ISPs to offer a clean feed Internet service to all homes, schools and public Internet points accessible by children," Marshall said.

"The upcoming field pilot of ISP filtering technology will look at various aspects of filtering, including effectiveness, ease of circumvention, the impact on internet access speeds and cost."

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) contacted by Computerworld say blanket content filtering will cripple Internet speeds because the technology is not up to scratch.

Online libertarians claim the blacklists could be expanded to censor material such as euthanasia, drugs and protest.

Internode network engineer Mark Newton said many users falsely believe the opt-out proviso will remove content filtering.

"Users can opt-out of the 'additional material' blacklist (referred to in a department press release, which is a list of things unsuitable for children, but there is no opt-out for 'illegal content'", Newton said.

"That is the way the testing was formulated, the way the upcoming live trials will run, and the way the policy is framed; to believe otherwise is to believe that a government department would go to the lengths of declaring that some kind of Internet content is illegal, then allow an opt-out.

"Illegal is illegal and if there is infrastructure in place to block it, then it will be required to be blocked -- end of story."

Newton said advisers to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy have told ISPs that Internet content filtering will be mandatory for all users.

The government reported it does not expected to prescribe which filtering technologies ISPs can use, and will only set blacklists of filtered content, supplied by the Australia Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

EFA chair Dale Clapperton said in a previous article that Internet content filtering could lead to censorship of drugs, political dissident and other legal freedoms.

"Once the public has allowed the system to be established, it is much easier to block other material," Clapperton said.

According to preliminary trials, the best Internet content filters would incorrectly block about 10,0000 Web pages from one million.

As NoCleanFeed points out the planning is poor and the technical issues to overcome are significant let alone the attack of free speech.

Those of you in the United States can look forward to a similar situation once Obama is elected.

(Nothing Follows)

EU throws unilateral climate change under the bus

In the face of even more economic turmoil European leaders have decided that they no longer want to go it alone in the fight to save the planet.

EU environment ministers want advanced developing states like China and India to "contribute adequately" to emissions reductions as part of a global climate change agreement next year. Meanwhile, a deal on the EU's own climate and energy package remains elusive following opposition from Italy.

You mean they are now taking the position supported by Australian PM John Howard and American President George W Bush?

In addition to comparable CO2 reduction commitments by developed states like the US, rapidly developing countries "would have to reduce their emissions by 15 to 30% below business as usual" by 2020 in order for the EU to sign up to a global emissions reductions regime in Copenhagen in December 2009, according to conclusions adopted by EU environment ministers yesterday (20 October) in Luxembourg.

Such mitigation efforts by rapidly growing developing states, notably China, would produce significant "co-benefits in terms of reduced air pollution, protection of biodiversity and energy security," and emissions reduction credits obtained through afforestation or anti-deforestation efforts could provide a "major contribution" to reaching the targets, the conclusions state.

Least-developed states could be exempt from any constraints on emissions, while obligations on more advanced developing countries could be met through a variety of mechanisms, including sectoral industry agreements, according to the text.

The conclusions set the stage for discussions during the next major UN climate meeting, scheduled for 1 to 12 December in Poznan, Poland. The talks could become acrimonious, since rapidly developing countries like China, India and Brazil are likely to resist any calls for significant and binding emissions reductions on the grounds that developed states have not only got more financing and technological capacity to cut CO2 emissions, but also assume historical responsibility for the lion's share of existing greenhouse gas emissions.

In the trenches

EU states, meanhwile, have dug their heels in on several divisive points of the climate and energy package, and environment ministers failed to produce any major breakthrough during their talks in Luxembourg.

Italy and Poland remain wary that the package will be too costly for their already ailing industrial sectors, in particular given the current squeeze on financing. And Germany is at loggerheads with the Commission over the issue of when and how certain industry sectors should be identified and singled out for exemptions from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).

Most observers now expect a final deal to be reached during the EU summit of 11-12 December in the 'classic' EU style, characterised by marathon negotiations between heads of state and last-minute, late-night deals to get reluctant states on board.

A deal is not out of the question, however, as Italy and Poland "may eventually content themselves with a few additional exemptions and sweeteners, or possibly a 'review' clause in 2009," the European Policy Centre (EPC) writes in an analysis of the 15-16 October summit conclusions.

Italy has tabled the idea of a review clause, whereby the cost of the package would be assessed and put to renewed scrutiny at the end of 2009.

The CCS 'hot potato'

Several European states, notably Poland, and key developing states like China and India, are expected to remain highly dependent on coal for power generation over the coming decades. To prevent runaway CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants, the EU has said it will unveil 10 to 12 carbon capture and storage (CCS - see EurActiv LinksDossier) demonstration plants by 2015 in order to kickstart the commercial development of a technology widely believed to constitute a key piece in the climate change 'puzzle'.

But it remains unclear whether EU member states will back significant financial pledges to get the plants built. A number of environment ministers voiced their opposition yesterday to a financing proposal co-authored by UK Liberal MEP Chris Davies and Irish Christian Democrat MEP Avril Doyle, who want up to 500 million emissions allowances normally reserved for new entrants to the EU ETS to be set aside as an incentive for the first CCS plants.

The UK and the Netherlands, however, are said to support the plans, and Davies is currently touring EU capitals to drum up support for the financing scheme, according to a source close to the file.

Looks like things are just peachy on the good ship European Union. Has anyone pointed out that the ship set sail from Southampton?

So how is the world doing in terms of reducing per capita CO2?



Oooooh. It seems that some countries are not doing as well as others that didn't ratify Kyoto.

Naturally, when attacking US emissions levels it's the quantity that counts while when attacking Australian emissions levels it's all about per capita output.

There is no fixed truth for Big Green.

(Nothing Follows)

There's a reason you think it's getting colder. It is.

I've gone looking for the Big Green response to Lorne Gunter's article titled "Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof" showing that temperatures are back to where they were in 1979 but all I've found are the odd comment attacking Gunter for being a conservative.

That's the way of things in Camp Climate - attack the person, obfuscate the science, start at low temperature points to show a positive trend...

In early September, I began noticing a string of news stories about scientists rejecting the orthodoxy on global warming. Actually, it was more like a string of guest columns and long letters to the editor since it is hard for skeptical scientists to get published in the cabal of climate journals now controlled by the Great Sanhedrin of the environmental movement.

Still, the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly. Because a funny thing is happening to global temperatures -- they're going down, not up.

On the same day (Sept. 5) that areas of southern Brazil were recording one of their latest winter snowfalls ever and entering what turned out to be their coldest September in a century, Brazilian meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart explained that extreme cold or snowfall events in his country have always been tied to "a negative PDO" or Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Positive PDOs -- El Ninos -- produce above-average temperatures in South America while negative ones -- La Ninas -- produce below average ones.

Dr. Hackbart also pointed out that periods of solar inactivity known as "solar minimums" magnify cold spells on his continent. So, given that August was the first month since 1913 in which no sunspot activity was recorded -- none -- and during which solar winds were at a 50-year low, he was not surprised that Brazilians were suffering (for them) a brutal cold snap. "This is no coincidence," he said as he scoffed at the notion that manmade carbon emissions had more impact than the sun and oceans on global climate.

Also in September, American Craig Loehle, a scientist who conducts computer modelling on global climate change, confirmed his earlier findings that the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) of about 1,000 years ago did in fact exist and was even warmer than 20th-century temperatures.

Prior to the past decade of climate hysteria and Kyoto hype, the MWP was a given in the scientific community. Several hundred studies of tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediment, ice cores and early written records of weather -- even harvest totals and censuses --confirmed that the period from 800 AD to 1300 AD was unusually warm, particularly in Northern Europe.

But in order to prove the climate scaremongers' claim that 20th-century warming had been dangerous and unprecedented -- a result of human, not natural factors -- the MWP had to be made to disappear. So studies such as Michael Mann's "hockey stick," in which there is no MWP and global temperatures rise gradually until they jump up in the industrial age, have been adopted by the UN as proof that recent climate change necessitates a reordering of human economies and societies.

Dr. Loehle's work helps end this deception.

Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University, says, "It's practically a slam dunk that we are in for about 30 years of global cooling," as the sun enters a particularly inactive phase. His examination of warming and cooling trends over the past four centuries shows an "almost exact correlation" between climate fluctuations and solar energy received on Earth, while showing almost "no correlation at all with CO2."

An analytical chemist who works in spectroscopy and atmospheric sensing, Michael J. Myers of Hilton Head, S. C., declared, "Man-made global warming is junk science," explaining that worldwide manmade CO2 emission each year "equals about 0.0168% of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration ... This results in a 0.00064% increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number."

Other international scientists have called the manmade warming theory a "hoax," a "fraud" and simply "not credible."

While not stooping to such name-calling, weather-satellite scientists David Douglass of the University of Rochester and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville nonetheless dealt the True Believers a devastating blow last month.

For nearly 30 years, Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe. In a paper co-written with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that while manmade emissions may be having a slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide."

Moreover, while the chart below was not produced by Douglass and Christy, it was produced using their data and it clearly shows that in the past four years -- the period corresponding to reduced solar activity -- all of the rise in global temperatures since 1979 has disappeared.

It may be that more global warming doubters are surfacing because there just isn't any global warming.

I'm sitting here in a much colder than normal Canberra and reading that New South Wales is suffering from an unseasonal cold snap.

RECORD cold temperatures have brought snow to the Blue Mountains and southern tablelands in NSW and wet and windy weather to the state's coast.

Temperatures dipped to three degrees celsius near Blackheath, west of Sydney, early this morning but wind gusts brought the mercury down further to minus two degrees and pockets of snow fell in Leura and west of Katoomba at Oberon.

The Bureau of Metrology (BoM) said snow was also reported in the southern tablelands at Cooma and in Bombala, near the Victorian border.

An unseasonal cold front from the southeast extends to just beyond the ranges and is moving north.

Thunderstorms and wind gusts of up to 70km/h have brought rain to the eastern part of the state and abnormally cold conditions to most of NSW.

BoM forecaster Jane Golding said average temperatures in the Blue Mountains for October ranged from seven to 18 degrees.

In Sydney today, the temperature is forecast to be 15 degrees, an October temperature which has only been seen twice in the past 14 years, Ms Golding said.

How does that happen when CO2 is meant to be forcing temperatures up?

The world is facing a financial crisis, temperatures are going nowhere but down and yet our government continues to push its lemming-like emissions trading scheme.

(Nothing Follows)

We have a winner...cue the entrance music for Colin Powell...

Obama is leading 35-0, he's on his opponent's 5 yard line and there's 15 seconds left in the game...

...and in walks Colin Powell to side with the winner.

I have little doubt that were McCain in the same position in the election as Obama then Powell would be siding with him instead. He has a long history of fence-sitting, sniffing the wind and then taking side with the winner.

Naturally, the left has embraced Powell's endorsement of Senator Obama with glee and treated him like the return of the prodigal son, conveniently forgetting that they called him an Uncle Tom during his time as Bush's Secretary of State and repeatedly accused him of being part of a conspiracy to lie the country into war with Iraq.

Colin Powell, the Republican once tipped to become America’s first black President, endorsed the Democrat, Barack Obama, yesterday as a “transformational figure” who was ready to be the next Commander-in-Chief.

Note that it's a Republican who was once tipped to become America's first black President...it makes a mockery of the left's accusation that the right is racist.

President Bush’s former Secretary of State said that he was backing Mr Obama, not because of his race, but because he had met the standard to be an exceptional President. And he delivered a stinging rebuff to the Republican, John McCain, describing his campaign as petty and troubling.

How has Obama 'met the standard to be an exceptional President'? Seriously? The man has a lifetime of achieving absolutely nothing. The much pilloried Sarah Palin has a stronger resume than does Obama. It's an incredible statement by a former senior official.

Endorsements rarely have a decisive impact in presidential politics, but the effusive backing for Mr Obama by a man so widely respected could play a significant role in persuading some undecided voters. It also ensures that the news will dominate media coverage of the campaign for the next 24 hours, robbing Mr McCain of one more day to change the trajectory of the race with only two weeks to go until the election on November 4.

At a rally in North Carolina, Mr Obama basked in the endorsement, calling General Powell “a great soldier, a great statesman and a great American”. He added that he was beyond honoured and deeply humbled to have his support.

General Powell, who oversaw victory in the 1991 Gulf War, made clear that his decision to back Mr Obama was as much a sign of his unhappiness with Mr McCain, his campaign and his choice of Sarah Palin to be his running mate. General Powell, an avowed moderate, said that Mr McCain’s choices in recent weeks — especially his selection of the Alaska governor — had raised questions in his mind about the Arizona senator’s judgment.

It seems to me that Powell himself would have liked to be considered for VP and is miffed at being overlooked.

“I don’t believe she’s ready to be President of the United States, which is the job of the Vice-President,” General Powell said bluntly. He decried what he called the “rightward shift” of the Republican Party — he cited Mrs Palin’s selection as an example — and criticised Mr McCain’s “unsure” response to the economic crisis. “Almost every day he had a different approach to the problems we were having,” General Powell told NBC’s Meet the Press.

"Rightward shift"?

McCain has a no drilling in Alaska policy and has embraced the leftist ideology of global warming, as well as being the most inclusive person in the Senate by working with the other side.

Mr McCain, who has known General Powell for 25 years, sought to play down the endorsement, saying: “It doesn’t come as a surprise.” He pointed out that he had been endorsed by four other former Republican Secretaries of State.

General Powell, 71, who was also the National Security Adviser to Ronald Reagan, said that he had asked himself: “Which is the President we need now?” Referring to Mr Obama, he continued: “And I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities — and you have to take that into account — as well as his substance — he has both style and substance, he has met the standard of being a successful President, being an exceptional President.

Inclusive? Reaching out?

The only reaching out and bringing together that Obama has achieved is to bring the centre left, media left and loopy left into the same tent and get them to behave themselves.

“I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming . . . on to the world stage and on the American stage. And for that reason I’ll be voting for Senator Barack Obama.”

At least Powell has that right, Obama is a transformational figure. One that will transform American society into the same type of unsustainable nanny state that is now having so much trouble in Western Europe.

General Powell criticised Mr McCain for invoking the Vietnam-era domestic terrorist William Ayers as an Obama associate. “I think this goes too far. And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It’s not what the American people are looking for. And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign, and they trouble me,” he said.

“I feel strongly about this particular point,” he added. “We have got to stop polarising ourselves in this way.”

Here's a question to ponder.

If John McCain had have been involved with a right wing terrorist who blew up government facilities then would he get such an easy pass as Obama?

Timothy McVeigh is the right's William Ayers.

If your daughter brought home a boyfriend who palled around with Timothy McVeigh (let's assume that he had been 'rehabilitated' by the Chicago establishment and given a cushy university post rather than the death penalty) but who was 8 years old in 1995 when McVeigh killed 168 people in Oklahoma City then would you be concerned to look more deeply into that relationship?

Powell is free to endorse whomever he likes.

The fact he felt it necessary to go to the media to make his announcement about who he was supporting rather than quietly going to vote like 100 million other Americans says more about the man and his ego than it does about either McCain or Obama.

(Nothing Follows)

Sunday night rock 'n' roll

The Zombies, formed in 1961 in St Albans, are an English rock band. Led by Rod Argent on piano and Colin Blunstone on vocals, the band scored US hits in the mid- and late-1960s with "She's Not There", "Tell Her No", and "Time of the Season". Their 1968 album Odessey and Oracle, comprising twelve songs by the group's principal songwriters, Argent and Chris White, is now considered one of the best of its time and is ranked 80 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

How many of you have heard of The Zombies? Probably not many but you'll know at least one or two of their great tunes.

These are three great tunes. There's no decent video of the classic Time of the Season so it's an audio track with appropriate screens put together by a youtuber.

She's Not There



Time of the Season



Tell Her No



(Nothing Follows)

British environmental lunacy continues unabated

The poor old average citizen in Britain must be wondering what happened when people with such muddled thinking are in charge of councils that have changed their garbage collection policies with an entirely predictable increase in flies and vermin around garbage.

The scourge of fly-tipping has spread to the suburbs, official figures showed yesterday.

Illegal rubbish dumping - almost all of it household refuse - is now found as much in genteel and leafy areas as in sink estates and inner cities.

The shift of fly-tipping to the suburbs has gone alongside the imposition of fortnightly rubbish collections and strict wheelie bin regulations.


This rubbish was dumped in the affluent South West London area of Battersea: More and more fly-tipping is happening in upmarket districts and the suburbs.

Figures released by the Environment Department showed that half of all fly-tips are found around towns and cities but outside deprived areas.

In the past a big majority of recorded fly-tips have been in the poorest and most lawless areas.

They also showed that six out of ten fly-tipping incidents involved household refuse rather than business or industrial waste and that most were dumps of one car boot-load of rubbish. More than one in ten fly-tips were of a single black bag.

Evidence of middle-class fly-tipping produced a new broadside against Labour's compulsory recycling policies from Tories who have made it an election pledge to bring back weekly collections.

Local government spokesman Eric Pickles said: 'These figures illustrate that fly-tipping is rife across the country, hitting Middle England hard. Clearly it is becoming the norm and not the exception.

'Sixty per cent of all fly-tipping is household waste under Labour. Britain's green and pleasant land is now littered by the blot of black bin bags, directly due to Whitehall's policy of bullying town halls into axing weekly collections and adopting over-zealous 'no side waste' policies.'

He added: 'Gordon Brown's new bin taxes look set to make it even worse, by giving perverse financial incentives to irresponsibly fly-tip.'

In the 12 months up to March 2007, the DEFRA breakdown showed that the number of enforcement actions against those dumping rubbish went up by 26 per cent.

Overall, there were 1.24million fly-tip incidents, down 7.5 per cent on last year.

However the figures do not include Liverpool incidents because of problems over recording in the city.

Minister for waste Jane Kennedy said: 'We still need to work on the serious environmental and social problem of fly-tipping. Local authorities are doing well in the fight against it.'

Fly-tipping has risen in recent years as around half the councils that collect rubbish in England have abandoned weekly pick-ups for fortnightly collections and compulsory recycling schemes.

These have been accompanied by attempts to force families to put out less rubbish, usually involving strict rules.

Householders are not allowed to fill bins so their lids are open, rubbish must not be put out at the wrong hours and no 'side waste' left in bags alongside bins is allowed.

What was wrong with the old rules?

Nothing.

There's the problem with having lefties on councils - government is the answer so they just want to make rules. 

The fact that the rules have negative consequences doesn't seem to stop them implementing even more crazy rules.

The whole point of weekly rubbish collection is hygeine.

Fortnightly collection decreases hygeine and the public health.

Why not make it monthly? Or quarterly?

The arguments against those timeframes apply equally to fortnightly.

That's what happens when Environmentalists have too much influence over public policy.

(Nothing Follows)

Shock - IPCC head endorses Barack Obama

It is truly astonishing that the head of the UN IPCC would take sides in the US election and endorse Barack Obama.

By taking this stance, Pachauri reveals himself to be what everyone has suspected all along - a partisan left wing hack.

Why choose Obama when McCain is also calling for an emissions trading scheme?

The election of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama would help clear the deadlock in United Nations talks to slow global warming, said Rajendra Pachauri, head of a United Nations panel of climate-change scientists.

"A critical factor in these talks is the position of the U.S.," Pachauri, chairman of the UN panel that shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, said today in an interview in Berlin. "If Obama is elected, and this seems more likely, this would create positive momentum" for the UN talks.

Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois vying with Arizona Republican Senator John McCain for the presidency, and his advisers have indicated policies will be implemented that will push climate- change talks ahead, Pachauri said without providing details. Last year's UN meeting in Bali was a "positive step" that needs to be moved forward, helped especially by the U.S., he added. U.S. voters go to the polls on Nov. 4.

Negotiators from almost 200 countries will meet in December at a UN conference in Poznan, Poland, to discuss ways to limit carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming. The talks are aimed at reaching an accord to replace the Kyoto protocol, which the U.S. has not signed, by next year at a Copenhagen conference.

Obama will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers should he win the presidential election, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview. President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2 emissions under the law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 the government may do so.

There have been a few things that have made me shake my head over the last few days from Obama telling Joe the Plumber that he was going to spread the wealth to the massive electoral fraud being perpetrated by ACORN but this is right up there with them in the head shake stakes.

Obama + Brown + Rudd + EU + UN + Putin + Ahmadinejad + Chavez + Hamas + Hezbollah = trouble, big trouble, for the world.

(Nothing Follows)

Post Debate 3 betting market moves

Apologies for lack of posts. Have been a tad busy but regular postings should resume shortly.

I watched all of the debate today, as well as the post-debate interview by Katie Couric of undecided voters.

I thought that McCain turned in his strongest performance and that Obama, on many counts, lied through his teeth when giving answers that are clearly anathema to his being and 180 degrees from his voting record.

Nobody will care about any of that, though.

Obama did not hurt himself and McCain landed no serious blows.

Here's the Betfair graph before the debate:

Obama $1.17
McCain $6.60



And here it is a few hours later:



Obama $1.15
McCain $7.80

If you think that John McCain can win the election then there certainly are juicy odds on offer.

I've also updated my prediction for the Electoral College tally based on the swing that I think Obama will achieve.



I have no doubt that we're going to have an Obama presidency.

My real concern is that the English Speaking World is led by Obama, Brown and Rudd (with apologies to Mr Harper but Canada simply gets overshadowed by the US).

(Nothing Follows)

Opinion polls are under-representing the strength of the Obama vote

There has been much ballyhoo from the right wing blogosphere (including this one) regarding a number of issues that seem material to the assessment of Barack Obama including: his birth certificate; his connection to voter fraud organisations such as ACORN; his associations with a veritable Rogues' Gallery of unsavoury characters including Rezko, Ayers, Wright and others; and, recently, the possibility that he had an affair with some woman who has been paid to 'disappear' to the Bahamas.

Much as I agree that Obama is an unknown entity and therefore it is quite legitimate to investigate his acquaintances in order to better understand who he is the problem is that the mainstream media, for the most part, is not interested in upsetting the Obama apple cart having abrogated their journalist integrity through the Democratic primary phase, and Joe and Jill Public simply aren't interested in hearing negatives about the candidates. Instead, they are looking for a candidate with the best sounding answers to the current issues facing the country.

I have said it before and I'll repeat it again now - the public opinion polls are not reflecting the size of the lead that Obama actually enjoys. Current polls are showing that he has an advantage in the 4-7 point range.

I'd suggest that it's much higher than that and I'll tell you why.

Consider the following graph from Betfair's next president market:



With nearly $17 million in matched bets Obama is $1.21 to win, which is an implied chance of around 81% to McCain's 19%.

I have spent many years looking at the correlation between opinion polling and betting markets.

In my opinion, if Obama's lead is really the 51-45 that Rasmussen gives him or the 50-43 from Gallup then the prices would look more like: Obama $1.45 (implied chance around 70%) to McCain $3.30 (30%), especially given that McCain will do well with independents.

That's still a healthy gap so why do I believe that there is more support for Obama than being reflected in the polls?

Because, in my experience, a price of around $1.20 indicates a significant component of 'insider trading'.

That is, people with access to internal polling data are betting on the outcome of the election and are confident enough to have backed Obama in from $1.30 to $1.20 at the same time as the mainstream media started to ask questions about his association with Bill Ayers.

That sort of confidence can only come from people in the know.

Which is why I think that the opinion polls are wrong, that Obama's lead is probably more like 12-15% and that McCain needs to pull a huge rabbit out of his hat in order to win this election.

(Nothing Follows)

Sunday night rock 'n' roll

Elvis Costello (born Declan Patrick MacManus 25 August 1954) is an English musician and singer-songwriter, with Irish ancestry. Costello came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s, and later became associated with the punk rock and New Wave musical genres, before establishing his own unique voice in the 1980s. Steeped in wordplay, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader than that of most popular songs, and his music has drawn on dozens of genres. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote, "Costello, the pop encyclopedia, can reinvent the past in his own image".

Pump It Up



(I Dont Want To Go To) Chelsea



Watching the Detectives



Oliver's Army



(Nothing Follows)

Europe abandoning climate goals

The funny side of the distinctly unfunny financial markets turmoil is the impact it's having on Big Green.

On the one hand they're delighted that capitalism seems to have shot itself in the foot but on the other it's led to a distinct aversion to countries slashing their economic wrists by the introduction of stricter emissions targets.

Of course, because 'big E' environmentalists don't understand either markets or human nature they may not yet realise that the turmoil will right itself in a relatively short timeframe, which will leave them with the galling prospect of things returning to normal but without having achieved their own plan of damaging the economies of Western nations.

There are now more and more politicians in Europe looking for exemptions and rules-bending in the EU's latest round of economy deadening emissions targets.

Politicians really aren't what they used to be.

The European Union's French presidency sought on Thursday to defuse mounting opposition to EU climate goals by offering opt-outs for some industries and countries that fear economic damage, angering environmentalists.

Some eastern European states have assembled a blocking minority to carbon dioxide curbs they fear will stunt economic growth, while Germany is fighting hard to protect its industry from added costs.

But France recommended opt-outs for industries facing competition from unregulated overseas rivals and for some countries' power sectors, prompting environmentalists to accuse President Nicolas Sarkozy of back-sliding.

The European Union has ambitious plans to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by a fifth by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, partly by making power generators and heavy industry pay for permits to pollute in its emissions trading scheme (ETS).

But some eastern European states have threatened to derail the proposal, saying it puts a costly burden on their highly polluting communist-era coal-fired power stations.

Heavy industries, such as steel, aluminium and chemicals have also raised opposition, saying they will lose out to rivals in neighbouring regions that have less environmental regulation and therefore lower costs.

BusinessEurope, which represents 20 million European businesses, called in a letter to French ecology minister Jean-Louis Borloo on Wednesday for the most efficient factories to get all their permits to emit CO2 for free until a global deal has been reached.

France sought on Thursday to defuse industry's opposition, preparing a draft paper -- which is still under discussion -- to present to EU leaders at a summit in Brussels next week.

"Sectors or sub sectors exposed to the highest risk, must be able to receive 100 percent of emission quotas for free," said the document seen by Reuters.

That would give sectors like steel an easier deal than proposed by EU lawmakers on Tuesday, when they said factories should start paying for 15 percent of the permits in 2013, increasing to 100 percent by 2020.

France has failed to match the ambitions of lawmakers, said Tomas Wyns of Climate Action Network Europe, a coalition of environmental groups such as Greenpeace.

"At the start of his presidency, Sarkozy presented himself as a climate leader -- now he is prepared to dump effective climate policy for the sake of protecting some polluting industries," he added.

France also sought to ease the concerns of eastern European states that fear their economies will suffer from soaring electricity prices when power generators are forced to pay for all their CO2 permits from 2013. "Derogations limited in scale and time may be granted when specific situations linked notably to an insufficient integration into the European electricity market justify it," said the document.

France is keen to sign-off the climate legislation by the end of this year, but Poland has assembled a group of East European states backed by Greece that threatens to delay it into next year if their fears about power prices are not dealt with.
"We are working really hard to work this climate package into something that would not be a dramatic problem for the whole of our economy," Polish Foreign Affairs Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told TVN 24 television.

The EU is hoping other nations will follow its lead by agreeing on an international deal, mindful of U.N. warnings that climate change will lead to more droughts, flooding and rising sea levels.

A Polish diplomatic source told Reuters the French concessions did not go far enough.
"This is just the beginning, we are not satisfied with the French Presidency's draft conclusions of the summit," said the source.

(Nothing Follows)

Islam's lawful attack on the West

One has to wonder how people determine that being opposed to Islam, or more specifically, Islamism, is racist.

How is it that a religion has become a race?

The answer is both through the lobbying efforts by Islamic activists who are using our own liberal laws against us and via the efforts of their 'useful idiots' of the West's multicultural elites.

If you're anti-Catholic then are you a racist?

If you're anti-Hindu then are you a racist?

If you're anti-Scientology then are you a racist?

That last one shows up how ridiculous the whole proposition is that being against religion makes you racist.

So is Richard Dawkins a racist?

Christopher Hitchens?

Supna Zaidi is editor-in-chief of Muslim World Today and assistant director of Islamist Watch at the Middle East Forum. Here he discusses the threat to the West from 'lawful Islam'.

Have you seen the little old lady who passes out Jehovah's Witness literature in your neighborhood? Some people stop and show interest. Others roll their eyes, and keep walking. But, would you ever expect anyone to threaten her? Call her a racist, and try to get her arrested?

Islamists would. And that is exactly what happened to two English Christian ministers who had the nerve to proselytize on a street corner in a predominantly Muslim immigrant area in the UK in 2007.

Such freedom of speech violations won't be an anomaly if the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which has a permanent delegation to the United Nations, succeeds in passing a UN resolution against "Defamation of Religion" Noboby in a western country will be able to discuss the socio-political consequences of Muslim immigration, for fear of being labeled "Islamophobic" and slapped with a fine, or even jail time.

Islamists are increasingly using lawful Islamism, or non-violent and legal strategies to spread Sharia, (Islamic law) in the West, encroaching on non-Muslim life everyday. Other examples include:

1. Sharia Finance;
2. Islam in public schools;
3. Violations of basic hygiene policy by Muslim medical staff;
4. Workplace violations in the name of religious freedom;
5. Censorship of literature.

Under the banner of "religious freedom," Islamists attack the very fabric of democracy in favor of Islam in the public sphere. The above examples are not examples of pluralism, but a violation of the separation of church and state doctrine meant to keep people of all faiths, or no faith, equal under the law. Liberals have forgotten that secularism is not a free-for-all, but has boundaries in order to remain meaningful.

Freedom of speech has already been attacked repeatedly. Islamists tried to censor criticism of Islamist terrorism when the Muhammad cartoons were published in Jyllens-Posten in 2005. Strangely enough, the "cartoon intifada" arose 5 months after their original printing, but only weeks before the UNHCR was due to consider the OIC's resolution on "Combating Defamation of Religion."

Such a coincidence caused the National Secular Society to state in its Memorandum (Section E, point 2) to the UK Parliament that,

the Danish cartoon crisis was manufactured… to exploit sensitivities around racial discrimination and to promote (or even exaggerate) the notion of "Islamophobia" in order to restrict possibilities for open discussion or criticism of Islam….measures calling for legislation banning "defamation of religion" - …. aims to remove religion, especially Islam, from public scrutiny and public debate.

If any religion is to be integrated into the daily social, economic and political life of a nation, it must open the door for evaluation of its goals and application. Otherwise, OIC nations will be able to govern unilaterally without respect to international law. Consider the following precedent.

Saudi Arabia ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2000, with reservations, stating, "In case of contradiction between any term of the Convention and the norms of Islamic law, the Kingdom is not under obligation to observe the contradictory terms of the Convention."

Thus, Saudi Arabia confirms that it will only offer lip service to human rights by signing documents like the CEDAW charter. It will not actually improve the status of women, because it is a theocracy, and every move a woman makes is governed by Islamic law. CEDAW can do nothing for them. Moreover, if the Defamation of Religion resolution is passed, all human rights activists will feel even greater censorship, since protests from abroad will be construed as racism.

Consider the "Qatif girl" case. A Saudi girl was gang-raped in 2005 and blamed for it, since she was in the presence of unrelated men when it happened. Her attorney lost his license for challenging the Saudi courts. Only after generating global media pressure did the situation change in her favor. The king pardoned her and the attorney got his license reinstated. In a post- Defamation of Religion world, the attorney would have been trapped, unable to help the girl and disbarred if he dared to challenge Saudi Islamic law.

Lastly, the OIC resolution must fail because it is patently hypocritical. While professing great sensitivity toward religion, OIC members ironically regularly fail to show any respect for other faiths:

- Saudi Arabia continues to use bigoted textbooks, and export them to American Islamic schools despite promises to change.
- Iran sponsored a Holocaust cartoon contest in retaliation for the Danish cartoons of Muhammad in 2005. Yet, Jews had nothing to do with the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
- Pakistan's blasphemy laws attack Christians as a pretext for personal disputes.

The Defamation of Religion resolution is a free pass for Islamists to continue denigrating other religions and minorities through lawful Islamism. It ties the hands of any politician that questions the spread of Islamism in the West, and prevents critical evaluation of the treatment of women and minorities in Muslim societies.

Liberal and conservative citizens of the West must work together to prevent this resolution from passing in the UN.

There is a reason that the United Nations is #1 on my Top 10 Institutions That Ruin The World list.

The fact that the UN enables such arrant nonsense to even make the agenda for discussion shows how morally and intellectually bankrupt the place has become, having been hijacked by the worst elements in the world.

(Nothing Follows)