News Clips (Clearing out E-mail Alerts)
1) Kurds Provide Safe Haven for Christians... Iraqi War/Christian/Islam
2) Ted Kennedy Dumps Fuel into Nantucket Sound... Democrats/Environmentalism
3) Obama claims Wrights remarks "looped over"... Democrats/Racism
4) Democrats try to weaken Military by picking weaker upgrade of Air Tankers... Democrats/Military
5) McDonald's CEO: Company will put full resources behind gay agenda... Homosexuality
6) Obama sponsors a Global Poverty Act (S.2433), that would tax US citizens to give to 'poor' countrie... Democrats
7) Global warming may 'stop', scientists predict... Man Made Global Warming
8) Militants burn down girls' school in north-west Pakistan... Islamic Extremists
9) Bush Signs Bill To Take ALL Newborns’ DNA... Government/Privacy
1) Kurds Provide Safe Haven for Christians... Iraqi War/Christian/Islam
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/kurdish_christians/2008/04/17/88735.html
The Kurdish regional government in Northern Iraq is providing a safe haven to several thousand Iraqi Christians who have fled persecution in other parts of the country, government officials and local pastors told Newsmax. Unlike refugee camps set up for some 100,000 Shia Muslims fleeing attacks from Sunnis, which are closely monitored by Kurdish security forces, Christians have been encouraged to live anywhere.
“Christians in Iraq need special attention, because they’ve been suffering because they are Christians,” Deputy Prime Minister Omar Fattah told Newsmax in an exclusive interview in Erbil. “Maybe we give some instructions to others where they can go, but to Christians, never, because we are not afraid they will be terrorists.” Some have been given government land and building materials to construct a house. Others have rented homes from friends, or are being put up in temporary shelters thanks to local churches and international donors.
“Those people are our citizens, and when they are coming to Kurdistan they are most welcome, and we will provide them with all possible assistance,” the Kurdish deputy premier said. Since U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003, around 2,000 Christian families have moved into Ainkawa, a historic Christian town on the outskirts of the Kurdish capital, Erbil.
“Most people came when the terrorists told them they must pay the jizya or they will be killed,” Ainkawa mayor, Fahmi Mehti Soltaqi, told Newsmax, referring to a "protection tax" levied on non-Muslims according to Shari'a law. Scores of refugees interviewed by Newsmax here and in Amman, Jordan, told harrowing stories of receiving death threats from al-Qaida thugs delivered to their homes in Baghdad. The terrorists told them that as Christians, they had no right to remain in a Muslim land without submitting to Muslim rule. To escape the jizya, some Christian refugees said they were told they must marry one of their daughters to a Muslim. Instead, when they could, they fled. Tragedy lurks just beneath the surface, even in this peaceful part of Iraq.
Mayor Soltaqi’s new office assistant, Eghraa Ramzi, is an example. She fled with her daughter from her home in the Karrada district of Baghdad in June 2007, after Islamic terrorists said they would kill them if they didn’t pay the jizya. Now she handles computer services for the municipality. Rita Yuel is another. If you met her on the street, you would think she was just an attractive 23-year-old university student. But when you talk to her and learn her story, unmistakeable sadness emerges. Rita used to live in Daura, a Christian neighborhood of Baghdad, until the Muslim terrorists drove her and her sisters and others to flee in August 2006. “The terrorists were torturing people in the house next door,” she said. Her father stayed behind to work and guard the house. Last April, he promised to join his family in the north for the Easter holidays, but he never arrived. Rita and her mother learned later that he and two other Christians had been abducted at gunpoint by masked men at a roadside teahouse on the outskirts of Baiji, midway between Baghdad and the north. “He was kidnapped one year and eight days ago, and we don’t know where he is or if he is still alive. We hope that he will return,” she said. The governor of Irbil Province, Nawzad Hadi Mawlood, recalls the heady days just after the liberation of Iraq in 2003, when Iraqis from all ethnic backgrounds were suddenly free from decades of darkness.
“The terrorists destroyed the dream of the Iraqi people,” Governor Mawlood told Newsmax. “Christians had no militia to protect themselves. They were easy targets,” he explained. “Today, for them, Kurdistan is an option.” His government has opened special schools to meet the needs of Christian refugees who speak Arabic and not Kurdish, the official language here. “We have done everything we can to integrate Christians into Kurdish society,” he said. “We are not going to refuse them. They are Iraqi. We know what they are running from.”
On Sundays, the many Christian churches in Ainkawa — some of them dating from the 9th century — are packed with worshippers. Families walk the streets without fear. Restaurants and shops are open. Even more importantly, it is the only place in Iraq where Muslims can adopt the Christian faith without fear, pastors and government officials tell Newsmax. “All Iraq should be like Ainkawa,” said William Warda, the president of the Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights, an Iraqi group advocating for Christian political rights. But even in this safe haven, once darkness falls, metal barriers block the streets, guards with AK-47s emerge to protect the churches, and Kurdish security police control traffic trying to enter the area. Asked about this, Deputy Prime Minister Fattah was resigned. “We are afraid of the terrorists, too.”
Terrorist groups are constantly probing the layered security of the Kurdish region to find weak points, he explained. “If they see a church in a Christian area, they see that it is a peaceful area and perhaps they will attack.” One former Royal Marine, Dan F., who manages a local security company that caters to expatriates visiting or working in the area, lives in a heavily guarded compound in Ainkawa. Jersey barriers, gates, barbed wire, and armed guards posted at regular intervals impede access to his compound. And yet, despite the precautions, Dan wears a Glock 9 millimeter at all times and refuses to walk the streets. "If you want to walk around, wait a few weeks then go home, and you’ll have a 100 percent chance of nothing happening to you,” he says.
For all the problems and the tenuous security situation, no one here in the Kurdish north has any regrets about the U.S.-led invasion. “I’ve never been to paradise,” said Fattah, “but the difference between today and Saddam’s time is heaven and hell.” Fattah’s only fear is that American troops will leave too early, before the work is done. “Mr. Bush has not only helped Iraq, he has helped the American people as well,” he said. “He took the fight against terrorism from inside America, to outside the country. If he hadn’t done that, terrorist attacks would have continued inside America.”
U.S. troops must stay in Iraq until they reach the goal of helping Iraqis achieve a democratic federal state. “We believe Iraq can become a base for democracy in the region,” he said. In Washington and in much of the U.S. media, such dreams are derided as the fantasies of neo-conservatives. But here on the ground in Kurdistan, which even today commemorates the 21st anniversary of a chemical weapons attack by Saddam Hussein that massacred thousands of Kurds, this hope remains alive.
Me: The Kruds are the kind of people that we will not support in their stuggle against Turkey and are the ones Clintons didnt care about when they were targeted by the Bathist party. Yet they are far more democratic and decent a people they any other group we have ever supported.
2) Ted Kennedy Dumps Fuel into Nantucket Sound... Democrats/Environmentalism
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Kennedy_polluter/2008/03/14/80443.html?s=al&promo_code=473F-1
Ted Kennedy has called Nantucket Sound near his Massachusetts estate “a national treasure” — but that didn’t stop the senator from having oil dumped from his yacht into its waters. A local photographer spotted an oil slick coming from Kennedy’s yacht Mya as Kennedy and his guests left the vessel in a launch following a race that ended in Hyannis, the Cape Cod Today newspaper reported. The lensman was so shocked that he rowed his dinghy out to question the crew member left aboard the yacht. He asked the crewman, “What the hell are you doing?” The crewman said that diesel fuel had gotten into the bilge and he was told to dump it. When the photographer pointed out that the yacht was moored in coastal waters near shellfish beds and people swimming, the crewman replied, “Whatever.” Cape Cod Today published a photo showing the oil slick emanating from Mya. As Newsmax reported earlier, Kennedy has opposed a proposal to construct a wind farm in Nantucket Sound to produce cheap, clean energy. Asked why, he said: “That’s where I sail.”
Me: You Kennedy is always supported by the environmentalist because he like Gore and almost every leader of the evironmentalist movement say the right things and promise to force everyone other then themselves to suffer in the name of environmentalism. The have no problem with keeping or forcing gas prices higher because "we want people to drive less". Yet when it comes to what they do they fly private jets, drive gas eatting cars, live in energy sucking homes, prevent environmental 'green energy' from their lands, and dump there waste where ever they choose to.
3) Obama claims Wrights remarks "looped over"... Democrats/Racism
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_wright_abc_news/2008/03/27/83620.html?s=al&promo_code=482D-1
White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama's campaign, not stepped down.
"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church," Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, "The View." The interview will be broadcast Friday. In his sermons over the years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has railed against the United States and accused it of bringing on the Sept. 11 attacks by spreading terrorism. He also has said the government invented AIDS to destroy "people of color" and has shouted "God damn America" for its treatment of minorities. Videos of his remarks circulated on the Internet and on television.
Also Thursday, Obama told ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson that "If all I saw of Rev. Wright … were the 30-second or one-minute clips that have been looped over the last two weeks again and again as opposed to the body of work for 30 years that he engaged in in building a church that is a pillar of the community on the South Side [of Chicago]. "It's as if we took the five dumbest things that I ever said or you ever said … in our lives and compressed them, and put them out there, you know, I think that people's reaction would be understandably upset. "This is somebody who I knew for 20 years. He was my pastor," Obama said. "He wasn't my political adviser. He wasn't somebody who was, you know, shaping my thoughts about most issues."
In an attempt to quiet the controversy, Obama gave a speech last week in which he sharply condemned Wright's remarks but did not repudiate him. Obama said Wednesday he has spoken with Wright, who retired from Trinity United Church of Christ last month but remains as a senior pastor. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, broke her silence on the matter Tuesday, saying she would have parted company with a pastor who spoke about the country the way Wright has.
Me: Sorry Obama you can not claim that this minister didnt often include these kinds of views on the USA as the basically said "I said it and I am damn proud of saying it". So to try to claim that these were rare occassions is to be a poor listener and a poor judge of character. As president you will be dealling with dictators and thugs whom are so slick that they make Wright look like a street gamerster. If this is a example of your ability to listen and judge character, then why should we have you as president?
4) Democrats try to weaken Military by picking weaker upgrade of Air Tankers... Democrats/Military
E-mail Alert
The U.S. Air Force recently announced that it would award the contract for its next generation of aerial refueling tankers to Northrop Grumman Corp. The competitive vetting process used by the Air Force is a vast improvement over the originally proposed tanker lease deal with Boeing Corporation, which was crafted by members of Congress behind closed doors without any competitive review or debate in order to subsidize Boeing's 767 production line as the company's profits sagged in the wake of 9/11. In truth, the tanker lease deal was nothing more than a corporate welfare giveaway to one well-heeled, politically influential company at the expense of American taxpayers. Then-Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas) called it the worst pork-barrel handout he had seen in his 22 years on Capitol Hill!
The proposed deal also proved to be a prime example of cronyism and corruption. Subsequent federal investigations led to jail terms for Boeing's Chief Financial Officer and the Air Force procurement official who negotiated the deal, the resignation of other top Boeing executives, and a fine of more than $600 million for the company. By contrast, the latest tanker decision was based on an open and transparent bidding process. The Air Force ranked each bid on five criteria and Northrop Grumman won over Boeing on four out of the five and tied in one category. According to published reports, both sides praised the fairness of the competition before the award was announced and agreed that this was the most rigorous acquisition process in the Department of Defense's history. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is now reviewing the contract award, with a ruling on its propriety expected by June 19. Yet, Boeing is again marshalling its congressional allies to try to secure through political favoritism what it couldn't win in a free and fair competition! Help us stop them!
Boeing's lobbyists and congressional friends are wrapping themselves in the flag and claiming that, in the name of "patriotism," Congress should overturn the Air Force decision because Northrop's prime subcontractor, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., is a foreign company. The fact is that in today's global economy companies like Boeing sell to European and other foreign governments all the time, their companies sell to us, and most U.S. defense systems, including those built by Boeing, contain foreign-made parts. What's more, despite Boeing's propaganda to the contrary, the Northrop tanker will be assembled by American workers and outfitted with sensitive technology right here at home in Mobile, Alabama. As the Wall Street Journal stated, "What's really going on is a familiar scrum for federal cash, with politicians...using nationalism as cover for their pork-barreling."
Among those Boeing allies screaming the loudest about the Air Force decision on Capitol Hill are House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.), one of the most notorious backroom dealmakers in Congress whom the public voted the "2007 Porker of the Year" in an online poll, and Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), whose "bona fides" on defense and national security include earmarking $1.7 million in Defense Budget funds to "improve the shelf life of vegetables." While the $35 billion cost to taxpayers of the tanker contract is significant, more is at stake in this battle than dollars and cents. As Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics John Young said earlier this month, allowing Congress to preempt the GAO ruling or override the Air Force's decision "would open up slippery slopes and dangerous precedents," where members of Congress will simply select their favored pet contractors, regardless of the cost to taxpayers or the impact on our Armed Forces.
Me: The Democrats have a long history of undermining the US miltary and lack of support for US troops. This is yet another example of this kind of thing, they put their political carreers over the safety and success of the Troops.
5) McDonald's CEO: Company will put full resources behind gay agenda... Homosexuality
e-mail alert
According to McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner, McDonald’s will aggressively promote the homosexual agenda. In remarks on McDonald's Web site concerning the company becoming a member of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), Skinner wrote: "Being a socially responsible organization is a fundamental part of who we are. We have an obligation to use our size and resources to make a difference in the world … and we do."
The company gave an undisclosed amount of money to the NGLCC in return for being recognized as a major promoter of the homosexual agenda. In return, NGLCC placed Richard Ellis, vice president of communications of McDonald’s USA, on the NGLCC Board of Directors. Ellis was quoted as saying: "I'm thrilled to join the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce team and ready to get to work. I share the NGLCC's passion for business growth and development within the LGBT community, and I look forward to playing a role in moving these important initiatives forward."
McDonald's refused to comment to World Net Daily on the placement of its executive on the board of the "gay" advocacy organization but did send an e-mail confirming the corporation's support for the agenda of the homosexual business lobby. "McDonald's is indeed a Corporate Partner and Organizational Ally of NGLCC. Our vice president of U.S. communications, Richard Ellis, was recently elected to its board of directors," said Heidi M. Barker, senior director of media relations for McDonald’s. NGLCC describes itself as promoting the LGBT community first and always, including same sex marriage.
NGLCC gives credit to sponsors such as McDonald's for its financial and other support that helps in its work. "Through the commitment of our corporate partners, the NGLCC has been able to advance the ideas and causes of the LGBT business community," the Chamber said.
Me: You know the food in McDonalds got worse as they bowed to presure to carry healthier foods. Again McDonalds is forgetting why their company is about. McDonalds is a FAST FOOD chain and not a political organization and not a health spa. I am tried of companies that forget why they exist in the first place.
6) Obama sponsors a Global Poverty Act (S.2433), that would tax US citizens to give to 'poor' countrie... Democrats
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/globalpovertyactnm.html
E-Mail Alert
The United States Senate may vote any day on the stealth imposition of what could amount to an $845 BILLION United Nations style global tax on American citizens? It's called the Global Poverty Act (S.2433), and it is being sponsored by none other than Senator Barack Obama. According to some conservative sources, this disastrous legislation could eventually force U.S. taxpayers to fork over as much as 0.7 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product -- or $845,000,000,000.00 -- on welfare to third-world countries.
Here's what Phyllis Schlafly, conservative activist and founder of Eagle Forum, recently wrote: "Obama's costly, dangerous and altogether bad bill (S. 2433), which could come up in the Senate any day, is called the Global Poverty Act. It would commit U.S. taxpayers to spend 0.7 percent of our Gross Domestic Product on foreign handouts..."
Time is of the essence because Senator Joe Biden, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee just issued a report on the Global Poverty Act and it was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar on Thursday the 24th. That means that time is of the essence as this potentially massive surrender of your hard-earned tax dollars to the third world may be close to a vote. This bill can come up for a vote at any time. Demand that our conservative legislators do whatever it takes -- a filibuster if necessary -- to stop this bill dead in its tracks.
The Senate Shell Game...
Advocates of the Global Poverty Act are claiming that it does not really commit the United States to anything... that it won't really cost anything... that it simply requires the President -- in conjunction with the Secretary of State -- to "develop" strategies to alleviate world poverty. In fact, Biden's report incredulously states, "implementing S. 2433 would cost less than $1 million per year..."
Technically he's correct... after all, it doesn't really cost that much to develop and formulate strategies... But such a cleverly worded contention begs the question: Why formulate or develop a strategy if there is no intention to follow through on that strategy? And what would it cost to actually follow through on a strategy to alleviate world poverty? The Global Poverty Act intentionally gives no specific figures but it does contain clues, and those clues are stated repeatedly in the legislation's reliance on the United Nations Millennium Development Goal.
WorldNetDaily.com quotes Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media as saying: "The bill defines the term 'Millennium Development Goals' as the goals set out in the United Nations Millennium Declaration... In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that declaration commits nations to banning 'small arms and light weapons' and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child."
As for specific figures... WorldNetDaily.com reports:
"Those U.N. protocols would make U.S. law on issues ranging from the 2nd Amendment to energy usage and parental rights all subservient to United Nations whims."
"[T]he legislation, if approved, dedicates 0.7 percent of the U.S. gross national product to foreign aid, which over 13 years... would amount to $845 billion 'over and above what the U.S. already spends.'"
"The plan passed the House in 2007 'because most members didn't realize what was in it.' Congressional sponsors have been careful not to calculate the amount of foreign aid spending that it would require."
And, how would the United States pay for this $845 BILLION commitment? According to Kincaid, who published a report on the legislation; "A global tax will clearly be necessary to force American taxpayers to provide the money." And that $845 BILLION global tax is in addition to our nation's current Foreign Aid programs, which, in 2006, cost American taxpayers about $300 BILLION! Senator Obama's Global Poverty Act has already passed the House (many Members unfortunately voted in favor of it without carefully noting exactly what was in it) and President Bush may very well sign it! That's why it must be stopped, and it must be stopped NOW! Let them know in no uncertain terms that you are watching and you will not tolerate massive United Nations style giveaways that are passed in the dark of night -- or in broad daylight for that matter. Tell them that putting us on the road to give billions to petty tyrants and dictators is NOT a solution to poverty.
It Gets Worse!
Here are some of the additional provisions of the Millennium Development Goal:
a "currency transfer tax," that is, a tax imposed on companies and individuals who must exchange dollars for foreign currency;
a "tax on the rental value of land and natural resources";
a "royalty on worldwide fossil energy projection -- oil, natural gas, coal";
"fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on the carbon content of fuels."
a "standing peace force," meaning a standing United Nations army that might, in time, be large enough to force us to bend to its will;
a "UN arms register of all small arms and light weapons," the beginning of the end of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution;
the "eradication of poverty" by the "redistribution [of] wealth and land" -- How do you suppose the United Nations expects to "redistribute" the land and the wealth? And what country do you think the third-world majority will go after first?
cancellation of "the debts of developing countries,"
"a fair distribution of the earth's resources."
and "political control of the global economy."
In other words, it's a blueprint for a world government, owned and operated by the United Nations. One thing is clear: the Millennium Development Goal is a dagger aimed at the heart of America. While the Global Poverty Act, as presently championed by its Senate supporters, embraces certain aspects of the Millennium Development Goal, one should wonder if some of our legislators also support land and wealth "redistribution." We must stop this bill dead in its tracks. We must stop this subversion NOW! Don't let Senator Obama's Global Poverty Act sneak through the Senate. Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Fax messages to President George W. Bush and each Member of the Republican Leadership of the United States Senate. Let them know in no uncertain terms that you are watching and you will not tolerate massive United Nations style giveaways that are passed in the dark of night -- or in broad daylight for that matter. Tell them that putting us on the road to give billions to petty tyrants and dictators is NOT a solution to poverty.
Other Appropriate Entities...
Dr. Jeffrey D. Sachs -- a Columbia University economist -- is monitoring the Millennium Development Goal for the United Nations. In his 2005 report to Kofi Annan -- based on the research of 265 "poverty specialists" -- Sachs criticized the United States for giving only a mere $16.3 billion a year to alleviate global poverty. He argued that we should spend at least an additional $30 billion a year.And Sachs has decreed that the only way to force the United States to commit that much money is to IMPOSE A GLOBAL TAX. as Senator Obama -- along with the other Senate co-sponsors -- introduced the Global Policy Act at least in partial obedience to Sachs' wishes?
Phyllis Schlafly claims: "The Global Poverty Act would be a giant step toward the Millennium Goals of global governance and international taxes on Americans. Tell your Senators to kill this un-American bill."
Joe Farah, publisher of WorldNetDaily.com said of this treacherous bill: "Now comes an even grander proposal by Barack Obama. It's called the Global Poverty Act, that would, in the next decade, transfer at least $845 billion of U.S. taxpayer money overseas. Think of Johnson's failed war on poverty going international -- directed not by Americans but by the United Nations."
And yes, just in case you think the massive amounts of your tax dollars that were wasted under the United Nation's Oil for Food program were an aberration, and that such a thing could not eventually happen on a more massive scale were the Global Poverty Act to sneak through the Senate, Doug Powers, writing for WorldNetDaily.com made this observation: "Not long ago, Nigeria's 'anti-corruption commission' -- runner-up in the 'oxymoron of the year' competition, second only to 'U.S. Senate Intelligence' -- found that past rulers of Nigeria have stolen or misused billions of dollars. "The commission discovered that the amount of money 'missing' adds up to all the Western aid given to Africa in four decades. Obama, Hagel and Cantwell want to throw more at them. Apparently they won't be happy until there are trillions of our tax dollars stolen by crooked leaders and warlords."
Unfortunately, the Global Poverty Act is still flying under the radar, but not for long. There is hope. We know, and we can stop this vicious bill -- provided we act RIGHT NOW! Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Fax messages to President George W. Bush and each Member of the Republican Leadership of the United States Senate. Let them know in no uncertain terms that you are watching and you will not tolerate massive United Nations style giveaways that are passed in the dark of night -- or in broad daylight for that matter. Tell them that putting us on the road to give billions to petty tyrants and dictators is NOT a solution to poverty.
Me: SO we have yet more proof that Obama is a socialist, helping people by taking from people and spreading the suffering. We also no see him in the leftist camp looking for a world government. It also shows how he is TOTALLY unprepared to deal with the other nations of the world as he does not understand that most of the poverty in the world is due to dictatorships and a lack of freedom. He does not understand that aid and money in the hundreds of billions sent to these poor countries will not end up helping the needy but will instead be taken by the very dictators createing the poverty.
7) Global warming may 'stop', scientists predict... Man Made Global Warming
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/04/30/eaclimate130.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_01052008
Global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate, scientists have said. Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a "lull" for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly over the decade while the tropical Pacific remains unchanged. This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature. However, the effect of rising fossil fuel emissions will mean that warming will accelerate again after 2015 when natural trends in the oceans veer back towards warming, according to the computer model.
Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel, Germany, said: "The IPCC would predict a 0.3°C warming over the next decade. Our prediction is that there will be no warming until 2015 but it will pick up after that." He stressed that the results were just the initial findings from a new computer model of how the oceans behave over decades and it would be wholly misleading to infer that global warming, in the sense of the enhanced greenhouse effect from increased carbon emissions, had gone away. The IPCC currently does not include in its models actual records of such events as the strength of the Gulf Stream and the El Nino cyclical warming event in the Pacific, which are known to have been behind the warmest year ever recorded in 1998.
Today's paper in Nature tries to simulate the variability of these events and longer cycles, such as the giant ocean "conveyor belt" known as the meridional overturning circulation (MOC), which brings warm water north into the North East Atlantic. This has a 70 to 80-year cycle and when the circulation is strong, it creates warmer temperatures in Europe. When it is weak, as it will be over the next decade, temperatures fall. Scientists think that variations of this kind could partly explain the cooling of global average temperatures between the 1940s and 1970s after which temperatures rose again. Writing in Nature, the scientists said: "Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic [manmade] warming."
The study shows a more pronounced weakening effect than the Met Office's Hadley Centre, which last year predicted that global warming would slow until 2009 and pick up after that, with half the years after 2009 being warmer than the warmest year on record, 1998. Commenting on the new study, Richard Wood of the Hadley Centre said the model suggested the weakening of the MOC would have a cooling effect around the North Atlantic. "Such a cooling could temporarily offset the longer-term warming trend from increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. That emphasises once again the need to consider climate variability and climate change together when making predictions over timescales of decades." But he said the use of just sea surface temperatures might not accurately reflect the state of the MOC, which was several miles deep and dependent on factors besides temperatures, such as salt content, which were included in the Met Office Hadley Centre model. If the model could accurately forecast other variables besides temperature, such as rainfall, it would be increasingly useful, but climate predictions for a decade ahead would always be to some extent uncertain, he added.
Me: How can this be we are still using fossal fuels and still breathing so Global warming can not stop. After all we have not suffered enough in the name of the planet yet, we need to have our whole way of life altered, forced population controls, and massive empowerment of a central government before we can have Global Warming stop.
8) Militants burn down girls' school in north-west Pakistan... Islamic Extremists
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/news/article_1403354.php/Militants_burn_down_girls_school_in_north-west_Pakistan
Peshawar - A high school for girls in Pakistan's north-west Swat district was largely destroyed after militants set it ablaze in an overnight raid, police and officials said on Sunday. Around 50 rebels entered the school in the conflict-hit Charbagh area, located some 150 kilometres from the city of Peshawar, shortly after Saturday's midnight and used petrol bombs to destroy the library and nine other rooms in the building, the police said.
'The masked men directed me to remove all the copies of Koran (the holy book of Islamic religion) and then set the school on fire,' a watchman, Toti Gul, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. The militants also planted homemade bombs in the school's science laboratory; however, they did not go off and were later defused by a bomb disposal squad, the watchman said. A number of attacks on girls' schools have been reported in the past and these were believed to be carried out by pro-Taliban fighters commanded by a local radical cleric, Maulana Fazlullah.
Pakistani military launched a massive operation against the pro- Taliban militants in the picturesque mountain district late last year to flush Fazlullah's supporters out of several key towns and villages. However, now there is a lull in direct clashes between the rebels and the military as the government has launched peace talks with the insurgents.
'The militants were bold enough to stay at the school for at least 20 minutes to see the building burn out,' Gul said. The attack came at a time when the annual examinations in the whole of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) are in progress, and it is feared that hundreds of girl students would not be able to sit them, as the school was the only one in Charbagh. Fazlullah used to broadcast radio transmissions through his illegal FM stations based in Imam Dheri village, discouraging the local population from educating girls and getting children immunized against polio, saying the UN-sponsored vaccination drive aimed at causing sexual impotence. Authorities in Swat said though the government had reached a peace agreement with the militants in the valley that was once a haven for tourists, violence was again on the rise, particularly after the release of a firebrand cleric detained in Peshwar. Maulana Sufi Mohammed, who is the chief of a banned religious organization - Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammedi (Movement for the Enforcement of Mohammedan Law) - was released by the NWFP's new political government that decided to negotiate with the militants, instead of using military means. Pakistan saw a surge in militancy and violence, especially against its armed forces, after government troops cracked down on militants holed up in the Red Mosque in capital Islamabad. More than 110 people were killed in the commando raid.
Me: I am of mixed feelings in this matter. In one aspect is that the Pakistan Government has attempted to shut down the Taliban, yet on the otherside they are making deals 'peace deals' and releasing key militants thusly empowering these groups. The one thing that is clear is that they are showing no ability to stop the Talibans growing power in that area.
9) Bush Signs Bill To Take ALL Newborns’ DNA... Government/Privacy
http://www.infowars.com/?p=1896
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1858
Friday, May 2, 2008
President Bush last week signed into law a bill which will see the federal government begin to screen the DNA of all newborn babies in the U.S. within six months, a move critics have described as the first step towards the establishment of a national DNA database. Described as a "national contingency plan" the justification for the new law S. 1858, known as The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007, is that it represents preparation for any sort of "public health emergency." The bill states that the federal government should "continue to carry out, coordinate, and expand research in newborn screening" and "maintain a central clearinghouse of current information on newborn screening… ensuring that the clearinghouse is available on the Internet and is updated at least quarterly". Sections of the bill also make it clear that DNA may be used in genetic experiments and tests. One health care expert and prominent critic of DNA screening is Twila Brase, president of the Citizens’ Council on Health Care who has written a detailed analysis (PDF) of the new law in which she warns that it represents the first program of populationwide genetic testing. Brase states that S.1858 and H.R. 3825, the House version of the bill, will:
• Establish a national list of genetic conditions for which newborns and children are to be tested.
• Establish protocols for the linking and sharing of genetic test results nationwide.
• Build surveillance systems for tracking the health status and health outcomes of individuals diagnosed at birth with a genetic defect or trait.
• Use the newborn screening program as an opportunity for government agencies to identify, list, and study "secondary conditions" of individuals and their families.
• Subject citizens to genetic research without their knowledge or consent.
"Soon, under this bill, the DNA of all citizens will be housed in government genomic biobanks and considered governmental property for government research," Brase writes. "The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research. The public is clueless. S. 1858 imposes a federal agenda of DNA databanking and population-wide genetic research. It does not require consent and there are no requirements to fully inform parents about the warehousing of their child’s DNA for the purpose of genetic research." In a previous report we outlined the consequences of the already existing DNA warehousing operation in Minnesota, a program that the Citizens’ Council on Health Care has been following closely for a number of years. Ms. Brase explained in a statement last month that state Health Department officials are now seeking exemption for the so called "DNA Warehouse" from Minnesota privacy law. This would enable state officials to continue to take the DNA of newborn infants without consent, which would also set the precedent for nationwide policy on DNA screening.
DNA of newborns has already been harvested, tested, stored and experimented with nationwide. The National Conference of State Legislatures lists for all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, the various statutes or regulatory provisions under which newborns’ DNA is already being collected. In addition, all 50 states are now routinely providing these results to the Department of Homeland Security. The Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007 merely establishes this practice within the law. Another vocal critic of bill S. 1858 is Texas Congressman Ron Paul who made the following comments before the U.S. House of Representatives: "I cannot support legislation, no matter how much I sympathize with the legislation’s stated goals, that exceed the Constitutional limitations on federal power or in any way threatens the liberty of the American people. Since S. 1858 violates the Constitution, and may have untended consequences that will weaken the American health care system and further erode medical privacy, I must oppose it."
Paul, a medical doctor himself continued, "S. 1858 gives the federal bureaucracy the authority to develop a model newborn screening program. Madame Speaker the federal government lacks both the constitutional authority and the competence to develop a newborn screening program adequate for a nation as large and diverse as the United States. Those of us in the medical profession should be particularly concerned about policies allowing government officials and state-favored interests to access our medical records without our consent … My review of S. 1858 indicates the drafters of the legislation made no effort to ensure these newborn screening programs do not violate the privacy rights of parents and children," Paul continued. "In fact, by directing federal bureaucrats to create a contingency plan for newborn screening in the event of a ‘public health’ disaster, this bill may lead to further erosions of medical privacy. As recent history so eloquently illustrates, politicians are more than willing to take, and people are more than willing to cede, liberty during times of ‘emergency," he concluded.
Me: This deeply bothers me, this kind of information can be used by the government in countless ways and could be used to destroy many live should it get in the hand of the wrong people.
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hunterkirk) wrote,
