Careful Thought

From Brussels Journal :

Last Sunday the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began. It lasts until 23 October. Many will remember last year’s ramadan riots , which set France and, to a lesser extent, parts of Belgium and Denmark, alight. Rioting went on for three weeks. Each night thousands of cars were set alight by immigrant youths, until
the French and Belgian governments ordered the police to no longer divulge any information about the disturbances, after which the media stopped reporting, the youths lost interest and the number of nightly “carbecues” in France dropped to the “normal” level of about 50.

It looks like some Brussels immigrant youths want to make “ramadan rioting” an annual event. Last Saturday morning, between 1 and 4 am, ten cars were set on fire in the Brussels borough of Schaarbeek. Last night several car and shop windows were smashed and one shop and five cars were set alight in the Brussels Marollen quarter.

The police were able to arrest ten youths, who meanwhile have already been released. The authorities want to defuse the situation by downplaying the incidents. Philippe Close, the chef de cabinet of the Brussels mayor, emphasized that there were “no direct confrontations between the youths and the police” and that there had only been “isolated incidents.” The judiciary will not press charges and the Brussels municipal authorities have announced that they will confer with the youths tonight to allow them to vent their grievances. “The youths wish to discuss prison security,” Mr Close said, “but it is not easy to discuss such a topic in the streets.”

Especially when they won’t put down their Molotov cocktails.

Jawa Report links a piece on the increasing intimidation of opponents of Islamic fascism, in this case an op-ed piece by Robert Redeker in Le Figaro. Figaro immediately issued an apology and asked for terms of surrender.

Redeker: “I am now in a catastrophic personal situation.”

I am now in a catastrophic personal situation. Several death threats have been sent to me, and I have been sentenced to death by organizations of the al-Qaeda movement. [...] On the websites condemning me to death there is a map showing how to get to my house to kill me, they have my photo, the places where I work, the telephone numbers, and the death fatwa. [...] There is no safe place for me, I have to beg, two evenings here, two evenings there. [...] I am under the constant protection of the police. I must cancel all scheduled conferences. And the authorities urge me to keep moving. [...] All costs are at my own expense, including those of rents a month or two ahead, the costs of moving twice, legal expenses, etc.

It’s quite sad. I exercised my constitutional rights, and I am punished for it, even in the territory of the Republic. This affair is also an attack against national sovereignty – foreign rules, decided by criminally minded fanatics, punish me for having exercised a constitutional right, and I am subjected, even in France, to great injury.

This is the state of our world, now. One writer, one politician, one artist after another has to go into hiding, while those who threaten him walk the streets. It’s long since time the authorities started dealing with death threats against writers, artists and politicians with extreme prejudice. How many politicians, writers and artists have the courage to die for their beliefs? Few, I fear.

Few indeed. Ah, the religion of peace…

Make it stop! This is so stupid it hurts my head. Drudge is reporting AlGore’s latest message of doom:

GORE: CIGARETTE SMOKING ‘SIGNIFICANT’ CONTRIBUTOR TO GLOBAL WARMING

Fri Sep 29 2006 09:04:05 ET

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore warned hundreds of U.N. diplomats and staff on Thursday evening about the perils of climate change, claiming: Cigarette smoking is a “significant contributor to global warming!”

Gore, who was introduced by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said the world faces a “full-scale climate emergency that threatens the future of civilization on earth.”

What percentage of global warming is directly attributable to hot air?

This whole thing reminds me of John Prine’s Bottomless Lake lyrics:

We are falling down
Down to the bottom of a hole in the ground
Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em
I’m so scared I can hardly breathe.

Indeed.

Sen James Imhofe, Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee does a great job deconstructing the media hype of global warming here .

Life is good and God is faithful. What more can you say when things turn upside down?

For the past few weeks we’ve been dealing with a family member’s failing health. His lungs, already damaged beyond repair from progressive emphysema, are now growing more clogged with pneumonia. He was diagnosed as having had a series of small strokes that prevented him from swallowing properly. Now he is aspirating food particles into his lungs. The docs can treat the pneumonia, but it looks like a losing battle. His heart is weakened from a massive heart attack a few years ago.

I find myself reconsidering my opinion of Living Wills and other advance directives regarding end-of-life care. Thankfully he has current directives identifying the care he wanted - and didn’t want - when the time came.

But for now we continue taking him to the hospital when he has trouble breathing or other problems arise. Hospice services are available to provide palliative care . This would be treatment to minimize suffering and discomfort, but does nothing to actually remedy the condition. We haven’t determined whether or not we will go this route, but it’s on the table. One day soon he’ll likely have difficulty breathing. Do we give him pain relievers and warm blankets and close the door?

Thankfully God is there and He is good.  How else could we make it through an ordeal such as this?

Skiing is gonna be great this year. (So much for that global warming thing, huh?)

From the Colorado Springs Gazette :

Rich Staats snowboarded Thursday on top of Vail Pass. The snow that fell Wednesday night was only the beginning. Snow forced closures of the Eisenhower Tunnel and nearby stretches of Interstate 70 near the divide, and forecasters warned that another foot or two of snow could fall in the mountains through Saturday morning, the first day of fall.

Coalition of the Swilling has a mug for the “ I hate Bush more than Hugo Chavez ” crowd:

Despite mounting evidence to the contrary , mainstream media is still banging the global whining climate change drum. From MSNBC’s “science” page :

Despite the long term warming trend seen around the globe , the oceans have cooled in the last three years, scientists announced today.

The temperature drop, a small fraction of the total warming seen in the last 48 years, suggests that global warming trends can sometimes take little dips.

In the last century, Earth’s temperature has risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.56 degrees Celsius). Most scientists agree that much of the warming in the past 50 years has been fueled by the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities.

Actually they don’t agree. Or maybe the MSM is just having trouble defining “most scientists.”

Tags: climate change, global whining

I don’t care how you spend your money. If you’ve earned it by the sweat of your brow it’s yours to do with as you wish. Invest it; go to Tahiti or light cheap cigars with it. Richard Branson, he of Virgin Airlines, has come up with a particularly frivolous way to spend his. al Reuters published a fawning article detailing Branson’s plan to spend every dime of his profits for the next ten years - probably around $3 billion - fighting global warming.

Branson apparently saw the light after a midnight visit from AlGore on his global whining tour.

His decision to commit billions of dollars to the cause came after former U.S. vice president and long-time environmentalist Al Gore visited him in England a year ago.

“He basically said ‘look, you’re in a position where you might be able to make an influence — if you could make a bold gesture then maybe other people will make a bold gesture as well’,” Branson told the Clinton Global Initiative summit.

The piece cites the usual thin statistics on climate change, and makes interesting uses of adjectives to sell their point.

Most international experts say emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars, are the primary cause of a 1.1 F (0.6 C) rise in temperatures over the past century.

A dwindling group of scientists say the dominant cause of warming is a natural variation in the climate system, or a gradual rise in the sun’s energy output. [My emphasis.]

Subtle, no?

If Richard Branson wants to throw good money after bad that’s his business, but I could think of a few more worthwhile places he could put $3 billion.

(By way of Bloo .) 

“Among the Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He were God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among pantheists, like the Hindus of India, anyone might say that he is part of god or one with god. There would be nothing very odd about that. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God in their language meant the Being outside of the world who had made it and was infinitely different than anything else. And when you have grasped that concept you will see that what this man said was quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.”

- C.S. Lewis