Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid Dies
Filed under: International News, International Politics, Middle-East Affairs, Religion
The former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has died in hospital at the age of 69, after a prolonged illness. His presidency commenced after the fall of dictator Suharto in 1999.
Wahid’s leadership and policies attracted much controversy amongst Indonesians. Eventually, he was alienated within his own party and removed from office in 2001.
During and after his presidency, he promoted religious and ethnic tolerance. He wrote a seminal article published in the Wall Street Journal on December 30, 2005 titled “Right Islam vs. Wrong Islam” in which he called on “people of good will of every faith and nation” to unite to defeat the ideology of religious hatred that underlies and animates terrorism. He advocated for relations with Israel. When the Iranian government held a Holocaust Denial Conference in 2006, President Wahid convened a counter conference in Bali to promote the true historical view.
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Outcomes of Copenhagen Climate Summit
Filed under: International News, Politics and Policy
The only certainty from the climate summit was that in the process of hosting the summit they would spent a lot of money, generate a lot of CO2 and attract a lot of crazy people.
I must say that I am half impressed with the outcome – I was half expecting that the summit would be terminated by a walkout by disgruntled countries, but I am sure they realised that would be bad PR.
Instead, they have announced a non-binding declaration – a US-brokered deal with India, China, Brazil and South Africa - that they say will limit global warming to 2 degrees.
Here are a couple of links:
http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report_copenhagen-climate-summit-comes-to-an-end_1325458
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-draft-accord-agreed-20091218-l1jo.html
I am trying to work the meaning and impact of the declaration. My understanding is that they have a few pledges from countries to achieve certain drops in CO2 emissions by 2020, but the specific figures have not been disclosed.
Also, they may impose additional tax air and sea travel to raise billions of dollars yearly to assist island nations who believe that they are at risk of being submerged.
Naturally, most opposition and criticism is coming from countries that don’t thing the measures go far enough, and other countries who do not want to harm their economies atoning for the sins of the developed world.
More to come as things are clarified in the media.
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ClimateGate: What It Means
Filed under: Australian News, Australian Politics, International News, International Politics, Science
‘ClimateGate’ is the name given to the controversy surrounding the leaking of emails belonging to the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia that took place in late November. This institute is a major research centre that played a key role in promoting Global Warming Alarmism and contributing to the IPCC report on Global Warming.
There has been some coverage in the Australian mainstream media, but most of it has completely ignored the meat of the issue, and instead focussed on ’computer hacking’ or how it could impede the Copenhagen climate summit. The most thorough coverage has been in the Australian newspaper and the blogs of News Ltd. columnists Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair.
For those of you that are unfamiliar, emails contained in these archives strongly suggest that academics at CRU have prepetrated widescale scientific fraud and engaged in highly unprofessional, if not criminal conduct. Furthermore, it casts a strong shadow of suspicion and doubt on their conclusions of future global climate catastrophe.
These practices include:
- Suppressing the views of dissenting scientists
- Mathematically manipulating climate data to hide features of the curve that disagree with alarmist opinions
- Knowingly incorporating poor quality, unreliable data into their research
- Subverting the peer review process
- Withholding and destroying information in response to Freedom of Information requests
I have no doubt that ClimateGate played a significant role in increasing opposition to the Australian ETS legislation and the fall of Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull.
Plenty of great posts have been written that explain the content of these emails and surrounding issues in depth, so I will just include the links:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/global_warming_fraud_and_the_f.html
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html
http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/23/media-missing-the-plot-on-climate-gate-its-the-fraud-stupid/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/climategate-hide-the-decline-codified/
http://fascistsoup.com/2009/11/25/more-on-the-climategate-source-code/
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Barack Obama Did Not Deserve A Nobel Prize
Nobel Prizes have traditionally been awarded for ACHIEVEMENT in a certain field, not INTENTION or ENCOURAGEMENT.
Barack Obama might have grand plans for his own vision of peace, but he has not made any sort of measurable achievement that deserves this kind of recognition.
In my opinion, the Nobel Prize for Peace completely lost all credibility long ago, judging from the long list of recent questionable [undeserving] recipients: Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, Yasser Arafat, Mikhail Gorbachev, Henry Kissinger & Le Duc Tho.
My advice to the Nobel Committee: stick to prizes for solid science.
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Aspiring Egyptian Book Burner Loses Bid To Head UNESCO
Filed under: International News, International Politics, Middle-East Affairs
Long-serving Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosny has lost his bid to become the new Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation – UNESCO. The position was instead won by former Bulgarian Minister Irina Bokova, who received a majority of the final vote 31-27, amongst the 58 delegates.
Farouk Hosni’s campaign was hampered by a threat he made in the Egyptian parliament last year to personally burn any Israeli book he found in Egypt’s famous Library of Alexandria.
According to the linked article, “Critics also said that Mr Hosni was unfit to be UN guardian of culture because he censored books and films and stifled media freedom to support the authoritarian Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak”.
In true Arab Muslim style, he blamed his election loss on a “Jewish Conspiracy, cooked up in New York”.
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Crazed Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi to tell UN to Abolish Switzerland
Filed under: International News, International Politics, Middle-East Affairs
A year ago, Gaddafi’s youngest son, Hannibal Gaddafi, and his wife were arrested in a Geneva luxury hotel after beating two servants with a belt and a coat-hanger.
According to a New York Times article, “Hannibal Gaddafi had previously been busted in France and Italy for beating a woman and fighting a cop, and once for driving drunk down Paris’ Champs Elysee at 90 mph – the wrong way.”
How do you think Hannibal’s dad Muammar reacted? By issuing an apology to the Swiss? By taking some perks away from his son? By paying compensation to the beaten servants?
No, of course not! He reacted like a typical Arab Dictator – he threw a tantrum like a 3-year old boy – that is, a 3 year old boy with money and autocratic power. Gaddafi’s regime did the following:
- Recalled Libyan diplomats From Switzerland
- Suspended visas for Swiss citizens
- Withdrew funds from Swiss banks
- Blockaded the Tripoli office of the Swiss food company Nestlé
And the Old Arab Favourite trick:
- Threatened to cut off oil deliveries to Switzerland.
Oh and also they kept two Swiss businessmen as ‘guests’ [hostages] until Libya received an apology for poor little Hannibal’s arrest.
Now as you can imagine, such financial pressure can even crack most principled of people, especially the Swiss who are known for their love of other people’s gold. Two weeks ago, Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz travelled to Tripoli to issue a grovelling apology, hoping to pacify madman Gaddafi and get their businessmen back.
In true Arab style, Libya reneged and the businessmen are still there. Now Merz, having made a fool out of himself, is apparently facing calls for his resignation from outraged Swiss citizens.
But that’s not all. Gaddafi is still angry as hell and he now plans to demand the dissolution of Switzerland when he next addresses the United Nations. If Gaddafi can sway enough of his fellow Arab, Muslim and African dictatorships, maybe he’ll muster a UN majority to pass a Switzerland dissolution resolution.
After all, similar tactics got Taiwan kicked out of the UN in 1971, and get Israel criticised every other week for defending itself from destruction at the hands of its Arab Muslim Neighbours. That’ll teach the Swiss who’s boss!
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Another Example of the Herald’s Poor Middle-East Journalism
Filed under: International News, Middle-East Affairs
In today’s Sydney Morning Herald, there was an article on two Arab families who were evicted for squatting in two properties in Jerusalem, after a court ruled that they were not the owners.
The Herald article, written by middle-east correspondent Jason Koutsoukis, completely ignored the evidence and judge’s reasoning for this judgement, instead preferring to use cheap emotive descriptions to portray the Arabs as victims of ‘Club-wielding’ Israeli police and noting that there were ‘19 minors’, as well as quoting other peoples’ smears and criticism of Israel.
For a mainstream newspaper, this shows a complete lack of journalistic standards and readers deserve better.
Regrettably, when it comes to Israel, this is the norm for the mainstream media, and this explains why ordinary people, who have not gone out of their way to research Middle-East history, can easily be manipulated to be hostile to Israel – the only Western, democratic state in the region and a historic ally of Australia.
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The Teenager Who Almost Became an Airline Tycoon
Filed under: Business, Finance and Investment, International News
I am always inspired by creative young people who start with with no money, connections and end up doing really clever things to hit the big time.
In the media, it has been reported that a 17-year old British ‘autistic’ teenager from Yorkshire was attempting to set up a new Channel Islands-based airline that would service most of Europe.
He pulled this off by creating a number of bogus websites, and using virtual office services in a number of countries and writing convincing letters and emails to air industry bosses, which led to telephone conversations and face-to-face meetings.
His mistake came undone after an aviation magazine, who ran an article on his business, got suspicious and started snooping – his biggest mistake was using his own voice to impersonate several different people. In my opinion, he should have invested in one of those voice changing gadgets and learnt to speak and switch between several British regional accents.
His real name has not been published, but he is referred to one of the pseudonyms he used – Adam Tait.
The reports said that he was autistic, but I find this very hard to believe considering the number of social interactions he had. At worst, he would probably have suffering from some form of Aspergers syndrome, in which individuals are high-functioning.
Here are a few articles that tell the story in details:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article6719191.ece
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/4487857/
http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/17yearold-with-autism-pulls-off-identity-stunt-of-the-decade-m3504726.aspx
Still, I am not convinced that he would have failed. I wish they had let this go on a bit more and see where he would have gotten up to. I do believe that creative young people have to struggle to get a fair go and face many forms of discrimination in society.
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Music Legend Michael Jackson Passes Away
Online media has reported that Michael Jackon suffered a heart attack at his home and could not be revived. He was declared dead earlier this morning at the UCLA Medical Centre.
His artistic contributions to pop music will withstand the passage of time. His trademark ‘moonwalk’ is widely known and imitated by many (including me), and some of his most played songs on video hit shows include ‘Thriller’, ‘Beat It’, ‘Billy Jean’ and ‘Bad’.
He was not a living god, but a human being with imperfections. It is my opinion that media gossip about his private life was a mixture of truth and fiction, his prominence and eccentricity fuelling opportunistic individuals seeking attention and money.
Perhaps his suffering children and family may now live a more normal life, with fewer media intrusions.
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Ponzi Schemes and Carbon Reduction Schemes
There is a Russian proverb – ‘when you live beside the graveyard, you can’t cry for every funeral’.
Recently in the news, there has been nothing new, just repetitions of the same themes over and over – economic bailouts, corporate fraud and distraction politics. As a result, I have become desensitised and no longer feel any shock.
I will comment on two piece of related news: Bernie Madoff’s $50bn Ponzi Scheme and Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. How are they connected? They are both scams.
Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme
For many years, New York investment manager Bernie Madoff operated a hedge fund that consistently returned 12% per annum to investors for many years.
Early this month, it all fell apart when investors wanted out. The fund turned out to be a Ponzi Scheme that merely used new investors capital to pay distributions to previous investors.
This has been described as the “world’s biggest corporate fraud by a single individual”, resulting in estimated losses of $50 billion US dollars. I personally doubt that he acted alone.
Incredibly, the alarm bells were raised as far back as 9 years ago when an analyst named Harry Markopolous sent a report to the SEC titled “The World’s Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraid”. It is not clear if the SEC took any action on this.
How did he get away with it? I’m not sure, but he did have many friends in high places – after all, he was a former chairman of NASDAQ.
Regulators generally don’t care about small investors, but now that some rich and prominent people got hurt, perhaps the SEC will start taking corporate transparency seriously.
Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd set a token 5% Carbon Dioxide reduction target for the year 2020. Expectations were as originally as high as 15% and some were demanding a reduction of 25%.
Clearly, he wanted to maintain his popularity by doing something to appease the Climate Change believers, but not dare risk anything to further exacerbate our economic problems.
So what was has been achieved by this? Apart from the fact that Global Warming Alarmism is bullsh**, China’s own CO2 emission growth will of course outstrip our savings within several months. Even if we ignored China, the flawed computer models (that others believe in) indicate that a much much larger cut would be needed to reverse a warming tread.
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