A Lebanese tragedy

The only thing worse than having one of your armed forces personnel "slain" by a well armed and overseas sponsored militia that you've allowed to take over your country, is when said militia spokesman then presumes to speak for you, your country, and your mission:

"Hizbullah also extended its "deepest" condolences to the family of Hanna and to the Lebanese Army. "First Lieutenant Hanna is not only a martyr of the Lebanese Army but also a martyr of the resistance," the Hizbullah statement added."

Yes, well, if I was a Lebanese politician, I would respond something like this:

"Why don't you fuck off and die you Iranian running dog?!? The Lebanese army wants nothing to do with you and your "resistance" and in fact you are endangering the whole of Lebanon by provoking an extremely powerful neighbour with your continued provocations"

But...I'm not a Lebanese politician, and I doubt there's enough nuance in that statement for it to be effective in political circles.

Ode to Gramps

This post is dedicated my loyal (and possibly only) reader. Further to my post on the IPCC, he wrote a fairly extensive comment which requires a response.

Over to Gramps:

"Firstly, it's rubbish that noone has EVER made average temperature measurements of ANY PART of the Earth's surface"

Re-reading Dr Vincent Gray's comments:

"1. No average temperature of any part of the earth's surface, over any period, has ever been made."

I can see the message was badly communicated. What I believe he was saying, is that an an average global temperature of the the earth cannot be measured. There is no system today which can reliably measure daily temperatures in many areas (read most of the earth's surface...think middle of the Paciific Ocean, or middle of the Sahara), and thereby calculate an accurate "average" of the Earth's temperature. Sure, you could use satellites, but the director of one of NASA's research institutes, a certain Mr James Hansen has in fact been using satellites to derive a mean temperature of the American mainland, and surprise surprise, this guy has been revising the measurement errors upwards to support the notion of The Warming. Strangely enough, temperature data for the rest of the world was calculated minus Canada and Africa, and through magic of statistics and removing the colder averages, voila! the result was a Warming earth.

Why? Well apart from the fact that he hates George W. Bush, but he's pretty cozy with Laurie David (one of the co-producers of "An Inconvenient Truth"), and it seems that he and Gore have remarkably similar lines to feed the media.

And even if you could point to a reliable, scientifically sound, measurement system that could take an accurate average temperature of the entire Earth's surface, will it be able to tell me what the average temperature was yesterday? 10 years ago? 10,000 years ago?

Back to Gramps:

"measurements are made mostly near urban settlements. Yes. Agreed. What's the population increase in recent years and where are all these people living?"

If you want to take pictures of the stars, you go out of the city where the effect of the city lights is minimised. If you want an accurate temperature measurement of the entire planet, you need to take readings outside of urban areas as well, to counter the heat-island effect. Rates of growth of these areas is irrelevant to the collection of temperature data.

Gramps then makes a long point about Glaciers:
Yes it appears that some of the Antarctic Glaciers are shrinking however the jury is still out as to whether this is a global phenomenon, given that some glaciers are increasing in size, admittedly less of them than those that are shrinking, still, our best climate scientists can't tell us why this might be so.

Gramps again:

"I also believe in the Cooling. You know why? It's called natural history. It's also called the Milankovitch Cycle. It's also called the carbon cycle. Geologists and climatologists have mapped through the ages the changes in naturally occurring isotopes and determined that warm and cool periods are the norm and the planet has techniques for dealing with them. "

Yes, I have already written on the Milankovitch cycle and Carbon cycle here. And I agree that cooling periods are the norm. As are warming periods. However my argument is the mathematics behind these does not have a confidence interval high enough for governments to base economic policy on. And the incredible rort that is Carbon Credit trading (ie. the only serious policy being pushed) will do more to damage any country's economy who decides to adopt said schemes so as to critically handicap any serious effort being made to reduce pollution.

Gramps:

"But to believe that the massive amounts of CO2 that humans disgorge into the atmosphere through human industry are having no impact on the planet is simply doing your best emu impersonation."

I never said that we should continue to pollute the way we have been. We pump much more toxic things in the atmosphere yet I don't hear any screams of outrage from the usual sources. To quote myself:

"And if CO2 is bad, then we should be doing things to reduce it. Period."

The ONLY thing being mooted everywhere is this glorious Carbon Credit scheme-cum-panacea that will solve all our !@#$ing problems, kick Dubya out of the whitehouse, cure cancer, and lead us into a bright new future where all of us can run in the tulips hugging puppies and laugh at the days when our less evolved selves actually used internal combustion engines.

Gramps:

"Exactly what impact it is happening, the models will never tell us because it is impossible to account for all the variables. That's what models are there for - to model. If they were real then ... they'd be the reality!"

So why are all the models showing the same thing? Why, when all the scientist are estimating or guessing the parameters, then run the calculations that somehow all come up with Warming? One could think that the scientists in question are not so much observing natural phenomena, rather influencing their results to fit in with a preconceived agenda. It has a certain 'dogma' feel about it: I am being told to believe in it...because..OK...just because.

If someone can really prove to me that it is happening then I will change my mind, however on the basis of sketchy maths, politically driven propaganda and a really really bad film made by a United States politician, I will remain a skeptic, or a denier if you will, and proud of it.

And Gramps with the final word:

"And I don't like Kevin Rudd."

You and me both....

How I learnt to love the Taliban...

In today's installment, we focus on Sir Simon Jenkins. He was The Times editor in the 1990's and now writes for them whenever he wants. And as an established journalist, he clearly has the right bona fides...by that I mean, the "left" bona fides.

He asks:

"Has the West misjudged the fault line of an impending conflict? Its global strategy under George Bush, Tony Blair and a ham-fisted Nato has declared the threat to world peace as coming from nonstate organisations, specifically Al-Qaeda, and the nations that give them either bases or tacit support. Western generals and securocrats have elevated these anarchist fanatics to the status of nuclear powers."

So, let's disregard the fact that Osama Bin Laden had been pursuing nuclear ambitions, how should the West treat non-state actors with nuclear ambitions? Other than really really seriously....

"Policing crime has become “waging war”, so as to justify soaring budgets and influence over policy,"

No you have it the wrong way around you idealogically blinded fool. Activist judges in the US have constantly frustrated the Bush administration by attempting to treat non-uniformed terrorists caught on the battlefield as matters for civil courts, granting these "freedom fighters" rights they certainly don't grant their captives. Judges in in Britain have been getting their knickers in a twist of the apparent lack of human rights that these "urban insurgents" are subjected to.

Making it a "criminal issue" is a power grab from the judiciaries in some cases to make what was traditionally treated as a military matter, treated as a civil issue. How many more buses and tubes do you want blown up in central London before these budgets are justified?

"Terrorists, wherever located and trained, can certainly capture headlines and cause overnight mayhem, but they cannot project power."

Hmm *scratches head*...let me recall a day, not so long ago in 2001, I think it may have been a Tuesday morning in September when some unbearded cuddly wuddly huggy bears from Saudi Arabia executed a plan hatched in a cave in Afghanistan, and devastated central Manhattan, New York, United States, some 10,000kms away. I'd call that projecting power, but hey, I'm not a journalist, so what would I know?

"On Thursday Gordon Brown told his troops in Afghanistan that “what you are doing here prevents terrorism coming to the streets of Britain”. He cannot believe this any more than do his generals. "

Well:
a: that's a bit late to be asking that question and
b: again, how many more bombs have to go off in central London before these people start taking it seriously?

"Afghanistan poses no military threat to Britain."

See Manhattan, NY about that one....

"Rather it is Britain’s occupation and the response in neighbouring Pakistan that fosters antiwestern militancy in the region"

Yep, root causes ya see? If we weren't there, 7/7 wouldn't have happened, Bali wouldn't have happened, Madrid wouldn't have happened, etc, etc etc ad infinitum. If only we responded with hugs instead of guns, maybe the Taliban could love us?

"Rather than calming other foes so the West can concentrate on the conflicts in hand, it is pointlessly stirring Russian expansionism to life."

So, supporting Georgia (however half-heartedly and without actually committing to anything other than stern words) is "pointlessly stirring Russian expansionism"?

"There is no strategic justification for siting American missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. It is nothing but right-wing provocation."

Ah yes indeed. The ever present bogeyman of "right-wing" provocation". And yes, I would consider the imminent threat of an Iranian nuclear tipped ICBM as a good justification for putting missiles into Poland and pretty much anywhere else. Oh, and as a bonus, maybe upping the ante to the Russkies as well, suggesting that maybe central Europe is, you know, out of bounds...

"Nato’s welcome to Georgia and Ukraine, for no good reason but at risk of having to come to their aid, has served only to incite Georgia to realise that risk while also infuriating Moscow."

Really??!?! Do you think that maybe the sovereign will of the populations and democratically elected governments of the Ukraine and Georgia may have wanted to join NATO? I don't know, I'm just throwing it out there, that maybe they wanted to join NATO to stop the Russkies doing what they did to Georgia? No, it's clearly Bush and his evil cohorts, US imperialism, blah blah blah.

"Russia is well able to respond recklessly to a snub without such encouragement, so why encourage it?

A "snub"? That justifies over 100 odd Russian tanks rolling into your country??!? I didn't realise the rules of war had changed to justify military action due to a "snub".

Strangely enough, despite Sir Simon being unable to write without left-tinted glasses, I do agree with the broad thrust of his article and the final line:

"For the West’s leaders at present, mistake has become second nature."

Amen to that.

A RED primer

Premonition or just History repeating itself?
(illustration by Victor Vashi)

First published in 1967, a plain english book with amusing cartoons by a Hungarian emigrant, Victor Vashi, on exactly what Communism was about.

Called the RED primer for children and diplomats, it used to be required reading for kids in the US, and should be for kids (and diplomats) today everywhere.

Thanks to ThePeoplesCube (original at redprimer)

Mere Milne

"I am blessed to live at a time when the denial of the obvious has become the organizing
principle of government and society. This makes my job so easy -- except for
when I must defend myself against the zealots of “nuance."
...
Not everyone is called to martyrdom, but everyone is called to witness.

Even journalists."
--David Warren, 3 Aug, 2008

---

Further to that "little" problem in Georgia, where the president of Georgia (Mikheil Saakashvili) apparently invited the full force of the Russian army by attacking South Ossetia for reasons I'm still not quite sure of.

Clearly, I had neglected to see that the entire Georgian conflict was due to US Imperialism. The brain surgeon that made this call is a well known writer for the Guardianista, Seumas Milne. Many, many people have been fisking this fool for a long time, so there's no point in going into too much depth, however I had to pull out this howler:

"But underlying the conflict of the past week has also been the Bush administration's wider, explicit determination to enforce US global hegemony and prevent any regional challenge, particularly from a resurgent Russia."

So, if I understand his reasoning, having fought the Cold War for about 44 odd years (1945-1989) where the world had genuinely been on the brink of nuclear war many more times than any of us normal people will ever know, having spent billions and expended a lot of blood (Korean War, Vietnam War, ...), the US finally defeated the evil Commies, only so that the evil Bush dynasty could establish a little Texas on the bottom left hand corner of Russia, to what...start the whole thing over again?!? And because Iraq was such a cakewalk, I'm sure the US is just itching to take on Russia again, hell, why not take on China at the same time?

The whole thing smacks of paranoia worse than mine. In his column he brings out a few more Lefty bogeymen (the evil Joos, CIA, and John McCain...hmm, not sure he's really got to bogeyman status...yet).

OK...one more:

"Unipolar domination of the world has squeezed the space for genuine self-determination and the return of some counterweight has to be welcome."

Dear Mr Milne, last week Russia threatened Poland with a nuclear strike (as reported by your paper). Thank the Space Monkey that this age of "Unipolar domination of the world" is at an end, eh? What a glorious harbringer of the future, where nation states can threaten each other with nuclear strikes willy nilly. At least those boorish Yanks aren't running the show anymore. Long live the age of the counterweight!

Further links to the brilliant intellect that is currently incarnated as the mortal Seumas Milne.

• http://timworstall.com/2008/08/14/seumas-2/
• http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2008/03/milneworld-3.html
• http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2008/08/blame-and-boile.html

A Gallant Avian

Norway's Newest Knight

I really don't know what to think about this.

Big Brother is watching everyone

This is a reason why every one should educate themselves on the use of encryption and to be aware of their digital privacy.

Following this story, the implications, nay the actual reality is scary enough.

From the article:

"a UK citizen had been talking in an internet chatroom about self-harming, when local police tracked down his address via his IP number and ISP and intervened to save him."

Whilst I'm happy for the UK citizen not to have "been saved", I'm not sure allowing the Government full and restricted access to all electronic data on all private citizens was worth the price.

Imagine a day, not too far in the future, where the cops knock on your door because they felt that email you sent to your mum wasn't thankful enough for the chicken roast she made last night, or you get a visit from the Victorian Human Rights Commission because your anonymous comment on the Herald Sun blog was anti public breastfeeding, and we all know that's an incorrect opinion to hold.

The sheer volume of electronic footprints we generate every day is not such a concern, however the ability for the State to aggregate it and cross-reference it harkens a very dark and long night for individual rights.

International Panel of Crooked Cadgers

I realise when it comes to trying to convince people of the sheer futility and ridiculousness of The Warming, my opinion can easily be dismissed as yet another reactionary voice in the Jet-stream, but how about a scientist, who has been working for the IPCC since the beginning? You know the people the MOST responsible for spreading this C0₂ laden bs?

Ladies & Gentleman, if you'll excuse me while I quote at length from Dr Vincent Gray (emphasis mine):

"Over the years, as I have learned more about the data and procedures of the IPCC I have found increasing opposition by them to providing explanations, until I have been forced to the conclusion that for significant parts of the work of the IPCC, the data collection and scientific methods employed are unsound. Resistance to all efforts to try and discuss or rectify these problems has convinced me that normal scientific procedures are not only rejected by the IPCC, but that this practice is endemic, and was part of the organisation from the very beginning. I therefore consider that the IPCC is fundamentally corrupt. The only "reform" I could envisage, would be its abolition."

Further on

"To start with the "global warming" claim. It is based on a graph showing that "mean annual global temperature" has been increasing.

This claim fails from two fundamental facts

1. No average temperature of any part of the earth's surface, over any period, has ever been made.
...
2. The sample is grossly unrepresentative of the earth's surface, mostly near to towns. No statistician could accept an "average" based on such a poor sample. It cannot possibly be "corrected""

You know, all that "good science" malarkey....

"The models are so full of inaccurately known parameters and equations that it is comparatively easy to "fudge" an approximate fit to the few climate sequences that might respond. This sort of evidence is the main feature of most of the current promotional lectures."

This is so unbelievably awesome. Know why?? Because it's not me saying it!! It's from a scientist who worked in the heart of the organisation that is propagandizing this ridiculous idea every. freaking. globally warming. day. To finish off:

"The IPCC from the beginning was given the licence to use whatever methods would be necessary to provide "evidence" that carbon dioxide increases are harming the climate, even if this involves manipulation of dubious data and using peoples' opinions instead of science to "prove" their case."

Read the whole thing. (h/t Five Feet of Fury)

Let me conclude by responding to a comment in a previous thread. It is not for ME TO PROVE that Anthropogenic Global Warming IS NOT happening. It is up to the various government and non-governmental agencies who want to take my money and liberties to PROVE TO ME that it's happening, beyond reasonable doubt. And after this, their case is not looking good...

A "little" problem in Georgia

Coincidentally coinciding with the opening of the Beijing Olympic games this week, Russia started a "little" conflict with the breakaway republic of Georgia.

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, Georgia proclaimed it independance and ever since has made loud noises to join NATO and the West, adopting free market and democratic reforms. In 2004, Mikheil Saakashvili was elected president. Georgia even committed 2,000+ troops to the Iraq War, stationed on the Iran/Iraq border.

What is interesting about this conflict, other than the Russkies inflaming the ol' Cold War enmities, was the Russians use of cyber warfare. In particular, they targeted Georgian government websites, hijacking them, or simply hammering them with so many requests that they went down. They did this specifically to deny the ability to the Georgians to get accurate information out about what was really happening, and given the reports that the Russkies were bombing civilian targets and a major port, this was perhaps to avoid international condemnation, although the Soviets aren't really known to care too much about what the rest of the world thinks.

And whilst the techniques employed weren't exactly new, the sophistication and aggressiveness of the cyber attack suggest very strongly that this was a government operation. Previously, these types of cyber-conflict were always conducted at arms length, where agressor countries could claim it was the work of hackers infused with nationalistic fervour, but this operation was degrees of magnitude bigger than that.

Hijacked: Those wily Russkies had essentially hijacked all Internet communications into Georgia. They had effected a cyber-seige. They were able to deface government websites, inserting the graphic below. (The other guy is Saakashvili).

Picture that defaced some Georgian Government websites this week.
The guy you don't recognise is the president of Georgia

This kind of psy-ops could only be cooked up, as one pundit said, by a certain three letter spy agency.

10 years ago, no one would have cared or even known if a government website had gone down. Nowadays, it is on the frontline of any conflict, and people notice immediately.

Links:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1670
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10014150-83.html

Tale of a Kuntar

April 22, 1979
The appropriately named Samir Kuntar, at the age of 16, participates in a raid on the Isreali town of Nahariya. During that raid, this piece of human excrement takes a 31 year old father and his 4 year old daughter, shoots the father in the back, then drowns him, then smashes the head of of his daughter on beach rocks with the butt of his rifle. During his trial he says the hostages were killed by IDF and policemen. Evidence presented at the trial shows the daughters' brain tissue on the butt of his rifle. He gets sent to jail for 542 years.

Samir the $%&ing Kuntar

July 12, 2006

Hezbollah launch a surprise attack on Israel, kill a few Israeli soldiers and kidnap 2, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser

This provokes a month long war with Israel who, amongst other things, destroy most of southern Beirut, where Hezbollah has it's headquarters.

August 14, 2006
The war lasts a month until 14 August, where Israel fails to annihilate Hezbollah for various reasons, and end active hostilities. Hezbollah claim it as a victory.

Final toll:
Lebanon:
1109 Lebanese "civilians" deaths . I use the scare quotes(") around "civilians" because:
a. Hezbollah fighters don't wear uniforms.
b. Hezbollah is is not in the habit of releasing accurate death tolls of it's fighters. So 1109 is the total number of civilians + Hezbollah dead.

Israel:
44 Israeli civilians dead
119 IDF soldiers dead

July 16, 2008

In exchange for the soldiers Ehud and Eldad, Israel agrees to swap the bodies of 199 bodies of Lebanese and Palestinian militants, and 5 lebanese prisoners, including Kuntar. Officially the status of Ehud and Eldad is unknown, but unofficially the Israeli government knows that they are unlikely to be alive. Relatives of the soldiers find out when they see the two black coffins.

"Just hours earlier, Sgt. Regev's brother Eyal had been clinging to the hope that, despite the views of the Israeli government the two soldiers were dead, they might remain alive."
--NationalPost

Two coffins containing Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser

The recently hijacked by Hezbollah Lebanese government celebrate the return and give Kuntar and his mates a heroes welcome.

"Two Lebanese army helicopters then flew the men to Beirut, where President Michel Suleiman, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri kissed them at the airport."
--NationalPost

The pretty much unanimous reaction from Western media sources and most of the world was of disgust. So much so, that the most important mouthpiece for Islamists today, the television station Al-Jazeera, who held a party to honor the Kuntar, was forced to apologise to the Israeli government, admitting it had breached it's own code of "ethics" with coverage praising Kuntar.

Clearly, even the genocide-minded Arabs and their apologists in the West realised that celebrating a convicted child-killer as a hero will not go down well, pretty much anywhere, and thus sadly further delegitimising the government of Lebanon in the eyes of the international community and their cause. I suspect that even such supporters for the Islamists cause such as our very own The Age might now have second thoughts about printing op-ed pieces from Islamist P.O.S although, somehow.I. doubt. it.

Many lebanese thought this was a disgrace as well, which makes this tragedy only more poignant. The fact that Hezbollah didn't even exist at the time Kuntar went on his murderous rampage, but now claim him as their own makes them doubly pathetic.

What does any of this mean? Not sure, however if you are dealing with a psychotic death-loving culture, maybe the best you can do is grant them their death-wish as quickly as possible.


Links
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7508715.stm
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/16/israel.swap/

Obamareality

"Hating George W. Bush is not only dull and unoriginal, but it shows a complete lack of understanding of the world in which we live in.

You want liberty but you don’t want to defend it... right. "
--Sameh El-Shahat, 11 July 2008

Yes yes I know, dissing the chosen one will most definitely make me persona non grata with everyone, who like Fox Mulder, just want to believe.

However it has to be said, if you just scratch the surface of this handsome, incredibly well spoken, presidential candidate, what lies beneath is a scary amalgam of some very unsavoury ideals.

Massive government programs....check
Ability to guilt white americans into voting for him, unless they want to be seen as racist.....check
Moving beyond that ol' school politicking and all about the consensus....yeah right

If only we could all vote for Him and the world will be a better place. From an article on AtlasShrugs(h/t: AugeanStables)

"Suddenly American power, in the right hands, would not be evil. American society, systematically portrayed as racist, communitarian, and imperialist, could become a beacon to the world…if only the right race wins. And Western European nations, faced with overwhelming problems of immigration, Islamization, and demographic decline, should redeem themselves by doing like the Yankees."

and a bit later on

"...the key to Obamania: the vain hope that not only replacing but symbolically erasing George W. Bush will make that indefinable global conflict go away."

I wonder if Obama can redeem our white English settler guilt for genociding the Aborigines and make the government say Sorry....oh wait a minute.

Inverted Reality

Occasionally things happen in this reality, which go completely against the established narrative that our media overlords have set out for us. And when the objective reality can't be denied or avoided, our media betters often...fall silent.

Cases in point:

• Not all muslims hate jews.(h/t lgf)
  
  
• Palestinians know that Isrealis will treat them better...than other Palestinians

Fallujah KFC, redux

Further to my KFC post here, I have now come across this which suggests it is not an "officially licensed" franchise.

However I'm sure they are continuing all the battery farming, animal cruelty and hormonal additive goodness that makes the Colonel's finger lickin' good.

Fly Ezra, Fly!

Ezra is Free!!! Kind of...sort of...as long as he doesn't do anything to annoy the Alberta Human Wrongs Rights commission.

Link

I really really hope he does everything he can to really piss off that Gundara guy....

Carbon Careers

Following a web link from one of our suppliers at work, they were very excited about the introduction of "green technology", which I suppose is different to "technology" somehow, and they had the logo of this company helping them achieve their carbon goals.

From their about us page:

Carbon Planet is a global carbon management company whose mission is to enable every individual and business on the planet to manage their contribution to the defining issue of our age, global warming.

Note: it's the defining issue of our age.

The scientific case for human impact as a primary cause of global warming has been convincingly made in study after study, and good science is the first step on the road to unlocking the inherent business benefits.

Study after study after study, layer upon layer upon layer. "Convincingly made"...that's sounds like their pretty sure of their convictions.

"Good science", you know, as opposed to "bad science" or "medium science" or "green technology".

Science, you idjits, is science. It is neither good, nor bad. There can be no qualitative adjective describing "science". If it is "bad science" or an experiment that does not follow scientific principles, then it is no longer "science", it is what would be commonly termed "a fraud" . "Good science" is kind of like "good electricity" or "good water". The fact they feel the need to emphasise this, gives me the impression they're not really 100% committed to this "good science", but are clearly very happy to be making money off it.

They also have two pdfs on their "flight emissions calculator" page. I could only stomach one, and then only got to page 4. Two glaringly obvious 'errors':

the importance of aviation for the economy and employment is far less than its importance for climate change

Oh really?!? So I guess you'd be looking at the total amount of goods travelling in and out of a country via air, comparing that to sea carriage, with respect to the GDP? No...no they didn't do that. Something about fuel imports and stuff...

aviation is overwhelmingly an activity of the richest elements of society, measures to combat the environmental impact of aviation would not adversely impact the poor

Wow, I'd guess you'd better tell that to these people, and these ones, and these ones, etc etc etc. Those damn rich people! Always going and getting drowned by tsunamis, starving themselves and getting caught up in natural disasters. They should bloody well start taking responsibility for themselves and you know, like, stop asking countries to fly them aid. I mean how selfish are they?? Worried about their own insignificant lives when we have a PLANET TO SAVE! Don't they know it's THE defining issue of our age?

Vehicularcide

Another senseless victim of Global Warming

Another documented sign of GW (Global Warming) insanity. This guy, buys a beautiful USD$60,000 Sports Range Rover, and since moving to San Francisco, decides that owning an SUV is just too much of Sin, so he must destroy it. But in an environmentally friendly way.

And in typical self-important fame-obsessed American and hand-wringing rich environmentalist fashion, instead of selling it or recycling it, he starts a web site, canvassing the opinions of strangers to see what he should do with it to take it off the road for good. In an environmentally friendly way.

"I'd expect that the best ideas will both be environmentally conscious and attention getting."

Pointless attempt at celebrity...check
Pointless attempt at stopping Global Warming....check
Photo opportunity with Al Gore...stand by

Almost the holy trinity of current day environmentalism. And it only cost him USD$60,000.

Oh, and I almost forgot, he actually likes the car.

Free speech vs Anonymous

There's an interesting article on Wired here about how two female law students at Yale sued the owner of a website to reveal the identities of anonymous posters that had threatened to assault and rape them.

It has raised an interesting debate as to whether anonymity on the internet is a "right" as much as free speech is a "right" (at least in the US). For example, I would very much like to allow anonymous comments on this blog, but I have not been able to see how to do it, and I don't know if it's possible. However if someone did post something offensive or threatening, is there a legal recourse for someone to resolve this? I myself am anonymous. Who would they sue? The owners of blogspot (ie Google)?

Looking at the website in question, toting itself as "The Most Prestigious College Admissions Discussion Board in the World", the design is amateurish, plain, and amongst the postings titled "What are my chances at the Ivy leagues or Stanford" or "Most Conservative College/University", there are multiple postings with no content with just a derogatory words repeated "GOOK GOOK GOOK", "N...ER N...ER N...ER" and so on.

The owner of this website used the arguments of "free speech" to resist handing over information that might identify the posters that threatened the women. I think the argument of free speech ends when feasible threats of personal injury and assault start (in all cases). Given the nature of the website (or the 'style' if you will), I think the administrator is a lazy bastard who can't be bothered moderating the comments, and then gets his back up when compelled to do something that "may" sully his reputation, however I use the scare quote around "may" because if you check out the website, it would be hard going to find anything that could be construed as contributing anything good to his reputation.

The pace of technological advances have far outstripped the capacity for laws, politics and cultural norms to keep up. And the resolution of this case may have far reaching consequences.