Al-Queda’s No.3 Dead in Pakistan

I just found this on the Earth Times website:

A senior al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan, Abu Laith al-Libi, has been killed, a western official with knowledge of the situation said Thursday. The official would not divulge the circumstances surrounding the death of al-Libi, a top al-Qaeda operative of Libyan descent who specializes in paramilitary activities along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

The official did not say when al-Libi died, only that it occurred “recently.”

It remained unclear whether al-Libi, believed to be the third ranking al-Qaeda operative, was killed by a US airstrike in Pakistan’s North Waziristan on Monday that killed about a dozen suspected militants. A local official in North Waziristan had said the missile likely came from Afghan soil and targeted a house of a local tribal leader.

There was no official confirmation of the incident by the Pakistani national government.

I dont quite know what to make of these “officials” who are never named. I’ve followed tips from them before and they always end up almost nowhere. And the “no official confirmation” bit worries me too. The MSM is making reports on this though, so I am inclined to believe them (for once). If al-Libi is dead, then, hooray. Another one bites the dust. He was quite a prize.

Here’s his file from MSNBC:

Abu Laith al Libi

Age: early 40’s

Citizenship: Libyan

Aliases:

Personal: An al-Qaeda field commander and spokesman, Abu Laith is an outspoken leader of al Qaeda, appearing in videos and on the internet. It was he in July 2002 who revealed that Bin Laden was still alive, the first comments about the al Qaeda leader’s health after the end of the Afghan conflict. Then in June 2004, he is shown leading an attack on what appears to be an Afghan military outpost and calling for jihad. He is known to operate on the Afghan side of the border, working with the remnants of the Taliban.

In some US intelligence circles, he is seen as al Qaeda’s No. 3.

It’s Been a Hard Day

Time for some Ray Charles – Lucky Ol’ Sun.

This is for all of us poor Joes, who just keep on doing what we do, don’t complain and simply suck it up. Grab a cold beer, sit back and listen.

Give the video a few seconds to get started.

Thanks Ray.

Green Lies – Again

We smokers are used to the abuse we get nowadays. It doesn’t bother us anymore. Those of us that wanted to give it up have, and those that didn’t haven’t. Smoking bans have driven us onto the streets where we sit or stand and pollute the very air we breathe and are of course guilty of massive genocide by passive smoking. We’ve killed more people than Adolf Hitler and Joe Stalin put together. It doesn’t give me sleepless nights. Traffic pollution and obesity is doing far more to kill people than my pipe and I ever could, but people are still eating and driving cars, aren’t they?
As if the anti smoking crowd wasn’t enough to have to worry about, the greenies are out to spoil our fun now too. Having been driven onto the streets to indulge in our favourite addiction is costing the environment dearly, according the latest outcry from the kermit coloured faction:

Keeping café guests warm while they puff away at their cigarettes [What about us pipe smokers? Ed.] outside has resulted in an increase in the use of gas heaters – and greenhouse gas emissions. Since national ban on smoking in the workplace was enacted in August, restaurant owners have made sure that guests who need to smoke outside are kept warm under gas heaters. The rise in gas heaters has raised concerns with environment experts.
According to a report by the Environment Ministry, a gas heater emits about two tons of greenhouse gasses annually.
Article: Copenhagen Post.

It’s that last sentence that I take issue with. The figure of two tonnes is maybe true enough – if – the gas heater is running at full blast for 24 hours a day for 365 days of the year.
But, of course, it isn’t.

What we are talking about here are patio heaters. They run for a few hours a day in the winter period. Let’s be large about it and say 6 hours a day. That cut the carbon emissions to a quarter right there. And let’s say they run them in the six months period where it is cold in Denmark. Which just reduced the annual emissions by half again. Net result; 250 kg’s per heater. And even that is too high to be realistic, because we are still assuming full effect for all running time.

The same discussion went on in Great Britain some time ago. I went off looking for some figures to compare with these figures that both I and the greenies arrived at. I found some answers at Calors website. Calor Gas is one of the biggest bottled gas suppliers in the UK. They held a press lunch for interested parties and here are a few of the Q&A’s;

Q: I have heard that patio heaters give off over one million tonnes of CO2 emissions – is this true?

A: No, it is grossly inaccurate. This figure was quoted last year in the press but has been recognised as being inaccurate by the Government. The Market Transformation Programme, run by the Government agrees that the UK population of 630,000 domestic patio heaters produces 22,200 tonnes of CO2 – which equates to 35kg per heater.

Q: Apparently patio heaters have pushed up Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions by 380,000 tonnes a year – is this correct? What do you intend to do about it?

A: This figure is grossly inaccurate and highly misleading because it is based on an estimate of the maximum CO2 output of every patio heater in circulation, regardless of how often or long they’re used for.

A more accurate way of measuring emissions from patio heaters is to look at how much gas the market consumes. Market Transformation, the statistics source used by the UK Government, has calculated that the total of around 6,500 tonnes of LPG consumed by the patio heater market would produce just over 22,200 tonnes of CO2, which is around a twentieth of the figure quoted. To put this into perspective this emissions figure equates to just 0.002% of all UK
carbon emissions.

So… who’s bullshitting me now?

The environmental ministry figures are probably equally as inaccurate, misleading and based on an estimate of maximum possible Co2 production per heater per annum.
Let’s assume that because we are a little further North on the average, and therefore Denmark is a little colder than the UK average temperature, we would use the patio heater for a little longer and a probably use a higher effect, one could assume that our CO2 production would be a little higher. A twentieth of two tonnes is 100 kg’s.

Which is still a very long way from the two thousand Kg per heater greenie catastrophe that they would have us believe and still a lot higher than the 35 Kg’s quoted by a company in the know. So much further North, we ain’t.

If deception had a colour these days, it would be green.

Link: Calor

Strike One for Common Sense

Coop Denmark, one of the largest supermarket chains in Denmark, has been told to pay the princely sum of 123,000 Danish Crowns in compensation to a former employee whom they sacked for calling a muslim colleague who wears a headscarf a “Hættemåge”. (Translation: Black Headed Gull). Here’s a picture of just such a one. (Note: the Danish word Hætte means Hood.)

Gulls aren’t exactly the smartest of birds and that is probably why someone, somewhere, felt “insulted”, but the strange thing is, that the expression was never used directly by the employee to his or her colleague. It was used descriptively. Which means that a third party has been out making trouble. Aparently the name caller has never deen abusive before and never got the chance to explain him- or herself to his or her employer. The courts agree that being referred to as a black headed gull is demeaning but it was not used directly as an insult to the poor muslim victim of this outrageous verbal and racial abuse.

The Danish industrial organisation “Danske Erhverv” calls the judgement harsh and proclaims that it will be hard for employers to stop namecallers and that this will eventually damage the working environment for many. They claim that employers are forced to react to such namecalling to ensure a harmonious working atmosphere.

My life!

Actually, I agree with the judges. The normal tone at any place of work is what you make it. There should be room for disagreement, for the two that can’t stand each other, the flirters and the grumpy and all the others that come and go in a busy place of work. I know I’ve been called worse things than this at work and I’ve probably called others a lot worse too. Usually one gets quickly over it and gets back to the days business. Where would we be if we went running to the boss every time someone called you a jackass? I think the term “Grow up!” would probably get thrown about a bit more than ususal.

Strike this one up to common sense. We can’t all leave our personalities at the gate when we meet up for work.

They hired the whole package.

PFLP Founder Dead

George Habash, the Palestinian leader and a longtime rival of Yasser Arafat, the former Palestinian president, has died in Jordan, aged 82.

Habash founded the marxist-leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which carried out the hijackings of several aircraft in the 1970s.

“He had a severe heart attack and he died instantly,” according to Leila Khaled, a member of the Palestine National Council and a leading member of the PLFP.

In Damascus, Maher al-Taher, the PFLP’s spokesman, confirmed Habash’s death. Habash had been living in Amman since 1992

In Gaza, Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader, said Habash had “spent his life defending Palestine”.

No he didn’t.

He spent his life fostering hatred and spreading terrorism. He refused to accept the state of Israel and sanctioned the hijacking of both western and Israeli aircraft. Without the likes of this man, both Palestine and Israel might be a little closer to living in harmony instead of killing each others citizens in a never ending circle of tit for tat.

Here is part of his necrolog from Ynetnews:

Habash was born in Lod to Greek Orthodox parents and became a refugee in the wake of the 1948 war. He was a medical student at The American University of Beirut, and was among the founders of the Arab Nationalist Movement in the 1950s.

In 1969, Habash became the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist group that carried out numerous terror attacks and “specialized” in hijacking planes across the world. Habash joined the PLO leadership in 1970, but quit four years later because of disagreements with Chairman Yasser Arafat, and proceeded to establish the “Rejectionist Front” of Palestinian groups opposed to any talks with Israel.

Habash was considered to be closely associated with Syria, supported the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and was considered to be among the most radical Palestinian leaders and a persistent opponent of compromise with Israel.

The “Rejectionist Front” includes:

Arab Liberation Front (ALF)
As-Sa’iqa
Abu Nidal’s Fatah-Revolutionary Council
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)
Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC)

Which is why a lasting peace in the Middle East is an impossibility to achieve. Not only would one have to strike a bargain with Fatah and Hamas, but with all of these little fringe terrorist organisations too. There will always be one of them that will continue to terrorise and kill innocent people.

Having been responsible for the deaths of hundreds, George Habash got off too lightly. I hope the heart attack was painful and he was conscious enough to know what was happening to him.

Bring Out Your Dead

Some decidedly macabre stories have been featured in the Danish press this week, concerning our dear departed.
Yep. Dead people in the news.
Not murder victims or killed in road accident types but just ordinary dead by natural causes types. Why? Because they are causing us problems we never thought we’d have.

Story #1 concerns the morgue at Fredriksbergs Hospital, where the doors have had to be widened because people are fatter now at the point of death than they used to be.
Whether or not they died of obesity is not mentioned.

Story #2 is a little more interesting. It concerns exploding breast implants during cremation. Apparently the silicone reaches boiling point before the cadaver is burned and the breasts explode. This damages the crematoriums furnaces. (I use the word furnace because “oven” has other, more evil connotations). One might ask why the implants are not removed prior to the burning? Well, the undertaker is not allowed to cut into the body and doctors at the hospitals say they don’t have the time or inclination to do the necessary removal on a dead body. They are more concerned with the living. Private clinics, which are more than pleased to put implants in, are not so keen to have to remove them. The dead are not reknowned for paying the bill.

Story #3 is a winner. This is green to the core and gets my vote as the recycling story of the year. Al Gore would love this. The Copenhagen Post did so well reporting it, I have decided to bring their article here;

After cremation, artificial joints and other ‘spare’ parts are sifted from the remains and recycled, reports Holstebro-Struers newspaper.

The parts include screws, steel thread, plates, splints and other material that can be re-used to patch up broken bones or slipped hips.

‘We’re talking about relatively expensive material here and have therefore struck a deal with a Dutch company who collects the pieces after cremation,’ said cemetery manager, Aksel Stigaard from Holstebro. He also noted that it was increasingly more common to use implants and this was evident in what remained after a cremation.
The agreement with the Dutch company was approved by the Church Ministry. Proceeds from the sales are evenly split between the crematoriums across the country. Holstebro Crematorium entered the agreement three years ago and received their first cheque last year. ‘We received about DKK 3000 so it’s not really an amount worth mentioning,’ said Stigaard.

All this set me thinking. To get all these various stories in the news in one week, there must have been a lot of fat women with breast implants and false hips out there, that died recently.

Otherwise, you just wouldn’t hear about stuff like this.

The Green House Conspiracy

If you have an hour to spare and want to see something interesting about “global warming”, which isn’t really happening, then go here and see this film from the 1990′s, which still rings true today.

Man Made Global Warming is not happening people.

Despite what we hear.

Another Unfortunate Truth – Global Warming Stopped

Something new happened today in the debate surrounding man made global warming. A professor in the field of physical geography from the Oslo University with the unfortunate name of Ole Humlum, has pointed out that, despite the increase in CO2, the temperature of the world has not increased over the last 10 years. Even more surprising, no-one is denying that he is right. In fact, even some of the “we are doomed” crowd have to agree with him.

Mainly because, he’s right.

The temperatures we experience here in the northern half of the globe have indeed increased slightly. On the other hand, temperatures down south have gone the same way. South. This leads our intrepid Ole Humlum to suggest that the climate models we are using are flawed and that the effect of CO2 is greatly overestimated. In fact, he says he expects it will be colder over the next few years.

Of course there are nay sayers.

Ten years is too short a time span, they say. Funny, they weren’t saying that about their own measurements when the temperature was rising almost daily according to them. Ten years of data was more than long enough.

We don’t fully understand the consequences of a build up of greenhouse gases, they say. Strange. That isn’t what they’ve been telling us for the past god knows how long.
We were all told we were doomed to fry in the deserts of Northern Europe and North America.

Curator Jørgen Peder Steffensen from the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagens University still believes we are heading for global meltdown, but even he has to agree with Humlum. There has been no increase in the global temperature in the last ten years. But he feels it is unreasonable of Ole Humlum to contend, that global warming has stopped simply because the temperature hasn’t risen during the last ten years. We could, he says, just be experiencing a lull in temperature rise. He also doubts Ole Humlums grasp of global climate dynamics.

I daresay Ole Humlum says the same thing about Jørgen Peder Steffensen’s grasp on it too. But you have to admire the mans determination. Just because the temperature hasn’t gone up doesn’t mean it hasn’t gotten warmer. Right?

What?

Never mind the facts, stick to the script. We’ve been saying it’s getting warmer, so getting warmer it is. Even if it does get colder. So there.

It would appear, that all the models we have for predicting our coming apocalyptic climatic future are, well, not quite perfect. In fact, less than accurate. Perhaps even, useless.

This is probably due to some programming error that nature didn’t know about and man made CO2 is oblivious of.

You only get out what you put in.

Ask any programmer.

Islamic Terrorism is now Anti-islamic Activity

I couldn’t believe this, found in the UK’s Daily Mail;

Government renames Islamic terrorism as ‘anti-Islamic activity’ to woo Muslims.

UK Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism. In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing “anti-Islamic activity”.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that extremists were behaving contrary to their faith, rather than acting in the name of Islam. Security officials believe that directly linking terrorism to Islam is inflammatory, and risks alienating mainstream Muslim opinion. In her first major speech on radicalisation, Miss Smith repeatedly used the phrase “anti-Islamic”.

In one passage she said: “As so many Muslims in the UK and across the world have pointed out, there is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorise, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief.

“Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic’.

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. This means that Osama bin Laden is no more than an “anti-islamic activist”.

Him and all the other anti-islamic activists that continue to terrorise us “anti-islam activity” us from mountain hide-outs and western city suburbs.

Using the reverse logic, anyone proclaiming ‘no sharia here’, which positively is anti-islamic activity, is now on an equal footing with these people. We’re suddenly all terrorists under a new multi purpose name.

I’m used to the name calling, but I went from being called simply a right wing extremist fascist xenophobe (according to the left wing extremist fascist anti-fascist anti-western PC halal-hippie pinko commie yob crowd) to terrorist in the blink of an eye.
I always thought right wing extremist fascist xenophobe was a bit over the top anyway, but Terrorist?

Bugger me!

The mind boggles.

The comments that follow the article range from the comical to the disparaging and reflect a great deal of disbelief in both the minister in question and the government on the whole. Not wishing to steal the thunder from all the commentators on the DM site, I can only suggest you go there and read the lot for yourself.

I only have one comment, which sums up what I think of the new PC misnomer thrusted upon us all by this woman:

“Unadulterated piffle.”

Green Greedy

Just how greedy can you get?

Green tax a state cash cow.

By The Copenhagen Post

The tax minister admits that CO2 levy is solely in place to fill the state treasury.

Companies and private consumers will continue paying an annual DKK 2.6 billion in greenhouse gas taxes despite already paying a similar levy to the EU.

Amid harsh criticism from businesses, private consumers and government ally the Danish People’s Party, Kristian Jensen, the tax minister, openly admitted that the greenhouse gas levy was a source of income for the state and no longer an environmental measure.

The CO2 levy was originally established in 1991 and despite a new greenhouse gas emission tax being imposed by the EU, the previous duty remained in place.

‘I do understand that it may seem incomprehensible to keep a levy that no longer serves an environmental purpose, but we are unable to exempt companies from paying it due to EU legislation,’ said Jensen.

This has to come under the Bullshit category! Someone somewhere is full of it! Why not simply abolish the national levy and continue with the mandatory EU environmental piracy scam?

Or are we, despite the assurances from Brussels, not a sovereign nation under the EU?