Following a meeting on Monday the 9th with Jose Socrates, the Portuguese Prime Minister, whose country holds the EU presidency, Gordon Brown, the new UK premier ruled out calling a referendum on the new EU Constitutional treaty.
He said that providing the deal struck by Mr Blair was honoured in the final text of the treaty, there was no need for a referendum.
Clearly Gordon Brown only feels bound to honour those of Tony Blair’s pledges that suit him and not the promise to grant a referendum on any EU Constitution before the last general election - there is certainly no sign of ‘Open Honest’ Gordon honouring that particular pledge.
The Portuguese Premier, who wants a final treaty text to be ready for an informal EU summit in Brussels in October, confidently predicted:
"We will have no problems with Great Britain in this treaty,"
Do the political elite not realise just how obvious their utter contempt for the democratic process is? Surely they must do and it just makes no difference to them.
Will they actually be surprised if the UK's disenchanted disenfranchised electorate don't willingly buy in to this so-called treaty? More like a shotgun wedding…
Monday, 9 July 2007
Lawyer says: Stealth Bomber morally equivalent to Suicide Bomber
According to Aamer Anwar, a leading human UK rights lawyer, "A Stealth bomber in Iraq is the moral equivalent of a suicide bomber in Scotland".
He said this during a BBC Scotland program "Scotland After the Bomb".
His remark provoked sharp intakes of breath from the less logically challenged members of the audience, as well as applause from the performing seals, or ‘useful idiots’, as the soviets once called them?
He disingenuously claimed: "We should not differentiate between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. The effects are exactly the same. They kill innocent people."
Why should we not? As anyone with a modicum of common sense can tell there is in fact a staggeringly enormous difference between them.
A stealth bomber is a war machine, designed to be difficult spot on radar, or to shoot down - and to be able to bomb designated military targets in a war situation.
In the case of a stealth bomber, if civilians get killed, or injured, it is because they are being used as shields, or are part of the enemy support structure, or by accident. If the insurgents were actually concerned, for even a moment, for the well being of these civilians they could easily ensure they were not caught up in the combat - rather than, as appears more likely, deliberately ensuring they are caught up to benefit from the propaganda.
The Terrorist Suicide bomber (in this case also someone who swore an oath to do no harm) insinuates themselves into a society (the UK in this case), plots and deliberately commits murderous atrocities specifically designed to kill and maim non combatant members of that society - men, women and children indiscriminately and in large numbers. Moreover their targets have no military connection. All apparently to further the prospect of a world caliphate in some way.
The latter are effectively worse than spies and saboteurs who if they had plied their trade during WWII would have been executed.
The former are military equipment, marked accordingly, being flown by uniformed military personnel, on orders. Their targets are enemy military combatants.
If Aamer Anwar claims he can’t tell the moral difference between the two it says all you need to know about him.
He also asked: “Why is the Government so desperate to deny a link between Iraq and Afghanistan and what happened in London and Glasgow?”
Whilst not particularly wishing to offer succour to the Government, were they desperate?
As Mr Anwar no doubt well knew this comment is also disingenuous. The idea of such a link was thoroughly debunked by Hassan Butt, who should know if anyone should, having renounced extremist Islamism:
So there you have it, from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
Do ‘leading civil rights lawyers’ read the Guardian? Possibly not…
He said this during a BBC Scotland program "Scotland After the Bomb".
His remark provoked sharp intakes of breath from the less logically challenged members of the audience, as well as applause from the performing seals, or ‘useful idiots’, as the soviets once called them?
He disingenuously claimed: "We should not differentiate between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. The effects are exactly the same. They kill innocent people."
Why should we not? As anyone with a modicum of common sense can tell there is in fact a staggeringly enormous difference between them.
A stealth bomber is a war machine, designed to be difficult spot on radar, or to shoot down - and to be able to bomb designated military targets in a war situation.
In the case of a stealth bomber, if civilians get killed, or injured, it is because they are being used as shields, or are part of the enemy support structure, or by accident. If the insurgents were actually concerned, for even a moment, for the well being of these civilians they could easily ensure they were not caught up in the combat - rather than, as appears more likely, deliberately ensuring they are caught up to benefit from the propaganda.
The Terrorist Suicide bomber (in this case also someone who swore an oath to do no harm) insinuates themselves into a society (the UK in this case), plots and deliberately commits murderous atrocities specifically designed to kill and maim non combatant members of that society - men, women and children indiscriminately and in large numbers. Moreover their targets have no military connection. All apparently to further the prospect of a world caliphate in some way.
The latter are effectively worse than spies and saboteurs who if they had plied their trade during WWII would have been executed.
The former are military equipment, marked accordingly, being flown by uniformed military personnel, on orders. Their targets are enemy military combatants.
If Aamer Anwar claims he can’t tell the moral difference between the two it says all you need to know about him.
He also asked: “Why is the Government so desperate to deny a link between Iraq and Afghanistan and what happened in London and Glasgow?”
Whilst not particularly wishing to offer succour to the Government, were they desperate?
As Mr Anwar no doubt well knew this comment is also disingenuous. The idea of such a link was thoroughly debunked by Hassan Butt, who should know if anyone should, having renounced extremist Islamism:
When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.”
“By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.”
So there you have it, from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
Do ‘leading civil rights lawyers’ read the Guardian? Possibly not…
DNA evidence indicates Global cooling killed Greenland’s forests
Global cooling strikes again! Parts of Greenland were lushly forested with spruce and pine, moths and butterflies flitted in those forests of 450,000 years ago, according to an article in science Magazine.
The boreal forests coved southern Greenland during an interglacial period of increased global temperatures, when it was warmer that it is today.
Temperatures in Greenland at the time were probably between 10C in summer and -17C in winter. When the global temperatures dropped again around 450,000 years ago, the forests and their inhabitants were covered and preserved by the advancing ice.
One of the authors Professor Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark said "We have shown for the first time that southern Greenland, which is currently hidden under more than 2km of ice, was once very different to the Greenland we see today,"
Co-orther, Professor Martin Sharp of the University of Alberta, Canada, said: "What we've learned is that this part of the world was significantly warmer than most people thought,"
The research also suggests the ice sheet is less subject to warming than previously thought.
Even during the last interglacial (116,000-130,000 years ago), when temperatures were thought to be on average 5C warmer than today, the ice did not melt, preserving trapped DNA.
At the time the ice is estimated to have been between 1,000 and 1,500m thick.
Professor Willerslev noted: "If our data is correct, then this means that the southern Greenland ice cap is more stable than previously thought," "This may have implications for how the ice sheets respond to global warming."
Current data suggests that while some regions of Greenland ice are getting thinner, others are simultaneously getting thicker.
Also two of Greenland's largest glaciers, which were thought to be shrinking, have recently stabilized, possibly even increasing in mass. Previous estimate of rapid melting were based on only a few observations over a short period. Additional more thorough found the melting period actually appeared to be an anomaly.
Previous research by Australian scientists had led them to believe that a rise of only 3C would be sufficient cause the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
The boreal forests coved southern Greenland during an interglacial period of increased global temperatures, when it was warmer that it is today.
Temperatures in Greenland at the time were probably between 10C in summer and -17C in winter. When the global temperatures dropped again around 450,000 years ago, the forests and their inhabitants were covered and preserved by the advancing ice.
One of the authors Professor Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark said "We have shown for the first time that southern Greenland, which is currently hidden under more than 2km of ice, was once very different to the Greenland we see today,"
Co-orther, Professor Martin Sharp of the University of Alberta, Canada, said: "What we've learned is that this part of the world was significantly warmer than most people thought,"
The research also suggests the ice sheet is less subject to warming than previously thought.
Even during the last interglacial (116,000-130,000 years ago), when temperatures were thought to be on average 5C warmer than today, the ice did not melt, preserving trapped DNA.
At the time the ice is estimated to have been between 1,000 and 1,500m thick.
Professor Willerslev noted: "If our data is correct, then this means that the southern Greenland ice cap is more stable than previously thought," "This may have implications for how the ice sheets respond to global warming."
Current data suggests that while some regions of Greenland ice are getting thinner, others are simultaneously getting thicker.
Also two of Greenland's largest glaciers, which were thought to be shrinking, have recently stabilized, possibly even increasing in mass. Previous estimate of rapid melting were based on only a few observations over a short period. Additional more thorough found the melting period actually appeared to be an anomaly.
Previous research by Australian scientists had led them to believe that a rise of only 3C would be sufficient cause the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
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