Mood:  celebratory

al-Qaida in Iraq Leader Wounded

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq was wounded and an aide was killed in a clash Thursday with Iraqi forces north of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry spokesman said.

The clash occurred near Balad, a major U.S. base about 50 miles north of the capital, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

Khalaf said al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri was wounded and his aide, identified as Abu Abdullah al-Majemaai, was killed.

Khalaf declined to say how Iraqi forces knew al-Masri had been injured, and there was no report on the incident from U.S. authorities.

Deputy Interior Minister Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal said he had no information about such a clash or that al-Masri had been involved.

Al-Masri took over the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq after its charismatic leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a U.S. airstrike last June in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.

My Way News ~ AP ** al-Qaida in Iraq Leader Wounded
Also at: MSNBC.com ~ NBC News, Associated Press **
Iraqi official: Al-Qaida in Iraq leader wounded
Related: Anti-American Cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr Reportedly Flees Iraq for Iran

Posted by yaahoo_ at 11:18 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:30 PM EST

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Mood:  cool

Antarctic temperatures disagree

with climate model predictions

COLUMBUS , Ohio -- A new report on climate over the world's southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models.

This comes soon after the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that strongly supports the conclusion that the Earth's climate as a whole is warming, largely due to human activity.

It also follows a similar finding from last summer by the same research group that showed no increase in precipitation over Antarctica in the last 50 years. Most models predict that both precipitation and temperature will increase over Antarctica with a warming of the planet.

David Bromwich, professor of professor of atmospheric sciences in the Department of Geography, and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, reported on this work at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at San Francisco.

"It's hard to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right now," he said. "Part of the reason is that there is a lot of variability there. It's very hard in these polar latitudes to demonstrate a global warming signal. This is in marked contrast to the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula that is one of the most rapidly warming parts of the Earth."

Bromwich says that the problem rises from several complications. The continent is vast, as large as the United States and Mexico combined. Only a small amount of detailed data is available – there are perhaps only 100 weather stations on that continent compared to the thousands spread across the U.S. and Europe . And the records that we have only date back a half-century.

"The best we can say right now is that the climate models are somewhat inconsistent with the evidence that we have for the last 50 years from continental Antarctica.

"We're looking for a small signal that represents the impact of human activity and it is hard to find it at the moment," he said.

Last year, Bromwich's research group reported in the journal Science that Antarctic snowfall hadn't increased in the last 50 years. "What we see now is that the temperature regime is broadly similar to what we saw before with snowfall. In the last decade or so, both have gone down," he said.

In addition to the new temperature records and earlier precipitation records, Bromwich's team also looked at the behavior of the circumpolar westerlies, the broad system of winds that surround the Antarctic continent.

"The westerlies have intensified over the last four decades of so, increasing in strength by as much as perhaps 10 to 20 percent," he said. "This is a huge amount of ocean north of Antarctica and we're only now understanding just how important the winds are for things like mixing in the Southern Ocean." The ocean mixing both dissipates heat and absorbs carbon dioxide, one of the key greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Some researchers are suggesting that the strengthening of the westerlies may be playing a role in the collapse of ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula.

"The peninsula is the most northern point of Antarctica and it sticks out into the westerlies," Bromwich says. "If there is an increase in the westerly winds, it will have a warming impact on that part of the continent, thus helping to break up the ice shelves, he said.

"Farther south, the impact would be modest, or even non-existent."

Bromwich said that the increase in the ozone hole above the central Antarctic continent may also be affecting temperatures on the mainland. "If you have less ozone, there's less absorption of the ultraviolet light and the stratosphere doesn't warm as much."

That would mean that winter-like conditions would remain later in the spring than normal, lowering temperatures.

"In some sense, we might have competing effects going on in Antarctica where there is low-level CO2 warming but that may be swamped by the effects of ozone depletion," he said. "The year 2006 was the all-time maximum for ozone depletion over the Antarctic."

Bromwich said the disagreement between climate model predictions and the snowfall and temperature records doesn't necessarily mean that the models are wrong.

"It isn't surprising that these models are not doing as well in these remote parts of the world. These are global models and shouldn't be expected to be equally exact for all locations," he said.

Contact: Ohio State University -David Bromwich (614) 292-6692; Bromwich.1@osu.edu
EurekAlert.org ~ David Bromwich - Ohio State University **
Antarctic temperatures disagree with climate model predictions

Related: LIBTARD GLOBAL WARMING ALERT
Yahoo News ~ Reuters ** Kathmandu gets first snowfall in 63 years
Also: My own, latest column... Libtard lies, manipulation, "consensus," and hot air

Posted by yaahoo_ at 10:45 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:00 PM EST

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Anti-American Cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr Reportedly Flees Iraq for Iran

WASHINGTON -- Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has fled his Baghdad stronghold for the friendly confines of Iran's capital, FOX News can confirm via a senior United States official.

Al-Sadr left Iraq within the past few weeks out of fear for his safety and security and is with family in Tehran, where he has visited before, the official said.

His move comes as coalition forces crack down on the insurgency in Baghdad and ahead of the arrival of 21,500 U.S. troops sent by President George W. Bush to quell sectarian violence.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. monitoring activities, said fractures in al-Sadr's political and militia operations may be part of the reason for his departure. The move is not believed to be permanent.

Word of al-Sadr's departure coincides with an announcement that Iraq will close its borders with Iran and Syria for 72 hours, starting at some point in the next two days, as part of the drive to end the violence that has threatened to divide the capital along sectarian lines.

The U.S. official said it is not clear how firmly the radical Shiite cleric is controlling his organization and the associated Mahdi Army militia from exile.

"The question for us is to what extent his organization is going to participate in the political process," the official told The Associated Press, referring to al-Sadr's on-again, off-again relationship with the fragile democratic government in Baghdad.

Al-Sadr's departure was reported by several television networks Tuesday.

Al-Sadr's militia is widely seen as the main threat to Iraq's unity and high on the list of targets for the Baghdad security operation.

A ragtag but highly motivated militia that fought U.S. forces twice in 2004, the Mahdi Army is blamed for much of the sectarian strife shaking Iraq since a Shiite shrine was bombed by Sunni militants a year ago.

U.S. officials have for months pressed Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to move against the militia, but he has so far done little to comply, largely because he does not want to lose al-Sadr's support.

Al-Sadr rose from obscurity in the aftermath of the ouster of Saddam Hussein to lead a movement of young, underprivileged Iraqis united by opposition to U.S. military presence as well as hunger for Shiite domination.

The cleric, who is in his mid-30s, is a master of street politics, and his young lieutenants can rally tens of thousands of protesters at short notice. Once wanted in the 2003 killing of a key cleric, al-Sadr gained much influence when his parliamentary bloc of 30 of 275 deputies was instrumental in al-Maliki's election.

Dismissed by older Shiite politicians as a dangerous upstart, al-Sadr set up the Mahdi Army militia in 2003. It is suspected of being behind the abduction and murder of thousands of Sunnis in what are known as death squad killings.

Two key members of al-Sadr's political and military organization were gunned down last week, the latest of as many as seven key figures in the al-Sadr organization killed or captured in the past two months.

The deaths and captures came after al-Maliki, also a Shiite, dropped his protection for the organization.

Shiite leaders insist that the Shiite militias flourished because the U.S. and its allies could not protect civilians. They say if the Sunni insurgents were crushed, the threat from Shiite hard-liners would go away.

Shiite politicians have long maintained that Sunni militants pose a greater threat to Iraq's stability. Thousands of Shiite civilians have been killed in bombings and suicide attacks carried out by Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni groups.

Thousands regularly cross the porous Iraq-Iran border, and Iran has been a popular destination for elite Shiite Iraq exiles. In Saddam's time those exiles included al-Maliki, who like other educated and politically active Shiites feared for his safety in Iraq.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Fox News.com ~ Associated Press **
Anti-American Cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr Reportedly Flees Iraq for Iran

You mean a brave terrorist leader who sends others to blow themselves up and take out as many innocents as possible is RUNNING AWAY???

I guess the Iraq/Iran border is as wide open as the USA/Mexico border is.

But we've been told that the 20,000 troops we'll be sending over will only serve as more casualties for the US without any positive result otherwise, yet this dirtbag is running in anticipation of the arrival of the forthcoming troops?

Could the Demented-crats and the lamestream media possibly have been wrong with their negative projections?

Posted by yaahoo_ at 12:01 AM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 14 February 2007 12:38 AM EST

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I tried to read through this ridiculous article today, I couldn't get past the first paragragh without laughing...

The turning point on global warming

By John McCain and Joe Lieberman -- The Boston Globe
[Excerpt]

There is now a broad consensus in this country, and indeed in the world, that global warming is happening, that it is a serious problem, and that humans are causing it. The recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded there is a greater than 90 percent chance that greenhouse gases released by human activities like burning oil in cars and coal in power plants are causing most of the observed global warming. This report puts the final nail in denial's coffin about the problem of global warming.

Full Story:
The Boston Globe ~ John McCain and Joe Lieberman ** The turning point on global warming

Fucktard McCain - political pandering at it's finest. As for global warming, duct tape fixes everything. Simply duct tape the mouths of libtards and all the hot air will cool right off. Probably start another mini ice age.

How does "90% sure" put the final nail in the coffin. Shouldn't 100% sure put the final nail in the coffin? LOL, How does this sound:

Me: I am 90% sure my neighbor stole my car.

Officer: OK, that's all the proof I need is 90% sir. We are are sending your neighbor straight to jail without a trial.

Would you stand in the middle of the road in front of an incoming truck and stay put even if you're 90% sure that he's not going to hit you?

"Consensus" IS NOT SCIENCE. There was a CONCENSUS by doctors that leaches cured diseases, there was a CONCENSUS by scientists that the earth was the center of the universe, there was a CONCENUS that witches could cause bad weather in order to make crops fail. The Scientific Method replaced CONCENSUS as the gold standard of proof a 100 years ago. Get with the times people.

The science doesn't support the myth that is man made global warming, because those that push that myth can't answer why there were global warming periods hundreds of years before the industrial revolution, can't answer why the famed "hockey stick" left out important warming data from 1000 years ago, when Greenland was actually green, etc. What they can and are doing is trying to smear anyone that doesn't agree with them, fire them from their positions if they don't agree with it, or want their certifications revoked if they deny it. That doesn't sound like open debate, or that the science actually supports their conclusions. Nope, what we get instead is a "preview" paper that isn't the entire report and is meant for politicians, and those politicians are telling us that the report, that isn't finished yet, is saying that there is a 90% certainty that the sky is falling.

Also, they are saying that the debate is closed, that the 90% certainty is good enough to close the debate. My question is: Why? There is plenty of evidence that the "consensus" is wrong, but those scientists are being bullied into silence, or begrudging agreement with the chicken littles. Consensus isn't science, it's politics. I remember the global freeze of 30 years ago, I remember the food shortage by the year 2000, I remember the oil shortage by the turn of the cenutry, I remember the rainforest disappearing by 2002, all conclusions that were reached by consensus based on abitrary numbers, or junk science.

My favorite was last years severe storm and hurricane predictions that were all the rage based on the one scientists models that were taking into effect the man made global warming models. Funny, those predictions were "adjusted" several times during the season because the doom and gloom wasn't happening the way it was supposed to, based on the models.

Face it, they can't predict what is going to happen next week, next year, or in 20 years, no matter what new natural disaster movie comes out (the Day After comes to mind, as well as Ferngully)

What I'm certain of is that we are a very arrogant bunch to think that little 'ol us are powerful enough to change the planet with our fossil fuel burning internal combustion engines. Remember Mt. Pinatubo??? Threw more crap into the atmosphere when it blew it's cork, than man has polluted since the beginning of time, yet we're still here and so is the earth.

The Polar Bear Pic They Won't Show You

Any Demented-crat that takes global warming seriously shuld be proposing changes that will really change global climate.

All airplanes grounded. No flights within the country or in and out of the country.
No fuel powered ships allowed in US ports. All cargo comming into and leaving the country must be shipped via clipper ship.
Ban cars, trucks, trains, anything that transports people or cargo via burning of any fules. Horse and buggy only.
Shut down all power plants that use coal, oil, natural gas. Stock up on candles and lantern fuel.
Wait a minute, candles and lanterns algo generate CO2!
Demolish concrete buildings and plow up most roads. They retain heat and help heat up the earth.

Time Magazine: Jun. 24, 1974 ---- Another Ice Age?

Cram this "90% sure" argument back in their faces with Saddam Hussein's WMD program. Lurch Heinz Kerry, Shrillary Clintax, Bubba Clintax, Senate Demented-crats, France, the UN, etc. were all 100% certain Saddam had WMDs and that Saddam needed to be disarmed back in 1998 and beyond. NOW, they can't back peddle fast enough.

Update: The latest irony in a long line of hilarious fanatical libtardation...
HEARING ON 'WARMING OF PLANET' CANCELED BECAUSE OF ICE STORM
Also: SAVE IT FOR A SUNNY DAY: Maryville Univ. in St. Louis area cancelling screening of Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth' because of a snowstorm.

Posted by yaahoo_ at 2:43 PM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 14 February 2007 1:17 AM EST

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MYSTERY WEAPONS SURFACE IN IRAQ

From Michael Yon's website

The recent loss of five helicopters in Iraq has caught the attention of the media. Also in the media is all the new talk of Iranian influence on weapons in Iraq, although my readers learned all about that issue more than a month ago in Walking the Line (Part Two of Three).

In the face of all this "new" controversy about "foreign" weapons in the battle space, I recalled some of the many photos I've taken of caches of weapons captured by Iraqi and American forces in Iraq. The photo above is from one of these.

None of the military persons who've seen the photo were able to identify the weapon depicted in it.

Do you know what it is?

Do you know where it came from?

Filed by Michael Yon in Iraq

Yon is a former U.S. Special Forces soldier, and currently serves as a writer and photographer covering the war front.

Drudge Report Exclusive ** Mystery Weapons Surface in Iraq

Posted by yaahoo_ at 2:02 AM EST

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Mood:  spacey

Insulting Allah Now a Crime at SFSU

By Little Green Footballs.com

At San Francisco State University, you can do anything you want to a US flag or a Christian religious symbol: burn it, deface it, submerge it in bodily fluids. It’s all good.

But step on paper copies of Hamas and Hizballah flags, and you’re in a world of hurt. (Hat tip: zombie.)

Not because they’re flags, though. Because they contain the world “Allah.”

This story starts with an “anti-terrorism rally” held last October on campus by the College Republicans. To emphasize their point, students stomped on Hezbollah and Hamas flags. According to the college paper, the Golden Gate (X)Press, members of Students Against War and the International Socialist Organization showed up to call the Republicans “racists,” while the president of the General Union of Palestinian Students accused the Repubs of spreading false information about Muslims.

In November, the Associated Students board passed a unanimous resolution, which the (X)Press reported, denounced the California Republicans for “hateful religious intolerance” and criticized those who “pre-meditated the stomping of the flags knowing it would offend some people and possibly incite violence.”

Now you know that there are students who are opposed to desecrating flags on campus -- that is, if the flags represent terrorist organizations.

But wait -- there’s more. A student filed a complaint with the Office of Student Programs and Leadership Development. OSPLD Director Joey Greenwell wrote to the College Republicans informing them that his office had completed an investigation of the complaint and forwarded the report to the Student Organization Hearing Panel, which will adjudicate the charge. At issue is the charge that College Republicans had walked on “a banner with the world ‘Allah’ written in Arabic script” -- it turns out Allah’s name is incorporated into Hamas and Hezbollah flags -- and “allegations of attempts to incite violence and create a hostile environment,” as well as “actions of incivility.”

At an unnamed date, the student panel could decide to issue a warning to, suspend or expel the GOP club from campus. ...

The university’s response? Spokesperson Ellen Griffin told me, “The university stands behind this process.”

And: “I don’t believe the complaint is about the desecration of the flag. I believe that the complaint is the desecration of Allah.”

To visit Charles Johnson's weblog, click here.
Frontpage Mag.com ~ Little Green Footballs.com **
Insulting Allah Now a Crime at SFSU

Posted by yaahoo_ at 7:00 AM EST

Updated: Monday, 12 February 2007 7:22 AM EST

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Mood:  silly

I just had to post these pics of...

The Pink Baroness

Come fly with me! 

Posted by yaahoo_ at 6:37 AM EST

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Mood:  d'oh

Al-Qaeda 'in plot to attack France'

French intelligence has produced a dossier alleging that al-Qaeda plans an attack on the country during forthcoming presidential elections.

The Arabic-language al-Hayat daily newspaper has reported there were "several indications of a plot to copy the Spanish scenario in France", a reference to the explosions that rocked Madrid in March 2004.

The London-based daily quoted mainly "messages posted on internet sites close to al-Qaeda carrying threats against France, accompanied by pictures from the campaigns for the presidential elections", which are slated for April and May.

The newspaper said the eight-page intelligence report took three months to prepare and included contributions from different French intelligence services which identified "four sources of threat".

One came from "Iraqi networks", including returnee volunteers from European countries who had fought with the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda.

"The north African networks linked to Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat" (GSPC) are another source of threat, the report said.

Al-Hayat also published a letter attributed to al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden addressed to a GSPC leader referred to as Abu Qassem, in which he recommends targeting France "to hit where it hurts most".

Although France was not mentioned by name in the letter, the Saudi-born terror chief - who has a $US25 million ($32 million) US bounty on his head - made clear references to it.

"This infidel country has colonised Muslim countries for a long time. Today it uses all its power to support the infidel group which rules Algeria with an iron fist," bin Laden said in the letter published by the daily.

"It is a religious duty to fight [this enemy] even in the heart of its land, especially that it chases the mujahedeen [holy warriors] within its country and in neighbouring ones ... and that it is a firm US ally," the letter said.

Paris has come under fire from Islamic radicals over its 2004 ban on religious insignia including the Muslim headscarf in state schools, as well as over its support for the Algerian Government.

In January, the GSPC urged Algerians to attack French nationals.

Formed in 1998 by dissidents of the Islamic Armed Group, the GSPC is the sole remaining radical movement that continues to wage an insurgency against the secular Algerian state.

Last September the group officially placed itself under al-Qaeda orders.

Sydney Morning Herald ** Al-Qaeda 'in plot to attack France'

But, but, but....this can't happen because the French have capitulated to the jihadis, right? This just comes to show you that the islamo-fascists dont give a damn whether you appease them to not! When will Europe ever figure this out? It's funny, our image is tarnished worldwide just because we're taking the fight to these bastards and not sitting around waiting for them to strike us again. God bless the USA!

Wow Chirac, all that ass-kissing for nothing. I'm headed to France to start a new business. Gonna sell "White Flags", I'll sell millions of them.

No Blood For Croissants!

An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile -- hoping it will eat him last.
From Sir Winston Churchill, published in Readers Digest in 1954.

Posted by yaahoo_ at 12:44 AM EST

Updated: Monday, 12 February 2007 6:04 AM EST

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WARNING: THIS HAS BEEN TRANSLATED FROM NORWEGIAN TO ENGLISH:

Bush sticker had consequences (Norway)

Vandalism, attempted break-in and in the end the theft of the car itself. All this after Lars Olsson put a Bush-sticker on the car.

Wednesday last week Lars Olsson putt his sticker in support of Bush on his Chrysler Voyager: "George W. Bush. Saving your butt whether you like it or not."

Vandalism
-Already the same day I started to notice the reactions. There was some honking and stuff, Lars says to Dagbladet.no

-Then, Thursday morning I discovered that someone had broken off the window wipers at the rear of the car. I had to fix them, the 33 year old Bush-supporter says. The car was parked over the night in Villaveien in Asker, where he lives. The next morning he was met with new destrictions.

-Someone had tried to enter the vehicle. The handle on the sliding-door on the side was torn off, Lars explains.

Car-theft
Lars fastened the handle with a waier, and the car, with some loose parts but with the Bush-sticker well attached, was as good as new.

-Then, on Friday or Saturday morning someone took off with the car. -Because of the sticker? -Yes, at least that is my theory. I think it would be odd if all these things happen to occur right after I put on the sticker, Lars says.

Bush-admirerer
Lars is self-employed. He runs two web-sites and is a columnist and an innovator, according to himself.

-Why do you admire Bush? He has a strength of character. He does things that are unpopular if he thinks it is right, although it doesn’t pay off politically on the short term, Lars says. -You don’t look especially sad over loosing the car? -No, I understand that this may be a funny story to some. It is impractical to loose the car, but I don’t mind it that much. -If it can lead to more sympathy for Bush in Norway it would be worth it, Lars says.

Asker og Bærum police confirms that the car has been reported stolen. They have no theory about the motive behind the car-theft.

Dagbladet.no ~ Tora Morset ** Bush-klistremerke fikk følger

...freedom of speech in Norway is like freedom of speech in San Francisco.

Posted by yaahoo_ at 12:01 AM EST

Updated: Sunday, 11 February 2007 11:28 PM EST

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Report: Princeton to close ESP lab

PRINCETON, N.J. -- The extrasensory perception lab at Princeton University will be shuttered at the end of the month. Maybe you already knew that.

The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory will close after 28 years of studying ESP and telekinesis, research that embarrassed university officials and outraged the scientific community.

PEAR's founder, Robert G. Jahn, said the lab, with its aging equipment and dwindling finances, has done what it needed to do.

"If people don't believe us after all the results we've produced, then they never will," Jahn, 76, former dean of Princeton's engineering school and an emeritus professor, told The New York Times for Saturday editions.

Princeton made no official comment on the lab's closure.

One of the world's top experts on jet propulsion, Jahn was able to buck a research system based on university and government money that uses strenuous peer review. Instead, Jahn estimates he was able to raise more than $10 million in private donations over the years.

A standard experiment at PEAR would have a participant sitting in front of an electric box flashing numbers just above or below 100. Staff would tell the person to either "think high" or "think low" as they watched the display.

PEAR researchers concluded that people could alter the results in such machines about two or three times out of 100,000. Jahn claimed if the human mind could slightly alter a machine, it might be able to be used in other areas of human life, such as healing disease.

USA Today ~ Associated Press ** Report: Princeton to close ESP lab

LOL, Princeton to close ESP lab -- Yet, I bet nobody saw it coming. And just exactly how much money was wasted on this wild goose chase? If only that evil Bush wouldn't have cut off funding, then we could have saved Christopher Reeve!

Related: Psychic museum closes unexpectedly, due to unforeseen circumstances

Posted by yaahoo_ at 11:49 PM EST

Updated: Monday, 12 February 2007 12:54 AM EST

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