Merry Christmas!

Ronald Reagan Christmas address (12/23/81)

Marry Crimis

Marry Crimis - More bloopers are a click away

Apollo 8

Snowball Fight!

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

The Untold Story of Gun Confiscation After Katrina

Liquid Metal Pig

POTD

Mallard Fillmore

Monty Python Silly Olympics

Whoppo's nightmare comes true

Today Eve is taking Whoppo in for some elective surgery.

JIHAD STRIKES!

Great T-Shirt

http://www.urbanoutfitters.com

Lesbionic Woman

Rip Saw

Wonderbra Drummer

Veterans Day Tribute

Veterans Day

Thank you Veterans!

Jumper trailer

Hits theaters February 15, 2008.

Expelled - Ben Stein - theatrical release Feb 08

Today's Ammo

...because I’m sick and tired of the pro-abortion camp throwing anti-abortion clinic bombings in MY face…







http://www.prochoiceviolence.com/

Elephant on acid tops mad experiments list

By Laura Clout




They say there is a fine line between genius and madness.



And perhaps when Warren Thomas, the director of Lincoln Park Zoo in Oklahoma City took aim at an elephant with a giant syringe full of LSD he thought he was on the brink of making an important scientific discovery.

But an hour later, as his target, a 14-year-old male called Tusko keeled over stone dead, perhaps Mr Thomas might have accepted he had crossed the line into lunacy.

The study, carried out in 1962, now tops a list of the most bizarre and outrageous experiments carried out in the name of science.

Featured in this week’s New Scientist magazine, the newly-published book Elephants On Acid and Other Bizarre Experiments includes other nightmarish tales of two-headed dogs, vomit-drinking doctors and dismembered turkeys.

The book’s author Alex Boese says all the experiments were performed by single-minded, but hard-working scientists who were not prepared to accept common sense explanations of how the world works.

“I scoured scientific archives searching for the most bizarre experiments of all time — the kind that are mind-twistingly, jaw-droppingly strange... the kind that make you wonder, “How did anyone ever conceive of doing such a thing?” he said.

The Top Ten wackiest experiments of all time:

1) Elephants on Acid

When Tusko was hit with 297 milligrams of LSD - about 3,000 times the typical human dose - the idea was to determine whether it would trigger a temporary form of madness called musth, in which male elephants become aggressive.

But when the shocked creature died, an hour after trumpeting around its pen, the scientists claimed in their defence that they had taken the drug themselves and suggested the drug could be used to cull problem herds.

2) Prepare for crash landing

In another study in the 1960s, a group of 10 soldiers were on a training flight when the pilot announced over the intercom: “We have an emergency. An engine has stalled and the landing gear is not yet functioning. I’m going to attempt to ditch in the ocean.”

As the soldiers faced what appeared to be their final moments, they were handed insurance forms to fill in - ostensibly to exempt the Army from financial liability for their deaths.

After they completed the paperwork - the soldiers were informed that their minutes of terror had been engineered as part of an experiment to see whether extreme stress affects cognitive ability.

An attempt to repeat the experiment was foiled by one disgruntled guinea-pig, who left a note on a sick bag to warn other colleagues.

3) Frankenstein dogs

In 1954, Soviet surgeon Vladimir Demikhov revealed a two-headed dog, created by grafting the head, shoulders and front legs of a puppy to the neck of an adult German Shepherd.

The puppy would lap milk, even though it dribbled from the stump of it’s partially attached head, and occasionally the two heads would fight with the puppy biting the other head on the ear.

The ill-fated creature lived for less than a month, but Demikhov created 19 others over the next 15 years and his gruesome study is credited with paving the way for human heart transplant surgery.

4) Titillating turkeys

Martin Schein and Edgar Hale appeared to prove that some males really will try it on with anything with a pulse.

Studying the sexual behaviour of turkeys in the 1960s, they took a lifelike model of a female bird and progressively dismantled it until the males lost interest.

The pair, from Pennsylvania State University found that the male turkeys still remained turned on when all that was left was a head on a stick.

5) Vomit-drinking doctor

Convinced that yellow fever was not an infectious disease, trainee doctor Stubbins Ffirth set out to test his hypothesis on himself.

First he rubbed fresh vomit from an infected patient into a cut on his arm.

When he failed to fall ill, he dribbled the liquid into his eyes, breathed in the vomit vapour, and finally drank it.

The doctor remained perfectly healthy, but not because yellow fever is not infectious.

Later studies revealed the disease is passed on by being injected directly into the blood stream - usually from the bite of an infected mosquito.

6) Professor Tickle

In 1933, Clarence Leuba, a professor of psychology Yellow Springs, Ohio set out find out whether laughter is an innate response to being tickled, or whether it is learned from the responses of others.

He ordered that no one could laugh while tickling his newborn son, and donned a mask to hide his own reactions during tickling sessions with the little boy.

Seven months later, the baby was screaming with laughter when being tickled, and three years later his younger sister reacted in a similar fashion.

Leuba concluded laughter is a spontaneous reaction to being tickled.

7) Nail-biting therapy

Lawrence LeShan, a researcher from Virginia wondered whether subliminal messaging could break bad habits.

He stood in a cabin where a group of boys were sleeping and repeated over and over “my nails taste terribly bitter” - to see if he could stop their chronic nail-biting.

The experiment appeared to work as by the end of the summer, 40 per cent of the youngsters had broken the habit.

However, doubt has since been cast on whether the boys were actually asleep throughout.

8) Raising the dead

In the 1930s, Robert Cornish at the University of California attempted to bring dead animals back to life by placing the corpses on a seesaw.

Using a series of fox terriers called Lazarus, the biologist also injected the bodies with adrenaline and anti-coagulants.

The few that did momentarily stir back to life suffered blindness and brain damage, but that did not stop a death row prisoner from volunteering as a human guinea-pig.

The state of California however, refused Cornish permission.

9) Eyes wide open

In 1960, Ian Oswald of the University of Edinburgh sought to discover whether people really can sleep through anything.

He taped open volunteers’ eyes, placed flashing lights 50cm in front of them, and exposed them to electric shocks and very loud music.

All three subjects nevertheless fell asleep within just 12 minutes.

Oswald concluded that the regular and monotonous rhythm of the stimuli allowed them to doze off.

10) Face of disgust

In the hope of pinpointing a universal facial expressions, psychologist Carney Landis subjected volunteers to a series of bizarre experiences.

After drawing lines on their faces with burnt cork to allow him to track the movement of their muscles, he photographed their expressions as they were asked to smell ammonia, listen to jazz, look at pornography or place their hands into a bucket of frogs.

Finally each was persuaded to decapitate a live rat, resulting in pictures Mr Boese describes as looking like “members of a strange cult preparing to offer a sacrifice to the Great God of the Experiment”.

Ninja Parade!

Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again

BELLA THE MOVIE: OFFICIAL TRAILER

Tell me the truth,

The First Annoying Vegan

I call it Sewer City

October 22, 2007 - City leaders have scrapped plans to do away with the Sioux Gateway Airport’s unflattering three-letter identifier — SUX — and instead have made it the centerpiece of the airport’s new marketing campaign.

The code, used by pilots and airports worldwide and printed on tickets and luggage tags, will be used on T-shirts and caps sporting the airport’s new slogan, “FLY SUX.” It also forms the address of the airport’s redesigned Web site — www.flysux.com.

Sioux City officials petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration to change the code in 1988 and 2002. At one point, the FAA offered the city five alternatives — GWU, GYO, GYT, SGV and GAY — but airport trustees turned them down.

Airport board member Dave Bernstein proposed embracing the identifier.

“Let’s make the best of it,” Bernstein said. “I think we have the opportunity to turn it into a positive.”

He noted that many airports, including some of the busiest, have forgettable three-letter codes.

“I’ve got buddies that I went to college with in different cities that can’t even remember their own birthdays, but they all know the Sioux City designator — SUX,” he said.

Mayor Craig Berenstein, who in 2002 described SUX as an “embarrassment” to the city, said he views the new slogan as a “cute little way” to make light of the situation.

KKK's 1st targets were Republicans

Dems credited with starting group that attacked both blacks, whites

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: October 25, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern


By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com





The original targets of the Ku Klux Klan were Republicans, both black and white, according to a new television program and book, which describe how the Democrats started the KKK and for decades harassed the GOP with lynchings and threats.

An estimated 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites died at the end of KKK ropes from 1882 to 1964.

The documentation has been assembled by David Barton of Wallbuilders and published in his book "Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White," which reveals that not only did the Democrats work hand-in-glove with the Ku Klux Klan for generations, they started the KKK and endorsed its mayhem.

"Of all forms of violent intimidation, lynchings were by far the most effective," Barton said in his book. "Republicans often led the efforts to pass federal anti-lynching laws and their platforms consistently called for a ban on lynching. Democrats successfully blocked those bills and their platforms never did condemn lynchings."

Further, the first grand wizard of the KKK was honored at the 1868 Democratic National Convention, no Democrats voted for the 14th Amendment to grant citizenship to former slaves and, to this day, the party website ignores those decades of racism, he said.

"Although it is relatively unreported today, historical documents are unequivocal that the Klan was established by Democrats and that the Klan played a prominent role in the Democratic Party," Barton writes in his book. "In fact, a 13-volume set of congressional investigations from 1872 conclusively and irrefutably documents that fact.

"Contributing to the evidences was the 1871 appearance before Congress of leading South Carolina Democrat E.W. Seibels who testified that 'they [the Ku Klux Klan] belong to the reform part – [that is, to] our party, the Democratic Party,'" Barton writes.

"The Klan terrorized black Americans through murders and public floggings; relief was granted only if individuals promised not to vote for Republican tickets, and violation of this oath was punishable by death," he said. "Since the Klan targeted Republicans in general, it did not limit its violence simply to black Republicans; white Republicans were also included."

Barton also has covered the subject in one episode of his American Heritage Series of television programs, which is being broadcast now on Trinity Broadcasting Network and Cornerstone Television.

Barton told WND his comments are not a condemnation or endorsement of any party or candidate, but rather a warning that voters even today should be aware of what their parties and candidates stand for.

His book outlines the aggressive pro-slavery agenda held by the Democratic Party for generations leading up to the Civil War, and how that did not die with the Union victory in that war of rebellion.

Even as the South was being rebuilt, the votes in Congress consistently revealed a continuing pro-slavery philosophy on the part of the Democrats, the book reveals.

Three years after Appomattox, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting blacks citizenship in the United States, came before Congress: 94 percent of Republicans endorsed it.

"The records of Congress reveal that not one Democrat – either in the House or the Senate – voted for the 14th Amendment," Barton wrote. "Three years after the Civil War, and the Democrats from the North as well as the South were still refusing to recognize any rights of citizenship for black Americans."

He also noted that South Carolina Gov. Wade Hampton at the 1868 Democratic National Convention inserted a clause in the party platform declaring the Congress' civil rights laws were "unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void."

It was the same convention when Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first grand wizard of the KKK, was honored for his leadership.

Barton's book notes that in 1868, Congress heard testimony from election worker Robert Flournoy, who confessed while he was canvassing the state of Mississippi in support of the 13th and 14th Amendments, he could find only one black, in a population of 444,000 in the state, who admitted being a Democrat.

Nor is Barton the only person to raise such questions. In 2005, National Review published an article raising similar points. The publication said in 1957 President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, deployed the 82nd Airborne Division to desegregate the Little Rock, Ark., schools over the resistance of Democrat Gov. Orval Faubus.

Further, three years later, Eisenhower signed the GOP's 1960 Civil Rights Act after it survived a five-day, five-hour filibuster by 18 Senate Democrats, and in 1964, Democrat President Lyndon Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act after former Klansman Robert Byrd's 14-hour filibuster, and the votes of 22 other Senate Democrats, including Tennessee's Al Gore Sr., failed to scuttle the plan.

The current version of the "History" page on the party website lists a number of accomplishments – from 1792, 1798, 1800, 1808, 1812, 1816, 1824 and 1828, including its 1832 nomination of Andrew Jackson for president. It follows up with a name change, and the establishment of the Democratic National Committee, but then leaps over the Civil War and all of its issues to talk about the end of the 19th Century, William Jennings Bryan and women's suffrage.

A spokesman with the Democrats refused to comment for WND on any of the issues. "You're not going to get a comment," said the spokesman who identified himself as Luis.

"Why would Democrats skip over their own history from 1848 to 1900?" Barton asked. "Perhaps because it's not the kind of civil rights history they want to talk about – perhaps because it is not the kind of civil rights history they want to have on their website."

The National Review article by Deroy Murdock cited the 1866 comment from Indiana Republican Gov. Oliver Morton condemning Democrats for their racism.

"Every one who shoots down Negroes in the streets, burns Negro schoolhouses and meeting-houses, and murders women and children by the light of their own flaming dwellings, calls himself a Democrat," Morton said.

It also cited the 1856 criticism by U.S. Sen. Charles Sumner, R-Mass., of pro-slavery Democrats. "Congressman Preston Brooks (D-S.C.) responded by grabbing a stick and beating Sumner unconscious in the Senate chamber. Disabled, Sumner could not resume his duties for three years."

By the admission of the Democrats themselves, on their website, it wasn't until Harry Truman was elected that "Democrats began the fight to bring down the final barriers of race and gender."

"That is an accurate description," wrote Barton. "Starting with Harry Truman, Democrats began – that is, they made their first serious efforts – to fight against the barriers of race; yet … Truman's efforts were largely unsuccessful because of his own Democratic Party."

Even then, the opposition to rights for blacks was far from over. As recently as 1960, Mississippi Democratic Gov. Hugh White had requested Christian evangelist Billy Graham segregate his crusades, something Graham refused to do. "And when South Carolina Democratic Gov. George Timmerman learned Billy Graham had invited African Americans to a Reformation Rally at the state Capitol, he promptly denied use of the facilities to the evangelist," Barton wrote.

The National Review noted that the Democrats' "Klan-coddling" today is embodied in Byrd, who once wrote that, "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia."

The article suggested a contrast with the GOP, which, when former Klansman David Duke ran for Louisiana governor in 1991 as a Republican, was "scorned" by national GOP officials.

Until 1935, every black federal legislator was Republican, and it was Republicans who appointed the first black Air Force and Army four-star generals, established Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a national holiday, and named the first black national-security adviser, secretary of state, the research reveals.

Current Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has said: "The first Republican I knew was my father, and he is still the Republican I most admire. He joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did. My father has never forgotten that day, and neither have I."

Barton's documentation said the first opponents of slavery "and the chief advocates for racial equal rights were the churches (the Quakers, Presbyterians, Methodists, etc.). Furthermore, religious leaders such as Quaker Anthony Benezet were the leading spokesmen against slavery, and evangelical leaders such as Presbyterian signer of the Declaration Benjamin Rush were the founders of the nation's first abolition societies."

During the years surrounding the Civil War, "the most obvious difference between the Republican and Democrat parties was their stands on slavery," Barton said. Republicans called for its abolition, while Democrats declared: "All efforts of the abolitionists, or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient [to initiate] steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and all such efforts have the inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people."

Wallbuilders also cited John Alden's 1885 book, "A Brief History of the Republican Party" in noting that the KKK's early attacks were on Republicans as much as blacks, in that blacks were adopting the Republican identity en masse.

"In some places the Ku Klux Klan assaulted Republican officials in their houses or offices or upon the public roads; in others they attacked the meetings of negroes and displaced them," Alden wrote. "Its ostensible purpose at first was to keep the blacks in order and prevent them from committing small depredations upon the property of whites, but its real motives were essentially political … The negroes were invariable required to promise not to vote the Republican ticket, and threatened with death if they broke their promises."

Barton told WND the most cohesive group of political supporters in American now is African-Americans. He said most consider their affiliation with the Democratic party longterm.

But he said he interviewed a black pastor in Mississippi, who recalled his grandmother never "would let a Democrat in the house, and he never knew what she was talking about." After a review of history, he knew, Barton said.

Citing President George Washington's farewell address, Barton told WND, "Washington had a great section on the love of party, if you love party more than anything else, what it will do to a great nation."

"We shouldn't love a party [over] a candidate's principles or values," he told WND.

Washington's farewell address noted the "danger" from parties is serious.

"Let me now … warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally. … The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism," Washington said.

After complaint in Riverside, flag-folding recitation banned at veterans cemeteries nationwide

08:12 AM PDT on Thursday, October 25, 2007

By JOE VARGO
The Press-Enterprise

Through thousands of military burials, Memorial Honor Detail volunteers at Riverside National Cemetery have folded the American flag 13 times and recited the significance of every fold to survivors of those being laid to rest.

The first fold, a narrator tells relatives, represents life, the second a belief in eternal life.

The 11th fold celebrates Jewish war veterans and "glorifies the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob."

A single complaint lodged against the words for the 11th fold recently prompted the National Cemetery Administration to ban the entire recital at all 125 national cemeteries.

A spokesman in Washington said the complaint originated from someone who witnessed the ceremony at Riverside National but would provide no other details and declined to release the directive banning the flag-folding recital, saying it was "an internal working document not meant for public distribution."

Veterans are furious.



The recitation of the 13 folds of the U.S. flag can no longer be made at national cemeteries. Veterans and honor detail volunteers, such as Bobby Castillo, 85, left, and Rees Lloyd, 59, are furious.


"That the actions of one disgruntled, whining, narcissistic and intolerant individual is preventing veterans from getting the honors they deserve is truly an outrage," said Rees Lloyd, 59, a Vietnam-era veteran and Memorial Honor Detail volunteer. "This is another attempt by secularist fanatics to cleanse any reference to God."

World War II Navy sailor Bobby Castillo, 85, another member of Memorial Honor Detail 12, called the federal decision "a slap in the face to every veteran."

"When we got back from the war, we didn't ask for a whole lot," said Castillo, who was wounded in 1944 as he supported the Allied landings in France. "We just want to give our veterans the respect they deserve. No one has ever complained to us about it. I just don't understand."

The pair, part of a team that has performed military honors at more than 1,400 services, said they were preparing to read the flag-folding remarks when workers in a staff car came up to them and stopped them.

Charlie Waters, parliamentarian for the American Legion of California, said he's advising memorial honor details to ignore the edict, even if it means being kicked out of cemeteries.

"This is nuts," Waters, a Korean War veteran, said in a telephone interview from Fresno. "There are 26 million veterans in this country and they're not going to take us all to prison."

Washington's Explanation

Mike Nacincik, the spokesman for the National Cemetery Administration, said the new policy, which was outlined in a Sept. 27 memo, is aimed at creating uniform services throughout the military graveyard system.

He said the 13-fold recital is not part of the U.S. Flag Code and is not government approved. After the complaint made its way through government channels, Steve Muro, director of field operations, wrote the new policy.

Nacincik said that while the flag-folding narrative includes references to God that the government does not endorse, the main reason for the new rules is uniformity.

"We are looking at consistency," Nacincik said. "We think that's important."

As for comments that the edict is an attack on religious beliefs, Nacincik said, "People are going to have their own views on that."

He said the flag-folding narrative can be read but only if families make arrangements on their own and do not use cemetery workers, which include volunteers. The U.S. government owns Riverside National, the most active national cemetery in the country with more than 8,000 burials of veterans and immediate family members each year.

A Jewish Perspective

Rabbi Yitzhak Miller, of Riverside's Temple Beth El, said he understands the government's decision to ban the recitation but believes it is a quick solution to a complex issue.

"It is a perfect example of government choosing to ignore religion in order to avoid offending some religions," Miller said. "To me, ignoring religion in general is just as problematic as endorsing any one religion."

Miller said the 11th fold, and the 12th fold, which refers to the Christian Trinity -- "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost -- amounts to an endorsement of Judaism and Christianity. He said he would like to see a reference to "God as we understand God" mentioned in the ritual but without endorsing any specific tradition.

"To acknowledge those two without acknowledging others denigrates the patriotic men and women of other faiths who serve our country," he said.

Family Wishes

Lloyd and Castillo said they always speak to families before providing military honors to their loved ones. Honors include a rifle salute, the playing of taps and the folding of the flag. Some families don't want any honors; others decline specific parts of the ceremony. Those wishes are paramount and are always respected.

Lloyd said the 16 members of the Memorial Honor Detail he serves on have distributed hundreds of copies of the script they recite while folding the flag. They've received dozens of letters thanking them, and several mention in particular the flag-folding recitation. But now presenting families that memento isn't allowed under the directive.

Lloyd, a member of the state American Legion, said he knows Riverside National Cemetery workers are just obeying orders. The real battle is with Washington.

"We're going to fight this tooth and nail, hammer and boot," he said.

Flag folds

These meanings, not part of the U.S. Flag Code, have been ascribed to the 13 folds of American flags at veterans burial services:

1. Symbol of life.

2. Symbol of our belief in the eternal life.

3. In honor and remembrance of the veteran departing our ranks who gave a portion of life for the defense of our country to attain a peace throughout the world.

4. Represents our weaker nature, for as American citizens trusting in God, it is to Him we turn in times of peace as well as in times of war for His divine guidance.

5. A tribute to our country, for in the words of Stephen Decatur, "Our country, in dealing with other countries, may she always be right; but it is still our country, right or wrong."

6. Represents where our hearts lie. It is with our heart that we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

7. A tribute to our armed forces.

8. A tribute to the one who entered in to the valley of the shadow of death, that we might see the light of day, and to honor mother, for whom it flies on Mother's Day.

9. A tribute to womanhood.

10. A tribute to father.

11. In the eyes of a Hebrew citizen, represents the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon, and glorifies, in their eyes, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

12. In the eyes of a Christian citizen, represents an emblem of eternity and glorifies, in their eyes, God the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost.

13. When the flag is completely folded, the stars are uppermost, reminding us of our national motto, "In God We Trust."

It's Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week

Smart Girl

Illegals Find America Full Of Opportunity!

Ed Wood Star Wars 1

Rex Dart endorses Alan Keyes

Take the Pledge; http://www.alankeyes.com/pledge.php

Iron Man

Pull the Strings!

Use Of 'N-Word' May End Porn Star's Career

Use Of 'N-Word' May End Porn Star's Career

If Homer Simpson Was Real

Bruce Willis?

http://www.destinationcreation.com/informatives/?p=26

No where to hide

http://www.planetcreation.co.uk/spy/

52 cent doughnut may cost man 30 years to life

10/07/2007

FARMINGTON, MO. — Shoplifters at Country Mart tend to favor cold medicines and packaged meats. They used to steal cigarettes, too, until tobacco was moved behind the counter. But the doughnuts were never a target for thieves.

Country Mart's doughnuts — fried fresh daily in the store — sell for just 52 cents each. That is why the "shoplifters will be prosecuted" signs are displayed in aisle 4 with the pricey pain and allergy pills, and not in aisle 5 beside the glass doughnut case with its tiger tails, jelly-filleds and eclairs.

Then one man's sweet tooth got the better of him. He stole a doughnut. A single doughnut.

Authorities called it strong-arm robbery. The "doughnut man," as the suspect is now known, faces five to 15 years in prison for his crime. And Farmington, a town of 14,000 people about 70 miles south of St. Louis, has been buzzing about it ever since.

"That someone would take just a single doughnut, not something very expensive or extravagant, that's unique," supermarket assistant manager Gary Komar said, smiling.

Scott A. Masters, 41, is accused of shoplifting the pastry and pushing a store worker who tried to stop him. The worker was unhurt. But with that shove, his shoplifting turned into a strong-arm robbery. Masters, who appeared in court Friday, is stunned. The prosecutor shows no signs of backing down. In fact, because Masters has a prior record, he could get a sentence of 30 years to life.

Lanell Gibbs was there the day of the doughnut heist.

"That was a first," Gibbs, 68, said.

She has worked for 11 years as a cashier at Country Mart, a regional supermarket chain. Next to her register, she keeps a clipping from the local newspaper about the doughnut man's case. He was indicted just last month, although the theft took place in December. She likes to show the article to customers as she recounts the story.

It was about 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 6. The store was in a lull. Gibbs, who could see the doughnut case from her station, said she saw Masters slip the doughnut into the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt.

She turned to a co-worker and said, "I saw him take a doughnut. Let's see if he pays for it."

They watched Masters as he strolled past the seven green checkout lanes and out a side door between the customer service desk and the pharmacy, passing under a giant "Country Mart Thanks You" sign.

Gibbs' co-worker followed Masters into the parking lot. The co-worker, a 54-year-old woman, demanded that Masters come inside, according to the police report. He offered to give the doughnut back. She declined and grabbed his arm.

That is when Masters allegedly delivered "a backhanded punch to the chest" and took off running, police said.

"That made her mad," Gibbs recalled.

The woman, who was uninjured, jumped in her car and called police as she chased Masters. He was arrested minutes later.

Farmington Police Chief Rick Baker said the two incidents taken separately equaled two misdemeanors: shoplifting and minor third-degree assault. Together, they make for second-degree robbery, a class B felony, defined in state law as forcibly stealing property. The amount of force and the amount of property does not matter.

"It's not the doughnut," Baker said. "It's the assault."

Masters is a small man, wiry, about 5-foot-6, with short-cropped hair, a graying goatee and hound-dog eyes. He is a "frequent flier" at the St. Francois County detention center.

"Yeah, Scotty is well known," said Deputy Sheriff Dennis Smith, reviewing Masters' criminal history.

Masters, who lives in the nearby town of Park Hills, has been arrested more than a dozen times: for being drunk, for shoplifting, for missed court dates, for marijuana possession. He spent most of the 1990s and a stretch from 2000 to 2004 in state prison for the felonies of torching a car to collect insurance and possessing methamphetamine ingredients.

In a jailhouse interview last week, Masters admitted he had taken the doughnut. Masters said he had been taking a break from his roofing job when he stopped into Country Mart. He was hungry. He fled the scene, but he said he did not lay a hand on the woman.

"Strong-arm robbery? Over a doughnut? That's impossible," Masters said, exasperated. "I've never had a violent crime in my life. And there's no way I would've pushed a woman over a doughnut."

After his arrest, he forgot all about the case. He assumed it had been dismissed. He spent the summer in jail on outstanding warrants. Just before he was to get out, he was indicted Sept. 14 in the doughnut case. His bail was set at $25,000 — well beyond his means.

Masters briefly appeared in court Friday. His case was continued until next month. He is shaken by the possibility of a third felony conviction. A prosecutor could pursue an enhanced sentence. As a persistent offender, Masters could face a murderer's term.

"I can't believe this crap," Masters said.

A grand jury agreed with police on the strong-arm robbery charge. County Prosecutor Wendy Wexler Horn said that it was "way too early to know how it is going to play out" but that the charge seemed appropriate given the allegations. She was aware that some people seemed shocked by the case.

"People are missing the point," Horn said. "It is not about the doughnut."

But to many people here, it is all about the doughnut.

Still, for all the attention paid to the doughnut incident, one detail may never emerge: the kind of doughnut Masters stole.

Country Mart stocks everything from simple glazed ring doughnuts to gooey butter squares to filled cream horns and danishes. But the police report makes no mention of the doughnut style. Gibbs said she could not recall it. Other workers, too, drew a blank.

Even Masters, sitting in jail with only time to think, said he could not remember. It is a detail that seems lost to history.

And Masters never got a chance to enjoy that fateful doughnut.

He said he threw it to the ground when he fled.

Bomb New York

Country Music Stars Challenge Al-Qaeda With Patriotic New Song �Bomb New York�

Hurray for US Veterans with backbone!

A Veteran from Reno, Nev. has hit headlines after he took matters into his own hands yesterday and tore down a Mexican flag that was being illegally flown above a U.S. flag at a local business.

Local news station KRNV News 4 had received calls yesterday afternoon from angry residents complaining about the Mexican flag. When the station sent a reporter to investigate the Veteran took the opportunity to make a statement in front of the cameras.

The man commented “I’m Jim Brossert and I took this flag down in honor of my country with a knife from the United States army. I’m a veteran, I am not going to see this done to my country. if they want to fight us, then they need to be men, and they need to come and fight us, but I want somebody to fight me for this flag. They’re not going to get it back.”

The hispanic store owner who witnessed the incident would not make comment on camera but told KRNV over the phone that he was flying the flag as a mark of solidarity to the hispanic community. Pro-immigration protests have been ongoing in the area all weekend after raids were conducted by authorities in the area last week.

The store owner said he is an American citizen and did not know what he was doing was against the law. However, according to federal law it is illegal to fly any flag above the U.S. flag, and if flying more than one they must be on separate poles and be of an equal size.

One Hair Color Has the Most Sex

Of all women, redheads have the most sex.

Although he doesn't explain exactly how he came up with this dubious conclusion, sex researcher and professor Dr. Werner Habermehl of the Hamburg Medical Research Institute in Hamburg, Germany says he examined the sex lives of hundreds of German women and compared the findings to their hair color, specifically red, blonde and brunette.

"The sex lives of women with red hair were clearly more active than those with other hair color, with more partners and having sex more often than the average," Habermehl told London's Daily Mail. "The research shows that the fiery redhead certainly lives up to her reputation."


And if women dye their hair red? That means they're signaling men that they're looking for a sexual partner. "Even women in a fixed relationship are letting their partners know they are unhappy if they dye their hair red," the professor told The Daily Mail. "They are saying that they are looking for something better."

Psychologist Christine Baumanns told the British paper, "Red stands for passion and when a man sees a redhead he will think he is dealing with a woman who won't mess around and gets straight to the point when it comes to sex."

A baby's prayer

NASA predicts

On July 9, 1971, the Post published a story headlined "U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming." It told of a prediction by NASA and Columbia University scientist S.I. Rasool. The culprit: man's use of fossil fuels.

The Post reported that Rasool, writing in Science, argued that in "the next 50 years" fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun's rays that the Earth's average temperature could fall by six degrees.

Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, Rasool claimed, "could be sufficient to trigger an ice age."

Aiding Rasool's research, the Post reported, was a "computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen," who was, according to his resume, a Columbia University research associate at the time.

So what about those greenhouse gases that man pumps into the skies? Weren't they worried about them causing a greenhouse effect that would heat the planet, as Hansen, Al Gore and a host of others so fervently believe today?

"They found no need to worry about the carbon dioxide fuel-burning puts in the atmosphere," the Post said in the story, which was spotted last week by Washington resident John Lockwood, who was doing research at the Library of Congress and alerted the Washington Times to his finding.

Hansen has some explaining to do. The public deserves to know how he was converted from an apparent believer in a coming ice age who had no worries about greenhouse gas emissions to a global warming fear monger.

This is a man, as Lockwood noted in his message to the Times' John McCaslin, who has called those skeptical of his global warming theory "court jesters." We wonder: What choice words did he have for those who were skeptical of the ice age theory in 1971?

People can change their positions based on new information or by taking a closer or more open-minded look at what is already known. There's nothing wrong with a reversal or modification of views as long as it is arrived at honestly.

But what about political hypocrisy? It's clear that Hansen is as much a political animal as he is a scientist. Did he switch from one approaching cataclysm to another because he thought it would be easier to sell to the public? Was it a career advancement move or an honest change of heart on science, based on empirical evidence?

If Hansen wants to change positions again, the time is now. With NASA having recently revised historical temperature data that Hansen himself compiled, the door has been opened for him to embrace the ice age projections of the early 1970s.

Could be he's feeling a little chill in the air again.

Trying to keep my friends alive a little longer.

Challenge to Scientific Consensus on Global Warming: Analysis Finds Hundreds of Scientists Have Published Evidence Countering Man-Made Global Warming

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting at least one element of current man-made global warming scares. More than 300 of the scientists found evidence that 1) a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to ours since the last Ice Age and/or that 2) our Modern Warming is linked strongly to variations in the sun's irradiance. "This data and the list of scientists make a mockery of recent claims that a scientific consensus blames humans as the primary cause of global temperature increases since 1850," said Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery.
Other researchers found evidence that 3) sea levels are failing to rise importantly; 4) that our storms and droughts are becoming fewer and milder with this warming as they did during previous global warmings; 5) that human deaths will be reduced with warming because cold kills twice as many people as heat; and 6) that corals, trees, birds, mammals, and butterflies are adapting well to the routine reality of changing climate.


Read more; http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,176495.shtml

Third Annual Monty Python Day

Knights, cardinals and bearded ladies have been swarming round the grounds of Doune Castle as fans marked the third annual Monty Python Day. Built by Robert Stewart in the 14th Century, the keep appeared as Castle Anthrax in the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Since then, thousands of devout fans have made their way to the castle, outside Stirling. Tickets for this year's event were restricted to 500.

Fans who made their way to the jamboree of Python-themed silliness, took part in a coconut conga and the Python Idle talent competition. Also in attendance was original cast member Carol Cleveland.

Coconut shells, which were used by characters in the film to mimic the sound of horses, were a feature as Python pilgrims showed up to clip-clop their way about the grounds.

Billed as the "silliest yet", dozens of actors performed scenes from the film and the TV series, including the dead parrot sketch, at key locations around the castle.

The first Monty Python Day was held at Doune Castle, six miles north-west of Stirling, in 2005 to mark the 30th anniversary of the film.

Nick Finnigan, of Historic Scotland, which hosts the event, said: "For the first one, we made it an open public event, but 1,400 turned up.

This just in

'Students First In Line' Program To Offer Job Training At Needy Schools

The nation's poorest schools will receive extra government funding to teach their students skills like rifle assembly and precision marching.

A message to Dar-al-Islam

Thumbelina and Radar

The world’s smallest and tallest horses respectively.

Where are they now? -Alf

These days Alf is living in a beautiful cabin in Montana.

100 Person Flashmob Randomly Chasing After People

This TV-show name is "Tensai Takeshi no Genki ga deru Terebi" (TV taking heart with Genius Takeshi, known as Genki TV). TV host is Takeshi Kitano.

This clip is called 'Troop of One Hundred', where a 100 people chase after random strangers and you see their reactions. Totally harmless but their reactions are priceless.

For a translation of what they're shouting (thanks Digg):

- For the 1st and 2nd guys, they shout: "Here come the tsunami!!" (tsunami da!)
- For the 3rd guy they shout: "it's that guy!!" (aitsu da!)
- Nothing for the 4th guy
- Last scene: "Heads up! (danger)" (abunai!)

The Exploding Whale

Cat high on cocaine

A cat in Sydney's eastern suburbs was taken to a vet high on cocaine and benzodiazepines.

The eight-month-old Himalayan cat arrived at the Double Bay clinic on Monday morning with dilated pupils and a racing heart after being accidentally locked in a cupboard overnight, Fairfax newspapers reported.

It was having trouble walking, was easily startled, paced incessantly and was too anxious to have a thermometer inserted into its rectum, said a report in this month's edition of Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery.

The owner was adamant the cat had not been exposed to drugs, mouldy food or toxic plants.

But when the vet phoned the owner's wife, she admitted the cat could have licked "plates of cocaine" which had been served at a dinner party two days earlier.

A drug screen also revealed benzodiazepines in the cat's system.

The owner was counselled and allowed to take the cat home as there is no legal requirement for vets to report such cases to the police.

© 2007 AAP

Censored Porn

Stolen from Rodger.

Buying bread in Baghdad

This video made my day!

An Insurgent With a Morter

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What a Wonderfull World

Wafa Sultan speaks up

John Waller - Still Calls Me Son

coming spring 2008

The mission of the Foundation Advancing Creation Truth and its related ministries is to glorify God as Creator and Sustainer, emphasize man’s accountability to Him, and challenge the hearer/visitor to think through the humanistic concept of evolution.


The Glendive Dinosaur & Fossil Museum is one of those ministries.


When you visit a major natural history museum today, you will see wide-eyed elementary and preschool children (not to mention their parents and teachers) being funneled into an abyss of scientific deception. No matter whether it’s the study of animals, earth science, or astronomy, the wonders of God’s creation are prostituted for evolutionism. And the end result is just more confusion, mystification, and cynicism in the lives of our young people and adults.


Despite all the wonderful research and excellent outreach ministry of so many capable Christian scholars and ministries over the past 30 years, the culture we live in has amazingly taken a dive into what has been called post-modernism and even a post-Christian moral pit. The truth is “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6), and we are convinced there are adults, and especially many young people, whom God wants to set free from this lack of knowledge and bondage of deception. Many of them are not attracted to churches for various reasons; yet they may be inclined to see the wonders of God’s creation through visiting a public museum featuring “the rest of the story” about dinosaurs, the stars, the Flood, and the wonders of ancient man, as well as the scientific facts they are not hearing that insist upon creation and absolutely demolish evolutionism’s nonsense.


It is to this end that the Glendive Dinosaur & Fossil Museum will be built, and the Lord is directing and blessing this effort. Already the museum property at the northeast corner of the main Glendive interchange on I-94 has been purchased and is owned by FACT debt free. At approximately 20,000 plus square feet with over 23 full size dinosaur plus a myriad of other fossils, the museum will be the largest dinosaur and fossil museum on I-94 west of the Twin Cities.

Breck Girl Makes Dumbest Statement Ever by a Presidential Candidate

"When an Iowa resident asked former Senator John Edwards whether the US should follow the Cuban health care model, Edwards deflected the question, saying he didn't know enough to answer it." The Breck Girl said, "Well, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't know a lot about Cuba's health care system. Is it a government-run system?"

How to use a bow and arrow

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OBAMA: The Musical

Illegal Immigration Sanctuary City Policy in Tulsa Oklahoma

Dan Howard, a former Tulsa police officer, rages before the city council over illegal immigration and "Sanctuary City Policy" in Tulsa Oklahoma

Snack Your Way to a Bigger Bosom With F-Cup Cookies

The makers of F-Cup Cookies claim women can increase their breast size by eating two of these cookies a day. Each biscuit is said to contain 50mg of a breast-enhancing herb. No indication has been given as to how many days it takes to eat your way to an F cup or what size your butt will grow to as you snack your way to a bigger bosom.

10 things non-gun people should know about concealed weapons permit holders.

photo by Oleg Volk

1. We don’t carry firearms so that we can ignore other basics of personal safety.
2. We don’t think we are cops, spies, or superheros.
3. We are LESS likely, not more likely, to be involved in fights or “rage” incidents than the general public.
4. We are responsible gun owners.
5. Guns are not unsafe or unpredictable.
6. We do not believe in the concept of “accidental discharges”.
7. Permit holders do their best to keep our concealed weapons exactly that: concealed.
8. The fact that we carry a firearm to any given place does not mean that we believe that place to be inherently unsafe.
9. Concealed weapon permit holders are an asset to the public in times of trouble.
10. The fact that criminals know that some of the population may be armed at any given time helps to deter violence against all citizens.

And we are no better

Warning Live Abortion

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If we allow this.

More news from the “Religion of Peace”.

A Kurdish woman was brutally raped, stamped on and strangled by members of her family and their friends in an “honor killing” carried out at her London home…

Let that sink in. “Brutally raped”…”stamped on”…”strangled”. “By members of her family and their friends”. In her London home. Her terrible crime?

…because she had fallen in love with the wrong man.

Read a book

Complying with nutty California gun laws

The U15 stock has been in development since November 2005. It was born out of the fires of frustration caused by the fixed 10 round magazine in the AR-15 rifle.

Churchill dropped from England"s history syllabus

Just not cricket ... the exclusion of Winston Churchill is likely to leave traditionalists aghast.

Britain's World War II prime minister Winston Churchill has been cut from a list of key historical figures recommended for teaching in English secondary schools, a government agency says.

The radical overhaul of the school curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds is designed to bring secondary education up to date and allow teachers more flexibility in the subjects they teach, the Government said.

But although Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, Joseph Stalin and Martin Luther King have also been dropped from the detailed guidance accompanying the curriculum, Sir Winston's exclusion is likely to leave traditionalists aghast.

A spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said the new curriculum, to be taught from September 2008, does not prescribe to teachers what they must include.

But he added: "Teachers know that they need to mention these pivotal figures. They don't need to be instructed by law to mention them in every history class.

"Of course, good teachers will be teaching the history of Churchill as part of the history of Britain. The two are indivisible."

Sir Winston's grandson Nicholas Soames, also a Conservative Member of Parliament, described the move as "madness."

"It is absurd. I expect he wasn't New Labour enough for them ... this is a Government that is very careless of British history and always has been.

"The teaching of history is incredibly important," he added.

"If you're surprised that people do not seem to care that much about the country in which they live, the reason is that they don't know much about it."

The History Curriculum Association said it was "appalled" by the move, saying the new curriculum would "promote ignorance" and was pandering to a politically-correct agenda.

The Conservatives' schools spokesman Michael Gove added: "Winston Churchill is the towering figure of 20th century British history.

"His fight against fascism was Britain's finest hour. Our national story can't be told without Churchill at the centre."

Schools Secretary Ed Balls defended the move, saying a slimmed-down curriculum was overdue and traditional elements in all subjects had been protected.

Among the few named figures that stay in the new history curriculum are William Wilberforce, the British law maker who was instrumental in efforts to abolish the slave trade.

Sir Winston, who was British prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955, was famous for his defiance to the Nazis, stirring oratory and trademark cigar and "V for victory" sign.

In 2002, a BBC poll with more than one million votes saw him voted the Greatest Briton of all time.

- AFP

Senior Admin Official: 'New' Osama Tape First Aired Five Years Ago

A terrorist website releases a tape of Osama Bin Laden, claiming it's new. And how do the MSM react? By rushing to air it, or in the case of wire services like AP, trumpet it in print. As of 6:30 A.M. EDT this morning, the AP story Bin Laden Appears in New al-Qaida Video was featured on Drudge.

There's only one problem. A senior Bush administration official informs this NewsBuster that:

"intelligence agencies have determined the video was previously aired as a portion of a longer show first on MBC TV (Middle East broadcast station) on April 17, 2002."
What's the result of the MSM's sloppy "air-first-verify-later" approach? The world’s most evil and despicable terrorists are given tons of free air time and print exposure.

Shades of the recent incident in which the MSM breathlessly promoted news of 20 beheaded bodies having been discovered in Iraq, only to have the story debunked within 48 hours.

90's Flashback

4 Non Blondes - What's Up

Hate Crimes in 9 Minutes

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South Park kids distill hate crime legislation down to the last idiotic liberal droplet.

Scientists find way to teleport atoms on optic fibres

AUSTRALIAN physicists have discovered a method that could see atoms being teleported between Sydney and Perth and pave the way for possible Star Trek-like travel in the future.

The method involves cooling down a group of atoms and shooting lasers at them, making them "appear to disappear" before using transporting them along optic fibres at light speed to another location where they can be reconstructed.

The "simple" way of transporting atoms was developed by physicists Murray Olsen, Ashton Bradley, Simon Haine of the Australian Research Council Centre for Quantum-Atom Optics, and and Joseph Hope of ANU.

Dr Olsen told NEWS.com.au the method was very much like the Star Trek characters' favourite way to get back onto the ship.

The atoms are cooled to almost absolute zero, or -273C. At a billionth of a degree above this temperature, a quirk of physics makes all the atoms start behaving in the same way. Then the scientists zap them with two lasers.

“If you cool these atoms down enough ... in a condensate, they all enter the same quantum state,” Dr Olsen said.

“When a few thousand atoms are overlapping (and you hit them with the laser beams)… they basically disappear.

“We can use an optic fibre (to transport the signal at the speed of light) into a second condensate, which could be in another room, or another building, or another state.

“We’ve got the coldest thing in the universe and the fastest speed in the universe.”

Experiments

He said the method could be being used in laboratories in the next four years, but didn't expect he would ever see humans teleported.

Dr Haine said the team’s method was a lot simpler than previous theories.

Dr Haine also said their method would reconstruct the atoms better once transported, compared to the “entanglement” theory.

“As our scheme doesn’t rely on the quality of the entanglement, it may be possible to achieve more accurate teleportation via this method,” Dr Haine said.

Another scientist at ANU, Dr John Close, intends to implement the experiments over the coming years

Stripper/Magician

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LIVE EARTH 'DISMAL' TV RATINGS IN UK

Photo stolen from Rodger

Anne of Green Gables Redeux

Happy 4th of July!

Solution

coming soon to a Toys R Us near you

FYI

Mingle² - Online Dating

What Ann really said

Ann Coulter on GMA 6/25
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I Am Legend trailer

NOW PREPARE FOR 'DANGEROUS GLOBAL COOLING'

Read the sunspots
The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change - and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling
R. TIMOTHY PATTERSON, Financial Post
Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Politicians and environmentalists these days convey the impression that climate-change research is an exceptionally dull field with little left to discover. We are assured by everyone from David Suzuki to Al Gore to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that "the science is settled." At the recent G8 summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel even attempted to convince world leaders to play God by restricting carbon-dioxide emissions to a level that would magically limit the rise in world temperatures to 2C.

The fact that science is many years away from properly understanding global climate doesn't seem to bother our leaders at all. Inviting testimony only from those who don't question political orthodoxy on the issue, parliamentarians are charging ahead with the impossible and expensive goal of "stopping global climate change." Liberal MP Ralph Goodale's June 11 House of Commons assertion that Parliament should have "a real good discussion about the potential for carbon capture and sequestration in dealing with carbon dioxide, which has tremendous potential for improving the climate, not only here in Canada but around the world," would be humorous were he, and even the current government, not deadly serious about devoting vast resources to this hopeless crusade.

Climate stability has never been a feature of planet Earth. The only constant about climate is change; it changes continually and, at times, quite rapidly. Many times in the past, temperatures were far higher than today, and occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as 6,000 years ago, it was about 3C warmer than now. Ten thousand years ago, while the world was coming out of the thou-sand-year-long "Younger Dryas" cold episode, temperatures rose as much as 6C in a decade -- 100 times faster than the past century's 0.6C warming that has so upset environmentalists.

Climate-change research is now literally exploding with new findings. Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the field has had more research than in all previous years combined and the discoveries are completely shattering the myths. For example, I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of all energy on the planet.

My interest in the current climate-change debate was triggered in 1998, when I was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council strategic project grant to determine if there were regular cycles in West Coast fish productivity. As a result of wide swings in the populations of anchovies, herring and other commercially important West Coast fish stock, fisheries managers were having a very difficult time establishing appropriate fishing quotas. One season there would be abundant stock and broad harvesting would be acceptable; the very next year the fisheries would collapse. No one really knew why or how to predict the future health of this crucially important resource.


Although climate was suspected to play a significant role in marine productivity, only since the beginning of the 20th century have accurate fishing and temperature records been kept in this region of the northeast Pacific. We needed indicators of fish productivity over thousands of years to see whether there were recurring cycles in populations and what phenomena may be driving the changes.

My research team began to collect and analyze core samples from the bottom of deep Western Canadian fjords. The regions in which we chose to conduct our research, Effingham Inlet on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and in 2001, sounds in the Belize-Seymour Inlet complex on the mainland coast of British Columbia, were perfect for this sort of work. The topography of these fjords is such that they contain deep basins that are subject to little water transfer from the open ocean and so water near the bottom is relatively stagnant and very low in oxygen content. As a consequence, the floors of these basins are mostly lifeless and sediment layers build up year after year, undisturbed over millennia.

Using various coring technologies, we have been able to collect more than 5,000 years' worth of mud in these basins, with the oldest layers coming from a depth of about 11 metres below the fjord floor. Clearly visible in our mud cores are annual changes that record the different seasons: corresponding to the cool, rainy winter seasons, we see dark layers composed mostly of dirt washed into the fjord from the land; in the warm summer months we see abundant fossilized fish scales and diatoms (the most common form of phytoplankton, or single-celled ocean plants) that have fallen to the fjord floor from nutrient-rich surface waters. In years when warm summers dominated climate in the region, we clearly see far thicker layers of diatoms and fish scales than we do in cooler years. Ours is one of the highest-quality climate records available anywhere today and in it we see obvious confirmation that natural climate change can be dramatic. For example, in the middle of a 62-year slice of the record at about 4,400 years ago, there was a shift in climate in only a couple of seasons from warm, dry and sunny conditions to one that was mostly cold and rainy for several decades.

Using computers to conduct what is referred to as a "time series analysis" on the colouration and thickness of the annual layers, we have discovered repeated cycles in marine productivity in this, a region larger than Europe. Specifically, we find a very strong and consistent 11-year cycle throughout the whole record in the sediments and diatom remains. This correlates closely to the well-known 11-year "Schwabe" sunspot cycle, during which the output of the sun varies by about 0.1%. Sunspots, violent storms on the surface of the sun, have the effect of increasing solar output, so, by counting the spots visible on the surface of our star, we have an indirect measure of its varying brightness. Such records have been kept for many centuries and match very well with the changes in marine productivity we are observing.


In the sediment, diatom and fish-scale records, we also see longer period cycles, all correlating closely with other well-known regular solar variations. In particular, we see marine productivity cycles that match well with the sun's 75-90-year "Gleissberg Cycle," the 200-500-year "Suess Cycle" and the 1,100-1,500-year "Bond Cycle." The strength of these cycles is seen to vary over time, fading in and out over the millennia. The variation in the sun's brightness over these longer cycles may be many times greater in magnitude than that measured over the short Schwabe cycle and so are seen to impact marine productivity even more significantly.

Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called "proxies") is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change.

However, there was a problem. Despite this clear and repeated correlation, the measured variations in incoming solar energy were, on their own, not sufficient to cause the climate changes we have observed in our proxies. In addition, even though the sun is brighter now than at any time in the past 8,000 years, the increase in direct solar input is not calculated to be sufficient to cause the past century's modest warming on its own. There had to be an amplifier of some sort for the sun to be a primary driver of climate change.

Indeed, that is precisely what has been discovered. In a series of groundbreaking scientific papers starting in 2002, Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svensmark et al., have collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies, and with it, our star's protective solar wind, varying amounts of galactic cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system and penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. These cosmic rays enhance cloud formation which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet. When the sun's energy output is greater, not only does the Earth warm slightly due to direct solar heating, but the stronger solar wind generated during these "high sun" periods blocks many of the cosmic rays from entering our atmosphere. Cloud cover decreases and the Earth warms still more.

The opposite occurs when the sun is less bright. More cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth's atmosphere, more clouds form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots, was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. By comparison, CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales.


In some fields the science is indeed "settled." For example, plate tectonics, once highly controversial, is now so well-established that we rarely see papers on the subject at all. But the science of global climate change is still in its infancy, with many thousands of papers published every year. In a 2003 poll conducted by German environmental researchers Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, two-thirds of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries surveyed did not believe that "the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases." About half of those polled stated that the science of climate change was not sufficiently settled to pass the issue over to policymakers at all.

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.

Meantime, we need to continue research into this, the most complex field of science ever tackled, and immediately halt wasted expenditures on the King Canute-like task of "stopping climate change."


R. Timothy Patterson is professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University.




© National Post 2007

The Wisdom of Barry Goldwater

A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle.

The only summit meeting that can succeed is the one that does not take place.

To insist on strength is not war-mongering. It is peace-mongering.

We cannot allow the American flag to be shot at anywhere on earth if we are to retain our respect and prestige.

You don’t need to be straight to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.

The good Lord raised this mighty Republic to be a home for the brave and to flourish as the land of the free-not to stagnate in the swampland of collectivism, not to cringe before the bully of communism.

Now, certainly, simple honesty is not too much to demand of men in government.

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.

Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

Only the strong can remain free, that only the strong can keep the peace.

I believe that we must look beyond the defense of freedom today to its extension tomorrow.

This is a party, this Republican Party, a Party for free men, not for blind followers, and not for conformists.