15th June 2014.
Five hours time difference to Brazil makes for very late nights and little time for blogging.
Poor little rich Tony Blair. He is desperately trying to defend his part in the Iraq invasion of 2003. With his gold tinted glasses his view of the world reveals that the present problems in Iraq are due to the world not following his advice on Syria. In any event – he protests – he did not cause the Iraq crisis.
I don’t usually expect the Huffington Post to print anything that even faintly deviates from “political correctness” but this opinion piece by John Tirman on how do-gooders do more harm than good comes as a breath of fresh air. “The human-rights lobby has been at the center of the Arab Spring fiasco, egging on the rebels and feeding the media narrative of despicable despots that needed deposing. .. The same thing happened in Afghanistan 13 years ago, when prominent feminists argued for war to liberate Afghan women. ….. war for human rights is increasingly being exposed as an oxymoron.”
Cambodian orphanages have provided new business opportunities and are more brothels than orphanages. Cambodia’s most famous activist, Somaly Mam, who has been feted indiscriminately in the US has proved to be a fraud. But she has made enough money to keep her quite comfortable for the rest of her days.
Another “politically correct” do-gooder which has been hijacked by the loony left since 1991 is Greenpeace. In India they are being asked to justify their foreign funding as “the ministry of home affairs served a show cause notice to the international NGO on Friday asking why its permission to get foreign funding under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA) should not be withdrawn”.
Humans separated from chimpanzees about 6 – 8 million years ago. But the chimpanzees of today are not the chimpanzees we diverged from. “The offspring of chimpanzees inherit 90% of new mutations from their father, and just 10% from their mother, a finding which demonstrates how mutation differs between humans and our closest living relatives, and emphasises the importance of father’s age on evolution.”
Unsettled science. Neither the Carbon cycle nor the water cycle on earth are as well understood as some would like to claim. There is more evidence that vast amounts of water are locked up in rocks in the depths of the earth’s mantle. And we have not the slightest inkling of how water is exchanged between the surface and the deep mantle by volcanos and earthquakes.
The sun is the only significant source for our energy (with nuclear reactions in the earth’s interior – even if they are ongoing – paling into insignificance). It is not fashionable to say so but the sun, through the oceans, controls our climate and carbon dioxide has no significant role to play. A new paper gives further evidence of the link between the oceans and the climate.
Last Friday was not only the 13th of June but in Sweden, with a full moon also present, was considered particularly unlucky – apparently. It will not happen again till 13th August 2049. The top 9 Swedish superstitions.
Sepp Blatter (who never played football) is turning to attack as the best form of defence over the Qatar 2022 World Cup curruption scandal. He – and his underlings – are trying to muddy the waters and flailing around looking for scapegoats. So they have banned Beckenbauer for 90 days!! Time for Blatter to step down and for Qatar to be stripped of the World Cup.
Tags: Noted in passing
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