A campaigner from Hendon is preparing to survive on £1 per day to help tackle global poverty.

Lara Smallman, 25, of Mayfield Gardens is being sponsored to cut her spending on food and drink from Monday, May 7 to Friday, May 11 as part of Global Poverty Project’s Live Below the Line campaign.

Hacked emails from a far-right group appear to reveal links with the BNP, after the group of American "hactivists" Anonymous targeted a number of US extremists' websites.

The group infiltrated the site of American Third Position, a white nationalist political group, in a campaign ironically dubbed "Operation Blitzkrieg", publishing emails in which it praised the BNP leader, Nick Griffin.

In one January 2010 email from "WhiteNewsNow" with the subject "Your Beautiful Pontoon Bridge", Griffin is described as "probably the most effective white activist in the world today".

Hackers from the Anonymous collective have created a website to publish personal data captured from right-wing sites and other online platforms. Data privacy experts are concerned - some hackers, too.

 

The spin doctor for Denmark’s former tax minister has been reported to the police for allegedly trying to publicise private details of the Prime Minister’s family tax affairs.

She once dumped 200kg of pasta inside a ministry in protest at student grant cuts, now 27-year-old is set for a key post

As a side-effect of the financial crisis, more and more people are starting to think Karl Marx was right. The great 19th Century German philosopher, economist and revolutionary believed that capitalism was radically unstable.

It had a built-in tendency to produce ever larger booms and busts, and over the longer term it was bound to destroy itself.

Marx welcomed capitalism's self-destruction. He was confident that a popular revolution would occur and bring a communist system into being that would be more productive and far more humane.

Historian David Starkey has told BBC's Newsnight ''the whites have become black'' in a discussion on the England riots with author and broadcaster Dreda Say Mitchell and the author of Chavs, Owen Jones.

He also hit out at what he called the ''destructive, nihilistic gangster culture'' which he said ''has become the fashion.''

A network seems to have been able to infiltrate the Danish People’s Party, Den Danske Forening and racist and violent groupings.

Thanks in part to the grip of corporate power on the media and on political parties, few today in the West can imagine any other politics than those of big money. In the US, and increasingly even in Europe, the income differential between the poor and the wealthy already resembles that of banana republics. The downtrodden are asked to bear the burden of a financial crisis created by bankers. America's wealthy fly their children to summer camp in tax-free private jets amid a real rate of unemployment of over fifteen per cent.

Neoliberalism has only accelerated these processes at the heart of capitalist society. Here is a far more convincing threat to Western values and "social cohesion" than the lunatic fears of fascists. Notably, this is a threat that emanates from within, not without. It is precisely social democratic parties like Norway's Labour Party - Breivik's target - which have sought to contain the corrosive effects of capitalism and ensure the survival of the West's most humane values.

Multiculturalism does not pose a significant danger to Western values - but neoliberalism does.

Pamela Geller is going through her archives and scrubbing any violent rhetoric related to Norway, and equally obviously, she’s doing it to cover her tracks.

Al Qaeda is always to blame, even when it isn't, even when it's allegedly the work of a Nordic, Muslim-hating, right-wing European nationalist.

Last year, I was at a billionaire’s home in California and I asked him to describe his biggest worry. He pointed to a 19th century painting on the wall, which depicted a female beggar receiving alms from a wealthy gentleman and giving her patron a flower in return.

“That’s what I worry about,” he said. “But instead of flowers, she’s got guns. Violence in the streets, aimed at the wealthy. That’s what I worry about.”

Noam Chomsky (NC): There is no doubt that concentrated private capital closely linked to the state has substantial resources, but on the other hand we shouldn’t overlook the fact that quite a bit has been achieved through public struggles in the U.S. over the years. In many respects this remains an unusually free country. The state has limited power to coerce, compared with many other countries, which is a very good thing. Many rights have been won, even in the past generation, and that provides a legacy from which we can move on. Struggling for freedom and justice has never been easy, but it has achieved progress; I don’t think we should assume that there are any particular limits.

President Dilma Rousseff launched an ambitious plan on Thursday to eliminate dire poverty in Brazil within four years by lifting more than 16 million people from conditions of "misery."

The "Brazil Without Misery" program is the signature policy of the former leftist guerrilla's first term, her advisers said, fulfilling one of the key promises she made in her campaign for the presidency last year.

The United States, the European Union and the United Nations decided to support Haiti’s recent presidential and parliamentary elections despite believing that the country’s electoral body, “almost certainly in conjunction with President Preval,” had “emasculated the opposition” by unwisely and unjustly excluding the country’s largest party, according to a secret US Embassy cable.

A prominent member of Switzerland’s largest political party has called upon federal authorities to arrest Henry Kissinger as a war criminal if he attends the 2011 Bilderberg conference of global power brokers which is set to begin on Thursday at the Hotel Suvretta House in St. Moritz.

Swiss People’s Party representative Dominique Baettig wrote a letter to the General Prosecutor of the Swiss Federation in which he asked, “In the name of Cantonal Sovereignty and independence, but especially of the Justice’s independence from executive power – may it be Federal or Cantonal – I ask you to check abroad for Arrest Warrants delivered by various Courts, Judges and also for all valid criminal complaints against the persons who were, amongst others, cited as mere examples in my (enclosed) letters to Mrs. Simonetta Sommaruga, Federal Counselor and Mrs. Barbara Janom Steiner, Cantonal Counselor and of course, to arrest them before diligent extraditions.”

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

Releasing a photo of a man you shot in the face isn't the affront to human dignity. Shooting a man in the face is. Even if it's justified. Releasing the photo is simply being transparent about it.

Drawn up at the government’s request, their report is now being used by the Danish People’s Party — the far-right party supporting the Liberal-Conservative majority in parliament — and the integration minister to call for further restrictions on immigration.

“Of course we should go to war for oil,” Coulter told an audience of gray-suited national security analysts, speaking in a room decorated with portraits in gilded frames. “It's like saying, you're going to war just for oxygen, just for food. We need oil. That's a good reason to go to war.”

Demand and supply certainly matter. But there's another reason why food across the world has become so expensive: Wall Street greed.

It took the brilliant minds of Goldman Sachs to realize the simple truth that nothing is more valuable than our daily bread. And where there's value, there's money to be made. In 1991, Goldman bankers, led by their prescient president Gary Cohn, came up with a new kind of investment product, a derivative that tracked 24 raw materials, from precious metals and energy to coffee, cocoa, cattle, corn, hogs, soy, and wheat. They weighted the investment value of each element, blended and commingled the parts into sums, then reduced what had been a complicated collection of real things into a mathematical formula that could be expressed as a single manifestation, to be known henceforth as the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI).

TRUMP: Somebody said, what would be your theory or what would you do in terms of Libya? I'd do one thing. Either I'd go in and take the oil or I don't go in at all. We can't be the policeman for the world.

[CNN journalist]: You'd just take their oil?

TRUMP: Absolutely. I'd take the oil. I'd give them plenty so they can live very happily. I would take the oil. You know, in the old days, Candy –

[CNN journalist]: Well, wait, we can't go –

TRUMP: - Candy, Candy, in the old days, when you have a war and you win, that nation is yours.

Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.

RUSH: My god, she sounds like she saw her husband for the first time in six months there. Oh, it's recycling, look, organized for -- these people are in the midst of earthquake devastation and the credit they're getting is for recycling and our caller Chris with a great question. The Japanese have done so much to save the planet. He's right. They've given us the Prius. Even now, refugees are still recycling their garbage, and yet Gaia levels them [laughs], just wipes them out. Wipes out their nuclear plants, all kinds of radiation. What kind of payback is this? That is an excellent question. They invented the Prius. In fact, where Gaia blew up is right where they make all these electric cars. That's where the tsunami hit. All those brand new electric cars sitting there on the lot. I like the way this guy was thinking. It's like -- it's like Gaia hit the Prius in [inaudible]. It's like they were in the crosshairs, if we can use that word, it does. What is Gaia trying to tell us here? What is the mother of environmentalism trying to say with this hit? Great observation out there, Chris.

The U.S. has been unable to make much progress on environmental issues because  of opposition by our Republican leaders. They have inflated the cost while ignoring the benefits, labeled environmental issues as "liberal" to discourage support by conservatives, spread false "science", and biased voters against a cap-and-trade approach by labeling it "cap-and-tax".  Besides having their mouths washed out with soap, they also need to be admonished to follow President Reagan's example.

Mexican journalist: In Mexico, there are those who propose not keeping going with this battle and legalize drug trafficking and consumption. What is your opinion?

Clinton: I don't think that will work. I mean, I hear the same debate. I hear it in my country. It is not likely to work. There is just too much money in it, and I don't think that—you can legalize small amounts for possession, but those who are making so much money selling, they have to be stopped.

Slip of tongue?

I remember a Ronald Reagan who broke the Air Traffic Controllers Union,and increased the Federal Budget Deficit by a staggering 3 trillion dollars while at the same time increasing government spending. I remember a Ronald Reagan who illegally sold arms to Iran and used the proceeds to fund death squads in Nicaragua.

US embassy cable recommends drawing up list of countries for 'retaliation' over opposition to genetic modification

John Vidal, environment editor
guardian.co.uk,

The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.

In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety in late 2007, the ambassador, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, asked Washington to penalise the EU and particularly countries which did not support the use of GM crops.

"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.

"The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices," said Stapleton, who with Bush co-owned the St Louis-based Texas Rangers baseball team in the 1990s.

In other newly released cables, US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.

An American judge has been accused of advocating corrective rape for lesbians.

Joe Rehyansky, a part-time magistrate and Vietnam veteran, wrote on conservative news site The Daily Caller that lesbians should be allowed to serve in the military because straight male soldiers could "convert" them.

The Daily Caller swiftly removed some of his remarks but not before they were picked up by other websites.

When Crown Publishing inked a deal with George W. Bush for his memoirs, the publisher knew it wasn't getting Faulkner. But the book, at least, promises "gripping, never-before-heard detail" about the former president's key decisions, offering to bring readers "aboard Air Force One on 9/11, in the hours after America's most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor; at the head of the table in the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq," and other undisclosed and weighty locations.

Instead, Crown got a mash-up of worn-out anecdotes from previously published memoirs written by his subordinates, from which Bush lifts quotes word for word, passing them off as his own recollections. He took equal license in lifting from nonfiction books about his presidency or newspaper or magazine articles from the time. Far from shedding light on how the president approached the crucial "decision points" of his presidency, the clip job illuminates something shallower and less surprising about Bush's character: He's too lazy to write his own memoir.

A CNN/Gallup Poll released Monday revealed that a vast majority of registered male voters would have strongly supported a naked woman in the 2010 midterm elections.

It is hard to imagine how someone can be considered a Conservative if they don't want to conserve the most important thing we have, the environment. They may claim that they actually do, but not just now, not in that way, or not if it might cost a little. They also try to perpetuate the myth that conservation and environmental protection are liberal causes to justify their opposition. The truth is that conservation and environmental stewardship are core conservative values.

BP and several other big European companies are funding the midterm election campaigns of Tea Party favourites who deny the existence of global warming or oppose Barack Obama's energy agenda, the Guardian has learned.

An analysis of campaign finance by Climate Action Network Europe (Cane) found nearly 80% of campaign donations from a number of major European firms were directed towards senators who blocked action on climate change. These included incumbents who have been embraced by the Tea Party such as Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, and the notorious climate change denier James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma.

The big Whitman-Brown California gubernatorial debate at Dominican College in San Rafael already has plenty of drama going -- protesters from the California Nurses Association and other groups here in force. And Laura Wells, the Green Party candidate for governor, was arrested just minutes ago and put into a patrol car.

On September 30, 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, some of which were extremely demonizing in their outspoken anti-Muslim symbolism. Four months later violent protests erupted outside Danish embassies in some Muslim countries, and the terror threat against Denmark increased dramatically. Yet what happened during those four months, and could the escalation of the crisis have been prevented? Was it simply about freedom of speech and a "clash of civilizations" or were other agendas in play? Moreover, why did it happen in Denmark of all places?

A controversial Republican candidate for the US Senate is trying to play down revelations that she dabbled with witchcraft in high school.

"How many of you didn't hang out with questionable folks...?" said Christine O'Donnell, a day after a clip of her discussing the occult was rebroadcast.

"The four corners of deceit: government, academia, science and media. Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue of deceit. That's how they promulgate themselves; it is how they prosper." It is tempting to laugh off this and other rhetoric broadcast by Rush Limbaugh, a conservative US radio host, but Limbaugh and similar voices are no laughing matter.

Almost three out of five Americans believe former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) would not be an effective president, a new poll found Monday.

Fifty-nine percent of U.S. adults said they don't think Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate and potential 2012 candidate, would be an effective president of the United States.

Fox News rejected an ad linking oil consumption with troop deaths.

The ad, above, is airing on CNN and MSNBC. In it, a former Army logistics official makes the case that transporting oil is costing troops' lives.

This was a government that was prepared to engage the flimsy opposition on its own terms. If the perception of poverty was the problem then what better measure than changing the perception itself?

Next on the agenda... subsidised hallucinogens.

You would think that George W. Bush was elected to a 3rd term. Obviously this President sold his soul to the devil to get elected. How else could you explain this, and other, despicable decisions that are a betrayal of the people who put him in office.

The radio said Peres and other cabinet ministers warned Sharon against saying what he said in public because "it would cause us a public relations disaster."

Priceless...

a furious Sharon reportedly turned toward Peres,
saying "every time we do something you tell me Americans will do
this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear,
don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish
people control America, and the Americans know it."

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza warned in Nice on Tuesday that some African countries may fail to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) as a consequence of climate change.

Drip by drip, the full story is emerging of last December's global diplomatic debacle in Copenhagen, when instead of setting the world on a new low carbon path and tackling climate change, 130 world leaders ended up with a weak deal and no prospect of a binding agreement for another 18 months.

The latest revelations come from the man at the very heart of the debacle, UN climate chief Yvo de Boer. Normally the model of a discreet and guarded international bureaucrat, his confidential letter of explanation to his colleagues, written only days after the meeting ended, displays a mix of bemusement, clarity and exasperation. "How could several years of negotiation and high level diplomacy be allowed to end up this way?", he asks.

The nuns made their way into the bank and withdrew money at the cash desks and cash machines, and opened bank accounts. All very civilized, you see. Then they proceeded to pay that money back in and close their newly-opened accounts. The idea was to cause queues and irritation and generally be as much of a nuisance as possible – all with a view to getting the big banking boss to agree to a conversation about the living wage. This went on for several hours with staff finally resorting to calling the police! The police could do nothing – after all, it isn't illegal for a nun to open an account or withdraw cash now, is it?

In what has become an annual non-event, the Heartland Institute will gather the who's-who of the global warming denial network together in Chicago this weekend for the fourth International Conference on Climate Change. 

As in years past, the event is expected to receive very little mainstream media coverage.  The deniers like to think the reason is some liberal media conspiracy.  In reality, the lack of interest stems chiefly from the fact that this denial-a-palooza fest is dripping with oil money and represents a blatant industry effort to greenwash oil and coal while simultaneously attacking the credibility of climate scientists.

Two weeks ago, the government put out a round estimate of the size of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico: 5,000 barrels a day. Repeated endlessly in news reports, it has become conventional wisdom.

Fifth of those polled say disaster increases their belief in drilling

Ten percent of Americans believe environmentalists intentionally sabotaged the oil rig Deepwater Horizon off the Gulf Coast according to a poll released Tuesday, apparently as part of a ploy to reduce Americans' support for offshore drilling.

The surprising finding was contained in a poll released Tuesday by Public Policy Polling. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh floated the idea on his nationally syndicated talk show.

Polling director Tom Jensen downplayed the finding in a blog post, arguing that the figure was insignificant. He noted, however, that if "undecideds" were included, the number of Americans who are unsure about or believe the environmental sabotage theory rises to more than thirty percent.

Following the climate summit in Copenhagen, December 2009, there has been some (but not much) debate about why the world got the Copenhagen Accord instead of a legally binding, fair and ambitous treaty. Considering the onslaught of hype such as the Hopenhagen campaign and the 100,000+ people in the Danish streets one could have gotten the impression more was on the way. The role of the Danish government could appear a bit suspicious – especially in the light of the leaked “Danish text”.

Some debate ensued in Danish parliament: see the January 2010 TH!NK2 articles Danish prime minister grilled on COP15 and Danish parliament evaluating COP15. At these debates the Danish prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, rejected proposals to have an evaluation of the whole COP15 undertaken. That's why it's a bit entertaining to see an internal government evaluation report on the front page of Danish newspaper POLITIKEN today (most text in print edition only).

What is less entertaining is the prospects for future global cooperation and partnership (MDG #8) in the light of it.

COP15 according to the Danish government

Let us rewrite COP15 history with a few quotes from the leaked evaluation right away.

December 2008: Connie Hedegaard (at the time Danish minister of climate) says: “In these crucial negotiations, Denmark will serve as your broker. We will do our utmost to be everyone's COP15 President. From now on we are not Denmark, not the EU, not Annex 1. We will listen carefully to all countries – and we promise to work hard to ensure transparency and create consensus.” The leaked evaluation, however, describes unofficial talks with individual groups of countries and an alliance with USA.

Early 2009: The Danish government decided “there were no grounds to seek a new legally binding agreement” because of the low possibility it “would allow the US taking up a legal regime that was built around the Kyoto Protocol”. In other words: Total alignment with US policy from a year in advance of the summit, say one thing in the press while drawing up something entirely different for the summit.

July 2009: At a meeting of the major industrialized nations in L'Aquila, Italy the Danish government discussed the possibility of a non-binding, voluntary outcome of COP15.

November 2009: The goal of a non-binding, voluntary outcome was “further consolidated” at the pre-COP15. No wonder the participating politicians fled out the back door, avoiding cameras and activists waiting outside.

Wednesday the 16^th of December 2009: The Danish Text is leaked. At the time the Danish government officially denies this text is the official proposal for an agreement but the leaked report confirms it was the “first Danish draft agreement” and reveals the government feared it would now “not even be possible to adopt a minimal political statement and that the meeting would end up in a complete collapse”.

Friday the 19^th of December 2009: Obama arrives and is given the depressing news of a COP15 chairman who has lost all hope but still insists on trying to create some new progress in the negotiations.

On closing COP15 Lars Løkke Rasmussen said: “We reached an agreement and it is an agreement that will work. There may be a handful of countries choosing not to sign, but we've got a strong start”. The internal report says: “The ambition level of [limiting global warming to] two degrees reflects consensus on the goal, but the level of detail is less than desired, especially by Europe and likeminded countries, and the Copenhagen Accord initially contains only empty Appendixes”. Not exactly identical messages.

February 2010: Lars Løkke Rasmussen says: “I do not recognize the description of Denmark aligned with USA. There has been no strategy to follow the United States.”

So what?

Politicians saying one thing while doing another may not come as a huge shock to everyone. Politicians not advertising their mistakes even less so.

Where the report is surprisingly rewealing is by acknowledging how the Danish government did “not build the necessary trust” with the UNFCCC and Yvo de Boer. Further, the evaluation describes how “the UN as an organization was divided” between Ban Ki-Moon supporting the Danish strategy and the UNFCCC sceptical of it.

The significance of the leaked Danish Text is evaluated as not being in its content but in the way it was spinned, uniting the developing nations in obstructing the negotiations.

So the divisions ran deeper than what was revealed in media at the time. And how is a UN negotiation supposed to lead to anything if the host country and the responsible UN office doesn't trust each other?

Neither people from the UN or the Danish government has commented on this leaked evaluation.

[Note this is a cross-posting from development.thinkaboutit.eu. Please go to the original article for commenting and discussion. Thank you.]

Sarah Palin is already president of right-wing America—and it's a position with a very big salary.

After only a month in her new position as foreign minister, Lene Espersen has by nearly all accounts committed a major blunder when she bailed out of an important meeting over the Arctic.

In particular, passing up the chance to get to know and form a close working relationship with US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has been criticised by the media and politicians as not only a missed opportunity, but something the US can view as an outright snub.

I'm in Minsk at the moment preparing for a short video training course with local journalists. It's my third visit to Belarus and unfortunately all too short this time. While I'm here I'll be interested to hear what people have to say about local elections set for the end of the month and see how its being reported in the media.

A new bill before the Senate would create a federal mandate for genetically modified (GM) crop research as part of U.S. aid programs, despite evidence that these crops will fail to curb hunger.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the sweet-sounding Global Food Security Act (SB 384) last month with little fanfare. The legislation, also known as the Lugar-Casey Act for the bill's authors Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Robert Casey (D-PA), includes a provision sought after by aid groups that would allow food aid to be purchased — at least in part, locally. The bill aims to reform aid programs to focus on longer-term agricultural development, and restructure aid agencies to better respond to crises. While the focus on hunger is commendable, funding for agricultural development — some $7.7 billion worth of it — under the proposed law would be directed in large part to genetically modified crop research.

A 23-year-old journalist is under arrest for exposing a secret Israeli assassination plot, and another has fled to London, afraid for his life. Judith Miller talks to insiders who have been gagged by the government about the scandal rocking Tel Aviv, and Israel's slide toward Iranian-style censorship.

You've probably never heard of Anat Kamm. Few people have. But for nearly four months, the 23-year-old Israeli journalist has been under house arrest in Tel Aviv for allegedly stealing and leaking secret Israeli defense ministry documents to a journalist from Ha'aretz, one of Israel's leading dailies.

Marina Ponti, UN Millennium Campaign Deputy Director for Europe, today delivered the keynote presentation to the TH!NK ABOUT IT global blogging competition, which devoted its 3rd edition to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

But for the most part, far-left violence in this country has gone the way of the leisure suit and the AMC Gremlin. An anti-globalization movement, including a few window-smashing anarchists, was gaining traction at one point, but it quickly diminished after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. An environmental group and an animal-rights group have been linked with incidents of arson. Beyond those particulars, it is hard to identify any kind of leftist threat.

By contrast, there has been explosive growth among far-right, militia-type groups that identify themselves as white supremacists, "constitutionalists," tax protesters and religious soldiers determined to kill people to uphold "Christian" values. Most of the groups that posed a real danger, as the Hutaree allegedly did, have been infiltrated and dismantled by authorities before they could do any damage. But we should never forget that the worst act of domestic terrorism ever committed in this country was authored by a member of the government-hating right wing: Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

No, that's not a title for a brand new Hollywood movie. That's an a.k.a-title for Robin Hood Tax

The campaign for the Robin Hood tax was launched on 10 February 2010 and is being run by a coalition of over 50 charities and organisations, including Christian Aid, Comic Relief and UNICEF.

"I think this is like a drag net, just to try and catch everyone whose name happens to be on this list. It's guilt by association and I thought those days were over 50 years ago," said Michael Oppenheimer, of Princeton University, who is on the list of 17 scientists. "It looks like a McCarthyite tactic: pull in anyone who had anything to do with anyone because they happened to converse with some by email, and threaten them with criminal activity."

[...]

Rick Piltz, a former official in the US government climate science programme who now runs the Climate Science Watch website, said Inhofe and others were getting in the way of scientific work. "Scientists who are working in federal labs are being subjected to inquisitions coming from Congress," he said. "There is no question that this is an orchestrated campaign to intimidate scientists."

Prince Alwaleed was about to become News Corp's fourth largest voting shareholder (behind the Murdoch family, Liberty Media, and Fidelity Management & Research Co, a mutual fund). The prince has repeatedly defended his homeland as a problem-free place. What he has failed to mention is that he has personally donated huge amounts of money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Alwaleed is the same Saudi prince who made headlines right after 9/11 when he personally went to Ground Zero and offered then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani a $10 million check for the relief efforts. But Alwaleed could not keep his mouth shut. He released a bizarre statement that blamed the attacks – not on the 15 airline hijackers from Saudi Arabia – but on the United States' support of Israel.

"I don't owe him sh*t," Wurzelbacher said. "He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it."

The head spins. This will take days to filter. Days? Weeks, months even.

Perhaps the most disturbing episode in the "hockey stick" controversy was the investigation of climate scientists by the US House Energy and Commerce Committee under Republican representatives Joe Barton and Ed Whitfield, and a subsequent report for that same committee  by an "independent" panel led by George Mason University statistics professor Edward Wegman. In light of various renewed "skeptic" allegations of scientific misconduct against Michael Mann and Phil Jones, and my recent revelation of possible plagiarism and other questionable scholarship in the Wegman report, a complete review of the events of 2005-2006 would seem to be in order.

American citizens are now being placed on a secret "hit list" of people whom the President has personally authorized to be killed

Palin gave her $115,000.00 speech tonight to an audience of less than enthusiastic Tea Partiers.

[...]

The Vintage Palin moment occurred when she sat down to answer questions, which apparently had been pre-screened. So, she had a chance to study up prior to this moment.

And yet, she actually consulted notes scrawled on her hand while fishing around for the answer. As in, a handprompter. Leave it to Sarah.

[...]

Hypocrite Sarah Palin ranting about Obama using a teleprompter? Free. Always free. You can see this on Fox.
Sarah Palin charging to talk about a "populist" movement of the Joe Six Packs? $115,000.00
Sarah Palin cheating during a pre-screened Q and A session? Priceless.

The well-timed release of the stolen CRU emails (a.k.a. Climategate) did much to enhance public awareness of self-appointed climate science auditor Steve McIntyre and his long-time co-author and promoter, economist Ross McKitrick. Indeed, the pair has finally recieved widespread coverage in their native Canada with a spate of mainstream profiles full of fawning admiration from  the CanWest newspaper chain, McLean's magazine and the Toronto Star. That's on top of new interest from the likes of Associated Press and CNN, along with coverage from the usual biased sources like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.

When we say "wild," you say "how wild?" To commemorate this weekend's National Tea Party Convention, take a look back at some of the seminal moments of the movement's short history and vote for nuttiest.

the drafting of the declaration was, in fact, a violation of an agreed-on conference process. [...] Using U.S. Senate opposition as an excuse, Obama's negotiators systematically dampened any hopes for the binding accord that the global public had expected Copenhagen would produce. [...] It's easy to imagine Beijing's resentment at Obama's push to engineer a PR triumph via a declaration with high-sounding rhetoric, laced with meaningless voluntary commitments and backed up by so little actual commitment. [...] the weak, Obama-brokered accord that came out of Copenhagen and was mainly meant to accommodate the United States was also in synch with Beijing's perceived interests.

Why are virtually all climate "sceptics" men?
The question first came to mind on the plane to Copenhagen last week while scanning The Guardian's feature on movers and shakers in the "sceptical" field.
So we go down their list... Bjorn Lomborg, Viscount Monckton, former TV presenter David Bellamy, British National Party leader Nick Griffin, Freakonomicsauthors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Lord Lawson, social anthropologist Benny Peiser, geologist Ian Plimer, US Senator James Inhofe, Czech President Vaclav Klaus... all men

Stunned by having been sidelined in the endgame of the Copenhagen world climate summit meeting, the European Union is debating how to regain influence in the fight against global warming.

Should the E.U., the world's largest trading bloc and economic area, respond to the policy setback and the diplomatic humiliation of the bare-minimum Copenhagen accord by playing Mr. Nice, Mr. Nasty, Mr. Persistent or Mr. Pragmatic?

[...]

The Mr. Nasty camp, led by France and the steel industry, argues that the E.U. has been naïve in its climate diplomacy.

It argues that Europe would gain more leverage by deciding to levy a carbon tax on imports from countries that apply lower emissions standards.

In five years from now, "I would like to see a Europe that is the most climate-friendly region in the world" said climate change Commissioner-designate Connie Hedegaard at her three-hour hearing on Friday. Members of the Environment, Industry and Transport committees quizzed Ms Hedegaard on the Copenhagen climate change conference results, her climate protection strategies and nuclear energy. If approved, Ms Hedegaard would become EU's first climate change Commissioner.

As soon as you point out that someone on the right has made misleading claims, you are accused of pursuing a witch-hunt or behaving like the Inquisition. The delicate sensibilities of rightwingers somehow forbid debate: contradict them, point out their mistakes and falsehoods, and you are immediately charged with persecution.

This is profoundly ironic, as the very people who make such charges — Melanie Phillips is a good example — spend the rest of their time waging war on political correctness.

Pete Peterson, the Wall Street billionaire who wants to loot Social Security, has created a "news network" hooked up to the Washington Post.

Along with similar evidence from other recent high-stakes political events, they reveal an increasing, disquieting willingness to smother even peaceful dissent.

Did Sen Jim Inhofe (R-OK) -- the leading global-warming skeptic in Congress, who has repeatedly called man-made global warming or even global warming itself a hoax, and accused scientists of manipulating data -- himself falsely represented poll data on American public opinion?

Could 2009 go down in history as the year of stupid? Consider the evidence, as illustrated by the top five offenders.

Christmas in Coccaglio, Hooper reports, is being marked by a house-to-house search for illegal (ie black) immigrants. The search, which is sponsored by the local Northern League-controlled council, has officially been dubbed Operation White Christmas and finishes, ho ho ho, on 25 December. One Coccaglio councillor has said Christmas is a feast of Christian identity, not a celebration of hospitality. The whole crackdown has been complimented and backed by Silvio Berlusconi's government.

a few major players have emerged from the talks—some expected leaders on climate change, some names you might be surprised to see were even in Denmark for the talks, and other names you may never have heard of. Find out who's leading the way on climate change when the most powerful elected leaders in the world aren't necessarily doing so.

In no particular order...

Get 115 heads of state and government into one giant conference centre and they all need an equal share of the limelight. So, since Wednesday, they've been taking turns at giving 5-minute speeches that are broadcast on screens dotted every few metres throughout the Bella Conference centre. Some are rousing, some dull, others stunning pieces of theatre, and many just plain entertaining. Here's our pick.

First prize for unrealistic expectations goes to...

the widespread resistance within governments and industry to seriously tackle global warming reminds me of the resistance to the abolition of slavery. It is the same fear.

Denmark may be breaching European law, Danish human rights groups claimed tonight as they called for their government to launch an immediate inquiry after police in Copenhagen used controversial kettling and mass preventative arrest tactics for the third day running.

"One of the things I learned traveling to some 50 countries is that we better hope man is causing (climate change) because if we are in a natural cycle and it is caused by something we can't control, that would really be alarming," Nash said.

Fifty young U.S. clean energy activists stormed the stage today in Copenhagen during a live webcast organized by Americans for Prosperity and featuring climate denier Lord Christopher Monckton.

When the youth group interrupted the webcast to deliver the message that real Americans want clean energy and a fair climate treaty, Monckton went ballistic, calling the students "crazed Hitler youth" and "Nazis."

Here are quick summaries of both the proposals that highlight their differences.

To protest against these false and dangerous "solutions" Friends of the Earth did a magic show in front of the main plenary at COP15. The amazing Offsettico stunned the delegates and observes with his talents.

Greenland, which is a part of Denmark now with home rule government, will be severely affected by climate change. [...] Therefore it sounds like a joke when Greenland wants to emit 14 times more CO2 per citizen. It would mean 170 tons pr.citizen.

The Center For Public Integrity just released a blockbuster investigative report that details the intense corporate pressure to block an effective global treaty from being reached at the UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen in December, and to halt efforts in individual countries to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Back in July, Michael Duvall, a second-term California assemblyman who "is the vice-chairman of the legislature's commerce committee and a member of its ethics committee, are married with two children and are known as a staunch defender of conservative family values" was to appear on a televised committee meeting. Not realizing his mic was already live, he began to brag about his sexual conquests.

Asylum support organisation urges people to help the rejected refugees like the Jews were during Second World War

"The new party in power wants Japan to reduce its (CO2) emissions by 25 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels" and "if it respects (that campaign promise) it would be very good news for the climate," Connie Hedegaard said in a statement.

"The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns," Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa told Haaretz Thursday.

Commenting on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement in Germany Thursday that the lesson of the Holocaust is that Israel should always defend itself, Tutu noted that "in South Africa, they tried to get security from the barrel of a gun. They never got it. They got security when the human rights of all were recognized and respected."

Something strange has happened in America in the nine months since Barack Obama was elected. It has best been summarised by the comedian Bill Maher: "The Democrats have moved to the right, and the Republicans have moved to a mental hospital."

The election of Obama - a black man with an anti-conservative message - as a successor to George W. Bush has scrambled the core American right's view of their country. In their gut, they saw the US as a white-skinned, right-wing nation forever shaped like Sarah Palin.

When this image was repudiated by a majority of Americans in a massive landslide, it simply didn't compute. How could this have happened? How could the cry of "Drill, baby, drill" have been beaten by a supposedly big government black guy? So a streak that has always been there in the American right's world-view - to deny reality, and argue against a demonic phantasm of their own creation - has swollen. Now it is all they can see.

Could rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere prove to be as unmanageable for our early twenty-first century civilization as rising salt levels in the soil were for the Sumerians in 4000 BC?

The Disingenuous Environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg has once again celebrated a public epiphany on climate change, bringing him. once again, to the conclusion that the globe is warming, that humans are to blame and that we - especially we rich people - shouldn't do anything about it.

A strategic thinker, a sharp analyst and an excellent communicator, he was one of the first political leaders actively to promote the use of renewable and local energy resources in the fight against climate change.

The earth has been here for 6000 years and we haven't destroyed it yet, so we don't need no stinkin' laws to protect the environment!

Americans would so prefer a government-run plan that it would destroy the private insurance industry – and that therefore the public option simply can't be permitted

Earlier this week, Colombian lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a controversial referendum bill that paves the way for President Álvaro Uribe to seek a third consecutive term in office.

The referendum would ask voters to decide on a constitutional amendment to allow presidents to run for a third term. But obstacles still remain. The proposal still has to pass a special committee of lawmakers and then be ratified by the country's constitutional court. Uribe would then need to obtain 7.2 million votes (around a quarter of the electorate) for the referendum to be approved.