The Telegraph reports:

Scientists who questioned mankind’s impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.

They say the debate on global warming has been “hijacked” by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.

Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.

One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.

“Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened,” said the professor…

Richard Lindzen, the professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology… recently claimed: “Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges.

“Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science.”

The need to stifle debate indicates all too clearly the quality of the science behind Anthropogenic Global Warming theory.

From Scrappleface:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, said today that the Nevada State Democrat Party’s decision to pull out of a scheduled presidential debate co-hosted by Fox News is “actually a strategic redeployment, not a cut-and-run retreat.”

“There’s no reason to put our brave Democrat presidential candidates in harm’s way,” Sen. Reid said. “We were lured into this debate due to faulty intelligence, and the prudent thing to do is redeploy.”

The majority leader who initially backed the Fox News debate, said he began to question the intelligence that drew him to support the contest when he read the following joke made by Fox News Channel Chairman Roger Ailes at an industry awards ceremony:

“And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don’t know if it’s true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, ‘Why can’t we catch this guy?’

Sen. Reid said, “I cannot condone mocking the intelligence of a sitting president in time of war.”

The Democrat presidential hopefuls will redeploy to a casino on the Las Vegas strip for a non-partisan debate co-hosted by MoveOn.org and The New York Times.

Every day there are news reports of more deaths.
Why are we still there?

We see images of death and destruction on TV every night.
Why are we still there?

We took this land by force. We occupied it. It causes us nothing but trouble.
Why are we still there?

Many of our children go there but never come back.
Why are we still there?

Murderers, Rapists, Pedophiles and Thugs enjoy celebrity status.
Why are we still there?

Their government is unstable.
Why are we still there?

Many of their people are uncivilized.
Why are we still there?

Their land is subject to natural disasters and we are obliged to come to their aid.
Why are we still there?

They have more than 1000 religious sects which we do not understand.
Why are we still there?

Their cultures, foods and diverse ways of life are unfathomable to most ordinary Americans.
Why are we still there?

They cannot secure their borders.
Why are we still there?

They are billions of dollars in debt and it will cost billions more to rebuild.
Why are we still there?

It is now quite clear!
WE MUST PULL OUT OF CALIFORNIA NOW!!!!!!!!!

Daredevil Richard Hammond, on British Television’s Top Gear, tests the effects of a lightning strike on an automobile and its occupant/driver.

video

The democrats are stuffing their military appropriations bill mandating withdrawal from Iraq with billions of dollars in pork to buy votes.

AP:

Democrats seeking votes for their Iraq-withdrawal plan have stuffed the bill it’s in with billions of dollars for farms, flu preparedness, New Orleans levees, home heating and other causes.

Some critics say the Democrats are simply being opportunistic — using a must-pass measure for funding U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to carry items that can’t advance as easily on their own.

At the same time, Democratic leaders are trying to increase support for setting deadlines for ending U.S. military combat in Iraq, which they’ve made part of the larger legislation.

It’s plain that Democrats are unwilling to approve the bill’s $100 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan without devoting considerable sums of money to the home front.

“The president wants to make sure we take care of Iraq, but I think we also have to make sure that we don’t lose sight of what we have to do here at home,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.

Already, money in the bill not directly related to the war exceeds $20 billion.

A must-see 2:48 video

web-site

Hat tip to David Larkin.

The full documentary is now available.

1:15:56 video

Peggy Noonan dispels all the politically correct posturing and moralizing cant with some simple wisdom.

Here is what has been said the past week or so that sparked argument: Bill Maher, on HBO, said a lot of lives would be saved if Vice President Cheney had died, and Ann Coulter, at a conservative political meeting, suggested John Edwards is a “faggot.”

She was trying to be funny and get a laugh. He was trying to startle and get applause.

What followed was the predictable kabuki in which politically active groups and individuals feigned dismay as opposed to what many of them really felt, which was grim delight. Conservatives said they were chilled by Mr. Maher’s comments, but I don’t think they were. They were delighted he revealed what they believe is at the heart of modern liberalism, which is hate.

Liberals amused themselves making believe they were chilled by Ms. Coulter’s remarks, but they were not. They were delighted she has revealed what they believe is at the heart of modern conservatism, which is hate.

The truth is many liberals were dismayed by Mr. Maher because he made them look bad, and many conservatives were mad at Ms. Coulter for the same reason…

One of the clearest statements ever about the implied limits of legitimate political discourse was made by the imprisoned Socrates in his first dialogue with Crito, when he said, “That’s not nice.” Actually, it was your grandmother who said “That’s not nice.” She’s the one who probably taught you the wince. It is her wisdom, encapsulated in those three simple words, that is missing from the current debate.

We tie ourselves in knots trying to explain why it is, or why it isn’t, always or occasionally, helpful or destructive to use various epithets, or give full voice to our resentments. But the simple wisdom of Grandma– “That’s not nice”–is a good guide. (I should say that when I was a kid, grandmas were older people who had common sense. They had observed something of people, had experienced life directly, not only through books or TV. Almost all of them had religious faith, and had absorbed the teachings of the Bible. Almost all of them sat quietly at the kitchen table, and even when I was a kid they were considered old fashioned. They were often ethnic and had accents. As a matter of fact, all of them were.)

I think that as America has grown more academic or aware of education, the wisdom of Grandma has been denigrated. Or ignored. Or stolen and dressed up as something else…

Part of the reason is that Grandma had more sway in the public sphere 50 years ago, which is to say common sense and a sense of decorum had more sway. Another part is that privately people felt they had more room to think or say whatever they wanted without being shamed or shunned. It let the steam out. We think of the 1950s as buttoned up, but in a way America had more give then. Men were understood not to be angels.

Our country now puts less of an emphasis on public decorum, courtliness, self-discipline, decency. America no longer says, “That’s not nice.” It doesn’t want to make value judgments on “good” and “bad.” We have come to rely on censorship to maintain decorum. We are very good at letting people know that if they say something we don’t like, we’ll shame them and shun them, even ruin them.

But censorship doesn’t make people improve themselves; it makes people want to rebel. It tells them to toe the line or pay a price. People who are urged in the right direction and taught in the right direction will usually try to discipline and improve themselves from within. But they do not enjoy censorship from without. They fight back. They are rude in order to show they are unbroken.

This is human. And Grandma would have understood this, too.

I think the atmosphere of political correctness is now experienced by normal people–not people who speak on TV, but normal people–as so oppressive, so demanding of constant self-policing, that when someone says something in public that is truly not nice, not nice at all, they can’t help but feel that they are witnessing a prison break.
As long as political correctness reigns, the more antic among us will try to break out with great streams of Tourette’s-like forbidden words and ideas.

We should forbid less and demand more. We should exert less pressure from without and encourage more discipline from within. We should ask people to be dignified, hope they’ll be generous, expect them to be fair. When they’re not, we should correct them. But we shouldn’t beat them to a pulp. Because that’s not nice.

Read the whole thing.

Dave of Garfield Ridge gets to visit the Vancouver set of the favorite current television show of many intellectuals, the Sci Fi channel’s Battlestar Gallatica.

Dave gets to tour the program’s sets, and even hobnobs with a number of members of the cast, including Edward James Olmos, who discloses that this season

the show was heading into a dark place, even going so far as to call series creator Ron Moore “a real sicko” for what he was doing.

AP:

The leader of the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq has been captured in a raid west of Baghdad, an Iraqi military spokesman said Friday.

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was captured Friday in a raid in Abu Ghraib on the western outskirts of Baghdad, said Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesman of the Baghdad security operation. U.S. officials had no confirmation of the capture.

“One of the terrorists who was arrested with him confessed that the one in our hands is al-Baghdadi,” al-Moussawi said.

Al-Baghdadi has been identified in statements posted on Islamic extremist Web sites as the head of the Islamic State, which was proclaimed last year after the death of the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Al-Baghdadi was said to have headed the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an alliance of al-Qaida and other jihadist organizations, which was set up last year to downplay the role of foreigners in the Iraqi insurgency.

UPDATE 3/10

A more recent report from Iraqi authorities denies that the captured individual is A-Baghdadi, but asserts that he is “a senior Al Qaeda leader.”

Channel 4’s documentary was broadcast yesterday evening in Britain. Some excerpts have already been uploaded.

2:12 Part 1

3:14 Part 2

3:13 Part 3

2:56 Part 4

4:30 Part 5

4:11 Part 6

I expect that the entire program will soon be available.

Judge Laurence H. Silberman wrote the opinion striking down the District of Columbia’s ban on possession of operable handguns in private homes. The District law required privately owned pistols to be kept unloaded and disassembled or rendered inoperable by a trigger lock.

How Appealing reports and has links.