This is rich, but not unexpected. Form the Associated Press:

President Omar al-Bashir said Wednesday that he would bar Danes from Sudan and told tens of thousands of people at a government-backed rally that the Muslim world should boycott Denmark because of a reprinted cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.

“We urge all Muslims around the world to boycott Danish commodities, goods, companies, institutions, organizations and personalities,” al-Bashir told the crowd outside the Republic Palace in downtown Khartoum.

“Down, down, Denmark!” shouted the crowd. Al-Bashir vowed that “not a single Danish foot will from now on desecrate the land of Sudan.”

Who wants to go to Sudan anyway? I can’t imagine that Sudan is a hot Danish tourist spot, nor that they are a market for Danish goods.

To refresh your memory, this is all a result of the Danish newspapers reprinting Muhammad cartoons. You can read my post on it here.

There is a bit of Irony here, as there always is in these cases:

First, most of the Danes that are in Sudan are there with humanitarian aid organizations, or with the UN peacekeeping forces.

It was not clear whether al-Bashir planned to act on his rhetoric and force out the hundreds of Danes who work in Sudan, most in aid organizations, with a dozen in the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Sudan.

Secondly, Sudan is one of the largest recipients of Danish aid.

But Sudan is one of the largest recipients of Danish aid and Danish aid groups that operate there include the Danish Refugee Council and the Danish Red Cross, which runs large projects to alleviate suffering in the western Darfur region.

Sudan received $26 million in Danish aid in 2006 and a $100 million humanitarian and reconstruction package is planned through 2009.

So I will be looking out for any Danish goods I can buy. Not that I have the least idea on what they export. In any event I guess a reprint of my favorite cartoon is in order.

Also Reporting:
Michelle Malkin

I guess Greenpeace didn’t hear the news. This from Reuters:

First they scaled the roof of Parliament:

Protesters scaled the roof of Britain’s parliament in a major security breach on Wednesday and threatened further direct action against government plans to expand London’s Heathrow airport.

Environmental protesters from the “Plane Stupid” group scaled the Houses of Parliament to mark the end of a public consultation period on a third runway and sixth terminal at what is already the world’s busiest international airport.

“NO THIRD RUNWAY,” read one of the banners they unfurled and hung down the side of the building.

Then they penetrated Heathrow’s security and hung another banner on the tail of a jet:

The demonstration followed another serious breach on Monday when Greenpeace activists penetrated Heathrow’s own security to climb on an aircraft and wrap a banner around its tail plane.

Why, you may ask, is Greenpeace so interested in blocking another runway at Heathrow?

Why, global Warming of course.

But environmental groups have joined forces with angry local residents, saying roughly doubling the number of flights from Britain’s busiest air hub would make a mockery of government pledges to reduce carbon emissions to tackle global warming.

I have already posted on the record snows over North America, Siberia, Mongolia, and China; the record low temperatures, the return of the ice caps, and the thickening of the Arctic Sea Ice. Unfortunately, Greenpeace must not be paying attention.

Who knows, perhaps we should build even more runways to combat the threatening of a new ice age!

After years and years of hearing about Global Warming, this article was very interesting:

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average.”

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

[…]

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its “lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Funny we never heard a thing from the MSM on this. After all the years of hype pointed at global warming I guess it is to much to expect a bit of evidence to get in the way.

I wonder what Gore will think… no, never mind, I really don’t care what Gore thinks.

Makes me glad I sold my snow blower and moved to Houston.

Probably not an endorsement that someone running for President of the United States will want to proclaim, but it does add color to an already frightening picture. Be afraid, be very afraid.

From the AP:

In his first major public address since a cancer crisis, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said Sunday that presidential candidate Barack Obama is the “hope of the entire world” that the U.S. will change for the better.

The 74-year-old Farrakhan, addressing an estimated crowd of 20,000 people at the annual Saviours’ Day celebration, never outrightly endorsed Obama but spent most of the nearly two-hour speech praising the Illinois senator.

“This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better,” he said. “This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama’s audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed.”

Picture from Watching America via Gatway Pundit

Also Reporting:
Astute Bloggers
Gateway Pundit
Discerning Texan

Well, I guess even killing innocent Christians can get boring - so why not attack that evil Wikipedia?

Nearly 100,000 people worldwide have signed a Web-based petition asking Wikipedia to remove all depictions of the Prophet from its English-language entry.

“I request all brothers and sisters to sign this petitions so we can tell Wikipedia to respect the religion and remove the illustrations,” the creator of the petition at The Petition Site asks.

[…]

All four images on the English-language Wikipedia page are rather lovely Persian and Ottoman miniatures from the 14th through 16th centuries. The two later ones depict Muhammad’s face as covered by a white veil, but the earlier pair show his full face.

You can find the petition itself here. There you can find some very stellar artwork like the following high quality picture. Nothing like the pictures they are trying to remove from Wikipedia.

The goal was to get 10k signatures, and by the time I visited they had 134,846, so a bit more than expected. (…and no, i didn’t sign).

Here is the text from the Petition itself:

In Islam picture of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and other Humans are not allowed. But Wikipedia editors are showing illustrations with face illustrated and face is veiled or white washed. But still they are offensive to Muslims. I request all brothers and sisters to sign this petitions so we can tell Wikipedia to respect the religion and remove the illustrations.

Note that is is not a petition to “ask” Wikipedia to remove the illustrations, but to “tell” them. All of the pictures (see below) are from 13th - 15th century art - nothing insulting or degrading. Note the comment in the above text about (and other Humans). While it seems crazy to even suggest that Islam would go from here to banning even artistic or even actual representations of Humans, but I am convinced that there is nothing to extreme from these zealots.

It just boggles the mind. I hope Wikipedia doesn’t cave in to the pressure, and so far it looks like they are not. Wikipedia posted a lengthy FAQ talking about how uses can turn off the images, and why the images on Wikipedia do not actually fall under the ban.

Lastly, in a lame effort to get someone to make a petition against me - here are local copies of all the pictures mentioned on the petition. Should Wikipedia give in, I will keep them here.

This is a picture believed to be the earliest surviving depiction of Muhammad, dated approximately 1315. How did this author escape beheading?

This is a picture from c. 1595 showing Muhammad’s face being veiled - but even the veil is not enough to avoid this insult to Islam.

This image shows Muhammad preaching in Mecca and is believe to have been created in 1489.

Also Reporing:
Stop the ACLU
The Free For All

Today, December 1, is my Birthday.

It also happens to be World AIDS Day. World AIDS day is, according to the official website:

World AIDS Day, 1 December is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV and AIDS. This year, it’s up to you, me and us to stop the spread of HIV and end prejudice.

This sounds noble enough, but on occasions where the AIDSs drums are taken out and pounded, I feel it always good to have some perspective. AIDS, while a killer, is not what the media would want us to believe. There are still far, far worse killers which do not get a tenth of the airtime and media attention which is given to AIDS.

First, in the US, it is important to be aware that AIDS is not even on the top 10 list of the most deadly diseases in the USA. In 2003 (see note at the end), AIDS accounted for 15,798 deaths. During that same year, Heart Disease accounted for 685,089 deaths. That is less that 3%. Even the last place on the top 10 list had over two times the deaths as those by aids. With the increase in AIDS drug quality and availability, that gape is widening.

(top 10 source, AIDS source)

Add to this the fact that, by the last CDC/NIH funding data I could find, AIDS receives over 20 times the funding of the number one killer, Heart Disease.

But lets be fair, it is World AIDS day after all. AID is a global problem, so shoudl be viewed also from that perspective. The picture is not quite so stark there, but is is still unbalanced.

(source)

Note the above that AIDS dose round out the top 5 causes of death globally. However, note that the number one cause of death still occurs almost 3 times more often. The number two cause of death globally is still more than twice as likely to occur.

Lastly, no conservative blog would be complete without a few comments on AIDS transition. The number one cause of AIDS transmission is still male to male sexual contact, and second is inter-venous drug use. The stats I have are from mostly development countries and I have no data to confirm or deny that this trend continues in some of the worst hit areas, such as Africa. I will leave the conclusions and commentary on these facts to you.

Is AIDS a terrible and devastating disease? Most certainly, but lets not forget that AIDS is not our biggest problems nationally or globally. It is not the only treatable and preventable disease, and it should never be permitted to eclipse our view of the real killers in the world.

Note: For the ease of comparison, the numbers I sited in the charts above are all from 2003. While I had plenty of US data for 2004 and even some for 2005 I could not find comparative data for the world at large. So, to avoid confusion I went with the most recent year in which I had a complete, global, set of data.

Cross Posted from Revealing the ACLU: The Weldon Amendment, also knows as the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act is a 2004 law which stops federal, state and local governments and agencies from discriminating against heath care providers who choose not to offer abortion services, including coverage or referral services. The Weldon Amendment was a response to local laws which where requiring health care organizations to provide abortion services despite ethical, moral, or religions beliefs.

Naturally the ACLU, NFPRHA and Planed Parenthood jumped all over the Amendment, and took it to court.

I am glad to report, they lost.

From the Alliance Defense Fund:

A federal appeals court today upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a pro-abortion group challenging the “Weldon Amendment.” The Weldon Amendment is a federal statute that prohibits the federal government or state and local governments receiving certain federal aid from discriminating against medical professionals who refuse to perform or refer for abortions.

“Doctors and nurses should not be forced to participate in abortions against their religious beliefs or conscience. Under the banner of ‘choice,’ the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association asserted a supposed right to do this, but the court didn’t buy it,” said Casey Mattox, litigation counsel for CLS’s Center for Law & Religious Freedom. “This decision turns back the effort to enshrine abortion as a right above even the First Amendment.”

NFPRHA challenged the Weldon Amendment just days after it was first signed into law in December 2005. After a federal district court upheld the law, NFPRHA appealed, arguing that the Weldon Amendment was too vague to enforce and that their member organizations had a constitutional right to force medical professionals to provide abortion referrals.

You can find the complete court decision here.

Once again we see how freedom is, in the opinion of organizations like the ACLU, Planed Parenthood, and NFPRHA, a one way street.

I am sure this challenge will go further. As I hear more, I will be sure to update you here.

In a very tight vote, Missouri Amendment 2, which legalizes cloning for scientific research (more on Amendment 2 here), passed popular vote yesterday. The Amendment to the Missouri constitution passed by a very slim margin of 1.4%, or 27,500 votes.

I am saddened that Missouri, a normally conservative state, would take such a step. I cannot help but wonder if the vote was an informed vote, or just a show of success for politics which include high profile celebrity adds and cleverly disguised amendment wording. In my original post warning of the dangers of Amendment 2 I placed my hope in educated voters who would see beyond the shiny wrapper of Amendment 2 into the dangers within.

Well Missouri, you now have the product of the democratic process, and the consequences come with the right to vote.

Your voting has provided your future generation with the following benefits:
1. You have made cloning a Missouri constitutional right, a right that 76% of your opposed when asked a directly.
2. You have created protections and ensured the profits of Missouri biotech companies who place ethics a distant back seat to profits.
3. You have provided that you tax dollars will now go to promote research in cloning.
4. You have hand-cuffed the legislature in the regulation of these biotech companies.
5. You have created a steeping stone to foster cloning on the rest of the US, a stepping stone that large companies and there hefty legal departments are just waiting to step on.

I am sure many if not most Missouri voters who voter for this bill where sucked in by the misleading label of “A Ban on Human Cloning”, though it is nothing of the sort.

Good luck, Missouri, your going to need it.

Pro-lifers, like myself, have often suggested that the next natural step in the logic which support Abortion is Infanticide – the killing of the newly born. Most people dismiss the notion out of hand, as the thought is naturally reprehensible. But perhaps we are not as far off as we thing. The very issue of legalizing Infanticide is being considered in the UK.

From the BBC:

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists wants a discussion over whether “deliberate intervention” to cause death should be legalized.

Withdrawing treatment is already permitted in some cases.

The college said it was not necessarily in favour of the move, but felt it should be debated. However, some are angry it has even been suggested.

The concept is chilling, but with a core of logic and even humanity to it. It is a sirens song, and places us further and further down an ethical slippery slope where life has less and less value. Taken together with the movements towards human cloning, embryonic stem cell research, and Euthanasia it paints a chilling picture of what our future may be like.

Something to think about.

Yes, you heard correctly. Al “Smoking Causes Global Warming” Gore is to help the UK sell the Global Warming case here in the US.

From The Guardian:

Britain is to send the author of today’s landmark review on global warming to try to win American hearts and minds to the urgent cause of cutting carbon emissions - as it emerged yesterday that the government has already signed up former US vice-president Al Gore to advise on the environment.

While I don’t want to play down the condition of our environment, and the steady damage we are doing to world — do you think the UK could have found a more credible source?