Climategate Sourcecode – Marc Sheppard

More interesting details – as a programmer, quite interesting. If it is true, then it is quite difficult to defend…

As the evidence of climate fraud at the University of East Anglia’s prestigious Climactic Research Unit (CRU) continues to mount, those who’ve been caught green-handed continue to parry their due opprobrium and comeuppance, thanks primarily to a dead-silent mainstream media.  But should the hubris and duplicity evident in the emails of those whose millennial temperature charts literally fuel the warming alarmism movement somehow fail to convince the world of the scam that’s been perpetrated upon it, certainly these revelations of the fraud cooked into the computer programs that create such charts will…

More… (source)

 

FOI2009

Interesting stuff:

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html

 

The Marriage Index

A couple of reports that may be of interest:

“What helps us the most to thrive, as individuals and as a society?  Money or marriage?  Assets or relationships?

Here’s what we know:  A large body of research suggests that the status of our marriages influences our well-being at least as much as the status of our finances.

But consider this puzzle. Why do we so carefully measure and widely publicize our leading economic indicators, and do everything we can to improve them, while rarely bothering to measure our leading marriage indicators, or try to do anything as a society to improve them?”…

The US Marriage Index Report

The UK Marriage Index Report

 

The Hidden Reality of Abortion – R. Albert Mohler Jr.

… One of the most insidious aspects of the abortion controversy has been the success of the feminist movement in presenting abortion on demand as a matter central to the liberation of women. The feminist logic suggests that women can never be seen as equal to men in terms of career so long as the “risk” and reality of pregnancy and motherhood are present. As the feminists argue, abortion becomes a mechanism for leveling the playing field and for liberating women.

As far back as the 1970s, at least some feminists saw through this logic. Catherine MacKinnon, a radical feminist legal scholar, argued that legal abortion would merely facilitate the “heterosexual availability” of women. In other words, abortion would be a benefit to men, who would be liberated to take sexual advantage of women, knowing that the availability of legal abortion would effectively remove their risk of the entanglements that would come with pregnancy and parenthood…

Over 30 years after Roe v. Wade, we now know that abortion “has increased the expectation and frequency of sexual intercourse (including unprotected intercourse) among young people,” Stith observes. As he explains, the post-Roe expectation is that a woman now has less justification for refusing the sexual advances of a male. By and large, abortion has liberated men from the fear of parenthood, if not of pregnancy. Beyond this, if the woman with whom they are having sex becomes pregnant, the availability of abortion serves, in the mind of men, to reduce if not to remove their responsibility for fatherhood.

The availability of abortion means, in the thinking of many men, that the entire responsibility for pregnancy and parenthood now falls to women. If a woman refuses to have an abortion, having the baby is simply her “choice.” As Stith realizes, this gives many men even more leverage as they demand an abortion as the cost of continuing the relationship. Stith cites a report from the Medical Science Monitor indicating that 64% of American women who have had abortions felt pressure from others to do so.

As Stith explains:

Prior to the legalization of abortion in the United States, it was commonly understood that a man should offer a woman marriage in case of pregnancy, and many did so. Though with the legalization of abortion, men started to feel that they were not responsible for the birth of children and consequently not under any obligation to marry. In gaining the option of abortion, many women have lost the option of marriage…

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Merck Researcher Admits: Gardasil Guards Against Almost Nothing – Steven W. Mosher

On the morning of 2 October 2009, one of us (Joan) joined an audience of mostly health professionals and listened as Dr. Diane Harper, the leading international developer of the HPV vaccines, gave a sales pitch for Gardasil.  Gardasil, as you may know, is the new vaccine that is supposed to confer protection against four strains of the sexually transmitted Human Papillomavirus (HPV).

Dr. Harper came to the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination to prove to us the real benefits of Gardasil. Sadly, her own presentation left me (Joan) and others filled with doubts.  By her own admission, Gardasil has the doctors surrounding me glaring at a poor promise of efficacy as a vaccine married to a high risk of life-threatening side effects…

It is hard to imagine a less compelling case for Gardasil.  First of all, it is highly unlikely that 70% or more of the female population will continue to get routine Gardasil shots and boosters, along with annual PAP smears.  And even if it did, according to Dr. Harper, “after 60 years, the vaccination will [only] have prevented 70% of incidences” of cervical cancer.

But rates of death from cervical cancer are already declining. Let’s do the math. If the 4% annual decline in cervical cancer death continues, in 60 years there will have been a 91.4% decline in cervical cancer death just from current cancer monitoring and treatment. Comparing this rate of decline to Gardasil’s projected “very minimal” reduction in the rate of cervical cancer of only 70 % of incidences in 60 years, it is hard to resist the conclusion that Gardasil does almost nothing for the health of American women…

I left Dr. Harper’s lecture convinced that Gardasil did little to stop cervical cancer, and determined to answer another question that she had largely ducked:  Is this vaccine safe?…

In the clinical studies alone, 23 girls died after receiving either Gardasil or the Aluminum control injection. 15 of the 13,686 girls who received Gardasil died, while 8 died among the 11,004 who received the Aluminum shot. There was only one death among the group that had a saline placebo. What this means is that 1 out of every 912 girls in the Gardasil clinical studies died. The cervical cancer death rate is 1 out of every 40,000 women per year…

Should millions of girls in the United States, many as young as 9, be put at risk, so that sexually active adults can have less “relationship tension” about false positive Hepatitis results? Is the current rate of death, sterility and serious immune dysfunction from Gardasil worth the potential that in 60 years a minimal amount of a cervical disease (that is already decreasing on its own) may perhaps be reduced?…

More… (source)

Merck Researcher Admits: Gardasil Guards Against Almost Nothing

 

Gender-Confused Teacher Takes Catholic School Board to HRC – By Patrick B. Craine

Another case of “gender identity” being pushed as more protected than religion:

EDMONTON, Alberta, October 16, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Alberta Human Rights Commission has accepted a complaint brought against an Edmonton-area Catholic school board by a substitute teacher who was let go after she announced she was ‘becoming’ a man.

Janet Buterman, 39, had been employed by the Greater St. Albert Catholic School Board for about four months when, in June 2008, she informed deputy superintendent Steve Bayus that she was undergoing a ’sex change’ and now wished to be treated as a man.

The following October, Mr. Bayus responded with a letter indicating that Buterman had been removed from the substitute teacher list because the procedures she was undergoing were in conflict with the Catholic teaching upheld by the school board.

“In discussions with the Archbishop of the Edmonton Diocese, the teaching of the Catholic Church is that persons cannot change their gender,” he wrote.  “One’s gender is considered what God created us to be.”…

Buterman maintains that she has a legitimate medical condition – gender identity disorder – and that the board has discriminated against her because of it…

The Alberta Catholic school board is not the only one coming under fire for upholding its Catholic faith.  An Ontario board was the subject of a human rights complaint last month because of its decision not to hire a non-Catholic.  In that case, the school board is asserting its right to hire teachers that espouse the Catholic values they are aiming to instill in their students.

More… (source)

By the way, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms specifically protects against discrimination based on “sex”, not on “gender”. The word “sex” is properly used to identify a person’s biological category (male or female), the word “gender” is used to refer to societal roles and identities relative to a person’s sex (see WHO’s definition). It seems that the complainant is trying to argue around this by considering a sex change operation as a necessary “treatment” for a mental disorder.

For those interested you may want to read the articles from the CBMW on “How the Gospel Ministers to the Transgendered”: (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4).

 

A Third of Dinosaur Species Never Existed? – Brian Handwerk

Interesting, though not really surprising:

National Geographic News (October 9, 2009) – Many dinosaurs may be facing a new kind of extinction—a controversial theory suggests as many as a third of all known dinosaur species never existed in the first place.

That’s because young dinosaurs didn’t look like Mini-Me versions of their parents, according to new analyses by paleontologists Mark Goodwin, University of California, Berkeley, and Jack Horner, of Montana State University.

Instead, like birds and some other living animals, the juveniles went through dramatic physical changes during adulthood.

More… (source)

 

Section 13 Hate Message Clause Unconstitutional Rules CHRT – LifeSiteNews.com

OTTAWA, Ontario, September 2, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled today that section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, Canada’s human rights legislation against hate messages, unreasonably limits the Charter right to freedom of expression…

The hate message section of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) has been the subject of growing criticism, having been accused of placing limits on the Charter right to freedom of expression.  High profile cases have been brought against conservative publisher Ezra Levant and columnist Mark Steyn, as well as numerous cases against Christians who have expressed their convictions against the homosexualist agenda.

The CHRC has admitted to using unethical methods within their investigations.  Notably, in a hearing during Lemire’s case, CHRC employee Dean Steacy testified that he and a number of colleagues regularly used an alias to post racist messages on radical “far-right” websites.  The CHRC was also investigated by the RCMP regarding allegations that they had hacked into a private citizen’s internet connection, though that case was dropped when it led the police to the American jurisdiction…

While bound by the 1990 Supreme Court decision which upheld section 13, CHRC v. Taylor, Hadjis observed that that decision was made “on the belief that the process itself was not only structured, but actually functioned in as conciliatory a manner as possible.”  According to him, the Supreme Court decision “hinged on the absence of any penal provision akin to the one now found at s. 54(1)(c),” which is the clause that allows the Tribunal to impose fines of up to $10,000…

For these reasons, he said, “I have…concluded that s. 13(1) in conjunction with ss. 54(1) and (1.1) are inconsistent with s. 2(b) of the Charter, which guarantees the freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression.

“The restriction imposed by these provisions is not a reasonable limit within the meaning of s. 1 of the Charter.”

Hadjis said that because the Tribunal is not capable of actually repealing section 13, “I will simply refuse to apply these provisions for the purposes of the complaint against Mr. Lemire and I will not issue any remedial order against him.”…

More… (source)

 

7-game review…

A quick review of the last 4 games:

Game #: 13
Opponent: Doug’s Team (2nd place)
Result: Loss (42 – 20-something)
Conditions: Our team was down an outfielder for the first 5 innings, Josh was injured.
Highlight: My brother getting called out due to his excessive showboating on Doug’s third home run when Doug passed him and then passed the plate before him. He didn’t lag in Doug’s next home run.

Game #: 14
Opponent: Some team…
Result: Win
Conditions: I was gone at a council meeting, Josh still injured.
Highlight: I wasn’t there, so I can’t say…

Game #: 15
Opponent: 6th-7th place team.
Result: Win
Conditions: Josh still injured, otherwise fairly good.
Highlight: Matt and Hollie showing up for the game in the middle of their honeymoon.

Game #: 16
Opponent: 3rd-4th place team.
Result: Win (41-19)
Conditions: Josh played back catcher and had a pinch runner, the other team was short on players, we had enough for subs.
Highlight: A quick reverse toss from the glove to the second baseman by someone on the other team.

What about the other three games?

 

More Dawn Treader Pics

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