****Tree Hugger Alert****

A story by Matt Falloon of Reuters entitled "Fossil fuel curbs may speed global warming-scientists" caught my attention.

LONDON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Cutting down on fossil fuel pollution could accelerate global warming and help turn parts of Europe into desert by 2100, according to research to be aired on British television on Thursday. "Global Dimming", a BBC Horizon documentary, will describe research suggesting fossil fuel by-products like sulphur dioxide particles reflect the sun's rays, "dimming" temperatures and almost cancelling out the greenhouse effect. The researchers say cutting down on the burning of coal and oil, one of the main goals of international environmental agreements, will drastically heat rather than cool climate. "When the cooling affect goes away -- and it must do because particles like sulphur dioxide are damaging to humans -- global warming will be much stronger," climate change scientist Dr Peter Cox told Reuters on Wednesday. emperatures could increase in the worst case by up to 10 degrees by the end of the century, the researchers said -- much more than current estimates. Scientists differ as to whether global warming is caused by man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases, by natural climate cycles or if it exists at all. Take away fossil fuel by-products like sulphur dioxide without tackling greenhouse gas emissions, and the extra heat will speed warming, irreversibly melting ice sheets and rendering rain forests unsustainable within decades, Dr Cox said. The climate will warm more in the future but the ability of the land to store carbon dioxide will be compromised," he said, adding that warmer soil was less able to hold the greenhouse gas.

Global warming is a theory. Climates change (always have and always will) regardless of the actions of man.

My country gave more than your country.

You should be ashamed of yourselves

The incomparable natural disaster that laid waste to parts of South East Asia gave birth to some of the most petty, and moronic commentary in the history of printed and electronic media. Whether it was debating dollar amounts whilst in comparison to the upcoming Presidential Inaugural or equating the quote unquote "lack of outpouring of support in relation to the World's response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks." I really couldn't believe my eyes when I read some of the accusations against the US put forward this week in the wake of the horrific Tsunamis that ravaged SE Asia and killed untold tens of thousands. The ever Anti-US mouthpiece Al Jazeera claimed in the lead-off headline on their website that The U.S. knew about the tsunami. The flaming leftist liberal bloggers all took their mandatory swipes at the US and more notably the Bush Administration for apparently doing too little. I guess sending untold dollars, thousands of troops, dozens of military transport aircraft and helicopters(C5Bs, C-130s, Chinooks), and a full carrier battle group(which by the way is more naval power than 95% of the world) doesn't really amount to much. Slamming Bush is one thing, but comparing this to 9/11 is just plain wrong. One act was completely intentional, the other was an act of God.

The real irony of the situation in SE Asia is not in the debate over the perceived lack of US involvement, whether its over the left-wing(or progressive, if you choose) media's failure to mention what really goes on in areas such as Phuket, Thailand. As I'm sure you haven't read, Phuket is the prostitution resort capital of Thailand and specifically one of the centers of the child sex/slave trade.
I found this, of all places, on the phuket.com tourism website.

Child Labourers: In Phuket a number of children of migrant workers, who have no right to attend a school, are working on building sites alongside their parents. There are also children being used as "sympathy salespersons" by their parents to get donations from tourists, many until the early hours of the morning.
Sex Workers: In Thailand there are a large number of sex-for-sale outlets. Many of these employ, and in some cases, enslave young children for their customer's pleasure. In some cases, these children are sold to the brothels by their relatives or tricked into working in the sex industry by pimps who offer jobs in restaurants in the city.

Wow, a full-blown admission that "children of migrant workers have no right to attend school". Appalling to say the least. I sure hope we get as much money that we can to the ravaged bathhouses and get these kids back to work. The only images I saw on TV were the tourists climbing to higher ground and the wrecked hotels, but not one news outlet I saw mentioned why many of the tourists were really there. Please sample some of the following links:
http://www.worldsexguide.org/phuket.txt.html
http://www.funkyguide.com/bars/asisterhood.htm
http://goasia.about.com/cs/thailand/a/thailandsex.htm
I think that's enough, but if you want more, just do your own Google Search. Maybe the reason the Left-Wing Media isn't mentioning this is due to the fact that it is, or was a favorite vacation spot.

Pandering 101

As you may or may not have seen, the Democrats of the US Congress wasted the entire first day of the new session by failing to certify the Presidential election. Even though by their own admission they wound be "unable to overturn the results of the election", a Grand total of one Senator, Barbara Boxer (D-CA) officially lodged an objection to the certification. This prompted a tearful photo op for Boxer, whom many have tagged as a potential running mate for Hillary Clinton in 2008. My question is, if blacks are allegedly disenfranchised when the Democrats lose the elections, why are the elected officials in these allegedly disenfranchised precincts not held accountable for the alleged voting irregularities? The answer is, because there are none. Each polling location in Ohio has a representative of both the Democratic and Republican parties. None of these representatives reported any irregularities. Why should we believe them? Because they were there! Michael Moore was even in Ohio on election day. He packed up and left because he couldn't find anything either.

This being my first entry of the new year, I just wanted to wish everyone a happy New Year.