'Tasteful Nipples' And Other Age Musings

The Age gets right to the core of George Bush's visit to Brazil:

A handful dressed up as the grim reaper, while some women paraded through the streets with stickers of George Bush and Adolf Hitler placed tastefully over their nipples.

Indeed. And who else should throw in their five cents to Bush's Latin America voyage other than that masterful economic doyen - Hugo Chavez.

President Chavez said yesterday Mr Bush should be given "the gold medal for hypocrisy". "Now he's discovering … after so many years that there's poverty in Latin America, precisely when the US empire is the principal culprit," said Mr Chavez, who routinely insults Mr Bush.

Although, not often enough for The Age to stop reporting it. Interesting that Hugo would point the finger at America for his own country's economic turmoil, which has a healthy inflation rate of:

Inflation rate (consumer prices):
15.8% (2006 est.)

Which means even the chicken feet are too expensive to eat.

Leave The Bears Out Of It

No one at The Independent bothered to ask the bears how they're going:

The memorandum from Mr Hannon was criticised by the Natural Resources Defence Council in Washington, which wants the US Department of Interior to list the polar bear as an endangered species because of the projected loss of sea ice in the Arctic over the coming century.

Arctic sea ice and the polar bear are especially sensitive issues at present because American scientists have pointed out that the world's biggest land carnivore is unlikely to survive if the Arctic sea ice disappears in summer, which it is predicted to do by the end of the century.

Poor bears, whatever will they do without their ice?

Pictures of a polar bear floating precariously on a tiny iceberg have become the defining image of global warming but may be misleading, according to a new study.

A survey of the animals' numbers in Canada's eastern Arctic has revealed that they are thriving, not declining, because of mankind's interference in the environment.

In the Davis Strait area, a 140,000-square kilometre region, the polar bear population has grown from 850 in the mid-1980s to 2,100 today.

"There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears," said Mitch Taylor, a polar bear biologist who has spent 20 years studying the animals.

Stupid bears, they didn't get the heads-up to drop dead with the rising mercury. In fact, did anyone bother to ask the bears?

Oh yeah, 60 Minutes did, and proved without a shadow of a doubt....Polar Bears don't like Tara Brown!

(S)omething drastically wrong with the world's weather. It came in the shape of a very large, very hungry polar bear - an angry predator, with us as its prey. Stranded in the middle of nowhere with a three-metre, 300kg bear on the attack is a frightening experience. It's also a graphic lesson in what happens when we mess with nature. As global temperatures rise, the ice cap melts and the polar bears' hunting grounds disappear. Now they're starving, desperate for food - so desperate even humans look appetising.

Oh, brother.

Debate Reigns - Sorta

Okay so my essay in debate against the illustrious (and allusive) Debussey is complete. It looks a little bit like this, do read on and let me know what you think:

What would you say is the most important and basic human right?

Perhaps when I mention such a phrase, the first thing that comes into your mind are liberties we use at a whim in our daily lives such as; freedom of speech, the ability to worship any deity we please, the right to choose employer, education, taxation affairs or possibly even the prerogative to bear arms.

Don’t get me wrong, all of these are important characteristics of the modern social-democratic state that most of us have the privilege of residing within. And yet, none of the ‘rights’ I’ve mentioned above is the most critical. Remove any one of the above and you’ll find yourself that much less free. Remove the most important and basic human right; and you’ll find yourself free of freedom. There is a distinction.

And yet, this is the one autonomy that tends to get lost first in any argument over whom should receive what treatment and why. Specifically, the Left has historically been a foremost advocate of everything from Women’s rights to those of blacks, gays and now, more so than ever, endangered animals. The first three of these I have all the patience in the world for, and number four isn’t all that far behind; I like my Polar Bears wearing the terrain, not being worn for it.

What the hell am I talking about?

Well, it’s pretty simple really – simply a very complex moral/religious/political issue. The Left has clearly lost in sense of what is most important to it, and what is actually worth standing up for. We see this most explicitly in the Left’s recently acquired admiration for far-Right religo-maniacal Islamists. An odd combination indeed - and one that probably exceeds the scope of this argument – but it’s worth noting anyway. If the Left can distort what were once noble views of the world and very worthwhile causes into today’s support of Muslim clerics to hold the Western world to ransom at the drop of the proverbial Danish cartoon, then what other moral travesties are they capable of?

Abortion comes to mind. At the mere mention of this word you can drag even the most committed Leftist’s correlated opinions to religious-Right Imams back to the polar opposite of the religious-Right Priest’s. Why is this? What in this world could possibly be more fragile, precious and therefore worthy of the Left’s metaphorical protective wing than a human baby, not yet born to be seen - and therefore within our collective minds - so it would seem. Surely, if there’s any cause worth championing by the Left, it’s the cause of the human child that is yet to have been given the gift of life as we all know it; post-womb.

Only last month, in India, it was reported 437 baby bones were uncovered in central Madhya Pradesh state, where abortions had been carried out illegally by mothers with unwanted female children. It’s an odd accumulation of Western science and archaic Indian tribalism that has caused this to happen; how else would the mothers have known their child was to be female?

And still, a technological progression is not akin to a cultural and moral one. Methods developed to save and nurture lives are now turned in against oneself, in preference of the mother’s choice. Which is, of course, that trumpeted ‘human right’ the Left champions today more than almost anything. I’m still waiting on the global protests that will no-doubt choke our city streets in revulsion of our despicable treatment of Guantanamo Bay inmates, erm, rather - these reproachable human rights violations.

But in all truth, you need not look as far away as India to establish an abortion epidemic, even if by some reports 10 million babies have lost the opportunity at life in the last 20 years. The US and indeed Australia have some astronomical abortion figures in the same period of time. I’d like to make it perfectly clear that my ideological position is not 100% anti-abortion. Some are completely necessary and tragic in their occurrence. In a perfect world, we’d never have to make choices over whose life we should sacrifice.

My abortion stance, what I’d like to consider it to be anyway, is more central than to be involved in a laissez-faire ‘Women’s rights’ Leftist pro-choice disposition. It’s also too Agnostic to buy into the religious-Right’s pro-life stance; within which all abortions are prohibited. I must point out, however, that the Catholic Church’s position on this matter is that man and woman should not engage in pre-marital sex, and therefore would avoid such a dilemma before they were capable of raising a child.

For those of us that are not Catholic, and do not uphold the world of the Bible, the realities of a world where young women become pregnant before they’re prepared for such a challenge is evident. I cannot help but support a raped woman’s prerogative to abort should she be so unfortunate as to find herself in this predicament.

What concerns me most about this abortion issue are matters that involve a child that is more developed; that has spent enough time in the womb to allow it life outside. I cannot find myself in support of the majority of late-term abortions. Where I live in Victoria, Australia, some women have (I must point out, legally), chosen to terminate the lives of their growing babies for the most trivial of reasons:

"In 2000, a prominent Melbourne specialist performed an abortion on a healthy 32-week-old fetus, a girl, after her deeply distressed mother threatened to kill herself if made to give birth to a baby so imperfect.

The mother believed from ultrasound tests that her baby, Jessica, could be a dwarf. But the tests were in fact inconclusive and the staff notes written immediately after the baby had been killed in the womb and still-born at the Royal Women's Hospital state: "On delivery, the baby doesn't look small." It seems possible, and perhaps even likely, that the baby had no "defects", after all."

So that you’re aware, a 32-week old foetus looks like this:

Or not much unlike what you’d expect a baby outside of the womb to appear like. One has to question the processes a mother that has threatened to kill herself, unless her baby is terminated, is taken through.

These cases, and those like it, seem to be quite infrequent in number – even if they happen far more often than we’d like to think – or talk about, for that matter.
On the contrary, an unwanted child that is merely an assortment of cells made up from the appropriate male and female DNA some hours old is not quite the same as ‘Jessica’. In this instance, I can see myself supporting a couple’s decision to take measures ensuring an unwanted baby does not begin to grow.

Destroying a child’s life out of a matter of convenience is, however, mostly a procedure I am morally opposed to. The question is, rather, at what point do we stop calling the biological material growing within a woman a ‘cluster of cells’ and begin labelling it a child? Surely in the ‘Jessica’s’ situation above, she was a child for all intents and purposes. A human being in wait; with all the necessary ingredients to be a post-womb baby with a chance at life.

Such a scenario denies someone their most valuable and basic human right; their right to life. If any cause was worth defending - by anyone - it would surely be the cause of a delicate, womb-encased baby, weeks away from being born into life as you or I see it.

Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: Not So Glorious

Borat finds himself the focus of a human rights report issued by the US State Department:

"The government deemed as offensive the content of a satirical site controlled by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and revoked the .kz domain," the report said.

Borat: Internet Martyr. More worrying, however, are these claims:

In its remarks on Sarsenbaiuly's death, the State Department criticised a Kazakh court for failing "to follow up and investigate signs that other parties and high-level government officials may have been involved in instigating the killings".

The report also listed military hazing, torture by police, unhealthy prison conditions, arbitrary arrests, restrictions on freedom of assembly, domestic violence against women, people trafficking and "severe limits on citizens' rights to change their government" as areas of concern.

Green Malaise Breeds Cynicism

The Guardian gets stuck into the UK's Labour party over its failure to tow the green line, using The Sustainable Development Commission's as its catalyst:

Government operations across Whitehall are "simply not good enough" the report says, and ministers and senior civil servants are failing to set the right example. Sir Jonathan Porritt, head of the commission, said: "I have no doubt that people will see this as hypocrisy on their part."

Ouch, you mean someone that confesses their eco-sins to Gaia can still be hypocritical?

On departmental cuts in carbon emissions the report says: "A drastic change in approach is essential for government to have any hope of meeting its targets. And all this against a background of endless government messages indicating strong support for climate change initiatives. Unless government can quickly take charge of its own operations it risks breeding deep cynicism among the public."

Maybe, so. But what does this mean for Big Al Goracle?

The press release went on to say, according to the Nashville Electricity Service, Gore's 20-room, 8-bathroom home "devoured" nearly 221,000kWh per year, more than 20 times the national household average. His average monthly bill topped $1,359, the report said.

Don't worry, unlike the Labour Government, Al buys 'carbon offsets', you know, those cash confessionals you fork out nominal fees for so that we can plant some more trees somewhere, like Al's livingroom perhaps. Sure, trees store carbon, only problem is that when they die (believe it or not, they all actually do), all of that stored carbon has to go somewhere:

As Prof. Oliver Rackham, the Cambridge botanist and author, says: "Telling people to plant trees is like telling them to drink more water to keep down rising sea levels." What goes in will come out.

And so Al's precious hard-earned has gone to waste - or has it? Who does Al buy his carbon offsets from?

Hon. Al Gore is Chairman

We invest in long-only, global, public equities with a concentrated portfolio of 30-50 companies. We aim to buy high quality companies at attractive prices that will deliver superior long-term investment returns.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that green business isn't good business, right Al?

Blogger Forgets To Post

Well, I haven't forgotten exactly - neglect would be more accurate. Stay tuned for more posts to come shortly, including my upcoming debate on the abortion topic against the illustrious (and possible alien abducted mind of Gary Busey) Debussey from Getbig. I'll be posting both essays and letting everyone decide on the most persuasive. It's a tough topic so stick with us.

Obama 'Appreciates' 9/11 Conspirators

I have a feeling our Democratic Candidate will be moving to distance himself from these theorists as soon as possible:

Democrat Presidential frontrunner Senator Barack Obama has responded to a question posed by an Infowars reader regarding government complicity in the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks.

Three months after the reader sent Obama a correspondence outlining her great concern that criminal elements of the government were directly complicit in the attacks, the Senator sent the following response via email, which was then forwarded to us:

Dear Penny:

Thank you for contacting me regarding your belief that the U.S. government was complicit in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. I appreciate hearing your passionate views on this matter.

While I do not believe the U.S. government was complicit in the attacks, I do think it should be held accountable for the unacceptable mistakes it made in the run-up to that terrible day. The blunders that occurred prior to the 2001 attacks were inexcusable and often outrageous. The series of clear warnings about the potential use of hijacked planes as weapons is just one example of why the "surprise" of 9/11 should have been anticipated. In my view, proof of government complicity is not necessary when making the argument that the U.S. should accept some responsibility for what happened on 9/11.

Thank you again for writing.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama
United States Senator

Why would Obama go out of his way to address such madness? Is he that desperate for votes?

See also the involvement of 'Investigate 9/11' morons on Obama's campaign trail:

Please note that I understand Obama is not explicitly aligning his political views with the 'Investigate' mob, but he doesn't seem to be doing much to play down his involvement with such views. I've also been unable to confirm the above picture has not been tampered with by the 9/11 loony squad.

(Thanks to 240 at Getbig's Political Forum)