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Category: Current Affairs (Page 63 of 76)

Espresso Book Machine

Angus and Robertson in Melbourne installed one of the 1.5 model of these brilliant machines in September last year.

Now Blackwell’s in London have installed one of  the new EBM 2.0 models.

The Espresso Book Machine can print a paperback book, trim and bind it, in anywhere from five to ten minutes.

They have access to over 500,000 titles, including many formerly out of print. The list is growing. You simply run through an on-screen catalogue, pick the book you want,  and ten minutes later it is yours – same size, cover and layout as the original.

The Espresso Book Machine is worth about $150,000 Australian dollars.

Nifty!

Faith Fighter Game Banned After Muslim Complaint

A few years ago in Victoria, Pastors Daniel Scot and Danny Nalliah ran a conference on ministering to Muslims.

A group of Muslims attended in order to be offended. After they were offended as planned, they complained to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Although they made it clear throughout the seminar that Christians were called to love Muslims and minister to them, Scot and Nalliah were found guilty of inciting hatred (mainly for quoting bits from the Quran that Muslims would rather not hear). After five years and vast sums of money, an appeal court acquitted the two pastors of any wrong-doing.

Now, much less seriously but still annoyingly, the game Faith Fighter has been banned after a complaint by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

It’s a dumb game. You can play Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, etc, and attempt to beat the crap out of other religious leaders – like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. Muslims find any portrayal of the features of Mohammed offensive, so the game makers thoughtfully included an option to blank out his features.

As I said, it’s a dumb game. But if  normal people thought they might be offended by this, they just wouldn’t play it.

They wouldn’t play it so they could get offended and then complain and stop everyone else from playing it.

P.S. You can still download Faith Fighter and play it if you want to.

Obama’s 100 Day Spending Spree

Today marks 100 days of President Barack Obama.

Yes, I know. So many people are talking about this it is getting boring already.

Nonetheless, lots of valuable information at Policy Watch, including this graph:

Obama's 100 Day Spending Spree

Obama's 100 Day Spending Spree

Somebody take back the credit cards!

Further news:

1.  In the US, NBC, CBS and ABC will screen Obama’s 100 day press conference. Fox will stick to its normal programming, screening the show ‘Lie to Me.’  Much mirth follows, as some commentators suggest it might be difficult to tell the difference.

2.  White House staffer Robert Gibbs tells reporters they have earned a ‘strong A’ for their reporting on Obama’s first 100 days. In related news, circulation of US newspapers falls at unprecedented rates in the first three months of this year. Via Small Dead Animals.

Michelle Malkin has some interesting, and snarky, comments about the first 100 days, as well as the Scare Force One story:

Come on, who’s surprised? The White House-engineered photo-op of low-flying Air Force aircraft that caused terror in New York City this week epitomizes the Age of Obama. What better way to mark 100 days in office than with an appalling exercise in pointless, taxpayer-funded stagecraft.

The superficiality, the unseriousness, the hubris, the obliviousness to post-9/11 realities: They were trademarks of the Obama campaign and they are the tattoos on his governance.

He never leaves home without his teleprompter. All the Obama world’s a stage. Or a world ready to be staged.

Contradictory Policy Statements From The US

Two oddly contradictory statements today. President Barack Obama says he wants to bring science to the forefront of US thinking, to make the US once again world leaders in scientific research and development.

OK. Excellent.

But how does that square with Hilary Clinton’s announcment that the US is ready to lead the fight against climate change?

There is no science whatever in anthropogenic global warming alarmism.

The simple question to ask is ‘Is there any correlation between human activity and changes in global climate?’

The simple answer is ‘No.’

You can’t have it both ways. You cannot be leaders in science, and then slavishly follow every new scare dreamed up by the media to sell papers, greedy polticians to make money, and unscrupulous researchers to get grants.

Science means looking at the evidence. Here’s an evidence-based introduction to the science of global warming.

Multi-culturalism, Anyone?

A ten year old girl was beheaded by her grandafther in India over the weekend. The man planned to mix her blood with seeds to encourage a good crop.

India has a centuries-old tradition of human sacrifices to appease deities, gain prosperity or ward off evil.

 Oh. Well. That’s all right then. It would be wrong for us to impose our values on anyone else.

This reminds me of the story of the English colonel who stopped a party of men from putting their dead friend’s still living wife on the funeral pyre with his body.

‘You can’t stop us,’ they said ‘Suttee is demanded by our culture.’

‘Fine,’ said the colonel. ‘You carry out your cultural obligation. Then I will carry out my cultural obligation. The one about hanging men who burn women alive.’

Prince Charles’ Massive Carbon Earprint

Charles and Camilla and ten staff headed off to Europe last weekend in a private jet to tell everyone else how they need to pull their belts in and stop emitting so much gas.

According to experts from the Carbon Managers company, which carries out environmental audits, the aircraft’s four European flights over 2,200 miles will leave a carbon footprint of 52.95 tons – nearly five times the average person’s 11-ton footprint for an entire year.

Fortunately for the world, Prince Charles’ profligacy has largely been offset by the generosity of Sydney residents and businesses, who this afternoon had another Earth Hour.

OK, so it was a power outage. Whatever. It’s still good for the planet, right?

Flu Pandemic Republicans’ Fault

There isn’t a swine flu pandemic, but if there were, it would have dire economic consequences, and it would all be the fault of those blasted right-wingers.

Or so says Nation nitwit Nicholls, in a blog post titled GOP KNow-Nothings Fought Pandemic Preparedness.

A real pandemic would indeed have dire economic consequences. The current epidemic is already having a serious effect on tourism to Mexico, and on world share markets.

But Republicans did not fight pandemic preparedness. In 2005 the Bush adminstration allocated $3.8 billion dollars to pandemic preparation. This was part of an overall $7.1 billion disease preparation budget.

This Bush administration budget included the development of plans to deal with any major disease threat. Those plans involved every level of government, and local, state and national health services. The actions and procedures set out in those plans are being used to counter the current threat.

The reason Republicans and Democrats opposed additional spending on pandemic preparedness in Obama’s stimulus proposals was that no one seemed to have any idea of how the money allocated in the stimulus package was to be spent, or even what further needs might exist. The proposed spending was simply padding – pork.

Speaking of the final stimulus package, Democrat New York Senator Charles Schumer said ‘All those little porky things that the House put in, the money for the [National] Mall or the sexually transmitted diseases or the flu pandemic, they’re all out.’ 

So it wasn’t just GOP know-nothings who opposed disease spending just for the sake of spending. Democrat know-nothings opposed it too.

But it was the Republicans who had already put large sums of money into pandemic preparation during the Bush administration, and whose plans are being used now to minimise both human and financial impacts of the current swine flu threat.

More detail on this from Legal Insurrection.

Federal MPs $90 Per Week Pay Rise

Except that it isn’t.

Nick Xenophon has called the increased allowance a back door pay rise, but he knows very well it is not. That is just popularist grandstanding.

It is an increase of 17% in their electorate allowance. MPs cannot use that money as disposable income. It must be used to meet the cost of providing services in their electorate. A large part of what (good) MPs do is provide an information and advocacy service to people in their area.

17% may sound a lot, but this is the first increase in the allowance since 2000. If it were a pay rise for teachers or dockers, I doubt their unions would consider this an adequate increase over the same period.

“Australians have two choices,” said Coalition spokesman on matters of state, Michael Ronaldson. “MPs either set their own terms and conditions or an independent umpire does. I suspect the community would be very much in favour of the latter.”

It’s just that the timing could have been better.

North Korea – No Smiles, And Not Much Else Either

No warmth, nothing to buy, no transport, no hope.

The joys and triumphs of socialism …

Documentary photographer Tomas van Houtryve visited North Korea posing as a businessman looking to open a chocolate factory. Despite 24-hour surveillance by North Korean minders, he was able to take some remarkable photos of  Pyongyang and its people. Photos can be viewed on the Foreign Policy website. Don’t look for happiness here.

Via Small Dead Animals.

Clinton: Renewed Violence In Iraq A Good Sign

Hmm…

Hilary Clinton said that the Iraqi government had “come a long, long way” and that the bombings were “a signal that the rejectionists fear Iraq is going in the right direction.”

Perhaps not such a good sign if you are one of the people who has been killed or injured.

It is just as likely that the renewed violence is because Iraqi terrorists have new confidence because they perceive the current US administration as weak and not having the will to take them on.

And why did Hilary need to reiterate to Iraqi leaders that the US would not abandon Iraq, if, as the Democrats insisted before the elction, the Iraqis couldn’t wait for US forces to leave?

Scientists And Ethicists Growl At Cloning Doctor

The objection is not that Panayiotis Zavos claims to have cloned human beings. Others have done that. Nor is it that he claims to have made hybrid human-animal clones by putting human DNA into cow eggs. Others have done that.

As far as the medical establishment is concerned making human clones, even human animal hybrids, is fine as long as you kill them soon afterwards. They can made to be destroyed for research, or to harvest stem cells.

What Dr Zavos has done that is so disturbing is to claim to have created human clones which were implanted in otherwise infertile women with the hope that they would grow to full term.

He was wrong to do so. Although some would argue otherwise; clones occur naturally – that’s what identical twins are.

But although Zavos’ actions were wrong, creating cloned humans to be members of loving families cannot be any more wrong than creating human clones – living members of the human species – just so they can be destroyed for research.

Queenslanders Cleared Of Flu, But..

Tests on two Queenslanders thought to have contracted Swine Flu after visits to Mexico and the US are negative.

New strains of flu emerge every year. What is worrying about this apparently new version of swine flu is not the transmission rate, which is about average, but the fact that it is so deadly – about 6 deaths for every 100 people infected in Mexico. Mortality rates seem to be lower – between 1% and 4% – in more developed countries.

The virus was originally passed from pigs to people, and is easily transmitted from person to person by coughing, sneezing, or even shaking hands with an infected person. You can’t get it from eating pork.

There is not yet an effective vaccine for the current strain.

This could turn out to be another baseless scare, like the 1976 Swine Flu panic.

But it won’t do you any harm to be cautious.

Update.

Spain has confirmed the first case of the new swine flu strain in Europe.

A 23 year old male student who returned from Mexico on Wednesday suffering from a fever, has tested positive for the virus. Another 17 possible cases are being investigated. At this stage none is thought to be life-threatening.

Eight school students in New York have also tested positive for the disease, with another possible 140 also sick, all from the same school, St. Francis Prep in Fresh Meadows. 

There is no doubt the new strain of swine flu will make its way to Australia.

But there is still no reason to panic. Reasonable precautions should minimise any risk of catching the disease.

Even if you do catch swine flu, the indications are that if you are in good health to start with, and have access to good medical care, the mortality rate is very low. Higher of course for elderly people, young children, those in poor health or with impaired immune systems. People in those groups should take extra care.

I Want My Global Warming

Still raining on Kangaroo Island, which is great – we have no mains water, only what we catch and store ourselves. The tanks are starting to fill. They were virtually empty five days ago, and are now at about one third of capacity, which is pretty good for one weekend.

What is not so cool is that has been so blasted cold – unseasonably cold for April.

Kangaroo Island is not the only place where it is colder than usual:

The first snow of the season fell on NSW yesterday, the first time in 13 years ski resorts had experienced snow in April. Charlotte Pass recorded more than 25 centimetres by early yesterday evening.

A spokesman for Charlotte Pass Ski Resort, Joshua Elliott, said people there were expecting bigger snowfalls before the season compared with last year, and hoping for an earlier season. “We’re definitely gearing up for a bumper season this year,” he said. “There’s some serious snow up there at the moment.”

Philippines Take ‘Ransom’ Approach To Terrorists

Still a very dangerous situation, but I think this is cool – and it seems to be working.

The Phillippine government refused to negotiate with the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, and flatly told them to sod off when they demanded a multi-million dollar ransom for the return of three kidnapped Red Cross workers. ‘Give them back or we will hunt you down,’ seemed to be the government line. One of the hostages was released, another was rescued.

Last week Sulu provincial Governor Abdusakur Tan ordered troops to rescue the final hostage, Eugenio Vagni.

Troops clashed with terrorists in the days following. Then, on Thursday, in a move reminiscent of the Mel Gibson movie ‘Ransom’, National Police Chief Jesus Verzosa offered P500,000 to anyone who provided information leading to Vagni’s recovery.

Governor Tan says information has been pouring in from locals who are fed up with the terrorists anyway.

Outstanding! I hope it works, not just for Vagni, but as an example which will cause Abu Sayyaf and others like them to think again about future kidnapping plans.

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