Reflections From a Murky Pond

To what should be the everlasting shame of the US and of Pasadena, CA in particular, the Tournament of Roses Parade has chosen to include a float from the communist regime in Beijing. A Chinese Olympic float will be included in the 2008 Rose Parade, despite China’s ongoing human rights violations and willful environmental devastation. This will be a propaganda coup on par with Hitler’s 1936 Olympics.

For three months, the Visual Artists Guild, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, Caltech Falun Gong Club, Conscience Foundation, China Ministries International, LA Friends of Tibet, Justice for American Victims in China, Jews Against Genocide, New York Coalition for Darfur and many other human rights groups and volunteers have been trying to convince the City of Pasadena, CA to do the right thing and oppose a Beijing Olympics Float of Shame. This humanitarian initiative has been a failure.

To further show that the City of Pasadena, CA is in the pocket of the evil old men in Beijing, Pasadena Police Chief Bernard Melekian on Tuesday, December 18th, rejected a proposal by critics of China to precede the Tournament of Roses parade with a human-rights march down Colorado Boulevard. This human-rights march would have been a 100-person marching band and a Human Rights Torch Relay about two hours before the parade. It had been approved by the Tournament of Roses planning committee.

Mr. Melekian, how much are the communists in China paying you to sell out our nation’s New Years celebration? How much more money will you ask to commit treason?

H/t to orangehairboy for the source!

The canine community, realizing that neither the ASPCA nor PETA could provide proactive protection from thugs like Michael “Sick” Vick, has adopted their own countermeasures to some of the evils and risks of dogfighting:

moar cute puppy pictures

And remember the Sick Vick Chew Toy makes a perfect training aid for your canine knight in shining armor.

UPDATE: While I’m linking to this image at LOLDogs, the original image is from the website of a professional armorer. His site is PITBULL ARMORY.

On December 13, 2007, former US Vice-President Al Gore spoke at the UN Climate Conference in Bali. Once again Mr. Gore chose to attack his home country.

I am not an official and I am not bound by diplomatic niceties. So I am going to speak an inconvenient truth: my own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali

– Al Gore
At the UN Climate Conference

I suppose this is no surprise; Al Gore’s primary shtick is bashing the US. It is sadly also unsurprising that Mr. Gore is once again ignoring some truly inconvenient facts about the usefulness of the Kyoto Protocol:

It would seem reasonable to think that the signatory nations would be doing a better job of curtailing carbon emissions. It would also seem reasonable to think that the US, who won’t even ratify the Kyoto Protocol, would keep emitting CO2 at growth levels much higher than those signatory nations. It would be fallacious to think so.

Data on CO2 emission levels per nation are available from the U.S. Census Bureau. By comparing numbers from 1997 (the year the Kyoto Protocol was agreed upon) and 2004 (the latest year data is available for) we can arrive at the following statistics:

• Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
• Emissions from signatory nations increased 21.1%.
• Emissions from non-signatory nations increased 10.0%.
• Emissions from the United States increased 6.6%.

In point of fact United States’ CO2 emissions grew slower than those of over 75% of the Kyoto Protocol’s signatory nations.The Kyoto Protocol isn’t working - except as a vehicle for Al Gore’s ego.

One possible piece of good news for the world is that the Bali talks were aimed at launching negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. Hopefully something will be put into place that works this time. Perhaps the UN could start by stripping China and India of their supposed Emerging Nation statuses and applying the Protocol them as well.

• Emission increased from China 55%
• Emission increased from India 27%

Since the fact that these two up and coming commercial and industrial powerhouses wouldn’t be bound by the Kyoto Protocol due to their Emerging Nation status was one of the major reasons for the US’ refusal to ratify the treaty, perhaps that should be the first correction.