Series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain

How could this happen?

Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims.

The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds.

Gordon Brown announced last month that he would force supermarkets to charge for the bags, saying that they were “one of the most visible symbols of environmental waste”. Retailers and some pressure groups, including the Campaign to Protect Rural England, threw their support behind him.

But scientists, politicians and marine experts attacked the Government for joining a “bandwagon” based on poor science.

Lord Taverne, the chairman of Sense about Science, said: “The Government is irresponsible to jump on a bandwagon that has no base in scientific evidence. This is one of many examples where you get bad science leading to bad decisions which are counter-productive. Attacking plastic bags makes people feel good but it doesn’t achieve anything.”

Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals.

They “don’t figure” in the majority of cases where animals die from marine debris, said David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject. Most deaths were caused when creatures became caught up in waste produce. “Plastic bags don’t figure in entanglement,” he said. “The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.”

He added: “The impact of bags on whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals ranges from nil for most species to very minor for perhaps a few species.For birds, plastic bags are not a problem either.”

Full article (here).

(Video) Man in the Arena

This is a really well done political ad for John McCain. I don't just say that because I support him. Rather, I just think that as a 2-minute "film", it is incredibly well done.

Of course, they kind of "cheated" by putting in Winston Churchill audio. :)

(Video) McCain Why Are You So Angry?

This video inspired the Associated Press to run a piece on John McCain's famous "temper" (found here).

I think it sounds like I do when dealing with stupid people. :)

RAF personnel ordered not to wear uniforms in public after suffering abuse in the street

Man, you have to sink pretty low to out-hate Berkeley.

Full article (here).

They serve their country with pride and are ready to put their lives on the line.

Yet RAF personnel have been repaid with volleys of abuse in the street.

So bad is the problem that servicemen and women from RAF Wittering have been ordered not to wear uniform in public.

They were told to keep a low profile in nearby Peterborough following seven months of verbal attacks.

The insults have come from a "cross section" of the community and are believed to be linked to current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to air-base officials.

Violence Leaves Young Iraqis Doubting Clerics

Sounds like a great time to retreat.

After almost five years of war, many young people in Iraq, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.

In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.

“I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.”

Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: “The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.”

The shift in Iraq runs counter to trends of rising religious practice among young people across much of the Middle East, where religion has replaced nationalism as a unifying ideology.

While religious extremists are admired by a number of young people in other parts of the Arab world, Iraq offers a test case of what could happen when extremist theories are applied. Fingers caught in the act of smoking were broken. Long hair was cut and force-fed to its wearer. In that laboratory, disillusionment with Islamic leaders took hold.

It is far from clear whether the shift means a wholesale turn away from religion. A tremendous piety still predominates in the private lives of young Iraqis, and religious leaders, despite the increased skepticism, still wield tremendous power. Measuring religious adherence, furthermore, is a tricky business in Iraq, where access to cities and towns far from Baghdad is limited.

But a shift seems to be registering, at least anecdotally, in the choices some young Iraqis are making.

Full article (here).

Pace Student Who Dumped Korans in Toilet Gets Community Service

Can someone please explain to me how burning an US flag is a protected act of expression and this event is considered a crime?

A former Pace University student who twice threw copies of the Koran into a toilet at the school after disputes with Muslims pleaded guilty Monday to disorderly conduct in connection with the incidents.

Stanislav Shmulevich, 24, pleaded guilty as part of a deal in which he must do 300 hours of community service. He has completed about 80 hours of the service at a hospital, his lawyer said.

Shmulevich, of Brooklyn, admitted he tossed the Muslim holy books into toilets at Pace on Oct. 13, 2006, and Nov. 21, 2006. A criminal complaint says the Koran that was recovered in the October incident "was covered in feces."

In both cases, a teacher found the books in a men's room on the second floor of the school's main building in lower Manhattan.

Muslims consider the Koran a sacred writing that contains the direct word of God, and desecrating it is seen as an offense against God.

Detective Faisal Khan, who prepared the complaint, said Shmulevich told him "he committed the acts out of anger toward a group of Muslim students with whom he had a recent disagreement."

Full story (here)

(Video) Why you shouldn't shoot at US helicopters

Warning: contains images of terrorists being ventilated.