Or did they?
Despite the reports of the voting outcome, Bush said he was pleased with the process. "You see, when you give people the vote, you give people a chance to express themselves at the polls, they - and if they're unhappy with the status quo, they'll let you know," Bush said. "That's the great thing about democracy: It provides a look into society. . . . And there was a peaceful process as people went to the polls. And that's positive."
I seem to remember a positive reaction to the election of the new Iranian president too. Funny, that. Good for business, I suppose, although we appeared to have invested heavily on the Fatah side.
LONDON, Jan. 26 — European leaders, whose countries are major financial donors to the Palestinian Authority, registered disquiet verging on hostility towards the Hamas triumph in the Palestinian elections today.
Yet, confronted with a Middle East that seemed once again to have redrawn its political contours, they held back from publicly threatening to sever the hundreds of millions of aid dollars they provide each year to Palestinian institutions...
Generous, non?
Israel's reaction is of course as reactionary as the Palestinian reaction to Israel that voted in Hamas in the first place that had to because Israel was paving over Palestinian farms because of Palestinian suicide bombers because Israelis ran Jerusalem because otherwise the...
"There is now a broad consensus, that Israel will go ahead and build our borders to preserve Israel as a democratic Jewish state," said Ami Ayalon, a former director of Shin Bet now running for a seat with the Labor Party.
Yup, even the Anti-Likud are on board with them now. The Mossad must be pleased. Business, as they say, is booming.
Wonderful what a bunch of good hearted religious people can do to make a patch of desert, isn't it?
Speaking of making more desert where the sea level isn't rising:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Last year was the warmest recorded on Earth's surface, and it was unusually hot in the Arctic, U.S. space agency NASA said on Tuesday.
All five of the hottest years since modern record-keeping began in the 1890s occurred within the last decade, according to analysis by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
In descending order, the years with the highest global average annual temperatures were 2005, 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004, NASA said in a statement.
"It's fair to say that it probably is the warmest since we have modern meteorological records," said Drew Shindell of the NASA institute in New York City.
"Using indirect measurements that go back farther, I think it's even fair to say that it's the warmest in the last several thousand years."
It's some pretty amazing data to make it past the administration filters. In fact, it's so amazing it probably won't be available for long. Somebody from Bu$hCo is liable to make them take it down. So let's post the highlights here.
This colorful global map of 2005 average temperatures shows areas that have warmed the most in red, to the areas that have cooled (in blue). Note that the Arctic has warmed significantly. These temperatures are from Dec. 2004 through Nov. 2005. Credit: NASA
Previously, the warmest year of the century was 1998, when a strong El Nino, a warm water event in the eastern Pacific Ocean, added warmth to global temperatures. However, what's significant, regardless of whether 2005 is first or second warmest, is that global warmth has returned to about the level of 1998 without the help of an El Nino.
The result indicates that a strong underlying warming trend is continuing. Global warming since the middle 1970s is now about 0.6 degrees Celsius (C) or about 1 degree Fahrenheit (F). Total warming in the past century is about 0.8° C or about 1.4° F...
Over the past 30 years, the Earth has warmed by 0.6° C or 1.08° F. Over the past 100 years, it has warmed by 0.8° C or 1.44° F.
Current warmth seems to be occurring nearly everywhere at the same time and is largest at high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Over the last 50 years, the largest annual and seasonal warmings have occurred in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Peninsula. Most ocean areas have warmed. Because these areas are remote and far away from major cities, it is clear to climatologists that the warming is not due to the influence of pollution from urban areas.
How that last bit made it on a .gov website these days amazes me. Kudos to the real scientists at NASA. We knew you were plugging away there. Keep up the good work.
Related Link:
+ Global Temperature Trends: 2005 Summation
Check that last link out by all means. It's got a lot of nice summary data of trends over the last 50 years.
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