Yes, the UN made a cartoon fairy a UN ambassador.

TINKER Bell is officially a UN ambassador.

And we’re not talking about Paris Hilton’s pretty pooch.

Peter Pan’s jealous little fairy friend has followed in the footsteps of other gorgeous gals Geri Halliwell, Gisele Bundchen and Angelina Jolie to do her part for the planet.

But this green do-gooder has made the history books – by becoming the first cartoon character to be honoured with the prestigious role.

The Disney favourite was named an “Honorary Ambassador of Green” in a special New York ceremony, which took place over the weekend.

As part of the Secretary General’s Creative Community Outreach Initiative, tiny Tinks will bring to life the underlying theme of caring for the environment, which regularly runs throughout her much-loved movies.

So while George promotes peace and David kicks it with the kids, this glittery UN girl is getting stuck straight into her first task by joining forces with the UK’s Energy Saving Trust to create Tinker Bell themed activity sheets.

Her no-cost energy saving tips include turning lights off when not in use and not leaving energy-guzzling gadgets such as games consoles and televisions on standby.

The amazing new gig comes at a busy time for Tinks, just weeks away is the release of her lastest flick Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (out November 16).

Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information said: ‘We’re delighted Tinker Bell has agreed to be our Honorary Ambassador of Green.

“This beloved animated character can help us inspire kids and their parents to nurture nature and do what they can to take care of the environment.”

Prestigious? Being a UN ambassador ceases to be an honor or a prestige when you start giving the title away to anyone who’s interested and is mildly famous, and becomes even less prestigious when you give the title to a freaking cartoon fairy. I can understand getting Disney’s permission to use her likeness to attract kids into caring for the environment, but actually naming her a UN ambassador? It’s ridiculous! Tinkerbell doesn’t even exist!

It’s like the UN has descended into a complete parody. When an organization is making cartoons ambassadors, it makes it pretty dang hard to take them seriously.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary or follow her on !

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They didn’t flat-out refuse Obama’s deal, but they might as well have. Could it be because Ahmadinejad has no respect for Obama?

Iran’s response Thursday to a proposed deal to transform its controversial nuclear material into fuel for a medical reactor is “inadequate,” a senior Western diplomat said, adding that it failed to address key United States and European concerns about Iran’s nuclear intentions.

Iran answered the proposal to temporarily move most of its enriched uranium to Russia and France to be further refined and shaped for use in a medical reactor after a delay of nearly a week and a flurry of contradictory signals.

The proposal would have depleted Iran’s stockpile of nuclear fuel below the threshold necessary for making a single nuclear bomb, possibly creating diplomatic breathing room for a broader agreement between Tehran and those worried about its atomic research program.

But according to the diplomat, Iran wants to send its uranium abroad in smaller batches over an undetermined stretch of time rather than the lump transfer by year’s end outlined under the proposal offered by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

Such a change would allow Iran to quickly replenish its stock.

Gee, I wonder why Iran wants to send its uranium in smaller batches then. Could it be because they have absolutely no intention of abandoning their nuclear program? While Ahmadinejad is shouting his cooperation from the rooftops for anyone to hear, it’s just an empty statement. His actions say something completely different, and it’s clear that he has no respect at all for Obama or the UN.

Of course, we were promised that the world would love us once again if we elected Obama. Obama would usher in “smart diplomacy” and he would be able to negotiate with terrorists other world leaders and everyone would be happy again. And this is our newer, smarter diplomacy? Iran and North Korea are both getting bolder and bolder, launching more and more test missiles, and getting further and further into nuclear weapons programs. Obama’s response is to launch a plan to remove our missile defense shields in eastern Europe and do nothing except ask Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il to please stop. He talks a big game, but doing absolutely nothing to back up what he says. Why should Iran respect or fear him?

Theodore Roosevelt believed in speaking softly and carrying a big stick. With Obama, it’s speak loudly and carry a limp stick.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary or follow her on Twitter!

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Denmark’s prime minister says he does not think a legally binding deal on climate change will be agreed upon at a December summit in Copenhagen.

Lars Loekke Rasmussen spoke ahead of an EU summit at which climate change will be one of the main topics.

“We do not think it will be possible to decide all the finer details for a legally binding regime,” he said.

However, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that even if no treaty is signed in Copenhagen, he was confident a political agreement could be reached there.

Essentially, that is all the Kyoto Protocol was, a political agreement. That is still a bad thing, though, since the majority of signatories harmed their economies and still failed to reach their assigned targets. But, it will surely give theBamster a chance to fly off to attempt to be Mr. Rock Star again, do a little blame Bush, and try to show that he is actually relevant on the world stage. Guess who gets to pay for his carbon offsets?

Good thing a leading UN IPCC report author, who shares that Nobel the group won, doesn’t state that cap and trade won’t destroy the U.S. economy or something similar.

Meanwhile, you know what all those greenhouse gasses causes in the Philippines?

But Sarah Umayat, medical technologist of the town’s rural health center, was forced to bring a vaccine thermometer to find out [if] it could be used to gauge the temperature.

The sudden dip in temperature had surprised residents, she said. She noticed the change in temperature after Typhoon “Pepeng” struck the Cordillera’s upland towns.

“Maybe this is another effect of climate change,” she said.

Apparently, it causes Idiocy. It is also so evil, it supposedly forces children in the Philippines to quit school and stay at home to watch their brothers and sisters.

Finally, just to make your day complete, supermodels strip (not all the way) for global warming (starts about 20 seconds in.) I can’t find the full video over at 350.org, but, hey, you can get their iPhone app, and lower emissions 350 music player!

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A U.N. human rights investigator warned the United States Tuesday that its use of unmanned warplanes to carry out targeted executions may violate international law.

Philip Alston said that unless the Obama administration explains the legal basis for targeting particular individuals and the measures it is taking to comply with international humanitarian law which prohibits arbitrary executions, “it will increasingly be perceived as carrying out indiscriminate killings in violation of international law.”

Alston, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s investigator on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, raised the issue of U.S. Predator drones in a report to the General Assembly’s human rights committee and at a news conference afterwards, saying he has become increasingly concerned at the dramatic increase in their use, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan, since June.

We know how Progressives like Obama love kowtowing to folks at the UN (witness the allowing of human rights inspectors in our major cities regarding housing), so, what will Dear Leader do? This might give him the out it seems to desperately want, after all his campaign promises, without appearing weak (too late!) In fact, it might give him the out he probably wants to abandon the War on Terrorism, er, excuse me, Operation Overseas Contingency. The far left Progressives who form the base of the Democrat Party, and are, one could argue, the actual middle point for the Party, mostly want to abandon Afghanistan and the WoT, and have for a long time.

So, this is a test for the Bamster. Despite the reticence to commit to the troop surge in Afghanistan and renaming the WoT, as well as some pretty speeches, he has actually done a decent job, mostly out of the public eye. He escalated drone strikes not only in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan. He has stuck with the Bush plan to leave Iraq. He has kept rendition. Gitmo is nowhere close to being closed. Will he listen to the UN, or tell them to go fly a metal kite in a thunderstorm?

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UN “Special Rapporteur” Martin Scheinin recently filed a report with the UN titled “Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms While Countering Terrorism” in which he states that human gender is not a fixed thing but a mere “social construct” that is “changeable over time.”

In this paper Scheinin, the “Special Rapporteur” — I do get a kick out of the pretentiousness of that grandiose title — and the UN leadership (a word I use advisedly) wants terribly to deny both genetics and simple reality. Page eight of this report asserts that a man is not necessarily a man and a women… well, maybe she’s something else entirely… but what ever they are their gender is but a temporary designation determined at the whim of society.

Catch this PC garbage:

Gender is not synonymous with women but rather encompasses the social constructions that underlie how women’s and men’s roles, functions and responsibilities, including in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, are defined and understood. This report will therefore identify the gendered impact of counter-terrorism measures both on women and men, as well as the rights of persons of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. As a social construct, gender is also informed by, and intersects with, various other means by which roles, functions and responsibilities are perceived and practiced, such as race, ethnicity, culture, religion and class. Consequently, gender is not static; it is changeable over time and across contexts. Understanding gender as a social and shifting construct rather than as a biological and fixed category is important because it helps to identify the complex and inter-related gender-based human rights violations caused by counter- terrorism measures; to understand the underlying causes of these violations; and to design strategies for countering terrorism that are truly non-discriminatory and inclusive of all actors.

Of course, it is patently obvious what this sort of rhetoric is meant to do and that is play to the radical homosexual lobby. If gender is defined as something that can’t be defined, this would help to further legitimize homosexual, transgender and other aberrant lifestyle choices, many of which have been considered mental illnesses in the recent past and in some countries may still be.

The UN has many times tried to get this definition of gender to become de rigueur but has thankfully failed thus far to convince the world’s representatives to go along with such an absurd artifice. But there is a problem here and that is the fact that this language was shoehorned into an official UN report. It is language not accepted by the world, but language snuck into a sanctioned report and presented as accepted fact. It is surreptitious gay activism and nothing else but this sort of underhanded advocacy helps smooth the way for activism later.

After all, at some point, some militant gay activist will present this report as “proof” that gender is subjective and not objective or at least use the fact that this is an official UN report to help buttress their activism. Make no mistake, however, this is what activists want and also why this language was slipped into this report. These activists will not stop until they get their way so anyone that opposes this nonsense must continue to fight against it, must continue to point out the illegitimacy of reports such as this.

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But most pertinent of all, of course, are the growing volume of statistics.

According to the National Climatic Data Centre, Earth’s hottest recorded year was 1998.

If you put the same question to NASA, scientists will say it was 1934, followed by 1998. The next three runner-ups are 1921, 2006 and 1931.

Which all blows a rather large hole in the argument that the earth is hurtling towards an inescapable heat death prompted by man’s abuse of the environment.

Indeed, some experts believe we should forget global warming and turn our attention to an entirely differently phenomenon – global cooling.

The evidence for both remains inconclusive, which is unlikely to help the legions of world leaders meeting in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a new climate change deal.

Unfortunately, they could have a 100 year blizzard in Copenhagen (something not likely to happen. Copenhagen tends to get little snow, and the temps tend to be moderate for the region, with little freezing) and world leaders will still pass whatever idiocy they have up their sleeves. Air Force One could get stuck on the tarmac because of massive snow and ice, and he will still sign whatever is passed. Because it is all about control, not science.

And, as far as control goes, Lord Christopher Monckton had this to say (from Fightin’ Words)

I read that treaty. And what it says is this, that a world government is going to be created. The word “government” actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to third world countries, in satisfication of what is called, coyly, “climate debt” – because we’ve been burning CO2 and they haven’t. We’ve been screwing up the climate and they haven’t. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement.

How many of you think that the word “election” or “democracy” or “vote” or “ballot” occurs anywhere in the 200 pages of that treaty? Quite right, it doesn’t appear once. So, at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement, who took over Greenpeace so that my friends who funded it left within a year, because [the communists] captured it – Now the apotheosis as at hand. They are about to impose a communist world government on the world. You have a president who has very strong sympathies with that point of view. He’s going to sign it. He’ll sign anything. He’s a Nobel Peace Prize [winner]; of course he’ll sign it.

As the saying goes, read the whole thing.

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“The Obama administration has marked its first foray into the UN human rights establishment by backing calls for limits on freedom of expression. The newly-minted American policy was rolled out at the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council, which ended in Geneva on Friday. American diplomats were there for the first time as full Council members and intent on making friends.

President Obama chose to join the Council despite the fact that the Organization of the Islamic Conference holds the balance of power and human rights abusers are among its lead actors, including China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia. Islamic states quickly interpreted the president’s penchant for “engagement” as meaning fundamental rights were now up for grabs. Few would have predicted, however, that the shift would begin with America’s most treasured freedom.

The Obama administration decided that a revamped freedom of expression resolution, extracted from Canadian hands, would be an ideal emblem for its new engagement policy. So it cosponsored a resolution on the subject with none other than Egypt–a country characterized by an absence of freedom of expression.

The new resolution, championed by the Obama administration, has a number of disturbing elements. It emphasizes that “the exercise of the right to freedom of expression carries with it special duties and responsibilities . . .” which include taking action against anything meeting the description of “negative racial and religious stereotyping.” It also purports to “recognize . . . the moral and social responsibilities of the media” and supports “the media’s elaboration of voluntary codes of professional ethical conduct” in relation to “combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”

Pakistan’s Ambassador Zamir Akram, speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, made it clear that they understand the resolution and its protection against religious stereotyping as allowing free speech to be trumped by anything that defames or negatively stereotypes religion. The idea of protecting the human rights “of religions” instead of individuals is a favorite of those countries that do not protect free speech and which use religion–as defined by government–to curtail it.

More here

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

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With enough technological advances, the world could get to a dramatically lower level of greenhouse gas emissions at a cost of between one and three percent of global GDP per year, according to a report issued Tuesday by a group of economists. That price tag is in line with previous economic estimates aimed at meeting more modest climate goals.

Eh. It’s only a 1-3 percent loss of GDP. Globally. No big deal. We can all live with walking to work, buying a smaller house, being unemployed, knitting clothes for our kids, right?

The authors of the report assumed that a doubling of carbon concentrations in the atmosphere would translate into an average global temperature rise of 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit, twice as much as what some traditional climate models have suggested. According to their analysis, policymakers could reduce carbon concentrations in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million by either 2100 or 2200.

Hmm, it’s sounding like those “economists” – and, I thought only climatologists were allowed to chime in? – have a bit of an agenda. That can’t be right, right? The media would never trumpet anyone with any sort of bias, right? Just who are these economists that wrote the report for The Economics for Equality and The Environment (E3 Network)?

Economists in the E3 Network believe:

• A clean and safe environment is a birthright of every person. It is not a commodity to be distributed on the basis of purchasing power, nor a privilege to be distributed on the basis of political power.
• Safeguarding the natural environment is inseparable from promoting social justice. Without a fair distribution of wealth and power, neither the free market nor government regulation will guarantee environmental quality and human well-being.
• Today’s environmental challenges demand new thinking. By engaging with real-world problems economists can help craft effective solutions and build a more just and sustainable future.

To these ends, we assist democratic and participatory decision-making in public policies to protect people and the environment.

Ah. Far Left Progressives. Who receive their funding from the Ecotrust, a group whose mission creep turned them from people concerned about the environment into a group concerned with “social justice.” Which also feeds off of tax payer money.

A group of eight leading climate economists has a message for United States senators now considering a bill to cap emissions: don’t think of long-term mitigation costs as a massive expenditure, but rather a form of reasonably-priced “planetary climate insurance.”

Only left wing climate alarmists would call for destroying the world wide economy in the name of “planetary climate insurance.” Do you ever get the feeling that they aren’t really thinking about the best interests of actual people? You can certainly expect energy prices to rise significantly, since those “alternative energy sources” are barely viable. Too bad more and more and more actual scientists are coming out to say that the whole AGW movement is the same that comes from the backside of a cow.

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Successful countries are called upon to severely restrict economic activity; backwards hellholes — usually ruled by socialist tyrants — face no such restrictions. But that’s not enough to guarantee equal poverty for all, so they slipped in a clause on page 122 decreeing that some countries will be expected to:

(a) Compensate for damage to the [less developed countries'] economy and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity, as many will become environmental refugees;

(b) Africa, in the context of environmental justice, should be equitably compensated for environmental, social and economic losses arising from the implementation of response measures.

The environmental refugee business is science fiction out of an Al Gore fever dream, but the damage to our economy if we are forced to buy “opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity” for the entire Third World with our economy shackled in pointless CO2 restrictions will be quite real. The phrase “environmental justice” is Newspeak for “spreading the wealth around” until there isn’t any left to spread, while masking the injustice in sanctimonious ecofreak blather.

Liberal elitists dream of a one-world government under the thumb of which everyone but them is a half-starved, powerless peasant with zero chance of ever accomplishing anything, because anything we create will only be expropriated. The United Nations exists for a single purpose: to make this nightmare come true. Comrade Obama is on board with the program, as is every last liar in the governmedia who pays lip service to the nonexistent global warming crisis.

Via What’s Up With That? On a tip from WUWT reader. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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A climate change bill circulating in the Senate on Tuesday is slightly more ambitious than one passed in the House of Representatives, but still has many details to be worked out on how to encourage companies to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.

The legislation by Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry to be formally unveiled on Wednesday aims to reduce smokestack emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050 — from 2005 levels.

Sweet! And, such transparency! Halp us Jon Carry, halp us!

Boxer’s Environment and Public Works Committee is expected to continue working behind closed doors to fill in other details before trying to sign off on the bill by the end of October.

John McCain has already stated he could never support this legislation, and James Inhofe said that he cannot imagine it being debated and passed this year.

The Senate Democrats’ bill also aims to encourage more “clean vehicles” and to improve airliners’ fuel efficiency. It also would help those who suffer job losses from climate control efforts with a “worker adjustment assistance” program.

With a wave of the mighty fairy wand and some unicorn poots, all will be well. As Bob Ellis at The Dakota Voice writes

This bill would cost millions of American jobs, raise our electric bills by 40% or more, hinder much-needed refining capacity, hurt foreign trade, block much-needed power plant development, require home inspections and environmental retrofitting before we can sell our homes, regulate how much water we can use in our own homes,

Courtesy of the Green Hell Blog, we have a look at the draft of the Senate version of the cap and trade global warming tax bill.

Apparently, not to be outdone by the asininity and hostility toward the American people of the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate has upped the ante and called for a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases, even more egregious than the House bill.

All this to “fix” a problem that doesn’t even exist!

Whether it exists or not, bottom line, Democrats see this issue as a way of controlling more of America’s economy, its businesses, and its People.

BTW, just be thankful I didn’t add one of my special Barbara Boxer photoshops!

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