Magic Statistics

Iranian-born Canadian Nazanin Afshin-Jam has taken up the cause of her 18-year old Iranian namesake Nazanin who has been sentenced to death for killing a man as he and two others were attempting to rape her and her 16-year old niece.  The case is currently scheduled for review by the Iranian Court of Appeal.  Amnesty International reports:

According to reports in the Iranian newspaper, E’temaad, Nazanin told the court that three men had approached her and her niece, forced them to the ground and tried to rape them. Seeking to defend her niece and herself, Nazanin stabbed one man in the hand with a knife that she possessed and then, when the men continued to pursue them, stabbed another of the men in the chest. She reportedly told the court “I wanted to defend myself and my niece. I did not want to kill that boy. At the heat of the moment I did not know what to do because no one came to our help”, but was nevertheless sentenced to death.

Nazanin Afshin-Jam was born in Tehran a year before the 1979 revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power.  Her family fled to Canada after suffering political persecution, including her father's arrest and torture for allowing men and women to mingle and listen to music at the Sheraton Hotel that he managed.

They shaved his head, brutally lashed and tortured him until he could no longer stand. He was to be put before a firing squad, but by miraculous intervention through a mutual acquaintance he was released. He almost died due to his injuries but thank God he is with us today. He was one among thousands and thousands to be subject to such torture.

Ms Afshin-Jam is a model and aspiring pop singer.  She was Miss World Canada and first runner-up in the 2003 Miss World competition, which earned her some hate mail from Islamic fundamentalists.  According to this biography at her record company web page, she is an accomplished young woman who has devoted her attention to many good causes.  An online petition in support of Nazanin is linked at her web page.

Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews Nazanin Afshin-Jam at National Review Online.  On International Women's Day last month, Ms Lopez also wrote about the injustice perpetrated against young Nazanin, another subjugated and endangered woman whose plight is ignored by Western feminists.

Previous related post: Canadian feminists ignore oppressed women

"Kinks in Canada Drug Pipeline"—headline, New York Times, 6 April

"A Gallon of Gas" by Raymond Douglas Davies
from Low Budget (1979)

I've been waiting for years to buy a brand new cadillac
But now that I've got one I want to send it right back
I can't afford the gas to fill my luxury limousine
But even if I had the dough no one's got no gasoline

I went to my local dealer to see if he could set me straight
He said there's a little gas going but I'd have to wait
But he offered some red hot speed and some really high grade hash
But a gallon of gas can't be purchased anywhere for any amount of cash . . .

Lyrics from The Kinks Web Site

via Opinion Journal - Best of the Web, with apologies to James Taranto.

When it comes to climate change, it seems that everything is a two-edged sword.  Recently, it was reported that saving tropical rain forests may aggravate global warming.  Now there's confirmation that cutting down on smog by cleaning up city air has intensified warming trends.

Research presented at a major European science meeting adds to other evidence that cleaner air is letting more solar energy through to the Earth's surface.
. . .
Between the 1950s and 1980s, the amount of solar energy penetrating through the atmosphere to the Earth's surface appeared to be declining, by about 2% per decade. This trend received some publicity under the term "global dimming".

But in the 1980s, it appears to have reversed, according to two papers published last year in the journal Science.

The decline in Soviet industry and clean air laws in western countries apparently reduced concentrations of aerosols, tiny particles, in the atmosphere.

These aerosols may block solar radiation directly, or help clouds to form which in turn constitute a barrier; or both effects may occur.

In fact, some scientists are now suggesting that reversal of "global dimming", not human activity, is the primary cause of global warming.

Ya just can't win.

via Faith-Science News at The American Scientific Affiliation.