Magic Statistics

Jeremy Clarkson, notorious anti-environmentalist gadfly and driver of fast cars, has finally found a green vehicle he can love: a jet-powered bicycle.

Jeremy Clarkson has gone green. The Top Gear presenter has finally bowed to pressure from the environmental lobby and got himself a bicycle. It has a wicker basket on the front, a jet engine at the back and a theoretical top speed of 70mph.

Built for the MPH 06 motor show, a motoring circus co-hosted by Clarkson, it has made such an impact the designers are thinking of producing it for sale.

“It’s fantastic and completely legal, probably,” said Clarkson. “You can ride across London without paying the congestion charge and Ken Livingstone can’t touch you.”

I love this: It’s “completely legal, probably”.  Famous last words?

The jet bike is reckoned to be fast enough to set a new land speed record, though Clarkson is careful about who he’ll allow in the saddle. “I’m not loaning it to Richard Hammond because he’ll ride it into a field and turn it upside down,” he said. “It’s the first bike you can ride without wearing muesli sandals and a beard. It’s Lance Armstrong and Frank Whittle in one. I’d enter the Tour de France on it but the French would just steal the idea.”

To ensure that the bike will indeed dodge the congestion charge, designer Steve Howard has fitted an optional smoke machine.  That would also frustrate England’s ubiquitous speed cameras.

Mr Howard doesn’t actually recommend riding the thing on public thoroughfares, however.

Fuelled by a mixture of paraffin and jet oil (for lubrication), the engine packs 1100 lb of thrust at full pelt and the temperature inside can rise to more than 700C so the outside is wrapped in Kevlar. The bike produces a 10ft-long super-heated jet stream that Howard admits is not very friendly to traffic or pedestrians.

Whatever.  This is another environmentally friendly strategy I can get behind support.

Previous related posts:

• Jeremy Clarkson for Mayor of London
• Car critic frustrates environmentalist cause

Two weeks ago I blogged the hunger strike by 200 Christians at New Life Church in Belarus protesting the government’s draconian anti-religion law under which the church was condemned to be demolished.  In a surprising (not to say miraculous) development, one of the country’s highest courts has reversed lower court decisions and ordered a re-consideration of the case.  In response, the church members have suspended their hunger strike.

Glenn Penner of Voice of the Martyrs Canada reports by e-mail:

The Presidium of the Highest Economic Court of Belarus has cancelled all previous court decisions against the New Life Church in Minsk and will re-examine the case against the church within two weeks, according to a November 4 report from the New Life Church website. This is an unusual action by a court body which normally examines matters of state importance, according to the church's legal adviser. Pray for a positive decision by the court.

International attention has been centered on the church because of pressure placed on foreign governments as well as a hunger strike by two hundred church members. On November 2, diplomats from nine European countries and the USA visited the church to better understand the situation. Stephan Eriksson from the Swedish Embassy told them, "During the last weeks we have been observing the things going on in this church. That's why we decided to come here and express our solidarity with the believers' legal demands. Everyone has the right to assemble in the church freely."

Further information comes from Mission Network News.

The pressure on the Belarusian government seems to have made an impact, says Penner. "The Belarusian government to this point has not shown an awful lot of susceptibility to international pressure and this would seem to indicate that they're nervous about cracking down on this church any further."

Despite the difficulties of the opposition they've faced, Penner says the church has continued to function normally. "They've continued to meet in the church. They've continued to operate their programs as a church and their outreach to their community. The church has continued to grow and they've continued to worship the Lord regardless of the harassments that they've faced."

In the years of ongoing fines, threats and harassment, Penner says the believers' testimony has been powerful. "They have really worked hard at maintaining their integrity. They have consistently said 'we're going to demonstrate peacefully, that we're going to be praying for our government. We're not going to allow them to run all over us and do that which is illegal.' And I believe that in this they have really responded very graciously and very much in line with the Spirit of Christ."

A brief video news report can be seen here.

h/t for Mission Network News and CBN links: Persecution Blog

Previous related post: Belarus: Europe’s most oppressively anti-religious nation

One of India's leading Hindu clerics has urged the government to outlaw all changes of religion.

The so-called “Hindu Pope”, Swami Swarupananda Saraswati, has denounced conversions to other faiths and called on the government to impose “a complete ban on change of faith”.

At the same time, extremist Hindu groups are determined to force former Hindus who have become Christians to revert to their original faith.

Meanwhile, paramilitary nationalist movements protected by the man announced 10,000 “re-conversions” to Hinduism for next year.

So, which is it?  No conversions or forced re-conversions?  Apparently, that’s a minor detail, as long as Christianity loses and Hinduism remains supreme.Forced conversions are indeed taking place, but they’re engineered by Hindu militants.

Hindu extremists yesterday forced Christians in the remote village of Bevainahalli, in the southern state of Karnataka, to bow down before Hindu deities and applied the vermilion mark to their foreheads. Two Hindu priests accompanied by a group of 20 to 25 Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its youth wing, the Bajrang Dal, entered Chitradurga district’s Bevainahalli village and knocked on the door of every home. The extremists marched the Christians off to the village temple, forcing them to bow down before the Hindu gods and goddesses. Police Inspector K.L. Krishna only watched as the Hindu extremists violated the Christians’ constitutional right to freedom of religion with this “initiation rite.”

At least that cop wasn’t actively participating in the abuse of Christians.  Other Indian police have been accused of torturing Christians.

Previous related posts:

• Catholic MP tossed from Indian Parliament for “misusing religion”
• Nationalist Hindus want Christian missionaries arrested
• Christian conversions present “grave threat to Hindu society”

A recent raid by Pakistani police sounds more like a Keystone Kops operation.  If it weren't so painful for the people they arrested, it would be comical.  They burst into a hospital in Quetta and apprehended several Taliban desperados convalescents, including Boor Jan, a cancer patient so bandaged up he couldn't move.  They needed a stretcher to haul him off to jail.

The Pakistani press was quick to crow, as authorities identified the detained men as wounded Taleban fighters, seeking treatment after fighting Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan. The raid came two days after President Musharraf's return from a tour of Britain and America, much of which he had spent trying to deflect accusations of Pakistani support for the Taleban.

So when Boor Jan was finally handed over to Afghan security forces at the border town of Spin Boldak last month with 45 other Taleban prisoners, Pakistan heralded the event as further proof of its co-operation in the fight against the Taleban.

There was just one glitch in the story. Boor Jan was a cancer patient. Not one of the five other patients were wounded. Three male relatives arrested with the group as they attended the sick men were not Taleban. Of the 46 prisoners handed over to Afghan police, all but 12 were immediately released, deemed to be casual labourers or sick patients.

Boor Jan is a poor farmer and father of four children.  Because police ineptness delayed his cancer surgery, he ended up having a leg amputated.  Now he doesn’t know how he will support his family.

Previous related posts:

• NATO forces know where Mullah Omar lives
• Pakistan takes pressure off the Taliban
• Whose side is Pakistan on, anyway?

Eric Reguly of the Globe and Mail sees a way the Canadian government could prove it’s serious about addressing climate change.

The subsidies to the oils sands, one of the greatest sources of carbon dioxide emissions on the planet, are another case of governments saying one thing and doing another. Calgary's Pembina Institute, which has been highly critical of the environmental damage caused by the oil sands, estimates the industry reaps about $1.38-billion in federal tax breaks every year. They include the Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance, which essentially allows the industry to recover all of its capital spending before paying income tax.

The industry doesn't need tax breaks to expand. High oil prices and voracious U.S. demand have fulfilled that role. The freebies could end tomorrow and the oil sands would still merrily chug along. Maybe the value the subsidies should be diverted from encouraging growth that isn't needed to funding technology programs aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I'm skeptical about the global warming controversy, especially the claim that human activity is a significant factor in climate change.  Be that as it may, however, there are sound and principled economic reasons for supporting Mr Reguly’s suggestion.  Why does the oil sands need such huge tax breaks when, given market conditions likely to prevail for the foreseeable future, it can prosper just fine without them?

That is one climate change proposal I can support.

For access to the full column, click here.

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• EU threatens to hold Canadian politicians responsible over Kyoto
• Ambrose’s environment plan is a Rottweiler