5: WARNING:  Viewer Discretion Advised

The Daily Mail reports that Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, has been called unfit for schools because it is politically biased and contains serious scientific inaccuracies and ‘sentimental mush’.

Schools will have to issue a warning before they show pupils Al Gore’s controversial film about global warming, a judge indicated yesterday.

The move follows a High Court action by a father who accused the Government of ‘brainwashing’ children with propaganda by showing it in the classroom.

Stewart Dimmock said the former U.S. Vice-President’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, is unfit for schools because it is politically biased and contains serious scientific inaccuracies and ‘sentimental mush’.

Read the article from Daily Mail at this week’s 5 here:

Schools must warn of Gore climate film bias | the Daily Mail


4: A Burning “Ring of Steel”

LONDON – Mayor Bloomberg has a message for New Yorkers who don’t like surveillance cameras: Get real.

“It’s just ridiculous people who object to using technology,” the mayor said, adding that he had not talked with anyone in London who wasn’t “thrilled” at the presence of security cameras in their capital.

The Daily News reported yesterday that a camera in lower Manhattan has been secretly recording license plates in a test of the planned “Ring of Steel” surveillance system.

The plates are compared against a database so the NYPD can immediately know when a suspicious car or truck is in the area. London has such a system in place in its financial district.

Bloomberg, appearing with London Mayor Ken Livingstone at a news conference, said New Yorkers are “very naïve” if they don’t realize they are already being watched.

Read this week’s 4, here:

Bloomberg calls surveillance-camera critics ‘ridiculous’


3: Red Rover, Red Rover, We Dare Asia To Come Over

WASHINGTON: After a successful test last week, the tracking radars and interceptor rockets of a new American missile defense system can be turned on at any time to respond to an emerging crisis in Asia, senior military officers said Tuesday.

General Victor Renuart Jr., the senior commander for defense of United States territory, said that the antimissile system could guard against the risk of ballistic missile attack from North Korea even while development continues on a series of radars in California and the Pacific Ocean and on interceptor missiles in Alaska and California.

While the new system is limited, it is the most extensive anti-ballistic missile system the Pentagon has fielded since the Safeguard ABM system near Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota was briefly operated, starting in 1975. Congress immediately voted to shut it down, and it operated for only a few months.

He said the system showed an initial capability in July 2006, when American missile defense went on alert as North Korea staged missile tests. Because the array of interceptors and radars remains under development, it has never received the military’s official status of being an operational weapons system.

Read the International Herald Tribunes story at this week’s 3, here:

Missile defense system is up and running, military says


2: The Evolution of Open and Free Societies

From CBS affiliate in OAK LAWN, Ill. Following a school board meeting where a parent complained about what they saw as an assault on traditional American celebrations, a Oak Lawn school district has decided to keep observing Halloween and Christmas, but only on the condition that Muslim holiday Ramadan is celebrated as well.

The school district had asked principals to tear down all holiday celebrations after a Muslim mother requested that her children be separated from others during lunch for the Ramadan fast.

But after heated remarks from many parents at the meeting Tuesday, the school board changed its position.

“Everything is staying the same,” school board member Dave Lis said. “Christmas is still Christmas, and Halloween is still Halloween.”

See the debate in Oak Lawn, Ill at this week’s 2, here:

Oak Lawn Schools Cancel Holiday Traditions

1: Christian the Lion

A suggestion from a reader…

 

Christian the lion is visited by the men who raised and released him into the wild.  The moving reunion apparently takes place a year after Christian was released into the wild.  They find him living with, and leading, a Pride of lions.

See the video at this week’s 1, here:

Christian The Lion At World’s End

Send me your links of the week:  [email protected].

Slainte!