An interview with one of Germany’s most notorious neo-Nazis has landed Vanity Fair magazine in a heap of trouble.

Arno Lustiger, a Jewish historian and Holocaust survivor, has started proceedings to sue the magazine’s German edition for publishing an interview with Horst Mahler, the former left-wing extremist who transformed into one of Germany’s most rabid neo-Nazi public figures. The interview appeared in the Nov. 1 print and online editions.

Filed Nov. 7 and released to the public on Nov. 21, the suit notes that Mahler denied and belittled the Holocaust, which is illegal in Germany.

Attorney Uwe Lehmann-Brauns told the JTA on Nov. 21 that he was awaiting confirmation from Berlin’s state prosecutor that the suit had been formally entered. Vanity Fair as yet has offered no response.

In the interview, conducted by journalist and former vice president of the Central Council …

Wer wissen will, wie die Labour Regierung Klima-Aktivisten seit nunmehr zehn Jahren erfolgreich aufs Glatteis führt, dem seit der folgende Artikel eines guten Freundes empfohlen.

Isn’t politics wonderful? Within days of Gordon Brown’s address to the conservation group WWF, in which he pledged eye-wateringly tough reductions in British emissions of Co2, the Government has announced its support for the construction of a third runway at Heathrow Airport. “This time he really gets it,” Greenpeace’s executive director had enthused after the Prime Minister’s “Let’s save the polar bear” speech. Yesterday, following the Transport Secretary’s endorsement of BAA’s expansion plans, Greenpeace was back to its default position, spitting ecological tacks.

You might think this is a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing (or possibly the left hand not knowing what the left hand is doing) especially given the Government’s growing reputation …

Müssen wir bald den Laden hier schliessen? Gibt es denn überhaupt keine heiligen Kühe mehr in Deutschland? Spiegel Online hat gerade einen der beliebt-berüchtigsten deutschen Mythen entzaubert. Damit dürfte einer ganzen Generation von grünen Unheilspropheten der Boden unter den Füßen entrissen worden sein:

Deutsche Forscher untersuchen in Sibirien eine berüchtigte Atomfabrik aus Sowjetzeiten. Die nukleare Verseuchung, so ihr Befund, wurde überschätzt. Starben auch an den Spätfolgen der Superkatastrophen von Hiroshima und Tschernobyl weit weniger Menschen als gedacht?

[...] Aus Sicht russischer Bürgerkomitees, die derzeit vor Gerichten um Entschädigungen kämpfen, waren all das nur halbherzige Aktionen. Ihr Urteil: Die Werksleitung habe einen “atomaren Genozid” an den anwohnenden Tataren begangen.

Aber auch dieser Vorwurf ist stark übertrieben, wie die Analysen zeigen. 29.873 Personen, die zwischen 1950 und 1960 an der Tetscha lebten, wurden vom Nationalen Krebsinstitut der USA in Augenschein genommen. Das Resultat: “Nur 46 der …

French towns worried about fuel prices, pollution and striking transport workers need look no further than the horse.

Horses are a possible alternative for vehicles such as school buses and refuse trucks, say groups eager to pick up on global concerns about eco-friendly transport.

“It’s all about sustainable development and bringing some humanity back to today’s monotonous, machine-driven jobs,” Stephane de Veyrac, from the French National Stud Organisation, said at this week’s annual conference of French mayors.

De Veyrac’s group says it is the first in France to offer consulting on a wide range of horse-powered vehicles that could also haul bottles and aid street sweeping.

“It is a serious alternative—horses are already in use in over 70 towns as replacements for gasoline- and diesel-powered service vehicles,” said de Veyrac, pointing to the ‘Hippoville’ prototype parked in the exhibition hall.

…

Mein Freund und Mitstreiter Professor Philip Stott scheint die verdiente Niederlage der englischen Nationalelf nicht ganz verkraftet zu haben. Nur so kann ich mir seine düstere Prognose erklären:

The State of Britain

A “probable” new leak of the foot-and-mouth virus has been reported from an animal health facility in Surrey, following an earlier very serious escape, and the deadly 2001 crisis.

The bluetongue virus brings further farming blight;

Our sheep and cattle farmers are in despair over disease, restrictions on livestock movement, and cripplingly-low prices from exploitative supermarkets. Hundreds of thousands of stock have to be disposed of (some with prices as low as 50 pence to £4);

New outbreaks of avian flu threaten lucrative Christmas sales of poultry, and, potentially, the human population, as the H5N1 strain is confirmed, yet again; …

Wendell Krossa ist ein christlicher Autor aus Kanada der sehr viel Weises und Nachdenkliches zum Thema Umwelt-, Natur und Apokalypsenangst schreibt. Heute habe ich einen kleinen Essay von ihm in meinem CCNet veröffentlicht (http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/CCNet-homepage.htm). Da ich viele seiner Gedanken teile, stelle ich den kurzen Text hier vor. Ein Blick auf Wendell’s Webseite lohnt sich übrigens für alle Öko-Optimisten.

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Dear Benny,

There is almost an element of insanity to this endless alarmism and fear-mongering. And it is the height of irresponsibility for people to keep dumping this fear into the public arena to darken public consciousness. I recall, just off the cuff, some scares that all of us have been through over the past few decades- global cooling, mass starvation, DDT horrors, Alar poisoning our apples (remember Meryl Streep before Congress on that one), Y2K hysteria with planes falling out of the air, …

A new report from the United Nations acknowledges the agency has routinely overstated both the size and growth rate of the AIDS epidemic.  The new figures reduce the number of worldwide AIDS cases from 40 to 33 million, cuts the number of new cases by 40%, and reveal that the rate of new cases has been, contrary to past reports, slowing for many years. 

The pattern of exaggeration may date back as far as 1995, the year UNAIDS was founded.  Just last year, the UN reported infections were rising faster than “even our worst estimates,” and warned of the “dangers of inaction.”

Critics have long maintained the U.N. overstated cases to gain political and financial support.  “There was a tendency toward alarmism, and that fit perhaps a certain fundraising agenda” said author and AIDS expert Helen Epstein.  James Chin, a former AIDS researcher for the World …

Rising sea levels in the next 50 years could signal the biggest change in Europe for 8,000 years, scientists have suggested.

Researchers from the University of Exeter and the University of Wollongong in Australia made the claim after investigating the “revolution” caused by major flooding eight millennia ago.

They have calculated that the collapse of the North American ice sheet caused global sea levels to rise by 1.4 metres, flooding the Black Sea.

Professor Chris Turney of the University of Exeter suggests this flood could be the origin of the Noah’s Ark story and believes it forced many thousands of people practicing early farming techniques west into Europe.

“As these agricultural communities moved west, they would have taken farming with them across Europe. It was a revolutionary time,” he said.

Professor Turney believes his study poses serious contemporary issues for …