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A conservative news and views blog.

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Location: St. Louis, Missouri, United States

Monday, October 31, 2011

Some ancillary info about that situation last week. .

Dana Mathewson

. . . wherein a holder of a carry permit shot to death a man who had just committed armed robbery and pistol-whipped the middle-aged woman he had robbed. The Twin Cities' wonderful Star Tribune (often called the Red Star Tribune by local people who still possess the ability to think) engaged in its usual politically slanted, incomplete reporting of the incident. Power Line's Scott Johnson provides more information here http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/10/the-gang-that-couldnt-shoot-straight.php

and includes the surprising information that Hennepin County's Liberal Democrat Attorney not only refused to press charges against the "Good Samaritan" but commended him for "helping his fellow citizens in need."

I love the smell of karma in the morning!

Dana Mathewson

"A group of several dozen “Occupy Las Vegas” protesters camping on Clark County land located under the final approach to Runway 19 at McCarran International Airport today narrowly missed being injured when a 50 lb. slab of “blue ice” reportedly landed within feet of their tents." http://www.punditandpundette.com/2011/10/smelly-brown-residue.html

Now, I think all of you know what "blue ice" is. Anyhow, the article goes on to explain: "Blue ice is the frozen material formed by leaks in commercial aircraft lavatory waste tanks, a mixture of human waste and vivid blue liquid disinfectant that freezes at high altitude."

You can see where this is leading: "Clark County Director of Aviation Randall Walker was immediately notified and dispatched airport personnel to the campsite, but witnesses report that the blue ice had melted by the time officials arrived leaving only a smelly brown residue." (Emphasis mine)

The reports I read of the various "Occupy" groups indicates they were leaving their own smelly brown residue around. I think this Las Vegas bunch merely got what it deserved.

This explains a lot of what's going on in the economy

Dana Mathewson

David P. Goldman, who writes under the name of "Spengler," has an article quoting another of his articles on PJ Media today, here: http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2011/10/31/the-economics-of-polarization-or-why-the-tea-party-is-magnificently-right/

His first paragraph pretty well lays out the whole theme: "A hard look at the data explains the polarization of American politics: state and local governments are increasing property taxes even while the housing market crashes, and this is killing the middle class. In many parts of the country prospective homebuyers will pay almost as much as property taxes as in mortgage interest! No wonder the residential real estate market can’t come up for air, and why the American middle class feels that it is fighting for its existence. The only solution will be the kind pioneered by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, one of the real heroes of our time: renegotiate the whole relationship between the government and the government unions. But that would mean the end of the Democratic Party as we know it. That’s why the upcoming presidential election will be the nastiest in living memory." END QUOTE

This has good news for Republicans, if they seize the moment and handle it correctly.

More on "Fast and Furious"

Dana Mathewson

Here are more reasons to believe this thing is an initiative of our current administration -- as if we ever doubted that it was, to begin with. http://pjmedia.com/blog/smoking-gun-most-gunwalker-guns-targets-of-ban-efforts-but-not-wanted-by-cartels/

It's no surprise that our emperor is a buddy of what I like to call "The Brady Bunch" -- and I'm not referring to the old TV show. And surely it is no coincidence that most, if not perhaps all, of the guns that "walked" to the Mexican cartels are models which (1) have very little if any use to those cartels but which (2) are types which liberals particularly would love to see banned.

Cain to debate Newt one-on-one

Dana Mathewson

Bad move. Very bad move. I don't think there's another politician in the country who could take on Newt Gingrich in a debate and expect to win. http://pjmedia.com/blog/cain-to-debate-newt-what-is-herman-thinking/

I'm not denigrating Herman Cain in the least when I say this, either. I admire the man, and as I've stated before, he's my candidate. But it's one thing to be confident, another thing to be foolhardy. Gingrich's brilliance is well known. I greatly fear Herman will come off second-best.

Media Lies about BEST Study

Timothy Birdnow

We all know the climate change alarmists are liars, but this really takes the cake. This morning, the AOL welcome page had a Huffing and Puffing Post piece with blaring headlines "Global Warming Skeptic Now Agrees Climate Change is Real!" Surprised at this (as the change is invariably away from alarmism) I opened the article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/30/richard-muller-global-warming_n_1066029.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-nb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%7C108718

Who is being touted but Richard Muller. Muller, the man at the center of what is fast becoming a new Climategate scandal. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html

Muller's own co-author Judith Curry is beside herself at the way Muller and his BEST project have cherry picked data, and the data actually shows a complete standstill in planetary temperatures.

According to the Huffing piece;

"The Associated Press contacted Curry on Sunday afternoon and she said in an email that Muller and colleagues "are not hiding any data or otherwise engaging in any scientifically questionable practice."

But this is a direct quote from Judith Curry;

'As for the graph disseminated to the media, Curry said: 'This is “hide the decline] stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline...To say this is the end of scepticism is misleading, as is the statement that warming hasn't paused. It is also misleading to say, as he has, that the issue of heat islands has been settled'

Now, Judith Curry DID walk it back a bit, in that she said Muller didn't purposely obfuscate but that the data shows a clear decline - and that Muller's graph is misleading. She stopped short of calling it purposeful malfeasance. http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/30/mail-on-best/ Yet that is not the impression the Huffpo piece leaves.

In fact, Muller's work buttresses the case against AGW; it clearly shows a temperature standstill.

In a follow up post, Curry has this to say about a meeting she had with Muller:

http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/30/discussion-with-rich-muller/

"First, Muller’s title for the WSJ op-ed was “Cooling the Warming Debate,” he intended it to be a conciliatory article regarding how this data set could be used to settle some of the debates surrounding the land temperature record. The “End of Skepticism” title was provided by the WSJ editors. Muller was not happy about this change of title.

Second, the reason for the publicity blitz seems to be to get the attention of the IPCC. To be considered in the AR5, papers need to be submitted by Nov, which explains the timing. The publicity is so that the IPCC can’t ignore BEST. Muller shares my concerns about the IPCC process, and gatekeeping in the peer review process."

[...]

"Re the recent trend, Muller reiterated that you can’t infer anything about what is going on globally from the land data, but the land data shows a continued increase albeit with an oscillation that makes determining a trend rather ambiguous. He thinks there is a pause, that is probably associated with AMO/PDO. So I am ok with this interpretation.

With regards to the BEST data itself and what it shows. He showed me an interesting graph this is updated from the Rohde article, whereby the BEST data shows good agreement with the GISS data for the recent part of the record. Apparently the original discrepancy was associated with definition of land; this was sorted out and when they compared apples to apples, then the agreement is pretty good. This leaves CRU as an outlier."

[...]

"So all in all, I am ok with what is going on in the BEST project. The PR situation is still a problem, but the media aren’t helping here."

End excerpts.

So Muller has hardly changed his mind, becoming a True Believer. Yet that is precisely how the media is reporting it.

This is a classic leftist trick used by the media; make an outlandish statement, knowing it is untrue (they claim, for instance, that Curry said the data was sound, and that it supports warming) and knowing it will be overturned, but give the casual reader a false impression. They know the truth will not be covered in the media, so when it does come out they can quietly admit error (or not) and nobody will ever hear.

If this doesn't turn the alert observer away from AWG nothing will. Science doesn't have to lie.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Killing Energy, Killing Jobs, Killing America

By Alan Caruba

America has been under attack since Barack Obama took the oath of office on January 20, 2009. The primary target has been the nation’s ability to generate energy for electricity and transportation, without which this nation will slide into Third World status and economic decline.

This appears to be the goal of this administration from the President to his Secretaries of Energy and Interior, to his Director of the Environmental Protection Agency. There is no other rational explanation for what they are doing.

We are days away from the latest Environmental Protection Agency assault in the form of the “MACT” rule allegedly to reduce mercury and other emissions that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says will reduce electricity generation in America by about 81 gigawatts in the years ahead. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203633104576625091826666516.html?KEYWORDS=Government+vs+EPA said “this could compromise the reliability of the electric system if as much as 8% of generating capacity is subtracted from the grid.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that eleven Governors have written the EPA to ask that it delay the final rule in November. Twenty-five state Attorneys Generals have filed suit “to lift a legal document known as a consent decree that the EPA is using as a fig leaf for its political goals.”

As but one example, in Illinois, Ameron announced the planned shutdown of its Meredosia and Hutsonville energy centers, The Meredosia center generates 369 megawatts. The Hutsonville center has a generating capacity of 151 megawatts.

The EPA, even before the Obama administration, has been using the 1970 Clean Air Act to bludgeon the nation’s ability to access the energy resources required to generate electricity, primarily coal that provides 50% of such generation, and oil that fuels our transportation capability.

In late October, James J. Mulva http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204346104576637282988036502.html?KEYWORDS=Natural+Gas+Can+Put+Americans+Back+to+Work, the CEO of Conoco-Phillips, addressed the subject of the growing discoveries of natural gas being found throughout the nation. “More than 600,000 Americans already explore, produce, store and produce natural gas, according to consultancy IHS Global Insight.”

At least 15 states now produce shale gas and others may join them,” noting that the largest shale area, the Marcellus which covers much of the Northeast” “already supports 140,000 jobs in Pennsylvania alone.”

The Obama administration, beginning with the president’s admitted goal of shutting down as much of the coal industry as possible, has demonstrated his intention of deterring the provision of energy. When the BP Oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, the administration imposed a moratorium on all drilling. The decreased production cost 360,000 barrels a day in addition to lost jobs related to oil drilling in the Gulf. Rigs that are needed to drill have since been moved to other sites around the world.

The U.S. is home to more than 150 billion barrels of conventional oil that has the capability of generating thousands of new jobs if access to it was permitted. The most immediate result has been the rise in the cost of gasoline at the pump. Two courts ordered that the moratorium be lifted.

Oil companies currently pay more than $30 billion a year in federal, state, and local taxes. Meanwhile the Obama administration has been wasting billions in loan guarantees to essentially useless solar and wind power companies, the latest of which, Solyandra, will cost taxpayers millions when the solar panel producer went belly-up. Others will follow.

Meanwhile, the President crisscrosses the nations demanding higher taxes on companies engaged in coal, oil and natural gas. When Jimmy Carter imposed a windfall tax on oil companies many ceased to explore for new sources here, moving their efforts to other nations. Today, by withholding the necessary permits to produce energy in Alaska, the Trans Alaska Pipeline System is operating at one third of its capacity.

A proposed pipeline from Canada still awaits approval and, on November 6th, led by the Sierra Club, the largest protest against its tar sands is expected to draw thousands to Washington, D.C. to join hands and circle the White House to ensure the Keystone XL pipeline is kept from providing the U.S. with the oil extracted. The proposed pipeline would reduce the U.S. dependence on Middle East oil. The U.S. already has more than 50,000 safely operating oil pipelines to support our transportation and other needs.

In January 2010, Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, warned that the Obama administration “continues to embrace Washington-dominated, command-and-control energy policies focused on mandates, subsidies, and political favors—not market forces.” He criticized “subsidizing one form of energy,” wind and solar, “while restricting the exploration of another,” warning that it “will lead to several measurable outcomes, increasing energy prices across the board, fewer jobs, and a weaker footing in the global economy..”

Nearly two years later, that warning has come true with a vengeance.

Oil, coal, or natural gas, it doesn’t matter to an administration and a president determined to restrict the amount of energy Americans need for their present and future needs. The result, in part, has been a stalled energy sector and a contributing factor in an economy with an estimated 20 million unemployed or under-employed.

The losses in income taxes and the taxes paid by this industry sector, in addition to the hideous borrowing and spending by the Obama administration is doing enormous harm to America and yet Barack Obama wants a second term in office.

Little wonder that Americans fear for the future of the nation.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2011/10/killing-energy-killing-jobs-killing.html

The BEST the Alarmists Can Do

This courtesy of CCNET:


Scientist Who Said Climate Sceptics Had Been Proved Wrong Accused Of Hiding Truth By Colleague

Mail on Sunday, 30 October 2011

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html

David Rose

It was hailed as the scientific study that ended the global warming debate once and for all – the research that, in the words of its director, ‘proved you should not be a sceptic, at least not any longer’. But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.

Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) claimed to have shown that the planet has warmed by almost a degree centigrade since 1950 and is warming continually.

Published last week ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa, next month, their work was cited around the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can save civilisation as we know it.

It was cited uncritically by, among others, reporters and commentators from the BBC, The Independent, The Guardian, The Economist and numerous media outlets in America.

The Washington Post said the BEST study had ‘settled the climate change debate’ and showed that anyone who remained a sceptic was committing a ‘cynical fraud’.

But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.

Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.

Prof Curry is a distinguished climate researcher with more than 30 years experience and the second named co-author of the BEST project’s four research papers.

Her comments, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, seem certain to ignite a furious academic row. She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious ‘Climategate’ scandal two years ago.

Like the scientists exposed then by leaked emails from East Anglia University’s Climatic Research Unit, her colleagues from the BEST project seem to be trying to ‘hide the decline’ in rates of global warming.

In fact, Prof Curry said, the project’s research data show there has been no increase in world temperatures since the end of the Nineties – a fact confirmed by a new analysis that The Mail on Sunday has obtained.

‘There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped,’ she said. ‘To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.’

However, Prof Muller denied warming was at a standstill.

‘We see no evidence of it [global warming] having slowed down,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. There was, he added, ‘no levelling off’.

A graph issued by the BEST project also suggests a continuing steep increase.



But a report http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/4230-best-confirms-global-temperature-standstill.html to be published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation includes a graph of world average temperatures over the past ten years, drawn from the BEST project’s data and revealed on its website.



This graph shows that the trend of the last decade is absolutely flat, with no increase at all – though the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have carried on rising relentlessly.

‘This is nowhere near what the climate models were predicting,’ Prof Curry said. ‘Whatever it is that’s going on here, it doesn’t look like it’s being dominated by CO2.’

Prof Muller also wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal. It was here, under the headline ‘The case against global warming scepticism’, that he proclaimed ‘there were good reasons for doubt until now’.

Media storm: Prof Muller's claims received uncritical coverage in the media this week

This, too, went around the world, with The Economist, among many others, stating there was now ‘little room for doubt’.

Such claims left Prof Curry horrified.

‘Of course this isn’t the end of scepticism,’ she said. ‘To say that is the biggest mistake he [Prof Muller] has made. When I saw he was saying that I just thought, “Oh my God”.’

In fact, she added, in the wake of the unexpected global warming standstill, many climate scientists who had previously rejected sceptics’ arguments were now taking them much more seriously.

They were finally addressing questions such as the influence of clouds, natural temperature cycles and solar radiation – as they should have done, she said, a long time ago.

Yesterday Prof Muller insisted that neither his claims that there has not been a standstill, nor the graph, were misleading because the project had made its raw data available on its website, enabling others to draw their own graphs.

However, he admitted it was true that the BEST data suggested that world temperatures have not risen for about 13 years. But in his view, this might not be ‘statistically significant’, although, he added, it was equally possible that it was – a statement which left other scientists mystified.

‘I am baffled as to what he’s trying to do,’ Prof Curry said.

Prof Ross McKitrick, a climate statistics expert from Guelph University in Ontario, added: ‘You don’t look for statistically significant evidence of a standstill.

‘You look for statistically significant evidence of change.’

The BEST project, which has been lavishly funded, brings together experts from different fields from top American universities.

It was set up 18 months ago in an effort to devise a new and more accurate way of computing changes in world temperatures by using readings from some 39,000 weather stations on land, instead of adding sea temperatures as well.

Some scientists, Prof Muller included, believe that this should provide a more accurate indication of how the world is responding to carbon dioxide.

The oceans, they argue, warm more slowly and this is why earlier global measurements which also cover the sea – such as those from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University – have found no evidence of warming since the Nineties.

The usual way a high-profile project such as BEST would publish its results would be in a scientific journal, following a rigorous ‘peer review’ by other experts in the field.

The more eminent journals that publish climate research, such as Nature And Science, insist there must be no leaks to the media until this review is complete and if such leaks occur, they will automatically reject the research.

Earlier this year, the project completed four research papers.

As well as trends in world temperatures, they looked at the extent to which temperature readings can be distorted by urban ‘heat islands’ and the influence of long-term temperature cycles in the oceans. The papers were submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research.

But although Prof Curry is the second named author of all four papers, Prof Muller failed to consult her before deciding to put them on the internet earlier this month, when the peer review process had barely started, and to issue a detailed press release at the same time.

He also briefed selected journalists individually. ‘It is not how I would have played it,’ Prof Curry said. ‘I was informed only when I got a group email. I think they have made errors and I distance myself from what they did.

‘It would have been smart to consult me.’ She said it was unfortunate that although the Journal of Geophysical Research had allowed Prof Muller to issue the papers, the reviewers were, under the journal’s policy, forbidden from public comment.

Prof McKitrick added: ‘The fact is that many of the people who are in a position to provide informed criticism of this work are currently bound by confidentiality agreements.

‘For the Berkeley team to have chosen this particular moment to launch a major international publicity blitz is a highly unethical sabotage of the peer review process.’

In Prof Curry’s view, two of the papers were not ready to be published, in part because they did not properly address the arguments of climate sceptics.

As for the graph disseminated to the media, she said: ‘This is “hide the decline” stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline.

‘To say this is the end of scepticism is misleading, as is the statement that warming hasn’t paused. It is also misleading to say, as he has, that the issue of heat islands has been settled.’

Prof Muller said she was ‘out of the loop’. He added: ‘I wasn’t even sent the press release before it was issued.’

Prof Muller defended his behaviour yesterday, saying that all he was doing was ‘returning to traditional peer review’, issuing draft papers to give the whole ‘climate community’ a chance to comment.

As for the press release, he claimed he was ‘not seeking publicity’, adding: ‘This is simply a way of getting the media to report this more accurately.’

He said his decision to publish was completely unrelated to the forthcoming United Nations climate conference.

This, he said, was ‘irrelevant’, insisting that nothing could have been further from his mind than trying to influence it.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Globalization, Benedict XVI, and the False Prophet

Timothy Birdnow

Rev 13:11 - And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

Revelation 13:12-14 — 12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, 14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

Pope Benedict XVI has called for a global economic governing system.

According to this article in USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-07-07-pope-encyclical_N.htm

"Pope Benedict XVI today called for reforming the United Nations and establishing a "true world political

authority" with "real teeth" to manage the global economy with God-centered ethics.
In his third encyclical, a major teaching, released as the G-8 summit begins in Italy, the pope says such

an authority is urgently needed to end the current worldwide financial crisis. It should "revive" damaged

economies, reach toward "disarmament, food security and peace," protect the environment and "regulate

migration."

Benedict writes, "The market is not, and must not become, the place where the strong subdue the weak."

The encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) is a theologically dense explication of Catholic

social teaching that draws heavily from earlier popes, particularly PaulVI's critique of capitalism 42

years ago. And echoing his predecessor John Paul II, Benedict says, "every economic decision has a moral

consequence."'

End excerpt.

IF this is an accurate portrayal of the Pope's comments it is cause for great concern, nay, fear and

trembling from the Faithful, because it suggests a terrible possibility.

Is Benedict the False Prophet?

Such an economic order is precisely what the Anti-Christ would institute according to Scripture. The Book

of Revelation makes it plain that a cashless economy will replace the current order, with those who refuse

the Mark of the Beast to be unable to buy or sell. And Revelation makes it plain that the Anti-Christ

would derive his power from a false spiritual system headed by a globalist type leader, the False Prophet,

third person of the Satanic trinity. Catholic theologians have traditionally believed the False Prophet

would be an apostate Pontiff.

And the radical Left is euphoric. Consider this from Think Progress:

http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/10/24/351277/the-vatican-calls-for-economic-equality-reform-of-

world-financial-system/

"The call for greater control and equality in financial markets comes at a time when Republican

presidential candidates — many of whom tout their religious credentials on the campaign trail — have

called for the repeal of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law aimed at preventing a crisis similar to that

of 2008, and as Republicans in both Congress and on the campaign trail continue to back budget cuts that

would eviscerate programs that help the poor. At the same time, protesters spurred by the original Occupy

Wall Street demonstrations have brought increasing attention rising income inequality, corporate greed,

and tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

The Vatican release is a clear sign that it supports the message of the Occupy Wall Street protests,

Vincent J. Miller, the Gudorf Chair in Catholic Theology and Culture at the University of Dayton, said in

a press release:

“While conservative leaders and several presidential candidates want to eviscerate financial reform, the

Vatican has sent a powerful message that prudent regulation of our financial system is a moral priority. I

expect Catholic neo-cons who usually present themselves as the defenders of orthodoxy will ignore or

scramble to defuse this timely teaching. It’s clear the Vatican stands with the Occupy Wall Street

protesters and others struggling to return ethics and good governance to a financial sector grown out of

control after 30 years of deregulation.”

This isn’t the first time faith leaders have spoken out against so-called religious conservatives who have

prioritized tax cuts for the wealthy and repealing financial regulations over helping low-income

Americans. A group of Catholic bishops signed a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Budget

Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) — both practicing Catholics — during the debt limit fight, denouncing

budget cuts that disproportionately hurt the poor. Other religious leaders made similar calls, with Rev.

Jim Wallis telling Republicans, “We did not get into fiscal trouble because of poor people. … The poor

didn’t cause this. Let’s not make them pay for it.”'

End excerpt.

Of course, this flies in the face of several Encyclicals condemning socialism, for example Pius IX Nostis

et Nobiscum or Benedict XV Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum or, well, see here.

http://www.americaneedsfatima.org/Articles/what-the-popes-say-about-socialism.html

Any global economic system will wind up expanding and cementing socialism into place. That is the nature

of the beast, if you pardon an infernal pun. Especially this beast that sits astride the Atlantic Ocean,

with it's heads in New York, Brussels, etc. Global regulation of the economy will give us global

government, and of the worst sort. Surely the current occupant of the Chair of St. Peter knows this - and

understands the theological implications.

But is this what the Holy Father is really arguing?

Here are some of the pertinent passages:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-

veritate_en.html

41. ...

Political authority also involves a wide range of values, which must not be overlooked in the process of constructing a new order of economic productivity, socially responsible and human in scale. As well as cultivating differentiated forms of business activity on the global plane, we must also promote a dispersed political authority, effective on different levels. The integrated economy of the present day does not make the role of States redundant, but rather it commits governments to greater collaboration with one another. Both wisdom and prudence suggest not being too precipitous in declaring the demise of the State. In terms of the resolution of the current crisis, the State's role seems destined to grow, as it regains many of its competences. In some nations, moreover, the construction or reconstruction of the State remains a key factor in their development. The focus of international aid, within a solidarity-based plan to resolve today's economic problems, should rather be on consolidating constitutional, juridical and administrative systems in countries that do not yet fully enjoy these goods. Alongside economic aid, there needs to be aid directed towards reinforcing the guarantees proper to the State of law: a system of public order and effective imprisonment that respects human rights, truly democratic institutions. The State does not need to have identical characteristics everywhere: the support aimed at strengthening weak constitutional systems can easily be accompanied by the development of other political players, of a cultural, social, territorial or religious nature, alongside the State. The articulation of political authority at the local, national and international levels is one of the best ways of giving direction to the process of economic globalization. It is also the way to ensure that it does not actually undermine the foundations of democracy.

42. Sometimes globalization is viewed in fatalistic terms, as if the dynamics involved were the product of anonymous impersonal forces or structures independent of the human will[102]. In this regard it is useful to remember that while globalization should certainly be understood as a socio-economic process, this is not its only dimension. Underneath the more visible process, humanity itself is becoming increasingly interconnected; it is made up of individuals and peoples to whom this process should offer benefits and development[103], as they assume their respective responsibilities, singly and collectively. The breaking-down of borders is not simply a material fact: it is also a cultural event both in its causes and its effects. If globalization is viewed from a deterministic standpoint, the criteria with which to evaluate and direct it are lost. As a human reality, it is the product of diverse cultural tendencies, which need to be subjected to a process of discernment. The truth of globalization as a process and its fundamental ethical criterion are given by the unity of the human family and its development towards what is good. Hence a sustained commitment is needed so as to promote a person-based and community-oriented cultural process of world-wide integration that is open to transcendence.

Despite some of its structural elements, which should neither be denied nor exaggerated, “globalization, a priori, is neither good nor bad. It will be what people make of it”[104]. We should not be its victims, but rather its protagonists, acting in the light of reason, guided by charity and truth. Blind opposition would be a mistaken and prejudiced attitude, incapable of recognizing the positive aspects of the process, with the consequent risk of missing the chance to take advantage of its many opportunities for development. The processes of globalization, suitably understood and directed, open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale; if badly directed, however, they can lead to an increase in poverty and inequality, and could even trigger a global crisis. It is necessary to correct the malfunctions, some of them serious, that cause new divisions between peoples and within peoples, and also to ensure that the redistribution of wealth does not come about through the redistribution or increase of poverty: a real danger if the present situation were to be badly managed. For a long time it was thought that poor peoples should remain at a fixed stage of development, and should be content to receive assistance from the philanthropy of developed peoples. Paul VI strongly opposed this mentality in Populorum Progressio. Today the material resources available for rescuing these peoples from poverty are potentially greater than before, but they have ended up largely in the hands of people from developed countries, who have benefited more from the liberalization that has occurred in the mobility of capital and labour. The world-wide diffusion of forms of prosperity should not therefore be held up by projects that are self-centred, protectionist or at the service of private interests. Indeed the involvement of emerging or developing countries allows us to manage the crisis better today. The transition inherent in the process of globalization presents great difficulties and dangers that can only be overcome if we are able to appropriate the underlying anthropological and ethical spirit that drives globalization towards the humanizing goal of solidarity. Unfortunately this spirit is often overwhelmed or suppressed by ethical and cultural considerations of an individualistic and utilitarian nature. Globalization is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon which must be grasped in the diversity and unity of all its different dimensions, including the theological dimension. In this way it will be possible to experience and to steer the globalization of humanity in relational terms, in terms of communion and the sharing of goods.



"57. ... A particular manifestation of charity and a guiding criterion for

fraternal cooperation between believers and non-believers is undoubtedly the principle of subsidiarity

[137], an expression of inalienable human freedom. Subsidiarity is first and foremost a form of assistance

to the human person via the autonomy of intermediate bodies. Such assistance is offered when individuals

or groups are unable to accomplish something on their own, and it is always designed to achieve their

emancipation, because it fosters freedom and participation through assumption of responsibility.

Subsidiarity respects personal dignity by recognizing in the person a subject who is always capable of

giving something to others. By considering reciprocity as the heart of what it is to be a human being,

subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state. It is able

to take account both of the manifold articulation of plans — and therefore of the plurality of subjects —

as well as the coordination of those plans. Hence the principle of subsidiarity is particularly well-

suited to managing globalization and directing it towards authentic human development. In order not to

produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked

by subsidiarity, articulated into several layers and involving different levels that can work together.

Globalization certainly requires authority, insofar as it poses the problem of a global common good that

needs to be pursued. This authority, however, must be organized in a subsidiary and stratified way[138],

if it is not to infringe upon freedom and if it is to yield effective results in practice."

End excerpts.

Yes, the Pope is arguing that there is something wrong with the current system of things, and rightly so; nobody would claim we have a perfect system, nor argue that we should not seek to improve things. The point is, the Holy Father is arguing for the political to act merely as a buttress for a more charitable way - which ultimately means a change of heart inside people.

He states quite plainly "The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly" and "Much in fact depends on the underlying system of morality"(45) which ultimately is the core of his thesis. This Pope understands that lack of faith is the root of both the problems of socialism and of exploitative capitalism; the robber-baron capitalist, the crony capitalist, is equally a faithless man, believing in the mechanistic forces as much as the Marxist. This is inarguable. This is NOT an indictment of the capitalist system, but a criticism of certain forces at work in that system. Iniquity is ever present in every human institution.

HOWEVER...

The Pope bemoans "hoarding" of energy by some nations, worries about proper "stewardship" of the environment, and belabores a whole collection of Green talking points that I fear will be used by the Left. That he prefaces it with a warning against turning this to paganism, that preface will be purposely lost by the enemies of the Church. He really should know better.

And here is the offending section:

"67. In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect[146] and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good[147], and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights[148]. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization[149]. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations."

End excerpt.

He goes on to say that without God this is all in vain, yet he has made a terrible mistake here. Throughout Benedict has called for a "subsidiary" society in which Man is autonomous and yet part of the whole, but he should understand that this will lead to the subsuming of that autonomy should the State and particularly the Metastate be empowered.

Is Benedict the False Prophet? This document certainly forshadows him.

Beyond Sushiology: Does Diversity Work?

Jack Kemp

Referenced from Pat Buchanan's latest book, Suicide of a Superpower, in his discussion on the toxic effect of so much diversity in our nation that there isn't an agreed upon national identity as we once had. I suggest reading the whole article. And Buchanan's book (or just the online bookseller review, if you don't have the time).


The following quote is from the article about diversity and is found at: http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2002/winter_affirmativeaction_skerry.aspx
Beyond Sushiology: Does Diversity Work?
Race, Ethnicity, Immigration, Migration
Peter Skerry, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Governance Studies
The Brookings Institution

QUOTED SECTION:

For a more nuanced view of the profound demographic changes sweeping the United States, talk to a priest in a typical Catholic parish in southern California. The priest might, like the rest of us, wax poetic about his favorite local ethnic restaurants. But he will also note the daunting problems of, say, putting on Sunday mass for parishioners who speak English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Tagalog. Should there be a separate mass in each language? Or should masses be multilingual, with different parts in various languages? Whichever he chooses, someone will feel neglected. And in any case, he must find priests with the needed language skills.

Language is only the most obvious problem introduced by diversity. In a small town in Iowa large numbers of new Latino immigrants create resentment among long-time Anglo parishioners when they bring little children to church and let them roam about during services. Such resentments are typically attributed to Anglo "insensitivity" or "racism." But as the Wall Street Journal recently reported, intense animosities have flared between newly arrived Mexicans and more established Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in a predominantly Latino parish in the Bronx. No wonder the Hispanic Jesuit Alan Figueroa-Deck, writing in the liberal Catholic magazine America, criticizes the hierarchy's "ideology of multiculturalism" and points to the remarkable success of Evangelical and Pentecostal Protestants in building ethnically homogeneous congregations among Latinos. Clearly, diversity's beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

End

A NOTE FROM DANA MATHEWSON:

I didn't read the entire article, so I don't know if Pat pointed out the fact that "Americans," meaning long-established citizens, have normally been very welcoming of new citizens (obviously I don't include illegal aliens here), as long as those new citizens are in the process of becoming what might be called "true Americans," the way they did back in the early days of the 20th century. Those people came here to embrace the American way of life; while they didn't forget that they brought a great deal of the culture of their former countries with them, they tried to learn English as quickly as they could, and they endeavored to dress like Americans, and they tried to adopt American attitudes. Admittedly some had more success with this than others. What's more, they quickly developed a great love for America, because America offered them advantages their former countries did not. And our schools taught them all this.

Now, schools teach that America is a blot on the world.

But you fellows know all this anyhow

A NOTE FROM TIM:

Yep; Americans welcome those who want to join us, not use us.

One of the reasons Italians suffered discrimination in the early 20th century was because they tried not to assimilate rather than because of racism as is alleged today. The relatively new nation of Italy had a bad unemployment problem and so adopted the solution used by Mexico today, encouraging her poorer citizens to immigrate to the U.S. The Italian government told these people that they could go to America, stay for five years, and come back as millionaires. Of course, once here these people had to go to work in the mines or factories, and it soon became apparent that faith had been broken with them. Still, many Italian immigrants came here believing they would simply earn their fortunes and return home. As a result they weren't very popular, especially among the Irish and other older immigrant poor.

My father's best friend was third generation Italian, and HIS mother, born and raised here, barely spoke English. My dad's friend and his siblings would refuse to answer her when she tried to speak to them in Italian. She never learned English because her family didn't plan on staying here; they wanted to remain Italian. It just didn't work out that way.

Mario Puzo discusses the Mafia in his books, and makes the point that these immigrants simply didn't understand that America was fundamentally different than their old homes. It's interesting to note that the Mafia died out here once the younger native-born generation took over; they were too American to feel a need for a criminal underground to provide them with a counterbalance to corrupt government.

In the end those who adopt America the fastest succeed the quickest. That's why this country has been largely free of ethnic and regional strife. We have always been a melting pot. Liberals are trying to make her into a salad - and we are starting to experience the difficulties that so many European countries have suffered.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Americans Increasingly Pro-Gun, Gallup Poll says

Dana Mathewson

Good news, guys. Apparently the efforts of such groups as the NRA are bearing fruit, as "average Americans" are learning the facts about such things as "semiautomatic weapons." There's still a lot of work to be done, but perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Of course, with news like this, we know the "Brady Bunch" and Mike Bloomberg will redouble their efforts, not to mention the entire Democratic Party.

http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/guns-poll-gallup/2011/10/27/id/415903

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Text of Cardinal Pell's Speech

Timothy Birdnow

Here is the text of Cardinal Pell's speech, courtesy of the Global Warming Policy Foundation:

http://thegwpf.org/uk-news/4212-cardinal-george-pell-one-christian-perspective-on-climate-change.html

Cardinal Pell calls Carbon Credits comparable to Medieval Indulgences

Timothy Birdnow

The catholic Archbishop of Sydney has come out against Global Warming Alarmism. This from The Australian:

Cardinal Pell Questions The Price Of Climate Action

The Australian, 27 October 2011

Tess Livingstone

CATHOLIC Archbishop of Sydney George Pell has questioned the morality and cost benefits of imposing heavy financial burdens in the cause of curbing climate change. Last night Cardinal Pell presented the annual lecture to London's controversial Global Warming Policy Foundation, chaired by former British chancellor Nigel Lawson.

"Whatever our political masters might decide at this high tide of Western indebtedness," Cardinal Pell said, "they are increasingly unlikely, because of popular pressure, to impose new financial burdens on their populations in the hope of curbing the rise of global temperatures, except perhaps in Australia, which has 2 per cent of the world's industrial capacity and only 1.2 per cent of its CO2 emissions, while continuing to sell coal worth billions of dollars to Asia.

"In 1135, the water flow in the Danube was so low that people could cross it on foot. Somewhat earlier, the Rhine had suffered the same fate. Around the middle of the Little Ice Age, the year 1540 was the warmest and driest for the millennium in central Europe. Once again, the Rhine dried up.

"We can only imagine the excitement such events would provoke today.

"Extreme weather events are to be expected, but are unexpected in every period. No one towards the end of the medieval warming in Europe expected the rapid descent into the cold and wet of the Little Ice Age, for example, or the freezing gales, winds and heavy rains that produced the short summers and the terrible developing famines of 1315 to 1320. Surprises such as these will continue into the future."

This was why he supported the views of geologist Bob Carter and Danish environmental writer Bjorn Lomborg that money should be used to raise living standards and reduce vulnerability to catastrophes and climate change, in whatever form.

"We need to be able to afford to provide the Noahs of the future with the best arks science and technology can provide," Cardinal Pell said.

"In essence, this is the moral dimension to this issue. The cost of attempts to make global warming go away will be very heavy. Efforts to offset the effects on the vulnerable are well intentioned but history tells us they can only ever be partially successful."

End excerpt.

And then there's this from National Review Online:

The Cardinal, The Climate, And The Greens

National Review Online, 26 October 2011

Samuel Gregg

These days, scarcely a month goes by without another prominent scientist quietly abandoning the tottering climate-change bandwagon. Climate activists increasingly lament how opinion seems to be shifting against them. It’s likely, however, that among the last hold-outs will be self-styled “progressive Christians.”

From the moment the climate debate heated up within the halls of faith, Cardinal George Pell — the Catholic archbishop of Sydney and one of the College of Cardinals’ intellectual heavyweights — has been arguing that the scientific consensus on this matter is far from settled. Today in London, Pell delivered a lecture for the Global Warming Policy Foundation in which he presented his most comprehensive case to date for why he thinks the consensus is open to question and the moral and economic reasons to be wary about proposed climate-change solutions.

In the full text, provocatively entitled “Eppur’ si muove” (after the apocryphal saying attributed to Galileo), Pell exhaustively details the scientific evidence that the consensus can’t quite account for and underscores what he calls “the climate movement’s totalitarian approach to opposing views, their demonising of successful opponents, and their opposition to the publication of opposing views, even in scientific journals.” He also notes that the economic costs associated with various climate proposals are likely to weigh heavily on the world’s most vulnerable people. “Are there any long-term benefits from the schemes to combat global warming, apart from extra tax revenues for governments and income for those devising and implementing the schemes?”

Pell draws an interesting analogy between the biblical account of the Tower of Babel and particular policy measures demanded by climate activists. Drawing upon the work of distinguished physician-philosopher Leon Kass, Pell notes that the narrative of humanity’s attempt to build a tower that would reach the heavens may be understood as a metaphor for man’s “presumptuous attempt to control or appropriate the divine” and (citing Kass) “the all-too-human, prideful attempt at self-creation.” On this basis, Pell writes: “We should ask whether our attempts at global climate control are within human capacity [or] likely to be as misdirected and ineffective as the construction of the famous tower in the temple of Marduk, Babylon’s chief god.”

In short, Pell isn’t suggesting there’s nothing to be concerned about — “I am not a ‘denier’ of climate-change” — nor does he claim that his perspective is the only possible Christian position on climate change. His key points are simply that (1) the scientific debate is not over, (2) the climate movement has always seemed more driven by ideology than evidence, and (3) this isn’t a basis for implementing extremely costly policies.

There is a broader context to Pell’s remarks, and that is Catholic hierarchy’s growing concern about some of the climate-change movement’s most aggressive allies: the Greens.

It’s no secret that when it comes to those moral questions that are truly non-negotiable for Catholics (e.g., abortion, euthanasia), Greens invariably take the most permissive positions. Their hostility to robust religious-liberty protections is a matter of record. Moreover, anyone who delves into “deep Green” literature soon discovers frankly humanophobic ideas. Such are the concerns of some Catholic bishops that, before elections were held in the Australian state of New South Wales in March this year, Pell and most of the state’s Catholic bishops issued an unprecedented pre-election statement warning their flocks against the more troubling, less publically mentioned parts of the Greens’ party platform.

But wait — doesn’t all this put Cardinal Pell at odds with Benedict XVI, whom some have dubbed the “Green Pope”?

The short answer is no. First, it’s hardly news that Pell and Benedict have been good friends since then–auxiliary bishop Pell served as a member of then–Cardinal Ratzinger’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith throughout the 1990s. It’s hard to think of another cardinal who has been more supportive of Benedict’s powerful critiques of the “dictatorship of relativism.”

Second, Benedict himself has wondered on many occasions (including during his recent Bundestag speech) about the disconnect between many peoples’ contemporary angst about the environment and their seeming indifference to what Benedict calls the “human ecology” of the natural law, which provides the only truly rational basis for human freedom, dignity, and civilization.

Leaving aside efforts to establish nonexistent tensions between cardinal and pope, the usual suspects — secular and religious — will surely excoriate Pell for this lecture. But in an age where far too many Christian thinkers are way too submissive to transitory intellectual fashions that make them acceptable at fashionable cocktail parties but also partakers in profound intellectual incoherence, it’s refreshing to know not everyone is so intimidated.

— Samuel Gregg is research director at the Acton Institute. He has authored several books including On Ordered Liberty, his prize-winning The Commercial Society, Wilhelm Röpke’s Political Economy, and his 2012 forthcoming Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and America’s Future.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Five voters who support Herman Cain -- and why

Dana Mathewson

Kyle-Anne Shiver has found five staunch Cain supporters who agreed to state their views for PJ Media (the brand-new name of Pajamas Media). Good stuff indeed, and we all know Kyle-Anne is worth reading any time. http://pjmedia.com/blog/why-herman-cain-electrifies-the-grassroots-five-voters-speak-out/

With this kind of support -- there are many, many more than these five out there -- I certainly expect Cain's numbers to keep growing, despite the pundits who are doing their best to minimize him.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

It’s libel – except when Mike does it

Paul Driessen

It’s libel – except when Mike does it

This Mann-made global warming lawsuit could backfire on the Penn State alarmist

Support science, energy and freedom – donate to Dr. Tim Ball’s legal defense fund

Lewis Carroll died too soon. Just imagine the fun he’d have with the cliquish clan of climate catastrophe researchers who seek to control science, debate and public policy on global warming and energy – and then get outraged when someone challenges their findings, methodologies or integrity.

On October 1, Dr. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University and “hockey stick” fame published an angry riposte in Colorado’s obscure Vail Daily Voices (circulation 15,000), expressing his umbrage over an article that had appeared in the free coffee shop newspaper a day earlier.

“An individual named Martin Hertzberg did a grave disservice to your readers by making false and defamatory statements about me and my climate scientist colleagues in his recent commentary in your paper,” Mann began. (Hertzberg is a research scientist and former US Navy meteorologist.) The thin-skinned Penn State scientist then ranted:

“These are just lies, regurgitation of dishonest smears that have been manufactured by fossil fuel industry-funded climate change deniers, and those who do their bidding by lying to the public about the science.” [emphasis added]

Meanwhile, NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen, recipient of huge monetary awards for strident climate disaster claims, wants oil and coal company CEOs prosecuted for “crimes against humanity.”

So Mann and Hansen are honest scientists, trying to do their jobs. But Hertzberg and anyone else who questions the “imminent manmade climate change catastrophe” thesis are dishonest crooks, liars, Holocaust deniers, hired guns for fossil fuel interests, criminals threatening all humanity.

Hertzberg’s views were defamatory, but Mann’s and Hansen’s accusations are mild, rational and truthful.

(Readers can find Mann’s letters http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/02/thanks-to-michael-manns-response-a-newspaper-censors-a-letter-to-the-editor/#more-48539 and lively discussions about them and Hansen on Dr. Anthony Watts’ WattsUpWithThat.com climate change website. Hertzberg’s letter appeared, mysteriously disappeared, then reappeared in the Vail Voices online archives as the controversy raged and ebbed.)

The bizarre saga gets even stranger when viewed alongside Dr. Mann’s kneejerk lawsuit against Dr. Tim Ball http://drtimball.com/2011/tim-balls-libel-case-and-legal-defense-fund/, a Canadian scientist, historical climatologist and retired professor who has frequently voiced his skepticism about claims that hydrocarbon use and carbon dioxide emissions are the primary cause of climate change and present an imminent risk of widespread planetary cataclysms. Dr. Ball has analyzed Canadian and global climate history, and does not regard computer models as much more than virtual reality scenarios that should never be the basis for real-world public policy.

Dr. Ball had poked fun at Dr. Mann, playing word games that suggest the computer guy should not be at Penn State, but in a similarly named state institution. Unfortunately, Mann is not easily amused, as Dr. Ball should have known from the PSU professor’s testy reaction to the “Hide the decline” animation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMqc7PCJ-nc&feature=related and other spoofs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx-t9k7epIk&feature=related that various AGW “deniers” posted online.

Mann insisted that Dr. Ball’s little joke was libelous and took him to court. Mann’s legal principal seems to be that libel is fine only when he and Hansen practice the craft, albeit with far less good humor than others display. More importantly, Dr. Ball does not live or work in the United States.

US libel cases are governed by the First Amendment, “public figure” rules and other safeguards that ensure open, robust debate, and make it difficult and expensive to sue people over slights, affronts, insults, disagreements and jokes.

Canada, unfortunately, has more limited free speech protections. So Dr. Mike sued Dr. Tim in Canada, assuming victory would be rapid and sweet. Surprise! Dr. Ball decided to slug it out.

In Canada, the principal defenses against libel claims are that the alleged defamation constitutes “fair comment” or was in fact “the truth.” Ball chose the latter defense.

Doing so means the penalty for losing could be higher than under “fair comment” rules. But arguing that his statement was based on truth allows Dr. Ball to seek “discovery” of evidence that Dr. Mann’s actions reflect a use of public funds to alter or falsify scientific data, present highly speculative results as solid facts, or otherwise engage in something that a reasonable person would conclude constitutes dishonest activity or criminal culpability, undertaken moreover through the use of taxpayer funds.

Proving that will not be easy, especially since Mann has steadfastly refused to provide such potential evidence to anyone, including Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. That evidence might include Climategate emails; computer codes and data used, misused or used selectively to generate global warming spikes in historical graphs; and questionable research or proposals used to secure additional government grants, misinform citizens or lawmakers, or promote costly or harmful public policies.

The US government alone spent an estimated $79 billion http://climateresearchnews.com/2009/07/79-billion-spent-and-counting-still-no-proof-of-agw/ on climate, renewable energy and related research between 1989 and 2009 – and many billions more since then. Obviously, there is a lot at stake for scientists, universities, government agencies and other institutions engaged in trying to demonstrate a link between human greenhouse gas emissions and climate, weather, agricultural, sea level and other “disasters.” The reputations and credibility of researchers and their institutions are likewise at stake.

Keeping people alarmed, insisting that numerous disasters will soon result from carbon dioxide emissions and a few degrees of planetary warming – and silencing anyone who questions climate chaos claims – are essential if this money train is to be kept on the tracks.

Dr. Mann is likely aided by Penn State lawyers, largely paid for with climate research taxpayer dollars the university wants to safeguard, by preventing criticism or scientific disclosure and transparency.

A judge and jury will decide the Mann vs. Ball case, after carefully weighing all the evidence on whether Dr. Ball’s allegations and insinuations were factual, accurate and truthful.

Dr. Mann’s research was conducted primarily with public money. It is being presented as valid, peer-reviewed science. It is also being used to champion and justify major policy recommendations at state, national and international levels. And those recommendations call for carbon taxes and other penalties for using hydrocarbon energy; the replacement of affordable, dependable fossil fuel energy with expensive, unreliable wind and solar facilities; a roll-back of living standards in rich developed nations; and limited or minimal energy and economic development in poor countries.

Therefore, as I have argued previously, the public has a right to demand that Mann & Comrades show their work http://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2010/05/29/ken_cuccinelli_v_810_academics, not merely their answers and policy demands. Thus far, serious questions http://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2010/07/24/mrs_madoff_exonerates_michael_mann about Mann’s research remain unanswered. The public also has a right to require that Mann, Penn State & Company provide their source material http://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2010/10/30/no_more_double_standards/page/2, not just their results – along with anything else that may be relevant to gauging the validity, accuracy and honesty of the work and its conclusions and policy recommendations.

We the People have a further right, duty and obligation to protect free speech, robust debate, the integrity of the scientific method, our personal freedoms, and our access to the reliable, affordable energy that makes our jobs and living standards possible. One way you can do this is by supporting Dr. Tim Ball’s legal defense fund. Just go here http://drtimball.com/2011/tim-balls-libel-case-and-legal-defense-fund/ or go to http://DrTimBall.com/

__________

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.

OWS fire hazards: Burn, Baby, Burn

Jack Kemp


Guys, it gets more and more dangerous as reality creeps up on these creeps.

Jack


http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/10/24/sources-fdny-concerned-zuccotti-park-turning-into-firetrap/


Sources: FDNY Concerned Zuccotti Park Turning Into Firetrap
'Occupy Wall Street' Uses Gas-Powered Generators, But Lacks Extinguishers
October 24, 2011 11:59 PM
Section of article:


Occupy Wall Street protesters use gas-powered generators. http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/10/22/man-climbs-zuccotti-park-structure-as-occupy-wall-street-enters-sixth-week/ The FDNY is concerned if a fire starts, saying the current setup in Zuccotti Park could be a recipe for disaster. (Photo: CBS 2)

Reporting Lou Young

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — There’s a growing cause for concern down at Zuccotti Park. Sources told CBS 2 on Monday night the FDNY is looking into possible fire hazard situations that could put protesters at risk.
Fire prevention experts at the Department notified the Mayor’s Office of the potential problem. There are apparently lots of ways for a fire to start and not enough planning about how to put one out. It’s a concern that could impact the future of this encampment.

The “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators make their own power with gasoline driven generators and that’s the problem, according to our sources at the FDNY.

The presence of gas and other flammable liquids they’ve discovered at Zuccotti Park has some in the Department worried that a smoker’s stray spark could lead to disaster.

Protesters have already been ordered to avoid open flames, even when serving food.

Fire prevention experts at the Department notified the Mayor’s Office of the potential problem. There are apparently lots of ways for a fire to start and not enough planning about how to put one out. It’s a concern that could impact the future of this encampment.

The “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators make their own power with gasoline driven generators and that’s the problem, according to our sources at the FDNY.

The presence of gas and other flammable liquids they’ve discovered at Zuccotti Park has some in the Department worried that a smoker’s stray spark could lead to disaster.

"Flyover Country" defends his pick for the GOP nomination

And does a very articulate job of it. http://www.theblogmocracy.com/2011/10/25/flyovercountrys-pick-for-the-nomination-not-the-blogmocracys-pick/

This is an interesting web site, which I plan to explore a bit more. I found this article because it was linked from the excellent Yid with Lid site.

I won't quote from this article because I don't want to spoil your fun. Please read the article -- it's worth it.

Moonbat Monbiot Makes Glacial Mistakes

Timothy Birdnow

This from CCNET:

Glacial George Wrong Again

Bishop Hill, 24 October 2011
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/10/24/glacial-george.html

Andrew Montford

George Monbiot, Guardian 27 January 2000

“The Himalayan glaciers are retreating so fast that the rivers may dry up in the summer by 2040. The results, if that happens, will be catastrophic.”

Dr Bob Bradnock, geographer, Letter to the Guardian, 4 February 2000

“Sadly, in seeking to make easy points about global warming [Monbiot] has got his "facts" wrong. Glaciers contribute virtually nothing to the flow of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Indus rivers, which depend primarily on monsoon rain and to a much lesser extent on snow melt (not glacier melt). There has been no long term decline in precipitation in the Himalaya. The idea that the glaciers are retreating so fast that the rivers may dry up by the summer of 2040 displays an embarrassing ignorance of the normal hydrological cycle of all these rivers, whose low flow period is in the winter, and which in summer continue to pour water down from the Himalaya.”

George Monbiot, The Guardian, 29 July 2009

“India is finally lumbering into action on climate change. Though this country is likely to be hit harder than almost anywhere else by the climate crash, not least because its food production is largely dependent on meltwater from Himalayan glaciers, which are rapidly retreating, it has almost been a point of pride in India not to respond to the requests of richer nations to limit its emissions.”

Scientific American today

“A growing number of studies based on satellite data and stream chemistry analyses have found that far less surface water comes from glacier melt than previously assumed. In Peru's Rio Santa, which drains the Cordilleras Blanca mountain range, glacier contribution appears to be between 10 and 20 percent. In the eastern Himalayas, it is less than 5 percent. ...

"There has been a lot of misinformation and confusion about it," said Peter Gleick, co-director of the California-based Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security. "

Yes, indeed.



Editor's Note: See also New Research Casts Doubt on Doomsday Water Shortage Predictions

By measuring the isotopes in river water, scientists have determined that mountain glaciers contribute less than thought to downstream water supplies

Full story: Lisa Friedman, Scientific American, 24 October 2011

Monday, October 24, 2011

Do CPR on your own time, says Time!

Timothy Birdnow

Time Warner, that bastion of liberal values, allowed a customer service rep to die rather than waste time on CPR for her.
http://www.huliq.com/3257/stop-giving-your-co-worker-cpr-get-back-work-time-warner-cable-supervisor

From the article:

"Last month, a Time Warner Cable customer service rep died at her desk. That was bad enough. However, investigative reporting by a local TV station has uncovered something far worse: after a co-worker began giving CPR to 67-year-old Julia Nelson, a supervisor allegedly told her to stop and "get back on the phone and take care of customers."

End excerpt.

Liberals always argue against the abuses of big business, yet the organizations they themselves run are often the most abusive of the lot. They demand what they themselves are unwilling to give. Here they let a decent woman die for the sake of the bottom line.

Time Warner is a big supporter of Planned Parenthood http://www.lifenews.com/2010/08/11/nat-6623/ and abortion; I suppose this is just a retroactive abortion? Life is cheap to the Left.

A Bishop Speaks on Global Warming

This courtesy of CCNET:

Peter Forster: Look To Adaptation, Not Alarmism

Church Times, 21 October 2011

The moral issues surrounding UK climate policy, as well as the underlying scientific and economic issues, are much more complex than is usually acknowledged. It is time for the Churches to recognise this, and to lead a debate which helps our society to a more sensible set of policies.

In 1900, the most distinguished British scientist of his day, Lord Kelvin addressed his fellow scientists: ‘There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement’. Yet, within a few years, relativity and quantum physics had revolutionised our understanding of the world.

The history of science is full of examples of established beliefs, which at the time were held with great conviction, being overturned. It looks increasingly as if the certainty with which global warming and climate science has been viewed for the past couple of decades may be the latest example.

The Royal Society, under pressure from 40 of its own members, accepted in 2010 that the connection between climate change and anthropogenic increases in CO2 levels is much less certain than previously thought. As Lord Broers, one of our leading scientists today, has put it, there is a ‘lack of an adequate quantitative relationship between the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere and warming’ (Hansard, 24.11.09, col.308).

The Churches have tended to follow climate alarmism with uncritical enthusiasm, but it is now time to take stock.

One of the now discredited views is that the increase in global temperatures (of only about 0.8º C over the past 100 years) has come after many centuries of a stable climate. In its Third Assessment (2003), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change compared its analysis to an ice hockey stick, with 1000 years of stability leading to the recent increase. The IPCC had simply airbrushed out the medieval warm period, when vines grew in Britain, and the later post-Tudor period (1550-1850) when the Thames regularly froze over.

A closer look at the historical record suggests that populations and civilisations actually tend to flourish during warmer periods, as set out in Professor Ian Plimer’s book Heaven and Earth (Connor Court, 2009). Also, increased levels of CO2 help plants and trees to grow more quickly, as horticulturalists know.

Global warming alarmism has been driven forward in an emotive, even quasi-religious way, with the object of ‘saving the planet’. Christians should be cautious before they make common cause with such utopian aspirations, just as scientists need to be cautious about turning possible scientific theories into cast-iron certainties.

There is every reason for the responsible use of limited natural resources, and not least oil and gas, but that remains true whatever the scientific position on global warming turns out to be. We should acknowledge that Western society, in particular, does not have a good environmental record, although this is now improving. But contemporary claims that human beings can manage fundamental features of the earth’s environment, such as its climate, need to be approached with great caution.

The very idea that human beings can control the planet’s climate seems doubtful in scientific terms, and is likely to derive from the modern myth of human power. But there is also a compelling economic reason for doubting that we could stop global warming, even if it is driven largely by CO2 increases.

Any country with fossil fuel reserves will exploit them, whether this is Sudan or the United States. Realising the value in fossil fuels unavoidably means for coal its conversion to CO2 and, in the case of oil and gas, also water.

Imagine that the richer countries did cut back their consumption. All that would happen is that the world price would fall, enabling higher consumption by poorer countries. The net effect will be more-or-less the same, unless large amounts of the CO2 can be sequestered and stored permanently.

It would be a great act of faith to believe that this is going to happen. As yet, despite years of discussion, CO2 capture and storage has not been commercially demonstrated, although several pilot projects are at an advanced stage of planning.

CO2 capture will be scientifically feasible, but at what additional cost? In order to meet UK targets, all gas-fired, as well as any new coal-fired, power stations will need to be equipped with CO2 capture, but our international competitors have no such commitments in place.

Public policy in the whole area is in a mess in the UK. The previous government set in law a unilateral commitment to reduce UK carbon emissions by 2050 to a mere 20% of the 1990 levels. Given the unavoidable use of hydrocarbons for some purposes, such as air travel, this will require the total decarbonisation of electricity generation. The investment required would run to hundreds of billions of pounds.

As a start, there is a large programme to promote so-called renewable energy sources, especially wind turbines. Those who own the turbines are currently paid more than twice as much for their electricity as the cost of coal or gas generation, the subsidy being loaded on to everyone’s electricity bills.

Absurdly, this represents a considerable transfer of wealth from the poorer families to rich landowners or businesses. And if the net result, as is bound to happen, is higher electricity prices in the UK compared with our competitors, it will result in higher unemployment as energy-intensive jobs are exported.

Even if it proves to be the case that CO2 increases will produce a significant rise in the average global temperature, there is a strong case for directing investment towards adaptation, rather than to a probably futile attempt to prevent the underlying climate from changing. For example, there might be a global fund, to help poorer nations with flood defences, agricultural adaptation, and other measures, if in the event the climate does change very significantly during this century.

The moral issues surrounding UK climate policy, as well as the underlying scientific and economic issues, are much more complex than is usually acknowledged. It is time for the Churches to recognise this, and to lead a debate which helps our society to a more sensible set of policies.

Peter Forster is the Bishop of Chester and a Trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Stimulus for Me but not for Thee at Canada Free Press

Timothy Birdnow

So, Barack Hussein Obama (peace be upon him) has taken it upon himself to end the Iraq war, bring the troops home, and fulfill his promise to the moonbat antiwar Left (who do not seem to have much of a problem with Hussein's own wars, since they do not involve our national interest and weren't started by a Republican). Well, dandy. And yet, Our Exalted Leader and Copious Parasite of the Vociferi also asks for a bunch of money to stimulate the economy. WEll; why is he ending the Iraq war? Seems a major opertion like Iraq was an enormous example of Keynesian stimulus, as I argue in my latest at Canada Free Press.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/41593

If Obama really believed that spending equates with economic activity, he should welcome our occupation of Iraq as a boon to economic growth. Why end a $140 billion a year industry? Why ask Congress for $400 Billion to spend on teachers and civil servants and then shut down Iraq? If spending is the way out of poverty then we should be surging in Iraq, not withdrawing.

Green Dionysius

Timothy Birdnow

Our old friend Mark Musser has a great piece at American Thinker today about the Christian roots of science and how radical environmentalism is fundamentally a pagan and anti-rational movement.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/the_greens_religion_and_science.html

From the article:

"Lovers of philosophy, the ancient Greeks had very little interest in developing applied modern science as is practiced today. It was the Old and New Testaments, which time and time again stress the practical import and value of knowledge, which helped form the basis for applied modern science. Moreover, since people believed that God created the universe, this made nature not only tangibly real and rational, but also something worthy of serious investigation. In other words, the Christian scientist expected to learn from nature precisely because he assumed that God intelligently designed it. Once the assumption of God's intelligent design is removed from nature, it becomes very difficult to understand just exactly what scientists are intending tolearn these days. Neither can they explain why it is that they have indeed learned so much from nature. The Darwinian descent of man fully submerged into a purposeless natural world of unintelligent outcomes has only compounded this problem further. Contrary to popular opinion, a mixed up post-Christian, postmodern world is anything but a good foundation upon which to build an epistemological basis for scientific knowledge.

Further, the Judeo-Christian God is also separate from world which He created. This is extremely critical. Since God is transcendent above the natural world, to study nature and tinker with her secrets is not an act of irreverence. As such, surprisingly enough, it was the Judeo-Christian worldview which removed the superstitions of the pagan universe and opened wide the door of scientific investigation. Here is precisely where Lynn White, Jr. strongly complains that "by destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects."

The fact that man was made in God's image further established the inherent connection between Christianity and modern science. Man's reasoning capacity was assumed to be one of the primary characteristics of being made in God's image that sharply separated him from brute nature.

The great concern today, therefore, is not that Christian theology will ruin science with anti-scientific ideas like so many fear, but whether modern science can continue to have a genuine future if all of its foundation stones have been removed -- especially if they have been replaced with green ones. As Lynn White, Jr. showcased throughout his speech, the green movement has little regard for the scientific revolution precisely because it associates that movement with Christianity's dominating view over nature. Christianity has allegedly ransacked the ecology of the planet with a heavenly imperialistic worldview which has had little sympathy for the feelings of plants, animals, and indigenous peoples.

Lynn White, Jr.'s answer to help resolve the environmental crisis is even more revealing: "more science and more technology are not going to get us out of the present ecological crisis until we find a new religion, or rethink the old one." In other words, environmentalism is not nearly as scientific as many would presume. The fact that many of its proponents are modern-day pantheists is further evidence of what Lynn White, Jr. may have had in mind. Modern environmentalism is therefore just as much a religious philosophy of man and nature as it is a science. Conservationist Paul Sears wrote in 1964 that ecology was a subversive science and that it was quickly becoming the favorite child of the sciences. Such favoritism has since inserted many green biases into the modern science department."

End excerpt.

I am mindful of Nietzche, no Christian in any regard:

http://www.carroll.edu/msmillie/philocontempo/Nietzschephilo.html

"6. CRITIQUE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS

There is no deep reality, no underlying objective and unchanging reality. According to Nietzsche, this is a lie because life is meaningless, and what you see is what you get. We must rely on sense and common sense as most useful means to understand the world. This doesn't give a "correct" view, however, because there is no such thing—even the view that life is really meaningless isn’t true, if this is understood as a metaphysical account of reality! So common sense merely supplies the perspective by which we live. "The apparant world is the only one: the "real world" is merely a lie." Twilight Ch 3 Ap2

A problem. In the words of Arthur C. Danto: "How are we to understand a theory when the structure of our understanding itself is called in question by that theory? And when we have succeeded in understanding it, in our terms, it would automatically follow that we had misunderstood it, for our own terms are the wrong ones" ("Nietzsche" in A Critical History of Western Philosophy, Edited by D.J. O’Connor).

A kind of resolution: "Even if on his own view of truth, his theories necessarily assume the character of myth, these myths were intimately associated with value-judgments which Nietzsche asserted with passion. And it is perhaps these value-judgments more than anything else which have been the source of his great influence." Frederick Coppleston, History of Philosophy: Fichte to Nietzsche

It fits with Nietzsche’s emphasis on strength that philosophy itself is another test for the superior man; like belief in God, he must test himself to see if he is strong enough to live without it."

End excerpt.

Without a worldview that believes reality is really real and not some subjective construct science becomes untenable, and indeed, Nietzche did believe that the Western scientific rationalism would fall of it's own weight. Christianity gave the world that worldview; it neither denied reality nor deified it, but merely made the world intelligible, an artifact to be studied. The Greeks were too caught up in notions of reason as a purely metaphysical experience.

But modern science has adopted irrationality as a core virtue thanks to the Heisenberg principle and certain aspects of neurobiological research which seems to suggest there is no concrete reality, and the atheism engendered by scientists with God complexes has led to a worldview unwilling to accept a Creator. Science is indeed about the study of the natural rather than supernatural, and postulating God in the scientific method is an easy escape, but removing Him is equally an easy escape, and leads to a terrible myopia of thinking that calls men to madness. How can we learn about our universe when we don't believe it has an independent existence anymore? It's like analyzing the science of Middle Earth; it makes no difference except as an intellectual exercise.

And so modern science has descended into the superstitions of Global Warming, Gaia, and a host of other incredibly stupid things.

At any rate, do read the entire piece by Mark; it is well worth your time.
This is an outstanding piece!

Muammar, Dead at Last

By Alan Caruba

There were at last count at least 643 ways to spell Muammar Gaddafi and I for one am very happy he is dead for that reason alone. The fact that he was the dictator of Libya for over forty years, funded the Lockerbie bombing of a Pan Am airliner and other terrorist acts also contributes to the good news.

These are proving to be bad times for dictators and it is easy to suggest that Basher Assad, a second generation dictator of Syria, will likely come to an equally bad end. So far this year the former dictator of Tunisia had to flee. Egypt’s Mubarack had to step aside, and both Syria's and Yemen’s presidents are under seige. Nobody knows who’s in charge of Somalia.

As I watched President Obama take a victory lap when he announced Gaddafi’s death, my thoughts turned to what Ted Belman, a widely-read blogger called the Israpundit http://www.israpundit.com/, had to say. “Gaddafi wasn’t any worse than the barbarians that killed him and will replace him. There are no freedom-loving democrats in the entire Muslim world which consists of seventh century-minded brutes.”

The Israelis have had the misfortune of having had to fight off Muslims not only for the past sixty-plus years of statehood, but in the decades leading up to it. Unlike those of us in the West, they understand them in terms of the insane, fanatical hatred they have for Jews, Christians, and all other “infidels”, unbelievers.

“The way the jihadist-enabling mainstream media is reporting the death of Gaddafi,” observed Belman, “you would think that Libya will become some sort of western-style democracy rather than a sharia-ruled hell-hole that will become the latest haven for al Qaeda. So why are the same people who condemned Bush’s overthrow of Saddam Hussein celebrating this?”

Good question.

Simply put, Muslims—particularly those in the Middle East—see the world in a way that is totally the reverse of how Westerners do. Ours is a pluralistic society. Theirs is a tribal society. We practice tolerance for other religions. They not only seek to drive out unbelievers, they regard apostasy as a death sentence for anyone who wants to leave Islam. Many have.

As Raymond Ibrahim, an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum, noted in a recent book review, “Last week Saudi Arabia’s religious police arrested an Indonesian housemaid for casting a magic spell on a local family and turning its life upside down. The maid ‘confessed’ to using sorcery and commission experts took the magic items to their office and managed to dismantle and stop the spell.” In the West we celebrate Halloween once a year. In the Middle East, it’s every day.

The book by Robert Reilly, “The Closing of the Muslim Mind” http://www.meforum.org/3074/the-closing-of-the-muslim-mind, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, makes clear that such beliefs are common; magic spells, jins and genies. Reilly wrote of the different schools of Islam, showing how, by the 10th century, three hundred years after the death of Muhammad, the fatalistic schools had triumphed. The giants of Muslim philosphy, Ghazali and Ashari, “concluded that knowledge was unknowable, that moral truths can only be ascertained through revelation.”

This explains why so much of what occurs in the Middle East seems to defy logic to the Western mind. As Reilly noted about Islam, “All acts are in themselves morally neutral” and “Allah does not command certain behavior because it is good; it is good behavior because he commands it. Likewise, he does not forbid murder because it is bad; it is bad because he forbids it.”

The Ten Commandments forbid murder, adultery, and other acts because the acts themselves are bad, not simply because God instructed Moses that they were. The logic of good and evil is embedded in Judaism and its offshoot, Christianity. In Islam, any act can be justified if one can find a surah in the Koran and there is always one that will. Indeed, the Koran commands Muslims to kill for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is to extend Islam and to punish “insults” to it..

Any negative reference to Muhammad is enough to cause riotiing in the streets and acts of retribution. It is very intimidating and the West is easily intimidated, unless, of course, you fly jet airliners into our skyscrapers and the Pentagon. Then, however, within a few years they begin to debate the probity of building a mosque within a block or two of where the Twin Towers once stood.

While the Western world is defined by the spirit of inquiry, Islam is indifferent to it. Reilly notes that, for Muslims, “the only thing worth knowing is whether a specific action is, according to Sharia: obligatory, recommended, permitted, discouraged, or forbidden. The rest is irrelevant.”

This suggests that the last ten years since 9/11 (and all that preceeded it) have had a brief saluatory effect on Middle Eastern and North African Muslims only because they know with some certainty that we shall kill them if we must.

When Arabs took hostages and demanded ransom during the administration of Thomas Jefferson he called on Congress to authorize a Marine Corps and warships. The first Barbary War (1801-5) was also known as the Tripolitan War, as in Tripoli, Libya; the same Libya that just rid itself of the most recent dictator after a long succession of comparable dictators stretching back forever.

At some point an American President is going to have to authorize a major, preemptive attack on Iran, a Shiite nation whose lunatic ayatollahs see themselves as preparing the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam, a mythical figure who lives at the bottom of a well. They will use nuclear weapons, i.e., weapons of mass destruction, to achieve this unless we stop them first.

As the Israelis keep telling us, these people are nuts.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Dhimmi Witted in the DOJ

Dana Mathewson

Civil Rights Division of the DOJ has really blown one. They have ordered an Illinois school district to pay an exorbitant amount of money to a Muslim teacher for a ridiculous claim. I can't bring myself to write the details, they are so heinous. Read them here: http://www.urgentagenda.com/PERMALINKS%20VI/OCTOBER%202011/22.JUSTICE.HTML

The sooner we can rid ourselves of this noxious administration, the better! 'Nuff said!

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Slate's Dave Weigel warns of GOP Mind Control

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2011/10/dave-weigel-warns-of-gop-mind-control.html

"Jews across the country who were frightened by those anti-Semites at the Occupy Wall Street protests can all relax now, because the Slate's Dave Weigel says it's all safe. According to Weigel OWS isn't really anti-Semitic and/or anti-Israel it's all just a Republican plot. Although he doesn't say it, the implications are clear. The GOP has mind control experts who have the know-how to cause Americans to see things that aren't there."

Folks, I don't know about you, but I dearly wish we had such experts. Stop to think how beneficial it would be if, say, Sen. Mitch McConnell had the ability to play mind control games on the Democrats in the Senate. (Yes, I know it would be difficult -- you have to have something solid to work with.) ObamaCare might still be just a (wet) dream for the donkeys. Not to mention how some of Zippy's unilateral deeds might have been thwarted.

I really think if the GOP had such experts, they wouldn't have wasted their time with the OWS idiots.

Another look at Uncle Joe's scare tactics

Dana Mathewson

There have been a number of stories relating to "Crazy Uncle" Joe Biden's rant about how his boss's "Jobs Bill" (read: Stimulus II) needs to be passed or rapes and murders in this country will go up. He insisted that rapes in Flint, Michigan have tripled in the last year or so -- made quite a point of it, in fact, even jabbing a reporter who questioned him in the chest.

In this article, the Washington Post, no less, does some fact-checking and in the process jabs Biden right back, showing that in the last three years Flint -- not exactly a quiet, gentle town -- has shown reported rape instances going down, even with fewer policemen on the street. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/bidens-absurd-claims-about-rising-rape-and-murder-rates/2011/10/20/gIQAkq0y1L_blog.html

Amazing! This is the WaPo, folks! Will wonders never cease?

Word of the Day

Dana Mathewson

The word of the day is Ineptocracy.

Ineptocracy: (in-ept-o-cra-cy) - a system of government where the least
capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where
the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed,
are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth
of a diminishing number of producers.

Taxpayer stimulus $$$ went to hire foreign workers

Dana Mathewson

Color me naive, but I didn't think this was the point of it all. http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/10/federal_stimulus_money_for_ore.html Of course, Oregon is a pretty liberal state, so I take it that laws are interpreted liberally there.

FTA: At least $7 million in federal stimulus money intended to provide jobs to unemployed Oregonians instead paid wages to 254 foreign workers, federal investigators have concluded.

The money was for forest clean-up jobs in central Oregon where thousands of experienced workers were idle. When the contracts were announced in 2009, Oregon had the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation at 11.1 percent, with rates in the state's rural forest counties nearly 15 percent and higher.

Even so, the contractors told federal regulators they could not find enough local workers for the jobs.

That came as a surprise to local officials, who said they often got hundreds of responses to every job opening.

"This is a timber area and we hadn't been cutting trees for years," said state Sen. Chris Telfer, R-Bend. "It really ticked off a lot of people here."

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