Observations From the Back Row

By Rich Kozlovich

I received an e-mail from Sandra Wirtz, Director of Research and Staff Blogger for the American Resources Policy Network alerting me to an energy issue that I have listed below. However, in doing so she has brought two web sites to my attention that is filled with infomation that I wish to share with you. The American Resouces Policy Network has articles that clearly demonstrate that industry can only function as long as it has access to raw materials, such as this article, Germany jumps into the race for rare earths. She also alerted me to an article, Nuclear Disarmament in the Resource Wars, which isn't about bombs, but energy and the long term consequences of "Sec. of Interior Ken Salazar’s decision to impose a 20-year mining ban in a million-acre buffer area around Grand Canyon National park from last week". This article appears at RealWorld.com which is filled with tons of article links worth exploring. I have added both to my favorites.

This is a short list today as so much is going on, but I will continue to address the fraking issue along with all the other issues that are worth exposing. We need to be concerned with one thing and one thing only; the facts, and we must be prepared to follow them wherever they may lead. Ideology has no place in this search unless the ideology and the facts converge.

There are two paths that we must choose from. Is it going to be the path where ideology creates the facts, or will it be the path were facts create the ideology? Thomas Sowell once observed that some things seem so reasonable that they can fail nine times out of nine and everyone will try them a tenth. Other things can succeed nine times out of nine and yet seem so unreasonable that everyone will refuse to try it the tenth. That is why we must follow the facts, especially historical facts. Tell me the hisory and I will give you the answer.

That is the difference between socialism and capitalism. One is an ideology in search of facts and the other is an ideology created by facts. Capitalism has lifted more people out of misery, squalor and suffering than any system that has ever existed. Socialism has driven more people into dystopia than any system in human history. Dystopia follows socialism like Sancho Panza followed Don Quixote…a madman.


Going Green

Deadly cantaloupe listeria outbreak blamed on non-chlorinated wash
Irrational Greenie hatred of "chemicals" kills people - The enviro war against chlorine claims more victims. From the House Energy and Commerce report about the 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe:… According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 146 people in 28 states have been infected, 30 people have died, and*n Sturmabteilung, both of which used physical coercion and intimidation to halt the democratic process.


Welcome to Islam

Terror in Tampa
According to the FBI’s criminal complaint, Osmakac, a naturalized American citizen, had been planning a massive terror attack targeting everything from businesses to nightclubs and bridges with the aim of killing and injuring as many people as possible........No sooner was Osmakac in handcuffs than CAIR spokesman Hassan Shibly suggested that the FBI was more culpable in the case than the jihadist in their custody. “The weapons and explosives were provided by the government. Was he just a troubled individual, or did he pose a real threat?” .......Osmakac’s clearly expressed conviction that Allah required him to commit terrorism points up another emerging and equally misguided assessment of the case – namely, that religion had nothing to do with Osmakac’s motives. “I don’t think his Islamic religion has anything to do with what’s going on,” claimed Dr. Barbara DeGeorge, identified by local Florida media as an “Islamic studies expert,” following the arrest. Even the FBI made a concession to political correctness, with the head of the agency’s Tampa Bay division assuring the press that Osmakac’s case “is not about the Muslim religion.”  (Editor's Note:  You may wish to listen to the “Voices of Palestine: Nabil Shaath” RK)

When Muslim Moms Kill
Front Page Editor’s note: A mother accused of murdering three of her daughters and her husband’s first wife in an honor killing recently testified in an Ontario court in Canada. Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41, is accused of conspiring with her husband, Mohammad Shafia, 58, and their eldest son, Hamed, 21, of running one of their family cars into a canal with their four relatives inside. See Pamela Geller’s coverage of the trial here.

In these tragic and disturbing circumstances, the editors of Frontpage felt it timely and relevant to run the video of Frontpage editor Jamie Glazov’s speech in March 2011 to the San Fernando Chapter Valley Chapter for “Act! for America,” in which he brought attention to the victims of Islamic honor killings and shed light on why the Left is in league with the Muslim murderers and turns a callous blind eye to the Muslim female victims. The phenomenon crystallizes the Left’s contemporary unholy alliance with radical Islam. Below are the four parts of the 4-part speech:

Medicine

Totally drug-resistant TB at large in IndiaA strain of tuberculosis that is resistant to all existing TB drugs has emerged in Mumbai, India. "We currently have 12 confirmed cases, of which three are dead," says Zarir Udwadia of the Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre in Mumbai, and head of the team whose diagnoses of four cases has just been published……The worry is that if it continues spreading, TB will become incurable again and patients will have to rely on their immune system, rather than medical intervention, to overcome the illness – a scenario last seen a century ago… the drugs can cost between $2000 and $12,000 per patient. Treating conventional TB costs just $20 per patient……"We must wake up the politicians," says McNerney. "Do we wait until it starts to come to the UK and the US on airplanes, or do we act now?"