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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Observations From the Back Row

Police Abduct 10 Children FromA Family In Kentucky Because Of Their ‘Off The Grid’ Lifestyle - If the government does not like the way that you are raising your kids, they will come in and grab them at any time without giving any warning whatsoever. Of course this is completely and totally unlawful, but it has been happening all over America. The most recent example of this that has made national headlines is particularly egregious. Joe and Nicole Naugler of Breckinridge County, Kentucky just had their 10 children brutally ripped away from them just because the government does not approve of how they are living their lives and how they are educating their young ones. Let’s be very clear about this – Joe and Nicole had done nothing to violate the law whatsoever. All of their kids were happy, healthy and very intelligent. But because the control freaks running things in Kentucky got wind of their “off the grid lifestyle,” they have now had all of their children unlawfully abducted from them.....

Jharkhand Shocker: Man Beheaded for Better Rains - In a shocking incident which exposes cruel side of blind faith, a 55-year-old man was beheaded by an occultist group in Jharkhand for better harvest and rain. Thepa Kharia is believed to have been killed by Orkas who bury human heads in farms as a part of their worship for better rain and harvest.  According to police, Kharia was alone at his home when a group of Orkas entered and beheaded him and sped away with his head. Not finding Thepa in the Sunday market, villagers broke open his house' door and found his headless body lying in a pool of blood, police officer Ajay Kumar Thakur was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times. Orkas roam around the villages just before the monsoon and nobody in this area dares complaint against them. Police said the family of Kharia was forced to file an FIR.  This incident shows that the age-old ritual of human sacrifice for better harvest and rain is still prevalent in the state.  Jharkhand is reeling under heat wave with Palamau recording the highest temperature of 47 degrees celsius.

The Media's Worst Liberal Brain Cramps - Journalists are supposed to be the most informed members of society. Nothing is supposed to get past the iron traps in their brains. So which one of these concepts sounds more like a brain cramp?....... Perhaps the most embarrassing scandal avoidance for journalists is avoiding the scandal of the Obama administration's treatment of reporters — utter contempt, along with more leak investigations than any other in history. For a journalist to call the man "scandal-free" is to surrender his own professional self-respect. But this is nothing new for most journalists. They've done it for years.

The College Board's Sabotage of American History –A stellar group of American historians and academics released a milestone open letter yesterday in protest of deleterious changes to the advanced placement U.S. history (APUSH) exam. The signatories are bold intellectual bulwarks against increasing progressive attacks in the classroom on America's unique ideals and institutions.  Moms and dads in my adopted home state of Colorado have been mocked and demonized for helping to lead the fight against the anti-American changes to APUSH. But if there's any hope at all in salvaging local control over our kids' curriculum, it lies in the willingness of a broad coalition of educators and parents to join in the front lines for battles exactly like this one……The social justice warriors of government education have long sought, as the NAS signatories correctly diagnosed it, "to de-center American history and subordinate it to a global and heavily social-scientific perspective." Their mission is not to impart knowledge, but to instigate racial, social and class divisions.

UN Committee’s Vote for Hamas-Linked Group Reflects Its Anti-Democratic Makeup - An influential United Nations committee this week granted official status to an organization allegedly linked to Hamas. The move comes a little over a year after U.N. member states ushered onto that committee – without taking a vote – a majority of countries with poor records on democracy and human rights. Virtually all of those countries voted Monday in favor of granting U.N. “consultative status” to the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), a non-governmental organization which Israel declared illegal in 2010 because of its close ties to the Hamas terrorist group.

State Dep't: U.S. 'Not Going to Partner With a Brutal Dictator' to Defeat Brutal ISIS - Harf spoke one day after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Bloomberg TV that the U.S. should coordinate its anti-ISIS airstrikes with the Syrian regime: "I said that it is absolutely clear to me it was a mistake, still is, not to coordinate the airstrikes with the activities of the Syrian Army. That's what we believe must be done. And that's what unfortunately our American colleagues cannot accept from ideological considerations," Lavrov said.  The Obama administration's "obsession with the personality of President Assad" is not helping the effort to defeat Islamic State terrorists, he added.

“The Dirty Secret is There is No More Iraq” - This past weekend former Reagan State Department official K.T. McFarland appeared on Fox News to discuss what is happening in Iraq and the very real and sad truth that the nation of Iraq no longer really exists. The Obama administrations Iraq strategy has been a dismal failure but no one in the White House seems willing to admit as much, yet. To move forward there will need to be recognition by someone within the administration that Iraq no longer exists as we knew it and that the strategy will have to change. “The dirty secret is there is no more Iraq and the administration’s policy is to say we’re helping Iraq. There isn’t Iraq anymore.”

37 Straight Gallup Polls—Majority: Abortion Should Be Illegal in All or Most Cases - In 37 straight surveys conducted over the course of 21 years by the Gallup polling company, a majority of Americans have said that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances or in all but a few circumstances. In the most recent survey, conducted May 6-10, a combined 55 percent of respondents said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances or in all but a few circumstances. Specifically, 29 percent said abortion should be legal “under any circumstances,” 13 percent said it should be legal “under most circumstances,” 36 percent said it should be "legal only in a few circumstances,” and 19 percent said it should be illegal “in all circumstances.” Two percent said they had no opinion. The 36 percent who said it should be legal in “only a few circumstances” and the 19 percent who said it should be illegal “in all circumstances” equaled 55 percent of all those surveyed.

Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender is ‘Mental Disorder;' Sex Change ‘Biologically Impossible’ - Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder……the author of six books and at least 125 peer-reviewed medical articles, made his remarks in a recent commentary in the Wall Street Journal, where he explained that transgender surgery is not the solution for people who suffer a “disorder of ‘assumption’” – the notion that their maleness or femaleness is different than what nature assigned to them biologically.  He also reported on a new study showing that the suicide rate among transgendered people who had reassignment surgery is 20 times higher than the suicide rate among non-transgender people. Dr. McHugh further noted studies from Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic of children who had expressed transgender feelings but for whom, over time, 70%-80% “spontaneously lost those feelings.”

Levin on Bruce ‘Caitlyn’ Jenner, America: ‘We Are Losing the Culture’ - Nationally syndicated radio show host Mark Levin, on his June 1, 2015 broadcast, challenged the mainstream media’s praise of Bruce ‘Caitlyn’ Jenner stating that “we are losing the culture.” Here is what Levin had to say: “All over the web, all over the internet, all over TV we’re now hearing about ‘Caitlyn’ Jenner, formally Bruce Jenner.” “In a few weeks, we’re going to get a decision from the United States Supreme Court on Same-Sex Marriage, as over 30 years ago we got a decision from the Supreme Court on abortion -- and a few years before that, on sexual activity; and sometime before that, on prayer in school – and so forth and so on.  “We are losing the culture, there’s no question about it. We are losing our traditions; we’re losing our customs; we’re losing our civil institutions -- people, even on our favorite cable network -- but everywhere, congratulating Bruce ‘Caitlyn’ Jenner for having the courage to do whatever it is that he’s doing. Really? Courage?

Rev. Graham: Gays’ Assault on Real Marriage ‘Driven by Forces of Evil That Hate the Name of Christ’ - That the Supreme Court is even considering a ruling on homosexual marriage shows how “depraved” America is today, said Rev. Franklin Graham, who added that the radical gays’ “attack” on real marriage is an “assault on the church” that is “driven by the forces of evil that hate the name of Christ.” Further, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of homosexual marriage, said Rev. Graham, it will compound “blatant sexual immorality” and rebellion against God that constitutes a “sign warning of the imminent disintegration of a culture." “The full-fledged attack on the institution of marriage by gay rights groups is in reality an assault on the church of the Lord Jesus Christ,” said Rev. Graham in his commentary for the June issue of Decision magazine.

All 8 Females in First Co-Ed Class at Army Ranger School Failed - All eight female soldiers in the first co-ed class of the U.S. Army Ranger School failed to pass the first phase of training, the Darby Phase, according to a May 29 Army press release. In addition, this was the second attempt by all eight women to try to pass the Darby Phase of the training.  “Today, at Fort Benning, 195 Ranger Students met the requirements … to begin the Mountain Phase of Ranger School,” reads the release. “There were no female soldiers amongst the 195 Ranger Students going forward to the second phase of Ranger School.”

 

From Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton to Testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform -- Judicial Watch has announced that its president, Tom Fitton, will provide testimony on June 2 before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform during a hearing entitled ...

DOD Charges Millions at Casinos, Strip Clubs on Govt. Credit Cards -- In the latest of many flagrant examples of how tax dollars are wasted, government-issued credit cards were used by Department of Defense (DOD) employees to make more than $4 million in personal charges, including at casinos and strip ...

JW Obtains Secret Service Records on “Operation Moonshine” -- Judicial Watch has obtained records from the U.S. Secret Service that shed light into a scandalous operation in which agents were covertly redeployed from the White House compound to protect a close friend of the agency’s director ...

JW Gets TSA Files of Lost Badges Used to Enter Secure Areas at Airports -- In the latest scandal to rock the beleaguered Transportation Security Administration (TSA), badges that allow agents to access secure areas of airports are missing along with uniforms and other devices used to control entry ...

Judicial Watch In The News
 
Government secrecy put on trial

Ohio Employer's Law Blog | Daily Update


 


One of the most difficult things to do is prove a negative. Yet, this is exactly the problem that employers face when defending wage and hour cases in which the employee alleges work performed off-the-clock. The employer says that the time clock defines the paid limits of the workday, while the employee says that s/he should be compensated for work performed outside the parameters of those clock-ins and clock-outs.
 
In Moran v. Al Basit LLC (6/1/15) [pdf], the 6th Circuit was faced with a simple question—does an employee need something other than his or her own testimony to establish an entitlement to unpaid compensation under the FLSA?
 
Sadly, the 6th Circuit ruled in the employee’s favor.

Plaintiff’s testimony coherently describes his weekly work schedule, including typical daily start and end times which he used to estimate a standard work week of sixty-five to sixty-eight hours.… However, while Plaintiff’s testimony may lack precision, we do not require employees to recall their schedules with perfect accuracy.… It is unsurprising, and in fact expected, that an employee would have difficulty recalling the exact hour he left work on a specific day months or years ago. It is, after all, “the employer who has the duty under § 11(c) of the [FLSA] to keep proper records of wages [and] hours,” and “[e]mployees seldom keep such records themselves.”

This ruling is scary, and has the potential to work extortionate results on employers. If all an employee has to do to establish a jury claim in an off-the-clock case is say, “The employer’s records are wrong; I worked these approximate hours on a weekly basis,” then it will be impossible for an employer to win summary judgment in any off-the-clock case.
 
Employers, the cost of defending wage-and-hour cases just went up, as did the risk for businesses. Even meticulous wage-and-hour records might not save you from a foggy memory of a disgruntled ex-employee.


Related Stories

UK: City that covered up Muslim rape gangs wants to ban anti-child rape protests

Pamela Geller

Despite recent news stories on the hundreds, perhaps thousands of Muslim child sex trafficking gangs and tens of thousands of their young non-Muslim victims, law enforcement is still looking the other way. The unimaginable terror these girls suffer is compounded by sharia compliant law officers who refuse to prosecute or even look into the systematic sex slavery of young English girls.  I recently interviewed on such victim here. Trafficked at sometime after the age of 10, she is 30 now with two children fathered by her rapist/pimp. She lives in hiding……All of the Muslim men involved in these horrific sex crimes are still free. The victim I spoke of was told my police that if she were to testify, she would get no protection.

She met with police again in April 2015. They still weren’t interested. She had 100 names of Muslim men who had raped and beaten her. They said they didn’t “have time” to take down all the names. She gave them 80. Nothing has happened to those men. She still sees them down with the taxis.……“Due to their regularity there is a real perception amongst people using the town that it is not safe, and that there are protests every Saturday… Despite insisting it was time for the town to forget child abuse and move on, The Star also reports today a further four men were arrested this weekend for ‘abduction and grooming’…….. To Read More….








UK: Hundreds more Muslim child rape gang cases discovered; authorities still hiding them for fear of islamophobia charges












BBC finally airs the shocking truth: Muslim Men Grooming, Raping, and Pimping Young Sikh Girls



















More From Pam Geller's Atlas Shrugs

“Boston Beheader Plotted Murder of Pamela Geller Who Had Been Condemned by His Imam”- The mosques and the imams behind the jihad attacks are never addressed by the media or the Obama administration. And that’s where these terrible ideas are taught, advanced and promoted. There have been over 26,000 jihadi attacks since 9/11 each one with the imprimatur of a Muslim cleric. Consider this, the Oklahoma jihad beheader, Jah’Keem […]

CNN VIDEO: Erin Burnett Attacks Pamela Geller in Wake of Boston Beheading Plot -Erin Burnett just doesn’t get it. They targeted me for violating sharia blasphemy laws. They mean to kill everyone who doesn’t do their bidding and abide by them voluntarily. This is a showdown for American freedom. Will we stand against this savagery, or bow down to them and silence ourselves? It won’t end with me […]


No Wonder – Obama’s Jewish Advisors Are From The New Israel Fund- Jew-haters advising the Jew hater-in-chief. Perf. Look at pictures of the New Israel Fund marching in the Israel Day Parade this weekend — you cant find any flags of Israel — New news reports put Obama and the New Israel Fund together. The most anti-Israel President ever has advisers around him who are allied with……

UK: City that covered up Muslim rape gangs wants to ban anti-child rape protests - Despite recent news stories on the hundreds, perhaps thousands of Muslim child sex trafficking gangs and tens of thousands of their young non-Muslim victims, law enforcement is still looking the other way. The unimaginable terror these girls suffer is compounded by sharia compliant law officers who refuse to prosecute or even look into the…..

UK Gives Muslim Just 7 Years for Day-Long Rape of Vulnerable Woman - “I am pleased with the sentence given out at court and I am hopeful that it will encourage other victims of sexual assault to find the strength to come forward and report offences – justice will be done.” It’s more likely that this weak sentence will only encourage the Muslim rape gangs to brutalize more […] -

Paying the Price

Thomas Sowell
 
Baltimore is now paying the price for irresponsible words and actions, not only by young thugs in the streets, but also by its mayor and the state prosecutor, both of whom threw the police to the wolves, in order to curry favor with local voters.  Now murders in Baltimore in May have been more than double what they were in May last year, and higher than in any May in the past 15 years. Meanwhile, the number of arrests is down by more than 50 percent……. If all this has been known for years, why do the same mistakes keep getting made?....... let's not be so quick to say that people are incompetent when they say things that make no sense to us. Attacking the police makes sense in terms of politicians' personal interests, and often in terms of the media's personal interests or ideological leanings, even if what they say bears little or no resemblance to the facts.  Of course, all these benefits have costs. There is no free lunch. But the costs are paid by others, including men, women and children who are paying with their lives in ghettos around the country, as politicians think of ever more ways they can restrict or scapegoat the police..... To Read More.....

Environmentalism: An Unending Failure of Unintended Consequences

Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation Reports on Europe’s Crazy Climate Policy Threatening Forests And Wildlife and EU Divisions Apparent Over 2030 Climate Targets

Europe’s appetite for wood pellets could lead to more carbon pollution for decades to come, while also putting some of the East Coast’s most productive wildlife habitats at risk. In Georgia, where most of the trees for wood pellets are grown on pine plantations, natural forests are rapidly disappearing as landowners see new opportunities to make money, said Ben Larson, forestry and bio-energy program manager for the National Wildlife Federation. --Joby Warrick, The Washington Post, 2 June 2015

EU energy policies have long exposed tensions between countries wedded to fossil fuels and those more committed to going green. Those splits have appeared again during preparations for an upcoming EU energy ministers meeting.  And after weeks of discussions and squabbles over the conclusions for the June 8 meeting — the first since the bloc’s leaders formally endorsed the Commission’s energy union strategy in March — the result is unlikely to do anything to bridge this widening divide. An issue that will have to be dealt with in coming months is how to bring in the 2030 targets, which have been spelled out for the EU as a whole, but are not yet divided into binding national goals. --Kalina Oroschafkoff, Politico, 2 June 2015

The last full-length set of international climate talks before the year-end summit in Paris got started June 1 with United Nations officials and delegation leaders seeking to downplay expectations for the scheduled 11 days of negotiations. But with six of the world's 10 largest emitters yet to submit Intended Nationally Determined Contributions little effort is expected during the next two weeks to persuade countries to take on more ambitious goals. --Eric J. Lyman, Bloomberg BNA, 1 June 2015

Generous taxpayer subsidies for onshore wind farms will be cut off earlier than expected, effectively preventing thousands of turbines from being built, under plans being considered by Amber Rudd, the energy secretary. The proposals will set out for the first time how the Conservatives will implement their manifesto pledge to end any new public subsidy for onshore wind farms - amid concerns that turbines are unpopular with local communities. The action follows similar moves taken to curb subsidies for solar farms last year. --Emily Gosden, The Daily Telegraph, 31 May 2015

Finland’s incoming government has effectively “shut the door” on new wind farms by reducing the ceiling for projects that can qualify for feed-in support by almost 500 MW, the Finnish Energy Industries Association said on Thursday. --Montel News, 28 May 2015

Researchers’ discovery may explain difficulty in treating Lyme Disease

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Jerry Genisio @ Natural Unseen Hazards Blog 
 
Global 06/01/15 medicalexpress.com: Excerpts
 
“Northeastern University researchers have found that the bacterium that causes Lyme disease forms dormant persister cells, which are known to evade antibiotics. This significant finding, they said, could help explain why it’s so difficult to treat the infection in some patients.”

 “In addition to identifying the presence of these persister cells, Lewis’ team also presented two methods for wiping out the infection—both of which were successful in lab tests. One involved an anti-cancer agent called Mitomycin C, which completely eradicated all cultures of the bacterium in one fell swoop. However, Lewis stressed that, given Mitomycin C’s toxicity, it isn’t a recommended option for treating Lyme disease, though his team’s findings are useful to helping to better understand the disease.

 “The second approach, which Lewis noted is much more practical, involved pulse-dosing an antibiotic to eliminate persisters. The researchers introduced the antibiotic a first time, which killed the growing cells but not the dormant persisters. But once the antibiotic washed away, the persisters woke up, and before they had time to restore their population the researchers hit them with the antibiotic again. Four rounds of antibiotic treatments completely eradicated the persisters in a test tube.”

"Lewis and his colleagues presented their findings in a paper published online last week in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.” –

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Thought For The Day!

Why do I have to press one for English when you're just gonna transfer me to someone I can't understand anyway? 

Senator: Use RICO Laws to Prosecute Global Warming Skeptics

By Mark Hemingway

Writing in the Washington Post, Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic Senator from Rhode Island, offered a curious suggestion for dealing with global warming skeptics: In 2006, Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia decided that the tobacco companies’ fraudulent campaign amounted to a racketeering enterprise. According to the court: “Defendants coordinated significant aspects of their public relations, scientific, legal, and marketing activity in furtherance of a shared objective — to . . . maximize industry profits by preserving and expanding the market for cigarettes through a scheme to deceive the public.”

Unless, of course, we're just going to scrap any pretense of political neutrality on questions of free speech. Top men like Sheldon Whitehouse can make sure we don't hear anything that we don't need to hear about scientific research and legally punish anyone who publicly disagrees. Otherwise, the natives get restless and start opposing whatever economic restrictions seem necessary to save us from ourselves. And as we all know, everything about the global warming debate is guided by altruism. No one's looking to get rich by artificially inflating the cost of fossil fuels and benefiting from green energy subsidies, right?....To Read More.....

More From Pam Geller's Atlas Shrugs

CAIR Leader Ahmad Saleem Arrested in Major Child SexTrafficking Ring Bust, Sex with Children as Young as 10 - The two-week joint sting, known as “Operation L and P,” netted 101 arrests in both Lake and Polk counties. The investigation concluded late last week. (Photo: Dave D’Marko, News 13) The UK child sex trafficking gangs we have come to America. CAIR Florida representatives Ahmad Saleem (left) and CAIR Florida Spokesman Ali Kurnaz (right) back in March: The Council of American-Islamic Relations Florida filed a notice of claim stating its intention to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the FBI for killing Boston bombing accomplice Ibragim Todashev……

ISIS bans pigeon breeding: seeing birds’ genitals offends Islam and is punishable by flogging- Pigeon porn. Who’d a thunk it? What will these righteous, devout savages think of next? How long before the devout Muslim group designates Central Park (below) haram. “ISIS bans pigeon breeding: seeing birds’ genitals offends Islam and is punishable by flogging,” By The Daily Mail, June 2, 2015 Islamic extremists in Syria and Iraq have banned…

As ISIS Attacks Increase on US Soil, Justice Department Targets “Far-Right” Social Media Use- ISIS is here. They tried to kill us all in Garland, Texas. And the jihadi that was taken out today was part of an ISIS jihad terror network. The FBI has not revealed what is was they were plotting but it must have been quite serious as Boston Muslim was under 24 hour surveillance. So......

Muslim cleric: women who wear jeans are to blame for earthquakes, terrorism - More wisdom from our Islamic superiors. Crickets chirping in NOW offices nationwide. Islamic cleric = climate change scientist. You handsome devil, you “Muslim cleric: women who wear jeans are to blame for earthquakes, terrorism,” thanks to Robert Spencer, June 2, 2015 Muhammad is depicted in hadiths as as saying: “I looked into Paradise and I.....

Teachers complain, chaos reigns as St. Paul schools spend millions on ‘white privilege’ training

Steve Gunn

Have the taxpayers of St. Paul spent nearly $3 million over the past five years to bring chaos and danger to their schools and students? Apparently so.  In 2010, the St. Paul school district began a contractual relationship with the Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based organization that tries to help public schools deal with achievement and disciplinary issues involving black students.  PEG packages and sells the concept of victimization, for a very high price.  It claims that the American education system is built around white culture, tradition and social norms – aka “white privilege” – to the unfair detriment of black students……To Read More….

Warm is Better Than Cold!

Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation Reports New Study Confirms GWPF Report On Greening Sahel

Climate change has achieved what Bob Geldof and Live Aid failed to do by ending the drought in the Sahel region of Africa that killed more than 100,000 people in the 1980s, a study has found. Rising greenhouse gases caused rains to return to the region south of the Sahara, from Senegal to Sudan, boosting crop yields since the 1990s and helping the population to feed itself without relying on foreign donations. The study, in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that Sahel summer rainfall was about 10 per cent, or 0.3mm, higher per day in 1996-2011 than in the drought period of 1964-93. --Ben Webster, The Times, 2 June 2015

In spite of the gloomy predictions of even more frequent and severe droughts and famines caused by global warming, vegetation in the Sahel has significantly increased in the last three decades. This has been a very welcome and very beneficial development for the people living in the Sahel. The increase in rainfall, which was probably caused by rising temperatures and rising CO2 concentrations might even - if sustained for a few more decades - green the Sahara. This would be a truly tremendous prospect. --Philipp Mueller, Global Warming Policy Foundation, 12 August 2011

The people living in the Sahel were suffering from several devastating droughts and famines between the late 1960s and the early 1990s. The draughts were triggered by decreases in rainfall from the early 1950s to the mid-1980s. Global warming was supposed to increase the frequency and severity of the droughts, which would make crop-growing unviable and cause even worse famines. According to the United Nations, the outlook for the people in the Sahel was bleak. However in sharp contrast to this gloomy outlook, it seems that global warming has exactly the opposite effect on the Sahara and the Sahel. The Sahara is actually shrinking, with vegetation arising on land where there was nothing but sand and rocks before. The main reason for the greening of the Sahara and the Sahel has been an increase in rainfall since the mid-1980s. --Philipp Mueller, Global Warming Policy Foundation, 12 August 2011

The Sahel has a delicate climate and research shows that increased human emissions were more likely the cause of the initial drought rather than the cause of the re-greening. It is wild speculation to assert that any recovery in the Sahel is a result of global warming... M.A. Rogers, Desmog 9 March 2012

Trees are dying in the Sahel, a region in Africa south of the Sahara Desert, and human-caused climate change is to blame, according to a new study led by a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. “Rainfall in the Sahel has dropped 20-30 percent in the 20th century, the world’s most severe long-term drought since measurements from rainfall gauges began in the mid-1800s,” said study lead author Patrick Gonzalez, who conducted the study while he was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for Forestry. “Previous research already established climate change as the primary cause of the drought, which has overwhelmed the resilience of the trees.” --University of California, Berkeley, 12 December 2011

One of the very first briefing papers issued by GWPF was on the greening of the Sahel. The Foundation's then deputy director Phillip Mueller put forward the idea that rather than making droughts on the fringes of the Sahara more severe, climate change was actually, if anything, making things better. There was a typically wild-eyed response from those mini-Ehrlichs at DeSmog, which included this shot from the hip: It is wild speculation to assert that any recovery in the Sahel is a result of global warming and to dangle the prospect of a future green Sahara is the exact opposite of the message provided by Mueller's reference on the matter. However welcome the re-greening of parts of the Sahel, it cannot be relied on. How amusing then to read in the Times that a team of mainstream scientists led by Rowan Sutton are now making just this claim. --Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 2 June 2015

[The Sahel in recent] times is drier than mid-20th century, but not much different from the first part of the century. Rainfall has gone up, and it has gone down, and then back up again. Nor is there any obvious correlation with the general warming of the planet over the same time period. Climate change causes droughts? Interesting theory. Does climate change also cause not-droughts? Conclusions? My only conclusion is that folks are getting desperate for funding, and that the manufacturing of climate pseudo-catastrophes is a booming cottage industry. --Willis Eschenbach, Watts Up With That 13 December 2011

The former BBC newsreader Martyn Lewis has spent 20 years campaigning for bulletins to carry more good news and less bad. Could we make him chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)? His first job could be to flag up a University of Reading paper in the journal Nature Climate Change this week which finds that emissions of greenhouse gases have actually helped the Sahel region, south of the Sahara, to recover from drought. This is not how things are supposed to be according to the popular narrative of man-made climactic apocalypse. Read only the IPCC’s reports and you would gain the impression that Africa was destined to become a vast dustbowl of dying animals and scorched plains beyond even the ability of Bob Geldof and Live Aid to save. --Ross Clark, The Times, 2 June 2015

Concessions To Islam

Master List of Concessions

IN THE SIDEBAR of Islamist Watch is a list of links by topic, each of which goes to another page full of links to articles on concessions made to Islam. What a resource!

When you're talking to people about "the Islamization of Europe" or "stealth jihad" and they look at you blankly and have no idea what you could mean, start reeling off the items from this list. This is how the West is being conquered — one small concession at a time. Each concession is the establishment of one aspect of Sharia law. Here's the list from the sidebar:
 
 

Ohio Employer's Law Blog | Daily Update


#SCOTUS requires employers to stereotype in ruling for EEOC in hijab-accommodation case

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court ruled that an employer violates Title VII’s religious accommodation requirements if the need for an accommodation was a “motivating factor” in its decision, regardless of whether the employer had actual knowledge of the religious practice or its need to be accommodated.
 
The case, EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores [pdf], is an unambiguous win for religious freedoms, while, at the same time, places an added burden on employers to make educated guesses about applicants’ and employees’ potential needs for workplace religious accommodations.
 
Abercrombie involved a conflict between a hijab-wearing Muslim job applicant and the employer’s “look policy.” The unusually terse seven-page opinion (of which only a little more than three was dedicated to actual legal analysis) focused on the difference between motive and knowledge in explaining its holding:

Motive and knowledge are separate concepts. An employer who has actual knowledge of the need for an accommodation does not violate Title VII by refusing to hire an applicant if avoiding that accommodation is not his motive. Conversely, an employer who acts with the motive of avoiding accommodation may violate Title VII even if he has no more than an unsubstantiated suspicion that accommodation would be needed.…

For example, suppose that an employer thinks (though he does not know for certain) that a job applicant may be an orthodox Jew who will observe the Sabbath, and thus be unable to work on Saturdays. If the applicant actually requires an accommodation of that religious practice, and the employer’s desire to avoid the prospective accommodation is a motivating factor in his decision, the employer violates Title VII.

So, if knowledge is irrelevant, what is an employer to when faced with one’s potential need for a religious accommodation? More the point, isn’t an employer faced with having to make educated guesses (based on stereotypes such as how one looks or what one wears) of the need for an accommodation? Title VII is supposed to eliminate stereotypes from the workplace, not premise the need for an accommodation on their use. And that’s my biggest critique of this opinion—it forces an employer into the unenviable position of applying stereotypes to make educated guesses.
 
Nevertheless, employers are stuck with the Abercrombie “motivating factor” rule as the rule for religious accommodations moving forward. Thus, let me offer a simple suggestion on how to address this issue in your workplace—talk it out. Consider using the following three-pronged approached to ACE religious-accommodation issues in your workplace.

Ask: Even if an employee comes to a job interview wearing a hijab, it’s still not advisable to flat-out ask about his or her religion. Nevertheless, if you believe an applicant’s or employee’s religion might interfere with an essential function of the job, explain the essential functions and ask if the employee needs an accommodation.

Communicate: If the individual needs an accommodation, engage in the interactive process. Have a conversation with the applicant or employee. Explain your neutral policy for which an exception will have to be made. Talk through possible accommodations, and decide which accommodation, if any, is appropriate for your business and for the individual.

Educate: Do you have written policy on religious accommodation? Of course, merely having a policy is never enough. You must communicate it to your employees, explain its meaning and operation, and enforce it when necessary.

This decision is a potential game-changer for employers. Make sure you understand the implications of Abercrombie, so that you are as accommodating as the law required.

http://www.apenotmonkey.com/2012/04/09/religious-accommodation
Image courtesy of Jeffrey Weston’s Ape, Not Monkey
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Why Would a Devout Muslim Want to Work at Abercrombie and Fitch?

Pamela Geller, Breitbart News, June 2, 2015

The Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of Samantha Elauf, a Muslim woman who sued for discrimination after not being hired by Abercrombie and Fitch, because her insistence on wearing the Muslim hijab conflicted with their dress code.  Justice Antonin Scalia said of the 8-1 ruling, “This is really easy” – but neither he nor the Justices who voted with him showed any indication of realizing what was really at stake in this case.  She won an award of $20,000 in 2011, but a Court of Appeals overturned that, with the judge explaining: “Ms. Elauf never informed Abercrombie before its hiring decision that she wore her head scarf, or ‘hijab,’ for religious reasons.” The Supremes should have taken the hint. They didn’t.

Why didn’t she? It wasn’t inconsequential, at least not for her. She spent the ensuing years suing, losing, suing again, appealing until her case reached the highest court in the land. So why didn’t she mention it? What was her agenda? That is perfectly clear now.

I ask you: what devout Muslim girl would want to work for a firm that peddles erotic, sexy clothes and soft-porn images?.........It was all a set up. Why would Elauf want to work there? In order to force another major American business to accommodate Islamic norms – and this time, that sinister agenda won the aid of the United States Supreme Court......To Read More....


Editor's Note - For those who don't think this is an organized effort to impose Islam on the nation please take a look at this list - Islamization of the Workplace