Scientific Intergity is an Oxymoron: Irreproducible biology research costs put at $28 billion per year

Monya Baker 09 June 2015

Scientists in the United States spend $28 billion each year on basic biomedical research that cannot be repeated successfully. That is the conclusion of a study published on 9 June in PLoS Biology¹ that attempts to quantify the causes, and costs, of irreproducibility.

John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University in California who studies scientific robustness, says that the analysis is sure to prompt discussion about the problem — but should be taken with a pinch of salt, given that its estimates carry great uncertainty.

But Len Freedman, the study’s lead author and head of the non-profit Global Biological Standards Institute in Washington DC, says that the work is of value, even though it cannot pin down the size of the problem. “Clearly, there are tremendous inefficiences [in research], and this is putting a spotlight on that,” says Freedman, whose group seeks to develop best practices for biological experiments.......To Read More.....

My Take - If you go to the article you will see two comments, and I find both of them worth noting. The first comment is from Gabrielle Todd who makes this cogent observation:

"I believe this study loses sight of an important important role for federal grant dollars awarded to academic institutions. Rather than holding them to the high standards of profitability/output required for private companies, we need to keep in mind that the mission of academic universities is to train and educate. Most of the workforce in academia enters with little or no relevant skills and must undergo years of intensive training before they become competent scientists. Their terms of employment are also temporary (a few months to a few years), thus academic institutions experience a constant brain drain and influx of new, untrained workers."

So what can we take from that? All work from universities is geared to attaining as much grant money as possible to perform work done by incompetents who will produce what's necessary to attain more grant money. Presumably by giving the government grant makers what they want. This should lead the most casual observer to ask - If these people aren't qualified to do federally funded research, why are we funding them to do so?

Another commenter, Irakli Loladze, properly identifies the real problem saying:

"Evidently, the current grant distribution system is extremely wasteful and perverse at its core. The so called "gold standard" upon which the grant distribution is based on -- peer-review of proposals is clearly not working. It is about time to come up with alternatives, and the bar is set so low that almost any alternative could improve reproducibility and reduce waste.

I couldn’t agree more. Government grant money is now the golden calf of science and the universities. The relationship between government and the universities is incestuous and it keeps getting worse.

 

Excess Trees in Japan are Harming the Environment

Jun 11, 2015 01:50 PM ET // by Danny Clemens, DSCOVRD

Can trees cause pollution?  Short answer: yes -- mismanaged forests can cause nutrient pollution. Cypress and cedar trees in Japan are causing massive amounts of nitrogen runoff into local streams, resulting in harmful algae blooms.  But, it's not exactly their fault. The trees are planted in massive, commercial plantations, many of which have mostly fallen into a state of disrepair since their establishment half a century ago, during a period of high demand for wood within Japan. For a variety of reasons, Japanese companies began to increasingly import wood in subsequent decades. The shift in the market left in its wake an overabundance of humungous wood plantations, which are now causing major problems for adjacent wildlife in their sad state of ruination.  The older, slowly growing trees use notably less nutrients (namely nitrogen) than younger trees, which grow faster and require more nutrients. Very few new trees are growing in the plantations because the land has become so densely populated with older trees, which prevent sunlight from nourishing the shorter, nascent trees......To Read More....

 

Do They Really Believe In Global Warming?

Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation Reports Two Weeks Of UN Climate Talks Leave Core Issues Unresolved,  

Re-Carbonisation: Korea To Lower Its CO2 Target

Two Weeks Of UN Climate Talks Leave Core Issues Unresolved Two weeks of U.N. climate talks ended Thursday with negotiators trimming a draft global climate pact but leaving core sticking points to be untangled later, before a December summit in Paris where the landmark agreement is to be adopted. Frustrated by the slow pace of the climate talks, some negotiators and observers called the Bonn meeting a squandered opportunity. --Associated Press, 11 June 2015

Re-Carbonisation: Korea To Lower Its CO2 Target After 2020 The Korean government said -Thursday it will lower its carbon emissions reduction goals. The Ministry of Environment announced four proposals for greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for 2030 and all emission amounts are higher than the targets set for 2020. Yvo de Boer, the director general of the Global Green Growth Institute, expressed his disappointment. "The purpose of the Paris agreement is to reduce emissions, not increase them.” --Kim Se-jeong, The Korea Times, 12 June 2015

UN: Pope's Green Encyclical May Solve Global Warming Deadlock -Pope Francis is likely to have a major impact in spurring U.N. negotiations on global warming with an encyclical on the environment next week, the U.N.'s climate chief said on Thursday. She said there was also a growing view among many governments, companies and investors that many actions to slow climate change would be economically profitable, rather than loss-making. --Reuters, 11 June 2015

Research Seminar: Benny Peiser Discusses Global Warming Pause and UN Climate Summit in Paris - 2015 is gearing up to be the year of a new global climate deal. Negotiations are under way to reach an international climate change agreement at the United Nations climate summit in Paris later this year. In his talk Benny Peiser will discuss the political options for EU and UK climate policy in the absence of a legally binding climate agreement in Paris. --Sheffield University, 18 June 2015

Will David Cameron Abandon Manifesto Pledge To Axe Onshore Wind Subsidies? - Conservative proposals to axe onshore wind farm subsidies are being delayed amid fears they will trigger a costly legal battle with green energy companies and a damaging dispute with the Scottish Government. An announcement had been rescheduled for this week but Whitehall sources said it had now slipped again as officials tried to draw up plans that would not leave them vulnerable to legal challenge. --Emily Gosden, The Daily Telegraph, 11 June 2015

David Davies MP Challenges UK Climate Policies - The world was leaving a little ice age when industrialisation kicked off, Monmouth MP David Davies has told MPs as he warned that against policies which force up energy costs for Welsh manufacturers. The Conservative MP yesterday called on the Government to be “very cautious” in the upcoming negotiations on climate change in Paris and argued there is a “difference between healthy scepticism and denial” about global warming. --David Williamson, Wales Online, 12 June 2015

It’s Decision Day on Obama’s Trade Agenda: What You Need to Know

Alex Anderson /@alexanderJander/ Josh Siegel /@SiegelScribe/June 12, 2015

 Today, the House will either advance—or imperil—President Obama’s trade agenda when it votes on legislation to give him more power to ink deals with other nations.  For Obama to win the power he craves, he will have to lean heavily on Republicans—and hope just enough Democrats side with him—showcasing the odd alliances that have defined the trade battle.   The debate is about what’s known as trade promotion authority. Fast-track trade authority, as it’s better known, would leave Congress with the power to vote up or down on trade deals but with no ability to amend such deals. 

Obama says he needs such power to assure the 12 countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership—which would link 40 percent of the world’s economy—that Congress won’t unravel it.  The Senate already barely passed legislation giving Obama trade promotion authority.  In a sign of how tight the vote will be in the House, the chamber narrowly passed a procedural rule Thursday that allowed the trade vote to occur today…… “Free trade is good for all Americans, but this fast-track authority has gotten bogged down in the politics of corporate welfare, protectionism and labor union handouts,” said Dan Holler, a spokesman for Heritage Action, the sister organization of The Heritage Foundation……To Read More….

See How Your Representative Voted on the Rule

My Take - I would echo the question - why do we need an agreement to have trade with anyone?  Unless there's a ton of benefits for special interests, big government, big business and activists?  And why would we want people who've never started a business, never ran a business, never had to meet a payroll and for the most part never had a real job negotiating these agreements? Especially since they're all pretty much big government, big taxes, big regulation leftists. Under those circumstances I think a reasonable person has to ask.....why is this a good thing?     

The Daily Signal

How the Left Shuts Down Debates: An Interview With Guy Benson - Fox News contributor Guy Benson is the co-author of the new book “End of Discussion.” The Daily Signal interviewed Benson about how the left uses topics like race and bigotry to silence conservatives in debates. You can watch the full 10-minute interview or see Benson’s answers to each question by going to the times in the video listed below:

• 2:12: Benson addresses what he calls the left’s use of race baiting “dog whistles” to stymie political debate.
• 4:04: How “End of Discussion” addresses claims that voter ID laws are being used to limit minority voters.
• 6:12: What should the right do to combat the left’s claims of racial bias when it comes to voter ID laws?
• 7:48: Benson, who announced he is gay in the book, addresses a chapter called, “Bake Me a Cake Bigots,” and explains why many of those who oppose same-sex marriage shouldn’t be described as bigots (even though he doesn’t agree with their viewpoint) Watch the Interview

Should High School Students Learn Anti-American History? Why the fight over high school history standards matters. The growing battle over the College Board’s Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) framework is being described by Politico and others as the usual scrape over American exceptionalism. It is that to a point, of course. But it is really about national survival. The continuation of self-government and liberty depends on the willingness of citizens to sacrifice for a greater good, which in turn relies on a sound educational grounding on civic virtues. The College Board’s latest framework seems almost intended to rupture these connections.  The College Board is a non-profit organization that for decades has administered advanced placement tests to about half a million high school students. In order to help teachers prepare their charges for the tests, the College Board gives “thematic” guidance. Thus its frameworks.  The current framework, published last fall, has been put together for years by a group of college history professors gathered together by the College Board. And this is what dooms it, in the eyes of many, many critics: The framework, like the Obama administration-supported Common Core, represents another attempt to nationalize education and reflects the reflexive anti-American bias of the faculty lounge ……

• Study: US Arresting Fewer Criminally-Convicted Illegal Immigrants
• How Has India's Prime Minister Performed After 1 Year?
• HHS Chief: Congress Must Fix Obamacare If Supreme Court Unravels Law
• 7 Supreme Court Cases to Watch for This June (Editor's Note: Please do read this one.  These are stories I've followed for some time.  The decisions coming from this Supreme Court this year will have remarkable long term consequences if decided incorrectly.  No matter how they decide on any of these issues it's long overdue for a 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution creating term and age limits for the federal judiciary.)
• Think That News Story Online Is a Hoax? It May Be Written By Russian Propagandists

A Note from Marita

By Marita Noon

For years the anti-fossil fuel movement has been waging a war against, first, coal--and, more recently, natural gas and oil. It manifests itself through the global warming crusade that targeted coal; the attempts to ban fracking by planting fear, uncertainty, and doubt over a technology that people don't understand; and capitalizing on dramatic accidents, like the Exxon Valdez and the BP Macondo explosion, to limit access to the abundant off-shore resources.

The efforts have had a level of success-in part because they had a head start and partly because the energy industry went along with them. Remember BP's "Beyond Petroleum" campaign? Likewise, politicians have acquiesced and many in positions of power now favor environment over economy. Think Keystone pipeline. The goal has become "green," rather than growth. The movement has pushed regulation after regulation and made it harder and more expensive to extract natural resources of any kind.

Industry is loath to attack. After all, it has to work with the local, state, and federal regulators and legislators who have the ability to pose punitive actions for minute, unintentional infractions. Most attempts to defend are decried as "big oil" or "dirty coal"--which automatically discounts them. 

April 13, Wichita, TX Southwest Section of the American Association of Petroleum Engineers

Yes, each faction of the energy industry has its trade associations and the different segments often battle with one another for position. But a third party is more powerful and can be more proactive. This is where CARE comes in.

The Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy is the only organization to focus on the complete energy sector--oil, gas, coal, uranium/nuclear, wind, solar, transportation fuels, and electricity generation and distribution--with a free-market, limited-government approach. We uniquely address the economics of energy politics and what it means to the average American. By using current news hooks, CARE has developed an unparalleled messaging distribution channel that keeps energy in the public discussion in a thoughtful, consistent, and deliberate way. We are willing to take risks and say things that an individual company couldn't, or wouldn't, do--and as our work has become more high-profile, the anti-fossil fuel movement has ratcheted up its attacks.

April 16, Taft, CA Taft College Foundation Petroleum Partners Round-table Luncheon

At IHS CERAWeek in April, Richard Kinder, Kinder Morgan CEO, told attendees "As an industry, we haven't done a good enough job of explaining how important what we do really is to the economy and to the well-being of North America and people around the world. Sometimes, I think people think we're manufacturing cigarettes or something instead of what we think is very important work ... people want to flip the switch and turn the lights on and heat their house, but they don't think about the massive infrastructure and billions of dollars needed to get to that point."

Kinder is correct. It is because people don't think about energy beyond flipping the switch and filling up their cars that the anti-fossil fuel movement has been able to sell them on the fairy tale that the world can be powered on butterflies, rainbows, and pixie dust. And, this is why the work of CARE is so valuable. As we head into the important 2016 election, it is imperative, for the sake of the industries and the salvation of the country, that whoever becomes the 45th president understands energy and a public that knows how important energy is will be essential for that end.

May 14, Ajijic Mexico Lakeside Conservative Group

Thousands of members allow us to achieve these goals! However, CARE, a 501(C)3, is always in need of additional funding. We need not just one big check, but funding from many different disciplines, and not just from companies, but from individuals as well--which is why your membership is so vital. Please visit the CARE website to become a member (it is only $20 a year) or renew your membership. If you know of others who might be interested in membership or in a position to support our work, please tell them about CARE, or give me names and contact information and I'll be happy to follow up.

Individual memberships are important so that when CARE is attacked for our positions--as we have been and will be, we are accurate when we claim to be an "alliance" of "citizens."

In a recent op-ed the Albuquerque Journal published in response to one from CARE, the author stated that CARE is "neither an alliance of citizens nor does it appear to take responsibility for anything other than its fossil fuel funders' interests." To bolster our messaging, a diverse base of support and membership is important. In the case of the Albuquerque Journal op-ed, we were able to send an email to our distribution list of nearly 5000 people asking them to comment on the website. An interesting online conversation ensued.

But funding isn't the only need. To truly educate the public, our message needs to get to as broad a base as possible. Here's how we reach people and how you can help expand our message.

Weekly news-based, energy-themed commentary

Each week I write a column that is published throughout the internet on sites like Breitbart.com, RedState.com, and , more recently, AmericanSpectator.com, and in many newspapers with a combined reach of hundreds of thousands of people. That same column is also sent out to this distribution list of nearly 5000 people-though with additional promotion, it could just as easily be sent to thousands more! As a subscriber, I ask you to forward the weekly commentary to everyone you know.

Media opportunities

Because the weekly commentary is news-based, its topic is perfect for talk radio. Every week, I host an online radio program: America's Voice for Energy--which allows me to expand on the the commentary's theme by interviewing experts on the topic. I also co-host a weekly energy show on KRFE in Lubbock and am featured on CSC Talk Radio on the first Tuesday of Each month. Additionally, I do dozens of radio interviews-both local and nationally syndicated. These opportunities come, in part, because we hire a professional to cultivate them. Due to limited funding, we are grateful the PR firm we use is willing to work with us and promote our messaging as time permits, rather than as a priority. On rare occasions, when funding allows a specific message to get an extra push, the volume of interviews has increased dramatically. Additional funding would provide CARE with front-burner status and a higher profile for the messaging.

Speaking engagements

As a cheerleader for energy, I speak to a variety of industry, political, and civic group audiences--generally based on the topic of each week's column (though I adjust the emphasis to be appropriate for each). Some of my recent opportunities include speaking for the Southwest Section of the American Association of Petroleum Engineers in Wichita Falls, TX, the Taft College Foundation Petroleum Partners Round-table Luncheon in Taft, CA, the Libertarian Party of New Mexico's Annual Meeting, a group of conservatives expats in Ajijic, Mexico, the Lubbock Area Republican Women, and the Southwest Association of Lease Title Analysts in Durango, Colorado. This Summer, I am looking forward to speaking for the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico and the National Association of Royalty Owners Appalachia Annual Member Conference. Also upcoming is the Midland Natural Gas Society and the Midland Rotary Club--for which a sponsor is needed to cover travel expenses of about $100. With the wealth of material available, I never give the same speech twice. My presentations are perfect for a luncheon, or as the opening or banquet program in a more technically focused meeting. We are currently booking into fall 2015 but have many openings available in the upcoming months.

 

CARE has a great track record and is actively spreading the "Energy Makes America Great!" message. But we could reach so many more people! Will you help us? In 2014, our average contribution was about $500, so everything helps (an online "donate" option is available on both the CARE and Energy Makes America Great websites and checks can be mailed to: PO Box 52103, Albuquerque, NM 87181)! But you can also encourage others to sign up for our email distribution list (a "subscribe" link is on the right hand side, toward the bottom, of the Energy Makes America Great website). You can also forward the weekly column we send out every Monday.

Regardless of what level of support you can provide, your involvement is invaluable.

Thank you for being part of our "alliance" of "citizens!"

Your voice for energy,

Marita Noon

Executive Director

Pam Geller's Atlas Shrugs

Editor’s Note:  As you go through these links please keep in mind the point made in the article about Afghan Sikhs.  “Afghanistan’s once-thriving Sikh community is dwindling fast as many choose to leave the country of their birth to escape what they say is growing intolerance and discrimination.” As Afghanistan becomes more fanatically Islamic, it becomes more intolerant and hateful. This is no accident: Muslims are in conflict with kuffar everywhere the two live in proximity. The UN ignores Islamic intolerance and hatred, and instead wrings its hands about “islamophobia.”  The outrage over civil rights by the left is truly selective.  If it fits the leftist narrative it’s an outrage.  If reality doesn’t their narrative they ignore reality and report events in away to support the narrative they want promoted.  And the media is a compliant partner in this mendacity.  They must be insane!

 Full text: The Pamela Geller interview Mediaite Wouldn’t Run - This is one for the books. I am used to egregious media malpractice, but this hits a new low. Michael J. Turk of Mediaite did an interview with me — here is the exchange below. What follows is what Mediaite actually ran. They redacted 90% of it. They are worse than Pravda in its heyday……The Jews have always suffered from……Ayn Rand said, in any compromise between good and evil, evil profits. And we see that today. So you pick your fights.….Islam is not a race.…..quislings [and]compromisers within our ranks. Their opposition does not faze me. I know I stand with the proud Jews whom their cowardly spiritual ancestors opposed as well. Leftwing Jews worship at the church of human secularism. Their politics are their religion. Jewish history is rife with traitors like…… Dathan and his golden calf. We have plenty of Dathans demanding we worship some golden calf......

• And the answer is ……… YOU
• Afghanistan’s Sikhs feel alienated, pressured to leave
• Woman Sues French Government for $120000 for Not Stopping Son’s Jihad Trip
• Obama caught red-handed lying about Iran Deal
• Muhammad on the front page
• Prime Minister Netanyahu: As You Urge, We Will Expose The Lies and Attackers Of Israel's Bocyotters
• Report: Obama’s CIA head was in Israel to argue for closure of IAEA nuclear probe of Iran
• Map: Is the Islamic State in your neighborhood?
• Virginian Muslim Teen Pleads Guilty to Helping ISIS
• Muslim Teacher Changed His Name to Hide Terror-Linked Mega Mosque from Potential Employer
• Security Guard at U.S. Embassy in Egypt Arrested as a Terrorist
• Another Terrorist Arrested in the Boston Beheading Plot Targeting Police and Pamela Geller

How Islam Got its American Privileges

Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish 3 Comments

What is Islam? The obvious dictionary definition answer is that it’s a religion, but legally speaking it actually enjoys all of the advantages of race, religion and culture with none of the disadvantages.

Islam is a religion when mandating that employers accommodate the hijab, but when it comes time to bring it into the schools, places that are legally hostile to religion, American students are taught about Islam, visit mosques and even wear burkas and recite Islamic prayers to learn about another culture. Criticism of Islam is denounced as racist even though the one thing that Islam clearly isn’t is a race.

Islamist organizations have figured out how lock in every advantage of race, religion and culture, while expeditiously shifting from one to the other to avoid any of the disadvantages.

The biggest form of Muslim privilege has been to racialize Islam. The racialization of Islam has locked in all the advantages of racial status for a group that has no common race, only a common ideology.

Islam is the only religion that cannot be criticized. No other religion has a term in wide use that treats criticism of it as bigotry. Islamophobia is a unique term because it equates dislike of a religion with racism. Its usage makes it impossible to criticize that religion without being accused of bigotry.

By equating religion with race, Islam is treated not as a particular set of beliefs expressed in behaviors both good and bad, but as an innate trait that like race cannot be criticized without attacking the existence of an entire people. The idea that Islamic violence stems from its beliefs is denounced as racist.

Muslims are treated as a racial collective rather than a group that shares a set of views about the world.

That has made it impossible for the left to deal with ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali or non-Muslims from Muslim families like Salman Rushdie. If Islam is more like skin color than an ideology, then ex-Muslims, like ex-Blacks, cannot and should not exist. Under such conditions, atheism is not a debate, but a hate crime. Challenging Islam does not question a creed; it attacks the existence of an entire people.

Muslim atheists, unlike all other atheists, are treated as race traitors both by Muslims and leftists. The left has accepted the Brotherhood’s premise that the only authentic Middle Easterner is a Muslim (not a Christian or a Jew) and that the only authentic Muslim is a Salafist (even if they don’t know the word).

The racialization of Islam has turned blasphemy prosecutions into an act of tolerance while making a cartoon of a religious figure racist even when it is drawn by ex-Muslims like Bosch Fawstin. The New York Times will run photos of Chris Ofili’s “The Holy Virgin Mary” covered in dung and pornography, but refuses to run Mohammed cartoons because it deems one anti-religious and the other racist.

The equating of Islam with Arabs and Pakistanis has made it nearly impossible for the media to discuss violence against Christians in those parts of the world. The racialization of Islam has made Arab Christians, like Bangladeshi atheists, a contradiction in terms. The ethnic cleansing of the Yazidi could only be covered by giving them a clearly defined separate identity. Middle Eastern Christians are increasingly moving to avoid being categorized as Arabs because it is the only way to break through this wall of ignorance.

While racialization is the biggest Muslim privilege, race provides no protection for many Islamic religious practices. Muslims then seek religious discrimination laws to protect these practices even if it’s often a matter of debate whether their lawsuits protect their religious practices or impose them on others.

Islam is a theocracy. When it leaves the territories conquered by Islam, it seeks to replicate that theocracy through violence and by adapting the legal codes of the host society to suit its purposes.

Islamic blasphemy laws are duplicated using hate crime laws. Employers are obligated to make religious concessions to Muslim employees because of laws protecting religious practices, but many of these practices, such as refusing to carry out jobs involving pork, liquor or Seeing Eye dogs, are really ways of theocratically forcing behaviors that Islam forbids out of public life much as Saudi Arabia or Iran do.

 

Accusations of bigotry are used to outlaw ideas that Islam finds blasphemous and religious protection laws are used to banish behaviors that it disapproves of. By switching from race to religion and back again, Islamists construct a virtual theocracy by exploiting laws designed to protect different types of groups.

Religions in America traded theocracy for religious freedom. They gave up being able to impose their practices on others in exchange for being able to freely practice their own religions. Islam rejects religious freedom. It exploits it to remove the freedom of belief and practice of others. When it cannot do so through religious protection laws, it does so through claims of bigotry.

Religions were not meant to be immunized from blasphemy because that is theocracy. Instead religions are protected from restrictions, rather than from criticism. Islam insists on being protected from both. It makes no concessions to the freedom of others while demanding maximum religious accommodation.

While race and religion are used to create negative spaces in which Islam cannot be challenged, the creed is promoted positively as a culture. Presenting Islam as a culture allows it easier entry into schools and cultural institutions. Islamic missionary activity uses the Western longing for oriental exotica that its political activists loudly decry to inject it into secular spaces that would ordinarily be hostile to organized religion.

Leftists prefer to see Islam as a culture rather than a religion. Their worldview is not open to Islam’s clumsy photocopy of the deity that they have already rejected in their own watered down versions of Christianity and Judaism. But they are constantly seeking an aimless and undefined spirituality in non-Western cultures that they imagine are free of the materialism and hypocrisy of Western culture.

Viewing Islam as a culture allows the left to project its own ideology on a blank slate. That is why liberals remain passionately convinced that Islam is a religion of social justice. Their Islam is a mirror that reflects back their own views and ideas at them. They pretend to respect Islam as a culture without bothering to do any more than learn a few words and names so that they can seem like world travelers.

By morphing into a culture, Islam sheds its content and becomes a style, a form of dress, a drape of cloth, a style of beard, a curvature of script and a whiff of spices. It avoids uncomfortable questions about what the Koran actually says and instead sells the religion as a meaningful lifestyle. This approach has always had a great deal of appeal for African-Americans who were cut off from their own heritage through Islamic slavery, but it also enjoys success with white upper class college students.

 

The parents of those students often learn too late that Islam is not just another interchangeable monotheistic religion, that its mosques are not places where earnest grad students lecture elderly congregants about social justice and that its laws are not reducible to the importance of being nice to others.

Like a magician using misdirection, these transformations from religion to race, from race to culture and from culture to religion, distract Americans from asking what Islam really believes. By combining race, religion and culture, it replicates the building blocks of its theocracy within our legal and social spaces.

Separately each of these has its advantages and disadvantages. By combining them, Islam gains the advantages of all three, and by moving from one to the other, it escapes all of the disadvantages. The task of its critics is to deracialize Islam, to reduce it to an ideology and to ask what it really believes.

Islam is a privileged religion. And there’s a word for that. Theocracy.

 

The Export-Import Bank is the International Bank of Clinton

By Timothy P. Carney

Hillary Clinton is angry that conservatives are even debating the Export-Import Bank. She says, "I'd like to put Ex-Im Bank on steroids." Given what we know about Mrs. Clinton's business model, her undying love for Ex-Im tells us something about the agency. Why would she be dedicated to saving and expanding Ex-Im? The answer: Any tool that increases Washington's involvement in big business — here and abroad — creates opportunities for politicians to demand tribute from corporate and government coffers and increase political control over business. Ex-Im is a goldmine for a transactional politician like Hillary. This isn't a theory, or merely a prediction of the future. Study Ex-Im's recent history. Look at its deals, its staff, and its revolving-door alumni, and you see it. Some Republicans, persuaded by K Street, think of Ex-Im as a friend of business. The should instead see Ex-Im for what it really is: The International Bank of Clinton……To Read More….. 

My Take - Well, this should fix the thinking for those on the fence about ending the Export-Import Bank.  If Hillary's for it that's sufficient reason to be against it!

Green Corruption! And I'm Shocked....Shocked I Tell You!

Emily Zanotti

As several business owners in North Carolina recently found out, "green" nonprofits aren't always forthcoming about their agendas. Despite receiving tens of millions of dollars from billionaires like Tom Steyer and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, many of these environmental groups have taken to desperate measures to attract support from the general public for their unpopular agendas.

Recently, investigative journalists at the Asheville Citizen-Times and National Review revealed that the Sierra Club had allegedly added signatories to a petition demanding that Duke Energy cease the operations of one of its coal-fired power plants in Asheville, North Carolina. Of the 80 businesses listed on the petition, at least six had never agreed to lend their support to the Sierra Club at all, several claimed to be victims of bait-and-switch, strong-arming tactics and one didn't even exist.

These businesses reportedly signed up for information relating to the Sierra Club's environmental agenda, which included helping the group address concerns about the Duke plant's waste management. Calling for the plant's outright closure, however, was not something they signed their names to.

These questionable and unethical practices have earned the Sierra Club a spot on Charity Navigator's "watch list," a major warning to potential donors and signatories that they may want to think twice before supporting groups that engage in dishonest behavior. Disturbingly, the Sierra Club is only the latest environmental nonprofit to exhibit bad behavior and be forced to address public relations nightmares over the last year.....To Read More....

Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch: Federal Court Issues Ruling Compelling IRS to Provide Answers on Lerner IRS Emails -- Judicial Watch announced that Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a Judicial Watch request to issue an order requiring the IRS to provide ...

Judicial Watch Files Lawsuit against Secretary of State John Kerry to Force Action on Clinton Emails -- Judicial Watch announced today that it has filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State John Kerry in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel Secretary Kerry’s compliance with ...

The Benghazi Bonanza: A Bi-Partisan Scandal -- The Benghazi affair is beginning to shape up as a bi-partisan scandal — making Trey Gowdy’s life doubly difficult, of course. But the former prosecutor has been doing a bang-up job with his select committee, demolishing the mantra that there is ...

Judicial Watch Statement on Supreme Court’s Decision to Grant Certiorari in Shapiro v. Mack -- Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement in response to the Supreme Court’s decision Monday to grant certiorari to the plaintiffs in Shapiro et al. v. Mack et al., which challenges ...

Judicial Watch In The News

• Federal Judge Gives IRS Until Friday To Explain Itself On Lerner Emails
• The Obama Presidency – A Cacophony of Corruption
• How Bill Clinton and Teneo Duped the State Department Ethics Dummies

Pam Geller's Atlas Shrugs

Lou Dobbs rose (well) above the empty, hypocritical, preening din of all his colleagues at Fox News last evening: he unabashedly displayed the new free speech billboards of Pamela Geller/The American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), which feature ex-Muslim Bosch Fawstin’s thoughtful, Garland exhibit award-winning Muhammad drawing.

As I have repeatedly demonstrated (see here; here; here; here; and here). despite the rhetorical flourishes in support of free expression by those at Fox News—notably Megyn Kelly—contra Dobbs’ forceful action,...Read the whole entry »

• Florida Muslims face prison for jihad mass murder bomb plot in NYC
• Nuclear Jihad: Islamic State Working on Dirty Bomb
• The Islamic State in Possession of U.S. Anti-Tank Missiles
• New York Police Department Ramps Up Recruitment Of Muslim Police Officers (Isn’t favoring one religion over another unconstitutional? Of course the Constitution is only an old dusty document to be ignored if it doesn't fit the latest leftist narrative. Did I get that right?  I didn't miss anything did I?)
• Pennsylvania: Scores of teachers bow to Allah, celebrate Islam, visit local mosque to learn more about Islam
• Anti-Islamophobia Group Had List of Jewish Targets, Plans for Nuclear Bomb
• Temple Beth Am In Seattle Hosting Anti-Israel Program
• Hate Speech vs. Hate Speech: Mohamed Omar Released, Gerald Ledford Jailed
• Muslim Rampage in India: 3 Naked Women Raped, Dumped on Street by Devout Muslim Politicians, Massive Muslim Attack On Hindus In Burdwan District
• Egypt Summons U.S. Ambassador Over Muslim Brotherhood Visit
• World's Leading Islamic University Al Azhar distributing free book dedicated to discrediting Christianity, the “failed religion”
• Belgian Police Detain 16 Muslims Suspected of Joining Jihadi Group

 

It Isn't As If They Weren't Warned and Now They're "Shocked...Shocked"!

Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation Reports The G7 Summit Over, Germany Abandons Planned Coal Tax,

and Germany’s Green Revolution Devours Its Own Children

Coal-fired power plants in Germany -

Source: http://www.spiegel.de/flash/flash-26080.html

 

The German government appears to have abandoned the planned carbon tax on coal power plants. This is the result of a meeting of German Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) with the head of the mining union IG BCE, Michael Vassiliadis, and ministers of those states where lignite is produced. The ministry’s original plan was to avoid emitting additional 22 million tons of CO2 by 2020. This plan was opposed by trade unions and energy companies who saw this as an existential threat to Germany’s entire lignite production. These interest groups seem to have won the battle for now. --Der Spiegel, 7 June 2015

 

Siemens CEO Gives Up On German Fossil Fuel Plants - Industrial group Siemens has resigned itself to never selling another gas turbine in its home country following Germany's switch to renewable energy, its chief executive said. Joe Kaeser is cutting 1,600 jobs at Siemens' power and gas division, which has been turned upside down by the fallout from Germany's decision to accelerate its nuclear exit and promote renewable energy following Japan's 2011 Fukushima disaster. "The way in which Germany's energy transition is being handled has made it impossible for us to ever sell our fossil fuel-related products and solutions in Germany," Kaeser said in an interview published in Siemens' staff magazine on Thursday. --Reuters, 28 May 2015

 

Germany’s Green Revolution Devours Its Own Children - Siemens employees turned out in large numbers in Germany Tuesday to rally against massive job cuts announced earlier by the engineering giant's executive board. In Berlin alone, an estimated 1,500 workers took to the streets in fear of losing their jobs at one of Siemens' gas turbine facilities. CEO Joe Kaeser pointed to the ongoing problems in the power generation sector as demand for gas turbines had decreased rapidly due to Germany's shift to renewables. --Deutsche Welle, 9 June 2015

 

As Shale Fades, Poland’s Energy Strategy Relies On Coal - Whoever applies the axe here must know that with the loss of coal production the vertically integrated value chains of metalworking, electrical engineering and chemical industry will start to falter. Germany’s electricity costs for industry are already 26 percent higher than the EU average. Compared to the U.S., the difference is 150 percent now. The creeping process of de-industrialization has already begun. The winners of our job losses will be the USA and the Far East. --Fritz Vahrenholt, Manager Magazin, 5 June 2015

 

ConocoPhillips, the U.S. energy company, said on Friday it has stopped its shale gas exploration in Poland due to unsatisfactory results, leaving the rest of the field to Polish state-run firms. Earlier this year another U.S. energy major Chevron Corp gave up looking for shale gas in Poland, following the withdrawal of Exxon Mobil, Total and Marathon Oil over the past three years. While exploratory drilling has been done, Poland has not delivered a single commercial well. The only companies that declare further drilling are the state-run gas distributor PGNiG and the refiner PKN Orlen. --Reuters, 5 June 2015

 

The Future Role Of Coal: International Market Realities Vs Climate Protection? - Global growth in coal-fired generation since 2010 has been greater than that of all non-fossil-fuel sources combined. The share of fossil fuels in the total primary energy mix will only slowly decrease from 82 per cent in 2012 to 60-80 per cent by 2040. The proved global coal reserves in 2013 are sufficient to meet 113 years of global production. Global coal consumption is expected to grow by another 15 per cent through 2040. A world without coal is unrealistic even beyond 2040, and new production and transformation technologies – e.g. liquefaction and and gasification – are expected and already underway. -- Frank Umbach, European Centre for Energy and Resource Security (EUCERS), King's College London

Retraction Watch

Exosome pioneer’s paper retracted after investigation finds “multiple” faked figures

The Journal of Immunology is retracting a 2006 article about the role of exosomes in pregnancy at the behest of the University of Louisville in Kentucky, following a misconduct investigation that “determined multiple figures” in the paper were falsified.

First author Douglas Taylor is a pioneer in exosome biology, having discovered the release of exosomes from tumor cells in the 1970s.

The retracted paper identified “significant quantitative and qualitative differences in released exosomes” in the placentas of fetuses delivered prematurely compared to those delivered without complications at term, particularly relating to immune regulation. It has been cited 150 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the retraction note (which is paywalled – tsk, tsk):

An institutional research misconduct investigation committee determined multiple figures in the following paper were falsified: “Pregnancy-Associated Exosomes and Their Modulation of T Cell Signaling” by Douglas D. Taylor, Sibel Akyol, and Cicek Gercel-Taylor, The Journal of Immunology, 2006, 176: 1534–1542.

Based on the foregoing, the University of Louisville has requested that the above paper be retracted......To Read More....