By Victor Davis Hanson | June 23rd, 2019
Progressives do not see the United States as an exceptional uniter of factions and tribes into a cohesive whole—each citizen subordinating his tribal, ethnic, and religious affinities to a shared Americanism, emblemized by our national motto e pluribus unum. Instead, they prefer e uno plures: out of one nation arise many innately different and separate peoples.
Progressivism’s signature brand is now tribalism: all of us in different ways are victims of a white male Christian heterosexual patriarchy—or a current 20 percent hierarchy that past and present has supposedly oppressed anyone not like themselves. In contrast, our differences define who we are, and are not incidental to the content of our characters. The salad bowl, not the melting pot, is the new national creed. America is to be a conglomeration of competing tribal parties in the fashion of the Balkans, Rwanda, or contemporary Iraq.........To Read More....
My Take - VDH outlines just how irresponsible are so many of these race hustling contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination. Good read!!!! What I found surprising is Cory Booker, who I think is dumb as dirt, yet he's a graduate of Stanford and a Rhodes scholar. So much for the quality of education at these institutions.
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
The Sun Has Set Over the British Empire
by Lou Aguilar June 25, 2019
All my life, I’ve been an ardent Anglophile. I grew up consuming British literature, first, kid stuff like King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Treasure Island, later more adult but no less marvelous fare — Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Tolkien, Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming — then material for an English Lit major: Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Hardy, Conrad, Wilde, Shaw, and the Romantics. These in turn led me to appreciate Britain’s glorious history. How a cold, grey, windswept island went from fending off interminable invasions to remaking the farthest reaches of the globe, including our great country, within a mostly benevolent empire. How its concept of individual freedom and justice improved the world, surviving two modern wars and one cold one. Consequently, it pains me to see the United Kingdom going full Orwell. Never go full Orwell, the great writer himself practically screams in every page of 1984. Yet today, his novel seems more a British Government manual than a cautionary tale.
Last week, two insidious mandates appeared to come straight out of Oceania – only in Britannia. The Committees of Advertising Practices (CAP) banned — repeat, banned – all ads that reinforce gender stereotypes, in other words, no more “Mr. Mom” commercials or happy housewives celebrating a cleaning product. And the National Health Service ordered — repeat, ordered — the abortion of a mentally disabled woman’s unborn baby, despite her mentally fit mother’s willingness to help care for it. George Orwell is not the only British visionary turning over in his grave today. His fellow nation-boosting author, Rudyard Kipling, must be doing likewise..........To Read More....
My Take - Recently I've been watching all those old movies from the 30', 40's and 50's, including some of the many Sherlock Holmes movies. It's amazing how many different actors played Holmes and Watson. In one of them Holmes quotes part of Shakespear's "King Richard II", Act 2 scene 1 which says:
Well England......it's over! You've lost your minds. If someone dared to say this in public now in England they're probably be arrested. You've doomed yourselves, and America is right behind you......maybe!
All my life, I’ve been an ardent Anglophile. I grew up consuming British literature, first, kid stuff like King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Treasure Island, later more adult but no less marvelous fare — Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Tolkien, Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming — then material for an English Lit major: Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Hardy, Conrad, Wilde, Shaw, and the Romantics. These in turn led me to appreciate Britain’s glorious history. How a cold, grey, windswept island went from fending off interminable invasions to remaking the farthest reaches of the globe, including our great country, within a mostly benevolent empire. How its concept of individual freedom and justice improved the world, surviving two modern wars and one cold one. Consequently, it pains me to see the United Kingdom going full Orwell. Never go full Orwell, the great writer himself practically screams in every page of 1984. Yet today, his novel seems more a British Government manual than a cautionary tale.
Last week, two insidious mandates appeared to come straight out of Oceania – only in Britannia. The Committees of Advertising Practices (CAP) banned — repeat, banned – all ads that reinforce gender stereotypes, in other words, no more “Mr. Mom” commercials or happy housewives celebrating a cleaning product. And the National Health Service ordered — repeat, ordered — the abortion of a mentally disabled woman’s unborn baby, despite her mentally fit mother’s willingness to help care for it. George Orwell is not the only British visionary turning over in his grave today. His fellow nation-boosting author, Rudyard Kipling, must be doing likewise..........To Read More....
My Take - Recently I've been watching all those old movies from the 30', 40's and 50's, including some of the many Sherlock Holmes movies. It's amazing how many different actors played Holmes and Watson. In one of them Holmes quotes part of Shakespear's "King Richard II", Act 2 scene 1 which says:
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
Who should Blacks demand Reparations from?
It is truly disheartening as well as utterly disgusting watching American society disintegrating relentlessly since Barack H. Obama took office and his legacy thereafter.
By IQ al-Rassooli, Scholar & Terrorism Analyst June 24, 2019
By IQ al-Rassooli, Scholar & Terrorism Analyst June 24, 2019
It is truly disheartening as well as utterly disgusting watching American society disintegrating relentlessly since Barack H. Obama took office and his legacy thereafter. A great number of brain dead White and Black Americans are demanding Reparations for Slavery although not a single American in the 21st century even had a father who owned one............It is due to the willful and utter lack of knowledge among most Americans that such insane and asinine demands be made. Although billions of people in the 21st century have instantaneous access to billions of pages of information at the click of a mouse, most of them chose to be in either deliberate ignorance or willful in denial.......To Read More....
An Oakland Cop Joins the Bureaucrat Hall of Fame
June 23, 2019 by Dan Mitchell
The Bureaucrat Hall of Fame recognizes government employees who go above and beyond the call of duty in terms of getting over-paid or being under-worked.
Or both.
Adding insult to injury, many recipients of this award are employed by bureaucracies that shouldn’t even exist. Today we’re going to look at the Oakland police department, which is a part of the government that presumably should exist (though Camden, NJ, shows that maybe we shouldn’t make that assumption). The Oakland PD is notorious for being over-compensated, but one cop stands out.
Eric Boehm of Reason has the sordid details...........To Read More...
The Bureaucrat Hall of Fame recognizes government employees who go above and beyond the call of duty in terms of getting over-paid or being under-worked.
Or both.
Adding insult to injury, many recipients of this award are employed by bureaucracies that shouldn’t even exist. Today we’re going to look at the Oakland police department, which is a part of the government that presumably should exist (though Camden, NJ, shows that maybe we shouldn’t make that assumption). The Oakland PD is notorious for being over-compensated, but one cop stands out.
Eric Boehm of Reason has the sordid details...........To Read More...
Dozens of documents indicate Ilhan Omar lived with Ahmed Hirsi while claiming to be married to Ahmed Elmi
Dozens of official documents suggest that Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was living with her current husband, Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi, throughout her entire legal marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, contradicting the story she tells to explain her multiple marriages.
Omar tells her marital history in the following way:.........To Read More...
The Medal of Freedom in Economics
Editorial of The New York Sun | June 22, 2019
It turns out that President Trump's presentation Wednesday of the Medal of Freedom to the supply-side economist Art Laffer coincided with a record-high of the stock market -- at least as measured by the Standard & Poor's 500. That is nicely marked in the latest number of the FutureOfCapitalism blog, edited by our columnist Ira Stoll. He notes that the market's apex was hit despite the war-clouds scudding out of Iran...........Continue Reading
It turns out that President Trump's presentation Wednesday of the Medal of Freedom to the supply-side economist Art Laffer coincided with a record-high of the stock market -- at least as measured by the Standard & Poor's 500. That is nicely marked in the latest number of the FutureOfCapitalism blog, edited by our columnist Ira Stoll. He notes that the market's apex was hit despite the war-clouds scudding out of Iran...........Continue Reading
What Hillary and Obama Actually Did
By Sebastian Gorka| June 24th, 2019
It’s remarkable that the Democrats—and the corporate leftist media—don’t know the difference between Norway and Russia. One is an unequivocal part of the West, a founding member and staunch pillar of NATO. The other is a schizophrenic nation with imperialistic tendencies run by a former KGB colonel. These nuances are apparently lost on the likes of George Stephanopoulos and his accomplices of the FakeNews Industrial Complex..........
In sum: Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party paid a foreign agent to collect or manufacture damaging information about the Republican candidate for president, information that was sourced from the Russian government. The subsequent propaganda file was used to surveil members of the Trump campaign, illegally, as NSA and British assets were also used to spy on those associated with Clinton’s political rival, and as human intelligence assets were deployed in an attempt to entrap Trump advisers and members of his staff..............To Read More....
It’s remarkable that the Democrats—and the corporate leftist media—don’t know the difference between Norway and Russia. One is an unequivocal part of the West, a founding member and staunch pillar of NATO. The other is a schizophrenic nation with imperialistic tendencies run by a former KGB colonel. These nuances are apparently lost on the likes of George Stephanopoulos and his accomplices of the FakeNews Industrial Complex..........
In sum: Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party paid a foreign agent to collect or manufacture damaging information about the Republican candidate for president, information that was sourced from the Russian government. The subsequent propaganda file was used to surveil members of the Trump campaign, illegally, as NSA and British assets were also used to spy on those associated with Clinton’s political rival, and as human intelligence assets were deployed in an attempt to entrap Trump advisers and members of his staff..............To Read More....
The Myth and Fraud That There Ever Was an Arab Country or People Called ‘Palestine’ (Part One of Two)
Dov Fischer June 25, 2019
In a recent Nazi outrage, Rashida Tlaib, Democrat Liar of Michigan, stated that the Holocaust has had a “calming” effect on her because the “Palestinians” “welcomed” the Jews into “their” land as a haven from Hitler. The Big Lie — in so many dimensions.
New to the fray, South Bend Mayor Buttigieg — an expert on world affairs though still unable to maintain civil equanimity in his own city where African Americans are furious over a recent police shooting — has announced that, if Israel ever extends sovereignty into any part of Judea or Samaria, he will cut off aid to Israel accordingly if he is elected President. Others on the same bandwagon: Robert O’Rourke, a Scottish-Irish skateboarder best known for break-ins, drunk driving, computer hacking, faking Hispanic heritage, and having his ear hairs cut. Bernie Sanders, an American Communist. What these and their ilk all have in common is that they each see nothing anti-Semitic in anything that Ilhan Abdullahi Omar or Rashida Tlaib has written or spoken, but they are unable to tolerate Jewish life in Judea and Samaria............To Read More....
In a recent Nazi outrage, Rashida Tlaib, Democrat Liar of Michigan, stated that the Holocaust has had a “calming” effect on her because the “Palestinians” “welcomed” the Jews into “their” land as a haven from Hitler. The Big Lie — in so many dimensions.
New to the fray, South Bend Mayor Buttigieg — an expert on world affairs though still unable to maintain civil equanimity in his own city where African Americans are furious over a recent police shooting — has announced that, if Israel ever extends sovereignty into any part of Judea or Samaria, he will cut off aid to Israel accordingly if he is elected President. Others on the same bandwagon: Robert O’Rourke, a Scottish-Irish skateboarder best known for break-ins, drunk driving, computer hacking, faking Hispanic heritage, and having his ear hairs cut. Bernie Sanders, an American Communist. What these and their ilk all have in common is that they each see nothing anti-Semitic in anything that Ilhan Abdullahi Omar or Rashida Tlaib has written or spoken, but they are unable to tolerate Jewish life in Judea and Samaria............To Read More....
Dems are Planning to Steal the 2020 Election
Democrats will cheat in 2020 because only with absolute power can they save America from Americans.
June 25, 2019 By William L. Gensert
Democrats have an insurance policy for the 2020 Presidential election, and it has nothing to do with the eventual Democratic Party nominee. The original policy was initiated by Obama, Comey, Brennan, McCabe, Hillary, and their ilk, bragged about by Strzok to his paramour, and paid for by the Democrat/media cabal.
The mephitic Mueller tried to cash it in, but the hero marine got slapped down by Barr. It’s a plan to “win” the election by any means necessary, even by cheating if necessary. Of its components, the “failsafe,” is most intriguing, if for no other reason than it is so devious, underhanded, clever, and inventive, that it’s surprising it comes from the same left which gave us the ridiculously ludicrous Steele dossier and Smollett hoax.
October Surprise.
Notice how quickly E. Jean Carroll disappeared from the headlines? Or, how the same media, which has a conniption fit when Trump asks for an extra scoop of ice cream, scarcely publicized her rape accusation, and then let the matter drop with nary a peep? Perhaps a sealed indictment of Donald Trump (New York has no statute of limitations for first-degree rape) is being processed as we speak, with the purpose of it being leaked just in time for the election. .............
Electoral Shenanigans
Adam Mill had a great article warning that attempts by media, celebrities, and prominent Democrats in 2016 to convince members of the Electoral College not to award their votes to Trump was a mere prelude to the coercion by doxing, intimidation, Tweetstorm, and social media ostracism they will employ in 2020 to impel electors to award their votes to whom they are told.............
Outright Cheating
Importing a new, more “woke” electorate is another tactic. Americans stole the presidency from Hillary Clinton, so the left through their “open borders” policy plans on replacing the electorate with poor people dependent on Democrat handouts who they can suborn to vote illegally for Democrat candidates. The obstinate American electorate now extant can eat flan… Democrats seek to facilitate illegal voting by suppressing Voter ID movements, while challenging laws to purge voter rolls of the dead, noncitizens, people who have moved, and those voters who are inactive. Licenses for illegals and auto-motor-voter registration will help. .............. To Read More
My Take Mephitic -(especially of a gas or vapor) foul-smelling; noxious. I had to look it up too, but it's a word that needs to be used often now. And I will. As for stealing the 2020 election - we should be surprised why? I'm convinced Obama was elected twice because of election fraud. That's been their modus operandi for decades, why would we expect it to be different now?
Will Radicalization Work for the Democrats? The Democrats are not building their agenda around issues that are important for people, even though they claim they do. More
California's Gov. Gavin Newsom puts out a video for illegals on how to obstruct ICE - 6/24/19 June 24, 2019...and he doesn't look pretty doing it. More
Knitting social network with 8 million registered users silences Trump-supporters as 'white supremacists' - 6/24/19 June 24, 2019SJW bullying on the rise in unlikley places. More
June 25, 2019 By William L. Gensert
Democrats have an insurance policy for the 2020 Presidential election, and it has nothing to do with the eventual Democratic Party nominee. The original policy was initiated by Obama, Comey, Brennan, McCabe, Hillary, and their ilk, bragged about by Strzok to his paramour, and paid for by the Democrat/media cabal.
The mephitic Mueller tried to cash it in, but the hero marine got slapped down by Barr. It’s a plan to “win” the election by any means necessary, even by cheating if necessary. Of its components, the “failsafe,” is most intriguing, if for no other reason than it is so devious, underhanded, clever, and inventive, that it’s surprising it comes from the same left which gave us the ridiculously ludicrous Steele dossier and Smollett hoax.
October Surprise.
Notice how quickly E. Jean Carroll disappeared from the headlines? Or, how the same media, which has a conniption fit when Trump asks for an extra scoop of ice cream, scarcely publicized her rape accusation, and then let the matter drop with nary a peep? Perhaps a sealed indictment of Donald Trump (New York has no statute of limitations for first-degree rape) is being processed as we speak, with the purpose of it being leaked just in time for the election. .............
Electoral Shenanigans
Adam Mill had a great article warning that attempts by media, celebrities, and prominent Democrats in 2016 to convince members of the Electoral College not to award their votes to Trump was a mere prelude to the coercion by doxing, intimidation, Tweetstorm, and social media ostracism they will employ in 2020 to impel electors to award their votes to whom they are told.............
Outright Cheating
Importing a new, more “woke” electorate is another tactic. Americans stole the presidency from Hillary Clinton, so the left through their “open borders” policy plans on replacing the electorate with poor people dependent on Democrat handouts who they can suborn to vote illegally for Democrat candidates. The obstinate American electorate now extant can eat flan… Democrats seek to facilitate illegal voting by suppressing Voter ID movements, while challenging laws to purge voter rolls of the dead, noncitizens, people who have moved, and those voters who are inactive. Licenses for illegals and auto-motor-voter registration will help. .............. To Read More
My Take Mephitic -(especially of a gas or vapor) foul-smelling; noxious. I had to look it up too, but it's a word that needs to be used often now. And I will. As for stealing the 2020 election - we should be surprised why? I'm convinced Obama was elected twice because of election fraud. That's been their modus operandi for decades, why would we expect it to be different now?
Will Radicalization Work for the Democrats? The Democrats are not building their agenda around issues that are important for people, even though they claim they do. More
California's Gov. Gavin Newsom puts out a video for illegals on how to obstruct ICE - 6/24/19 June 24, 2019...and he doesn't look pretty doing it. More
Knitting social network with 8 million registered users silences Trump-supporters as 'white supremacists' - 6/24/19 June 24, 2019SJW bullying on the rise in unlikley places. More
Why Trump won...and will win re-election
June 24, 2019 By Thomas Lifson
"Pride goeth before a fall," the Book of Proverbs teaches us, and the worst kind of pride is that based on contempt for others rather than one's own accomplishments.
A reader sent in the picture below, saying that it was "spied on the rear cab window of a pickup truck." When you see President Trump pack arenas seating 20,000 or more, it's because his supporters understand the contempt that the ruling class has for them. They turned out in far greater numbers than anyone expected in 2016, and since then, the hatred and contempt for Trump and for his supporters have only amped up.
Here's a pro tip for political agitators: don't do the other side's work for them in getting out the vote. To Read More
"Pride goeth before a fall," the Book of Proverbs teaches us, and the worst kind of pride is that based on contempt for others rather than one's own accomplishments.
A reader sent in the picture below, saying that it was "spied on the rear cab window of a pickup truck." When you see President Trump pack arenas seating 20,000 or more, it's because his supporters understand the contempt that the ruling class has for them. They turned out in far greater numbers than anyone expected in 2016, and since then, the hatred and contempt for Trump and for his supporters have only amped up.
Here's a pro tip for political agitators: don't do the other side's work for them in getting out the vote. To Read More
Angela Rye Knows You’re Racist
By John Hirschauer June 24, 2019
The political philosopher Michael Oakeshott said that the “rationalist” is hopelessly lost in ideology, captivated by the world of self-contained coherence he has woven from strands of human experience.
He concocts a narrative about narratives, a story about stories, and adheres to the “large outline which a general theory imposes upon events.” The rationalist asserts that he has unearthed the etiological Piltdown Man and the long-sought Theory of Everything.
He believes he has reduced the totality of man’s experience to an easily digestible slogan, which contains within it “the formalized abridgment of the supposed substratum of rational truth.” In time, ideology so subsumes the rationalist that he finds “it difficult to believe that anyone who can think honestly and clearly will think differently from himself.
For a certain type of progressive, “racism” — in the broadest sense, with all of its attendant neologisms (whiteness, white supremacy, internalized oppression, privilege, etc.) — has become something of a story about stories. It explains everything: Trump’s election, racial disparities in crime rates, black Republicans, the prevailing color of bandages in grocery stores. Its explanatory scope has been tried — and tried, and tried — and is yet to be found wanting. It is indeed “remarkable,” as Oakeshott observes, “the rapidity with which [the rationalist] reduces the tangle and variety of experience” vis-Ã -vis the real world “to a set of principles.” ..........To Read More...
My Take - If making everything an issue of race is an effort to eliminate racism, it's a failed effort!
What happens when people are unendingly called a racists, no matter how hard they try to show you're not? Eventually people will give up trying not to be racists, and actually become racists.
This "race industry" that's taken hold in black America, and exploited by black race hustlers and the left, is destructive to society as a whole but it's particularly destructive to blacks, as it gives them an excuse for their failure as a community, and let's not sugar coat this. Black America is a failed community. If blacks can't come to grips with their own faults and failures, blaming everyone else will not fix it for them.
If black America wants social fixes in America, let it start in the home. Having a 70% illegitimacy rate is foundational to the disaster that's playing out in black America, not racism. The sad part of this is this. Even if blacks in America start to fix their illegitimacy problem right now it will take decades to overcome the negative impact this has had on their thinking and actions.
The political philosopher Michael Oakeshott said that the “rationalist” is hopelessly lost in ideology, captivated by the world of self-contained coherence he has woven from strands of human experience.
He concocts a narrative about narratives, a story about stories, and adheres to the “large outline which a general theory imposes upon events.” The rationalist asserts that he has unearthed the etiological Piltdown Man and the long-sought Theory of Everything.
He believes he has reduced the totality of man’s experience to an easily digestible slogan, which contains within it “the formalized abridgment of the supposed substratum of rational truth.” In time, ideology so subsumes the rationalist that he finds “it difficult to believe that anyone who can think honestly and clearly will think differently from himself.
For a certain type of progressive, “racism” — in the broadest sense, with all of its attendant neologisms (whiteness, white supremacy, internalized oppression, privilege, etc.) — has become something of a story about stories. It explains everything: Trump’s election, racial disparities in crime rates, black Republicans, the prevailing color of bandages in grocery stores. Its explanatory scope has been tried — and tried, and tried — and is yet to be found wanting. It is indeed “remarkable,” as Oakeshott observes, “the rapidity with which [the rationalist] reduces the tangle and variety of experience” vis-Ã -vis the real world “to a set of principles.” ..........To Read More...
My Take - If making everything an issue of race is an effort to eliminate racism, it's a failed effort!
What happens when people are unendingly called a racists, no matter how hard they try to show you're not? Eventually people will give up trying not to be racists, and actually become racists.
This "race industry" that's taken hold in black America, and exploited by black race hustlers and the left, is destructive to society as a whole but it's particularly destructive to blacks, as it gives them an excuse for their failure as a community, and let's not sugar coat this. Black America is a failed community. If blacks can't come to grips with their own faults and failures, blaming everyone else will not fix it for them.
If black America wants social fixes in America, let it start in the home. Having a 70% illegitimacy rate is foundational to the disaster that's playing out in black America, not racism. The sad part of this is this. Even if blacks in America start to fix their illegitimacy problem right now it will take decades to overcome the negative impact this has had on their thinking and actions.
U.S. school lets Muslims interrupt classes to 'convert' students
Now faces grilling from legal team
A U.S. school that allowed Muslim students to interrupt classes to “convert” students to Islam now faces a grilling from a constitutional legal team. As part of its Project for Constitutional Rights in Education, the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund monitors school districts to ensure that officials are educated about the “threat of Islamic indoctrination and religiously preferential ‘anti-Islamophobia’ bullying programs.”
FCDF said it sent the West New York School District in New Jersey a public records request to see documents “that could show whether the district is unlawfully promoting religion.” The concern centered on a decision to hang a large banner at the school “beseeching ‘Allah’ to ‘shower’ students with ‘love and wisdom.'” .............To Read More...
My Take - The school wants to teach their students about Islam. Ok, I get that, but I wonder what would happen if a teacher made an effort to cover - truthfully cover - the murderous and militant history of Islam while these Muslims were promoting it.
Let's try and get this right. Islam isn't a religion. It's a criminal, political movement masquerading as a religion. No matter what anyone says, the real pillars of Islam are greed, lust, hate and violence. Once that's understood everything they do and say falls into place.
Recommended reading: Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West
A U.S. school that allowed Muslim students to interrupt classes to “convert” students to Islam now faces a grilling from a constitutional legal team. As part of its Project for Constitutional Rights in Education, the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund monitors school districts to ensure that officials are educated about the “threat of Islamic indoctrination and religiously preferential ‘anti-Islamophobia’ bullying programs.”
FCDF said it sent the West New York School District in New Jersey a public records request to see documents “that could show whether the district is unlawfully promoting religion.” The concern centered on a decision to hang a large banner at the school “beseeching ‘Allah’ to ‘shower’ students with ‘love and wisdom.'” .............To Read More...
My Take - The school wants to teach their students about Islam. Ok, I get that, but I wonder what would happen if a teacher made an effort to cover - truthfully cover - the murderous and militant history of Islam while these Muslims were promoting it.
Let's try and get this right. Islam isn't a religion. It's a criminal, political movement masquerading as a religion. No matter what anyone says, the real pillars of Islam are greed, lust, hate and violence. Once that's understood everything they do and say falls into place.
Recommended reading: Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West
Erdogan's Setback Could Yet Tilt Turkey to U.S.
By BENNY AVNI, Special to the Sun | June 25, 2019
Turkish voters dealt the country's once-invincible president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a sharp slap in the face Saturday. America should use the moment to nudge Ankara, a NATO member and erstwhile stalwart of the Atlantic alliance, back into the Western fold.
Turkish voters dealt the country's once-invincible president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a sharp slap in the face Saturday. America should use the moment to nudge Ankara, a NATO member and erstwhile stalwart of the Atlantic alliance, back into the Western fold.
An opposition mayoral contestant in Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, handsomely beat Mr. Erdogan's favored candidate by a 9-point margin. This came after Mr. Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, or AKP, canceled the results of an earlier election and ordered a redo because its candidate lost the first time around..........To Read More...
Monday, June 24, 2019
Evidence from the States: Higher Taxes = Fewer Jobs
June 22, 2019 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty
When I wrote a few days ago that the Trump tax reform was generating good results, I probably should have specified that some parts of the country are not enjoying as much growth because of bad state tax policy.
This presumably helps to explain why Americans are voting with their feet by moving to states where the politicians are (at least in practice) less greedy.
Let’s look at some new evidence on the interaction of federal and state tax policy.
Writing for Forbes, Chuck DeVore of the Texas Public Policy Foundation shares data on how and why lower-tax state are out-performing higher-tax states.
Based on previous evidence we’ve examined, these numbers are hardly a surprise.
Chuck suggests the right way for high-tax states to respond.
Politicians is high-tax states such as Illinois and New Jersey are trying to make their already-punitive systems even worse.
Based on what we’ve seen from Greece, that won’t end well.
As illustrated by my columns about Texas vs California and Florida vs New York, high-tax states are economic laggards compared to low-tax states.
Let’s look at some new evidence on the interaction of federal and state tax policy.
Writing for Forbes, Chuck DeVore of the Texas Public Policy Foundation shares data on how and why lower-tax state are out-performing higher-tax states.
Here are some of his numbers.Job growth has been running 80% stronger in low-tax states than in high-tax states since the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 in December 2017. Understanding why holds important lessons for policy, economics, and politics. The new tax law scaled back the federal subsidy for high state and local taxes. …As a result of limiting the SALT deduction to $10,000, income tax filers in high-tax states saw a relatively smaller tax cut, losing out on about $84 billion since the tax code was changed. With $84 billion less to invest, the pace of job creation in the 23 high-tax states has slowed relative to the low-tax states, with the data suggesting a shift of almost 400,000 private sector jobs may have occurred.
Prior to the tax reform’s enactment, annualized private sector job growth was 1.9% in the low-tax states from January 2016 to December 2017 compared to 1.4% in the high-tax states, giving the low-tax jurisdictions a comparatively modest advantage of 35% more rapid job growth over the 23-month period. Now, 17 months of federal jobs data suggest that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has increased the competitive advantage of 27 low-tax states where the average SALT deduction was under $10,000 in 2016 as compared to 23 high-tax taxes with average SALT deductions greater than $10,000. Private sector job growth is now running 80% faster in the low-tax states, 2% annualized compared to 1.1%, up from just a 35% advantage in the prior 23 months. …For California, the lost employment opportunity adds up to 153,000 positions since December 2017… New York’s employment growth was about 128,000 less than might have been the case had the SALT deduction not been capped.And here’s his data-rich chart.
Based on previous evidence we’ve examined, these numbers are hardly a surprise.
Chuck suggests the right way for high-tax states to respond.
…if political leaders in states accustomed to taxing and spending far more than their more frugal peers wish to participate in higher rates of job creation, they should reform their own fiscal houses, rather than expect their neighbors to subsidize their high-spending ways.Sadly, this doesn’t appear to be happening.
Politicians is high-tax states such as Illinois and New Jersey are trying to make their already-punitive systems even worse.
Based on what we’ve seen from Greece, that won’t end well.
‘Children killer’ glyphosate found in Cheerios? Experts dismantle Environmental Working Group’s herbicide food residue study
Cameron English, Jon Entine | June 17, 2019
Last week, on June 12 2019, the organic industry-funded Environmental Working Group (EWG) issued a news release that claimed, “Major food companies like General Mills continue to sell popular children’s breakfast cereals and other foods contaminated with troubling levels of glyphosate, the cancer-causing ingredient in the herbicide Roundup.”
EWG’s announcement is the third of its kind focusing on the alleged dangers of glyphosate residues in our food. It was immediately trumpeted by fringe activist groups—that’s par for the course—but was also covered, almost entirely uncritically, by mainstream sources, such as CNN:
EWG did not mention that its ‘benchmark’ is entirely made up, has no clear scientific basis and is at odds with historically established and globally recognized benchmarks used by regulators in every country. The EWG “safety threshold” is 100 times lower than even the most conservative cut-off established by oversight agencies around the world, including the EPA. Curiously but not surprisingly considering EWG’s historical willingness to distort science, the threshold it settled upon just ‘happens’ to coincide with the infinitesimally trace amounts of glyphosate it found on Cheerios. ............To Read More....
Last week, on June 12 2019, the organic industry-funded Environmental Working Group (EWG) issued a news release that claimed, “Major food companies like General Mills continue to sell popular children’s breakfast cereals and other foods contaminated with troubling levels of glyphosate, the cancer-causing ingredient in the herbicide Roundup.”
EWG’s announcement is the third of its kind focusing on the alleged dangers of glyphosate residues in our food. It was immediately trumpeted by fringe activist groups—that’s par for the course—but was also covered, almost entirely uncritically, by mainstream sources, such as CNN:
What’s the news here?
Like its predecessors, released in July and October 2018, this EWG ‘study’ was based on a “round of tests” that was not peer reviewed by independent experts. Its scientists claimed that they found dozens of instances in which food it tested did not pass its “children’s health benchmark” for assessing potential exposure level hazards.EWG did not mention that its ‘benchmark’ is entirely made up, has no clear scientific basis and is at odds with historically established and globally recognized benchmarks used by regulators in every country. The EWG “safety threshold” is 100 times lower than even the most conservative cut-off established by oversight agencies around the world, including the EPA. Curiously but not surprisingly considering EWG’s historical willingness to distort science, the threshold it settled upon just ‘happens’ to coincide with the infinitesimally trace amounts of glyphosate it found on Cheerios. ............To Read More....
Thought For the Day
"We're all travelers in this world. From the sweet grass to the packing house. Birth 'til death. We travel between the eternities." Robert Duvall as Prentice Ritter in Broken Trail.
Science Saves an Old Chestnut
Genetic engineering rescues a tree from a threatening fungus.
By Hank Campbell
By Hank Campbell
A forest of chestnut trees ravaged by blight in Luray, Va. Photo: Library of Congress
A blight-tolerant American chestnut tree is the latest example of what the science community has begun to call a GRO—a genetically rescued organism. In the past century approximately four billion chestnut trees have been lost in the U.S. due to blight that spread when the Cryphonectria parasitica fungus arrived with chestnut trees imported from Asia. A once-dominant hardwood species is now rare.
Nature can be fickle, but using science to engineer solutions allows precise methods to combat natural pathogens. Some species are resistant to the fungus, and that’s why it makes sense to use transgenic tools to help the chestnut tree utilize beneficial genes from other plants—essentially vaccinating against the fungus.
It’s all part of a 28-year effort by the nonprofit American Chestnut Research and Restoration Project, led by the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Scientists use a gene from bread wheat that produces an enzyme called oxalate oxidase, which prevents the fungus from forming cankers on plant stems. The enzyme is found in all grain crops, plus bananas, strawberries and more..........To Read More.....
It’s all part of a 28-year effort by the nonprofit American Chestnut Research and Restoration Project, led by the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Scientists use a gene from bread wheat that produces an enzyme called oxalate oxidase, which prevents the fungus from forming cankers on plant stems. The enzyme is found in all grain crops, plus bananas, strawberries and more..........To Read More.....
Nordic 'socialists' opt for private insurance
Growing dissatisfaction with government-run program
WND 6/23/19
Self-proclaimed democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and other Democrats frequently point to the Scandinavian countries as models for health care, but an increasing number of citizens in these nations are opting for private medical insurance, finding the universal government system inadequate.
Kevin Pham, a medical doctor and a former graduate fellow in health policy at the Heritage Foundation, points out in a column for the Daily Signal that Denmark, Sweden and Norway are not socialist countries but highly taxed market economies with large welfare states. He notes a growing European interest in private health insurance that “typically stems from dissatisfaction with the state-run systems, which often provide poor or incomplete coverage and long wait times.”
“By contrast, private plans offer wider coverage, shorter wait times, access to private facilities, and more flexibility in patient choice,” he wrote.
Between 2006 and 2016, the portion of the population covered by private insurance increased by 4 percent in Sweden, 7 percent in Norway and 22 percent in Denmark.
A 2009 survey showed nearly half of Danes felt waiting times were unreasonable while only about a third disagreed. In 2007, the Danish government enacted a wait time guarantee of one month to receive treatment.
Meanwhile, some Democratic presidential candidates are proposing “Medicare for All,” which is most similar to the Canadian system in which providers bill a regional office administering the program...........under Medicare for All...........“Private health insurance would be abolished for everyone.” ............To Read More...
WND 6/23/19
Self-proclaimed democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and other Democrats frequently point to the Scandinavian countries as models for health care, but an increasing number of citizens in these nations are opting for private medical insurance, finding the universal government system inadequate.
Kevin Pham, a medical doctor and a former graduate fellow in health policy at the Heritage Foundation, points out in a column for the Daily Signal that Denmark, Sweden and Norway are not socialist countries but highly taxed market economies with large welfare states. He notes a growing European interest in private health insurance that “typically stems from dissatisfaction with the state-run systems, which often provide poor or incomplete coverage and long wait times.”
“By contrast, private plans offer wider coverage, shorter wait times, access to private facilities, and more flexibility in patient choice,” he wrote.
Between 2006 and 2016, the portion of the population covered by private insurance increased by 4 percent in Sweden, 7 percent in Norway and 22 percent in Denmark.
A 2009 survey showed nearly half of Danes felt waiting times were unreasonable while only about a third disagreed. In 2007, the Danish government enacted a wait time guarantee of one month to receive treatment.
Meanwhile, some Democratic presidential candidates are proposing “Medicare for All,” which is most similar to the Canadian system in which providers bill a regional office administering the program...........under Medicare for All...........“Private health insurance would be abolished for everyone.” ............To Read More...
An Open Letter to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
June 23, 2019 Ilana Freedman, Intelligence Analyst
An Open Letter to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
You say many outrageous things in your weaponized Twitter account. I read them, sometimes I chuckle, sometimes I get annoyed, but mostly I chalk it up to your need to make your point, which I accept............You compared the internment camps on our southern border with Nazi concentration camps, where the Jewish population of Europe was systematically and brutally slaughtered, or simply worked to death on a daily basis. But it wasn’t ten or twenty people, it was six million! This was genocide in astronomical proportions! ........
An Open Letter to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
You say many outrageous things in your weaponized Twitter account. I read them, sometimes I chuckle, sometimes I get annoyed, but mostly I chalk it up to your need to make your point, which I accept............You compared the internment camps on our southern border with Nazi concentration camps, where the Jewish population of Europe was systematically and brutally slaughtered, or simply worked to death on a daily basis. But it wasn’t ten or twenty people, it was six million! This was genocide in astronomical proportions! ........
In your tweet you said:
“The U.S. is running concentration camps on our southern border and that is exactly what they are. … ‘Never Again’ means something … we need to do something about it.”..............
There is no genocide going on at the U.S.-Mexican border. The camps that you inaccurately refer to as “concentration camps” are internment camps. No one is being systematically murdered there, and compared to the camps that were created under the Nazis throughout Europe in the last century, these internment camps are country clubs.
The people interred there are well fed with regular meals, they receive medical care when they are ill, and, above all, they came there willingly and they entered the country illegally. No one forced them to make the terrible trip from wherever they started. And no one forced them to cross into the U.S. without permission.
In fact, the very first steps that they took into our country were illegal ones. They broke the law the moment they put one foot on American soil. We have a process for this – a legal one – but they chose to break the law rather than go through it........To Read More.....
My Take - Since this writer can find humor in this lame brain's tweets and only "sometimes" is annoyed, yet understands how she has to sound like an idiot to "make your point". Since the only point she has is so obviously on her head, I gotta believe this writer surely seems to be a leftie. As it turns out her only pique with AOC is the failure to accurately understand the difference between the deliberate genocide practiced by the Nazis versus the imprisoning those who break the law.
I disagree that "there's only one holocaust". As far as I can tell, that was first used to identify the Nazi genocide of Jews, and so Jews naturally have a proprietorial attitude about that word, but in reality, there have been many holocausts in history ,like the ruthless genocide and slaughter of millions of Armenians by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. I would think Jews would be willing to share the term, and the pain, with those who've shared the same suffering as they.
As peoples they share a rare experience. An effort to wipe out their entire people. That seems to me to create a bond of bortherhood that should be shared in order to further expose the murderous insanity of leftists and Muslims.
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Thoughts For the Day
- Ninety-nine percent of all lawyers give the rest a bad name.
- It's not whether you win or lose, but how you place the blame.
- We have enough "youth". How about a fountain of "smart"?
- Artificial intellilgence is no match for natural stupidity
- The reason Politicians try so hard to get re-elected is that they would hate to have to make a living under the laws they've passed.
Why Gillibrand Is the Most Vapid Clown in the Car
Your call: As she fights to reach 0% in the polls, is she absurd or just plain stupid?
by Dov Fischer June 14, 2019
She is so excruciatingly, insufferably, painfully stupid, shallow, pandering, desperate, and without ethics. Kirsten Gillibrand. United States Senator from New York. Candidate for 2020 Democrat Presidential nomination.
She was not initially on my radar. I follow the news like a hawk, but she always was so politically lightweight — make that bantamweight — that she did not register. Here in California, “register” is a term we often use for earthquakes. The Northridge shaker registered at 6.7. A solid 3.5, give or take, will wake you up. Gillibrand registers at 0.0, give or take a zero.........To Read More....
by Dov Fischer June 14, 2019
She is so excruciatingly, insufferably, painfully stupid, shallow, pandering, desperate, and without ethics. Kirsten Gillibrand. United States Senator from New York. Candidate for 2020 Democrat Presidential nomination.
She was not initially on my radar. I follow the news like a hawk, but she always was so politically lightweight — make that bantamweight — that she did not register. Here in California, “register” is a term we often use for earthquakes. The Northridge shaker registered at 6.7. A solid 3.5, give or take, will wake you up. Gillibrand registers at 0.0, give or take a zero.........To Read More....
Incredible hypocrisy as Democrats demand Trump be arrested once he leaves office
To lock up Hillary would be bad; to lock up Trump would be great.
June 23, 2019 By Taylor Lewis
Elections are no longer just an advanced auction of stolen goods, as Mencken so gnomically put it. They're now advanced cases of court remand. The Trump campaign's winning strapline may have been "build the wall," but it was the stadium-friendly chant of "lock her up," in reference to Hillary Clinton's skirting of the law, that really kindled supporters' excitement. ............The late Charles Krauthammer decried the threat of bringing Clinton under the remit of the law for her illegal email practices. "Such incendiary talk is an affront to elementary democratic decency and a breach of the boundaries of American political discourse." You know an august commentator like Krauthammer is truly offended when he uses the genteel noun "affront."
While keening over the death of institutional civility in the Washington Post, two university professors described the chants as "disturbing" yet "inevitable," because "[Republican] attacks on the legitimacy of Democratic candidates and presidents are hardly new." Fancy that, seeing as how liberals haven't met a legitimate Republican president since Warren Harding, and even he had some peccadilloes of his own................ To Read More
My Take - Initially. I was impressed with Krauthammer. But that was kind of like having the flu. It didn't take me long to get over it!
June 23, 2019 By Taylor Lewis
Elections are no longer just an advanced auction of stolen goods, as Mencken so gnomically put it. They're now advanced cases of court remand. The Trump campaign's winning strapline may have been "build the wall," but it was the stadium-friendly chant of "lock her up," in reference to Hillary Clinton's skirting of the law, that really kindled supporters' excitement. ............The late Charles Krauthammer decried the threat of bringing Clinton under the remit of the law for her illegal email practices. "Such incendiary talk is an affront to elementary democratic decency and a breach of the boundaries of American political discourse." You know an august commentator like Krauthammer is truly offended when he uses the genteel noun "affront."
While keening over the death of institutional civility in the Washington Post, two university professors described the chants as "disturbing" yet "inevitable," because "[Republican] attacks on the legitimacy of Democratic candidates and presidents are hardly new." Fancy that, seeing as how liberals haven't met a legitimate Republican president since Warren Harding, and even he had some peccadilloes of his own................ To Read More
My Take - Initially. I was impressed with Krauthammer. But that was kind of like having the flu. It didn't take me long to get over it!
California 75% probability of financial crisis in next recession
June 23, 2019 By Chriss Street
The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) estimates there is a 75 percent probability that the state’s next recession will result in a severe financial crisis.
PPIC was established 25 years ago by William Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, to provide nonpartisan research regarding the state’s population, economy, governance and public finance issue. Responding to Gov. Gavin Newsome’s May Revised $147 billion “California for All” General Fund Budget, PPIC’s independent analysis warns:
My Take - We're entering into unknown territory for the United States, and we can thank the left for this. This is what they want, bankrupt America to take it over, it's part of the left wing goal to bankrupt America. Cloward–Piven strategy was part of that strategy, which was "outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a socialist system of "a guranteed annual income" and thus an end to poverty".
I think this rebuke to California is far milder than is reasonable, or as reality dictates. California is broke, and getting more broke daily. Any economic downturn will destroy their state financially, and at some point it's my belief the state government will have to turn all power over to the federal government in order to survive. Possibly making California a territory, with the President of the United States appointing a Territorial governor who will control all aspects of government, including the courts. I don't know if such an arrangement is legal or ever possible, but no matter what, California as we know it is doomed, with Illinois and New York are right behind them.
The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) estimates there is a 75 percent probability that the state’s next recession will result in a severe financial crisis.
PPIC was established 25 years ago by William Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, to provide nonpartisan research regarding the state’s population, economy, governance and public finance issue. Responding to Gov. Gavin Newsome’s May Revised $147 billion “California for All” General Fund Budget, PPIC’s independent analysis warns:
We estimate that a relatively mild recession would produce a drop in total General Fund revenue between $28 billion and $36 billion spread over three years. Should the state experience a moderate recession, revenue declines would range between $69 billion and $100 billion over four years. And finally, in a severe recession declines would be even deeper, between $173 billion and $185 billion over five years”California has a very volatile revenue stream as evidenced by the severe last recession that began in 2008 and persisted for five years saw state revenues fall by an average of 26 percent, or about $37 billion annually. Revenues in the mild three year “Dot-Com Bust” suffered a 6 percent annual decline. The two prior recessions are considered moderate, with the 5-year early 1990s “Slump” experiencing a 14 percent annual revenue declines and the early 1980s “Oil Shock” seeing 12 percent annual declines..........To Read More....
My Take - We're entering into unknown territory for the United States, and we can thank the left for this. This is what they want, bankrupt America to take it over, it's part of the left wing goal to bankrupt America. Cloward–Piven strategy was part of that strategy, which was "outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a socialist system of "a guranteed annual income" and thus an end to poverty".
I think this rebuke to California is far milder than is reasonable, or as reality dictates. California is broke, and getting more broke daily. Any economic downturn will destroy their state financially, and at some point it's my belief the state government will have to turn all power over to the federal government in order to survive. Possibly making California a territory, with the President of the United States appointing a Territorial governor who will control all aspects of government, including the courts. I don't know if such an arrangement is legal or ever possible, but no matter what, California as we know it is doomed, with Illinois and New York are right behind them.
Growing evidence of wind farms’ horrific toll on wildlife: This time from India
Wind Turbines: The New “Apex Predator”
2019-06-19 By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.|General Information|3 Comments @ CFACT
Eagles, hawks, bats – these are among the most prominently cited avian wildlife regularly slaughtered by industrial-sized wind-power facilities that – thanks to taxpayer subsidies and state renewable-energy mandates — continue to spread like wildfire across rural America.
2019-06-19 By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.|General Information|3 Comments @ CFACT
Eagles, hawks, bats – these are among the most prominently cited avian wildlife regularly slaughtered by industrial-sized wind-power facilities that – thanks to taxpayer subsidies and state renewable-energy mandates — continue to spread like wildfire across rural America.
The affliction is by no means restricted to the United States, however. A new study sheds light on the carnage giant wind turbines are inflicting on wildlife in India. Researchers at the Indian Institute for Science at Bengaluru studied bird and lizard populations at three wind turbine sites in Western Ghats. They found that the mass killing of avian predators by wind turbines is having a “ripple effect” across the food chain, with lizards and small mammals adjusting to substantially reduced numbers of predators in the sky
Wind Turbines: The New “Apex Predator”
As reported by the Daily Mail last November (and otherwise largely ignored by the media), researchers in India found almost four times fewer buzzards, hawks, and kites in areas with wind farms – a loss of about 75%. Startled by the data, scientists are now referring to wind turbines as “the new apex predator.”
In areas without wind turbines about 19 birds were spotted every three hours, while in areas with the spinning blades the number dropped to five. Fewer winged predators have been good news for the fan-throated lizard, a species found only in certain areas of the Indian Sub-Continent. The lizard is usually easy pickings for hawks, buzzards, and other birds, but with their numbers reduced by the wind turbines, the lizard’s numbers are multiplying.
“We have known from many studies that wind turbines kill birds and bats. They kill them and disrupt their movement. But we took that one step further and discovered that it affects lizards, too,” study coauthor Maria Thaker told the Daily Mail.
“Every time a top predator is removed or added, unexpected effect trickle through the ecosystem,” she added. “What is actually happening here is that wind turbines are akin to adding a top predator to the ecosystem.”
The study, which was published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, compared populations of raptors and lizards on a plateau that has had a wind farm on it for about 20 years to an adjacent valley that has no turbines.
“Humankind’s Most Pervasive Influence on the Natural World”
A recent study by an international team of scientists found the decline of apex predators is” arguably humankind’s most pervasive influence on the natural world.”
None of this is of any real concern to green groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund, who parrot the party line that the real threat to wildlife is “climate change,” not industrial-scale wind facilities and giant solar arrays they have been supporting for decades.
While India has made great strides in electrification in recent years, much still needs to be done. According to official data, “only 1,417 of India’s 18,452 villages or 7.3% of the total, have 100% household connectivity, and about 31% are still in the dark,” Forbes reported last year.
India’s future should not be dependent on interment, unreliable, unaffordable, and, as we now know, environmentally destructive wind power.
Wind Turbines: The New “Apex Predator”
As reported by the Daily Mail last November (and otherwise largely ignored by the media), researchers in India found almost four times fewer buzzards, hawks, and kites in areas with wind farms – a loss of about 75%. Startled by the data, scientists are now referring to wind turbines as “the new apex predator.”
In areas without wind turbines about 19 birds were spotted every three hours, while in areas with the spinning blades the number dropped to five. Fewer winged predators have been good news for the fan-throated lizard, a species found only in certain areas of the Indian Sub-Continent. The lizard is usually easy pickings for hawks, buzzards, and other birds, but with their numbers reduced by the wind turbines, the lizard’s numbers are multiplying.
“We have known from many studies that wind turbines kill birds and bats. They kill them and disrupt their movement. But we took that one step further and discovered that it affects lizards, too,” study coauthor Maria Thaker told the Daily Mail.
“Every time a top predator is removed or added, unexpected effect trickle through the ecosystem,” she added. “What is actually happening here is that wind turbines are akin to adding a top predator to the ecosystem.”
The study, which was published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, compared populations of raptors and lizards on a plateau that has had a wind farm on it for about 20 years to an adjacent valley that has no turbines.
“Humankind’s Most Pervasive Influence on the Natural World”
A recent study by an international team of scientists found the decline of apex predators is” arguably humankind’s most pervasive influence on the natural world.”
None of this is of any real concern to green groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund, who parrot the party line that the real threat to wildlife is “climate change,” not industrial-scale wind facilities and giant solar arrays they have been supporting for decades.
While India has made great strides in electrification in recent years, much still needs to be done. According to official data, “only 1,417 of India’s 18,452 villages or 7.3% of the total, have 100% household connectivity, and about 31% are still in the dark,” Forbes reported last year.
India’s future should not be dependent on interment, unreliable, unaffordable, and, as we now know, environmentally destructive wind power.
Author
Bonner Cohen, Ph. D. Bonner R. Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with CFACT.
Does this ‘settled science’ look familiar?
June 23, 2019 By Jack Hellner
Food for thought, especially for journalists and other Democrats:
The following article by the Associated Press was published in the Washington Post and many other newspapers across the country on November 22, 1922, almost 100 years ago:
Food for thought, especially for journalists and other Democrats:
The following article by the Associated Press was published in the Washington Post and many other newspapers across the country on November 22, 1922, almost 100 years ago:
The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot.
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard of temperatures in the Arctic Zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes.
Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed that the Gulf Stream was very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.
Very few seals and no white fish are found in the Eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring have never ventured so far north in the old seal hunting ground. Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable.It would be much cheaper for media outlets to just reprint this article every few weeks............To Read More....
Brexit: How To Prove Rousseau Wrong
Stephen MacLean, Special to the Sun | June 23, 2019
Boris Johnson vs. Jeremy Hunt. Conservative MPs have whittled the list of contenders down to two colleagues, who will now canvas the party membership for support. The prize? To be leader of the Tories and British prime minister. Achieving both is still worth the effort. "Just." Achieving Brexit adds ineffable lustre to each office; without Brexit, each is little more than a pale reflection of past glory.
Boris Johnson vs. Jeremy Hunt. Conservative MPs have whittled the list of contenders down to two colleagues, who will now canvas the party membership for support. The prize? To be leader of the Tories and British prime minister. Achieving both is still worth the effort. "Just." Achieving Brexit adds ineffable lustre to each office; without Brexit, each is little more than a pale reflection of past glory.
Heady days indeed for Tory Brexiteers. Not only have they finally rid themselves of failed premier Theresa May -- it lies within their power to anoint a paladin for British independence. Though neither candidate is wholly free of Brexit heresy...........
Don’t waste this chance to push hard for UK independence from the EU. Brexit fidelity is the sine qua non of British politics for the foreseeable future..
Exiting Europe is only the beginning of restoring liberty — first from the bureaucrats at Brussels. Next from Whitehall mandarins and, ultimately, from the political class at Westminster...........Continue Reading
Don’t waste this chance to push hard for UK independence from the EU. Brexit fidelity is the sine qua non of British politics for the foreseeable future..
Exiting Europe is only the beginning of restoring liberty — first from the bureaucrats at Brussels. Next from Whitehall mandarins and, ultimately, from the political class at Westminster...........Continue Reading
Trump Is Winning the Little Cold War With Iran
The small-minded critics of his policy are doing themselves and our Mideast allies no favors.
by Brandon J. Weichert June 23, 2019
Since the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, Iran has been in a state of ideological, religious cold war against the United States and its allies. Desiring to become the dominant force in the Mideast, Iran has worked to export its particular brand of Islamist revolution beyond its present borders. At the same time, like the Soviet Union with its specific version of Marxist-Leninism, Iran’s leaders have sought to expand their country’s zone of influence and control beyond its current national boundaries, to encompass the entire region — looking at the outside world in Manichean terms: divided between Iran’s Twelver Shiite brand of political Islam and the unbelieving world waiting to be liberated by their green revolution.
Setting the Mideast Ablaze
Iran engaged in behavior very similar to that of the old Soviet Union when its fervor for worldwide revolution was at its highest. In his book Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin’s Dream of an Empire in Asia, the incredible Peter Hopkirk details how Soviet agents of influence spread out to the former Russian imperial states in Central Asia with intentions of reabsorbing them into Lenin’s ideological Soviet empire..........To Read More...
My Take - If you like all the trouble Iran has caused in the world in recent decades - thank Jimmy Carter - he was the one who allowed the Shah's government to be destroyed. The left demanded the end of his government because he was a tyrant. Really? And yet the Iranians had far more of everything under him including freedom, than they do under the current Islamic maniacs. And the left loves them. Leftist insanity, leftist hypocrisy, leftist stupidity. Democrats, progressives, liberals, socialists and communists and RINO's. All terms describing insanity.
by Brandon J. Weichert June 23, 2019
Since the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, Iran has been in a state of ideological, religious cold war against the United States and its allies. Desiring to become the dominant force in the Mideast, Iran has worked to export its particular brand of Islamist revolution beyond its present borders. At the same time, like the Soviet Union with its specific version of Marxist-Leninism, Iran’s leaders have sought to expand their country’s zone of influence and control beyond its current national boundaries, to encompass the entire region — looking at the outside world in Manichean terms: divided between Iran’s Twelver Shiite brand of political Islam and the unbelieving world waiting to be liberated by their green revolution.
Setting the Mideast Ablaze
Iran engaged in behavior very similar to that of the old Soviet Union when its fervor for worldwide revolution was at its highest. In his book Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin’s Dream of an Empire in Asia, the incredible Peter Hopkirk details how Soviet agents of influence spread out to the former Russian imperial states in Central Asia with intentions of reabsorbing them into Lenin’s ideological Soviet empire..........To Read More...
My Take - If you like all the trouble Iran has caused in the world in recent decades - thank Jimmy Carter - he was the one who allowed the Shah's government to be destroyed. The left demanded the end of his government because he was a tyrant. Really? And yet the Iranians had far more of everything under him including freedom, than they do under the current Islamic maniacs. And the left loves them. Leftist insanity, leftist hypocrisy, leftist stupidity. Democrats, progressives, liberals, socialists and communists and RINO's. All terms describing insanity.
Trump vs. Che Guevara on Gay Pride—A Media Comparison
The ignorance and insanity of the mainstream media’s adoration of a mass-murdering homophobe.
“Trump and his administration have repeatedly rolled back existing [LGBT] protections, especially for transgender Americans… This is an all-out attack on not only the rights of trans people but our very existence in the public square,” says Charlotte Clymer, an LGBTQ activist and press secretary at the Human Rights Campaign. “Never have transgender people been under greater threat than under Donald Trump and Mike Pence.” (Time magazine.)
It’s really difficult to ascertain exactly what atrocities the Trump administration has visited upon America’s LGBTs to merit Time magazine’s outrage. But the Trump State Dept’s ruling that the Gay Pride flag cannot flutter alongside the American flag at U.S. embassies during this “Gay Pride month” has added much volume to Time’s wails of pain and rage.
“Who put a book by that FILTHY F*GGOT on my shelf!” snarled Che Guevara upon noticing a book on the shelf of the Cuban embassy in Algiers in December 1964. The disgusted Che yanked out the book by Virgilio Piñera and slammed it against the wall, while snarling more insults of the sort that would get any American political figure vituperated for life by such as Time magazine, and banned from all social media.........To Read More...
“Trump and his administration have repeatedly rolled back existing [LGBT] protections, especially for transgender Americans… This is an all-out attack on not only the rights of trans people but our very existence in the public square,” says Charlotte Clymer, an LGBTQ activist and press secretary at the Human Rights Campaign. “Never have transgender people been under greater threat than under Donald Trump and Mike Pence.” (Time magazine.)
It’s really difficult to ascertain exactly what atrocities the Trump administration has visited upon America’s LGBTs to merit Time magazine’s outrage. But the Trump State Dept’s ruling that the Gay Pride flag cannot flutter alongside the American flag at U.S. embassies during this “Gay Pride month” has added much volume to Time’s wails of pain and rage.
“Who put a book by that FILTHY F*GGOT on my shelf!” snarled Che Guevara upon noticing a book on the shelf of the Cuban embassy in Algiers in December 1964. The disgusted Che yanked out the book by Virgilio Piñera and slammed it against the wall, while snarling more insults of the sort that would get any American political figure vituperated for life by such as Time magazine, and banned from all social media.........To Read More...
Peaceful Death Threats
Threatening me over Mohammad cartoons provokes more Mohammad cartoons.
Were it not for my Mohammad cartoons, some Muslims believe that they would be peaceful, and they act as if my “terrorism”, (yes, they call my Mohammad cartoons “terrorism”) must be responded to in kind, with terrorism, even though they’re “peaceful”.
If you want to maintain your illusions that “Islam means peace” and that “99.9% of Muslims are peace-loving”, then my book, Peaceful Death Threats, is not for you, as you’re either a Muslim or you might as well make it official and become one. If you can’t imagine threatening to murder cartoonists over cartoons, then my book is for you.
Islam wasn’t “hijacked” by jihadists, peace was hijacked by Muslims. In my acceptance speech after I won the Mohammad cartoon contest, I asked the audience, “Why do you think we have this kind of security?”, and as the audience started to applaud, and even laugh, as they had a good idea where I was going with it, I said that it was because Islam did not mean peace. The Only reason any of us are talking about Islam is because it doesn’t mean peace. Islam hasn’t given us any reason to talk about it outside of our concern over it........To Read More.....
Italy, UK’s MI-6 aid the Durham probe of Brennan, Mifsud’s Trump Spygate
by L.J. KeithJun 12, 2019
WASHINGTON, DC: As US Attorney John Durham launches a widespread probe into the origins of the Russia Hoax, foreign intelligence agencies implicated in the scandal are cooperating with the investigation. The government of Italy has fired the heads of two Intel agencies
As well as 4 of their top associates.........To Read More....
WASHINGTON, DC: As US Attorney John Durham launches a widespread probe into the origins of the Russia Hoax, foreign intelligence agencies implicated in the scandal are cooperating with the investigation. The government of Italy has fired the heads of two Intel agencies
As well as 4 of their top associates.........To Read More....
Meadows: "Indictments Are On Their Way"; Whistleblowers Are Coming Forward
By Ian Schwartz June 12, 2019
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said whistleblowers in the DOJ are coming forward because they see that Attorney General Bill Barr is serious about investigating the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. Meadows said that people need to go to jail and warned: "indictments are on their way." Meadows said the investigation isn't just about the dossier, Fusion GPS, or the DNC, but also Clinton insider Sidney Blumenthal. Meadows said the Clinton operative tried to shop the infamous Steele dossier to news outlets and the FBI knew it before their first FISA warrant request............To Read More....
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said whistleblowers in the DOJ are coming forward because they see that Attorney General Bill Barr is serious about investigating the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. Meadows said that people need to go to jail and warned: "indictments are on their way." Meadows said the investigation isn't just about the dossier, Fusion GPS, or the DNC, but also Clinton insider Sidney Blumenthal. Meadows said the Clinton operative tried to shop the infamous Steele dossier to news outlets and the FBI knew it before their first FISA warrant request............To Read More....
DiGenova: Steele Will Prove FBI Lied To Congress, "The Walls Are Beginning To Close In On The FBI Fraudsters"
Posted By Ian Schwartz June 4, 2019
Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova said news that Steele dossier author Christopher Steele agreeing to be interviewed by U.S. officials is big news and remarked "the walls are beginning to close in." On Tuesday's 'Hannity,' DiGenova said senior FBI officials including then-FBI director James Comey were involved in a criminal conspiracy against Donald Trump as a candidate, president-elect, and president.
"The FBI at the Comey level, at the senior level, and senior [officials at the] Department of Justice under Obama were engaged in a criminal conspiracy against President Trump while he was a candidate, while he was president-elect and while he was president," DiGenova said Tuesday. "That is why John Durham wants to talk to him. Because there was a criminal conspiracy led by senior FBI officials. And I just hope all of them, McCabe, Comey, all of them, Baker, just keep talking publicly. Just keep talking publicly.".......... To Read More....
Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova said news that Steele dossier author Christopher Steele agreeing to be interviewed by U.S. officials is big news and remarked "the walls are beginning to close in." On Tuesday's 'Hannity,' DiGenova said senior FBI officials including then-FBI director James Comey were involved in a criminal conspiracy against Donald Trump as a candidate, president-elect, and president.
"The FBI at the Comey level, at the senior level, and senior [officials at the] Department of Justice under Obama were engaged in a criminal conspiracy against President Trump while he was a candidate, while he was president-elect and while he was president," DiGenova said Tuesday. "That is why John Durham wants to talk to him. Because there was a criminal conspiracy led by senior FBI officials. And I just hope all of them, McCabe, Comey, all of them, Baker, just keep talking publicly. Just keep talking publicly.".......... To Read More....
It’s the sun stupid
By
| June 20th, 2019 | Climate | 5 Comments
@ CFACT
The Climate of the Earth has been constantly changing during its entire 4.6 billion year history. Variations in our planet’s average temperature due to natural causes have ranged over a span of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Most of the periodic temperature increases and decreases observed in human history are consistent with variations in the output of energy from our Sun. The mild heating and cooling periods seen since 1900 (each less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit) reflect changes in solar activity. The temperature of the Earth has never been constant.
Continental positions determine the distribution and circulation of heat on Earth and have a major impact on our planet’s long term Climate. As little as 70 years ago if a child or adult made note of the fact that our current continents could be fitted together like a jig saw puzzle, they were laughed at but in the1950s scientists proved that our continents had historically resided in different places on the globe. Sometimes the continents were near the equator, sometimes near the poles, sometimes they merged into a single land mass.
The largest changes take place over time periods of 20 to 100 million years. These changes, both gradual and catastrophic are associated with continental motions due to plate tectonics or continental drift.
Periodic changes in the Earth’s orbit also influence how energy that the Earth receives from the sun is distributed, resulting in our current era of recurring Ice Ages. The Earth is now experiencing the high temperature end of the latest Ice Age cycle. Both deep-sea sediment and ice core samples show that ice ages take place every 22,000 years. The Earth’s axis wobbles around a tilt angle of zero degrees in a cycle that requires 22,000 years to complete. At one end of the cycle the North Pole faces the Sun in the winter, while at the other end, the North Pole faces the Sun in the summer. The tilt angle relative to the sun also varies over a 41,000 year cycle.The annual orbit of the Earth around the Sun cycles between circular and elliptical every 100,000 years. These are called Milankovich cycles for the Serbian scientist who discovered them a century ago. Man’s presence and activities are insignificant as compared to natural cycles.
Most of the warming and cooling trends observed during human history operate on time scales of a ten to a thousand years resulting in temperature shifts spanning a range of about 7 degrees Fahrenheit . They arise from changes in output of energy and radiation from our Sun, according long-term and short-term cycles of solar activity. These cycles, have been documented using the recorded history of sunspots, aurora observations, radio-carbon dating techniques, and changes in solar radiance.
Changes in solar activity affect the stream of electrons, protons, and alpha particles emitted by the Sun which are called the solar wind. These changes have been observable in the form of auroras and more recently in the disruption of radio communications and electromagnetic devices.
Changes in average global temperature since 1900 are much more consistent with oscillations in solar activity and the average amount of energy that we receive from the sun than they are with the exponential increase in fossil fuel emissions. The Earth’s temperature increased from 1880 to 1935 as the Little Ice Age ended. It decreased from 1935 to 1980 and increased from 1980 to 1990 and has since leveled off. The temperature did not continuously and dramatically increase to mirror the increasing CO2 emissions.
Author
The Climate of the Earth has been constantly changing during its entire 4.6 billion year history. Variations in our planet’s average temperature due to natural causes have ranged over a span of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Most of the periodic temperature increases and decreases observed in human history are consistent with variations in the output of energy from our Sun. The mild heating and cooling periods seen since 1900 (each less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit) reflect changes in solar activity. The temperature of the Earth has never been constant.
Continental positions determine the distribution and circulation of heat on Earth and have a major impact on our planet’s long term Climate. As little as 70 years ago if a child or adult made note of the fact that our current continents could be fitted together like a jig saw puzzle, they were laughed at but in the1950s scientists proved that our continents had historically resided in different places on the globe. Sometimes the continents were near the equator, sometimes near the poles, sometimes they merged into a single land mass.
The largest changes take place over time periods of 20 to 100 million years. These changes, both gradual and catastrophic are associated with continental motions due to plate tectonics or continental drift.
Periodic changes in the Earth’s orbit also influence how energy that the Earth receives from the sun is distributed, resulting in our current era of recurring Ice Ages. The Earth is now experiencing the high temperature end of the latest Ice Age cycle. Both deep-sea sediment and ice core samples show that ice ages take place every 22,000 years. The Earth’s axis wobbles around a tilt angle of zero degrees in a cycle that requires 22,000 years to complete. At one end of the cycle the North Pole faces the Sun in the winter, while at the other end, the North Pole faces the Sun in the summer. The tilt angle relative to the sun also varies over a 41,000 year cycle.The annual orbit of the Earth around the Sun cycles between circular and elliptical every 100,000 years. These are called Milankovich cycles for the Serbian scientist who discovered them a century ago. Man’s presence and activities are insignificant as compared to natural cycles.
Most of the warming and cooling trends observed during human history operate on time scales of a ten to a thousand years resulting in temperature shifts spanning a range of about 7 degrees Fahrenheit . They arise from changes in output of energy and radiation from our Sun, according long-term and short-term cycles of solar activity. These cycles, have been documented using the recorded history of sunspots, aurora observations, radio-carbon dating techniques, and changes in solar radiance.
Changes in solar activity affect the stream of electrons, protons, and alpha particles emitted by the Sun which are called the solar wind. These changes have been observable in the form of auroras and more recently in the disruption of radio communications and electromagnetic devices.
Changes in average global temperature since 1900 are much more consistent with oscillations in solar activity and the average amount of energy that we receive from the sun than they are with the exponential increase in fossil fuel emissions. The Earth’s temperature increased from 1880 to 1935 as the Little Ice Age ended. It decreased from 1935 to 1980 and increased from 1980 to 1990 and has since leveled off. The temperature did not continuously and dramatically increase to mirror the increasing CO2 emissions.
Author
Dr. Jay Lehr Jay Lehr is the author of more than 1,000 magazine and journal articles and 36 books. He is an internationally renowned scientist, author and speaker who has testified before Congress on dozens of occasions on environmental issues and consulted with nearly every agency of the national government, as well as many foreign countries. He is a leading authority on groundwater hydrology.
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Durham probing Bond villains in the Obama White House
by L.J. Keith Jun 21, 2019
WASHINGTON, DC: US Attorney John Durham is investigating an unprecedented abuse of legal authority at the very top of a wide swath of the Obama Administration. From the State Department to the CIA, to the DOJ and the White House and the Oval Office itself. An array of senior government officials is directly implicated in staging an unconstitutional attempted coup d’etat against the President of the United States, Donald Trump. A cabal of senior officials is directly implicated in the illegal use of NSA programs to spy on an array of prominent Americans for at least 4 years.
Bond villains in our midst
Whenever I watch James Bond films I often wonder. Where do the Bond villain’s come from? How could anyone be so inclined toward wanton wrongdoing and so evil? Devoid of basic values or decency. Willing to create any harm. Sociopathic minions of the abuse of power for power’s sake. And how do they get those armies of drones to follow them?
Now we wake in the midst of America to discover the active presence of actual Bond villains at the highest levels of the Obama White House. Running the CIA, the DOJ, the State Department. Devoid of conscience or constitutional considerations. Staffing the senior levels of the White House.
Running the Oval Office. Senior advisors to the President................
It is the most monstrous crime against our democracy since the very beginning of the Republic. Its scale and scope defy hyperbole. Staggers the imagination. Primarily because the facts show it is unmistakably true. The consequences to the perpetrators must, therefore, be swift and severe..........
It’s all just the tip of the iceberg.
A reckoning is coming
These are Bond villains. Oblivious of their crimes. Willing to do anything. Bond villains at the highest level of our Government. The CIA, DNI, and FBI Director. John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper. Vice President Joe Biden. President Barack Obama. Thank God their cabal is being exposed. Former NSA director Mike Rogers and FISA Judge Rosemary Collyer know the truth. Soon we all will.
John Durham has his work cut out for him. But he is certainly up to the task at hand. An Agean stable of filth and corruption has been exposed. President Obama himself is to blame. What did he know, and when did he authorize it?
Once the facts come out there will be no need for explanations. The guilty parties will be brought into the light.
And then they will be brought to justice. ............... To Read More.....
WASHINGTON, DC: US Attorney John Durham is investigating an unprecedented abuse of legal authority at the very top of a wide swath of the Obama Administration. From the State Department to the CIA, to the DOJ and the White House and the Oval Office itself. An array of senior government officials is directly implicated in staging an unconstitutional attempted coup d’etat against the President of the United States, Donald Trump. A cabal of senior officials is directly implicated in the illegal use of NSA programs to spy on an array of prominent Americans for at least 4 years.
Bond villains in our midst
Whenever I watch James Bond films I often wonder. Where do the Bond villain’s come from? How could anyone be so inclined toward wanton wrongdoing and so evil? Devoid of basic values or decency. Willing to create any harm. Sociopathic minions of the abuse of power for power’s sake. And how do they get those armies of drones to follow them?
Now we wake in the midst of America to discover the active presence of actual Bond villains at the highest levels of the Obama White House. Running the CIA, the DOJ, the State Department. Devoid of conscience or constitutional considerations. Staffing the senior levels of the White House.
Running the Oval Office. Senior advisors to the President................
It is the most monstrous crime against our democracy since the very beginning of the Republic. Its scale and scope defy hyperbole. Staggers the imagination. Primarily because the facts show it is unmistakably true. The consequences to the perpetrators must, therefore, be swift and severe..........
It’s all just the tip of the iceberg.
A reckoning is coming
These are Bond villains. Oblivious of their crimes. Willing to do anything. Bond villains at the highest level of our Government. The CIA, DNI, and FBI Director. John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper. Vice President Joe Biden. President Barack Obama. Thank God their cabal is being exposed. Former NSA director Mike Rogers and FISA Judge Rosemary Collyer know the truth. Soon we all will.
John Durham has his work cut out for him. But he is certainly up to the task at hand. An Agean stable of filth and corruption has been exposed. President Obama himself is to blame. What did he know, and when did he authorize it?
Once the facts come out there will be no need for explanations. The guilty parties will be brought into the light.
And then they will be brought to justice. ............... To Read More.....
BPA Is Just As Dangerous As It Never Was
By Josh Bloom — February 25, 2018 @ American Council on Science and Health
A February 23rd, 2018 statement from the U.S Food and Drug Administration about bisphenol A (BPA) should come as no surprise to anyone who has read our work. It affirmed that the American Council on Science and Health and other pro-science groups have been right all along and it is completely safe - something that incompetent or dishonest environmental groups like the Environmental Working Group or the Natural Resources Defense Council, or Internet hucksters like Joe Mercola and Mike Adams, cannot be happy to hear.
After a thorough two-year study, the agency has released a draft report of the NTP (National Toxicology Program) Research Report on the CLARITY-BPA Core Study, which debunks the phony science and fear-mongering that has already occupied scientists for far too long.
The common use of the term BPA is a monomer - it is one of the two ingredients used to manufacture polycarbonate plastics, which are used in food containers, such as liners of metal cans. Polycarbonate plastics are ubiquitous, and very small quantities of BPA, which has been used for 60 years, can leach from the plastic. Minuscule quantities of BPA (specifically, its metabolites) can be found in the urine of virtually everyone, given sufficiently sensitive analytical instrumentation. And in the last 30 years technology has pushed the level of zero into the parts per quadrillion range, much different than the parts per million that used to be the standard for no harmful level.
The presence of trace, yet now detectable, quantities of BPA in urine has been equated with harm by trial lawyers and environmental groups, supposedly from "disruption" of estrogen hormones - a violation of the basic tenets of toxicology, not to mention our dozens of publications on this topic. It has become more difficult to claim harm because of this FDA study.
FDA senior scientists at the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) conducted the two-year study called the Consortium Linking Academic and Regulatory Insights on BPA Toxicity in response to a 2008 NTP report which suggested concerns about reproductive effects of low doses of BPA in rodents were worth examining further. It is now clear that these concerns were unfounded, which was confirmed by the two-year study. Highlights include:
Please Help Fund Our Work
If you follow our work, you know that we here at ACSH go after the fraudsters, the hucksters and the snake-oil peddlers. And when we're not debunking their misleading or dangerous junk science, we're always aiming to give you the most accurate and dependable health news. But we can only continue to do that with support from our readers and friends who value what we do. So if you can ... Please Donate.
Thank you.
A February 23rd, 2018 statement from the U.S Food and Drug Administration about bisphenol A (BPA) should come as no surprise to anyone who has read our work. It affirmed that the American Council on Science and Health and other pro-science groups have been right all along and it is completely safe - something that incompetent or dishonest environmental groups like the Environmental Working Group or the Natural Resources Defense Council, or Internet hucksters like Joe Mercola and Mike Adams, cannot be happy to hear.
After a thorough two-year study, the agency has released a draft report of the NTP (National Toxicology Program) Research Report on the CLARITY-BPA Core Study, which debunks the phony science and fear-mongering that has already occupied scientists for far too long.
One area that has been of significant consumer interest is the use of Bisphenol A (BPA) in food packaging. BPA is authorized for use in polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins in certain food and beverage can linings. Given this interest, the FDA has routinely considered and evaluated the scientific evidence surrounding the use of BPA and continues to conclude that BPA is safe for the currently authorized uses in food containers and packaging. U.S. Food and Drug Administration Feb 23, 2018Perhaps this silliness will finally go away, though it's hard to know since the activist homeopathy known as "endocrine disruption" has existed for two decades now.
The common use of the term BPA is a monomer - it is one of the two ingredients used to manufacture polycarbonate plastics, which are used in food containers, such as liners of metal cans. Polycarbonate plastics are ubiquitous, and very small quantities of BPA, which has been used for 60 years, can leach from the plastic. Minuscule quantities of BPA (specifically, its metabolites) can be found in the urine of virtually everyone, given sufficiently sensitive analytical instrumentation. And in the last 30 years technology has pushed the level of zero into the parts per quadrillion range, much different than the parts per million that used to be the standard for no harmful level.
The presence of trace, yet now detectable, quantities of BPA in urine has been equated with harm by trial lawyers and environmental groups, supposedly from "disruption" of estrogen hormones - a violation of the basic tenets of toxicology, not to mention our dozens of publications on this topic. It has become more difficult to claim harm because of this FDA study.
FDA senior scientists at the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) conducted the two-year study called the Consortium Linking Academic and Regulatory Insights on BPA Toxicity in response to a 2008 NTP report which suggested concerns about reproductive effects of low doses of BPA in rodents were worth examining further. It is now clear that these concerns were unfounded, which was confirmed by the two-year study. Highlights include:
- Studies of different doses of BPA in rodents were conducted.
- Doses were selected to mimic levels that would range from those far below to far higher than expected to be found in humans.
- A number of parameters (endpoints) were selected in advance, including growth, weight, and development of tumors.
- With the exception of "minimal effects" on the development of tumors, nothing was found to suggest that there was any cause for concern whatsoever.
- These minimal effects can probably be dismissed outright because of the animal model chosen for the study - the Sprague-Dawley rat, a breed well known for spontaneous generation of tumors, regardless of whether the rats are exposed to a given test chemical or not.
- The "effect" noted was the increase in the occurrence of mammary gland tumors at one of the five doses, in one of the five groups, which is far from compelling.
- Although these findings must be subjected to peer review, the following will almost certainly stand.
Overall, the study found "minimal effects" for the BPA-dosed groups of rodents.The Council has been writing about the false scares of BPA for many years. While we know hundreds of thousands of Americans read our words, companies instead responded to activists and started apologizing for being in business. They raised prices due to replacements and chemophobes did not suddenly flock to their products. ConAgra did not suddenly get increased sales of Manwich from people who said they would not buy Manwich as long as the can lining had BPA.They were never going to buy it anyway and ConAgra later laid off over 1,000 people. Someone should have followed the evidence more carefully.
Please Help Fund Our Work
If you follow our work, you know that we here at ACSH go after the fraudsters, the hucksters and the snake-oil peddlers. And when we're not debunking their misleading or dangerous junk science, we're always aiming to give you the most accurate and dependable health news. But we can only continue to do that with support from our readers and friends who value what we do. So if you can ... Please Donate.
Thank you.
A Lesson for Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from the International Monetary Fund
June 21, 2019 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty
I don’t think either Senator Bernie Sanders or Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez actually understand that socialism is an economic system based on government ownership of the means of production, augmented by central planning, and price controls.
For what it’s worth, I think Crazy Bernie and AOC are just knee-jerk statists. They reflexively support more taxes, more spending, more regulation, and more intervention.
But since they both describe themselves as socialists, maybe it would be a good idea if they examined how the system works in the real world.
And I won’t even use a hellhole like Venezuela as an example.
Instead, let’s look at some recent research from the International Monetary Fund.
The bureaucrats looked at the legacy of socialism in Eastern Europe, specifically the extent to which governments still own and run businesses. Here are some of their findings.
Darker blue means more legacy socialism.
Kudos to the Baltic nations and Romania for largely getting the government out of the business of running businesses.
But other countries are laggards. And what can we say about the economic impact of their government-run companies?
The results are not good.
Because politicians are a de facto part of management, it’s no surprise that there’s also above-market pay at government-run firms.
And here are some specific numbers for the banking sector.
Once again, thanks to a combination of political interference and lack of a profit motive, we see inferior results.
So what does the IMF suggest?
Unlike fiscal policy, where the IMF has a very poor track record, the bureaucracy has the right instincts on private ownership vs government ownership.
Simply stated, it means that politicians are misallocating labor and capital in ways that reduce overall economic output.
Yes, a few insiders benefit (such as the workers who get above-market wages and the managers appointed by the government to run the firms), but the vast majority of citizens are net losers.
So why do governments in Eastern Europe maintain such self-destructive policies?
For the same “public choice” reason that we maintain policies – such as agriculture subsidies the Export-Import Bank, and occupational licensing – that reward narrow interest groups in the United States.
For what it’s worth, I think Crazy Bernie and AOC are just knee-jerk statists. They reflexively support more taxes, more spending, more regulation, and more intervention.But since they both describe themselves as socialists, maybe it would be a good idea if they examined how the system works in the real world.
And I won’t even use a hellhole like Venezuela as an example.
Instead, let’s look at some recent research from the International Monetary Fund.
The bureaucrats looked at the legacy of socialism in Eastern Europe, specifically the extent to which governments still own and run businesses. Here are some of their findings.
Here’s a look at the extent of government ownership in various nations of Eastern Europe.…the former socialist countries of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) have made tremendous progress in becoming full-fledged market economies and raising income levels. …Although the state’s role in the economy has diminished dramatically in the region, state ownership still remains significant in many countries and sectors. …there is now growing interest in whether an enhanced role for state-owned enterprises and banks (SOEs and SOBs) could be an important source of growth, or whether they would just impose a further drag on the economy. …in a new study, prepared in collaboration with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the IMF examines the current footprint of state-owned enterprises and state-owned banks in the region, how they are performing… State companies now account for between 2 percent and 15 percent of total employment in the CESEE countries… They are especially prevalent in sectors such as mining, energy, and transport.
Darker blue means more legacy socialism.
Kudos to the Baltic nations and Romania for largely getting the government out of the business of running businesses.
But other countries are laggards. And what can we say about the economic impact of their government-run companies?
The results are not good.
Our analysis finds that state-owned enterprises systematically underperform relative to private sector counterparts in nearly all countries. They tend to hoard labor, pay more generously, and generate less revenue per employee than private sector peers. Unsurprisingly, they turn out to be less productive and less profitable. Potentially large output gains would be achieved if productivity of state-owned enterprises could be raised to private sector levels. A similar picture emerges for state-owned banks, which in most countries make less-sound lending decisions than private counterparts and have lower profitability, often associated with higher shares of problem loans. …the analysis finds little evidence that the inefficiencies arising from state ownership can be justified by noneconomic objectives. The study does, however, point to significant shortcomings in governance and oversight of state companies.Here’s a chart showing that government-run firms earn lower profits.
And here are some specific numbers for the banking sector.
Once again, thanks to a combination of political interference and lack of a profit motive, we see inferior results.
So what does the IMF suggest?
Unlike fiscal policy, where the IMF has a very poor track record, the bureaucracy has the right instincts on private ownership vs government ownership.
…countries should take a fresh look at the rationale for existing state ownership, taking into account the costs, benefits, and risks of state ownership… Privatization (or bankruptcy) will sometimes be appropriate choices… At a time when growth-enhancing policies can be hard to identify, improving the performance of existing state-owned entities, or exiting in favor of the private sector where appropriate, could provide much-needed support for the economy.I’ll close by elaborating on why government-run companies undermine prosperity.
Simply stated, it means that politicians are misallocating labor and capital in ways that reduce overall economic output.
Yes, a few insiders benefit (such as the workers who get above-market wages and the managers appointed by the government to run the firms), but the vast majority of citizens are net losers.
So why do governments in Eastern Europe maintain such self-destructive policies?
For the same “public choice” reason that we maintain policies – such as agriculture subsidies the Export-Import Bank, and occupational licensing – that reward narrow interest groups in the United States.
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