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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Monday, October 30, 2017

The Global Failure of Globalization

Posted by Daniel Greenfield 0 Comments Saturday, October 28, 2017 @ Sultan Knish Blog

“We cannot allow to fall back into pre-globalization times,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned.

Merkel was welcoming Obama back to Berlin for the last time. The election had been fought and won nine days earlier. And Obama and Merkel were defending globalism against President-elect Trump.

To Merkel and Obama, returning to pre-globalization times was every bit as mad as going back to the caves. Globalization had become synonymous with civilization. And its prophets, like Thomas Friedman, traced back its rise to the fall of the Berlin Wall in the city where Merkel and Obama were chatting.

But globalization didn’t bring down the Berlin Wall. Nationalism did. The pro-democracy activists wanted a country where the people had a voice. That’s the opposite of globalization in which there are no nations and only the influential figures of various stripes have any kind of impact.

Globalization built the Berlin Wall to unite East Germany with a Communist bloc built around a set of political ideas that disregarded nations and individual peoples. Leftists had drawn a deeply misguided lesson from the fall of Communism. Rather than attributing the fall to the overreach of central governments and unaccountable bureaucrats, they developed a new postmodern historical materialism of globalism. The Communist bloc had fallen not because of too much globalization, but because there wasn’t enough of it. There were still too many borders and nations. And they all had to fall like the Wall.

Where Communism had failed by being too narrow, globalism would succeed in creating a new world.

By the time Merkel and Obama were mourning what Trump’s victory and Brexit meant for globalization, Berlin had become a wonderful laboratory for observing the end results of their philosophy. Haunted by the specter of national decline and falling birth rates, Merkel had opened her country’s borders to a million Muslim migrants who had flooded in from the Middle East and from as far away as Afghanistan.

The migrants were supposed to supplement the German workforce. Syrians would build the Mercedes coupes of tomorrow, Pakistanis would put together Siemens ultrasound devices and Somalis would produce Bayer’s pharmaceuticals. There would be no need for Germany to continue exploring the Japanese model of smarter automation to replace a falling population. Globalization would provide.

But the migrants weren’t coming to Germany to work. And they aren’t working. It’s still Germans and Eastern Europeans on the floor at Siemens, Mercedes and Bayer. The “refugees” came for Germany’s generous welfare programs. And they’ve wrecked enough of the country that Merkel wants to pay them to leave.

The welfare state so ubiquitous to Europe is there to compensate for the discrepancy between the expected standard of living and the declining options for earning that living. Globalization didn’t magically link together economies to create a new golden age. Its prophets, like Thomas Friedman, are being jeered as neo-liberals by a radicalized left looking more to East Germany than to Berlin.

Globalization moved jobs and production to countries with the lowest standards of living, the least human rights and the greatest government intervention in their economies. It’s no wonder that China thrived or that America declined in that environment. But at the same time it also moved immigrants with the lowest work ethic to America and Germany to benefit from the welfare programs that were meant to soften the economic impact of globalization on the native population.

The old immigrants had come to benefit from a booming economy. But if you want a booming economy with lots of entry level jobs, 21st century America is hardly the place to go. You can’t just walk off the street and get a manufacturing job that will take you up the ladder to the middle class.

The West gets two kinds of economic immigrants these days: scroungers and hustlers.

Hustlers can make their own opportunities. They’re the Koreans running local grocery stores and the Russian Jews starting revolutionary dot coms. But hustling demands creativity, smarts and an ambitious work ethic. Most immigrants are scroungers. They get by on some combination of welfare and semi-legal marginal jobs. If they have an ambition, it’s getting a comfortable government job.

Immigrants brought over as cheap labor quickly plug into the welfare state and become a net loss.

Globalization exports jobs and imports welfare scroungers making it a double blow to the West. The outbound jobs and the inbound migrant swarms punish countries with higher standards of living and human rights by depriving them of both. It’s hard to think of any better way to destroy a civilization.

The political and social gifts of globalization have been every bit as destructive as its economic effects.

Globalization doesn’t just make it possible for a million Muslims to show up in Germany, but for transnational Islamic terror organizations like Al Qaeda or ISIS to operate. It’s no coincidence that they took off with globalization. Or that globalized Islamic terror networks have used the machinery of globalization: jet planes, trains, human trafficking, the internet and multicultural cities to wreak havoc.

Instead of binding the world closer together, globalization financed a renewed wave of aggression by former failed Communist states and enabled Islamic terrorists to strike deep in the heart of the West.

Globalization finances China’s expansionism program in the South China Sea and a growing conflict that could lead to a regional war. It allowed the Russians to turn Americans against each other by pretending to be everyone from Black Lives Matter to Republicans on the internet. And it allows Islamic terrorists thousands of miles away to coordinate devastating attacks across America and Europe.

The internet, once the symbol of globalization, hasn’t brought us together. Instead it tore us apart into warring tribes living in separate bubbles. A generation raised on the internet has become the most intolerant of free speech in a century. And even the pro-globalization media is demanding new means of censoring social media and the internet to fight “fake news” from the political opposition.

The ambitious dreams of globalization that once appeared to unite big government advocates on the left with free marketers on the right have become a nightmare. Their failures have led to a renewed affinity for Socialism and even Communism on the left. The rise of Bernie Sanders and the growing comfort with Socialism among Democrats are road signs of the rejection of a free market. And on the right, populist nationalism is displacing an unquestioning commitment to a free market.

But globalization is also a global failure. It has driven China into a blind alley of economic bubbles, compulsive spending and colonialism. China is rapidly replicating a century’s worth of Western economic progress in a matter of decades. And it’s replicating the same problems and the same dead end. It won’t find the solutions by seeking cheap labor in Africa or by distracting its population with a new war.

Globalization interlinks economies and societies often more by their weaknesses than by their strengths. It exports instability more easily than stability and conflict more easily than progress.

Sophisticated systems are more vulnerable than primitive ones. It’s why Afghanistan and Iraq made more of an enduring mark on America than the other way around. In a globalized world, colonialism works in reverse with unstable societies exporting their instability to stable societies. The prophets of globalism marveled at the internationalization of culture. But culture in traditional societies goes far deeper than Marvel or Harry Potter. It’s only in the West, where culture, tradition and religion are being lost, that pop culture becomes culture. And that identity becomes equally shallow and unstable.

Globalization isn’t bringing us to a bright new golden age, but to an old age of iron. The new colonialism is being carried out by those cultures with a strong sense of identity against post-moderns who lack it. The decline of Western nations doesn’t open the door to a world government, but to the rising power of China, Russia and Iran. All our social progress has left us more intolerant and divided than ever.

Tearing down borders, physical, economic and cultural, hasn’t made us more open. Instead we live in hostile, divisive and unstable societies that pride themselves on their “openness” even as they unveil new schemes for censoring the internet, restraining free speech and punishing social dissent.

Globalization is a dead end. Open societies are open internally and mutually to people and ideas that share the premise of that ‘openness’. Not with those who hate them. Free markets are free when they interact with other free markets, not totalitarian slave labor camps that can always win on price.

As globalization falls, we can rebuild functional nation states or be swept away with the global flood.
 

 

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Unions Make Excuses for Teachers Skipping School

by Frederick M. Hess September 25, 2017
 
Teachers with excessive absences cause problems for their students, and their peers need to acknowledge this.  Last week, a new study reported that 28 percent of teachers working in traditional public schools use sick days or personal leave to miss more than ten days of school each year. The analysis, authored by David Griffith of the center-right Fordham Institute, found that the comparable figure at charter schools was 10 percent. Meanwhile, Griffith noted, the typical U.S. worker takes about three and a half sick days a year. The disparity between district schools and charter schools occasioned much comment, given what it says about the effects of collective-bargaining agreements and differences in culture across the two sectors. But at least equally noteworthy was how teachers’-union leaders chose to respond to the analysis..........Read more at:
 
My Take - Ten days a year may seem extreme, but I'm not so sure that's unfair.  For those who've been reading P&D you know I've been beating up on teachers, their unions and the entire mess we call public education.....but this time.... I'm willing to take the teacher's side because their job means they're being exposed to every virus coming down the pike daily for all those kids.  They're bound to be sick more than the average worker.  I'm willing to say I think this attack is a bit unfair, unless they can show where this is being abused - then make the connection.   

Why I Should Be Named Special Councel

As Special Counsel Klayman Must Also Investigate Former FBI Directors Mueller's and Comey's Obstruction of Justice in Covering Up Uranium One, Wiretapping and Other Clinton-Obama-FBI Scandals

By Larry Klayman WND October 27, 2017
 
You know me as the only lawyer ever to have a court of law rule that former President Bill Clinton committed a crime. This ruling was by a courageous U.S. District Court judge, Royce Lamberth, over Clinton's violation of the privacy rights of an intern he assaulted and sexually abused in the Oval Office.

But today we face a much greater threat and crimes by the Clintons and the administration of former President Barack Hussein Obama. Obama, along with the Clintons, have committed the real Russian collusion scandal, one that involves racketeering and bribery cash flowing into their coffers from "communists" to acquire illegally over 20 percent of America's strategic uranium reserves, seriously endangering our national security. Uranium is the fuel for atomic reactors and nuclear bombs! Uranium is also used to power medical devices for radiation therapy for cancer patients.

This Week With Dan Mitchell

(Editor's Note:  Daily I get an insightful article from Dan Mitchell of International Liberty dealing with economic issues. Articles he's allowed me to publish.  The man is an amazingly prolific writer.  However, I've tried to limit what I'm doing currently so I've not been publishing them daily.  His stuff is so good I hate to deprive my readers of his insights.    So Please enjoy Dan's work for this week, and this last link is published in full as I think that is an issue that the public needs to understand.  Please enjoy!  RK)
New Jersey’s Continuing Fiscal Decay
When companies want to boost sales, they sometimes tinker with products and then advertise them as "new and improved." In the case of governments, though, I suspect "new" is not "improved."  The British territory of Jersey, for instance, has a very good tax system. It has a low-rate flat tax and it overtly brags about how its system is much better than the one imposed by London.  In the United States, by contrast, the state of New Jersey has a well-deserved reputation for bad fiscal policy. To be blunt, it's not a good place to live and it's even a bad place to die.  And it's about to get worse. A column in the Wall Street Journal warns that New Jersey is poised to take a big step in the wrong direction. The authors start by observing that the state is already in bad shape.....

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Obama Definitely Was Not the Biggest Spender of All
I've learned that it's more important to pay attention to hard numbers rather than political rhetoric. Republicans, for instance, love to beat their chests about spending restraint, but I never believe them without first checking the numbers. Likewise, Democrats have a reputation as big spenders, but we occasionally get some surprising results when they're in charge.  President Obama was especially hard to categorize. Republicans automatically assume he was profligate because he started his tenure with a Keynesian spending binge and the Obamacare entitlement. But after a few years in office, some were arguing he was the most frugal president of modern times..........

Australia, Donald Trump, and Limited Government
I gave a couple of speeches about fiscal policy in Australia late last week. During the Q and A sessions (as so often happens when I speak overseas), the audiences mostly asked questions about Donald Trump. I generally give a three-part response.
So when I was asked to appear on Australian television, you won't be surprised to learn that I was asked several questions about Trump.  But the good news is that the segment lasted for more than 18 minutes so I got a chance to pontificate about taxes and spending. In particular, I had an opportunity to explain two very important principles of fiscal policy.  First, I explained the Rahn Curve and discussed why both Australia and the United States should worry that the public sector is too large. This means less growth in our respective nations because government spending (whether financed by taxes or borrowing) diverts............

Ranking Presidents on Economic Policy: The Impressive Record of Ronald Reagan
Back in 2013, I put together a visual showing the good and bad policies that were enacted during the Clinton years. The big takeaway was that the overall burden of government was substantially reduced during his years in office.  Two days ago, I did the same thing for Richard Nixon, but noted that his record was universally awful. I couldn't think of a single pro-growth policy when he was in the Oval Office.    Now let's look at the Ronald Reagan. I analyzed his record last year, but mostly looking at the aggregate results.  So let's look at the details, putting specific pro-growth policies in one column and specific anti-growth policies in another column. As you can see, there was a substantial net improvement during the Reagan years.  I gave extra credit for his tax cuts, the spending restraint, and the taming of inflation............

The International Monetary Fund’s Recipe for Continued Poverty in the Developing World
The cossetted bureaucrats at the International Monetary Fund are on a roll. In the past few months, they've published reports pushing a very misguided and statist agenda.
  • In June, I wrote about the IMF pushing a theory that higher taxes would improve growth in the developing world.
  • In July, I wrote about the IMF complaining that tax competition between nations is resulting in lower corporate tax rates.
  • In October, I wrote about the IMF asserting that lower living standards are desirable if everyone is more equally poor.
Now let's add to that awful collection. A new IMF report tries to quantify the fiscal implications of a new agenda for so-called sustainable development from the United Nations..............

The Best Argument against the State and Local Tax Deduction
I’ve written a couple of times to explain why the deduction for state and local taxes should be eliminated as part of pro-growth tax reform.  One of my main arguments, as I pointed out at the beginning of this interview, is that Republicans are generally unwilling to finance pro-growth tax changes by restraining government spending.  And since GOPers are too timid on spending, that means “revenue offsets” are needed to finance the good provisions in tax reform (assuming the goal is to make such changes permanent).............

According to Bizarre Rankings from Jeffrey Sachs, Cuba Scores above the United States for Achieving the U.N.’s “Sustainable Development Goals”
The United Nations has proposed a set of “sustainable development goals.” Most of them seem unobjectionable. After all, presumably everyone wants things such as less poverty, a cleaner environment, better education, and more growth, right?  That being said, I’m instinctively skeptical about the goal of “climate action” because of the U.N.’s past support for statist policies in that area.
And I also wonder why the bureaucrats picked “reduced inequalities” when “upward mobility for the poor” is a much better goal............

Ranking Presidents on Economic Policy: The Dismal Record of George W. Bush
Back in 2013, I did an assessment of economic policy changes that occurred during the Clinton Administration. The bottom line was that the overall burden of government declined by a semi-significant amount. Which presumably helps to explain why the economy enjoyed good growth and job creation in the 1990s, especially in the last half of the decade when most of the pro-growth reforms were enacted.  The chart I prepared has been very helpful when speaking to audiences about what actually happened during the Clinton years, so I decided to do the same thing for other presidents.  A week ago, I put together my summary of economic policy changes during the Nixon years. At the risk of understatement, it was a very grim era for free markets.  A few days ago, I followed up with a look at overall economic policy during the Reagan years. That was a much better era, at least for those of us who favor economic liberty over statism............

Ranking Presidents on Economic Policy: The Predictably Bad Record of Barack Obama
When I gave speeches during Obama’s time in office, especially to audiences with a lot of Republicans, I sometimes asked a rhetorical question about whether they approved of presidents who increased spending, bailed out big companies, expanded the power of the Washington bureaucracy, imposed more red tape, and supported Keynesian stimulus schemes.  They understandably assumed I was talking about Obama, so they would always expressed disapproval.  I then would startle the audience (and sometimes make myself unpopular) by stating that I was describing economic policy during the Bush years.............

Are Tax Cuts Dangerous?
October 28, 2017 by Dan Mitchell
I’ve responded to all sorts of arguments against lower taxes.
  • Tax cuts are “unfair” because rich people will benefit.
  • Tax cuts are wrong because revenue should be going up, not down.
  • Tax cuts are pointless because the economy won’t grow faster.
  • Tax cuts are misguided because there will be more red ink.
  • Tax cuts are risky because vital services would be unfunded.
But I’ve never had to deal with the argument that lower taxes are “dangerous.”Yet that’s what Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post would like readers to believe. Here’s some of what she wrote today.
…tax cuts — not to mention tax cuts of the magnitude Trump and fellow Republicans contemplate — are worse than unwarranted. They are dangerous.
Dangerous?!?

Before clicking on the headline, my mind raced to imagine what she had in mind. Was she going to argue that lower taxes somehow might cause the nutjob in North Korea to launch a nuke? Was her argument that a tax cut would unleash the Ebola virus in the United States?

Well, you can put your mind at ease. The world isn’t coming to an end. It turns out that Ms. Marcus is simply making a rather hysterical version of the argument that tax cuts are bad because they result in more red ink.
They would add trillions to the national debt at a point when it is already dangerously large as a share of the economy. …the national debt is 77 percent of the economy, the highest since the end of World War II. It is on track to exceed the entire gross domestic product by 2033. That is even without a $1.5 trillion tax cut, the amount envisioned in the just-passed budget resolutions. …the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that increased growth would be counteracted within a few years by the drag of higher deficits; overall, the plan would increase deficits by $2.4 trillion during the first decade. …As an economic matter, they are simply reckless.
I’m actually semi-sympathetic to her argument. It isn’t prudent in the long run to reduce revenues and allow a continuing expansion in the burden of government spending. She would be right to hit Republicans for wanting to do the fun part of cutting taxes while ducking the politically difficult task of restraining spending.
 

That is a recipe for becoming another Greece. Not today. Not next year. Or even 10 years from now. The United States probably has the ability to stumble along for decades without doing anything to reform entitlements (the programs that are causing our long-term fiscal problems).

But I can’t resist making two points.

First, where was Ms. Marcus when Bush was pushing the TARP bailout through Congress? Where was she when Obama was advocating for his faux stimulus? Or the Obamacare boondoggle?
 
These pieces of legislation were hardly examples of fiscal rectitude, yet a search of her writings does not produce examples of her warning about the “dangerous” implications of more red ink.
 
Her selective concern about deficits makes me think that what she really wants is bigger government. So if the deficit is increasing because of new spending, that’s fine. But if red ink is increasing because of tax cuts, that’s “dangerous.”
 
If nothing else, Marcus may deserve membership in the left-wing hypocrisy club.

Second, if Ms. Marcus genuinely cares about deficits, then I’ll forgive her for her past hypocrisy and instead simply ask her to look at the Congressional Budget Office’s most recent long-run fiscal forecast.
 
She will see that more than 100 percent of America’s future fiscal crisis is due to expected increases in the burden of entitlement spending.
 
You may be wondering how something can cause more than 100 percent of a problem. Well, if you look closely at that long-run forecast (or previous forecasts), you will discover that tax revenues automatically are expected to increase. Not just in nominal terms. Not just after adjusting for inflation. Tax revenues will climb as a share of overall economic output. By about two percentage points over the next 30 years.
 
By the way, that built-in tax increase is bigger than the Trump/GOP tax cut, which will only reduce taxes over the next 10 years by $1.5 trillion out of an expected haul of $43 trillion.
 
Oh, by the way, I’ll add a third point. Advocates of higher taxes should be required to explain why more revenue for Washington will somehow lead to better results than what happened when such policies were adopted in Europe.

In other words, some of us don’t want to “feed the beast.”



Agitators, regulators and predators on the prowl

Corrupt anti-science, anti-industry agencies have gained disturbing power in recent years. This article recounts the incredible example of an EU agency that exerts major influence over the use of chemicals, especially in Europe, but also in the USA and world. As the article and linked sources demonstrate, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has engaged in unbelievably shoddy and even fraudulent science – and rampant collusion with anti-chemical activist groups – to pave the way for predatory lawyers to sue Monsanto and other companies for billions of dollars over phony cancer risks. The only thing that overshadows that behavior is the conniving of one of IARC’s principal scientists. It’s an unbelievable saga.
Thank you for posting the article, quoting from it, and forwarding it to your friends and colleagues.
Best regards, Paul

They’re going for a knockout and jackpot on a farm chemical, a corporation – and science

Paul Driessen

Legal and scientific ethics seem to have become irrelevant, as anti-chemical agitators, regulators and trial lawyers team up on numerous lawsuits against Monsanto. They’re seeking tens of billions of dollars in jackpot justice, by claiming a chemical in the company’s popular weed killer RoundUp causes cancer.

A key basis for the legal actions is a March 2015 International Agency for Research on Cancer ruling that glyphosate is a “probable human carcinogen.” A previously little known agency in the World Health Organization (WHO), IARC has gained infamy in recent years – critics slammed it for manipulating data and altering or deleting scientific conclusions to advance extreme anti-chemical policy agendas.

Although it is funded by US and European taxpayers – and is at the forefront of controversial policy, legal and regulatory actions – IARC insists that its deliberations, emails, draft reports and all other materials are its private property. Therefore, the agency claims, they are exempt from FOIA requests and even US congressional inquiries. IARC stonewalls all inquiries and advises its staff to talk to no one.

Its 2015 ruling became the primary justification for California listing glyphosate as carcinogenic under Proposition 65, a European Parliament vote to ban the chemical, and a European Commission committee proposal to give it only a five-year extension for further use in the EU. These actions, in turn, have given trial lawyers the ammo they need for their lawsuits – and other legal actions they are already preparing.

Glyphosate is an herbicide. It kills weeds. Used in conjunction with genetically modified RoundUp-Ready crops, it enables farmers to practice no-till farming – wherein a couple of soil spray treatments eliminate the need to till cropland to control weeds. That preserves soil structure and organisms, moisture, organic matter and nutrients; improves drainage and soil biodiversity; reduces erosion; and permits the high-yield farming humanity must practice if we are to feed Earth’s growing populations without having to plow under millions more acres of wildlife habitat. It also reduces labor and tractor fuel consumption.

Banning it just in Britain would cost the UK $1.2 billion a year in reduced crop yields and farm incomes.

Moreover, as UK science writer Matt Ridley  points out, coffee is more carcinogenic than glyphosate. So are numerous other foods and beverages that we consume every day, adds cancer expert Bruce Ames Of all dietary pesticides that humans ingest, 99.99% are natural, Ames notes; they are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves against fungi, viruses, insects and other predators.

Indeed, every other regulatory agency and reputable scientific body, going back some 40 years, have universally found that this RoundUp chemical does not cause cancer! The European Food Safety Authority, European Chemicals Agency, German Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), US Environmental Protection Agency and even other WHO experts have all studied glyphosate carefully. They have all said it is safe, non-carcinogenic or “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans.”

And yet IARC villainizes glyphosate. In a way, that’s not surprising. Out of 900 chemicals the agency reviewed since it was formed, it found only one was not carcinogenic. Many other chemicals, and even GMO foods, may soon be branded the  same way, especially now that America’s tort industry senses more jackpots from “cooperating closely” with IARC and putting more agency advisors on its payroll.

The latest tactic is to claim the chemical is being detected in some foods and in people’s urine. We can detect parts per trillion! (1 ppt is two teaspoons in 660 million gallons.) But where does actual risk begin?

And how did IARC reach conclusions so completely different from nearly every other expert worldwide, whose studies confirmed glyphosate poses no cancer risk? That’s where this story gets really interesting.

IARC is linked inextricably to Linda Birnbaum’s National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences, which gets millions in US taxpayer money. The NIEHS funds and works with Italy’s junk-science factory, the Ramazzini Institute, and is allied with radical elements in US and EU government agencies. One of the most prominent and recurrent names on the list is Dr. Christopher Portier.

According to investigative journalists David Zaruk (Risk-Monger) and Kate Kelland (Reuters), Portier worked for years with Birnbaum at the NIEHS. He has also been a principal US government liaison to IARC, was paid as its only “consulting expert” on the working group that demonized glyphosate as carcinogenic, and did so while also being paid by the US National Institutes for Health – and while simultaneously being paid by the rabidly anti-pesticide group Environmental Defense. Portier has also received over $160,000 as a consultant to law firms that are suing Monsanto and other companies!

Equally outrageous, Portier admitted that, before he was hired as an “expert” on IARC’s glyphosate panel, he “had not looked at” any of the scientific evidence and had no experience with the chemical. He signed his lucrative deal with the lawyers within a week of finishing his work on the panel – but later admitted that he had been working with them for two months: while he was consulting for IARC!

Portier, IARC and the predatory lawyers all worked diligently to keep these arrangements – and major conflicts of interest – a secret. As Ms. Kelland explained in another article, IARC was equally diligent in securing a “guilty verdict” on glyphosate – by ignoring or altering multiple studies and conclusions that exonerated the chemical. That scientific and prosecutorial misconduct was revealed when Kelland compared IARC’s draft and final report, and found numerous indefensible changes and deletions.

In multiple instances, she discovered, the IARC panel simply removed scientists’ conclusions that their studies had found no link between glyphosate and cancer in laboratory animals. In others, the panel inserted a brand new statistical analysis, “effectively reversing” a study’s original finding. Other times, it surreptitiously changed critical language after scientists had agreed to earlier language that made precisely the opposite point from what appeared in the final Monograph 112 report on glyphosate.

One animal pathology report relied on by the US EPA clearly and unequivocally stated that its authors “firmly” and “unanimously” agreed that glyphosate had not caused abnormal growths in mice they had studied. The published IARC monograph simply deleted the sentence.

Overall, Reuters found ten significant changes between the critical draft chapter on animal studies and IARC’s final published monograph. Every one of them either deleted key statements that the Monsanto chemical did not cause tumors, replaced them with assertions that it did cause tumors, or (six times) claimed IARC “was not able to evaluate” a study because of “limited experimental data” included in it.

In addition, IARC panelist Charles Jameson said another study was excluded because “the amount of data in the tables was overwhelming,” and possibly because it may have been submitted an hour late. Dr. Jameson also claimed he didn’t know when, why or by whom any of the changes had been made.

Zaruk’s meticulous and eye-opening analysis of IARC’s swampy, shoddy, deceptive practices, collusion with anti-chemical zealots, blatant conflicts of interest – and six reasons why agency director Christopher Wild should be fired – is must reading for anyone concerned about cancer research and scientific integrity. His discussion of “hazard” versus “risk” assessment is particularly enlightening and valuable.

Many would call this saga blatant corruption, manipulation and fraud. All funded by our tax dollars! It is uncomfortably similar to what we have seen over the years with IPCC and other work on climate change.

The lawyers hope that years of anti-chemical activism, carefully stoked public fears, doctored studies and silencing or marginalizing of contrary voices will bring them a huge jury jackpot – akin to what their brethren recently received in an absurd talcum-powder-causes-cancer case (which was also based on IARC pseudo-science), before the suspect evidence, verdict and award were tossed out on appeal.

It’s likely that the EU and WHO will do little or nothing about this cesspool. Thankfully, the US Congress, particularly Jason Chaffetz  (R-UT) and Lamar Smith  (R-TX), is digging into it. We can only hope that they and their committees will issue and, more importantly, enforce subpoenas. If Portier and other IARC staffers, panelists and hired guns refuse to comply, Chaffetz and Smith (and judges in the Monsanto cases) should arrest and jail them, until they open their mouths, books and deliberations.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org and author of books and articles on energy and environmental policy.

 

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Optimism Must Be Balanced With Reality

By Rich Kozlovich
  1. “I begin with the young. We older ones are used up. We are rotten to the marrow. But my magnificent youngsters! Are there any finer ones in the world? Look at these young men and boys! What material.  With them I can make a new world. My teaching will be hard. Weakness will be knocked out of them. A violently active, dominating, brutal youth – that is what I am after. Youth must be indifferent to pain. There must be no weakness and tenderness in it. I want to see once more in its eyes the gleam of pride and independence of the beast of prey.  I will have no intellectual training. Knowledge is ruin to my young men. I would have them learn only what takes their fancy. But one thing they must learn – self-command. They shall learn to overcome their fear of death under the severest tests. This is the heroic stage of youth. Out of it will come the creative man, the god-man.”
  2. “The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."
  3.  “When an opponent declares, "I will not come over to your side," I calmly say, "Your child belongs to us already... What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.”  
Various quotes by Adolf Hitler
The Main Stream Media is now under attack and being exposed for the corrupt propaganda tool of the left that it's been for decades.  Politicians, environmental and social activists, left leaning businessmen, entertainment people, academics, bureaucrats and unions - all bulwarks of the left - are being exposed for who and what they really are. 

But in spite of all of that - I've not been entirely optimistic about the future.  Although I see glimmers of hope with the change in the White House.  RINO's are abandoning their leftist ship before they're humiliated in the primaries, and I especially enjoy watching the media squirm and practically burst into tears over a President of the United States that doesn't just take it - he dishes it out - hard, fast and regularly, and clearly doesn't care what his opponents or his supporters think.  Worse yet for them - especially after all the arrogant snickering and eye rolling - he keeps ending up being right most of the time. And America is loving it. But for America to take this small start and turn it into a great age of optimism would take rolling back liberal initiatives that have been evolving in America for over 125 years. 

We may be living in an information age explosion showing how these leftist schemes have brought us to where we are today but that's not the real issue.  The real issue is  - will America accept that information and act on it?

These efforts by the left started in the late 19th century with public education. And the goal wasn't reading, writing and arithmetic. The goal of public education was to make sure "the apple fell as far away from the tree as possible." What was that apple and what was that tree? The children of America were the apple, and the parents and churches that molded their values and morality was the tree!  America's institutions were also part of that apple.   The goal of progressivism (American socialism) was to make sure government was to be the great and last arbitrator of morality. Not the church and not the family - at least until they were infiltrated, subverted and converted. As Mussolini stated: "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."

In America, that didn't come about by accident.  Both Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson believed the Constitution was an impediment to human progress, and both imposed policies to promote progressive ideas, and they both were believers in the axiom uttered by Louis XIV of France: L'état, C'est Moi - I am the state! 

In all the 20th century there were only three conservative Presidents.  Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan, and in total they were only in control for 16 years.  For the other 84 years the nation was controlled by the liberals or leftists of both parties.  We've also had 16 years of liberal control from both parties in this century.  Bush wasn't a conservative and neither were John McCain or Mitt Romney.  That's 100 out of the last 117 years of liberal corruption in power in America. 

Without support of the nation's leaders none of this could have come about.  Both Republicans and Democrats have been stunningly dishonest and gotten away with it because the nation's public education system was designed to subvert our children - not educate them.

As a result:
  • Too many Americans graduate from school semi-illiterate, unable to do basic math, read, write or spell properly.
  • Too many Americans graduate from college filled with false information on how the world works, or should work, and are arrogant in their ignorance
  • Too many Americans are remarkably ignorant of American history.
  • Too many Americans fail to realize how unique American style republican democracy is in all of world history.
  • Entirely too many "Americans" don't think they're Americans.
  • Too many Americans hate America.
  • Too many Americans think sports and entertainment are more important than politics or religion.
  • Too many people believe celebrities' views are valid and more important than the views of those who actually know what they're talking about.    
  • Too many Americans no longer are people of faith, and as a result have no moral foundation other than the latest philosophical flavor of the day.
  • Too many Americans are stunningly uninformed, ill informed and confidently stupid, and that's the result of our public education system. 
  • Too many Americans think socialism is a plan for successful government. 
Is it any wonder foolish young people in our universities wear T-shirts with the faces of mass murderers Fidel Castro and Che Guevara on them, and go around telling the world to "Feel the Bern", supporting a Marxist lunatic?   Is it any wonder society is being washed back and forth like waves crashing against the rocks to its destruction?
  • I don’t believe Social Security will there for my children and it may not be there for me for much longer since the now for the first time the outlay is going to be over 1 trillion dollars, and by 2020 Social Security will be paying out more than it's taking in.  
  • I don't believe my children and grandchild will have a better life than I did.
  •  I don’t believe Medicare and Medicaid can survive much past this decade.
  • I don’t believe crony capitalism will be less but more – especially since this pattern goes back to the Whiskey Act of 1791. 
  • I don’t believe those who left California because they made a mess of it won’t attempt to make a mess of the states they moved to.
  • I don't believe you can convince liberals their leftist philosophy has been the most misanthropic belief system in all of world history.
  • I don’t believe the national debt can be paid unless the government sells its assets - which amounts to 150 trillion dollars.
  • I don’t believe academia can be purged of its Frankfurt School aficionados unless we stop funding them and make them all "for profit" institutions.
  • I don’t believe anything can be fixed until the 16th and 17th amendments are repealed.
So, what do I believe?
  • I believe the world is headed for a massive economic downturn, with the fake economies of China and Russia collapsing into a chaotic swirl of revolution and national devolution creating new and smaller, desperately broke starving nations based on geography, ethnicity or religion.
  • I believe the only modern advanced country in the world that will still survive - albeit with a few dents but safe and intact - is the United States.  The U.S. can feed itself, fuel itself, arm itself and defend itself without the help or need of anyone else in the world.
  • I believe there will be European countries that will cease to exist as intact independent nations by 2030. Europe will soon cease to exist as we know it and whatever survives will be third rate, broke, desperate and devolving into more and smaller countries, as is already developing is parts of Europe with a lot civil violence. 
  • As a result of all of this I believe the world's leftists will make one last big push to impose world governance under the auspices of the United Nations.
  • Finally, While I believe the U.S. will be the only nation to successfully survive the upcoming worldwide economic downturn, I also believe that once again the sheeple will return leftist politicians to power and they will fund this effort by allowing the U.N. to tax Americans and create their own military force, and then turning the most effective military force in the world - the United States Navy - over to U.N. control.
In spite of my last post - A New Renaissance Awakening! - I'm not optimistic because the left is constantly changing itself into an angel of light in order to fool the sheeple with promises and visions of utopia in order to gain the one thing they desire beyond rational comprehension - power!  Why?  Because the left is still in complete control of the nation's young minds, and they hear the promises, and believe them.  And it's been a long time since anyone publically stood up to them.   But the left has no answers and the result is always dystopia because they live in a world that's an intellectual bubble of hate, envy, corruption, greed and self-interest. 

That's history, and that history is incontestable.

Friday, October 27, 2017

Peter Zeihan on Geopolitics


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  Asian Pivot Pending
By Peter Zeihan and Michael N. Nayebi-Oskoui
                     
There are many things that geopolitics teaches us. One of the more important lessons is that personalities rarely matter. The fate of peoples and nations are largely determined by a mix of geographic features that they cannot amend, and technological trends that are damnably impersonal.

The operative word there is rarely.

There are instances where the cultural zeitgeist and the singular attributes of certain individuals intersect so elegantly that the political or cultural changes that follow emblazon themselves on history.

But we’re reaching a point within two of East Asia’s powers where it seems like the impact of personality is tipping the scales. There were two noteworthy events that took place during the past few days. The one that is getting the most attention is the ongoing National Congress of the Communist Party of China. It’s wrapped up in a story that media and policy experts love to tell: Chinese President Xi Jinping has burst onto the scene, quickly and deftly amassing authority and shaking up the Chinese Communist Party apparatus, and elevating China to global prominence. Demolishing various factions and pursuing an almost-legitimate anti-corruption plan, Xi is the very popular and surprisingly astute leader to guide China through its unavoidable economic slowdown. Part of which is true, I suppose, and part of which is just really glossy PR bullshit.

There are a few key fundamentals that are absolutely necessary to keep in mind when looking at China:
  1. China as a culture and a historical concept are ancient, but the “Chinese people” and their amalgamated histories are not the same as the “People’s Republic of China,” which is also distinct from the “Communist Party of China.” Part of the Xi myth is attempting to make those three labels synonymous in everyone’s minds. That flies in the face of millennia of Chinese history, but hey, PR has to start somewhere.
  2. The current iteration of China is predicated on many things, but chief among them are employment and a national safety net overseen by the party. In turn that employment and safety net are predicated upon Chinese access to international markets, both for resource imports and the income that comes from merchandise exports.
  3. China’s geography is atrocious. Less than one-fifth of its land is habitable. Its flood- and drought-prone north is a flat security free-for-all that has suffered nearly three millennia of incessant internal warfare. Its south is a tropical disease belt. All but one of its rivers are too moody to help with commerce. Its interior is alternatively desert, mountain, tundra, jungle – or some brutal combination thereof. A line of archipelagos parallel its coast, all but preventing military or economic interaction with the wider world.
With that in mind, it doesn’t really matter so much if Xi is an anti-corruption reformer, a savvy consolidator of power, or re-establishing a cult of personality to rival that of Mao Zedong himself (my money is on the latter for those of you keeping score). If he can’t sell his schtick to the masses, well… in a country of nearly 1.4 billion, everybody’s expendable. And so we can’t lose sight of the fact that Chinese media, international outlets – everybody – focuses on Xi’s popularity, especially among China’s urban youth. And it is this popularity (or the belief that its constant repetition confirms its veracity) that provides the political currency for Xi to act like almost every other leader in Chinese history and create a political leadership and patronage structure that entrenches his own power.

That he has certainly achieved. China’s Communist Party holds a big meeting every five years, ostensibly to cement the country’s development plans and party leadership changes. In reality the meeting serves more as a clearing house, disseminating information and decisions made well in advance. Despite all the speeches about China now being “the” world power, the real reveal was supposed to be Xi’s nomination of his successor. Tradition tells us that a Chinese premier serves for five years, nominates his successor, and China then has a five-year leadership transition period.

Xi didn’t simply nominate himself to succeed himself, he enshrined himself into the Chinese constitution so there’d be no doubt just who was in charge. The Party Congress was a Trumpian celebration of Xi. A bit much, n’est pas?

The problem Xi sees is that China’s economic success has very little to do with China… or the Communist Party… or even Xi. China as it exists today is only possible because of the global Bretton Woods economic order Washington has upheld since the end of World War II. Simply put, a land-based power with some of the longest supply chains in the world cannot exist as a manufacturing and export powerhouse unless someone with a global navy enables it. That someone has been the United States, who has guaranteed the safety and security of the goods flowing to, from, in and out of Chinese ports, and who has offered largely unfettered market access for decades. With that in place, the specifics of China’s rather horrid geography haven’t mattered. That’s enabled Beijing to employ millions and millions of people in factories to make widgets and gadgets, and employ even more to feed China’s urban factory populations and to build roads and houses, etc. etc. etc.

But the Americans are going away, and they are taking the Bretton Woods system with them. China’s current economic slowdown is nothing compared the dawning tragedy it will experience during the emerging global disorder for which Beijing is terrifyingly ill-suited. When viewed in context, I don’t see Xi’s surpassing Mao to become the most powerful leader in Chinese history as an event driven by an excess of confidence, but instead an increasingly desperate effort to completely lock down the Chinese political space before the covfefe hits the fan. China is running out of time, and Xi knows it.

So I don’t get excited or worried about China taking over the world, or even its neighborhood, as I do about Japan. While most of the world had eyes on Xi’s celebrations, Japanese voters braved a hurricane over the weekend to participate in parliamentary elections, granting incumbent Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe a commanding majority. Sure, Xi Jinping is disrupting and reshaping Chinese political corruption to better suit him, but why don’t we talk about how Shinzo Abe was able to get his anti-war, Buddhist coalition partners to support his efforts to expand the role of Japan’s military forces? It is Japan, not China, that boasts the world’s second most capable navy. It is that navy that is second only to the United States in the number of aircraft carriers floated (Japan claims those carriers are only for helicopters but that is, if you’ll forgive the repeat, just some more PR bullshit).

Nor do I understand the lack of excitement over how the Japanese, (in)famously fickle when it comes to sacking Prime Ministers, have stuck with Mr. Abe through three concurrent rounds of parliamentary elections. It’s also worth noting that Abe is the first Prime Minister since the American Occupation ended to serve non-concurrent terms, even as he seems likely to coast toward becoming the longest-serving leader in modern times. The Japanese government under Abe has attempted several painful economic reform initiatives – and the fact that Abe has remained in power to oversee more than one strategy is a testament to not only his singular staying power but the trust the Japanese people have in his vision. But perhaps most important is the shift in Japanese society toward a more nationalistic, assertive position both regionally and globally.

That will make the region decidedly sparky. Unlike the Chinese system which is based on backroom-manipulation, globe-spanning economic links, suppression of minorities and carefully-sculpted public relations, Japan is a vibrant democracy with no minorities to speak of that has relocated most of its industrial base to the territories of its foreign customers and a boasts a leader who is genuinely popular despite (because of?) his increasingly militant stances.

This shift isn’t happening in a vacuum. As North Korea increases its provocations, as China is an ever more belligerent actor in its various littoral waterways in order to stoke nationalism at home, and as the United States seeks to diminish its global presence, it’s Japan that has the correct mix of geopolitical underpinnings, unique leadership personality, and national character to pounce on the opportunities ahead.

China is still the world’s second largest economy, the biggest by population, and its domestic (d)evolutions will certainly cause international ripples. But Beijing will remain constrained by its domestic concerns as its economy remains tied to a disappearing global order it cannot hope to replicate, not even – especially not even – in its own neighborhood. But while the world has eyes on China, mine (and I imagine many of those who attended the Chinese Communist Party’s Congress) will be fixed squarely on Japan.


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Thursday, October 26, 2017

A New Renaissance Awakening!

By Rich Kozlovich

What's referred to as "The Renaissance" in Western history was a period between the 14th and 17th centuries and is considered the "cultural gap" between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. Much of the cultural problems we face now originate with that period due to their absorbing ancient Greek and Roman philosophical humanistic concepts in place of religion, such as, "Man is the measure of all things."

The Renaissance was to a large extent atheistic in its foundation, although most will probably disagree with me on this since many early humanists were churchmen, but I view that the same way I view Socialism.

Socialism is foundationally atheistic, but in America in the late 19th century and early 20th century atheism was unacceptable to American society. But socialism is - if nothing else - metamorphic. In order to fool the public they transformed themselves into the Progressive movement with religion as the binding force. They viewed socialism as the practical application of Christian ethic.

After WWII they metamorphically became "liberals" - co-opting what's known as "classical liberals" as a way to once again fool society.  And the new binding force? Psychology! If you didn't agree with them you were crazy! Which is still their trump card....no pun intended. Only now they've added racism into this mix. If you don't agree with them you're not only crazy - you're a racist. Both of which is being challenged!

However, the Renaissance did make one amazingly important contribution to humanity that should be one of the most important events in human history. The movable printing press which created the first great information explosion. 

From that point on no one had a lock on information, and in those days the most important information desired by Europeans was knowledge of the Holy Bible. From that point on European religion was no longer universal, and wars were fought over hundreds of years between Catholic and Protestant nations.  There could be no bi-partisanship there because their views were fundamentally in opposition to each other, at least until the modern age.  At this point it's hard to tell what exactly "Christian" religions teach and believe, since so many of them have adopted "liberal" positions on moral and cultural issues in order to be "popular".  That's also being challenged! 

Then came the second great "renaissance" event causing an information explosion far beyond anything the world had ever seen.  An event so profound it's totally upsetting the worlds of journalism, government, politics, education, science and academia.  The Internet! And Bloggers!

There was a lot of kickback from the media calling bloggers the Pajama Media, in an attempt to demean and discredit the value of their work.  But one thing kept coming to the fore - the main stream media really was corrupt.  The main stream media really has been a major force in keeping the public ignorant and compliant to the leftist infestations running all of the nation's institutions.  They - and all these institutions - were now coming under attack by the Pajama Media - bloggers - and they deserved it!

So what is it that attracts people to blogs?  It turns out nearly “80 percent read blogs because they offer news they can't find elsewhere. About 78 percent say blogs give them a better perspective, and about 66 percent say blogs provide them with news faster than other sites or media. The study found that blog readers are media hungry….”

Over 45 years ago I worked in the advertising department of a major metropolitan newspaper and it appeared to me the United Press International, Associated Press and Reuters seemed to control all of what appears in the newspaper, and for the most part, TV news, since it was nothing more than reporting in a shortened form what the print media was already saying.  And I felt they were deliberately leaving much of what was going on in the world out of the news. My friends laughed at me - shaking their heads with a bit of arrogant scorn.

The natural function of the human mind is to find patterns, and life is all about patterns - and seeing those patterns.  A quality that's sorely lacking in the world.  Unfortunately - those who see them early and quickly aren't necessarily appreciated. I was right and it only took over thirty years for the rest of the world to catch up, but now it's generally accepted the traditional news media is nothing more than a propaganda arm of the left.

On October 25, 2017 Andrew West posted the article, "CNN Bias Revealed Again After Hillary Caught Red Handed With Russia", saying:

"The collusion between the liberal democrats and the mainstream media has been an abhorrent reality in American culture for far too long."  Never is this bias more apparent than it is during election years and times of republican control of our government, meaning that we have been suffering from a double-whammy of partisan hackery over the course of the last year…and then some.  Donald Trump, being the unconventional President that he is, has only exacerbated the left’s ugly approach to “news”, aligning themselves wholeheartedly, and unabashedly, with the “resistance” movement that looks to dethrone The Donald no matter what it takes to do so.

The amount of coverage by CNN is minuscule.  Yet, this was a corrupt deal with an antagonistic foreign power that netted the Clintons 145 million dollars, and not only CNN, the main stream media doesn't feel this is a major story.  Why?  Because this story is just another vast right wing conspiracy theory.   Not to the "free press" it isn't! To the free press it's corruption if not treason, and this story is so big and far reaching it may encompass former President Obama.

On October 20th, 2017 Chris Wallace criticized his Fox news associates - and everyone knows he primarily meant Sean Hannity - for attacking the media for their "complaining about “fake news” in response to reporting he doesn’t like, the network’s opinion hosts and commentators have parroted POTUS’s attacks and devoted segments to hammering other outlets.".... "As he puts it, whenever these media attacks are uttered on the air by an opinion host or commentator, that person should realize they are also essentially slamming Fox News reporters and journalists." 

Well, so what?  Are Sean Hannity and the others challenging the conventional wisdom of people like Wallace wrong or lying?   No, they're not lying, nor are they wrong.  If Fox reporters deserve to be challenged for their journalistic integrity then let it be done.  The issue is corrupt journalism, not institutional or brand loyalty. 

That was days ago and now this scandal has broken wide open - what's he think now?  Probably much the same.  He's not part of the solution - he's part of the problem - and Sean Hannity is being shown to be correct and he's going to be lauded as a hero as time goes by.  Chris Wallace will either change or be a journalistic hack.  I stopped watching him not too long after I stopped watching O'Reilly, and stopped reading George Will and Charles Krauthammer. 

West ends his commentary saying:

"A journalistic awakening is upon us, and those still siding with CNN will soon find themselves lost in a cloud of alternative facts while the rest of the nation carries on to glory."