Republican Senators and the Battered Wife Syndrome

April 27, 2015 by Bruce Thornton 46 Comments

For 6 years Barack Obama in word and deed has battered the Constitution and slapped around the Republicans. Abetted by his Luca Brasi, Harry Reid, he has run roughshod over the separation of powers and his own oath to the highest law in the land. He has responded to Republicans’ complaints about his executive arrogance and unlawful policies with naked contempt and partisan calumny. With his minions in the press and the Democratic Party, he has vilified conservatives as racist warmongers and plutocrats indifferent to the plight of the poor. But instead of fighting back in kind, some Republicans have bent over backwards just to get along, a capitulation disguised as “bipartisanship.”....... George Mason, arguing against the idea that the Senate should originate money bills, said, “Should the [Senate] have the power of giving away the people’s money, they might soon forget the Source from whence they received it. We might soon have an aristocracy.” Benjamin Franklin agreed: “It was always of importance that the people should know who had disposed of their money, and how it was disposed of.” Whether by an oligarchic Senate or an imperial president, the unbalancing of the Constitutional order could be prevented simply by cutting off the government’s money.…..To Read More….

Savages With Cell Phones

Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog 8 Comments

 

Race riots usually begin with criminality and end with criminality. They're protests by criminals on behalf of a dead criminal.

The stores with smashed windows aren't the means to express outrage, but the end. The purpose of criminality is criminality. The police exist so that stores can remain unrobbed and random pedestrians can remain unbeaten. The protests express opposition to that policy by robbing stores and assaulting random white people.

The police were never the problem. The looters and rioters were.

The counterculture has not changed dramatically since the 70's, but it has tossed aside any appearance of idealism. The new counterculture draws in two groups, disaffected upper middle class white youth and lower class black youth. Their goals are purely materialistic, looted iPods and government subsidies for housing, education and anything else they can think of.

Divestment is the common denominator. Neither the white leftist nor the lower-class black rioter is invested in his society. The white rioter is a globalist, the black rioter is an outsider. Neither are invested in the city and country they are busy trashing.

These are the children of the welfare state with little in common except a rejection of the commercial way of life. Neither the entitled white university brat or the posturing ghetto teenager has any interest in working. The businesses they smash are an alien thing to them. Small businessmen do not go about smashing stores. The people who do think of commodities as something they trick or intimidate others into giving to them. And that covers everyone from municipal unions to thugs driving around BMW's.

This lawless materialism is the essence of the welfare state. "Loot as much as you can, or someone else will." If you don't grab government benefits or sneakers in store windows, someone else will. The rich are grabbing, the pols are grabbing-- time to queue up and loot your share. Communism made this way of thinking so commonplace that all of Russia became one black market. And we are not far behind.

What kind of people behave this way? Those who have come to think of wealth as an infinite pile from which everyone grabs as much as they can. This is where the ethos of the socialist left and hip-hop comes together. Obama gleefully spending millions on himself and trillions on national giveaways for his donors and supporters is the most obnoxious fusion of this phenomenon.

The angry rioter is a sacred figure in the progressive pantheon of social justice. The shirtless men in bandanas carting away cell phones are so outraged by injustice that they are willing to take to the streets and do what progressive hipsters taking social justice selfies of themselves in souvenir t-shirts plastered with the face of the latest victim of “white supremacism” can only dream about.

The race riot isn’t a bubbling stew of outrage out of which wounded souls emerge to cry out for justice. It’s a complicated criminal conspiracy in which the perpetrators rarely suffer any consequences.

The rioters aren’t outraged, they’re usually bored young men, frustrated and lacking in empathy. Many of them have gang ties or a criminal record stretching back to kindergarten.

They’re the same people who commit crimes in any other non-outraged context.

The rest are there to get some attention while providing them with protective coloration. 9 out of 10 people screaming frenziedly while holding up “Black Lives Matter” signs would eagerly scream and hold up “Justin Bieber 4 President” or “Baltimore Loves the KKK” signs if it got them positive attention and a shot at being on television.

Technological savvy melded with barbaric behavior, the 21st century mobile devotee turned raider is a wake up call in more ways than one. These are not mere race riots, they are the self-organization of the end of our civilization.

The classic raid has come to the cities of West, its hallmarks are not frustration but careful planning, followed by a violent rush. They are the reemergence of an old way of life that most people think died with the Vikings.

The law banished the raider back into the dim pages of history, but law depended on a civilization which is now collapsing. Police officers need the support of the public to hold the line. And the left has now openly reverted to its pro-criminal advocacy while elements of the right, particularly those funded by the Koch Brothers, advocate for criminals.

The traditional raider saw himself as part of an outside group. The modern raider has global identities that are at odds with the country he lives in. When he joins a raiding party, it is as a member of one of those groups looting a society whose welfare is of no interest to him.

The left's motives for rebelling are different than those of minority looters. But the end result is similar enough. A disregard for the civilization becomes a disregard for its laws. And that leaves self-interest as the only hedge against anarchy. But what interest do people who do not work for a living have in preserving the businesses of others? None at all. As far as they are concerned, smash a store, it will collect the insurance, and reopen, or another will open up in its place. And even if it doesn't, then so what? It's not "our businesses" anyway.

The commercial tribalism of the rapper who conflates casual violence and criminality with honor follows a pattern of glorifying crime that predates and postdates race, its ubiquity dating back centuries, from the highwayman to the 1920's bank robber, and is almost as socially disruptive and even more contagious.

The narrative is the same. Its idealism and honor covers up the blatant materialism and greed that its lawbreaking enables. And the message is also the same. Civilization's end.

The return of the raider as an instant message enabled gang is a phenomenon at odds with progress. It is a warning that darker times are returning, that while everyone may pack phones that have more processing power in one inch than a room of computers did 30 years ago, the march of progress is moving backward.

But the real purpose of a riot isn’t to benefit the rioters. It’s to benefit those who incite the riot. The rioters and looters react in response to riot-friendly conditions created from above. If you build the political infrastructure for a riot, the rioters and looters will come.

The #BlackLivesMatter riots are the product of a new generation of Sharptons, ambitious activists feeding hate, of the New Black Panther Party’s obsession with becoming relevant, of the ragged hipster ends of Occupy Wall Street drifting from occupation to occupation, of Muslim agents dreaming of turning African-Americans into a fifth column and of Obama’s clumsy efforts to keep on playing community organizer by feeding racial grievances and then pretending to rise above them.

Those who gain from unleashing chaos and violence are not the powerless, but the powerful. Sharpton rose to his important role as Obama’s liaison on a trail of bodies. Someone operating here hopes to be the next Sharpton. Meanwhile Obama is playing a perverse fusion of Sharpton and MLK, amping up a bad situation and then telling blacks and whites that they need to rise above it.

As always, the ringleader tries to keep his hands clean while convincing the establishment that he can turn the violence on or off any time he wants to.

Obama exploits the riots he cultivated for his own political ends. The looter at the top is not through looting yet.

Calbuco Volcano

Calbuco volcano, Chile @SegHumana

A Letter to Dr. Oz from a PhD Microbiologist

Posted @ The American Council of Science and Health on April 27, 2015 by admin

Today we give a mega-shoutout to Alex Berezow over at RealClearScience for his brilliant letter to Dr.Oz.

Berezow’s letter is arguably the clearest and most convincing piece written about the entire affair. He demonstrates that Oz is not only the quintessential hypocrite, but is so lacking of the ability to offer a scientific rebuttal to any criticism about him that his “response” is nothing but a series of amateurish attacks—some of which are both wrong and amateurish—against those who dared to question whether he still belonged on the faculty at Columbia University.

Some of our favorite quotes:

“While I understand your desire to defend your reputation, your rebuttal failed to address any of the scientific and ethical concerns raised in the letter. Instead, your statement was full of ad hominem attacks and other logical fallacies. Such a rejoinder is not what I would expect from somebody claiming to be a scientist (as you do), but far more typical of a person who has been thoroughly defeated in a scientific debate.”

“In fact, your response reminds me of the sort of outburst one regularly hears from anti-vaxxers, anti-GMOers, climate change deniers, and the like.

(Editor's Note:  It amazes me someone can be so clear on everything except climate change.  On this he's on clearly muddled. RK)

On smearing Dr. Henry Miller’s (the originator of the letter) credentials:

“Furthermore, on your TV show, you sent your ‘investigative journalist’ out to smear Dr. Miller’s reputation. Nowhere in the segment did she seriously discuss Dr. Miller’s credentials, such as him being the Founding Director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology. That makes Dr. Miller perhaps the nation’s #1 expert on GMOs and biotech regulation.”

On his smearing of ACSH: “Let’s also set aside the fact that combating chemophobia and pseudoscience, which is what ACSH does, is necessary because of people like you. And, let’s set aside the fact that, as a non-profit, ACSH has to raise money from somebody, and industry is just as good as anybody else.”

Also: “I would like to focus on the fact that you take money from companies, too, such as Walmart, IcyHot, and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.”

And our favorite: “There is absolutely nothing wrong with making lots of money. But, how is your criticism of ACSH’s finances anything other than pure, unadulterated hypocrisy??”

Berezow closes with the following: “That decision, to put integrity first, almost certainly won’t earn me much fame or fortune. But, injecting science and reason into public debates allows ‘America’s Microbiologist’ (if I may) to sleep with a clear conscience.” Ouch.

ACSH’S Dr. Josh Bloom, a frequent (and somewhat obnoxious) critic of Oz says, “While most people were focusing on Oz’s quack products, whether he should remain at Columbia, and the benefits (or lack thereof) or ‘alternative medicine,’ Berezow spent considerable time researching who the ‘real’ Oz is, and it isn’t pretty.”

——————————————————————————————————

Other Oz Tidbits

A group of 1,300 doctors was polled, and Oz does not fare well: Fifty seven percent said that Oz should resign. Four percent said that he should have his medical license revoked.

And just to be extra thorough, 22 percent said he should resign AND have his license revoked.

This left a modest 18 percent of doctors who said that Oz should do nothing and they respected him as a doctor.

You might want to try to find out if any of the 18 percent are in your insurance plan, and then scroll down a bit.

And it gets worse. You do not want to be on the wrong side of John Oliver. It won’t be pretty.

“Not pretty” doesn’t even do justice to what Oliver had to say about Oz. One could make a reasonable argument that it violated the Geneva Convention, but it sure was fun to watch.

Don’t miss it.

Southern Africa Looks To Prosper From Rich Coal Resource

Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation Reports:
Matt Ridley: Africa Needs To Be Rich – Rather Than Green

One of the most energy-starved regions on the planet, southern Africa, is gearing up to build a fleet of more than a dozen coal plants to eliminate rolling power cuts. South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania are all in the process of putting together agreements with independent contractors to build coal-fuelled thermal electric plants. If there’s one thing that southern Africa has plenty of, it’s coal. According to the Southern Africa Development Community’s master plan for energy, proven coal reserves are about 32 billion tonnes of economically recoverable reserves; the estimated total resources are more than ten times that figure. --Gavin du Venage, The National, 25 April 2015

Without abundant fuel and power, prosperity is impossible: workers cannot amplify their productivity, doctors cannot preserve vaccines, students cannot learn after dark, goods cannot get to market. Nearly 700 million Africans rely mainly on wood or dung to cook and heat with, and 600 million have no access to electric light. As the International Energy Agency recently put it in a recent report, “increasing access to modern forms of energy is crucial to unlocking faster economic and social development in sub-Saharan Africa”. Yet the greens want Africans to hold back on the cheapest form of power: fossil fuels. --Matt Ridley, The Times, 27 April 2015

You’ve got to hand it to Alan Rusbridger: he’s a great contrarian indicator. The editor of The Guardian launched his valedictory campaign to demand divestment from fossil fuels with a wrap-around promotion and the paper’s full moral force. The usually left-wing Guardian was going out of its way to help the plutocrats make money, a job usually reserved for us here at the FT. Investors should have listened, thanked Mr Rusbridger, and done the exact opposite. It turned out he was a perfect contrarian indicator. He picked a six-year bottom in the US benchmark oil price, West Texas Intermediate. He lit a carbon-based bonfire under crude prices: WTI’s now up 30 per cent, the biggest rally over such a short period since 2009 (and before that, 2002). --James Mackintosh, Financial Times, 27 April 2015

If the [fossil fuel] divestment campaign succeeds, the example of tobacco shows the likely effect. As a sector it’s been shunned by many investors for a long, long time, while demand from addicts around the world has held up nicely. As a result, tobacco shares have been the best-performing investment over the past century for those willing to buy in (the same applies to lots of “sin” stocks: a higher cost of capital implies a higher return for those who supply the capital). --James Mackintosh, Financial Times, 27 April 2015

The United States is poised to flood world markets with once-unthinkable quantities of liquefied natural gas as soon as this year, profoundly changing the geo-politics of global energy and posing a major threat to Russian gas dominance in Europe. "We anticipate becoming big players, and I think we'll have a big impact," said the Ernest Moniz, the US Energy Secretary. "We're going to influence the whole global LNG market." Mr Moniz said four LNG export terminals are under construction and the first wave of shipments may begin before the end of this year or in early 2016 at the latest. --Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Daily Telegraph, 27 April 2015

It is a bad time to be in the renewable energy industry

Posted by Marita Noon @ Brietbart News

2015 may go down in the books as the year support for renewable energy died—and we are only a few months in. Policy adjustments—whether for electricity generation or transportation fuels—are in the works on both the state and federal levels.

While the public is generally positive about the idea of renewable energy, the reality of years-long policy implementation that offers it special favors has changed public opinions. An October 2014 report in Oklahoma’s Enid News titled: “Wind worries?: A decade after welcoming wind farms, states reconsider,” offers this insightful summary:

“A decade ago, states offered wind-energy developers an open-armed embrace, envisioning a bright future for an industry that would offer cheap electricity, new jobs and steady income for large landowners, especially in rural areas with few other economic prospects. To ensure the opportunity didn’t slip away, lawmakers promised little or no regulation and generous tax breaks. But now that wind turbines stand tall across many parts of the nation’s windy heartland, some leaders in Oklahoma and other states fear their efforts succeeded too well, attracting an industry that gobbles up huge subsidies, draws frequent complaints and uses its powerful lobby to resist any reforms.”

But, it isn’t just wind energy that has fallen from favor. 2015 state and federal legislation reflects the “reconsider” prediction. Likewise “powerful” lobbyists are resisting the proposed reforms.

Oklahoma is just one state in what has become a new trend.

About a decade ago, when more than half of the states enacted strict Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), Oklahoma, and a few other states, agreed to voluntary targets. Now, nearly one-third of those states are reconsidering the legislation that sounded so good in a different energy era. Back then, it was widely believed that there was an energy shortage and “dealing with global warming” was a higher public priority.

“Roughly 30 bills relating to the Oklahoma wind industry have been filed in the state legislature in the 2015 session, including at least one targeting the tax breaks and others attempting to alter regulatory policies,” reports Fox News. On April 16, the Oklahoma House voted, 78-3, to eliminate the wind energy tax credit. The measure now moves to the Senate, which will review a companion bill introduced by Senator Mike Mazzei—it is expected to pass and will likely be headed to Governor Mary Fallin soon.

Oklahoma isn’t the first state to reconsider its renewable energy policies. That distinction goes to Ohio, which in May 2014, passed legislation that paused the state’s RPS for two years. Governor Kasich signed it in June. Meanwhile, according to Eli Miller, the Ohio State Director for Americans for Prosperity: “the economic well-being of our working families and businesses can be factored in before moving forward.” The International Business Times projects that the two years a commission has to study will lead to a “permanent reduction.”

Earlier this year, West Virginia became the first state to repeal its RPS. With unanimous support in the Senate and a 95-4 vote in the House, renewable energy supporters are dismayed. Calling it “pure political theater and probably a flop,” Nick Lawton, Staff Attorney at the Green Energy Institute dismisses the move: “West Virginia’s withdrawal of its weak renewable energy policy is unlikely to significantly change that state’s energy markets.” Nancy Guthrie, one of the four Democrats who voted “No,” did so because she believes “we are running out of coal, it’s that simple”—which is, of course, totally incorrect.

Last month the Texas Senate voted to end its RPS and another program that, according to the Star Telegram, “helped fuel the state’s years-long surge in wind energy production.” The bill now moves to the House State Affairs Committee. It is expected to pass the House and be signed by Governor Greg Abbott. While Texas is known for its leadership in wind energy, the termination of the RPS will impact the solar industry as well. Charlie Hemmeline, executive director of the Texas Solar Power Association, states: “Increasing uncertainty for our industry raises the cost of doing business in the state.”

Coming up, Kansas, North Carolina, and Michigan have legislation that revisits the states’ favorable renewable energy policies.

New Mexico and Colorado had bills to repeal or revise the RPS that passed in one chamber, but not in the other.

While Louisiana doesn’t have an RPS, it does have generous tax credits for solar panel installations that have exploded the cost to the state’s taxpayers. The credits were originally expected to cost the state $500,000 a year. In 2014 the payouts ballooned to $63.5 according to the Baton Rouge Advocate. Repealing or revising the policy is a key priority in the current legislative session.

“Taxpayer support for wind energy is also losing momentum in Congress,” says Fox News. It points out: “Capitol Hill lawmakers at the end of last year did not extend the Federal Production Tax Credit (PTC). And in March, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), failed to rally support behind an amendment that would have put a five-year extension on the PTC.”

It is not just wind energy that has lost favor in Congress. The Ethanol mandates—known as the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)—are being re-examined, too.

On January 16, 2015, Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) introduced the “Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act of 2015.”

More recently, a “former Obama economic adviser” issued a report that calls for changes to the 10-year-old RFS. Harvard University Professor Jim Stock served on the Council of Economic Advisers in 2013 and 2014. The Hill states: “His report comes at a time of growing angst among lawmakers, regulators and the industry over the future of the RFS, which mandates fuel refiners blend a certain volume of ethanol and biodiesel into their traditional gasoline and diesel supplies.” The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) supports the sentiment calling Stock’s report: “a key voice to a growing chorus of people who say the policy isn’t working.” It continues: “The report adds to a growing body of politicians and experts who are questioning the law’s effectiveness amid regulatory uncertainty and lower prices.”

Hawaii, uniquely, has its own ethanol mandate, but it, too, is coming under attack. KHON states: “Nine years after a major change at the gas pump was forced on Hawaii drivers, many are now calling it a failed experiment and want it gone.”

In both the case of Hawaii and the federal government, lawmakers are looking toward advanced biofuels that don’t raise food costs. However, the Environmental Protection Agency—tasked with implementing the RFS—has repeatedly waived or reduced the cellulosic biofuel requirements because, despite more than $126 billion invested since 2003, the industry has yet to produce commercially viable quantities of fuel.

Addressing dwindling investment in biofuels and growing skepticism, The Economist, on April 18, says: “Campaigners generally find it easier to fulminate against those which damage the environment or food security than to explain exactly how they ought to be grown.” It concludes: “Whether such bright ideas can be commercialised at scale is a different question. Some companies, indeed, are starting to give up. Several algae-to-fuel ventures in America are switching to the manufacture of high-value chemicals instead. Sunlight is a great source of energy. Biology may not be the best way of storing it.”

And this doesn’t include the public’s failure to embrace higher-priced electric cars—even with tens of thousands of dollars of subsidies and tax credits.

Looking at all the policy reviews, the trend is clear. As Watchdog.org, in a report titled: “Why repealing the renewable energy mandates is good for the economy,” concludes: “The best policy for the states is to leave energy consumption decisions to consumers in the market rather than legislate them.”

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content of her weekly column.

A message for Pope Francis

It’s not climate change – but energy restrictions based on climate fears – that threaten the poor

Paul Driessen

Pope Francis plans to deliver an encyclical on climate change this summer. To pave the way and outline the Pope’s positions, the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences is holding a workshop on the topic, April 28 in Rome. The Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Heartland Institute will be there.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, director of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and an author of the draft encyclical, says the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has determined that “our planet is getting warmer.” Christians have a duty to help the poor, “irrespective of the causes of climate change,” and address what Pope Francis apparently believes is an imminent climate crisis. The encyclical will likely present global warming as “a critical moral issue” and increase pressure for a new climate treaty.

That raises serious questions, which I have addressed in many articles – and which prompted Dr. E. Calvin Beisner and the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation to write an open letter to Pope Francis. The articles and letter reflect our years of studying climate change assertions and realities, and the ways climate-related restrictions on energy harm poor families far more than climate change will.

At the most fundamental level, too many IPCC reports and the apparent new papal position represent the rejection of Judeo-Christianity’s illustrious tradition of scientific inquiry, which has brought monumental improvements to our understanding of nature and creation – and to humanity’s once “nasty, brutish and short” lives on this planet. As Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman explained, we begin with a guess about a law of nature. Then we compute the consequences that would result if our hypothesis is correct – and compare actual observations, evidence and experimental data to the predicted consequences.

If the hypothesis and predictions are borne out by the observations, we have a new rule. But if the hypothesis “disagrees with the experiment, it is wrong,” Feynman says. That is honest, genuine science.

Alarmist climate science is precisely the opposite. That distorted version of science began with the hypothesis that carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels cause global warming. It served as the basis for computer models that assume rising CO2 and GHG levels will cause planetary temperatures and sea levels to soar, and hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts to increase in number and intensity. The models predicted many such “scenarios” over the coming decades.

But Earth stopped warming 18 years ago; no major hurricane hit the USA for a record 9-1/2 years; seas are rising at barely seven inches per century; and even IPCC experts agree that long-term trends in weather disasters are not out of historic norms and are not attributable to human causes. The CO2-driven global warming disaster hypothesis and models do not reflect reality and are obviously wrong.

So alarmists began talking about “climate change,” blaming extreme weather events on human emissions and manipulating temperature data. They say terrible things are happening at unprecedented levels, when they are not. Worst, they say we must slash hydrocarbon energy use that has brought once unimaginable health, prosperity, living standards and life spans to billions of people, after countless millennia of crushing poverty, malnutrition, disease, and death before age 40. Fossil fuels still represent 85% of the world’s energy – and they are essential if the rest of humanity is to catch up and improve their lives.

Denying humanity the use of still bountiful hydrocarbon energy is thus not simply wrong. It is immoral – and lethal. This is the real reason that climate change is a critical moral issue. No one has a right to tell the world’s poor they cannot use fossil fuels to improve their lives, or to tell others they must reduce their living standards, based on speculation and unfounded fears about a manmade climate crisis.

As Dr. Beisner notes, “Alongside good science in our approach to climate policy must be two preferential options: for humanity and, among humanity, for the poor.” This does not mean pitting humanity against nature, any more than to pit the poor against the rich. It means any effort to protect the environment must be centered on scientific truth and human well-being, and in particular the well-being of the poor, because they are more vulnerable, and less able to protect themselves. Climate alarmism does not do that.

Over the past three decades, fossil fuels helped 1.3 billion people get electricity and escape debilitating energy poverty – over 830 million because of coal. China connected 99% of its population to the grid and increased its steel production eight times over, mostly with coal, energy analyst Roger Bezdek points out.

Abundant, reliable, affordable motor fuels and electricity empower people and support mobility, modern agriculture, homes and hospitals, computers and communications, lights and refrigerators, job creation, life and study after sundown, indoor plumbing, safe drinking water, less disease and longer lives. In conjunction with property rights and entrepreneurship, protected by laws enforced by limited, responsive, responsible governments, fossil fuels will continue transforming lives and nations the world over.

They will also enable people to respond and adapt to future climate changes and extreme weather events, floods and droughts, heat waves, new “little ice ages” and other disasters, natural or manmade. More plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would enhance wildlife habitats and food production.

However, 1.3 billion people (the population of the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe combined) still do not have electricity. In India alone, more people than live in the USA still lack electricity. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 730 million (equal to Europe) still cook and heat with wood, charcoal and animal dung. Hundreds of millions get horribly sick and four million die every year from lung and intestinal diseases, due to breathing smoke from open fires and not having clean water, refrigeration and safe food.

Imposing fossil fuel restrictions and renewable energy mandates – in the name of stabilizing planetary climate that has never been stable – would perpetuate Third World poverty, disease and death. In developed nations, it would reduce living standards, affect everything we make, grow, ship, eat and do – and cause thousands to die during cold winters, because they cannot afford to heat their homes properly.

It would be a needless tragedy – an unconscionable crime against humanity – if the world implemented policies to protect the world’s still impoverished and energy-deprived masses from hypothetical manmade climate dangers decades from now, by perpetuating poverty and disease, and killing millions tomorrow.

Just eight years ago, Pope Benedict XVI warned that any proposed “solutions” to global warming and climate change must be based on solid evidence, and not on computer models, unsupported assertions and dubious ideology. He suggested that concerns about man-made emissions melting ice caps and causing waves of unprecedented disasters were little more than fear-mongering. He argued that ecological concerns must be balanced against the needs of current and future generations of people.

Pope Francis apparently does not share his predecessor’s view about climate change fears. However, if he is truly committed to advancing science, the poor and creation, he should reject climate chaos claims unless and until alarmists can provide solid evidence to back up their assertions and models.

He should recognize that the issue is not global warming or climate change. It is whether human actions now dominate climate and weather fluctuations that have been common throughout Earth and human history – and whether those actions will cause dangerous or catastrophic changes in the future. Science-based answers to these questions are essential if we are to forecast future climate and weather accurately – and safeguard poor families, modern living standards and environmental quality.

Dr. Beisner has posted his letter to Pope Francis, for others to endorse this commonsense approach.

It is unwise and unjust to adopt policies requiring reduced use of fossil fuels, unless it can be conclusively shown that doing so will stabilize Earth’ fickle climate and prevent future climate disasters, Dr. Beisner concludes. “Such policies would condemn hundreds of millions of our fellow human beings to ongoing poverty.” We therefore respectfully ask Pope Francis to advise the world’s leaders to reject those policies.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death, and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: Saving the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.

 

Observations From the Back Row

Global Warming? The Pope is Wrong, By Alan CarubaI have devoted the better part of more than two and a half decades speaking out against the charlatans that have created and maintained the greatest hoax ever imposed on modern man. At the heart of this hoax has been the United Nations environmental program and at the heart of that program is an agenda to initiate a massive redistribution of wealth from industrialized, successful nations to those who have suffered, as often as not, from being ruled by despots of one description or another…..

Walter E. Williams: California's Water Problem - Californians are experiencing their third year of drought. Headlines read: "Current California Drought Is Driest In State's History; Scientists Fear 'Megadroughts' On Their Way." "Global Warming Upped Heat Driving California's Drought." Then there are scientific claims such as, "There's a rapidly growing body of scientific research finding that California is in the midst of its worst drought in over a millennium (and) global warming has made the drought worse."

Churches in Turkey on the Verge of Extinction - It wasn’t enough that they killed 3 million Christians and expelled another 1.5 million, destroying thousands of churches and monasteries, enslaving and and forcibly converting hundreds of thousands of mostly women and children to Islam; now they want to erase the last traces of Christianity in Turkey.The slaughter and oppression will never end until “…religion is all for Allah,” as the Qur’an says. That’s what they believe — that’s their goal. Period. It’s not about some grievances, it’s not about land disputes — it’s all about Islamic doctrine, as this example shows so well…..

UK: Labour leader says his government will criminalize“Islamophobia” - This is full-blown sharia in the UK — not only will our ban not be lifted, but I would also expect that more voices of freedom will be banned.We are going to make it an aggravated crime. We are going to make sure it is marked on people’s records with the police to make sure they root out Islamophobia as a hate crime.” The problem is that Islamic supremacists, apparently deliberately, conflate“Islamophobia” meaning attacks on innocent Muslims, which are never justified, with “Islamophobia” meaning honest examination of how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence..

The Islamic Genocide ofChristians: Past and Present - April 24, we remembered how exactly 100 years ago the last historic Muslim caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, tried to cleanse its empire of Christian minorities — Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks — even as we stand by watching as the new caliphate, the Islamic State, resumes the genocide.

Dennis Prager: Why Is Pakistan More Legitimate than Israel? Whenever I have received a call from a listener to my radio show challenging Israel's legitimacy, I have asked these people if they ever called a radio show to challenge any other country's legitimacy.

Clinton:'Deep-Seated Cultural Codes, Religious Beliefs...Have to Be Changed' - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton says women won't have full access to "reproductive health care" until "deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases" are changed. She urged every woman to be a "champion for change" in the world around them. Clinton made the remarks last Thursday at the 2015 "Women in the World Summit," a three-day gathering in New York that examined the "struggles and triumphs of women and girls around the globe."

Supreme Court to Rule on Same-Sex Marriage, By Alan Caruba

In 1973, the Supreme Court looked into the Constitution, found that it approved of abortion and overruled laws banning it. Other laws have since addressed late term abortions and those resulting from rape or incest, but killing human life in the womb has been lawful since then. According to the Guttmacher Institute from 1973 through 2011, nearly 53 million legal abortions occurred in the U.S. By dismantling the fundamental traditions and beliefs of a nation piece by piece, you ultimate will destroy it. Claiming this is done in the name of “love” or “equality” ignores the greater societal issues involved in marriage; the creation of families with mothers and fathers, and, indeed, the welfare of children raised in same-sex marriages……

Bill Murchison: The Court and Marriage Well. I really can't believe I am saying this. The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to tell us what marriage means. Not speculate; not explain. Tell: as in, "Wipe that smile off your face and listen to what I'm telling you."

DOJ: ‘No Scientific Basis' for Saying Same-Sex Couples‘Not Fit to...Become Parents’ - In a brief submitted to the Supreme Court in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, which the court will hear tomorrow, the U.S. Department of Justice argues that state laws prohibiting two people of the same sex from marrying each other are…

Steny Hoyer: Same-Sex Couples Are Endowed ‘By God’ With Right to Marry -Citing the Declaration of Independence, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) argued on the House floor yesterday that same-sex couples are endowed by “their Creator—by God” with a right to marry.

Exclusive: Bakers Facing $135K Fine Over Wedding Cake for Same-Sex Couple Speak Out - Almost two years ago, the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa had to close their bakery after declining to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. They spoke exclusively to The Daily Signal about the ordeal and the impact on their family.….

Bowing to anti-science Zeitgeist, major food companies ditch safe and useful ingredients - Corporate flights from science, Part 2 and 3: Caving to “consumer concerns.” (For Part 1: see Mac/Cheese below). Chipotle rids itself of GMOs, while Pepsi eliminates aspartame from Diet Pepsi for sucralose. Major benefit for...public health? Not. Read more.

Kraft reformulates mac and cheese in a bow to consumer fears - Kraft is reformulating products to kowtow to consumer fears about “artificial dyes.”All their macaroni and cheese products will contain no artificial preservatives or synthetic colors. We thought that baseless concern had been debunked decades ago. Read more.

Anti-Trust Law and Lawlessness  - We all make mistakes and some of us learn from them. What is even better is to learn from other people's mistakes, where they pay for those mistakes while we learn free of charge.

Puffed-up Leftist Tyranny Punishes Dissenters - Forget for a moment the ever-failing economy, the implosion of our foreign policy coherence, and our virtually unilateral withdrawal in the war on terror under Barack Obama's presidency. If liberty lovers don't start fighting back soon, we'll forfeit our freedom of thought and religious expression under the assault of fascist leftist activists in our culture.

Mychal Massie's Daily Rant

Muslim Sympathizer Ignores Facts - I can appreciate people being sensitive to negativity pursuant to family members who are Muslims, killers, terrorists, and/or associated with same. But specific to that point, I don’t make up the atrocities that Muslims are perpetrating the world over. I don’t preach hate of Muslims; I preach hatred for their evil deeds and the threat they represent to civil society all over the world. Friday morning I received an email from someone identifying himself as Kenneth Martin. He introduced himself by calling me an “a**hole.” He immediately followed that by […]

If Cat My Doesn’t Why Should Obama and Congress? - I live in Florida but my cat stays in Pennsylvania. Late last night I returned to PA. to find that to the surprise of everyone concerned she had urinated on my bed, (multiple times, necessitating my buying a new mattress, pillows, and special laundering to insure the pheromones in her urine are removed from the bedding to prevent her from deciding to do it again. She will not be permitted in my bedroom ever again unless I am in town. If I am willing to take such extraordinary steps because […]

Chicago’s ‘Black Star Project’ Synonym for Hypocrisy - Some things just leave you incredulous. How else can it be said when it comes to the duplicitous standards of blacks pursuant to accountability? I have said it many times and so I say again, black people have a definition of right and wrong that is fluid and predicated completely upon skin color. It matters very little to the majority of blacks what crime a black person commits or whom a black person does harm to as long as said person is “keeping it real” and espouses the right heterodoxy. […]

If Government Healthcare Fails Vets – It Will Fail Us - For those singing the praises of obamacare, I ask you this question: “If the federal government is unable to oversee the healthcare of our veterans who sacrificed their bodies and psychological health for their country, how can the federal government be expected to manage the healthcare of 300 plus million legal Americans and tens of millions of illegal aliens?” If the federal government, i.e., congress and president, ended up with the congressional banking scandal and the congressional post office scandal not to mention that they bankrupted medicare, medicaid, and social […]

Eyes on Education

Editor's Note: I've concluded Mike Admas has complete clarity when he observes that conservatives fail to realize the importance of campus culture wars.  Therefore I've decided to make "Eyes on Education" are regular feature. One thing is clear. We need to stop funding these snake pits of insanity.

It’s Not Harassment If You Like It - Warning: The contents of this column are likely to be deemed offensive by radical feminists and the emotionally handicapped. Please pardon the redundancy. Some conservatives fail to grasp the importance of the campus culture wars. They write to me asking why I don’t cover issues of national importance instead of battling endlessly with college administrators. Their criticisms fall on deaf ears because I understand something they don’t: That the insanity we see on the campus today will threaten our fundamental freedoms when it becomes normalized and bleeds into the broader culture.

My lastest encounter with Nazi-like Muslim thugs.   I spoke last Wednesday night at Brooklyn College, if you can still call it that. Every seat was filled – 80 percent by Muslim students. If this is the future, it is murder. The sneers, the jeers, the laughter – my discussion of the most savage jihad acts was met with huge peals of laughter. It wasn’t a talk; it was a vicious circus: lawless and shameful. From the moment I began to speak, the Muslim students were cackling and catcalling with Jew-hating remarks and jeers.  Lord knows I tried to have a genuine discussion with them. I was patient, I was indulgent – but to no avail. If you watch the video, be sure to watch the Q-and-A as well. That will show you everything. A couple of fights almost broke out. ……There is now a petition by these goons and Nazi-like thugs to “ban hate speech” at Brooklyn College – so afraid are these thuggish students that the truth about Islam and jihad will be heard.   It wasn’t the belly of the beast. It was the beast’s colon. Brooklyn College is not a safe environment for human beings. This event made it clear: Brooklyn College and our nation’s universities in general are not about learning, or about reasoned discourse, or about a search for truth. They are centers for fascist indoctrination. And the fascists were out in force last Wednesday night.

Observations From the Back Row

America's Soft Police State - Today Americans live in a soft police state. We may not sense its severity and doom like runaway slaves or Anne Frank, but the freedoms of the greatest number of Americans have never been more threatened and violated institutionally -- both openly and secretively -- by our own government.

The Fourth Amendment, which is the law limiting government power to search and seize our persons and most private property, has been gutted by executive and administrative actions, Congress, and the courts -- the very bodies that were supposed to enforce it on government. This American Bill of Right is based in English common law, and was written to prevent what’s now called a “police state.”

Although Americans now live in a soft police state, we may not understand how we got to this point, or why reclaiming the Fourth Amendment is essential to retaining our exceptionalism that flows from freedom. Also, a proposed 21st Century Fourth Amendment introduced in the Virginia General Assembly this year is a model that can restore this Bill of Right to its rightful status......

Harry Reid is an “Absolutely Poisonous Figure” and a“Disaster for the Country” - As we get closer to the official date of Harry Reid’s retirement, it seems that more and more people are opening up about just how despicable the man really is. (And folks, he is really despicable.) While many Congressional leaders are lauded with parties, parades and long speeches filled with praise – it is very likely that when Reid finally leaves the hallowed halls in DC it will be dead silent, because no one will have remained behind to say goodbye.....

Doctor joins ISIS medical team in “jihad” against the west: “I wish I’dcome sooner” - Another doctor, affluent and Western educated, leaves everything to join the Islamic State, blowing up Obama’s and every other Western leader’s delusional narrative about poverty, disaffection and illiteracy driving Muslims to jihad.

 

It’s Islam.

 

I’ll also point out that calling those who oppose jihad terror “racists” is laughable. Islam is not a race. Just ask this blue-eyed doctor.

 

Herdsmen in Nigeria, rappers in Germany, doctors in Glasgow, chemical engineering students in Canada, heart surgeons in Saudi Arabia, university students in Britain, imams in America and so forth – what brings these wildly different people together? Jihad. From the Sahara to the Kalahari, London to Lisbon, Manhattan to Madrid, Bali to Boston, Tiananmen Square to Thailand, Myanmar to Malaysia, Nairobi to Nigeria ….. no matter what the background, upbringing, schooling, wealth or poverty, color, what have you, it doesn’t matter. The understanding of Islam and jihad is the same, and it is the motive, the incitement to this monstrous war on the West and and the East and all points in between.....

 

Arizona: Muslim woman raped, beaten and sexually assaulted by groom-to-be for refusing arranged marriage -  “Abdullahi was criticized by the Arizona chapter of the Center for Arabic Islamic Relations, saying the allegations have no basis in the Islamic faith.” This is the low state of journalism these days. The “Center for Arabic Islamic Relations” is most likely the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which once again the mainstream media goes to without any mention of its jihad terror arrests, ties to Hamas, etc. And anyway, CAIR is lying again: what Mohamed Abdullahi did has everything to do with Islam. In Islam, women are possessions of men. If they get out of line, they are to be beaten (Quran 4:34). If they’re raped, it’s their fault, and they bear the “dishonor.” All this is what Abdullahi did. It was quintessentially Islamic....

As U.S. Shutters Coal Plants, China and Japan are Building Them - China and Japan have plans to build massive amounts of coal-fired power plants, while the United States is not only not building new coal-fired power plants, but it is also shuttering many of its existing coal-fired power plants because of Obama Administration policies.  China is building one coal-fired power plant every 7 to 10 days, while Japan plans to build 43 coal-fired power projects to replace its shuttered nuclear units. The United States, on the other hand, cannot build new non-CCS coal-fired power plants and is shuttering existing coal fired power plants. These existing coal-fired power plants retiring in the United States are among the cheapest source of electricity generation in this country. To replace these plants with new generating capacity will cost the nation and thus taxpayers and consumers billions of dollars…..
 

Inquiry Launched Into Global Temperature Data Integrity

Benny Peiser’s Global Warming Policy Foundation Reports: Top Scientists Start To Examine Adjusted Global Warming Figures

The London-based think-tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation is today launching a major inquiry into the integrity of the official global surface temperature records. Questions have been raised about the reliability of the surface temperature data and the extent to which apparent warming trends may be artefacts of adjustments made after the data are collected. The inquiry will review the technical challenges in accurately measuring surface temperature, and will assess the extent of adjustments to the data, their integrity and whether they tend to increase or decrease the warming trend. --Global Warming Policy Foundation, 26 April 2015

Climatologists have long been aware of the poor state of global surface temperature records and considerable effort has been put into adjusting the raw data to correct known errors and biases. The global surface temperature records have been the subject of considerable and ongoing controversy. In order to try to provide some clarity on the scientific issues, the Global Warming Policy Foundation has invited a panel of experts to investigate and report on these controversies. --The International Temperature Data Review Project

Many people have found the extent of adjustments to the data surprising. While we believe that the 20th century warming is real, we are concerned by claims that the actual trend is different from – or less certain than – has been suggested. We hope to perform a valuable public service by getting everything out into the open. The team approaches the subject as open-minded scientists –we intend to let the science do the talking. Our goal is to help the public understand the challenges in assembling climate data sets, the influence of adjustments and modifications to the data, and whether they are justifiable or not. --Terence Kealey, Chairman of the International Temperature Data Review Project, 26 April 2015

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has enlisted an international team of five distinguished scientists to carry out a full inquiry into just how far these manipulations of the data may have distorted our picture of what is really happening to global temperatures. Their inquiry’s central aim will be to establish a comprehensive view of just how far the original data has been“adjusted” by the three main surface records: those published by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss), the US National Climate Data Center and Hadcrut, that compiled by the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (Cru), in conjunction with the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction. All of them are run by committed believers in man-made global warming.--Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 26 April 2015

Panel member Professor William van Wijngaarden, a physicist and climate expert from York University in Toronto, said he had been concerned about the records’quality for many years, after noticing that when you examined an individual station ‘you’ll see a sudden jump’. Such jumps, he said, were not natural, but the product of adjustments. ‘Sometimes you get “corrected” data without knowing exactly how it has been changed. I’m a scientist. I’m not going into this with any preconceptions. But if some of the corrections have not been properly made, then we’ll find out. We want to see all the actual station data.’ --David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 26 April 2015