From Pam Geller's Atlas Shrugs

Devout Islamic State Executes 600 Non-Muslims in Iraq -

"So when you meet the unbeliever, strike [their] necks until, when you have inflicted slaughter upon them..” Quran 8:12 - Here’s the takeway that the Obama administration, the enemedia, and academia want you to glean from this:

–The Islamic State is not Islamic
–This is not an important story
–Look out for “backlashophobia” and “islamofauxbia” — that’s key. If you don’t find it, make it up
–Sharia adherence is all important. These human lives are kuffar, filthy, unimportant. Islam and its reputation is the priority above all else......Read the whole entry »

The horrifying moment ISIS extremists throw a man from a roof for being gay – then watch as he is stoned to death by the Muslim mob below - More gay terror —someone send this story to Theresa Spark and the San Francisco City Council, so they can issue another resolution condemning me for my ads highlighting Islamic oppression of gays.

Sheesh.

Apart from the rock throwing and roof dumping of gays, let’s not forget the obligatory Muslim drug and alcohol counseling: whipping ...Read the whole entry »

40 Person Mob Assaults 2 Jews on Paris’ Boulevard Voltaire - In the wake of the slaughter of four Jews in a Paris kosher supermarket by an Islamic jihadist, a Parisian Jew said: “In the past year, 7,000 Jews have already left France and after this there will be many thousands more. We are not safe in France any more. There is no future for Jews here in France. We are finished in France".......Read the whole entry »

Texas Muslim honor murderer had hit list of Christian victims - The media will most likely ignore this aspect of the story. They won’t bury the lede, they’ll ignore it altogether, or if forced to report it, they’ll tell us that Muslims killing Christians as dictated by the “holy Quran” has nothing to do with Islam, despite its millions of victims. They will then follow with “fear of reprisals” segment, fictional narratives about“backlashophobia” and a Hamas-CAIR pull-quote from terror group leader CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper himself.. ......Read the whole entry »

State Department deems mission to rescue Americans in Yemen too risky - Post-American America; saving American lives too risky. Obama will release five top Taliban slaughterers for the life of deserter convert to Islam, but Christopher Stevens, the Benghazi State Department staff and now Americans in Yemen are“too risky” to rescue. The Taliban Five will murder untold numbers, but that’s in the cause of Allah, so Obama is down with it.

The left will only risk lives if they can aid and abet the enemy. Every American who travels out of this country now takes his life in his hands. The Obama administration does not have your back. Another victory for the global jihad....Read the whole entry »

Silencing skeptics, conservatives and free speech

Congressional Democrats and Vatican join White House and Leftist assaults on basic rights

Paul Driessen

Our scientific method and traditions of free speech and open debate are under assault as never before, by intolerant inquisitors in our media, universities, government agencies, and even Congress and the Vatican.

They threaten our most basic rights and freedoms, our political and scientific processes – and ultimately our continued innovation and invention, energy reliability and affordability, job creation and economic growth, and modern living standards, health and welfare.

Congressman Grijalva and Senators Markey, Boxer and Whitehouse sent letters to universities, think tanks and companies, demanding detailed information on skeptics’ funding and activities – in an attempt to destroy their funding, reputations and careers, while advancing “crony climate alarm science.” Equally intolerable, Democrats and the White House are blocking efforts to ensure that environmental regulations are based on honest, unbiased, transparent, replicable science that accurately reflects real-world evidence.

The Secret Science Reform Act (S. 544) and its House counterpart would require that the Environmental Protection Agency develop its regulations and the science behind them in the open, and allow experts and other interested parties to examine data, evidence and studies that supposedly support EPA standards and mandates that could cost billions of dollars and millions of jobs. This should not be controversial.

But Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee wanted Chairman James Inhofe to drop the bill from a planned markup. He refused, the bill passed on a party-line vote, and a Senate vote will be set soon. President Obama says he will veto the legislation. Why this opposition?

Obama said his would be the most transparent administration in history. But transparency quickly took a back seat to his radical climate change, renewable energy and other plans to “fundamentally transform” the United States. EPA practices epitomize what goes on throughout his Executive Branch, why our economy is growing at 0.2% and what congressional Democrats are apparently determined to perpetuate.

The problem is not only EPA’s private email accounts and deleted emails, á la Hillary Clinton. It’s illegal experiments on humans – with test results ignored when they don’t support EPA’s agenda of removing the last vestige of soot from coal-fired power plants. It’s rules for 0.5% of the mercury in U.S. air, justified with claims that they would bring a 0.00209 point improvement in IQ scores; economy and job-killing climate regulations that would reduce warming by 0.03 degrees by 2100, assuming carbon dioxide actually does drive climate change; and equally bogus health and environmental benefits of every description that ignore adverse human health and welfare impacts of the EPA regulations themselves.

The President and Democrats claim the “secret science” bill would “unduly burden” regulators. Baloney. The rules would simply require that promulgators of government edicts live according to the same rules they impose on us: Be honest and transparent. Show us your data, calculations and analyses. Demonstrate that you have examined all relevant studies – not just what supports your agenda, while you ignore everything else. Back up your analyses and decisions with actual evidence. Answer our questions. Recognize that collusion, deceit and fraud have no place in public policy, and will no longer be tolerated.

What can possibly be wrong with those guidelines – unless the regulators have a lot to hide?

And now the Vatican is adopting the same secretive, agenda-driven, inquisition tactics.

Its Pontifical Academy of Sciences recently held a workshop on climate change and sustainability. But only religious leaders, scientists, bureaucrats and regulators who support alarmist perspectives on these issues were invited. Those with contrary views were neither invited, welcomed nor tolerated.

However, a dozen climate, health and theological experts skeptical of “dangerous manmade climate change” allegations hosted a press event the day before the workshop. Three of them managed to get into the Vatican event. But when Climate Depot director Marc Morano tried to ask the UN Secretary General to advise Pope Francis that many Catholics and other Christians believe the papal position on global warming is ill-advised, a security guard took Morano’s microphone away and told him, “control yourself, or you will be escorted out of here.” Apostates have no rights at climate confabs, Vatican or otherwise.

Apparently, in the Vatican’s view, there is nothing to discuss – only anti-fossil fuel laws and treaties to implement. Computer model predictions and other assertions of looming disaster are all the Pope and workshop attendees seem to need to support this agenda – even though they are consistently and completely contradicted by real-world observations. Instead of protecting Earth’s poorest people from energy deprivation, disease, poverty and death imposed in the name of preventing global warming, Pope Francis seems more devoted to newly green Liberation Theology concepts of “fairness” and “justice.”

As IPCC leaders have explained, the climate change agenda is no longer about the environment. It is now about “intentionally transforming” the global economy and negotiating the redistribution of the world’s wealth and natural resources, in the name of “social justice” and equal distribution of misery.

These developments are far too typical. Left-Liberal thought police refuse to debate their failed ideas and policies, because they have no answers to inconvenient questions and cannot stomach dissenting views.

On campuses, free expression is limited to boxing-ring-sized “free speech zones.” Conservative speakers are banned from university events, or shouted down if they do appear. The Universities of Michigan and Maryland tried to ban “American Sniper” because a couple hundred students out of 27,000 objected. Oberlin and Georgetown students railed that Christina Hoff Sommers’ mere presence required “trigger warnings,” caused them “distress” and “discomfort,” and “constituted violence” against women.

Brandeis disinvited Ayan Hirsi Ali, because her views on women’s rights might offend some Muslim men. Scripps revoked its invitation to conservative political analyst George Will, who later observed:

 

“Free speech has never been … more comprehensively, aggressively and dangerously threatened than it is now. Today’s attack is … an attack on the theory of freedom of speech … on the desirability of free speech and indeed … on the very possibility of free speech…. "

“The Democratic Party’s leading and prohibitively favored frontrunner candidate for the presidential nomination … said she wants to change the First Amendment in order to further empower the political class to regulate the quantity, content and timing of political speech about the political class – and so far as I can tell there’s not a ripple of commentary about this on the stagnant waters of the American journalistic community.”

Meanwhile, NYU happily hosted delegates from Iran, which hangs people for the crime of being gay. President Obama’s Internal Revenue Service harasses conservative donors and organizations, keeps groups out of the political process, stonewalls investigators and lies with impunity. His Federal Communications Commission plans to micromanage internet access, content and operations. At the behest of hyper-partisan Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm, police swat teams burst into homes belonging to Governor Scott Walker supporters, ransacked them, took computers, and told families “Don’t call a lawyer – or else.”

The abuses and intolerance are becoming broader, deeper, more frightening by the day: from Christendom to Islam and Climate Orthodoxy; from universities to the Congress, Vatican, EU and United Nations.

Good people everywhere need to rise up, speak out and fight back, if they still believe in individual rights, freedom of thought and expression, and honest, transparent, trustworthy, accountable government and religious institutions. Otherwise, these fundamental values will disappear – and with them will go modern society and living standards, and efforts to improve the lives of billions of people who still lack the lifesaving energy and technologies so many of us take for granted.

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.

 

Ohio Employer's Law Blog Update

 

In This Issue...WIRTW #366 (the “same-sex marriage” edition)

More Recent Articles

Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Obergefell v. Hodges, one the Court’s most anticipated cases in years, which will (hopefully) decided the fate of same-sex marriage rights.

The web’s best coverage of the oral argument and its implications comes from SCOTUSblog:

“Super-cuts” from same-sex marriage arguments

No clear answers on same-sex marriage: In Plain English

Argument analysis: Justice Kennedy, hesitant but leaning

Evening round-up: Today’s argument in Obergefell v. Hodges

Stay tuned. The decision is expected in June, and I’ll be sure to report on its implications for your workplace.

Here’s the rest of what I read this week:

Discrimination

If Bruce Jenner Were Your Employee — via Inc.com

“My religion or my job?” That’s a bad workplace question. — via Eric Meyer’s The Employer Handbook Blog

EEOC Commissioner Offers Helpful Guidance to Employers on Providing Accommodations to Pregnant Employees — via Jeff Nowak’s FMLA Insights

Look! Abercrombie Finally Shifts Hiring Focus After Years of Lawsuits — via In House

EEOC Considers Commuting a Major Life Activity — via FEDweek

Spate of Gender Discrimination Lawsuits Against Silicon Valley Technology Companies Highlights the Importance of Adopting and Enforcing Anti-Discrimination Policies and Procedures — via Technology Company Counselor

You Accommodate Your Employees, But Do They Accommodate Your Customers? — via All in a Day’s Work

Hey – that EEOC wellness rule isn’t half bad — via Robin Shea’s Employment & Labor Insider

Company Settles ADA Suit Alleging Violation of Law’s Medical Inquiries, Confidentiality Clauses — via Joe’s HR and Benefits Blog

Social Media & Workplace Technology

What Do You Do When The Ugly Allegations In A Lawsuit Against Your Company Go Viral? — via The Labor Dish

Periscope hit 1 million users in its first 10 days — via The Verge

Do You Lock Your Phone with a Passcode? — via Lifehacker

Will the Second Circuit “Like” the NLRB’s Recent Stance on Social Media? An Update on the Facebook “Like” Firing Case — via Employment Matters Blog

HR & Employee Relations

Is 2015 Becoming the Year of the Employee? — via TLNT

Watch This Great Webinar on Working Dads, Paternity Leave and Workplace Flexibility — via Fathers, Work and Family

Weasels and Sociopaths — via HR Examiner with John Sumser

Is HR Legally Liable for a Boss’s Bad Behavior? — via Evil HR Lady, Suzanne Lucas

My Co-Worker Called Me A Mother F!@#%r — via Evil Skippy at Work

The 18 Hottest Background Screening Trends — via Newton Software Blog

OSHA steps into center ring in unusual accident probe — via Business Management Daily

Wage & Hour

FLSA Exemption Changes: Some Compensation Alternatives For Salaried Employees — via Wage and Hour Laws Blog

Gawker FLSA Collective Action Illustrates Clash of Technology and Law — via Above the Law

Reimbursing Employees for Business Expenses: The FLSA Kickback Rule — via Wage & Hour Insights

Is Intermittent FMLA Giving You a Chronic Headache? — via The Emplawyerologist

Eighth Circuit Holds Early Stage Illness Does Not Warrant FMLA Leave — via Minnesota Employment Law Report

Labor Relations

When Reviewing a Reinstatement Decision by an Arbitrator, Consider Over a Dozen Factors — via Dan Schwartz’s Connecticut Employment Law Blog

Update on NLRB Election Rules Challenge — via Workplace Prof Blog

The More the Merrier? A New Lawsuit Against the NLRB’s Election Rule Encounters an Early Setback — via Vorys on Labor

Con-Way Says No To Teamsters — via Labor Relations Today

Ambush Elections: Use the Force? — via Labor Relations Institute

Related Stories

WIRTW #364 (the “almost famous” edition)

WIRTW #363 (the “iron throne” edition)

WIRTW #362 (the #rockweek2015 edition)

From the American Council on Science and Health

-Featured Article -

Some consequences for Dr. Oz’s flim-flam “medical” advice - A Columbia faculty Chair and even Oprah seem to be distancing themselves from Dr. Oz. It’s about time, given both his unprofessional demeanor and potentially harmful“medical” advice on his TV show, and his attempt to distract attention from his own malfeasance. Read more

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Abuse-Deterrent Narcotics: A good idea with unintended consequences. - It is hardly news that the US is plagued by an enormous narcotic addiction problem and thanks to new technology, there is a method that minimize opioid abuse. But unfortunately, with drug abuse, nothing is simple. Read more.

Small Study, but big step forward for gene therapy - Gene therapy has been thought of as the holy grail of treatment for genetic disorders, but unfortunately the technique has been as elusive for researchers as the grail was for Arthur. However, a new study is bringing hope that gene therapy is closer to a reality than ever before. Read more.

Early trial for type 1 diabetes vaccine shows promise - Type 1 diabetes affects close to 1.25 million Americans, and those affected by the disease must take insulin injections daily. While there is no cure for type 1 diabetes, researchers have successfully completed the first step in developing a vaccine to prevent the condition. Read more.

Senate slated to take up cosmetic safety and regulation. Why? - Senators are pushing a bill to tighten FDA regulation of cosmetics — but why? One reason: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), whose antipathy to all things chemical is well known. Doesn’t the drug agency have bigger threats to regulate? Read more.

Newt Gingrich and the Times: They need to rethink their priorities. - Yes, Newt and The New York Times, we DO need more NIH funding. Especially for antibiotic research—something that was not even mentioned once in Gingrich’s op-ed on the topic. ACSH Advisors Dr. David Shlaes weighs in. Read more.

At home and abroad, vaccines are making waves in the news this week. - Measles in Florida, ignorance in Australia, and movement on the California bill to end “philosophical” vaccine exemptions led the vaccine news this week. Plus the WHO released some cautionary data leading up to World Immunization Week. Read more.

NY Times editorial and op-ed sows confusion between e-cigs and real ones. - New York Times tag-teams e-cigarettes, part of the media crusade orchestrated by the top levels of America’s “public health” and abetted by willing lackeys such as The Times, Matt Myers and ex-FDA head David Kessler. Read more.

American inactivity reaches new high, even higher for arthritis sufferers. - The Physical Activity Council recently released data on the activity levels of Americans in 2014 and the results are troubling, but not just for obesity. Arthritis sufferers are also missing the mark on physical activity. Read more.

GSK’s experimental shingles vaccine over 97 percent effective, according to researchers. - Shingles, caused by a reactivation of the dormant chickenpox virus, can be painful and life-altering. While Merck’s Zostavax is on the market, GSK’s experimental vaccine is reported to be much more effective across all age groups in a Phase III trial. Read more.

It’s early but new drug for lowering cholesterol looks promising. - A new way of lowering LDL cholesterol? Researchers have reviewed 24 clinical trials in which a new drug made with a monoclonal antibodies were used, it might be too soon to say for sure that it saves lives, but it the results look promising. Read more.

Some food labels probably overestimate calorie content. - When is a calorie not a calorie? Never, but the calories listed on food labels aren’t always correct. The news maybe disconcerting to dieters who rely on food labels to count calories but depending on the type of nutrients, the numbers may be as much as 25% too high. Read more.

Childhood bullying: More than just a temporary nuisance. - It is hardly news that bullying in school is a serious problem for the victims, which can lead to suicide, violent outbursts and depression. But, a new study shows that bullying can also be permanent. Read more.

Too much TV is not good for children. But how much is that? - TV viewing, even briefly, found to be associated with weight gain in children. Can TV cause obesity? No. Can sedentary behavior — for which TV may well be a surrogate — promote obesity? Yes it can, but how much is “too much.”So let’s not mix up cause and effect. Read more.

New study suggests salt has no effect on teens’ blood pressure, but potassium does. - US health officials have long warned that for teenagers, too much salt can raise lifelong risk of high blood pressure. A new study suggests that salt has no effect on teens’ blood pressure, however, a diet rich in potassium leads to more long-term health benefits. Read more.

California vaccine bill progresses through another committee. - California vaccination bill has passed another hurdle, this time the State Senate's Judiciary Committee, in its tortuous route to approval. Hopefully it will be finalized before the next outbreak of vaccine-preventable, contagious disease! Read more.

Prominent anti-GMO activist changed his mind after learning the science. - In his op-ed in Sunday’s NYTimes, former anti-GMO activist Mark Lynas explains his conversion to supporting biotechnology as a means of feeding the world’s increasing population, many of whom are or are fated to be malnourished without higher crop yields. Read more.

An effective vaccine plus a less contagious disease led to rubella eradication in the Americas. - Rubella, or more commonly German Measles, is no more — at least not in the Americas, according to global health authorities. In large part, we have an effective vaccine to thank for this success story. Read more.

The growing antibiotic crisis: Much talk, little action. - While we worry about minor issues, a really major one is barreling in on us. The WHO once again warns us of the consequences of the growing bacterial resistance crisis. Meanwhile, Tyson Foods helps a bit by removing antibiotics from its chicken. Read more.

Eating Homeopathic Cows - Just when you think things can't get any crazier, something like this comes around. Thanks to the European Commission, sick cattle will no longer be treated with medicine. Nope—just homeopathy. Should someone call PETA? ACSH’s Dr. Josh Bloom discusses on Science 2.0. Read more.

Europe has already pulled ahead of the US in drug approvals. Now, an HIV test too - Life can sure be funny. There have numerous debates about a longstanding “competition” between the US and EU. Which is more innovative? Where are drugs approved more quickly? A new at-home HIV test suggests that the US might be behind now. Read more.

U.S. Senators Vote To Block EPA’s Use Of ‘Secret Science’

Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation Reports Republican Senators Weigh How To Undercut Obama’s Climate Strategy

A Senate committee voted Tuesday to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from using ‘secret science’ to back its regulations. The vote in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee came after the GOP-controlled House repeatedly approved the bill. It previous was stalled in the Democratic-majority Senate. Under the measure, which President Obama has threatened to veto if the Senate passes it, the EPA would only be allowed to use scientific studies whose detailed results are posted publicly online. --Timothy Cama, The Hill, 28 April 2015

President Barack Obama and Congress are headed for another power clash on the international stage, as key Senate Republicans challenge his efforts to forge a global pact on climate change. The White House considers the agreement with nearly 200 nations a historic opportunity to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions world-wide. But some GOP senators view it as executive overreach, and they are quietly considering ways to warn other countries that the president doesn’t speak for them and may not be able to deliver on his promises to slash emissions. --Colleen McCain Nelson, The Wall Street Journal, 27 April 2015

India has voluntarily announced efforts to reduce emission intensity by 20-25 per cent by 2020 from the 2005 level without reckoning the emissions from agriculture sector, Lok Sabha was informed today. Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said during Question Hour that though India was a party to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, it did not have legally binding green house gas (GHG) emission reduction commitments. --Press Trust of India, 29 April 2015

India has pledged to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 20 - 25% in 2020 compared to 2005 levels. This target does not cover emissions from the agricultural sector. India proposed the target during the Copenhagen negotiations and submitted it to the Copenhagen Accord on 30 January 2010. --Climate Action Tracker

The Modi government has cancelled the registration of nearly 9,000 foreign-funded NGOs that failed to file their annual returns. The order, quietly issued on April 6, came days before the Centre’s effort to tighten the grip on prominent NGOs that receive foreign funds like Greenpeace India and the Ford Foundation. The security establishment has been advocating a hard line on foreign-funded NGOs for years. But it was only after a change of regime at the Centre that the home ministry started the groundwork for the crackdown. --Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Times, 28 April 2015

With news that Pope Francis will release a document articulating the importance of addressing climate change, a document that will be paired with a three-month-long campaign for individual parishes per the Times and a speech to Congress that is likely to broach the subject — can Pope Francis actually change Americans' minds? We're skeptics. Attitudes on global warming have been fairly flat for decades now, with those considering it a subject for worry comprising just over half of the population and those not worried at all slowly gaining in number. --Philip Bump, The Washington Post, 28 April 2015

There was no discussion at this week’s Vatican “conference” en route to Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change. What’s to discuss? Anybody who disagrees is an apostate, destined for damnation. The important point is to stop them bringing climate hell to earth. The event – along with an accompanying statement — confirmed that the Vatican has become an arm of the godless United Nations, and an unabashed shill for its murky Sustainable Development Goals. The Vatican’s climate change statement peddles eco-liberation theology based on the tedious demonization of markets and capitalism. --Peter Foster, Financial Post, 29 April 2015

Its hard to tell if we are witnessing mass climate hysteria, or just loathsome fear mongering to promote a political agenda, but it is oh so predictable, and oh so sickening. Every weather event and every tragedy is now due rising CO2. To paraphrase Dr. Viner, “natural storms and earthquakes are now just a thing of the past”. With the help of a few alarmist scientists, the media bombards us with the meme that “Everything is caused by rising CO2.” Today the Seth Bornstein prize for yellow climate journalism goes to Newsweek. --Jim Steele, Watts Up With That, 29 April 2015

Jean-Pascale van Ypersele, a Belgian activist scientist who is seeking leadership of the UN climate panel, approaches climate change not as a dispassionate scholar, but as a committed environmental activist. He is an honourary member of that granddaddy of green groups, the Club of Rome. He has accepted financing from Greenpeace and produced a report for that organization at the very same time he was serving as an IPCC official. This is outrageous behaviour. If a judge in a murder trial were writing reports for the prosecutor’s office, no one would believe for a second that he was impartial. He’d be dismissed. --Donna Laframboise, No Frakking Consensus, 28 April 2015

New Survey: Nearly Half Of Young Americans Are Climate Sceptics, 

The Younger They Are, The More Sceptical

In fact, the age group that least agreed with the statement that global warming is a fact and caused by CO2 emissions was that of 18 to 20-year-olds. The assumption that younger US adults are more liberal when it comes to global warming does not hold up; if anything, they are even more skeptical. --Emma Kromm, Harvard Political Review, 29 April 2015

Global Warming Trend Lowered As Satellite Temperature Data Is Adjusted

America’s Youth Are Rebelling Against Climate Dogma

University of Alabama climatologists have released the newest version of their satellite temperature datasets. Interestingly enough, the updated satellite data came with a surprise: it lowered the Earth’s warming trend. --Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller News, 29 April 2015
 

The updated UAH satellite temperature data comes as scientists are looking into allegations of data tampering by government climate agencies, like NASA and NOAA. Scientists skeptical of man-made global warming argue that data adjustments made by climate agencies may not be scientifically justified. “Many people have found the extent of adjustments to the data surprising,” Terence Kealey, former vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, said in a statement released by The Global Warming Policy Foundation. --Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller News, 29 April 2015
 

A group of scientists has been tasked with looking at the temperature record to find out if we're getting the straight story about global warming. The findings promise to be interesting. Maybe we'll finally get a definitive answer when the Global Warming Policy Foundation panel has finished its work. Whatever the results, we expect they'll withstand an audit. A lot of people will be closely scrutinizing this project. --Editorial, Investor’s Business Daily, 28 April 2015
 

If you’re a Chinese resident with a knack for predicting the weather, you might be best off keeping those skills to yourself. A new regulation from the Chinese Meteorological Administration bans amateurs and enthusiasts from publicizing their own weather reports, saying that only official authorities are allowed to offer such forecasts. --Te-Ping Chen, The Wall Street Journal, 29 April 2015

The worm is turning with an uptick in skeptical thinking coming from the late-Millennials (born after 1994) who are just now starting to reach a voting age. This group was raised on climate dogma and relentless propaganda, and the age-old rebellion of youth is starting to kick in. It used to be that the older the survey group, the more skeptical it was. Youth are easily fooled by passion and name-calling. But new evidence suggests the rebellion factor is kicking in. --Jo Nova, 30 April 2015
 

Despite the overwhelming evidence and scientific consensus amongst experts in the field, climate cynicism persists. Presumably, many doubt the ability of scientists to honestly report the data and trends they observe in the climate. While it might be easy to believe that this cynicism has an ideological flavor, Republicans doubting climate change is not the entire problem. According to the HPOP 2015 data, only 56 percent of respondents trusted scientists to do the right thing most or all of the time. --Matthew Estes, Harvard Political Review, 29 April 2015
 

The purpose of the trip to New York was to drum up US support for the think tank I founded in 2009, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and its campaigning arm, the Global Warming Policy Forum, in the company of our outstanding director, Benny Peiser. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, the GWPF has a global reach, and its international influence is growing. Moreover, unlike the US think tanks involved in the climate change issues, we also (to use the American expression) reach across the aisle: we are rigorously non-partisan, and in that sense non-political. --Nigel Lawson, The Spectator, 2 May 2015
 

China is set to ban unofficial weather forecasts. Regulations to take force on Friday ban predictions on a wide variety of indicators from "wind speed, air temperature, humidity" to predicting disasters like "typhoons", "sandstorms" and "haze", according to the China Meteorological Administration. The China Meteorological Administration has said previously the rules are intended to prevent public panic caused by false predictions. --AFP, 30 April 2015

The Sun Is Almost Completely Blank Weakest

Solar Cycle In More Than A Century

The sun is almost completely blank. The main driver of all weather and climate, the entity which occupies 99.86% of all of the mass in our solar system, the great ball of fire in the sky has gone quiet again during what is likely to be the weakest sunspot cycle in more than a century. The sun's X-ray output has flatlined in recent days and NOAA forecasters estimate a scant 1% chance of strong flares in the next 24 hours. Not since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906 has there been a solar cycle with fewer sunspots. --Paul Dorian, Vencore Weather, 30 April 2015

Nations missed a self-imposed deadline to firm up pledges worth $4.7 billion (4.2 billion euros) to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) by Thursday, mustering arrangements for less than $4 billion, the fund said. This leaves it short of the threshold to start funding projects to curb dangerous climate change, GCF executive director Hela Cheikhrouhou told journalists by teleconference from Songdo, South Korea. --Agence France-Presse, 30 April 2015
India and Japan have emphasised that coal will continue to be the predominant fuel for energy production for both the Asian countries. India’s energy consumption is likely to double. --Business Standard, 30 April 2015

The Economic Council of the ruling Christian Democratic Party (CDU) wants to water down Germany’s current climate target for 2020. “It was a mistake not to reduce the CO2 target to 30 percent by 2020 while phasing out of nuclear energy, ” the Secretary General of the Economic Council, Wolfgang Steiger, criticised. The CDU’s Economic Council Secretary is now proposing a reduced climate target: “A realistic target corridor of 35 to 40 percent now needs to be established.” --Rheinische Post, 1 May 2015

Thirty years ago, he would have certainly been honored as “Master Architect of Socialism” or “Chief Activist of Socialist Labour” ... east of the Elbe. Sigmar Gabriel is doing everything possible to re-establish a comprehensively planned economy in Germany: the green energy transition pushes the gates to energy-socialism far open. Already a whole republic of green electricity councils establishes determined plan-prices, solar and wind comrades produce arbitrary amounts of power, the population pays compulsory levies, supply and demand are suspended and party politics determine plan fulfilment figures. --Wolfram Weimer, Wirtschafts Woche, 24 April 2015

Black Violence Matters

April 27, 2015 by Daniel Greenfield 359 Comments

Baltimore has the fifth highest big city murder rate in the country. The four cities ahead of it are Detroit, New Orleans, Newark and St. Louis. All these cities have something in common. Not racism, but race.  The killers and the dead are black.

The murder rate in Baltimore stood at 37.4 to 100,000 people. There have already been 63 murders this year. Fifty-six of the victims were black. Of the 16 murders in the last 30 days, 14 of the victims were black.  If black lives really mattered, then black violence would matter. But that would mean taking responsibility for a broken culture which few leaders in the black community are ready to do.  Instead the death of Freddie Gray in police custody became the excuse for another round of #BlackLivesMatter riots, looting and assaults. Rather than dealing with the violence killing black Baltimore, it became another excuse for more of the same.......For black lives to start really mattering, black violence has to matter.......To Read More.....

 

 

Eyes On Education

Report on School Choice Avoids Facts, Protects Status Quo - Teachers unions and other defenders of the education status quo are terrified of school choice. As a result, they frequently present misleading reports as truthful.…..

 

Does Congress Now Believe that Self-Government Is No Longer Possible?  Two recent phenomena suggest that we have become a nation of uninformed voters led by unquestioning reporters and education officials. The first phenomenon is the reason offered by many in the media for parents opting their children out of a Common Core-based test. The movement is growing to unprecedented numbers.  The second is the lack of inquiry in the reporting on the decision by an increasing number of colleges and universities to accept SBAC’s cutoff score for its grade 11 “college readiness” test as an indication that students who pass are ready for college and don’t need any remediation.  Many in the media, it seems, have bought into the idea that the growth of the opt-out movement reflects a fear by parents of increased academic demands on their children. For example, in an Associated Press story on April 18, 2015, Christina Cassidy, says: “Thousands of students are opting out of new standardized tests aligned to the Common Core standards, defying the latest attempt by states to improve academic performance.”   Although no parents are quoted saying that they want their children to avoid more academically rigorous state tests, that doesn’t deter our judgmental reporter.....

My Take - Strange article, but it does ask a question at the end that needs answering. She asks;

"Does Congress really believe that we would be better off being governed by the staff in state departments of education or the US Department of Education than by locally elected school boards, even if they are all informed by the same uninformed reporters and college administrators?"

The answer is simple. Yes they should! Parents are the ones most concerned about their children's education and will abandon what fails and adopt what works, versus an education that's become tremendously expensive and terribly inadequate. And why is that? Is it because the parents and their local school board were making all the decision or because decisions were being forced on them by the federal government?  If there's a failure here the fault must be placed at the feet of the Department of Education, their myrmidons at the state level and the driving force for maintaining the level of inadequacy in public education that exists today - The teachers unions and their members.  Members, who based on the value of the product they’re turning out,  are overpriced, inadequate, underworked, under smart, pampered and unfixable because it’s almost impossible to fire a teacher. If the teachers of this nation were producing nuts and bolts the manufacturers would reject them. 

Are we Cambodia yet? - Laura Hollis warns against 'steel-booted certainty' of today's speech silencers.  In Roland Joffe’s 1984 film, “The Killing Fields,” we see the Cambodian Communist revolution and its aftermath through the eyes of Dith Pran, the film’s main character. In one iconic scene in a Khmer Rouge re-education camp, Pran looks on while children march in a circle, fists pumping in the air, chanting Khmer Rouge propaganda. Elsewhere, a group of seated adults are encouraged by party leaders to admit their bourgeois pasts and come forward. They are promised a fresh start in the “new” Cambodia. This, of course, is a ruse; having identified themselves, they are then taken out and shot.

Anyone who has studied history will recognize these as signature tactics of contemporary extremist political movements, not only in Cambodia but in North Vietnam, China, Laos, North Korea, Cuba and every socialist republic in the former Soviet Union. Truth and inquiry are replaced by propaganda. Education becomes indoctrination. All speech save that which has been pre-approved is forbidden. Those with opposing viewpoints are mocked, dehumanized and finally silenced – typically by imprisonment or death…… By way of example, college campuses, intended to be bastions of vigorous inquiry, have taken on a vague whiff of leftist authoritarianism……. student comments included, “You don’t question when someone you have privilege over speaks to you about oppression,” and “Don’t tell me what’s oppressive. I tell you; you shut up and listen.”  You can’t say “X.” You can’t speak. You shut up. You don’t question.