Displaying posts published in

August 2019

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Tear-Stained Flogs of Climate Science Tony Thomas

By on August 28th, 2019

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2019/08/the-tear-stained-flogs-of-climate-science/

“Uncontrollable weeping, depression, wee hours angst, kiddie stories that can only be read by the cognoscenti as portents of global doom — such is the lot of elite climateers. Yet they struggle on in their misery, alerting a dying and heedless world to the peril only they can see and, of course, their dire need for more grants and funding.”

Climate scientists of the apocalyptic persuasion are melting faster than Greenland ice sheets.  They sob, they rage, they suffer from what shrinks now call “environmental melancholia” or “pre-traumatic stress disorder” — mental anguish about stuff that hasn’t happened. They just can’t understand why the public – i.e. the befuddled Australian electorate – laughs off  computer-generated scenarios of the end of civilisation and, maybe, the end of the human species.

The doyen of Australia’s rising catastrophists, Dr Joelle Gergis, disclosed to August’s edition of The Monthly how she sobs about the climate peril during her kerosene-fuelled air travel.[1] Then she switches to “volcanically-explosive rage” because the hoi polloi don’t want to pay for windmill electricity fantasies.

Environmental scientist Dr Katharine Wilkinson is quoted by Mother Jones (circ. 200,000):  “For some, it’s anger or rage. For me, it’s deep grief… There is no way for me not to have a broken heart most days.”  At a recent panel discussion, she  blurted, “I have no child and I have one dog, and thank God he’ll be dead in 10 years.”

Senior weepniks include Yvo de Boer, former Executive Secretary of the UN group controlling the IPCC. Running the Bali UN climate summit, he had to be led off the podium in tears after losing a procedural motion  “as he worked round the clock to get a deal to protect the Earth from warming.”

The scientists’ pals in the media have got infected too: “Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist turned journalist, has written about his own efforts to contend with climate-change–induced depression:  ‘It’s only getting worse. I confess: I need help.”

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Former Army Captain Describes How Social Justice Warrior Policies Harm Military Readiness Debra Heine –

By on August 28th, 2019

amgreatness.com/2019/08/27/woke-military-former-army-captain-describes-how-sjw-policies-harm-military-readiness/

A former Army officer says former President Barack Obama’s social engineering policies did great harm to the U.S. military and the nation is still “paying a price” for it.

Former U.S. Army Captain James Hasson—a decorated Afghanistan veteran and now a contributor to the Washington Examiner—appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight Monday evening to talk about his new book, Stand Down: How Social Justice Warriors Are Sabotaging America’s Military. 

“The Army that I joined during Barack Obama’s first term was nothing like the Army that I left at the end of his second, Hasson said. “Social justice warriors imposed a progressive agenda on the military with no regard for the harm they caused to military readiness or national security. We’re still paying the price and the American people deserve to know.”

“Traditionally conservatives believe that the left goes after the military by inadequately funding it—just not giving it enough money,” Carlson noted. “You describe in this book something that is far more sinister and effective where they basically try to rot it from the inside.”

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

The spy in your wallet: Credit cards have a privacy problem By Geoffrey A. Fowler

By on August 28th, 2019

https://www.washingtonpost.com
In a privacy experiment, we bought one banana with the new Apple Card — and another with the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa from Chase. Here’s who tracked, mined and shared our data.

You might think my 29-cent swipe at Target would be just between me and my bank. Heavens, no. My banana generated data that’s probably worth more than the banana itself. It ended up with marketers, Target, Amazon, Google and hedge funds, to name a few.

Oh, the places a banana will go in the sprawling card-data economy. Despite a federal privacy law covering cards, I found that six types of businesses could mine and share elements of my purchase, multiplied untold times by other companies they might have passed it to. Credit cards are a spy in your wallet — and it’s time that we add privacy, alongside rewards and rates, to how we evaluate them.

Tech columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler tracked the same purchase at Target with two kinds of credit cards: the Chase Amazon Prime Rewards Visa and the Apple Card. (James Pace-Cornsilk/The Washington Post)

Apple, branching out from gadgets, just began offering a needed alternative. The new Apple Card’s best attribute is privacy (though the fashion faux pas of its white titanium has gotten more attention). Apple restrains bank partner Goldman Sachs from selling or sharing your data with marketers. But the Apple Card, which runs on the Mastercard network, doesn’t introduce much new technology to protect you from a lot of other hands grabbing at the till.

With my banana test — two bananas, one purchased with the popular Chase Amazon Prime Rewards Visa and the other with Apple’s Mastercard — I hoped to uncover the secret life of my credit card data. But in this murky industry, I was only partly successful. Unlike my other recent technology experiments, such as watching what my iPhone does while I sleep, I couldn’t hack into my cards to follow the data.

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BOOKS, EDUCATION Comments turned off

How To Replace Howard Zinn’s Communist Account Of U.S. History For American Kids By Joy Pullmann

By on August 28th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/28/replace-howard-zinns-communist-account-u-s-history-american-kids/

Americans’ affections for and knowledge of their country need to be fed. The lovely new history ‘Land of Hope’ does so. Another new book, ‘Debunking Howard Zinn,’ provides medicine to those food cannot restore.

The perfect companion accompanied my family’s trip West this summer in the modern covered wagon: A new, single-volume book of U.S. history. As our RV motored across the plains, I read of how they were discovered and settled. I looked across the prairies, the badlands, and the mountains and imagined myself coming in an ox-drawn cart instead of a motor vehicle with a gas stove and bathroom.

“Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story,” by University of Oklahoma historian Wilfred McClay, is extremely readable. It’s written in a conversational but not casual tone, and thus approachable to readers from around age ten onward (if the ten-year-old is accustomed to reading large books like “The Lord of the Rings,” as mine is). An attractive writing style may be its first virtue, because an open door is required for people to enter.

A second virtue is the book’s brevity. To be sure, it is a large and somewhat heavy volume, of 429 pages not including the end material. But that is not too much gas for racing across approximately 500 years of history. I found myself constantly wishing to hear more about the people and ideas in the book, and sad but understanding to instead be whisked away to the next set. Thankfully, McClay provides an extensive “additional reading” list to help satisfy a problem inherent to writing a one-volume overview of American history.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Judge Jeanine Drops Bold New Book: ‘Radicals, Resistance and Revenge’ By Bryan Preston

By on August 28th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/judge-jeanine-drops-bold-new-book-radicals-resistance-and-revenge/

“Donald Trump.”

The mere mention of the name makes liberals go apoplectic. It makes the media lose its collective mind. It’s like Voldemort in Harry Potter combined with Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984 – to the left, Trump’s the name that must not be mentioned, but when it is it must be scorned and hated. “Orange man bad!”

The very thought of a Trump presidency drove some Americans mad. It sparked FBI agents to create an “insurance policy” that now looks very much like a conspiracy against an American presidential candidate and – after he won – the sitting President of the United States. That “Russia Russia Russia!” conspiracy cost millions of taxpayer dollars and spilled billions of pixels, and in the end proved to be a hoax.

There was no collusion between Donald Trump, or anyone in his orbit, or any American at all, and the Russians to impact the 2016 election. None.

Judge Jeanine Pirro is out with a blockbuster of a book that investigates the Russia hoax. Radicals, Resistance and Revenge: The Left’s Plot to Remake America blows up Russia gate with a deep dive into the deep state.

Pirro opens with a crushing blow: Russiagate came up empty!

“So, the special counsel comes out with its thirty-four indictments and a final report. None of the indictments involved Donald Trump, his family, the Trump campaign, or any American, for that matter, colluding with Russia. There was full cooperation by the White House, which never claimed executive privilege and handed over more than one million documents…If after two years, 19 prosecutors, 40 investigators, more than 2,800 subpoenas, nearly 500 search warrants, several grand juries, and $34 million spent there was not a scintilla of evidence to the collusion claim, whose idea was it to start the investigation and why?”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Bernie Sanders’ Red Roots Are Starting To Show

By on August 28th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/08/28/bernie-sanders-has-earned-his-sandersista-label/

Sen. Bernie Sanders has said publicly that he doesn’t believe government should own the means of production. Yet he appears on national television last week and agrees there should be a “federal takeover” of the energy sector. His Marxist slip is showing.

“When I use the world socialist — and I know some people aren’t comfortable about it — I’m saying that it is imperative” to “create a government that works for all and not just the few,” the Vermont Democratic lawmaker said in 2015.

“I don’t believe,” he continued, “government should own the means of production,” which of course is a hallmark of socialism.

That version is quite different from the 1976 Sanders, who said “I favor the public ownership of utilities, banks and major industries.”

2015 Sanders is also inconsistent with the Sanders of spring 2019, who, according to People’s World, which claims to be the “voice for progressive change and socialism” in America, “will propose workers take ownership of individual plants and businesses, removing them from the hands of the bosses and financiers who back them.”

Ownership won’t change hands unless a coercive government becomes involved and socializes business. The workers can’t simply vote companies over to themselves.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinians: Why Allow Facts to Get in the Way? by Bassam Tawil

By on August 28th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14782/palestinians-facts-terrorism

Why are the details about Rina Shnerb’s hometown and her age worth mentioning? Because the Palestinian media has again engaged in a campaign of fabrications and lies to justify the terror attack and the murder of an innocent Jewish teenager.

The Palestinian media, however, does not feel comfortable reporting the facts about the terror attack. In the eyes of Palestinian new editors and journalists, Rina was a “settler” and a “soldier.” By using such terms, the Palestinians are trying to create the impression that she was not an innocent teenager, but a Jew who lived in a settlement and was even serving in the IDF.

Finally, it is important to note that many Palestinian media outlets and officials continue to refer to Israel as “occupied Palestine.” They see zero difference between a Jew living in the West Bank and a Jew living inside Israel. For them, all Jews are settlers and colonizers, and all cities inside Israel — Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Eilat, as well as Lod, the hometown of Rina — are “occupied.” In the eyes of Palestinians, in fact all of Israel is “occupied” and a “settlement.”

When Palestinian terrorists fired three rockets at Sderot on August 25, Palestinian media outlets reported that Sderot is a “settlement.” In case anyone had doubts, Sderot is an Israeli city in the Negev Desert, not a “settlement.” By using the term “settlement,” the Palestinians are again trying to create the impression that a city it is a legitimate target for rocket attacks because it is an “illegal settlement.”

Rina Shnerb, the 17-year-old teenager who was killed in a Palestinian terror attack in the West Bank on August 23, was born and raised in the Israeli city of Lod. She had never lived in a settlement in the West Bank. Moreover, she never served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) or any security agency, as she was too young to be recruited for service.

Rina was killed in a bomb explosion when she and her family were visiting the popular Ein Buvin spring near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Her father, Eitan, and brother, Dvir, were injured when an explosive device planted near the spring went off.

Why are the details about Rina’s hometown and her age worth mentioning? Because the Palestinian media has again engaged in a campaign of fabrications and lies to justify the terror attack and the murder of an innocent Jewish teenager.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

What Will China Do with the Hong Kong Protests? by Lawrence A. Franklin

By on August 28th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14783/hong-kong-protests

The real “elephant in the room” not being addressed, however, is what the Hong Kong protests are really about: 2047, when Hong Kong is supposed to be handed over to China without any “one country, two systems” protection. What then?

Protests in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (SAR) — which began in early June with demonstrators denouncing a proposed law to permit the extradition of SAR residents to the mainland to be tried in Chinese Communist courts — have entered their 12th week and show no signs of abating. If anything, they are becoming increasingly strident, with calls for the resignation of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s administration, among other broadening demands . The unfolding events present the Communist Party leadership in Beijing with a serious dilemma: to quell the protests with military force or wait until they die down.

According to a recent analysis in Bloomberg:

“In theory, [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] could quickly do away with Hong Kong’s autonomy and activate the city’s garrison overnight. But the likelihood of mobilizing troops remains low and the fallout from doing so — for both China and Xi personally — is potentially much higher than dealing with the political and economic repercussions of the protests, not least because he’s already engaged in a damaging trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump.”

The Hong Kong protests reportedly were a topic of debate at this year’s annual meeting of current and former Communist Chinese leaders, which was held in Beidaihe in early August. The discussions likely included possible courses of action that the Xi government could take, such as encouraging Hong Kong’s business community to call for an end to the demonstrations, for the purpose of restoring economic stability by reversing recent negative trends in retail sales, tourist-generated income and nervousness among foreign investors.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Taxpayers Forced to Cover Gender Surgery for Abuser and Rapist Daniel Greenfield …..???!!

By on August 28th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/274763/taxpayers-forced-cover-gender-surgery-abuser-and-daniel-greenfield

Have we reached peak human rights yet?

The state of Idaho has been ordered by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to provide gender confirmation surgery to inmate Adree Edmo.

According to Boise State Public Radio, the panel of judges agreed with a federal judge that it’s medically necessary and not doing so would violate the eighth amendment.

Edmo was convicted for sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy when he was 22.

The Framers truly intended Cruel and Unusual Punishment to mean that taxpayers are obligated to fund lifestyle surgery for child rapists.

The news outlet reports that Edmo suffers from gender dysphoria, which experts say can cause a person severe distress. He has twice attempted self-castration.

Without costing taxpayers anything.

The media, which advocates for Edmo, has little interest in his victim.

Brady Summers dated Mason Edmo, now Adree Edmo, for two years. It was his first relationship since coming out. It did not end well.

“He would beat me on a constant basis,” Summers said. “I had to keep my head low. I had to be careful what I said, careful what I did. And the final straw of me escaping that was him beating me with a frying pan.”

Edmo went to jail, but tried to reconcile with Summers when he got out. It also did not end well. Not long after that, Edmo was in prison for sexual abuse of a child under the age of 16. It was then that Edmo began to get treatment for gender dysphoria, or conflict over feeling like he, Mason, should be a female. Edmo was also diagnosed with “gender identity disorder” and now identifies as a female and goes by the name Adree. She says that she was living as a female before she went to prison. Summers says Edmo never showed signs of either of these conditions, but was always a masculine, gay man.

“Never once indicated anything of gender dysphoria or sexual indifference,” he said. “He was a predator. He, on several occasions, had his way with me. It was brutal.”

More great work by the 9th circuit court.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Who’s Funding Illegal Palestinian Settlements in Area C: Part 3 Terrorist links. August 28, 2019 Edwin Black

By on August 28th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274712/whos-funding-illegal-palestinian-settlements-area-edwin-black

Hundreds of millions of euros flow annually from European nations to fund illegal Palestinian settlements in Area C. Under the Oslo Accords, only Israel can issue construction permits. The current rapid expansion plan dispenses with any coordination with Israel.

According to Israeli activist watchdog groups, such as Regavim, during the last five years, illegal Palestinian settlements and infrastructure have sprawled across more than 9,000 dunams (9 square km) in more than 250 Area C locations, supported by more than 600 kilometers of illegally constructed access roads and more than 112,000 meters of retaining walls and terracing. This massive works project is being conducted in broad daylight. Palestinians no longer apply for permits in Area C; they deny Israel’s right to issue them. Now, they just start building, powered by millions of annual euros in joint projects with the EU.

How is the money routed? Among the many NGO recipients, one name keeps appearing:Union of Agricultural Work Committees.

A 2012 French Foreign Ministry report listing a €354,489 multi-year water development project states: “The first action proposed under this Action Plan is being carried out by the Union of Agriculture Work Committees,” adding, “UAWC … is responsible for project management.” Agence Francaise de Dévelopment (AFD) committed €130,000 to the UAWC, also in 2012, according to a 2012 Ernst and Young audit of the NGO Development Center. In February 2019, AFD also announced, “Union of Agricultural Workers Committees and relevant stakeholders … [would be] granted by AFD amounts up to 232,000 euros out of a budget of 650,000 euros.”

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