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May 2020

Green Electricity Delusions By Norman Rogers

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/green_electricity_delusions.html

With global warming the alleged science is so complicated that nobody, including the global warming scientists, can really understand what is going on. Green electricity, mostly solar and wind, is different. It’s relatively clear cut. No supercomputers spewing out terabytes of confusing data are needed.

Green electricity is quite useless. The latest trend in green electricity is wind or solar with battery backup. This green electricity costs about nine times more than the fossil fuel electricity it displaces. The true cost is hidden from the public by hidden subsidies and fake accounting. (My book, Dumb Energy, goes into great analytical detail.)

Green electricity is ineffective for preventing climate change. The climate change alarmists James Hansen and Michael Shellenberger make the case forcefully in this video. Hansen is the most important and most famous scientist warning against climate change. His followers consider him to be the greatest authority on the dangers of climate change. He calls wind and solar energy a “grotesque idea” and a “fantasy.”

It’s true that we won’t run out of wind or sunshine. That doesn’t mean that wind and sunshine are effective tools for making electricity. They aren’t. The exhaustion of fossil fuels has been predicted many times. The current situation is that fossil fuels are in great over supply and the prices have crashed to low levels. Natural gas, currently the most economical fossil fuel for generating electricity, is painfully cheap and is being extensively exported from the United States to other countries. Natural gas from wells, not served by pipelines to take it to market, is burned or flared to get rid of it. Only the more valuable oil is kept. Thanks to fracking, we have plenty of natural gas for the next 100-years.

Biden: ‘You Ain’t Black’ If You Can’t Decide Between Me and Trump By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biden-you-aint-black-if-you-cant-decide-between-me-and-trump/

Joe Biden said in a Friday interview that a black voter who can’t decide between him and President Trump in the 2020 elections isn’t really black.

“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Biden told radio DJ Charlamagne tha God on The Breakfast Club. (The comments come at around the 17:15 mark.)

“It don’t have nothing to do with Trump, it has to do with the fact — I want something for my community,” Charlamagne responded.

The comments came after Biden said his campaign was looking into “multiple” African-American women to pick as his running mate.

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Republican African American senator currently in office, slammed Biden’s remarks.

U.S. Colleges Have Accepted $6 Billion in Undisclosed Donations from Foreign Governments, DOE Probe Finds By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/u-s-colleges-have-accepted-6-billion-in-undisclosed-donations-from-foreign-governments-doe-probe-finds/

The Department of Education has discovered at least $6 billion in unreported donations to American universities from adversarial foreign nations, Townhall reported on Friday.

The DoE revealed its updates in a May 19 letter to Congress and a subsequent briefing to several ranking House Republicans who are conducting an investigation into the foreign funding of U.S. educational institutions.

The investigation was spurred by increasing reports of Chinese funding at U.S. educational institutions, including the prevalence of Confucius institutes on U.S. campuses. Confucius institutes are Chinese-government funded centers which ostensibly promote Chinese language and culture, but which U.S. agencies have warned spread propaganda for China’s government.

“Some [Institutions of Higher Education] leaders are starting to acknowledge the threat of foreign academic espionage and have been working with federal law enforcement to address gaps in reporting and transparency,” the letter from the DoE’s Office of the General Counsel reads. “However, the evidence suggests massive investments of foreign money have bred dependency and distorted the decision-making, mission, and values of too many institutions.”

It’s Okay to Acknowledge Good COVID-19 News By Rich Lowry

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/coronavirus-pandemic-ok-to-acknowledge-good-news/

Among progressives and journalists, there’s a widespread sense that no one should say things have gotten better . . . or people are going to die.

It’s not March anymore.

The coronavirus has taken a heartbreaking toll on Americans, but the course of the virus is not the same as it was a few months ago. We are on the other side of the curve. There are encouraging signs all over the country, and no early indications of a reopening debacle.

The question now is whether the media and political system can absorb good news on the virus, which is often ignored or buried under misleading storylines.

The press has a natural affinity for catastrophes, which make compelling viewing and good copy. The pandemic is indeed a once-in-a-generation story. So, the media are naturally loath to shift gears and acknowledge that the coronavirus has begun to loosen its grip.

Meanwhile, progressives and many journalists have developed a near-theological commitment to the lockdowns, such that any information that undermines them is considered unwelcome, even threatening. This accounts for the widespread sense that no one should say things have gotten better . . . or people are going to die.

Alex Berenson: Coronavirus crisis — How Facebook and YouTube are trying to control information about COVID

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/coronavirus-facebook-youtube-control-information-alex-berenson

As coronavirus lockdowns enter their third month, social media giants are tightening censorship against people who protest lockdowns and raise evidence the virus may be less risky than initially thought.

YouTube has pulled videos from scientists and physicians, even those with top-tier credentials. Meanwhile, Facebook has blocked efforts to organize protests against lockdowns.

Facebook’s stance is particularly problematic because as the largest social media network, it may gain from lockdowns, which force friends or community groups to rely on virtual gatherings instead of real-life meetings.

Investors certainly seem to believe the lockdowns have not hurt Facebook. Its stock rose 5 percent to an all-time high on Wednesday. Shares in Google’s parent company, which also owns YouTube, also are near an all-time high.

Twitter, the third major social media company, is taking a more open and pro-free speech stance. Twitter allows debate about whether the societal risks of lockdowns might be worse than the dangers of coronavirus. (My own Twitter following @alexberenson has grown 15-fold since March, and Twitter does not appear to be censoring me.)

As private corporations, social media outlets are not bound by the First Amendment and can remove speech that violates their guidelines. However, given their reach and the growing political battle over lockdowns amid questions about their efficacy, their censorship actions leave them at risk of backlash.

Miscalculating Risk: Confusing Scary With Dangerous By Brian S. Wesbury & Strider Elass

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/22/miscalculating_risk_confusing_scary_with_dangerous.html

The coronavirus kills, everyone knows it. But this isn’t the first deadly virus the world has seen, so what happened? Why did we react the way we did? One answer is that this is the first social media pandemic. News and narratives travel in real-time right into our hands.

This spreads fear in a way we have never experienced. Drastic and historically unprecedented lockdowns of the economy happened and seemed to be accepted with little question.

We think the world is confusing “scary” with “dangerous.” They are not the same thing. It seems many have accepted as fact that coronavirus is one of the scariest things the human race has ever dealt with. But is it the most dangerous? Or even close?

There are four ways to categorize any given reality. It can be scary but not dangerous, scary and dangerous, dangerous but not scary, or not dangerous and not scary.

Clearly, COVID-19 ranks high on the scary scale. A Google news search on the virus brings up over 1.5 billion news results. To date, the virus has tragically killed nearly 100,000 people in the United States, and more lives will be lost. But on a scale of harmless to extremely dangerous, it would still fall into the category of slightly to mildly dangerous for most people, excluding the elderly and those with preexisting medical conditions.

Twenty Questions for Barack Obama Peter Kirsanow

www.nationalreview.com/corner/twenty-questions-for-barack-obama/

Over the last two weeks, considerable evidence has been released related to what appears to be a major, historic political scandal. The declassification of Susan Rice’s CYA email to herself alone raises a multitude of questions. Yet the mainstream media, who’ve suddenly become invincibly incurious about Russia-related matters, have posed not one question, either directly or indirectly, to the person to whom all the players in the scandal reported: Barack Obama.

Since the Senate Judiciary Committee has signaled that the former president won’t be called to testify, it falls to the media to get some answers. But members of the media have avoided questioning Obama on the entire Russia issue for the last three years.

Maybe these reporters are suffering from a form of writer’s block. But this isn’t a heavy lift. Let’s help them with a few preliminary softballs:

The August 5, 2017 email from Peter Strzok to Lisa Page states, “The WH is running this.”

What is “this”?
Who in the WH was running it?
Was it at your direction?
Did the person report to you?
What did that person report and when?

Palestinians: Eating with a Jew is a Crime by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16029/palestinians-eating-with-jews

Economic cooperation does not serve the agenda of the terrorists. Terrorists want Palestinians to continue living in abject poverty so that they can go on blaming Israel for Palestinian misery. Unemployed Palestinians are much easier to target for recruitment as terrorists than Palestinians who are able to feed their families.

Many Saudis who are furious with the Palestinian threats and smear campaign against their country for its alleged rapprochement with Israel have responded through social media platforms by strongly condemning the Palestinians. Saudi pundits are now believed to be behind a trending hashtag on Twitter, entitled, “#The_Palestinian_cause_is_not_my_cause.”

The Palestinian smear campaign is taking place amid silence from the international community and media. They seem indifferent to a rather crucial question: if a Palestinian or Muslim cannot share a meal with an Israeli or watch a TV drama about the life of Jews in Arab countries without being labelled a criminal, how would any Palestinian leader dare to sign a peace agreement with Israel?

It is no secret that many Palestinians are opposed to any form of normalization with Israel. For the past several years, these Palestinians have been waging smear campaigns against any Palestinians and Arabs who have allegedly engaged in normalization activities with Israel, particularly meetings between the two sides.

It appears, however, that the bar has just been lowered. Recently, eating with an Israeli or even watching a television series that sheds a positive light on Jews has come to constitute the despised “normalization” and is considered a crime and an act of treason.

Stacey Abrams Says She Will Step Down As Governor If Asked To Run For VP

https://babylonbee.com/news/stacey-abrams-says-she-would-step-down-from-governorship-if-asked-to-run-for-vp

Sitting at the governor’s desk at the Georgia state capitol, Stacey Abrams told reporters she would step down from her governorship if asked to run for vice president.

“If Biden asks me to run, I’ll need to focus on that full-time,” she said. “As much as I love running this great state, if the country needs me, I’ll be there.”

A security guard patrolling the capitol building then entered the governor’s office. “Come on, Stacey. Time to go. How many times do we have to have this talk?”

CDC Admits They’ve Been Looking Through Microscope Upside Down This Whole Time

https://babylonbee.com/news/cdc-admits-theyve-been-looking-through-microscope-upside-down-this-whole-time

Oops! The CDC has revealed that its chief researchers have been looking through their microscopes upside down this entire pandemic.

“Oh man! I wonder if this will change our projections,” said one scientist as a visiting scientist from the private sector showed him the proper way to look through the device. “Hey, you can see the sample a whole lot clearer this way. Neato! Hoo boy, were we way off on everything!”

“No wonder our predictions were completely opposite of what happened! No wonder we keep having to revise our guidelines! Silly us! Oh well — hope we didn’t destroy the entire economy based on those faulty models from back when we were looking through the microscopes upside down.”

Those rascally scientists! What goofballs!

At publishing time, NASA had admitted the earth was only 6,000 years old after realizing they had been looking through their telescopes backward all this time.