Dana Mathewson

Oh, Jeez...

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/17/placemat-propaganda-harvard-sorry-for-giving-students-tabletop-talking-points/

Harvard is getting students ready for the holidays by handing out pointers to help them debate tuition-paying grownups who don’t know a micro-aggression from mistletoe and are unclear on why college campuses must be cleansed of all things offensive.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:45 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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By Daren Jonescu "What was once unthinkable is now unstoppable," boasted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. More ominous words were never spoken. Ban was congratulating himself and nearly two hundred of his global elite cohorts on their achievement in signing the Paris Agreement on climate change. In classic progressive style, however, his pep rally sloganeering was also a none-too-subtle threat, à la "Forward." For as the Agreement makes perfectly clear, the "what" that was once unthinkable, but is now seemingly unstoppable, is the world's drunken march into international neo-Marxism, aka global tyranny. The great revolution of political progressivism was its creation of an intermediary mechanism, the administrative state, to filter the relation between the oppressors and the oppressed. The regulatory bureaucracy depersonalizes tyranny, diluting its real meaning with legalistic paperwork and soporific incrementalism. The bureaucratic labyrinth, with its officious, abstract, uncommunicative language, is the perfect guardian for the craven greed and power lust that occupy the offices on the top floor but dare not show their true faces in a "democratic" society. With obscure jargon and banal committee reports, the administrative state trivializes the property-obliteration of confiscatory taxes, the horror of government-normalized mass killing (from "abortion on demand" to "palliative care"), the moral outrage of state-controlled child-rearing ("public school"), and the freedom-slaying thousand cuts of state-micromanaged daily life, recasting them as mere annoyances, equivalent to household chores. History will someday show that the great coup of progressive authoritarianism was its translation of despotic decrees into the language of white papers, statistical analyses, and policy proposals. In the spirit of this world-historical transformation, the United Nations' Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, at the conclusion of its twenty-first session, has issued the document, "Adoption of the Paris Agreement." True to form, the document is dominated by nineteen pages of procedural hokum before finally getting around to including the twelve-page Agreement itself. The Paris Agreement is repetitive, dull, and full of provisos and addenda tacked on to appease various factions. A trudge through this slag heap, however, turns up some nuggets that more than justify the prideful declarations of Ban Ki-moon, John Kerry, and the rest of our masters. The general aims and principles of the Agreement are announced in Article 2, beginning with paragraph 1: 1. This Agreement…aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, including by: (a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels…; (b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production; (c) Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development. "Global cooling," having been revised as "global warming" in light of Gaia's frustrating non-compliance, and then renamed "climate change" when the relation between increased GHGs and global temperatures failed to support the revamped computer models, is nevertheless to be combatted on the implicit presupposition that those global warming predictive models were correct all along, even while the U.N. retains the deliberately evasive name "climate change." The entire Agreement is predicated on the assumptions that (a) the global mean temperature definitely will rise by more than 2 °C over the next century, despite the awkward absence of recent warming commensurate with rapidly increasing GHG levels, and (b) that the only means of preventing this calamity is fascistic economic intervention. Almost two hundred national governments, including those of the entire developed world, signed on to this wildly speculative but politically transformative proposition. The practical mechanism for achieving the desired outcome -- a state-managed, globally manipulated economy -- is euphemized as "Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards" the reduction of manmade greenhouse gases. But the true heart of the Agreement, and its clearest concrete achievement, appears in Article 2, paragraph 2: 2. This Agreement will be implemented to reflect equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances. This statement, parsed carefully, is just a clunky, bureaucratic rendition of the principle Karl Marx borrowed from French socialist Louis Blanc: "From each ['common but differentiated responsibilities'] according to his ability ['respective capabilities'], to each according to his needs ['different national circumstances']." This sentence, in nearly identical phrasing, is repeated throughout the document to reinforce the point that this Marxist collectivist ideal, applied at the global level, is the guiding principle of the entire Agreement. The regulation and forced reconfiguration of developed economies is intended to intensify inescapably over time, through the standard progressive ratchet mechanism: Each Party’s [i.e. national government's] successive nationally determined contribution will represent a progression beyond the Party’s then current nationally determined contribution…. [Article 4.3] In other words, the commitment to economic control is total, though the implementation of that control will of necessity be gradual. For a touch of progressive nostalgia, perhaps, the Agreement even adopts the old communist methodology of five-year plans: Each Party shall communicate a nationally determined contribution every five years in accordance with decision 1/CP.21 and any relevant decisions of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement and be informed by the outcomes of the global stocktake referred to in Article 14. [4.9] But don't worry, this commandeering of the workings and goals of national economies is very flexible: A Party may at any time adjust its existing nationally determined contribution with a view to enhancing its level of ambition, in accordance with guidance adopted by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement. [4.11, emphasis added] That is, a nation is free to increase its "contribution" to GHG reduction beyond the goals determined within its established five-year plan. Note, however, that a nation may not scale back its contribution. We cannot have any members of this global cooperative becoming less "ambitious." There will be merit badges for extra dedication to the collective, but there will be no mechanism for shrugging off one's "responsibilities." "But can't a nation simply pull out of the agreement altogether?" you ask. After all, what happens if the majority of its population votes, at election time, against further participation in its own economic and civil destruction? Article 28 provides the answer: 1. At any time after three years from the date on which this Agreement has entered into force for a Party, that Party may withdraw from this Agreement by giving written notification to the Depositary. 2. Any such withdrawal shall take effect upon expiry of one year from the date of receipt by the Depositary of the notification of withdrawal…. Every signatory is locked in for a minimum of four years from the date of entering into the Agreement. If you suppose this condition is irrelevant in practice, since countries may simply refuse to follow through on their emission-reduction promises, you are missing the gist of the whole climate change charade. Meeting emissions targets, in most cases virtually impossible anyway, has never been the point of all this. Establishing ever-greater bureaucratic regulation of private citizens' lives, and an ever-tighter interweaving of industry and government, is the point. In other words, the real problem the globalists are trying to solve is not excessive CO2, but excessive freedom, which is an intrinsic threat to the only kind of sustainability a ruling establishment cares about, namely the sustainability of its privilege. Towards this end, the Agreement is emphatic that the most essential prerequisite for achieving its stated goals is greater public control, funding, and oversight of economic activity. As part of a global effort, developed country Parties [i.e., national governments] should continue to take the lead in mobilizing climate finance from a wide variety of sources, instruments and channels, noting the significant role of public funds, through a variety of actions, including supporting country-driven strategies, and taking into account the needs and priorities of developing country Parties. Such mobilization of climate finance should represent a progression beyond previous efforts. [9.3] How do national governments "mobilize climate finance"? What "sources, instruments and channels" are they to exploit, while "noting the significant role of public funds"? Needless to say, we are talking about the development "beyond previous efforts" of crony capitalist industry, along with increased taxation to be used, not for the benefit of the overtaxed citizenry and unfairly restricted private businesses, but rather "taking into account the needs and priorities of developing country Parties" -- in short, redistributive justice. As I am certain you get the general picture, I will leave for your own private enjoyment the provisions related to the elite's micromanagement of technological resources as necessary, to be redistributed as they deem appropriate in accordance with "non-market approaches" [6.8, 10.2], and the establishment of an expert panel of nags to "promote compliance" (15.1-3). And I note only for entertainment value the following bizarre salute to the entire politically correct dictionary: [A]daptation action should follow a country-driven, gender-responsive, participatory and fully transparent approach, taking into consideration vulnerable groups, communities and ecosystems, and should be based on and guided by the best available science and, as appropriate, traditional knowledge, knowledge of indigenous peoples and local knowledge systems, with a view to integrating adaptation into relevant socioeconomic and environmental policies and actions, where appropriate. [7.5] To buttress all this academic neo-Marxist internationalism, and to "enhance" the "ambition" for increased global mandates in their next five-year plan, our overseers grant themselves Article 12, the only article to consist of just one, all-too-clear paragraph: Parties shall cooperate in taking measures, as appropriate, to enhance climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information, recognizing the importance of these steps with respect to enhancing actions under this Agreement. That is, increased authoritarian encroachments will require improved government re-education, i.e., even more aggressive propaganda in support of a particular, fairly recent, empirically questionable scientific hypothesis, and in opposition to any unbiased presentation of alternative hypotheses. Some commentators, noting the Agreement's lack of mandates and its watered-down reliance on "voluntary" participation, quickly dismissed its significance with either glee or scorn. True, it does not go as far as some progressives would have preferred. It does, however, firmly entrench man-made global warming as a scientific truth with the official endorsement of all the world's governments, now including the U.S., Russia and China. Furthermore, it gives official approval on behalf of all the world's governments to the principles of Marxist interdependency and redistribution, government-corporate alliances aimed at restricting private action and free markets, and the aggressive use of state propaganda to promote a tyrannical agenda. The globalists are elated because they know they have taken their greatest leap forward, with the world's most powerful government, having access to the world's biggest cookie jar, now officially on board and fully committed to the goals of supra-national government and global redistribution. This really is historic. It symbolically ends progressivism's long struggle against all national resistance to its twin goals of global rule by an unelected elite and the gradual dissolution of national sovereignty. This is the breakthrough progressives of every stripe have been yearning for. Climate change may finally fulfill its promise as the vehicle whereby traditional nationhood -- the ultimate bulwark against the universalist dreams of tyrannical souls -- is weakened beyond repair. To those complaining that the lack of mandatory emissions targets means that the Agreement does nothing concrete to combat GHG emissions, I can only say "Good morning, and welcome to reality!" No, Virginia, Al Gore does not believe polar bears are stranded on ice floes. Ban Ki-moon does not believe climate change causes Islamic fanaticism. No one ever believed that manmade CO2 could cause the Earth to wobble on its axis. And the U.N. Conference of the Parties on Climate Change neither believes that it can prevent the global mean temperature from rising 1.5 °C nor has any intention of seeking such a delusional goal. Progressives do not say such things because they believe them. They say them to justify siphoning money from the pockets of productive private citizens directly into their own coffers, money that will be used to further develop and entrench a system of ever-tightening restrictions on private action. Their alliance with global corporatists is not a corruption of their ideals; it is the essence of their game, and has been for more than a century. They will use fear tactics and the machinations of an administrative apparatus answerable to no one to weaken national sovereignty worldwide, with the aim of establishing unlimited global politico-economic authority. For those newly disillusioned by the disjunction between progressive declarations and progressive reality, here is a simple translation, though not the kind they feed through the earpieces at the U.N. When progressives say they desire equality, they mean power and wealth. When they say they want to save the planet, they mean they want to protect their power and wealth. When they say "people over profits," they mean all people other than themselves should live without profits. When they talk of peace, they mean universal submission. When they speak of sustainability, they mean coercively restricted growth and development for "the masses." And when they speak of "global governance," well, they mean global governance -- a world under their collective control in which, ultimately, there is nowhere for a free soul to hide, no unviolated frontier to which one might escape, no hope of living beyond reach of their regulations, their propaganda, their childhood indoctrination, their denial of property rights, and their disposal of your earnings, your labor, and your life as they see fit, for the purpose of perpetuating their power and wealth. So Ban Ki-moon may be right: "What was once unthinkable is now unstoppable." Or nearly so; to the progressives' chagrin, a lot of people still own guns. "What was once unthinkable is now unstoppable," boasted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. More ominous words were never spoken. Ban was congratulating himself and nearly two hundred of his global elite cohorts on their achievement in signing the Paris Agreement on climate change. In classic progressive style, however, his pep rally sloganeering was also a none-too-subtle threat, à la "Forward." For as the Agreement makes perfectly clear, the "what" that was once unthinkable, but is now seemingly unstoppable, is the world's drunken march into international neo-Marxism, aka global tyranny. The great revolution of political progressivism was its creation of an intermediary mechanism, the administrative state, to filter the relation between the oppressors and the oppressed. The regulatory bureaucracy depersonalizes tyranny, diluting its real meaning with legalistic paperwork and soporific incrementalism. The bureaucratic labyrinth, with its officious, abstract, uncommunicative language, is the perfect guardian for the craven greed and power lust that occupy the offices on the top floor but dare not show their true faces in a "democratic" society. With obscure jargon and banal committee reports, the administrative state trivializes the property-obliteration of confiscatory taxes, the horror of government-normalized mass killing (from "abortion on demand" to "palliative care"), the moral outrage of state-controlled child-rearing ("public school"), and the freedom-slaying thousand cuts of state-micromanaged daily life, recasting them as mere annoyances, equivalent to household chores. History will someday show that the great coup of progressive authoritarianism was its translation of despotic decrees into the language of white papers, statistical analyses, and policy proposals. In the spirit of this world-historical transformation, the United Nations' Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, at the conclusion of its twenty-first session, has issued the document, "Adoption of the Paris Agreement." True to form, the document is dominated by nineteen pages of procedural hokum before finally getting around to including the twelve-page Agreement itself. The Paris Agreement is repetitive, dull, and full of provisos and addenda tacked on to appease various factions. A trudge through this slag heap, however, turns up some nuggets that more than justify the prideful declarations of Ban Ki-moon, John Kerry, and the rest of our masters. The general aims and principles of the Agreement are announced in Article 2, beginning with paragraph 1: 1. This Agreement…aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, including by: (a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels…; (b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production; (c) Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development. "Global cooling," having been revised as "global warming" in light of Gaia's frustrating non-compliance, and then renamed "climate change" when the relation between increased GHGs and global temperatures failed to support the revamped computer models, is nevertheless to be combatted on the implicit presupposition that those global warming predictive models were correct all along, even while the U.N. retains the deliberately evasive name "climate change." The entire Agreement is predicated on the assumptions that (a) the global mean temperature definitely will rise by more than 2 °C over the next century, despite the awkward absence of recent warming commensurate with rapidly increasing GHG levels, and (b) that the only means of preventing this calamity is fascistic economic intervention. Almost two hundred national governments, including those of the entire developed world, signed on to this wildly speculative but politically transformative proposition. The practical mechanism for achieving the desired outcome -- a state-managed, globally manipulated economy -- is euphemized as "Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards" the reduction of manmade greenhouse gases. But the true heart of the Agreement, and its clearest concrete achievement, appears in Article 2, paragraph 2: 2. This Agreement will be implemented to reflect equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances. This statement, parsed carefully, is just a clunky, bureaucratic rendition of the principle Karl Marx borrowed from French socialist Louis Blanc: "From each ['common but differentiated responsibilities'] according to his ability ['respective capabilities'], to each according to his needs ['different national circumstances']." This sentence, in nearly identical phrasing, is repeated throughout the document to reinforce the point that this Marxist collectivist ideal, applied at the global level, is the guiding principle of the entire Agreement. The regulation and forced reconfiguration of developed economies is intended to intensify inescapably over time, through the standard progressive ratchet mechanism: Each Party’s [i.e. national government's] successive nationally determined contribution will represent a progression beyond the Party’s then current nationally determined contribution…. [Article 4.3] In other words, the commitment to economic control is total, though the implementation of that control will of necessity be gradual. For a touch of progressive nostalgia, perhaps, the Agreement even adopts the old communist methodology of five-year plans: Each Party shall communicate a nationally determined contribution every five years in accordance with decision 1/CP.21 and any relevant decisions of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement and be informed by the outcomes of the global stocktake referred to in Article 14. [4.9] But don't worry, this commandeering of the workings and goals of national economies is very flexible: A Party may at any time adjust its existing nationally determined contribution with a view to enhancing its level of ambition, in accordance with guidance adopted by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement. [4.11, emphasis added] That is, a nation is free to increase its "contribution" to GHG reduction beyond the goals determined within its established five-year plan. Note, however, that a nation may not scale back its contribution. We cannot have any members of this global cooperative becoming less "ambitious." There will be merit badges for extra dedication to the collective, but there will be no mechanism for shrugging off one's "responsibilities." "But can't a nation simply pull out of the agreement altogether?" you ask. After all, what happens if the majority of its population votes, at election time, against further participation in its own economic and civil destruction? Article 28 provides the answer: 1. At any time after three years from the date on which this Agreement has entered into force for a Party, that Party may withdraw from this Agreement by giving written notification to the Depositary. 2. Any such withdrawal shall take effect upon expiry of one year from the date of receipt by the Depositary of the notification of withdrawal…. Every signatory is locked in for a minimum of four years from the date of entering into the Agreement. If you suppose this condition is irrelevant in practice, since countries may simply refuse to follow through on their emission-reduction promises, you are missing the gist of the whole climate change charade. Meeting emissions targets, in most cases virtually impossible anyway, has never been the point of all this. Establishing ever-greater bureaucratic regulation of private citizens' lives, and an ever-tighter interweaving of industry and government, is the point. In other words, the real problem the globalists are trying to solve is not excessive CO2, but excessive freedom, which is an intrinsic threat to the only kind of sustainability a ruling establishment cares about, namely the sustainability of its privilege. Towards this end, the Agreement is emphatic that the most essential prerequisite for achieving its stated goals is greater public control, funding, and oversight of economic activity. As part of a global effort, developed country Parties [i.e., national governments] should continue to take the lead in mobilizing climate finance from a wide variety of sources, instruments and channels, noting the significant role of public funds, through a variety of actions, including supporting country-driven strategies, and taking into account the needs and priorities of developing country Parties. Such mobilization of climate finance should represent a progression beyond previous efforts. [9.3] How do national governments "mobilize climate finance"? What "sources, instruments and channels" are they to exploit, while "noting the significant role of public funds"? Needless to say, we are talking about the development "beyond previous efforts" of crony capitalist industry, along with increased taxation to be used, not for the benefit of the overtaxed citizenry and unfairly restricted private businesses, but rather "taking into account the needs and priorities of developing country Parties" -- in short, redistributive justice. As I am certain you get the general picture, I will leave for your own private enjoyment the provisions related to the elite's micromanagement of technological resources as necessary, to be redistributed as they deem appropriate in accordance with "non-market approaches" [6.8, 10.2], and the establishment of an expert panel of nags to "promote compliance" (15.1-3). And I note only for entertainment value the following bizarre salute to the entire politically correct dictionary: [A]daptation action should follow a country-driven, gender-responsive, participatory and fully transparent approach, taking into consideration vulnerable groups, communities and ecosystems, and should be based on and guided by the best available science and, as appropriate, traditional knowledge, knowledge of indigenous peoples and local knowledge systems, with a view to integrating adaptation into relevant socioeconomic and environmental policies and actions, where appropriate. [7.5] To buttress all this academic neo-Marxist internationalism, and to "enhance" the "ambition" for increased global mandates in their next five-year plan, our overseers grant themselves Article 12, the only article to consist of just one, all-too-clear paragraph: Parties shall cooperate in taking measures, as appropriate, to enhance climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information, recognizing the importance of these steps with respect to enhancing actions under this Agreement. That is, increased authoritarian encroachments will require improved government re-education, i.e., even more aggressive propaganda in support of a particular, fairly recent, empirically questionable scientific hypothesis, and in opposition to any unbiased presentation of alternative hypotheses. Some commentators, noting the Agreement's lack of mandates and its watered-down reliance on "voluntary" participation, quickly dismissed its significance with either glee or scorn. True, it does not go as far as some progressives would have preferred. It does, however, firmly entrench man-made global warming as a scientific truth with the official endorsement of all the world's governments, now including the U.S., Russia and China. Furthermore, it gives official approval on behalf of all the world's governments to the principles of Marxist interdependency and redistribution, government-corporate alliances aimed at restricting private action and free markets, and the aggressive use of state propaganda to promote a tyrannical agenda. The globalists are elated because they know they have taken their greatest leap forward, with the world's most powerful government, having access to the world's biggest cookie jar, now officially on board and fully committed to the goals of supra-national government and global redistribution. This really is historic. It symbolically ends progressivism's long struggle against all national resistance to its twin goals of global rule by an unelected elite and the gradual dissolution of national sovereignty. This is the breakthrough progressives of every stripe have been yearning for. Climate change may finally fulfill its promise as the vehicle whereby traditional nationhood -- the ultimate bulwark against the universalist dreams of tyrannical souls -- is weakened beyond repair. To those complaining that the lack of mandatory emissions targets means that the Agreement does nothing concrete to combat GHG emissions, I can only say "Good morning, and welcome to reality!" No, Virginia, Al Gore does not believe polar bears are stranded on ice floes. Ban Ki-moon does not believe climate change causes Islamic fanaticism. No one ever believed that manmade CO2 could cause the Earth to wobble on its axis. And the U.N. Conference of the Parties on Climate Change neither believes that it can prevent the global mean temperature from rising 1.5 °C nor has any intention of seeking such a delusional goal. Progressives do not say such things because they believe them. They say them to justify siphoning money from the pockets of productive private citizens directly into their own coffers, money that will be used to further develop and entrench a system of ever-tightening restrictions on private action. Their alliance with global corporatists is not a corruption of their ideals; it is the essence of their game, and has been for more than a century. They will use fear tactics and the machinations of an administrative apparatus answerable to no one to weaken national sovereignty worldwide, with the aim of establishing unlimited global politico-economic authority. For those newly disillusioned by the disjunction between progressive declarations and progressive reality, here is a simple translation, though not the kind they feed through the earpieces at the U.N. When progressives say they desire equality, they mean power and wealth. When they say they want to save the planet, they mean they want to protect their power and wealth. When they say "people over profits," they mean all people other than themselves should live without profits. When they talk of peace, they mean universal submission. When they speak of sustainability, they mean coercively restricted growth and development for "the masses." And when they speak of "global governance," well, they mean global governance -- a world under their collective control in which, ultimately, there is nowhere for a free soul to hide, no unviolated frontier to which one might escape, no hope of living beyond reach of their regulations, their propaganda, their childhood indoctrination, their denial of property rights, and their disposal of your earnings, your labor, and your life as they see fit, for the purpose of perpetuating their power and wealth. So Ban Ki-moon may be right: "What was once unthinkable is now unstoppable." Or nearly so; to the progressives' chagrin, a lot of people still own guns.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:20 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 4633 words, total size 33 kb.

Timothy Birdnow

My brother Brian, in his endless war with the stupidity of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, takes on Judith Newmark's review of "Bad Jews". Ms Newmark is bemused by a "white" version of the song Summertime", a point offensive to Dr. Birdnow not because it is itself offensive but because Newmark shows her hypocrisy.

ASee the review here.

Here is Brian's reply:

Dear Ms. Newmark,
In your review of the play, "Bad Jews" (Wool Studio Theatre, Jewish Community Center Assoc.) you characterized a scene in the play wherein a white female singer attempts to do justice to the Gershwin classic "Summertime". Evidently she cannot pass muster as a white singer trying to perform a song correctly associated with African-American performers, along with the African-American storyline, even if the composer-playwright was also white. In any event, you said, "...Steward's hilarious, utterly soul-free rendition of "Summertime" plays into every white-bread stereotype."

This may be seen as a bold stance against political correctness, but I seem to remember, not long ago, that you reviewed a show , perhaps "South Pacific", and you stated that a number of the lines concerning the racial difference were "cringe inducing", or "cringe-worthy". Now let me see if I understand this correctly. A Post-Dispatch theater critic sees a classic show that makes a mildly chauvinistic remark about the difference between the Oriental and the Occidental as "cringe-worthy"/"cringe-inducing" but tags as "hilarious" the lame attempts of a white singer to affect a black soulful style. So a white stereotype is humorous, but a Polynesian stereotype is offensive? That is an interesting world you Post-Dispatch liberals have constructed and inhabit.

With Kindest Regards,
Brian E. Birdnow

Why is it offensive to stereotype minorities but hip to do so to whites? Not that I find it offensive at all, but one should hold the same standards for everyone, or admit one is a hypocrite. Liberals always maintain double standards.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:04 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Timothy Birdnow

So, now we have arrests and show trials for crony capitalists who won't play ball with the Obama Administration
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/12/17/turing-pharma-ceo-martin-shkreli-arrested-reuters-witness/21284968/

According to Reuters:

"NEW YORK, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Martin Shkreli, a lightning rod for growing outrage over soaring prescription drug prices, was arrested by the FBI on Thursday after a federal investigation involving his former hedge fund and a pharmaceutical company he previously headed.

The securities fraud probe of Shkreli, who is now chief executive officer of Turing Pharmaceuticals and KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc, stems from his time as manager of hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and CEO of biopharmaceutical company Retrophin Inc, a person familiar with the matter said.

Shares of KaloBios fell about 50 percent in premarket trading.

Lawyers for Retrophin and Shkreli, whose arrest was witnessed by Reuters, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Turing and KaloBios declined to comment.

Turing sparked controversy earlier this year after news reports that it had raised the price of Daraprim, a 62-year-old treatment for a dangerous parasitic infection, to $750 a tablet from $13.50 after acquiring it."

End excerpt.

While this thirty-something fellow may be a punk and perhaps even unscrupulous, how much do you want to bet he is being prosecuted for raising the drug prices and making Obamacare look bad? See, the drug companies were supposed to take this lying down and eat the expenses. Our masters in Washington never intended for Big Pharma to fight back.

As I have pointed out, Claire McCaskill is chairing Senate Committee investigations of "price gouging" by drug makers as a way to cover for BHO's failure.

So now the Stalin-style show trials are about to begin. Did anyone NOT see this coming?

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:47 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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By Selwyn Duke

"You ain’t no Muslim, bruv!” As you may know, this statement was uttered by a bystander after a non-Muslim Muslim™ slit the throat of a man in the Leytonstone subway station in east London last weekend. It was, apparently, a logical spontaneous reaction because, as we all understand, a Muslim ceases to be a Muslim upon committing a terrorist act. It’s not yet known if the transformation turns him into a Christian, an atheist, a Hindu, a Jew, or a Zoroastrian, but some magical de-Islamizing process occurs.

Speaking of which, the man shouting, "You ain’t no Muslim, bruv!” ain’t no Muslim himself, contrary to initial suspicions. Rather, he’s a 39-year-old security guard from north London identified only as "John” – you know, the kind of guy Archie Bunker might call "a regula’ Englishman there.” But let us just call him No-Muslim-Jihadi John.

Now, John is apparently an authority on Islam. As such, the Obama administration might want to consult with him on a certain matter: the public display of San Bernardino terrorist Tashfeen Malik’s photograph. Note that while fellow terrorist Syed Farook’s photo was published almost immediately, his bride Malik’s didn’t appear for days. And according to ex-Muslim and author of The Devil We Don’t Know Nonie Darwish, this was to appease Muslims.

Appearing on a special Monday edition of "The Glazov Gang” (video below), Darwish says she can think of only one reason why Farook’s photo was immediately shown while Malik’s was withheld. As she put it, "as a former Muslim myself, I know that Islamic law prohibits posting the photos of veiled Muslim women in public.” Darwish goes on to say she suspects that "the [Obama] administration was pressured by Muslim groups to not show the female terrorist’s photo to the public.” And, of course, we know that Muslims and leftists were enraged when Malik’s photo finally was released.

But then Darwish made an excellent, excellent point . Said she, "There’s an obvious contradiction here; it’s a contradiction for moderate Muslims and even President Obama, who constantly claim, and constantly lecture us, that terrorists have nothing to do with Islam.”

Bingo. If Malik wasn’t really Muslim, she couldn’t have been a Muslim woman. And then the Islamic prohibition against showing veiled Muslim women’s images in public doesn’t apply, right? So why was everyone so upset?

Oh, I get it: when her picture was taken, she was still Muslim because the magical de-Islamizing process induced via commission of a terrorist act hadn’t yet occurred. But when she pulled the trigger, her Muslim status went up in smoke along with some gunpowder.

As for No-Muslim-Jihadi John, Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch spoke about the surreal nature of his reaction, writing:

"The fact that this man [John] is a non-Muslim makes the whole scene grotesquely absurd. Here is a man lying on the ground bleeding from stab wounds, with his attacker standing right there with his bloody knife, and the first thing this onlooker can think to do is to say something to try to protect the image of Islam. As the last jihadi slits the last non-Muslim Briton’s throat, the victim will probably be gurgling out as his life slips away, "You ain’t no Muslim, bruv.”

End excerpt.

So No-Muslim-Jihadi John appears to know as much about Islam as he does about grammar. Then again, maybe he’s cleverer than we think. Perhaps in using his double-negative, he was really sending the message, "You are a Muslim, bruv!” This may explain why, fearing violence by suddenly transformed non-Muslim Muslims™, his identity isn’t being released.

It’s more likely, though, that he just wouldn’t want to be responsible for a man losing his faith.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

"You ain’t no Muslim, bruv!” As you may know, this statement was uttered by a bystander after a non-Muslim Muslim™ slit the throat of a man in the Leytonstone subway station in east London last weekend. It was, apparently, a logical spontaneous reaction because, as we all understand, a Muslim ceases to be a Muslim upon committing a terrorist act. It’s not yet known if the transformation turns him into a Christian, an atheist, a Hindu, a Jew, or a Zoroastrian, but some magical de-Islamizing process occurs.

Speaking of which, the man shouting, "You ain’t no Muslim, bruv!” ain’t no Muslim himself, contrary to initial suspicions. Rather, he’s a 39-year-old security guard from north London identified only as "John” – you know, the kind of guy Archie Bunker might call "a regula’ Englishman there.” But let us just call him No-Muslim-Jihadi John.

Now, John is apparently an authority on Islam. As such, the Obama administration might want to consult with him on a certain matter: the public display of San Bernardino terrorist Tashfeen Malik’s photograph. Note that while fellow terrorist Syed Farook’s photo was published almost immediately, his bride Malik’s didn’t appear for days. And according to ex-Muslim and author of The Devil We Don’t Know Nonie Darwish, this was to appease Muslims.

Appearing on a special Monday edition of "The Glazov Gang” (video below), Darwish says she can think of only one reason why Farook’s photo was immediately shown while Malik’s was withheld. As she put it, "as a former Muslim myself, I know that Islamic law prohibits posting the photos of veiled Muslim women in public.” Darwish goes on to say she suspects that "the [Obama] administration was pressured by Muslim groups to not show the female terrorist’s photo to the public.” And, of course, we know that Muslims and leftists were enraged when Malik’s photo finally was released.

But then Darwish made an excellent, excellent point . Said she, "There’s an obvious contradiction here; it’s a contradiction for moderate Muslims and even President Obama, who constantly claim, and constantly lecture us, that terrorists have nothing to do with Islam.”

Bingo. If Malik wasn’t really Muslim, she couldn’t have been a Muslim woman. And then the Islamic prohibition against showing veiled Muslim women’s images in public doesn’t apply, right? So why was everyone so upset?

Oh, I get it: when her picture was taken, she was still Muslim because the magical de-Islamizing process induced via commission of a terrorist act hadn’t yet occurred. But when she pulled the trigger, her Muslim status went up in smoke along with some gunpowder.

As for No-Muslim-Jihadi John, Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch spoke about the surreal nature of his reaction, writing:

The fact that this man [John] is a non-Muslim makes the whole scene grotesquely absurd. Here is a man lying on the ground bleeding from stab wounds, with his attacker standing right there with his bloody knife, and the first thing this onlooker can think to do is to say something to try to protect the image of Islam. As the last jihadi slits the last non-Muslim Briton’s throat, the victim will probably be gurgling out as his life slips away, "You ain’t no Muslim, bruv.”

So No-Muslim-Jihadi John appears to know as much about Islam as he does about grammar. Then again, maybe he’s cleverer than we think. Perhaps in using his double-negative, he was really sending the message, "You are a Muslim, bruv!” This may explain why, fearing violence by suddenly transformed non-Muslim Muslims™, his identity isn’t being released.

It’s more likely, though, that he just wouldn’t want to be responsible for a man losing his faith.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:44 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Paul Driessen

The budgetary insanity never seems to end, especially on energy and climate. Now Republicans seem prepared to forget about ending the enormous wind and solar taxpayer subsidies – AND give hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to a massive global wealth redistribution program, through the so-called Green Climate Fund for alleged global warming adaption and reparations. They are desperate to get President Obama and the Democrats to agree to a budget deal … and in exchange hope to end the ill-conceived 40-year ban on exporting American oil.

It looks too much like Republicans will give away the store – and get little or nothing in return. Once he gets his deal, can the president be trusted not to use his agencies to block leasing, drilling, fracking, pipelines and exports? Will we again be left holding an empty bag?

Shafting taxpayers – promoting crony corporatism

Omnibus budget deal ends oil export ban, perpetuates renewable subsidies, redistributes wealth

Paul Driessen

President Reagan once said, "The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.” The omnibus budget package being negotiated on Capitol Hill is a perfect example.

The wheeling and dealing is too complex and fast-moving for anyone to follow or understand. But its energy components center on trading an end to the 40-year-old oil export ban in exchange for extending and perpetuating renewable energy programs and President Obama’s dictatorial Clean Power Plan.

It is especially maddening when supposed Republican fiscal conservatives are supposedly in charge of Congress and the purse strings. It’s especially despicable when the energy policies are based on lies and fraud about "dangerous manmade climate change,” and on blatant crony corporatism that gives coerced taxpayer subsidies to companies that then make campaign contributions to helpful legislators. It makes it perfectly clear why voters are spitting mad, and "outsiders” have an inside track on presidential races.

The not-a-treaty arrangements just concluded in Paris allow climate alarmists to claim 100% of countries now agree that climate change is a huge problem – even though most American disagree, and some 90% of those countries signed the agreement just to get their "fair share” of the $100 billion per year that they demand from developed nations, which are now expected to de-carbonize, de-industrialize and de-develop.

But where are the dangerous, unprecedented rising seas and stronger storms? They’re not happening in the Real World. They exist only in computer models and White House press releases. But we are supposed to accept the hysteria as fact; base laws and policies on them; and destroy millions of coal, oil, natural gas and factory jobs, while we prop up wind, solar and biofuel industries to replace fossil fuels.

The ban on exporting American crude oil was enacted after the Arab oil embargo, and long before the fracking revolution, when politicians thought we were running out of petroleum. Now the United States and world have abundant oil and natural gas, oil prices have plummeted to $40 per barrel, oilfield jobs are threatened, and letting American companies export crude to Europe and other regions would spur drilling and job preservation, generate major tax revenues and greatly reduce balance of trade deficits.

However, Democrats detest drilling and fossil fuels, and President Obama had threatened to veto any bill that ends the export ban. So congressional leaders cobbled together a deal that would lift the ban – in exchange for extending wind and solar subsidies, and sending billions of dollars to "poor” countries like China and India, for climate change "adaptation and reparations,” while they burn more and more coal.

The reported deal extends subsidies five more years. The wind energy Production Tax Credit would be reduced 20% in 2017, 40% in 2018 and 60% in 2019, after which it would finally expire (unless Congress extends it yet again). For solar, the 30% Investment Tax Credit would remain in place past 2017, then drop to 26% through 2020, then to 22% through 2021, then remain at 10% in perpetuity. Biofuel mandates would also remain.

Just as bad, wind and solar would continue to be exempt from the Endangered Species Act. Companies would still be allowed to bury, hide, incinerate or ignore millions of eagle, hawk, other bird and bat carcasses – and never be subjected to penalties imposed on oil and coal companies for a few dozen deaths.

As Politico explains, the "logic” behind these arrangements is that solar (and wind) companies need this "lifeline” so that they can survive over the next few years, "until EPA rules kick in and boost demand for their carbon-free power.” As I see it, the omnibus bill sanctifies EPA’s draconian Clean Power Plan and other anti-coal regulations, which force coal-fired power plants to close in favor of wind and solar.

That would mean millions more jobs lost in factories and communities that depend on low-cost coal-based electricity, and on natural gas-fueled power plants that are also under environmentalist and EPA assault. It would mean ruling elites again get to decide whose jobs get preserved, and who get the shaft.

It seems Congress doesn’t dare imperil jobs and companies created via government diktats and taxpayer largesse. They are granted eternal life. It likewise doesn’t dare furlough federal workers for a few weeks, during another government shutdown over the budget. Fear of being blamed for a government shutdown drives Republican decisions – even though the feds would again get full back pay when they return to work, unlike private sector workers whose jobs get destroyed, often sacrificed on the climate altar, or for campaign contributions from crony corporatist friends.

As to "carbon-free” power, there is no such thing. Enormous wind and solar installations require coal or gas-fired backup generating plants, operating at peak inefficiency as they ramp up and power down when wind or sun conditions repeatedly change. That means even more carbon dioxide emissions.

And as even Secretary of State John Kerry recently admitted, with nearly 200 other countries still operating, building and planning thousands of coal-fired power plants, even if Americans all biked to work and ended all U.S. fossil fuel use, atmospheric CO2 levels would continue to rise. So even if carbon dioxide actually does drive climate change (which it doesn’t), our sacrifices would be for nothing.

In fact, even EPA analyses make it clear that a fully implemented job-killing Clean Power Plan would bring an undetectable, irrelevant reduction of 0.02 degrees Celsius (0.05 F) in average global temperatures 85 years from now – because the rest of the world is not about to stop burning oil, gas and coal.

But meanwhile we are supposed to blanket millions of acres with solar panels and wind turbines, convert millions of acres of crop and habitat land into biofuel plantations, send electricity prices "skyrocketing” for families, factories and hospitals, and kill millions of jobs – because our government says we must.

Then, even more insane, the Republican leadership also seems prepared to end the ban on using American dollars to bankroll our "fair share” of the $100-billion-a-year Green Climate Fund. And they’re planning to participate in this massive global wealth redistribution program in a sneaky, stealthy way.

They plan to let the Obama Administration have total control over $171 million that’s been appropriated in the omnibus spending bill for the Clean Technology Fund and $50 million appropriated for the Strategic Climate Fund – both of which feed into the GCF. They’ll also end prohibitions on reprogramming $168 million of Global Environment Facility money, so that it can be transferred to the GCF, and let the Treasury Department use $50 million of International Bank for Reconstruction and Development money for the same purpose. Otherwise no ending the oil exports ban.

Presto! $439 million in hard-earned taxpayer money becomes a down-payment to the Green Climate Fund, as "reparations” for climate changes we never caused, and "adaptation” money for future climate changes that will be no different or worse than what humans have experienced throughout history. Of course, the president and Democrats want a lot more – something closer to $3 billion a year.

Finally, let’s assume Republicans agree to all this pain, waste and joblessness, to end the oil export ban – and Mr. Obama refrains from vetoing it, because he gets the "renewable” energy subsidies he wants. Can we trust this president not to impose more regulatory edicts to block leasing, drilling, fracking, pipelines and exports? Or will we again be left holding an empty bag and looking like suckers?

Simply put, would it be better to give up on ending the export ban until we get a less anti-American occupant in the White House – and just eliminate these wind, solar and climate fund subsidies right now?

Voters should remind their rank-and-file representatives and the Republican (and Democrat) leadership that they are sick of the duplicity, double dealing and job destruction at the hands of ruling elites. No budget deal is better than a domestic version of the Iran nuclear deal or Paris climate non-treaty.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­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.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:30 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Dana Mathewson

The men run, the women fight.

https://apple.news/AC95eQGZaMk65HJiRZL_HFw

Christian Female Fighters Taking Up Arms Against Islamic State in Syria
Breitbart News

A group of 50 Syriac Christian females have decided to pick up arms and fight against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:03 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Dana Mathewson

I just HAD to send this near suppertime (actually, Happy Hour here while a squash bakes happily in the oven and a steak marinates on the counter).

My glass of bourbon tastes even better knowing that the Vegans (not to mention the UN) just took a strong right jab to the nose here. 'Course, they won't know what hit 'em or why.

https://apple.news/AWwvq4LpRQwmAjVCuOE2Ong

Your Vegetarian Diet Might Be Killing the Planet


VICE

Now, scientists are saying that lettuce is actually three times worse for the planet than bacon. What the hell is going on

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:02 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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