Jack Kemp

I am reluctant to criticize the Pope, as I am not Christian, but what the Pope said in a visit to Poland is a very secular political demand that is blind to what is happening all over Western Europe, if not the world.

Pamela Geller's website Atlas Shrugs has an article where the Pope is reported to demand that Poland accept migrants from Muslim countries. http://pamelageller.com/2016/07/pope-demands-poland-open-borders-to-muslim-migrants.html/
Apparently the Pope thinks the Poles don't read newspapers or watch television or internet reports of atrocities done by Muslims in Paris, Nice, in Germany and even the recent beheading of a Catholic priest by a Muslim in Normandy. 

Frankly, the Pope appears to be indifferent to the sufferings of Christians all across Europe as they are murdered and their daughters are raped. A large enough percentage of these so called migrants are, in fact, an invading army, something the Poles are quite familiar with in their history. Polish officials have noted that they engage in a better plan, namely aiding refugees in camps in Jordan, in a country that shares their culture, religion and climate.

I don't believe that the Pope is willing, for example, to house these Muslim migrants in Vatican City or Casa Gandolfo, the summer home of Popes. One commenter at Atlas Shrugs remarked that the Pope has not demanded that these migrants be housed in his home country of Argentina. Yes, why is that?

The Pope's actions seem to be, whether wittingly or unwittingly, an attempt to turn worshipers of Christ away from the Catholic Church for at least the length of the Pope's time in office, which would be for many young Catholics their entire formative (teen)  years. I could delude myself by saying that the Pope is badly mistaken, but it is obvious that he knows the repercussions of what his remarks are, namely they are an advocacy of leftist Liberation Theology with only a passing reference to the teachings of his Faith.

We are indeed living in dangerous times where both secular and religious elites have convinced themselves that barbaric acts by an invading group are merely a minor inconvenience because they don't savage and lay waste to the properties and the lives of the elites themselves - yet.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:03 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
Post contains 386 words, total size 3 kb.

Timothy Birdnow

I have the distinct displeasure of dissecting Dopbama's Democratic diatribe from last night. His words will be in normal Roman script and mine bracketed in italics.) In the interest of brevity I have cut a few flowery paragraphs which does not materially affect the content of the speech:


And it’s true – I was so young that first time in Boston. Maybe a little nervous addressing such a big crowd. But I was filled with faith; faith in America – the generous, bighearted, hopeful country that made my story – indeed, all of our stories – possible.

(His story was made not in America but in Indonesia, never forget that.)

A lot’s happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war and recession and all manner of challenge – I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your President, to tell you I am even more optimistic about the future of America.

How could I not be – after all we’ve achieved together?

After the worst recession in 80 years, we’ve fought our way back. We’ve seen deficits come down, 401(k)s recover, an auto industry set new records, unemployment reach eight-year lows, and our businesses create 15 million new jobs.

After a century of trying, we declared that health care in America is not a privilege for a few, but a right for everybody. After decades of talk, we finally began to wean ourselves off foreign oil, and doubled our production of clean energy.

We brought more of our troops home to their families, and delivered justice to Osama bin Laden. Through diplomacy, we shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program, opened up a new chapter with the people of Cuba, and brought nearly 200 nations together around a climate agreement that could save this planet for our kids.

We put policies in place to help students with loans; protect consumers from fraud; and cut veteran homelessness almost in half. And through countless acts of quiet courage, America learned that love has no limits, and marriage equality is now a reality across the land.

By so many measures, our country is stronger and more prosperous than it was when we started.

(It's all about the BHO! And most of it is at best marginally true.)


Look, we Democrats have always had plenty of differences with the Republican Party, and there’s nothing wrong with that; it’s precisely this contest of ideas that pushes our country forward.

But what we heard in Cleveland last week wasn’t particularly Republican – and it sure wasn’t conservative. What we heard was a deeply pessimistic vision of a country where we turn against each other, and turn away from the rest of the world. There were no serious solutions to pressing problems – just the fanning of resentment, and blame, and anger, and hate.

(First, how dare Obama lecture Conservatives on the meaning of Conservative? He has no right, any more than we have a right to lecture socialism to a socialist. Second off, there was nothing pessimistic about it; Trump and the other speakers were quite optimistic, but were not Pollyannaish about it. Obama has wrecked the country, and planning to fix it requires a truthful evaluation. The hypocrisy of a man who tells Black Lives Matter to "keep the spirit of Ferguson alive" to chide the GOP for "fanning flames of resentment and blame and anger and hate" is astonishing.)

And that is not the America I know.

(Mr. Obama, you have never known America. That is your problem. If you knew her you would not be so hell bent on changing her into a European socialist state.)

The America I know is full of courage, and optimism, and ingenuity. The America I know is decent and generous. Sure, we have real anxieties – about paying the bills, protecting our kids, caring for a sick parent. We get frustrated with political gridlock, worry about racial divisions; are shocked and saddened by the madness of Orlando or Nice. There are pockets of America that never recovered from factory closures; men who took pride in hard work and providing for their families who now feel forgotten; parents who wonder whether their kids will have the same opportunities we had.

(Yes, and YOU caused that.)

Most of all, I see Americans of every party, every background, every faith who believe that we are stronger together – black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; young and old; gay, straight, men, women, folks with disabilities, all pledging allegiance, under the same proud flag, to this big, bold country that we love.

That’s the America I know. And there is only one candidate in this race who believes in that future, and has devoted her life to it; a mother and grandmother who’d do anything to help our children thrive; a leader with real plans to break down barriers, blast through glass ceilings, and widen the circle of opportunity to every single American – the next President of the United States, Hillary Clinton.

[...]

Hillary’s still got the tenacity she had as a young woman working at the Children’s Defense Fund, going door to door to ultimately make sure kids with disabilities could get a quality education.

{The same tenacity that got her thrown off the impeachment committee of the House Judiciary Committee for being too vicious? She was deemed unethical then by Jerry Zeifman, chief Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, who said she was a liar. Tenacity is not necessarily a virtue; Adolf Hitler was quite tenacious in his murder of the Jews.)


You know, nothing truly prepares you for the demands of the Oval Office. Until you’ve sat at that desk, you don’t know what it’s like to manage a global crisis, or send young people to war. But Hillary’s been in the room; she’s been part of those decisions. She knows what’s at stake in the decisions our government makes for the working family, the senior citizen, the small business owner, the soldier, and the veteran. Even in the middle of crisis, she listens to people, and keeps her cool, and treats everybody with respect. And no matter how daunting the odds; no matter how much people try to knock her down, she never, ever quits.

(Uh, Barry, she quit in Benghazi, left those people to die, then lied about a video to cover up her negligence. I would rather have a newbie make mistakes than a proven gross incompetent and liar who is only concerned with her political and economic fortunes. And what would YOU know about sitting behind that desk? You are never there; you spend your life on the golf course.)

That’s the Hillary I know. That’s the Hillary I’ve come to admire. And that’s why I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as President of the United States of America.


Now, Hillary has real plans to address the concerns she’s heard from you on the campaign trail. She’s got specific ideas to invest in new jobs, to help workers share in their company’s profits, to help put kids in preschool, and put students through college without taking on a ton of debt. That’s what leaders do.

(Expensive programs absolutely take on a ton of debt. You can't spend money without taking it from someone if you are in government. And being a leader is more than giving away free stuff.)

And then there’s Donald Trump. He’s not really a plans guy. Not really a facts guy, either. He calls himself a business guy, which is true, but I have to say, I know plenty of businessmen and women who’ve achieved success without leaving a trail of lawsuits, and unpaid workers, and people feeling like they got cheated.

(Barry, you did that to all of America, so you should not call the kettle black, o pot smoker!)

Does anyone really believe that a guy who’s spent his 70 years on this Earth showing no regard for working people is suddenly going to be your champion? Your voice? If so, you should vote for him. But if you’re someone who’s truly concerned about paying your bills, and seeing the economy grow, and creating more opportunity for everybody, then the choice isn’t even close. If you want someone with a lifelong track record of fighting for higher wages, better benefits, a fairer tax code, a bigger voice for workers, and stronger regulations on Wall Street, then you should vote for Hillary Clinton.

(First, Trump is not known as a true robber baron. He hires blacks, he hires women, he pays women equally with men - something Obama himself fails to do in the White House. Mr. Trump has actually created jobs and built things. All Hillary has ever done is ask taxpayers for money to spend.)

And if you’re concerned about who’s going to keep you and your family safe in a dangerous world – well, the choice is even clearer. Hillary Clinton is respected around the world not just by leaders, but by the people they serve. She’s worked closely with our intelligence teams, our diplomats, our military. And she has the judgment, the experience, and the temperament to meet the threat from terrorism. It’s not new to her. Our troops have pounded ISIL without mercy, taking out leaders, taking back territory. I know Hillary won’t relent until ISIL is destroyed. She’ll finish the job – and she’ll do it without resorting to torture, or banning entire religions from entering our country. She is fit to be the next Commander-in-Chief.

(It was under Hillary's watch that Iraq fell to Al Qaeda aka ISIS. It was under Hillary's watch that Libya, once a stable country, fell to ISIS. It was under Hillary's watch that the Russians bought up large amounts of American uranium - and Hillary made great money. It was under Hillary's watch that terrorism exploded. It was under Hillary's watch that Egypt fell under the control of the radical Muslim Brotherhood. It was under Hillary's watch that Mexican drug cartels obtained huge amounts of American weaponry. It was under Hillary's watch Russia invaded the Crimea and Ukraine. All hell has broken loose around the world under Hillary's care, and often it was HER policies that caused the problems. No, I don't think she has proven herself in any credible way whatsoever. Oh, and how much territory have we actually taken back from ISIS, Barry?)

Meanwhile, Donald Trump calls our military a disaster. Apparently, he doesn’t know the men and women who make up the strongest fighting force the world has ever known. He suggests America is weak. He must not hear the billions of men, women, and children, from the Baltics to Burma, who still look to America to be the light of freedom, dignity, and human rights. He cozies up to Putin, praises Saddam Hussein, and tells the NATO allies that stood by our side after 9/11 that they have to pay up if they want our protection. Well, America’s promises do not come with a price tag. We meet our commitments. And that’s one reason why almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago.

(Here is a classic liberal trick. Trump criticized the way the Obama Administration has RUN the military, run it into the ground, and Obama lies about the statements, trying to say Trump is attacking the military personnel. This is a despicable lie and Obama knows it. Obama also knows that we are trillions of dollars in debt and that any money we pay for NATO comes from the Chinese or Japanese, money we borrow to protect a prosperous Europe. Why, pray tell, should the Europeans not spend money in their own defense? NATO was created to contain the defunct U.S.S.R. and it has little concrete value now, except to allow the Europeans to avoid spending money on their own defense. Essentially, we ARE NATO, we finance it, and yet we don't really control it. Why bother with the pretense? Especially since we have allowed potential member nations to be overrun - Georgia, Ukraine. Oh, the world is LAUGHING at us, not thinking we are making it safer. Obama is such a liar.)

America is already great. America is already strong. And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump.

In fact, it doesn’t depend on any one person. And that, in the end, may be the biggest difference in this election – the meaning of our democracy.

(Thank God for that, as Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton have done their level best to wreck our strength and greatness.)

Ronald Reagan called America "a shining city on a hill.” Donald Trump calls it "a divided crime scene” that only he can fix. It doesn’t matter to him that illegal immigration and the crime rate are as low as they’ve been in decades, because he’s not offering any real solutions to those issues. He’s just offering slogans, and he’s offering fear. He’s betting that if he scares enough people, he might score just enough votes to win this election.

(That's a lie. Illegal immigration dropped off only because of the economic downturn, but it is still higher than at any other time in history except the Bush II years, and it is surging in a dramatic fashion. Obama inherited a low crime rate, which is in the process of rising dramatically. See also here. And Mr. Obama wants to legalize them all, unlike previous Presidents.

It should also be noted that Obama is touting HIS accomplishments and not Hillary's.)

That is another bet that Donald Trump will lose. Because he’s selling the American people short. We are not a fragile or frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order. We don’t look to be ruled. Our power comes from those immortal declarations first put to paper right here in Philadelphia all those years ago; We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that together, We, the People, can form a more perfect union.

(I truly want to rip my face off here. Obama campaigned not as a man but as a Messiah. Does he really think we have forgotten that? HE is the one who rules by Executive Order, circumventing the other branches of government as a good tyrant would do. It was Obama who ordered schools to allow boys dressed as girls to have access to girl's bathrooms and showers - despite the fact that transvestites are not a protected class under Title IX. There was no court order or Congressional mandate, but he wanted it so he simply declared it. And he threatened schools with loss of funding AND endless lawsuits if they didn't obey his majestic Will. He has done this repeatedly, with illegal immigrants, with changes to laws - such as the deadlines in Obamacare - etc. Obama cares nary a wit about the Constitution or the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. He denies liberty, he denies the pursuit of happiness - which was a phrase meaning the right to pursue your own interests AND BE LEFT ALONE. He in fact denies Natural Law and the subsequent concept of inalienable rights, preferring to believe rights come from a purely social contract. What a liar this man is!)

That’s who we are. That’s our birthright – the capacity to shape our own destiny. That’s what drove patriots to choose revolution over tyranny and our GIs to liberate a continent. It’s what gave women the courage to reach for the ballot, and marchers to cross a bridge in Selma, and workers to organize and fight for better wages.

(Notice there is no mention of settling a hostile continent, resisting desperadoes and vicious aborigines, or fighting a Civil War to free slaves. Obama doesn't believe we should ever have settled America in the first place and he doesn't want us to remember that African Americans were not freed of their own efforts but that white people suffered, bled, and died for their salvation.)

America has never been about what one person says he’ll do for us. It’s always been about what can be achieved by us, together, through the hard, slow, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately enduring work of self-government.)

(!!!!! That was precisely his argument in 2008, that he was The Savior!)

And that’s what Hillary Clinton understands. She knows that this is a big, diverse country, and that most issues are rarely black and white. That even when you’re 100 percent right, getting things done requires compromise. That democracy doesn’t work if we constantly demonize each other. She knows that for progress to happen, we have to listen to each other, see ourselves in each other, fight for our principles but also fight to find common ground, no matter how elusive that may seem.

(Mr. Obama was a lawyer for ACORN before going into politics, and his primary duty was to steal votes. THAT'S Democracy for you! He won his first few elections by digging dirt on his opponents and forcing them out of the race so he was the only candidate, or the only one who had a chance. And don't tell me about comity; Obama's Justice Department refused to prosecute the New Black Panthers when they blocked the polling places in 2008 to prevent white people from voting. Democracy is only good when it favors him and his people.)

Hillary knows we can work through racial divides in this country when we realize the worry black parents feel when their son leaves the house isn’t so different than what a brave cop’s family feels when he puts on the blue and goes to work; that we can honor police and treat every community fairly. She knows that acknowledging problems that have festered for decades isn’t making race relations worse – it’s creating the possibility for people of good will to join and make things better.

(Funny; race relations have gotten worse since Mr. Obama took office. Hillary will follow the same path.)

Hillary knows we can insist on a lawful and orderly immigration system while still seeing striving students and their toiling parents as loving families, not criminals or rapists; families that came here for the same reasons our forebears came – to work, and study, and make a better life, in a place where we can talk and worship and love as we please. She knows their dream is quintessentially American, and the American Dream is something no wall will ever contain.

(Countless would-be immigrants have been denied entry over the centuries and Obama knows it. Also, there is a difference between a nation that is composed of empty pioneer land and one that is the third most populous nation on Earth, and while immigration may have been part of our heritage it doesn't mean unrestrained immigration can be maintained forever. Americans were all farmers in the past, too, but now few are. America was a manufacturing titan in the past but no more. Americans were mostly white in the past; I somehow doubt Mr. Obama would agree to returning to those days. Times change.

Oh, and Obama has stifled that "worship as we please" business on a number of occasions - such as his Obamacare forcing Catholic institutions to provide abortion services, or making Christian bakers bake gay wedding cakes.)

It can be frustrating, this business of democracy. Trust me, I know. Hillary knows, too. When the other side refuses to compromise, progress can stall. Supporters can grow impatient, and worry that you’re not trying hard enough; that you’ve maybe sold out.

(Uh, the other side has done nothing but compromise; it's why Trump is where he is at, Barry.)

But I promise you, when we keep at it; when we change enough minds; when we deliver enough votes, then progress does happen. Just ask the twenty million more people who have health care today. Just ask the Marine who proudly serves his country without hiding the husband he loves. Democracy works, but we gotta want it – not just during an election year, but all the days in between.)

(Change minds? You people lose every debate when it is fair. You aren't about changing minds but forcing things down America's throat. The ACA aka Obamacare was a straight partisan vote, and has never been popular. You didn't win the debate you strong-armed the opposition. Tyrant!)

So if you agree that there’s too much inequality in our economy, and too much money in our politics, we all need to be as vocal and as organized and as persistent as Bernie Sanders’ supporters have been. We all need to get out and vote for Democrats up and down the ticket, and then hold them accountable until they get the job done.

(Too much money in politics? Hillary Clinton has a mammoth war chest and has outspent Donald Trump by staggering amounts. To even bring this issue up is a shocking hypocrisy. Obama too; he originally pledged to take government funding for his 2008 campaign until he realized he could out raise John McCain, then he broke his pledge.)

If you want more justice in the justice system, then we’ve all got to vote – not just for a President, but for mayors, and sheriffs, and state’s attorneys, and state legislators. And we’ve got to work with police and protesters until laws and practices are changed.

If you want to fight climate change, we’ve got to engage not only young people on college campuses, but reach out to the coal miner who’s worried about taking care of his family, the single mom worried about gas prices.

(Like you did, Barry, when you promised to bankrupt the coal companies - and then delivered? St. Louis, where I live, lost Arch Coal and saw Peabody Energy in receivership - two major employers in the area. That was Obama's doings, or largely. And there has been no warming planet wide for nearly 20 years now. Sorry, but Climate Change is a computer extrapolation not backed up by on-the-ground data. Those coal miners lost their jobs over hot air that was not even hot.)

If you want to protect our kids and our cops from gun violence, we’ve got to get the vast majority of Americans, including gun owners, who agree on background checks to be just as vocal and determined as the gun lobby that blocks change through every funeral we hold. That’s how change will happen.

(Or maybe we should enforce existing gun laws, something this administration has failed repeatedly to do.)

Look, Hillary’s got her share of critics. She’s been caricatured by the right and by some folks on the left; accused of everything you can imagine – and some things you can’t. But she knows that’s what happens when you’re under a microscope for 40 years. She knows she’s made mistakes, just like I have; just like we all do. That’s what happens when we try. That’s what happens when you’re the kind of citizen Teddy Roosevelt once described – not the timid souls who criticize from the sidelines, but someone "who is actually in the arena…who strives valiantly; who errs…[but] who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement.”

Hillary Clinton is that woman in the arena. She’s been there for us – even if we haven’t always noticed. And if you’re serious about our democracy, you can’t afford to stay home just because she might not align with you on every issue. You’ve got to get in the arena with her, because democracy isn’t a spectator sport. America isn’t about "yes he will.” It’s about "yes we can.” And we’re going to carry Hillary to victory this fall, because that’s what the moment demands.

You know, there’s been a lot of talk in this campaign about what America’s lost – people who tell us that our way of life is being undermined by pernicious changes and dark forces beyond our control. They tell voters there’s a "real America” out there that must be restored. This isn’t an idea that started with Donald Trump. It’s been peddled by politicians for a long time – probably from the start of our Republic.

(And it's true; why are we having a fight with our government and liberals about "potty parity" for transgendered when they make up less then one tenth of one percent of the population? That proves there is a tail-wagging-the-dog scenario here in America. Where someone pees is no concern of the government. Yes, there is a real America, and Obama and Hillary are not it.)

And it’s got me thinking about the story I told you twelve years ago tonight, about my Kansas grandparents and the things they taught me when I was growing up. They came from the heartland; their ancestors began settling there about 200 years ago. They were Scotch-Irish mostly, farmers, teachers, ranch hands, pharmacists, oil rig workers. Hardy, small town folks. Some were Democrats, but a lot of them were Republicans. My grandparents explained that they didn’t like show-offs. They didn’t admire braggarts or bullies. They didn’t respect mean-spiritedness, or folks who were always looking for shortcuts in life. Instead, they valued traits like honesty and hard work. Kindness and courtesy. Humility; responsibility; helping each other out.

That’s what they believed in. True things. Things that last. The things we try to teach our kids.

(Obama also sneered at his white grandmother from Kansas as a "typical white person" meaning a biased, unthinking, uncaring dope. And his grandfather was on the F.B.I. watch list because of his close ties to the CPUSA and his friendship with the card carrying Communist Frank Marshall Davis. And Barack apparently learned little from them, as he is a monumental braggart - once claiming he needed no advisors because he knew more than any of them - and is clearly a bully of monumental proportions; he managed to unseal his opponent for the Senate in Illinois's divorce record and used the unsubstantiated allegations from his ex-wife against him in the campaign, forcing Mr. Ryan to drop out of the race. That is bullying on a profound scale.)

And what my grandparents understood was that these values weren’t limited to Kansas. They weren’t limited to small towns. These values could travel to Hawaii; even the other side of the world, where my mother would end up working to help poor women get a better life. They knew these values weren’t reserved for one race; they could be passed down to a half-Kenyan grandson, or a half-Asian granddaughter; in fact, they were the same values Michelle’s parents, the descendants of slaves, taught their own kids living in a bungalow on the South Side of Chicago. They knew these values were exactly what drew immigrants here, and they believed that the children of those immigrants were just as American as their own, whether they wore a cowboy hat or a yarmulke; a baseball cap or a hijab.

(Well, if these values draw so many immigrants why do you want to fundamentally remake America?)

America has changed over the years. But these values my grandparents taught me – they haven’t gone anywhere. They’re as strong as ever; still cherished by people of every party, every race, and every faith. They live on in each of us. What makes us American, what makes us patriots, is what’s in here. That’s what matters. That’s why we can take the food and music and holidays and styles of other countries, and blend it into something uniquely our own. That’s why we can attract strivers and entrepreneurs from around the globe to build new factories and create new industries here. That’s why our military can look the way it does, every shade of humanity, forged into common service. That’s why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end.

That’s America. Those bonds of affection; that common creed. We don’t fear the future; we shape it, embrace it, as one people, stronger together than we are on our own. That’s what Hillary Clinton understands – this fighter, this stateswoman, this mother and grandmother, this public servant, this patriot – that’s the America she’s fighting for.

(Here is the subtle lie of the Democrats, the Progressives, and other liberals. America's strength is not in the absolute unity of our people but in the freedom to act outside of the collective. It has always been America's great strength, that we are free to chart our own course. Obama doesn't believe that, once claiming "if you have a business...You didn't build that" with the idea that, since society offers certain infrastructure it is society that actually built your business and not you. This is a very alien and destructive concept, one that fails miserably on the world stage. It is tribalism applied to a nation state. The countries that adopt this viewpoint generally see declining standards of living and wealth, because we are not herd animals and we value or independence and freedom. Those people in Kansas first and foremost treasure the independence of their ancestors.

There is value in teamwork but also value in individual action. When the team makes the individual subservient the individual stops innovating, stops producing, stops creating. Creativity never comes in bunches. Obama has just made the case for Republicanism, and he did it while touting the glories of collectivization.)

And that’s why I have confidence, as I leave this stage tonight, that the Democratic Party is in good hands. My time in this office hasn’t fixed everything; as much as we’ve done, there’s still so much I want to do. But for all the tough lessons I’ve had to learn; for all the places I’ve fallen short; I’ve told Hillary, and I’ll tell you what’s picked me back up, every single time.

It’s been you. The American people.

It’s the letter I keep on my wall from a survivor in Ohio who twice almost lost everything to cancer, but urged me to keep fighting for health care reform, even when the battle seemed lost. Do not quit.

(How about those who benefited from the services of the V.A.? Had that cancer survivor gotten the health care Obama wanted he or she would likely be dead now.)

It’s the painting I keep in my private office, a big-eyed, green owl, made by a seven year-old girl who was taken from us in Newtown, given to me by her parents so I wouldn’t forget – a reminder of all the parents who have turned their grief into action.

It’s the small business owner in Colorado who cut most of his own salary so he wouldn’t have to lay off any of his workers in the recession – because, he said, "that wouldn’t have been in the spirit of America.”

(Many entrepreneurs underpay themselves or work for nothing to keep their staff employed. That is what a free market - something Obama despises - accomplishes. Raise the minimum wage, force employers to obey draconian regulations, and those workers will lose their jobs. This is an argument that destroys the Democrat's whole premise that free enterprise is evil and abusive.)

It’s the conservative in Texas who said he disagreed with me on everything, but appreciated that, like him, I try to be a good dad.

It’s the courage of the young soldier from Arizona who nearly died on the battlefield in Afghanistan, but who’s learned to speak and walk again – and earlier this year, stepped through the door of the Oval Office on his own power, to salute and shake my hand.

(If BHO really cared about such soldiers he would win wars and not keep them simmering everywhere - and not pull out to allow the evil people to make what these soldiers sacrificed meaningless.)

It’s every American who believed we could change this country for the better, so many of you who’d never been involved in politics, who picked up phones, and hit the streets, and used the internet in amazing new ways to make change happen. You are the best organizers on the planet, and I’m so proud of all the change you’ve made possible.

Time and again, you’ve picked me up. I hope, sometimes, I picked you up, too. Tonight, I ask you to do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me. I ask you to carry her the same way you carried me. Because you’re who I was talking about twelve years ago, when I talked about hope – it’s been you who’ve fueled my dogged faith in our future, even when the odds are great; even when the road is long. Hope in the face of difficulty; hope in the face of uncertainty; the audacity of hope!

(The Audacity of a Dope!)

America, you have vindicated that hope these past eight years. And now I’m ready to pass the baton and do my part as a private citizen. This year, in this election, I’m asking you to join me – to reject cynicism, reject fear, to summon what’s best in us; to elect Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States, and show the world we still believe in the promise of this great nation.

Thank you for this incredible journey. Let’s keep it going. God bless the United States of America.

(Obama has been the champion of cynism these past eight years. He has told us we need to reign in our expectations on so many fronts, that we need to use less energy, fewer resources. He has demanded we apologize to everyone for everything. He has made us accept the government in our lives to a degree never before seen. Pride and independence go hand-in-hand, and yet Obama has systematically destroyed our independence as individuals. He has roiled race relations. He has set one American at another's throat. He has weakened our military, using up our planes, or missiles, our tanks and guns and not replacing them. He has tried very hard to prevent our energy independence, killing coal and trying to stop hydraulic fracturing. He has systematically wiped out the family farm, allowing the government to take over land or forcing it sold to fat-cat speculators like George Soros. He has made us less safe, be it internationally or at home. He is the penultimate cynic.

How do we show we still believe in the promise of America when Obama never did, nor does Hillary?)

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:59 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 5801 words, total size 39 kb.

Jack Kemp

Hillary selects as her VP running mate Tim Kaine.

This is quite fitting because when Hillary is asked whether she caused the deaths in Benghazi, her reply is "Am I my brother's keeper?"

End

Dana Mathewson chimes in:

No, no, Jack. It's actually that Congress said that there was something very fishy about the situation in Benghazi, and Hillary replied "Am I my brother's kipper?"

(Sorry, that was really bad.)

Tim's 2c:

If she's the skipper searching for the kipper she'd best beware the Kaine Mutiny!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:51 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 92 words, total size 1 kb.

Timothy Birdnow

Here are two stories about Antarctic ice that expose the lie of the Global Warming alarmism. First, it turns out even the Antarctic Peninsula is not warming:
s

The Antarctic Peninsula, regarded as a "global warming hot spot”, has been cooling for almost 20 years.

The Antarctic Peninsula has cooled (blue line) since 1998
The Antarctic Peninsula has cooled (blue line) since 1998 — Robert Mulvaney/British Antarctic Survey

Natural variability was responsible both for the decades-long warming since the 1950s and more recent cooling, according to research published today in Nature.

The research, led by John Turner from the British Antarctic Survey, said while the start of Antarctic Peninsula cooling in 1998 had coincided with the so-called "global warming hiatus”, the two were not connected.

Scientists were quick to declare the results of the Turner et al paper, which covered 1 per cent of the Antarctic continent, did not negate a long-term warming because of man-made climate change.

Rather, they said, the ozone hole, changing wind patterns and natural variability had masked the long-term warming trend.

"Climate model projections forced with medium emission scenarios indicate the emergence of a large anthropogenic regional warming signal, comparable in magnitude to the late-20th-­century peninsula warming, during the latter part of the current century,” the Turner research concluded.

In addition, temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula remained higher than measured during the middle of the 20th century, so ­glaciers were still retreating in the Antarctic region.

Nonetheless, the findings have put into sharp relief the long-term cycles of natural variability in an area popularised in the climate change narrative by dramatic ­images of calving ice sheets and retreating glaciers.

Prior to the paper’s publication, science media organisations around the world were ready with quotes from climate scientists to ensure the Turner paper was not misinterpreted.

End exccerpt.

Meanwhile, the Science Establishment is quick to blame anthropogenic causes for any evidence of warming, such as sea ice melt, but even quicker to blame nature when the reverse is true:

http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/121622/expanding-antarctic-sea-ice-linked-natural-variability


"The study offers evidence that the negative phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), which is characterized by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific, has created favorable conditions for additional Antarctic sea ice growth since 2000.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, may resolve a longstanding mystery: Why is Antarctic sea ice expanding when climate change is causing the world to warm?

EDITOR'S NOTE; THERE HAS BEEN NO WARMING IN 20 YEARS.

The study's authors also suggest that sea ice may begin to shrink as the IPO switches to a positive phase.

"The climate we experience during any given decade is some combination of naturally occurring variability and the planet's response to increasing greenhouse gases," said NCAR scientist Gerald Meehl, lead author of the study. "It's never all one or the other, but the combination, that is important to understand."

Study co-authors include Julie Arblaster of NCAR and Monash University in Australia, Cecilia Bitz of the University of Washington, Christine Chung of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and NCAR scientist Haiyan Teng. The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and by the National Science Foundation, which sponsors NCAR

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:19 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 548 words, total size 4 kb.

Timothy Birdnow

California's drought is caused by changes in wind patterns, not a drop in rainfall.

From the article:

"Their analysis showed that although moisture evaporated from the Pacific Ocean is the major source for California precipitation, the amount of water evaporated did not strongly influence precipitation in California, except in the cases of very heavy flooding. That's because the amount of water evaporated from this ocean region does not change much year by year, researchers found, and did not cause rain to occur more or less often.

"Ocean evaporation has little direct influence on California precipitation because of its relatively weak variability," Wei said."

End excerpt.

Get that; evaporation doesn't change much. IF this were caused by Global Warming then we should see increased precipitation as the atmospheric temperatures increased and radiation is held in to reflect back to the ocean. The cornerstone of AGW alarmism is that CO2 traps heat which evaporates more water from the seas which in turn trap more heat. We now learn there is no increase in evaporation.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:50 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 181 words, total size 1 kb.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:43 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 1211 words, total size 9 kb.

Brian Birdnow

I was at the Barnes & Noble at West County center yesterday with my daughter and she pointed out to me a book, written by Michael Brown's mother, extolling the virtues of her deceased son. This "book", a hard-backed volume was set in a privileged sales position, and was well-stocked, with probably around twenty copies available. I wonder how much the Justice Department pushed Barnes & Noble to display the book, and to sell the farce.


Tim replies:

I suspect you are right. I further suspect it won't sell because everyone knows she has nothing of any value to say. But I'll bet some Soros money will go toward purchasing a bunch of copies to make it a bestseller. They can use pages of the book to make paper-machet floats for the gay pride parades...

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:37 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 139 words, total size 1 kb.

Timothy Birdnow

Here are a pair of articles from the Heartland Institute worth reading:

SCIENTIST MANN SAYS SCIENCE UNNECESSARY TO PROVE HUMAN CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate scientist Michael Mann has given up trying to justify climate alarmism by pointing to scientific evidence, stating at a meeting of the Democratic platform-drafting committee, data and models "increasingly are unnecessary” because the impact is obvious. The Washington Times quotes Mann saying, "Fundamentally, I’m a climate scientist and have spent much of my career with my head buried in climate-model output and observational climate data trying to tease out the signal of human-caused climate change ... [but] these tools … increasingly are unnecessary because we can see climate change, the impacts of climate change, now, playing out in real time, on our television screens, in the 24-hour news cycle.”

What Mann counts as an obvious or visible sign or human-caused climate change is puzzling to me. Scientific evidence is mounting daily to show the climate is less sensitive to carbon dioxide and natural factors play a greater role in climate change than alarmists like Mann have claimed. In addition, the weather events (the evidence of our senses) cited by Mann as showing "the signal of climate change is no longer subtle, it is obvious” – hurricanes, flooding in Texas and South Carolina, the California drought, and heat waves in Arizona – are either not historically unusual or actually contradict climate disaster predictions.

Neither droughts nor extreme rainfall events are outside historic norms, polar bear populations are stable or growing as is ice extent in Antarctica, and the United States is experiencing a nine-year "hurricane drought” of Category 3 storms starting in 2006, beating the previous mark of eight years from 1861–1868, the longest such streak since such recording began in 1851.

Dr. Mann, where is this human-caused climate change of which you speak?

SOURCE: Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/27/michael-mann-climate-scientist-data-increasingly-u/

NEW CARBON DIOXIDE – CLIMATE RELATIONSHIP PROPOSED

A new study in Science Direct offers "a simple and novel proposal” for the causes of ice ages and interglacial cycles, and for the relationship between carbon dioxide and major climate shifts.

According to the study, shifts between ice ages and interglacials are caused by an interplay among carbon dioxide, dust, and Earth’s albedo. During glacial periods, the northern ice sheets reflect back so much sunlight global temperatures are driven down, and over millennia increasing amounts of carbon dioxide are sequestered in the oceans with atmospheric concentrations reaching a critical minima of approximately 200 ppm. Low carbon dioxide combined with arid conditions causes a die-back of temperate and boreal forests and grasslands, with ensuing soil erosion generating dust storms that, over time, result in dust deposition on the northern ice sheets, reducing the sunlight they reflect back into space. As dust-laden ice-sheets warm, they undergo rapid melting, forcing the climate into an interglacial period during which carbon dioxide levels rise.

The critical point to note is this: Should this research prove true, the relationship between carbon dioxide and warming is just the opposite of alarmists’ predictions. According to the study:

Ice age [carbon dioxide] reductions coincide with an increase in ice sheet extent and therefore an increase in global albedo, and this should result in further cooling of the climate. But what actually happens is that when carbon dioxide reaches a minimum and albedo reaches a maximum, the world rapidly warms into an interglacial. A similar effect can be seen at the peak of an interglacial, where high CO2 and low albedo results in cooling.

Put that in your climate models and see what happens!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:35 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 603 words, total size 4 kb.

Jack Kemp

The recent remarks against Donald Trump by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, showing no public judicial temperment, to the point where even the NY Times criticized her in an editorial, tell us what a scold and a harridan and harpy she is. Do you want one or two more like her on the Supreme Court? If you are a conservative who was considering sitting home on Election Day or an Independent-Undecided - or even in some cases a Democrat (of the old fashioned Harry Truman-John Kennedy type) - you may well find yourself persuaded to vote for Trump. Well, in the Democrats' case, at least to not vote for Hillary on Election Day.

If Ginsburg's remarks weren't enough, a truck plowing into beach partiers in Nice on France's independence day, Bastile Day, driven by a Tunisian "immigrant" (read: invading Soldier of Allah) has done to convince undecided American voters where to cast their vote more than what one hundred million dollars worth of pro-Trump political tv commercials could do.

The holdouts on the Never-Trump front, although they have some valid points, are essentially making an argument more fitting for Heaven than for the imperfect life on earth. And they won't have any more effect - in 2016 - than a pro-Harrold Stassen rally at the GOP Convention had in the 1980s.

Most readers here aren't familiar with an Israeli saying concerning whether to vote for a more hard line government or not, but as this country is flooded with more so called Middle Eastern Muslim "immigrants" who show up at places like the Orlando nightclub and San Bernadino, this saying gains more and more meaning when applied to the United States. That saying is "Ein Brerra" which means in English that "There's no choice (or other option)." The luxury of a third party candidate is a fading pipe dream as the world explodes every day in acts of warfare.

Some of you may recall the speech Pres. George W. Bush made to Congress shortly after 9/11. As the tv camera focused on then Senator Hillary Clinton, a weird expression of hatred and frustration crossed her face, as if to say "George Bush, you have stolen my 2004 election chances. Why do you think we sent Elian Gonzales back to Cuba? So Al Gore would lose Florida and I, Hillary, would be sitting pretty for a 2004 nomination and election as President."

Well, the Muslims have done it again. They have invoked the Surrender or Fight to the Death slogan, backed up by facts on the ground (in this latest case, on the beach). And the stark, non-moderate choices leave us with no (viable) choice but to chose the hard liner Trump to insure the delusional compromiser, Hillary Clinton, who kissed Mrs. Arafat in Ramallah in the 1990s. http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/brad-wilmouth/2009/01/05/nbcs-mitchell-recounts-hillary-clinton-kissing-arafats-wife is not in the Oval Office next January. And the term "We have no other choice or option" seems as true today in Des Moines and Atlanta as it is in Jerusalem.


A NOTE FROM TIM

I like the "more suited to Heaven" part; isn't that what the GOP elites have told us for twenty years, that we are always demanding "perfection" in candiadates they give us (who lose)? WE have always been the ones to compromise, and now the shoe is on the other foot and they simply refuse to do so. Not that Trump is one of us, but he isn't one of them and now they want to take their ball and go home. What babies; we swallowed their Romneys, McCains, Doles, etc. for all these years. Time to stop being such crybabies.

There has been much criticism of Trump for not responding to Hillary right now. I think he may be doing the exact right thing; playing rope-a-dop with her. She is squandering money while Trump lets events - and Hillary herself - do the campaigning for him. He saves his money for later, and he doesn't walk into the trap that the Clinton team undoubtedly had planned for him when he started hammering her (like every other Republican would do right now.) Trump comes across as reasonable and gentlemanly and Hillary's numbers keep dropping.

When he does finally go on the offensive he will peak at the proper time, and he'll have maximum impact.

I am not a Trump fan, but I do admire his acumen. This is not a stupid man.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:53 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 744 words, total size 4 kb.

Timothy Birdnow

It's time to talk turkey here; according to a recent study obese people are fat and stupid, and weak willed to boot.

A recent study examined the brains of overweight people and found that their brains had different amounts and distribution of grey and white matter. According to the article in the Telegraph:

"overweight people are less intelligent than people who are do not have weight problems , a provocative study claims.

Overweight men and women have less grey and white matter in key areas of the brain, it suggests. They also have greater impulsiveness and "altered reward processing", the study said.

The researchers said that their findings could explain why overweight people make poor diet choices - they do not have the mental capacity to control themselves.

The theory is likely to prove controversial as weight loss campaigners have emphasised that the issues behind weight problems vary from individual to individual.

The research involved sophisticated brain images of 32 adults - 16 men and 16 women - selected from the US city of Baltimore, in Maryland."

End excerpt.

Now, why would you conduct such a survey on residents of Baltimore, who are primarily black (thus skewing the pool already)? African American culture is more forgiving of weight, and black people tend to eat more fried foods and sugar than their white or asian or hispanic neighbors. This doesn't prove that the weight has anything to do with the stupidity or weakness of will. Also, this is BALTIMORE, you know, the city that rioted and burned itself down because they were angry about a police killing. How bright are people who destroy their OWN neighborhoods when they are angry? If you are looking for people with serious cognizant dissonance and a lack of emotional control you couldn't find a better place. Oh, and they are overwhelmingly Democratic. If anything, this study should be used to illustrate the weakness of mind and will of Democrat voters and clients of the State.The

Makes perfect sense; study people who live off the dole and don't work, who riot and burn their town down for evidence they lack self control and tie it to their obesity.

Let us chew a little more fat:

"The researchers measured Body Mass Index, a commonly-used measure of how overweight a person is, and body fat percentages and compared them to differences in brain structure and function.
Work out BMI

Lead researcher Chase Figley, an assistant professor in the department of radiology at the University of Manitoba, said that the brain scans were "very thorough".

He said they covered changes across the whole brain, but also "specific networks".

In particular he was interested in the "salience network", which he described as the "seat of motivation, willpower, and the ability to persevere through physical and emotional challenges".

The results showed that there was "no significant difference" in terms of white matter between people who had a normal weight and people who were overweight.

"These changes could further affect the ability of overweight individuals to exert self-control and maintain healthy lifestyle choices"Prof Chase Figley

In a surprise twist, people with a higher BMI actually had slightly more grey matter overall.

However, looking at specific networks on the brain a different picture began to emerge. In particular, heavier and fatter people had less white matter in the salience network.

There were also differences in the dorsal striatum, an area of the brain involved with habitual behaviour.

Professor Figley told the National Post, a Canadian newspaper: "It stands to reason that these changes could further affect the ability of overweight individuals to exert self-control and maintain healthy lifestyle choices."

He added that it was not clear if the brain differences predispose certain individuals to becoming fat, or vice versa.

However, he said: "There are previous studies that imply elevated body fat can cause these sorts of brain changes."

End excerpt.

Well, well, well; we come back to the old BMI nonsense.

Body Mass Index has been the cornerstone of what is considered healthy for a long time, yet it is astonishingly unusefull. Created by a Belgian statistician (naturally a "miserable fat Belgian bastard!") and NOT a doctor or nutritionist or even a chef the BMI index is just a very useful tool, because it assumes people are not just similar but identical and that there is a strict formula where x is to y in the same proportions in the ideal person. This means that bodybuilders, who are often quite heavy because of the extra muscle mass, are obese according to their BMI, while someone emaciated by cancer is just hunky dorey, because his BMI falls into the "proper" range even though he may be skeletal. It also does not take into account the distribution of fat; someone with heavy hips is classed the same as someone with a fat stomach (pear v. apple) and that just isn't helpful as the pear shape is far preferable in terms of health.

So we see with their modeling that the researchers are using a rather two dimensional snapshot, much like the global warming models which often assume crazy things (like the atmosphere has no upper limit.)

The telegraph article says people who used drugs or had mental illnesses were excluded but fails to say how; likely the test subjects answered a questionaire, and just as likely there were lies on them. I suspect they PAID their test subjects. If you live in the ghetto and want to make an easy fifty bucks or so why not lie?

At any rate, this study appears quite flawed to me. It no doubt belongs in the waste bin, along with the overcooked chicken and the uneaten vegetables that Michelle Obama foists off on school children.

O.K., so what is MY point? This is another example of government funded studies at the service of our glorious leaders, who seek to control what we eat and how we eat it. See, it's not politically possible to intervene in diet, which is a freedom so basic as to be unenumerated in the Constitution without some compelling state interest. So, as with global warming, science must come to the rescue, provide a compelling interest to allow the regulation of a natural human activity. If a link between the brain and the brawn can be established then it follows that the government can regulate caloric intake - especially where children are concerned. It becomes a amatter of "preventing abuse", which is really a matter for state control of children, a way to break the power of the family over the individual.

There has been a recent move to do what liberals do best, to bully and shame overweight individuals. For example bioethicist Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Center argues for bullying and intimidating fat people:

"People don't hate being fat enough, basically, according to Hastings Center bioethicist Daniel Callahan. In an editorial published in the Hastings Center Report, he argues that nothing -- not diets, drugs, sugeries, nor appeals to our health -- is working, and goes on to make the case for fat-shaming people until they start eating more salad.

"An edgier strategy is needed," is his (earnest and entirely devoid of irony) way of putting it.

The edgy strategy he came up with entails "social pressure combined with vigorous government action." Callahan likens it to the campaign to end smoking: The combination, in his experience, of being criticized, sent outside, and taxed for his "nasty habit" was the motivation he needed to quit.

"The force of being shamed and beat upon socially," he writes, "was as persuasive for me to stop smoking as the threats to my health."

End excerpt.

Huh? I suppose he advocates the same for homosexuals, who likewise suffer serious health issues due to their behavior. I made this exact argument a while back in The Gay Food Nazis and furthermore argued the Left wants people to be fat and stupid. It is quite strange how their interventionist, nay, abusive approach to one health problem is so different from another, one where sexual choice is involved. They rail against obesity which stems from eating food - an absolute necessity to any organism - while they demand total acceptance of sexuality on any level - sexuality is, of course, a strong biological impulse but hardly necessary to survival and it can be put aside. So you are morally culpable if you do what you must in the wrong way but a sympathetic figure, perhaps even heroic, if you take your pleasure in a dangerous or destructive manner.

Somebody please explain that to me; it makes my head hurt.

And what of obese gay people? Do liberals want to obuse them or coddle them? What about obese transvestites? I would say they would put them over their knee for a good spanking but that is apt to make them even fatter...

Modern day liberals are anything but; they are totalitarian in outlook. Mussolini described Fascism as totalitarian, and he meant it in a good way; society was, in his paradigm, intimately involved in all aspects of life for the betterment of the People (and HE would decide what was for their betterment.) There are practical considerations, too; fit the yoke and you will eventually get the beast to labor for you. One does not jump on a wild stallion and ride into the sunset; first the bit must go into the mouth. That is the first step, and the final enslavement of the masses starts with deciding what goes in OUR mouths.

Which, sadly, is what happened in Baltimore a long time ago, so it should come as no surprise that the fat residents of Baltimore also showed stupidity and weakness of will. Too many of them have eaten food that is not their own and lived a life devoid of productive labor or intellectual exercise. Take welfare, live in HUD housing, sit all day watching television, and vote Democrat! Well, there is a price to be paid for that.

Let's add this one to the junk science pile.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:20 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 1694 words, total size 11 kb.

Timothy Birdnow

For those who think Black Lives Matter is an organization to protect black lives, I suggest you go to their website to see what they are really about. Here are a few highlights:

"It goes beyond the narrow nationalism that can be prevalent within Black communities, which merely call on Black people to love Black, live Black and buy Black, keeping straight cis Black men in the front of the movement while our sisters, queer and trans and disabled folk take up roles in the background or not at all.

Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum. It centers those that have been marginalized within Black liberation movements. It is a tactic to (re)build the Black liberation movement.

What Does #BlackLivesMatter Mean?

When we say Black Lives Matter, we are broadening the conversation around state violence to include all of the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. We are talking about the ways in which Black lives are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity."

End excerpt.

Here are the details:

*
How Black poverty and genocide is state violence.
*
How 2.8 million Black people are locked in cages in this country is state violence.
*
How Black women bearing the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families is state violence.
*
How Black queer and trans folks bear a unique burden from a hetero-patriarchal society that disposes of us like garbage and simultaneously fetishizes us and profits off of us, and that is state violence.

*
How 500,000 Black people in the US are undocumented immigrants and relegated to the shadows.
*
How Black girls are used as negotiating chips during times of conflict and war.
*
How Black folks living with disabilities and different abilities bear the burden of state sponsored Darwinian experiments that attempt to squeeze us into boxes of normality defined by white supremacy, and that is state violence.

#BlackLivesMatter is working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. We affirm our contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression. We have put our sweat equity and love for Black people into creating a political project–taking the hashtag off of social media and into the streets. The call for Black lives to matter is a rallying cry for ALL Black lives striving for liberation."

End excerpt.

In other words, these are Bolsheviks, Black Supremacists who seek the destruction of their neighbors and benefactors. This has nothing to do with getting black folks a fair shake.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:57 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 465 words, total size 3 kb.

Timothy Birdnow

Police officers shot and killed an East St. Louis man on Monday in what can only be considered another "hands up! don't shoot!" moment. According to the Belleville News Democrat:

"The man, identified as Jason Brooks, of East St. Louis, was sitting on a porch firing a gun, according to Lt. Dave Bivens, head of investigations for the Illinois State Police District 11. The suspect allegedly pointed a gun at two officers from the Washington Park and East St. Louis police departments, who had responded to a call of a man firing a gun. The officers fired at the man multiple times.

GUEST BOOK: Express your condolences to the family of Jason Brooks"

The shooting occurred about 6 a.m. in front of 1602 Gaty Ave.

Brooks, who was armed with multiple weapons, discharged a gun at bystanders and then in the direction of the two officers, who returned fire. Brooks was fatally wounded during the exchange and pronounced dead later at a St. Louis hospital."

[...]

"Neither officer has been identified. Both have been placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation, Hubbard and Tomlinson said."

End excerpt.

Did you catch that part in the middle? Why should anyone offer condolences for this dope-addled dirtbag? Nobody who is rational shoots at people on his front porch in the nude. But this is the way it is in modern America; every person of color is a victim. And the all-black East St. Louis isn't identifying the police officers involved. Now why do you suppose that is? I doubt it is because they are white.

In other Black Lives Matter news, a South Carolina fire fighter was fired for tweeting a frustrated threat that he would run over radicals blocking the interstate.

Funny; BLM chanted "pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon" and has repeatedly advocated murdering police officers, but an exasperated non-threat from a white guy leads to his firing. While I would agree the fireman should be disciplined in some fashion, his dismissal is clearly a politically correct overreaction.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:20 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 347 words, total size 2 kb.

Timothy Birdnow

I once compared the E.U. to the monster created by Viktor Frankenstein. Frankenstein, you may remember, created his monster from the body parts of a host of dead people, and imbued it with a kind of shadowy life (really, a sort of walking dead) through the efficacy of modern technology. The true monster in the story was the good doctor himself, who subordinated all thoughts of morality or humanity to his absolute lust for scientific achievement. Frankenstein almost immediately abandoned his poor creature, which eventually destroyed him.

The E.U. was like that; an amalgamation of nations, many with little in common except their proximity, stitched awkwardly together to create an illusion of life. The E.U. was never a nation, but a type of empire, much like the unlamented Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Hapsburgs had been. Nobody save the nobility shed a single tear for the AH, and nobody will for the E.U. either, save the Eurolites who have reigned there.

These sorts of empires are nothing new. Consider the Soviet Union, which included countries that had nothing in common with the Great Russians but simply could not stop being dragged in by economic, political, and military forces beyond their control. Lithuania, for example, was an old enemy of the Russians but became a vassal under the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was an abject failure, economically, socially, spiritually. Every such empire winds up failing. Napoleon's short-lived creation bombed. Charlemagne's First Reich splintered. The Normans failed to retain control of both Britain and the French coast. I could go on and on with this.

Why did most African nations fail after the end of the Colonial period? Because they were the same sort of amalgamated empires as the E.U. is today. And we can go all the way back, look at the empires of the Mongols or Huns or even the Romans and see how such civilizations eventually flame out because there is not enough to hold them together. Force alone becomes, in the end, the key to their unity, and force is a poor motivator over the long term. There have to be more durable threads.

At the same time, the British Commonwealth has done spectacularly well, because it has no pretensions at maintaining anything but cultural and economic ties. There is no pretension to empire in the Commonwealth, and, say, Australia is happy to remain in the entente because it is beneficial. Oh, and they have common cultural ties through their positions as former British colonies.

Unity is not always good; there is such a thing as too much unity, which becomes stifling. The Jim Jones cult was a case in point; they were unified up to the consumption of cyanide-laced soft drinks. It was an unhealthy unity. On the other hand, anarchy is equally oppressive, with the city of Ferguson being illustrative of the oppression of anarchy. There must be a middle ground to any culture. Sadly, in the last two hundred years the tendency has been toward more unity, to bigger and bigger, to controls and regulations and compulsions. And far too many intellectuals and leaders think that more is indeed merrier.

Fay Voshell has an excellent article here today about the meaning of Brexit and the abominable nature of the E.U. I suggest everyone read it.

The E.U. was always a Godless enterprise designed to strip away the cultural and spiritual trappings of the People in favor of a soulless artifice, a Frankenstonian monstrosity composed of ill-fitting parts reanimated and repurposed. It has always been a soul-crushing enterprise. It was the fondest dream of the European socialists to create a borderless world where Man is fitted to his circumstances rather than his world giving him opportunities to mature and grow.

Fay makes the case:

"The fatal flaw of the European Union has been its leaders’ assumption that human beings and nations can be regulated and managed as easily and thoroughly as cabbages are grown, bought and sold.

Reductionism is always the Achilles heel of ideological zealots, who in the case of Brussels’ bureaucrats, are committed to a solely materialist view of humanity and nations. We have seen the "successes” of the materialist view of humanity and nations in the past, most notably in the form of communist ideology, which purportedly would end all class structures and therefore all wars, as class struggle due to economic inequality was the chief cause of violence. End the class system and establish equality, especially economic equality, and peace would ensue.

The ideology behind the EU is also materialist in nature, and therefore very similar to that of communist and socialist beliefs. "Equality” is the goal, with the accompanying postulation that the end of nation states is a realistic solution to the internecine wars that have afflicted Europe, especially the wars of the twentieth century. Nations are seen as the cause of violence, and as such inherently evil. End national identities as once classes were to be eliminated; and establish a super state which encourages uniformity of nations along with the obliteration of differences among humans, and peace will reign. Laws and regulations for the economic union would establish equality among humans, tribes and nations as surely as one can establish the proper length of bananas."

End excerpt.

I worked in the produce department at a grocery store for a number of years and can tell you how things work. Perfectly good food is frequently (not sometimes) thrown away because it is not to the consumer's liking in appearance. Take nectarines; when they are ripening their skins wrinkle and they look unappealing, but this is when they are at their best and most edible. But nobody wants them wrinkled, we used to pull all the wrinkly ones off the shelf and toss them in the dumpster. (I would often consume them myself for a free breakfast, although that was flirting with the rules.) See, the greatest virtue of fruit in a grocery store is uniformity. We did this with all manner of fruits and vegetables, tossing the good with the bad because it was not textbook in appearance. So much waste, so many good things lost (and even homeless shelters and food banks wouldn't take "discards"). It is the price that is paid for prejudicial selection.

And how, may I ask, does one get a certain size on a banana? By discarding those bananas that do not meet the standard.

I think you see where I'm going with this; people, cultural practices, religious beliefs, and other institutions that do not comport with the vision of the elites in the E.U. are simply discarded as wrinkly nectarines. The individual, created by God and endowed with precious, unique talents and gifts, must be forced into a specific mold or discarded. The Industrial Revolution spawned the rise of socialism at the same time and it was largely a mirror of the concept of the machine. Socialists wanted to model society on the machine, with specific parts serving specific roles and not deviating. No machine repurposes a stamper to, say, drill a hole, so why, the thinking went, should a sheet metal worker write copy for a newspaper? It was the old thinking that had given us serfdom; the idea that we should all have our place and every one should remain in it. The arrogance of the post-Enlightenment elites was that the could recreate society as a fine-tuned machine, with themselves as the engineers (because they were so much smarter than everyone else.)

But, but, but, what of multiculturalism? The first criticism of my thesis will be that the Progressives cherish individuality and multiculturalism. Hogwash. What they cherish is group culture, group thinking, group action. We are not individuals but rather members of differing groups who serve their purpose. Just as there are different sized nuts for screws, so too there are different sized members of the nut class, but they are all nuts. (Pun intended.) A nut serves no purpose save as a fastener for a screw. So too, an individual serves no purpose save as a specific member of a group who ultimately performs economic and cultural work. A nut does not change into a nail and neither does an individual change from a member of the gay community, say. He is eternally gay. It's why the idea of psychological counseling to exit the homosexual lifestyle is so bitterly resisted, even when the person in question requests it; it is impossible to move out of the group to which one has been assigned. The Christian view of moral autonomy and personal growth, of freedom, is anathema, so it must be strangled. I have fought for years with Determinists who argue Free Will is nothing but an illusion; they cannot allow Free Will because it allows the individual to leave his assigned space. These people want society to be a gestalt, and ultimately to be like an animal body, with individual cells giving up their independent existence for the good of the collective.

Viktor Frankenstein tried that; it didn't work. And the obscene reanimated collage of corpses is the end result of the Progressives in Europe and elsewhere as well.

What the E.U. and other such Progressive experimental societies offer is a guided, secured carnality. You can have as much sex as you want and not worry about the consequences. You can enjoy your life courtesy of the generous welfare benefits. You can use drugs or watch endless television or blare your music. Join Black Lives Matter and enjoy the rapture of unrestrained rage and resentment. All the while the Progressives will set high walls around you, keeping you from doing too much harm. In the process you will help them destroy the fruit that does not meet their standards, the Christians, the believing Jews, the Constitutionalists, the historians. You get to serve a purpose, the one chosen for you by the engineers, and at the same time have a ball! But you may not think. You may not chart your own course. You may not make your own decisions. You may not grow spiritually or emotionally. In the end you are a tool. We used to call them slaves.

What is the difference between Left and Right? The Left keeps you penned with high guardrails while letting you do whatever you please while the Right lets you walk without them by the light of your own self-discipline. The Progressives think it freedom to run amok and tyranny to expect people to behave themselves.

And that is why everything is regulated in places like the E.U.; to avoid constraining "freedom" everything must be externally constrained. Self control is tyranny to these people.

So multiculturalism is good not because it leads to greater independence and growth but because it shepherds people into holding pens designed by the masters.

We should rejoice at Brexit; it was a moment of sanity in the geopolitical Frankenstein that Liberalism has created. But, as the U.S. is following along the same path, I fear the coming of World Government is nigh. Oh, it may take a few years, but there appears to be nobody to stop it.

We are all Frankenstein's now.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:38 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 1870 words, total size 12 kb.

By Fay Voshell

The fatal flaw of the European Union has been its leaders’ assumption that human beings and nations can be regulated and managed as easily and thoroughly as cabbages are grown, bought and sold.

Reductionism is always the Achilles heel of ideological zealots, who in the case of Brussels’ bureaucrats, are committed to a solely materialist view of humanity and nations. We have seen the "successes” of the materialist view of humanity and nations in the past, most notably in the form of communist ideology, which purportedly would end all class structures and therefore all wars, as class struggle due to economic inequality was the chief cause of violence. End the class system and establish equality, especially economic equality, and peace would ensue.

The ideology behind the EU is also materialist in nature, and therefore very similar to that of communist and socialist beliefs. "Equality” is the goal, with the accompanying postulation that the end of nation states is a realistic solution to the internecine wars that have afflicted Europe, especially the wars of the twentieth century. Nations are seen as the cause of violence, and as such inherently evil. End national identities as once classes were to be eliminated; and establish a super state which encourages uniformity of nations along with the obliteration of differences among humans, and peace will reign. Laws and regulations for the economic union would establish equality among humans, tribes and nations as surely as one can establish the proper length of bananas.

But the top down system of economic control has meant the incipient annihilation of Europe’s nation states and the end of democracies. In return, a faceless bureaucracy centered in Brussels has been churning out rules and regulations that routinely override national laws, thus ensuring the diminishment if not the end of national sovereignty as well as the ability of citizens to have a say in matters important to them.

The push for uniformity also ensures the erasure of national memory; which in turn means the erasure of identity as Europeans have traditionally known identity. Which leads to the next point; namely, the erasure of Western history, as the erasure of national identity ensures the past will drop into a memory hole while the present and future are written in terms acceptable to the globalist EU.

The fact is that the last thousand years of European history have been written in terms of the rise of nations, national identity and the struggles of nations. At stake is the erasure of European history, which to date has been written as the history of nation states—their origins, rise and fall. Erasure of that history in favor of a global narrative favored by the EU would ensure the death of the histories of England, France, Spain, Hungary and so forth.

Historical memory is a key to national as well as to individual identity. One’s country, nation and faith are critical keys to human identity. The amorphous and formless global citizen does not exist except as a malleable abstraction in the minds of utopian globalists.

The above is why leaders like Angela Merkel believe it’s just fine to import millions of people who are diametrically opposed to a still largely Christianized Europe and whose manners, ways and attitudes cannot be digested by Europe without grave and deleterious consequences. For globalists like Merkel, one human unit is just like another human unit, measureable chiefly in terms of economic impact.

Which brings us to the next point; namely, the totally reductionist secularist ideology of the EU rids individuals and nations of memory, faith and hope, as it is centered only on the idea of humans as economic units who are to be pushed around on a chessboard by faceless bureaucrats.

As Eric Hoffer wrote in 1951 (The True Believer: Thoughts On the Nature Of Mass Movements):

"It is obvious that a proselytizing mass movement must bread down all existing group ties if it is to win a nationwide following. The ideal potential convert is the individual who stands alone. When a mass movement finds the corporate pattern of family, tribe, and country, etcetera, in a state of disruption and decay, it moves in and gathers the harvest…The milieu most favorable for the rise and propagation of mass movements is one in which a once compact corporate structure is, for one reason or another, in a state of disintegration.”

The man without a country, without a faith, without a family is the ideal man of the EU, as he is easily persuaded to focus only on bread and cabbages for survival. The purely economic view will appeal only to a rudderless and aimless populace without faith or roots.

But as the poet, philosopher and theologian T.S. Eliot asked in his prescient book Christianity and Culture (1938):

"Is society "assembled round anything more permanent than a congerie of banks, insurance companies and industries; and has it any beliefs more essential than a belief in compound interest and the maintenance of dividends?”

According to the European Union, the answer to Eliot’s question is, "No.”

Society is to be measured only in economic terms. As far as the EU is concerned, practical purposes are holy causes, with economics as a materialistic faith replacing Christianity; and a plethora of regulatory minutiae replacing the Ten Commandments.

The omnipotence of economics replaces the omnipotence of God. Faith and family are irrelevant.

As Beverly Stevens, a professor of finance and editor of Regina magazine puts it:

"…

eople from the ancient ruling families of France, Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain were very worried about the EU’s assault on the family. After the EU specifically rejected the idea that it had Christian roots, many of these people became genuinely alarmed. Since then, they have been monitoring the myriad of regulatory ‘fixes’ — especially concerning education — which demonstrated that the EU’s self-styled ‘masters’ were aiming at shaping a society where ‘the family’ simply didn’t exist.

"And it has worked. Basically, wherever the EU has reached, the birthrate has plummeted, and the Faith is all but dead…

"And the EU’s vision of their brave new world? A flattened globe, where borders are crumbling and identities are fluid. Banking, commerce and media elites bind the nations together into a seamless new tapestry. People are free, finally, to seek opportunity and pleasure, without the confining strictures of tradition, family or morality. In this world, ‘morality’ is also a fluid concept; people can hook up, produce children or abort them, hire technology and surrogates to make babies — it’s all the same to the Super-State. It collects high taxes, grants eye-wateringly lucrative contracts to its corporate supporters, turns a blind eye to bad behavior by any group it is protecting and increasingly persecutes anyone who dares to oppose the Super-State’s version of ‘morality’.”

We Americans should be grateful that Great Britain has recovered some of its memory as a nation and has indicated she does not wish her national identity to disappear down the memory hole. We can be glad she sees herself and her people in more than economic terms or as part of a faceless bureaucratic super state.

One can even hope that she and America as well may also recover the memory of her Christian past and put it to work in visualizing a Christian framework for the nation. That effort would be heroic, largely because the effort of recovery of memory and the actualization of a vision for the future is supremely heroic work.

Today’s concerned Christians find themselves in the situation of England’s Christian community during 1938, when their country was facing the prospect of totalitarian aggression and absorption into a secularist super state determined to rule all of Europe. T.S. Eliot quoted the letter from a troubled colleague that inspired his book. The words are applicable to Europe and America today, including applicability to the current events in Dallas, Texas and the Hillary Clinton email scandal. The symptoms all point to the same spiritual malaise:

"…The period of grace that has been given us may be no more than a postponement of the day of reckoning unless we make up our minds to seek a cure. Our civilization can recover only if we are determined to root out the cancerous growths which have brought it to the verge of complete collapse.

"Whether truth and justice or caprice and violence are to prevail in human affairs is a question on which the fate of mankind depends…The basal truth is that the spiritual foundations of western civilization have been undermined…What clear alternatives have we in this country? The mind of England is confused and uncertain.

"May our salvation lie in an attempt to recover our Christian heritage, not in the sense of going back to the past but of discovering in the central affirmations and insights of the Christian faith new spiritual energies to regenerate and vitalize our sick society?

[Is not] the path of wisdom an attempt to work out a Christian doctrine of modern society and to order our national life in accordance with it? [Our institutions] feature a complete denial of the Christian understanding of the meaning and end of man’s existence; and of the stupendous and costly spiritual, moral and intellectual effort that any genuine attempt to order the national life in accordance with the Christian understanding of life would demand…But if the will were there, I believe the first steps to be taken are fairly clear: The recognition that nothing short of a really heroic effort will avail to save mankind from its present evils and the destruction which must follow in their train.” --J. H. Oldham

It is 1938 in England, Europe and in America. Britain has made the giant step toward recovering her national identity and sovereignty. It remains to be seen if the Christians within her and her cousin America will take the next step and heed Mr. Oldham’s clarion call.

Will our nations once again seek to make the Christian understanding of the meaning and end of man’s existence ascendant in national life?

With God’s help, we can.

--Fay Voshell holds a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, which awarded her its prize for excellence in systematic theology. Her thoughts have appeared in many online publications, including American Thinker, National Review, RealClearReligion, CNS, Fox News and Russia Insider. She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com

The fatal flaw of the European Union has been its leaders’ assumption that human beings and nations can be regulated and managed as easily and thoroughly as cabbages are grown, bought and sold.

Reductionism is always the Achilles heel of ideological zealots, who in the case of Brussels’ bureaucrats, are committed to a solely materialist view of humanity and nations. We have seen the "successes” of the materialist view of humanity and nations in the past, most notably in the form of communist ideology, which purportedly would end all class structures and therefore all wars, as class struggle due to economic inequality was the chief cause of violence. End the class system and establish equality, especially economic equality, and peace would ensue.

The ideology behind the EU is also materialist in nature, and therefore very similar to that of communist and socialist beliefs. "Equality” is the goal, with the accompanying postulation that the end of nation states is a realistic solution to the internecine wars that have afflicted Europe, especially the wars of the twentieth century. Nations are seen as the cause of violence, and as such inherently evil. End national identities as once classes were to be eliminated; and establish a super state which encourages uniformity of nations along with the obliteration of differences among humans, and peace will reign. Laws and regulations for the economic union would establish equality among humans, tribes and nations as surely as one can establish the proper length of bananas.

But the top down system of economic control has meant the incipient annihilation of Europe’s nation states and the end of democracies. In return, a faceless bureaucracy centered in Brussels has been churning out rules and regulations that routinely override national laws, thus ensuring the diminishment if not the end of national sovereignty as well as the ability of citizens to have a say in matters important to them.

The push for uniformity also ensures the erasure of national memory; which in turn means the erasure of identity as Europeans have traditionally known identity. Which leads to the next point; namely, the erasure of Western history, as the erasure of national identity ensures the past will drop into a memory hole while the present and future are written in terms acceptable to the globalist EU.

The fact is that the last thousand years of European history have been written in terms of the rise of nations, national identity and the struggles of nations. At stake is the erasure of European history, which to date has been written as the history of nation states—their origins, rise and fall. Erasure of that history in favor of a global narrative favored by the EU would ensure the death of the histories of England, France, Spain, Hungary and so forth.

Historical memory is a key to national as well as to individual identity. One’s country, nation and faith are critical keys to human identity. The amorphous and formless global citizen does not exist except as a malleable abstraction in the minds of utopian globalists.

The above is why leaders like Angela Merkel believe it’s just fine to import millions of people who are diametrically opposed to a still largely Christianized Europe and whose manners, ways and attitudes cannot be digested by Europe without grave and deleterious consequences. For globalists like Merkel, one human unit is just like another human unit, measureable chiefly in terms of economic impact.

Which brings us to the next point; namely, the totally reductionist secularist ideology of the EU rids individuals and nations of memory, faith and hope, as it is centered only on the idea of humans as economic units who are to be pushed around on a chessboard by faceless bureaucrats.

As Eric Hoffer wrote in 1951 (The True Believer: Thoughts On the Nature Of Mass Movements):

"It is obvious that a proselytizing mass movement must bread down all existing group ties if it is to win a nationwide following. The ideal potential convert is the individual who stands alone. When a mass movement finds the corporate pattern of family, tribe, and country, etcetera, in a state of disruption and decay, it moves in and gathers the harvest…The milieu most favorable for the rise and propagation of mass movements is one in which a once compact corporate structure is, for one reason or another, in a state of disintegration.”

The man without a country, without a faith, without a family is the ideal man of the EU, as he is easily persuaded to focus only on bread and cabbages for survival. The purely economic view will appeal only to a rudderless and aimless populace without faith or roots.

But as the poet, philosopher and theologian T.S. Eliot asked in his prescient book Christianity and Culture (1938):

"Is society "assembled round anything more permanent than a congerie of banks, insurance companies and industries; and has it any beliefs more essential than a belief in compound interest and the maintenance of dividends?”

According to the European Union, the answer to Eliot’s question is, "No.”

Society is to be measured only in economic terms. As far as the EU is concerned, practical purposes are holy causes, with economics as a materialistic faith replacing Christianity; and a plethora of regulatory minutiae replacing the Ten Commandments.

The omnipotence of economics replaces the omnipotence of God. Faith and family are irrelevant.

As Beverly Stevens, a professor of finance and editor of Regina magazine puts it:

"…

eople from the ancient ruling families of France, Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain were very worried about the EU’s assault on the family. After the EU specifically rejected the idea that it had Christian roots, many of these people became genuinely alarmed. Since then, they have been monitoring the myriad of regulatory ‘fixes’ — especially concerning education — which demonstrated that the EU’s self-styled ‘masters’ were aiming at shaping a society where ‘the family’ simply didn’t exist.

"And it has worked. Basically, wherever the EU has reached, the birthrate has plummeted, and the Faith is all but dead…

"And the EU’s vision of their brave new world? A flattened globe, where borders are crumbling and identities are fluid. Banking, commerce and media elites bind the nations together into a seamless new tapestry. People are free, finally, to seek opportunity and pleasure, without the confining strictures of tradition, family or morality. In this world, ‘morality’ is also a fluid concept; people can hook up, produce children or abort them, hire technology and surrogates to make babies — it’s all the same to the Super-State. It collects high taxes, grants eye-wateringly lucrative contracts to its corporate supporters, turns a blind eye to bad behavior by any group it is protecting and increasingly persecutes anyone who dares to oppose the Super-State’s version of ‘morality’.”

We Americans should be grateful that Great Britain has recovered some of its memory as a nation and has indicated she does not wish her national identity to disappear down the memory hole. We can be glad she sees herself and her people in more than economic terms or as part of a faceless bureaucratic super state.

One can even hope that she and America as well may also recover the memory of her Christian past and put it to work in visualizing a Christian framework for the nation. That effort would be heroic, largely because the effort of recovery of memory and the actualization of a vision for the future is supremely heroic work.

Today’s concerned Christians find themselves in the situation of England’s Christian community during 1938, when their country was facing the prospect of totalitarian aggression and absorption into a secularist super state determined to rule all of Europe. T.S. Eliot quoted the letter from a troubled colleague that inspired his book. The words are applicable to Europe and America today, including applicability to the current events in Dallas, Texas and the Hillary Clinton email scandal. The symptoms all point to the same spiritual malaise:

"…The period of grace that has been given us may be no more than a postponement of the day of reckoning unless we make up our minds to seek a cure. Our civilization can recover only if we are determined to root out the cancerous growths which have brought it to the verge of complete collapse.

"Whether truth and justice or caprice and violence are to prevail in human affairs is a question on which the fate of mankind depends…The basal truth is that the spiritual foundations of western civilization have been undermined…What clear alternatives have we in this country? The mind of England is confused and uncertain.

"May our salvation lie in an attempt to recover our Christian heritage, not in the sense of going back to the past but of discovering in the central affirmations and insights of the Christian faith new spiritual energies to regenerate and vitalize our sick society?

[Is not] the path of wisdom an attempt to work out a Christian doctrine of modern society and to order our national life in accordance with it? [Our institutions] feature a complete denial of the Christian understanding of the meaning and end of man’s existence; and of the stupendous and costly spiritual, moral and intellectual effort that any genuine attempt to order the national life in accordance with the Christian understanding of life would demand…But if the will were there, I believe the first steps to be taken are fairly clear: The recognition that nothing short of a really heroic effort will avail to save mankind from its present evils and the destruction which must follow in their train.” --J. H. Oldham

It is 1938 in England, Europe and in America. Britain has made the giant step toward recovering her national identity and sovereignty. It remains to be seen if the Christians within her and her cousin America will take the next step and heed Mr. Oldham’s clarion call.

Will our nations once again seek to make the Christian understanding of the meaning and end of man’s existence ascendant in national life?

With God’s help, we can.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:36 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 3403 words, total size 22 kb.

Helen Dyer forwards this:

http://www.garretgalland.com/passing-parade/how-george-soros-singlehandedly-created-the-european-refugee-crisisand-why

How George Soros Singlehandedly Created the European Refugee Crisis—and Why
In 2015, a Sky News reporter found "Migrant Handbooks” on the Greek island of Lesbos. It was later revealed that the handbooks, which are written in Arabic, had been given to refugees before crossing the Mediterranean by a group called "Welcome to the EU”.

http://www.jimball.com.au/blog/ernst-blofeld-george-soros-life-imitating-art-imitating-life/

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:13 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 68 words, total size 1 kb.

Timothy Birdnow

One of the memes that has been making the rounds is that FBI Director James Comey did us a favor by not refering charges to his boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch. The argument being made is that, by not simply turning over evidence of criminality to Lynch - who would squash it - Comey laid out the case for prosecution without actually asking for formal charges, thus putting Hillary Clinton in a politically impossible situation. The thinking is that Comey, rather than waste a quiet referal, hurt Hillary as best he could. He's a hero, a titan of political acumen and moral courage! Or so the thinking goes.

This is, sadly, the same thinking that was applied to Chief Justice John Roberts when he rewrote the Affordable care Act to push it's bloated, elephantine carcass through the eye-of-the-needle gate of Constitutionality. At the time many on our side were praising Roberts for this as well, claiming he was acting to push America off the path of socialism and driving the flock of sea gull brained to the Grand Old Party.

If that was his intent, he violated his oath of office, but many on our side argued it nonetheless. Oh, and it didn't work.

The same is very true in this instance. Comey essentially rewrote the law to make intent to harm the country a prerequisite for proferring charges - something that is not and never has been the case, lest why is the statute about malfeasance and carelessness? She would be charged rather with espionage. Ignorance of the law has never been an excuse nor has lack of criminal intent; nobody who gets drunk, drives, and kills someone woke that morning intending to committ vehicular manslaughter, yet they go to jail just the same.

Comey has to know this, and yet he put on a big show with sound and fury signifying nothing, and let Mrs. Clinton skip merrily away.

And what of the many other charges he could have brought? She ordered her server wiped professionally, and destroyed her blackberry. These are crimes involving obstruction of justice and evidence tampering. She also told investigators she had turned over all her e-mails when she obviously hadn't, which is perjury. She specifically told investigators she had no work-related items on her private server. That was a lie.

And, after Hillary's husband met with Comey's boss at the DOJ and a long holiday weekend, the man of impeccable character holds a presser and announces no charges. Really?

Does anybody remember when the saintly John Danforth investigated the FBI assault on the Branch Davidians at Waco Texas? He wasn't supposed to find evidence of wrongdoing and, surprise, surprise, he couldn't find it. Yes, there was some obstruction of justice by low level people, but nothing bad by the government itself. This was a foregone conclusion, in my mind; Danforth was supported by both parties at a time of extreme political polarization, and that should have tipped everyone off as to what the purpose of Danforth's investigation really served; it was a whitewash.

we've seen this repeatedly. Whatever became of the investigations of the many Clinton scandals? Of Whitewater, the White House Travel Office false prosecution of director Billy Dale? What of the Charlie Trie, James Riadi, Chinese money laundering scandal? That one saw illegal campaign donations coming to the Clintons in exchange for His Slickness granting loral Aerospace a waiver to fix problems with Chinese satellite launch vehicles - thus giving the Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles. Always there are special prosecutors, or FBI probes which wound up just like Comey's little kabuki dance.

And always we on the right make the same excuses. Desperate to find a silver lining in the nuclear winter cloudscape, so many conservatives refuse to face reality.

Take this blogpost from Thomas Lifson at American Thinker:

"At the risk of being labeled Panglossian, I do see a small upside in the decision of James Comey to recommend no prosecution of Hillary Clinton. This does not make me a happy camper: I mourn for the damage done to the rule of law by applying a different standard to the powerful from the one applied to the rest of us. This is civic cancer, and it makes me sick.

But if Comey had recommended prosecution and Hillary had been replaced by someone more electable (a large group, including Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren, for starters), Donald Trump would almost certainly be defeated. Nobody comes close to Hillary in matching the unfavorable opinions held of Donald Trump.

By providing vivid evidence that the fix was, in fact, in, Comey reinforced one of the main talking points of Trump. He didn’t have to, but he outlined a powerful case against Hillary Clinton, only to announce that she wouldn’t be prosecuted. This was tailored like a Saville Row suit to Trump’s campaign."

end excerpt.

Look, I get it; nobody wants to live in the slew of despond, and anyone wishing to continue the fight must try to find ways to keep up the troop spirits. But how many times are we to make excuses in this effort? The whole point of what the Clinton's do is to disspirit us. By making excuses we actually serve them by allowing them to get away with this; our failure to adequately punish their enablers makes for a political climate that favors them, because everyone is more afraid of the Clintons than of us, the Truth, the Law, justice, or even the final judgement of God.

As I told a person in the comments section on this American Thinker post, Comey did not do us any favors.

In warfare one rarely wins by losing battles, and especially when you are the smaller and less well-equipped army. Take the Civil War; the Confederates pretty much had to win decisively every battle because ever draw or loss meant the destruction of men and equipment that could not be replaced. Lincoln knew that, which is why he was so cross with his generals, who generally didn't want to take the fight to the South. Lee usually understood it and made every effort to outmaneuver his opposition. He fell pray to bloodlust at Gettysburg and it cost him the entire war. This is precisely where we stand here; we are fighting not just the Clintons but a mammoth machine, which includes the media, the universities, public schooling, corporate America, etc. We cannot afford a draw, much less a loss.

This was less than a draw.

And what will it accomplish? In two months the media will spin this from a damning indictment without charges into a full exoneration of her thighness, and in fact it will turn things on their heads, making the Republicans look like viciios little chihuahuas who falsely accused a noble person who just happened to best them. The public has short attention spans and shorter memories, and by the time this is over the public will have forgotten everything Comey said but will remember only that no charges were brought, hence she is innocent of everything.

Comey fully exonerated her; he just did it in a way to avoid being completely ruined by so doing.

And this business of not wanting to fight Biden or some other replacement? The devil you know is better than the devil you don't? I don't stand with that. I've always thought Obama was hoping to overturn Hillary's nomination after the convention anyway, and I suspected he was going to throw somebody we didn't know out there. It would have been better to force his hand earlier than he planned. And if I am wrong about that, it still doesn't matter because Hillary will have tarnished the Democrat brand by being indicted after winning the nomination - even while she was under investigation.

Also writing at American Thinker, Lee Cary argues that Comey also did us a service by showing America that the political arena is ripe with corruption and this will somehow translate into electoral succes for Trump. Huh??? The Clintons were horribly corrupt and yet they were re-elected in '96. The nation re-elected Obama as well. This is not an issue with many Americans who will not even be aware of it.

What is happening with so many conservatives is reminiscent of spouses or children of alcoholics. We are forever making excuses, covering, enabling. We fret that allowing those who betray their oaths or their duties to take their medicine will cause us grief, so we find every and any excuse to cover for them. "Oh, that vomiting was caused by the flu, not a fifth of scotch". Instead we cover for Comey or Roberts "he didn't betray his office, but rather tried to help in the only way he knew." The sad fact is Comey and Roberts and McCain and Romney are still political skid row drunks.

As I said earlier, these types of people need to fear us, fear the wrath of America and the eventual judgement of the Most High more than the Clintons or Obamas of this world. Right now they will always cave in to the stick and carrot approach of those in power. They need to fear NOT speaking Truth to Power.

That will never happen as long as we continue to pretend that a defeat is a kind of victory. Somebody really needs to devise a 12 step program for conservatives.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1581 words, total size 10 kb.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 02:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1133 words, total size 8 kb.

Judi McLeod of Canada Free Press sends this:

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 12:56 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 75 words, total size 1 kb.

Timothy Birdnow

I've said it before and I'll say it again; global warming makes atolls grow.

From CO2 Science:

"Introducing their study, Testut et al. (2016) write that reef islands are widely thought to be highly vulnerable to climate change, in particular to sea level rise and to extreme climate events, such as tropical and non-tropical cyclones, while further noting that sea level rise is often perceived as casting doubt on reef islands future habitability. And it was against this backdrop of pessimism that the seven European scientists went on to assess the likelihood -- or not -- of these several negative contentions actually occurring in the real world of nature.

More specifically, Testut et al. acquired baseline data on both absolute and relative sea level variations and shoreline changes in the Scattered Islands region of the Indian Ocean, based on aerial image analysis, satellite altimetry, field observations and in situ measurements derived from the 2009 and 2011 Terres Australes et Antarctiques Francaises (or TAAF) scientific expeditions. And what did they thereby learn about the matter?

In the words of Testut et al., "Grande Glorieuse Island has increased in area by 7.5 ha between 1989 and 2003, predominantly as a result of shoreline accretion," which "occurred over 47% of shoreline length" (see figure below). They also note in this regard that "topographic transects and field observations show that the accretion is due to sediment transfer from the reef outer slopes to the reef flat and then to the beach."

Based on these findings, Testut et al. conclude that "this island expansion during a period of rising sea level demonstrates that sea level rise is not the primary factor controlling the shoreline changes." Quite to the contrary, they note that their findings highlight "the key role of non-climate factors in changes in island area, especially sediment availability and transport. And they also cite evidence of real-world island rotation, "underscoring the highly dynamic nature of reef islands.""

End excerpt.

As I pointed out several years ago, global warming seems to grow Pacific islands despite the claims that they were going to sink below the sea. (Anyone remember the movie Babes in Toyland where the crooks kidnap Tom Thumb and claim he drown, singing "slowly, slowly, he sank into the sea!"? It was a lie to Mother Goose and a lie now.)

So here is more evidence atolls are doing just fine - and global warming alarmism is not.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:52 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 412 words, total size 3 kb.

Timothy Birdnow

Geothermal activity may be responsible for part of the warming we have witnessed on Earth over the last few decades. According to this paper:

"One important geophysical variable that is conspicuously absent from both the IPCC and NIPCC assessments is the flux of geothermal energy. The principal reason for geothermal’s exclusion is that, despite large uncertainties in the geothermal contribution to earth’s heat budget [3], the average global geothermal flux is estimated to be just 91.6 milliwatts per square meter (mWm-2), an amount considered by many to be too small to impact global temperatures in an appreciable way [4]. By contrast, the direct anthropogenic thermal load to the atmosphere is 28 mWm-2 [5] and, as detailed in AR5, the total industrial-era RF from resident anthropogenic gases is estimated to be 2.29 Wm-2.

However, the majority of earth’s geothermal heat is released along the mid-ocean spreading zones [4,6], a 67,000 km tectonic complex for which we have very little data (Figure 1). The problem in accurately assessing heat flow from these high geothermal flux areas (HGFA) is that they are poorly sampled. Located in the middle of ocean basins at great depths, they are far removed from the predominantly land-based seismic network. According to Langmuir and Forsythe [7], we are still in the "very early stages of understanding” these extensive, complex tectonic systems."

end excderpt.

While correlation is not causality, one wonders if Milankovich Cycles are better understood if one factors this in; changes in the Earth's movement may cause increased (or decreased) undersea geothermal activity.

It's an interesting point.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:44 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
Post contains 265 words, total size 2 kb.