December 31, 2017
The city of Palm Springs is going to spend over a hundred thousand dollars to cut down some trees deemed racist by minority activists. Yes, you read that right; the trees are racist bigots and must die!
From Golf magazine:
"Decades ago, a large grove of tamarisk trees was planted on the border between Tahquitz Creek Golf Course and a historically black neighborhood, along with a chain link fence. But at an informal city meeting this week, officials promised residents that the trees and the fence would be removed.
According to USA Today and The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun, the residents of the bordering neighborhood "said the invasive tamarisks, which block views of the Tahquitz Creek Golf Course and San Jacinto mountains, have artificially depressed property values and prevented black families from accumulating wealth in their property over the past half century."
End excerpt.
The argument is that racists planted the trees to hide the black neighborhood from the golfers. See, every motivation is racist unless proven otherwise in our post-modern, post rational America. It can't have been that golfers wanted the illusion of being in the country at a COUNTRY CLUB, oh no. It must have been pure racism, a desire to make black people poor.
Oh, and the price tag for murdering the trees will be $169,000. I'll bet the city councilman pushing this has a brother in the tree removal business. Shoot, they could probably find a firewood sales company willing to do it for free if they asked around. How many of those poorer black folks in the neighborhood could be helped with that money?
Question, if Global Warming is such an issue why cut down any tree? Isn't this the antithesis of Sustainability?
I guess black trumps green in the war of Progressive values.
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A new papers says that agricultural activity in the central U.S. has caused a drop of 0.35* since the 1940"s.
From No Tricks Zone:
"In a new paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, three MIT scientists assert that the human influence on the climate of the Central United States is dominated by agricultural activity rather than greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Human activity has caused a significant long-term cooling trend (-0.35°C between the 1940s and 2009) and higher rainfall totals via the mechanism of "agricultural intensification†– a photosynthesis-associated increase in the air’s water vapor or humidity levels due to an explosive (400%) increase in crop production and yield since the 1940s.
The authors assert that the human-caused post-1940s cooling trend and increase in precipitation dramatically conflict with climate model expectations which project a human-caused warming trend and decreasing rainfall with the advent of increasing GHG emissions"
End excerpt.
Now retired Colorado State climatologist Roger Pielke Sr. always argued that land use changes had a far bigger impact on climate than carbon dioxide emissions. This clearly buttresses the argument.
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http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/12/fire_in_the_louvre.html
A completely nonpolitical military career did not prepare me for the startling changes I encountered in the people around me upon retirement. I'd always thought that, for all the shouting and arm-waving, Americans agreed on most things, and the differences were in the details.
On that one, I missed by a mile. In the years since, it has often seemed that liberals are a whole 'nother species. At other times, they don't seem human at all, even on what would appear to be issues easy to agree upon.
I had an online discussion with an avowed liberal some years ago. We were talking about values – what did we value more, this or that? The question came down to a fire in the Louvre: if you could save only one, a kid or the Mona Lisa, which would you save?
Without hesitation, he said the Mona Lisa, explaining that that painting is a treasure to all of mankind. The kid, while a treasure to his parents, had less value to mankind than the Mona Lisa.
That answer struck me. Probably not all libs think that way, but it's certainly in line with the way all liberals think. You know, that think globally, act locally stuff that gives us fanatics on climate change and "save the delta smelt."
And that kind of thinking I attribute to not believing in God (or, as I think is actually the case, being unsure about God). Why? Because that kid is a treasure to God in a way the Mona Lisa (or the statue of David, or the Great Wall of China) doesn't even approach.
I would save the kid. To my mind, any innocent human life is worth more than any work of art. Admittedly, it's hard to imagine a scenario that would come down to this kind of choice, but still: which would you save?
END
To this blog piece, I posted the following comment:
This fine piece is an independent variation on a question Dennis Prager has asked high school kids, namely, "If a stranger and your own dog were drowning in the ocean, which one would you save?" Prager reported that many said they would save their dog and let the stranger drown. This piece's argument about a child vs. the Mona Lisa is a worthy successor to Prager's illustration of liberal "values."
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And you thought that Sven and Ole were stupid...
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2017/12/29/oh-forget-about-it-50-percent-of-minnesota-voters-want-al-franken-to-stay-n2428010?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=
Oh, Forget About It: 50 Percent Of Minnesota Voters Want Al Franken To Stay
Matt Vespa
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Posted: Dec 29, 2017
Well, on January 2, Al Franken will no longer be a U.S. Senator. Multiple women have accused the comedian of sexual harassment. In the Me Too reckoning, along with Rep. John Conyers’ (D-MI) exit over allegations of sexual misconduct, his position became untenable. Also, Democrats wanted to renew attacks on Republicans on this issue without having to answer for Conyers and Franken’s conduct. Getting rid of both men allowed the Left to take out the trash and clean the attack slate. Franken obviously didn’t want to go, thinking his liberal disposition could be a life raft. It worked for Bill Clinton, who has been credibly accused of rape. This time, not so much—as Conyers exited, the dam broke. Nearly every Democrat in the Senate said it was time to go. So, he grudgingly announced his resignation after Thanksgiving, without offering an apology—with the added bonus of calling his accusers liars. It was not an introspective moment. Prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, 50 percent of Minnesota voters wanted Franken to resign. His approval rating sunk below 40 percent. And of course, there were was an op-ed saying maybe his resignation was too hastily fashioned.
Read the whole article.
Minnesotan Dana Mathewson replies:
And you all DID see that this poll was from a leftist source, of course. Which means that we all ignore it.
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December 30, 2017
The title refers, of course, to former President Barack Obama. The article is from PJMedia, and it is by the excellent Michael Ledeen.
The entire article is an essential read. It's found here: https://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/first-anti-american-president/Barack Obama will no doubt be chronicled, among other things, as the first anti-American president. No wonder; he’s the product of an educational system that has become increasingly radical and anti-American with each passing decade, and his mother was a stereotypical leftist anthropologist with a passion for the Third World.
The pattern is unmistakable. As Luis Fleischman notes, Obama wanted to make deals with our enemies, Iran being the most dramatic example. But just look at Latin America:
The Obama Administration tried to avoid confrontations with anyone it wanted to make a "historic deal†with. Most of these "historic deals†were intended to be made with enemies, as Obama desperately sought an agreement not only with Iran, but also with Cuba and reconciliation with Venezuela.Thus, Obama failed to insist on the extradition of Venezuelan military and drug trafficker Hugo Carvajal from Aruba and the Syrian-born Venezuelan drug lord Walid Makled from Colombia. Carvajal was the chief of Venezuelan military intelligence and Makled is one of the most notorious drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere. Makled himself disclosed his own cooperation with scores of the highest officials within Chavez’s government -- including Carvajal himself, with the chiefs of the Venezuelan army and navy, as well as with dozens of Venezuelan generals.
The Obama people did not want to know the details of Venezuela’s collusion with the drug Mafiosi. If you have followed the story of the obstruction of the DEA investigation of Hezbollah, you will recognize the pattern. Indeed, it is part of the story.
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From Urgent Agenda.
I still think Newt Gingrich is one of the smartest people in American politics. He doesn't hesitate to go against the crowd, the latest trend, or the prevailing thought. He assesses 2018, and it might surprise you. From the New York Post:Newt is always worth reading, as is anyone he quotes. The entire article is here: http://www.urgentagenda.com/PERMALINKS%20IX/DECEMBER%202017/29.NEWT.HTMLThe great political surprise of 2018 will be the size of the Republican victory.
After members of the elite media have spent two years savaging President Trump, lying about Republican legislation, and reassuring themselves that Republican defeat was inevitable, the size of the GOP victory in 2018 will be an enormous shock.
Two very interesting columns (one by Barry Casselman and one by Scott Adams) illustrate how the media is deceiving itself.
Casselman contends that the Democratic victory in Alabama may have blocked a year-long embarrassment and actually strengthened Republican prospects in the Senate. He asserts there may be a new political wave coming, but no one knows whether it will be a red or blue wave.
Adams, the author of Dilbert, has a list of 20 political opinions and predictions made about President Trump and his Administration, which were just plain wrong. He suggests if you were wrong about 15 or more of these assertions, you might quit talking about politics while Trump is in the White House. By Adams’s standard, most elite "analysts" would have to be quiet, because they have been so consistently wrong about Trump.
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December 29, 2017
I'm sure you have gotten this, with earlier dates and perhaps names, in your e-mail inbox from time to time. A friend just sent it to me again today. It continues to be relevant, even though things are, for the moment, looking up.
True, this does need a bit of updating. The references to Acorn, Jeremiah Wright and Larry King, in particular, are outdated. But you get the idea.The ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
This one is a little different .......
Two Different Versions .....
Two Different Morals
OLD VERSION:The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter,
so he dies out in the cold.MORAL OF THE OLD STORY:Be responsible for yourself!MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC
show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast.How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah
with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing,'It's Not Easy Being Green..'ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing,We shall overcome.Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright
has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake.President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize and ramshackle, the once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be careful how you vote in 2018 and 2020
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Dear readers,
Blogging has been slow and will continue thusly until after the first of the year. My apologies, but there have been extenuating circumstances.
The writers here at The Aviary have been making rather merry this Christmas, and unlike Scrooge with Bob Cratchit I cannot fire them as I don't pay them. So if I want a vacation I have to just shut the site down, or at least scale it back. I've had to do the latter this year end.
As I will be out making rather merry myself for the end of the year I'll be blogging slowly until the first. Maybe I should fire myself? Well, I'd do it but I can't afford the pay raise.
At any rate, please be patient. I will have more material coming before Sunday, and should be back to normal next week.
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When someone says New Year’s Eve is one of his favorite holidays, and expresses dismay at my lack of New Year’s Eve plans, I feel I am talking to an empty shell. New Year’s Eve has no religious, moral, or intellectual significance. It is nothing but an opportunity — one justified by the calendar, and therefore appearing vaguely "natural†— to have fun.
more...
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December 28, 2017
Donald Trump is making good on his threat and exploring ways to cut funding to the United Nations.
After the U.N. issued a condemnation of the United States for announcing a move of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, U.N. Ambassador Nicki Haley threatened the kleptocrats at the U.N. that a new sheriff is in town and the Trump Administration was not going to put up with this sort of thing. Well..
From Right Wing News:
"Days after Haley delivered her warning, we are now seeing the federal government of the United States (which pays 1/5th of the entire UN budget) slash nearly $285M from the $1.2B we spend with them.
The US had looked into increasing the efficiency of the UN at the same time "while protecting our interests†according to the Washington Post.
[...]
"his new budget "reduced the UN’s bloated management and support functions, bolstered support for key U.S. priorities throughout the world, and instilled more discipline and accountability throughout the U.N system,†reads a statement from Nikki Haley’s office."
End excerpts.
The U.N. is almost universally anti-American, refusing to support us on almost every occasion. Yet we pay most of the cost (or rather China does via the loans they make the U.S. to pay them). It's past time we let this corrupt body die, and that will happen if we just stop enabling it with our cash and our arms.
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A WORD FROM JACK KEMP:
Dana,
The sign statement by the Chinese Restaurant Assoc. about Jewish patrons on Christmas recalls an old joke.
How do you know you are in a Jewish neighborhood?
By all the Chinese restaurants there.
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link=http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/27/doj-scolds-obama-administration-over-reported-groping-harassment-office-sex.html]I suppose it's racist to point this out. . .
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From Urgent Agenda.
Frankly, I'd love to be at a dinner party with him and have the opportunity to "chat him up." This guy is a genius, any way you slice the pie.
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December 24, 2017
Malachi 4
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Life expectancy dropped in the U.S. for the second year in a row. According to an AP story republished in the left wing Talking Points Memo, the life expectancy of children born in 2016 is 78.6, down 0.1 since last year.
Causes are primarily attributed to opiod abuse and a rise in gun deaths.
This is down from last year, too.
Now, who was President two years ago? It was under Obama's watch that the decline began. And Donald Trump has been in a dogfight the entire first year of his term, making it hard to take steps to reverse this trend.
If drug use is the problem, why do Democrats keep promoting legalization of marijuana?
And about gun violence, the Left will no doubt claim it proves the need for gun control. But gun violence rose because the Obama Justice Department refused to do law enforcement, throwing their lot in with criminals and terrorists across the ocuntry (in my view to "overwhelm the system" in Cloward-Piven fashion) and had pushed a very anti-law enforcement protocol on the nation's police. It is inevitable that crime - and violence -will rise when you stop enforcing the law.
How many dead cops pad that statistic?
And how many are lying dead from illegal immigration? Not just American citizens, but the many killed by drug cartels and criminal gangs coming out of Mexico.
And ultimately despair. The Obama Progressives have pushed a culture of despair on the American People to put us in our place, to cut us down to size. They wanted an America that accepted a position of one of many, of mediocrity and reduced expectations. The end result was a demoralized populace. Unhappy people die young. It's a sad fact of life. The fundamental strategy of the Progressive Left has been to depress us, to make America Deflate Again. An unhappy America will let those who promise us paradise make the changes they have longed to make. Or so the thinking went. First the public must be "prepared" and that by an endless drumbeat of negativity.
America rebelled and voted Trump, and the Left continued with their plan only this time to destroy Trump.
So if this country is losing longevity let us put the blaem squarely where it belongs.
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The Republican tax cuts open ANWR to drilling.
About freaking time!
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is nothing but thousands of miles of tundra, a dead semi-frozen moonscape. While there are some Arctic animals present, it has never made a lick of sense to lock up all the oil there. Especially not now when we have excellent techniques for drilling without befouling the landscape or endangering animals. But the Democrats were beholden to the environmentalists, who want America to learn to do with less rather than for us to have more through science and technology. Locking up oil is a way to force us to live frugally.
That is precisley what is meant by "sustainability"; to only live so poorly that you have no growth.
Digital Journal bemoans the fact:
"A provision of the tax bill mandates that the federal government hold lease sales in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This would open the area up to oil drilling and other energy development, something that has not been allowed for over 30 years."
End excerpt.
Boo hoo.
Frankly, this will be a great gift to the Alaskan people, who receive dividend checks from the state for oil sales. More oil sold means more money in the cariboo-skinned pockets of the public. For decades the average Alaskan has demanded the Federal Government reduce it's footprint in Alaska.
Now Santa won't have to go so far to gas up his sleigh at Christmas, meaning better gifts for all!
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WWE warbucks Vince McMahon has begun making moves that suggest he may reinvigorate his XFL football league.
According to breitbart:
"McMahon has established a new company, separate from the WWE, called Alpha Entertainment. On December 16th, Alpha Entertainment filed for five new trademarks related to the XFL, the title of McMahon’s football league that he founded in 2001.
According to ESPN’s Darren Rovell, "The filings seek to trademark the XFL as a professional football league and also cover merchandise related to the league. Previous XFL trademarks were abandoned over a period of time from 2002 to ’05.â€
Moreover, McMahon has backed this effort with significant amounts of cash. Rovell also reported that McMahon sold 3.34 million in WWE stock worth about $100 million. The money from those stock sales will go to fund Alpha Entertainment"
End excerpt.
People have tried over the years to create a rival to the NFL, only to fail. First there was the AFL, which merged with the NFL creating the Super Bowl, which was originally a contest between the two leagues. Then there was the USFL, which failed but is notable for a most significant team owner, a New York real estate developer named Donald J. Trump. more...
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With pressure mounting on FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe the Deep State denizan is now planning early retirement.
According to the Washington Post:
"Andrew McCabe, the FBI’s deputy director who has been the target of Republican critics for more than a year, plans to retire in a few months when he becomes fully eligible for pension benefits, according to people familiar with the matter."
[...]
more...
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Some telling stats.
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December 23, 2017
Jack Kemp
When and where will it end? All of us have heard harsher criticisms of women made by both men and other women.
Miss America's CEO Suspended
"Mr. Haskell, in support of the organization, has agreed to abide by the Board's decision," a spokesperson for the Miss America Organization said Friday. more...
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