June 18, 2017
Obama's presidency didn't lead to black progress - new book
Jack Kemp
http://nypost.com/2017/06/17/why-obamas-presidency-didnt-lead-to-black-progress/
Why Obama’s presidency didn’t lead to black progress
Excerpt from the article:
"Since the 1960s, black leaders have placed a heavy emphasis on gaining political power, and Barack Obama’s presidency represented the apex of those efforts. The assumption — rarely challenged — is that black political clout must come before black social and economic advancement. But as JASON L. RILEY argues in this excerpt from his new book, "False Black Power†(Templeton Press), political success has not been a major factor in the rise of racial and ethnic groups from poverty to prosperity.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was followed by large increases in black elected officials. In the Deep South, black officeholders grew from 100 in 1964 to 4,300 in 1978. By the early 1980s, major US cities with large black populations, such as Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Washington and Philadelphia, had elected black mayors. Between 1970 and 2010, the number of black elected officials nationwide increased from fewer than 1,500 to more than 10,000.
Yet the socioeconomic progress that was supposed to follow in the wake of these political gains never materialized. During an era of growing black political influence, blacks as a group progressed at a slower rate than whites, and the black poor actually lost ground"
End excerpt.
A NOTE FROM TIM:
This was the fight between the NAACP and Booker T. Washington way back when. Washington argued that political power came from economic power and he pointed to the immigrant experience in America as proof. Some hated groups (like the Irish) found their children to be powerful members of the community once they amassed wealth, and Washington believed the blacks would be no exception. But W.E.B. Dubois and the others at the NAACP argued for a political power grab first, claiming racism would always keep them down. Naturally they won the argument, not because it was superior to Washington's but because it was the quicker and easier path. Who wants to work real hard and earn things inch by inch when someone is promising you a quick path simply by demanding it? Yelling and screaming is far more enjoyable than slaving away and counting your pennies.
But it failed because 1.when the day is through you still don't have any money 2.being obnoxious and aggressive doesn't make you many real friends - political allies, maybe, but nbot friends 3.you have to separate yourself from the majority to do it, something that is against the spirit of America's melting pot. What made the immigrants succeed (and that includes Chinese who were visibly different as well) was hard work and assimilation. The black community chose this easy path, which emphasized their differences.
Of course, with the rising tide of Socialism in the 19th and 20th centuries it seemed that the old ways wouldn't necessarily work in the worker's paradise many of the NAACP bigwigs wanted, but the end result is a subculture outside of the American mainstream, one that encourages things that are detrimental to the black community. Drugs, crime, illigitimacy, ignorance stalk the African American community, and they are all represented as "authentically black" and embraced as cultural goods. Of course, the children trapped in this culture (and it is unquestionably a toxic subculture) suffer horribly and pass that suffering to their own children.
And they have all believed the lie told that political power is the key. So they get what they want, a black President, a black Attorney General, etc. and not only does nothing change but things actually get worse. So now many in the community are doubling down on this failure.
Politics is the implementation of the general public will. Political power achieved by manipulation that is against the general public will may bring certain benefits but in the end will not bring any good lasting change. You can't shove your will down the throats of the majority (and white people STILL outnumber blacks 5 to 1 in America) and think your overall situation will improve much. Yes, some will get rich, and some will enjoy the fruits of power, but you have permanently cut yourself off from the people who you need to accept you. It's a terrible bargain.
It should be pointed out that the white community has tried and tried to assimilate the black community. Whites have adopted black music, black art, black cultural traits, in an effort to mainstream the African Americans but there is little interest on the black side. In fact, they often rail against "cultural appropriations" as if it were a bad thing. You can't have your cake and eat it too! Either you adopt all of America or you completely separate yourself. That is the deal, and thanks to the political power movement the blacks find themselves torn both ways, wanting the fruits of political and economic power but not the responsibilities.
And it's not as if African America hasn't appropriated many, many white cultural aspects. Every time Al Sharpton puts on a pair of pants he is stealing white man's culture. Those Facebook organizing pages that Black Lives Matter used so well are a white thing. And don't believe for a second that the black community forced anything from the hands of an unwilling white community; it was the white people themselves who gave the civil rights movement their victories. That is a point often lost on many of the angrier blacks, who somehow believe they forced it fromour cold, unwilling hands. It didn't happen that way; nothing had changed between 1875 and 1860 that would have forced the majority to surrender power. The Civil Rights movement was a direct result of the white community deciding they hadn't been fair with the blacks. The Second World War - and the way black soldiers did their duties to help an ungrateful nation, had a huge amount to do with it.
In conclusion, the black communty has been on the wrong path for a long time, and Obama's promise ws destined to be broken because it was the wrong one to make.
"
http://nypost.com/2017/06/17/why-obamas-presidency-didnt-lead-to-black-progress/
Why Obama’s presidency didn’t lead to black progress
Excerpt from the article:
"Since the 1960s, black leaders have placed a heavy emphasis on gaining political power, and Barack Obama’s presidency represented the apex of those efforts. The assumption — rarely challenged — is that black political clout must come before black social and economic advancement. But as JASON L. RILEY argues in this excerpt from his new book, "False Black Power†(Templeton Press), political success has not been a major factor in the rise of racial and ethnic groups from poverty to prosperity.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was followed by large increases in black elected officials. In the Deep South, black officeholders grew from 100 in 1964 to 4,300 in 1978. By the early 1980s, major US cities with large black populations, such as Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Washington and Philadelphia, had elected black mayors. Between 1970 and 2010, the number of black elected officials nationwide increased from fewer than 1,500 to more than 10,000.
Yet the socioeconomic progress that was supposed to follow in the wake of these political gains never materialized. During an era of growing black political influence, blacks as a group progressed at a slower rate than whites, and the black poor actually lost ground"
End excerpt.
A NOTE FROM TIM:
This was the fight between the NAACP and Booker T. Washington way back when. Washington argued that political power came from economic power and he pointed to the immigrant experience in America as proof. Some hated groups (like the Irish) found their children to be powerful members of the community once they amassed wealth, and Washington believed the blacks would be no exception. But W.E.B. Dubois and the others at the NAACP argued for a political power grab first, claiming racism would always keep them down. Naturally they won the argument, not because it was superior to Washington's but because it was the quicker and easier path. Who wants to work real hard and earn things inch by inch when someone is promising you a quick path simply by demanding it? Yelling and screaming is far more enjoyable than slaving away and counting your pennies.
But it failed because 1.when the day is through you still don't have any money 2.being obnoxious and aggressive doesn't make you many real friends - political allies, maybe, but nbot friends 3.you have to separate yourself from the majority to do it, something that is against the spirit of America's melting pot. What made the immigrants succeed (and that includes Chinese who were visibly different as well) was hard work and assimilation. The black community chose this easy path, which emphasized their differences.
Of course, with the rising tide of Socialism in the 19th and 20th centuries it seemed that the old ways wouldn't necessarily work in the worker's paradise many of the NAACP bigwigs wanted, but the end result is a subculture outside of the American mainstream, one that encourages things that are detrimental to the black community. Drugs, crime, illigitimacy, ignorance stalk the African American community, and they are all represented as "authentically black" and embraced as cultural goods. Of course, the children trapped in this culture (and it is unquestionably a toxic subculture) suffer horribly and pass that suffering to their own children.
And they have all believed the lie told that political power is the key. So they get what they want, a black President, a black Attorney General, etc. and not only does nothing change but things actually get worse. So now many in the community are doubling down on this failure.
Politics is the implementation of the general public will. Political power achieved by manipulation that is against the general public will may bring certain benefits but in the end will not bring any good lasting change. You can't shove your will down the throats of the majority (and white people STILL outnumber blacks 5 to 1 in America) and think your overall situation will improve much. Yes, some will get rich, and some will enjoy the fruits of power, but you have permanently cut yourself off from the people who you need to accept you. It's a terrible bargain.
It should be pointed out that the white community has tried and tried to assimilate the black community. Whites have adopted black music, black art, black cultural traits, in an effort to mainstream the African Americans but there is little interest on the black side. In fact, they often rail against "cultural appropriations" as if it were a bad thing. You can't have your cake and eat it too! Either you adopt all of America or you completely separate yourself. That is the deal, and thanks to the political power movement the blacks find themselves torn both ways, wanting the fruits of political and economic power but not the responsibilities.
And it's not as if African America hasn't appropriated many, many white cultural aspects. Every time Al Sharpton puts on a pair of pants he is stealing white man's culture. Those Facebook organizing pages that Black Lives Matter used so well are a white thing. And don't believe for a second that the black community forced anything from the hands of an unwilling white community; it was the white people themselves who gave the civil rights movement their victories. That is a point often lost on many of the angrier blacks, who somehow believe they forced it fromour cold, unwilling hands. It didn't happen that way; nothing had changed between 1875 and 1860 that would have forced the majority to surrender power. The Civil Rights movement was a direct result of the white community deciding they hadn't been fair with the blacks. The Second World War - and the way black soldiers did their duties to help an ungrateful nation, had a huge amount to do with it.
In conclusion, the black communty has been on the wrong path for a long time, and Obama's promise ws destined to be broken because it was the wrong one to make.
"
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Security Clearances Should Have Expiration Dates
Dana Mathewson
Every so often one encounters an article that is almost breath-taking in its simplicity and common-sense approach to a problem. This is one. I hope the President takes the action recommended herein
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/06/ishmael-jones-a-modest-proposal.php
The pseudonymous Ishmael Jones is a former CIA case officer and author of The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture. He forwards the column below in the context of the proliferation of leaks attributed by reporters at the New York Times and the Washington Post to "current and former officials.†What is happening here? Mr. Jones explains in this column and offers a modest proposal to mitigate the problem. He advises that the CIA has approved the column for publication:
"Leaks of national security secrets with the intent to harm the Trump administration continue to bedevil our nation. Journalists often describe the sources of the leaks as "current and former officials.†There’s an important solution, and one that the Trump administration may not yet be aware of: Remove the "former officials†from the equation.
Nearly all intelligence officials who are fired, retired, pushed out, or resign from the intelligence agencies keep their security clearances. I do not know the specifics of any individual’s clearances but it is nearly certain that opponents of the current administration such as John Brennan, an aggressive Trump critic; James Clapper, who warns that Trump causes an "internal assault on our institutionsâ€; Michael Morell, author of "I Ran the CIA. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clintonâ€; and recently fired leaker James Comey retain top-level security clearances.
Security clearances are a deep state guild or union card allowing the holders to swan about intelligence facilities, chatting, gossiping, and gathering intelligence that they can leak to journalists.
The traitor Edward Snowden was pushed out of the CIA. But because he kept his security clearances, he was able to get back inside as a contractor and exfiltrate massive amounts of intelligence.
Hillary definitely retains her security clearances. Huma Abedin probably retains hers as well. Surely Carlos Danger has none – but please check.
CNN journalist Phil Mudd believes House Intelligence Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy "ought to have his ass kicked†for questioning former CIA chief John Brennan. Mr. Mudd is a former CIA employee and likely holds high level security clearances.
President Trump knows how to fire people, but he’s never had the experience of firing people who walk back in the door the next day.
The solution is to cancel these security clearances. It is an administrative task which is easy to do.
Every so often one encounters an article that is almost breath-taking in its simplicity and common-sense approach to a problem. This is one. I hope the President takes the action recommended herein
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/06/ishmael-jones-a-modest-proposal.php
The pseudonymous Ishmael Jones is a former CIA case officer and author of The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture. He forwards the column below in the context of the proliferation of leaks attributed by reporters at the New York Times and the Washington Post to "current and former officials.†What is happening here? Mr. Jones explains in this column and offers a modest proposal to mitigate the problem. He advises that the CIA has approved the column for publication:
"Leaks of national security secrets with the intent to harm the Trump administration continue to bedevil our nation. Journalists often describe the sources of the leaks as "current and former officials.†There’s an important solution, and one that the Trump administration may not yet be aware of: Remove the "former officials†from the equation.
Nearly all intelligence officials who are fired, retired, pushed out, or resign from the intelligence agencies keep their security clearances. I do not know the specifics of any individual’s clearances but it is nearly certain that opponents of the current administration such as John Brennan, an aggressive Trump critic; James Clapper, who warns that Trump causes an "internal assault on our institutionsâ€; Michael Morell, author of "I Ran the CIA. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clintonâ€; and recently fired leaker James Comey retain top-level security clearances.
Security clearances are a deep state guild or union card allowing the holders to swan about intelligence facilities, chatting, gossiping, and gathering intelligence that they can leak to journalists.
The traitor Edward Snowden was pushed out of the CIA. But because he kept his security clearances, he was able to get back inside as a contractor and exfiltrate massive amounts of intelligence.
Hillary definitely retains her security clearances. Huma Abedin probably retains hers as well. Surely Carlos Danger has none – but please check.
CNN journalist Phil Mudd believes House Intelligence Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy "ought to have his ass kicked†for questioning former CIA chief John Brennan. Mr. Mudd is a former CIA employee and likely holds high level security clearances.
President Trump knows how to fire people, but he’s never had the experience of firing people who walk back in the door the next day.
The solution is to cancel these security clearances. It is an administrative task which is easy to do.
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AIM nails Comey, Mueller
Dana Mathewson
These two guys shouldn't be investigating anything -- except maybe where to find the best defense lawyers in DC to keep their sorry asses out of jail. Mueller, in particular, shouldn't be investigating the president for anything. He's damaged goods, as much as his pal Comey is. And for his "work" in "sanitizing" FBI training materials dealing with Islam, he should be going to jail -- no, he should already be there.
http://aim.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=af7a6139c284efc5b67d9ccd4&id=2a24ce4da4&e=b16f611f04
These two guys shouldn't be investigating anything -- except maybe where to find the best defense lawyers in DC to keep their sorry asses out of jail. Mueller, in particular, shouldn't be investigating the president for anything. He's damaged goods, as much as his pal Comey is. And for his "work" in "sanitizing" FBI training materials dealing with Islam, he should be going to jail -- no, he should already be there.
http://aim.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=af7a6139c284efc5b67d9ccd4&id=2a24ce4da4&e=b16f611f04
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:39 AM
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Israel to blame for Palestinian spousal abuse according to U.N.
Dana Mathewson
WTF? The UN is as crazy as the Democrat Party.
http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/06/17/u-n-report-blames-israel-for-palestinian-men-beating-their-wives/
U.N. Report Blames Israel for Palestinian Men Beating Their Wives
Breitbart News
A new report by a United Nations expert, and submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council, blames Israel in part for Palestinian men beating their wives — offering more fuel to those in the Trump administration seeking to leave the council over its anti-Israel bias. The document, first reported by U.N. Watch, which monitors the international body, was written by Dubravka Šimonović — the Special Rapporteur on violence against women — who filed dual reports based on her trips to the region in 2016. Read the full story
WTF? The UN is as crazy as the Democrat Party.
http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/06/17/u-n-report-blames-israel-for-palestinian-men-beating-their-wives/
U.N. Report Blames Israel for Palestinian Men Beating Their Wives
Breitbart News
A new report by a United Nations expert, and submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council, blames Israel in part for Palestinian men beating their wives — offering more fuel to those in the Trump administration seeking to leave the council over its anti-Israel bias. The document, first reported by U.N. Watch, which monitors the international body, was written by Dubravka Šimonović — the Special Rapporteur on violence against women — who filed dual reports based on her trips to the region in 2016. Read the full story
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Pastors fight rural drug addiction and poverty
Jack Kemp
Although this centers on largely white small towns in West Virginia, the creation of jobs, which these pastors are encouraging in church, will help every person of every
ethnic background, i.e., ALL AMERICANS living in the area. These are the issues that Charles Murray wrote about in his book "Coming Apart" and was severely criticized by leftists, i.e., the deterioration of small town white communties. The leftists had no compassion for these people, but the local churches really didn't have enough ideas how to help poor kids with no job - or even junior high school kids subject to opiod addictions. A paster who formerly was a businessman has developed ideas how to create meaningful education and jobs to revive both the economy and the hopes of local people who did not have neither the skills nor desire nor capability to move away.
The New York Post has a profound article about this which I'll just quote a "fair usage excerpt" from. I very much suggest you read the whole thing. The article is about enlightened first steps, but not an instant magic solution. Hopefully, this can spread to become a movement among communities. And combined with Pres. Trump's aid to the ailing coal industry, the effects can be a positive rather than a vicious cycle.
Some brief quotes from "Can a new religious movement save America from drug addiction?" by Naomi Schaefer Riley:
http://nypost.com/2017/06/17/can-a-new-religious-movement-save-america-from-drug-addiction/
BEGIN QUOTE
"There is a problem underlying our drug epidemic,†says Travis Lowe.
"It’s an epidemic of despair.†Lowe, who is the pastor of Crossroads Church in Bluefield, W.Va., says that when he talks to kids in his community, "They’ve never even thought about what they want to be when they grow up.â€
SECTION OMITTED
The despair has come in part from the economic crisis. Of the county next door to Lowe’s, Reason magazine recently noted, "Ninety percent of kids are . . . below the poverty threshold for free and reduced-price lunches, 47 percent do not live with their biological parents"...
Lowe and his congregants are helping local businesses to adapt to the modern economy. "People around here have always been makers. We just want to give them this century’s tools.†They are working with MIT to teach kids about engineering software and trying to find new markets for things they can produce in local factories.
His church has helped to organize a kind of "Teen Shark Tank†to encourage entrepreneurship.
END OF QUOTE
Although this centers on largely white small towns in West Virginia, the creation of jobs, which these pastors are encouraging in church, will help every person of every
ethnic background, i.e., ALL AMERICANS living in the area. These are the issues that Charles Murray wrote about in his book "Coming Apart" and was severely criticized by leftists, i.e., the deterioration of small town white communties. The leftists had no compassion for these people, but the local churches really didn't have enough ideas how to help poor kids with no job - or even junior high school kids subject to opiod addictions. A paster who formerly was a businessman has developed ideas how to create meaningful education and jobs to revive both the economy and the hopes of local people who did not have neither the skills nor desire nor capability to move away.
The New York Post has a profound article about this which I'll just quote a "fair usage excerpt" from. I very much suggest you read the whole thing. The article is about enlightened first steps, but not an instant magic solution. Hopefully, this can spread to become a movement among communities. And combined with Pres. Trump's aid to the ailing coal industry, the effects can be a positive rather than a vicious cycle.
Some brief quotes from "Can a new religious movement save America from drug addiction?" by Naomi Schaefer Riley:
http://nypost.com/2017/06/17/can-a-new-religious-movement-save-america-from-drug-addiction/
BEGIN QUOTE
"There is a problem underlying our drug epidemic,†says Travis Lowe.
"It’s an epidemic of despair.†Lowe, who is the pastor of Crossroads Church in Bluefield, W.Va., says that when he talks to kids in his community, "They’ve never even thought about what they want to be when they grow up.â€
SECTION OMITTED
The despair has come in part from the economic crisis. Of the county next door to Lowe’s, Reason magazine recently noted, "Ninety percent of kids are . . . below the poverty threshold for free and reduced-price lunches, 47 percent do not live with their biological parents"...
Lowe and his congregants are helping local businesses to adapt to the modern economy. "People around here have always been makers. We just want to give them this century’s tools.†They are working with MIT to teach kids about engineering software and trying to find new markets for things they can produce in local factories.
His church has helped to organize a kind of "Teen Shark Tank†to encourage entrepreneurship.
END OF QUOTE
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June 17, 2017
How Land Use Restrictions Drive Up Housing Costs
William Kay
There is a new posting at ecofascism.com
http://www.ecofascism.com/article36.html
Researching this posting involved reading 2,000 pages of recently published land/housing literature from pro-market think-tanks like the Cato Institute, Fraser institute etc. advocates of deregulation, privatization and limited government. Such groups focus on taxation, education, energy, healthcare, etc. much less on housing.
Nevertheless certain truths they convey about housing are found nowhere else.
The consensus is that housing unaffordability results from land rationing. Increased demand doesn’t necessarily increase price. Where supply is elastic increased demand summons more supply and prices stabilize. Housing markets cursed with restrictive land-use policies respond to increased demand with increased prices. If land functioned in a proper market increased demand would summon new homes on newly developed land.
While many profit from land price inflation, it’s a policy catastrophe predicated upon the suppression of wealth creation. High land prices cause: poverty, overcrowding, unaffordable housing, restricted labour mobility, reduced discretionary spending, low homeownership rates, antiquated and ill-situated housing stock and retarded economic growth.
The consensus flounders on the question of who benefits from, and drives, restrictive land-use policies. Landlordism is the orb around which urban containment revolves; however fearsome prejudices eclipse this orb from the free-market intellectuals’ perspective. Thus the free-market movement’s principal enemies, big residential and commercial landlords, receive less than .1% of the free-market movement’s attention! They daren’t name their Devil….
A NOTE FROM TIM:
As a former real estate agent in St. Louis I can attest to this fact.
Restrictions also lead to an inevitable decline. Nobody is going to build a new house if the surrounding area is full of criminals and scumbags.
The population of the City of st. Louis (as opposed to St. Louis County, a completely separate entity) continues to sharply decline as the City tightens the building codes and whatnot. Prices are too high for what you get in the City, which is largely an old crumbling building (since they won't let builders tear down these "historic" structures) You get a better property if you go to the suburbs, so most decent people leave and the city property owners are forced to turn to Section 8, meaning those on government assistance continue to inhabit St. Louis. It's a long-term instability and it won't change any time soon. Naturally, the Democrats who have run the city for 70 years like it because it guarantees they stay in power. But at what cost in the end?
Let me offer a cople other points to ponder. Home ownership is anathema to the socialist, who wants us all to be owners of everything together. A house is a major investment, often the greatest concentration of wealth many people will have. When a person owns a house he or she has a stake in the free market and that is unacceptable. It has always been a socialist dream to get everyone into rental properties.
That can be accomplished by driving up prices. It can also be accomplished by getting everyone burned. The housing bubble was a great thing to a socialist because so many people lost so much wealth, and many turned against the banks, the brokers, and ultimately against free market capitalism.
In the process the government could crack down on the whole industry to "protect" consumers. Well, it was government policy which drove the bubble in the first place; overly low interest rates forced banks to lend seek volume in lending, and of course the Community Reinvestment Act and laws against redlining forced banks to lend to unqualified applicants. To cover potential losses they bundled the bad loans with good, and made their money accordingly. The rise in housing prices caused by the bubble allowed them to make some money before the house of cards collapsed.. It would have been insane for the lenders to NOT have done what they did; they would have collapsed years earlier.
Another point to ponder; the Agenda 21 scheme of herding the public into restricted housing zones is not about the environment or a cleaner city but about corraling the public. Keep them under the watchful eye of government, and get them used to living cheek by jowel under the Great Eye. Of course, this encourages the elimination of private transportation , another goal of the Totalitarian Left. You can't control what you can't catch! The Left has always sought to restrict the ability of people to move about. If they are forced to ride buses and trains they are forced to accept the government yoke.
These utopian communities have been tried before and found wanting; here in St. Louis they built Laclede Town, a mixed use residential community designed to hosue large numbers of people - both middle class and poor. The end result was there were nothing but poor within a couple of years and the paradise turned into a hellhole of crime and decay. It was eventually bulldozed, as was the late, unlamented Pruitt Igo, a giant high rise slice of Hades that symbolizes everything that is wrong with the logic of the Left. These new land use policies are just a newer way of doing Pruitt Igo.
In St. Louis we have the Housing Conservation districts. In them, decaying buildings are forcibly retained and a regiment of inspections and draconian zoning laws abide. The result? Much of St. Louis is decrepid and under occupied because you can get a nicer place outside of the city for just a little more if not for the same money. So, St. Louis has seen a continual decline in population as everyone seeks to get away from crime and decay. The response is to double down on this, and now almost every part of the city - including the once exempt north side - is subject to this hosuing conservation regime. It drives up prices and makes people less willing to sink money into the city.
Naturally, the stately old homes in historic neighborhoods still flourish (and can be picked up for a song sometimes) but the working class parts of the city are decayed and crime riddled. For a while St. Louis held ground by bringing in refugees from Bosnia, but they have all moved out and there is nobody to bring (except the Syrians, and a lot of city leaders pushed to make STL a refugee center) but this is a short-term solution to a long term problem.
In the end, housing is like butterfly wings; the more you touch them the harder it is to get off the ground. The endless regulation of the housing market has driven up prices, driven down quality, and will continue to do so. I do not believe it is a matter of myopia or good intentions gone bad, either. I think there is a long-term strategy at work.
After all, cattle must first be sent to the stockades before reaching the slaughter house.
There is a new posting at ecofascism.com
http://www.ecofascism.com/article36.html
Researching this posting involved reading 2,000 pages of recently published land/housing literature from pro-market think-tanks like the Cato Institute, Fraser institute etc. advocates of deregulation, privatization and limited government. Such groups focus on taxation, education, energy, healthcare, etc. much less on housing.
Nevertheless certain truths they convey about housing are found nowhere else.
The consensus is that housing unaffordability results from land rationing. Increased demand doesn’t necessarily increase price. Where supply is elastic increased demand summons more supply and prices stabilize. Housing markets cursed with restrictive land-use policies respond to increased demand with increased prices. If land functioned in a proper market increased demand would summon new homes on newly developed land.
While many profit from land price inflation, it’s a policy catastrophe predicated upon the suppression of wealth creation. High land prices cause: poverty, overcrowding, unaffordable housing, restricted labour mobility, reduced discretionary spending, low homeownership rates, antiquated and ill-situated housing stock and retarded economic growth.
The consensus flounders on the question of who benefits from, and drives, restrictive land-use policies. Landlordism is the orb around which urban containment revolves; however fearsome prejudices eclipse this orb from the free-market intellectuals’ perspective. Thus the free-market movement’s principal enemies, big residential and commercial landlords, receive less than .1% of the free-market movement’s attention! They daren’t name their Devil….
A NOTE FROM TIM:
As a former real estate agent in St. Louis I can attest to this fact.
Restrictions also lead to an inevitable decline. Nobody is going to build a new house if the surrounding area is full of criminals and scumbags.
The population of the City of st. Louis (as opposed to St. Louis County, a completely separate entity) continues to sharply decline as the City tightens the building codes and whatnot. Prices are too high for what you get in the City, which is largely an old crumbling building (since they won't let builders tear down these "historic" structures) You get a better property if you go to the suburbs, so most decent people leave and the city property owners are forced to turn to Section 8, meaning those on government assistance continue to inhabit St. Louis. It's a long-term instability and it won't change any time soon. Naturally, the Democrats who have run the city for 70 years like it because it guarantees they stay in power. But at what cost in the end?
Let me offer a cople other points to ponder. Home ownership is anathema to the socialist, who wants us all to be owners of everything together. A house is a major investment, often the greatest concentration of wealth many people will have. When a person owns a house he or she has a stake in the free market and that is unacceptable. It has always been a socialist dream to get everyone into rental properties.
That can be accomplished by driving up prices. It can also be accomplished by getting everyone burned. The housing bubble was a great thing to a socialist because so many people lost so much wealth, and many turned against the banks, the brokers, and ultimately against free market capitalism.
In the process the government could crack down on the whole industry to "protect" consumers. Well, it was government policy which drove the bubble in the first place; overly low interest rates forced banks to lend seek volume in lending, and of course the Community Reinvestment Act and laws against redlining forced banks to lend to unqualified applicants. To cover potential losses they bundled the bad loans with good, and made their money accordingly. The rise in housing prices caused by the bubble allowed them to make some money before the house of cards collapsed.. It would have been insane for the lenders to NOT have done what they did; they would have collapsed years earlier.
Another point to ponder; the Agenda 21 scheme of herding the public into restricted housing zones is not about the environment or a cleaner city but about corraling the public. Keep them under the watchful eye of government, and get them used to living cheek by jowel under the Great Eye. Of course, this encourages the elimination of private transportation , another goal of the Totalitarian Left. You can't control what you can't catch! The Left has always sought to restrict the ability of people to move about. If they are forced to ride buses and trains they are forced to accept the government yoke.
These utopian communities have been tried before and found wanting; here in St. Louis they built Laclede Town, a mixed use residential community designed to hosue large numbers of people - both middle class and poor. The end result was there were nothing but poor within a couple of years and the paradise turned into a hellhole of crime and decay. It was eventually bulldozed, as was the late, unlamented Pruitt Igo, a giant high rise slice of Hades that symbolizes everything that is wrong with the logic of the Left. These new land use policies are just a newer way of doing Pruitt Igo.
In St. Louis we have the Housing Conservation districts. In them, decaying buildings are forcibly retained and a regiment of inspections and draconian zoning laws abide. The result? Much of St. Louis is decrepid and under occupied because you can get a nicer place outside of the city for just a little more if not for the same money. So, St. Louis has seen a continual decline in population as everyone seeks to get away from crime and decay. The response is to double down on this, and now almost every part of the city - including the once exempt north side - is subject to this hosuing conservation regime. It drives up prices and makes people less willing to sink money into the city.
Naturally, the stately old homes in historic neighborhoods still flourish (and can be picked up for a song sometimes) but the working class parts of the city are decayed and crime riddled. For a while St. Louis held ground by bringing in refugees from Bosnia, but they have all moved out and there is nobody to bring (except the Syrians, and a lot of city leaders pushed to make STL a refugee center) but this is a short-term solution to a long term problem.
In the end, housing is like butterfly wings; the more you touch them the harder it is to get off the ground. The endless regulation of the housing market has driven up prices, driven down quality, and will continue to do so. I do not believe it is a matter of myopia or good intentions gone bad, either. I think there is a long-term strategy at work.
After all, cattle must first be sent to the stockades before reaching the slaughter house.
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Heidegger, Fascism, and Evergreen State College
Mark Musser
One of the mainstay courses at the recently newsworthy Evergreen State College is an all-year course entitled "The Human Condition.†This 36-credit course has its inspiration from a book of the same name written by Hannah Arendt (1906-75). Arendt was an assimilated German Jewess student in the Weimar Republic before the rise of National Socialism. In the 1930s she was forced to move around Europe before finally leaving for America in 1941 as World War II initially exploded in Germany’s favor. Considered one of the most important social theorists of the 20th century, much of Arendt’s worldview was absorbed from German existentialism that was presaged by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), but essentially rooted in the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), and Karl Jaspers (1883-1969).
While Kant himself often blew a gasket when he started to talk about Jews in his lectures, both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were proto-Nazis of sorts. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were the Fuhrer’s favorite philosophers. The Nazi cult of the "Triumph of the Will†was extolled in honor of these two philosophers. Heidegger himself was an actual Nazi who never repented of his fascist activities during the 1930s. In fact, Heidegger positioned himself to become the interpreter of Nietzsche for National Socialist consumption that continued until late in the war. More telling, Heidegger was a vehement anti-Semite. Jaspers was initially naïve of the true face of National Socialism in the early 1930s, but soon got educated. He eventually lost his professorship in 1937 due to a fascist gauntlet that enveloped him. He was married to a Jewess.
While there is no small disagreement among scholars over how subjective Kant’s philosophy actually was relative to the question of whether objective truth was humanly attainable this side of the grave, it cannot be denied that many German thinkers after him immersed themselves in subjectivist philosophies of what today are otherwise known as Romanticism and Existentialism. Both Romanticism and Existentialism highlighted a romance with nature together with an emphasis that esteemed earthly existence over the human mind and/or the Judeo-Christian worldview that described a heavenly realm far above the natural world. Both Romanticism and Existentialism valued subjectivity over objectivity, the subject over the object, existence over abstract categories, nature over theology or philosophy, naturalness over the civilized, authenticity over the artificial, spontaneity over mindful preparedness, real life experience over doctrine, matter over mind, activity over contemplation, intuition over reason, willpower over thought, instincts over rationalism, and holism over what was considered divisive rational analysis. What was desirous of Romanticism and Existentialism was the whole of life, not just intellectualism.
With medieval dogmatism, religious legalism, and scientific determinism that viewed both man and nature as a machine, what was needed was a re-enchantment of life itself for people to recover life indeed – romantically and existentially appreciated, and not just rationally analyzed. It was this German-based existentialism that captivated Hannah Arendt during the bloom of her youth. Her 1971 book on The Life of the Mind is a tribute to the legacy of this German escapade that grew up side by side with Kant’s secularist philosophy that dominated continental European thought throughout the 1800’s and early 1900s.
One of the most conspicuous existential truths of the 20th century is how young Hannah Arendt had a torrid affair with her teacher Martin Heidegger in the mid-1920s. The fallout of this adulterous relationship has yet to be sorted out in the postmodern academic Western world that they essentially established together after the war. While the affair came to an end, and Arendt was later shocked by Heidegger’s Nazi passions, like so many lovers’ quarrels that are so existentially rooted in the ups and downs of everyday emotions, she reconciled with him after the war. Arendt even became Heidegger’s apologist by downplaying his earlier Nazi commitments as an aberrant misjudgment of weakness that had nothing to do with his philosophy. In so doing, Arendt managed to rehabilitate Heidegger back into Western academia. According to Dr. Richard Wolin, Arendt essentially became "Heidegger’s de facto American literary agent, diligently overseeing contracts and translations of his books.†This allowed Heidegger’s brand of Nazi existentialism to seep back into western philosophy and leftist political, historical, and literary circles that laid the cornerstone for what today is called Postmodernism.
While Heidegger himself resisted being called an existentialist, he is certainly the father of Postmodernism. What is meant by Postmodernism is very difficult to express. First, Postmodernism is a form of existentialism. This by itself makes it very difficult to define because under existentialism, the application and power of rationalism and reason is greatly diminished. Ready-made designations, classifications, and descriptions are thus very hard to come by.
After the war, Heidegger’s writings became more opaque, which managed to disguise his Nazism. In so doing, Heidegger’s racism and anti-Semitism were replaced with anti-humanism, which should by no means be understood as any kind of progress, but a deepening of all the problems connected to his existentialism. Thanks to Heidegger, much of postmodern Western philosophy is deeply committed to various forms of anti-humanism, particularly with regard to the misanthropy of environmentalism. By overvaluing all of life, whether that be nature itself, or even by overemphasizing the willpower, passions, and instincts of human behavior rather than a thoughtful morality, Romanticism and Existentialism invariably opened the door to amoral anti-humanism where the laws of the jungle ultimately prevail -- as was particularly the case with regard to National Socialism.
Closely related, it was Arendt who gave to the Western world the "banality of evil†thesis concerning the Holocaust while writing on Nazi SS official Adolf Eichmann’s (1906-1962) trial for The New Yorker. Published in February of 1963, Arendt used Raul Hilberg’s detailed historical account, which focused on the German bureaucracy that administratively carried out the destruction of the Jews step by step. However, Arendt added her own existentialist kink to Holocaust interpretation by accentuating the bureaucratic everydayness of Eichmann’s evil. According to Arendt, Eichmann was a "cog†in a vast bureaucratic machine in which monstrous evil become monotonously "banal.†Thus, crimes without conscience became an existential routine during the war.
What somehow escapes Arendt is that such everyday existentialism is precisely what the German academy had been breeding in the hearts and minds of Germans for quite some time before the advent of National Socialism. Arendt herself was steeped in it. As such, she unwittingly gave an existentialist interpretation of the Holocaust -- an existentialism that was just as much of part of the problem with regard to the Holocaust as was Nazi Social Darwinism and ‘scientific’ racial hygiene. Both complemented one another into an explosive holistic synthesis -- the syncretistic mixture of which blew up all of Europe.
In the Deconstruction of Literature: Criticism after Auschwitz, Dr. David Hirsch warns, "It is misleading to disengage contemporary anti-humanism from Nazi dehumanization, for they share (the same) philosophical and cultural origins.†Hirsch has thus strongly argued that postmodernism should best be understood as post-Auschwitz. In short, postmodernism is existentialism after Auschwitz. Much more disturbing, according to Hirsch, the goal of postmodernism is to deconstruct the sober truth that the European academy, particularly in Germany, actually fed the intellectual beast which led to the Holocaust. Neither Europe nor the North American leftist academy have come to grips with the fact that the 20th century was a socialist slaughterhouse of epic proportions. Postmodernism thus moved in to save secular Europe from confronting its own intellectual catastrophe in the face of the apocalyptic abyss of World War.
Thanks to her own existentialism, Arendt never noticed Heidegger’s fascism that he taught her in the 1920s. Neither did Arendt ever acknowledge that her own educational background was deep-rooted in the exact same training that led to the destruction of her own people. Such was one of the "banal†dangers of being an assimilated Jew in Weimar Germany.
Existentialism does not enlighten about real life. It only obfuscates. This is the semi-fascist human condition that besets the postmodern academy in the West these days, particularly now at Evergreen State College, with no small thanks to the adulterous affair between Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. Much of the dumbing down and mindlessness that is now at the heart of the modern university is rooted in existentialist philosophies of continental Europe, with the lion’s share of it imported particularly from Germany. Indeed, with regard to Jean Paul Sartre’s Existentialism (1905-80), Heidegger once quipped, "When the French want to think they have to think in German.â€
As one of its mainstays over the years at the Evergreen State College (my alma mater) is a course called "The Human Condition†inspired by assimilated German Jew (during the 1920’s) Hannah Arendt’s book of the same title. I had an opportunity to take this course (36 credits today, but 48 credits when I was there) back in the mid 1980’s but declined to take Political Economy instead. Looking back on it, I wished I would have found time to take this course as well. While Arendt is famously known for depicting Adolf Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem as a "banal†man of evil, there is much more to the story than simply this as she is at the very heart of the Heidegger Nazi dustup-coverup that continues to plague much of western academia – even with regard to holocaust interpretation. With no small thanks to their love affair, Postmodernism now dominates much of modern education on university campuses these days, and this is particularly true at the Evergreen State College. Neither is it coincidental that Jewish professor Bret Weinstein became the target at Evergreen. Please take some time toread on, the latest from the Musser files -
One of the mainstay courses at the recently newsworthy Evergreen State College is an all-year course entitled "The Human Condition.†This 36-credit course has its inspiration from a book of the same name written by Hannah Arendt (1906-75). Arendt was an assimilated German Jewess student in the Weimar Republic before the rise of National Socialism. In the 1930s she was forced to move around Europe before finally leaving for America in 1941 as World War II initially exploded in Germany’s favor. Considered one of the most important social theorists of the 20th century, much of Arendt’s worldview was absorbed from German existentialism that was presaged by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), but essentially rooted in the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), and Karl Jaspers (1883-1969).
While Kant himself often blew a gasket when he started to talk about Jews in his lectures, both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were proto-Nazis of sorts. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were the Fuhrer’s favorite philosophers. The Nazi cult of the "Triumph of the Will†was extolled in honor of these two philosophers. Heidegger himself was an actual Nazi who never repented of his fascist activities during the 1930s. In fact, Heidegger positioned himself to become the interpreter of Nietzsche for National Socialist consumption that continued until late in the war. More telling, Heidegger was a vehement anti-Semite. Jaspers was initially naïve of the true face of National Socialism in the early 1930s, but soon got educated. He eventually lost his professorship in 1937 due to a fascist gauntlet that enveloped him. He was married to a Jewess.
While there is no small disagreement among scholars over how subjective Kant’s philosophy actually was relative to the question of whether objective truth was humanly attainable this side of the grave, it cannot be denied that many German thinkers after him immersed themselves in subjectivist philosophies of what today are otherwise known as Romanticism and Existentialism. Both Romanticism and Existentialism highlighted a romance with nature together with an emphasis that esteemed earthly existence over the human mind and/or the Judeo-Christian worldview that described a heavenly realm far above the natural world. Both Romanticism and Existentialism valued subjectivity over objectivity, the subject over the object, existence over abstract categories, nature over theology or philosophy, naturalness over the civilized, authenticity over the artificial, spontaneity over mindful preparedness, real life experience over doctrine, matter over mind, activity over contemplation, intuition over reason, willpower over thought, instincts over rationalism, and holism over what was considered divisive rational analysis. What was desirous of Romanticism and Existentialism was the whole of life, not just intellectualism.
With medieval dogmatism, religious legalism, and scientific determinism that viewed both man and nature as a machine, what was needed was a re-enchantment of life itself for people to recover life indeed – romantically and existentially appreciated, and not just rationally analyzed. It was this German-based existentialism that captivated Hannah Arendt during the bloom of her youth. Her 1971 book on The Life of the Mind is a tribute to the legacy of this German escapade that grew up side by side with Kant’s secularist philosophy that dominated continental European thought throughout the 1800’s and early 1900s.
One of the most conspicuous existential truths of the 20th century is how young Hannah Arendt had a torrid affair with her teacher Martin Heidegger in the mid-1920s. The fallout of this adulterous relationship has yet to be sorted out in the postmodern academic Western world that they essentially established together after the war. While the affair came to an end, and Arendt was later shocked by Heidegger’s Nazi passions, like so many lovers’ quarrels that are so existentially rooted in the ups and downs of everyday emotions, she reconciled with him after the war. Arendt even became Heidegger’s apologist by downplaying his earlier Nazi commitments as an aberrant misjudgment of weakness that had nothing to do with his philosophy. In so doing, Arendt managed to rehabilitate Heidegger back into Western academia. According to Dr. Richard Wolin, Arendt essentially became "Heidegger’s de facto American literary agent, diligently overseeing contracts and translations of his books.†This allowed Heidegger’s brand of Nazi existentialism to seep back into western philosophy and leftist political, historical, and literary circles that laid the cornerstone for what today is called Postmodernism.
While Heidegger himself resisted being called an existentialist, he is certainly the father of Postmodernism. What is meant by Postmodernism is very difficult to express. First, Postmodernism is a form of existentialism. This by itself makes it very difficult to define because under existentialism, the application and power of rationalism and reason is greatly diminished. Ready-made designations, classifications, and descriptions are thus very hard to come by.
After the war, Heidegger’s writings became more opaque, which managed to disguise his Nazism. In so doing, Heidegger’s racism and anti-Semitism were replaced with anti-humanism, which should by no means be understood as any kind of progress, but a deepening of all the problems connected to his existentialism. Thanks to Heidegger, much of postmodern Western philosophy is deeply committed to various forms of anti-humanism, particularly with regard to the misanthropy of environmentalism. By overvaluing all of life, whether that be nature itself, or even by overemphasizing the willpower, passions, and instincts of human behavior rather than a thoughtful morality, Romanticism and Existentialism invariably opened the door to amoral anti-humanism where the laws of the jungle ultimately prevail -- as was particularly the case with regard to National Socialism.
Closely related, it was Arendt who gave to the Western world the "banality of evil†thesis concerning the Holocaust while writing on Nazi SS official Adolf Eichmann’s (1906-1962) trial for The New Yorker. Published in February of 1963, Arendt used Raul Hilberg’s detailed historical account, which focused on the German bureaucracy that administratively carried out the destruction of the Jews step by step. However, Arendt added her own existentialist kink to Holocaust interpretation by accentuating the bureaucratic everydayness of Eichmann’s evil. According to Arendt, Eichmann was a "cog†in a vast bureaucratic machine in which monstrous evil become monotonously "banal.†Thus, crimes without conscience became an existential routine during the war.
What somehow escapes Arendt is that such everyday existentialism is precisely what the German academy had been breeding in the hearts and minds of Germans for quite some time before the advent of National Socialism. Arendt herself was steeped in it. As such, she unwittingly gave an existentialist interpretation of the Holocaust -- an existentialism that was just as much of part of the problem with regard to the Holocaust as was Nazi Social Darwinism and ‘scientific’ racial hygiene. Both complemented one another into an explosive holistic synthesis -- the syncretistic mixture of which blew up all of Europe.
In the Deconstruction of Literature: Criticism after Auschwitz, Dr. David Hirsch warns, "It is misleading to disengage contemporary anti-humanism from Nazi dehumanization, for they share (the same) philosophical and cultural origins.†Hirsch has thus strongly argued that postmodernism should best be understood as post-Auschwitz. In short, postmodernism is existentialism after Auschwitz. Much more disturbing, according to Hirsch, the goal of postmodernism is to deconstruct the sober truth that the European academy, particularly in Germany, actually fed the intellectual beast which led to the Holocaust. Neither Europe nor the North American leftist academy have come to grips with the fact that the 20th century was a socialist slaughterhouse of epic proportions. Postmodernism thus moved in to save secular Europe from confronting its own intellectual catastrophe in the face of the apocalyptic abyss of World War.
Thanks to her own existentialism, Arendt never noticed Heidegger’s fascism that he taught her in the 1920s. Neither did Arendt ever acknowledge that her own educational background was deep-rooted in the exact same training that led to the destruction of her own people. Such was one of the "banal†dangers of being an assimilated Jew in Weimar Germany.
Existentialism does not enlighten about real life. It only obfuscates. This is the semi-fascist human condition that besets the postmodern academy in the West these days, particularly now at Evergreen State College, with no small thanks to the adulterous affair between Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. Much of the dumbing down and mindlessness that is now at the heart of the modern university is rooted in existentialist philosophies of continental Europe, with the lion’s share of it imported particularly from Germany. Indeed, with regard to Jean Paul Sartre’s Existentialism (1905-80), Heidegger once quipped, "When the French want to think they have to think in German.â€
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Stupidity comes to Canada
Wil Wirtanen forwards this:
http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/16/canada-passes-law-criminalizing-use-of-wrong-gender-pronouns/
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June 16, 2017
Science, engineering and leadership
Paul Driessen
A well-trained scientific and engineering community has often been at the forefront of the decision-making process. As history has frequently shown, professionals with well-developed leadership skills and global awareness have the greatest chance to leave a legacy, often through the creation of life-changing technologies that we see and use every day. Unfortunately, out of 535 members of the 114th US Congress, only 11 are trained in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, eight of them as engineers; in contrast, 213 members are lawyers. That can have serious negative implications for our policies and laws, when it means too few legislators understand science and engineering.
West Virginia University engineering professor James Smith and MSE student Alex Hatch offer their insights into these important topics
Science, engineering and leadership
Creating balance and stability in a chaotic political and economic environment
James E. Smith and Alex Hatch
Many successful domestic and global companies and enterprises were started and driven by the visionary, problem-solving and leadership capabilities of technically trained founders and/or principals. Historically, those skills and entrepreneurial instincts came from advanced training and education, apprenticeship programs or even self-study.
A large percentage of those companies and enterprises came into existence during a time when an advanced engineering or scientific degree was not necessarily the norm, or even available. Still, the design, decision-making and technical training inherent in today’s degrees were essential characteristics of previous generations’ learning processes through mentoring and apprenticeship programs.
In more recent times, leadership and entrepreneurial efforts have increased, as have the numbers of trained and degreed engineers and scientists to support those efforts. Since at least the middle of the last century, it has become clear that the on-going problems that America and the world face will require increasingly more complex technical solutions.
It is thus a perfect opportunity for a well-trained scientific and engineering community to come to the forefront in the decision-making process. Professionals who have well-developed leadership skills and are globally aware will have the greatest chance to leave a legacy, as history has often recorded in the past. Indeed, it was it seems to have been individuals who had early, rigorous, technical training plus leadership and an entrepreneurial spirit who blossomed most, resulting in the creation of many of the life-changing technologies that we see and use today. The fundamental question therefore might be:
Did the technical training uncover, develop or at least heighten the leadership skill sets of those professionals – or are natural leaders drawn to the rigorous and often more technical arenas?
Most likely, it is a mixture of both, resulting in a technical community that has significantly enhanced leadership and decision-making capabilities, as well as inventive and innovative impulses. But whatever the mixture or cause, a growing number of enterprises have begun to revise their organizational structure to include technical assets in their bureaucratic ranks. These skills often bring into balance the more conservative nature of the typical business community, combined with technical leaders who are often regarded as risk-takers but recognize that visionary leaders often view a path as proper and safe, when most people would regard it as risky.
That’s why governments and companies around the globe are encouraging their technically trained leaders to take a more active role in promulgating their policies and decisions, some even placing these individuals at the top of the decision-making tree.
An example of this is German chancellor Angela Merkel, who has a doctorate in quantum chemistry and has often been cited for her analytical method for making policy decisions. This technical-mindedness is one of the reasons Germany has become a strong innovation-driven economy, ranked fifth out of 138 countries for economic competitiveness. U.S. governing bodies have also begun to recognize the need for increasing technical and leadership competencies within their ranks, to better support entrepreneurs and the implementation of needed technical innovations.
It is unclear at this point though whether a critical mass is available that understands the correlation and contrast between: technical training and technology development; professional training and leadership skills; entrepreneurialism and economic impacts; and being a visionary but making tough decisions. There is growing evidence that the evolution, if not revolution, has started – evidenced by activities in many of our federal and state governing bodies. Perhaps more telling is the growing number of non-governmental organizations and non-profits that are seeking technically minded and trained leadership skill sets to compliment, or replace, their historical business and finance structures.
Needless to say, an ever-increasing number of situations will allow our technically gifted the opportunity to serve their local and larger communities. Most forward-looking universities and even trade schools and training centers have thus recognized that, if they are to survive and provide value to their constituency, they will need to recognize and promote the more technically skilled, while also giving these individuals decision-making and leadership training. (Contrast this to the parochial general education curriculums of the past.) While there is a place and a need for all educational degree types, as well as value in a plethora of business and organizational structures, it is the highly skilled engineers and scientists who best see past today’s risks and roadblocks to envision improved landscapes in the future.
It is clear, at least to many in other countries and several large enterprises, that the social landscape that we take for granted resulted from the direct influence of these highly skilled individuals. If we want more of the same results (and hopefully better ones) in the future, we will need their help going forward. Many of these same kinds of people find that working on current social problems or remedying past technical problems is mundane and likely a waste of their efforts. Organizations and governments that have recognized the need to meet their future fully prepared and on schedule have found ways to entice these professionals into the governance and leadership process, to their collective advantage.
For the United States, a quick look at the number of highly trained scientists and engineers serving in any substantial government or management positions makes it easy to see how our many legislators can be swayed into believing almost any technical gibberish. According to the Congressional Research Service, out of 535 members of the 114th US Congress, only 11 are trained in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, eight of them as engineers; in contrast, 29 members are professional farmers and 213 are trained lawyers. It is likely that the similar percentages of STEM professionals are found in state legislatures and even in large corporations and other business enterprises.
While it is highly unlikely that the non-scientifically trained members of Congress show blatant disregard for the universal truths that have served science and engineering so well through centuries of scientific advancement, their lack of training certainly puts them at a distinct disadvantage on technical and scientific matters, compared to their technically trained counterparts. Most notably, their lack of training can force them to have to take at face value the advice of so-called "experts†testifying before or advising them on scientific issues.
While many of these experts undoubtedly have the best interests of the country in mind, it is possible for any lobbyist masquerading as a scientist to pass off pseudo-scientific jargon and utter falsities as fact to senators and congressmen who simply don’t know any better.
Without a basic understanding of the scientific process that has been so successful and useful in getting us to this point in our collective histories, how can we expect to see a better future if similar men and women are not at the helm? Maybe a little less pandering and a lot more proper decision-making based on scientific facts will make the governance process more attractive to professionals for whom a future legacy of successful advancements is a valued outcome – and thus better for our future.
James E. Smith, PhD is a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at West Virginia University. Alex Hatch has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from WVU and is studying for his Master’s Degree in engineering at WVU.
A well-trained scientific and engineering community has often been at the forefront of the decision-making process. As history has frequently shown, professionals with well-developed leadership skills and global awareness have the greatest chance to leave a legacy, often through the creation of life-changing technologies that we see and use every day. Unfortunately, out of 535 members of the 114th US Congress, only 11 are trained in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, eight of them as engineers; in contrast, 213 members are lawyers. That can have serious negative implications for our policies and laws, when it means too few legislators understand science and engineering.
West Virginia University engineering professor James Smith and MSE student Alex Hatch offer their insights into these important topics
Science, engineering and leadership
Creating balance and stability in a chaotic political and economic environment
James E. Smith and Alex Hatch
Many successful domestic and global companies and enterprises were started and driven by the visionary, problem-solving and leadership capabilities of technically trained founders and/or principals. Historically, those skills and entrepreneurial instincts came from advanced training and education, apprenticeship programs or even self-study.
A large percentage of those companies and enterprises came into existence during a time when an advanced engineering or scientific degree was not necessarily the norm, or even available. Still, the design, decision-making and technical training inherent in today’s degrees were essential characteristics of previous generations’ learning processes through mentoring and apprenticeship programs.
In more recent times, leadership and entrepreneurial efforts have increased, as have the numbers of trained and degreed engineers and scientists to support those efforts. Since at least the middle of the last century, it has become clear that the on-going problems that America and the world face will require increasingly more complex technical solutions.
It is thus a perfect opportunity for a well-trained scientific and engineering community to come to the forefront in the decision-making process. Professionals who have well-developed leadership skills and are globally aware will have the greatest chance to leave a legacy, as history has often recorded in the past. Indeed, it was it seems to have been individuals who had early, rigorous, technical training plus leadership and an entrepreneurial spirit who blossomed most, resulting in the creation of many of the life-changing technologies that we see and use today. The fundamental question therefore might be:
Did the technical training uncover, develop or at least heighten the leadership skill sets of those professionals – or are natural leaders drawn to the rigorous and often more technical arenas?
Most likely, it is a mixture of both, resulting in a technical community that has significantly enhanced leadership and decision-making capabilities, as well as inventive and innovative impulses. But whatever the mixture or cause, a growing number of enterprises have begun to revise their organizational structure to include technical assets in their bureaucratic ranks. These skills often bring into balance the more conservative nature of the typical business community, combined with technical leaders who are often regarded as risk-takers but recognize that visionary leaders often view a path as proper and safe, when most people would regard it as risky.
That’s why governments and companies around the globe are encouraging their technically trained leaders to take a more active role in promulgating their policies and decisions, some even placing these individuals at the top of the decision-making tree.
An example of this is German chancellor Angela Merkel, who has a doctorate in quantum chemistry and has often been cited for her analytical method for making policy decisions. This technical-mindedness is one of the reasons Germany has become a strong innovation-driven economy, ranked fifth out of 138 countries for economic competitiveness. U.S. governing bodies have also begun to recognize the need for increasing technical and leadership competencies within their ranks, to better support entrepreneurs and the implementation of needed technical innovations.
It is unclear at this point though whether a critical mass is available that understands the correlation and contrast between: technical training and technology development; professional training and leadership skills; entrepreneurialism and economic impacts; and being a visionary but making tough decisions. There is growing evidence that the evolution, if not revolution, has started – evidenced by activities in many of our federal and state governing bodies. Perhaps more telling is the growing number of non-governmental organizations and non-profits that are seeking technically minded and trained leadership skill sets to compliment, or replace, their historical business and finance structures.
Needless to say, an ever-increasing number of situations will allow our technically gifted the opportunity to serve their local and larger communities. Most forward-looking universities and even trade schools and training centers have thus recognized that, if they are to survive and provide value to their constituency, they will need to recognize and promote the more technically skilled, while also giving these individuals decision-making and leadership training. (Contrast this to the parochial general education curriculums of the past.) While there is a place and a need for all educational degree types, as well as value in a plethora of business and organizational structures, it is the highly skilled engineers and scientists who best see past today’s risks and roadblocks to envision improved landscapes in the future.
It is clear, at least to many in other countries and several large enterprises, that the social landscape that we take for granted resulted from the direct influence of these highly skilled individuals. If we want more of the same results (and hopefully better ones) in the future, we will need their help going forward. Many of these same kinds of people find that working on current social problems or remedying past technical problems is mundane and likely a waste of their efforts. Organizations and governments that have recognized the need to meet their future fully prepared and on schedule have found ways to entice these professionals into the governance and leadership process, to their collective advantage.
For the United States, a quick look at the number of highly trained scientists and engineers serving in any substantial government or management positions makes it easy to see how our many legislators can be swayed into believing almost any technical gibberish. According to the Congressional Research Service, out of 535 members of the 114th US Congress, only 11 are trained in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, eight of them as engineers; in contrast, 29 members are professional farmers and 213 are trained lawyers. It is likely that the similar percentages of STEM professionals are found in state legislatures and even in large corporations and other business enterprises.
While it is highly unlikely that the non-scientifically trained members of Congress show blatant disregard for the universal truths that have served science and engineering so well through centuries of scientific advancement, their lack of training certainly puts them at a distinct disadvantage on technical and scientific matters, compared to their technically trained counterparts. Most notably, their lack of training can force them to have to take at face value the advice of so-called "experts†testifying before or advising them on scientific issues.
While many of these experts undoubtedly have the best interests of the country in mind, it is possible for any lobbyist masquerading as a scientist to pass off pseudo-scientific jargon and utter falsities as fact to senators and congressmen who simply don’t know any better.
Without a basic understanding of the scientific process that has been so successful and useful in getting us to this point in our collective histories, how can we expect to see a better future if similar men and women are not at the helm? Maybe a little less pandering and a lot more proper decision-making based on scientific facts will make the governance process more attractive to professionals for whom a future legacy of successful advancements is a valued outcome – and thus better for our future.
James E. Smith, PhD is a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at West Virginia University. Alex Hatch has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from WVU and is studying for his Master’s Degree in engineering at WVU.
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Ten Transgender Truths for Legislators and Concerned Citizens
Selwyn Duke
Whether you’re a lawmaker considering a "bathroom bill†or some other "transgenderâ€-oriented legislation, or a citizen pondering a vote influencing the matter, you need the facts. The following are 10 "transgender†truths:
There is no sound science behind the transgender agenda. No "expert†can point to any physiological markers, in any given case, proving that at issue is a biological phenomenon and not a purely psychological one.
The "transgender†diagnosis is based purely on feelings relating to what’s called strong "cross-gender identification.†It’s no different from a cardiologist performing bypass surgery on a patient — without conducting any medical tests confirming heart disease’s presence — based solely on the person claiming he feels as if he has clogged arteries. Yet on this basis alone a psychiatrist may recommend that a child live as a member of the opposite sex and even, at some point, have body-rending "gender-reassignment surgery†(read: mutilation).
Strong "cross-gender identification†is defined as "gender dysphoria.†There is also "species dysphoria†— the sense of being an animal stuck in a human body — and Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), the strong sense that a body part or parts don’t belong on/in one’s body (e.g., legs, eyes). All three disorders are defined by "feelings.†There’s no more proof that gender dysphoria has a biological basis than there is that species dysphoria or BIID does.
Yet it wouldn’t matter if there were. Many abnormalities are inborn, such as Down syndrome, cleft palate, spina bifida and sickle-cell anemia. Anomalies are the exception proving the rule of normalcy; moreover, biology doesn’t determine morality.
To re-engineer society (e.g., open bathrooms to the opposite sex) based on transgender claims is to subordinate the feelings of the vast majority of the population to the feelings of less than one percent of it.
Proponents of transgender bathroom social engineering argue that such people have been using the opposite sex’s facilities for decades without raising objections. Yet this only proves that these individuals — who convincingly pass as the opposite sex — don’t need a law to gain access. Conclusion: The push to open bathrooms isn’t mainly about access; it’s about changing the way people think. Social engineering is the goal.
Some of those pushing transgender bathroom social engineering are autogynephiliacs: Men who derive sexual pleasure from dressing as women. They can be confused with those genuinely gender dysphoric, despite having a different disorder. Such people likely constitute an inordinate percentage of those accessing the opposite-sex’s bathrooms and HYPERLINK
"http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/04/the_texas_transgender_problem_defending_sb_6.html" committing sexual abuse.
Telling schoolchildren it’s normal to live as the opposite sex is child abuse. It’s as if we told them it’s normal to be species dysphoric and live as an animal: It warps their sense of reality.
Allowing men claiming woman status into women’s athletic events, on the basis that "hormone-replacement therapy†eliminates any natural advantage, reflects ignorance. The intersex sports-performance gap is profound — the mile record for 15-year-old boys is better than the women’s world record. And boys’ running records HYPERLINK "https://www.usatf.org/statistics/records/view.asp?division=american&location=outdoor%20track%20%26%20field&age=youth&sport=TF" surpass those for girls’ even among prepubescent children. Allowing "trans†men into women’s competitions is no different from permitting a 20-stone heavyweight to box as a lightweight because he identifies as a 135-pounder.
"Gender†and "sex†aren’t synonymous. Even psychologists will tell you that "sex†is a biological distinction while "gender†is merely your perception of what you are. In reality, "gender†should only be applied to grammatical classifications (as it used to be). The quality of being male or female is properly known as "sex.â€
Prejudice means to pre-judge and is defined as " HYPERLINK "http://www.dictionary.com/browse/prejudice?s=t" an opinion formed beforehand, esp an unfavourable one based on inadequate facts.†For policy to not be based not on prejudice but principle, we must arm ourselves with the facts.
HYPERLINK "mailto:selwynduke@optonline.net" Contact Selwyn Duke, HYPERLINK "https://twitter.com/SelwynDuke" follow him on Twitter or log on to HYPERLINK "http://www.selwynduke.com/" SelwynDuke.com
Whether you’re a lawmaker considering a "bathroom bill†or some other "transgenderâ€-oriented legislation, or a citizen pondering a vote influencing the matter, you need the facts. The following are 10 "transgender†truths:
There is no sound science behind the transgender agenda. No "expert†can point to any physiological markers, in any given case, proving that at issue is a biological phenomenon and not a purely psychological one.
The "transgender†diagnosis is based purely on feelings relating to what’s called strong "cross-gender identification.†It’s no different from a cardiologist performing bypass surgery on a patient — without conducting any medical tests confirming heart disease’s presence — based solely on the person claiming he feels as if he has clogged arteries. Yet on this basis alone a psychiatrist may recommend that a child live as a member of the opposite sex and even, at some point, have body-rending "gender-reassignment surgery†(read: mutilation).
Strong "cross-gender identification†is defined as "gender dysphoria.†There is also "species dysphoria†— the sense of being an animal stuck in a human body — and Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), the strong sense that a body part or parts don’t belong on/in one’s body (e.g., legs, eyes). All three disorders are defined by "feelings.†There’s no more proof that gender dysphoria has a biological basis than there is that species dysphoria or BIID does.
Yet it wouldn’t matter if there were. Many abnormalities are inborn, such as Down syndrome, cleft palate, spina bifida and sickle-cell anemia. Anomalies are the exception proving the rule of normalcy; moreover, biology doesn’t determine morality.
To re-engineer society (e.g., open bathrooms to the opposite sex) based on transgender claims is to subordinate the feelings of the vast majority of the population to the feelings of less than one percent of it.
Proponents of transgender bathroom social engineering argue that such people have been using the opposite sex’s facilities for decades without raising objections. Yet this only proves that these individuals — who convincingly pass as the opposite sex — don’t need a law to gain access. Conclusion: The push to open bathrooms isn’t mainly about access; it’s about changing the way people think. Social engineering is the goal.
Some of those pushing transgender bathroom social engineering are autogynephiliacs: Men who derive sexual pleasure from dressing as women. They can be confused with those genuinely gender dysphoric, despite having a different disorder. Such people likely constitute an inordinate percentage of those accessing the opposite-sex’s bathrooms and HYPERLINK
"http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/04/the_texas_transgender_problem_defending_sb_6.html" committing sexual abuse.
Telling schoolchildren it’s normal to live as the opposite sex is child abuse. It’s as if we told them it’s normal to be species dysphoric and live as an animal: It warps their sense of reality.
Allowing men claiming woman status into women’s athletic events, on the basis that "hormone-replacement therapy†eliminates any natural advantage, reflects ignorance. The intersex sports-performance gap is profound — the mile record for 15-year-old boys is better than the women’s world record. And boys’ running records HYPERLINK "https://www.usatf.org/statistics/records/view.asp?division=american&location=outdoor%20track%20%26%20field&age=youth&sport=TF" surpass those for girls’ even among prepubescent children. Allowing "trans†men into women’s competitions is no different from permitting a 20-stone heavyweight to box as a lightweight because he identifies as a 135-pounder.
"Gender†and "sex†aren’t synonymous. Even psychologists will tell you that "sex†is a biological distinction while "gender†is merely your perception of what you are. In reality, "gender†should only be applied to grammatical classifications (as it used to be). The quality of being male or female is properly known as "sex.â€
Prejudice means to pre-judge and is defined as " HYPERLINK "http://www.dictionary.com/browse/prejudice?s=t" an opinion formed beforehand, esp an unfavourable one based on inadequate facts.†For policy to not be based not on prejudice but principle, we must arm ourselves with the facts.
HYPERLINK "mailto:selwynduke@optonline.net" Contact Selwyn Duke, HYPERLINK "https://twitter.com/SelwynDuke" follow him on Twitter or log on to HYPERLINK "http://www.selwynduke.com/" SelwynDuke.com
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More rational policies in our future?
Paul Driessen
Al Gore says President Trump’s Exit Paris decision will bring "a global weather apocalypse.†Coal-billionaire Tom Steyer called the action "a traitorous act of war.†Please. What would really impact our planet’s habitats, wildlife and scenic vistas are the millions of wind turbines and solar panels the world would need to generate expensive, intermittent electricity – if we abandoned the oil, natural gas and coal that still provide 80% of America’s and the world’s energy. And for all that, at best we would get an undetectable 0.2 degrees C (0.3 F) less warming by 2100 … IF plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide actually does drive climate change and extreme weather.
More rational policies in our future?
Trump’s Paris decision challenges bad science, economics and energy politics behind treaty
Paul Driessen
In the wake of President Trump’s exit from the Paris climate treaty, reactions from other quarters were predictably swift, nasty, sanctimonious and hypocritical.
Al Gore paused near one of the private jets he takes to hector lesser mortals to say the action will bring "a global weather apocalypse.†Billionaire Tom Steyer got rich selling coal but called the President’s action "a traitorous act of war.†Actor-activist Mark Ruffalo railed that Trump has "the death of whole nations on his hands.†Michael Moore said the action was "a crime against humanity.†Former President Obama said it threatened "the one planet we’ve got†(to say nothing of what’s left of his executive orders legacy).
In truth, President Trump’s bold decision underscores the ill-informed science, economics, ethics and energy politics that have driven climate cataclysm caterwauling for decades. His exit decision, his insistence that NATO members pay their agreed dues for defending Europe, the impacts of widespread green energy poverty, and the hard economic and environmental realities of wind, solar and biofuel "alternatives†to fossil fuels will likely awaken other leaders – and persuade other nations to Exit Paris.
Of the 28 NATO members, only the US, UK, Poland, Estonia and Greece have met their defense spending commitments, leaving a shortfall of $134 billion a year and compelling the United States to shoulder over 65% of the alliance’s total defense spending. Germany and some other members have now grudgingly agreed to increase their payments, in response to President Trump’s request, Russia’s actions in Crimea, Georgia and elsewhere – and growing threats of Islamist terrorism.
In the wake of London, Manchester, Brussels, Paris, Orlando, San Bernardino, Fort Hood, Twin Towers and countless other attacks, it is ludicrous to claim supposedly manmade, allegedly dangerous climate change is the world’s biggest worry. It’s totally unrealistic to imagine that NATO members can pay their fair share for defending Europe and then pay what the Paris Treaty expects for the Green Climate Fund, while shackling their economies with job-killing renewable energy policies, and spending billions on welfare for unemployed workers and migrant families from the Middle East.
The Paris climate formula provides that GCF payments are to start at $100 billion per year, of which the US share would have been $23.5 billion. Former UN Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Christiana Figueres has suggested that $450 billion a year by 2030 would be appropriate, Competitive Enterprise Institute energy and climate director Myron Ebell points out.
Ms. Figueres has also said the UN has "given itself†the task of replacing the free enterprise capitalism economic model with a global governance system. Her colleague Ottmar Edenhofer bluntly stated that the real goal of UN climate policies is redistributing the world’s wealth – in $450-billion-a-year increments.
Developing Countries and kleptocratic leaders demanded this windfall to join Paris. Their enthusiasm over staying in Paris is likely to reflect now-rich nation declining excitement about paying into the Fund, even though the treaty does not obligate DCs to reduce fossil fuel use or emissions until at least 2030.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel gamely said she will now work "more than ever†to "save our planet.†A number of US cities and states pledged to remain committed to treaty obligations. How exactly will they do that? Will they pay billions into the Fund – and blanket their lands with enough wind, solar and biofuel installations to be completely renewable in three decades? Build more of the only CO2-free electricity sources that are reliable and affordable: nuclear and hydroelectric facilities?
Most of these national, state and local leaders oppose nuclear and hydroelectric as strongly as they detest fossil fuels – and the states and cities are already burdened by soaring electricity prices and government debt. Virtually none have considered the gargantuan costs of this "energy transition†– or the fact that total global adherence to the Paris Treaty would prevent an undetectable 0.2 degrees C (0.3 F) of warming by 2100. Their own self-aggrandizing efforts would prevent perhaps 0.01 degrees. (And that assumes carbon dioxide is the primary factor in climate change, instead of changes in solar energy output, cosmic rays, ocean circulation and numerous other natural forces that actually control Earth’s climate.)
The United States and world still depend on oil, natural gas and coal for 80% of their total energy needs. More than 53,000 US wind turbines still supply only 2% of the nation’s total energy; thousands of acres of photovoltaic solar panels supply barely 0.3% of US energy; corn ethanol from 40 million acres (equal to Iowa or to Austria and the Czech Republic combined) supplies just 5% of its transportation fuels.
Land and raw material requirements for wind turbines underscore the true impacts of renewable energy.
Between 2010 and 2015, global electricity consumption grew by more than 2 billion megawatt-hours (2,000 terawatt-hours). Meeting just this demand growth of 400 million mWh per year (not total global electricity demand) solely with wind energy would require installing some 100,000 new turbines every year (generating electricity 25% of the time), as nations continue to electrify their far-flung communities.
Thankfully, African and Asian countries are actually doing so by building "mere†hundreds of new coal- and natural gas-fueled power plants, to generate abundant, reliable, affordable electricity for their people. Converting the entire planet to constantly fluctuating, unreliable, expensive, subsidized wind power would require trillions of dollars, hundreds of millions of acres, and incalculable raw materials.
Industry and other data suggest that generating just 20% of US electricity with wind power would require some 185,000 1.5-MW turbines, 19,000 miles of new transmission lines, up to 18 million acres, and 245 million tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and rare earths – plus fossil-fuel back-up generators for the 75% of the year that the wind is barely blowing and the turbines are not producing electricity.
Now consider where all these raw materials must come from, how they must be extracted from the Earth and turned into finished products, and how much (mostly fossil fuel) energy that requires. Concrete is made from limestone, silica, alumina, iron, clay, fly ash, gypsum and gravel. Steel requires iron, nickel, chromium, manganese, carbon and molybdenum. Fiberglass is composed of silica, other minerals and petroleum. These materials and copper are mined in countries all across the planet.
Nearly all rare earth metals come from Mongolia, and lithium for batteries (to store the turbines’ electrical output) from the Democratic Republic of Congo, under horrid to nonexistent environmental, health and child labor standards. Their toxic and radioactive wastes are turning vast areas into desolate wastelands.
Those are enormous impacts – and wind turbines require some 100-200 times more raw materials per megawatt of electricity actually generated than modern hypercritical coal or combined cycle gas turbine generators. Total energy inputs to manufacture, transport and install wind turbine components are also lopsided. Just imagine the land and resource needs if all electricity were wind-generated and all cars were electric. To call this "clean†energy, "sustainable†power or "environmental justice†is simply perverse.
Think back on the incredible energy technology advances since 1917 – from wood and coal in primitive stoves, furnaces and factories a century ago … to the coal and gas turbine generators, hydroelectric and nuclear power plants, high-tech transmission grids of today. Ponder the amazing advancements in medical, computer, communication and other technologies during the past century.
Imagine what wonders our Ultimate Resource – our creative intellects – could invent over next century, if we have the freedom and capital to do so. If misguided climate change, wealth redistribution, renewable energy and global governance demands do not shackle those opportunities. If we’d stop giving decision-making authority to people who have never been in factories or on farms (much less worked there), and think food comes from grocery stores, electricity from wall sockets, "clean energy†from magic.
President Trump has been vilified for challenging "accepted wisdom†on NATO, terrorism, climate change, and the ability of wind and solar to power job creation and economic rejuvenation in the USA and other industrialized nations – and to enable poor families worldwide to take their rightful places among Earth’s healthy and prosperous people. History will prove him right.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.
Generating just 20% of US electricity with wind power would require some 185,000 1.5-MW turbines, up to 18 million acres of land, and 245 million tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and rare earth metals. Multiply that times global needs, and you get the picture.
Al Gore says President Trump’s Exit Paris decision will bring "a global weather apocalypse.†Coal-billionaire Tom Steyer called the action "a traitorous act of war.†Please. What would really impact our planet’s habitats, wildlife and scenic vistas are the millions of wind turbines and solar panels the world would need to generate expensive, intermittent electricity – if we abandoned the oil, natural gas and coal that still provide 80% of America’s and the world’s energy. And for all that, at best we would get an undetectable 0.2 degrees C (0.3 F) less warming by 2100 … IF plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide actually does drive climate change and extreme weather.
More rational policies in our future?
Trump’s Paris decision challenges bad science, economics and energy politics behind treaty
Paul Driessen
In the wake of President Trump’s exit from the Paris climate treaty, reactions from other quarters were predictably swift, nasty, sanctimonious and hypocritical.
Al Gore paused near one of the private jets he takes to hector lesser mortals to say the action will bring "a global weather apocalypse.†Billionaire Tom Steyer got rich selling coal but called the President’s action "a traitorous act of war.†Actor-activist Mark Ruffalo railed that Trump has "the death of whole nations on his hands.†Michael Moore said the action was "a crime against humanity.†Former President Obama said it threatened "the one planet we’ve got†(to say nothing of what’s left of his executive orders legacy).
In truth, President Trump’s bold decision underscores the ill-informed science, economics, ethics and energy politics that have driven climate cataclysm caterwauling for decades. His exit decision, his insistence that NATO members pay their agreed dues for defending Europe, the impacts of widespread green energy poverty, and the hard economic and environmental realities of wind, solar and biofuel "alternatives†to fossil fuels will likely awaken other leaders – and persuade other nations to Exit Paris.
Of the 28 NATO members, only the US, UK, Poland, Estonia and Greece have met their defense spending commitments, leaving a shortfall of $134 billion a year and compelling the United States to shoulder over 65% of the alliance’s total defense spending. Germany and some other members have now grudgingly agreed to increase their payments, in response to President Trump’s request, Russia’s actions in Crimea, Georgia and elsewhere – and growing threats of Islamist terrorism.
In the wake of London, Manchester, Brussels, Paris, Orlando, San Bernardino, Fort Hood, Twin Towers and countless other attacks, it is ludicrous to claim supposedly manmade, allegedly dangerous climate change is the world’s biggest worry. It’s totally unrealistic to imagine that NATO members can pay their fair share for defending Europe and then pay what the Paris Treaty expects for the Green Climate Fund, while shackling their economies with job-killing renewable energy policies, and spending billions on welfare for unemployed workers and migrant families from the Middle East.
The Paris climate formula provides that GCF payments are to start at $100 billion per year, of which the US share would have been $23.5 billion. Former UN Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Christiana Figueres has suggested that $450 billion a year by 2030 would be appropriate, Competitive Enterprise Institute energy and climate director Myron Ebell points out.
Ms. Figueres has also said the UN has "given itself†the task of replacing the free enterprise capitalism economic model with a global governance system. Her colleague Ottmar Edenhofer bluntly stated that the real goal of UN climate policies is redistributing the world’s wealth – in $450-billion-a-year increments.
Developing Countries and kleptocratic leaders demanded this windfall to join Paris. Their enthusiasm over staying in Paris is likely to reflect now-rich nation declining excitement about paying into the Fund, even though the treaty does not obligate DCs to reduce fossil fuel use or emissions until at least 2030.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel gamely said she will now work "more than ever†to "save our planet.†A number of US cities and states pledged to remain committed to treaty obligations. How exactly will they do that? Will they pay billions into the Fund – and blanket their lands with enough wind, solar and biofuel installations to be completely renewable in three decades? Build more of the only CO2-free electricity sources that are reliable and affordable: nuclear and hydroelectric facilities?
Most of these national, state and local leaders oppose nuclear and hydroelectric as strongly as they detest fossil fuels – and the states and cities are already burdened by soaring electricity prices and government debt. Virtually none have considered the gargantuan costs of this "energy transition†– or the fact that total global adherence to the Paris Treaty would prevent an undetectable 0.2 degrees C (0.3 F) of warming by 2100. Their own self-aggrandizing efforts would prevent perhaps 0.01 degrees. (And that assumes carbon dioxide is the primary factor in climate change, instead of changes in solar energy output, cosmic rays, ocean circulation and numerous other natural forces that actually control Earth’s climate.)
The United States and world still depend on oil, natural gas and coal for 80% of their total energy needs. More than 53,000 US wind turbines still supply only 2% of the nation’s total energy; thousands of acres of photovoltaic solar panels supply barely 0.3% of US energy; corn ethanol from 40 million acres (equal to Iowa or to Austria and the Czech Republic combined) supplies just 5% of its transportation fuels.
Land and raw material requirements for wind turbines underscore the true impacts of renewable energy.
Between 2010 and 2015, global electricity consumption grew by more than 2 billion megawatt-hours (2,000 terawatt-hours). Meeting just this demand growth of 400 million mWh per year (not total global electricity demand) solely with wind energy would require installing some 100,000 new turbines every year (generating electricity 25% of the time), as nations continue to electrify their far-flung communities.
Thankfully, African and Asian countries are actually doing so by building "mere†hundreds of new coal- and natural gas-fueled power plants, to generate abundant, reliable, affordable electricity for their people. Converting the entire planet to constantly fluctuating, unreliable, expensive, subsidized wind power would require trillions of dollars, hundreds of millions of acres, and incalculable raw materials.
Industry and other data suggest that generating just 20% of US electricity with wind power would require some 185,000 1.5-MW turbines, 19,000 miles of new transmission lines, up to 18 million acres, and 245 million tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and rare earths – plus fossil-fuel back-up generators for the 75% of the year that the wind is barely blowing and the turbines are not producing electricity.
Now consider where all these raw materials must come from, how they must be extracted from the Earth and turned into finished products, and how much (mostly fossil fuel) energy that requires. Concrete is made from limestone, silica, alumina, iron, clay, fly ash, gypsum and gravel. Steel requires iron, nickel, chromium, manganese, carbon and molybdenum. Fiberglass is composed of silica, other minerals and petroleum. These materials and copper are mined in countries all across the planet.
Nearly all rare earth metals come from Mongolia, and lithium for batteries (to store the turbines’ electrical output) from the Democratic Republic of Congo, under horrid to nonexistent environmental, health and child labor standards. Their toxic and radioactive wastes are turning vast areas into desolate wastelands.
Those are enormous impacts – and wind turbines require some 100-200 times more raw materials per megawatt of electricity actually generated than modern hypercritical coal or combined cycle gas turbine generators. Total energy inputs to manufacture, transport and install wind turbine components are also lopsided. Just imagine the land and resource needs if all electricity were wind-generated and all cars were electric. To call this "clean†energy, "sustainable†power or "environmental justice†is simply perverse.
Think back on the incredible energy technology advances since 1917 – from wood and coal in primitive stoves, furnaces and factories a century ago … to the coal and gas turbine generators, hydroelectric and nuclear power plants, high-tech transmission grids of today. Ponder the amazing advancements in medical, computer, communication and other technologies during the past century.
Imagine what wonders our Ultimate Resource – our creative intellects – could invent over next century, if we have the freedom and capital to do so. If misguided climate change, wealth redistribution, renewable energy and global governance demands do not shackle those opportunities. If we’d stop giving decision-making authority to people who have never been in factories or on farms (much less worked there), and think food comes from grocery stores, electricity from wall sockets, "clean energy†from magic.
President Trump has been vilified for challenging "accepted wisdom†on NATO, terrorism, climate change, and the ability of wind and solar to power job creation and economic rejuvenation in the USA and other industrialized nations – and to enable poor families worldwide to take their rightful places among Earth’s healthy and prosperous people. History will prove him right.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.
Generating just 20% of US electricity with wind power would require some 185,000 1.5-MW turbines, up to 18 million acres of land, and 245 million tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and rare earth metals. Multiply that times global needs, and you get the picture.
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Post contains 1564 words, total size 11 kb.
Was Mohammed a “True Muslim�
Selwyn Duke
In the wake of every terrorist act there is the same argument. The voices-in-the-wilderness right will say, insofar as they’re not muzzled with hate-speech laws, that Islam is the problem. In contrast, a leftist drumbeat of media and mainstream politicos will assert that the Muslim terrorists aren’t really "Muslim†terrorists, that they’ve perverted the faith. As to the truth, it’s as with any other debate over a thing’s true meaning (e.g., the Constitution): it only makes sense to look for answers in original sources.
This brings us to a simple question: Was Mohammed a true Muslim?
It’s a rhetorical question, of course. As Islam’s founder — the religion was born of revelations he supposedly had in the early seventh century — Mohammed was the very first Muslim. Moreover, since Muslims view him as "The Perfect Man,†the ultimate role model, he’s not just the truest Muslim but the yardstick by which other Muslims may measure themselves.
So what was Mohammed’s "perfection� He was a warlord who launched approximately 30 military campaigns, many of which he led himself. He was a caravan raider (a bandit) and captured, traded in and owned slaves (by the way, will liberals suggest slave-owning Mohammed be diminished, as they’ve done with our founders?). He HYPERLINK "http://www.islam-watch.org/Larry/Muhammad-Massacres-and-Sex-slaves.htm" ordered massacres, used torture and had dissidents assassinated. In 627 AD, he beheaded more than 600 men and boys of the Qurayza tribe in Medina, Arabia, thus wiping it off the map. He also was a polygamist and made it lawful for masters to have sexual relations with their female captives.
So, clearly, if today’s Islamic jihadists aren’t true Muslims, neither was Mohammed. But since we know the Perfect Man was the truest of Muslims, then…well, you can finish the sentence.
Yet when analyzing Muslim motivations, the influence of Mohammed’s character is generally subordinated to that of Islamic teachings (most of which come from Mohammed). And even here, people generally make the mistake of focusing only on the Koran, unaware it’s a mere 16 percent of the Islamic canon. The majority of it comprises the Hadiths and Sira.
This is noteworthy because while 9 percent of the Koran is devoted to jihad and political violence, 21 percent of the Hadiths is and a whopping 67 percent of the Sira is devoted to it, HYPERLINK
"http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2010/09/the_political_violence_of_the.html" \l "ixzz3QhDso45i" according to Bill Warner, Director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam. This is why Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut HYPERLINK "https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5119/islamic-terrorism-taboo" wrote in 2015 that "violence and domination†are "deeply rooted...and sanctioned with promises of rewards†in Islam, and, consequently, "fundamentalists will always find people to excite and people to persecute.â€
The distribution of violent injunctions in these books helps explain something else. A HYPERLINK "http://www.dw.com/en/study-finds-young-devout-muslims-in-germany-more-prone-to-violence/a-5655554" German study involving 45,000 teens found that while increasing religiosity made Christian youth less violent, increasing religiosity made Muslim youth more violent.
This makes sense. A nominal Catholic may know a few verses from the Bible, but only a devout one scours it and, in addition, will read his catechism. Likewise, a casual Muslim may know a little bit from the Koran.
A serious one will soak it all in and delve into the Hadiths and Sira as well — and be exposed to all the violent injunctions therein.
Even more to the point here, however, these two sets of works together comprise the majority of the Sunnah, which is, as Islaamnet.com HYPERLINK "http://www.islaamnet.com/whatissunnah.html" explains, "The legal way or ways, orders, acts of worship and statements of the Prophet, that are ideals and models to be followed by Muslims†(emphasis added). It is all about Mohammed’s words and deeds.
The significance of this cannot be overemphasized. Virtues (and vices) are caught more than they’re taught; actions speak louder than words. Thus are Christians more likely to ask "What would Jesus do?†than "What does the Bible say?†Thus are they more likely to counsel "Reflect Christ†than "Reflect Matthew 22:37.†Oh, the Bible is wonderful, and Matthew 22:37 is one of its most memorable parts. But examples are more powerful than instructions.
Muslims’ role model, their "Perfect Man,†is very different from Jesus in type of influence but not in degree of influence. As Warner points out, "The Koran says 91 different times that Mohammed's is the perfect pattern of life. It is much more important to know Mohammed than the Koran.†Thus is "Mohammed†(and its spelling variants) the world’s most common male name, belonging to approximately 150 million men and boys. And there’s a reason why pious Muslims write "PBUH†("Peace be unto himâ€) after his name and why they’ll riot if he’s portrayed in a cartoon. He is, in a sense, the human face of Allah.
Islaamnet.com makes this clear, HYPERLINK "http://www.islaamnet.com/whatissunnah.html" writing that "when Allaah says: ‘Whosoever obeys the Messenger [Mohammed], has indeed obeyed Allaah’ (Surah An-Nisa 4:80), it should be clear that one has obeyed Allaah by obeying the Messenger.â€
Islaamnet also informs that Allah commanded, "‘It is not fitting for a believer, man or woman, when a matter has been decreed by Allaah and His Messenger to have any choice in the matter. If anyone disobeys Allaah and His Messenger he is clearly astray’ (Surah Al-Ahzab 33:36).â€
This Messenger is, again, that warlord, bandit, mass murderer, employer of torture, polygamist and slaver trader and master. Worse still, it’s not that Muslims always rationalize away or attempt to whitewash this history. The truly devout ones may consider these actions — when directed toward non-Muslims — to be "good†because the actions have been sanctioned by their perceived author of right and wrong, Allah, and his messenger.
So people sometimes talk about "reforming†Islam, but this would require reforming Mohammed himself. How? You cannot resurrect him and have him live his life over.
Among the founders of extant major or quasi-major religions/philosophical systems — Lao Tzu, Confucius, Buddha, etc. — Mohammed stands alone, being a tyrant-cum-teacher. Of course, he doesn’t stand alone in history; Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane and many others paved similar bloody paths. As with them, he was largely a man of his time and place. But to more than a billion people, he’s also the perfect man even in our time and place.
And that’s the point. After all, if someone told you Attila the Hun was the perfect man and his role model, would you turn your back on that person?
HYPERLINK "mailto:selwynduke@optonline.net" Contact Selwyn Duke, HYPERLINK "https://twitter.com/SelwynDuke" follow him on Twitter or log on to HYPERLINK "http://www.selwynduke.com/" SelwynDuke.com
In the wake of every terrorist act there is the same argument. The voices-in-the-wilderness right will say, insofar as they’re not muzzled with hate-speech laws, that Islam is the problem. In contrast, a leftist drumbeat of media and mainstream politicos will assert that the Muslim terrorists aren’t really "Muslim†terrorists, that they’ve perverted the faith. As to the truth, it’s as with any other debate over a thing’s true meaning (e.g., the Constitution): it only makes sense to look for answers in original sources.
This brings us to a simple question: Was Mohammed a true Muslim?
It’s a rhetorical question, of course. As Islam’s founder — the religion was born of revelations he supposedly had in the early seventh century — Mohammed was the very first Muslim. Moreover, since Muslims view him as "The Perfect Man,†the ultimate role model, he’s not just the truest Muslim but the yardstick by which other Muslims may measure themselves.
So what was Mohammed’s "perfection� He was a warlord who launched approximately 30 military campaigns, many of which he led himself. He was a caravan raider (a bandit) and captured, traded in and owned slaves (by the way, will liberals suggest slave-owning Mohammed be diminished, as they’ve done with our founders?). He HYPERLINK "http://www.islam-watch.org/Larry/Muhammad-Massacres-and-Sex-slaves.htm" ordered massacres, used torture and had dissidents assassinated. In 627 AD, he beheaded more than 600 men and boys of the Qurayza tribe in Medina, Arabia, thus wiping it off the map. He also was a polygamist and made it lawful for masters to have sexual relations with their female captives.
So, clearly, if today’s Islamic jihadists aren’t true Muslims, neither was Mohammed. But since we know the Perfect Man was the truest of Muslims, then…well, you can finish the sentence.
Yet when analyzing Muslim motivations, the influence of Mohammed’s character is generally subordinated to that of Islamic teachings (most of which come from Mohammed). And even here, people generally make the mistake of focusing only on the Koran, unaware it’s a mere 16 percent of the Islamic canon. The majority of it comprises the Hadiths and Sira.
This is noteworthy because while 9 percent of the Koran is devoted to jihad and political violence, 21 percent of the Hadiths is and a whopping 67 percent of the Sira is devoted to it, HYPERLINK
"http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2010/09/the_political_violence_of_the.html" \l "ixzz3QhDso45i" according to Bill Warner, Director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam. This is why Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut HYPERLINK "https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5119/islamic-terrorism-taboo" wrote in 2015 that "violence and domination†are "deeply rooted...and sanctioned with promises of rewards†in Islam, and, consequently, "fundamentalists will always find people to excite and people to persecute.â€
The distribution of violent injunctions in these books helps explain something else. A HYPERLINK "http://www.dw.com/en/study-finds-young-devout-muslims-in-germany-more-prone-to-violence/a-5655554" German study involving 45,000 teens found that while increasing religiosity made Christian youth less violent, increasing religiosity made Muslim youth more violent.
This makes sense. A nominal Catholic may know a few verses from the Bible, but only a devout one scours it and, in addition, will read his catechism. Likewise, a casual Muslim may know a little bit from the Koran.
A serious one will soak it all in and delve into the Hadiths and Sira as well — and be exposed to all the violent injunctions therein.
Even more to the point here, however, these two sets of works together comprise the majority of the Sunnah, which is, as Islaamnet.com HYPERLINK "http://www.islaamnet.com/whatissunnah.html" explains, "The legal way or ways, orders, acts of worship and statements of the Prophet, that are ideals and models to be followed by Muslims†(emphasis added). It is all about Mohammed’s words and deeds.
The significance of this cannot be overemphasized. Virtues (and vices) are caught more than they’re taught; actions speak louder than words. Thus are Christians more likely to ask "What would Jesus do?†than "What does the Bible say?†Thus are they more likely to counsel "Reflect Christ†than "Reflect Matthew 22:37.†Oh, the Bible is wonderful, and Matthew 22:37 is one of its most memorable parts. But examples are more powerful than instructions.
Muslims’ role model, their "Perfect Man,†is very different from Jesus in type of influence but not in degree of influence. As Warner points out, "The Koran says 91 different times that Mohammed's is the perfect pattern of life. It is much more important to know Mohammed than the Koran.†Thus is "Mohammed†(and its spelling variants) the world’s most common male name, belonging to approximately 150 million men and boys. And there’s a reason why pious Muslims write "PBUH†("Peace be unto himâ€) after his name and why they’ll riot if he’s portrayed in a cartoon. He is, in a sense, the human face of Allah.
Islaamnet.com makes this clear, HYPERLINK "http://www.islaamnet.com/whatissunnah.html" writing that "when Allaah says: ‘Whosoever obeys the Messenger [Mohammed], has indeed obeyed Allaah’ (Surah An-Nisa 4:80), it should be clear that one has obeyed Allaah by obeying the Messenger.â€
Islaamnet also informs that Allah commanded, "‘It is not fitting for a believer, man or woman, when a matter has been decreed by Allaah and His Messenger to have any choice in the matter. If anyone disobeys Allaah and His Messenger he is clearly astray’ (Surah Al-Ahzab 33:36).â€
This Messenger is, again, that warlord, bandit, mass murderer, employer of torture, polygamist and slaver trader and master. Worse still, it’s not that Muslims always rationalize away or attempt to whitewash this history. The truly devout ones may consider these actions — when directed toward non-Muslims — to be "good†because the actions have been sanctioned by their perceived author of right and wrong, Allah, and his messenger.
So people sometimes talk about "reforming†Islam, but this would require reforming Mohammed himself. How? You cannot resurrect him and have him live his life over.
Among the founders of extant major or quasi-major religions/philosophical systems — Lao Tzu, Confucius, Buddha, etc. — Mohammed stands alone, being a tyrant-cum-teacher. Of course, he doesn’t stand alone in history; Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane and many others paved similar bloody paths. As with them, he was largely a man of his time and place. But to more than a billion people, he’s also the perfect man even in our time and place.
And that’s the point. After all, if someone told you Attila the Hun was the perfect man and his role model, would you turn your back on that person?
HYPERLINK "mailto:selwynduke@optonline.net" Contact Selwyn Duke, HYPERLINK "https://twitter.com/SelwynDuke" follow him on Twitter or log on to HYPERLINK "http://www.selwynduke.com/" SelwynDuke.com
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Trump Supporler Shot at on Indiana Highway
Timothy Birdnow
A vehicle sporting a "Make America Great Again" flag was shot at by a handgun-waving liberal on an Indiana Interstate.
http://www.bnd.com/news/nation-world/national/article156516899.html#storylink=hpdigest
What does everyone think will happen when you demonize a lawfully-elected President as the media, the entertainment industry, and the Democrats have done? You can't shout "fire!" in a crowded theatre and not expect someone to get tramped.
It's time for some of the more public figures doing this sort of thing to be prosecuted. The last time I checked it was illegal to make threats against the President.
A vehicle sporting a "Make America Great Again" flag was shot at by a handgun-waving liberal on an Indiana Interstate.
http://www.bnd.com/news/nation-world/national/article156516899.html#storylink=hpdigest
What does everyone think will happen when you demonize a lawfully-elected President as the media, the entertainment industry, and the Democrats have done? You can't shout "fire!" in a crowded theatre and not expect someone to get tramped.
It's time for some of the more public figures doing this sort of thing to be prosecuted. The last time I checked it was illegal to make threats against the President.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:01 AM
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Apologies for Light Blogging
Timothy Birdnow
Sorry for light blogging folks; had eye surgery and am still in recovery. I should be back up to full speed in about a week or so.
Tim
Sorry for light blogging folks; had eye surgery and am still in recovery. I should be back up to full speed in about a week or so.
Tim
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
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Gun Control Off the Rails
Wil Wirtanen
The article makes some good points in the beginning but goes off the tracks at the end. His solutions are non-solutions.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/gun-control-is-a-misfire/
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
08:30 AM
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Let's Count the Attacks on Conservatives
Wil Wirtanen
http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/16/this-list-of-attacks-against-conservatives-is-mind-blowing/
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08:20 AM
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June 15, 2017
The Quote of the Day
Jack Kemp
In an article about the madman who shot up the Republican baseball practice in D.C., Michael Goodwin states:
BEGIN QUOTE
To be clear, the animal who pulled the trigger is solely responsible for his actions. But unless we find that James T. Hodgkinson suffered from an acute mental illness, I see him as a Kathy Griffin Democrat who turned her "comedy†into action.
END OF QUOTE
Yes, a Kathy Griffin Democrat is the perfect term for this shooter - and a number of Democrat voters who call for assassinations.
You can read the rest of Michael Goodwin's fine article in the NY Post at: http://nypost.com/2017/06/14/political-death-threats-becoming-new-unsettling-normal/
In an article about the madman who shot up the Republican baseball practice in D.C., Michael Goodwin states:
BEGIN QUOTE
To be clear, the animal who pulled the trigger is solely responsible for his actions. But unless we find that James T. Hodgkinson suffered from an acute mental illness, I see him as a Kathy Griffin Democrat who turned her "comedy†into action.
END OF QUOTE
Yes, a Kathy Griffin Democrat is the perfect term for this shooter - and a number of Democrat voters who call for assassinations.
You can read the rest of Michael Goodwin's fine article in the NY Post at: http://nypost.com/2017/06/14/political-death-threats-becoming-new-unsettling-normal/
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June 08, 2017
Global Warming to Eliminate Peanut Butter
Dana Mathewson
7 of your favorite foods might be going extinct soon
]
Peanut butter might become a luxury item. There's no denying that the seasons are out of whack. Besides affecting our moods and making us complain more, the weird weather will inevitably affect our food. Agriculture requires very specific environmental conditions, and when these conditions aren't met, the agriculture suffers. As a result, we may not be able to enjoy some of our favorite foods for much longer. Here are some that may go extinct in our lifetime due to climate change. Read the full story
Hmmmmm... Yes, if climate change is really happening, I suppose some of this may come to pass. Notice this is pretty far in the future.
I'm not sure I'm ready to agree that "the seasons are out of whack" yet. I WILL say we had a late spring, and the old saw about "April showers" really needed to be changed to "May showers" where I live. But maybe not in the area where the original song was written? After all, Tin Pan Alley ain't in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. But this was after a winter that had the snow-removal folks complaining that it hardly was worth their while to put the plows on their pickup trucks. But in reality, that kind of thing happens every once in awhile.
7 of your favorite foods might be going extinct soon
]
Peanut butter might become a luxury item. There's no denying that the seasons are out of whack. Besides affecting our moods and making us complain more, the weird weather will inevitably affect our food. Agriculture requires very specific environmental conditions, and when these conditions aren't met, the agriculture suffers. As a result, we may not be able to enjoy some of our favorite foods for much longer. Here are some that may go extinct in our lifetime due to climate change. Read the full story
Hmmmmm... Yes, if climate change is really happening, I suppose some of this may come to pass. Notice this is pretty far in the future.
I'm not sure I'm ready to agree that "the seasons are out of whack" yet. I WILL say we had a late spring, and the old saw about "April showers" really needed to be changed to "May showers" where I live. But maybe not in the area where the original song was written? After all, Tin Pan Alley ain't in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. But this was after a winter that had the snow-removal folks complaining that it hardly was worth their while to put the plows on their pickup trucks. But in reality, that kind of thing happens every once in awhile.
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Churches Losing Faith in the Bible
Jack Kemp forwards this:
http://theresurgent.com/trust-in-the-bible-is-falling-thank-our-churches-and-christian-colleges/
Trust in the Bible is Falling – Thank Our Churches and "Christian†Colleges
By Peter Heck | June 7, 2017, 04:30am | @peterheck
In a permissive culture that is increasingly accommodated by the church rather than confronted and opposed by the church, this should probably come as no surprise. Gallup has revealed that the percentage of Americans believing that God created human beings in their present form (as in, not a ball of goo that miraculously morphed over time through scientifically unobservable and untestable "natural processesâ€) has dipped to a new low of just 38%.
They found:
This is the first time since 1982 — when Gallup began asking this question using this wording — that belief in God’s direct creation of man has not been the outright most-common response. Overall, roughly three-quarters of Americans believe God was involved in man’s creation — whether that be the creationist view based on the Bible or the view that God guided the evolutionary process, outlined by scientist Charles Darwin and others. Since 1982, agreement with the "secular†viewpoint, meaning humans evolved from lower life forms without any divine intervention, has doubled.
While commentators and scholars are interpreting this as receding belief in Creationism, the truth is that this study actually shows receding confidence in the authority and accuracy of the Bible. While Christians desperate for approval from elites and sophisticates increasingly attempt to shoehorn Darwinian evolution into the pages of Scripture, or claim the Bible’s Genesis account to be allegorical and not historical, the consequences of this betrayal are absolutely devastating for the church’s effectiveness in America. Why?
First, it shows Christians willing to disagree with Jesus. That isn’t good. Christ affirmed that, "from the beginning of Creation, God made male and female†(Mark 10:6). There’s nothing in there about God making them an amorphous blobs that slowly generated sexual organs through material processes and chemical chance. Jesus also instructed His followers that if they didn’t trust the words of Moses, they wouldn’t trust His words either (John 5:47). Not only did Moses author the text of Genesis 1, he also wrote down what God’s finger carved into tablets of stone on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 20:11):
"For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.â€
When Christians are willing to consider Christ a liar, and are willing to believe that God’s finger got history and science confused when it was carving into stone, that’s not going to end well for the church.
Secondly, Christians who abandon the Genesis account undermine the Gospel message of Jesus – and thus the entire point of Christianity. For Darwinism to be true, countless species and forms of life were evolving, dying off, being eaten and destroyed in the process of becoming man. But there’s a problem. According to the gospel of Jesus, death is the punishment for sin (Romans 6:23). It entered the world through Adam and his rebellion in the Garden of Eden (Romans 5:12).
But if death was in the world before Adam ever showed up to sin – which Darwinism demands – then death isn’t the punishment for sin after all. It pre-existed sin. And if that’s the case, the death of Jesus on the cross did jack squat to pay for your sins. Gospel undone. Christianity collapsed.
A NOTE FROM FAY VOSHELL:
For decades, liberals have substituted their own doctrines in place of Christian doctrines. Darwinism, Marxism and other "isms" have undermined core Christian tenets of faith, including biblical inerrancy. The erosion has been continual and unrelenting.
Since progressivism has seized the public school system and academia, the unending attacks on Christianity have resulted in many Christians being brainwashed. I myself attended progressive institutions of "learning" throughout my entire life--from first grade on through seminary. That I have not become a rabid "progressive" is a miracle of God's grace. Grace is the only reason I did not capitulate.
The Church has played a major part in this erosion by failing to confront the culture and by failing to consistently raise their children in the faith. Instead, Christians have too often accommodated the culture, absorbing it much as Jews absorbed Hellenization in the time of Alexander the great and his successors.
The only solution is to pray for the power of almighty God to once again inspire the Church to rise up to confront the cultural rot we see and experience all around us
A NOTE FROM TIM:
I'd like to make a couple of theological points on this. The Garden of Eden story has Man created last among all the creatures, which is interesting in and of itself for it made it actually is largely born out by science that humanity is a H=Johnnie-come-lately. Interesting because the writers of Genesis were either brilliant, hugely lucky, or Divinely inspired. But there is more to it than that; when Adam and Eve are kicked out of the Garden God "sewed clothes of animal skins" for them. Huh? Does this mean He k8llled animals and made physical skins? And why were Adam and Eve so worried about being naked, anyway?
To me the answer is fairly clear; Adam and Even were given corporeal bodies in lthis world; those were the animal skins that God sewed. One can only have a problem with Genesis if it is read absolutely literally and by that I mean from a purely human corporal standpoint. Time moves a certain way for us but not for God, and there is no reason to not understand the Fall as being on a spiritual plane (which indeed it was as they suddenly knew they were naked i.e. that everyone - God and all the angels - knew what they thought and had done. ) It could be said that entropy entered the world when Adam and Eve sinned.
My opinion is that the dogmatic, scientific, materialistic approach to Genesis is a foolish and myopic view of something bigger than the purely material world. I see no reason not to believe in Genesis as described and in what science suggests. When God sewed those skins He was working in an already fallen world.
Catholic doctrine has always been that there are things we don't understand about Genesis and that is o.k. It does not invalidate it if Genesis does not agree with current scientific thinking.
Naturally, the huge number of problems with Evolution are ignored by the modernists, and it is more contradicting than the Bible.
http://theresurgent.com/trust-in-the-bible-is-falling-thank-our-churches-and-christian-colleges/
Trust in the Bible is Falling – Thank Our Churches and "Christian†Colleges
By Peter Heck | June 7, 2017, 04:30am | @peterheck
In a permissive culture that is increasingly accommodated by the church rather than confronted and opposed by the church, this should probably come as no surprise. Gallup has revealed that the percentage of Americans believing that God created human beings in their present form (as in, not a ball of goo that miraculously morphed over time through scientifically unobservable and untestable "natural processesâ€) has dipped to a new low of just 38%.
They found:
This is the first time since 1982 — when Gallup began asking this question using this wording — that belief in God’s direct creation of man has not been the outright most-common response. Overall, roughly three-quarters of Americans believe God was involved in man’s creation — whether that be the creationist view based on the Bible or the view that God guided the evolutionary process, outlined by scientist Charles Darwin and others. Since 1982, agreement with the "secular†viewpoint, meaning humans evolved from lower life forms without any divine intervention, has doubled.
While commentators and scholars are interpreting this as receding belief in Creationism, the truth is that this study actually shows receding confidence in the authority and accuracy of the Bible. While Christians desperate for approval from elites and sophisticates increasingly attempt to shoehorn Darwinian evolution into the pages of Scripture, or claim the Bible’s Genesis account to be allegorical and not historical, the consequences of this betrayal are absolutely devastating for the church’s effectiveness in America. Why?
First, it shows Christians willing to disagree with Jesus. That isn’t good. Christ affirmed that, "from the beginning of Creation, God made male and female†(Mark 10:6). There’s nothing in there about God making them an amorphous blobs that slowly generated sexual organs through material processes and chemical chance. Jesus also instructed His followers that if they didn’t trust the words of Moses, they wouldn’t trust His words either (John 5:47). Not only did Moses author the text of Genesis 1, he also wrote down what God’s finger carved into tablets of stone on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 20:11):
"For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.â€
When Christians are willing to consider Christ a liar, and are willing to believe that God’s finger got history and science confused when it was carving into stone, that’s not going to end well for the church.
Secondly, Christians who abandon the Genesis account undermine the Gospel message of Jesus – and thus the entire point of Christianity. For Darwinism to be true, countless species and forms of life were evolving, dying off, being eaten and destroyed in the process of becoming man. But there’s a problem. According to the gospel of Jesus, death is the punishment for sin (Romans 6:23). It entered the world through Adam and his rebellion in the Garden of Eden (Romans 5:12).
But if death was in the world before Adam ever showed up to sin – which Darwinism demands – then death isn’t the punishment for sin after all. It pre-existed sin. And if that’s the case, the death of Jesus on the cross did jack squat to pay for your sins. Gospel undone. Christianity collapsed.
A NOTE FROM FAY VOSHELL:
For decades, liberals have substituted their own doctrines in place of Christian doctrines. Darwinism, Marxism and other "isms" have undermined core Christian tenets of faith, including biblical inerrancy. The erosion has been continual and unrelenting.
Since progressivism has seized the public school system and academia, the unending attacks on Christianity have resulted in many Christians being brainwashed. I myself attended progressive institutions of "learning" throughout my entire life--from first grade on through seminary. That I have not become a rabid "progressive" is a miracle of God's grace. Grace is the only reason I did not capitulate.
The Church has played a major part in this erosion by failing to confront the culture and by failing to consistently raise their children in the faith. Instead, Christians have too often accommodated the culture, absorbing it much as Jews absorbed Hellenization in the time of Alexander the great and his successors.
The only solution is to pray for the power of almighty God to once again inspire the Church to rise up to confront the cultural rot we see and experience all around us
A NOTE FROM TIM:
I'd like to make a couple of theological points on this. The Garden of Eden story has Man created last among all the creatures, which is interesting in and of itself for it made it actually is largely born out by science that humanity is a H=Johnnie-come-lately. Interesting because the writers of Genesis were either brilliant, hugely lucky, or Divinely inspired. But there is more to it than that; when Adam and Eve are kicked out of the Garden God "sewed clothes of animal skins" for them. Huh? Does this mean He k8llled animals and made physical skins? And why were Adam and Eve so worried about being naked, anyway?
To me the answer is fairly clear; Adam and Even were given corporeal bodies in lthis world; those were the animal skins that God sewed. One can only have a problem with Genesis if it is read absolutely literally and by that I mean from a purely human corporal standpoint. Time moves a certain way for us but not for God, and there is no reason to not understand the Fall as being on a spiritual plane (which indeed it was as they suddenly knew they were naked i.e. that everyone - God and all the angels - knew what they thought and had done. ) It could be said that entropy entered the world when Adam and Eve sinned.
My opinion is that the dogmatic, scientific, materialistic approach to Genesis is a foolish and myopic view of something bigger than the purely material world. I see no reason not to believe in Genesis as described and in what science suggests. When God sewed those skins He was working in an already fallen world.
Catholic doctrine has always been that there are things we don't understand about Genesis and that is o.k. It does not invalidate it if Genesis does not agree with current scientific thinking.
Naturally, the huge number of problems with Evolution are ignored by the modernists, and it is more contradicting than the Bible.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
06:14 AM
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Post contains 1099 words, total size 7 kb.
Miami Heat? Leonard Pitts Trashes Conservativism at the Miami Herald
Brian Birdnow
Last week, Leonard Pitts, the Pulitzer Prize-winning star columnist and op-ed writer at the venerable Miami Herald, penned a column that could be judged only as harsh and vitriolic, even by his own standards. Those who read Mr. Pitts's work know that he works himself into a fine lather over certain topics, and he can easily get quite agitated. The Pulitzer Prize Committee cited his "vibrant columns that spoke, with both passion and compassion, to ordinary people on often divisive issues."
Pitts receives his Pulitzer Prize from Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University, in 2004
He has outdone himself this time, with a piece entitled "No Pass for 'Thoughtful' Conservatives.'" The subheading reads, "The need to use the modifier is a concession that something has gone wrong with conservatism." He then launches into an anti-Trump rant, which we could all see coming, but also lambasts a significant percentage of the entire American population with his heated rebuke.
Let us set the table here so we can fully understand the factors in play. Mr. Pitts has decided that there is no such thing as a "thoughtful" conservative. By that he does not mean that you can't find a conservative or two who help elderly women across the street, or conservatives who send out Christmas cards or practice the corporal works of mercy. He means that there is no longer a conservative intellectual movement, or a thinking conservative political movement in Washington. According to Mr. Pitts, Trumpism has squeezed all of the gray matter out of the conservative mind and has planted a Know-Nothing flag in its place.
The column predictably devolves into an anti-Trump rant. Pitts claims, without exactly uttering the name "Trump," that conservatism is now about "the feeding of ego and the gratification of self." Pardon me, but that line of attack fits Hillary Clinton like a glove. He also charges that conservatives are "willing to see America embrace its enemies." It is heartening, at least, to see the liberals admit that Russia is not a friend. When Ronald Reagan insisted such, he was labeled a warmonger, and more recently, when Mitt Romney suggested the same, he was called delusional and a captive of the 1980s. While we're talking about cozying up to American enemies, should we not mention a recent president who lavished money, attention, and weapons technology on Iran and Cuba?
These are breathtaking slanders, but Mr. Pitts is just getting warmed up. He continues that conservatives are "willing to look the other way as justice is being obstructed." Where was Leonard Pitts when President Obama's Justice Department illegally ran guns into Mexico and instructed the IRS to harass conservative non-profit foundations?
Pitts goes on to say that conservatives are "willing to shut down programs funding the arts, housing, and food for the poor." We have heard the same thing every time an administration proposes slowing the growth of spending in these programs. We heard it in the 1980s, during the GOP resurgence of 1994-96, and during the sequestration battles of 2011-14. Where are we now? These programs are still alive and spending more than ever before. All signs point to a breakdown coming, but Mr. Pitts and the liberals don't care. They'd rather toss rhetorical Molotov cocktails at the conservatives, because that's more fun.
By this juncture, one would think Leonard Pitts has vented his spleen, but he still isn't finished. He states that conservatives "are willing to let rivers be contaminated, air befouled, and sea levels rise." He is referring, obviously, to President Trump pulling out of the Paris climate accord. It might interest Pitts, and liberals in general, that our Constitution very clearly vests the treaty power in the U.S. Senate, and their consent is necessary to complete a binding agreement. The Senate was given no part in the Paris Accord, or in the Obama administration's capitulation to Iran in the nuclear deal. Therefore, neither of these "treaties" is binding, and conservatives are right to celebrate the return of the nation to a constitutional order.
Pitts finishes with a flourish when he states, "So let us hear no more about thoughtful conservatives saving us from the excesses of their peers." He thus writes out of public discourse the 36% of Americans who call themselves conservatives. Would Mr. Pitts and other liberals object if our side characterized every leftist as belonging to one of three groups – namely, the chardonnay-sipping elitists populating Georgetown, the Hamptons, and Northern California, or the social democrats who see every problem as an excuse to raise taxes, grow government, and impose affirmative action quotas, or finally the lunatic fringe destroyers known now as the "resistance," just as they were known five years ago as the "occupiers"?
Of course, they would cry foul over such a characterization of their own movement. There are some sane liberals out there, and, while they may be hard to find, rest assured that they do exist. We do the country no favors when we resort to questioning the motives and the intent of those who respectfully disagree with us. Still, two sides can play at Mr. Pitts's game.
What is to be done? Leonard Pitts has a position, a profession, and a career founded largely on angry columns featuring anti-Americanism, anti-law enforcement, and other regrettable sentiments. It is unlikely that he will respond favorably to an invitation to join our side. We must maintain our good humor in the face of repeated provocations, and insist that with 36% of our nation's 325 million people on our side, he could find a few "thoughtful" conservatives out there, if he looked hard enough!
Last week, Leonard Pitts, the Pulitzer Prize-winning star columnist and op-ed writer at the venerable Miami Herald, penned a column that could be judged only as harsh and vitriolic, even by his own standards. Those who read Mr. Pitts's work know that he works himself into a fine lather over certain topics, and he can easily get quite agitated. The Pulitzer Prize Committee cited his "vibrant columns that spoke, with both passion and compassion, to ordinary people on often divisive issues."
Pitts receives his Pulitzer Prize from Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University, in 2004
He has outdone himself this time, with a piece entitled "No Pass for 'Thoughtful' Conservatives.'" The subheading reads, "The need to use the modifier is a concession that something has gone wrong with conservatism." He then launches into an anti-Trump rant, which we could all see coming, but also lambasts a significant percentage of the entire American population with his heated rebuke.
Let us set the table here so we can fully understand the factors in play. Mr. Pitts has decided that there is no such thing as a "thoughtful" conservative. By that he does not mean that you can't find a conservative or two who help elderly women across the street, or conservatives who send out Christmas cards or practice the corporal works of mercy. He means that there is no longer a conservative intellectual movement, or a thinking conservative political movement in Washington. According to Mr. Pitts, Trumpism has squeezed all of the gray matter out of the conservative mind and has planted a Know-Nothing flag in its place.
The column predictably devolves into an anti-Trump rant. Pitts claims, without exactly uttering the name "Trump," that conservatism is now about "the feeding of ego and the gratification of self." Pardon me, but that line of attack fits Hillary Clinton like a glove. He also charges that conservatives are "willing to see America embrace its enemies." It is heartening, at least, to see the liberals admit that Russia is not a friend. When Ronald Reagan insisted such, he was labeled a warmonger, and more recently, when Mitt Romney suggested the same, he was called delusional and a captive of the 1980s. While we're talking about cozying up to American enemies, should we not mention a recent president who lavished money, attention, and weapons technology on Iran and Cuba?
These are breathtaking slanders, but Mr. Pitts is just getting warmed up. He continues that conservatives are "willing to look the other way as justice is being obstructed." Where was Leonard Pitts when President Obama's Justice Department illegally ran guns into Mexico and instructed the IRS to harass conservative non-profit foundations?
Pitts goes on to say that conservatives are "willing to shut down programs funding the arts, housing, and food for the poor." We have heard the same thing every time an administration proposes slowing the growth of spending in these programs. We heard it in the 1980s, during the GOP resurgence of 1994-96, and during the sequestration battles of 2011-14. Where are we now? These programs are still alive and spending more than ever before. All signs point to a breakdown coming, but Mr. Pitts and the liberals don't care. They'd rather toss rhetorical Molotov cocktails at the conservatives, because that's more fun.
By this juncture, one would think Leonard Pitts has vented his spleen, but he still isn't finished. He states that conservatives "are willing to let rivers be contaminated, air befouled, and sea levels rise." He is referring, obviously, to President Trump pulling out of the Paris climate accord. It might interest Pitts, and liberals in general, that our Constitution very clearly vests the treaty power in the U.S. Senate, and their consent is necessary to complete a binding agreement. The Senate was given no part in the Paris Accord, or in the Obama administration's capitulation to Iran in the nuclear deal. Therefore, neither of these "treaties" is binding, and conservatives are right to celebrate the return of the nation to a constitutional order.
Pitts finishes with a flourish when he states, "So let us hear no more about thoughtful conservatives saving us from the excesses of their peers." He thus writes out of public discourse the 36% of Americans who call themselves conservatives. Would Mr. Pitts and other liberals object if our side characterized every leftist as belonging to one of three groups – namely, the chardonnay-sipping elitists populating Georgetown, the Hamptons, and Northern California, or the social democrats who see every problem as an excuse to raise taxes, grow government, and impose affirmative action quotas, or finally the lunatic fringe destroyers known now as the "resistance," just as they were known five years ago as the "occupiers"?
Of course, they would cry foul over such a characterization of their own movement. There are some sane liberals out there, and, while they may be hard to find, rest assured that they do exist. We do the country no favors when we resort to questioning the motives and the intent of those who respectfully disagree with us. Still, two sides can play at Mr. Pitts's game.
What is to be done? Leonard Pitts has a position, a profession, and a career founded largely on angry columns featuring anti-Americanism, anti-law enforcement, and other regrettable sentiments. It is unlikely that he will respond favorably to an invitation to join our side. We must maintain our good humor in the face of repeated provocations, and insist that with 36% of our nation's 325 million people on our side, he could find a few "thoughtful" conservatives out there, if he looked hard enough!
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
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