July 03, 2019
The Bee Informed Partnership’s annual beekeeper survey is a helpful, though limited guide to honeybee colony losses and health. Unfortunately, because responses are voluntary – and primarily from hobbyist beekeepers – the results can easily (or deliberately) be misinterpreted. That often leads to a lot of hyperventilating, especially by activist groups with anti-insecticide agendas. This year was no exception, since the BIP survey showed a nearly 3% higher than average annual loss rate.
Happily, in reality, the overall number of US honeybee colonies actually increased 4% in 2018. Sadly, all this talk about chemical insecticides takes the focus away from the real scourge that still faces bees: Varroa destructor mites that suck bee "blood†and spread multiple diseases to honeybee colonies. It also detracts from a second important reality: the much ballyhooed organic food industry also employs numerous insecticides – which may be "natural†or "organic†under expansive definitions ... but are often far more harmful to honeybees than the modern neonicotinoid insecticides that are today’s primary target for organic food and environmentalist activists.
My article explains it all in detail.more...
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A friend sent me this powerful commentary a few days ago. I offer it as some provocative and thought-provoking Independence Day reading. Enjoy it, ponder it, and share it with friends if you wish – or dare.
Have a pleasant and patriotic Fourth of July.
I don’t care. I can’t do without this President. He fights for America.
Evan Sayet
My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are "beneath the dignity of the office.†Here’s my answer.
We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush, as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency.
more...
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https://www.foxnews.com/tech/china-is-installing-spyware-on-tourists-phones
From the Fox article:
As Vice reports, tourists are being stopped at Chinese borders in the Xinjiang region and having their smartphones seized. Border guards then install an app called Fengcai or BXAQ, which proceeds to collect all personal information including text messages, calendar entries, phone contacts, call logs, and a list of the installed apps. All the data is then sent to a remote server for review.
As well as collecting personal information, Fengcai has been found to check the content against a list of 73,000 items flagged as being suspicious or worth further investigation. Some of these items are legitimate, for example, instructions on how to make weapons, but then the list also includes books written in Arabic, audio of the Quran being read, and documents relating to the Dalai Lama.
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Somebody needs to explain the First Amendment to her. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/florida-democrat-making-fun-congress-should-prosecuted
Democrat Rep. Frederica Wilson said people who are "making fun†of members of Congress online should be "prosecuted.â€
The Florida congresswoman made the comments on Tuesday outside of the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in her home state.
"Those people who are online making fun of members of Congress are a disgrace, and there is no need for anyone to think that is unacceptable [sic],†Wilson said.
"We're gonna shut them down and work with whoever it is to shut them down, and they should be prosecuted,†she added. "You cannot intimidate members of Congress, frighten members of Congress. It is against the law, and it's a shame in this United States of America.â€
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From a comment on Power Line: "We're sorry, your race card is over limit and has been declined."
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David Dickinson adds:
Kaepernick was only kneeling because of police brutality I though
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David Dickinson adds:
Most accounts of the second "debate" were rather bemused at Marianne Williamson because she doesn't fit into the mold -- of a presidential candidate. Actually she fits comfortably into the mold of a hippie yoga instructor, which pretty much is what she is. Here's a first-hand account of one of her campaign stops: Dave Begley: Live from Sioux City
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Another case of idiots in the media confusing weather and climate.
From the U.K. Guardian:
Such heatwaves are also about 4C hotter than a century ago, the researchers say. Furthermore, the heatwaves hitting Europe are more frequent and more severe than climate models have predicted.
Last month was the hottest June since 1880, both in Europe and around the world, according to separate data released on Tuesday by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. In Europe the temperature was 3C above the June average a century ago, and globally it was more than 1C higher.
The European heatwave broke temperature records at many locations in France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Spain. In France it was broken by more than 1.5C on 28 June, with 45.9C recorded near the city of Nîmes.
Weather isn't climate. I would think that the media would know that by now. But they never let such details get in the way of a good horror story, most especially when it promotes their agenda.
It's warm in Europe not because the planet has warmed (it hasn't, not in any statistically significant way, since the late nineties) but because of cyclical changes to the Arctic Oscillation. There was a low pressure pattern over the Arctic this winter (the dreaded Polar Vortex) which has given way to a high pressure zone with two low pressure zones. The result has been hot air has been drawn north from Africa while in the Americas we've had a cool spring and summer has hardly come roaring in. It is a rsult of air mass oscillations, the kind that happen occasionally and are driven by forces other than atmospheric temperature.
I explained what was happening this year in a post here.
Author Damian "the Omen" Carrington tries vainly to grasp the fact (or cover it up, whatever the case may be.):
When these waves stall, weather gets fixed over regions and becomes extreme. This has been linked to past floods in Pakistan, heatwaves in Russia and drought in California.
Notice how confusing those paragraphs seem to be? That's because the author either doesn't understand what he's talking about or is purposely trying to pull the wool over our eyes. The fact is the changes in arctic air movement has nothing to do with atmospheric activity at all. Rather, changes in water currents brought warm water into the Kara and Barents seas this year, and the warm water kept a large chunk of the arctic open, resulting in a low pressure zone. It was water, not air that caused the event. But was that waqter warm because of global warming? Argo probes say noa good try at manipulating data. In fact, the so-called "missing heat" shows up nowhere (that's why it's missing) and so any claim that the oceans are warmer is pure speculation. The facts don't agree.
This is a result of a phase change in the Atlantic oscillation patterns and little else. This happens frequently. Of course, we do not have precise records so are unable to get a firm temperature record of bygone days. Also, with NOAA forever adjusting temperatures upward and historical temperatures dowwnard we fine the record even more useless.
The author goes on to say:
We are at a low in hurricanes, and have been for over a decade despite "global climate change". I'm amazed this fellow would try to use this.
In fact, this whole article is a series of assertions without any solid facts. But it is presented as science. Shame on The Guardian!
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July 02, 2019
A Chinese conglomerate will not buy a prestigious college, Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J., after opponents warned the sale would extend the threat of China's infiltration of American academia.
"China has now abandoned what would have been its first effort to control an American college, a trend that threatened U.S. academic and intellectual freedom," said Bruce Afran, the lawyer for a group of Westminster alumni opposing the sale. "American academic freedom is stronger today now that China has dropped this ill-fated attempt to control an American college, a trend that is now, hopefully, stopped for good."
Rider University announced that the sale of Westminster, which for almost 100 years has been the nation's preeminent academic institution for advanced musical studies in the Christian evangelical tradition, is off.
Rider College had hoped to unload the school to the Chinese firm Kaiwen Education, for $40 million. But worried alumni claimed that the company intended to run the school is really owned by Bejing Wenhuaxuexin Education, which is a subsidiary of Bejing Kaiwen Education Technology, "a for-profit Chinese entity owned and controlled by the government of China."
The alumni group sued to stop the sale, claiming that just three weeks before it announced its intention to buy Westminster, Kaiwen changed its name from Jiangsu Zhongtai Bridge Steel Structure Company, "a manufacturer of components of Chinese naval vessels and is a defense contractor" for China's military," in order "to create the veneer and seeming appearance of an education entity to justify its acquisition of Westminster Choir College."
"This is a huge victory," alumnus Constance Fee told Fox News. She was part of the alumni group that fought against the sale."Rider University has been forced to drop this effort that would have destroyed a leading school of music and an icon in the international cultural world. As a member of the European opera circuit for many years, and now a professor of music at a liberal arts college (Roberts Wesleyan College), I can say that we have taken a major step in protecting a cultural treasure and our intellectual freedom."
In its announcement, Rider University said that it will continue to operate Westminster and will nevertheless "explore an alternative relationship" with Kaiwen, in addition to having an agreement to work on academic and artistic initiatives with it for the next three years.
"Throughout this process, we have continually sought to preserve and enhance Westminster's legacy as a world-class institution, and we made every effort to maintain the college in Princeton," Rider President Gregory G. Dell'Omo said in a statement.
"Given the enormous complexity of the transaction, it became increasingly clear that partnering with an outside entity, even one as well-intentioned as Kaiwen, was not feasible on a viable timeline," he said.
The proposed sale ran into several roadblocks, including the opposition of the activist alumni group, an investigation by the State's Attorney General's office, and opposition in the state legislature in Trenton. The office of Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal accused Rider of not responding to its inquiries and concealing relevant information about the sale.
A State Assembly resolution also said that "the proposed sale of the choir college to a Chinese government-owned company could jeopardize the security of United States citizens."
[...]Good for Ted!
Alarm bells over Beijing’s creeping influence over American university life have prompted the U.S. government to monitor China's attempts to get a foothold on U.S. campuses."Universities should not be willing to sell their academic freedom, they should not be willing to allow the communist government to have control over the discussion,†said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Cruz spoke to Fox News earlier this year. He has been warning about the Chinese outreach and introduced legislation called the Stop Higher Education Espionage and Theft Act, to address the concern.
"The American government needs new tools to protect the integrity of our universities and research, and to block academic espionage," he said.
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James Garfield had been a Disciples of Christ preacher at Franklin Circle Christian Church in Cleveland, 1857-58. Biographer Frank H Mason wrote in "The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States†(Bret Harte Publisher: London, Trübner & Co., 1881): "(Garfield) delivered his powerful and convincing sermons from the pulpit with the consent and encouragement of the Church authorities.â€
Garfield was principal of Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (Hiram College), 1857-1860, during which time he defended creation in a debate against evolution.
... Garfield: "completely overwhelmed his opponent, who, after that defeat, abandoned his theory and gave up the fight against the inspiration of the Bible.â€
Garfield became a lawyer in 1861, and a major general during the Civil War. Elected to Congress, Garfield despised fiat paper "greenbacks,†supporting instead gold-silver backed currency.
It gets better!
Republican President James Garfield appointed African-Americans to prominent positions:
On this last, no, it didn't. Wilhelm made a number of mistakes, no single one of which lit the fuse -- he was a hasty man -- but cashiering Bismark certainly was not a wise move.
- Frederick Douglass, recorder of deeds in Washington
- Robert Brown Elliot, special agent to the U.S. Treasury
- John M. Langston, Haitian minister
- Blanche K. Bruce, register to the U.S. Treasury
Garfield appointed as U.S. Minister to Turkey the Civil War General Lew Wallace, author of the famous novel "Ben-Hur – A Tale of Christ.â€
Garfield described Otto von Bismark, who united German and served at its first Chancellor, 1871-1890: "I am struck with the fact that Otto von Bismarck, the great statesman of Germany, probably the foremost man in Europe today, stated as an unquestioned principle, that the support, the defense, and propagation of the Christian Gospel is the central object of the German government.â€
Otto von Bismark saw the danger of socialism and instituted Germany’s Anti-Socialist Laws in 1878. When Kaiser Wilhelm II forced Bismark to resign, it precipitated World War I.
This article makes us wish -- makes me wish, at least -- that Garfield had lived to serve two full terms. The world might be a different place today. The article is here. See what you think: https://www.wnd.com/2019/07/the-forgotten-presidency-of-james-garfield/?cat_orig=education
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Nike has made its decision, and now we’re making ours. I’ve ordered the Arizona Commerce Authority to withdraw all financial incentive dollars under their discretion that the State was providing for the company to locate here.
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July 01, 2019
The Democrats in their own words.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d5HSp3Y8aA&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3RnCkHISFaEd2Xo1zjlUFgKJ4KYXH0OsFlaxZpIyNqIf2sextjENlL7aM
Hat tip: John P. the Son of Time
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Folks, it's going to be hit or miss for the next few days. I have a LOT on my plate and will do the best I can updating, but no promises. I know Dana Mathewson and Jack Kemp are both swamped, too. We'll do the best we can.
Please keep checking back; new material will be coming.
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From the New American:
If a boy wants to "change†his sex, schools and mainstream mental-health professionals will recommend and facilitate his "transition.†But if the same boy later wants to change his same-sex attractions, well, any therapist who helps with that can be punished in many states. But now the courts are beginning to intervene, ruling that such actions are First Amendment violations — the suppression of professional speech.
At issue are bans on reparative therapy, or what some call "conversion therapyâ€; its focus is the elimination of unwanted homosexual desires and the development of normal sexual attraction, or the remedying of feelings relating to confused sexual identity (e.g., a boy who feels like a girl). Yet with the Velvet Mafia being like so many syndicates — once you’re in, it’s supposed to be for life — states have increasingly been banning this treatment option for minors (New York City and Washington, D.C., have total bans).
In fact, 18 states have thus far done so. Examples are New York, New Jersey, California, Oregon, Illinois, Vermont, New Mexico, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. Washington, D.C., and one territory (Puerto Rico) also have bans, according to the left-wing Movement Advancement Project.
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Here's a little taste:
Well, there’s not a horse around that could make Sanders look good — not since the old gray mare who ain’t what she used to be in 2016, anyway.
Oh, note, Reagan was 68 in 1980. Sanders will be 79 at election time 2020.
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Warner Todd Houston makes this salient point I have made in the past:
His mistake is in thinking there is an actual disagreement here. The true Progressive wants to fundamentally remake America. America has always had drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco, so those have to go. It's why they fight so hard against vaping now; it's still tied to our past heritage. They want it gone. But pot? Pot makes people listless, weak, mellow, docile. Just what a proto-Fascist wants! So they push the notion of smoking dope while attacking smoking tobacco.
It's about changing times and laws. If you are going to remake something you have to redo everything. That's a big part of why they want illegal immigration; breed the old line Americans out of the national gene pool. It's why they support any sort of sexual deviancy but oppose the Catholic Church because some of her priests act in the very fashion that the Left has promoted for the rest of the culture. It's why they oppose eating meat; America was built on beef, and that won't do at all. It's why they oppose oil or coal. Pick any issue and you can guess the Progressive approach based on how it ties to American culture.
That is true of the inner core, the Intelligentsia, not the average foot soldier who is generally in mushroom mode; in the dark and fed fertilizer. Liberalism is all about heterodoxy.
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‘Floods, Drought, Heatwaves, Wildfires and Super Storms’
Oh, sure! The Paris Accords must be adhered to, even though they've produced nothing. And only the U.N. can lead the world out of disaster. Hey, it's not as if they don't muck up everything they touch.U.N. chief Antonio Guterres warned Sunday climate-related devastation is striking the planet on a weekly basis and global action must be undertaken immediately with U.N. agencies in the lead or else the earth is doomed.
"We are here because the world is facing a grave climate emergency,†Guterres told a two-day Abu Dhabi climate meeting ahead of a Climate Action Summit in New York in September.
"Climate disruption is happening now… It is progressing even faster than the world’s top scientists have predicted,†the UN secretary general said. "It is outpacing our efforts to address it. Climate change is running faster than we are.
"Every week brings new climate-related devastation… floods, drought, heatwaves, wildfires and super storms.â€
Guterres warned the situation would only deteriorate unless "we act now with ambition and urgencyâ€, and called for greater carbon taxes, an end to building power plants and a change in the way the world does business.
The U.N. chief held out hope in the Paris Agreement to force nations to accede to climate action as directed.
The climate emergency is evolving faster than predicted. We must accelerate our response, with ambition and urgency. This is the battle for our lives. And it’s a battle we can and must win. https://t.co/CQstT1p2ri #ClimateAction
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) June 30, 2019
"But we know that even if the promises of Paris are fully met, we still face at least a three-degree temperature rise by the end of the century — a catastrophe for life as we know it,†Guterres said.
This is not the first warning of impending global climate catastrophe issued by the U.N.
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