August 22, 2019
When Emma Lazarus (an interesting name in itself, given Lazarus was resurrected from the dead, much like the Colossus of which the poetess writes) wrote her famous poem for the Statue of Liberty, she entitled it The New Colossus and based her poem on the inscription that was placed on the original Colossus of Rhodes which read:
The original was very militaristic, a triumphal verse to honor Helios, the god of the sun, for saving Rhodes. Lazarus didn't like the male-centric nature of the poem and, since the Statue of Liberty was going to be a woman anyway, she feminized the inscription:
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Lazarus wrote this poem as a way to help raise money for the construction of the "new Colossus" at the behest of her former Confederate friend Constance Cary Harrison. Lazarus, it must be pointed out, was a committed Zionist who wanted eastern European Jews to settle in Palestine, not America.
Daniel Greenfield gives us a great rundown on the Lazarus story and why the Progressives get it all wrong.
Harrison had first approached Mark Twain, who turned it down with his typical satirical approach:
Lazarus said no at first too, but in the end she wrote the poem.
Greenfield points out:
That was the vision of some of the French activists involved with gifting the Statue of Liberty to America.
Emma Lazarus hadn’t seen the giant woman who would become the Statue of Liberty, but the obvious reference point for a giant statue in a more classical age was the Colossus of Rhodes. Unlike the ancient Greek statue, the American colossus would match it size for size, but would be female. It would not stand to celebrate a military victory, but to welcome visitors, many of them immigrants, to New York.
By welcoming in people from foreign dictatorships, American liberty would enlighten the world. Not by invading and conquering other countries, but by allowing oppressed people to live freely in America.
The central image of The New Colossus welcoming immigrants though didn’t come from Emma though, but from Harrison, the wife of the private secretary of Jefferson Davis, who as a teenager had lost most of her family, and had spied for the Confederacy in Washington D.C.
"Think of that Goddess standing on her pedestal down yonder in the bay, and holding her torch out to those Russian refugees of yours you are so fond of visiting at Ward’s Island,†Harrison had told her.
It was Emma Lazarus who dramatized it, harnessing the romantic vision, mingling classic Greek references with a modern American take into, "A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.â€
The woman embodied the contrast between America and Europe. The Statue of Liberty had been a message from France to America about our place in the world. Emma’s poem, The New Colossus, continued the dialogue, with a response from America to Europe about our idea of liberty.
Certainly Lazarus did not intend this as some sort of foundational document. She simply made the point that the stone Europe rejected had become the cornerstone. The Statue of Liberty was not about immigration; Lazarus made it so only insofar as she needed to invent a new purpose for the statue, one that differed from the militarism of the Rhodes Colossus.
And, too, remember the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France and not a native work. It was, in fact, largely disdained by Americans while it was under construction. It was assembled in France, then dismantled and brought to America. But America was where most of the money to complete the project was raised. In fact, President Grant was lukewarm on the proposal, since the pedestal the statue was to rest upon would cost America money. He only agreed to help with the project when it was promised the statue would be on an island, would act as a lighthouse. It didn't work out that way. Oh, and Joseph Pulitzer, the newspaper magnate, had to fund a sizable portion of the statue.
At any rate, the poem by Lazarus (a woman who never married I might add, a sort of vestal virgin of literature) is out of date and needs to be updated. Here is what I see the new poem should be like:
atop the rock with hand aflame
her youth she shone of virtue and dignity, a symbol of hope from sea to sea
now her tarnish dulls her gloss, defiled by lovers and her own eros
The new collosus withered and old her youthful favors all been sold
to lovers who defile her innocence, a parade of lechery, ungrateful immigrants
the fornications, the filthy bed
now form the curse that crowns her head
Mystery Babylon, the harlot of the east
Colossus is now the image of the beast
"send one, send all" she greedily cries
while in her lust America dies
her insatiable lust for those who do not love her
and rejection of those who call her mother
Have left the People orphans crying
while Liberty is surely dying.
Where once stood beacon bright with fire
the flame now threatens to expire
snuffed by those call her whore
still she lights her lamp above her door
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:25 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 1160 words, total size 8 kb.
The social justice warriors eat their own in the NFL.
From Breitbart:
The NFL owner created his Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality (RISE) in 2015 to combat the "very complicated issues of racism†and to "eliminate racial discrimination, champion social justice and improve race relations.â€
Ross was a founding member of the NFL’s social justice committee along with Arizona Cardinals Owner Michael Bidwill, Atlanta Falcons Owner Arthur Blank, and Washington Redskins cornerback Josh Norman, ESPN reported.
But after Ross held a fundraiser for President Donald Trump, several players rose up to attack Ross and to agitate to have him removed from the social justice committee.
Ross hosted a fundraiser for the president in The Hamptons that featured a $250,000 price tag to attend. The event included lunch, a private round-table, and a photo, according to the Washington Post.
Several players were unhappy with the fundraiser. Dolphins player Kenny Stills, for one, criticized his employer for supporting Trump.
First, if you want to send a message try Western Union. The NFL is and should be a-political. If Ross wants to host a fundraiser outside of the league that is his right, but he never should have started putting his social justice views INTO the league. People watch football to get away from politics and all the acrimony, not wallow in it. That's why flaming leftists and the rest of us, the normals, can sit down together and watch a football game and get along. Ross is largely responsible for taking that away from us.
(By the way, I went to high school with Mike Bidwell of the Arizona Cardinals. They used to be in St. Louis.)
I wonder how much of this resignation has to do with the way the league has failed to prosper after allowing all of this leftist activism to take root? It certainly is costing the team owners a lot of money, with no bottom in sight.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
07:43 AM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 356 words, total size 2 kb.
St. Louis welcomes The Battlehawks!
From CNN:
Does anyone else think these team names are disgustingly p.c.? There is nothing to offend (except maybe animal rights people who would get their panties in a bunch over using hawks in battle or Chinese people who may find using dragons offensive. But these names were clearly chosen with an eye on inoffensiveness. I mean, really, the D. C. Defenders? The Houston Roughnecks? C'mon...
The brainchild of pro-wrestling's Vince McMahon, the XFL is not going to go head to head with the NFL, choosing instead to be a spring and summer league. This is smart? The whole point of resurrecting the XFL was to take advantage of the NFL's self destruction in the wake of Kaepernick and now the Jay-Z halftime show imbecility. But instead they are going up against Major League Baseball. In St. Louis that is going to be the kiss of death; we are a baseball town to the core.
Also, why would you give franchises to New York (a city with two NFL teams), D.C., Seattle, Tampa Bay, amd L.A. which can barely support one team? I agree with bringing football back to St. Louis and Houston, but why not go to other cities not served by the NFL? Louisville, Kentucky, for example, or Omaha Nebraska, or Cheyenne Wyoming? I think looking at the large markets just because they are large is not a good business move; too much competition.
The article continues:
I had rather hoped the new league would go back to fundamentals, rather than follow the NFL trend of flashy and high scoring. I tire of watching all the showboating; I would love to watch old time smashmouth football with lots of running plays. I guess I'm wishing my youth.
But I'm pretty happy we got a team here in the 'Lou, and I like the Hawks angle; St. Louis was home to the NBA Hawks, a great basketball team. My father was good friends with a number of the top players on the Hawks, guys like Bob Pettit, Ed McCauley, Frank Selvy, etc. He used to play softball on their team. He has a great story he used to tell; the Hawk players hung around a hotel bar called the Pub (where my dad and later my mom used to hang out) and my father went there after one of the games. He and his friend chatted up a couple of gals, who seemed quite interested until several of the Hawks players came in. The woman my dad was with said "get lost!" to him suddenly; she was a groupie, and started trying to sidle up to the Hawks players table. Bob Petit spotted my dad and called "come on over Jim!" and my father proceeded to stroll past this woman and sat down with the players. Dad said she looked green around the gills.
Now THAT's sweet!
Anyway, I'm glad to see we have this connection with the past. I wish the league well; we need the competition to the NFL. The NFL is behaving exactly as a monopoly always does, and it needs a healthy dose of competition.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
07:23 AM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 678 words, total size 4 kb.
August 21, 2019
The Democrats have abandoned all pretense at representing America, and are actively fundraising In Mexico.
From American Thinker:
And so next month there will be a series of events in Mexico City, featuring Perez himself, for the American citizens living there eager to help their party in the old country. According to Democrats Abroad:
Does anyone really believe they will limit their fundraising to American citizens in Mexico? Anybody.This is a unique chance to get an up-close view of how Democrats are working to build a better, brighter, fairer future for everyone.
This is prime for a GOP counterstroke. They have just told the world they care more about Latin America than the American heartland.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
02:05 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 174 words, total size 2 kb.
How charming: the left has belatedly discovered something conservatives have known for 50 years or more—that environmentalism, especially in its dominant ideological forms, is prone to fascism. Remember that "environmentalism†very quickly replaced "ecologyâ€â€”the more generic scientific term—not long after the first Earth Day in 1970. Keep in mind that the left was initially indifferent or even hostile to "the ecology craze†(as some leftist critics called it at the time), but they soon figured out the potential for the issue. "Ecology,†New Republic writer James Ridgeway wrote, "offered liberal-minded people what they had longed for, a safe, rational and above all peaceful way of seeming to remake society . . . [and] developing a more coherent central state. . .†Except for the "safe, rational and peaceful†part, he was on to something! And people think it started with the Green Nude Eel.
For a good background to this, see Elizabeth Nickson’s book, Eco-Fascists, or this excerpt from Rupert Darwall’s fine book Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex.
Climate Industrial Complex. That's funny. Except that it's not. How many dollars are made in the solar panel industry, and the wind turbine industry, subsidized by Our Tax Dollars? But I digress. . .
It has always been considered bad form to point out that the German Nazis had a conscious environmental quotient to their ideology, but what’s this? The Washington Post noted yesterday that two of the recent mass shooters—the New Zealand shooter last year and the El Paso shooter two weeks ago—embraced environmental themes, fusing them together in fact with anti-immigration views. The Post is shocked and befuddled at this seeming anomaly (though to be fair, the Post notes as briefly as possible: "Ecofascism has deep roots. There is a strong element of it in the Nazi emphasis on "blood and soil,†and the fatherland. . .) But this is only anomalous to clueless liberals, who suffer cognitive impairment when it comes to imagining the connection between the anti-natalism of the "population bomb†mentality and seeing immigration as a driver of population growth:
The statements that authorities think the men posted online share another obsession: overpopulation and environmental degradation. . .
The alleged Christchurch shooter, who is charged with targeting Muslims and killing 51 people in March, declared himself an "eco-fascist†and railed about immigrants’ birthrates. The statement linked to the El Paso shooter, who is charged with killing 22 people in a shopping area this month, bemoans water pollution, plastic waste and an American consumer culture that is "creating a massive burden for future generations.†. . .
Many white supremacists have latched onto environmental themes, drawing connections between the protection of nature and racial exclusion. . .
The alleged El Paso shooter’s document is full of existential despair: "My whole life I have been preparing for a future that currently doesn’t exist.â€
Gee—where would these kids have learned these ideas about our despairing future? Oh that’s right—from just about any eco-tract, university course, or leading politician (let’s recall the similarities between the Unabomber manifesto and Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance.)
But don’t worry: Environmentalists are on it, and stand ready to make sure their essential creed can be fit into the current main party line of the left:
Michelle Chan, vice president of programs for Friends of the Earth, said, "The key thing to understand here is that ecofascism is more an expression of white supremacy than it is an expression of environmentalism.†. .
There is a danger of "apocalypticism,†said Jon Christensen, an adjunct assistant professor at the University of California at Los Angeles who has written extensively on the use and misuse of dystopian environmental scenarios.
And so forth. This is a great read, and one to help understand what's going on behind the scenes in the tree-hugger area. It helps to remember that the Lefties really can't handle more than one idea at a time, too. That's why the party ideologues have to try so hard to squeeze competing ideas into one box.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/08/the-left-discovers-eco-fascism.php
A NOTE FROM TIM:
Eco-fascism has definite and real ties to the Third Reich. Read Mark Musser's excellent book Nazi Oaks to learn about the deep ties modern environmentalism has with National Socialism.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:29 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 762 words, total size 7 kb.
Recent shootings serve to highlight how we live in times that are violent and lonely. Young shooters are breaking the precarious rhythms of our daily lives with tragedy. We know little about them. However, one thing they all have in common is loneliness.
In times past, subversives would seek strength in organization and numbers. They would conspire with others to carry out their nefarious deeds. Intelligence services could trace links and patterns to uncover vast conspiracies.The loner finds his strength in loneliness. He does not need or seek others. There is no organization or headquarters. He slips quietly under the radar until he unleashes his silent and irrational wrath. As with suicide bombers, the loner is willing to die in his first and final act. Society has little defense against his unpredictable movements. Law enforcement cannot take preventative measures in the face of a past of non-engagement.
There is not even a set of established beliefs for loners. What is erroneously labeled "white supremacist ideology†is usually a self-made mish-mash of contradictory (and often liberal) ideas with little rhyme or reason to them. Analysts like to refer to a process as "online self-radicalization.†Shooters’ "ideology†is more likely the scrambled ramblings of broken individuals who rebel against life and society.
What makes this scenario more frightening is that loner demographic is growing. Young people who normally become increasingly social as they mature are retreating into themselves. Society is mass-producing loners.
[...]If we are to prevent violence, we must address the cause of the problem to be effective. It is not something a government program will resolve.
The tragedy of the lone shooters is their isolation. They lack the family links of intense affection. Few people will make an effort to connect with the loners.
Everyone knows they need help — especially after the fact. Everyone generally reports on the bizarreness of the shooters’ behavior. Some are not surprised by the news of their evil acts. In the busyness of their daily lives, most people have no time to reach out or take action, even when evidence points to serious problems. The loner is out of sight and out of mind.
Thus, people propose red flag laws that would allow police to intervene in cases where such individuals appear dangerous. However, these measures are of limited effectiveness. Of what use are red flag laws when there is no one to wave the flag? Of what use are background checks into the lives of loners with no background? How effective can we be in curbing the present cases when the nation is mass-producing loners on a grand scale? [emphasis added]
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:15 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 553 words, total size 4 kb.
August 20, 2019
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:10 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 269 words, total size 2 kb.
Planned Parenthood is taking it on their double chin these days.
From the Lifesitenews article:
Mayra Rodriguez, who ran three Planned Parenthood clinics in Arizona and worked for the organization for 17 years, sued the non-profit after being wrongfully terminated from her position in October 2017 after repeatedly making claims that Planned Parenthood was endangering the health and safety of its patients. Rodriguez is an "undocumented†alien, according to And Then There Were None (ATTWN), a non-profit that helps former abortion workers leave the industry.
ATTWN said Planned Parenthood tried to use Rodriguez’s immigration status against her.
Does that last surprise anyone? Liberals are nothing if not monumental hypocrites.
Abortion is not only child abuse, it is the abuse of women.
Planned Parenthood has been losing a lot lately, most notably in Missouri where their clinics have been shut down and an abortion ban on any child past eight weeks has gone forward despite PP's best efforts. I look forward to the day when this monstrous evil enterprise is no more.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:45 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 220 words, total size 2 kb.
So-called "Gun Safety†advocates don’t really care about public safety, and it’s easy to prove that all they really fear is an armed populace who opposes their political agenda. Here’s the deal: They could have the "Universal Background Checks†(UBC) they’re fighting for, if they made just one small compromise.
Now, Second Amendment supporters understandably cringe at the word "compromise†because for generations the GOP dictionary has defined it as: "Giving the Democrats half of their ridiculous demands and then hoping they say nice things about us on TV for a few days.†But that’s not real compromise, it’s capitulation.
An artful deal gives each side what it most wants, with concessions that shouldn’t be painful for either side.
Gun-controllers claim to worry that many states allow individuals to sell firearms privately without background checks, and they say that this puts guns in the hands of "prohibited persons†who’ll use them criminally. They probably figure that a background check requirement would mean some of these criminals are turned away by law-abiding sellers. Maybe. But we needn’t debate whether this happens often enough for UBC laws to have a meaningful effect on public safety. They say yes, we say no. But with the right deal it doesn’t matter - let’s let them have their way. Almost.
We gun rights advocates actually believe that Universal Background Checks can enable tyranny. The other guys think that’s crazy and paranoid. But our logic is that if the would-be gun banners in government knew exactly who has what guns, a ban becomes more tempting because it’s easy to enforce – just knock on the listed owners’ doors. But when, say, 20% of all the semi-auto rifles are in unknown hands, a ban must rely on voluntary compliance, and they know that’s never going to happen. Nancy Pelosi knows there’ll still be millions of ARs and AKs out there even after the confiscation raids she might envision, so enforcement of a ban becomes a waste of political capitol and pointless bloodshed –why bother? Tyranny averted.
To read about the simple, elegant idea the author has in mind, go here https://townhall.com/columnists/benlanglotz/2019/08/20/the-guncontrol-compromise-the-left-will-never-accept-n2551937 and I predict you will say "why didn't I think of that?"
Of course, the Left won't accept it because it doesn't give them a path to confiscation. But it will certainly expose them.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:21 AM
| Comments (9)
| Add Comment
Post contains 522 words, total size 4 kb.
HOSTAGE DRAMA in Rio De Janeiro: 37 People Held Hostage by Armed Gunman
This from Tim:
Brazil has some of the strictest gun control laws on Earth. And, what the left and the media don't want us to know, it has some of the highest levels of gun violence.
According to Brazil's national website:
. Generally a person must be 25 years or older before being legally able to register for a gun license to own a gun. .Gun registration can be done with the Federal Police or online.
.All people applying for a gun license in Brazil must pass a background check. This means that some research is done on the applicants criminal, employment, health and mental background. Such a check is done to ensure a person is stable and responsible enough to own a gun.
.There must be a reason why you apply for a gun. The reasons may include; to hunt animals, do target shooting or to have for security protection.
.It is compulsory to pay a registration fee every three years to keep this gun license valid. Being caught with a gun and without a license leads to punishment by law. The most severe punishment is two to fours in prison with a fine.
.A civilian with a private gun may not take his/her gun to a church, school, government building, bank, sports playground or any other public gathering place.
.A civilian may however carry his/her gun in public as long as it is concealed and in line with a granted permit.
.The state has a special policy on what they do when guns are seized or found. These guns are destroyed! Civilians may not lawfully own fully automatic weapons privately.
.It is also illegal to own private handguns (pistols and revolver) except in certain lawful granted and approved cases.
.The law of Brazil states that a truthful record must be kept by firearm dealers. This record is for the regulating authority to oversee all purchases, sales or transfers of guns and ammunition (bullets).
.All fire arm dealers must be licensed. This ensures guns are properly traceable. .Gun makers must also be licensed.
.Gun makers are further required to maintain a record of every firearm they produce.
.All manufactured firearms in Brazil must be available to be checked by the regulating authorities. This ensures a quality and control over weapons.
end excerpt.
In fact, Brazil has six times more deaths by guns despite the fact the U.S. has eight times as many guns as our southern friend. In 2016 Brazil had 19.34 violent gun deaths per 100,000 people, while the supposedly blood soaked U.S. had Just 3.85 per 100,000. This in a nation with little in the way of national gun control (little but not zero; we banned automatic weapons in violation of the U.S. Constitution in 1994. But our gun control laws are skimpy next to Brazil, a nation with only two hundred million people (compared to our three hundred and twenty plus million.)
So, If gun control is so wonderful, why are things like this standoff happening?
As I pointed out in an article at American Thinker a while back, the United States experimented with gun control in the past, to the detriment of minorities. It didn't work then and it isn't working in Brazil now. If madness is repeating the same things over and over and expecting different results, aren't we definitionally insane?
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:15 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 610 words, total size 5 kb.
For those of you who still think Red Bern is somehow not a communist, read these two essays.
First we have this article from Freedomworks:
Joseph Simonson published an investigative report in the Washington Examiner that confirmed that Bernie Sanders campaigned for the Socialist Workers Party in the 1980 and 1984 presidential campaigns and was investigated by the FBI for ties to the Marxist party.
What does the Socialist Workers Party stand for?
Answer: A lot of bad stuff.
The party was founded in 1938 by devotees of Leon Trotsky. Trotsky led the Red Bolshevik Army into battle during the Russian Revolution that led to the founding of the Soviet Union and the rise to power of Vladimir Lenin. Joseph Stalin would follow Lenin as leader of the Soviet Union.
The Socialist Workers Party members promoted an ideology of international revolution and attended communist conferences around the globe.
[...]
Simonson wrote that " In 1980, Sanders proudly endorsed and supported
Andrew Pulley, the party’s presidential candidate, who once said that
American soldiers should take up their guns and shoot their officers.
Sanders was one of their electors for Pulley on the Vermont ballot,
stating in a press release: ‘I fully support the SWP’s continued
defense of the Cuban revolution.â€
Sanders was investigated for his ties to Communists by the FBI. Oh, and he went to the Soviet Union on his honeymoon. Who does that? One suspects Sanders may well have been a Soviet sleeper agent.
The other essay is from Matthew Vadum in Frontpagemag. According to Vadum:
Bernie has been around communists a long time.
He used to work at the communist-led United Packinghouse Workers Union.
In the 1970s he belonged to the anti-war Liberty Union Party (LUP). Under the LUP banner, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate and governor of Vermont. His platform called for all U.S. banks to be nationalized, public ownership of all utilities, and the establishment of a worker-controlled federal government.
Sanders quit the LUP in 1979 and was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont. During his decade in office he displayed a Soviet flag in his mayoral office and claimed he did so to honor Yaroslavl, Burlington's sister city in the U.S.S.R. In addition, he made Puerto Cabezas in Communist Nicaragua another sister city of Burlington.
In 1989 Sanders addressed the national conference of the U.S. Peace Council, a Communist Party USA front group. The event focused on how to "end the Cold War†and "fund human needs.†Fellow speakers included radicals such as Leslie Cagan and U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.)
Interacting with the CPUSA was a dangerous thing. During the Cold War, CPUSA members swore an oath"to the Soviet Union, to a 'Soviet America,' and to the 'triumph of Soviet power in the United States," according to Professor Paul Kengor.
[...]
For an American politician during the Cold War, Sanders was unusually friendly to the Soviet Union.
As Accuracy in Media has reported, in the 1980s he "collaborated with Soviet and East German 'peace committees'" whose objective was "to stop President Reagan’s deployment of nuclear missiles in Europe.†Indeed, he "openly joined the Soviets’ 'nuclear freeze' campaign to undercut Reagan’s military build-up.â€
Bernie also reached out to Soviet allies. He travelled to Communist Cuba in the 1980s where he enjoyed a friendly meeting with Havana's mayor.
In 1985 he visited Nicaragua to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the ascent to power of Daniel Ortega and his Marxist-Leninist Sandinista government. Sanders wrote an open letter to the people of Nicaragua attacking the Reagan administration, which he claimed was a puppet of corporate interests, for its anti-Communist activities. "In the long run, I am certain that you will win, and that your heroic revolution against the Somoza dictatorship will be maintained and strengthened,†he said.
When he was stateside again, Sanders sent a letter to the White House saying Ortega was interested in meeting with President Reagan to try to negotiate and end to that nation's civil war. Sanders invited Ortega to visit Burlington but the dictator declined.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, it's probably a duck. Bernie is not a democratic socialist. He wants the Revolution. Make no mistake.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:43 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 707 words, total size 6 kb.
Holtzbrinck and Bertelsmann; Agents of German Climate Imperialism
William Kay
from Canada has done an outstanding job of highlighting the media
colossus behind the apocalyptic version of global warming/
Today, Bertelsmann and
Holtzbrinck are at the very dark heart of environmentalis
According to Kay, Bertelsmann's involvement in promoting the global warming/
While Bertelsmann was bad enough, Holtzbrinck was far worse, and much more pro-National Socialist with no repentance whatsoever after the war. Holtzbrinck today owns Macmillan Palgrave, Springer Nature, Nature magazine, and Scientific American. Macmillan is one of the most important publishers in the world related to education in schools and colleges.
Kay thus concludes, "Not alone does Germany bear
Climate’s cross. Germany is, however, uniquely burdened by an
ecological industrial complex compelling kaiser-sized commitment to
this crusade. German agriculture and industry require a climate-rationa
Much of the environmentalis
more...
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:01 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 824 words, total size 6 kb.
August 19, 2019
This is a must-read article, in my estimation. Go here https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/is-russia-hiding-another-chernobyl/ to read it.Breaking news from Russia's frozen Northwest, where a total of four nuclear-monitoring stations have been silenced. The Wall Street Journal says that's twice as many as last week, "heightening concerns among observers that Russia is trying to hide evidence from an explosion at a missile-test site this month."
Some background.
Russia has been developing a nuclear-powered cruise missile, the 9M730 Burevestnik or "Petrel" missile. To be clear, that's a missile powered by nuclear fission, not a missile "merely" carrying a nuclear warhead. On August 8, it's believed that a Petrel exploded during testing, killing five employees of Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy producer. Three others were injured. That we know of.
As the Kremlin is wont to do, they at first downplayed the incident, claiming that the amount of radiation released "was less than that of a medical X-ray." Although as The National Interest noted on Saturday, "the village near the explosion has been ordered to evacuate, raising memories of the Chernobyl incident." The same report casts some doubt whether a Petrel cruise missile was involved at all:
Edward Geist, an expert on Russian nuclear history at the RAND Corp. think tank, cautioned that it is premature to assume that the Petrel was the culprit."The case that this may be associated with the nuclear cruise missile is pretty circumstantial,†Geist told The National Interest. For example, the site of the accident is a closed Russian military town that is "associated with the testing of all kinds of missiles.â€
Perhaps there was an accident involving Petrel. Or, perhaps there was an accident involving another weapon that damaged a Petrel. Or, maybe Russia was testing some other system: among Putin’s much-touted wonder weapons is the nuclear-powered Poseidon robotic torpedo.
If you're having flashbacks to 1986 -- I was a junior in high school, very much the young Cold Warrior, and remember this quite clearly -- so am I. The Soviet Union's outdated and poorly-designed nuclear power station at Chernobyl, Ukraine, suffered an open-air reactor core fire following an explosion on April 26 of that year. Heroic efforts were undertaken to avert an even greater disaster, yet despite nearly 100 deaths at or near the scene, the Kremlin tried to hide the fact that a huge nuclear reactor had just blown up in a small town not far from the capital of the country's second-most important republic. Ever since, the town had been the "Chernobyl Exclusion Zone," and uninhabited.
Two days after the explosion, radiation detectors went wild at Sweden's Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant, more than 600 miles away. The Swedes contacted Soviet authorities behind the scenes, who at first denied that anything was wrong. Days later, Moscow was still downplaying to the West what had happened, all the while evacuating more than 100,000 locals as quietly as possible.
[...]
But we can probably draw two conclusions with some small measure of confidence.
The first is, whatever happened, it's certainly worse than Moscow will admit, given what we know about how Putin's Russia operates, and also what we just learned from that WSJ report. The second is that Putin's Russia, just like the Communist Soviet Union that preceded it, simply isn't capable of playing with matches of this size without putting their neighbors, or perhaps the world, at risk.
It's time to stop playing the I'm-Still-a-Superpower game, Mr. Putin, because you just aren't up to it.
A WORD FROM TIM:
I was a bit surprised to learn the Russkies were using a NERVA nuclear rocket system for an ICBM; the NERVA was invented a long time ago but was outlawed by the Outer Space Treaty, since it puts a nuclear reactor in orbit. Essentially the Nerva uses a nuclear reactor (a small one in this case) to superheat rocket exhaust. Since this rocket is intended as a cruise missile it can forego propellant and use compressed air, so it is kind of a hybrid between a jet engine and a nuclear rocket. Air will be the propellant, while the energy will come from a small fission reactor. The fission reactor adds a lot of weight - too much, in many ways, but it will not run out of fuel, so you can keep these missiles circulating. I never thought they would be very practical because of that. Great spacecraft drives, but lousy missile propulsion. Guess I was right.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
04:16 PM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 832 words, total size 6 kb.
The Climate Mobilization, a group pushing for a World War II-scale national mobilization to fight global warming, condemned the media for pursuing "objectivity" by giving air time to "climate deniers." Aligned with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the organization wants the media to silence all voices opposing their climate alarmism.
"Some media outlets are sacrificing the future of our planet for the sake of appearing objective," Margaret Klein Salamon, founder and executive director of The Climate Mobilization, said in a news release Saturday.
"This idea of equating climate deniers with scientific experts is a dangerous practice which frames the threat to our planet, our existence as an ongoing debate," Klein Salamon added. "I don’t think sacrificing the future of our planet in exchange for a look of 'objectivity' is an even exchange. It’s one the coming generation will judge us on, if we don’t move with the urgency necessary to fight back against global warming and win."
Never mind if you are ignoring the First Amendment. But be careful what you wish for!
In other words, climate alarmists aren't just calling for radical changes to America to stave off some hypothetical climate disaster — they're also calling for opposing voices to be silenced. "Science" can only have one voice, and that voice must be Chicken Little.
Yep! If you agree with me, you're an expert, and if you don't, you're an idiot. I understand perfectly. After all, I'm 76 years old and have lived most of my life dealing with this sort of thing.The Climate Mobilization seized on a Newsweek article about a study from Nature Communications. The study's authors claimed that the U.S. news media gives "climate change deniers too much prominence by placing people with little understanding of the complexities involved in the same league as top scientists."
"It's time to stop giving these people visibility, which can be easily spun into false authority," University of California Merced Professor Alex Petersen said in a statement. Petersen and his team traced the digital footprints of voices for and against climate alarmism across 100,000 media articles. They found that about half of mainstream outlets seek out "climate denying" experts.
[...]
If the professional world of climate science is dominated by the ideology of climate alarmism, it would make sense that climate alarmists are more heavily cited than climate skeptics. In January 2017, Judith Curry, former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, resigned, calling out the alarmist ideology that increasingly dominates her field.
"I no longer know what to say to students and postdocs regarding how to navigate the CRAZINESS in the field of climate science," Curry wrote. "Research and other professional activities are professionally rewarded only if they are channeled in certain directions approved by a politicized academic establishment — funding, ease of getting your papers published, getting hired in prestigious positions, appointments to prestigious committees and boards, professional recognition, etc."
"How young scientists are to navigate all this is beyond me, and it often becomes a battle of scientific integrity versus career suicide (I have worked through these issues with a number of skeptical young scientists)," Curry wondered.
In other words, climate science is becoming an ideological echo chamber that rewards alarmism and silences dissenting voices, even when the dissenters are good scientists like Curry.
It's a long article, but has to be -- it covers a lot of ground. Please read the entire article, here: https://pjmedia.com/trending/aoc-aligned-climate-group-demands-media-silence-climate-deniers/
By the way, don't you just love the Left's terminology? "Climate denier," indeed. Who is denying that there's such a thing as climate? Nobody whom I've heard.
A word from Tim:
So, John Christy isn't a "real" scientist? Roy Spencer of UAH? Roger Pielke Sr. and Jr.? Freeman Dyson? William Happer? Give me a break.
Here is a list of top guys who disagree with global warming alarmism. It can also be found at Wikipedia. And what of the 31000 scientists who signed the Oregon Petition disputing the "consensus"? S. Fred Singer told the National Association of Scholars estimates that at least forty percent of scientists hold some sort of skeptical opinion on the subject. It seems likely that number is low. As of 2012 meteorologists disagreed with AGW theory although a recent study suggests they have flipped on it - hardly a surprise since they are facing loss of employment if they don't toe the line.
This reminds me of a labor union meeting I attended once. We were there to talk about our lost pension, and the president called for a voice vote as to whether to discuss that or move on. We all shouted in unison "discuss" and he announced "move on passes". Yeah; it's kind of like that.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
01:29 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 839 words, total size 7 kb.
The world cannot run on bacon and butter.
Aside from the fact that there are not enough pigs and cows on the Earth to feed every person in such a high-fat way, this kind of meaty diet is dangerous for both human health and our planet's future.
That doesn't stop people from trying.
"Eating a keto diet that's especially high in red meat will be undermining the sustainability of the climate," Harvard nutrition professor Dr. Walter Willett told Business Insider. "It's bad for the person eating it, but also really bad for our children and our grandchildren, so that's something I think we should totally, strongly advise against. It's — in fact — irresponsible."
The horror!
I have been doing the keto way of eating (we don't call it a "diet") for over a year and a half and have run into a variety of haters and naysayers. Until now, they have all been telling me that I'm killing myself. Now I'm killing my planet.
A United Nations report released just last week suggests the world's beef-heavy consumption patterns are taking a serious toll on the health of our planet: food systems are now responsible for 37% of greenhouse gas emissions, and cow manure is a major part of that equation, as it releases large amounts of climate-changing nitrous oxide and methane into the air.
"Diets that are rich in plant-based food emit lower greenhouse-gas emissions than diets that are very heavy in red meat consumption," UN report co-author Cynthia Rosenzweig said during a press conference.
The climate change hysteria mongers are always defaulting to opinions from the United Nations, blissfully unaware that not everyone is a fan.
Noted keto advocate Dr. Jay Wrigley has quite a different view of what and who is bad for the planet:
[And you've got to refer to the article again because Dr. Wrigley's advice is in another Tweet. BTW: Dr. Wrigley is not on the side of the keto-ites (ketonians?)]
Why not just access the entire article? It's by PJMedia's Stephen Kruiser, and it's here: https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/harvard-climate-loon-keto-dieters-are-killing-the-planet-because-bacon-and-butter-or-something/
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
01:18 PM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 439 words, total size 4 kb.
A recession coming? Who says?
There are three polls conducted by Rasmussen that would argue otherwise. They are Consumer Spending Update:Economic Confidence Steadies, Still Near All-Time Highs, [;oml=http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/consumer_spending_update/consumer_spending_update_a_giant_leap_in_consumer_confidence]Consumer Spending Update: A Giant Leap in Consumer Confidence, and Americans Owe Less, Worry Less[About Rising Interest Rates[/link].
It doesn't sound like the American People are buying it.
According to the third article:
And from the second:
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:48 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 191 words, total size 2 kb.
The ACLU has decided not to try to collect signatures to put a ban on abortion after eight weeks on the ballot for a vote. The law goes into effect on August 28.
The ACLU says they do not have enough time to gather the 100,000 signatures needed to place the law on the ballot.
Well, that and it probably would fail; Missouri is solidly pro-life and the ACLU would not want to be embarrassed by having the referendum go down in defeat.
The ACLU and Planned Parenthood had complained that Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft foot dragged on this, but the Sec. State's office says they followed all normal protocols, and certified the petition five days early. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU have tried to block the law in court.
I think this is a powerful sign that the power of these two evil institutions is waning. Five years ago they would have managed to block this law.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:33 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 168 words, total size 1 kb.
Like a bad horror movie, it's coming back
Despite having been vanquished several times now, the same people who brought you Global Warming return in "Nuclear Winter II; Revenge of the Nerds".
From Physorg:
[...]
In this new effort, the researchers analyzed a large number of variables, such as estimated number of bombs, their strength, where they would blow up, and the amount of smoke that might be generated by each of them. In their analysis, they chose to look at the worst-case scenario, in which all of the atomic weapons held by both countries were used in an all-out nuclear war. In such a scenario, the researchers assumed that all of the bombs would land in either the U.S. or Russia.
The new modelused by the researchers is called the Community Earth System Model-Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model—version 4. All results from the model were compared to those found with the Goddard Institute for Space Studies ModelE run back in 2007.
The researchers report that both models showed a nuclear winter (with a global temperature drop of approximately 9K) resulting from such a war. Both models produced a nuclear winter lasting several years. They also showed a 30 percent global reduction in precipitation over the first few months following such a war. They further report that there were also differences in predictions—the earlier model predicted a collapse in the monsoon season and major changes to the El Niño events. And the new model predicted that the worldwide smoke coverage would last longer than the older model's results. And while there were some differences in the timing, both showed the progression of smoke coverage starting in the impacted areas, spreading over the northern hemisphere, and eventually making its way to the southern hemisphere.
How do you have a thirty percent drop in precipitation if the planet cools? Colder air means more water vapor condenses. That is illogical. And so too is the assumption that we would limit a nuclear war to the U.S. and Russia, as if it is 1970.In point of fact, the whole reason this study was done over a non-issue was because a.it still sticks in the craw of the Left that they lost this argument and b.it is often cited as evidence that the global warming models are likely equally wrong. They just couldn't let this one die.
It is how the political left and their "concerned scientists" roll; never, ever give an inch, no matter how ridiculous your position. They will be trying to prove nuclear winter forever - just as they will be trying to prove global warming. Notice they are using the same faulty models for both.
BTW, the lead author is listed as Joshua Coupe from Rutgers Climate Change Unit. He's a GRAD STUDENT, not even an adjunct professor. No accomplished researcher would lead this because they knew it was a dog.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
07:52 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 542 words, total size 4 kb.
August 18, 2019
Here is the excellent article by John Fonte that Rush Limbaugh quoted the other day. Font sees the Globalists for who they are, and he exposes them in a manner that may well wind up with his taking a deep swim in the Potomac River one of these days. Do read it all; I'm not going to excerpt it since you need to read it in it's entirety.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:00 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 73 words, total size 1 kb.
Selwyn Duke dishes on a Hamster meltdown.
Millennial Becomes Unhinged After Boss Corrects Her Spelling of "Hamsterâ€
How can you do anything right if you do not follow the rules? No civilization can function with everyone making up his or her own way of doing things. Self-expression is only real within the boundaries of linguistic structure ie. you have to be able to communicate by using language properly. Foul up the language and you foul up the society.
This is no minor thing. Part of the triumph of the West over other, equally innovative cultures (like ancient China) was our language; it is particularly suited for technical and scientific discussion. This is especially true of English, which is a pidgin language importing aspects of the Germanic Old English with French and a host of other languages. The end result is a very flexible language with multiple words for slight variations of meaning. And it is held together by grammar (which is not your mother's mother, for you Millenials) which allows you to interpret things in an almost mathematical way. Many other languages lack grammar. I am given to understand Chinese doesn't have that - which is why the Chinese are not so innovative as are we. Too much of the meaning of Chinese is in pronunciation. That makes it hard to communicate complex ideas in written form.
My own experience is with Russian, a language which is poor for technical writing. I should know; I have a certificate in Russian Scientific Translation and translated many Russian technical works into English. I am always amazed at the success of the Russians despite the limitations of their language; they don't have anywhere nearly as many adjectives or adverbs or other fine distinctions in their language. They DO have grammar, though, and as a result they can organize their thoughts in an appropriate way.
So English is a great language for STEM, provided the rules are followed. Sadly, our modern educational system has dismissed those rules as irrelevant. How do you have organized thinking when you can't organize your linguistics?
You may think it no big deal; you say tomato, I say tomaahto, but a misspelling on your paycheck can wind up a HUGE deal. Ditto a misspelling in a computer program, or a building blueprint. As far as I know there is a state called New Hampster; my lisping second grade teacher told me so!
At any rate, the decline of our language goes hand-in-glove with the decline of our thought processes. Is it any wonder so many young people seem lacking in critical thinking? They have no tools to work with, no organizational structure within which to comprehend the Universe. Sloppy language equals sloppy thinking.
Which comports well with the plans of our Ruling Class. They want worker drones and obedient servants, and people who can't think make the very best. Yo can't think if you do not have the language skills to put things into a logical order.
Of course, this also bespeaks a culture whereby correction in any form is considered an attack. We have created a generation of spoiled brats, incapable of being told they are wrong.
In the end, the West became what it is because our language was superior. No other reason. The Arab world has a very flowery, colorful language, one that is excellent at inflaming the passions and whatnot, but is not very helpful in terms of pure science. That is not to say the Arabs didn't produce some excellent scientists and mathematicians, but that they labored under a handicap. We always had a leg up on them because our languages in the West were all composites, hybrids, and they had to be very precise so the many could understand one another.
We are now experiencing a Tower of Babel moment; our language is becoming increasingly confused. That is why our young are so confused.
Confucius said that for a society to renew itself it must first true the language. Confucius was right.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:40 AM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 673 words, total size 4 kb.
46 queries taking 0.4341 seconds, 232 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
