February 19, 2020
Today is the 75th anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima. Starting on Feb. 19, the U.S. Marines stormed the beaches of the tiny Japanese-occupi
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I've been saying this for weeks... Bloomie and Obama did NOT have a good relationship. Yet Bloomie is using Obama in his ads. Why hasn't Obama spoken up? Is Obama that hard up to defeat Sanders?
Bloomberg Ad Touting Relationship with Obama "Jarring" Former White House Aid Says
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February 18, 2020
'We need to be open to all possibilities'
There's a lot of information in this article, and I heartily recommend you read it all. It's here: https://www.foxnews.com/media/sen-tom-cotton-coronavirus-originsSen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. stood by his earlier suggestion that the deadly coronavirus may have originated in a high-security biochemical lab in Wuhan, China, telling "The Story" Tuesday that we "need to be open to all possibilities" in exploring the origins of the outbreak that has sickened more than 75,000 people around the world.
When host Martha MacCallum pressed the Senator on his startling and unverified claim, Cotton cited a study published by Chinese scientists in The Lancet, which he called a "respected international science journal."
"I'm suggesting we need to be open to all possibilities and we need to demand that China open up and be transparent so a team of international experts can figure out exactly where this virus originated," Cotton said.
He also brought up the "questions" surrounding the biosafety level 4 "super laboratory" in Wuhan, the city where the virus is believed to have originated.
"We know it didn't originate in the Wuhan food market based on the study of Chinese scientists...I'm not saying where it started, I don't know. We don't know because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) won't open up to international experts," Cotton said. "That's what we need to do so they can get to the bottom of where the virus originated and hopefully can effect a diagnostic test and vaccine for it."
Cotton also pushed back against critics, specifically Rutgers University chemical biology professor Richard Ebright, who said he found no indication in the genome sequence of the virus to indicate it was engineered.
"Let's take the professor," Cotton said. "He was ...in fact today cited in the Asia Times saying that it was quite possible that it was a laboratory incident."
"That's not saying this is a bio weapon," Cotton clarified, "but we do know they were investigating and researching coronavirus in that laboratory. It could've been an accidental breach, it could've been a worker that was infected."
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The rest is here: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/18/hillary-clinton-shuts-down-rumors-of-being-bloombergs-running-mate-oh-no/?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+breitbart+%28Breitbart+News%29&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner Of course, in politics, things change at the drop of a hat.Clinton said at a Clinton Global Initiative event held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Tuesday:
Oh, no. I’m just waiting and watching as this plays out. I will support whoever the nominee is because I think, for all the reasons you can imagine, and here in Puerto Rico there are many, we need to have a new president for our country.
Clinton also added that she wants to "see Puerto Rican American citizens be able to vote for president.â€
Clinton’s remarks were made after she was questioned about a report from Matt Drudge that claimed Bloomberg was considering asking Clinton to join his presidential ticket.
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Seriously, I don't think this is going to happen, but you never know. Politics makes strange bedfellows, after all. Hamas hackers have targeted Israeli soldiers’ phones with fake social media profiles, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
On Sunday, the IDF tweeted that the Palestinian terror group created fake profiles, which included photos of women, in an attempt to hack the phones of Israeli soldiers. "What Hamas didn’t know was that Israeli intelligence caught onto their plot, tracked the malware & downed Hamas’ hacking system,†it added, with the hashtag #CatfishCaught.
"Catfishing†is the creation of fake identities on social media to deceive people.
IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told Fox News that the attack was"more advanced†than previous "catfish"-style hacking attempts by Hamas. The fake women, he explained, reached out to young male soldiers via Facebook, Instagram and, for the first time, the Telegram messaging app. At one point the soldiers were then asked to download a different app via direct link.Once downloaded, the soldiers' phones were infected, and the women "disappeared," according to Conricus.
The app, which is described as similar to Snapchat, used the phones' camera, locations and gave Hamas almost complete access to the soldiers' phones.
The hacking attempt by Hamas displayed a new level of sophistication. "They are learning and upping their game,â€Conricus said. The fake profiles described the young women as new immigrants to Israel, and their messages contained spelling mistakes and Hebrew slang.
Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip, also attempted to disguise the photos used, so that they wouldn't be found using a reverse search on Google. Conricus said that thanks to the awareness of the soldiers targeted, the attack was carefully monitored by the Israeli military before being thwarted.
There's more. Go here https://www.foxnews.com/tech/hamas-hackers-attempted-to-catfish-israeli-soldiers to read it.
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Here's one that should open a few eyes; American school children are becoming so feeble they are actually falling out of their desks during class.
You read that correctly.
From the article:
Suddenly, a crash. The kids immediately crane to see what caused the commotion. There, lying confused on the ground, is a child who inexplicably fell out of their chair. They sheepishly climb back into their seat, and the lesson resumes. A couple hours later, it happens again—albeit with a different child. Then again. Then again.
It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, but it's the reality in many modern classrooms. Children accidentally falling from their seats is now a daily occurrence.
I know; it may be the kids are doing it for attention, or to break the monotony. We used to do stuff like that when I was a lad; kids would start barking like a dog or whatnot just to stay awake. But I don't recall anyone falling out of their desks. But then again, we never ate Tide Pods or did vodka enemas. Of course there were always the kids who got into the tubs of commercial glue...The article continues:
Our vestibular system is stimulated and developed by moving through space in a variety of directions—particularly at high speeds. Thirty or 40 years ago, kids were getting all the stimulation they needed by participating in several hours of daily unstructured outdoor play. Not anymore. According to the Child Mind Institute, the average American kid now spends an average of just 4-7 minutes per day on unstructured outdoor play. Hanscom recommends, at minimum, threehoursper day.Meanwhile, the average American kid spends about nine hours a day sitting down—whether that be at their desk or plopped down on their couch at home.
"They're not moving in all different directions," Hanscom says. "We're actually supposed to be moving in rapid directions on a regular basis. Kids should be rolling down hills, going upside down." Kids are naturally driven to move in all sorts of ways during unstructured outdoor play. They climb things, they chase one another, they jump from high places, they spin until they get dizzy. That wide array of movement helps develop a well-functioning vestibular system, along with countless other important physical and mental skills. Now that unstructured outdoor play has become an afterthought in the lives of children, that natural development has gone missing.
In other words, our kids are fat and uncoordinated. They don't get enough exercise.And definitely not enough play. Time was we couldn't wait to get outside to play. The worst thing ever was when it rained and recess was canceled; we'd have "indoor play" which was agony for us kids back then. But now kids want to stay in and play on their electronic gods.
Heliocopter parents and overzealous teachers make the kids play time so uninteresting they would rather have a virtual recess.
And here is something I've long noticed; playground equipment has become ridiculously unchallenging and unrewarding. You never see swings, for instance in new playgrounds (except little ones for little kids) and the old fun stuff - teeter totters, monkey bars, merry-go-rounds, are just gone. Why? I suspect they are considered legal liabilities. You can get hurt. I remember as a boy kids did get hurt, falling off the monkey bars or dropping too hard from the teeter totter or whatnot.
This article addresses that too:
Modern playgrounds and overprotective adults don't help matters, either. In the early-to-mid 20th century, playgrounds featured towering slides, challenging climbs and fast-spinning steel merry-go-rounds. That all changed in the mid-1980s, as schools and local governments became increasingly fearful that litigious parents could have them fired or sued should a child suffer injury on their playground. Thus playgrounds began getting more and more watered down. Today, most American playgrounds are too short, too slow and too easy. Thus, fewer opportunities for diverse, challenging and vigorous movement.
"A lot of kids from an early age will master the playground equipment really quickly. My son, who is 3, can do the playground. My older girls, who are 11 and 14, they mastered it at 5 or 6. So it doesn't offer that challenge it was originally designed to be. It's just basic physics that if you shorten swings, you shorten slides, you're going to get less sensory input. The merry-go-round is a really powerful vestibular input (that's gone away)," Hanscom says. In addition to the neutered equipment now available to kids; teachers, parents and school officials have also become overzealous in their rule-making.
"Ironically, we tend to tell kids, 'Don't spin, you're going to get dizzy.' Or, 'Get down from that rock, you're gonna get hurt.' But as therapists, we purposefully have swings in our clinics and will spin (kids) in all different directions so that they have a really good sense of body awareness," Hanscom says.
"(Schools) are taking swings away, or if they have swings, the kids have to stay upright now. They're not allowed to go on their bellies, they're not allowed to spin on their swings anymore…We've created unrealistic rules and restricted their movement. They can't sit on the monkey bars. They can't go upside down. And in therapy, we literally try to get them in an inverted position so they have better body awareness. We're going against each other."
And what is the end result?If you wanted to conquer a people this would be the way to do it; make them weak and cowering.
Do we believe this generation will be able to stand up to the Iranians or Chinese if a war should break out? They can't even stand up!
Chatham island is an island in the South Pacific that was inhabited by Polynesian peoples. It was as close to paradise as you will get, and the aboriginal inhabitants got fat and lazy, living off the immesurable bounty of the land. When Europeans came they brought some Moari from New Zealand with them. The Moari scouts reported back to their own people how weak and lazy the Chatham people were, and the Moari planned an invasion. It succeeded, and the Chatham Moriary were wiped out by the more industrious invaders. Please note it was not the Europeans who did the wiping, but the New Zealand Moari. They were able to do this because their enemy was so weak and helpless after decades of peace and plenty.
If American kids can't stay balanced in their desks, what chance have we of stopping an enemy?
Our decadence makes late Romans look hearty by comparison.
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I'm not at all surprised; they have systematically wrecked the BSA, They allowed openly gay scouts and gay scoutmasters and then were surprised by all the acts of pedophilia. Then recently they decided to let girls in - to an organization whose main purpose is to teach young boys how to be men. Good grief! It was just a matter of time before the whole thing crumbled.
The Boy Scouts of America Files for Bankruptcy
[...]
The BSA has an important duty to keep children safe, supported and protected while preparing them for their futures, and the organization has every intention of continuing to fulfill these important responsibilities.
Tragically, there have been times when individuals took advantage of the BSA’s programs to harm children. The BSA firmly believes that a proposed Victims Compensation Trust structure is the best means of compensating victims in a way that is equitable and protects their identities. The BSA encourages victims to come forward to file a claim as the bankruptcy process moves forward and will provide clear and comprehensive notices about how to do so.
Gee, whoda seen that coming?I wrote about what has been happening in the Xhe Scouts here, and here.
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Three Democrats Responsible for Impeachment Hit with Serious Ethics Complaints
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In a discussion on socialism I was having on Facebook an interesting thread developed. I chided a socialist and an old acquaintance of mine, a guy I grew up with, answered me. He's not a bad fellow and is polite - unusal for a Union type Democrat, which is what he is (I grew up in a union blue collar neighborhood.)
At any rate, I answered the socialist thusly:
My friend Marty replied:
I answered:
I answered:
Oh, by the way Marty you say; " from 7% (1940) to 64% by 1944" the Victory Tax was passed during the war years (which is always an outlier) and in fact it rather proves my point insofar as it was actually repealed in 1944, https://www.constitution.org/tax/us-ic/hist/victorytax.htm In other words, there was a tax cut. It must be remembered that the U.S. economic boom of the fifties was largely a function of America being the only undamaged industrial nation on Earth at the time and so we had a captive market for a long time as Europe and Japan rebuilt. Also, massive deficit spending helped the economy boom during the fifties.We were able to keep taxes relatively high to help pay for the War, which was good for American business, and at the same time not have a post-war depression (which is something that usually happens, or used to at any rate.) Had there been a tax cut the American economy would have been surreal. (It should also be pointed out that we never went off a war footing in that the Cold War followed on the heels of WWII almost immediately, and this kept a large swath of the military employed.) Also, women left the workforce when their GI husbands returned, and thus they were not unemployed as such and immigration was WAY down so we had little competition for jobs after the end of the War. Oh, going back to the Victory Tax, it was on everybody, including the poor. Prior to that the poor didn't pay taxes (as now). But how much do you get out of taxing the poor? Overall the number of tax PAYERS rose but the overall revenue did not. People find ways around paying taxes.
This is it for now. If the conversation continues (and I suspect it will, old Marty seems inclined to not let this go) I'll post it.
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February 17, 2020
The article is here: https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/virginia-lawmakers-reject-assault-weapon-ban There'll be more on the subject as Gov. Blackface attempts to steal Virginians' freedom to defend themselves, and I'll do my best to keep you posted. Meanwhile, it's heartening to observe that some Virginia Democratic lawmakers aren't drinking the Kool-Aid!RICHMOND, Va.— Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's push to ban the sale of assault weapons has failed after members of his own party balked at the proposal.
Senators voted to shelve the bill for the year and ask the state crime commission to study the issue, an outcome that drew cheers from a committee room packed with gun advocates.
Four moderate Democrats joined Republicans in Monday's committee vote, rejecting legislation that would have prohibited the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, including popular AR-15 style rifles, and banned the possession of magazines that hold more than 12 rounds.
The bill was a top priority for Northam, a Democrat who has campaigned heavily for a broad package of gun-control measures.
The legislation also engendered the biggest pushback from gun owners and gun-right advocates, who accused the governor and others of wanting to confiscate commonly owned guns and accessories from law-abiding gun owners. Northam has said repeatedly he does not want to confiscate guns, but argued that banning new sales of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines would help prevent mass murders.
[...]Northam has been able to get much of his gun-control agenda passed this year, but struggled with the proposed assault weapon ban. Earlier proposals to ban possession of AR-15-style rifles or to require owners to register them with state police have been scrapped. The governor had hoped a watered-down would win over enough Democratic moderates for passage.
An estimated 8 million AR-style guns have been sold since they were introduced to the public in the 1960s. The weapons are known as easy to use, easy to clean and easy to modify with a variety of scopes, stocks and rails.
Lawmakers in both the House and Senate have already advanced several other gun-control measures and should finalize passage in the coming days. Those bills include limiting handgun purchases to once a month, universal background checks on gun purchases, allowing localities to ban guns in public buildings, parks and other areas, and a red flag bill that would allow authorities to temporarily take guns away from anyone deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others.
Virginia Democratic State Sen. Chap Petersen said Tuesday he was surprised that a controversial assault weapons ban bill was brought to the state's Senate from the House of Delegates.
Appearing on "Fox & Friends" with host Pete Hegseth, Petersen said that he voted to stop the gun-control measure because it needed some amendments he could not overlook.
"I had two problems with the weapons ban bill we voted on yesterday," he said.
According to Chapman, the first problem was that the categories of weapons and component parts that were impacted were too broad.
Secondly, he said that the retroactive portion of the bill was unfair.
"In other words, if you went out and legally purchased a weapon or legally purchased a particular part, just simply by owning that you could become a class VI felon or class I misdemeanant. And that, to me, it's not fair, it's not due process, and that was what really bothered me the most," he told Hegseth.
[...]
The bill,which advanced after a shooter killed 12 people at a Virginia Beach municipal building in May of 2019,would have prohibited the sale or transfer of assault weapons as of July 1, but critics claimed the measure was not clear enough on how it defined assault weapons.
Northam, who had personally lobbied senators ahead of the vote, was "disappointed" in the outcome, but expects the state's Crime Commission to give the measure the detailed review senators had called for.
Any action on assault weapons in Virginia is now put off until at least 2021.Virginia's legislative session will end on March 7.
Democratic Sen. L. Louise Lucas audibly referred to the defectors as a "bump of wimps" from the dais, according to The Washington Post.
However, Petersen said that listening to his constituents and pro-Second Amendment activists were very "helpful" and mattered to his decision-making process.
"I probably would have voted the same way anyhow, but it was important to hear from people," he concluded.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/va-democrat-joins-gop-in-voting-against-gun-control
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Boris Johnson is allowing Extinction Rebellion and other enviro-terrorists to run wild in Britain.
James Dellingpole bemoans the development:
Why aren’t the police arresting them? Why should taxpayers have to pay for the damage done? And what does this say about the future of Britain under a green tyranny where hardcore environmental activists and the Boris Johnson administration appear to have formed an alliance in opposition to the British people?
Here are the scenes in Cambridge today, dodgy anarchists wearing the fashionable Extinction Rebellion hat, digging up Cambridge’s manicured lawns under the rainbow flag.
Only fellows allowed on the grass!’ @xr_cambridge pic.twitter.com/wBjAH8nJ93
— Cambridge Food Tour (@cambfoodtour) February 17, 2020
And here are the same unruly mob closing down one of Cambridge’s thoroughfares, as if it’s entirely up to them who does and doesn’t get to use the public highway.
To be clear: we don’t want to spend our Sunday blocking roads in the p***ing rain and howling wind but our politicians have failed us. We have 10 years to fundamentally change economies to avoid cascading climate & ecological impacts. We won’t stop until we see change. pic.twitter.com/yZNX4vwnPb
— XR Cambridge (@xr_cambridge) February 16, 2020
And here are local people fast losing patience with the apparent reluctance of the authorities — notably Cambridge police — to do the job they are paid for and maintain law and order.
Shockingly, almost unbelievably, instead of clearing away Extinction Rebellion’s makeshift roadblock, the local police have actually chosen to formalise the protest by using their own ’emergency police powers’ to close roads officially. Buses have been diverted. ‘Pedestrians and cyclists will not be affected’, the Cambridge Police Twitter account tells us primly and with, perhaps, a hint of relish at being able to participate in this orgy of environmental virtue-signalling.
Interestingly enough this same thing has been happening in Canada.And nobody appears willing to act to stop this. Why? And who is funding this?
Why don't we get answers to these questions? These things don't materialize out of thin air. Somebody is funding this - and for big bucks. And somebody is providing political protection.
George Soros? Probably, but who else? Is the U.N. clandestinely funneling U.S. dollars to this?
I want answers.
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Mayor Pete Gigabutt Buttigieg won an essay contest praising socialism and Bernie Sanders when he was younger.
He won a Kennedy School essay contest in 2000 when he was in high school.
From Gateway Pundit:
Fortunately for the political process, there remain a number of committed individuals who are steadfast enough in their beliefs to run for office to benefit their fellow Americans. Such people are willing to eschew political and personal comfort and convenience because they believe they can make a difference. One outstanding and inspiring example of such integrity is the country’s only Independent Congressman, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders.
Sanders’ courage is evident in the first word he uses to describe himself: "Socialistâ€. In a country where Communism is still the dirtiest of ideological dirty words, in a climate where even liberalism is considered radical, and Socialism is immediately and perhaps willfully confused with Communism, a politician dares to call himself a socialist? He does indeed. Here is someone who has "looked into his own soul†and expressed an ideology, the endorsement of which, in today’s political atmosphere, is analogous to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Even though he has lived through a time in which an admitted socialist could not act in a film, let alone hold a Congressional seat, Sanders is not afraid to be candid about his political persuasion.
After numerous political defeats in his traditionally Republican state, Sanders won the office of mayor of Burlington by ten votes. A successful and popular mayor, he went on to win Vermont’s one Congressional seat in 1990. Since then, he has taken many courageous and politically risky stands on issues facing the nation. He has come under fire from various conservative religious groups because of his support for same-sex marriages. His stance on gun control led to NRA-organized media campaigns against him. Sanders has also shown creativity in organizing drug-shopping trips to Canada for senior citizens to call attention to inflated drug prices in the United States.
While impressive, Sanders’ candor does not itself represent political courage. The nation is teeming with outspoken radicals in one form or another. Most are sooner called crazy than courageous. It is the second half of Sanders’ political role that puts the first half into perspective: he is a powerful force for conciliation and bi-partisanship on Capitol Hill. In Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy wrote that "we should not be too hasty in condemning all compromise as bad morals. For politics and legislation are not matters for inflexible principles or unattainable ideals.†It may seem strange that someone so steadfast in his principles has a reputation as a peacemaker between divided forces in Washington, but this is what makes Sanders truly remarkable. He represents President Kennedy’s ideal of "compromises of issues, not of principles.â€
Sanders has used his unique position as the lone Independent Congressman to help Democrats and Republicans force hearings on the internal structure of the International Monetary Fund, which he sees as excessively powerful and unaccountable. He also succeeded in quietly persuading reluctant Republicans and President Clinton to ban the import of products made by under-age workers. Sanders drew some criticism from the far left when he chose to grudgingly endorse President Clinton’s bids for election and re-election as President. Sanders explained that while he disagreed with many of Clinton’s centrist policies, he felt that he was the best option for America’s working class.
Sanders’ positions on many difficult issues are commendable, but his real impact has been as a reaction to the cynical climate which threatens the effectiveness of the democratic system. His energy, candor, conviction, and ability to bring people together stand against the current of opportunism, moral compromise, and partisanship which runs rampant on the American political scene. He and few others like him have the power to restore principle and leadership in Congress and to win back the faith of a voting public weary and wary of political opportunism. Above all, I commend Bernie Sanders for giving me an answer to those who say American young people see politics as a cesspool of corruption, beyond redemption. I have heard that no sensible young person today would want to give his or her life to public service. I can personally assure you this is untrue.
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Iran is still launching rocket attacks against the U.S. embassy.
From the Daily Caller article:
The U.S. has not acknowledged that Iran is responsible and nobody has claimed credit. But it doesn't take a genius to figure out who is involved.
I warned that if we ignored those last rocket attacks they would keep it up. We needed to take solid action to make it clear it is not worth their effort. Instead the Trump Administration chose to downplay the attacks and ignored them. You CANNOT do that in international affairs.
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Daniel Greenfield chronicles a terror campaign against a small GOP office.
From the Front Page Mag article:
The windows of the office had beenpreviously smashed in April of last year, before the release of the Mueller report. Like this latest attack, that assault had happened late at night over the weekend. After smashing through the windows with rocks, the "Make America Great Again†sticker was replaced with a "Keep America Green†sticker from the Sierra Club. Nothing says environmentalism like vandalism.
Eureka lefties justified the attack because the office has large cardboard cutouts of Reagan and Trump.
In March 2019, a window had been smashed. In August of 2018, the office was vandalized again, leaving behind signsreading, "Fake President Impeach + Inditeâ€, "45 = Lies House of Liesâ€, and "Guantanamo and Torture x 20 Years 45 and all supporters." A "Make America Great Again†sign had been crossed out and the elephant on the "Republican Headquarters†sign had been defaced.
A month earlier, President Trump had nominated Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
The windows of the Humboldt Republican Headquarters have been broken three times in two years. They’ve been covered with plywood so often that it’s become a familiar sight. And while this latest incident was the most severe, previous episodes of vandalism had marred the windows, defaced signs, and tried to cause as much damage as possible with whatever the leftist vandals had at hand.
This latest attack is expected to cost thousands of dollars in repairs. Previous acts of leftist vandalism had cost in the $700 range.
And despite the leftist signs, the Eureka Police Department dismissed it as "random vandalismâ€.
We live in a nation with a two-tiered system of justice, one for us normals and another for the Left. Whatever happened to the rule of law?
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" Mansour noted how the coronavirus outbreak in China has exposed America’s dangerous dependence on Chinese production of pharmaceutical and medical supplies, including an estimated 97 percent of all antibiotics and 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients needed for domestic drug production.†But this is the result of "free trade,†so I guess we can’t object.
Expert: China Has ‘Global Chokehold’ on Medicine, Can Shut Down Our Pharmacies, Hospitals in Months
From the article:
China could effectively shut down America’s healthcare system within months given the one-party state’s "global chokehold†on the manufacturing of medicines and medical supplies, explained Rosemary Gibson, author ofChina Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine.
Gibson, senior adviser at the Hastings Center, offered her remarks on Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Rebecca Mansour and special guest host Ed Martin.
Mansour notedhow the coronavirus outbreak in China has exposed America’s dangerous dependence on Chinese production of pharmaceutical and medical supplies, including an estimated 97 percent of all antibiotics and 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients needed for domestic drug production.
A word from Tim:America's out of control legal system has made it too expensive for American companies to produce antibiotics. Research and development costs are very high, and then they may be disapproved by the FDA in the end. And if they ARE approved and there turn out to be side effects the trial lawyers will sue the drug companies into oblivion. So the drug companies concentrate on drugs that will make them money over the long term - pain killers, palliatives, anything that can be taken repeatedly. Antibiotics are good for one course of treatment and then (hopefully) not be used again, so there isn't enough money in pursuing research and manufacture of such drugs.
So China, with nothing to lose, is happy to do it for us. But there is a price to be paid for letting a rather unfriendly trade partner provide your needs.
Trade can be used as a weapon, and "free trade" can be a trap; it only works if both parties adhere to the rules and are fair and honest with each-other.
The Muslims used trade as a weapon, and it was quite effective for a long time. They embargoed spices and silks from China and the orient. Yes, the West eventually sent out ships to find new routes to the Orient, but it took centuries and in the meantime the Arabs had Europe over a barrel. If you wonder why the Europeans never really got behind the Crusades, or why they failed to launch new ones, it was because they could not afford to close the spice trade.
China could essentially close the Silk Road if it chose.
(I wonder; how many readers have read Isaac Asimov's Foundation stories? Trade was a powerful weapon used by the Foundation to annex territory and colonize regions in those stories.)
At any rate, we have become way too dependent on trade, and that was by design. The internationalists wanted an interdependent world, and if you doubt that just look at Europe, which saw an economic Anschluss of the German and French economies after the Second World War. Now Europe is dying as a culture, and that because it threw away it's own distinction in a quixotic quest to comingle. And this was an archetype of what these people wanted for the whole world.
Remember when Madelein Albreight, Clinton's Secretary of State, bemoaned the fact the U.S. was the lone superpower on Earth? She was echoing the sentiment of the Foggy Bottom types, who believe that the way to peace is through world government and global socialist economics. You can't have a nation that is dominant in too many fields.
So they set out to create a counterweight to America, and they have used free trade to promote the Chinese as that counterweight. And they've succeeded. China is now capable of fighting us and possibly winning in a major war. And China has a strong hold on our economy via our lust for cheap goods. And we let China do things "Americans just won't do" - because our own government stifles us.
So now we are facing a medical situation and we have to buy our treatment from the Chinese. Great.
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In a recent post on transgenderism Dana Mathewson pointed out that scientists are now coming out decrying the notion of multiple sexes - and that this concept clashes with "gay" culture because it dismisses the very idea of different sexes in general.
I pointed out in the comments section:
Wearing the opposite sex's clothing is a mental disorder. It is not some sort of alternative sex. It is no different than a guy dressing in nineteenth century garb and saying he's Napoleon.
And so it is.
The point is there have been forces at work in Hollywood and other Progressive bastions that have been promoting this for quite some time.
I quoted research last summer that disproved the "gender spectrum" theory. Let me quote from the article again:
Physiological differences between mammalian genders are quite often easy to spot—in addition to organs involved in reproduction, there are skeletal and facial hair differences, as well as height differences. Prior research and anecdotal evidence has also suggested there may be some differences in the way the brain works. But what about variations in gene expression? The researchers in this new effort report that very little research has been done in this area, which is a problem—recent studies have shown that there are many gender-based health issues. Women are more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases, for example. And men are more likely to develop cardiovascular diseases.
[,,,]
To learn more about gender-based gene expression, the researchers sequenced the RNA of both genders of four non-human mammals: rats, mice, macaques and dogs. As part of their efforts, they tested different tissues in each of the animals to ensure that each germ layer was represented. They also sequenced tissue from all of the most prominent organs. They then compared what they found to similar data collected from human subjects stored in the Genotype Tissue Expression Consortium database.
So clearly "gender" (the proper word is sex; gender is a function of language, not biology) is NOT fluid but is set by genetics. See the Physorg article here.
But Liberalism is about making a god of Man, and gods aren't bound by such mundane things as biology. If you want to be a girl, you can just make yourself into one! Freedom to the Left is to do what you will. In fact, that was the very definition of freedom given by Aleister Crowley, the infamous occultist (known also as The Beast 666.) Crowley was a notorious hedonist and black magic practitioner whose followers had sex with animals and did other things to alienate themselves from God. Crowley's admonition was to "do what thou wilt". Modern Wiccans and other practitioners of witchcraft put the caveat "as long as you hurt nobody else" on the end of that, but it is rather putting lipstick on a pig. In the end witchcraft is a practice whereby belief and rites can alter reality, can make things as "thou wilt" as opposed to as Nature and Nature's God ordained. But it is the same sin.
And our headlong rush to normalize "transgenderism" is that sin. We have decided we will make this decision, not God, not nature. It is the creature usurping the Creator.
If you don't like the religious tone of that well fine; how about saying it is going against science and the laws of nature. Either way, it is a sort of madness. You don't take a guy who thinks he's a bird to the top of a cliff and let him jump off.
At any rate, when I read Dana's post this morning it clicked with me. I had just watched Little Big Man last night (hadn't seen it in decades) and it made me realize just how long they have been working at that.
I remember a "trans woman" in the eighties movie Crocodile Dundee too. While they were poking a little fun, the fact is they also set the "woman" in a sympathetic light.
This has been a campaign in the works for decades.
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February 16, 2020
Hallelujah! Please read the entire article! https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/science-says-there-are-only-two-genders-no-gender-spectrum/In the increasingly brainwashed world we live in, it is incredibly refreshing when experts are willing to speak the politically incorrect truth. In Thursday's edition of the Wall Street Journal, biologists Colin M. Wright and Emma N. Hilton provide extensive commentary on the transgender fad and the notion of gender fluidity. What does the science say? In short, it says that are only two genders: male and female.
Sadly, such an obvious conclusion can get you branded as a bigot these days
And what about the gender "spectrum" and gender being a social construct? Wright and Hilton completely destroy the basis of these concepts. "If male and female are merely arbitrary groupings, it follows that everyone, regardless of genetics or anatomy should be free to choose to identify as male or female, or to reject sex entirely in favor of a new bespoke 'gender identity,'" they write. "To characterize this line of reasoning as having no basis in reality would be an egregious understatement. It is false at every conceivable scale of resolution."
They explain that "In humans, reproductive anatomy is unambiguously male or female at birth more than 99.98% of the time." Humans, just like most animals and plants, have two distinct biological sexes with the corresponding anatomy for reproduction. "No third type of sex cell exists in humans, and therefore there is no sex 'spectrum' or additional sexes beyond male and female. Sex is binary."
According to Wright and Hilton, denying the "reality of biological sex" in favor of subjective "gender identity†raises "serious human-rights concerns for vulnerable groups including women, homosexuals and children."
Women have fought hard for sex-based legal protections. Female-only spaces are necessary due to the pervasive threat of male violence and sexual assault. Separate sporting categories are also necessary to ensure that women and girls don’t have to face competitors who have acquired the irreversible performance-enhancing effects conferred by male puberty. The different reproductive roles of males and females require laws to safeguard women from discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere. The falsehood that sex is rooted in subjective identity instead of objective biology renders all these sex-based rights impossible to enforce.Denying biological sex also "erases homosexuality" since "same-sex attraction is meaningless without the distinction between the sexes."
Many activists now define homosexuality as attraction to the "same gender identity†rather than the same sex. This view is at odds with the scientific understanding of human sexuality. Lesbians have been denounced as "bigots†for expressing a reluctance to date men who identify as women. The successful normalization of homosexuality could be undermined by miring it in an untenable ideology.
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Please read the entire article, complete with a table showing the differences, right here: https://pjmedia.com/trending/triggered-donald-trump-saves-the-planet-leads-world-in-lowering-co2-emissions/ And it's complete with the usual gloom-and-doom from the New York Times predicting how the President's actions would take us back pretty much to the Dark Ages. We'll be eagerly awaiting their corrections any year now.A new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that tracks carbon emissions worldwide dropped great news for the United States under the leadership of Donald Trump on Tuesday. "The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis – a fall of 140 Mt, or 2.9%, to 4.8 Gt. US emissions are now down almost 1 Gt from their peak in the year 2000, the largest absolute decline by any country over that period." [Emphases original]
Not only is Trump leading the world in economic success but he's also doing exactly what the climate scolds all claim they want, which is leading the world in energy saving. Carbon emission reduction isn't the only win for Trump's policies, the IEA also reported that natural gas is on the rise and coal-powered energy declined by 15% in America. "A 15% reduction in the use of coal for power generation underpinned the decline in overall US emissions in 2019. Coal-fired power plants faced even stronger competition from natural gas-fired generation, with benchmark gas prices an average of 45% lower than 2018 levels. As a result, gas increased its share in electricity generation to a record high of 37%."
Is there anything this president can't do? The air is cleaner, the stock market is booming, now, if we could only get him to tear down all the unsightly and ineffective wind farms that do next to nothing he'd be elected president forever. Do not look to the Democrats to give Trump any credit for the energy reductions and number one status in the whole darn world for "green" policies. They will continue to claim he wants to kill the planet and rape the earth of its bounties.
In 2019, The Guardian put out a list of all the terrible climate policies of Trump's including "departing from the Paris climate agreement summit," which, of course, we all now see was not at all necessary in order to reduce emissions since the US is leading all of them.
The New York Times gave us this handy chart of the climate rollbacks under Trump, showing that useless and stupid programs can be done away with while still cleaning up the environment. "President Trump has made eliminating federal regulations a priority. His administration, with help from Republicans in Congress, has often targeted environmental rules it sees as burdensome to the fossil fuel industry and other big businesses." Isn't it amazing that you can get rid of stupid regulations and still have cleaner air and water?
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Joe Bastardi discusses ice gain/loss around the world. He argues that ice loss is being weaponized by the AGW crowd, even when they know the reason for it (and it has nothing to do with global warming.)
Read his article at CFACT
I was going to excerpt it, but there were too many graphics. So go there yourself and enjoy.
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The World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland is billed as the globe’s most prestigious annual gathering of movers and shakers. Its mission is to "improve the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.â€
This year’s theme was "Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World.†Unfortunately, the lofty rhetoric belies the misleading, potentially disastrous realities of agendas supported by many participants.
A primary basis for this year’s theme is the repeated assertion that the world faces a climate cataclysm. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen thus wants to tax carbon-based energy imports into the EU and end humanity’s practice of "taking resources from the environment and generating waste and pollution in the process.†She (and others) insist that "green energy†would do no such thing.
Climate crisis claims in turn are based on computer models that are only as good as the assumptions built into them – and on attempts to blame temperature changes, extreme weather events and future crises on fossil fuel emissions, because the assumptions and models say it’s a cause-effect relationship.
The most cited model is (naturally) the most extreme: RCP8.5, which predicts temperatures way abovewhat we are actually measuring and all manner of future calamities. But it is based on the assumptions that: methane and plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide (a tiny 0.0402% of Earth’s atmosphere) are vastly more important than the sun in driving climate change; our planet will have 12 billion people by 2100; there will be no energy innovations over the next 80 years; and therefore coal use will increase tenfold by the end of the century. On that we’re supposed to base restrictive energy policies, and Davos meeting themes.
Who are the stakeholders that Davos attendees will consult? Greta Thunberg was invited, to present her patented tirade that fossil fuels are destroying her future. But no climate realists (alarmism skeptics) were given the podium, nor were representatives of EU or US factory workers or the world’s poorest citizens.
The good news is that several bankersmade assurances that they were not going to stop lending funds to fossil fuel companies or "major polluters.†(Will that latter category include the mining companies that will have to provide voluminous raw materials for a US and global "green new deal,†as discussed below?) The bad news is that Davos bankers and politicians allow themselves to be pressured constantly primarily by far-left "stakeholders,†who hold the stakes that they and global ruling elites want to drive through the hearts of developed nation living standards and poor country aspirations for better lives.
Indeed, contrary to its assurances at Davos, despite consultation with indigenous peoples supposedly being a core company business principle, and without consulting with Alaska Native stakeholders who want to drill carefully and ecologically for oil and gas on their own lands, to improve their people’s living standards, Goldman Sachs has decided it will no longer fund such development in the Arctic.
With "mainstream†outlets and social mediaincreasingly controlling news and opinion, and siding with climate alarmists and anti-fossil activists, that pressure will continue to build – to our great detriment.
Will Davos themes, agendas and policies usher in a more "cohesive†world? The opposite is infinitely more likely. Deprive people of abundant, reliable, affordable fossil fuel (and nuclear) energy, as eco-activists seek to do – and you deprive them of jobs, living standards, food, health and life. People die in droves (itself a goal of more rabid environmentalists panicked about an over-populated world). Implement "green new deal†policies, and the results will be anything but cohesion. The policies will bring rage, protests, violence and anarchy – as France and Chile vividly demonstrated over the past two years.
Turn African, Asian and Latin American countries into vassal states, with enormous mines serving "ecologically responsible, climate-focused†nations that don’t tolerate mining within their own borders – and any cohesion will rapidly disappear. Tell American, European and other families they must accept massive wind and solar installations in their backyards or off their coasts, and the results will be similar.
A "sustainable†world? Yes, fossil fuels are ultimately finite resources – hundreds of years from now, after we run out of huge coal deposits, oil and gas from fracking, methane hydrates and other supplies, assuming policy makers don’t lock them up and "keep them in the ground.†But long before that happens, human innovation will create far better alternatives than wind turbines, if we let creativity flourish.
Meanwhile, just remember: Wind and sunshine are sustainable. But lands and raw materials required for the technologies to harness this intermittent, widely disbursed energy absolutely are not.
Sustainability is a useful concept for assessing hidden costs, risks and fiduciary responsibilities – such as those associated with climate change, as we are constantly reminded. But we must apply those same considerations to wind, solar, battery and biofuel operations; and to impacts on habitats and wildlife, air and water quality, human health and wellbeing in green new deal mining and manufacturing regions, and human welfare in an energy-deprived world of increasing hunger, death, anger, riots and chaos.
As my new Heartland Institute reportsand previous articles note, fossil fuels and nuclear currently provide over 8 billion megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity and electricity-equivalent power annually, to meet America’s industrial, commercial, residential and transportation needs. Using solar to generate all that power – and charge batteries for a week of sunless days – would require 19 billion state-of-the-art sun-tracking photovoltaic panels, completely blanketing an area equal to all of New York and Vermont.
But that assumes the panels are all located where the sun shines with summertime Arizona intensity 24/7/365, which will never happen. So we’d probably have to double (perhaps even triple) the number of panels and affected acreage. The impacts on habitats and wildlife would be significant.
Using 1.8-MW wind turbines instead of solar panels would require more than 4 million turbines on farm, wildlife habitat and scenic lands equal to Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon and part of Washington State combined. But the more we install, the more we have to put turbines in poor wind locations. We’d probably have to double (or even triple) the number of turbines, and acreage impacted. Their rapidly turning blades (200 mph at their tips) would slaughter millions of eagles, falcons, other birds and bats.
Going offshore instead would require hundreds of thousands of 650-foot-tall 10-MW turbines. Their impact on birds, bats, marine mammals, vistas, and ship and aircraft navigation would be intolerable.
Each 1.8-MW turbine requires some 1,200 tons of steel, copper, aluminum, rare earth elements, zinc, molybdenum, petroleum-based composites, reinforced concrete and other materials. Each ton of materials requires removing thousands of tons of rock and ore – and processing ores with fossil fuels. In fact, wind turbines need some 200 times more material per megawatt than a modern combined-cycle gas turbine!
Storing a week of electricity for windless and sunless periods would require some 2 billion half-ton Tesla car lithium-cobalt battery packs – and more materials; more mining. Connecting wind, solar and battery facilities to distant cities would require thousands of miles of new transmission lines, and more mining.
This doesn’t include materials to replace existing cars, trucks, heating systems and other technologies.
And that’s just for the United States. Imagine how many turbines, panels, batteries, transmission lines, raw materials, mines, processing plants and factories we’d need for a global transformation!
But green new deal advocates detest mining, at least by western mining companies in western countries. So it’s mostly done in faraway places that have virtually no environmental, health, safety, wage or child labor rules. Places like Inner Mongolia, where rare earth operations have fouled the air, created a huge toxic lake, and poisoned thousands of people. And Africa’s Congo, where 40,000 children labor in mines just for the cobalt needed in today’s cell phones, laptops and electric cars; not for any green new deal.
This eco-imperialism and false sustainability must end. As to all those self-styled stakeholders, You first. Lead by example. Slash yourenergy use and living standards. Then you can (nicely) ask the rest of us to do likewise. That means you, Greta, Leo DiCaprio, Al Gore, Emma Thompson and all the other climate scolds. (But of course they won’t. So why should we? And why should the world’s poor?)
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