July 10, 2020
Another nail in the Climate Change coffin:
https://www.climatedepot.com/2020/07/07/new-study-finds-no-evidence-of-a-signal-of-human-caused-climate-change-from-weather-extremes-published-in-journal-environmental-hazards/?fbclid=IwAR2RMKENl78oE7OD7KY9rxUY_GnIwBA24yGnI4nM7y364ckxEtPVsLBXzdA
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
12:21 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.
Hhhmm. Mail-in (Absentee ballot) voting was just enacted in Delaware. Today’s primary voting:
Joe Biden = 60,703 votes
Donald Trump = 23,641 votes
Absentee ballots (mail-in ballots) = 50,000
Get ready to cause a sh1t storm of challenges to mail-in voting.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
12:11 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 49 words, total size 1 kb.
You can look at temperatures over time by state. Where’s the heat? Since CO2 started to rise in 1950, try starting in 1970-2020.
Climate at a Glance: National Centers for Environment Information
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:37 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 38 words, total size 1 kb.
Someone scrawled "white lives matter" on a street and the poo is hitting the fan!
Police are investigating, and no doubt the villain will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
White Lives Matter Found Scrawled on Street; Police Investigating
Strange; I don't remember police investigating Black Lives Matter graffiti.
I wonder if Bill DeBlasio will be arrested?
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:13 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 64 words, total size 1 kb.
This illustrates how it works in modern America; it doesn't matter to the Left if they win or lose in court, the ultimate goal is to make any progress too expensive.
From The Heartland Institute:
The companies’ decision to cancel the project came just two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court handed the project a significant victory by ruling a permit issued by the U.S. Forest Service to build the pipeline beneath a portion of the Appalachian Trail was valid.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:45 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 88 words, total size 1 kb.
The woke mob is coming to small town America.
Beware! The Woke Mob is Targeting You Next, Small Town America
Who is funding this stuff? It's time something be done about that.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:13 AM
| Comments (6)
| Add Comment
Post contains 35 words, total size 1 kb.
Wisconsin College Threatens to Expel Student Solely Because She’s a Trump Voter
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:34 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 24 words, total size 1 kb.
Death certificate data show a 10-20% reduction in deaths of children since early March, when schools closed. The reduction equates to an average of 80-90 fewer child deaths per week.
Observed Decrease in U.S. Child Mortality During the COVID-19 Lockdown of 2020
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
08:44 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 51 words, total size 1 kb.
The U.S. is helping to beef up Ukraine's naval forces to defend against the Russians.
From the article:
The Kerch Strait became a flashpoint when Russian coast guard vessels first rammed a Ukrainian tugboat, then later fired on two accompanying gunboats, attempting to transit the strait. The incident resulted in 24 Ukrainian service members, along with their three boats, being taken into Russian custody. Both the sailors and boats were returned to Ukraine last fall after months in Russia.
In June, the U.S. State Department announced it had approved the sale of up to 16 Mark VI Patrol Boats to Ukraine. The Mark VI is the same heavily armed boat used by the U.S. Navy’s Riverines. The U.S. version packs two stabilized, remote-operated, optically guided MK 50, .50-caliber Gun Weapon Systems; two MK 38 Mod 2 (25mm) Gun Weapon Systems (also remotely operated with an advanced optics system); and two crew-served .50-caliber machine guns.
The boat can sustain a firefight for up to 45 minutes, an operator told
Defense News in 2019. The deal is worth about $600 million. The sale
includes 32 MSI Seahawk A2 gun systems; 20 electro-optic/infrared
radar, or FLIR systems; 16 Long Range Acoustic Device 5-kilometer range
loudspeaker systems; 16 identification, friend or foe systems; 40 MK44
30mm cannons; and unspecified communications and support equipment.
But the pending Mark VI sale isn’t the only improvement to Ukraine’s maritime capabilities. The move follows two Mark VIs that were given to Ukraine as part of a recently announced $250 million aid packageand the recent transfer of two Island-class patrol boats from the U.S. Coast Guard. Those generally come equipped with a 25mm gun and two .50-caliber machine guns. A further three Island-class boats are in negotiations.
The U.S. Navy is also helping Ukraine develop an intelligence and reconnaissance program for increasing their ability to surveil the waters in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, according to a source familiar with the program who spoke on background. The program would also help Ukraine work through procurement and training issues for their maritime forces.
Ukraine in June took on the status of a NATO "enhanced opportunities partner,†which means "Ukraine will benefit from tailor-made opportunities to help sustain such contributions. This includes enhanced access to interoperability programmes and exercises, and more sharing of information, including lessons learned,†a NATO press release said.
This is risky business, and will only accelerate rising tensions between the United States and the Russian Federation. The looming Cold War just got a lot chillier.
It's why I never advocated accepting Ukraine into NATO; the Russians see that as a direct provocation.
We need to be seriously de-escalating tensions with Moscow; we have to pry Russia and China apart. China is our TRUE enemy. If we keep pushing we give Putin what he wants - more justification for a war footing and a way to embrace the Chicoms. We need to take that away from him.
China and Russia are natural enemies and competitors. The Chinese want Siberia; they want to move their excess population into that vast uninhabited land. They believe Asia should be for the Asians. They see Russia as an old imperialist power. The Russians know this, and know they cannot settle the land themselves so the Chinese will simply reach out and take it at some point. There is already a serious illegal immigration problem, with huge numbers of Chinese settling in Siberia without permission. Whole towns exist that were created by Chinese invaders. Russia has every reason to fear China.
But our blundering American policy over the years has given the Russians more reason to fear US, and has made it clear China was the coming power. The Russians figure it's better to back the winning horse, and especially when the ultimate losing horse is pooping on your shoe in the process. We owe much of our vast national debt to China, and we've promoted their slave labor camps to provide cheaper goods then can we. Meanwhile we continue to educate Chinese in American schools, lend and even give money to China to relend as part of their "belts and roadways initiative" which is empowering China with money borrowed from - China! We're paying interest on money we are giving the Chicoms! (And we ARE giving to them; we still provide them financial aid as a "developing country".)
Russia would be foolish to ally with America against China.
So now we are giving ships to the Ukrainians, further driving a wedge between ourselves and the Russkies, and helping to further a Sino-Russian alliance.
The people running America are morons.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
08:34 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 791 words, total size 6 kb.
Diversity training in Seattle.
Courtesy of Infidel Blogger's Alliance and our old friend Always On Watch and Fox News:
Diversity trainers instructed White employees in "practicing self-talk that affirms our complicity in racism.â€
"Racism is not our fault but we are responsible,†one bullet point declared.
In order to be considered "accomplices,†White employees must give up "comfort,†"guaranteed physical safety,†"expectations or presumptions of emotional safety,†"control over other people and over the land,†and "relationships with some other white people.â€
White employees were also urged to give up "niceties from neighbors and colleagues,†"the certainty of your job,†and "accepting jobs and promotions when we are not qualified, including racial equity jobs.â€
Employees were presented with a flowchart that demonstrated how "white people keep the system going†by being socialized "to cause harm to POC,†"justify why we are superior and have been wronged by POC,†"use anger, self-righteousness and defensiveness [to] mask fear, shame, or guilt,†"show up small and inauthentic,†and finally are "unable to imagine a way forward that comes from a place of humanity,†thus reinforcing the status quo.
Those who attended the session were also shown a datasheet titled "Assimilation into Whiteness,†which claimed to document how those of Arab, Jewish, Finnish, German, Italian, Armenian or Irish descent still classify as White.
Employees were taught how to "interrupt†their whiteness by being "honest and implicate yourself either in the moment or in past experiences in which you acted or thought similarly.â€
"Don’t blame others. Don’t distance. Don’t make yourself seem 'better.' None of us is,†a handout said. "You are also white and what someone else did today you may do tomorrow.â€
A two-column chart also listed characteristics that defined "Internalized Racial Oppression.â€
"Internalized Racial Superiority,†was defined by perfectionism, individualism, imposition, arrogance, paternalism, silence, intellectualization, control, violence, comfort, appropriation, cognitive dissonance, objectivity and "anti-blackness.â€
Meanwhile, "Internalized Racial Inferiority†was defined by colorism, isolation, protectionism, addiction, self-doubt, self-hate, rage, shame, denial, assimilation, ethnocentrisms, distancing, exaggerated visibility, hopelessness, apathy, erasure, invisibility, "anti-blackness.â€
If "whiteness" is a kind of disease of the mind then that automatically makes those who are not white superior. This is nothing but racism.
And we have been told for decades that so many characteristics are immutable. It started with "blackness" which didn't mean just the color of someone's skin but their cultural and moral habits as well. Being black meant having children out of wedlock, going on government aid, listening to certain kinds of music, etc. Black culture adopted all manner of "non-white" ideals in rebellion against the American norm, and got away with it by claiming it was an immutable characteristic of their "blackness". We've seen this play out with women, with Hispanics, with other minorities, and with homosexuals. We were told homosexuals were born that way and couldn't help it, so anyone not enthusiastically supporting the gay agenda was "attacking who they are" NOT disagreeing or saying they should modify their BEHAVIOR. (And what behavior is that? Multiple sex partners, public sexuality, etc. Most people were o.k. with gays being "who they are" as long as they pretty much kept to themselves - like most everyone else. But it had to be in everyone's face because it was never intended to just get a fair shake but to revolutionize society, to tear down the basic moral fabric of America and replace it with a hedonism unseen since Rome.)
I remember when this stuff was gearing up; I was in college during the mid eighties and they were pushing "multiculturalism" very hard. Professors in many of my classes waxed poetic about the joys of a society where everyone could be who or whatever they wished.
So now you can be black, or hispanic, or any hold any other group identity you wish (as long as you conform in the strictest way, politically, socially, economically, and spiritually) but "whiteness" can never be tolerated. IF we "are who we are" and accept the immutability theory put forward by modern Progressives then white people are who they are too, and the idea that they must conform with the new norm is both against what the Progressives have told us is Natural Law and is a hate crime.
Oppressing whites because they are white is just as bad BY THEIR OWN STANDARS as oppressing blacks because they listen to hip-hop, wear their pants around mid-thigh, and rob liquor stores.
Of course, hypocrisy never attached to the Left because they control the dissemination of information. Nobody points it out, except little places like The Aviary.
As a white man I am happy to concede I am no better than anybody else. But I am also no worse and am unwilling to accept the premise that I am. On the contrary, if they are going to attack my "whiteness" I am compelled to defend it. And what have THEY accomplished? We are always hearing about "cultural appropriations" since whites often listen to black music, and adopt some black manners of dress and idioms. O.K.; I'll happily give it all up. Now YOU give up the cars, the air conditioners, the radios and televisions, the guns, the central heating, the artificial fabrics, and just about everything else the White Man has created over the last few centuries.
Of course that is ridiculous and that is my whole point. But it is no more ridiculous than this idiocy about "white privilege" and whatnot. That is nothing but covetousness and envy intellectualized as an abstract.
Either be part of America or don't. You don't really even have to leave; just set up your own communities on private land (like communal orders used to do in places like Amana Iowa or New Harmony Indiana) and live in isolated splendor, proving the superiority you claim is yours by right of "blackness" or "Hispanicness" or "feminist" or whatever. You - and everyone - have the right to drop out. Just do it already! Stop trying to drag me and mine into your morass.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
07:11 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1050 words, total size 7 kb.
July 09, 2020
They just won't let Trump take ANY steps to keep America safe.
From Military News:
Kaptur, who chairs a House subcommittee that funds the U.S. Department of Energy, on Monday released a $49.6 billion draft of the yearly appropriations bill her subcommittee produces that would prohibit funding for nuclear weapons testing. Her subcommittee oversees the Department of Energy. The bill must still pass the House of Representatives and Senate to become law.
Kaptur last month joined several colleagues in writing a letter to protest reports that administration officials have discussed whether to conduct the first U.S. nuclear test explosions since 1992 following the claims that Russia and China have done so – claims each country has denied. The letter said that resuming nuclear explosive testing would undermine national security "and the superiority of our nuclear deterrent.
"The notion that resuming testing would somehow pressure Russia or China into arms control negotiations is baseless and uninformed,†Kaptur’s letter said. "Resuming testing would open the door for widespread global testing, which would only serve to benefit our adversaries and make Americans less safe.â€
The draft of the bill she released Monday said none of the funds it contains "may be used to conduct, or prepare to conduct, any explosive nuclear weapons test that produces any yield.â€
So, showing our power makes us UNSAFE?
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:58 AM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 253 words, total size 2 kb.
Christopher Steele, the British spy and author of the "golden showers" "dossier" used to justify spying on President Trump, has lost a lawsuit and must pay.
From the Fox article:
British ex-spy Christopher Steele must pay damages to two Alfa Bank partners for publishing "inaccurate or misleading" material in his infamous dossier, including claims the banks funneled "illicit cash" to Russian President Vladimir Putin, a British court ruled Wednesday.
Orbis Business Intelligence was ordered to pay 18,000 English pounds, or nearly $23,000,each toPetr Aven and Mikhail Fridman for violating Britain’s Data Protection Act of 1998 and "for the loss of autonomy, distress and reputational damage caused by the breaches of duty," the court said. The decision, authored by Justice Mark Warby of the High Court of England and Wales, was Steele's first major court loss.
I doubt Mr. Steele will pay - and if he does he will not personally pay, but that will be taken care of for him by those who hired him in the first place.But at least he may damage his credit. Small comfort, but I'll take it.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:44 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 188 words, total size 2 kb.
The Little Sisters of the Poor wins at SCOTUS.
Wednesday’s decisiongreatly expands the ability of employers to claim the exception, and the government estimates that between 70,000 and 126,000 women could lose access to cost-free birth control as a result.
The decision was one of several that has made the Supreme Court’s term strikingly successful for religious interests. By the same 7-to-2 vote as in the contraceptive cases, the court on Wednesday also ruled for the ability of religious organizations to hire and fire without offending some anti-discrimination laws.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:22 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 106 words, total size 1 kb.
I wish I. Could write like this.
'It is important to remember that we stand on the shoulders of giants, not angels. We were not lifted up here in perfection but rather navigated blindly across troubled waters.
The West’s great victory is not in how we got here, but that we got here. The hero of Robertson’s song, although he lived in a society that had yet to understand the true value of equality of opportunity, was a good man. That he was not perfect is irrelevant.
To be woke is to disregard goodness in the absence of perfection. To be woke is to pretend we are better than our predecessors. Wokeness assumes that those who went before us were contained by smaller horizons.
A more ignorant and ignoble world view is difficult to imagine.'
America’s greatness was set in the immediate aftermath of its Civil War when the victorious northern states declined the opportunity to execute the leaders of the defeated south. Rather than cancel a way of life, as today’s protestors demand, the United States of America saw the goodness in troubled men and sought to bring it out of them.
Courage in art is not the ability to ride the wave but to be thrown by it and recount the ordeal with cutting honesty.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:03 AM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 234 words, total size 2 kb.
Just a quick reminder to everyone who tries to claim America is somehow unique and evil because of slavery; the Netherlands abolished slavery on July 1, 1863. That was six months to the day AFTER slavery was abolished in the South via the Emancipation Proclamation. And the Netherlands have always been considered a paragon of tolerance and liberal virtue.
Just to put things in perspective. The U.S. was far from alone in the practice of slavery. The Islamic world always maintained the practice and does to this very day (to yawns from Black Lives Matter).
Slavery in Spanish territories in the Caribbean lasted even longer; in Puerto Rico until 1873, in Cuba until 1886. The U.S. was a little later than France (1848) and than Britain (1834). See here
The decline of sugar production had a lot to do with it, not moral scruples, I might add.
Both in the Caribbean and in New England, which stopped profiting from rum production when the French started making rum in the sugar isles.
(It should further be pointed out that the British did a step-down to end slavery, having a paid apprenticeship for former slaves so they could be educated and properly established as citizens, something that didn't happen in the U.S. where former slaves were simply dumped on their own resources.)
Slavery is the world's oldest institution, probably predating even prostitution (which presupposes a woman is free enough to withhold sex in the first place.) It is a terrible, evil institution and 1863 was a year we should all celebrate.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:36 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 267 words, total size 2 kb.
If true, it means government policy has stolen $68 bucks from senior citizens via the quarantine policy.
I don't see how it could be true. It's far cheaper to fix your own food than buy it, and it's expensive to drive and maintain your car - or to pay for some sort of commercial transportation. Not to mention clothes.
I guess this means we AREN'T supposed to lock down?
Working from Home NOT Cheaper for Older Adults
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:05 AM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 133 words, total size 1 kb.
One partial win and one big win for Trump on his tax returns issue. While the U.S. Supreme Court did rule that the New York prosecutor who demanded Trump's tax return has a legal right to get them, they also ruled that the returns are temporarily blocked to give the administration a chance to file for constitutional concerns. And the second ruling is a big win. The court completely blocked Congress from getting Trump's tax returns at all.
Judson Phillips adds:
I just read the decision in Trump v. Vance. The matter is going back to the US District Court, so I think the chances of the NYC DA getting the President's tax returns before the election is minimal.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:58 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 125 words, total size 1 kb.
E. Calvin Beisner directs our attention to this.
He says:
One of few discussions of Gates's role in the pandemic responses that I find really thoughtful and level headed.
This reminds me of this from C.S. Lewis's famous statement, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.â€
We know what paves the road to Hell...
Reader Eric posted the following reply on Facebook:
My organization has a safe house in a red light district in India where thousands of Indian and Nepali girls are enslaved by sex traffickers. Some of the brothel owners there boast of having met Bill personally. His idea of helping? He supplies the condoms.
I originally heard this from my director. I just spoke with him and he
said he got it from our safe house director in Pune (India). He said
that the Gates Foundation has been supplying condoms (in boxes marked
as such), but they are being sold (the girls have to buy them), not
given free. He also stated that there was a large 61 yo transvestite
whom they saw who boasts of knowing Bill well; they said that Bill was
going there "more and more" and supports a homosexual organization in
the RLD.
I'd have to make contact with the safe house director to
get you better sourcing, and that might be a little tricky at this
point in time. But if you think it worthwhile I can try to make contact
and see if they'd be willing to communicate with you directly if you
wanted.
Reader Greg adds:
- It’s also worth noting a recent study funded by the BMG Foundation to study the effectiveness of hydroxychloroqu
-Birxs’ daughter works for the BMGF.
-In addition to ZERO liability for vaccines: it has recently come out that they have been using OTHER VACCINES as a PLACEBO in studies. Also, the studies are controlled by the manufacturers who have no liability.
-Also the committee on safety that was required as part of Regan’s signing of the bill to remove liability has not met as required.
-Gates is a population control proponent.
That's more that I didn't know.
Maybe Gates is the Antichrist? If half of this is true he certainly meets the criteria.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:41 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 511 words, total size 4 kb.
Here is a rather lengthy essay by R. Anthony Mills about Science and how we should look at it. I don't entirely agree, but mostly. Mills is essentially warning against the public viewing science as a "black box" or, as I would put it, holding a view of science as magic. To many it has become a religion.
From the essay:
We tend not to think about scientific expertise this way, especially when it comes to our public life. Instead, we treat science as if it were a black box, inaccessible to the "laymen†who rely on it to mechanically produce results. And, depending on your estimation of the select few who do
[...]
However, once we recognize the ineliminable role played by prudential judgment within the practice of science, we can also see why error and disagreement are ineliminable. Prudential judgment is called for precisely in those circumstances where there is uncertainty, when we cannot simply follow a rule to get the right answer. Up close, science is a messy human affair like any other. Scientists are fallible people who happen to possess knowledge, skills, and experiences that most others in our society do not, and which are vital to modern life—in this sense, they are no different from car mechanics or plumbers or farmers or architects or financial accountants. Too often, though, we treat them instead as a class apart, members of a privileged group possessing knowledge distinct in kind from that attainable by mere mortals. But when we cordon off science from the human realm of judgment, error, and disagreement, we wind up treating it as oracular—and are inevitably disappointed.
[...]
What does all of this mean for whether, when, and how we should rely on scientific experts?
On the one hand, it means that it is perfectly rational and necessary to rely on scientific experts. And doing so is not simply a matter of trusting scientists’ conclusions so much as their experience and judgment. The political scientist Philip Tetlock captures this idea well when he says that "what experts think matters far less than howthey think.†But this, of course, does not imply that our reliance on scientists should be uncritical or indiscriminate any more than our reliance on car mechanics or oral hygienists.
On the other hand, we must not hold scientists to a higher (or lower) standard than we do anyone else or any other group of experts. We have to give scientific experts room, so to speak, to practice their craft, while recognizing that they are human. Conversely scientists must be open and honest about the kinds of judgments they make, the assumptions built into their conclusions, and the limits of their findings or their areas of competence. They must be willing to admit error, even at the cost of professional or political embarrassment.
In short, neither scientists nor the rest of us can treat science like a black box. But once we’ve pried the black box open, it becomes a lot harder to shut out the judgments and opinions of laymen. We have to accept that, like the pursuit of knowledge itself, translating knowledge into action is a messy affair, especially in our fractious democratic culture—an unholy mix of evidence, reasoning, ignorance, value conflicts, disagreements, skepticism, and trust. But such is precisely what it means to rely on others.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:25 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 798 words, total size 6 kb.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/07/05/the-safety-of-outdoor-air-for-coronavirus-is-now-obvious/
Compelling evidence from around Seattle and Lake of the Ozarks, as mass OUTDOOR gatherings did not produce spikes. Seems like things like crowded indoor places with younger people thinking they cant get sick may be driving it.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
08:59 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 47 words, total size 1 kb.
43 queries taking 0.3683 seconds, 250 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
