Saturday, November 30, 2013

Paul Weston on Preventing White Genocide

Paul Weston on Preventing White Genocide:
The advantage to being a dreadful awful ghastly racist like Paul Weston, Chairman of Liberty GB, is that you can say things that most people don’t even dare think about:
A civilization is defined not by its physical location but by the people who live there. When the homes of Western Civilization — Europe, North America, Australia — are populated predominantly by Third Worlders, Western Civilization will cease to exist in these places. With nowhere to live, the civilization that brought us everything from the Roman Empire to da Vinci to Mozart to the US Constitution to flight to men walking on the moon will die.
This is fine with the liberals in charge, who are driving the importation of millions upon millions from the Third World with welfare incentives financed by overtaxing the very population they are eradicating. Their treason is on a scale that defies comprehension.
The demographic trend cannot be reversed until the political situation has been reversed.
On a tip from DJ.

Quotation of the day

Quotation of the day:
… is from Friedrich A. Hayek writing to President Obama about the “fatal conceit” of Obamacare…. just kidding, it’s from Hayek’s acceptance speech accepting the Nobel Prize in economics in 1974 (and featured in today’s WSJ section “Notable and Quotable“), but it does apply very appropriately to President Obama’s “striving to control society” and points to the deficiencies of the Unaffordable Care Act:
We are only beginning to understand on how subtle a communication system the functioning of an advanced industrial society is based—a communications system which we call the market and which turns out to be a more efficient mechanism for digesting dispersed information than any that man has deliberately designed.
If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order, he will have to learn that in this … he cannot acquire the full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible. He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants.
There is danger in the exuberant feeling of ever growing power which the advance of the physical sciences has engendered and which tempts man to try to subject not only our natural but also our human environment to the control of a human will. The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men’s fatal striving to control society — a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.

PJ Media » Is the Game Lost?

PJ Media » Is the Game Lost?: "We may agree or disagree, but at the present juncture, there can be little doubt that an Islamic volkswanderung is well on the way to completing its mission of Musliming our teetering democracies, and a new “Dark Age” is looming on the western horizon.

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'via Blog this'

Warren G. Harding On American Citizenship

Warren G. Harding On American Citizenship:
“In the great fulfillment we must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it and more anxious about what it can do for the nation.”
-Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States
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"Obamacare Plans Are Worse In Every Regard"

"Obamacare Plans Are Worse In Every Regard": Millions of Americans are losing their insurance as a result of the new Obamacare mandates. There's no discrimination, either: old, young,...

GAO Study Shows No Evidence TSA Stops Terrorists, Privatize Airport Security

GAO Study Shows No Evidence TSA Stops Terrorists, Privatize Airport Security: Via Fox News: A government study that finds a program doesn’t work and proposes to cut it is almost as rare as pigs that fly. But a new Government Accountability Office study on aviation does just that: it proposes chopping the Transportation Security Administration’s SPOT security program because it finds no evidence that it could [...]

Do We Have An Attitude of Gratitude?

Do We Have An Attitude of Gratitude?:
Much of what we read here is dedicated to analyzing, opining, and criticizing elements of the body politic and problems with the world, our nation, and our community. In spite of all that we find that needs fixing around us, one of the most woeful things we could do is to be ungrateful for all that we should be thankful for.
It’s often difficult to think in those terms. We are often overwhelmed at the daunting challenges and vicissitudes of life that we face on a daily basis. Problems with health, the loss of a loved one, financial woes, the loss of a job, problems with a marriage or with children, often consume us emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. Yet somehow we find ways to deal with our personal crucibles, to surmount our challenges, and crest our Everests.
The human spirit, if not doused with hopelessness, can be indomitable. We find ways to deal with, overcome, and survive our ordeals. We find solutions to our woes and answers to life’s tough questions. Often such resolution comes from insights, counsel, and wisdom from a loved one. Other times they come from unseen founts of wisdom and loving arms of solace after earnest and heartfelt pleadings to our Maker.
But as arduous and challenging as life can be for all of us in one way or another, there is always much to be grateful for. And hopefully, the significance of Thanksgiving has not been lost to us.
gratitude5We may be of bad health, but hopefully some things are still working fine. We may be struggling financially, but we’re still together as a family. We may have a child struggling with his or her own inner demons, yet as long as there is love, there is hope. To everything there is a silver lining. It may be obscured by our preoccupation with our trials, but it’s there. Sometimes we just have to look a little harder to find it.
I’m convinced that many of the social and cultural problems we face today are the result of a loss of a collective sense of gratitude. Rather than being grateful for what we have and the blessings that we enjoy, although sparse they may sometimes seem to us, we focus on what we don’t have, or what we think we deserve or we’re entitled to. This lack of gratitude is concomitant with narcissism and self-centeredness, and reveals a deep character flaw; absence of humility.
In my estimation, no one has captured this sentiment better than a former president of the LDS Church. Gordon B. Hinckley said some years ago, “Our society is afflicted by a spirit of thoughtless arrogance unbecoming those who have been so magnificently blessed. How grateful we should be for the bounties we enjoy. Absence of gratitude is the mark of the narrow, uneducated mind. It bespeaks a lack of knowledge and the ignorance of self-sufficiency. It expresses itself in ugly egotism and frequently in wanton mischief….
“Where there is appreciation, there is courtesy, there is concern for the rights and property of others. Without appreciation, there is arrogance and evil. Where there is gratitude, there is humility, as opposed to pride.”
In a rather simplistic fashion, we have the proverbial conundrum of whether the glass is half full, or half empty. In our individual lives, it all depends on how we choose to look at things, and whether we choose to focus on the deficiencies in our lives or on the bounties that we enjoy. And that’s all a matter of attitude.
The evangelical author and pastor, Chuck Swindoll, made a statement years ago that has profoundly shaped my perspective about life, and about gratitude itself. He said, “The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.”
May we all choose an attitude of gratitude, looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, and the silver lining to the dark and ominous clouds in our lives. May we express our gratitude to one another, manifest by acts of courtesy and respect. And perhaps most importantly, may we express daily our immense dependence upon, and gratitude to God. Not just on Thanksgiving, but everyday of our lives.
Associated Press award winning columnist Richard Larsen is President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and financial planning firm in Pocatello, Idaho and is a graduate of Idaho State University with degrees in Political Science and History and coursework completed toward a Master’s in Public Administration.  He can be reached at rlarsenen@cableone.net.

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A People Generally Corrupt

A People Generally Corrupt: I can’t think about Obama without thinking about something that Edmund Burke once wrote: “Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.“ My grandfather was a very, very wise man. He used to say, “A liar condemns both himself and the lie and to accept the lie is to take part in it” meaning […]

Black Friday: A Shameful Orgy Of Materialism For A Morally Bankrupt Nation

Black Friday: A Shameful Orgy Of Materialism For A Morally Bankrupt Nation:

It has been called "America's most disturbing holiday". Black Friday is the day when millions of average Americans wait outside retail stores in the middle of the night in the freezing cold to spend more money that they do not have for more cheap Chinese-made products that they do not need. It is a day when the rest of the world makes fun of Americans for behaving like "rabid animals" and "zombies" as we indulge in a tsunami of greed. It truly is a shameful orgy of materialism for a morally bankrupt nation. It is being projected that approximately 140 million Americans will participate in this disgusting national ritual this year. Sadly, most of them have absolutely no idea that they are actively participating in the destruction of the economic infrastructure of the United States. If you don't understand why this is true, please be sure to read this entire article all the way to the end.
The amount of merchandise that is purchased on Black Friday is absolutely staggering. For example, just consider how much stuff is sold at Wal-Mart alone...
Black-Friday-2013
Wal-Mart said it recorded more than 10 million register transactions between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. Thursday in its stores and nearly 400 million page views that day on walmart.com. It sold 2.8 million towels, 2 million televisions, 1.4 million tablets, 300,000 bicycles and 1.9 million dolls. Big-ticket electronics like big-screen TVs and new videogame consoles were among the top sellers.
But each and every year, Black Friday also seems to bring out the worst in many people, and this year was certainly no exception. The following are just a few of the national headlines about the rioting and the violence that we witnessed...
-"Holiday shopping season kicks off with fights, arrests"
-"Violence flares as shoppers slug it out for best Black Friday deals"
-"Watch Screaming Mobs Fight Over Televisions At Wal-Mart"
-"Two Arrested After Stabbing Over Parking Space At Wal-Mart"
-"Rialto Walmart Thanksgiving brawl sends one police officer to hospital"
-"Walmart Ejects Customer For Filming Violent ‘Black Thursday’ Mobs"
-"Cops: Shoplifting suspect shot after dragging officer"
And sometimes the violence extends out into the parking lots and into the surrounding neighborhoods. In Las Vegas, a man that was carrying a big-screen television home from Target was shot in the leg...
According to police, a man purchased a big-screen television from the Target store near Flamingo Rd. and Maryland Pkwy. While he was walking to a nearby apartment complex, a man approached and fired a warning shot, causing the victim to drop the television, police said.
Officers tell 8 News NOW the gunman then took the television to a nearby car that was waiting, where a second man helped the gunman load the TV into the car.
The victim approached the two men and tried to get the television back. That prompted the gunman to fire several more rounds, shooting the victim in the leg.
Every year I go over to YouTube to check out the madness that breaks out on Black Friday night all over the nation. Posted below is the best compilation video from Black Friday that I could find. In particular, I love how this video compares American shoppers to zombies...

And there is one more video that I wanted to share with you. In this video, activist Mark Dice dresses up like Santa Claus and mocks Black Friday shoppers for being "parasites" and for ruining Thanksgiving...

Meanwhile, as retail stores all over America actively encourage this zombie-like behavior, police are actually cracking down on other groups of Americans that are actively trying to make this country a better place. For example, a Christian group in Lake Worth, Florida was kicked out of a public park for trying to feed the homeless on Thanksgiving. Of course this kind of thing happens all the time. In fact, dozens of major cities all over the country have now passed laws that make it illegal to feed the homeless. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled "One Lawmaker Is Literally Smashing The Belongings Of The Homeless With A Sledgehammer".
At the beginning of this article, I stated that those who go shopping on Black Friday "are actively participating in the destruction of the economic infrastructure of the United States".
How could that possibly be?
Aren't they helping the economy by spending their money?
Actually, it isn't that simple.
Just think about it for a moment. Where are most of the "advertised specials" that people go crazy over on Black Friday actually made?
If you guessed "China", you would be correct. In fact, it is very difficult to find any "Black Friday specials" that are actually made in the United States.
When you buy stuff made in China, you support workers and businesses in China. As I mentioned in a recent article, the U.S. economy loses approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported from overseas.
Overall, the U.S. has run a total trade deficit with the rest of the world of more than 8 trillion dollars since 1975.
So when you look around and see lots of unemployed people, it should not be a surprise to you.
Right now, the labor force participation rate is at a 35-year-low and more than 102 million working age Americans do not have a job. That number has increased by 27 million just since the year 2000.
Because the American people are not supporting American businesses, our formerly great manufacturing cities are being transformed into rotting, festering hellholes. Just take a look at Detroit. At one time Detroit had the highest per capita income in the entire nation, but now it is a dying, bankrupt ghost town.
And of course this is happening to manufacturing cities all over the nation. Since 2001, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the U.S. have permanently shut down and we have lost millions upon millions of good paying manufacturing jobs.
Back in the 1980s, more than 20 percent of the jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only about 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.
Good job America. And the following are some more facts from one of my previous articles about how our massively bloated trade deficit is absolutely killing our economy...
-There are less Americans working in manufacturing today than there was in 1950 even though the population of the country has more than doubled since then.
-Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.
-When NAFTA was pushed through Congress in 1993, the United States had a trade surplus with Mexico of 1.6 billion dollars. By 2010, we had a trade deficit with Mexico of 61.6 billion dollars.
-Back in 1985, our trade deficit with China was approximately 6 million dollars (million with a little "m") for the entire year. In 2012, our trade deficit with China was 315 billion dollars. That was the largest trade deficit that one nation has had with another nation in the history of the world.
-According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.
-According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if current trends continue.
Unfortunately, most Americans never stop to think about what happens when we buy stuff from China.
When we buy stuff from them, our money goes over there.
At this point, they are sitting on trillions of our dollars and they have purchased more than a trillion dollars of our debt.
Up until now, Chinese demand for our dollars has helped keep the value of the U.S. dollar artificially high. This is one of the reasons why Wal-Mart can sell you those Chinese imports so inexpensively.
And up until now, Chinese demand for our debt has helped keep long-term interest rates artificially low. So the U.S. government has been able to borrow money at ridiculously low interest rates and U.S. home buyers have been able to get mortgage rates that are well below the real rate of inflation.
But no irrational state of affairs ever lasts indefinitely, and the Chinese recently announced that they are going to quit stockpiling U.S. dollars. Many analysts believe that this means that the Chinese will soon stop stockpiling U.S. debt as well.
So enjoy those super cheap "Black Friday specials" while they last. That era is rapidly coming to an end.
Now that the Chinese have stolen tens of thousands of our businesses, millions of our jobs and trillions of our dollars, perhaps they feel that there is not much more looting to be done. Our economic infrastructure has been essentially gutted at this point. Moving forward, China can afford to let the value of the U.S. dollar fall and the value of their own currency rise because even Barack Obama admits that "those jobs are never coming back".
And every single American that went shopping on Black Friday and bought Chinese-made goods actively participated in the ongoing destruction of the U.S. economy.
Good job America. You are a nation that is utterly consumed by materialism and greed, and you don't even realize that you are destroying yourself with your own foolishness.
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The post Black Friday: A Shameful Orgy Of Materialism For A Morally Bankrupt Nation appeared first on Freedom Outpost.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Karauthammer--Obama's Iraq blunder

Karauthammer--Obama's Iraq blunder: Daily Caller:
...
The Iraq War “was won and we were in a position, if we had just negotiated a status of forces agreement, to have an ally in the region, to have a base, to train their air force — that would have changed the course of the future,” he told The Daily Caller. “Instead, a decision was made by the new administration to evacuate, leaving a vacuum where Iran has come in, where al-Qaida thrives and al-Qaida actually has extended itself into Syria. This was all unnecessary — and all the result of the liquidation of a war that was won.”
...
Obama's handling of the situation in Iraq maybe one of the biggest blunders in recent history.  It is an example of the overrated intellect of a liberal President.  There are many losers as a result that go beyond US policy goals and the biggest losers are those who still live in the region and have to contend with a resurgence of the sectarian violence and the evils of a religious bigot hegemony from Iran.   This failure also shows the ineptitude of Obama as a negotiator.

Only the Self-Reliant Remain Free | CNS News

Only the Self-Reliant Remain Free | CNS News: "Government dependency does not liberate, it enslaves. If America does not recapture its pioneering spirit soon and begin dismantling the welfare state, it will dismantle us.

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'via Blog this'

An increasingly dangerous presidency

An increasingly dangerous presidency:
Charles Krauthamer observes the lawlessness of the Obama administration:
Remember how for months Democrats denounced Republicans for daring to vote to defund or postpone Obamacare? Saboteurs! Terrorists! How dare you alter “the law of the land.”
This was nonsense from the beginning. Every law is subject to revision and abolition if the people think it turned out to be a bad idea. Even constitutional amendments can be repealed — and have been (see Prohibition).
After indignant denunciation of Republicans for trying to amend “the law of the land” constitutionally (i.e. in Congress assembled), Democrats turn utterly silent when the president lawlessly tries to do so by executive fiat.
Nor is this the first time. The president wakes up one day and decides to unilaterally suspend the employer mandate, a naked invasion of Congress’s exclusive legislative prerogative, enshrined in Article I. Not a word from the Democrats. Nor now regarding the blatant usurpation of trying to restore canceled policies that violate explicit Obamacare coverage requirements.
And worse. When Congress tried to make Obama’s “fix” legal — i.e., through legislation — he opposed it. He even said he would veto it. Imagine: vetoing the very bill that would legally enact his own illegal fix.
At rallies, Obama routinely says he has important things to do and he’s not going to wait for Congress. Well, amending a statute after it’s been duly enacted is something a president may not do without Congress. It’s a gross violation of his Article II duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
A Senate with no rules. A president without boundaries. One day, when a few bottled-up judicial nominees and a malfunctioning health-care Web site are barely a memory, we will still be dealing with the toxic residue of this outbreak of authoritative lawlessness.
It goes so far beyond that which Krauthammer accurately described.
We are dealing with more than a train wreck.  We are dealing with a man-made disaster.
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For Many, ACA Will Offer Access in Name Only

For Many, ACA Will Offer Access in Name Only:
obamacare
Thanksgiving day saw the NYT reeling in shock as yet another major Obamacare meltdown looms. One key way the Affordable Care Act was supposed to expand access to health insurance was through relaxing eligibility restrictions for Medicare: the CBO predicted that nine million people will gain coverage through the Medicare expansion this year alone.
But there’s a problem. Medicare notoriously pays doctors at much lower rates than they get from non-Medicare patients, so they are often reluctant to take Medicare patients on. And it turns out the ACA will exacerbate that problem even as it increases the ranks of Medicare patients. For example, even before the expansion in California, only 57 percent of doctors accepted Medicare patients. Now with the expansion and confusions created by the law, that number is expected to drop. More:
The health care law seeks to diminish any access problem by allowing for a two-year increase in the Medicaid payment rate for primary care doctors, set to expire at the end of 2014. The average increase is 73 percent, bringing Medicaid rates to the level of Medicare rates for these doctors.
But states have been slow to put the pay increase into effect, experts say, and because of the delay and the fact that the increase is temporary, fewer doctors than hoped have joined the ranks of those accepting Medicaid patients.
“There’s been a lot of confusion and a really slow rollout,” Ms. Folberg said, “which unfortunately mitigated some of the positive effects.”
Once more we see a well-intended provision of the Affordable Care Act go awry because the administration seemed  unaware that efforts to change parts of a complex and delicately-balanced system can have seriously bad side-effects. But more than that, this story illustrates a crucial point of weakness we’ll be hearing about more and more as the law gets implemented: the nexus at which patient and doctor meet.
It’s one thing to give someone Medicare or subsidize insurance purchased on the exchange; it’s another for that patient to be able to use that insurance to get quality, timely care from a doctor of his choice.  Whether through network restrictions, Medicare overflow, or a national doctor shortage, various kinds of doc shocks could wind up showing the newly insured that they have access in name only.

Placing Blame Where Blame is Due

Placing Blame Where Blame is Due:
Nicholas Freiling is a businessman and freelance writer in Harrisburg, PA.
Life at the BottomIn his book “Life at the Bottom,” Dr. Theodore Dalrymple describes the common behaviors that he observes in many of his lower-class patients. Among the most apparent of these is an attitude of “dishonest fatalism”—a consistent unwillingness to accept blame.
“The knife went in,” said one patient awaiting his trial for first-degree murder. Another blamed his thieving ways on an insatiable addiction to the thrill of stealing—an addiction he expects the doctor to treat. A third insists his “head just went,” to explain away his assaulting a companion.
While Dalrymple beats me in time spent with lower-class criminals, I know just the attitude he describes. I see it all the time, and not just among the poor.
It goes like this: As human beings find themselves in dire financial, medical, social or emotional circumstances, they often cope with guilt by shifting blame from themselves to others, or even to objects. Whether the discomfort is or is not their own fault, they explain their situation in terms of how their environment is responsible for it. Unemployment is caused by greedy managers; obesity by the availability of fatty foods; divorce by unreasonable spouses; laziness by clinical depression. Whatever the problem, its cause (and solution, for that matter) is fate—someone or something beyond the victim’s control.
Dalrymple is hardly alone in noting the implications of this attitude on poverty and working-class crime. In fact, entire studies exist on the psychology of the lower class as it pertains to control over their financial future and their motivation to escape the poverty cycle.
But fatalistic thinking is not unique to the poor. In some way or another, we all pass the blame for our problems to avoid the pain of recognizing our own deficiencies. And in our era of big government, politicians are the most common scapegoat. Whether to explain unemployment, failing schools and even obesity, liberals and conservatives alike target bad policy as the prime mover behind the nation’s biggest economic and social problems.
Of course, much of this blame is deserved. Governments at every level are generally poorly-managed and financially insolvent. Officials are often short-sighted—motivated by special interests more than by their constituents’ well-being.
But blaming government can also be dangerous, as it often masks underlying personal deficiencies that only contribute to the problem at hand.
Bad laws make life harder, but so do vanity, sloth and even a poor diet.
Take, for example, America’s student loan crisis. According to the Federal Reserve, Americans now own more than $1.2 trillion of student loan debt, prompting some economists to call the program “unsustainable.” Only 40 percent of student loan borrowers make their scheduled payments, and almost 10 percent of all loans in repayment are delinquent.
Without a doubt, government policy has only exacerbated this problem. For decades, politicians wooed young voters with lenient, low-interest student loan policies, enticing young adults to take on massive debt long before they have any stable income. Now, some even propose laws that make student loan forgiveness easier for struggling borrowers, further encouraging young adults to finance their education with borrowed cash.
But the decision to borrow money is not made by government agents, admissions counselors or the increasingly competitive job market. Yes, college tuition can be prohibitively expensive and many jobs require a degree, but acquiring debt is the sole decision of the borrower. Inability to repay indicates poor financial decisions—ones from which borrowers should learn lessons to apply to their choices in the future.
Similar examples include debates about poverty, abortion and gun control. Even as concerned citizens, we too often forget our own role in encouraging unwise choices and instead blame politicians. Like Dalrymple’s patients, we are often blind to our own faults and quick to point out the problems with everything around us, and with government most of all.
Until we shuck this habit, consider any and all government policy ineffective. There is little politicians can do to counteract bad choices on the part of their constituents. Likewise, there is always something we can do to improve our own lives, no matter how difficult the current environment.
Bad laws make life harder, but so do vanity, sloth and even a poor diet. Taking the blame when it’s yours to take is the easy first step toward improving poor circumstances—economic, political and personal alike.

The Great Organic Product Scam

The Great Organic Product Scam:
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Was your Thanksgiving dinner yesterday organic? If so, you paid a premium for food that likely was no healthier for you and wasn’t better for the environment. Physician Henry Miller outlines the case for non-organic food over at Project Syndicate:
2012 meta-analysis of data from 240 studies concluded that organic fruits and vegetables were, on average, no more nutritious than their cheaper conventional counterparts; nor were they less likely to be contaminated by pathogenic bacteria like E. coli or salmonella – a finding that surprised even the researchers. “When we began this project,” said Dena Bravata, one of the researchers, “we thought that there would likely be some findings that would support the superiority of organics over conventional food.”
Not only are organic foods no more nutritious than conventional products, their lower yields mean they can actually be worse for the environment to grow:
Another rationale for buying organic is that it is supposedly better for the natural environment. But the low yields of organic agriculture in real-world settings – typically 20-50% below yields from conventional agriculture – impose various stresses on farmland and increase water consumption substantially. According to a recent British meta-analysis, ammonia emissions, nitrogen leaching, and nitrous-oxide emissions per unit of output were higher in organic systems than in conventional agriculture, as were land use and the potential for eutrophication – adverse ecosystem responses to the addition of fertilizers and wastes – and acidification.
Miller notes that organic crops may even be less humane, as the lack of pesticides used to grow them usually leads to more weeds, and it’s often women and children stuck with the arduous task of hand-weeding.
Scientists have known for years that the organic product fad is based on nothing more than wishful thinking and moonshine, but science denial is hard wired into the modern green movement. This is why so many people find the self righteous “pro-science” posturing by GMO-bashing, cult minded organic faddists so hypocritical when the subject of global warming comes up.
There are serious environmentalists doing real good out there, and we don’t want to tar them all with the same brush, but far too many greens want to use science like a piece of Kleenex tissue using it when it suits their prejudices and discarding it the second the purpose has been solved.
[Organic food image courtesy of Shutterstock]

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Famous Hollywood Filmmaker David Mamet Slams Obama: 'He's a Tyrant'

Famous Hollywood Filmmaker David Mamet Slams Obama: 'He's a Tyrant':

Famous Hollywood filmmaker David Mamet on Monday dared to oppose liberal orthodoxy, slamming Barack Obama as a "tyrant." Appearing on the Hugh Hewitt Show, the writer/director (The Untouchables, Wag the Dog, Ronin) decried the President's deal with Iran over nuclear production.
Mamet assailed, "He's a tyrant. And I give him great credit. He's always said that his idea was to reform the United States." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] He added, "And, you know, like many tyrants, like Wilson and like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he believes that his way is the right way and that he's going to implement his vision of the world." (In addition to attacking Obama, you don't see too many directors going after FDR.)
read more

Quotations of the day

Quotations of the day:
… are from economist Thomas Sowell’s column this week “Random Thoughts“:
1. If you believe in equal rights, then what do “women’s rights,” “gay rights,” etc., mean? Either they are redundant or they are violations of the principle of equal rights for all.
2. Those who want to “spread the wealth” almost invariably seek to concentrate the power. It happens too often, and in too many different countries around the world, to be a coincidence. Which is more dangerous, inequalities of wealth or concentrations of power?

Increasingly Leftist Colleges Abandon Greats and Teach Garbage

Increasingly Leftist Colleges Abandon Greats and Teach Garbage: At IBD, "Colleges Substitute Western Greats With Gender Studies":
Parents pay a fortune to send their kids to big-name colleges, and they expect strong scholarship in return. More and more, what they're getting ranges from drivel to leftist indoctrination.

Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald shocked a New York City audience at the 2013 Wriston Lecture this month with some examples of what leftist academics have done to the American college curriculum.

"Until 2011," she noted, "students majoring in English at UCLA had been required to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton — the cornerstones of English literature.

"Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the 'empire,' UCLA junked these individual author requirements and replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a course each in gender, race, ethnicity, disability or sexuality studies, imperial, transnational or post-colonial studies, and critical theory."

As Mac Donald put it, "In other words, the UCLA faculty was now officially indifferent as to whether an English major had ever read a word of Milton, Chaucer or Shakespeare, but was determined to expose students, according to the course catalogue, to 'alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race and class.'"
More at the link.

It's bad all over, but UCLA's extra special, with all that "micro-agression" racism, or whatever. See College Insurrection, "UCLA Prof accused of racist “micro-aggression” for correcting student grammar."

Also at Inside Higher Ed, "In-Class Sit-In."

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Will Obamacare Bring Down Progressivism?

Will Obamacare Bring Down Progressivism?:
The implosion of Obamacare indicts not just the law itself, but the whole edifice of progressivism—a philosophy rooted in the belief that government, supposedly administered by “the best and the brightest,” can run things better than individuals. That idea is now, again, being proven incorrect.
PolicyMatters-250x250
The hubris in the progressive assumption was on display at the end of President Obama’s now infamous press conference of November 14. Without the aid of a TelePrompTer, the President who dared to overhaul one-sixth of the U.S. economy made this candid admission: “What we’re also discovering is that insurance is complicated to buy.”
It was the Cinderella-at-midnight moment of the Obama presidency—the moment when the gold chariot turned into a pumpkin, the stallions into junkyard dogs, and the liveried carriagemen into mice. The follow-up question—one I hope will be answered in the affirmative—is whether the magic will wear off not just for the President but for progressivism.
Those on the left of the political spectrum started reviving the term progressivism in earnest about a decade ago, after they had thoroughly discredited the word “liberal.” (Liberal, incidentally, is a perfectly legitimate term rooted in the word liberty. In its original use—its present use on the other side of the Atlantic—it meant a dedication to free markets, exactly the opposite of what it now means here.)
Once it became associated with big government, high taxes, wasteful spending and crippling debt, “liberal” became a liability with voters. So the left adopted an old label—“progressives”—and set about to position themselves as political leaders who would throw off the antiquated ideas of the past and move the country forward. In the meantime, they did an excellent job of redefining conservatives as people who were stuck in the past, backward–looking, and too judgmental about new ideas and lifestyles.
In many quarters, progressives have successfully vilified ideas that were emblematic of the American success story: individual responsibility, free markets, capitalism, traditional families, Judeo/Christian values, morality, American exceptionalism, and the basic concepts of natural law and unalienable rights. They have labored to sever the moorings to the past so that Americans might be “freed” to progress into the future.
Hollywood, the media, big corporations, mainstream churches, traditional organizations, the political establishment in both parties, universities, and much of the public have conceded that progressivism is an irresistible force.
But progressivism—the term and what it stands for—is hardly new. Its pinnacle before Barack Obama was attained by Woodrow Wilson, who was President from 1913 to 1921.
Like Obama, Wilson thought there were few bounds to what government could achieve. Capitalism, with its industrial and financial institutions, had “monstrously changed” the social world of the early 20th century, he said. In such circumstances, Wilson asked, “Must not government lay aside all timid scruple and boldly make itself an agency for social reform as well as for political control?”
Several decades later and following our (still much misunderstood) financial crisis of 2008, many people were also led to believe that by expanding its reach and power, big government could help the little guy by forcing big corporate fat cats, Wall Street bankers, and the financially advantaged to pay not only their “fair share,” but a little extra for those who weren’t doing so well. Progressivism offered the promise of justice, equality, and fairness.
The problem is that the opposite is true. Progressivism turns out to be disastrous for Americans from all walks of life…except those who work for big government, big corporations, big Wall Street banks, and big lobbying firms. Family structures collapse, education achievement stagnates, middle-class incomes flatline, government debt explodes, and America’s economic and military strength decline.
All this happens for myriad reasons. Big government becomes a trough for the well-connected only, while dependence on government assistance dissolves the fissures of civil society. But progressivism fails especially because, as we have seen with Obama, “the best and the brightest” set up to govern us are theorists removed from reality who don’t know that “insurance is complicated to buy” before they set out to overhaul it for a country of 310 million.
As the very talented essayist Jonah Goldberg put it last week, “in every tale of hubris, the transgressor is eventually slapped across the face with the semi-frozen flounder of reality.”
Obamacare appears to be that semi-frozen flounder, and the slap may be waking up even the deniers of the obvious. Many fervent believers of progressivism are starting to ask cogent questions about the assumptions they’ve embraced for years.
To be free—to truly progress—we must head in the opposite direction. Heritage offers commonsense solutions for health reform, and we welcome the debate about how to save America from Obamacare.
The post Will Obamacare Bring Down Progressivism? appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.

Democrats Should Be Afraid, Very Afraid

Democrats Should Be Afraid, Very Afraid:
obamacare
Democrats have good reason to be skittish about the ACA. As CNN reports, Democratic strength in next year’s midterm elections has just taken a ten point hit:
Democrats a month ago held a 50%–42% advantage among registered voters in a generic ballot, which asked respondents to choose between a Democrat or Republican in their congressional district without identifying the candidates.
That result came after congressional Republicans appeared to overplay their hand in the bitter fight over the federal government shutdown and the debt ceiling.
But the Democratic lead has disappeared. A new CNN/ORC poll indicates the GOP now holds a 49%–47% edge.
This is big news. In 2010 the GOP trailed by six on the generic ballot question and picked up 60 seats, but now it holds a lead on the generic ballot. Democrats, in other words, have taken a greater hit from the health care fiasco than the GOP did from the government shutdown. Things could still turn around before November 2014, and in the meantime there will probably be various mini-surges in public support, website functionality, and other areas.
But the terrible first impression of the law has been deeply damaging, and Democrats will have a hard time putting it behind them. Part of what’s happening is that voters unhappy with the slow economic recovery are probably feeling the health care mess as a trigger event that finally convinces them that the Obama administration has been a disappointment. And there’s going to be enough noise from the continuing cancellations, doc shock, and rate shock—whether history ultimately considers them speed bumps or signs that the wheels were falling off—to sustain much of the anger the rollout has generated.
That anger could have two consequences next fall: upscale voters turn out more in midterms, and their turnout is going to be higher than usual because of the intensity of their feelings about health care. As the CNN poll notes, upscale voters are the ones least likely to be affected by good news about the uninsured who the law ends up helping, so the spikes and network restrictions affecting them directly could wind up being more determinative of their position on the ACA than whatever ends up happening with those previously uninsured.
Things change, but right now the outlook favors bad weather.

Europe Losing the Green Race

Europe Losing the Green Race:
wind-turbine
Europe likes to think of itself as a global green leader, but it doesn’t have much to show for its efforts. Electricity prices are skyrocketing as the costs of subsidizing expensive renewable technologies are passed on to consumers. The continent’s refusal to drill for shale gas has made it a sink for American coal. Now, Bulgaria’s minister of environment, Julian Popov, is convinced that Europe isn’t even succeeding at renewables. He writes for the FT:
Applications for energy industry patents have increased dramatically in the past decade, mostly driven by research and development in the field of renewable energy. A recent paper by MIT and the Santa Fe Institute shows that Japan comfortably leads the race in solar power patents (7,398), followed by the US (5,246) and China (2,063). Europe has 1,951 patents….
The first country in the world to fully install smart meters is in Europe – Italy. However, the EU looks set to lose the smart grid competition as well. Bloomberg New Energy Finance says last year the US led smart grid investment ($4.3bn), closely followed by China ($3.2bn), which is likely to become the largest smart grid investor next year. The EU lags far behind with only $1.4bn of investment. This is despite the economy of the EU being roughly twice the size of that of China….
The significantly higher levels of investment in smart grids in China and the US will inject new skills and knowledge into their workforces and further erode the competitiveness of EU labour.
Popov’s conclusion is dour: “Europe is losing.” A large part of this “loss” is coming at the hands of China, which is propping up its own green industry with more government money than even the EU. Low wage costs in the developing world also make it difficult for places like Europe or the US to compete on things like solar panel manufacturing. The EU’s response to China’s solar dominance has been to slap duties on Chinese solar imports (in fact, just this morning Brussels unveiled a new round of duties on Chinese solar glass), risking a trade war with one of its biggest trading partners.
Europe can’t out-subsidize China, and it’s struggling to out-innovate the US, as these patent numbers suggest. It is crippling its economy and has no green successes to show for it. Europe has managed to reduce its emissions in recent years primarily because its economy has stalled, while America has achieved significant reductions thanks to shale gas ousting much dirtier-burning coal.
Developing sustainably requires balancing green ideals against the need for a robust economy. Europe is firmly ensconced in the sour spot between those two ends.
[Wind turbine image courtesy of Shutterstock]

Krauthammer on Obama's leadership: "It's all rhetoric" #tcot #ObamaCare #ObamaFail

(Video) Krauthammer on Obama's leadership: "It's all rhetoric" #tcot #ObamaCare #ObamaFail: While on Fox News this evening, brilliant commentator Charles Krauthammer correctly said of the president, "Obama runs the presidency as if his main job--his only job--is rhetorical and political. Shore up the base and make speeches--it's all rhetoric."

Unfortunately for our nation, Obama isn't very good at running the government--ObamaCare is just one example of his failure as a leader.



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Our Obese Government

Our Obese Government: The number of agencies and federal government employees are the two most obvious factors of an out-of-control and out-of-touch government.

Pope Francis should embrace capitalism. It creates the wealth that makes charity possible

Pope Francis should embrace capitalism. It creates the wealth that makes charity possible: Christians are no friend of the golden calf. Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple and warned that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to Heaven. So it seems fitting than in his first statement of papal intent, [...]

Masking totalitarianism

Masking totalitarianism:
One of the oldest notions in the history of mankind is that some people are to give orders and others are to obey. The powerful elite believe that they have wisdom superior to the masses and that they’ve been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Their agenda calls for an attack on the free market and what it implies — voluntary exchange. Tyrants do not trust that people acting voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. Therefore, free markets are replaced with economic planning and regulation that is nothing less than the forcible superseding of other people’s plans by the powerful elite.
Because Americans still retain a large measure of liberty, tyrants must mask their agenda. At the university level, some professors give tyranny an intellectual quality by preaching that negative freedom is not enough. There must be positive liberty or freedoms. This idea is widespread in academia, but its most recent incarnation was a discussion by Wake Forest University professor David Coates in a Huffington Post article, titled “Negative Freedom or Positive Freedom: Time to Choose?” (11/13/2013). Let’s examine negative versus positive freedom.
Negative freedom or rights refers to the absence of constraint or coercion when people engage in peaceable, voluntary exchange. Some of these negative freedoms are enumerated in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights. More generally, at least in its standard historical usage, a right is something that exists simultaneously among people. As such, a right imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech is something we all possess. My right to free speech imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference. Likewise, my right to travel imposes no obligation upon another.
Positive rights is a view that people should have certain material things — such as medical care, decent housing and food — whether they can pay for them or not. Seeing as there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy, those “rights” do impose obligations upon others. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something he did earn.
If we were to apply this bogus concept of positive rights to free speech and the right to travel freely, my free speech rights would impose financial obligations on others to supply me with an auditorium, microphone and audience. My right to travel would burden others with the obligation to purchase airplane tickets and hotel accommodations for me. Most Americans, I would imagine, would tell me, “Williams, yes, you have the right to free speech and travel rights, but I’m not obligated to pay for them!”
What the positive rights tyrants want but won’t articulate is the power to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another. After all, if one person does not have the money to purchase food, housing or medicine and if Congress provides the money, where does it get the money? It takes it from some other American, forcibly using that person to serve the purposes of another. Such a practice differs only in degree, but not kind, from slavery.
Under natural law, we all have certain unalienable rights. The rights we possess we have authority to delegate. For example, we all have a right to defend ourselves against predators. Because we possess that right, we can delegate it to government, in effect saying, “We have the right to defend ourselves, but for a more orderly society, we delegate to you the authority to defend us.” By contrast, I don’t possess the right to take your earnings to give to another. Seeing as I have no such right, I cannot delegate it.
The idea that one person should be forcibly used to serve the purposes of another has served as the foundation of mankind’s ugliest and most brutal regimes. Do we want that for America?
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. 
The post Masking totalitarianism appeared first on Human Events.

‘Detroit is a case of the parasite having outgrown the host’

‘Detroit is a case of the parasite having outgrown the host’:
Ed Driscoll talks with Kevin D. Williamson about his new book, asking such provocative questions as “How Detroit is an extreme example of public-sector employment becoming a supplementary welfare state?” and “How did a failed Soviet computer experiment predict today’s Obamacare debacle?”

Why climate change is (still) far too important to be left to scientists

Why climate change is (still) far too important to be left to scientists: Like Anthony Watts, I have only recently discovered the best, funniest and truest ever thing written about Climategate: an hilarious essay, published in 2009, by author Michael Kelly. It begins: Like an Aristophanes satire, like Hamlet, it opens with two slaves, spear-carriers, little people. Footsoldiers of history, two researchers in a corrupt and impoverished mid-90s [...]

The Consensus is DEAD: 48% of Meteorologist Don't Believe in Man-made Global Warming

The Consensus is DEAD: 48% of Meteorologist Don't Believe in Man-made Global Warming: This story is going to make former VP Al Gore choke on his lettuce. The proponents of the global warming theory clam there is a near unanimous consensus of scientists that the world is getting warmer, and its all mankind's fault.

Now there is actual research conducted by the American Meteorological Society, which shows meteorologists, scientist who study climate are divided almost equally between those who believe in man-made global warming and those who disagree (embedded below).
The survey of AMS members found that while 52 percent of American Meteorological Society members believe climate change is occurring and mostly human-induced, 48 percent of members do not believe in man-made global warming.

Furthermore, the survey found that scientists who professed “liberal political views” were much more likely to believe in the theory of man-made global warming than those who without liberal views.

“Political ideology was the factor next most strongly associated with meteorologists’ views about global warming. This also goes against the idea of scientists’ opinions being entirely based on objective analysis of the evidence, and concurs with previous studies that have shown scientists’ opinions on topics to vary along with their political orientation,” writes survey author Neil Stenhouse of George Mason University.

“The result suggests that members of professional scientific organizations have not been immune to influence by the political polarization on climate change that has affected politicians and the general public,” Stenhouse writes.

President Barack Obama and Democrats have often touted the “97 percent” consensus among scientists that climate change is driven by human activity, primarily through the burning of fossil fuels. However, that study has been proven to be a lie.
Investigative journalists at Popular Technology looked into precisely which papers were classified within Cook’s asserted 97 percent. The investigative journalists found Cook and his colleagues strikingly classified papers by such prominent, vigorous skeptics as Willie Soon, Craig Idso, Nicola Scafetta, Nir Shaviv, Nils-Axel Morner and Alan Carlin as supporting the 97-percent consensus.
Cook and his colleagues, for example, classified a peer-reviewed paper by scientist Craig Idso as explicitly supporting the ‘consensus’ position on global warming “without minimizing” the asserted severity of global warming. When Popular Technology asked Idso whether this was an accurate characterization of his paper, Idso responded, “That is not an accurate representation of my paper. The papers examined how the rise in atmospheric CO2 could be inducing a phase advance in the spring portion of the atmosphere’s seasonal CO2 cycle. Other literature had previously claimed a measured advance was due to rising temperatures, but we showed that it was quite likely the rise in atmospheric CO2 itself was responsible for the lion’s share of the change. It would be incorrect to claim that our paper was an endorsement of CO2-induced global warming.”
A more accurate study such as the one below would suggests there is still a wide open range of opinions regarding global warming, anyone suggesting a consensus is simply afraid of the truth coming out.

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The Politicization of Everything

The Politicization of Everything: Victor Davis Hanson, Defining Ideas
The Obama presidency has had very little legislative success. Even the signature Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is imploding, and was dubbed a “train wreck” by one of its own Senatorial authors. The lead-from-behind retrenchment abroad from America’s traditional leadership role has won few adherents. The Benghazi tragedy and the series of alphabet-soup debacles involving the IRS, the NSA, and the AP journalists are the most disturbing political scandals we’ve seen since the Nixon administration.What, then, is the Obama legacy? An insidious politicization of almost...

Krauthammer: ‘Iran Agreement Is a Farce, the Worst Deal Since Munich in 1938′ (+video)

Krauthammer: ‘Iran Agreement Is a Farce, the Worst Deal Since Munich in 1938′ (+video):
Photo Credit: Fox News
Photo Credit: Fox News
We heard some strong words from Charles Krauthammer Monday night on Special Report, as he blasted the Obama administration over the weekend’s nuclear deal with Iran.
Krauthammer likened the actions of President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to Europe’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s, when Germany’s borders were expanded.
“It’s really hard to watch the president and the secretary of state and not think how they cannot be embarrassed by this deal,” said Krauthammer, calling the agreement a “farce” and the “worst deal since Munich” in 1938.
He argued that the United States has now formally signed off on Iran remaining very close to possessing a nuclear weapon.

Watch the latest video at video.insider.foxnews.com
Read more from this story HERE.
Krauthammer: ‘Iran Agreement Is a Farce, the Worst Deal Since Munich in 1938′ (+video)